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.

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)

The conception of truth-making, albeit in a rudimentary form, could already be discerned in the writings of G. E. Moore and E. Husserl in the early 1900s. A few years later it was more extensively exploited by William James. It was Wittgenstein, however, who gave the concept a precise meaning. In 1913/1914 Wittgenstein advanced a theory of possible worlds, only one of which was real. Every proposition suggests a part of a possible world which does or does not correspond to (...) parts of the real world. In the first case the proposition is true, in the second case false. Moreover, the part of the real world makes the sentence true. This part is a truth-maker, and the sentence is a truth-bearer. Surprisingly enough, Wittgenstein’s concept of truth-making had its family resemblance with William James’s conception of truth. In 1915 Wittgenstein stopped using the concept of truth-making—it was also not men-tioned in the Tractatus. Unfortunately, Russell did not notice this and in 1918 he adopted the concept of truth-making. In the 1930s, it was used by some second generation analytic philosophers (Schlick, Stebbing, and Wisdom). However, it became rather popular among analytic philosophers only in the 1980s. (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)

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)

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)

A brief essay of Nikolay Raynov against war.

This paper raises the question whether the Economic Nobel Prize is ideologically biased. Based on a review of a significant number of the Prize Committee’s award justifications, the article concludes at a persistent bias against private property and the free market and in favour of collectivism and state interventionism. From a methodological point of view, the Prize has contributed to the widespread use by professional economists of formal mathematics within the positivistic approach. With respect to research findings, the Prize has (...) favoured the doctrine that market processes are faulty, while government policies are an appropriate fix. Additionally, the paper casts doubts on the scientific integrity of the Prize, given the Committee’s acknowledged lack of concern for fundamental revisionism and outright dismissal of possible criticisms. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the existing leading methodologies for building enterprise architecture. The purpose of the study is to develop a more accurate understanding of what methodologies exist for building an enterprise architecture. Knowledge is important for analyzing the company's activities, building its architecture for effective work, as well as for using ready-made solutions in conducting business. Scientific novelty lies in the structuring of data within a single study. As a result, leading methodologies were analyzed, described (...) structurally, and for top management the main stages of planning are given. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to study the theoretical foundations of the business activity of the enterprise and develop measures to improve it on this basis. The article discusses the theoretical aspects of transformation, regulation and increase of business activity of economic entities. The analysis of the business activity of the enterprise reflects a systematic assessment of the efficiency of the use by the business entity of its resources, which ensures the achievement of positive results and the creation of (...) a favorable investment climate, maintaining a stable financial condition and constant expansion and growth of production and sales volumes. The scientific novelty lies in the development and refinement of theoretical provisions and the definition of directions for increasing the business activity of small businesses. As a result, the main directions of increasing business activity have been identified. (shrink)

RESUMENEl presente trabajo odrece el avance de lo que quiere ser la investigación más general y extensa acerca de una "ética del presente", comprendida en dos cuestiones centrales: ¿cuál es el tiempo de la ética¿, ¿hay una ética del tiempo?Analizamos aquí y ahora la conexión entre la "responsabilidad moral" y las dimensiones de la "temporalidad", interesándonos además por su impacto en la temática de las generaciones y en la problemática del multiculturalismo.PALABRAS CLAVETEMPORALIDAD-RESPONSABILIDAD-PRESENTE-GENERACIÓNABSTRACTThis paper offers an advance of what hopes to (...) end up being a wide research concerning an "ethics of the present", summed up in two central questions: which is the time of ethics?, is ther an ethics of the time? We anlyse here and now the relationship between "moral responsibility" and the dimensions of the "temporality", being also interested in their impact on the matter of generations and in the problems of the multiculturalism.KEYWORDSTEMPORALITY-RESPONSIBILITY-PRESENT-GENERATION. (shrink)

