The present paper considers using Social Networking Sites (SNS) as the primary means of communication . Current situations of communication are often associated with the active use of various SNS - convenient tool for information exchange, as new media, and one of the most widespread ways of self-presentation. The author comes to the conclusion that a SNS (like Facebook) gives no effective means to discern the real face - ego-, personal or actual social identity. However, modern Internet technologies provide us (...) with useful instruments, applied to the social network analysis and semiotic approach, to define the virtual social (or personal) identity that can (or cannot) be the same as the real one. (shrink)

In the corporate social responsibility literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities. Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected 703 (...) papers where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; the variety of government levels involved; and the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in-depth reading of a subsample of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding of the voluntarism concept in CSR. (shrink)

In the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature, the principle of voluntarism is predominant and implies that responsible business activities are discretionary and reach beyond the rule of law. This principle fails to explain that governments have a great interest in CSR and exercise influence on firms’ CSR activities. Therefore, we argue in favour of a contingency approach on voluntarism in CSR. To this end, we analyse the academic literature to demonstrate how governments are part of the CSR debate. We selected (...) 703 papers where the impact of governments is mentioned from five journals in our field (BEER, BEQ, BSE, BAS, JBE) in the period 1982–2011. We studied the titles and abstracts of these papers and provide an overview of: (i) the geographical orientation of the reviewed studies; (ii) the variety of government levels involved; and (iii) the various subjects where governments appear to be involved. In addition, an in‐depth reading of a subsample of 39 articles offers more details on the role of governments in the CSR literature. Hence, we offer a structured overview on the discussion of CSR and governments while stimulating a contingent understanding of the voluntarism concept in CSR. (shrink)

Having the ambition to contribute to the practical value of the theory on corporate social performance (CSP), this paper approaches the question whether CSP can contribute to the competitive advantage of firms. We adopted an explorative case-study methodology to explore the variety of positive and negative effects of CSP on the competitiveness of organizations. As this study aimed at identifying as great variety of these effects as possible, we selected a diversified group of respondents. Data was thus collected through embedded (...) units of analysis in a petrochemical company, and triangulated with the opinions of experts on CSP. Overall, we found various positive and negative effects of CSP on the competitiveness of organizations. CSP is therefore not an innocent adventure for executives, but rather a strategy for achieving corporate objectives. If not carefully implemented, the CSP strategy may harm the competitive advantage of the firm, as our results have suggested. (shrink)

A Turing degreedis the degree of categoricity of a computable structure${\cal S}$ifdis the least degree capable of computing isomorphisms among arbitrary computable copies of${\cal S}$. A degreedis the strong degree of categoricity of${\cal S}$ifdis the degree of categoricity of${\cal S}$, and there are computable copies${\cal A}$and${\cal B}$of${\cal S}$such that every isomorphism from${\cal A}$onto${\cal B}$computesd. In this paper, we build a c.e. degreedand a computable rigid structure${\cal M}$such thatdis the degree of categoricity of${\cal M}$, butdis not the strong degree of categoricity (...) of${\cal M}$. This solves the open problem of Fokina, Kalimullin, and Miller [13].For a computable structure${\cal S}$, we introduce the notion of the spectral dimension of${\cal S}$, which gives a quantitative characteristic of the degree of categoricity of${\cal S}$. We prove that for a nonzero natural numberN, there is a computable rigid structure${\cal M}$such that$0\prime$is the degree of categoricity of${\cal M}$, and the spectral dimension of${\cal M}$is equal toN. (shrink)

This paper investigates the role that universities play in supporting social entrepreneurs (SEs) across their ecosystem. Adopting the resource-based view (RBV) approach, we argue that universities attract, mobilize, and deploy multiple resources that benefit SEs through four main mechanisms (i.e., teaching, research, outreach, and the development of partnerships). We use a qualitative approach of 62 semi-structured interviews and 8 focus groups in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia. Our contribution shows that employing different resources and engaging in supportive activities of universities towards (...) SEs facilitate the development of university capabilities, such as an increased reputation, development of leadership skills for students and staff, and wider access to ecosystem resources that support other university activities related to teaching, research, and community outreach. The role that partnerships play in the development of these capabilities is fundamental, thanks to the different strategic alliances and mobilization of resources between universities and other actors while supporting SEs. This study contributes to our understanding of the role universities can play to intensify the nature of supportive ecosystems for SEs. This contribution is relevant not only to academics but also to practitioners, as this will shed light on the building, development, and scaling of a supportive ecosystem for SEs. (shrink)

