Domenico Losurdo: Liberalism: A Counter-History (2006/2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · history, history of philosophy, liberalism, philosophy, politics, totalitarianism
One of Europe’s leading intellectual historians deconstructs liberalism’s dark side.
In this definitive historical investigation, Italian author and philosopher Domenico Losurdo argues that from the outset liberalism, as a philosophical position and ideology, has been bound up with the most illiberal of policies: slavery, colonialism, genocide, racism and snobbery.
Narrating an intellectual history running from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries, Losurdo examines the thought of preeminent liberal writers such as Locke, Burke, Tocqueville, Constant, Bentham, and Sieyès, revealing the inner contradictions of an intellectual position that has exercised a formative influence on today’s politics. Among the dominant strains of liberalism, he discerns the counter-currents of more radical positions, lost in the constitution of the modern world order.
First published in Italian as Controstoria del Liberalismo, Gius. Laterza & Figli, 2006
Translated by Gregory Elliott
Publisher Verso Books, 2011
ISBN 1844676935, 9781844676934
375 pages
interview with the author, video (Pam Nogales and Ross Wolfe, The Platypus Review)
PDF (updated on 2012-7-29)
Comment (0)UNDP: Social Media, Accountability, and Public Transparency in Eastern Europe and CIS (2011)
Filed under report | Tags: · activism, corruption, eastern europe, internet activism, open data, open government, politics, social media, transparency, web 2.0
The domination of the executive over other branches of the government and the media is frequent in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but the rapid development of social media is changing this pattern by transforming personal conversations and individual opinions into a subject of public debate.
Publisher UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre, October 2011
review (Eva Vozárová, Fair-play Alliance)
PDF
View online (Issuu.com)
John Mingers: Self-Producing Systems: Implications and Applications of Autopoiesis (1995)
Filed under book | Tags: · artificial intelligence, autopoiesis, cognitive science, cybernetics, information theory, law, philosophy, systems theory, theory of communication
“This is the first volume to offer comprehensive coverage of autopoiesis-critically examining the theory itself and its applications in philosophy, law, family therapy, and cognitive science.”
Publisher Springer, Dordrecht
Contemporary Systems Thinking series
ISBN 0306447975, 9780306447976
246 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-7-29)
Comment (0)