According to a chorus of authors, the human life-world is currently invaded by an avalanche of high-tech devices referred to as “emerging,” ”intimate,” or ”NBIC” technologies: a new type of contrivances or gadgets designed to optimize cognitive or sensory performance and / or to enable mood management. Rather than manipulating objects in the outside world, they are designed to influence human bodies and brains more directly, and on a molecular scale. In this paper, these devices will be framed as ‘extimate’ (...) technologies (both intimate and external; both embedded and foreign; both life-enhancing and intrusive), a concept borrowed from Jacques Lacan. Although Lacan is not commonly regarded as a philosopher of technology, the dialectical relationship between human desire and technological artefacts runs as an important thread through his work. Moreover, he was remarkably prescient concerning the blending of life science and computer science, which is such a distinctive feature of the current techno-scientific turn. Building on a series of Lacanian concepts, my aim is to develop a psychoanalytical diagnostic of the technological present. Finally, I will indicate how such an analysis may inform our understanding of human life and embodiment as such. (shrink)

This article discusses a relation between the formal science of logical semantics and some monotheistic, polytheistic and Trinitarian Christian notions. This relation appears in the use of the existential quantifier and of logical-modal notions when some monotheistic and polytheistic concepts and, principally, the concept of Trinity Dogma are analyzed. Thus, some presupposed modal notions will appear in some monotheistic propositions, such as the notion of “logically necessary”. From this, it will be shown how the term “God” is a polysemic (...) term and is often treated as both subject and predicate. This will make it clear that there is no plausible intellectual justification for believing that the term “God” can only be used as a name and never as a predicate, and vice versa. After that analysis, I will show that the conjunction of the “Trinity Dogma” with some type of “monotheistic position” would necessarily imply some class of absurdity and/or semantic “oddity”. (shrink)

Chapter 3 of the ongoing publication "Artificial Aesthetics" Book information: Assume you're a designer, an architect, a photographer, a videographer, a curator, an art historian, a musician, a writer, an artist, or any other creative professional or student. Perhaps you're a digital content creator who works across multiple platforms. Alternatively, you could be an art historian, curator, or museum professional. -/- You may be wondering how AI will affect your professional area in general and your work and career. Our book (...) offers intellectual tools to help us better see the future of creative fields. These tools come from philosophy of art, experimental psychology, media theory, digital culture studies and data science. The book is the first to combine these different perspectives together. -/- We started the work on the book in summer 2019, exchanging numerous messages, commenting on each other ideas, and sharing drafts of sections. The final book is a result of this process. Although each chapter is written by one author, it reflects the discussions we had over 27 months. (shrink)

The sociobiological and socio-political aspects of human existence have been the subject of techno-rationalistic control and manipulation. The investigation of the mutual complementarity of anthropological and ontological paradigms under these circumstances is the main purpose of present publication. The comparative conceptual analysis of the bio-power and bio-politics in the mentality of the modern technological civilization is a main method of the research. The methodological and philosophical analogy of biological and social engineering allows combining them in the nature and social (...) implications as part of a High Hume technologies class. As result of the transformation of somatic foundations of the human being and his behavior, stereotypes in the object of control and management the technogenic risk reached the existential level. The rapidly growing status of biopower and biopolitics in the conceptual field of contemporary political science becomes by phenomenological expression of these processes. (shrink)

According to cognitive science of religion (CSR) people naturally veer toward beliefs that are quite divergent from Anselmian monotheism or Christian theism. Some authors have taken this view as a starting point for a debunking argument against religion, while others have tried to vindicate Christian theism by appeal to the noetic effects of sin or the Fall. In this paper, we ask what theologians can learn from CSR about the nature of the divine, by looking at the CSR (...) literature and what it identifies as commonalities across religions. We use a pluralist, non-confessional approach to outline properties of the divine. We connect our approach to Hick’s religious pluralism, Ramakrishna’s realization of God through multiple spiritual paths, and Gellman’s inexhaustible plenitude. (shrink)

Life sciences and emerging technologies raise a plethora of issues. Besides practical, bioethical and policy issues, they have broader, cultural implications as well, affecting and reflecting our zeitgeist and world-view, challenging our understanding of life, nature and ourselves as human beings, and reframing the human condition on a planetary scale. In accordance with the aims and scope of the journal, LSSP aims to foster engaged scholarship into the societal dimensions of emerging life sciences (Chadwick and Zwart 2013) and via this (...) thematic series, the journal provides a podium for authors who intend to address concrete issues from a ‘continental philosophical’ perspective, which may in- clude (post)phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialectics, (post)structuralism, psychoanalysis, critical theory and similar approaches. The series aims to contribute to a diagnostics of the present and a prognostics of the future, focusing on critical normative challenges (such as embodiment, intimate technologies, social justice, biopower, nanomedicine, human enhancement and the anthropocene) and building on the work of key authors such as Hegel (1830), Heidegger (1953, 1953/1954), Bachelard (1938), Canguilhem (1975), Lacan (1966, 1969-1970/1991), Habermas (1968), Serres (1972), Foucault (1969), Žižek (2006/2009), Stiegler (2010), Sloterdijk (2001, 2009) and others, but targeting con- crete up-to-date events and case studies against the backdrop of broader developments within the techno-scientific culture. (shrink)

Climate change is an existential risk reinforced by ordinary actions in afuent societies—often silently present in comfortable and enjoyable habits. This silence is sometimes broken, presenting itself as a nagging reminder of how our habits fuel a catastrophe. As a case in point, global warming has created a state of urgency among wine makers in Spain, as the alcohol level has risen to a point where it jeopardises wine quality and thereby Spanish viticulture. Eforts are currently being made to solve (...) this problem technologically by developing (non-GMO) strains of yeast that produce less alcohol. If successful, this could help save Spanish viticulture. This kind of technological solution is routinely criticised for ofering simplistic “techno-fx” solutions to solve complex societal problems. However, it is not clear what features are criticised by the notion of techno-fx and hence how to avoid this criticism. In our interpretation, the techno-fx notion is not exclusively used as a dismissive term. The notion points to a general virtue of engineering: to create technological solutions that work silently in the background. This asset of technological solutions might sometimes be problematic and sometimes not. Hence, it needs to be analysed case-by-case by paying attention to the moral relevance of the hidden implications of the technology and of the unrefective actions and habits that they facilitate. Such moral analysis will in turn inform strategies for foregrounding this technology to counteract silencing. We discuss what this means in the case of modifying yeast as a viticultural climate resilience strategy. (shrink)

This paper takes up Bethesda Game Studios' Starfield (2023) as an aesthetic artefact, carefully attending to the thematics of the game's narrative in their operation as structuring "thought patterns" for the player's experience of the game, thought patterns that give form to the "sensible fabric" of the game and so constitute an imaginary or "distribution of the sensible" that requires critique (Rancière, 2013). Utilizing the aesthetic and material-economic theories of Nicolas Bourriaud, Jacques Rancière, Jussi Parikka, and David Graeber, this paper (...) examines the aesthetics of the techno-ecological imaginary that Starfield institutes, close reading the play of perspectives into which the game invites the player-character, and analysing this play in its problematic orientation to the key dramatic revelation of planetary catastrophe that occurs late in the game's main campaign. If, as climate and games scholar Benjamin Abraham writes (2022), "[b]ringing the climate crisis 'home' to all of our lives, all of our workplaces, all of our hobbies, is the necessary first step in acting to reverse climate action," then illuminating and critiquing Starfield's deployment of such a crisis will help players, scholars, and developers alike take the first step in learning to pay attention to the very "modes of perception" that prevent us from effecting real change in the global technological systems that have brought us to the brink of planetary collapse. (shrink)

