In this essay I defend two interrelated theses. The first is that Whiteheadian structured societies are best understood as open-ended systems akin to those currently being proposed in the natural and social sciences by Stuart Kauff­man, David Sloan Wilson, and Niklas Luhmann. The second is that an open-ended system is best understood in terms of an ongoing interplay of subjectivity and objectivity, which I derive from a modest rethinking of the workings of a Whiteheadian structured society.

The question whether cognition is subserved by internal processes in the brain (internalism) or extends in to the world (active externalism) has been vigorously debated in recent years. I show how internalist and externalist ideas can be pursued in a common framework, using (1) open dynamical systems, which allow for separate analysis of an agent's intrinsic and embodied dynamics, and (2) supervenience functions, which can be used to study how low-level dynamical systems give rise to higher-level dynamical (...) structures. (shrink)

This book shows how Bohmian mechanics overcomes the need for a measurement postulate involving wave function collapse. The measuring process plays a very important role in quantum mechanics. It has been widely analyzed within the Copenhagen approach through the Born and von Neumann postulates, with later extension due to Lüders. In contrast, much less effort has been invested in the measurement theory within the Bohmian mechanics framework. The continuous measurement (sharp and fuzzy, or strong and weak) problem is considered here (...) in this framework. The authors begin by generalizing the so-called Mensky approach, which is based on restricted path integral through quantum corridors. The measuring system is then considered to be an open quantum system following a stochastic Schrödinger equation. Quantum stochastic trajectories (in the Bohmian sense) and their role in basic quantum processes are discussed in detail. The decoherence process is thereby described in terms of classical trajectories issuing from the violation of the noncrossing rule of quantum trajectories. (shrink)

It is argued that those who defend the Everett, or ‘many-worlds’, interpretation of quantum mechanics should embrace what we call the general quantum theory of open systems (GT) as the proper framework in which to conduct foundational and philosophical investigations in quantum physics. GT is a wider dynamical framework than its alternative, standard quantum theory (ST). This is true even though GT makes no modifications to the quantum formalism. GT rather takes a different view, what we call (...) the open systems view, of the formalism; i.e., in GT, the dynamics of systems whose physical states are fundamentally represented by density operators are represented as fundamentally open as specified by an in general non-unitary dynamical map. This includes, in principle, the dynamics of the universe as a whole. We argue that the more general dynamics describable in GT can be physically motivated, that there is as much prima facie empirical support for GT as there is for ST, and that GT could be fully in the spirit of the Everett interpretation—that there might, in short, be little reason for an Everettian not to embrace the more general theoretical landscape that GT allows one to explore. (shrink)

Abstact. Although it is generally known that M.M. Bakhtin viewed himself as primarily a philosopher and not a philologist, the overwhelming majority of studies of his work belong to literary criticism. The purpose of this article, relying on the oral testimony of Bakhtin himself and his philosophical texts written in the Nevel-Vitebsk period, is to restore the origin of his philosophical sources and the content of his philosophical ideas of this period. The main idea is the concept (...) of moral philosophy as a philosophical system, whose main subject is participative thinking and an answerable act as an event of being. One of the most important sources of these ideas was probably the philosophy of Neo-Kantianism represented by the teachings of H. Cohen. The article provides four examples of Bakhtin's continuity in relation to the Marburg philosopher - the idea of an answerable act concerning another person as the source of a human's self-consciousness and personal integrity, the idea of a correlative relationship between a person and his neighbor as an expression of a caring participatory being, the idea of distinguishing a moral attitude from an ethical-legal one and the idea of the philosophical system, whose subject is the process of interpersonal relations. In this case, the system consists not only in the integrity of the object but also in its openness. Revealing the continuity of Bakhtin's philosophical ideas regarding Cohen leads to a better understanding of these ideas and Bakhtin's originality of their development. It is also fruitful to compare the perception of Cohen's ideas by Bakhtin and their reception by another philosopher of dialogue, F. Rosenzweig. (shrink)

