Jürgen Habermas et la théorie de l'agir communicationnel : la question de l'éducation

La Théorie de l’agir communicationnel (1981), du théoricien allemand Jürgen Habermas, figure parmi les plus importants ouvrages de sociologie et de philosophie sociale du XXe siècle : son caractère universaliste, visant l’élaboration d’une théorie globale de la société occidentale moderne, en fait un écrit dont la réputation n’est plus à faire dans une diversité de champs académiques issus des sciences sociales. Toutefois, la théorie habermassienne n’a inspiré à ce jour qu’un nombre restreint d’études portant spécifiquement sur son articulation à l’éducation, que ce soit sur le plan de la nature de l’activité éducative ou encore d’une caractérisation théorique de l’éducation moderne institutionnalisée : ainsi, comment la théorie de l’agir communicationnel nous permet-elle de mieux comprendre les rouages de l’acte éducatif moderne et contemporain ainsi que l’évolution historique, politique et sociale des institutions scolaires européennes et nord-américaines? En tant que théorie de la société basée sur un renouvellement communicationnel du concept de rationalité, de quelle façon s’inscrit-elle dans une tradition philosophique éducative aux sources de l’école occidentale, et nous renseigne-t-elle sur les fondements de la relation pédagogique entre maîtres et élèves? En proposant une série de considérations à ce propos, cette thèse représente à la fois une étude des rapports entre la pensée philosophique et sociologique d’Habermas et l’éducation ainsi qu’une forte critique de celle-ci : en effet, la problématique centrale qui se dresse et subsiste à une articulation de la théorie habermassienne à différentes sphères éducatives demeure celle du statut de l’enfant dans un tel système rationaliste qui, malgré ses visées émancipatoires et libératrices pour l’acteur social, perpétue une négation de l’enfance propre au rationalisme de Platon à Kant. Dès lors, comment réfléchir l’éducation contemporaine à l’aune de la pensée habermassienne? Comment, finalement, penser l’éducation pour et contre Habermas?

Labor's shares - aggregate and industry: accounting for both in a model of unbalanced growth with induced innovation

The relative stability of aggregate labor's share constitutes one of the great macroeconomic ratios. However, relative stability at the aggregate level masks the unbalanced nature of industry labor's shares – the Kuznets stylized facts underlie those of Kaldor. We present a two-sector – one labor-only and the other using both capital and labor – model of unbalanced economic development with induced innovation that can rationalize these phenomena as well as several other empirical regularities of actual economies. Specifically, the model features (i) one sector ("goods" production) becoming increasingly capital-intensive over time; (ii) an increasing relative price and share in total output of the labor-only sector ("services"); and (iii) diverging sectoral labor's shares despite (iii) an aggregate labor's share that converges from above to a value between 0 and unity. Furthermore, the model (iv) supports either a neoclassical steadystate or long-run endogenous growth, giving it the potential to account for a wide range of real world development experiences.

Teorías y algunas experiencias internacionales en el financiamiento de la educación superior: lecciones para Colombia

Se analizan diferentes alternativas para la financiación de la educación superior, teniendo en cuenta que la presencia de fallas de mercado -tanto por el lado de la demanda como por el de la oferta- hace de éste un sector muy particular. Las primeras se relacionan con las decisiones privadas en términos de educación de la población estudiantil, y las segundas con las asimetrías de información que caracterizan el lado de la oferta en el financiamiento de la educación. El documento hace una revisión de literatura académica y de algunas experiencias internacionales sobre las diferentes fuentes de financiación en este sector, así como sus potenciales efectos sobre ciertas variables. Así, esta revisión arroja luces sobre las alternativas para el caso Colombiano.

