Catégorie : World People

Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre – England

Linked with Alasdair MacIntyre and Holistic Marxism, and with The Shock Doctrine.

Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (born January 12, 1929 in Glasgow, Scotland) is a philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral and political philosophy but known also for his work in history of philosophy and theology. He is the O’Brien Senior Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame Indiana) … (full long text). Biography. Philosophical method. Virtue ethics. Politics. Religion.

Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the most controversial philosophers and social theorists of our time. He opposes liberalism and postmodernism with the teleological arguments of an updated Thomistic Aristotelianism. It is this tradition, he claims, which presents the best theory so far about the nature of rationality, morality and politics … (full text).

He says: «  »A striking feature of moral and political argument in the modern world is the extent to which it is innovators, radicals, and revolutionaries who revive old doctrines, while their conservative and reactionary opponents are the inventors of new ones » (on quotes/quotationsbook).

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Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre – England

International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy: Revolutionary Aristotelianism, Thomism, Virtue Theory, Social Theory, and Politics.

When we talk about « Justice » or « reason » we assume that people know what we mean. This is not always true, of course, because we have differing concepts of justice and rationality, which MacIntyre skillfully lays out in this book. This is not so much a sequel to After Virtue as much as it is a Prequel. MacIntyre has a very easy to read style, which is helpful, because the concepts he tackles are very complicated. (LibraryThing).

The MacIntyre Reader, Edited by: KELVIN KNIGHT (London Metropolitan University).

Find him and his publications on wikipedia: selected works,  and secondary literature; on amazon; on LibraryThing; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search.

He says also: « The hypothesis I wish to advance is that … the language of morality is in … grave disorder…. What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality ». On Quotes.

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Andrew Clapham – England

Andrew is Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights ADH and a Professor of Public International Law at its Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He specialises in international human rights and has acted in several ECHR cases. He has been a special adviser on Corporate Responsibility to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, and was adviser on international humanitarian law to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.  He was the Representative of Amnesty International at the United Nations in New York from 1991-1997, and has participated as the representative of Amnesty International in numerous inter-governmental meetings as well as in Amnesty International missions to Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia. Andrew appeared in the case of Osman vs UK before the European Court of Human Rights … (full text).

… His current research relates to the role of non-state actors in international law and related questions in human rights and humanitarian law … (full text).

… He worked as Special Adviser on Corporate Responsibility to the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to Sergio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General in Iraq. (full text).

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Andrew Clapham – England

Secession, terrorism and the right of self-determination, Andrw Clapham.

He says: … « The creation of the Council of Human Rights has been the catalyst. And in Berne, with Micheline Calmy-Rey, the interest around Geneva has increased. At the academic level, the creation of a new Institute for International Studies and Development and Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights has added to the momentum. It is now important to be inventive. In my report, I put forward other proposals to build momentum around Geneva: offering grants for young people from developing countries to study humanitarian subjects in Geneva or setting up an institute for human rights in order to build links between the two fields » … (full interview text).

Google download books:
Human Rights, by Andrew Clapham (Taking an international perspective and focusing on issues such as torture, privacy, health and discrimination, this book aims to help readers in understanding the controversies and complexities behind the vitally relevant issue of human rights. It also explains what our human rights actually are, and where the human rights movement is heading, also on kriso.ee, and also on OfTheSelf.ch;
Enforcing International Law Norms Against Terrorism, by Andrea Bianchi, Yasmin Naqvi;
Justice for Crimes Against Humanity, by Mark Lattimer, Philippe Sands;
International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, by Francisco Forrest Martin, Stephen J. Schnably, Richard … .

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Tania Singer – Germany

Linked with the University Research Priority Programm URPP, and with Meditation may increase empathy.

