This paper deals with the latent religious aspects of the tremendous impact that the Inter­net manifests in every single segment of contemporary culture. Through comparative research of the ways primordial, archetypal cognitive matrices migrated throughout different modalities of our thinking and behavior in the 20th and 21st centuries, the following research argues that deep religious longings might have been hidden (ignored, even abused) in the various ways the planetary informational network is exploited in our times. As a consequence, an alarming (...) need for philosophical and theological rethinking and re-inspiring of this prodigious, unprecedented and omnipresent social prosthesis is recognized. (shrink)

One of the key behavioral effects of attractiveness is increased visual attention to attractive people. This effect is often explained in terms of evolutionary adaptations, such as attractiveness being an indicator of good health. Other factors could influence this effect. In the present study, we explored the modulating role of sexual orientation on the effects of attractiveness on exploratory visual behavior. Heterosexual and homosexual men and women viewed natural-looking scenes that depicted either two women or two men who varied systematically (...) in levels of attractiveness (based on a pre-study). Participants’ eye movements and attractiveness ratings towards the faces of the depicted people were recorded. The results showed that although attractiveness had the largest influence on participants’ behaviors, participants’ sexual orientations strongly modulated the effects. With the exception of homosexual women, all participant groups looked longer and more often at attractive faces that corresponded with their sexual orientations. Interestingly, heterosexual and homosexual men and homosexual women looked longer and more often at the less attractive face of their non-preferred sex than the less attractive face of their preferred sex, evidence that less attractive faces of the preferred sex might have an aversive character. These findings provide evidence for the important role that sexual orientation plays in guiding visual exploratory behavior and evaluations of the attractiveness of others. (shrink)

Gottfried Gabriel is interviewed by Todor Polimenov about the relationship between analytic and continental philosophy.

Sentences with slifting parentheticals The formal analysis of natural language, Mouton, The Hague, 1973) grammaticalize an intriguing interaction between truth-conditional meaning and speech act function. In such sentences, the assertion strength of the slifted clause is modulated by the parenthetical, which provides evidential support :480–496, 1952; Asher in J Semant 17:31–50, 2000; Rooryck in Glot Int 5:125–133, 2001; Jayez and Rossari in: Corblin, de Swart Handbook of French semantics, CSLI, Stanford, 2004; Davis et al. in Proc Semant Linguist Theory 17:71–88, (...) 2007; Simons in Lingua 117:1034–1056, 2007; Murray in Semant Pragmat 7:1–53, 2014; Maier and Bary in: Brochhagen et al. Proceedings of the 20th Amsterdam colloquium, 2015; AnderBois in Semant Pragmat 9:1–55, 2016; Hunter in Dialogue Discourse 7:1–35, 2016). Starting with the idea that assertability comes in degrees, this paper develops a probabilistic updatemodel that captures the role of parentheticality as a language tool for qualifying commitments. A crucial role here is played by the rule of Jeffrey conditionalization, which factors in the uncertainty of the parenthetical information itself. The model also derives certain effects of parenthetical modification not found in regular embedding constructions, including the fact that slifting parentheticals are limited to creating upward-entailing environments. (shrink)

This paper considers the epistemological value of the concept of political theology in thanatopolitics. The concept can be useful if one wants to interpret political usage of death. In addition to blurred boundaries between politics and theology, there is a more general and deeper socially integrative affinity between the two. In addition, there have been various politicizations of salvation in the past and in the present. Every political theology accentuates obedience as an immanent condition of salvation, although interpretation of death (...) in political theology has a different function than in secular ideologies. In the centre of politically theological ideas one can find crosscutting of the divisions between public friend and public enemy from political world with similar divisions from religious world. Finally, beside the theological influence on politics, this paper considers some analogies between theology and the secular judiciary. (shrink)

The social and institutional background of this research can be summarized as the relation between public and governmental policies on the one hand, and the experience of patients and IVF experts on the other. Namely, one third of all pregnancies achieved in state-funded in vitro fertilizations obscure some ethical and health issues, especially among patients who abandon the state-funded IVF programme in Serbia. The goal of the current research is to identify, describe and understand ethical and social issues that parents (...) encounter in attempts to fulfil their idea of a sovereign life through IVF. The method comprised a tri-level analysis based on semi-structured interviews with participants who exhibit personal experiences of basic ethical principles and social and health needs within IVF. The results obtained indicate that all three explored levels of patients' experience build a picture of Assisted Reproductive Technology as a means of a sovereign or good life. However, the cultural image of the fulfilment of expected parental social roles resulted in a denial of autonomy and led to self-abnegation through silent acceptance of unethical practices. There is an overlap of the margins of secular ideas and roles on the one hand, and religiosity on the other, making such consent socially acceptable and more easily explainable. Finally, the conclusion reached is that apparently a decrease in sovereignty of parental decisions causes a loss of trust in state clinics and medical procedures, reduces solidarity and establishes norms and patterns of social injustice and inequality. (shrink)

