The subject of the paper is the philosophical aspects of the quality of life. Although in philosophical terminology this notion is not used very often, the question “What is a good happy and high-quality human life?” is one of the earliest in the anthropological philosophy. Philosophical questions concerning this problem might therefore be inspiring, and determining for the theoretical and methodological orientations of the researches in this field. The author approaches the quality of life from three points of view: from (...) the point of view of the ontological difference – as a certain ontological modus, as an ontic experience and as a substantive, existential characteristic of being. According to the author the fundamental element of the quality of life as a whole is the compensation of existential anxiety and focusing on the meaning of life. (shrink)

This article aims to show the importance of the vampire metaphor to Marx's work. In so doing, it challenges previous attempts to explain Marx's use of the metaphor with reference to literary style, nineteenth-century gothic or Enlightenment rationalism. Instead, the article accepts the widespread view linking the vampire to capital, but argues that Marx's specific use of this link can be properly understood only in the context of his critique of political economy and, in particular, the political economy of the (...) dead. (shrink)

Emotions can be explained as specialized states, shaped by natural selection, that increase fitness in specific situations. The physiological, psychological, and behavioral characteristics of a specific emotion can be analyzed as possible design features that increase the ability to cope with the threats and opportunities present in the corresponding situation. This approach to understanding the evolutionary functions of emotions is illustrated by the correspondence between (a) the subtypes of fear and the different kinds of threat; (b) the attributes of happiness (...) and sadness and the changes that would be advantageous in propitious and unpropitious situations; and (c) the social emotions and the adaptive challenges of reciprocity relationships. In addition to addressing a core theoretical problem shared by evolutionary and cognitive psychology, explicit formulations of the evolutionary functions of specific emotions are of practical importance for understanding and treating emotional disorders. (shrink)

Of the many problems of history and culture, the problem of correct understanding and interpretation of universal symbols, as well as their wise use, is very relevant. Since the subject of the study is not individual symbols, and not even symbolic systems, but the outlook component of the transformation of symbols, in the field of research is the interaction of culture and its creator - a person whose change of position leads to a change in the interpretation of symbols, and (...) therefore changes in the symbolism. The main task of the article is to understand the phenomenon of the symbol and its transformation in a single structure of history and culture. (shrink)

The usual definition of (non-contextual) hidden variables is found to be too restrictive, in the sense that, according to it, even some classical systems do not admit hidden variables. A more general concept is introduced and the term “approximate hidden variables” is used for it. This new concept avoids the aforementioned problems, since all classical systems admit approximate hidden variables. Standard quantum systems do not admit approximate hidden variables, unless the corresponding Hilbert space is 2-dimensional. However, an appropriate non-standard quantum (...) system, which arises by focussing on momentum and position and neglecting the remaining observables, admits approximate hidden variables. Systems associated with JBW-algebras (resp. von Neumann algebras) and satisfying some mild conditions admit approximate hidden variables iff they are classical, that is, iff the corresponding JBW-algebra (resp. von Neumann algebra) is associative (resp. commutative). (shrink)

Academic misconduct is a threat to the validity and reliability of online examinations, and media reports suggest that misconduct spiked dramatically in higher education during the emergency shift to online exams caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study reviewed survey research to determine how common it is for university students to admit cheating in online exams, and how and why they do it. We also assessed whether these self-reports of cheating increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with an evaluation of (...) the quality of the research evidence which addressed these questions. 25 samples were identified from 19 Studies, including 4672 participants, going back to 2012. Online exam cheating was self-reported by a substantial minority (44.7%) of students in total. Pre-COVID this was 29.9%, but during COVID cheating jumped to 54.7%, although these samples were more heterogenous. Individual cheating was more common than group cheating, and the most common reason students reported for cheating was simply that there was an opportunity to do so. Remote proctoring appeared to reduce the occurrence of cheating, although data were limited. However there were a number of methodological features which reduce confidence in the accuracy of all these findings. Most samples were collected using designs which makes it likely that online exam cheating is under-reported, for example using convenience sampling, a modest sample size and insufficient information to calculate response rate. No studies considered whether samples were representative of their population. Future approaches to online exams should consider how the basic validity of examinations can be maintained, considering the substantial numbers of students who appear to be willing to admit engaging in misconduct. Future research on academic misconduct would benefit from using large representative samples, guaranteeing participants anonymity. (shrink)

