There are important studies that have directly focused on how, in times of conflict, it is possible for previously law abiding people to commit the most atrocious acts of cruelty and violence. The work of Erich Fromm, Hannah Arendt, Zygmunt Bauman and Ernest Becker have all contemplated the driving force of aggression and mass violence to further our understanding of how people are capable of engaging in extreme forms of cruelty and violence. This paper specifically addresses these issues by focusing (...) on C. P. Taylor’s play Good. This provocative play examines how a seemingly ‘good’ and intelligent university professor can gradually become caught up in the workings of the Third Reich. Taylor highlights the importance of appreciating how people can be steadily incorporated into an ideologically destructive system. I argue that the theatre is a powerful medium to explore these complex issues. The audience of Good find themselves confronted with the following question—‘What would you have done?’. (shrink)

Ernest Becker’s work addresses the implications that arise from being aware of our own mortality. Like Sartre, Becker recognises that human beings have the potential to transcend and look beyond their immediate situation, but his work also confronts the darker aspects of human existence that arise from our self-awareness. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of Becker’s work and to show the potential of Becker’s theory of evil to inform a number of contemporary debates in the (...) social sciences. Although Becker’s work directly examines why human beings can act so inhumanly towards one another, his theory is not altogether pessimistic. The paper concludes by arguing that Becker’s theory intended to create new possibilities for living in more creative and humane world. (shrink)

Studies of Bernard Mandeville by economists and historians ofeconomic thought have focused overwhelmingly on the problem ofsituating his work within the development of the theory of laissez-faireand evaluating his influence on major figures in the ScottishEnlightenment, especially Adam Smith. This paper explores Mandeville’seconomic thought through the lens of a very different transition:England’s rapid growth following the Glorious Revolution and itsgradual eclipse of Dutch economic hegemony. By situating Mandevillewithin an Anglo-Dutch context and carefully examining his commentson the Dutch in Remark Q (...) of The fable of the bees, the paper shows themanner in which Mandeville’s ideas both appropriated lessons fromDutch history and sought to revise ideas about the Dutch current amonghis English contemporaries. The paper thus sheds new light on coreconcepts in Mandeville’s economic thought and permits exploration ofan important moment in the development of political economy. (shrink)

This book has been specifically designed to support the student of the IB Diploma Programme in Theory of Knowledge. It will stimulate students to think about learning and knowledge from their own and from others' perspectives in a way that crosses disciplines and cultures. It will encourage reflection, discussion, critical thinking, and awareness of the ways in which knowledge is constructed, and will lead students to recognize the implications of knowledge for issues of global concern. The book is rooted in (...) classroom experience and provides class activities and supporting material for the whole of the TOK course. (shrink)

Build confident critical thinkers who can process and articulate complex ideas in relevant, real-life contexts. The inquiry-based approach actively drives independent thought and helps learners connect ideas and frameworks while pushing them above and beyond typical TOK boundaries. This online course book is completely mapped to the 2013 syllabus.

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 61-63.

The Curry-Howard isomorphism states an amazing correspondence between systems of formal logic as encountered in proof theory and computational calculi as found in type theory. For instance, minimal propositional logic corresponds to simply typed lambda-calculus, first-order logic corresponds to dependent types, second-order logic corresponds to polymorphic types, sequent calculus is related to explicit substitution, etc. The isomorphism has many aspects, even at the syntactic level: formulas correspond to types, proofs correspond to terms, provability corresponds to inhabitation, proof normalization corresponds to (...) term reduction, etc. But there is more to the isomorphism than this. For instance, it is an old idea---due to Brouwer, Kolmogorov, and Heyting---that a constructive proof of an implication is a procedure that transforms proofs of the antecedent into proofs of the succedent; the Curry-Howard isomorphism gives syntactic representations of such procedures. The Curry-Howard isomorphism also provides theoretical foundations for many modern proof-assistant systems (e.g. Coq). This book give an introduction to parts of proof theory and related aspects of type theory relevant for the Curry-Howard isomorphism. It can serve as an introduction to any or both of typed lambda-calculus and intuitionistic logic. Key features - The Curry-Howard Isomorphism treated as common theme - Reader-friendly introduction to two complementary subjects: Lambda-calculus and constructive logics - Thorough study of the connection between calculi and logics - Elaborate study of classical logics and control operators - Account of dialogue games for classical and intuitionistic logic - Theoretical foundations of computer-assisted reasoning · The Curry-Howard Isomorphism treated as the common theme. · Reader-friendly introduction to two complementary subjects: lambda-calculus and constructive logics · Thorough study of the connection between calculi and logics. · Elaborate study of classical logics and control operators. · Account of dialogue games for classical and intuitionistic logic. · Theoretical foundations of computer-assisted reasoning. (shrink)

This volume gathers together for the first time are all the key texts in a crucial debate in modern philosophy, centered on Leibniz's famous 1695 essay, the "New System of the Nature of Substances and their Communication," in which he introduced his strikingly original theory of metaphysics. His "system" became increasingly famous and drew him into discussion and development of these ideas, both in public and in private, with a variety of thinkers, most notably the great French philosopher Pierre Bayle. (...) Woolhouse's and Francks's new English edition gives the only full representation of this debate, and will therefore be essential reading for anyone who wishes to gain a proper understanding of Leibniz's philosophy and its intelletual context. All the texts are newly translated and extensively annotated; many appear in English for the first time. (shrink)

Commentary on Tarkasaṅgraha of Annambhaṭṭa, 17th cent., work on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy; critical edition with complete text.