This article discusses the Bulgarian response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Bulgarian case is characterized by an ineffective constitution of the individuals as subjects of responsibility for the health of the population, which resulted in a vaccine coverage considerably lower than the European average. The article argues that the fragile responsibilization is an effect of the response to the pandemic that, building on older post-socialist regulations of the access to healthcare, instead of restricting the circulation of bodies in general, tried (...) to differentiate between economically productive and unproductive circulation and to limit only the latter by progressively increasing its differential costs (both in terms of time and efforts and in terms of risks). An analysis of the legal actions against quarantine violators, however, suggests that such a strategy stimulated the public to respond to the pandemic by calculating risks, and if the social actors nevertheless behaved irresponsibly, it was often because they took into account not only the risks posed by the virus but also smaller-scale risks affecting their social support networks. The authorities, however, tried to repair the unreliable responsibilization by articulating an ad hoc right to health defined at the level of the population. That biopolitical right to health was crucial to the implementation of certificate requirements. It was harmonized with individual rights by opening up fields of choice such as the choice between vaccination and daily testing. However, since the differential costs of the higher-risk options seemed irrational, the constellation of individual rights and right to health left a growing residue of irresponsible conducts justifying a further intensification of control. (shrink)

We prove that the additive group of the rationals does not have an automatic presentation. The proof also applies to certain other abelian groups, for example, torsion-free groups that are p-divisible for infinitely many primes p, or groups of the form ⊕ p∈I Z(p ∞ ), where I is an infinite set of primes.

The natural law is a overempiric law that does not owe his dignity to the legal norm than to the intrinsic qualities of a human being. This paper presents a different hierarchical position of the natural law in the critics of capitalism from K. Marx to our days and its different intonation as a superpositive framework of justice. One should analytically differentiate between theoretical search for social justice in the philosophy of the natural law and empirical identification of power relations (...) that allowed or hindered social justice in the reality. The paper provides analysis of historically different relationships between positive and radical natural law in both the compressed 20th century epochal conscience and today?s neoliberal one. In addition, it compares role of the natural law in capitalism and socialism and differentiates between social justice from above and social justice from below. The first one is gratuitous, paternalistic and limited, the second one is radical and has to be conquered. Radical natural law should express itself as a fully developed social justice liberated from capitalism. Critic of social unjustice from the viewpoint of natural law has no practical effects in our days, and in spite of it, it is not anachronistic. (shrink)

In his latest book Frank Ankersmit develops a comprehensive philosophical perspective on the problem of the truth and reference of historical representations. The approach and the wider perspective of the book largely belong to what could be called the postmodernist paradigm, in spite of some recent attempts to interpret Ankersmit's recent work differently. Since his 1983 Narrative Logic Ankersmit has propounded the view that individual statements that constitute historical representations may have reference, but that representations themselves do not. His most (...) recent book remains faithful to this position and elaborates it further. This essay examines Ankersmit's arguments as well as the assumptions and implications of this view. (shrink)

We construct an algebra of generalized functions endowed with a canonical embedding of the space of Schwartz distributions.We offer a solution to the problem of multiplication of Schwartz distributions similar to but different from Colombeau’s solution.We show that the set of scalars of our algebra is an algebraically closed field unlike its counterpart in Colombeau theory, which is a ring with zero divisors. We prove a Hahn–Banach extension principle which does not hold in Colombeau theory. We establish a connection between (...) our theory with non-standard analysis and thus answer, although indirectly, a question raised by Colombeau. This article provides a bridge between Colombeau theory of generalized functions and non-standard analysis. (shrink)

The paper problematizes the work and evolution of a Bulgarian artist from the point of view of the biographical approach, his artistic interventions and his re-legitimization as a contemporary artist. It discusses various aspects of contemporary art from the point of view of the artist, his interventions, market demands, the underlying contradictions, as well as the transformative tendencies in the small graphics. The paper argues that it is necessary to expand the understanding of contemporary art with certain actions of artists.