This monograph analyzes Nicholas Rescher's system of pragmatic idealism. It also looks at his approach to prediction in science. Coverage highlights a prominent contribution to a central topic in the philosophy and methodology of science. The author offers a full characterization of Rescher's system of philosophy. She presents readers with a comprehensive philosophico-methodological analysis of this important work. Her research takes into account different thematic realms: semantic, logical, epistemological, methodological, ontological, axiological, and ethical. The book features three, thematic-parts: I) General (...) Coordinates, Semantic Features and Logical Components of Scientific Prediction; II) Predictive Knowledge and Predictive Processes in Rescher's Methodological Pragmatism; and III) From Reality to Values: Ontological Features, Axiological Elements, and Ethical Aspects of Scientific Prediction. This insightful analysis offers a critical reconstruction of Rescher's philosophy. The system he created is often characterized as pragmatic idealism that is open to some realist elements. He is a prominent representative of contemporary pragmatism who has made a great deal of contributions to the study of this topic. This area is crucial for science and it has been little considered in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Open theism denies that God has definite exhaustive foreknowledge, and affirms that God takes certain risks when creating the universe. Critics of open theism often complain that the risks are too high. Perhaps there is something morally wrong with God taking a risk in creating a universe with an open future. Open theists have tried to respond by clarifying how much risk is involved in God creating an open universe, though we argue that it remains (...) unclear how much risk is actually involved. We claim that open theists need to start developing theories about how God manages risks in order to bring about His purposes for the universe. In this article, we will take a philosophical and biological perspective on risk management that adds plausibility to open theism. We will consider how God can use different risk‐management, surveillance, and redundancy systems in the natural world in order to accomplish His goals. (shrink)

New prospects for mankind in searching for and developing new sources of energy, arms race, overcrowding and ecological crises present the human with a serious choice. The choice may relate to the further existence of people on Earth. In the context of most challenging political, economic and social crises, the tandem of natural and human sciences produces unexpected results, despite the crises accompanying these processes. This article presents a model of the society and a model of the human in the (...) systemic parametrical aspect. The human is considered as part of the “society” system. The research suggests applying the systems parametric method developed by Prof. A. Uyemov in the 1960s. Humanity creates increasingly frequent bifurcation conditions for human life. As an adaptive mechanism, the human has to develop survival strategies and well-being strategies. The paper presents some aspects of the adaptive mechanisms of the 21st century man. It also considers some threats arising out of environmental variability. Cyborgization is one of such threats. The research includes dual system modelling of the “society” system based on the complementarity principle. It shows that there are two definitions which have different concepts, structures and substrates but constitute the entirety of the object of interest. (shrink)

Entanglement has long been the subject of discussion by philosophers of quantum theory, and has recently come to play an essential role for physicists in their development of quantum information theory. In this paper we show how the formalism of algebraic quantum field theory (AQFT) provides a rigorous framework within which to analyse entanglement in the context of a fully relativistic formulation of quantum theory. What emerges from the analysis are new practical and theoretical limitations on an experimenter's ability to (...) perform operations on a field in one spacetime region that can disentangle its state from the state of the field in other spacelike-separated regions. These limitations show just how deeply entrenched entanglement is in relativistic quantum field theory, and yield a fresh perspective on the ways in which the theory differs conceptually from both standard non-relativistic quantum theory and classical relativistic field theory. (shrink)

For the Critical Theory tradition of the Frankfurt School, rationalisation is a central concept that refers to the socio-cultural closure of capitalist modernity due to the proliferation of technical, ‘instrumental’ rationality at the expense of some form of political reason. This picture of rationalisation, however, hinges on a separation of technology and politics that is both empirically and philosophically problematic. This article aims to re-conceptualise the rationalisation thesis through a survey of research from science and technology studies and the conceptual (...) framework of Niklas Luhmann's systems theory. It argues that rationalisation indeed exhibits a logic of closure, namely the ‘operational closure’ of sociotechnical systems of measurement, but that this closure in fact produces the historical logics of technical reason and, paradoxically, also generates spaces of critical-political openness. This opens up the theoretical and practical opportunity of connecting the politically just to the technically efficient. (shrink)

I flesh out the sense in which the informational approach to interpreting quantum mechanics, as defended by Pitowsky and Bub and lately by a number of other authors, is (neo-)Bohrian. I argue that on this approach, quantum mechanics represents what Bohr called a “natural generalisation of the ordinary causal description” in the sense that the idea (which philosophers of science like Stein have argued for on the grounds of practical and epistemic necessity) that understanding a theory as a theory of (...) physics requires that one be able to “schematise the observer” within it is elevated in quantum mechanics to the level of a postulate in the sense that interpreting the outcome of a measurement interaction, as providing us with information about the world, requires as a matter of principle, the specification of a schematic representation of an observer in the form of a ‘Boolean frame’—the Boolean algebra representing the yes-or-no questions associated with a given observable representative of a given experimental context. I argue that the approach’s central concern is with the methodological question of how to assign physical properties to what one takes to be a system in a given experimental context, rather than the metaphysical question of what a given state vector represents independently of any context, and I show how the quantum generalisation of the concept of an open system may be used to assuage Einstein’s complaint that the orthodox approach to quantum mechanics runs afoul of the supposedly fundamental methodological requirement to the effect that one must always be able, according to Einstein, to treat spatially separated systems as isolated from one another. (shrink)

