This book is based on the outcome of the ""2012 Interdisciplinary Symposium on Complex Systems"" held at the island of Kos. The book consists of 12 selected papers of the symposium starting with a comprehensive overview and classification of complexity problems, continuing by chapters about complexity, its observation, modeling and its applications to solving various problems including real-life applications. More exactly, readers will have an encounter with the structural complexity of vortex flows, the use of chaotic dynamics within evolutionary algorithms, (...) complexity in synthetic biology. (shrink)

"Ivan Illich alights on such topics as education, history, language, politics, and the church. The conversations range over the whole of Illich's published work and public career as a priest, vice-rector of a university, founder of the Centre for Intercultural Documentation in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and author of such classics as Tools for Conviviality, Medical Nemesis, and Deschooling Society.".

Two contributions from Dr Ivan Illich follow. The first, in which he sets out his primary thesis of the medicalization of life, is a section from Dr Illich's book `Medical Nemesis'. (It is reprinted with the permission of the author and his publishers, Messrs Calder and Boyars.) The second is a transcript of the paper which Dr Illich read at the conference organized by the London Medical Group on iatrogenic disease. Both are ultimately addressed to the recipients of medical (...) care, the general public, although the second paper is specifically addressed to young doctors and medical students. For Dr Illich the world is suffering from too much medical interference, and a medical edifice has been built which is one of the threats to the real life of human beings - a threat which so far has been disguised as care. (shrink)

Every Christian who carefully reads the message of St. Apostle Paul, can not do it pay attention to the number of times he uses, so to speak, military terminology. Suffice it to read the sixth chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians - the words, which is also St. Mr. Patriarch Joseph finished his Testament: "Fix in the Lord and in the power of his power. Put on a full armor of God so that you can resist the tricks devilish (...) For we have to fight not against the body and blood, but against the beginning, against the authorities, against the rulers of this world of darkness, against the spirits of malice Therefore, take a full weapon God so that you can resist and... stand firmly. Stand, then, girth Your hips are right, putting on the armor of justice, and putting your legs ready preaching the gospel of peace. (shrink)

Gatchel, R. H. The evolution of the concept.--Wilson, J. Indoctrination and rationality.--Green, T. F. Indoctrination and beliefs.--Kilpatrick, W. H. Indoctrination and respect for persons.--Atkinson, R. F. Indoctrination and moral education.--Flew, A. Indoctrination and doctrines.--Moore, W. Indoctrination and democratic method.--Wilson, J. Indoctrination and freedom.--Flew, A. Indoctrination and religion.-- White, J. P. Indoctrination and intentions.--Crittenden, B. S. Indoctrination as mis-education.--Snook, I. A. Indoctrination and moral responsibility.--Gregory, I. M. M. and Woods, R. G. Indoctrination: inculcating doctrines.-- White, J. P. Indoctrination without doctrines?

Lackey’s (2007) class of “selfless assertions” is controversial in at least two respects: it allows propositions that express Moorean absurdity to be asserted warrantedly, and it challenges the orthodox view that the speaker’s belief is a necessary condition for warranted assertibility. With regard to the former point, I critically examine Lackey’s broadly Gricean treatment of Moorean absurdity and McKinnon’s (2015) epistemic approach. With regard to the latter point, I defend the received view by supporting the knowledge account, on which knowledge (...) is the necessary condition for warranted assertion. After examining two defenses of KA, by Montminy and Turri, I propose two alternative approaches. Although I remain neutral between them, I develop in more detail the view which classifies “selfless assertions” as “presentations”, a type of assertives distinct from genuine assertions. This account is motivated further by allowing for the expansion of the normative approach to other assertives, a feature we may be interested in, in the light of a recent wave of normative accounts of speech acts. (shrink)

Economic methodologists most often study the relations between models and reality while focusing on the issues of the model's epistemic relevance in terms of its relation to the ‘real world’ and representing the real world in a model. We complement the discussion by bringing the model's constructive mechanisms or self-implementing technologies in play. By this, we mean the elements of the economic model that are aimed at ‘implementing’ it by envisaging the ways to change the reality in order to bring (...) it more in line with the model. We are thus concerned mainly not with the ways to change the model to ‘fit’ the reality, but rather with the model's own armature that is supposed to transform the world along theoretical lines. The case we study is Arrow–Debreu–McKenzie general equilibrium model. In particular, we show the following: gradient methods and stability could be regarded as constructive mechanisms of general equilibrium modeling in the context of market socialism debates; the obsession of general eq.. (shrink)

