bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Crisis in Physics: Dialectical Materialism and Quantum Theory
Authors: Cross Andrew
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the resurgence of interest in the interpretation of quantum theory which occurred in the late 1940s and 1950s, and seeks to uncover its political origins in a perceived clash between the post-War Stalinist interpretation of dialectical materialism and the `Copenhagen' interpretation of quantum mechanics.

In examining the debate that followed this renewed interest, certain issues concerning scientific argument are touched upon. These relate particularly to the progress of scientific dispute in a context in which no appeal to experiment can be made. This unusual state of affairs raises questions as to whether such disputes can be resolved, and if so, how. In order to explore these questions, the outcomes of the debates in the USSR and in the West are discussed.
The Reasoning of the Strongest: The Polemics of Skill and Science in Medical Diagnosis
Authors: Anderson Warwick
Published: March 2007

This paper describes the efforts of clinical scientists and computer experts to introduce computer diagnosis into the wards of a major Australian teaching hospital during the 1960s and 1970s. A logical-empiricist procedure construed as a `scientific' model of medical diagnosis — and thus challenging traditional physicians' claims of `craft knowledge' — had the potential to define a new social and institutional role for clinical research. In this account, the `craft' and `scientific' representations of diagnosis are treated symmetrically, as discursive resources used in a hospital context to legitimate the divergent competences of two competing occupational subgroups. Neither `skill' nor `science' is privileged as an explanatory framework. Attributions of skill — as of rationality — may serve distinct social goals and institutional interests. In order to secure a place for this diagnostic technology clinical scientists appealed to a scientific method that physicians were prepared to use rhetorically to bolster their diagnoses — but not, in the end, to redefine the diagnostic process. The institutional authority of physicians in this case allowed them to ignore a model of diagnosis that would circumvent their control of a crucial aspect of medical work.
Rhetorics of Hope and Fear in the Great Embryo Debate
Authors: Mulkay Michael
Published: March 2007

Legislation designed to control the conduct of research on human embryos was introduced in Britain in 1990. During the preceding debate, there had been widespread public discussion concerning the rights and wrongs of such research. This study examines some of the rhetorical resources used in the final parliamentary debate to support and oppose the continuation of embryo research. Two distinctive rhetorics employed in the dispute are described and documented. They are shown to have been associated with divergent conceptions of the membership of the human community and of the moral boundary within which embryo research should be required to operate. Suggestions are offered regarding the cultural preservation of the critical rhetoric of science, the influence of the two rhetorics upon the legislative outcome of parliamentary debate, and the relevance of these rhetorics to future reappraisals of the limits of scientific research.
Changing Centre—Periphery Relations in the Former Soviet Republics: The Case of Belarus
Authors: Nesvetailov Gennady
Published: March 2007

The issues of science and technology policy in the Republic of Belarus are explored within the framework of centre—periphery theory. As a newly independent state, Belarus inherited a considerable scientific potential that was on the periphery of the Soviet research system. Now the socio-economic crisis restricts the options for the development of science and technology in Belarus, and makes the situation uncertain. In these conditions, the government must play a strategic, coordinating role if it is to generate a research policy capable of meeting the country's social needs, and of overcoming its peripheral economic position. From a comparative analysis of centre—periphery relations historically in Finland, one can expect in Belarus a gradual shift in the state's goals for science and technology policy, from national revival to modernization, and subsequently to full international economic competitiveness.
Human and Technological `Redundancy':
Authors: Mort Maggie , Michael Mike
Published: March 2007

In this paper, we are concerned with the ways in which pain and redundancy might be accommodated within the framework of Actor-Network Theory. We pose the question: what are the consequences, both analytic and human, when technologies and humans are removed from sociotechnical networks? Taking the production of Trident as the `core business' of the nuclear submarine manufacturers VSEL, and addressing not only the process of technological innovation, but also of technological production, we explore how both workers and `alternative' technologies were rendered redundant, or `disenrolled'. However, we view these redundant actors as retaining a lingering presence, in the form of what we call `phantom intermediaries'. These, we argue, continue to shape the relevant sociotechnical network by `disciplining' the remaining actors. Over and above this, they also serve to signify preferred futures, and the possibility of resistance. Finally, we will draw out some of the broader implications of our approach for the study of sociotechnical networks and their relation to redundancy and pain.
From Changshan to a New Anti-Malarial Drug
Authors: Lei Sean Hsiang-lin
Published: March 2007

