The purpose of our lives is to grow step by step toward a fundamental transformation. Instead of always seeking some form of gratification, we can learn to give to others with no self-interest at all. The is the essential teaching of the Kabbalah portrayed in these essays by Baal Hasulam – the greatest modern explicator of Kabbalah. Rabbi Gottlieb provides an illuminating commentary as a living Chassidic rebbe devoted to the practice and teaching of Baal Hasulam’s spiritual path.

The volume includes the Italian translation of Giordano Bruno by Lev Platonovič Karsavin, a preface by the translator and an introduction by Julya Mehlich, a scholar of Karsavin. The translated text was published in Berlin in 1923 and long ignored by the extensive bibliographies on Bruno and Karsavin. Bruno’s value, according to Karsavin, lies in the sentiment and in the clear awareness of his own unity of spirit with the divine Universe and with God himself. “The soul of Nolan’s philosophy” (...) is “heroic fury,” the theoretical and practical foundation of unity of life and thought. But in this Karsavin also grasps Bruno’s limitation: that is, the failure to be able to be faithful to the intuition that the Absolute is never identified with the totality, even if infinite, of the relative. The infinity of the Divine is, in fact, essentially different from the infinity of the empirical. In this confusion, Bruno would be the emblem of the entire Renaissance era. In her Introduction, Mehlich highlights the use of a double method in Karsavin’s treatment: the formal one of individualization, by Heinrich Rickert, and the one based on the principle of vseedinstvo (unitotality), dating back to the thinking of Vladimir Sergeevič Solov’ëv, and widely used in 20th Century’s Russian philosophical-religious thinking. A peculiarity of Karsavin’s approach would be, according to the scholar, the union of the two levels with the conception of the historical being as personal, and the development of history as the history of the person, as narration of his destiny. (shrink)

It is argued that the many-worlds interpretation is by far the best interpretation of quantum mechanics. The key points of this view are viewing the wave functions of worlds in three dimensions and understanding probability through self-locating uncertainty.

Social network structure has been argued to shape the structure of languages, as well as affect the spread of innovations and the formation of conventions in the community. Specifically, theoretical and computational models of language change predict that sparsely connected communities develop more systematic languages, while tightly knit communities can maintain high levels of linguistic complexity and variability. However, the role of social network structure in the cultural evolution of languages has never been tested experimentally. Here, we present results from (...) a behavioral group communication study, in which we examined the formation of new languages created in the lab by micro‐societies that varied in their network structure. We contrasted three types of social networks: fully connected, small‐world, and scale‐free. We examined the artificial languages created by these different networks with respect to their linguistic structure, communicative success, stability, and convergence. Results did not reveal any effect of network structure for any measure, with all languages becoming similarly more systematic, more accurate, more stable, and more shared over time. At the same time, small‐world networks showed the greatest variation in their convergence, stabilization, and emerging structure patterns, indicating that network structure can influence the community's susceptibility to random linguistic changes (i.e., drift). (shrink)

