The critical node detection problem is a central task in computational graph theory due to its large applicability, consisting in deleting $k$ nodes to minimize a certain graph measure. In this article, we propose a new Extremal Optimization-based approach, the Pseudo-Deterministic Noisy Extremal Optimization (PDNEO) algorithm, to solve the Critical Node Detection variant in which the pairwise connectivity is minimized. PDNEO uses an adaptive pseudo-deterministic parameter to switch between random nodes and articulation points during the search, as well as other (...) features, such as noise induction to preserve diversity, greedy search to better exploit the search space and a greater search space exploration mechanism. Numerical experiments on synthetic and real-world networks show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared with existing methods. (shrink)

Models of culture and action argue that crises can be generative of change, with changing contexts setting off reflexivity—a view of crisis as self-evident that is echoed in comparative historical work. Looking to the beginning of the Cold War in Romania and France, this article elaborates two instances when crises did not produce reflexive recognition. This echoes performative approaches that highlight actors needing to interpret crises into being yet underscores that crisis claims nonetheless take place in contexts potentially marked by (...) shifting sociocultural scaffoldings. Rooted in the empirical finding that actors can live through—and be affected by—structural transformations without thinking of themselves as being in crisis, I put forward a conception of crises as unclear as they are taking place. Actors can guess at being or not being in crisis, with no guarantee their guess is fortuitous. Crisis management will be the result of these guesses: some informed, some lucky—and some, indeed, disastrous. (shrink)

The non-commutative counterpart of the well-known Łukasiewicz propositional logic is developed, in strong connection with the algebraic theory of psMV-algebras. An extension by a new unary logical connective is also considered and a stronger completeness result is proved for this system.

This is a thoroughly revised and expanded version of the first edition of the Arabic version of Dimitrie Cantemir s "The Divan or the Sage s Dispute with the World," achieved in 1705 by Athanasios Dabb s, Patriarch of the Antiochian Church.".

Sandu Frunzã, Religious Fundamentalism and the New Conflict of Ideologies Limes, Cluj, 2003.

Review of Detlef Pollack, Olaf Müller, Gert Pickel , The Social Significance of Religion in the Enlarged Europe. Secularization, Individualization and Pluralization ,.

In recent decades scholars have acknowledged that transactions in the informal economy have not vanished with modernization and industrialization as expected but rather remain an important contemporary aspect of overall production and consumption across the world, in both developing and developed countries. Yet little is known about the profile of the consumers in this realm or what drives them to purchase from the informal economy. A systematic review of the literature investigating consumption in the informal economy reveals a severely underdeveloped (...) area of consumer studies with significant gaps in terms of its theoretical approaches, methods and regional coverage. The findings of the existing literature is that multiple motives are used by consumers for justifying their purchases in the informal economy beyond the dominant simplistic view that they do simply for financial gain or for a lower price. The outcome is a recognition that responsibility to reducing this phenomenon with negative effects on governments, businesses, workers and consumers lies not just with public authorities but also practitioners who need to correct the failures in formal market provision. The significant gaps identified in the literature are then used to highlight a comprehensive future research agenda, which includes the need for the development of an institutionalist theoretical perspective when explaining consumers‘ participation in the informal economy and social marketing interventions. (shrink)

Social advertising often employs persuasive imagery in support of a morally laden cause. These visual arguments can take the form of veridical representations of the given situation or the form of purposeful visual blends. Both visual routes to persuasion have serious ethical issues to confront. In what concerns the purportedly veridical images, controversies about picture retouching and framing have cast many doubts on their success in offering unmediated access to a given reality. Editorial interests have proven far too influential on (...) the destiny of what and how is presented to the audience from the amount of visual material available on a topic. Even when the audience is certain that photos are not doctored, the use of veridical images may be seen as unethical. Their disproportionate affective impact may lead the audience to hold biased opinions, since other concerns may be impossible to capture in a vivid picture. Visual blends may be the answer to this problem, employing the fictional or the figurative to help the viewer grasp the moral anatomy of a given situation. Their generous use of figurative meaning may be seen as their strength and their weakness at the same time. It makes them less likely to face accusations of distorting reality, because they do not claim to be windows on reality per se. At the same time, it makes them vulnerable to interpretations that miss their true point – one might appreciate the artistry of a visual metaphor or a visual pun and fail to consider the statement it makes about a given situation. Contemporary philosophical approaches to the place of visuals in moral persuasion inform my analysis of the use of visual arguments in charity-oriented advertising. (shrink)

