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The article is devoted to Internet-trend on Existentialism in Russian social networks. Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Franz Kafka became popular characters for Russian young people who are active Internet users. They correlated Existentialism with concepts of “hopeless”, “Futility”, “emptiness”. We made an attempt to analyze this phenomenon and tried to explain that Existentialism is not directed against the person but for him.
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In the history of early American philosophy, in its earliest period of Puritanism, there were unique thinkers whose philosophical mindset formed original views on the nature of man and the cosmos. Since antiquity, the history of philosophy has been determined by the degree of relevance of Plato’s teachings. In medieval universities, and later in the universities of the Renaissance, Neoplatonism, in various modifications, had a great influence. The first settlers in the North American colonies were educated people, some having graduated from English colleges; they knew ancient literature and philosophy very well, had read the texts available at that time, and talked about their God-chosen mission through the prism of Biblical history. The purpose of this article is to determine the influence of Platonism with its cosmological doctrine of the creation of the world and of the eternal and unchanging ideas as the prototypes of things in the Puritan philosophy of New England in the 17th century. The syncretic unity of Aristotelianism and Platonism, thanks to the teachings of Peter Ramus, became popular in New England. As a result of the study of primary sources and texts of Puritan thinkers, a search was made for references to Plato or his teachings. In the books of some Puritan philosophers, such as Williams, Ward, Hooker, and others, there are ideas similar to those of Plato. It can be assumed that they were familiar with Plato’s dialogues or with the texts of his commentators. One of the earliest references to Plato in the texts of Puritan thinkers is found in Bradford’s journal ‘Of Plymouth Plantation’ (1651). Also worth mentioning are Stone, Cotton, Mather, Wise and others. All of them were, to varying degrees, familiar with the political, metaphysical, and cosmological teachings of ancient authors. Of the cosmological treatises of Plato, the Timaeus was especially popular, where the process of the creation of the world by the demiurge was described. Space exploration, contrary to popular belief, was present in New England, albeit on a small scale. In addition to philosophy, in colonial America, astronomical observations were made of celestial bodies, stars, the Moon, and comets. During the era of Puritanism in the history of early American philosophy, Platonism was an important philosophical current, and it was to become even more prominent in the following eras.
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The perspective of philosophical thinking as an axis of research may bring, in our opinion and according to other contemporary scholars’ point of view, important insights into the numerous aspects of public administration and its related administrative phenomena. Long time ago, the majority, if not all, of the scientific branches have developed from one “mother” or “queen” of all sciences, considered to be… philosophy.
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In the Declaration on Procured Abortion, 1974, the Catholic Church argues that the zygote is human because it has a human genotype. The article presents a logical analysis of this argument. It shows that this argument is largely faulty. Thomism plays the function of warranty in this argumentation. The enthymematic Thomistic assumptions are necessary for the inference from premise to conclusion at all. Moreover, it turns out that this argument presupposes a Thomistic interpretation of biological concepts that is inconsistent with modern biological knowledge. Thus, the statement contained in the Declaration has not been effectively argued on the grounds of biology, and it even seems that biology undermines it. It is possible only as a metaphysical statement and only on the basis of certain metaphysics.