Conversation analysts have noted that, in psychotherapy, formulations of the client's talk can be a vehicle for offering a psychological interpretation of the client's circumstances. But we notice that not all formulations in psychotherapy offer interpretations. We offer an analysis of formulations that are diagnostic: that is, used by the professional to sharpen, clarify or refine the client's account and make it better able to provide what the professional needs to know about the client's history and symptoms. In doing so, (...) these formulations also have the effect of shepherding the client's account towards subsequent therapeutic interpretation. In a coda, we notice that sometimes the formulations are designed discreetly. We examine one such discreet formulation in detail, and show how its very ambiguity can lead to its failure as a diagnostic probe. (shrink)

This paper offers several new insights into the epistemology of immunity to error through misidentification, by refining James Pryor’s distinction between de re misidentification and wh-misidentification. This is crucial for identifying exactly what is at issue in debates over the Immunity thesis that, roughly, all introspection-based beliefs about one’s own occurrent psychological states are immune to error through misidentification. I contend that the debate between John Campbell and Annalisa Coliva over whether the phenomenon of thought insertion provides empirical evidence against (...) claims like Immunity has wrongly focused on de re misidentification and largely overlooked the role of wh-misidentification. I argue that, once we properly distinguish the two notions, subjects of thought insertion can be seen to make an error of wh-misidentification in their judgments. I argue that this disproves the Immunity thesis, properly understood, and show what broader implications this has for our understanding of IEM and the first person. (shrink)

Recent theological anthropology emphasizes a dynamic and integral understanding of the human being, which is also related to Karl Rahner's idea of active self-transcendence and to the imago Dei doctrine. The recent neuroscientific discovery of the “visual word form area” for reading, regarded in light of the concept of cultural neural reuse, will produce fresh implications for the interrelation of brain biology and human culture. The theological and neuroscientific parts are shown in their mutual connections thus articulating the notion that (...) human beings shape and transcend themselves both at the biological and at the cultural level. This will have relevant implications for the timely topic of human uniqueness in science and theology, and in proposing a new research perspective in which theology may consider culture along with its biological import, but not necessarily in strictly evolutionary terms alone. (shrink)

The main focus of acquaintance theorists has been the nature and mechanism of perceptual acquaintance with particulars. Generally, one’s view of perceptual acquaintance with general features has taken its bearings from one’s view of perceptual acquaintance with particulars. This has led to the glossing over of significant differences in the mechanisms of perceptual acquaintance with particulars and with general features. The difference in mechanisms suggests a difference in the sort of epistemic state at play in the two kinds of cases. (...) While the existence of such a difference might initially seem to spell trouble for acquaintance theorists, it can be made palatable by being traced back to the distinct basic functions concepts of particulars and of general features serve in thought. (shrink)

Ivan Efimovič Orlov’s paper “The calculus of the compatibility of propositions”, published in Russian in 1928, is fascinating for anyone interested in the early history of relevance, modal or intuitionistic logic. This is a translation of that paper.

This chapter contains sections titled: Schopenhauer on the Inevitability of Suffering Criticisms of Schopenhauer's Thesis that to Desire Is to Suffer The Unattainability of True Satisfaction The Inevitability of Boredom The Negative Nature of Pleasure and Satisfaction Happiness and Well‐Being Degrees of Unhappiness: The Possibility of Amelioration The Paradox of the Suspension or Negation of the Will The Inevitability of Unhappiness References Further Reading.

The Earth is facing pressing societal grand challenges that require urgent managerial action. Responsible management learning has emerged as a discipline to prepare managers to act as responsible leaders that can effectively address such pressing challenges. This article aims to extend current knowledge on RML in the domain of corporate sustainability through the application of threshold concepts, novel ideas which provide a doorway to new knowledge and transform a learner’s mindset. Specifically, after conducting a systematic review of the management literature, (...) we identify 33 CS threshold concepts that are useful for mainstream managers and practitioners in their RML process. We group them into six CS threshold concept themes that can help managers understand the complexities and interconnectedness that characterize CS. Finally, we map CS threshold concepts with key competences for effective RML. Therefore, our contribution relies on translating existing CS theoretical frameworks into transformative, specific, understandable and applicable pieces of knowledge that might help mainstream managers to embed CS principles in their daily management practices. (shrink)

