The living world is an exciting and inexhaustible source of high performance solutions to the multitude of biological problems, which were attained as a result of a natural selection, during the millions and millions years evolution of life on Earth. This work presents and comments some examples of high performances of living beings, in the light of the universal principle governing the realm of living matter: Optimal Design Principle. At the same time, the transfer of these optimal solutions, from living (...) matter to the technologies, is also discussed. This transfer is offering new and fertile perspectives to future technologies, which must be more efficient, cheaper and in perfect harmony with the biosphere. (shrink)

In this paper, I am trying to show that antithetic political positions appear to imply different moral attitudes not only accidentally but essentially, yet in a peculiar, limited and ambiguous fashion; and that political relativism or pluralism is far from implying moral relativism or pluralism in a corresponding and co-extensive sense. In other words, the gist of my contention is that men may be agreed about the basic universal laws of morality and none the less differ in their response to (...) various moral requirements and points of view as emerging in specified contexts of human practice. Political positions are not as such derived from moral demands, nor consequent upon moral errors; nor do they, as such, determine the moral convictions of those who hold them; but they tend to be associated with distinct kinds of dominant moral emphases rather than simply to respect or to disregard morality. (shrink)

In 1952, having for the first time to give a lecture in Madrid, I said somewhat dejectedly to the able and witty young man entrusted with the tedious task of revising the Spanish of my text that I found my lecture didn't amount to much: it was but a long paraphrase of one single idea. Perhaps I hoped for an enthusiastic protest on his part. But he only offered as solace the terse remark: ‘Well, I have heard many a lecture (...) that didn't contain even one single idea’. (shrink)

This study reviews the existing literature on psychiatric interventions for individuals affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. My article cumulates previous research on how extreme stressors associated with COVID-19 may aggravate or cause psychiatric problems. The unpredictability of the COVID-19 epidemic progression may result in significant psychological pressure on vulnerable populations. Persons with psychiatric illnesses may experience worsening symptoms or may develop an altered mental state related to an increased suicide risk. The inspected findings prove that psychological intervention measures for patients (...) affected by the epidemic should be designed and personalized adequately. Preventive measures seek to decrease infection rates and cut down the risk of the public healthcare system to eventually be overburdened. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, people with psychiatric illnesses may confront a decrease in mental health services. As limitations in the current review, by focusing only on articles published in journals indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, and ProQuest, I inevitably disregarded other valuable sources. Subsequent research directions should clarify the effectiveness of online mental health services in providing remote psychiatric interventions to individuals affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. (shrink)

What is the classic in history? What is a classic in historical writing? Very few historians and critics have addressed these questions, and when they have done so, it has been only in a cursory manner. These are queries that require some explanation regarding historical texts because of their peculiar ambivalence between science and art, content and form, sources and imagination, scientific and narrative language. Based on some examples of the Western historiographical tradition, I discuss in this article to what (...) extent historians should engage the concept of the classic – as has been done for literary texts. If one assumes that the historical text is not only a referential account but also a narrative analogous to literary texts, then the concept of the classic becomes one of the keys for understanding the historical text – and may improve our understanding not only of historiography, but of history itself. I will argue in this article that it is possible to identify a category of the classic text in some historical writings, precisely because of the literarity they possess without losing their specific historical condition. Because of their narrative condition, historical texts share some of the features assigned to literary texts – that is, endurance, timelessness, universal meaningfulness, resistance to historical criticism, susceptibility to multiple interpretations, and ability to function as models. Yet, since historical texts do not construct imaginary worlds but reflect external realities, they also have to achieve some specific features according to this referential content – that is, surplus of meaning, historical use of metaphors, effect of contemporaneity without damaging the pastness of the past, and a certain appropriation of literariness. Without seeking to be normative or systematic, this article focuses on some specific features of the historical classic, offering a series of reflections to open rather than try to close a debate on this complex topic. (shrink)

