ABSTRACT: When we describe an event as sad or happy, we attribute to it a certainemotional value. Attributions of emotional value depend essentially on an agent ; and yet, people readily disagree over such values. My aim in this paper is to explain what happens in the case of “emotional disagreement”, and, more generally, to provide some insight into the semantics of value-attributions.

Argues for the continuing relevance of Albert Schweitzer's thought, especially of his overarching theme of Reverence for Life.

U svetu arhajskog čoveka -- Kožev--"posthumni" mislilac -- Žan Delimo ili apologija pesimizma -- Pitanje tragedije.

Among semanticists and philosophers of language, there has been a recent outburst of interest in predicates such as delicious, called predicates of personal taste (PPTs, e.g. Lasersohn 2005). Somewhat surprisingly, the question of whether or how we can distinguish aesthetic predicates from PPTs has hardly been addressed at all in this recent work. It is precisely this question that we address. We investigate linguistic criteria that we argue can be used to delineate the class of specifically aesthetic adjectives. We show (...) that there are, in fact, good motivations for keeping PPTs and aesthetic predicates apart: the semantic structure of the former, but not the latter, entails an experiencer. There are many adjectives whose semantic structure arguably also entails an experiencer, yet which are readily used in expressing aesthetic judgments. Adjectives such as provocative or moving are a case in point, since as adjectives they arguably maintain the experiencer argument from the verb they are derived from. Nevertheless, when we describe, say, a sculpture as provocative, or a theater performance as moving, we clearly make aesthetic judgments. The difficult question, then, is to articulate the relationship between an aesthetic predicate (of which beautiful and ugly are paradigms) and other predicates that just happen to be used in making an aesthetic judgment. Tightly related to this point is the more general question of the relationship between an evaluative predicate and a predicate that occurs in an evaluative judgment. One of our aims is to make some progress in addressing these questions. (shrink)

The recent proliferation of types and accounts of experimentation in sustainability science still lacks philosophical reflection. The present paper introduces this burgeoning topic to the philosophy of science by identifying key notions and dynamics in sustainability experimentation, by discussing taxonomies of sustainability experimentation and by focusing on barriers to the transfer of evidence. It integrates three topics: the philosophy of experimentation; the sustainability science literature on experimentation; and discussions on values in science coming from the general philosophy of science, the (...) social sciences, and sustainability science. The aim is to improve understanding of how sustainability experimentation has evolved, from a broader picture of the history and philosophy of science, with a specific focus on understanding evidence production and how evidence traveling in and from sustainability experiments can be improved, particularly in the context of complex and pervasive normative commitments of the research. By engaging in these topics, this research is one of the first philosophical accounts of sustainability experimentation, contributing both to the knowledge on specific philosophies of science and to the further development of an evidence-based sustainability science through a better understanding of the barriers to more relevant and usable knowledge. (shrink)

It has long been known (cf. Frege 1918, Castañeda 1968, Anscombe 1975 , Perry 1977, 1979, Lewis 1981) that de se attitudes, that is beliefs, desires, hopes etc. that one has about oneself as oneself,1 are interestingly different fromthe attitudes that one holds in a third-personal mode about some individual, who might or might not turn out to be them. Frege suggested that Dr. Lauben’s belief that he has been wounded is a belief that only Dr. Lauben himself can entertain. (...) Another person’s belief that Dr. Lauben has been wounded would be a different belief, one that would motivate action in a completely different way. This led Frege to the following puzzle.When Dr. Lauben says “I have been wounded”, he cannot be plausibly taken to express his own first-personal belief that he has been wounded, since nobody else can come to have that same belief. So what is, then, the content that he does express, in order to communicate to others that he has been wounded? Different solutions to the puzzle have been proposed, and my chapter may be seen as yet another attempt at addressing this question. I shall show that not only de se attitudes but also de se speech is interestingly different from third-personal attitudes/speech. (shrink)

The key assumption behind evolutionary epistemology is that animals are active learners or ‘knowers’. In the present study, I updated the concept of natural learning, developed by Henry Plotkin and John Odling-Smee, by expanding it from the animal-only territory to the biosphere-as-a-whole territory. In the new interpretation of natural learning the concept of biological information, guided by Peter Corning’s concept of “control information”, becomes the ‘glue’ holding the organism–environment interactions together. The control information guides biological systems, from bacteria to ecosystems, (...) in the process of natural learning executed by the universal algorithm. This algorithm, summarized by the acronym IGPT (information-gain-process-translate) incorporates natural cognitive methods including sensing/perception, memory, communication, and decision-making. Finally, the biosphere becomes the distributed network of communicative interactions between biological systems termed the interactome. The concept of interactome is based on Gregory Bateson’s natural epistemology known as the “ecology of mind”. Mimicking Bateson’s approach, the interactome may also be designated “physiology of mind”—the principle behind regulating the biosphere homeostasis. (shrink)

