In modern conditions the questions of personnel management, including motivation, acquire new meaning. Particularly given the problems relevant to the service sector, where at the beginning of the XXI century employing more than 60% of the workforce in developed countries. These circumstances determine the need for a modern concept of material and immaterial motivation of service industries. Such factors determine the need for the development modern concept of material and immaterial motivation of service industries staff. To obtain indicated objective during (...) research analyzed the existing concepts and paradigm of staff motivation with highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. The results obtained allowed to establish that scientific and expert community does not have the unified approach to the classification and identification of the most effective ones. Special attention is given to modern developments and approaches to the motivation problem. This fact caused the structure of follow studies, including three interlinked vectors: analysis of the essential content of the fundamental concepts in the field of staff motivation; defining features of employee motivation at the enterprises sphere of services; introduction to the key successful international practices which apply by service companies. In general, the results obtained enabled the author’s model of the modern concept of material and non-material motivation at the enterprises the service sector and the corresponding mechanism for the implementation. (shrink)

The research identified the key element on P. R. China’s incentives in modern history on techtransfer practices. With reviewing on the state funding surrogacy in the natural sciences, the author identified the key militant coercive contracting clauses in the document of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. With its combined workings with the statutory & martial laws, the analysis takes a com- parative culture approach that partially counteracts the work of the “United Front Working Group of the CPC”, which (...) constitutes as the major cyber espionage organization that manifests upon the communication & information technologies. The “United Front”’s work has substabtially undermined the premices of market economy and eroded the markets’ self-organizing & self-regulating functionalities. With heterogenous semantic networks taken into consideration, the psychosociological elements were taken into consideration even with the psychological data codings in the semantic networks of P. R. China. (shrink)

Modern money theory is a conjecture concerning fiscal spending and the nature of money. I show that modern money theory provides two interesting insights into distributive justice that have not been addressed in the recent Anglo-American distributive justice literature: (i) that the nature of a sovereign fiat currency allows for some distributive conflicts to be avoided; and (ii) that recent Anglo- American distributive justice theories assume that the economy is at capacity. Based on this, I consider if the policy results (...) of modern money theory can help foster a sense of justice. (shrink)

This book analyses three of the most prevalent illnesses of late modernity: anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, in terms of their relation to cultural pathologies of the social body. Usually these conditions are interpreted clinically in terms of individualized symptoms and responded to discretely, as though for the most part unrelated to each other. However, these diseases also have a social and cultural profile that transcends their particular symptomologies and etiologies. Anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s are diseases related to disorders (...) of the collective esprit de corps of contemporary society. Multidisciplinary in approach, the book addresses questions of how these conditions are manifest at both the individual and collective levels in relation to hegemonic biomedical and psychologistic understandings. Rejecting such reductive diagnoses, the authors argue that anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other contemporary epidemics, are to be analysed in the light of individual and collective experiences of profound and radical changes in our civilization. A diagnosis of our times, Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents will appeal to a broad range of scholars with interests in health and illness, the sociology of medicine and contemporary life. (shrink)

Modern Monetary Theory and Distributive Justice shows how the macroeconomic framework called modern money theory (MMT) is relevant to the field of political philosophy called distributive justice. Many of the macroeconomic assumptions of distributive justice are unstated and unexamined. The framework of MMT illuminates these assumptions and provides an alternative vision of distributive justice analysis and prescriptions. In particular, MMT holds that modern money is a nominal state issued token (fiat), there is a distinction between nominal assets and real assets, (...) that state money as a nominal token can cause changes in real terms, and that the macroeconomy has historically not operated at capacity. The upshot of these assumptions held by MMT is that state spending can bring about changes in persons’ well-being without traditional redistributive measures via taxation. This is in contradistinction to standard assumptions in the distributive justice literature, which holds that the macroeconomy is at capacity and, thus, redistribution is the necessary mechanism for enacting improvements in well-being. This is a fundamental shift in how distributive justice can be conceived. (shrink)

Historically, many Christians have understood God’s transcendence to imply God’s properties categorically differ from any created properties. For multiple historical figures, a problem arose for religious language: how can one talk of God at all if none of our predicates apply to God? What are we to make of creeds and Biblical passages that seem to predicate creaturely properties, such as goodness and wisdom, of God? Thomas Aquinas offered a solution: God is to be spoken of only through analogy (the (...) doctrine of analogy). Gavin Hyman argues Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy was neglected prior to the early-modern period and the neglect of analogy produced the conception of a god vulnerable to atheistic arguments. Contra Hyman, in this paper, I show early-modern atheism arose in a theological context in which there was an active debate concerning analogy. Peter Browne (1665–1735) and William King (1650–1729) offered two competing conceptions of analogical predication that were debated through the 19th century, with interlocutors such as the freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729), theologian/philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), and skeptic David Hume (1711–1776). Lastly, I discuss the 18th century debate over theological analogy as part of the background relevant to understanding Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to survey some of the most important developments in thinking about essence in the early modern period, highlighting ways in which thinkers in the period gradually depart from the medieval Aristotelian tradition. In this tradition, essence is thought of as selective, explanatory, and kind-determining. Whereas in the beginning of the early modern period some figures (such as René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Margaret Cavendish, and Anne Conway) still adhere to this traditional view, later figures (including (...) Benedict de Spinoza, G.W. Leibniz, and John Locke) reject it. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, “empiricism” is a label that usually denotes an epistemological view that emphasizes the role that experience plays in forming concepts and acquiring and justifying knowledge. In contemporary philosophy, there are some authors who call themselves as empiricists, although there are differences in the way they define what experience consists in, how it is related to theory, and the role experience plays in discovering and justifying knowledge, etc. (e.g., Ayer 1936; Van Fraassen 2002). In contrast, in the early modern (...) period, empiricism was not a label that philosophers traditionally characterized until nowadays as empiricists (most famously, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume) used to describe their doctrines. Indeed, as attributed to early modern philosophical authors, empiricism is not an actor’s category, but an analytic historiographical category retrospectively applied to them and confronted to rationalism, whose main representatives were considered to be Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and G.W. Leibniz. Such a narrative began to be established by the late nineteenthcentury and described early modern empiricism as an epistemological stance maintaining (1) that the origin of all mental contents lies in experience (a genetic statement), and (2) that knowledge can only be justified a posteriori (an epistemic statement). This entails that empiricists deny the existence of innate mental contents and the possibility of a purely a priori knowledge. In the history of early modern science such a dichotomy has been usually rendered in terms of the opposition between continental rationalist Cartesian science vs British empiricist Newtonian science. In the last four decades, many aspects of this traditional narrative have been criticized, and the meaning of early modern empiricism is subject of renewed studies. (shrink)

