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An Unmanaged World: A Philosophical Study of Global Dynamics /
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This book is devoted to the philosophical analysis of key problems of world development and prospects for global management. Based on both rich factual material and a holistic understanding of the world, the author shows how modern globalization has shifted the arena of interaction from individual territories and regions to the entire space of the Earth. The global problems resulting from this shift have led to a weakly regulated and unmanaged world, one that gives rise to acute contradictions for the world community. How can we improve this situation? According to the author, we must learn to "think globally and act together." This study argues that humanity needs a global civilizational revolution aimed at forming a planetary civil society and initiating a shift within international relations, from the "right of power" to the "power of law."
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1 online resource (254 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004746060
Empire of Improvisation : Taxation and Governance in Colonial Indonesia /
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Throughout colonial Indonesia, a common method to determine a boy's taxable age was to loop a rope around the chest. If the boy's head fitted through, his chest was still too small and he was too young; if not, he owed the government tax. Analysing unique archival sources from across Indonesia, this book shows how such pragmatic, locally embedded methods often overshadowed formal tax procedures, which colonial officials advanced as civilizing instruments of modernisation and state-power. It exposes taxation as a process in which improvisation, indigenous customs and everyday negotiations tied together formal regulations and ordinary local realities. A must-read for historians of empire in and beyond Southeast Asia, the book reshapes our understanding of colonial governance, challenging grand theories of colonial state formation by revealing the practicalities of everyday colonial rule and the agency of local actors manipulating the system from within.
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1 online resource (412 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004745766
Why did ancient states collapse? : the dysfunctional state
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Ancient states were rooted in agriculture, sedentism and population growth. They were fragile and prone to collapse, but there is no consensus on the causes or meaning of collapse, and there is an ongoing debate about the importance, nature and even existence of state-wide collapse
Explanations of collapse in terms of competing mono-causal factors are found inferior to those incorporating dynamic, interactive systems. It is proposed that collapse should be explained as failure to fulfil the ancient state’s core functions: assurance of food supplies, defence against external attack, maintenance of internal peace, imposition of its will throughout its territory, enforcement of state-wide laws, and promotion of an ideology to legitimise the political and social status quo.
To fulfil these functions certain necessary conditions must be met. The legitimacy of the political and social status quo, including the distribution of political power and wealth, needs to be accepted; the state should be able to extract sufficient resources to fulfil its functions such as defence; it must be able to enforce its decisions; the ruling elite should share a common purpose and actions; the society needs to reflect a shared spirit (asibaya) and purpose across elites and commoners who believe it is worthy of defence.
Weaknesses and failure to meet any condition can interact to exacerbate the situation: maladministration, corruption and elite preoccupation with self aggrandisement can induce fiscal weakness, reduced military budgets and further invasion; it can induce neglect of key infrastructures (especially water management). Inequality, a commonly neglected factor despite ancient texts, can erode asibaya and legitimacy and alienate commoners from defence of the state.
These themes are explored in relation to the Egyptian Old Kingdom, Mycenae, the Western Roman Empire (WRE), and the Maya. They all exhibit, to varying degrees, weaknesses in meeting the above conditions necessary for stability. (Some of the explanatory political and social factors involved have modern analogies but that issue is not examined).
The Paradigm of Recognition : Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death.
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In The Paradigm of Recognition. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death Paul Cobben defends the position that Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit contains all the building blocks to elaborate a paradigm of recognition which fundamentally criticizes the contemporary versions of Habermas, Rawls and Honneth. In his concept of recognition, the fear of death is the central category to understand the mediation between freedom and nature. Cobben not only systematically reconstructs how this view results from Hegel's criticism of Hume and Kant, but also shows how Hegel's three-part division of social freedom is based on this mediation. Therefore, Honneth wrongly thinks that his three forms of social freedom (related to love, respect and solidarity) correspond to Hegel's three-part division.
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Description based upon print version of record.
Answering Honneth's Questions from the Viewpoint of the Phenomenology of Spirit. :
1 online resource (221 pages) :
9789004231504 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Freedom of religion in the 21st century : a human rights perspective on the relation between politics and religion /
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Freedom of religion consists of the right to practice, to manifest and to change one's religion. The modern democratic state is neutral towards the variety of religions, but protects the right of citizens to practice their different religious beliefs. Recent history shows that a number of religious claims challenge the neutral state. This happens especially when secularity is rejected as the basis of the modern state. How can conflicting interpretations of the relation between religion and state be balanced in our world? This book reflects on conflicts that seem to be implied in the freedom of religion, on its causes and how they can be overcome. Contributors are: Katajun Armipur, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, Ian Cameron, Susanne Döhnert, Leslie Francis, Carsten Gennerich, Handi Hadiwitanto, Mandy Robbins, Prof. Hans Schilderman, Stefanie Schmahl, Carl Sterkens, Alexander Unser, Johannes A. van der Ven and Hans-Georg Ziebertz.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004304390 :
1877-881X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Valuing the past in the Greco-Roman world : proceedings from the Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values VII /
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The 'classical tradition' is no invention of modernity. Already in ancient Greece and Rome, the privileging of the ancient played a role in social and cultural discourses of every period. A collaboration between scholars in diverse areas of classical studies, this volume addresses literary and material evidence for ancient notions of valuing (or disvaluing) the deep past from approximately the fifth century BCE until the second century CE. It examines how specific communities used notions of antiquity to define themselves or others, which models from the past proved most desirable, what literary or exegetic modes they employed, and how temporal systems for ascribing value intersected with the organization of space, the production of narrative, or the application of aesthetic criteria.
