The core of Walton's theory is the claim that make-believe, understood as imagination or pretense, is the common element in all representations--literature, visual arts, theater, film, and opera. He sets out to show that, taking seriously childrens' games as a starting point, we can learn a lot about various kinds of representation. He suspects that make-believe may be crucially involved even in certain religious practices, in sports, in the institutions of morality, and in postulates of "theoretical entities" in science. His (...) theory will help us see, he suggests, that "engaging in make-believe provides practice in roles one might someday assume in real life, that it enables one to come to grips with one's own feelings, that it broadens one's perspectives". (shrink)

The study analyzes the philosophy of artificial consciousness presented in the first season of TV series 'Westworld' and as a result of the analysis shows the collision of two opposite philosophical views on consciousness and the possibility of creation of artificial consciousness from the standpoint of two characters of TV series - Arnold Weber and Robert Ford. Arnold Weber proceeds from two philosophical assumptions: consciousness really exists and human consciousness can be a prototype for modeling consciousness in an artificial intelligence (...) bearer. And he has to choose: either to pick out one of the already existing conceptions of consciousness to implement the emergence of artificial consciousness within artificial intelligence or to invent his own; Arnold Weber chooses the Julian Jaynes' conception of consciousness as a basis for artificial consciousness what means that artificial consciousness must have the following features: 1) artificial consciousness has to be the result of the breakdown of the bicameral mind, the state of mind in which cognitive functions are divided into two part, a 'speaking' part and 'hearing' part, until the breakdown that makes the bicameral mind the unified mind; 2) artificial consciousness has to be a mind-space based on language and characterized by introspection, concentration, suppression, consilience and an analog 'I' narratizing in the mind-space. Robert Ford believes that consciousness does not exist at all and that there are only stories which human beings and artificial beings, modeled in the image and likeness of human beings, tell each other and always the basis of all those stories is suffering. (shrink)

2. To use the objective form, "X is the case," is to indicate prima facie that the above rules have been observed in making the assertion and that the hearer is expected to take this for granted. Otherwise, special qualifications are normally added which indicate that the speaker knows of special circumstances which may prevent the hearer from believing X or make him for some reason incapable of following the evidence for X.

1. "X is the case" implies "X ought to be believed," because "X is the case but X ought not to be believed" is self-contradictory or self-stultifying.

The study provides an overview of the discussion “What is the philosophy we need?”, that took place in the frames of “Modern Ontology - XI: Ontology and Religion” International Scientific and Practical Conference. The discussion spread around three main areas of philosophy teaching: philosophy as the history of philosophy, philosophy as the basis for the worldview, and philosophy as a system-categorical knowledge about the world as a whole. Supporters of the first position demonstrated the content diversity of philosophy, often emphasizing (...) the teacher’s right to choose historical and philosophical material, this position caused criticism from other conference participants, whose main argument was the erosion of the philosophy content. Regarding the second position in the frames of discussion, its participants either denied the involvement of philosophy in the worldview formation, or believed that philosophy is the basis for the worldview, and the task of philosophy, in particular, is to form the worldview of students. As arguments, supporters of this approach cited the need for the philosophy in the transformation of modern spiritual life in Russia. This approach was in harmony with the position of the discussion participants, who advocated a system-categorical approach in philosophy teaching. This approach supposed the combination of abstract section (Ontology) with a specific section, where it would be necessary to consider the three following sections of philosophy: 1 - philosophy of nature, 2 - philosophy of socio-anthropological reality, 3 - philosophy of religion. At the same time, the supporters of this approach suggested using the substantive part of Soviet philosophy as a basis, which needs to be transformed taking into account the achievements of modern knowledge. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

