SummaryThis article addresses the appeal of saints and sainthood in the years 1945 to 1960. Part 1 cites the 1957 diary of Susan Sontag, who focused on the cultural power of the Roman Catholic Church and drew attention to three European women: Teresa of Avila, Edith Stein, and Frances Cabrini. Reasons that these three (all Catholic saints) would have been in Susan Sontag's mind in 1957 are explored. In Part 2, wider attention is applied to the year 1957. Writers who (...) were dealing with sainthood (Camus, Kazantzakis, Genet, Kerouac, O'Connor, Werfel, etc.) are discussed, as well as non-Catholics acclaimed as ‘saints’ (Simone Weil, Dietrich Bonhoeffer) and persons admired as ‘living saints’ (Albert Schweitzer, Padre Pio). Part 3 considers the influence of some major canonisations in the inter-war era (e.g., Joan of Arc, Thomas More) and the widespread access to Vatican spectacle afforded by photojournalism and newsreel. Four routes of analysis are pursued: the veneration of saints as a response to wartime suffering and loss; the vigour of the vocabulary of sainthood, uncontaminated by Nazi or Stalinist abuse; the special appeal of the ‘outsider’ saint; and the political interests of the Vatican and Christian Democratic parties. (shrink)

The following paper presents a proposal of a theoretical foundation for an application of distributed cognition in overcoming post-war traumas and related social conflicts. The distributed cognition theory states that the cognitive system is a structure distributed between internal-mental and external-objective social world representations across time and space. The basic issue of dialogue in distributed cognition is that distribution as information dissemination in each cognitive component functions in a systemic integrity. The presented perspective of overcoming traumas and war conflicts (...) through dialogue refers to the following aspects of human activity: 1 - the perception of an environment as a construct of own life path and self-image; 2 - active creation of a desired world, life space and desired self; 3 - agentic cognitive mapping of an environment as a real, virtual and potential life space; 4 - a way of elastic control over an environment through discovering objectively present environmental affordances; 5 - achieving agency through discovering possibilities for action rather than barriers; 6 - making the cognitive system more flexible through a change in style of thinking to a constant state of openness to new meanings and values. (shrink)

For most of the 20th century literature and criticism of literature functioned as central engines of cultural change across the western world. This was especially the case in ex-colonial societies like New Zealand where writers and intellectuals frequently expressed a desire to create sophisticated local cultures which could compete with the foundation societies in Europe. Between 1940 and 1984 New Zealand writers and intellectuals developed a mode of literary criticism which this essay refers to as `Literary Critique' for this very (...) reason. In the absence of well established cultural traditions and a sense that they had a duty to import and indigenise western intellectual thought in order to further the evolution of New Zealand culture, a series of writers wrote often scathing critiques of their culture, using literature as their point of entry. Post-War New Zealand Literary Critique stands as evidence of a provincial, masculine, and angry intellectual culture. (shrink)

The historiography on the concept of race in the post-war sciences has focused predominantly on the UNESCO campaign against scientific racism and on the Anglo-American research community. By way of contrast, this article highlights the history of the concept of race from a thus far unexplored angle: from Swiss research centres and their global interconnections with racial researchers around the world. The article investigates how the acceptance, resonance, and prestige of racial research changed during the post-war years. It (...) analyses what resources could be mobilised that enabled researchers to carry out and continue scientific studies in the field of racial research or even to expand them and link them to new contexts. From this perspective, the article looks at the dynamics, openness, and contingency of the European post-war period, which was less stable, anti-racist, and spiritually renewed than retrospective success stories often suggest. The pronounced internationality of Swiss racial science and its close entanglement with the booming field of human genetics in the early 1950s point to the ambiguities of the period’s political and scientific development. I argue that the impact of post-war anti-racism on science was more limited than is frequently assumed: it did not drain the market for racial knowledge on a continent that clung to imperialism and was still shaped by racist violence. Only from the mid 1950s onwards did a series of unforeseen events and contingent shifts curtail the importance of the race concept in various sectors of the human sciences. (shrink)

