Molly Farneth, Hegel’s Social Ethics: Religion, Conflict, and Rituals of Reconciliation, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2017 Slobodan Golubović.

Niels Bohr was a central figure in quantum physics, well known for his work on atomic structure and his contributions to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this book, philosopher of science Slobodan Perović explores the way Bohr practiced and understood physics, and analyzes its implications for our understanding of modern science. Perović develops a novel approach to Bohr’s understanding of physics and his method of inquiry, presenting an exploratory symbiosis of historical and philosophical analysis that uncovers the (...) key aspects of Bohr’s philosophical vision of physics within a given historical context. -/- To better understand the methods that produced Bohr’s breakthrough results in quantum phenomena, Perović clarifies the nature of Bohr’s engagement with the experimental side of physics and lays out the basic distinctions and concepts that characterize his approach. Rich and insightful, Perović’s take on the early history of quantum mechanics and its methodological ramifications sheds vital new light on one of the key figures of modern physics. (shrink)

We employ data envelopment analysis on a series of experiments performed in Fermilab, one of the major high-energy physics laboratories in the world, in order to test their efficiency (as measured by publication and citation rates) in terms of variations of team size, number of teams per experiment, and completion time. We present the results and analyze them, focusing in particular on inherent connections between quantitative team composition and diversity, and discuss them in relation to other factors contributing to scientific (...) production in a wider sense. Our results concur with the results of other studies across the sciences showing that smaller research teams are more productive, and with the conjecture on curvilinear dependence of team size and efficiency. (shrink)

In 2005 The Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory has undertaken a reputed interview, based on identical methodology but on a reduced sample in six towns in Serbia. The objective was to examine how citizens see the circumstances in society today, five years after the October turn, and what conditions their attitudes towards: the policy of new democratic powers, of democratic parties and those of the ex-regime, as well as towards the problems they are confronted with, and whether the initial (...) optimism has gone and why. The results obtained by this interview show that after five years of experience with democratic transition the interviewees are more critical regarding the actual democratic policy, and more likely to forget the reasons created by the former regime as obstacles to a successful democratic transition. For this reason, disappointment has grown, and an initial optimism gives its place to pessimism, with vanishing of the hope in the possibility of radical democratic change. This makes it possible to give a chance to the Radical Party in a future election. But, in spite of current confusion among citizens produced by the examined state of affairs, as well as the ambiguities in certain attitudes, this inquiry suggests that the interviewees have provided a quite realistic evaluation of the actual conditions in Serbian society today, and that their criticism, which arises from disappointment, does not completely cancel a positive attitude towards democratic transition, since their criticism results from dissatisfaction with the unrealized democratic principles and values after October 5th. Institut za filozofiju i drustvenu teoriju je obavio 2005. ponovljeni intervju, radjen istom metodologijom, ali na skracenom, desetoprocentnom uzorku i u sest gradova Srbije, sa ciljem da se proveri sta se promenilo u vidjenju gradjana o politici u drustvu posle pet godina od oktobarskog prevrata i sta uslovljava njihove stavove prema: politici demokratskih vlasti, prema strankama bivseg rezima i problemima sa kojima se suocavaju, kao i da li je nestao pocetni optimizam i zasto. Rezultati pokazuju da su posle petogodisnjeg iskustva ispitanici kriticniji prema politici demokratskih vlasti, skloniji da zaborave razloge koje je proizveo bivsi rezim kao prepreke za demokratski preobrazaj drustva, te da je poraslo razocaranje i nezadovoljstvo postignutim, a pocetni optimizam sve vise ustupa mesto pesimizmu i gubljenju nade u mogucnost radikalnijih demokratskih promena, sto uslovljava i stav o mogucem davanju sanse radikalima na sledecim izborima. Ali i pored zbunjenosti gradjana zbog nastale nepovoljne situacije i ambivalentnosti izvesnih stavova, istrazivanje sugerise da su ispitanici realnije procenili aktualno stanje drustva i da kriticnost, koja proizlazi iz nezadovoljstva zbog neostvarenih obecanja, ali i zbog neartikulisanih ciljeva razvoja, ne potire u potpunosti pozitivni stav prema demokratskoj transformaciji, buduci da se kritika uglavnom pokazuje kao rezultat razocaranja sto se ne ostvaruju demokratski principi posle 5. oktobra. (shrink)