In this study, we examined moral issues and gender differences in ethical judgment using Reidenbach and Robin’s [Journal of Business Ethics9 (1990) 639) multidimensional ethics scale (MES). A total of 340 undergraduate students were asked to provide ethical judgment by rating three moral issues in the MES labeled: ‚sales’, ‚auto’, and ‚retail’ using three ethics theories: moral equity, relativism, and contractualism. We found that female students’ ratings of ethical judgment were consistently higher than that of male students across two out (...) of three moral issues examined (i.e., sales and retails) and ethics theories; providing support for Eagly’s [1987, Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-role Interpretation. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc, Hillsdale, NJ, England)] social role theory. After controlling for moral issues, women’s higher ratings of ethical judgment over men’s became statistically non-significant. Theoretical and practical implications based on the study’s findings are provided. (shrink)

The emerging field of quantum mereology considers part-whole relations in quantum systems. Entangled quantum systems pose a peculiar problem in the field, since their total states are not reducible to that of their parts. While there exist several established proposals for modelling entangled systems, like monistic holism or relational holism, there is considerable unclarity, which further positions are available. Using the lambda operator and plural logic as formal tools, we review and develop conceivable models and evaluate their consistency and distinctness. (...) The main result is an exhaustive taxonomy of six distinct and precise models that both provide information about the mereological features as well as about the entangled property. The taxonomy is well-suited to serve as the basis for future systematic investigations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt has become standard to treat Kant’s characterization of pure apperception as involving the claim that questions about what I think are transparent to questions about the world. By contra...

M. J. Woods; XI*—Substance and Essence in Aristotle, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 167–180, https://doi.org/10.

It is well-known that the entangled quantum state of a composite object cannot be reduced to the states of its parts. This quantum holism provides a peculiar challenge to formulate an appropriate mereological model: When a system is in an entangled state, which objects are there on the micro and macro level, and which of the objects carries which properties? This paper chooses a modeling approach to answer these questions: It proceeds from a systematic overview of consistent mereological models for (...) entangled systems and discusses which of them is compatible with the quantum mechanical evidence (where quantum states are understood realistically). It reveals that entangled quantum systems neither describe undivided wholes nor objects that stand in irreducible relations. The appropriate model assumes that the entangled property is an irreducible non-relational plural property carried collectively by the micro objects, while there is no macro object. In this sense, quantum holism is an instance of property holism, not of object holism. (shrink)

IntroductionEddy M. Zemach was born in Jerusalem in 1935. His mother, Helena, was a dentist as well as a poet, and his father, Shimon, was a dentist as well as a political figure. Eddy completed B.A. and M.A. degrees in both Hebrew literature and philosophy at the Hebrew university of Jerusalem. He studied for a doctoral degree in philosophy at Yale University. In 1965 he completed his dissertation on the boundaries of the aesthetic, supervised by Paul Weiss. Another of his (...) teachers at Yale was Wilfrid Sellars, who influenced his philosophical views on mind and language. Aesthetics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language formed the center of his philosophical interest, though this interest was extended to other philosophical areas, such as metaphysics and epistemology.Eddy published extensively in both philosophy and Hebrew literature, and also wrote many short stories . He wrote some two hundred papers, and twelve scholarly books .. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the violation of Bell inequalities excludes local theories of the quantum realm. In this paper I present a stronger Bell argument which even forbids certain non-local theories. The remaining non-local theories, which can violate Bell inequalities, are characterised by the fact that at least one of the outcomes in some sense probabilistically depends both on its distant as well as on its local parameter. While this is not to say that parameter dependence in the usual (...) sense necessarily holds, it shows that the received analysis of quantum non-locality as “outcome dependence or parameter dependence” is deeply misleading about what the violation of Bell inequalities implies. (shrink)

Two and a half thousand years ago Greek philosophers "looked up at the sky and formed a theory of everything." Though their solutions are little credited today, the questions remain fresh. Early Greek thinkers struggled to come to terms with and explain the totality of their surroundings, to identitify an original substance from which the universe was compounded, and to reconcile the presence of balance and proportion with the apparent disorder of the cosmos. M. R. Wright examines cosmological theories of (...) the "natural philosophers" from Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes to Plato, the Stoics and the NeoPlatonists. The importance of Babylonian and Egyptian forerunners is also emphasized. Cosmology in Antiquity is a comprehensive introduction to the cosmological thought in ancient times. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).