Between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, the quotidian dimension took political centrality in Japan thanks to the leading role of the New Left movement and its ideology. This went hand in hand with an appreciation of the philosophical approaches of Marxist intellectuals such as Jun Tosaka and Gorō Hani, who saw the quotidian as a fundamental space for historical transformation. We know how Tosaka and Hani developed an everyday-centred philosophy of history through their writings, but we know little about (...) how formats other than the written word – such as cinema – contributed to thinking historical reality from the same ideological approach. To address this gap in our understanding, this article analyses the intersection of two highly representative films with Tosaka and Hani’s historical thought: Secrets Within Walls ( Kabe no naka no himegoto, Kōji Wakamatsu, 1965) and Ceremonies ( Gishiki, Nagisa Ōshima, 1971). These films’ cinematic allegorisation of post-war Japan’s everyday relationships was a way to reflect on the political character of that period. (shrink)

The military actions, the loss of human lives and especially the cruelty of the Nazi and Fascist regimes and armies caused a reaction among the allied governments, the public and intellectuals. The Nazi regime in Germany and its actions, in general, even before the beginning of WWII caused an initially mild and later a sharp reaction and criticism in the democratic world. However, the behaviour and fanaticism of the German armed forces and their atrocities during the war could not but (...) cause reflections about how the allied countries, especially the larger ones, should deal with the defeated Germany. The experience of WWI had shown that German Nazism had, as its basis, the militarism which was present everywhere, including in the educational process. That is why many in the United States and Great Britain began to think aloud about a complete change of the German educational system and the re-education of the Germans after the military victory. There was a great dilemma over the questions of how to carry out that re-education, whether to include only the younger population that was exposed to Nazi indoctrination, and whether Germans who were opponents of Nazism should be included in that process. The debates were conducted among politicians, in the public, among scholars and scientists. The view that gradually prevailed was that the issue was complex and that some Germans should be involved in the re-education process after the War. (shrink)

The intellectual origins of molecular biology are usually traced back to the 1930s. By contrast, molecular biology acquired a social reality only around 1960. To understand how it came to designate a community of researchers and a professional identity, I examine the creation of the first institutes of molecular biology, which took place around 1960, in four European countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland. This paper shows how the creation of these institutes was linked to the results of (...) post-war economic reconstruction. Then, it compares how the promoters of these different institutional projects delimited the goals of their discipline, reflected on its history, and suggested how research should be organised. I show how they carefully positioned their new discipline within the emerging national science policy discourse of the 1950s, and aligned it with the current vision of scientific modernity. In particular, I discuss how they articulated the meaning of molecular biology with respect to five common themes: the role of physics in the atomic age, the relations between fundamental research and medical applications, the ‘Americanisation’ of scientific research, the value of science in the reconstruction of national identities, and the drive towards interdisciplinary research. This paper thus demonstrates that beyond the local and national accounts there is a European history of molecular biology. (shrink)

Taken in general terms, “hermeneutics” refers to the study of understanding and interpretation, and, traditionally, this study focuses on considerations of the art, method, and foundations of research in the arts and humanities. The study of hermeneutics has been developed and applied in a number of areas of scholarly inquiry, such as biblical exegesis, literary studies, legal studies, and the medical humanities. In the context of post-war Continental European thought, however, hermeneutics is brought into a novel philosophical context and, (...) with this, comes to designate a philosophical movement – or, at least, a number of related philosophers and themes – concerned with the scope and limits of phenomenology, the character of human existence, the relation of the natural sciences and humanities, as well as a range of interrelated matters in the philosophy of history, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of art and aesthetics, practical philosophy, as well as in epistemology and the theory of meaning. (shrink)

French social and philosophical thought has played a very significant role in the development of European and American social theory. This detailed, timely book provides a map of the production and reception of French social thought within a global sociological context. Critically comparing the work of five key theorists Derek Robbins examines how their ideas were produced and received before persuasively setting out the key differences between their philosophical and ideological positions. The book sensitively traces the cross-currents of social theory (...) and confidently leads the reader through the complex foundations of Western social thought. Each chapter represents a textual analysis of the production of a critical intellectual and focuses upon the work of: Althusser, Foucault, Aron, Lyotard, Bourdieu. This carefully crafted volume represents a significant contribution to the globalization of theory and will be essential reading for anyone interested in Western social theory and the foundations of sociological thought."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

An essential introduction to post-war critical thought on the problem of violence.