Statements of degree appear to falsify basic doctrines in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I offer a fresh formulation of the challenge and assess a solution proposed on Wittgenstein’s behalf by Sarah Moss. I find that Moss’s proposal fails. The proposal rides in part on novel interpretations of pronouncements by Wittgenstein on the nature of the elementary proposition. I find that the interpretations cannot be sustained but that Moss’s textual case hints at important and overlooked features of the Tractarian program. I develop Wittgenstein’s (...) comparison of propositions to measuring instruments and apply it throughout, showing that it captures philosophical commitments in Tractatus that otherwise tend to slip from view. (shrink)

Epistemicists claim that if it is vague whether p, it is unknowable whether p. Some contest this on epistemic grounds: vague intuitions about vague matters need not fully preclude knowledge, if those intuitions are response-dependent in some special sense of enabling vague knowledge. This paper defends the epistemicist principle that vagueness entails ignorance against such objections. I argue that not only is response-dependence an implausible characterization of actual vague matters, its mere possibility poses no threat to epistemicism and is properly (...) accounted for by the epistemicist’s own principles. (shrink)

The paper offers a semantic and pragmatic analysis of statements of the form ‘x is beautiful’ as involving a double speech act: first, a report that x is beautiful relative to the speaker’s aesthetic standard, along the lines of naive contextualism; second, the speaker’s recommendation that her audience comes to share her appraisal of x as beautiful. We suggest that attributions of beauty tend to convey such a recommendation due to the role that aesthetic practices play in fostering and enhancing (...) interpersonal coordination. Aesthetic practices are driven by a disposition towards the attunement of attitudes and aesthetic recommendations contribute to forwarding such attunement. Our view is motivated by an attempt to satisfy the following set of desiderata: to account for the experiential nature of aesthetic judgments, disagreements in aesthetic debates, and the normative aspirations of aesthetic discourse, as well as to avoid appealing to error theory and realist ontological commitments. (shrink)

This chapter examinates the concept of Baroque habits in its various declensions, dwelling in particular on aesthetic habits through the case study of Guarino Guarini’s Chapel of the Holy Shroud in Turin. In the first part three declensions of Baroque habits, linked together by profound implications, are identified: habits of knowledge, referred to the ideal of Baroque encyclopedism; moral habits, framed in the Baroque practices of government of affects; and aesthetic habits, consisting in regimes of or- dering of sensible experience (...) which finds in the Wunderkammer one of its highest manifestations. In the second part of this chapter, these concepts are applied and further elaborated in the light of one of the greatest results of European Baroque, the Guarinian Chapel. Through the example of the Turinese architecture it is demon- strated how Baroque representative practices perform a gesture of immanentization of the transcendent principle by composition of light and application of geometry. Such “sensible metaphysics” is aimed at both the government of affects and at the creation of a habitable space of experience, where the infinite transcendence of Christian divinity becomes source and object of habits. (shrink)

The main result proved in the paper is that on every recursive structure the intrinsically hyperarithmetical sets coincide with the relatively intrinsically hyperarithmetical sets. As a side effect of the proof an effective version of the Kueker's theorem on definability by means of infinitary formulas is obtained.

This paper proposes a comparison between the myth of Prometheus and Pliny the Elder’s account of the origins of painting to assess the technical characterof images. Such a character is seen as a precondition for understanding their epistemological value, as well as for supporting the need for hermeneutics at any level of artificial intervention. Finally, part of Horst Bredekamp’s work will be presented as an example of a methodology that combines hermeneutics and iconology based on such a technical character.

The philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia engages fifteen prominent scholars on race, ethnicity, nationality, and Hispanic/Latino identity in the United States. Their discussion joins two distinct traditions: the philosophy of race begun by African Americans in the nineteenth century, and the search for an understanding of identity initiated by Latin American philosophers in the sixteenth century. Participants include Linda M. Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, Richard J. Bernstein, Lawrence Blum, Robert Gooding-Williams, Eduardo Mendieta, and Lucius T. Outlaw Jr., and their dialogue (...) reflects the analytic, Aristotelian, Continental, literary, Marxist, and pragmatic schools of thought. These intellectuals start with the philosophy of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and then move to the philosophy of African Americans and Anglo Americans in the United States and the philosophy of Latin Americans in Latin America. Gracia and his interlocutors debate the nature of race and ethnicity and their relation to nationality, linguistic rights, matters of identity, and Affirmative Action, binding the concepts of race and ethnicity together in ways that open new paths of inquiry. Gracia's Familial-Historical View of ethnic and Hispanic/Latino identity operates at the center of each of these discussions, providing vivid access to the philosopher's provocative arguments while adding unique depth to issues that each of us struggles to understand. (shrink)

