Keywords: philosophical anthropology; being human; intersubjectivity; political action
The main thesis I put forward in this article is that the democratic theory needs an anthropological perspective which defines the human in plurality and signifies the pos-sibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democ-racy in terms of cosmopolitan anthropology can help us to better envision the main challenge facing universal norms and principles today. How to create democratic forms of living together? I think we can answer this question by interpreting Hannah Arendt’s theory of political action on a philosophical anthropological basis. It is common knowledge that Hannah Arendt is suspicious of ethics and warns that ethics and con-science alone cannot produce the conditions for peace. In the present paper, I examine Arendt’s philosophical project together with Kant’s philosophical anthropology and try to demonstrate its importance for plurality and living together in peace.
More...Cultural tourism advertising is a hybrid register as functional linguistic analysis applied to such texts demonstrate. The current paper will apply a functional linguistics analysis, starting with the clause level, investigating wordings in order to understand the meanings they realize, and finally will reconstruct the material and social context which activated the text, its ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings realized by the wordings at the lexical-grammatical level in the clause as representation, as exchange, and as message. We will demonstrate what is advertising-specific (A-spec) versus tourism-specific (T-spec) grammar in a text for cultural tourism entitled “Learn Spanish in Barcelona-Spain”.
More...Keywords: systemic functional linguistics; interpersonal; the Platform Sutra; Huineng; translation
The study is a comparison of four English translations of a Chinese Chan Buddhist text, the Platform Sutra. It investigates translators’ choices on the level of lexico-grammar, the semantic consequences of such choices as the image of Huineng and the underlying contextual factors contributing to the variations among translations. Interpersonal system of SysFan, a computational tool specialized in systemic functional analysis, is used and choices in terms of SUBJECT PERSON, MODALITY and MOOD TYPE are analyzed and compared. It is demonstrated that in translation, lexico-grammatical choices will lead to variation in meanings, and there tend to be contextual motivations for the seemingly unconscious choices.
More...Keywords: practical love; moral good; categorical imperative; unconditional norm; respect;
The main objective of this inquiry is to examine the reach and influence of the Unconditional Norm throughout Karol Wojtyła’s thinking in order to understand the Wojtylian personalistic norm and to propose it as the basis for all social interactions. To this end, our primary method is obtained from the study of Kant’s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, which exposes the theory of imperatives and in a special way is able to show, as opposed to utilitarianism, how it is that a person can never be a mere means, but is rather an end in itself. This Kantian concept had a profound impact on Wojtyła, who was also critical of utilitarian ethics and thus found great inspiration in the Kantian proposal. However, Wojtyła goes beyond the Kantian proposal because, although they coincide in many points, Wojtyła felt that the subject of experience was not sufficiently addressed, given that it had an a priori, and therefore insufficient, perspective of the personal self. Wojtyła’s Aristotelian-Thomist education, driven by the discovery of Max Scheler’s phenomenology, gave substance to a very original doctrine in both method and projection.
More...Keywords: responsibility, transformation of business
Business activities considerably affect the fate and survival of natural ecosystems as well as the life conditions of present and future generations. In the light of Hans Jonas' theory of responsibility we can state that business has a one-way, non-reciprocal duty caring for the beings affected by its functioning. To become a fully ethical enterprise, business is to be carried out in sustainable, pro-social and future enhancing ways. Doing ethical business is not a luxury of advanced societies. It is a requirement for modern business to survive in a world of large-scale ecological disruption and social disintegration.
More...Keywords: inopozabilitate; decizie de impunere emisă de casa de asigurări de sănătate;
Curtea de Apel Alba-Iulia, secţia de contencios administrativ şi fiscal, decizia nr. 2504 din 7 mai 2012
More...Keywords: person; dignity; self-legislator; self-determiner; intellector of being; willer of the good; ethics; freedom; rationality; reason; will; Immanuel Kant; Thomas Aquinas; John Paul II; Karol Wojtyla;
Inspired by a discussion about whether John Paul II grounded human dignity in a Kantian way, viz., emphasizing the person as an end unto itself, the author considers: (1) the relations between Kant and Aquinas on the topic of the philosophical basis of human dignity, and (2) John Paul II’s remarks on Kant’s ethics. He concludes that: (1) both Kant and Aquinas ground human dignity upon human freedom, but both understand the human freedom differently; (2) for Kant, human freedom is self-legislating and so exercised without rational direction; (3) the Thomistic notion of freedom is compatible with rational direction which consists, e.g., in the human understood as an intellector of being or as a willer of the good, though neither seem to be exploited by Wojtyla.
