Part Of My Article Research Articles

Frankfurt School Marxism and the Ethical Meaning of Art: Herbert Marcuse's The Aesthetic Dimension

This article takes up the ethical meaning of Herbert Marcuse's aesthetics, especially as espoused in his last book, The Aesthetic Dimension (1978). In it, Marcuse responds at both an ethical and aesthetic level to three versions of Marxist/Frankfurt school theory of art: realism, negation theory, and formalism. The first part of my article situates The Aesthetic Dimension in a tradition; the second part lets it speak for itself as a synthesis of the three ethical/aesthetic traditions; and the third part queries and develops Marcuse's synthetic efforts.

Nongovernmental Organizations in the United Nations System: The Emerging Role of International Civil Society

Nongovernmental Organizations in the United Nations System: The Emerging Role of International Civil Society Dianne Otto (bio) Outline Introduction In February 1993, the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) established an open-ended working group (OEWG) to update, if necessary, its arrangements for consultation with nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and to introduce coherent rules to regulate the participation of NGOs in international conferences organized by the United Nations (UN). 1 The review provides an important opportunity to clarify the roles and functions of NGOs in the international community, issues which have always been controversial. The review also has the potential to contribute to [End Page 107] current debates about the growing importance of civil society 2 in international norm-setting, although this possibility seems, as yet, remote. 3 My aim is to foster connections between the related projects of the ECOSOC review and post-cold war reconceptualizations of international civil society and governance. Without linking with theoretical debates about the future shape of the international community, it is likely that the review will be narrow in its scope and reach myopic and pragmatic, rather than visionary, conclusions. Alternatively, as I will argue, the review could help to foster new forms of relationships between NGOs and states in the context of new understandings of international democracy. My discussion is divided into two sections. Part I examines the history and context of the ECOSOC review and its likely outcomes, focussing on what principles should guide UN-NGO consultative relations. This examination reveals the tenacity of many of the issues which have precipitated the review and the likelihood that, like its forerunners, this review will leave these issues unresolved, resulting instead in piecemeal readjustments to the status quo. I argue that this would be a regressive outcome, muffling the innovative contributions of the more recently formed NGOs and ensuring a chaotic, rather than orderly, movement of civil society from the fringes to the center stage of the UN system. Part II canvasses some of the theoretical debates about the growing importance of international civil society. The dominant realist view of international relations is contrasted with alternative liberal and postliberal paradigms which place importance on individuals and social movements as international actors. These perspectives present a challenge to the statist supremacy assumed by current international arrangements and provide an important context for the ECOSOC review by recognizing the crucial role of international civil society. I conclude that the potential for the ECOSOC review to fail to come to grips with the fundamental tensions of the historical relationship between states and NGOs could be reduced by situating its deliberations within the broader context of the future of international governance. If such a contextualization were achieved, the review could assist in the urgent task of reconceptualizing relations between [End Page 108] states and nonstate entities and extending the discourse of international law beyond the interests of states to hear the many voices currently excluded. I. The ECOSOC Review The UN Charter makes one reference to NGOs, in Article 71, which allows that ECOSOC “may make suitable arrangements for consultation with nongovernmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence.” 4 The effect of this provision was unprecedented in that it formalized the extensive consultative relationships which had existed during the years of the League of Nations. 5 But Article 71 also limited the earlier practices by confining mandated consultation to the areas covered by ECOSOC 6 and by limiting involvement to “consultation” in contrast, for example, to the ability of representatives of UN specialized agencies and member states to “participate without vote” in ECOSOC deliberations. 7 The present arrangements for consultation with NGOs, the subject of the review, are set out in ECOSOC Resolution 1296(XLIV) of 27 May 1968 (hereinafter Resolution 1296). 8 By 1993, nearly 1000 NGOs had been granted formal consultative status with ECOSOC by way of these arrangements. 9 There is no doubt that the extent of NGO involvement in UN activities has vastly exceeded the expectations of those who drafted the Charter and dramatically outstripped the scope of these legal provisions. In this part of my article the primary focus is the principles which should guide UN-NGO relationships. I...

Discourse Ethics as a Response to the Novel Challenges of Today's Reality to Coresponsibility

The two main classes of novel problems may be characterized, it seems to me, as follows. First, there are problems that are completely novel in so far as they are brought about only by the present stage of civilization, that is, of human sociocultural evolution. Second, there are problems that are not completely novel, as we may recognize finally, but we are brought to full awareness of their relevance only now, that is, in connection with the realization of the first class of problems. In what follows I will first elucidate what I mean by the first class of problems, which appear to be completely novel in our time. Then, in the second part of my article, I will try to show that the second class of problems, which are not completely novel, take on a novel quality as a consequence of the rise of the first class of problems. Thus, it will turn out that both classes of novel problems imply a challenge to ethics to which most of our current types of philosophical ethics cannot provide a response. Finally, in the third part of my article, I will introduce the transcendentalpragmatic foundation of discourse ethics, and I will try to show that it may eventually provide a response to precisely those challenges that are posed by the novel problems of global justice and coresponsibility that are raised by our present-day reality.

