bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interest Domination as a Framework for Exploring Channel Changes in Transforming Economies
Authors: Dahab Debra Jungman , Gentry James W. , Sohi Ravipreet S.
Published: March 2007

Changes in political and economic power can affect channel structures and decisions. Western channel models may not be useful for understanding the process of change in Central and East European transforming economies. This discussion suggests that channels in transforming economies may be controlled by groups or networks of people with mutual interests, a phenomenon the authors call interest domination. The article examines interest domination by managers, Communist cadres, and other party elite in two transforming economies and describes how structural and behavioral components of command economies might be conducive to interest domination of marketing channels. Propositions for explaining the political, social, and economic factors that sustain interest domination and contribute to change in interest-dominated channels are offered. Examples from Hungary and Tajikistan are used to provide context for the discussion.
Public Support for Free Trade Agreements: The Influence of Economic Concerns, Group Identification, and Cognitive Involvement
Authors: Granzin Kent L. , Painter John J. , Brazell Jeffrey D. , Olsen Janeen E.
Published: March 2007

This study develops and tests a model of the influences on citizens' support for more open markets. The flow of influence in the model features eight antecedent constructs whose proposed explanatory power is based on three themes: citizens' economic concerns, group identification, and cognitive involvement in the issues. The model was tested by subjecting survey data from 240 respondents to structural equation analysis. The results support the three conceptual themes used to generate a pattern of proposed influences on the endorsement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (and the antecedent endogenous constructs in the model). Support for NAFTA increases with citizens' level of knowledge and assessed importance of NAFTA; support decreases with perceived U.S. economic vulnerability, call for job protection, conservatism, xenophobia, and believability of Perot.
A 3-D Sensor System for Teaching Robot Paths and Environments
Authors: Ishii Masaru , Sakane Shigeyuki , Kakikura Masayoshi , Mikami Yoshio
Published: March 2007

In this paper, we discuss a three-dimensional (3-D) sensor system that can simultaneously measure 3-D pose ( position and orientation) of robot environments. The 3-D sensor system consists of a camera using a position-sensitive device and multiple LEDs ( light emitting diode) attached to robotic devices, such as a robot's hand and a teaching device. 3-D pose of these devices is calculated in real time based on both two-dimensional coordinate values of the LEDs in an image plane of the camera and geometrical relationships among 3-D positions of the LEDs. The 3-D sensor system has the advantages of simplicity and practical usefulness for obtain ing 3-D information about robotic devices at high speed. We describe the experimental results of applications to visual detection of a robot's hand position and orientation, teaching of robot paths with a robot language system, and modeling of robot environments using the stereo-vision method.
Task Compatibility of Manipulator Postures
Authors: Chiu Stephen L.
Published: March 2007

In performing a manipulation task, humans tend to adopt arm postures that most effectively utilize the motion and strength capabilities of the arm. Selecting arm postures that are compatible with the task requirements has become almost instinctive to humans. By mimicking this approach in robotic manipulation, we can exploit the full capability of a manipu lator in performing a task. An index is proposed for measur ing the compatibility of manipulator postures with respect to a generalized task description. The manipulator is viewed as a mechanical transformer, with joint space velocity and force as input and task space velocity and force as output. Optimi zation of the index corresponds to matching the velocity and force transmission characteristics to the task requirements. The applications of this index to manipulator redundancy utilization and workspace design are also discussed.
Anxiety and the College Musician: A Study of Performance Conditions and Subject Variables
Authors: Hamann Donald L. , Sobaje Martha
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this study was to determine response to anxiety in musical performance in relation to anxiety theory statements concerning A-Trait and/or A-State arousal and the Drive or motivational properties of anxiety. Performances of 60 subjects were recorded under a reduced and an enhanced anxiety situation and were evaluated for musical quality by five adjudicators.

From research results it was found that anxiety had positive effects on subjects' performances due to the Drive properties of anxiety. Further, musicians tend to respond to anxiety in relation to anxiety theory hypotheses.
The Pleasingness of Melodic Sequences: Contrasting Effects of Repetition and Rule-familiarity
Authors: Smith Karen C. , Cuddy Lola L.
Published: March 2007