Our research has surveyed the philological origins of the word ‘science’ and ‘religion’. Furthermore, it has re-examined the definitions of ‘The Science of Religion’ and ‘The Science of Comparative Religion’. Building on this foundation, the author compared the major similarities and differences between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic Religions, especially via the lens of Monotheism, exploring the Jewish Shema, Christian Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and Islam’s Tawheed. This new research aims to contribute to a better understanding of our (...) three major monotheistic religions. (shrink)

The heart of Dewey’s call to humanize techno-industrial civilization was to conceive science and technology in the service of aesthetic consummations. Hence his philosophy suggests a way to reclaim and affirm technology on behalf of living more fulfilling lives. He remains a powerful ally today in the fight against deadening efficiency, narrow means-end calculation, “frantic exploitation,” and the industrialization of everything. Nonetheless, it is common to depict him as a philosopher we should think around rather than with. The (...) first section of this essay explores his philosophy of technology and environment in light of Bacon, Heidegger, and Borgmann. Most of the techno-industrial and vocational activities which we pretend are “instrumental,” Dewey argued, actually reduce “to a very minimum the esthetic aspect of experiences had in the course of the daily occupation.” It is argued that, insofar as cooperative intelligence can guide the direction of technological development, it does not honor contemplative life if we abdicate or downgrade that responsibility. The second section of this essay explores Dewey’s instrumentalism as a critique of vicious intellectualism. It is argued that, for Dewey, genuine progress serves the aesthetic dimension of experience. This assertion contrasts with the most common interpretive error among both critics and admirers of Dewey, namely that he is mostly a champion of science. Moreover, critics of Dewey’s instrumentalist theory of inquiry often mistake it as (a) an attack on any conception of intrinsic value, or (b) an attempt to collapse the value of means into the value of ends. In Dewey’s view, we habitually look for progress in the wrong place because we carry around with us some big idea of a final and ultimate good for measuring it. In his view, the ameliorative expansion of significance that emerges from our dealings with perplexing situations is the only place progress can really be found. (shrink)

The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The (...) resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering a (...) wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

Attempt of trans-disciplinary analysis of the evolutionary value of bioethics is realized. Currently, there are High Tech schemes for management and control of genetic, socio-cultural and mental evolution of Homo sapiens (NBIC, High Hume, etc.). The biological, socio-cultural and technological factors are included in the fabric of modern theories and technologies of social and political control and manipulation. However, the basic philosophical and ideological systems of modern civilization formed mainly in the 17–18 centuries and are experiencing ever-increasing and destabilizing risk-taking (...) pressure from the scientific theories and technological realities. The sequence of diagnostic signs of a new era once again split into technological and natural sciences’ from one hand, and humanitarian and anthropological sciences’, from other. The natural sciences series corresponds to a system of technological risks be solved using algorithms established safety procedures. The socio-humanitarian series presented anthropological risk. Global bioethics phenomenon is regarded as systemic socio-cultural adaptation for technology-driven human evolution. The conceptual model for meta-structure of stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens (SESH) is proposes. In accordance to model, SESH composed of genetic, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist modules, and global bioethics as a tool to minimize existential evolutionary risk. An existence of objectively descriptive and value-teleological evolutionary trajectory parameters of humanity in the modern technological and civilizational context (1), and the genesis of global bioethics as a system social adaptation to ensure self-identity (2) are postulated. -/- . (shrink)

The tutorial is an expanded and revised English version of the Ukrainian edition. (Filosofiya nauky: navch. posib OM Kuzʹ, VF Cheshko - Kharkiv: KHNEU im. S. Kuznetsya, 2017.). -/- .

As a theoretical framework in the Science and Technology Studies (sts) scholarship, the sociotechnical imaginaries approach (sta) has provided a conceptual framework and methodology that not only overcome the deterministic understanding of technological development but also theorized the relationship between society on the one hand, and science and technology on the other. However, as will be pointed out, a limitation of the sta renders it incapable of problematizing what I will call as the technopolitics of specialization, defined as (...) the organization of unequal positions based on the capitalist centers’ control over techno-epistemic networks set against the backdrop of a neocolonial relation. Such an incapacity glosses over the persistence of neocolonialism and dependency especially in the Global South. -/- This paper aims to reimagine the theoretical framework of the sociotechnical imaginaries by developing a critical review of its approach. The paper will place in dialogue the most recent and relevant conceptual developments of the sta and the dependency theory of Samir Amin. The paper will present how the most relevant literature concerning the sta work on the assumption that every polity has control over existing techno-epistemic networks from which imaginaries are independently defined. The paper will argue that given the notion of international specialization developed by Samir Amin and presupposed today in the sta, the technopolitics of specialization monopolizes control of the techno-epistemic networks thereby constraining the imaginaries of peripheral countries. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, although Alvin Plantinga’s Felix Culpa theodicy appears on only two pages of his recent book Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion and Naturalism (2011) (i.e. 58-59), it is of pivotal importance for the book as a whole. Plantinga argues that there is superficial conflict but deep concord between science and monotheism, and that there is superficial concord but deep conflict between science and naturalism. I contend that the weakness of (...) the Felix Culpa theodicy lends support to the view that there is more than superficial conflict between science and monotheism, and offer an alternative response to the challenge of evil which suggests that there might be, after all, concord between science and (religious) naturalism. (shrink)

In this paper, we turn to the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy. In his work La Création du Monde ou la Mondialisation of 2002 the French philosopher analyses the process of globalisation. Rather than denoting a new homogeneity, the term refers to a world horizon characterized in its interpalpable multiplicity of cultural, socio-economical, ideological and politico-moral content. According to Nancy, globalisation refers to ag-glome-ration: the decay of what once was a globe and now nothing more than a glome. On the one (...) hand, Nancy indicates that the world has changed by an unknown increase of techno-science, the worsening of inequalities between growing populations and by the changing and disappearing of given certainties, views and identities of the world and of man. On a large scale, this deformation is due to the relation between the capitalist evolution and the capitalising of worldviews. On the other hand, due to the inter-palpability of the multiplicity, this means that on our planet there is only space for one world. The world gradually becomes the only world. In this paper we will investigate what Nancy means with the becoming-world of the world and how this relates to our being in the world. For Nancy globalisation reveals two possible destinies of our relation with the world. In La Création du Monde ou la Mondialisation he discerns globalisation from mondialisation to analyze these two possibilities. We will investigate this distinction of Nancy and its consequences for everyday life. (shrink)

If any area of current philosophy is so incendiary as to veer on violence, it is argument about a divide being’s existence. Hinman’s sober offering is possibly one of the most thorough apologetics in contemporary times, meriting serious consideration yet certain to draw fire. Since Darwin, the religious have taken up arms, both metaphorically and, in the case of World Trade Center and its imitators, literally. In turn, growing atheist movements reacted against such defensiveness. This upsurge in side-taking and regrouping (...) evidences a powerful human need for settling the issue. A peek at the arguments reveals a mess. One advantage of Hinman’s new work is that, among other goals, it attempts to order the mess. The work exudes care and some respect for the various perspectives. Its sheer breadth and depth of scholarship and capacity in articulating it attests the generally due respect of the many sides, which often exhibit the rational and irrational in one commentator. The central theme tying the various arguments together is that ideologies outside of the sciences’ themselves are informing science-based, evidential arguments about any divine’s existence. Many sides of the debate, including the monotheistic, are equally guilty. (shrink)

