A theory of planning horizons (1): market design in a post-neoclassical world

Author(s): Frederic B. Jennings Jr. / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2012

The neoclassical case supporting competitive frames and market solutions has failed to promote stable world-wide economic development. Other approaches in economics incorporate social culture, increasing returns, market power, ecological limits and complementarity, yielding broader applications for development theory. In this paper a theory of planning horizons is introduced to raise some meaningful questions about the traditional view with respect to its substitution, decreasing returns and independence assumptions. Suppositions of complementarity, increasing returns and interdependence suggest that competition is inefficient by upholding a myopic culture resistant to learning. Growth – though long believed to rise from markets and competitive values – may not derive from these sources. Instead, as civilizations advance, shifting from material wants to higher-order intangible output, they evolve from market tradeoffs (substitution and scarcity) into realms of common need (complementarity and abundance). The policy implications of horizonal theory are explored, with respect to regulatory aims and economic concerns. Such an approach emphasizes strict constraints against entry barriers, ecological harm, market power abuse and ethical lapses. Social cohesion – not competition – is sought as a means to extend horizons and thereby increase efficiency, equity and ecological health. The overriding importance of horizon effects for regulatory assessment dominates other orthodox standards in economics and law. Reframing economics along horizonal lines suggests some meaningful insight on the proper design of economic systems.

A theory of planning horizons (2): the foundation for an ethical economics

Author(s): Frederic B. Jennings Jr. / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2012

The concept of planning horizons serves as a measure of many unsettled aspects of economic analysis. First and foremost, the notion is ordinal: we speak of ‘horizon effects’ as directional shifts in planning horizons without tallying ‘wits’ or calibrating horizonal axes of change. Second, the derivation of horizon effects is inductive; we simply assert their inherence in the range of factors subsumed within the imagined projections behind all choice. The planning horizon is set wherever surprise supplants expectation; the horizon occurs at the outer range of accurate anticipation, to which we lack clear epistemological access. Planning horizons – horizon effects – suggest a new foundation for an ethical economics of conscience, social maturation and growth. The idea of planning horizons invites a distinction of foresight from myopia in economic constructions. But time horizons are only one aspect of our planning horizons: to see ahead in time we must embrace all relevant causal effects. Foresight depends on knowledge of how reality actually works, which is a matter more of degree than ‘truth’; the planning horizon offers an index of our ‘rational bounds.’ Our range of anticipation is also related to our internalization of social and ecological externalities in our decisions, so to the scope of our ethical conscience and to our sense of human community. Indeed, the organizational health and integrity of our society is horizonal in this sense. The aim of this paper is to explore and develop the concept of planning horizons in its intellectual origins and economic concerns. Its philosophic conceptual roots, methodological underpinnings, psychological insights and economic implications are outlined to show why an economics of planning horizons offers an ethical economics of interdependent dynamic complex systems. With standard doctrines seen as a special case in a larger horizonal frame, social theory embraces an ethical economics with dissimilar institutional implications favoring cooperation.

A tudat mint az információfeldolgozás magasabb rendű formája

Author(s): Bence Péter Marosán / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 06/2016

In this article I propose a project philosophy. My main thesis is that we can interpret consciousness as a higher form of information processing of material systems (biological organisms). I define consciousness with the following essential features: 1) representation (it represents somehow the internal or external environment of the system, of the living being), 2) first person perspective(somebody is experiencing), 3) phenomenality (qualitative character of certain experiences). By information I mean series of such internal or external effects concerning the system, which are “interpreted” as a sort of sign by the system. My hypothesis is that the emergence of consciousness is in a strong correlation with the special way of operation of a particular material system, with a special level of complexity and a special sort of information processing. In order to explain the emergence of consciousness, according to this hypothesis,one must carry out a comparative analysis of living beings of different level of complexity, with special regard to their particular way of functioning.

