A hundred years have passed since publication of the first edition of Engels's book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, which Lenin regarded as "one of the basic works of modern socialism." Engels's interest in the remote past of mankind and Lenin's evaluation of his work were, of course, not coincidental. They may be explained by the tremendous role played by the concept of primitive history in a general materialist understanding of the universal historical process. What (...) was the nature of this very first term in the sequence of socioeconomic formations, this cornerstone of the Marxist concept of universal history? When did private property, antagonistic social classes, and state power, separate from the people, emerge, and what were they, original and permanent institutions, or historically determined institutions of human communal life? These problems are clearly of great philosophical importance. They were, and continue to be, the arena of a bitter ideological struggle, and inevitably attracted the most conscientious attention of the founders of scientific communism. (shrink)

Provides readers with an illustration of the role and relevance of the humanities in tackling contemporary political phenomena and social issues such as populism and its effects on democracy.

This book concentrates on some leading questions in business ethics research in the last two decades and tries to find explanations concerning cultural issues. It focuses on the alignment or congruence between business ethics and cultural contexts with a special emphasis on Eastern European countries. The core of this book is doing business in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in order to throw light on the cultural issues related to business ethics. Its primary purpose is a finer view of the (...) impact of national, organizational and professional cultures in business ethics. The general questions encountered in this book are related to the nexus between culture and ethics in (CEE), national, organizational and professional cultures' link to (CEE) countries' ethics. The aim of this book is a deeper understanding of the cultural differences in Central and Eastern Europe. This might help organizations provide better opportunities for doing business across a wide cultural spectrum. With the increase of global mobility, cultural and ethical issues become more and more important. Multi-national corporations might garner a competitive advantage when they understand the importance of local culture and ethics. International business professionals may benefit from a deeper understanding of cultural values that affect the perceptions of individuals during negotiation and decision-making across cultures. Multinational companies that do not take into consideration or minimize the importance of cultural and ethical issues expose themselves to a higher risk of failure. The expectation of the authors of this book is that the conclusions would help alert international business scholars and practitioners of the need to thoroughly understand the cultural issues influencing ethics. (shrink)

Review of Sandu Frunză, Între moartea politicii ș i moartea lui Dumnezeu. Eseuri despre literatur ă, religie ş i politic ă [ Between the Death of Politics and the Death of God. Essays on literature, religion and politics ],.

The transcendental turn of Husserl's phenomenology has challenged philosophers and scholars from the beginning. This volume inquires into the profound meaning of this turn by contrasting its Kantian and its phenomenological versions. Examining controversies surrounding subjectivity, idealism, aesthetics, logic, the foundation of sciences, and practical philosophy, the chapters provide a helpful guide for facing current debates.

Bringing together established researchers and emerging scholars alike to discuss new readings of Husserl and to reignite the much needed discussion of what phenomenology actually is and can possibly be about, this volume sets out to critically re-evaluate the predominant interpretations of Husserl’s philosophy, and to adapt phenomenology to the specific philosophical challenges and context of the 21st century. “What is phenomenology?”, Maurice Merleau-Ponty asks at the beginning of his Phenomenology of Perception – and he continues: “It may seem strange (...) that this question still has to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl. It is, however, far from being resolved.” Even today, more than half a century after Merleau-Ponty’s magnum opus, the answer is in many ways still up for grasp. While it may seem obvious that the main subject of phenomenological inquiry is, in fact, the subject, it is anything but self evident what this precisely implies: Considering the immense variety of different themes and methodological self-revisions found in Husserl’s philosophy – from its Brentanian beginnings to its transcendental re-interpretation and, last but not least, to its ‘crypto-deconstruction’ in the revisions of his early manuscripts and in his later work –, one cannot but acknowledge the fact that ‘the’ subject of phenomenology marks an irreducible plurality of possible subjects. Paying tribute to this irreducible plurality the volume sets out to develop interpretative takes on the phenomenological tradition which transcend both its naive celebration and its brute rejection, to re-articulate the positions of other philosophers within the framework of Husserl’s thought, and to engage in an investigative dialogue between traditionally opposed camps within phenomenology and beyond. (shrink)

The paper discusses Peano's defense and application of permanence of forms as a principle of practice. Dedicated to the memory of Mic Detlefsen.