This article reflects on whether today, there is a need for a ‘new’ educational ideal of rationality. To articulate that objective, a critical analysis is made of the pedagogical ideas underlying two conflicting trends: transhumanism and critical thinking. First, the distinctive identity of the transhumanist philosophical movement is examined in terms of its partial ascription to, and, given its attempts to overcome it, its renunciation of Humanism. In the face of the apparent promises and pitfalls that techno-science portends (...) for pedagogical discourse, a distrust of reason is imminent. Contrary to such an assumption, critical thinking, as the embodiment of rationality in Israel Scheffler’s conception, illuminates the inconsistencies of scientific imperialism that conceal the moral-rational aspects of teaching. In view of the above, the discussion focuses on the relationship between theory and practice, justification and commitment, fallibility and wisdom; in short, between the moral and the rational of any educational ideal to be proposed.___________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________ -/- Questo articolo riflette sulla necessità di un “nuovo” ideale educativo di razionalità. Per articolare tale obiettivo, viene effettuata un’analisi critica delle idee pedagogiche alla base di due tendenze in conflitto: il transumanesimo e il pensiero critico. In primo luogo, si esamina l’identità distintiva del movimento filosofico transumanista in termini di parziale ascrizione e, visti i suoi tentativi di superamento, di rinuncia all’Umanesimo. Di fronte alle apparenti promesse e insidie che la tecno-scienza comporta per il discorso pedagogico, si profila una sfiducia nella ragione. Contrariamente a tale ipotesi, il pensiero critico, in quanto incarnazione della razionalità nella concezione di Israel Scheffler, illumina le incongruenze dell’imperialismo scientifico che nascondono gli aspetti morali-razionali dell’insegnamento. Alla luce di quanto detto, la discussione si concentra sul rapporto tra teoria e pratica, giustificazione e impegno, fallibilità e saggezza; in breve, tra morale e razionale di qualsiasi ideale educativo da proporre.___________________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________HOW TO CITE / CÓMO CITAR: Castillo, P. (2023). Does There Exist a Need for a ‘New’ Educational Ideal of Rationality? The Crossroads between Transhumanism and Israel Scheffler’s Conception of Critical Thinking. Encyclopaideia: Journal of Phenomenology and Education, 27(66), 49-61. (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal (...) of attitudes, from “undesirable” to “desirable”, that eventually led into the foundations of modern science. One of the earliest, most ingenious and most interesting personalities involved was Eriugena, a theologian at the Court of Charles the Bald in the 9th century. Though understanding what we call nature is only one of the several aspects of his theological work, his line of thought implies a turn into a pro-scientific direction: the natural order is to be understood in abstract terms of ‘primordial causes’; understanding nature is considered to be the will of God; man encompasses the whole of creation in a physical as well as a mental sense. Basically similar ideas on the reconciliation of scientific rationality and monotheistic religions of revelation were conceived, independently and nearly simultaneously, by the Arab philosopher al-Kindi in Bagdad. Eriugena was more outspoken in his claim that reason is superior to authority. This claim is implicit in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa with his emphasis on human mental creativity as the image of God’s creativity; and it is the keynote of Galileo’s ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’ some 800 years later, the manifesto expressing basic attitudes of modern science. -/- This article in English is based on the monography (in German): A. Gierer “Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues - Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken”, Acta Historica Leopoldina 29 (1999), Barth Verlag in MVH Verlage Heidelberg, ISBN: 3-335-00652-6, which is also available online on this server. -/- -/- . (shrink)

With a history of 2000 years, the dialogue between Orthodoxy and Judaism experienced difficult times that have left deep scars in the hearts of the followers of the two religions. In the modern and contemporary period, without forgetting the past, it is trying to find bridges between the two religions with the purpose to help the faithful to respond responsibly to the challenges of the present and future. The themes that have been analyzed in the past are of a great (...) interest to our times: the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, the place and the role of the Bible in the two monotheistic traditions, Jerusalem as a Holy City, the religious freedom, the quality and the responsibility of elected people, the problem of religious freedom. Finally, only through sincere cooperation one can find relevant answers to the faithful of the both religions. (shrink)

Problem Statement. In modern conditions the reconstruction of self-developing socio-technological- ecological systems, which include man as its element, is actualized. The result of such a construction will be the management of the value of technogenic risk in its biological, social and civilizational forms. And the obvious consequence will be the transition of the development of biopolitical problems to a new, no longer international, but global-evolutionary level. The theory and practice of such a reconstruction can be designated by the category of (...) “Transbiolitics,” which implies the political institutionalization of “ecological re整ection. The article is a logical continuation of our previous publication devoted to the analysis of the transformation of the political process into the main factor of global evolution and the biopolitical transformation of the geopolitical landscape. The purpose of this paper is to create a general sketch of the con散guration of the main trends of the coevolutionary interaction of biological, sociocultural and techno-rationalist modules of the stable evolutionary strategy of the technogenic civilization in the space of bio- and geopolitical connotations of international relations. Based on a combination of methods of conceptual, discursive and political-anthropological analysis (in the context of transbiolitical paradigm) the content of the category “Transbiolitical Chronotope” is revealed: a geopolitically di䍕erentiated set of socio-cultural vectors of modern civilization evolution. In other words, the trans-biopolitical chronotope determines the direction of inclusive technological transformation of both cultural and ecological niche and the biosocial nature of man. The general conclusion/prognosis can be reduced to two theses. Firstly, transbiolitics, formed in a di䍕erentiated cultural-civilizational context, is currently being integrated into the general political process, partially replacing and partially intertwining with geopolitical doctrines in the sphere of international relations. Secondly, the growing con整ict of technological civilization with the cultural and ecological niche constructed by it through the turbulence of the geopolitical sphere of social life can bring the level of technological and civilizational risk to the existential boundary. (shrink)

Polanyi and Transhumanism both place technologies in pivotal roles in bringing about Homo sapiens ’ species transitions. The question is asked whether Polanyi’s emphasis on the role of technology in Homo sapiens’ rise out of mute beasthood indicates that he might have been inclined to embrace the Transhumanist vision of Homo sapiens’ technological evolution into a postbiological, techno-cyber species. To answer this question, some of the core commitments of both Transhumanism and Polanyi’s postcritical philosophy are examined, especially as they (...) bear on Homo sapiens’ species transitions. The conclusion reached is that rather than being the next step dictated by the inner logic of Polanyi’s thought, Transhumanism is actually the final conclusion of epistemological ideals he spent most of his career denouncing. (shrink)

