Catégorie : World People

Linked with The Jean Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology, with The Jean Piaget Society JPS, and with The Jean Piaget Archives.

Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental psychologist, well known for his work studying children, his theory of cognitive development and for his epistemological view called « genetic epistemology ». He created in 1955 the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget is « the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing » … (full long text).

He said: « Intelligence is an adaptation…To say that intelligence is a particular instance of biological adaptation is thus to suppose that it is essentially an organization and that its function is to structure the universe just as the organism structures its immediate environment ». (human intelligence).

Scientific & philosophical development, the stages of cognitive development.

His major contributions:

• Genetic Epistemology (J. Piaget);
• the theory of Genetic Epistemology (a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge).

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Jean Piaget – Switzerland

Listen the video: PIAGET’S DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY, 4.00 min, March 22, 2006.

He said also: « Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society … But for me, education means making creators … You have to make inventors, innovators, not conformists » … (and many more).

J. Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology and the Teaching of Elementary Mathematics.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development.

Jean Piaget, the pioneering Swiss philosopher and psychologist, spent much of his professional life listening to children, watching children and poring over reports of researchers around the world who were doing the same. He found, to put it most succinctly, that children don’t think like grownups. After thousands of interactions with young people often barely old enough to talk, Piaget began to suspect that behind their cute and seemingly illogical utterances were thought processes that had their own kind of order and their own special logic. Einstein called it a discovery « so simple that only a genius could have thought of it » … (full text).

(He) elaborated the stages of childhood.

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Linked with Sudanreeves.org, with Genocide prevention: 60 years of abject failure, and with Will 2008 be another year of death in Darfur?

Dr. Eric Reeves is professor of English Language and Literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has spent the past seven years working full-time as a Sudan researcher and analyst, publishing extensively both in the United States and internationally. He has testified several times before the Congress, has lectured widely in academic settings, and has served as a consultant to a number of human rights and humanitarian organizations operating in Sudan. Working independently, he has written on all aspects of Sudan’s recent history. He has recently received a generous grant from the Humanity First Initiative of the Omidyar Network to support his research and travel. He is presently at work on a book surveying the international response to ongoing war and human destruction in Sudan. (wikipedia).

His book: A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide (Paperback).

Eric Reeves will receive an honorary degree from Smith College on March 6, in recognition of the work he’s done to alleviate the suffering from the conflict in the Sudan. « This is a particularly special moment for Smith, » said media relations director Kristen Cole. It is the first time a sitting faculty member has received an honorary degree from Smith College … (full text, Febr. 12, 2008).

Watch the video SWAT HLP, 9.01 min, January 24, 2007.

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Eric Reeves – USA

How many deaths in Darfur? Aug. 20, 2007.

Darfur, counting the deaths, May 26, 2005.

He writes: … What accounts for this unconscionable delay of a UN-authorized peace support mission, with Chapter 7 auspices? Unsurprisingly—and now increasingly publicly acknowledged by UN diplomats—the answer lies in defiant obstructionism by the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in Khartoum (which has expediently and euphemistically renamed itself the National Congress Party). Though notionally the senior member of a Sudanese “Government of National Unity,” the Khartoum security cabal represents only ruthless survivalism, and is animated only by a determination to retain its stranglehold on Sudanese national wealth and power. But the NIF has extremely limited domestic political support; their confident obstruction of international efforts to halt what has become a grim “genocide by attrition” in Darfur must be explained in other terms. And here the key is Chinese support for the regime—support of longstanding that has taken economic, military, and diplomatic form. To be sure, the Arab League—Egypt in particular—has been supportive of Khartoum, as has the Organization of the Islamic Conference. But to survive international pressure, especially by the US, to flout with disdain Security Council resolutions, and to thrive economically despite the crushing burden of its more than $25 billion in external debt, Khartoum has depended upon Beijing. Beijing has abstained on, or blocked through a threatened veto, virtually every action the Security Council sought to take prior to passage of Resolution 1769. China did finally vote for this resolution, but only after significantly weakening its mandate and insisting that there be no sanctions threat against Khartoum, even in the event of non-compliance with the resolution … (full text, February 8, 2008).

UN inaction persists and Darfur crimes too, January 28, 2008.

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Linked with INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND PHILANTHROPY, Colonialism by other means, and with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs.

Biographical Highlights: Rebecca L. Adamson, half Cherokee, established and continues to remain president of the First Nations Development Institute as well as the founder of First Peoples Worldwide. With her belief that Native Americans should be in control of their own schools and education, she soon became a promoter of economic independence for tribes as well. She has sought ways to develop sovereignty among the Indigenous People through creating projects that stem from their original cultures and beliefs. Since 1970, Adamson remains working directly with the tribes and assists them in finding the most sufficient ways of developing successful small businesses and economies apart from the Federal Government without compromising their customs. Furthermore, her organization has raised and distributed millions of dollars to help with these ventures. Adamson obtained a Masters of Science in Economic Development from the University of Southern New Hampshire1 where she also teaches a graduate course on Indigenous Economics within the Community Economic Development Program (Indian Country Today) … (full text).