In Malicious Deceivers, Ioana B. Jucan traces a genealogy of post-truth intimately tied to globalizing modernity and connects the production of repeatable fakeness with capitalism and Cartesian metaphysics. Through case studies that cross times and geographies, the book unpacks the notion of fakeness through the related logics of dissimulation (deception) and simulation (performativity) as seen with software/AI, television, plastics, and the internet. Specifically, Jucan shows how these (dis)simulation machines and performative objects construct impoverished pictures of the world, ensuring a (...) repeatable sameness through processes of hollowing out embodied histories and lived experience. Through both its methodology and its subjects-objects of study, the book further seeks ways to counter the abstracting mode of thinking and the processes of voiding performed by the twinning of Cartesian metaphysics and global capitalism. Enacting a model of creative scholarship rooted in the tradition of writing as performance, Jucan, a multimedia performance-maker and theatre director, uses the embodied "I" as a framing and situating device for the book and its sites of investigation. In this way, she aims to counter the Cartesian voiding of the thinking "I" and to enact a different kind of relationship between self and world from the one posited by Descartes and replayed in much Western philosophical and - more broadly - academic writing: a relationship of separation that situates the "I" on a pedestal of abstraction that voids it of its embodied histories and fails to account for its positionality within a socio-historical context and the operations of power that define it. (shrink)

We present a technique for automatically verifying cryptographic protocols specified in the mainstream specification language CAPSL. We define a translation from CAPSL models into interpreted systems, a popular semantics for temporal-epistemic logic, and rewrite CAPSL goals as temporal-epistemic specifications. We present a compiler that implements this translation. The compiler links to the symbolic model checker MCMAS. We evaluate the technique on protocols in the Clark-Jacobs library and in the SPORE repository against custom secrecy and authentication requirements.

This essay embarks on a thorough exploration of Edmund Husserl’s seminal contributions to the philosophical discourse on consciousness, with a particular focus on the dynamics of conscious decisions within the framework of phenomenology. By delving into Husserl’s nuanced examination of consciousness—its temporal structure, the nature of self-awareness, and the foundational concept of intentionality—the analysis reveals the intricate ways in which Husserl posits the transcendental ego as the nexus of meaning, judgment, and perception. The discussion illuminates how Husserl’s theory of intentionality (...) and the intentional act’s matter and quality serve as the cornerstone for understanding the will’s engagement with the world. Through a detailed exposition of Husserl’s ideas on the phenomenological reduction, the essay articulates the active role of consciousness in constituting reality and the ethical dimensions underpinning the exercise of free will. The paper argues that Husserl’s insights into conscious decision-making challenge conventional views by framing free will within the contexts of knowledge, ethical deliberation, and the ego’s autonomy. This essay contributes to the ongoing dialogue between phenomenology and contemporary philosophy of mind by highlighting Husserl’s profound impact on our understanding of consciousness, agency, and the existential significance of human decisions. Keywords: Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology, Conscious Decisions, Transcendental Ego, Intentionality, Free Will, Consciousness, Epistemology, Temporality, Rationality, Autonomy, Phenomenological Reduction (Epoché), Intersubjectivity, Self-awareness. (shrink)

Our paper proposes to follow the history of the “Burning Bush”, a spiritual and cultural movement in the 1940s in Romania that had proposed the solution of spiritual resistance to communism through culture and faith. The analysis holds as key-concepts: discourse analysis, narrativity, semantics and hermeneutics, following the discourse of the Securitate’s archives with reference to the Burning Bush in terms of: - conflictual discourses: inquisitor vs. imprisoned; - motives and themes of the incriminatory discourse of the Securitate; - the (...) existence of a master narrative of the archives. (shrink)

