There is no broad dispute in the doctrine on the matter how and on what purpose did the drugs appear in the nature and in the society. Why does a certain spectrum of light and sound waves and electromagnetic radiations bring a person into a state of euphoria? The Author has united biological and chemical substances as well as the sources of other origin changing person’s consciousness into a joint hypersystem: narcogenes’ movement recorded in the past,observable in the present and (...) expected in the future. It is admissible to associate the sources of formation of the modern variety of narcogens with the origin of life by means of «the reasonable plan», «lucky coincidence», panspermia in their interaction or otherwise. The life distribution on the Earth during 3.5 billion years with the participation of narcogenes has caused such global phenomena as drug trafficking and narcomania (toxicomania). Today narcogenes are discovered in all earthly environments and the vector of theirmovement is directed by a man beyond the limits of the earthly surface. In a set of regular medicines they are placed onboard tens thousands flight vehicles, shuttles and ISS are supplied with them. In 1969 onboard «Apollo-11» narcogens were first delivered to an orbitof the Moon. The happenings of their «exterrestia» consumption on the circumterrestrial orbit have already been recorded. Onward are narcogenic mixers, nanorobots, transferring narcogenes in a human’s brain and so forth. The postglobal scope of the narcogenes’ movement may get a colossal swing as the people develop the deep space, build circumplanetary settlements (upward 10 thousand people) and planetary colonies. It is time that the scientists payattention to the prognostic side of the problem under consideration and develop preemptive measures. (shrink)

There is no broad dispute in the doctrine on the matter how and on what purpose did the drugs appear in the nature and in the society. Why does a certain spectrum of light and sound waves and electromagnetic radiations bring a person into a state of euphoria? The Author has united biological and chemical substances as well as the sources of other origin changing person’s consciousness into a joint hypersystem: narcogenes’ movement recorded in the past,observable in the present and (...) expected in the future. It is admissible to associate the sources of formation of the modern variety of narcogens with the origin of life by means of «the reasonable plan», «lucky coincidence», panspermia in their interaction or otherwise. The life distribution on the Earth during 3.5 billion years with the participation of narcogenes has caused such global phenomena as drug trafficking and narcomania (toxicomania). Today narcogenes are discovered in all earthly environments and the vector of theirmovement is directed by a man beyond the limits of the earthly surface. In a set of regular medicines they are placed onboard tens thousands flight vehicles, shuttles and ISS are supplied with them. In 1969 onboard «Apollo-11» narcogens were first delivered to an orbitof the Moon. The happenings of their «exterrestia» consumption on the circumterrestrial orbit have already been recorded. Onward are narcogenic mixers, nanorobots, transferring narcogenes in a human’s brain and so forth. The postglobal scope of the narcogenes’ movement may get a colossal swing as the people develop the deep space, build circumplanetary settlements (upward 10 thousand people) and planetary colonies. It is time that the scientists payattention to the prognostic side of the problem under consideration and develop preemptive measures. (shrink)

We continue the research of the relation $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }\hspace {1mm}$ on the set $\beta \mathbb {N}$ of ultrafilters on $\mathbb {N}$, defined as an extension of the divisibility relation. It is a quasiorder, so we see it as an order on the set of $=_{\sim }$ -equivalence classes, where $\mathcal {F}=_{\sim }\mathcal {G}$ means that $\mathcal {F}$ and $\mathcal {G}$ are mutually $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }$ -divisible. Here we introduce a new tool: a relation of congruence modulo an (...) ultrafilter. We first recall the congruence of ultrafilters modulo an integer and show that $=_{\sim }$ -equivalent ultrafilters do not necessarily have the same residue modulo $m\in \mathbb {N}$. Then we generalize this relation to congruence modulo an ultrafilter in a natural way. After that, using iterated nonstandard extensions, we introduce a stronger relation, which has nicer properties with respect to addition and multiplication of ultrafilters. Finally, we introduce a strengthening of $\hspace {1mm}\widetilde {\mid }\hspace {1mm}$ and show that it also behaves well with respect to the congruence relation. (shrink)