In the first part of this text, the author exposes the main features of the liberal or civic state, because both communitarians and multiculturalists tend to criticize that type of state. Their critique of the liberal state and the liberal self as an unencumbered self is “culturalist” by its character. However, it is an expression of conceptual confusion, i.e. of their incomprehension of an essential difference between two conceptual levels: one that belongs to the purely normative rights-justifying perspective and the (...) other that refers to the ontological perspective. Consequently, both of them reject the central liberal thesis according to which the right is prior to the good.The author agrees with an assessment of Richard Robson that multiculturalism is only a form of communitarianism. Contrary to communitarians and multiculturalists, he additionally argues that collective rights are incompatible with the civic state in its pure form because there are structural differences between civic and specific minority rights.Further, the author attempts to show that communitarianism and multiculturalism are forms of postmodernism. Namely, brought to their ultimate logical consequences, the mentioned orientations can be connected to the postmodern notion of radical, irreducible difference.In the conclusive part of the text, he summarizes the common points of communitarianism and multiculturalism and emphasizes the importance of these contemporary theoretical tendencies. (shrink)

Freedom as an authentic and willed process, characteristic of man as a human rational being, enables the individual to act in accordance with the principles of morality, since the individual can choose between good and evil, and in this way to get out of the sphere of the given to which the rest of the living world is limited. We should recall the forgotten Marx and his famous text on the essential difference between the animal world and humanity as a (...) genus: "The animal is immediately united with its vital activity. It does not differ from it. It is vital activity. Man makes his own vital activity the subject of his will and consciousness. He has conscious vital activity. This is not a determination with which he merges immediately. Conscious vital activity distinguishes man directly from animal vital activity. It is exactly in this way alone that he is a generic being. Or a conscious being, i.e. his own life is a subject for him precisely because he is a generic being. It is only for this reason that his activity is free activity...". In other words, while animals live just the life of their species and cannot choose anything else, since the choice has been made by the fact of their belonging to a species, man can choose the world in which to live, overcoming in this way the natural givens. Here lies the core of the anthropological explanation of the principle of morality, inconceivable without man's ability to be an authentic free being. Sloboda kao autenticni voljni proces, svojstven coveku kao ljudskom umnom bicu, omogucuje individui da postupa u skladu sa nacelima moralnosti, buduci da individua moze da bira izmedju dobra i zla i da na taj nacin izadje iz sfere datosti na koju je ogranicen ostali zivi svet. Podsetimo se zaboravljenog Marxa i cuvenog teksta o sustinskoj razlici izmedju sveta zivotinjskih vrsta i coveka kao roda:?zivotinja je neposredno jedinstvena sa svojom zivotnom delatnoscu. Ona se od nje ne razlikuje. Ona je zivotna datost. Covek cini samu svoju zivotnu delatnost predmetom svoga htenja i svoje svesti. On ima svesnu zivotnu delatnost. To nije odredjenost s kojom se on neposredno stapa. Svesna zivotna delatnost razlikuje coveka neposredno od zivotinjske zivotne delatnosti. On je upravo samo na taj nacin genericko bice. Ilije samo svesno bice, tj. njegov vlastiti zivot mu je predmet upravo zato sto je genericko bice. Samo zato je njegova delatnost slobodna delatnost...". Drugim recima, dok zivotinjski svet zivi samo zivotom svoje vrste i ne moze da izabere nista drugo, on je srastao sa vrstom kojoj pripada, covek moze da bira svet u kojem ce ziveti prevazilazeci na taj nacin prirodnu datost. Ovde je sadrzana bit antropoloskog objasnjenja principa moralnosti, koji se bez sposobnosti coveka da bude autenticno slobodno bice ne bi mogao pojmiti.. (shrink)

