Changing concepts comes with a risk of creating merely verbal disputes. Accounts of topic continuity (such as Herman Cappelen’s) are supposed to solve this problem. As this paper shows, however, no existing solution avoids the danger of mere verbalness. On the contrary, accounts of topic continuity in fact increase the danger of overlooking merely verbal disputes between pre- and post-ameliorators. Ultimately, this paper suggests accepting the danger of mere verbalness resulting from a change in topic as a downside of conceptual (...) engineering. Changing the topic under discussion may be worth the risk, however, in many cases. In fact, this paper proposes that the main goal of conceptual engineering should be seen as changing topics for the better. (shrink)

Autorki, wspierając się metodologią semiotyki, geopoetyki i komparatystyki, analizują toruńską „fikcję topograficzną” w lokalnych trylogiach kryminalnych Piotra Głuchowskiego, Roberta Małeckiego i Marcela Woźniaka, traktowanych w artykule jako element projektu literackiego pod hasłem „mordercze miasta”. W omawianych powieściach przeważają fabuły oparte na modelu śledztwa dziennikarskiego i dominuje styl dziennikarski. Badaczki wskazują, że toruńskie kryminały bazują na „pakcie topograficznym”, któremu towarzyszy „słaby” pakt autobiograficzny; zwracają też uwagę na zabiegi Małeckiego i Woźniaka podsycające poczytność ich utworów, m.in. gry intertekstualne i aluzje, co znajduje (...) odzwierciedlenie w „geopoetyce odbioru” i buduje topograficznie zaangażowaną wspólnotę interpretacyjną. Podkreślają jednak rolę nieco zapomnianej trylogii Głuchowskiego (zwłaszcza pierwszej powieści) w kreowaniu „morderczego Torunia”. Według autorek fikcja Głuchowskiego jest nie tylko najbardziej oryginalna, ale też najbardziej aktualna. Artykuł dowodzi, że kryminalne trylogie miejskie, kreujące narracyjną tożsamość Torunia, zdążyły już wytworzyć odrębną przestrzeń na literackiej mapie polskich „kryminalnych miast”. (shrink)

On a naive view of conceptual engineering, conceptual engineers simply aim at engineering concepts. This picture has recently come under attack. Sarah Sawyer (2018, 2020) and Derek Ball (2020) present two rather different, yet equally unorthodox, accounts of conceptual engineering, which they take to be superior to the naive picture. This paper casts doubts on the superiority of their respective accounts. By elaborating on the explanatory potential of “going meta”, the paper defends the naive view against Sawyer’s and Ball’s rival (...) proposals. (shrink)

SummaryThe establishment of the discipline of architectural acoustics is generally attributed to the physicist Wallace Clement Sabine, who developed the formula for reverberation time around 1900, and with it the possibility of making calculated prognoses about the acoustic potential of a particular design. If, however, we shift the perspective from the history of this discipline to the history of architectural knowledge and praxis, it becomes apparent that the topos of ‘good sound’ had already entered the discourse much earlier. This paper (...) traces the Europe-wide discussion on theatre architecture between 1750 and 1830. It will be shown that the period of investigation is marked by an increasing interest in auditorium acoustics, one linked to the emergence of a bourgeois theatre culture and the growing socio-political importance of the spoken word. In the wake of this development the search among architects for new methods of acoustic research started to differ fundamentally from an analogical reasoning on the nature of sound propagation and reflection, which in part dated back to antiquity. Through their attempts to find new ways of visualising the behaviour of sound in enclosed spaces and to rethink both the materiality and the mediality of theatre auditoria, architects helped pave the way for the establishment of architectural acoustics as an academic discipline around 1900. (shrink)

The article is devoted to transformations and the crisis of values in a global world. The genealogy of values is traced as a way of existence and justification of normativity characteristic of modernity. In this context, value is compared with cost. Both the first and second are reductions inherent in the modern way of human existence. Value personifies the reduction of the complex, heterogeneous, qualitatively diverse world of external goods of pre-industrial society to a single denominator of abstract labor. Same, (...) the complexly structured and heterogeneous reality of due acquired the appearance of a single space of values. In this context, the theoretical limitations of the pan-production view of human historical development are analyzed. The current war, which in its impact on humanity has acquired a de facto global character, is considered as a defining symptom of the crisis of values in global reality. War as a feature of the modern world is significant not in itself, but as an expression of the growing role of violence in the life of global civilization. In turn, the increase in violence and coercion is a manifestation of an even deeper process — the depreciation of values. The depreciation of values does not mean the destruction of certain specific values, but in general the role of the due in human life. In this regard, a key question arises about the prospects for overcoming the process of depreciation of values. By analogy with the three recognized paradigms of philosophizing (being, consciousness/subject, language), three historical paradigms of normativity are distinguished: transpersonal indisputable prescriptions (“commandments”); mediated by personal reflection and recognition of binding significance (values); abstinences — negative normative presumptions aimed at ensuring peaceful productive interaction with guaranteed autonomy of participants in interactions. The development of the normative practice of such abstinences may be with a possible scenario for overcoming the depreciation of values in the global world. (shrink)

