In this article we develop a taxonomy of emotional injustice: what occurs when the treatment of emotions is unjust, or emotions are used to treat people unjustly. After providing an overview of previous work on this topic and drawing inspiration from the more developed area of epistemic injustice, we propose working definitions of ‘emotion’, ‘injustice’, and ‘emotional injustice’. We describe seven classes of emotional injustice: Emotion Misinterpretation, Discounting, Extraction, Policing, Exploitation, Inequality, and Weaponizing. We say why it is useful to (...) distinguish these and also to subsume them under a single concept. Our aims are both theoretical and practical: to provide a unified account of emotional injustice, while recognizing the diversity of this phenomenon; to facilitate further research on this topic; to recognize the political importance of emotions; and to outline some of the ways in which emotional injustice can be combated. (shrink)

The review surveys the main ideas discussed at the international scientific conference “Immanuel Kant and the ‘New Enlightenment’” hosted by the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (IKBFU) in Kaliningrad on 20-22 April 2022. It was organised by IKBFU’s research unit Academia Kantiana with the support of the Petersburg Dialogue Forum. Speakers analysed the theses of the Report to the Club of Rome, Come on! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet (2018), whose authors, Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and (...) Anders Wijkman, initiated a call for a “new Enlightenment”. The participants compared these theses with Kant’s philosophical ideas and looked for an answer to the question whether Kant’s critical philosophy should be consigned to the “old” Enlightenment or whether it has real potential for the desired “new Enlightenment”. The summaries of papers and discussions are arranged in order of their presentation. The Conference has shown that Kant’s Enlightenment has not lost its relevance while the ideas of the “new Enlightenment” need to be further examined philosophically. (shrink)

Social media (SM) influence young adults’ communication practices. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly used for making recommendations on SM. Yet, its effects on different generations of SM users are unknown. SM can use AI recommendations to sort texts and prioritize them, shaping users’ online and offline experiences. Current literature primarily addresses technological or human-user perspectives, overlooking cognitive perspectives. This research aims to propose methods for mapping users’ interactions with AI recommendations (AiRS) and analyzes how embodied interactions mediated by a digital (...) agent can lead to changes in social and cultural practices. For this, this work proposes a comparative analysis of central practices evoked by AI recommendations-mediated communication on SM among users in Italy, Estonia, and the Netherlands in the age category 18–26 years old. The data used in the comparative analysis was collected via semi-structured interviews and elaborated based on cognitive psychology and semiotics. This research highlights the contextual significance of AI recommendations as a mediator in creating new communication practices. Findings confirm that young adults often choose practices that would enhance their digital representations according to AiRS’ dominant patterns and categories. AiRS impacts individual interpretations and practices and can further affect social and cultural levels. (shrink)

Introduction. The relevance of the research topic is determined by the necessity to study financial phenomena and processes in order to understand the economic essence of public finance in the life of society. The strategic imperative for the formation of public finance is the development of an appropriate provision for its implementation, adequate to the complex and changeable circumstances of the territory development. The main purpose of the study is to identify the features of performing the functions of public finance (...) for regions with a specific mode of operating. Methods. When solving the tasks, the author uses general logical methods: analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy; empirical level methods: observation, description, measurement, modeling, as well as private and special methods of scientific research: comparative analysis, system approach, the Robinsonade model (Crusoe model). Scientific novelty of the research. The scientific novelty of the results lies in solving an important scientific problem - identifying the features of implementing the allocative function of public finance in the regions with a specific mode of operating (as exemplified by the Donetsk People’s Republic, where there is a special military and political situation, a mobilization type of economy, a transitional period due to the integration of the Republic into the system of the Russian Federation federal relations) in order to improve the system of public finance management in such regions. Results. The main results of the study consist in characterizing the process of implementing the allocation function of public finance, which makes it possible to determine the maximum effect of economic actions of the subjects in the current conditions, as well as to lay the foundations for analyzing the following distribution function of public finance. Conclusions. The author makes a conclusion that in the context of strengthening the role of public finance, not only in ensuring the economic development of the Donetsk People’s Republic, but also in the post-crisis recovery and stabilization of business activity, the implementation of the allocation function of public finance becomes important. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that the neo-Aristotelian conception of “friendships of character” appears to misrepresent the essential nature of "genuine", or "true", friendship. We question the neo-Aristotelian imperative that true friendship entails disinterested love of the other “for their own sake” and strives at enhancing moral virtue. We propose an alternative conception of true friendship as involving affective and motivational features which we call closeness, intimacy, identity, and trust. Even on this minimal construal, however, friendship can turn vicious when (...) one of its characteristics becomes overpowering and thereby destroys the very goods for which the friendship was originally sought. (shrink)