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Papers presented at the Penn Leiden Colloquium on Ancient Values VII, entitled "Valuing Antiquity in Antiquity," Leiden University, June, 15-16, 2012. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004274952 :
0169-8958; ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
L'oblique dans le monde Grec : concept et imagerie /
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What could be more evident than the concepts of oblique, horizontal or vertical? In the modern world, these concepts form the basis of our thought system, both from a mathematical and artistic point of view. Everything would suggest that these principles were known to the Greek civilization. However, the study of the surviving texts casts a different light on the matter. Homer did not know the concept of oblique - no word could translate it into the language of his time. Even later, the Greeks had five adjectives approximately meaning oblique. Each discipline (cosmology, optic, geography, art, etc.) had its own way of looking at these five words. This work examines this topic.
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1 online resource : illustrations (black and white) :
Specialized. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781784911409 (PDF ebook) :
Philosophers on the Periphery of Ashkenaz : Jewish Intellectual Life and Philosophy in the Czech Lands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century. Officina Philosophica Hebraica Vol...
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Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) had many followers among Jews living in the Mediterranean Basin, but his philosophical books were almost totally ignored by Ashkenazi Jews. Yet, the eastern periphery of Ashkenaz was an exception: in the late fourteenth century a circle of veritable philosophers emerged in the Jewish community of Prague and existed until the end of the Hussite wars (ca. 1434). This book analyses the works of the most important members of the circle, Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen, Avigdor Kara, and Menahem Shalem, and examines the impact of philosophy on Jewish society using Max Weber's sociology and Marc Richir's phenomenology.
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1 online resource (458 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004746589
Grammatical case in the languages of the Middle East and Europe : acts of the International Colloquium Variations, concurrence et evolution des cas dans divers domaines linguistiqu...
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viii, 419 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9781885923844
1885923848 (pbk.)
The Power of the Powerless : The Workers Defense Committee (KOR) /
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The Workers' Defence Committee (KOR) was founded in 1976 in Poland. Its primal objective was to help people persecuted by the state. A year later it was transformed into the Committee for the Social Self-Defence 'KOR', which took up the continuous struggle for civil rights. Several hundred activists of the dissent movement created a parallel world in which the germs of civic society emerged - uncensored press and publishing houses, independent groups of students and farmers, the Flying University and free trade unions. Thus, KOR's founders created the new model of opposition in the communist system: acting openly in the framework of the law, founded on human and civil rights, non-violent, focused on reconstructing social ties and social consciousness, inciting social activity. This evolutionary strategy set the direction of democratic transition in Poland.
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1 online resource (480 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9783657798162
Ethics and spirituality in Islam : sufi adab /
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The notion of adab is at the heart of Arab-Islamic culture. Born in the crucible of the Arabic and Persian civilization, nourished by Greek and Indian influences, this polysemic notion could cover a variegated range of meanings: good behavior, knowledge of manners, etiquette, rules and belles-lettres and finally, literature. This collection of articles tries to explore how the formulations and reformulations of adab during the first centuries of Islam engage with the crucial period of the first great spiritual masters, exploring the importance of normativity, but also of transgression, in order to define the rules themselves. Assuming that adab is ethics, the articles analyse the genres of Sufi adab , including manuals and hagiographical accounts, from the formative period of Sufism until the modernity. Contributors are: Alberto F. Ambrosio, Nelly Amri, Francesco Chiabotti, Rachida Chih, Ralf Elger, Eve Feuillebois-Pierunek, Maria Chiara Giorda, Denis Gril, Paul L. Heck, Nathan Hofer, Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Annabel Keeler, Pierre Lory, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, Erik S. Ohlander, Samuela Pagani, Luca Patrizi, Michele Petrone, Stefan Reichmuth, Lloyd Ridgeon, Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Florian Sobieroj, Renaud Soler, Jean-Jacques Thibon, Mikko Viitamäki.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004335134 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Judiciary and Arbitration in Bahrain : A Historical and Analytical Study /
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Although Bahrain has had an established system of law courts since 1771, it was only in the course of the twentieth century that it gradually developed a fully-fledged legal system compatible with international norms. Today, like the other Gulf states, its sophisticated judiciary represents a blend of Islamic Shari'a, British common law, and modern reforms drawn principally from Egypt's civil law-influenced trdition. In recent decades, arbitration has also taken its place as an important adjunct to the judiciary.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004480407
9789041122179
The quality of heroic living, of high endeavour and adventure : Anglican mission, women, and education in Palestine, 1888-1948 /
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This work focuses on Anglican mission and women's education in Palestine in the period from 1888 till 1948. As part of the \'enlightenment movement\' the project was initiated by British women educational pioneers, who influenced women to carry out the creed of academic training for girls also in colonial areas. While the educational profile of the pre-World War One schools mainly focused on modernisation of the domestic role, during the British Mandate the highly educated Anglican women teachers had two aims for their work: To create a peaceful multi-cultural environment in a society characterised by religious and ethnic strife and secondly to introduce a modern feminine ideal to Christian, Muslim and Jewish middle-and upper class girls. This study contributes to our knowledge of the Anglican missionary project, the role of women misionaries/educators and the history of Palestine.