Twenty melodic tone sequences varying in harmonic structure were first presented once each to listeners selected from three different levels of previous musical training. Listeners rated each sequence on a 6-point scale of "pleasingness". Next, 5 sequences from the original set of 20 were each repeated 10 times in a row and rated after each repetition. The 5 sequences were assigned to listeners so that across listeners the 20 original sequences were equally represented. Finally, all 20 sequences were again each presented once for rating. At all levels of musical training, listeners showed a monotonic relationship between "pleasingness" and level of harmonic structure, with highest ratings of "pleasingness" associated with the highest level of structure. During repeated exposures, judged "pleasingness" increased at all levels of harmonic structure except the highest level, where a decrease of "pleasingness" with exposure was obtained. The effects of repetition did not, however, extend to the final ratings of the original set of 20 sequences. The data are discussed with reference to the optimal- complexity model of aesthetic judgement; specific attention is directed toward the cognitive processes determining sequence complexity.
Music Therapy: An Introduction
Authors: Bunt Leslie
Published: March 2007

The aims and historical development of music therapy are briefly described. Various approaches to research into music therapy are outlined, including recently developed ethological approaches. Much research has focussed on outcome measures, but there is a greater need for studies which focus on the nature of the therapeutic and musical process itself.
A Validation Study of the Instrument Timbre Preference Test
Authors: Schmidt Charles P. , Lewis Barbara E.
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this series of studies was to investigate aspects of the validity of the Instrument Timbre Preference Test (ITPT) (Gordon, 1984). Subjects for different phases of the study were drawn from populations of undergraduate non-music majors, undergraduate and graduate music majors, and university music faculty (N=459). Criterion-related validity was examined as follows: a) subjects' identification of the seven synthe- sized timbres of the ITPT according to the instruments they represent; b) subjects' responses to a questionnaire pertaining to reasons underlying the choice of a beginning band instrument; and, c) mean comparisons of timbre preferences among subgroups of instrumentalists. Results supported the criterion-related validity of Timbres A, B, and E and the test re-test -reliability of Timbres A and G. Results did not support the criterion- related validity of Timbres C, D, and F, and the reliability of Timbres B, C, D, E, and F.
Student Musicians' Personality Styles, Stresses, and Coping Patterns
Authors: Dews C. L. Barney , Williams Martha S.
Published: March 2007

This study concerns the sources of stress which music students perceive to be most debilitating to them as music students and prospective musicians. Students at three very different kinds of music schools in three geographical areas of the United States were surveyed. The questionnaire used in the survey listed 22 sources of stress which were identified through a review of the literature on the subject and a review of similar instruments. Fifty per cent of the students at the three institutions were randomly selected to receive mailed questionnaires and the 201 respondents represented 35 per cent of the original sample. The 22 identified stressors were rated for severity by the 201 students at the three schools. A rank order of stress sources for each school was derived. In addition to the general undifferen- tiated items labelled "stress" and "burnout" as major stressors, "music progress impatience" was identified as a particularly important source of stress. "Preperformance nervousness" was also ranked high by all groups. "Job insecurity" and "musical versus personal life conflicts" were also high, especially at specific schools. Ninety-six per cent of the students sought help with their music-related stresses. However, these sources of support were informal and not professional. Friends were most often the support net- work. Formal counselling was seen as a last resort. However, a majority indicated that they would seek the counsel of "specialised" counsellors with knowledge of the music profession and the ability to relate to the unique problems of music students. The question remains as to whether faculty and administrators of music education programmes will recognise and alter undue stressors created for students by the programmes themselves, especi- ally those related to conflicts between the programme and outside work and personal concerns.
The Effects of Failure on Children's Ability to Perform a Musical Test
Authors: O'Neill Susan A. , SLOBODA JOHN A.
Published: March 2007

This study investigated children's affective and behavioural responses during an evaluative musical testing situation. In particular, the study focused on the effects of test-failure on children's musical test-performance. Fifty-one children (aged 6-10) were individually administered a standardised Melodic Direction Test (Trial 1). Then, they were taught to perform a similar experimenter-devised test on which they encountered success (Trial 2) followed by experimenter-induced failure (Trial 3). After both Trial 2 and 3 they were asked to give their self-perceptions of competence and to predict their performance on subsequent tests. Results showed that, following failure, over half the children experienced a deterioration (maladaptive "helpless" behaviour) in their test-performance on a test identical to Trial 2 (Trial 4); the test-performance of the other children either remained the same or improved (adaptive "mastery" behaviour). Additionally, it was found that children who reported low confidence following failure experienced more performance deterioration than children who reported high post-failure confidence. No differences were found in the test-performance of children identified as mastery and helpless on the standardised test (Trial 1); however, helpless children scored higher than mastery children on the success condition (Trial 2). The study demonstrates that children's performance on tests of music cognition is influenced not only by their levels of cognitive skill but also by their affective and behavioural states during testing. Implications for music practitioners are discussed.
Research Note: Affective Responses to Everyday Life Events and Music Listening
Authors: Lehmann Andreas C.
Published: March 2007

