This paper discusses divergent thinking as a fundamental characteristic of creativity. Unlike convergent thinking where everything is focused on one solution, divergent thinking seeks the most varied solutions to the considered problem situation while thoughts are scattered on a variety of possible solutions. By its nature, divergent thinking is subversive and destructive and, as such, it deviates from the existing thinking rules and patterns, while bringing disorder into the existing harmony and order of thoughts. In the process of modern education, (...) special attention must be dedicated to all students, but especially to those who can and want more, to those who, in relation to their peers, do a lot of things earlier, to a greater extent, faster, more successfully, better and differently and who consistently have better and higher achievements, which is possible to achieve by encouraging divergent thinking. Therefore, in the modern education, apart from the scientific-convergent shaping of thoughts, space for divergent thinking must also be enabled. (shrink)

Biological knowledge does not fit the image of science that philosophers have developed. Many argue that biology has no laws. Here I criticize standard normative accounts of law and defend an alternative, pragmatic approach. I argue that a multidimensional conceptual framework should replace the standard dichotomous law/ accident distinction in order to display important differences in the kinds of causal structure found in nature and the corresponding scientific representations of those structures. To this end I explore the dimensions of stability, (...) strength, and degree of abstraction that characterize the variety of scientific knowledge claims found in biology and other sciences. (shrink)

The controversy regarding the unit of selection is fundamentally a dispute about what is the correct causal structure of the process of evolution by natural selection and its ontological commitments. By characterizing the process as consisting of two essential steps--interaction and transmission--a singular answer to the unit question becomes ambiguous. With such an account on hand, two recent defenses of competing units of selection are considered. Richard Dawkins maintains that the gene is the appropriate unit of selection and Robert Brandon, (...) in response, argues that the individual organism is better suited to the role. This paper argues that by making explicit the underlying questions that each of these views addresses, the apparent conflict can be resolved. Furthermore, such a resolution allows for a more complete and realistic understanding of the process of evolution by natural selection. (shrink)

What is the fruit of a searching dialogue between faith and reason? This book collects theological and philosophical perspectives on the richness of the faith-reason dialogue, including examples from literature, continental and analytic philosophy, worship and liturgy, and radical approaches to issues of racism and prejudice. The authors strongly resist the temptations to either disregard the faith-reason dialogue or take it for granted. Through their explorations and reflections they open up new vistas and horizons on a topic more necessary than (...) ever. (shrink)

We prove the following result which is due to the third author. Let [Formula: see text]. If [Formula: see text] determinacy and [Formula: see text] determinacy both hold true and there is no [Formula: see text]-definable [Formula: see text]-sequence of pairwise distinct reals, then [Formula: see text] exists and is [Formula: see text]-iterable. The proof yields that [Formula: see text] determinacy implies that [Formula: see text] exists and is [Formula: see text]-iterable for all reals [Formula: see text]. A consequence is (...) the Determinacy Transfer Theorem for arbitrary [Formula: see text], namely the statement that [Formula: see text] determinacy implies [Formula: see text] determinacy. (shrink)

We prove the following result which is due to the third author. Let [Formula: see text]. If [Formula: see text] determinacy and [Formula: see text] determinacy both hold true and there is no [Formula: see text]-definable [Formula: see text]-sequence of pairwise distinct reals, then [Formula: see text] exists and is [Formula: see text]-iterable. The proof yields that [Formula: see text] determinacy implies that [Formula: see text] exists and is [Formula: see text]-iterable for all reals [Formula: see text]. A consequence is (...) the Determinacy Transfer Theorem for arbitrary [Formula: see text], namely the statement that [Formula: see text] determinacy implies [Formula: see text] determinacy. (shrink)

Using classical American pragmatism, the authors provide a philosophical framework for rethinking the nature of the corporation--how it is embedded in its natural, technological, cultural, and international environments, emphasizing throughout its pervasive relational and moral dimensions. They explore the relationship of this framework to other contemporary business ethics perspectives, as well as its implications for moral leadership in business and business education.