Appropriate for both academic readers and informed general enthusiasts of the cinema it addresses, the book demonstrates both philosophy's particular usefulness for the analysis of modernist cinema and film form's inherent potential for ...

Summary The development of post-war German social sciences is marked by a series of disputes about the nature and implications of positivist methodology. Two of these are selected for consideration here; the ‘positivist dispute’ in German sociology associated with Adorno and Popper, and the more diffuse assault on positivism in the legal sciences. In both cases, self-avowed positivists were in fact hard to find but the debates were important polemical disputes about the past—notably the Weimar Republic and the Third (...) Reich—and the future of the young Federal Republic. It is suggested below that these disputes should be seen in this context and that the polemical claim in both disputes that certain methodological standpoints mandated specific moral and political commitments is more questionable. (shrink)

Summary This article examines the complex nature of post-war Italian political thought, stressing the importance of Italy's unusual institutional and historical political arrangements, but also the vibrancy of its political ideologies in this period. In the past it has often been argued that the dysfunctional nature of post-war Italian democracy with its rapidly changing governments, and widespread corruption—which nonetheless coexisted with the one party, the Christian Democrats, being constantly in power—led to the atrophying of political theory in general, (...) and political ideologies in particular. But this picture is strongly disputed here—on the contrary it is argued that Christian Democratic, Left and liberal political ideologies were all complex and interesting. Thus if Christian democracy should ultimately be seen as an ‘ideology of transition’ which existed to help Catholicism adapt to the parameters of modern mass democracy, and which lacked a thinker of the calibre of Jacques Maritain, it nevertheless contained within it important debates on the role of the state, between such interesting thinkers as Giuseppe Dossetti and Alcide De Gasperi. And if anything, political thinking on the Left in the post-war period was even more complex, with visceral debates within the (large) Communist Party (PCI) over whether to work within the law—between such thinkers as Palmiro Togliatti and the Il Manifesto group. Equally on the more revolutionary Left, there were important debates about how quickly capitalism could be made to collapse through revolutionary action between thinkers such as Raniero Panzieri and his more radical disciples, Mario Tronti and Antonio Negri, while later, due to the general failure of these revolutionary efforts, post-modern thinkers such as Gianni Vattimo sought to abandon grand metaphysical narratives, whilst retaining a commitment to Left of centre political commitments. Finally, although not part of a widespread mass movement, the liberal thought of Norberto Bobbio was also highly interesting and sophisticated—borrowing from Hobbes and Kelsen, he sought to advocate a modest form of liberal democracy which allowed for civilised forms of conflict, and the protection of minorities, and which rejected the contention of Marxists that civil rights could not be distinguished from economic ones. Overall, if normative aspirations in post-war Italian politics were often frustrated in practice, this was certainly not due to any lack of theoretical vibrancy. (shrink)

This article traces a discontinuous tradition of council thought from the Dutch and German council communist tendencies of the 1920s to its re-emergence in the writings of three important mid-twentieth-century political theorists: Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, and Hannah Arendt. It connects an intellectual history of the council concept in post-war Europe with a political history of the small revolutionary groups that fostered council-related political activity during this era. It claims that, as the experience of the European council movements began (...) to be interpreted within a new political context, this gave rise to several radically altered forms of council thought. In this more subjectivist and praxis-oriented tradition, the councils became a utopian placeholder for theorists to explore their particular interests in human creativity (Castoriadis), self-limiting power (Lefort), and political freedom (Arendt). This analysis develops our understanding of the continuities and ruptures of the council tradition within political thought. (shrink)