The Concept of Hierarchy, as well as various problems, aspects and doctrines attaching to it, was preposterously overrated in Greek philosophy, especially Platonic and Neo-platonic; probably even more so in medieval Scholastic philosophy which attempted to rationalize its supernaturalistic obsession with arguments taken from Greek, chiefly Aristotelian and thus semi-Platonic perfectionalism as a putative “natural” basis for it. Some great exponents of the modern German philosophy of Value, Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann, represent the same tradition in a doubtless more critical (...) and more properly philosophic, less naively metaphysical, but still in a pretty dogmatically intuitional fashion. The counterpart to this we find to be rampant in modern English-speaking philosophy dominated by the thought-style of Logical Positivism, though many of its more recent representatives would disown that label. Mouthpieces of an egalitarian, machine-ridden and utilitarian and functional society intolerant of the idea of kings, aristocrats, slaves, serfs, even rich and poor nay literate and illiterate, these thinkers idolize human “wanting” as such, whatever its contents and characteristics, would reduce all value to “needs” or “desires” and their different “intensities” and in their turn, I venture to say, seek preposterously to evade the very concept of Hierarchy, not only on the plane of social philosophy but also in the context of Axiology. They postulate a flattened world from which the experience of Verticality is all but wholly excluded. (shrink)

What is the classic in history? What is a classic in historical writing? Very few historians and critics have addressed these questions, and when they have done so, it has been only in a cursory manner. These are queries that require some explanation regarding historical texts because of their peculiar ambivalence between science and art, content and form, sources and imagination, scientific and narrative language. Based on some examples of the Western historiographical tradition, I discuss in this article to what (...) extent historians should engage the concept of the classic – as has been done for literary texts. If one assumes that the historical text is not only a referential account but also a narrative analogous to literary texts, then the concept of the classic becomes one of the keys for understanding the historical text – and may improve our understanding not only of historiography, but of history itself. I will argue in this article that it is possible to identify a category of the classic text in some historical writings, precisely because of the literarity they possess without losing their specific historical condition. Because of their narrative condition, historical texts share some of the features assigned to literary texts – that is, endurance, timelessness, universal meaningfulness, resistance to historical criticism, susceptibility to multiple interpretations, and ability to function as models. Yet, since historical texts do not construct imaginary worlds but reflect external realities, they also have to achieve some specific features according to this referential content – that is, surplus of meaning, historical use of metaphors, effect of contemporaneity without damaging the pastness of the past, and a certain appropriation of literariness. Without seeking to be normative or systematic, this article focuses on some specific features of the historical classic, offering a series of reflections to open rather than try to close a debate on this complex topic. (shrink)

The author describes briefly the activities of different ethical centres and gives a survey of the principle directions of ethical research in Romania. These include primarily normative problems, the theoretical problems and translations of classical ethical works. The recent publication of a project for a code of socialist morality gives evidence of the advance and significance of ethical research in Romania.

Moore in Ethics, ch. vii, writes – if I understand him right – that our basic experience of free-will resides in our certain feeling, in regard to our past actions, that we could have acted differently if we had so chosen; more exactly, that we should have acted differently if we had so chosen, which precisely means that we could have acted differently. He adds the qualifying adverb ‘sometimes’; I think we may well say always, keeping in mind, of course, (...) that we are only concerned here with ‘actions’ proper, as contrasted with involuntary movements, twitchings, starts, fits, etc., and also with wholly habitual, routine-like movements or manipulations performed without any attention and without the slightest deliberation, and that only such actions are meant here as are within our range of physical or psycho-physical power, which is anyhow implicit in the concept of choice: there is no sense in my saying that I might here and now ‘choose’ to carry this building on my back to Paris, to dismiss the present Government or to continue writing in impeccable Japanese. However, Moore is aware of the clearly meaningful objection that ‘acting as we choose’ would not establish the fact of free-will unless it were also the case that our choice itself is free, in other words that we not only choose to act so instead of acting differently but also choose to choose so instead of choosing differently. He argues that this too is indeed the case, emphasising in this context our experience of the unpredictability, even by ourselves, of our future choices. He concludes, though, on a note of doubt which shows that he is not quite sure in his own mind to have definitively disposed of the objection. (shrink)