What kind of mental phenomenon is romantic love? Many philosophers, psychologists, and ordinary folk treat it as an emotion. This chapter argues the category of emotion is inadequate to account for romantic love. It examines major emotion theories in philosophy and psychology and shows that they fail to illustrate that romantic love is an emotion. It considers the categories of basic emotions and emotion complexes, and demonstrates they too come short in accounting for romantic love. It assesses the roles of (...) culture and evolution in shaping the romantic love phenomenon and evaluates the ways in which the norms of rationality that are applied to standard emotions fail to apply to love. It considers the category of sentiments and argue that despite coming close, it does not adequately capture the nature of romantic love. Finally, the chapter makes a case for love being best characterized as a syndrome. (shrink)

Primary headaches are highly prevalent and represent a major cause of disability in young adults. Neurofeedback is increasingly used in the treatment of chronic pain; however, there are few studies investigating its efficacy in patients with headaches. We report the results of a cross-over sham-controlled study on the efficacy of neurofeedback in the prophylactic treatment of tension-type headache. Participants received ten sessions of infra-low frequency electroencephalographic neurofeedback and ten sessions of sham-neurofeedback, with the order of treatments being randomized. The study (...) also included a basic psychotherapeutic intervention — a psychoeducational session performed before the main study phases and emotional support provided throughout the study period. The headache probability was modeled as a function of the neurofeedback and sham-neurofeedback sessions performed to date. As a result, we revealed a strong beneficial effect of neurofeedback and no influence of the sham sessions. The study supports the prophylactic use of infra-low frequency neurofeedback in patients with TTH. From a methodological point of view, we advocate for the explicit inclusion of psychotherapeutic components in neurofeedback study protocols. (shrink)

It has been argued that romantic love is an intrinsically moral phenomenon – a phenomenon that is directly connected to morality. The connection is elucidated in terms of reasons for love, and reasons of love. It is said that romantic love is a response to moral reasons – the moral qualities of the beloved. Additionally, the reasons that love produces are also moral in nature. Since romantic love is a response to moral qualities and a source of moral motivation, it (...) is itself moral. This chapter aims to cast doubt on both these claims. By employing the model of emotional rationality it shows that a moralistic fallacy is committed when reasons for love are construed as moral. Reasons of love are also not essentially moral but rather of both moral and nonmoral kinds. Reasons of love are in part determined by cultural narratives and norms pertaining to love. Romantic love is not moral in nature. Morality is extrinsic to love. (shrink)

‘What is ‘sexual orientation’ for?’ is a question we need to answer when addressing a more seemingly basic one, ‘what is sexual orientation?’. The concept of sexual orientation is grounded in the concepts of sex and/or gender since it refers to the sex or gender of the individuals one is sexually attracted to. Typical categories of sexual orientation such as ’heterosexual’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘bi-sexual’ all rely on a sex or gender binary. Yet, it is now common practice to recognize sex (...) and gender categories that transcend the binary. Should our sexual orientation categories be revised to reflect sex and gender diversity? Drawing on the example of pansexuality, I argue that they should. The reason is that one aim of reconstructing the concept of sexual orientation—in addition to the epistemic goal of understanding— should also be political: it should make it easier to argue for the protection of those who have been marginalized or discriminated against because their sexual attraction is other than heterosexual. (shrink)

