The problems of the philosophy of language, of the explanation and understanding, of the translation andinterpretation of texts,stand at the forefront ofthe philosophical works of the great theoretician from the field of phenomenological hermeneutics Paul Ricœur. The philosopher takes the opportunity to present his viewpoint on these issues in the book On Translation, which is precisely concerned with the problems recounted above. Thevolume consists of three essays written in the 1990s: «Translation as Challenge and Source of Happiness», «The Paradigm of (...) Translation», «A Passage: Translating the Untranslatable». The authorhimself is experienced in translation, having produced a French version of the principal work of E. Husserl Ideas, Volume 1 while imprisoned in Germany during World War II. Unlike a simplereproduction of a text in a different language, for Ricœur translation is a mission topromotea cultural dialogue,a mission that demandsfrom the translator readiness to «immerse into the foreign language»and an aptitude for «linguistic sensitivity». (shrink)

André Comte-Sponville is a French philosopher-essayist, pondering the problems of morality and life wisdom. He develops the conception of ego-philosophy that is the theory based on the analysis of the subjective existential human experience. As an initial evidence of consciousness and a point of support for philosophical reasoning, he cites feelings of anxiety, despair and suffering. Ego possesses being, it is a subjective reality that is revealed to a man as a result of free and creative perception of the world. (...) This knowledge is always unique, situational, not amenable to formalization and unification, because it is a result of a personal relation of man to the absolute. Ego-philosophy is not a traditional scientific discipline, summarizing specific facts and formulating theories. Ego-philosophy expresses itself in a generally accessible language and appeals to all mankind. This is an art of life wisdom, indicating to the individual a path to true ideals, allowing one to gain dignity and happiness, to free oneself from temptations and passions. Comte-Sponville substantiates the ethical theory that, under the conditions of the crisis of traditional ideas about moral norms, a person must strive to fill the emptiness of the world with his own creative energy, give meaning to life, affirm positive values. The philosopher creates a theory of virtues in which he takes the leading role in sublime love (agape) as the apotheosis of generosity and mercy. In the area of politics, Comte-Sponville adheres to the position of socio-liberalism. Recognizing the economic efficiency of market relations and the principle of freedom action, the philosopher believes that the logic of economic activity does not coincide with socially important tasks and ethical values. In order for society to develop harmoniously, it is necessary to create a welfare state and reliable political institutions that ensure the observance of the principles of humanism, high culture and justice. (shrink)

Aging is associated with decreased functional connectivity in the main brain networks, which can underlie changes in cognitive and emotional processing. Neurofeedback is a promising non-pharmacological approach for the enhancement of brain connectivity. Previously, we showed that a single session of infra-low frequency neurofeedback results in increased connectivity between sensory processing networks in healthy young adults. In the current pilot study, we aimed to evaluate the possibility of enhancing brain connectivity during aging with the use of infra-low frequency neurofeedback. Nine (...) females aged 52 ± 7 years with subclinical signs of emotional dysregulation, including anxiety, mild depression, and somatoform symptoms, underwent 15 sessions of training. A resting-state functional MRI scan was acquired before and after the training. A hypothesis-free intrinsic connectivity analysis showed increased connectivity in regions in the bilateral temporal fusiform cortex, right supplementary motor area, left amygdala, left temporal pole, and cerebellum. Next, a seed-to-voxel analysis for the revealed regions was performed using the post- vs. pre-neurofeedback contrast. Finally, to explore the whole network of neurofeedback-related connectivity changes, the regions revealed by the intrinsic connectivity and seed-to-voxel analyses were entered into a network-based statistical analysis. An extended network was revealed, including the temporal and occipital fusiform cortex, multiple areas from the visual cortex, the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, the amygdala, the temporal poles, the superior parietal lobule, and the supplementary motor cortex. Clinically, decreases in alexithymia, depression, and anxiety levels were observed. Thus, infra-low frequency neurofeedback appears to be a promising method for enhancing brain connectivity during aging, and subsequent sham-controlled studies utilizing larger samples are feasible. (shrink)

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that in the reforms of the system of compulsory enforcement of decisions stipulated the possibility of performing these functions by private enforcers. The purpose of the article is to consider problematic aspects of the legal status of a private enforcer as a participant of legal relations in the enforcement process. The results of the study contain generalizations on the analysis of the legal status of a private enforcer, proposals for amendments to (...) current legislation on private enforcers and the protection of the rights of the parties of enforcement proceedings. Finally, conclusions were formulated, which may be useful to practitioners of various legal professions such private enforcers, lawyers, judges, as well as citizens and legal persons, including those who are parties to the executive procedure. (shrink)

