The concept of information has not only a narrowly specific but also a broadly philosophical, epistemological content. In published writings discussing the nature of information and its interrelation with other categories of science, a number of interesting philosophical problems have been raised. The following questions, in particular, are being discussed: What property of matter is reflected by the concept of information? Is this property possessed by all matter or only by certain of its forms? What follows is an attempt to (...) answer these questions. (shrink)

The development of science and the acceleration of technological progress are given central attention by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party contends that the building of a new society without science is simply inconceivable; and in this connection, as was emphasized in the main report at the conference, presented by P. N. Fedoseev, Vice President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, special attention is being devoted to the development of the basic sciences, which play an important role (...) in the shaping of our view of the world, in the philosophical interpretation of the world and of the place of human beings in it. (shrink)

The development of science and the acceleration of technological progress are given central attention by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party contends that the building of a new society without science is simply inconceivable; and in this connection, as was emphasized in the main report at the conference, presented by P. N. Fedoseev, Vice President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, special attention is being devoted to the development of the basic sciences, which play an important role (...) in the shaping of our view of the world, in the philosophical interpretation of the world and of the place of human beings in it. (shrink)

The decade that has elapsed since the flight of the world's first cosmonaut, Iu. A. Gagarin, has been marked by considerable successes in mastering the cosmos. Lengthy orbital flights and lunar expeditions are already being conducted. Automatic stations are studying the moon, Mars, Venus, and cosmic space. And although we understand that the major trumphs in space are still ahead of us and that today we are merely at the start of the cosmic era, it is nonetheless already possible, in (...) this year of the tenth anniversary of the first human space flight, to draw certain conclusions and discuss the results of human intrusion into the expanses of the universe. (shrink)

Despite the popularity of the term “global,” the making of a global world has been little studied to date and only a few works have been published. It is assumed that this kind of world has already partly crystallized thanks to globalization, but it is not expected to take a more coherent shape until later in the future. The purpose of the paper is to justify the opinion that a global world should be construed as a state of civilization and (...) its interaction with nature fulfilled by securing global sustainability. (shrink)

The torture killing of the noted philosopher Hypatia by a mob of Christians in Alexandria in 415 AD marks the end of a time when women were still appreciated for the brain under their hair.

The torture killing of the noted phibsopher Hypatia by a mob of Christians in Alexandria in 415 AD marks the end of a time when women were still appreciated for the brain under their hair.

A. D. M. Walker; III*—Gratefulness and Gratitude, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 81, Issue 1, 1 June 1981, Pages 39–56, https://doi.org/10.1093.

The Problem of Perception offers two arguments against direct realism--one concerning illusion, and one concerning hallucination--that no current theory of ...

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this paper I want to examine a view of the Darwinian theory of evolution which was put forward fairly recently by A. R. Manser. His approach is of interest not only in itself, but also because it may be expanded to raise some fundamental questions about the nature of the science of biology in general. I shall not consider these further implications here, but shall concentrate on an examination of his thesis in the context in which it is raised. (...) My paper falls into two sections. In the first I shall state Manser's thesis and some of the arguments with which he supports it, and shall try to show how a series of objections raised by A. G. N. Flew and K. Connolly may be answered. In the second I shall offer on my own account a positive argument to provide a possible basis for his point of view, with the aim of indicating why the theory should be of the kind he suggests, and what form the study of evolution must take. (shrink)

One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

An attempt is made to pinpoint the way in which perception is related to belief. Although, for familiar reasons, it is not true to say that we necessarily believe in the existence of the objects we perceive, nor that they actually have their ostensible characteristics, it is argued that the relation between perception and belief is more than merely contingent.There are two main issues to address. The first is that ‘collateral’ beliefs may impede perceptual belief. It is argued that this (...) still assigns an essential role to belief in perception, though the belief may be of an attenuated form. The second is Fred Dretske’s claim that even attenuated belief may be entirely absent from perception. It is argued that ‘non-epistemic’ perception can be understood only by employing the concept of ‘epistemic’ perception; that the former can occur only partially---i.e., within perceptions that are otherwise epistemic; and that by switching attention from the perception of objects to the Phenomenological tradition’s concern with the perception of world, we can see that perception must be entirely permeated with ‘doxastic’ force. (shrink)

