În acest eseu evidențiez principalele aspecte psihologice și filosofice desprinse din filmul Solaris regizat de Andrei Tarkovski, precum și tehnicile cinematografice utilizate de regizor pentru a-și transmite mesajele spectatorului. În ”Introducere” prezint pe scurt elementele relevante din biografia lui Tarkovski și o prezentare generală a romanului Solaris a lui Stanislav Lem și filmul Solaris în regia lui Andrei Tarkovsky. În ”Tehnica cinematografică” vorbesc despre ritmul specific al scenelor, mișcarea radicală declanșată de Tarkovsky în cinematografia modernă, rolul (...) elementelor simbolice și iconice, , și afinitățile cu zona fantastică a literaturii ruse. În ”Aspecte psihologice” analizez problema comunicării într-o societate umană a viitorului considerată de Tarkovsky ca rigidă, obsesia casei, și evoluția personală a lui Kris, Hari, și a relațiilor dintre ei. În ”Aspecte filosofice” se analizează filmul prin prisma filosofiei minții (dualismul cartezian, reducționismul și funcționalismul), a problemei identității personale, a teoriei spațiilor heterotopice dezvoltată de Michel Foucault, și interpretările semantice care se pot deduce din film. De asemenea, se analizează problema identității personale prin prisma filosofiei lui Locke. ”Concluziile” expun ideile generale rezultate din acest eseu, respectiv că Tentativele omului de a clasifica și de a păstra forme de interacțiune cu entități necunoscute vor fi întotdeauna condamnate la eșec și vor reflecta o greșeală majoră în lumea panoptică în care trăim. În acest cadru de analiză a filosofiei minții, funcționalismul pare a fi cel mai intuitiv. Solaris este, totuși, un film care începe ca o căutare a răspunsurilor și ajunge să ofere aceste răspunsuri împreună cu o serie de întrebări cu totul diferite. (shrink)

Filmul Solaris (1972) al lui Andrei Tarkovski poate fi abordat prin prisma filosofiei minții, a întrebărilor esențiale în acest domeniu. Aceste întrebări se referă la personalitate și suferință, care acoperă cel puțin perioada de la Rene Descartes la filosofii moderni, precum Derek Parfit și Hilary Putnam. Solaris apare ca un vehicul adecvat pentru a explora provocările filosofice. De altfel, filmul Solaris al lui Tarkovsky permite multiple interpretări semantice. În același timp, Solaris prezintă un exemplu excelent despre modul în (...) care spațiile heterotopice pot exista în termeni cinematografici. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30893.23521. (shrink)

About the main psychological and philosophical aspects detached from the film Solaris directed by Andrei Tarkovski, as well as the cinema techniques used by the director to convey his messages to the spectator. In the "Introduction" I briefly present the relevant elements of Tarkovski's biography and an overview of Stanislav Lem's Solaris novel and the film Solaris directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. In "Cinema Technique" I talk about the specific rhythm of the scenes, the radical movement triggered by (...) Tarkovsky in modern cinema, the role of symbolic and iconic elements, and affinities with the fantastic area of Russian literature. In Psychological Aspects I analyze the issue of communication in a human society of the future considered by Tarkovsky as rigid, the obsession of the house, and the personal evolution of Kris, Hari, and the relationships between them. In Philosophical Aspects, the film is analyzed through the philosophy of the mind (Cartesian dualism, reductionism and functionalism), the problem of personal identity, the theory of heterotopic spaces developed by Michel Foucault, and the semantic interpretations that can be deduced from the film. It also analyzes the issue of personal identity through Locke's philosophy. "Conclusions" show the general ideas of this essay, namely that Man's attempts to classify and maintain forms of interaction with unknown entities will always be condemned to failure and will reflect a major mistake in the panoptic world in which we live. In this framework of analysis of the philosophy of mind, functionalism seems to be the most intuitive. Solaris is, however, a movie that begins as a search for answers and comes to provide these answers with a whole range of different questions. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Abstract Introduction 1 Cinema technique 2 Psychological Aspects 3 Philosophical aspects Conclusions Bibliography Notes -/- DOI: 10.58679/MM59030 , ISBN 978-606-033-225-1. (shrink)

Tarkovsky a dezvoltat o teorie a cinematografiei pe care a numit-o "sculptarea în timp". Prin aceasta el a vrut să evidențieze caracteristica unică a cinematografiei ca mediu, aceea de aborda experiența noastră despre timp și de a o modifica. Filmul neregulat transcrie timpul în timp real. Folosind filmări lungi și câteva tăieturi în filmele sale, el a urmărit să ofere spectatorilor un sentiment de trecere a timpului, timpul pierdut și relația dintre un moment de timp și altul. El consideră (...) cinematografia ca o reprezentare a curenților distinctivi sau undelor de timp, transmise în film prin ritmul său intern. Ritmul este în centrul "filmului poetic." DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.35151.33447. (shrink)