The paper considers F. Brentano’s judgement theory and its influence upon the develop-ment of analytical philosophy. It is asserted that this judgement theory in Brentano’s reistic ontology, using the notion of accidental extension, leads to the creation of the existence of things “by word”. Such an “art” becomes possible only when the “accidental extension” is treated as an aesthetic or ethic evaluation. Brentano owes the separation of a logical evalua-tion of “truth” to Descartes’ dualism. Judgement theory does not satisfy the (...) criterion of in-tersubjectivity. Therefore Brentano as well as his admirers must read the judgements by de-scription. It is stated that the description defence mechanism against the expression of the presented subject in language lies in the fact that it does not allow for the unique junction in the composition of the description of existence and essence (accidental extension), allowing to express the existence of only a part of the presented subject. (shrink)

Peter van Inwagen and Colin McGinn hold that there are strong arguments for strict incompatibilism, i.e. for the claim that the free will thesis (F) is inconsistent not just with determinism but with the negation of determinism as well. Interestingly, both authors deny that these arguments are apt to justify the claim that (F) is false. I argue that van Inwagen and McGinn are right in taking the fact that epistemic commitment to (F) is deeply rooted in common sense to (...) cast doubt on arguments to the conclusion that (F) is false. However, instead of declaring free will to be a mystery (van Inwagen) or claiming that the problem of free will amounts to a problem whose correct solution is cognitively closed to human intellect (McGinn), I propose to simply view the problem of free will as a hard problem – its hardness being due to the fact that it involves a large variety of concepts whose correct explication is philosophically moot. (shrink)

The anonymous panegyrist concludes his prediction of Messalla's future achievements by prophesying that, after his deeds are duly honoured with triumphs, Messalla will be titled the Great :ergo ubi praeclaros poscent tua facta triumphos, 175solus utroque idem diceris magnus in orbe.175 praeclaros A: per claros Scaliger | poscent A: ierint F: tulerint Dyer: cierint Lachmann: noscent uel scierint Postgate: peperint NenciniLine 175 contains a well-known textual problem: A offers a text that is linguistically unobjectionable, but produces a weak sense; F (...) seems to express a more appropriate idea, but in a way that is not idiomatic. Hence the conjectures. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to consider the concept of "philosopheme", which allows analyzing such basic categories of philosophical and legal reflections of the writer and thinker F.M. Dostoevsky as crime and punishment and correlating their interpretation with his personal life experience. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that through the disclosure of the content of the philosophems "crime" and "punishment", the existential aspects of F.M. Dostoevsky's anthropological and philosophical-legal reflections are revealed. As a result (...) of the analysis of Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment", his other works, the writer's letters, autobiographical testimonies, it becomes clear that the core of these philosophies for Dostoevsky is a moral code that allows a person to overcome the" disconnection "and" disconnection " of modern man's being both with himself and with society. (shrink)

Ernst Mayr argued that the emergence of biology as a special science in the early nineteenth century was possible due to the demise of the mathematical model of science and its insistence on demonstrative knowledge. More recently, John Zammito has claimed that the rise of biology as a special science was due to a distinctive experimental, anti-metaphysical, anti-mathematical, and anti-rationalist strand of thought coming from outside of Germany. In this paper we argue that this narrative neglects the important role played (...) by the mathematical and axiomatic model of science in the emergence of biology as a special science. We show that several major actors involved in the emergence of biology as a science in Germany were working with an axiomatic conception of science that goes back at least to Aristotle and was popular in mid-eighteenth-century German academic circles due to its endorsement by Christian Wolff. More specifically, we show that at least two major contributors to the emergence of biology in Germany—Caspar Friedrich Wolff and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus—sought to provide a conception of the new science of life that satisfies the criteria of a traditional axiomatic ideal of science. Both C.F. Wolff and Treviranus took over strong commitments to the axiomatic model of science from major philosophers of their time, Christian Wolff and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, respectively. The ideal of biology as an axiomatic science with specific biological fundamental concepts and principles thus played a role in the emergence of biology as a special science. (shrink)

For many Western readers, the name of Boris Pasternak is associated exclusively with his novel, Doctor Zhivago, which he wrote in 1946-55. This masterpiece earned the writer international recogniti...