An agent A blames B hypocritically for violating a moral norm N if and only if: A is likewise blameworthy for violating N, and A is not disposed to blame herself for violating N. Normally, an assertion involving blame is retracted following the objection that and hold. I discuss two prima facie explanations for such a withdrawal: that the objection hampers the speaker’s assertoric authority, rendering and the necessary condition to assert, and that the joint condition is, instead, merely a (...) regulative rule. Having shown that the former option is too revisory as it requires reformulation of all normative accounts of assertion on the table, and the latter false, I proceed to argue that and do not target assertions to begin with. An assertion involving blame is, instead, a clear case of a double speech act: after arguing for this claim, I proceed to show that qua assertion, the act is correct given one’s preferred normative account, whereas it is incorrect qua blaming, as in order to perform such an act, the speaker needs to satisfy the conditions and. (shrink)

Resumo Este artigo apresenta um referencial pragmatista para compreender o estatuto epistêmico da valoração que é produzida na reflexão acerca das consequências sociais de propostas científicas e tecnológicas. O problema é posto, seguindo-se as considerações de Bertrand Russell sobre o impacto da ciência na sociedade. Russell argumenta que a valoração de arranjos sociais fica fora dos limites do conhecimento, porque valorações não podem ser verdadeiras ou falsas, em sentido correspondencial. Isso leva o pensamento social a um impasse, pois não se (...) pode saber que dado arranjo social seria indesejável ou inadequado. Este texto esboça uma alternativa, a partir dos trabalhos sobre valoração de Clarence Irving Lewis, tomados em continuidade com a teoria da investigação de John Dewey. Esse referencial alternativo assume noções epistêmicas de verdade e justificação, o que permite que valorações possam ser concebidas em contextos de investigação e, assim, como objetos de conhecimento.This article presents a pragmatist framework to understand the epistemic status of valuations produced upon reflection on social consequences of scientific and technological proposals. The problem is set following Bertrand Russell’s considerations on the impact of science on society. Russell argues that valuating social arrangements falls beyond the limits of knowledge, because valuations cannot be true or false in the sense of correspondence. This leads social thought to a deadlock, since one cannot know that a given social arrangement would be undesirable or inadequate. This article sketches an alternative from Clarence Irving Lewis’s works on valuation taken in continuity with John Dewey’s theory of inquiry. This alternative framework assumes epistemic notions of truth and justification, allowing that valuations can be construed in contexts of inquiry and thus as objects of knowledge. (shrink)

Stewart Shapiro has objected to the epistemicist theory of vagueness on grounds that it gives counterintuitive predictions about cases involving conditional obligation. This paper details a response on the epistemicist’s behalf. I first argue that Shapiro’s own presentation of the objection is unsuccessful as an argument against epistemicism. I then reconstruct and offer two alternative arguments inspired by Shapiro’s considerations, and argue that these fail too, given the information-sensitive nature of conditional obligations.

In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Snjezana Prijic Samarzija advocates a stance that not only political, but also epistemic values are necessary for justification of democracy. Specifically, she mounts defense for one particular type of public deliberation on epistemic grounds. In this paper, I will discuss the following issue: What connects this type of public deliberation to the wider context of justification of democracy? I will attempt to explain why Prijic Samarzija's stance can (...) be understood as a version of deliberative epistemic instrumentalism and to discuss the role played by the public deliberation within this framework. (shrink)

An assertion is existentially known if and only if: (i) the speaker knows that the sentence she uses to make the assertion expresses a true proposition; (ii) she makes the assertion based on that knowledge; and (iii) she does not believe, have justification for, or know the proposition asserted. Accordingly, if existentially known assertions could be made correctly—as argued by Charlie Pelling in his ‘Assertion and the Provision of Knowledge’—this would show that the norm of assertion cannot be the speaker's (...) belief in, justification for or knowledge of the proposition. In this paper, I try to show that Pelling's argument is inconclusive, as it rests on two assumptions which can be resisted. In turn, I offer a pair of alternative strategies to explain how we can deal with existentially known assertions under the assumption that the speaker's knowledge is the norm of assertion. (shrink)

