This paper analyses different retrospective links between the scientia generalis by Leibniz and the three key traditions of the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe – the philosophical, the rhetorical and the encyclopaedic one. The issue demonstrates the insufficient charachter of the two influential interpretations of the idea of scientia generalis by Leibniz – as a project of elaborating a a method of mathematical calculations for non-mathematical subjects (L. Couturat, J. Mittelstraß, V. Peckhaus etc.) and as a project of an encyclopaedic (...) synthesis combining ideas of the Lull’s Ars magna and humanistic rhetoric by M. Nizolius with the philosophical-theological encyclopaedism of J. Alsted and B. Keckermann (P. Rossi, W. Schmidt-Biggemann, T. Leinkauf etc.). The author presents the thesis that the formation of Leibniz’s idea of scientia generalis as well as some other concepts of the universal science in 17th century philosophy are the result of rethinking and expanding of the concept of the “first philosophy” delivered by Aristotle in his “Metaphysics”. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the phenomenon of designing future in the paradigm of objective reality. Based on the I. Prigozhin’s conclusions on the process of coherence of separate parts into a whole through the establishment of a common development pace of subsystems and the idea of constructivism that a person comprehends social reality through construction, one of the ways of the process of designing the future via its construction by the “extended self” is described. The concept of “the image (...) of the thing” is analyzed as a tool with which the future is constructed in the space of actual objectivity with elusive meanings. It is shown that in everyday reality we deal with “things in motion” - the moment when a thing exists simultaneously in offline and online environments as a kind of impersonal object that does not have an owner. The mechanism of occurrence of the “metronome effect” in the processes of designing the future is revealed. It is proved that the peculiarity of modern reality lies in the endless variability of the images of the future in the space of impersonal objectivity, when the images of things “without an owner” become a tool for constructing the future. For the first time the article reflects on the essence of digital extensions of a person (extended self) in interaction through images of things as “things-in-motion”, which defines a new sociality and suggests a different view of the processes of communication in social networks. It is revealed that the two conditions in the processes of online communications: “being in touch” and “objectivity of consumption” allow us to explain the essence of the processes of designing the future with the key role of the “extended self”. It is concluded that leveling the boundaries between “public” and “personal” in online communications is an innovation in the processes of constructing images of the future, which today has become part of its awareness processes and thus triggers the emergence of the phenomenon of designing the future. (shrink)

The existence of embodied communication in humans places them among other living systems and helps to differentiate sign patterns that are common to all bioforms from those that are peculiarly human. Despite the fact that the biological roots of communication have been proven, the understanding of human forms of discourse is still far from being clarified. The main question remains: when and why did humans acquire the ability to exchange messages via speech? My thesis is that it became possible only (...) after humans made a shift from on-line to off-line interaction and learned to communicate in the interpersonal mode via externalized analog codes that constitute the various forms of human culture. (shrink)

“Heidegger and Ethics” remains a controversial topic among Heidegger scholars. What appears particularly troublesome is the conjunction itself, [which hints on a link between] Heidegger and ethics. Heidegger proposes to consider ethics in its original source, distinguishing it from morality and from “ethics” as a “philosophical discipline,” which often concerns with social or political issues. Heidegger distinguishes ἔuο6 from ἦ?uο6, preferring to discuss “ethos” instead of “ethics.” Heidegger's main “hero” here is Aristotle. When referring to Aristotelian texts, Heidegger attempts nothing (...) less but to rethink the “first” part of first philosophy. The leading question in interpretation of Aristotle is the question of the objectness of Being, in which both Being of human and Being of life are interpreted. Heidegger asks himself what the phenomenological foundation for explicating the [meaning] of man is, and what categories evolve from this foundation. This article focuses on the same question. It begins wi... (shrink)

