Critical examination of Alchourrón and Bulygin’s set-theoretic definition of normative system shows that deductive closure is not an inevitable property. Following von Wright’s conjecture that axioms of standard deontic logic describe perfection-properties of a norm-set, a translation algorithm from the modal to the set-theoretic language is introduced. The translations reveal that the plausibility of metanormative principles rests on different grounds. Using a methodological approach that distinguishes the actor roles in a norm governed interaction, it has been shown that metanormative (...) principles are directed second-order obligations and, in particular, that the requirement related to deductive closure is directed to the norm-applier role rather than to the norm-giver role. The approach has been applied to the case of pure derogation yielding a new result, namely, that an independence property is a perfection-property of a norm-set in view of possible derogation. This paper in a polemical way touches upon several points raised by Kristan in his recent paper. (shrink)

Kritičko čitanje Alchourrónove i Bulyginove skupovnoteorijske defnicije normativnoga sustava pokazuje da njegova deduktivna zatvorenost nije neizbježno svojstvo. Slijedeći von Wrightovu pretpostavku da aksiomi standardne deontične logike opisuju svojstva savršenoga normativnog sustava, uvodi se algoritam za prevođenje iz modalnoga u skupovnoteorijski jezik. Prijevod nam otkriva da plauzibilnost pojedinih metanormativnih načela leži na različitim osnovama. Koristeći se metodološkim pristupom koji prepoznaje različite aktere u normama upravljanome međudjelovanju, pokazuje se da su metanormativna načela obveze drugoga reda upućene različitim ulogama. Poseban slučaj jest zahtjev (...) koji se odnosi na deduktivnu zatvorenost jer se pokazuje da je upućen ulozi koja primjenjuje, a ne onoj koja izdaje norme. Pristup je primijenjen i na slučaj čiste derogacije, što dovodi do novoga rezultata; svojstvo neovisnosti biva svojstvom savršenoga normativnog sustava u odnosu na moguću derogaciju. Ovaj članak na polemički način dodiruje nekoliko točaka iznesenih u Kristanovome nedavnom članku. (shrink)

Among world's three major philosophic traditions, Chinese philosophy excels in ethical discourse. As a collective wisdom on a par with Aristotle's "Ethics" and Kant's "Critique of Practical Reason", Chinese philosophy now needs to be systematized and developed. Today, Chinese philosophy per se has often been reduced to the historical approach to it, hence its slower development in comparison with European and Indian philosophies. The author of this book avails himself of Kant's model of human psychic structure, synthesizes the basic (...) elements of Chinese philosophy into a rigorous theoretical framework, and presents a panoptic view of the edifice of traditional Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

Summary Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, in the broader sense of the term, has developed in various forms on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1920s. Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy, in the narrower sense of the term, came into being in the second half of the 1970s in German-speaking countries. In Austria, it is a state-approved, independent scientific psychotherapy method since 1995, and an integrative psychotherapeutic approach based on the Gestalt theory of the Berlin School. With reference to this comprehensive, consistent, scientific (...) theory, this article presents the basic concepts of therapeutic practice in the field of Gestalt psychotherapy. Starting from the overarching whole to the parts, the paper first examines the concept of therapeutic relationship and therapeutic attitude, and then describes the basic principles of the practical design of the therapeutic process. (shrink)

Nicholas Dent; The Basic Principle of Emile's Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 139–149, https://doi.org/10.

This thesis demonstrates that by redefining the notion of nationhood and by treating nations and national minorities equally with respect to self-determination, it is possible to formulate basic principles of the international legal system, which would promote territorial integrity and stability of multinational states better than the existing system. I demonstrate that theories dealing with self-determination based solely on human rights or cases of secession address the problem with inadequate tools. I also show that minority-rights approaches do not (...) accommodate self-determination claims of national groups properly. ;I offer a new idea of nationhood as a political culture of self-determination with which people self-identify. It includes beliefs about co-nationals' mutual membership in a political community, which is perceived by them as having a self-determining power. Definitions of nationhood which use the notion of culture, but not political culture, are both too inclusive---they fail to distinguish between national and ethnic groups, and too exclusive---they overlook multicultural nations. ;Contested secession has received much attention in recent scholarship. Since, however, contested secession is based upon the disagreement of two or more national groups concerning their self-determination within particular boundaries, I consider secession within the scope of a systematic approach to the regulation of relations among national groups. I propose that international legal principles should be based upon the recognition of states and national groups as the two basic elements of the international system, and the equal recognition of nations as political cultures of self-determination. I interpret self-determination as a claim to equality within the boundaries a multinational state, and formulate a criterion of minimal justice for states. It requires that states respect equality of self-determination of national groups on their territory. National groups can secede from multinational states either by mutual agreement, or if their they are persistently denied a status with respect to self-determination equal to that of other national groups. (shrink)