In this study we replicated the explanatory effect of a label which had been found by Giffin et al.. In their experiments, they used vignettes describing an odd behavior of a person based on culturally specific disorders that were unfamiliar to respondents. It turned out that explanations which explain an odd behavior through a person’s tendency to behave that way seemed more persuasive if the disorder was given a label that was used in the explanation. We replicated these results in (...) Experiment 1, and in a follow-up Experiment 2 we examined the familiarity with category information and the evaluation of that category over time. We realized that the label effect persists even when people make judgments based on their recollections about a category. Furthermore, according to a content analysis of the recollections, participants in the label condition remembered more information from the vignettes but tended to forget an artificial label; however, they used other words from the disorder domain instead. This allowed us to suggest a new interpretation of this effect: we suppose that in the Giffin et al. experiments the label did not bring any new features to a category itself, but pointed to a relevant domain instead, so the effect appeared from the activation of areas of knowledge in semantic memory and the application of relevant schema for learning a new phenomenon. (shrink)

Sorensen has argued that one can exploit the vagueness of an ordinary predicate like ‘small’ to induce a sort of vagueness in ‘vague’, by constructing a series of predicates of the form ‘n-small’, where x is n- small if and only if x is small or x n. The resulting ‘Sorensen’ed’ predicates present a Sorites case for ‘vague’ ; hence the vagueness of ‘vague’. Hyde argues that this demonstrates that all vague predicates are higher-order vague. Others doubt whether Sorensen’s series (...) really delivers such a result, claiming Hyde’s argument to be either: unsound, because it misidentifies the true source of vagueness in Sorensen’s Sorites ; invalid, because it fails to generalize to all vague predicates ; or circular, because it presupposes the very thing it tries to prove, namely, higher-order vagueness. This paper contributes to the Sorensen-Hyde vs. Tye-Deas-Hull-Varzi debate by clarifying the relations between vague vagueness and higher-order vagueness. I show how claims of higher-order vagueness are derivable from claims of vague vagueness. This is the missing piece needed to complete Hyde’s argument and overcome the objections presented by Deas, Hull, Tye, and Varzi. I then show how Sorensen’s considerations, once properly generalized, pose more far-reaching consequences about the vagueness of ‘vague’ than either defenders or critics of Hyde’s argument have appreciated. (shrink)

I examine some behavioural and heuristic models of individual decision-making and argue that the diverse psychological mechanisms these models posit are too demanding to be implemented, either consciously or unconsciously, by actual decision makers. Accordingly, and contrary to what their advocates typically claim, behavioural and heuristic models are best understood as ‘as-if’ models. I then sketch a version of scientific antirealism that justifies the practice of as-if modelling in decision theory but goes beyond traditional instrumentalism. Finally, I relate my account (...) of decision models to the recent controversy about mentalism versus behaviourism, reject both positions, and offer an alternative view. (shrink)

Ernst Bloch and His Contemporaries is a much needed concise yet comprehensive overview of Ernst Bloch's early and later thought. It fills an important gap in research on the history of German thought in the 20th century by reconstructing the contexts of Bloch's philosophy, while focusing on his contemporaries - Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno. Ernst Bloch's influential ideas include his theory of utopian consciousness, his resolute inclination to merge aesthetics and politics, rehabilitation of hope, and atheistic conception (...) of Christianity. Although Bloch's major early texts, Spirit of Utopia and Traces, have recently been translated into English, and there has been renewed interest in Bloch over the last 15 years, he is still relatively unknown compared to other left German-Jewish intellectuals. Ivan Boldyrev places Bloch's often enigmatic prose within contexts more familiar to English-speaking readers, and outlines the most important messages in Bloch's legacy still relevant today to European intellectual discourse, in particular aesthetics and philosophy of history. -/- . (shrink)

La philosophie ancienne et médiévale était centrée sur l'Etre, la philosophie moderne sur la Connaissance : la philosophie contemporaine gravite autour de la Valeur. Du fait de sa récente éclosion (les premiers traités d'axiologie datent de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle), cette philosophie a devant elle un champ illimité. Et cela d'autant plus que, par sa nature même, elle concerne tout ce qui importe à l'homme : morale et religion, art et littérature, droit et économie, science et technique. En France, (...) la philosophie de la Valeur n'est parvenue à sa maturité que dans les années 40. Elle a été marquée par deux grandes œuvres : celle de René Le Senne et celle de Louis Lavelle. La première s'est constituée progressivement, au cours de la parution de cinq ouvrages successifs, et la seconde, contenue dans le vaste Traité des Valeurs, choisit une perspective analytique, comme l'indique le pluriel du titre : ce sont les divers mondes axiologiques qui sont envisagés tour à tour. Ivan GOBRY tente d'offrir d'emblée un univers axiologique unitaire, dans lequel les valeurs ne sont que les phénomènes de la Valeur. Et cet univers n'est pas un secteur axiologique parmi d'autres : il est une Réalité unique. De la sorte, il regroupe toute les parties de la philosophie traditionnelle autour de cette catégorie dominante : la première partie, Valeur et Personne, constitue une anthropologie, où sont définis l'homme et sa destinée; la seconde, l'Ordre Axiologique, est une métaphysique, où sont exposés les rapports entre la Valeur et l' Etre : l'auteur y défend un axiologisme, c'est-à-dire un primat de la Valeur sur l'Etre - ce dernier n'étant que la limitation de celle-là ; la troisième partie, l'Expérience de la Valeur est la synthèse d'une phénoménologie de l'affectivité et d'une philosophie du temps ; enfin la quatrième partie, l'Instauration de la Valeur, présente une philosophie de l'œuvre humaine, qui situe, par rapport aux fondements antérieurement élaborés, la culture, le travail, la religion et la morale. (shrink)