This study analyzes discussions from online language teacher education to understand how conversations between monolingual and bilingual preservice teachers (PSTs) in the US create and delimit structural constraints on teachers’ agency, (re)positioning teachers’ capacity to act in the instruction of emergent bilingual students (EBs). Employing positioning theory within a critical discursive psychology approach, findings demonstrate how bilingual PSTs pushed back on structural constraints introduced as potential barriers to achieving linguistic pluralism in monolingual teachers’ posts, asserting teachers’ agency by simultaneously positioning (...) themselves and others as capable and responsible for education of EBs. These findings inform theoretical understandings of agency as a discursive construct and offer insights for teacher educators as they conceptualize the role of discursive exchanges in developing PSTs’ understanding of structures and agentive possibilities regarding the equitable education of EBs. (shrink)

We investigated associations between moral reasoning and epistemological beliefs in an accounting context using the sample of 140 senior accounting students from a public university in Midwestern U. S. We found no significant correlations between accounting students' principled reasoning about Thome's ethical dilemmas and their beliefs about knowledge measured by administering Schommer epistemological questionnaire. We conducted post-hoc power analysis and present the evidence that the lack of associations should not be attributed to the lack of power. Overall, our results suggest (...) that reflective thinking and moral reasoning represent separate dimensions of cognitive process which develop at a different pace. Thus, a stand-alone course of ethics in accounting education is warranted since higher moral reasoning does not automatically follow from extended technical education and improved critical thinking skills. (shrink)

Objective: Losing the only child is considered as the most severe kind of bereavement. It can trigger intense grief symptoms along with loss of psychosocial resources, but meanwhile, it can also lead to posttraumatic growth (PTG). The current study aimed to examine (a) whether a curvilinear relationship exists between grief and PTG, and (b) the moderating role of resources-loss among Chinese bereaved parents who lost their only child (shidu parents). Methods: 199 shidu parents from five provinces completed the assessment packet (...) covering prolonged grief symptoms and PTG, as well as resource loss. Hierarchical regression analyses were computed to examine the curvilinear relationship and the moderating effect of interpersonal loss and socio-economic loss. Results: There was no significant curvilinear relationship between grief and PTG in shidu parents. Under the high levels of interpersonal loss, shidu parents’ PTG scores decreased as the severity of grief increased. However, the socio-economic loss did not show a significant moderating effect. Conclusion: The results of the current study did not show a significant curvilinear relationship between grief and PTG in shidu parents. High levels of grief coupled with high levels of interpersonal loss may interfere with their ability to achieve PTG. Therefore, evaluating degrees of interpersonal loss seems to be an important part of the treatment process when working with shidu parents. To facilitate their adaptation from a positive perspective, helping them maintain existing or develop new interpersonal relationships may be helpful. (shrink)

We propose that human social learning is subject to a trade-off between the cost of performing a computation and the flexibility of its outputs. Viewing social learning through this lens sheds light on cases that seem to violate bifocal stance theory (BST) – such as high-fidelity imitation in instrumental action – and provides a mechanism by which causal insight can be bootstrapped from imitation of cultural practices.

This qualitative study indentifies how corporate responsibility (CR) practices are diffused to companies, as well as the factors that influence this diffusion process. Forest companies, industry associations, non-governmental organizations, and academics in Brazil, Canada, and the United States participated in this interview-based study. Data emerging from a grounded theory approach revealed three factors influencing the diffusion of CR practices to companies: (1) external contextual characteristics, (2) connectors, and (3) experts and expert organizations. These three factors influence each other, meaning that (...) the diffusion process of CR practices is somewhat cyclic. These interactions are usually manifested by companies and expert organizations influencing each other’s actions, being influenced by the external environment, and contributing to the CR trends that are observed in the external environment. (shrink)

The content-analysis of the Russian federal and regional basic legislation on the cultural policy has indicated a need in a deep revision of all existing regulatory legal acts, which support the state cultural policy implementation towards building a universal terminology and vesting the functions on the cultural policy implementation in the government as opposed to the statement of the departmental specific approach to the culture.