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The author of the article analyses the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of a possible dialogue between biopolitics and biophilosophy. It is argued that the pandemic, despite the horrific sufferings it has caused to humankind, had a certain positive side to it as it made us raise our ethical, social and political consciousness to a qualitatively new level. In this sense, the new coronavirus might be viewed as a pharmakon, that is, both as a poison (as the etymology of the Latin word virus suggests) and as a remedy – or as a gift. The author, drawing attention to the fact that viruses, strictly speaking, are neither alive nor dead, yet play a significant role in the evolution of living organisms, argues that the “poisonous” gift of the new coronavirus and the gift of COVID-19 vaccines interact – either by way of the initiation of the selection process or by way of its correction (limitation) – in the process of natural selection of the members of human population, thus affecting human evolution: the “poisonous” gift of the virus acts positively, presenting a biological challenge to humans, and the gift of vaccines acts negatively, by way of correcting this process, that is, selectively limiting the extent and intensity of the challenge posed by the virus. It is evident that individuals vaccinated against COVID-19, though they are not completely exempt from the dangers of coronaviral infection, participate in the process of natural selection, initiated by the action of coronavirus, to a significantly lesser extent and degree. Bearing in mind that personal decisions to accept or decline the gift of a COVID-19 vaccine are related to certain personal convictions, one might claim that, in the process of this particular case of natural selection, holding to certain specific convictions selects humans for certain cognitively, ethically and socially important personal traits that play a role in personal decision-making and are, as we might suggest, at least partially influenced by genes. Therefore, not only the urgency to act promptly – to act in a biopolitical sense – in the face of such challenges as COVID-19 pandemic (and, in the future, in the face of dangers posed by similar pandemic diseases), but also the necessity to reflect – to reflect in biophilosophical sense – on the interaction between humans and viruses that takes place on a global scale and in a common biological medium highlight the importance of a new trend – that of the convergence between biopolitics and biophilosophy
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This review article discusses the book of Roman Krzanowski, Ontological Information: Information in the Physical World, which is published by World Scientific. Krzanowski’s book makes a very important contribution to the contemporary discussion about the nature of information. The author analyzes the concept of ontological information and its uses in the works of scientists from various disciplines, resulting in an innovative and inspiring analysis that every philosopher involved in the philosophy of information should read.
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This review article discusses Andrzej Bielecki’s book Models of Neurons and Perceptrons: Selected Problems and Challenges, as published by Springer International Publishing. This work exemplifies “philosophy in science” by adopting a broad, multidisciplinary perspective for the issues related to the simulation of neurons and neural networks, and the author has addressed many of the important philosophical assumptions that are entangled in this area of modeling. Bielecki also raises several important methodological issues about modeling. This book is recommended for any philosophers who wish to learn more about the current state of neural modeling and find inspiration for a deeper philosophical reflection on the subject.
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This article addresses “Creativity after Computation” by looking into the concept of artificial imagination, namely the machine’s ability to produce images that challenge artmaking and surprise human beings with the aid of machine learning algorithms. What is at stake is not only art and creativity but also the tension between the determination of machines and the freedom of human beings. This opposition restages Kant’s third antinomy in the contemporary technological condition. By referring to the debate on the question of imagination in Kant, Heidegger, and Stiegler, the article suggests that imagination is always already artificial and that it is more productive to develop an organology of artificial imagination. It clarifies the notion of artificial imagination and offers an organological reading through a reinterpretation of Leibniz’s monadology, Kant’s sublime, and Schiller’s aesthetic education against the backdrop of recursive algorithms.
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Algorithms and automated learning systems have been successfully applied to produce images, pieces of music, or texts that are appealing to humans and that are often compared to artworks. Computational technologies are able to find surprising and original solutions–new patterns that humans cannot anticipate– but does this mean we ascribe to them the kind of creativity that is expressed by human artists? Even though AI can successfully detect humans’ preferences as well as select the objects that satisfy taste, can we ascribe to them the capacity of recognizing the intrinsic value of artworks? To answer these questions, I am first going to explain the kind of creativity that is expressed by contemporary predictive systems, then, in the second part of this paper, I will try to show the difference between the creativity of algorithms and the creativity of artists by expanding on Deleuze’s reflections.
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Obstructing our engagement with Computer-Generative art is an Authenticity Problem. This is where our engagement with Computer-Generative art is either seen through the prism of fantasy, such as romanticisation, or our engagement is defined by superficial inattentiveness. My aim is to show how a more fulfilling engagement is possible. This is my demonstration of the connection between Computer-Generative art and Authentic Expression. This is done by reorientating our focus away from artwork as primary and towards the artistic-process itself. I do this by conceptualising the CG-artistic-process as expressing a Cyborg Relation. My argument is that the Computer-Generative artistic-process, through the Cyborg Relation, authentically expresses our relationships with technology.