I have read many recent discussions of the limits of computation and the universe as computer, hoping to find some comments on the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert but have not found a single citation and so I present this very brief summary. Wolpert proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv.org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, and even (...) independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior. They make use of Cantor's diagonalization, the liar paradox and worldlines to provide what may be the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory, and seemingly provide insights into impossibility, incompleteness, the limits of computation,and the universe as computer, in all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms, generating, among other things,a non- quantum mechanical uncertainty principle and a proof of monotheism. There are obvious connections to the classic work of Chaitin, Solomonoff, Komolgarov and Wittgenstein and to the notion that no program (and thus no device) can generate a sequence (or device) with greater complexity than it possesses. One might say this body of work implies atheism since there cannot be any entity more complex than the physical universe and from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint, ‘more complex’ is meaningless (has no conditions of satisfaction, i.e., truth-maker or test). Even a ‘God’ (i.e., a ‘device’ with limitless time/space and energy) cannot determine whether a given ‘number’ is ‘random’ nor can find a certain way to show that a given ‘formula’, ‘theorem’ or ‘sentence’ or ‘device’ (all these being complex language games) is part of a particular ‘system’. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle 59p(2016). For all my articles on Wittgenstein and Searle see my e-book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Wittgenstein and Searle 367p (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may consult my e-book Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

The accelerated development of science and technology, along with the economical growth of countries and the rise of the phenomenon of globalization have had consequences in different aspects of human life. Social injustice, inequality, violence, fighting within and between countries, along with ecological misfortunes calls out for an ethical system that regulates and brings new light to human behaviour in this globalized world. The globalization dynamic of the techno-scientific, world market economic culture suggests the need of an urgent (...) formation of conscience of a global ethics. Having in mind this world panorama, in this process of ethical development we must analyze how bioethics can respond to the great challenge that this globalization plants. We propose that the key to the answer lies within the proposal developed by the personalistic current, which looks to solve real moral problems of concrete human persons, without leaving out anyone and looking to respond to all the dimentions of the human person. -/- El acelerado desarrollo de la ciencia y la tecnología, junto con el crecimiento económico de los países y la consolidación del fenómeno de la globalización ha tenido consecuencias en los diferentes ámbitos de la vida del ser humano. La injusticia social, la desigualdad, la violencia, las luchas dentro de los países y entre los países, así como el descalabro ecológico reclaman un sistema ético que regule y dé nuevas luces al comportamiento humano en este mundo globalizado. La dinámica de globalización de la cultura tecnocientífica y económica de mercado mundial, sugiere la necesidad de una urgente toma de conciencia de una ética global. Teniendo en cuenta este panorama mundial, en este trabajo analizamos cómo la bioética puede responder a este gran desafío que plantea la globalización. Proponemos que la clave fundamental de la respuesta está en la propuesta que ha sido desarrollada por la corriente personalista, la cual plantea y da solución a los problemas morales reales de rostros humanos concretos, sin dejar fuera a nadie y sin dejar fuera ninguna de las dimensiones del hombre. (shrink)

I have read many recent discussions of the limits of computation and the universe as computer, hoping to find some comments on the amazing work of polymath physicist and decision theorist David Wolpert but have not found a single citation and so I present this very brief summary. Wolpert proved some stunning impossibility or incompleteness theorems (1992 to 2008-see arxiv dot org) on the limits to inference (computation) that are so general they are independent of the device doing the computation, (...) and even independent of the laws of physics, so they apply across computers, physics, and human behavior. They make use of Cantor's diagonalization, the liar paradox and worldlines to provide what may be the ultimate theorem in Turing Machine Theory, and seemingly provide insights into impossibility, incompleteness, the limits of computation, and the universe as computer, in all possible universes and all beings or mechanisms, generating, among other things, a non- quantum mechanical uncertainty principle and a proof of monotheism. There are obvious connections to the classic work of Chaitin, Solomonoff, Komolgarov and Wittgenstein and to the notion that no program (and thus no device) can generate a sequence (or device) with greater complexity than it possesses. One might say this body of work implies atheism since there cannot be any entity more complex than the physical universe and from the Wittgensteinian viewpoint, ‘more complex’ is meaningless (has no conditions of satisfaction, i.e., truth-maker or test). Even a ‘God’ (i.e., a ‘device’with limitless time/space and energy) cannot determine whether a given ‘number’ is ‘random’, nor find a certain way to show that a given ‘formula’, ‘theorem’ or ‘sentence’ or ‘device’ (all these being complex language games) is part of a particular ‘system’. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 2nd ed (2019) and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

Following the dissolution of the SFRY, and in the light of new social circumstances, the religious communities have new social status and new social role; they have come out from the private sphere and found its place in the public one. Religious tolerance is more significant in the context of desecularization of social life, both for the religious communities themselves, and for other social actors and the society as a whole. With this in mind, the goal of this paper is (...) to analyze theoretical views and definitions of the notion of religious tolerance in the papers of domestic authors- philosophers, representatives of social sciences as well as theologians. In addition to the analysis of the impact of social context, the relation between monotheism and in/tolerance is also analyzed, whereas a doctrinaire aspect, i.e. the content of the sacred texts, is contemplated as well. A consideration is given to the possible subjects of the religious tolerance, and a problem of paternalism is pointed out in the speeches on religion stressing the importance of the mutual appreciation and respect among the actors of the dialogue communication. In accordance with the current views on im/possibility of the tolerance among different denominations, that is, religions, due to their different standpoints on the man's path to salvation, emphasize is given to the difference between valuing cognition and valuing an actor - individuals, communities and social groups. (shrink)

The idea this article relies on is that we should rethink cultural distance between modernism and post-modernism. We can no longer support the thesis of a radical break between the two cultural periods since many of the changes that have marked our contemporary world were initiated or at least announced in the modern period. Besides the cultural and epistemic factors, the socioeconomic conditions have also contributed to shape a new sensitivity and a new outlook. One of the major contributions to (...) this change was the replacement of the epistemic pedestal - oriented toward the metaphysical knowledge of the world - with a kind of knowledge inspired by the model of sciences which determined the understanding of the world as a „standing-reserve" (Heidegger). Thus, we speak about a techno-world, which is not merely a consequence of our way of interacting with our fellow beings or the environment. It is also a consequence of our wayof creating reality. The post-humanist approach of the man - similarly to modern utopias - considers technology the main means of improving human condition. Furthermore, we need to see in post-humanism the hope of rethinking humanity in a world growingly devoid of spiritual values. (shrink)

The explanation of nature in theoretical terms was first postulated and initiated by Ancient Greek philosophers. With the rise of monotheistic religions, however, curiosity about our transient world was widely regarded as contributing nothing to salvation. There was a decline in natural philosophy, which lasted for several centuries and was then reversed both in Islamic philosophy and in Christian theology in the Middle Ages. At this point, the "Book of Nature" was recognized as a complement to the Book of Revelation. (...) Originally, Aristotelian philosophy played the leading part in this process, but only after Aristotelian physics was substituted by experimental mathematical mechanics did it become possible for modern science to develop. General laws of physics form the basis of the explanation of events in space and time, including life processes. However, modern science has also revealed its own limitations. The scope and limits of scientific knowledge allows for different philosophical, cultural and religious interpretations of human beings and the universe. The history of science demonstrates erratic and persistent developments, but the long-term retrospective view discredits extreme forms of relativism and structuralism. Science appears as a construct of the human mind, and yet it is capable of generating valid explanations of nature. In the book more attention than usual is given to Cusanus (Nikolas de Cusa). -/- . (shrink)