A collection of writings from Dalmatian-Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and radical cultural critic Ivan Illich. Focuses on Illich's shorter writings from his early publications through the rise of his remarkable intellectual career, making available works that had fallen into undue obscurity"--Provided by publisher.

Spinoza avait un trou à son manteau. On avait tenté de le poignarder et son manteau en portrait la trace. La haine dont Spinoza fut l'objet est originaire. Dès la parution du Traité théologico-politique, une sainte alliance est scellée, garante d'un ordre moral menacé par la philosophie d'un homme libre. Dans ce livre, Ivan Segré s'intéresse aux derniers avatars de la réaction idéologique qui a pris Spinoza pour cible, et singulièrement aux penseurs juifs qui ont reconnu en lui un (...) "traître". Est-ce à dire qu'une vie sous la conduite de la raison est une trahison de la cause des Juifs? Philosophe et talmudiste, Segré examine l'acte d'accusation qu'on a dressé contre le philosophe d'Amsterdam et il conclut que la fidélité à l'antique tradition hébraïque exige, aujourd'hui, d'arborer le manteau troué de Spinoza. A ceux qu'il appelle les théoriciens bourgeois du nom "juif", il oppose l'intelligence des textes hébraïques, dont il nous dit qu'ils sont solidaires du nom "ouvrier", solidaires de son devenir révolutionnaire. (shrink)

In the wake of Stalin's death, many Soviet scientists saw the opportunity to promote their methods as tools for the engineering of economic prosperity in the socialist state. The mathematician Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986) was a key activist in academic politics that led to the increasing acceptance of what emerged as a new scientific persona in the Soviet Union. Rather than thinking of his work in terms of success or failure, we propose to see his career as exemplifying a distinct form (...) of scholarship, as a partisan technocrat, characteristic of the Soviet system of knowledge production. Confronting the class of orthodox economists, many factors were at work, including Kantorovich's cautious character and his allies in the Academy of Sciences. Drawing on archival and oral sources, we demonstrate how Kantorovich, throughout his career, negotiated the relations between mathematics and economics, reinterpreted political and ideological frames, and reshaped the balance of power in the Soviet academic landscape. (shrink)

We present a study of the linguistic output of the German-speaking writer Robert Walser using Natural Language Processing (NLP). We curated a corpus comprising texts written by Walser during periods of sound health, and writings from the year before his hospitalization, and writings from the first year of his stay in a psychiatric clinic, all likely attributed to schizophrenia. Within this corpus, we identified and analyzed a total of 20 linguistic markers encompassing established metrics for lexical diversity, semantic similarity, and (...) syntactic complexity. Additionally, we explored lesser-known markers such as lexical innovation, concreteness, and imageability. Notably, we introduced two additional markers for phonological similarity for the first time within this context. Our findings reveal significant temporal dynamics in these markers closely associated with Walser’s contemporaneous diagnosis of schizophrenia. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between these markers, leveraging them for classification of the schizophrenic episode. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze Cecile Laborde's conception of justificatory secularism. Laborde points out that in her formulation and defense of the conception of justificatory secularism, she follows Rawls' conception of political liberalism to a certain extent. For that reason, I first provide a sketch of Rawls' conception of political liberalism. Then I focus on justificatory secularism, trying to show to what extent it displays similarities with the conception of political liberalism, but also how it differs. I am interested in (...) whether justificatory secularism represents a better alternative to the conception of political liberalism or whether these two conceptions should be considered complementary. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi’s scholarship is interpreted in radically different ways. The “hard” reading of Polanyi sees him as a radical socialist; the “soft” reading presents him as a theorist of mixed economy. This article sides with the soft interpretation. It uses Polanyi’s biography to explain his theoretical “elusiveness,” presents a novel interpretation of his three types of economic integration, claiming all economies are “mixed.” While it acknowledges Polanyi as one of the major sources of world system theory, it claims that Polanyi (...) saw not only the dangers, but also the necessity and positive consequences of globalization. Finally, it shows that, in spite of Polanyi’s life-long commitment to the political left, his scholarly work did not offer an apology of socialism. Instead this article uses Polanyi’s theory of economic integration to build a critical political economy of state socialism. (shrink)

