The freedom theme has always been in the centre of life and philosophical and political discourse. Freedom is one of the magic words causing many positive emotions in everyday life. Certain social and philosophical studies highlight the ways of replacing traditional and, sometimes, spontaneous absolutization of human freedom at an empirical level of social consciousness. It lies in achieving desired results and being entitled to choose what to achieve. The difference between these “formulas” is obvious. In the second case, one (...) can observe one's acceptance of certain restrictions of freedom due to social reality and understanding that it can only be fully realized through self-restraint. However, one needs to come to such conclusions on one’s own. Practice shows that the categorical power of authorities in terms of citizens’ duties mostly leads to opposite results. Therefore, more than ever, it is essential to develop a permanent, well-developed, multi-level humanitarian programme for working with the population based on social and philosophical studies. The state needs to build the “net” of permanent special state-owned institutions since it will improve the quality of public administration, pave the way for tolerance and successful compromises. The ultimate goal of this article is to form a conscious civic position and self-determination as a result of one’s full awareness of responsibility for one’s decisions. (shrink)

Gaze following is the ability to use others’ gaze to obtain information about the environment. As such, it may be highly adaptive in a variety of socio-ecological contexts, and thus be widespread across animal taxa. To date, gaze following has been mostly studied in primates, and partially in birds, but little is known on the gaze following abilities of other taxa and, especially, on the evolutionary pressures that led to their emergence. In this study, we used an experimental approach to (...) test gaze following skills in a still understudied taxon, ungulates. Across four species, we assessed the individual ability to spontaneously follow the gaze of both conspecifics and human experimenters in different conditions. In line with our predictions, species followed the model’s gaze both with human and conspecific models, but more likely with the latter. Except for guanacos, all species showed gaze following significantly more in the experimental conditions. Despite the relative low number of study subjects, our study provides the first experimental evidence of gaze following skills in non-domesticated ungulates, and contributes to understanding how gaze following skills are distributed in another taxon—an essential endeavor to identify the evolutionary pressures leading to the emergence of gaze following skills across taxa. (shrink)

Research shows that goal-relevant objects are rated positively, which results from their functionality towards the aim. In previous studies these objects were always external to the agent. However, relevant knowledge of self is also potentially accessible during goal pursuit, as self-esteem is an indicator of aim’s feasibility. In two experimental studies we tested whether goal activation affects temporal changes in automatic evaluations of personality traits related to the dimensions of agency and communion. We administered affect misattribution procedure where participants rated (...) neutral Chinese hexagrams proceeded by words describing traits. The list of words comprised agentic and communal traits. The rating took place twice - before and after introducing a manual task. In the first study, goal activation led to slightly more positive implicit evaluations of agentic and more negative evaluation of communal traits, which is consistent with empirical data on self-perception depending on agentic knowledge rather than communal one. In the second study we showed that goal activation led to changes only for promotion-, but not prevention-oriented individuals, which is explained by motivation strength. The results indicate that valuation of traits changes temporarily along with goal pursuit. (shrink)

The paper considers three main models of temporal consciousness proposed in grappling with the “paradox of temporal awareness”. They are based on the notion that there is a basic element of perception in the form of some “mental frame” or “apparent present” which, while effective for describing some perceptual features, does not fully reflect our phenomenal experience. It is argued that a two-level model based on the separation of the “specious present” and “current present” is best correlated with higher-order theories (...) of consciousness and should act as a basis for further development of the temporal model of consciousness. (shrink)

The present study sets out to discuss a literary work as a reflection of topophrenia, a space of anguish, which contains the data of both the abandoned space and of the new home, which are hypostasized in positive or negative emotions that the exiled writer experiences. Focusing on the exile and the space in Norman Manea’s works, this article proves the existence of an original view about this experience. Manea’s last novel, The Exiled Shadow (2021) is also included in our (...) analyses. (shrink)

The article substantiates the need for the creation of local integrated social services in the system of social protection of the population. The paper studies the essence of the organization of work on the principle of "single window" and field work "social mobile office".

The fundamental—from the philosophy of science point of view—question of the growth of scientific knowledge implicates epistemological investigations of the creation context in science. In the paper I am arguing this thesis.

