Environmental issues are very relevant today, so this Paper analyses the very beginning of the formation of environmental awareness, questioning its basic determinants – both in time and space and in the causes and consequences of human action on the environment as one of the fundamental elements for any historical research. The paper also offers a brief comparative review of the situation in the Republic of Croatia and finally opens ground for future discussions primarily in the evaluation of progress and (...) development of environmental events in relation to those that this study detected as initial. (shrink)

In recent years, some theorists have argued that the clogics are not only defined by their inferences, but also by their metainferences. In this sense, logics that coincide in their inferences, but not in their metainferences were considered to be different. In this vein, some metainferential logics have been developed, as logics with metainferences of any level, built as hierarchies over known logics, such as \, and \. What is distinctive of these metainferential logics is that they are mixed, i.e. (...) the standard for the premises and the conclusion is not necessarily the same. However, so far, all of these systems have been presented following a semantical standpoint, in terms of valuations based on the Strong Kleene truth-tables. In this article, we provide sound and complete sequent-calculi for the valid inferences and the invalid inferences of the logics \ and \, and introduce an algorithm that allows obtaining sound and complete sequent-calculi for the global validities and the global invalidities of any metainferential logic of any level. (shrink)

In his article Banicki proposes a universal model for all forms of philosophical therapy. He is guided by works of Martha Nussbaum, who in turn makes recourse to Aristotle. As compared to Nussbaum’s approach, Banicki’s model is more medical and less based on ethical argument. He mentions Foucault’s vision to apply the same theoretical analysis for the ailments of the body and the soul and to use the same kind of approach in treating and curing them. In his interpretation of (...) philosophical therapy, there are, however, some controversial issues, to which we would like to call attention: -/- Is restoring health by a philosophical method of treatment – health understood as a person’s ability to reach his/her vital goals – a convincing explication of philosophical therapy in general? In order to answer this question, it may be useful to look at Plato. It is not only Platonism (and especially Neo-platonism since Plotinus) that questions the idea that therapy is necessarily connected with „vital goals“. Buddhist and Gnostic philosophies are questioning „the vital“ in general. The immense effort in the history of philosophy to liberate the mind from the body casts doubt on the project to explain philosophical therapy solely in analogy to medical therapy. -/- According to Banicki a therapeutic philosophy has to identify the diseases it attempts at curing. There are, however, reasons for associating the term therapy with suffering/risk rather than disease. If a therapy aims at reducing the fear of death, as for example many classical philosophical therapies do, then there is no disease to be cured. A model based on chances and risks also has the advantage that the Buddhist and Stoic reinterpretation of desires/emotions as “diseases” can be dropped in contemporary philosophical therapy. -/- Banicki mentions the comparison of therapies as one of the primary goals of modelling. Methods should be verified by a statistical correlation between method and therapeutic success and/or by a theory which justifies the method. Some forms of therapies, however, avoid theory-specific terms and concepts in favor of an unprejudiced interpretation of the patient’s statements. Others share the (Nietzschean) aspiration to explore and change measures of value. If the therapeutic process is seen as a unique phenomenon, then there can be no theory and no statistics with co-occurrences. -/- According to Banicki philosophical therapy has to describe techniques which qualify as genuinely philosophical. Techniques like maieutics and hermeneutics, however, are antique philosophical “inventions”, which were later adopted by psychotherapy. If meditation is accepted as a therapeutic tool – as it was in ancient times – then there is not only a methodical but also an emotional relation to religion. If finally, the Socratic search for a good life is seen as one of the characteristics of philosophical therapy, then delimitation even turns into a criterion for non-philosophical therapies. The search for a good life requires an interdisciplinary approach. -/- For the concretization of the formal structure, we suggest a typology of therapies, which is based on chances and risks. Such a typology has the advantage, that it can model conflicting (and even opposing) forms of therapies. The variety of therapeutic goals and methods is a consequence of the historical development towards conceptual freedom. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce au juste que le mental? Les nouvelles "sciences de l'esprit" ne paraissent pas avoir de doute sur la réponse : c'est ce qu'il y a dans la boîte crânienne. L'idée que le mental puisse être autre chose que le côté "interne" d'une métaphore qui l'oppose à de l'externe, et qu'à ce titre il puisse s'avérer intrinsèquement social, leur paraît incongrue. C'est pourtant cette idée que le présent ouvrage s'applique à défendre. Il élabore une conception sociale du mental, en prenant (...) appui sur les courants de recherche qui, en philosophie et en sciences humaines et sociales, ont souligné, tant d'un point de vue conceptuel qu'empirique, l'imbrication du social et du mental. Cette élaboration passe par une clarification des deux concepts. D'un côté, il est nécessaire de remédier au rétrécissement du social non seulement par les sciences cognitives, mais aussi par une partie des sciences sociales. De l'autre, il faut proposer une nouvelle compréhension de ce que l'on entend par mental. La conception esquissée est une conception qu'on peut qualifier d'adverbiale : "mental" est un concept opératoire qui qualifie une modalité de l'action d'agents appartenant à une société. (shrink)

