Nikolai Zhinkin’s review of Ernst Cassirer is so far the earliest document of the discussion in Russia about Cassirer’s conception of myth and his theory of symbolic forms. The text is published from Zhinkin’s archive. Zhinkin here notes a reorientation of Neo-Kantianism that reveals its hidden relativism and stands as a symptom of its downfall.

The Nikolais/Louis Dance Technique provides the definite resource for understanding and practicing the influential dance technique developed by two pioneers of modern dance, Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis. The Nikolais/Louis technique is presented in a week-to-week classroom manual, providing an indispensable tool for teachers and students of this widely studied movement practice. Theoretical background for further reading is set off from the manual for those interested in deeper study. Their philosophy and methodology span a broad readership and offer an important (...) addition to dance literature and American cultural history. (shrink)

Despite its short historical moment in the sun, behaviorism has become something akin to a theoria non grata, a position that dare not be explicitly endorsed. The reasons for this are complex, of course, and they include sociological factors which we cannot consider here, but to put it briefly: many have doubted the ambition to establish law-like relationships between mental states and behavior that dispense with any sort of mentalistic or intentional idiom, judging that explanations of intelligent behavior require reference (...) to qualia and/or mental events. Today, when behaviorism is discussed at all, it is usually in a negative manner, either as an attempt to discredit an opponent’s view via a reductio, or by enabling a position to distinguish its identity and positive claims by reference to what it is (allegedly) not. In this paper, however, we argue that the ghost of behaviorism is present in influential, contemporary work in the field of embodied and enactive cognition, and even in aspects of the phenomenological tradition that these theorists draw on. Rather than take this to be a problem for these views as some have, we argue that once the behaviorist dimensions are clarified and distinguished from the straw-man version of the view, it is in fact an asset, one which will help with task of setting forth a scientifically reputable version of enactivism and/or philosophical behaviorism that is nonetheless not brain-centric but behavior-centric. While this is a bit like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy, as Shaun Gallagher notes (2019), with the shared enemy of behaviorism and enactivism being classical Cartesian views and/or orthodox cognitivism in its various guises, the task of this paper is to render this alliance philosophically plausible. Doi: 10.1007/s11229-019-02432-1. (shrink)

This article is a study of the compatibility of the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism and Orthodox Christianity. The great importance of this topic is due to its direct connection with the improvement of society and the ongoing controversy on this issue with attempts to integrate communism with Christianity. The work provides a historical and theological analysis based on a critical study of the works of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, their associates, historical and theological works, as well as historical documents (...) on this issue. The article examines the approaches of the teachings of Orthodox Christianity, as well as Marxism-Leninism to atheism, materialism, religion and the Church. For this purpose, the relevant texts of Holy Scripture, the opinions of the Church fathers and the views of the founders and followers of Marxism-Leninism are studied. The novelty of this study is that some documents are considered for the first time in the context of the problem under study. In addition, a more detailed and systematic historical and theological analysis of the comparison of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism and Orthodox Christianity on this topic is carried out in comparison with the available works. The purpose of the work is to study historical and theological works, as well as historical documents related to the problem under study. The article concludes that Marxism-Leninism in this matter is not compatible with Christianity and is directly opposed to it. Since the Second World War in the USSR, relations between the state and the Church have improved from time to time, but the official state course on Marxism-Leninism did not leave the possibility of their reconciliation. Currently, there are attempts to produce a symbiosis of these two teachings. Many Communists have a positive attitude towards the Church, so a dialogue between them is possible and necessary. But as long as the ideology of the Communists remains Marxism-Leninism, antagonistic to Christianity and any religion in general, in their ranks will always remain hostile to religion. Therefore, the synthesis of these teachings is impossible. (shrink)

