The paper reconstructs the key epistemological ideas of Merab Mamardashvili which form the bridge between his philosophy and phenomenology. He advances four key concepts in his sketch of a natural historical epistemology: the geometry of causal experience, the belonging to a certain time, the chronotype of a subject, and the ‘elaboration’ of the mind by consciousness. The concept of “fruitful tautology” leads Mamardashvili to a new aesthetics of thinking. The semiotics, rightfully included in Russian social sciences, assumes that the symbol (...) is a certain universal first element of psychic reality. (shrink)

Notwithstanding diverse opinions and debates about mixing methods, mixed methods research (MMR) is increasingly being used in sport and exercise psychology. In this paper, we describe MMR trends within leading sport and exercise psychology journals and explore critical realism as a possible underpinning framework for conducting MMR. Our meta-study of recent empirical mixed methods studies published in 2017–2019 indicates that eight (36%) of the 22 MMR studies explicitly stated a paradigmatic position (five drew on pragmatism, two switched paradigms between qualitative (...) and quantitative elements of the study, and one was situated in relativist-interpretivism). The remaining 14 (64%) studies did not report their underpinning research philosophical assumptions. Evaluating the merits and limitations of these positions against critical realist assumptions suggests that several paradigmatic disagreements are potentially reconcilable. These include (a) maintaining that ontological and epistemological concerns are important for methodological integrity of a mixed methods study; (b) switching between paradigms in the same study is problematic; and (c) refuting the qualitative-quantitative incommensurability thesis, therefore allowing mixed methods research without compromising philosophical coherence. From a critical realist position, we suggest that both quantitative and qualitative designs are justifiable in a mixed methods study because (1) they help corroborate, refine, or refute plausible explanations of phenomena (epistemological), but (2) with different methodologies utilised to perform different tasks in the same research design related to different psycho-social system features (ontological). We call for a collaborative engagement by researchers across paradigmatic positions to work towards the advancement of methodological pluralism in our research community. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to philosophically address and expand the contemporary discourse of the increasingly digitalized education by examining the problem of matter of education and its conceptualizations in this context. With the digital transformation of education a significant change occurs not only in terms of what is considered to be a matter of education, but also in the very principles of interaction between the subjects of education. In order to do this, in the first section several examples (...) of conceptual justifications of applying digital technologies in education are examined with the task of demonstrating how in such justifications the activity of education is reduced to the process of learning and what risks such instrumental interpretation engenders. Then, these issues are analyzed and contextualized utilizing the material of the philosophical discussion of the 20th century - the critique of the progressive education in the analytic philosophy of education. By outlining the relevance of the arguments of discussion on manner/matter to realities of digital education, the issue of the dominance of the logic of learning in current education is analyzed. In the last section several adjustments to the contemporary discourse on digitalization of education are proposed, aimed at finding a balance between individual and social dimensions of the problem of matter of education, given the current tendency of mass personalization in education. Particularly, the importance of the idea of education as a common good in the contemporary educational discourse is claimed. (shrink)

Malignant cells are characterized by an increased content of endogenous formaldehyde formed as a by‐product of biosynthetic processes. Accumulation of formaldehyde in cancer cells is combined with activation of the processes of cellular formaldehyde clearance. These mechanisms include increased ALDH and suppressed ADH5/FDH activity, which oncologists consider poor and favorable prognostic markers, respectively. Here, the sources and regulation of formaldehyde metabolism in cancer cells are reviewed. The authors also analyze the participation of oncoproteins such as fibulins, FGFR1, HER2/neu, FBI‐1, and (...) MUC1‐C in the control of genes related to formaldehyde metabolism, suggesting the existence of two mutually exclusive processes in cancer cells: 1) production and 2) oxidation and elimination of formaldehyde from the cell. The authors hypothesize that the study of the anticancer properties of disulfiram and alpha lipoic acid – which affect the balance of formaldehyde in the body – may serve as the basis of future anticancer therapy. (shrink)