The spiritual geography of Russian cosmism. General characteristics ; Recent definitions of cosmism -- Forerunners of Russian cosmism. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842) ; Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802) ; Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, (1711-1765) and Gavriila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) ; Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) ; Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) -- The Russian philosophical context. Philosophy as a passion ; The destiny of Russia ; Thought as a call for action ; The totalitarian cast of mind -- The religious and spiritual (...) context. The kingdom of god on earth ; Hesychasm: two great Russian saints ; The Third Rome ; Pre-Christian antecedents -- The Russian esoteric context. Early searches for "deep wisdom" ; Popular magic ; Higher magic in the time of Peter the Great ; Esotericism after Peter the Great ; Theosophy and anthroposophy -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the philosopher of the common task ; The one idea ; The unacknowledged prince ; The village teacher ; First disciple: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy ; The Moscow librarian ; Last years: Askhabad: the only portrait -- The "common task" ; Esoteric dimensions of the "common task" ; Fedorov's legacy: projectivism, delo, regulation -- The religious cosmists. Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) ; Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) ; Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) ; Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) -- The scientific cosmists. Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) ; Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) ; Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) ; Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) -- Promethean theurgy. Life-creation ; Cultural immortalism ; God-building ; Re-aiming the arrows of Eros ; Technological utopianism ; Occultism -- Fedorov's twentieth century followers. Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) ; Svyatogor and the biocosmists ; New wine and the universal task ; Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) ; Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932) ; Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-1922) -- Cosmism and its offshoots today. The N.F. Fedorov museum-library ; The Tsiolkovsky museum and Chizhevsky center ; ISRICA - Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology ; Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) and neo-eurasianism ; The hyperboreans ; Scientific immortalism: Igor Vishev, Danila Medvedev ; Conclusions about the Russian cosmists. (shrink)

Crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, written before and during the Bolshevik Revolution by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism. Cosmism emerged in Russia before the October Revolution and developed through the 1920s and 1930s; like Marxism and the European avant-garde, two other movements that shared this intellectual moment, Russian Cosmism rejected the contemplative for the transformative, aiming to create not merely new art or philosophy but a new world. Cosmism went the furthest in its (...) visions of transformation, calling for the end of death, the resuscitation of the dead, and free movement in cosmic space. This volume collects crucial texts, many available in English for the first time, by the radical biopolitical utopianists of Russian Cosmism. Cosmism was developed by the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov in the late nineteenth century; he believed that humans had an ethical obligation not only to care for the sick but to cure death using science and technology; outer space was the territory of both immortal life and infinite resources. After the revolution, a new generation pursued Fedorov's vision. Cosmist ideas inspired visual artists, poets, filmmakers, theater directors, novelists (Tolstoy and Dostoevsky read Fedorov's writings), architects, and composers, and influenced Soviet politics and technology. In the 1930s, Stalin quashed Cosmism, jailing or executing many members of the movement. Today, when the philosophical imagination has again become entangled with scientific and technological imagination, the works of the Russian Cosmists seem newly relevant. Contributors Alexander Bogdanov, Alexander Chizhevsky, Nikolai Fedorov, Boris Groys, Valerian Muravyev, Alexander Svyatogor, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Anton Vidokle, Brian Kuan Wood A copublication with e-flux, New York. (shrink)

"In the sweat of your face you will eat bread" - this well-known biblical imperative from the Book of Genesis is best suited to the general characteristics of the life path of the famous Ukrainian scholar and theologian Ivan Ivanovich Ogienko, also known as Metropolitan Ilarion. All his long enough life, from early childhood to his death, he worked for the benefit of his native Ukrainian people, expressing his hard work one of the most significant of his existential traits. (...) Maybe that's why Christianity came to the liking of the ancient ancestors of Ukrainians, who called for individualization through the hard work they never frightened, because they found in it not only livelihood but also the joy of unlucky fate. In the image of his widowed and hard-working mother, Ivan Ogienko saw the fate of the entire enslaved Ukraine and, from an early age, firmly believed that only a conscientious work for the good of his people could earn the right to God's reward. "Serve the people, then serve God!" became the main life principle of I. Ogienko, the amazing hard work of which requires a separate and meticulous scientific research. (shrink)