This paper investigates the discovery of a Chinese anti-malarial drug, changshan, within the context of the struggle between traditional Chinese doctors and Western-trained doctors in China in the 1920s and 1930s. Drawing on the Latourian conception of socio-technical networks, I argue that the discovery of changshan was in fact a re-networking process. Besides, because Western-style doctors guarded the boundary of their socio-technical network against Chinese drugs, there existed a significant barrier of entry for anyone who wanted to assimilate Chinese drugs into this network. By means of this case study, this paper will address the missing link between scientific cooperation, professional domination, and boundary-work.
The Alcoholic and the Church: A Pastoral Response
Authors: Drummond T.
Published: March 2007

The Church and its ministers are frequently reluctant to concern themselves with the alcoholic, but it is still to the priest or minister that the alcoholic and his family often turn. Knowing the suffering of the family the minister may wish to condemn the alcoholic and have nothing to do with him, especially as he sometimes comes to him to avoid going to alcoholic centres and counsellors. The minister who wishes to help in this situation must learn counselling techniques himself, must learn to know when he cannot cope by himself but needs professional services, must have patience and be willing to listen and not to condemn; he may not be able to solve the problem, but he can try to establish a caring relationship and this can ultimately lead to a solution. Parishioners should also be encour aged to help.
Exploring Paradoxes of Happiness in Offender Therapy
Authors: Rule Warren R.
Published: March 2007

In correctional settings and in general living, the con cept of "happiness" has a powerful influence on individual expectations and satisfaction. However, the pursuit of happiness can be based on both rational and irrational assumptions. A number of possible paradoxes of happiness are discussed which may, in the appropriate contexts, be worthy of exploration between the therapist and the offender. A heightened awareness of these paradoxes may ultimately increase the likelihood of desirable results as offenders refine their general concepts of happiness into specific goals and strategies.
Parental Home and Deviance
Authors: Buikhuisen Wouter , van der Plas-Korenhoff Corry , Bontekoe Elisabeth H.M.
Published: March 2007

Investigation of variables associated with parental home, child, and type of offense reveals some significant-and at timessurprising findings.
Critique concerning Prediction in Probation and Parole: Some Alternative Suggestions
Authors: Smykla John Ortiz
Published: March 2007

The decision to grant or deny probation or parole is dependent upon making predictions of what activity and behavior can be affected by probation or parole. However, in research conducted on correctional decision-making, the evidence shows that decision-making diverges significantly from what one would expect to be true if there were any validity to preventive or correctional claims as guides to decision-making. In light of this finding, this article discusses the side effects of prediction in probation and parole including economic consequences, sentencing issues, ethical issues, moral and political issues, and legal issues. The article concludes with several recommendations to limit our belief and use of prediction in probation and parole.
Personality Differences Between Sex and Violent Offenders
Authors: Fiqia Nasir A. , Lang Reuben A. , Plutchik Robert , Holden Roger
Published: March 2007

Two groups of male serving prisoners, 37 violent and 32 sex offenders with no history of violent crimes, were compared on measures of hostility, self-consciousness, fear of negative evaluation, criminal history and family background. The intent of the study was to identify factors which may have some value for predicting risk for violent or sex-related crimes. Sex offenders, in general, reported more social anxiety, fear of negative appraisal, and indirect hostility than assaultive individuals. A multiple regression analysis showed that three factors: total hostility, fear of negative criticism and social skill deficits, were the "best" predictors of total violent crimes; whereas total sex crimes could not be predicted by any factor. The article discusses the possible links between hostility, self-consciousness and criminal behavior.
A Clinical Strategy to the Assessment of Dangerousness
Authors: Marra Herbert A. , Konzelman Gregor E. , Giles Philip G.
Published: March 2007

Until an alternative is developed to replace the notion of dangerousness, most involuntary treatment acts will continue to be based upon this concept. In the criminal justice system, there remains a high interest to release "non-dangerous" individuals. Although some methodologies are provided in the form of large-scale actuarial reports, these do not help the individual clinician on a case-by-case basis. Apart from administrative approaches to designating and releasing dangerous persons, the clinician must rely on the case study method, remaining accountable even with attendant problems with validity, reliability, and appropriateness. An ill-founded and unwarranted conclusion on the part of the clinician as a result of faulty methodology may find him/her in litigation with little ability to defend a chosen approach. The purpose of this paper is to provide the clinician a methodology in responding to the individual case analysis when asked to assess dangerousness.
Reasoning and Rehabilitation
Authors: Ross Robert R. , Fabiano Elizabeth A. , Ewles Crystal D.
Published: March 2007

