A strong, strictly virtue- based , and at the same time truth-centered framework for virtue epistemology (VE) is proposed that bases VE upon a clearly motivating epistemic virtue, inquisitiveness or curiosity in a very wide sense, characterizes the purely executive capacities-virtues as a means for the truth-goal set by the former, and, finally, situates the remaining, partly motivating and partly executive virtues in relation to this central stock of virtues. Character-trait epistemic virtues are presented as hybrids, partly moral, partly purely (...) epistemic. In order to make the approach virtue- based , it is argued that the central virtue (inquisitiveness or curiosity) is responsible for the value of truth: truth is valuable to cognizers because they are inquisitive, and most other virtues are a means for satisfying inquisitiveness. On can usefully combine this virtue-based account of the motivation for acquiring knowledge with a Sosa-style analysis of the concept “knowledge”, which brings to the forefront virtues-capacities, in order to obtain a full-blooded, “strong” VE. (shrink)

Translated by Aleksandar B. Nedeljkovi? Since the end of the conflict in the Balkans in 1995, there has been an uneasy peace between the rival factions. What were the causes of the tragic disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and what is likely to happen next? Nenad Kecmanovi?, who witnessed and actively participated in many of the key events in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, offers a perceptive, seasoned analysis of the many challenges that threaten political stability in this powder keg region (...) of Eastern Europe. Both a professor of political science and a former politician who served in many high-ranking posts, Kecmanovi? brings rich, first-hand knowledge—theoretical and practical—to his discussion of the many explanations proposed for the troubles in the former Yugoslavia. Among the issues he considers are the renewal of ancient tribal hatreds, the emergence of nationalism as the last stage of communism, how the interests of outside powers have complicated the situation, whether the conflict represents a clash of civilizations, the difficulties of building democracy on the basis of an authoritarian political culture, and the possibility that democracy in this region acts as a great solvent that dissolves former political unions. Looking to the future, he discusses the rapid and potentially explosive developments in Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where there is continuing unrest among ethnic minorities. In conclusion, he assesses the chances that the European Union will someday incorporate the individual states of the former Yugoslavia vs. the potential for another outbreak of war. This sobering, in-depth overview of the current tense situation in the Balkans is must reading for anyone with an interest in the future of Europe. (shrink)

International law has recently recognized that sexual atrocities can be acts of genocide. This precedent was pioneered through a landmark lawsuit in New York against Radovan Karadžić, head of the Bosnian Serbs (Kadic v. Karadzic, 1993–2000), a case in which I played a central role. I argue that we may situate this development philosophically in relation to Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. She aims to secure a better understanding of genocide than was achieved (...) at the Nuremberg Trials (1945) and at the Eichmann trial (1961). Arendt claims that these trials were limited by formalism because they applied familiar paradigms onto these new experiences in a manner that obscured what was distinctive about them and that demanded original thinking and a new paradigm. Nuremberg obscured genocide by miscasting it as a traditional “war crime,” a problem that the Jerusalem court exposed butcould have better clarified. Through a first-hand account, I show how we too had to secure a new paradigm by treating the facts on their own terms and coining the crime as “genocidal rape.” We had to wrest this paradigm from a prevailing approach that also formally applied the category of “war crimes” onto these experiences in a way that obscured them and interfered with justice. (shrink)

