This paper is concerned with learners who aim to learn patterns in infinite binary sequences: shown longer and longer initial segments of a binary sequence, they either attempt to predict whether the next bit will be a 0 or will be a 1 or they issue forecast probabilities for these events. Several variants of this problem are considered. In each case, a no-free-lunch result of the following form is established: the problem of learning is a formidably difficult one, in that (...) no matter what method is pursued, failure is incomparably more common that success; and difficult choices must be faced in choosing a method of learning, since no approach dominates all others in its range of success. In the simplest case, the comparison of the set of situations in which a method fails and the set of situations in which it succeeds is a matter of cardinality (countable vs. uncountable); in other cases, it is a topological matter (meagre vs. co-meagre) or a hybrid computational-topological matter (effectively meagre vs. effectively co-meagre). (shrink)

It is a plausible speculation that conventional choices in outcome measures might influence the results of meta-analyses. We test that speculation by simulating data from trials on antidepressants. We vary real drug effectiveness while modulating conventional values for outcome measures. We had previously shown that one conventional choice used in meta-analyses of antidepressants falls in a narrow range of values that maximize estimates of effectiveness. Our present analysis investigates why this phenomenon occurs. Moreover, our results suggest the superiority of (...) absolute outcome measures over relative measures. This research program can be extended to test numerous other aspects of clinical research. (shrink)

Georg Cantor's absolute infinity, the paradoxical Burali-Forti class Ω of all ordinals, is a monstrous non-entity for which being called a "class" is an undeserved dignity. This must be the ultimate vexation for mathematical philosophers who hold on to some residual sense of realism in set theory. By careful use of Ω, we can rescue Georg Cantor's 1899 "proof" sketch of the Well-Ordering Theorem––being generous, considering his declining health. We take the contrapositive of Cantor's suggestion and add Zermelo's (...) class='Hi'>choice function. This results in a concise and uncomplicated proof of the Well-Ordering Theorem. (shrink)

This essay examines the philosophical debate on free will, using Kierkegaard's life stages as a framework. It argues that despite the perception of free choice, human decisions are heavily influenced by emotions, environment, and past experiences. Analyzing aesthetic and ethical stages reveals constraints on free will, challenging its absoluteness. Insights from philosophers like Sartre and Aristotle suggest free will may be illusory. The essay underscores the complex interplay between choice and determinism, advocating for a nuanced view of human (...) agency. (shrink)

What, normatively speaking, are the grounds of rational choice? This paper defends ‘comparativism’, the view that a comparative fact grounds rational choice. It examines three of the most serious challenges to comparativism: 1) that sometimes what grounds rational choice is an exclusionary-type relation among alternatives; 2) that an absolute fact such as that it’s your duty or conforms to the Categorial Imperative grounds rational choice; and 3) that rational choice between incomparables is possible, and (...) in particular, all that is needed for the possibility of rational choice is that one alternative is not worse than the others. Each challenge is questioned. If comparativism is correct, then no matter what normative theory you favor, your answer to the question, ‘What makes my choice rational?’ must be comparative in form. In this way, comparativism provides a framework for normative theorizing. (shrink)

If the concept of “free will” is reduced to that of “choice” all physical world share the latter quality. Anyway the “free will” can be distinguished from the “choice”: The “free will” involves implicitly certain preliminary goal, and the choice is only the mean, by which it can be achieved or not by the one who determines the goal. Thus, for example, an electron has always a choice but not free will unlike a human possessing both. (...) Consequently, and paradoxically, the determinism of classical physics is more subjective and more anthropomorphic than the indeterminism of quantum mechanics for the former presupposes certain deterministic goal implicitly following the model of human freewill behavior. The choice is usually linked to very complicated systems such as human brain or society and even often associated with consciousness. In its background, the material world is deterministic and absolutely devoid of choice. However, quantum mechanics introduces the choice in the fundament of physical world, in the only way, in which it can exist: All exists in the “phase transition” of the present between the uncertain future and the well-ordered past. Thus the present is forced to choose in order to be able to transform the coherent state of future into the well-ordering of past. The concept of choice as if suggests that there is one who chooses. However quantum mechanics involves a generalized case of choice, which can be called “subjectless”: There is certain choice, which originates from the transition of the future into the past. Thus that kind of choice is shared of all existing and does not need any subject: It can be considered as a low of nature. There are a few theorems in quantum mechanics directly relevant to the topic: two of them are called “free will theorems” by their authors, Conway and Kochen, and according to them: “Do we really have free will, or, as a few determined folk maintain, is it all an illusion? We don’t know, but will prove in this paper that if indeed there exist any experimenters with a modicum of free will, then elementary particles must have their own share of this valuable commodity” “The import of the free will theorem is that it is not only current quantum theory, but the world itself that is non-deterministic, so that no future theory can return us to a clockwork universe”. Those theorems can be considered as a continuation of the so-called theorems about the absence of “hidden variables” in quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Compares Freud's conception of religion being negative for the health of our psyche to Kierkegaard's theory of stages culminating in the necessity of a relationship to God for self-realization.

In the early 1900s, Russell began to recognize that he, and many other mathematicians, had been using assertions like the Axiom of Choice implicitly, and without explicitly proving them. In working with the Axioms of Choice, Infinity, and Reducibility, and his and Whitehead’s Multiplicative Axiom, Russell came to take the position that some axioms are necessary to recovering certain results of mathematics, but may not be proven to be true absolutely. The essay traces historical roots of, and motivations (...) for, Russell’s method of analysis, which are intended to shed light on his view about the status of mathematical axioms. I describe the position Russell develops in consequence as “immanent logicism,” in contrast to what Irving (1989) describes as “epistemic logicism.” Immanent logicism allows Russell to avoid the logocentric predicament, and to propose a method for discovering structural relationships of dependence within mathematical theories. (shrink)

In abstract algebraic logic, many systems, such as those paraconsistent logics taking inspiration from da Costa's hierarchy, are not algebraizable by even the broadest standard methodologies, as that of Blok and Pigozzi. However, these logics can be semantically characterized by means of non-deterministic algebraic structures such as Nmatrices, RNmatrices and swap structures. These structures are based on multialgebras, which generalize algebras by allowing the result of an operation to assume a non-empty set of values. This leads to an interest in (...) exploring the foundations of multialgebras applied to the study of logic systems. -/- It is well known from universal algebra that, for every signature Sigma, there exist algebras over Sigma which are absolutely free, meaning that they do not satisfy any identities or, alternatively, satisfy the universal mapping property for the class of Sigma-algebras. Furthermore, once we fix a cardinality of the generating set, they are, up to isomorphisms, unique, and equal to algebras of terms (or propositional formulas, in the context of logic). Equivalently, the forgetful functor, from the category of Sigma-algebras to Set, has a left adjoint. This result does not extend to multialgebras. Not only multialgebras satisfying the universal mapping property do not exist, but the forgetful functor U, from the category of Sigma-multialgebras to Set, does not have a left adjoint. -/- In this paper we generalize, in a natural way, algebras of terms to multialgebras of terms, whose family of submultialgebras enjoys many properties of the former. One example is that, to every pair consisting of a function, from a submultialgebra of a multialgebra of terms to another multialgebra, and a collection of choices (which selects how a homomorphism approaches indeterminacies), there corresponds a unique homomorphism, what resembles the universal mapping property. Another example is that the multialgebras of terms are generated by a set that may be viewed as a strong basis, which we call the ground of the multialgebra. Submultialgebras of multialgebras of terms are what we call weakly free multialgebras. Finally, with these definitions at hand, we offer a simple proof that multialgebras with the universal mapping property for the class of all multialgebras do not exist and that U does not have a left adjoint. (shrink)

The text is a continuation of the article of the same name published in the previous issue of Philosophical Alternatives. The philosophical interpretations of the Kochen- Specker theorem (1967) are considered. Einstein's principle regarding the,consubstantiality of inertia and gravity" (1918) allows of a parallel between descriptions of a physical micro-entity in relation to the macro-apparatus on the one hand, and of physical macro-entities in relation to the astronomical mega-entities on the other. The Bohmian interpretation ( 1952) of quantum mechanics proposes (...) that all quantum systems be interpreted as dissipative ones and that the theorem be thus derstood. The conclusion is that the continual representation, by force or (gravitational) field between parts interacting by means of it, of a system is equivalent to their mutual entanglement if representation is discrete. Gravity (force field) and entanglement are two different, correspondingly continual and discrete, images of a single common essence. General relativity can be interpreted as a superluminal generalization of special relativity. The postulate exists of an alleged obligatory difference between a model and reality in science and philosophy. It can also be deduced by interpreting a corollary of the heorem. On the other hand, quantum mechanics, on the basis of this theorem and of V on Neumann's (1932), introduces the option that a model be entirely identified as the modeled reality and, therefore, that absolutely reality be recognized: this is a non-standard hypothesis in the epistemology of science. Thus, the true reality begins to be understood mathematically, i.e. in a Pythagorean manner, for its identification with its mathematical model. A few linked problems are highlighted: the role of the axiom of choice forcorrectly interpreting the theorem; whether the theorem can be considered an axiom; whether the theorem can be considered equivalent to the negation of the axiom. (shrink)

Quantum information is discussed as the universal substance of the world. It is interpreted as that generalization of classical information, which includes both finite and transfinite ordinal numbers. On the other hand, any wave function and thus any state of any quantum system is just one value of quantum information. Information and its generalization as quantum information are considered as quantities of elementary choices. Their units are correspondingly a bit and a qubit. The course of time is what generates choices (...) by itself, thus quantum information and any item in the world in final analysis. The course of time generates necessarily choices so: The future is absolutely unorderable in principle while the past is always well-ordered and thus unchangeable. The present as the mediation between them needs the well-ordered theorem equivalent to the axiom of choice. The latter guarantees the choice even among the elements of an infinite set, which is the case of quantum information. The concrete and abstract objects share information as their common base, which is quantum as to the formers and classical as to the latters. The general quantities of matter in physics, mass and energy can be considered as particular cases of quantum information. The link between choice and abstraction in set theory allows of “Hume’s principle” to be interpreted in terms of quantum mechanics as equivalence of “many” and “much” underlying quantum information. Quantum information as the universal substance of the world calls for the unity of physics and mathematics rather than that of the concrete and abstract objects and thus for a form of quantum neo-Pythagoreanism in final analysis. (shrink)

In this paper the relation between being and becoming is analyzed and the Kierkegaard’s existential method is considered. Also the three stages of existence are described as the evolution of a human being. This evolution means gradual creation of true selfhood due to decisive choices and actions. The author stresses that Kierkegaard’s existential anthropology is a version of the dialectical religious existentialism. A human being is paradoxical and her or his conflicts cannot be resolved by rational way. Existence has its (...) own logic, which differs from the dialectical logic of Hegel’s absolute idea or spirit. This logic is paradoxical and needs other laws, i.e. the laws of love, faith and repetition. Repetition is essential for religious experience, because it teaches to be humble. An individual’s humility means that he/she is not disturbed by any superfluous things and he/she does not pursue them. Such humble individual remains quiet in any situations. The author proves that Kierkegaard is one of the philosophers of Modern Time, who struggles against speculative and objective thinking, which depersonalizes a human being; a human’s being is totally subjective and on higher level it is a passion of faith. (shrink)