This study investigated the relation between self-reported affective response to everyday life events and affective responses to music listening. The influence of formal music training on affective responses to music was also assessed. Undergraduate music and non-music majors (N = 107) first completed the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM), then a music-related survey assessing the subjects' affective attitudes to their preferred music (habitual responsiveness) and three similar surveys with corresponding listening examples (situational responsiveness). Two of the four AIM sub-scales showed small significant correlations with habitual responsiveness. AIM sub-scales did not reliably predict situational responsiveness, whereas preference ratings for the examples and habitual responsiveness did. Music majors reported significantly higher responsiveness than non-musicians; however, both groups did not differ reliably on AIM sub-scales. It is argued that reported affective response in music is partially mediated by expertise-related mechanisms.
Comparison of Novice Listeners' Similarity Judgements and Style Categorisation of Classic and Romantic Piano Examplars
Authors: Thorisson Thorir
Published: March 2007

Cognitive psychologists have recently questioned the role of similarity in categorisation. Results inferred from classification errors in a previous study (Thorisson, 1995) indicated that novices base their categorisation of Classic and Romantic piano exemplars primarily on texture and to less extent chord progression. The study examined (a) the relationship between similarity and style categorisation, (b) whether multidimensional scaling (MDS) of subjects' similarity ratings support the salience of texture and chord progression, (c) whether similarity clustering better reflects classification errors of subjects given explicit or implicit style training and (d) subjects' open-ended written comparisons concur with dimensions identified by a priori attribute scales in previous MDS studies. Results indicated (a) a fairly stable relationship between similarity judgements and style categorisation for implicitly trained subjects, (b) confirmed the significance of texture, mingled, however, with other potency attributes, (c) supported the perceptual dominance of potency and activity as found in earlier MDS studies.
The Planning Behaviours of Musicians Engaging Traditional and Non-Traditional Scores
Authors: Sullivan Yvette (Millard) , Cantwell Robert H.
Published: March 2007

This study investigated the planning strategies of university music students learning a traditionally and non-traditionally notated score. After completing a modified form of the SPQ, participants read two musical scores on a PC, one line at a time. Reading times for each line were taken, as were reaction times to a secondary probe. At the completion of each score, participants verbalised how they would go about learning the score to a level of performance competence. Protocols were scored for the presence of higher-level, mid-level and lower-level strategies, and for the level of focus in planning. Path analyses, with planning focus as the outcome measure, were conducted for each score. In both sets of analyses, reference to higher-level processing strategies predicted a higher planning focus, while a deep approach predicted higher-level strategy use. For the traditional score, surface learning was a negative predictor of high-level strategies, while a longer reading time was a positive predictor of higher-level strategy use. For the non-traditional score, both highand mid-level strategies predicted a higher focus, while low-level strategies predicted a lower focus. Familiarity with graphic notation, through mid-level strategies, also predicted focus. The implications of the results for the teaching of music are discussed.
Son of Seven Sexes: The Social Destruction of a Physical Phenomenon
Authors: Collins H.M.
Published: March 2007

Working from within the relativist perspective, this paper documents the demise of credibility of claims for the existence of high fluxes of gravitational radiation. The study is based on interview fieldwork conducted in 1975 and builds upon earlier work reported in 1975. Criticisms of the positive claims are presented schematically and shown to be permeable to alternative interpretations. The actions of one of the major critics are examined in detail and it is suggested that his contribution to the debate is best seen as a - successful - attempt to render alternative interpretations less credible. What was seen by many as a minimal technical contribution was thus made into a decisive experimental account. The case is discussed in terms of the metaphor of 'interpretative charity'.
Towards a Feminized Technology? Gendered Values in the Construction of Technology
Authors: Sørensen Knut H.
Published: March 2007

Feminists have produced different conceptions of women in science—suppressed, reformers, or revolutionaries—all of which have proved controversial to many women who are actually working in science and technology. This paper approaches some of the issues raised by feminist analysis through an empirical investigation of engineering students and R&D scientists in Norway. It gives an outline of what is meant by `caring values' in a Norwegian context, and of the problems raised by efforts to produce universal links between values and physical properties of artefacts. Then the effects of selection and socialization of women in technology, and the possibilities of articulating caring values in the culture of Norwegian technological R&D, are analyzed. The paper argues that strong claims that women and caring values have `no impact' in R&D should be rejected, as should claims about positive impacts on methods and design criteria. However, problem choice is affected, and some `natives' claim that the computer science sub-field of information systems is an arena where women do R&D differently from men.
The Soviet Legalization of Abortion in German Medical Discourse: A Study of the Use of Selective Perceptions in Cross-Cultural Scientific Relations
Authors: Solomon Susan Gross
Published: March 2007

