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Democracy Ancient and Modern (Mason Welch Gross Lecture Series)
by M. I. FinleyWestern democracy is now at a critical juncture. Some worry that power has been wrested from the people and placed in the hands of a small political elite. Others argue that the democratic system gives too much power to a populace that is largely ill-informed and easily swayed by demagogues. This classic study of democratic principles is thus now more relevant than ever. A renowned historian of antiquity and political philosophy, Sir M.I. Finley offers a comparative analysis of Greek and modern conceptions of democracy. As he puts the ancient Greeks in dialogue with their contemporary counterparts, Finley tackles some of the most pressing issues of our day, including public apathy, partisanship, consensus politics, distrust of professional politicians, and the limits of free speech. Including three lectures that Finley delivered at Rutgers University, plus two additional essays that further illuminate his thinking, Democracy Ancient and Modern explores the dramatic differences between the close-knit civil society of the ancient Greeks and our own atomized mass societies. By mapping out democracy’s past and its present manifestations, this book helps us plot a course for democracy’s future.
Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis
by Jiwei CiFour decades of reform fostered a democratic mentality in China. Now citizens are waiting for the government to catch up. Jiwei Ci argues that the tensions between a largely democratic society and an undemocratic political system will trigger a crisis of legitimacy, compelling the Communist Party to become agents of democratic change—or collapse.
Democracy in Crisis: The Neoliberal Roots of Popular Unrest
by Boris Vormann Christian LammertLiberal democracies on both sides of the Atlantic find themselves approaching a state of emergency, beset by potent populist challenges of the right and left. But what exactly lies at the core of widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo? And how can the challenge be overcome?In Democracy in Crisis, Christian Lammert and Boris Vormann argue that the rise of populism in North Atlantic states is not the cause of a crisis of governance but its result. This crisis has been many decades in the making and is intricately linked to the rise of a certain type of political philosophy and practice in which economic rationality has hollowed out political values and led to an impoverishment of the political sphere more broadly. The process began in the 1980s, when the United States and Great Britain decided to unleash markets in the name of economic growth and democracy. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, several countries in Europe followed suit and marketized their educational, social, and healthcare systems, which in turn increased inequality and fragmentation. The result has been a collapse of social cohesion and trust that the populists promise to address but only make worse. Looking to the future, Lammert and Vormann conclude their analysis with concrete suggestions for ways politics can once again be placed in the foreground, with markets serving social relations rather than the reverse.
Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone
by Astra TaylorWhat is democracy really? What do we mean when we use the term? And can it ever truly exist?Astra Taylor, hailed as a “New Civil Rights Leader” by the Los Angeles Times, provides surprising answers.There is no shortage of democracy, at least in name, and yet it is in crisis everywhere we look. From a cabal of plutocrats in the White House to gerrymandering and dark-money compaign contributions, it is clear that the principle of government by and for the people is not living up to its promise. The problems lie deeper than any one election cycle. As Astra Taylor demonstrates, real democracy—fully inclusive and completely egalitarian—has in fact never existed. In a tone that is both philosophical and anecdotal, weaving together history, theory, the stories of individuals, and interviews with such leading thinkers as Cornel West and Wendy Brown, Taylor invites us to reexamine the term. Is democracy a means or an end, a process or a set of desired outcomes? What if those outcomes, whatever they may be—peace, prosperity, equality, liberty, an engaged citizenry—can be achieved by non-democratic means? In what areas of life should democratic principles apply? If democracy means rule by the people, what does it mean to rule and who counts as the people? Democracy's inherent paradoxes often go unnamed and unrecognized. Exploring such questions, Democracy May Not Exist offers a better understanding of what is possible, what we want, why democracy is so hard to realize, and why it is worth striving for.
Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads: Technological Change and the Future of Politics
by Carles BoixAn incisive history of the changing relationship between democracy and capitalismThe twentieth century witnessed the triumph of democratic capitalism in the industrialized West, with widespread popular support for both free markets and representative elections. Today, that political consensus appears to be breaking down, disrupted by polarization and income inequality, widespread dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and insurgent populism. Tracing the history of democratic capitalism over the past two centuries, Carles Boix explains how we got here—and where we could be headed.Boix looks at three defining stages of capitalism, each originating in a distinct time and place with its unique political challenges, structure of production and employment, and relationship with democracy. He begins in nineteenth-century Manchester, where factory owners employed unskilled laborers at low wages, generating rampant inequality and a restrictive electoral franchise. He then moves to Detroit in the early 1900s, where the invention of the modern assembly line shifted labor demand to skilled blue-collar workers. Boix shows how growing wages, declining inequality, and an expanding middle class enabled democratic capitalism to flourish. Today, however, the information revolution that began in Silicon Valley in the 1970s is benefitting the highly educated at the expense of the traditional working class, jobs are going offshore, and inequality has risen sharply, making many wonder whether democracy and capitalism are still compatible.Essential reading for these uncertain times, Democratic Capitalism at the Crossroads proposes sensible policy solutions that can help harness the unruly forces of capitalism to preserve democracy and meet the challenges that lie ahead.