The insight phenomenon is thought to comprise two components: cognitive and affective. The exact nature of the Aha! experience remains unclear; however, several explanations have been put forward. Based on the processing fluency account, the source of the Aha! experience is a sudden increase in processing fluency, associated with emerging of a solution. We hypothesized that in a situation which the Aha! experience accompanies the solution in, the problem would be judged as less difficult, regardless of the objective difficulty. We (...) also planned to confirm previously discovered associations between the Aha! experience and accuracy, confidence, and pleasure. To test the proposed hypothesis, during the preliminary stage of the study, we developed a set of 100 remote associate problems in Russian and asked 125 participants to solve problems and indicate the Aha! moment, confidence, difficulty, and likability of each problem. As expected, the Aha! experience often accompanied correct solutions and correlated with confidence judgments. We also found a positive correlation between the Aha! experience and problem likability. As for the main hypothesis, we confirmed that the Aha! experience after the presentation of the solution was associated with a decrease in subjective difficulty. When participants could not solve a problem but experienced the Aha! moment after the solution was presented to them, the problem was perceived as easier than one without the Aha! experience. We didn’t find the same effect for the Aha! after solution generation. Thus, our study partially supports the processing fluency account and demonstrates the association between the Aha! experience and metacognitive judgments about the accuracy and difficulty of problems. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the Fukushima power plant disaster, autoradiography became an increasingly widespread artistic technique for producing cameraless photography. By exposing photographic film directly using contaminated objects and materials, contemporary artists autoradiograph the geopolitics and local histories of atomic contamination due to bombing, testing, nuclear reactor explosions, mining or uranium disposal cells. In my article, I discuss the implications these autoradiographic works have for the concept of photography by drawing on Timothy Morton’s notion of hyperobjects. Being hyperobjective, radioactivity confronts (...) human beings with a vast non-human temporality, which, in turn, necessitates a shift in our understanding of photography. While photo theory has often been modelled on snapshot photography, privileging instantaneity and pastness, autoradiography is a durational and pluri-temporal procedure that points emphatically towards the future and invites us to reconceptualize the basis of photographic ontology. (shrink)

This paper attempts to be a contribution to the epistemological project of explaining complex conceptual structures departing from more basic ones. The central thesis of the paper is that there are what I call “functionally structured concepts”, these are non-harmonic concepts in Dummett’s sense that might be legitimized if there is a function that justifies the tie between the inferential connection the concept allows us to trace. Proving this requires enhancing the russellian existential analysis of definite descriptions to apply to (...) functions and using this in proving the legitimacy of such concepts. The utility of the proposal is shown for the case of thick ethical terms and an attempt is made to use it in explaining the development of natural numbers. This last move could allow us to go one step lower in explaining the genesis of natural numbers while maintaining the notion of abstract numbers as higher order entities. (shrink)

In this paper I examine nonreductive materialism (physicalism). This is a position that Terry Horgan favors in his papers and is probably the most widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind in recent decades. In contrast to this, I will argue that nonreductive materialism is an unstable position and will suggest that we can show this using Horgan's own work on the concept of superdupervenience.

The aim of this article is to shed light on women’s experience of informal trade on one of the EU external borders: Belarus–Lithuania. The article suggests looking at the informal economy beyond the notion of precarity and to pay attention to how women themselves understand their involvement in trading practices. The author argues that, although economic necessity is an important motivation for women to start trading activities, this experience rewards them not only financially but also through non-economic aspects such as (...) self-respect, solidarity and socializing. Theoretically, the article brings together the discussion of the gendered nature of informal work with the feminist theory of agency. It shows that women’s experience of informal cross-border trade is agentive. Trade provides women with a sense of pride, self-confidence and respect and enables them to recognize their self-sufficiency. However, it is also argued that agency is not synonymous with autonomy and individualism. Theoretically and empirically, the article stresses a relational understanding of agency. On the one hand, women acknowledge their financial achievements as the capability to take proper care of their children, especially in situations when the second breadwinner is absent. On the other hand, they also value their trading experience as a space of socializing with other women. The success of cross-border trade depends on the sense of solidarity and collective action to resist the system represented by customs and border control. (shrink)