Tarkovsky recognizes these differences, saying that there is a contradiction with Lem's initial idea, because he was interested in the problems of inner life, spiritual problems, so to speak, and Lem was interested in the collision between man and Cosmos. In an ontological sense of the word, in the sense of the problem of knowing and the limits of this knowledge - it is about that. Lem even said that mankind was in danger, that there was a crisis of (...) knowledge when man did not feels ... This crisis is growing, a snowball, takes the form of various human tragedies, including scientists. (shrink)

Tarkovsky s’est opposé au montage et a considéré que la base de l’art cinématographique (l’art du film) est le rythme interne des images. Il a considèré le cinéma comme une représentation des courants distinctifs ou des ondes de temps, transmis dans le film par son rythme interne. Le rythme est au cœur du « film poétique ». Un rythme comme un mouvement dans le cadre (« la sculpture dans le temps »), pas comme une séquence d'images dans le temps. (...) Le temps passé dans le cadre exprime quelque chose de significatif et de vrai, qui dépasse les événements eux-mêmes et est reçu différemment par chaque spectateur. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30568.62727. (shrink)

Filmul lui Tarkovski este o "dramă a durerii și a redresării parțiale" concentrată asupra psihologiei echipajului stației de pe Solaris. Tarkovski a dorit astfel să abordeze mai profund emoțional și intelectual genul științifico-fantastic, considerat de el ca fiind superficial. Filmul tratează un fenomen central al analizei critice-psihologice a lui Klaus Holzkamp asupra percepției umane: condițiile de percepție a lumii umane sunt semnificative pentru ființele umane. Este este o specie complexă noetică - o specie cu proprietatea gândirii, care a evoluat în (...) condiții complet diferite de ale noastre. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23737.01120. (shrink)

Tarkovsky opposed to the movie editing and considered that the basis of the art of cinematography (movie art) is the internal rhythm of images. He considers cinema as a representation of distinctive currents or time waves, transmitted in the film through its internal rhythm. Rhythm is at the heart of the "poetic film". A rhythm like a movement inside the frame ("sculpting in time"), not as a sequence of images in time. Time within the frame expresses something significant and (...) true that goes beyond the events itself, received differently by each spectator. The rhythm is not determined by the length of the sequences, but by the pressure of time passing through them. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11136.48642. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the space of the thermal pool is central to Tarkovsky’s exploration of the mystery of sacrifice and the pain of exile in Nostalghia. Spatially, the geometry and textures of the pool are echoed throughout the film’s interiors, in hotel corridors and cathedrals. I propose that we can see Tarkovsky’s aesthetic in Nostalgia as one of overflow. The water that initially fills the pool overflows into nearly every scene, as interiors of houses are flooded in (...) dream-like visions, and the echoing sound of dripping water is omnipresent. Thematically, the film explores the way in which past and present, memory and dream, and the spaces of home and exile flow into each other, using techniques of superimposition. I argue that such overflowing, in both theme and aesthetic, can be productively read in conjunction with Henri Bergson’s theories of duration, in which variegated temporal rhythms continually bleed into each other. Nostalgia’s pool forms a space of becoming, where place and identity is continually in flux. (shrink)

Les principaux aspects psychologiques et philosophiques détachés du film Solaris réalisé par Andrei Tarkovski, ainsi que les techniques cinématographiques utilisées par le réalisateur pour transmettre ses messages aux spectateurs. Dans « Introduction », je présente brièvement les éléments pertinents de la biographie de Tarkovski et un aperçu du roman Solaris de Stanislav Lem et du film Solaris réalisé par Andrei Tarkovsky. Dans « Technique cinématographique », je parle du rythme spécifique des scènes, du mouvement radical déclenché par (...) Tarkovski dans le cinéma moderne, du rôle des éléments symboliques et iconiques et des affinités avec le fantastique domaine de la littérature russe. Dans « Aspects psychologiques », j'analyse la question de la communication dans une société humaine de l'avenir considéré par Tarkovski comme rigide, de l'obsession de la maison et de l'évolution personnelle de Kris, Hari et de leurs relations. Dans « Aspects philosophiques », le film est analysé à travers la philosophie de l’esprit (dualisme cartésien, réductionnisme et fonctionnalisme), le problème de l’identité personnelle, la théorie des espaces hétérotopiques développée par Michel Foucault et les interprétations sémantiques pouvant être déduites du film. J'analyse également la question de l'identité personnelle à travers la philosophie de Locke. Les « Conclusions » montrent les idées générales de cet essai, à savoir que les tentatives de l'homme pour classer et maintenir des formes d'interaction avec des entités inconnues seront toujours condamnées à l'échec et refléteront une erreur majeure du monde panoptique dans lequel nous vivons. Dans ce cadre d'analyse de la philosophie de l'esprit, le fonctionnalisme semble être le plus intuitif. Solaris est toutefois un film qui commence par une recherche de réponses et vient apporter à ces réponses toute une gamme de questions différentes. -/- SOMMAIRE: -/- Abstract Introduction 1 Technique cinématographique 2. Aspects psychologiques 3. Aspects philosophiques Conclusions Bibliographie Notes -/- DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20367.53929 . (shrink)

