Nikolay Kondratieff is known primarily for his theory of long cycles. However, it is worth recalling that he was among the first who started to investigate the nature of different economic cycles and their systematic interaction. Actually the primary classification of cycles into short, medium and long belongs to Kondratieff.

SUMMARY Major theories of philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind are examined on the basis of the fundamental questions of ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, semantics and logic. The result is the choice between language of eliminative reductionism and dualism, neither of which answers properly the relation between mind and body. In the search for a non–dualistic and non–reductive language, Wittgenstein’s notion of language–games as the representative links between language and the world is considered together with Peirce’s semeiosis of cognition. The result (...) is a redefined notion of cognition as the goal–oriented ability to instantiate strategies from the rules of the language–games. Cognition is considered within the four-dimensional languagegames: rules/strategies, primitive/complete language-games, family-resemblances/forms of life, and non-temporal continuum as the language-games’ modality. Cognition is seen as a continuum process of non–individualized elements that unites perception, volition, emotion, will and thought against the commonly accepted understandings of cognition in exclusive terms of perception and thinking. The alternative to the mind/body problem is the continuity of cognition where rules and strategies, syntax and semantics, are considered inseparable within language–games. This continuity of cognition is explained in terms of virtual (univocal) identity, replacing the old philosophical paradigm of the mind/body problem. -/- SOMMARIO Le teorie maggiori della psicologia filosofica e filosofia della mente sono esaminate a partire dalle questioni fondamentali di ontologia, metafisica, epistemologia, semantica e logica. Il risultato è la scelta tra un linguaggio riduzionista eliminativo e un dualismo che però non confronta in modo adeguato la relazione tra mente e corpo. Nella ricerca per un linguaggio non-dualistico e non-riduttivo, viene considerata la nozione del gioco linguistico di Wittgenstein come un legame rappresentativo tra il linguaggio e il mondo insieme con la semiosi cognitiva di Peirce. Il risultato è la nozione ridefinita della cognizione come abilità goal-orientata di creare le strategie dalle regole dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione è considerata entro le quattro dimensioni dei giochi linguistici: regole/strategie, giochi linguistici primitivi/completi, somiglianze di famiglia/forme di vita, e la continuità atemporale come la modalità dei giochi linguistici. La cognizione diventa un processo continuo degli elementi non-individualizzati che tende ad unificare la percezione, volizione, emozione, la volontà e il pensiero contro un concetto generalmente accettato di vedere la cognizione nei termini esclusivamente di percezione e di pensiero. L’alternativa al problema della mente/corpo è la continuità della cognizione, dove le regole e le strategie, la sintassi e la semantica, sono considerate inseparabili nei giochi linguistici. Questa continuità della cognizione è spiegata nei termini dell’identità virtuale (univoca) sostituendo un paradigma filosofico previo del problema della mente/corpo. (shrink)

Can the original meaning of texts, ideas, doctrines or traditions – objects of interpretation – be preserved despite constantly changing subject of interpretation? Is knowledge of the original meaning even possible, if we are to take seriously significance of the past and present interpretations? Finally, from the position of the current theories of language, is meaning itself possible outside of the syntactical structures of language? In this article all three questions find positive answers from the position of C. S. Peirce’s (...) semiotics. Both, ontological unity of the object of interpretation secures the unity of meaning, while epistemological pluralism of interpretation and the growth of signs without conflict. (shrink)

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this (...) publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. (shrink)

