The implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Lisbon Strategy sets the task of a comprehensive study of the citizens` well-being, determining the state and trends in the level and quality of life not only by traditional methods of social statistics, but also through comprehensive sociological research. This approach has significant advantages since it allows us to generalize the state of social development of a society based on the population`s opinions, to study the emerging social risks that concern (...) the population, to determine the differentiation of countries by indicators of well-being. The foundations of the new approach to the analysis of social processes were laid by the scientific achievements of the 60s of the last century. The dominant paradigm was the economic goals and parameters of statistically measured national income, household income, wages and their differentiation. The environmental risks that threaten the future of civilization were identified and analyzed in the 70s of the XX century. The production contradiction, which raised the question of measuring the quality of life in a new way, was articulated. The economic component was mixed and replaced with the welfare parameter. The sustainable development, including the indicators of well-being, the fight against poverty, and the environment were declared to be the goals of the society. The tasks of monitoring the solution of these problems are solved by sociological research, whose mathematical formalization can become a structural element of economic and mathematical modeling of social processes. (shrink)

Less known in the anglophone world than Berdyaev (who was a pupil of his), or Martin Buber, Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), philosopher, mystic, poet, has nevertheless a contribution of the first importance to offer to Western scholarship. He came from a rich and not yet fully understood tradition; his erudition was stupendous. Like his predecessors he was extremely sensitive to such problems as the religious meaning of history, of creativity, of culture. It is important to emphasize a general link between (...) Solovyov and preceding currents of Russian thought, for his Christian philosophy in a sense embraces them all. Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy sat at his feet. Godmanhood is the problem of restoring all mankind; it is a concept of salvation as a process of becoming divine. The differences between the Orthodox, Roman, and Anglo-Catholic and many of the Protestant Churches are not found in relation to the great dogmas or articles of the creed. Solovyov has a vital and unique message to Christians of all denominations; he offers a basis for reunion rarely suggested in Western Christianity. (shrink)

We examine some of Connes’ criticisms of Robinson’s infinitesimals starting in 1995. Connes sought to exploit the Solovay model S as ammunition against non-standard analysis, but the model tends to boomerang, undercutting Connes’ own earlier work in functional analysis. Connes described the hyperreals as both a “virtual theory” and a “chimera”, yet acknowledged that his argument relies on the transfer principle. We analyze Connes’ “dart-throwing” thought experiment, but reach an opposite conclusion. In S , all definable sets of reals are (...) Lebesgue measurable, suggesting that Connes views a theory as being “virtual” if it is not definable in a suitable model of ZFC. If so, Connes’ claim that a theory of the hyperreals is “virtual” is refuted by the existence of a definable model of the hyperreal field due to Kanovei and Shelah. Free ultrafilters aren’t definable, yet Connes exploited such ultrafilters both in his own earlier work on the classification of factors in the 1970s and 80s, and in Noncommutative Geometry, raising the question whether the latter may not be vulnerable to Connes’ criticism of virtuality. We analyze the philosophical underpinnings of Connes’ argument based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, and detect an apparent circularity in Connes’ logic. We document the reliance on non-constructive foundational material, and specifically on the Dixmier trace −∫ (featured on the front cover of Connes’ magnum opus) and the Hahn–Banach theorem, in Connes’ own framework. We also note an inaccuracy in Machover’s critique of infinitesimal-based pedagogy. (shrink)

In his article, Grossmann argues that, in the context of human cooperative caregiving, heightened fearfulness in children and human sensitivity to fear in others are adaptive traits. I offer and briefly defend a rival hypothesis: Heightened fearfulness among infants and young children is a maladaptive trait that did not get deselected in the process of evolution because human sensitivity to fear in others mitigates its disadvantageous effects to a sufficient extent.