A tudatosság kortárs elméletei

Author(s): Miklós Márton / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 06/2016

In this paper I offer a short survey of the main contemporary philosophical theories of consciousness, and compare them. I introduce three fundamental common sense intuitions about consciousness, namely: 1. The Transitivity thesis – which says that a state is conscious if the subject is aware of it; 2. The Transparency thesis– which says that in a conscious state the subject is always aware of something else; and the 3. Non-reductivity thesis – which leans on the fact that the consciousness of a state is always a brute fact, and as such, cannot be reduced to other facts. In the paper I argue that one can associate a theory of consciousness to each of these intuitions. The Higher-Order Representation theories fit nicely to the transitivity thesis, the Representational theories express our intuition about transparency, and the Non-reductionist theories emphasize that consciousness is a brute fact of our mental life. As a result of the comparison, I argue that the first two theories can be plausibly objected to on the ground that they try to reduce consciousness to some functional facts, and that is counterintuitive, while the Non-reductionist theories can be attacked for their weak explanatory power.

Abgeschiedenheit Mistrza Eckharta w fenomenologicznej wykładni Bernharda Weltego

Author(s): Joachim Piecuch / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2016

The basis of analyzes carried out in the article is the work of Bernhard Welte: Meister Eckhart. Gedanken zu seinen Gedanken. The central subject of research is the idea Abgeschiedenheit (“isolation”). Following the interpretation of Welte it has been considerated a phenomeno‐ logical description on two ways. From the practical experience, as a modus vivendi a religious man, and from the theoretical, as speculative thought. Theoretical considerations consist of analysis of the concept of truth and goodness, which Eckhart identifies with the idea of God. Welte shows that these concepts of medieval thinker at the starting point considerations are still sink in the schemes of metaphysical thinking, but in the next stages of its argumentation he overcome metaphysical discourse. The purpose of the article, guided by the suggestion Weltes interpretation, is to show ways of reaching the source forms of religious experience. At the same time the text raised the issue of problematic use formulas of mystical union and noticed parallels have been taking place between the method of phenomenological reduction and the idea of Abgeschiedenheit.

Abortion in The Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Author(s): Marek Czachorowski / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

The author discusses the problem of abortion. He defines abortion as a deliberate and immediate killing of a human being before birth; he distinguishes it from spontaneous miscarriage or a situation where the child is allowed to die without this being intended, where the death is the result of causes not dependent upon acting persons—abortus indirectus. In order to morally evaluate the act of abortion, the author considers both the ontic status of the conceived human being and the criteria usually used for the evaluation.

Abuso del diritto ed autonomia negoziale. Nuovi approcci giurisprudenziali e profili comparatistici.

Author(s): Marco Farina,Demetrio Maltese / Language(s): Italian / Issue: 3/2012

Accidentalism in Aristotle? Poetics and Ontology

Author(s): Walter Seitter / Language(s): English / Issue: 61/2016

My reading of Aristotle’s Poetics focuses on what Aristotle calls the “mythos” of the tragedy. By “mythos” he doesn’t understand the content of the Greek tragedies: family-related stories of Orestes and Electra, of Oedipus and Antigone ... but the precise scenario constructed by the poet, id est the “plot”. And Aristotle postulates that in the plot of a well conceived tragedy the causal role not only of gods, but also of human actors should be reduced. Th e strong unity of the tragic action (praxis) should result in a close connection of the partial situations, events, turning points. In this sense the substantial agents should be ousted by the “accidents” (Aristotle calls them “pragmata”). Th is artifi cially unifi ed plot should be the “soul” of the tragedy – thus becoming a souled entity, just as a fascinating animal: a new substance.

Accommodation and Convention

Author(s): Maciej Witek / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The paper develops a non-Gricean account of accommodation: a contextadjusting process guided by the assumption that the speaker’s utterance constitutes an appropriate conversational move. The paper is organized into three parts. The first one reconstructs the basic tenets of Lepore and Stone's non-Gricean model of meaningmaking, which results from integrating direct intentionalism and extended semantics. The second part discusses the phenomenon of accommodation as it occurs in conversational practice. The third part uses the tenets of the non-Gricean model of meaning-making to account for the discursive mechanisms underlying accommodation; the proposed account relies on a distinction between the rules of appropriateness, which form part of extended grammar, and the Maxim of Appropriateness, which functions as a discursive norm guiding our conversational practice.

