The purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of soft skills in the context of higher education and in the context of the foreign language learning classroom. The article aims to define the notion of soft skills and to offer possible ways of grouping soft skills. It also provides ways of including soft skills instruction in the context of higher education. In addition, the article aims to propose models of implementing soft skills in foreign language learning and teaching (...) situations and to suggest teaching procedures and activities which will facilitate the introduction of soft skills in the EFL classroom at South East European University. The article also aims to discuss the need of including soft skills in undergraduate studies curricula and to provide arguments in favour of including soft skills. The article will also present participants’ views and perceptions, collected via survey, of the importance and necessity of soft skills for their future careers and workplaces. The conclusion will offer some practical suggestions regarding soft skill inclusion in the EFL classroom. (shrink)

Emotional intelligence, a set of skills which are considered as necessary in the context of interaction with other people, was defined by a number of authors, including Goleman, Gardner and Mayer & Salovey. A number of studies investigated the impact of emotional intelligence on learning, teaching and education. The focus of this article is to explore the definition of emotional intelligence and the impact that emotional intelligence and affective factors have in the context of foreign language learning and teaching. The (...) article also focuses on research conducted with a group of 23 students and their self assessment of emotional intelligence as well as their perceptions of the ways emotional intelligence has an impact on foreign language learning. The article attempts to provide recommendations of implementing activities and teaching practices in the context of foreign language learning and teaching aiming to foster emotional intelligence development. (shrink)

This article discusses the implementation of the reader-response theory and approach in the context of a literature course taught to students enrolled at the Department of English Language and Literature, who are preparing to be future teachers of English language. This article aims to examine the benefits and values of the reader-response theory applied in the described context, as well as potential drawbacks. The basic postulates of the reader-response theory and reader-response approach in class emphasize the crucial role of the (...) reader on the literary and aesthetic experience when reading a literary text. The reader’s way of understanding and perceptions of a literary text, as well as the experience of the reader, influence the interaction between the reader and a text. This interaction contributes to the development of interpretation of the text and reconstruction of the ideas expressed in the text. The article examines the possible ways of implementing the reader-response theory in a literature class, including written assignments, personal responses to a literary text and in-class discussions. The research focuses on qualitative data collection and on analyzing students’ responses to these activities. Furthermore, the research aims to provide a clearer picture of students’ attitudes, observations and personal reactions when interacting with a literary text. One of the aims of the article is to provide recommendations and suggestions regarding reader-response theory application in teaching literature courses at tertiary level, in addition to designing course curricula and selecting appropriate in-class activities. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of Ibn Sīnā's (Avicenna) Commentary on Chapters 6-10 of Aristotle's Metaphysics Λ. It is significant as it is one of only a small number of surviving commentaries by Ibn Sīnā and offers crucial insights into not only his attitudes towards his predecessors, but also his own philosophical positions — especially with regard to the human intellect's connections to God and the cosmos — and his attempt to develop a distinctive mode of commentary.

This is the first English translation of Ibn Sīnā's (Avicenna) Commentary on Chapters 6-10 of Aristotle's Metaphysics Λ. It is significant as it is one of only a small number of surviving commentaries by Ibn Sīnā and offers crucial insights into not only his attitudes towards his predecessors, but also his own philosophical positions — especially with regard to the human intellect's connections to God and the cosmos — and his attempt to develop a distinctive mode of commentary.

Post-truth politics comes forward as a challenge to the credibility of science through its association with skepticism and denialism about scientific approaches and findings. While debates over the nature of facts and the social character of scientific knowledge have mainly taken place in an academic setting, the current concerns about science skepticism have connected them to wider social issues. This chapter will examine this question with the focus on biomedical and physiological sciences and cast doubt on the claim that particular (...) strands of research from the ‘science wars’ period have enabled post-truth politics. Exploring the backdrop of controversies over the objectivity of science and relativism, I will show that the causes of the erosion of trust in science are better traced to socio-economic conditions that feed into legitimate distrust in science alongside other institutions. I will further argue that, quite paradoxically for the critics of relativism, construing science as social and sketching out ways of producing knowledge relevant to those who have good reasons for skepticism and distrust can help counter post-truth politics. (shrink)

