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Alternative Idea (alternative + idea)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

PHILOSOPHY AS TRANSLATION: DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION FROM DEWEY TO CAVELL

EDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 3 2007
Naoko Saito
In this essay Naoko Saito aims to find an alternative idea and language for "mutual national understanding," one that is more attuned to the sensibility of our times. She argues for Stanley Cavell's idea of philosophy as translation as such an alternative. Based upon Cavell's rereading of Thoreau's Walden, Saito represents Thoreau as a cross-cultural figure who transcends cultural and national boundaries. On the strength of this, she proposes a Cavellian education for global citizenship, that is, a perfectionist education for imperfect understanding in acknowledgment of alterity. Our founding of democracy must depend upon a readiness to "deconfound" the culture we have come from, the better to find new foundations together. The "native" is always in transition, by and through language, in processes of translation. [source]

On large-scale diagonalization techniques for the Anderson model of localization

PROCEEDINGS IN APPLIED MATHEMATICS & MECHANICS, Issue 1 2007
Olaf Schenk
We propose efficient preconditioning algorithms for an eigenvalue problem arising in quantum physics, namely the computation of a few interior eigenvalues and their associated eigenvectors for large-scale sparse real and symmetric indefinite matrices of the Anderson model of localization. Our preconditioning approaches for the shift-and-invert symmetric indefinite linear system are based on maximum weighted matchings and algebraic multi-level incomplete LDLT factorizations. These techniques can be seen as a complement to the alternative idea of using more complete pivoting techniques for the highly ill-conditioned symmetric indefinite Anderson matrices. Our numerical examples reveal that recent algebraic multi-level preconditioning solvers can accelerate the computation of a large-scale eigenvalue problem corresponding to the Anderson model of localization by several orders of magnitude. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) [source]

Guidance and Justification in Particularistic Ethics

BIOETHICS, Issue 4 2000
Ulrik Kihlbom
This paper argues that, contrary to a common line of criticism followed by scholars such as Helga Kuhse, a particularistic version of virtue ethics properly elaborated, can provide sound moral guidance and a satisfactory account for moral justification of our opinions regarding, for instance, health care practice. In the first part of the paper, three criteria for comparing normative theories with respect to action-guiding power are outlined, and it is argued that the presented particularistic version of virtue ethics actually can provide more guidance than the universalistic theories favoured by Kuhse and others. In the second part of the paper it is claimed that universalist normative theories have serious problems accounting for the role that moral principles are supposed to play in the justification, of moral opinions, whereas the present version of virtue ethics accommodates a plausible alternative idea of justification without invoking moral principles or eschewing objectivity. [source]

Fashioned Forest Pasts, Occluded Histories?

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2000
International Environmental Analysis in West African Locales
This article considers how environmental problematics are produced and interpreted, using case material from West Africa's humid forest zone. Examing the experiences of several countries over the long term, it is possible to identify a deforestation discourse produced through national and international institutions. This represents forest and social history in particular ways that structure forest conservation but which obscure the experience and knowledge of resource users. Using fine-grained ethnography to explore how such discourse is experienced and interpreted in a particular locale, the article uncovers problems with ,discourse' perspectives which produce analytical dichotomies which confront state and villager, and scientific and ,local' knowledges. The authors explore the day-to-day encounters between villagers and administrators, and the social and historical experiences which condition these. Instances where the deforestation discourse becomes juxtaposed with villagers' alternative ideas about landscape history prove relatively few and insignificant, while the powerful material effects of the discourse tend to be interpreted locally within other frames. These findings present departures from the ways relations between citizen sciences and expert institutions have been conceived in recent work on the sociology of science and public policy. [source]

Explaining the Functional Expansion of a Regional Organization: The Case of Security Cooperation within APEC,

PACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 3 2008
Hyun Seok Yu
This study is an attempt to explain the functional expansion of Asia,Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to include the security issue. The hegemonic stability version of realist theory that emphasizes the role of the hegemon in the emergence and change of international institutions seems to provide a plausible explanation. The fundamental limitation of the power-based explanation to the transformation of APEC is that it tends to treat the hegemon's intention and outcome as the same and does not pay attention to the process in which the hegemon's intentions come to fruition. It is obvious that the intention of the hegemon is not in itself sufficient to produce the desired outcome. Thus, the power-based explanation leaves the very important process of transformation unexplained. This study focuses on the process in which other countries accept the agenda of the USA. Two ideational factors (connecting security and trade and the human security concept) played roles and the USA has been deeply involved in inventing and distributing these ideas. The USA has persuaded other member countries that security and economic issues are inseparable. Building up a logical connection between security and trade in effect contributed to a new way of understanding anti-terrorism issues by other member states. The introduction of the human security concept also contributed to the acceptance of security cooperation within APEC by member countries. Human security was much more easily accepted, even by skeptic members, than counter-terrorism because human security is less controversial and seems to be more concerned with the public good. This paper does not deny the role of the hegemon in the transformation of the regional organization. Instead, it wants to analyze the process in which the hegemon's intention is realized. In this process the abilities of the hegemon such as diplomatic practice, norm creation, and the ability to provide alternative ideas play an important role. [source]