La incorporación del cacao ecuatoriano al mercado mundial entre 1840 y 1925, según los informes consulares (Estudios)

Este artículo ofrece una reinterpretación del proceso de incorporación del cacao ecuatoriano al mercado mundial, entre 1840 y 1925. Esta revisión se realiza a partir de los conceptos desarrollados por el economista italiano Giovanni Arrighi: incorporación nominal, incorporación periférica e incorporación no-periférica. Por medio de estos, el ensayo analiza la variedad de enlaces que se desarrollaron entre el centro y la periferia, y dentro la periferia misma. Se estudian especialmente dos momentos de este proceso: 1840-1890 y 1890-1910. El análisis de las articulaciones externas e internas que se dieron en cada una de estas fases y los factores de producción que los sustentaron permiten caracterizar al primer momento como ‘incorporación nominal’ y al segundo como ‘periférica’. Esta distinción permite una mejor comprensión del auge cacaotero ecuatoriano en el largo siglo XIX. El trabajo se basa en los informes consulares extranjeros, un tipo de documentación que no ha sido suficientemente estudiada todavía.

Shakespeare and Islam

This special issue conceives of “Shakespeare and Islam” in its broadest sense, conceptually, and opens up the conjunction to consideration of both the early modern and more recent periods. It is not directly concerned with addressing doctrinal questions: “Islam” is a flag of convenience for our purposes, an umbrella term that takes in not only the Ottoman Empire but also the Persian (a subject that, perhaps unsurprisingly, tends to be overshadowed by its stronger neighbour), and extends to a discussion of twentieth- and twenty-first-century issues of Shakespearean interpretation. In line with this journal's principal remit, the essays concentrate on questions of staging and interpretation, adaptation and appropriation, thus drawing on and contributing to one of the dominant fields of Shakespeare studies today. While the early modern period remains the collection's central interest, two concluding essays remind us (if we need reminding) that the seemingly endless recycling and reinterpretation of Shakespeare have implications for how we understand the conjunction with Islam today.

Dealing with complexity: an autopoietic view of the People's Planning Campaign, Kerala

Complexity is integral to planning today. Everyone and everything seem to be interconnected, causality appears ambiguous, unintended consequences are ubiquitous, and information overload is a constant challenge. The nature of complexity, the consequences of it for society, and the ways in which one might confront it, understand it and deal with it in order to allow for the possibility of planning, are issues increasingly demanding analytical attention. One theoretical framework that can potentially assist planners in this regard is Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. This article uses insights from Luhmann's ideas to understand the nature of complexity and its reduction, thereby redefining issues in planning, and explores the ways in which management of these issues might be observed in actual planning practice via a reinterpreted case study of the People's Planning Campaign in Kerala, India. Overall, this reinterpretation leads to a different understanding of the scope of planning and planning practice, telling a story about complexity and systemic response. It allows the reinterpretation of otherwise familiar phenomena, both highlighting the empirical relevance of the theory and providing new and original insight into particular dynamics of the case study. This not only provides a greater understanding of the dynamics of complexity, but also produces advice to help planners implement structures and processes that can cope with complexity in practice.

‘Scripture its own interpreter’: Mary Martha Sherwood, the Bible and female autobiography

This is a reading of the work of Mary Martha Sherwood, the Victorian Evangelist and Children’s Author (and pupil at the Abbey School, Reading). Based upon research on Sherwood’s private correspondences and diary conducted at UCLA with the aid of a Mitzi Myers (this before my arrival at Reading), the essay offers a radical reinterpretation of her work. Previously understood in terms of a rigid, if self-contradictory and ‘anxious’, Evangelism, the essay reads the diary through Sherwood’s little known Biblical scholarship. Through this I argue that Sherwood grants her own writing the status of Biblical truth precisely because of its contradictions and ‘anxiety’.

Harringtonian virtue: Harrington, Machiavelli, and the method of the 'Moment'

This article presents a reinterpretation of James Harrington's writings. It takes issue with J. G. A. Pocock's reading, which treats him as importing into England a Machiavellian ‘language of political thought’. This reading is the basis of Pocock's stress on the republicanism of eighteenth-century opposition values. Harrington's writings were in fact a most implausible channel for such ideas. His outlook owed much to Stoicism. Unlike the Florentine, he admired the contemplative life; was sympathetic to commerce; and was relaxed about the threat of ‘corruption’ (a concept that he did not understand). These views can be associated with his apparent aims: the preservation of a national church with a salaried but politically impotent clergy; and the restoration of the royalist gentry to a leading role in English politics. Pocock's hypothesis is shown to be conditioned by his method; its weaknesses reflect some difficulties inherent in the notion of ‘languages of thought’.