Abstract The awakening of art to self-awareness and the statement of its autonomy are modern phenomena. The way we think about art in the modern age may be derived from the Kantian “beauty without concept”. Beautiful art is the work of the genius, who creates a work of art that is valuable in itself and is admired in museums by the public. That which I call here “the modern paradigm of art” is based on an absence: the non-conceptuality of the (...) beautiful, i.e., the fact that objective qualities cannot define the beautiful. This absence establishes originality as the essential requirement for modern art and creates the possibility for artists to push the boundaries of the modern paradigm. Thus, the 20thcentury sees the appearance of strategies for overriding or substituting originality. The artist withdraws from behind her work, and the work of art is no longer an unapproachable object with an aura, just as the museum is also no longer the temple of the arts. But do these experiments overcome the frontiers of art’s modern paradigm? And, more generally, can this paradigm be overcome at all? Here I deduct three elements of the modern paradigm of art from the idea of “beauty without concept”: (1) the original artist, who is seen as a genius, (2) the work of art with an aura, and (3) the museum as the temple of art. Then I present how artists, based on the requirement of originality, worked on dismantling the frontiers of the modern paradigm. (shrink)

A discussion of the intellectual impact which Modernity has had on Islamic religious consciousness.

In the mid-seventeenth century a movement of self-styled experimental philosophers emerged in Britain. Originating in the discipline of natural philosophy amongst Fellows of the fledgling Royal Society of London, it soon spread to medicine and by the eighteenth century had impacted moral and political philosophy and even aesthetics. Early modern experimental philosophers gave epistemic priority to observation and experiment over theorising and speculation. They decried the use of hypotheses and system-building without recourse to experiment and, in some quarters, developed a (...) philosophy of experiment. The movement spread to the Netherlands and France in the early eighteenth century and later impacted Germany. Its important role in early modern philosophy was subsequently eclipsed by the widespread adoption of the Kantian historiography of modern philosophy, which emphasised the distinction between rationalism and empiricism and had no place for the historical phenomenon of early modern experimental philosophy. The re-emergence of interest in early modern experimental philosophy roughly coincided with the development of contemporary x-phi and there are some important similarities between the two. (shrink)

In this chapter I show that it is possible to interpret an important group of postmodern texts as presenting intellectual and practical challenges with a specific focus that is worth the serious attention of everyone interested in politics. My interpretation shows that a certain strand of postmodern thought is not only consonant with a liberal democratic political morality, but also modifies and extends it in an eminently desirable direction. Such an interpretation has become possible because a significant consensus has emerged (...) from the writings of prominent commentators and participants in the debates about postmodernism. I reconstruct this emerging consensus by referring specifically to the contribution of these postmodern texts to politics, thus leaving aside its possible contribution to the arts and sciences. I start by giving an exposition of a new understanding of modernity that has been brought about by the debates on modernity / postmodernism. Then I characterize the postmodern political condition by describing those changes in contemporary modern societies that stimulate and facilitate the development and growth of postmodernism. The next section provides an interpretation of the political philosophy contained in the work of prominent postmodern thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard and Jencks. In this overview I show that an emphasis on the importance of heterogeneity and otherness unifies the diverse contributions of these postmodernists to political philosophy. I conclude the article by drawing some implications for politics in places like South Africa, from the insights I judge postmodernism provides to political philosophy in general. (shrink)

A Modern Coleridge shows the interrelatedness of the discourses of cultivation, addiction and habit in Coleridge's poetry and prose, and argues that these all revolve around the problematic nexus of a post-Kantian idea of free will, essential to Coleridge's eminently modern idea of the 'human'.

