Philosophy by Other Means?

I attempt to show that Marx was driven by a systematic philosophical goal expressed already in his doctoral dissertation and present throughout his mature political economic theory as well as in his practical political writings. I reconstruct this systematic – and critical – philosophical adventure in order to suggest that it is as philosophy that Marx's work retains its political bite today . In the process, I propose a reinterpretation of Marx's political theory that, once again, is traced through the entirety of Marx's corpus. The young Marx criticized Hegel's separation of the political from society; he then attempted to reduce the political sphere to civil society; the theory of alienated labor was elaborated as a theory of political economy that replaced the political; but in the end, when all three volumes of Capital and the unpublished Grundrisse are considered systematically, Marx sees capitalism as threatened ultimately by its inability to reflect politically on its own presuppositions, and hence its limits.     

高压氧医学与康复医学的协同发展

随着医学理论与实践的不断创新和发展,中国也正在努力寻求一种具有中国特色的现代医学发展模式.高压氧医学与康复医学都是新兴的边缘交叉性学科,具有广阔的发展潜能和空间;然而,两者在快速发展的同时也突显了一些问题,如:后续动力不足、发展方向不明确等.本文从哲学中联系与发展的角度出发,通过机制探讨及发展趋势的分析,试图寻找两者共同发展的结合点,为推动康复医学与高压氧医学在临床工作中的继续向前发展提供一种借鉴与参考.     

Lamenting the Golden Age: Love,Labour and Loss in the Collective Memory of Scientists

Abstract

Academic science is often described as having a moral economy underpinned by curiosity, creativity and a love of the subject. It is also described as having a political economy tied to national programmes for socio-economic growth. According to many writers, in recent decades those moral and political economies have become disconnected through greater managerial, audit and commercial practices pervading the academy. Classic ideals of professional norms and ethos have been eroded in these new economically incentivised environments. Biomedical scientists working at a major UK university echoed these sentiments, lamenting a lost ‘golden age’ of science characterised by intellectual freedom, serendipitous discovery and a love of doing science. In practice, their lamentation serves as a myth and expresses a key tension in pursuing science as a job and as a vocation. Playing a performative role in scientists' own self-understanding, the myth not only underwrites scientific identity, but also supports research management by demarcating ‘science’ from the practices that manage, measure and commercialise it. The ‘golden age’ emerges as a significant explanatory narrative in contemporary science. It embodies a moral economy that is detached from its institutional contexts, and thus unable to resolve the inequalities and tensions produced through the political economy that relies on it.     

Remembering with a friend or a stranger: comparing acquainted and unacquainted pairs in collaborative eyewitness interviews

ABSTRACT

Previous findings show that collaborative interviews with pairs of eyewitnesses can result in more accurate testimony than individual interviews, and that partners remember more together if they acknowledge, repeat, rephrase and elaborate upon each other's contributions. In the present study, we investigated whether these findings differ for pairs of acquainted and unacquainted partners, respectively. Participants viewed a violent movie in the cinema and took part in three eyewitness interviews approximately five days later. The first and the last interview were always individual. The second interview was individual in the nominal condition (N?=?22 pairs), collaborative with a known partner in the acquainted condition (N?=?21 pairs), and collaborative with a stranger in the unacquainted condition (N?=?20 pairs). We replicated benefits of collaborative eyewitness interviews, in terms of error pruning as well as delayed cross-cuing. However, we found no significant differences between acquainted and unacquainted pairs, neither in recall performance nor in retrieval strategies during the collaborative interview. Regardless of acquaintance, pairs who elaborated upon each other's contributions during the collaborative interview, remembered more together. The findings are evaluated within the theoretical framework of transactive memory. Practical implications for investigative interviewers are discussed.     

Controlling the Means of Production: The Urban Poor in An Age of Globalisation

Although the social variables of modernity and dependency theory have given way to neo-liberalism and globalism, life strategies of the urban poor in Latin America have not necessarily changed. At the same time, current sociological research reflects methodological distance in relation to the urban poor as a subject. This article employs the methodological advantages of observation/participation to show that the strategies of the urban poor in one of Latin America's largest slums are coherent and integrated, and reveal an inner logic that not only allow them to survive the harsh realities of globalism, but enable them contribute to popular urban culture. Self-help housing, the informal economy, and grassroots participation in Pentecostal Religion are inextricably bound by providing marginalised people a degree of autonomy and control over the production of certain cultural forms and their meaning.     