The protection and improvement of the environment represents the most essential field of engagement among all the issues of international policy. An ecological paradigm in the traditional and postmodern context refers to a strategic approach to solving the outstanding controversies of human society in different stages of its existence. Globalization of the environment is the oldest example of this process, which in the contemporary world has gained a special significance. Negative trends in addressing ecological problems at all levels of organization (...) of the planetary community oblige the international participants to apply more adequate measures to preserve the ecological safety of humankind. (shrink)

Focusing on the discovery of weak currents, the current debate on the theory-ladenness of observation in modern physics might be too narrow, as it concerns only the last stage of a complex experimental process and statistical methods required to analyze data. The scope of the debate should be extended to include broader experimental conditions that concern the design of the apparatus and different levels of the detection process. These neglected conditions often decisively delimit experiments long before the last stage has (...) been reached, thus predetermining the extent of the dependence of data production on the theory. I explain the nature of these conditions and the theory-ladenness tendencies they produce, noting how they affect the last stage of the data analysis and providing some relevant examples. (shrink)

Niels Bohr’s complementarity principle is a tenuous synthesis of seemingly discrepant theoretical approaches based on a comprehensive analysis of relevant experimental results. Yet the role of complementarity, and the experimentalist-minded approach behind it, were not confined to a provisional best-available synthesis of well-established experimental results alone. They were also pivotal in discovering and explaining the phenomenon of quantum tunneling in its various forms. The core principles of Bohr’s method and the ensuing complementarity account of quantum phenomena remain highly relevant guidelines (...) in the current controversial debate and in experimental work on quantum tunneling times. (shrink)

La nécessité d’une approche anthropologique du concept d’identité provient de la nature de l’identité, qu’elle soit personnelle ou collective, qui n’est pas un phénomène « donné naturellement », mais une forme, culturellement définie et construite, de la vie humaine dans un milieu culturel en tant que « seconde nature » ; celle-ci conditionne et conceptualise humainement les différents « modes de vie » des individus et des peuples. Étant donné que la culture représente le contexte essentiel de la vie sociale (...) et individuelle de l’homme, elle fournit un modèle pour un mode de vie et de pensée commun de l’expérience collective, comme cadre des valeurs de référence sur lequel s’appuient les définitions et les interprétations de l’identité. Ainsi, le paradigme culturel permet aux chercheurs de comprendre ce que signifie l’identité dans des conditions socio-historiques et des connotations idéologiques différentes, en assumant un concept dynamique inverse du modèle national d’identité, qui lui est lié aux groupes ethniques et exclut la possibilité du changement. Le texte traitera également de la conceptualisation, orientée traditionnellement, de l’identité en Serbie, ainsi que de son influence sur la lenteur des changements dans la transition démocratique en ce nouveau millénaire. (shrink)

In Bk. 3 of the Institutio oratoria, Quintilian gives a list of the Greek artium scriptores of the classical epoch (1.8ff.). It contains a controversial entry: ‘…et, quem Palameden Plato appellat, Alcidamas Elaites’ (1.10). The historicity of the rhetorician and sophist from Elaea named Alcidamas, Gorgias' pupil, is of course beyond doubt; scholars disagree only as to the ‘quem Palameden Plato appellat’.

Problemi savremene teorije ličnosti -- Porodica kao ljudska zajednica -- Samorealizacija čoveka jednakošću i slobodom -- Kultura kao most između utopije i stvarnosti.

The Gestalt Bubble model describes a subjective phenomenal experience (what is seen) without taking into account the extraphenomenal constraints of perceptual experience (why it is seen as it is). If it intends to be an explanatory model, then it has to include either stimulus or neural constraints, or both.