ResumoEste artigo propõe elucidar a relação entre a cibernética e a mecanologia na obra de Simondon, considerando suas duas teses de doutorado e a entrevista concedida em 1968 a Jean Le Moyne, a pedido do Ofício do Filme do Québec, no Canadá, ao longo da qual é predominante o uso de "mecanologia", em contraste com as teses, onde sofre a concorrência dos vocábulos "alagmática" e "organologia", ficando o termo "cibernética" na penumbra. A cibernética é celebrada na França em 1962, no (...) contexto dos famosos Colóquios de Royaumont, quando Norbert Wiener foi homenageado e a cibernética ocupou toda a cena, com a participação ativa de Simondon na organização do evento. Essa situação leva os estudiosos a interrogar-se pelo destino do termo "cibernética" em sua obra, caso estivesse em jogo a segunda cibernética, em vez da primeira, e que só veio a lume mais tarde. Mais do que o interesse historiográfico do assunto, o artigo pretende suscitar um interesse epistemológico na filosofia da tecnologia. O desafio é lançar luz sobre a questão ainda por demais obscura acerca das relações entre a tecnologia, a engenharia e a ciência.This article aims to clarify the relationship between cybernetics and mechanology in Simondon's work, considering his two doctoral theses and the interview he gave in 1968 to Jean Le Moyne, at the request of the Quebec Film Office in Canada. In this interview the use of "mechanology" is predominant, in contrast with the theses, where it suffers from competition with terms such as "allagmatics" and "organology", leaving the term "cybernetics" in the shade. Cybernetics is celebrated in France in 1962, in the context of the famous Royaumont Colloquia, when Norbert Wiener was honored and cybernetics occupies the whole scene, with Simondon's active participation in the event organization, This situation leads experts to question the fate of the word "cybernetics" in his work, in the case the second cybernetics was at stake, instead of the first one, but that only came to light later. More than a subject of historiographical interest, the article aims to evoke an epistemic interest in the philosophy of technology. The challenge is to shed light on a question that still remains obscure: the relationships among technology, engineering and science. (shrink)

A renewed search for legal certainty is a reaction to the preponderance of judge made law, which has been in turn prompted by the democratic deficit of the EU and the impact of Anglo-American law. The problem is that the search is oblivious to both systematic interpretation and the need of re-systematization of law. The paper defines systematic interpretation, relates the definition to standard French and German conceptions, indicates the room for systematic interpretation in Anglo-American laws, and states prima facie (...) reasons for a re-systematization of law as a prerequisite of systematic interpretation. The problem cannot be appreciated outside its proper context. It is a disregard for causation and evaluation. Hence the paper outlines Aristotle’s understanding of causation and evaluation in his presentation of phronesis, reconsiders continental European legal thought in the light of Aristotle’s presentation, and offers policy-oriented jurisprudence as a remedy to the deficit of evaluation and causation in European legal thought. A solution to the problem offers a typology of criteria and clarifies positive and fundamental legal concepts, positive and fundamental criteria of systematization, and the place of criteria in knowledge of law. The usefulness of the criteria is demonstrated by a common approach to the systematization of law and an alternative diagnosis of a defect of systematization diagnosed by an authority in history and philosophy of law rather than legal theory. (shrink)

The paper aims to understand whether morphology can be framed as a language for aesthetics. In particular, whether Olaf Breidbach’s contribution can determine its fundamental terms. These are related to the notion of forms and images. Hence, the paper is structured into three parts: i) framing of research on morphology in Ger-many; ii) analysis of Goethe’s method and vocabulary from an aesthetic standpoint; iii) presentation of Breidbach’s proposal in relation to Goethe.

The phenomenon of self-love elicits conflicting reactions. Some believe it is the key to happiness, while others are skeptical. This essay defines self-love as wholehearted concern for one's well-being, argues that it does not imply selfishness, arrogance, or vanity, discusses reasons to value self-love, and describes ways Logic-Based Therapy can be used to help people love themselves.

