This edited collection covers Friedrich Waismann's most influential contributions to twentieth-century philosophy of language: his concepts of open texture and language strata, his early criticism of verificationism and the analytic-synthetic distinction, as well as their significance for experimental and legal philosophy. -/- In addition, Waismann's original papers in ethics, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of mathematics are here evaluated. They introduce Waismann's theory of action along with his groundbreaking work on fiction, proper names and Kafka's Trial. -/- Waismann is known (...) as the voice of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Vienna Circle. At the same time we find in his works a determined critic of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy, who anticipated much later developments in the analytic tradition and devised his very own vision for its future. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper delves into writings of Brazilian author Clarice Lispector and their oracular, “spellular,” and emanationist modalities. The analysis itself follows the same axiomatic-enigmatic style of the writer under consideration. The treatment of the writer as an ancient sibyl figure reveals a very specific subterranean monism, which is a sui generis contribution to this central philosophical problem. The focus of the paper is on matters of style and their aesthetic and cosmological consequences.

This article defines a public good, arguing that higher education should be considered a public good. This requires moving away from an orthodox economistic understanding of public goods. It also requires understanding the relationship between higher education as both a private good and a public good to the extent that it promotes individual flourishing necessary to the public good.

In spite of a commendable proliferation of Muslim-Christian initiatives in recent years, progress has been slow. Islam and Christianity are essentially two rival belief systems each claiming doctrinal and theological superiority. Any serious dialogue that goes deeper into these issues and attempts to discover new hermeneutical bridges inevitably reaches its explanatory limit. In this article, I argue that there may perhaps be new ways to overcome this historic standstill. Borrowing from insights gained from a sociological approach to the study of (...) religion, it becomes evident that it is necessary to distinguish between religion as a set of normative beliefs and the concrete implementation of those beliefs through religious practices. The application of theory into authentic forms of embodied religiosity is the responsibility of believers themselves. They concretize the normative prescriptions through a contextualized, local interpretation that is both pragmatic and meaningful in order to make sense of their everyday lives. To understand religion intellectually, it is necessary to consider its fundamental anthropological dimension. Hence, the study of religion must ultimately include the study of human beings in their natural context and from their point of view. Moreover, I provide evidence that true insight is contingent upon actual participation in the religious practices themselves. Building on this argument, this article suggests that Muslim-Christian relations would significantly benefit from including shared participation in sacred religious performances as part of the strategy for a successful encounter. (shrink)

Godišnjice su dobar povod da se vidi dokle se stiglo i, što je još važnije, da se preispita koje su posljedice toga. U ovom se povodu može zaključiti da Društvo koje obilježava svojupedesetu obljetnicu s pravom slavi.Ulazeći u filozofiju u vrijeme opterećeno dnevno-političkim uputstvima, zamijetio sam da se Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo izdvaja po tome što je i onda kad je bilo pritisnuto režimskim zahtjevima uspijevalo ispuniti osnovnu dužnost – poštovati individualni svjetonazor i poticati njegovo razvijanje u svakoga, potvrđujući time svoju (...) etičku utemeljenost. Držeći ovu liniju prava pojedinca da proširuje svoj svjetonazor interiozirajući ponuđene filozofske sustave, ali na način koji ne uvjetuje mišljenje, Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo ispunjava ulogu etičkog korektora, što nam daje za pravo govoriti o tome da je HFD uzor za svako filozofsko društvo i za način na koje bi ono trebalo širiti svoj utjecaj i izvan užeg područja u kojem djeluje.Anniversary is an occasion good enough to take a look at where we have arrived, and, evenmore importantly, to analyze the resulting consequences.Entering the philosophy at the times burdened by daily-political rules, I have noticed that the Croatian Philosophical Society is detached from the regime, and that it succeeded in its basic mission – respecting individual worldviews and stimulating the wide development thereof, so confirming its ethical foundations. Keeping this line of individual’s right to his/her worldview, by interiorizing given philosophical systems, but without being conditioned by them, the Croatian Philosophical Society plays the role of an ethical guide, which makes it a model to be followed by every philosophical association, as well as the model for how to spread one’s influence outside the scope of one’s natural environment. (shrink)

Motivated by the unconventional views on film and art in general, and often unrestrained by the commercial imperatives, generative artists engage the poetic and expressive potentials of film playfully and efficiently, with explicit or implicit critique of cinema in a broader cultural context. This article looks at the creative incentives, insights and implications of generative cinema. In six interrelated categories, it presents the art projects of generative cinema, which in various ways point to the algorithmic models for parametric, analytical and/or (...) synthetic generation of the cinematic structure, narrative, composition, editing, presentation and interaction. The article states that the algorithmic essence of generative cinema significantly expands the realm of creative methodologies for the artists working with film, but also provides a platform for critical assessment of the algorithmic strategies and overall creativity in contemporary film industry. Exploring the algorithms on a multitude of levels, generative cinema is on its way of becoming the supreme art of the moving image in the early twenty-first century. Its poetic divergence, technical fluency and conceptual cogency successfully demonstrate that the authorship evolves towards ever more abstract reflection and cognition that equally treats the existing creative achievements as inspirations, knowledge sources and tools. (shrink)

