This paper presents the contributions of the French Dominican priest Louis-Joseph Lebret to the emergence of development ethics. Starting from his life and experiences, it outlines his concept of d...

The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis has been called `the greatest of all medieval chronicles'. Written in Normandy between 1114 and 1141, it is a detailed history of the Norman people and their conquests, full of vivid, often penetrating portraits of the lives and characters of kings and queens, lords and bishops, simple knights, and humble villagers. The chronicle gives a unique, authentic picture of feudal society during a period of rapid change in church and state which saw the (...) emergence of the Anglo-Norman realm, the spread of new forms of monasticism, and the launching of the Crusades. Published in 1968, volume II of Marjorie Chibnall's six-volume edition of the Ecclesiastical History is now available for the first time in paperback. `a superbly edited Latin text and a unique English translation of the work of a major historian' American Historical Review `Mrs Chibnall is giving us... her edition of a classical medieval text which will itself become a classic of medieval scholarship.' Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Betrifft die Handschrift Cod. 555 der Burgerbibliothek Bern.

Edited with a facing-page English translation from the Latin text by: Chibnall, Marjorie.

Hunting for sport or pleasure is ethical because (1) it does not violate any animal’s moral rights, (2) it has as its primary object the exercise of human skills, which is a sufficient good to compensate for the evil that results from it, namely, the death of the animal, and (3) it contributes to the ecological system by directly participating in the balancing process of life and death upon which the ecosystem thrives, thus indirectly benefiting the human community. As such, (...) hunting is not only a natural good, but also a moral good. (shrink)

In the 17th-19th centuries human society formed the understanding of scientific and technological progress as continuous improvement of society and nature on the basis of the growing capacity of scientific knowledge of the world. This belief in continuous scientific and technological progress, absolutisation of a value-free scientific research, illusion of actual «creatability» of the world on the basis of the obtained knowledge resulted in emergence of a scientific religion, based mostly on the belief in the power of scientific knowledge and (...) the progressive character of technological activity, grounded on this knowledge. There appeared an illusion that if technology has made the Man of an animal, then, combined with science, it could make God of the Man, the Creator of not only artefacts but of the matter, nature and life as well. There is no insuperable barrier, neither in experimental physical science nor in engineering, between the Natural and the Artificial (the "second nature" created by human activity). From the Natural point of view, any natural or technical system is regarded as a self-contained object, an organismdeveloping in accordance with its own internal laws, whereas the Artificial point of view considers it a mechanism designed as a result of human activity. The task of philosophy is to open new possible worlds, new understanding of the world, to make them the people’s outlook and then embody them in reality. This fact inevitably influences philosophy of technology that is due to become not only a philosophic study of scientific and technological progress but also a new philosophy of technological sustainable development in the global world. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the review of current literature on formal philosophy. Special attention is paid to the review of the book «Introduction to Formal Philosophy» [Hansson, Hendricks, 2018]. The book is a consistent introduction to the problems of formal philosophy, a research tradition that relies on the precise mathematical tools in order to study traditional philosophical problems. The methods of formal philosophy are successfully applied not only to the problems of ontology, epistemology and philosophy of language but also relevant (...) for the problems of ethics, axiology and social philosophy. The book demonstrates that it is not correct to identify formal philosophy with another area of study – philosophical logic, since formal philosophy uses not only logical methods of analysis, but also uses the tools of game theory, decision theory, probability theory, Bayesian statistics, and other theories. Although the book has a propaedeutic character, it also contains some open problems. These problems include the aggregation of the opinions of the group under the condition of a conflicting base of premises in the theory of public choice, there are still open problems in the interpretation of Arrow’s impossibility theorem and others. Certainly, formalization in itself is not a general solution to the particular philosophical problem, but only a tool that allows to formulate a problem in a more rigorous and precise way, which sometimes allows to reveal some unexpected consequences, some implicit contradictions and new solutions. Despite the importance of the concept of coherence in ethics, decision theory, philosophy of law, Bayesian epistemology, philosophy of science, the existing formalizations of the concept of coherence are highly specialized for epistemology, researchers recognize the lack of the relevant explanatory models. Overall, the book is an excellent introduction in to the field of formal philosophy, which provides a general overview of different aspects of formal philosophy and the opportunity to study particular research topics by means of an extensive bibliography accompanying each of the chapters. (shrink)

