Material Value

Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann developed ethics upon a phenomenological basis. This volume demonstrates that their contributions to a material ethics of value are complementary: by supplementing the work of one with that of the other, we obtain a comprehensive and defensible axiological and moral theory. By “phenomenology,” we refer to an intuitive procedure that attempts to describe thematically the insights into essences, or the meaning-elements of judgments, that underlie and make possible our conscious awareness of a world and the evaluative judgments we make of the objects and persons we encounter in the world.

In contemporary society it would seem self-evident that people allow the market to determine the values of products and services. For everything from a loaf of bread to a work of art to a simple haircut, value is expressed in monetary terms and seen as determined primarily by the 'objective' interplay between supply and demand. Yet this 'price-mechanism' is itself embedded in conventions and frames of reference which differed according to time, place and product type. Moreover, the dominance of the conventions of utility maximising and calculative homo economicus is a relatively new phenomenon, and one which directly correlates to the steady advent of capitalism in early modern Europe. This volume brings together scholars with expertise in a variety of related fields, including economic history, the history of consumption and material culture, art history, and the history of collecting, to explore changing concepts of value from the early modern period to the nineteenth century and present a new view on the advent of modern economic practices. Jointly, they fundamentally challenge traditional historical narratives about the rise of our contemporary market economy and consumer society.

Business professionals and consumers will learn about the challenges and opportunities facing the manufacturing world in this highly readable perspective on materials and environmental sustainability. Finalist in the 2019 San Francisco Writers Contest.

This book is devoted to a systems-theoretical presentation of the main results of applying the systemic yoyo model and relevant analytical tools to the topics of money and financial institutions. The author presents the main concepts and results of the subject matter in the language of systems science, which has in the past century prompted revolutionary applicati ons of systems research in various subfields of traditional disciplines. This volume applies a brand new logic of reasoning to some of the unsett led problems in the area of money and banking. Due to the particular systemic approach employed, the reader will be able to see how different economic activities are implicitly related to each other and how financial decisions are holistically made in reference to seemingly unrelated events. That is, the learning of this particular subject matter takes place at a different, more elevated level, from which, among others, economies are respectively seen as both closed and open systems; their interactions emulate those of rotational pools of fluids. This book can be used as a textbook for researchers and graduate students in economics, finance, systems science, and mathematical / systems modeling. It will also be useful as a reference book for applied economists and various policy makers.

A modern integral astrology, which is found by the author, a contemporary Czech astrologer Ján Kaleta. Aquarian Astrology works with the basic structure of human being, which is defined by the esotericists, and proven by the experience of many researchers of human consciousness. Aquarian Astrology expresses the searching so called 'intention of soul' which is related to the present incarnation. Aquarian Astrology turns the attention of the adept on the long periodal influences of great cycles, especially the Preccesion Cycle of the Earth Axis. It is noticing the individual and transpersonal human experiences but also gives heed to the threshold of the sociocultural and individual experience with regard to rising number of people, who reach it. The author is confirming the empiric research by own astrological praxis through the last years. The work done is fruitful in understanding how the new astrology can work.

Dealing with factors affecting economic growth in knowledge-based societies, the author shows that the interaction between material and nonmaterial values is the ultimate source of all economic growth. The model thus developed predicts the quantitative facts concerning business cycles better than the conventional real-cycle models, while also producing a new growth path whose existence is verified by empirical facts. The results provide strong evidence of the economic relevance of nonmaterial values, and also prompt a new view of the stochastic elements in the business cycles.