Social innovations (SIs) offer creative solutions to complex social problems and often require the exchange of necessary resources, knowledge, and expertise among various actors. These actors form an ecosystem that can support the development of successful SIs. In this special topic forum introduction, we first discuss the literature related to the support function of ecosystems. We use the theoretical lens of prosocial behavior to explain the various types of support in an ecosystem. We argue that there are three archetypes of (...) support in ecosystems, namely, altruistic, communitarian, and commercial support. Subsequently, we present the three papers accepted for publication in the special topic forum. One paper refers to the three support archetypes, although indirectly, while the other two refer to one specific archetype of ecosystem support for SIs. This introductory paper concludes with discussion on the opportunities for future research. Without a clear understanding of the different archetypes of support, it would be difficult for both scholars and practitioners to design vibrant ecosystems in assistance to SI. (shrink)

The problem of opportunity discovery is at the heart of entrepreneurial activity. Cognitive limitations determine the search for and the analysis of information and, as a consequence, constrain the identification of opportunities. Moreover, typical personal characteristics – locus of control, need for independence and need for achievement – suggest that entrepreneurs will tend to take a central position in their stakeholder environments and thus fail to adapt to the complexity of stakeholder relationships in their entrepreneurial activity. We approach this problem (...) by adopting a network perspective on stakeholder management. We propose a heuristic approach of stakeholder analysis, which requires two mappings of the entrepreneurial constituents. The first mapping focuses on current interactions between the entrepreneur and their stakeholders, while the second focuses on a specific issue and the stakeholders that constitute it. In effect, such a stakeholder analysis requires entrepreneurs to use the complexity of stakeholder relationships in order to go beyond their cognitive limitations and thus facilitate the discovery of new opportunities. As we will argue, this has clear implications for the ethics and activities of entrepreneurs. (shrink)

As corporate social responsibility involves a voluntary business endeavour to address social and environmental issues beyond legal compliance, governments cannot fall back on hierarchical command-and-control policies to support it. As such, it is complementary with the increasing popularity of public policies known as New Governance policies, where the government is engaged in a horizontal inter-organizational network of societal actors and where public policy is both formed and executed by the interacting and voluntary efforts from a multitude of stakeholders. However, such (...) policies are known to generate substantive uncertainty about the content of CSR and its related issues, strategic uncertainty regarding the behavior of the actors involved and institutional uncertainty related to the interaction process involved in the institutional change. We explore New Governance policy instruments to address these uncertainties in the context CSR and discuss the experiences with these methods in the European Union. (shrink)

We work with weakly precomplete equivalence relations introduced by Badaev. The weak precompleteness is a natural notion inspired by various fixed point theorems in computability theory. Let E be an equivalence relation on the set of natural numbers $$\omega $$, having at least two classes. A total function f is a diagonal function for E if for every x, the numbers x and f(x) are not E-equivalent. It is known that in the case of c.e. relations E, the weak precompleteness (...) of E is equivalent to the lack of computable diagonal functions for E. Here we prove that this result fails already for $$\Delta ^0_2$$ equivalence relations, starting with the $$\Pi ^{-1}_2$$ level. We focus on the Turing degrees of possible diagonal functions. We prove that for any noncomputable c.e. degree $${\textbf{d}}$$, there exists a weakly precomplete c.e. equivalence E admitting a $${\textbf{d}}$$ -computable diagonal function. We observe that a Turing degree $${\textbf{d}}$$ can compute a diagonal function for every $$\Delta ^0_2$$ equivalence relation E if and only if $${\textbf{d}}$$ computes $${\textbf{0}}'$$. On the other hand, every PA degree can compute a diagonal function for an arbitrary c.e. equivalence E. In addition, if $${\textbf{d}}$$ computes diagonal functions for all c.e. E, then $${\textbf{d}}$$ must be a DNC degree. (shrink)

