Psillos has recently argued that van Fraassen’s arguments against abduction fail. Moreover, he claimed that, if successful, these arguments would equally undermine van Fraassen’s own constructive empiricism, for, Psillos thinks, it is only by appeal to abduction that constructive empiricism can be saved from issuing in a bald scepticism. We show that Psillos’ criticisms are misguided, and that they are mostly based on misinterpretations of van Fraassen’s arguments. Furthermore, we argue that Psillos’ arguments for his claim that constructive empiricism itself (...) needs abduction point up to his failure to recognize the importance of van Fraassen’s broader epistemology for constructive empiricism. Towards the end of our paper we discuss the suspected relationship between constructive empiricism and scepticism in the light of this broader epistemology, and from a somewhat more general perspective. (shrink)

The place of evidence regarding joint commitment and plural action is mostly reserved for documents and explicit linguistic expressions. This paper considers the problem of evidence in cases of engaged (jointly committed) social acts where there is no explicit expression or binding document, yet can still be ascribed to a plural subject. The argument rests on the double meaning of the term factum as fact (factum brutum) and deed (factum practica), as well as contemporary debates about the topic of fact (...) of reason in Kant. The text seeks to show that in certain cases, the execution of an act or the obligation produced by it can be considered evidence of a plural subject. Thus, these facts deserve a special position in relation to scientific evidence. (shrink)

Medical science conceives the human body as a system comprised of many subsystems at a variety of levels. At the highest level are bodily systems proper, such as the endocrine system, which are central to our understanding of human anatomy, and play a key role in diagnosis and in dynamic modeling as well as in medical pedagogy and computer visualization. But there is no explicit definition of what a bodily system is; such informality is acceptable in documentation created for human (...) beings, but falls short of what is needed for computer representations. Our analysis is intended as a first step towards filling this gap. (shrink)

Throughout the history of mankind, energy security has been always seen as a means of protection from disruptions of essential energy systems. The idea of protection from disorders emerged from the process of securing political and military control over energy resources to set up policies and measures on managing risks that affect all elements of energy systems. The various systems placed in a place to achieve energy security are the driving force towards the energy innovations or emerging trends in the (...) energy sector. Our paper discusses energy security status and innovations in the energy sector in European Union (EU). We analyze the recent up-to-date developments of the energy policy and exploitation of energy sources, as well as scrutinize the channels of energy streaming to the EU countries and the risks associated with this energy import. Moreover, we argue that the shift to the low-carbon production of energy and the massive deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) might become the key issue in ensuring the energy security and independency of the EU from its external energy supplies. Both RES, distributed energy resources (DER) and “green energy” that will be based on the energy efficiency and the shift to the alternative energy supply might change the energy security status quo for the EU. (shrink)

This is a broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity which takes as its point of departure Marx's theory of social evolution. However, Professor Diakonoff's theory of world history differs from Marx's in a number of ways. Firstly he has expanded Marx's five stages of development to eight. Secondly he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how 'each progress is simultaneously a regress', and thirdly he demonstrates that the transition from one stage to another (...) is not necessarily marked by social conflict and that sometimes this is achieved peacefully and gracefully. As the book moves through these various stages, the reader is drawn into a remarkable and thought-provoking study of the process of the history of the human race which focuses on the wide range of factors (economic, social, military-technological, and socio-pyschological) which have influenced our development from palaeolithic times to the present day. (shrink)