Le film est un drame psychologique se déroulant à bord d'une station spatiale en orbite autour de la planète Solaris. Les trois membres de l'équipage ont des problèmes psychologiques. Le psychologue Kris Kelvin est envoyé là pour évaluer la situation, mais il fait face aux mêmes phénomènes mystérieux que les autres. Pour Tarkovsky, le conflit existentiel exposé par Lem n'était que le point de départ du développement de la vie intérieure des personnages. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11405.49129.

Tarkovski’s film is a drama of pain and partial recovery centered on the psychology of the Solaris station crew. Tarkovski wanted to address this way the deeply emotional and intellectual science-fantastic genre, considered by him to be superficial. The film approaches a central phenomenon of Klaus Holzkamp’s critical-psychological analysis of human perception: the perceptions of the human world are significant to human beings. In perception, human beings are oriented towards an objective sense, which objects possess it in connection with the (...) vital activity of the people. By virtue of this quality, the localization of meanings in objects is exclusively a characteristic of the human world. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13456.05129. (shrink)

Le film de Tarkovsky est un « drame de douleur et de récupération partielle » axé sur la psychologie de l'équipe de la station Solaris. Tarkovsky voulait aborder plus profond émotionnellement et intellectuellement le genre scientifique-fantastique, considéré par lui comme superficiel. Il traite un phénomène central de l'analyse psycho-critique de la perception humaine de Klaus Holzkamp : les conditions de la perception du monde humain sont significatives pour l'homme. Dans la perception, les êtres humains sont orientés vers un (...) sens objectif que possèdent les objets par rapport à l'activité vitale de l'homme. En vertu de cette qualité, la localisation des sens dans les objets est exclusivement une caractéristique du monde humain. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10967.42403. (shrink)

In Solaris, within the limits of heterotopic experience, several theoretical and ontological questions are examined through approaches on each character. Berton declares one of the main philosophical themes of the movie when he tells Kelvin: "You want to destroy that which we are presently incapable of understanding? Forgive me, but I am not an advocate of knowledge at any price. Knowledge is only valid when it's based on morality." The ocean does not mean anything as an object, it simply exists. (...) The ocean is not found in any of the human experimental approaches. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15910.68169 . (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that the films of Andrei Tarkovsky are particularly suitable for inducing feelings of the numinous. This suitability is a formal rather than semantic feature of his films, and is tied indelibly to what film scholars call ‘suture’. I with a summary of what film theorists mean by ‘suture’, before providing a principled defence of the Merleau-Pontian suture theory outlined by George Butte. Second, I will demonstrate that, in spite of the strength of Butte’s (...) formulation, the numinousness of Tarkovsky’s films pose an analytical challenge to his suture theory. Finally, I will then provide my own extension of Butte’s suture theory, arguing that, by virtue of the formal properties they possess, we encounter Tarkovsky’s films more like religious objects than ordinary films. The tenor of these encounters is why Tarkovsky’s films are appropriate loci for feelings of the numinous. (shrink)

We explain why exactly the simplified abstract scheme of reality within the standard science paradigm cannot provide the consistent picture of “truly fundamental” reality and how the unreduced, causally complete description of the latter is regained within the extended, provably complete solution to arbitrary interaction problem and the ensuing concept of universal dynamic complexity. We emphasize the practical importance of this extension for both particular problem solution and further, now basically unlimited fundamental science development (otherwise dangerously stagnating within its traditional (...) paradigm). (shrink)

Research on the nature of dispositionality or causal power has flourished in recent years in metaphysics. This trend has slowly begun to influence debates in the philosophy of agency, especially in the literature on free will. Both sophisticated versions of agent-­‐causalism and the new varieties of dispositionalist compatibilism exploit recently developed accounts of dispositionality in their defense. In this paper, I examine recent work on agent-­‐causal power, focusing primarily on the account of agent-­‐causalism developed and defended by Timothy O’Connor’s in (...) his work on free will. Assuming the existence of irreducible causal powers, I offer an. (shrink)