This paper provides an algebraic reconstruction of Einstein’s argument for the incompleteness of quantum mechanics, in order to clarify the assumptions that underlie an understanding of Einstein completeness as categoricity.

The paper argues against an intuitive reading of the Stone-von Neumann theorem as a categoricity result, thereby pointing out that this theorem does not entail any model-theoretical difference between the theories that validate it and those that don't.

This unpublished paper, written in 2005 in the PhD philosophy program at Notre Dame, argues that algebraic structural realism faces a difficulty raised by the existence of inequivalent representations in quantum field theory.

Editorial IntroductionSUSI FERRARELLO AND IULIAN APOSTOLESCU.

In recent decades, memory has become one of the major concepts and a dominant topic in philosophy, sociology, politics, history, science, cultural studies, literary theory, and the discussions of trauma and the Holocaust. In contemporary debates, the concept of memory is often used rather broadly and thus not always unambiguously. For this reason, the clarification of the range of the historical meaning of the concept of memory is a very important and urgent task. This volume shows how the concept of (...) memory has been used and appropriated in different historical circumstances and how it has changed throughout the history of philosophy. In ancient philosophy, memory was considered a repository of sensible and mental impressions and was complemented by recollection-the process of recovering the content of past thoughts and perceptions. Such an understanding of memory led to the development both of mnemotechnics and the attempts to locate memory within the structure of cognitive faculties. In contemporary philosophical and historical debates, memory frequently substitutes for reason by becoming a predominant capacity to which one refers when one wants to explain not only the personal identity but also a historical, political, or social phenomenon. In contemporary interpretation, it is memory, and not reason, that acts in and through human actions and history, which is a critical reaction to the overly rationalized and simplified concept of reason in the Enlightenment. Moreover, in modernity memory has taken on one of the most distinctive features of reason: it is thought of as capable not only of recollecting past events and meanings, but also itself. In this respect, the volume can be also taken as a reflective philosophical attempt by memory to recall itself, its functioning and transformations throughout its own history. (shrink)

In this contribution we first sketch an outline of the concept of lifeworld (_Lebenswelt_), to introduce the readers to the guest-edited collection of essays _Varieties of the Lifeworld: Phenomenology and Aesthetic Experience_, special issue of the “Continental Philosophy Review.” We trace back the origin of the concept of lifeworld to Husserl’s late phenomenology, although also explaining (on the basis of the careful historical-conceptual reconstructions offered by some distinguished scholars of Husserl and the phenomenological movement) that the development of Husserl’s phenomenology (...) of the _Lebenswelt_ was gradual and was connected, among other things, to the question of the natural world of experience. Then, quickly referring to Gadamer, Landgrebe, Fink and other authors belonging to the phenomenological tradition, we explain that different interpretations of the topic “Lifeworld” in Husserl’s thinking have been provided: In our view, this contributes to the fact that still nowadays this topic is a fascinating and philosophically stimulating one. Finally, making reference to more recent works by such authors as Figal, Gallagher, Zahavi and Shusterman (a pragmatist philosopher, whose somaesthetics is nonetheless very rich in insights that can be connected to phenomenological views of the body and its place in the world), we emphasize how the question concerning the lifeworld is still capable today to open a great variety of perspectives and plurality of paths for thinking, as testified by the essays collected in this guest-edited special issue of the “Continental Philosophy Review.”. (shrink)

A new form of skepticism is described, which holds that objectivity and understanding are incompossible ideals of modern science. This is attributed to Weyl, hence its name: Weylean skepticism. Two general defeat strategies are then proposed, one of which is rejected.

This paper considers Weylean invariantism, i.e., the view that objectivity requires categoricity, and argues that if the Stone-von Neumann theorem can be naturally interpreted as a categoricity result, the view is falsified by quantum field theory.

This paper explains why spacetime singularities do not constitute a breakdown of physical laws, and points out that the difference between the metrics at singularities and those outside of singularities is factual, rather than nomological.