Structured to introduce the reader into all aspects of the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann (1882-1950), this book aims to stimulate further interest into his thought. Once considered the most studious and systematic of all the German philosophers of the twentieth-century, this prolific author has been nearly forgotten. For many years a student and an admirer of Hartmann's work, Cicovacki argues that a closer look into Hartmann's ontologically and axiologically oriented philosophy contains a promise of a vital philosophical orientation, especially with (...) regard to our understanding of the nature, place, and role of humanity in the larger world. "The Analysis of Wonder" - Hartmann's own definition of philosophy - is an invitation to the readers to challenge their preconceived and self-interested notions of reality in order to relearn to appreciate the always changing and conflicting world, in all of its complexity, richness, and sublimity. (shrink)

We long to love and to be loved. We also fear love because we risk betrayal by those we love, or we betray them. Predrag Cicovacki's charming book, Luminosity of Love, uses the extraordinary love story of the great unconventional Serbian poet Laza Kostić and the vivacious aristocratic young woman, Lenka Dundjerski, as a starting point for a wide-ranging discussion of the nature of love, its importance in the Western philosophical tradition, and its relevance for living a meaningful life (...) in our high-tech materialistic world of the 21st century. By combining real love stories and philosophical reflections on them, the author focuses on the moments of betrayal that bring us to a crossroads at which point we may choose to retreat from loving, and instead satisfy ourselves with substitutes for love. Alternatively, we may realize that our fear and sense of betrayal need not get the last word when it comes to love, and that we can aspire to transform ourselves into more caring and radiating personalities. Our struggle to realize this aspiration is a love story--the ultimate love story that should concern us. This book is a superb philosophical essay about the transformative power of love. (shrink)

This collection of 15 essays on various aspects of the problem of evil brings together the opinions of well known authors from various disciplines (philosophy, theology, literary criticism, political science, etc).

This book sheds light on how to find meaning in the mystery of existence.--Publisher description.

This book is the first to systematically develop, explain, and apply diagrammatic projection operators to construct all semi-simple Lie algebras, both classical and exceptional.

Bogen beskæftiger sig med sindet og bevidstheden fra de græske filosoffer og guder til nutiden.

U clanku je naznacen model za naucnu deskripciju stilova politickog liderstva u Srbiji u periodu od 1990. do danas, odnosno, ukazano na osnovne elemente koncepta koji je autor razvio u studiji?Stil politickih lidera u Srbiji: U periodu 1990-2006. godine?. Autor izlaze oceni analiticki instrumentarij koji pomenuti koncept obuhvata, istovremeno ukazujuci na korelativne teorijske pristupe koje u navedenoj studiji nije razmatrao, a mogu biti od znacaja za istrazivanje politickih elita u Srbiji. Doprinos u epistemoloskom delu metoda registruje se u definisanju pojma (...) stila politickog liderstva, kao i kategorijalnog aparata koji ga prati - pojmljenog sa aspekta politickog stila: stila gradjenja politicke moci, stila politicke komunikacije, stila gradjenja legitimiteta, stila ideologije, politickog jezika, politicke simbolike i rituala, neverbalne komunikacije i stila iskazivanja patriotizma. Polazeci od stanovista da politicki stilovi odgovaraju karakteristikama politickih kultura i da je potrebno koncipirati idealno-tipske modele stilova fokusnih politickih subjekata, u clanku se ocrtava tipologija stilova politickog liderstva primerena specificnostima delanja politickih lidera u Srbiji: autoritarni, republikanski, realisticki, populisticki, konformisticki, revolucionarni i stil politicara buntovnika. (shrink)

Selvhjælpsbog, som forbedrer læserens kommunikationsevne.

This chapter contains sections titled: 1. Social Pathologies as the Focus of the New Critical Theory 2. Respect as a Form of Intersubjective Recognition in Honneth 3. Respect as Recognition of Persons as Independent Centres of Consciousness: R. S. Peters 4. Respect, Discursive Initiation and Cognitive Development 5. Disrespect as Social Pathology in Education Conclusion Notes References.

