_Pragmatic Perspectives in Phenomenology_ offers a complex analysis of the pragmatic theses that are present in the works of leading phenomenological authors, including not only Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, as it is often the case within Hubert Dreyfus’ tradition, but also Husserl, Levinas, Scheler, and Patocka. Starting from a critical reassessment of existing pragmatic readings which draw especially on Heidegger’s account of Being-in-the-world, the volume’s chapters explore the following themes as possible justifications for speaking about the pragmatic turn in phenomenology: the (...) primacy of the practical over theoretical understanding, criticism of the representationalist account of perception and consciousness, and the analysis of language and truth within the context of social and cultural practices. Having thus analyzed the pragmatic readings of key phenomenological concepts, the book situates these readings in a larger historical and thematic context and introduces themes that until now have been overlooked in debates, including freedom, alterity, transcendence, normativity, distance, and self-knowledge. This volume seeks to refresh the debate about the phenomenological legacy and its relevance for contemporary thought by enlarging the thematic scope of pragmatic motives in phenomenology in new and revealing ways. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars of phenomenology who are interested in moving beyond the analytic-continental divide to explore the relationship between practice and theory. (shrink)

Purpose of the article: Although the economic growth and society are two independent terms at the first sight, they are in fact closely connected and interact with each other. The main topic of this work is the creative economy, which is considered to be a part of growth theories. Thanks to the new approach, theorists supplement these theories with the demographic and the socio-cultural factor. First, the work establishes a comprehensive theoretical framework for economic growth. Furthermore, it analyses the representation (...) of creativity in the regions of the Czech Republic. Methodology/methods: The primary aim of this work is to carry out an analysis that charts the representation of the creative potential in the regions of the Czech Republic. The analysis uses the new creative index, which was created by modifying of the Richard Florida´s creative index. Consequently, the work uses the new creative index within the framework of smaller regional units as opposed to national groupings. Additional advantages of this model include the number and measurability of the indexes. Scientific aim: The aim of this work is not just demonstrating the dependence between the presence of creative people and economic growth, but in addition, the work aims to seek out the factors that influence the allocation of creative employees. Findings: The work demonstrates high mutual dependence between creativity and economic growth with the help of the correlation coefficient. The assumptions that creative regions are more attractive on the social and knowledge basis were also confirmed. Conclusions : Territorial units must consequently work to develop conditions, which support the establishment and the development of the creative environment in order to retain their competitiveness and support the economic growth. (shrink)

This article presents a general conception of aesthetic experience built on an analysis of the relationship between the narrative and the ambient dimensions of the aesthetic value of a natural environment, the forest. First of all, the two dimensions are presented with respect to the possibilities and problems raised by distinguishing between them. Next, the possibilities of their relationship are analysed and it is argued that they are strongly complementary. This complementarity becomes the core of the proposed conception of aesthetic (...) experience, which can explain the difference between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic, and can also provide an answer to the question of the non-reductive differentiation between the aesthetic experience of nature and the experience of a work of art. The conclusion of the article is mainly concerned to eliminate one of the problems localized in presenting the ambient dimension (the ambience paradox), by means of Ricoeur’s conception of the relationship between time and narrative. (shrink)

In the following paper, the meaning of philosophy as a specific intellectual activity would be presented on the example of revolutionary thoughts of Peter Tkachov. The paper concerns with the understanding of philosophy, its characteristics and status within the Russian intellectual movement in the second half of the 19th century. The understanding of both, individual and social functions of philosophy in the work of Tkachov revolutionary writing, is introduced. The paper is set within a wider framework of Thachov thoughts and (...) his idea of progress. After connecting these two specific topics of Tkachov, the question is formulated: Who is capable to answer the question of what is progress? While looking for an answer and studying works of Tkachov, a wide spectrum of possible variations is offered. The work is purposely conceptualized with an opened closure to present a concrete problem for further analysis and discussion. (shrink)