This paper will investigate justice requirements that a pluralist stance on concepts of mental disorder should meet for use on a global scale. This is important given that different concepts of mental disorder are connected to particular interventions which may be more or less successful in specific contexts. While taking a broadly normative view on mental disorders, I will describe relevant concepts in a more fine grained manner, referring to their connections to particular approaches to biology, the self, or community. (...) Drawing on research on epistemic injustice, I highlight the requirement that the set of multiple concepts be sufficiently flexible to enable the participation of those possessing relevant local knowledge. Using insights from health justice, I point out that the set of concepts should be conducive to distributive and procedural justice with regard to mental health and should support interventions on social determinants of health. These requirements apply to two dimensions of pluralism: regarding what concepts to include and how to relate them to one another. I conclude by explaining how an ontology of partial overlaps connected to a concept of health as metaphysically social can help address the challenges arising particularly regarding the latter dimension. (shrink)

Se analiza los que se ha considerado un "descentramiento" del sujeto a partir de la crítica a la racionalidad tal como la concibió la modernidad. Se considera especialmente el impacto del giro lingüístico, sus aportes y también sus consecuencias negativas. Se realiza un análisis crítico de las posiciones contextualistas, sus consecuencias escépticas y las derivaciones en el orden de la acción. Se plantea finalmente el tema del sujeto y sus posibilidades, destacando especialmente su capacidad para configurar nuevos sentidos y crear (...) nuevos lenguajes, pero también en su capacidad de discernir y de posicionarse en el juicio. The work analizes what has been considered a "decentration" of the subject, starting from the critique of rationality such as it was conceived by modernity. The impact of the linguistic turn is especially taken into consideration, as well as its contributions and its negative influences. A critical analysis of contextualist positions, its sceptical consequences and derivations as regards action is dealt with. Finally, the theme of the subject and its possibilities is raised, pointing out especially its capacity to bring about new senses and to create new languages, but also its capacity to discern and take positions in judgement. (shrink)

This study tackles hashtags as framing devices which shape public arguments and controversies in computer-mediated communication environments. It focuses on the use of the _genocide_ hashtag on Twitter in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war. It proposes and showcases a methodology to surface how the semantic and discourse properties of the term genocide affect its framing properties as a hashtag which bears argumentative functions, directly or indirectly calling for action.

The current discussion within the framework of applied epistemology and interdisciplinary field opens up the possibilities for a linguistic approach. The paper presents the instance of linguistic analysis of technical scientific discourse. The empirical data includes the texts from mining and mineral processing sphere. The analysis focuses on the rhetorical devices, the manifestation of subjective, authorial identity and the interaction between the author/subject and the prospective addressee. The credibility of the obtained results is established through the comparison of English and (...) Russian linguistic and cultural traditions. The revealed rhetorical patterns, namely the authorial self-identification, the communicative distance and building a dialogue with the audience, contribute to the understanding of cognitive characteristics of researchers and their culturally determined specificity. English researchers in the field of technoscience are more likely to find a balance between the objective presentation of data and the authorial reference. The rhetorical devices used by English technoscientists aim to enhance communicative efficiency and outline the boundaries of the researcher’s responsibility. Russian technoscience demonstrates an impersonal manner and the lack of personal involvement in the scientific narration. (shrink)

This paper presents an interpretation of the paradoxical decision of Abraham done by Søren A. Kierkegaard in his work Fear and Trembling as an ethics of silence. The main idea is to understand ethics not as moral standards or specific duties, but as the responsibility of becoming a single individual in time; singularity as the intimate and personal relationship with the calling of love. In such a way, that silence is the experience of the encounter with the paradox that being (...) human means to be singular in conditions that claim an universal and general transparent manifestation dependent of the dominant rational discourse.Then, silence becomes the fundamental ethical claim to become a human person, as spirit in time, where it becomes a time of trial and examination, a temporality, where the trial is the fidelity to love’s calling, the listening of the possibilities that are presented by the anxiety of the decision. These possibilities are not immanent to the world or to history, they call for a personal choice, always containing a space of revelation; therefore of listening to the interiority of the personal choice that for Kierkegaard is the passion of faith, communicated and lived in silence. Concluding that an ethics of silence by the image of Abraham implies to re-think the role of philosophy in relationship to faith, hope and love in time, as a silent thought. (shrink)