Otpor is discussed in the text as a complex and contradictory new type of social movement, whose members attempted to contribute to the tradition of enlightened reform of social and political life in Serbia, simultaneously in a highly pragmatic and in a creative, possibly even irresponsible manner. After the introduction, analyzed are popular and media narratives on the characteristics of the movement, dilemmas concerning the founding of the movement and meaning of its key symbols, and the Faustian question of goals (...) and consequences of foreign, in particular American influences. Following is a discussion of strategic and tactical roles of Otpor in the coordinated project of ousting Milosevic. Otpor?s role is then re-interpreted in the frame of the?electoral revolution?, developed by Valerie Bunce, Sharon Wolchik and Michael McFoul. An assessment of the transformation of Otpor from an active social movement into an exportable blueprint for non-violent political revolutions is offered in lieu of a conclusion. U radu se o Otporu raspravlja kao o slozenom, pa cak i kontradiktornom drustvenom pokretu novog tipa, koji je na krajnje pragmatican, a istovremeno i veoma mastovit, stvaralacki nastrojen, na trenutke cak neozbiljan i neodgovoran nacin pokusao da nastavi tradiciju prosvecenog reformisanja drustvenog i politickog zivota u Srbiji. Autor zapocinje analizu razmatranjem medijskih i narodskih narativa o Otporu. Potom se prelazi na pitanje nastanka pokreta i mogucih znacenja njegovog imena i kljucnih simbola. Sledeci odeljak bavi se "faustovskim" pitanjem vrsta i posledica stranih uticaja na nacin funkcionisanja Otpora. Zatim se prelazi na razmatranje specificnih strateskih i taktickih uloga Otpora u koordinisanom projektu rusenja Milosevicevog rezima. Sledi pokusaj teorijskog odredjenja politickog projekta ciji je konstitutivni deo bio i Otpor, a koji pociva na modelu izborne revolucije koji su razvili Valeri Bans, Seron Volcik i Majkl Mekfaul. U epilogu se razmatra kako je pokret, iako politicki mrtav, zahvaljujuci projektima nekadasnjih aktivista uspeo da preraste u jedan od poznatijih srpskih izvoznih "brendova". (shrink)

Rad predstavlja pokusaj da se jedna konkretna naucna polemika o temi koja je opterecena znatnim ideoloskim nabojem "zanrovski" preusmeri ka formi naucnog dijaloga, i time ucini plodnijom u naucnom smislu. Glavna pitanja koja se razmatraju ticu se pokusaja teorijskog odredjenja petooktobarske revolucije i uloge koju je pokret "Otpor" imao u njoj. U radu se brani teza da teorijski modeli "talasa demokratizacije" i "izborne revolucije" nude najutemeljenije okvire za razmatranje pitanja koja se u tekstu otvaraju. Kljucni problemi o kojima se u (...) radu raspravlja su sledeci: u kojoj meri oslanjanje na strane izvore i teorijske okvire zakrivljuje uvide u lokalne politicke procese kakva je razlika izmedju "uvezenih" i "izbornih revolucija"; koje su posebnosti izborne revolucije u Srbiji i koje je njeno mesto u "drugom talasu" postkomunisticke demokratizacije; koliki je relativni znacaj stranih i lokalnih inicijativa prilikom organizovanja izbornih revolucija; u cemu je razlika izmedju klasicnih odnosa izmedju davalaca i primalaca politicke pomoci i novih odnosa, koji se zasnivaju na nacelu sinergije; koja su ogranicenja ili-ili logike objasnjenja u razmatranju politicke saradnje stranih i domacih aktera; sta povezuje strategiju nenasilnog otpora, proaktivnu logiku politickog delovanja i Otporov "Plan B"; najzad, postoji li mehanicka veza izmedju prisustva strane pomoci i gubljenja kontrole nad rezultatima izborne revolucije. U zavrsnom odeljku, otvara se pitanje negativnih i pozitivnih aspekata nasledja Otpora kao politickog projekta i nudi pokusaj da se razmatranje o dometima pokreta poveze sa razumevanjem "dinamike nade" kao politickog projekta na kojem je Otpor sistematski radio. (shrink)

Michael Strevens develops kairetic account of causal explanations as a brand of explanatory reductionism. He argues that explanations in higher-level sciences are complete (stand-alone) only because they can be potentially deepened—that is, added kernels of causal processes all the way down to the level of micro-physical relations. Thus, they are, in essence, the result of abstraction from deeper causal explanatory levels. I argue that Strevens’s discussion of the notion of depth in science is limited to a very narrow domain, the (...) boundaries of which are determined by a simplistic amalgam of science textbook and everyday cases analyzed by means of rational metaphysics. In contrast to his view, history of scientific practice shows that scientific explanations are typically bounded within a level and do not draw their viability from their potential for lower-level explanatory deepening. Moreover, a result of such deepening of higher-level explanations produces changes and refinements much more complex than Strevens’s account assumes. (shrink)

