This article argues that from a territorial perspective a certain coherence and continuity can be identified in the Estonian cultural-theoretical tradition – a discursive body based on common sources of influence and similar fundamental attitudes. We understand Estonian theory as a local episteme – a territorialized web of epistemological associations and rules for making sense of the world, which favours some premises while discouraging others. The article focuses on the older layers of Estonian theory, discussing the work of Karl Ernst (...) von Baer, Victor Hehn, Gustav Teichmüller, Jakob von Uexküll, Hermann Keyserling, Johannes Gabriel Granö, Juri Lotman a.o. We examine the philosophical foundations of Estonian theory as well as its main epistemic facets. The article concludes that the conceptualization of Estonian theory could contribute to a general transformation of contemporary (cultural) theory, a redefining of the relations between the centre and the peripheries. (shrink)

In recent years the age-old question “what is the human?” has acquired a new acuteness and novel dimensions. In introducing the special issue on “Historical Thinking and the Human”, this article argues that there are two main trends behind the contemporary “crisis of human”: ecological transformations, and technological ones. After discussing the respective anthropocenic and technoscientific redefinitions of the human, the paper theorizes three elements in an emerging new historicity of the human: first, the move from a fixed category to (...) a dynamic and indeterminate concept, considering the human as a lifeform in movement; second, the extent to which the human is conceived of in its relational dependence on various non-human agents, organic and non-organic; and third, the reconceptualization of the human not as one but as many, to comprehend that we cannot speak of human individuality in the classical biological sense. In the final part, the article addresses the consequences of the redefinition of the human for historical thinking. It makes the case for the need to elaborate a new notion of history – captured by the phrase “more-than-human history”, and attuned to an emerging planetary regime of historicity in which historical thinking becomes able to affirm multiple temporalities: digital, technoscientific, sociocultural, human, biological and anthropocenic. The article concludes by recognizing the necessity to venture into a new transdisciplinary knowledge economy, appropriate for making sense of the contemporary constellation of the entangled human, technological and natural worlds. (shrink)

Kuala Lumpur is a diverse city representing many different religions and nationalities. Recent government policy has actively promoted unity and cohesion throughout the city; and the country of Malaysia, with the implementation of a programme called 1Malaysia. In this book, the authors investigate the aims of this programme – predominantly to unify the Malaysian society – and how these objectives resonate in the daily spatial practices of the city’s residents. -/- This book argues that elements of urban infrastructure could work (...) as an essential mediator ‘beyond community’, allowing inclusive social structures to be built, despite cultural and religious tensions existing within the city. It builds on the premise of an empirical study which explores the ways in which different communities use the same spaces, supported through the implementation of a theoretical framework which looks at both Western and Islamic conceptualisations of the notion of community. Through the analysis of Kuala Lumpur, this book contributes towards the creation of more inclusive places in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious communities across the world. (shrink)

Since the publication of ChatGPT and Dall-E, there has been heavy discussions on the possible dangers of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for society. These discussions question the extent to which the development of AI can be regulated by politics, law, and civic actors. An important arena for discourse on AI is the news media. The news media discursively construct AI as a technology that is more or less possible to regulate. There are various reasons for an assumed regulatability. Some voices (...) highlight the predominant capitalism of modern society as an ideology that enforces an uncontrolled development of AI. Others call on the rationality of civic society, which will push AI toward a development that serves humankind. Summarized, the discourse on AI floats between positions of technological and social determinism. The article conducts a discourse analysis on 113 articles from the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The analysis shows how these center-left and center-right media frame the AI development in terms of social and technological determinism. As these newspapers reach out to a large audience, the article shows the kinds of perspectives on AI that confront civic society in Germany every day. News media can motivate or impede social action, as they frame the potential necessity of society and its members to intervene against certain developments. The article shows how the newspapers promote an understanding of AI, by which citizens will feel motivated to insist on a regulation of AI by politics and law. (shrink)

Predictive Processing theory, hotly debated in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, promises to explain a number of perceptual and cognitive phenomena in a simple and elegant manner. In some of its versions, the theory is ambitiously advertised as a new theory of conscious perception. The task of this paper is to assess whether this claim is realistic. We will be arguing that the Predictive Processing theory cannot explain the transition from unconscious to conscious perception in its proprietary terms. The explanations offer (...) by PP theorists mostly concern the preconditions of conscious perception, leaving the genuine material substrate of consciousness untouched. (shrink)