Nietzsche is one of the most controversial and disputed philosophers, especially because of his association with Hitler and Nazism, but also through his upsetting philosophical decisions that deny the possibility of any morality centered on good and evil as absolute values in themselves. As for his association with Hitler, the sources prove that Nietzsche’s philosophy has nothing to do with the justification or support of the nationalist-socialist dictatorship. In addition, any connoisseur of his work can easily see that Hitler does (...) not fit at all with the description of the overman that Nietzsche conceptualizes and identifies with. As for morality, it seems to support a relativization of the values of good and evil until their dissolution, but a closer look can see that the morality of the masters accredited by Nietzsche is one of austerity, balance, respect, honor, dignity, of preferring loneliness to the amusement of the crowd. All these are values that even Christianity proposes. Lonely and incomprehensible, the master, Nietzsche lives a lifestyle similar to Christian ascetics. And just as the philosopher claims that the life of the masters should not be passed through the sieve of ordinary moral evaluations, who could judge in terms of “good” or “bad” the way the austere ones lived? (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas famously argues that it is not necessary to be virtuous in order to be wise. To many contemporary moral philosophers, this claim signals Aquinas’s failure to address the interrelatedness of our moral and intellectual life. I conduct a case study of Ivan Karamazov to demonstrate that this view is mistaken. After sketching Ivan’s character, I present Aquinas’s accounts of wisdom and pride and their nuanced relationship. I argue that Ivan illustrates the Thomistic view that pride, though not an (...) insurmountable obstacle to one’s acquisition of some intellectual virtues, makes it impossible for anyone to achieve wisdom. The vice of pride therefore proves truly devastating to one’s intellectual life, since wisdom, for Aquinas, is the highest and most important of intellectual virtues. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Review of Ingvild Flaskerud’s, Visualizing Belief and Piety in Iranian Shiism , (New York: Continuum, 2010).

This book considers the aesthetic, cultural, and philosophical facets of a temporal paradox in the works of French novelist Claude Simon, and its broader implications for the study of narrative, and for cultural and post-modern theory.

The employee motivation at the organizational level is naturally quantified in achieving performance goals. In this paper are studied the motivational factors from the perspective of employee work performance reflected, vertically, in the organizational performance and further in the macroeconomic performance. Using an empirical study in which the observed data were obtained through a survey conducted in this year among the Romanian employees, in this paper we validate three hypotheses that establish the association of employee performance, on the one hand (...) with proactive personality traits and on the other hand with certain motivational factors. As well, we highlight some managerial implications that can contribute to increasing workplace performance by using of appropriate motivational factors. (shrink)

Illocutionary Force and Romanian Orthodox Sermons: An Application of Speech Act Theory to Some Romanian Orthodox Sermons The aim of the paper is to analyze religious discourse with the use of the instruments of semantics and pragmatics. Essentially, it sets out to identify the linguistic elements which enable the illocutionary force in the Romanian orthodox sermons, especially in the discourse of some important figures which have influenced and still influence the Romanian orthodox theology and the religious life in Romania: Father (...) Cleopa, Father Nicolae Steinhardt, and, nowadays, Father Teofil Pârâianu. It is usually assumed that a sermon implies, on the one hand, a kerugmatik action, that of annunciation, and, on the other hand, a translating action of the biblical induce the human will to practice the words in order to Christian precepts. Mutatis mutandis, the perlocutionary effect depends on the illocutionary act and of the illocutionary force. In theory, the illocutionary force of an utterance is strictly motivated by the pragmatic. But there are linguistic elements which function as efficient markers of the illocutionary force, for example performative verbs, verbal moods and some adverbs. The criteria proposed by Searle in order to differentiate the illocutionary acts resulted in the identification of several types inside this class. Searle's taxonomy serves the research purposes: the identification of illocutionary acts found in this kind of religious discourse and, finally, outlining a pattern of manifestation of the illocutionary force inside the sermon. (shrink)

Science fiction cinema proposal for Bioethic education Proposta do cinema de ficção científica para educar em Bioética Posthumanism state that technologies will eliminate aging, improve cognitive, physical and psychological skills and keep alive human minds by uploading them in machines as artificial intelligence. These beliefs, as constant features in science fiction films, could be useful to educate medical students in Bioethics. We propose some of these science fiction films related with technological changes of humans and the noxious consequences: Being turned (...) into a humanoid created by genetic engineering; a slave or a merchandize without rights; discrimination because of eugenesic genetic manipulation; and/or the creation of cyborgs of mass destruction. Also, the movies can show the reader issues of ethnic supremacy dilemmas, identity impersonate and ambition, impersonal intelligence and conscience and identity transpass after death. These films will help teachers to analyze with students the moral limits of science and technologies. Para citar este artículo / To reference this article / Para citar este artigo Alerm-González AJ, González-Pérez U. Propuesta del cine de ciencia ficción para educar en Bioética. Pers Bioet. 2019; 22: 14-33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5294/pebi.2019.23.1.2 Recibido: 10/11/2017 Aceptado: 20/10/2018. (shrink)