An assessment is offered of the recent debate on information in the philosophy of biology, and an analysis is provided of the notion of information as applied in scientific practice in molecular genetics. In particular, this paper deals with the dependence of basic generalizations of molecular biology, above all the 'central dogma', on the socalled 'informational talk'. It is argued that talk of information in the 'central dogma' can be reduced to causal claims. In that respect, the primary aim of (...) the paper is to consider a solution to the major difficulty of the causal interpretation of genetic information: how to distinguish the privileged causal role assigned to nucleic acids, DNA in particular, in the processes of replication and protein production. A close reading is proposed of Francis H. C. Crick's On Protein Synthesis and related works, to which we owe the first explicit definition of information within the scientific practice of molecular biology. (shrink)

Enkulturacija u sociologiji označava uključivanje neke osobe, najčešće djeteta, u obrasce kulture u kojoj se razvija i odrasta. Stoga možemo reći da su i moralni obrasci koje je ta osoba stekla proizišli iz te kulture. Otuda je očevidno da ne postoji jedan univerzalan moral, već se on razlikuje od kulture do kulture. Teza enkulturacije uklapa se u govor o moralnom relativizmu, koji tvrdi da su moralne tvrdnje istinite samo u odnosu na neki standard ili okvir, a ujedno ni taj standard (...) nije isključivo moralno opravdan. Stoga se nameću sljedeća pitanja: smijemo li uopće moralne vrijednosti neke kulture proglasiti nemoralnima?; postoje li granice do kojih bi moral neke kulture bio prihvatljiv i gdje te granice prestaju?; pomaže li stav o prihvaćanju kulture koja ima drukčije moralne vrijednosti njegovanju tolerancije i smanjivanju napetosti među ljudima? U ovoj raspravi nezaobilazni su rezultati istraživanja antropologa koji su se putujući svijetom susretali s kulturama koje niti malo ne nalikuju njihovoj.Enculturation in sociology signifies the inclusion of a person, most often a child, into the patterns of a culture it is developed and grows up in. Thus, we can say that the moral patterns that person acquired are the product of this culture. Hence, it is obvious that there is no universal morality, but that it is different from one culture to another. The thesis of enculturation fits into the discourse about moral relativism, which claims that moral postulates are only true relative to a standard or framework, and that even this standard is not exclusively morally justified. So the following questions arise: can we even announce that the moral values of a culture are amoral; are there limits to which a morality of a culture is acceptable, and where those limits stop; does the attitude about the acceptance of a culture with different moral values helps cherishing of tolerance and the reduction of tensions between people? In this discussion the results of research by anthropologists who met with cultures unlike their own in their travel around the world, are unavoidable. (shrink)

Deklaracija o svjetskome ethosu, što su ju predstavnici velikih svjetskih religija i manjih duhovnih konfesija usvojili na drugom Parlamentu religija svijeta u Chicagu 1993., utrla je put prema onoj vrsti sporazumijevanja koju nije imala nikada do sada. Naime, pokušaji dijaloga među religijama, ekumenizam i tolerancija, koji su bili ključni pojmovi u drugoj polovini 20. stoljeća, imali su bazični nedostatak, a to je pokušaj prihvaćanja i uvažavanja tuđeg učenja, koje se razlikuje od vlastitoga, tj. sve se svodilo na »vježbanje tolerancije«. Naspram (...) navedenih nastojanja u međureligijskoj i međukonfesionalnoj suradnji, svjetski ethos nastoji doći do zajedničkih temelja, i to ne samo zajedničkih u religijama već i u nereligijskim etičkim sustavima, te se trudi pronaći i odrediti ethos na kojemu bi se zasnivale profesije koje čine bazu razvoja suvremenog društva.Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, adopted by representatives of great world religions and lesser spiritual confessions at II. Parliament of World Religions in Chicago 1993, have paved the way towards that kind of understanding that was never reached before. Namely, attempts of dialogue between religions, ecumenisms of tolerances, that were key terms in the second half of 20th century, all have basic failure, i.e., an attempt to accept and respect doctrines of the others, different from our own, i.e. everything was reduced to “practicing tolerance”. Against the above mentioned efforts in interreligious and interconfessional cooperation, the global ethic try to reach the common grounds, not just common in religion but also in unreligious ethical systems, and it attempts to find and determine the ethos which should serve as fundamentals for professions that make basics of contemporary society development. (shrink)