Resumo Este artigo analisa parte do discurso que a Igreja Católica teceu sobre as mulheres, enfatizando o tema da maternidade durante o século XIX. O enfoque parte da Bulla Sylabus (1864), expedida no pontificado de Pio IX, e da encíclica Rerum Novarum (1891), do Papa Leão XIII. Entre a segunda metade do século XIX e a Primeira Guerra Mundial, a Igreja passou pelo processo conhecido como "romanização", caracterizado pela preocupação moral e disciplinar do clero diante de críticas do laicado, além (...) da promoção de ordens e congregações religiosas. O objetivo deste artigo é, portanto, discutir como aquela instituição definiu um papel social feminino vinculado à ideia do amor materno, divulgado como natural e incondicional. A partir da contribuição dos estudos de gênero, aborda a atribuição de características masculinas e femininas para a distinção não apenas biológica entre homens e mulheres. Concluiu-se que, na longa duração, o discurso católico passou de uma postura misógina - de recusa do sexo feminino - à incorporação das mulheres como público essencial para a sustentação do catolicismo diante das propostas de laicização da sociedade ocidental contemporânea. Palavras-chave: Mulheres; Discurso católico; Maternidade; Gênero.This paper discusses part of the discourse that the Catholic Church built in order to define woman's role in the 19th century, emphasizing representations of motherhood. The focus starts with Pius IX's Bulla Sylabus (1864) and Pope Lion XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891). Between the second half of the 19th century and World War I, the Catholic Church underwent a process known as "Romanization", characterized by the clergy's moral and disciplinary concern in face of the laity's criticism, and by the promotion of new religious orders and congregations. The paper considers, therefore, how the Catholic Church defined a social female role linked to the idea of maternal love, diffused as natural and unconditional. With basis on the contribution of cultural history and gender studies, it demonstrates how that Church attributed male and female characteristics to the distinction not merely biological between men and women, associating the latter with the idea of motherhood and natural love for their children. It concludes that, through time, the Church has changed its misogyny discourse - refusing the female sex - into one that incorporates women as essential to support Catholicism in facing the laicization of contemporary western society. Key words: Women; Catholic discourse; Motherhood; Gender. (shrink)

Метою статті є розкриття змісту геополітичних стратегій головних гравців в Центрально- Азійському регіоні, якими на сьогодні є Росія, Китай і США. Констатується, що взаємна риторика лідерів країн і тональність документів [Стратегій] не приховує того факту, що боротьба між ними в регіоні набирає обертів по мірі зростання ваги економічної, політичної і воєнної складових безпеки. Афганська компанія США (2001-2021 рр.) переросла у стратегію присутності (2015 р.), метою якої стало закріплення присутності у ключовому регіоні «дуги нестабільності» (З.Бжезінський) багатому природними ресурсами. У першу чергу (...) йдеться про енергоносії як нафту і газ, рідкоземельні і дорогоцінні метали та уранову руду. Неабияке значення з боку сторін конкуренції приділяється контролю над існуючою інфраструктурою і майбутнім глобальним проектом на зразок «Один пояс - Один шлях», який в Центральною Азійському регіоні прагне реалізувати Китай. Звернено увагу, що цілі нової геополітичної гри, яка розпочалася з 2015 року кожна сторона намагається обернути у більш прийнятні слогани як-то «демократія і процвітання» - США, «рівноправні відносини близьких по духу й історії народів» - Росія, «виважений діалог з країнами-партнерами» - Китай. Проте, виходячи з того що 30 літня історія незалежності принесли країнам Азійської п’ятірки - Казахстану, Киргизстану, Таджикистану, Туркменістану і Узбекистану досить скромні результати соціально-економічного і культурного розвитку, діючі лідери прагнуть позбутися помилок колишнього керівництва та розширити формат дружніх відносин за рахунок нерегіональних держав. В першу чергу йдеться про проект «тюркської спільноти». Наукова новизна дослідження полягає у розкритті онтологічних основ геополітичних стратегій, які реалізують Росія, Китай і США та можливих реакцій Азійської п’ятірки на ризики які вони можуть нести для безпеки країн і регіону в цілому. Тип статті: теоретична. (shrink)

BREVE RELATO DE UMA OUTRA EXPERIÊNCIA EDUCACIONAL: O ENSINO JURÍDICO NOS ESTADOS UNIDOS.