The Reasoning and Rehabilitation Project comprised an experimental test of the efficacy of an unorthodox intervention program in the rehabilitation of high-risk adult probationers. The program was derivedfrom a series of sequential studies of the principles of effective correctional programs. These studies indicated that many offenders evidence deficits in cognitive skills which are essential for pro-social adjustment and that training in these skills is an essential ingredient of effective correctional programs. Compared to regular probation and life skills training, cognitive training provided by probation officers led to a major reduction in re-arrest rates and incarceration rates among adult high-risk probationers.
Evidence for Long-Term, Specific Effects of Childhood Abuse and Neglect on Criminal Behavior in Men
Authors: Dutton Donald G. , Hart Stephen D.
Published: March 2007

We reviewed the extensive institutional files of 604 male federal inmates to determine the impact of various types of childhood abuse and neglect on violent and aggressive behavior in adulthood. Men who had been abused as children were three times more likely than nonabused men to engage in violent acts as adults. Moreover, specific forms of childhood abuse were associated with specific (and isomorphic) patterns of adult violence; for example, those who were physically abused were most likely to be physically violent, and those who were sexually abused were most likely to be sexually violent. These results are consistent with the cycle of violence hypothesis, which states that those who experience childhood abuse become more likely to abuse others as adults, probably due to vicarious learning through exposure to violent models.
Cognitive Group Counselling for Sexual Offenders
Authors: Watson Robin J. , Stermac Lana E.
Published: March 2007

Cognitive group counselling was employed with two populations of sexual offenders against children, one in a psychiatric setting, the other in a correctional institution. Both groups were assessed pre- and post-treatment using a psychometric package, which included the Sexual Myths (SM) subscale of the Sexual Knowledge and Attitude Test (SKAT), the Abel Cognition Scales (child sexual abuse-COG-C; rape-COG-R), the Hostility Towards Women Scale, a 15-point contributing factors list, and self-report measures of motivation and potential for counseling. Significant positive treatment effects were observed in both groups on the SM, COG-C, and COG-R. This is interpreted as indicating that cognitive group counselling can be effective in helping child sexual abusers to reevaluate and remodel their cognitions about their victims and offenses. Further, it is noted that this method can be useful in both psychiatric and correctional facilities.
Unexpected Dimensions of Informal Social Control: A View from the Philippine Sitio
Authors: Austin Timothy
Published: March 2007

This article amplifies the finding that a number of situational variables surprisingly augment the time-honored tradition of amicable settlement among Filipinos. Earlier reports emphasized cultural and personality patterns as a foundation for a preference of informal mediation of disputes and an avoidance of government agencies of control. Contemporary features, which include distinct political boundaries, unemployment, communication disability in a low-tech society, and the desire for bribery, among others, also appear to emerge as potentially meaningful variables. The findings allow for the construction of a number of propositions that predict how the situation impacts on informal social control. Field research in the relatively volatile area of northwest Mindanao, especially in isolated villages (sitios), suggests a need forfurther clarification.
The Impact of Mandatory Relocation on Female Maximum Security Inmates
Authors: Bowman Barbara J.
Published: March 2007

Astute observations, as well as psychological research, have suggested that environmental changes are often stressful events, particularly if out of one s control. This study empirically investigated the responses of female maximum security inmates to a mandatory and permanent relocation from one facility to another (a distance of approximately 80 miles). The findings indicate that inmates who experienced anxiety prior to the move had more difficulty adjusting to the new facility than those who did not have anxiety prior to the move. More specifically, anxiety and anger prior to the move predicted depression after the move. Anxiety and focusing on the perceived problem (i.e., the move) predicted anger after arrival at the new facility.
Ethnopsychiatry and its Reverses: Telling the Fragility of the Other
Authors: Bidima Jean-Godefroy
Published: March 2007

Reading the vast panorama of the history of Western medicine in general and psychiatry in particular sheds an interesting light not only on social constructions and representations but also on the perception of the Other by the medical institution. Colonial medicine in its struggle - praiseworthy, moreover - against epidemics, presents an interesting case here. We read in the Colonial Medical Archives at Berlin, that a certain Dr Roesener was sent to Kamerun (Cameroon), a German protectorate, to take charge of the eradication of malaria, hookworm (anchylostoma), filariosa and sleeping sickness. But he also found himself faced with mental illnesses and, in his report of October 1909, reported the case of a sick man of the Dwala tribe claiming to be a friend of the Kaiser and presenting all the symptoms of mental illness. A problem of nosography arose - stemming from the cultural perception of an illness and above all of the Other: did this Dwala merit being mad? To understand the meaning of this question, we must return to the German anthropology of the last century, which made a clear distinction between ‘natural people’ (Naturmenschen) and those that were civilized, who were part of Kultur. Moreover, in this report Roesener used the word Naturmenschen to signify the Dwala. In this perspective, as the doctor notes, mental illness was, in the medical teaching of that time, a disturbance of the mind, a malaise of civilization. The prerequisite for being mentally ill was being implicitly part of a civilization. Mental illness was, moreover, translated in German by Geisteskrankheit, in other words, literally, illness of the mind. Now, the ‘natural person’ (the Dwala) has no civilization and in consequence cannot be sick in his mind. And yet he presented all the symptoms which made him a classic mental patient. Could one apply the nosography proper to illnesses stemming from civilization to ‘natural peoples’? Without resolving the problem which his terminological usage posed, Roesener insistently demanded that Berlin send the logistical means to Cameroon to build a lunatic asylum (Irrenhaus). To the problem of mental fragility that was posed came the answer of incarceration in a society that knew nothing of confinement of its ‘mental patients’, the latter often not being considered as inferior.
Overview of the Feminist Movement in Contemporary Russia
Authors: Zdravomyslova Elena
Published: March 2007