The role of governments in business and society research remains underexplored. The generally accepted principle of voluntarism, which frames responsible business conduct as an unregulated subject under managerial discretion, accounts for this gap. Paradoxically, there are sufficient acknowledgments in academia and practice on different roles of governments. The present article identifies three broad topics for research, addressing the paradox between the principle of voluntarism and the role of governments in B&S, the boundaries of governments and business in their contribution to (...) B&S issues, and the mechanisms of government intervention that affect corporate social performance. The authors approach the first topic with a literature review of 703 articles marked with the term “government” from five journals in the field between 1982 and 2011. This study indicates that the principle of voluntarism remains, despite the broad variety of research related to the role of government in B&S. In addition, the identified content provides deeper insight into the mechanisms of government intervention and on the boundaries of governments in the B&S discourse. This article then provides a summary of the other three research articles included in this special research forum, with a contribution oriented toward the latter two research avenues posited. (shrink)

The early literature on base of the pyramid strategies argued that multinational enterprises can contribute significantly to poverty alleviation of the poorest population in the world. An emergent perspective suggests that the solution to poverty lies within the BOP itself. Here, entrepreneurship within the BOP population is seen as the more credible solution to poverty. In this Special Issue introduction, we briefly present how the literature has further shifted the discussion of BOP strategies toward issues such as innovation, networks, business (...) models, and sustainability at the BOP. This analysis signals a gap in our knowledge related to the success factors in business models of BOP entrepreneurs, with attention to economic, social, and environmental impacts. We present the five articles accepted for publication in this Special Issue, of which three contribute to our knowledge of BOP business models and two to our knowledge of sustainability at the BOP. In conclusion, we propose several avenues for future research. (shrink)

At the present stage, it is becoming more and more important for large companies to maintain their own impeccable reputation. Western companies have been introducing and developing compliance systems for quite a long time, and now Russian companies are also concerned about the development of such systems. Compliance strengthens the company’s reputation, which gives it another competitive advantage in the market. The purpose of the article is to study trends and prospects for the development of compliance in Russia, the problems (...) of its implementation in Russian companies. The paper provides a theoretical analysis of the concept and essence of compliance in the activities of companies, the features and components of compliance systems. Compliance systems and the work of compliance services were studied on the example of 50 large companies that were surveyed in March 2020. It was determined that less than half of the companies have such services; the full independence of such services is not always fully ensured; the capabilities of these services to perform compliance functions are not fully used and the most popular area of compliance is anti-corruption compliance. Prospects for further research are related to the study of the development of compliance in Russia, including the introduction of advanced foreign experience in Russian companies. The applied value of the material lies in the systematisation of information on the trends in the development of compliance in Russia at the present stage. (shrink)

“Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?” What would it have looked like if we looked at all (...) sciences from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all of them have written in an accessible style that demands little specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the deep issues at hand. (shrink)

By analyzing the Dirac equation with static electric and magnetic fields it is shown that Dirac’s theory is nothing but a generalized one-particle quantum theory compatible with the special theory of relativity. This equation describes a quantum dynamics of a single relativistic fermion, and its solution is reduced to solution of the generalized Pauli equation for two quasiparticles which move in the Euclidean space with their effective masses holding information about the Lorentzian symmetry of the four-dimensional space-time. We reveal the (...) correspondence between the Dirac bispinor and Pauli spinor , and show that all four components of the Dirac bispinor correspond to a fermion . Mixing the particle and antiparticle states is prohibited. On this basis we discuss the paradoxical phenomena of Zitterbewegung and the Klein tunneling. (shrink)

This investigation is a historical review of twentieth-century analytical philosophy in England. In seven chapters, the intellectual development of its most prominent representatives - Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein, Ryle, Austin, Strawson, Dummett - is traced. The book does not however aim to tell a story. Instead, it offers synopses of the main philosophical texts of these seven philosophers. The chief reason for adopting this approach was the wish to first of all cover as many of the problems discussed by them as (...) possible, and secondly to view these problems in juxtaposition. The study was thus conceived as a comprehensive and most objective review of the history of analytical philosophy as practised in England. The hope is that it will serve as a reference book covering all the central problems discussed by these seven authors. (shrink)