The essays presented in this issue focus on the phenomenological investigation of religious phenomena. Scholars belonging to different phenomenological traditions address the following groups of questions in order to describe the structure that makes a phenomenon religious.First, is it actually possible to talk about religious experience? In this issue we decided not to give a final answer but, rather, to refer to religious experience as the religious structure of phenomena. In fact, the main question that informs our current contributions is: (...) Could there be a phenomenology of religious experience?Second, we would like to ponder what different forms of phenomenological investigations can add to the description of... (shrink)

No, but the paper argues that Bohr understood his correspondence principle, or at least an aspect of that principle expressed by the notion of rational generalization, as grounded in Hankel’s principle of permanence.

The current stage of the development of amateur stayer running practices can be characterized as personality-building, since the main goals of runners (especially marathon runners and super marathon runners) are not so much related to strengthening health, as to the sphere of personal improvement and self-knowledge: the development of will, character, testing yourself in an extreme situation, testing previously inaccessible emotions and states of consciousness. The object of the study is ego texts (books for a wide audience, including the online (...) "samizdat") of modern Russian running enthusiasts. The method of studying these texts is the biographical method, which makes it possible to determine the multidimensional influence of running activity on fundamental changes in personality development and the formation of her life path. The analyzed biographies inherit both the confessional tradition of Augustine (the contrast of the aimless and vicious "pre-race" life, as well as the traumatic experience of running neophyte and significant achievements in many areas of personal development after the adoption of the values expressed through running Coubertin's "religio athleticae"), and the adventurous and heroic biographical tradition noted by M. M. Bakhtin, inherent in the Renaissance, as well as romanticism and Nietzscheanism with their focus on the formation (in our case, through a stayer run) of a new (or "super-") person. The qualitative result of running activity is the achievement by the subject of a new stage of development – a person running (homo currens), which is characterized by activity, mobility, heroism, asceticism, striving for maximum self-realization, achieving harmony of body and spirit. Homo currens opposes both virtual pastime and the fetishization of comfort culture, suggesting, referring to the concept of Viktor Frankl, filling life with new meanings and values through overcoming the inevitable suffering for a stayer run. Amateur running is considered by writers as a publicly available and effective means of gaining physical, mental and social well-being, which expresses its humanistic essence and gives philosophical and anthropological significance to the works under study. (shrink)

This paper argues that Weyl's view that scientific objectivity requires that concepts be freely created, i.e., introduced via Hilbert-style axiomatizations, led him to abandon the phenomenological view of objectivity.

We argue that, if taken seriously, Kripke's view that a language for science can dispense with a negation operator is to be rejected. Part of the argument is a proof that positive logic, i.e., classical propositional logic without negation, is not categorical.

This paper argues that Carnap's project in the Aufbau is best considered as an attempt to determine the conditions for both objectivity and understanding, thus aiming at refuting the skeptical contention that objectivity and understanding are incompossible ideals of science.

This paper argues that Weyl took formalism to prevail over intuitionism with respect to supporting scientific objectivity, rather than grounding classical mathematics, and that this was what he thought was enough for rejecting pure phenomenology as well.

The metaphysics of a social reality assumes definition ontology various plans of its realization as sorts of attitude to kinds. The last ones represent phenomena of a social reality - as classical and nonclassical. The economy, morals, religion, the right concern to classical kinds of a social reality. Attributes of a sociality of the given kinds: activity, attitudes, forms of social consciousness. A nonclassical kinds given attributes yet "do not possess" to the full. Their metaphysics is defined through parity with (...) classical kinds of society. The structure of a social reality is mobile that is why "updating" of the list of classical kinds of a social reality is not soproblematic that is why the urgency of an explication ontology and metaphysics of a sort of a reality social and numerous kinds is undoubtedly rather productive and duly. (shrink)

The object of this study is the speech style of artists of the Bolshoi Drama Theater in the 1950s and 1960s. The subject of the study is the evolution of the speech style from the first to the second edition of G. Tovstonogov's performance "The Fox and the Grapes" ("Aesop"). The author of the article studies in detail two versions of the famous performance, analyzes the acting speech of N. Korn, V. Polizeimako, O. Basilashvili and S. Yursky from aesthetic and (...) technological positions. The author pays special attention to the fundamental changes in the intonation-melodical architectonics of sounding speech in less than one decade. A change in speech style in the Bolshoi Drama Theater is included by the author in the wider context of changes in the art of the "thaw" era. The methodology of this study includes measurement (auditory analysis of the pace of speech, auditory analysis of diction and orthoepia, instrumental analysis of the intonation-melodic score), comparative analysis, induction, historical method. The novelty of the present study lies in the combined use of auditory and instrumental analysis tools for acting speech. The author clearly proves the subjectively obvious difference between the sound of speech in the first and second editions of the performance "The Fox and The Grapes" by conducting a detailed comparative analysis of acting speech in all main parameters: tempo, diction, orthoepia, melodics. From the study of a specific performance and specific acting works, the author goes to generalization, concluding about the powerful influence of screen (cinematic) speech on theatrical speech in the 1950s and 1960s, about the formation of a new standard of audience perception and a new idea of the naturalness of acting speech. (shrink)

