Autor článku se snaží dokázat, že při formulaci vhodných kritérií je možné (a užitečné) provést komparaci a hierarchizaci kultur. Práce se opírá o teoreticko-historickou metodu (Smith, Hume) i o metodologické přínosy Hayeka (kompozitivní metoda). V souladu s konceptem svobody, který je rozvíjen u Kanta, Hegela, Černého, Patočky, je v návaznosti na Fukuyamu koncipován "ideální typ" konce-vrcholu dějin. Je jím kombinace klasické liberální demokracie a kapitalismu volné tržní soutěže. Jak ukazuje historická evidence, směřování k tomuto vrcholu je inherentní tendencí samotného dějinného (...) pohybu. Pouze klasická liberální demokracie spojená s kapitalismem laissez-faire umožňuje v nejvyšší možné míře uspokojovat lidské potřeby a rozvíjet lidskou přirozenost; tento systém poskytuje prostor pro vrcholný stupeň individuální svobody, totožné se zákonem a zahrnující odpovědnost za právní a politický řád, který umožňuje spontánní fungování volné tržní soutěže. Takto formulovanou svobodu nalézáme pouze v západní kultuře. Na závěr práce je argumentována problematičnost integrace příslušníků kultury s nižší mírou svobody. (shrink)

Summary In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Polish geoscientist, philosopher, and statesman Stanisław Staszic (1755–1826) conducted an extensive geological survey of Poland and adjacent areas. In 1815, he completed a book (in Polish), On the geology of the Carpathians and other mountains and lowlands of Poland, complemented by a well-made geological map of Central and Eastern Europe. Early in the nineteenth century, Staszic refined the idea of ‘geological mapping’, though initially he was interested in the exploration of (...) mineral deposits, rock salt, copper and iron ores, and coal. Unlike his predecessors, his book adopted a temporal subdivision of rocks, using a somewhat modified version of Abraham Gottlob Werner's system. He delineated the surface distribution of five rock units and coloured them onto his map. His work gave expression to his view of geological history, and brought the ‘Enlightenment Period’ of geology in Central and Eastern Europe to a close. (shrink)

Time is often said to play in quantum mechanics an essentially different role from position: whereas position is represented by a Hermitian operator, time is represented by a c-number. This discrepancy has been found puzzling and has given rise to a vast literature and many efforts at a solution. In this paper it is argued that the discrepancy is only apparent and that there is nothing in the formalism of quantum mechanics that forces us to treat position and time differently. (...) The apparent problem is caused by the dominant role point particles play in physics and can be traced back to classical mechanics. (shrink)

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

Time is often said to play in quantum mechanics an essentially different role from position: whereas position is represented by a Hermitian operator, time is represented by a c-number. This discrepancy has been found puzzling and has given rise to a vast literature and many efforts at a solution. In this paper it is argued that the discrepancy is only apparent and that there is nothing in the formalism of quantum mechanics that forces us to treat position and time differently. (...) The apparent problem is caused by the dominant role point particles play in physics and can be traced back to classical mechanics. (shrink)

This book deals with the history of the problem whether or not time can fully exist without the mind. This has been a vital issue in the philosophy of time, with intriguing arguments and solutions, from Aristotle to the present.

The paper consists of two parts. The first contains the paradox of Truth-teller, i.e. a sentence which asserts own truth. The paradox appears when we apply logic of rejection to the Truth-teller sentence. The Truth-teller paradox is symmetric with respect to the Liar paradox. The second part considers a sentence which asserts own provability. This sentence is unprovable on the base of rejection logic. This leads to counterparts of the Gödel incompleteness theorems and other metamathematical results.

Political relations in today’s world are in a deep, perhaps even radically threatening disequilibrium; similarly, humanity’s home—the Earth—is treated with disdain and contempt despite its increasingly angry protests. Moreover, the rules and principles by which most of the world runs its economic affairs and strives to “modernize” its life are founded on a set of market laws devoid of all social context and only serve to deepen the dangerous contrasts between small islands of wealth and a sea of humanity doomed (...) to poverty and alienation. (shrink)

A serious difficulty for theories of consciousness is to go beyond mere correlation between physical processes and experience. Currently, neural workspace and sensorimotor contingency theories are two of the most promising approaches to make any headway here. This paper explores the relation between these two sets of theories. Workspace theories build on large-scale activity within the brain. Sensorimotor theories include external processes in their explanations, stressing the sensorimotor contingencies that arise from our interaction with the environment. Despite the basic differences, (...) we argue that workspace- and sensorimotor theories are complementary rather than competitive. By combining these theories, a number of problems that hamper them individually may be overcome and their strengths combined: Workspace theories have more to offer for explaining how there can be consciousness in the first place, while sensorimotor theories are strong in making sense of the specific phenomenal character of experiences. (shrink)

Wprowadzenie -- Roman ingarden -- Antoni kępiński -- Karol wojtyła -- Władysław stróżewski -- Józef tischner.