In the former socialist countries the relation of philosophy to social reality, as shaped by the political interests of the State, must be considered for each particular case with a view to the historical dynamics of its own development. The Polish case is not typical in this regard -- it was determined by the failure of forced sovietization at the institutional, cultural level and the maintenance of Poland's traditional contacts with Western European culture. In this regard Polish universities played an (...) important role since they preserved 'normal' structures of academic activity. Philosophy in Poland has been marked by three currents which managed to rebuff the advances of Marxism. Best known among them is the Lwów-Warsaw school of logic and analytic philosophy. Its contribution is especially important in the methodology of philosophical inquiry and the style of responsible philosophical discourse. Though not a bed of political opposition the school's members mounted a 'spiritual opposition' to Marxism, especially during the Solidarity period. Catholic philosophy, as represented by the Catholic University of Lublin, has been and remains a completely independent force in Eastern and Central Europe. Doctrinally, Catholic philosophy in Poland has been divided between a more traditional, dated Thomism and the more progressive circles in Cracow where Western European philosophy, especially phenomenology, existentialism, and hermeneutics, has been influential. The third major current, centered in Cracow, is the phenomenology of Roman Ingarden, whose influence is manifest in a style of philosophizing that has attracted professional philosophers as well as committed intellectuals from different disciplines. Against this diversified background Marxism had to prove its mettle, a requirement that explains the unique internal differentiation and pluralism within Polish Marxist philosophy. The decisive factors in its development were its rejection of Soviet Marxism-Leninism and the opening to Western Marxism. The often remarked 'revisionist' character of Polish Marxism consists in the recognition by its most talented representatives of the fundamental incompatibility between Marxism as the ideological legitimation of the Communist state and as a philosophy subject to rational criteria. In effect, Polish Marxists thought the theory through to its end, and in this sense brought to light its inherently unstable nature: to be a philosophy it would have to cease to be Marxist, to be Marxist means having to pander to ideology. The confrontation of the diverse currents in Polish philosophy contributed to an unfortunate result: for political reasons non-Marxists steered clear of social philosophical questions, while official Marxism, which suppressed the 'revisionist' trend, obfuscated the relation between philosophy and social reality. Today philosophy in Poland has the urgent task to contribute to the reconstruction of a social rationality combining a critical consciousness with moral elements of commitment and responsibility. (shrink)

The free association method is often employed in marketing research to investigate perceptions of a particular product or brand in different socio-cultural groups of customers. In our research, international and domestic students produced free associations in response to photographs of outdoor billboards from two different locations in one city (city centre and outskirts). The results indicate that free associations can depict qualitative aspects of outdoor billboards like poor quality (relating to the categories of amateurish and fake), problematic content (relating to (...) female stereotypes, gender stereotypes and cultural differences), and that they have the potential to capture the general atmosphere of the neighbourhood (categories of decay, depression, danger and past). (shrink)

Referring to basic Weberian notions of rationalization and secularization, I try to find a more accurate sense of the term “secularization”, intending to describe adequately the position of religion in modernity. The result of this query is—or at least should be—a new, original conceptualization of religion as one of finite provinces of meaning within one paramount reality of the life-world, as defined by Alfred Schutz. I proceed by exposing a well known, major oversimplification of the Weberian concept of secularization, very (...) well outlined in Peter Berger’s The sacred canopy, in order to point to the genuine, much more differentiated position of Max Weber in this matter (especially from the period of Foundations of social economic and Economy and society), and, consequently, to return to the roots of Berger’s thought: phenomenological sociology of Alfred Schutz, an attempt to assure the philosophical foundations of Weber’s sociological theory. At a closer glimpse, transformation of religion in the modern process of rationalization does not consist—according to Weber—in eliminating religion and thus depriving society of the religious source of meaning, but in parallel emancipation of many different domains of rationality, including religion itself. Using Schutz’s analysis of the social world as a complex structure of many different final provinces of meaning, I describe religion as such a province and show what does the process of rationalization of this province consist and what it should consist in: a complex, ongoing exchange of cognitive relevances and contents, combined with growing autonomy of many different sub-worlds. Schutz’s theory of symbol, rooted in Edmund Husserl’s description of constitution of complex objects in mono- and polythetic acts of consciousness, moves the analysis to the epistemological level, pointing to a chance of intensifying our cognitive relation to reality through increasing interpenetration of various sub-universes of meaning. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is to present in two parts the selected aspects of application of monetary policy in the euro area pre and post 2008 as well as insitutional adaptations brought by the EU legislator. Methodology/methods In order to better explain these points, the article relies partially on a comparison with the framework and application of the monetary policy by the Federal Reserve as well as on a historic method when outlining the influence of definition of financial stability from (...) the ECB/eurosystem towards other prominent central banks. Scientific aim The article presents selected aspects of the monetary policy in the part of the EU where single currency was introduced in order to outline state of the art governance structure as well as a certain institutional creativity in application of powers conferred upon the central banks by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank. The goal is to prove the hypothesis of robustness of the framework and present the limits that can only be pushed further by the legislative power. The conclusions confirm on the one hand that the framework of monetary policy based on strong institutional safeguards such as legislative power and independence is very resilient and can prove efficient and creative enough to stabilise an innovative monetary system, however, on the other hand, validate the hypothesis that certain adaptations can only be performed on the basis of a legislative adaptations. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is to present in two parts the selected aspects of application of monetary policy in the euro area pre and post 2008 as well as insitutional adaptations brought by the EU legislator. Methodology/methods In order to better explain these points, the article relies partially on a comparison with the framework and application of the monetary policy by the Federal Reserve as well as on a historic method when outlining the influence of definition of financial stability from (...) the ECB/eurosystem towards other prominent central banks. Scientific aim The article presents selected aspects of the monetary policy in the part of the EU where single currency was introduced in order to outline state of the art governance structure as well as a certain institutional creativity in application of powers conferred upon the central banks by the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and Protocol on the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank. The goal is to prove the hypothesis of robustness of the framework and present the limits that can only be pushed further by the legislative power. The conclusions confirm on the one hand that the framework of monetary policy based on strong institutional safeguards such as legislative power and independence is very resilient and can prove efficient and creative enough to stabilise an innovative monetary system, however, on the other hand, validate the hypothesis that certain adaptations can only be performed on the basis of a legislative adaptations. (shrink)

