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The text examines ethical and legal issues eristikata. Freedom, rights, responsibility, social communication, social network. Eristikata autistic. Eristikata as polemical practice. legal and political eristika.
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The specialized understanding of natural kinds (NK) has a theoretical impact on the concept of emergent properties (EP) in particular, as well as on the understanding of the phenomenon of emergence as a whole. The problem is closely related to the tendencies towards their essentialization and theoretical demarcation. The theoretical tension is inevitably manifested in the attempts to consolidate the two concepts, which are generally considered in essentialist terms. A naturalistic, non-essentialist, approach could integrate them into a unified theoretical method, avoiding the problems of their traditional analysis. In the article, NK will be considered as reaction clusters, and EP as complexes of reaction clusters. Both will be directly related to the introduced concepts of reaction potential and stability. The relationship between these concepts will be defined and operationalized, thus explicating the result, considering the phenomenon of emergence as enhancing the reaction potential of a given structure or a complex system, which is in a proportional relation to its net stability.
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If the notion of the cyborg has forced us to rethink what femininity is and what a feminist politics does then it has become important to ask which are the new modalities of sexual difference that have sprawled in its aftermath? The article highlights that new modalities of sexual difference recently influencing feminist politics have been mostly sustained by theories of post-feminism or post-gender feminism. Before explaining the implications of these theories, it highlights the crucial role that scientific theories and technologies of communication and reproduction have played in the cultural politics of gender.
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The text reconstructs the emergence and development of so-called “theory” in the humanities, which, since the 1970s, has aimed at redefining their scope and social role. This phenomenon first took root in France but reached other territories, including Bulgaria, for reasons that are explored in the article. The author analyzes the rhetoric of “classical” theoretic approaches, and asserts that in this particular case, method is of greater significance than the object of reflection. The overall effect of theory is identified as a particular kind of legitimization of academic discourse through practices and techniques stemming from modern art. The text deals with the history of modern views on art and analyzes the rhetorical mechanisms of secondary construction of the object of scientific research – a procedure that imparts aesthetic features to the practice of theory and enables a comparison to cultural anthropology. At the end, the author discusses the reasons for the impossibility of achieving a synthesis between science, art and life, this unity being the actual goal of “romantic” science.
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The concept of eliminativism is defended in the framework of eliminative physicalism. First, I reconstruct existing theories on the nature and structure of concepts and conclude that none of these has the capacity to give a full and precise description of concepts. Then I adduce arguments in support of the statement that “concept” is a term of folk psychology, a proto-scientific theory which is strongly criticized by eliminative physicalism. I attempt to argue for the latter view over rival views by addressing some frequent criticisms of this stance. The arguments in favor of concept eliminativism are (1) its failure to formulate a theory of the nature and structure of concepts and (2) the conclusion that concepts are part of folk psychology, which provides considerably less effective explanations than neuroscience. On the basis of (1) and (2), it is concluded that the term “concept” should be eliminated from the language of science.
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Concept of Monoverse, which corresponds to the existing broad interpretation of the second postulate of the special theory of relativity, is not consistent with the modern astrophysical reality — existence of the dark matter and the dark energy, the total mass-energy of which is ten times greater than the mass-energy of the visible universe (which has been considered as the entire universe until very recent) . This concept does not allow to explain their rather unusual properties — invisibility and lack of baryon content — which would seem to even destroy the very modern understanding of the term ‘matter’. However, all numerous alternative concepts of Multiverses, which have been proposed until today, are unable to explain these properties of the dark matter and dark energy. This article describes a new concept: the concept of the hidden Multiverse and hidden Supermultiverse, which mutual invisibility of parallel universes is explained by the physical reality of imaginary numbers. This concept completely explains the phenomenon of the dark matter and the dark energy. Moreover, it is shown that the dark matter and the dark energy are the experimental evidence for the existence of the hidden Multiverse. Described structure of the hidden Multiverse is fully consistent with the data obtained by the space stations WMAP and Planck. An extremely important property of the hidden Multiverse is an actual possibility of its permeation through stargate located on the Earth.
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In the article, the interrelation of empirical, psychological, religious and metaphysical ideas of the German scientist of the 19th century G. T. Fechner is considered. In particular, its concept of a general animation and its consequence for cosmology, for treatment of concepts of causality, the natural law, evolution is considered, and also mutual conditionality of a psychophysical functionalism and empirical research of thresholds of feelings with justification of the metaphysical concept of rooting of individual consciousnesses in general consciousness and original outlook on life of soul after death is tracked.
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Around the year 1802, when he was reading his famous Lectures on the Method of Academic Study, Schelling, merely 27 years old at the time, had already parted definitely with Fichte’s philosophy and elaborated his own identity philosophy. These lectures contain no didactic guidance for teachers but address students, showing them how, in studying the sciences, not to remain at the level of empirical knowledge but to rise to the height of true philosophical thinking, such as he saw displayed in his own philosophy. That is why he proceeds (in his first lecture) from the absolute concept of science but immediately passes (in the second) to the scientific and moral significance of the higher academic institutions as centers for the education of society. Throughout the discussion on the separate sciences, the prevailing idea advanced was of their identity and of the freedom of science; this idea became a basis of the university reform undertaken in Germany by Wilhelm von Humboldt.
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The article discusses an episode in the universal history of metrology and standardization. On the basis of literary testimonies and archeological data the author first outlines the history of development of various types of the water clocks, clepsydra. Special attention is paid to the usage of clepsydra in public life (esp. in legal proceeding) and in medical practice. Then, considering the massive water clock from the sanctuary of the healer-god Amphiaraus in Oropos author shows that in the 4th cent. BCE the water clocks became an essential part of social life, and demonstrates the ways they calibrated the device according to a 24-hours scale. The author suggests that the massive water clock, designed for continuous measuring of time, subdivided at equal hours, was built at the sanctuary of Amphiaraus for medical purposes. Such hypothesis can be confirmed by a series of passages from the Hippocratic corpus, where the word “hour” is actually introduced, as well as by two more testimonies from the medical practice of Herophilus and Galen.