The possibility of performing germline modifications on currently living individuals targets future generations’ health and well-being by reducing the diversity of the human gene pool. This can have two negative repercussions: reduction of heterozygosity, the latter being associated with a health or performance advantage; uniformization of the genes involved in reproductive recombination, which may lead to the health risks involved in asexual reproduction. I argue that germline interventions aimed at modifying the genomes of future people cannot be ethically justifiable if (...) there is no possibility of controlling the intervention either by reversing or altering it, whenever need demands it. This argument is challenged on six different grounds: safety, population versus individual focus, spontaneous mutations, exceptionalism, the intentional pursuit of genetic diversity through germline interventions, and harm reduction potential. (shrink)

Ethotic arguments are defined as sequences of claims-and-reasons regarding speaker character, based on which the plausibility of speaker assertions can be questioned. This is an exploratory study concerning the role of visuals in ethotic arguing. In this paper, I bring together contributions from visual argumentation theory and from studies regarding various modes of construing an ethotic argument, in an attempt to offer an adequate account of the argumentative action of images in ethotic sequences of discourse. In the last section, I (...) propose a case study which illustrates the argumentative action that visuals may perform in the ethotic genre of advertising. (shrink)

The “Burning Bush” was the name of a cultural circle in Bucharest in the 1940s, comprised of clergy and intellectuals who met periodically to discuss theology, philosophy, literature and to learn about prayer. Some of the most significant members of this group were arrested during the second repressive wave by the Romanian communist regime (1958); along with twelve elderly monks and intellectuals, four students who kept in touch with them were also arrested. Their names were George Văsâi, Șerban Mironescu, Nicolae (...) Rădulescu, and Emanoil Mihăilescu. Using memoirs, oral history interviews and documents from the Securitate archives, the paper will address the interactions between the young students and the elder members of the Burning Bush group of clergy and intellectuals. The narratives of the informative and criminal files of the Securitate regarding the content of their meetings will also be depicted, all inside a larger context of the regime’s repressive measures and relations with the Romanian Orthodox Church. (shrink)

This paper looks at how digital humanities can modify our more traditional understanding and conceptualisation of literary characters. Through the analysis of cast lists from more than 880 French plays from 1630 to 1810, and the “close reading” of some sample texts, it proposes a classification of units of characterisation that can be identified in plays. In the last part, the paper sketches a protocol for the encoding of these characters in a TEI conformant way, and discusses the advantages and (...) the drawbacks of such an endeavour. (shrink)

Résumé Partant de l’édition d’œuvres choisies de Voltaire publiée entre 1957 et 1960 aux éditions d’État pour la littérature et l’art, cet article étudie la transfor-mation de la perception de cet auteur dans la Roumanie communiste. Sur fond de soviétisation du pays et de propagande, on sélectionne attentive-ment les titres et on les accompagne de préfaces orientant la lecture dans un sens « progressiste ». Si, avant 1947, c’est surtout l’auteur des contes philosophiques et des tragédies qui a les faveurs (...) des maisons d’édition et du public, le changement de régime fait tomber l’accent sur l’historien et le philosophe. Toutefois, autant que les points de convergence idéologiques, ce sont les « errances » du penseur de Ferney par rapport à la doctrine de Marx, Engels et Lénine qui sont soulignées par les critiques roumains de la période considérée. (shrink)

Drawing on the knowledge of highly experienced academics, this authoritative Handbook explains how ethics can inform the teaching of economics. It includes state-of-the-art moral theory alongside traditional approaches to emphasise why ethics should be an important consideration for economic practitioners. The Handbook of Teaching Ethics to Economists keenly demonstrates how economic analysis can reflect implicit moral judgements. Chapters include guidance on course design and lesson content, providing insight into important topics such as ecological and grassroots economics. They offer pedagogical advice (...) alongside philosophical analyses, setting out teaching guidance and significant case-study profiles on key theories, such as Kantian and Aristotelian ethics. Importantly, they reflect on the potential of economics to cause harm and use ethics to mitigate this possibility. This expansive Handbook will be essential for academics preparing to teach courses relating to ethics and economics. Due to its detailed explanations of the societal role of economics, students of economics and finance will additionally find this Handbook to be incredibly useful. (shrink)