The role of China in the world economy is constantly growing. In particular we observe that it plays more and more important role in the support of theworld economic growth (as well as high prices of certain very important commodities). In the meantime the perspectives of the Chinese economy (as well as possible fates of the Chinese society) remain unclear, whereas respective forecasts look rather contradictory. That is why the search for new aspects and modes of analysis of possible development (...) of China turns out to be rather important for the forecasting of global futures. This article employs a combination of scientific methods that imply (a) the analysis at the level of Chinese economic model; (b) the analysis at regional level (at this level the Chinese economic model is compared with the regional East Asian model); (c) the analysis at the global level that relies on the modified world-system approach that allows to answer the question whether China will replace the USA as the global leader. It is important that the analysis is conducted simultaneously in economic, social, demographic, and political dimensions. As regards the analysis of specific features of the Chinese model as an especial type of the East Asian model (that is based on the export orientation, capital & technology importation, as well as cheap labor force), we note as organic features of the Chinese model the totalitarian power of the Communist Party and the immenseness of resources. As regards special features of the Chinese model, we note (in addition to “cheap ecology” and cheap labor force) and emphasize that China has a multilevel (in a way unique) system of growth driving forces, where, as opposed to developed states, the dominant role belongs not to native private capital, but to state corporations, local authorities and foreign business. This explains the peculiarities of the Chinese investment (or rather overinvestment), which determines high growth rate up to a very significant degree. A unique feature of the Chinese model is the competition of provinces and territories for investments and high growth indicators. As regards perspectives of the global hegemony of China, we intend to demonstrate that, on the one hand, economic and political positions of China will strengthen in the forthcoming decades, but, on the other hand, China, assuming all possible future success, will be unable to take the USA position in the World System. We believe that in a direct connection with the development of globalization processes the hegemony cycle pattern is likely to come to its end, which will lead to the World System reconfiguration and the emergence of its new structure that will allow the World System to continue its further development without a hegemon. Finally, the article describes some possible scenarios of the development of China. We demonstrate that China could hardly avoid serious difficulties and critical situations (including those connected with demographic problems); however, there could be different scenarios of how China will deal with the forthcoming crisis. We also come to the conclusion that it would be better for China to achieve a slowdown to moderate growth rates (that would allow China to go through the forthcoming complex transition period with less losses) than to try to return at any cost to explosive growth rates attested in the 2000s. (shrink)

Physical systems without time and dynamics have been considered. The principle of how to construct spacetime in a physical system without time and dynamics has been proposed. It has been found what can be objects in such a spacetime, and what can be an interaction between such objects. Within the framework of the considered class of systems, answers to the following problems of philosophy and physics have been found: the nature of consciousness and the connection of body and consciousness (mind-body (...) problem), the nature of time, the anthropic principle and the problem of fine-tuning the universe, the effectiveness of mathematics in describing physical phenomena, the limits of knowledge. There are a number of indications that our Universe is not based on one of the systems of the class considered. The considered class of systems makes it possible to find answers to questions that cannot be answered for our Universe. This shows that it is fundamentally possible to find answers to these questions for our Universe as well. (shrink)

Structures without time and dynamics are considered. The principle is proposed how to build space-time in a structure without time and dynamics. It is found what can be objects in such a space-time, and what can be an interaction between such objects.Within the framework of the considered class of structures, answers were found to the following problems of philosophy and physics: the nature of consciousness and the connection between the body and consciousness (mind-body problem), nature of time, anthropic principle and (...) the problem of fine-tuning the universe, the effectiveness of mathematics in describing physical phenomena, limits of knowledge.The considered class of structures makes it possible to find answers to questions that cannot be answered for our Universe. This shows the fundamental possibility of finding answers to these questions for our Universe as well. (shrink)

This interview with Professor Dr Jürgen Stolzenberg, board member of the Kant-Gesellschaft and co-editor of the Kant-Lexikon (2015), explores a wide range of topics — from Leibniz and Wolff to Heidegger and Husserl. The leading idea of Stolzenberg’s philosophical research is the justification of the principle of modern subjectivity in Kant’s philosophy and its transformations until our days. He discusses the meaning and development of the concept of self-consciousness and the understanding of subjectivity in Kant’s ethics as well as in (...) Fichte’s philosophy. Stolzenberg shows the significance of Heidegger’s philosophical relations with Kant, Fichte, and the Neo-Kantians. He outlines the reasons which explain the different structures of the philosophical theories after Kant in comparison with the structure of Kant’s philosophy itself. Answering the question of Kant’s role in affirming the value of human dignity, he emphasises the non-empirical essence of this concept as it is presented in Kant’s ethics and as it should be defended against recent critics. According to Stolzenberg, the principle of modern subjectivity proves to be fruitful in understanding the development of the history of modern music, too. (shrink)