In recent decades, a number of authors have relied on the multiple realizability argument to reject methodological individualism. In this article, I argue that this strategy results in serious difficulties and makes it impossible to identify social entities and phenomena.

Introduction -- Plato -- Aristotle -- The rise of modernity -- Immanuel Kant -- Romanticism and historicism -- Phenomenology and hermeneutics -- Philosophes and philosophers -- Analytic philosophy -- Conclusion.

Copernican revolutions have often been the subject of discussion in the history of philosophy and of thought in the special sciences. Kant, for example, lived with the idea that it was necessary to carry out, and later that he had carried out, a Copernican revolution in the realm of philosophical thought. What was the essence of this "Copernican" revolution of Kant's?

The entire history of scientific and philosophical knowledge testifies that the significant difference between idealism and materialism does not lie in the alleged fact that materialism denies and idealism recognizes the significance of reason, i.e., the utilization in cognition of abstract ideas . Democritus' atoms, with all their geometrical and other attributes, are so small that they cannot be perceived either with the help, or by means, of an apparatus of hearing or organs of touch. Democritus arrived at the idea (...) of his "atoms" by the very same way in which Plato and Aristotle arrived at their "ideas" and "forms," which they contrasted to "matter" taken as "nonbeing" or "pure possibility." It is no accident that his work is titled Of Ideas. Democritus' atoms, Plato's ideas, Aristotle's forms, and later Leibniz' monads, Kant's "consciousness in general," and Hegel's "world spirit" are universal concepts, categories, or logical constructs. And, consequently, the deepest difference between Democritus and Plato, between Hegel and Feuerbach, lies in the fact that materialists, proceeding from the primacy and determining role of being, in the unity of being and consciousness, profess the theory of reflection, while all idealists without exception assert that it is not matter that is reflected in human ideas but, on the contrary, human ideas that are reflected in the empirical things and phenomena of the terrestrial world, which is contrasted fundamentally to the world of ideal essences, concepts, categories, and logical laws. (shrink)

Review of H. Biesenbach: Anspielungen und Zitate im Werk Ludwig Wittgensteins (2011).

The work of the Paduan Aristotelian philosopher Iacopo Zabarella (1533–1589) has attracted the attention of historians of philosophy mainly for his contributions to logic, scientific methodology and because of his possible influence on Galileo. At the same time, Zabarella's views on Aristotelian psychology have been little studied so far; even those historians of Renaissance philosophy who have discussed them, have based their analysis mainly on the psychological essays included in Zabarella's De rebus naturalibus , but have avoided Zabarella's commentary on (...) Aristotle's De anima . This has led to an inaccurate, but widespread, understanding of Zabarella's views. The intention of this article is to provide a systematic analysis of Zabarella's arguments about the (im)mortality of the soul in the context of Aristotelian psychology. Zabarella's view that the soul is mortal according to Aristotle is remarkable for his time, while his elaboration of this position is far more comprehensive than that of Pietro Pomponazzi, the other significant Renaissance thinker who shared the same view. (shrink)

Rad je deo kritike vladajuceg diskursa o smrti i o umiranju. Razmotreni su dublji segmenti kod poimanja smrti u ideologiji levice i desnice. Kao neosnovano je uoceno i problematizovano antitotalitarno izjednacavanje vidjenja smrti kod komunista i fasista. Mistifikovanja i pravdanja zrtve koja je pala u slavu bozje volje, rasne krvi ili klase nisu istovetna. Razlicit je stupanj iracionalizacije i drugaciji je sadrzaj nade u spasenje. Razlicita politicka upotreba smrti prikazana je na primerima ideologije i prakse fasizma i socijalizma. Za razliku (...) od konzervativnog i melanholicnog gledanja da je smrt pravedna i nepotkupljiva otuda sto nas sve pogadja, levica istice da su smrt i umiranje nerazdvojivo povezani sa uslovima zivljenja. Vlast, a ne bog, ideoloski uoblicava strah od smrti, tumaci ga i koristi. Kriticka teorija vidi suocavanje sa smrcu kao deo emancipatorske prakse i kritike kapitalizma. Izneta kritika antitotalitarne neoliberalne tanatologije deo je istog nastojanja. PR Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 149005: Drustveni akteri i drustvene promene u Srbiji 1990-2010. (shrink)