The monograph is an English, expanded and revised version of the book Cheshko, V. T., Ivanitskaya, L.V., & Glazko, V.I. (2018). Anthropocene. Philosophy of Biotechnology. Moscow, Course. The manuscript was completed by me on November 15, 2019. It is a study devoted to the development of the concept of a stable evolutionary human strategy as a unique phenomenon of global evolution. The name “An Evolutionary Metaphysics (Cheshko, 2012; Glazko et al., 2016). With equal rights, this study could be entitled “Biotechnology (...) as a result and factor of the evolutionary processˮ. The choice in favor of used “The Evolutionary Metaphysics of Human Enhancement Technologiesˮ was made in accordance with the basic principle of modern post-academician and human-sized science, a classic example of which is biotechnology. The “Metaphysics of Evolution” and “Evolutionary Metaphysics” concepts are used in several ways in modern philosophical discourse. In any case, the values contain a logical or associative reference to the teleological nature of the evolutionary process (Hull, 1967, 1989; Apel, 1995; Faye, 2016; Dupre, 2017; Rose, 2018, etc). In our study, the “evolutionary metaphysics” serves to denote the thesis of the rationalization and technologization of global evolution and anthropogenesis, in particular. At the same time, the postulate of an open future remains relevant in relation to the results of the evolutionary process. The theory of evolution of complex, including the humans system and algorithm for its constructing are а synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and concrete scientific empirical basis in modern science. ln other words, natural philosophy is regaining the status bar element theoretical science in the era of technology-driven evolution. The co-evolutionary concept of 3-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based оn the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and evolutionary path of human evolution are defined bу descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctness) parameters simultaneously, that cannot bе instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of blological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution Ьу two gear mechanism genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. The resultant each of them сап estimated Ьу the ratio of socio-psychological predispositions of humanization / dehumanization in mentality. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the blological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). It is seem necessary to make three clarifications. First, logical construct, “evolutionary metaphysics” contains an internal contradiction, because it unites two alternative explanatory models. “Metaphysics”, as a subject, implies deducibility of the process from the initial general abstract principle, and, consequently, the outcome of the development of the object is uniquely determined by the initial conditions. Predicate, “evolutionary”, means stochastic mechanism of realizing the same principle by memorizing and replicating random choices in all variants of the post-Darwin paradigm. In philosophy, random choice corresponds to the category of “free will” of a reasonable agent. In evolutionary theory, the same phenomenon is reflected in the concept of “covariant replication”. Authors will attempt to synthesize both of these models in a single transdisciplinary theoretical framework. Secondly, the interpretation of the term “evolutionary (adaptive) strategyˮ is different from the classical definition. The difference is that the adaptive strategy in this context is equivalent to the survival, i.e. it includes the adaptation to the environment and the transformation (construction) of the medium in accordance with the objectives of survival. To emphasize this difference authors used verbal construction “adaptiveˮ (rather than “evolutionaryˮ) strategy as more adequate. In all other cases, the two terms may be regarded as synonymous. Thirdly, the initial two essays of this series were published in one book in 2012. Their main goal was the development of the logically consistent methodological concept of stable adaptive (evolutionary) strategy of hominines and the argumentation of its heuristic possibilities as a transdisciplinary scientific paradigm of modern anthropology. The task was to demonstrate the possibilities of the SESH concept in describing and explaining the evolutionary prospects for the interaction of social organization and technology (techno-humanitarian balance) and the associated biological and cultural mechanisms of the genesis of religion (gene-cultural co-evolution). In other words, it was related to the sphere of cultural and philosophical anthropology, i.e. to the axiological component of any theoretical constructions describing the behavior of self-organizing systems with human participation. In contrast, the present work is an attempt to introduce this concept into the sphere of biological anthropology and, consequently, its main goal is to demonstrate the possibility of verification of its main provisions by means of procedures developed by natural science, i.e. refers to the descriptive component of the same theoretical constructions. The result of this in the future should be methods for assessing, calculating and predicting the risk of loss of biological and cultural identity of a person, associated with a permanent and continuously deepening process of development of science and technology. (shrink)

Application of the reliability of repairable systems on solving problems from constructing production systems takes an important place in the process of finding the optimal solution among the suggested system choices. The basic hypothesis when using the reliability of the repairable systems is that every machine is representing a component, a fact that is debatable when talking about technical sciences. However, considering the second assumption of the stationary process, the function of the availability is introduced. It represents the measure between (...) the reliability and the benefit of maintaining the components and the system as a whole one. An additional and the last reason for analyzing constructing machine as a whole one has an economic reason. From the aspect of the total cost and the capacity of the system, the function of the availability is catching more and more impact in the process of determinating the total cost in bill of quantities as the most important part of tender documents. Until former works, techno-economic optimisation usually ran over when choosing the system of the construction machines. In the work, there are shown the methodologies for gathering and analyzing the indicators of availabilities per unit of a company's machine park. The time of demission and reparation have been investigated among 34 components in the period of 6 years. Based on the obtained result for different conditions of machine exploitation and facilities, it is suggested the methodology of the future behaviour of the corresponding within the model optimization availability of constructing production system with the aim of eliminating extra criterion. The suggested model takes in consideration the total cost of the components when they are functional, and when they are not. This kind of approach enables the one who take choices decision of the height of profits, in the lenght of work in function of the projection of cash flow and managing with real indicators of functioning the system at the project level. Given the fact that the maintanance policy of machines is based on availability, and not on reliability of components, with the aim of maximizing the availability of different budget scenarios, a logical approach to the selection of the objective function in the terms of management of construction production systems is to minimize costs for a given availability of system constructing machinery is based on the use of historical data base with the values of the operational availability of components, conditions in which they function, in the process of forecasting the project availability for projects that follow. Ranking variant solutions is the result of the adopted function of the aim as a consequence due to enlargement methods of availability for serial parallel systems with the associated restrictions. For optimal system availability is taken a value that belongs to minimal total cost. However, it is predicted that after the end of the financial year, the real and projected indicators of system functions get compared to each other. Informational support to the proposed model is informational company system, which was built in the PHP programming language on the Linux software platform, and with data based in My SQL. The suggested model is tested on the system for the production and embedding bitumen bound materials on the specific project. Obtained results confirm the assumptions used in work. (shrink)

Summary. The prerequisites of this study have three interwoven sources, the natural sciences and philosophical and socio-political ones. They are trends in the way of being of a modern, technogenic civilization. The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant damage to the image of the omnipotent techno-science that has developed in the mentality of this sociocultural type.Our goal was to study the co-evolutionary nature of this phenomenon as a natural consequence of the nature of the evolutionary strategy of our biological species. (...) Technological civilization as a cultural-civilizational type is one of the evolutionary options of Homo sapiens, the ontological basis of which is a stable evolutionary strategy (SESH). The latter is capable to spontaneous development and is consisting from biological, sociocultural, and techno-rationalistic modules. Evolutionary risks inextricably linked with it. At present, humankind has entered an era when its existence should be ensured by the meta-system engineering of its own cultural and ecological niche. By such artificially created elements, it implies the design and implementation of ecological systems of various levels of complexity, from the design of elements of such systems (which are biological individuals, populations and species) to the design of a global ecological system (biosphere). At the same time, there is a sharp jump in the value of anthropogenic and technological risk due to a sharp increase in the instability of the structure of ecological systems. We are witnessing a third wave of breaking and reconstruction of the existing relations between the elements of such systems after the Neolithic revolution and great geographical discoveries. Technological innovations led to sharp violations of normal social ecodynamics, leading to outbreaks of new infections, in particular. Theuncontested development of all sectors of controlled evolution technology is the way out of the last such crisis and the prevention of similar ones in the future. There are global nature of the organization of modern technological civilization and the transformation of the biosphere not so much into the noosphere (according to Vernadsky) but into the technosphere that determines the effect of a cascade reaction: any local co-adaptive conflict between elements of a cultural, socio-ecological niche tends to turnglobal and systemic problems. Humanity is constantly forced to make a choice between the stability and adaptability of the technosphere. (shrink)

