In this study, Qāḍī Abd al-Jābbār’s views on knowing Allah (ma‘rifatullah) and following issues have been analysed. In this context, either the divine message has reached to a person or not, it is examined whether ma‘rifatullah is obligatory (wajib) upon him. Subsequently, it is discussed whether this obligation is ensured by reasoning (‘aql) or revelation (naql). Furthermore, while keeping in mind the role of intellect (nazar) and argumentation (istidlāl), we have established and evaluated religious state and source of nazar and (...) istidlāl. Also, we discussed to what extend God can be the subject of knowledge and from which aspects He can be known. Besides, we discussed whether ma‘rifatullah is an obligation and if not what its justification is. In addition, we examined whether imitative knowledge (taqlīd) is possible in the case of ma‘rifatullah or not and whether it’s sufficient to know God just by taqlīd without the reasoning at all. Finally, Qāḍī Abd al-Jābbār’s opinions on the religious situation of people to whom the divine revelation did not reach at all and so they lack of knowledge on God. (shrink)

This paper presents a historical-philosophical reconstruction of Leibniz’s theory of education. In the introduction, I point out the exegetical problems involved in locating Leibniz’s “philosophy of education” within the broader corpus of his works and in uncovering an appropriate theoretical framework within which it is possible to contextualise and reconstruct Leibniz’s thought on education. It is then shown that this framework is provided by Leibniz’s practical philosophy, i.e. his ideas about the optimal state and the common good. I analyse the (...) key theses of Leibniz’s ethics and political philosophy to uncover the background of the idea of the respublica optima and explain how education, in Leibniz’s view, should enable the perfection of the individual and society and contribute to the realisation of the common good. Finally, it is argued that in his educational project Leibniz articulated an idea of the Enlightenment that is far more progressive than the educational ideas of the philosophers we usually associate with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. (shrink)

This Element considers Kant's conception of self-control and the role it plays in his moral philosophy. It offers a detailed interpretation of the different terms used by Kant to explain the phenomenon of moral self-control, such as 'autocracy' and 'inner freedom'. Following Kant's own suggestions, the proposed reading examines the Kantian capacity for self-control as an ability to 'abstract from' various sensible impressions by looking beyond their influence on the mind. This analysis shows that Kant's conception of moral self-control involves (...) two intimately related levels, which need not meet the same criteria. One level is associated with realizing various ends, the other with setting moral ends. The proposed view most effectively accommodates self-control's role in the adoption of virtuous maxims and ethical end-setting. It explains why self-control is central to Kant's conception of virtue and sheds new light on his discussions of moral strength and moral weakness. (shrink)

Neuroscience is one of the most propulsive of all sciences and very often, directly or not, it tries to answer the question: What is man? However, neuroscientific research does not acknowledge the concept of man as a unity of body and soul. The modern scientific research paradigm therefore rests on physicalism, while theologians are turning towards non-reductive physicalism. In this paper, we will highlight a few key points of the theory of philosopher and theologian Nancey Murphy, which is based on (...) the deconstruction of Aquinas's thought about the human soul and its reduction to the physical. We aim to show that she neglected the full scope of Aquinas teachings. In the second part of this paper, for the scientific paradigm of humans we shall propose new-old hylomorphism, and try to complement certain points of such a system with modern neuroscientific views. The aim of this work is to offer advice for the interdisciplinary cooperation between neuroscience, philosophy and theology alongside the guidelines of Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphism. (shrink)

_Freiheit nach Kant_ analyzes Kant’s conception of freedom from a historical and systematic point of view. It considers its position in the history of philosophy, its impact on German Idealism, and finally discusses the systematic relevance of Kant’s theory.