The Transamazon (Br-230) Highway in the state of Pará has had its image frozen for decades: themuddy road, the cars stopped or tractors tearing down a forest, empty of people, opening the amazonianspace to a project of an authoritarian modernization. Reproduced by and reproductive of the teachingsof geography – including for children and teenagers who live on the edge of the road, in settlements andcommunities on the sideroads (vicinais) – in textbooks and discourses that frame regional scale (astotalizing and explanatory) (...) instead of scales emplaced in situ. The result of such dinamics is not restricted to a gap between what one experiences as a phenomenon and what one learns as a concept,it goes towards the reproducibility of an “unexistance of the creative potential” of the people living onthe sideroads, places of the construction of a geography, as well as mapping, that, from there, push usto rethink the unwavering foundations of such frosen images , of the generalistic maps and theirstandardizing projections, scales and simbology. To do so, we have, along with students and teachersof 2 schools on the sideroads of the municipality of Pacajá (PA), in the period of the beggining of 2016to 2019, done several geocartographic exercises: mind maps developped with students about the past,present and the future of the vicinal (sideroad). That is, an attempt to provoque the body into the mapand the map into the body in a context of a limit situation of existance, given the precarious schoolconditions as well as the diferent challenges lived by students and teachers. Such corporal engagementas an attempt to think the sideroads as a location in construction and, from there, a situated opening tothe world, is what gives meaning to geocartography. It is possible to conclude that: a) facing thesedimentary representations paralysing and overview of the Transamazon in the state of Pará , thephenomenological exercise of reactivation of geocartogrphying provoques the emergence of asubjective significance that does not separate the emotional and symbolic perspectives on creatingmaps; b) the corporal engagement and the situated perspective of students and teachers, not only hasthe value of a totalyzing exemple, but that of an opening to what is new as they bring up a simbologythat reveals the need to build a dialogical bridge between what is lived on the sideroads and the worldthat classifies it as “unexisting”. (shrink)

A significant discrepancy in Wittgenstein's studies is whether Philosophical Investigations contains any trace of positive philosophy, notwithstanding the author's apparent anti-theoretic position. This study argues that the so-called ‘Chapter on philosophy’ in the Investigations §§89–133 contains negative and positive vocabulary and the use of various voices through which Wittgenstein employs his primary method of language-games, thus providing a surveyable understanding of several philosophical concepts, such as knowledge and time. His positive philosophy aims to reorient our attention from understanding the theories (...) on these concepts to understanding the concepts themselves, regardless of any theorisation. (shrink)

Abstract Scientific discoveries must have more impact on philosophy (Bechtel, 2001. Part. I.I.). That is the thesis of the American professor of philosophy William Bechtel. Applications of the insights from the neurosciences could perhaps lead to a breakthrough in solving metaphysical and religious questions. Philosophers must assume the task of building bridges between the exact (and cognitive) sciences and contemporary philosophy (Bechtel, 2002. 49). This paper is a critical analysis of the promises of a relatively new discipline: Neurophilosophy.

The physical foundations of mathematics in the theory of emergent space-time-matter were considered. It is shown that mathematics, including logic, is a consequence of equation which describes the fundamental field. If the most fundamental level were described not by mathematics, but something else, then instead of mathematics there would be consequences of this something else.

The analysis of long economic cycles allows us to understand long-term worldsystem dynamics, to develop forecasts, to explain crises of the past, as well as the current global economic crisis. The article offers a historical sketch of research on K-waves; it analyzes the nature of Kondratieff waves that are considered as a special form of cyclical dynamics that emerged in the industrial period of the World System history. It offers a historical and theoretical analysis of K-wave dynamics in the World (...) System framework; in particular, it studies the influence of the long wave dynamics on the changes of the world GDP growth rates during the last two centuries. Special attention is paid to the interaction between Kondratieff waves and Juglar cycles. The article is based on substantial statistical data, it extensively employs quantitative analysis, contains numerous tables and diagrams. On the basis of the proposed analysis it offers some forecasts of the world economic development in the next two decades. The article concludes with a section that presents a hypothesis that the change of K-wave upswing and downswing phases correlates significantly with the phases of fluctuations in the relationships between the World-System Core and Periphery, as well as with the World System Core changes. (shrink)

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. (...) Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end. (shrink)

There seems to be a deep tension between two aspects of aesthetic appreciation. On the one hand, we care about getting things right. On the other hand, we demand autonomy. We want appreciators to arrive at their aesthetic judgments through their own cognitive efforts, rather than deferring to experts. These two demands seem to be in tension; after all, if we want to get the right judgments, we should defer to the judgments of experts. The best explanation, I suggest, is (...) that aesthetic appreciation is something like a game. When we play a game, we try to win. But often, winning isn’t the point; playing is. Aesthetic appreciation involves the same flipped motivational structure: we aim at the goal of correctness, but having correct judgments isn’t the point. The point is the engaged process of interpreting, investigating, and exploring the aesthetic object. Deferring to aesthetic testimony, then, makes the same mistake as looking up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point. This suggests a new account of aesthetic value: the engagement account. The primary value of the activity of aesthetic appreciation lies in the process of trying to generate correct judgments, and not in having correct judgments. -/- *There is an audio version available: look for the Soundcloud link, below.*. (shrink)