‘If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, to belittle them. It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men.’ - Karl Popper, from the Preface Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in two volumes in 1945, Karl Popper’s _The Open Society (...) and Its Enemies _is one of the most influential books of all time. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a ‘vigorous and profound defence of democracy’, its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems and through underground editions become an inspiration to lovers of freedom living under communism in Eastern Europe. Popper’s highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thoughts of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ and why it demands to be read today and in years to come. (shrink)

Systems biology is the rapidly growing and heavily funded successor science to genomics. Its mission is to integrate extensive bodies of molecular data into a detailed mathematical understanding of all life processes, with an ultimate view to their prediction and control. Despite its high profile and widespread practice, there has so far been almost no bioethical attention paid to systems biology and its potential social consequences. We outline some of systems biology's most important socioethical issues by contrasting (...) the concept of systems as dynamic processes against the common static interpretation of genomes. New issues arise around systems biology's capacities for in silico testing, changing cultural understandings of life, synthetic biology, and commercialization. We advocate an interdisciplinary and interactive approach that integrates social and philosophical analysis and engages closely with the science. Overall, we argue that systems biology socioethics could stimulate new ways of thinking about socioethical studies of life sciences. (shrink)

Chinese Hui medicine is a unique Chinese traditional medicine system formed by the integration of traditional Islamic Arabia medicine and China traditional Chinese medicine. It is also the cream of ancient Eastern and Western traditional medicine. Hui medicine is based on its unique concepts of Hui medical philosophy, such as the theory of Zhenyi Vitality and the theory of seven elements. It is the only traditional national medicine developed by inheriting Islamic Arab medical philosophy and integrating Chinese traditional Chinese medical (...) philosophy theory. Hui medicine likes to use the application method characterized by aromatic Hui medicine (also known as ship medicine). It has high traditional treatment effect in Hui orthopedics and traumatology, Hui medicine of brain, Hui medicine of gynecology, Hui medicine of ophthalmology, Hui medicine of dermatology, Hui medicine of anorectal, etc. There is a relatively complete traditional medical system of Hui medicine. The Sinicized Islamic philosophical system guides the philosophical concept of Hui medicine. Hui medicine absorbs and combines the essence of traditional Chinese medicine, which forms the theoretical system of “Zhenyi (True one)”, “Vitality”, “Yin and Yang”, “Qixing”, “Four natures”, “Four body fluids” “Viscera Qi activity” and “Four parts and seven diseases” systems, which have been formed in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. The characteristics of Hui medicine application are based on the formulation of aromatic drugs, and the nature of cold, hot, dryness, and humidity is conducted for each drug, as well as the drug strength (toxicity) of each drug is graded in grades 1 - 4. Therefore, Hui medicine is a traditional ethnic medicine combined with Chinese and Western medicine. (shrink)

The goal of this short note is to expand the concepts of ‘pluralism’, ‘neutrosophy’, ‘refined neutrosophy’, ‘refined neutrosophic set’, ‘multineutrosophic set’, and ‘plithogeny’ (Smarandache 2002, 2013, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c), into a larger category that I will refer to as MultiAlism (or MultiPolar). As a straightforward generalization, I propose the conceptualization of a MultiPolar System (different from a PluriPolar System), which is formed not only by multiple elements that might be random, or contradictory, or adjuvant, but also by (...) accepting features from more than one basic system (UniPolar, BiPolar, TriPolar, or PluriPolar systems). PluriAlism is a closed dynamic system without neutralities nor indeterminacies, while MultiAlism is an open dynamic system with neutralities and indeterminacies. PluriAlism is a uni-system (formed by elements from a single system), while MultiAlism is a MultiSystem (formed by elements from many systems). (shrink)

This article examines the issue of education from the point of the system theory of the modern German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. The main goal was to present arguments in favor of the possibility of education as a system, to describe its main functions and to highlight the problem of the medium. Firstly, the problem of translation of the German term Erziehung and its English counterpart Education was described; the existence of ambiguity, due to which it is possible in the context (...) of the system theory to talk about both education and upbringing. Against this background, it was decided to use both terms as synonyms, bearing in mind their common meaning and the possibility of reverse translation. Then, by describing the main terms, Luhmann’s general understanding of the system theory and the system as a whole was given. Was mentioned such concepts as: distinguishing between the system and Umwelt, the phenomenon of self-reference and form. This gives rise to the second term – autopoiesis. The term was taken by Luhmann from the Chilean scientist Humberto Maturanа, the main point is in the special ability of systems to reproduce themselves from their own parts and to reproduce the parts themselves. A specific feature of autopoiesis is that it does not affect the final form. The phenomenon that provides autopoiesis is communication. It is possible because it is based on understanding and misunderstanding, which is found when distinguishing between message and information. From this constant distinction, sense is born. The possibility of understanding sense by a human, which is a psycho-physical system, is provided by structural coupling, openness of the system to external information. Based on this, we can describe the educational system. It is aimed at the formation and editing of the Person – a social symbol of communication. By providing each pupil with the same necessary knowledge, the education system thus increases the success of future communication. The medium that enables the system is the Pupil. However, significant social changes led to its reinterpretation and the emergence of a new term Lebenslauf, which causes problems in translation and interpretation. (shrink)