Aristotle has interpreted research done by empirical methods using metaphysical concepts extensively. According to some authors, his metaphysically intoned philosophy of biology is compatible with the modern theory of evolution and with some of the essential topics of ecological ethics. We will try to show how the interpretation of the substantial whole, under the aspect of the notion of potentiality, is Aristotle’s contribution to the debates of eco-ethical holism. Furthermore, we will show how Hans Jonas also finds the possibility of (...) valuing the individual organic substance in Aristotle’s works, which are not only representatives of the human species. Hans Jonas pleads for a revision of the modern theory of evolution, which, combined with some of Aristotle’s metaphysical elements, could avoid the reductionism to which it was exposed after Descartes. (shrink)

Willensstruktur und Handlungsorganisation in Kants Theorie der praktischen Freiheit provides a detailed reconstruction of Kant’s theory of free volitional self-determination. It systematically reveals all aspects of the theory that intrinsically determine the organization and coordination of action under the guidelines of freedom.

These notes discuss formalizing contexts as first class objects. The basic relationships are: ist(c,p) meaning that the proposition p is true in the context c, and value(c,p) designating the value of the term e in the context c Besides these, there are lifting formulas that relate the propositions and terms in subcontexts to possibly more general propositions and terms in the outer context. Subcontextx are often specialised with regard to time, place and terminology. Introducing contexts as formal objects will permit (...) axiomatizations in limited contexts to be expanded to transcend the original limitations. This seems necessary to provide AI programs using logic with certain capabilities that human fact representation and human reasoning possess. Fully implementing transcendence seems to require further extensions to mathematical logic, ie. beyond the nonmonotonic inference methods first invented in AI and now studied as a new domain of logic. (shrink)

As a rule, the Kantian capacity for self-control is interpreted as a kind of tool for compelling ourselves to act on the basis of the maxims we have adopted. To the extent that we merely acknowledge its role in following already-adopted maxims, however, we fail to capture the distinctive aspect of moral self-control identified by Kant. In this paper, I propose a fuller account of the Kantian capacity for moral self-control; I do so mainly by analyzing this capacity as our (...) ability to “abstract from” various sensible impressions. This analysis shows that Kant’s conception of moral self-control involves two intimately related levels, which are subject to different criteria. Whereas the first level is connected to our ability to adopt moral maxims and requires that we abstract from all sensible impressions, the second is associated with our ability to follow these maxims and does not necessarily require this radical abstraction. (shrink)

In this paper, the phenomenon of the stranger is considered from a philosophical and theological point of view. In the introduction, a brief etymological analysis of the term stranger was made, after which it was pointed out that the term remains ambiguous in relation to others – strangers and beloved, but also in relation to ourselves and, finally, in relation to God. In the first part of the paper, we offer phenomenological and existential reflections on the structure of the encounter (...) with the stranger, primarily through the categories of place/space as the central determinant of the stranger’s identity, then through the phenomena of the fearful and the fascinating, of change and wonder, of face and fear. In the second part of the paper, we consider the concept of the stranger with the help of Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti, which harmoniously draws on philosophical accents but also offers a theological extension of understanding the encounter with the stranger as an encounter with the neighbor. Finally, we present a synthesis of philosophical and theological understandings of the concept of the stranger. (shrink)

Kant's conception of conscience has been relatively neglected by Kant scholars and the secondary literature offers no explanation of whether (and if so, how) his treatments of conscience fit together. To achieve a fuller understanding of Kant's general position on conscience, I question the widespread assumption that conscience is a feeling and account for the nature of conscience and its multiple functions. On my reading, conscience is ‘the internal judge’ whose verdict triggers certain emotional reactions. Through the moral self-evaluative activities (...) of this inner judge, we come to know our character better. In the judgements of conscience, we take account of various psychological conditions while judging both whether these conditions stand in the way of our establishing moral maxims and whether we hold ourselves accountable for our actions. By arousing certain feelings, these judgments also move us to moral action. (shrink)

On the one hand, Kant seems to suggest that moral weakness is merely expressed at the level of following maxims. On the other hand, he addresses moral weakness as the first grade of our propensity to evil, which implies that moral weakness is also expressed at the level of adopting maxims. There is still a lack of clarity in the literature concerning how the relationship between these two aspects is to be understood, and a proper account of the nature of (...) the maxims of the morally weak has yet to be offered. Drawing on my earlier interpretation of moral strength, I shall propose a reading of Kant's account of moral weakness that consistently unifies both aspects. On my interpretation, the morally weak agent lacks the moral strength that he ought to acquire through the continuous exercise of his power of self‐control; he therefore fails both to set himself particular moral ends in adopting his maxims and to follow his maxims by realizing such ends. His intention to do what the moral law demands is overly general: It does not set a particular moral end, which is what virtue requires. (shrink)