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources (...) for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. -/- Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities. (shrink)

Value capture occurs when an agent’s values are rich and subtle; they enter a social environment that presents simplified — typically quantified — versions of those values; and those simplified articulations come to dominate their practical reasoning. Examples include becoming motivated by FitBit’s step counts, Twitter Likes and Re-tweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such crisp and clear expressions of value have in (...) our private reasoning and our public justification. There is, however, a price. In value capture, we take a central component of our autonomy — our ongoing deliberation over the exact articulation of our values — and we outsource it. And the metrics to which we outsource usually engineered for the interests of some external force, like a large-scale institution’s interest in cross-contextual comprehensibility and quick aggregability. That outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits to personal deliberation. In value capture, we no longer adjust our values and their articulations in light of own rich experience of the world. Our values should often be carefully tailored to our particular selves or our small-scale communities, but in value capture, we buy our values off the rack. In some cases – like decreasing CO2 emissions – the costs of non-tailored values are outweighed by the benefit of precise collective coordination. In other cases, like in our aesthetic lives, they are not. This suggests that we should want different values suited to different scales. We should want value federalism. Some values are perhaps best pursued at the largest-scale level, others at smaller scales. The problem occurs when we exhibit an excess preference for the largest-scale values – when we consistently let the universal metrics swamp our quieter interests. (shrink)

We offer an account of the generic use of the term “porn”, as seen in recent usages such as “food porn” and “real estate porn”. We offer a definition adapted from earlier accounts of sexual pornography. On our account, a representation is used as generic porn when it is engaged with primarily for the sake of a gratifying reaction, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with the represented content. We demonstrate the usefulness of the concept of generic (...) porn by using it to isolate a new type of such porn: moral outrage porn. Moral outrage porn is representations of moral outrage, engaged with primarily for the sake of the resulting gratification, freed from the usual costs and consequences of engaging with morally outrageous content. Moral outrage porn is dangerous because it encourages the instrumentalization of one’s empirical and moral beliefs, manipulating their content for the sake of gratification. Finally, we suggest that when using porn is wrong, it is often wrong because it instrumentalizes what ought not to be instrumentalized. (shrink)

Recent conversation has blurred two very different social epistemic phenomena: echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Members of epistemic bubbles merely lack exposure to relevant information and arguments. Members of echo chambers, on the other hand, have been brought to systematically distrust all outside sources. In epistemic bubbles, other voices are not heard; in echo chambers, other voices are actively undermined. It is crucial to keep these phenomena distinct. First, echo chambers can explain the post-truth phenomena in a way that epistemic (...) bubbles cannot. Second, each type of structure requires a distinct intervention. Mere exposure to evidence can shatter an epistemic bubble, but may actually reinforce an echo chamber. Finally, echo chambers are much harder to escape. Once in their grip, an agent may act with epistemic virtue, but social context will pervert those actions. Escape from an echo chamber may require a radical rebooting of one's belief system. (shrink)

Philosophy part of theory of emergent space-time-matter is discussed. It was shown that anthropic principle is direct consequence of emergent time. It was shown that consciousness is epiphenomenon, but it is more fundamental than matter.

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

What is a game? What are we doing when we play a game? What is the value of playing games? Several different philosophical subdisciplines have attempted to answer these questions using very distinctive frameworks. Some have approached games as something like a text, deploying theoretical frameworks from the study of narrative, fiction, and rhetoric to interrogate games for their representational content. Others have approached games as artworks and asked questions about the authorship of games, about the ontology of the work (...) and its performance. Yet others, from the philosophy of sport, have focused on normative issues of fairness, rule application, and competition. The primary purpose of this article is to provide an overview of several different philosophical approaches to games and, hopefully, demonstrate the relevance and value of the different approaches to each other. Early academic attempts to cope with games tried to treat games as a subtype of narrative and to interpret games exactly as one might interpret a static, linear narrative. A faction of game studies, self-described as “ludologists,” argued that games were a substantially novel form and could not be treated with traditional tools for narrative analysis. In traditional narrative, an audience is told and interprets the story, where in a game, the player enacts and creates the story. Since that early debate, theorists have attempted to offer more nuanced accounts of how games might achieve similar ends to more traditional texts. For example, games might be seen as a novel type of fiction, which uses interactive techniques to achieve immersion in a fictional world. Alternately, games might be seen as a new way to represent causal systems, and so a new way to criticize social and political entities. Work from contemporary analytic philosophy of art has, on the other hand, asked questions whether games could be artworks and, if so, what kind. Much of this debate has concerned the precise nature of the artwork, and the relationship between the artist and the audience. Some have claimed that the audience is a cocreator of the artwork, and so games are a uniquely unfinished and cooperative art form. Others have claimed that, instead, the audience does not help create the artwork; rather, interacting with the artwork is how an audience member appreciates the artist's finished production. Other streams of work have focused less on the game as a text or work, and more on game play as a kind of activity. One common view is that game play occurs in a “magic circle.” Inside the magic circle, players take on new roles, follow different rules, and actions have different meanings. Actions inside the magic circle do not have their usual consequences for the rest of life. Enemies of the magic circle view have claimed that the view ignores the deep integration of game life from ordinary life and point to gambling, gold farming, and the status effects of sports. Philosophers of sport, on the other hand, have approached games with an entirely different framework. This has lead into investigations about the normative nature of games—what guides the applications of rules and how those rules might be applied, interpreted, or even changed. Furthermore, they have investigated games as social practices and as forms of life. (shrink)

