Church Life

Chapter 7 examines how Franklin was a keen observer of religion in Philadelphia and even took sides in the disputes that were likely to develop amid the Protestant diversity of Pennsylvania. In particular, he followed closely and was vocal about the heresy trial of Samuel Hemphill, that revealed doctrinal differences among Presbyterians. This was surprising if only because of his own counsel to himself to avoid public controversy. Franklin also befriended the evangelist and Anglican priest, George Whitefield, the figure who inspired a trans-Atlantic awakening. Franklin’s involvement in colonial religious life was one more indication of the hold that Protestantism had on him.

Philosophy and Community in Seneca's Prose

This book shows how Seneca’s prose works offer both an illustration of and an invitation to philosophy as a way of life. In Seneca’s hands, the specificity of the philosopher’s social and historical location becomes generative of that way of life rather than an obstacle to be transcended. The social character of Senecan philosophical practice is brought to light through detailed examination of the ideas of solitude and independence in Seneca’s writing. Later chapters explore the relationship in Seneca’s works between the Socratic ideal of the examined life, on the one hand, and, on the other, some characteristically Roman social and political institutions: slavery, the philosophical school, and the commonwealth. Seneca emerges as a keen observer of philosophy’s social entanglements.

Frank Lewis Clarke (1933–2020): An International Journey in Quest of a More Serviceable Accounting

SYNOPSIS Frank Lewis Clarke (1933–2020), a member of the Sydney School of Accounting, was a keen observer of business practices, successes, and failures, an international journeyman for better accounting standards, an influential accounting academic, and a master teacher. This memorial considers Clarke's early childhood, education, and his contribution to accounting scholarship. During a career spanning several decades, Clarke published over 50 articles in scholarly journals, a dozen books, smaller pieces in professional outlets and popular press, and many submissions to professional and governmental inquiries. Ideas were exposed in presentations at conferences nearly every year. His prodigious output addressed, generally, how to improve the usefulness of accounting data in respect to the uses ordinarily made of them. Much of his research examined accounting anomalies revealed in analyses of corporate financial dilemmas and unexpected corporate collapses. He leaves behind a legacy that highlights the need for a more serviceable accounting. JEL Classifications: M41; M42; M48.

An Ecocritical Reading of T.S. Eliot: An Approach Towards Sustainable Development

T.S. Eliot’s writings have always been an essential point of discussion among critics and scholars due to its di-verse range of themes and his focus on the major concerns of the modern period. Eliot was a keen observer of the great transformations which the environment has endured. The present paper is an attempt towards an ecocritical reading of Eliot’s poems. His works depict the major environmental challenges such as pollution, population, water scarcity, deforestation, and therefore could be interpreted as his step towards sustainable development. Though the concept of sustainable development has evolved recently, the need to create awareness towards the environment was felt at the time when Eliot’s writings were in progress. Hence, an eco-critical reading of Eliot’s works helps in understanding his consciousness towards the degradation of the environment and his move towards creating awareness among others.

Cassirer’s Reception of Dedekind and the Structuralist Transformation of Mathematics

Ernst Cassirer was a keen observer of development in the mathematical sciences, especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In this essay, the focus is on his reception of Dedekind’s contributions to the foundations of mathematics, and with it, on Dedekind’s mathematical structuralism. Cassirer adopts that structuralism early on, defends it against a number of criticisms, and embeds it into a rich historical account of the structuralist transformation of modern mathematical science. He also adds some original elements to our understanding of structuralism, e.g., by relating it to the Kantian notion of the “construction of concepts” in mathematics, by introducing a basic distinction between “substance concepts” and “function concepts”, and by tracing the “unfolding” of structuralist aspects far back in the history of thought. Overall, Cassirer’s approach is guided by the conviction that the metaphysics of modern mathematics should be approached by way of its distinctive methodology.

Introduction

Fenton Johnson is known to contemporary readers, if known at all, as a minor black poet whose works typically portray a sort of urban folk misery. He was also, in fact, a talented journalist and keen observer and chronicler of African American life, most especially in his native Chicago. A profound sense of place informed the editorials and survey articles that appeared each month in his first journal, ...

Ślady człowieka piszącego. O Pismach ostatnich Henryka Markiewicza

[Traces of A Man of Letters. On Henryk Markiewicz’s Pisma ostatnie] The article is both a review of the book by Henryk Markiewicz and a presentation of the writer’s figure which transpires from its content – a figure of an incredibly reliable and knowledgeable researcher of literature, a seasoned polemicist, and a keen observer of the most recent changes in literary studies.

From mathematics to literature – an interdisciplinary approach

Multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches function as the key to adapt to the new challenges of our continuously changing world. Despite the deepening gap and the unequal fight between soft and hard sciences, the former have not lost their importance in interdisciplinary approaches. In this respect, Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland (2003) becomes particularly revealing. Passed into oblivion shortly after its publication, the novel was rediscovered after Einstein’s demonstration of the theory of relativity and following the development of scientific research involving quantum mechanics. As a teacher of mathematics and a theologian, the author of Flatland was a keen observer of Victorian society, which he transposed in Euclidean geometry. This type of exercise allowed him to underline the positive and negative traits of Victorian mentalities. We are therefore dealing with a world in two dimensions in the diversity of its manifestations – social organization, inhabitants, behaviour, education – in an interesting intermingling of geometric demonstrations and political, cultural and religious interpretations. Thus the inconveniences and the advantages of this system and subsequently their level of reality can be viewed parallel to other levels of reality represented by the world of the Point, the world in one dimension or even the world in three dimensions. The goal is to underline the importance of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, which are able to offer a better and more coherent understanding of our own level of reality.

Entgrenzung von Arbeitsverhältnissen

For about a quarter of a century, social sciences have been a keen observer of the transformations of labor relations within organizations, which can readily subsumed under the term of ‘dissolution of boundaries’. This ongoing decentralization of the organization, spanning from outsourcing over strategic alliances to networks, has been accompanied by the flexibilization and subjectivization of work. What initially occurred in the periphery of large organizations, soon became the “new normal” for the core work force across the economy, for the core relationships of gainful employment. Organizational sciences, essentially belonging the most ardent promoters of the abovementioned developments, came to realize that some of their brainchildren, especially the “boundaryless organization”, might constitute an existential threat to the own discipline. Meanwhile, the dissolution of boundaries of working relations was not only eagerly discussed but also widely advocated in the subdiscipline of human resource management. As a result, key terms and notions of labor law (e.g. ‘firm‘, employee’ or ‘employer’) became blurred and now suffer from impaired relevance and effectiveness with regard to their legal protective functions and autonomy of bargaining. This edited volume aims to inspire and deepen a debate that moves beyond disciplinary boundaries. Some urgency is given, because at the end of the day, nothing else but the constitution of the social market economy is at stake.