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Epistemic Value of Public deliberation in a Democratic Decision-мaking Process

Author(s): Ivan Cerovac / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

This paper discusses the epistemic value of public deliberation in a democratic decision-making process. I first discuss David Estlund’s standard account of epistemic democracy – in order to be legitimate, a decision must be a result of both fair and epistemically reliable procedure, i.e., of procedure that in most cases leads us to (procedure-independent) correct outcomes. This approach is characterized by the idea that democratic deliberation only has instrumental epistemic value, i.e., serves as a good means to achieve desired ends – a high correctness probability of the outcomes. I defend this approach from three objections put forward by Fabienne Peter, who claims that Estlund’s position is not a practicable conception of democratic legitimacy, that it makes unnecessary demands and that it is normatively misleading. Finally, I argue against pure epistemic proceduralism, an alternative approach that tends to reject consequentialist epistemology in favor of proceduralist epistemology. By doing so, it has lost a way to evaluate the epistemic value of (deliberative) democratic procedures, and is thus vulnerable to the problem of various (reasonable) people holding different epistemic practices and disagreeing on which practice should be the one that is epistemically valuable and that produces legitimate decisions.

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THE HYPOTHESIS OF “DIMINISHED MAN” UNDERSTANDING HUMAN EXPERIENCE. THE SOCIO-ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE1

Author(s): Ilie Bădescu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

Human distinguishes himself from other beings by its nucleic duality. He is also body and soul, “faulty breather” and “gifted being”. As such, he is threatened by his own identity concomitantly by a spiritual falling (a top-down dynamism) and a spiritual raising (a bottom-up dynamism). This type of analysis involves revisiting the issue of man’s identity itself and consequently requests a new theoretical system. Noological Sociology gives us the adequate categories for such a purpose. The present paper focuses on these issues and proposes a comprehensive paradigm for the upward becoming of human being within the postmodern society. This paradigm gives intelligence also for a new approach of Socio-Bioethics.

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Memory, Interpretation, Identity

Author(s): Wojciech Kalaga / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

The article investigates complex relations between memory, interpretation and identity, with special emphasis on the role of memory as a building material and of interpretation as a constructor of human identity. Construed as an ontological condition of subjectivity interpretation seems to be inevitably involved in the workings of memory, both individual and collective. However, the archival model of memory dominant in the Western culture effectively excludes interpretation as a mechanism of (re)constructing memory because it depicts the latter as a stable and unchangeable imprint of an experience. Likewise, the Bergsonian model, which portrays memory as a virtual space, leaves little room for interpretation. It is only when Bergson’s model is supplemented with the pansemiotic vision of C.S. Peirce – or, in other words, when the virtual space is filled with an infinite network of interpretive sign relations – that the inextricable connection between interpretation and memory in shaping human identity becomes theoretically validated.

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Arendt and Heidegger: the Human Condition Reconsidered

Author(s): Tengiz Tsimnaridze / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

Heidegger’s name is often brought up in connection to Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958), since his thought had a pervasive influence on Arendt’s work. Although Heidegger is not mentioned in The Human Condition, Arendt herself claims in her letter that her work “grew right out of the first days in Marburg and so is in all respects indebted to” him. Accordingly, this article is an attempt to search for the roots of Arendt’s philosophical views in her magnum opus. Based upon close reading of Heidegger’s texts, this article argues that Heidegger’s later philosophy has impacted on Arendt’s ontology and her understanding of modern society in The Human Condition. My plan is as follows: first, to note Arendt’s relationship to Western tradition of political philosophy; second, to discuss Arendtian notions of political action and public realm; and third to study her conception of modernity.