Fear generalisation, a process by which conditioned fear spreads to similar but innocuous stimuli, is key in understanding why some individuals feel unsafe in objectively non-threatening situations. Both trait neuroticism and lack of predictability about the likelihood of feared consequences are associated with negative affect in the face of ambiguity and may increase the degree to which fear generalises. Undergraduates with varying degrees of neuroticism were randomised to either high- or low-instructional predictability conditions prior to fear acquisition. A fear generalisation (...) test measured risk ratings and attentional bias on a modified dot-probe paradigm. Among individuals with higher neuroticism, providing instructional predictability did not reduce fear; these individuals reported higher risk and increased attentional bias toward ambiguous stimuli. Overall, for individuals with higher neuroticism, predictability information hurt rather than helped interpretation of ambiguous stimuli, challenging a common conceptualisation of predictability as a factor that reduces fear. (shrink)

Using semiotic and historical methods, the article recovers the ancient Russian concept of ‘state’, which appeared and gained a foothold in the Russian social and cultural space in the fourteen and fifteenth centuries. In the authors’ opinions, this content has determined the basic features for understanding the State in modern post-Soviet Russian society to date. Accordingly, it is important to reassemble the main conceptual threads in the ‘state’ concept during the epoch of Ivan the Terrible, the Muscovite Tsar, the epoch (...) when the ‘state’ concept gained a foothold in Russian political culture. To re-establish the content of the ‘state’ concept, a historical description, an etymological and comparative analysis of this concept, as well as content analysis of the first epistle from Tsar Ivan the Terrible to Duke Andrei Kurbsky were employed. As a result, it was possible to recover the aspects of the ‘state’ concept that continue to be reproduced in post-Soviet Russian culture and predetermine certain elements of modern Russia’s political outlook. This concerns the central role of the ‘sovereign ruler’ in the State, the ideal of the ideological unity, the State’s mission of mediation between man and God, the hierarchy of the State and the sacral role of the ruler at the peak of this hierarchy. (shrink)

The most fascinating aspect of human language is grammar. Grammar is a computational system that mediates a mapping between linguistic form and meaning. Grammar is the machinery that gives rise to the unlimited expressibility of human language.

Attention is biased towards threat-related stimuli. In three experiments, we investigated the mechanisms, processes, and time course of this processing bias. An emotional flanker task simultaneously presented affective or neutral pictures from the international affective picture system database either as central response-relevant stimuli or surrounding response-uninformative flankers. Participants’ response times to central stimuli was measured. The attentional bias was observed when stimuli were presented either for 1500 ms or 500 ms. The threat-related attentional bias held regardless of the stimuli competing (...) for attention even when presentation time was further reduced to 200 ms. The results indicate that automatic and controlled mechanisms may interact to modulate the orientation of attention to threat. The data presented here shed new light on the mechanisms, processes, and time course of this long investigated by still largely unknown processing bias. (shrink)

La obra compuesta de dos (2) partes, permite conocer acerca de los avances de la linguística contemporánea, en diversos aspectos de investigación sobre la mente humana, en que medida la mente y el le nguaje se cosideran fenómenos naturales, profundización en lo supuestos e implicaciones del programa minimalista y temas relacionados.

The question about the object, method, and nature of Psychology in the first half of the 19th century received three proposals: the first, presented by Christian Wolff, appealed to the conciliation between the Psychologia Rationalis and the Psychologia Empirica based on the process of Experimentalphysik and in the Principle of Sufficient Reason; the second, proposed a shift towards Physiology this proposal was responsible for establishing the Psychology as an independent Science; the third offers an existential approach to mental phenomena. We (...) argue that the project of Søren Kierkegaard presents a Psychology Experimenterende as a response to Psychologia Empirica and the Experimentelle Psychologie. (shrink)