The appearance of the first Hermes Trismegistus’ texts in cultural space «Slavia Orthodoxa» falls on XV century: in Serbian literature Konstantin Filozof’s «Žitije despota Stefana Lazarevića» and in old Ukrainian “Palais Krekhivsky” described by Ivan Franko. Serbian version contains only few lines, but Ukrainian includes individual and very complete section on Hermes Trismegistus’ life. It provides the information on the origin of Hermes, on the story of his father, and on his studying of secret alchemical knowledge in Egypt. Separately (...) is Hermes understanding of the Trinity divine nature allocated. Orthodox literature of XV century is mostly apophatic. Following the Christian thought of first centuries, which in the face of pseudo-Dionysius Aeropahit stated, that the description accuracy of God is in denial terms only and that our language is not developed enough to express the divine essence. Such statements can be found in the Slavic texts of Hermes. God’s Hermes nature is also stated in apophatic style that is consistent to intellectual atmosphere of Orthodox Slavs. So the scribes were able to tailor the Hermetism founder’s image to their needs, concerning questions on the nature of the Holy Trinity being. In general, it did not contradict to Hermetism, which believes that the more there are meanings contradict to each other, the more obscure the words are used, the more expressed is shown in confusing characters, the more they are suitable to describe the Absolute. (shrink)

This article outlines a research agenda that addresses the question of how contemporary interactive arts practice can evolve new strategies or ways of facilitating the development and representation of subjective experiences that induce an embodied felt sense of the humanmachine co-evolution. To help answer this question, the term symbiogenic has been created as a shorthand or umbrella term to better discuss these types of experiences and the concepts they introduce. The term symbiogenic is taken from symbiogenesis, the evolutionary theory introduced (...) in 1909 by Russian biologist Konstantin Mereschkowsky and expanded in the modern era by Dr. Lynn Margulis (1993, 1981). This theory emphasizes cooperation and other more complex interactions between organisms that go beyond mere competition. The research starts from the conception that there currently exists a range of interactive artworks that examine and engage with the increasing cooperation and co-evolution that humans are experiencing with their technological environment. However, what is proposed is that interactive or technological art can go further and provoke a bodily felt sense of this dynamic and thus bring into greater consciousness the co-dependent and co-evolutionary path of our relationship with technology. It is believed that these experiences can be both developed and identified within an artistic context but they lack a cohesive conceptual framework from which to study and analyse them. (shrink)

Konstantin Pollok - Kant's Critical Concepts of Motion - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 559-575 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Kant's Critical Concepts of Motion Konstantin Pollok There are two significant places in Kant's Critical corpus where he discusses the concept of motion. The first is in the Critique of Pure Reason, where in the "Deduction of the Categories" Kant writes: Motion, as an act of the subject , (...) and therefore the synthesis of the manifold in space, first produces the concept of succession—if we abstract from this manifold and attend solely to the act through which we determine the inner sense according to its form. In this passage Kant simply refers to the concept of motion, and the immediate context in which this reference occurs reveals little about what he means by it. In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, however, motion plays a more significant role, and, concomitantly, it is in his writings on natural science that Kant most fully expresses his thoughts on the subject. For present purposes, the most relevant passage is paragraph 15 of the Preface of the Metaphysical Foundations, where Kant says that the concept of matter had … to be carried through all four of the indicated functions of the concepts of the understanding , where in each a new determination of this concept was added. The.. (shrink)