To what extent is Nietzsche’s critique of Kant empty rhetoric, and to what extent is it a substantive argument to be taken seriously? Within the broad Nietzschean- Kantian polemics, the study is concerned with the ethical domain. It starts from the title phrase “the Chinese of Königsberg” (“Das Königsberger Chinesenthum”) found in Nietzsche’s late book The Antichrist, and goes back to earlier forms of Kant-critique. At its core is the universalist, uniforming claim of the categorical imperative expressed by the motif (...) of duty, and its broader framework is a dualist notion of reality with the postulated noumenal sphere. The aim of the paper is not to offer a clear resolution to the dispute but to highlight its inspirational moments: these include the negative, refuting emphasis in the foundation of ethics and personal autonomy as the basis of self-respect and duty in both protagonists. The Kantian perspective can integrate Nietzsche’s “autonomy of the body” into the autonomy of pure practical reason. (shrink)

My paper aims to elucidate the emergence of subjectivity from the interplay between living beings and their environment. This attempt to give account of becoming-subject within the life itself leads to a confrontation between the phenomenology of life pursued since at least two decades by Renaud Barbaras with Canguilhem´s philosophy of biology. It starts with a criticism of Merleau-Ponty’s and Patočka´s respective failures to overcome the contrast between the level of bare life and the level of human existence. In order (...) to answer such a prejudicial separation between unexamined life and self-reflected existence, I adopt in the second part a bio-centric perspective on human existence, inspired by Canguilhem and Guillaume Le Blanc, in order to re-evaluate the notion of life in terms of normative, expansive movement that both shapes the living being itself and individuates the elements on which it acts. The final part of the paper seeks to understand the emergence of subjectivity from ordinary life-challenges such as illness and experiences of vulnerability or fragility, thus bypassing the need for stipulating a self-referencing consciousness as a primary mode of self-disclosure. (shrink)

Článek je věnován odůvodnění, projasnění a také kritickému zhodnocení poněkud zkratkovitého hesla o „primátu praxe“, který v očích mnoha amerických interpretů představuje společného jmenovatele Heideggerova díla a pragmatismu v širokém slova smyslu. V mém podání nesměřuje Heideggerův důraz na praxi ani tak k převrácení tradiční hierarchie, podle níž svět nejprve poznáváme, abychom v něm mohli jednat, ale spíše k přehodnocení ontologického rámce, v němž byla otázka ohledně přednosti teorie či praxe až dosud kladena. V druhé části proto ukážu, jak Heideggerovo (...) osobité pojetí praxe souvisí s jeho revizí bytí věcí a nás samotných, a podám důvody, proč na rozdíl od Dreyfusova, Okrentova a Blattnerova vymezení primátu praxe odmítám chápat veškerou srozumitelnost lidského života a světa jako něco odvozeného z našeho každodenního, praktického obstarávání. (shrink)

Fine (J Philos Log 43:549–577, 2014) developed a truthmaker semantics for intuitionistic logic, which is also called exact semantics, since it is based on a relation of exact verification between states and formulas. A natural question arises as to what are the limits of Fine’s approach and whether an exact semantics of similar kind can be constructed for other important non-classical logics. In our paper, we will generalize Fine’s approach and develop an exact semantics for some substructural logics. In particular, (...) we will provide a truthmaker semantics for the Non-associative Lambek calculus and some of its extensions. This generalization will reveal some interesting connections between Fine’s recent work on truthmaker semantics and his early work on relevant logic. (shrink)

Many legal theorists and linguists have addressed the notion of legal language from different perspectives. Despite that, the definitions of legal language vary. Almost all of the approaches conclude that legal language entails several types of communication. Nevertheless, not all of these categories are sufficiently researched. Some types of legal communication seem to be neglected. This lack of interest might be rooted in the uncertainty of whether these texts or utterances even fall under the scope of the concept of legal (...) language. In order to avoid this superficiality in subsequent research, it is first necessary to come to a clear determination of which communicative acts can be considered a part of legal language and which cannot. Accordingly, in this search for the definition of legal language, we should not neglect the fact that language is executed in concrete communicative acts, and the only means to grasp the language is through communication. The aim of this article is therefore to clearly delineate the boundaries of this concept. Based on analysis of how the given term is currently defined, I draw out the common features and trace the characteristics in which they differ. Taking into account these findings, I propose a novel comprehensive demarcation of legal language. This concept argues that the ‘legal’ nature of language should be determined by the context and function of the particular statement or exchange, in connection with the role of participants in the communication. This means that a particular act may be considered a part of legal language not in accordance with a certain form or lexicon used, but mainly by extralinguistic circumstances in the context of which it is being performed. (shrink)

