Because of the transcendental emphasis of his critical works, Immanuel Kant has been criticised for not being able to accommodate the notion of multiplicity. This paper outlines a complex argument designed as a means to the rescue of Kant from this repudiation. To this end, the paper proposes a new, strong reading of the doctrine of aesthetic ideas that unveils the idiosyncratic play of the mental powers, constituted of two separate acts, that equips one to intuit an unnameable mark that (...) evades both empirical apprehension and logical comprehension. By analogy with the two types of cognition, stipulated in the Stufenleiter (and elsewhere), I shall suggest that the two distinct kinds of a feeling of pleasure, stirred up by the generation of an aesthetic idea, add an overlooked, aesthetic element that renders Kant a philosopher of multiplicity. (shrink)

Mont Publishing House and Valery Vino deliver the first volume of an eclectic collection in aesthetic education. Aesthetic Literacy is an experiment in philosophy of culture, and this volume features cross-genre contributions by: Theodore Gracyk (Minnesota), Babette Babich (Fordham), David Konstan (NYU), Katya Mandoki (UNAM), Arnold Berleant (Long Island), Jale Erzen (Middle East Tech), Curtis Carter (Marquette), Clive Cazeaux (Cardiff), Fabrizio Desideri (Florence), Ken-ichi Sasaki (Tokyo), and many others... -/- .

This paper is a brief survey of the history of Altai shamanism in the 20th Century, and of the main influences, both from "inside" (from within the Altai community) and from the outside onto shamanic beliefs and practices of the Altai, especially onto the shamanic revival. Based on my experiences living in 1988 and 1989 in Gorny Altai, the paper reports on aspects of present‐day shamanism, and the emergence of neo‐shamanism in the post‐Soviet period. The decline of shamanism due to (...) the impact of the Old Believers, the Orthodox Church and the emergence of Burkhanism in 1904, as well as the repression during the Soviet period, is described and is noted as influential in contributing to the current revival of shamanism in its "neo‐shamanistic" form. Several factors that facilitate the regeneration of shamanism are identified and discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents a new reading of Kant's moral feeling: in lieu of highlighting a positive feeling of respect, I am interested in a thorough phenomenological interpretation of a negative feeling of humiliation. The paper's tone is set by underscoring that human moral Gesinnung is that which is necessarily cultivated, which entails that the striving moral agent, among other things, learns to identify and confront inclinations. It is argued, then, that one's mindfulness of the various kinds of pain of humiliated (...) inclinations presupposes the agent's aesthetic attunement to the law of duty. To this end, two phenomenological interpretations are offered. First, general humiliation Kant caters for in the Critique of Practical Reason. Second, specific humiliation Kant alludes to in the Metaphysics of Morals. On the whole, the paper's findings ascertain the epistemic weight of humiliation, which to date has been undervalued. (shrink)

The variation in genome size and basic chromosome number was analyzed in the wide range of angiosperm plants. A divergence of monocots vs. dicots (eudicots) genome size distributions was revealed. A similar divergence was found for annual vs. perennial dicots. The divergence of monocots vs. dicots genome size distributions holds at different taxonomic levels and is more pronounced for species with larger genomes. Using nested analysis of variance, it was shown that putative constraints on genome size variation are not only (...) stronger in dicots as compared to monocots but in the former they start to operate already at the family level, whereas in the latter they do so only at the order level. At the same time, variation in basic chromosome number is constrained at the order level in both groups. Higher basic chromosome numbers were found in perennial plants as compared to the annual ones, which can be explained by their need for a higher genetic recombination as compensation for the longer life-cycles. A negative correlation was found between genome size and basic chromosome number, which can be explained as a trade-off between different recombination mechanisms. (shrink)

An explanation of the inter-gender difference in longevity consistent with the 'disposable soma' theory of ageing is proposed. It is based on the concept of r-K selection as applied to the inter-gender situation. The concept predicts that the gender with a higher potential reproductive rate (males) should invest relatively less in somatic maintenance, which in its turn should result in a lower longevity according to the 'disposable soma' theory of ageing. In females, which are interpreted as K-selected organisms, the reproductive (...) strategy strongly depends on steady, secure constitution designed for oocyte/embryo bearing and is therefore closely related to somatic maintenance, whereas in (r-selected) males it has a greater behavioural component - risky, variable, with a greater potential reproductive success at the expense of somatic maintenance. The higher metabolic and growth rates, a higher premature mortality and a longer period of sexual competence of males also find explanation as a complex of r-selected traits. (shrink)

Preface of the ESPES: The Slovak Journal of Aesthetics symposium on Aesthetics and Ageing.