In this article, we examine the political and educational relevance of Hannah Arendt’s account of friendship. Drawing from Arendt’s central works on friendship, we offer a novel interpretation of the concept by connecting the notion with the idea of educational ‘love for the world’, amor mundi. With this interpretation, we seek to demonstrate that the concept of friendship has both direct educational and indirect political significance. Thereby, we distinguish our interpretation from two previous understandings of the educational relevance of the (...) Arendtian notion of friendship—those by (1) Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy, and (2) Morten T. Korsgaard—in which friendship is either assigned a specifically political role (as in (1)) or its significance to education is narrowly understood (as in (2)). We argue our interpretation of friendship offers both a new contribution to the understanding of the relationship between education and politics in the context of Arendt scholarship, and a novel way of thinking about the educational significance of friendship in the context of contemporary democratic politics, especially the prevailing political polarization. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I confront and criticize the widespread tendency to ignore, marginalize, or dismiss without serious consideration Nietzsche's psychological hypothesis that a “will to power” is the major motivator of human behavior. I begin by separating Nietzsche's psychological hypothesis from both his occasional cosmological extension of it into an account of all processes in the world and from his power-based theory of value. And I argue that, since the psychological thesis does not depend on the cosmological extension, is (...) more fundamental to Nietzsche's overall project, and is much better supported by Nietzsche's argument, it deserves to be seriously considered on its own merits. Then, I critically consider Robert Solomon's attempts to deny any value at all to the will to power as a general motivational hypothesis and to reinterpret Nietzsche's theory of the will to power in a way that ignores what Nietzsche actually says about it and, moreover, radically undermines its significance. (shrink)

As Classical Propositional Logic finds its algebraic counterpart in Boolean algebras, the logic of Quantum Mechanics, as outlined within G. Birkhoff and J. von Neumann’s approach to Quantum Theory (Birkhoff and von Neumann in Ann Math 37:823–843, 1936) [see also (Husimi in I Proc Phys-Math Soc Japan 19:766–789, 1937)] finds its algebraic alter ego in orthomodular lattices. However, this logic does not incorporate time dimension although it is apparent that the propositions occurring in the logic of Quantum Mechanics are depending (...) on time. The aim of the present paper is to show that tense operators can be introduced in every logic based on a complete lattice, in particular in the logic of quantum mechanics based on a complete orthomodular lattice. If the time set is given together with a preference relation, we introduce tense operators in a purely algebraic way. We derive several important properties of such operators, in particular we show that they form dynamic pairs and, altogether, a dynamic algebra. We investigate connections of these operators with logical connectives conjunction and implication derived from Sasaki projections in an orthomodular lattice. Then we solve the converse problem, namely to find for given time set and given tense operators a time preference relation in order that the resulting time frame induces the given operators. We show that the given operators can be obtained as restrictions of operators induced by a suitable extended time frame. (shrink)

This paper considers in detail the ontological and normative presuppositions of the state-contingent approach to pricing commodities first introduced by Arrow in his model of general equilibrium under uncertainty, which became a milestone in the theory of finance. By contextualizing Arrow’s fundamental contribution and subsequent developments in finance, it demonstrates how this new conceptual framework implied certain technologies—both intellectual and financial. In showing how theoretical thinking about finance was underlying institutional developments in finance, this paper complements the familiar narrative of (...) the performativity of economics. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss a recent attempt of justifying democracy and its authority. It pertains to recently published papers by Niko Kolodny, which complement each other and taken together practically assume a form of a monograph. It could be said that Kolodny's approach is a non-standard one given that he avoids typical ways of justifying democracy. Namely, when a justification of democracy is concerned, Kolodny maintains that it is necessary to offer a kind of an independent justification. It (...) is not so much that he insists that the usual approaches are wrong as much as that an independent justification is necessary in order to discern what it is that gives them their significance. Kolodny's independent justification of democracy is based on the idea of social equality. In this paper I will try to reconstruct and critically assess Kolodny's approach by paying special attention to the question of democratic authority. (shrink)

The value of the notion of ‘indeterminacy in the past’ continues to be contested. Ian Hacking’s claim that the notion is perspicuous in the examination of historical instances is questioned through discussion of the possibility of retrospective application of the relatively recent diagnostic category ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder’. Kevin McMillan maintains that there are deeper philosophical merits to the idea–particularly with respect to questions of truth–but neither Hacking’s treatment of historical cases nor McMillan’s directly philosophical elaboration of Hacking’s position sustain this (...) claim. (shrink)