The problem of truth was raised in medieval Islamic philosophy within the framework of discussions starting from the question of whether our knowledge corresponds to the “actuality of affairs.” The notion of validity thus elaborated was comprehended as a quality of knowledge established through a comparison with “matters of fact.” What was intended is not coincidence with what is and has existence. Existence (wujūd) was generally understood in Islamic thought as one of the attributes (ṣifa) that a thing might or (...) might not possess while still being “a thing” (shay’), and since our knowledge embraces things independently of their accidental attributes, the question about truth was placed on a wider footing. Validity, from that point of view, testifies that our knowledge conforms with reality in the immediate meaning of the term – thing‐ness. This notion of reality (shay’iyya) does not necessarily exclude Divinity, for God in Islamic sciences is often comprehended as The Thing, although different in every respect (except that of thing‐ness) from all other things. The concept of “thing” serves to introduce something into the current of intellectual discourse rather than to state anything definite about it; to be a thing – that is, fixed and established – means to enter the field of discussion. (shrink)

The great disputants within the Islamic tradition, the Mutakallimūn, laid down the basis for rational discussion of causality by affirming the right of reason to engage in independent research. This affirmation could not be absolute; it took the form of a division of the spheres of competence belonging, respectively, to reason and Law. Reason was declared to be the judge in ontological and epistemological questions, whereas the sphere of ethics and legislation were left subject to religious Law. Certainly, this division (...) should not be understood too rigidly. The Mutakallimūn often remained loyal to the Law and did not permit reason to execute its rights to the full even when disputing ontological problems. On the other hand, in the sphere of legislation they asserted the rights of reason to define new norms, not established in Revelation, on the basis of rational analysis of revealed Law, thus defying the Zāhiriyya, “people of the manifest,” who denied the legitimacy of rational procedures for determining new norms of law. (shrink)

This book argues that there is a complex logical and epistemological interplay between the concepts of metaphor, narrative, and emotions. They share a number of important similarities and connections. In the first place, all three are constituted by aspect-seeing, the seeing-as or perception of Gestalts. Secondly, all three are meaning-endowing devices, helping us to furnish our world with meaning. Thirdly, the threesome constitutes a trinity. Emotions have both a narrative and metaphoric structure, and we can analyse the concepts of metaphors (...) and narratives partly in each other¿s terms. Further, the concept of narratives can partly be analysed in the terms of emotions. And if emotions have both a narrative structure and a metaphoric one, then the concept of emotions must to some extent be analysable through the concepts of narratives and metaphors. But there is more. Metaphors (especially poetic ones) are important tools for the understanding of the tacit sides of emotions, perhaps because of the metaphoric structure of emotions. The notion that narrations can be tools for understanding emotions follows from two facts: narrations are devices for explanation and emotions have a narrative structure. Fourthly, the threesome has an impact on our rationality. It has become commonplace to say that emotions have a cognitive content, that narratives have an explanatory function, and that metaphors can perform cognitive functions. This book is the first attempt to articulate the implications that these new ways of seeing the three concepts entail for our concept of reason. The cognitive roles of the threesome suggest a richer notion of rationality than has traditionally been held, a rationality enlivened with metaphoric, narrative, and emotive qualities. Stefán Snævarr (Reykjavik, 1953) studied philosophy and related subjects in Norway and Germany. Professor at Lillehammer University College in Norway, he is the author of several books of various kind in English, Norwegian and Icelandic. (shrink)

The processes of changing the way of thinking, typical for modern people, and subsequently shaping a new “Homo clicking” individual are analyzed. The authors consider a specific mindset of “Homo clicking” illustrating it with some patterns and modes of action that characterize individuals in the human–machine interface. Under this frame, the influence of modern converging technologies upon human conduct is examined and functional redistribution between human beings and technical devices is outlined. In the literature, the latter phenomenon is referred to (...) as “life outsourcing.” This material is used to introduce several principles that form the basis for a new type of thought and actions of “Home clicking”: snapping, transforming trust into knowledge, and action reduction. Reducing the traditional classic understanding of a human act of thinking to a pattern of a thinking act as a need-satisfying act is described. In the last section, we introduce an extension of Searle’s Chinese room, which can be seen as a possible consequence of intensive exploitation of technologies. (shrink)

The article analyzes the main trends of the development of cross-border e-commerce, presents the position of the main characters: both supporters of «free trade» and protectionism on issues such as government regulation, as well as further development of cross-border e-commerce.