Democratic Discord in Schools: Cases and Commentaries in Educational Ethics
by Meira Levinson and Jacob FayTeaching in a democracy is challenging and filled with dilemmas that have no easy answers. For example, how do educators meet their responsibilities of teaching civic norms and dispositions while remaining nonpartisan? Democratic Discord in Schools features eight normative cases of complex dilemmas drawn from real events designed to help educators practice the type of collaborative problem solving and civil discourse needed to meet these challenges of democratic education. Each of the cases also features a set of six commentaries written by a diverse array of scholars, educators, policy makers, students, and activists with a range of political views to spark reflection and conversation. Drawing on research and methods developed in the Justice in Schools project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), Democratic Discord in Schools provides the tools that allow educators and others to practice the deliberative skills they need in order to find reasonable solutions to common ethical dilemmas in politically fraught times.
Democratic Education and Muslim Philosophy: Interfacing Muslim and Communitarian Thought
by Nuraan Davids Yusef WaghidThis book examines how democratic education is conceptualised by exploring understandings of emotions in learning. The authors argue that emotion is both an embodiment and enhancement of democratic education: that rationality and emotion are not separate entities, but exist on a continuum. While democratic education would not exist if it were incommensurate with reason, making judgements about the human condition could not happen without invoking emotion. Synthesising Muslim scholarship with the perspectives of the Western world, the book draws on scholars such as Ibn al-Arabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Fazlur Rahman to offer an enriched and expanded notion of democratic education. This engaging and reflective work will be of interest and value to students and scholars of educational philosophy and cultural studies.
Democratic Education in a Globalized World: A Normative Theory (Routledge International Studies in the Philosophy of Education)
by Julian CulpDue to the economic and social effects of globalization democracy is currently in crisis in many states around the world. This book suggests that solving this crisis requires rethinking democratic education. It argues that educational public policy must cultivate democratic relationships not only within but also across and between states, and that such policy must empower citizens to exercise democratic control in domestic as well as in inter- and transnational politics. Democratic Education in a Globalized World articulates and defends democratic conceptions of global citizenship education and educational justice on the basis of a democratic understanding of global justice. It will be of interest to researchers across the fields of education, political theory, philosophy, development and postcolonial studies.
Democratic Equality
by James Lindley WilsonDemocracy establishes relationships of political equality, ones in which citizens equally share authority over what they do together and respect one another as equals. But in today's divided public square, democracy is challenged by political thinkers who disagree about how democratic institutions should be organized, and by antidemocratic politicians who exploit uncertainties about what democracy requires and why it matters. Democratic Equality mounts a bold and persuasive defense of democracy as a way of making collective decisions, showing how equality of authority is essential to relating equally as citizens.James Lindley Wilson explains why the US Senate and Electoral College are urgently in need of reform, why proportional representation is not a universal requirement of democracy, how to identify racial vote dilution and gerrymandering in electoral districting, how to respond to threats to democracy posed by wealth inequality, and how judicial review could be more compatible with the democratic ideal. What emerges is an emphatic call to action to reinvigorate our ailing democracies, and a road map for widespread institutional reform.Democratic Equality highlights the importance of diverse forms of authority in democratic deliberation and electoral and representative processes—and demonstrates how that authority rests equally with each citizen in a democracy.
