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Methods used to infer causal relations from data rather than knowledge of mechanisms are most helpful and exploited only if the theoretical background is insufficient or experimentation impossible. The review of literature shows that when an investigator has no prior knowledge of the researched phenomenon, no result of the Granger-causality test has any epistemic utility due to different possible interpretations. (1) Rejecting the null in one of the tests can be interpreted as either a true causal relation, opposite direction of the true causation, instant causality, time series cointegration, not frequent enough sampling, etc. (2) Bi-directional Granger causality can be read either as instant causality or common cause fallacy. (3) Non-rejection of both nulls possibly means either indirect or nonlinear causality, or no causal relation.
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We explain that the scientific attitude, with a “good understanding” of what is science, might be the most genuinely religious attitude, and that in fact, religion and science are much closer than what we are usually told. Nevertheless they cannot be identified effectively in any terrestrial applications without leading to inconsistency, but are truly, and thus non effectively, identical in the ever guessed true realm.
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Reexamining the assumptions underlying the General Theory of Relativity and calling an object’s gravitational field its inertia, and acceleration simply resistance to that inertia, yields a simple field model where the potential (kinetic) energy of a particle at rest is its capacity to move when its inertial field becomes imbalanced. The model then attributes electromagnetic and strong forces to the effects of changes in basic particle shape. Following up on the model’s assumption that the relative intensity of a particle’s gravitational field is always inversely related to its perceived volume and assuming that all black holes spin, may create the possibility of a cosmic rebound where a final spinning black hole ends with a new Big Bang.
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Diversity is the unity of sameness and non-sameness (difference). In a basic situation, the more significant the difference, the greater the diversity. However, the organic systems based on relatively homogeneous groups, sub-units and structures are governed by special rules. The heterogenization of groups, that is, their dissolution decreases diversity. I propose to present this paradox effect of homogenization through examples taken from biology and social studies. The structural diversity of humanity is closely linked to the objective and subjective sameness and identity of individuals. There are three fundamental, political approaches to relate to human diversity: hierarchy, the approach that emphasizes difference; equality that emphasizes sameness, and equality that emphasizes difference. The first approach belongs to the outworn past, therefore the battle for defining the future takes place between the remaining two approaches. The aspect that these approaches are debating is whether it is the individual form of diversity (globalization, deconstruction) or its structural form (emancipation, sovereignty) that must be promoted.
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The neoclassical case supporting competitive frames and market solutions has failed to promote stable world-wide economic development. Other approaches in economics incorporate social culture, increasing returns, market power, ecological limits and complementarity, yielding broader applications for development theory. In this paper a theory of planning horizons is introduced to raise some meaningful questions about the traditional view with respect to its substitution, decreasing returns and independence assumptions. Suppositions of complementarity, increasing returns and interdependence suggest that competition is inefficient by upholding a myopic culture resistant to learning. Growth – though long believed to rise from markets and competitive values – may not derive from these sources. Instead, as civilizations advance, shifting from material wants to higher-order intangible output, they evolve from market tradeoffs (substitution and scarcity) into realms of common need (complementarity and abundance). The policy implications of horizonal theory are explored, with respect to regulatory aims and economic concerns. Such an approach emphasizes strict constraints against entry barriers, ecological harm, market power abuse and ethical lapses. Social cohesion – not competition – is sought as a means to extend horizons and thereby increase efficiency, equity and ecological health. The overriding importance of horizon effects for regulatory assessment dominates other orthodox standards in economics and law. Reframing economics along horizonal lines suggests some meaningful insight on the proper design of economic systems.
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The concept of planning horizons serves as a measure of many unsettled aspects of economic analysis. First and foremost, the notion is ordinal: we speak of ‘horizon effects’ as directional shifts in planning horizons without tallying ‘wits’ or calibrating horizonal axes of change. Second, the derivation of horizon effects is inductive; we simply assert their inherence in the range of factors subsumed within the imagined projections behind all choice. The planning horizon is set wherever surprise supplants expectation; the horizon occurs at the outer range of accurate anticipation, to which we lack clear epistemological access. Planning horizons – horizon effects – suggest a new foundation for an ethical economics of conscience, social maturation and growth. The idea of planning horizons invites a distinction of foresight from myopia in economic constructions. But time horizons are only one aspect of our planning horizons: to see ahead in time we must embrace all relevant causal effects. Foresight depends on knowledge of how reality actually works, which is a matter more of degree than ‘truth’; the planning horizon offers an index of our ‘rational bounds.’ Our range of anticipation is also related to our internalization of social and ecological externalities in our decisions, so to the scope of our ethical conscience and to our sense of human community. Indeed, the organizational health and integrity of our society is horizonal in this sense. The aim of this paper is to explore and develop the concept of planning horizons in its intellectual origins and economic concerns. Its philosophic conceptual roots, methodological underpinnings, psychological insights and economic implications are outlined to show why an economics of planning horizons offers an ethical economics of interdependent dynamic complex systems. With standard doctrines seen as a special case in a larger horizonal frame, social theory embraces an ethical economics with dissimilar institutional implications favoring cooperation.
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The House of Wisdom (Bayt al-Hikmah) was built first as a library where the books on the sciences of the Ancients were kept. Under the sponsorship of the Caliph Al-Ma’m¯un (813–833), it developed into a scientific institute where the books on Ancient Greek philosophy were translated into Arabic. The Caliph acquired many Greek manuscripts and generously supported the translation activities in the House. By the end of the century, Arabic translation of the major works of the Greek philosophy and science had been completed. Thus, the Caliph and his House paved the way for the rise and flourish of Islamic philosophy and science.