PETER KNAUER'S CONCEPTION OF MORAL CHOICE ON THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CREAITVENESS IN MODERN MORAL THEOLOGY Summary The author undertakes a critical analysis of the ethical views of Peter Knauer who is one of the most influential theological moralist today. The author tends to show the consequences of Knauer's theory which consequences are destructive for morality. The first part of the paper presents Knauer's standpoint in view of the conception of moral choice and shows three crucial points of his system. (...) They are the following: the definition of moral good (lightness) in its relation to physical good; the reinterpretation of the principle of double effect which reinterpretation reduces that principle to its "Ideological explanation"; and, finally, the conception of the so-called non-counterproductivity which decides whether an activity is right. That non-counterproductivity is comprehended as an all-embracing correspondence between the goals which the subject has chosen and means which the subject has taken in order to accomplish the goals. In the second critical part one finds some questions related to the immanent critique of the discussed theory and some consequences of Knauer's claims. If one applies his assumptions strictly, it turns out that in his model of morality there is no place for such an activity of man which, at the same time, would be both rational and free, i.e., sensu stricto moral. In view of Knauer's system the criteria of moral evaluation, which criteria he proposed, do not hold sense. Thus morality and ethics lose their essential normative character. Consequently, the system under scrutiny leads to an antipersonalistic vision of both an individual and society, and in terms of eternity it seems to dismiss the possibility of recognizing the existence of Absolute. The theory rejects values for the sake of which it was construed. Translated by Jan Kłos. (shrink)

Current technology and surveillance practices make behaviors traceable to persons in unprecedented ways. This causes a loss of anonymity and of many privacy measures relied on in the past. These de facto privacy losses are by many seen as problematic for individual psychology, intimate relations and democratic practices such as free speech and free assembly. I share most of these concerns but propose that an even more fundamental problem might be that our very ability to act as autonomous and purposive (...) agents relies on some degree of privacy, perhaps particularly as we act in public and semi-public spaces. I suggest that basic issues concerning action choices have been left largely unexplored, due to a series of problematic theoretical assumptions at the heart of privacy debates. One such assumption has to do with the influential conceptualization of privacy as pertaining to personal intimate facts belonging to a private sphere as opposed to a public sphere of public facts. As Helen Nissenbaum has pointed out, the notion of privacy in public sounds almost like an oxymoron given this traditional private-public dichotomy. I discuss her important attempt to defend privacy in public through her concept of ‘contextual integrity.’ Context is crucial, but Nissenbaum’s descriptive notion of existing norms seems to fall short of a solution. I here agree with Joel Reidenberg’s recent worries regarding any approach that relies on ‘reasonable expectations’ . The problem is that in many current contexts we have no such expectations. Our contexts have already lost their integrity, so to speak. By way of a functional and more biologically inspired account, I analyze the relational and contextual dynamics of both privacy needs and harms. Through an understanding of action choice as situated and options and capabilities as relational, a more consequence-oriented notion of privacy begins to appear. I suggest that privacy needs, harms and protections are relational. Privacy might have less to do with seclusion and absolute transactional control than hitherto thought. It might instead hinge on capacities to limit the social consequences of our actions through knowing and shaping our perceptible agency and social contexts of action. To act with intent we generally need the ability to conceal during exposure. If this analysis is correct then relational privacy is an important condition for autonomic purposive and responsible agency—particularly in public space. Overall, this chapter offers a first stab at a reconceptualization of our privacy needs as relational to contexts of action. In terms of ‘rights to privacy’ this means that we should expand our view from the regulation and protection of the information of individuals to questions of the kind of contexts we are creating. I am here particularly interested in what I call ‘unbounded contexts’, i.e. cases of context collapses, hidden audiences and even unknowable future agents. (shrink)

The focus in this essay will be upon the paradoxes, and foremostly in set theory. A central result is that the librationist set theory £ extension \Pfund $\mathscr{HR}(\mathbf{D})$ of \pounds \ accounts for \textbf{Neumann-Bernays-Gödel} set theory with the \textbf{Axiom of Choice} and \textbf{Tarski's Axiom}. Moreover, \Pfund \ succeeds with defining an impredicative manifestation set $\mathbf{W}$, \emph{die Welt}, so that \Pfund$\mathscr{H}(\mathbf{W})$ %is a model accounts for Quine's \textbf{New Foundations}. Nevertheless, the points of view developed support the view that the truth-paradoxes (...) and the set-paradoxes have common origins, so that the librationist resolutions of the set theoretic paradoxes are at the same time resolutions of the truth theoretic paradoxes. Both the librationist resolutions of the set theoretic paradoxes and the truth theoretic paradoxes have non-trivial philosophical implications: librationist set theories have the consequence that there are no absolutely uncountable sets, and librationist truth theories allow the use of syntactical modalities in ways which circumvent limitations as those of \parencite{Montague1963}, and a truth predicate which is useful for more precise philosophical discourse. (shrink)

Origen of Alexandria can be credited as the founder of a Christian speculative angelology, in which Christ the Logos is both the creator and the interpreter of the angels. He introduces the angels as the first created rational beings who, in contemplating the divine Word (Logos), freely choose to direct their will as holy angels in service to or wicked demons in antagonism against the love of God. The first created rational beings are divided into three orders: the angels, the (...) demons, and the neutral spirits of human souls. The angels remain closest in contemplation of the Logos, yet, due to their negligence, descend to unfold in the angelic hierarchy. The angels and demons thereafter guide the movements of all spirits, substances, and signs in the created world. The neutral spirits of human souls can choose to follow either the guidance of guardian angels or demons. And yet after the Incarnation, the angels are distinguished from the demons by their choice to follow Christ. Origen’s angelology has often been regarded as an early Christian alternative to Middle Platonic daemonologies. And after Karl Barth, his angelology has come to be dispensed from Christian theology. However, as Jean Daniélou has observed, Origen had previously departed from Platonic daemonology in affirming that angelic mediacy must pass away like the light of the stars before the brilliance of the Logos of Christ. He had, in this way, already assimilated the mediacy of the angels to the absolute mediation of Christ. And, in assimilating angelic to christic mediacy, Origen also attributes the reason with which the world is moved to the divine reason of the divine Word (Logos) of Christ in God. Origen’s angelology can thus be read both before and after Barth as a science of the angels. (shrink)

In a quantum universe with a strong arrow of time, it is standard to postulate that the initial wave function started in a particular macrostate---the special low-entropy macrostate selected by the Past Hypothesis. Moreover, there is an additional postulate about statistical mechanical probabilities according to which the initial wave function is a ''typical'' choice in the macrostate. Together, they support a probabilistic version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: typical initial wave functions will increase in entropy. Hence, there are (...) two sources of randomness in such a universe: the quantum-mechanical probabilities of the Born rule and the statistical mechanical probabilities of the Statistical Postulate. I propose a new way to understand time's arrow in a quantum universe. It is based on what I call the Thermodynamic Theories of Quantum Mechanics. According to this perspective, there is a natural choice for the initial quantum state of the universe, which is given by not a wave function but by a density matrix. The density matrix plays a microscopic role: it appears in the fundamental dynamical equations of those theories. The density matrix also plays a macroscopic / thermodynamic role: it is exactly the projection operator onto the Past Hypothesis subspace. Thus, given an initial subspace, we obtain a unique choice of the initial density matrix. I call this property "the conditional uniqueness" of the initial quantum state. The conditional uniqueness provides a new and general strategy to eliminate statistical mechanical probabilities in the fundamental physical theories, by which we can reduce the two sources of randomness to only the quantum mechanical one. I also explore the idea of an absolutely unique initial quantum state, in a way that might realize Penrose's idea of a strongly deterministic universe. (shrink)

Kant has a number of harsh-sounding things to say about beggars and giving to beggars. He describes begging as “closely akin to robbery”, and says that it exhibits self-contempt. In this paper I argue that on a particular interpretation of his political philosophy his critique of giving to beggars can be seen as part of a concern with social justice, and that his analysis makes sense of some troubling aspects of the phenomenology of being confronted with beggars. On Kant's view, (...) without absolute poverty relief, the poor persons' external freedom is subject to the arbitrary choices of those who have means. But the legitimacy of the state is based on ensuring that no one's basic freedom is subject to the arbitrary choices of another. This means that in a legitimate state public structures must ensure that there is unconditional poverty relief. Having your basic needs met through private charity wrongs you. Kant's analysis is that when you encounter someone in a public space who asks you for money to meet their basic survival needs, you are being asked to solve a public problem in a private interaction, and there is no rightful way for you to do this. (shrink)

Measuring the effectiveness of medical interventions faces three epistemological challenges: the choice of good measuring instruments, the use of appropriate analytic measures, and the use of a reliable method of extrapolating measures from an experimental context to a more general context. In practice each of these challenges contributes to overestimating the effectiveness of medical interventions. These challenges suggest the need for corrective normative principles. The instruments employed in clinical research should measure patient-relevant and disease-specific parameters, and should not be (...) sensitive to parameters that are only indirectly relevant. Effectiveness always should be measured and reported in absolute terms (using measures such as 'absolute risk reduction'), and only sometimes should effectiveness also be measured and reported in relative terms (using measures such as 'relative risk reduction')-employment of relative measures promotes an informal fallacy akin to the base-rate fallacy, which can be exploited to exaggerate claims of effectiveness. Finally, extrapolating from research settings to clinical settings should more rigorously take into account possible ways in which the intervention in question can fail to be effective in a target population. (shrink)

The paper considers the symmetries of a bit of information corresponding to one, two or three qubits of quantum information and identifiable as the three basic symmetries of the Standard model, U(1), SU(2), and SU(3) accordingly. They refer to “empty qubits” (or the free variable of quantum information), i.e. those in which no point is chosen (recorded). The choice of a certain point violates those symmetries. It can be represented furthermore as the choice of a privileged reference frame (...) (e.g. that of the Big Bang), which can be described exhaustively by means of 16 numbers (4 for position, 4 for velocity, and 8 for acceleration) independently of time, but in space-time continuum, and still one, 17th number is necessary for the mass of rest of the observer in it. The same 17 numbers describing exhaustively a privileged reference frame thus granted to be “zero”, respectively a certain violation of all the three symmetries of the Standard model or the “record” in a qubit in general, can be represented as 17 elementary wave functions (or classes of wave functions) after the bijection of natural and transfinite natural (ordinal) numbers in Hilbert arithmetic and further identified as those corresponding to the 17 elementary of particles of the Standard model. Two generalizations of the relevant concepts of general relativity are introduced: (1) “discrete reference frame” to the class of all arbitrarily accelerated reference frame constituting a smooth manifold; (2) a still more general principle of relativity to the general principle of relativity, and meaning the conservation of quantum information as to all discrete reference frames as to the smooth manifold of all reference frames of general relativity. Then, the bijective transition from an accelerated reference frame to the 17 elementary wave functions of the Standard model can be interpreted by the still more general principle of relativity as the equivalent redescription of a privileged reference frame: smooth into a discrete one. The conservation of quantum information related to the generalization of the concept of reference frame can be interpreted as restoring the concept of the ether, an absolutely immovable medium and reference frame in Newtonian mechanics, to which the relative motion can be interpreted as an absolute one, or logically: the relations, as properties. The new ether is to consist of qubits (or quantum information). One can track the conceptual pathway of the “ether” from Newtonian mechanics via special relativity, via general relativity, via quantum mechanics to the theory of quantum information (or “quantum mechanics and information”). The identification of entanglement and gravity can be considered also as a ‘byproduct” implied by the transition from the smooth “ether of special and general relativity’ to the “flat” ether of quantum mechanics and information. The qubit ether is out of the “temporal screen” in general and is depicted on it as both matter and energy, both dark and visible. (shrink)

Many contemporary philosophers endorse the Humean-Lewisian Denial of Absolutely Necessary Connections (‘DANC’). Among those philosophers, many deny all or part of the Humean-Lewisian package of views about causation and laws. I argue that they maintain an inconsistent set of views. DANC entails that (1) causal properties and relations are, with a few possible exceptions, always extrinsic to their bearers, (2) nomic properties and relations are, with a few possible exceptions, always extrinsic to their bearers, and (3) causal and nomic properties (...) and relations globally supervene on non-causal, non-nomic properties and relations. Hence, one can’t be a consistent Half-Hearted Humean. Consistency demands giving up the core Humean thesis or facing up to its consequences. The upshot is that we face a stark choice: either there are absolutely necessary connections between distinct existents or it’s "just one damn thing after another.". (shrink)