The paper focuses on the mutual interaction as well as the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the formation of the Enlightenment in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. It focuses on the relationship between the work of Adam Smith and Semyon Efimovich Desnitskii, who, thanks to Desnitskii’s studies at the University of Glasgow, got to know each other as teacher and student. The central point of their interaction is the issues of the philosophy of history based on (...) natural-law assumptions and focus on understanding the formation of history, culture, citizenship, and social transformations through morality and law. The paper examines Desnitskii’s ideas on the stages of human coexistence in which Smith’s concept is projected. The paper is not only an attempt to compare these concepts, but it also characterizes Desnitskii’s interest in adapting the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment to Russian reality and needs and using them in the environment of the advancing feudal empire, to which Desnitskii wants to contribute with his work. (shrink)

The frequency of the use of deception in American psychological research was studied by reviewing articles from journals in personality and social psychology from 1921 to 1994. Deception was used rarely during the developmental years of social psychology into the 1930s, then grew gradually and irregularly until the 1950s. Between the 1950s and 1970s the use of deception increased significantly. This increase is attributed to changes in experimental methods, the popularity of realistic impact experiments, and the influence of cognitive dissonance (...) theory. Since 1980 there appears to have been a decrease in the use of deception as compared to previous decades which is related to changes in theory, methods, ethical standards, and federal regulation of research. (shrink)

Peirce’s pragmatic stress on meaning in terms of habits of response is, of course, well known. However, the language in which it is usually expressed tends too often to conflate its epistemic and ontological dimensions, thereby hiding from view its full systematic significance. The following discussion will focus on the emergence of such meanings as epistemic relational structures which embody the characteristics of the dynamics of organism-environment interaction in their very internal structure and which lead outward toward the universe, providing (...) an experienced content which is at once epistemic and ontological. (shrink)

Introduction CLASSICAL American pragmatism represents a historical period in American philosophy, spanning a particular time frame and including the ...

Burnout is a phenomenon characterized by fatigue and frustration, usually related to work stress and dedication to a cause, a way of life that does not match the person’s expectations. Although it seems to be associated with risk factors stemming from a professional environment, this problem may affect any person. Palliative care is provided in a challenging environment, where professionals often have to make demanding ethical decisions and deal with death and dying. This article reports on the findings of a (...) systematic review aimed at identifying described burnout levels in palliative care nurses and physicians, and the related risks and protective factors. The main findings indicate that burnout levels in palliative care, or in health care settings related to this field, do not seem to be higher than in other contexts. (shrink)

We show that the Axiom of Dependent Choice,, holds in countably iterable, passive premice constructed over their reals which satisfy the Axiom of Determinacy,, in a background universe. This generalizes an argument of Kechris for using Steel's analysis of scales in mice. In particular, we show that for any and any countable set of reals A so that and, we have that.

This collection provides a thorough grounding in the philosophy of American pragmatism by examining the views of four principal thinkers - Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead - on issues of central and enduring importance to life in human society. Pragmatism emerged as a characteristically American response to an inheritance of British empiricism. Presenting a radical reconception of the nature of experience, pragmatism represents a belief that ideas are not merely to be contemplated but must (...) be put into action, tested and refined through experience. At the same time, the American pragmatists argued for an emphasis on human community that would offset the deep-seated American bias in favor of individualism. Far from being a relic of the past, pragmatism offers a dynamic and substantive approach to questions of human conduct, social values, scientific inquiry, religious belief, and aesthetic experience that lie at the center of contemporary life. This volume is an invaluable introduction to a school of thought that remains vital, instructive, and provocative. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION In the philosophic world today, and especially within the context of the emerging American scene, pragmatism and phenomenology can each ...

Les récits de vie constituent un corpus apprécié tant par la sociologie que par la sociolinguistique. Cet article vise à distinguer les présupposés épistémologiques de ces deux approches disciplinaires des récits de vie, et à dégager la spécificité de ce type de corpus. A une approche sociologique qui utilise les entretiens biographiques pour en extraire des données factuelles, s’oppose une interprétation des récits à partir de leur matérialité discursive. Partant du présupposé que les récits sont une re-construction linguistique du monde, (...) il s’agit suivant l’approche sociolinguistique d’opérer une analyse à la fois discursive et interactionnelle des récits de vie, en prenant en compte le contexte interactionnel dont ils sont issus. Une telle approche suppose une conception « ouverte » de la notion de corpus. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Selfhood and community Value The normative‐empirical split Environmental ethics.

A good deal of attention is beginning to be focused on Peirce’s understanding of perceptual judgments and the issue of foundations, and ultimately the nature of the percipuum is central to this issue. An examination of Peirce’s understanding of the dual senses of the percept, the perceptual judgment, and the percipuum, as well as the role of the ponecept and ponecipuum, in the logic of perceptual awareness, reveals the radical nature of his rejection of foundationalism. It will be seen that (...) Peirce uses the term “percipuum” in two different senses, a wide sense and a narrow sense, highlighting two corresponding senses of the perceptual judgment, and that what is “given” at the most fundamental level of perceptual awareness is in fact a “taken”, incorporating both the nature of the taking and the nature of what is taken. For Peirce, perceptual facts at their very primordial core emerge neither from mind alone nor from the dynamic reality of the universe alone, but rather from the interaction of the two which constitutes experience. (shrink)