A school that adopts a curriculum, that aims for a holistic understanding of technology, does so because it produces a better educated person than a curriculum which does not. How do we know when we are teaching technology holistically and why must we do so? Increasingly, more is asked of technology educators to be holistic in the understanding conveyed to learners of technology itself in order to make better informed technical and design decisions in a wider range of applied settings. (...) The ability of the learner to naturally consider social and environmental factors, for example, when seeking solutions is seen by some State education systems in Australia as fundamental to a genuine education in technology (New South Wales Board of Studies, 2000 & 2002). In philosophy, the holist position asserts that to understand the particular one must understand its relation to the whole and that only through reflection of one's sensation based applications can genuine knowledge be critically affirmed (Matthews, 1980, p.87 & p.93). The combined apparently independent paths of the State and the Holist positions set a compelling scene not only for the socio-economic necessity for holistic technology education in the curriculum but also for Technology's status as a key curriculum agent in the knowledge formation process of educated individuals. -/- This paper asserts that the general elements of Applied Setting (including Time), Human (as Agent), Tool and Environment are well placed to be the necessary basics to any holistic human technological activity. How and why these elements work together, their schema, will be referred to in this paper as the 'Basic Principles'. The paper presents the thesis that Technology cannot be reduced to less than these general elements and as such, Technology is their product. We therefore may need to understand and teach these elements and their relations to each other explicitly, in ways that reveal the utility of such understanding when making technical choices and design decisions for all the genres of technology and at all their scales of application and discovery. The case is made for technology to not merely be a 'know how' learning experience, but necessarily also a holistic 'know why' learning experience essential for developing and transferring technological knowledge. (shrink)

The article describes and analyzes the basic principles and approaches of using the project methodology in teaching spoken English to students. The analysis has identified the basic provisions of the fundamental principles and approaches on which the process of developing a project methodology for teaching students' conversational speech is based.

In the final analysis, sustainable agriculture must derive from applied ecology, especially the principle of the regulation of the abundance and distribution of species (and, secondarily, their activities) in space and time. Interspecific competition in natural ecosystems has its counterparts in agriculture, designed to divert greater amounts of energy, nutrients, and water into crops. Whereas natural ecosystems select for a diversity of species in communities, recent agriculture has minimized diversity in favour of vulnerable monocultures. Such systems show intrinsically less stability (...) and resilience to perturbations. Some kinds of crop rotation resemble ecological succession in that one crop prepares the land for successive crop production. Such rotations enhance soil organic processes such as decomposition and material cycling, build a nutrient capital to sustain later crop growth, and reduce the intensity of pest buildup. Species in natural communities occur at discrete points along the r-K continuum of reproductive maturity. Clearing forested land for agriculture, rotational burning practices, and replacing perennial grassland communities by cereal monocultures moves the agricultural community towards the r extreme. Plant breeders select for varieties which yield at an earlier age and lower plant biomass, effectively moving a variety towards the r type. Features of more natural landscapes, such as hedgerows, may act as physical and biological adjuncts to agricultural production. They should exist as networks in agricultural lands to be most effective. Soil is of major importance in agroecosystems, and maintaining, deliberately, its vitality and resilience to agricultural perturbations is the very basis of sustainable land use. (shrink)

Sayyid Qutb, executed in 1966 by the Egyptian government but still broadly influential today, was deeply convinced that Islam provides an ideal framework for all of human existence individual and social, political and economic, intellectual and spiritual. He believed equally that in all these various aspects the religion had been obscured or distorted by an influx of alien influences. In this, one of his most widely read works, he addresses himself to the task of retrieving what he regards as the (...) authentic mode of thought that is distinctive of Islam or even unique to it. This he does through the concise presentation of seven characteristics of Islamic thought, abundantly illustrated with the citation of relevant Quranic verses. (shrink)

"This book is a concordance of theories of Indian tradition. An analytic approach has been made on the theories available in Paninian, Nyaya-vaisesika, Purvamimamsa and Vedanta schools to show the consistency of the discourse made by traditional philosophers who claim themselves to be astika or Vedacentric. Attempts also have been made to establish that the traditional Indian theories of language are undoubtedly relevant for solving some problems raised in modern philosophy of language.".