Democratic Socialism and Education: New Perspectives on Policy and Practice (SpringerBriefs in Education)
by Neil HopkinsThis book engages with the political, philosophical and policy debates around contemporary democratic socialism and state education. It examines contemporary education and education systems, as well as democratic socialism in the context of the complex political world we live in currently. It takes the reader towards a democratic socialist curriculum and pedagogy, and concludes by investigating democratic socialism and governance in education. Discussing the work of Axel Honneth, Chantal Mouffe and Norberto Bobbio, the book argues that contemporary democratic socialism gives a philosophical and political grounding to the notion of education being more than simply preparation for work or a series of qualifications. It makes the case for education as an exercise in democratic community, and learning as collective citizenship. Taking the curriculum, classroom pedagogy, and educational governance in turn, it offers a series of practical ways in which state education can be re-interpreted and re-applied to emphasise the democratic, collective and creative aspects of learning. "Hopkins contends, firstly, that twenty-first-century democratic socialism must reinvigorate itself by responding to the challenges of liberalism; and, secondly, that a socially just education system must be willing to learn from such a reinvigorated socialism. These twinned theses are clearly and concisely thought through in relation to urgent educational, and more broadly socio-political, issues: contemporary democratic-socialist thought; educational systems (and possibilities for reform); curriculum design; pedagogy; systems and mechanisms of governance. In just a few thousand words, Hopkins’s Democratic Socialism and Education manages to be that rare thing: a book that is both lucid introduction and original contribution. It will surely appeal equally to teachers, philosophers of education, and those engaged in educational action research." Dr. Oliver Belas, Lecturer in Education, School of Education and English Language, University of Bedfordshire, UK
Dependable Software Engineering. Theories, Tools, and Applications: 5th International Symposium, SETTA 2019, Shanghai, China, November 27–29, 2019, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #11951)
by Nan Guan Jun Sun Joost-Pieter KatoenThis book constitutes the proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Dependable Software Engineering: Theories, Tools, and Applications, SETTA 2019, held in Shanghai, China, in November 2019. The 8 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 submissions. They present cutting-edge advancements in the field of formal methods and its interoperability with software engineering and focus on the application of formal techniques and tools for building reliable, safe, secure, and smart systems with multi-dimensional complexities.
Der Erkenntniswert von Fehlfunktionen: Die Analyse von Ausfällen, Defekten und Störungen als wissenschaftliche Strategie
by Bertold SchweitzerDiese philosophische, interdisziplinäre Studie untersucht, auf welche Weise Fehlfunktionen einen einzigartigen Zugang zu Daten für Entdeckung und Prüfung von Theorien in vielen Wissenschaften bieten. Anhand von Beispielen aus Biologie, Evolution, Linguistik, Kognitionswissenschaft und anderen arbeitet sie die Funktionsweise wissenschaftlicher Methoden heraus, die versuchen, aus der Analyse von Fehlfunktionen Erkenntnisse über normale Struktur und Funktion zu gewinnen. Sie identifiziert die allgemeinen Merkmale, Ziele und Ergebnisse der Methoden (zum Beispiel Zerlegung, Sequenzierung und Lokalisierung von Subsystemen) und untersucht ihre Beziehungen zu konventionellen Strategien der Entdeckung und des Testens, etwa kausale und mechanistische Analyseverfahren.
Der Extremismus der Neuen Rechten: Eine Analyse zu Diskursthemen und Positionen (essentials)
by Armin Pfahl-TraughberDieses essential behandelt die Neue Rechte, eine lose Gruppe von Intellektuellen, die sich auf die Konservative Revolution der Weimarer Republik berufen und durch eine „Kulturrevolution von rechts“ eine „Umwälzung“ vorantreiben wollen. Dabei liefert der Autor zunächst einige Basisinformation zur Definition, zu den politischen Klassikern, aber auch zu Organisation und Strategie. Dem folgt eine Fallstudie, die sich auf das „Institut für Staatspolitik“ und deren Zeitschrift „Sezession“ bezieht. Es werden Diskurse analysiert und deren Extremismusgehalt bewertet. Abschließend gibt es eine Einschätzung hinsichtlich des Stellenwertes, welchen die gemeinten Intellektuellen im Kontext des gegenwärtigen „Rechtsrucks“ einnehmen.
Description Logic, Theory Combination, and All That: Essays Dedicated to Franz Baader on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #11560)
by Carsten Lutz Uli Sattler Cesare Tinelli Anni-Yasmin Turhan Frank WolterThis Festschrift has been put together on the occasion of Franz Baader's 60th birthday to celebrate his fundamental and highly influential scientific contributions. The 30 papers in this volume cover several scientific areas that Franz Baader has been working on during the last three decades, including description logics, term rewriting, and the combination of decision procedures. We hope that readers will enjoy the articles gathered in Franz's honour and appreciate the breadth and depth of his favourite areas of computer science.
Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems: 21st IFIP WG 1.02 International Conference, DCFS 2019, Košice, Slovakia, July 17–19, 2019, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #11612)
by Michal Hospodár Galina Jirásková Stavros KonstantinidisThis book constitutes the proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Descriptional Complexity of Format Systems, DCFS 2019, held in Košice, Slovakia, in July 2019. The 18 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 25 submissions. The book also contains 4 invited talks. They deal with all aspects of descriptional complexity and costs of description of objects in various computational models, such as Turing machines, pushdown automata, finite automata, grammars, and others.