This book is intended to be a simple & easy-to-read guide to everything you need to know to understand & appreciate MODERN CONTEMPORARY ART. The aim is to explain the key ideas underlying the principles of modern contemporary art, so that you can meaningfully evaluate and enjoy contemporary artworks on their own terms. Anyone with an interest in any of the arts can benefit from this book: you do not need to have specialist background knowledge or artistic training. We will (...) provide you with a very down-to-earth & easily applicable understanding of modern art that you will soon be able to use whatever the occasion & whatever the artform. (And for those who require scholarly detail, we have provided footnotes and a bibliography.) Key words: modern art, contemporary art, art theory, philosophy of art, aesthetics . (shrink)

This book treats ancient logic: the logic that originated in Greece by Aristotle and the Stoics, mainly in the hundred year period beginning about 350 BCE. Ancient logic was never completely ignored by modern logic from its Boolean origin in the middle 1800s: it was prominent in Boole’s writings and it was mentioned by Frege and by Hilbert. Nevertheless, the first century of mathematical logic did not take it seriously enough to study the ancient logic texts. A renaissance in ancient (...) logic studies occurred in the early 1950s with the publication of the landmark Aristotle’s Syllogistic by Jan Łukasiewicz, Oxford UP 1951, 2nd ed. 1957. Despite its title, it treats the logic of the Stoics as well as that of Aristotle. Łukasiewicz was a distinguished mathematical logician. He had created many-valued logic and the parenthesis-free prefix notation known as Polish notation. He co-authored with Alfred Tarski’s an important paper on metatheory of propositional logic and he was one of Tarski’s the three main teachers at the University of Warsaw. Łukasiewicz’s stature was just short of that of the giants: Aristotle, Boole, Frege, Tarski and Gödel. No mathematical logician of his caliber had ever before quoted the actual teachings of ancient logicians. -/- Not only did Łukasiewicz inject fresh hypotheses, new concepts, and imaginative modern perspectives into the field, his enormous prestige and that of the Warsaw School of Logic reflected on the whole field of ancient logic studies. Suddenly, this previously somewhat dormant and obscure field became active and gained in respectability and importance in the eyes of logicians, mathematicians, linguists, analytic philosophers, and historians. Next to Aristotle himself and perhaps the Stoic logician Chrysippus, Łukasiewicz is the most prominent figure in ancient logic studies. A huge literature traces its origins to Łukasiewicz. -/- This Ancient Logic and Its Modern Interpretations, is based on the 1973 Buffalo Symposium on Modernist Interpretations of Ancient Logic, the first conference devoted entirely to critical assessment of the state of ancient logic studies. (shrink)

"The writer discusses the concept of kitsch. Having reviewed a variety of approaches to kitsch, he posits an historical conception of it, connecting it to modernity and defining it as a coping-mechanism for modernity. He thus suggests that kitsch is best understood as a tool in the struggle against the particular stresses of the modern world and that it uses materials at hand, fashioning from them some sort of stability largely through projecting images of nature, stasis, and continuity. (...) He discusses the relation of kitsch to fine art, arguing that fine art also has as its primary function a counter-movement to modernity. He suggests that the main difference between fine art and kitsch is that fine art, as well as its emotional function, also involves a reception context that allows it to assume an intellectual task. Among the writer's conclusions, he finds that positing a stark or absolute contrast between kitsch and fine art is unjustifiable as both have the same roots and objectives." [WilsonWeb]. (shrink)

Henri Lelevel’s La philosophie moderne par demandes et réponses is a very interesting as well as pretty neglected attempt to disseminate the new philosophy among a larger audience, including the non specialists. Either the style of presentation or the oversimplification of the topics discussed is clearly intended to reach people interested to a smattering of philosophy. More than the comparisons between the traditional and the new philosophy and the compendia, this work vouches for the great interest toward the new philosophy. (...) In this particular case the model is the philosophy of Malebranche, whose interpretation of Descartes thought is preferred by Lelevel, worried by the excessive twist given toward empiricism in P.-S. Régis rendering of Cartesian philosophical system. Lelevel’s logic is directed to eliminate the confusion between sense data and knowledge, echoing also Malebranche’s notion of éténdue idéale, one of the major contribution to the reconsideration of Descartes’ thought. This paper aims to sketch the mains topics discussed in the four sections of Lelevel’s work, with some cross-references to Malebranche’s writings. (shrink)

Written in Japanese, the overall picture of the thoughts of modern philosophers, namely Hume, Kant, and Mill, is put forward.

The paper examines the evolution of modernity concepts starting from the Renaissance to the present day, emphasizing the impact on architecture and urbanism. During the period of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, people framed an evolutionary notion of history and the concept of the modern associated with the contemporary, the new, and the fleeting emerged. This period connected modernity with the idea of relativity of truth as opposed to the absolute truth of the Middle Ages. In the 18th (...) and 19th centuries, modernity clashed with tradition. This led to economic and political modernization. It also influenced artistic movements and cultural trends. The Industrial Revolution epitomized this period. It was driven by scientific and technological advancements. The paper discusses the objective and subjective perspectives of modernity, highlighting its dual nature in socioeconomic processes and personal experiences. Key thinkers like Habermas Weber and Baudelaire provide frameworks for understanding modernity's developments in science, art, and morality. The avant-garde movements influenced by Bauhaus, emphasized functionality. They also focused on rationality in architecture. However, critiques emerged, advocating the concept of unitary urbanism. This vision includes adaptable living spaces. It promotes an ever-changing urban environment, as exemplified by Constant's New Babylon. The Adorno's aesthetic theory criticized the industry's commodification of art and emphasizes art's utopian potential. Adorno's concept of mimesis and his critique of rationality and instrumental reason are explored reflecting the paradoxical nature of modernity. Finally, the paper contrasts the views of architects like Mies van der Rohe, Norberg-Schulz, and Eisenman. It concludes by reflecting on architecture's ongoing interaction with modernity. It emphasizes a balance between innovation tradition and the dynamic nature of human experience and social development. (shrink)