The Soviet decision of November 1920 to legalize abortion on social as well as medical grounds set in motion heated discussions among physicians, not only in Russia, but also in Germany, where the fate of paragraph 218 of the German Criminal Code, which criminalized abortion, was being fiercely debated. This paper compares the attitudes of the champions and critics of Soviet legalization in the two countries. The comparison reveals multiple instances of selective perception of the Russian policy. The puzzle of the paper is the persistence of that selective perception in the face of intense and ongoing communication between Soviet and German physicians interested in the abortion issue. The paper speculates that the selective perception had a political utility for both communities of physicians.
Rationality and Disconfirmation: Further Evidence
Authors: Tweney Ryan D. , Doherty Michael E. , Mynatt Clifford R.
Published: March 2007

Recent laboratory research on the psychology of problem solving has important implications for an understanding of the psychology of science. Such work is reviewed, and supports the claim made by Hardin in this journal that pursuit of confirmatory data is highly adaptive in scientific problem solving. Hardin's reservations about the generalizability of such research to real science are considered, and rejected on empirical grounds. Further research bearing on the same issue is discussed, revealing that confirmatory strategies alone are less useful than mixed strategies that employ confirmatory and disconfirmatory approaches. The validity of the claim is supported by brief consideration of Michael Faraday's research strategies.
Organizational Autonomy and Professional Norms in Science: A Case Study of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
Authors: Sutton John R.
Published: March 2007

Functionalist theories in the sociology of science suggest that applied research organizations, insofar as they violate professional norms of research autonomy, professional recognition and open communication, also violate the epistemological and methodological requirements of successful research. The analysis presented here, based on interviews with scientists at a major US nuclear weapons laboratory (the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory), suggests that research norms and criteria of success are both situationally defined. Recent models of formal organizations are used to describe two levels at which professional norms are coopted to achieve organizational research goals: the first level is the internal structure of the organization, and the second, environmental, level consists of professional and peer relations of Livermore scientists and the laboratory's relations to the state. The conclusions suggest some structural limitations of this alternative model of science.
Comparing the Sciences: Citation Context Analysis of Papers from Neuropharmacology and the Sociology of Science
Authors: Cozzens Susan E.
Published: March 2007

Classical analyses of differences among the sciences have measured social but not cognitive structure. This paper suggests a method for describing differences among fields in the processes of knowledge growth. The method examines closely what is said about a particular scientific paper when it is cited in later works, and traces changes over time, if they occur. A comparative analysis of cases drawn from neuropharmacology and the sociology of science is used to illustrate the approach. The two papers analyzed show strong differences in the level of generality at which the contents of the original papers are cited. Lack of change over time in how the sociology of science paper is cited is attributed to the lack of attention to its main empirical knowledge claim.
Age Differences in the Reception of New Scientific Theories: The Case of Plate Tectonics Theory
Authors: Messeri Peter
Published: March 2007

Some studies seem to indicate that age may not be nearly so powerful a factor in structuring scientific disputes as has long been supposed. This paper views the weak and apparently inconsistent empirical associations reported in earlier studies as arising from incomplete analysis of the relationship between age and receptivity to new scientific theories. Explanations as to why age and receptivity might co-vary have focused on motivational factors that reinforce attachments to existing knowledge, overlooking the possibility that the resources which scientists accrue during their careers may well buffer the increased intellectual risk taken in advocating speculative theories. Older scientists may therefore be better positioned than their younger colleagues to speak out earlier in support of new but controversial theories. Age may thus have contradictory effects on receptivity. The hypothesis that the effects of age are mediated by historical changes in prevailing scientific opinion is examined by a quantitative case study of the reception of continental and later plate tectonics theory.
E. G. Boring's Review of Brigham's A Study of American Intelligence: A Case-Study in the Politics of Reviews
Authors: Stout Dale , Stuart Sue
Published: March 2007

In 1923, Carl Brigham published A Study of American Intelligence. E. G. Boring was asked by R. M. Yerkes to review the book; Boring agreed, saying that he would write a favourable review. Instead, he published a highly critical review in the New Republic. Contrary to the impression that psychologists and educators in the main supported Brigham's book, Boring's assessment of American Intelligence was in step with other reviews at that time. What remains open to question is why Boring agreed in the first place to write a positive review. Although this question remains unresolved, we lay out the specific details that led Boring to alter his review. Indeed, it is the `small' politics among professionals, and not the social politics of race, that persuaded Boring to pan Brigham's book.
Robert M. Young and Darwin Historiography
Authors: Bohlin Ingemar
Published: March 2007