This essay explores the return of the subject in the computational context, which I address as a digital subject. This digital subject encompasses a digital identifier, correlations in data or a data profile, moving between biological characteristics and symbolic expression. I focus on the processes through which digital subjects are constructed by matching, correlating, modelling, as well as how they become enactive. The ways of pulling data together into a digital subject is often presented as a logic of fact, where (...) data is equated with documentary evidence. Instead, I propose the notion of the distance in which digital subjects are produced. Indexicality comes from outside of data, whereas the regard for the thick distance becomes a mark of the form of knowledge. I conclude by arguing for a posthumanities approach that establishes the distance while allowing for different subjects to be called upon. (shrink)

The paper presents a mode of researching epistemological and conceptual implications of text focused on the category of countertextuality. Parallel to the development of the orality / literacy theory within different areas of humanities and social sciences there runs a thread of various reconceptualization of text and textuality. It implies an increasing awareness of the non-neutral character of text (as a means of communicating knowledge within the academia) for the research results, which appears on both methodological and ethical grounds.In the (...) paper the example of the project of postmodern anthropology is invoked to show how the constraints of the norms of writing texts specific of anthropology in mid-1980’s are articulated and what the proposed ways of writing are that would overcome the perceived flaws of text. The article focuses on the major manifesto of the postmodern turn in anthropology (Writng Culture), some other methodological articles of its authors, as well as some of the actual ethnographic researches. I highlight some of the major charges laid against text in these works and some of the major countertextual writing strategies. (shrink)

This article aims to be what Jasbir Puar referred to as ‘an unfolding archive’. It makes a critical intervention at a historical crisis point as it is unfolding. It sets out to examine the logic that writes the relations between bodies, borders and kin during the political crisis that transpired at the border of Belarus and Poland in 2021. I think of this logic in terms of a ‘grammar’, drawing on the idea articulated by Hortense J. Spillers, where ‘American grammar’ (...) fleshes out the connection between slavery, kinship, nation-building and the processes of gendering. I examine the rubrics of the hegemonic national grammatics in contemporary Poland, which establishes who counts as kin and who belongs to the nation in the context of the border crisis. I offer the concept of ‘declining’ kinship to seek generative (im)possibilities to articulate affinities and solidarities running against the dominant system of reproductive nationalism. (shrink)

Abstracts The aim of the paper is to propose an alternative model to realist and non-cognitive explanations of the rule-guided use of thick ethical concepts and to examine the implications that may be drawn from this and similar cases for our general understanding of rule-following and the relation between criteria of application, truth and correctness. It addresses McDowell’s non-cognitivism critique and challenges his defence of the entanglement thesis for thick ethical concepts. Contrary to non-cognitivists, however, I propose to view the (...) relation between the two terms of the entanglement as resulting from the satisfaction of a previously applied moral function. This is what I call a “Three-Fold Model”. (shrink)

“Love hurts”—as the saying goes—and a certain amount of pain and difficulty in intimate relationships is unavoidable. Sometimes it may even be beneficial, since adversity can lead to personal growth, self-discovery, and a range of other components of a life well-lived. But other times, love can be downright dangerous. It may bind a spouse to her domestic abuser, draw an unscrupulous adult toward sexual involvement with a child, put someone under the insidious spell of a cult leader, and even inspire (...) jealousy-fueled homicide. How might these perilous devotions be diminished? The ancients thought that treatments such as phlebotomy, exercise, or bloodletting could “cure” an individual of love. But modern neuroscience and emerging developments in psychopharmacology open up a range of possible interventions that might actually work. These developments raise profound moral questions about the potential uses—and misuses—of such anti-love biotechnology. In this article, we describe a number of prospective love-diminishing interventions, and offer a preliminary ethical framework for dealing with them responsibly should they arise. (shrink)

This article describes the discovery of nuclear DNA‐like RNA (dRNA or hnRNA) and ribonucleoprotein particles in eukaryotes. Native hnRNA particles were isolated by sucrose gradient sedimentation and their structural organisation – nucleic acid (i.e. RNA) wrapped in a regular way on the surface of a series of globular protein particles – was determined. This led to the formulation of the informofer cycle hypothesis for the synthesis of hnRNA as a giant precursor molecule, its transport in informosomes within the nucleus, and (...) subsequent splicing before export from the nucleus as free mRNA. (shrink)