This paper argues against the view that the standard explanation of phase transitions in statistical mechanics may be considered a causal explanation, a distortion that can nevertheless successfully represent causal relations.

The discussion of cultural pluralities causes difficulties in cultural philosophy, as well as philosophical anthropology, because the ontological status of plurality eludes the explaining and understanding examination. In such case, the criticism remains comprehensible. The positive interpretation will be considered accomplished, if concentrate on the boundaries of cultural pluralities. Explication of the phenomenon of boundary in the space of cultural pluralities is associated with understanding of interrelation between the sacral and technical spaces. They are subject to examination in the post-historical (...) horizon, which change the ontological status of their boundary if compared to the classical culture. The two given by Aristotle fundamental definitions of boundary transform the connection between the technique and sacral into the hybrid unity. The scientific novelty consists in the attempt of a positive review of the cultural pluralities, formed by the intersection of sacral and technical spaces within modern culture. Such original spaces require the determination of a specific scale of their analysis. As the scale and simultaneously mechanism of the analysis, the author uses the concept of boundary. The work provides the description of a number of phenomenological signs of the boundary between the sacral and technical. (shrink)

This article explores contemporary approaches to the understanding and interpretation of the formation of inclusive society. The focus is on the investigation of the everyday experiences of individuals who face various limitations in their living conditions such as limited opportunities, special needs, and disabilities. The paper highlights the importance of considering the unique aspects of subjective time when systematically analyzing the functional characteristics and existential mechanisms of an inclusive society, which constitutes the living environment for people with disabilities. It points (...) out that the temporal intentionality of a mentally challenged individual manifests in a unique form of ordering, synchronization, and existence within various phenomena and events within the individual's mental imagery and inner experiences. The authors emphasize the necessity to differentiate two primary stages in an individual's perception and understanding of their actual existence—the evaluation stage and the stage of identifying prospects. The study shows how intentional temporality inherently transforms into individual time, revealing the peculiarities of internal experiences and the unique aspects of an individual's mental imagery. These are integral steps in the formation of a system of social events that are marked within the individual consciousness. The novelty of this study lies in the examination of intentionality within the framework of a disabled person's subjective time, a characteristic that is fundamentally individual yet resonates with the collective daily consciousness of disabled individuals within an inclusive micro-society. (shrink)

This article examines the history of denominationalism - the division of Protestantism into a multitude of independent religious associations, freely competing with each other. This approach to typologising religious associations, initially adopted for Protestant communities within the United States, has become a global phenomenon. Since the early 1980s, there has been a vigorous debate in the sociology of religion about the contemporary meaning of denominations. There is a growing number of independent churches that do not wish to be associated with (...) any of the Protestant denominations; megachurches are leaving denominations or trying not to emphasise their affiliation with any particular denomination; some megachurches and church organisations are growing into a transdenominational evangelical movement with worldwide influence. The article is based on an analysis of the work of sociologists of religion on the issue of denominationalism in Protestant organizations, ranging from Richard Niebuhr to researchers drawing on contemporary statistical data. The existing congregations that emphasize their denominational identity, none of them exist in a denominational isolated cocoon any more - worship practices and music, missional objectives and educational resources can be adopted from other non-denominational churches and trans-denominational evangelical movements. The very concepts of megachurch, independent church, and evangelical movement can be viewed as separate denominations. Using these terms, members of a congregation identify themselves as holding certain beliefs and engaging in certain practices in common with others around the world. The trend toward the emergence of independent churches is part of the new course of Protestantism - post-denominational Protestantism. (shrink)