H. Arendt developed largely her hermeneutical interpretation of understanding in line with the rethinking of I. Kant’s philosophical heritage. Although she was able to offer a rather original interpretation of the theoretical views of the great German philosopher, her hermeneutic strategy was also influenced by the approaches to their understanding that were proposed by her teachers M. Heidegger and K. Jaspers. Arendt’s hermeneutical teaching proceeds from the need to realize the close unity of practical action and spiritual activity of the (...) human subject - Vita Activa and Vita Contemplativa. Accepting the initial position of Heidegger’s metaphysics of finiteness about the “abandonment” of man in the flow of time, Arendt simultaneously follows Jaspers’ call for the need for an existential-hermeneutic interpretation of practical action and the abilities of the spirit by their understanding on the basis of Kant’s legacy. Singling out thinking, will and judgement among the main vectors of self-realization of the spirit, she demonstrates their close relationship with the main types of practical human activity - work, work and action. Analyzing the abilities of the spirit, Arendt emphasizes the major role of thinking, which brings together the processes of knowledge acquisition and meaning creation. It highlights the primacy of the meaning-producing function of the reason in relation to the ability of the intellect to generate true knowledge on the basis of generalization of the data of contemplation. Describing thinking after Kant as a “thing in itself”, Arendt speaks of its involvement in eternity and time in the moment of the present, the ability to generalize the past and design the future. Thinking forms the core of practical reason, which Kant identified with the will, and opens a new horizon of meaning generation in its aspiration to the future. The ability to judge also turns out to be a product of thinking, referring to the past while relying on common sense and imagination. Arendt rightly argues that the “paralysis” of the faculty of judgement, indicating the significance of Kant’s categorical imperative, threatens not only to produce a distorted vision of history, but also the triumph of the “banality of evil” in the sphere of politics. (shrink)

The article is focused on the project of a new vision of history by Z.B. Simon, who proposed his own strategy for creating a "critical ontology" of the historical process and the epistemology of comprehending the past associated with it in the light of the radical challenges of the scientific-technological development. It reveals that the works of this author can be considered as a response to the crisis of substantialist theories of historical development and the situation of the overwhelming dominance (...) of the narrativist attitude in the approach to the study of the past today. Reflecting in a meta-critical way on the importance of the emergence of a new type of "quasi-substantial" ontology of history that should reject the "evolutionist" paradigm and the idea of the movement of humanity as a single subject towards a teleologically predetermined goal of social development, Simon outlines the contours of this kind of "radical break" with the past and its pluralistic understanding in the light of the future. Unprecedented breakthroughs of scientific knowledge can, in his understanding, give rise to many new subjects of history, who, in their aspiration to the future, should also offer radically different horizons of the past interpretation. In this perspective, Simon considers it possible to revive the role of the universalist vision of the past on the basis of its various critically justified reconstructions. In the works of this author, an attempt to justify the importance of creating a "critical ontology" of history within the boundaries of the analysis of knowing the past, characteristic of the contemporary stage of the evolution of Western thought, is clearly revealed. His new epistemology of history, emphasizing the role of "insight" inspired by individual and collective "sublime" historical experience, can be interpreted as an attempt to synthesize the views of A. Badiou with a narrativist platform combining the strategies of hermeneutics and analytical philosophy of history. (shrink)

Eurocentrism—or the tendency to conceive world history from the perspective of Europe’s seminal role in the creation of Modernity—has been subjected to serious doubt by several contemporary theoris...

Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (Ed.): Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1994. Pp. xvi + 421. ISBN 0-521-45281-3.