A guide for translators, about the translation theory, the translation process, interpreting, subtitling, internationalization and localization and computer-assisted translation. A special section is dedicated to the translator's education and associations. The guide include, as annexes, several independent adaptations of the corresponding European Commission works, freely available via the EU Bookshop as PDF. For a “smart”, sensible translation , you should forget not the knowledge acquired at school or university, but the corrective standards. Some people want a translation with the touch (...) of the source version, while another people feel that in a successful version we should not be able to guess the original language. We have to realize that both people have right and wrong, and that their only fault is to present requirement as an absolute truth. Teachers agree at least on this principle: “If a sentence is ambiguous, the translation must also be“. There is another critical, less easy to argue, based on an Italian phrase with particularly strong wording: “Traduttore, traditore“. This critique argues that any translation will betray the author‘s language, spirit, style … because of the choices on all sides. What to sacrifice, clarity or brevity, if the formula in the text is brief and effective, but impossible to translate into so few words with the exact meaning? One could understand this criticism that it encourages us to read “in the text.” It seems obvious that it is impossible to follow this advice into practice. (shrink)

Antitheodicy objects to all attempts to solve the problem of evil. Its objections are almost all on moral grounds—it argues that the whole project of theodicy is morally offensive. Trying to excuse God’s permission of evil is said to deny the reality of evil, to exhibit gross insensitivity to suffering, and to insult the victims of grave evils. Since antitheodicists urge the avoidance of theodicies for moral reasons, it is desirable to evaluate the moral reasons against theodicies in abstraction from (...) the intellectual reasons for and against them. It is argued that the best known theodicies such as those based on soul-making and free will are guilty of moral faults as alleged. But Leibniz’s best of all possible worlds theory, often thought to be the most morally offensive ‘Panglossian’ theodicy, is morally blameless because it excuses God by the absolute impossibility of his choosing any world better than the present one. Theodicy should not be conceived of as a search for greater goods which may excuse God’s permitting evils. From the divine point of view, creation is an upfront choice between scenarios—in modern parlance, a Trolley problem rather than a Transplant problem. In cases of forced choice among scenarios, it is morally improper to criticize one who chooses the best. (shrink)

Logical consequence is typically construed as a metalinguistic relation between sentences. Deflationism is an account of logic that challenges this orthodoxy. In Williamson’s recent presentation of deflationism, logic’s primary concern is with universal generalizations over absolutely everything. As well as an interesting account of logic in its own right, deflationism has also been recruited to decide between competing logics in resolving semantic paradoxes. This paper defends deflationism from its most important challenge to date, due to Ole Hjortland. It then presents (...) two new problems for the view. Hjortland’s objection is that deflationism cannot discriminate between distinct logics. I show that his example of classical logic and supervaluationism depends on equivocating about whether the language includes a “definitely” operator. Moreover, I prove a result that blocks this line of objection no matter the choice of logics. I end by criticizing deflationism on two fronts. First, it cannot do the work it has been recruited to perform. That is, it cannot help adjudicate between competing logics. This is because a theory of logic cannot be as easily separated from a theory of truth as its proponents claim. Second, deflationism currently has no adequate answer to the following challenge: what does a sentence’s universal generalization have to do with its logical truth? I argue that the most promising, stipulative response on behalf of the deflationist amounts to an unwarranted change of subject. (shrink)

To evaluate the overall good/welfare of any action, policy or institutional choice we need some way of comparing the benefits and losses to those affected: we need to make interpersonal comparisons of the good/welfare. Yet sceptics have worried either: that such comparisons are impossible as they involve an impossible introspection across individuals, getting ‘into their minds’; that they are indeterminate as individual-level information is compatible with a range of welfare numbers; or that they are metaphysically mysterious as they assume (...) the existence either of a social mind or of absolute levels of welfare when no such things exist. This article argues that such scepticism can potentially be addressed if we view the problem of interpersonal comparisons as fundamentally an epistemic problem – that is, as a problem of forming justified beliefs about the overall good based on evidence of the individual good. (shrink)

The paper discusses the origin of dark matter and dark energy from the concepts of time and the totality in the final analysis. Though both seem to be rather philosophical, nonetheless they are postulated axiomatically and interpreted physically, and the corresponding philosophical transcendentalism serves heuristically. The exposition of the article means to outline the “forest for the trees”, however, in an absolutely rigorous mathematical way, which to be explicated in detail in a future paper. The “two deductions” are two successive (...) stage of a single conclusion mentioned above. The concept of “transcendental invariance” meaning ontologically and physically interpreting the mathematical equivalence of the axiom of choice and the well-ordering “theorem” is utilized again. Then, time arrow is a corollary from that transcendental invariance, and in turn, it implies quantum information conservation as the Noether correlate of the linear “increase of time” after time arrow. Quantum information conservation implies a few fundamental corollaries such as the “conservation of energy conservation” in quantum mechanics from reasons quite different from those in classical mechanics and physics as well as the “absence of hidden variables” (versus Einstein’s conjecture) in it. However, the paper is concentrated only into the inference of another corollary from quantum information conservation, namely, dark matter and dark energy being due to entanglement, and thus and in the final analysis, to the conservation of quantum information, however observed experimentally only on the “cognitive screen” of “Mach’s principle” in Einstein’s general relativity. therefore excluding any other source of gravitational field than mass and gravity. Then, if quantum information by itself would generate a certain nonzero gravitational field, it will be depicted on the same screen as certain masses and energies distributed in space-time, and most presumably, observable as those dark energy and dark matter predominating in the universe as about 96% of its energy and matter quite unexpectedly for physics and the scientific worldview nowadays. Besides on the cognitive screen of general relativity, entanglement is available necessarily on still one “cognitive screen” (namely, that of quantum mechanics), being furthermore “flat”. Most probably, that projection is confinement, a mysterious and ad hoc added interaction along with the fundamental tree ones of the Standard model being even inconsistent to them conceptually, as far as it need differ the local space from the global space being definable only as a relation between them (similar to entanglement). So, entanglement is able to link the gravity of general relativity to the confinement of the Standard model as its projections of the “cognitive screens” of those two fundamental physical theories. (shrink)

The story of eternity is not as simple as a secularization narrative implies. Instead it follows something like the trajectory of reversal in Kant’s practical proof for the existence of god. In that proof, god emerges not as an object of theoretical investigation, but as a postulate required by our practical engagement with the world; so, similarly, the eternal is not just secularized out of existence, but becomes understood as an entailment of, and somehow imbricated in, the conditions of our (...) practical existence. -/- The sections that follow discuss some of those central figures in modern European philosophy whose views prominently feature some consideration of eternity. I start with Kant in section I. Kant’s critique of speculative theology is well-known, and this hostility would appear to make it unlikely that the eternal, with all its theological baggage, would feature prominently in Kant’s critical philosophy. But in fact Kant’s transcendental idealism endorses no fewer than three different concepts of the eternal, including what turns out to be the most historically influential idea: that practical reason involves a kind of eternal, non-temporal action. Kant shifts this notion of a non-temporal act from its original theological context of god’s actus purus to a practical context, setting the stage for Schelling’s and Kierkegaard’s later development of this theme. Before detailing this trajectory however, section II is devoted to Hegel, the philosopher whose radical historicism is perhaps more than any other thinker responsible for making “the nineteenth century preeminently the historical century.”4 Hegel is not fertile soil for the concept of the eternal, but his historicism does turn out, at a crucial moment in the philosophy of nature, to presuppose a certain conception of eternity as an eternal present. Perhaps more importantly for the further development of eternity in nineteenth century thought however is that both Schelling and Kierkegaard situate their views of the eternal in the context of a collective rejection of Hegel. Section III discusses Schelling, who returns to Kant’s conception of non-temporal choice, seeing human capacities for free eternal self-creation as rivaling god’s. Such powers are required, Schelling argues, to resist the sublimation of the individual human person into the blankness of the Absolute. Section IV briefly consider Schopenhauer’s view that the in-itself of everything is an endlessly striving will. Section V concerns Kierkegaard who is strongly committed to the eternal, and indeed criticizes Hegel for compromising his conception of the eternal by thinking it temporally; but he is obsessed by the paradoxical question of our practical “access” to the eternal within a particular temporal moment: the decisive moment, imbued with significance that can turn life around and create a new person, pushing Schelling’s concerns even further. The remaining, shorter sections, present briefer accounts of more recent figures who make important use of some conception of the eternal: Nietzsche’s eternal return (section VI), Agamben’s (1942-) theory of sovereignty (section VII) and finally Alain Badiou’s unapologetic attempt to resuscitate eternity as the condition of revolutionary political change (Section VIII). I end with a concluding meditation (Section IX). (shrink)

Kant’s project in ethics is to defend the conception of morality that he takes to be embedded in ordinary thought. The principal aims of his foundational works in ethics – the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason – are to state the fundamental principle of morality, which he terms the “Categorical Imperative”, and then to give an account of its unconditional authority – why we should give moral requirements priority over non-moral reasons – by (...) grounding it in the nature of free rational agency. Roughly the principle of morality gets its authority from the fact that it is by acting from this principle that we exercise our free agency. In these works Kant develops a distinctive account of the content of moral requirement (which is filled out in his later work, The Metaphysics of Morals). According to one version of the Categorical Imperative, we determine what sorts of actions are permissible or required in various situations by asking whether a principle of action is rationally willed as universal law for agents with autonomy. A second version of the Categorical Imperative derives the content of morality from the principle that we are to respect “humanity”, or “rational nature”, as an “end in itself” and never merely as a means. “Humanity” is the capacity for autonomous rational choice, and it includes the capacity to act from one’s own judgment of what one has reason to do, to set ends for oneself, and to guide one’s actions by values one finds it reasonable to accept. To hold that this capacity is an end in itself is to claim that it has an absolute value – a value that Kant terms “dignity” – that sets limits on the.. (shrink)