Adam Schaff wobec ewolucji poglądów filozoficznych Leszka Kołakowskiego. O sporach programowych w polskim marksizmie

Author(s): Renata Merda / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 38/2017

In my article I intend to analyze L. Kołakowski’s departure from Marxism. I will conduct my reflections in the context of his relationship with Adam Schaff. It is precisely this that A. Schaff was the promoter of the dissertation of Master and Candidate (PhD) Leszek Kołakowski.Both these philosophers in the sixties of the twentieth century revisited their views on Marxism by entering into a current called revisionism. Leszek Kołakowski, however, criticized Marxism and became his leading critic, while Adam Schaff attempted to reform it by enriching the existing ideology of man’s philosophy. The views of both philosophers differed from the official version of Marxism. While Kolakowski had completely escaped from Marxism, Schaff tried to defend him. Schaff did not particularly approve the assessment of Marxism embodied in Mainstream Marxism of Kołakowski. It is not by chance, therefore, that both philosophers can be regarded as the most outstanding representatives of Marxism before 1968 in Poland.Their views were not always contradictory, but they were often similar because Schaff approached Kolakowski talking about ecumenical Marxism — and therefore their antagonism was primarily personal and less philosophical.

Adam Wiegner wobec zagadnienia poznawczego w oświetleniu Leonarda Nelsona

Author(s): Tomasz Kubalica / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 38/2017

The subject of the article is the influence of the broadly understood Neo-Kantianism on the assimilating of Kantians ideas of critical philosophy (critical method) in Poland. I would like to present a philosophical and historical reflection on the dissertation of professor of University of Poznan Adam Wiegner (1889—1967), entitled Zagadnienie poznawcze w oświetleniu L. Nelsona (Problem of Knowledge in the Light of L. Nelson, 1925), in which he undertook a critical analysis of Nelson’s problem of impossibility of the theory of knowledge and possibilities of the metaphysics. The main aim of the article is to present the Neo-Kantians (as well as the Neo-Friesians) context of the above-mentioned Wiegners dissertation and to reflect on the reception of Nelson’s thoughts in Poznań. I would like to show that, contrary to the schematic simplification, Neo-Kantian thought had a significant influence on the shape of philosophy in Poland.

Adevărul în perspectiva neurofiziologiei

Author(s): Dan PSATTA / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 1/2018

The purely introspective philosophy, based on reasoning and that from centuries has analysed the mental activity of man needs the scientific research of brain, the only real method of objective investigation of the mental processes. I called this association ‘neurophilosophy’. In this paper, the cerebral processes involved in the knowledge of truth are described: he phenomenal analysis, the epistemic one, processes as thinking, judgement and consciousness.

Afordancje w (i poza) HCI

Author(s): Witold Wachowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2018

This paper is a review of the book by Victor Kaptelinin Affordances and Design, devoted to the concept of affordances in HCI. It discusses, among others, basic relations and dif- ferences between ecological psychology (including a branch of philosophy of cognition) and design studies.

Against Lewis on ‘Desire as Belief’

Author(s): Douglas Ian Campbell / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

David Lewis describes, then attempts to refute, a simple anti-Humean theory of desire he calls ‘Desire as Belief’. Lewis’ critics generally accept that his argument is sound and focus instead on trying to show that its implications are less severe than appearances suggest. In this paper I argue that Lewis’ argument is unsound. I show that it rests on an essential assumption that can be straightforwardly proven false using ideas and principles to which Lewis is himself committed.

Ahol árnyék, ott napsütés: Schmitt, szerelmek, Bonn…

Author(s): Imre Tódor / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 03/2016

Aksjologiczne niedostatki współczesnej ekonomii

Author(s): Elzbieta Maczynska / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Aksjologiczne źródła etyki u Osho

Author(s): Artur Hrechorowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 23/2017

W artykule autor dowodzi, że u podstaw etyki Osho leżą indywidualizm i subiektywizm. Wraz z autonomicznym podmiotem, to znaczy człowiekiem postrzeganym jako twórca wartości, stanowią one najważniejsze źródła moralności tej koncepcji. Ponadto kluczową rolę odgrywają tutaj pojęta w sposób bliski Sartre’owi wolność, a także odpowiedzialność, świadomość i samorealizacja.