The genomes of virtually all sexually reproducing species contain transposable elements. Although active elements generally transpose more rapidly than they are inactivated by mutation or excision, their number can be kept in check by purifying selection if its effectiveness becomes disproportionately greater as their copy number increases. In sexually reproducing species, such synergistic selection can result from ectopic crossing-over or from homologous recombination under negative epistasis. In addition, there may be controls on transposon activity that are associated with meiosis. Because (...) a sexual lineage that abandons sex must lack such mechanisms, it may be driven to extinction by the unchecked proliferation of deleterious transposons inherited from its sexual progenitor. An important component of the evolutionary advantage of sex over asex may therefore lie in the ability of sex, despite facilitating the spread of deleterious elements within interbreeding populations, also to restrain their intragenomic proliferation. BioEssays 27:76–85, 2005. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The use of AI-generated videos centered on the face raises various concerns among professionals and audiences due to the difficulty of providing coherent descriptive tools of their cultural significance. At the same time, the focus of artists and their audiences shifts from the art as a text to the collaboration process between artificial intelligence (AI) and the involved social actors. This raises significant concerns between policymakers and other social actors looking for guidelines for the appropriate use of AI as a (...) tool, collaborator or substitute for creative workers, which can have immediate and long-term impacts on society and culture. Semiotics of culture provides descriptive tools for understanding and evaluating artistic texts and their role in semiotic space, the semiosphere. This article addresses how Lotman’s theory can contribute to the methodology for analyzing AI-generated texts as dynamic models. The theoretical framework developed by Lotman in his research on artistic text, dynamic systems and culture can be applied to the studies of current shifts related to AI-generated arts. This paper looks at the reception of AI-generated videos focused on face representations. In doing so, it analyses the dynamic processes in the creation process of AI-generated videos through their reception in related texts. The findings of this article highlight how Lotman’s theoretical framework can contribute to the methodology to analyze the cultural dynamics evoked by AI-generated artistic texts. (shrink)

DNA methylation constitutes one of the pillars of epigenetics, relying on covalent bonds for addition and/or removal of chemically distinct marks within the major groove of the double helix. DNA methyltransferases, enzymes which introduce methyl marks, initially evolved in prokaryotes as components of restriction‐modification systems protecting host genomes from bacteriophages and other invading foreign DNA. In early eukaryotic evolution, DNA methyltransferases were horizontally transferred from bacteria into eukaryotes several times and independently co‐opted into epigenetic regulatory systems, primarily via establishing connections (...) with the chromatin environment. While C5‐methylcytosine is the cornerstone of plant and animal epigenetics and has been investigated in much detail, the epigenetic role of other methylated bases is less clear. The recent addition of N4‐methylcytosine of bacterial origin as a metazoan DNA modification highlights the prerequisites for foreign gene co‐option into the host regulatory networks, and challenges the existing paradigms concerning the origin and evolution of eukaryotic regulatory systems. (shrink)

Arina Oriekhova's interview with Professor Serhii Secundant, devoted to Leibniz's concept of time and space, the peculiarities of Michael Fatch's interpretation of this concept, and various historico-philosophical approaches to understanding Leibniz's philosophy as a whole.

Studies of transcriptional control sequences responsible for regulated and basal‐level RNA synthesis from promoters of Drosophila melanogaster retrotransposons reveal novel aspects of gene regulation and lead to identification of trans‐acting factors that can be involved in RNA polymerase II transcription not only of retrotransposons, but of many other cellular genes. Comparisons between promoters of retrotransposons and some other Drosophila genes demonstrate that there is a greater variety in basal promoter structure than previously thought and that many promoters may contain essential (...) sequences downstream from the RNA start site. (shrink)

