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In his theory of political justice Otfried Höffe focuses the attention on foundation of the legitimation and limitation of the power and expansion of modern state and law, which problems fall into the background of even such of outstanding contemporary philosophical conception as John Rawls’ theory of justice. Höffe develops his theory in three logically connected steps. First he argues for his starting assumption, that the legitimation and limitation simultaneously constitute the basic problem of the modern political philosophy. The justification is achieved by a critical analysis of philosophical and juridical positivism and of theoretical anarchism. The second step is the construction of the basic structure which is generally qualified for performing the requirement of legitimation and limitation of the power and expansion of the state. Höffe argues that this basic structure must be a real construction, and that is the model of change, in contrast to the ideal construction of the classical and modern contract theories as well. The third step is the definition of the basic principles and characterization of the institutional system focusing on the human and basic rights for the legitimation and limitation of the power and expansion of the contemporary modern state. From a detailed analysis of Höffe’s political justice theory can be some leading considerations and starting points extracted for the foundation of the intercultural exercisable principles of justice, predominately for the human rights. First of all, on the anthropological level definable model of change can be interpreted as the kernel of a relation-anthropology which can serve as the foundation for a reconsidered theory of justice.
More...Obstacles of a Critical-World-Civil Philosophy and the Problem of the Kant’s "Fourth Critique". Cosmopolitism takes up a crucial systematic point in Kant’s philosophy: between philosophy of history and anthropology on the one hand, the three critiques on the other hand. Binding together the three questions – What can I know, shall I do, may I hope? – by the fourth question – What ist human? – is not possible without cosmopolitism, as the eminent expression of character of mankind in history. Thus the synthesis of all parts of philosophy has already been called Kant’s „Fourth Critique“, i.e. Critique of historical reason connected with critical anthopology. Kant’s systematic, metaphysical, but critical concepts for eschatology as well as „origin“ are pointed out, whereas their devastating uncritical understanding provides radicalistic obstacles for cosmopolitism. Overwhelming these obstacles, however, consequently requires self-criticism of enlightenment.
More...Keywords: Callimachus; Xenophanes; allusion; textual tradition; hymnic poetry;
The following analysis is motivated by the new observation, that the epilogue of Callimachus’s Hymn to Zeus (v. 91f.) contains an allusion to a fragment of the archaic poet-philosopher Xenophanes of Colophon (fr. 34.1f.). That this connection went unnoticed, may be explained by the fact, that the fragment of Xenophanes was preserved by several authors as a quotation with some verbal variations. Callimachus avails himself not of the version which could be considered the vulgata, but one preserved by Plutarch (de aud. poet. 2. 17E). This observation being made we can set out to scrutinize the function of the allusion which seems to activate some generic conventions of hymnic poetry.
More...Keywords: University of Vienna; racially- and politically-motivated expulsions; Anti-Semitism; faculty of law and state;
The following contribution commemorates the racially- and politically-motivated expulsions of academic teachers and students in 1938 at the University of Vienna. Though these expulsions took place in the weeks after the “Anschluss” in March 1938, anti-Semitic occurrences were common at Austrian universities long before 1938. From 1918 on anti-Semitic tendencies at the universities were getting stronger, in spring 1938 Jewish as well as political opponent scholars and students were forced to leave the Austrian universities due to national socialistic ideology. The paper shows the expulsions from a legal point of view, stressing the significance of the laws that where enacted between 1934–1938 by the austrofacist government.
More...Keywords: Grand Duchy of Tuscany; Galicia (part of Poland); Habsburg Monarchy; constitutional history; the Enlightenment; enlightened absolutism; state reforms;
Peter Leopold the great duke of Tuscany 1765-1790, introduced an extensive social, legal and financial reform in Tuscany. He rationalized the tax, judicial and administrative system to ease burdens of citizen, aimed to regulated the relations between the State and the Church and promulgated a new penal code. Peter Leopold also attempted to introduce a constitution in Tuscany. This article gives a comparison between the project of Peter Leopold and the constitutional project of Polish nobility in Galicia, which belonged to the Habsburg Monarchy following the partition of Poland in 1772.