Next year, there will be a 100-year celebration of quantum mechanics, but there is no consensus on the interpretation of this theory. This reprint presents recent works on one of the most intriguing interpretations, the many-worlds interpretation, presented at a workshop in October 2022 at Tel Aviv University. The many-worlds interpretation solves the measurement problem, avoids action at a distance and indeterminism, and does not contradict empirical evidence. The main question discussed in the workshop was as follows: why is it (...) not in the consensus? Major issues such as preferred basis, the meaning of probability, non-locality, and alternative approaches were discussed, which are increasingly drawing attention in physics and philosophy. The contributions demonstrated a striking diversity in understanding the basic concepts. What are the worlds in the many-worlds interpretation? Do the worlds diverge or split? Is probability objective or subjective, or is it just an illusion? Can we avoid the non-separability of quantum mechanics? Many questions were raised and significant progress in understanding was achieved, but the papers showed that consensus is still far away. This reprint describes the current status of the research and will be invaluable for physicists and philosophers who want to resolve the long-standing problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the 21st century, technologies like neural networks, deep learning and “artificial intelligence” (AI) have gradually entered the artistic realm. We witness the development of systems that aim to assess, evaluate and appreciate artifacts according to artistic and aesthetic criteria or by observing people’s preferences. In addition to that, AI is now used to generate new synthetic artifacts. When a machine paints a Rembrandt, composes a Bach sonata, or completes a Beethoven symphony, we say that this is (...) neither original nor real art, but simply the complex imitation and reproduction of existing products of human culture. We face the old question concerning the nature of creativity: what kind of recombination of ideas, unusual analogies, and conceptual connections are considered the mark of originality? Can AI produce artworks? Could machines reach a point at which we consider them genuinely creative? We also need to investigate the challenges posed by AI-art to the notion of authoriality: Who is the author of an artificially generated artifact? An artificial system could be considered just an artist’s and a programmer’s tool. However, we are also fascinated by the idea of autonomous artificial creativity in the aesthetic domain, as a manifestation of highly intelligent behavior. This paper will try to define some key questions around what could it mean to consider a machine creative or even equipped with artistic intentionality. (shrink)

The many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (MWI) states that the world we live in is just one among many parallel worlds. It is widely believed that because of this commitment to parallel worlds, the MWI violates common sense. Some go so far as to reject the MWI on this basis. This is despite its myriad of advantages to physics (e.g. consistency with relativity theory, mathematical simplicity, realism, determinism, etc.). Here, we make the case that common sense in fact favors (...) the MWI. We argue that causal explanations are commonsensical only when they are local causal explanations. We present several quantum mechanical experiments that seem to exhibit nonlocal “action at a distance”. Under the assumption that only one world exists, these experiments seem immune to local causal explanation. However, we show that the MWI, by taking all worlds together, can provide local causal explanations of the experiments. The MWI therefore restores common sense to physical explanation. (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)

Chapter 8, "From Tools to Authors" of "Artificial Aesthetics" discusses the evolving role of AI in artistic creation, moving from a tool to a potential creative agent. It explores the concept of "extended aesthetics," where technology enhances both human creativity and perception. The chapter outlines different levels of AI autonomy and examines how this shift challenges traditional ideas of authorship, comparing AI collaborations to historical artistic practices. It raises questions about the value of effort in art, contrasting human struggle with (...) AI's apparent ease, and suggests that AI might ultimately reshape how we perceive creative intentionality and authorship. (shrink)

The paper provides a review of the collection of scientific works «Williamson on Modality» and contains a brief summary of the main ideas of the articles published in the book.

In 1936, Jewish-Russian philosopher Lev Shestov was invited by the Histadrut to give a series of lectures in Eretz Israel. He was warmly received by audiences in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. But Shestov and his writings are now largely forgotten. Here is his story.

Conference paper delivered at the Maison de la recherche in October 2016, at an international colloquium scheduled to mark Lev Shestov's 150th anniversary. The article provides a comparative analysis of Shestov's and Pascal's conceptions of the relationship between faith and reason.

This paper seeks to initiate a theory of “imaginative dialogues” by articulating four dialogical principles that enable such a dialogue to occur. It is part of a larger project that takes the Socratic dialogue, a widely utilized conversation technique in philosophy education, as a starting point and aims to reinterpret it by shifting emphasis to the pre-reflective, pre-linguistic, and multimodal aspects of dialogues, involving both their verbal and embodied dimensions. To integrate the verbal dimensions of a dialogue with its more (...) elusive embodied dimensions, the paper will examine the notion ‘dialogue’ from the perspective of two different strategies. The first strategy chiefly focuses on the dialogic encounter. The ‘in-between’ of this dialogic encounter enables something to emerge that transcends the individual perspective of the speakers involved. The second strategy is primarily concerned with internal differentiation. The minor differences that constitute this internal differentiation, differentiate a dialogue from within. These strategies are not mutually exclusive but indicate a variation in starting point and orientation. This paper proposes to combine these two strategies by linking accounts of the productive moments in verbal dialogues to an account of the imaginative potential of embodied dialogues. This will enable the articulation of four dialogical principles (derived from Lev Yakubinsky, Oswald Ducrot, Martin Buber, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz) through which an imaginative dialogue can proceed. (shrink)