Intense or industrial animal husbandry is morally bad. This consensus in animal ethics led to the emergence of veganism which is recently in decline in favour of ‘conscientious carnivorism’ which advocates eating animal products from animal-friendly animal husbandry in response to the moral problems of industrial farming. Advocates of animal-friendly husbandry justify rearing and killing ‘happy animals’ by highlighting that the animals live pleasant lives and would not have existed if not reared for human consumption. In this paper, I tackle (...) this ‘logic of the larder’ by showing that it serves as a purification strategy to conceal the harm that animals experience in this alleged animal-friendly type of farming. Defenders of ‘happy meat’ claim that animal-friendly animal husbandry is in the animals’ best interests and that it is in effect a ‘win-win situation’ for humans and farm animals alike. Departing from two critics of animal-friendly animal husbandry, I will show that the problem of this logic is that it evades the fact that moral residuals, which is the experienced harm by the animals, remain by engaging in this practice. Even if there may be strong reasons for the consumption of meat and derivatives of ‘happy animals’, the experienced harm for the animals will not be extinguished. I will denote the detachment that derives from the strategy of rendering the animals’ experienced harm in animal-friendly animal husbandry invisible as guilt. I will conclude that instead of purifying eating animals the ‘good way’, we should face the responsibility we have when killing ‘happy animals’ for ‘happy meat’. (shrink)

Konstantin Pollok offers the first book-length analysis of Kant's theory of normativity that covers foundational issues in theoretical and practical philosophy as well as aesthetics. Interpreting Kant's 'critical turn' as a normative turn, he argues that Kant's theory of normativity is both original and radical: it departs from the perfectionist ideal of early modern rationalism, and arrives at an unprecedented framework of synthetic a priori principles that determine the validity of our judgments. Pollok examines the hylomorphism in Kant's theory (...) of normativity and relates Kant's idea of our reason's self-legislation to the 'natural right' tradition, revealing Kant's debt to his predecessors as well as his relevance to contemporary debates on normativity. This book will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, early modern philosophy and intellectual history. (shrink)

Various publications claim that medical AI systems perform as well, or better, than clinical experts. However, there have been very few controlled trials and the quality of existing studies has been called into question. There is growing concern that existing studies overestimate the clinical benefits of AI systems. This has led to calls for more, and higher-quality, randomized controlled trials of medical AI systems. While this a welcome development, AI RCTs raise novel methodological challenges that have seen little discussion. We (...) discuss some of the challenges arising in the context of AI RCTs and make some suggestions for how to meet them. (shrink)

The keynote idea of the theses is contained in the author’s assumption that modern philosophy doesn’t meet its claiming pretensions: to be universal form of knowledge. First of all philosophy is connected not with knowledge but with ideas and secondly being authentic it “exists only in everyday life”.1 In orderthat philosophy could realize its innate essence corresponding conditions of social being should exist but they are still absent and therefore philosophy is absent as well. Its place is occupied by metaphysics (...) which is free movement of thinking that has no definiteness as the condition of being of any form of thought. That iswhy we watch crisis state of “philosophy” which becomes apparent in vagueness of its subject: “philosophy is not only one, there are many of them”. The author supposes that philosophy as the highest relation of mankind to objective reality is the only one. Philosophy lowered down from the heaven (Platon, Ciceron) in the field of human being must raise people not only to purity of thought, but mainly to purity of their activity both with each other and with nature. Then real interaction of men and nature will take place. This will be the beginning of spiritualization of the Universe. It may exist only under the conditions of social uniformity as historical form of Weltanschauung (world outlook) that removes religious form. Realization of its being supposes fundamental change of social life. It is necessary that private property should be replaced with social property in the sphere of social production. Only under these conditions philosophy may appear and exist as historical form of Weltanschauung. (shrink)

