Nietzsche consistently valorizes artistic falsehoods. On standard interpretations, this is because art provides deceptive yet salutary fictions that help us affirm life. This reading conflicts, however, with Nietzsche’s insistence that life-affirmation requires untrammeled honesty. I present an alternative interpretation which navigates the interpretive impasse. With special attention to the influence of Friedrich Schiller, the paper argues for three claims: (1) Nietzsche does not hold that art is false because it “beautifies,” but because it produces mere semblances of, its objects; (2) (...) these semblances are essentially non-deceptive; (3) he values artistic illusions because they dispose us positively to illusion more generally. Such ‘evaluative reorientation,’ I argue, is not merely consistent with, but integral to, achieving Nietzsche’s ideal of honesty. (shrink)

This study investigates the child‐directed speech (CDS) of four Russian‐, six German, and six English‐speaking mothers to their 2‐year‐old children. Typologically Russian has considerably less restricted word order than either German or English, with German showing more word‐order variants than English. This could lead to the prediction that the lexical restrictiveness previously found in the initial strings of English CDS by Cameron‐Faulkner, Lieven, and Tomasello (2003) would not be found in Russian or German CDS. However, despite differences between the three (...) corpora that clearly derive from typological differences between the languages, the most significant finding of this study is a high degree of lexical restrictiveness at the beginnings of CDS utterances in all three languages. (shrink)

For a decade, we have admired the incisive and broadly informed works of Ladislav Tondl on the foundations of science. Now it is indeed a pleasure to include this book among the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. We hope that it will help to deepen the collaborative scholar ship of scientists and philosophers in Czechoslovakia with the English reading scholars of the world. Professor Ladislav Tondl was born in 1924, and completed his higher education at the (...) Charles University iIi Prague. His doctorate was granted by the Institute of Information Theory and Automation. He was a professor and scientific research worker at the Institute for the Theory and Methodology of Science, which was a component part of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Tondl's principal fields of interest are the methodology of the empirical and experimental sciences, logical semantics, and cybernetics. For many years, he collaborated with Professor Albert Perez and others at the Institute of Information Theory and Automation in Prague, and he has undertaken fruitful collaboration with logicians in the Soviet and Polish schools, and been influenced by the Finnish logicians as well, among them Jaakko Hintikka. We list below a selection of his main publications. Perhaps the most accessible in presenting his central conception of the relationship between modem information theory and the methodology of the sciences is his 1965 paper with Perez, 'On the Role of Information Theory in Certain Scientific Procedures'. (shrink)

The question whether Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions could be applied to mathematics caused many interesting problems to arise. The aim of this paper is to discuss whether there are different kinds of scientific revolution, and if so, how many. The basic idea of the paper is to discriminate between the formal and the social aspects of the development of science and to compare them. The paper has four parts. In the first introductory part we discuss some of the questions (...) which arose during the debate of the historians of mathematics. In the second part, we introduce the concept of the epistemic framework of a theory. We propose to discriminate three parts of this framework, from which the one called formal frame will be of considerable importance for our approach, as its development is conservative and gradual. In the third part of the paper we define the concept of epistemic rupture as a discontinuity in the formal frame. The conservative and gradual nature of the changes of the formal frame open the possibility to compare different epistemic ruptures. We try to show that there are four different kinds of epistemic rupture, which we call idealisation, re-presentation, objectivisation and re-formulation. In the last part of the paper we derive from the classification of the epistemic ruptures a classification of scientific revolutions. As only the first three kinds of rupture are revolutionary (the re-formulations are rather cumulative), we obtain three kinds of scientific revolution: idealisation, re-presentation, and objectivisation. We discuss the relation of our classification of scientific revolutions to the views of Kuhn, Lakatos, Crowe, and Dauben. (shrink)

The nature of changes in mathematics was discussed recently in Revolutions in Mathematics. The discussion was dominated by historical and sociological arguments. An obstacle to a philosophical analysis of this question lies in a discrepancy between our approach to formulas and to pictures. While formulas are understood as constituents of mathematical theories, pictures are viewed only as heuristic tools. Our idea is to consider the pictures contained in mathematical text, as expressions of a specific language. Thus we get formulas and (...) pictures into one linguistic framework, and so we are able to analyse their interplay in the course of history. (shrink)