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Philosophy, Rationality and Decision-making: Basic Techniques and Tools of building the Human Mind

Author(s): Philip Ogo Ujomu / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

This paper studies the viability of philosophy as a system of knowledge and its efficacy as a tool for decision making. Decisions are the key to life, given the existential predicaments human beings constantly confront and the fact that man is a purposive being. A being with a defined purpose is inevitably a being possessing rationality. Rationality is about the meaning and communication of our thoughts and actions. It is about the way that we manage our behavior and experience as humans. Our experiences commit us to courses of action- decisions, as seen in both the public and private domains. We are often confronted with choices or options about pathways or world views to follow or adopt. Such choices compel us to make decisions or take actions that have profound consequences on our lives and eventually on the lives of others. In some cases, decision making can be a mind boggling or tricky thing. Therefore, we may ask: Is there a way that philosophical thinking or knowledge can add value to the decisions made by people or even the capacity of people to make some decisions (moral, logical, epistemological, esthetic or political)? If the answer is yes, then what logical and empirical features of philosophy can facilitate constructive and valuable decision making in daily life or at higher levels of abstract thought. Through the use of examples and analysis, the paper shows that philosophy as knowledge system is particularly illuminating with regard to the ways our human minds form ideas or principles, and the role of ideas and concepts in building tools for coordinating the physical and mental aspects of reality. Reality is partly based on facts and phenomena, as well as value judgments, opinions, beliefs, tastes and preferences. How does philosophical knowledge help us to manage these dynamic and different elements in reality? This work emphasizes the qualitative or social elements that philosophy brings to bear on the material and mental aspects of human existence.

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How can we broaden Myopic Moral Horizons? The Role of Ethical Gradualism for ‘Moral’ Remapping

Author(s): Silviya Serafimova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

One of the main objectives of this article is to clarify why ‘mapping’ otherness in the era of the Anthropocene is not an axiologically neutral process. This hypothesis is elaborated by demonstrating how the proponents of both radical anthropocentrism and radical eco-centrism rely upon the center-periphery dichotomy when ‘mapping’ what they understand by other in both spatial and moral terms. In this context, I argue that overcoming the negative effects of so-called myopic moral horizons is possible by adopting the principle of ethical gradualism in an interspecies context.

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Process-relations in “Time Experience”

Author(s): Serghey Gherdjikov / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

I analyze here process-relations in time experience. My thesis is that McTaggart’s series A and B are process-relations. I demonstrate how McTaggart’s unreality thesis should be replaced by a relativity thesis: Series A and B are relations of processes: asymmetrical and ordered. The coordinate system of time experience is centered in our living body, in its life process, which is directed against entropy increasing: biological arrow. From that flowing position we first experience series of events and they all are ordered in direction past–present–future. From the same position we experience a “backflow”: we first expect, then perceive, and then remember an event in a series: future–present–past. Life process, directed against entropy increasing, which I call “biological arrow” is basic explanation of time experience. Time as such does not exist – only processes (series of states) exist. I suggest some small experiments to demonstrate my main points and to argue against the transcendental phenomenology of “time consciousness”.

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Kant’s System of Judgments

Author(s): Silviya Kristeva / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

In the Transcendental Analytic of Critique of Pure Reason Kant realizes a remarkable achievement – he derives the system of logical functions of judgment. This is namely the “legal claim”, which Kant’s investigation of the judgment has to prove in front of the court of reason. For this purpose, we will undertake a reconstruction of the course of proofs on which Kant generates this system. We will start with its initial grounding – by introducing the pure concepts, which divide “the entire field of the understanding”. From here, we have to reveal the connection between the pure concepts of the understanding and the judgments in thinking. In this consideration, Kant acquires a new definition of judgment and a new establishing of its constitution. Finally, a solid proof must be presented for the logical principle and the completeness of the system of logical functions of judgment in thinking.

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The Moral Education Of Children And Youth From A Pedagogical Retrospective

Author(s): Marianna Marusynets,Zoriana Vakolia,Inna Perepeliuk / Language(s): English Issue: 12/2019

Contemporary educational science is actively seeking ways in which it is possible for the growing personality to consciously absorb basic principles of high morale where national and universal human values would be equally combined. The latter serve as guidelines determining the subject of interaction between educators and pupils. In this respect, cooperative pedagogy with its methodology comes into the picture. It involves mutual respect, equality, sociability – all the attributes of the subject-to-subject interaction oriented towards the maximum activity of educators as well as pupils.It brings about a change in the traditional approach to essence, methods and forms used in the educational process. Its ultimate goal has to consist not only in pupils` understanding of a profound meaning hidden in moral values – it is more about moral act commitment through actions, words and feelings. Only such an educational strategy leads to the result when pupils embrace social and natural environment and become true patriots of their country.