Moore in Ethics, ch. vii, writes – if I understand him right – that our basic experience of free-will resides in our certain feeling, in regard to our past actions, that we could have acted differently if we had so chosen; more exactly, that we should have acted differently if we had so chosen, which precisely means that we could have acted differently. He adds the qualifying adverb ‘sometimes’; I think we may well say always, keeping in mind, of course, (...) that we are only concerned here with ‘actions’ proper, as contrasted with involuntary movements, twitchings, starts, fits, etc., and also with wholly habitual, routine-like movements or manipulations performed without any attention and without the slightest deliberation, and that only such actions are meant here as are within our range of physical or psycho-physical power, which is anyhow implicit in the concept of choice: there is no sense in my saying that I might here and now ‘choose’ to carry this building on my back to Paris, to dismiss the present Government or to continue writing in impeccable Japanese. However, Moore is aware of the clearly meaningful objection that ‘acting as we choose’ would not establish the fact of free-will unless it were also the case that our choice itself is free, in other words that we not only choose to act so instead of acting differently but also choose to choose so instead of choosing differently. He argues that this too is indeed the case, emphasising in this context our experience of the unpredictability, even by ourselves, of our future choices. He concludes, though, on a note of doubt which shows that he is not quite sure in his own mind to have definitively disposed of the objection. (shrink)

In trying to control various aspects concerning utterance production in multi-party human–computer dialogue, argumentative considerations play an important part, particularly in choosing appropriate lexical units so that we fine-tune the degree of persuasion that each utterance has. A preliminary step in this endeavor is the ability to place an ordering relation between semantic forms (that are due to be realized as utterances, by the machine), concerning their persuasion strength, with respect to certain (explicit or implicit) conclusions. Thus, in this article, (...) we propose a mechanism for assessing utterances, in terms of their argumentative force. The framework designed conflates insights from Asher and Lascarides’ SDRT (“Segmented Discourse Representation Theory”), and from Anscombre and Ducrot’s AT (“Argumentation Theory”). These mechanisms are included in a language generation component of a multi-party dialogue system for book reservation applications (i.e., a “virtual librarian”), and thus evaluated via typical human–machine conversations. (shrink)

The integrated model of mental health recommends nowadays the collaboration between psychiatrists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists. It is currently the agreed model in the managed health care system in the West and research has shown that mixing the medical model with the psychological model both in theory and practice elicits the best outcomes and guides the client towards recovery. In this paper I will challenge this view on a particular area of psychopathology, mild and moderate depression and anxiety, showing that (...) in these particular situations, 15-20 sessions of psychotherapy are sufficient and efficient for recovery and there is no further need for medicating the client, unless the client himself desires this particular type of psychiatric approach. I will also focus on a target group, pregnant women who fear toxic reactions for the fetus and don’t consider taking antidepressant and anxiolytic medication out of fear of adverse reactions. I will also explore the ethical implications of prescribing these target groups medication against their will. CBT, REBT and Existential Psychotherapy are effective options to treat both the symptoms and causes of mild and moderate anxiety and depression, whilst exercise, nutrition and mindfulness meditation can also be effective treatments. Since medications such as antidepressants have recently become the treatment of choice in United States with a 147.5% increase in antidepressant prescription rates between 1990 and 1998 and with a 10.9% decrease in the utilization of psychotherapy, my paper aims to balance this approach in the favour of psychotherapy as a first choice option. (shrink)

Infants’ ability to monitor “sensorimotor contingencies,” i.e., the sensory effects of their own actions, is an important mechanism underlying learning. One method that has been used to investigate this is the “mobile paradigm,” in which a mobile above an infant’s crib is activated by motion of one of the infant’s limbs. Although successfully used in numerous experiments performed in infants’ homes to investigate memory and other types of learning, the paradigm seems less robust for demonstrating sensitivity to sensorimotor contingencies when (...) used in the laboratory. One purpose of the present work was to show that certain changes to the mobile paradigm would make it easier for infants to show their sensitivity to the contingency in the lab. In particular, we used proximal stimulation on infants’ wrists instead of the usual mobile, and our stimulation was coincident with the limbs that caused it. Our stimulation was either on or off, i.e., not modulated by the amount the infant moved. Finally, we used a “shaping” procedure to help the infant discover the contingency. In addition to these changes in the paradigm, by analyzing infants’ limb activity at 10-s resolution instead of the usual 1-min resolution, we were able to show that infants’ sensitivity to the contingency became apparent already within the first minute of establishment of the contingency. Finally, we showed how two alternate measures of sensitivity to contingency based on probability of repeated movements and on “stop and go” motion strategies may be of interest for future work. (shrink)