Drawing upon in-depth analyses of Lev Vygotsky’s theories of early childhood and investigating the ways in which his ideas are reflected in contemporary educational settings, this book brings into sharp relief the numerous opportunities for preschool learning and development afforded by Vygotskian approaches. Discussion of recent developments in the understanding and implementation of Vygotsky’s ideas in Western and Russian contexts facilitates comparison, and provides readers with fresh impetus to integrate elements into their own practice. Chapters are clearly structured and address (...) the multitude of aspects touched upon by Vygotsky, including cognitive development, communication and interaction, play, literacy and the quality of preschool settings. Providing a comprehensive exploration of current stances on Vygotsky's ideas in diverse cultural-historical contexts, Vygotsky's Theory in Early Childhood Education and Research will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, educators and politicians involved in early years education. (shrink)

From 1901 till, at least, 1919, Russell persistently maintained that there are two kinds of logic, between which he sharply discriminated: mathematical logic and philosophical logic. In this paper, we discuss the concept of philosophical logic, as used by Russell. This was only a tentative program that Russell did not clarify in detail, so our task will be to make it explicit. We shall show that there are three (-and-a-half) kinds of Russellian philosophical logic: (i) “pure logic”; (ii) philosophical logic (...) investigating the logical forms of propositions; (iii) philosophical logic exploring the logical forms of facts: in epistemology; and in the external world. In particular, Russell’s program or philosophical logic of the facts of the external world remained less than sketchily outlined. We shall discuss it in some detail in the hope that it can start a new life. (shrink)

This book investigates the emergence and development of early analytic philosophy and explicates the topics and concepts that were of interest to German and British philosophers. Taking into consideration a range of authors including Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Fries, Lotze, Husserl, Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein, Nikolay Milkov shows that the same puzzles and problems were of interest within both traditions. Showing that the particular problems and concepts that exercised the early analytic philosophers logically connect with, and in many cases hinge (...) upon, the thinking of German philosophers, Early Analytic Philosophy and the German Philosophical Tradition introduces the Anglophone world to key concepts and thinkers within German philosophical tradition and provides a much-needed revisionist historiography of early analytic philosophy. In doing so, this book shows that the issues that preoccupied the early analytic philosophy were familiar to the most renowned figures in the German philosophical tradition, and addressed by them in profoundly original and enduringly significant ways. (shrink)

We investigate effective categoricity for polymodal algebras. We prove that the class of polymodal algebras is complete with respect to degree spectra of nontrivial structures, effective dimensions, expansion by constants, and degree spectra of relations. In particular, this implies that every categoricity spectrum is the categoricity spectrum of a polymodal algebra.

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)

Hermann Lotze was a key figure in the philosophy of the second half of the 19th century, influencing practically all leading philosophical schools of the late 19th and the early 20th century: (i) the neo-Kantians; (ii) Brentano and his school of descriptive psychology; (iii) the British idealists; (iv) Husserl’s phenomenology; (v) Dilthey’s philosophy of life; (vi) Frege’s new logic; (vii) the early Cambridge analytic philosophy; (viii) William James’s pragmatism. The book first presents the main ideas of Hermann Lotze’s philosophy (Part (...) I), and then traces his influence on the descriptive psychology of Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf (Part 2) and Cambridge analytic philosophy (Part 3). In addition, the book includes Bertrand Russell’s conspectus of J. E. McTaggart’s 1898 lectures on Lotze. (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.

The purpose of the study is to develop a methodology for the toolkit of evaluation criteria of a territorial resource, based on the development of a mechanism of criteria that can give a generalizing indicator, based on the consideration of the rhythmodynamics of the development of the territorial economy. The article discusses the problems of economic resources, when considering the methodology, it turned out that a separate approach is required in solving the problems of constructing evaluation indicators. Obviously, when developing (...) each, human capital is a priority. Adapted elements of international and domestic indicators require adjustments and additions, in order to "cross-cutting" assessment of the territory of the state, which is currently being carried out. (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)

In the cytoplasm of practically all living cells, potassium is the major cation while sodium dominates in the media (seawater, extracellular fluids). Both prokaryotes and eukaryotes have elaborate mechanisms and spend significant energy to maintain this asymmetric K+/Na+ distribution. This essay proposes an original line of evidence to explain how bacteria selected potassium at the very beginning of the evolutionary process and why it remains essential for eukaryotes.

