The paper investigates the video game discourse of the Russian state media from 2011 to 2015. Critical discourse analysis serves as a methodological framework for this work, and Foucault’s power/knowledge model is used to explain the logic behind the «grotesque discourses». In the Russian press, video games are described as an instance of inculcation, provoking overintense emotions and forcing individuals to commit symbolic acts impossible from the standpoint of “normal” pedagogy. The paper problematizes the mythologization of violence in video games (...) and identifies the main tropes used to establish the connection between video games and violence (murders) as “natural” and “obvious”. Particular attention is paid to the publications of Aleksandr Minkin, a reporter at “Moskovskij Komsomolets” (“Moscow Komsomol Member”) and one of the most prominent critics of video games, as well as to the media coverage of the first school shooting in Russia (shooting at school № 263 in 2014). It is shown that video games are used in the media discourse as an explanatory principle that allows a shift from the crime to the criminal, to those acts which reveal moral depravity or psychological disorder, and those circumstances which foster criminalism. Pointing to the games helps restore the “normal” connection between social and moral qualities, explaining the crime committed by an honours student from a “good family” as being the result of the depictions of violence in video games affecting the child’s psyche. Video games are also described as a factor in shaping the “digital generation” or “generation of gamers” — odd and politically dangerous. The dangers that games create for both gamers and society in general (the non-distinction between the “real” and the “virtual”, the illusion of a “possible restart”) allow the journalists and experts to insist on strengthening measures of supervision and protection, and expanding legal and medical control. (shrink)

The archive produces a linear time that reaches towards ‘what could be’ by asserting ‘what has been’, providing us reassurance of our existence through the assertion of a reliably past past. But the Anthropocene is an era of uncontained material ramifications, where the past juts into the future and temporality warps as change accelerates unexpectedly. As an ecological and geologic epoch, documentation of the Anthropocene inherently has a relationship to natural history museums and archives. These institutions, however, troublingly rest on (...) what Elaine Graham calls ‘ontological hygiene’ – the separateness of the human subject from ‘nature’. The Anthropocene however, challenges the western post-Enlightenment binary of man vs. nature, as it (supposedly) naturalizes humans into an earth systems force. As such, documentation of this epoch might resist ontological sanitation. This article outlines an artistic research practice to create artefacts of the Anthropocene – one that invites material idiosyncrasies, objects-in-becoming, ephemerality, and decay. I suggest that artistic ‘anarchices’ prioritize process over objects, and resist linear and static representation in lieu of material, embodied and sensory artefacts. These include relational encounters with waste materials, reworked forms of ‘geology’, edible artefacts and multimedia works at landfills and feral sites. The anarchives are interpolated by a rejection of hegemonic logic, positivism and ‘objective’ truths about environmental phenomena; Situated, ambiguous and material knowledges are inwrought into the so-called Anthropocene (and any alternatives to this term). By focusing on waste as an analytical category, I explore some of the ontological breakdowns present in the Anthropocene and question how to unorder systems and disturb materiality. (shrink)

Electronic media present tremendous opportunities for improving the nature of society. I will address how discourse affects society, and how changes in media may improve societal discourse.

We present a new viable nonlinear chaotic paradigm. This paradigm has four nonlinear terms. The essential features of the new paradigm have been investigated. Our new system is confirmed to have chaotic behaviors by calculating its Lyapunov exponents. The relations of the system states are displayed by a suggested new signal flow graph. The proposed SFG is discussed via some graph theory tools, and some of its hidden features are calculated. In addition, the system is realized via constructing its electronic (...) circuit which helps in the real applications. Also, a robust controller for the system is designed with the aid of a genetic algorithm. (shrink)

Adolescence is a crucial time for social development, especially for helping and compassionate behaviors; yet brain networks involved in adolescent prosociality and compassion currently remain underexplored. Here, we sought to evaluate a recently proposed domain-general developmental network model of prosocial cognition by relating adolescent functional and structural brain networks with prosocial and compassionate disposition. We acquired resting state fMRI and diffusion MRI from 95 adolescents along with self-report questionnaires assessing prosociality and compassion. We then applied the Network-Based Statistic to inductively (...) investigate whether there is a significant subnetwork related to prosociality and compassion while controlling for age and sex. Based on the Do-GooD model, we expected that this subnetwork would involve connectivity to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex from three domain-general networks, the default mode network, the salience network, and the control network, as well as from the DMN to the mirror neuron systems. NBS revealed a significant functional subnetwork related to prosociality and compassion connecting 31 regions, showing DMN and DLPFC connectivity to the VMPFC; DMN connectivity to mirror neuron systems; and connectivity between the DMN and cerebellum. These findings largely support and extend the Do-GooD model of prosocial cognition in adolescents by further illuminating network-based relationships that have the potential to advance our understanding of brain mechanisms of prosociality. (shrink)

В прил.: Мой путь в философии / Швырев В. С.