Sargonic Cuneiform Tablets in the Real Academia de la Historia: The Carl L. Lippmann Collection. By Manuel Molina. Catálogo del Gabinete de Antigüedades. Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia and Ministerio de Cultura de la República de Iraq, 2014. Pp. 317, 337 plts.

Wissenskultur im Alten Orient: Weltanschauung, Wissenschaften, Techniken, Technologien. Edited by Hans Neumann. Colloquien der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, vol. 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012. Pp. xi + 433, illus. €42.

Jewish short stories are explained from the viewpoint of many-valued logic. On the basis of some examples, we show, how their contents may be logically interpreted.

In spite of all the industrious efforts Peirce scholars have made so far, Peirce’s biography still retains a number of gaps, among which the problem of identity of Peirce’s second wife, Juliette Froissy, stands out most significantly. It is all the more important that, as some scholars suggest, the discovery of any reliable facts about Juliette could provide an explanation to some of the decisions Peirce had made, which irrevocably changed the course of his life, as well as his semiotic (...) theory. By courtesy of Professor Dr. Nathan Houser and the Peirce Edition Project, the writer of the present paper was granted access to the archive materials containing the Max H. Fisch — Maurice Auger correspondence and Victor Lenzen’s notes on Juliette. The paper aims at arranging the dispersed data obtained from these and other sources into a set of several distinct versions, which curiously refer to each other and collectively impose a certain order on some major abductions concerning Juliette’s identity. (shrink)

The conception of two kinds of practical identities, which Korsgaard introduces in the Sources of Normativity, helps her explain how universal categorical reasoning is compatible with the moral content of individual practical decisions. Based on this conception, she devises an interpretation of the Kantian as if principle amended by her argument for the public shareability of reasons. I suggest that, in doing so, Korsgaard steps too far away from Kant’s architectonic approach to the question of why moral norms bind us, (...) and that, as a result, the Korsgaardian explanation, as it stands, cannot be accomplished. (shrink)

A general approach to the synthesis of an optimal order of executing jobs in engineering systems with indeterminate times of job processing is presented. As a mathematical model of the system, a two-stage pipeline is taken whose first and second stages are, respectively, the input of data and its processing, and the corresponding mathematical apparatus is continuous logic and logic determinants.

The article provides a brief overview of the philosophical and methodological problems of modern collaborative research. Collaborations – distributed organizations with variable membership, consisting of a large number (sometimes several thousand) of participants – are common in experimental high-energy physics studying microcosm objects, elementary particles arising in collisions of beams of accelerated particles and nuclei at collider accelerators, as well as in biomedicine and climatology. The central issues are authorship, epistemic ownership and dependence in collaborations, the division of epistemic labor (...) in interdisciplinary research, as well as related issues of scientific organization – peer review and distribution of credit in a team. Formally, the author, conceived as a list of persons appearing as authors of a collaborative scientific work, seems to be defined by the specific participants of the collaboration core, i.e., is a construct. However, the question can also be understood as “What does it mean to be the author of a scientific work?”, and then the answer becomes much less certain. Authorship of thousand-people articles is justified psychologically as the desire for regular performance of a ritual, which allows demonstrating joint belonging to a certain tradition, such as a long experiment, affiliation with the “workshop” of scientists studying phenomena of the microworld, which allows scientists, despite of their daily preoccupation with technical routines, to distinguish themselves from non-epistemic communities (engineers, technicians). However, specific rules that determine exactly who and why are worthy of being included as co-authors have been undergoing changes in recent years. In addition to theoretical significance, many of the problems discussed are related to actual practical issues of scientometry and the organization of scientific research, and therefore approaches to their solution can be directly embodied in scientific policy. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the roles and identities of engineers constituting one of the fundamental, but a completely indescribable community in modern big science with particle accelerators. Large communities of accelerator and detector specialists, which replaced experimenters and instrumentalists of the middle of the last century, themselves exhibit a complex structure and are divided. However, this division is in turn grounded on the division of those whose activities focus on the phenomena of nature considered independent of human beings and (...) those who design processes and phenomena of an artificial, technical nature. Nevertheless, in terms of their modus operandi and identity, the kinship between engineers and experimental scientists is considerable. I argue that such exclusion of the engineering community from epistemic practices can serve as an example of participatory injustice. As one of the ways to transcend participatory injustice, I suggest that the communities should be encouraged to work together in epistemically tantamount roles while structural hindrances to the mobility between communities need to be alleviated. (shrink)