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The aim of teaching philosophy to children ultimately is not to teach them the history of philosophy, but rather to teach them to think, starting from philosophical concepts. This will help to develop high-level skills in children such as questioning, research, understanding and interpreting knowledge, establishing meaningful relationships between knowledge, creating original ideas, and problem-solving. Models of philosophizing with children have been developed, and systematic application attempts have been made, producing successful results in many countries of the world. According to Matthew Lipman, these skills should be developed at a very young age with use of the model of philosophy for children (P4C). Our aim is to show and explore how to develop and sustain creative thinking, which is one of the achievements of P4C. If Lipman is right, children participating in these activities will start to gain creative thinking skills from an early age and will apply this foundation in other knowledge acquisition processes at more advanced developmental stages. This presentation aims to reveal the interrelation between P4C and creative thinking activity. First P4C will be explained, and then creative thinking and the interrelation between the two will be expanded upon in the conclusion.
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Recently, heated discussions about artificial intelligence, creativity, and work have re-emerged. Despite the dominant focus on the novelty of this entanglement, it is rich with history. In this paper, I will first introduce creativity as a historical and socio-culturally embedded concept, looking at how and why we have invented creativity in the guises we have. The focus will mostly be on the political and ideological backdrop of these historical processes–for instance how creativity was repeatedly cast as the positive counterimage of (industrial and bureaucratic) alienated labour, and hence stood in a complex relationship to automation, robotization, and so on. Based on this I will then discuss a series of scenarios that are related to the (perhaps) forthcoming automation of creativity, more specifically four ways in which automation might in different ways impact (the fields of) creative practices and labour.
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This paper1 proposes a deep analysis of the latest re-search of digital humanities scholar Beatrice Fazi, and especially her critique of computational automation, to understand the roles of digital creative technologies, and more specifically of creative software. After a close anal-ysis of Fazi’s main contribution to a new understanding of computational aesthetics, we will briefly outline the po-tential implications of her work to understand the con-temporary evolution of creative software, and especially the implementation of machine learning algorithms in these kinds of software. This will lead us to contextualise the contemporary anxieties regarding how machines could replace humans in the act of artistic creation.
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The purpose of the article is to identify and investigate the first attempts to institutionalize non-state communities of engineers and technicians in the Russian Empire, and to determine whether the Russian Technical Society was the first center to unify the engineering community. The period covered in this study (1850s–1860s) refers to the initial period of the emergence of scientific and technical societies in the Russian Empire, which are considered as a new type of a structural organization of science and technology. The article reveals that the first attempts to institutionalize non-state engineering and technical communities were successful in Livland and Kherson provinces. It has been confirmed that the preferred hypothesis in the matter of the Russian Technical Society does not correspond to historical reality. Two scientific and technical societies of Livland and Kherson provinces were analyzed in the article: the Society of Technicians in Riga and Odessa Society of Engineers and Architects. It was found that the mentioned societies, established in Riga and Odessa, can be considered almost the first scientific and technical societies in the Russian Empire, created even before the Russian Technical Society commenced its activities. For the first time, a detailed study of the process of their organization and activity was carried out. The article also highlights the legislative principles of the activities of the mentioned societies. A comparative analysis of their statutes was carried out, identifying the common and distinctive features. The study proved the polytechnic nature of their activity and determined its priorities. Despite the fact that the Russian Technical Society turned out to be the most powerful scientific and technical society of the Russian Empire, attention is focused on the fact that the Society of Technicians in Riga continued its activities as an independent scientific and technical association. The article highlights the inaccuracies and some false statements about the studied societies. The attempt of marine engineers in the city of Mykolaiv to establish an independent public scientific and technical society in 1864 is also discussed.
