Germany: a look at one EU member state's path to "Europeanization". EUMA Papers Vol. 6, No. 6, 2009

This paper will precisely look at Germany’s path to "Europeanization." It will focus on three specific case studies that will demonstrate the relationship between Germany and Europe. The first case study will be on the German Constitution, which, from its creation in 1949, already demonstrated a tendency towards a more integrated Europe. The second case study will be on the German Court system, specifically the German Constitutional Court (the highest court in the land) and its relationship with the European Court of Justice (ECJ). How do these two legal entities relate to one another? To what extent does the German court system apply the decisions of the ECJ? To what extent does the ECJ support the decisions of the German Constitutional Court? Finally, the third case study will look at the future of Germany and Europe, specifically, the "Europeanization" of Germany. It will take into consideration the issue of immigration and citizenship – a crucial topic that hangs in the balance of the future of the European Union

Post-Truth as a Feature of Hypermodern Times

In this paper I will defend the idea of the success of post-truth as one of the main features of hypermodernity. In order to understand such a claim, I will start by defining “post-truth” and showing the key differences that separate it from simple manipulation or lies. I will explain how post-truth characterizes a whole new way of understanding the difference between truth and falsity: a new attitude of indifference to the sharp distinction that moderns and ancients had placed between these two notions. I will contend that this new attitude had been announced by the work of at least three recent philosophers: Harry Frankfurt, Gianni Vattimo and Mario Perniola. They give different names to “post-truth”, though, and attribute it to different causes (from anti-intellectualism to the new media and to sheer carelessness). After that, I will explore how two key aspects of hypermodernity (according to Gilles Lipovetsky), i.e. hyperindividualism and hyperconsumption, cohere with this spread of post-truth. Finally, I will summarily refer to some political and geopolitical events that corroborate the relevance of post-truth in our hypermodern world

Postmodernism is not a Relativism. Communication Practices and Ethical Attitudes in some Postmodern Thinkers

The different “postmodern” philosophies that arose from the 1970s to the 1990s have often been considered as a kind of irrationalist-skeptical-relativist “ideology” or assorted amalgam, which in our time would dangerously take over the philosophical academy and western cultures, with grave risk for universalist or simply rationalist projects. Nevertheless, as the title of this article shows, a closer examination of some trends of postmodern thought would be able to perceive that they not only are uncomfortable with the label “relativist,” “irrationalist” or “skeptical,” but also that they offer substantial arguments against, for example, the main theses of relativism. Naturally, none of these trends has any qualms about abominating universalism as well (the presumed mortal enemy of the relativists). Thus the most sensible conclusion would be that what really seems erroneous to authors such as those we shall approach here is the presumed dilemma (presented as inevitable) between relativism and universalism (it is curious that, at least as far as faith in the existence of such a dichotomy is concerned, these presumed irreconcilable enemies, which both the relativists and the universalists believe themselves to be, are plainly in agreement). Only if they subscribe to such a rejection of this dilemma could it be explained that important thinkers of the heterogeneous postmodern group (such as those whom I propose to have a dialogue with in this article) have scorned, on the one hand, any and all universal project of rationality, but have also strongly disallowed relativist proposals (just as, naturally, they have likewise taken advantage of the issue to deny their presumed adherence to relativism as such). This idea, however, has not been understood by a large part of the scholars involved today in epistemology and practical philosophy (the two philosophical specialties in which one most frequently faces the question of relativism). To approach this understanding, therefore, perhaps it would not be amiss to review the different arguments that some postmodern thinkers use against relativism. Specifically, we shall tale a look at the reasoning in this sense that has come from Gianni Vattimo (1936), Paul K. Feyerabend (1924-1994), and Richard Rorty (1931). All of them have too often had to suffer from the suspicion of being considered as relativists. To absolve philosophers such as these from such an accusation seems to be a sine qua non condition for understanding their true position towards the universalism versus relativism dilemma

Enrique Dussel and Liberation Theology: Violence or Dialogue?

For centuries, several disciplines have tried to tackle the topic of how legitimate it is to use violence in order to solve social problems. One of the most recent interdisciplinary approaches (and one of the most successful in present-day Latin America) is the so-called “Ethics of Liberation,” designed by Enrique Dussel. Based on the Theology of Liberation, this theory goes beyond the limits of theology as a discipline and pleads for three ethical criteria that every political revolution must fulfill to use violence in a legitimate way. The first is a formal criterion, which basically takes after the ideal dialogue situation endorsed by Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas, and purports to be rooted in yet another discipline, linguistics. The second is a material criterion, defined as the upshot of an acceptable welfare for all citizens, thus intimately linked with the discipline of economy and political philosophy. The third is a criterion of feasibility, which makes a revolt legitimate if, and only if, it has a reasonable possibility of succeeding; hence strategic issues take a leading role. This essay contends that each of these criteria is conceptually incompatible with violence. Hence, Dussel’s arguments involve multiple contradictions as he aims to justify the use of violence precisely with these interdisciplinary criteria

Preferences, Comparative Advantage, and Compensating Wage Differentials for Job Routinization

I attempt to explain why compensating differentials for job disamenities are difficult to observe. I focus on the match between workers’ preferences for routine jobs and the variability in tasks associated with the job. Using data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, I find that mismatched workers report lower job satisfaction and earn lower wages. Both male and female workers in routinized jobs earn, on average, 12% less than their counterparts in non-routinized jobs. Once preferences and mismatch are accounted for, this difference decreases to 8% for men and 5% for women. Accounting for mismatch is important when analyzing compensating differentials.wage differentials, preferences, job attributes, routine tasks, mismatch

Multivariate Bayesian semiparametric models for authentication of food and beverages

Food and beverage authentication is the process by which foods or beverages are verified as complying with its label description, for example, verifying if the denomination of origin of an olive oil bottle is correct or if the variety of a certain bottle of wine matches its label description. The common way to deal with an authentication process is to measure a number of attributes on samples of food and then use these as input for a classification problem. Our motivation stems from data consisting of measurements of nine chemical compounds denominated Anthocyanins, obtained from samples of Chilean red wines of grape varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carm\'{e}n\`{e}re. We consider a model-based approach to authentication through a semiparametric multivariate hierarchical linear mixed model for the mean responses, and covariance matrices that are specific to the classification categories. Specifically, we propose a model of the ANOVA-DDP type, which takes advantage of the fact that the available covariates are discrete in nature. The results suggest that the model performs well compared to other parametric alternatives. This is also corroborated by application to simulated data.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS492 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org