Paparan stres tidak bisa dihindari dalam kehidupan kita sehari-hari. Kebanyakan orang mungkin pernah mengalami setidaknya satu stres yang ekstrem (misalnya: situasi traumatis yang berpotensi mengancam jiwa) yang dapat menyebabkan dampak buruk yang serius pada kesehatan mental mereka [1]. Oleh karena itu, resiliensi menjadi isu penelitian yang penting di kalangan peneliti di bidang ilmu kedokteran, kesehatan mental, dan ilmu pengetahuan secara umum untuk dapat membantu orang lain dalam meningkatkan kemampuan untuk menahan stres. Salah satu langkah terpenting untuk dapat meneliti resiliensi secara (...) efektif adalah dengan memberikan definisi yang tepat. Dalam rapat pleno tahunan ke-29, para ahli dari berbagai disiplin ilmu yang tergabung dalam International Society for Traumatic Stress membahas secara tuntas mengenai pengertian resiliensi, termasuk juga ketua rapat (Steven Southwick) dan panelis (George Bonanno, Ann Masten, Catherine Panter-Brick, dan Rachel Yehuda). Rapat pleno tersebut diselenggarakan di Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pada bulan November 2013 [2]. (shrink)

In 1988, J. Ivlev proposed some (non-normal) modal systems which are semantically characterized by four-valued non-deterministic matrices in the sense of A. Avron and I. Lev. Swap structures are multialgebras (a.k.a. hyperalgebras) of a special kind, which were introduced in 2016 by W. Carnielli and M. Coniglio in order to give a non-deterministic semantical account for several paraconsistent logics known as logics of formal inconsistency, which are not algebraizable by means of the standard techniques. Each swap structure induces naturally a (...) non-deterministic matrix. The aim of this paper is to obtain a swap structures semantics for some Ivlev-like modal systems proposed in 2015 by M. Coniglio, L. Fariñas del Cerro and N. Peron. Completeness results will be stated by means of the notion of Lindenbaum–Tarski swap structures, which constitute a natural generalization to multialgebras of the concept of Lindenbaum–Tarski algebras. (shrink)

Chapter 1 of the ongoing online publication "Artificial Aesthetics: A Critical Guide to AI, Media and Design", Lev Manovich and Emanuele Arielli -/- 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)

Why would someone concerned with heresy, who defined it as private opinion that flew in the face of doctrine sanctioned by the public person, harbor such a detailed interest in heterodoxy? Hobbes's religious beliefs ultimately remain a mystery, as perhaps they were meant to: the private views of someone concerned to conform outwardly to what his church required of him, and thereby avoid to heresy, while maintaining intellectual autonomy. The hazard of Hobbes's particular catechism is that he and his supporters (...) could never avoid the suspicion of insincerity. His preparedness to believe whatever the prince demanded of him smacked of heresy in the more usual sense, despite elaborate biblical exegesis designed to prove his orthdoxy. Undoubtedly he realized it even as he wrote the last lines of Leviathan, expressing the hope that "I cannot think it will be condemned at this time, either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine, or by any that desires the continuance of Publique Peace/7 Indicating an intention to return to science, he continued, "I hope the Novelty will as much please, as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to offend" (Lev, Rev. and Conclusion, 491). (shrink)