To understand the significance of Peirce’s self-proclaimed idealism within the context of his metaphysical system, it must be viewed not only in terms of the modifications he makes, but also–perhaps more so–in terms of the alternatives against which they are pitted, for frequently it is his understanding of the shortcomings of these other positions which leads him to find idealism so enticing. Indeed, Peirce’s most clear-cut assertions of idealism arise from a rejection of two other positions which he falsely thinks (...) to exhaust the possibilities, for the alternatives from which he begins are rooted in a tradition of substance and kinds of “stuff,” while his search for an answer stems from an emerging framework of process and function. While Peirce is not an idealist, his flirtation with idealism was a vital force in shaping the character of his philosophy as it moved on to novel terrain. Yet, if he is seen as wedded too closely to idealism, this novel terrain is lost from view. Thus, his self-proclaimed idealism yields both a tool for bringing to light important distinctions and an obstacle which stands in the way of understanding his ultimate commitment to a novel pragmatic synthesis which undercuts the numerous and often contradictory traditional labels by which he attempts to articulate his emerging position. (shrink)

Peirce stresses that the pragmatist qua pragmatist must embrace realism as opposed to nominalism. He offers as well “proofs” of realism which are open to various criticisms. Within the framework of his pragmatic vision, the experiential sense of realism is inseparable from the functioning of habit in the flow of time. What is being verified by experimental testing is, ultimately, not a particular scientific law, nor scientific laws in general, but rather the common sense expectation of predictive reliability rooted in (...) the primitive epistemic “feel” of real potentiality, a belief which is dubitable in principle, and which is, in fact, often doubted at the abstract, reflective levels of science, logic, and philosophy, but which, at the level of rudimentary perceptual experience is fundamental to our very sense of our world, and is well verified by the continual availability of our perceptual world. The concrete functioning of habit provides, epistemically, the conceptual counterpart of the real lawfulness held to exist in the world, and provides, ontologically, an example of this real lawfulness. Peirce’s dispositional theory of meaning leads to a metaphysics of realism as opposed to a nominalism, a realism not of eternal essences but a “process realism” in which there are real modes of behavior which govern what occurs. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo si bien el individualismo contemporáneo ha fragmentado los vínculos sociales de tal manera que pareciera imposible hablar de comunidades, el estudio de la comunalidad muestra de qué modo es posible concebir una sociedad donde el bien común sea el principal factor para resarcir la unión entre individuos, incluso en las sociedades liberales capitalistas. Se argumentará que, desde la modernidad, el auge del individuo sentó las bases del modo en que concebimos las relaciones (...) sociales; sin embargo, la propuesta indígena nos muestra que hay otros caminos no hegemónicos que nos pueden ayudar a comprender a los sujetos como seres interdependientes y en sintonía con el mundo natural. (shrink)

Los teóricos que defienden las técnicas de modificación genética sin algún conservadurismo argumentan que éstas aumentarán nuestras capacidades y, también, evitarán el dolor innecesario junto con algunos tipos de sufrimiento humano. Autores transhumanistas como Nick Bostrom, Natasha Vita-More y Max More, no sólo minusvaloran los riesgos del uso de biotecnología –así como la técnica CRISPR-CAS9–, sino que asumen que vivir una vida humana plena se relaciona en proporción directa con el pleno gozo de nuestras habilidades físicas e intelectuales y con (...) la ausencia de dolor o sufrimiento. No obstante, la visión de algunos teóricos sobre la discapacidad como Fiona Campbell, Elizabeth Barnes y Bárbara Arneil, insisten en que las limitaciones humanas no deberían ser vistas de manera trágica o como una desgracia; al contrario, argumentan que es posible vivir plenamente desde la diversidad funcional (o discapacidad). Por tanto, en este artículo ponemos a prueba ambos supuestos, a partir de la idea de discapacidad y, así, mostraremos si es que la felicidad depende fuertemente de la funcionalidad del cuerpo humano. (shrink)

This essay examines the administrative state as a ubiquitous phenomenon that results in part from the mismatch of incentives. Using two dramatic episodes in the history of economics, the essay considers two types of mismatch. It then examines how economists increasingly endorsed the “general good” as a unitary goal for society, even at the expense of private hopes and desires. More than this, their procedures and models gave them warrant to design mechanisms and advocate for legislation and regulations to “fix” (...) the supposedly suboptimal choices of individuals in service to the overarching goal. The rise of New Welfare Economics dealt an additional blow to the sovereignty of individual motivations, notwithstanding that Hayek and Buchanan warned that this engineering approach allowed social goals to override individual preferences. Throughout, the argument is that it is important to recognize that people within or advising the administrative state are influenced by the same sorts of motivations as actors throughout the economy. (shrink)