There is contrast to the belief that all energy and matter came into existence after the Big Bang. If we wish to understand the way the Greeks and other philosophers view our environment, we need to study the data that was collected by them. This book sees our portrayal of reality as having its departure point in concrete systems by which means of conceptual systems result in abstracted systems. This data must be sorted and information must now (...) be surveyed, structured, and analysed to find qualities and connections between the different aspects systems thinking. This has led to the theory for 'Living Systems'. It gives examples of applications which a basis for further studies of systems can be formed. The Internet now provides a major advantage to the retrieval of statistical information and opens a means for the future exploration and verification of how systems work. (shrink)

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemiesis one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of great (...) philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies, and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come. This is the second of two volumes of The Open Society and Its Enemies. (shrink)

‘If in this book harsh words are spoken about some of the greatest among the intellectual leaders of mankind, my motive is not, I hope, to belittle them. It springs rather from my conviction that, if our civilization is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men.’ - Karl Popper, from the Preface Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in two volumes in 1945, Karl Popper’s The Open Society (...) and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of all time. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a ‘vigorous and profound defence of democracy’, its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems and through underground editions become an inspiration to lovers of freedom living under communism in Eastern Europe. Popper’s highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thoughts of great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies and why it demands to be read today and in years to come. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 93-101 [Access article in PDF] A Political LifeArendtian Aesthetics and Open Systems Sue Spaid Since the 1990s, artists have broken ground by producing works that are "open systems." That is, they are incomplete, participatory, and elastic. In this paper, I will argue that open systems exemplify Hannah Arendt's conception of vita activa, in contrast to art's traditional (...) role as inspiring vita contemplativa. Since they do not explicitly affirm or refute political policies, such works are generally not considered "political" art. However, they accommodate Arendt's notion of the political life, since they incorporate process, durability, pluralities of spectators, and unpredictability. Furthermore, because they do not resemble what ordinarily passes for art, reflective judgment is required to engage them, and to determine whether they are art.Echoing Diotima's interest in immortality, Arendt links beauty to durability. Open systems are particularly durable because we remember them as a public experiences that include participants and spectators. Such performative and pleasurable worldly actions entail aesthetic engagements that are very much in line with Arendt's description of the political life. Critical Engagement In the sphere of fabrication itself, there is only one kind of object to which the unending chain of means and ends does not apply, and this [End Page 93] is the work of art, the most useless and, at the same time, the most durable thing human hands can produce... It is the reification that occurs in writing something down, painting an image, composing a piece of music, etc. which actually makes the thought a reality; and in order to produce these thought things, which we usually call art works, the same workmanship is required that through the primordial instrument of human hands builds the other, less durable and more useful things of the human artifice. (Arendt 2000, 177-78) In a 1964 interview with Gunter Gaus, Hannah Arendt described herself as a political theorist, who though trained as a philosopher had "said good-bye to philosophy once and for all." In identifying the tension between philosophy and politics, she differentiated man as a thinking being from man as an acting being, and she identified with the latter. She found that, because philosophers cannot be neutral or objective with regards to politics, they share a certain enmity toward politics, and she sought to avoid that response. Not surprisingly, she named Kant as an exception, because he understood this enmity to lie in the nature of the subject itself. In The Critique of Judgement, experience precedes reflective judgement, thus affirming a place for each subject's particular experiences. Kant, too, was a man of action.Kant's aesthetic judgment of taste, which is a normative but non-prescriptive process, makes room for Arendt's notions of worldliness and unpredictability. Critics have decried Arendt's political theory for its anti-rationalism, political existentialism and "aestheticization of politics," yet much can be learned from her clear commitment to equality, and the way she trusted and perhaps even idealized humanity (Curtis 1999, 18). She wrote, "Only action and speech relate specifically to this fact that to live always means to live among men, among those who are my equals. Hence, when I insert myself into the world, it is a world where others are already present" (Arendt 2000, 179). Given her interest in freedom, active engagement, critical thinking, and anti-instrumentalism, it is perhaps not surprising that Arendt found inspiration in Kant's conception of aesthetic judgment as requiring only communicative sociability, the object's purposeless purposiveness, and the spectator's free play of imagination and understanding.I am interested here in Arendt's aesthetics of the political life in relation to recent art that unwittingly fosters an engaged and open conception of the political. The works in question are not necessarily conscious of their political capacity. Rather, their presence assumes that spectators are [End Page 94] equals, and facilitates an active life, what Arendt described as the vita activa, as opposed to the vita contemplativa, the contemplative life. An active life, which requires a public space, entails active... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.1 (2003) 93-101 [Access article in PDF] A Political LifeArendtian Aesthetics and Open Systems Sue Spaid Since the 1990s, artists have broken ground by producing works that are "open systems." That is, they are incomplete, participatory, and elastic. In this paper, I will argue that open systems exemplify Hannah Arendt's conception of vita activa, in contrast to art's traditional (...) role as inspiring vita contemplativa. Since they do not explicitly affirm or refute political policies, such works are generally not considered "political" art. However, they accommodate Arendt's notion of the political life, since they incorporate process, durability, pluralities of spectators, and unpredictability. Furthermore, because they do not resemble what ordinarily passes for art, reflective judgment is required to engage them, and to determine whether they are art.Echoing Diotima's interest in immortality, Arendt links beauty to durability. Open systems are particularly durable because we remember them as a public experiences that include participants and spectators. Such performative and pleasurable worldly actions entail aesthetic engagements that are very much in line with Arendt's description of the political life. Critical Engagement In the sphere of fabrication itself, there is only one kind of object to which the unending chain of means and ends does not apply, and this [End Page 93] is the work of art, the most useless and, at the same time, the most durable thing human hands can produce... It is the reification that occurs in writing something down, painting an image, composing a piece of music, etc. which actually makes the thought a reality; and in order to produce these thought things, which we usually call art works, the same workmanship is required that through the primordial instrument of human hands builds the other, less durable and more useful things of the human artifice. (Arendt 2000, 177-78) In a 1964 interview with Gunter Gaus, Hannah Arendt described herself as a political theorist, who though trained as a philosopher had "said good-bye to philosophy once and for all." In identifying the tension between philosophy and politics, she differentiated man as a thinking being from man as an acting being, and she identified with the latter. She found that, because philosophers cannot be neutral or objective with regards to politics, they share a certain enmity toward politics, and she sought to avoid that response. Not surprisingly, she named Kant as an exception, because he understood this enmity to lie in the nature of the subject itself. In The Critique of Judgement, experience precedes reflective judgement, thus affirming a place for each subject's particular experiences. Kant, too, was a man of action.Kant's aesthetic judgment of taste, which is a normative but non-prescriptive process, makes room for Arendt's notions of worldliness and unpredictability. Critics have decried Arendt's political theory for its anti-rationalism, political existentialism and "aestheticization of politics," yet much can be learned from her clear commitment to equality, and the way she trusted and perhaps even idealized humanity (Curtis 1999, 18). She wrote, "Only action and speech relate specifically to this fact that to live always means to live among men, among those who are my equals. Hence, when I insert myself into the world, it is a world where others are already present" (Arendt 2000, 179). Given her interest in freedom, active engagement, critical thinking, and anti-instrumentalism, it is perhaps not surprising that Arendt found inspiration in Kant's conception of aesthetic judgment as requiring only communicative sociability, the object's purposeless purposiveness, and the spectator's free play of imagination and understanding.I am interested here in Arendt's aesthetics of the political life in relation to recent art that unwittingly fosters an engaged and open conception of the political. The works in question are not necessarily conscious of their political capacity. Rather, their presence assumes that spectators are [End Page 94] equals, and facilitates an active life, what Arendt described as the vita activa, as opposed to the vita contemplativa, the contemplative life. An active life, which requires a public space, entails active... (shrink)

The Zhouyi is the first of the Chinese classics and has, since medieval times, fascinated scholars from different parts of the world, who have produced numerous studies and expressed a dazzling array of views on its nature. It is argued that the Zhouyi has retained its exalted status and enduring appeal largely because it is an open book amenable to all kinds of appropriations and manipulations, and its openness comes from its being a semiotic system whose principle of composition (...) warrants unlimited interpretations. Through a semiotic-cum-philosophical inquiry, it is shown that the Zhouyi is first and foremost a system of representation, and because of its unique structure and principle of signification it forms an open hermeneutic space with infinite possibilities of interpretation. (shrink)