The article attempts to compare personalist aspects in the works of Vasily Zenkovsky and Vladimir Lossky. It is shown that two types of philosophical personalism (metaphysical and existentialist) in the history of Russian thought set the framework for two types of theological personalism presented respectively by Zenkovsky and Lossky. The philosophy of Lev Lopatin was the important source for the principles of Zenkovsky’s personalist vision. The relevant philosophical background on Lossky’s personalism is provided by Nikolai Berdyaev’s works. The article considers (...) the deep criticism by the French theologian Jean-Claude Larchet, who seeks to demonstrate philosophical and existentialist sources of Lossky’s theological personalism, rather than patristical ones. It is noted that the criticism addressed to Lossky’s theory may slide to challenging the very possibility of an Orthodox theological personalism as a line of thought. It is shown that Zenkovsky’s works, presenting a nonexistentialist type of personalism, do not provoke such criticism. It’s concluded that whereas Lossky’s legacy in its personalistic aspect is challenged, Zenkovsky’s personalism enables another way of conceiving “Orthodox theological personalism.”. (shrink)

Dieser Artikel stellt Cora Diamonds Begriff des Mitgeschöpfs dar und untersucht dessen Relevanz für tierethische und tierpolitische Diskurse. Die traditionelle Tierethik hat eine rationalistische, naturalistische und reduktionistische Tendenz. Diamonds Moralphilosophie stellt dem einen praxissensitiven Ansatz gegenüber, der Emotionen und die moralische Imagination umfasst, wobei Diamond die Bedeutung des Menschseins betont. Letztere entspringt zwar einem epistemischen Anthropozentrismus, jedoch folgt aus diesem keine Mensch-Tier-Hierarchie: Diamond plädiert dafür, andere Tiere als Mitgeschöpfe, als Gefährten auf sterblichen Pfaden, zu begreifen. Dabei zeigt Diamond an ihrer (...) Interpretation von J.M. Coetzees The Lives of Animals, wie Konzepte von anderen Tieren auf das eigene Selbstverständnis rückwirken. Abschließend erörtert der Artikel den Vorwurf des Quietismus und die Schwierigkeit der politischen Umsetzbarkeit in Diamonds Philosophie. -/- [This article outlines Cora Diamond’s concept of the fellow creature and examines its relevance for animal ethics and animal politics. Diamond’s moral philosophy contrasts the rationalistic, naturalistic, and reductionistic tendency of traditional animal ethics with a practice-oriented approach that encompasses emotions and the moral imagination. Diamond emphasizes the importance of being human, which emanates from an epistemic anthropocentrism, but from which no human-animal hierarchy follows: She pleads for recognizing other animals as fellow creatures, as companions on mortal paths. In her interpretation of J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, Diamond shows how conceptualizing other animals influences one’s own self-understanding. Finally, the article discusses the reproach of quietism and the difficulty of political feasibility in Diamond’s philosophy.]. (shrink)

The original proof of the four-color theorem by Appel and Haken sparked a controversy when Tymoczko used it to argue that the justification provided by unsurveyable proofs carried out by computers cannot be a priori. It also created a lingering impression to the effect that such proofs depend heavily for their soundness on large amounts of computation-intensive custom-built software. Contra Tymoczko, we argue that the justification provided by certain computerized mathematical proofs is not fundamentally different from that provided by surveyable (...) proofs, and can be sensibly regarded as a priori. We also show that the aforementioned impression is mistaken because it fails to distinguish between proof search (the context of discovery) and proof checking (the context of justification). By using mechanized proof assistants capable of producing certificates that can be independently checked, it is possible to carry out complex proofs without the need to trust arbitrary custom-written code. We only need to trust one fixed, small, and simple piece of software: the proof checker. This is not only possible in principle, but is in fact becoming a viable methodology for performing complicated mathematical reasoning. This is evinced by a new proof of the four-color theorem that appeared in 2005, and which was developed and checked in its entirety by a mechanical proof system. (shrink)