About death, grief, mourning, life after death and immortality. Why should we die like humans to survive as a species. -/- "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears (...) out the old to make way for the new." (Steve Jobs) -/- CONTENTS: -/- Death - Philosophy of death - Religions - - Animism - - Atheism - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Hinduism - - Islam - - Jainism - - Jehovah's Witnesses - - Judaism - - Latter-day Saints - - Spiritism - Symbolism - Personification of Death - - Notable personifications - - In mythologies - - - Hindu mythology - - - In Japan - - - Slavic paganism - - - Lithuanian paganism - - In the three monotheistic religions - - - Judaism - - - Christianity - - - In Mexico - - - Islam - Axiochos - - The characters of dialogue - - Dialogue - - Prologue - - Arguments - - Citations - Paradise - - Greco-Roman mythology - - Mesopotamian mythology and influences - - According to Judaism - - According to Christianity - - - According to Catholicism - - - According to Protestantism - - - According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - - According to Islam - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern spiritualities - - - According to the esoteric - Hell - - Mesopotamian origins - - According to Christianity - - - Names appearing in the biblical texts - - - Medieval artistic representations - - - Concepts according to Christian movements - - According to Judaism - - According to Islam - - According to Buddhism - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern esotericism - - - According to Aïvanhov - - - According to Allan Kardec - - Philosophy - - - Jewish Kabbalah - - - Sartre - - - Popular wisdom Funerals - The funeral ritual: a rite of passage - Prehistory - Ancient death customs - - The family bereavement - - Mummification - - Sarcophagi - - Funerals - - Ancient Greece - - Ancient Rome - - Celts, Germans and Scandinavians - Religious funeral rites - - Buddhism - - Judaism - Christianity - - Protestantism - - Islam - Funeral rites by continent - - In Africa - - In Europe - The contemporary era - Mourning (Grief) - - Steps - - - Death of a close - - Loss events without mourning value (white factors) - - Duration and manifestations - - Risks - - Colors - Graveyards (Cemeteries) - - First cemeteries - - Cemeteries today - Funerary art - Dolmens - - Types of dolmens - - Function - - Location - Passage graves - Cenotaphs - - Famous cenotaphs - Lanterns of the Dead Afterlife - History - Questions about death and immortality - Testimonials - - Spiritualistic experiences - - Popular literature on the afterlife - - "Memories" and reminiscences - - Early studies of the science of the 19th century and early 20th century - Types of scenarios - Some religious and philosophical concepts - - Afterlife in Buddhism - - Afterlife in Christianity - - According to Hinduism - - According to Islam - - According to Judaism - - According to Mormonism - - According to the ancient philosophies - - According to Spiritism - - According to Native American traditions - - According to Vedism - - According to Esotericism - In science - Near-death experiences - - Clinical death - - NDE frequency - - Effects of depth of NDE on survival - - Near-death experiences and shared-death experience - - - The first contemporary testimonials - - - Experience according to Moody - - - The concept of "shared death" - - - The NDE scales - - The study of Pim van Lommel - - Spiritual and patient point of view - - - Survivalists studies - - - The religious understanding of the phenomenon - - Scientific views - - - Physiological explanation - - - Psychological explanation - Reincarnation - - Religions - - - In Hinduism - - - In Jainism - - - In Buddhism - - - In Judaism - - - In Christianity - - - In Islam - - In contemporary times - - - Esotericism - - - Works of the psychiatrist Ian Stevenson - - - Radical increase in life expectancy and artificial reincarnation - - Criticism - - - Arthur Schopenhauer - - - Ramana Maharshi - - - Rene Guenon - - - Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy - Metempsychosis - - Theories - - Ideas - Maschalismos Immortality - Immortality of the soul and religious traditions - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Islam - - Mormonism - Contemporary perception of the immortality of the body - - Observation in the animal kingdom - - Perspectives for mankind - Immortality in science - - Alexis Carrel - - Jean Rostand - - Hayflick limit - - Étienne-Émile Baulieu and DHEA - - Aubrey de Grey - - Professor Skulachev - - Regenerative medicine - - Professor Christopher Jaeger - Eternal Return - - According to the Mesopotamians - - According to Heraclitus and the Stoics - Fountain of Youth - - History of myth and relatives myths - - - In Roman mythology, Germanic, Celtic and Irish - - - In the Middle-East - - - In Spain - - - In the Bible - - The fountain in art and literature - - Painting - - - Literature and cinema - - Persistent of the myth until today - Senescence - - Why do we age? - - Gene regulation - - Cellular senescence Undead - Ghoul - Lich - Mummy - Skeleton - Vampire - Zombie - Other legendary creatures - Creatures specific to a particular universe - Spiritism - - Point out - - Origins of spiritism - - - The traditions through the ages - - - Advent of Christianity in Europe - - - The survival of necromancy - - - The precursors - - - Relations of spiritualism to science - Mediumship - - History - - Skeptical point of view - - Favorable doctor's viewpoint - Ghosts - - Appearance - - Belief in ghosts - - Origin - - - Duality and return dead - - - Ancient roots - - Typology - - - Poltergeists - - - Revenants - - - Ghosts - - - Banshees - - - Apparitions of crisis - - - Phantasms of the living - - - Vision of his own double - - - Ghost armies - - - Ghosts of animals - - - Means of transport - - Science perspective - - - Hallucinations - - - Sleep paralysis - - - Induced ghosts - - - Aches and infrasounds - - - Magnetic fields - Vampires - - Characteristics - - - Vampire transformation - - - Identification - - - Faculties - - Protection against the vampires - - - Precautions at death and burial - - - Apotropaic objects and places - - Destruction of vampires - Zombie - - The concept - - Africa and voodoo - - - West Africa - - - South Africa - - - In Haiti (and the Caribbean) - - - Scientific research - - The "revenants" in the Western imaginary Death in art - Memento mori - - History - - - Antiquity - - - Christianity - - - Mexican syncretism - - Performing arts - - - In painting - - - In literature - - - In movies - - - In video games - - - In Japanese animation - - - In music - The iconography of Weighing of souls (Particular judgment) - - Origin - - Written sources - - Weighing in Romanesque art - - Weighing in Gothic art - - Weighing in the late Middle Ages: to a new iconography - - Weighing of souls or actions? - Poems - - Charlotte Brontë, “On the Death of Anne Brontë” - - Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” - - Edna St. Vincent Millay, “And you as well must die” - - Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” - - Emily Dickinson, “If I Should Die” - - Lord Byron, “Epitaph to a Dog” - - Pablo Neruda, “Only Death” - - Stephen Crane, “God Lay Dead in Heaven” - - W. B. Yeats, “He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead” - - Rainer Maria Rilke, “Death” - Paintings - - The Three Dead Kings - - The Death of Nelson - - Beata Beatrix - Sculptures - - The Kiss of Death - - Background - - Imagery - - Angel of Grief - - Fallen Astronaut - Quotes References About the author - Nicolae Sfetcu - - By the same author - - Contact Publishing House - MultiMedia Publishing -/- DOI: 10.58679/TW44411. (shrink)

