The work tends to point out the deficiency of some opinions claiming simplified presentation of the promise as the act that directly rise obligation for the promisor. Promises, either in the moral or legal sphere, are based on communication and so form an order of dependent steps that indicates their procedural nature. These characteristics may differ to a lesser extent, depending on the legal systems, moral norms of the society and its technical level and its needs. In all these cases, (...) however, the procedural characteristics of promises, especially in conditional promises, as well as the promises in contractual relations, persists. In our analysis we wish to show that the consistent conception of promise has to take into account a step of acceptance. The outcome of this approach relativizes a strong distinction between promise and offer. (shrink)

The article attempts to raise a question and give an answer to it regarding the evaluation of the philosophical creativity of Hermann Cohen, the German-Jewish thinker of the late XIX - early XX century. Moreover, following the philosophical style of Cohen himself, the question posed and discussed in the article is not idle, but it contains a hypothesis that forms our answer in a certain way. It is important to identify the difficulties and intellectual determinants that prevent the formation of (...) a clear and unambiguous answer. At the same time these difficulties contain an initiating moment for opening a philosophical debate. The historical and philosophical reasons that make the very beginning of the discussion of the question more complex, are considered. The article, of course, cannot claim to be an exhaustive answer on such a fundamental topic, which is contained in the designated question. But the article itself, and the articles following it in the section devoted to the work of Herman Cohen, may be indicate that the time for this discussion has come. (shrink)

This is a charming and insightful contribution to an understanding of the "Science Wars" between postmodernist humanism and science, driving toward a resolution of the mutual misunderstanding that has driven the controversy. It traces the root of postmodern theory to a debate on the foundations of mathematics early in the 20th century, then compares developments in mathematics to what took place in the arts and humanities, discussing issues as diverse as literary theory, arts, and artificial intelligence. This is a straightforward, (...) easily understood presentation of what can be difficult theoretical concepts It demonstrates that a pattern of misreading mathematics can be seen both on the part of science and on the part of postmodern thinking. This is a humorous, playful yet deeply serious look at the intellectual foundations of mathematics for those in the humanities and the perfect critical introduction to the bases of modernism and postmodernism for those in the sciences. (shrink)

The article examines the problem of ensuring the political stability of a democratic social system with a shortage of a vital commodity (like vaccine against COVID-19). In such a system, members of society citizens assess the authorities. Thus, actions by the authorities to increase the supply of this commodity can contribute to citizens' approval and hence political stability. However, this supply is influenced by random factors, the actions of competitors, etc. Therefore, citizens do not have sufficient information about all the (...) possibilities of supplying, and it is difficult for them to make the right decisions. Such citizen unawareness can be exploited by unscrupulous politicians to achieve personal targets. Therefore, it is necessary to organize public control to motivate politicians to use all available opportunities in supplying. The goal of the paper is to build such a digital mechanism of public control of the politicians by citizens, which would best assess and stimulate the activities of the authorities to improve the supply of a vital commodity. In the age of artificial intelligence, such digital public control in the face of uncertainty can be based on digital machine learning. In addition, it is necessary to take into account and model the activities of politicians associated with the presence of their own targets that do not coincide with public ones. Such politicians can use the learning of citizens for their own targets. The objective of the article is to build an optimal digital mechanism of public control in a two-level model of a democratic social system—a digital society. At its top level, there is the Citizen, who gives an assessment for the Politico located at the lower level. In turn, the Politico can influence the supplying of a vital commodity. Political stability is guaranteed if the Citizen regularly approves of the Politico’s actions to increase this supply. However, the Politico may not use the opportunities available to him to offer a commodity to achieve a personal target. To avoid this, the Politico’s control mechanism is proposed. It includes the procedure for digital learning of the Citizen, as well as a procedure for assessing the Politico activity. Sufficient conditions have been found for the synthesis of such the Politico’s control mechanism, at which stochastic possibilities of increasing the supply of a vital commodity are used. The example of such the Politico’s control mechanism is considered on the case of supply of the COVID-19 vaccine in England. (shrink)

