This study aims to propose a rational reconstruction of the theory-core ofWittgenstein's Tractatus, in order to bring into prominence its theoreticaland philosophical sources, its epistemological nature and metaphysical significance.The main idea of my approach is that when we take due account of the scientific andphilosophical context of the Tractatus, we see that its central philosophicalinnovation is a new form of metaphysics, namely a structural theory of representation.``I am not interested in constructing a building,so much as in having a perspicuous view (...) of the foundation of possible buildings.''. (shrink)

v. 1. Paradigma structural-generativă în ontologie.

Islamic ethics and Koranic teaching, aspects of Islam.

In this paper I focus on Proclus’ concept of the instrumental cause in his commentary on the Timaeus (In Tim.). Unlike earlier Neoplatonists who do not make much use of this type of causality, Proclus relates the instrumental cause to the hypostasis of nature (φύσις). The Demiurge uses nature as an instrument in his ordering and creation of the cosmos. How does Proclus arrive at this understanding of nature? I argue that the definition of nature as an instrumental cause is (...) in part based on his critical reception of Aristotle who identifies nature with the formal, efficient, and/or final cause. That is, Proclus did not develop his views on the causality of nature only by looking at the Timaeus (and other Platonic sources), but also by engaging with Aristotle’s rich – and, to a certain extent, authoritative – reflections on this issue. (shrink)

The central thesis of my article is that people live a life worthy of a human being only as self-ruling members of some autarchic (or self-governing) communities. On the one hand, nobody is born as a self-ruling individual, and on the other hand, everybody can become such a person by observing progressively the non-aggression principle and, ipso facto, by behaving as a moral being. A self-ruling person has no interest in controlling her neighbors, but in mastering his own impulses, needs, (...) wishes, desires, behaviors, etc. Inasmuch as he is an imperfect being who lives in an imperfect world, he needs to share certain interests, beliefs, values, customs and other characteristics with other people, i.e. to be involved in some communities. Depending on the following four criteria – the regulatory principle, the essential resources, the specific feedback and the fundamental values –, the countless and manifold human communities can be grouped in three categories: (1) affinity communities, (2) economic communities, and (3) civic communities. In other words, every community or human behavior has an affinity, an economic, and a civic dimension. If a civic community is merely a state shaped society, it can be called a political community. All communities are intrinsically variable. Throughout time, they ceaselessly change their composition, values, interpersonal processes and relations, territory, etc. Interestingly enough, the variability is unanimously recognized and accepted in affinity and communities economic, but is denied or abusively interpreted in the case of state shaped societies. If we confuse two types of order − cosmos and taxis – and two types of rule – nomos and thesis –, as well as we exaggerate the importance of certain type of community we bring some social maladies, namely the traditionalism, the commercialism and the civism, (with the worst form of it – the politicality). Whatever the communities they are involved in, all persons relate (implicitly or explicitly) to the libertarian non-aggression principle, living their life in strict accordance with the logical implications of the position they adopt. People who respect the non-aggression axiom necessarily manifest self-control, consideration for the life and property of the others, commitment to offer value for value, love of freedom and a high level of individual responsibility. By contrast, people who violate this axiom – the villains and the statists – invariably strive to control their neighbors, behave as parasites or predators, prefer forced exchanges, reject the personal responsibility (at most accepting the idea of social responsibility), and apply double moral standards. The first category of people generates a libertarian civic discourse as a spontaneous order, and the second creates a political/ statist civic discourse as a result of the human design and will to power. As a spontaneous order, the libertarian civic discourse implies free involvement, peaceful coordination, free expression, free reproduction of ideas and the power of one. Every communication performance in the frame of the libertarian civic discourse is important and has relevant results. All participants to the libertarian civic discourse are automatically members of some self-governing communities (at least members of the general libertarian community). The most important thing for these communities is to be connected to a communicational infrastructure which would make possible free involvement, free expression and the free reproduction of ideas. Inasmuch as today democracy means the tyranny of majority and participatory democracy the tyranny of majority plus the power of vested (and illegitimate) interests, only the emergence of self-governing communities by libertarian discourse offers us a little hope. It’s high time to fall in love (again) with liberty and to embrace the non-aggression principle. We don’t have to create a perfect world, but we can strive to develop our human nature. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Aristotle’s widely criticised exclusion of Platonic efficient causes at Metaph. A 6.988a7–17 is defensible as an interpretation of Plato, and that alternative accounts are unpersuasive. I argue that Aristotle is only interested in – what he supposes to be – Plato’s first principles and that the usual candidates that are brought forward in scholarship as possible first principles and efficient causes (e.g. from the Timaeus and the Philebus) all fall short in crucial respects according (...) to Aristotle. This reading has the dual benefit of illuminating Aristotle’s strategy in book A and of letting him appear as a more trustworthy doxographer of his predecessors’ views. (shrink)

Destinul metafizicii -- Filosofie și artă.