The article refutes the widespread view that Dostoevsky's Christian beliefs were strictly Orthodox. It is proved that Dostoevsky's religious and philosophical searches' central tendency is the criticism of historical, ecclesiastical Christianity as a false, distorted form of the teaching of Jesus Christ and the desire to restore this teaching in its original purity. Modern researchers of the history of early Christianity find more and more arguments in favor of the fact that the actual teaching of Jesus Christ is contained in (...) that religious movement, which the church called the Gnostic heresy. The exact philosophical expression of the teaching of Christ was received in the later works of J.G. Fichte, whose ideas had a strong influence on the Russian writer. Like Fichte, Dostoevsky understands Christ as the first person who showed the possibility of revealing God in himself and gaining divine omnipotence and eternal life directly in earthly reality. In this sense, every person can become like Christ. Dostoevsky's main characters walk the path of Christ and show how difficult this path is. The article shows that Dostoevsky used in his work not only the philosophical version of true Christianity developed by German philosophy, but also the key motives of the Gnostic myth, primarily the idea that our world, filled with evil and suffering, is created not by the supreme, good God-Father, but by the evil Demiurge, the Devil. (shrink)

The Cartesian cogito ergo sum is a major milestone for modern European philosophy, which shaped its mainstream for centuries. This dictum states that consciousness is the only reliable object of in...

The paradigm of enfolded-unfolded introduced by Nicolas of Cusa, poses a puzzling question: why and how are the enfolded and unfolded equal to itself and to each other (coi...

The increasingly foreshortening of bioethics known as narrative and even literary bioethics is analyzed in article. This analysis is realized on the material of Rudyard Kipling’s story «The miracle of Purun Bhagat». Deconstruction in its ethical aspect comes out in this case as method of the overcoming of logocentrism and becomes radicalization of ethics. The talk is about consideration of bioethics not simply as the science of survival but as radical ethics of the salvation of life. The text of the (...) story is interpreted as pharrmacon, remedy, sure remedy for human consciousness, society and nature. The result of the analysis is the idea of the consideration of conservative bioethics as radical ethics of salvation and science about spiritual-moral essence of human. This essence is consciousness, which is always moral consciousness in contradiction to intellect deprivated of moral dimension and leading humankind on the way of catastrophic progress to transhumanistic, posthuman future. (shrink)

Full development of personality under socialism is ensured by the further improvement of the socialist system and the rising cultural and material levels of the Soviet people. The author demonstrates that a new, integrated approach should be taken to the problem of human health in Soviet sociopolitical strategy: the concept of human health should embrace philosophical aspects together with findings of the natural and social sciences. The author looks at the wide range of social, philosophical, and methodological issues which should (...) be taken into account in order to remove the obstacles from the road towards purposeful control of human and social health. Keywords: concept of health, socialism, health care, Marxism-Leninism, USSR, bioethics CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

There is given the proof of strict embedding of Leniewski's elementary ontology into monadic second-order calculus of predicates providing a formalization of the class of all formulas valid in all domains (including the empty one). The elementary ontology with the axiom S (S S) is strictly embeddable into monadic second-order calculus of predicates which provides a formalization of the classes of all formulas valid in all non-empty domains.

The builders of our new society will concentrate their primary efforts and energy on the improvement of the economic system of socialism, the growth of the productive forces, and the intensification of scientific-technological progress. To what extent it will be possible to accelerate the pace along this unbeaten path will depend on success in mobilizing the vast reserves of the socialist economy.