This paper examines the social theory of Lester Frank Ward, one of the most significant representatives of early American social theory, with particular attention to his conception of the state, which can be described as Hegelian. The first part of the paper gives a brief overview of early American social theory: its basic features, the issues that were the focus of attention during this period in the development of sociology in the US, and its most significant representatives. The basic features (...) of Ward’s social theory are then presented and examined in more detail. It is pointed out that it is: conceptual and essentially based on the natural sciences; based on the distinction between pure and applied sociology; systematic; supportive of progressive and pro-social reforms. It was directed against the individualist tradition. His theory was based on the belief that the human mind can direct social progress and that the order based on social inequalities, which is a product of the laissez-faire doctrine, cannot guarantee freedom and prosperity. The fundamental institution capable of doing so is the state. Therefore, the central part of this paper is devoted to his conception of the state and makes a comparison with Hegel’s theory of the ethical state contained in Hegel’s philosophy of objective spirit – philosophy of law and philosophy of history. It concludes by pointing out that Ward’s theory indicated the general direction of development of social circumstances towards the era of collectivism, and was also atypical of American social theory in some of its features. (shrink)

Scientific knowledge systems function as effective and specialized apparatus for formulating, analyzing and solving scientific problems. In science, problems become internal parts of the knowledge systems; thus they acquire new forms and properties in comparison with common-sense problems. Definite theoretical structures connected with problems and questions appear in the theory. Among them are erotetic expressions and languages, calculi and algebras of problems. On the basis of the structure-nominative reconstruction of a theory, the unified treatment of these structures is given. Methods (...) of the theory of named sets are used in the logical analysis of problems and their systems. As a consequence a new formalized model of the problem part of theory is constructed. (shrink)

The article deals with the notion of the genetic code and its metaphorical understanding as a “language”. In the traditional view of the language metaphor of the genetic code, combinations of nucleotides are signs of amino acids. Similarly, words combined from letters represent certain meanings. The language metaphor of the genetic code, 171–200, 2011) assumes that the nucleotides stay in the analogy to letters, triples to words and genes to sentences. We propose an application of mathematical linguistic methods on the (...) notion of the genetic code. We provide quantitative analysis of mRNA strings and natural language texts. This analysis is sensitive to the detection of the code units hierarchy. We also take into consideration a representative quantitative analysis of DNA, RNA and proteins. Our analysis of mRNA confirms an assumption that the design of the genetic code cannot analogize DNA bases and letters. The notion of the letter is much more appropriate if analogized with triplets or amino acids, 187–191, 2017). (shrink)

Exegetical scepticism is a strand of scepticism about meaning running through the German Enlightenment. This paper provides the first modern account of its tenets, critics, and proponents, and argues that it shares essential features with modern varieties of meaning-scepticism that have been a preoccupation among philosophers of language since the middle of the twentieth century. I argue that exegetical scepticism is a type of epistemological scepticism first introduced as a philosophical position in a theological debate between August Pfeiffer (1640–1698) and (...) Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705). Under contention, so I argue, was the idea that interpretation is never certain because it is necessarily underdetermined by the evidence. Following the effects of this controversy, I show that exegetical scepticism caused a great deal of unrest in German letters in the eighteenth century and can be seen to contribute to the great proliferation of hermeneutical theories in the Aufklärung, indeed to the very birth of hermeneutics as a standalone discipline. Bringing this type of scepticism to contemporary attention supports a reassessment of issues at the heart of meaning-scepticism and hermeneutics itself, and a reconsideration of the histories of Enlightenment scepticism and hermeneutics. (shrink)

Determinism is usually understood as a commonly clear and obvious thesis. In the most of the actual literature a character of determinism is rarely enough explicitly underlined and we believe that it is the reason why common uses of the term often leads to inconsistencies and present a source of misunderstandings of different sorts. Here we will try to show that that there are many forms of determinism; that the concept of determinism has a composite character; and that conceptions of (...) determinism can be mutually discriminated and organized according to particular elements they are consisting of by applying the procedure of classification. (shrink)

We consider games over a finite alphabet with Gurevich-Harrington's winning conditions and restraints as in Yakhnis-Yakhnis . The game tree, the Gurevich-Harrington's kernels of the winning condition and the restraints are defined by finite automata. We give an effective criterion to determine the winning player and an effective presentation of a class of finite automata defined winning strategies.Our approach yields an alternative solution to the games considered by Büchi and Landweber . The BL algorithm is an important tool for solving (...) effectively presented games. The differences between the BL and our algorithms are as follows. Our algorithm is uniformly applicable to winning sets that correspond to boolean combinations of BL winning conditions, while the BL algorithm requires a transformation of such boolean combinations into a single BL condition. Our algorithm directly applies to a larger class of game trees for a given game alphabet than does the BL one. We describe Büchi-Landweber's class of winning conditions in a more transparent way by using finite automata and Gurevich-Harrington's form of winning conditions. Our algorithms that determine the winner of the game and find a winning strategy, are based on a translation of the events in the game in terms of the transition table of the automaton representing the game. This automaton differs from the ones that represent BL winning conditions. Both algorithms need further investigation.The algorithm determining the winner in the game, can be used as a verifier of concurrent programs. This is because programs can be viewed as strategies in Gurevich-Harrington's games and program specifications could be regarded as winning conditions for such games. The algorithm which finds a winning strategy could be used as a basis for automated concurrent program design.The present paper is a sequel to Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 48 277–297. (shrink)