The article investigates the peculiarities of Durer's aesthetic views in the context of Renaissance philosophy and the theory of cognition of Modern times. Its provisions are compared with fragments of texts by L.-B. Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael. The semantic interrelationships of Durer's positions with mysticism, pantheism, natural philosophy and empiricism of Modern Times are emphasized. The interrelation of the problem of knowledge with the theme of freedom and beauty is considered in detail. The authors analyze various opinions and ways (...) of comprehending the beautiful, presented in the philosophical constructions of Durer, his concept of "rational knowledge", "scientific ignorance". Special attention is paid to the boundaries of freedom in Durer's representation. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the presented concept of the evolution of A. Durer's aesthetic views helps to comprehend those contradictory trends that existed in the Renaissance itself. Thus, Durer believed that freedom conditioned by knowledge ends where attempts to transcend nature begin. A necessary condition for freedom is the understanding that the beautiful is relative. From the understanding of the relativity of the beautiful, from the concrete utopian program of its achievement, an imperative grows, meaning denial, the completion of the aesthetics of Rebirth. According to him, the artist should not limit himself to one type, but should be knowledgeable in various ways of depicting all kinds of types. In order to make such an image as is required of him. Thus, the professionalism of the artist, his experience, knowledge, recognition of the power of knowledge and, at the same time, understanding of its relativity – all this, as an achievement of the Renaissance theory of art, loses its meaning. All this is sacrificed to the tastes of employers. (shrink)

The subject of this study is the problem of the failure of attempts by the scientific community to come to a common understanding of what exactly information can be as something encoded into material structures and moved along with them. At the same time, the following aspects of this problem are considered in detail: what is the immediate cause of the information problem; what are the objective and subjective prerequisites for its appearance; why the unresolved nature of this problem does (...) not interfere with the creation and development of communication systems, control and other "smart" devices; is there any general guideline for finding solutions to such problems, and what is it; what role did the philosophy of information play in turning the problem of information from a private scientific problem into a problem of the ideological level. The main results of the conducted research are as follows: the immediate cause of the information problem has been identified and a comprehensively substantiated solution to this problem has been given; it has been revealed that the incompleteness of the materialistic theory of cognition has become a fertile ground for the appearance of this problem; the circumstances that prevented its completion have been identified; the natural mechanism of control and cognition has been revealed, as a result of which the materialistic theory of cognition has been further developed the source of the ideal in the material world is revealed; it is shown that the mechanistic idea of information coding made the concept of information incompatible with the presence of any objective content; it is revealed what is actually hidden behind the words about information coding and its measurement; the nature of signals and signs is revealed; a kind of bias of the philosophy of information and a general error is revealed all known concepts of information. (shrink)

The thesis serving as the basis for the present article may be formulated as follows: religious faith entails the possibility of going beyond universal human conceptions of good and evil, the possibility of violating moral norms and prescriptions.

It was shown in [3] (see also [5]) that there is a duality between the category of bounded distributive lattices endowed with a join-homomorphism and the category of Priestley spaces endowed with a Priestley relation. In this paper, bounded distributive lattices endowed with a join-homomorphism, are considered as algebras and we characterize the congruences of these algebras in terms of the mentioned duality and certain closed subsets of Priestley spaces. This enable us to characterize the simple and subdirectly irreducible algebras. (...) In particular, Priestley relations enable us to characterize the congruence lattice of the Q-distributive lattices considered in [4]. Moreover, these results give us an effective method to characterize the simple and subdirectly irreducible monadic De Morgan algebras [7].The duality considered in [4], was obtained in terms of the range of the quantifiers, and such a duality was enough to obtain the simple and subdirectly irreducible algebras, but not to characterize the congruences. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky considered himself a Leibnizian of sorts. He accepted parts of Leibniz’s doctrine of monads, although he preferred to call them ‘substantival agents’ and rejected the thesis that they have neither doors nor windows. In Lossky’s own doctrine, monads have existed since the beginning of time, they are immortal, and can evolve or devolve depending on the goodness or badness of their behavior. Such evolution requires the possibility for monads to reincarnate into the bodies (...) of creatures of a higher level on the scala perfectionis. According to this theory, a monad can evolve by being progressively reincarnated multiple times through a sort of process of metamorphosis from the level of the most elementary particles all the way up to the level of human beings or even higher. Lossky argues that the works of Leibniz contain scattered elements of such a systematic doctrine of reincarnation. He attempts to reconstitute this doctrine in an article that appeared both in Russian and German in 1931. The Russian version, ‘Ученiе Лейбница о перевоплощенiи какъ метаморфозѣ’, was published in the Сборникъ Русскаго института въ Прагѣ, vol. 2, 1931, pp. 77–88. The German version appeared under the title ‘Leibniz’ Lehre von der Reinkarnation als Metamorphose,’ in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 40, n. 2, 1931, pp. 214–226. The content of the Russian and German versions is roughly the same, except for the omission, in the German version, of a mention of David Hume in the second sentence and of one paragraph and a half at the end of the article. The following is a translation of this article. I translated the text from the Russian version, which was in all appearances written first, but I also took the German version into account. The original pagination is added in angle brackets. Angle brackets are used wherever the additions are mine. — Frédéric Tremblay. (shrink)