The following paper considers the immanent principles of digital media evolution. The features of the evolutional route of digital objects are conditioned by glitches, errors and bugs, which appear in media functioning, what in its turn gives birth to the new forms, structures and configurations of digital reality. The glitches are considered not only as a kind of digital mutations, but also as a sign of activity of media. Decisions elaborated from the programs’ failures enlarge the resolution capacity of new (...) technologies. The paper provides an analysis of certain errors and glitches, which engineers, programmers, game designers faced with during their work with digital environment. The theoretical framework includes Henri Bergson’s theory of creative evolution, Gram Harman’s object-oriented philosophy, media philosophical approach to the problem of the activity of object proposed by Valery Savchuk and the theory of self-organisation and autopoiesis of the social systems worked out by Niklas Luhmann. The analysis of digital objects activity demonstrates two levels of functioning. The first one, fictional level, reveals mainly (but not only) in the computer games and concerns the content of media, when we gain a habit to interact with digital objects/characters as if they are real. The second level, operational, realises in the digital environment in general and concerns the form of media. On this level, glitches and bugs have crucial meaning, because they might evoke the changes in the digital world organisation, starting from the local decisions for the certain program (e.g. the elaboration of the new ways in solving locomotional tasks in simulations, which might be later use in other projects) and ending with the replacement of practices and representations typical for the human of digital era. The paper shows that it is possible to talk about digital evolution not in terms of the history of technological inventions, but in terms of the changes in digital objects caused by the inner logic of media, independently from the human will and expectations. (shrink)

This article presents J. Srzednicki’s epistemological conception and confronts it generally with contemporary versions of epistemological relativism.

One of Heidegger’s main interests in Heraclitus’ concept of Λόγοζ regards the phenomenon of corresponding (Entsprechen). While λέγειν is interpreted as an obedient joining (Fügen), harvesting (Lesen), gathering (Sammeln, Versammeln) and lying-before (Vorliegen lassen), the movement of essential thinking picks up the idea of corresponding (όμολογεἴν) to a subtle ‘claim’ (Anspruch) of being throughout appearance (εἴδοζ Anblick) which addresses i. e. calls for being put into words. The λέγειν of human Λόγοζ can thus become (at times) the same with the (...) one Aôyoç of being while the act o f corresponding holds being and thinking together. “Truth” can lie before in λέγειν, but only for the one listening attentively to what is spoken and so by hearing (Vernehmen) what is not spoken (out loud) in the spoken word. It is to this dimension of concealment (Verborgenheit), that speech still belongs to, even as result of an essential thinking that gathers and brings into presence: The brightness of essential thinking seems to owe itself to this darkness crossed by the fire of lightning. άλήθεια can thus be conceived in the Greek context of a special concept of ‘emerging into the light of φύσιζ‘, which also corresponds to the revealing movement of inceptually unfolding Λόγοζ in the gathering true human Xôyoç. Far from being able to dispose of being as knowledge remains a movement between the concealed toward unconcealment, essential thinking stays indepted to something “never-submerging” as (φύσιζ and the salvaging event of gathering into one Λόγοζ. To be freed from metaphysical for the inceptual thinking means learning to listen to how the essence of φύσιζ and άλήθεια address as the one Λόγοζ and to correspond to it, insofar as clearing is always carried by it i. e. can never remain permanently concealed from it. The present contribution follows the train of thought summarized here in brief through Heidegger’s confrontation with Heraclitus. (shrink)

The article describes the basic elements of an ethical infrastructure that manifest themselves as mechanisms regulating the relationship between public servants and the public, being the part of professional activities. Ethics for public servants is defined as the system of regulations of conduct, procedure and rules, and relationships and principles of public-service relationship that is most appropriate set of deeply understood and concretized norms of morality inherent in this society. According to the authors, the main problem of a civil servant (...) professional ethics is the fact that its activities must meet not only the Constitution of Ukraine and current legislation, but also moral principles and norms. (shrink)

Review of Sorin Şipoş, Silviu Dragomir – istoric, (Oradea: Editura Universităţii din Oradea and Chişinău: Editura Cartdidact, 2009), 547 p.

