Depuis Kant, les philosophes ont appris à parler, avec prudence, du surnaturel et de sa relation avec la nature. En général le surnaturel n’est meme pas reconnu comme faisant partie de la philosophie. La situation n’aurait pu être plus différente aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, lorsque les philosophes comprenaient la relation entre Dieu et le monde comme l’un des problèmes les plus importants que la philosophie fût censée résoudre. Les solutions étaient bien sûr extrêmement diverses : Spinoza niera même que l’on puisse (...) faire la distinction entre principe créateur et création, tandis que d’autres, tel Robert Boyle, s’imagineront un maître horloger créant une machine absolument parfaite, qui depuis sa création ne requiert aucun acte supplémentaire de la part de son créateur. Jusque dans la pensée du jeune Kant, cette idée se rencontrera sous des formes diverses. Tous convenaient, tout de même, qu’il fallait rejeter l’ancien modèle aristotélicien d’une nature désirante, reconstruisant la nature comme un système reposant sur quelques lois fondamentales et repensant à nouveaux frais le rôle que Dieu peut, ou doit, jouer dans un tel système. Les contributions du présent volume traitent d’aspects historiques et systématiques des théories modernes de la nature et du surnaturel, tout en essayant de comprendre, dans ce contexte, l’importance des théories de la relation entre Dieu et le monde. (shrink)

The authors of this article contend that traditional corruption, which was largely blamed for the current situation in the Icelandic economy, was perhaps not the most fundamental reason for the ensuing crisis. The weak business culture and a symbiosis of business and politics have actually allowed for the bulk of self-erving and unethical decisions made by the Icelandic business and political elite. In order to illustrate this point, 10 expert interviews have been conducted within the period of 6 months in (...) 2009 to support in-depth research carried out by the authors. The article also discloses questionable business practices that have recently come to the attention of the public both in Iceland and abroad and that ultimately facilitated the downfall of the Icelandic economy. While traditional corruption has probably played its role in this downfall, the measures currently employed to determine its level did not account for various peculiarities of Icelandic society. The article thus argues that there was a high level of corruption in Iceland, but it was outside of the traditional definition. This other corruption has ultimately prevented the government from acting appropriately upon the questionable business practices mentioned above. The article also offers some general recommendations which should be useful to both policy makers and business leaders wishing to engage in business activities in a transparent, ethical manner and learn from the tragic Icelandic experience. Among these recommendations are the necessity to recognize the limitations of current definitions of corruption, as well as a word of caution to commercial enterprises to pay a close attention not only to commonly accepted indices and mainstream reports but also to a country's history, culture, and political environment, prior to making any sort of investment decisions in that country. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss an interpretation of Hegel's concept of the “Inverted World”, which is present in the final part of the chapter on Force and Understanding in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Other than my own reading of the chapter, I also summarize the three most important interpretations of the verkehrte Welt from the last century: those of Jean Hyppolite, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Joseph Flay. I have chosen these three due to the typology of interpretation within them: the first (...) one adopts a Christian reading of Hegel, the second a Hellenistic phenomenological interpretation, and the last one, which is closest to the interpretation I also propose, a reading consistent with the thought of Immanuel Kant. The article ends with a possible interpretation of Hegel's verkehrte Welt through Kant's “Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding” from his Critique of Pure Reason, where I argue that Kant's fundamental faculty of imagination and its object, schemata, play the same role in Kant's system that Hegel's verkehrte Welt does in the development of natural consciousness. (shrink)

Genius State of Mind – Determination or Effect? Through this paper I put together philosophical aspects and also medical ones regarding Nietzsche’s mental disorders. The analyze is based on three different discussions on modeling or creative suffering, bipolar disorder and altered states of consciousness ‒ extended consciousness and will show us some interesting findings, one of them is that the bipolar disorder II that Nietzsche was suffering of, could be the trigger point for it’s genius state of mind. Also in (...) the discussions chapter some questions regarding genius are raised. (shrink)