After studying a Latin record issued on 6 June 1574, the specialists expressed different opinions regarding the expression romana videlicet seu graeca religio, i.e. “Roman or Greek religion”. The author believes that the issuer of the 1574 document only transposed into Latin a phrase commonly used in the Romanian Transylvanian environment, so that the “Romanian religion” became practically naturally, in Latin, religio romana, all the more so as we are dealing with an internal document, not intended for the Holy See (...) or for other foreign institutions, where it may have created confusion. The matter of this unusual document is far from being settled, as the arguments raised are probably insufficient or not eloquent enough. However, they are just as consistent as those that suggest an interpretation based on the alleged Catholicism of the Romanians. Consequently, we consider that in the current stage of our knowledge it is plausible to believe that in the document of 1574 religio romana sive greca means “Romanian or Greek religion.”. (shrink)

Hans-Georg GADAMER, Hermeneutische Entwürfe. Vorträge und Aufsätze ; Pascal MICHON, Poétique d’une anti-anthropologie: l’herméneutique deGadamer ; Robert J. DOSTAL, The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer ; Denis SERON, Le problème de la métaphysique. Recherches sur l’interprétation heideggerienne de Platon et d’Aristote ; Henry MALDINEY, Ouvrir le rien. L’art nu ; Dominique JANICAUD, Heidegger en France, I. Récit; II. Entretiens ; Maurice MERLEAU-PONTY, Fenomenologia percepţiei ; Trish GLAZEBROOK, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Science ; Richard WOLIN, Heidegger’s Children. Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas (...) and Herbert Marcuse ; Ivo DEGENNARO, Logos – Heidegger liest Heraklit ; O. K. WIEGAND, R. J. DOSTAL, L. EMBREE, J. KOCKELMANS and J. N. MOHANTY, Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics and Logic ; James FAULCONER and Mark WRATHALL, Appropriating Heidegger. (shrink)

Hans-Georg GADAMER, Hermeneutische Entwürfe. Vorträge und Aufsätze ; Pascal MICHON, Poétique d’une anti-anthropologie: l’herméneutique deGadamer ; Robert J. DOSTAL, The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer ; Denis SERON, Le problème de la métaphysique. Recherches sur l’interprétation heideggerienne de Platon et d’Aristote ; Henry MALDINEY, Ouvrir le rien. L’art nu ; Dominique JANICAUD, Heidegger en France, I. Récit; II. Entretiens ; Maurice MERLEAU-PONTY, Fenomenologia percepţiei ; Trish GLAZEBROOK, Heidegger’s Philosophy of Science ; Richard WOLIN, Heidegger’s Children. Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas (...) and Herbert Marcuse ; Ivo DEGENNARO, Logos – Heidegger liest Heraklit ; O. K. WIEGAND, R. J. DOSTAL, L. EMBREE, J. KOCKELMANS and J. N. MOHANTY, Phenomenology on Kant, German Idealism, Hermeneutics and Logic ; James FAULCONER and Mark WRATHALL, Appropriating Heidegger. (shrink)

In the following pages I intend to bring to attention the way in which the concrete effort of comprehension (as sensitive yet lucid grasping of a state of affairs) becomes critical reflection. I am constantly referring to several of Aurel Codoban’swritings, using as a departure point his 2001 book, Sign and intepretation. A postmodern introduction in semiotics and hermeneutics, whose pages might serve as a good guide for such a discussion. I remark than that criticalreflection manifests in several ways: (...) as a reflexive philosophical exercise (when the conscience of the self is assuming her actual philosophical condition), as a careful examination of the phenomenon of communication and of our world of signs and, lastly, as hermeneutical ontology. This is a type of reflections that leaves space to critical judgement, sharp irony and free, relaxed meditation, in equal proportion. Such an effort is always laudable in a philosophical community and, consequently, worthy of appreciation. (shrink)

As in religious traditions, the soul organizes entirely the human condition horizon; postmodern culture sets the body as the organizing centre of its sacralizing mechanisms. Some even speak about a cult and about ritual mechanisms having a religious charge. On the one hand, the body is attributed a symbolic dimension surfacing in the fight against the finite and life’s lack of meaning. On the other, turning the body into a centre of the existential universe triggers a better delineation of the (...) functions it may fulfill. An important role belongs to the networking function that crosses over the human inhabited worlds, from the physical one to the spiritual and religious one. To highlight these aspects, I called on the reflections in Aurel Codoban’s communication philosophy. The new view on corporality brings the image of body as language, as communication instrument and as significant surface. Against this background, the body sets a self-concern whose consequence, symbolically, is a dialectic movement of body and soul nourishing one other and improving one another in light of authenticity. (shrink)