The Zhouyi is the first of the Chinese classics and has, since medieval times, fascinated scholars from different parts of the world, who have produced numerous studies and expressed a dazzling array of views on its nature. It is argued that the Zhouyi has retained its exalted status and enduring appeal largely because it is an open book amenable to all kinds of appropriations and manipulations, and its openness comes from its being a semiotic system whose principle of composition (...) warrants unlimited interpretations. Through a semiotic-cum-philosophical inquiry, it is shown that the Zhouyi is first and foremost a system of representation, and because of its unique structure and principle of signification it forms an open hermeneutic space with infinite possibilities of interpretation. (shrink)

This thesis is an examination of human maturation as portrayed in Plato's Phaedrus. Adulthood is reached when a transition from an appetitive attitude into an intellectual focus has been accomplished. The practice of philosophy, considered as the "love of wisdom", represents the greatest actualization of human potential. Facilitation of this transition is realized by a process of initiation into philosophy, and Plato makes full metaphoric use of the phenomenon of religious initiation in his description of becoming a philosopher. Much of (...) the dramatic content of the dialogue can thus be explained as a reference to the cultic practice of initiation. This religious background alerts the reader to Plato's arguments that maturation into a philosophical perspective is a necessary condition to human survival, both on an individual and community-wide basis. ;Metaphysically, this problem can be understood as a result of the perspective that emphasizes the discreteness of the parts in any system. When the parts of a political community are understood as private individuals that are discrete, their obligations towards one another vanish. Similarly, if the individual is understood as a bare aggregate of parts, no unifying principle is in place to provide a sustained functioning order. In both cases, Plato explicates the divisive force within the system as the ascendancy of appetitive concerns in the determination of conduct. The solution to this problem rests in philosophy's ability to order the parts such that an organic whole is achieved. Phaedrus' role as a profaner of the cult of Eleusis opens the question of whether philosophy is capable of actually providing this unifying basis for the community, or whether it itself is open to the dissent and separation evidenced by Phaedrus' behaviour towards the cult. In response to this question, The Phaedrus establishes philosophy as a non-profanable enterprise, both because of a basic inexpressibility of the deeper insights of philosophy, and because of the unending process of initiation involved in becoming a philosopher. (shrink)

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of (...) great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies , and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come. This is the first of two volumes of The Open Society and Its Enemies. (shrink)

Discussions on indeterminism in physics focus on the possibility of an open future, i.e. the possibility of having potential alternative future events, the realisation of one of which is not fully determined by the present state of affairs. Yet, can indeterminism affect also the past, making it open as well? We show that by upholding principles of finiteness of information one can entail such a possibility. We provide a toy model that shows how the past could be fundamentally (...) indeterminate, while also explaining the intuitive (and observed) asymmetry between the past—which can be remembered, at least partially—and the future—which is impossible to fully predict. (shrink)

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of (...) great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of_The Open Society and Its Enemies_, and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come. This is the first of two volumes of _The Open Society and Its Enemies_. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show that there are as many formulations of the process of falsification as there are archetypal, philosophical systems of inquiry. This paper explores several systems of inquiry which are based on Churchman's reading of the history of Western epistemology. It is argued that (1) the falsification of scientific theories can never be a purely formal process although it is perpetually open to formal exploration; (2) that contrary to current belief, (...) falsification can never be more certain than confirmation because falsification involves judgments which are no more certain than those involved in confirmation. The supposed asymmetry between confirmation and falsification is severely challenged. Finally, a Feyerabendian and a Hegelian notion of falsification are explicitly developed and contrasted. (shrink)

The conceptions of wit and irony of the early Friedrich Schlegel together constitute a philosophically ambitious form of early-romantic dialectic. This dialectic was directed especially against the closed philosophical system of Fichte, and tries to show a third way between the abandonment of a system and a closed system. The result is an open system, which can accommodate historical change and an infinite approach to the absolute. The article discusses the origin of this third way in romantic irony, (...) and Schlegel’s critique of Fichte, as well as the role poetry and the fragment as a form of philosophical discourse plays for Schlegel’s dialectic. (shrink)