In the rapidly globalizing world, contemporary philosophy should work out a strategy combining universalism and critical approach to a mosaic of its cultural reality. After the demise of classical metaphysics, philosophy is no longer able to address culture with its ideal image portraying the teleological path of its perfection. However, despite its new roles of mediator and witness bridging gaps between different cultural forms, philosophy should not lose its capacity of a self-founding thinking. Otherwise, it may degenerate into a kind (...) criticism aimed at the unique phenomena and producing no general meanings nourishing cultures. The hermeneutical reason is moving to a new kind of critical universalism getting into prolific negotiations with a variety of cultures, learning from them and producing general meaningful interpretations of human world problems that are directed against any form of power abuse and violence existing in society. (shrink)

In the debates on “post-metaphysical” philosophy, Nietzsche’s philosophical legacy has been widely seen as contributing to the understanding of human creativity and its role in constructing an imag...

Colin McGinn’s interest in the origins of human knowledge grew from the 1960s when he was a psychology and philosophy student and came under the influence by Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theories. 1 R...

If definitive evidence concerning treatment effectiveness becomes available from an ongoing randomized clinical trial, then the trial could be stopped early, with the public release of results benefiting current and future patients. However, stopping an ongoing trial based on accruing outcome data requires methodological rigor to preserve validity of the trial conclusions. This has led to the use of formal interim monitoring procedures, which include inefficacy monitoring that will stop a trial early when the experimental treatment appears not to be (...) working. For participants, inefficacy monitoring is especially important as it ensures that they are not being treated worse than if they had not enrolled on the trial. We discuss the importance of reporting with trial results the formal interim inefficacy monitoring guidelines that were utilized, and, if none were used, the reasons for their absence. A survey of two leading medical journals suggests that this is not current practice. (shrink)

The article comparatively analyzes A.C. Danto’s and P. Ricœur’s theories of historical narration. Ricœur’s synthetic assimilation of Danto’s views is interpreted as a characteristic phenomenon of the dialogue between hermeneutics and analytical philosophy, and in a broader perspective – of contemporary European continental and Anglo-American philosophical traditions. The version of the analytical philosophy of history developed by Danto is interpreted as being formed in the course of overcoming epistemological program of logical positivism under the impact of a platform of linguistic (...) philosophy, pragmatism and neo-pragmatism as well as F. Nietzsche’s perspectivism and the ideas of existentialism. The articles examines fundamental conclusions of Danto’s “descriptive metaphysics” of history, which influence his understanding of a number of epistemological factors and ontological assumptions specific for the theory of historical narration. At the late stage of the evolution of his philosophy of history, Danto spoke of a radical challenge to his views on the part of T. Kuhn’s theory, but he did not give to it a constructive answer. Despite the significant philosophical differences, a number of Danto’s historical narration theory’s theses became acceptable for Ricœur, especially in the light of the American colleague final confession that knowledge of the past is dependent on the kind of existential presence in history specific for a human being. Taking M. Heidegger’s and H.G. Gadamer’s ideas as a basis of his approach to narration problem, Ricœur considered also important the “linguistic turn” initiated by L. Wittgenstein. Offering a positive evaluation of Danto’s analysis of history language, Ricœur simultaneously rightly criticized him for his neglect of the formal instruments of organizing of narrative – plot, intrigue, and composition that should affect the knowledge resources and testify on the unity of narration features in history and fiction as well. (shrink)

We consider a situation in which individuals search for accurate decisions without direct feedback on their accuracy, but with information about the decisions made by peers in their group. The “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis states that the average judgment of many individuals can give a good estimate of, for example, the outcomes of sporting events and the answers to trivia questions. Two conditions for the application of wisdom of crowds are that estimates should be independent and unbiased. Here, we study (...) how individuals integrate social information when answering trivia questions with answers that range between 0% and 100%. We find that, consistent with the wisdom of crowds hypothesis, average performance improves with group size. However, individuals show a consistent bias to produce estimates that are insufficiently extreme. We find that social information provides significant, albeit small, improvement to group performance. Outliers with answers far from the correct answer move toward the position of the group mean. Given that these outliers also tend to be nearer to 50% than do the answers of other group members, this move creates group polarization away from 50%. By looking at individual performance over different questions we find that some people are more likely to be affected by social influence than others. There is also evidence that people differ in their competence in answering questions, but lack of competence is not significantly correlated with willingness to change guesses. We develop a mathematical model based on these results that postulates a cognitive process in which people first decide whether to take into account peer guesses, and if so, to move in the direction of these guesses. The size of the move is proportional to the distance between their own guess and the average guess of the group. This model closely approximates the distribution of guess movements and shows how outlying incorrect opinions can be systematically removed from a group resulting, in some situations, in improved group performance. However, improvement is only predicted for cases in which the initial guesses of individuals in the group are biased. (shrink)