Social marketing has been established with the purpose of effecting change or maintaining people’s behaviour for the welfare of individuals and society, which is also what differentiates it from other types of marketing. However, social marketing scholars have struggled with guiding social marketers in conceptualising the social good and with defining who decides what is socially beneficial in different contexts. In this paper, we suggest that many dilemmas in identifying the social good in social marketing could be addressed by turning (...) to human rights principles, and, in particular, by following a human rights-based approach. We examine a number of cross-cutting human rights principles—namely, transparency and accountability, equality and non-discrimination, and participation and inclusion—that are capable, in a practical way, of guiding the work of social marketers. Through an illustrative case study of the anti-obesity discourse, we present how these principles might help to address some of the challenges facing social marketing, both as a theory and practice, in meeting its definitional characteristic. (shrink)

A versão original do ensaio A presencialidade de Hölderlin,2 de Hans-Georg Gadamer,encontra-se no volume 9 das suas obras completas, que se chama Estética e Poética II –Hermenêutica em Execução. No prólogo da presente edição, Gadamer ressalta que apreocupação desse volume não é de tratar a poesia como o sujeito de uma abordagemcientífica ou teórica, mas sim de executar uma espécie de entrada no poético, naquilo que é asua prática. Gadamer afirma que a poesia é capaz de se tornar parceira de (...) uma conversareflexiva (nachdenklichen Gesprächs), e ele se coloca à serviço de tal execução neste volume. Anecessidade disso e o seu real significado requer uma justificativa filosófica, que segundo eleestá presente no volume 8 das suas obras completas. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to analyze the identity policy implemented within the Union State of Belarus and Russia and determine the ways of its improving. Methods and materials: materials include acts of the Union State of Belarus and Russia and materials from Russian and Belarusian media; the methodological basis was laid by general scientific methods (system analysis, ascent from the abstract to the concrete, ascent from the individual to the general, synthesis, comparative method) and special legal and political (...) science scientific methods (formal legal method, method of legal hermeneutics, institutional-functional and system-structural approaches, content analysis method). Results and conclusions: the formation of the Union State of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation is inscribed in a complex multilevel context of international and domestic political processes, which co-determine opportunities and settle limitations for the unification strategies. The authors analyze the international and domestic factors that determine the slow character of the integration process. The authors propose one of the possible integration vectors. This vector assumes implementing a multi-level identity policy, which aims at forming a coherent political community at the heart of the Union State and needs today comprehensive development and legal and institutional support. The authors show that implementing this policy is possible only within the framework of the citizenship development. The article formulates some directions of this policy, which currently have not fully revealed their unifying potential and need further improvement. (shrink)

This article aims to contribute to the Peircean studies by providing an account of the reception of Peirce’s philosophy in Russian academia. Peirce was introduced to Russian scholarship at the beginning of the twentieth century, but Russian scholars’ work on Peirce remains unnoticed for the most part in the international academic world. Presenting an outline of their research fills a certain gap in the Peircean studies demonstrating how Peirce was received in imperial Russia, the USSR and post-Soviet Russian academia. This (...) overview can also serve, to some extent, as a contribution to the studies in cross-cultural communication, because the authors present Russian philosophers’ take on an American philosopher considered in the context of the changing historical and cultural landscape. From being introduced to Peirce via a francophone scholar at the beginning of the twentieth century to criticizing Peirce from the stance of dialectical materialism during the Cold War and exploring Peirce’s original work from various angles in the recent decades, Russophone academics could not avoid being affected by the complexity of cross-cultural communication. (shrink)

The article deals with the role and significance of value-semantic reflection concerning teachers' professional positions. The purpose of study to reveal the strategy for the implementation of upbringing technologies for solving the problems of spiritual and moral formation of subjects of education. The complex picture of systemic ideas about a person, the nonlinearity of his formation leads to attempts to simplify technological solutions, which contradicts the essence of the individual's spiritual and moral upbringing. The scientific novelty lies in the description (...) of the function of value-semantic reflection in relation to the content of the teacher's professional position. As a result, the author proposes an algorithm for the application of educational technologies based on the systemic value-semantic reflection of the teacher's professional position. (shrink)