This dissertation elucidates the notion of physical system which opens new conceptual pathways that connect the three realms of physical theory; spacetime, material bodies and their properties, and the laws of nature which govern their evolution. The notion of physical system includes two presuppositions regarding their structure. The first presupposition is a description of isolated systems and their evolution in time, which amounts to a Paradigm of Uniform Motion. The second presupposition describes how parts of a physical system are (...) combined into wholes. This presupposition amounts to a Rule of Composition. Once we make these presuppositions explicit we can derive the spacetime structures and the fundamental equations of motion. "Newtonian" and "relativistic" systems are shown to differ with respect to the paradigm of uniform motion, a difference that leads to the respective structures of Newtonian mechanics and the Special Theory of Relativity. ;The philosophical framework offered in this dissertation provides a new interpretation of the concept of mass, and a new elucidation of the relation between the conservations of mass and momentum. Previous analyses of the concept have claimed that "mass" cannot be defined and broken down to more primitive predicates. The framework offered here, on the other hand, enables the systematic reduction of the concept of mass to motions and the presuppositions we have regarding the nature of physical systems. The new interpretation of mass reveals a surprising connection between mass and inertial reference frames, as they are both shown to be derived, in a similar way, from our definition of physical systems. Mass is by necessity attributed to bodies in virtue of the frame we use to describe their motions. This account also enables us to understand the different conceptual roles of mass and their interconnections. In the context of Newtonian mechanics, the roles of mass as a Quantity of Matter, as the Inertial property of bodies, and as Gravitational mass are shown to be various aspects of a single role the concept has in the new framework offered here. In the context of the Special Theory of Relativity, rest mass and relativistic mass are similarly analyzed as consequences of our presuppositions regarding physical systems. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The purpose is to justify the validity of interpreting Descartes’ teachings as an enquiry into the search for forms and means of improving human nature, which implies a focus on the way he understands the openness of knowledge and education. The problem is considered from the perspective of representatives of university communities (teachers and librarians), historically included in the communication structure and system of the institution, including through the creation, management, use, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. _Theoretical basis._ One (...) of the tenets of Descartes’ teachings is his desire to improve the human being. For our consideration, it is fundamentally important that Descartes uses "knowledge" not only in a narrow sense – as natural scientific knowledge, but also in a broader sense. In the context of the theme of the study, the most important case is when the thinker recalls the knowledge that every person experiences without referring to philosophy. It is this knowledge that, for Descartes, is key in resolving the central problem of his ethics – how can human nature be perfected? For our consideration of Descartes’ key points, it is fair to focus on the manifestation of the phenomenon of altruism in Descartes’ philosophy and on the representative fact of his inner openness – his willingness to engage in dialogue. He appreciates and encourages his interlocutors to turn to books, which are a form of representation of the vivid personalities of their authors. _Originality._ For the first time in the research literature, the thesis of René Descartes as one of the forerunners of the open knowledge system is substantiated. The arguments are given for the validity of Descartes’ interpretation of the demand of his own epoch for the search of effective forms of human improvement. _Conclusions._ The idea of justification of Descartes’ philosophical legacy as a predictor of open knowledge became possible under the condition of paying attention to the anthropological turn he made and finding substantive analogues of openness, including open education. Drawing on Christianity as the basis for altruism, Descartes demonstrates a caring attitude towards the achievements of previous generations on the path of personal self-development. His attention is rightly drawn to education and books as representations of vibrant personalities. Their authentic and productive assimilation is possible only under the condition of a caring attitude towards the public good, which involves the intellectual volunteering of teachers and librarians. It is about self-realization through altruistic self-improvement, i.e. intellectual charity, which is especially evident today during martial law in Ukraine and is voluntary, conscious and free work for the benefit of others. (shrink)

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of (...) great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of _The Open Society and Its Enemies_, and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come. This is the second of two volumes of _The Open Society and Its Enemies_. (shrink)

This review of John Russon's Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life focuses on Russon's position that experience is open (having a developmental, situated and dynamic, rather than fixed, structure) and figured (having a structure inseparable from forms of bodily function), and that mind is something learned in the process of working out experience as figured and open. These themes are drawn together in relation to recent scientific discussions (e.g., of bodily dynamics, mirror neurons, robotic (...) systems and thermodynamics), to show how Russon's view challenges deep philosophical assumptions in prevailing accounts of mind, body and experience. (shrink)

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of (...) great philosophers and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies , and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come. This is the second of two volumes of The Open Society and Its Enemies. (shrink)

This essay undertakes an examination that combines a reconstruction of Hegel’s system of needs with a critical analysis of that system. The reconstruction begins by unraveling the philosophical framework Hegel uses in his Philosophy of Right. It presents the evolution of abstract right and morality towards an ethical life and explains why a civil society becomes nec-essary. Furthermore, it explores the interconnectedness of individuals in the system of needs and how freedom may actualize in civil society based on Hegel’s (...) work. Following the recon-struction and the moments of reason in a free-market society, the paper takes a critical point of view upon the system presented by Hegel. It predominantly follows the critique of Marx and demonstrates how, in a free-market society, the freedom provided is only a formal one. In the second part of the critique, the scope of the paper opens up to further points of criticism against a system of needs, especially how sustainability and global inequality may develop on a international scale without any limitations in a globalized market. The essay ties back said points of criticism into Hegel’s philosophy and presents where they were already indicated in Hegel’s philosophy and how they stay relevant all the way up until modern times. In conclusion the paper shows that the exploration of Hegel’s system of needs remains a compelling discourse, regarding freedom and social equality. (shrink)

Law is a body of rules whether formal, written, informal or unwritten that are used to maintain relative peace and order in any given society. Before the advent of civilization, the Igbo people had their own legal system which though might look different in form from the western law but have the same purpose of guiding man into the state of oughtness. This research paper mirrored the legal and justice system of the Igbo people.

