Miti e utopie della modernità nelle Riflessioni sulla violenza di Georges Sorel

This paper analyses the work Riflessioni sulla violenza written by Georges Sorel and published in 1908. The principal aim of this paper is to present the deep relationship between myth, violence and politics in order to reevaluate how irrational forces have guided social movements and revolutions. The distinction between the notions of force and violence introduces the central thesis of Georges Sorel’s political thought, which is called anarcho-syndacalism. More specifically, George Sorel puts together Marx and Bergson in order to develop a severe criticism of the Third Republic and to theorize the role of violence in the transition from capitalism to socialism. Through the myth of the general strike, Sorel introduces his philosophical perspective on social struggles against the parlamentarism.

Territorial and Non-territorial Aspects in the Autonomist Proposals of the Sudeten German Party, 1937–38

The article focuses on two sets of autonomist demands that the far-right Sudeten German Party (SdP) in Czechoslovakia put forward during 1937–38. Its central thesis being that both sets were marked by a profoundly close interplay between territorial and non-territorial approaches at accommodating national diversity, it sets to explore this relationship, highlighting the underlying dynamic. Although the 1937 Volksschutzgesetze posed as an ostensibly “pure” case of non-territorial autonomy, whereas the 1938 Skizze über Neuordnung der innerstaatlichen Verhältnisse entailed major territorial provisions, in both cases the practical end-goal implied territorial autonomy. A closer look into their inner logic and intellectual origins however, also reveals a shared, essentially non-territorial underpinning. While the SdP agenda was firmly centered on national territory, its specific völkisch and organicist understanding of nationality manifested a clear preponderance of non-territoriality. Both sets of autonomist demands may thus be treated as a potentially maximalist combination of territorial and non-territorial arrangements resting on a fundamentally non-territorial notion of Volkspersönlichkeit. Encompassing all the members of the national group, the latter was simultaneously conceived as the basic carrier of political will. Volksschutzgesetze and Skizze thus represented clear examples of illiberal (re-)conceptualization of national autonomy, informed by contemporary völkisch sociological, legal, and political thought.

Imperial dream: the RILA as achievement of the second reign’s diplomatic objective for Paraguay

This work has the purpose of presenting the LAIR (Latin American Integration Route) as the achievement of diplomatic objectives already traced in the Brazilian imperial era between itself and Paraguay. This paper will show how, in the diplomatic field, the Empire can be qualified as the historical period which designed Brazil, fixing it as a regional power and positioning itself in the way of ensuring policies whose consequences would be beneficial even for its neighbors. The border relations between Brazil and Paraguay will be treated with its peculiarities, besides a description of the region’s hydrography with regards to the River Plate Basin. So, this work will enter in its historical part by analyzing the formation of the Brazilian Empire’s Second Reign, explaining its development and characteristics that interest to this paper, presenting its diplomatic conceptions, showing the problems faced by the tropical monarchy in the Platine Region and the objectives and paths searched to bypass them. In the end, it will be brought to analysis the idea of the LAIR and its Latin American integration project, with investments aiming to use the region’s hydrography to export local products, linking it with the geopolitical objective searched since imperial times to guarantee the free access to the Platine rivers. This research utilized qualitative methodology, analyzing books and articles in the area to base the central thesis. The result achieved met the original goal, showing that the LAIR comes from the development of a conception of foreign relations created, for Brazil, in the Monarchy.

Empirical Indicators: Conceptual and Theoretical Origins

This paper discusses the connections between nursing conceptual model concepts, middle-range theory, and situation-specific theory concepts, as well as between the theory concepts and how they are measured, that is, empirical indicators. Three types of empirical indicators are described—instruments, assessment tools, and interventions—and an example of each type is given. The paper’s central thesis is that a conceptual model concept is —or should be— the starting point for selecting or constructing an empirical indicator.

Fenomen parapaństw na obszarze poradzieckim

One of the consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the outbreak of several conflicts in the post-Soviet area and the emergence of the so-called para-states. Based on the systemic method of treating parastates as a system, internal and external influence factors will be indicated. The article aims to present the reasons for creating para-states and analyze internal and external determinants, i.e. attributes of their statehood as factors that guarantee their operation and ensure continued survival. In this context, the thesis was made that Russian political, economic, and military support for para-states ensures their functioning. Moreover, the article indicates the role of para-states in the Russian Federation’s foreign policy towards the post- Soviet area, with which the central thesis of the article is related. It says that supporting para-states politically, financially, and militarily is one of the instruments of Russia’s policy towards the post-Soviet area and is intended to keep it within the Russian sphere of influence.