Commentary on the famous Buddhist Sutra of the wise and the foolish (Mdzangs blun zhes bya baʼi mdo).

Examples of greed and environmental beneficence will be discussed in this chapter. The first example involves the crash of Wallstreet in 2008. Subprime mortgages instruments, complex derivatives and overleveraging in investment banks were major provocateurs in bringing down the economy. Volkswagen’s deceptive practices in measuring diesel fuel efficiency follows. The final example of greed is Boeing and the shoddy decision-making processes on the Boeing 737 MAX that led to the catastrophic crashes resulting in 346 deaths. Good news examples comprise the (...) second focus of this chapter. Some corporations have also demonstrated practices of good will, particularly toward the environment. We focus specifically on Interface Carpets, Unilever and 3M. (shrink)

Aim: Explore nurses’ values and perceptions regarding the practice of medical aid in dying. Background: Medical aid in dying is becoming increasing legal in the United States. The laws and American Nurses Association documents limit nursing involvement in this practice. Nurses’ values regarding this controversial topic are poorly understood. Methodology: Cross-sectional electronic survey design sent to nurse members of the American Nurses Association. Inductive thematic content analysis was applied to open-ended comments. Ethical Considerations: Approved by the institutional review board (#191046). (...) Participants: 1213 nurses provided 3639 open-ended comments. More than 80% of participants self-identified as white 58% held a graduate degree; and half were of Christian faith. Results: Values ranged on a continuum expressed through four themes: “Honoring Patient Autonomy without Judgment,” “Honoring with Limitations,” “Not until...,” and “Adamantly against.” Some felt it was a duty to honor the patients’ wishes, set aside own beliefs, and respect patients’ choices often with a spiritual connotation. Nurses held concerns about the process, policy, potential psychological harm, legal risk, and the need to learn more about MAID. Nurse who were adamantly against MAID associated the practice with murder/suicide and against religious beliefs. Disparate values were expressed about changing the MAID legislation to allow patient support with taking MAID medications and allowing MAID via advance directive. Conclusions: Nurses desire more education on MAID. There is not one universally held position on the nurse’s role during MAID. Healthcare policy/standards need to accommodate the wide variation in nurses’ values. Implications: Nurses desire education regarding their role in MAID. Nurses are encouraged to participate in policy discussions as the practice becomes increasingly legal. Managers need to expect that nurses, patients, and families will need psychological support to participate in MAID. Careful construction of policy/standards is needed to minimize conflict, moral distress, and psychological harm amongst nurses. Further research is needed. (shrink)

Philosophy textbook for Mongolian undergraduate and post-graduate students.

These brief selections could use explanatory footnotes for frequently obscure passages. --E. S. C.

Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment offers authoritative, jargon-free essays and critical commentaries on accelerating technological progress and the notion of technological singularity. It focuses on conjectures about the intelligence explosion, transhumanism, and whole brain emulation. Recent years have seen a plethora of forecasts about the profound, disruptive impact that is likely to result from further progress in these areas. Many commentators however doubt the scientific rigor of these forecasts, rejecting them as speculative and unfounded. We therefore invited prominent (...) computer scientists, physicists, philosophers, biologists, economists and other thinkers to assess the singularity hypotheses. Their contributions go beyond speculation, providing deep insights into the main issues and a balanced picture of the debate. (shrink)

Két, közelmúltban megrendezett filozófiai konferencia előadásaiból válogat a tanulmánykötet. A 2015-ben a kaposvári egyetemen és 2016-ban a Filozófiai Intézetben megtartott tanácskozások témája az érzelmek és a jelentés volt. Az érzelmek mibenléte, az ésszel és értelemmel való kapcsolata már a kezdetek óta foglalkoztatta a filozófusokat, érthető hát, hogy a kötet élén két filozófiatörténeti esettanulmány áll, az első az ókori sztoikusoknál vizsgálja az érzelmek és a cselekvés viszonyát, a másik a bűnös érzelmek problémáját mutatja be a skolasztika korában. A folytatásban már a (...) kortárs filozófiai viták egy-egy témája kerül elő: az éntapasztalat fenomenológiai leírása és az érzelmek lehetséges szerepe a racionális vitákban. Az érzelmekről szóló blokkot záró két kognitív pszichológiai tanulmány az empirikus tudományok felől közelíti meg a problémakört. A kiadvány második felében található négy tanulmányt a huszadik századi filozófia egyik kulcsfogalma, a jelentés köti össze, amelynek kapcsán nyelv- és elmefilozófiai problémák kerülnek tárgyalásra: intencionalitás és fenomenalitás viszonya, a szemantikai szkepticizmus, a vélekedések filozófiai leírása. A kortárs filozófiai diskurzusokba betekintést nyújtó, a szerkesztők rövid előszavával bevezetett kiadvány a szakkönyvtárak anyaga. "www.kello.hu © minden jog fenntartva". (shrink)