My paper aims to highlight the presence of a social conception of art in Gadamer’s thought by analysing his reading of Hegel’s aesthetics. In an initial section I reconstruct the core of Gadamer’s reading of Hegel’s aesthetics as a paradigm to reassess art against the limits of aestheticism. I subsequently focus on the analysis Gadamer provides of the fundamental topic of the “past-character of art”, by stressing how this is reassessed as a “presence of the past”. On this basis, I (...) show how Gadamer’s reading of Hegel helps him focus on the role of contemporary art forms. If in modernity art lost its self-evident character, this does not prevent it from establishing a sense of community. Contemporary art is a search for a communal and social element. Gadamer’s characterization of contemporary art as a work-in-progress and intrinsically linked to the audience’s participation lays the basis for rethinking Gadamer’s aesthetics in a performative direction. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to contribute to the literature on Roger Bacon's epistemology by focusing on the issue of perception of quantity. The reading I aim to substantiate is that Bacon's account is best understood in terms of indirect realism. I call it indirect realism because although we have access to quantities as they exist in nature, the account is mediated by the use of a quasi-syllogism. The quasi-syllogism is constructed based on three inputs, the species of the (...) eye, colour, and light. To defend this reading I follow five steps. First, I analyse the importance of quantity in perception, and then, in steps two and three, I look at Bacon's theory of perception from its two sides, extramission and intromission. In the fourth step I look at the quasi-syllogisms that mediate cognition of quantities, and in the fifth and final step, I draw all the threads together and make the case for Bacon's indirect realism of quantity perception. (shrink)

The relationship between smell and politics could appear obscure; and yet, when it comes to smell, questions about freedom and constriction, social and ontological mingling or distinctions, clearly arise. In this paper, I will especially focus on the domain of food as a clear example for describing some of the political ambivalences characterizing the sense of smell. The aim is to pave the way for a more detailed ‘sociopolitical aesthetics of smell’ to come. I will stress epistemological and social features (...) of odors in order to highlight their ambivalence in knowledge and community life. Perceivers and odors will emerge as mingled bodies, highlighting an ongoing process of material as well as emotional affection. Moreover, I will present some relevant examples of smell as social status symbols in relation to the aesthetic values linked to class hierarchy. Consumerism and scented goods will be lastly discussed in order to shade light on contemporary perceptual phenomena and their role in the socioeconomic dimension. (shrink)

Introduction. The technical art of cinematography is traditionally regarded as a synthetic unity of scientific and technological progress and creativity. The possibility of unlimited copying of movie plots makes it possible to extend the authority of cinema to broad areas of public attention and forms a mass man. At the same time, the fact that cinema is, first of all, an experiment with time, organized by technical means, remains behind the scenes. The purpose of the study. If the core issues (...) of humanity are centered on the problem of life and death, on the problem of mastering and overcoming time, then cinema clearly shows that humanity has a ready-made embodied model of its desire. Methods. The authors use a phenomenological method that allows one to see the temporal fabric behind the “opaque body” of cinema. The eidetic reduction to the foundations of the constructed film plot temporal reality is complemented by the structuralist method of analyzing technical devices and technological methods of the film industry. Scientific novelty of the research. The ontology of the technical art of cinema goes beyond rationality and pragmatics. By launching a special kind of experiment with time, cinema technologies allow the viewer to be present in the bifurcation moments of temporal metamorphoses that connect different temporal modes. The temporal fabric is subject to the plot logic. Results. In cinema, time is constructed by technical means. The nature of this construction allows us to see the layered structure of time, the intersections of time flows, influxes, reverse time orders and stops in time. The cinema technique clearly shows that time barriers are conditional. Conclusions. Cinema dissolves any empirical density, creating gaps in it and transitions to other worlds. The connection between the worlds is carried out by constructed time. Time is taken out of objects and, obeying the course of the narrative, expands the reality of the world. (shrink)