This article explores notions of death and subjectivity, through the zombie, in the first four seasons of the AMC show, The Walking Dead. The body of the zombie elicits intriguing speculations. In its death, zombie lingers in the overlapping wedge between the grotesque and the sublime. Stemming from this idea, and through a re-analysis of the zombie as a concept, we propose an update to the Lacan/Zizek psychoanalytical models for death and subjectivity, as well as offer an explanation, through the (...) Holocaust, for this ubiquitous post-apocalyptic fantasy. (shrink)

Although the phenomenon of addiction has existed, in one form or another, throughout the entire history, in contemporary society it takes new, more powerful forms, that need to be better understood. Also, today there are new methods and technologies of research, unavailable to past generations, that can shed new light on this complex matter. It is also advisable to use an interdisciplinary approach, as different areas of research can in fact cooperate to achieve a better understanding of addiction. It must (...) also be taken into account that, being a very complex phenomenon, certain aspects of addiction can only be understood by certain sciences, and then the conclusions can be unified through the use of phenomenology. This study will try to perform precisely this kind of endeavor, revealing the phenomenon of addiction from more then one perspective, focusing on the many facets that it can have. (shrink)

The beginning of the current decade witnessed the collapse of many ambitious and costly initiatives in distance learning, but that does not mean that this was just a short-lived fad, and that the march of change was halted. There appeared on stage forces and processes that work more slowly than decisions of university administrators, but that are also much more difficult to ignore or reverse. This article describes these change factors and the how they influence American higher education.

Marilena Vlad Cet article se focalise sur le concept de lumière dans les traités du Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite Sur les noms divins et La théologie mystique. Le but de l’analyse est de montrer que la lumière n’est pas seulement un nom divin, mais qu’elle a un rôle beaucoup plus complexe dans la pensée de Denys. Premièrement, c’est la lumière qui rend possible le déploiement de tous les noms divins. En outre, elle explique le sens et le fonctionnement du nom divin (...) de « bien ». La lumière est l’essence de ce nom, aussi que de tous les autres noms divins, qu’elle parcourt et unit en une structure originaire. Enfin, son ultime suppression — qui identifie la lumière à son contraire absolu, la ténèbre — engage la suppression de tous les autres noms divins et lumières théologiques, ce qui ouvre vers les plus hauts mystères de la théologie. (shrink)

Reshaping the neo-Aristotelian doctrines about the human soul was Descartes’s most spectacular enterprise, which gave birth to some of the sharpest debates in the Republic of Letters. Neverthe- less, it was certainly Descartes’s intention, as already expressed in the Discours de la méthode, to show that his new metaphysics could be supplemented with experimental research in the field of medicine and the conservation of life. It is no surprise then that several natural philosophers and doctors, such as Henricus Regius from (...) Utrecht, who had studied in Padua with William Harvey, rallied in support, in order to gain a more substantial theoretical basis for their research. Taking as his ground some general metaphysical assumptions, such as the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and perhaps the separability of the pure understanding, Regius intended to secure a new philosophy of man, which was able to reflect his medical interests and complement his account of human nature. This is the story that is now gaining currency, and it is surely accurate, at least in part. Desmond Clarke has recently defended the same view1, based on the remarkable studies of the Utrecht scholars Theo Verbeek and Erik-Jan Bos. Here I would like to challenge some aspects of this view and ask how Regius, who was perceived as the philosopher most closely associated with Descartes, became a betrayer of his mentor. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous nous concentrons sur le problème du principe premier chez Damascius. La question est celle de savoir dans quelle mesure la discursivité – le fait d’en parler – affecte ce problème et l’accès de notre pensée. Bien que le principe premier se veut indicible, toute tentative de le suggérer ne nous rend qu’une image discursive et donc inadéquate de lui. Toute tentative de raffiner notre perspective sur le principe ne fait que nous en éloigner d’avantage. Quelle est (...) alors la solution de Damascius? Comment peut‑on toujours parler du principe, tout en le reconnaissant indicible? Quel est le rôle du discours dans la saisie du principe? Peut‑il devenir plus qu’une entrave? Nous analysons la manière dont Damascius comprend son propre discours sur le principe et comment il transforme ce discours inévitablement inadéquat, en une manière de produire la conscience du principe. Le principe n’est pas décrit, mais plutôt rendu manifeste par un véritable “travail d’enfantement” (ὠδίς) de la pensée. Nous analysons les manières de ce travail d’enfantement, afin de montrer comment l’indicible se manifeste à travers lui, sans recevoir une expression concrète, qui risquerait de le transformer en objet de notre pensée. Nous montrerons que le travail d’enfantement n’est pas le signe de l’impossibilité de saisir le principe et d’un indépassable tourment qui accablerait la pensée à cause de cette incapacité. Au contraire, il représente une manière indirecte, non‑descriptive, mais très technique et rigoureuse, dont on peut obtenir la conscience de l’indicible, dans le cadre du discours et par sa médiation. (shrink)