Narrative history and narrative fiction can be thought of as opposite ends of a single theoretical continuum. Much of the literature on Stalin's purges and the rise of the Soviet gulag system, however, seems to be something more than fiction, yet less than strict historiography. There are five criteria which ease the difficulty in determining whether a given work is history or fiction: the qualitative degrees of truth, the scope of the work, the purpose of the work, the relationship of (...) the author to his or her subject, and the relationship of the reader to the narrative. In some cases the nature of historical events combines with the peculiar capabilities of narrative description to blur the distinction between reality and invention, and places constraints upon the historian's choice of narrative genre. Two hybrids are used as exemplars of works that are both historical and fictive: Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago and Danilo Kis's A Tomb for Boris Davidovich. (shrink)

Federal arrangements have been considered by some thinkers as a panacea for containing ethnic nationalism in the ethnically defined regions. This article challenges this view by arguing that federal institutions may enable ethnic nationalists in the ethnically defined regions to consolidate their power through the guarantees that they receive from the federal centre. Although the post-Soviet Russian leadership under Boris Yeltsin sought to use federalism as a tool for containing ethnic nationalism, Russia's this experiment with federalism demonstrates that federalism (...) may serve not to contain but to strengthen ethnic nationalism. Disillusioned with Yeltsin's failed use of federalism in containing ethnic nationalism, the overwhelming majority of the Russian people supported Vladimir Putin's anti-federalist reforms since 2000 which made federalism redundant in Russia. While undermining the basis for Western style democracy in Russia, Putin's centralism proved to be more effective than Yeltsin's federalism in containing ethnic nationalism. (shrink)

This article addresses the famous 1910 debate between Vladimir F. Ern and Semyon L. Frank centered around the problem of identifying the distinguishing features of Russian philosophy. The debate was a continuation of Ern’s debates with Russian philosophers associated with the international journal Logos (Sergei I. Hessen, Fyodor A. Stepun, Boris V. Yakovenko, and others). The author shows that Ern’s understanding of an original Russian philosophy is organically related to his overall philosophical doctrine. As for Frank, his views during (...) the 1910s on the distinguishing features of Russian philosophy were different in nature. It is worth noting that in the 1920s articles written during his émigré period, Frank’s views on the distinguishing features of Russian philosophy undergo a decisive change. Frank’s new ideas about Russian philosophy turn out to be extremely close to those of his late opponent, both on the whole and in the details. At the same time, Frank’s overall philosophical views do not undergo as dramatic a change and develop in a fully evolutionary mode. The author attempts to identify the reason for these changes. (shrink)

In this article, the author considers the particularities of Franz Brentano’s psychognosy in the context of notion of “basic” or “analytic” truths and his methodological approaches to scientific, philosophical investigations as well as his influence upon Kasimir Twardowski, who was the pupil of Brentano and accepted the main points of his methodological program. The author also stresses that the study of Brentano’s and Twardowski’s heritage is important for tracing the origin of scientific/analytic philosophy. It is very important to investigate Brentano-Twardowski (...) relations in the context of the concept of “basic truths” or “analytic truths”. Brentano stresses that “basic truths” can be found thanks to “psychognosy” or “pure psychology”. For Twardowski, psychology is the base for philosophical investigations because it helps to understand the formation of notions and judgements. This article is also dedicated to the inquiries of Brentano’s and Twardowski’s legacy provided by Ukrainian scholars Borys Dombrowskiy and Yanosh Sanotskiy. The reception of Brentano’s theory of judgement in Dombrowskiy’s works and the problem of Brentano’s psychologism in Sanotskiy’s works were examined. (shrink)