Meaning is not a ready-made entity found in dictionaries as signified by a language sign, but rather something which is manufactured through a sense-positing procedure that starts with an initial i...

The concepts of philosophy and imaginative literature have unclear boundaries and blurred edges; they can hardly be defined essentially in any fruitful manner. But we can talk of indicators of a text being philosophical or literary. The concepts of philosophy and literature are contestable. Further, there are no clear‐cut signs of cognitive progress in philosophy and literature. It is also far from certain that there are any philosophical or literary truths. Actually, works of philosophy and literature deal more in possibilities (...) than in actualities. In addition, fictional narratives play an important role in both philosophical and literary texts. Moreover, philosophy and literature share a tendency to thematize themselves, reflect on themselves. If, however, argumentation were to disappear entirely from all philosophical texts, while every literary text is dominated by argumentative discourse, then the concepts of literature and philosophy would become almost devoid of content. Despite this, there is no gap between philosophy and imaginative literature. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on the way one can avow emotions and beliefs in poetry, with an emphasis on emotional expression. I want to show how the so-called Neo-Expressivism concerning self-attributions and avowals can help us understand the nature of emotional expression in poetry. The emphasis is on the way people use poems as vehicles for avowals of emotion and the way that emotions can shine through poems even though the poets did not intend to show those emotions. In (...) order to show that this is possible I shall give a short defense of a moderate, Wittgensteinian intentionalism and interpretative pluralism with respect to the understanding of literary works. What is an avowal? The Israeli philosopher... (shrink)

The article is a response to criticism of my two recent articles on Richard Shusterman’s view of popular culture by Shusterman and Małecki. The former maintains that I have misrepresented his view on Europe, the USA and popular culture. But I point out that he talks as if there is no popular culture in Europe due to Europe’s aristocratic traditions, and that the USA is a hotbed of popular culture thanks to its egalitarian traditions, and that Europe can be treated (...) as a country comparable to the USA. He also says that I falsely think he is talking about popular culture while he is really talking about popular art. But I show that it is meaningless to talk about popular art without talking about popular culture and that as a pragmatist Shusterman should have understood that. I show that Małecki grossly misrepresents my article, maintaining that I am against all forms of popular art and against everything Shusterman says about popular art. I show that this is blatantly wrong. (shrink)

This book introduces and explores Rational Poetic Experimentalism (RPE). According to RPE, it makes sense to regard reason as poetic. Regarding reason this way is the result of experimenting with philosophical ideas. Such experimentation might lead to philosophical truths which might seem very difficult to discover.

The idea of conceptual schemes is one of the most influential and widely used notions in contemporary philosophy. Within the analytic tradition the idea occupies a fundamental position in positivist views as well as in replacing them post-positivist conceptions. Outside the analytic tradition a similar idea is of key importance in structuralist and post-structuralist theories. Despite the broad applicability of the notion of a conceptual scheme, its precise sense is far from being evident in the context of various philosophical trends. (...) Moreover, the well-known American philosopher Donald Davidson's position is that any clear, non-metaphorical meaning cannot be as - cribed to that notion at all – the statement which he tried to substantiate in his famous paper On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme published in 1974.The present paper is aimed, firstly, at outlining the historico-philosophical evolution of the idea of conceptual scheme, concentrating on its development in logical positivism and post-positivist theories of such philosophers as Quine, Sellars, Kuhn, et al., and, secondly, at examining Davidson's criticism of both the idea and the position of conceptual relativism which was raised on its ground, revealing the assumptions which that criticism relies on and which concern relations between language and thought, truth and translation, as well as the role of the scheme-content dualism for empiricism and the place of extensionalism in semantics, etc. Our purpose, on the one hand, is to evaluate the historico-philosophical significance of Davidson's criticism; on the other hand, it is to show that his critical arguments remain to be actual since they shed a new light on the idea of conceptual schemes and allow us to determine their place in tackling the fundamental philosophical question of a relation between reality, thought and language. (shrink)