More...Keywords: Autonomy; dignity; moral agency; teleology; history; human nature.
In this paper I discuss some relevant theses of Caranti’s Kant’s Political Legacy, whose aim is to provide a consistent account of how we could develop Kant’s political thought and see to what extent Kant’s insights can help us to critically understand the 21st century’s political world. First, I will focus on autonomy as the ground of dignity and discuss Caranti’s arguments against the exclusiveness of the Categorical Imperative as the sole principle of true moral agency. Second, I will take into account Caranti’s views on history and consider whether human rational nature can be regarded as containing teleological – though non-biological – elements, thereby questioning Caranti’s Separability Thesis.
More...Keywords: on-line communication; politeness; felicity condition; private expression; public expression;
In communication via social networking services, users tend to employ peculiar expressions that are not observed outside the Internet. Such expressions are called Internet dialects (Inoue (2006)) or typed language (Tanaka (2014)). This paper addresses as an example of typed language the expression where the polite request marker kudasai ‘please’ directly follows the imperative form of a verb (i.e., [X-siro kudasai]). This novel expression may seem ungrammatical, but it has several pragmatic advantages over other existing expressions when used in on-line communication. I argue that such advantages arise from the distinct roles of the imperative and kudasai in the expression; the former expresses the writer’s mental state, and the latter conveys it to the reader. These reflect two different levels of linguistic expressions which Hirose (1995) calls private and public. The discussion reveals that the apparent peculiarity of the expression can be accounted for by general principles.
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More...Keywords: environmental reason; moral; ethics; anthropocentrism; ethnocentrism;
The contribution of the environmental philosophy to the XX and XXI centuries philosophy renovation and their capacity to be applied to all aspects of social life is the core of this essay. The history of philosophy on the West is focused on the human condition, the environmental philosophy drive its thought to a global view of biodiversity and geodiversity, enlarged by the concept of biosphere. The dominant perspective of the modern philosophy set the morale in the order of the rules and social conventions and leave the ethics on the field of personal experience. Analyzing the concept of Kantian reason, and its ethic’s corollaries, this essay propose develop them to a new concept, “Environmental Reason”. Conceptualized as a new categorical imperative to the men’s action, beyond the principle that prescribe that we must conform individual acts with a universal law, configuring the human conduct within the limits that safeguard the continuity of life, but also the intrinsic values of earth and its biodiversity and geodiversity. A new perspective ethics founded in the principles of the critique of anthropocentrism and the critique of ethnocentrism represent a new ontology, and a new epistemology, that could lead to a new ethics universal theory.
More...Keywords: Ungureanu; paradigm; knowledge; Parsons; cybernetic hierarchy;
In the series of meetings in which we discussed the book of Ion Ungureanu, Paradigms for the knowledge of society, the 15th meeting brought into question the law of the cybernetic hierarchy of American sociologist Talcott Parsons. In Parsons’ conception, every society is structured into four subsystems: economic, political, community and socializing. According to the cybernetic hierarchy law, “the richest parts in energy have the lowest volume of information and are factors of action conditioning, while the richest parts in information are poor in energy but have the role of action control factors”. This hierarchy between the subsystems of society is cybernetic in the sense that the relationship from the economic subsystem to the political, community and socializing (cultural) subsystems is permanently accompanied by an inverse control relationship, whereby social integration, achievement of goals and adaptation, their exchange instruments (money, power, influence) and the community, political and economic systems themselves ar e determined by the socializing subsystem.
More...Keywords: Ukrainian language; linguistics; Canada; grammar; lexicography; genitive singular masculine; imperative; aspect;
In Canada, linguistic research into the Ukrainian language has appeared in both scholarly periodicals and in book form. For practical reasons, however, only published books will be examined here. These publications may be grouped into three major categories: language instruction, lexicography, and theoretical study. Furthermore, international borders were and continue to be porous: the works of Canadian scholars have been published abroad, while books by American scholars have been published in Canada. Consequently, major textbooks and learning grammars, lexicographic works, and books on theoretical issues dealing with Ukrainian linguistics by Canadian linguists and by foreign scholars published in Canada will be examined here.