This article examines two modes of the canceling of time in a comparative analysis that ought to show the passage from the aesthetic over coming of the form of time in Kant to the historical over coming of natural time in Hegel. The essay begins with a problematization of the form of time in Kant?s first Critique and with the question whet her Kant displaces time outside the framework of mere condition of receptivity. Thereafter we will analyze the key passage (...) from Analytics of the Sublime where Kant writes about the cancellation of time-condition and we will interpret this in the light of an ontology of the eventuality and in the historico-political context of French revolution. Although Kant still does not think time as historical time, the cancellation of time-condition in the experience of the sublime shall be considered as the act of the structuring of time that is emancipated from natural linearity and causal continuity. The thinking of historical time will take place only with He gel, i.e. with his identification of time and concept. In this sense we will analyze Hegel?s notion of "conceptual history" in order to draw a conclusion that in Phenomenology of Spirit is al so at work a modus of annihilation of the natural, linear time, but unlike Kant it is truly articulated as historical occurrence. Time is constituted only as annihilated, since it is the intuitive, sensible, natural and external meaning of time what is sublated, while time in its originary dimension is produced only as hi story-time. nema. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate a peculiar acoustic feature of translation – its echoicity. In the first step, I will revisit the story of Echo, the mythological character who repeats the words of the other and distorts its meaning. Moving from this figure, the article will pose the question of how the mechanism of repetition is structured in translation. This will be done through an analysis of the passages from Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator”, in which (...) translation is explicitly described as an echo, involved in a chain of multiple resonances. It will be showed that Benjamin’s text as well, especially its terminology, acts through the same multiple resonances. In the last part of the paper, the problem of contradiction will be introduced, making reverberate some concepts and points from Hegelian philosophy, in order to argue the contradictory process of echoing the voice of the other in translation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the idea of universality through the lens of translation, in an attempt to sketch out what can be called a translational universality. As the starting point, I will take into consideration the recent Étienne Balibar's works on the universals, and especially his strategy of translation, i.e. the strategy of enunciating the universal by means of translational process. In the next step, I will analyze political consequences of the universalizing practices of translation, which (...) due to their capacity to enunciate the universals, according to Balibar's thesis, have generated political communities. In order to examine this aspect, I will discuss the constitutive role of translation in the formation of German cultural identity in the 19th Century, by exposing Humboldt-Schleirmacherian model of translation. In doing so I will lean on Berman's study on translation in Romantic Germany and on Venuti's political reading of nationalist narratives of typically German foreignizing translation. The conception of Bildung, envisaged as an experience of the otherness through translation, will be approached as a historical model to understand the notion of translational universality that is at issue in this paper. After these historical and philosophical analyses, which in translation view one possible way to articulate a certain struggle over the universal from the particular position of cultural difference, the article will address some questions regarding our contemporary situation: what would be a historically different and potentially emancipatory form of universality? What are the translational capacities of such a universality to generate a new framework for political communities? (shrink)

U ovom radu autor izlaze Hajdegerovo shvatanje sustine tehnike kao opasnosti i mogucnost umetnosti kao ono-spasonosnog. U tom smislu autor smatra da Hajdeger promislja sustinu tehnike kao i umetnosti polazeci od povesne konstelacije istine bivstvovanja ili udesa razotkrivanja. Ovo povesno promisljanje podrzano je Hajdegerovim etimoloskim analizama pojmova poiesis i techne.