We look at some interesting and important episodes in the life of early modern Epicureanism, focusing on natural philosophy. We begin with two early moderns who had a great deal to say about ancient Epicureanism: Pierre Gassendi and Ralph Cudworth. Looking at how Gassendi and Cudworth conceived of Epicureanism gives us a sense of what the early moderns considered important in the ancient tradition. It also points us towards three main themes of early modern Epicureanism in natural philosophy, which we (...) then discuss at greater length: atomism, materialism about the mind or soul, and the denial of providence, which was often accompanied by deflationary explanations of religious belief. (shrink)

Logical reflection in early modern philosophy (EMP) is marked by the instability of the period, although it is more lasting (the Port-Royal Logic was nevertheless used as a handbook in philosophy courses until the end of the nineteenth century). It started in the sixteenth century and ended in the nineteenth century, a period of 300 years during which there were deep transformations in the conceptions of authority and scientific method. For the history of twentieth-century philosophy, it was the period of (...) “classical logic,” which lasted from the Renaissance to the linguistic turn conducted by Gottlob Frege. The period was used to be thought of as centuries of little or no original contribution to logic, in which conceptions of logic were tainted by rhetoric, epistemology, and psychologism in the worst sense (Kneale and Kneale 1962; Michael 1997). From the last decades of the twentieth century, however, scholars began to regard this period more accurately with respect to reflection and changes in logic and semantics. It has recently become a promising field for historical and conceptual research; today we can say that the legacy of early modern logical reformism has a philosophical, logical, and semantic value in itself. (shrink)

Hans Jonas 's responsibility ethics is an important achievement of modern technology criticism and ethical theory innovation. The maturity of Jonas's ethical thought has gone through three main stages, namely, the critique of modern technology, the reflection of traditional ethics and the construction of the " Future-oriented " Responsibility Ethics. Jonas's criticism of modern technology not only has a strong epochal character but also carries on the spirit of social criticism since Marx. His insight into the traditional ethics theory and (...) the ethical characteristics of the technical age constituted the background of the Responsibility ethics. Jonas's responsibility ethics is not only the return of "responsibility" spirit in ethics but also the dimension of "Future", which is the characteristic of his theory. Through criticism, reflection and construction, Jonas formed this kind of asymmetrical ethics thought of "Future-oriented" Responsibility and faced the challenge of modern technology. (shrink)

This essay claims that the violence characterizing the 20th century has been coloured by the clash of two very different senses of legal authority. These two senses of legal authority correspond with two very different contexts of civil violence: state secession and the violence characterizing a challenge to a state-centric legal authority. Conklin argues that the modern legal authority represents a quest for a source or foundation. Such a sense of legal authority, according to Conklin, clashes such a view with (...) the unwritten laws of early Amerindian traditional societies. Conklin argues further that by arguing that the Amerindian sense of legal authority has been concealed in the dominant modern sense of legal authority. (shrink)

We survey recent developments in the theory of class forcing for- malized in the second-order set-theoretic setting.

On the eve of the tercentenary of Kant’s birth, just as it was a hundred years ago, Kantianism is simultaneously on the receiving end of the blows of history and attacks by rival philosophical parties, both progressivist and reactionary. The radical wings of both parties perceive modernity as a depressing, nauseating period which must be broken with by moving toward the past or toward the future. One of the most original and profound diagnoses of this attitude was offered by (...) Hans Jonas, who discerned in radical doctrines of a hundred years ago a similarity with the gnosticism of antiquity. Jonas’s diagnosis has not lost its relevance. That is why the central question addressed in this study is as follows: what prescription does the Kantian programme offer for modernity’s “gnostic dizziness?” I maintain that Kant’s critical turn is still an effective strategy by means of which to compensate for the sudden stresses and “gnostic impulses” provoked by the modern worldview revolution, bringing back an “orientation in thinking” which reorients the world process and individual activity. The imperative to always see and respect humanity in a particular individual warns against the “category mistake” committed by modern radicals who ascribe agency (subjectivity) to non-­human abstractions which cannot possess this property. In theory, Kant grounds the view that humanity should resign itself to the fact of its perspective being limited and local. Kantian practical philosophy provides the traveler with a map of regulative ideas and a “moral compass”, along with an explanation of disruptive factors, offering a working explanation of the situation and its possible outcomes. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” brings human beings back into focus and imagination to order, allowing for the hope that new challenges will be successfully met. (shrink)

Modernity and Contemporaneity is the 3rd volume in the Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series, a project that was initiated as an emphatic token of the will and commitment to establish permanent and fruitful collaboration between two strongly bonded Departments of Philosophy, this of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and that of the University of Novi Sad respectively. This collaboration was founded from the very beginning upon friendship, mutual respect and strong engagement, as well us upon our firm resolution (...) to establish a solid continuity in the editing project. The publication of this volume allows us to entertain feelings of contentment and confidence that this objective of the project has been accomplished. (shrink)