Verbal disputes are often seen as closely related to a lack of substantivity. However, a systematic and comprehensive investigation of how verbalness relates to substantivity is still missing. The present paper attempts to close this gap. In addition to offering different conceptions of verbalness, the paper further develops Sider’s (Writing the Book of the World, OUP, Oxford, 2011) notion of substantivity. Ultimately, I argue for a more careful choice of terminology when it comes to assessing a dispute as “(merely) verbal” (...) or “nonsubstantive”. While the paper shows that there is no strict logical relation between mere verbalness and nonsubstantivity construed along the lines set out by Sider, it also demonstrates that further notable notions of (mere) verbalness and substantivity are in fact closely intertwined. (shrink)

In the article of Viktoria Zaporozhets «Main aspects of external church relations of UAOC in the 90’s. XX century» from the religious-scientific point of view is carried out a comprehensive analysis of the institutionalization of the UAOC in the 90's of the twentieth century in the context of her external-church relation. It is noted that inter-church relations of the UAOC during the specified period of her existence can be characterized as two-vector. It is emphasized that the first vector is (...) due to the processes of interaction between the UAOC and the UOC-KP and the UOC that took place at the canonical councils / sessions of commissions, and the second vector is related to the fact that the UAOC tried to gain the canonical status of the Ecumenical Patriarch through the diocese of Canada and the United States. At the same time it is noted that although there were diplomatic inter-Orthodox relations of the UAOC, nevertheless there were temple seizures from each other. It is proved that the church-state relations of the UAOC in this period can be characterized as stable, since it was granted the right to perform services and own property, to open Sunday schools, to freely serve services in the Ukrainian language, although sometimes it was possible to find a negative attitude to this religious organization from the side of power. (shrink)

The article highlights the practical realization of synergies, to improve social infrastructure in rural areas. The paper analyzes trends and positive consequences of the involvement of community organizations to improve rural infrastructure component elements. The research emphasizes that the financial and labor cooperation and the bulk of local authorities is the positive step towards improving social infrastructure in rural areas under the shortage of budgetary funds.

With Euripides’s Bacchae Honig, in A Feminist Theory of Refusal (2021), chooses a story that easily can be read as an “errant path”: the story of a group of “honey-mad” women who, driven by a Dionysian force, slaughter their own kin and are eventually put back into place by fatherly reprimand. Against that, Honig retells the story of the women of Cithaeron as what W.E.B. Du Bois called a “splendid failure” - “a possibility first nurtured outside the city is extinguished, (...) but memory remains” (p. 5). In the three moments that I look at in the following, we find an affirmative politics and a politics of celebration that Honig herself follows in her writing: she lays new foundations upon which future democratic struggle can build. The narrative of “failure,” even in the “splendid form” that Honig employs, however, misses an important aspect of the story: namely the violence and forms of domination that held back the city. Honig reproaches Arendt for not being attuned to the archive’s logic of closure that prevents the seeds of the women’s struggle to flourish in the city. But is Honig? Recognizing the conditions that have led to the bacchant’s failure might push us to think about the work of reformation, or rather transformation, as part of a revolutionary feminist struggle. (shrink)

It is a startling fact that, despite its long and rich history, the debate about per- sonal identity is far from settled. The present paper examines two deflationary explanations for this: a) the dispute is merely verbal (verbalism); b) there cannot be sufficient justification for preferring one theory of personal identity over the others (epistemicism). As this paper argues, there is evidence that either verba- lism or epistemicism provides a correct account of the personal identity debate.

The article considers the leading and indisputable role of discursive practices in the existence of social institutions, especially in democratic governance. The necessity of searching for heuristi- cally effective approaches in the analysis of social reality in general, and especially modern soci- ality, is substantiated. In this context, the theoretical modernization of the institutional approach in the analysis of social phenomena by involving the concept of discourse in the structure of this approach is proposed. Emphasis is placed on the dual (...) meaning of social institutions — as ways of organizing the life of society and as instances (mediums) of normative, through which the order of social life is constituted, reproduced, and changed. This solves the “rule-organization” dilem- ma in neo-institutionalism. It is transferred to the mode of two inseparable and complementary functions of the institute — normative and regulative. The analysis of those semantic, organiza- tional, and procedural loadings which carry out discursive practices inactivity of institutes of society is given. In particular, emphasis is placed on the complex structure of normativity em- bodied by the public institution. It should at least highlight the explicit normativity of the system of rules and regulations on the one hand, and the order of discourse created and maintained by this institution, on the other. Discourse corresponds to the normativity in its usability — as a real process of normalization of life. Normativity exists only by generating certain practices of speech, communication, and argumentation (conclusion). This becomes the basis for distin- guishing the concept of an institution as a discursive mode of existence of a social institution on the one hand, and as a way of organizing discourse in society (order of discourse) — on the other. Among the main social effects of institutions are the generation of trust as the basis of social relations and the longevity of cultural experience. Emphasis is placed on the complexity of the existence and activities of institutions: each institution is involved in the general discursive-com- municative field of society, and in turn, influences it. (shrink)

