French Enlightenment: truth and life

This paper considers the relations of truth, life and norm in the work of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault argued that in France it was in the philosophy of science that one finds the clearest formulations of the problems of rationality and the sovereignty of reason. This distintive confrontation can be termed French Modern. For Canguilhem, an ontological and existential pathos arose from the fact that living beings were fated to struggle in the face of circumstances. For Foucault, this ontology became historical and political. For both, the key question was the relationship between life itself and the understanding of life. The paper concludes by reflecting upon some implications of the ways in which the relation between life and lived experience is posed today.     

科玄论战的主旋律、插曲及其当代回响(下)

也许正是洞察到张君劢论点中的这些缺陷,科学派当即对其进行了针锋相对的批驳.针对张君劢鼓吹孔孟朱王注重内心修养形成的精神文明以及把精神文明和物质文明对立起来的观点,丁文江径直反诘道:"懒惰的人,不细心研究历史实际,不肯睁开眼睛看看所谓‘精神文明'究竟在什么地方,不肯想想世上可有单靠内心修养造成的‘精神文明';他们不肯承认所谓‘经济史观',也还罢了,难道他们也忘记了那‘衣食足而后知礼节,仓廪实而后知荣辱'的老话吗?"[52]针对张君劢的寡均贫安说,他一针见血地指出:"中国现在寡到什么程度,贫到什么田地,君劢研究过没有?那一年北方遭旱灾,没有饭吃的人有二千万人:卖儿女的也有,吃人肉的也有.     

Unpackaging synthetic biology: Identification of oversight policy problems and options

The emerging field of synthetic biology (SB) is just entering policy debates. Reports from non-governmental organizations, such as the ETC Group and the International Risk Governance Council, have recently been issued, but there have been few systematic analyses of the policy problems that we will likely face as this area develops. Biosecurity issues are the most defined; other societal oversight issues and implications have not been well explored. Although SB could assist in addressing pressing global challenges, such as sustainable and renewable energy, there are considerable societal concerns that accompany its development and applications. This article is designed to anticipate and prepare for these concerns by identifying policy problems associated with SB oversight, upstream of its development. Projected applications of SB are reviewed and a typology of them is developed. Key oversight policy problems are then identified based on historical experiences with other emerging technologies, such as nanotechnology and biotechnology. Problems associated with biosecurity, biosafety, intellectual property, and ethics are discussed in relation to the typology of SB applications to identify applications of the highest potential concern. Finally, policy options for SB oversight are considered, preventative to promotional. We propose that different categories of SB application may warrant different oversight regimes: there might not be an appropriate “one size fits all” approach. We stop short of making specific recommendations, but suggest that the typology, problems, and oversight options identified in this article be used as a starting point for deliberative, democratic decisionmaking processes that take into account a wide range of perspectives about risk, economic impact, scientific progress, and moral reasoning in the design of oversight systems.     

“Like Butter Scraped over Too Much Bread”: Animal Protection Policy in Mexico1

Over the past fifteen years Mexico has developed a string of comprehensive animal protection regulations designed to address the serious problems that affect both wild and domestic animals in the territory. Yet for all their detailed coherence and despite serious government efforts, the regulations continue to lack effective enforcement and authorities are increasingly overstretched. This study discusses three key areas that obstruct the effective implementation of Mexican animal protection policy, but where advances could be feasibly initiated. The first concerns deficiencies at the political level. The second addresses the awkward relation between government and civil society on the issue. The third examines the scope of the problem in Mexico and some implications this has for international involvement. Finally the study suggests a more collaborative approach for implementing the policy that attempts to address central concerns in each of the three areas considered.     

论科学发展观的理论内蕴及其重大意义

科学发展观坚持了唯物史观的基本原理,创新了马克思主义社会发展理论,是指导我们全面建设和谐社会和现代化建设的理论指南。科学发展观是解放和发展生产力的发展观,是造福人民的发展观,表明我党对于人类社会发展规律和共产党执政规律认识的深化。     

Party policy equilibrium for alternative spatial voting models: An application to the Norwegian Storting

Abstract In recent years a lively debate has emerged concerning the empirical status of the traditional proximity spatial model versus a directional model of voter choice. The central reason for this scholarly interest concerns these models' contrasting implications for parties' policy positioning, with the directional model motivating parties to present extreme policies, but the proximity model promoting centrist positions. To this point, however, there exist no studies that compute parties' optimal strategies in historical elections, for these competing models. This article addresses this issue, by examining party policy strategies in a multiparty electorate for three different vote models: (a) the proximity model, (b) a directional model (c) a mixed model which combines proximity and directional components. Each model incorporates past voting history and the random effects of unmeasured variables. Using parameter estimates derived from analyses of survey data from the 1989 Norwegian Election Study we compute — for each of these vote models — the configuration of party policy positions that maximize each party's vote share in relation to those of the other parties. We find that for each model, such a vote–maximizing configuration exists, but — for the proximity model — represents an unrealistic, tightly clustered array. A mixed proximity–directional model, however, provides by far the most convincing account of parties' actual policy strategies with regard to dispersion and vote share.     