Fractal spaces in planning and governance

This paper discusses concepts of space within the planning literature, the issues they give rise to and the gaps they reveal. It then introduces the notion of 'fractals' borrowed from complexity theory and illustrates how it unconsciously appears in planning practice. It then moves on to abstract the core dynamics through which fractals can be consciously applied and illustrates their working through a reinterpretation of the People's Planning Campaign of Kerala, India. Finally it highlights the key contribution of the fractal concept and the advantages that this conceptualisation brings to planning.

The ϝhεδιέστας inscription from archaic Argos (SEG 11:314): a reconsideration

This article offers a re-edition of SEG 11:314, Argos inventory number E274, based on re-examination of the stone and of recently rediscovered squeezes preserving material now lost from the stone; these allow improved readings in numerous places. We also offer a reinterpretation of the disputed syntax of the last three lines, which we translate ‘As for the things with which a δαμιοργóς is to compel (him to make amends), the ἀμφίπολος is to give thought to these things’.

Entrepreneurial failure and economic crisis: an historical perspective

This chapter analyses the major UK economic crises that have occurred since the speculative bubbles of the seventeenth century. It integrates insights from economic history and business history to analyse both the general economic conditions and the specific business and financial practices that led to these crises. The analysis suggests a significant reinterpretation of the evidence – one that questions economists’ conventional views.

A carbon isotope challenge to the snowball Earth

The snowball Earth hypothesis postulates that the planet was entirely covered by ice for millions of years in the Neoproterozoic era, in a self-enhanced glaciation caused by the high albedo of the ice-covered planet. In a hard-snowball picture, the subsequent rapid unfreezing resulted from an ultra-greenhouse event attributed to the buildup of volcanic carbon dioxide (CO(2)) during glaciation(1). High partial pressures of atmospheric CO(2) (p(CO2); from 20,000 to 90,000 p. p. m. v.) in the aftermath of the Marinoan glaciation (similar to 635 Myr ago) have been inferred from both boron and triple oxygen isotopes(2,3). These p(CO2) values are 50 to 225 times higher than present-day levels. Here, we re-evaluate these estimates using paired carbon isotopic data for carbonate layers that cap Neoproterozoic glacial deposits and are considered to record post-glacial sea level rise(1). The new data reported here for Brazilian cap carbonates, together with previous ones for time-equivalent units(4-8), provide p(CO2) estimates lower than 3,200 p. p. m. v.-and possibly as low as the current value of similar to 400 p. p. m. v. Our new constraint, and our reinterpretation of the boron and triple oxygen isotope data, provide a completely different picture of the late Neoproterozoic environment, with low atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and oxygen that are inconsistent with a hard-snowball Earth.

Cladistic analysis of the suborder Conulariina Miller and Gurley, 1896 (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa; Vendian-Triassic)