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Интелигентният дизайн – играч без акредитация на терена на теоретичната биология
Some issues of the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) are discussed in detail. The possibilities and limits of empirical science in proving claims related to the origin of life and macroevolution are analyzed. A few examples of data interpretations supporting the theory of evolution are examined. The metaphysical nature of ID is clarified. Living organisms are compared to non-living thermodynamic systems. Finally, the article looks at some implications of the theory of evolution for social processes.
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In the last few decades, intelligent design (ID) has been the focal point of opposition against evolutionary theory, which attempts to present itself as a scientifically valid alternative to the purely materialistic understanding of the evolutionary process. So far, it has had almost no success among professional biologists, but has occasionally been more warmly received by non-specialists within the academic community and by the general public, even though the main goal of the ID movement – to introduce the teaching of ID in schools as an official alternative to evolution – remains out of reach. Biologists are the ones most resistant to ID ideas, not because of a rigid ideological commitment to materialism on their part, but rather because the main ID arguments are based on a combination of deep misunderstanding and dishonest misrepresentation of evolutionary theory. The article discusses these arguments in detail and gives a brief introduction to the history of the ID movement and its underlying motivation.
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Creationism in general, and the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) in particular, have so far mostly remained outside the mainstream discourse in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries, in contrast with the perpetual controversy they generate in the United States. However, this situation may change in the near future as active initial forays are being made here to assert the presence of creationism in society. Albeit, based on a superficial reading of its recent socio-political history, this may seem counterintuitive, a fertile intellectual soil for creationism seems in fact to be present in this part of Europe, a circumstance that requires closer examination. The discussion carried on in this journal regarding the scientific credibility of ID has been quite informative as to the factors underlying the vulnerability of Bulgarian society to pseudo-scientific ideas. In this article, the author analyses the pro-ID argumentation presented in one of the articles in the series (Gagov 2016), first, from a scientific and philosophical point of view, and then in the larger socio-historical context from which ID is derived. This is then used as an illustration helping the reader to understand how the current situation developed. The article highlights the dangers to the intellectual health of society by making a comparison with analogous phenomena in the past and their consequences.
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This article is a response to the publication of Theodora Dimitrova’s „On the Top Ten Scientific Problems of Biological and Chemical Evolution“ (Philosophical Alternatives 1/2016). In her paper, T. D. restates the arguments against the evolutionary explanations of the origins of life and species as summarized by Casey Luskin, a famous proponent of the intelligent design theory. T. D.’s article contains no critical discussion of these arguments nor refers to sources where such a discussion could be found. It is difficult to say whether these lacks are a result of mere ignorance or of an unscientific bias towards evolutionary theory. In any case, the publication of such an article in a respectable academic journal brings shame upon the journal and its associates. In support of the latter claim, this paper draws attention to those aspects of the intelligent design movement that show its unscientific and anti-intellectual nature.
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Based on reconstruction G. Frege’s project for foundation of axiomatic method and his treatment of the role of definitions in justification of axiomatic system, in the article I discuss the role of definitions in Euclid's axiomatic in their function of elucidations, in Fregan terms.
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The transformation of the source study is traced – from a component of the methodology of history in the second half of the XIX – early XX century – into the discipline/subdiscipline of historical science in the 1950–1970s and then, at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries – into the scientific direction in correlation with the change of models in historical science. The specificity of the phenomenological concept of the source study with epistemological foundations in the Russian version of neo-Kantianism is revealed. The Scientific-pedagogical school of the source study belonging to the neo-classical model of science developed since 1930s. The interrelations of transformation stages of the disciplinary status of the source study with the changes in concepts on the object are revealed: from a historical source as an objectified creation of a person to the system of types of historical sources – and to the universal ontological concept of “the empirical reality of the historical world”.
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Роль понятия бесконечности в философии И.Канта в высшей степени любопытна. Кант как-бы резюмирует в своей философской .системе 200-летний опыт развития науки нового времени. Однако, при чтении его трудов создается впечатление, что все философские бури XVII века, касающиеся актуальной бесконечности, прошли мимо него. А ведь классическая механика, этот “чудо-ребенок” новой цивилизации, обоснованию которой и сам Кант уделяет немало страниц своих сочинений, прогрессирует именно с помощью дифференциального и интегрального исчислений, использующих актуально - бесконечномалую. Разве Кант не понимал значения математического анализа и, тем самым, проблемы бесконечности для механики? Это трудно предположить... Анализ показывает, что кантовское разделение разума на теоретический и практический позволило ему осознать проблему бесконечности в перспективе, далеко выходящей за пределы господствующей в его время “догматической философии”. В этой статье мы анализируем кантовские представления о бесконечности (в основном в рамках его первых двух “Критик”). [...]
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Приказ/Review: Милосав Милосављевић, Социјална истраживања, „Службени гласник“, Београд, 2013.
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The aim of the paper is to show that the standard criticism directed to Kant that he allegedly accepted the uniqueness and objectivity of the three dimensional Euclidean geometry is irrelevant. Long before the birth of non-Euclidean geometries it occurred to Kant that extensions could exist with other properties and dimensions, which describe other possible worlds. And long before Hilary Putnam to explain the differentiation of the notion of straight line that obeys two types of laws – geometrical and physical, Kant has presented the possibility of this differentiation in his first Critique.
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