In a series of seminal essays, Robert M. Young has insisted on the importance of analyzing the broad historical context in which Darwin's biological views were conceived. In this paper, Young's historiographic approach is assessed theoretically rather than historically: attention is focused on a comparison with recent Darwin studies. After some brief notes on Darwin historiography in general, the principal tenets advocated by Young on a programmatic level are described as `contextualism' and `reflexive relativism'. Then the two main sections follow, devoted respectively to examinations of Young's early Darwinian texts, and to his recent writings. Two main historical theses are here discussed separately, and the somewhat irregular nature of Young's Darwinian historiography is defined by means of a limited typology of contextual influence theses. Although Young's programmatic position is accepted as a productive one, the paper concludes by stating that a rather different kind of method, applied in some recent studies, is a more effective approach than his.
Deconstruction in a `Thinking' Science: Theoretical Physicists at Work
Authors: Merz Martina , Cetina Karin Knorr
Published: March 2007

In this paper we apply the laboratory study approach of the new sociology of scientific practice to a `thinking science': theoretical physics. To specify the work and accomplishments of theoretical physicists we choose the notion of `deconstruction'. Deconstruction involves the expansion of a concrete object, such as an equation, into a series of other objects upon which the `hardness' of a problem can be shifted and distributed. In solving an equation, however, the determinate path of a deconstruction method needs to be supplemented by the exploration of clues and guesses, trials and tricks. We trace a series of devices, and iterations thereof, which physicists mobilize in dealing with hard problems: formal deconstructions, detours and tricks to identify a working deconstruction, variation, `doing examples', modelling and, finally, thought alliances between subjects.
The Rôle of the Organization in the Production of Techno-Scientific Knowledge
Authors: Vaughan Diane
Published: March 2007

When scientific and technical work goes on within a formal organization, what effect, if any, does the organizational setting have on the production of facts and artefacts? This question has not yet been thoroughly explored in science and technology studies. Organizations are meso-level structures: located between the macro-level contingencies and the micro-level interactions that are known to affect the interpretive work of scientific and technical experts, organizations also play an important rôle. To encourage discussion about the rôle of organizations in knowledge production processes, I first draw on organization theory to demonstrate the ironic fact that organizations, necessary to produce, coordinate and maintain complex techno-scientific systems, also have irreducible and emergent effects on the way complex information is transmitted, communicated, processed and stored. Then, to illustrate empirically how organizations affect knowledge processes in the workplace, I reconsider data on engineering decisions at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), presenting a new interpretation that focuses on the rôle of the organization in knowledge production. In combination, organization theory and the empirical analysis suggest that certain structures, processes and transaction forms are generic across organizational settings, having ramifications for knowledge production by technologists and scientists in a variety of knowledge sites. In conclusion, I frame this discussion within the traditions of science and technology studies, suggesting the integrative, theory-building potential of future research that takes into account formal organizations as contemporary machineries of knowing.
Research Problems in Assessing Stress Factors in Correctional Institutions
Authors: Inwald Robin E.
Published: March 2007

Administrators in departments in the United States are adding stress training segments to their curricula for new recruits to the correctional services, in the hope that this will aid officers in doing their jobs effectively. The assessment of stress factors in corrections is therefore of considerable importance. This paper outlines several areas of difficulty in conducting research on officer stress and gives some guidelines for laying the groundwork for successful research.
Recent Psychoanalytic Contributions to the Understanding and Treatment of Criminal Behaviour
Authors: Adler Gerald
Published: March 2007

The child as he develops fluctuates between needing his mother and wanting to go off to explore the world on his own. The mother's capacity to respond to these changing needs is crucial to the child's development. It is suggested that many delinquents are immature and suffer from similar swings of mood; in this case the containment function of the correctional system can be viewed as not entirely negative and punitive and can provide the beginnings of an effective treatment program. Once the delinquent accepts the 'safety' of his 'containment' he frequently can express his anger and talk to people about his disappointments.
Variables Correlated with Violent Behavior in Young Children
Authors: Plutchik Robert
Published: March 2007

A study was made at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Outpatient Clinic on correlates with violence in young children. A group of aggressive children were compared with a similar control group on non-assaultive children at the clinic. It was found that the non-assaultive group showed more passivity, day dreaming and sexually seductive behavior than the aggressive group, who were more prone to tantrums, had a destructive attitude towards objects, and suffered from night terrors, more frequent mood changes and a greater number of behavioral problems. The aggressive children were more likely to be Puerto Rican or Black than white, and they were more likely to be raised by the mother alone. There was also a significantly higher frequency of delusions among the assaultive group.
Child Sex Offenders and Rapists in a Military Prison Setting
Authors: Walters Glenn D.
Published: March 2007