An account of what sort of causal integration is necessary for an agent to exercise agency is offered in support of a soft-line response to Derk Pereboom’s four-case argument against source-compatibilism. I argue that, in cases of manipulation, the manipulative activity affects the identity of the causal process of which it is a part. Specifically, I argue that causal processes involving direct manipulation fail to count as exercises of intentional agency because they involve heteromesial causal deviance. In contrast, standard deterministic (...) causal processes do not involve heteromesial causal deviance and are agency-preserving. The upshot is that there is a relevant difference between a causal process involving direct manipulation by another agent and a deterministic causal process that involves no such intervention. If this is right, then Pereboom’s four-case argument does not pose a threat to source-compatibilist theories of free will and moral responsibility. (shrink)

The ways in which we exercise intentional agency are varied. I take the domain of intentional agency to include all that we intentionally do versus what merely happens to us. So the scope of our intentional agency is not limited to intentional action. One can also exercise some intentional agency in omitting to act and, importantly, in producing the intentional outcome of an intentional action. So, for instance, when an agent is dieting, there is an exercise of agency both with (...) respect to the agent’s actions and omissions that constitute her dieting behavior and in achieving the intended outcome of losing weight. In our mental lives we exercise intentional agency both in performing mental actions and when we intentionally produce certain outcomes at which our mental actions are aimed. The nature and scope of our intentional agency in our mental lives with respect to controlling the acquisition of mental states such as belief, desire, and intention is a topic that is of interest in its own right. In this essay, I will focus solely on our control over coming to believe. Understanding what sort of control we have our beliefs has far-reaching implications. For instance, theorizing about self-deception and wishful thinking is aided by theorizing about what if any intentional agency we can exercise with respect to acquiring beliefs. Another often mentioned concern that motivates thinking about doxastic agency comes from religion (when conversion requires a change of belief). We also hold persons morally and epistemically responsible for beliefs they have or fail to have. Finally, some deontological theories of epistemic justification require that agents be able to exercise a robust form of doxastic control. Fruitful work on any of these problems requires that we have an account of our intentional agency in acquiring beliefs. There are at least three loci of doxastic control. The first is over acquiring beliefs. The second is over maintaining beliefs. The third is over how we use our beliefs. I am chiefly concerned with the first locus of doxastic control in this essay, but I will say something about the second locus along the way. Also, I will only consider one way we might exercise control over acquiring beliefs. Specifically, I will present an argument against direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV). By “DDV” I mean to refer to the thesis that it is conceptually possible for agents to consciously exercise the same sort of direct voluntary control over coming to acquire a doxastic attitude—such as belief, suspension of belief, and disbelief—that they exercise over uncontroversial basic actions. If DDV is correct, then coming to believe can be a basic action-type. DDV, or something very close to it, was Bernard Williams’ target in his 1973 paper, “Deciding to Believe.” Williams’s argument is widely regarded as having been a failure. But I think that Williams was on to something in his paper. Hence, in this paper, while I do not attempt to resurrect Williams’s argument, I develop and defend a revised argument for a thesis that is quite close to Williams’s. I will proceed as follows. First, I will discuss Bernard Williams’ (1973) failed attempt at showing that DDV is conceptually impossible. This will be followed by a discussion of some constraints on our belief-forming activities. I will then clarify my target a bit more than Williams does in his original paper. Finally, I will present my own argument against the conceptual possibility of DDV. (shrink)

The case is discussed for the doctrine of hell as posing a unique problem of evil for adherents to the Abrahamic religions who endorse traditional theism. The problem is particularly acute for those who accept retributivist formulations of the doctrine of hell according to which hell is everlasting punishment for failing to satisfy some requirement. Alternatives to retributivism are discussed, including the unique difficulties that each one faces.

We propose a qualitatively new kind of governance for the emerging need to efficiently guide the densely interconnected, ever more complex world development, which is based on explicit and openly presented problem solutions and their interactive implementation practice within the versatile, but unified professional analysis of complex real-world dynamics, involving both the powerful central units and the attached creative worldwide network of professional representatives. We provide fundamental and rigorous scientific arguments in favour of introduction of just that kind of governance (...) at the modern development stage, after the complexity threshold in the real world dynamics evolution (sometimes intuitively designated as "globalisation"), where the traditional spontaneous-empirical kind of development and related administrative governance lose dramatically and inevitably their efficiency and the necessity of explicit consistent understanding and guidance of complex real-world dynamics becomes evident. (shrink)