We present a system of relational syllogistic, based on classical propositional logic, having primitives of the following form: $$\begin{array}{ll}\mathbf{Some}\, a \,{\rm are} \,R-{\rm related}\, {\rm to}\, \mathbf{some} \,b;\\ \mathbf{Some}\, a \,{\rm are}\,R-{\rm related}\, {\rm to}\, \mathbf{all}\, b;\\ \mathbf{All}\, a\, {\rm are}\,R-{\rm related}\, {\rm to}\, \mathbf{some}\, b;\\ \mathbf{All}\, a\, {\rm are}\,R-{\rm related}\, {\rm to}\, \mathbf{all} \,b.\end{array}$$ Such primitives formalize sentences from natural language like ‘ All students read some textbooks’. Here a, b denote arbitrary sets (of objects), and R denotes an (...) arbitrary binary relation between objects. The language of the logic contains only variables denoting sets, determining the class of set terms, and variables denoting binary relations between objects, determining the class of relational terms. Both classes of terms are closed under the standard Boolean operations. The set of relational terms is also closed under taking the converse of a relation. The results of the paper are the completeness theorem with respect to the intended semantics and the computational complexity of the satisfiability problem. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is an institutional view of the state and modern Russia, as opposed to the civilizational and formational worldview. It allows you to switch public and scientific consciousness from a statocentric to a sociocentric worldview, in its own way reveals the correlation of the categories of people, society and the state in the political universe. As a result, the history of political society appears to be a socio-dialectical sequence of public legal structures built by historically changeable (...) political norms. The analysis of institutional transitions and political norms allows us to assert that modern society, including the Russian one, is rationally moving towards a libertarian institution, i.e. to co-governance of citizens equal in law. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, a work widely held to be one of the most intricate in the philosophical canon. We understand the Tractatus not as the development of a theory but as the advancement of a new logical symbolism (a new instrument) that enables one to “recognize the formal properties [the logic] of propositions by mere inspection of propositions themselves” (6.122). Moreover, the Tractarian conceptual notation stands to instruct us in a better way to follow (...) the logic of language, and by that token, enhances our ability to think. Upon acquiring the thinking skills that one can develop by working with this symbolism, one can “throw away [this] ladder” (6.54), as it were, and move on. (shrink)

The article examines the problem of correlation between the “knowledge society” and “knowledge practice,” based on analysis of the phenomenon of security expertise as a part of political expertise. In the article, we consider the relationship between politics and security and demonstrate under what circumstances security becomes politics. It is noted that at present the concept of security has become very multifaceted and includes various spheres, from military-political to informational and humanitarian. We defines security expertise, list its key parameters, origin, (...) its institutionalization and practices. Special attention is paid to the characteristics of the main schools in the study of security expertise problems. Their general ideology and inherent problems are analyzed, including the correspondence of the quality of the expertise to recognized standards of scientific knowledge. We explain why security issues appeal to experts and result in numerous studies. We raise an issue of causes that may lead to possible deprofessionalization of security expertise. We identify a number of institutions with an expert status in the field of security and explain the global growth of analytical centers specializing in security expertise. A brief description of such analytical centers and their main features is given. We look into examples of practical impact of expertise on political decision-making, and possible mechanisms of expert support. It is concluded that expert analysis can exercise direct impact on political processes, and the experts become influential shadow participants. On the one hand, this may contribute to adopting more balanced decisions, but, on the other hand, it may result in deprofessionalization of experts who will try to adjust to the demands of politicians. Thus, in the sphere of security expertise, one of the results of the formation of a “knowledge society” is a decrease in the autonomy of the scientific sphere, which has a side effect in the form of deprofessionalization of knowledge. (shrink)

Many philosophers affiliated with the analytic school contend that the history of philosophy is not relevant to their work. The present study challenges this claim by introducing a strong variant of the philosophical history of philosophy termed the “logical–contextual history of philosophy.” Its objective is to map the “logical geography” of the concepts and theories of past philosophical masters, concepts and theories that are not only genealogically, but also logically related. Such history of philosophy cannot be set in opposition to (...) the traditional “systematic philosophy.” Rather, the logical–contextual history of philosophy is, like the traditional school philosophies, systematic, although it develops along different lines. (shrink)