There are several ontological and consequently also methodological mistakes in contemporary mainstream economics. Among them, the so-called ergodic axiom is play significant role. It is understandable that the real economy elaborated as formalized mental model looks like dynamic system on first sight. However, that is right only of dynamical systems in mathematical formalism. Economy that is in our understanding societal and/or collective economy is complex evolving organism. If we imagine such organism in the form of dynamical system that is as (...) clear mathematical formalism, we are losing their crucial authentic character. The significant irredeemable attribute of societal economy is lying in his complex evolving network process character created by large population of people with different decision-making and complex realizing among them. Going from these imaginations the two entities in a question that is dynamical system with their ergodicity and societal economic organism as complex evolving network are qualitative very different ones. That is the reason why we cannot accede with endeavours to draw on living economy straitjacket of ergodic axiom. To articulate that cause by other words ergodic dynamical systems are applicable for physical and partly for chemical entities and only scarcely are fit for living organisms. On the other hand however, as clear method the ergodic dynamical system have good applying for didactical approaches in economics where helping in better understanding some types of complexities in dynamics. The purpose of that essay is to discuss problems around usability of ergodic dynamical system theory and methods in economics in the age of advanced ICT knowledge based society. (shrink)

The paper emphasizes the role of knowledge dimensions of an action which could be regarded as rational. Rational action usually results of specific decision — making process including selection, evaluation and acceptance of a preferred alternative. This process should integrate not only various types of knowledge but also the interdisciplinary or interdepartmental knowledge integration. The integration of knowledge may cover various forms, especially integration of knowledge relating to different domains, of different quality, of knowledge connected with different goal-orientations. The paper (...) stresses the role of the hitherto known and recognized alternatives. The integration procedures should also include the integration of various spheres and types of knowledge with accepted and justified systems of values. (shrink)

. Although the courts have ruled that companies are legal persons, they have not yet made clear the extent to which political free speech for corporations is limited by the strictures legitimately placed upon corporate commercial speech. I explore the question of whether or not companies can properly be said to have the right to civil free speech or whether corporate speech is always de facto commercial speech not subject to the same sorts of legal protections as is the right (...) to civil free speech. In the absence of clearly defined legal precedent, I emphasize moral reasons for determining the appropriate limits of corporate civil free speech. Appealing to arguments typically used to justify individual rights to civil free speech, I examine the extent to which this sort of justification may or may not be legitimately extended to corporations. I conclude that corporate rights to civil free speech must be restricted because granting rights of free speech to institutions may, in practice, undermine the moral rationale and practical feasibility of guaranteeing rights of civil free speech to individuals. Furthermore, I argue that granting corporations full rights to civil free speech will undercut attempts to develop good moral character in corporate institutions by undermining the efforts of watchdog organizations. (shrink)

This paper offers an epistemological reconstruction of the historical development of algebra from al-Khwrizm, Cardano, and Descartes to Euler, Lagrange, and Galois. In the reconstruction it interprets the algebraic formulas as a symbolic language and analyzes the changes of this language in the course of history. It turns out that the most fundamental epistemological changes in the development of algebra can be interpreted as changes of the pictorial form of the symbolic language of algebra. Thus the paper develops further the (...) method of reconstruction which the author introduced for the analysis of the development of geometry. (shrink)

This book offers new insights into the nature of human rational capacities by engaging inferentialism with empirical research in the cognitive sciences. Inferentialism advocates that humans' unique kind of intelligence is discursive and rooted in competencies to make, assess and justify claims. This approach provides a rich source of valuable insights into the nature of our rational capacities, but it is underdeveloped in important respects. For example, little attempt has been made to assess inferentialism considering relevant scientific research on human (...) communication, cognition or reasoning. By engaging philosophical and scientific approaches in a productive dialogue, this book shows how we can better understand human rational capacities by comparing their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this vein, the author critically revisits and constructively develops central themes from the work of Robert Brandom and other language rationalists: the nature of the assertoric practice and its connection to reasoned discourse, the linguistic constitution of the shared space of reasons, the social nature and function of reasoning, the intersubjective roots of social-normative practices and the nature of objective thought. Practices of Reason will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. (shrink)

This edited volume examines the relationship between collective intentionality and inferential theories of meaning. The book consists of three main sections. The first part contains essays demonstrating how researchers working on inferentialism and collective intentionality can learn from one another. The essays in the second part examine the dimensions along which philosophical and empirical research on human reasoning and collective intentionality can benefit from more cross-pollination. The final part consists of essays that offer a closer examination of themes from inferentialism (...) and collective intentionality that arise in the work of Wilfrid Sellars. Groups, Norms, and Practices provides a template for continuing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and the sciences that aims to deepen our understanding of human rationality, language use, and sociality. (shrink)

In economics there are several complex learning themes and tasks connected with them difficult for deeper understanding of the learning subject. These are the reasons originating serious learning problems for students in the form of Virtual Environment because deeper understanding requires high level mathematical skills. Actually the most important feature for discerning this part of economics is the set of qualitative shapes emerging in discrete dynamic systems when they are undergoing iterations and/or experimentation with parameters and initial coordinates of variables. (...) Among such shapes there are: - trajectories in evolving time; - trajectories in R2 of two variables; - cobweb portraits; - one control parameter bifurcation with first and/or with second variables; - two control parameters bifurcation in R2 ; - cycles; - basin of attraction of two variables; - one Lyapunov’s exponent against some of control parameters; - Lyapunov’s exponents with two control parameters in R2; - absorbing area with possibility to create critical curves and/or attractors. The hope is that products of computational intelligence may help them solve such problems. Naturally, the meant complex economic problems and tasks have discrete, qualitative and nonlinear nature resulting in increased level of difficulties. So with the term used in the head of this paper one has to understand narrowly: “qualitative nonlinear computational economics”. For better understanding the very nature of the problem we are using as appropriate example actual simulation of the model of new ICT products monopolies in virtual laboratory built in the routines setting dominantly in the software iDMC. (shrink)