The article presents a detailed consideration of the arguments from the symposium “Verifiability”, which was held on July 14, 1945 in London, proposed by Scottish philosopher and theologian Donald MacKinnon, Austrian logician and mathematician Friedrich Waismann and English logician and philosopher of science William Kneale. MacKinnon’s approach to verifiability was based on the metaphysics of fact, while Waismann and Kneale’s approach was based on the semantic specificity of empirical concepts (“open texture” and context of use) and on the truth-values of (...) empirical propositions. The symposium in question is interesting primarily because it is the last meaningful discussion on the concept of verifiability in the form in which it was understood by the Vienna Circle. Despite the fact that, in the coming years, this concept received a completely different interpretation, which stands away from the original source, the 1945 symposium could be rightfully treated as a canonical discussion on verifiability in the sense that nothing like this has ever happened in the philosophy after. (shrink)

In The Sources of Normativity Korsgaard introduces her conception of practical identities understood as the source of moral obligations. This conception forms a point of transition from Korsgaard’s theory of action to her solution to the problem of the authority of moral norms. In order to describe how universal categorical reasoning is compatible with the moral content of particular practical decisions, Korsgaard needs to show how our contingent practical identities can be reconciled with what she defines as the universally shared (...) identity that expresses our humanity. To make this reconciliation work, she devises an argument for the public shareability of reasons amended by her reinterpretation of the Kantian as if principle. I suggest that, in doing so, Korsgaard steps too far away from Kant’s architectonic approach to the question of why moral norms bind us, and that, consequently, the Korsgaardian reconciliation between the two kinds of identities, as it stands, cannot be accomplished. (shrink)

The article examines a number of issues related to the specifics of information dissemination under the conditions of communicative practice of both an individual level and the functioning of mass media. The main attention is paid to the issue of the deliberate spread of disinformation. In this context, the phenomenon of "hybrid war" and the place of the information component in it, the issue of using narratives as an effective means of mass information damage, and the specifics of the process (...) of "devaluation of the word". The need to develop mechanisms to counteract the phenomena of "abuse of freedom of speech" and "simulative democracy" to ensure the survival and sustainable development of democratic societies is substantiated. (shrink)

InMind and World,John McDowell claims that we need to steer our way between bald naturalism and rampant platonism as two ways to explain our capacity to use concepts. Performing this task requires an explanation of how concepts can be both socially charged and, at the same time, genuinely involving the world as it really is. I suggest that McDowell’s explanation is insufficient and that Wilfrid Sellars’s idea of sense impressions might be used to clarify the relationship between social practices and (...) conceptual knowledge without incurring too much damage to the overall architectonics of McDowell’s theory.DansMind and World, John McDowell affirme que nous devons nous éloigner du naturalisme dépouillé et du platonisme exubérant comme étant deux manières d’expliquer notre capacité à utiliser des concepts. Pour accomplir cette tâche, il est nécessaire d’expliquer comment les concepts peuvent être à la fois chargés socialement et réellement engagés avec le monde tel qu’il est. Je suggère que l’explication de McDowell est insuffisante et que l’idée de Wilfrid Sellars des impressions sensorielles peut être utilisée pour clarifier la relation entre les pratiques sociales et la connaissance conceptuelle, et ceci sans faire encourir trop de dégâts à l’architectonique générale de la théorie de McDowell. (shrink)