This summary of the original paradigm of the universal science of complexity starts with the discovered exact origin of the stagnating "end" of conventional, unitary science paradigm and development traditionally presented by its own estimates as the only and the best possible kind of scientific knowledge. Using a transparent generalisation of the exact mathematical formalism of arbitrary interaction process, we show that unitary science approach and description, including its imitations of complexity and chaoticity, correspond to artificial and ultimately strong reduction (...) of the natural plurality of unreduced interaction results called realisations to a single, "average" or "exact", realisation. This severe reduction of the natural world dynamics in unitary science underlies all its unsolvable "mysteries" and "paradoxes", persisting "difficult problems", and finally the modern "end" of the progress of just that, actually very special kind of knowledge, whose irreducible limits lead to the modern deep crisis of the global civilisation development. We show then how the rigorously substantiated restoration of the full richness of real-world dynamics within the intrinsically unified knowledge of the universal science of complexity provides not only the causally complete solution to the old and new problems of unitary science but opens practically unlimited possibilities for the new progress of science and civilisation as a result of this crucial extension, which we call complexity revolution. The unreduced analysis of the universal complexity science shows that at the current critical bifurcation point of development, we have only two incompatible possibilities and emerging tendencies, either the dangerously growing degradation within the dominating unitary science and thinking limits (irrespective of purely empirical technology power becoming even dangerous here) or the new golden age of scientific discoveries and civilisation progress with the qualitatively extended approach and results of unreduced complexity science and the new thinking it implies. (shrink)

We show that critically accumulating "difficult" problems, contradictions and stagnation in modern science have the unified and well-specified mathematical origin in the explicit, artificial reduction of any interaction problem solution to an "exact", dynamically single-valued (or unitary) function, while in reality any unreduced interaction development leads to a dynamically multivalued solution describing many incompatible system configurations, or "realisations", that permanently replace one another in causally random order. We obtain thus the universal concept of dynamic complexity and chaos impossible in unitary (...) mathematics. This huge difference between the unreduced mathematics of real-world dynamics and strongly limited unitary “models” of traditional mathematics inevitably induces a growing series of “unsolvable” problems and other “mysteries” that culminate now in the crisis of the “end of science”, where the stagnating unitary “science” in question includes only the described limitation of the traditional mathematical framework (unfortunately accepted as the unique possible basis for any scientific knowledge). In this brief review, we show that science extension to the unreduced, dynamically multivalued mathematics of the intrinsically complex real-world dynamics provides stagnating problem solutions and reconstitution of the intrinsic causality and unity of science desperately missing in its artificially limited unitary framework. Painful stagnation of the latter should be replaced now by the unlimited new progress of the extended, causally complete knowledge of the universal science of complexity, which provides the urgently needed issue from the current impasse of the global civilisation development. (shrink)

Biases affect much of our epistemic lives. Do they affect how we understand things? For Linda Zagzebski, we only understand something when we manifest intellectual virtues or skills. Relying on how widespread biases are, J. Adam Carter and Duncan Pritchard raise a skeptical objection to understanding so conceived. It runs as follows: most of us seem to understand many things. We genuinely understand only when we manifest intellectual virtues or skills, and are cognitively responsible for so doing. Yet much of (...) what we seem to understand consists in conceptions whose formation could have easily been due to biases instead, and the work of biases is opaque to reflection. If conceptions constituting how we understand things could have easily been due to biases, then we are not cognitively responsible for them because we cannot reflectively appraise what we understand. So, we are mistaken in thinking we genuinely understand most of the time. I will defend the grounding of understanding in intellectual virtues and skills from Carter and Pritchard’s objection. We are cognitively responsible for understanding when we manifest our expertise. We can do so, I will argue, without being required to reflectively appraise what we understand. (shrink)

Critically growing problems of fundamental science organisation and content are analysed with examples from physics and emerging interdisciplinary fields. Their origin is specified and new science structure (organisation and content) is proposed as a unified solution.

We review the recently proposed universal concept of dynamic complexity and its new mathematics based on the unreduced interaction problem solution. We then consider its progress-bringing applications at various levels of complex world dynamics, including complex-dynamical nanometal physics and living condensed matter, unreduced nanobiosystem dynamics and the integral medicine concept, causally complete management of complex economical and social dynamics, and the ensuing concept of truly sustainable world governance.

A qualitatively new, much more liberal and efficient organisation of science is proposed and justified in connection with emerging international science structures, such as the European Research Council, and growing debates about further role and development of fundamental science. Although the ideas are expressed in terms of "common sense" arguments accessible to a "general" audience, they are based on the rigorous analysis within the recently advanced "universal concept of complexity", which can be applied, due to its universality, also to science (...) structure itself considered as a complex system. We demonstrate thus the application of this ultimate criterion of completeness of a system of knowledge (and viability of related intelligence) that should be able to derive consistent, provable, and practically relevant conclusions about its own purpose, sense, evolution, and current state. (shrink)

Unified and causal complex-dynamic origin of standard (special and general) relativistic and quantum effects revealed previously at the lowest levels of world interaction dynamics is explicitly generalised to all higher levels of unreduced interaction processes, thus additionally confirming the causally complete character of complex-dynamical, naturally quantised relativity, which does not contain any artificially added, abstract postulates. We demonstrate some elementary applications of this generalised quantum relativity at higher levels of complex brain and social interaction dynamics.