In this study I discuss G. W. Leibniz's (1646-1716) views on rational decision-making from the standpoint of both God and man. The Divine decision takes place within creation, as God freely chooses the best from an infinite number of possible worlds. While God's choice is based on absolutely certain knowledge, human decisions on practical matters are mostly based on uncertain knowledge. However, in many respects they could be regarded as analogous in more complicated situations. In addition to giving an (...) overview of the divine decision-making and discussing critically the criteria God favours in his choice, I provide an account of Leibniz's views on human deliberation, which includes some new ideas. One of these concerns is the importance of estimating probabilities – in making decisions one estimates both the goodness of the act itself and its consequences as far as the desired good is concerned. Another idea is related to the plurality of goods in complicated decisions and the competition this may provoke. Thirdly, heuristic models are used to sketch situations under deliberation in order to help in making the decision. Combining the views of Marcelo Dascal, Jaakko Hintikka and Simo Knuuttila, I argue that Leibniz applied two kinds of models of rational decision-making to practical controversies, often without explicating the details. The more simple, traditional pair of scales model is best suited to cases in which one has to decide for or against some option, or to distribute goods among parties and strive for a compromise. What may be of more help in more complicated deliberations is the novel vectorial model, which is an instance of the general mathematical doctrine of the calculus of variations. To illustrate this distinction, I discuss some cases in which he apparently applied these models in different kinds of situation. These examples support the view that the models had a systematic value in his theory of practical rationality. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to show that instrumental rationality and utility that have been used in economics for many years does not work well. What is presented in the article is how significant the influence of utilitarianism has been on economics and why the economists get rid of humans’ goals and motivations. It is shown in the article that the human who decides in present is absolutely different from the human who decides over time. Many economists neglected this (...) problem because they wanted to have an effective and simple model. Becker’s economic method is presented as a dead end to which economics has been brought to. It is impossible to connect different selves of one human being by using the utility measure. The works of Schelling and J.S. Mill are used to explain this impossibility. The conclusion of this article is that instrumental rationality and utility have affected economics significantly. But, this simplified view on human nature is no longer valid. Hence, economics needs to think not only about the means but also about the human goals. Economics needs to rebuff relativism and show people how to achieve well-being. If we want to help people with their self-governance, we will have to choose reason over emotions. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS: HUMAN RIGHTS IN LIGHT OF THEIR INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION Summary The book consists of two main parts: in the first, on the basis of an analysis of international law, elements of the contemporary conception of human rights and its positive legal protection are identified; in the second - in light of the first part -a philosophical theory of law based on the tradition leading from Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas is constructed. The conclusion contains an application (...) of the results of the analysis conducted in the second part. The first part comprises four chapters. The first aims at revealing characteristics of human rights on the basis of an analysis of historical conditioning of the inter-national law of human rights and its development. The historical context displays the practical, vindicative, and critical character of the positive legal protection of human rights. Moreover, the process of change of positive human rights law is distinguished from the process of change of human rights as such. In the second chapter the content of human rights - a topic which is only auxiliary to the conducted analysis - is discussed. Basic typology and catalogues of rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and protected in the International Covenants of Human Rights are presented. The review of the content of rights aims at a more precise limitation of the field of research. The examination shows a diversity of rights which poses a serious challenge to the coherence of every philosophical theory of human rights. In the third chapter, central in the first part, international law is analyzed with regard to the characteristics of rights and the foundations of them. The analysis of documents shows a number of solutions referring to the anthropological foundations of rights. The inherent dignity of the human person is the source of all human rights. Each human being is recognized as free, and endowed with both reason and conscience. In the propounded conception of man individuals are not rivals but create a community which is a condition for their development. International law characterizes the rights as universal, inherent, inalienable and inviolable. The reconstructed conception also comprises the following basic elements: on the level of the structure of rights, a recognition of their equality, interdependence, and comprehensiveness; in the grounding of these rights, a recognition of the anthropological foundations of law; in the conception of positive law, a recognition of the secondariness of the positive law of human rights to human rights themselves, and a recognition of human rights and justice as the basis for legal order; in the conception of state, a recognition of the well-being of the individual as the fundamental aim of actions undertaken by political institutions, and recogni¬tion of rights which form an impassable boundary to the power of the state, includ¬ing its legislative actions. The characterization of the international legal paradigm serving for the under¬standing of human rights is supplemented by analyses of the structure of their posi¬tive legal protection. Various meanings of the terms "right" and "freedom" are distinguished. Subjective right, as basic structure of the positive legal protection of human rights, is understood as a complex relation formed by various legal situations of the subject of a right which create a functional whole in respect of the subordi-nation of human person to its good. Subordinating person to a good proper for it, expressed usually in a proclamatory norm, is the central element of particular rights around which further elements aiming at the realization of this good are built. In the second part of the book a philosophical theory is developed which allows for the location of a coherent foundation for the presented characterization of human rights and their positive legal protection. This part consists of two chapters. The first includes a review of some - not entirely satisfactory - means of founding of human rights; the second presents philosophical conceptions of law and man which may form a basis for the constructed theory. The review of arguments contained in the first chapter does not aim at a detailed analysis of various specific ways of argumentation encountered in works on this subject but rather at a concise presentation of the main possible lines of argumentation. These analyses also serve to emphasize the positive solutions which are pro¬posed later and to underscore the explanatory power of the elaborated theory. This theory, retaining accurate intuitions contained in the presented types of argumenta¬tion, helps in avoiding their consequences which are difficult to reconcile with the reconstructed paradigm of human rights. Efforts to base human rights on the norms of international law rightly take into account the necessity of determining the content of the rights and their positive legal protection as a means for the realization of man's good. These attempts, how¬ever, do not properly take into account the inherent character of human rights, which are independent of positive law and provide grounds for applying specific legislative measures and not others. Founding human rights on freedom accurately points at the freedom of an indi¬vidual as a constitutive element of some rights; however, absolutization of freedom leads, to a loss of an important element of the contemporary paradigm of under¬standing human rights. This foundation undermines recognition of the fact that human rights may set limits to both the freedom of others and the freedom of the subject of rights itself. Additionally, attempts at the so-called axiological justification of human rights are discussed. This type of justification has a few variants depending on the as¬sumed conception of value. Subjectivistic conceptions have similar advantages and disadvantages to the conceptions basing human rights on freedom; objectivistic conceptions while providing for the universality of human rights place, the fundamental aim of human rights protection beyond the individual human being - in the idealistically existing world of values; finally, conceptions rooting values and human rights in culture, while accurately noting that human rights are learned through the medium of culture, place the source of human rights beyond a concrete individual - in culture and processes which take place in it - which leads to difficulties in finding a basis for the universality of rights. Furthermore, attempts to ground human rights in specific characteristics of the human being are presented. This type of approach points to an important problem of dependence of the content of rights on what man is. However, recognition of specific characteristics of a human being as an ontic foundation of the existence of rights poses a danger to their universality since one has to accept that it is not enough to be a man to be a subject of rights, but a man possessing specific charac¬teristics. The second chapter aims at outlining solutions worked out by Saint Thomas Aquinas. For a fuller understanding of his propositions selected elements of Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy are presented. It was them who formulated the founda¬tions for reflection on law and justice in the ontological context. A qualification is made that Stoicism is not be analysed in depth. Although Thomas' concept of law was undoubtedly developed under the influence of the Stoic doctrine as well, it is not in this that one should look for the tools to understand the ontic foundations of human rights and law in general since the Stoic moral philosophy and philosophy of law were developed in the context of a theory of being which assumed monistic and pantheistic premises as foundations, leading to the recognition of a total subor¬dination of the human individual to a larger unity of which man is only a part. The analysis of Plato's and Aristotle's texts concentrates on problems of justice. Plato seems to be the first philosopher who reflected on the formula basic in the history of European thought: to render to each his due. It appears that justice as both a characteristic of man and his acts is understood in the perspective of that which is just, that which is a good for another man - the recipient of the act. The basis for determining what is just is the relation of correspondence between some¬one and something. While in the case of Plato this relation is based on something beyond its terms, namely on ideas, in the case of Aristotle the relation occurs on account of the elements of the relation itself. Something is just when it contributes to the develop¬ment of the recipient of an act realizing that which is just. At the same time, the realization of that which is just is a good for the agent. In the analysis of the just two types of relation are revealed: the relation of due-to-recipient occurring on account of the compatibility of that which is due, with the recipient of the act; and - a "superstructure" - a relation of obligation-of-subject occurring on account of the compatibility of the acting subject with the thing which should be done. The basis for being that which is due is formed by various potentialities of development of man - the recipient of agency; the basis of being that which is an obligation is the possibility of development of the subject of action. Aristotle distinguishes various types of freedom and points to the necessity of taking them into account in the discussion of justice. Among other things, as the core of man's freedom, he considers life for its own sake, which can be seen as his expression of the basic indices of the autotelic character of man - which is funda¬mental for later conceptions of dignity. The freedom which is described by him is not, however, inherent and inalienable; being free is conditioned by a factual possi¬bility of undertaking actions, which are not solely means to the realization of aims set by others. Thomas Aquinas takes over the Aristotelian research perspective both in his conception of man and of law. At the same time, however, he significantly enriches it. In anthropology he develops a conception of personal being. Drawing upon his distinction between existence ("that something is") and essence ("what something is"), he sees the basis for being a person in the dignity of personal being which is a certain way of existence of a rational being more perfect than that of non-personal beings. The person is a being which, by virtue of its act of existence, is individual¬ized in a specific way. It is an aim in itself. Expressing it in a negative way, one may say that it does not exist as a means for the realization of the aims of others and, in this sense, that it is free. As distinct from Aristotelian conclusions, being a person is not conditioned by the specific actions of a being. Dignity is inherent, based on that which is the foundation of the factual existence of every rational being. Although freedom requires that a being is rational, dignity still encompasses all being, all its properties and potentialities. Thus an act conforming with dignity has to take into account a whole human being. Among different types of that which is just, ius, the first place, from the point of view of understanding law, falls to "the just thing itself ("ipsa res justa"), which is right in the full meaning of the word. On the one hand, it is that which is due; on the other hand, it determines the way of acting in the utmost degree, since the course of every act is determined in the fullest extent by its aim. The content of ius may be determined both by elements independent of free decisions - ius naturale - and by free decisions taking into account the state of things - ius positivum. Recognition of the objective structure of being as the basis of law does not entail that it is possible or desirable to determine unequivocally "the only right" patterns of conduct. This concept is very well justified within the system proposed by Saint Thomas. Individualization of being is a significant element of the develop¬ment of a person as a person. It is attained by the realization of individual aims which are not unequivocally determined by circumstances and the nature common to all people. By virtue of free choices made in the sphere of that which is not by its nature unjust, the object of action becomes ius. Since in the realization of the person the individualization of human being is central, Aquinas clearly sees the need for the protection of the sphere of "dominion of will". This sphere itself constitutes ius naturale, something which is due to man independently of the acts of will. Therefore "law should forbid nothing which is not unjust" ("nihil debet lege prohiberi quod licite fieri potest", In 3 Sent., dist. 40, q. I, a. 1, 3). Besides the relation of due-to-recipient, ius also includes the relation of obligation-of-subject which is superimposed on the relation of due-to-recipient. As far as the ontic foundations of obligation are concerned, in explaining why man is subordinated to realization of the good of others, Aquinas generally follows Aristotle in accepting that this basis is the subordination to moral good - to actions conforming with the learned truth about reality. Aquinas' systemic solutions allow, however, to reach deeper and understand why moral development is also a development of the whole human being. This was difficult within Aristotle's system, since he was reluc¬tant to decide whether precedence should be given to intellectual or moral develop¬ment. The inclination to realise good of another appears to be a transcendental characteristic of being, based on its very existence. Morality understood as rational and free subordination to realize the good of another is a specifically personal way of the realization of this inclination. Thus just actions contribute to the actualization of being in the aspect of its existence and therefore to the actualization of being as a whole. Thomas' conception of natural law (lex naturalis) as participation in eternal law (lex aeterna), offers possibilities for grasping that which is just as something which is basically accessible cognition, independently of Revelation and independently of faith in God, and at the same time as something based in eternal law, understood as a design of God's wisdom. Eternal law, embracing all particular actions, is not, from the human perspective, accessible cognition directly. It is enacted in the struc-ture of the created being and - in case of human beings - in free choices taking this structure into account. In the concluding remarks, the results obtained earlier are applied directly to the contemporary conception of human rights. Human rights are understood in the first place as "just things" - concrete goods of man; as that which is due because of subordination, based on dignity, to the personal development of man. That which is just is understood as a relational - actual or potential - state of things, which exists by virtue of existing relations. Evaluations referring to that which is right are true when respective relations of due-to-recipient take place; norms of conduct are true when respective relations of obligation-of-subject take place. Examples of the application of the sketched theory outside the field of human rights are also presented. Procedural consequences of the developed theory are shown, such as the discrimination of two types of legislative procedures which differ significantly in the structure of argumentation: the first aims at recognition of that which is just independently of the will of the legislator, and the second, at making individual or collective "projects" of development compatible. Finally the possibilities of applying the theory to the increasingly important problems of the protection of the environment and the "rights" of animals are mentioned. The central issue is a philosophical conception of man and his freedom and a conception of law. It is also indispensable to turn to a general theory of being. The search for a comprehensive theory of human rights requires attention to the Abso¬lute Being - God - as well. This is important for at least two reasons. First, a conception of the Absolute Being is integral to philosophy of the systemic type -of which the present book is a piece. A conception of the Absolute Being is signifi¬cant for understanding all being, including, first of all, man as a personal being. Second, every theory of human rights which does not comprise the problem of the Absolute may be questioned as to whether solutions adopted in it do not lead, in consequence, to eliminating God from the perspective of the understanding of law. It is desirable that a philosophical theory should deal with this problem directly. A theory which eliminates God from the perspective of the understanding of rights will be unacceptable for all those who, for philosophical reasons or relying on faith, consider God as the author of inherent rights. Nevertheless, a theoretical approach to rights from the perspective of the Absolute Being should only be a possible extension of a philosophical approach which bases rights on something which is cognizable independently of the acceptance of the existence of God so that the theory is also acceptable for those who reject the existence of God or suspend their judgment on this subject. The pursued theory should therefore contain, on the one hand, reference to natural, faith-independent foundations of human rights, but on the other hand, point to a possible extension accounting for the Absolute Being. The analyses contained in this chapter have undoubtedly some historical value since they are based on source texts. Nevertheless, the use of these texts and not critical works was dictated, first of all, by a conviction that analyses embrace a given theory in the aspect selected by the interests of the researcher. Therefore to find out what past thinkers say on the subject characterized in the first part it is simpler to reach to the sources than to adopt the existing critical works. The pre¬sented reconstruction of Aquinas' views on philosophy of law incorporates proposi¬tions of supplementing and developing some of the ideas undertaken by him. Obligation to act in this and not an other way arises because human actions are subordinated to the conformity, on the one hand, of aims realized by these actions and, on the one hand, the order of being determining that which is favourable to man or destroys him. The content of the order of being is, on the one hand, determined by the structure of being independent from man's will and, on the other, by free decisions of man. (shrink)

