The authors deal with the classic paradox of ethical theories, “Hume’s guillotine,” based on the contradiction in morality between what is and what should be. At the same time, the theological justification of moral principles is beyond this criticism, because the sacred commandments “by definition” combine what is and what should be, overcoming the “secular” gap between being and duty, and thus “the problem of transition from description to evaluation is removed.” Modern ways of removing this contradiction, revealed by Hume, (...) are considered from several points of view. Special attention is paid to the analogy between the development of ethical and mathematical theories, a synergistic approach to the formation of ethics, as well as to the ethical choice associated with the development of digital reality, which humanity will face soon. A synergistic approach can be viewed as a bridge “over the abyss of two cultures - natural science and humanities.” Now it has become clear that there can be many logics, geometries, versions of analysis of infinitely small, etc. Ethics can also be constructed and then put into practice. A classic example is the ethical code of King Lycurgus. Separate ethical systems are not able to ensure the survival of humanity under extreme conditions. Existence of general ethical rules in global crises allows many to survive. Without them, everyone would die. True amazement is the fact that the eight Dyakonov phase transitions in human history completely coincide with the crises periodicity presented in the text of the Apocalypse, where crises are figuratively called “beasts.” Then a vivid picture is given, a picture of the civilization transformation into a post-singular state, which goes beyond the horizon of scientific forecast. (shrink)

The articles discusses the philosophical foundations and the traditions of the theory of the humanitarian and technological revolution. The subject-matter of HTR theory is the description and forecast of the transition from the industrial to the post-industrial phase of civilization development as well as the strategy and the most effective methods of management of various socio-economic systems. This theory, actively developing in recent years, focuses on goal setting and on determining priorities and development criteria in the field of technology, science (...) and education. The current revolution largely justifies the forecast of D. Bell, an author of the theory of post-industrial development, about the transition from the world of technology to the world of people. The human is the main subject and object of the changes. In this regard, we review an interdisciplinary program on human research, initiated in the 1980s by I.T. Frolov. The ongoing scientific revolution in genetics and the transition to autoevolution make these ideas even more relevant. The concept of universal evolutionism proposed by N.N. Moiseev is fundamental. This concept originates from philosophical and methodological generalizations based on the vast experience of computer modeling of “human-dimensional” systems. The principles of co-evolution of man and biosphere, the strategies for finding compromises are very close to the ecology of technologies, developed by the theory of HTR. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the interdisciplinary concept of self-organization for many scientific fields and, in particular, for the theory of HTR. In our days, proposed by an outstanding mathematician, methodologist and thinker S.P. Kurdyumov, the interpretation of synergetics as a bridge between humanities and natural science, as a common language of natural scientists, mathematicians, scholars has become generally accepted. Kurdyumov predicted that many concepts and ideas of synergetics, through their philosophical understanding, would change the outlook and become an element of scientific culture. We show that this forecast turns into reality and in the process of HTR the ideas of synergetics begin to change our world. We pay special attention to the concept of self-developing systems, the theory of global scientific revolutions and the types of scientific rationality proposed by V.S. Stepin. In this regard, we can say that the HTR brings even more large-scale changes, covering not only science but also technology, society, the inner world of man. Identifying the philosophical foundations of HTR, we contribute to the development of methodology of this approach, enhance intra-scientific reflection and make possible to formulate unsolved problems more accurately. (shrink)

The article considers the possibility of using digital scientific art as a tool for philosophical and aesthetic cognition. On the example of games of cellular automata and from the point of view of the paradigm of synergetics, a large-scale analogy of the dynamics of multi-element distributed systems of various natures is revealed. The question is raised about the nature of beauty, which is interpreted as a fundamental cosmic phenomenon. The concept of protoconstruct is viewed as a mental object, the properties (...) of which are transferred to the objects and phenomena under study. As an example of digital protoconstructs, the article discusses the so-called cellular symmetroids. Cellular symmetroids can be considered from the point of view of scientific art as art objects. At the same time, they represent a deep ontological metaphor. A unique property of cellular symmetroids is spontaneous destruction and transition to quasi-chaotic dynamics. This feature can be linked to the idea of historical time, which is very unusual for mathematical objects. Mathematical structures that arise as a result of calculations according to this model are completely unique and inimitable, like the internal states of the soul or psyche of a thinking subject. At the same time, they are to the same extent determined by the previous state. Integrity, internal unity are inherent not only in symmetric structures but also in the chaos that is born after them, which, in contrast to stereotypical statistical intuitive ideas, is deterministic. However, such an abstract digital art, based on the unconventional mathematics of dynamic chaos, is an accurate ontological metaphor, a visualization of the eidos of the beauty in their relationship with the cosmic logos and the nature of the original creative chaos. (shrink)