The present essay advances a theory of social reality which concurs with the formal ontology developed in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Furthermore, we identify this formal ontology as reistic but in a rather wide sense: in the sense that social objects are primary whereas social relations are super-structured over them. This thesis has been developed in opposition to John Searle’s claim, made in his book Construction of Social Reality (1995), that the building blocks of social reality are institutions. We do not claim (...) that this is the only valid theory of social reality. We simply hope that it has considerable ex-planatory power so that it can be used as a theory alternative to those already existing or to any new theory of society. The paper has two parts. Part One sets out the theoretical foundations of the approach followed in it, whereas Part Two advances details of its application to sociology and history. (shrink)

This article pursues two distinct yet interrelated levels of analysis. Theoretically, the article seeks to destabilize Western narratives of a transition from humanism to anti- and post-humanism in radical scholarship by foregrounding two traditions from Eastern Europe and the Caribbean where the language of the human persisted long after its declared obsolescence in the West. The argument made here is that these divergent narratives of the human were neither wholly contingent nor just a matter of distinct intellectual traditions, but were (...) deeply interwoven with both the history of the Cold War and the legacies of colonialism. On a praxical-political level, the article also engages in a close reading of arguably the major tradition of Marxist humanism in Eastern Europe, that of the Praxis circle in former Yugoslavia. While examining the specific political and theoretical reasons for the persistence of humanism in the writings of Praxis, the article argues that, in the end, their radica.. (shrink)

The Berlin Group was an equal partner with the Vienna Circle as a school of scientific philosophy, albeit one that pursued an itinerary of its own. But while the latter presented its defining projects in readily discernible terms and became immediately popular, the Berlin Group, whose project was at least as sig-nificant as that of its Austrian counterpart, remained largely unrecognized. The task of this chapter is to distinguish the Berliners’ work from that of the Vienna Circle and to bring (...) to light its impact in the history of scientific philosophy. (shrink)

Two concepts of utmost importance for the analytic philosophy of the twentieth century, “sense-data” and “knowledge by acquaintance”, were introduced by Bertrand Russell under the influence of two idealist philosophers: F. H. Bradley and Alexius Meinong. This paper traces the exact history of their introduction. We shall see that between 1896 and 1898, Russell had a fully-elaborated theory of “sense-data”, which he abandoned after his analytic turn of the summer of 1898. Furthermore, following a subsequent turn of August 1900—-after he (...) became acquainted with the works of Peano and later of Frege—-Russell gradually developed another theory of sense-data. With the collaboration of G. E. Moore, Russell reintroduced the term “sense-data” in 1911. Concomitantly with this move, Russell introduced the epistemological term “knowledge by acquaintance”, which came to designate the grasping of sense-data and universals. (shrink)

The present review takes into consideration the existing literature on Professor Dr. Miglena Nikolchina's new monograph, “God with a Machine: Extracting the Human”, with a particular focus on the science-fictional aspects of the book, tracking their culmination in the debates about the future and the inquiries that construct the very notion of humanity.

We prove an effective version of the Lopez-Escobar theorem for continuous domains. Let $Mod(\tau )$ be the set of countable structures with universe $\omega $ in vocabulary $\tau $ topologized by the Scott topology. We show that an invariant set $X\subseteq Mod(\tau )$ is $\Pi ^0_\alpha $ in the Borel hierarchy of this topology if and only if it is definable by a $\Pi ^p_\alpha $ -formula, a positive $\Pi ^0_\alpha $ formula in the infinitary logic $L_{\omega _1\omega }$. As (...) a corollary of this result we obtain a new pullback theorem for positive computable embeddings: Let $\mathcal {K}$ be positively computably embeddable in $\mathcal {K}'$ by $\Phi $, then for every $\Pi ^p_\alpha $ formula $\xi $ in the vocabulary of $\mathcal {K}'$ there is a $\Pi ^p_\alpha $ formula $\xi ^{*}$ in the vocabulary of $\mathcal {K}$ such that for all $\mathcal {A}\in \mathcal {K}$, $\mathcal {A}\models \xi ^{*}$ if and only if $\Phi (\mathcal {A})\models \xi $. We use this to obtain new results on the possibility of positive computable embeddings into the class of linear orderings. (shrink)