Aksjologiczny wymiar ekonomii

Author(s): Marian Zalesko / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 0

Aksjomatyczne ujęcia genidentyczności według Zdzisława Augustynka. Część I. Porównanie systemów

Author(s): Marek Porwolik / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3 (99)/2017

The existence of objects in time or, generally speaking, the existence of objects that are subject to change can be described using the notion of genidentity (genetic identity). Zdzisław Augustynek devoted a number of works to this issue, and Mariusz Grygianiec offered valuable commentaries. Augustynek tried to specify this notion by means of axiomatic definitions. He presented three sets of specific axioms. They delimit sets of theses, called systems by Augustynek and marked as AS1, AS2, and AS3. Apart from the term genidentity (G), the axioms also contain the following terms: logical identity (I), quasi-simultaneity (R), quasi-collocation (L), and causality (H). They represent binary relations whose field is the set of events S. The axioms also involve symbols of the complements of these relations: genetic difference (G*), logical difference (I*), time separation (R*), space separation (L*), and the complement of H (H*). The results obtained by Augustynek and Grygianiec can be supplemented or even corrected in some places. This fact motivated me to analyze systems AS1, AS2, and AS3 once again. The results are presented in two separate articles: Part I (this paper) and Part II (to be published in Filozofia Nauki 25(4) [100]). The first aim of Part I is to present the set-theoretic approach to the analysis of Augustynek’s systems. Although the specific axioms themselves are expressed in the language of the algebra of sets, their analysis was conducted by Grygianiec in the classical predicate calculus. The set-theoretic approach facilitates the analysis of the sets of specific axioms. Accordingly, I present the specific axioms of systems AS1, AS2, and AS3 in the language of algebra of sets, illustrating them with Venn diagrams for five sets, expressing the specific axioms of the analyzed systems with the use of the theory of components, showing exemplary sets fulfilling those axioms, and formulating preliminary remarks concerning the relationships among systems AS1, AS2, and AS3. The second aim of Part I is to use the presented method to compare the three systems. The most important stages include formulating and justifying theses concerning: (i) the relationships among systems AS1, AS2, and AS3, (ii) supplementary axioms that cause a mutual equivalence of the axioms when added to systems AS1, AS2, and AS3, and (iii) selected relationships that can be identified on the basis of systems AS1, AS2, and AS3. Next, I correct certain conclusions concerning systems AS1, AS2, and AS3 from Augustynek’s and Grygianiec’s works, show a method of creating alternative axioms for systems AS1, AS2, and AS3, and suggest methods for further modifications of axioms of these systems.

Aksjomatyczne ujęcia genidentyczności według Zdzisława Augustynka. Część II. Definicje warunkowe

Author(s): Marek Porwolik / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4 (100)/2017

The results obtained by Zdzisław Augustynek and Mariusz Grygianiec can be supplemented or even corrected in some places. This fact motivated me to analyze systems AS1, AS2, and AS3 once again. The results are presented in two articles. The aim of Part I (Porwolik 2017) was to present the set-theoretic approach to the analysis of Augustynek’s systems and to use the presented method to compare the three systems. Part II (this paper) is devoted to conditional definitions describing relations present in the systems. In one of his works, Augustynek posed a number of questions regarding the possibility of formulating conditional definitions of a certain type, which might refer to the notions included in his axioms. He did not answer all of these questions, and my aim is to complete this task. Apart from that, I analyze the problem of reducing Augustynek’s systems to conditional definitions containing the necessary condition and the sufficient conditio of a selected notion from these systems. At the same time, I prove that Augustynek’s systems can be reduced to certain conditional definitions (that they are equivalent to them), including the ones containing two conditions of genidentity: the sufficient condition and the necessary condition. I also argue that in AS2 it is possible, with the use of normal (equivalence) definitions, to define two relations: logical identity (I) and logical difference (I*). For the other relations a definitione of this type does not exist in the analyzed systems.