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1 online resource (xxxvii, 357 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 342-350) and index. :
9789004320062 :
0924-9389 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
SS thinking and the Holocaust.
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SS ideology was the expression of an apparently philosophical self-containing system of thought, articulated around a systematic body of knowledge claiming to integrate humanity inside a global vision of Being. Using ontology and anthropology as foundations, SS thinking developed essentially in the field of ethics. It portrayed itself as a global approach to society and civilization, based on eugenics and ethnic cleansing. It accomplished the fusion of the modern biological paradigm with the cultural shock brought about by World War I and promoted total war for the sake of total health. And since institutional philosophy largely ignores SS theory and praxis, Holocaust memorial institutions may represent an alternative for the development of understanding and reflection. Within the context of Nazism, SS thinking did much to work out the theory for which the Holocaust would be the ultimate accomplishment. It intended to provide the Holocaust with legitimacy, from the viewpoints of ontology, anthropology, politics, and ethics, whence the importance of studying the theoretical framework that gave sense to the most terrible form of SS praxis.
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1 online resource (132 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401207829 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The heart in antiquity : a journey through Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Pre-Hispanic America and Greece /
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"This book represents the first systematic investigation on ancient cardiology, which includes the first civilizations of human history, such as those flourished in Mesopotamia, Pharaonic Egypt, Vedic India, and China. It includes also major pre-Hispanic civilizations at their apex, namely the Maya, Aztec and Inca, given that they shared fundamental features with the first ones. Finally, it closes with Greek medicine because it represents crucial advancements which paved the way to modern cardiology. Nothing similar have been previously attempted, and we believe that just this feature represents an important value of this work. The cardiovascular system was not well understood anywhere in antiquity. The heart and vessels were viewed as system of conduits containing all kind of physiological and pathological fluids, such as blood, sperm, sweat, urine, and feces. Arteries and veins were not distinguished from either an anatomical or a physiological point of view. Circulation was far from being understood. After millennia of ignorance, William Harvey, in 1628, demonstrated that the heart was a pump and its function was to push blood in the systemic circulation. This is rightly considered the dawn of modern cardiovascular medicine. Consequently, all ideas, theories and practices of ancient medicine were reduced to unimportant superstitions. Historians of medicine, adapting to that 'dogma', relegated pre-Harveian cardiology to roughs notes, preventing a proper historical evaluation of many centuries of cardiovascular conceptions and practices. All the ancient civilizations investigated in that book shared the conviction that the heart was the biological and spiritual center of the body, as the seat of emotions, mind, will, vital energy and the soul. That the heart maintained a special role both in religion and in medicine across millennia, surviving from cultural and scientific revolutions, deserves to be investigated and, possibly, explained. During the last decades, new advancements in cardiovascular and neurological physiology and pathology, shed new light on ancient ideas. Researchers are focusing on the so-called brain-heart axis, which demonstrate how these organs are strictly interconnected. Moreover, the role of the heart in emotions is becoming even more important. Indeed, ancient conceptions about the heart are founding a new validation in the physiological and neurological ground. Therefore, a first attempt of rediscovering the earliest theories and practices of cardiovascular medicine couldn't wait any longer. Finally, the celebration for the eight centuries of the University of Padua (1222-2022), represented the best occasion to undertake such an ambitious project. We hope to have been able to reach the goal, at least in the form of an original work which might inspire further researches and discoveries."--Page 4 of cover.
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452 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps, charts ; 24 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-436) and index. :
9788891327826
8891327824