Shortly before G. E. Moore wrote down the formative for the early analytic philosophy lectures on Some Main Problems of Philosophy (1910–1911), he had become acquainted with two books which influenced his thought: (1) a book by Husserl's pupil August Messer and (2) a book by the Greifswald objectivist Dimitri Michaltschew. Central to Michaltschew's book was the concept of the given. In Part I, I argue that Moore elaborated his concept of sense-data in the wake of the Greifswald concept. Carnap (...) did the same when he wrote his Aufbau, the only difference being that he spoke not of sense-data but of Erlebnisse. This means, I argue, that both Moore's sense-data and Carnap'sErlebnisse have little to do with either British empiricists or the neo-Kantians. In Part II, I try to ascertain what made early analytic philosophy different from all those philosophical groups and movements that either exercised influence on it, or were closely related to it: phenomenologists, Greifswald objectivists, Brentanists. For this purpose, I identify the sine qua non practices of the early analytic philosophers: exactness; acceptance of the propositional turn; descriptivism; objectivism. If one of these practices was not explored by a given philosophical school or group, in all probability, it was not truly analytic. (shrink)

Despite of the fact that Reichenbach clearly acknowledged his indebtedness to Hilbert, the influence of this leading mathematician of the time on him is grossly neglected. The present paper demonstrates that the decisive years of the development of Reichenbach as a philosopher of science coincide with, and also partly followed the “philosophical” turn of Hilbert’s mathematics after 1917 that was fixed in the so called “Hilbert’s program”. The paper specifically addresses the fact that after 1917, Hilbert saw the axiomatic method (...) as an instrument for providing the foundations not only of mathematics but also of other sciences. In particular, Hilbert’s axiomatic program was closely connected with the theoretical physics and arguably helped Einstein to discover the general theory of relativity. In this context, one can see Reichenbach’s project to axiomatize Einstein’s theory of relativity as a continuation of this project. Under Russell’s influence, after 1914 Hilbert also developed an interest in mathematical logic. Reichenbach experienced similar transition from axiomatics to logic which went together with turn of his interest from Hilbert to Russell. Reichenbach’s rapprochement to Russell also supported the transition of his interests from epistemology to ontology. (shrink)

The survey contains a detailed discussion of methods and results in the new emerging area of online “punctual” structure theory. We also state several open problems.

This paper advances an assessment of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason made from a bird’s eye view. Seen from this perspective, the task of Kant’s work was to ground the spontaneity of human reason, preserving at the same time the strict methods of science and mathematics. Kant accomplished this objective by reviving an old philosophical discipline: the peirastic dialectic of Plato and Aristotle. What is more, he managed to combine it with logic. From this blend, Kant’s transcendental idealism appeared as (...) a new logic that paralleled Aristotle’s syllogistic logic. The first result of this move was that philosophy became a formal study that treats even such subjects as ethics with rigour. Another outcome was that it established philosophy as a professional – school – discipline. In the twentieth century academy, this development was echoed by the emergence of analytic philosophy, in which Kant’s new logic evolved into a philosophical logic. (shrink)

This paper outlines the intellectual biography of Walter Dubislav. Besides being a leading member of the Berlin Group headed by Hans Reichenbach, Dubislav played a defining role as well in the Society for Empirical/Scientific Philosophy in Berlin. A student of David Hilbert, Dubislav applied the method of axiomatic to produce original work in logic and formalist philosophy of mathematics. He also introduced the elements of a formalist philosophy of science and addressed more general problems concerning the substantiation of human knowledge. (...) What set Dubislav apart from the other logical empiricists was his expertise in the history of logic and exact philosophy which enabled him to elucidate and advance the thinking in both disciplines. In the realm of logic proper, Dubislav is best known for his pioneering work in theory of definitions. What is more, he did original work on the so called ‘quasi truth-tables’ which aided Reichenbach in developing his logic of probability. Dubislav also elaborated an influe.. (shrink)

A brief essay of Nikolay Raynov against war.