Results of a cladistic analysis of the suborder Conulariina Miller and Gurley, 1896, a major extinct (Vendian-Triassic) group of scyphozoan cnidarians, are presented. The analysis sought to test whether the three conulariid subfamilies (Conulariinae Walcott, 1886, Paraconulariinae Sinclair, 1952 and Ctenoconulariinae Sinclair, 1952) recognized in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology ( TIP) are monophyletic. A total of 17 morphological characters were scored for 16 ingroup taxa, namely the genera Archaeoconularia, Baccaconularia, Climacoconus, Conularia, Conulariella, Conularina, Ctenoconularia, Eoconularia, Glyptoconularia, Metaconularia, Notoconularia, Paraconularia, Pseudoconularia, Reticulaconularia, Teresconularia and Vendoconularia. The extant medusozoan taxa Cubozoa, Stauromedusae, Coronatae and Semaeostomeae served as outgroups. Unweighted analysisof the data matrix yielded 1057 trees, and successive weighting analysis resulted in one of the 1057 original trees. The ingroup is monophyletic with two autapomorphies: (1) the quadrate geometry of the oral region; and (2) the presence of a mineralized (phosphatic) periderm. Within the ingroup, the clade (Vendoconularia, Teresconularia, Conularina, Eoconularia) is supported by the sinusoidal longitudinal geometry of the transverse ridges, and the much larger clade (Baccaconularia, Glyptoconularia, Metaconularia, Pseudoconularia, Conularia, Ctenoconularia, Archaeoconularia, Notoconularia, Climacoconus, Paraconularia, Reticulaconularia) is supported by the presence of external tubercles, which, however, were lost in the clade (Notoconularia, Climacoconus, Paraconularia, Reticulaconularia). As proposed by Van Iten et al. (2000), the clade (Notoconularia, Climacoconus, Paraconularia, Reticulaconularia) is supported by the termination and alternation of the transverse ribs in the corner sulcus. The previously recognized subfamilies Conulariinae, Paraconulariinae and Ctenoconulariinae were not recovered from this analysis. The diagnostic features of Conulariinae (continuation of the transverse ornament across the corner sulcus and lack of carinae) and Ctenoconulariinae ( presence of carinae) are symplesiomorphic or homoplastic, and Paraconulariinae is polyphyletic. The families Conulariellidae Kiderlen, 1937 and Conulariopsidae Sugiyama, 1942, also recognized in the TIP, are monogeneric, and since they provide no additional phylogenetic information, should be abandoned.

Vad säger statistik om arbetslöshet? : En analys av den offentliga debattenom arbetslösheten i Sverige inför valet 2005

This essay examines the public debate concerning the unemployment of Sweden just before the general election 2005. Its main purpose is to analyse what lies behind the huge differences in statistics, as presented by the two leading factions in the debate. It concludes that these differences are foremost a problem of semantics, and that although the two factions have statistical proof of their claims, it is their use of terminology that is in fact their main weapon in the debate.The key word here is the swedish word for employment – sysselsättning – which the two facitons use in entirely different ways, creating a lot of possabilities for interpretation. This has caused a type of debate which is actually about the reinterpretation this word, and those who are to be included in the statistics as being “sysselsatt”, therefore, it is semantics that affects the number of unemployed people in the statistics.

Hur eller Varför? : Kunskap i sociokulturellt eller existentialistiskt perspektiv? En kritisk betraktelse

This essay set out to propose a problematic interpretation of the socio-cultural perspective on learning. Its purpose is to show how the socio-cultural perspective on learning defines the concept of knowledge in an incomplete way. The aim becomes then that of giving a more comprehensive description of this concept, and, to this end, to construct a new, broader pedagogic discourse. The investigation starts with a deconstructive analysis of Roger Säljö’s socio-cultural text in order to point out the incompleteness of the concept of knowledge. The constructive part of the analysis proceeds using Heidegger’s and Sartre’s philosophical theories which take a general approach on human learning and on human knowledge as dependent on intuition. A dichotomy of two new concepts related to knowledge is thus defined: how-knowledge and why-knowledge. This reconceptualisation of the concept of knowledge allows a reinterpretation of any act of knowledge in a structural way. Hence any act of knowledge includes a moment (a) which defines the initial contextual (conceptual or practical) situation; a moment (b) which represents an algorithm, a procedure, or a theory; and a moment (c) which represents the result of the act, and is the direct application of knowledge as a finalized entity. Knowledge inbuilt in (a) and (c) is characterized as how-knowledge, while that in (b) is characterized as why-knowledge. In a learning situation a focus on how-knowledge implies finality and objectification of students. Conversely, why-knowledge implies students becoming subjects of their own learning.