Descriptive Geometry, The Spread of a Polytechnic Art: The Legacy of Gaspard Monge (International Studies in the History of Mathematics and its Teaching)
by Évelyne Barbin Marta Menghini Klaus VolkertThis book seeks to explore the history of descriptive geometry in relation to its circulation in the 19th century, which had been favoured by the transfers of the model of the École Polytechnique to other countries. The book also covers the diffusion of its teaching from higher instruction to technical and secondary teaching. In relation to that, there is analysis of the role of the institution – similar but definitely not identical in the different countries – in the field under consideration. The book contains chapters focused on different countries, areas, and institutions, written by specialists of the history of the field. Insights on descriptive geometry are provided in the context of the mathematical aspect, the aspect of teaching in particular to non-mathematicians, and the institutions themselves.
The Design Argument (Elements in the Philosophy of Religion)
by Elliott SoberThis Element analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take, but the main focus is on two such arguments. The first concerns the complex adaptive features that organisms have. Creationists who advance this argument contend that evolution by natural selection cannot be the right explanation. The second design argument - the argument from fine-tuning - begins with the fact that life could not exist in our universe if the constants found in the laws of physics had values that differed more than a little from their actual values. Since probability is the main analytical tool used, the book provides a primer on probability theory.
Design Cybernetics: Navigating the New (Design Research Foundations)
by Thomas Fischer Christiane M. HerrDesign Cybernetics: Navigating the New Design cybernetics offers a way of looking at ourselves – curious, creative, and ethical humans – as self-organising systems that negotiate their own goals in open-ended explorations of the previously unknown. It is a theory of and for epistemic practices (learning, designing, researching) that is deeply committed to the autonomy of others and hence offers no prescriptive methodology. Design cybernetics describes design practice as inextricable from conversation – a way of enquiring, developing shared understanding and reaching the new that harnesses reliable control as well as error and serendipity. Recognising circular causality, observer-dependency and non-determinability, design cybernetics extends beyond tenets of scientific research into the creative, ethical and aesthetic domain. From this perspective, design is not an ill-conceived subset of scientific research. Instead, scientific research emerges as a particularly restricted subset of the broader human activity of design. This volume offers a cross-section of design cybernetic theory and practice with contributions ranging across architecture, interior lighting studies, product design, embedded systems, design pedagogy, design theory, social transformation design, research epistemology, art and poetics, as well as theatre and acting. Addressing designers, design educators and researchers interested in a rigorous, practice-based epistemology, it establishes design cybernetics as a foundational perspective of design research. “This is a conceptually elegant, well structured, and comprehensive presentation of design cybernetics. It fills a gap in the literature of the field.” Ken Friedman, Chair Professor, Tongji University “This book offers a valuable and timely introduction to second-order cybernetics as society grapples with complex issues like climate change and rising inequality.” Joichi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab
Designing Social Science Research
by Oddbjørn BukveThis book presents different research designs, their respective purposes and merits as well as their underlying assumptions. Research designs are characterised by a certain combination of knowledge aims and strategies for data production. An adequate design is the key to carrying out a successful research project. Nevertheless, the literature on design is scarce, compared to the literature on methods. This book clarifies the basic distinction between variable-oriented designs and case designs, and proceeds to integrated, comparative and intervention-oriented designs. A step-by-step guide to the design process and the choices to make is also included. The book's clear style makes it an excellent guide for master students and PhD students doing their first research exercises, while it is also useful for more experienced researchers who want to broaden their design repertoire and keep up to recent innovations in the field of research design.
A Desire Called America: Biopolitics, Utopia, and the Literary Commons
by Christian HainesCritics of American exceptionalism usually view it as a destructive force eroding the radical energies of social movements and aesthetic practices. In A Desire Called America, Christian P. Haines confronts a troubling paradox: Some of the most provocative political projects in the United States are remarkably invested in American exceptionalism. Riding a strange current of U.S. literature that draws on American exceptionalism only to overturn it in the name of utopian desire, Haines reveals a tradition of viewing the United States as a unique and exemplary political model while rejecting exceptionalism’s commitments to nationalism, capitalism, and individualism. Through Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, William S. Burroughs, and Thomas Pynchon, Haines brings to light a radically different version of the American dream—one in which political subjects value an organization of social life that includes democratic self-governance, egalitarian cooperation, and communal property.A Desire Called America brings utopian studies and the critical discourse of biopolitics to bear upon each other, suggesting that utopia might be less another place than our best hope for confronting authoritarianism, neoliberalism, and a resurgent exclusionary nationalism.