Das Problem der Sterblichkeit und Unsterblichkeit gehört untrennbar zum Nachdenken des Menschen über sich und seine Stellung in der Welt. Auch für das antike Denken stellt diese Thematik ein anthropologisches Prisma dar. Es verbindet Fragen der praktischen und theoretischen Philosophie in existentiell relevanter Weise. Disziplinübergreifend beleuchtet der vorliegende Band wirkmächtige Positionen des frühgriechischen Denkens und erkundet dabei die Dimensionen menschlicher Begrenztheit.

In the article by analysed the specifics of the religious studies of the functioning of the UAOC in the post-Soviet period. It turns out that the study of this religious organization should be carried out by involving both religious studies, methods and principles, as well as sociological, political science. According to the author, such a position will allow us to comprehensively disclose the studied issues.

The metalinguistic approach to conceptual engineering construes disputes between linguistic reformers and linguistic conservatives as metalinguistic disagreements on how best to use particular expressions. As the present paper argues, this approach has various merits. However, it was recently criticised in Cappelen’s seminal Fixing Language. Cappelen raises an important objection against the metalinguistic picture. According to this objection – the Babel objection, as I shall call it – the metalinguistic account cannot accommodate the intuition of disagreement between linguistic conservatives and reformers (...) who are speaking different languages. The objection generalises to metalinguistic approaches to e.g. moral disagreements. This paper discusses the Babel objection and shows how to dispel it. (shrink)

In an extensive revision of this important book, first published by Plenum in 1980, a distinguished roster of contributors reconsider this much heralded ...

This paper proposes a contextualist solution to the puzzle about free will. It argues that the context-sensitivity of statements about freedom of the will follows from the correct analysis of these statements. Because the analysis is independently plausible, the contextualism is warranted not merely in virtue of its capacity to solve the puzzle.

The very idea of informative analysis gives rise to a well-known paradox. Yet a parallel puzzle, herein called the paradox of synonymy, arises for statements which do not express analyses. The paradox of synonymy has a straightforward metalinguistic solution: certain words are referring to themselves. Likewise, the paradox of analysis can be solved by recognizing that certain expressions in an analysis statement are referring to their own semantic structures.

L’article discute les conceptions respectives que le philosophe Ernst Cassirer et l’historien de l’art Erwin Panofsky se font de l’espace artistique. L’occasion en est donnée par une discussion lors du Kongress für Ästhetitk und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft (Congrès d’esthétique et de science de l’art) organisé à Hambourg en 1933 sur la question de l’espace et du temps artistiques. La perspective, considérée par Panofsky comme une forme symbolique, constitue un bon cas pour saisir les proximités et différences entre l’historien de l’art et (...) le philosophe des formes symboliques. L’espace de la perspective correspond-il à cet espace de l’art que le philosophe définit comme espace de la représentation (Darstellung)? À cet exemple de la perspective, exemple classique quoique souvent évoqué sans grande précision pour comparer les deux théoriciens, l’article en ajoute un autre, inédit, à savoir celui de la théorie des proportions. Peut-on dire que la théorie des proportions qui structure elle aussi la surface de l’image est, comme la perspective, une forme symbolique? La réponse permet de préciser la façon dont Cassirer et Panofsky construisent un lien entre art, représentation et subjectivité. À travers cette recherche des affinités et différences dans la conception de l’art, ce qui se joue en toile de fond, c’est, d’une part, la possibilité et les limites de l’interdisciplinarité et du dialogue fécond entre philosophie et histoire de l’art et, d’autre part, la question de savoir si une commune théorie de l’art était partagée à Hambourg dans ces années, autour de l’Institut Warburg. (shrink)