"Seymon Lyudvigovich Frank, the author of the volume here made available for the first time in English translation, was one of the leading Russian philosophers of this century; some authorities consider him the most outstanding Russian philosopher of any age...._ " _Man's Soul__ is a book which perfectly exemplifies the generous conception of the mission and competence of philosophy characteristic of Frank and the other members of the Russian metaphysical movement. Frank's stated aim in the treatise is to reclaim for (...) philosophy a field of investigation which, from the time of Plato and Aristotle to that of the Russian Idealists, philosophers had viewed as properly theirs, but which, since the mid-nineteenth century, they had allowed to fall into almost complete neglect: the study of the nature of the human soul...._ "The moral message of _Man's Soul__ is well summed up by its epigraph, quoted from St. Augustine: 'Let man first of all return to his own self, so that once he has, as it were, stepped therein, he may rise from thence and be elevated to God.'" -- from the foreword by Philip J. Swoboda. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to applications of algebraic logic to databases. In databases a query is represented by a formula of first order logic. The same query can be associated with different formulas. Thus, a query is a class of equivalent formulae: equivalence here being similar to that in the transition to the Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra. An algebra of queries is identified with the corresponding algebra of logic. An algebra of replies to the queries is also associated with algebraic logic. These (...) relations lie at the core of the applications.In this paper it is shown how the theory of Halmos (polyadic) algebras (a notion introduced by Halmos as a tool in the algebraization of the first order predicate calculus) is used to create the algebraic model of a relational data base. The model allows us, in particular, to solve the problem of databases equivalence as well as develop a formal algebraic definition of a database's state description. In this paper we use the term "state description" for the logical description of the model. This description is based on the notion of filters in Halmos algebras. When speaking of a state description, we mean the description of a function which realizes the symbols of relations as real relations in the given system of data. (shrink)

Social networks play a significant role in learning and thus in farmers’ adoption of new agricultural technologies. This study examined the effects of social network factors on information acquisition and adoption of new seed varieties among groundnut farmers in Uganda and Kenya. The data were generated through face-to-face interviews from a random sample of 461 farmers, 232 in Uganda and 229 in Kenya. To assess these effects two alternative econometric models were used: a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model and a (...) recursive bivariate probit model. The statistical evaluation of the SUBP shows that information acquisition and adoption decisions are interrelated while tests for the RBP do not support this latter model. Therefore, the analysis is based on the results obtained from the SUBP. These results reveal that social network factors, particularly weak ties with external support, partially influence information acquisition, but do not influence adoption. In Uganda, external support, gender, farm size, and geographic location have an impact on information acquisition. In Kenya, external support and geographic location also have an impact on information acquisition. With regard to adoption, gender, household size, and geographic location play the most important roles for Ugandan farmers, while in Kenya information from external sources, education, and farm size affect adoption choice. The study provides insight on the importance of external weak ties in groundnut farming, and a need to understand regional differences along gender lines while developing agricultural strategies. This study further illustrates the importance of farmer participation in applied technology research and the impact of social interactions among farmers and external agents. (shrink)

This article analyzes problems related to Lev S. Vygotsky’s name. The motives behind the replacement of his original patronymic “Simkhovich” with “Semyonovich” are discussed, as well as the reasons...

