V. Translate the following making use of the text “Reengineering Redux”; pay special

Attention to the translation of the words and word combinations in bold type.

В настоящее время многие говорят о том, как Интернет способствует возникновению так называемой Новой экономики. В этой связи нелишне напомнить, что некоторые перемены начали происходить ещё задолго до появления Всемирной сети.

Немалую роль в подготовке условий для нынешних преобразований сыграла опубликованная в 1993 г. книга Джеймса Чампи “Reengineering the Corporation”. Автор утверждал, что в основе деятельности большинства компаний лежали бизнес-процессы, явившиеся следствием Промышленной революции. Но с наступлением постиндустриальной эры руководителям компаний, чтобы достичь поставленных перед собой целей, необходимо переосмыслить способы ведения дел и соответствующим образом преобразовать свои компании.

Многие американские фирмы, и прежде всего те, которые входят в список Fortune 500, откликнулись на этот призыв. Часто принятые на вооружение программы были несовершенны, приводили к увольнению работников. И хотя сокращения издержек и было положительным результатом их внедрения, реальных изменений в жизни компаний не наступало.

Однако это вовсе не означает, что идеи, выдвинутые Чампи, утратили свою актуальность. Инициированные Интернетом изменения происходят в сфере производства, сбыта, закупок, логистики, разработки новых видов продукции. Сейчас компании в меньшей степени, чем раньше, противятся изменениям, они стали более гибкими и лучше приспосабливаются к работе в условиях существования Интернета. Их прибыли растут. И немалая заслуга в этом принадлежит Джеймсу Чампи.

 

VI. Read the following article and the Notes. Answer the questions and sum up the contents

specifying what philosophers of the past and in what particular cases may help modern

company executives who are in trouble. Say what you think of the latest fad.

 

Socrates, for pleasure and profit   Company executives in search of wisdom are turning from psychotherapy and religion to the cleverest thinkers of all: ancient philosophers. For corporations, philosophy has become the latest management fad. Tom Morris, author of “If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business”, earns $30,000 an hour–one of the highest fees for a non-celebrity speaker in America—for teaching Socrates and Hegel to the likes of IBM, Campbell Soup, General Electric and Ford.

Lou Marrinoff, who wrote a popular book published last autumn, called “Plato, not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems,” is spearheading the rise of “philosophy counselling”, which has roots in Europe in the early 1980s but is new to America. Mr Marinoff has founded the grand-sounding American Philosophical Practitioners Association, which has trained around 70 philosophy counsellors so far and has backing from a local assemblyman to certify the practice in New York State. Mr Marinoff, who charges $100 an hour (in line with clinical-psychology rates), says many of his clients are “refugees” from psychology and psychiatry. “Philosophy deals with big questions—purpose, ethics, moral quandaries—without messing up their emotions.”

In Britain, Alain de Botton’s bestseller,” How Proust Can Change Your Life” has spawned an agony column in a Sunday newspaper. His latest book, “The Consolation of Philosophy”, pop philosophers like pills: take Socrates for unpopularity, Epicurus for lack of money, Seneca for frustration and Montaigne for inadequacy. Mr. de Botton, being a cerebral sort of chap (and much consoled by making a successful television series on his book), has not yet moved seriously into the business of management counselling.

When he does, he will find that there is now a brand-new market for the sages: failed internet entrepreneurs, Christopher McCullough, a self-styled “clinical philosopher” based in san Francisco, says that half his practice consists of “manic start-up types who can smell the money, but see it disappearing fast”. Mr. McCullough, who runs a philosophy café in a local Barnes & Noble bookshop and is opening his own café in June, prescribes the example of Epictetus, a noted Stoic philosopher, to teach people how to stay serene when they have lost everything.

Epictetus is just the thing for those with underwater stock options. He led a life of exemplary contentment, simplicity and virtue, living in a small hut furnished with only a bed and a lamp. Mr.McCollough success in prescribing him suggests that high-achieving entrepreneurs prefer intellectual discussion to treatment for depression or anxiety. “There is much less tissue and couch use in philosophy counseling,” says Mr. McCullough. “And I have more room to be funny.” As for Socrates, he must be guffawing in his tomb.

Economist

Notes

 

1. Socrates 1['sOkrqti:z] (470 – 399 B.C.) Ancient Athenian philosopher who directed philosophical thought towards analysis of the character and conduct of human life and who is remembered for his

admonition to know thyself. He spent much of his time speaking with young men of promise and also with politicians, poets and artisans about their various callings and their notions of right and wrong. In 399 he was indicted for “corruption of the young” and “neglect of the gods” and found guilty. Sentenced to death he declined the opportunity to escape and drank the fatal hemlock.

 

2. Aristotle ['xristOtl] (384 – 322 B.C.) Ancient Greek philosopher, scientist and organizer of research. He surveyed the whole field of human knowledge as it was known in the Mediterranean world in his day. He was tutor to the future Alexander the Great

 

3. Hegel ['heigl] (1770 –1831) German idealist philosopher who developed a dialectical scheme, that emphasized the progress from thesis to antithesis and hence to a higher and richer synthesis. He was one of the greatest modern creators of a philosophical system that influenced the development of existentialism, Marxism, positivism, and analytic philosophy.

 

4. Plato ['pleitou] (427(?) –347 B.C.) Ancient Greek philosopher, the second of the great trio of ancient Greeks – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. His philosophy asserts the ideal forms as an absolute and eternal reality of which the phenomena of the world are an imperfect and transitory reflection.

5. Proust ['pru:st] (1871 – 1922) French novelist, author of Remembrance of Things Past, a novel based on Proust’s life told psychologically and allegorically and often in the form of a “stream of consciousness’.

 

6. Epicurus [ "epi'kujqriqs] (341 – 270 B.C.) Greek philosopher, author of an ethical philosophy of simple pleasure, friendship, and retirement in a broad sense.

Epicurean ["epi'kjuqriqn] - devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, fond of good food, comfort, and ease.

 

7. Seneca ['senikq ] (4 B.C. – A.D.65) Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian. He was Rome’s leading intellectual figure in the mid-1^st century A.D.; tutor to the future emperor Nero.

 

8. Montaigne [mqn'tein] (1533 – 1592) French courtier during the reign of Charles IX and author of the Essays, which established a new literary form. The essays reflect the spirit of skepticism and treat the lives and ideals of the leading figures of his time.

 

9. Epictetus ["epik'ti:t qs] (A.D.55 – 135) Greek philosopher associated with Stoics. True education, he believed, consists in recognizing that there is only one thing that belongs to an individual fully – his will, and purpose.

 

~10. underwater stock options – options whose exercise price is less favourable than the current market price.

 

Questions:

1. What can you say about the latest management fad and its roots?

2. What accounts for the appearance of a brand new market for the ancient sages (wisemen)?

3. Why do trainers in philosophy counselling resort to philosophy?

4. How can you explain the title of Lou Marinoff’s book “ Plato, not Prozac!”?

5. Why does Allan de Botton advise to take Socrates for unpopularity, Epicurus for lack of

money, Seneca for frustration, Montaign for inadequacy?

6. Why are the philosophy counsellors such a success?

6. Explain the final phrase of the article.

 

Unit 11