U ovom clanku se razmatra Gadamerovo shvatanje vaznih hermeneutickih pojmova predrasude, autoriteta i tradicije. Izvodjenje razumevanja, u kojem su predrasude neizbezne, odredjeno je kao proces njihovog neprekidnog korigovanja. Pozitivno vrednovanje pojmovnog para autoriteta i tradicije karakteristican je motiv filozofske hermeneutike, za koju autoritet ne poseduje negativni prizvuk, vec je zasnovan na slobodnom i racionalnom prihvatanju. Povezanost razumevanja sa tradicijom je dinamicni odnos, u kojem ni tradicija ni subjekat razumevanja ne ostaju nepromenjeni. Odatle se izvode dve implikacije: da se smisao nekog (...) teksta ne moze iscrpsti i da je njegovo razumevanje beskonacan proces; i da suspenzija predrasuda uspeva tek tamo gde ih takoreci 'filtrira' tradicija. Autor istice napetost u Gadamerovom shvatanju hermeneuticke produktivnosti tradicije i vremenskog odstojanja kao instance koja doprinosi razumevanju. (shrink)

Bilješke koje je Martin Heidegger unosio u takozvane »crne bilježnice« potakle su, netom nakon objavljivanja, intenzivne diskusije, osobito oko pitanja antisemitizma i nacionalsocijalizma. Je li se Heideggerova osobna naklonost ka ovim ideologijama odrazila i na njegovo filozofsko djelo? U ovom ogledu razmatra se jedna, s ovim pitanjima povezana, važna tema u Crnim bilježnicama – tema sveučilišta. Ona postaje frekventnija u tri navrata, obilježena značajnim događajima u Heideggerovoj profesionalnoj biografiji: preuzimanjem funkcije rektora sveučilišta u Freiburgu, napuštanjem te funkcije te isključenjem iz (...) nastave u sklopu poratne denacifikacije Njemačke. Pokazuje se da shvaćanje sveučilišta u Crnim bilježnicama odgovara idejama predočenim u Heideggerovu rektorskom govoru, kao i da to shvaćanje nije jednako nacionalsocijalističkom, već izražava filozofovo »narodnjačko« misaono usmjerenje. Iako posjeduje neke elemente vokabulara koji su bili prisutni u nacističkoj propagandi, Heidegger svoje stavove o stvarnosti i budućnosti sveučilišta integrira s drugim svojim idejama – kritikom svođenja znanja na tehničke aspekte, kritikom izoliranja znanosti u samostalna područja i uopće kritikom zapadnjačkog mišljenja. The notes that Martin Heidegger made in the so-called Black Notebooks stimulated, immediately after publication, intense discussions, especially on the issue of anti-Semitism and National Socialism. Does Heidegger’s personal fondness for these ideologies reflect on his philosophical work? In this essay, one important topic related to these issues in Black Notebooks is discussed – the topic of university. It became more frequent on three occasions, marked by significant events in Heidegger’s professional biography: taking over as rector of the University of Freiburg, leaving that position, and exclusion from teaching as part of the postwar denazification of Germany. It turns out that the understanding of the university in the Black Notebooks corresponds to the ideas presented in Heidegger’s rector’s speech, and that this understanding is not equally National Socialist, but expresses the philosopher’s “populist” thinking. Although he possesses some elements of vocabulary that were present in Nazi propaganda, Heidegger integrates his views on the reality and future of the university with his other ideas – a critique of reducing knowledge to technical aspects, a critique of isolating science into independent fields, and a critique of Western thought. (shrink)

The notes that Martin Heidegger made in the so-called Black Notebooks stimulated, immediately after publication, intense discussions, especially on the issue of anti-Semitism and National Socialism. Does Heidegger’s personal fondness for these ideologies reflect on his philosophical work? In this essay, one important topic related to these issues in Black Notebooks is discussed – the topic of university. It became more frequent on three occasions, marked by significant events in Heidegger’s professional biography: taking over as rector of the University of (...) Freiburg, leaving that position, and exclusion from teaching as part of the postwar denazification of Germany. It turns out that the understanding of the university in the Black Notebooks corresponds to the ideas presented in Heidegger’s rector’s speech, and that this understanding is not equally National Socialist, but expresses the philosopher’s “populist” thinking. Although he possesses some elements of vocabulary that were present in Nazi propaganda, Heidegger integrates his views on the reality and future of the university with his other ideas – a critique of reducing knowledge to technical aspects, a critique of isolating science into independent fields, and a critique of Western thought. (shrink)

The scientific papers published in a special edition of the journal “Scientia et Fides” are the result of an international scientific project titled “The Dynamic Theodicy Model: Understanding God, Evil, and Evolution.” The project leaders are Prof. Piotr Roszak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) and Prof. Saša Horvat (University of Rijeka), under the auspices of the University of Oxford and the John Templeton Foundation. Other members of the project team include Grzegorz Karwasz, Michał Oleksowicz, Tomasz Huzarek, and Jan Wółkowski.

