The “free world” was the political rhetoric used during the Cold War in contrast to the “communist” countries. However, the “free world” was manifestly never free: the state considerably interfered with people in their persons and their property. And the “communist” countries were manifestly never communist in the Marxist sense: there was no common ownership of the means of production with the absence of social classes, money, and the state. It would have been more accurate to call them the “authoritarian (...) world” and the “totalitarian world”. Today the “free world” is sometimes still used, but Western countries remain authoritarian in terms of taxation and restrictive legislation. The, by implication, “unfree world” is largely only somewhat more authoritarian. Why does this continuing authoritarianism exist in the West? (shrink)

Here we will go beyond the variety of violence to show its unity, common points and continuities. For although there are multiple forms of violence, they are interrelated: they define a continuum from trivial to extreme violence. Violence against oneself, things, living things such as plants and animals, other nations, the other, one’s fellow human beings, therefore the violence of society against its members, which returns to self-violence. Another continuum is its spiral development, with violence generating violence and pushing it (...) to grow. Violence can also be learned, we progress ever further in violence: in gangs, in armies, in society... Everyone is capable of violence, sometimes to a good advantage as in self-defence. Here it resides in necessity, that of survival, but in general it is impunity that allows and encourages it. In closed, totalitarian, universes: family, work, hospital, army, state... The proximity and distance between the perpetrator and the victim defines yet another continuity. We will discuss the various elements that contribute to its development. And paradoxically, to see that violence also serves to avoid violence. In this way, evacuating it, refusing it, is in fact feeding it, which makes today’s violence, which is an evolution of previous violence and which prepares and defines tomorrow’s violence. (shrink)

Như thế, hôm nay chính là ngày đầu tiên bước sang tuổi lên 7 của ISR, mặc dù nếu đếm năm, thì đã sang năm thứ 7 kể từ 1-1-2023 rồi.

Transnational, global trades, investments, and travels, amongst other drivers of globalization, helps to reverberate the deadly coronavirus pandemic from Wuhan, China, across the world like whirl fire. In order to contain the infectious spread of the pandemic, and mitigate its negative effects on macro-economic variables, the World Health Organization, (WHO) designed Covid-19 protocols that are being enforced by governments and people of the world. Based on the above account, the study examined the Second wave effect of Covid’19 pandemic on transportation (...) business: Keke-napep and Motorcycle transport systems in Asaba metropolis, Nigeria. The main objective is to empirically determine the real impact of the pandemic on rural land transport business. The study employed structured questionnaire and interview methods to generate data from the 250 respondents selected using the census sampling technique. Out of the 250 sets of questionnaires administered, 235 (94%) were retrieved while 15 (6%) were rejected. The statistical tools used for analyzing data were correlation and multiple regression techniques. Findings were that covid’19 pandemic negatively affected rural land transport business. The study concludes that, the coronavirus pandemic caused a contraction in transport business. It is therefore recommended that, there is a need for government to relax the stringent covid’19 protocols to allow economic activities to resume again. Campaigns on safety and hygiene should be intensified so that the populace will imbibe the culture of general cleanliness and personal hygiene, amongst others. (shrink)

Scientific journal presented by Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University, Ukraine, Melitopol. Main points: 1. Actual Problems of Modern Philosophy 2. Researches in Philosophy connected with natural components, sociological aspects and self - identity development.

This is an anthology that is coming out in Farsi. -/- Table of Contents (in English): -/- 1. (2021). “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.” The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, ed. Julian Wuerth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 691-695. 2. (2010). “Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door . . . One More Time: Kant’s Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis.” The Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 41(4), pp. 403-421. 3. (2006). “Kant and Dependency Relations: (...) Kant on the State’s Right to Redistribute Resources to Protect the Rights of Dependents.” Dialogue – Canadian Philosophical Review, Vol. 45, pp. 257-284. 4. (2011). “A Kantian Conception of Global Justice.” Review of International Studies, Vol. 37(5), pp. 2043-2057. 5. (2010). “Kant’s Non-Absolutist Conception of Political Legitimacy: How Public Right ‘Concludes’ Private Right in ‘The Doctrine of Right.’”Kant-Studien, Vol. 3, pp. 331-351. 6. (2008). “Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice Is Impossible in the State of Nature.” Kantian Review, Vol. 13(2), pp. 1-45. 7. (2021). “Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 121 (2), pp. 221-248. 8. (2020). “Kantian Care.” Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Political Theory, ed. Asha L. Bhandary and Amy Baehr, New York: Routledge, pp. 50-74. 9. (2020). “Kant and Moral Responsibility for Animals.” Kant & Animals, ed. Lucy Allais and John Callanan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 157-175. -/- Thanks to all the original publishers of these articles for permitting them to be reprinted in translation here. Photo cover: pluspointsphere(.com). (shrink)

Process philosophies tend to emphasise the value of continuous creation as the core of their discourse. For Bergson, Whitehead, Deleuze, and others the real is ultimately a creative becoming. Critics have argued that there is an irreducible element of (almost religious) belief in this re-evaluation of immanent creation. While I don’t think belief is necessarily a sign of philosophical and existential weakness, in this paper I will examine the possibility for the concept of universal creation to be a political and (...) ethical axiom, the result of a global social contract rather than of a new spirituality. I argue here that a coherent way to fight against potentially totalitarian absolutes is to replace them with a virtual absolute that cannot territorialise without deterritorialising at the same time: the Creal principle. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss prospects for democracy in the Middle East. I argue, first, that some democratic experiments—for instance, Egypt under Mohammed Morsi—are not in keeping with etymological and historical meanings of democracy; and second, that efforts to promote democracy, especially as exemplified in U.N. documents emphasizing universal rights grounded in Western traditions, are possibly totalitarian and also colonialist and hence counter to democratic ideals insofar as they impart one set of values as the only morally acceptable ones. (...) A respectful dialogue in which people from both regions strive to understand conditions giving rise to certain social practices would be more productive than morally superior attitudes, and help all to see areas where their respective cultures could be improved. I conclude by discussing concepts of democratic and pragmatic faith articulated by John Dewey and William James, arguing that democracy will continue to flounder in the Middle East so long as the basic trust implied in these concepts is lacking; and how Westerners might consider this a cautionary tale regarding social attitudes and public policies contrary to democratic life in their own countries. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive study of Plato’s conception of justice. The universality of human rights and the universality of human dignity, which is recognised as their source, are among the crucial philosophical problems in modern-day legal orders and in contemporary culture in general. If dignity is genuinely universal, then human beings also possessed it in ancient times. Plato not only perceived human dignity, but a recognition of dignity is also visible in his conception of justice, which forms the (...) core of his philosophy. Plato’s Republic is consistently interpreted here as a treatise on justice, relating to an individual and not to the state. The famous myth of the cave is a story about education taking place in the world here and now. The best activity is not contemplation, but acting for the benefit of others. Not ideas, but individuals are the proper objects of love. Plato’s philosophy may provide foundations for modern-day human rights protection rather than for totalitarian orders. (shrink)

