Articles on the relevance of Islam and a comparative look with European philosophy in the contemporary world.

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

Theories on World origin and Human Nature.

In this paper I develop and present a unified account of information, misinformation, and disinformation and their interconnections. The unified account is rooted in Paul Grice’s notions of natural and non-natural meaning (in: Grice (ed) Studies in the way of words. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp 213–223, 1957) and a corresponding distinction between natural and non-natural information (Scarantino and Piccinini in Metaphilosophy 41(3):313–330, 2010). I argue that we can specify at least three specific kinds of non-natural information. Thus, as varieties (...) of non-natural information there is intentionally non-misleading information, unintentionally misleading information—i.e. misinformation—and intentionally misleading information—i.e. disinformation. By shifting the focus from the truth-values of content to the intention/intentionality and misleadingness/non-misleadingness of that content I obtain a unified account that makes room for the potential misleadingness of true content (true disinformation), the potential non-misleadingness of false content (irony), and everything in between. (shrink)

Is the idea of a material mind intelligible? Or, to put it another way, is the hypothesis that the mind is the brain believable? This paper, firstly, claims that the materialistic project in contemporary philosophy of mind can only be accepted if both the general outlook of scientism and a specific scientific methodology to address the mind-body problem are taken for granted. The basic question — how are intentionality and consciousness possible, given mechanistic physicalism? — has a prima facie plausibility (...) on the presumption of scientistic naturalism. However, it is shown, secondly, that materialism is neither successful in the execution of its project nor ultimately intelligible or believable because its fundamental naturalistic presuppositions are in no way mandatory or compulsory. Finally, in order to evade the pitfalls of dualistic mystification after having critized the materialistic project an alternative Wittgensteinian attitude to the mind-body problem is suggested. (shrink)

Personal information is key to informational privacy and the algorithmically generated profiles of individuals. However, the concept of personal information and its nature is rarely discussed. The concept of personal information thus seems to be based on an idea of information as objective and truthful—as natural information—that is depicted as digital footprints in the online and digital realm. I argue that the concept of personal information should exit the realm of natural information and enter the realm of nonnatural information—grounded in (...) meaning, intention, and convention—as this will provide us with a concept that can account for potential misleadingness, inaccuracies, and mistakes. (shrink)

1.1. Universitet. Chto on myslit? -- 1.2. Universitet. Chto on mozhet? -- 1.3. ... i chego ne mozhet? -- 2.1. Nauka. Zachem ėto nuzhno? -- 2.2. Obrazovanie. Kakoe obrazovanie? -- 2.3. Akademicheskie vobody. Dli︠a︡ chego? -- Zakli︠u︡chenie -- Chto pochitatʹ ob Universitete?

The basic risk for culture in conditions of globalization consists in full submission of its existence to economic (market) rules. The masscult deprived a variety - a product of such submission. But a source of creative development was and there is a cultural variety. Domination of a masscult leads to decrease in creative potential of the person and a society. Becoming of metaculture as culture of gift of a modern society represents alternative as to principles of a masscult, and ideas (...) of multiculturalism and tolerance. The principle of tolerance is a recognition of powerlessness to involve cultures in productive dialogue, de-facto it is recognition of the established cultural barriers. The culture of gift (metaculture) is based on following principles: 1) reflexivity, 2) ethicness, 3) positive role ofOtherness, 4) the sacrifice of an autonomy to (accept of gift), 5) new cultural-historical type of rationality is focused not on things, but on events, 6) more easy approach to products of cultural creativity and in this direction - alternative to deadlocks of protection to intellectual property (copyright). Development of metaculture corresponds to principles of a symbolical exchange and «copyleft». (shrink)

The topic of biopolitics is a timely one, and it has become increasingly important for scholars to reconsider how life is objectified, mobilized, and otherwise bound up in politics. This cutting-edge volume discusses the philosophical, social, and political notions of biopolitics, as well as the ways in which biopower affects all aspects of our lives, including the relationships between the human and nonhuman, the concept of political subjectivity, and the connection between art, science, philosophy, and politics. In addition to tracing (...) the evolving philosophical discourse around biopolitics, this collection researches and explores certain modes of resistance against biopolitical control. Written by leading experts in the field, the book’s chapters explore resistance across a wide range of areas: politics and biophilosophy, technology and vitalism, creativity and bioethics, and performance. Resisting Biopolitics is an important intervention in contemporary biopolitical theory, looking towards the future of this interdisciplinary field. (shrink)

The Casimir force between two neutral metallic plates is often considered conclusive evidence for the reality of electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations in ‘empty space’. However, it is not well known that the Casimir force can be derived from many different points of view. The purpose of this note is to supply a conceptually oriented introduction to a representative set of these different interpretations. The different accounts suggest that the Casimir effect reveals nothing conclusive about the nature of the vacuum.

Contemporary privacy theories and European discussions about data protection employ the notion of ‘personal information’ to designate their areas of concern. The notion of personal information is demarcated from non-personal information—or just information—indicating that we are dealing with a specific kind of information. However, within privacy scholarship the notion of personal information appears undertheorized, rendering the concept somewhat unclear. We argue that in an age of datafication, protection of personal information and privacy is crucial, making the understanding of what is (...) meant by ‘personal information’ more important than ever. To contribute to this aim, we analyse the conception of personal information and its nature, including the distinction between personal and non-personal information from a philosophy of language perspective. Through analyses of aboutness and relative aboutness we point to challenges related to the demarcation between personal and non-personal information, which may in practice lead to all information being personal. (shrink)

A collection of articles by distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplines providing a postmodern perspective on the ethical and political issues raised by the classical figure of Antigone, a woman who questions the role of the patriarchal state.