For over a century we have attempted to understand human aesthetic experience using scientific methods. A typical experiment could be described as reductive and quasi-psychophysical. We vary some aspect of the stimulus and systematically measure some aspect of the aesthetic response. The limitations of this approach can be categorized as problems on the Y axis and the X axis. The most enigmatic components of aesthetic experience include inclination to cry, aesthetic rapture, a sense of the sublime, and intense fascination. However, (...) we cannot evoke these 'hot' aesthetic emotions in the lab, at least not with well controlled stimuli on multiple trials. We thus resort to measuring cold, cognitive preference ratings. There are also problems on the X axis. The reductive psychophysical approach explicitly assumes that there are lawful relations between different stimulus dimensions and preferences. It also tacitly assumes that these dimensions are independent and orthogonal. The second assumption is implausible. Whatever stimulus-preference laws we discover are likely to be twisted and modulated when another dimension is added to the stimuli. This 'gestalt nightmare' has long been recognized, but never resolved. This matters, because human aesthetic faculties are probably tuned to the balance and relationship of parts which make up a whole and are indifferent to the parts presented in isolation. I conclude that the future of scientific aesthetics depends on how successfully we can transcend reductive, quasi-psychophysical approaches. (shrink)

An attempt is made to pinpoint the way in which perception is related to belief. Although, for familiar reasons, it is not true to say that we necessarily believe in the existence of the objects we perceive, nor that they actually have their ostensible characteristics, it is argued that the relation between perception and belief is more than merely contingentThere are two main issues to address. the first is that ‘collateral’ beliefs may impede perceptual belief. It is argued that this (...) still assigns an essential role to belief in perception, though the belief may be of an attenuated form. the second is Fred Dretske's claim that even attenuated belief may be entirely absent from perception. It is argued that (a) ‘non‐epistemic’perception can be understood only by employing the concept of ‘epistemic’perception; (b) that the former can occur only partially—i.e., within perceptions that are otherwise epistemic; and (c) that by switching attention from the perception of objects to the Phenomenological tradition's concern with the perception of world, we can see that perception must be entirely permeated with ‘doxastic’force. (shrink)

The paper examines a single, apparently simple argument for the existence of incompatibilities between the virtues as traits of character. This argument appeals not to empirical truths about human psychology or human nature but to the possibility of conflict between the exercise of different virtues in action. There are, for example, situations in which we can exercise the virtue of truthfulness only at the expense of not exercising the virtue of tact, as when we are asked a question to which (...) the straightforward answer will pain our questioner. The person who in these situations would give a straightforward answer possesses the virtue of truthfulness to a higher degree than the person who would respond more evasively, whereas the latter person possesses the virtue of tact to a higher degree than the former. But since the two responses are mutually exclusive, it follows that the degree to which we possess the virtue of truthfulness must, at least in some measure, correlate inversely with the degree to which we possess the virtue of tact. And similarly for many other pairs of virtues. My paper focusses on the two cardinal assumptions of this argument, viz., (i) that sometimes the exercise of one virtue can conflict with the exercise of another, and (ii) that the degree to which a person possesses a virtue correlates directly with the extent of its exercise, and defends both assumptions against a variety of objections which allege that, in different ways, they are insensitive to the complexity of the virtues. (shrink)

There are many possible ways of approach to philosophy, and there is also an impossible one, though one that has often been tried. That the philosopher can somehow spin his philosophy out of what he finds inside himself; that he has some private internal source of information in virtue of which he can decide what the Universe must be, without needing to take the trouble to look at it, is a belief that dies hard. But it is now dying, if (...) not dead, so that it is hardly necessary to refute it in detail. It should suffice to say that anybody who cherishes the belief will not find anything to interest him in what follows. I shall simply assume that the philosopher is, what we all are to some extent, a spectator of the world and of man's life in it and a commentator on what he sees. Where the philosopher differs from others is in the kind of interest he takes in the facts, not in the kind of facts that are there to be interested in. (shrink)

At the risk of proving myself such a caviller, I want to ask a question which I have seldom heard raised, and which I have never seen discussed in anything that I have read about Berkeley. If I am right, it poses a problem for his immaterialism, not only different, but coming from a different direction, from those objections that are commonly levelled against him. If I am wrong, it will show how right Berkeley was to stress the difficulty of (...) using for one purpose our language which has become fashioned for another. At least, I hope that I shall not fail to be the ‘fair and ingenuous reader’for whom he asked. (shrink)