“On My First Musings Regarding Kantian Philosophy - Associated Content” plus 3 more |
- On My First Musings Regarding Kantian Philosophy - Associated Content
- Restructuring yet again without an underlying ... - Stuff
- Artio Global Investors Inc. Announces February Month ... - MSN Money
- Bruce Graham - Time
| On My First Musings Regarding Kantian Philosophy - Associated Content Posted: 11 Mar 2010 11:28 AM PST Space, Time, and Transcendental AestheticismI will admit that the importance of philosophy, as its own field of study, will occasionally strike me as minimal to anyone not dedicated to it as a means of earning a living. As someone in the field of fictional writing, it is not unreasonable to believe that there is a degree of association between the two fields in which a writer can profit from an ample understanding of its offerings. Philosophy is a science. Fiction is an art. This is where they differ. They meet at the truth of the human condition. Philosophy does it by telling, didactically. Fiction does it by showing, artistically (or aesthetically, in its modern usage). Nonetheless, in reading Immanuel Kant I often get the impression that I am wasting my time; surely, I think, I don't need to understand the concepts of space and time to get along in life, to be successful in fiction, to be anointed wise by the cognoscenti. But by doing, and doing earnestly, I never waste time. This notion of wasting time is a byproduct of adversity, and we are met by a deliberation to either continue forth or relent into, what is ultimately, the easier path. Never relent, the path you choose is always the right one.Transcendental Aesthetic By focusing on each word at a time, transcendental to Kant means the cognitive capability by which we are able to know objects a priori, that is, before we experience them. By aesthetic Kant is referring to the way in which we experience the world through our senses. Thus, Kant says, in the Penguin Classic edition of the "Critique of Pure Reason": "The science of all principles of a priori sensibility I call transcendental aesthetic." Today the word aesthetic implies that which we think is beautiful, and it was Kant's contemporary, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who changed the meaning of the word to how we know it today. But Kant was against this whole German aesthetic idealism because it essentially went against his entire philosophy, namely, there cannot be an objective criterion of the beautiful by which our "judgment of taste" would have to conform since each individual will experience an object differently. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Restructuring yet again without an underlying ... - Stuff Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:15 PM PST By VERNON SMALL - The Dominion PostOPINION: John Key may believe - or want us to believe - that restructuring in the state sector is not ideological. But if it is not driven by ideology, beyond an underlying preference for a smaller government, it would be nice to think it was at least consistent or coherent because there is precious little sign of that. So if we believed in the 1990s that it was a good idea to separate funders and providers, so the providing function did not capture the funding one, do we still believe that now? In microcosm, the folding together of the various boards of Creative NZ into one board, which will allocate funding to the various sectors and pick the groups that will get the cash, suggests we do not. The expected amalgamation of the ministry and foundation for research science and technology sends the same message. And while we are at it, where do we stand on ministries and departments incorporating a policy, oversight or regulatory role alongside their service delivery function? Does the stew that includes the Social Development Ministry, Child Youth and Family and Work and Income suggest similar amalgamations can be expected in the other big-spending state agencies such as education or housing? Perhaps that is what Anne Tolley is edging towards with her statement yesterday that savings of $25 million will need to be found in the Education Ministry as it reshapes "its role, size and focus". If there is a sense the Government does not have an underlying philosophy for the structure of the state sector, it is not alone. Labour was not noticeably better. And the various attempts so far to squeeze spending and efficiencies out of the core state sector by the Treasury, the Government and the State Services Commission - though all pointing in the direction of job cuts and spending restraint - look more like a smorgasbord sampled by a dog than a menu of fine options. * * * So we have had the line-by- line review last year, when the economy was on its knees and big cost-cutting was off the agenda, which is still rumbling on. Mrs Tolley is still looking for savings of $10m from that exercise for this year's Budget. There has been no hurry over that in her portfolio then? Purchase advisers, under ministerial control, did the first rough cut before it was decided they were the wrong way to go. Since then we have seen the semi-autonomous Crown Company Monitoring and Advisory Unit subsumed into the Treasury but with emissaries still out there looking for further efficiencies. Meanwhile, the second round of cost cutting, in the shape of the "value for money" process is well under way even as agencies have been asked to undertake a so-called "baseline alignment"; a gentle euphemism for finding ways to live within your means especially if you are one of those many agencies that