This article tackles ethical and political dimensions of emotions while exploring forms of solidarity among women exposed to gender violence. Taking the case of a multi-ethnic neighbourhood in the border city of Giurgiu, Romania, the author investigates the role of shame, guilt and security in decisions about managing the experience of abuse in intimate partner violence. In the local community, institutional and personal interactions are shaped by state and private agents who intervene in the lives of women who are victims (...) of gender-related violence. Institutional dynamics, street-level bureaucracy and community self-regulation employ emotive-political concepts and contribute to norms that justify and maintain violence against women. Building on scholarship of emotions and feminist ethical theories, the article shows the formative relation between the notions of shame, guilt and security, and points to the political subjectivities they create in a multi-ethnic community. (shrink)

Le roman proustien est une référence constante chez Genette. Cet article prend comme point de départ sa théorie du récit élaborée à partir de À la recherche du temps perdu dans Discours du récit, puis dans Nouveau Discours du récit et Fiction et Diction. Si Genette part du particulier (l’œuvre de Proust) pour aller vers le général (sa théorie narratologique), je me demanderai, en allant du général vers le particulier, en quoi son analyse narrative nous permet une meilleure compréhension de (...) l’œuvre de Proust. Pour montrer comment la poétique peut devenir complémentaire de la critique, j’étudie le cas de Paul Ricœur, qui s’est lui aussi penché sur la question du temps et du récit, pour montrer comment il a intégré la théorie de Genette dans une herméneutique littéraire, en déplaçant l’accent du texte vu comme une structure vers « le monde du texte ». (shrink)

Des études interrogeant la perméabilité du Rideau de fer à travers des processus circulatoires et concluant à son caractère non hermétique se sont multipliées notamment pendant les vingt dernières années. Même si ces nouveaux développements ont inévitablement leurs limites et points aveugles, l’historiographie de la guerre froide en a été sensiblement renouvelée. Publié en 2018 et issu d’une recherche doctorale en histoire, le livre de Stéphanie Gonçalves illustre ce renouveau. Il l’enrichit...

This manuscript examines argument engagement in close relationships. Two pilot studies were conducted to identify what factors naïve actors report matter to them when considering whether to engage in an interpersonal argument, and to develop and pre-test measurement scales for these factors. The main study examined which of these factors predicted participants’ behavioral intent to engage in an argument about different topics and with different partners. Results indicated intent to engage was predicted by five factors: one’s orientation to the topic, (...) one’s preparedness for an argument, the costs of arguing, the effort involved in arguing, and one’s right to speak one’s mind. Several of these factors are new contributions to argument engagement research. A discussion of these results and their implications are presented. (shrink)

Thinking of the system of rational ideas as extensions of conceiving, Kant deemed as necessary to pay his respects to Plato, the first who mapped out the philosophical career of those instruments of rational investigation. From the view of his transcendental idealism, he appreciated two elements: the utilization of ideas as a cognitive instrument distinct from senses, as well as the involvement of the human reason in their operationalization. Kant does not attach himself to the supra-individual force represented by the (...) prototypes of things, because every source of knowledge excepting human faculties is deemed as devoid of any real ground. In consequence, the human faculty of reason is the one which gave Kant the opportunity to conceive the ideas of reason as investigations through systematic reflection, but also as an opening to three philosophical disciplines, which means three life options; among them especially the last one, aiming at the express orientation of life towards the moral faith, is a character modeler. (shrink)

Hample, Paglieri, and Na’s model of argument engagement proposes that people en-gage in arguments when they perceive the benefits of arguing to be greater than the costs of doing so. This paper tests the model in Romania, a different culture than the one in which the model was developed, by using a 2 x 2 design.