Eremici egipscy, decydujący się na życie w głębi pustyni, musieli liczyć się z różnymi utrudnieniami wynikającymi z uwarunkowań środowiskowych. Co mogło stanowić największe wyzwanie? W jaki sposób eremici i budowniczowie eremów starali się zniwelować niekorzystny wpływ warunków naturalnych? Dostosowanie architektury eremowej i jej końcowa forma zależały od położenia geograficznego: pustynia egipska, charakteryzująca się różnymi parametrami, wymagała zróżnicowanych rozwiązań architektonicznych. W niniejszym artykule podjęto próbę określenia przeszkód terenowych typowych dla konkretnych obszarów, na których odkryto pozostałości najbardziej znanych egipskich kompleksów eremowych. Założenia (...) monastyczne zostały porównane pod względem architektonicznym i osadzone w kontekście geograficznym. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show the relationships between philosophy and literature that may derive from Simone de Beauvoir writing who makes a contribution to contemporary reflection regarding these relationships. Her own writing, which could be named as “ambiguous writing” due to its particularities, constitutes a proposal and a commitment to overcome or to exceed the limits that either literature or philosophy might impose to comply with the accomplishment of the specific features inherent to these discursive genres. I (...) suggest the concept of “reflective genre” to denote the peculiarity of Simone de Beauvoir’s option when applying, at times simultaneously or sequentially, the discursive genres of fiction, autobiographical stories and essays writing that express more systematically her speculations of a philosophical nature. In this text, I consider her conception of the novel which she gives a high pre-eminence, in a period of her production. (shrink)

Tematem artykułu są zaobserwowane w dyskursie internetowym poglądy osób bezdzietnych z wyboru (BzW) na kwestie wykluczenia. Zwracają one uwagę na wykluczenia kulturowe, których doznają, nie wpisując się w normatywny wzorzec rodziny nuklearnej. Równocześnie przejawiają silnie dyskryminacyjne postawy wobec osób dzietnych – zwłaszcza tych w gorszej sytuacji finansowej. Tekst powstał na podstawie badań prowadzonych w 2019 i 2020 roku w internetowej strefie publicznej (komentarze na blogu Bezdzietnik.pl) oraz prywatnej (facebookowe grupy dedykowane osobom bezdzietnych z wyboru). Szczególną uwagę zwrócono na zawarty w (...) wypowiedziach podtekst ideologiczny i światopoglądowy, wskazujący na bliskie związki wypowiadających się osób z ideologią liberalną. (shrink)

Boghossian’s (2003) proposal to conditionalize concepts as a way to secure their legitimacy in disputable cases applies well, not just to pejoratives – on whose account Boghossian first proposed it – but also to thick ethical concepts. It actually has important advantages when dealing with some worries raised by the application of thick ethical terms, and the truth and facticity of corresponding statements. In this paper, I will try to show, however, that thick ethical concepts present a specific case, whose (...) analysis requires a somewhat different reconstruction from that which Boghossian offers. A proper account of thick ethical concepts should be able to explain how ‘evaluated’ and ‘evaluation’ are connected. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that critical posthumanism is a crucial tool in nursing philosophy and scholarship. Posthumanism entails a reconsideration of what ‘human’ is and a rejection of the whole tradition founding Western life in the 2500 years of our civilization as narrated in founding texts and embodied in governments, economic formations and everyday life. Through an overview of historical periods, texts and philosophy movements, I problematize humanism, showing how it centres white, heterosexual, able‐bodied Man at the top of (...) a hierarchy of beings, and runs counter to many current aspirations in nursing and other disciplines: decolonization, antiracism, anti‐sexism and Indigenous resurgence. In nursing, the term humanism is often used colloquially to mean kind and humane; yet philosophically, humanism denotes a Western philosophical tradition whose tenets underpin much of nursing scholarship. These underpinnings of Western humanism have increasingly become problematic, especially since the 1960s motivating nurse scholars to engage with antihumanist and, recently, posthumanist theory. However, even current antihumanist nursing arguments manifest deep embeddedness in humanistic methodologies. I show both the problematic underside of humanism and critical posthumanism's usefulness as a tool to fight injustice and examine the materiality of nursing practice. In doing so, I hope to persuade readers not to be afraid of understanding and employing this critical tool in nursing research and scholarship. (shrink)