This book analyses the evolution of the French model of capitalism in relation to the instability of socio-political compromises. In the 2010s, France was in a situation of systemic crisis, namely, the impossibility for political leadership to find a strategy of institutional change, or more generally a model of capitalism, that could gather sufficient social and political support. This book analyses the various attempts at reforming the French model since the 1980s, when the left tried briefly to orient the French (...) political economy in a social-democratic/socialist direction before changing course and opting for a more orthodox macroeconomic and structural policy direction. The attempts of governments of the right to implement a radically neo-liberal structural policy also failed in the face of a significant social opposition. The enduring French systemic crisis is the expression of contradictions between the economic policies implemented by the successive left and right governments, and the existence of a dominant, social bloc, that is, a coalition of social groups that would politically support the dominant political strategy. Since 1978, both the right and the left have failed to find a solution to the contradictions between the policies they implemented and the expectations of their respective social bases, which are themselves inhabited by tensions and contradictions that evolve with the structural reforms that gradually transformed French capitalism. (shrink)

This research examines the association between attitudes on cheating and cognitive moral development. In this research, we use Rest's (1979a) Defining Issues Test, the Attitudes on Honesty Scale (Authors) and Academic Integrity Index (Authors); the last two are adaptations of the DIT. A total of 220 students from three universities participated in the study (66 psychology majors and 154 business majors). The data indicate that 66.4 percent of the students reported that they cheated in high school, college, or both high (...) school and college. Psychology majors scored higher than business majors on both the Defining Issues Test (Rest, 1979a) and the Attitudes on Honesty Scale (AHS, Authors). Using factor analysis, we found significant associations between students' ratings of the importance considerations present in the three cheating scenarios and their estimates of whether cheating would occur (i.e., the Academic Integrity Index). Finally, using logistic regression, we found that the scores on the Attitudes on Honesty Scale and Academic Integrity Index associate with the self-reported cheating behavior of college students. (shrink)

In this thesis I defend optimism about philosophical progress, which is a form of anti-exceptionalism about philosophy. Pessimists maintain that philosophy lacks the distinctive features that make science progressive. Optimism maintains that philosophy is like science, in this respect. My argumentative strategy is the following. I review the literature on philosophical progress to identify the feature that, according to pessimists, philosophy lacks. Then, I develop a historical case study to show that philosophy has these features. The goal is showing that (...) philosophy makes progress by pessimistic standards. My strategy is novel because other optimists, including Stoljar and Dellsén, Firing, and Norton, focus on arguing that a certain set of conditions are sufficient for progress, contrary to what pessimists hold. I focus instead on arguing that, contrary to what pessimists hold, philosophy makes progress by their standards. The most common pessimistic argument is the following: first, pessimists argue that consensus is a necessary condition for progress, second, they argue that philosophy is pervaded by disagreement. It follows that philosophy is exceptional. Beebee, Chalmers, Dietrich, Goldberg, and Kornblith employ various versions of this reasoning. Optimistic responses to this argument typically grant the second premise and challenge the first. Instead, I follow Williamson in granting the first premise and challenging the second. My case study focuses on the work of Gottlob Frege, who is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy. I argue that there is consensus in contemporary philosophy about some of the views that Frege set forth. In fact, Frege’s case meets not only the pessimistic requirements for progress, Frege also produced all the epistemic goods that are associated to progress by participants in the more general debate about scientific progress. To show this, I review the literature about scientific progress, following Rowbottom’s analysis. Then I analyse various aspects of Frege’s work to show that it meets all the known conditions of progress. Thus, no matter what view about progress is correct, Frege made progress. Having argued that Frege made progress, I generalize my argument by considering three other authors that arguably made progress in the past. Moreover, I consider contemporary debates in contemporary philosophy to argue that philosophy continues to make progress to this day. Finally, I review some of the barriers to progress that seem indeed to be holding back philosophy, and other disciplines. Philosophy made progress in the past and continues to make progress to this day. But not all is good. Having ruled out pessimism about philosophical progress, we are in a better position to see how philosophy, and other disciplines, could be improved. (shrink)