She is mentionned as betterworld heroe.

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Rebecca Adamson – USA

Find her Bio on Native-Wiki.

She says: « Economic development, more than any single issue, is the battle line between two competing world views. Tribal people’s fundamental value was sustainability, and they conducted their livelihoods in ways that sustained resources and limited inequalities in their society. What made traditional economies so radically different and so very fundamentally dangerous to Western economies were the traditional principles of prosperity of Creation versus scarcity of resources, of sharing and distribution versus accumulation and greed, of kinship usage rights versus individual exclusive ownership rights, and of sustainability versus growth. In the field of economic development, economists like to think Western economics is value-neutral, but in truth, it is not. Success is defined according to production units or monetary worth. The contrast with successful indigenous development is stark. For example, since they understand the environment to be a living being, the Northern Cheyenne have opposed coal strip mining on their reservation because it kills the water beings. There are no cost measurements of pollution, production, or other elements that can capture this kind of impact. There is an emerging recognition of the need for a spiritual base, not only in our individual lives, but also in our work and in our communities. (betterworld heroes).

Rebecca Adamson selected as 2003 National Women’s History Month Honoree, her work to be archived in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College.

She writes: … First, we have to peel away the widespread misconception that conservationists speak for Indigenous people. They do not, many of them have a different agenda. They can be complementary but right now they are not, and often they are in opposition. Donors, in particular, have to become much more aware of the unintended consequences of their funding of these kinds of conservation strategies. In many cases NGOs are putting themselves on a track where they have to get so many thousand hectares into protected area status and the clock is ticking. They?’re getting more and more and more aggressive in order to meet the donors’ objectives. So they’re running roughshod over whatever’s in their way to bring these projects in on line … (full text).

Public Women, Public Words: A Documentary History …

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Mehdi Parvizi Amineh studied political sciences and philosophy at the at the University of Amsterdam and holds a PhD in Political Sciences at the university. Since 2002 he is member of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research ASSR. He is a Adjunct professor of International Relations at the Webster University, and senior lecturer at the International School for Humanities and Social Sciences ISHSS, University of Amsterdam. He is also senior research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies and programme director of the research programme-Energy Programme Asia EPA at the same institute and Associated Fellow in post-Soviet Eurasia, the Middle East and the Caspian Region at the Clingendael International Energy Programme, The Hague, The Netherlands. His current fields of interests are the political economy energy, comparative political economy of successful and failed industrialization in East Asia, the Middle East and Central Eurasia and globalization and (politicized-) Islam. Amineh is Editor-in-Chief of the book-series: International Comparative Social Sciences ICSS, Brill Academic Publishing and a member of the editorial Board of the journals: Perspectives on Global Development and Technology PGDT and Come Sociologyparativ CoSo … (full text).

Caspian Energy: A viable alternative to the Persian Gulf?

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Research Interests: His main fields of study are International Relations, International Political Economy and Social History. His main research topics are politics and society in the Middle East and Central Eurasia in a historical perspective; the rise of political Islam as response to globalisation in a historical perspective; Global energy security and geopolitics; EU-energy security and its impediments and rethinking International Relations theories. (His personal website).

Globalisation, Geopolitics ans Energy Security in Central Eurasia and the Caspian Region, June 19, 2003.

Find him and his publications: on his personal website; on amazon; on e-bay; on Barnes & Noble; on allBookstores; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search;
on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search; on UNjobs.

Sorry, his texts are not available for free in the internet.

links:

Perspectives on Global Development and Technology;

Selected Academic Publications (scroll down);

The Complexity of Central Eurasia;

Europa e China na Ásia Central: a questão energética II;

The Energy Security in Central Eurasia: the Geopolitical Implications to China’s Energy Strategy.

Linked with Islam and the Enlightenment – Between Ebb and Flow.

Abdelwahab Meddeb is a high-profile French writer of Arab origin. He was born in Tunis in 1946 and comes from a long family line of theologians and scholars. He studied art history and literature, beginning his working life as an editor for a major Paris publishing house. Between 1974 and 1988, he edited his own series of literary titles at Editions Sindbad. He has published the novels Talismano (1976) and Aya dans les villes (1999). His book The Malady of Islam (2003) gives a precise analysis of contemporary Islam. He lives in Paris. (sigt and sigt.com, scroll down).