Aziz Augustinus V. Yüzyılın Hristiyan teoloğu ve tarih felsefecisidir. Yazmış olduğu Tanrı Şehri/Devleti isimli eseri Batı Roma’nın Gotlar tarafından yağmalanmasının hemen akabinde kaleme alınmıştır. Eserin yazılış mantığı Roma’nın yıkılış sebebinin, insanların pagan inancını bırakıp Hristiyanlığa geçmeleriyle açıklayanlara bir cevap niteliği taşımaktadır. Buna göre Augustinus, Roma’nın yıkımının pagan inancına sırt çevirmekten değil yozlaşmaktan olduğu görüşünü savunmaktadır. Bu minvalde Augustinus, Pagan tanrılarının beceriksizliği karşısında Hristiyan inancının gücüne ve kurtarıcılığına vurgu yapmaktadır. Hristiyan medeniyetinin belki de tarih felsefesi bağlamında en erken savunusunu yapan Augustinus, (...) bu savunusunu Tanrı Devleti ve yeryüzünün kurtuluşu metaforunu işleyerek derinleştirmektedir. Tanrı Devleti fikrinin Haçlı seferlerinde birincil itici güç olması, Papa II. Urbanus ve Haçlıların Augustinus’un Tanrı Devleti savunusunu bir yönüyle teoriden pratiğe geçirme girişimi olarak düşünülebilir. Bu girişim, Augustinus’u haklı çıkarmaktan ziyade Haçlı kimliğini kanonik bir forma büründürme şeklinde ele alınmalıdır. Bu makale, Tanrı devleti düşüncesinin Hristiyan tarih tasavvurundaki yeri ve önemini Augustinus’un zihnî arka planından anlamlandırarak Haçlı seferlerine nasıl etki ettiği üzerine odaklanmıştır. Çalışmada, Tanrı Devleti’nin mümkünlüğü Augustinus’un yaklaşımından hareketle tarihsel sarkacın ileriye yönlendirilişiyle incelenmeye çalışılmıştır. Makalede kıyas yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Bu sayede Augustinus’un fikirleri ile Papa Urbanus’un fikirleri arasındaki benzerlik aşikâr kılınmaya çalışılmıştır. Nihai olarak Haçlı seferlerinin teolojik ve fikri zemininde, Augustinus’un Tanrı Devleti düşüncesi ve Hristiyanlık savunusunun etkisinin olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. (shrink)

This book offers a readable introduction to the main aspects of thought experimenting in philosophy and science. It presents the main options in understanding thought experiments, from empiricism to Platonism, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. However, it also provides some original perspectives on the topic. Firstly, it provides a new definition and analysis of thought experimenting that brings it closer to laboratory experimenting. Secondly, it develops the author’s earlier theory of “mental modelling”, proposed some decades ago by him, and (...) some other researchers in the field as the crucial procedure in thought experimenting. The mental modelling approach links work with thought experimenting to cognitive science and to research on mental simulation which is a hot topic in present-day research. Thirdly, it proposes a principled way to respond to criticism of thought experimenting by “experimental philosophers” as they have been dominating the present-day debates. The response suggests a possible ameliorative, self-help project for thought experimenting. Finally, the book provides a way to systematize the history of important thought experiments in science and philosophy and thus connects, in an original way, the systematic investigation of experimenting to the historical work of famous thought experiments. It is of interest to scholars interested in history of ideas and philosophy of science. (shrink)

U ovom eseju autor ispituje jedan od mogucih puteva u postfilozofiju koja ne postoji.

Autor kritički propituje uvjete i mogućnosti dijaloga između prirodnih znanosti i teologije stvaranja na primjeru dogmatičara Alexandrea Ganoczya. Ganoczy se služi responzorijskom metodom: razvija teologiju stvaranja »od dolje«, konstituirajući zajedničke »platforme« dijaloga gradeći na principu komplementarnosti uz pomoć analogije, te otkrivajući sličnost u načinu izražavanja prirodnih znanosti i teologije . Kao posebna tematska područja teološke refleksije rezultata prirodnih znanosti obrađuju se: samoorganizacija materije i creatio continua; prostorno vremenski kontinuum i vječnost; mozak, duh i Duh Božji; kreativnost i stvaranje te pitanje (...) zla i grijeh.The author analyzes critically the conditions and possibilities of dialogue between natural sciences and theology of creation of the dogmatist Alexandre Ganoczy. Ganoczy uses responsorial method: he develops theology of creation “from below”, constituting common “platforms” of dialogue and building on the principle of complementarity using analogy and discovering similarities in the manner of expression of both natural sciences and theology .The following areas of theological reflection on the results of natural sciences are subject to analysis: selforganization of matter and creatio continua; space-time continuum and eternity; brain, spirit and the Spirit of God; creativity and creation and the question of evil and sin.However, although Ganoczy manages to show that common platforms are much more then modest conclusion that science and theology are not contradictory, in certain topics the dialogue seems to be too associative and the discourse superficial, so that the whole project gains partly essayistic significance. (shrink)

The Concept of Intrinsic Evil and Catholic Theological Ethics examines the origin and meaning of the concept of intrinsic evil and its use in sexual ethics in the teachings of the Catholic Church, and in the construction of a systematic approach to theological ethics. It concludes with a suggestion of how the concept might be used in future ethical discourse.