This article seeks to clarify the concept of progress in philosophy. It treats progress as a kind of development. But not every development is a progress. When we talk about progress, what really matters is the direction of development. In some cases it is relatively easy to reach agreement about this direction. But not in the case of philosophy, if we abstract it from the obvious and the trivial, like the number of books on philosophy. As a result, the article (...) concludes that there cannot be progress in philosophy. Instead we see a continual multiplication of interpretations. (shrink)

A generic extension L[x]\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathbf{L}[x]}$$\end{document} by a real x is defined, in which the E0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\mathsf{E}_0}$$\end{document}-class of x is a lightface Π21\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${{\it \Pi}^1_2}$$\end{document} set containing no ordinal-definable reals.

Deceptionism about lying is the view that all lies are intended to deceive. This view sits uneasily with some cases that seem to involve lies not intended to deceive. We call these lies bald-faced because the liar lies while believing that the hearer knows that they are lying. The most recent deceptionist argument put forward by Rudnicki and Odrowąż-Sypniewska (this journal) defends the view that all genuine bald-faced lies are intended to deceive some of their hearers. I argue that this (...) argument is interesting but problematic: its premises do not support the view that all bald-faced lies are intended to deceive but rather only that some people who bald-faced lie to institutions or large audiences intend to deceive someone. Also, genuine bald-faced lies addressed at institutions are intended to (non-deceptively) manipulate institutions rather than deceive anyone. (shrink)

We prove that in the Solovay model, every OD equivalence relation, E, over the reals, either admits an OD reduction to the equality relation on the set of all countable (of length $ ) binary sequences, or continuously embeds E 0 , the Vitali equivalence. If E is a Σ 1 1 (resp. Σ 1 2 ) relation then the reduction above can be chosen in the class of all ▵ 1 (resp. ▵ 2 ) functions. The proofs are based (...) on a topology generated by OD sets. (shrink)

The paper deals with the possible readings of The Reaper Argument premisses. Some conjectures related to the Stoics’ alleged proof of the argument are discussed.

An application of diagrams for separating modes of theory development.

ABSTRACTThe concept of Methodenstreits is used to analyse the relationship between behavioral and mainstream economics. A Methodenstreit is understood by the authors as a dispute between the more a...

It is proposed to analyze fuzzy concepts and relations between them in the frame of triplet concept modeling. Fuzzy concepts are introduced by means of the so-called fuzzification of dichotomous concepts. The cognitive and psychological aspects of concept possession are separated and studied.

The article deals with the question of correct reconstruction of and solutions to the ancient paradoxes. Analyzing one contemporary example of a reconstruction of the so-called Crocodile Paradox, taken from Sorensen’s A Brief History of Paradox, the author shows how the original pattern of paradox could have been incorrectly transformed in its meaning by overlooking its adequate historical background. Sorensen’s quoting of Aphthonius, as the author of a certain solution to the paradox, seems to be a systematic failure since the (...) time of Politiano’s erroneous attributing it to Aphthonius. In the conclusion, the author claims that neglecting the historical background of the ancient paradoxes into account, we are neither able to evaluate their modern interpretations as adequate nor their solutions as successful. (shrink)