Feminist groups in Russia are rather recent initiatives. Most of them were organized in the very end of the cycle of mass protest mobilization in the end of 1989 - beginning of 1990s. 1990 is a starting point for Russian feminism. Moscow is an unquestionable center of Russian feminism. There are also feminist groups in St. Petersburg, Tver, Naberezhnye Chelny, Myrny, Petroskoi and other cities of Russia - industrial and educational centres. Some of these groups constitute the network of consortium, which is coordinated by the American feminist foundations. Several groups are supported by Frauenanstiftung of Germany. In 1990 first Forum of Women initiatives was held in Dubna; in 1992 - second Forum took place. Women initiatives publish their newsletters and magazines, circulating on the Federal level of the network.
The Religious Factor in Human Geography: Its Force and Its Limits
Authors: Deffontaines Pierre
Published: March 2007

In concluding his treatise on human geography Jean Brunhes put the question, ‘What would the earth have been like had not mankind appeared and spread over it?’ In making a response, we undoubtedly are both judge and party.
Don Juan and the Baroque
Authors: Rousset Jean
Published: March 2007

Among the great creations of the seventeenth century, one of the liveliest and most rich in promise is Don juan. Even the changes that he undergoes from age to age are full of significance. This article will attempt to clarify one aspect of this evolution from a point of view exclusively that of the baroque.

The reader is asked to accept as the basis for these reflections a definition of the baroque which I have given elsewhere, and which I will merely summarize here.
African-Negro Aesthetics
Authors: Senghor Léopold Sédar
Published: March 2007

The twentieth century will be known as the period of the discovery of African-Negro civilization. At first it was the sculpture alone that provoked amazement, shock, and finally admiration. But soon Europe discovered stories, poetry, music, painting, and philosophy, in turn.

Now that the first surprise has had its effect, we must define the spirit of the civilization; that is to say, of African-Negro culture. There is nothing more revealing in this regard than the literature and the art of this singularly “machineless civilization.” Philosophical reflection on art, by which aesthetics is defined, is all the more necessary, since the admiration of certain European intellectuals for African-Negro literature and art is not devoid of confusion; it often consists of misconceptions, if not of contradictions in terms.
The Problem of the Fairy Tale
Authors: de Vries Jan
Published: March 2007

Sometimes the simplest forms are the most difficult to explain. Perhaps the reason for this is that one estimates the problems involved as being too simple, too obvious, and does not seek, therefore, to penetrate to their core. Besides, there is an aura of the primitive and underivative about a literary form we are used to considering as popular; we hardly dare profane it by dry, objective analysis. As the tradition of a community, it shares the anonymity of the latter. Seeking the traces of creative and tradition-conscious personages, we find only an amorphous mass of the unknown. No wonder that the riddle has been relegated back to prehistoric times, permitting us to conceal its problems behind a veil of mystery.
On Investment
Authors: Bernard Georges
Published: March 2007

The laying-aside of resources, or saving, is a basic phenomenon among men, as it is among bees. It is a basis of material civilization.

Toynbee has demonstrated the existence of twenty-nine human civilizations. He has studied these in a monumental masterwork.

We believe that on the material level this effort can be expressed in one sentence: There is a close correlation between the rate of investment by a group or community and the expansion of its civilization.

