The very rapid developments in the field of computers in the last few years have made it possible to solve, with their aid, problems utterly new in character. The first "generation" of electronic computers, in the 1950's, was one of capricious and cumbersome vacuum-tube devices, but even it brought a fundamental change in our notions of the kind of tasks machines were capable of solving. The second "generation" - transistorized computers - is a substantial improvement. More compact and dependable, these (...) machines have come into wide use in the control of various processes. Today the third "generation" is in birth, consisting of microminiaturized computers employing solid-state circuits. Such computers are no larger than a small suitcase and it is supposed, not without reason, that in the future they will become pocket-size. It is clear that these possibilities create an utterly new situation. Whereas formerly there was still some validity in posing the question of a clear-cut division of functions between man and a large stationary computer that carried out certain calculations on his instructions, today the question of man-computer interaction takes the center of the stage. (shrink)

Not only Greek philosophers listened to prophets. René Descartes also long pondered over the familiar words of Ausonius: "What path shall I choose for myself in life?" And-what an amusing play on words-the idea of methodos entered philosophy with Descartes. The very path of his metaphysical thought was the last possible one within the confines of Aristotelian metaphysics, when, having posited certain principles of discourse, in the end they themselves are conclusively reached and the entire system becomes a manifest certainty. (...) Descartes provides a glimpse of the possibility of a new type of metaphysical reflection in which the correctness of the chosen principles is grounded in the completeness and noncontradictoriness of the system built on their basis but not confined to them. (shrink)

The question of a universal human nature and the universally human significance of values, first and foremost moral values—a question that, it would seem, had long ago been thoroughly scrutinized in the works of Marxist scholars, including V. P. Tugarinov—has suddenly acquired a "second wind" in public consciousness and in the journalism of our days. Well-known writers, journalists, and scholars have come together on a theoretical platform, which is summed up in a statement by D. S. Likhachev: "Morality is a (...) part of human nature. Its norms are stable and eternal. Indeed, what can be counterposed to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill'? Some new commandment? ‘Kill’? And what about the commandment ‘Thou shalt not steal’? or ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’?". (shrink)

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the problem of the overman becomes one of the most discussed problems in Russia. This was mainly a consequence of the boom in the popularity of Nietzsche's writings; however, to a significant degree it was conditioned also by Solov'ev's works. The religious pathos of Solov'ev's philosophy prepared Russian specialists in the humanities to take an attentive interest in and eventually to accept precisely the "overhuman" aspect of Nietzschean thought. It would not be wrong (...) to assert that the special nature of the Russian Nietzscheanism of the Silver Age consists precisely in the fact that the idea of the overman firmly occupied a central place in it. While the representatives of academic scholarship and religious writers in the final years of the nineteenth century recoiled in horror from the Nietzschean overman, seeing in him the mark of Satanic origin, the embodied idea of evil, indeed the Antichrist himself, the young generation of idealist philosophers, the activists of the Russian religious renaissance of the beginning of the twentieth century, on the contrary, welcomed the Nietzschean image as a symbol of the approaching religious renewal of culture. The general mood of those years was accurately conveyed by D. Merezhkovskii: "The overman is the last point, the sharpest summit of the great mountain ridge of European philosophy, with its age-old roots in the rebellious, solitary, and aloof personality. One can go no further: precipice and abyss, fall or flight: the way of the overman-religion.". (shrink)

Jardine examines the evolution of concepts of dialectics during the Renaissance and problems of methodology that influenced the teachings of the founder of philosophy in the modern era, F. Bacon. The work traces the sources of these problems in the dialectics of antiquity and its medieval interpretation. Sources little known to the Soviet reader are cited. In order to evaluate Bacon's reaction to the dialectics of his day, the author also describes works named in the statutes of Cambridge University in (...) the sixteenth century as textbooks on dialectics. They are writings by humanists — bearers of the ideas of the Enlightenment — I. Caesarius, R. Agricola, D. Seton, and others. To a certain extent they were based on the work by Peter the Spaniard Summulae Logicales, which is taken as a point of departure for the further evolution of dialectics. (shrink)

Jardine examines the evolution of concepts of dialectics during the Renaissance and problems of methodology that influenced the teachings of the founder of philosophy in the modern era, F. Bacon. The work traces the sources of these problems in the dialectics of antiquity and its medieval interpretation. Sources little known to the Soviet reader are cited. In order to evaluate Bacon's reaction to the dialectics of his day, the author also describes works named in the statutes of Cambridge University in (...) the sixteenth century as textbooks on dialectics. They are writings by humanists — bearers of the ideas of the Enlightenment — I. Caesarius, R. Agricola, D. Seton, and others. To a certain extent they were based on the work by Peter the Spaniard Summulae Logicales, which is taken as a point of departure for the further evolution of dialectics. (shrink)