The purpose of the present investigation was to explore the demographic, background, diagnostic, and personality (i.e., MMPI) characteristics of child sex offenders (N= 28), rapists (N= 35), and nonsex offenders (N= 75) confined in a maximum security military prison. Results indicated that child sex offenders tended to be older, better educated, white, married, and prone to major affective disorder relative to inmates in the other two conditions. Rapists were more likely to be black and were less likely to evidence clinically significant levels of psychopathology. The only clinically significant finding on the MMPI was that child sex offenders scored significantly higher on Scale 5 (Masculinity-Femininity) compared with inmates in the other groups, suggesting greater interpersonal passivity, dependency, and possible concerns about psychosexual identity. The frequently cited relationship between alcohol abuse and sexual offending was not observed in the present study. The potential implications of these results are discussed.
Heroin Addiction in Israel: A Comparison of Addicts in Prison, Community-Based Facilities, and Non-Drug Users Based on Selected Psychological Factors
Authors: Isralowitz Richard E. , Telias Darwin , Zighelbaum Yaacov
Published: March 2007

This study is an attempt to test a status model of heroin addiction. It is hypothesized that the level of service/treatment (i.e., prison or community-based treatment) will be associated with the psychological characteristics of heroin addicts obtained from self-report data. For analysis purposes, 92 heroin and non-heroin addicts were studied. The findings show that the psychological characteristics of prisoners are no more negative (and in some cases are even more positive) than those in a community-based treatment program or those of a non-addicted control group. From a conceptual perspective, the status model used in this study presents an approach to explaining differences among heroin addicts and non-heroin addicts.
Classification of Shoplifters by Cluster Analysis
Authors: McShane Frank J. , Noonan Barrie A.
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop an empirically derived multivariate taxonomy of shoplifters by cluster analysis. Previously collected data from 75 suspected shoplifters, including demographic characteristics, past history, psychosocial stressors, and purpose in life measures as defined by the Purpose in Life (PIL), and Seeking of Noetic Goals (SONG) tests were analyzed. The results of cluster analysis indicate that shoplifters are a heterogeneous population consisting of a least four subgroups. Implications for treatment are discussed.
Rape Law Reform in Canada: The Success and Limits of Legislation
Authors: Tang Kwong-leung
Published: March 2007

This article reviews the major changes and impacts of rape law reform in Canada. It is held that the 1983 reform addressed some of the key issues relating to sexual assault. In spite of the 1983 legislation, it is clear that critical issues linger in many areas. These include underreporting of sexual assault; low founding, charging, and conviction rates; the status of rape-shield rules; and the defence of honest but mistaken belief of consent. Collective and social actions on the part of women's groups and education are seen as important policy tools to counter sexual assault in our society.
Language of Dark Times. Canetti, Klemperer and Benjamin
Authors: Remaud Olivier
Published: March 2007

What relationship is there between violence and language?* What happens when language is the main target of attack? We should perhaps begin by defining the inner logic of violence, and then tackle the question of the monstrous hybrid it has created with language. In one of the texts that make up the collection entitled Difficile Liberte’, Lévinas remarks that violent action is an ‘action where one acts as if one were the only actor: as if the rest of the universe existed only to receive the action; thus every action is violent that we suffer without wholeheartedly collaborating in it’. So violence has two characteristics. On the one hand, it is fed by a fundamental illusion, that is, a fiction of the will that imagines it is so super-powerful and autonomous that it thinks that by itself it can decide the fate of ‘the rest of the universe’. On the other hand, it is never an authentic action, because it prevents others from owning it and becoming co-actors themselves. Thinking perhaps of Spinoza, Lévinas suggests that violence comes into being from the moment when individuals decide to stop being part of the ordinary world of actions and think, ‘like an empire within an empire’, they are the unique cause of their acts and gestures. This subjective decision is clearly a control decision that contradicts the requirement of common sense, which is to be understood here as a sense of the community. It leads inexorably to consigning others to the world of effects in order more easily to turn them into eternal victims. In Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Prince Mishkin perfectly embodies the figure of the other who continually ‘receives’ the action. But when interplay between the will and its own mirrors becomes excessive, individuals always end up confusing the reality of the world with the exaggerated trust they put in their own prejudices. Since the analyses of the psychiatrist Minkowski at least, we know quite well that the more the certainty naturally accompanying the prejudice increases and expands until it borders on madness, the more violence is likely to grow.
Economic Habitus and Management of Needs: The Example of the Gypsies
Authors: Formoso Bernard
Published: March 2007