This conviction is the starting point of our short analytical essay on the phenomena of investment. The essay is far from exhaustive. The reader will judge whether it is nonetheless useful.
The Health and Perfection of Man
Authors: Entralgo Pedro Lain
Published: March 2007

What is health? What is it to be healthy? Our first answer must inevitably be the answer of St. Augustine, when confronted with the theoretical problem of time: “If no one asks me, I know the answer; if I want to explain it to the one who asks me, I do not know it.” In both cases the first sensation of one who aspires to theorizing is that of perplexity. I think, therefore, that this initial perplexity has its source in two principal reasons, capable of reduction to these two assertions: first, the idea of health has a complex structure, and, second, the idea of health has a variable structure. Without a thorough study of this complexity and this variability, the construction of the medical anthropology that our historical level requires would not be possible. We will try to point out the fundamental lines of both.
The Symbolic Mentality of the Twelfth Century
Authors: Davy Marie-Madeleine
Published: March 2007

The Middle Ages, and in particular the twelfth century, with its monks who were philosophers, theologians, and mystics, hung upon biblical thought and through it did its thinking, its loving, and its acting. The Old and the New Testaments were studied and meditated upon together, though the Old Testament was more often commented upon than was the New. Both offered two successive stages, represented by the law and by grace. For the men of the twelfth century Holy Scripture was the basis of their symbolic mentality. Through Scripture they could distinguish a duality of meanings which can be stated precisely under the terms “letter” and “spirit.” This double terminology was comprehended on two different levels and depended on the degree of the individual's evolution. Saint Bernard understood it very well when he alluded to the ordinary mode of seeing and to the spiritual mode. The heart's vision sees in the mind (Sermon XLV, 5, on the Song of Songs. Just as that hearing which is not of the body but which belongs to the heart understands what the ears could not hear, there are, according to Saint Bernard, three kinds of language to which three modes of understanding correspond: the mode of the hireling, that of the son, and that of the wife (Sermon VII, 2, on the Song of Songs) ? The first stays on the threshold to knowledge, the second crosses it, but only the wife penetrates into true knowledge which designates a knowledge acquired more by intuition than by learning and which Saint Jerome called “scientia secretorum.” This stimulates another way of thinking and of loving and coincides with a new dimension of being. In regard to the comprehension of symbolic content, three steps or successive stages are involved here.
Social Science Objectivity and Value Neutrality: Historical Problems and Projections
Authors: Horowitz Irving Louis
Published: March 2007

For the most part, American sociology has accepted the appealing formula of neutrality with regard to political and ideological values, a formula especially put forward by the functionalist school. It has the golden merit of posing issues in a seemingly natural science manner. The sociologist can adopt the physicist's pose toward his work. We provide society with carefully sifted information, comparative analysis of social structures, and at the upper range, the likely consequences of performing or not performing an action in terms of the given diagnosis. The social scientist using a functionalist philosophy can feel free of responsibility at a decision making level. Whether society decides to employ or ignore the provided data is held to be a matter of indifference, a situation requiring moral wisdom rather than social theory. Without minimizing the sound contributions of the function-Structure approach, particularly in overcoming the provincialism and conceit of the pre-functionalist schools of anthropology, there is a sure moral undercurrent in a method which sees the social scientist as diagnostician and society as a patient. It has the appearance of satisfying the historic identification of social theory to social welfare, and no less an emotional identification with a neutral-objective image culled from physics. Social history becomes a variable in the preparation of trend reports and thereby trivialized into a moment in the functionalist scheme.
Americanism and Latinity in Latin America
Authors: Freyre Gilberto
Published: March 2007

What in reality, in its relationship with other parts of the world, is that part of America usually called Latin? On the socio-cultural level, in what way does it form a homogeneous sociological complex permitting it to be considered entirely Latin—quite apart from its geographical unity—and, at the same time, part of an American whole within whose sociological framework its Latinity continues to evolve in time and space?
Garcilaso Between the World of the Incas and That of Renaissance Concepts
Authors: Durand José
Published: March 2007

The Spanish conquests of the Americas were not yet completed when famous Humanists already began to appear in the first generation of native-born Spanish-speaking Americans. A mestizo born in 1539 and who liked to call himself “the Indian whose mouth is full” thus published in 1590, in Madrid, the first-fruits of the Humanism of the New World. The son of an Indian woman, he succeeded in very unusual circumstances in writing a superb Castilian version of a classic work of Renaissance Neoplatonism. Its title reads: The Indian's translation of the three Dialogues of Love by Leone Ebreo, from Italian into Spanish, by Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, a native of the great city of Cuzco, capital of the Kingdoms and provinces of Peru.
The Lineage of Argentinian Literature
Authors: Estrada Ezequiel Martinez
Published: March 2007

“But in the history of cross-breeding, the union effected outside marriage was of infinitely greater importance. The tales of the chroniclers and missionaries often paint a dark picture of the relations between conqueror and Indian woman—rape, kidnapping, sale and exchange of women, a system of concubinage and harems etc.” (Angel Rosenblatt, La Población indigena de América)

“There is racial conflict in Latin America and racial harmony which can be seen only by those who have eyes. The governments and the people themselves see them only very late.” (Sarmiento, Conflicto y Armonías de las razas en América)