Im 2009 erschienenen Buch "Philosophie des Leidens" versucht Boris Wandruszka, jene immanente Lebensstruktur und Lebensdynamik aufzudecken, die zu den einfachsten und fundamentalen Strukturmomenten des Leidens vorstosst; diese erste "Wissenschaft vom Leiden" transzendierte daher nicht die Grenzen der Anschaubarkeit, sondern verblieb in der "Immanenz des 'inneren Lebens' bzw. des Erlebens". Im aktuellen Buch "Metaphysik des Leidens" werden die "realen Bedingungen der Moglichkeit von Leiden" ermittelt: Wie muss eine Welt beschaffen sein, damit darin ein leidendes Wesen erscheinen konne? Welche Rolle hat (...) das Leiden in Bezug zum fundamentalen Widerfahrnis-, Resonanz- und Responsivitatscharakter des Lebens? Es wird gezeigt, dass menschliches Leben, das einer plural-agonalen Welt ausgesetzt ist, nicht leidfrei moglich ist, dass aber andererseits das Leid nicht das letzte Wort sein kann, sondern notwendig auf Ganzheit, Reifung, Erlosung und Harmonie bezogen ist. Nur auf dem Hintergrund der Spannung zwischen absoluter Seins-, Sinn- und Lebensfulle und der stets problematischen und fragilen Teilhabe von Menschen am "absoluten und leiduberwindenden Urleben" kann Leiden entstehen, durchlitten, verstanden, aber auch uberwunden werden. Hier erreicht der "Opfergedanke", in dem das unvermeidliche Leid frei angenommen und dadurch transformiert wird, seine reinste und hochste Ausformung. Erst nach Klarung dieser Verhaltnisse wird die "Theodizeefrage" als "das Problem der Probleme" angegangen und am Leitfaden der Hiob-Erzahlung diskutiert. Letztlich erweist sich, dass trotz allem Schmerz, Mangel, Unrecht und Unsinn ein "Potential des Unendlichen" im Leiden verborgen liegt, das auf seine Uberwindung durch Sein-, Sinn- und Werterfullung, durch Tat, Erkenntnis und Liebe verweist und dass diese drei "Machte" der Leidensherausforderung bedurfen, um ihre Weite, Tiefe und Hohe auszuloten. (shrink)

In this handbook, I put into practice my philosophical views on children's mathematics. The handbook contains brief instructions and examples of mathematical activities. In the INSTRUCTIONS section, instructions are given on how, and in part why that way, to help preschool children in their mathematical development. In the ACTIVITIES section, there are examples of activities through which the child develops her mathematical abilities.

There are many examples of human speciesism prejudice toward their specie and neglect toward members of other species. This article will consider one example of speciesism, the keeping of animals in captivity in ZOOs. Legal norms concerning animal protection in ZOOs are described, emphasising criminal and misdemeanour charges brought up for animal negligence and/or animal torture and their euthanasia. Although the ZOO establishment and functioning, as well as animal protection within ZOO, is legally prescribed, the article affirmed Visković’s thought that (...) not even in the most prosperous societies “there is no real moral or legal discipline in keeping and exhibiting captive fauna”. Speciesism believes justifying ZOO existence will be morally and ethically reexamined. Speciesism could be found in malicious language constructions affirmed in semantical field zoological garden in the Croatian language. (shrink)

Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.

I propose a general alethic theory of epistemic risk according to which the riskiness of an agent’s credence function encodes her relative sensitivity to different types of graded error. After motivating and mathematically developing this approach, I show that the epistemic risk function is a scaled reflection of expected inaccuracy. This duality between risk and information enables us to explore the relationship between attitudes to epistemic risk, the choice of scoring rules in epistemic utility theory, and the selection of priors (...) in Bayesian epistemology more generally. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the historical context and systematic importance of Kant's hypothetical use of reason. It does so by investigating the role of hypotheses in Kant's philosophy of science. We first situate Kant’s account of hypotheses in the context of eighteenth-century German philosophy of science, focusing on the works of Wolff, Meier, and Crusius. We contrast different conceptions of hypotheses of these authors and elucidate the different theories of probability informing them. We then adopt a more systematic perspective to discuss (...) Kant's idea that scientific hypotheses must articulate real possibilities. We argue that Kant's views on the intelligibility of scientific hypotheses constitute a valuable perspective on scientific understanding and the constraints it imposes on scientific rationality. (shrink)

We further investigate a divisibility relation on the set of BN ultrafilters on the set of natural numbers. We single out prime ultrafilters (divisible only by 1 and themselves) and establish a hierarchy in which a position of every ultrafilter depends on the set of prime ultrafilters it is divisible by. We also construct ultrafilters with many immediate successors in this hierarchy and find positions of products of ultrafilters.