Can new technology enhance purpose-driven, democratic dialogue in groups, governments, and societies? Online Deliberation: Design, Research, and Practice is the first book that attempts to sample the full range of work on online deliberation, forging new connections between academic research, technology designers, and practitioners. Since some of the most exciting innovations have occurred outside of traditional institutions, and those involved have often worked in relative isolation from each other, work in this growing field has often failed to reflect the full (...) set of perspectives on online deliberation. This volume is aimed at those working at the crossroads of information/communication technology and social science, and documents early findings in, and perspectives on, this new field by many of its pioneers. -/- CONTENTS: -/- Introduction: The Blossoming Field of Online Deliberation (Todd Davies, pp. 1-19) -/- Part I - Prospects for Online Civic Engagement -/- Chapter 1: Virtual Public Consultation: Prospects for Internet Deliberative Democracy (James S. Fishkin, pp. 23-35) -/- Chapter 2: Citizens Deliberating Online: Theory and Some Evidence (Vincent Price, pp. 37-58) -/- Chapter 3: Can Online Deliberation Improve Politics? Scientific Foundations for Success (Arthur Lupia, pp. 59-69) -/- Chapter 4: Deliberative Democracy, Online Discussion, and Project PICOLA (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) (Robert Cavalier with Miso Kim and Zachary Sam Zaiss, pp. 71-79) -/- Part II - Online Dialogue in the Wild -/- Chapter 5: Friends, Foes, and Fringe: Norms and Structure in Political Discussion Networks (John Kelly, Danyel Fisher, and Marc Smith, pp. 83-93) -/- Chapter 6: Searching the Net for Differences of Opinion (Warren Sack, John Kelly, and Michael Dale, pp. 95-104) -/- Chapter 7: Happy Accidents: Deliberation and Online Exposure to Opposing Views (Azi Lev-On and Bernard Manin, pp. 105-122) -/- Chapter 8: Rethinking Local Conversations on the Web (Sameer Ahuja, Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, and Andrea Kavanaugh, pp. 123-129) -/- Part III - Online Public Consultation -/- Chapter 9: Deliberation in E-Rulemaking? The Problem of Mass Participation (David Schlosberg, Steve Zavestoski, and Stuart Shulman, pp. 133-148) -/- Chapter 10: Turning GOLD into EPG: Lessons from Low-Tech Democratic Experimentalism for Electronic Rulemaking and Other Ventures in Cyberdemocracy (Peter M. Shane, pp. 149-162) -/- Chapter 11: Baudrillard and the Virtual Cow: Simulation Games and Citizen Participation (Hélène Michel and Dominique Kreziak, pp. 163-166) -/- Chapter 12: Using Web-Based Group Support Systems to Enhance Procedural Fairness in Administrative Decision Making in South Africa (Hossana Twinomurinzi and Jackie Phahlamohlaka, pp. 167-169) -/- Chapter 13: Citizen Participation Is Critical: An Example from Sweden (Tomas Ohlin, pp. 171-173) -/- Part IV - Online Deliberation in Organizations -/- Chapter 14: Online Deliberation in the Government of Canada: Organizing the Back Office (Elisabeth Richard, pp. 177-191) -/- Chapter 15: Political Action and Organization Building: An Internet-Based Engagement Model (Mark Cooper, pp. 193-202) -/- Chapter 16: Wiki Collaboration Within Political Parties: Benefits and Challenges (Kate Raynes-Goldie and David Fono, pp. 203-205) -/- Chapter 17: Debian’s Democracy (Gunnar Ristroph, pp. 207-211) -/- Chapter 18: Software Support for Face-to-Face Parliamentary Procedure (Dana Dahlstrom and Bayle Shanks, pp. 213-220) -/- Part V - Online Facilitation -/- Chapter 19: Deliberation on the Net: Lessons from a Field Experiment (June Woong Rhee and Eun-mee Kim, pp. 223-232) -/- Chapter 20: The Role of the Moderator: Problems and Possibilities for Government-Run Online Discussion Forums (Scott Wright, pp. 233-242) -/- Chapter 21: Silencing the Clatter: Removing Anonymity from a Corporate Online Community (Gilly Leshed, pp. 243-251) -/- Chapter 22: Facilitation and Inclusive Deliberation (Matthias Trénel, pp. 253-257) -/- Chapter 23: Rethinking the ‘Informed’ Participant: Precautions and Recommendations for the Design of Online Deliberation (Kevin S. Ramsey and Matthew W. Wilson, pp. 259-267) -/- Chapter 24: PerlNomic: Rule Making and Enforcement in Digital Shared Spaces (Mark E. Phair and Adam Bliss, pp. 269-271) -/- Part VI - Design of Deliberation Tools -/- Chapter 25: An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design (Todd Davies, Brendan O’Connor, Alex Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat, Andrew Parker, Benjamin Newman, and Aaron Tam, pp. 275-292) -/- Chapter 26: Online Civic Deliberation with E-Liberate (Douglas Schuler, pp. 293-302) -/- Chapter 27: Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software (Bayle Shanks and Dana Dahlstrom, pp. 303-307) -/- Chapter 28: Decision Structure: A New Approach to Three Problems in Deliberation (Raymond J. Pingree, pp. 309-316) -/- Chapter 29: Design Requirements of Argument Mapping Software for Teaching Deliberation (Matthew W. Easterday, Jordan S. Kanarek, and Maralee Harrell, pp. 317-323) -/- Chapter 30: Email-Embedded Voting with eVote/Clerk (Marilyn Davis, pp. 325-327) -/- Epilogue: Understanding Diversity in the Field of Online Deliberation (Seeta Peña Gangadharan, pp. 329-358). -/- For individual chapter downloads, go to odbook.stanford.edu. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Why would someone concerned with heresy, who defined it as private opinion that flew in the face of doctrine sanctioned by the public person, harbor such a detailed interest in heterodoxy? Hobbes's religious beliefs ultimately remain a mystery, as perhaps they were meant to: the private views of someone concerned to conform outwardly to what his church required of him, and thereby avoid to heresy, while maintaining intellectual autonomy. The hazard of Hobbes's particular catechism is that he and his (...) supporters could never avoid the suspicion of insincerity. His preparedness to believe whatever the prince demanded of him smacked of heresy in the more usual sense, despite elaborate biblical exegesis designed to prove his orthdoxy. Undoubtedly he realized it even as he wrote the last lines of Leviathan, expressing the hope that "I cannot think it will be condemned at this time, either by the Publique Judge of Doctrine, or by any that desires the continuance of Publique Peace/7 Indicating an intention to return to science, he continued, "I hope the Novelty will as much please, as in the Doctrine of this Artificiall Body it useth to Offend" (Lev, Rev. and conclusion, 491). (shrink)