At the beginning of the 21st century, biology will try to address the function of a large number of new genes. From the perspective of technologies applied today to functional genomics, this task appears to be more complex than the effort invested in the sequencing of the human genome. Conceptually, a high-throughput approach permitting correlation between newly discovered genes and functional properties of their protein products has yet to be developed. To address relationships between tens of thousands of genes and (...) their cognate proteins, novel interdisciplinary technologies need to emerge. In this paper, a new idea of immunomics is presented and an experimental strategy is outlined to circumvent some of the restrictions associated with methodologies currently in use. It is proposed that cloned segments of genomic DNA are used for genetic immunization to obtain a large collection of antibodies, and to generate microarrays of these antibodies for tracing differentially expressed cellular proteins. (shrink)

In a nutshell, this dissertation builds a bridge between an informal psychological model of emotions on the one hand, and implementation of emotions in robots and virtual characters on the other hand. This is done by formalizing a psychological model of emotions. With that we1 mean translating the concepts used in the psy- chological model to a logical language with unambiguous semantics. The resulting formalization of emotions will give rise to theorems that can be proved to be true. These theorems (...) are properties of the formal model and can be checked against the original psychological model of emotions. If they match, this will mean that the formalization is truthful with respect to the psychological model. The description of the model of emotions in this formal language can then be used as a foundation for implementing emotions in robots and virtual characters. (shrink)

Steels & Belpaeme (S&B) are clearly interested in the possible test their models may provide for human language theories. However, they only superficially address the assumptions underlying their own agent architecture, while these are of crucial relevance to the topic of human language. These assumptions fit an Augustinian picture of language, which Wittgenstein challenges in his Philosophical Investigations. It is too early to draw conclusions regarding human language evolution from such models.

As one of the earliest English religious reformers of the 1520s, William Tyndale sought to influence ecclesiological reform in England through a vernacular printing campaign. Beginning with an English translation of the New Testament, Tyndale extended European ecclesiological controversy into England by offering the English people a distinct and radical ecclesiology that was built upon “a congregation.” This study examines the body of Tyndale’s printed works to illuminate the variety of methodologies he developed and utilized to gain public consensus for (...) his understanding of congregation and church in hopes that lexical reform in English would initiate ecclesiological reform in England. Over time, and perhaps because of Thomas More’s criticisms, Tyndale found that the best way to appeal to the public was by lexical flexibility. Contrary to his historiographical reputation, Tyndale embraced the public’s traditional fondness for church so that he did not have to sacrifice his theological preference for congregation. (shrink)

Book reviewed: Carr, Wilfred, For Education: Towards Critical Educational Inquiry.

This 1987 book brings together the series of papers Kalecki wrote, between 1940 and his death in 1970, on economic planning, that contain the germ of his theory of growth in a socialist economy. They also contain an intriguing analysis of economic planning in a socialist society. This analysis anticipates many of the tenets of the disequilibrium school of economists of the 1970s. In his introduction, Jan Toporowski argues that Kalecki's work on the theory of growth in a socialist economy (...) is incomplete and has often consequently been misrepresented without the analysis presented in these papers, which are in this edition. This book will be of interest to all those interested in Kaecki's work, the economics of planning, and economic policy-making. (shrink)

Non-invasive brain stimulation promises innovative experimental possibilities for psychology and neurosci- ence as well as new therapeutic and palliative measures in medicine. Because of its good risk–benefit ratio, non-invasiveness and reversibility as well as its low effort and cost it has good chances of becoming a wide- spread tool in science, medicine and even in lay use. While most issues in medical and research ethics such as informed consent, safety, and potential for misuse can be handled with manageable effort, the (...) real promise of brain stimulation does raise one prominent moral worry: it may lay the foundation of reliable, precise and stable manipulations of the mind. This article addresses this worry and concludes that it is not the possibility of manipulation, but the shift in our understanding of our mind which stands in need of careful consideration. (shrink)

To date, much of the work on Responsible Innovation (RI) has focused on the ‘responsible’ part of RI. This has left the ‘innovation’ part in need of conceptual innovation of its own. If such conceptual innovation is to contribute to a coherent conception of RI, however, it is crucial to better understand the relation between responsibility and innovation first. This paper elucidates this relation by locating responsibility and innovation within Emmanuel Levinas’ phenomenology. It structures his work into three ‘stages’, each (...) described in terms of their leading experience and objectivation regime. This analysis identifies a need for constant innovation of political and technological systems, originating from and motivated by our responsibility to others. It also shows the relation between responsibility and innovation to be threefold: foundational, ethical and structural. These insights could help RI to avoid some pitfalls of ‘regular’ innovation, and provide moral grounding for important aspects of RI. (shrink)

Terrorism is a global phenomenon that constantly challenges human survival. Based on the social structure, human beings adopt different strategies to overcome its negative consequences on their mind and behavior. Coping strategies and those processes essential for adjustment and survival illustrate how individuals perceive, consider, deal with, and realize a stressful situation in the era of terrorism. The study focuses on exploring coping strategies and avoidance of terrorism impacts. This research study was qualitatively designed to explore the coping strategies adaptation (...) and their influence on the former FATA individuals during the wave of terrorism in the region. The study was undertaken in five districts of erstwhile FATA, including Dara Adam Khel, Orakzai Agency, Khyber Agency, and North and South Waziristan agency. A sample size of twenty-five (25) participants was purposively selected and interviewed, ten (10) focused group discussions (FGDs) were done from each district, and the other 50 participants were chosen for ten (10) FGDs. The collected data were analyzed via the thematic analysis technique. The findings revealed that coping strategies included four different phases: the welcome, resistance, acceptance, surrender, and flee phases for overcoming threats of terrorism. Furthermore, it was also found that fear of terrorism had strongly influenced the individuals’ physical, socio-economic, psychological, emotional stress and fear, education, and social integration. The study recommended that social integration and solidarity among the people, as well as their cooperation with the government, can eliminate the threat of terrorism. (shrink)