Suchergebnisse

The author looks into the life & work of Alexander von Humboldt, viewing him as a protagonist of a scientific globalization concept that linked the promotion of science with the trinity of liberty, equality, & fraternity. Humboldt saw fraternite as realized in the form of a worldwide dialogue of scientists. The author observes that Humboldt was a pragmatic & organizational genius of networking, ie, the strategy of public relations that included contacts with scientists & the popularization of scientific achievements. Humboldt's Eurocentrism, which comes to the fore in his work about his travels, is nevertheless as ambivalent as the history of the reception of that work. Truth to tell, this work lay the foundation for European colonization & exploitation of Latin America, but was also essential for its self-understanding & political emancipation. The author claims that Humboldt's private & political ambivalence, essentially productive, is the result of his magnificent incompleteness & imperfections. Adapted from the source document.

The author analyzes the meaning of the phase "sovereignty of constitutions" & wonders whether "constitutional democracy" should be understood as a combination of a good political order in the Aristotelian meaning of taxis. The author looks into the different traditions in the evolution of constitutionalism using the examples of France, GB, & North America. In the case of North America, he refers to the idea of creating a mixed form of constitution or constitutional democracy, which allows for the democratic legitimation of power as well as for its constitutional restriction. The evolution of constitutionalism shows that constitutions now occupy the position that first belonged only to sovereign monarchs & later to sovereign peoples in democracy. Basically, normative constitutionalism leads to the situation in which constitutional courts give authoritative interpretation of constitutions that transforms a democratic/parliamentary state into a constitutional-court jurisdiction state. The author concludes that the sacralization of constitutions & constitutional courts does not necessarily stimulate the political process, a fact that opens new controversies. Adapted from the source document.