The concept of 'social brain‘ is a hybrid, located somewhere in between politically motivated philosophical speculation about the mind and its place in the social world, and recently emerged inquiries into cognition, selfhood, development, etc., returning to some of the founding insights of social psychology but embedding them in a neuroscientific framework. In this paper I try to reconstruct a philosophical tradition for the social brain, a ‗Spinozist‘ tradition which locates the brain within the broader network of relations, including social (...) relations. This tradition runs from Spinoza to Lev Vygotsky in the early 20th century, and on to Gilles Deleuze, Toni Negri and Paolo Virno in recent European philosophy, as a new perspective on the brain. The concept of social brain that is articulated in this reconstruction – some early-20th century Soviet neuropsychologists spoke of socialism and the cortex as being ―on the same path‖ – overcomes distinctions between Continental thought and the philosophy of mind, and possibly gives a new metaphysical framework for social cognition. (shrink)

In this paper I will analyze Lev (Leo) Tolstoy’s arguments for Christian Anarchism which is found in his book Царство Божие Внутри Вас (tr. The Kingdom of God is Within You). By analyzing his arguments, I will present why Tolstoy believes that Christianity inevitably leads to a belief and practice of pacifism and anarchism. In other words, Tolstoy is attempting to prove that capitalism and governments of any kind are incompatible with Christian ethics. Thus, what this paper attempts to achieve (...) is to analyze whether Tolstoy is correct in his claims: does capitalism, as an economic system, and governmental authority conflict with Christian morality. I am not interested in proving that capitalism and governments are, in general, morally bad, or wrong systems but rather or not they contradict Christian doctrine. Many commentators have mentioned that Tolstoy’s philosophical works and arguments are ‘naïve’ and or ‘lacking.’ However, in this paper, I will prove that this is not entirely the case. That in fact, Tolstoy’s philosophical arguments are highly focused and more complex than what people present them to be. He is also no lesser of a philosopher for having no formal or academic philosophical education. For we should not restrict the title of ‘philosopher’ for only those who belong in academia or the institutions. (shrink)