Richhpal Singh Meena v. Ghasi: Past Eclipse of India’s Substantive Criminal Law in Contemporary Operation

The Indian Supreme Court’s verdict in Richhpal Singh Meena v. Ghasi is a marked peripeteia in the legal position on the applicability of offences under the two sub-chapters of Chapter XVI of the IPC in the heads of sections dealing with ‘Offences Affecting Life’ and ‘Hurt’. In essence, this ruling declared that scenarios that end with death of the victim will mandatorily have to be only covered by the sub-chapter ‘Offences Affecting Life’, making ‘actus reus of fatal results’ the determinant for choosing the offence for which the accused is to be convicted. After providing a factual frame of reference, this paper recapitulates the key elements of the Court’s reasoning in arriving at this principle. The main thrust of the paper lies in its analysis of the Court’s faulty neologisms and legally inconsistent alterations in the yardsticks that govern which cases fall under either of the two heads. This paper argues that the Court’s ratio decidendi and the principles it has evolved represent nothing short of insouciance towards decades of clarificatory precedent and that they are ex facie since Richhpal’s ruling engenders injustice in situations where the intention is to only cause hurt, but death results regardless of the intention transpired. As a judgment made in 2014, this ruling continues to breed iniquitous convictions even to this day. It is this examination of the judgment’s myopia for the past and its eclipse on the present delivery of justice that represents the central thesis of this paper.

The Dark Continent: «African Tales by Shakespeare» and the Experience of Transitional Community

This text is an analysis of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s 2011 production, African Tales by Shakespeare, tracing the project of community taken up in the performance. The central thesis takes this to be neither a national community nor a dispersed, intersectional coalition, as Bryce Lease has formulated the difference between Polish political and traditional theater, but rather a transitional community—unstable, unsuccessful, and rooted in the experience of political transition. The author, by invoking references to the visual arts present in the performance, points to other community projects emerging from the experience of transition while showing how, when appropriated for the purposes of performance, their meanings change radically. In the masculine, phallic, and violent world of African Tales, art and philosophy born of the experience of femininity are lost, twisted, and forgotten. Among the most important threads of analysis, however, is the way racialization and racism function in the play. From this perspective, the problematic status of the community the play establishes is most clearly seen: as a community of phantasmic, aspirational, transitional whiteness

In Defense of Collective Consciousness

Within the repertoire of concepts that Emile Durkheim has forged to introduce sociology, none has attracted as much criticism or provoked more controversy as “collective consciousness”. This key concept has been accused of being at the same time absurd, inadequate, and dangerous. Having clarified to what extent the issue at stake concerns the social philosophy underlying sociology, the article reconstructs Durkheim’s perspective, in order to assess his central thesis: that there is no collective or social life without a collective or social consciousness. First, it clarifies the meaning of the “collective”, by analyzing the criteria of “constraint”: it thus brings out Durkheim’s reference to those obligations that give access to an irreducible collective being. Second, it elucidates the nature of “collective representations”, by examining Durkheim’s criticism of “consciousness”: it thus explains how the “representations” making up the collective are embedded into the dispositional “unconscious” of acting subjects. Finally, it analyzes the nature of “reflexive consciousness”, by reference to those practical situations that trigger a dynamic process allowing the members of a group to make collective representations explicit. The paper concludes by reassessing Durkheim’s argument: the concept of collective consciousness has a definite sociological meaning insofar as it allows us to grasp those crucial effervescent social phenomena that produce a conscious collective being, made of subjects able to say “we” in knowledge of the cause.

How Was Nature Able to Discover Its Own Laws—Twice?

The central thesis of the modern scientific revolution is that nature is objective. Yet, somehow, out of that objective reality, projective systems emerged—cognitive and purposeful. More remarkably, through nature’s objective laws, chemical systems emerged and evolved to take advantage of those laws. Even more inexplicably, nature uncovered those laws twice—once unconsciously, once consciously. Accordingly, one could rephrase the origin of life question as follows: how was nature able to become self-aware and discover its own laws? What is the law of nature that enabled nature to discover its own laws? Addressing these challenging questions in physical-chemical terms may be possible through the newly emergent field of systems chemistry.

What (If Anything) Can Justify Basic Income Experiments? Balancing Costs and Benefits in terms of Justice

The central thesis of this essay is that basic income experiments are justified if their expected benefits in terms of justice exceed their expected costs in terms of justice. The benefits are a function of basic income’s effect on the level of justice attained in the context in which it is implemented, and the experiment’s impact on future policy-making. The costs comprise the sacrifices made as a result of the experiment’s interventional character, as well as the study’s opportunity costs. In light of the proposed standard of justification for basic income experiments, the factors that play a role in it, and the way these interact with one another, this essay provides some practical recommendations for researchers hoping to conduct such an experiment.