An introduction to an English translation of Jan Mukařovský´s lecture The Semiology of Art. In this lecture Mukařovský, a Czech aesthetician, literary historian, theorist, and leading proponent of Czech structuralism, develops his interpretation of the semiotics of art from a detailed explanation of the basic functions of the artistic sign. He emphasizes the role of the aesthetic function, which is dominant but latently and potentially contained in all the other functions of the linguistic and the artistic sign. He then defines (...) the artistic sign as the dialectical negation of the communicative sign. (shrink)

We explore different ways to generalize Hintikka’s classic game theoretic semantics to a many-valued setting, where the unit interval is taken as the set of truth values. In this manner a plethora of characterizations of Łukasiewicz logic arise. Among the described semantic games is Giles’s dialogue and betting game, presented in a manner that makes the relation to Hintikka’s game more transparent. Moreover, we explain a so-called explicit evaluation game and a ‘bargaining game’ variant of it. We also describe a (...) recently introduced backtracking game as well as a game with random choices for Łukasiewicz logic. (shrink)

The paper discusses alternatives of philosophical approach to addiction. While not denying the central position of problems of will or craving, it focuses on the broader anthropological context of addiction, using Heidegger’s existential analyses. It appears that addiction – in some cases, because an essentialist exposition is not viable here – is characterized by a defective pattern of the agent’s choice among possibilities and of temporality. The anecdotic observations can be synthesized into a treatise of addiction as a normative disorder: (...) a systematic inability of the addict to function within usual normative practices of various social contexts. The relevance of this perspective is testified also by therapeutic practice: addicts are treated not exclusively with respect to problems concerning will, but as persons who have to be re-socialized, i.e. led to a responsible attitude both towards themselves and society. (shrink)

The text deals with the role of particular examples in our understanding, especially in the encounters with unfamiliar cases that may require us to expand our concepts. I try to show that Peter Winch’s reflections on the nature of understanding can provide the foundations for such an account. Understanding consists in a response informed by a background network of particular canonical examples. It is against this background that the distinction between appropriate differentiated reactions and misplaced ones makes sense. To accommodate (...) applications of known concepts to unfamiliar cases, particular examples are needed that invite the recipient in a certain direction of understanding, while providing a “closure” against arbitrary mis- or re-interpretations. This capacity has to do with a capacity or incapacity to convey the sense of seriousness of an example dealing with the _lives_ of the persons concerned. (shrink)

Problém svobodné vůle je tradičně považován za ryze metafyzický, a tedy neempirický. Díky současnému rozvoji kognitivních věd však narůstá množství argumentů založených na empirických poznatcích. Tento článek podává stručný přehled několika takových poznatků. Na jedné straně jde o výzkumy zabývající se otázkou kauzální potence vědomí a uvědomění si příčin svých akcí. Nejslavnější, avšak patrně nikoli nejvýznamnější, jsou zde bezpochyby experimenty Benjamina Libeta. Na druhé straně jde o zkoumání samotného prožitku svobodné agence. Zda danou akci vnímám jako svoji vlastní, závisí pravděpodobně (...) na prediktivních i postdiktivních faktorech, o čemž svědčí situace, kdy podkladové kognitivní mechanismy selžou a vedou k omylům. Závěrem příspěvku je zamyšlení nad důsledky vědeckých poznatků pro různá pojetí svobodné vůle: libertariánské a kompatibilistické. Argumentuji ve prospěch smysluplnosti kompatibilistické koncepce svobodné vůle, proti které lze vést námitky spíše z pozice psychologie než neurověd. (shrink)

This paper summarizes the problematic aspects of a globalized neoliberal culture in education. Linking to the particular studies of this monothematic volume it discusses the consequences of the globalization of a testing culture in schools, the issues of developing civic literacy in the context of current education practice and the issues of forming a historic consciousness in present schools relating to the existing social discourse. Language teaching, currently dominated by the concept of language literacy or the concept of language education (...) resulting from English language teaching seems to be significant. This paper reveals various ways in which the educational section is being contaminated by neoliberal transformations to point out their culturally devastating consequences in a critical way. The goal of this paper is to articulate the mechanism by which neoliberalism is infiltrating education in the form of discursive and physical “colonizing”. (shrink)

