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Research objective: The aim of the paper is to go into some questionable matters pertaining to “Bildung” and especially religious “Bildung”, and question their political implications. The research problem and methodology: Developments in society, especially o economical developments have a great influence to the area of “Bildung” as well as to the area of religious “Bildung”. Current concepts should be analysed. Reflections in philosophy of education and in religious education help to work out the failure of current developments. The process of argumentation: The paper starts with the question about how the concept of “Bildung” occurs in current discourses. Afterwards alternative models of “Bildung” and religious “Bildung” are discussed. It is then put into questions which intentions and implications prevailing concepts contain, who and what they disregard and how they collaborate towards the reproduction of social injustice and processes of exclusion. Research results: Religious “Bildung” as a part of general education is effected by societal developments and has to be aware of that. Presuppositions of Religious Education and Didactic of Religion has to scrutinize themselves if and in what way they do possibly promote injustice and which conclusions for future concepts could be drawn. Conclusions, innovation and recommendations: “Bildung”, especially religious “Bildung” are challenged by societal developments, e.g. migration, but should not just adapt to political or o economical desires. Rather they should not waive for their normative requirements so that they can question for social injustice in the societal developments as well as in their own concepts.
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The article presents the approximate condition of the philosophy in Poland. The article consist of three parts. In the first part are discussed preliminary remarks (literature of the problem, institutional determinants, polish philosophical language, the criteria for separating of the Polish philosophy). The main discussed problems in second part are: main trends of the Polish philosophy (socio-political philosophy, polish humanism, the philosophy of natural sciences, philosophy connected with religion and formal logic). In the third part presents the tradition adapting the ideas of the European philosophical culture onto the Polish ground.
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The article is an expanded critical evaluation of a book Sudbina odabranih. Eugeničko nasljeđe u vrijeme genske tehnologije (The Fate of the Chosen: Eugenics’ Heritage in the Age of Gene Technology) by Darko Polšek. Taking into consideration that the author of the book a priori approves the idea of laissez-faire eugenics, i.e. of non-interventions into eugenics by the State, as his departure point, which means that total freedom of individual choice and decisions conceming the issues of birth, children and the quality of life - has been predicted, the author of the article tries to point out some unacceptable epistemological and ethical theses of such an approach to eugenics’ praxis. Namely, the author of the article demonstrates that the book does not offer convincing arguments, which should epistemologically, anthropologically, and, as a consequence, ethically, prove the main difference between the praxis of classical, so called, »rightist eugenics«, on one hand, and, so called, »new«, »private« or »leftist eugenics», on the other hand. In the article, the contents and the ideas of the book were followed. The author of the article makes efforts to mediate the main theses of the book, but sticking to its abovementioned defficiences, this results in critical examination and challenges to the book’s author visionary basic theses of laissez-faire eugenics.That fact, however, does not underestimate the value of the book as a pioneering work in Croatian language on eugenics, i.e. on libertarian concept of eugenics, and demands also significant intellectual and spiritual courage. According to the author of the article, in the context of libertarian concept, however, we have to deal with the certain praxis which transcends the border of specifically human and enters the spheres of in-human.
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This paper aims at unveiling why and how was possible, during the 6th century AD that the Greek ancient spherical vision of the universe could have been replaced for a while by a cubic/rectangular vision. We will refer to Cosmas Indicopleustes’ work Christian Topography which was written by 550-552 AD. Our paper has two parts: a first one shortly refers to the spherical form of the universe theorized by the ancient Greek philosophers and a second part, more extended, is centred on Cosmas’ theory of the rectangular/cubic form of the universe. Cosmas Indicopleustes’ work is Christian Topography and it was written by 550-552 AD.
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The Golden Age of Islam saw unprecedented advances across diverse fields led by eminent Muslim intellectuals and scientists. This paper examines the seminal contributions of thirteen prominent Muslim scholars from the 8th to 15th centuries CE who played pioneering roles in history, geography, mathematics, astronomy, optics, medicine, engineering, and other domains. Their groundbreaking work formed the foundations of modern disciplines while stimulating further growth of knowledge globally.
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Book review: Alejandro Cassini & Juan Redmond (eds.), Models and Idealizations in Science: Artifactual and Fictional Approaches, Springer Iternational Publishing, Cham 2021, pp.xv+270.
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Book review: Mechanistic Explanations in Physics and Beyond, Brigitte Falkenburg and Gregor Schiemann, editors, European Studies in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 11, Springer International Publishing, Cham 2019, pp.220
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Book review: Kevin McCain, Understanding: How Science Explains the World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2022, pp.xx + 122.