Bio: Tania Singer is Assistant Professor of Social Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics at the Center for the Study of Social and Neural Systems at the University of Zürich. She studied psychology and media at the University of Marburg and the Technical University of Berlin. She was Pre- and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where she worked on cognitive development over the life span … Her main research interest is in the understanding of the foundation of human social behaviour and cooperation as well as social emotions such as empathy and fairness from the perspective of social neuroscience, developmental and social cognitive psychology as well as economics. In her spare time, she pursues interests in the arts, participating in drama and film productions as well as studying music, voice, and dance. (at congress.com).

More Bio on URPP; on Max Planck;

She is:

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Tania Singer – Germany

She works for the URPP Foundations of Human Social Behavior, Altruism and Egoism.

Her work’s Main Goals/Keywords: Main Goals, Keywords: Investigation of the social brain including the study of the neuronal, hormonal and behavioural foundations of empathy, cognitive perspective taking, social learning, trust, and revenge. fMRI and behavioural studies of deficient social behaviour in pathologies such as Autism and Alexythimia. Development and plasticity of social emotions (social brain, Asperger, insula, pain, reward learning, empathy, pro-social behaviour, emotional plasticity, oxytocin) … Group Members, Previous ans Current Research, Future Projects, Techniques and Equipment … etc. (UZH / ETH Zürich).

She says: « My main research interest lies in the foundation of human social behaviour from the perspectives of social neuroscience, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology, as well as economics » … (full text).

How your brain handles love and pain.

Men’s vengeful brains.

Putative neurobiological substrates of punishment.

Empathy, Serious Drill, Placebo Effect, etc.

Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain.

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk from Tibet with a PhD in molecular biology, has been working with neuroscientists to find out. Brain scans of regular meditators, including Ricard himself, have shown that they have greatly increased levels of high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves. Does the secret of happiness lie in this unusual brain activity, and the meditation training that seems to produce it? … (full text).

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Gaither Stewart – USA

Linked with Definitions: The Intelligentsia, with Definitions: The proletariat, with Just East of Eden: Iran, images and reflections.

GAITHER STEWART: left journalism four years ago in order to write fiction full-time. Originally from Asheville, North Carolina, he has lived most of his life in Europe, chiefly in Germany and Italy. For many years he was the Italian correspondent of the Rotterdam daily newspaper, ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD. His has been a varied life: from university studies in Slavistics and political science in the United States and Germany, to intelligence officer in Europe, to correspondent for European and American radios, to public relations for Italian corporations, to full correspondent for a major European newspaper. Today, he lives in the hills of north Rome with his wife, Milena. His debut short story collection, Icy Current, Compulsive Course was released in March by Wind River Press. Its companion volume, To Be a stranger, will be published this winter. (on critique on writing II).

Gaither Stewart is a Senior Contributing Editor at Cyrano’s Journal and a seasoned professional journalist and essayist. He has lived in Europe for several decades, and currently resides in Rome with his family. In addition to Cyrano, his essays and reports are widely read on many Internet venues, including Online Journal, The People’s Voice, and other sites. His collections of short stories, « Icy Current Compulsive Course », « To Be A Stranger » and « Once In Berlin » are published by Wind River Press. His new novel, « Asheville, » is published by Wasteland RUNES.

Gaither’s daily scared blog.

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Gaither Stewart – USA

Impulso de hegemonia dos Estados Unidos no mundo.

Filosofia: SOLIDARIETA’ E UGUAGLIANZA, QUALCOSA IN CUI CREDERE.

He says: … “What is so bewildering is the conviction—and it is becoming more and more general—that in all the perils that confront us the direction of affairs is given over to a way of thinking that no longer has any understanding of itself. It is like being in a carriage, descending an increasingly precipitous slope, and suddenly realizing there is no coachman on the box.” … (full text).

Italy: Between Anarchy and Servility.

The German Woman and The Carpenter.

Bono Speaks Out Against Torture and Gets Censored.

