In this paper I accomplish two goals: first, I briefly reconstruct Hans-Georg Gadamer’s views on language, included foremost in Truth and Method. I discuss if and how can we analyse language in the hermeneutic way; what is Gadamer’s view on philosophy of language and linguistics; what is the hermeneutic priority of the question and why choosing the logic of question may lead to a conflict between philosophical hermeneutics and analytic philosophy. Then, on such base I show correlations, which can be (...) traced between hermeneutic philosophy and other contemporary language research disciplines – generally understood linguistics, analytic philosophy of language and interdisciplinary discourse research. Taking a closer look at each of the mentioned disciplines I focus on trying to answer the question regarding their ideological and methodological connections with the hermeneutic way of thinking. The article ends with a conclusion, that interdisciplinary discourse analysis produces the highest hopes to analyse language in a non-objective matter, which is the way that Gadamer favoured. (shrink)

a This is an outline of a coherence theory of law. Its basic ideas are: reasonable support and weighing of reasons. All the rest is commentary.a (TM) These words at the beginning of the preface of this book perfectly indicate what On Law and Reason is about. It is a theory about the nature of the law which emphasises the role of reason in the law and which refuses to limit the role of reason to the application of deductive logic. (...) In 1989, when the first edition of On Law and Reason appeared, this book was ground breaking for several reasons. It provided a rationalistic theory of the law in the language of analytic philosophy and based on a thorough understanding of the results, including technical ones, of analytic philosophy. That was not an obvious combination at the time of the booka (TM)s first appearance and still is not. The result is an analytical rigor that is usually associated with positivist theories of the law, combined with a philosophical position that is not natural law in a strict sense, but which shares with it the emphasis on the role of reason in determining what the law is. If only for this rare combination, On Law and Reason still deserves careful study. On Law and Reason also foreshadowed and influenced a development in the field of Legal Logic that would take place in the nineties of the 20th century, namely the development of non-monotonic (a defeasiblea (TM)) logics for the analysis of legal reasoning. In the new Introduction to this second edition, this aspect is explored in some more detail. (shrink)

Ifeel that Iam apartof, but separatefrom an 'out there' world. 2. Ifeel that my perception of the world mingles with feelings of past experience. 3. My experienceof the world is selective and purposeful. 4. I am thinking ahead allthe timeintrying ...

We assume—in contrast to many “legal realists”—that law is a part of reality. Law exists because people believe in law, but law is not identical with beliefs. Law supervenes on human beliefs, preferences, actions, dispositions and artefacts. Moreover, the morally binding personal interpretation of the law supervenes on two things together: on the individual's knowledge of legal institutions and on moral obligation. The first supervenes in its turn on mutual beliefs; the second supervenes on motivations and dispositions of the individual, (...) provided that she is morally sensitive and rational. Personal interpretation of law converts into social law, if other persons on the basis of overriding reasons do not contest it. Morally binding social law supervenes on moral motivation that is triggered by institutions that supervene on mutual beliefs. (shrink)

This paper relates to a formal statement of the mechanisms that are thought minimally necessary to underpin consciousness. This is expressed in the form of axioms. We deem this to be useful if there is ever to be clarity in answering questions about whether this or the other organism is or is not conscious. As usual, axioms are ways of making formal statements of intuitive beliefs and looking, again formally, at the consequences of such beliefs. The use of this style (...) of exposition does not entail a claim to provide a mathematically rigorous formal deductive system. Conventional mathematical notation is used to achieve clarity, although this is elaborated with natural language in an attempt to reduce terseness. In our view, making the approach axiomatic is synonymous with building clear usable tests for consciousness and is therefore a central feature of the paper. The extended scope of this approach is to lay down some essential properties that should be considered when designing machines that could be said to be conscious. In the broader discussion about the nature of consciousness and its neurological mechanisms, it may seem to some that axiomatisation is premature and continues to beg many questions. However, the approach is meant to be open- ended so that others can build further axiomatic clarifications that address the very large number of questions which, in the search for a formal basis for consciousness, still remain to be answered. Of course, in discussions about consciousness many will also argue that the subject is not one that may ever be formally addressed by means of axioms. The view taken in this paper is 'let's try to do it and see how far it gets'. (shrink)