'I sincerely believe that Dr Kolnai is one of the most original and stimulating thinkers in the field of political philosophy alive today' (Karl Popper). Kolnai's moral and political thought was developed against the background of Liberal and then Bolshevist revolutions in Hungary, the gradual move towards fascism in twenties and thirties Vienna, and the progress of the second world war as seen from the USA. Born a Jew, he became a Roman Catholic, and lived successively in Hungary, Austria, France, (...) the USA, Canada and England. He remained, throughout his extraordinary life, a passionate believer in reason and common sense, and the sworn enemy of all philosophical and political systems. Study of Kolnai has been hampered by political developments, his own peripatetic life, and the fact that his writings appeared in five different languages, yet interest in Kolnai is now growing. This book offers the first comprehensive picture of Kolnai's complete works and life. Dunlop presents Kolnai the man in his social and political setting, and offers an accessible exploration of all his writings, whether published or not, including translated passages from papers and letters in Kolnai's various languages. Including a selective bibliography of Kolnai's works, this book presents an important study of this unique political and moral philosopher, showing his relevance in contemporary philosophical thought. (shrink)

Aurel Codoban, Filosofia ca gen literar (Philosophy as a literary genre) Ed. Idea Design&Print, Cluj- Napoca, 2006.

It is difficult to give a precise definition of hypertext since, in addition to its use as a technical tool, there is the conceptual dimension of a space for organizing memory and mapping connections. People often confuse the hypertext system, which makes it possible, through the digital medium, to link objects of different types, with the products (compositions?) created by means of this technique. Hypertext cannot be limited to either of these aspects. Like ink and paper, it is a medium (...) for composition and expression and should also be seen as such. Whatever its purpose, and even if it involves collecting together pages on the Web in an ad hoc manner, hypertext delineates areas of knowledge and thus helps to produce a dual temporality, one that belongs to documents, the other characterized by instant actualization (which coincides with the eradication of any distance of space or time between the items of information). (shrink)

Why, however, should it be necessarily wrong to discuss the nebulous in a businesslike manner?

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today--as they have been over the centuries--as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism, this is an essential text for everyone interested in ancient religion and philosophy. Yet the clarity and ease of the work's style are deceptive. Pierre Hadot, eminent historian of ancient thought, uncovers new levels of meaning and expands our understanding of its underlying philosophy. Written by the Roman emperor for his (...) own private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations set forth principles for living a good and just life. Hadot probes Marcus Aurelius's guidelines and convictions and discerns the hitherto unperceived conceptual system that grounds them. Abundantly quoting the Meditations to illustrate his analysis, the author allows Marcus Aurelius to speak directly to the reader. And Hadot unfolds for us the philosophical context of the Meditations, commenting on the philosophers Marcus Aurelius read and giving special attention to the teachings of Epictetus, whose disciple he was. The soul, the guiding principle within us, is in Marcus Aurelius's Stoic philosophy an inviolable stronghold of freedom, the "inner citadel." This spirited and engaging study of his thought offers a fresh picture of the fascinating philosopher-emperor, a fuller understanding of the tradition and doctrines of Stoicism, and rich insight on the culture of the Roman empire in the second century. Pierre Hadot has been working on Marcus Aurelius for more than twenty years; in this book he distills his analysis and conclusions with extraordinary lucidity for the general reader. (shrink)

The pandemic seems to have reversed the relationship between Knowledge and Communication: communication prevails and determines the significance and meaning of events, just as it happened in premodern times. Public knowledge is being eroded. Post-modern scientific knowledge, already unfathomably complex and technical, is both evolving and becoming obsolete at such great speed that it unveils, paradoxically, the vulnerability and relativity of the truth it claims to grasp. Alongside truth-correspondence and truth-coherence, the older truth-significance also makes itself known. Amplified by the (...) resonance chamber of new media and social networks, the latter can emerge as the “post-truth” and “fake-news” that transform Public Communication into Public Relations. (shrink)