A growing body of literature about the phenomenological and epistemic role of structural features of experience, as well as on the topic of absence experience itself, point toward the view that absence experience is non-veridical. Here I challenge that result.

According to Michael Thompson’s defence of neo-Aristotelian naturalism in meta-ethics, (i) ‘[t]he concept LIFE-FORM is a pure or a priori, perhaps a logical, concept’, and (ii) ‘[t]he concept HUMAN, as we human beings have it, is an a priori concept’ (p. 57). Here I show Thompson’s argument for (ii) to be unsound, hoping thereby to shed light on the neglected subject of the a prioricity of concepts more generally.

A long‐standing aim of cinema – in particular of ‘extreme’, ‘unwatchable’ or ‘feel‐ bad’ cinema – has been to acquaint viewers with extreme suffering. In this article I first offer an explication of that aim in terms of recent work in philosophy of mind, then exploit the resulting framework to examine claims to the effect that a new technological development, Virtual Reality, provides cinema's best shot at achieving that aim.

Seeing total darkness is a peculiar perceptual state: in it, the subject is visually aware of something while seeming to fail to be aware of anything. Recent treatments of the topic (Sorensen 2008, Soteriou 2000) leave this particular puzzle unsolved. Here, I attempt a solution. Following Dretske, I begin by suggesting that the perceptual report ‘S sees (total) darkness’ is ambiguous between two distinct kinds of perceptual states: epistemic and non-epistemic. This will lead to an examination of the metaphysics of (...) what is supposed to be seen. I show, on the one hand, the difficulty of reducing the perception of total darkness to the perception of a particular instantiation of a property, and on the other, that it has important similarities with the perception of (non-particular) ‘stuff’. I propose, finally, that the solution to the puzzle might involve postulating a novel ontological status for total darkness: that of a ‘concrete universal’. Potential implications of interest for particularism and for naïve realism are suggested. (shrink)

Entrevista a Christian Felber al hilo de su visita a Benicàssim en agosto de 2013. Charlamos con él sobre algunos aspectos de su teoría del bien común, así como de otros temas de corte ético, político, económico y social.

Que la democracia y los procesos de democratización no siguen caminos unidireccionales hacia un único fin o meta es una evidencia. Volver a leer los debates que se dieron durante la independencia de las colonias americanas y la revolución francesa a fines del siglo xviii y, poco más tarde, durante las discusiones que precedieron a la formación de la Confederación Suiza, son tan solo unas pocas pruebas de lo dicho.

Zygmunt Bauman, professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds and, since 1990, emeritus professor, has developed key concepts for the understanding of fundamental issues of today’s world, such as liquid modernity, time, space and disorder, individualism versus community, globalization and consumer’s culture, love and identity, etc. His analyses of the links between modernity, Holocaust, democracy and social politics were the principal subject of the following interview, which was conducted by Vicente Ordóñez and Vicent Sanz on the occasion of (...) Zygmunt Bauman’s recent visit to Spain. (shrink)

Quienes intentan examinar críticamente la globalización financiera y el sistema de producción capitalista desde la que se articula pueden encontrarse, en virtud de un desplazamiento dialéctico, con que sea el mismo sistema el que, llevándose hasta su propio límite, se sitúe fuera de sí: así como hay un punto de la curva en el que el sentido de su curvatura cambia, el agotamiento que aqueja al capitalismo parece conducir inexorablemente a un cambio de ciclo económico. Esta es una de las (...) conclusiones, y no una de las menos importantes, ciertamente, a las que uno llega tras leer el penetrante ensayo de Luis Arenas, Capitalismo cansado. Tensiones políticas del desorden global. (shrink)

En su libro Mind and World, John McDowell propone una caracterización de la percepción como un proceso cognitivo pasivo. En el presente texto quisiera mostrar que tal caracterización tiene un problema fundamental: implicaría que la percepción no tiene contenido, atendiendo al modelo mcdowelliano de la intencionalidad. Dado que tal consecuencia es indeseable en el proyecto filosófico de McDowell, esto mostraría que existe una tensión lógica y conceptual entre la concepción de McDowell de la experiencia como un proceso pasivo y su (...) concepción de las condiciones para el contenido. Para cumplir este objetivo, primero explicaré qué significa sostener que la percepción es pasiva, en el sentido en el que lo afirma McDowell. Segundo, propondré que si uno asume el modelo mcdowelliano de la intencionalidad, el contenido y la pasividad, no parecer ser posible que la percepción sea al mismo tiempo tanto pasiva como un estado con contenido (i.e. un estado intencional). (shrink)

We investigate the applicability of Hegerfeldts arguments on Quantum nonlocality in Quantum Electrodynamics following the work of Prigogine, Pronko, Petrosky, Ordonez and Karpov. We demonstrate the appearance of nonlocal effects at the level of quantum states. We show, however that the expectation values of some observables spread causally. Therefore the measurement of the nonlocality is questionable. We investigate an approach to classical measurement and conclude that the classical measurement cannot detect the “acausal” effects of the non-locality.

