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This paper points out that the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT)/World Trade Organization (WTO) trade liberalization possesses very special characteristics. I argue that these characteristics are responses to a set of problems inherent to contemporary trade liberalization. This is not a matter of mere historical interest. These problems remain very much with us, & recognition of this fact should influence our approach to future trade negotiations. 30 References. Adapted from the source document.

It is with some diffidence that I submit the following notes which I have not been able to work up into a fully developed argument. The inartistic use of numerals has been resorted to in order to mark off clearly the various problems touched upon.

Some sociologists argue that sociological theory does not grow and the reason why it does not grow is that the discipline lacks a core of highly developed, almost universally accepted, paradigms; even worse, because it is reflexive, its criteria of problem and theory choice are so noncognitive that there are no paradigms, hence no progress, in its future. We do not question that sociology lacks a core of almost universally accepted paradigms, nor that highly developed paradigms may be a sufficient condition of theory growth, but we question both that universal acceptance of them is necessary and that sociology has nothing like them. We argue that theoretical research programs—sets of strategies, sets of interrelated theories embodying these strategies, and empirical models interpreting these theories—are sufficient for theoretical growth. An examination of three theoretical research programs in this article shows that they perform some of the same functions for theory growth as, in Kuhn, are performed by paradigms. Sociology may lack a universally accepted core, but there are theoretical research programs in sociology, and therefore already there is theory growth if it is looked for in the right place. Nor is there any warrant for the view that because its criteria of problem and theory choice are inescapably noncognitive, there are no paradigms, hence no progress, in sociology's future. If that were true, not only would sociology lack paradigms, but also theoretical research programs. We conclude from our study that sociology need not wait on the emergence of a universally accepted core. It is sufficient for the growth of theory that it develops further its existing theoretical research programs and that it encourages the creation of new programs.

An overview of epochs and directions is not the history of literature, because history cannot be reduced to summary representations of periods and directions. The greatest writers, the creators of history, are above and beyond the directions and schools. Directions and schools appear and disappear legally, so they are imposed as a subject of literary-historical and theoretical study. The periodization system establishes a certain scientific orientation in a multitude of literary facts, past and present. The paper highlights the theoretical problem of periodization of literature, as a central problem of theoretical examinations of literary phenomena.