We study the algorithmic complexity of embeddings between bi-embeddable equivalence structures. We define the notions of computable bi-embeddable categoricity, \ bi-embeddable categoricity, and degrees of bi-embeddable categoricity. These notions mirror the classical notions used to study the complexity of isomorphisms between structures. We show that the notions of \ bi-embeddable categoricity and relative \ bi-embeddable categoricity coincide for equivalence structures for \. We also prove that computable equivalence structures have degree of bi-embeddable categoricity \, or \. We furthermore obtain results (...) on the index set complexity of computable equivalence structure with respect to bi-embeddability. (shrink)

Computably enumerable equivalence relations received a lot of attention in the literature. The standard tool to classify ceers is provided by the computable reducibility \. This gives rise to a rich degree structure. In this paper, we lift the study of c-degrees to the \ case. In doing so, we rely on the Ershov hierarchy. For any notation a for a non-zero computable ordinal, we prove several algebraic properties of the degree structure induced by \ on the \ equivalence relations. (...) A special focus of our work is on the existence of infima and suprema of c-degrees. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the philosophy of industrial design as the most important area of aesthetic and engineering activity of people, shaping the appearance of modern society. The object of the study is industrial design, and its subject is the philosophical foundations of industrial design. The goal of the study is to identify the philosophical essence of industrial design in epistemological, ontological and anthropological dimensions. Attention is paid to the historical aspects of industrial design, which allows us to more (...) accurately understand the essence of this phenomenon. The author’ also considered modern industrial design, which in its philosophy is characterized by a strong anti-globalist orientation. It is noted that the philosophical understanding of industrial design contributes to the understanding of the features of its historical development. The main conclusion of the study is that industrial design has a certain philosophical content associated not only with the aesthetic side of reality, but also with its axiological and ethical structure. The epistemological problems of industrial design are important: products act as carriers of certain knowledge and concepts and accumulate the cultural experience of mankind. Anthropological problems of design are associated with the model of a human creator and a human recipient of activity. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the understanding of industrial design, which is a systemic object, developing in space and time. In its existence, this object combines presence and “service”, independent givenness and significance for a person. (shrink)

Dual-processes theories of cognition implicitly assume universality of the human mind. However, research has shown that large-scale differences exist in thinking styles across cultures. Thereby, the universality of the effects found in Western samples remains an open empirical question. Here, we explored whether effects predicted by prospect theory, such as the framing effect, would be observed in a sample of 312 Bulgarian students. Overall, the size of the framing effect was smaller than in the original studies. Most notably, we failed (...) to reproduce the framing effect in the famous Asian Disease problem, using a rating response format. In a between-subjects design, decision- making performance was completely independent of university admission grades. We propose that studying the size of the effects across cultures is needed in order to establish the effects’ level of universality. More broadly, we suggest ways in which knowledge of cultural settings can help elaborate or test dual-process predictions. (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)

The paper suggests an explanation of the failure of liberal reforms in Russia in 1990th using a specific concept of social space. A society can be interpreted as ‘rings in the water’ system with an individual as the center and more distant social groups as ‘rings’. The key factor in such system would be an individual’s ability to translate his/her will through the ‘rings’. Russian social space is characterized by a sharp discrepancy between high standards for personal spiritual and moral (...) growth and low ethical standards of real social life. What is strictly forbidden inside the personal social circle (the ‘ring’ of relatives and close friends) is easilycondoned outside of it. External ‘rings’ of social space are more like ‘dangerous and irrational wild nature’ than cultural territory. This discrepancy (constant for Russian history for at least last 500-600 years) puts all kinds of barriers for active social interaction. The failure of liberal reforms in Russia shouldn’t be interpreted as the failure of liberal ideas, but as the failure of an attempt to apply them to the territory mentally and socially absolutely alien to them. (shrink)

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)

Hermann Lotze was a key figure in the philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century, influencing practically all the leading philosophical schools of the late nineteenth and the coming twentieth century, including (i) the neo-Kantians; (ii) Brentano and his school; (iii) The British idealists; (iv) William James’s pragmatism; (v) Husserl’s phenomenology; (vi) Dilthey’s philosophy of life; (vii) Frege’s new logic; (viii) the early Cambridge analytic philosophy.