The Postmodern Normative Anxiety of Transnational Legal Studies

This chapter seeks to establish whether a normative discourse on law’s legitimacy can be successfully reconstructed in the face of law’s increasing transnationalization. It explores the postmodern normative conundrum of transnational legal studies, highlighting the normative dilemmas of both Transnational Legal Pluralism and Transnational Legal Ordering theory. It then puts forward an alternative framing of “transnational law” and “transnational legal analysis”; this opens up new opportunities for an inquiry into law’s legitimacy through an application of Conflicts Law theory. After an overview of the merits of Conflicts Law, the chapter assesses the limits to its successful application. An inner tension exists between Conflicts Law theory’s modernist foundations and its application to increasingly complex legal and regulatory conflicts in the postmodern landscape. Against this overall backdrop, the chapter advocates a turn back to substantive, purposive forms of normativity and the rematerialization of law beyond the nation-state.

Hydrodynamic Analysis of a Modular Floating Structure with Tension-Leg Platforms and Wave Energy Converters

This work presents a modular floating structure, which consists of five inner tension-leg platforms and two outermost wave energy converters (denoted as MTLPW). The hydrodynamic interaction effect and the mechanical coupling effect between the five inner tension-leg platforms (TLP) and the two outermost wave energy converters (WEC) are taken into consideration. The effects of the connection modes and power take-off (PTO) parameters of the WECs on the hydrodynamic performance of the MTLPW system are investigated under both operational and extreme sea conditions. The results indicate that the hydrodynamic responses of the MTLPW system are sensitive to the connection type of the outermost WECs. The extreme responses of the bending moment of connectors depend on the number of continuously fixed modules. By properly utilizing hinge-type connectors to optimize the connection mode for the MTLPW system, the effect of more inner TLP modules on the hydrodynamic responses of the MTLPW system can be limited to be acceptable. Therefore, the MTLPW system can be potentially expanded to a large degree.

Czy życie duchowe jest nadal zasadniczym wstrząsem? Jan Patočka i koncepcja człowieka posthistorycznego

According to Patocka, man is subjectivity set in a specific historical context. To understand man, we must get to know his inner world and his Lebenswelt. Patocka describes the following forms of Lebenswelt: a nonhistorical period, a prehistorical period and history proper, which begins with the “spiritual shock”. The question about the decadence of the scientific and technical civilization suggests that last-mentioned period is nearing its end. Continuing Patocka's thought, the author proposes to introduce the fourth, i.e., the post-historic period, and identifies its characteristics. The central problem is the way in which the inner tension between corporality and spirituality is experienced by the contemporary man. In the author's opinion, it is this relationship, which is marked by an excessive interest in corporeality and a simultaneous reeva- luation of spiritual life understood in the perspective of reductionism, that most clearly distinguishes the post-historic times from the earlier epochs in history.

Deeds, Reward, and Divine Mercy: Jewish Views and Pauline Passages

The present article deals with a strand of ancient Jewish theological notions (in rabbinic literature, Fourth Ezra, and elsewhere) and Pauline ones. In these Jewish passages—sharing similar religious sensitivities and using similar terminology—human works stand vis-à-vis God’s mercy and his benevolence (צדקה). In some passages these categories turn out to be in tension in view of human sinfulness, since no human being can comply with the rigid standards of observing God’s commandments, resulting in the emphasis of divine mercy. Paul’s view, according to which “works (of the law)” and “grace” are mutually exclusive, is a radical intensification of this tension. Paul’s distinct ideas display the inherent dynamics of contemporary Jewish notions and reveal the inner tension within Jewish thought of the late Second Temple period, a tension that continued in Jewish writings (including rabbinic literature) after the Second Temple’s destruction.

The relationship between depression with anxious distress DSM-5 specifier and mixed depression: a network analysis

Introduction. Epidemiological, clinical, and treatment response characteristics of major depression with anxious distress (ADS) are quite similar to those of mixed depression, but no study investigated the symptom interplay of these conditions. Objective. To analyze the correlations among symptom criteria for major depression with ADS and for mixed depression using a network analysis. Methods. Two hundred and forty-one outpatients with major depression were consecutively recruited. DSM-5 criteria for major depression with ADS or with mixed features (MF) and Koukopoulos’ criteria for mixed depression (MXD) were assessed using a structured clinical interview. Results. A total of 58.9% of patients met DSM-5 criteria for major depression with ADS, 48.5% for MXD, and 2.5% for major depression with MF, so that the symptoms of this specifier were excluded from the network analysis. The most frequent symptoms were difficulty concentrating due to worries (57.7%), feeling keyed up or on edge (51%) (major depression with ADS), and psychic agitation or inner tension (51%) (MXD). Psychic agitation or inner tension had a central position in the network and bridged MXD to major depression with ADS through feeling keyed up or on edge. Conclusions. Criteria for major depression with ADS and for MXD are partially overlapping, with psychic agitation or inner tension and feeling keyed up or on edge that feature in both conditions and are difficult to distinguish in clinical practice. The clarification of the relationship between these two psychopathological conditions could bring important implications for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of depressive episodes.

Greimas’s Semiotics: Between Structuralism and Phenomenology

Greimas’s semiotics is characterized by an inner duality. This is the inner tension between structuralism and phenomenology. The aim of the paper is to reveal the relationship between structuralism and phenomenology in semiotics. Structuralism and phenomenology have a different understanding of the role of the subject in creating and understanding meanings. Early Greimas understood value systems through the linguistic prism and eliminated the discursive system’s subject itself. Late Greimas’s approach to the subject changed and coincided with the subject of daily experience, who was involved in the selection and creation of meanings. Greimas’s semiotics came closer to phenomenology, but only partially. The concept of bodily and sensory experience in Greimas’s semiotics is constructed from objectivistic positions of science. The body and sensual perception are understood as intermediaries between the inner and outer worlds.

The Doxastic Problem

Unlike the problem of justice and the problem of love, which aim to reveal some inner tension or implicit contradiction between the doctrine of hell and other parts of orthodox theism, there is a different kind of problem that stems from individual and collective belief in the doctrine: this the author terms the doxastic problem of hell. The general problem here is that thoroughgoing belief in hell seems prima facie incompatible with other beliefs, actions, and attitudes that are fundamental to the Christian faith. This chapter develops the problem in numerous forms, addressing various difficulties that arise concerning moral and religious motivation, love for God and neighbor, freedom, coercion, and despair. What these problems seem to demonstrate, individually and collectively, is that belief in hell is unedifying and perhaps even epistemically self-defeating. An adequate solution to the problem of hell, therefore, must somehow address these issues.