The cross-cultural study of the words defining social values are of particular importance in interdisciplinary contexts, as the knowledge of their culture-specific semantic as well as discursive characteristics contributes to a better understanding of how people think and act in a society. The paper focuses on the English lexeme tolerance and its translation equivalents in Russian and Serbian. It aims to specify linguacultural characterizations of the notion of tolerance in British, Russian and Serbian cultures. The data were taken from dictionaries, (...) British National Corpus (BNC), Russian National Corpus (RNC), Corpus of Contemporary Serbian (SrpKor), as well as media and Internet resources. The combined methodology (pragma-semantic, discourse and lingua-cultural analysis) enabled us to reveal that the dictionary equivalents of the English lexeme tolerance are not complete, but partial. The findings show that in Russian and Serbian the words of Latin etymology tolerantnost’ and tolerancija seem to invoke both positive and negative attitudes, reflecting cultural norms and values. The paper contributes to the understanding of tolerance in the observed linguacultures and confirms that it is important to consider interdisciplinary approaches to language studies. (shrink)

The paper explores the role of the media in influencing public opinion from an inferential-pragmatic perspective. It presents preliminary results of the study focused on representation of Russia in Western newspapers. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1995,2001; van Dijk 2009) and media linguistics (Fowler 1991, Richardson 2007, among others) the study centres around the linguistic means of construing ambiguity/uncertainty, viewed as a strategy of persuasion. We mostly focus on the semantics of certain groups of words and other textual features (...) such as indefinite pronouns, epistemic modality, passive voice, present perfect tense, interrogative headlines and some other tools used in media texts to construe ambiguity which, in its turn, arguably aims at influencing public opinion. We also look at presupposition, information structure, evaluation and transitivity. Though we have limited our study to the English language sources (The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, news websites of the BBC, Reuters, Express, Politico and Fox News, among others), we are not suggesting that linguistic ambiguity is a feature of Western, rather than Russian, or other languages' media. (shrink)

The structure of Russian science of the XIX century was dominated by state forms of its organization. At the same time, there were also a few private (non-governmental) forms of research communities. One of the little-studied phenomena of scientific privacy is the so-called “kruzhok” (a little circle in Russian). The article examines the history of the formation and activity of one of such “kruzhoks”, formed in the 1880s–1890s around Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, who was seriously engaged in research in the (...) field of lepidopterology (the branch of entomology studying butterflies, Lepidoptera). The role and significance of this “kruzhok” for the development of descriptive entomology in the situation of its weak institutionalization in Russia at the end of the XIX century are briefly considered, the course of scientific research of the Grand Duke and his entourage and the reasons for the termination of their activity are discussed. The history of this informal association is interpreted by us as a manifestation of the purposeful life-making of the Grand Duke, who thus tried to professionalize his hobby and enter the scientific community of entomologists on an equal footing, without breaking with his social environment and without going beyond the behavioral norms established by society for persons of his status. It is shown that the Nikolai Mikhailovich’s “kruzhok” became not only an instrument of his life-making, but also an influential center of Russian lepidopterology, the development of which was thereby given a powerful impetus. (shrink)

What counts as an intuitively plausible set theoretic content (notion, axiom or theorem) has been a matter of much debate in contemporary philosophy of mathematics. In this paper I develop a critical appraisal of the issue. I analyze first R. B. Jensen's positions on the epistemic status of the axiom of constructibility. I then formulate and discuss a view of intuitiveness in set theory that assumes it to hinge basically on mathematical success. At the same time, I present accounts of (...) set theoretic axioms and theorems formulated in non-strictly mathematical terms, e.g., by appealing to the iterative concept of set and/or to overall methodological principles, like unify and maximize, and investigate the relation of the latter to success in mathematics. (shrink)

In this paper the author developes an account of the issues of post-modernism. This account is then used to discuss the difference between the concept of philosophy as knowledge or as "Weltanschauung". The author offers a critique of the post-modern philosophy and argues that, post-modernism does not distinguish epistemology from social ethics topics. All topisc are considered in relation to the situation of philosophy in Slovakia.

The study relevance lies in understanding strategic objectives' content concerning intelligent technologies’ application. The development and application of artificial intelligence in various branches of human activity carry the potential for global changes in society, which, in methodological terms, increases the relevance of considering these problems. The study of ethical problems of artificial intelligence in the concept of sustainable development of society is connected with the dynamic development of innovative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, which are considered a process of becoming a (...) new technosubject in the context of neuroscience development. The article emphasizes that the development of artificial intelligence acts as an innovative form of technology development when a new kind of human-machine technosubject is formed. The authors identify social problems of artificial intelligence application as the digitalization of life becomes a global anthropological challenge. Innovations of artificial intelligence are directly related to a number of ethical problems, as they contribute not only to the sustainable development of society but also cause dehumanization of relations between people and society. Based on the analysis of qualitative changes in scientific and technological research, using human-machine devices is becoming inevitable. Humankind must develop ethical guidelines for the application of AI systems. (shrink)