Introduction. The universality of modern technol- ogy testifies to a certain mode of its existence. It manifests itself in the fact that there is practically not a single segment of the modern world, not a single sphere of culture where technology has not spread its influence - direct or indirect / anony- mous. On the basis of the study, the authors come to the conclusion that technology is both a tradition and a logic built into the tradition, and the realiza- (...) tion of a special existential orientation, an embodi- ment of a special kind. The purpose of the study is to reveal whether its essence is connected only with the pragmatic func- tion of technology, or whether there is a special symbolic beginning in technology, which takes technology beyond the scope of rational use. Methods. The authors apply the structuralist method that makes it possible to reveal structures behind the everyday understanding of technology that can generate semantic layers. The structuralist method is complemented by the phenomenological method, since the identified structures constitute the symbolic foundations of technical reality. The phenomenological method makes it possible to reveal the “hidden care” of a person, the target reason for the existence of technology. Scientific novelty of the research. The article reveals the deep meaning of the target cause of the technique. The technical is aimed at overcom- ing natural barriers, creating artificial natures, with its own special logic of existence. The material properties of things allow the permeability and conditionality of all qualitative obstacles. Quantita- tive homogeneity, the permeability of all qualities makes the boundaries between the types of living things conditional. There is no line of demarca- tion not only within life (the theory of evolution is based on this), but also between the living and the non-living. It is possible that there is no boundary between the temporal and the immortal. Results. The desire of mankind to overcome time is embodied in the being of technology. Mankind strives to conquer nature, to overcome all the bar- riers that the natural world continues to put up, in order to bypass natural laws to enter the realm of absolute freedom, which connects with immortal- ity. The created technical things themselves have certain laws for implementing a technical idea and limit technical creativity, but the meaning of technical creation is to overcome any restrictions. Man is a technician, because he is the self-willed transformer of the world. There is a revolutionary charge in technology that changes the world to hu- man request. The technique embodies the struggle of a desperate being with the rejection of his fate, his mortal fate. Conclusions. Despite the fact that science positions itself as rational, sober knowledge, nevertheless, the old dream of overcoming the barrier of death has not gone away. At the present stage, technol- ogy is trying to realize this dream through imple- menting safety, comfort, quality medical care, and an increase in life expectancy. Everything technical is centered on the problem of “life and death”. (shrink)

This paper makes an assessment of a number of texts (classics) dealing with the debate on intellectual history, as well as the discussion about the being and must be of intellectuals. The idea is to demonstrate the relevance of this debate, as well as of its endless discussion, its trajectory in other disciplines and the need for more dialogue between those who practice them.

Introduction. The 2020 viral pandemic put humanity in a forced isolation environment. This crisis situation provoked the total inclusion of technology in the modern dialogue at different levels of connections and relationships. This phenomenon does not only demonstrate the enormous importance of technology in the modern world, but also raises the question of the essence of such a “mandatory” dialogue partner. The aim of the study is to raise a question about ontological essence of technology, formulating a hypothesis about the (...) involvement of the “technical” in the symbolic world. The authors use the phenomenological approach that makes it possible to see behind an array of diverse human experience interacting with the “technical” — the anonymity of the essence of technology. The usual attitude to engineering and technology as a tool that performs certain initially laid down tasks is unsatisfactory, since the importance of technology in modern civilization is much wider. In addition, the authors use the analytical approach that makes it possible to see behind scientific theories and facts a certain “logic of behavior” of science and technology aimed at overcoming the nature of things. Symbolic technology passes all natural and cultural boundaries. (shrink)

Proposes a form of moral education that joins care and justice to nurture and develop the desirable moral sentiments for a more just world at the interpersonal, social, political economic, and environmental levels.