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In the study, the phenomenon of academic plagiarism is considered a result of creative scientific activity, which exists in a certain institutional design and is immersed in the appropriate environment and economic, socio-political circumstances. The study uses philosophical principles as a method—humanistic, historical, comprehensiveness and determinism, system and practice, specificity and activity. The historical retrospective shows that theft and misappropriation of other people’s intellectual property existed already in ancient societies. The prevalence of the phenomenon and the ambiguity of its interpretation inspired us to explore academic plagiarism in its various aspects. The neurobiological principles of the human brain work in a way that promotes mimesis, reproduction, copying, and unconscious combinations of memories. The process of creative activity includes many subtle underresearched components that are difficult to capture or identify, such as a source of inspiration. The processes of socialization and assimilation of cultural norms consist in the reproduction of rules of conduct, in the level of assimilation of deep cultural norms, values, ideals, and codes. Thus, culture, as a factor of influence, promotes, generates, encourages, and justifies plagiarism. Postmodernist culture, like no other cultural paradigm, contributes to the transformation of understanding of what is called plagiarism, because it has fundamentally changed the moral attitude towards it. Various global and local socio-economic factors can also, for different reasons, intensify and contribute to such a negative phenomenon as academic plagiarism. We emphasize that the modern scientific environment is quite complex, it involves about ten million people worldwide. New forms of organization of the scientific environment cause its bureaucratization, standardization, unification, functional, and stylistic stereotypes. Which, in turn, have led to the massification of such a negative phenomenon as plagiarism. In conclusion, the authors argue that the ineffectiveness of the means of combating academic plagiarism arises due to a lack of understanding of the nature of the phenomenon. Rethinking the essence of creativity and institutional changes in science will help overcome academic plagiarism.
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This article aims to explain how the categories of space and time, notions that emphasize the major role played by perception in shaping contemporary fiction, have been given a new dimension in British writer Esther Freud's novel I Couldn't Love You More (2021). In our approach, we start from the premise that literature and art reshape cultural identities and portray the way they might have been impacted by various historical events. By discussing representations of cultural identity in Esther Freud’s novel, we try to detect possible correspondences between external spatial-temporal configurations and the inner world of the perceiving subject in order to offer an interpretation of what this correlation implies at the level of the literary text and the interdisciplinary dialogues it generates. From our point of view, one of the ideas explored in the novel is the spiritual anxiety of individuals who find themselves trapped in an ambiguous reality, trying to discern the fundamental aspects of human existence in an atmosphere which enhances emotional tension. Identity is a prominent theme of reflection in Esther Freud's novel as well, recognizable at the level of the complex relationships the novelist creates between characters, which reflect the diversity and unpredictability of human nature itself
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This article is an overview and introduction of the current issue of Filosofija. Sociologija, thematically divided into five chapters. The topics cover various aspects of contemporary world: from the challenges related to technology and democracy to researches on youth values and worldview. What seems to unite all these articles (in spite of their plurality of themes, views and approaches) is the idea of an ever-changing world in which philosophy is interconnected with other sciences and disciplines, in order to provide more consistent and perhaps universal interpretations to the challenges that human beings must face in the contemporary world.
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Constitutional scholars who deal with classical liberties and rights call into question of the status of new generation of rights arisen from transformative techonilogies. As a result a new doctrine of bio constitutionalizm has appeared (Jasanoff, S., ed. 2011. Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), which suggests that basic categories for the allocation of rights and duties in law and policymaking are redefined together with and through specific and technological ways of understanding and intervening in life. Mentioned above core law and ethical dilemmas are vividly highlighted in reproductive technologies. Despite the policy of favoring genetic engineering it is necessary to involve a reasonable scheme of regulation with recognition of the universalism of human dignity and moral status of embryo. So, in my paper I will answer the following questions: Does the recognition of «full moral respect» of embryo provoke conflicts among different constitutional and international norms? Does the invisibility of human dignity and level of its respect concern all reproductive rights or is it limited to certain categories? Furthermore, I would like to clarify the very controversial issue of using human embryo with the purpose of human enhancement. Are there compatible ways of the existing biomedical science policy, constitutional doctrine of human dignity and constitutional national policy?
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