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The anti-psychiatrists in the 1960’s, specifically Thomas Szasz, have claimed that mental illness does not exist. This argument was based on a specific definition of physical disease that, Szasz argued, could not be applied to mental illness. Thus, by problematizing mental illness, the spotlight had turned to physical disease. Since then, philosophers of medicine have proposed definitions applying both to pathophysiological and psychopathological conditions. This paper analyzes prominent naturalist definitions which aim to provide value free accounts of pathological conditions, as well as normative accounts which propose value-laden accounts. The approaches surveyed differ not only in terms of value, but also in terms of their perspective. This perspective concerns whether the concept of health, illness or disease/disorder is emphasized. The emphasis on health or illness is holistic as it looks at the human being as a whole, while focus on disease or disorder is analytic as it considers part functions. I will here argue in favor of holism and will propose a definition of mental health based on Sartre’s existential psychoanalysis of Gustave Flaubert.
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This paper concentrates on the visions of artificial intelligence depicted by two outstanding 20thcentury writers: Philip K. Dick and Stanisław Lem. Despite the world of differences dividing both writers concerning creative temperament, writing technique, ways of depicting the world, they both shared a common belief that the technology that will give the defining shift and shape over the 21st century will be artificial intelligence. In the context of substantially growing significance and the increasing multiplicity of artificial intelligence (AI) systems and algorithms focused on interfering with human life (weak AI, unaware of its existence), the visions of Philip K. Dick and Stanisław Lem not only score disturbingly well on topicality but also seem extremely interesting from the point of view of philosophy and ethics. Of course, the works of Lem and Dick do not claim any plausible form of scientific realism, even though both writers wrote their books – at least partially – based on the available scientific knowledge). Still, they offer very interesting perspectives. The anthropological and allegorical aspects in Lem and Dick are particularly noteworthy – artificial intelligences are shown as a kind of anthropological mirror that reflects (perhaps a slightly distorted) image of Homo sapiens. But maybe it is the other way around? Maybe it is human beings who are the mirror that reflects artificial intelligence – the mirror that duplicates and multiplies human shortcomings and virtues.
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Mathematics, as Eugene Wigner noted, is unreasonably effective in physics. The argument of this paper is that the disproportionate attention that philosophers have paid to discrete structures such as the natural numbers, for which a nominalist construction may be possible, has deprived us of the best argument for Platonism, which lies in continuous structures—in fields and their derived algebras, such as Clifford algebras. The argument that Wigner was making is best made with respect to such structures—in a loose sense, with respect to geometry rather than arithmetic. The purpose of the present paper is to make this connection between mathematical realism and geometrical entities. It thus constitutes an argument against formalism, for which mathematics is merely a game with humanly set rules; and nominalism, in which whatever mathematics is used is eliminable in the final analysis, by often insufficiently specified means. The hope is that light may be cast on the stubborn mysteries of the nature of quantum mechanics and its mathematical formulation, with particular reference to spinor representations—as they have been developed by Andrej Trautman. Thus, according to our argument, quantum mechanics (QM) may appear more natural, as we have better reasons to take spinor structures as irreducibly real, a view consonant with the work of Trautman and Penrose in particular.
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Congresul (modest intitulat „conferinţă”) internaţional On the Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge. Models and Theoretical Representations of Structure and Progress in Science. Thomas Kuhn’s Legacy, organizat (online) la București de Institutul de Filosofie și Psihologie „Constantin Rădulescu-Motru” al Academiei Române (Ilie Pârvu, Mircea Dumitru, Marius Augustin Drăghici), între 29 septembrie și 3 octombrie 2022, a constituit un eveniment de anvergură, cu precădere graţie participării unor personalităţi care nu mai au nevoie de nicio prezentare, precum Graham Priest, Paul Hoyningen-Huene, Sandu Popescu, David Rosenthal, Michael Potter, Timothy Williamson, și a unor specialiști recunoscuţi în domeniu, precum Vasso Kindi, Alejandro Cassini, Ilie Pârvu, Hernán Pringe, Mircea Flonta, David J. Stump, Lydia Patton, Bogdan Suceavă, Iulian D. Toader etc. Evenimentul în sine ar merita o dezbatere extinsă, dar, din motive de spaţiu, ne vom limita aici la o foarte succintă aducere în atenţia cititorilor a unor aspecte semnificative din câteva dintre conferinţele susţinute în cadrul congresului.
