Commentaires sur le débat nativisme-empirisme au XIXe siècle et la théorie des signes locaux de Lotze.

This essay considers the impact of digital networks in organizations on worker autonomy. Worker autonomy, the control that workers have over their own work situation, is claimed in this essay to be a key determinant for the quality of work, as well as an important moral goal. Digital networks pose significant threats to worker autonomy as well as opportunities for its enhancement. In this essay, the notion of worker autonomy is analyzed and evaluated for its importance and moral relevance. It (...) is then considered how digital networks both threaten worker autonomy and offer opportunities for its enhancement. Three major opportunities (enhanced communicative powers, increased informedness, teleworking) and threats (electronic monitoring, task prestructuring, and dependency creation) are discussed and analyzed. Finally, the dynamics that determine the impact on worker autonomy of the introduction of a digital network in organizations are investigated. A particular model for analyzing these dynamics and their impacts, Bryan Pfaffenberger's model of a technological drama. It will be illustrated how this model illuminates these dynamics by analyzing them as a dialectic of strategies of technological regularization by design constituencies and technological adjustment by impact constituencies. It will also be assessed what role network design has in this process. (shrink)

Este texto investiga o artigo “L´Hypothèse du Retour Éternel devant la science moderne” do filósofo suíço Georges Batault, publicado em 1904 na Revue philosophique de la France et de l´Étranger. Pretendemos mostrar que uma abordagem científica da noção nietzschiana de eterno retorno sem considerar seu contexto filosófico transforma-a em uma concepção metafísica. Não podemos entender o eterno retorno desvinculado da proposta de transvaloração de todos os valores. O eterno retorno nietzschiano não é uma teoria científica, mas uma experiência do pensamento, (...) cuja meta é superar a interpretação dominante, ou seja, a interpretação metafísico-cristã. (shrink)

The protagonist of Thomas Mann’s short story "The Clown" cannot became an artist because he hasn’t got enough talent. He is also unable to live among people as an ordinary citizen because his social competencies haven’t been completely developed. That is why he can be regarded as a literary figure who tries to leave the real world and to penetrate the literary world. The devil who appears in Charles Gounod’s opera "Faust" based on Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s drama "Faust" and who (...) is watching the protagonist from the stage during the opera performance seems to be the only person who can help him to find his existential space. (shrink)