Tematem artykułu jest pytanie, czy będąca podmiotem autonomicznym jednostka ma prawo do niewiedzy o własnym stanie zdrowia. Punkt odniesienia dla prowadzonych rozważań stanowi klasyczny artykuł J. Harrisa i K. Keywood pt. Ignorance, Information and Autonomy i zawarte w nim stanowisko, zgodnie z którym rzekome prawo do niewiedzy jest sprzeczne z autonomią. Autorka koncentruje się na krytycznej analizie przyjętej przez wspomnianych autorów koncepcji autonomii, która prowadzi ją do wniosku, że tak rozumiana autonomia (1) nie może zostać uznana za nadrzędną wartość etyki (...) medycznej oraz (2) wyklucza podejmowane przez jej zwolenników próby ugruntowania prawa do niewiedzy w innych wartościach. W końcowych partiach tekstu autorka stara się uzasadnić tezę, iż odpowiednio sformułowana koncepcja autonomii pozwala stwierdzić, że pacjent, jako podmiot autonomiczny, pośród innych praw ma także prawo do niewiedzy o własnym stanie zdrowia. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to considering ethnic tourism in its importance to comprehend modern cultures that are Others to the traveler's experience. In this regard, ethnic tourism is presented from the Other's cognition, i.e., the way of life of a nation, its religious and ethnic values and traditions, historical past and legends, and geographical specificity of residence. Thus, the meaning of ethnic tourism is related to the human desire to discover other cultural and social spaces. Simultaneously, the article shows how (...) another culture's perception affects the awareness of a tourist's identity. The author notes that ethnic tourism aims at fixing the distinctive features and specifics of people's life. Therefore, this type of tourism is most conducive to forming images and perceptions of ethnic and cultural diversity. The author substantiates the role of ethnic tourism to establish a dialogue of cultures in the modern world. Distinctive features of globalization, particularly travelers' continuous mobility, the conversation of ethnic groups, and the value-based mutual enrichment of peoples, have been deduced. Some theoretical approaches of Russian philosophers to the study of ethnic tourism are defined. The researcher emphasizes the idea of a correlation between ethnic cultures and religions. In this regard, early Christianity's theological ideas are conditioned in terms of their impact on the subsequent formation of pilgrimages and the modern religious tourism organization. The contemporary unity of ethnic culture and religiosity is vividly manifested in the uniqueness of the Old Believers' tradition of the Kerzhak resettlers living in the Altai Mountains. The article concludes that ethnicity should be acknowledged in any tourism organization, especially religious and pilgrimage types. (shrink)

The notion of conditional entropy is extended to noncomposite systems. The \-deformed entropic inequalities, which usually are associated with correlations of the subsystem degrees of freedom in bipartite systems, are found for the noncomposite systems. New entropic inequalities for quantum tomograms of qudit states including the single qudit states are obtained. The Araki–Lieb inequality is found for systems without subsystems.

Muslim scholars have defined ethics as enduring traits and characteristics in the individual that cause actions appropriate to those traits to be issued spontaneously without the need for human thought and reflection. Islamic ethics state the rightness or wrongness of these attributes within the framework of Islamic concepts, while the concepts of Islamic work ethics deal with the functioning of the framework of Islamic concepts in the form of human work activities in various organisations. Furthermore, work ethics can be effective (...) in the organisation when it can shape the culture of the organisation. Research shows that Islamic work ethics have a significant relationship with various individual, professional and organisational factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between Islamic work ethics and organisational culture. The statistical population of this research consists of 1500 Muslim staff of 30 service organisations (financial, educational, medical and hotel organisations) in Moscow, Russia, in 2021, of which 306 people have been selected as statistical samples using Krejcie and Morgan's sample size table. Data analyses were performed by statistical software, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The results of this study confirm the significant and positive relationship between Islamic work ethics and organisational culture among the Muslim Russian staff (β = 0.53; T = −8.65). CONTRIBUTION: This study examines the relationship between Islamic work ethics and organisational culture in Russia and has expanded the results of previous studies conducted in other contexts. (shrink)

Two hypotheses concerning the relative importance of agentic versus communal traits as predictors of selfesteem were tested. The perspective hypothesis assumed that self-esteem is dominated by agency over communion because self-perceptions are formed from the agent perspective. The culture hypothesis assumed that self-esteem is dominated by communal concerns in collectivistic cultures and by agentic concerns in individualistic cultures. Study 1 involving three samples from collectivistic countries and three from individualistic ones found that self-esteem was better predicted from self-ratings of agentic (...) than communal traits, with the exception of collectivistic women for whom the two predictors were equal. Study 2 primed the interdependent or independent self and found self-ratings of agency to be better predictors of self-esteem than self-ratings of communion, with the exception of interdependence priming,where the two predictors were equal in strength. (shrink)