The era of the Tang dynasty was a period of great flourishing of all aspects of Chinese culture, when changes covered the most diverse spheres of philosophy, art and literature. The article examines the role played in this cultural transformation by translations from Sanskrit into Chinese of the religious and philosophical texts of Indian Buddhism. The specificity of the Chinese approach to the translation of Indian texts is demonstrated, when, at the initial stage, many works were translated in a rather (...) free style due to the lack of precisely established correspondences between Sanskrit and Chinese philosophical terms. The authors identify two additional factors that influenced the nature of the translations. Firstly, this is the requirement of compliance with the norms of public, mainly Confucian, morality. Secondly, the adaptation of the Indian philosophical context to the Chinese cultural and worldview traditions, which led to the emergence of new schools of religious and philosophical thought that were not known in India itself, such as Tiantai, Jingtu or Chan, each of which in its own way influenced the art of the Medieval China. Special attention is paid to the activities of the legendary translator, Xuanzang, whose travel to India gave a huge impetus to the development of Chinese philosophy in subsequent centuries, as well as to the contribution to Chinese culture and art, which was made by the translation activities of the three great teachers of the Tang era Shubhakarasimha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. (shrink)

Verification and validation of computer codes and models used in simulation are two aspects of the scientific practice of high importance and have recently been discussed by philosophers of science. While verification is predominantly associated with the correctness of the way a model is represented by a computer code or algorithm, validation more often refers to model’s relation to the real world and its intended use. It has been argued that because complex simulations are generally not transparent to a practitioner, (...) the Duhem problem can arise for verification and validation due to their entanglement; such an entanglement makes it impossible to distinguish whether a coding error or model’s general inadequacy to its target should be blamed in the case of the model failure. I argue that in order to disentangle verification and validation, a clear distinction between computer modeling and simulation needs to be made. Holding on to that distinction, I propose to relate verification to modeling and validation, which shares the common epistemology with experimentation, to simulation. To explain reasons of their intermittent entanglement I propose a weberian ideal-typical model of modeling and simulation as roles in practice. I suggest an approach to alleviate the Duhem problem for verification and validation generally applicable in practice and based on differences in epistemic strategies and scopes. (shrink)

The article analyzes the concept of «reception», which has recently gained popularity, but remains not sufficiently clarified in studies of the history of philosophy. It is assumed that the concept has become the subject of explicit methodological reflection only in the reception aesthetics (Rezeptionsästhetik) of the Constance School of Literary Studies, where it not only opposes the concept of influence, but is interpreted in the context of a horizontal structure for text understanding. At the same time, it is important to (...) distinguish not only the «historical horizon» and the «horizon of modernity» (Gadamer), but also the «horizon of expectations» in its duality: both coded in the text itself and the life practice of the reader, «inter literary» and «external literary» horizons of expectation. The empirical trend of the reception study, developed later, makes it possible to formulate a number of specific proposals for the methodology of historical and philosophical research, which focuses on the principle of «history of receptions». It is clear that only «reproductive» and «productive» reception categories are relevant to this type of research. In particular, it is an analysis of the institutional prerequisites for the reception, the classification of the source base of that received, the channels (re)broadcast of that received, the specification of the types of scientific communication, the tradition determined positive or negative factors of reception, the status of philosophy in particular historical periods. (shrink)

The article is concerned with the general characteristics of Aristotle’s theory of a genus-differentia definition. The authors examine the validity of the definitions in the framework of legal language and present some objections against the definitions of per genus proximum et differentia specificam as they are considered by Aristotle. At the same time, through the objections to the position of genus-differentia definition critics, it is proved that in a number of cases Aristotle’s theory is more preferable than the approach offered (...) by Herbert Hart, the proponent of analytical legal philosophy. The argument of Peter Hacker is used to reinstate Aristotle’s genus-differentia definitions. (shrink)

The article seeks to instantiate the distinctive features and basic research strategies in legal ontology as they are presented in the early works by the famous Oxford philosopher of law Herbert Hart, published before his major book The Concept of Law. The author tries to isolate the most salient aspects of the analytical legal tradition applicable to Russian legal theory, which can bridge the existing gap between these approaches despite considerable difference both in their background and methodology.