To study the L shi chunqiu (or L -shih ch'un-ch'iu. Master L 's Spring and Autumn Annals is to enter into the tumultuous but progressive times of the Warring States period (403-221 BCE). 1 This period is commonly referred to as 'the pre-Qin period' because of the fundamental changes that occurred after the Qin unification. Liishi chunqiu was probably completed, in 241 BCE, by various scholars at the estate of L Buwei (L Pu-wei) the prime minister of Qin and tutor (...) to the Qin child King, Zheng. 2 It is one of the few pre-Qin texts that dates itself; the date, though not precise, is given in the xuyi chapter. 3 A decade after the completion of the L shi chunqiu, King Zheng began the ensuing 9 years of fervent warfare that led to his unification of the empire in 221 BCE. Before the political unification, L shi chunqiu created a philosophical consolidation. 4 The Liishi chunqiu performed an important function in the literary and political education of the young King Zheng. More importantly, it provided a philosophical understanding of and justification for a unified empire which left its mark on the young King, and subsequent Han philosophy. After the unification of the empire, King Zheng took the title Qin shihuangdi (First-generation Emperor of Qin), and he established the insignia of water for the imperial emblems, employing concepts from Liishi chunqiu's yingtong (responding and identifying) chapter which describe the succession of dynasties according to the timely cycle of the five phases (wuxing) to justify his new dynasty. 5. (shrink)

The decade that has elapsed since the flight of the world's first cosmonaut, Iu. A. Gagarin, has been marked by considerable successes in mastering the cosmos. Lengthy orbital flights and lunar expeditions are already being conducted. Automatic stations are studying the moon, Mars, Venus, and cosmic space. And although we understand that the major trumphs in space are still ahead of us and that today we are merely at the start of the cosmic era, it is nonetheless already possible, in (...) this year of the tenth anniversary of the first human space flight, to draw certain conclusions and discuss the results of human intrusion into the expanses of the universe. (shrink)

Co-authored letter to the APA to take a lead role in the recognition of teaching in the classroom, based on the participation in an interdisciplinary Conference on the Role of Advocacy in the Classroom back in 1995. At the time of this writing, the late Myles Brand was the President of Indiana University and a member of the IU Department of Philosophy.

Przekład na podstawie: „Do We Believe in Penal Substitution?”, Philosophical Papers 26 : 203-209. Przekład za zgodą Wydawcy Artykuł D. Lewisa rozważa dopuszczalność poniesienia kary w zastępstwie za winowajcę w odniesieniu do aktualnie obowiązującego systemu prawa karnego, w którym kara nie pełni funkcji rekompensaty, i do chrześcijańskiej interpretacji śmierci Chrystusa w kategoriach Odkupienia. Może wydawać się, że obecnie kara zastępcza nie jest akceptowana, okazuje się jednak, że de facto akceptowana jest wybiórczo. Przynajmniej niektórzy chrześcijanie rozumieją śmierć Chrystusa w kategoriach spłacenia (...) długu win grzeszników, ale jednocześnie nie dopuszczają możliwości, by przyjaciel mordercy poniósł za niego karę więzienia. Większość z nas uznaje możliwość kary zastępczej w odniesieniu do kar pieniężnych, ale nie w odniesieniu do dowolnej innej kary. W obu wypadkach w przekonaniach na temat dopuszczalności kary zastępczej wyraźnie brakuje spójności. Skoro jednak wybiórcze dopuszczenie kary zastępczej jest tak powszechne, być może nie jest pozbawione sensu. (shrink)

The nature of creative engagement with computers and software presents a number of challenges to 4E cognition and requires the development of analytical frameworks that can encompass cognitive processes as they extend across material and informational realms. Here I argue that an enactive view of mind allows for better understanding of digital practice by advancing a dynamic, transactional, and affective framework for the analysis of computational design. This enactive framework is in part developed through the Material Engagement Theory put forward (...) by Lambros Malafouris, in part from the phenomenologically inspired philosophy of Bernard Stiegler. Both advance temporality, technics and technique as key to understanding human creative imagination and their work can support each other in different ways; Stiegler allows for a theorisation of digital tools largely missing from the cognitive archaeology of Malafouris, whilst Malafouris provides a cognitive theory to further develop key ideas in Stiegler’s philosophy. Bringing their work together through Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation, I develop the concept of enactive individuation and apply this to the analysis of a case of robotic design and fabrication from my fieldwork with digital architects and engineers. This case allows for further exploration of how enactivism might productively be extended into the digital realm by underscoring the explorative engagement at heart of even highly systematic work with computers and software. (shrink)

Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu [Spring and Autumn of the House of Lü] appeared on the scene in 239 B.C. This was the latter part of the Warring States period. Our country's transition from slavery to feudalism had already been basically completed, but chaotic wars of secession among the feudal princes still occurred. Remnant forces of the slave system were still quite strong, and the restoration-counterrestoration struggle between the declining slave-owning class and the newly emerging landlord class was proceeding violently. Lü Pu-wei was (...) a careerist and plotter of the declining slave-owning class and a representative of the Confucians. In response to the needs of the slave-owning class's counterrevolutionary restoration, Lü adopted the tactic of "attacking the mind." He sneaked into the government of the newly emerging landlord class in the state of Ch'in and played the role of an ardent vanguard for restoration. This big commercial slave owner, who had originally run around among Ch'in, Chao, and other states, had amassed thousands of gold pieces at home and possessed more than ten thousand slaves. He played around with political conspiracies and became chancellor of the state of Ch'in. Before King Ying Cheng of Ch'in personally took power in 238 B.C., political power fell for a time into Lü's hands. Lü Pu-wei worked in collusion with Lao Ai, a eunuch he sponsored, and joined the industrial and commercial slave owners and the aristocratic slave owners to form a frenzied restorationist force. On the one hand, they formed factions to strengthen private interests, expanded their power, and prepared for an armed coup d'état. On the other hand, they took in riff-raff [literally, people who had surrendered and rebelled], assembled Confucian scholars, set to work on ideology, and grandly created public opinion for the restoration of the slave system. At that time, a reactionary adverse current favoring the restoration of the slave system hung over the state of Ch'in. Lü-shih ch'un-ch'iu, which was compiled under Lü's direction by his retainers, was the product of this adverse current. (shrink)

This article develops a framework for analysing how digital software and models become mediums for creative imagination in architectural design. To understand the hermeneutics of these relationships, we develop key concepts from Material Engagement Theory (MET) and Postphenomenology (PP). To push these frameworks into the realm of digital design, we develop the concept of Digital Materiality. Digital Materiality describes the way successive layers of mathematics, code, and software come to mediate enactive perception, and the possibilities of creative material engagement actualised (...) in work with software. Just as molecular materials come to transform action with material objects, so digital materiality comes to enable and transform creative practices with computers. Digital architectural design form a new space for ongoing enactive discovery and creativity through manipulation of digital models and their underlying software environments. By shifting relationships within their digital models, architects can direct their attention, intention, and imagination towards widely different aspects of the model. Here, creative imagination becomes a fundamentally situated activity where mind emerges through dynamic interaction between a variety of embodied, material, and cultural domains. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990.

In this article, I seek to improve upon a definition of pseudoscience put forward by Sven Ove Hansson. I argue that not only does its use of ‘pseudoscientific statement’ as definiendum inadequately address the theoretical issue of demarcation, it also makes the definition inapt for practical demarcation. Moreover, I argue that Hanson’s definition subsumes statements and associated practices that are forms of bad science, resulting in an unfavourably wide concept. I try to save the definition from the brunt of this (...) critique by arguing that some pseudoscientific statements are particularly significant when demarcating a discipline as a pseudoscience. (shrink)

Many philosophers and some economists value economic equality on the ground that transfers from the relatively rich to the relatively poor increase the utility of the poor more than they reduce the utility of the rich. These philosophers and economists are assuming the ethical principle that a pattern of economic distribution is justified by maximizing aggregate utility. They are also assuming the truth of an empirical generalization proposed in the eighteenth century by Daniel Bernoulli–that successive equal increments of income produce (...) ever-diminishing increments in an individual's level of utility. In the first part of this essay I will argue against Bernoulli's hypothesis, and suggest an alternative view of the relation between income and utility. (shrink)

Changes in the productive forces and, consequently, in the economic structure of socialist society as a whole are being prepared by the current relationships of production. We refer particularly to the influence of socioeconomic processes under the conditions of the revolution in science and technology on the development of the individual as a factor in the productive forces and as subject in production relationships.

Genetic database initiatives have given rise to considerable debate about their potential harms and benefits. The question arises as to whether existing ethical frameworks are sufficient to mediate between the competing interests at stake. One approach is to strengthen mechanisms for obtaining informed consent and for protecting confidentiality. However, there is increasing interest in other ethical frameworks, involving solidarity — participation in research for the common good — and the sharing of the benefits of research.