Quantum information is discussed as the universal substance of the world. It is interpreted as that generalization of classical information, which includes both finite and transfinite ordinal numbers. On the other hand, any wave function and thus any state of any quantum system is just one value of quantum information. Information and its generalization as quantum information are considered as quantities of elementary choices. Their units are correspondingly a bit and a qubit. The course of time is what generates choices (...) by itself, thus quantum information and any item in the world in final analysis. The course of time generates necessarily choices so: The future is absolutely unorderable in principle while the past is always well-ordered and thus unchangeable. The present as the mediation between them needs the well-ordered theorem equivalent to the axiom of choice. The latter guarantees the choice even among the elements of an infinite set, which is the case of quantum information. The concrete and abstract objects share information as their common base, which is quantum as to the formers and classical as to the latter. The general quantities of matter in physics, mass and energy can be considered as particular cases of quantum information. The link between choice and abstraction in set theory allows of “Hume’s principle” to be interpreted in terms of quantum mechanics as equivalence of “many” and “much” underlying quantum information. Quantum information as the universal substance of the world calls for the unity of physics and mathematics rather than that of the concrete and abstract objects and thus for a form of quantum neo-Pythagoreanism in final analysis. (shrink)

This paper develops a version of the self-refutation argument against relativism in the teeth of the prevailing response by relativists: that this argument begs the question against them. It is maintained that although weaker varieties of relativism are not self-refuting, strong varieties are faced by this argument with a choice between making themselves absolute (one thing is absolutely true - relativism); or reflexive (relativism is 'true for' the relativist). These positions are in direct conflict. The commonest response, Reflexive (...) Relativism, is shown to be vulnerable to an iterated version of the self-refutation argument. As a result, Reflexive Relativism possesses only the appearance of content, being either incoherent, or a regressively disguised version of Absolute Relativism. Concluding remarks on Absolute Relativism acknowledge this to be a bare, formal possibility, but claim that in fact it must represent one of a range of weaker varieties of relativism that alone remain tenable. (shrink)

TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETHICS. AFTER NIETZSCHE -/- Preface This book tells the story of twentieth-century ethics or, in more detail, it reconstructs the history of a discussion on the foundations of ethics which had a start with Nietzsche and Sidgwick, the leading proponents of late-nineteenth-century moral scepticism. During the first half of the century, the prevailing trends tended to exclude the possibility of normative ethics. On the Continent, the trend was to transform ethics into a philosophy of existence whose self-appointed task was (...) that of describing the human condition as consisting of choices, as unavoidable as arbitrary, without any attempt at providing criteria for making such choices. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, the heir of ethics was a philosophy of morality, that is, an analysis of the language of morality that intended to clarify valuations without trying to justify them. 1958 was the year of the normative turn that led to the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy, a turn followed by decades of controversies between distinct kinds of normative ethics: utilitarian, Kantian, virtue ethics. While the controversy was raging, a quiet revolution took place, that of applied ethics which surprisingly dissolved the controversy's very subject matter by providing methods for making convergence possible on intermediate principles even when no agreement was available about first principles. The normative turn and the revolution of applied ethics have led us, at the turn of the century, to a goal that was quite far from the starting point. Instead of scepticism and relativism that was the fashion at the beginning of the century, at the beginning of the third millennium impartial and universal moral arguments seem to hold the spot being supported, if not by a final rational foundation, at least by reasonableness, the most precious legacy of the Enlightenment. -/- ● TABLE OF CONTENTS -/- ● I Anglo-Saxon philosophy: naturalism 1. Dewey beyond evolutionism and utilitarianism 2. Dewey and anti-essentialist moral epistemology 3. Dewey and naturalist moral ontology 4. Dewey and normative ethics of conduct and function 5. Perry and semantic naturalism -/- ● II Anglo-Saxon philosophy: ideal utilitarianism and neo-intuitionism 1. Moore's critique of utilitarian empiricism 2. Moore on the naturalistic fallacy 3. Moore on the nature of intrinsic value 4. Moore on ideal utilitarianism 5. Prichard on the priority of the right over the good 6. Ross's coherentist moral epistemology 7. Ross's moral ontology: realism, pluralism, and non-naturalism 8. Ross's normative ethics of prima facie duties -/- The chapter reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore's early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. It stresses the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. It argues that PE is more a patchwork of somewhat diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. -/- ●III Anglo-Saxon philosophy: non-cognitivism 1. The Scandinavian School, the Vienna circle and proto-emotivism 2. Wittgenstein and the ineffability of ethics 3. Russell's and Ayer's radical emotivism 4. Stevenson and moderate emotivism 5. Stevenson and the pragmatics of moral language 6. Stevenson and the methods for solving ethical disagreement 7. Hare and prescriptivism The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of 'good', its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with 'emotive' meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell's ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson's theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. A section reconstructs the discussion from the Forties about Hume's law, mentioning Karl Popper's argument and Richard Hare's early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- ●IV Anglo-Saxon philosophy: critics of non-cognitivism 1. Neo-naturalism and its objections to the naturalistic fallacy argument 2. Objections to Hume's law 3. Clarence Lewis and the pragmatic contradiction 4. Toulmin and the good reasons approach 5. Baier and moral reasons 5. Baier, social moralities and the absolute morality 6. Baier and the moral point of view 7. Baier and the contents of absolute ethics -/- ● V Continental philosophy: the philosophy of values 1. Max Weber and the polytheism of values 2. Phenomenology against psychologism and rationalism 3. Reinach and the theory of social acts 4. Scheler and the material ethics of values 5. Hartmann and the ontology of values 6. Plessner, Gehlen and the Philosophische Anthropologie -/- The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl's project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the apriori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy conducted in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach's theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that sketches the ideas 'discovered' later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section discusses Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of 'values' – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler, who claimed to be Husserl's legitimate heirs. -/- ● VI Continental philosophy: the critics of the philosophy of values 1. Freud, the Superego and Civilization 2. Heidegger on original ethos against ethics 3. Sartre and de Beauvoir on authenticity and ambiguity 4. Adorno and Horkheimer on emancipation and immoralism -/- ●VII Post-liberal theologians and religious thinkers 1. Barth on the autonomy of faith from ethics 2. Developments of Reformed moral theology after Barth 3. Bonhoeffer on the concrete divine command and ethics of penultimate realities 4. Developments of Reformed and Catholic moral theology after world war II 5. Baeck and the transformation of liberal Judaism 6. Rosenzweig against liberal Judaism 7. Buber and religion as the vital lymph of morality 8. Heschel and Judaism as a science of actions -/- The chapter examines the main protagonists of Christian theology and Jewish religious thinking in the twentieth century. It stresses how the main dilemmas of contemporary philosophical ethics lie at the root of the various path of inquiry taken by these thinkers. -/- ● VIII Normative ethics: neo-Utilitarianism 1. The discussion on act and rule utilitarianism 2. Hare on two-tiered preference utilitarianism 3. Harsanyi, Gauthier and rational choice ethics 4. Parfit, utilitarianism and the idea of a person 5. Brandt and indirect conscience utilitarianism -/- The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick's and Moore's fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine refuted. Two examples give the reader a glimpse at this uproarious process. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This transformation results in preference utilitarianism combined with a 'Kantian' version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare's two-level preference utilitarianism, where act utilitarianism plays the function of the eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of an action-guiding practical device. -/- ● IX Normative ethics: neo-Aristotelianism and virtue ethics 1. Hannah Arendt, action and judgement 2. Hans-Georg Gadamer and phronesis 3. Alasdair MacIntyre on practices, virtues, and traditions 5. Stuart Hampshire on deliberation 6. Bernard Williams and moral complexity 7. Feminist ethics -/- Sect 1 reconstructs the post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named 'Rehabilitation of practical philosophy' is described. Heidegger's most brilliant disciples were the promoters of this Rehabilitation. Hans-Georg Gadamer is a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle's lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger's lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the significant role of the notion of phronesis. Sect 3 discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. It argues that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. The chapter gives a short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot's and Peter Geach's critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre's grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly inevitable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- ● X Normative ethics: Kantian and rights-based ethics 1. Dialogical constructivism 2. Apel, Habermas and discourse ethics 3. Gewirth and rights-based ethics 4. Nagel on agent-relative reasons 5. Donagan and persons as ends in themselves Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This current started with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. The chapter offers an examination of his argument in some detail, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas's elaboration on Apel's theory. -/- ● XI The applied ethics renaissance 1. Elisabeth Anscombe on the atom bomb 2. From medical ethics to bioethics 3. Rawls and public ethics 3. Nozick, Dworkin and further developments of public ethics 5. Sen and the revival of economic ethics -/- The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin's new casuistry. The chapter argues that Rawls's distinction between a "political" and a "metaphysical" approach to the theory of justice, one central part of ethical theory, is a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and the new casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter. The idea is that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls' view never will be close – on the essential criteria for judgment. -/- ● XII Fin-de-siècle metaethics 1. Deontic logics 2. Anti-realism 3. External realism 4. Internal realism 5. Kantian constructivism -/- The chapter illustrates the fresh start of meta-ethical discussion in the Eighties and Nineties and the resulting new alignments: metaphysical naturalism, internal realism, anti-realism, and constructivism. (shrink)