The colonial period left no fertile seeds for a culture in the soil of South America. As Ricardo Rojas assures us, “We do not find a single imaginative work in prose in these three hundred years.” “All of our colonial literature is confined within the limits of the historical genre…everything in it is the unfolding of a chronicle. To fix the memory of social facts, memorials were written to military conquests and hagiographies of spiritual ones, poems on the English invasions and the emancipation of America. Even the brief erotic and religious poems are only monuments in verse, and so are Tejeda's works whose autobiographical character cannot be denied.” (La Literatura Argentina)
Latin America and America Conjuncture and Growth
Authors: Chaunu Pierre
Published: March 2007

A meridional American space, a brief history, a rapid rythm of change and finally a specific time element, these are perhaps the fundamental elements of American history. These fundamental elements determine a conjucture. America entered the mainstream of history rather late. But America has more than fully made up for this because events and economic factors, which take place there, have an amazing ability to stamp by their shifts and changes the worldwide resultant of all specific conjunctures. To the extent that, almost everywhere, the rythm of a worldwide conjuncture can be felt, whose peaks and troughs impose themselves on men and have to be forcibly taken into account by all strategies, this conjuncture, ever since America took her place in history, has borne the imprint of America. One is tempted to write that it is American.
Karl Marx's Contribution To Historiography
Authors: Hobsbawm Eric J.
Published: March 2007

The 19th century, that age of bourgeois civilisation, has several major intellectual achievements to its credit, but the academic discipline of history which grew up in that period, is not one of them. Indeed, in all except the techniques of research, it marked a distinct step back from the often ill-documented, speculative and excessively general essays in which those who witnessed the most profoundly revolutionary era—the age of the French and Industrial Revolutions—attempted to comprehend the transformation of human societies. Academic history, as inspired by the teaching and example of Leopold von Ranke and published in the specialist journals which developed in the latter part of the century, was correct in opposing generalisation insufficiently supported by fact, or backed by unreliable fact. On the other hand it concentrated all its efforts on the task of establishing “the facts” and thus contributed little to history except a set of empirical criteria for evaluating certain kinds of documentary evidence (e.g. manuscript records of events involving the conscious decisions of influential individuals) and the ancillary techniques necessary for this purpose.
Dissent and Protest in the Early Indian Tradition
Authors: Thapar Romila
Published: March 2007

For many decades now it has been maintained that Indian civilization has shown an adsence of dissent and protest. This has become so axiomatic on the Indian past that those who have occasionally questioned it have been labelled as anti-Indian. Such a view stems from a nationalistic over-simplification of Indian society as a vision of harmonious social relations in a land of plenty. Superimposed on this were the preconceptions of idealist philosophy that dissent required materialistic underpinnings, and philosophical themes of materialism in Indian thought have generally received short shrift from contemporary commentators. It is only in recent years that some attempts are being made to suggest that neither materialist philosophy nor dissent were wholly marginal to Indian society. It still remains fashionable in some circles to deny the opposition between forms of orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the ideological traditions of the past, arguing that Indian religions were not based on dogma. Yet the history of groups identified as having a community of religious beliefs, rituals and behaviour, among Buddhists, Jainas, Vaisnavas, Saivas and Tantrics, is strewn with sectarian dogmatism which found expression not only in inter-religious but also in inter-sectarian rivalries, sometimes of a violent kind.
Semiotics and its Range
Authors: Paruolo Silvana
Published: March 2007

If it is true that semiotics has tried to establish itself as an autonomous science starting with Saussure and Peirce, in imposing itself as a cultural fashion since the 1960’s, due especially to Roland Barthes and his interest in the language of connotations, it is also true that from ancient treatises of medicine to books of magic, from rhetoric to logic, from nature to science, symbols— even from different points of view—have been the object of passionate reflections.
The “Telenovela”
Authors: Rector Monica , Trinta Aluizio Ramos
Published: March 2007

What is a telenovela? Its literal meaning is “a novel transmitted by televison.” This implies a means of transmission—the television—and a form of discourse—the novel. The telenovela.
On the Notion of Intertextuality: The Example of the Libertine Novel
Authors: Reichler Claude
Published: March 2007

Iouri Lotman, taking as a starting point the idea that the rapport with the sign determines all the codes of a given culture and their systems of classification, proposes a typology of cultures. His resarch has been received with little interest in France, to the extent that some important articles in which it is described have not yet been translated. This is surprising considering the interest in Lotman's hypotheses, which give a boost and a broader outlook to semiotics which it had lost in certain scholarly minutiae. It may also be held that this indifference is normal for those whose profession is to reflect on the sign, unwilling to consider their object as a relative entity subject to the contingencies of history and culture, but also refusing to recognize the sign as a concrete force in Man's life, capable of directing his knowledge and his exchanges.
Religious Evolution and Creation: the Afro-Brazilian Cults
Authors: Pereira de Queiroz Maria Isaura
Published: March 2007

