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Plato’s legal epistemology is simultaneously context-sensitive and generalist. Particularly in the Statesman, Plato prefers a competent individual to the rigid rule of laws (294a), but it seems implausible that he does so on the basis of a moral particularism. Although nowhere utilizing the word epieikeia to appeal to a perfect personal knowledge distinct from written rules, Plato outlines a competence quite similar to Aristotelian epieikeia: He introduces a twofold “art of measurement” (metrêtikê) whose second part is concerned with “the mean, and the fit, and the opportune and the due, and with all those words, in short, which denote a mean or standard removed from the extremes” (πρὸς τὸ μέτριον καὶ τὸ πρέπον καὶ τὸν καιρὸν καὶ τὸ δέον καὶ πάνθ’ ὁπόσα εἰς τὸ μέσον, 284e6–7). This competence can deal with the shortcomings of written law. What he describes as the insufficiency of the law is that it does not perfectly comprehend “what is noblest and most just for all” and that it “therefore cannot enforce what is best”. Plato tells us that “the differences of men and actions, and the endless irregular movements of human things, do not admit of any universal and simple rule, and no art whatsoever can lay down a rule which will last for all time” (294b2 ff.; transl. B. Jowett). Apparently, the metrêtikê under discussion is the competence to find the mean and the fit which makes Plato’s perfect leader superior to the written laws. As we are told in the Statesman, laws are no more than necessary substitutes for the perfect knowledge of the man who possesses full insight. Plato’s political personalism, however, is certainly not founded on a particularist idea of decision-making. The underlying Platonic epistemology tends to favour an absolute expert who is in possession of an ideal type of abstract knowledge, not of practical experience. What Plato seems to have in mind is a sort of infallible and invariant knowledge, not a radically context-dependent Wittgensteinian capacity of deliberation and judgment.

Diferentes interpretações foram oferecidas ao argumento agostiniano do cogito, tradicionalmente preocupadas com as possíveis semelhanças entre esse e o cogito, (ergo) sum de Descartes. Centrando-se em De civitate Dei XI 26, o autor oferece uma análise minuciosa do tema em Agostinho, considerando três aspectos: o tema da relação entre o cogito cartesiano e o agostiniano, o lugar do argumento agostiniano no contexto da filosofia da Antiguidade Tardia, o sentido do argumento do cogito no pensamento do próprio Agostinho

Neste artigo, o autor apresenta a concepção de linguagem de Santo Agostinho, sobretudo nas seguintes obras: De dialectica, De magistro e nos escritos tardios De doctrina christiana e De trinitate. É dada especial atenção à teoria agostiniana da linguagem no De magistro

Werner Jaeger (1888-1961) was at his time the most brilliant and the most influential German classicist. His most important project was a tripartite study that he finally published under the title of "Paideia. Die Formung des griechischen Menschen" (1933-1947). "Paideia" was much more than a detailed scholarly book on pedagogy in the ancient world. It was an attempt to interpret the history of ancient thought--from Homeric epics to Attic tragedy and Platonic philosophy--as rooted in the intention to educate (or rather to 'form') human beings. And it was the attempt to contribute to a contemporary German movement called 'Third Humanism'. In this article, I give a critical overview of this work, its strengths and its shortcomings.

The synthesis of a new side-chain semifluorinated thiophene monomer obtained by the reaction of 3-thiophene ethanol with 4,4,5,5,6,6,7,7,8,8,9,9,9- tridecafluorononan-1-ol is reported. The side-chain semifluorinated monomer is polymerized using Kumada catalyst-transfer polycondensation to obtain the regioregular side-chain semifluorinated thiophene polymer P3sfT with a sufficiently high molar mass of about 26 000 gmol-1 and narrow dispersity D? of 1.11. The bulk structure is analyzed by X-ray scattering and shows p-p stacking as well as the strong formation of layer structures caused by the self-organization of the semifluorinated side chains. The structure is even more pronounced than in P3HT which is due to the extension of the side chains by fluorinated methylene groups. Thin films are prepared from solution in octafluorotoluene and examined for their layer structure using XRR and 2D-GIWAXS. The same structure as in solid state is found, again indicating high self-organization of the semifluorinated side chains. Due to the high self-assembly, the polymer shows potential as semiconductor in organic electronics. Measurements of electronic properties are currently in progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant's political philosophy confronts its interpreters with a crucial difficulty: it is far from clear if (or how) Kant, in his political theory, makes use of the Categorical Imperative (CI). It is notoriously demanding to clarify the relationship that exists between his political thought on the one hand and the ethics of the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason on the other. There are basically two interpretative options available: the more traditional dependence reading and the somewhat provocative separation reading. Following the first option, the normativity included in 'right' (Recht) is immediately derived from the normativity of the 'Moral Law' as we know it from the 1780s. According to the second reading, Kant's legal normativity is substantially different from what we know as those foundations and procedures on which the Categorical Imperative is based. In this article, a third interpretation is defended that tries to combine the advantages of the previous two. In the political realm we are, according to Kant, dealing with a somewhat different type of normativity which still shows some connection with the moral law. It turns out that Kant's political normativity is not just a kind of 'applied ethics'. Kant has formulated a non-ideal form of normativity, according to which 'non-ideal' means: a weaker version of normativity which can be lived up to by human beings, which is appropriate to specific situations and which is intended for a long-term effect, namely that of a historical development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, solvogels containing (2-((2-(ethoxycarbonyl)prop-2-en-1-yl)oxy)-ethyl) phosphonic acid (ECPA) and N,N′-diethyl-1,3-bis-(acrylamido)propane (BNEAA) as the crosslinker are synthesized by UV induced crosslinking photopolymerization in various solvents. The polymerization of the ECPA monomer is monitored by the conversion of double bonds with in situ attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The morphology of the networks is characterized by in situ photorheology, solid state NMR spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the dried gels. It is demonstrated that the storage modulus is not only determined by the crosslinker content in the gel, but also by the solvent used for preparation. The networks turn out to be porous structures with G′ being governed by a rigid, phase-separated polymer phase rather than by entropic elasticity. The external and internal pKa values of the poly(ECPA-co-BNEAA) gels were determined by titration with a specially designed method and compared to the calculated values. The polymer-immobilized phosphonic acid groups in the hydrogels induce buffering behavior into the system without using a dissolved buffer. The calcium accumulation in the gels is studied by means of a double diffusion cell filled with calcium ion-containing solutions. The successful accumulation of hydroxyapatite within the gels is shown by a combination of SEM, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advanced oxidation processes are the main way to remove persistent organic trace compounds from water. For these processes, heterogeneous Fenton catalysts with low iron leaching and high catalytic activity are required. Here, the preparation of such catalysts consisting of silica-supported iron oxide (Fe2O3/SiOx) embedded in thermoplastic polymers is presented. The iron oxide catalysts are prepared by a facile sol–gel procedure followed by thermal annealing (calcination). These materials are mixed in a melt compounding process with modified polypropylenes to stabilize the Fe2O3 catalytic centers and to further reduce the iron leaching. The catalytic activity of the composites is analyzed by means of the Reactive Black 5 (RB5) assay, as well as by the conversion of phenol which is used as an example of an organic trace compound. It is demonstrated that embedding of silica-supported iron oxide in modified polypropylene turns the reaction order from pseudo-first order (found for Fe2O3/SiOx catalysts), which represents a mainly homogeneous Fenton reaction, to pseudo-zeroth order in the polymer composites, indicating a mainly heterogeneous, surface-diffusion-controlled process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]