These days, creativity is a hot commodity, the magic ingredient that separates excellence from competence in every field of human endeavor. Yet there is little agreement on what it is, especially in education, where Jean Piaget’s critique of imagination remains influential. I outline the basis for a naturalized conception of creativity rooted in evolutionary processes that are enhanced by and in turn amplify individual and group creativity, and propose that replacing Piaget’s polarization of imagination and realistic thinking with Lev Vygotsky’s (...) integration of those mental processes is necessary to meet the aim of educating for creativity. The role of imagination in counterfactual thinking is explored and improvisation posited as a paradigmatic manifestation of both creative process and product. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem como objetivo verificar como educandos da Rede Pública de ensino do Município de Niterói/RJ percebem o fenômeno da violência nas suas comunidades e como esta percepção se evidencia em seus discursos. Para isso foi aplicado um questionário semiestruturado com questões objetivas e uma discursiva, no qual foi respondido por 120 estudantes com idades entre 13 e 17 anos da Rede Estadual de Ensino de escolas da Zona Norte de Niterói, estado do Rio de Janeiro. As respostas às (...) questões objetivas foram analisadas quantitativamente e à questão discursiva por meio de técnica categorial, onde as categorias eram os itens escolhidos nas respostas dos estudantes. As questões discursivas foram analisadas qualitativamente, gerando uma análise quanti-qualitativa. Verificamos também resultados de pesquisas análogas, e a discussão foi construída à luz dos teóricos Albert Bandura, Michel Foucault e Lev Vygotsky, no qual se mostrou que nossos dados são suportados pela literatura. (shrink)

What does a Marxist theory of human psychology look like? Kyrill Potapov sheds light on this topic by showing how the works of Soviet thinkers like Lev Vygotsky and Evald Ilyenkov relate to more modern research on collective intentionality and niche construction.

The paper contains a general characteristics of the relation between Lev Shestov’s philosophy of existence and transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. The analysis was largely inspired by Cezary Wodziński’s research on Shestov’s writings, including his book published in Polish Wiedza a zbawienie. Studium myśli Lwa Szestowa (1991). In 1931, inspired by Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophiae, Husserl began a total transformation of philosophy into a science absolutely founded, assumptionless and developed in the spirit of absolute self-responsibility. Thus, the idea of (...) philosophy as an exact science and Descartes’ idea of a science absolutely founded became the aim. It resulted in a project of universal science which — according to Husserl — has been the aim of European philosophy from the beginning. Ultimately, this philosophy was to rebuild the whole model of European culture. Less than two years after the first edition of Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenchaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Lev Shestov published his Athens and Jerusalem (1938) where he agrees with Husserl’s diagnosis that the whole European culture is in a stage of a deep crisis which goes to its very foundations. However, Shestov points at the radically different sources of that crisis. Paradoxically, a remarkable friendship connecting these two thinkers did not affect the similarity of their views. In fact, they are located at the opposite poles of the contemporary philosophical scene. The friendship of Shestov and Husserl was born in the atmosphere of an intense and uncompromising intellectual debate. Both thinkers are strongly convinced that the fate of European culture and European understanding what it is to be man are decided in the realm of philosophy. So, the philosophical projects they offer are two extremely critical visions of culture. At the same time they suggest a way the European culture should be thoroughly reformed at its very basis Słowa kluczowe: ; ; ; ;. (shrink)