关于马克思主义哲学新体系的构想

哲学是一门学科,它应该成为一门科学,即有明确的对象,有一系列的科学的原理,并形成一个完整严密的体系,那就是马克思主义哲学。马克思主义哲学的原有体系是辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义,这个体系是迄今为止惟一的相对科学、相对成熟的马克思主义哲学体系。这个体系存在不少问题,亟需加以改造,使之成为一个新体系。马克思主义哲学新体系应当以整个世界,人类社会和人,认识、价值和方法这三个层次为研究对象,应当包括世界观、历史观、人学、认识论、价值论、方法论六大部门,应当通过逻辑与历史相统一的方法建构起来。     

Foucault,Critique and Rights

Abstract

This paper outlines Foucault's genealogical conception of critique and argues that it is not inconsistent with his appeals to concepts of right so long as these are under stood in terms of his historical and naturalistic approach to rights. This approach is explained by reference to Nietzsche's account of the origins of rights and duties and the example of Aboriginal rights is used to exemplify the historical character of rights understood as internal to power relations. Drawing upon the contemporary ‘externalist’ approach to rights, it is argued that the normative force of rights can only come from within historically available moral and political discourses. Reading Foucault's 1978-1979 lectures on liberal governmentality in this manner suggests that his call for new forms of right in order to criticise disciplinary power should be answered by reference to concepts drawn from the liberal tradition of governmental reason.     

Public Support for Environmental Policy in Finland: Cultural Interpretations of Survey Results

This article studies what the Finnish people think about environmental policy and the policy instruments in use. It describes the main features of the public legitimacy of the environmental policy. The survey results are interpreted using a cultural approach, a concept of 'veil of insignificance' and some ideas of risk society theory. The Inglehartian theory of postmaterialist values is also discussed. The Finns actively support environmental policy when it concerns industry, businesses and landowners, but when the policy instruments interfere with people's own lives their support decreases radically. The article argues that the reasons for these contradictory attitudes are more complex than the freerider theory supposes. According to international surveys made during the 1990s, the Finns are less concerned about environmental problems than are people in other European countries. The article argues, for cultural and historical reasons, the Finns have a strong ecological self-identity which can in some conditions hinder the development of more ecological attitudes.     

Memory and partisan identity: the case of the French Communist Party

Abstract. The French Communist Party pays particular attention to the writing and the recounting of its own history. Its militants consent often to an important training effort. The understanding of historical memory by the dimension which connects French Communism to 'true socialism', would prohibit reasoning which would have an objective of re-instating the memory of French Communists as an element of a partisan identity, rather than the falsification of which the nature of history might have been the object. Maurice Halbwach's notion of 'collective memory' fits this project. Consequently, some elements of the party's historical memory, especially autobiographies of communist party leaders, are compared to the opinions or life experiences collected from militants. In this comparison between published memories and oral life stories, models and constant themes appear. But one must also insist on the discrepancies between interviews, and on the differences between life stories and published autobiographies. If autobiographies provided life patterns founded on invariable elements and methods of historical interpretation, other factors were of influence, such as how long the subject has belonged to the party, the family continuity in the partisan group, school background.     

道德冷漠现象的文化根源

频发的道德冷漠事件有其深刻的历史文化根源。传统礼教的自我消解催生了重视潜规则的关系社会与关系思维，在“孝道”基础上建立起来的传统伦理道德看重血缘宗亲关系进一步强化了关系思维，形成了把人与人之间的关系归结为私人关系并按远近内外区别对待的传统“熟人社会”。市场经济条件下，熟人社会已不复存在，但重视关系、背景的思维方式仍根深蒂固，并成为走向道德冷漠的主要根源。只有通过对传统伦理道德的深刻反思，才能超越关系思维还道德以本来面目，才有道德重建的真正开始。     

REGULATION OF THE FREE-ADVERTISING AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

The "new" line between communications that have full First Amendment protection and those that are subject to regulation is still in the process of being delineated by the Supreme Court; legal and mass a communication scholars are proposing a plethora of tests for future cases. Rather than proposing yet another test, this article starts from the premise that future advertising regulation cases will be based on legal philosophy and judicial "world view" as well as law and precedent. First Amendment law and advertising regulation concerns have historically been based on two different concerns and perspectives that have only recently been seen to interact. This article charts a perspective on the differences in the legal, philosophical and historical roots of these two areas, shows how and why they are now seen as interrelated and attempts to give some insight into possible future legal directions in this area.     