Since the end of the 19th century, Brazilian researchers have speculated about the phenomenon of ethnic coexistence they have witnessed in their country. How may the mixed culture that is its obvious result be explained? Should it be attributed to some sociocultural syncretism, to an interpenetration of civilizations or, quite simply, to a synthesis? Whatever the case, it is certain that cultural elements of very different origins became united in Brazil and that they have remained closely associated there in spite of their disparity. The best example of this “cultural conglomerate,” if we may call it that, is without a doubt that of the Afro-Brazilian religious cults and, although numerous studies have already been devoted to them, they have a richness of content and meaning, plus a capacity for renewal, that is far from being exhaustively investigated.
Einstein, Anthropocentricity and Solipsism in Scientific Philosophy
Authors: LaLumia Joseph
Published: March 2007

This paper is about the reference or denotation of the concepts and descriptions of modern physics in contrast to Galilean-Newtonian physics and some reflections therein of some widely influential misunderstandings of Einstein's empiricism.
Sun and Salt, 1500-1700
Authors: Schwartz Hillel
Published: March 2007

During the Renaissance, the su was regarded primarily as a source of light which gave form to all things*; during the Enlightenment, paradoxically, the sun was regarded primarily as a source of heat. Paracelsian chemistry of the 1500s introduced salt as a third principle which embodied the other two, mercury and sulphur; salt was that universal mediating presence which represented earth. By the late 1700s salt was no longer a metaphysical principle but an acid-base compound, and volatile salts aroused most interest. These changes in scientific perceptions of sun and salt ran parallel to one another: beginning as transcendent sources of form, sun and salt came to be considered manipulable sources of energy. Our r-;odern approach to energy derives from a period during which Europeans gradually lost their belief in the creative agency of two essentials to human life.
In Praise of Double Sexuality in the Thousand and One Nights: the Geste of Boudour
Authors: Matarasso Michel
Published: March 2007

Among the many story groups of The Thousand, and One Nights, few demonstrate with such clarity, precision and even some audacity the vicissitudes, privileges, fortunes and joys of sexual polymorphism. The geste of Boudour belongs to such a cycle.
The Myth of the Unicorn
Authors: Caillois Roger
Published: March 2007

We are pleased to offer our readers an unpublished article by Roger Caillois, a posthumous text which takes its place alongside his other studies on the myth and the imaginary. The octopus, the praying mantis and the fulgora in the real world led Roger Caillois to reflections similar to those which he exposes here relative to the narwhal and the imaginary unicorn. The importance of the unicorn in the author's work comes from the relationship established by the narwhal's tusk between two squares on Roger Caillois’ chess board: myth and dissymmetry. (Editor's note).
Ideology Within the Time-Space Dimensions of Social Consciousness
Authors: Dramaliev Lubomir
Published: March 2007

Social consciousness is the most comprehensive historically differentiated and dynamic relatively independent spiritual system. It performs its function both with regard to social being and to the life and consciousness of the individual members of society. As a many-sided, heterogeneous and complex system social consciousness should be analyzed from various points of view. Varied approaches and methods are employed in its study, heterogeneous criteria, close-ups and cross sections are used in investigating its content.
Remarks on the Broadening of Esthetic Experience
Authors: Galard Jean
Published: March 2007

Today, esthetic thought takes pride in the fact that it no longer scorns familiar objects nor any form of everyday culture. Refusing to limit its domain to Fine Arts, it analyzes the products of artisans and industry, urban environment, costumes and customs, tattooing and graffiti. It thus confirms a tendency of contemporary creativity that rejects the separated status of art and defies the regulations of good taste.
Change of Languages as a Result of Decay and Change of Culture
Authors: Wurm S. A.
Published: March 2007

In a number of areas, in particular in the Pacific region, it has been observed that languages have undergone simplification processes of their usually very elaborate grammatical structures, and that such elaborate grammatical features have decayed and in some cases entirely disappeared from some languages, hand in hand with the progressing decay, and falling into disuse, of the traditional cultures of the speakers of such languages. Such phenomena of simplification and decay of grammatical complexities are most readily observable in Papuan languages of the New Guinea area and have also been found in Australian Aboriginal languages. Both these languages have very complex grammatical systems, the Papuan languages even more so than the Australian Aboriginal languages, and the multiplicity of grammatical features in them lend themselves more readily to simplification than may be the case with other languages in the Pacific area, such as Austronesian languages, also called Malayo-Polynesian languages, though such phenomena are by no means absent from them.
General Problems of Classification of African Languages
Authors: Möhlig Wilhelm J. G.
Published: March 2007