More...Keywords: impeachment; crime; Constitutional Court; Seimas;
Under Article 74 of the Constitution, the President of the Republic, the President and justices of the Constitutional Court, the President and justices of the Supreme Court, the President and judges of the Court of Appeal, as well as any members of the Seimas, who grossly violate the Constitution or breach their oath, or are found to have committed a crime, may be removed from office or have the mandate of a member of the Seimas revoked by a 3/5 majority vote of all the members of the Seimas. This is performed through impeachment proceedings, which is established by the Statute of the Seimas. In its ruling of 25 May 2004, the Constitutional Court stated that the institution of impeachment is a method of public democratic control over the activity of the President of the Republic and the other state officials listed in Article 74 of the Constitution and a method of holding such officials liable, where the said method includes, inter alia, the possibility of removing them from office if they fail to fulfil their obligation to follow only the Constitution and law, if they place their personal or group interests above the interests of society, or when they bring discredit on state power by their actions. One of the grounds of impeachment is being “found to have committed a crime”. The persons referred to in Article 74 of the Constitution may be removed from office not only for the commission of a crime by which the Constitution was grossly violated and the oath was breached, but also for the commission of any other crime. Under Paragraph 1 of Article 30 of the Constitution, only a court may hold that a person has committed a crime. However, in the course of carrying out impeachment proceedings, the Seimas itself (in the absence of a court judgment) may hold that the persons referred to in Article 74 of the Constitution have committed a crime. If they have committed a crime while holding the office specified in Article 74 of the Constitution, the circumstance that the crime has been committed may be established by the Seimas itself only if the fact of the commission of the crime (as well as the official who committed it) is obvious, and also when the President of the Republic is being impeached. In the event that a crime had been committed by the President and justices of the Constitutional Court, the President and justices of the Supreme Court, the President and judges of the Court of Appeal, or a member of the Seimas before they took office, the fact of committing a crime may not be considered obvious; in such cases, a court must determine the circumstances relevant to the application of impeachment, i.e. the fact that a crime was committed (together with the official who committed it). The circumstance that a person committed a crime before taking the office of the President of the Republic can only be established by the Seimas and only when the crime is obvious. The statement of the Seimas that a person referred to in Article 74 of the Constitution has committed a crime or the statement of the Constitutional Court that such a person has committed actions for which liability is provided for in the Criminal Code is not the same as a convicting judgment of a court rendered in a criminal case. Impeachment does not mean the application of criminal liability even if a crime constitutes grounds for impeachment. If a person referred to in Article 74 of the Constitution has been removed from office through impeachment proceedings, or his/her mandate of a member of the Seimas has been revoked for a gross violation of the Constitution, a breach of the oath, or for such a crime by which the Constitution was grossly violated and the oath was breached, he/she may never in the future hold such office whose beginning is linked with taking the oath provided for in the Constitution.
More...Keywords: Algorithm; arithmetic; axiom; axiomatic formalized theory; concept; decidability; feedback; insight (intuition); mathematics; mechanism; mentalism; oracle; problem; problem-solving; progress;routine;
The affirmative answer to the title question is justified in two ways: logical and empirical. (1) The logical justification is due to Gödel’s discovery (1931) that in any axiomatic formalized theory, having at least the expressive power of PA (Peano Arithmetic), at any stage of development there must appear unsolvable problems. However, some of them become solvable in a further development of the theory in question, owing to subsequent investigations. These lead to new concepts, expressed with additional axioms or rules. Owing to the so-amplified axiomatic basis, new routine procedures like algorithms, can be reached. Those, in turn, help to gain new insights which lead to still more powerful axioms, and consequently again to ampler algorithmic resources. Thus scientific progress proceeds to an ever higher scope of solvability. (2) The existence of such feedback cycles – in a formal way rendered with Turing’s systems of logic based on ordinal (1939) – gets empirically supported by the history of mathematics and other exact sciences. An instructive instance of such a process is found in the history of the number zero. Without that insight due to some ancient Hindu mathematicians there could not arise such an axiomatic theory as PA. It defines the algorithms of arithmetical operations, which in turn help intuitions; those, in turn, give rise to algorithmic routines, not available in any of the previous phases of the process in question. While the logical substantiation of the point of this essay is a well-established result of logico-semantic inquiries, its empirical claim, based on historical evidences, remains open for discussion. Hence the author’s intention to address philosophers and historians of science, and to encourage their critical responses.