Ioana Grancea ABSTRACT: Ethotic arguments are defined as sequences of claims-and-reasons regarding speaker character, based on which the plausibility of speaker assertions can be questioned. This is an exploratory study concerning the role of visuals in ethotic arguing. In this paper, I bring together contributions from visual argumentation theory and from studies regarding various modes of...

ABSTRACTAlthough youth of color, youth from lower socioeconomic brackets, and young women are among the heaviest users of social media technologies, their voices are almost entirely absent from cur...

Without any polemic intention, our present contribution will be concerned with the idea of corporeality as an ontological index, in positive and negative perspective. In the positive perspective, corporeality represents the definitional index of the human person. More specifically, we shall approach the corporeality within the formative process of the person`s consciousness. In order to make relevant our philosophical target, the idea of corporeality will be treated within the semiotic extension of the concept of place / locus, in conformity with (...) the following three oppositions: place as a physical index vs. human symbol; place with reference to physical persona vs. spiritual persona; place in profane sense vs. sacred sense. In the negative perspective, the absence of corporeality makes relevant a new meaning of the Judaic concept hamakom: Hamakom with the sense of ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’. We intend to establish two targets for our research: 1. to follow the process during which the definitional index represents a formative agent of consciousness; and 2. to establish the switching point where hamakom becomes Hamakom ‘the Omnipresent God, the Omnipresent locus’. (shrink)

This paper examines Romanian bioethics regulations for biomedical sciences, looking in particular at the genetics area as a source for conflict of interest. The analysis is focused on the organizational level, national regulations, the sources for generating conflicts of interest, and management of conflicts. Modern biotechnology and gene technology are among the key technologies of the twenty-first century. The application of gene technology for medical and pharmaceutical purposes is widely accepted by society, but the same cannot be said of the (...) development and application of gene technology in agriculture and food processing. Because the use of a technology in the production and processing of food is regarded more sceptically than in the production of biomedical products, there can be areas of conflict in many cases when communication is undertaken about gene technology in the agro-food sector. Ethical concerns play an important factor in this, but a society’s attitude to a developing technology is an amalgam of many effects which are beyond ethics as such. (shrink)

The value systems established by centuries have been reversed under the pressure of the political correctness. I intend to talk about a way of communicating and transmitting messages in the public space nowadays. I write about post-truth, arguing that it is a lie cosmeticized, hidden in a language that astounds and is supported by ideas that challenge not only refined intelligence, but also common sense. When I write the word truth, I do not consider the concept of truth, which philosophy (...) strives to define it, but I refer to the instrumental truth, the objective truth with which we operate daily, the truth as a benchmark of stability. And I put this truth in relation to the lie. I offer some concrete examples from the last three decades, from different environments, about events or statements that have been the subject of scandals that have started from the claim of some people to present a lie as a truth. I also refer to the fact that there is a whole Neo-Marxist literature that nullifies the natural hierarchy of things, so that objective truth loses its value, becomes irrelevant, flexible, until it is despised, because it is the instrument of „the conservative” individual, the class enemy of the progressives. (shrink)

Aristotle defined the ethical and intellectual virtues which are recognized as fundamental even today. Contemporary virtue ethics still takes into account Aristotelian virtues. The modern moral philosophers have tried to find new ethical values in a society in which religions are in decline and the old values lost their meaning. The starting point of their research has been Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” which has remained the most important work in ethics influencing the philosophical thinking until nowadays. This paper seeks to explain (...) the actual importance of the cardinal Aristotelian virtues and how they are seen today. (shrink)

L’intellectuel aux multiples facettes Thomas Ebendorfer de Haselbach est l’une des figures-clés de la Vienne du xv e siècle. Cet article est une première étape pour retracer le profil académique d’Ebendorfer à travers une lecture complète des diverses rédactions de son commentaire des Sentences conservées à l’Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. Sont analysés le contenu des manuscrits et la relation des différentes rédactions avec d’autres commentaires viennois connus. On trouvera en annexe la liste complète des questions, d’après toutes les rédactions du commentaire des (...) Sentences. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 1 Seiten: 134-145.

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 2001.