В статті показано, що федералізм не варто розглядати як невід’ємний принцип української політичної традиції. Навпаки, його поширення в суспільно-політичній думці було зумовлене рівнем та своєрідністю національної свідомості української інтелігенції, яка, розуміючи неспроможність українців відродити власну державу, намагалася розробити найбільш відповідні суспільно-політичним обставинам політичні програми та принципи. Поряд з вказаним виявлено, що незважаючи на наднаціональний характер лібералізму, принцип федералізму не можна вважати його невід’ємним елементом, оскільки він не передбачає градації цінностей внутрішньої і зовнішньої політики, у підсумку чого, свобода особистості водночас віщує (...) свободу спільноти, яка постає результатом солідаризації, історично змінних інтересів людей. (shrink)

In the book Remarks on Colors, Wittgenstein has claimed that transparent white objects do not and cannot exist, and that they cannot even be imagined. He had also claimed that luminous gray does not exist and cannot even be conceived. However, his arguments which aim to identify contradictory features of hypothetical transparent white media rely on incorrect assumptions about their properties and effects. Furthermore, some real objects and atmospheric phenomena can have features of transparent white media. As concrete examples of (...) Wittgenstein's 'impossible' colors, this paper contains two simple computer-generated graphical displays, one depicting a scene that includes a transparent white sheet, and another which conveys the impression of luminous gray. (shrink)

Every linear perspective image has a center of the perspective construction. Only when observed from that location does a 2D image provide the same stimulus as the original 3D scene. Geometric analyses indicate that observing the image from other vantage points should affect the perceived spatial structure of the scene conveyed by the image, involving transformations such as shear, compression, and dilation. Based on previous research, this paper presents a detailed account of these transformations. The analyses are presented in a (...) uniform manner, illustrated with special 3D diagrams, and embedded in a wider framework of related perspective paradigms. Such analyses provide the potential theoretical basis for empirical work on the effects of changes of observer vantage points on the perception of spatial structure in perspective images. (shrink)

It has recently been remarked that the argument for physicalism from the causal closure of the physical is incomplete. It is only effective against mental causation manifested in the action of putative mental forces that lead to acceleration of particles in the nervous system. Based on consideration of anomalous, physically unaccounted-for correlations of neural events, I argue that irreducible mental causation whose nature is at least prima facie probabilistic is conceivable. The manifestation of such causation should be accompanied by a (...) local violation of the Second Law of thermodynamics. I claim that mental causation can be viewed as the disposition of mental states to alter the state probability distribution within the nervous system, with no violation of the conservation laws. If confirmed by neurophysical research, it would indicate a kind of causal homogeneity of the world. Causation would manifest probabilistically in both quantum mechanical and psychophysical systems, and the dynamics of both would be determined by the temporal evolution of the corresponding system state function. Finally, I contend that a probabilistic account of mental causation can consistently explain the character of selectional states that ensure the uniformity of causal patterns, as well as the fact that different physical realizers of a mental property cause the same physical effects in different contexts. (shrink)

The argument from causal closure of the physical is usually considered the most powerful argument in favor of the ontological doctrine of physicalism. Many authors, most notably Papineau, assume that CCP implies that physicalism is supported by physics. I demonstrate, however, that physical science has no bias in the ontological debate between proponents of physicalism and dualism. I show that the arguments offered for CCP are effective only against the accounts of mental causation based on the action of the mental (...) forces of a Newtonian nature, i.e. those which manifest themselves by causing accelerations. However, it is conceivable and possible that mental causation is manifested through the redistribution of energy, momentum and other conserved quantities in the system, brought about by altering the state probability distribution within the living system and leading to anomalous correlations of neural processes. After arguing that a probabilistic, interactionist model of mental causation is conceivable, which renders the argument from causal closure of the physical ineffective, I point to some basic features that such a model must have in order to be intelligible. At the same time, I indicate the way that conclusive testing of CCP can be done within the theoretical framework of physics. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 207 Seiten: 89-126.

In The Oyster, multiple disciplines (philosophy, literature, visual art, biology, architecture) converge within the experiences of thinking, eating, and diagramming. The center stage is given to a humble mollusk, which becomes an object, a subject, a sentient consciousness, and an alien will, progressively and then even simultaneously.