Chinese liberalism since the May Fourth Movement had a strong tendency of being rationalistic, statist, and anti-traditionalist. This chapter explains how through the influence of Hayek’s classical liberalism and Michael Oakeshott’s idea of a tradition of behavior, post-war Chinese liberalism has experienced a conservative turn and has started to put more emphasis on the creative transformation of the Chinese tradition to nurture the development of liberal values and institutions in China. The strengths and weaknesses of the contributions made in (...) this regard by leading post-war Chinese liberals like David Chow, Yin Haikuang, Lin Yu-sheng, Liu Junning and Qiu Feng are examined. (shrink)

The letters of S. I. Hessen and I. I. Lapshin, two Russian Neo-Kantian philosophers, were written in the early post-war years. These letters bear witness to the later period in the life and work of their authors, a period of hardship, tragic losses and hopes. Both philosophers were deeply embedded in the intellectual landscape of Russian emigration. They were also known and valued by their peers in the countries that gave them refuge, Poland and Czechoslovakia, where they not only (...) published their works, but also taught young scholars. Hessen, being considerably younger than Lapshin, continued teaching and actively publishing after the war, including outside Poland. Lapshin in Czechoslovakia was less in demand, but continued preparing his works for publication. The reflections of the two authors shed light on the idea content of their later works, which is particularly valuable in reconstructing the conception of the texts which were not completed at the time of their death and have survived only in the shape of plans and rough notes. It is also interesting that in their letters Hessen and especially Lapshin expound the Kantian element of their philosophical views as well as sharing their impressions of the development of philosophy in the middle of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Fulfilling the needs of securing the food market was a key problem for the economy of the People’s Republic of Poland. According to the assumptions of the socialist system, all basic means of production were owned by the state and society as a whole, and production: its structure and volume depended on central assumptions. Farmers not only had to face the issue of reconstruction of farms in the post-war period, they were also obliged to make compulsory deliveries, and had (...) the main responsibility for feeding the country. Production capacity in the face of the growing needs of society was insufficient, which forced rationing and the use of substitutes in the diet. There were periodic declines in the consumption of selected commodities, especially meat. The purpose of this article is to analyze the situation of the food market in the period 1945–1989, taking into account the burden of the countryside, the level of consumption and the import and export of basic food products. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss further aspects of just war theory. Firstly we examine the claims that Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Kant make about moral actions during war, including right conduct, proportionality and non-combatant immunity. This is followed by an analysis of post-war justice, including exacting reparations, slavery and the right of dominion. Finally, we consider the issue of colonialism and ownership of the seas.

The intellectual origins of molecular biology are usually traced back to the 1930s. By contrast, molecular biology acquired a social reality only around 1960. To understand how it came to designate a community of researchers and a professional identity, I examine the creation of the first institutes of molecular biology, which took place around 1960, in four European countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Switzerland. This paper shows how the creation of these institutes was linked to the results of (...) post-war economic reconstruction. Then, it compares how the promoters of these different institutional projects delimited the goals of their discipline, reflected on its history, and suggested how research should be organised. I show how they carefully positioned their new discipline within the emerging national science policy discourse of the 1950s, and aligned it with the current vision of scientific modernity. In particular, I discuss how they articulated the meaning of molecular biology with respect to five common themes: the role of physics in the atomic age, the relations between fundamental research and medical applications, the 'Americanisation' of scientific research, the value of science in the reconstruction of national identities, and the drive towards interdisciplinary research. This paper thus demonstrates that beyond the local and national accounts there is a European history of molecular biology. (shrink)