From its very beginnings economic anthropology had to tackle a major obstacle: the very nature of its object of study. What in fact is meant by the use of the term ‘economics’ or its corresponding adjective? Does ‘economics’ refer to a specific relationship between ends and means, as some think, or is it defined, more prosaically, as the satisfaction of material needs? Is it a category of specific facts or a praxeology of goal-oriented action? Some interesting debates on the matter, which have brought formalist, substantivist, and Marxist writers into conflict, have revealed marked ideological distortions, some reductionism, and finally epistemological positions that were difficult to reconcile.
Old Age
Authors: Bobbio Norberto
Published: March 2007

I was a delicate child, and to my great embarrassment I was excused from gymnastics as a teenager owing to an illness whose identity is still mystery, at least to me. That is when I acquired my world-weariness, a permanent and invincible lethargy that was to get worse with the passing years. Tiredness as a natural state has for many years been a recurring theme, when I'm complaining about life in letters and conversation. My friends consider it a bad habit of mine, almost an attempt to attract attention, and they don't take me seriously. “I'm increasingly falling apart”, I recently told an old friend. He replied with a slightly mocking air: “You've been telling me that for twenty years”. But the truth is - and it is difficult to explain this to anyone younger - that the descent into the void is long, much longer than I would have ever imagined, and slow, so slow as to appear almost imperceptible (although not to me). The descent is continuous and, what is worse, irreversible: you descend one step at a time, but having put your foot on the lower step, you know that you will never return to the higher one. I have no idea how many more downward steps are to follow. I can only be sure that their number is steadily decreasing.
Japanese Immigration in Brazil
Authors: Nogueira Arlinda Rocha
Published: March 2007

Television, newspapers and magazines often discuss the presence in Japan of dekasseguis from Brazil. This migratory movement, which started in 1985, has started to show signs of decline. The recession in Japan has been accompanied by the laying off of around 20,000 Brazilian dekasseguis - employed in businesses in the industrial sector (cars, electronics and food production) - which explains the reduction in the number of candidates for departure.

The emigrants have generally been drawn by attractive salaries, while always aware that they were being offered work refused by the local population, considered kitsui (heavy), kitani (dirty) and kiken (dangerous). The hope of amassing sufficient savings in a few years to enjoy a better standard of living on their return to Brazil weighed significantly on their decision to leave.
Introducing Castro Alves
Authors: Secchin Antônio Carlos
Published: March 2007

Antônio de Castro Alves was born on 1 March 1847 on the Fazenda das Cabaceiras (Cabaceiras Farm) in the state of Bahia, and died in July 1871 in Salvador, the state capital. For this short twenty-four year span of his life he represented, as no one else in Brazil did, the myth of the Romantic poet and hero.

His literary vocation became clear very early on. Coming from a well-to-do family, he studied law in Recife (the capital of Pernambuco), Salvador and São Paulo. He fell in love with a Portuguese actress, Eugênia Câmara, ten years older than himself, and had the deep experience of a love affair with her that shocked the moral provincialism of contemporary Catholic monarchist Brazil. Like many writers of the period he wrote plays, and had great success with the drama Gonzaga, or the Minas Revolution, about the (abortive) attempt to free Brazil from the Portuguese yoke, which had been made in Minas Gerais in the eighteenth century. But it was in poetry – Espumas flutuantes (‘Floating Foam’, 1870) as well as the posthumous A cachoeira de Paulo Alfonso (‘Paulo Alfonso's Waterfall’, 1876) and Os escravos (‘The Slaves’, 1883) – that Castro Alves stood out on the country's literary scene.
An Overview of Brazilian Art
Authors: Gullar Ferreira
Published: March 2007

I find it hard to understand what can be meant by ‘mestiço (mixed-race) art’.

No one disputes that the Brazilian people are of mixed race, but even if this is the case, the idea that their artistic creations should also be ‘mestiço’ seems to be an argument that may be logical but is unverifiable in practice.

The first difficulty is that I can see no causal relationship between an individual's racial make-up and the character of the object he or she produces or creates. In my view human individuals are essentially cultural. So it is on the cultural level that they are defined and their creations described. From this it can be concluded that if a mulatto transmits something of his mulatice (‘mulatto-ness’) to his art, this has nothing to do with the type of blood flowing in his veins, but is related to the influence that his position as a mulatto has on his world view, if indeed he has one. Personally I can see no sign of it in the work of Machado de Assis, for example. Should writers' social and racial position influence their work? Of course. But not to the extent that it becomes visible and less still so that it determines the quality or meaning of the work.
Reflections on Brazilian Amazonia and International Policies
Authors: Duarte Lilian Cristina
Published: March 2007