In this commentary on Elpidorou‘s book, I first note a certain arbitrariness in his choice, for his purpose of showing the bright side of negative emotions, of boredom, frustration, and anticipation. Many other emotions carry negative valence and might be said to be useful in motivating us to avoid or escape them. I then focus on boredom, and consider four candidates for the role of its formal object. All four turn out to be problematic. I then consider the moral and (...) prudential value of boredom, and conclude that if boredom is to be attributed some sort of intrinsic value, it is more likely to derive it from its complex role in aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Although trained in the Anglophone analytic tradition, the French education of his formative years seems to have left its mark on Ronnie de Sousa’s thinking and writing. He appeals to temperament as an explanation for fundamental attitudes to life: neither the quest for a source of meaning in God or nature, nor his own tendency to relish life’s meaninglessness can be grounded in reason. To show this, Ronnie has argued that there is no such thing as human nature, and that (...) appeals to evolution can neither guide us in choosing how to live, nor give us good reason to prefer the “normal” to the “deviant”. Instead, aesthetic reasons deserve to be given more weight than is granted by the alleged overriding character of morality. (shrink)

Review of Olkowski, D. (2021). Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception. Indiana: Indiana UP.

This book will explore the moral dimensions of love from the standpoint of political philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.

Arina Oriekhova’s interview with Professor Serhii Secundant, devoted to Leibniz’s concept of time and space, the peculiarities of Michael Fatch’s interpretation of this concept, and various historico-philosophical approaches to understanding Leibniz’s philosophy as a whole.

In this commentary on Elpidorou‘s book, I first note a certain arbitrariness in his choice, for his purpose of showing the bright side of negative emotions, of boredom, frustration, and anticipation. Many other emotions carry negative valence and might be said to be useful in motivating us to avoid or escape them. I then focus on boredom, and consider four candidates for the role of its formal object. All four turn out to be problematic. I then consider the moral and (...) prudential value of boredom, and conclude that if boredom is to be attributed some sort of intrinsic value, it is more likely to derive it from its complex role in aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Review of Lovasz, A. (2021). Updating Bergson: A Philosophy of the Enduring Present. Lanham: Lexington books.

The paper presents a biosemiotic approach to the study of the built environment, its representations and practices in social media. First, it outlines the main developments that make semiotics hold a significant position in the study of urban space and the built environment. It then goes on to overcome the limitations of the binary opposition paradigm: in particular, nature/culture is reconsidered as a category in which the two terms are in a relation of mutual participation rather than being exclusive to (...) each other. Following this, the paper explores three participatory categories that can be useful for the study of the built environment and its social media representations and practices: life/semiosis, natural environment/built environment, text/practice. Finally, it identifies five main topics representing the interplay between the natural and built environment: the interaction of nature and architecture, urban parks, urban agriculture, digital environmentalism and ecotourism. (shrink)

Arina Orekhova’s interview with Professor Serhii Secundant, devoted to Leibniz’s concept of time and space, the peculiarities of Michael Fatch’s interpretation of this concept, and various historico-philosophical approaches to understanding Leibniz’s philosophy as a whole.

The immunoglobulin molecule is a perfect template for the de novo generation of biocatalytic functions. Catalytic antibodies, or abzymes, obtained by the structural mimicking of enzyme active sites have been shown to catalyze numerous chemical reactions. Natural enzyme analogs for some of these reactions have not yet been found or possibly do not exist at all. Nowadays, the dramatic breakthrough in antibody engineering and expression technologies has promoted a considerable expansion of immunoglobulin's medical applications and is offering abzymes a unique (...) chance to become a promising source of high‐precision “catalytic vaccines.” At the same time, the discovery of natural abzymes on the background of autoimmune disease revealed their beneficial and pathogenic roles in the disease progression. Thus, the conflicting Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde protective and destructive essences of catalytic antibodies should be carefully considered in the development of therapeutic abzyme applications. (shrink)