Slovak education policy is an example of the kind of transformations occurring in the education spheres of postcommunist countries. While at the end of the 1990s, it seemed that education policy was still attempting to ensure that Slovakia caught up with education levels in western countries, the period that followed brought with it a shift towards neoliberalization of the education sector and towards the economization of education. Slovakia’s entry into the EU was accompanied by the total assimilation of the neoliberal (...) agenda within education and since then it can be said that Slovak education policy has followed a path towards so-called perpetual neoliberalism. The aim of this article is to show how education policy has developed within Slovak politics, in terms of how it is gradually adapting to neoliberal ideas. The article analyzes government documents from 1998 onwards, particularly Slovak government programs, which document the process of neoliberalization in education. (shrink)

The paper discusses the status of shall in today’s legal drafting and legal translation, and by presenting typologies by a number of authors briefly addresses the variety of meanings it is used to express, in both legislation and contracts. It introduces the “shall dilemma” faced by non-native legal translators working both from and into English. The dilemma consists in the discrepancy between the promiscuous and abundant use of shall in authentic as well as translated documents, on the one hand, and (...) the recommendations found in various drafting manuals promoting either a shall-free policy or a disciplined use of shall, on the other hand. The research part presents the results of a survey carried out among a carefully chosen sample of professional legal translators to determine what their policy is on the use of shall. The results include both quantitative findings and additional comments made by the translators, and confirms the divide between actual practice and the recommendations. In the next section of the paper, the results are applied and a series of step-by-step exercises are introduced which should raise the awareness of legal translation trainees of the ambiguity of shall and teach them to use it in a reasoned and disciplined way. (shrink)

Cílem této práce je rozebrat možnosti argumentu holandské sázky ve prospěch probabilismu a stanovit jeho meze. Existuje mnoho podob argumentu, proto se nejprve budu věnovat popisu argumentu v jeho klasické podobě. Následně je podroben kritice ve třech oblastech: (1) problémy behaviorismu, (2) užitku peněz, (3) vztah koherence, jisté ztráty a racionality. Zásadní je dle mého především třetí oblast týkající se neschopnosti jednoduše propojit probabilistickou nekoherenci stupňů přesvědčení s jistou ztrátou a pragmatickou racionalitou. Věnuji se třem současným reinterpretacím argumentu ve prospěch (...) probabilistických norem (Armendt, Howson, Christensen), přičemž v textu docházím k závěru, že ani jedna z nich není uspokojivá. Selhávají v řešení problémů (Armendt, Christensen), nebo neříkají nic zajímavého ve prospěch probabilismu (Howson). Proto se domnívám, že rozbor argumentu především ukazuje, že pragmatická obhajoba epistemických norem racionality, jako je ta v argumentu holandské sázky, není pro probabilismus schůdnou cestou. Závěr se snaží nastínit, proč tomu tak je. (shrink)

Tato práce se zaměřuje na myšlení dvou významných teoretiků přirozeného zákona a přirozených práv - Johna Locka a Murrayho Rothbarda. Snaží se porovnat jejich představy o přirozeném řádu. Můžeme zde najít důležitou shodu, jako v případě zdůvodnění legitimnosti soukromého vlastnictví, ale zároveň i rozdíly. Locke a Rothbard se liší zejména v názoru na stát a jeho vznik, což vede buď k jeho ospravedlnění u Locka, či k jeho důraznému odmítnutí u Rothbarda. Rothbardova koncepce je v této práci pojímána jako dovedení (...) Lockových východisek do logických důsledků. (shrink)