The purpose of the study is to study the demographic situation in the Russian Federation using a system of general and particular statistical indicators, to identify the problems of socio-economic policy and suggest possible ways to solve them. The article examines various factors that influenced the demographic situation in Russia in 2000-2021; demographic problems, the consequences of which affect the socio-economic life of Russian society; the demographic situation that has arisen due to the epidemiological situation in our country. The scientific (...) novelty of the research consists in considering the influence of various factors, including pandemics, on the demographic processes in the Russian Federation. As a result of the study, possible measures were proposed to improve the socio-economic policy of the state. (shrink)

A performance appraisal system forms an integral part of any developed management concept. The efficiency of such an appraisal system is fostered in institutions which prioritise quality and continuous improvement, and where innovationfriendly actions are joined by those that build confidence. An efficient appraisal system is characterised as follows: it is systemic in character, regular, universal, flexible, concrete, transparent and simple in application. When implementing a modern appraisal system, care should be taken to adhere to ethically sound principles such as (...) fairness, objectivity, goodness and truthfulness. (shrink)

This paper explores environmental protection policies and initiatives, such as conservation, through the lens of an orientalist epistemic injustice. This is a form of epistemic injustice that occurs when the orientalizing of space and access to sovereign systems of knowledge causes the assigning of an unjust deflated or elevated level of credibility to a knower. Under this framework of orientalist epistemic injustice, the author criticizes the credibility excess assigned to Western subjects that perform conservation efforts in third-world countries and the (...) related credibility deficit assigned to indigenous and local knowledge and conservation practices. (shrink)

The subject of the study is the concepts of "metaphilosophy" in the works of several modern domestic and foreign scientists-metaphilosophists. The relevance of the article is due to the presence of a variety of metaphilosophical concepts, which, pursuing one common goal – to understand and explain what philosophy is, come to different and often contradictory conclusions. The article aims to compare the metaphilosophical concepts of domestic and foreign authors (T. I. Oizerman, M. K. Mamardashvili, J. Deleuze and F. Guattari, T. (...) Williamson and N. Rescher) according to certain criteria. Within the framework of the task, it is proposed to identify the essential characteristics of the concept of "philosophy" of the listed authors and to propose a variant of the typology of modern concepts of metaphilosophy. The article uses the method of comparative analysis. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the author, analyzing the existing typologies of metaphilosophical concepts (on a conceptual and methodological basis), offers a third variant of the typology in relation to the possibility of progress in philosophy and its prospects. The author draws attention to the fact that the understanding of metaphilosophy in the concepts of the scientists under consideration (Oiserman, Williamson, Rescher, Deleuze and Guattari) reveals interesting parallels and collisions. The author comes to the conclusion that in order to better understand the nature of metaphilosophy, it is necessary to identify the essential characteristics of the concept of metaphilosophy in the concepts of different scientists. The picture of metaphilosophy turns out to be diverse and contradictory, because according to the authors considered, metaphilosophy is "cabinet"; - pluralistic; - "aporic"; - self-reflexive; - dialectical; - is in constant development; - guided by the principles of pragmatism and efficiency; - able to give satisfactory answers to current questions; - is not absolutely rational, but contains an element of intuition. (shrink)

The article elaborates on an interactive approach to language learning applied in an online EFL classroom. It presents a new insight into implementing interactive methods to develop students’ communicative competence. In conditions of world integration, the formation of communicative and life skills is indispensable. Eventually, such an approach to English language learning in distance mode is the most accessible way for teacher-learner interaction to acquire general linguistic expertise and upgrade specific language skills. The study results show that an interactive approach (...) facilitates live communication in online EFL settings, enhances learners’ motivation and autonomy, and fosters quick decision-making reactions. Modern computer technologies offer boundless opportunities for interactive methods application in the online foreign language learning context. A skillful instructor is called to masterly plan computer-mediated classroom activities, creating space to realize each student’s cognitive and communicative potential fully. Students learn to debate, substantiate their viewpoints, brainstorm ideas, do projects, work individually or collaborate in comfortable learning settings. (shrink)

