PROTECTING BIOS IN THE NEXT MILLENNIUM: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The new millennium will begin in less than 2,000 days. The period of the post-industrial society in the Euro-American region will soon be over and a new era, perhaps that of the ethics of bios will start. With the beginning of the next millennium, a whole list of questions emerge, related to the future and the further existence of bios on this planet. Marx once said that, "Philosophers have only explained the world until now, but now it is necessary to change it." Our world has changed significantly in the last hundred and fifty years. Philosophers should now think more about the problem of how not to go on changing the world, but rather how to maintain bios and the environment in optimal condition, within the limits of sustainable existence and, in line with, the principles of intrinsic ethical values and the essence of life. Since the present existence of bios is based on specific philosophies and styles of thinking, it is philosophers who are responsible for the triumphs and pitfalls of our society. A New Order of Bios How do we answer the question in this the title? To think seriously about the question of protecting bios in the next millennium, from the point of view of philosophy, is to come up with the very provocative answer that, it makes no sense to answer it at all. If the catastrophic scenarios are fulfilled, it would no longer be within human capabilities to protect bios. These scenarios, for the development of the world and the existence of bios, were reached not only by fundamentalists, ecological organisations and movements, but also by groups of scientists from different fields, including ecologists. Ecology also, paradoxically, agrees with this provocative answer to the given question but, it is necessary to bear in mind that both ecology and philosophy have different reasons and different points of view, which can lead to the same answer. F. Fukuyama (1992) published a very interesting study, The End of History and the Last Man. This book summarises current opinions on the sense and aims of the history of human beings. As the title already suggests, the author comes to the conclusion that the culminating phase of fulfilment, according to teleology, has already started and that the next millennium will complete it definitively. This example can be used to show that, from this point of view, further discussion on the protection of bios in the next millennium has lost any meaning. In terms of both ecology and history, the same problem has to be solved, a problem that can be understood from different professional points of view. The existence of bios and its surrounding environment in the next millennium is not predictable on the basis of the latest developments of knowledge in ecology. This brings us back to teleology: for the first time the final aim is understood as the goal of the history of mankind, for the second time, as the final stage of the development of bio-systems. The answer, according to philosophy, is known in the first case, and all the symptoms document the final goal, but in the second case, the real forms of bios and environmental development, according to ecology, cannot be predicted for the future and the answer is unknown. From the strictly logical point of view of the concept of the goal, the answers are given a priori to the unprecedented eco-biological questions. This paper presents the stage when, while looking for the answer to the question of the protection of bios in the future, the merely traditional concept of the problem -reality and the objective truth equal objectivity -is no longer sufficient. In our opinion the problem of the protection of bios in the future, from the point of view of ecology, is a trans-disciplinary problem. This means transferring from a formulation in one field of discipline to a formulation in another. The concept of trans-disciplinarity does not end solely with scientific disciplines but continues, by the formulating of bios protection in symbols, i.e. as language, institutions, or cultural and social milieu. This concept of trans-disciplinarity differs from interdisciplinarity in that the problem to be solved is not understood as a focus of various scientific disciplines, as a limited area between different scientific subjects but, as an idea which penetrates these subjects in the form of a certain basis of ideas, which helps to formulate these subjects. The difference between a similar concept of a paradigm and the transdisciplinary approach is based on the hypothesis that this formulated basis of ideas is not the result of scientific knowledge but only an idea, more or less, anticipated and expressed by the majority of the population. A trans-disciplinary approach to the solving of the problem of protecting bios is not created automatically, only on the basis of empirical facts, and it is not possible to reveal it with the help of classical rational scientific methods. The solution to this problem is not given subjectively, on the basis of the endeavour and the wish to solve it. A reasonable solution lies in the contact of two approaches, two worlds, the sensuous and the rational. In this connection, Patocka's phenomenology leads to a similar model of the natural world (Patocka, 1992). There are three possible basic steps for a trans-disciplinar

Joint Spectral Radius and Ternary Hermite Subdivision

International audienceIn this paper we construct a family of ternary interpolatory Hermite subdivision schemes of order 1 with small support and HC 2-smoothness. Indeed, leaving the binary domain, it is possible to derive interpolatory Hermite subdivision schemes with higher regularity than their binary counterparts. The family of schemes we construct is a two-parameter family whose HC 2-smoothness is guaranteed whenever the parameters are chosen from a certain polygonal region. The construction of this new family is inspired by the geometric insight into the ternary interpolatory scalar three-point subdivision scheme by Hassan and Dodgson. The smoothness of our new family of Hermite schemes is proven by means of joint spectral radius techniques

Changes in Ownership Concentration in Mass Privatised Firms: evidence from Poland and the Czech Republic

We analyse the changes in ownership concentration in firms included in two mass privatisation programmes in Poland and the Czech Republic. We find that despite important differences in the design of the two privatisation schemes and despite different quality of regulatory environments, the ownership structure emerging 4-5 years after the initial distribution of assets is remarkably similar in the two countries. Ownership concentration defined as the share of the largest equity holder has significantly increased. Exploring the determinants of ownership concentration, we check whether such revealed preference for higher participation in firm equity does not hide different motivations and behaviour of investors. Our results reveal interesting differences between the two countries: in the Czech Republic the increase in ownership concentration was less likely in poorly performing firms, while in Poland the quality of past performance did not affect investors' willingness to increase their holdings. This contrasting result may reflect the difference in the quality of laws and regulations in Poland and in the Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic, where tunnelling was a common practice in the period covered by our study, shareholders increasing their stakes in a company could have been motivated by the objective of extracting value rather than by the willingness to impose a specific direction on the way the firm is managed. This might explain why they prefer to increase their control in those companies which perform well rather than those that perform poorly. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.