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one (...) of the sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto. (shrink)

The philosophical roots of Malinowski's functionalism are in the academic circles of Krakow, where three figures seem to have exerted a particularly strong influence: Pawlicki, Straszewski, and Heinrich. The predominant trend in philosophy at that time was empiriocriticism, as developed by Mach and Avenarius. Also important were F. A. Lange's interpretation of Marburg neo-Kantianism. It should be noted that the historical philosophy field was extremely broad and diverse. Functionalism, a philosophically open concept, cannot be subordinated to any one (...) philosophical system, although the "openness" of functionalism is not absolute but complemented by its "closedness" to certain other philosophies. Praxism pervades functionalist theory and even creates its foundation. Malinowski approach is entirely scientific, but functionalism is never just empirical. Malinowski realized that pure experience is as impossible as pure reasoning. (shrink)

The Buddha -- The Buddha's teachings -- The approaches and their philosophical systems -- The path of the cause-based approaches -- The fruition-based secret Mantra approach -- The Sarma tradition -- The Ningma tradition -- The extraordinary teachings: the Vajra heart essence.

This paper opens by distinguishing between the multiple concepts of system and the philosophical idea of system. It then goes on to discuss the differences between systems and other proximate ideas, such as whole, set, aggregate and structure. Subsequently, it proposes a definition of system, and then lays out three classifications of systems. When elaborating a general definition of system, the main challenge is finding a general criterion with which to characterize both technical systems built by (...) men, and scientific systems independent of human subjects. The criterion proposed in the text solves this difficulty. Lastly, from the tenets of Gustavo Bueno’s hyperrealist philosophy of categorial closure, I put forward the consideration of the sciences as systems. (shrink)

On his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. (...) The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature , one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought. (shrink)

It is argued that Kant’s claimed reconciliation of politics and ethics in the Appendix to ‘Perpetual Peace’ founders on an irreducible element of secrecy that no amount of ‘publicity’ could ever dissipate. This shows up figuratively in images of veiling, and more especially in the paradoxical ‘very transparent veil’ associated with British politics in a footnote to ‘The Contest of Faculties’. This figure suggests that the structure of the ‘public’ itself involves a kind of transcendental secrecy that cannot be ‘publicly’ (...) overcome, and that public space therefore cannot become fully visible to itself. This structural problem, it is claimed, prevents Kant from securing his proposed distinctions between the ‘moral politician’ and the ‘political moralist’, and between ‘political prudence’ or expediency and ‘political wisdom’. A similar problem reappears in the supplementary ‘Secret Article’ that Kant includes in the second edition of ‘Perpetual Peace’, which specifies, ‘secretly’, that heads of state should take secret counsel from the open and public discussions of philosophers. In giving away this secret, even as he declares it to be a secret, Kant essentially repeats the gesture of revealing the violent origin of the state, shown in the ‘ Rechtslehre’ to be illegal, and in so doing condemns the philosopher at best to a kind of exile with respect to political time and space, a marginal place that is here aligned with the place of ‘ ius aequivocum’ addressed in the Appendix to the Introduction to the ‘ Rechtslehre’, where appeals to equity on the one hand and the right of necessity on the other are described as being inaudible in the system of public right. It is suggested that these marginal and equivocal places all show up an internal frontier in the transcendental account of public space, and that this frontier zone, the very place of politics, sets a limit to the prospects of Enlightenment itself. In conclusion, it is proposed that thinking through these problems would require less a turn toward ethics than a rereading of the concept of nature, on the basis of its Heraclitean penchant for hiding or veiling itself. (shrink)

Philosophical work comes in different sizes: there are systemic treatises, monographic surveys, philosopher-expanding texts. But there is also room for smaller studies that focus on highly particularized ideas and issues: studies that deal not with entire continents but with mere reefs and estuaries. The present essays are of this limited nature. Their aim is less to give a view of the overall lay of the land than to give a tranistic view of the diversity of the landscape. The present (...) book continues RescherOCOs longstanding practice of publishing groups of philosophical essays that originated in occasional lecture and conference presentations. Notwithstanding their topical diversity the essays exhibit a uniformity of method in a common attempt to view historically significant philosophical issues in the light of modern perspectives opened up thorough conceptual clarification.". (shrink)