Theoretical substantiations and practical recommendations on media educational contain against gender stereotypes in the Ukrainian mass media are given in the work. Attention is paid to the pathogenic factor of the use of gender-sensitive content. The work is based on propedeutic theoretic studies of cultural and psychosocial background of Ukraine. We also used a content analysis of news and advertising materials of heterogenic media; sociologic methods ; modelling of educational situations and forecasting of expected results. That was an end-to-end method (...) of generalization that covered theoretical and practical stages of the study. It is proved that despite the weakening of gender divisions in the socio-cultural sphere in the world, in developing countries gender stereotypes remain a powerful tool for affective approach of media and advertising to the consumer. Author's ways to increase the level of media literacy and critical thinking with the help of gender-sensitive experiments, mini-projects, filling the media space with "mirror" about sexist content and creating a personal media field are proposed. (shrink)

Multi-word formation processes in Portuguese comprise root-compounding (e.g., toxicodependente ‘drug addict’, agridoce ‘sour sweet’), word-compounding (e.g., barco-casa ‘houseboat’, guarda-roupa ‘wardrobe’, cantora-atriz ‘singer/actress’), and blending (e.g., cartomente ‘lying fortune teller’ < cartomante ‘fortune teller’ + mente ‘he/she lies’, tristemunho ‘sad testimony’ < triste ‘sad’ + testemunho ‘testimony’, cantautor ‘singer and composer’ < cantor singer + autor ‘composer’). Compound structures have been quite thoroughly described by several authors (e.g., Villalva & Gonçalves 2015), whereas blending has garnered some controversial and even contradictory analyses. (...) Some authors claim that blends and compounds have similar structures, while others consider that they have completely different structures (e.g., Gries 2004b, Minussi & Nóbrega 2014). This paper focuses on the description and analysis of an annotated corpus of Portuguese blends, and on the presentation of experimental evidence that aims to assess the knowledge of these words by native young adult European and Brazilian Portuguese speakers.The first section is devoted to the presentation of Portuguese blends, namely regarding the status of their constituents and their linear relationships, grammatical structure, and the phonetic/prosodic relationship that holds between the blends and their base words. The second section focuses on the description of the Portuguese blend corpus. Although new coinages make this a never-ending work in progress, it is presently formed by (circa) 300 blends, collected in a variety of sources, from literary texts to political and social commenting, advertising, or even individual ad hoc instances. The information gathered in the corpus comprehends all the features considered in the analysis of the blends, presented in section 1, and it also provides data on attestation and frequency. The third section presents an analysis of a sub-corpus (184 forms), related to their linear structure, grammatical and prosodic relationships, and a cross-analysis that suggests that there is a strong link between headedness and cliphood. Finally, the fourth section offers a brief presentation of experimental work that suggests that clips facilitate the processing of blends, since the clipped word is more frequently used in replies to a familiarity test, and the same happens with reaction time values obtained in a lexical decision test. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Ontologies play a major role in life sciences, enabling a number of applications, from new data integration to knowledge verification. SNOMED CT is a large medical ontology that is formally defined so that it ensures global consistency and support of complex reasoning tasks. Most biomedical ontologies and taxonomies on the other hand define concepts only textually, without the use of logic. Here, we investigate how to automatically generate formal concept definitions from textual ones. We develop a method that uses (...) machine learning in combination with several types of lexical and semantic features and outputs formal definitions that follow the structure of SNOMED CT concept definitions. RESULTS: We evaluate our method on three benchmarks and test both the underlying relation extraction component as well as the overall quality of output concept definitions. In addition, we provide an analysis on the following aspects: How do definitions mined from the Web and literature differ from the ones mined from manually created definitions, e.g., MeSH? How do different feature representations, e.g., the restrictions of relations' domain and range, impact on the generated definition quality?, How do different machine learning algorithms compare to each other for the task of formal definition generation?, and, What is the influence of the learning data size to the task? We discuss all of these settings in detail and show that the suggested approach can achieve success rates of over 90%. In addition, the results show that the choice of corpora, lexical features, learning algorithm and data size do not impact the performance as strongly as semantic types do. Semantic types limit the domain and range of a predicted relation, and as long as relations' domain and range pairs do not overlap, this information is most valuable in formalizing textual definitions. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis presented in this manuscript implies that automated methods can provide a valuable contribution to the formalization of biomedical knowledge, thus paving the way for future applications that go beyond retrieval and into complex reasoning. The method is implemented and accessible to the public from: https://github.com/alifahsyamsiyah/learningDL. (shrink)