Georg Henrik von Wright was not only the first interpreter of Wittgenstein, who argued that Spengler’s work had reinforced and helped Wittgenstein to articulate his view of life, but also the first to consider seriously that Wittgenstein’s attitude to his times makes him unique among the great philosophers, that the philosophical problems which Wittgenstein was struggling, indeed his view of the nature of philosophy, were somehow connected with features of our culture or civilization. -/- In this paper I draw inspiration (...) and courage from Von Wright’s insistence that trying to understand Wittgenstein in relation to his times is a philosophic task in its own right in order to probe into a relatively obscure region in Wittgenstein’s thought: his relation to the music of his times. It is a topic, on which Von Wright, and most other prominent Wittgenstein scholars, have said very little, but it is also one, which Wittgenstein himself attested was so important to him that he felt without it he was sure to be misunderstood. -/- I offer textual and historical evidence in support of my claim that, parallel to Wittgenstein’s exposure to Spengler’s Decline of the West in 1930, he was also introduced to the music theory of Heinrich Schenker, which helped him to articulate, partly by way of critique, a complex and unique position concerning the modern music of his times, which exhibits his rejection of what Von Wright later dubbed ‘the myth of progress’. As Von Wright observed in other regions of Wittgenstein’s work, he believed also with regards to the arts and to music in particular, neither in a brilliant future nor in the good old days. -/- I argue that Wittgenstein actually made a distinction between three kinds of modern music: (a) bad modern music, which is clearly a case of confusing means for ends, the hallmark of the myth of progress, as Von Wright observed; (b) vacuous modern music, which embodies some sort of diffidence, a difficulty to see through the omnipresence of what Von Wright called (following Habermas) a ‘colonialization’ of reified measures of progress; (c) good modern music, a paradoxical notion for Wittgenstein, which betokens the unlikely yet possible striving to penetrate through what appears as dissolution of the resemblances which unite this culture’s ways of life by rendering this condition as expressible and intransitively understandable. In the context of this third category, I offer an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s complex remarks on the music of Gustav Mahler, which palpably show that the problem of good modern music and the problem of philosophizing in the time of civilization were one and the same in Wittgenstein’s mind. -/- I conclude that, with regards to Von Wright’s own critical view of the modern myth of progress, we can learn from Wittgenstein that progress in the realm of art is closely aligned with the ideal of the perfection of man, yet transcending a social or political context. It is the ideal of cultural cohesion: affinity that the arts show to other human practices and cultural artifacts of its period. Wittgenstein’s tentative notion of good modern music (and its circumscription by his notion of the music of the future) may show its true colors when viewed in the context of Von Wright’s plea not to abandon work for progress as a critical task. (shrink)

Modernity seemed to be the autumn of eternity. The secularization of European culture provided little sustenance to the concept of eternity with its heavy theological baggage. Yet, our hero would not leave the stage without an outstanding performance of its power and temptation. Indeed, in the first three centuries of the modern period – the subject of the third chapter by Yitzhak Melamed - the concept of eternity will play a crucial role in the great philosophical systems of the (...) period. The first part of this chapter concentrates on the debate about the temporality of God. While most of the great metaphysicians of the seventeenth century – Suarez, Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibniz – ascribed to God eternal, non-temporal, existence, a growing number of philosophers conceived God as existing in time. For Newton, God’s eternity was simply the fact that “He was, he is, and is to come.” A similar view of God as being essentially in time was endorsed by Pierre Gassendi, Henry More, Samuel Clarke, Isaac Barrow, John Locke, and most probably Descartes as well. In the second part of the chapter we study the concept of eternal truth, and its relation to the emerging notion of Laws of Nature. The third part of the chapter explicates Spinoza’s original understanding of eternity as a modal concept. For Spinoza, eternity is a unique kind of necessary existence: it is existence that is self-necessitated (unlike the existence of other things whose necessity derives from external causes). Eternity is the existence of God or the one substance. Yet, Spinoza claims that if we conceive finite things adequately - “sub specie aeternitatis” – as nothing but modes flowing from the essence of God, even finite things (like our minds) can take part in God’s eternity. The fourth and final part of the chapter is mostly focused on the reception of Spinoza’s original conception of eternity by Leibniz and other eighteenth century philosophers. (shrink)

The development of modern science has depended strongly on specific features of the cultures involved; however, its results are widely and trans-culturally accepted and applied. The science and technology of electricity provides a particularly interesting example. It emerged as a specific product of post-Renaissance Europe, rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition that encourages explanations of nature in theoretical terms. It did not evolve in China presumably because such encouragement was missing. The trans-cultural acceptance of modern science and technology is postulated (...) to be due, in part, to the common biological dispositions underlying human cognition, with generalizable capabilities of abstract, symbolic and strategic thought. These faculties of the human mind are main prerequisites for dynamic cultural development and differentiation. They appear to have evolved up to a stage of hunters and gatherers perhaps some 100 000 years ago. However, the extent of the correspondence between some constructions of the human mind and the order of nature, as revealed by science, is a late insight of the last centuries. Quantum physics and relativity are particularly impressive examples. (shrink)

Anarchism and Political Modernity looks at the place of 'classical anarchism' in the postmodern political discourse, claiming that anarchism presents a vision of political postmodernity. The book seeks to foster a better understanding of why and how anarchism is growing in the present. To do so, it first looks at its origins and history, offering a different view from the two traditions that characterize modern political theory: socialism and liberalism. Such an examination leads to a better understanding of how (...) anarchism connects with newer political trends and why it is a powerful force in contemporary social and political movements. This new volume in the Contemporary Anarchist Studies series offers a novel philosophical engagement with anarchism and contests a number of positions established in postanarchist theory. Its new approach makes a valuable contribution to an established debate about anarchism and political theory. It offers a new perspective on the emerging area of anarchist studies that will be of interest to students and theorists in political theory and anarchist studies. (shrink)

We develop a modern interactive libertarian dualism of physical and mental events using the concept of probability.