The construction of space-time in a physical system without time and dynamics is considered. It is shown that the anthropic principle and causality principle inevitably arise in models without time and dynamics. It is shown that for any physical model based on a system without time and dynamics, the anthropic principle is a scientific principle and, in principle, can be falsified. It is shown that, in principle, there is the possibility of experimental verification of what is true - realism or (...) idealism. (shrink)

The construction of spacetime in a physical system without time and dynamics is considered. It is shown that in models without time and dynamics anthropic principle and causality principle inevitably arise. It is shown that for any physical model based on a system without time and dynamics, the anthropic principle is a scientific principle and, in principle, can be falsified. It is shown that, in principle, there is the possibility of experimental verification of what is true - realism or idealism.

The paper considers the philosophical component of the approach to the time as an emergent phenomenon absent at the fundamental level. The anthropic principle is shown as arising from the time emergence. Consciousness is shown as an epiphenomenon in such a model, although it is more fundamental than matter in this case. An answer to the question about the prime cause is suggested.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the evident scientific method of Galen, which establishes the necessity of correct diagnosis of diseases, determination of true symptoms and causes of diseases, which results in the choice of the exact method of treatment. The article focuses on how Galen seeks to achieve reliable knowledge based on an undeniable logical necessity. Logical reliability is contrasted with “dialectical”, that is, probabilistic judgments, often leading to the opposite of what was originally asserted in them. (...) Probabilistic judgments were characteristic of the Stoic philosophical school, with which Galen hotly argues, asserting his understanding of truth. Truth, in his opinion, is achieved through facts based on true premises. The criterion of truth for Galen is the study of the device of a living organism, and the logical conclusions depend on the accuracy of knowledge of human anatomy. Thus, the nature of the proof judgments of Galen depends on their practical content and not on the formal and logical structure offered by the Stoics when studying the functions of the human body, which ultimately leads to incorrect methods of treatment. (shrink)

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency – that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. (...) I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to non-experts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption — but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust — if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public — then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy of religion, the two most standard approaches to predicates of God are analogy and univocation. While analogy lacks precision and is best used in liturgical and sacred texts, univocal predicates are problematic because they seem to lead to ontological monism of sameness between God and creatures, which cannot be allowed within metaphysics of Absolute Being. In this article, I examine and contrast G. Frege’s approach to univocal predications and L. Wittgenstein’s notion of language-games, which allows us to (...) move away from univocation as a case of strong identity toward univocation as the extra-linguistic context of human activities. Indeed, that human context can be shared with ‘Goodness,’ ‘Wisdom,’ ‘Simplicity,’ ‘Love’ and many other predicates we attribute to God. I argue that our language of univocal predicates must reflect not the abstract concepts but that same context of divine and human activities in which names of God achieve univocal context. Key words: analogy, univocal predicates, G. Frege, L. Wittgenstein, contextual principle, language-games . (shrink)