Globalization and a Normative Framework of Freedom The author considers the question of whether or even what normative structure of social order is able to encourage the advancement of the measure of positive liberty in the process of globalization. Related to this is the issue of the insufficiency of guarantees provided by orthodox liberalism for human self-determination. The author considers possible scenarios as to the way in which an elite cosmopolitan minority, profiting from globalization and feeling no responsibility for the (...) majority left to its own fate, would pursue its own interests. The ideas of Ralf Dahrendorf concerning the global rule of law in the name of freedom and the need for international law are referred to. Globalization is occurring just as Marx intuitively predicted: capitalism becomes the bearer of hidden immanent self-destructive mechanisms. In conclusion, the author's hypothesis is that the new era of law in the 21st century will ensure that certain civilization legal norms become natural or customary. (shrink)

Macroeconomic dynamics and the at-risk-of-poverty population in Slovakia This paper deals with analysis and presentation of the core findings under the EU SILC 2009 project. Particularly we are oriented on study of the socially vulnerable groups of population identified according their income situation. As a sorting criterion for this purpose we use the standard methodology set by OECD and Eurostat. It means the 60% of the national median equivalized disposable income is applied for this criterion as the poverty threshold. The (...) national income variable is firstly calculated as a total income for each surveyed household and dived by the equivalized size of household. By this procedure the households of various structures are transformed onto generally accepted scale. The special attention of our study is oriented on the cluster of population living on income below the poverty threshold. For this population we calculate so called social deficit. Through this value we show the volume of financial means needed to upgrade the living standard of the population living bellow poverty threshold at least to the poverty threshold level.Special section of the paper is devoted to study of relation among the core macroeconomic indicators and level and size of the at-risk-of-poverty population during the period of last economic development, including both economic growth and economic recession. According our tentative findings we did not find the significant impact of economic growth on the status of socially vulnerable population. This finding however should be studied in broader context, with longer time series of relevant data and with broader set of explanatory variables. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to analyze how language affects scientific research, from planning experiments and interpreting their results, through constructing models and the testing their predictions, to building theories and justifying their principles. I try to give an overview of the potentialities of language of science. I propose to distinguish six potentialities: analytic, expressive, methodical, integrative, explanatory, and constitutive power of language. I will shortly characterize each of these potentialities and illustrate their contribution to scientific research. Although I (...) believe that the theory is valid for a wide range of scientific disciplines, all illustrations are taken from physics. (shrink)

Race and Gender in the Classroom explores the paradoxes of education, race, and gender, as Laurie Cooper Stoll follows eighteen teachers carrying out their roles as educators in an era of “post-racial” and “post-gendered” politics.

This paper is a polemic response to the essay “The Semantics of Proper Names and Identity Theory of Predication” by L. Novák (SN 1–2/2004). In the first part of the article, the so-called descriptive theories of proper names and Kripke’s challenge to these views are briefly presented. It is pointed out that Novák’s exposition rests upon certain presuppositions in the theories of meaning and mind, which are controversial and which – without further argument – can hardly cast doubt on the (...) so-called New Theory of Reference. Furthermore, it is argued that Novák’s “minimal sense” of a proper name is too minimalistic and cannot be of service to the original idea of descripitivism. In the second part of the paper, an attempt is made to show that Novák’s extensional-intensional identity theory of predication is not based on identity, insofar as it is characterised by the axioms of the theory of identity. (shrink)

A quantitative analysis of a trans-generational, conversational corpus of Chintang (Tibeto-Burman) speakers with community-wide bilingualism in Nepali (Indo-European) reveals that children show more code-switching into Nepali than older speakers. This confirms earlier proposals in the literature that code-switching in bilingual children decreases when they gain proficiency in their dominant language, especially in vocabulary. Contradicting expectations from other studies, our corpus data also reveal that for adults, multi-word insertions of Nepali into Chintang are just as likely to undergo full syntactic integration (...) as single-word insertions. Speakers of younger generations show less syntactic integration. We propose that this reflects a change between generations, from strongly asymmetrical, Chintang-dominated bilingualism in older generations to more balanced bilingualism where Chintang and Nepali operate as clearly separate systems in younger generations. This change is likely to have been triggered by the increase of Nepali presence over the past few decades. (shrink)