More...Keywords: Uṣūl al-Fiqh; Al-Khass; Al-Mutlaq; Al-Muqayyad; Al-Amr; An-nahy;
Uṣūl al-Fiqh is an essential tool in the domain of Islamic jurisprudence. The art of legal formation, with its name formed from the terms ‘Uṣūl’ and ‘Fiqh’, is given great significance by Islamic scholars and jurists and is also seen as the prime platform for the legal analysis. In circumstances when it is not possible to directly derive laws from the Quran and Hadith, it functions as a mechanism to extract laws and commandments by relying on its established doctrines. And it is known as a Quran/Hadith based theoretical principle in the world of Islamic wisdom. The aim of this research is to give a pragmatic account to the system of legal formation, rather than only providing a theoretical account. The vocabulary of Islamic legalese, by the way, is not of everyday language. To solve this issue and for easy understanding, this study is documented in a plain, yet professional, style with proper examples and scenarios in the context. It is essential that students and teachers of the relevant field be acquainted with the concepts of Uṣūl al-Fiqh as it is the integral platform for Islamic jurists. This research of Uṣūl al-Fiqh will help understand the fact that apprehending the laws and commandments of Islam by means of its original concepts and principles will certainly ensure the wide range of applicability, practicality and leniency in upholding its laws and commandments anywhere and anytime. The results of this study titled “Khass” in The Principles of Jurisprudence: An Applied Research include the compilation of multiple topics related to the concept of “Khass”, such as “Mutlaq, Muqayyad”, Amr and Nahy, which are scattered here and there in the Uṣūl texts, into one single title with the help of various texts written by both early scholars and modern-day scholars; facilitating the readers interested in this field by establishing the facts with practical examples; making the younger generation inclined towards early literature of this field of study by simplifying the subject; and approaching the laws embodied in the original text in-line with the fundamental Uṣūl principles rather than approaching the aforesaid in a superficial and syntactic manner.
More...Keywords: dehortative; eastern Mediterranean Arabic dialects; hortative; jussive; modality; negatives; prohibitive;
A few authors mention a hortative mood in Arabic, formed in a variety of manners, usually involving a pre-verbal element and an unmarked imperfective verb, sometimes thought of as the jussive or subjunctive. Not an imperative, the Arabic hortative may apply to all three persons. Its opposite, the dehortative, similarly not a prohibitive, also applies to all three persons, and it, too, is expressed in a variety of manners, all involving the unmarked imperfective verb and preverbal elements, often not negators but expressing an inherent negation. It may also be formed with reflexes of the negator miš preceding an unmarked imperfective verb. Such negation has been remarked in Egyptian Arabic in five types of constructions: in contrastive, metalinguistic, and rhetorical negation, in negations of progressive aspect, and in the dehortative. Not restricted to Egyptian Arabic, verbal negation with miš/muš/mhūš occurs in Levantine Arabics, Tunisian Arabic, and the closely related Maltese.
More...Keywords: Livonian language; jussive; hortative; imperative; morphosyntax; corpus linguistics;
Livonian like other Finnic languages has a complex morphological system. Unlike, e.g., Finnish and Estonian, Livonian has not been systematically standardised and thus exhibits vast variability in usage. This article discusses the results of a morphosyntactic corpus analysis of the Livonian jussive mood. The article presents previous research on the Livonian jussive, formal aspects of jussive occurrences in the corpus, and an analysis of arguments of the jussive predicates. Jussive object marking is given more attention due to the ambiguity of case marking in Livonian, namely, nominative and genitive (sometimes even partitive) forms frequently coincide. A possible interpretation of the ambiguous cases is suggested based on their usage and restrictions.
More...Keywords: idea of law; external freedom; the categorical imperative; radical evil
Kant proposed an apriorical account of the idea of law, according to which the law’s only legitimate goal is to guarantee for each citizen a possibly broad scope of external freedom compatible with the same scope of all other citizens. However, Kant did not make it entirely clear how this idea is to be justified. This paper presents two ways of justification, drawing on Kant’s view of the human nature. The first one appeals to the apriorical components of this view (rationality, freedom, equality, and dignity), and the second one is based on its empirical components (the ambivalent account of human predispositions).
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