Mechanisms to ensure the integrity of the system stable evolutionary strategy Homo sapiens – genetic and cultural coevolution techno-cultural balance – are analyzed. оe main content of the study can be summarized in the following the- ses: stable adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens includes superposition of three basic types (biological, cultural and technological) of adaptations, the integrity of the system provides by two coevolutionary ligament its elements – the genetic-cultural coevolution and techno-cultural balance, the system takes as result (...) of by develop- ment of genetic and information technologies by advent of genetic and informa- tion technologies extremely unstable conūguration; a harbinger of a radical change in the mechanisms of global evolution religion is a consequence of structural and functional organization of the human psyche; it played (along with science and technology) the role of socio-cultural adaptation of the human mind are present a number of ideas or concepts (the idea of God, including) the genesis of that ideas is associated with the interaction of two information systems, that appear to each other as information substrates – emotional, and verbal-logical (discursive) forms; evolution of the mentality has two nodes, that corresponding to the dominance of rationalism or religion in spiritual culture; the problem of rational justiūcation of religion in modern science is presented by two alternative methodologies – evo- lutionary epistemological and metaphysical-ontological ones; both methodologies are incompatible in a logical perspective; in the evolutionary epistemological im- pact concept of religion and science are equal and alternative building blocks of a stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens, and their balance sheet pro. (shrink)

The term ‘posthumanism’ has been employed to describe a diverse array of phenomena ranging from academic disciplines and artistic movements to political advocacy campaigns and the development of commercial technologies. Such phenomena differ widely in their subject matter, purpose, and methodology, raising the question of whether it is possible to fashion a coherent definition of posthumanism that encompasses all phenomena thus labelled. In this text, we seek to bring greater clarity to this discussion by formulating a novel conceptual framework for (...) classifying existing and potential forms of posthumanism. The framework asserts that a given form of posthumanism can be classified: 1) either as an analytic posthumanism that understands ‘posthumanity’ as a sociotechnological reality that already exists in the contemporary world or as a synthetic posthumanism that understands ‘posthumanity’ as a collection of hypothetical future entities whose development can be intentionally realized or prevented; and 2) either as a theoretical posthumanism that primarily seeks to develop new knowledge or as a practical posthumanism that seeks to bring about some social, political, economic, or technological change. By arranging these two characteristics as orthogonal axes, we obtain a matrix that categorizes a form of posthumanism into one of four quadrants or as a hybrid posthumanism spanning all quadrants. It is suggested that the five resulting types can be understood roughly as posthumanisms of critique, imagination, conversion, control, and production. -/- We then employ this framework to classify a wide variety of posthumanisms, such as critical, cultural, philosophical, sociopolitical, and popular (or ‘commercial’) posthumanism; science fiction; techno-idealism; metahumanism; neohumanism; antihumanism; prehumanism; feminist new materialism; the posthumanities; biopolitical posthumanism, including bioconservatism and transhumanism (with specialized objective and instrumental typologies offered for classifying forms of transhumanism); and organizational posthumanism. Of particular interest for our research is the classification of organizational posthumanism as a hybrid posthumanism combining analytic, synthetic, theoretical, and practical aspects. We argue that the framework proposed in this text generates a typology that is flexible enough to encompass the full range of posthumanisms while being discriminating enough to order posthumanisms into types that reveal new insights about their nature and dynamics. (shrink)

Ordinal polytheism is motivated by the cosmological and design arguments. It is also motivated by Leibnizian–Lewisian modal realism. Just as there are many universes, so there are many gods. Gods are necessary concrete grounds of universes. The god-universe relation is one-to-one. Ordinal polytheism argues for a hierarchy of ranks of ever more perfect gods, one rank for every ordinal number. Since there are no maximally perfect gods, ordinal polytheism avoids many of the familiar problems of monotheism. It links theology (...) with counterpart theory, mathematics and computer science. And it entails that the system of universes has an attractive axiological structure. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic, like its predecessors - AIDS, Ebola, etc., is evidence of the evolutionary instability of the socio-cultural and ecological niche created by mankind, as the main factor in the evolutionary success of our biological species and the civilization created by it. At least, this applies to the modern global civilization, which is called technogenic or technological, although it exists in several varieties. As we hope to show, the current crisis has less ontological as well as epistemological roots; its (...) reason lies in the main evolutionary trends in the development of science as a social institution. It was only later that epistemological factors were transformed into existential-ontological factors associated with the asymmetry of the existence of civilization and our biosocial nature. The perception or ignorance of a risk factor as a real fact is determined by the presence or absence of knowledge about it. In other words, risk is the result of the integration of the corresponding ontological concept into the general categorical structure. The plurality of such structures is a hallmark of multidisciplinary ontologies, each of which is associated with its own factual continuum. The aim of this study was to conceptually model for support relativistic parameter of evolutionary efficiency of stable evolutionary human strategy (SESH) in its techno-rationalistic module. The meaning of this term is equivalent to the category of scientific and technological development. (shrink)

The concept of time-travel is a modern idea which combines the imaginary signification of rational domination, the imaginary signification of technological omnipotence, the imaginary concept of eternity and the imaginary desire for immortality. It is a synthesis of central conceptual schemata of techno-science, such as the linearity and homogeneity of time, the radical separation of subjectivity from the world, the radical separation of the individual from his/her social-historical environment. The emergence of this idea, its spread during the 20th (...) century as a major theme of science fiction literature alongside its dissemination as a scientific hypothesis, its popularity with both the public and the scientific community, are indications of the religious role of techno-science. It is my opinion, finally, that, as a chimera, time-travel is non-feasible and impossible. In order to support my claims, I will briefly outline the origins of the time-travel concept and its epistemological and metaphysical/ontological conditions. If these conditions prove to be absurd, the logical impossibility of time-travel will have been demonstrated. (shrink)

The studies of Svante Pääbo, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 2022 are analyzed in two aspects: firstly, as the most striking example of the evolutionary transformation of classical scienceinto the so-called post-academic (techno)science and, secondly, as an element of the so-called "biopolitical turn" in the socio-humanitarian and political knowledge of technological civilization and, in particular, in the concept of "civil society".