La thèse dont l’ouvrage de Laetitia Dion est issu examine l’influence de l’actualité politico-religieuse et des traditions narratives françaises et étrangères sur la transformation de la matière narrative autour du mariage. Nouvelles-fabliaux, nouvelles plus longues aux tonalités variées, avec ou sans histoire-cadre, récits longs ou formes encore hybrides de romans, des Cent Nouvelles nouvelles de P. de Vigneulles (v. 1515) aux Histoires tragiques de Pierre Boaistuau (1559), treize fictions n...

O presente artigo pretende uma reflexão acerca da relação entre filosofia platônica e poesia no século V a.C.. Mesmo que Platão tenha como objetivo banir as manifestações poéticas da pólis utópica, cuja teoria descreve magistralmente na República, o filósofo ateniense sabe da força que este tipo de representação ainda possui na formação do homem grego. No diálogo Íon, objeto deste estudo, percebemos a tentativa estratégica de Platão de desqualificar a poesia em nome do conhecimento. Para o cidadão ateniense de então, (...) a Musa inspirada perde força diante da argumentação científica filosófica. (shrink)

The Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki organized in 25–26 of September 2009 a special symposium Northern Lights — Facets of Enlightenment Culture with the aim to discuss form of Enlightenment thought in Sweden/Finland and Russia. The symposium, which was opened by Prof. Emeritus Matti Klinge, a renowned historian of 18th- and 19th-century Finland, had four participants from Russia, five from Finland and one from Germany; thus, it was yet a quite small event, but we hope that with it (...) the foundations of a fruitful co-operation, with annual symposia on questions of Enlightenment culture, will be laid. Of the speakers, Prof. Tatiana Artemyeva, Dr. Oili Pulkkinen and Prof. Vesa Oittinen focused on more general problems of study of Enlightenment ideas, while the other contributions dealt with different ―case studies‖ either in Sweden/Finland (Dr. Kimmo Sarje, Dr. Johan Sten), Russia (Prof. Mikhail Mikeshin, Dr. Johannes Remy, Dr. Larisa Agamalian), in France (Dr. Alla Zlatopolskaya) or Germany (Dr. Carola Häntsch). (shrink)

This paper, based on ideas of a cognitive anthropologist Dan Sperber, provides a concise introduction to how to construct a naturalistic causal explanation in social sciences. Its author starts with critical remarks concerning the philosophy of social sciences as presented in the previously published article by Tatiana Sedova. The author provides argumets in favor of a view that all the plausible explanations in social sciences should be based on the naturalistic, material processes. Furthermore the author presents a set of (...) examples showing how to build a naturalistic explanation in cognitive anthropology. The conclusion is that the reconceptualization of all too abstract concepts of social sciences is urgently needed so that the ontology of social sciences could become consequently materialistic.properties of social phenomena are likely to be explained as either effects of or epistemological constructions derived from the material processes. (shrink)

Abstract In this chapter, we challenge the presupposed concept of innovation in the responsible innovation literature. As a first step, we raise several questions with regard to the possibility of ‘responsible’ innovation and point at several difficulties which undermine the supposedly responsible character of innovation processes, based on an analysis of the input, throughput and output of innovation processes. It becomes clear that the practical applicability of the concept of responsible innovation is highly problematic and that a more thorough inquiry (...) of the concept is required. As a second step, we analyze the concept of innovation which is self-evidently presupposed in current literature on responsible innovation. It becomes clear that innovation is self-evidently seen as (1) technological innovation, (2) is primarily perceived from an economic perspective, (3) is inherently good and (4) presupposes a symmetry between moral agents and moral addressees. By challenging this narrow and uncritical concept of innovation, we contribute to a second round of theorizing about the concept and provide a research agenda for future research in order to enhance a less naïve concept of responsible innovation. (shrink)