According to most accounts of trust, you can only trust other people (or groups of people). To trust is to think that another has goodwill, or something to that effect. I sketch a different form of trust: the unquestioning attitude. What it is to trust, in this sense, is to settle one’s mind about something, to stop questioning it. To trust is to rely on a resource while suspending deliberation over its reliability. Trust lowers the barrier of monitoring, challenging, checking, (...) and questioning. Trust sets up open pipelines between yourself and parts of the external world. Trust permits external resources to have a similar relationship to one as one’s internal cognitive faculties. This creates efficiency, but at the price of exquisite vulnerability. We must trust in this way because we are cognitively limited beings in a cognitively overwhelming world. Crucially, we can hold the unquestioning attitude towards objects and technologies. When I trust my climbing rope, I stop worrying about its reliability. When I trust my online calendaring system, I simply go to the events indicated, without question. But, one might worry, how could one ever hold such a normatively loaded attitude as trust towards mere objects? How could it ever make sense to feel betrayed by an object? Trust is our engine for expanding and outsourcing our agency — for binding external processes into our practical selves. Thus, we can be betrayed by our smartphones in the same way that we can be betrayed by our memory. When we trust, we try to make something a part of our agency, and we are betrayed when our part lets us down. To unquestioningly trust something is to let it in—to attempt to bring it inside one’s practical functioning. This suggests a new form of gullibility: agential gullibility, which occurs when agents too hastily and carelessly integrate external resources into their own agency. (shrink)

Twitter makes conversation into something like a game. It scores our communication, giving us vivid and quantified feedback, via Likes, Retweets, and Follower counts. But this gamification doesn’t just increase our motivation to communicate; it changes the very nature of the activity. Games are more satisfying than ordinary life precisely because game-goals are simpler, cleaner, and easier to apply. Twitter is thrilling precisely because its goals have been artificially clarified and narrowed. When we buy into Twitter’s gamification, then our values (...) shift from the complex and pluralistic values of communication, to the narrower quest for popularity and virality. Twitter’s gamification bears some resemblance with the phenomena of echo chambers and moral outrage porn. In all these phenomena, we are instrumentalizing our ends for hedonistic reasons. We have shifted our aims in an activity, not because the new aims are more valuable, but in exchange for extra pleasure. (shrink)

The feeling of clarity can be dangerously seductive. It is the feeling associated with understanding things. And we use that feeling, in the rough-and-tumble of daily life, as a signal that we have investigated a matter sufficiently. The sense of clarity functions as a thought-terminating heuristic. In that case, our use of clarity creates significant cognitive vulnerability, which hostile forces can try to exploit. If an epistemic manipulator can imbue a belief system with an exaggerated sense of clarity, then they (...) can induce us to terminate our inquiries too early — before we spot the flaws in the system. How might the sense of clarity be faked? Let’s first consider the object of imitation: genuine understanding. Genuine understanding grants cognitive facility. When we understand something, we categorize its aspects more easily; we see more connections between its disparate elements; we can generate new explanations; and we can communicate our understanding. In order to encourage us to accept a system of thought, then, an epistemic manipulator will want the system to provide its users with an exaggerated sensation of cognitive facility. The system should provide its users with the feeling that they can easily and powerfully create categorizations, generate explanations, and communicate their understanding. And manipulators have a significant advantage in imbuing their systems with a pleasurable sense of clarity, since they are freed from the burdens of accuracy and reliability. I offer two case studies of seductively clear systems: conspiracy theories; and the standardized, quantified value systems of bureaucracies. (shrink)

Games have a complex, and seemingly paradoxical structure: they are both competitive and cooperative, and the competitive element is required for the cooperative element to work out. They are mechanisms for transforming competition into cooperation. Several contemporary philosophers of sport have located the primary mechanism of conversion in the mental attitudes of the players. I argue that these views cannot capture the phenomenological complexity of game-play, nor the difficulty and moral complexity of achieving cooperation through game-play. In this paper, I (...) present a different account of the relationship between competition and cooperation. My view is a distributed view of the conversion: success depends on a large number of features. First, the players must achieve the right motivational state: playing for the sake of the struggle, rather than to win. Second, successful transformation depends on a large number of extra-mental features, including good game design, and social and institutional features. (shrink)

The current debate over aesthetic testimony typically focuses on cases of doxastic repetition — where, when an agent, on receiving aesthetic testimony that p, acquires the belief that p without qualification. I suggest that we broaden the set of cases under consideration. I consider a number of cases of action from testimony, including reconsidering a disliked album based on testimony, and choosing an artistic educational institution from testimony. But this cannot simply be explained by supposing that testimony is usable for (...) action, but unusable for doxastic repetition. I consider a new asymmetry in the usability aesthetic testimony. Consider the following cases: we seem unwilling to accept somebody hanging a painting in their bedroom based merely on testimony, but entirely willing to accept hanging a painting in a museum based merely on testimony. The switch in intuitive acceptability seems to track, in some complicated way, the line between public life and private life. These new cases weigh against a number of standing theories of aesthetic testimony. I suggest that we look further afield, and that something like a sensibility theory, in the style of John McDowell and David Wiggins, will prove to be the best fit for our intuitions for the usability of aesthetic testimony. I propose the following explanation for the new asymmetry: we are willing to accept testimony about whether a work merits being found beautiful; but we are unwilling to accept testimony about whether something actually is beautiful. (shrink)