Мета. Актуалізувати питання про використання біографічного методу і встановлення його взаємозв'язку з іншими науковими методами та методологічними принципами в історико-антропологічних дослідженнях. Теоретичний базис. Розгляд біографічного методу в історико-антропологічних студіях здійснений у річищі загального теоретичного «ренесансу» класичної гуманітаристики, що значною мірою викликаний невизначеністю і багатозначністю теоретичних дискурсів і дискурсивних практик постмодернізму, висуває перед дослідником низку нових завдань, серед яких – «виявлення неявного», тобто не простого описування результатів культурної діяльності людини в безпосередній даності, а розкривання часом неусвідомлених механізмів цієї діяльності, глибинних «пружин» (...) культури, що забезпечують її рух. Наукова новизна. Автори даної розвідки не торкаються соціологічної проблематики біографічних досліджень, які широко репрезентовані в працях сучасних західних дослідників. Предмет нашого повідомлення – біографічний метод, що є генетично висхідним від Ш.-О. Сент-Бева, який вважав, що головним завданням біографа є здійснення аналізу особистості видатної людини. Очевидність того факту, що дослідження в царині гуманітаристики загалом і в цивільній історії зокрема мають враховувати не тільки зміни соціокультурних аспектів буття, але й відповідну трансформацію методологічних підходів до аналізу епіфеноменів «текучої сучасності», привела нас до розуміння необхідності історіософського дослідження питання про рецепцію біографічного методу в історико-антропологічних працях з наступною історичною, філософською, культурологічною репрезентацією біографічного методу. Висновки. Історіософські трансформації останніх десятиліть з їх радикальною зміною концепцій, методів і прийомів повертають дослідника до вдосконалення біографічної методології, яка сьогодні репрезентує антропоцентризм, що наповнює науку гуманістичним змістом. Використання даної методології потребує від науковця дотримання основних методологічних принципів і оволодіння іншими науковими методами, насамперед діалектикою. (shrink)

The AGI alignment problem has a bimodal distribution of outcomes with most outcomes clustering around the poles of total success and existential, catastrophic failure. Consequently, attempts to solve AGI alignment should, all else equal, prefer false negatives (ignoring research programs that would have been successful) to false positives (pursuing research programs that will unexpectedly fail). Thus, we propose adopting a policy of responding to points of philosophical and practical uncertainty associated with the alignment problem by limiting and choosing necessary assumptions (...) to reduce the risk of false positives. Herein we explore in detail two relevant points of uncertainty that AGI alignment research hinges on---meta-ethical uncertainty and uncertainty about mental phenomena---and show how to reduce false positives in response to them. (shrink)

(1996). The notion of citizenship in France and its redefinition. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 575-579.

The theoretical and practical problems of providing incentives for people's activity in society are becoming increasingly more urgent as the role of the human factor in the development of society grows. In light of modern historical experience, we can see the onesidedness of conceptions according to which the types and directions of activity are mechanically predetermined by conditions external to it, and we can see the necessity of understanding the laws of activity itself in all their complicated dialectical essence. These (...) problems have become particularly important at the present stage of development of Soviet society, when a greater active involvement of the masses and profound changes in social psychology are becoming acutely necessary. (shrink)

system reflected in Saussure's linguistic theory, and so influential in the great progress linguistic theory has made in this century. Indeed, Granger sees linguistic theory as expressing a paradigm for scientific theorizing, which research in other social sciences should adopt. But 'structuralism' as a method in science does not, in Granger's view, begin with Saussure and the linguists. It is nothing less than the strategy of all the sciences, both natural and social, since their beginnings. Now, 'structuralism' is a 'trendy' (...) term no less in Anglophone methodology than in Francophone philosophy. But Granger's employment of the term is not to be assimilated to this trend, nor to the fashionable excesses for which this expression has been a watch word (he explicitly separates himself from this movement in the preface to the second edition). The exact nature of what Granger calls 'structuralist' methods is the subject of a large part of this work, and I will not dwell on it much further in this introduction. Suffice it to say that Granger's demand for structuralist description is nothing less than the recognition that the successful pursuit of science requires that its terms and predicates pick out what we may call 'natural kinds'; that is, describe classes of items that bear uniform nomolog ical relations to one another. A science whose descriptive terms do not meet this condition will never produce any laws that reflect such nomological connections. (shrink)