This paper argues against Galen Strawson’s criticism of the narrativist identity thesis. Strawson points out that the narrativist thesis fails to portray those with an episodic perception of themselves. I claim that episodicity is rather problematic and that we should question the validity of this notion. The first step in this goal is to decipher Strawson’s basis of the self which is an amalgam between the cultural and social and is perceived differently by different people. Afterwards, I will try to (...) use the claims derived from Strawson’s basis and apply the critique of his method. I pose a question about the relationship between episodic and diachronic and, ultimately, argue that both culturally and biologically, assuming the diachronic aspect of the self is necessary, apart from the very small number of cases. In this sense, the main conclusion is that Strawson’s thesis is limiting but does not pose a valid alternative to the narrativist identity thesis. (shrink)

This paper deals with the notion of intelligibility crisis in terms of conflict and harmony. Namely, we will analyze the notion of intelligibility from MacIntyre’s philosophical opus and apply it to the historical case. Intelligibility, according to MacIntyre, is the notion which provides us with contextual meaning and embeds our actions with sense within the specific tradition. Intelligibility crisis is the term that is coined to provide a descriptive account of the phenomenon when we cannot connect ourselves with a new (...) social context in which we find ourselves in. To further elaborate on this and apply it onto an example, we shall use the historical case of the Yugoslavian nation. We will provide analysis between three different contextual narratives – pre-Yugoslav narrative, Yugoslav narrative, and post-Yugoslav narrative. After applying the notion of intelligibility crisis onto this historical case study, we will notice how people of one social narrative lose intelligibility by going into another social narrative. Furthermore, we shall consider the notions of conflicts and harmony as those that are connected to intelligibility. The main argument from the descriptive state of things which was offered would be the following – conflicting sentiments arise when we are not in harmony with the narrative within which we have attained intelligibility. (shrink)

Inductive logics purport to specify, for any given hypothesis and any given evidence statement, whether and, if so, to what extent the evidence statement should bear on our confidence that the hypothesis is true. If we agree that there can only be one true answer to questions of this sort, then the project of inductive logic faces a serious difficulty, namely that the many different systems that have been proposed in the literature rarely reach an unanimous verdict. In this paper (...) I investigate the possibility of settling empirically the question which of all the extant inductive logics is the correct one, or, if the correct inductive logic should still await formulation, which of the extant inductive logics is the least incorrect. My main point will be that the fact that empirical investigation of inductive logics necessarily requires the use of some inductive logic at the metalevel does not render the whole project futile. I also discuss and eventually dismiss some well-known Bayesian arguments to the effect that the debate about the correct inductive logic can be settled on a priori grounds and has in fact been settled in favour of Bayesianism. (shrink)

The article is based on own methods of tourist estimation of historical and cultural potential of castle buildings in the Ivano-Frankivsk region to determine their level of attractiveness and prospects for needs of tourism and recreation industry. In the Ivano-Frankivsk region are five castles: in Halych Mariiampil, Rakovets, Chernelytsia and Pniv, which have great historical and cultural potential and all of these buildings can be used for the tourist adaptation. Criteria of the tourist estimation of potential of castle complexes are (...) built on an integrated approach that includes four groups of indicators: the natural and geographical location, historical and cultural features, infrastructure and advertising criteria. The tourist analysis of historical and cultural potential of castle constructions in the Ivano-Frankivsk region showed that 4 castles are at an average level of tourist adaptation and just castle in Halych has higher level of tourist and recreational adaptation. The author proposed following options for optimizing of the recreational use of castles, which are based on the tourist estimation: organization of new event activities, development of new tourist and recreational routes with castles and museumification. (shrink)

The paper outlines a generalisation of the awareness-based epistemic semantics by Fagin and Halpern. Awareness is construed as a relation between agents and pieces of information instead of formulas. The main motive for introducing the generalisation is that it shows substructural logics to be a natural component of information-based epistemic logic: substructural logics can be seen as describing the logical behaviour of pieces of information. Substructural epistemic logics are introduced and some of their properties are discussed. In addition, extensions of (...) substructural epistemic logics invoking group-epistemic and dynamic modalities are sketched. (shrink)

The paper sketches an analysis of the notion of a self-fulfilling belief in terms of doxastic modal logic. We point out a connection between self-fulfilling beliefs and Moore’s paradox. Then we look at self-fulfilling beliefs in the context of neighborhood semantics. We argue that the analysis of several interesting self-fulfilling beliefs has to make essential use of propositional quantification.