Early Modern German Philosophy (1690-1750) makes some of the key texts of early German thought available in English, in most cases for the first time. The translations range from texts by the most important figures of the period, including Christian Thomasius, Christian Wolff, Christian August Crusius, and Georg Friedrich Meier, as well as texts by consequential but less familiar thinkers such as Dorothea Christiane Erxleben, Theodor Ludwig Lau, Friedrich Wilhelm Stosch, and Joachim Lange. The topics covered range across a number (...) of areas of theoretical philosophy, including metaphysics (the immortality of the soul, materialism and its refutation, the pre-established harmony), epistemology (the principle of sufficient reason, the limits of reason with respect to matters of faith), and logic (the role of prejudices in cognition and the doctrine of truth). (shrink)

Upanishads are traditionally commented upon as texts of theology and religion. But the contents of the Upanishads can also be viewed and commented from modern science point of view. Elements of modern science present in the Upanishads and Advaita Siddhanta will be listed. -/- The nature of maya will be discussed with modern scientific awareness. This awareness will be further used in understanding human mental processes and the ways to model them contributing to the natural language comprehension field of artificial (...) intelligence. -/- The nature of the Dvaita and Advaita conscious states and their implications to human cognitive processes will be discussed. The use and significance of the ‘absence of mind’ conscious state will also be presented. -/- The use of above understanding in modeling human understanding process and its comparison to physiological psychology – the physics and chemistry of psychology - will be proposed. (shrink)

The article considers the features of ensuring the economic security of enterprises in the conditions of intensive introduction of information technologies in their activities in the process of forming the digital economy. It is determined that digitalization creates important advantages for enterprises in terms of implementing a long-term strategy for their development, strengthening economic security, and achieving significant competitive advantages in doing business. It is studied that the system of economic security of the enterprise is an organized set of elements (...) of the management infrastructure of the enterprise, which are focused on ensuring stable and effective development of the business entity, neutralization, and elimination of internal and external threats. (shrink)

The much-welcomed recent acknowledgement that there is a plurality of philosophical traditions has an important consequence: that we must acknowledge too that there are many philosophical modernities. Modernity, I will claim, is a polycentric notion, and I will substantiate my claim by examining in some detail one particular non-western philosophical modernity, a remarkable period in 16th to 17th century India where a diversity of philosophical projects fully deserve the label.

Heraclitus and Modern Poetry: Works Cited.

For the purposes of this enquiry—an account of what Equiano’sa modernity was, and which particular historical ‘demarcations’ of modernity provided for an enslaved man to achieve freedom through great fortune and great cunning, I will assume a definition of ‘modernity’ as defined by Kathleen Wilson: “. . . not one moment or age, but a set of relations that are constantly being made and unmade, contested and reconfigured, that nonetheless produce among their contemporaneous witnesses the conviction of (...) historical difference.” By adopting this definition, modernity in the times of Equiano refers to, “the cultural practices and representations that produced certain kinds of subjects and objects of knowledge, upheld widely-shared notions of space and time, or facilitated the formation of cultural identities that resulted in pluralities and contradictions as well as unities and coherences,” which provided for a slave to acquire freedom amidst eighteenth-century imperialism, slave-trade, and emerging abolitionist sentiments within bourgeois culture. (shrink)

This Article shows how three modern English thinkers — Hobbes, Locke and Bentham — construe the law as an intersection of secular eternity on the one one hand and transience in modernity on the other, allowing for immovability and movement at the same time, combining stability with change. It details how these theorists, who undoubtedly have earned themselves places of honor in the canon of modern political thought, tried to solve the problem of self-grounding in three different and yet (...) paradigmatically modern ways, each of them intertwining law and time in a different fashion, and each of them connecting both law and temporality to happiness. Thus this Article shows not only that these three British thinkers claim in one way or another that while natural desires may provide pleasure, only the law can bring happiness, but also emphasizes that, in their view, the transformation of the former into the latter entails a transformation of temporal consciousness. Thereby this Article foregrounds two elements that are crucial to an understanding of how seventeenth and eighteenth century British thinkers envisaged the transformation of pleasure into happiness by means of the law: first, the notion that the law creates or reinforces duration in social life, and second, the idea that the law can harness the immediacy of desires by assuring the legal protection of enduring pleasures, which lead to happiness. (shrink)

The modern synthesis in evolutionary biology is taken to be that period in which a consensus developed among biologists about the major causes of evolution, a consensus that informed research in evolutionary biology for at least a half century. As such, it is a particularly fruitful period to consider when reflecting on the meaning and role of chance in evolutionary explanation. Biologists of this period make reference to “chance” and loose cognates of “chance,” such as: “random,” “contingent,” “accidental,” “haphazard,” or (...) “stochastic.” Of course, what an author might mean by “chance” in any specific context varies. -/- In the following, we first offer a historiographical note on the synthesis. Second, we introduce five ways in which synthesis authors spoke about chance. We do not take these to be an exhaustive taxonomy of all possible ways in which chance meaningfully figures in explanations in evolutionary biology. These are simply five common uses of the term by biologists at this period. They will serve to organize our summary of the collected references to chance and the analysis and discussion of the following questions: • What did synthesis authors understand by chance? • How did these authors see chance operating in evolution? • Did their appeals to chance increase or decrease over time during the synthesis? That is, was there a “hardening” of the synthesis, as Gould claimed (1983)? (shrink)

As the chapter headings--and title--reveal, the book is about the role of causation and chance in modern science, and, in particular, in modern cosmology. However, because the book is shot through with serious conceptual confusion, anyone who is interested in actually learning something about the role of causation and chance in modern science is advised to look elsewhere.