Art can be addressed, not just to individuals, but to groups. Art can even be part of how groups think to themselves – how they keep a grip on their values over time. I focus on monuments as a case study. Monuments, I claim, can function as a commitment to a group value, for the sake of long-term action guidance. Art can function here where charters and mission statements cannot, precisely because of art’s powers to capture subtlety and emotion. In (...) particular, art can serve as the vessel for group emotions, by making emotional content sufficiently public so as to be the object of a group commitment. Art enables groups to guide themselves with values too subtle to be codified. (shrink)

The theory and culture of the arts has largely focused on the arts of objects, and neglected the arts of action – the “process arts”. In the process arts, artists create artifacts to engender activity in their audience, for the sake of the audience’s aesthetic appreciation of their own activity. This includes appreciating their own deliberations, choices, reactions, and movements. The process arts include games, urban planning, improvised social dance, cooking, and social food rituals. In the traditional object arts, the (...) central aesthetic properties occur in the artistic artifact itself. It is the painting that is beautiful; the novel that is dramatic. In the process arts, the aesthetic properties occur in the activity of the appreciator. It is the game player’s own decisions that are elegant, the rock climber’s own movement that is graceful, and the tango dancers’ rapport that is beautiful. The artifact’s role is to call forth and shape that activity, guiding it along aesthetic lines. I offer a theory of the process arts. Crucially, we must distinguish between the designed artifact and the prescribed focus of aesthetic appreciation. In the object arts, these are one and the same. The designed artifact is the painting, which is also the prescribed focus of appreciation. In the process arts, they are different. The designed artifact is the game, but the appreciator is prescribed to appreciate their own activity in playing the game. Next, I address the complex question of who the artist really is in a piece of process art — the designer or the active appreciator? Finally, I diagnose the lowly status of the process arts. (shrink)

This article presents possible answers, and their respective probabilities, to the question, ‘What are the consequences of the present global crisis in the proximate future of the World System?’ It also attempts to describe the basic characteristics of the forthcoming ‘Epoch of New Coalitions’ and to forecast certain future conditions. Among the problems analyzed in this paper are the following: What does the weakening of the economic role of the USA as the World System centre mean? Will there be a (...) leader in the future World System? Will the deficit of global governance and world fragmentation continue to worsen? How can national sovereignty be transformed? (shrink)

Because factory-farmed meat production inflicts gratuitous suffering upon animals and wreaks havoc on the environment, there are morally compelling reasons to become vegetarian. Yet industrial plant agriculture causes the death of many field animals, and this leads some to question whether consumers ought to get some of their protein from certain kinds of non factory-farmed meat. Donald Bruckner, for instance, boldly argues that the harm principle implies an obligation to collect and consume roadkill and that strict vegetarianism is thus immoral. (...) But this argument works only if the following claims are true: all humans have access to roadkill, roadkill would go to waste if those who happen upon it don’t themselves consume it, it’s impossible to harvest vegetables without killing animals, the animals who are killed in plant production are all-things-considered harmed by crop farming, and the best arguments for vegetarianism all endorse the harm principle. As I will argue in this paper, each claim is deeply problematic. Consequently, in most cases, humans ought to strictly eat plants and save the roadkill for cats. (shrink)

Given the endowment effect, the role of attention in decision-making, and the framing effect, most behavioral economists agree that it would be a mistake to accept the satisfaction of revealed preferences as the normative criterion of choice. Some have suggested that what makes agents better off is not the satisfaction of revealed preferences, but ‘true’ preferences, which may not always be observed through choice. While such preferences may appear to be an improvement over revealed preferences, some philosophers of economics have (...) argued that they face insurmountable epistemological, normative, and methodological challenges. This article introduces a new kind of true preference – values-based preferences – that blunts these challenges. Agents express values-based preferences when they choose in a manner that is compatible with a consumption plan grounded in a value commitment that is normative, affective, and stable for the agent who has one. Agents who choose according to their plans are resolute choosers. My claim is that while values-based preferences do not apply to every choice situation, this kind of preference provides a rigorous way for thinking about classic choice situations that have long interested behavioral economists and philosophers of economics, such as ‘Joe-in-the-cafeteria.’. (shrink)

I propose an account of aesthetic value, where aesthetic value lies in the process of aesthetic engagement: in our activity of perceiving, guiding our attention, interpreting, and otherwise wrestling with aesthetic objects. It also includes our social activities of engagement: arguing with each other, writing criticism, making top-ten lists. (This is a short summary of a view developed in greater detail elsewhere.).