are not getting a brass cent more cash for the foreseeable. In that case, if you want any more money to play with elsewhere, find it by cutting something you are doing already. Then, oh mandarins, your baselines will be truly aligned. Meanwhile, the State Services Commission is also grappling with how to further tune up chief executives and their agencies. (As an aside, wouldn't it be droll if the biter was bitten and the bulk of the SSC's functions were amalgamated with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, leaving an independent commission - perhaps the Remuneration Authority - to hire and set salaries.) Its latest effort, in harness with the Treasury, is the Performance Improvement Framework. A briefing for reporters last week outlined its basic tenets - and produced somewhere close to no column inches of copy. In essence it instructs departments to assess their core businesses, consider if they are meeting ministers' expectations and achieve the fiscal restraint required. In other words assess themselves. At the same time a Productivity Commission is being put together that will also emulate the SSC's role if - as expected - it follows the Australian model. * * * Politically, the Government cannot go wrong with its mantra of value for money, sack a few bureaucrats and move functions from the back office to the frontline. It may not get us any closer to the perfectly sized state sector, because whoever is in power will tend to overshoot. National will always cut too much (and fill in the gaps with consultants and contractors) while Labour will always expand too much (and top that up with consultants and contractors). Remember in 1999 former finance minister Michael Cullen made a virtual scandal out of under- investment in key areas, such as Inland Revenue, by the previous National government. So before we are given yet another commission or framework or exercise in cost-cutting - and go back around the wheel like hamsters in a cage - it would be good to hear a clear statement of direction and underpinning principles from State Services Minister Tony Ryall. Or is tucking Archives New Zealand into Internal Affairs here, or forcing Forst into bed with Morst over there, as principled as it gets? Will the Families Commission survive for any other reason than to keep UnitedFuture's Peter Dunne purring on the sofa? Will 2010 go down as another year of the sort of state sector ad hocery that got us here in the first place? Sponsored links Nationals got to go in the next election. The bungling and funadamental mismanagement and lies have got to stop. Are we as a people so short sighted that we can elect the likes of John Key and Bill English to power simply to spite Helen Clarke; who did not really want the job as PM anymore as she had aspirations in other directions. Lets just admit we made a huge mistake and put it right next election. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Artio Global Investors Inc. Announces February Month ... - MSN Money Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:29 PM PST Artio Global Investors Inc. ART today reported preliminary month-end assets under management of $52.9 billion as of February 28, 2010, compared to $53.5 billion as of January 31, 2010. About the Company Artio Global Investors Inc. is the indirect holding company of Artio Global Management LLC ("Artio Global"), a registered investment adviser headquartered in New York City that actively invests in global equity and fixed income markets, primarily for institutional and intermediary clients. Best known for International Equities, Artio Global also offers a broad range of other investment strategies, including High Grade Fixed Income, High Yield and Global Equity, as well as a series of US Equity strategies. Access to these strategies is offered through a variety of investment vehicles, including separate accounts, commingled funds and SEC-registered mutual funds. Since 1995, Artio Global has built a successful long-term track record by taking an unconventional approach to investment. Based on a philosophy of style-agnostic investing across a broad range of opportunities, we have consistently pursued a global approach that we believe provides critical insights in adding value for clients over the long term. For more information, please visit www.artioglobal.com. Investors: Copyright 2010 Business Wire Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Posted: 11 Mar 2010 01:58 PM PST He was the master of the tall order. Bruce Graham, who died March 6 at 84, designed two of the biggest, most famous and most starkly beautiful buildings in the world, both for Chicago, where he spent almost his entire career at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. In 1970 the 100-story John Hancock Center was a revolution in skyscraper design. Working with Skidmore's brilliant engineer Fazlur Khan, Graham conceived a tapering tower with an exterior system of structural supports, including massive X-braces that made its façade a knockout emblem of architectural force. In 1974 Graham and Khan produced another masterpiece with the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower). Once the world's tallest building, it drew the severe black box of Mies van der Rohe into the setback forms of older skyscrapers like the Empire State Building. Graham's personal philosophy was as direct as his architecture. Buildings, he once said, should be "clear, free of fashion and simple statements of the truth." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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