In this paper, I argue that Plato conceives self-motion as non-spatial in Laws X. I demonstrate this by focusing on the textual evidence and by refuting interpretations according to which self-motion either is a specific type of spatial motion or is said to require space as a necessary condition for its occurrence. Moreover, I show that this non-spatial understanding differs from the identification of the soul’s motion with locomotion in the Timaeus. Consequently, I provide an explanation for this difference between (...) the Timaeus and Laws X by considering developmentalist and contextualist viewpoints. (shrink)

The very existence of society depends on the ability of its members to influence formatively the beliefs, desires, and actions of their fellows. In every sphere of social life, powerful human agents (whether individuals or institutions) tend to use coercion as a favorite shortcut to achieving their aims without taking into consideration the non-violent alternatives or the negative (unintended) consequences of their actions. This propensity for coercion is manifested in the doxastic sphere by attempts to shape people’s beliefs (and doubts) (...) while ignoring the essential characteristics of these doxastic states. I argue that evidential persuasion is a better route to influence people’s beliefs than doxastic coercion. Doxastic coercion perverts the belief-forming mechanism and undermines the epistemic and moral faculties both of coercers and coercees. It succeeds sporadically and on short-term. Moreover, its pseudo doxastic effects tend to disappear once the use of force ceases. In contrast to doxastic coercion, evidential persuasion produces lasting correct beliefs in accordance with proper standards of evidence. It helps people to reach the highest possible standards of rationality and morality. Evidential persuasion is based on the principles of symmetry and reciprocity in that it asks all persuaders to use for changing the beliefs of others only those means they used in forming their own beliefs respecting the freedom of will and assuming the standard of rationality. The arguments in favor of evidential persuasion have a firm theoretical basis that includes a conceptual clarification of the essential traits of beliefs. Belief is treated as a hypercomplex system governed by Leibniz’s law of continuity and the principle of self-organization. It appears to be a mixture consisting of a personal propositional attitude and physical objects and processes. The conceptual framework also includes a typology of believers according to the standards of evidence they assume. In this context, I present a weak version of Clifford’ ethical imperative. In the section dedicated to the prerequisites for changing beliefs, I show how doxastic agents can infuse premeditated or planned changes in the flow of endogenous changes in order to shape certain beliefs in certain desired forms. The possibility of changing some beliefs in a planned manner is correlated with a feedback doxastic (macro-mechanism) that produces a reaction when it is triggered by a stimulus. In relation with the two routes to influence beliefs, a response mechanism is worth taking into consideration – a mechanism governed to a significant extent by human conscience and human will, that appears to be complex, acquired, relatively detached from visceral or autonomic information processing, and highly variable in reactions. Knowing increasingly better this doxastic mechanism, we increase our chances to use evidential persuasion as an effective (although not time-efficient) method to mold people’s beliefs. (shrink)

Migration is a recurrent phenomenon of human history because it is a successful adaptive strategy of human beings. Although migration today is not of a greater magnitude than in the past, it attracts a great deal of media and academia attention. The present wave of non-Western immigrants into the United States and Europe caused, apart from myriad economic, social and political problems, an ideological dispute between globalism and right-wing populism. Both ideological approaches attract many zealots who spread extreme opinions and (...) poison the whole political life. Using the scholastic method, I examined some opposing points of view of globalists and right-wing populists on several topics regarding non-Western immigration: border control, illegal immigration, limitations of legal immigration, refugee relocation quotas and cultural integration of immigrants. The globalists’ and right-wing populists’ theses and arguments were checked in regard with established authorities, available factual data and human reason. Highlighting some important topics relating to immigration problem and weighing the main arguments used by globalists and right-wing populists, I also indicate several points of compromise that could help people to moderate their political opinions. (shrink)