Gaither Steward’s To Be A Stranger, a book review: Summary: Displacement, exile and return haunt the pages of Gaither Stewart’s second short story collection, To Be A Stranger. Though most of the sixteen stories are set in the author’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, the stories touch only lightly on the real Asheville, today’s renowned tourism destination. Stewart says, “The Asheville I depict rather hazily is the misty, intangible town I imagine from a distance or see when I visit there. It is a strange Asheville, an Asheville of great secrets, an Asheville of a distant past, an Asheville removed from the present. It is also an Asheville as a destination and a hope. It is the hometown of the exile, seen now close at hand, now in the past, now as in a dream … (full text).

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Audre Lorde – USA (1934-1992)

Linked with The Audre Lorde Project ALP.

The Great Debate / Audre Lorde Project, Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, Where: @ALP.

Audre Geraldine Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist. Lorde was born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants Frederick Byron Lorde and Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde, who settled in Harlem. Nearsighted to the point of being legally blind, and the youngest of three daughters, Lorde grew up hearing her mother’s stories about the West Indies. She learned to talk while she learned to read, at the age of four, and her mother taught her to write at around the same time. She wrote her first poem when she was in eighth grade … Lorde set out actively to challenge white women, confronting issues of racism in feminist thought. She maintained that a great deal of the scholarship of white feminists served to augment the oppression of black women, a conviction which led to angry confrontation, most notably in the scathing open letter addressed to radical lesbian feminist Mary Daly … (full text).

BLACK./WOMYN.: CONVERSATIONS WITH LESBIANS OF AFRICAN DESCENT.

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Audre Lorde – USA (1934-1992)

Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund.

It is with great sadness and loss that I report the death of Audre Lorde, black lesbian feminist, poet, essayist, warrior and mother.  Audre, who was a personal heroine of mine, died Tuesday night, November 17, at her home in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. She was 58 years old.  She had been fighting cancer for the past 15 years; first breast and finally liver cancer. Audre was born in New York City of West Indian parents in 1934. At the time of her death, she was New York State Poet for 1991-1993 (Walt Whitman Citation).  She was Professor of English at Hunter College and was a founding member of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press as well as Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa (SISA). My girl lectured in Russia, Australia, Africa, (among other countries) and taught frequently in Berlin (where there are black German sisters and brothers and Africans, too).  It was there in Germany she received alternative cancer treatments for 8 years … (full text, Nov. 25, 1992).

Some of her books:

… Her first volume of poems, The First Cities, was published in 1968. In 1968 she also became the writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she discovered a love of teaching. In Tougaloo she also met her long-term partner, Frances Clayton. The First Cities was quickly followed with Cables to Rage (1970) and From a Land Where Other People Live (1972), which was nominated for a National Book Award. In 1974 she published New York Head Shot and Museum. Whereas much of her earlier work focused on the transience of love, this book marked her most political work to date … (full text).

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Suzanne Pharr – USA

inked with In the Time of the Right, Reflections on Liberation, with October is Domestice Violence Awareness Month, with Southerners On New Ground S.O.N.G., with LESBIAN INFORMATION SERVICE; and with The Enemy Without and Within.

Suzanne Pharr: she sees herself as Organizer, Strategist, Educator, Author, and Political Handywoman.

She writes: … My work is focused on building a broad-based, multi-racial, multi-issued movement for social and economic justice in the United States. Major themes are intersectional issues and strategies, anti-violence, racial and gender equality, cross-generational collaboration, democratic participation, economic justice, and human rights based on equality and justice. At the center of every effort is the question, “How can we make it possible for everyone to live as a whole person, to have self-determination, to be treated with dignity and respect, and to have access to material necessities as well as joy?” … (full text).

Arkansas Women’s Project Collection, M95-03: The Arkansas Women’s Project was founded in 1980, as a grass roots organization intended to promote support for women’s issues in the state of Arkansas.  Originally called The Arkansas Women’s Training Project, it was operated under the direction of Suzanne Pharr.  The funding was issued from the Methodist Board of Global Ministries and focused on issues such as; abuse, rape, non-traditional employment, minority rights, and gay and lesbian rights … (full text archives.uca.edu).

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Suzanne Pharr – USA

The video: USSF Plenary Liberating Gender and Sexuality, 5.51 min, Jul 8, 2007.

