What is the relation of creationism to religion? Neither creationism nor evolutionism has a direct relation to religion, serving only as a basis for strengthening or weakening the positions of religion. Building a religion on this stand is a very separate thing. Therefore, it is not possible to criticize the proponents of reforming the textbooks of the "effort to disguise the discipleship of religion in the mind of the disciples," because then the symmetrical can be the proponents of the non-reformation (...) - the "effort to disguise the atheism in the disciples' minds.". (shrink)

From ancient times people wanted to know their future, and hence there was a need for predictions, predictions, prophecies, insights, and so on. In the most general way, the desire to answer the questions of future events is likely to be that without forecasts and attempts to look into the future in general, it is impossible to social development of man and society, since knowledge of the future course of events allows a person to correctly select the goals and objectives (...) for their activities in the present, to achieve the fulfillment of these goals, and thus to create, model their future. (shrink)

The scholar analyzes the religious, social, utopian, and philosophical-historical concepts of the future and pays particular attention to the perspectives of religion in contemporary futuristic prognosis. The author examines the features and approbation of scientific approaches to prediction in religious studies. There is a section devoted to religious scholarly expertise that will encourage dialogue not only among religious scholars or philosophers, but also with sociologists, historians, psychologists, mass media and managers.

We introduce proof nets and sequent calculus for the multiplicative fragment of non-commutative logic, which is an extension of both linear logic and cyclic linear logic. The two main technical novelties are a third switching position for the non-commutative disjunction, and the structure of order variety.

Autor prostredníctvom skúmania literárnych diel Charlesa Dickensa, Williama Makepeaca Thackeryho, George Eliotovej a Thomasa Hardyho vytvára mozaiku viktoriánskej morálky Anglicka 19. storočia. Dospel k záveru, že uvedená doba vôbec nebola taká puritánska, ako si ju zvykneme predstavovať a morálne problémy, ktoré ľudstvo rieši v priebehu svojho vývoja sú vo svojej podstate univerzálne, hoci nie totožné. Líšia sa vo svojich individuálnych podobách, v akých sa s nimi stretávame v jednotlivých obdobiach dejín ľudstva.

In this book, the extend to which we can equip artificial agents with moral reasoning capacity is investigated. Attempting to create artificial agents with moral reasoning capabilities challenges our understanding of morality and moral reasoning to its utmost. It also helps philosophers dealing with the inherent complexity of modern organizations. Modern society with large multi-national organizations and extensive information infrastructures provides a backdrop for moral theories that is hard to encompass through mere theorising. Computerized support for theorising is needed to (...) be able to fully grasp and address the inherent complexity. Using moral reasoning capacity will help us addressing the challenges that technological artefacts pose. They do not only contain information about us, they start to act on our behalves.With the increasing autonomy comes an increased need to ensure that their behaviour is in line with what we expect from them. To investigate and address these issues a laboratoy for philosophy is outlined: SophoLab. It consists of a methodology; a framework of modal logic, DEAL; and multi-agent software systems. SophoLab provides the basis for an experimental, computational philosophy. Its viability and usefulness are demonstrated through several experiments. (shrink)