Determinism and Free Will: New Insights From Physics, Philosophy, And Theology
by Fabio Scardigli Gerard ’t Hooft Emanuele Severino Piero CodaIn this small book, theoretical physicist Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel prize 1999), philosopher Emanuele Severino (Lincei Academician), and theologian Piero Coda (Pontifical Lateran University) confront one another on a topic that lies at the roots of quantum mechanics and at the origin of Western thought: Determinism and Free Will. "God does not play dice" said Einstein, a tenacious determinist. <P><P>Quantum Mechanics and its clash with General Relativity have reanimated ancient dilemmas about chance and necessity: Is Nature deterministic? Is Man free? The “free-will theorem” by Conway and Kochen, and the deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics proposed by 't Hooft, revive such philosophical questions in modern Physics. Is Becoming real? Is the Elementary Event a product of the Case? <P><P>The cyclopean clash between Heraclitus and Parmenides has entered a new episode, as evidenced by the essays in this volume.
Deutungen der Gegenwart: Zur Kritik wissenschaftlicher Zeitdiagnostik
by Walter Reese-SchäferDieser Band betrachtet Zeitdiagnose als eine notwendige wissenschaftliche Aufgabe und als eine entscheidende Möglichkeit, gegenwartsrelevante Forschung voranzutreiben und interdisziplinäre Perspektiven zu entwickeln. Der erste Teil des Buches stellt eine Theorie der Zeitdiagnostik vor. Im zweiten Teil wird der immer zu vollziehende Sprung von der Urteilskraft zur Entscheidung betrachtet, während es im dritten und vierten Teil um zentrale zeitdiagnostische Leitbegriffe geht. Insgesamt entwirft der Band das Bild einer wissenschaftlich reflektierten Zeitdiagnostik, die man als kritische Wirklichkeitswissenschaft verstehen kann.
The Development of Aryan Invasion Theory in India: A Critique of Nineteenth-Century Social Constructionism
by Subrata Chattopadhyay BanerjeeThis book delves deep into the Social Construction of Theory, comparative epistemology and intellectual history to stress the interrelationship between diverse cultures during the colonial period and bring forth convincing evidence of how the 19th century was shaped. It approaches an interesting relation between the linguistic studies of 19th century’s scientific world and subsequent widespread acceptance of the empirically weak theory of the Aryan invasion. To show entangled history in a globalized world, the book draws on the Aryan Invasion Theory to highlight how different socio-religious parties commonly shape a new theory. It also explores how research is affected by the so-called social construction of theory and comparative epistemology, and deals with scholarly advancement and its relation with contemporary socio-political demands. The most significant conclusion of the book is that academic studies are prone to comparative epistemology, even under the strict scrutiny of the so-called scientific methods.
Developmental Liberalism in South Korea: Formation, Degeneration, and Transnationalization (International Political Economy Series)
by Chang Kyung-SupThis book characterizes South Korea’s pre-neoliberal regime of social governance as developmental liberalism and analyzes the turbulent processes and complex outcomes of its neoliberal degeneration since the mid-1990s. Instead of repeating the politically charged critical view on South Korea’s failure in socially inclusionary and sustainable development, the author closely examines the systemic interfaces of the economic, political, and social constituents of its developmental transformation. South Korea has turned and remained developmentally liberal, rather than liberally liberal (like the United States), in its economic and sociopolitical configuration of social security, labor protection, population, education, and so forth. Initially conceived in the late 1980s, ironically along its democratic restoration, and radically accelerated during the national financial crisis in the late 1990s, South Korea’s neoliberal transition has become incomparably volatile and destructive, due crucially to its various distortive effects on the country’s developmental liberal order.
Developments in Language Theory: 23rd International Conference, DLT 2019, Warsaw, Poland, August 5–9, 2019, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #11647)
by Piotrek Hofman Michał SkrzypczakThis book constitutes the proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Developments in Language Theory, DLT 2019, held in Warsaw, Poland, in August 2019. The 20 full papers presented together with three invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The papers cover the following topics and areas: combinatorial and algebraic properties of words and languages; grammars, acceptors and transducers for strings, trees, graphics, arrays; algebraic theories for automata and languages; codes; efficient text algorithms; symbolic dynamics; decision problems; relationships to complexity theory and logic; picture description and analysis, polyominoes and bidimensional patterns; cryptography; concurrency; celluar automata; bio-inspired computing; quantum computing.