Author's response

The year 1996 was regarded by a considerable part of contemporary literature on global political economy as a definite turning point in modern history. The majority of experts tended to see the starting point of take‐off that year, but others—not a negligible minority—saw omens of disastrous recession and lasting depression. It appears the time has not yet come. The question is now that of the incalculable resultant of runaway (deregulated) forces of the international financial “whirlpool”, of a random process of global, regional and local accumulation of capital. The year 1997 will set in with a foreseeable and calculable agrarian and related cycle and it may find an outlet for accumulated tensions of capital accumulation at the high tide of unemployment (demographic or migratory) wave with unforeseeable and incalculable effects and side‐effects. This will be just the beginning of the end and a Black Weekday still lies ahead of us. There can be no doubt that we live in a transition period but we do not know where this transition leads to. Loose talk about “post‐industrial society”, “post‐modern age” and “postsomething anything” has limited interpretative power. Very few students of social sciences venture to see and verify secular trends in world history.     

INTEGRAL LEADERSHIP FOR THE 21 st CENTURY

Current leadership theories and business models—built around modernist assumptions about winners and losers, power and control, and local rather than global interactions—are decades out of date with what is needed to lead postindustrial and postmodern enterprises. This article calls for a collaborative and socially intelligent theory for leadership development based on Integral Science. This theory incorporates and unifies appropriate elements of current leadership research for a postmodern knowledge economy and seeks answers to questions still unanswered.     

Notes on "bioethics and sin" by Jean-Francois Collange.

Placing the notion of sin in the context of a meontic account of evil, and emphasizing the effect of sin on the sinner himself, this commentary exposes the insufficiency of restricting oneself to human efforts at atonement, and of thus underemphasizing the role of Christ. Collange's claim that the teaching of "predestination" is rooted in Paul and that the doctrine of merits and indulgences is rooted in Augustine is criticized, and Luther's "forensic" understanding is linked with Augustine, rather than with Paul. Collange's reduction of the concern for holiness to respect and trust is contrasted with holiness's essential context of loving unification with God. The commentary closes by exposing the unsatisfactory scantiness of Collange's treatment of cloning, health-care economy, and of the evils of life.     

A collaborative family-systemic approach to treating chronic illness: irritable bowel syndrome as exemplar

This article describes an evolving collaborative relationship between a family therapist and a physician focused on the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome, a highly prevalent disorder which has several psychological characteristics. We began with a unique approach utilizing (1) simultaneous treatment by both specialists; (2) a focus on the relationship context of illness. This approach draws on family systemic theory and practice as well as a circular model of mind and body interaction. Because the intervention was significantly helpful to patients, the premises which informed it were then incorporated into a five session group treatment model. Results and clinical report support the efficacy of a collaborative systemic approach between a medical specialist and family psychologist in treating adult chronic illness.     

Labor supply and consumption of food in a closed economy under a range of fixed- and random-ratio schedules: tests of unit price

The behavioral economic concept of unit price predicts that consumption and response output (labor supply) are determined by the unit price at which a good is available regardless of the value of the cost and benefit components of the unit price ratio. Experiment 1 assessed 4 pigeons' consumption and response output at a range of unit prices. In one condition, food was available according to a range of fixed-ratio schedules, whereas in the other condition, food was available according to a range of random-ratio schedules. Consistent with unit price predictions, consumption and response output were approximately equivalent across schedule types within the lower range of unit prices. However, at Unit Prices 64 (ratio value = 192) and greater, considerably more consumption and response output were observed in the random-ratio condition. Experiment 2 replicated these findings with 4 pigeons using the rapid demand curve assay procedure that is commonly used in the behavioral economics literature. Findings are integrated with two mathematical models of behavior under variable reinforcer delays.