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 106 Heft: 3 Seiten: 487-506.

People’s affective experiences can be influenced by multiple informational inputs. It remains unclear however how this occurs? In this paper, we investigate the construction of affective experience...

_Der „innere Gerichtshof“ der Vernunft_ explores Kant’s theory of conscience and its historical reception in German Idealism in the context of practical philosophy and the philosophy of religion.

In this text the author argues that the major achievement of Schelling’s aesthetics in his System of Transcendental Idealism consists in its contribution to the theory of self-consciousness. He emphasizes that a detailed interpretation of the underlying concepts of intellectual and ideal (vollkommen) intuition provides an adequate approach to the understanding of the systematic function of the philosophy of art within the system of knowledge including the unconscious sphere of self knowledge and self realization.

Hölderlin’s „Urteil und Sein“ is certainly one of the most intensively discussed fragments in German Idealism. Since Dieter Henrich’s influential interpretation from 1965 it is firmly believed that Urteil und Sein represents a key reference for a unique and „courageous attack“ on Fichte’s principle of philosophy, the „Ich“ of the intellectual intuition. According to Henrich and his followers, Hölderlin argues that the principle of philosophy ought to be „Sein“ instead of „Ich“. In contrast to Henrich, I believe that Urteil und (...) Sein does not contain any kind of critical remarks on Fichte’s philosophy at all. To follow my argumentation, it is only required to avoid the confusion between the content of the intellectual intuition and self-consciousness.Hölderlins Fragment Urteil und Sein zählt zu den bedeutendsten Dokumenten der klassischen deutschen Philosophie und ist seit Henrichs wirkungsmächtiger Interpretation 1965/66 von nahezu allen namhaften deutschen Idealismusforschern Henrichkonform interpretiert worden. Es gilt als einmalige Referenz für eine ebenso einmalige Kritik am Subjekt als Prinzip der Philosophie – namentlich an Fichtes Prinzip. In diesem Diskussionsbeitrag werfe ich die Frage auf, ob dies wirklich der Fall ist, und vertrete die These, dass in Urteil und Sein keinerlei Kritik an Fichtes Philosophie nachweisbar ist. Meine Argumentation beruht auf der Unterscheidung zwischen dem „Ich“ als gedanklichen Gehalt der intellektuellen Anschauung und dem Selbstbewusstsein als Ausdruck der reflexiven Gewahrwerdens seiner selbst im Bewusstsein, nämlich „Ich bin Ich“. (shrink)

