Purpose. The research is aimed at understanding the philosophical and journalistic heritage of M. Scheler during 1914-1919. "The philosophy of war" is regarded as the middle link between the phenomenological and anthropological stages of its philosophical evolution. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the philosophical legacy of Max Scheler, as well as the work of domestic and Western researchers devoted to this issue. Problems of Weltkriegsphilosophie become comprehensible based on the historical, logical and comparative principles of historical (...) and philosophical analysis, which allowed to theoretically reconstruct the cultural and historical context, philosophical sources and ideological intentions of the German philosopher. Originality. For the first time in domestic historical and philosophical thought, it proved that the works by Max Scheler of the First World War played an outstanding role in the formation of philosophical anthropology as a separate philosophical trend. Conclusions. The basis of the Weltkriegsphilosophie by Max Scheler is the philosophical comprehension of the war in which the thinker tries to see the high sacral meaning, where the sacrifices that the nation brings to the altar of victory are not in vain: the nation is rallying this sacrifice, its readiness for it. According to Scheler, war is the most effective means of forming the so-called "love communities", to which he refers combat brotherhood, family and nation as a "collective personality", which recognizes itself through war. The philosopher is disappointed to some part with militaristic enthusiasm in his later military journalistic works and calls for a spiritual and moral renewal of Europe, fed from Christian roots. At the heart of this renewal should be the principle of personal solidarity, based on the Christian idea of love. However, Catholic universalism is an insufficient means for the formation of a "love community" and a new man who is co-creator of God that constitutes the main core of the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler, which emerges in the 20s of the twentieth century. Based on this, the article affirms the existence in Sheler’s works of an intermediate stage between his phenomenology and philosophical anthropology – Weltkriegsphilosophie. (shrink)

This book challenges the widespread assumption of the incompatibility of evolution and the biological design argument. Kojonen analyzes the traditional arguments for incompatibility, and argues for salvaging the idea of design in a way that is fully compatible with evolutionary biology. Relating current views to their intellectual history, Kojonen steers a course that avoids common pitfalls such as the problems of the God of the gaps, the problem of natural evil, and the traditional Humean and Darwinian critiques. The resulting deconstruction (...) of the opposition between evolution and design has the potential to transform this important debate. (shrink)

As a preliminary step to beginning to assess the usefulness of clinical vignettes to measure ethical sensitivity in undergraduate medical students, five clinical vignettes with seven to nine ethical issues each were created. The ethical issues in the vignettes were discussed and outlined by an expert panel. One randomly selected vignette was presented to first, second and third year students at the University of Toronto as part of another examination. The students were asked to list the issues presented by the (...) patient problem. Responses from 281 students were obtained. These students identified an average of 2.72 ethical issues per vignette. Each response was classified under the domains of autonomy, beneficence and justice. Comparisons were made between classes and between vignettes. There was considerable variation between classes and the responses to different vignettes seem to indicate that different vignettes measure the various domains in different ways. It does appear that the use of vignettes is one way to measure aspects of ethical sensitivity in medical students but more study is required to clarify exactly what is being measured. (shrink)

An instrument to assess 'ethical sensitivity' has been developed. The instrument presents four clinical vignettes and the respondent is asked to list the ethical issues related to each vignette. The responses are classified, post hoc, into the domains of autonomy, beneficence and justice. This instrument was used in 1990 to assess the ethical sensitivity of students in all four medical classes at the University of Toronto. Ethical sensitivity, as measured by this instrument, is not related to age or grade-point average. (...) Sensitivity increases between the 1st and 2nd year and then decreases throughout the rest of undergraduate medical training, such that the 4th-year students identify fewer issues than those entering medical school. Students expressing a career choice of family medicine identify more issues than their peers. Several problems with the use of the instrument and the interpretation of the data were found. Nonetheless, these findings, if reproducible, are important and their meaning needs further discussion. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyzed the discussion on the principle of universalizability which took place in moral philosophy in 1970–1980s. In short, I see two main problems that attracted more attention than others. The first problem is an opposition of universalizability and generalization. M.G. Singer argued for generalization argument, and R.M. Hare defended universalizability thesis. Hare tried to refute Singer’s position, using methods of ordinary language philosophy, and claimed that in ethics generalization is useless and misleading. I have examined Singer’s (...) defense and concluded that he was right and Hare was mistaken. Consequently, generalization argument is better in clarification of the relationship between universality and morality than Hare’s doctrine of universalizability, and hence the universality of moral principles is not incompatible with the existence of exclusions. The second problem is the substantiation of the application of categorical imperative in the theory of relevant act descriptions and accurate understanding of the difference between maxims and non-maxims. In Generalization in Ethics, Singer drew attention to this theme and philosophers have proposed some suggestions to solve this problem. I describe ideas of H.J. Paton, H. Potter, O. O’Neill and M. Timmons. Paton coined the teleological-law theory. According to Potter, the best criterion for the relevant act descriptions is causal one. O’N eill suggested the inconsistency-of-intention theory. Timmons defended the causal-law theory. My claim is that the teleological-law theory and the causal-law theory fail to solve the relevant act descriptions problem and the causal criterion and the inconsistency-of-intention theory have their limits. From this, I conclude that these approaches cannot be the basis for clarifying the connection between universality and morality, in contrast to Singer’s approach, which, therefore, is better than others to clarify the nature of universality in morality. (shrink)

The results of a pilot study aimed at identifying and analyzing understanding of adultery in ethnically homogeneous families who are representatives of the Bashkir, Russian and Tatar of ethnic groups are presented. Within the framework of the psychological approach, family is regarded as the space of joint life activity, within which the specific needs of the people connected by ties of blood are satisfied. To achieve this goal, E. V. Akhmadeeva designed the inventory ‘My attitude to adultery‘, in which respondents (...) were asked to give the definition of adultery and to mention the reasons, based on which adultery may occur. Also, a modified version of the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) was used, allowing determining the spouses’ dominant values of a series of terminal and instrumental values. Marital satisfaction was detected with use of the marriage satisfaction questionnaire by V. V. Stolin, G. P. Butenko, T. L. Romanova. On the base of respondents’ answers in the questionnaire in order to define the level of satisfaction by marriage there have been distinguished three categories of people who consider their marriage to be successful, less successful and unsuccessful. Gender and age differences in understanding the adultery have been revealed. Having analyzed the works of outstanding psychologists there have been found out the psychological sense and meaning of ‘ethnic group‘, ‘ethnic culture‘, ‘sexual culture‘, ‘adultery‘. Identified dominant values of the spouses. The reasons of adultery commitment and non-commitment as respondents understand it have been found. As can be seen from this study, none ethnic group encourages adultery. However, the possibility of committing adultery is allowed, and there are differences in explaining the reasons for committing this action. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the combinator representation of numeral systems with logarithmic space complexity of symbols. The principle used is based on the lexicographic ordering of words over a finite alphabet.