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Substance vs. Manifestation: Some Pages of “Person’s” History

Author(s): Kateryna Rassudina / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

There are two ways in which a concept of “person” can be considered: substantial and demonstrative-relative ones. The former is based on the apprehension of the person as a being, on the search for the ultimate reasons of its existence. The latter refuses to consider these issues, thus describes the person as a phenomenon, a process of changing the states of consciousness. The danger of demonstrative-relative approach is that, examining only person’s manifestations, we risk not seeing the essence under poorly visible phenomena. Contemporary philosophers therefore should use substantial conception, despite the fact that it may seem ancient and old-fashioned.

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Methodological Orientations and Educational Strategies in the Formation of the Modern Age Thinking

Author(s): Svetlana Hanaba,Nataliia Bakhmat / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The article outlines methodological guidelines for the development of thinking in education. Relevant and productive is the thinking that aims not only to explain the unknown, but also to find the unknown and the unbelievable in the known and the obvious. This is a thinking of a different order, which is first in overcoming the existing boundaries, in “combining of not combined”, i.e. different, not reduced, etc. Its vitality is possible only if it constantly changes, destroys, balancing on the brink of chaos. It is emphasized that this thinking is not carried out in a well-defined way, it moves in agendas and changes in different directions, overcoming the boundaries of outlined representations, opening new horizons of understanding of being and place in it. It is argued that the development of thinking in education aims to move from learning focused mainly on memorizing a certain amount of knowledge to self-conscious understanding of them.

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„След Бог“ – проблем(атич)ни размишления

Author(s): Anguel S. Stefanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2020

These are reflections born by the reading of Richard Dawkin’s new book under the title Outgrowing God. A Beginner’s Guide. The text is not intended to be a review of this book, but an attempt at formulating problems and providing assessments of their putative answers. They refer to Dawkin’s optimism about the explanatory potential of natural selection and his atheistic position.

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THE SECRET OF GENIALITY (IV)

Author(s): Robert Djidjian / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

We continue to publish, in a series, the book THE SECRET OF GENIALITY (Yerevan, Armenia,Noyan Tapan Printing House, 2002) by our colleague Robert Djidjian, not only because we all must know the philosophical research and creation (in our domain of epistemology and philosophy of science and technology) from a wider geographic area than that provided by the established fashion in virtue of both extra-scientific reasons and a yet obsolete manner to communicate and value the research; but also because the book as such is living, challenging and very instructive.The title of the book is suggestive enough to make us to focus on an old problem: the dialectic of the insight, of the discovery –its psychology moving between flashes of intuitions and knowledge stored in memory– and its logic of composition of knowledge from hypotheses to their demonstration and verification. The realm of science is most conducive to the understanding of this dialectic and the constitution of the ideas which are theproofs of what is the most certain for humans: the “world 3”, as Popper called the kingdom of human results of their intellection, and though transient and perishable in both their uniqueness and cosmic fate, the only certain proof of the reason to be of homo sapiens in the frame of multiversal existence. Therefore, the power to create is the secret of the human geniality, and how to create science is a main part of this secret.

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Метафизическият генезис на онтологията

Author(s): Georgi Donev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2020

The paper analyzes the metaphysical genesis of the ontology. Two primary forms of metaphysical thinking are defined. The first form is defined as dogmatical metaphysical thinking. The latter includes the substantial form of existence, which is explicated through the ontic apriori semantics and leads to contradictions. These contradictions are established through the language of classical logic. The second form is defined as critical metaphysical thinking, which is objectless and contains logical syntax that sets apriori the boundaries of the possible semantics of the existence of the transcendental consciousness’ objects. In this sense, the ontology is a relative semantics, which is a consequence of the metaphysical critique of the ontic form of existence.

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Отвъд Хайдегеровата критика на метафизиката в изкуството

Author(s): Nikifor Avramov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2020

The text presents critically situations, which are fundamental for Heidegger’s critic of aesthetics. We comment not necessarily and solely on claims explicitly related to the aesthetical but also at general claims in implicit relation to art. The analysis implies that the regions lacking coverage regarding art by Heidegger’s thought can be uncovered through the restoration of metaphysical analysis. Respectively our conclusion has to do with the relationship between the definition of objectivity a perspective provides and the object it claims, the discrepancy of which Heidegger’s thought exemplifies problematically.