This book is a study of comparative social and political theory, examining how Hayek’s classical liberalism has been influencing the development of Chinese liberalism since 1949. While both Chinese liberalism and the thought of Hayek can each be studied in its own right, this is the first systematic study on how Hayek’s ideas have helped post-war Chinese liberals enrich their social and political theory in the pursuit of freedom and in formulating theoretical responses to the challenges of modernity in (...) China. This book examines and identifies those central theoretical tenets of Hayek that are most inspiring to the post-war Chinese liberals in their efforts in developing a more robust and profound understanding of freedom in the Chinese context. It argues that the new post-war understanding of Chinese liberalism has superseded the social democratic understanding that was widely adopted by pre-war Chinese liberals. These theoretical/Hayekian tenets include: the critique of totalitarianism and scientism, the idea of the free market, the insights inherited from the Scottish Enlightenment to counter the excess of Cartesian Rationalism, the thesis of the concurrent evolution of culture and mind, and the central importance of the rule of law in defending individual freedom. This book aims to help political theorists and historians of comparative political thought both in the East and in the West better understand the intellectual issues involved and explore further research endeavours in the same area. (shrink)

This essay follows the movements of the word “scene” across post-war French thought. The word appears at pivotal moments in the period: it is at the centre of Laplanche and Pontalis’ develo...

This article ethnographically explores the consumption practices and strategies of Sarajevan households, framing them in the economic and socio-cultural dynamics that affected family life following the war and post socialist transformation. Displacement and the collapse of the socialist economic system led to Sarajevans suffering downward socio-economic mobility and widespread mistrust of the world outside. Despite the material issues that could be moral justification for the consumption strategies driven by strict necessity and familism, this article will consider how donations and (...) credits are used to convey a sort of symbolic reappropriation of the home and to strive to reposition the household’s socio-economic status. Ultimately the article takes into account how these consumption strategies reshape social relations within and outside the family in the peculiar conjuncture of post-war neoliberalism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on independent training providers (ITPs) – in other words, private companies – as suppliers of vocational education and training in post-war England. Whilst acknowledging the central role of further education (FE) colleges in delivering vocational learning, it draws attention to a large, diverse sector of ITPs operating alongside FE colleges, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Data suggest that around 15–20% of vocational learners were enrolled as fee-paying customers with private providers at that time – a (...) figure broadly similar to today. There are, it is argued, three related reasons for this. First, the post-war policy environment, and the varied and uneven nature of colleges at that time, allowed significant room for ITPs to operate as alternative providers of vocational education. Second, the far-reaching ‘efficiency’ gains required since FE colleges left local authority control have largely attenuated the space in which ITPs previously operated. Third, neoliberal assumptions about the superiority of private enterprise mean that ITPs now receive significant funding from the state, largely to deliver Apprenticeships and other programmes of work-related learning – which has, somewhat perversely, reduced the incentive for them to act as bone fide commercial providers of a broader range of vocational learning. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. In the context of the global environmental crisis, accompanied by growing awareness of resource limitations and the impact of human activity, environmental business is becoming increasingly relevant. In Ukraine, its importance has intensified due to the full-scale war, which has led to massive environmental damage and infrastructure destruction. The aim of this study is to identify the socio-philosophical foundations of the development of environmental business in Ukraine, to analyze its current (...) challenges, and to outline prospects for recovery in the post-war period. M e t h o d s. The research applies an interdisciplinary approach at the intersection of social philosophy, economics, and ecology. It uses systemic, comparative-analytical, sociocultural, and prognostic methods, as well as content analysis of scientific literature, reports of international organizations, and strategic documents. This methodology enables the integration of philosophical reflection with empirical data concerning the current state of environmental business in Ukraine. R e s u l t s. The study analyzes the prerequisites for the development of environmental business globally and in Ukraine, particularly its functioning before and during the war. Key challenges are identified, including destroyed infrastructure, environmental pollution, low investment attractiveness, and lack of institutional support. The need for a roadmap for ecological recovery and the synergy between social entrepreneurship and environmental business is substantiated. Environmental business is shown to have the potential to become a driver of sustainable development, job creation, and the formation of environmental awareness. Strategic directions for government support are proposed, including economic incentives, legal frameworks, and international assistance. C o n c l u s i o n s. In post-war Ukraine, environmental business holds the potential to become a foundation for sustainable economic recovery and social cohesion. Its development depends on the active involvement of the state, private sector, and civil society. The formation of a green economy and integration into EU environmental standards open opportunities for international partnerships, investment, and innovation. Environmental business, as a socially responsible form of entrepreneurship, emerges as a new ideologeme of social progress in the face of global challenges. (shrink)