More...Keywords: Boris Hessen; Isaac Newton; René Descartes; history of natural science; classical mechanics; quantum mechanics; Marxism; Soviet philosophy;
A significant thread in Boris Hessen‟s iconic essay, The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia (1931), is his critique of Newton‟s involving God in his physics. Contra Newton, Hessen believes that nature does not need God in order to function properly. Hessen gives two, quite distinct, „internal‟ explanations of Newton‟s failure to see this. The first explanation is that Newton‟s failure is caused by his believing that motion is a mode instead of an attribute or essence of matter. The second explanation is that Newton‟s failure is owed to his considering mechanical motion as the sole form of the motion of matter: Newton, in Hessen‟s view, did not realize that matter has many forms of motion which constantly transform into one another while conserving energy. In the present paper, I defend the thesis that none of these explanations can account for Newton‟s failure. Hessen‟s first explanation is problematic because even if Newton believed that motion is an attribute or essence of matter, he would still be obliged to involve God in physics. His second explanation fails too because he does not show exactly how the multiplicity and inter-transformation of forms of motion can account for nature‟s organizational structure.
More...Keywords: harmony; tone; interval; tuning; consonance and disonance; modulation;
The paper starts from the analysis of the meaning of the word „harmony” along centuries, both in the field of music, and in that of philosophy. Relying on these results, one passes over to the detachment of and separate approach onto some relevant aspects for the issue of harmony: tone; interval; tuning; consonance and disonance; modulation. All these are further related to modern composition.
More...Keywords: Komitet Obywatelski Niesienia Pomocy Biednym in Lodz; citizens’ committees; the World War I; providing food to the poor; aid districts; social care
In the initial period of the World War I, there were two committees in Lodz with the status of social aid institutions: Główny Komitet Obywatelski miasta Łodzi – GKO (Main Citizens’ Committee of the City of Lodz) and Komitet Obywatelski Niesienia Pomocy Biednym – KONPB (Citizens’ Committee for Providing Aid to the Poor). Both of those organizations were formed virtually at the same time, i.e. on the first days of August 1914, and their activities complemented each other. The first of them took over the function of the city government with a number of competences in administration after Władysław Pieńkowski had left the city; the other one focused its efforts on typical social care for residents, who had suddenly found themselves in a situation of hazard to their safety, life, and health, at the risk of losing the source of income. The main goal of KONPB in the initial phase of the war was to provide material aid to the poorest residents of Lodz; the most important form of support used by the greatest number of people was provision of food. It was used by people of all religions and nationalities. They included, most of all, factory workers with families, people who lost their source of income, families of enlisted reservists, immigrants, homeless people, and those using services of many Lodz philanthropic and social organizations and institutions. This work presents several aspects of KONPB activities, such as the origins, structure, tasks, and financial resources as well as the cooperation and communication with GKO. Lodz citizens’ committees were liquidated by German occupation authorities on 30 June 1915, after almost a year of operations.
More...Keywords: Christian Reformation; Wycliffe; Lollardism; Calvin; Calvinism; Arminius; Five Theses of Calvinism; TULIP; Remonstrance; Counter-Remonstrance;
The doctrinal system of Protestantism has its roots in the religious movements which stirred controversies during the Papal schism (14th15th centuries). A fundamental change of perspective viewed in relation to the traditional Catholic system has begun in the British Isles and was initiated by the rector of Lutterworth, John Wycliffe. The present paper outlines similarities / differences between Wycliffe’s theology and the conceptual frame of Calvinism (the so called TULIP). Wycliffe’s doctrine has echoes in Calvin’s and Arminius’ doctrine and, through their mediation, Wycliffe, known as the “Morning Star of the Reformation” exerted a wider influence on the Protestant movement.