In traditional semantic theory the meaning of a word or operator (logical constant) is permeated with normativity. It is held that if one grasps the meaning of a word (or logical constant), one ought to behave in a certain way. This view is labelled as normativism here. Normativists hold that meaning is intrinsically and irreducibly normative. The naturalistic approach to semantics, on the other hand, which tries to reconcile the traditional approach to meaning with a naturalistic world-view, has to naturalise (...) the normative character ofmeaning. Naturalists employ several strategies of argumentation, two of which I deem to be particularly significant. These two strategies are exemplified by P. Horwich’s revisionistic and C. Peacocke’s reductionistic approaches. This paper elucidates and critiques the former. My criticism tries to show that Horwich’s theory does not offer a successful answer to the normativist challenge. (shrink)

The paper joins Horwich’s criticism of stipulationist accounts of a priori knowledge, and raises some problems for his own account of the a priori. It first questions the assumed separability of scientific investigation and non-scieentific assertoric practices in regard to norms of adequacy. It also questioned Horwich’s Restriction Assumption according to which only the former are answerable to the standards of empirical adequacy and overall simplicity (which threaten apriority in the case of science). Finally, it criticises his argument that inability (...) to think otherwise might guarantee apriority, pointing to science-driven reflective revisability of possibly innate beliefs. (shrink)

Mark Richard in his book offers a new and challenging expressivist theory of the use and semantics of slurs (pejoratives). The paper argues that in contrast, the central and standard uses of slurs are cognitive. It does so from the role of stereotypes in slurring, from fi gurative slurs and from the need for cognitive effort (or simple of knowledge of relevant presumed properties of the target). Since cognition has to do with truth and falsity, and since the cognitive task (...) is a good indicator of semantic structure, it seems that the ascription of negative properties etc. indicates that they belong to the meaning of the slur, and that this meaning therefore confers truth-aptness. The (nasty) richness of meaning might vary with pejoratives: all of them involve “contemptible because G” at the very least. The most typical once carry more information. Some of it is given in the form of conceptual links roughly delineating the core stereotype associated with the pejorative, some in the form of fi gurative transfer of properties from some vehicle to the target member of G. So, slurs are not purely performative and expressive, but semantic in thetraditional, truth-directed sense. The truth-gap that might characterize the resulting sentences does not point to pejoratives not having ambition to say true and nasty things, but only to their failure in the attempt. The ambition defi nes the true-directed meanings of the assumptions, the failure just records that these assumptions are false about their targets. The paper leaves it open how central the truth-directed meanings are. The argument suggests that they are pretty central, either part of the core meaning, or of conventional implicature. (shrink)

The evolution of belt conveyors, as an important type of continuous conveying machinery, is examined here in a historical perspective. For this purpose, the selected period is from the ancient time, i.e. occurrence of conveying equipment, and up to the end of the nineteenth century. The basic postulation of a modern machine, including conveyors, is often interlinked to that of its ancestor, which may be simple and primitive. Ancient machines and principles of their work were the basis for later improvements (...) which also brought the inventions in engineering. For instance, Archimedes lifted water to high altitude with a screw, which was regarded as the ancestor of today’s screw conveyor and essentially his design has not changed since then. Bucket elevators also have their predecessors dating back to ancient times. In the concrete case of belt conveyors, a first trace can be found in the beginning of the seventeenth century, even classified as primitive example. During the Industrial Revolutions, various machines, such conveyors, appeared. The first modern-like belt conveyors are dedicated to the late eighteenth century due to the invention of Oliver Evans in USA and to the nineteenth century, by Lyster in England, Lopatine in Russia and Thomas Robins in USA. The technical solutions developed by the end of the nineteenth century were forerunners of the today’s belt conveyors, while the key operational principles have not changed. (shrink)