After more than three centuries, Molyneux's question continues to challenge our understanding of cognition and perceptual systems. Locke, the original recipient of the question, approached it as a theoretical exercise relevant to long-standing philosophical issues, such as nativism, the possibility of common sensibles, and the empiricism-rationalism debate. However, philosophers were quick to adopt the experimentalist's stance as soon as they became aware of recoveries from congenital blindness through ophtalmic surgery. Such recoveries were widely reported to support empiricist positions, suggesting that (...) the question had found its empirical answer. Contrary to this common view, we argue that studies of patients recovering from early blindness through surgery cannot provide an answer. In fact, because of the very nature of such ophtalmological interventions it is impossible to test the question in the empirical conditions outlined by Molyneux. Thus we propose that Molyneux's question be treated as an early thought experiment of a specific kind. Although thought experiments of this kind cannot be turned into actual experimental conditions, they provide a conceptual restructuring of theories. Such restructuring in turn leads to new predictions that can then be tested by “normal” experiments. In accord with this interpretation, we show that Molyneux's question can be analyzed into a hierarchy of specific questions about vision in its phenomenal and sensory-motor components. Some of these questions do lead to actual experimental conditions that could be studied empirically. (shrink)

The book outlines the historical development of Public Law and the state from ancient times to the modern day, offering an account of relevant events in parallel with a general historical background, establishing and explaining the relationships between political, religious, and economic events.

Background. Attending to goal-relevant information can leave us metaphorically ‘blind’ or ‘deaf’ to the next relevant information while searching among distracters. This temporal cost lasting for about a half a second on the human selective attention has been long explored using the attentional blink paradigm. Although there is evidence that certain visual stimuli relating to one’s area of expertise can be less susceptible to attentional blink effects, it remains unexplored whether the dynamics of temporal selective attention vary with expertise and (...) objects types in the auditory modality. Methods. Using the auditory version of the attentional blink paradigm, the present study investigates whether certain auditory objects relating to musical and perceptual expertise could have an impact on the transient costs of selective attention. In this study, expert cellists and novice participants were asked to first identify a target sound, and then to detect instrumental timbres of cello or organ, or human voice as a second target in a rapid auditory stream. Results. The results showed moderate evidence against the attentional blink effect for voices independent of participants’ musical expertise. Experts outperformed novices in their overall accuracy levels of target identification and detection, reflecting a clear benefit of musical expertise. Importanly, the musicianship advantage disappeared when the human voices served as the second target in the stream. Discussion. The results are discussed in terms of stimulus salience, the advantage of voice processing, as well as perceptual and musical expertise in relation to attention and working memory performances. (shrink)

The concept of simultaneous masking in visual field is discussed, in the light of classical examples, of the various kinds of the phenomenon, of a modal completion, of the figure/ground phenomenon, of ambiguous and reversible figures, of mimicry and camouflage and eventually of the complexity of the stimulus. There is some reference to masking in auditory field. The “reality” of the masked configuration is discussed, drawing the conclusion that it is perceptually unreal. The fact that the masking phenomenon cannot take (...) place without comparison between two perceptual acts – what we see at one moment and what we see a moment after LATER – and the fact that the masked configuration pops out with some surprise, lead to the conclusion that simultaneous masking in visual field is not a bare perceptual phenomenon, but a psychological process not unlike insight. (shrink)

Ανέκδοτα ψηφίσματα από τη Λάρισσα (3) Συνεχίζοντας τις δΰο προηγούμενες δημοσιεύσεις που αφορούσαν σε ψηφίσματα της Λάρισσας (BCH 128-129 (2005), p. 377-417 ; BCH 130 (2006) [20081, Ρ· 435-483), παρουσιάζουμε εδώ μια τρίτη στήλη, η οποία φέρει τρία κείμενα: δύο ψηφίσματα της Λάρισσας, που ψηφίστηκαν κατά τη διάρκεια της στρατηγείας του Παυσανία, υιού του Θρασυμήδη από τις Φέρες (περίπου 130/129 π. Χ.), το ένα για έναν Αθηναίο φιλόσοφο και το άλλο για τρεις πολίτες της Κω· ένα τρίτο ψήφισμα προέρχεται από (...) τη Συνομοσπονδία των Μολοσσών και ανταμοίβει δικαστές από τη Λάρισσα, οι οποίοι εστάλησαν στην Ήπειρο για να διαιτητεύσουν σε μια διαμάχη μεταξύ Μολοσσών και Ακαρνάνων. Τα κείμενα αυτά, γραμμένα σε θεσσαλική διάλεκτο, η οποία την εποχή εκείνη χρησίμευε στη μεταγραφή εγγράφων της καγκελλαρίας των ελληνιστικών πόλεων σε μια γλώσσα που χάνει προοδευτικά τη συνοχή και την ιδιομορφία της και καταλήγει να διατηρεί μόνο μια «θεσσαλίζουσα» απόχρωση, έχουν αξία για την ιστορία της Λάρισσας, αφού αναφέρονται στην πνευματική ζωή και σε ορισμένες εκφάνσεις των πολιτικών ή οικονομικών δραστηριοτήτων των Λαρισσαίων στο δεύτερο μισό του 2ου αι. π. Χ. (shrink)

Bauch beschreibt das Substanzproblem in der griechischen Philosophie bis zur Blütezeit, Nachdruck des Originals von 1910.