The article explores the issue of identifying a concept of justice that could serve as the foundation for the socio-political organization of post-war Ukraine. The authors argue that society needs a clear ideal aligned with European values, the historical experience, and the cultural traditions of the Ukrainian people. The categories of freedom, equality, and justice are examined as potential cornerstones of the future order. Taking into account the reactive nature of negative freedom, the specific perception of equality, and Ukraine’s (...) course toward European integration, the authors justify the choice of justice as the most stable and universal foundation. Based on a comparative analysis of contemporary theories of justice, the conclusion is drawn that John Rawls’s theory of justice is the most suitable for implementation in the Ukrainian context. This concept is capable of ensuring a balance between individual freedoms and social responsibility, aligning both with the demands of Ukrainian society and the standards of the European democratic community. It combines theoretical soundness with practical feasibility. John Rawls’ principles of justice offer solutions to a wide range of inequality-related challenges. In the field of education, in particular, their implementation can form the basis for securing fair access to higher education, create conditions under which the education system promotes social mobility, and enable the introduction of fair and transparent mechanisms for granting draft deferments to higher education students. Thanks to its universality, interdisciplinary foundation, and alignment with European democratic values, this concept, in the authors’ view, can serve as the basis for an ideal form of socio-political organization – one that will guide and inspire Ukrainians in the post-war period. (shrink)

The Yugoslav wars of secession in the 1990s left traces of the past among the societies living in the successor states. Those traces can be found within the collective memory of these societies, and are transmitted through various communication channels to the next generation. Today, this post-war and post-Yugoslav generation, born during or shortly after the violent conflicts, are young adults dealing with the recent past. Based on findings from life-story interviews that are examined and interpreted using the (...) approach of sequence analysis, I elaborated a model of the transregional post-Yugoslavs’ communication system regarding the wars. I identified three communication practices on war-related topics by actively reflecting on the “Other,” which I present in this paper. During their adolescent years, post-Yugoslavs created their own narratives, and thus their own, authentic communication strategies in response to the “invisible war,” which still continues today, according to the post-Yugoslav generation. (shrink)

Medicine and the humanities have been exploring new ways to improve the quality of healthcare. One such collaboration is the practice of narrative medicine which uses literature to teach physicians to better meet their patients’ needs. Narrative medicine, however, draws primarily from Anglophone literature, yet post-war French literature, philosophy and criticism have much to add to the theoretical and practical underpinnings of narrative medicine. As well, such scholarship provokes a number of questions that expose certain weaknesses in narrative medicine (...) as it is practiced currently. As this paper demonstrates, drawing post-war French literature into narrative medicine opens new ways to think about life, narrative and the place of the patient in the modern healthcare system. (shrink)

Within cognitive science, narratives are regarded as crucial and fundamental cognitive instruments or tools. As Roger Schank suggests, the identity of (sub-)cultures is to a considerable extent based upon the sharing of narrative structures (Schank. 1995. Tell me a story: Narrative and intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.). According to Schank, culturally shared stories, as do many other stories, occur frequently in highly abbreviated form, as “skeleton stories” or “gists.” Collective identities are conveyed in and between cultures not only through (...) verbal discourse, but also by pictorial means. Many pictures and visual artworks have indeed been produced in order to establish and to consolidate a home-culture and to demarcate it from conceived extra-cultural counterparts. Some of my previous work on these lines has been concerned with demarcation efforts in visual media of “Jews” as extra-cultural, since the Middle Ages onwards, in the Third Reich’s iconography, as well as in modern, radicalized forms of anti-Semitic picturing in Arab media (Ranta. 2016. The (pictorial) construction of collective identities in the Third Reich. Language and Semiotic Studies 2(3). 107–124, Ranta. 2017. Master narratives and the (pictorial) construction of otherness: Anti-semitic images in the Third Reich and beyond. Contemporary Aesthetics 15. https://contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=765 (accessed 17 November 2019.). In building upon and extending this work, I shall focus in the current paper upon attempts of creating cultural and political cohesion by means of pictorial propaganda in post-war China from the early 1950’s onwards, as promoted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the leadership by Mao Zedong. Some concrete pictorial examples indicating these attempts will be discussed from a narratological and cultural semiotic perspective. (shrink)