Mutually supporting methodologies are necessary for building a convincing case establishing a particular effect. Strengths and weaknesses of four empirical methods are discussed. Econometric methods quantify the relative importance of different factors and may assess the time frame over which constitutions matter, but have difficulties in dealing with nonlinear interactions among constitutional and cultural details. Cluster analysis can be a pre-requisite to other methods, and an analytic method in itself, useful for identifying the details that really matter and discovering surprising (...) patterns in the data. I discuss the application of cluster analysis on the Comparative Constitutions Project database. Qualitative comparative analysis can reveal the hidden structure of interactions among different variables, but robustness checks are difficult to perform. Case studies are useful for distinguishing between rules-in-use and rules-in-form and for discovering important informal aspects. They can deal with com.. (shrink)

Albert’s anthropology places the human being at the top of a hierarchy of living things in virtue of a unique feature – namely the intellect – that offers the possibility of transcending the changing realm of nature and of assimilating its possessor to their divine creator. Even though Albert, throughout his works, often defends the independence of the human intellect from matter and consequently from the body and senses, his works on natural philosophy seem to offer a different perspective. InDe (...) animalibus, Albert considers the brain to be the divine member of the body responsible for the operations of sensation and, to a certain degree, of intellection. Thus, the entire humoral activity of the human body has a direct influence on the activity of the intellect, his divine nature notwithstanding. Accordingly, the main purpose of the present study is to point out how the classical humoral theory is integrated by Albert the Great in his physiological consideration for an explanation of the intellect placed between the murky boundaries of natural philosophy and metaphysics. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of units of analysis and atomistic models in psychology taking creativity research as a case study. A classic typology in this area, initially proposed by Rhodes, distinguishes between the four P's of creativity: person, process, product, and press. Continuing an effort to rewrite this basic language of the discipline from a cultural psychological perspective in the form of five A's, the discussion here focuses on bringing relationships to the fore within this framework and problematising strict (...) distinctions between each of the five elements. A closer look at the five A's of creativity, drawing on theoretical considerations and illustrated by interviews with creators working in different domains, reveals the permeable borders surrounding these units and challenges clear divisions between actors and audiences, action and artefacts, actors and artefacts. In the end, it is argued that creative phenomena cannot be properly understood and studied outside of their integrated and dynamic totality defined as a creativity complex. Implications of adopting this “molecular” perspective for theory and methodology are discussed. (shrink)

The current pandemic and the measures taken to address it, on a global scale, are unprecedented. Times of crisis call for creative solutions, and these are not reduced to the work of scientists or politicians. In everyday life, both in online and offline spaces, people use their creativity to make sense of the current situation, to cope with it, and to learn its lessons. Social media is a privileged space for mundane and participative creativity through the production and sharing of (...) coronavirus Internet memes. In this article, we examine the creativity of such memes from a dedicated Reddit community. We ask, in particular, what makes a coronavirus meme creative and what this creativity tells us about the pandemic and popular understandings of it. To answer these questions, we use a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods by having 480 memes coded by three social media users for surprise, meaningfulness, elaboration, humor, and creativity and qualitatively analyzing those memes that score highly on each dimension. An interesting finding concerns the importance of elaboration and humor for the evaluation of creativity in the case of memes, above the more traditional criteria of surprise (proxy for novelty) and meaningfulness (proxy for appropriateness), perhaps a feature unique for Internet spaces. The article ends with reflections on what these findings tell us about creativity on social media more generally and the creative processes involved in the generation and reception of coronavirus memes in particular. (shrink)