We examine Sophie Gibb’s emergent property-dualist theory of mental causation as double-prevention. Her account builds on a commitment to a version of causal realism based on a powers metaphysic. We consider three objections to her account. We show, by drawing out the implications of the ontological commitments of Gibb’s theory of mental causation, that the first two objections fail. But, we argue, owing to worries about cases where there is no double-preventive role to be played by mental properties, her account, (...) which solely affords mental properties a double-preventive role, is incomplete and vulnerable to a causal exclusion objection. We propose a friendly modification to her theory of mental causation that is consistent with her theory’s ontological commitments. Specifically, we sketch an account on which mental properties have a more pronounced causal-structuring role that is not exhausted by the role Gibb assigns them as double-preventers. The result is a novel emergentist theory of mental causation. (shrink)

Modern fundamental science tends to avoid the principle of physical causality and realism, replacing it with heuristically postulated and separated mathematical constructions that impose their own rules before being adjusted to measurement results. While it is officially accepted as the single possible kind of rigorous knowledge, we argue that another, explicitly extended kind of science can provide the causally complete picture of reality avoiding the glaring gaps, growing problems and persisting stagnation of the artificially reduced knowledge paradigm. The logic of (...) science development and especially its current state call for the urgently needed transition to the extended, causally complete kind of knowledge and related sustainable progress at superior creativity levels of self-aware, reason-based society. (shrink)

In this article I focus on the argument that Jeff Speaks develops in Speaks (2008). There, Speaks distinguishes between uses of language in conversation and uses of language in thought. Speaks’s argument is that a phenomenon that appears both when using language in communication and when using language in thought cannot be explained in Gricean conversational terms. A Gricean account of implicature involves having very complicated beliefs about the audience, which turn out to be extremely bizarre if the speaker is (...) her own and only audience. Therefore, it is extremely implausible that we implicate anything when using language in thought. So, an episode of using language in thought needs to be explained in some other way. This article is an attempt to clarify the notion of a use of language in thought, and ultimately to argue that there are no uses of language that satisfy all the conditions that are needed for Speaks’s argument to work. (shrink)

Some philosophers working on the metaphysics of agency argue that if agency is understood in terms of settling the truth of some matters, then the power required for the exercise of intentional agency is an irreducible two-way power to either make it true that p or not-p. In this paper, the focus is on two-way powers in decision-making. Two problems are raised for theories of decision-making that are ontologically committed to irreducible two-way powers. First, recent accounts lack an adequate framework (...) for explaining decisions by the reasons of agents. Second, accepting ontologically irreducible two-way powers into one’s metaphysic of agency implies an ontological commitment to substance dualism. An ontologically less-costly alternative to irreducible two-way powers is offered. It is argued that a reductive account of two-way powers in terms of what George Molnar called “derivative powers” should be accepted. The reductive account can provide us with the truthmakers for talk about two-way powers. Moreover, the reductive account does not share the liabilities of accepting irreducible two-way powers. (shrink)

While practical efforts in the field of artificial intelligence grow exponentially, the truly scientific and mathematically exact understanding of the underlying phenomena of intelligence and consciousness is still missing in the conventional science framework. The inevitably dominating empirical, trial-and-error approach has vanishing efficiency for those extremely complicated phenomena, ending up in fundamentally limited imitations of intelligent behaviour. We provide the first-principle analysis of unreduced many-body interaction process in the brain revealing its qualitatively new features, which give rise to rigorously defined (...) chaotic, noncomputable, intelligent and conscious behaviour. Based on the obtained universal concepts of unreduced dynamic complexity, intelligence and consciousness, we derive the universal laws of intelligence applicable to any kind of intelligent system interacting with the environment. We finally show why and how these fundamentally substantiated and therefore practically efficient laws of intelligent system dynamics are indispensable for correct AI design and training, which is urgently needed in this time of critical global change towards the truly sustainable development. (shrink)

The article presents a critique of aesthetic realism. The core of this theory contains three theses: (AR) aesthetic properties are the sources of aesthetic experience; (PA) perceptual acquaintance with the objects of aesthetic evaluation is a sine qua non condition for making an judgment; (DM) aesthetic properties are describable. Arguments of faultless disagreement, esse is percipi, and zombie art cast doubt on theses (AR) and (DM). Based on this critique, an alternative nominalist theory of aesthetic experience is proposed, in which (...) the perceptual properties of the object are considered as sufficient condition of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