The ArgumentThe question posed by this paper is why the Russian autocracy failed to pursue successfully Peter the Great's conscious policy of creating a society dominated by technique and competitive with technological levels achieved by Western Europe. The brief answer is that Peter's idea of a cultural revolution that would create new values and institutions hospitable to the introduction of technology clashed with powerful interests within society. The political opposition centered around three groups which were indispensable to the state in (...) fulfilling his vision: the nobility, the clergy, and the scientific establishment. Peter's original intention was to combine theoretical models and technology transfer from the West with educational reforms in Russia to produce new cadres of technical specialists. He attempted to adapt the Leibniz-Wolff cosmology to Russian conditions in order to reconcile ideological conflicts between military service and technical training, science and religion, theory and practice. The embodiment of his ideas in Russian science and religion were Mikhail Lomonosov and Feofan Prokopovich. Under his successors Peter's supporters encountered increased resistance: from the nobility to technical education, from the clergy to the scientific outlook, and from the Academy of Sciences to practical work. All three interest groups were willing to sacrifice real political rights for a recognition by the states of their autonomy to define their social roles. In the end the compromise was effected at the expense of Peter's ideal of the society dominated by technique. (shrink)

Theories of personal identity try to explain what the identity of a person necessarily consists in, but frequently leave open what kind of necessity is at issue. This paper is concerned with conceptual necessity. It proposes an analysis of the concept of personal identity in terms of a definite description. The analysis coheres with out judgments about clear cases and explains why cases of division seem indeterminate. The apparent indeterminacy results from attempting to apply a definite description to a situation (...) in which more than one object would satisfy the description. The definite description analysis also explains the strengths of the influential no-branching theory, while avoiding the problems with that view. The no-branching theory is in effect a second-order analysis, i.e., a combination of the definite description analysis of personal identity plus a Russellian analysis of the definite description. (shrink)

La traduction, à partir de 1840, des Cours d’esthétique de Hegel par Charles Bénard joue un rôle de premier plan dans l’introduction de l’esthétique et, plus généralement, de la philosophie allemande en France. Pour éclairer le sens et la portée de ce transfert linguistique et théorique, on prêtera attention aux écrits de Bénard dans lesquels il expose quels sont, selon lui, les indispensables apports et aussi les limites de l’approche hégélienne du point de vue de l’esthétique métaphysique française. On s’intéressera (...) également à ses choix de traduction qui, parce qu’ils sont en même temps des choix théoriques, concernent directement la réception de la philosophie hégélienne de l’art et sa compréhension par le cercle de Victor Cousin. (shrink)

In the eyes of the philosophical public, F.H. Bradley is recognized primarily for the theories he advanced in Appearance and Reality, which themselves are known, on the whole, only through the writings of Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore. It has been suggested that the rejection of idealism during the early twentieth century, and the subsequent rise to prominence of analysis, was for Moore and Russell in many respects a rejection of the central ideas in Appearance and Reality. History, we are (...) told, is always written by a conflict’s victors, and surely to this philosophy is no exception. Bradley’s notable fall from prominence, however, has deposited him in the philosophical netherworld, and his metaphysical arguments, when mentioned, are often invoked to show students how they by all means must not conduct their own. That Bradley was an idealist, a monist, an absolutist, and even a mystic are all things everyone seems to know, but I suspect that upon the careful inspection of Bradley’s project, these labels can be shown to supply only misleading half truths, and in some cases, might not stick at all. But let me make clear that in this paper, my concern will not be with what has been said about Bradley. Rather, this is a paper about what Bradley says. (shrink)

In order to define modernity in the fine arts, music, and literature, this work explores the function of this category as it is used by artists, art critics, historians, and philosophers to rethink the norms of art and the links between art, politics, and life.

ABSTRACTWhen learning from text, it is important that learners not only comprehend the information provided but also accurately monitor and judge their comprehension, which is known as metacomprehension accuracy. To investigate the role of a learner’s affective state for text comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy, we conducted an experiment with N = 103 university students in whom we induced positive, negative, or neutral affect. Positive affect resulted in poorer text comprehension than neutral affect. Positive affect also led to overconfident predictions, whereas (...) negative and neutral affect were both associated with quite accurate predictions. Independent of affect, postdictions were rather underconfident. The results suggest that positive affect bears processing disadvantages for achieving deep comprehension and adequate prediction accuracy. Given that postdictions were more accurate, practice tests might represent an effective instructional method to help learners in a positive affective state... (shrink)

Persistence theories of causation – such as transference theory, conserved-quantity theory, and Douglas Ehring's theory – attempt to analyzecausation in terms of some persisting entityconnecting cause and effect. While mostpersistence accounts are intended as empiricaltheories, this article develops a persistenceanalysis of the concept of causation. The basic idea is that the central concept ofdirect causation can be analyzed in terms ofproperty acquisition. The analysis cohereswith our ordinary causal judgments andprovides a straightforward explanation of thedirection of causation. It also explains whybackwards (...) causation is conceptually problematic. (shrink)