Ecological humanism is a new broadened form of human ethics that coming into being as an answer to an ecological crisis and an ideology of total consumption. There are two approaches in basing of ecological humanism. The first of them is founded on traditional human values or on anthropocentrism. Milieu is considered as important living conditions that must be conserved with great care but the number of one is man here. The second approach is more radical. It strives to overcome (...) anthropological egoism and is based on Earth-altruism. Its credo can be presented as general weal for all geobiocoenosis. Good is all that helps to preserve integrity, stability and beauty of Earth-community. Stable development can be defined as safeguarding of human living inharmony with ecological systems. As it is well known, 57-th session of UNO announced that 2005-2014 years will be devoted to a program of education for stable development. The Mongolian Government asseverated a national program of ecological education for Mongolia from 1997. Its main object was a forming of common ecological culture for stable development. This program provided:‐ ecological training for common life‐ laying organizing structures and law grounds‐ co-ordinating tacks of stable development with other national projects‐ including ecological knowledge in educational programs.We think also that there is need to elaborate new human ethics that could provide new common living culture for Mongols. There is ecological ethics or ecological humanism that, above all, will remove a tradition of human predominance over nature and establish equality between human beings and animate nature. (shrink)

Una pandemia ha golpeado a millones de familias en el mundo. Este problema global parecía que cuestionaba todas nuestras formas de vida. No obstante, los malos hábitos y las viejas estructuras corruptas comenzaron a aprovecharse de esta situación. Y la corrupción volvió a la escena, en la sobrevaloración de medicamentos o equipos médicos, en la mala repartición de víveres o de dinero, en el cobro de dinero por ingreso a una unidad de cuidado intensivo, aprovecharse de su posición política para (...) vacunarse antes, etc. ¿Se ha normalizado la corrupción en la vida nacional? (shrink)

The article reports the results from the developmentof four data-driven discovery systems, operating inlinguistics. The first mimics the induction methods ofJohn Stuart Mill, the second performs componentialanalysis of kinship vocabularies, the third is ageneral multi-class discrimination program, and thefourth finds logical patterns in data. These systemsare briefly described and some arguments are offeredin favour of machine linguistic discovery. Thearguments refer to the strength of machines incomputationally complex tasks, the guaranteedconsistency of machine results, the portability ofmachine methods to new tasks and (...) domains, and thepotential machines provide for our gaining newinsights. (shrink)

The English Synopsis is after the text of the book. The book presents an original and generalizing substantive vision of the philosophy of science through the prism of a detailed analysis of the polysystem structure of scientific theories. Theories are considered, firstly, as complex specialized forms of developed scientific thinking about the realities studied by natural science, secondly, as constantly improving tools for producing new knowledge in interaction with experimental research, and thirdly, as carriers of ordered and verified knowledge. Emphasis (...) is placed on their nominal and ontic subsystems. The book develops personal and joint research of the authors (theoretical physicist and philosopher), the experience of teaching philosophy of physics at NaUKMA, philosophy of science at the Higher School of Philosophy at the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and theoretical physics at the National Technical University "Ihor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute". The research is based on a significant source base covering works of modern Western researchers in natural science and philosophy of science. For students, teachers, and scientists who are interested in the problems of modern philosophy of science and have a certain amount of scientific knowledge. It will also be useful for high school students who are eager to become scientists. (shrink)

(Click here for selected papers published before 1996, and here for papers published after 2000.) V. Lifschitz, Foundations of logic programming ," in Principles of Knowledge Representation , CSLI Publications, 1996, pp. 69-127. E. Giunchiglia, N. Kartha and V. Lifschitz, Representing action: indeterminacy and ramifications ," Artificial Intelligence , Vol. 95, 1997, pp. 409-443. V. Lifschitz, On the logic of causal explanation ," Artificial Intelligence , Vol. 96, 1997, pp. 451-465. V. Lifschitz, Two components of an action language ," Annals (...) of Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence , Vol. 21, 1997, pp. 305-320. V. Lifschitz, Situation calculus and causal logic ," in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, 1998, pp. 536-646. (shrink)

(Click here for the papers published between 1996 and 2000, and here for more recent papers.) V. Lifschitz, On the semantics of STRIPS ," in: Reasoning about Actions and Plans , 1987, pp. 1-9. M. Gelfond and V. Lifschitz, The stable model semantics for logic programming ," in Logic Programming: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference and Symposium , 1988, pp. 1070-1080.