Der folgende Text geh?rt zur kritischen Thanatologie. In allen bekannten Kulturen wurden Normen f?r den guten und den schlechten Tod von der herrschenden normativen Thanatologien aufgestellt und Kontrollmechanismen installiert. Pr?mortales und postmortales soziales Sterben ist eine Art der Exklusion der Anderen und wird unter?schiedlich bestimmt: als damnatio memoriae, atlantische Sklaventum, Randst?ndigkeit, Isolation oder als Rollenverlust. Das soziale Tod hat einen Klassenaspekt, als den ganzen Klassen Ged?chtnis entnommen wurde. Hier werden nur einige Arten und Beispilen des sozialen Mord kritisch er?rtert: damnatio (...) memoriae, politische Mord und Sklaventum. Es handelt sich um die institutionelle Verarbeitung und Kodierung von Sterben und Tod durch Staat, Religion und Politik. In der Geschichte sind verschieden V?lkern und Klasssen einem intensiveren sozialen Sterbeprozess und der sozialen T?tung unterworfen. Mit Identit?tszerst?rung der Beherrschten ist das soziale mit dem physischen Sterben harmonischer zu verbinden. Es ist auch auf die Differenz zwischen sozialen und politischen T?tung hingewiesen. Am Ende sind einige Aspekte der heutigen geheimen T?tung erw?hnt. (shrink)

Der folgende Text geh?rt zur kritischen Thanatologie. In allen bekannten Kulturen wurden Normen f?r den guten und den schlechten Tod von der herrschenden normativen Thanatologien aufgestellt und Kontrollmechanismen installiert. Pr?mortales und postmortales soziales Sterben ist eine Art der Exklusion der Anderen und wird unter?schiedlich bestimmt: als damnatio memoriae, atlantische Sklaventum, Randst?ndigkeit, Isolation oder als Rollenverlust. Das soziale Tod hat einen Klassenaspekt, als den ganzen Klassen Ged?chtnis entnommen wurde. Hier werden nur einige Arten und Beispilen des sozialen Mord kritisch er?rtert: damnatio (...) memoriae, politische Mord und Sklaventum. Es handelt sich um die institutionelle Verarbeitung und Kodierung von Sterben und Tod durch Staat, Religion und Politik. In der Geschichte sind verschieden V?lkern und Klasssen einem intensiveren sozialen Sterbeprozess und der sozialen T?tung unterworfen. Mit Identit?tszerst?rung der Beherrschten ist das soziale mit dem physischen Sterben harmonischer zu verbinden. Es ist auch auf die Differenz zwischen sozialen und politischen T?tung hingewiesen. Am Ende sind einige Aspekte der heutigen geheimen T?tung erw?hnt. (shrink)

In diesem Texte werden die Kriterien zur Differenzierung von historischen, politischen und heroischen Generationen und ihren Hauptarten in USA, BR Deutschland, China, Serbien und Croatien er?rtert. Kriege und Revolutionen werden als zentrale generationsschaffende Ereignisse markiert. Es werden auch die konstruierten wie auch zugeschriebenen Generationsidentit?tsarten dargestellt. Die Generation ist als eine mehr oder wenig klare Gruppe aufgefa?t, die durch Zusammensetzung von biographischem und kollektivem Ged?chtnis entstanden ist. Die Generation als eine Art von Zeitstruktur ist bei der Reduktion und Erkl?rung der Vergangenheit (...) anwendbar. Es ist immer eine offene Frage in welchem Masse die Generationen die realen handelnden Subjekte, oder blo?e symbolische Heimat, dh. eine durchg?ngige Erinnerungsgemeinschaft sind? Es wird auf die Gr?nden der Entstehung der balkanischen heroischen Generationen hingewiesen, auf ihre Natur und Aktualit?t. In Westeuropa ist diese Art von Generation schon lange nicht mehr aktuell. Es wird auch darauf hingewiesen, dass durch die Heroisierung einer Generationserfahrung die Herrschaftsgruppen eigene Werte oktroyieren k?nnen. Razmotreni su kriteriji razlikovanja istorijskih, politickih i herojskih generacija i prikazani njihovi konkretni primeri u SAD, SR Nemackoj, NR Kini Srbiji i Hrvatskoj. Ratovi i revolucije su uoceni kao glavni generacijski formativni dogadjaji, ali su prikazani i oblici konstruisanog i pripisanog generacijskog samoopisa. Generacija je rastumacena kao manje ili vise prepoznatljiva grupa formirana prozimanjem biografskog i kolektivnog pamcenja. Kao jedna od kategorija u mrezi slozenih vremenskih struktura generacija je korisna kod redukovanja i objasnjenja slozenosti proslosti. Otvoreno je pitanje koliko su generacije realni akteri promena, a koliko tek simbolicki vremenski zavicaj, tj. efemerna zajednica secanja? Blize su analizirani uzroci nastanka, priroda i aktuelnost balkanskih herojskih generacija. U Zapadnoj Evropi ova vrsta generacija odavno nije aktuelna. Uoceno je da se heroizacijom iskustva jedne generacije mogu uspesno nametati vrednosti vladajucih grupa. (shrink)

