Vladimir Aleksandrovich Smirnov was born on March 2, 1931. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1954. From 1957 till 1961 he was a lecturer in philosophy and logic at the Tomsk University. Since 1961 his scientific activity continued in Moscow at the Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of the USSR. From 1970 and till the last days of his life V. A. Smirnov was lecturer and then Professor at the Chair of Logic at Moscow State (...) University. V. A. Smirnov played an important role at the Institute of Philosophy of Russian Academy of Sciences being the Head of Department of Epistemology, Logic and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and the Head of Section of Logic. Last years he was the leader of the Centre of Logical Investigations of Russsian Academy of Sciences. In 1990-91 he founded a new non-goverment Institute of Logic, Cognitive Sciences and Development of Personality for performing research, teaching, editorial and organization activity in the field of humanities. At the Department of Philosophy of Moscow State University and at the Institute of Philosophy V. A. Smirnov and his close colleagues have founded a Russian logical school which brought up many talented researchers who work at several scientific centres in various countries. (shrink)

Comparative study between Tibetan Bon and Buryatian Bø religion of ancient Shamanic traditions.

This book explores the major differences between the kinds of risk encountered in different sectors of industry - production and services - and identifies the main features of accidents within different industries. Because of these differences, unique risk-mitigation measures will need to be implemented in one industry that cannot be implemented in another, leading to large managerial differences between these broad economic sectors. Based on the analysis of more than 500 disasters, accidents and incidents - around 230 cases from the (...) production sector and around 280 cases from the service sector - the authors compare the risk response actions appropriate within different sectors, and establish when and how it is possible to generalize the experience of dealing with risks in any given industry to a wider field of economic activity. This book is mainly intended for executives, strategists, senior risk managers of enterprise-wide organizations and risk management experts engaged in academic or consulting work. By setting out clearly the sector differences in risk management, the authors aim to improve the practice of general risk assessment with regard to identifying and prioritizing risks, and of risk control with regard to planning appropriate mitigation measures. (shrink)

The conserved ribosomal protein uS3 in eukaryotes has long been known as one of the essential components of the small (40S) ribosomal subunit, which is involved in the structure of the 40S mRNA entry pore, ensuring the functioning of the 40S subunit during translation initiation. Besides, uS3, being outside the ribosome, is engaged in various cellular processes related to DNA repair, NF‐kB signaling pathway and regulation of apoptosis. This review is devoted to recent data opening new horizons in understanding the (...) roles of uS3 in such processes as the assembly and maturation of 40S subunits, ensuring proper structure of 48S pre‐initiation complexes, regulation of initiation and ribosome‐based RNA quality control pathways. Besides, we summarize novel results on the participation of the protein in processes beyond translation and consider biomedical implications of previously known and recently found extra‐ribosomal functions of uS3, primarily, in oncogenesis. (shrink)

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...

Primatological and archaeological evidence along with anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies indicate that lethal between-group violence may have been sufficiently frequent during our ancestral past to have shaped our evolved behavioral repertoire. Two simulations explore the possibility that heroism (risking one's life fighting for the group) evolved as a specialized form of altruism in response to war. We show that war selects strongly for heroism but only weakly for a domain-general altruistic propensity that promotes both heroism and other privately costly, (...) group-benefiting behaviors. A complementary analytical model shows that domain-specific heroism should evolve more readily when groups are small and mortality in defeated groups is high, features that are plausibly characteristic of our collective ancestral past. (shrink)

:Beginning with an outline of memory and recollection in Plato and Aristotle, this paper argues that establishing the role of memory and recollection in their mutual relation in Plotinus requires a careful reconstruction. Whereas memory for Plotinus is not a storage of images or imprints that come either from the sensible or the intelligible but rather is a power capable of producing memories, recollection takes the form of a discursive rational rethinking and reproduction of the soul’s experience of the noetic (...) objects. Recollection, then, is a triple motion of the descent, stay, and return of the soul to the intelligible. (shrink)

The construction of space-time in a physical system without time and dynamics is considered. It is shown that the anthropic principle and causality principle inevitably arise in models without time and dynamics. It is shown that for any physical model based on a system without time and dynamics, the anthropic principle is a scientific principle and, in principle, can be falsified. It is shown that, in principle, there is the possibility of experimental verification of what is true - realism or (...) idealism. (shrink)

The physical foundations of mathematics in the theory of emergent space-time-matter were considered. It is shown that mathematics, including logic, is a consequence of equation which describes the fundamental field. If the most fundamental level were described not by mathematics, but something else, then instead of mathematics there would be consequences of this something else.