Nadezhnostʹ matematicheskogo dokazatelʹstva -- Nadezhnostʹ logicheskikh norm -- Ontologicheskoe obosnovanie matematiki -- Sistemnoe obosnovanie matematiki.

Criticism and interpretation of Zawāhir al-ḥikam by Ḥasan ibn ʻAbd al-Razzāq Lāhījī, 1635 or 1636-1709 or 1710; Islamic philosophy - Early works to 1800; Shīʻah - Doctrines - Early works to 1800.

_Purpose_ of the research is to study the originality of interpretation of death in the lyrics of Ukrainian diaspora in Canada in the context of the opposition "foreign land – motherland", based on its existential development in philosophical anthropology and culture of the last two centuries. Its implementation presupposes, first of all, analysis of the forms of development and disclosure of the death motif by figurative and artistic means. _Theoretical basis__._ The author uses the well-founded tradition of interpreting the death (...) motif in philosophical literature of the last centuries, i.e. non-classical and modern philosophical thought. _Originality._ The present study is an attempt at systematization of the notions of death in Ukrainian poetry in Canada in the second half of the 20th century. It is based on the study of artistic texts and the worldview of Ukrainian emigrants. Appeal to the fiction of the Ukrainian Diaspora allows illustrating the originality of philosophical understanding of death in the context of the national culture. _Conclusions_. Reference to Ukrainian-Canadian poetry allows expanding the space of philosophical understanding of death in the form of figurative fiction. Concretizing the character of their interpretation of the motif of death, it is necessary to focus attention on its two basic forms of manifestation: existential, associated with living abroad, and sacrificial death for the benefit of the homeland. Thus, the motif of death occupies a significant place in the lyrics of representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora. The concept of human death is closely connected with the concept of life, which is concretized through their meaningful comprehension. This is a matter of interpretation of despair and loneliness motifs, as well as the illumination of the images of a foreign land, which is one of the features of emigrant literature in general. (shrink)

jild-i 1. Chand maqālah darbārah-ʼi maqāmāt-i [i.e. maqālāt] ʻilmī, va mujāhadāt-i farhangī, va khadamāt-i Islāmī-i ū-- -- jild-i 2. Chand maqālah az Prūfisūr ʻAbd al-Javād Falāṭūrī Iṣfahānī.

t. 1. Igry rynka -- t. 2. Torgovet︠s︡ v Khrame.

Open peer commentary on the article “What Can the Global Observer Know?” by Diana Gasparyan. Upshot: I introduce some distinctions that I hold to be useful for understanding the global observer problem and then sketch a hypothetical scenario that suggests the existence of an observer that is as good as a global one.

Literature; hermeneutics; theory, etc.; history and criticism.

Данная работа является попыткой рассмотреть проблему рациональности, главным образом, как проблему познания, не исключая при этом ее мировоззренческого и аксиологического аспектов.

kn. 1. Vechnye voprosy v svete nauki, filosofii religii.

Collected articles on spiritual life based on the life of Bābu Rāṇapurā, mystic-saint poet from Gujarat; previously published in Kacchamitra, a Gujarati daily.

Collection of essays and lectures on Intellectuals, religious -- Arab countries -- Criticism, interpretation.

Purpose. The purpose of the research is to define certain interaction features between a human and the urban environment in the global world. Theoretical basis. The study in based on the investigations of contemporary researchers in social philosophy and urban science, as well as social scientists of Chicago School. Originality. The originality of the research is to analyze the "human-urban space" system in terms of the influence of local space of the global world on the human identity formation and preservation. (...) Conclusions. Modern information technologies have significantly contributed into changes in the culture, society, individual consciousness and perception. They have given them absolutely global character and reorganized the value and standard system of the individual. As a result, it caused the identity crisis, so typical of the postindustrial society. Thus, one of the possible ways to overcome the crisis is to harmonize the interaction in the "human-urban space" system as an area of individual space of human social and cultural identity. (shrink)