Reply to DuBois

Previous articleNext article No AccessComment and ReplyReply to DuBoisKaren OffenKaren Offen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 15, Number 1Autumn, 1989 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/494577 Views: 3Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1989 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Karen Beckwith Mapping Strategic Engagements: WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS AND THE STATE, International Feminist Journal of Politics 9, no.33 (Aug 2007): 312–338.https://doi.org/10.1080/14616740701438218Kathleen B. Jones, Françoise Vergès Women of the Paris Commune, Women's Studies International Forum 14, no.55 (Jan 1991): 491–503.https://doi.org/10.1016/0277-5395(91)90051-I

Ritual Design in the New Dance: Nijinsky's Choreographic Method

The first part of my article ('Ritual Design in the New Dance: Nijinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps', Dance Research, Vol. III, No. 2, Summer 1985, pp. 35-45), endeavoured to share the shock of recognition I have experienced during my reconstruction of the choreography for this ballet. This part of the article examines some of Nijinsky's sources and suggests that his way of working with them evinced a method that could, I think, serve choreographers in the present and the future. Clues to the movement for any given section of the musical score of Sacre have accumulated gradually during my several years of research. And, as in the solving of any problem, one new fact perhaps a casual comment in an interview or a remark in some review from 1913 may suddenly make sense of many disparate details. When this synthesis occurs, I often find myself visualising a moment of the original Sacre onstage at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees. These momentary images of Le Sacre du

Competing Monies: Reply

The distinction between the average level of irlflation rate and its predictability will be found on page 495 of my original article [8] and between the store of value and medium of exchange (called short-term) roles of money on page 494. The latter is perhaps not as clear as it could be. It is true that I have only one kind of money in my model, and that money is not interest-bearing, but I do have an interestbearing bond and I do not think substituting interest-paying checking accounts for the bond would make any significant difference in my reasoning. I could go on finding places in which Klein's statements about my article are not in accord with the article itself. Indeed, he does not discuss the bulk of the article. The article is mainly devoted to presenting and discussing a theoretical model which he almost entirely ignores. Thus, his very long comment (slightly longer than the original article) is mainly devoted to a rather small part of my article. It does not seem worthwhile, however, to catalog in full the cases in which he has misdescribed the article. More important is what I can only refer to as Klein's odd attitude toward empincal methodology. Even this could be let go as a harmless eccentricity, except that I believe that Klein is, in this area, accurately representing a great many scholars in the field of money. Since I think they are wrong, it is worthwhile to explain why. Although in what follows I will talk mainly about Klein's comment, I am treating it merely as an illustration. The progress of science in general involves two strands, the elaboration of improved theory and empirical work, which in part tests that theory and in part turns up new information about the world-which in turn becomes raw material for the development of further theory.l There is no reason to believe that theory is more

Reply to Champion and Morris

B asically, Champion criticizes my article on three points: (1) that I others to squeeze every drop of information fkom their data regardless of certain consequences, (2) that I recommend a shift from ordinal to interval, even though the scale of the data is, in reality, ordinal (i.e., ordinal is ordinal), and (3) that I recommend the illegitimate use of certain statistics, because their assumptions are not met (and assumptions, according to Champion, cannot be violated in any manner or degree). Each of these criticisms is not only based on a misinterpretation of my article, but reflects a position that leads to a poor selection of statistical techniques. First, I am neither encouraging others to squeeze all information nor to disregard the consequences. In my article I encourage researchers to select statistics partially on the basis of answering the relevant substantive problems in question. This may require a strong variance measure that simply does not exist for ordinal data. Because the researcher does not have interval data, should he disregard the statistical analysis of this apparently important problem? Or should he reasonably (on the basis of sound rationale) select relevant statistics and interpret them with caution? I offer rather clear justification for the researcher to select interval statistics with ordinal data, because of the small error resulting from assigning an interval (especially linear) scoring system to ordered categories. Assigning an interval scale (with small error) does not mean that the researcher should disregard the consequences. In fact, the researcher must know a great deal about the consequences before he can select the appropriate statistical techniques and provide a sound rationale for using them in the face of not having the appropriately scaled variables. This requires a great deal more in the way of reasoning and knowledge of statistics than merely selecting those statistical techniques for which the data precisely meet the scale operations. Champion's second criticism (the scale of one's data is real and cannot be changed) reflects an indefensible philosophical position. He indicates that certain variables are in fact ordinal and they somehow exist out there in the real world as ordinal variables. But ordinality is a construct imposed upon a variable by the researcher. Is a variable inherently ordinal (or interval or nominal for that matter), or is the scale of a variable the consequence of an attempt to impose order in the universe? How a variable is scaled out there is beyond scientific analysis. We attempt to measure phenomena in a particular way and then call the resulting scale nominal, ordinal, interval or ratio depending on the operations used in the measurement. It may well be that some ordinally measured variables are more predictive under some interval scales. It is my contention that we need to experiment with scoring systems and evaluate their relative predictive ability, instead of assuming by fiat that ordinal is ordinal. Finally, the third criticism concerns one major part of my article, namely, that the assumptions of statistical techniques are inviolate. However, the major question is not (as Champion implies) what can you do for assumptions, but what can assumptions do for you? The answer is that they provide a logically deduced interpretation for the statistical technique. But as I show in my article, certain assumptions can be violated with only minor disturbance on the deduced interpretation (i.e., small errors). To restate an example, under certain circumstances, when the normality assumption of analysis of variance is violated, differences apparently significant at the .01 level are actually significant at the .02. Consequently, this test can be used and interpreted with accuracy, even though an assumption has been violated. The test is robust. It is not illegitimate to use the test under these circumstances and we are not wrong when we do it. Morris claims tl-pat the assignment of numbers to ordered categories becomes increasingly subject to error (strained) as the number of

Did Not Boom an Irregular Device.

Chambersburg, Pa., Oct. 7, 1895. To the Editor: —I send you by this mail, a reprint of my article on Electricity, not so much on account of any merit it may possess, but to demonstrate to you how little your reporter understood what I was talking about when he wrote you the report of the proceedings of our State Society. He must have been a very serious man to fail to see that I was poking fun at Electropoise, and write you that I said that argon was what was driven into the system, etc. Look at the report, and then at the latter part of my article, and determine whether I was too ponderous at my fun, or he too dull of comprehension. No serious harm has been done—the Electropoise men have not yet thanked for my ad. through yourJournal, nor yet have they gone for me