The paper is a continuation of another paper published as Part I. Now, the case of “n=3” is inferred as a corollary from the Kochen and Specker theorem (1967): the eventual solutions of Fermat’s equation for “n=3” would correspond to an admissible disjunctive division of qubit into two absolutely independent parts therefore versus the contextuality of any qubit, implied by the Kochen – Specker theorem. Incommensurability (implied by the absence of hidden variables) is considered as dual to quantum contextuality. The (...) relevant mathematical structure is Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense, in the framework of which Hilbert arithmetic in a narrow sense and the qubit Hilbert space are dual to each other. A few cases involving set theory are possible: (1) only within the case “n=3” and implicitly, within any next level of “n” in Fermat’s equation; (2) the identification of the case “n=3” and the general case utilizing the axiom of choice rather than the axiom of induction. If the former is the case, the application of set theory and arithmetic can remain disjunctively divided: set theory, “locally”, within any level; and arithmetic, “globally”, to all levels. If the latter is the case, the proof is thoroughly within set theory. Thus, the relevance of Yablo’s paradox to the statement of Fermat’s last theorem is avoided in both cases. The idea of “arithmetic mechanics” is sketched: it might deduce the basic physical dimensions of mechanics (mass, time, distance) from the axioms of arithmetic after a relevant generalization, Furthermore, a future Part III of the paper is suggested: FLT by mediation of Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense can be considered as another expression of Gleason’s theorem in quantum mechanics: the exclusions about (n = 1, 2) in both theorems as well as the validity for all the rest values of “n” can be unified after the theory of quantum information. The availability (respectively, non-availability) of solutions of Fermat’s equation can be proved as equivalent to the non-availability (respectively, availability) of a single probabilistic measure as to Gleason’s theorem. (shrink)

Mental accounting is a concept associated with the work of Richard Thaler. According to Thaler, people think of value in relative rather than absolute terms. They derive pleasure not just from an object’s value, but also the quality of the deal – its transaction utility (Thaler, 1985). In addition, humans often fail to fully consider opportunity costs (tradeoffs) and are susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy. Why are people willing to spend more when they pay with a credit card (...) than cash (Prelec & Simester, 2001)? Why would more individuals spend $10 on a theater ticket if they had just lost a $10 bill than if they had to replace a lost ticket worth $10 (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984)? Why are people more likely to spend a small inheritance and invest a large one (Thaler, 1985)? According to the theory of mental accounting, people treat money differently, depending on factors such as the money’s origin and intended use, rather than thinking of it in terms of the “bottom line” as in formal accounting (Thaler, 1999). An important term underlying the theory is fungibility, the fact that all money is interchangable and has no labels. In mental accounting, people treat assets as less fungible than they really are. Even seasoned investors are susceptible to this bias when they view recent gains as disposable “house money” (Thaler & Johnson, 1990) that can be used in high-risk investments. In doing so, they make decisions on each mental account separately, losing out the big picture of the portfolio. (See also partitioning and pain of paying for ideas related to mental accounting.) . (shrink)

This paper analyzes the underlying tendencies and attitudes toward reproductive medicine borrowing the Nietzschean concepts of nihilism: “death of God” with secularization; “will to power” with reproductive liberty and technological power; and the race of “supermen” with transhumanism. Medical science has advanced in leaps and bounds. In some way, technical innovations have given us unprecedented power to manipulate the way we reproduce. The indiscriminant use of medical technology is backed by a warped notion of human freedom. With secularization in the (...) West, freedom has taken on greater significance in society, but with a heavy emphasis on individual choices and rights. As technology joins forces with sexual liberty, it is not difficult to understand why the public accepts the latest novelty from the reproductive industry. As a result, many find Catholic teaching behind the times and incomprehensible, if not downright anti-scientific. In fact, this coupling of reproductive liberty (will) with reproductive technology (power) echoes the famous dictum “will to power” Nietzsche predicted would characterize post-modern societies. When liberty becomes absolute and technology unchecked, transhumanism is the logical outcome. As a response to these nihilistic tendencies, the paper will end with a critique drawing from theological insights. (shrink)

The way, in which quantum information can unify quantum mechanics (and therefore the standard model) and general relativity, is investigated. Quantum information is defined as the generalization of the concept of information as to the choice among infinite sets of alternatives. Relevantly, the axiom of choice is necessary in general. The unit of quantum information, a qubit is interpreted as a relevant elementary choice among an infinite set of alternatives generalizing that of a bit. The invariance to (...) the axiom of choice shared by quantum mechanics is introduced: It constitutes quantum information as the relation of any state unorderable in principle (e.g. any coherent quantum state before measurement) and the same state already well-ordered (e.g. the well-ordered statistical ensemble of the measurement of the quantum system at issue). This allows of equating the classical and quantum time correspondingly as the well-ordering of any physical quantity or quantities and their coherent superposition. That equating is interpretable as the isomorphism of Minkowski space and Hilbert space. Quantum information is the structure interpretable in both ways and thus underlying their unification. Its deformation is representable correspondingly as gravitation in the deformed pseudo-Riemannian space of general relativity and the entanglement of two or more quantum systems. The standard model studies a single quantum system and thus privileges a single reference frame turning out to be inertial for the generalized symmetry [U(1)]X[SU(2)]X[SU(3)] “gauging” the standard model. As the standard model refers to a single quantum system, it is necessarily linear and thus the corresponding privileged reference frame is necessary inertial. The Higgs mechanism U(1) → [U(1)]X[SU(2)] confirmed enough already experimentally describes exactly the choice of the initial position of a privileged reference frame as the corresponding breaking of the symmetry. The standard model defines ‘mass at rest’ linearly and absolutely, but general relativity non-linearly and relatively. The “Big Bang” hypothesis is additional interpreting that position as that of the “Big Bang”. It serves also in order to reconcile the linear standard model in the singularity of the “Big Bang” with the observed nonlinearity of the further expansion of the universe described very well by general relativity. Quantum information links the standard model and general relativity in another way by mediation of entanglement. The linearity and absoluteness of the former and the nonlinearity and relativeness of the latter can be considered as the relation of a whole and the same whole divided into parts entangled in general. (shrink)

Gini coefficients, which measure gross inequalities rather than their unfair components, are often used as proxy measures of absolute or relative distributive injustice in Western societies. This presupposes that the fair inequalities in these societies are small and stable enough to be ignored. This article presents a model for a series of ideal, perfectly just societies, where comfortable lives are equally available to everyone, and calculates the Gini coefficients for each. According to this model, inequalities produced by age and (...) other demographic factors, together with reasonable choices under equal opportunity, can raise the Gini coefficients for perfectly just societies to levels at least as high as those of any current Western country, and can as easily account for differences in Gini coefficients between such societies or within one such society over time. If Gini coefficients at these levels are possible for ideal societies without distributive injustice, then they should not be used as proxy measures of distributive injustice in real societies. (shrink)