In their update to Intentionality All-Stars, Hutto and Satne claim that there is currently no satisfactory account for a naturalised conception of content. From this the pair suggest that we need to consider whether content is present in all aspects of intelligence, that is, whether it is content all the way down. Yet if we do not have an acceptable theory of content such a question seems out of place. It seems more appropriate to question whether content itself is the (...) problematic assumption. This paper will explore this question, with the analysis hinging on whether those trying to naturalise content are facing a tough challenge as Haugeland has suggested, or whether it is a genuine dilemma as Hutto has suggested elsewhere. If those attempting to naturalise content are facing a genuine dilemma, a dilemma in which the non-existence of content is one of the horns, then it would seem that the issue is not at what stage you posit content, but whether you should posit content at all. This also has the added benefit of shifting the debate to a more global discussion, that is, the best way to explain intelligence, period. (shrink)

In the last decades, research in science mapping has delivered several powerful techniques, based on citation or textual analysis, for charting the intellectual organization of research fields. To map the social network underlying science and scholarship, by contrast, science mapping has mainly relied on one method, co-authorship analysis. This method, however, suffers from well-known limitations related to the practice of authorship. Moreover, it does not perform well on those fields where multi-authored publications are rare. In this study, a new method (...) for mapping the social structure of research fields is advanced, based on the analysis of the acknowledgments of academic publications. We first discuss the standard account of the function of acknowledgments in scholarly communication, then we introduce a new interpretative framework in which the acknowledgments are intended as positioning signals exchanged by researchers. Next, we provide the formal definition of the four acknowledgments-based networks that stand at the core of the method, and we test it on a humanities field, analytic philosophy. Results show that acknowledgement-based networks allow to reconstruct the fine-grained social structure of analytic philosophy from different perspectives. Furthermore, by comparing the citation-based maps of the field with the acknowledgments-based networks, it permits to shed light on the relationship between the intellectual and social layer of analytic philosophy. We conclude by presenting practical limitations of the method and by sketching some further research lines. (shrink)

Andrei Platonov is known mainly for his larger works, often perceived as a surrealistic critic of revolutionary utopia and the building of communism. This makes it all the more interesting to consi...

Thomas Mann’s famous novella “Death in Venice” is more than social critics or metaphor of artistic search for means. Its ambiguous poetry of forbidden longing offers a game we play ever since, a drama of strange, dreamlike romance unfolding itself in a highly troublesome atmosphere of ordinary life succumbing to the oncoming devastation and catastrophe of the outer world that inexplicably links with the wishes of a soul. This plot became a focus of ideas, a web of meanings covering more (...) and more areas of mentality and imagination while living on. One of the latter writers rarely compared to Mann, a popular American author Stephen King, master of macabre fantasy, suddenly shows some extraordinary level of coincidence of his works’ throughout motives/invariants with those of the European classic. The answers both of them are chasing after lie in the mysterious character of the Whole of the world denying any isolate and solid sense, medium lands of affection and connection, Gordian knots of disastrous dialectics interweaving will and passivity, creation and destruction. Why dark fantasy (that King embodies) constantly insists on destroying, erasing the entire world for the sake of some bittersweet heroic pathos upon its ruin, as before Mann unleashes the epidemics to his story’s bourgeois backgrounds to celebrate the phantom love of his characters? Why does Beauty transgress the borders of subjectivity very much like Death does the borders of physicality, and they both lead us to the same revelation of some great apophatic quasi-Platonian chora at the core of our being where everything is born and we are all one? (shrink)