The cognitive purpose of the research presented in the article is to identify the propensity for pro-social and altruistic behavior among first-year military students in three simulated situations of need for help to other people. It raised the question contained in the main research problem: to what extent do military students at universities tend to behave in a pro-social and altruistic way in situations that pose a threat to the other people’s life and health, and what is the relationship between (...) these behaviors and socialization in the civil environment? At the outset, the hypothesis was adopted that the candidates for professional soldiers show a higher propensity for this type of behavior. For its verification, the population of the first-year military students during their basic training was assumed as a research area. The study covered 246 people selected randomly from among military students in the first year of studies of the command profile of all military specialties and the medical profile. The selection of the research sample based on first-year students during the basic training aimed to identify the impact of environmental factors on the tendency to altruistic and pro-social behavior in two different groups of candidates for professional soldiers. (shrink)

Worldwide we see the rise of new non-state, ?multi-stakeholder? organizations setting standards for socially and environmentally responsible practices. A multi-stakeholder organization builds on the idea of assembling actors from diverse societal spheres into one rule-setting process, thereby combining their resources, competences, and experiences. These processes also allow competing interests to negotiate and deliberate about their different concerns in global political and ethical matters. This paper analyzes multi-stakeholder dynamics within three global standard setters: the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, (...) and the work of the International Organization for Standardization on social responsibility (ISO 26000). Although the multi-stakeholder organizational form facilitates the establishment of transnational non-state authority, this very structure could also result in fragility. The key aim of this paper is to elaborate on this fragility with specific focus on how participatory aspects within a multi-stakeholder context both contribute to and destabilize the authority of the multi-stakeholder organization. The paper contributes theoretically to current discussions about transnational governance in the making, and more specifically it adds nuance to the discussion about the fragility of non-state authority as well as a critical perspective to the literature on multi-stakeholder arrangements. (shrink)

According to The Consensus Gentium Argument from the premise: “Everyone believes that God exists” one can conclude that God does exist. In my paper I analyze two ways of defending the claim that somebody’s belief in God is a prima facie reason to believe. Kelly takes the fact of the commonness of the belief in God as a datum to explain and argues that the best explanation has to indicate the truthfulness of the theistic belief. Trinkaus Zagzebski grounds her defence (...) on rationality of epistemic trust in others. In the paper I argue that the second line of reasoning is more promising and I propose its improved version. (shrink)

During development of the anterior eye segment, cells that originate from the surface epithelium or the neuroepithelium need to interact with mesenchymal cells, which predominantly originate from the neural crest. Failures of proper interaction result in a complex of developmental disorders such Peters' anomaly, Axenfeld–Rieger's syndrome or aniridia. Here we review the role of transcription factors that have been identified to be involved in the coordination of anterior eye development. Among these factors is PAX6, which is active in both epithelial (...) and mesenchymal cells during ocular development, albeit at different doses and times. We propose that PAX6 is a key element that synchronizes the complex interaction of cell types of different origin, which are all needed for proper morphogenesis of the anterior eye. We discuss several molecular mechanisms that might explain the effects of haploinsufficiency of PAX6 and other transcription factors, and the broad variation of the resulting phenotypes. BioEssays 26:374–386, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Descriptions of bodies within the literature of the enactive approach to cognitive science exhibit an interesting dialectical tension. On the one hand, a body is considered to be a unity which instantiates an identity, forming an intrinsic basis for value. On the other, a living body is in a reciprocally defining relationship with the environment, and is therefore immersed and entangled with, rather than distinct from, its environment. In this paper I examine this tension, and its implications for the enactive (...) approach, particularly the enactive conceptions of life and bodies. Following the lead of others, I argue that enactive cognitive science can benefit from a deeper reading and integration with extant work on the complexity and multiplicity of the living body within feminist philosophy and feminist science studies. (shrink)