La quatrième de couverture indique : "Ils souffrent comme nous. Comme nous aussi, ils jouissent du bien-être. Mieux que nous parfois, ils s'imposent par la ruse et l'intelligence. Comment continuer à les traiter comme des " choses " dont on se contenterait de condamner l'abus? Mais faut-il pour autant leur accorder des droits, et si oui lesquels? Et qui veillera à leur application? Pour répondre à ces questions et à tant d'autres, Boris Cyrulnik l'éthologue, Elisabeth de Fontenay la philosophe, (...) Peter Singer le bioéthicien croisent leurs regards et confrontent leurs savoirs sur la question animale. Trois sensibilités, trois parcours, trois formes d'engagement : la voie est tracée, au-delà des divergences et des contradictions, et en partie grâce à elles, pour que le législateur s'attelle à la rédaction du contrat qu'il nous faut maintenant passer sans délai avec nos frères en animalité, au nom de la dignité humaine.". (shrink)

Si tout le propos de Kant, dans la Critique de la raison pure, est de légitimer les conditions de possibilité des jugements synthétiques a priori, il ne va pas s'agir pour nous, à travers la présente étude, de prendre pour objet de recherche les conditions de possibilité des jugements synthétiques a priori, mais de nous attarder sur l'idée même de synthèse a priori et d'ouvrir une discussion critique autour du problème du jugement qui lui est directement rattaché. L'idée même de (...) synthèse a priori inaugure chez Kant une nouvelle forme de connaissance ; or toute forme de connaissance semble toujours consubstantiellement liée à une forme de jugement, car émettre un jugement revient à participer d'un acte de connaissance au travers duquel on détermine un rapport entre concepts. Tenter ainsi de montrer comment l'idée kantienne de jugement synthétique a priori, nouvelle manière de comprendre les relations entre concepts déterminés et de concevoir un jugement, fait problème en elle-même constituera également notre objet de recherche"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

La motivation de l’amalgamation de jeu de mots se circonscrit à la combinaison de lexèmes source cognitivement reconnus comme ayant une similitude linguistique, ou un effet d’oxymore. Il est possible que les interlocuteurs remotivent ensuite des groupes de consonnes de ces formes, s’ils leurs associent des traits sémantiques pour former d’autres amalgames.L’amalgamation de jeu de mots est destinée à renforcer la saillance cognitive. La forme produite se démarque alors de son cotexte essentiellement composé de lexèmes monomorphémiques, de dérivés et de (...) composés non-tronqués. Cela change la façon dont on se focalise sur un référent, que ce soit par la mise en relief d’une lexie sur laquelle on attire l’attention, ou par la réduction de son impact sur les interlocuteurs qui doivent reconstituer mentalement les éléments sources possiblement gênants. Cette approche principale dévoile une arborescence d’objectifs possibles, comprenant l’humour, l’attractivité commerciale, les mots d’esprits pour défendre ses idées, l’esthétisme littéraire, l’euphémisme, le dysphémisme, ou l’idiosyncrasie pour exprimer son individualité ou paraître original et créatif.L’examen de formes coréférentielles au sein ou en dehors de l’amalgamation de jeu de mots démontre que l’objectif repose sur l’occurrence. L’analyse, dans des situations variées, d’occurrences de mêmes formes amalgamées par jeu de mots prouve que la motivation repose sur l’usage et se trouve sur l’interface sémantique-pragmatique. Cependant, la pragmatique doit parfois prendre le relais des limites de la sémantique pour mettre en lumière la motivation d’une forme amalgamée, puisque la forme peut rester ambigüe. (shrink)

En règle générale, l’office du juge est réduit aux possibilités techniques offertes au juge par les codes pour exercer sa fonction. Or, l’office du juge est bien plus que cela. Il est l’expression d’un pouvoir autonome d’une force considérable, distinct du pouvoir qui offre au juge sa légitimité. Qu’est-ce qui fonde alors ce pouvoir propre? Il apparaît que ce « mystère », ainsi que l’évoquait Pierre Ayrault au XVI e siècle, se niche au cœur de la dimension liturgique de la (...) forme de procéder. Or, cette théorie de l’office du juge prend un sens particulier aujourd’hui, dans un monde où l’autorité des normes se renverse. (shrink)