Nietzsche regarded nihilism as an outgrowth of the natural sciences which, he worried, were bringing about “an essentially mechanistic [and hence meaningless] world.” Nihilism in this sense refers to the doctrine that there are no values, or that everything we might value is worthless. In the last issue of Modern Horizons, I offered this conditional explanation of the relation of science and nihilism: that a scientific worldview is nihilistic insofar as it rules out the existence of anything that cannot in (...) principle be precisely picked out or identified.i What kinds of entities would a scientific worldview eliminate on the basis of such an assumption? The list is long and various, but it includes those intentional (mentalii) entities of our consciousness that underwrite the existence of persons, and more basically of thought itself – e.g., belief, value, agency, truth, and meaning. I argued in that previous paper that intentional concepts are ultimately inscrutable, and yet impossible coherently to deny. I claimed that we could no more doubt the existence of values than we could doubt reality itself – and when I spoke of values I had in mind the (suspicion-engendering) concept of the good, and was even toying with the related idea of the Logos (an even more suspect concept). There are a several attractive reasons why the idea of the good, or the Logos, might be regarded with suspicion, and why either might reasonably be discarded as a pseudo concept. Leaving the latter concern until later, we might worry that insisting on the possibility of an overarching good supports the idea of a total worldview, or that we are gradually progressing towards a single correct vision of things. A progressivist, totalising vision would seem to foreclose on outlooks, values, and persons that deviate from its most likely trajectory, and may stymie or interfere with incommensurate forms of otherness,iii awkward disturbances, and idiosyncrasies threatening its more well-established precincts – perhaps whatever stands out as strange, rare, and indissolubly individual. The idea of an emerging universal standard of values thus might amount to a source of oppression, e.g., if it provides a warrant to transform a currently limited universally prescriptive set of global practices and institutes into an ever more elaborate totalising hierarchy. In the discussion below, I will say why the good, conceived as the Logos, suggests a more salutary trajectory for individuals, and erodes support for either a totalitarian vision or a dissolving nihilistic outlook on the world. (shrink)