The subject of our article is the identification of cultural codes of Eastern European shtetl towns in the play by Grigory Gorin "Memorial Prayer", the libretto of which was written by the author based on the works of the famous Yiddish writer Sholom Aleichem. The author of the article describes the history and conditions of localization of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire, the peculiarities of its transformation, the tragic history of the Jewish theater in the first (...) third of the twentieth century. After the disappearance of the towns and the disuse of the Yiddish language, the preservation of the history of the characteristic everyday and philosophical way of life of the shtetls became the goal of museum figures, historians, writers, playwrights, and artists. In the work, using the example of Tevye the milkman, his family and environment, characteristic images of the inhabitants of small towns, their habitat, types of thinking and actions are revealed. The article uses the methods of historicism in the retrospective of the culture of Shtetl towns, the method of analysis in the identification of Shtetl archetypes, the method of synthesis in the generalization of a set of characteristic cultural codes. The main conclusions of the study are: 1. Eastern European Jewish shtetl towns are small urban-type settlements with a predominantly Jewish population, whose unique culture was determined by the Jewish faith, everyday and religious traditions, the Yiddish language, as well as the localization of residence in a small area. 2. During the period of large-scale social upheavals of the early twentieth century and the subsequent expansion beyond the boundaries of the towns, their unique culture became a mythologeme, the foundation for writers, artists, musicians, and theater figures who emerged from it. One of the milestones in the preservation of this culture was the Jewish theater GOSET, whose existence was tragically cut short in the middle of the twentieth century. 3. The play "Memorial Prayer", written by Grigory Gorin based on the works of Sholem Aleichem and staged at the Lenkom Theater by Mark Zakharov, became the quintessence of the characteristic images of the shtetl, and at the same time the revival of authentic Jewish culture. The author's special contribution is to highlight in the play the images-the archetypes of the Shtetl, which have become cultural markers, or codes of Jewish Yiddish culture. (shrink)

Aging is associated with decreased functional connectivity in the main brain networks, which can underlie changes in cognitive and emotional processing. Neurofeedback is a promising non-pharmacological approach for the enhancement of brain connectivity. Previously, we showed that a single session of infra-low frequency neurofeedback results in increased connectivity between sensory processing networks in healthy young adults. In the current pilot study, we aimed to evaluate the possibility of enhancing brain connectivity during aging with the use of infra-low frequency neurofeedback. Nine (...) females aged 52 ± 7 years with subclinical signs of emotional dysregulation, including anxiety, mild depression, and somatoform symptoms, underwent 15 sessions of training. A resting-state functional MRI scan was acquired before and after the training. A hypothesis-free intrinsic connectivity analysis showed increased connectivity in regions in the bilateral temporal fusiform cortex, right supplementary motor area, left amygdala, left temporal pole, and cerebellum. Next, a seed-to-voxel analysis for the revealed regions was performed using the post- vs. pre-neurofeedback contrast. Finally, to explore the whole network of neurofeedback-related connectivity changes, the regions revealed by the intrinsic connectivity and seed-to-voxel analyses were entered into a network-based statistical analysis. An extended network was revealed, including the temporal and occipital fusiform cortex, multiple areas from the visual cortex, the right posterior superior temporal sulcus, the amygdala, the temporal poles, the superior parietal lobule, and the supplementary motor cortex. Clinically, decreases in alexithymia, depression, and anxiety levels were observed. Thus, infra-low frequency neurofeedback appears to be a promising method for enhancing brain connectivity during aging, and subsequent sham-controlled studies utilizing larger samples are feasible. (shrink)

Arina Orіekhova's interview with Professor Sergii Secundant, devoted to Leibniz's concepts of time and space, the peculiarities of Michael Fatch's interpretation of those concepts, and various historico-philosophical approaches to understanding Leibniz's philosophy as a whole.

The Babylonian Talmud has reached us in multiple versions in medieval manu- scripts, early printed editions, and in citations in the works of medieval and early modern scholars. The field of Talmud criticism has developed criteria for working with these materials and the scholar E. S. Rosenthal famously theorized about the implications of textual variants for the history of the Talmud’s redaction. Tractate Temurah of the Babylonian Talmud received special attention due to the frequency and, at times, unique usage of (...) the term, lishana ’aḥarina, meaning “alternative textual reading,” found in it. In Temurah the term lishana ’aḥarina does not only signal a difference in formulation, as in other tractates of the Talmud, but some- times also seems to introduce a separately redacted text of the tractate that was integrated into a widespread and known base text. (shrink)