Tema rada su vestacenja drustvenih naucnika u procesima vodjenim pred Haskim tribunalom, ciji se doprinos sagledava u svetlu dugog razvoja ove prakse. Sire diskusije o sudskoj upotrebi naucnog znanja ukazuju na niz problema u regulisanju vestacenja. Analiziraju se mehanizmi kojima se u razlicitim pravnim kontekstima obezbedjuje naucna pouzdanost i procesna relevantnost vestacenja, kao i primenljivost tih mehanizama na forenzicke doprinose razlicitih drustvenih nauka. Regulisanje vestacenja u Haskom tribunalu se posmatra kao osobeno resenje cije se posledice prate kroz ucesce vestaka u (...) postupcima i kroz javnu percepciju angazmana drustvenih naucnika u tom svojstvu. Cilj ovakvog pristupa je nijansiranje dominantnih predstava o ulozi drustvenih naucnika u Haskom tribunalu i stvaranje preduslova za razumevanje specificnog karaktera njihove vestacke uloge. (shrink)

The present article is a critical engagement with Aleksei Yurchak’s Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. It contends that, as rich as Yurchak’s insights on the language culture of Brezhnev’s Stagnation have proven to be, his account ends up seriously misrepresenting the Stalinist episode in the life of Soviet ideology. This misrepresentation is due, in large part, to the problematic use of post-structuralist models, and particularly of Claude Lefort’s theorization of ideology in the modern (...) era. Through a re-examination of Lefort’s “Outline of the Genesis of Ideology in Modern Societies,” the present article advances an alternative understanding of the discursive “shift” in Soviet ideology. Yurchak has argued that, before being set afloat in the 1950s, Soviet official discourse was held together through the figure of the “external master,” Stalin himself. The master is able to mask what Yurchak terms the “Lefort paradox” of Soviet ideology and which he glosses as the divergence between ideological enunciation and ideological “rule.” Yet Yurchak misreads Lefort’s theory, and specifically the latter’s references to “master” and “rule.” When these terms are restored to their proper theoretical significance, it becomes possible to formulate in a new way the contradictory duality at the heart of Soviet ideology. The article contends, contra Yurchak, that this is not the duality of enunciation and actual exercise of power; but rather the split internal to ideological discourse, between the “rule of reality” and the “reality of the rule.” The “shift” of Soviet ideological discourse begins as a slippage between these two ideological representations, and not as the removal of some anchor external to representation. (shrink)

While most research in public relations and strategic communication concentrates on textual elements, this contribution shifts the focus to the growing importance of visual elements. The theoretical background is based on visual theory and the concept of strategic mediatization. By using a large-scale quantitative survey among 3,387 European communication professionals, this study is the first empirical evidence of communication professionals’ perspectives concerning visual communication. Therefore, the paper empirically demonstrates a visual turn in strategic communication. Although practitioners have been using visual (...) elements since the very beginnings of their trade, only a minority guide these activities through a sound management process. This calls for a deeper consideration of visual communication management in practice and visual public relations research in academia. (shrink)

Summary In Part 1 Small describes her discovery that an array of depicted cubes produces another and completely different illusion from that of a single cube. When a group of such cubes are viewed at an angle, they turn into rectangular boxes, and as the angle gets more severe, they become narrow ribbons. The illusion works only in one direction. In Part 2, Todorović manipulates the image to demonstrate various transformations and offers an explanation of how and why they work (...) the way they do. (shrink)

We introduce a notion of simplicity for types in discretely ordered first order structures. We prove that all the structure on the locus of a simple type is induced exclusively by the ordering relation. As an application we determine all possible expansions of satisfying CB = 1.

The longing for intimacy and closeness to God has perennially been one of mankind’s most pronounced characteristics. Those worshipers within the Islamic tradition that particularly focus on the interior aspects of the faith and endeavor to reach the transcendent, are commonly referred to as Sufis. Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, has devised copious theological materials and practical disciplines to attain its goal. It can be furthermore suggested that one of the ideas that appears to be most predominant in Sufi theology is (...) characterized by the notion of love. This article examines how Sufism understands the concept of love, its close relationship to the attainment of knowledge and if it indeed succeeds in enabling humanity to achieve nearness with God. (shrink)

In this article, we trace the analogies, parallels and affinities between bio-inspired generative art and bio art practices with strong generative flavour. We look at the creative and expressive features in these two fields, compare their shared interests in the design and development of life, and discuss the strategies they apply to communicate and engage the audience. With respect to the existing literature, which relates bio and generative art primarily within a historical context, we compare these two fields focusing on (...) generativity as their common poetic driver. We indicate their shared impetus for rendering distinctive visions of nature in order to identify, contemplate or provoke dramatic changes in the era when biological processes become programmable and living matter can be instrumentalized for various forms of labour. We also examine the epistemological and practical effectiveness of the two fields within a broader socio-technical perspective, which leads us to their constructive critique. (shrink)

Biografija. Ili: modusi postojanija Bruna Latura -- Lociranje Laturovog diskursa -- Nakon modernosti, postmodernosti, postpostmodernosti-nismo nikada ni bili moderni? -- Reakcije: Laturov diskurs kao provokacija.