I claim that the underlying premises of the modern era - e-r-a - are false in a way that carries catastrophic consequences. Despite the many genuine achievements of the modern world—which I for one would not want to live without—the spirit of modernity has been one which denigrated the basic conditions of human being. In the name of freedom and knowledge, the modern era gave birth precisely to the non-empathically responding world, the schizoid ghost in the machine, which now (...) threatens to dissolve both humanity and the natural world. We must find the means to correct the mistaken premises which form the modern error. The time has come to find a new way of renewing reason, a project requiring a transformation of values and outlook as vast as those which took place in the axial age or the modern age. The renewal of reason will involve opening the gates to the entire historical and prehistorical heritage of humankind, to renew the archaic values of family, household, neighborhood and local community and the sympathetic relations they engender, to renew those organic and communicative essences of play, dreaming and mother-infant nurturance which are our human-mammalian legacy and crucial for the development of the spontaneous self, and also making a life-sustaining world culture with self-critical institutions capable of supporting and protecting the vitality of local ways. Without the hope of such a thoroughgoing transformation, we are likely to continue to go the way of the earth’s ozone shield into corrosive self-extinction . (shrink)

Sabdabrahma Siddhanta, popularized by Patanjali and Bhartruhari will be scientifically analyzed. Sphota Vada, proposed and nurtured by the Sanskrit grammarians will be interpreted from modern physics and communication engineering points of view. Insight about the theory of language and modes of language acquisition and communication available in the Brahma Kanda of Vakyapadeeyam will be translated into modern computational terms. A flowchart of language processing in humans will be given. A gross model of human language acquisition, comprehension and communication process forming (...) the basis to develop software for relevant mind-machine modeling will be presented. The implications of such a model to artificial intelligence and cognitive sciences will be discussed. The essentiality and necessity of a physics, communication engineering , biophysical and biochemical insight as both complementary and supplementary to using mathematical and computational methods in delineating the theory of Sanskrit language is put forward. Natural language comprehension as distinct and different from natural language processing is pointed out. (shrink)

Part one of this two-part paper looked at the modern semantic developments underlying Gilson’s innovative and highly influential semantic theory in Being and Some Philosophers (BSP)—the existential neutrality of the copula, the distinction between predication and some positing or “thetic” function of judgment, and the distinction between predication and assertion. The present part of this paper offers a rereading of Gilson’s work in light of this modern backdrop. It argues that Gilson’s BSP, rather than being a purely historical exegesis of (...) the logical writings of a thirteenth-century friar, is a work of original philosophizing inspired by Aquinas, but principally engaged with modern debates. In particular, it advances a Brentano- inspired reading of Aquinas in place of Maritain’s Pfänder-inspired reading of him. Rereading Gilson in his historical setting clarifies the meaning and implication of many phrases and theses that have become commonplaces in philosophical discourse, in part because of Gilson’s work. (shrink)

This article is focused on some conditions in today’s world of globalized media, which are producing either an uncritical acquiescence or fright in Muslim societies as a result of the interaction between these societies and the contemporary Western powers that represent modernity and postmodernity on the global stage. The rise of fundamentalism, a tendency toward returning to the roots and stringently insisting upon some pure and literal interpretation of them, in almost all the religions of the world is a (...) manifestation of this fright. The central concern of this article is to suggest that fundamentalism is neither the only nor the most reasonable response for Muslim societies in the face of contemporary modernity. Muslims need to adopt an independent and critical attitude toward modernity and reshape their societies in the light of the ethics of the Qur’an, keeping in view the historical link between Islam and science in as much as Islamic culture paved the way for emergence of modern science during European Renaissance. The necessity of a pluralistic or contextualized modernization of Muslim societies is discussed along with the need for the removal of cultural duplicity in the role of the West in relation to Muslim societies. All this leads to an overall proposal for modernization which is given towards the end. (shrink)

This paper attempts to locate modern Zen and psychoanalysis in terms of contemporary philosophy of mind, particularly in view of dominant theories of cognitivism that see the mind as informational and material, with meaning being mere information in disguise. Psychoanalysis and modern Zen hold to the contrary view that the mind is “semantic,” not “syntactic,” and that the meanings we have in our heads are not reducible to the physical informational processes from which they have emerged. Meaning, as non-reducible, is (...) infinite and uncaused. However, the structure of meaning entails a split between a knower and what is known. This split creates problems in the mind which can be confronted through more, not less, engagement with the meanings in our minds, until we are self-aware and, perhaps, self-identical, with the mechanisms of consciousness that produce the meanings in our head. Such self-awareness is seen as being self-liberating rather than self-reducing. (shrink)

This research paper explores the enduring relevance of Socratic philosophy and its applicability to the challenges faced by the young generation in today's complex and rapidly evolving society. Drawing upon the timeless wisdom of Socrates, this study aims to provide actionable advice for young individuals navigating the complexities of modern life. By examining key Socratic principles such as critical thinking, self-examination, and the pursuit of virtue, this paper offers a framework for personal growth, ethical decision-making, and the cultivation of a (...) meaningful and purposeful life. (shrink)