This article assesses the potential for basic income to become a tool for empowering women in the household and in the workplace. Recent debates among feminist political theorists indicate that it is not obvious whether basic income has the potential to push our society toward greater socioeconomic gender justice. I show that arguments for and against basic income put forward by feminist theorists rely on implicit assumptions about how women's work should be conceived—assumptions that are not shared among all of (...) them. I also argue that these beliefs can be sorted into two dichotomies: one concerned with the suitability of remuneration for caregiving, the other with the question of who should be responsible for caregiving. I conclude by explaining the possible causes of the divergences in the views of feminist supporters and critics of UBI, and by recommending ways to arrive at common conceptual grounds. (shrink)

The paper defends the argument that the Resemblance Paradox (RP), or the problem of the ‘under-determination of meaning’, and the Rule-Following Paradox (RFP) are two sides of the same paradox threatening meaning from opposite extremes. After presenting the case, the paradox is reconsidered anew and the supposition that the threat is a pervasive one is challenged.

In this commentary, I reflect on the differences between two independent citizen approaches to monitoring radiological contamination, one in Belarus after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident and the other in Japan following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident. I examine these approaches from the perspective of their contribution to making radiological contamination more publicly visible. The analysis is grounded in my earlier work, where I examined how we have come to know what we know about post–Chernobyl contamination and its effects in (...) Belarus, a former Soviet republic most heavily affected by the fallout. As I described in this study, much of what we know about the consequences of Chernobyl is based on the work of the Belarusian nonprofit Institute of Radiation Safety, “Belrad.” I compare Belrad’s approach to radiological monitoring with the work of the volunteer network Safecast, arguably one of the best-known citizen science projects in the world, which is working to monitor the scope of the post–Fukushima contamination. Through this comparison of approaches, I raise broader questions about a form of sensing practices—data-related practices of citizen science that make environmental hazards publicly in/visible. (shrink)

My dissertation examines Kant’s and Rawls’s theories of the moral development of individuals within structured political communities. I reconstruct Kant’s under-studied account of the emergence of reason by looking at his remarks on the transition our species underwent from mere irrational animals into primitive human beings. I show how his account of the emergence of reason fits with his broader view of humankind’s rational progress and the moral development of an individual. Next, I argue that Kant’s anthropological and pedagogical writings (...) influenced Rawls’s early views on moral development in A Theory of Justice. In contrast to other commentators who have located Kant’s influence on Rawls in his emphasis on the free and equal nature of human beings, my dissertation shows that Kant’s anthropological theory of moral development is also at the core of Rawls’s Kantian project. I also argue that the moral-psychological account Rawls develops in Part III of Theory sheds light on crucial aspects of Kant’s practical philosophy, notably on his emphasis on the need for one generation to provide the moral education of subsequent generations in order to achieve political stability. Dissertation Committee: Allen Wood (co-chair), Leif Wenar (co-chair), Juliana Bidadanure, David Hills, David Estlund (external, Brown). (shrink)

Revise & resubmit. While various Kantian influences on Rawls have been discussed in the literature, these discussions have been limited to Part I of A Theory of Justice and consequently to topics concerning a priori ethical considerations and their consequences for political philosophy. In contrast to others who have interpreted Rawls’s Kantianism in this way, I show that what is also at the core of Rawls’s Kantian project in Theory is Kant’s theory of moral development. This theory of moral development, (...) which Kant develops in his Lectures on Pedagogy, Lectures on Anthropology, and Essays regarding the Philanthropinum, bears close conceptual ties to Rawls’s account of rational and moral maturation of the citizens of a well-ordered society in Theory Part III. These two philosophers share a similar approach to solving the problem of political stability – an approach grounded in the moral education of an individual. By looking at Rawls’s interpretation of Kant’s ethics in the Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, moreover, we can better understand Rawls’s proof for the possibility of the inherent stability of a well-ordered society. (shrink)