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This paper deals with the resurgence of interest in virtue ethics in professional ethics, specifically as it applies to Edmund Daniel Pellegrino’s account in medical ethics. Pellegrino investigates in a clear manner the ethical problems of contemporary medicine from a virtue ethics point of view and offers a virtue-based ethic for medicine as an effective tool and a practical guide for confronting the challenges of modern medicine. His account builds on a thesis of the indispensability of virtuous character traits for a sound medical practice. Pellegrino’s virtue ethics offers a plausible and distinctive alternative to utilitarian and Kantian (principle-based) approaches to understanding and evaluating professional roles. It is hoped that our exploration of Pellegrino’s account will underline the place of a virtue ethics in medicine and stimulate a similar inquiry into social welfare, and into other forms of human professions and disciplines.
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The gymnosophy philosophy as a way to substantiate gymnastics; gymnastics and gymnosophy’s etymological explanation; the gymnosophy, considered "the wisdom of the naked" becomes, at some point, the philosopher's way of health and thereby gymnastics becomes practical way of obtaining health , nudity as a means of verifying the execution of exercise; gymnastics supplemented diet since antiquity; spirituality is found in bodily perfection of the gods of antiquity” "to pray for a sound mind in a healthy body"; legislating in antiquity, to gymnastics, to maintain health; physical activity, characteristic of contemporary, induces disease; sport, as a health way, acute need of every man.
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Knowledge is, by definition, reliable and, hence, it can be applied to a variety of different problems. Nevertheless, in practical problem solving, we do not rely on mere truthful knowledge, but also on information which frames the practical acceptability. We are not looking for truthful solution but an optimal solution. Optimal solution is found out by optimizing some given (practical) parameters. The optimization is both theory based and practice based process. That is, practical problem solving is a human deliberation that interconnects theoretical and practical knowledge. So, the philosophical foundation of practical problem solving interconnects theoretical and practical philosophy. Especially ethical deliberation plays – or should play – central role in practical problem solving. The complexity of the advanced scientific knowledge needed in solving present day practical problems separates the people who know, from the people who do (decide). The situation makes immediate that we need some deeper pedagogical conviction: we need ecological education.
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The article deals with a controversy between absolutist and relationist conceptions of space and time. Comparison between Newton’s and Leibniz’s theories is drawn. Points of view of other philosophers who took part in the discussion are also analysed. Strong and weak parts of both theories are revealed. The article is not aimed at taking sides in the debate rather it provides the reader with a possibility to construct his own assessment. The publication states that premises of both conceptions of space and time are metaphysical rather than physical. However, this classical debate is still relevant in today’s modern scientific context.
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Structuralism has recently moved center stage in philosophy of mathematics. One of the issues discussed is the underlying logic of mathematical structuralism. In this paper, I want to look at the dual question, namely the underlying structures of logic. Indeed, from a mathematical structuralist standpoint, it makes perfect sense to try to identify the abstract structures underlying logic. We claim that one answer to this question is provided by categorical logic. In fact, we claim that the latter can be seen—and probably should be seen—as being a structuralist approach to logic and it is from this angle that categorical logic is best understood.
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The methods of abstraction and idealization are commonly viewed as basic to both the natural and the social sciences. Since the 1970s, they have also been a focus of attention in the philosophy and methodology of science. However, their nature as methods, i.e., sequences of instructions, has not been adequately explicated. The paper attempts to capture the core of these methods in the sense of simplified sequences of instructions. The proposal is illustrated in a reconstruction of the application of both methods in economics as a representative of the social sciences.
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The following discussion is concerned with certain forms of poor practice in academic publishing that give rise to “academic urban legends.” It suggests that rather than simply consider phenomena such as poor citation practices and circular reporting as mistakes, misunderstandings, and evidence of lack of rigor, we might also read them as evidence of a particular kind of creativity—for which misunderstandings, assump-tions, and failures of diligence are mechanisms by which potentially influential ideas manifest. Reflecting particularly on a critique of the debate surrounding pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement and its use by university staff and students, the following will argue that investigators within the disciplines concerned with the effects or development of these technologies are themselves implicated as potential subjects. Alongside reflections from science fiction studies that offer insights into the experiential dimension of reading and misreading, this paper offers some insights regarding how we might think of mistakes and misunderstandings as a form of bootstrapping and a source of creativity in scientific and technological development.
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Dawes (2013) claims that we ought not to believe but to accept our best scientific theories. To accept them means to employ them as premises in our reasoning with the goal of attaining knowledge about unobservables. I reply that if we do not believe our best scientific theories, we cannot gain knowledge about unobservables, our opponents might dismiss the predictions derived from them, and we cannot use them to explain phenomena. We commit an unethical speech act when we explain a phenomenon in terms of a theory we do not believe.
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The article examines the concept of “value” in the context of the general planetary process of anomie at the level of local cultures and subcultures, when the possibilities of value-normative regulation of social processes are reduced to a minimum. Under these conditions, the predictive function of axiology has become particularly relevant, and the authors raise the question of the basis for the values evolution reproduction. The search to this answer involves the application of system analysis and retrospection. The study of the main axiological concepts based on the connection between objective and subjective in this perspective allows to identify the main contours of value consciousness that coincide with the dominant concepts: biological (objective-naturalistic concept), social (dialectical-materialistic concept), individual (subjective-psychological concepts) and existential (objective-transcendental and ontological ideal realistic concepts). The material summarizes the main methodological and cognitive limitations of these concepts, which are in fact natural, since they belong to specific contours of value consciousness. At the same time, a number of provisions can be considered as general ones. As a result, the authors hypothesize the possibility to develop a synthetic concept of axiology allowing predicting the development of cultural value core as an imperative of socio-cultural processes.
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