The article gives a short account of V.A. Smirnovs scientific biography, including his work in Tomsk University in Siberia and in the Department of Logic of the Institute of Philosophy in Moscow.

The volume presents a set of invited papers based on analyses of legal discourse drawn from a number of international contexts where often the English language ...

Substantive scientific letter writing is a cost-effective mode of complementing observational and experimental research. The value of such philosophically uncommitted and unsponsored well-balanced scientific activity has been relegated. Critical letter writing entails the abilities to: maintain rational scepticism; refuse to conform in order to explain data; persist in keeping common sense centre-stage; exercise logic to evaluate the biological significance of mathematical figures, including statistics, and the ability to sustain the will to share insights regarding disease mechanisms on an ostensibly lower (...) research platform. During peer review, innovative letter writing may share the occasionally unfortunate fate of innovative research. Rejected scientific letters do not automatically lose copyright. Periodicals with high letter loads will see some valuable contributions wasted, but that is the price for maintaining autonomy in scientific publication. The scientific community is an integrated whole that must respect the rights of authors at all levels. Unauthorised forwarding of rejected letters sets the dangerous precedent of justifying unjust means. (shrink)

First of all - about the connections of culture and religion. This question is one of those who, in the recent past, was subjected to all kinds of distortions. Consequently, our contemporary Ukrainian society needs a true meeting of religion and culture. The attempt of Marxism to create a new humanism, which completely rejects religion and is based only on atheism, and even that which was given a militant character, proved to be insolvent. Even now we understand that it is (...) impossible to build a culture denying the close connection between religion and culture. (shrink)

Nunez's description of the brain as a medium capable of wave propagation has provided some fundamental insights into its dynamics. This approach soon reaches the descriptive limits of the brain as a physical system, however. We point out some biological constraints which differentiate the brain from physical systems and we elaborate on its consequences for future research.

In this paper a nonspreading, unnormalizable wave packet satisfying the Schrödinger equation is constructed. A modification of the Schrödinger equation is considered which allows the normalization of the wave packet. The case is generalized for relativistic mechanics.

The debates now in progress about the interactions of science and art compel one involuntarily to recall that such discussions have been held more than once and were, a long time ago, perhaps no less heated. It suffices to cite virtually at random certain statements of Pisarev, for example , for us to see, as in a cloudy mirror, both today's advocates of scientism and the romantics of art. Does this mean that all we need is to bear in mind (...) the wise words of the past in order to advance, as is believed by Iu. I. Kagarlitskii ? Obviously, that is not the case. The problem of the interactions of science and art is a philosophical one, not one of natural science; and the results achieved in debates of the past do not eliminate the questions of world view that constantly arise anew. Philosophy has no axioms such as exist in mathematics. It is therefore difficult to imagine that subsequent history has added nothing whatever to the understanding of past debates. Yet reference to these debates would appear to be essential today to clarify at least one of the factors of the problem we have posed. It might appear that this factor has been pointed to, but it has constantly been beclouded by the explanations of how science influences artists, and how art influences scientists who are at the same time artists, by references to the unity of the creative character of science and art, and so forth. In my opinion, it is essential, however, to emphasize that the very problematics of the interactions between science and art depend on the social and cultural environment within which they exist and are discussed. Turning to the past, we can see that science and art are not realms of activity handed down to humankind "since the creation of the world." They develop in the "body," if one may put it thus, of a specific socium, a specific culture. It would, of course, be absurd to conceive of any direct contact between science and art without the mediation of human beings, of society, of culture. Moreover, the debates themselves are determined by the level at which science and art are found within a given sociocultural space, by virtue of which analysis of these debates may provide data to the researcher for an understanding of the direction of social development. The RST influences all spheres of human activity, including the esthetic. Today, however, particularly in the West, there is a tendency to elevate the significance of the RST to an absolute, to explain many processes by its direct influence on social consciousness independently of the social conditions in which it occurs. Therefore, it would seem to be methodologically important for today's debates to demonstrate, on the basis of some concrete historical material, the connection between those shifts in social consciousness that sometimes explain the direct influence of progress in science and technology, on the one hand, and certain sociocultural conditions, on the other. (shrink)

"The Party's struggle to educate the people as atheists," said Comrade L. F. Il'ichev in his report to the Ideological Commission of the Central Committee of the CPSU, November 25, 1963, "has had a history and has gone through stages, at each of which concrete problems were solved, and forms and methods of work specific to the given period were developed.".