It is proved that the following conditions are equivalent: (a) there exists a complete, atomless, σ-centered Boolean algebra, which does not contain any regular, atomless, countable subalgebra, (b) there exists a nowhere dense ultrafilter on ω. Therefore, the existence of such algebras is undecidable in ZFC. In "forcing language" condition (a) says that there exists a non-trivial σ-centered forcing not adding Cohen reals.

The phenomenon of weakness of will – not doing what we perceive as the best action – is not recognized by neoclassical economics due to the axiomatic assumptions of the revealed preference theory (RPT) that people do what is best for them. However, present bias shows that people have different preferences over time. As they cannot be compared by the utility measurements, economists need to normatively decide between selves (short- versus long-term preferences). A problem is that neoclassical economists perceive RPT (...) as value-free and incorporate present bias within the economic framework. The axiomatic assumption that people do what is best for them leads to theoretical and practical dilemmas. This work examines weakness of will to resolve some shortcomings of RPT. The concept of intention is used to provide multiple self conception with the framework to decide between selves, which had not been done before. The paper concludes that individuals should not always follow their revealed preferences (desires) but the intentions (reason) because the latter indicates what people really want. (shrink)

The books’ goal is to answer the question: Do the weaknesses of value-free economics imply the need for a paradigm shift? The author synthesizes criticisms from different perspectives (descriptive and methodological). Special attention is paid to choices over time, because in this area value-free economics has the most problems. In that context, the enriched concept of multiple self is proposed and investigated. However, it is not enough to present the criticisms towards value-free economics. For scientists, a bad paradigm is better (...) than no paradigm. Therefore, the author considers whether value-based economics with normative approaches such as economics of happiness, capability approach, libertarian paternalism, and the concept of multiple self can be the alternative paradigm for value-free economics. This book is essential reading to everyone interested in the current state of economics as a discipline. (shrink)

The epistemicist theory aims to explain ignorance due to vagueness by semantic plasticity: the shiftiness of intensions across close possible worlds resulting from shiftiness in usage. This explanation is challenged by the Omniscient Speaker Puzzle (Sennet in Philos Stud 161(2):273–285, 2012). Suppose that an omniscient speaker, Barney, who knows all the facts about usage and how these facts determine the intensions of expressions, cooks up a scheme to stabilise the intension of a normally semantically plastic term like ‘rich’. It seems (...) that ‘rich’ would display all the phenomena associated with vagueness without being semantically plastic, thus making the epistemicist explanation of ignorance due to vagueness insufficient. In this paper, I present a few choice points for epistemicism that arise as a result of the puzzle. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that instrumental rationality and utility that have been used in economics for many years does not work well. What is presented in the article is how significant the influence of utilitarianism has been on economics and why the economists get rid of humans’ goals and motivations. It is shown in the article that the human who decides in present is absolutely different from the human who decides over time. Many economists neglected this (...) problem because they wanted to have an effective and simple model. Becker’s economic method is presented as a dead end to which economics has been brought to. It is impossible to connect different selves of one human being by using the utility measure. The works of Schelling and J.S. Mill are used to explain this impossibility. The conclusion of this article is that instrumental rationality and utility have affected economics significantly. But, this simplified view on human nature is no longer valid. Hence, economics needs to think not only about the means but also about the human goals. Economics needs to rebuff relativism and show people how to achieve well-being. If we want to help people with their self-governance, we will have to choose reason over emotions. (shrink)