ABSTRACT For almost 80 years, post-war Japanese moral education has adopted a dual-process structure, which states morality is taught through two processes: one through all aspects of school education and the other through a special moral education class. The necessity and effectiveness of this structure were theorised by Eijiro Inatomi. However, it has been almost neglected that his theory is largely based on Aristotle’s theory of virtue. This paper examines Inatomi’s Aristotle-inspired theory and its significance. After reviewing the social (...) and historical background of his theory, I argue that Inatomi successfully adopted Aristotle’s theory of virtue in three respects: human definition, intellectual virtue, and ethical virtue. Finally, I suggest that post-war Japanese moral education can be understood as a nationwide social implementation experiment on the efficacy of Aristotelian virtue ethics and that Inatomi’s notion of cosmos can serve as a conceptual device to enhance the social feasibility of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. (shrink)

In 2003, biophysicist and Nobel Laureate Maurice Wilkins published his autobiography entitled The Third Man. In the preface, he diffidently points out that the title was chosen by his publisher, as a reference to the famous 1949 movie no doubt, featuring Orson Welles in his classical role as penicillin racketeer Harry Lime. In this paper I intend to show that there is much more to this title than merely its familiar ring. If subjected to a comparative analysis, multiple correspondences between (...) movie and memoirs can be brought to the fore. Taken together, these documents shed an intriguing light on the vicissitudes of budding life sciences research during the post-war era. I will focus my comparative analysis on issues still relevant today, such as dual use, the handling of sensitive scientific information and, finally, on the interwovenness of science and warfare. Thus, I will explain how science autobiographies on the one hand and genres of the imagination on the other may deepen our comprehension of tensions and dilemmas of life sciences research then and now. For that reason, science autobiographies can provide valuable input for teaching philosophy and history of science to science students. (shrink)

During more than two decades, Lord Grenville’s views on the monetary system did not change. They were mostly centred on two aspects. First, the suspension of cash payments of its notes by the Bank of England was a calamity: justified at the outset as a temporary measure, it should not be prolonged year after year, even in time of war. Second, the substitution of country banks’ notes for coins which had taken place all over England outside the London area was (...) a threat to economic and social stability. These unflagging views did not prevent Grenville from advocating gradualism on the return after war to a sound monetary system – that is, one endowed with a metallic standard thanks to the convertibility of the Bank of England note into coin and to the pre-eminence of specie in the country circulation. This mixture of monetary orthodoxy and gradualism led Grenville in 1819 to support Ricardo’s novel plan for convertibility into bullion, provided it was understood as a temporary scheme aiming at facilitating the resumption of convertibility into coin. It also led him in the 1820s to resist the pressures in favour of the return to a double standard (gold and silver). (shrink)

Thinking Radical Democracy is an introduction to nine key political thinkers who contributed to the emergence of radical democratic thought in post-war French political theory: Hannah Arendt, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Pierre Clastres, Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Guy Debord, Jacques Rancière, Étienne Balibar, and Miguel Abensour. The essays in this collection connect these writers through their shared contribution to the idea that division and difference in politics can be perceived as productive, creative, and fundamentally democratic. The questions they raise regarding equality (...) and emancipation in a democratic society will be of interest to those studying social and political thought or democratic activist movements like the Occupy movements and Idle No More. --Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The Yalta and Potsdam conferences of 1945, which laid the foundations of the modern world order, are considered the highest diplomatic achievements of World War II. At these conferences, all issues relating to the new world order were resolved by the will of the Allies, united in the anti- Hitler coalition. During the final stage of the war, the existing plans for the complete destruction of the Third Reich were coordinated, and the foundation for a new world order after the (...) war was established. The main topics of discussion at the conferences included achieving the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, determining the future of Germany, ensuring the payment of reparations for war damages, establishing a common political line concerning the European states liberated from occupation, and creating an international organization for security and cooperation, with the goal of making it a decisive factor in ensuring the stability of the newly emerging system of international relations. However, after the defeat of the common enemy, the existing disagreements between the Allies- who had united in the anti-Hitler coalition to fight against fascism and militarism- intensified and soon led to a split into two large blocs. The newly formed Yalta-Potsdam system developed under the conditions of a bipolar system of international relations. (shrink)

