The major merit of Rose's book is the elaboration of the idea of multilevel causation in different explanatory languages. Yet Rose's critique of “ultra-Darwinism” is not convincing. Rose argues that activity and self-replication are properties of organisms rather than genes, which contradicts his idea of multilevel causation. Also, Rose fails to develop the concept of multilevel selection.

Functional information means an encoded network of functions in living organisms from molecular signaling pathways to an organism’s behavior. It is represented by two components: code and an interpretation system, which together form a self-sustaining semantic closure. Semantic closure allows some freedom between components because small variations of the code are still interpretable. The interpretation system consists of inference rules that control the correspondence between the code and the function (phenotype) and determines the shape of the fitness landscape. The utility (...) factor operates at multiple time scales: short-term selection drives evolution towards higher survival and reproduction rate within a given fitness landscape, and long-term selection favors those fitness landscapes that support adaptability and lead to evolutionary expansion of certain lineages. Inference rules make short-term selection possible by shaping the fitness landscape and defining possible directions of evolution, but they are under control of the long-term selection of lineages. Communication normally occurs within a set of agents with compatible interpretation systems, which I call communication system. Functional information cannot be directly transferred between communication systems with incompatible inference rules. Each biological species is a genetic communication system that carries unique functional information together with inference rules that determine evolutionary directions and constraints. This view of the relation between utility and inference can resolve the conflict between realism/positivism and pragmatism. Realism overemphasizes the role of inference in evolution of human knowledge because it assumes that logic is embedded in reality. Pragmatism substitutes usefulness for truth and therefore ignores the advantage of inference. The proposed concept of evolutionary pragmatism rejects the idea that logic is embedded in reality; instead, inference rules are constructed within each communication system to represent reality, and they evolve towards higher adaptability on a long time scale. (shrink)

In November 1969, the USSR Academy of Sciences' Presidium held a discussion on the principal lines of work being engaged in by the Academy's Institute of Philosophy. A report on this matter was presented by the Institute's director, P. V. Kopnin, Member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Participants in the discussion of the report were M. V. Keldysh, President of the USSR Academy, Academicians F. V. Konstantinov, M. B. Mitin, A. M. Rumiantsev and P. N. Fedoseev, and Corresponding Academician (...) Ts. A. Stepanian. (shrink)

We argue that constructive approaches in epistemology and systems science, which are focused on normativity, knowledge, and communication of organisms and emphasize the primacy of activity, self-construction, and niche-construction in the cognitive agents, fit naturally to the both methodology and theory of biosemiotics. In particular, constructive view was already present in the works of the major precursors of biosemiotics: von Uexküll and Bateson, and to some extent Peirce. Biosemiotics has a chance to function as a mediating field in the theoretical (...) integration of semiotics with its construction-related sister disciplines (e.g., second order cybernetics, autopoiesis, constructivism, enactivism, and interactivism) because of its explicit assumption of the semiotic nature of life and agency and its objectified “first person” view to biosemiotic agents, the view that nevertheless avoids the agnostic attitude towards reality. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis and discussion of the opinions of two generations of Asian parents with regard to their young children's education. A large number of parents were interviewed during 1970-1974 and a smaller number during 1995 to ascertain their views on a variety of topics relating to their children's early education. The findings are discussed in a qualitative way and reveal the increasing satisfaction of Asian parents with their children's education. A higher proportion of the mothers of the (...) 1990s help their children with homework, read them stories and are generally more participatory in their children's education compared with the 1970s group. The second generations are concerned with the lack of facilities for the teaching of mother tongues in schools. These and other findings are discussed within the changing lifestyles of second-generation Asians. (shrink)

Biological evolution is often viewed narrowly as a change of morphology or allele frequency in a sequence of generations. Here I pursue an alternative informational concept of evolution, as preservation, advance, and emergence of functional information in natural agents. Functional information is a network of signs that are used by agents to preserve and regulate their functions. Functional information is preserved in evolution via complex interplay of copying and construction processes: the digital components are copied, whereas interpreting subagents together with (...) scaffolds, tools, and resources, are constructed. Some of these processes are simple and invariant, whereas others are complex and contextual. Advance of functional information includes improvement and modification of already existing functions. Although the genome information may change passively and randomly, the interpretation is active and guided by the logic of agent behavior and embryonic development. Emergence of new functions is based on the reinterpretation of already existing information, when old tools, resources, and control algorithms are adopted for novel functions. Evolution of functional information progressed from protosemiosis, where signs correspond directly to actions, to eusemiosis, where agents associate signs with objects. Language is the most advanced form of eusemiosis, where the knowledge of objects and models is communicated between agents. (shrink)

This book provides papers of the conference of leading scientists and philosophers on the notion of progress of knowledge, which is constitutive of our modern selfunderstanding, from the perspective of their disciplines. Summary of contents: 1. GEorg Henrik von Wright, Progress: Fiction and Fact 2. WAlter Burkert, Impact and Limits of the Idea of Progress in Antiquity 3. AListair Crombie, Philosophical Commitments and Scientific Progress 4. SHigeru Nakayama, Chinese "Cyclic" View of History vs Japanese "Progress" 5. JEan Blondel, Political Progress: (...) Illusion or Reality 6. NIcholas Rescher, Progress and the Future 7. RUdolf Flotzinger, Progress and Development in Musical History 8. DAg Pravitz, Progress in Philosophy 9. JOhn D. BArrow, Time in the Universe 10. ANtonio Garcia-Bellido, Progress in Biological Evolution 11. GEreon Wolters, The Idea of Progress in Evolutionary Biology: Philosophical Considerations 12. PHilippe Lazar, The Idea of Progress in Human Health. (shrink)

v. 1. Indii︠a︡ -- v. 2. Blizhniĭ i Sredniĭ Vostok -- v. 3. Kitaĭ.

Hindu philosophical classic text on Vedānta philosophy, compiled from 108 Upanishads and Upadeśapañcadaśī of Satyanārāyaṇa Jhā; text with commentaries.

Extent health humanities readings of Gabriel García Márquez’s _Love in the Time of Cholera_ have focused on the doctor-patient relationship, the physician-scientist as a model for aspiring practitioners, and how individuals relate to the novel’s health themes of death, disease, and disability. However, such medicine-focused readings neglect the population-level public health concerns of the novel as they relate to contagion, community, and quarantine. This paper contributes to the growing field of public health humanities by using a close reading method to (...) explore how the competing endemic and epidemic public health issues shape the plot and metaphors of the novel. (shrink)

Concept of Avidyā in the Vedānta philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya; a study.

This paper is a survey of V.A. Smirnovs main results in modern logic.