He says:  » … Because at that time, the Islamic world was home to a large, well-educated upper class which encouraged debate. Throughout the medieval period, there were renowned literary salons in major cities like Baghdad that were run by aristocratic patrons and merchants and whose sole raison d’être was to bring together Christians, Jews and various sects who did not agree at all on questions of faith. The Pope is wrong to speak of a single Islamic doctrine; there were many, and they were often the subject of open disputes. In Tunis, the capital of the Maghreb, the Sultan explicitly placed progressive theologians under the protection of the freedom of opinion and defended them against attacks by the people. Of course, the majority of simple Muslims were uneducated and hardly willing to be persuaded by the power of logic and arguments as the intellectuals hoped. Today, we have comparable Muslim masses, but there is little trace of an educated elite capable of leading the discussion … (full interview text – Islam’s heritage of violence/05/10/2006 … originally appeared in German in Die Zeit – dem Islam ist die Gewalt in die Wiege gelegt/September 21, 2006.).

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Abdelwahab Meddeb – Tunis & France

Abdelwahab Meddeb, né en 1946 à Tunis, est un écrivain et poète franco-tunisien. Directeur de la revue internationale Dédale, il enseigne la littérature comparée à l’Université Paris X. Il est aussi professeur invité dans de nombreuses universités (dont Yale et Genève). Il anime l’émission Cultures d’islam sur France Culture … (tout le texte sur wikipedia.fr).

Transatlantic Intelligencer: Barak on Hamas, Barcelona Plot, and Tariq Ramadan, on World Politics Review Exclusive, by John Rosenthal, 05 Feb 2008.

For Abdelwahab Meddeb, the Koran is the product of man. In an interview conducted by Gilles Anquetil, Abdelwahab Meddeb, the Frano-Tunisian poet and writer believes that « the return to the Mutazilites, these 9th Century rationalist theologians, is priceless. Didn’t they defend the idea of a ‘created Koran’ against those literalists who took the Koran as ‘received’? What is the ‘created Koran’ if not the belief in writings inspired by God and translated into the language of man? This human mediation implies the necessity to situate the text in the context of its proliferation and to go back to the time of its relevation, which is anthropologically outdated. Its meaning is thus relative. What happened with the Bible at the end of the 17th Century is happening with the Koran today. There are many Muslim researchers who are participating. Our role is to bring the results of this research to the largest number of people possible » … (on english Courrier International janvier 18, 2008 – a translation from Comment guérir l’islam?, on Nouvel Obs, 17 Janvier 2008).

Vidéo en français du salon du livre en Tanger: Interview de Abdelwahab Meddeb, March 3, 2007.

Vidéo en français pour son livre ‘la maladie de l’Islam‘, 1.51 min.

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Linked with Global warming, a hotly debated issue.

Philip Stott is a professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a former editor (1987-2004) of the Journal of Biogeography … (full text).

It is written: More than 2,000 of the world’s leading scientists who sit on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) are agreed. Global warming is happening – and it’s connected with fossil-fuel use. But there are disbelievers, too. Here are six climate-change deniers who have shot to fame for their views – and their talent for attracting publicity … Philip Stott is bit of a newcomer to global warming – his previous stomping ground was promoting GM food – but he’s been grooming himself to become Britain’s leading climatechange denier. ‘The myth of global warming was invented in 1988,’ claims the emeritus professor of biogeography at London University. Climate change, he argues, is unexceptional and anyway ‘humans have always coped with change’. Stott, an ardent self-publicist, regularly appears on radio and television. His favoured method is to cite carefully selected, contradictory data to undermine the IPCC consensus. A contrarian, it seems, in more ways than one, Stott claims to belong to the political ‘Left’ while maintaining a fiercely pro-industry stance … (on Toxic sceptics).

See Philip Stott’s latest lectures.

The video: Green_House_Conspiracy.wmv TVT, 51.49 min, 25.03.2007.

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Philip Stott – England

Stott regards himself as a Humeian ‘mitigated sceptic’ [15] on the subject of global warming. He has not published scholarly articles in the field of climate change, although he has published books on the subject. Also, he has researched on the construction of environmental knowledge, including global warming as a Barthesian myth, for over thirty years … (Global warming).

In a letter to The Guardian on climate change, Stott attacked the scientific consensus as the problem, saying, ‘It is surely time in the UK for a more adult scientific openness about the limitations of our current knowledge.’ Yet in the case of biotechnology he seems unwilling to acknowledge any limitations or uncertainties. In fact, according to Stott, genetic engineering can already be confidently declared ‘an advance vital for human development’ and indeed, ‘essential for human survival’, being the ‘finest of all human adaptations’. These quotations come from an article which he describes as ‘one of my more balanced pieces’ (personal communication) … (full text).

Motion: Global Warming Is Not a Crisis – Read about the panelists participating in the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate over whether global warming is an actual crisis … (full text).

MARY SHELLEY, GALILEO, PROF STOTT & FLIGHTS OF FANCY, 7 March 2001.