В статье рассматривается теория фикционализма Бентама в том виде, в котором она представлена в его работах, прежде всего, в “A Fragment on Ontology” и “Essay on Logic”. Показано, что интерес к теории фикционализма Бентама связан не только и не столько с тем, что она выступает в качестве необходимой части его философской концепции, но с тем, что разработанный на ее основе метод определения вымышленных сущностей, во многом инспирированный логикой Аристотеля и его учением о категориях, видоизменил методологический аппарат современной философии языка. Метод (...) парафраза Бентама, как особый способ определения вымышленных сущностей, оказался применимым как в логико-семантических, так и философско-правовых концепциях XX века. (shrink)

The appearance in 1945 of the idea of the open texture of empirical concepts, which anticipated Friedrich Waismann’s thesis of a many-level-structure of language, led to a re-evaluation of “context”. It widens the sense of context that we are accustomed to mentioning as being Wittgenstein’s conception of meaning in his later philosophy. The new idea Waismann brought into the landscape is how to “clarify the context”, which is in a way a very non-Wittgensteinian question as well as an “explanation of (...) context”, where open texture plays a key role. But despite the amount of literature about open texture, this idea of Waismann is still not properly understood. Open texture must be situated as an obstacle to exhaustiveness of definition for internal reasons not only because of unforeseen conditions that could always arise in the future, but also by virtue of an a priori aspect of the texture of concepts. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to propose an interpretation of open texture as an immanent property of a concept, that is, as something that is underlying its nature. (shrink)

During its hundred-year history, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus has undergone a variety of interpretations and explanations. But the significance of this work cannot be limited to an assessment of whether it had an impact on the development of logical positivism or not. Similarly, the reading of Tractatus cannot be reduced to just an ethical or some other readings. This article proposes to study a possible reading of “Tractatus” in terms of legal philosophy, which is based on the relation between facts, (...) values and norms, as well as on how interesting it could be (or would be) for legal philosophy. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] This paper proposes a new pragmatic interpretation of the Frege–Geach problem and presents a possible solution using a model of ascriptive legal language. The first section includes the definition of the Frege–Geach problem. In the second section, I analyze the content of Geach’s critical argument against prescriptivism in ethics. I discuss what Geach means by ascriptivism, why he mixes it with prescriptivism, and why a particular article by Herbert Hart became the (...) subject of criticism by Geach. The third section proposes a possible solution to the Frege–Geach problem based on the explication of the assertoric force of ascriptive legal utterances and the performativity of legal language. (shrink)

The article presents an analysis of K.A. Rodin’s argument that after publishing of Peter Winch’s book “The Idea of Social Science” (1958) the discussions of rule-following problem concerning to social epistemology and the methodology of social studies have not had tangible results. It is shown by the example of modern legal studies that this conclusion is not valid. On the contrary, Wittgenstein’s problem of rule-following and the very idea of rule-shaped activity have proved to have a great importance for an (...) analytical legal philosophy and turned into an independent subject of study. (shrink)