El presente texto corresponde a la presentación de la defensa de la tesis "La racionalidad científico-tecnológica. Aportes a la reflexión epistemológica en la obra de Herbert Marcuse", dirigida por la Dra. Delia Albarracín en la Maestría en Metodología de la Investigación Científica de la Universidad Nacional de Lanús, que dirige Esther Díaz, el 26 de agosto de 2011. En lo que sigue queremos sintetizar una lectura de la obra de Herbert Marcuse que pone el énfasis en un cruce posible entre (...) su visión antropológica y su visión epistemológica desde una metodología que denominamos dialéctica. La confluencia propuesta supone considerar a la categoría racionalidad tecnológica como una categoría central de su obra que permite estructurar una lectura de conceptos que, aventuramos, siguen vigentes para pensar y re-pensar nuestra condición humana. Esta categoría reúne reflexiones filosóficas y políticas en el intento por desnudar la principal ideología que permite cohesionar a los individuos en los modelos sociales centrales del siglo XX. This text is a part of the M.S. Dissertation, "Scientific-technological rationality. Contributions to an epistemological reflection on Herbert Marcuse's work", under the supervision of PhD Delia Albarracín for the Master in Methodology for Scientific Investigation, Lanús University, directed by Esther Díaz, held on August 26th, 2011. What follows is a summary of our approach to Herbert Marcuse's work, which focuses on the crossing between the anthropological and the epistemological vision, from a methodological view that we call dialectics. The proposed convergence implies that the technological rationality category is central in his work and permits a certain reading of concepts that are still in force to think over our human condition. This category joins philosophical and political reflections in an attempt to unveil the main ideology that unites individuals in the XXth century's principal social models. (shrink)

This article discusses the history of American and Soviet transformations in German universities during the period of the Cold War, 1945–1990. Both American and Soviet policies were resisted by the university community, particularly by the conservative German professoriate, in both parts of the divided Germany. The article shows how and why both American and Soviet policies of the reforms of German universities were eventually failed.

The purpose of the study is to substantiate the socio-cultural contexts of the leading role of knowledge in the transformation of power and managerial relations in the knowledge society. The article analyzes the nature of the intellectual overstraat – a new power and management structure that is being formed in the conditions of the Knowledge Society, and identifies the socio-cultural prerequisites for the formation of this phenomenon. New spheres of cultural life, new social strata and strata, as shown in the (...) study, were the result of a" shift", a" shift " of power from the economy to knowledge. The "shift" in the structures of power and management undermines the traditional bureaucratic foundations. The overstraat of intellectuals is presented as embodying the power of knowledge. As a result, the functions of the intellectual overstrate in a knowledge - based society-social, economic, political and state-are identified and analyzed; the socio-cultural context of the leading role of knowledge in the transformation of power and managerial relations of the "Knowledge Society"is substantiated. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical analysis of the premises and arguments put forward by the Ius Constitutionale Commune en America Latina project to ground the image of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights as an agent of democratic transformation. It highlights three critical aspects: 1. the profile of the Court is constructed by legal scholars relying on self-validation and self-referentiality, 2. that image validates the idea that lawyers and the judiciary are agents of transformation ruling over local spaces from above, (...) thereby discarding people as the central subjects of change and democratization, and 3. the concept of representative democracy becomes a device that secures the self-validating dynamics of the image of the Court as democracy builder. (shrink)

In the domestic literature, the beginnings of comparative ideas about supernatural belong to the writing of Kievan Rus. The most meaningful such representation is presented by "The Word of St. Gregory, reproduced in the interpretation of how the first pagans, that is, the pagans, worshiped the idols and laid them down, as they now do." The basis of this monument of the Kyivan culture of the 12th century, also known as the "Word of the Idols," was the sermon of the (...) prominent patriarch Gregory the Theologian on the Epiphany, in which he reacted negatively to ancient paganism. But "The Word," as Y. Anichkov noted, is not a preaching, nor a translation of the thoughts of Gregory the Theologian, but an attempt to study Old Believers: it gives an interpretation of the work of the Byzantine theologian "in the interpretation" of the local paganism. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to contribute to the existing literature on continuing bonds with a deceased relative by exploration of discursive dimensions of the bonds through which the survivors construct their relationship with the person who died. The data come from five interviews with family members who survived the suicidal death of their relative. We argue that a focus upon the form and content of the survivors’ stories offers a complicated and heterogeneous picture of ‘bonding actions’. And so, (...) assuming a constructionist view of discourse, we show two kinds of bonds. First, it is a bond related to social expectations of bereaved families. Second, it is a personal bond, part of which is a bond with a reverse direction, established and maintained by the deceased person. (shrink)