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Book Review: Boris D. Grozdanoff, Zdravko Popov and Silviya Serafimova (eds.), Rationality and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2023, 221 p. ISBN: 978-1-5275-9441-8
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In philosophy, it is always refreshing to introduce unconventional ideas. It requires a certain audacity from the author; he or she may face the wall of silence or be shunned by academia, both treatments being undesirable. However, these are more rewarding than gathering laurels for beating the dead philosophical cats like Humes, Leibnitzs, Wittgensteins, Whiteheads, and others, a practice that for many philosophers is their life's opus. Bartłomiej Skowron’s book Part and Whole: Towards Topo-Ontology, published by Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Warszawskiej in 2021, certainly does not fall into this category. Skowron undertakes a discovery trip into an unknown land in his book, exploring new philosophical territories.
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In corvids and apes, cognition evolved convergently instead of being inherited by a shared ancestor. In biology, natural kinds are classified according to common ancestry. So, if we were to apply the same strategy to psychology, cognition among corvids and apes would not be the same natural kind. However, Cameron Buckner claims that cognition is a natural kind. I suggest that by using Ladyman and Ross’s strategy of taking natural kinds as real patterns, we can support that cognition is a natural kind. Cognition seems to have the properties of predictability and compressibility, which are necessary conditions for real patternhood. Thus, convergent evolution examples of cognition, such as that found in corvids and apes, can be the same natural kind.
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AIs and vaccines can be of great benefit for humanity, e.g. vaccines vs COVID-19 and vs conceivable future pandemics. The author is sure that there are urgencies; firstly, it should be tried to allow protection alternatives – which are sufficiently save according to authorities – in healthcare, for which results are computed here using official data from 1990 till Jan 26, 2024; secondly, it could be considered to treat an AI – chatbot, robot, etc. – not badly, also if an AI is neither conscious nor sentient. The author sketches how it could be beneficial also for whole society, science, vaccine and AI developers. Due to a new reason using a previous study based on math ideas, e.g., the author inevitably tries to treat all entities (e.g. humans and AIs, also if AIs are neither conscious nor sentient) ethically and at least cheaply altruistically; in future it could conceivably yield that all entities – e.g. persons and AIs, including AIs which are neither conscious nor sentient – could increase probability for such behavior, with benefit for all.
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In the light of continuous development of genetic engineering technologies, it is apparent that speculative fiction has successfully anticipated various advancements and their applications. As a key method in this genre, the concept of plausibility allows for a realistic prediction of current scientific trends into future possibilities. In her novel, Oryx and Crake (2003), Margaret Atwood takes a cautionary approach, depicting a speculative future in which the misuse of biotechnologies leads to catastrophic consequences. This article explores the portrayal of bioethical issues surrounding genetic modification. It underlines the interdisciplinary necessity of addressing these concerns and highlighting ethical responsibilities in connection with scientific innovation.
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Methodological pluralism is a characteristic feature of contemporary bioethics. Within interdiscursive research, a narrative approach has gradually emerged as part of a broader ethical reflection. This article aims to explore the relevance of the narrative approach in bioethics, where it is gaining a place alongside traditional normative approaches. After first analyzing two initiatives that have influenced the reflection on the inclusion of the narrative method in bioethical discourse, it focuses on an analysis of selected works by Martha C. Nussbaum, which explores the influence of narrative imagination on moral reasoning against the backdrop of the dialogue between literature and ethics. It also examines the method of reflective equilibrium, through which Nussbaum attempts to incorporate moral beliefs and intuitions gained through narrative-ethical analysis of literary works into the making of moral judgments. The last section of the article presents four of the most prominent forms of narrative representations in bioethics, against which the relevance of the narrative approach in bioethics can be assessed.
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This article deals with the problem of the change in the theoretical conception and practical realisation of political representation in the era of big data, i.e. in the 20th and 21st century, when IT data processes have become an almost integral part of the political life of citizens. Based on the concepts of the philosophers F. Ankersmit and J. Baudrillard, the article analyses why, despite the arguments of critical data studies, the forms of political representation affected by big data are still considered objective. After presenting research on the characteristics of political representation in the information technology-dominated public sphere and smart cities, the article identifies signs of the decline of contemporary political representation: the compression of public space and the legitimation processes of datafication facilitated by big data in the smart city. The continuation of the article’s theme and the analysis of the problems are recommended to be pursued in the field of post-political discussions.
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