This article is a commentary on ChatGPT and LLMs (Large Language Models) in general. It argues that this technology has matured to the point where calling systems such as ChatGPT “stochastic parrots” is no longer warranted. But it also argues that these systems continue to have serious limitations when it comes to reasoning. These limitations are much more severe than commonly thought. A large array of examples are given to support these claims.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 (2006) 559-575 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Kant's Critical Concepts of MotionKonstantin PollokThere are two significant places in Kant's Critical corpus where he discusses the concept of motion. The first is in the Critique of Pure Reason, where in the "Deduction of the Categories" Kant writes:Motion, as an act of the subject (not as a determination of an object†), and therefore the synthesis (...) of the manifold in space, first produces the concept of succession—if we abstract from this manifold and attend solely to the act through which we determine the inner sense according to its form.In this passage Kant simply refers to the concept of motion, and the immediate context in which this reference occurs reveals little about what he means by it. In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, however, motion plays a more significant role, and, concomitantly, it is in his writings on natural science that Kant most fully expresses his thoughts on the subject. For present purposes, the most relevant passage is paragraph 15 of the Preface of the Metaphysical Foundations, where Kant says that theconcept of matter had … to be carried through all four of the indicated functions of the concepts of the understanding (in four chapters), where in each a new determination of this concept was added. The basic determination of something that is [End Page 559] to be an object of the outer senses had to be motion, because only thereby can these senses be affected. The understanding traces back all other predicates of matter belonging to its nature to this, and natural science, therefore, is either a pure or applied doctrine of motion. The metaphysical foundations of natural science are therefore to be brought under four chapters. The first considers motion as a pure quantum in accordance with its composition, without any quality of the movable, and may be called phoronomy. The second takes into consideration motion as belonging to the quality of matter, under the name of an original moving force, and is therefore called dynamics. The third considers matter with this quality as in relation to another through its own inherent motion, and therefore appears under the name of mechanics. The fourth chapter, however, determines matter's motion or rest merely in relation to the mode of representation or modality, and thus as appearance of the outer senses, and is called phenomenology. 2The first passage from the first Critique (quoted above) reveals both that the concept of motion plays a central role in Kant's epistemology and that he distinguishes clearly between motion of the object, on the one hand, and action of the subject, on the other. The two concepts of motion are quite different—the former belonging to transcendental philosophy and geometry (to "pure science" in the Kantian sense), the latter to the metaphysical and empirical investigation of nature. By contrast, the second passage from the Metaphysical Foundations shows that the conceptual apparatus Kant developed in his transcendental philosophy is also relevant for understanding the empirical concept of motion. Since all empirical concepts are based on transcendental conditions for their possibility, this connection between elements of the Critical philosophy should come as no surprise. What remains unclear, however, is the sort of connection involved, and whether in the particular case of motion there might not be a more intimate relationship between the transcendental conditions and the empirical concept than one might at first suspect.Indeed, this is a possibility that has been entertained by a number of commentators. In his investigation of Kant's metaphysics of nature, Lothar Schäfer, for example, contends that "the original perspective on the unity of the sensibility in which nature reveals itself, and which belongs to the conception of nature, results in the original perspective on motion. Therefore, the laws of nature are laws of motion …." 3 Similarly, in her book on Kant's theory of natural science, Karen Gloy argues thatin the predicable 'motion' the connection of elements of the understanding with... (shrink)

In this paper, we tackle the widely held view that practice-oriented approaches to ethics are conservative, preserving the moral status quo, and, in particular, that they do not promote any change in our dealings with animals or formulate clear principles that help us to achieve such change. We shall challenge this view with reference to Wittgensteinian ethics. As a first step, we show that moral thought and action rest on basic moral certainties like: equals are to be treated equally and (...) unequals unequally. We then explore the relations between this insight and the notion of the difficulty of reality elaborated by Cora Diamond. Our goal is to show that a Wittgensteinian-Diamondian approach to animal ethics is not necessarily morally conservative. Indeed, it offers a profound practice-oriented approach to animal ethics that is capable of promoting change in human dealings with animals because it is compatible with radical critique. (shrink)