Analysing several characteristic mathematical models: natural and real numbers, Euclidean geometry, group theory, and set theory, I argue that a mathematical model in its final form is a junction of a set of axioms and an internal partial interpretation of the corresponding language. It follows from the analysis that (i) mathematical objects do not exist in the external world: they are our internally imagined objects, some of which, at least approximately, we can realize or represent; (ii) mathematical truths are not (...) truths about the external world but specifications (formulations) of mathematical conceptions; (iii) mathematics is first and foremost our imagined tool by which, with certain assumptions about its applicability, we explore nature and synthesize our rational cognition of it. (shrink)

While there are satisfactory answers to the question “How should we teach children mathematics?”, there are no satisfactory answers to the question “What mathematics should we teach children?”. This paper provides an answer to the last question for preschool children (early childhood), although the answer is also applicable to older children. This answer, together with an appropriate methodology on how to teach mathematics, gives a clear conception of the place of mathematics in the children’s world and our role in helping (...) children develop their mathematical abilities. Briefly, children’s mathematics consists of the world of children’s internal activities that they eventually purposefully organize in order to understand and control the outside world and organize their overall activities in it. We need to support a child in mathematical activities that she does spontaneously and in which she shows interest, and we need to teach her mathematics that she is interested in developing through these activities. In doing so, we must be fully aware that the child’s mathematics is part of the child’s world of internal activities and is not outside of it. We help the child develop mathematical abilities by developing them in the context of her world and not outside of it. From the point of view of this conception, the standards established today are limiting and too focused on numbers and geometric figures: these topics are too prominent and elaborated, and other mathematical contents are subordinated to them. Adhering to the standards, we drastically limit the mathematics of the child’s world, hamper the correct mathematical development of a child, and we can turn her away from mathematics. (shrink)

We continue the research of an extension of the divisibility relation to the Stone‐Čech compactification. First we prove that ultrafilters we call prime actually possess the algebraic property of primality. Several questions concerning the connection between divisibilities in and nonstandard extensions of are answered, providing a few more equivalent conditions for divisibility in. Results on uncountable chains in are proved and used in a construction of a well‐ordered chain of maximal cardinality. Probably the most interesting result is the existence of (...) a chain of type in. Finally, we consider ultrafilters without divisors in and among them find the greatest class. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

We construct and study structures imitating the field of complex numbers with exponentiation. We give a natural, albeit non first-order, axiomatisation for the corresponding class of structures and prove that the class has a unique model in every uncountable cardinality. This gives grounds to conjecture that the unique model of cardinality continuum is isomorphic to the field of complex numbers with exponentiation.

In this paper we develop a general theory of algorithmic fairness. Drawing on Johnson King and Babic’s work on moral encroachment, on Gary Becker’s work on labor market discrimination, and on Strawson’s idea of resentment and indignation as responses to violations of the demand for goodwill toward oneself and others, we locate attitudes to fairness in an agent’s utility function. In particular, we first argue that fairness is a matter of a decision-maker’s relative concern for the plight of people from (...) different groups, rather than of the outcomes produced for different groups. We then show how an agent’s preferences, including in particular their attitudes to error, give rise to their decision thresholds. Tying these points together, we argue that the agent’s relative degrees of concern for different groups manifest in a difference in decision thresholds applied to these groups. (shrink)

We continue the exploration of various aspects of divisibility of ultrafilters, adding one more relation to the picture: multiplicative finite embeddability. We show that it lies between divisibility relations \ and \. The set of its minimal elements proves to be very rich, and the \-hierarchy is used to get a better intuition of this richness. We find the place of the set of \-maximal ultrafilters among some known families of ultrafilters. Finally, we introduce new notions of largeness of subsets (...) of \, and compare it to other such notions, important for infinite combinatorics and topological dynamics. (shrink)

The essential role of language in rational cognition is analysed. The approach is functional: only the results of the connection between language, reality, and thinking are considered. Scientific language is analysed as an extension and improvement of everyday language. The analysis gives a uniform view of language and rational cognition. The consequences for the nature of ontology, truth, logic, thinking, scientific theories, and mathematics are derived.

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)