(Spanish) RESUMEN: La libertad absoluta postulada por Viktor Emil Frankl y Jean-Paul Sartre, la Shoah y la creencia en un dios omnipotente, bueno y justo parecen contradecirse. La pregunta por el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas del Holocausto (la verdadera catástrofe, el mayor crimen contra la humanidad), simbolizado por Auschwitz, y como punto de inflexión en la historia, es terriblemente dolorosa y parece no tener una respuesta filosófica ni teológica. A mi juicio, es importantísimo distinguir entre las víctimas inocentes (...) de la Shoah que perecieron y las víctimas inocentes que sufrieron un verdadero infierno y perdieron a sus seres queridos, pero que lograron sobrevivir. Ambas son víctimas, por supuesto, pero así como encontrarle un posible sentido al sufrimiento de las víctimas masacradas y gaseadas podría suponer un insulto a su sufrimiento y agonía –en especial, al horror que sufrieron los niños–, el horrible sufrimiento de los supervivientes pudo dar, tal vez, de alguna manera, un sentido a sus vidas después de la liberación de los campos de concentración y exterminio, ya fuera como voz, como protesta o como simple supervivencia. Frankl apuesta por un sentido último (que abraza el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas), y Sartre, aunque parezca no apostar por sentido alguno, volcó su vida al compromiso político después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y ello parece vislumbrar una minúscula pizca de sentido después de la barbarie. La filosofía de Frankl es un sí a la vida incluso en las situaciones más extremas, un grito casi nietzscheano que exalta el valor de la vida más allá de cualquier sufrimiento. Frankl, padre de la logoterapia y superviviente del Holocausto, abre una puerta a Dios al hablar de un dios inconsciente, una dimensión suprahumana y una fe incondicional, y define la religión como espiritualidad y como la búsqueda del hombre por el sentido último. Según Frankl, la libertad no se contradice con Dios, y la religión existe no a raíz de la barbarie, sino a pesar de la barbarie. El existencialismo sartreano es una filosofía de la libertad radical y de la responsabilidad. El hombre está condenado a ser libre. El ser humano es un ser en el que la existencia precede a la esencia. Somos totalmente responsables de lo que somos. Sartre afirma que la libertad humana es incompatible con Dios. En un mundo sin Dios, la moral la construyen los hombres, con sus propias decisiones y sus acciones, y la existencia y el sufrimiento de las víctimas no tienen sentido alguno. Sartre define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, angustia y contingencia. Frankl define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, espiritualidad y búsqueda de sentido. Con esta tesis me propongo entrar en la resbaladiza dimensión del dolor, la desesperación, el sentido y sinsentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas (teniendo presente los horrores de Auschwitz, que en teología y filosofía ha simbolizado desde la liberación de los campos la muerte de Dios y la muerte de la moral). Es verdad que no solo los hombres, mujeres y niños judíos fueron víctimas de la barbarie alemana, pero, como reza el mensaje de Elie Wiesel en la exposición permanente del Block 27 del Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". La Shoah no es un episodio dentro de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sino un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad, y es una catástrofe que nos concierne a todos, hombres y mujeres judíos y no judíos, religiosos e irreligiosos, creyentes e increyentes, como seres libres, responsables y morales que somos –o que deberíamos ser. Muchas de las víctimas del Holocausto, en medio de la desesperación, entraron en las cámaras de gas orando, aferrándose a la esperanza de que ese final espeluznante no era un punto final. Con esta tesis no me propongo de ninguna manera responder a la eterna pregunta de si Dios existe o no, sino que propongo interpretar ese grito hacia Dios como un desesperado anhelo de esperanza. También me propongo encontrar una coherencia en las posturas de estos dos grandes pensadores para quienes la libertad y la responsabilidad definen al hombre: Frankl (quien apuesta por una dimensión suprahumana donde existe un sentido último en el que el sufrimiento de las víctimas tiene que tener algún sentido, aunque ese sentido sea completamente incomprensible en la dimensión humana) y Sartre (el existencialista ateo por excelencia, para quien el mundo, la existencia y el sufrimiento son absolutamente contingentes). En el primer capítulo expongo la logoterapia y el existencialismo sartreano: describo las tres dimensiones del hombre y las tres búsquedas de sentido propuestas por Frankl, y expongo las cinco consecuencias de "l'existence précède l'essence", centrándome en la libertad y la responsabilidad, y hablo del suicidio. El segundo capítulo está dedicado al dios inconsciente frankleano, la dimensión suprahumana, la búsqueda por el sentido último y la fe incondicional. En el tercer capítulo ilustro la libertad sin Dios sartreana, la ontología sartreana, el ateísmo sartreano y el humanismo sartreano, y hablo sobre la responsabilidad, la mauvaise foi, la contingencia, la situation y la angustia. El cuarto capítulo es necesariamente histórico (sin dejar de ser filosófico): me pregunto por la muerte de Dios después de Auschwitz, argumento y defiendo la unicidad del Holocausto (la Shoah es un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad), describo las masacres antes de los campos de exterminio (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), el gigantesco complejo de Auschwitz (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), reflexiono sobre Dios y el mal (centrándome en los niños de Auschwitz), describo los días de Frankl en Auschwitz, hablo de Dios como esperanza, de la inmortalidad y la escatología, de la crueldad de Dios, de la relación entre el cristianismo y el antisemitismo, del islam y el antisemitismo, critico el silencio de Dios, hablo de la muerte de Dios y del juicio contra Dios. En el quinto capítulo expongo la moral frankleana (una moral que atañe al hombre y no a Dios), basándome en su teoría del amor y en su única obra de teatro (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), y la moral sartreana (una moral que atañe a una humanidad sin Dios), recordando a Dostoyevsky, analizando la famosa cita de Garcin en Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", criticando el marxismo de Sartre y cuestionando (con la mirada de Frankl y Sartre) el verso de Brecht "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; al final del capítulo incluyo una reflexión propia y las críticas frankleana y sartreana sobre la impunidad de los verdugos y colaboradores después del Holocausto (con el permiso de Dios). Después de la Conclusión, añado un Apéndice sobre las vidas de Frankl y Sartre, para poder entender mejor su obra. PALABRAS CLAVE: logoterapia, existencialismo sartreano, búsqueda de sentido, libertad, responsabilidad, moral, angustia, sufrimiento, supervivientes, víctimas, contingencia, espiritualidad, religión, Dios, esperanza, antisemitismo, culpa, Auschwitz, Holocausto, Shoah. /// (English) ABSTRACT: The absolute freedom defended by Viktor Emil Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Shoah and the belief in an omnipotent, benevolent and just God seem to contradict each other. The question of the meaning of the victims' suffering of the Holocaust (the true catastrophe, the biggest crime against humanity), simbolised by Auschwitz and as a turning point in History, is terribly painful and doesn't seem to have an answer. In my opinion, it's crucial to distinguish between the innocent victims of the Shoah who perished and the innocent victims who sufferend a real hell and lost their loved ones, but managed to survive. Both are victims, of course, but just as finding a possible meaning to the suffering of the massacred and gassed victims could result in an insult to their suffering and agony –especially to the horror that the children suffered– the gigantic suffering of the survivors could, maybe, somehow, give a meaning to their lives after the liberation of the concentration and extermination camps, either as a voice, as a protest, or as a simple survival. Frankl believes in an ultimate meaning (that embraces the meaning of the victims' suffering), and Sartre, even if it appears not to embrace any meaning, turned his life to political engagement after War World II, and that attitude seems to give a tiny glimpse of meaning after the barbarity. Frankl's philosophy says yes to life even in the most extreme situations, and it's a Nietzschean-like scream that exalts the value of life beyond any monstrous suffering. Frankl, the father of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor, opens a door to God when he talks about an unconscious God, a supra-human dimension and an unconditional faith; he defines religion as spirituality and as man's search for ultimate meaning. According to Frankl, freedom is not contradictory with God, and religion exists not because of the barbarity but in spite of the barbarity. Sartrean existentialism is a philosophy of radical freedom and responsibility. Men are condemned to be free. We are beings where the existence precedes the essence. We are completely responsible of what we are. Sartre argues that human freedom is incompatible with God. In a godless world, morality is constructed by people, with their own choices and actions, and human existence and the suffering of the victims don't have any meaning. Sartre defines man as freedom, responsibility, Angst and contingency. Frankl defines man as freedom, responsibility, spirituality and search for meaning. With this dissertation I attempt to enter in the slippery dimension of the pain, despair, meaning and meaninglessness of the victims' suffering (having in mind the horrors of Auschwitz, that in theology and in philosophy have simbolised, since the liberation of the camps, the death of God and the death of morality). It's true that not only Jewish men, women and children were victims of the German barbarity, but, as Elie Wiesel's message from the permanent exhibition from Block 27 of the Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum reads: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". The Shoah is not an episode inside War World II, but a turning point in the history of humankind, and a catastrophe that embraces us all, Jewish and not not Jewish men and women, religious and not religious, believers and not believers, as the free, responsible and moral beings that we all are –or that we should be. A lot of the victims, in the midst of their desperation, entered into the gas chambers praying, holding to the hope that their horrifying end was not the ultimate end. With this dissertation I do not attempt to answer the eternal question of the existence of God, rather, I will try to interpret that scream to God as a longing for hope. I also intend to find a coherence between the thought of these two great thinkers for whom freedom and responsibilty define man: Frankl (who argues that there is a suprahuman dimension where an ultimate meaning exists and where the victims' suffering has to have a meaning, even if this meaning is completely incomprehensible in the human dimension) and Sartre (the atheist existentialist par excellence, for whom the world, human existence and suffering are absolutely contingent). In the first chapter I expose logotherapy and Sartrean existentialism: I describe the three dimensions of man, the three searches for meaning, the five consequences of "l'existence précède l'essence" and I speak about suicide. The second chapter delves into the unconscious God, the supra-human dimension, the ultimate meaning and the unconditional faith. In the third chapter I expose the freedom without God defended by Sartre, Sartre's ontology, Sartre's atheism, Sartre's humanism, and his ideas about responsibility, mauvaise foi, contingency, situation, and Angst. The fourth chapter is necessarily historical (while being philosophical too): I wonder about the death of God after Auschwitz, I argue and defend the uniqueness of the Holocaust (the Shoah is a turning point in the history of humankind), I describe the massacres before the extermination camps (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), the gigantic Auschwitz camp complex (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), I reflect on God and evil (focusing on the children of Auschwitz), I describe Frankl's days in Auschwitz, I talk about God as hope, about immortality and escathology, I discuss God's cruelty, the relationship between Christianity and antisemitism and Islam and antisemitism, I question the silence of God, and I talk about the death of God and about the trial against God. In the fifth chapter I talk about the Franklean morality (a morality that concerns man and not God), on the basis of his love theory and his only work of theater (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), and the Sartrean morality (a morality that concerns a humanity without God), remembering Dostoyevsky, analysing Garcin's famous quote in Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", crticizing Sartre's marxism and questioning (with Frankl's and Sartre's eyes) Brecht's verse "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; at the end of the chapter I include my own reflection (and Frankl and Sartre's critique) about the impunity of the executioners and collaborators after the Holocaust (with God's permission). After the Conclusion, I add an Appendix about the lives of Frankl and Sartre, which helps understanding better their work. KEYWORDS: logotherapy, existentialism, search for meaning, freedom, responsibility, morality, Angst, suffering, survivors, victims, contingency, spirituality, religion, God, hope, antisemitism, guilt, Auschwitz, Holocaust, Shoah. (shrink)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant declares that virtue “can and must be taught.” This claim raises two problems. First, it is in tension with Kant’s emphasis on the absolute moral responsibility that each individual agent owes to her transcendental freedom. Second, it raises the question of how the empirical events that constitute moral education can have an impact on atemporal moral choices. Concerning the second issue, I argue that Kant has a coherent framework for representing how empirical conditions (...) can influence (“affect”) the noumenal will without determining it to action. Regarding the first problem, I argue that although a good moral education is mostly only a facilitating rather than a strictly necessary condition for moral virtue, there is one moral capacity that does require good moral teaching: namely, the practical power of judgment that correctly applies wide, general duties of virtue to particular cases. (shrink)

The theses of this paper i: I. that the attempt to found absolute norns on rationality presupposes the availability of a single universal absolute conception of rationality but that no such conception is available; and II. that any conception of rationality which might be available for justifying one's ultimate normative commitments is itself evaluative. “Rationality” itself is a value-laden concept, as are all its philosophical sub-divisions—logic, ethics, aesthetics, axiology, etc. Choosing ultimate value principles under conditions of freedom, enlightenment, (...) and impartiality presupposes that one positively values such things. (shrink)

As a main challenge to the growing block theory (GBT), the epistemic objection is intended to show that GBT is untenable because it leads to the ignorance of the objective present. What is worse, extant solutions to this objection, the dead past view (DPV) and strong tense views (STV), are unsatisfactory on the ground that their semantic explanations of tensed statements undermine the purported semantic unity of GBT and thus make GBT collapse into a version of presentism. In contrast to (...) extant solutions, I recommend growing blockists to adopt a new “biting the bullet” solution: They should accept the ignorance of the absolute present for the dual purpose of retaining GBT’s semantic unity and theoretical independence. Moreover, I argue that ignorance is not a big loss for growing blockists: Although they lose the so-called “Moorean common advantage” over B-theorists and include some “deeply mysterious” and epistemically inaccessible fundamental posit in their ontology, growing blockists thereby protect the semantic unity of their theory and most of ordinary knowledge about B-relations between moments of time and their temporal locations. Theory choice, in essence, is a matter of balancing benefits and costs. I believe that versions of GBT which accept the ignorance of the objective present are indeed tenable intermediate positions in the philosophical debate about the nature of time, and they deserve serious considerations of B-theorists. (shrink)

The most astonishing by-product of the events of 9-11 is undoubtedly the renewed legitimacy, in the eyes of many, of some forms of torture. Since many centuries, the most brutal dictators have felt the need to lie and deceive about their torture prac-tices, and now we have political and intellectual leaders of the free world openly arguing in favor of the use of torture in certain cases. The most commonly cited of these cases is the one described in the so-called (...) "ticking bomb argument" (hence-forth TBA). -/- The kind of torture that is supposedly justified by this argument can be characte-rized as benevolent torture, well-intentioned torture, or even moral torture because it is different from torture as it is commonly used by certain oppressive or authori-tarian governments. "Ticking bomb torture" is not a method of terrorizing and sub-jugating a population, and neither is it a form of criminal punishment or a means of establishing innocence or guilt. On the contrary, its declared purpose is to protect the population and to avoid a terrorist attack on civilian targets. It is benevolent tor-ture because its objective is not fear or punishment, but safety and security. It is moral torture because reluctance to engage in it would endanger the lives of inno-cent civilians, and would therefore be immoral. "A society that elects to favor the interests of wrongdoers over those of the innocent, when a choice must be made be-tween the two, is in need of serious ethical rewiring". -/- Proponents of the TBA readily agree that they discuss an exceptional case which is unrepresentative of torture in general - most real cases of torture have absolutely nothing to do with the example given in the TBA or fail to conform to the hypo-theses present in the TBA - and which in no way justifies torture that has other, and less benevolent purposes. Yet they believe that this exceptional nature of the case does not render it insignificant or irrelevant. In the setting of a "war on terrorism", it can be extremely important to agree on the soundness of the TBA because no matter how exceptional the case may be, when it occurs it has important conse-quences. A clear agreement on the TBA is necessary in order to save many lives in exceptional cases. -/- I will argue in this paper that the TBA is fundamentally flawed because it is based on a number of untenable assumptions. Moreover, I argue that the TBA, when thought through until its logical conclusions, ends up condoning torture of a much less exceptional and benevolent nature than the torture it started with. In other words, the TBA proves too much. It would not only put us on a "slippery slope" towards ever increasing levels of torture, but also destroy our democracy and free-dom. It is, in the words of the title of this paper, the little door to hell. The TBA tries to force a small opening into an area of human activity that is shielded by a very strong, and perhaps even absolute moral and legal taboo, and then finds that it has allowed this activity to take over civilization. (shrink)

This paper has four parts. First outline seven several questions concerning the relation between God, his goodness, and other philosophically interesting things, especially between attributes of almightiness, goodness, and faith in God, questions different from the main question of this article. The second part presents Aquinas’s account of God’s goodness, with three ways to understand it, as God’s excellence in being, with respect of His creative activity and with respect of the morality of God’s acting. The third part of the (...) article critically examines Nelson Pike’s classical account of the Aquinas-Anselm view of the problem of the possibility of God’s sin and the paradox of omnipotence and goodness. Last part contains argumentation that Pike’s argument is not sound. He shouldn’t so easily reconstruct Aquinas account of absolutely possible as concerning only the result of God’s creative action - some consistent state of affairs, second, the assessment of some agent’s decision/choice/possibility of acting in particular (morally wrong) way should be included in assessment of his power, and Pike's paper doesn’t support enough his conclusion, that Aquinas confused second and third sense of “God cannot sin.” Alternatively, to Pike’s account, I distinguish the fourth sense of the expression in question, present arguments that this meaning is coherent with Aquinas account of omnipotence and goodness of God as well as arguments that this is the concept of divine omnipotent goodness which is the condition of real faith in God. (shrink)