Ambiguity affects decisions of people who exhibit a distaste of and require a premium for dealing with it. Do ambiguity-neutral subjects completely disregard ambiguity and react to any vague news? Online vending platforms often attempt to affect buyer’s decisions by messages like “20 people are looking at this item right now” or “The average score based on 567 reviews is 7.9/10”. We augment the two-color Ellsberg experiment with similarly worded signals about the unknown probability of success. All decision-makers, including ambiguity-neutral, (...) recognize and account for ambiguity; ambiguity-neutral subjects are less likely to respond to vague signals. The difference between decisions of ambiguity-neutral and non-neutral subjects vanishes for high precision signals; still less than 60% subjects choose the ambiguous urn, even for high communicated probabilities of success. We conjecture participants may discard information, if they see no contradiction between it and their prior beliefs, hence the latter are not updated. Higher confidence makes subjects more likely to discard the news, and empirically ambiguity-neutral subjects appear more confident than those ambiguity-averse. (shrink)

Kant’s doctrine of aesthetic ideas, along with his brief treatment of ugliness, has been the focus of some recent literature. In this paper, I employ an original approach, which nonetheless draws from Kant’s oeuvre, to pin down the phenomenological complexity of a spectacular event that took place at the inception of the French Terror—the decapitation of Louis the XVI. To this end, the first section of the essay fleshes out an interpretative framework explicating how seeing the guillotine as an aesthetic (...) idea could serve as a means to actualise the revolutionary ideal. The second section introduces a reading of Schwärmerei and argues that this unruly genius is accountable for the creation of aesthetic idols, rendering a spurious aesthetic experience. Finally, in the last section, I argue that there is a significant distinction between Kant’s account of ugliness and loathing, and that the latter stands for neither a moral nor an aesthetic response to a morally repellent object, but rather is an extraordinary sensible response. (shrink)

The term 'Machiavellianism', used to designate a tough politics knowing no ethical barriers, entered firmly into circulation as far back as the sixteenth century. It was the negative reaction to the maxims in The Prince that defined the initial attitude toward Machiavelli's doctrine, and the internal polemic with this initial assessment has spawned an endless stream of literature endeavoring to justify in one way or other the ill-starred secretary of the Florentine Republic. In sheer number of publications, pro-Machiavelli views exceed (...) anti-Machiavelli views by many times. And yet questions remain; the original negative reaction is not eradicated, just as the striving for apologetics is not eradicated. (shrink)

The construct of moral intensity, proposed by Jones (1991), was used to predict the extent to which individuals were able to recognize moral issues. We tested for the effects of the six dimensions of moral intensity: social consensus, proximity, concentration of effect, probability of effect, temporal immediacy and magnitude of consequences. A scenario-based study, conducted among business individuals in Singapore, revealed that social consensus and magnitude of consequences influenced the recognition of moral issues. The study provided evidence for the effects (...) of temporal immediacy. There was marginal support for the impact of proximity and probability of effect but no evidence that concentration of effect influenced recognition of moral issues. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for researchers and organisational practitioners. (shrink)

There are very significant conceptual links between theories of social macroevolution and theories of the World System development. It is shown that the growth of the World System complexity and integrity can be traced through a system of phase transitions of macroevolution. The first set of phase transition is connected with the agrarian, industrial, and information-scientific revolutions (that are interpreted as changes of “production principles”). The second set consists of phase transitions within one production principle. These phase transitions are analyzed (...) on the basis of the World System urbanization dynamics, but they can be traced with respect to the other (cultural, economic, technological, demographic, political, etc.) dimensions of the World System development. (shrink)

In this article, I present a sociological approach to the problem of meaningful work that dwells on its broad social and cultural sources, as opposed to the focus on subjective and organizational factors currently prevailing in the field. Specifically, I consider two sociological perspectives, those of community and autonomy, as important conceptual tools for understanding the ambivalent character of modern culture in providing individuals with a sense of meaningfulness of their activities. I also review some of the existing research on (...) meaningful work and interpret it through this conceptual distinction, both to show the latter’s relevance for the field and to identify the gaps it might help fill. As a result, based on the sociological perspectives, I propose a general conceptual model and discuss five directions to further advance the theoretical comprehension of meaningful work, and I suggest some implications of these perspectives for normative business ethics. (shrink)

Tom 1. Logicheskie ischisleni͡a, algebry i funkt͡sionalnye svoĭstva.