Google download books:

She writes also: It is virtually impossible to view one oppression, such as sexism or homophobia, in isolation because they are all connected: sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ableism, anti-Semitism, ageism. They are linked by a common origin-economic power and control-and by common methods of limiting, controlling and destroying lives. There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Each is terrible and destructive. To eliminate one oppression successfully, a movement has to include work to eliminate them all or else success will always be limited and incomplete … (full long text, March 31, 2006).

Elements of Oppression.

… Pharr has spent her entire adult life working to build a broad-based social and economic justice movement, founding the Women’s Project in Arkansas in 1981, co-founding Southerners on New Ground in 1984 and serving as the director of the prestigious Highlander Research and Education Center from 1999-2004. She is also the author of two books — “Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism” and “In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation” … (full text).

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Antonio "Toni" Negri – Italy

Linked with naked punch.

Antonio (« Toni ») Negri (born August 1, 1933) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher. Negri is perhaps best-known for his co-authorship of Empire and his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of the Autonomia Operaia. Accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the Red Brigades (BR), involved in the May 1978 assassination of Aldo Moro leader of the Christian-Democrat Party, among others, Negri was later cleared of any links with the BR. He was, however, sentenced to a long-term prison sentence on controversial charges of « association and insurrection against the state. » Negri went to France and taught at the Université de Vincennes (Paris-VIII) and the Collège International de Philosophie, along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, he voluntarily returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. He now lives between Venice and Paris with his partner, the french philosopher Judith Revel … (full text).

His book: EMPIRE, downloadable in pdf, 2000, 496 pages.

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Antonio « Toni » Negri – Italy

Video: Antonio Negri: A Revolt That Never Ends, in english, and french and italian english translated /english subtitled, 52.35 min, Nov 23, 2007. (Same – short vision, 9.59 min).

His Political thought and writings.

He says: … « it is indeed necessary to recognize as a fact the emergence of the B.R. [Red Brigades] and NAP [Armed Proletariat Nuclei] as the tip of the iceberg of the Movement. This does not require one in any way to transform the recognition into a defense, and this does not in any way deny the grave mistake of the B.R. line. At one point I defined the B.R. as a variable of the movement gone crazy … I state again that terrorism can only be fought through an authentic mass political struggle and inside the revolutionary movement ». (quotes).

He says also: « Prison, with its daily rhythm, with the transfer and the defense, does not leave any time; prison dissolves time: This is the principal form of punishment in a capitalist society ». (quotes).

… In their project Empire (notable as an academic and trade success), Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri examine the loss of political borders. The permeability of our own country on September 11 is evidence that national borders are ill protected, ill conceived, and increasingly less relevant in the world today. This is in part, why American’s harbor such fear over the border with Mexico. What this all means is that the next President will be forced to confront the War from a different worldview then President Bush. It requires recognition that the War on Terror cannot be fought from border to border and country to country. Each candidate has already offered ample evidence of how they would prosecute the war … (full text, September 22, 2008).

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Jean Baudrillard – France (1929 – 2007)

Linked with This is the Fourth World War. Read also Definitions: The Intelligentsia.

Jean Baudrillard (July 29, 1929  – March 6, 2007) … was a French cultural theorist, sociologist, philosopher, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism … (full text).

More on wikipedia:

French theorist Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) was one of the foremost intellectual figures of the present age whose work combines philosophy, social theory, and an idiosyncratic cultural metaphysics that reflects on key events of phenomena of the epoch. A sharp critic of contemporary society, culture, and thought, Baudrillard is often seen as a major guru of French postmodern theory, although he can also be read as a thinker who combines social theory and philosophy in original and provocative ways and a writer who has developed his own style and forms of writing … (full text, April 22, 2005, Stanford Encl. of Philosophy).

He said: … « There are really only two interesting moments in history: the Big Bang and the Apocalypse » (citation used by Andy Martin as a comment about CERN) … (full text, 10 Sep 2008).