Introduction. The human world is presented as an integrity — an organic unity of many inter- connected and interdependent centers (parts, sides, elements): natural and cultural, natural and artificial, animate and inanimate. When any center dominates over others (for example, technical and technological) and / or attempts to realize its claim to the status of a whole, the agreed and optimal ra- tio in the coexistence and synergistic development of all centers, and, consequently, of the whole, is violated. There arises (...) an ecosystem problem. The purpose of the study is to present and analyze the techno-technologized world in the context of current philosophical and scientific methodologi- cal principles: polycentricity, complexity, network- centricity, and ecosystem; to designate their theoretical and practical significance, interdepend- ence; to substantiate the principle of ecosystems as more general and fundamental and to present its effectiveness in preserving the integrity of man, his world and the full value of human being-in-the- world. Methods. The author uses methods of dialectics, synergetics and systemic approach in the philo- sophical understanding of the specifics of the modern techno-technological world and a person’s existence in it. The author also uses the methods of extrapolation and interpretation, the ideas of B. Latour’s actor-network theory, and ecosystem approach. Scientific novelty of the research. The author projects the key attitudes and concepts of the actual conceptual and paradigm principles on the techno-technological world, and formulates the main advantages and disadvantages. The author substantially justifies that the principle of ecosys- tem is the most effective in solving the problem of preserving and reproducing the integrity of the human world, the person himself and his being. Results. The author carries out theoretical and methodological analysis of the techno-technolo- gized world and a person’s existence in it. It has been determined that when solving the problem of preserving and reproducing the integrity of a person and his world, the principle of ecosystems is the most effective and preferable. The ecosystem principle implies the synergistic unity of all centers of human existence, their interdependence and interconnection, ensures the priority of the whole for the benefit of each center, expressed in mutual strengthening and expansion of their potential. Conclusions. The author comes to the conclusion that the application of relevant paradigm principles in studying and analyzing the techno-technological world will make it possible to obtain a more mul- tidimensional and accurate interpretation of the ways and means of achieving a full-fledged human being, with a focus on preserving his identity, origi- nality, subjectivity and integrity. (shrink)

This article examines the role of primary ethnographic materials – of field notes, letters and photographs – and even of the shelves and bookcases – in building accounts of the human condition. We trace the lives of incomplete and not-yet-found manuscripts, which have been treated as representative of whole archives, as well as closely held convictions and ideas in the history of anthropology. In so doing, we employ the notion of a ‘proxy’, or a set of signs and images which (...) point the audience in particular directions, without determining their overall destination. Our research is based on a few episodes from the histories of paper and digital copies of manuscripts and photographs of the anthropological couple Sergei and Elizabeth Shirokogoroff, who conducted ethnographic, linguistic and some archaeological research, first on the borderlands between China and Russia, and then later within China. We aim to show the complexity and social and intellectual vibrancy of their ethnographic field archives, which have been scattered across countries, institutions and personal collections. We conclude by suggesting that engaging anthropologically with field archives enables us to approach existing perspectives on archives in a new way, viewing them not as containers of catalogued information, but as entanglements reflecting social relations in local communities, the trajectories of ethnographers, and the aspirations of scholars asking questions today. (shrink)

In their useful logic for a computer network Shramko and Wansing generalize initial values of Belnap’s 4-valued logic to the set 16 to be the power-set of Belnap’s 4. This generalization results in a very specific algebraic structure — the trilattice SIXTEEN 3 with three orderings: information, truth and falsity. In this paper, a slightly different way of generalization is presented. As a base for further generalization a set 3 is chosen, where initial values are a — incoming data is (...) asserted, d — incoming data is denied, and u — incoming data is neither asserted nor denied, that corresponds to the answer “don’t know”. In so doing, the power-set of 3, that is the set 8 is considered. It turns out that there are not three but four orderings naturally defined on the set 8 that form the tetralattice EIGHT 4 . Besides three ordering relations mentioned above it is an extra uncertainty ordering. Quite predictably, the logics generated by a –order (truth order) and d –order (falsity order) coincide with first-degree entailment. Finally logic with two kinds of operations ( a –connectives and d –connectives) and consequence relation defined via a –ordering is considered. An adequate axiomatization for this logic is proposed. (shrink)