This paper deals with the so-called “external history” of the origin of Critique of the power of judgment that is based primarily on the philosopher’s correspondence in the period between May 1787 and October 1789. Two letters from Kant to Reinhold (28.12.1787 and 12.05.1789) as well as modifications in the interpretation of the term “aesthetics” in the first Critique (KrVA 22, B 35-36) are crucial for the evolution of the project Critique of Taste in the book Critique of the Power (...) of Judgment. Special attention was paid to the debate between some modern scholars and editors about the importance of the reports on ‘Grundlegung’ / ‘Grundlage’ of Critique of Taste in the initial phase of work on the text. However, the available evidence does not allow us to reconstruct the “internal history” of the development of Kant’s thought during the period of writing the third Critique. Some modern scholars try to establish other objective criteria for this kind of reconstruction by identification in the text of Critique direct or hidden hints or citations to the literature of the 18th century. The author considers that the use of so-called “reflections” from the philosopher’s manuscript heritage, which can be seen as the formation and development of certain concepts of Kant’s theory, can be fruitful. The well-known problem of dating the reflections can be partially solved if terminus a quo will be not the published works, but Kant’s lectures on anthropology and logic taught at that time. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the comparison of two types of proofs in mathematical practice, the methodological differences of which go back to the difference in the understanding of the nature of mathematics by Descartes and Leibniz. In modern philosophy of mathematics, we talk about conceptual and formal proofs in connection with the so-called Hilbert Thesis, according to which every proof can be transformed into a logical conclusion in a suitable formal system. The analysis of the arguments of the proponents (...) and opponents of the Thesis, “conceptualists” and “formalists”, is presented respectively by the two main antagonists – Y. Rav and J. Azzouni. The focus is on the possibility of reproducing the proof of “interesting” mathematical theorems in the form of a strict logical conclusion, in principle feasible by a mechanical procedure. The argument of conceptualists is based on pointing out the importance of other aspects of the proof besides the logical conclusion, namely, in introducing new concepts, methods, and establishing connections between different sections of meaningful mathematics, which is often illustrated by the case of proving Fermat’s Last Theorem (Y. Rav). Formalists say that a conceptual proof “points” to the formal logical structure of the proof (J. Azzouni). The article shows that the disagreement is based on the assumption of asymmetry of mutual translation of syntactic and semantic structures of the language, as a result of which the formal proof loses important semantic factors of proof. In favor of a formal proof, the program of univalent foundations of mathematics In. Vojevodski, according to which the future of mathematical proofs is associated with the availability of computer verification programs. In favor of conceptual proofs, it is stated (A. Pelc) that the number of steps in the supposed formal logical conclusion when proving an “interesting” theorem exceeds the cognitive abilities of a person. The latter circumstance leads the controversy beyond the actual topic of mathematical proof into the epistemological sphere of discussions of “mentalists” and “mechanists” on the question of the supposed superiority of human intelligence over the machine, initiated by R. Penrose in his interpretation of the Second Theorem of Goedel, among whose supporters, as it turned out, was Goedel himself. (shrink)

We consider a stochastic process which is described by a continuous-time Markov chain on only short time-scales and constrained to conserve a number of hidden quantities on long time-scales. We assume that the transition matrix of the Markov chain is given and the conserved quantities are known to exist, but not explicitly given. To study the stochastic dynamics we propose to use the principle of stationary entropy production. Then the problem can be transformed into a variational problem for a suitably (...) defined “action” and with time-dependent Lagrange multipliers. We show that the stochastic dynamics can be described by a Schrödinger equation, with Lagrange multipliers playing the role of phases, whenever the transition matrix is symmetric or the detailed balance condition is satisfied, the system is not too far from the equilibrium and the number of the conserved quantities is large. (shrink)

This book is about the relationship between necessary reasoning and visual experience in Charles S. Peirce’s mathematical philosophy. It presents mathematics as a science that presupposes a special imaginative connection between our responsiveness to reasons and our most fundamental perceptual intuitions about space and time. Central to this view on the nature of mathematics is Peirce’s idea of diagrammatic reasoning. In practicing this kind of reasoning, one treats diagrams not simply as external auxiliary tools, but rather as immediate visualizations of (...) the very process of the reasoning itself. Thus conceived, one's capacity to diagram their thought reveals a set of characteristics common to ordinary language, visual perception, and necessary mathematical reasoning. The book offers an original synthetic approach that allows tracing the roots of Peirce’s conception of a diagram in certain patterns of interrelation between his semiotics, his pragmaticist philosophy, his logical and mathematical ideas, bits and pieces of his biography, his personal intellectual predispositions, and his scientific practice as an applied mathematician. (shrink)