Under contract for the series Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant. -/- The focus of this Element is Kant’s history of human reason: his teleological vision of the past development of our rational capacities from their very emergence until Kant’s own “age of Enlightenment”. One of the goals of this Element is to connect Kant’s speculative account of the very beginning of rationality – a topic which has thus far been largely neglected or at least under-studied in Kantian scholarship (...) – to his well-known theory of humankind’s progress. By doing so, I hope to elucidate Kant’s hopes with regard to reason’s future progress and his guidelines for how to achieve this progress by unifying them with his vision of reason’s past. Another goal of this Element is to bring more attention to Kant’s essay “Conjectural Beginning of Human History” (1786), where a large part of this account is presented, and to show that this “somewhat unusual” (Yovel 1989) text does not stand in conflict with Kant’s critical philosophy and is not merely tangentially related to it, but actually illuminates and complements certain aspects of Kant’s critical philosophy. -/- This Element is divided into three parts. Part 1 introduces Kant’s speculations about the transition our species underwent from non-rational animals into primitive, rational humans. It also shows how these speculations fit with Kant’s broader view of the development of humans’ reason, or of the species’ gradual process of learning how to make a mature (enlightened) use of reason. -/- Part 2 focuses on a text where the speculative account of the beginning of human history is presented in most detail: the “Conjectural Beginning of Human History”. I defend the exegetical importance of this essay for Kant’s practical philosophy by arguing that the claims Kant makes in it are not merely fictional or imaginative, but play a key role in his teleological view of the progression of human history. I also assess the contribution that Kant makes to the conjectural history genre through this essay and discuss how distinct it is from the most prominent and well-studied conjectural histories of the Enlightenment era. -/- Part 3 focuses on what Kant’s account of the history of reason tells us about his political and pedagogical guidelines for the continuance of humanity’s progress toward the fulfillment of its vocation and for the progress of any given individual. I also present and defend my understanding of what it means to think and act in an enlightened (or as Kant also calls it, a “pluralistic”) way, connecting this idea to the three maxims of good thinking, the public use of reason, and the role of interpersonal communication in advancing our rational capacities. (shrink)

This paper discusses the importance of informed medical consent through a case study examines the implications this case had for the medical rights of EU citizens. I start by describing a case of a Slovakian national of Roma origin against the Government of Slovakia, which appeared at the European Court of Human Rights in 2007-2012. The twenty-year old woman, who had been sterilized at a Slovakian hospital during the birth of her second child, claimed that the procedure took place without (...) her full and informed consent, and argued that the doctors’ decision was connected to the society’s long-standing negative attitude towards Roma people. After presenting the background of the case and the legal proceedings, I discuss the relevant national and European law in order to explain the positions of both sides and the rulings of the courts. I conclude by putting the case in a wider context of racial discrimination in the EU and providing a policy analysis regarding both the Slovakian and the European policies toward the Roma minority. (shrink)

This book project reshapes the way we think about Enlightenment: rather than viewing it primarily as the era of the emancipation of human reason, it emphasizes the gendered nature of the Enlightenment ideal of human progress and investigates how this ideal oppressed women. I take a critical look at this ideal from within intellectual debates of the time, examining how the restrictive view of women’s socio-political and educational opportunities was challenged by progressive female German and Polish thinkers of the late (...) Enlightenment. The under-studied views of these thinkers exhibit insightful early-feminist arguments against women’s inability to take an active role in the Enlightenment project and the confinement of women to the “private” sphere of the household, in which they take care of men – “public”, free-thinking citizens. (shrink)

Ancient critics reproached Xenocrates for beginning his work on the dialectic with a discussion of voice, and until now the question why he did so has never been systematically explored. Neither do we know why Xenocrates counted syllables, as Plutarch reports, and how he arrived at such an implausibly high number. In the first part of this paper, I show that Xenocrates’ interest in voice was suggested by Plato’s discussion of letters in his later dialogues, such as the Theatetus, the (...) Sophist, the Statesman, and the Philebus. Second, a fragment from Sextus attributed to Xenocrates confirms that Xenocrates allowed for various ‘levels’ of elements, and that explains why Theuth’s method, recommended in the Philebus, is applied to syllables. Finally, I address the very possibility of knowing the actual number of syllables and words, and address some of the problems connected to the reconstruction of the mathematical argument. (shrink)