Synchronic norms of theory choice, a traditional concern in scientific methodology, restrict the theories one can choose in light of given information. Diachronic norms of theory change, as studied in belief revision, restrict how one should change one’s current beliefs in light of new information. Learning norms concern how best to arrive at true beliefs. In this paper, we undertake to forge some rigorous logical relations between the three topics. Concerning, we explicate inductive truth conduciveness in terms of optimally direct (...) convergence to the truth, where optimal directness is explicated in terms of reversals and cycles of opinion prior to convergence. Concerning, we explicate Ockham’s razor and related principles of choice in terms of the information topology of the empirical problem context and show that the principles are necessary for reversal or cycle optimal convergence to the truth. Concerning, we weaken the standard principles of agm belief revision theory in intuitive ways that are also necessary for reversal or cycle optimal convergence. Then we show that some of our weakened principles of change entail corresponding principles of choice, completing the triangle of relations between,, and. (shrink)

When it comes to invasive manipulation of animals on the biological level, reactions of disgust are common and often influential on people’s moral judgments. As a case in point, the Belgian Blue, a breed of hyper-enhanced cattle which will serve as a case study for the present article, has historically been met with revulsion. Traditionally, in bio- and animal ethics, this ‘yuck factor,’ has been denied any productive role in proper moral justification, since rationalism is still a dominant paradigm in (...) those disciplines. This is not surprising since rationalism offers the fulfilment of certain expectations we have of morality, like universality, intersubjective communicability, and objectivity. Increasingly, however, the preconceptions of rationalism have been brought into question, both through empirical as well as philosophical insights. In this paper, we will explore a way in which researchers who are, accordingly, critical of rationalism, and who wish to take seriously the role disgust plays in the formation of moral judgments when it comes to biological manipulation of animals, can do so without abandoning those virtues of rationalism which make it such an appealing position. We will do so by offering what we call a ‘tempered’ kind of rationalism, that is, one which conceives of rationality in the terms of Mary Midgley, not as distinct from, but as a possible function of, well-ordered emotion. (shrink)

Synchronic norms of theory choice, a traditional concern in scientific methodology, restrict the theories one can choose in light of given information. Diachronic norms of theory change, as studied in belief revision, restrict how one should change one’s current beliefs in light of new information. Learning norms concern how best to arrive at true beliefs. In this paper, we undertake to forge some rigorous logical relations between the three topics. Concerning, we explicate inductive truth conduciveness in terms of optimally direct (...) convergence to the truth, where optimal directness is explicated in terms of reversals and cycles of opinion prior to convergence. Concerning, we explicate Ockham’s razor and related principles of choice in terms of the information topology of the empirical problem context and show that the principles are necessary for reversal or cycle optimal convergence to the truth. Concerning, we weaken the standard principles of agm belief revision theory in intuitive ways that are also necessary for reversal or cycle optimal convergence. Then we show that some of our weakened principles of change entail corresponding principles of choice, completing the triangle of relations between,, and. (shrink)

Against the well-established critical rejection of rights a growing literature in the tradition of agonistic democracy asserts their emancipatory role in the struggles for social change. However, agonistic theorists, invested as they are in the idea of democratic innovation as a process of gradual ‘augmentation’ of existing rules, institutions and practices, fail to account for the ruptural capacity, and hence for the full radical potential, of rights. Using the performative approach, I develop a conception of rights claiming as a defiant (...) practice to express the ruptural dimension of certain forms of rights politics. I demonstrate how defiant rights claiming articulates immanent critique by declaring the incapacity of putative duty-bearer institutions and governments to uphold the claimed right due to structural constraints, thereby generating inevitable contradictions within the extant order and creating the necessity for an alternative one. Moreover, in order to fully capture the emancipatory potential and creative capacity of rights, this article argues for understanding certain forms of rights politics both as augmentation and rupture, taking the two to be different dimensions of the same radical democratic practice. I present the creative use of rights discourse by the Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil and the transnational network of agrarian movements, La Via Campesina, as precisely such a combination of the practice of augmentation and defiant claims, which has led to the transformation of the right to food and land into the right to food sovereignty, demonstration of the structural embeddedness of rights violations in the existing global regime of food production and distribution, and authorisation of an alternative vision of the future. (shrink)