"This volume tells the untold story of how observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation were interpreted in the decades following its serendipitous discovery, before the Hot Big Bang model became the accepted orthodoxy. The authors guide the reader through this history, including the many false trails and blind alleys that occurred along the way. Readers will discover how the Big Bang theory was shaped by alternative theories that exposed its weaknesses – including some that persist even today. By looking (...) carefully at what it takes to reject an incorrect theory and the assumptions and processes at each stage, the authors examine the epistemological factors at play between an emerging scientific orthodoxy and since discarded alternatives. Their analysis of the cosmic microwave background provides a uniquely well-documented case study of theory building for a wide readership spanning cosmology, the history of physics and astronomy, and the philosophy of science more broadly.". (shrink)

A recent rethinking of the early history of Quantum Mechanics deemed the late 1920s agreement on the equivalence of Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics, prompted by Schrödinger’s 1926 proof, a myth. Schrödinger supposedly failed to achieve the goal of proving isomorphism of the mathematical structures of the two theories, while only later developments in the early 1930s, especially the work of mathematician John von Neumman (1932) provided sound proof of equivalence. The alleged agreement about the Copenhagen Interpretation, predicated to a (...) large extent on this equivalence, was deemed a myth as well. If such analysis is correct, it provides considerable evidence that, in its critical moments, the foundations of scientific practice might not live up to the minimal standards of rigor, as such standards are established in the practice of logic, mathematics, and mathematical physics, thereby prompting one to question the rationality of the practice of physics. In response, I argue that Schrödinger’s proof concerned primarily a domain-specific ontological equivalence, rather than the isomorphism. It stemmed initially from the agreement of the eigenvalues of Wave Mechanics and energy-states of Bohr’s Model that was discovered and published by Schrödinger in his First and Second Communications of 1926. Schrödinger demonstrated in this proof that the laws of motion arrived at by the method of Matrix Mechanics could be derived successfully from eigenfunctions as well (while he only outlined the reversed derivation of eigenfunctions from Matrix Mechanics, which was necessary for the proof of isomorphism of the two theories). This result was intended to demonstrate the domain-specific ontological equivalence of Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics, with respect to the domain of Bohr’s atom. And although the full-fledged mathematico-logical equivalence of the theories did not seem out of the reach of existing theories and methods, Schrödinger never intended to fully explore such a possibility in his proof paper. In a further development of Quantum Mechanics, Bohr’s complementarity and Copenhagen Interpretation captured a more substantial convergence of the subsequently revised (in light of the experimental results) Wave and Matrix Mechanics. I argue that both the equivalence and Copenhagen Interpretation can be deemed myths if one predicates the philosophical and historical analysis on a narrow model of physical theory which disregards its historical context, and focuses exclusively on its formal aspects and the exploration of the logical models supposedly implicit in it. (shrink)

Rad se bavi određenim aspektima etičkih istraživanja koja su nastajala u posljednjih pedeset godina u Hrvatskoj, posebno analizom kritičkog preispitivanja temelja etike kao filozofske discipline, njezina značaja i dometa, postignutog u filozofsko-etičkom djelu Milana Kangrge. Pored toga, u radu se razmatra »etički udio« u bioetici, odnosno promišljanje značaja i uloge etike u okviru zasnivanja bioetike u Hrvatskoj.This paper is about certain aspects of ethical researches which have emerged during the last 50 years in Croatia, especially about analysis of critical reexamination (...) of establishing the ethics as a philosophical discipline, its significance and range, which has been done throughout the work of Milan Kangrga. In addition, this paper is considering the part ethics takes in bioethics, in other words reexams the significance and part of ethics within establishing the bioethics in Croatia. (shrink)