Political Science, February 3, 2007.

Find him also on the University of Adelaide; on Google Video-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Boook-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search; on wikipedia.

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Paul Robin Krugman (born February 28, 1953) is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University. He is also an author and a columnist for The New York Times, a twice-weekly op-ed for the newspaper since 2000. Krugman is well known in academia for his work in trade theory, which provides a model in which firms and countries produce and trade because of economies of scale and for his textbook explanations of currency crises and New Trade Theory. He was a critic of the « New Economy » of the late 1990s. Krugman also criticized the fixed exchange rates of the island Asia nations and Thailand before the 1997 East Asian financial crisis, and of investors such as Long-Term Capital Management that relied on the fixed rates just before the 1998 Russian financial crisis. Krugman is generally considered a neo-Keynesian [1: see in this article], with his views outlined in his books such as Peddling Prosperity. His International Economics: Theory and Policy (currently in its seventh edition) is a standard textbook on international economics without calculus. In 1991 he was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economic Association. Krugman is an ardent critic of the George W. Bush administration and its foreign and domestic policy. Unlike many economic pundits, he is also regarded as an important scholarly contributor by his peers.[2: see this reference] and [3: in this article]. He has written over 200 scholarly papers and 20 books [4: in this article] – some academic, and some written for the layperson … (full long text).

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Paul Krugman – USA

Video: The Conscience of a Liberal, by Google economic Talks, 71.17 min, December 18, 2007.

The Official Paul Krugman Web Page, the old version; and the same in the new version on NYT.

His publications: on his own website (old web-version); on columns of the PK-archive; on New York Times NYT; on the NYT’ blog, its unofficilial Paul Krugman Archive; on amazon; on wikipedia; on Google Video-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google blog-search.

He writes:

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Linked with MAJLIS, with Bilkis Bano’s Brave Fight.

Flavia Agnes is a women’s rights lawyer and writer and has been actively involved in the women’s movement for the last two decades. She has written extensively on issues of domestic violence, feminist jurisprudence and minority rights. Her books are widely acclaimed and are popular among advocates, paralegal workers, law students and women who have been victims of domestic violence. Currently she co-ordinates the legal centre of MAJLIS and is also engaged in her doctoral research on Property Rights of Married Women with the National Law School of India. (SPARROW online).

She is named as Ashoka Fellow.

Her book: Women and Law in India: An Omnibus Comprising/introduction by Flavia Agnes. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2004, 676 pages, $39. ISBN 0-19-566767-0

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Flavia Agnes – India

She works for MAJLIS.

Times Foundation rewards women achievers.

Law and Gender Inequality maps the issue of gender and law reform upon a broad canvas of history and politics, and explores strategies which could safeguard women’s rights within India’s sphere of complex social and political boundaries. Written in a lucid style, this book provides an invaluable analysis of the current trends of the debate on the Uniform Civil Code and goes on to expose the communal undertones of some recent judicial pronouncements. Readership: The book will be of interest to scholars and students of law, gender studies, activists and NGOs. (webstore).

CHALLENGING THE LAW: WOMEN’S STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY IN INDIA POST-GUJARAT.

What is most significant is the fact that Flavia married after high school was a battered mother of three. Way back in the Seventies she came to a women’s group in Mumbai for support. It took her a long time to break free of the marriage and the domestic violence within it. Once she did, she penned a very moving autobiography called My story…Our Story of Rebuilding Broken Lives. The story was widely translated into different languages including Punjabi. A decade ago a play based on her life story was presented in Punjabi all over Punjab with Paramjit Tewari as director.(full text).

Domestic Violence Act.

Continuer la lecture de « Flavia Agnes – India »

Linked with The World Future Council, and with africa practice.com.

Anthony John Colman (born July 24, 1943) was the Labour member of Parliament for Putney, Former Labour MP for Putney London. He won the seat in the 1997 election, defeating David Mellor, but lost it in 2005 to Justine Greening. Before being elected to Parliament he was a councillor and leader of London Borough of Merton between 1991 and 1997. He also enjoyed a successful career in business which included being a director of the Burton Group. Since 2006 he is a founding member of the World Future Council … (wikipedia).

He says: « Constituency casework is the area in which I can make most difference to people’s lives. For example, I helped a woman retain her part-time job and incapacity benefit and restored, she said, « her faith in humanity and in politics ». (guardian).

Listen his short video: Tony Colman talks about the World Future Council, 1.54 min, August 02, 2006.

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Tony Colman – England

His intervention in the House of Commons debates, 25 November 2004: about United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.

The fourth meeting in the series was entitled Ahead of the Curve: Why the UN needs the capacity to think. This meeting was chaired by Tony Colman MP, Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group on the UN; and the (full text).

More bios:

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