Arthur Kaufmann is one of the most prominent figures among the contemporary philosophers of law in German speaking countries. For many years he was a director of the Institute of Philosophy of Law and Computer Sciences for Law at the University in Munich. Presently, he is a retired professor of this university. Rare in the contemporary legal thought, Arthur Kaufmann's philosophy of law is one with the highest ambitions — it aspires to pinpoint the ultimate foundations of law by explicitly (...) proposing an ontology, a general theory of knowledge and concept of a person. Kaufmann's work derives, first of all, from the thinking of Gustav Radburch, his teacher, and then from ideas of Karl Engish and Hans-Georg Gadamer. The philosophy undertakes to pursue the ultimate foundation of law, law which is understood by Kaufmann, first of all, as a "concrete judgement" that is, what is right in a concrete situation. Justice belongs to the essence of law and "unjust law" is contradictio in adiectio. Kaufmann opposes all those theories, which as the only foundation for establishing just law (Recht) adopt legal norms (Gesetz). In Kaufmann's opinion , such theories are powerless in the face of all types of distortions of law rendered by political forces. He suggests that the basic phenomenon which needs to be explained and which cannot be disregarded by a philosopher of law is so-called "legal lawlessness" ("Gestzliches Unrecht"). "Legal lawlessness" which forms a part of life experience for the people of twentieth century totalitarian states. It proved "with the accuracy of scientific experiment" that the reality of law consists of something more than bare conformity with legal norms. The existence of lex corrupta indicates that law contains something "non-dispositive" which requires acknowledgment of both law-maker and judge. Kaufmann, accepting the convergent concept of truth and cognition, assumes that "non-dispositive" content, emerging as the conformity of a number of cognitive acts of different subjects (inter-subjective communicativeness and verifiability), indicates the presence of being in this cognition. The questions "What is law?" and "What are the principles of a just solution?" lead straight to the ontology of law, to the question about the ontological foundations of law. Kaufmann discerns the ontological foundations of law in the specifically understood "nature of things" and, ultimately, in a "person". He proposes a procedural theory of justice, founded on a "person". In my work, I undertake to reconstruct the train of thought which led Kaufmann to the recognition of a "person" as the ontological foundation of law. In the first part, the conception of philosophy adopted by Kaufmann, initial characteristics of law — of reality which is the subject of analysis, as well as, the requirements for proper philosophical explanation of law posed by Kaufmann are introduced. In the second, Kaufmann's reconstruction of the process of the realisation of law is presented. Next, the conception of analogy which Kaufmann uses when explaining law is analyzed. In the fourth part, Kaufmann's conception of ontological foundations of law is discussed. A critical analysis is carried out in which I demonstrate that the theory of the ontological foundation of law proposed by Kaufmann and the concept of a person included in it do not allow a satisfac¬tory explanation of the phenomenon of "legal lawlessness" and lead to a number of difficulties in the philosophical explanation of law. Finally, the perspectives of a proper formulation of the issue of the ontological foundations of law are drafted in the context of the analyzed theory. My interest is centered on the conception of philosophy adopted by Kaufmann, according to which the existence of the reality is inferred on the basis of a certain configuration of the content of consciousness, whereas at the point of departure of philosophy of law, the data to be explained is a certain process, which is, basically, a process of cognition, while the reality appears only as a condition for the possibility of the occurrence of the process. I wish to argue that the difficulties which appear in the explanation of law are a consequence of the assumed fundamental philosophical solu¬tions, which seem to be characteristic, though usually not assumed explicitly, in philoso¬phy and theory of law dominant at present in continental Europe. Thereby, I wish to show the significance of ontological and epistemological solutions to the possibility of a proper formulation of the problems posed by philosophy and theory of law. Kaufmann proclaims himself in favour of a philosophy which poses questions about the ultimate foundations of understanding of the reality. In epistemology, he assumes that answers to the questions "What is reality like?" and ultimately "What is real?" are inferred on the basis of uniformity of a cognitive acts of different subjects. Cognition of the reality is accomplished exclusively through the content of conceptual material. The two fundamental questions posed by philosophy of law are "What is just law?" and "How is the just law enacted?" The latter is a question about the process of achieving a solution to a concrete case. Since, in Kaufmann's opinion, law does not exist apart from the process of its realisation, an answer to the question about the manner of realisation of law is of fundamental significance to answering the question: "What is law?" and to the explanation of the question about the ontological grounding of law, which is, as well, the foundation of justice. The proper solution has to take into account the moment of "non-dispositive" content of law; its positiveness understood as the reality and, at the same time, it has to point to the principles of the historical transformation of the content. Law, in the primary meaning of the word, always pertains, in Kaufmann's opinion, to a concrete case. A legal norm is solely the "possibility" of law and the entirely real law is ipsa res iusta, that which is just in a given situation. Determination of what is just takes place in a certain type of process performed by a judge (or by man confronted with a choice). Kaufmann aims to reconstruct this process. A question about the ontological foundation of law is a question about the ontological foundations of this process. In the analyzed theory it is formulated as a question about the transcendental conditions, necessary for the possibility of the occurrence of the process: how the reality should be thought to make possible the reconstructed process of the realisation of law. Kaufmann rejects the model for finding a concrete solution based on simple subsump¬tion and proposes a model in which concrete law ensues, based on inference by analogy, through the process of "bringing to conformity" that which is normative with that which is factual. Kaufmann distinguishes three levels in the process of the realisation of law. On the highest level, there are the fundamental legal principles, on the second legal norms, on the third — concrete solutions. The fundamental principles of law are general inasmuch as they cannot be "applied" directly to concrete conditions of life, however, they play an important part in establishing norms. A judge encounters a concrete situation and a system of legal norms. A life situation and norms are situated on inherently different levels of factuality and normativeness. In order to acquire a definite law both a norm (system of norms) and a life situation (Lebenssachverhalt) should undergo a kind of "treatment" which would allow a mutual conformity to be brought to them. Legal norms and definite conditions of life come together in the process of analogical inference in which the "factual state" ("Tatbestand") — which represents a norm, and in the "state of things" ("Sachverhalt") — which represents a specific situation are constructed. A "factual state" is a sense interpreted from a norm with respect to specific conditions of life. The "state of things" is a sense constructed on the basis of concrete conditions of life with respect to norms (system of norms). Legal norms and concrete conditions of life meet in one common sense established during the process of realisation of law. Mutatis mutandis the same refers to the process of composition of legal norms: as the acquisition of concrete law consists in a mutual "synchronization" of norms and concrete conditions of life, so acquisition of legal norms consists of bringing to conformity fundamental principles and possible conditions of life. According to Kaufmann, both of these processes are based on inference through analogy. As this inference is the heart of these processes it is simultaneously a foundation finding just law and justice. How does Kaufmann understand such an inference? As the basis for all justice he assumes a specifically interpreted distributive justice grounded on proportionality. Equality of relations is required between life conditions and their normative qualification. Concrete conditions of life are ascribed normative qualification not through simple application of a general norm. More likely, when we look for a solution we go from one concrete normative qualified case to another, through already known "applications" of norms to a new "application". The relation between life conditions and their normative qualifica¬tion has to be proportional to other, earlier or possible (thought of) assignments of that which is factual to that which is normative. Law as a whole does not consist of a set of norms, but only of a unity of relations. Since law is a, based on proportion, relative unity of a norm and conditions of life, in order to explain law in philosophical manner, the question about ontological base of this unity has to be asked. What is it that makes the relation between a norm and conditions of life "non-dispositive"? What is the basis for such an interpretation of a norm and case which makes it possible to bring a norm and conditions of life into mutual "conformity"? This is a question about a third thing (next to norms and conditions of life), with respect to which the relative identity between a norm and conditions of life occurs, about the intermediary between that which is normative and that which is factual and which provides for the process of establishing of norms, as well as, finding solutions. It is the "sense" in which the idea of law or legal norm and conditions of life have to be identical to be brought to mutual "conformity". In Kaufmann's opinion such a sense is nothing else but the "nature of things" which determines the normative qualification of the reality. Since establishment of this "sense" appears to be "non-dispositive" and controlled inter-subjectively (namely, other subjects will reach a similar result) so, in conformity with the convergent concept of truth, the "nature of things" must be assigned a certain ontological status. According to Kaufmann this is a real relation which occurs between being and obligation, between the conditions of life and normative quality. However, it should be underlined that from the point of view of the analyzed system the "nature of things" is a correlate of constructed sense, a result of a construction which is based on the principle of consistent understanding of senses ("non-normative" and "normative") and is not a reality which is transcendent against the arrangement of senses. In Kaufmann's theory, inference from analogy appears to be a process of reshaping the concepts (senses) governed by tendency to understand the contents appearing in relations between that which is factual and that which is normative in a consistent way. The analogical structure of language (concepts) and recognition of being as composed of an essence and existence is an indispensable requirement for the possibility of the realisation of law, based on specifically understood inference from analogy. It is necessary to assume a moment of existence without content which ensures unity of cognition. Existence emerges thus as a condition of the possibility of cognition. According to Kaufmann, the "nature of things" is the heart of inference through analogy and the basis for establishment of finding of law. Inference from the "state of things" to a norm or from a norm to the "state of things" always means inference through the "nature of things". The "nature of things" is the proper medium of objective legal sense sought in every cognition of law. In Kaufmann's view, the question whether the "nature of things" is ultima ratio of interpretation of law or is only a means of supplement gaps in law or whether it is one of the sources of law, is posed wrongly. The "nature of things" serves neither to supplement the gaps nor is it a source of law as, for example, a legal norm may be. It is a certain kind of "catalyst" necessary in every act of making law and solving a concrete case. Owing to "nature of things" it is possible to bring to a mutual conformity the idea of law and possible conditions of life or legal norms and concrete conditions of life. In Kaufmann's conception the "nature of things" is not yet the ultimate basis for understanding the "non-dispositiveness" of law. The relation between obligation and being is determined in the process of the realisation of law. Both the process itself and that which is transformed in this process are given. A question about the ontological bases of "material" contents undergoing "treatment" in the process of the realisation of law and about being which is the basis of regularity of the occurrence of the process arises. Only this will allow an explanation that the result of the process is not optional. Thus, a question about reality to which law refers and about the subject realising the law has to be formed. To this, Kaufmann gives the following answer: that which is missing is man but not "empirical man" but man as a "person". A "person" understood as a set of relations between man and other people and things. A "person" is the intermediary between those things which are different — norm and case are brought to conformity. A "person" is that which is given and permanent in the process of the realisation of law. It determines the content of law, is "subject" of law; this aspect is described by Kaufmann as the "what" of the process of realisation of law. A "person" consists of precisely just these relations which undergo "treatment" in the process. On the other hand, a "person" is "a place" in which the processes of realisation of law occur, it is the "how" of normative discourse, a "person" is that which determines the procedure of the process, being "outside" of it. This aspect of a "person" is connected with the formal moment of law. A "person" being, at the same time, the "how" and the "what" of the process of the realisation of law, is also, to put it differently, a structural unity of relation and that which constitutes this relation (unity of relatio and relata). According to this approach a "person" is neither an object nor a subject. It exists only "in between". It is not substance. Law is the relation between being and obligation. That which is obligatory is connected with that which is general. That which is general does not exist on its own, it is not completely real. Accordingly, a "person" as such is also not real. It is relational, dynamic and historical. A "person" is not a state but an event. In Kaufmann's opinion, such a concept of a "person" helps to avoid the difficulties connected with the fungibility of law in classical legal positivism. A "person" is that which is given, which is not at free disposal and secures the moment of "non-dispositiveness" of law. Kaufmann concludes: "The idea (»nature«) of law is either the idea of a personal man or is nothing". Theory points at the structure of realising law and explains the process of adoption of general legal norms for a concrete situation. The analysis has shown however, that in this theory a satisfactory answer to the question about the ultimate foundations of law is not given. It seems that in the analyzed theory the understanding of human being takes place through understanding of law. What is good for man as a "person", what is just, what a "person" deserves may be determined only against the existing system of law. A "per¬son" adopted as a basis of law is the reality postulated in the analysis of the process of the realisation of law. It is a condition of possibility of this process ( explaining, on one hand, its unity and, on the other hand, the non-dispositive moments stated in this process). A "person" in the discussed theory is entirely defined by the structure of law, it can be nothing more than that which is given in law, what law refers to, what law is about. Being, which is a "person", is constituted by relations between people and objects, the relations which are based on fundamental links between norms and conditions of life established in a process of bringing them to conformity. It has to be assumed that man as a "person" is a subject of law only as far as realising law "treats" given senses according to their current configuration. The system of law is a starting point and it describes in content what man is as a "person". Moreover, being a "person" is the condition for entering legal relations. Consistently, Kaufmann writes that "empirical man" is not the subject of law, man is not "out of nature" a "person". People become "persons" due to the fact that they acknowledge each other as "persons" — acknowledging, at the same time, law. This acknowledgement is a con¬dition of existence, of the possibility of the occurrence of process of realisation of law and of constituting legal relations which ultimately constitute a "person". Kaufmann assumes, that law tends towards a moral aim: it may and must create an external freedom, without which the internal freedom to fulfil moral obligations cannot develop. However, this postulate is not based on the necessary structure of human being. From the point of view of his system, it is nothing more than only a condition for the possibility of the occurrence of the process of the realisation of law — lack of freedom would destroy the "how" of this process. Thus, the postulate to protect the freedom of personal acts has to be interpreted, in accordance with the analyzed theory, as a postulate, the fulfilment of which aims ultimately at the accomplishment of the very same process of realisation of law itself and not the realisation of a given man. Kaufmann considers a "person" to be an element which unites the system of law as a whole. Law is a structure of relations, which are interdependent and inter-contingent. Consequently, a "person" which is to form the ontological basis of law has to be entity consisting of all relations. Being also the "how" of the process of realisation of law, if a "person" is to warrant its unity, it has to be a common source for all procedures. Hence, a single "person" would constitute a subject of law. Man appears to be only a moment of a certain entirety, realisation of which should be an aim of his actions. Law, creating a "person" as an object and subject of law becomes a primary entity. In the analyzed theory, the basis for determination of aims which law sets to man is not the allocation of man-subject to something which improves him but rather, such relation is only just constituted by law. A question appears, why should aims set in law also be the aims of "empirical man"? Why is this "empirical man" to be punished in the name of a "person" understood in such a way? If, however, it is assumed that what is man is determined by a system which is superior to him, then man has to be understood only as a part of a whole and there are no grounds to prohibit istrumental treatment of man and so the road to all aspects of totalitarianism might be opened. A problem of the application of created theory to the reality arises, the reality which the theory pretends to explain. Ultimately in his theory Kaufmann does not give any systemic grounds for a radical questioning of the validity of any legal norms. Every new norm becomes an equal part of system of norms. It is only its interpretation and application to given conditions of life that may be disputable, however, this refers to all norms without exception. Cohesive inter-pretation of norms and applications is necessary and sufficient for the acquisition of just law. New norms have to be interpreted in the light of others, correspondingly, the other norms require reinterpretation in the light of the new ones. Contradiction in interpretation of a norm does not form a basis for questioning norms but may serve only to question the manner of their interpretation (understanding). Therefore, no grounds exist to assume any legal norm as criminal or unjust, and in consequence, to question any consistently realised system based on formally, properly established norms, as "legal lawlessness". As law and a "person" do not exist without the process of realisation of law, the role of legal safety becomes crucial as the condition for the possibility of the occurrence of the process of realisation of law. Denying legal safety would be tantamount to negation of law in general (also of moral law) as negation of safety takes away, at the same time, the basis for occurrence of the process of realisation of law. Moreover, any lack of legal safety would also mean lack of a basis for the existence of man as a "person". Kaufmann's thesis, that civil disobedience is legalized only when it has a chance to lead to success, consistent with his concept of the foundations of law, seems to point directly to conclusions which deny the facts taken under consideration and doubtlessly Kaufmann's own intentions, since it would have to be assumed that accordingly there are no grounds to question a legal system in force based on violence which secures its operation. Force finally seems to determine which one of the mutually irreconcilable normative systems constitute law and which does not. A legitimate position is one which leads to success, it is the weaker system which is negated. If so, then basically violent imposition of law is not an act directed against the law in force but, to the contrary, realisation of law. In the context of the new system the former system of law may be talked about as unjust solely in the sense of being incapable of being consistently united with the new. However, at the base, ultimately, lies force which reaffirms differences and excludes from the process of realisation of law certain norms and their interpretations. Kaufmann was aiming at grounding of that which is "non-dispositive" in a certain given framework of interpretation. Nevertheless, he does not provide foundations for the understanding of phenomena, which he undertakes to explain at a point of departure. Instead of explaining them the theory negates the possibility of their existence. The reality postulated in regard to "non-dispositive" moments of the reconstructed process of acquiring law consist of a specifically understood "person", which appears in Kaufmann's conceptions as a condition of the possibility of the realisation of law. According to this approach understanding of a "person" may be only a function of law. To understand "legal lawlessness" and foundations of justice it is necessary to look for such theory of law in which understanding of man as a "person" and being is not a function of understanding of law (in which a "person" is not only a condition for possibility of reconstructed process of realisation of law; for possibility of cognition processes). It seems necessary to start from theory of being and a "person" based on broader experience than the one assumed by Kaufmann and reconstruct the ontological foundations of the process of realisation of law only in such perspective. Kaufmann points out that that to which law refers is ipsa res iusta a concrete relation of man to other people and things. This relation, in his theory, appears to be basically only just constituted by law (normative senses "applied" to conditions of life). Therefore, understanding the relation between a given man and other people and things which constitute the aim of his actions, that is understanding of good, is enacted against the background of constitution of senses; constitution which is a result of a process aiming towards consistent understanding of particular contents (of nor¬mative and non-normative senses). "Being" is secondary towards constructed senses it is only their correlate. The primary relation consists of relation of a man to law (system of norms), while the secondary relation is one of man to something which is the aim of his action (relation between man and good). Considering such approach it is difficult to envision a satisfying answer to the fundamental question: why does law put concrete man under any obligation to obey it? The source of this problem can be seen in reduction of the base for understanding good to content of obligation formulated in auto-reflection. Such reduction seems to be a consequence of Kaufmann's adoption of "convergent concept of truth" and in con¬sequence his recognition of indirect, essentialistic grasp of reality formulated in concepts as the basic and only foundation of theory of being and of law. In view of such an approach, analogy of law, concepts and being is the condition for the possibility of the process of transformation of senses which aims at consistent interpretation of all law. Existence is postulated with respect to the possibility of unity of experience and cognition. However, also a different approach to understanding of the problem of being and good is possible. In spontaneous cognition being is affirmed, first of all, not as a certain, non-contradictory, determined content, but as something existing. Together with a cer¬tain content (passed indirectly through notions) existence of being is co-given. The basis for unity of being is not formed by the consistence of content, as it is in the case of the theories departing from the analysis of cognition processes, but by an act of existence realising content (essence). Such an approach makes it also possible to go beyond the convergent concept of truth. It is worth mentioning that allocation of an agent to good is realised not only by the content of duty. A statement that something is good is primary with respect to determination of this good in content. The recognised good always bears some content, however, there are no reasons to base the concept of good exclusively on indirect, formulated in concepts cognition. As primary, can be adopted the relation of man to good and not of man to law. Determination in content appears to be only an articulation of aspectual cognition of being, as an object of action. In such a case the basis for relative unity of norm and conditions of life is not the "nature of things" understood as correlate of sense but it is relation to good based on internal constitution of man as potential, not self-sufficient being. It does not mean, that the moments of the process of realisation of law singled out by Kaufmann are not important to determination of what is just. He, quite rightly, points to significant role played by norms in the evaluation of concrete situations, in man's search for closer specification in content of good innate to him. The structure of process of determining law for a concrete situation, to a great degree corresponds to the processes of determining law which take place not only in the legal sciences. Kaufmann's analyses of the process of realisation of law show the complexity of the structure of these processes and point towards important moments allowing a better understanding of law and man. Nevertheless, these analyses cannot be a basis for construction of philosophical theory of law, theory which hopes to point out the ultimate, ontological foundations for understanding law. Kaufmann's results may become fully valid only in a more general perspective including broader experience at the point of departure. (shrink)