Fischer’s approach for structure elucidation of linear aldohexoses is still the most widespread alternative in textbooks for carbohydrates. However, in post-Fischer era, a series of remarkable discoveries and inventions were made in different laboratories, and by their use a more comprehensive and coherent strategy for structure elucidation of linear isomeric aldohexoses can be elaborated. Fischer used the exceptional properties of d-mannose for the knowledge of configuration of C-2 and called it the key of the gate to stereochemistry. We bring the (...) evidence that Fischer had an alternative to this monosaccharide, d-idose. Fischer discovered the correct structure of the enantiomers of tartaric acid by pure intuition but Bijvoet proved it experimentally by means of X-rays. Hybridization, a concept taken by L. Pauling from biology, reconciled physics and chemistry concerning the valence of carbon atom and explained the stereochemical picture that had been empirically elaborated by Van’t Hoff and Le Bel. Other chemical transformations of monosaccharides, useful in the elucidation of their structure, have been also discovered or invented in post-Fischer era. (shrink)

As you know, the foundations of modern historiography of religion were laid by Hegel. "Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion," which he read at the University of Berlin, represent not only a unique system of philosophy of religion, but, equally important, is also an example of a profound historiosophical study of the religious phenomenon. However, unfortunately, this part of the Hegelian heritage remains largely unexplored in the national philosophic and religious studies literature.

This book concisely states the main laws and precepts of formal logic along with their immediate corollaries. Commentary is kept to a minimum.

The aim of this article is to explore the problem of social ontology. The form that the exploration will take is a development of the argument that I presented in The Construction of Social Realty[2]. I will summarize some of the results of that book and then develop the ideas further.

I will say something on two or three related but distinct topics. First, something on the grounding of normative beliefs, a topic – as I see it – in moral epistemology, and then after a brief remark on explanation, something against a certain understanding of basic principles. My observations were prompted by reflection on Jerry’s desire to rescue justice from the facts.

Broadly speaking, the principle of public justifiability requires that the exercise of political power be justifiable to each and every person over whom that power is exercised. The idea of being justifiable to every person means being acceptable to any reasonable or otherwise qualified person, without such persons having to give up the comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrine they reasonably espouse. Public justifiability thus involves a partly idealized unanimity requirement, or as I will say, a criterion of multi-perspectival acceptability. The (...) demand for public justifiability can be specified in different ways, depending on what exactly has to be publicly justifiable, who is supposed to apply the principle, who counts as reasonable or otherwise qualified, and so on. One of these dimensions concerns the notion of acceptability. Should we care about acceptability to each reasonable perspective, based on all of the reasons that perspective accepts, or should we care about acceptability to all, based on only those reasons that all reasonable perspectives accept? This choice has been referred to by the distinction between "consensus" and "convergence." Sometimes people agree about practical conclusions but for different reasons, in which case their reasoning can be said to converge from different moral or philosophical starting points. Other times, people agree about their moral or philosophical starting points, but reach different practical conclusions, based on different beliefs about the factual context, different rankings of shared concerns, or different judgments about how to apply these concerns to specific situations. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, the principle of public justifiability requires that the exercise of political power be justifiable to each and every person over whom that power is exercised. The idea of being justifiable to every person means being acceptable to any reasonable or otherwise qualified person , without such persons having to give up the comprehensive religious or philosophical doctrine they reasonably espouse. Public justifiability thus involves a partly idealized unanimity requirement, or as I will say, a criterion of multi-perspectival acceptability. (...) The demand for public justifiability can be specified in different ways, depending on what exactly has to be publicly justifiable, who is supposed to apply the principle, who counts as reasonable or otherwise qualified, and so on. One of these dimensions concerns the notion of acceptability. Should we care about acceptability to each reasonable perspective, based on all of the reasons that perspective accepts, or should we care about acceptability to all, based on only those reasons that all reasonable perspectives accept? This choice has been referred to by the distinction between "consensus" and "convergence." Sometimes people agree about practical conclusions but for different reasons, in which case their reasoning can be said to converge from different moral or philosophical starting points. Other times, people agree about their moral or philosophical starting points, but reach different practical conclusions, based on different beliefs about the factual context, different rankings of shared concerns, or different judgments about how to apply these concerns to specific situations. (shrink)

Translated from: Searle, J. R. 'Social Ontology: some basic principles'. Anthopological Theory, 2006, Vol. 6, issue 1, pp.51-71.