In this paper I try to clarify and systematize some contributions with regard to (a) the main aspects of crisis situations that impose the management of emotions, (b) the correlation of certain social emotions with the factors that trigger them and their related tendencies to act, (c) the essential elements of emotional experience, (d) the differentiation of appropriate emotional reactions to a crisis situation from the inappropriate ones; (e) the in-stances in which emotions can be managed, and (f) the balance (...) between rationality and affectivity in the organization’s response to the risks or crises which it faces. By means of logical correlations I arrived at the following conclusions. Regardless of the social sphere in which the crisis makes itself felt, regardless of its type, phase or damage control strategies, the rational control of emotions contributes significantly to overcoming the crisis situation. Beyond the specificities, crises involve digressions form the norms of rightful conduct, breaches of the social norms that support institutions (as spontaneous order structures) and maladaptive reactions to reality. They can be corrected through a good management of emotions, with the caveat that we are not dealing with a problem of knowledge, but rather with one of will and character. All people can identify the adaptive emotional responses to a crisis situation, but only a few prefer them and train assiduously to use them. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to highlight the underlying themes or motifs that recur in Russian war propaganda in the context of the war in Ukraine. Using the method of thematic analysis, I analyzed the messages about the war in Ukraine that Russian opinion leaders and media institutions disseminated through the lens of the "principles of war propaganda" presented and illustrated by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli. Due to the language barrier and restrictions on access to Russian news sources, (...) we limited our analysis to articles published on the TASS news agency website and Twitter posts, which reproduce and comment on the interventions of Vladimir Solovyov, considered by the United States State Department as "the Kremlin's most energetic propagandist." In total, I analyzed 58 articles from the website of the TASS news agency and 40 Twitter posts with excerpts from the show "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov" on the Russia-1 TV channel. The analysis highlights that the "principles" defined by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli govern Russian war propaganda, at least in part. Our analysis does not exclude the possibility that Russian propagandists may have used other leitmotifs or public communication themes. Their identification and presentation could be the subject of further research. (shrink)

By exercising their (imperfect) capacity to discriminate, people try to recognize and to understand some important differences between things that make them prefer some things to other. In this article I will use my ability to discriminate between people and societies according to a principle which plays the role of attractor, both at individual and societal levels, namely the principle of peaceable conduct. This principle allows us to discriminate at the civic level between the people who have a civilized conduct (...) and those who manifest an aggressive conduct. The category of civilized people includes individuals who (a) respect the life and bodily integrity of their fellows, (b) practice self-control, not control over others and (c) do not claim, through coercive means, the goods that their fellows have obtained by making free and peaceful use of their own faculties and capabilities. The category of aggressive people reunites (a) murderers (those who endanger the lives of their fellow), (b) tyrants (those who beslave their fellows by taking control of some of their faculties) and (c) thieves (those who claim the goods of their fellows without their consent). The civilized conduct requires high standards of action of the people who embrace it and, implicitly, considerable physical and psychical costs. The primary impulses originating in our lower Self blatantly contradict the respect for life, liberty and property of our fellows, so that it seems impossible for them to be controlled only by personal effort. Therefore, it is vital that the energy allotted to peaceable conduct by our higher Self be superior to the energy which it spontaneously mobilizes in support of the primary impulses of our lower Self. This can be achieved by feeding the people with the social energy of certain social emotions in the process of internalizing the norms of peaceable conduct. Among these emotions, contempt and shame, respectively anger and guilt stand out through the predominance of the moral dimension and force of shaping human conduct. They underlie two different moral systems – “shame morality”, and “guilt morality” respectively – that support our peaceable conduct and, ipso facto, our civilized life. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Proclus’ criticism of the causality of Aristotle’s intellect is part of a general attack on Aristotle’s metaphysics. I show how Proclus criticises Aristotle for rejecting the One as a metaphysical principle and the metaphysical confusion that arises from this. Additionally, I claim that for Proclus Aristotle’s understanding of efficient causality differs from Plato’s and I discuss two of his arguments that Aristotle should have accepted the intellect as an efficient cause. As I show throughout, (...) Proclus differs in his approach to Aristotle from the harmonising agenda of Ammonius and Simplicius. (shrink)

In this paper we propose to present from a new perspective some loci comunes of traditional logic. More exactly, we intend to show that some hypothetico-disjunctive inferences (i.e. the complex constructive dilemma, the complex destructive dilemma, the simple constructive dilemma, the simple destructive dilemma) and two hypothetico-categorical inferences (namely modus ponendo-ponens and modus tollendo-tollens) particularize two more abstract inferential structures: the constructive n-lemma and the destructive nlemma.

Im Rahmen dieses Aufsatzes haben wir ein formales System umrissen, in dem sich die “klassischen” und die plurativen Syllogismen befinden. Die Definitionen und die Ableitungsregeln des Systems wurden anhand des Kardinalitätfunktion konstruiert.

Promotorii logicii libere de angajament ontologic leagă “reforma logicii” de ordinul întâi de eliminarea supoziției existențiale cu privire la termenii individuali și de validarea teoremelor și regulilor în toate domeniile de valori semantice, inclusiv în domeniile vide. Dezambiguizarea termenului “existență” este o condiție prealabilă pentru deslușirea coordonatelor logicii libere.

Cercetarea dupa tema si gen-calitate a literaturii bibliologice romanest pt. anii 1990 - 1997.

В работе проведен сравнительный анализ терминологии грамоты и статута, выявлены и сопоставлены общие и родственные термины в контексте законодательств. Для специалистов.