This article has been written about the explanation of the scientific affair. There are the philosophical circles that a philosopher must consider their approaches. Postmodern thinkers generally refuse the universality of the rational affair. They believe that the experience cannot reach general knowledge. They emphasize on the partial and plural knowledge. Any human being has his knowledge and interpretation. The world is always becoming. Diversity is an inclusive epistemological principle. Naturally, in such a state, the scientific activity is a non-sense (...) process. The postmodern world is a post-scientific world. Another collection of approaches to science belongs to the analytical philosophy. The main part of analytical philosophy context centers around language. Language is the center of the world. We can study the world through language. Language is the possibility of knowledge. If we overcome the language games, we can study the world accurately. Generally, at present, it seems that the rational thoughts are marginal points in the sea of irrationality. We can probably talk about an anarchistic epistemological situation. Another issue is the role of observation to form a scientific activity. In this situation, the question is whether the observation is the technique of gathering information or the final reference of original scientific analysis. In relation to this issue, the confrontation of science with the families and the categories of the objects is the main problem. For more than two thousand years, the totalitarian heritage of the Aristotelian logic has been the guideline of categorizations for the human being. In order to reach an inclusive and applicable result, we should categorize everything; but it is not really known that if the method of the world categorization is the same or not. The accordance of the conceptual categories with their extensions in the world is one of the main problems which has malfunctioned the scientific system. It is better to say that it has deactivated science. Moreover, there are many interpretations for each event based on its occurrence conditions. For example, consider a fever; In order to diagnose its cause, the most significant factor is the role of a physician. There is no sense in saying that the observation has diagnosed the cause of the fever. This is the observer that plays a determinative role. Another problem is the disputes between realism and instrumentalism. Instrumentalists believe that to form a theory, the concepts are just the tools of scientific researches. Based on realism, but we confront the concepts in the original way. This chaos causes the scientific system to collapse. Now the question is what the solution is. I would like to propose my scheme that is constructed based on a main principle: there is no occurrence in the world unless we can trace the effect of consciousness back in that occurrence. In other words, there is no accident in the world. One can argue that it is the main problem that the effects of consciousness ---if there is such a concept--- is not traceable in the world. An immediate response to this problem is an inefficient technique . The observation is a technique . It is not the method of interpretation. Some people argue that the empirical approach cannot lead us to an authentic criterion to know the world. Because there is no criterion for truth, and if there is probably such a criterion, we can obtain it via several ways. The solution to the first problem is simple. Any occurrence is a truth; even we suppose it as a partial truth. Therefore we can say we face a multi-facial world. It can be the solution of the second problem: if consciousness is essentially the origin of the world and all occurrences, we face consciousness as a unique truth; even its creations contradict each other. If there is no consciousness as a creator of the world and we cannot trace it back in all existents, then what should we do? If there is consciousness, why its creations contradict each other. Since consciousness is a will, it is able to decide in any situation it intends. The issue of contradictory consciousness intentions has a teleological aspect. We cannot judge its teleological substance at present. If we are able to believe that there is no consciousness at all, it will contradict the main practical principle in our lives. Every action that we take in our lives is conjoined with consciousness. We learn many things from many sources. The substance of our instincts and emotions can be questioned. It is true that, infact we cannot analyze our instincts and emotions, but we can discuss explicitly about the rational elements of the instincts. What are these elements? These elements are the quality of their appearance. The quality of instinct appearance is different among beings. The strength and the depth and length of these irrational qualities are different in all beings. What factors or factor cause the differences among these aspects? There is certainly a determinative factor. The same factor which determines the occurrence of any event. Even if we believe in partial knowledge, we must accept the confrontation of the occurrences. Thus it is not possible to refuse the occurrences as the reference unit of knowledge. In spite of the difference, every occurrence, even as a single occurrence, happens and we can regard it as the reference unit of knowledge. Then we can consider every occurrence as an occurred object. When an occurrence happens, then it is a determined object. Everywhere there is a determination, there is certainly a determiner. Why do not we encounter a multi-determinative consciousness? Because there are a few aspects of the unique super-consciousness. These aspects are motion and growth and the amount of constituent material in every being. In all over the world, the difference in these factors creates all differences. Thus we do not encounter the plural consciousness. Is the world birth accidental? Infact, there is no accident. The accident has no meaning in the world. As explained above, the constructing element of the world is the occurrence. An occurrence can be analyzed. Therefore, we should not talk about the accident until we are not able to analyze all phenomena. We can look at every subject from different points of view at present. Thus there is theoretically no possibility to say that a certain matter is the consequence of the accident. The accident is a popular and inexact concept that has no philosophical content. Moreover, the definition of consciousness versus its contradiction causes the collapse of all epistemological axioms. We can ask why we must not define other logical principles against their contradictions. Thinkers who deny the role of logic usually ignore the role of logic. They have not been able to deny the logical function to form an epistemological system because it is not an easy task. In this article some other issues were discussed, such as the consideration of restriction as a stable and firm foundation of knowledge instead of the Descartes cogito. In addition to these philosophical points some other issues were propounded such as the role of instrumental mechanism to form the new science and the great alterations in philosophy and history of Europe. Many issues threaten human civilization. The only way to deal with such threats is certainly to use scientific facilities. The scientific possibilities undoubtedly come from a complete and inclusive scientific theory. The present article is an attempt to explain the scientific affair in order to develop human achievement, however small. -/- . (shrink)