The immediacy of daily encounters with gender roles, as well as the specific features of authoritarian mediation in their social shaping, make an analysis of gendered social interaction indispensable. In this paper the analysis is centered on the concept of social character, with special emphasis on authoritarianism as a continuous determinant of the transformation of natural sex into social construct of gender. It is precisely the authoritarian personality type that is the basis for alienated gender, dominated by sexism, a?natural? belonging (...) to the private or the public sphere of social life, suppression of individual human capacities, and reduction of choice. After a review of the theoretical conceptions of social character and authoritarianism, a historical-comparative analysis of authoritarianism is offered, where the latter is seen as an element of the social character within the perspective of the typology traditional - modern - postmodern society. It is argued in conclusion that, in spite of certain emancipatory achievements, men and women still tend to escape into the security of authoritarian alienation. Feminist theory remains a basic source for reflecting on these processes; therefore the author pleads for a wider acceptance of feminist insights as contributions to establishing a postmodern, interpretive?sociology in a new key?. Analiza drustvene interakcije medju polovima nametnuta je neposrednoscu svakodnevnog susretanja sa polnim ulogama, kao i specificnostima autoritarnog posredovanja u drustvenom uoblicavanju tih uloga. U ovom radu, analiza je organizovana oko pojma drustvenog karaktera, pri cemu se poseban naglasak stavlja na autoritarnost kao kontinuiranu determinantu preobrazaja prirodnog pola u drustveno konstruisanu kategoriju roda. Upravo je autoritarni tip licnosti podloga za otudjenu polnost, u kojoj dominiraju seksizam,?prirodno? pripadanje privatnoj ili javnoj sferi drustvenog zivota, suzbijanje individualnih ljudskih potencijala i suzavanje mogucnosti izbora. Posle pregleda teorijskih koncepcija drustvenog karaktera i pojma autoritarnosti, nudi se istorijsko-uporedna analiza prisustva autoritarnosti kao elementa drustvenog karaktera iz perspektive tipologije tradicionalno - moderno - postmoderno drustvo. Zakljucuje se da, i pored izvesnog ostvarenog emancipacijskog hoda, muskarci i zene jos uvek teze bekstvu u sigurnost autoritarne otudjenosti. Feministicka teorija ostaje nezaobilazna osnova za promisljanje ovih procesa, te se pledira za sire usvajanje feministickih uvida kao doprinosa oblikovanju jedne postmoderne, razumevajuce?sociologije u novome kljucu?. (shrink)

I develop here a Kantian framework for understanding conscience in order to examine whether moral flaws of psychopaths are traceable to their dysfunctional conscience. When understood as the reflective capacity for moral self-assessment that triggers certain emotional reactions, conscience proves to be a fruitful tool for explaining psychopathic moral incompetence. First, I show how the unrealistic moral self-assessment of psychopaths affects their competence in judging moral issues and in being motivated to act morally. I then highlight how focusing on this (...) specific rational deficit of psychopaths significantly modifies the status of rationalism within the contemporary dispute as to whether psychopathy supports sentimentalism exclusively. (shrink)

Psychopaths’ Dysfunctional Conscience and their Moral Incompetence1I develop here a Kantian framework for understanding conscience in order to examine whether moral flaws of psychopaths are traceable to their dysfunctional conscience. When understood as the reflective capacity for moral self-assessment that triggers certain emotional reactions, conscience proves to be a fruitful tool for explaining psychopathic moral incompetence. First, I show how the unrealistic moral self-assessment of psychopaths affects their competence in judging moral issues and in being motivated to act morally. I (...) then highlight how focusing on this specific rational deficit of psychopaths significantly modifies the status of rationalism within the contemporary dispute as to whether psychopathy supports sentimentalism alone. (shrink)

Most scholars assume that Kantian moral strength is needed only when it comes to following maxims. However, accounts based on this assumption can be challenged by Kant’s claim that virtue, as moral strength of the human will, can never become a habit because its maxims must be freely adopted in new situations. Even some accounts that are not based on this assumption fail to meet this challenge. By drawing on my interpretation of the Kantian capacity for self-control, I propose a (...) twofold account of moral strength that can accommodate Kant’s point that maxims of virtue must always be freely adopted. (shrink)

The problem of the fictional truthfulness of deviant evaluations is a description of a paradox that has become the subject of debate in the philosophy of literature of the analytical tradition in the last thirty years. Philosophers such as Walton, Tanner, Moran, Gendler, and others have constructed “mini-stories” in order to show that the authors of fiction, regardless of the almost unlimited powers of what they can make true in their fictional storyworlds cannot successfully construct a fiction in which an (...) objectively false evaluation would nevertheless be fictionally true in the story. For example, someone comes up with a fictional account in which a brutal unmotivated murder takes place. The author merely postulates such an event, and then readers accept it as true in the story. But let us imagine that the description of the murder also contains the evaluation of such an act as a morally right thing to do. We do not accept an evaluation that we consider “deviant” in relation to our current (moral) beliefs as an integral part of the fictional world, even though the author asks us to do so. The paradox is that it seems to be a basic convention of fiction that all third-person narrative statements that cannot be attributed to fictional characters are always fictionally true. This seems to constitute a major restriction to the narratorial authority prompting us to question our usual understanding of the phenomenon of fiction. However, by analysing specific “mini-fictions”, the article argues that (i) there is no good reason to assume that deviant evaluations in these mini-stories are uttered by some thirdperson narratorial voice that cannot be identified with a fictional character; (ii) that deviant evaluations must always be voiced by a personal narrator; (iii) that such personal narrators are never sensu stricto “omniscient” and that we do not need to trust them unquestioningly when, for example, they evaluate a murder as “the right thing to do”. The whole paradox, we claim, is just a pseudo-problem generated by ignoring concrete reading practices and a simplified understanding of narrative conventions. (shrink)

The notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a modern political phenomenon – the merging of art and life and the artistic transformation of life in its totality – has been limited to public political spectacle and the theatrical enactments of state programs. In contrast, this article about the Soviet 1920s and 1930s looks at everyday life or, in Russian, byt, as the primary domain of modern aesthetico-political intervention. The successful ordering of everyday life according to the principles of communism would mean (...) that even the most intimate aspects of citizens’ lives become part of a total work of art, which now encompasses not only the public but also the private sphere. The author traces the evolution of byt reform from the aesthetic associations between bureaucrats and artists of the 1920s to the 1930s mobilization of ordinary citizens as artists who mould their everyday environments in accordance with Stalinist politics. (shrink)

In his ontological argument Gödel says nothing about its underlying logic. The argument is modal and at least of second-order and since S5 axiom is used so it is widely accepted that the logic of the argument is the S5 second-order modal logic. However, there is a step in the proof in which Gödel applies the necessitation rule on the assumptions of the argument (see [3]). This is repeated by all of his followers (see [1] and [5]). This application of (...) the necessitation rule can seriously harm the consequence relation of the logic of the ontological argument. It seems that the only way to preserve the modal logic S5 for the ontological argument is to assume some of its axioms in the necessitated form. (shrink)

The semantic fluency task is a widely used clinical tool in the diagnostic process of Alzheimer's disease. The task requires efficient mapping of the semantic space to produce as many items as possible within a semantic category. We examined whether healthy volunteers and patients with early Alzheimer's disease take advantage of and travel in the semantic space differently. With focus on the animal fluency task, we sought to emulate the detailed structure of the multidimensional semantic space by utilizing word2vec-method from (...) the natural language processing domain. To render the resulting multidimensional semantic space visually comprehensible, we applied a dimensionality reduction algorithm, which enabled a straightforward division of the semantic space into sub-categories. Moving in semantic space was quantified with the number of items created, sub-categories visited, and switches and returns to these sub-categories. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to predict the diagnostic group with these independent variables. We found that returning to a sub-category provided additional information, besides the number of words produced in the task, to differentiate patients with Alzheimer's dementia from both amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment patients and healthy controls. The results suggest that the frequency of returning to a sub-category may serve as an additional aid for clinicians in diagnosing early Alzheimer's disease. Moreover, our results imply that the combination of word2vec and subsequent t-SNE-visualization may offer a valuable tool for examining the semantic space and its sub-categories. (shrink)

Studies of the familial association of physical activity and sedentary behavior have increased in recent years. However, there is a lack of studies that have objectively examined the correlates between parents, grandparents, and childrens' PA. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to measure PA using accelerometers to determine the extent to which PA and SB correlate among parents, grandparents, and children. A sample of 169 children between 11 and 14 years, 225 parents, and 52 grandparents were recruited for the (...) current study. Accelerometers RM42 were used to determine PA levels of children, parents, and grandparents. Epoch length was 6 s. Mothers' moderate-to-vigorous PA was associated with children's MVPA of children's MVPA. In contrast, grandfathers' sedentary behavior was a significant predictor of children's sedentary behavior. The results of the current study suggest that parental involvement in PA, particularly by mothers, is important for children's PA and, accordingly, healthy outcomes. (shrink)