Straipsnyje apžvelgiamos filosofijos ir sociologijos perspektyvos skaitmeninių medijų akivaizdoje, atskleidžiama, kaip skaitmeninių medijų raida prisideda prie naujųjų disciplinų atsiradimo, sėkmingai jungiančių tiek filosofines, tiek sociologines prieigas. Remiantis garsaus medijų filosofo Michaelio Heimo tyrimais, nagrinėjamos sąsajos tarp kibernetinės erdvės ir technologijų raidos, išryškinamas jų poveikis transformacijoms, vykstančioms kibernetinės erdvės „žemėlapiavime“. Svarstant filosofijos ir sociologijos perspektyvas medijuotoje kultūroje pristatomi Franko Hartmanno tyrimai, skirti mediologijos problematikai, parodoma, kaip mediologijos rėmuose „žemėlapiuojama“ virtualioji tikrovė. Galiausiai, taikant mediologijos metodinę prieigą, nagrinėjami konk­retūs virtualios (augmentuotos) tikrovės pavyzdžiai. (...) Argumentuojama, kad aug­mentuotos erdvės projekcijos yra gana jauna, itin dinamiška ir sparčiai kintanti medijų meno sritis, o jos sąsajos su technologijomis yra itin glaudžios, todėl mediologija yra itin paranki jos analizei. (shrink)

The paper discusses professional communication among philosophers. The author argues that starting from the second half of the twentieth century atomization of philosophical languages has begun. Philosophers are argued to have been creating their own speech on the basis of subjective associations, exclusively personal vision, not directly related to existing intellectual tradition; they would use their own terms and concepts without proper definitions or clarification. The author addresses the major ideological changes in the intellectual and cultural life of the twentieth (...) century (the secularization and the rejection of metaphysical issues) as the core reasons for the radical «change» and the individualization of the philosophical language.Metaphorization by subjective associations; camouflaging of mystical-religious terms for the secular term; the desire to speak, avoiding the subject-object distinction and metaphysical references; essayistic style of writing are claimed to be the most characteristic properties of what is dubbed as «the philosophical language game of the second half of the twentieth century». The reality produced is fruitful for various hermeneutic interpretations, but at the same time the ideas that philosophers attempt to convey to their colleagues become very hard to grasp. (shrink)

Resumen Este trabajo, de carácter exploratorio, descriptivo e interpretativo, estudia las actividades de imagen presentes en un conjunto de cartas electorales enviadas por los principales partidos políticos españoles a los ciudadanos de ese país entre 2004 y 2019; concretamente, las cartas electorales relativas a las elecciones al Parlamento Europeo celebradas en 2004, 2009, 2014 y 2019. Las cartas electorales constituyen una parte del discurso político escrito en las que el candidato a unas elecciones se dirige a los potenciales votantes con (...) un discurso persuasivo, orientado a conseguir su voto. En este contexto, las actividades que se llevan a cabo son principalmente de autoimagen, si bien es posible encontrar también actividades de cortesía y críticas hacia otros partidos políticos -u otros actores sociales-que se enmarcan en una descortesía muchas veces carente de identificación del sujeto concreto al que se dirige y que, en ese sentido, entendemos como despersonalizada. Este trabajo pone de manifiesto tales actividades, mediante el análisis y comparación de estas cartas, no solo de manera sincrónica sino también, cuando es posible, de manera diacrónica. Creemos que todavía no hay ningún trabajo que haya analizado este tipo de textos desde la perspectiva aquí planteada, por lo que consideramos que es un estudio que, además de original, puede abrir camino a otros investigadores que deseen realizar análisis similares o con los que establecer comparaciones. (shrink)

The present article provides an overview of the key subjects of scholarly research in the areas of epistemology and the philosophy of science and technology conducted in Russia between the 1980s and the present. These disciplines are shown to be deeply rooted in Soviet philosophy and still developed by contemporary Russian philosophers, with both the historical experience of the Russian philosophical thought and foreign conceptions and schools, classical as well as modern, drawn upon. The corollary is that epistemology and the (...) philosophy of science have been the most widely studied philosophical disciplines in Russia over the last couple of decades and retain this status to date. (shrink)