В последние два-три года среди многочислен- ных проблем в отношении европейской и американской экономики все чаще стала упоминаться опасность дефляции. При этом в каче- стве примера рассматривается японская экономика, которая уже два десятилетия страдает от дефляции, несмотря на огромные раз- меры финансовых вливаний и усилия правительства разогнать ин- фляцию. В западных экономиках инфляция также низкая, времена- ми нулевая, переходящая в дефляцию. В целом есть основания счи- тать, что страны Европы заболевают «японской болезнью», а также что эта «болезнь» может прогрессировать либо (...) носить хрониче- ский характер. В США, хотя и в меньшей степени, также имеются признаки этой «болезни». В результате финансовые вливания мо- гут стать, как и в Японии, постоянными. В разделе показаны при- чины этой проблемы, объяснена неравномерность процессов инфляции – дефляции в мире, сделаны прогнозы. (shrink)

Есть исследователи, проблематика работ и теории которых остаются актуальными длительное время и после их смерти. К числу таких, несом- ненно, относится и Николай Дмитриевич Кондратьев – замечательный российский экономист, один из тех, чье имя довольно широко известно и за рубежом. И актуальность его идей тем более важно отметить в ознаме-нование 125-летнего юбилея Н. Д. Кондратьева, который мы отпраздновали в прошлом 2017 году. Именно этой теме – связи творчества Кондратьева и проблем современной экономики и экономической науки – и посвящены многие статьи (...) данного выпуска ежегодника. Биографии и отдельным аспектам творчества ученого отведены статьи первого раздела. Тем не менее нельзя не сказать хотя бы немного об этой личности и во Введении. (shrink)

This is a reply to Elisabeth Camp's and Elijah Millgram's probing discussions of "Games and the Art of Agency", in a symposium in Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Millgram argues that games cannot function as a guide to life, because they are too different from life. Games are limited in a special way: in life, we deliberate about what goals we want to take on, but in games, the goals are fixed and given to us. Camp argues that there (...) is nothing particularly special about games, because the fluidity of agency is all over ordinary life too - games are just like ordinary life. I respond to Millgram: we do deliberate about our ends, in games, when we aesthetically reflect on which games to play. And I respond to Camp: games are distinctive in the way they regulate how our reasons flow across the game/life border. To respond to these criticisms, I add some substantial new features to my account of the motivational structure of game-play. (shrink)

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening (...) and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue (though, of course, not without certain interruptions). It is also demonstrated that this convergence constitutes a necessary condition for the next technological breakthrough. (shrink)

Some important correlations between medium-term economic cycles (7–11 years) known as Juglar cycles and long (40–60 years) Kondratieff cycles are presented in this paper. The research into the history of this issue shows that this aspect is insufficiently studied. Meanwhile, in our opinion, it can significantly clarify both the reasons of alternation of upswing and downswing phases in K-waves and the reasons of relative stability of the length of these waves. It also can provide the certain means for forecasting. The (...) authors show that adjacent 2–4 medium cycles form the system the important characteristic of which is the dynamics of economic trend. The latter can be upswing (active) or downswing (depressive). The mechanisms of formation of such medium-term trends and changing tendencies are explained. The presence of such clusters of medium cycles (general duration of which is 20–30 years) determines to a large degree the long-wave dynamics and the characteristics of its timing. Thus, not medium-term J-cycles depend on the character of K-wave phase as Kondratieff supposed, but the character of the cluster of J-cycles determines significantly the character of K-wave phases. (shrink)

I explore the view that the imago Dei is essential to us as humans but accidental to us as persons. To image God is to resemble God, and resemblance comes in degrees. This has the straightforward—and perhaps disturbing—implication that we can be more or less human, and possibly cease to be human entirely. Hence, I call it the spectrum view. I argue that the spectrum view is complementary to the Biblical data, helps explain the empirical reality of horrendous evil, and (...) offers an elegant rapprochement between the traditional view of hell and its rivals. (shrink)