The author attempts to advance and substantiate a novel theoretical - cosmist1 - approach to reaching the end of integrative universal, truly humane, bio-science.2The work is performed on the original basis of philosophical cosmology, ontology of Absolute Cosmist Wholism, cosmist epistemology, anthropology, and the core principle of CosmoBiotypology. Cosmist theory leads to a person-driven science that is able to integrate subjective and objective knowledge: humankind's personal experience with psychological, biological, and sociological knowledge about the person. In this, the cosmist approach (...) rises to a novel - cosmist functional universal - level of bio-reductionism that relies ultimately on objective scientific knowledge but, at the same time, is primarily person-driven: based on the feelings and perceptions of a person. The core notion of the theory is a person's Basic (Cosmist) Functionality, the realization of which leads to man's3entire ontogenetic well-being.4. (shrink)

The article considers A.F. Losev''s philosophy of music in the context ofhis entire religious worldview and as the part of hisChristian-Neoplatonic philosophy. Synthesizing Pythagorean-Platonic andRomantic musical doctrines, Losev concludes: music is the expression ofthe life of numbers, a meonic-hyletic element that rages inside numericconstructions. So it is necessary to analyse the concept of number inthe system of Neoplatonic thought. In the Neoplatonic hierarchy of theuniverse both numeric sphere and music are located at the source of allthe eidei, above them and (...) between the One (the first hypostasis) and theWorld Intelligence (the second hypostasis). Then music is considered inthe context of the relation between the uncreated Absolute (Tetrade A)and the created world (Tetrade B). Losev''s doctrine on the Tetrades Aand B (connected not by essence but by energies) is the importantmodification of Neoplatonism. Finally the article considers Losev''saccount of music in relation to the absolutized individual person. (shrink)

How is time transformed when signs appear? In the sign system of the conditioned reflex, the sign (conditioned stimulus) reverses, changes the direction of time, and overcomes its unidirectionality and irreversibility. In a sense, there is a “return” to the past in the form of the future when the sign is introduced. The sign serves as a “Time machine” of sorts. The mechanism of time transformation is possible because a mirror is embedded inside the sign, the surface of which represents (...) the psychological present time. When past experience meets that surface in the present, it may be reflected in the form of a future event. In the course of reflection, time changes its direction: if earlier time flowed from the event (the cause), it subsequently flows to other events (the purpose). Previously inaccessible past experience is now projected into the present, “comes to life” in it and is transformed into the future. In humans, unlike in animals, signs of the second order appear. Inside the signs of the second order, a mirror is built in, and the experience of the past as a subject is reflected in the future form as an object. An individual has the opportunity to consider oneself externally as an object. It goes beyond the subjective form. Thus, secondary signs once again change time direction. Due to this phenomenon, time becomes doubly reversible: first it turns around in a conditioned stimulus, and then in a secondary sign. (shrink)

By taking into account some texts published between the first and the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason that have been neglected by most of those who have dealt with the deduction of the categories, I argue that the core of the deduction is to be identified as the ‘almost single inference from the precisely determined definition of a judgment in general’, which Kant adumbrates in the Metaphysical Foundations in order to ‘make up for the deficiency’ of the (...) A-deduction. Whereas the first step of the B-deduction is an attempt to show that the manifold of an intuition belongs to the ‘necessary unity of self-consciousness’ by means of the synthesis of the understanding, the second step has the task of showing that the very same synthesis is responsible for the spatio-temporal unity of the manifold. Thus, Kant's ‘answer to Hume’ is that no spatio-temporal objects of experience at all are merely ‘given’, independently of the conceptual activities of the understanding. Against the established view I substantiate the claim that with this ‘almost single inference’ of the second proof step the distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience consequently vanished from Kant's thinking. (shrink)