A defense of the rationality of adductive inference from the criticisms of Bayesian theorists.

Increasingly, the private sector is playing a greater role in supporting peace building efforts in conflict and post-conflict areas by providing critical expertise, know-how, and capital. However, reports of the corrupt practices of both governments and businesses have plagued international peace building efforts, deepening the distrust of stricken communities. Businesses are perceived as being selfish and indifferent to the impact their operations may have on the social and political development of local communities. Additionally, the corruption of local governments has been (...) cited as interfering with the creation of stability in conflict areas. Within this framework, multinational Public-Private Partnerships can exert two forms of influence: they can either exacerbate these problems, or they can become part of the solution. Without a relationship of trust among local businesses, government, and the private sector, peace building efforts will at best be mixed, and could possibly perpetuate violence in fragile states. Public and private interests are better served when Public-Private Partnerships are based upon collaboration and assist in establishing principles of good governance in conflict areas. This in turn can help build trust and regain the credibility of both sectors among local communities, which are essential in making Public— Private Partnerships more effective. (shrink)

In the article I consider various “Aristotelian” solutions to the problem of “material constitution.” First I provide a critical analysis of two solutions recently offered by Michael Rea and Kathrine Koslicki from a broadly Aristotelian perspective by arguing that both accounts of how a material whole could be constituted by its parts fall short from being satisfactory. Then I sketch how the problem in question could be solved in a more adequate way if based on Aristotelian metaphysics.

O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar como as reconfigurações na estrutura de significação da peça O Pagador de Promessas no cinema e na televisão permitiram diferentes fusões dos indícios temporais e espaciais (cronotopo), novas “zonas de contato” com a realidade cotidiana, novas imagens do indivíduo e do espaço e um novo tipo de acabamento axiológico do herói pelo autor (exotopia).

Pavel Cmorej has argued that the existence of unverifiable and unfalsifiable empirical propositions follows from certain plausible assumptions concerning the notions of possibility and verification. Cmorej proves, it the context of a bi-modal alethic-epistemic axiom system AM4, that (1) p and it is not verified that p is unverifiable; (2) p or it is falsified that p is unfalsifiable; (3) every unverifiable p is logically equivalent to p and it is not verifiable that p; (4) every unverifiable p entails that (...) p is unverifiable. This article elaborates on Cmorej’s results in three ways. Firstly, we formulate a version of neighbourhood semantics for AM4 and prove completeness. This allows us to replace Cmorej’s axiomatic derivations with simple model-theoretic arguments. Secondly, we link Cmorej’s results to two well-known paradoxes, namely Moore’s Paradox and the Knowability Paradox. Thirdly, we generalise Cmorej’s results, show them to be independent of each other and argue that results (3) and (4) are independent of any assumptions concerning the notion of verification. (shrink)

The bounded confidence model has become a popular tool for studying communities of epistemically interacting agents. The model makes the idealizing assumption that all agents always have access to all other agents’ belief states. We draw on resources from network epistemology to do away with this assumption. In the model to be proposed, we impose an explicit communication network on a community, due to which each agent has access to the beliefs of only a selection of other agents. A much-discussed (...) result from network epistemology shows that densely connected communication networks are not always preferable to sparser networks. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there are any noteworthy network effects in a version of the bounded confidence model augmented with communication networks, and in particular whether the aforementioned result from network epistemology can be replicated in that version. (shrink)

The author reveals a fundamentally significant parallel in the definitions of the method of cognition through a comparison of things and essences, attested in Aristotle’s “Eudemian Ethics” and in Ecclesiastes. With this particular attention is paid to the consideration of the semantic field of key terms used in the corresponding formulations. The examples of Ecclesiastes's application of the methodology of cognition developed by him demonstrate that his “pessimistic” and “skeptical” statements are only judgments with which sometimes directly opposite premises are (...) compared in the process of his reasoning, which results in rather optimistic conclusions; so that the “inconsistency” of Ecclesiastes proves to be only seeming. (shrink)