Монография предназначена для студентов, аспирантов, преподавателей юридических и философских факультетов, а также для всех тех, кто интересуется философско-правовой проблематикой.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“An Immoderate Taste for Truth”: Censoring History in Baudelaire’s “Les bijoux”E. S. Burt (bio)In May 1949, a French Court of Appeals reversed an 1857 decision condemning six poems from Les fleurs du mal for obscenity, in a signal case of a public lifting of a ban against some lyric poems. 1 Among the several interesting features of this case not the least is the decision to proceed against the (...) work in the first place. For lyric poetry does not appear an attractive target for censorship. Its subject matter and formalism remove it far enough from the experience of most readers that Gustave Flaubert, fresh from his troubles with the court over Madame Bovary, could express his surprise at the government’s attack: “This is new,” he wrote to Baudelaire, “this pursuit of a volume of verse.” While Flaubert’s comment was in point of fact inaccurate, he puts his finger on a problem worth considering. 2 Here we have a work that must seem naturally exempt from state intervention, by virtue of a deliberate retreat from risky political subjects, and it nonetheless did get censored by the state. Can anything be learned about “normal” state censorship from this exceptional case? [End Page 19]A key factor in the government’s decision to pursue the book, according to the prosecutor Pinard, was that these poems would prove accessible to a large audience: 3 “An immoral book that had no chance of being read or understood would not be pursued” [1208], he states. In his argument, as in the judgment by the court that the condemned poems “lead necessarily to the exciting of the senses by a coarse realism offensive to modesty” [1182], the assumption is that the work is extraordinarily available, its pictures immediately referable to ordinary experience. In the six condemned poems, language is judged to be not a veil but a tool, and a sex tool at that. “Despite an effort of style” [1182], the poetic situation—in most of the poems that of the boudoir—is painted in a language insufficiently flowery. 4A further interesting feature in the case is that when it comes up again, under DeGaulle’s Fourth Republic, the court summarily dismisses the 1857 judgment of coarse realism as just one possible interpretation, and a forced one at that. Instead, the 1949 court finds that the poems are self-referential, symbolic entities that do not represent ordinary experience:If some pictures, on account of their originality, were able to alarm some minds upon first publication and appeared to the first judges as offensive to morality, such an appraisal, attaching itself only to a realistic interpretation of the poems and neglecting their symbolic meaning, has proved to be of an arbitrary character, unratified by public opinion or by the judgment of the literary world.[St. John-Stevas 249]The shocking representations of 1857, outraging morality, are now understood to deliver the Wordsworthian “shock of mild surprise” by which we recognize the original work of art. In 1949, the poems are precious artifacts; their language is not realistic but symbolical; its sensuous forms reveal an inner, spiritual meaning.A crucial resemblance can be discerned between the actions taken by the two courts: both make their judgments in terms of a “reading pact,” a set of “artificial rules” [1206] that are presumed to govern reading and to have currency in the context. Les fleurs gets policed in the name of this generic purity, with the prosecutor Pinard calling “the judge... a sentinel who must not let the border be crossed” [1206] and the 1949 decision confirming the opinion of the literary world that the supposed transgression against public morality was in point of fact a transformation in the rules regulating the narrow confines of lyric poetry. 5This concern that texts be framed by a reading pact aimed at constraining their interpretation is worth considering in any discussion of censorship that wants to move from the level of pragmatics to that of theory. It leads to queries about the possibility of getting rid of state censorship entirely and about the state’s interest, as guardian and overseer of the archive, in the institutionalization and... (shrink)

Graeme Laurie stepped down from the Chair in Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh in 2019. This edited collection pays tribute to his extraordinary contributions to the field. Graeme has often spoken about the importance of 'legacy' in academic work and has forged a remarkable intellectual legacy of his own, notably through his work on genetic privacy, human tissue and information governance, and on the regulatory salience of the concept of liminality. The essays in this volume animate the concept (...) of legacy as lens of analysis for the study and practice of medical jurisprudence. In this light, legacy reveals characteristics of both benefit and burden, as both an encumbrance to and facilitator of the development of law, policy and regulation. Overall, the contributions reconcile the ideas of legacy and responsiveness and show that both dimensions are critical to achieve and sustain the health of medical jurisprudence itself as a dynamic, interdisciplinary and policy-engaged field of thinking. (shrink)