Gottlob Frege’s conception of works of art has received scant notice in the literature. This is a pity since, as this paper undertakes to reveal, his innovative philosophy of language motivated a theoretically and historically consequential, yet unaccountably marginalized Wittgenstinian line of inquiry in the domain of aesthetics. The element of Frege’s approach that most clearly inspired this development is the idea that only complete sentences articulate thoughts and that what sentences in works of drama and literary art express are (...) ‘mock thoughts’. The early Wittgenstein closely followed Frege’s lead on this theme. One sees this, for example, in the Tractatus, where Wittgenstein announces that only sentential propositions model states of affairs whereas works of art are objects we perceive sub specie aeternitatis. By the early 1930s, however, Wittgenstein began to revise his view beyond his initial Frege-inspired standpoint. He came to insist that works of art can convey thoughts as well, but that thoughts do not model the world of facts and hence do not convey information about measurable objects and events. Rather, his contention was that aesthetically configured thoughts that artworks communicate impart information about our perspective on reality and reconfigure our view of life. To be more explicit, successful or ‘good’ works of art, in Wittgenstein’s view, can supply aesthetically instructive ‘gestures’ that open to living experience promising new ways of being. It is in this respect, he held, that artists ‘have something to teach’. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege’s conception of works of art has received scant notice in the literature. This is a pity since, as this paper undertakes to reveal, his innovative philosophy of language motivated a theoretically and historically consequential, yet unaccountably marginalized Wittgenstinian line of inquiry in the domain of aesthetics. The element of Frege’s approach that most clearly inspired this development is the idea that only complete sentences articulate thoughts and that what sentences in works of drama and literary art express are (...) ‘mock thoughts’. The early Wittgenstein closely followed Frege’s lead on this theme. One sees this, for example, in the Tractatus, where Wittgenstein announces that only sentential propositions model states of affairs whereas works of art are objects we perceive sub specie aeternitatis. By the early 1930s, however, Wittgenstein began to revise his view beyond his initial Frege-inspired standpoint. He came to insist that works of art can convey thoughts as well, but that thoughts do not model the world of facts and hence do not convey information about measurable objects and events. Rather, his contention was that aesthetically configured thoughts that artworks communicate impart information about our perspective on reality and reconfigure our view of life. To be more explicit, successful or ‘good’ works of art, in Wittgenstein’s view, can supply aesthetically instructive ‘gestures’ that open to living experience promising new ways of being. It is in this respect, he held, that artists ‘have something to teach’. (shrink)

A structure is automatic if its domain, functions, and relations are all regular languages. Using the fact that every automatic structure is decidable, in the literature many decision problems have been solved by giving an automatic presentation of a particular structure. Khoussainov and Nerode asked whether there is some way to tell whether a structure has, or does not have, an automatic presentation. We answer this question by showing that the set of Turing machines that represent automata-presentable structures is ${\rm{\Sigma (...) }}_1^1 $-complete. We also use similar methods to show that there is no reasonable characterisation of the structures with a polynomial-time presentation in the sense of Nerode and Remmel. (shrink)

This paper advances an assessment of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason made from a bird’s eye view. Seen from this perspective, the task of Kant’s work was to ground the spontaneity of human reason, preserving at the same time the strict methods of science and mathematics. Kant accomplished this objective by reviving an old philosophical discipline: the peirastic dialectic of Plato and Aristotle. What is more, he managed to combine it with logic. From this blend, Kant’s transcendental idealism appeared as (...) a new logic that paralleled Aristotle’s syllogistic logic. The first result of this move was that philosophy became a formal study that treats even such subjects as ethics with rigour. Another outcome was that it established philosophy as a professional – school – discipline. In the twentieth century academy, this development was echoed by the emergence of analytic philosophy, in which Kant’s new logic evolved into a philosophical logic. (shrink)

Between April and November 1912, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein were engaged in a joint philosophical program. Wittgenstein‘s meeting with Gottlob Frege in December 1912 led, however, to its dissolution – the joint program was abandoned. Section 2 of this paper outlines the key points of that program, identifying what Russell and Wittgenstein each contributed to it. The third section determines precisely those features of their collaborative work that Frege criticized. Finally, building upon the evidence developed in the preceding two (...) sections, section 4 recasts along previously undeveloped lines Wittgenstein‘s logical–philosophical discoveries in the two years following his encounter with Frege in 1912. The paper concludes, in section 5, with an overview of the dramatic consequences the Frege-Wittgenstein critique had for Russell‘s philosophical development. (shrink)