This essay explains how to use the calculus of consent framework to think more rigorously about self-governance, and applies this framework to the issue of evaluating federal regulatory agencies. Robust political economy is the idea that institutions should be designed to work well even under weak assumptions about decision-makers’ knowledge and benevolence. I show how the calculus of consent can be used to analyze both incentives and knowledge problems. The calculus is simultaneously a theory of self-governance and a tool for (...) robust political economy analysis. Applying this framework to the case of public administration leads to the conclusion that private goods (such as medicine) tend to be over-regulated, public goods tend to be under-regulated (such as enabling too much pollution), and regulatory agencies tend to be over-centralized (and should in most cases either be replaced with certification markets or moved to state level). (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 46 - 70 In this article, I analyze the idea of “stepping into the void”, which can be traced in the thinking of both Proclus and Damascius, but which sets their perspectives apart. Thus, I show how Proclus warns us that to speak about the absolute principle, taking it as an object of thought, is a negative “stepping into the void” that should be avoided. On the contrary, I show that Damascius starts from (...) this warning and tries to prove that the only adequate manner in which we can trace the absolute principle and approach it is precisely through “stepping into the void,” yet, this time, in a positive sense, as a constant attempt to understand that the principle is an absolute void which reverses our discourse. (shrink)

Possibility studies is an emerging field of research including topics as diverse as creativity, imagination, innovation, anticipation, counterfactual thinking, wondering, the future, social change, hope, agency, and utopia. The Possible: A Sociocultural Theory contributes to this wide field by developing a sociocultural account of the possible grounded in the notions of difference, position, perspective, dialogue, action, and culture.

The article focuses on how media and religion relate, investigating the specific professional practices of media reporting on religion. Journalism is objective, while religion is subjective – however, scholars agree that today it is difficult to imagine religion isolated from the relation with media. Therefore, the media coverage of religion, that includes identifying the proper approaches to objectively frame subjective topics, becomes a challenge. The paper provides a theoretical background on the main characteristics of the media industry and the models (...) of journalism, good professional practices in reporting on religion, along with a brief overview at the situation of religious media content in worldwide media institutions and in Romania. Finally, a study on professional practices in local media was conducted, investigating how both mainstream and religious (niche) media journalists cover religious topics. Questions addressed by this paper refer to the principles of good reporting on religion, to the specific interaction between the Church and the media since more and more indicate media as source of knowledge for religion, and, finally, to the way media and religion are handling together the continuous challenges imposed by the fast technological progress in worldwide media communication. (shrink)

This study analyses the manuscript tradition of Pascal's work now known as De l'art de persuader and offers a historical, textual and conceptual criticism of the decisions that led to the privileging of one source (the P' manuscript) over another (the M manuscript and the D printed version) in the editorial history of the text. On the basis of this critique, the author formulates new genetic hypotheses and justifies the probity of the M copy for the establishment of the text (...) of De L'art de persuader that can lead towards a general interpretation of Pascalian epistemology. (shrink)

One of the major difficulties that the Neoplatonic tradition had to face concerns the relationship between the transcendence and the causality of the first principle. As transcendent, the One – or the absolute Good – must be above the intelligible being, completely different from its nature. As the first cause of the whole reality, the One is still conceived in a certain connection to the intellect. In this article, I discuss the philosophical background of this problem and Proclus’ attempt to (...) solve the apparent contradiction between causality and transcendence. Proclus puts these two aspects in agreement, by stressing the superiority of the principle and by making of it a non-being par excellence. (shrink)

Within Descartes' philosophy, the problem of the Eucharist provides scholars the occasion to investigate a nexus of questions belonging to different domains of his thought. In taking up this problem, about which there has been much written in the past few decades , I hope first of all to discern some order in the texts themselves, as well also as in their various interpretations, and then, from there, to propose a new perspective.