The article shows that Pope John Paul II contributed not only to a practical weakening of totalitarian systems in the political world, but also to a significant deepening of theoretical knowledge about them. In the light of his teaching, totalitarianism appears as an attack on the human person, consisting in an attempt to subordinate him to a collective subject. The main reason for the emergence and implementation of totalitarian ideologies is the negation of God as the ultimate guarantor (...) of human dignity and freedom. In the field of social life, the separation of man from God results in the replacement of truth by the dictates of power. Living the life without free access to universally knowable truth can lead to various, even democratic, forms of totalitarianism. Democratic totalitarianism occurs when transcendent truth is excluded from the public sphere in the name of a democracy that gives absolute primacy to majority rule. Such a democracy becomes a treacherous danger for both individuals and minority groups. It finally seems that only an authentic democracy built on respect for the dignity of all human beings as persons can provide the necessary conditions for the successful overcoming of totalitarianism. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas’s two-volume Theory of Communicative Action is at once an attempt to develop a socially-based theory of action as an alternative to the subjectivist and individualist underpinnings of much of social theory, a “two-level concept of society that connects the ‘lifeworld’ and ‘system’ paradigms,” a critical theory of modernity which retains the enlightenment ideal of rationally-grounded societies, and a theory of meaning rooted in a developmental logic of world­historical rationality. Habermas seeks to find a via media between totalitarian (...) closure and relativism, to show why the modernist project of a universal reason is still viable, and to propose a “public” discourse of rationally-grounded argumentative speech, or communicative action, as his answer. Despite the widespread attention Habermas’s work has received, and despite my sympathy for issues Habermas has raised, I show why his project is fundamentally flawed because of its uncritical assumption that only critical rationality can provide a legitimate standard for communicative reason: reasonableness is far more than that constricted view. These flaws become particularly evident in examining his analyses of myth, action, lifeworld, George Herbert Mead, and the “three spheres” of modernity. (shrink)

One of the most historically recent and damaging blows to the reputation of utopianism came from its association with the totalitarian regimes of Hitler’s Third Reich and Mussolini’s Fascist party in World War II and the prewar era. Being an apologist for utopianism, it seemed to some, was tantamount to being an apologist for Nazism and all of its concomitant horrors. The fantasy principle of utopia was viewed as irretrievably bound up with the irrationalism of modern dictatorship. While these (...) conclusions are somewhat understandable given the broad strokes that definitions of utopia are typically painted with, I will show in this paper that the link between the mythos of fascism and the constructs of utopianism results from an unfortunate conflation at the theoretical level. The irrationalism of any mass ethos and the rationalism of the thoughtful utopian planner are, indeed, completely at odds with each other. I arrive at this conclusion via an analysis of the concepts of myth and narrative, and the relationships these have with the concept of utopia. (shrink)

This article reconsiders Hannah Arendt’s account of “totalitarianism” in light of the climate catastrophe and the apparent inability of our political-economic system to respond to it adequately. In the last two chapters of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt focuses on the “ideology” of totalitarian regimes: a pathological denial of reality, a privileging of the ideological system over empirical evidence, and a simultaneous feeling of total impotence and total omnipotence—an analysis that maps remarkably well onto the climate zeitgeist. Thus, while (...) Arendt used the concept of “totalitarianism” to foreclose alternatives to liberal capitalist democracy, the climate impasse suggests that the totalitarian label more properly belongs to the prevailing system itself. (shrink)