The theory of evolution of complex, including the humans system and algorithm for its constructing are a synthesis of evolutionary epistemology, philosophical anthropology and concrete scientific empirical basis in modern science,. In other words, natural philosophy is regaining the status bar element theoretical science in the era of technology-driven evolution. The co-evolutionary concept of 3-modal stable evolutionary strategy of Homo sapiens is developed. The concept based on the principle of evolutionary complementarity of anthropogenesis: value of evolutionary risk and (...) evolutionary path of human evolution are defined by descriptive (evolutionary efficiency) and creative-teleological (evolutionary correctly) parameters simultaneously, that cannot be instrumental reduced to others ones. Resulting volume of both parameters define the vectors of biological, social, cultural and techno-rationalistic human evolution by two gear mechanism ˗ genetic and cultural co-evolution and techno-humanitarian balance. The resultant each of them can estimated by the ratio of socio-psychological predispositions of humanization/dehumanization in mentality. Explanatory model and methodology of evaluation of creatively teleological evolutionary risk component of NBIC technological complex is proposed. Integral part of the model is evolutionary semantics (time-varying semantic code, the compliance of the biological, socio-cultural and techno-rationalist adaptive modules of human stable evolutionary strategy). (shrink)

Correlating it to contemporary society, the article in question beckons with the reading of the idols of the cave [Bacon], holding specifically that the question involves the nature of the individual, whose trend can prevail only to adapt the framework of your perspective content resulting from the endoculturação, converging, in short, to the borders of dogma, as highlighted by the emergence of materialistic scientism, in the name of progress, establishing the techno-scientific belief in the assumptions, proposing the credibility of (...) the referential framework of science and technical division of conditionalities as determinants of social change, characterized because, as a false notion, as evidenced by the consequences. (shrink)

In the present book, the starting line is defined by a morphogenetic perspective on human communication and culture. The focus is on visual communication, music, religion (myth), and language, i.e., on the “symbolic forms” at the heart of human cultures (Ernst Cassirer). The term “morphogenesis” has more precisely the meaning given by René Thom (1923-2002) in his book “Morphogenesis and Structural Stability” (1972) and the notions of “self-organization” and cooperation of subsystems in the “Synergetics” of Hermann Haken (1927- ). The (...) naturalization of communication and cultural phenomena is the favored strategy, but the major results of the involved disciplines (art history, music theory, religious science, and linguistics) are respected. Visual art from the Paleolithic to modernity stands for visual communication. The present book focuses on studies of classical painting and sculpture (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, William Turner, and Henry Moore) and modern art (e.g., Jackson Pollock and Joseph Beuys). Musical morphogenesis embraces classical music (from J. S. Bach to Arnold Schönberg) and political songwriting (Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen). The myths of pre-literary societies show the effects of self-organization in the re-assembly (bricolage) of traditions. Classical polytheistic and monotheistic religions demonstrate the unfolding of basic germs (religious attractors) and their reduction in periods of crisis, the self-organization of complex religious networks, and rationalized macro-structures (in theologies). Significant tendencies are analyzed in the case of Buddhism and Christianism. Eventually, a holistic view of symbolic communication and human culture emerges based on state-of-the-art in evolutionary biology, cognitive science, linguistics, and semiotics (philosophy of symbolic forms). (shrink)

In this thesis, I argue that the Functional Monotheism model is not tri-theistic, but is a model of pro-Nicene Trinitarianism. In establishing this thesis, I focus on countering a specific objection prevalent in the Analytic Theology literature; the Tri-Theism Objection, which has charged the Functional Monotheism model with “tri-theism”. This objection, formulated by Kelly James Clark and Edward Feser, asserts that the Functional Monotheism model is tritheistic and thus should be rejected as a possible model of scriptural (...) monotheism and “orthodox” Trinitarianism. I argue against this objection by demonstrating that the Functional Monotheism model, once certain necessary philosophical clarifications and modifications are made, is not tri-theistic (in the classical sense of the term), but is in fact in line with “strict” (Second Temple) Jewish monotheism and “orthodox” (pro-Nicene) Trinitarianism. The Functional Monotheism model, contra the proponents of the objection, is therefore not subject to a charge of tri-theism, and thus should be taken as a viable model of “orthodox” Trinitarianism that can aid analytic theologians in their Trinitarian theorising. (shrink)

Originally titled “Is It Murder in Tennessee to Kill a Chimpanzee,” this article argues in some detail that typical legal definitions of “murder” as involving the intentional killing of “a reasonable being” would require classifying the intentional killing of chimpanzees as murder.

Ecofeminist philosophy is a development of feminist philosophy that addresses the intersection of sexism and environmental issues. Coined by Francoise d’Eaubonne, the term “ecofeminism” refers to a diverse collection of feminist thought that shares the conviction that the present environmental crisis is due not solely to the anthropomorphic nature of dominant conceptualisations of human-nature relations, with their emphasis on notion of mastery and control, but also to their androcentric nature. Technology features frequently in ecofeminist writings, in analyses of technocracy (Birkeland (...) 1993), Nuclear Power (Caputi 1993), reproductive technologies (Diamond 1990), or the production of computer interfaces (Romberger 2011), to give but a few examples. Despite being a recurrent theme, technology itself as a phenomenon is rarely directly considered. For many ecofeminists technology seems to operate as an umbrella term for a collection of artefacts whose positive or negative characteristics are ultimately contingent upon the manner in which they are employed. The individual technologies appear as value neutral. There are of course exceptions to this piecemeal approach to technological artefacts, and in this chapter I shall focus upon two ecofeminist philosophers whose consideration of technology moves from the individual instance towards a more general account of the nature of technology. The first, Karen Warren, gives technology a central place in her philosophical analysis. However, I shall suggest, her commitment to an instrumental understanding of technology renders her approach problematic. I will then consider the work of Vandana Shiva. Standard analyses of Shiva’s work tend to overlook the philosophical dimensions of her thought, in particular the continuous emphasis on science and technology. I argue that Shiva puts forward a sophisticated technological determinist philosophy of that emphasises the role of political and patriarchal interests in technological development and subsequent social and environmental interventions. (shrink)

Cognitive science, is the science of the mind and examines cognition, in all its scope, as a mental-brain process. Cognitive social sciences are resulted from the encounter, interaction and integration of social and cognitive sciences, and are hoped to deepen our understandings and explanations of the social phenomena. This paper will discuss four views about what this integration is and how it takes place, namely explanatory grounding, theoretical unification, constraints, and complementarity. some people have preferred explanatory grounding and (...) constraints approach, and maintain that based on these approaches, social cognitive science will have a better and a clearer perspective. In spite of them, I prefer a complementarity approach, Based on which, cognitive social science can be seen as an extension and improvement of social science and cognitive science, not a product of an interdisciplinary approach, This preferred approach considers the subject of cognitive social science as a socio-cognitive issue. (shrink)

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current in psychology (...) and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain. (shrink)

Human behavior and thought often exhibit a familiar pattern of within group similarity and between group difference. Many of these patterns are attributed to cultural differences. For much of the history of its investigation into behavior and thought, however, cognitive science has been disproportionately focused on uncovering and explaining the more universal features of human minds—or the universal features of minds in general. -/- This entry charts out the ways in which this has changed over recent decades. It sketches (...) the motivation behind the cultural turn in cognitive science, and situates some of its central findings with respect to the questions that animate it and the debates that it has inspired. Woven throughout the entry are examples of how the cognitive science of culture, and especially its elevated concern with different forms of diversity and variation, continues to influence and be influenced by philosophers. -/- One cluster of philosophical work falls within the traditional subject matter of philosophy of science, in this case of the cognitive and social sciences. Philosophers have analyzed and assessed the methods and evidence central to the scientific study of cognition and culture, and have offered conceptual scrutiny, clarification, and synthesis. Research in a second vein sees philosophers themselves contributing more directly to cognitive scientific projects, (co)constructing theories, helping build computational models, even gathering empirical data. A third kind of work is naturalistic philosophy or philosophy of nature, wherein philosophers seek to use results from the cognitive science of culture to inform or transform debates over long-standing philosophical questions, including questions about the nature of philosophy and philosophical methodology itself. (shrink)