In the article, I consider seven metaphysical postulates that lie in the foundations of modern physics. These are postulates: about the nature of space-time, about the existence, about the direction of time, about the causality, about the elementary event, about the nature of information and about the immutability of laws. The directions of critical analysis and possible radical revision of these postulates are briefly presented. It is supposed that this revision can indirectly contribute to the development of a theory that (...) will be able to generalize quantum phenomena, gravity and the evolution of the universe. (shrink)

В статье рассмотрено как результаты квантовых экспериментов могут изменить метафизические представления о реальности. Экспериментальная проверка неравенств Белла, Леггета, Леггета—Гарга, а также эксперименты с отложенным выбором и квантовым «ластиком» подтверждают, что для квантовых объектов следует отказаться от представлений классического реализма. Однако конкуренция между квантовым анти-реализмом и квантовым реализмом продолжается.

Depuis Kant, les philosophes ont appris à parler, avec prudence, du surnaturel et de sa relation avec la nature. En général le surnaturel n’est même pas reconnu comme faisant partie de la philosophie. La situation n’aurait pu être plus différente aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, lorsque les philosophes comprenaient la relation entre Dieu et le monde comme l’un des problèmes les plus importants que la philosophie fût censé résoudre. Les solutions étaient bien sûr extrêmement diverses : Spinoza niera même que l’on puisse (...) faire la distinction entre principe créateur et création, tandis que d’autres, tel Robert Boyle, s’imagineront un maître horloger créant une machine absolument parfaite, qui depuis sa création ne requiert aucun acte supplémentaire de la part de son créateur. Jusque dans la pensée du jeune Kant, cette idée se rencontrera sous des formes diverses. Tous convenaient, tout de même, qu’il fallait rejeter l’ancien modèle aristotélicien d’une nature désirante, reconstruisant la nature comme un système reposant sur quelques lois fondamentales et repensant à nouveaux frais le rôle que Dieu peut, ou doit, jouer dans un tel système. Les contributions du présent volume traitent d’aspects historiques et systématiques des théories modernes de la nature et du surnaturel, tout en essayant de comprendre, dans ce contexte, l’importance des théories de la relation entre Dieu et le monde. (shrink)

The idea of gender equality has been and still is an exogenous concept in Romanian culture. Initially introduced and institutionalized by communist ideology after World War II along with other utopian egalitarian principles, gender equality remains to this day a somewhat alien concept in practice for the majority of the Romanian population. Nevertheless, in the early twenty-first century, with renewed economic growth and more liberal governance in Romania, the gender equality debate has intensified, and multiple advocacies now compete on the (...) political and social arenas. The most notable actors shaping current attitudes toward women in Romania are the Orthodox Church, political parties, feminist organizations, and the media. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Socrates’ intention of examining (ἐλέγχειν) the Delphic oracle that concerns him. I argue that Socrates does not start out by refuting an apparent meaning of the oracle, as it has been suggested, but rather reacts to the perplexing posture in which the divine message places him. In this sense, the message—which becomes a lifetime mission for Socrates—has a performative sense, even though it does not have an explicit, prescriptive form. I try to show that Socrates’ philosophical (...) life can be understood as a constant attempt to examine, as well as to prove the oracle, and that Socrates’ defense is a final examination and proof of the oracle. (shrink)

По данным опросов, около 40 % граждан России и Западной Европы часто задумываются о смысле жизни, еще около 30 - делают это иногда. Работаем мы или отдыхаем, размышляем о своих отношениях с людьми или об устройстве Вселенной, нам никак не уйти от странного вопроса: А зачем все это Вероятно, не ответив на него, мы не сможем справиться с периодически возникающим страхом одиночества и смерти, не поймем, что же делать со свободой, к которой так стремимся. Никакого смысла нет; смысл в самой (...) жизни; смысл у каждого свой; смысл в счастье; в любви; в исполнении долга; в продолжении рода; в работе; в самореализации; в познании Бога; в эволюции человечества и т. д. В предлагаемой книге каждая из двух десятков самых распространенных формулировок смысла жизни подвергается критическому анализу. Но прежде определяется само понятие "смысл" и систематизируются его типы. В качестве аргументов использована обширная философская, психологическая и религиозная литература. (shrink)