A guide for translators, about the translation theory, the translation process, interpreting, subtitling, internationalization and localization and computer-assisted translation. A special section is dedicated to the translator's education and associations. The guide include, as annexes, several independent adaptations of the corresponding European Commission works, freely available via the EU Bookshop as PDF and via SetThings as EPUB, MOBI (Kindle) and PDF. For a “smart”, sensible translation , you should forget not the knowledge acquired at school or university, but the corrective (...) standards. Some people want a translation with the touch of the source version, while another people feel that in a successful version we should not be able to guess the original language. We have to realize that both people have right and wrong, and that their only fault is to present requirement as an absolute truth. Teachers agree at least on this principle: “If a sentence is ambiguous, the translation must also be“. There is another critical, less easy to argue, based on an Italian phrase with particularly strong wording: “Traduttore, traditore“. This critique argues that any translation will betray the author‘s language, spirit, style … because of the choices on all sides. What to sacrifice, clarity or brevity, if the formula in the text is brief and effective, but impossible to translate into so few words with the exact meaning? One could understand this criticism that it encourages us to read “in the text.” It seems obvious that it is impossible to follow this advice into practice. CONTENTS: Translation - Assessment of the amount of translated texts - Translation and interpretation - - Translation documents - Translation theories - - Practical / communicative approach - - Approaches of literary theories - - Sociolinguistic mainstream - - Approaches based on linguistic theories - - Approaches based on philosophical and hermeneutic concepts - - Semiotic approaches - The translation process - Types of translations - - Technical translation - Schools of thought - Difficulties associated with specialized domains - The problem of double translation - Thoughts about translation - European standard for translation services - Beautiful infidels - Self-translation - - Types of self-translation - - Factors that promote self-translation - - Self-translation and not authorial translation - Technical translation - - Terminology - - Translation process - - Translation tools - - The technical translator - - - Status - - - Remuneration - Conference interpreting - - Methods of interpretation - - Skills of the interpreter - - Contexts and working languages - - The interpretation in international institutions - - - UNESCO - - - European Union Internationalization and localization - Example - Internationalization and localization - Challenges - Software localization - - Difficulties - - Composing specifications - - Special tools Computer-assisted translation - Translation memory - - Advantages and disadvantages - - General operation - - Various - - Software - Machine translation - - Translation process - - Prerequisites - - Difficulties - - Approaches - - Development - - Existing products and services - - Prospective - Parallel text Subtitle - Subtitling or dubbing? - Description - Subtitling the movies - - Spotting - - Translation - - Simulation - - Engraving, inlaying or packaging - - The live broadcast - Live captioning - - Velotype - - Touch typing - - Computer-aided stenotype - - Speech recognition - Surtitles - - Comments - - Technical means - - Artistic issues - Quasi instant voice translation - - Difficulties - - Ongoing projects - - Future Translation Studies - Theories of translation - Interpretive theory - Back-translation - - The proper use of back-translation - False friends - - Cognates - - - Complete false friends - - - Partial false friends - - False cognates - Translation process - - The implications of the "inside" language - - Total and not absolute translation - - A single model - Untranslatability - - Hovering - - Translation methods - - - Adaptation - - - Calque - - - Compensation - - - Borrowing - - - Periphrasis - - - Translator's note - - Untranslatability of poetry and puns - - An amazing counterexample Translators - Translator's notes - European Master's in Translation - - European Master's in Translation - - - Organization of EMT - - - Core skills - - The EMT label - - EMT Network - - - Eligibility - - Members - European Council of Literary Translators' Associations - - History - - Objectives - International Translation Day Annexes: Translation in EU - Translation Guide - - Think before you write - - - Who will be reading the document? - - - What are you trying to achieve? - - - What points must the document cover? - - Focus on the reader - - - Be direct and interesting - - Get your document into shape - - - When you start - - - As you write - - - Two common problems at the European Commission: - - KISS - Keep It Short and Simple - - - Short... - - - ... and Simple: - - - Simple, uncluttered style also means: - - Make sense - structure your sentences - - Cut out excess nouns - verb forms are livelier - - Be concrete, not abstract - - Prefer active verbs to passive - - - Name the agent - - Beware of false friends, jargon and abbreviations - - - Avoid false friends - - - Avoid or explain jargon - - - Take care with abbreviations - - Revise and cheque check - Clear English Tips - - English prefers to be simple, concise and concrete. - - - Use simple words where appropriate. - - - Prefer a verb to an abstract noun - - - Prefer a gerund to an abstract noun - - - Prefer participles to relative clauses - - - And eliminate participles entirely if appropriate. - - - Use the passive voice sparingly - - - Consider replacing negatives with positives - - - Consider short forms and pronouns to avoid repeating full names … - - - Express conditions, including hidden ones, with ‘if’ ... - - - In general, cut out extra verbiage. - - English prefers straightforward syntax - - - Keep the subject close to the beginning of the sentence - - - Avoid splitting up subjects, modals, verbs and direct objects - - - If a sentence is too long, pull information out into separate sentences. - - - Use topic-introducing phrases sparingly. - - English may use different number, articles, gender or words from other languages - - - Keep uncountable nouns in the singular. - - - Use ‘a’ rather than ‘the’ for members of a class. - - - Do not use gender pronouns for entities. - - - Consider alternatives to ‘of’. - - - Finally, avoid ‘false friends’ in translation. - English Style Guide - - Introduction - - Writing English - - - GENERAL - - - SPELLING - - - PUNCTUATION - - - NUMBERS - - - ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS - - - Acronyms and initialisms - - - Contractions and truncations - - - FOREIGN IMPORTS - - - PARTS OF SPEECH - - - LISTS - - - SCIENCE GUIDE - - - FOOTNOTES, CITATIONS AND REFERENCES - - - CORRESPONDENCE - - - PERSONAL NAMES AND TITLES - - - NAMES OF BODIES - - - GENDER-NEUTRAL LANGUAGE - - About the European Union - - - THE EUROPEAN UNION - - - PRIMARY LEGISLATION - - - SECONDARY LEGISLATION - - - THE EU INSTITUTIONS - - - REFERENCES TO OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS - - - EU FINANCES - - - MEMBER STATES - - - OFFICIAL LANGUAGES AND CURRENCIES - - - EXTERNAL RELATIONS - - TRANSLITERATION - - - TRANSLITERATION TABLE FOR GREEK - - - TRANSLITERATION TABLE FOR CYRILLIC - - FORMS OF ADDRESS - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - - - Envelop - - - Start - - - Close - Style Guide for EU Member States - - Austria - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Government bodies and administrative divisions - - Belgium - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Federal structure - - Bulgaria - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Croatia - - - Geography - - - Regions - - - Judicial bodies - - - Political and administrative structure - - - Legal instruments - - - Law gazettes, official gazettes and official journals - - - Miscellaneous - - Cyprus - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Czech Republic - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Denmark - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Estonia - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Law gazettes, official gazettes and official journals - - Finland - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Law gazettes, official gazettes and official journals - - France - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Germany - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Government bodies and administrative divisions - - Greece - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Hungary - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Iceland - - - Judicial bodies - - Ireland - - Italy - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Latvia - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Lithuania - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Law gazettes, official gazettes and official journals - - Luxembourg - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Malta - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Netherlands - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Poland - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - - Law gazettes, official gazettes and official journals - - Portugal - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Romania - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Slovakia - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Spain - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Sweden - - - Geography - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - Turkey - - - Judicial bodies - - - Legal instruments - - United Kingdom - - - Geography Quotes References About the author - Nicolae Sfetcu . 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Universe silence … Why? TechnoSfera … Where does it move? BioSfera … Where is the ―non-return point? NooSfera … What to do? The deep mind looks for primordial senses of the ―LifeWorld(LebensWelt). Сonsciousness, matter, memory … Self-Consciousness… Сonsciousness is attracting senses vector magnitude, intentional effect of absolute complexity. The Vector of Сonsciousness - the Triune Vector of absolute forms of existence of matter (limit states), the Vector of the Absolute Existential Field of the Universe, a polyvalent sense (...) phenomenon of Ontological (structural, cosmic) Memory. Open Сonsciousness Vs. Closed Сonsciousness. Сonceptual and mathematical proto-Eidoses Absolute forms of existence of matter. On the basis of ontological and existential constracting method – method of a discretion and a reflection of existential repère-point, the Vector of Сonsciousness places milestones on ProtoGeometre's long way – the way of ―knowledge of good and evil, of rises and fallings, of births of ―absolutely another, from the point ―Alpha to the modern ―point of ultimate tension of the Absolute Existential Field of the Universe. Big waves of Consciousness. Existential risks of Humanity and Open Science. New Open Generation realizing all existential risks of Humanity passable way and risks of coming Information era creates the Self-Aware Universe, filling it with the most deep meanings of the ―LifeWorld, at the heart of which Axiom of an absolute freedom of choice is laid. The minimum Program to overcome existential risks. Great Integrative Paradigm. Creation of a common sense picture of the World for physicists and lyricist. The United Humanity raises up five Great Philosophers' Stones in memory of Protogeometre's rises and fallings on a long way of becoming of Humanity and frees the Horse. Humanity is on a threshold of an Era of Eonic thinking... Far from Perfect … I start the path... (shrink)

This dissertation examines Fichte's critical idealism in an effort to formulate a compelling model of how we can be said to be free, despite our subjection to both rational and nonrational constraints. ;Fichte grounds idealism in a "drive to freedom" that involves two disparate strands of thought: the standpoint of idealism is said to be both the result of an absolutely free adoption of the principle of self-determination and conditioned by reason, to which the finite I is necessarily subject. However, (...) if there is no reason prior to the choice of a first principle, the choice of idealism over dogmatism cannot be motivated, and so is not attributable to a responsible subject. And if there is a prior basis for the election of idealism, the constraints of reason already necessitate the I's attempt to consider itself to be independent and are, therefore, not self-legislated. Fichte's argument strategy thus yields the following question: How can there be an absolute election of the philosophical principle of one's life, when the adoption of such a standpoint is already a manifestation of who one is? Fichte confronts this issue by conceiving of the I as necessarily subject to an original limit and by radically subjectivizing the world in terms of the I's ethical and conceptual demands. ;By locating the tension between these positions, this dissertation reveals how philosophers indebted to Fichte as well as interpreters of the Wissenschaftslehre have mischaracterized Fichte's treatment of rational self-constraint. Fichte's synthesis of freedom and necessity constitutes a model of subjectivity according to which the normatively constrained structure of experience is impossible without my relating that experience to my practical activity, and the ways in which I am able to characterize that experience are answerable to what is practically required of me by that experience. Fichte shows the interdetermination of the givenness of the given and the autonomy of the I by qualifying each in terms of the other. As a description of this interdetermination, Fichte's striving doctrine establishes the tension involved in this mutually constitutive relation as a positive conception of human freedom. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто один із аспектів надзвичайно широкого інтертекстуального поля прози Віктора Домонтовича. Поняття зради й відступництва письменник інтерпретує у різних контекстах і в різному історичному антуражі. Зокрема в оповіданні «Апостоли» він своєрідно представляє проблему віри й довіри, вводячи у євангельський сюжет ще й тему знання, роздуми про побутування релігії й віри у добу раціоналізму й скептицизму. Страждаючи від роздвоєності й сумнівів, герої цього письменника згодні відповідати за наслідки лише власного вибору. Домонтович демонструє трагічні наслідки ситуації, коли людина бере на (...) себе функції Бога й відповідальність за вдосконалення світу. (shrink)