This article offers a new reading of the US–UK Diagnostic Project (1965–75), a series of influential collaborative studies that tested the ability of psychiatrists on either side of the Atlantic to diagnose schizophrenia, exploring its historical origins, significance, and legacy. Using archival materials to trace the contest between two of the key players in the Diagnostic Project, Aubrey Lewis and Morton Kramer, it explores how the methodological allegiance between biostatistics and clinical psychiatry was forged in a decade in which psychiatry (...) was undergoing a public crisis. The article unpacks how the place of diagnosis in psychiatry was fundamentally transformed through this important and overlooked collaboration, in which computational methods were strategically used to steer post-war psychiatry from crisis to consensus. (shrink)

The review of activity of local governments of Leningrad on the solution of social problems is presented in article in the period of the Great Patriotic War and restoration of municipal economy during the post-war period. The considerable attention is paid to questions of ensuring activity of the population and the main directions of social policy. Consequences of the public regress caused by war, which detained for many decades development of the social sphere in the country, are not studied (...) yet. In this regard, the judgment of process of overcoming of these consequences, research of the principles of work, methods and forms of administrative activities for the organization of full-fledged life of citizens during the recovery post-war period and in the next decades is of special interest. Completion of World War II entailed changes in a control system of the country - as it is known, extraordinary bodies of authority and management of a wartime in the capital and on places were abolished. Management of restoration and maintenance of full functioning life support system of the cities and areas transferred to local governments of the Soviet power - to city and regional councils of deputies and their constantly operating executive committees. The role of the social sphere in modern conditions more and more increases in improvement of economy, development of democratic processes. The scientific analysis of activity of the central and local authorities for protection and providing the population in years of war and the post-war period gives more deep understanding of role and importance of social questions in life of society. It reveals historical experience of creation, development and implementation of effective mechanism of such activity, that experience is useful for modern management practice of state and local authorities. The considerable case of sources, among which analytical and research works of applied and theoretical character is analyzed. (shrink)

The glamor of the working female geologist was associated visually with the microscope. This chapter examines the history of women working in micropaleontology. Other scholars like Robbie Gries have written about the importance of women advancing micropaleontology in the history of petroleum geology, but this chapter explores the glamour and scientific prowess associated with the image and identity of women working in geology. The image of women working with microscopes becomes a fixture of newspapers profiles of female geologists. Women written (...) about in newspaper profiles and other magazines included their own criticisms of academic training and oil companies, as they felt that women did not receive equal and proper treatment compared to their male peers. (shrink)

During the first years of the post-war era, many French scientists travelled in the United States. As they looked for a reference to be used in rebuilding their own scientific landscape, their diaries say as much about the rise of the American biomedical complex as they do about their perception of research in the country. In order to illustrate how the French biologists adopted, competed with, or challenged the American model and how transatlantic exchanges played a critical role in (...) the molecularization of the life sciences, this paper presents three trajectories of laboratories. These include the services respectively led by P. Lépine and J. Monod at the Pasteur Institute, and G. Schapira’s biochemical research unit at the Hôpital des Enfants Malades. The three studies document the massive transatlantic circulation of materials, techniques, instruments, and people during the scientific reconstruction. The reconstruction however produced highly differentiated characters each operating in his own niche: the biotechnological inventor, the neo-clinician, and the fundamental biologist. The comparison situates the rise of molecular biology within the context of a rapidly expanding biomedical research system. It will help in understanding how, in contrast to the American situation, a logic of “demedicalization” became in France a means for developing biology at the molecular level. (shrink)