On principle, there are no language classifications which are right or wrong, but only classifications which are more or less useful or useless. This statement at the beginning of my paper is intended to indicate the teleological perspective in which I want to view the more general problems involved in the classification of African languages. I shall discuss these within a framework which I derive from the four main components of any language classification, namely:

1.

the aims and objectives of language classification,

2.

the basic units to be classified,

3.

the criteria of classification,

4.

the models of language classification.
The Art of Reasoning in Biology and Medicine
Authors: Hamburger Jean
Published: March 2007

The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget devoted his life to following, step by step and lovingly, the development in children of the art of reasoning. In the course of the successive stages of this development, the child's view of the world changes in nature. Similarly, from its earliest infancy, medicine has viewed living things in successively different manners. For medicine, it is true, the stages overlap; one may still be using an ancient discourse from which another has daringly freed itself. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity in this analysis, I will try to define successive epistemological attitudes as if they had represented a regular progression of medical thinking.
Biographical Alienation in Chronic Deliria
Authors: Lantéri-Laura Georges , Gros Martine
Published: March 2007

These few pages will attempt to analyze the relationships created in the chronically delirious person between himself and his own biography, such as he knows and has experienced it, to which he attaches himself and which dominates him without his knowing it. A few remarks to clarify our vocabulary before getting into the development of this question. We prefer the expression “chronic deliria“, in the plural, to the word “psychosis”, used in the singular. The former term is clinical, and therefore empirical, whereas the second derives from theories; and, especially, the former does not immediately imply a unity of process as opposed to the effective diversity of semiotic appearances. Moreover, the nominal adjective “psychotic“ runs the risk of both clandestinely bringing in hidden presuppositions and of re-establishing the old presumed unity with mental alienation, which had, indeed, been exorcised by J. P. Falret by the middle of the nineteenth century.
The Doctrine of Karma: Towards a Sociological Perspective
Authors: Indradeva Shrirama
Published: March 2007

It is well known that in India, over the last two thousand five hundred years or more, there has been a pervasive belief in the doctrine of Karma. Various forms and variants in which this doctrine has found expression in the multifarious texts and metaphysical systems have drawn a good deal of attention. The present paper, however, is an attempt at analysing the function of this doctrine, in the sustenance of the traditional social system, and particularly the scheme of social stratification. As we shall see, an unshakable faith in this doctrine by people belonging to all strata of society provided tremendous strength to the caste hierarchy based on birth, and ensured a secure place for the Brāhmanas and their progeny on the top of the social pyramid.
Aspects of Scholarship and the Library in Ptolemaic Alexandria
Authors: El-Abbadi Mostafa
Published: March 2007

In a papyrus fragment we have a passage of an Attic comedy of the third century B.C., The Phoenicides by Strato, in which the cook is represented as using archaic, Homeric words for common everyday things, and his exasperated master is obliged “to look through the books of Philitas for their meaning”. This is a farcical application of the new trend of research which the scholar Philitas of Cos initiated in language studies and introduced into Alexandria early in the third century B.C. This new movement took root in Alexandria and was maintained by a distinguished line of scholars, members of the Mouseion. The results of their research soon crossed over to the other shores of the Mediterranean. Thus we have the bitter and rather envious reaction of Timon of Phlius, a poet residing at Pella in Macedonia who, as the representative of a more conservative attitude, resented “modern” intellectual developments and attacked, not only contemporary Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, but also scholars of the Alexandrian Mouseion, “Many are feeding in populous Egypt, scribblers on papyrus, ceaselessly wrangling in the bird-cage of the Muses”.
Oligarchy At Rome: a Paradigm for Political Science
Authors: Syme Ronald
Published: March 2007

The language of politics knows “good words” and “bad”. One criterion is obvious. The former lend themselves to fraud and deception, the latter mean what they say. The prime specimen is oligarchy.
Bourgeois Bodies— Dead Criminals
Authors: Delaney John
Published: March 2007

In 1795 Jeremiah Aversham went to execution bearing a flower in his mouth. “He was afterwards hung in chains on Wimbledon common, and for several months,” it was reported, “thousands of the London populace passed their Sundays near the spot as if consecrated by the remains of a hero.” From the perspective of bourgeois morality this was an intolerable scandal. The display of the dead body had become one of those suspicious or ill-defined areas of life that were treated as indecent or marginalised as offensive. The general rearrangement of values in the society transformed the body into an object of aversion as opposed to representation. The change of attitude made it impossible to continue inscribing the bodies of criminals with the degradation of public exposure.