At the bedside, nurses are expected to be precise when they read indications on screens and on the bodies of patients and decide on the meaning of words framed by the context of acute care. In academia, although there is no incident report to fill when we misread or misrepresent complex philosophical ideas, the consequences of inaccurate reading include misplaced epistemological claims and poor scholarship. A long and broad convention of nursing phenomenological research, in its various forms, claims a philosophical (...) grounding in the ideas of Husserl, Heidegger, and other thinkers. But for nearly two decades, nurse phenomenologists' knowledge claims have been challenged by well‐informed criticisms, most notably by John Paley. At the heart of criticism lies an observation that Continental phenomenological thought is misrepresented in many nursing sources and that nursing phenomenology, both descriptive and interpretive, cannot appeal to the authority of either Husserl or Heidegger. Taking these criticisms seriously, I am asking, Is phenomenology after Paley possible? If misreading seems to be an issue, how can – or should – we read rigorously? My thinking through these questions is influenced by the ideas of Jacques Derrida. Under a condition of a play of language, of Derridian différance, when meaning is never self‐identical and never fully arrives, I suggest that one has to negotiate meanings through reading for differences. I develop this idea in relation to the methodological conventions of phenomenological nursing research and argue for a careful rereading of the whole field of phenomenological nursing research. Such rereading presupposes and necessitates interdisciplinary engagement between nursing and the humanities and interpretive social sciences. Greater familiarity with research practices of those disciplines that stress theoretical and writing rigour might make visible the limits of nursing research approaches and their quality criteria. An understanding of philosophical and theoretical works – a condition of quality scholarship – depends on our reading of both originary texts and contemporary literature from the humanities and the social sciences. This understanding, far from obliging researchers to always trace (often erroneously) their work to its philosophical roots, opens other, often more sound, methodological possibilities. (shrink)

. Heuristic is a central concept of Lakatos' philosophy both in his early works and in his later work, the methodology of scientific research programs. The term itself, however, went through significant change of meaning. In this paper I study this change and the ‘metaphysical’ commitments behind it. In order to do so, I turn to his mathematical heuristic elaborated in Proofs and Refutations. I aim to show the dialogical character of mathematical knowledge in his account, which can open a (...) door to hermeneutic studies of mathematical practice. (shrink)

The main subject of this research is the specificity of I. E. Repin's perception of the dynamics of artistic-aesthetic tasks formed under the influence of changing modernity. In view of this, one of the compositional centers of the research is the history of relationship that developed between I. E. Repin and the artists of the “first wave of symbolism” – members of the association “The World of Art”. Special attention is given to the question of perception of I. E. Repin (...) by certain representatives of the avant-garde in 1910s. Developing in the range “attraction – negation”, full of dramatic and comic moments, the dialogue between Repin and younger generation indicates the hastiness of univocal view of realism and Art Nouveau as opposing imagery systems. For the first time, on the current level of scientific comprehension of the aesthetics of symbolism and neo-romanticism, the article analyzes the attitude of I. E. Repin towards the innovative imagery pursuits of the Art Nouveau artists. At the same time, the very concept of Art Nouveau is interpreted in two dimensions: as a certain milestone in the context of the development of the history of art of the late XIX – early XX century; and as an inner dynamic potential embedded by I. E. Repin in his works since the beginning of his creative path. Based on systematization of the artistic and documentary sources and the method of complex reconstruction of the views of Peredvizhniki and symbolist artists upon the objectives and nature of art, the author concludes that the poetics of art of Ilya Repin, synthesizing the ideas of time, tends to reflect a complicated and distinctive artistic image formed by realistic and idealistic principles. (shrink)

One of the signs of the rapid development of medical genetics is a gradual increase in the number of genetic tests available. Different aspects of this phenomenon have been addressed and debated in the source literature, but so far relatively little has been said about the obligation to provide equal access – in the social context – to selected kinds of tests. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct those few suggestions, dealing with the principles of funding genetic tests from (...) public resources, that can still be found in the source literature. Accordingly, I have analyzed the possibilities of identifying the criteria of selecting diagnostic and preventive tests to be eligible for refund, as well as of screening programmes. (shrink)

The steady growth of the number of DNA tests offered results in the discussion on the ethical aspects of these tests becoming increasingly lively and multifaceted. This text provides an overview of selected issues concerning the characteristics, protection and quality of the information acquired as a result of carrying out DNA tests. I discuss the salient points in the debates on the possibility to justify the so-called genetic exceptionalism, and the ways of specifying the scope of the principle of confidentiality (...) that protects the privacy of the information given by the subject. The final part of the article features the discussion on the importance of the possibility to use the information, acquired from these tests, in practice – for making decisions about the introduction of new kinds of tests for the clinical application. (shrink)