Building on Crane’s intentionalism, the paper proposes a variant of response-dependentist view of colors. To be of a color C is to have a disposition to cause in normal observers a response, namely, intentional phenomenal C-experience. The view is dubbed “response-intentionalism”. It follows from the following considerations, with the red of a tomato surface taken as an example of color C. Full phenomenal red is being visaged as being on the surface of the tomato. Science tells us that full phenomenal (...) red is not on the surface of the tomato. Equally, full phenomenal red is not a property of subjective state but its intentional object. Response-intentionalism follows by considerations of charity, i.e. minimizing and rationalizing the error of the cognizer, and of inference to the best explanation: being red in scientific sense is being such as to cause the response visaging phenomenal red in normal observers under normal circumstances. (shrink)

Dealing with deductive reasoning, performed by ‘real-life’ reasoners and expressed in natural language, the paper confronts Harman’s denying of normative relevance of logic to reasoning with a logicist thesis, a principle that is supposed to contribute for solving the problem of incongruence between descriptive nature of logic and normativity of reasoning. The paper discusses in detail John MacFarlane’s (2004) and Hartry Field’s (2009) variants of “bridge principle”. Taking both variants of bridge principles as its starting point, the paper proceeds arguing (...) that there is more than one logical formalism that can be normatively suitable for deductive reasoning, due to the fact that reasoning can assume different forms that are guided by different goals. A particular reasoning processing can be modelled by specific formalism that can be shown to be actually used by a real human agent in a real reasoning context. (shrink)

Many authors have argued that we should make a clear conceptual distinction between mononational and multinational states. Yet the number of empirical examples they refer to is rather limited. France or Germany are usually seen as mononational, whereas Belgium, Canada, Spain and the UK are considered multinational. How should we classify other cases? Here we can distinguish between (at least) two approaches in the literature: statistical (i.e., whether significant national minorities live within a larger state and, especially, whether they claim (...) self-government) and subjective (i.e., when citizens feel allegiance to sub-state national identities). Neither of them, however, helps us to resolve the problem. Is Italy multinational (because it contains a German-speaking minority)? Is Germany really mononational (in spite of the official recognition of the Danes and the Sorbs in some Länder)? On the other hand, is Switzerland the “most multinational country” (Kymlicka)? Let us assume that there is no definite answer to this dilemma and that it is all a matter of degree. There are probably few (if any) clearly mononational states and few (if any) clearly multinational states. Should we abandon this distinction in favour of other concepts like “plurinationalism” (Keating), “nations-within-nations” (Miller), “postnational state” (Abizadeh, Habermas), or “post-sovereign state” (MacCormick)? The article discusses these issues and, in conclusion, addresses the problem of stability and shared identity “plural” societies. (shrink)

Kant?s legal and political philosophy is essential for understanding and advancing international order. The article aims to posit arguments that confront the claims that Kant was just war theorist. Since that is the most opposed part of Kant?s political philosophy, mostly due to the misleading interpretation of his argumentation, the author presents Kant?s standpoint on the matters of just war and international order and discusses potential ambiguities between Kant?s and his critics? theories. Furthermore, the consequences of opponents? arguments considering states (...) of states, world republic and cosmopolitan democracy in contemporary political philosophy are debated. Finally, the possibility of consent between the three model solutions which are arising from the contemporary international order theory and Kant?s position are compared and analysed. (shrink)

The paper addresses two fundamental issues in epistemic axiology. It argues primarily that curiosity, in particular its intrinsic variety, is the foundational epistemic virtue since it is the value-bestowing epistemic virtue. A response-dependentist framework is proposed, according to which a cognitive state is epistemically valuable if a normally or ideally curious or inquisitive cognizer would be motivated to reach it. Curiosity is the foundational epistemic virtue, since it bestows epistemic value. It also motivates and organizes other epistemic virtues, so it (...) is foundational and central for epistemology. The second issue is the one of the fundamental bearer of epistemic value. I shall argue that truth is the primary goal, but that mere true belief is not the fundamental bearer. Rather, the bearer is a relatively minimalist kind of knowledge. Mere true belief cannot be rationally accepted in isolation from a supporting structure. However, any efficient supporting structure introduces further epistemic goods (justification, reliability, anti-luck guarantees), thus upgrading the original true belief. Mere true belief can be neither defended, nor rationally sustained through time, due to isolation. Mere true belief cannot be rationally sustained in the face of a slightest bit of contrary evidence (the Meno insight). Therefore, mere true belief is not rationally stable. Minimal knowledge is, and this accounts for the primary and secondary value problem, and for a relatively undemanding kind of tertiary value. (shrink)