By probability theory the probability space to underlie the set of statistical data described by the squared modulus of a coherent superposition of microscopically distinct (sub)states (CSMDS) is non-Kolmogorovian and, thus, such data are mutually incompatible. For us this fact means that the squared modulus of a CSMDS cannot be unambiguously interpreted as the probability density and quantum mechanics itself, with its current approach to CSMDSs, does not allow a correct statistical interpretation. By the example of a 1D completed scattering (...) and double slit diffraction we develop a new quantum-mechanical approach to CSMDSs, which requires the decomposition of the non-Kolmogorovian probability space associated with the squared modulus of a CSMDS into the sum of Kolmogorovian ones. We adapt to CSMDSs the presented by Khrennikov (Found. Phys. 35(10):1655, 2005) concept of real contexts (complexes of physical conditions) to determine uniquely the properties of quantum ensembles. Namely we treat the context to create a time-dependent CSMDS as a complex one consisting of elementary (sub)contexts to create alternative subprocesses. For example, in the two-slit experiment each slit generates its own elementary context and corresponding subprocess. We show that quantum mechanics, with a new approach to CSMDSs, allows a correct statistical interpretation and becomes compatible with classical physics. (shrink)

In the Tractatus Wittgenstein often uses graphic metaphors: a ladder, which is to be thrown away after it has been climbed; pictures with feelers; networks with fine square meshes. Although they are illuminating, it is not always clear in exactly what sense Wittgenstein employs them. In this paper, we will try to eliminate this fuzziness with respect to the concept of scaffolding (Gerüst).

Between 1896 and 1898 Russell’s philosophy was considerably influenced by Hermann Lotze. Lotze’s influence on Russell was especially pronounced in introducing metaphysical—anthropological, in particular—assumptions in Russell’s logic and ontology. Three steps in his work reflect this influence. (i) The first such step can be discerned in the Principle of Differentiation, which Russell accepted in the Essay (finished in October 1986); according to this Principle, the objects of human cognition are segmented complexes which have diverse parts (individuals). (ii) After Russell reread (...) Lotze in June 1897, he claimed that the solution of the dilemma of pluralism or monism depends on how we see space and time: as relational or as adjectival? (iii) Russell decided for the relational conception only after he attended lectures by McTaggart on Lotze in January to February 1898. The lectures helped Russell to advance (from April to June 1898) a new theory of judgment according to which judgments relate terms (individuals) which are distinct one from another. Space and time moreover are series of moments and places with external relations between themselves. The discussions Russell had with Moore in May to June 1898 took place only after Russell developed this conception; they did not cause his philosophical turn. (shrink)

In 1930, at the initiative of Nikolay Raynov, was founded the Bulgarian Roerich Society. This brief essay, written and published by Raynov in the Newspaper Zarya 1933, aims to introduce the oeuvre of Nicholas Roerich and his ideas of Pax Cultura – peace trough culture – to a larger Bulgarian audience. Raynov argues that it is not enough to create oeuvres of art, i.e. to write books or to paint pictures, but that it is also necessary to fight for (...) the protection of cultural works and monuments, especially in times of conflict and war. In this sense, this brief essay can be conceived as a call to the Bulgarian public to join the Roerich Pact, elaborated in 1928/1929. (shrink)

The concept of alienation is important part of the 20th century leftwing social criticism and a key theme of Western Marxism and critical theory. It also has a significant impact on various existentialist-inspired cultural criticism. The development of the social and economic dynamics in recent decades has aroused interest for a different interpretations of this classic question. The following text is an attempt for ontological rethinking of the problem through the existential concepts of Martin Heidegger. This happens with the interpretive (...) reading of several of those key concepts. (shrink)

The paper presents a new approach to the history of analytic philosophy. Instead of exploring different kinds of analysis (Michael Beaney), or to marry analytic philosophy to the analytic / synthetic distinction (Scott Soames), we turn attention to the fact that it was rooted in two different types of logical constructing. The discrepancy between the two concepts of logical constructing produced much unclarity in our understanding of analytic philosophy.