The subject of this study is the special theory of relativity (SRT) by A. Einstein, the debate about which has been going on for more than a hundred years. The aim of the study is to evaluate SRT from the side of whether everything that is discussed in this theory and thus in the new, relativistic physics is possible in nature itself. At the same time, the author pays special attention to three issues: the principle of relativity, the necessary condition (...) for the objectivity of the content of scientific theories and the Einstein style of scientific thinking, which predetermined the ideological component of SRT and all relativistic physics. But such issues as relativistic reductions of lengths and durations, the relativity of simultaneity and a single space-time do not remain without attention. The study revealed the fallacy of a long-standing and widespread opinion about the relativity of properties. The necessary condition for the objectivity of scientific theories is revealed. The natural form of expression of quantities is revealed and the non-relative nature of all natural quantities is shown. The hidden form of relativity inherent in the SRT postulate about the constancy of the speed of light in all inertial reference frames and extended in SRT to the magnitude of all lengths and durations considered in it is revealed. It is shown that such relativity is based on the dependence of the quantities on the choice of their reflection systems. It is shown that such dependence is impossible in nature itself. It is concluded that the SRT is erroneous. At the same time, the factors that served as favorable ground for the emergence and spread of this erroneous theory are listed. (shrink)

This is a translation from Russian to English of Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky’s “Tpaнcцeндeнтaльнo-фeнoмeнoлoгичecкiй идeaлизмъ Гyccepля”, published in the émigré journal Пyть in 1939. In this article, Lossky presents and criticizes Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Like many successors of Husserl’s “Göttingen School,” Lossky interprets Husserl’s transcendental idealism as a Neo-Kantian idealism and he criticizes it on the ground that it leads to a form of solipsism. In light of his own epistemology and his metaphysical system, he also claims that, although Husserl (...) is more radical than Descartes in his methodological doubt, he is not radical enough, because his abstention from existential judgment with regard to the external world is itself an existential judgment. In this regard, Lossky affirms that his own critically-informed defense of naive realism is in fact more radical than Husserl’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

First published in English in 1935, this is a vital and stimulating critical appraisal of contemporary thought in the post-World War One era. Written by a selection of leading Marxist thinkers including Nikolai Bukharin, who would later become one of the most famous victims of Stalin's show trials, this work offers a Marxist critique of contemporary thought relating to philosophy, science and history. The authors all lean towards the view that the general tendency of modern thought is to abandon (...) the historical method and to deny progress, with the conclusion that Marxism was the only historical and progressive outlook in science, philosophy and history in the period following the First World War and the Communist revolution in Russia. A fascinating document of great historical and political interest which offers an invaluable insight into contemporary thought in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. (shrink)

This interview explores the extent to which Kant’s philosophy, which postulates certain moral principles categorically, has influenced the contemporary theory of justice. Many academics believe such principles to be relative and emphasise that justice lies beyond the remit of science. Otfried Höffe is convinced that categorical legal principles remain a valid subject for an academic discussion. In his works, he often appeals to Kantian philosophy. In the interview, Prof. Dr. О. Höffe refers to such famous German Neo-Kantian philosophers of law (...) as R. Stammler and G. Radbruch. He also mentions J. Rawls and J. Habermas — self-confessed adherents of the Kantian tradition in moral philosophy. Prof. Dr. Höffe expounds his views on the problems discussed by these authors. He dismisses G. W. F. Hegel’s criticism of Kant and denies the dependence of the fundamental principles of justice on the Zeitgeist and the opinions of the masses. The interviewee calls freedom the supreme human value, advocates the idea of a democratic constitutional state (he considers the principles of a social state as a mission of the state rather than a subjective right of citizens), and argues that dictatorship and tyranny deserve resistance. Prof. Dr. Höffe gives detailed definitions of the notions of transcendental exchange, categorical legal principles, enlightened liberal democracy, and a world republic. This interview will supplement the body of Prof. Dr. Höffe’s works that have already been translated into Russian. (shrink)