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Actualization of Axiology Development: Problems, Searches, Solutions

Author(s): Lyubov’ Shabatura,Anton Yazovskikh / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

The article examines the concept of “value” in the context of the general planetary process of anomie at the level of local cultures and subcultures, when the possibilities of value-normative regulation of social processes are reduced to a minimum. Under these conditions, the predictive function of axiology has become particularly relevant, and the authors raise the question of the basis for the values evolution reproduction. The search to this answer involves the application of system analysis and retrospection. The study of the main axiological concepts based on the connection between objective and subjective in this perspective allows to identify the main contours of value consciousness that coincide with the dominant concepts: biological (objective-naturalistic concept), social (dialectical-materialistic concept), individual (subjective-psychological concepts) and existential (objective-transcendental and ontological ideal realistic concepts). The material summarizes the main methodological and cognitive limitations of these concepts, which are in fact natural, since they belong to specific contours of value consciousness. At the same time, a number of provisions can be considered as general ones. As a result, the authors hypothesize the possibility to develop a synthetic concept of axiology allowing predicting the development of cultural value core as an imperative of socio-cultural processes.

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Truth in Legal Norms

Author(s): Boyan Bahanov / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2020

The text examines the status of the truth in the legal norms, trying to answer the questions of whether they can be a subject to a truth assessment and, if such assessment is possible, how a truth value can be attributed to legal norms. To achieve this goal, first of all, the text discusses some basic linguistic conceptions concerning the nature and truth of legal norms and subsequently, a complex approach is being proposed for attributing truth-value to legal norms. On the one hand, the latter’s being studied by the methods of deontic logic and theory of possible worlds, and on the other hand, their relation to truth is being explained by semantic anti-realism.

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Как мислим трансцендентното: диалогът между Карл Юнг и Мартин Бубер

Author(s): Miroslav Bachev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2021

The relationship between metaphysics and psychology has different dimensions. An emblematic example of this relationship is the literary polemics between Martin Buber and Carl Jung about boundaries between the two areas of scientific knowledge. According to Buber, Jung allows himself to cross the border of psychology and psychiatry through metaphysical assertions, while Yung claims he doesn’t go beyond that, and all his speeches, even about transcendent objects, don’t leave the sphere of empiricism. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct this dialogue and critically analyze it in view of the possibilities of thinking of the transcendence.

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PHENOMENOLOGY, DECONSTRUCTION, AND CRITIQUE: A DERRIDEAN PERSPECTIVE

Author(s): Stella Gaon / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

Critical phenomenology is gaining currency as a progressive philosophy of emancipation, but there is no consensus on what its “criticality” entails. From a Derridean perspective, critique can be said to involve radical self-interrogation; a philosophy that questions its own conditions of possibility or grounds is one that opens itself to its auto-deconstruction. Deconstruction produces undecidability, however, which means that the philosophy in question can no longer account for its political claims or its normative force. This is the predicament in which critical phenomenology, like any other critical theory, will find itself when it takes its critical injunction to heart.

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Commentary piece

Author(s): Jennifer Marra / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Many of Ernst Cassirer’s later works are concerned with the dangers of political myth. His analysis speaks at length about the role of philosophy during the rise of the Third Reich, and Cassirer argues that philosophers failed to combat the dominant ideology. Today, philosophers struggle to explain their relevance to greater public and governmental powers that see no intrinsic value. Given the current political situation in the US, we find ourselves at a crossroads as philosophers. We can either retreat and remain within the comforts of academia, or we can take up arms against dangerous and divisive political forces. If we take Cassirer’s prescriptions seriously, we must choose the latter. Fortunately, philosophy has not disappeared from public consciousness completely. An emerging theme in contemporary cultural studies is the exploration of connections between humour and philosophy. I argue we ought to take advantage of the status of the comedian as public philosopher, and for philosophers to take seriously the political power of comedians. To do this responsibly, I analyse a portion of Cassirer’s work that has been widely ignored in scholarship – his understanding of the politics and morality of humour. By analysing these passages in relation to Cassirer’s later works, we are given the tools to understand the power of humour in political discourse, as well as the responsibility of that power. I argue that “joking responsibly”, for Cassirer, means to reveal the motives and values which underlie sophistry, particularly the sort which lends itself to political manipulation.

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