This article defends the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) from a simple and direct valid argument according to which PSR implies that there is a truth that explains every truth, namely an omni-explainer. Many proponents of PSR may be willing to bite the bullet and maintain that, if PSR is true, then there is an omni-explainer. I object to this strategy by defending the principle that explanation is irreflexive. Then I argue that proponents of PSR can resist the conclusion that (...) there is an omni-explainer by denying that explanation distributes over conjunction. In the final section, I consider a plausible revision of this assumption. I argue there that, given the revised assumption, PSR seems to yield a striking picture of the explanatory structure of the universe. I explain why the resulting model does not appear utterly implausible to me. (shrink)

We are in a state of impending crisis. And the fault lies in part with academia. For two centuries or so, academia has been devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how. This has enormously increased our power to act which has, in turn, brought us both all the great benefits of the modern world and the crises we now face. Modern science and technology have made possible modern industry and agriculture, the explosive growth of the world’s population, global (...) warming, modern armaments and the lethal character of modern warfare, destruction of natural habitats and rapid extinction of species, immense inequalities of wealth and power across the globe, pollution of earth, sea and air, even the aids epidemic (aids being spread by modern travel). All these global problems have arisen because some of us have acquired unprecedented powers to act, via science and technology, without also acquiring the capacity to act wisely. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that the basic intellectual aim becomes, not knowledge merely, but rather wisdom – wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, thus including knowledge and technological know-how, but much else besides. (shrink)

Can an agent's intelligence level be negative? We extend the Legg-Hutter agent-environment framework to include punishments and argue for an affirmative answer to that question. We show that if the background encodings and Universal Turing Machine (UTM) admit certain Kolmogorov complexity symmetries, then the resulting Legg-Hutter intelligence measure is symmetric about the origin. In particular, this implies reward-ignoring agents have Legg-Hutter intelligence 0 according to such UTMs.

Various exploration in astrophysics has revealed many breakthroughs nowadays, not only with respect to James Webb Telescope, but also recent finding related to water and ice deposits in the Moon surface. Those new findings seem to bring us to new questions related to origin of Earth, Moon and the entire Universe.

The years following Israel’s founding were formative ones for the development of philosophy as an academic discipline in this country. During this period, the distinction between philosophy seen as contiguous with the humanities and social sciences, and philosophy seen as adjacent to the natural and exact sciences began to make its presence felt in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. This distinction, which was manifest in the curriculum, was by no means unique to the Hebrew University, but reflected the broader bifurcation (...) between two schools of Western philosophy in the twentieth century. In English-speaking countries, it is generally referred to as the divide between analytic and continental philosophy. What was special about the situation at the Hebrew University, however, was that the split manifested itself in a rather small department, being embodied, basically, in one prominent representative of each school – Nathan Rotenstreich and Yehoshua Bar-Hillel. This article will focus on some key aspects of the lives and thought of Rotenstreich and Bar-Hillel. It will address their philosophical maturation as S.H. Bergmann’s students, their views on the goals of twentieth-century philosophy, on the philosopher’s role in public life, and the circumstances under which they started teaching in Jerusalem right after the founding of the State of Israel. (shrink)

Abstract: Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil -/- This paper starts by sketching Kant’s four ideal legal and political conditions—'anarchy,’ ‘despotism,’ ‘republic,’ and ‘barbarism’—before showing their usefulness for analyzing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called ‘state of nature’ (‘anarchy’) or in ‘civil society’ (‘republic’), I propose that we might find ourselves in societies where aspects or ‘pockets’ (...) of our lives are subject to any one of these (anarchic, despotic, republican, and barbaric) political forces. I then combine Kant’s ideas on barbaric evil with Arendt’s ideas on totalitarian evil, which gives us a four-fold conception of political evil. This fourfold distinction is then used to identify some types and patterns of destructive political forces as they occur in actual, historical societies, such as racist, sexist, or heterosexist violence and oppression. (shrink)

Various exploration in astrophysics has revealed many breakthroughs nowadays, not only with respect to James Webb Telescope, but also recent finding related to water and ice deposits in the Moon surface. Those new findings seem to bring us to new questions related to origin of Earth, Moon and the entire Universe.

The universality of critical phenomena is best explained by appeal to the Renormalisation Group (RG). Batterman and Morrison, among others, have claimed that this explanation is irreducible. I argue that the RG account is reducible, but that the higher-level explanation ought not to be eliminated. I demonstrate that the key assumption on which the explanation relies – the scale invariance of critical systems – can be explained in lower-level terms; however, we should not replace the RG explanation with a bottom-up (...) account, rather we should acknowledge that the explanation appeals to dependencies which may be traced down to lower levels. (shrink)

Abstract: What is the nature and social function of universities? In this article I consider the well-known Humboldtian answer to this question, with a view not just to its inherent plausibility but to how it has changed over time. I pay particular attention to how different versions of the Humboldtian answer make different epistemological assumptions and conclude with a suggestion about how best to develop that answer in the future.

The reason for physics’ failure to find a final theory of the universe is examined. Problems identified are: the lack of unequivocal definitions for its fundamental elements (time, length, mass, electric charge, energy, work, matter-waves); the danger of relying too much on mathematics for solutions; especially as philosophical arguments conclude the universe cannot have a mathematical basis. It does not even need the concept of number to exist. Numbers and mathematics are human inventions arising from the human predilection for measurement. (...) Following Aristotle, a single fundamental cause is proposed to explore the efficacy of using pure non-mathematical philosophy to explain the universe, contrary to current quantum physical views. The cause is taken as Time, which is then defined, surprisingly leading automatically to a definition of a three-dimensional space answering the question into what can a universe be placed (space before space seems non-sensical). This enables the philosophical arguments to derive a universal rule giving clear-cut descriptions (definitions) of force (both gravitational and electromagnetic), motion, energy, and particles. The formation of atomic nuclei and atomic properties together with an unexpected role for neutrinos follow. In particular, a Popper-test can be prepared by introducing the concept of measurement to allow the philosophy arguments to be tested in another discipline - mathematics. The solution agrees with human physical observations to a remarkable degree of accuracy, automatically explaining and predicting values for Planck’s and the fine-structure constants. Although mathematical, it is included as confirming the efficacy of philosophy in attaining a final theory. (shrink)

Universal social institutions, such as marriage, commons management and property, have emerged independently in radically different cultures. This requires explanation. As Boyer and Petersen point out ‘in a purely localist framework would have to constitute massively improbable coincidences’ . According to Boyer and Petersen, those institutions emerged naturally out of genetically wired behavioural dispositions, such as marriage out of mating strategies and borders out of territorial behaviour. While I agree with Boyer and Petersen that ‘unnatural’ institutions cannot thrive, this one-sided (...) explanation of universal social institutions in terms of genetic human nature is unsatisfactory. Drawing on the literature on multi-level selection and gene-culture coevolution, I argue that universal social institutions are first and foremost the products of cultural selection. They occupy fitness peaks in the landscape of cultural possibilities, much in the same way that biological adaptations occupy fitness peaks in the landscape of biological possibilities. To show this, I use game-theory. By modelling the domains of social interaction in which marriage, commons management, and property emerged as Prisoner’s dilemma situations, it becomes clear how an institutional framework allows the group to move to an interactive equilibrium with a larger payoff. Institutions do so by incentivising all parties to adopt a cooperative strategy. They are culturally selected ways of optimising genetically constrained domains of human social interaction. (shrink)

The crisis of our times is that we have science without wisdom. Modern science and technology lead to modern industry and agriculture which in turn lead to all the great benefits of the modern world and to the global crises we face, from population growth to climate change. The fault lies, not with science, but with science dissociated from a more fundamental concern with problems of living. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academia so that the fundamental (...) task becomes to help humanity learn how to tackle problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that we may gradually discover how to make progress towards a better, wiser world. (shrink)