In this study, we reconcile conflicting findings from the extant literature on the impact of tax system parameters on tax noncompliance. We argue that social norms play a role of heuristics facilitating tax payers’ response to the instrumental incentives posed by the systemic parameters, such as tax rate and penalties for evasion, and thus moderate the effect of those parameters on willingness to evade taxes. Relying on a unique survey experiment conducted in fourteen countries of Central-Eastern Europe, we demonstrate two (...) types of a conditioning effect of norms. First, the impact of tax rates on respondents’ propensity for tax evasion is moderated by the perceived norms of the society at large. In particular, an increasing tax rate lowers the probability of evasion as long as one views “most others” as honest taxpayers, which highlights the importance of equitability concerns for tax compliance decisions. In contrast, the impact of punishment is moderated by the perceived norms of one’s immediate reference group. Strong subjective compliance norms tend to effectively replace penalties as a mechanism discouraging tax evasion, suggesting that the deterrent effect of a penalty can be entirely suppressed when subjective norms are strong. These findings have important implications for the understanding of tax compliance decisions under different formal and informal regimes. (shrink)

Source: Author: Natalia Gerasimova, Inna Gerasymova The article reviews the current state of studying the problem of interpersonal conflict as a factor in adaptation, characterized by consideration of the relationship of these categories on two levels: intrapersonal conflict is studied as a driving force, a source of self-in the process of adaptation and as a leading indicator of complications adaptation. It is determined that the impact of interpersonal conflict in the course of adaptation depends on self-identity in a complex (...) interaction of external and internal factors. It is indicated that psychological content intrapersonal conflict experiences have a high degree of individual differentiation and thus determine the uniqueness of perception and interpretation of a specific person. An indicator of the transition from one level to another intrapersonal difficulties acts vulnerability to conflict self-relations context of inner experience. The nature of the adaptation of the student is determined by the internal model and solve interpersonal experiences complications, which are formed in the mind and form the basis of individual experience. ]]>. (shrink)

Nursing is at the same time a vocation, a profession and a job. By nature, nursing is a moral endeavor, and being a ‘good nurse’ is an issue and an aspiration for professionals. The aim of our qualitative research project carried out with 18 nurse teachers at a university nursing school in Brazil was to identify the ethical image of nursing. In semistructured interviews the participants were asked to choose one of several pictures, to justify their choice and explain what (...) they meant by an ethical nurse. Five different perspectives were revealed: good nurses fulfill their duties correctly; they are proactive patient advocates; they are prepared and available to welcome others as persons; they are talented, competent, and carry out professional duties excellently; and they combine authority with power sharing in patient care. The results point to a transition phase from a historical introjection of religious values of obedience and service to a new sense of a secular, proactive, scientific and professional identity. (shrink)

Globalization has now become an integral part of our lives. One of the basic components of globalization is the integration process that involves all areas of human life including language evolution. We consequently look at this problem in terms of language and natural language processes influenced by a complex variety of factors—both interlinguistic and extralinguistic-focusing mainly on the linguistic contacts with emphasis on areal aspects.

Russian philosophy has always lived on translations. Difficulties in the process of creating a conceptual language used to be overcome gradually, one by one. Now, in the post-Soviet period after all of the locks had been opened, the accelerated development of Russian culture often causes us to assimilate deconstructivism before constructivism and some newer versions of phenomenology before Husserl. It brings about a cultural paradox which cannot be solved by habitual philosophical means. My point here is that Russian philology is (...) able to contribute toward finding a way out. The paper aims to justify this idea. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)