Legal doctrine in Continental European law (scientia iuris) consists of professional legal writings, e.g., handbooks, monographs, etc., whose task is to systematize and interpret valid law. By production of general and defeasible theories, legal doctrine aims to present the law as a coherent net of principles, rules, meta‐rules, and exceptions, at different levels of abstraction, connected by support relations. The argumentation used to achieve coherence involves not only description and logic but also evaluative (normative) steps. However, sceptics criticise juristic doctrine (...) for its normative character, ontological obscurity, vagueness, fragmentation, and locality. The author answers this criticism pointing out the following. Normative reason is possible. Liberal ontology, admitting such entities as morally justified law, is possible as well. The vagueness of legal doctrine can be construed as defeasibility. Defeasibility is inevitable in the law and in human thinking in general. Fragmentation of legal doctrine is not absolute. Its theories are linked to overarching moral theories. Finally, locality is not absolute either. Though sometimes restricted to a given state, theories of legal doctrine display relevant similarities to corresponding theories in other states. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show the main thesis concerning the theory of cognition of the eminent neo-Kantian Heinrich Rickert, as presented in his work “Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis”. On the one hand, Rickert finds out that thinking is fated to “clash with nothingness”, thus creating a temptation to reject all rigours and to yield to complete discretion. On the other hand, he attributes axiological status to nothingness which subjects thinking to a particular kind of “ought”. In his (...) view, the cognizing subject is faced with an axiological choice: either discretion or truth and argues that it is worth opting for truth. His argumentation could be an interesting point of reference for contemporary culture gradually moving away from the type of thinking rooted in objectively existing principles. (shrink)

Igor Aleksander and Helen B. Morton, Int. J. Mach. Conscious. 06, 67 (2014). DOI: 10.1142/S1793843014400113.

An analogue of Mathias forcing is studied in connection of free Boolean algebras and nowhere dense ultrafilters. Some applications to rigid Boolean algebras are given.

Procrastination as putting off until tomorrow what one had intended to do today is well-known tendency in everyday life. In an attempt to understand the character of procrastination in different life-domains, a large body of research has been accumulated over the last decades. This article was aimed to evaluate a specific decisional procrastination of school-to-work transition that is treated as maturity postponement. Two studies are reported examining SWT procrastination defined as career indecision among Polish students graduating universities. In Study 1, (...) attitudinal and identity statuses were analyzed as correlates of career procrastination. A path analysis conducted for the model, which was aimed to explain the influence of career self-efficacy and occupational commitment on career indecision, revealed its very good fitness. Those two independent variables explain 10% of career indecision variance. Stepwise multiple regression analyses conducted to ascertain relationship of five identity statuses to procrastination measure showed that Commitment Making and Ruminative Exploration are strongest predictor variables. In study 2, the stepwise multiple regression analyses conducted to ascertain the independent relationship of each of Big Five personality factor revealed that Neuroticism and Extraversion accounts of the most of explained variance of school-to-work transition procrastination. (shrink)

It is shown that for every Turing degree d there is an ω-categorical group G such that the isomorphism type of G is of degree d. We also find an ω-categorical group G such that the isomorphism type of G has no degree.

In this article, for the first time, the work of Professor E. K. Virsaladze in class on the "Symphonic Etudes" Op. 13 by R. Schumann was reviewed and a small performance analysis of her performance in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory was given. The concert took place on April 16, 2010, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of R. Schumann. The author, being a student of her class and an assistant trainee, made notes of the teacher's wishes (...) in the work on the "Symphonic Etudes" by the romantic composer R. Schumann. The suggestions and recommendations expressed by E. K. Virsaladze on "Symphonic Sketches" are presented for the first time and have great practical and artistic value. The author discusses in detail the work on each etude. In his work, the professor pays attention to all means of musical expression: rhythm, strokes, dynamics… Advises a certain fingering, pedal… Such work of a teacher should undoubtedly contribute to obtaining certain performing skills from students for their further development. As an example, the article examines Virsaladze's performance of "Symphonic Etudes" in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory in a concert dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of R. Schumann. The article is recommended for students of music universities, colleges, colleges preparing for a concert performance of Schumann's works, in particular, "Symphonic Etudes" Op. 13. (shrink)