We face grave global problems. One might think universities are doing all they can to help solve these problems. But universities, in successfully pursuing scientific knowledge and technological know-how in a way that is dissociated from a more fundamental concern with problems of living, have actually made possible the genesis of all our current global problems. Modern science and technology have led to modern industry and agriculture, modern medicine and hygiene, modern armaments, which in turn have led to much that (...) is good, but also to habitat destruction, extinction of species, population growth, the lethal character of modern war, and the impending disasters of climate change. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities so that they put problems of living at the heart of the academic enterprise and take, as their basic task, to help humanity learn how to make progress towards as good a world as possible. (shrink)

In 1984 the author published From Knowledge to Wisdom, a book that argued that a revolution in academia is urgently needed, so that problems of living, including global problems, are put at the heart of the enterprise, and the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom, and not just acquire knowledge. Every discipline and aspect of academia needs to change, and the whole way in which academia is related to the rest of the social world. Universities devoted to the (...) pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how betray reason and, as a result, betray humanity. As a result of becoming more intellectually rigorous, academic inquiry becomes of far greater benefit to humanity. If the revolution argued for all those years ago had been taken up and put into academic practice, we might now live in a much more hopeful world than the one that confronts us. Humanity might have begun to learn how to solve global problems; the Amazon rain forests might not face destruction; we might not be faced with mass extinction of species; Brexit might not have been voted for in the UK in 2016, and Trump might not have been elected President in the USA. An account is given of work published by the author during the years 1972 to 2021 that expounds and develops the argument. The conclusion is that we urgently need to create a high-profile campaign devoted to transforming universities in the way required so that humanity may learn how to make social progress towards a better, wiser, more civilized, enlightened world. (shrink)

This essay defends the controversial and indeed counterintuitive claim that there is a good argument to be made from a Lockean perspective for government action to guarantee access to health care. The essay maintains that this argument is in some regards more robust than the well-known argument in defense of universal health care spelled out by Norman Daniels, which this essay also examines in some detail. Locke's view that government should protect people's lives, property, and freedom–where freedom is understood as (...) independence and self-determination–justifies government action to ensure access to health care, because (roughly), just as individuals cannot protect themselves from crime and foreign invasion, so individuals are unable to provide for their own health care. Defense from disease is as important as defense from crime, and–although this is arguable–government action to guarantee access to health care does not itself undermine freedom. (shrink)

Amid the ongoing political turmoil, symbolized by the recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, books and articles abound today to encourage us to re-read anti-totalitarian classics ‘for our times’. But what do we find in this body of work originally written in response to Nazism and Stalinism? Do we find a democratic consensus forged by a shared anti-totalitarian commitment? I doubt it. Considering the cases of Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, this article highlights discord beneath what may today appear (...) like a post-war democratic consensus. I argue that the anti-totalitarian literature of the last century encompassed multiple political philosophies, which sometimes differed irreconcilably from each other. (shrink)

The Universal Core (UCore) is a central element of the National Information Sharing Strategy that is supported by multiple U.S. Federal Government Departments, by the intelligence community, and by a number of other national and international institutions. The goal of the UCore initiative is to foster information sharing by means of an XML schema providing consensus representations for four groups of universally understood terms under the headings who, what, when, and where. We here describe a project to create an ontology-based (...) supporting layer for UCore, entitled ‘Universal Core Semantic Layer’ (UCore SL), and describe how UCore SL can be applied to further UCore’s information sharing goals. (shrink)

The study aims to identify the efficiency of the university education performance from the perspective of postgraduate and undergraduate students in international and Palestinian universities. The analytical descriptive approach was used for this purpose and the questionnaire was used as a main tool for data collection. The study community consists of: post graduate students, (23850) graduate students and (146355) undergraduate students. The sample of the study was 378 graduate students and 383 undergraduate students. The random stratified sample was used. The (...) Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) was also used for data analysis. The study reached a number of results, the most important of which are: The level of efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities from the point of view of postgraduate and undergraduate students was high. And that there are significant differences between the average views of the sample of the study on the efficiency of educational performance in Palestinian and international universities attributed to the University and to the benefit of international universities. The study concluded many recommendations, the most important of which is the necessity of continuing to develop e-learning strategies that affect the efficiency of educational performance and research commensurate with the university's position in the local and international community, which puts it on the best classification between local and international universities through e-learning. (shrink)

Is it possible to know anything about life we have not yet encountered? We know of only one example of life: our own. Given this, many scientists are inclined to doubt that any principles of Earth’s biology will generalize to other worlds in which life might exist. Let’s call this the “N = 1 problem.” By comparison, we expect the principles of geometry, mechanics, and chemistry would generalize. Interestingly, each of these has predictable consequences when applied to biology. The surface-to-volume (...) property of geometry, for example, limits the size of unassisted cells in a given medium. This effect is real, precise, universal, and predictive. Furthermore, there are basic problems all life must solve if it is to persist, such as resistance to radiation, faithful inheritance, and energy regulation. If these universal problems have a limited set of possible solutions, some common outcomes must consistently emerge. In this chapter, I discuss the N = 1 problem, its implications, and my response (Mariscal 2014). I hold that our current knowledge of biology can justify believing certain generalizations as holding for life anywhere. Life on Earth may be our only example of life, but this is only a reason to be cautious in our approach to life in the universe, not a reason to give up altogether. In my account, a candidate biological generalization is assessed by the assumptions it makes. A claim is accepted only if its justification includes principles of evolution, but no contingent facts of life on Earth. (shrink)

Universities are knowledge institutions. Compared to several other knowledge institutions (e.g. schools, government research organisations, think tanks), research universities have unusual, anarchic organisational features. We argue that such anarchic features are not a weakness. Rather, they reflect the special standing of research universities among knowledge institutions. We contend that the distributed, self-organising mode of knowledge production maintains a diversity of approaches, topics and solutions needed in frontier research, which involves generating relevant knowledge under uncertainty. Organisational disunity and inconsistencies should sometimes (...) be protected by institutional structures and procedures in order for research universities to best serve their purpose as knowledge institutions. The quality control for the knowledge produced stems from knowledge fields, clusters of knowledge and research that exist beyond the confines of individual organisations. The diversity of epistemic contributions is therefore kept in check by the order imposed by the internal logic of science as a social practice. Our argument provides a new defence for the autonomy of research conducted at universities. (shrink)

Is the fact that our universe contains fine-tuned life evidence that we live in a multiverse? Ian Hacking and Roger White influentially argue that it is not. We approach this question through a systematic framework for self-locating epistemology. As it turns out, leading approaches to self-locating evidence agree that the fact that our own universe contains fine-tuned life indeed confirms the existence of a multiverse. This convergence is no accident: we present two theorems showing that, in this setting, any updating (...) rule that satisfies a few reasonable conditions will have the same feature. The conclusion that fine-tuned life provides evidence for a multiverse is hard to escape. (shrink)

In order to make progress towards a better world we need to learn how to do it. And for that we need institutions of learning rationally designed and devoted to helping us solve our global problems, make progress towards a better world. It is just this that we lack at present. Our universities pursue knowledge. They are neither designed nor devoted to helping humanity learn how to tackle global problems — problems of living — in more intelligent, humane and effective (...) ways. That, this book argues, is the key disaster of our times, the crisis behind all the others: our failure to have developed our institutions of learning so that they are rationally organized to help us solve our problems of living — above all, our global problems. Having universities devoted almost exclusively to the pursuit of knowledge is a recipe for disaster. Scientific knowledge and technological know-how have unquestionably brought great benefits to humanity. But they have also made possible — even caused — our current global crises, above all the impending crisis of global warming. In this lucid and provocative book, Nicholas Maxwell argues convincingly that we need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities round the world so that their basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge. (shrink)