Platon s'est inspir? des travaux philosophiques de certains de ses pr?d?cesseurs, en particulier Socrate, mais aussi Parm?nide, H?raclite et Pythagore, pour d?velopper sa propre philosophie, qui explore les domaines les plus importants, notamment la m?taphysique, l'?thique, l'esth?tique et la politique. Avec son professeur Socrate et son ?l?ve Aristote, il pose les bases de la pens?e philosophique occidentale. Platon est consid?r? comme l'un des philosophes les plus importants et les plus influents de l'histoire humaine, ?tant l'un des fondateurs de la religion (...) et de la spiritualit? occidentales. La philosophie qu'il a d?velopp?e, connue sous le nom de platonisme, est bas?e sur la th?orie des Formes connues par la raison pure comme une solution au probl?me des universaux. La philosophie de Platon s'inscrit dans la lign?e des pr?socratiques, des sophistes et des traditions artistiques qui sous-tendent l'?ducation grecque, dans un cadre nouveau, d?fini par la dialectique et la th?orie des Id?es. Pour Platon, la connaissance est une activit? de l'?me, affect?e par des objets sensibles, et par des processus internes. Dans La R?publique de Platon, la forme la plus ?lev?e est consid?r?e comme la Forme du Bien, la source de toutes les autres Formes qui pourraient ?tre connues par la raison. Le th?me central du livre est la justice, argument?e ? l'aide de plusieurs th?ories platoniciennes, dont le mythe all?gorique de la caverne, la doctrine des Id?es, la dialectique, la th?orie de l'?me et la conception d'une cit? id?ale. Sa dialectique est un type de connaissance, ? r?le ontologique et m?taphysique, qui s'atteint par la confrontation de plusieurs positions pour d?passer l'opinion (doxa), un passage du monde des apparences (ou ? sensible ?) ? la connaissance intellectuelle (ou ? intelligible ? ) aux premiers principes. Le mod?le ?ducatif de Platon (paid?ia) diff?rencie le niveau d'?ducation selon les comp?tences des ?l?ves. Selon les principes socratiques, pour faire justice, il faut savoir ce qui est bien, et c'est ce que le philosophe sait le mieux. Platon a d?taill? ce concept en soulignant la distinction entre le philosophe (qui cherche les principes de v?rit? sans pr?tendre les poss?der) et le sophiste (qui se laisse guider par l'opinion comme seul param?tre valable de la connaissance). (shrink)

Clinical evidence has shown that physical exercise during pregnancy may alter brain devel- opment and improve cognitive function of offspring. However, the mechanisms through which maternal exercise might promote such effects are not well understood. The present study examined levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and absolute cell num- bers in the hippocampal formation and cerebral cortex of rat pups born from mothers exer- cised during pregnancy. Additionally, we evaluated the cognitive abilities of adult offspring in different behavioral paradigms (exploratory (...) activity and habituation in open field tests, spatial memory in a water maze test, and aversive memory in a step-down inhibitory avoid- ance task). Results showed that maternal exercise during pregnancy increased BDNF lev- els and absolute numbers of neuronal and non-neuronal cells in the hippocampal formation of offspring. No differences in BDNF levels or cell numbers were detected in the cerebral cortex. It was also observed that offspring from exercised mothers exhibited better cognitive performance in nonassociative (habituation) and associative (spatial learning) mnemonic tasks than did offspring from sedentary mothers. Our findings indicate that maternal exer- cise during pregnancy enhances offspring cognitive function (habituation behavior and spa- tial learning) and increases BDNF levels and cell numbers in the hippocampal formation of offspring. (shrink)

THE PURPOSE OF OUR LIVES is to undergo a gradual transformation. We are born with a self-centered nature, but we can acquire a nature in which the focus is on the other. Through spiritual work, we can slowly learn to overcome our innate desire to find some form of self-gratification in all we do. Union with God is the result of desiring to give to others with no interest in reward of any kind. This is the essential teaching of the (...) Kabbalah as portrayed in these essays by Baal Hasulam. Rabbi Gottlieb’s commentary adds details on the winding road toward spiritual transformation. (shrink)