The results of a pilot study aimed at identifying and analyzing understanding of adultery in ethnically homogeneous families who are representatives of the Bashkir, Russian and Tatar of ethnic groups are presented. Within the framework of the psychological approach, family is regarded as the space of joint life activity, within which the specific needs of the people connected by ties of blood are satisfied. To achieve this goal, E. V. Akhmadeeva designed the inventory ‘My attitude to adultery‘, in which respondents (...) were asked to give the definition of adultery and to mention the reasons, based on which adultery may occur. Also, a modified version of the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) was used, allowing determining the spouses’ dominant values of a series of terminal and instrumental values. Marital satisfaction was detected with use of the marriage satisfaction questionnaire by V. V. Stolin, G. P. Butenko, T. L. Romanova. On the base of respondents’ answers in the questionnaire in order to define the level of satisfaction by marriage there have been distinguished three categories of people who consider their marriage to be successful, less successful and unsuccessful. Gender and age differences in understanding the adultery have been revealed. Having analyzed the works of outstanding psychologists there have been found out the psychological sense and meaning of ‘ethnic group‘, ‘ethnic culture‘, ‘sexual culture‘, ‘adultery‘. Identified dominant values of the spouses. The reasons of adultery commitment and non-commitment as respondents understand it have been found. As can be seen from this study, none ethnic group encourages adultery. However, the possibility of committing adultery is allowed, and there are differences in explaining the reasons for committing this action. (shrink)

This book challenges the widespread assumption of the incompatibility of evolution and the biological design argument. Kojonen analyzes the traditional arguments for incompatibility, and argues for salvaging the idea of design in a way that is fully compatible with evolutionary biology. Relating current views to their intellectual history, Kojonen steers a course that avoids common pitfalls such as the problems of the God of the gaps, the problem of natural evil, and the traditional Humean and Darwinian critiques. The resulting deconstruction (...) of the opposition between evolution and design has the potential to transform this important debate. (shrink)

In the whole theory of the Latin tenses there is no more popular item than this explanation by Roby of the use of the pluperfect indicative in unreal conditional sentences. Far the most familiar instance is that in Horace , ‘me truncus illapsus cerebro sustulerat, nisi Faunus ictum dextra leuasset.’.

As the black clouds of war lift from the surface of the Continents of Europe and Nearer Asia, the eye looks round upon a shattered civilization. The once busy tide of labour on the field and in the factory, beneath the soil and within dock, ebbs slowly away; the accustomed rewards of toil, food, warmth and clothing, become daily more difficult of attainment. Authority trembles in its seat, and money loses its once all-powerful attraction. Inevitably the scholar recalls the tale (...) of the Decline and Fall of the Roman-Hellenistic world, and calculates the prospect of a second millennium of darkness and suffering. And he is not unconscious that he stands himself accused of having brought about, or at least failed to avert, the doom of the nations. For, he is told, the governing classes of all the nations that clashed in mutual destructiveness were constituted of men brought up in the classical tradition, whose minds in their fresh boyhood were fed on the so-called glories of Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar, and who sought in rivalry to win, each for his nation, the haughty supremacy of imperial Rome. And he hears the clamour of those who demand a clean sweep of the false ideals and selfish ambitions of the past, and the building upon new foundations of a world of contentment and peace, inspired by the basic conception of a citizenship in which no man shall seek his own gain at the cost of another's loss. Towards the building up of this new world, it is claimed, the study of the past can do nothing to help; by effacing itself it will cease to be a hindrance. And in response to this accusation there arise in all directions schemes for a reconstructed world, a reconstituted nation, and a new education, which shall be alike in this one point—that they take for granted the elimination of the study of antiquity and the disappearance of the atmosphere of the Humanities. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the combinator representation of numeral systems with logarithmic space complexity of symbols. The principle used is based on the lexicographic ordering of words over a finite alphabet.

Among the many names violently consigned to oblivion, one cannot omit mentioning the name of Gustav Gustavovich Shpet, a scholar who made a substantial contribution to our country's philosophy, psychology, aesthetics, and linguistics. His rehabilitation in 1956 was not enough to restore his memory in public consciousness, paralyzed by the inertia and fears of the Stalinist years, and the freeze that began soon after, of the sprouts that had just been summoned to life, had its impact in an abrogation of (...) agreements, cessation of publications, and in a number of cases removal of references to the philosopher. And the further thirty years of oblivion that followed were one more period of unjust punishment and a new ordeal in the terrible fate of the scholar and his ideas. His writings, which should have been a new word in science, should have given direction to further investigations, became effectively inaccessible to subsequent generations. References to Shpet in the works of Viach. Vs. Ivanov, Iu. M. Lotman, D. S. Likhachev, A. P. Chudakov, and others, and the article in Philosophical Encyclopedia [Filosofskaia entsiklopediia] written by V. S. Asmus aroused interest in Shpet's writings in Hungary and Germany. In the summer of 1986, an international conference on Shpet was held in Bochum, and his books are being translated. Unfortunately, in his own country the level of research on the philosopher's writings and thoughts is still almost at point zero, but we may hope that interest in Shpet's ideas will grow considerably in connection with the publication of the series From the History of Russian Philosophical Thought [Iz istorii otechestvennoi filosofskoi mysli] and a number of other publications. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyzed the discussion on the principle of universalizability which took place in moral philosophy in 1970–1980s. In short, I see two main problems that attracted more attention than others. The first problem is an opposition of universalizability and generalization. M.G. Singer argued for generalization argument, and R.M. Hare defended universalizability thesis. Hare tried to refute Singer’s position, using methods of ordinary language philosophy, and claimed that in ethics generalization is useless and misleading. I have examined Singer’s (...) defense and concluded that he was right and Hare was mistaken. Consequently, generalization argument is better in clarification of the relationship between universality and morality than Hare’s doctrine of universalizability, and hence the universality of moral principles is not incompatible with the existence of exclusions. The second problem is the substantiation of the application of categorical imperative in the theory of relevant act descriptions and accurate understanding of the difference between maxims and non-maxims. In Generalization in Ethics, Singer drew attention to this theme and philosophers have proposed some suggestions to solve this problem. I describe ideas of H.J. Paton, H. Potter, O. O’Neill and M. Timmons. Paton coined the teleological-law theory. According to Potter, the best criterion for the relevant act descriptions is causal one. O’N eill suggested the inconsistency-of-intention theory. Timmons defended the causal-law theory. My claim is that the teleological-law theory and the causal-law theory fail to solve the relevant act descriptions problem and the causal criterion and the inconsistency-of-intention theory have their limits. From this, I conclude that these approaches cannot be the basis for clarifying the connection between universality and morality, in contrast to Singer’s approach, which, therefore, is better than others to clarify the nature of universality in morality. (shrink)

In the period of the general crisis of capitalism and the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism, the trends and prospects for the historical development of society have become the central question in the ideological struggle.