Seminar papers on Dvaitadvaita philosophy with reference to Advaitabrahmasiddhi of Madhusūdana Sarasvatī and Nyāyāmr̥ta of Vyāsatīrtha, 1460-1539.

-- v. 2. Pami︠a︡ti Vitalii︠a︡ Ivanovicha Svint︠s︡ova.

REVIEWS: This is a very helpful volume and a good addition to contemporary scholarship on the valuable and little-known Jaina contribution to philosophy. Prof.Nagin Shah has edited the book well, including clear introduction and a very complete index.

This chapter offers a proceduralist argument against capital punishment. More specifically, it contends that the possibility of irrevocable mistakes precludes the just administration of the death penalty. At stake is a principle of political morality: legal institutions must strive to remedy their mistakes and to compensate those who suffer from wrongful sanctions. The incompatibility of remedy and execution is the crux of the irrevocability argument: because the wrongly executed cannot enjoy the morally required compensation, execution is impermissible. Along with defending (...) his key premises, Yost explains the complicated role that sentencing uncertainty plays in the argument. He concludes by noting some of the flaws in substantive consequentialist and retributivist justifications of capital punishment. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard is one of the outstanding representatives both of French poststructuralism and postmodernism. Because of radical criticism it was not possible for him to establish a logically coherent theoretical system; the philosophical aspects of his work are specifically merged, therefore, into a critical asystematic fragmentarism, which is the subject of this work. From the critique of the political economy of the sign, through critiques of rationalism, reality, progress, truth, history to the theory of simulation, Baudrillard's specific para-concepts (fatal strategy, (...) symbolic exchange, seduction, hyperreality, pataphysics, etc.) are constantly fragmentarily present in the development of his thought. These concepts are Baudrillard's attempt at disengagement from modern philosophy and his new, unsystematic postmodern view of reality in general. In the analysis of binary metaphysical oppositions (reality-simulation, subject-object, knowledge-seduction, history-end, radical-irradical nihilism, metaphysics (God)-pataphysics), Baudrillard is radically exclusive through the arbitrary preference of one over the other concept. his ideas, it is possible to conclude that these dualistic antagonisms are also paradoxically compatible in his system, this compatibility is very close to the irrational mysticism of this thinker. This book is a clear and lucid presentation of this unique brand of postmodernism to English speaking scholarship. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is aimed at substantiation of the process of formation of various human images in the postmodernism era in the context of biophilosophy, taking into account the need to find an adequate response to historical challenges and the production of new value orientations reflecting succession of civilization development. Theoretical basis. The author in his theoretical constructs proceeds from the need of taking into account the biophilosophical aspect of postmodern man, as the one who, remaining a representative of the (...) species Homo sapiens, began to dynamically change, losing its own natural and functional qualities, acquiring to a large extent the socio-technology-related qualities. The thesis that in the postmodern society the moral and legal foundations of existence of human being, as the subject of actions and responsibility for these actions, practically coincide with the biological foundations is taken as initial argument. New biological knowledge, as well as the related technologies, orient the public consciousness towards production of fundamentally new or modernization of the existing bio-philosophical ideas. The author's vision of the anthropological collision of the Post-Modernism era is caused by the fact that the issues of a postmodern man acquire a special urgency at the end of the ХХ – early XXI century. A progressive disproportion between a human being, whose abilities as a representative of the species Homo sapiens are biologically limited, and the human community, which sees no limits in its information and technological expansion, is of current interest. Originality. The author reveals the key features of the Post-Modernism era, in which a fundamentally different civilizational space originates, and where a new type of person emerges in its internal culture, which is called the postmodern man. The postmodern man was considered through the prism of bio-philosophy. Its interest in man is caused by his or her place in nature, the prospects of development at the individual, population and species levels. Conclusions. In the process of development of bio-philosophy, its research field will be naturally expanded with the use of philosophical means of perception of life as such and filling the bio-philosophy with philosophical and biological issues. In contemporary conditions, the study of the boundaries of biological reality and its previously unknown properties, definition of new horizons of theoretical knowledge in the science of life, the critical rethinking of the concepts of biocentrism and anthropocentrism in the space of modern scientific knowledge, the definition of perspective trends in the study of man, his or her place and role in the planetary being is of great importance. (shrink)