Despite the declarations about the possibility of rationalities that are alternative to Western European, despite the reasoning about philosophical multipolarity, the multiplicity of ways of thinking, etc., nowadays, the Western European paradigm of rationality (and concepts that corresponds to it), which is derived from Hellenic thought, continues to claim the status of ideological neutrality and transcend any intercivilizational differences. The Western European rationality in all its diversity is now acting as rationality as such. The indispensability of the reference to the (...) Greek conceptual apparatus in contemporary philosophizing manifests itself most openly in the form of comparativism. Thus, there is the focus on carrying out explicit parallels between, on the one hand, the studied non-European intellectual phenomena and, on the other hand, their supposed European counterparts. An example of the cross-cultural and methodologically sound research of the problems of rationality is an analysis of the Dao through the prism of the Logos. The statement of the uniqueness of the Greek Logos does not imply the prohibition of the existence of its original counterparts in the so-called “non-Western” civilizations with an ancient and distinctive culture. The assumption of the existence of their own analogues of the Logos and rationality in various non-European civilizations presumes the most interesting question about the pluralism of rationalities – the question about the existence of rationalities in the past that could be considered as an alternative to the now prevailing Western European standard of rationality. (shrink)

The relation between Kant’s philosophy and the “philosophy of balance” as it is described in the report Come on! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, delivered to the Club of Rome in 2018, requires some analysis. The authors of the report consider Kant to be a philosopher of European Enlightenment which laid the foundations of the modern world, but also proved to be the source of global problems. The report characterises the philosophy of the Enlightenment as lop-sided (...) rationalism which dismisses everything that does not possess desirable properties. In exchange, the authors offer a philosophy of balance, described in several points as the balance between conflicting values. The overarching problem of the philosophy of balance is the restraining of egoism. For this reason I first examine the relationship between duty and human inclinations in Kant’s ethics. I then demonstrate that the topic of political forecasts and the recommendations which Kant prescribes both in his philosophy of history and in his reflections on politics, right and justice, essentially boils down to three points of the philosophy of balance: the balance between development and justice (Kantian republicanism), between the speed and stability of development (external policy, the Kantian peace project), and between the short-term and long-term perspectives (reform policy). I then touch upon the problem of the implementation of Kantian principles in politics in the light of the reception of Kant in the modern theories of social conflicts, the communication theory of J. Habermas and the justice theory of J. Rawls. The overall conclusion is that Kant’s philosophy is not a philosophy of exclusion, capitalist values and utilitarianism and is not their ideological basis. (shrink)

Context: Linguists and philosophers, as well as psychologists, have not yet offered a coherent explanation of the logic behind the intricate grammar of counterfactuals, the meaning of irreality and….

Andrey Tashchian | : Chez saint Augustin le numerus sert de principe ontologique de la beauté finie en révélant l’ascension métaphysique du sensible vers l’intelligible. De plus, se divisant en sphères objective et subjective, le numerus s’avère être une totalité, « l’idée ». Toutefois, comme une forme de la culture antique, ce concept n’est pas connu comme une contradiction réelle, et ainsi les numeri éternels ne sont pas postulés comme un processus où la subjectivité finie, le moi, deviendrait nécessaire (...) pour la substance infinie. Donc, dans la doctrine de saint Augustin, l’essence de la science de la musique n’a pas la valeur de l’activité humaine consciente de soi. | : In St. Augustine’s doctrine of rhythm numerus manifests the metaphysical ascent from sensuousness to rationality and is the ontological root of finite beauty. Moreover, numerus is differentiated into the objective and subjective spheres, proving to be a totality, the “idea.” Meanwhile, as a formation of antique culture, this concept is not known as a real contradiction, and thereby eternal numeri are not posited as a process in which finite subjectivity, I would be a necessity for the infinite substance. So, in St. Augustine’s doctrine the essence of the science of music has not the value of man’s self-conscious activity. (shrink)

The paper is aimed at providing general outlines of the more than two-century history of the theory of moral sanctions. It rests on a thesis about unity of all disciplines studying morality. The aim of the paper has been achieved trough an analysis of how some basic concepts were borrowed and basic ideas were transformed. The first tradition links moral sanctions with public condemnation. Some of its adherents simply identified public condemnation with moral sanction. This opinion prevailed until the middle (...) of the XXth century. Later it was suggested that a sanction becomes genuinely moral only when a transgressor herself is sensitive to condemnation because she recognizes that she deserves it and feels shame, guilt or remorse. It means that an external side of the sanction has to be complemented by an internal one. The first tradition presupposes a deep and thorough analysis of an external side of the moral sanction, i.e. various forms of sanctioning behavior (avoidance, censure, denunciation, reproach, scolding etc.) The second tradition was initiated by J.S. Mill and H. Sidgwick, it includes among moral sanctions the very negative emotions of self-appraisal. For adherents of this tradition, model and most important moral sanctions are internal: guilt and remorse. Characteristics of internal (autonomous) and external (heteronomous) sanctions were established in the XXth century anthropology. Later this distinction became current in the contemporary ethics. (shrink)