The following paper is based on a broad understanding of communication that considers as text basically anything that has been created within the framework of a cultural interaction by an author and that is perceived by a recipient. The first part of the paper introduces, explains and follows mostly cases in which the author’s violations of the recipient’s expectations have a communication value, i.e. provoke, in the recipient, a communication effect that matches the author’s intentions. In such cases, this effect (...) results as a consequence of an violation of the communication „cooperative“ principles. This, at the recipient’s end, translates into an event of expectancy violation. Each of such violations provokes an arousal in the recipient, which further motivates him/her to search for its cause. Finding this cause, and being “confronted” with the related violation pertaining to it with the norm equals, for the recipient, getting to the meaning of the text, or identifying its communication value etc. As part of the conclusion, a commented scheme is presented which offers a spectrum of possible communication outcomes “positioned” between the predictability of each textual element and the stochasticity of choice. The effort to illustrate all the explained facts results, in the paper, in a rich set of examples stemming from miscellaneous spheres of human activity – from “high styles” to rather day-to-day activities, to pop-culture. The objective is to show that the described principles, if not valid in general, permeate at least all forms of interaction. (shrink)

Recipients always perceive texts in a successive and linear way. Often, the recipient’s perception of the text only lasts until the text has fulfilled the expectations the recipient has of it. Being well aware of this, authors build texts based on their goals, aims, or preferences that either meaningfully fulfill the expectations of the recipient - according to the authors’ own knowledge, estimation, or presumptions - or, on the contrary, more or less intentionally violate these expectations. While the fulfillment of (...) expectations results in a certain “comforting” impression on recipients, its violation causes an arousal in them. In this sense, violation of expectations does not only have a negative effect, but it can also have a communicative value. It can be argued that a) the author incorporates stimuli into the text that lead to the violation of the recipient’s expectations and does so with a communicatively functional - also artistic and aesthetic - kind of intent and b) an arousal is a consequence of violating the recipient’s expectations; then if an author’s artistic or aesthetic intention lies in a series of violations of the recipient’s expectations, this can provoke an aesthetic experience which will be caused - among other things - by the arousals themselves induced by the relevant violations. (shrink)

In the majority of papers on probability in the framework of possible worlds the existence of a global probability distribution is taken for granted. The aim of the article is to discuss the epistemic aspect of this assumption in the connection to the status assigned to possible worlds. Two questions are discussed in particular: the justification of the global probability distribution and compatibility of the global probability assumption with the structure of the universe of the possible worlds.

The article deals with the problem of inductive learning and predicting in dynamic processes, which can be formally represented as time series of atomic events. The central notion of sequential event is characterised as a finite subsequence of adjacent atomic events in a series. In the first part of the article an algorythmic model of learning is introduced. The criterion of learning is based on the frequency of a particular sequential event and on the time-distance of its previous occurrences from (...) the moment of learning. The second part deals with the problem of evaluation of hypotheses in the process of predicting sequential events. A first order language of sequential events and axiomatic theory of sequential events are defined. The theory is proved to be consistent (a model of the theory is constructed). Then a probabilistic evaluation function for sequential events is defined as an analogy of Carnapian confirmation function. In the conclusion this probabilistic evaluation is discussed from the point of view of the foundations of probability. (shrink)

The occasion of the 100th anniversary of I. Kant’s death was a colossal impulse for many researchers of Immanuel Kant’s legacy. One of the goals of the paper is to introduce one of the less known anniversary critical texts, which appeared in the Russian intellectual milieu. It attempts to disrupt the usual approach regarding the interpretation of Bely’s comprehension of Kant’s legacy, i.e., Kant as a skeleton of philosophy or a police officer of thinking. The paper points to a more (...) systematically conceived scale of Bely’s reflections of Kant. From Bely’s point of view, Kant is the author of firm grounds for the shaping of thought. On the unstable background of philosophy, which during the historical development of thought succumbed to erosion, it is Kant’s philosophy that serves as the stabilizing base. Bely tries to highlight that Kant’s epistemology forms distinctively outlined the foundations of a knowledge of the world and philosophical comprehension not only of history but also of symbolism. The symbolism of Andrei Bely. (shrink)

The paper describes that period of the Hungarian philosophy, in which it became professionalized, namely the Kant argument, which was the first step the Hungarian philosophy took towards its being public. The question has to be answered whether Kant’s thought could become a part of it. Due to political developments as well as the pressure of the church the turn of the century witnessed the shift from epistemology to the issues of moral philosophy and theology. Thus the conditions for the (...) reception of Kantianism and post-Kantian philosophy in the 19th century have been created. The fundaments for the development of axiology were laid as well. The paper covers the main phases of the debate with their leading representatives. (shrink)