The article critically addresses Boris Groys’ interpretation of photographs by Alexandre Kojève. In 2012, Groys organized the exhibition After History: Alexandre Kojève as a Photographer, which intended to demonstrate the “posthistorical” dimension in Kojève’s artistic output. The article questions the adequacy of that perspective, given the somewhat tendentious curatorial presentation of the photos as showing an empty, dehumanized world. Considering the aesthetic and ontological aspects of the analysis of visual images that were central to Kojève’s brief account of his 1920 (...) visit to the Borghese Gallery in Rome and to his 1936 article on Kandinsky, Groys’ reading of Kojève’s photographic stance is subject to revision. The notion of aura, as proposed by Walter Benjamin, is operative in a comparative treatment of the photos by Kojève and Eugène Atget. (shrink)

The outburst of antiracist protests in the USA in 2020 demonstrates how deeply this society’s present-day problems are rooted in its past. From this perspective, a study of the cultural memory of the time of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the key moment in the contemporary American nation formation, is especially relevant and important. The cultural frontier between the North and the South that had appeared as an outcome of differences in US history has not disappeared up (...) to now. By example of the complexity and inconsistency of the historical memory of the Civil War, slavery, and its abolition in the USA manifested in their visual representations, the article documents how through collective memory, history does not just invade modernity but is present in it, particularly in the form of memorials, monuments, museum expositions, and therefore determines the nation’s modernity to a large degree. (shrink)

The sources of religious tolerance but also of religious nationalism in post-soviet Russia can be found basically in the group identification of nationality and religion. In crisis situations, the historical religion of the Russian society - Orthodoxy - becomes the criterion for identifying the national identity. However, despite the fact that the majority of Russians in our times consider themselves Orthodox, many of them are not believers. The observable effect of the “external belief” results in the fact that the religion (...) tends to become a matter of personal choice and an individual value. It assumes a nationalistic function and to become an ideology. As a result, the political elite considers religion as a means of achieving different non- religious purposes. The Russian Orthodox Church, the official church, is compelled to take this fact into consider- ation and even support it. This is why religious intolerance and religious nationalism in modern Russia are often directed towards religion. (shrink)

The paper deals with the enactivist approach to the problem of consciousness. The problem of consciousness is the problem of naturalistic explanation of phenomenal aspects of our experience. According to classical cognitive science, we can explain all mental states as functional, representational states. Many philosophers disagree with this view. They demonstrate that phenomenal qualities of conscious states cannot be understood in terms of mental representations. Contemporary debates about the nature of phenomenal qualities are the debates between representationalists and anti-representationalists. The (...) arguments proposed by anti-representationalists demonstrate the insufficiency of classical representational approach. But it doesn't mean that we should accept the existence of qualia - special nonrepresentational phenomenal properties. It is possible to defend representationalism by reconsidering the nature of mental representations. This article examines the transformation of the concept of mental representation in cognitive science over the last few decades. It demonstrates that the notion of representation in action discussed in enactivist theories can help us to provide the foundation for naturalistic understanding of conscious experience. (shrink)

Martin Mulsow's Knowledge Lost is a magnificent contribution to early modern intellectual history and the history of knowledge. In the hope of stimulating further discussion, this article asks several questions, most of them circling around one meta question: have we perhaps overly caricatured early modern ‘orthodoxy’, and underestimated the plurality of its intellectual output?.

This paper is a critical interpretation of the role of laughter in the work of Agnes Heller. Following the distinction between innate affect and culturally conditioned emotion, Heller argues that laughter is an affect that comes as the expressive reaction to the hiatus between the social and the natural. As such, laughter is ubiquitous and yet remains ultimately undefinable, because it signifies the unbridgeable gap between the two worlds that we inhabit at the same time. Laughter thus sonorously presents our (...) human condition as expressible yet not graspable according to a single theory of laughter, or any combination thereof. Paraphrasing Immanuel Kant, laughter is ultimately the instinct of reason that liberates us from the illusion that a resolution between the two conflicting constituents of our existence is ultimately possible. (shrink)

European thought has had contradictory visions of humanity’s place in the cosmos. Some believed that humanity might survive indefinitely. Yet most of the modern thinkers assumed that humanity, in general, was not different from other species and would eventually disappear. In Russia, a different view prevailed. It was assumed that humanity belonged to a sort of “chosen species” and would have a different destiny from the other species. This idea of “humanity as a chosen species” was supported with the idea (...) of Russia as a “chosen nation” that would lead humanity to mastery over nature and ensure its immortality. The end of the conception of the omega of world history in post-Soviet Russia had led to the discarding of humanity’s mastery over nature and its special position in the cosmos. From then on, it was stressed that humanity was an insignificant and perishable speck, and the future would most likely lead to humanity’s disappearance. (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...