Four myths in the history of social thought

Four commonly held interpretations of the development of European social thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are analysed and criticised, with particular reference to Durkheim's writings. These four myths are: the notion that Durkheim's sociology developed in substantial degree as a response to the ‘problem of order’; the conception that Durkheim's work is to be understood in terms of its origins in ‘conservative’ social thought; the view that Durkheim's writings, together with those of some of his contemporaries, mark a radical break in the transition from ‘social philosophy’ to ‘sociology’; and the idea that the type of intellectual tradition represented by Durkheim, concerned with the ‘problem of order’, can be usefully compared with a divergent tradition concerned with ‘conflict’ and ‘change’. It is argued that while these myths each contain a kernel of truth, this can only be extracted if Durkheim's writings are examined in relation to the historical context in which he developed his sociological concerns.     

The State and the Economy: Opinion Formation and Collaboration as Facets of Economic Management

This paper seeks to extend discussion of the areas of state activity that are relevant to economic performance. It does this by linking several literatures that are now usually considered in isolation from each other. These are institutionalist theory, developmental state theory, and comparative and historical institutionalism. The paper focuses particularly on the experience of the east Asian developmental states. The paper suggests a new role for the state as catalyst in the formation of ideas, choice sets and motives concerning economic performance. It can play this role at national and policy community levels and in relation to desired overall outcomes, export or cluster development and innovation. The notion that economic globalization will inexorably drive convergence between states is discounted. On the contrary, this is as likely to nourish miscomprehension or incomprehension between citizens of different states. This is an additional reason for attending to the quality of opinion formation by states.     

The Present's Historical Task: Kracauer as Reader of Collingwood

Siegfried Kracauer's reading of the work of R.G. Collingwood illuminates the crisis point in the relation between philosophy, history and how the present is thought. In this paper I argue that Kracauer's dismissal of Collingwood illuminates a misunderstanding of the latter's philosophical project, and takes no account of a certain affinity between the two thinkers. Collingwood not only shared Kracauer's view that a philosophically oriented historical investigation of the past might offer some hope for the present, but also had a fuller grasp of the philosophical implications of the ambivalent relation between historical time and the present than Kracauer gave him credit for.     

Political Studies as Narrative and Science, 1880–2000

Today we are often skeptical of the role played by representations of the nation state in constructing and legitimating ways of life and public policies. We portray what once appeared to be neutral, scientific representations of our practices and our heritages as contingent historical objects. How did we become so skeptical? The answer has several parts: developmental historicism dominated the human sciences in the latter half of the nineteenth century; the turn of the century witnessed an epistemic rupture and the rise of a modernist empiricism that came to dominate the social sciences; modernist empiricists reformulated their approach during the latter half of the twentieth century in response to alternative visions of social science; and, finally, the close of the twentieth century also saw the rise of a radical historicism that spread from philosophy and literature to history and even social science. In short, we have become skeptical as we have moved toward a radical historicism that challenges scientism and decenters the grand narratives of yore.     

Whatever Happened to the New York Intellectuals?

Over the course of a very few decades, the New York Intellectuals went form being the intellectual community in U.S. cultural life to a historical coterie with little contemporary relevance. This article suggests some of the reasons for this evolution, both intellectual and personal.     

Personality as a vocation: the political rationality of the humanities

In responding to periodic government demands that it provide a rational justification for its activities as a public utility, the humanities academy typically appeals to the absolute ethical and intellectual values of liberal education. This paper investigates the nature of this response and its relation to the governmental field. The historical, ethical and political claims involved in the appeal to liberal education are discussed and rejected. It is argue that the cultivation of personhood has neither a single (‘complete’) from nor a privileged home in the university arts faculty. Weber's sociology of ethical orders is used to frame a discussion of intellectual cultivation as a specific vocation or discipline of life. From Foucault's conception of ‘govermentality’ the paper draws an account of share of political rationality dependent of the historical deployment or particular intellectual and political technologies. The problem of the political rationality rationality of the humanities is then discussed in terms of the unplanned historical convergence of the disciplines of cultivation and the technologies of government¹.     

Speaking to the People: Critchley,Rousseau and the Deficit in Practical Rationality

Abstract

This article considers Critchley's Infinitely Demanding and his essay "The Catechism of the Citizen" in relation to the theory-practice debate and the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It considers what these texts say about the relation between politics and religion on one hand and reason and sensuousness on the other. The focus is the way the latter text takes up a quasi-religious response to the motivational deficit in secular liberal democratic life thematized in Infinitely Demanding.     

‘How Do You Think I Feel? It's My Country’: Belonging,Entitlement and the Politics of Immigration

Current debates around immigration are informed by hierarchies of belonging, with some groups seen to belong more, and therefore deserve more, than others. This link between belonging and entitlement has been predominantly analysed in relation to struggles over access to key material benefits, such as jobs, housing, healthcare and so on. This paper will argue that these struggles also point to the continuing relevance of nationhood to many people's sense of self, community and place and the value that comes from being positioned, and recognised, as part of a group that lies at the heart of national life and culture. In other words, the ‘politics of immigration’ is about the anxieties and concerns of those who no longer feel ‘at home’ in what they consider to be ‘their’ country.