U radu se analizira slika danasnjeg hegemonog secanja na titoizam. Prikazane su raznovrsne instrumentalne redukcije u domacoj kulturi secanja koje obuhvataju demonizacije i negativne simbolizacije titoizma. Blize su razmotreni raznovrsni mitovi i ideologizacije kod pamcenja titoizma, zatim cinioci selektivnog secanja i novi sklop secanja na titoizam. Uoceno je da su privatizacija i retradicionalizacija glavni cinioci kreiranja novih okvira za pamcenje socijalizma i za novu negativnu simbolizaciju titoizma.

U radu se analizira slika danasnjeg hegemonog secanja na titoizam. Prikazane su raznovrsne instrumentalne redukcije u domacoj kulturi secanja koje obuhvataju demonizacije i negativne simbolizacije titoizma. Blize su razmotreni raznovrsni mitovi i ideologizacije kod pamcenja titoizma, zatim cinioci selektivnog secanja i novi sklop secanja na titoizam. Uoceno je da su privatizacija i retradicionalizacija glavni cinioci kreiranja novih okvira za pamcenje socijalizma i za novu negativnu simbolizaciju titoizma.

The debate between the individualist and the holist understanding of social items (social entities, events, institutions, phenomena and so on) has a long history and potentially a wide range of political implications. Political positions and political assumptions often play a significant role in the debate and it is not rare that participants in the discussion seek to associate the positions they oppose with unpopular political views, instead of providing actual theoretical arguments. The tendency to associate individualist positions in the social (...) sciences with political libertarianism and neo-liberal economic agendas is particularly common. At the same time, disciplinary politics and concerns about the integrity of the social sciences (especially in the form of fears from their reducibility to psychology) also play an important role in the debate. In this paper I analyze such political assumptions that often motivate, or are stated to motivate, the debate. (shrink)

The question posed by this text is: can we use Levinasian ethics in the field of literary studies? In order to provide the answer, Levinas?s attitude toward art will need to be analyzed. His work contains numerous scattered remarks about literature and other arts, but the most explicit statement on the relationship between art and ethics can be found in his essay?Reality and Its Shadow?. Since Levinas?s view on art in this essay is predominantly negative, it poses a significant problem (...) for the application of his theory in the field of literary studies. In order to overcome this difficulty, I use Blanchot?s reworking of Levinasian ethics, and open the possibility of a different relation between literature and ethics than the one originally suggested by Levinas. (shrink)

This book engages in a critical discussion on how to respect and promote patients’ autonomy in difficult cases such as palliative care and end-of-life decisions. These cases pose specific epistemic, normative, and practical problems, and the book elucidates the connection between the practical implications of the theoretical debate on respecting autonomy, on the one hand, and specific questions and challenges that arise in medical practice, on the other hand. Given that the idea of personal autonomy includes the notion of authenticity (...) as one of its core components, the book explicitly includes discussions on underlying theories of the self. In doing so, it brings together original contributions and novel insights for “applied” scenarios based on interdisciplinary collaboration between German and Serbian scholars from philosophy, sociology, and law. It is of benefit to anyone cherishing autonomy in medical ethics and medical practice. (shrink)

Art and ObjectsHARMANGRAHAM polity. 2020. pp. 204. £16.54.

The paper analyses possible contributions of philosophy and philosophers to architecture and architects’ work. During the twentieth century, a number of dominant positions in philosophy, such as the view that all thinking is verbal or that conceptual thinking determines the contents of perception, significantly limited the ground for productive intellectual interaction between architects and philosophers. With the demise of such positions in recent decades, one can hope that philosophy and philosophers could make genuine contributions to architectural theory.