Purpose. The article is aimed to substantiate the view on the phenomenon of laughter as a subject of semiotic analysis, which leads to the following tasks: to reveal the possibilities of semiotics application in the study of laughter nature; to analyze the phenomenon of laughter as a cultural and natural phenomenon, as a sign and as an attribute; to consider the place of laughter in culture, which is understood as a sign system. Theoretical basis. The semiotic approach proceeds from the (...) fact that human lives in the world of signs, all the surrounding reality can be interpreted as a sign system. The basic concept of semiotics is the concept of a sign. The theoretical basis of the article is understanding the culture as a sign-symbolic system. Laughter is considered as a phenomenon ontologically rooted in human culture. At the same time, laughter is on the edge of culture. The research is based on the work of semiotic authors, cultural researchers, and the researchers of laughter. Originality. The originality lies in the application of the semiotic method to the research of laughter phenomenon, consideration of the dialectics of natural and cultural, signedness and non-signedness, manifested in the phenomenon of laughter. Conclusions. Laughter is considered as a psychophysiological phenomenon and as a cultural phenomenon. Laughter acts as an emotional manifestation, a physiological reaction, but socially and culturally mediated. In any case, laughter indicates an emotional or cognitive state of a human. Laughter acts as a process and result of the interpretation of a sign, a reaction to a sign. Laughter is a form and a means of communication. Being a natural phenomenon, in the process of social evolution, laughter acquires signedness, is integrated by culture as a sign system, and, at the same time, maintains a connection with nature. Thus, laughter occupies an ambivalent position between nature and culture. In the phenomenon of laughter, the dual state of human is revealed. In laughter, boundaries are blurred, the unity and opposition of natural and cultural, biological and social, soul and body, thought and feeling, sign and attribute are manifested. (shrink)

My dear Aleksandr!I have finally found some quiet time for a slow and attentive read of your article “The Beginning of the Black Notebooks.”1 I very much liked the article, especially for your trul...

Although research into the biosemiotic mechanisms underlying the purposeful behavior of brainless living systems is extensive, researchers have not adequately described biosemiosis among neurons. As the conscious use of signs is well-covered by the various fields of semiotics, we focus on subconscious sign action. Subconscious semiotic habits, both functional and dysfunctional, may be created and reinforced in the brain not necessarily in a logical manner and not necessarily through repeated reinforcement. We review literature that suggests hypnosis may be effective in (...) changing subconscious dysfunctional habits, and we offer a biosemiotic framework for understanding these results. If it has been difficult to evaluate any psychological approach, including hypnosis, this may be because contemporary neuroscience lacks a theory of the sign. We argue that understanding the fluid nature of representation in biological organisms is prerequisite to understanding the nature of the subconscious and may lead to more effective of treatments for dysfunctional habits developed through personal experience or culture. (shrink)

In this book, the extend to which we can equip artificial agents with moral reasoning capacity is investigated. Attempting to create artificial agents with moral reasoning capabilities challenges our understanding of morality and moral reasoning to its utmost. It also helps philosophers dealing with the inherent complexity of modern organizations. Modern society with large multi-national organizations and extensive information infrastructures provides a backdrop for moral theories that is hard to encompass through mere theorising. Computerized support for theorising is needed to (...) be able to fully grasp and address the inherent complexity. Using moral reasoning capacity will help us addressing the challenges that technological artefacts pose. They do not only contain information about us, they start to act on our behalves.With the increasing autonomy comes an increased need to ensure that their behaviour is in line with what we expect from them. To investigate and address these issues a laboratoy for philosophy is outlined: SophoLab. It consists of a methodology; a framework of modal logic, DEAL; and multi-agent software systems. SophoLab provides the basis for an experimental, computational philosophy. Its viability and usefulness are demonstrated through several experiments. (shrink)

In an article which appeared a few years ago, entitled ‘God's Death’ , A.D. Smith launched one of the most interesting of recent attacks on the traditional doctrine of the Incarnation. Focusing on the death of Christ, he claimed to demonstrate the logical impossibility of Jesus having been both human and divine. Each of the premises of his argument was said to be a commitment of orthodox theology. He thus presented his reasoning as displaying an internal incoherence in that way (...) of thinking about divinity, humanity, and the person of Christ. The argument was basically quite simple: According to Christian theology and in concurrence with general thought on the matter, we must hold that human death involves the possibility of annihilation. As a man, Jesus of Nazareth faced and underwent a human death. He thus faced the possibility of annihilation. But orthodox theologians hold God to be of such an ontological status that no divine being could even possibly be annihilated. So no divine person could die a human death. From this follows the impossibility of the traditional claim that the Second Person of the divine Trinity became a man, lived a human life, and died a human death for us and our salvation. The qualitative difference between God and man is such as to render incarnational christology an incoherent theological stance. (shrink)