Network analysis is a fundamental approach to the study of social structure. This chapter traces its development, distinguishing characteristics, and analytic principles. It emphasizes the intellectual unity of three research traditions: the anthropological concept of the social network, the sociological conception of social structure as social network, and structural explanations of political processes. Network analysts criticize the normative, categorical, dyadic, and bounded-group emphases prevalent in many sociological analyses. They claim that the most direct way to study a social system (...) is to analyze the pattern of ties linking its members. By analyzing complex hierarchical structures of asymmetric ties, they study power, stratification, and structural change. (shrink)

Part One of Fichte’s 1794/95 Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre sets forth three basic principles (Grundsätze) as the founding claims of a ‘theory of science’ that should continue and consolidate Kant’s work by vindicating and integrating the theoretical and practical essentials of the Critical philosophy. These principles (my translations) are: (1) “The I originally absolutely posits its own being.” (2) “A not-I is absolutely opposed to the I”; ergo, “opposition in general is absolutely posited by the I.” (...) (3) “In the I, the I opposes a divisible not-I to the divisible I.” This essay explores the ways in which these principles both (i) structure Fichte’s own post-Kantian position and (ii) seek to neutralize some important criticisms of the broader Kantian project. In particular, I argue that Fichte’s principles draw upon a distinctively Kantian conception of pure-rational activity, as the autonomous origination and instatement of pure order-inducing forms: non-sensory notions that inform all truth-apt cognition, and affect-independent norms that orient all autonomous volition. Accordingly, the principle, “the I originally absolutely posits its own being” describes the transcendentally most basic instance of such activity: that pure-rational act upon which all other such acts – ergo, all articulate cognition and all principled agency – ultimately depend. For Fichte, this is an act in which the I conceptually positions rational activity as such, in its strict purity and unmitigated autonomy, as both essentially constitutive of and unconditionally normative for its own existence. Thus the first principle of Fichte’s system figures the most basic pure-rational act as both theoretically determinative and practically legislative – with the consequence that even our most basic cognitive accomplishments depend upon a broadly ethical vocation intrinsic to rationality itself. After making the case for that interpretation, I also, more briefly, discuss the ways in which Fichte’s principles underwrite his responses to some trenchant criticisms of the broader Kantian project: the ‘Humean skepticism’ of G. E. Schulze and the ‘Kantian skepticism’ of Salomon Maimon. (shrink)

Principle monists believe that our moral duties, such as fidelity and non-maleficence, can be justified in terms of one basic moral principle. Principle pluralists disagree, some suggesting that only an excessive taste for simplicity or a desire to mimic natural science could lead one to endorse monism. In Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford, 2000), Brad Hooker defends a monist theory, employing the method of reflective equilibrium to unify the moral duties under a version of rule consequentialism. Hooker's arguments have (...) drawn powerful criticisms from pluralists such as Alan Thomas, Phillip Montague and Philip Stratton-Lake. Against these critics, I argue that Hooker's monism enjoys certain practical advantages associated with the simplicity of a single basic principle. These advantages are often overlooked because they appear primarily in cases of second-order deliberation, in which one must decide whether our basic moral duties support a certain derivative duty. I argue that these advantages of monism over pluralism are analogous to the advantages that generalists claim over moral particularism. Because pluralists are generalists, I conclude that they are in an awkward dialectical position to dismiss Hooker's monism for the reasons they usually offer. (shrink)

A brief statement of the most basic principles of the discipline of Knowledge Management (KM).

A history of the construction of number has been in line with the process of recognition about the properties of geometry. Natural number representing countability is exhibited on a straight line and the completeness of real number is also originated from the continuous property of the number line. Complex number on a plane off the number line is established and thereafter, the whole number system is completed. When the process of constructing a number with geometric features is investigated from different (...) perspectives, it provides a new insight into the fundamental principle of number, which leads to a novel methodology in mathematics. (shrink)

Recent neurophysiological observations are giving rise to the expectation that in the near future genuine biological experiments may contribute more than will premature speculations to the understanding of global and cognitive functions. The classical reflex principle — as the basis of neural functions — has to yield to new ideas, like autopoiesis and/or self-organization, as the basic paradigm in the framework of which the essence of the neural can be better understood. Neural activity starts in the very earliest stages (...) of development well before receptors and afferent input become functional. Under suitable conditions, both in nervous tissue cultures and in embryonic tissue recombination experiments, the conditions of such initial autopoietic activity can be studied. This paper tries to generalize this elementary concept for various neural centers, notably for the spinal segmental apparatus and the cerebral cortex. (shrink)