Lecturing is the only educational form inherited from the universities of the middle ages that is still in use today. However, it seems that lecturing is under threat, as recent calls to do away with lecturing in favour of more dynamic settings, such as the flipped classroom or pre-recorded talks, have found many adherents. In line with the post-critical approach of this book, this chapter argues that there is something in the university lecture that needs to be affirmed: at its (...) best, the university lecture functions as a technique for thinking together or for making collective thinking happen in a lecture hall. The lecture offers the set-up, both technological and architectural, to forge a common experience that binds together the listeners and the speakers; that experience can be characterised as visualising ideas or seeing things as if they had taken on a ‘bodily form’. By looking at several examples of lecturing moments experienced by Gadamer as a student and later recounted in his autobiography, we can better understand the paradigmatic experience that characterises the lecture – as an ideal to be sought, even if, perhaps, not always actualised in everyday lectures. (shrink)

Recent experimental research has revealed surprising patterns in people's intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. One limitation of this research, however, is that it has been conducted exclusively on people from Western cultures. The present paper extends previous research by presenting a cross-cultural study examining intuitions about free will and moral responsibility in subjects from the United States, Hong Kong, India and Colombia. The results revealed a striking degree of cross-cultural convergence. In all four cultural groups, the majority of (...) participants said that (a) our universe is indeterministic and (b) moral responsibility is not compatible with determinism. (shrink)

A central area of current philosophical debate in the foundations of mathematics concerns whether or not there is a single, maximal, universe of set theory. Universists maintain that there is such a universe, while Multiversists argue that there are many universes, no one of which is ontologically privileged. Often model-theoretic constructions that add sets to models are cited as evidence in favour of the latter. This paper informs this debate by developing a way for a Universist to interpret talk (...) that seems to necessitate the addition of sets to V. We argue that, despite the prima facie incoherence of such talk for the Universist, she nonetheless has reason to try and provide interpretation of this discourse. We present a method of interpreting extension-talk (V-logic), and show how it captures satisfaction in `ideal' outer models and relates to impredicative class theories. We provide some reasons to regard the technique as philosophically virtuous, and argue that it opens new doors to philosophical and mathematical discussions for the Universist. (shrink)

I argue that Kant has developed a broad systematic account of the architectonic functionality of pure reason that can be used and advanced in contemporary contexts. Reason, in the narrow sense, is responsible for the picture of a well-ordered universe of science consisting of architectonic ideas of science, sciences and parts of sciences. In the first section (I), I show what Kant means by the architectonic ideas by explaining and interrelating the concepts of (a) the faculty of reason, (b) ideas (...) (as principles), (c) method, and (d) sciences of reason. Thereafter (II), I think through his holistic understanding of science and scientific progress and suggest differentiating between four levels of use of architectonic ideas, drawing on the metaphor of a well-structured universe as imagined by Kant in his work on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. I also claim that each possible idea of reason can be (apart from its primary function) additionally regarded as a fourth-level architectonic concept when explicitly conceived as an object of (e. g. philosophical) studies, i. e. from a mere methodological perspective. In the final section (III), I unveil the potential of Kant’s theory by pointing out how this architectonic methodological function of pure reason is tacitly used in Karl-Otto Apel’s contemporary philosophical research programme. You can get the official version of the paper and the whole issue (open access) by clicking on the attached link. (shrink)

This article centers on Hume’s position on the intelligibility of natural philosophy. To that end, the controversy surrounding universal gravitation shall be scrutinized. It is very well-known that Hume sides with the Newtonian experimentalist approach rather than with the Leibnizian demand for intelligibility. However, what is not clear is Hume’s overall position on the intelligibility of natural philosophy. It shall be argued that Hume declines Leibniz’s principle of intelligibility. However, Hume does not eschew intelligibility altogether; his concept of causation itself (...) stipulates mechanical intelligibility. (shrink)

It is commonplace in discussions of modern cosmology to assert that the early universe began in a special state. Conventionally, cosmologists characterize this fine-tuning in terms of the horizon and flatness problems. I argue that the fine-tuning is real, but these problems aren't the best way to think about it: causal disconnection of separated regions isn't the real problem, and flatness isn't a problem at all. Fine-tuning is better understood in terms of a measure on the space of trajectories: given (...) reasonable conditions in the late universe, the fraction of cosmological histories that were smooth at early times is incredibly tiny. This discussion helps clarify what is required by a complete theory of cosmological initial conditions. (shrink)

The fine-tuning argument can be used to support the Many Universe hypothesis. The Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy objection seeks to undercut the support for the Many Universe hypothesis. The objection is that although the evidence that there is life somewhere confirms Many Universes, the specific evidence that there is life in this universe does not. I will argue that the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy is not committed by the fine-tuning argument. The key issue is the procedure by which the universe with (...) life is selected for observation. Once we take account of the procedure, we find that the support for the Many Universe hypothesis remains. (shrink)

Inspired by recent progress in multi-agent Reinforcement Learning (RL), in this work we examine the collective intelligent behaviour of theoretical universal agents by introducing a weighted mixture operation. Given a weighted set of agents, their weighted mixture is a new agent whose expected total reward in any environment is the corresponding weighted average of the original agents' expected total rewards in that environment. Thus, if RL agent intelligence is quantified in terms of performance across environments, the weighted mixture's intelligence is (...) the weighted average of the original agents' intelligences. This operation enables various interesting new theorems that shed light on the geometry of RL agent intelligence, namely: results about symmetries, convex agent-sets, and local extrema. We also show that any RL agent intelligence measure based on average performance across environments, subject to certain weak technical conditions, is identical (up to a constant factor) to performance within a single environment dependent on said intelligence measure. (shrink)

The article concerns the idea of University in the thought of John Henry Newman In particular the relationship with real assent, notional assent, principles, doctrine.

Consciousness is based on the association of notions or a neural network. Similarly, the creation of the next generation Internet (semantic web) is impossible without attributes that allow the semantic association of documents and their integration into an information context. To achieve these goals, the Universal Metadata Standard (UMS) may serve as a basis for documentography and is functionally required for interpretation of documents by automatic operating systems.

I analyze the role of infinite idealizations used in the renormalization group (RG hereafter) method in explaining universality across microscopically different physical systems in critical phenomena. I argue that despite the reference to infinite limit systems such as systems with infinite correlation lengths during the RG process, the key to explaining universality in critical phenomena need not involve infinite limit systems. I develop my argument by introducing what I regard as the explanatorily relevant property in RG explanations: linearization* property; I (...) then motivate and prove a proposition about the linearization* property in support of my view. As a result, infinite limit systems in RG explanations are dispensable. (shrink)

If universities sought to help promote human welfare rationally, they would give intellectual priority to the tasks of articulating problems of living, and proposing and critically assessing possible solutions, possible actions. Priority would be given to public education about what our problems are, and what we need to do about them. Universities do not remotely proceed in this way. Why not? Because they are dominated by the idea that knowledge must first be acquired; once acquired, it then can be applied (...) to help solve social problems. But this idea violates the most elementary rules of rational problem solving. Judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare, universities today, devoted in the first instance to the pursuit of knowledge, are profoundly and damagingly irrational in a structural way, and it is this structural irrationality of universities that in part accounts for the genesis of global problems that threaten our future, and for our current incapacity to solve them. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in our universities so that they come to pursue the welfare of humanity in a genuinely rational, and active, way, and thus help save humanity from impending disaster. (shrink)