By “pantheism” I mean to pick out a model of God on which God is identical with the totality of existents constitutive of the universe. I assume that, on pantheism, God is an omnispatiotemporal mind who is identical with the universe. I assume that, given divine omnispatiotemporality, God knows everything that can be known in the universe. This includes having knowledge de se of the minds of every conscious creature. Hence, if God has knowledge de se of the minds of (...) every conscious creature, then divine omniscience implies omnisubjectivity. Assuming that eternalism is true, robust temporal passage is an illusion. But, conscious creatures, such as human persons, experience robust temporal passage. If God has the attribute of omnisubjectivity, then God experiences temporal passage. However, God also has a unified experience of the entire spatiotemporal continuum. God’s having these two perspectives creates a tension for pantheism given that God would seem to experience both temporal passage and an absence of temporal passage. I compare non-personal pantheism and personal pantheism and consider which one has better resources to answer the foregoing puzzle. I argue that personal pantheism is better equipped to address this problem than non-personal pantheism. (shrink)

In his article Evgeny Borisov offers an original solution to Kripke’s sceptical problem of meaning. Its conceptual core is the point of view of the participant of speech acts. He believes that first-person statements of speech act participants like “I know for certain that the expression ‘e’ is used by me in the meaning of m” cannot carry any epistemic fallacies. As a criticism, I propose to point out that non-factual Cartesian semantics have serious epistemic flaws that make it vulnerable (...) to sceptical attacks and accusations of petitio principii. (shrink)

A knowledge argument is offered that presents unique difficulties for Christians who wish to assert that God is essentially omniscient. The difficulties arise from the doctrine of the incarnation. Assuming that God the Son did not necessarily have to become incarnate, then God cannot necessarily have knowledge de se of the content of a non-divine mind. If this is right, then God’s epistemic powers are not fixed across possible worlds and God is not essentially omniscient. Some options for Christian theists (...) are discussed, including rejecting traditional theism in favour of some version of pantheism or panentheism. (shrink)

Most work at the intersection of law and the philosophy of action focuses on criminal responsibility. Unfortunately, this focus has been at the expense of reflecting on how the philosophy of action might help illuminate our understanding of issues in civil law. In this essay, focusing on Anglo-American jurisprudence, we examine the conditions under which a party to a legal agreement is deemed to have the capacity required to be bound by that agreement. We refer to this condition as the (...) capacity condition. We begin by showing how recent work on the metaphysics of powers might ground an account of the role of capacities in the metaphysics of intentional agency. After discussing the capacity to contract in Anglo-American jurisprudence, we show how the general ontology of capacities and agency sketched can ground and help clarify legal thinking about capacity. We argue that when we couple our understanding of capacity with relevant recent data from developmental neuropsychology, a lacuna in Anglo-American contract law becomes evident. Specifically, it appears that persons in early adulthood do not clearly satisfy the conditions requisite for them to satisfy the capacity condition. In the light of this, we sketch some potential solutions that are compatible with existing legal standards and would contribute to a more consistent application of the capacity condition in contract law. (shrink)

Arguments against the Russellian theory of definite descriptions based on cases that involve failures of uniqueness are a recurrent theme in the relevant literature. In this paper, I discuss a number of such arguments, from Strawson (1950), Ramachandran (1993) and Szabo (2005). I argue that the Russellian has resources to account for these data by deploying a variety of mechanisms of quantifier domain restrictions. Finally, I present a case that is more problematic for the Russellian. While the previous cases all (...) involve referential uses of descriptions (or some variations of such uses), the most effective objection to the uniqueness condition draws on genuine attributive uses. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I make some general remarks about the relevance of semantics and pragmatics to argumentation theory, insisting on the importance of the reconstruction of speaker meaning for argument analysis, especially in the case of implicatures. In the second part of the paper I look more closely at the relation between argument and implicature. In the last part I discuss the concept of argumentative implicature, that is, implicatures that are generated by speech acts of arguing. (...) I maintain, against Jackson (1987), that there are no specifically argumentative implicatures. (shrink)

The unreduced solution to the arbitrary interaction problem, absent in the standard theory framework, reveals many equally real and mutually incompatible system configurations, or "realizations". This is the essence of universal dynamic undecidability, or multivaluedness, and the ensuing causal randomness (unpredictability), non-computability, irreversible time flow (evolution, emergence), and dynamic complexity of every real system, object, or process. This creative undecidability of real-world dynamics provides causal explanations for "quantum mysteries", relativity postulates, cosmological problems, and the huge efficiency of high-complexity phenomena, such (...) as life, intelligence, and consciousness, giving rise to extended applications, far beyond the critical limits of usual science paradigm. (shrink)