More...Keywords: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz; René Descartes; existence of God;
More...Keywords: Independent State of Croatia;Croatian State Theatre;Mile Budak;international liaisons;Dušan Žanko;
This paper explores the hitherto underexplored activity of the Zagreb theatre in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which served as a central point for the presentation of the regime’s arts and culture. The aim of the paper is to further explore the developmental tendencies of the closely monitored cultural politics in the Independent State of Croatia which placed the theatre high on the list of priorities of ostensibly authentic Croatian artistic expression. Numerous examples are listed in order to illustrate how, despite frequent spectacular performances and intense international cooperation, artistic freedoms were limited by the narrow principles of the Ustasha movement and the new “moral outlook of the Croatian people” that was valid at the time. The goal of this article can be summarised as an exploration of the complexity of theatrical activity conforming to the programmatic guidelines of the new “propaganda, education and morals” of theUstasha state. In conclusion, the paper suggests an extremely important role for theatre as a crucial educational and propagandistic institution in NDH.
More...Keywords: sibilant and interdental fricatives; Italian vernacular of Western Slavonia; changes in phonetic inventory;
This paper focuses on sibilant and interdentally fricative phones perceptible among reliable as well as all other types of speakers of the Italian Vernacular of Western Slavonia (IVWS). The production of fricatives in IVWS should be observed in relation to their presence in similar Italian dialectal vernaculars, namely in northern Veneto dialects, particularly in the archaic Belluno vernacular, and in western Friuli patois. The first research hypothesis is the proposition that a lack of correspondence in the pronunciation of certain phones can be treated as an expected phenomenon, due to the changes that the speech community has undergone. The second hypothesis is that the absence of some phones will be perceptible and consistent mostly among unreliable speakers and semi–speakers. The results show that the targeted phones exist in the pronunciation of mainly those speakers who have not been in contact with modern Italian variants; at the same time, the same phones are often substituted with near phones that exist in either modern Italian vernaculars or in the majority Croatian language.
More...Keywords: bibliography; journal; Communist international; 1919-1943; national and colonial issues;
More...Keywords: sociology; health; medicine; social constructivism
The aim of the article is to reconstruct sociological interpretations of health as well as confronting them with the prevailing biomedical model. In this context, the author presents health/illness and medicine assumptions implicated in functional structuralism, conflict theory, phenomenology, pragmatism and poststructuralism. He states that in spite of different perspectives, each of these approaches provides valuable insight into the relationship between health, individual and society.
More...Keywords: global warming; climate change; range; ground beetles; modeling spatial distribution;
Using geodata technology, we conducted a bioclimatic modeling of the spatial distribution of the common palearctic ground beetle – Pterostichus oblongopunctatus (Fabricius, 1787). The range of comfort of the territories included in this species’ range was obtained. We used the data on 510 sampling points, obtained as a result of the authors’ field surveys and the data base of the GBIF global fund of biodiversity and 19 climatic parameters from the WorldClim open base and MaxEnt program. The results determined the factors which have the greatest impact on the current distribution of P. oblongopunctatus. The main climatic factors affecting the distribution of P. oblongopunctatus are average annual temperature, average 24-hour amplitude of temperature over each month, average temperature over the driest quarter, average temperature over the warmest quarter of the year, total of precipitations in the driest month of the year. We performed a prediction of possible change in the range by two scenarios (RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5) for 2050 and 2070. Using QGIS program, we estimated the areas of the species’ range, and compared them.
More...Keywords: freight transport; railway; liberalisation; mode of transport
Due to limited data and analysis available on the Hungarian rail freight market, the author examines the processes of Hungarian rail freight using accessible data sources. Hungarian rail freight is relatively significant in European comparison, but its growth rate lags behind that of other modes, especially road freight. Financial data for rail freight companies show that their profitability -and thus their sustainability - significantly deteriorated between 2012 and 2017. The study also examines whether the economic or transport infrastructure conditions and the rail traffic conditions have a statistically significant influence on the volume of freight traffic and its growth rate.
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