The model of scientific revolution genesis and structure, extracted from Einstein’s revolution and considered in my previous publications, is applied to the Copernican one . According to the model, Einstein’s revolution origins can be understood due to occurrence and partial resolution of the contradictions between main rival classical physics research programmes : newtonian mechanics, maxwellian electrodynamics, thermodynamics and Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics. In general the growth of knowledge consists in interaction, interpenetration and even unification of different scientific research programmes. It is (...) argued that the Copernican revolution also happened due to realization of a certain dualism – now between mathematical astronomy and Aristotelian qualitative physics in Ptolemy’s cosmology and the corresponding efforts to eliminate it. The works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton all were the stages of the mathematics descendance from skies to earth and reciprocal extrapolation of earth physics on divine phenomena. Yet the very realization of the gap between physics and astronomy appeared to be possible because at least at its first stages modern science was a result of Christian Weltanschaugung development with its aspiration for elimination of pagan components. -/- Key words: scientific revolution, modernity, Christian Weltanschaugung, Copernicus, Ptolemy. (shrink)

As a grand narrative of progress, the utopian project of modernity is primarily concerned with notions of rationalism, universalism, and the development of a metalanguage. The triumph of the Moderate Enlightenment has seen logics of domination, accumulation and individualism incorporated into the project of modernity, with these logics giving rise to globalised capitalism as the metalanguage of modernity and neoliberal economics as the grand narrative of rational progress. The project of modernity is all but complete, requiring (...) only the formality of an end. However, rather than utopia, the foreseeable endpoint of modernity is environmental collapse, with neoliberal economics also serving as a grand narrative of environmental destruction. As an anti-modern response, postmodernism has been a triumphant failure. While there is much to be gained from the postmodern critique of modernity, its incredulity towards metanarratives has left it incapable of forming an adequate response to modernity, especially in regards to action on climate change. Postmodernism is better characterized as a crisis located within modernity itself and it will be argued that rather than the pursuit of the modern or the post-modern, we need to re-imagine ourselves as proto- historical to overcome the impasse of late-capitalism. (shrink)

This essay seeks to engage critically with the transhumanist goal of achieving the technological possibility of transferring consciousness into a computer. The general aim of the critical impulse of this essay is to interpret the various techno-optimistic attempts at transcending the bodily condition of life as being a kind of modern-day necromancy. By alluding to the magical or ritual notion of necromancy, this essay will show how the rationale behind Transhumanism and mind-transfer are premised on a desire to overcome life (...) itself by becoming immortal. Necromancy, whereby a sorcerer or practitioner suspends the dialectics of life and death, elevates the human to an inhuman position by attacking the very foundation of life itself – reviving the dead. This essay will juxtapose Transhumanism with necromancy by interpreting the goal to develop mind-transferring technologies in relation to texts that describe various technological means for practicing the art of necromancy or dark magic. By reinterpreting Transhumanism in this manner, this essay will show how the ritualistic, magical, or mythical foundations, that humanity had earlier called upon to overcome the fragility of their bodies have survived in the premises that underlining the modern-day endeavors to overcome the body via technological means. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce an innovative approach to the theoretical debate of the last two centuries on how to appropriately conceptualize modern democracy. The main argument that is being put forward by the analysis is that the common reliance on the assumption of pre-modern political philosophy, that democracy is a certain type of political regime or at least a form of rule, has become insufficient to cover the influence and scope of its modern meaning and practical (...) use. Political theory faces the risk of becoming misguided and prejudiced, if the problem of re-conceptualizing democracy is not taken seriously into account. The article tends to offer new insights on the ongoing democratic debate by focusing on one simple question: can modern democracy be understood in terms of a political regime or should it be viewed as a distinct entity? The field of study relevant to our analysis of democracy ranges from Enlightenment thinkers, such as J. J. Rousseau and Voltaire, to XIX–XX century political philosophers (like A. de Tocqueville and C. Schmitt) and some contemporary theorists, like P. Manent. The article starts with explanations, why it is important to look deeper into the conceptual difficulties of modern democracy and why political philosophy and its theories on political regimes are crucial for such a task. Parts 3–5 of the analysis tend to prove that the only way to appropriately understand modern democracy is to identify and question its basic assumptions: the sovereignty of the people and social equality. The final part of the article – part 6 – offers a critique of understanding modern democracy as a political regime. The critique identifies three main theoretical problems, inherent to the discussion on modern democracy, which make it difficult to avoid contradictions when applying the name “democratic” to various political regimes. The article concludes that: First, democracy is not a political regime in a pre-modern sense of the term, which is an assumption still widely taken for granted in political theory. Democracy should be seen as a universal principle of legitimization of power, which can be applied by various regimes. Second, political philosophy faces the danger of adopting an oversimplified understanding of democracy as merely an institutional form of rule (a view perpetuated by social sciences); as well as the danger of conceptualizing democracy as a substance-free and abstract ideal, applicable to all forms of government. Both of these concepts fail to acknowledge the scope of democracy and thus should not be seen as satisfactory. Third, theoretical discussions on democracy suffer from three conceptual shortcomings, which make it impossible to speak about democracy as a political regime. The three problems are: 1. a tendency to see democracy as an ideal concept with no need of practical grounding; 2. making democracy a formal concept with no need of references to its normative nor positive substance; 3. making democracy a pseudo-religious entity by imitating structural elements of Christian religion: faith in a universal nature of humans, an all-powerful sovereign (the people), messianic mission. Lastly, the article generalizes that political philosophy has an obligation to demystify the concept of democracy in order to re-emerge discussions about the substance of different political regimes. For this purpose the concept of loyalty should be taken into account. If we want to prove that a certain state corresponds to a certain political regime, we must try to understand why its subjects maintain loyalty to a specific form of rule. Only unprejudiced political philosophy is capable of such a task, that’s why it should avoid taking the concept of democracy for granted. (shrink)