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Jean Baudrillard – France (1929 – 2007)

His video in french/en français (one of many): Jean Baudrillard, French Super-philosopher Who Inspired Matrix, 12 min.

A moment of Baudrillardian irony appeared in the NY Times this morning. Jean Baudrillard is the French philosopher-critic whose concepts of the Hyperreal and Simulacra landed him many frequent flier miles during the late 1980s and 1990s. Mistaken for a post-modernist, he’s actually more of a nostalgic and perhaps melancholic modernist, I think. His passage on the hyperreal was summarized in The Matrix by Morpheus in the oft-sampled: « Welcome to the Desert of the Real » … (full text, Oct. 21, 2005).

… It also summarizes the way modern warfare has become central to the media overload that French media philosopher Jean Baudrillard (a Brown favourite) calls the « whole pornography of information and communication » … (full text, Sept. 18, 2008).

hannah arendt and jean baudrillard: pedagogy in the consumer society, by Trevor Norris, 2004.

… These children of Jean Baudrillard dare you to deny their ball-busting bounce, ear-bleed volume, and bloodless hooks, sans even the cartoon/anime-cool, featureless, anti-human « faces » of Daft Punk, or the too-cool-for-school ‘tude of, say, Death From Above 1979. As with their recently banned video for « Stress, » Justice are tinkering with pop violence, devoid of true gore, a.k.a. passion … (full text, Sept. 17, 2008).

… Wow. This means that a Turkish professor in a university who sympathizes with, say, Jean Baudrillard rather than Auguste Comte might find himself to be on the “traitor” side. And if he travels to somewhere to join a conference sponsored by some “global power,” his “treason” will be confirmed. Similarly, media pundits who toy with postmodern ideas could also be on the black list of the military … (full text, Sept 6, 2008).

… « Smile and others will smile back, » Jean Baudrillard thinks. « Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say or your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile » … (full text, Sept. 6, 2008).

Find him and his publications on wikipedia /bibliography; on Google Video-search; on inauthor Google-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search.

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Sir Anthony Barnes "Tony" Atkinson – England

Sir Anthony Barnes « Tony » Atkinson, FBA is a British economist and has been a Senior Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford since 2005. He served as Warden of Nuffield College from 1994 to 2005. Before that he held positions at the University of Cambridge, University College London, the London School of Economics, the University of Essex and the University of Oxford. His work is predominantly on income distributions. There is an inequality measure named after him: the Atkinson index. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1984, a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1974, Honorary Member of the American Economic Association in 1985 and Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994. He was President of the Econometric Society in 1988. He was knighted in 2000 and made a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 2001. (wikipedia).

Cambridge Uni: short bio, and full bio.

The Atkinson index, (also known as the Atkinson measure) is a measure of economic income inequality developed by Anthony Barnes Atkinson. The distinguishing feature of the Atkinson index is its ability to gauge movements in different segments of the income distribution.

His homepage.

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Sir Anthony Barnes « Tony » Atkinson – England

Tony Atkinson teaching at LUISS University Rome for the Master in European Studies in the year 2008/2009: (Elective Course: European Welfare and Labour Economics) … He has edited for many years the Journal of Public Economics, he is member of the Research Council of the European University Institute in Florence and of Section 37 of the Comité National du CNRS in France, as well as chairman of the Foundation for International Studies in Social Security. He has been member of the Conseil d’Analyse Economique, advising the French Prime Minister from 1997 until 2001. His latest publications, out of a long list, deal with problems of economic inequality and social distribution of income in the European Union, as well as social security and public finance (full text).

His books (inclusive Google download-books):

Find him and his publications on Joyner Library Catalogue; on Nation Master Encyclopedia; on alibris; on NLA Catalogue; on amazon; on ECON papers; on IDEAS; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search.

Sorry, professor Atkinson’s TV-debate shows an economist who is concerned by economic justice and human development, and with a good logic for economic managment, but beside the Google download-books there seems none of his written texts being available on the normal internet.

links: Public Economics, 1994, 558 pages.