Mindfulness-based interventions have proved effective in reducing various clinical symptoms and in improving general mental health and well-being. The investigation of the mechanisms of therapeutic change needs methods for assessment of mindfulness. Existing self-report measures have, however, been strongly criticized on various grounds, including distortion of the original concept, response bias, and other. We propose a psychophysiological method for the assessment of the mindfulness learned through time-limited mindfulness-based therapy by people who undergo meditation training for the first time. We use (...) the individual pre-post-therapy changes (dERPi) in the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded in a passive meditation task as a measure of increased mindfulness. dERPi is computed through multivariate assessment of individual participant's ERPs. We tested the proposed method in a group of about 70 recurrently depressed participants, randomly assigned in 1.7:1 ratio to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) or cognitive therapy (CT). The therapy outcome was measured by the long-term change (dDS) relative to baseline in the depression symptoms (DS) assessed weekly, for 60 weeks, by an online self-report questionnaire. We found a strong, highly significant, negative correlation (r = -0.55) between dERPi (mean = 0.4) and dDS (mean = -0.7) in the MBCT group. Compared to this result, the relationship between dDS and the other (self-report) measures of mindfulness we used was substantially weaker and not significant. So was also the relationship between dERPi and dDS in the CT group. The interpretation of dERPi as a measure of increased mindfulness was further supported by positive correlations between dERPi and the other measures of mindfulness. In this study, we also replicated a previous result, namely, the increase (dLCNV) of the late contingent negative variation (LCNV) of the ERP in the MBCT group, but not in the control group (in this case, CT). We interpreted dLCNV as a measure of increased meditative concentration. The relationship between dLCNV and dDS was, however, very week, which suggests that concentration might be relatively unimportant for the therapeutic effect of mindfulness. The proposed psychophysiological method could become an important component of a "mindfulness test battery" together with self-report questionnaires and other newly developed instruments. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is only one proof for God’s existence in Avicenna, and only one way for establishing the proof within his metaphysical system. This metaphysical proof is essentially derived from a priori notions, among which the notion of existence has the central role. Avicenna’s proof is structured in such a way that all its concepts are either derived from the meaning of ‘existence’ or are connected with this meaning. In this sense Avicenna’s proof sets out a scenario (...) of discursive a priori knowledge established purely on considerations of fundamental ontological meanings such as ‘existence’, ‘existent’, ‘thing’, ‘necessary’, ‘possible’, ‘impossible’, ‘one’ and ‘cause’. (shrink)

. We demonstrate that a comprehensive nonstandard set theory can be developed in the standard $\displaystyle{\in}$ -language. As an illustration, a nonstandard ${\sf Law of Large Numbers}$ is obtained.

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 1 Seiten: 95-111.

The author examines the key philosophical problem of theodicy and freedom as it was first formulated by Fyodor Dostoevsky and later developed by Nikolai Berdyaev.

This paper continues the analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of ontic structural realism, which begun in the first part of the paper. Non-eliminative versions of this approach are considered, which try to find a compromise between the ontology of structures and the ontology of objects. It is shown that the semirealism of A. Chakravartti and the constructive structural realism of T. Cao have a number of limitations caused by the authors’ desire to strictly distinguish between the nature of the (...) existence of objects and structures. Then the version of the relationship between structures and entities is presented. Firstly, two concepts are divided according to their content: “object” and “entity”. Second, to solve the problem of causality, I suggest that the nature of entities and structures lie in their ability to act. It is this ability that I propose to use instead of the popular concepts of “causal powers”, “causal properties” or “dispositions”. Third, instead of a rigid alternative to ontological primitives – either essence, or causal relations, or structures – the concept of ontological pluralism and inherited existence is proposed. There each entity is represented as a derivative of another structure and, in turn, creates other entities and structures. Thus, both structures and entities at each level of the complexity hierarchy partially inherit the ability to act and a certain degree of existence from the structures and entities of the previous levels. Finally, I am trying to clarify the modal aspects of the ontic structural realism. Following the popular interpretations of quantum theory, the ability to act, and hence the existence of structures and entities, are considered separately in two worlds – potential and actual ones. The potential world is associated with a set of possible objects and structures of quantum theory, and the actual world is associated with a set of real (observable) objects and structures of classical physical theories. The transition from the potential to the actual world is proposed to be considered as a primitive metaphysical event. The proposed concept partially overcomes the objections to ontic structural realism, thereby strengthening its position in the discussion about the reality of quantum objects. (shrink)

We generalize, on higher projective levels, a construction of “incompatible” generic Δ1 3 real singletons given by Jensen and Johnsbråten.

In some systems of Legniewskian Ontology were introduced as a toolkit for Husserl's and Meinong's theory of objects. Here such consi- deration is extended to Brentano-Husserl's theory of time. So-called antidiodo- rean logics are used as the foundations of the approach undertaken.

In this long excerpt, Bibler argues that, in Hegel’s logic, thinking devours the object—the Absolute is achieved—and therefore thinking itself disappears. Yet thinking necessarily involves being, e...

In this short excerpt from an Introduction to his celebrated book From the Doctrine of Science to the Logic of Culture, Bibler shows that the phenomenon of culture has shifted into the cente...