Nowadays, that part of Amazonia which is situated on Brazilian territory is more and more the focus of attention for communication methods and the international agenda. This enormous expanse of land covered by tropical forest of unequalled beauty, extending over several Brazilian states, possesses an extremely rich biodiversity, with a vast potential reserve of natural resources of all sorts, and inspires admiration as well as inevitable greed. The intensification of human activity in the region has given rise to problems such as deforestation and a resulting loss of organic matter whose importance has yet to be properly evaluated; it has also led to conflict between the different local groups, such as the indigenous population, gold prospectors and the big landowners, and to the degradation of quite extensive areas, thus provoking questions on how best to promote sustained development in the region.
Common and Proper: An Attempt to Answer the Question ‘What is Philosophy?’
Authors: Faraklas Georges
Published: March 2007

There is even a paradox in the name of philosophy. Philosophy would rather love wisdom than have it. This is what exasperates those who interrogate it for answers and not questions. But this love must not be unhappy: being satisfied with unsatisfied love means loving love and at bottom feeling contempt for its object. It changes the object, the beloved wisdom is not what one thought one had. Those who say they have wisdom do not doubt, what they have is dogma, but those who doubt whether they have it may gain another wisdom, knowledge. Wisdom seems to change according to its place: it is false wisdom at the beginning of the cognitive process, but may be true in one or other of its relative terms. Knowledge is a wisdom that one works towards and to gain it one must deny having it, know that one does not know. Thus, in order to grasp what philosophy is, we must ask what a knowledge of not-knowing can be - a Socratic question - and what kind of cognitive process it is that can start with what is false to reach what is true; and this is a question to which the answers might be Platonic or Aristotelian. From Plato to Aristotle the ousia, what truly is, which is translated as essence in Plato, and as substance in Aristotle, changes places in this process. And if every philosophy decides to see true being as the thought essence of things or else as their particular substance, it would be a good idea to formalize the difference - gnoseological, ontological, political - between the two philosophers. It is a tricky project because it will have to contravene the rules of interpretation to produce this formal reconstruction.
Continuity of Political Philosophy: War and Peace in Secularized Politics
Authors: Naishtat Francisco S.
Published: March 2007

I propose to examine here, at the outset, what I call the asymmetry in Thomas Hobbes's thought between his treatment of civil war and war between states, that is to say, between the departure from the state of nature - when that is a condition prevailing between individuals - and the permanency in the state of nature when it forms a condition existing between states. Secondly, I will address the Kantian progression beyond this asymmetry through the dual introduction of the idea of progress and of ‘cosmo-political’ peace. The attention given in recent years by Habermas to the Kantian idea of perpetual peace [Habermas, 1996], the recent events in Kosovo and Chechnya, and their implications for the shape of an international penal tribunal to judge crimes against humanity, invigorate the questions of civil peace and of rights which transcend state frontiers.
Some Issues around the Double Language of Philosophers' Courage in the face of Experience
Authors: Bidima Jean-Godefroy
Published: March 2007

We have never come face to face with ‘Philosophy’, that goddess who was courted, scorned, hated, and betrayed throughout history by those who claimed to represent her - we only come into contact with her officers: philosophers, that is, human beings who exist in an economic context, have religious ideas, support political opinions, find a way through their emotional history, are paid by institutions, fanstasize about a vision of hope, have appetites, can fight, are mad keen to be noticed and recognized and above all frequently make certain types of statements that have claims to validity. So philosophers are not only creatures in history but also historical creatures who interrogate the meaning of the world and particularly their own work. However, one of the tricks of instrumental rationality - if we follow Marx's analysis - is to focus first on the product rather than the producer. This is the basic reason for the fact that a passion for the exegesis of philosophical texts often conceals philosophers’ practices. And this is why - where African philosophers are concerned, and they are not the only ones - people focus first, with benign curiosity, on their books, the theories that they expound and that may provide matter for heated discussion, but questions are hardly ever asked about the stance of African philosophers, in other words, the actual conditions in which their position is created, the particular abilities of African philosophers to achieve their emergence as ‘philosophers’, and their recognition in the international arena. The rhetoric about the acceptance of multi-culturalism argued on the basis of the complexity of present-day societies often hides practices and processes of legitimation that are revealed by their relationship to those two phenomena, economics and the state. The love of little abstractions that philosophy resists in the name of its historical position, the haste with which African philosophers, among others, clamour for recognition from their peers in other cultures are partly intended secretly to conceal their true relationship to money. Not that ‘disinterested’ philosophers ‘in love’ with knowledge do not exist, but we need to recognize that they often fail to say, as Adorno does in Dialectique négative, that ‘philosophy's freedom is simply the ability to allow its non-freedom to be expressed’. The purpose of this article is less to question philosophers’ capacity for knowledge than to urge them to have the courage to proclaim and challenge their non-freedom.