The article presents criticism of Katz’s proto-theory. Based on the principles of semantic Platonism, he offers a new understanding of the relationship between sense and reference. However, his account faces three strong objections: against non-causal ways of accessing abstract Platonic entities (Benacerraf–Field–Cheyne), against intuition as the faculty to a priori knowledge of grammar facts (Horwich–Cheyne–Oliver), and against the medial status of finite intensionals in matters for fixing the reference of linguistic expressions (Kripke–Boghossian–Kush). Without convincing answers to these objections, Katz’s proto-theory (...) cannot be considered as a fit competitor to naturalistic theories of language. (shrink)

An extended analysis compared to observations shows that modern “globalised” world civilisation has passed through the invisible “complexity threshold”, after which usual “spontaneous”, empirically driven kind of development (“invisible hand” etc.) cannot continue any more without major destructive tendencies. A much deeper, non-simplified understanding of real interaction complexity is necessary in order to cope with such globalised world development problems. Here we introduce the universal definition, fundamental origin, and dynamic equations for a major related quantity of (systemic) risk characterising real (...) complex system development tendencies at any level of dynamics. Practically important conclusions are derived, opening further detailed applications in economy, finance and development practice. (shrink)

The unreduced many-body interaction problem solution, absent in usual science framework, reveals a new quality of emerging multiple, equally real but mutually incompatible system configurations, or “realisations”, giving rise to the universal concept of dynamic complexity and chaoticity. Their imitation by a single, “average” realisation or trajectory in usual theory (corresponding to postulated “exact” or perturbative problem solutions) is a rough simplification of reality underlying all stagnating and emerging problems of conventional (unitary) science, often in the form of missing, or (...) “dark”, entities and “hidden variables”. We show how the application of unreduced interaction problem solution and the ensuing concept of dynamic complexity provides the desired causally complete and intrinsically unified solutions to respective unitary science problems in the entire range of complexity levels, from elementary particles and cosmology to emergent consciousness and modern development crisis, implying real, essential and urgently needed progress. (shrink)

In his article, Vsevolod Ladov poses an important question – might paradoxes admit of a uniform solution? As an answer, I propose looking at an approach in which it is argued that we must recognize the truth predicate as merely analogous to a vague predicate. The proponents of this approach (V. McGee, J. Tappenden, H. Field, G. Priest and D. Hyde) insist that there is a structural relation between sorites paradoxes and self-reference paradoxes and that they should have a unified (...) solution. (shrink)

Instead of postulated fixed structures and abstract principles of usual positivistic science, the unreduced diversity of living world reality is consistently derived as dynamically emerging results of unreduced interaction process development, starting from its simplest configuration of two coupled homogeneous protofields. The dynamically multivalued, or complex and intrinsically chaotic, nature of these real interaction results extends dramatically the artificially reduced, dynamically single-valued projection of standard theory and solves its stagnating old and accumulating new problems, “mysteries” and “paradoxes” within the unified (...) and causally complete picture of intrinsically evolving, dynamically complex reality. The permanently unfolding complexity progress thus revealed is fundamentally unlimited and does not need to stop at the directly observed diversity of usual matter complexity. The exciting, but rigorously substantiated and objectively inevitable prospects of further civilisation complexity development towards its superior levels of genuine sustainability and global Noosphere are outlined, with practically important conclusions for today’s critical problem solution. (shrink)

The deep crisis in modern fundamental science development is ever more evident and openly recognised now even by mainstream, official science professionals and leaders. By no coincidence, it occurs in parallel to the world civilisation crisis and related global change processes, where the true power of unreduced scientific knowledge is just badly missing as the indispensable and unique tool for the emerging greater problem solution and further progress at a superior level of complex world dynamics. Here we reveal the mathematically (...) exact reason for the crisis in conventional science, containing also the natural and unified problem solution in the form of well-specified extension of usual, artificially restricted paradigm. We show how that extended, now causally complete science content provides various "unsolvable" problem solutions and opens new development possibilities for both science and society, where the former plays the role of the main, direct driver for the latter. We outline the related qualitative changes in science organisation, practice and purposes, giving rise to the sustainability transition in the entire civilisation dynamics towards the well-specified superior level of its unreduced, now well understood and universally defined complexity. (shrink)

The article presents a critical analysis of views on the problem of personal identity which are proposed by two great English philosophers — John Locke and Derek Parfit. Lockean personality is considered as a basic metaphysical structure, subject to moral responsibility for all actions performed on its behalf. Parfitian personality, in contrast, denies any identical essence through time as an extremely improbable metaphysical structure, instead assuming an existential chain of one life’s stages with psychological continuity. As an alternative to these (...) views, a several of additional arguments are considered to support the physicist view of human nature. (shrink)