Background: More and more quantitative information is becoming available about the risks of complications arising from medical treatment. In everyday practice, this raises the question whether each and every risk, however low, should be disclosed to patients. What could be good reasons for doing or not doing so? This will increasingly become a dilemma for practitioners.Objective: To report doctors’ views on whether to disclose or withhold information on low risks of complications.Methods: In a qualitative study design, 37 respondents were included. (...) Focus group interviews were held with 22 respondents and individual in-depth interviews with 15.Results: Doctors have doubts about disclosing or withholding information on complication risk, especially in a risk range of 1 in 200 to 1 in 10 000. Their considerations on whether to disclose or to withhold information depend on a complicated mix of patient and doctor-associated reasons; on medical and personal considerations; and on the kind and purpose of intervention.Discussion: Even though the degree of a risk is important in a doctor’s considerations, the severity of the possible complications and patients’ wishes and competencies have an important role as well. Respondents said that low risks should always be communicated when there are alternatives for the intervention or when the patient may prevent or mitigate the risk. When the appropriateness of disclosing risks is doubtful, doctors should always tell their patients that no intervention is without risk, give them the opportunity to gather all the information they need or want, and enable them to detect a complication at an early stage. (shrink)

The article discusses human dignity in the aspect of modern challenges of technological civilization, which has entered a new stage of its development. Human dignity as a category of ethics remains underestimated, since in the first row of ethical values humanitarians, as a rule, put the categories of freedom and justice. Today, “dignity” acquires a special and higher status, the concept of human dignity is being rethought, going beyond the ethical category itself as a virtue. In the global world, human (...) dignity is a response to such contemporary challenges as the formation of a communicative world community with a focus on digital civilization, the anthropological problem of the future of humanity, the ecological situation on a global scale, the reorientation of the ethical and legal relations of a globalizing world. Human dignity is a problem of national-ethnic and national-state relations in the transition to transnational regulatory interactions. In the interpretation of the nation, the authors do not share the well-known two approaches to understanding the nation, on the one hand ethnocultural, and on the other - national-civil. Both approaches lead, whenever possible or necessary, to the transnational posing of the question, when human dignity becomes a priority regardless of nationality. In this connection, the utopian idea of the possibility of a global ethos is touched upon. The authors focus on the anthropoxy-axiological approach to the understanding of human dignity, where the cosmological principle of human existence is determined by his creative power. The urgency of the problem of human dignity is due to the fact that, as it were, in the modern life world a person did not put the economy above morality, the basis of human dignity in its being is a value moral consciousness, in the depth of which basic human values of transnational nature “work”, contradicting values consumer society driven by practical interests. Human dignity in this regard should be interpreted as an absolute value and at the same time one should take into account the multidimensionality of the problem of dignity in the context of modern globalization processes. Based on the ontological understanding of globalization as megatrends in the self-movement of the natural historical process, the authors substantiate the anthropological value of human dignity, which has universal, transcultural significance. The use of an anthropoxy-axiological approach and interdisciplinary methods reveals the universal value of virtue, based on the anthropo-social moral nature and the creative value of man. The creative transformational activity itself will not be worthy in quality without moral responsibility. The modern concept of human dignity is addressed to the ethics of responsibility, which means responsibility, which highlights the moral and axiological attitude to life, the adoption of responsible decisions in modern conditions of sociocultural interactions. In the context of globalization, the philosophy of human dignity becomes the dominant of all conscious-volitional activities, the core of the moral rethinking of the transnational and national ratio in the light of tolerance, the ability to non-violence. At the same time, the authors indicate in the formulation of the main issue of the philosophy of human dignity the possibility of going beyond the ethical category of human dignity, since the unchanging core of the universal human values of goodness-beauty-truth does not lose its meaning in the global, changing world. (shrink)

This essay discusses a prominent definition of universal concomitance in the Nyäya School of Classical Indian Philosophy. This définition holds that universal concomitance is equivalent to the absence of undercutting conditions. It will be shown that though this definition seems to be inadequate, there is an auxiliary condition that may be added which makes the equivalence between universal concomitance and the absence of undercutting conditions deductively correct. It will then be shown that this auxiliary condition fits well into the Nyäya (...) foundations of logic and that furthermore this auxiliary condition does not unreasonably restrict the applicability of the definition of universal concomitance as the absence of undercutting conditions. Hence, the conclusion is that this interpretation is a good candidate for how the definition of universal concomitance as the absence of undercutting conditions should be understood. (shrink)