In the final analysis, sustainable agriculture must derive from applied ecology, especially the principle of the regulation of the abundance and distribution of species (and, secondarily, their activities) in space and time. Interspecific competition in natural ecosystems has its counterparts in agriculture, designed to divert greater amounts of energy, nutrients, and water into crops. Whereas natural ecosystems select for a diversity of species in communities, recent agriculture has minimized diversity in favour of vulnerable monocultures. Such systems show intrinsically less stability (...) and resilience to perturbations. Some kinds of crop rotation resemble ecological succession in that one crop prepares the land for successive crop production. Such rotations enhance soil organic processes such as decomposition and material cycling, build a nutrient capital to sustain later crop growth, and reduce the intensity of pest buildup. Species in natural communities occur at discrete points along the r-K continuum of reproductive maturity. Clearing forested land for agriculture, rotational burning practices, and replacing perennial grassland communities by cereal monocultures moves the agricultural community towards the r extreme. Plant breeders select for varieties which yield at an earlier age and lower plant biomass, effectively moving a variety towards the r type. Features of more natural landscapes, such as hedgerows, may act as physical and biological adjuncts to agricultural production. They should exist as networks in agricultural lands to be most effective. Soil is of major importance in agroecosystems, and maintaining, deliberately, its vitality and resilience to agricultural perturbations is the very basis of sustainable land use. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that scholars such as John Braithwaite and Lode Walgrave rely on fictions when presenting their utopian vision of restorative justice. Three claims in particular are shown to be fictitious. Proponents of restorative justice maintain, first, that the offender and the victim voluntarily attend the restorative conference. Second, that the restorative conference enables the offender and the victim to take on active responsibility. Third, that the reparatory tasks on which the parties agree should not be understood (...) in terms of the intentional infliction of harm. These fictions, so I argue, are not merely a mistake, but instead serve an important function: the various parties need to believe that they adequately capture the reality of the restorative conference as they are more likely to acquiesce if they believe the fictions to be true. I conclude that the fictions are the driving force within the restorative endeavour. (shrink)

Consequentialism is seen by Philip Pettit mainly as a theory of the appropriate; in his conception of virtual consequentialism he is much less concerned with the theory of Good. Nevertheless, he pays attention to values such as rights, freedom, loyalty, confidence, dignity and love, although his analyses are isolated, and the connections with other values are not taken into account. He focuses especially on the values of freedom and rights. Contrary to Pettit, Amaryta Sen is much more concerned with the (...) latter, although there is no complex value framework to be find in his evaluator relative theory. He sees these values as the basis of the value system of any morais. (shrink)

The humanity is examined on two levels: first as a natural biological quality having a moral dimension and a moral impact, and then as a moral quality, which is a specific human product and a result of cultural evolution, i.e. of human moral deve-lopment. According to the forms of the realized humanity the author differentiates between active and passive forms of humanity; the active humanity is further divided into a positive and a negative ones.

The author analyses Burrhus Frederick Skinner's book Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971).

La « spiritualité moderne » commence à se dessiner comme une réalité nouvelle et distincte, au moins en partie, de la « religiosité classique ». Cet article examine les études récentes en psychologie de la religion qui permettent de trouver des convergences et des divergences entre spiritualité moderne et religiosité classique, non seulement au niveau des représentations que les gens se font de ces deux réalités et de l’importance qu’ils y attribuent, mais aussi au niveau des besoins et structures cognitifs, (...) besoins affectifs et relationnels, valeurs, traits de personnalité et styles d’identité qui leur sont associés. Dans la discussion, ces constatations sont ré-examinées à la lumière des théories psychologiques du religieux. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to present basic principles of connectionism and its position within contemporary cognitive science. Connectionist paradigm postulates thinking as a parallel processing of non-structured information by simple calculations performed by neurons that are deeply mutually interconnected. The basic numerical tools of connectionism are represented by so-called artificial neural networks, which are immediately applicable to the study of many cognitive functions at different levels of complexity and sophistication. Connectionism has brought with it a number of important (...) philosophical issues and concerns. Connectionism as a dramatic shift from more traditional accounts of cognition has forced philosophers to reconsider many assumptions based upon earlier theories. (shrink)

In Heidegger’ philosophical science writings the problematic of science occupies an important place. There are several periods in Heidegger’ articulating this problem. Among the most important are the 1930s, especially his lecture Modern Mathematical Science, which is seen by the author as one of the most considerable Heidegger’s works. Divided into two main parts it examines the relationship between the mathematical and metaphysics and Descartes’ relationship to metaphysics. In this lecture Heidegger showed himself as an excellent analytical philosopher, whose focus (...) is not on historical-philosophical reception of modern science , but on an original picture of the rise of modern science and its links with the origins of modern metaphysics as a metaphysics of subjectivity. To understand modern science means for Heidegger also a deep philosophical insight into Descartes’ Rules for the Direction of Our Native Intelligence. And with this we have but to agree. (shrink)