The researchers of the Institute of Social Investigations at Daugavpils University (Lat­via) carried out a project “Mobile Lifestyle of Today’s Youth” based on a new paradigm of mobilities (John Urry). The aim of the investigation was a study of the characteristics of mobile lifestyle perceived by the youth of Daugavpils. The most significant factors that contribute to the realization of mobile lifestyle are defined, the disproportions in the youth’s empowerment of its network capital are identified, the ways for the youth (...) to optimize its mobility to increase competitiveness in the labour markets are outlined. (shrink)

This paper analyzes why philosophy of religion can surprisingly be considered a rather new field in Russian philosophy. While religion has played a major role in modern Russian culture, the philosophy of religion is still searching a precise definition of its object and domain. Initially, Russian philosophies of religion were inspired by Western influential works, whereas philosophy of religion is barely considered as distinct from theology. As such, philosophy of religion presents a double origin: in a wide sense, it coincides (...) with philosophy, while in a more specific sense its origins are to be found in the modern era. From this point of view, Spinoza is seen as a seminal author for this field of work. This conception is analyzed and used to draw some perspective for the development of philosophy of religion in Russia. (shrink)

We commend Arbib for his original proposal that a mirror neuron system may have participated in language origins. However, in our view he proposes a complex evolutionary scenario that could be more parsimonious. We see no necessity to propose a hand-based signing stage as ancestral to vocal communication. The prefrontal system involved in human speech may have its precursors in the monkey's inferior frontal cortical domain, which is responsive to vocalizations and is related to laryngeal control.

The keynote idea of the theses is contained in the author’s assumption that modern philosophy doesn’t meet its claiming pretensions: to be universal form of knowledge. First of all philosophy is connected not with knowledge but with ideas and secondly being authentic it “exists only in everyday life”.1 In orderthat philosophy could realize its innate essence corresponding conditions of social being should exist but they are still absent and therefore philosophy is absent as well. Its place is occupied by metaphysics (...) which is free movement of thinking that has no definiteness as the condition of being of any form of thought. That iswhy we watch crisis state of “philosophy” which becomes apparent in vagueness of its subject: “philosophy is not only one, there are many of them”. The author supposes that philosophy as the highest relation of mankind to objective reality is the only one. Philosophy lowered down from the heaven (Platon, Ciceron) in the field of human being must raise people not only to purity of thought, but mainly to purity of their activity both with each other and with nature. Then real interaction of men and nature will take place. This will be the beginning of spiritualization of the Universe. It may exist only under the conditions of social uniformity as historical form of Weltanschauung (world outlook) that removes religious form. Realization of its being supposes fundamental change of social life. It is necessary that private property should be replaced with social property in the sphere of social production. Only under these conditions philosophy may appear and exist as historical form of Weltanschauung. (shrink)

The author aims to synthesize the content and principal results of four decisive stages in the development of research around borders. He redefines the concepts, methods and areas of application of those parts of the research. He stresses particularly the contemporary period, highlighting discussion of postmodern approaches. The first group of these approaches emphasizes the evolution of territorial identities and relations betweent centre and periphery, the main factors in establishing borders and their functions. The second group stresses the importance of (...) geopolitical factors, including cultural differences between neighbouring territories. To a huge extent security considerations preoccupy this group, which tries to explain changes in border regimes. The third group is concerned with the influence of perceptions of the contemporary world's diversity on political elites and public opinion. Finally other approaches analyse borders starting from a combination of political and institutional factors as well as perceptions of cross-border networks at several territorial levels. (shrink)

This article discusses the connection between the ideas of Fyodor M. Dostoevsky and Vladimir S. Solovyov on the need for cultural and moral transformation of those who would claim to participate in...

An algorithm recognizing admissibility of inference rules in generalized form (rules of inference with parameters or metavariables) in the intuitionistic calculus H and, in particular, also in the usual form without parameters, is presented. This algorithm is obtained by means of special intuitionistic Kripke models, which are constructed for a given inference rule. Thus, in particular, the direct solution by intuitionistic techniques of Friedman's problem is found. As a corollary an algorithm for the recognition of the solvability of logical equations (...) in H and for constructing some solutions for solvable equations is obtained. A semantic criterion for admissibility in H is constructed. (shrink)

My dear Aleksandr!I have finally found some quiet time for a slow and attentive read of your article “The Beginning of the Black Notebooks.”1 I very much liked the article, especially for your trul...