The family of cognitive models sometimes referred to as the “Learning Pyramid” enjoys a considerable level of authority within several areas of educational studies, despite that nobody knows how they originated or whether they were supported by any empirical evidence. This article investigates the early history of these models. Through comprehensive searches in digital libraries, we have found that versions of the Learning Pyramids have been part of educational debates and practices for more than 160 years. These findings demonstrate that (...) the models did not originate from empirical research. We also argue that the contemporary Learning Pyramids, despite their continued modifications and modernizations, have failed to keep up with the developments of cognitive psychology. The conception of memory implied by the Learning Pyramids deviates significantly from the standard picture of human memory. (shrink)

Several uncorroborated, false, or misinterpreted conceptions have for years been widely distributed in academic publications, thus becoming scientific myths. How can such misconceptions persist and proliferate within the inimical environment of academic criticism? Examining 613 articles we demonstrate that the reception of three myth-exposing publications is skewed by an ‘affirmative citation bias’: The vast majority of articles citing the critical article will affirm the idea criticized. 468 affirmed the myth, 105 were neutral, while 40 took a negative stance. Once misconceptions (...) proliferate wide and long enough, criticizing them not only becomes increasingly difficult, efforts may even contribute to the continued spreading of the myths. (shrink)

This work describes the nano field in Norway as currently emerging in the dynamics between two forms of nano research activities described along a centre-periphery axis. 1) There are strategic research initiatives committed to redeem the envisioned potential of the field by means of social and material reorganisation of existing research activities. This activity is seen as central as it is one of our premises that the standard circulating nano vision implies such a work of reorganisation. The fact that nano (...) is often taken as a paradigmatic example of the shift from Mode-1 to Mode-2 research, supports this assumption. 2) In parallel to this activity, a wide variety of research projects pursuing nano strategies are being funded. We regard such research activity as peripheral in so far as the activity is not marked by being committed to the circulating nano vision, as may often be the case. In the process of reorganising, this article argues, the research activity at the periphery provides a crucial arena for discussing and validating what is to be achieved through the work of reorganisation that takes place at the centre. Our analysis is informed by two Norwegian cases. We examine a major nano research initiative at a Norwegian university as a centre and a research project utilising nanoparticles in fish vaccines as a periphery. (shrink)

This paper discusses the performativity of Heidegger’s language. It tries to ascertain how Heidegger attains the appearance of phenomena by writing about them. This paper focuses accordingly on two questions: First, how is it possible to break out of language by means of words in order to make way for the unutterable, and second, how can what appears also disappear at the same time. The essay”The Origin of the Work of Art” (”DerUrsprung des Kunstwerkes”) is rife with examples inwhich Heidegger (...) describes a phenomenon and analyses it as a possibility of making the experience of its particular”way of being” (“Seinsweise”). This paper examines in detail Heidegger’s attempt to provide a setting in which phenomena can appear in such a way that the assertion can be made that they show themselves”by themselves”. (shrink)

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)

Naturrettens historie.--Ludvig Holbergs naturrett jevnført med de fornemste juristers principiis.

This thesis explores the phenomenon of scientific myths distributed in academic discourses. Drawing on a set of myth-examples, I explicate a definition of the term ‘scientific myth’, arguing that it ought primarily to be characterised by the tension between a lack of epistemic warrant on the one hand, and an extensive proliferation in formal academic channels of publications on the other. I then delineate scientific myths from the closely associated pseudosciences: The sciences, although distributing some unreliable statements, do not bestow (...) upon such statements the same authority and importance as the pseudosciences do. From these demarcative deliberations, I proceed to address the question of myth diffusion, of how misconceptions grow to scientific myths. Discussing myth-propagation, I argue that a fundamental explanation for myth-spreading is deficient epistemic practices. Omissions of citations, although a both common and pertinent explanation, only account for some aspects of myth spreading. In the context of research debates, the issue of myth diffusion also includes efforts at debunking scientific myths in academic publications. Our findings indicate that there is an ‘Affirmative Citation Bias’, that counteracts debunking attempts by effectively disarming the critique: Instead of being distributed, the critique is buried in an avalanche of myth-affirming publications. Finally, I discuss whether scientific myths ought to be somewhat vindicated. They could conceivably have an anti-dogmatic function in academic debates, by representing alternatives to the established consensus, in accordance with Millsian and Feyerabendian ideals for truth seeking discourse. I conclude in the negative: Scientific myths have dogmatic aspects themselves. (shrink)

This article examines the diffusion and present day status of a family of unsubstantiated learning-retention myths, some of which are referred to as ‘the learning pyramid’. We demonstrate through an extensive search in academic journals and field-specific encyclopaedias that these myths are indeed widely publicised in academia and that they have gained a considerable level of authority. We also argue that the academic publishing of these myths is potentially harmful to both professional as well as political deliberations on educational issues, (...) and therefore should be criticized and counteracted. (shrink)