The optimal investment problem is studied for a continuous time incomplete market model. It is assumed that the risk-free rate, the appreciation rates, and the volatility of the stocks are all random; they are independent from the driving Brownian motion, and they are currently observable. It is shown that some weakened version of Mutual Fund Theorem holds for this market for general class of utilities. It is shown that the supremum of expected utilities can be achieved on a sequence of (...) strategies with a certain distribution of risky assets that does not depend on risk preferences described by different utilities. (shrink)

In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelbände zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants veröffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verhältnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ansätzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Veröffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdrückliche Desiderate der Forschung erfüllen. Die Publikationen repräsentieren den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

Science maps are visual representations of the structure and dynamics of scholarly knowl­edge. They aim to show how fields, disciplines, journals, scientists, publications, and scientific terms relate to each other. Science mapping is the body of methods and techniques that have been developed for generating science maps. This entry is an introduction to science maps and science mapping. It focuses on the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues of science mapping, rather than on the mathematical formulation of science mapping techniques. After (...) a brief history of science mapping, we describe the general procedure for building a science map, presenting the data sources and the methods to select, clean, and pre-process the data. Next, we examine in detail how the most common types of science maps, namely the citation-based and the term-based, are generated. Both are based on networks: the former on the network of publications connected by citations, the latter on the network of terms co-occurring in publications. We review the rationale behind these mapping approaches, as well as the techniques and methods to build the maps. We also present less-common types of science maps, including co-authorship networks, interlocking editorship networks, maps based on patents’ data, and geographic maps of science. Moreover, we consider how time can be represented in science maps to investigate the dynamics of science. We also discuss some epistemological and sociological topics that can help in the interpretation, contextualization, and assessment of science maps. Then, we present some possible applications of science maps in science policy. In the conclusion, we point out why science mapping may be interesting for all the branches of meta-science, from knowl­edge organization to epistemology. (shrink)

_Abstract_: Fueled by the rapid development of neuroscientific tools and techniques, some scholars consider the shift from traditional cognitive psychology toward cognitive neuroscience to be a _revolution_ (most notably Boone and Piccinini). However, the term “revolution” in philosophy of science can easily be construed as involving a paradigm shift in the sense of Kuhn’s _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_. Is a Kuhnian account sound in the case at hand? To answer this question, we consider heuristic indicators of two features of (...) paradigm shifts: the incommensurability of ontologies; and a gap between scientific communities. Based on our evidence, we argue that no revolution has occurred (at least, not yet). _Keywords_: Cognitive Neuroscience; Cognitive Psychology; Philosophy of Science; Thomas Kuhn; Scientometrics _La “rivoluzione delle neuroscienze cognitive” non è una rivoluzione (in senso kuhniano). Evidenze scientometriche _ _Riassunto_:_ _Complice il rapido sviluppo di strumenti e tecniche in neuroscienze, alcuni studiosi (in particolare Boone e Piccinini) intendono il passaggio dalla psicologia cognitiva classica alla neuroscienza cognitiva nei termini di una _rivoluzione_. Tuttavia, il termine ‘rivoluzione’ in filosofia della scienza è strettamente associato alla nozione di successione di paradigmi esposta da Kuhn ne _La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche_. Obiettivo di questo lavoro è capire se effettivamente la concezione kuhniana offra una corretta descrizione di questa dinamica storica. In particolare, prenderemo in esame due indicatori euristici delle rivoluzioni kuhniane: l’incommensurabilità ontologica trai due paradigmi e la diversa composizione demografica delle comunità scientifiche. Sulla base delle evidenze scientometriche che prenderemo in esame, affermeremo che non è avvenuta nessuna rivoluzione (almeno per ora). _Parole chiave_: Neuroscienze cognitive; Psicologia cognitiva; Filosofia della scienza; Thomas Kuhn; Scientometria. (shrink)

The market for kidneys offers a case study of Baptists and Bootleggers. In almost every country, sales are currently illegal and donated organs are allocated by a central planner. Thousands of people die every year, because of the shortage caused by the absence of markets. This paper starts by examining the free-market alternative, and shows that a market would solve the shortage. It then uses gains-from-trade analysis to explain why current vested interests oppose a move to a market, despite the (...) immense potential for saved lives. In a shift to a market, gains from trade would be distributed away from lucky patients and various industries that benefit from the shortage ; these “Bootleggers” form an alliance with “Baptists”. (shrink)