Displaying: 101-120 of 1237 documents

0.135 sec

101. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Xinyan Zhang From Everything outside Mind to Those Inside
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Author tried in this paper to deduce the principles of subjective world from some new concepts on objective world. I believe, through a full understanding of the objective world, we may easily approach to a general understanding of our subjective world – the human mind itself. One of the major obstacles to achieving this goal is that we still do not have a theoretical system that can describe both the worlds with the same concepts. In this paper I will put forward some of such concepts first and then try to deduce mind’s general organization and activities on the basis of those concepts.
102. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Andrey V. Dakhin Philosophical Essence of Poincare-Perelman Theorem and the Problem of Global Structure of Universe: Rethinking the "substance and memory" concept
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The paper presents the reflection on philosophical foundations of contemporary physical concepts of global history and global structure of Universe. It shows that Democritus's dualism of "matter and void" is changed now in dualism of "matter and energy" in the frame of the strings theory, where anything what looks like "a void" is absent. At the same time the Poincare-Perelman's theorem calls to rethink Democritus's philosophy in the light of "space and hole" discourse and call it to come back. On the level of philosophy doctrines for contemporary fundamental physics it in necessary to combine dialectically the concept of "matter and void/hole" and the concept "matter and energy" (or "matter and singular conditions"). It is possible to do on the way of rethinking of H. Bergson's ideas presented in his book "Matter and memory". The conclusion is that fundamental dualism consists the relation "visible matter - invisible historical memory" inside of Universe.
103. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Xiao Ming Wang 生命的哲学 ‐后基因时代药物筛选策略与传统中药学理论
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Using logic analysis method with contemporary philosophy conception, made the definition of a life. Analyzing the reason of a disease and characteristics of drug, explained the Chinese traditional theory of materia medica. Demonstrated the best drug contain the function of Monarch drug, Minister drug, serviceman drug and missioner drug, instructed human drug reseach in future.
104. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Alec Gordon Area Studies, Planetary Thinking, and Philosophical Anthropology
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The aim of this paper is to consider the vicissitudes of “area studies” from the Second World War to the present focusing eventually on the normative imperative to develop a new paradigm of “planetary thinking.” First an overview of the history of “area studies” will be given from the start in the U.S. during the Second World War in response to the geostrategic imperative for America to know its new geopolitical responsibilities in a world divided by war. This security imperativemorphed into the postwar requisite to develop a counterhegemonic strategy against soviet communism in the hot spot parts of Asia, Latin American, and later Africa. The latter military-oriented strategy was added to with research into development and modernization in the third-world through to the boundary displacement of areas studies at the end of the Cold War into the current era of globalization. At this very historical moment of transition a new rationale for area studies emerged in the form of a geoeconomic imperative – both in the U.S. and, with a different gloss, in South Korea in the late 1990s. Second, on the basis of this historical apercu, the argument will be proposed that, given the problem of global warming and the issue-area of global inequality lurking behind the UnitedNation’s Millennium Development Goals, a pressing contemporary task for philosophy is to make a critical contribution to developing a new planetary perspective for area studies informed by a constitutive philosophical anthropology attendant to the species being of human beings.
105. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
В. В. Фармаковский Концептогенез – Новые Основания Натуральной Философии
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The problem of construction of the unification theory which would become the universal tool for rethinking not only epistemology, philosophy of science and technology but all kinds of human experience is discussed. As like mathematics, Conceptgenesis or General Unification Theory has the hypertheoretical status for its applications. As the natural science, it investigates the natural events streams with “initial” and “boundary” conditions in the corresponding conjuncture. Law ofuniversal simulation is key principle of the Unification Theory. Accordingly with this Theory, the same structure of updating of object may be observable in various conceptual domains. These inconstancy structures should become the basis for General Identification and Classification of a subject of supervision.
106. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Heejong Woo Individuality of life from emergence in the network of biosphere
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Though many philosophers and scientists have been tried to define life, the view of materialism is substantiated by modern bioscience. Reductive approach of biology, however, cannot explain the holistic nature of life. As the science of complexity showed, life form is appeared on earth by emergence with self-organized criticality. From the interdependency of emergent life on others, man could be called as 'Homo interdependant' on network of biosphere. Phylogeny of life in evolutionary process showed 'difference and repetition'. With the emergent nature of life, difference caused the individuality, which is a one of most distinguished features of life. Furthermore, because Individual experience cannot be replaced by others, responsibility of each daily life was also emerging.
107. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Valeriy P. Tsaplin Зрение как эволюционный процесс и его противоречивость
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Eyesight is practically a main organ of senses for man orienting in the world. But it is also a result of evolutional development of nature from 600 to 450 mln. years according to evolutional scale and still it preserves its stable contradictory inner structure. The genesis of eyesight has been reconstructed in Arthropoda type. It was made possible by using a philosophical approach, namely, by considering this process from the dualism point of view. Two Laurence's concepts were used as basic interrelated categories. They are intranspecific and interspecific aggressiveness. Development of the two interrelated opposites results in the formation of a new kind – eyesight (Hegelian not Marx’s), typical for all succeeding kinds of animals. The eye has become a unity consisting of on- and off-type ganglionic cells, that percept both fixed end non-fixed objects simultaneously. The two eyes of higher animals and man allow to orient in the world, and depending on outside conditions, they can fully enough demonstrate one of the stable contradictory inner tendencies. This is just one of the directions in studying philosophy of nature.
108. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Andrés Luis Jaume Rodríguez The Sources of Normativity in the Biological Functions
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
I present an outline of a normative and non selectionist theory capable of ascribing functional statements to biological items. Biological items are ussually exemplified by the organs as well as traits or behaviours. But we can consider representations too. In fact, my proposal is focused towards a teleosemantical theory of mental content. The teleosemantic approach explains the content of beliefs in terms of the biological functions of those states. Usually, teleosemantical theories of mental representation either ellaborate previously a general theory of functions for biological items, this is the case for Millikan, Neander or Price, orassume a previous selectionist one, as Papineau does. But these proposals are frequently adaptationist in order to keep normatitvity in whatever functional adscription. The recent contributions to the state of the art show the problems of this kind of selectionist view. But they don’t consider the problem of normativity in functional adscriptions. And this problem become important when we pay attention to mental representations as biological facts. I propose an outline of a nonselectionist nor adaptationist account of biological functions capable of keeping normativity. My account is suitable to biological traits, in general, and mental representations characterized in terms of biological functions.
109. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Anna Latawiec The Essence of Life in Context of Biological Information
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The main purpose of the paper is to justify the thesis that the presence of biological information is conditional for existence and persistence of life. We will begin with the notion of biological information. In this proposition information is identified with impact, and it is shown the dependence of its location and functioning on the level of organization of animate matter. In accordance with a suggestion of Thomas Aquinas, it seems that precisely information is the reason for the appearance of socalled immanent activities where new life appears.
110. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
S. M. Vovk Nonlinear Paradigm in Multivariate-Integral World Perception and World View
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Within the scope of multifactor approach, the ways and peculiarities of nonlinear paradigm formation and its establishment, as well as, multidimensional nature and essence of things in a single research field of the interdisciplinary science that is directly based on the perception of multidimensional integrity of the real world were significantly reconsidered. The idea of multifactorness is deployed as the scientific and logical basis for the methodology of scientific and philosophical research. In the course of investigation, it was revealed that the contemporary level of understanding the notional diversity of "multidimensionality" concentrates within the conceptual structures of nonlinear thinking style considering the principle of oriental world-perception and world-understanding.
111. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Krishna Prakash Tripathi Indian Cosmology: A Scientific Analysis
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Cosmology is defined as the science of the large-scale structure of the universe. Indian cosmology is a philosophical theory regarding the cycle of creation from supreme consciousness to matter and from matter to supreme consciousness. It deals with the creation of the cosmic mind and the microvita, and origin-evolution-future of matter, individual mind and life. There is important input from Vedic and Tantric traditions. This school follows subjective approach by dealing with absolute (spiritual) as well as relative (psycho-physical) knowledge of the universe. The scientific cosmology is a developing multi-disciplinary science regarding origin-evolution-future of matter and life. This science follows objective approach by dealing with physical knowledge of the universe. The paper will focus on scientific analysis of the basic concepts of Indian cosmology.
112. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Andrei Babaitsev The Semantics of Political Symbols
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
With the use symbols by political subjects arises the problem of their understanding. Groups of symbols can be created in such a way to contain a message. The state coat of arms is a political symbol, in which is concentrated a number of meanings and significance. The coat of arms — it is a symbol garnished with colossal endless meaning and potential withing its power. Besides this, the state coat of arms appears in numbers like mandalas: it is like this archaic symbol, that combines various geometric shapes expressing the idea of order. The state coat of arms perceptively unites people of different genders, ages, social status andfaith into a united orderly community. A person contemplating the state coat of arms understands it as the center of the universe. The coat of arms is transformed into endlessness, attaining the result of uniting the macrocosm — society and state — and with the macrocosm — man. The function of political symbols exists so as to represent the “body” of a concrete political subject or society as a whole, at the same time in every part of a text “is highlighted” yet another part of the endless semantical richness of the symbol. Political symbols have important significance for the support or destruction of socio-political order. But the chief essence ofpolitical symbols — is the ability to give meaning to all political activities, and the regular “exposition” of state symbols guarantees the stability of the existing socio-political system.
113. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Susanne Lettow The Cultural Embodiment of Biology: Naturphilosophie and Biological Knowledge Around 1800
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Biology, established around 1800 as the “science of life,” has developed as not only a specific scientific discipline but it has also continually served as a kind of social knowledge. Biological knowledge supported the modern order of the sexes and the two-sex model that it was structured along, as well as modern racism and multiple forms of social inequality articulated by dichotomizing the normal and abnormal. However, the fledgling discipline of biology alone was not capable of developing the epistemological as well as political-ethical competence necessary for attaining this central status in the order of knowledge; it was possible only because philosophy and the emerging social sciences gave biology a specific status. The paper outlines the closely connected, but different attitudes of Kant and Schelling towards biological knowledge. While focusing on their different epistemic strategies towards the new form of nature knowledge, I also point to their different political-ethical articulations of biological knowledge. I conclude that a critical analysis of philosophies of nature around 1800 contributes not onlyto an understanding of the symbolic power of biology in the modern order of knowledge but also to rethinking philosophy’s relation to scientific knowledge today.
114. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 44
Hugh P. McDonald Does Nature Exist? Towards a Critique of Nature and Naturalism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
To bring our topic within manageable limits, the attempt will be made to approach the philosophy of nature in a systematic manner. Borrowing the quantitative categories of one, some and all, nature will be treated as first as singular, then a whole or totality and finally discussed in terms of various distinctions which set nature apart as a part. Past philosophic treatments will be discussed when germane to this treatment, as an example of a particular view of nature. I will argue that nature is not a per se being, cannot be singular or the whole and that the various distinctions that separate the natural from other—the artificial, theconventional, etc.—are inadequate.
115. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 45
Nicolae Branzea A Conceptual Pattern for the “Historical Being” Communication
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Lucian Blaga (1895-1961), the famous Romanian philosopher who started as a poet and took his PhD in Philosophy and Biology in Vienna is our contemporary, illustrating the spiritual changes at the borders between modernism and postmodernism; he is meant to be studied from the perspective of the postmodernist philosophy of religion. Lucian Blaga was a writer, playwright, journalist, professor and librarian who had a vaste writing; as a philosopher he is a unique author of philosophical system, in the Romanian philosophy where his “deconstructionism” is the fact that Blaga “deconstructs” Rigveda by the analysis of the word brahman, specifying that because of the mentality about the sacrificer as a being and God at the same time, the vedic believer “takes courage” towards the deities, loses humility, gaining in return “boldness towards gods”.
116. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 45
Douglas Allen Mircea Eliade’s Challenge to Contemporary Philosophy
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Mircea Eliade, often described by scholars and in the popular press as the world's most influential scholar of religion, symbolism, and myth, was trained as a philosopher, received his Ph.D. in philosophy, and taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest in the 1930s. Although he became a historian and phenomenologist of religion within the field of religious studies, his approach, methodology, and analysis are informed by philosophical assumptions and philosophical normative judgments. In several of his writings, he goes far beyond the history and phenomenology of religion and presents a strong critique of contemporary Western philosophy as part of his larger critique of contemporary Western culture. He submits that contemporary philosophy,as a development of the Enlightenment, claims to be universal, but is in fact ethnocentric and provincial; claims to be innovative and creative, but is in fact increasingly trivial, insignificant, and uncreative. Eliade repeatedly charges that contemporary philosophy is bankrupt and desperately in need of renewal. I shall provide his philosophical critique of dominant Western philosophy, his analysis of self-other encounters, and his alternatives for philosophical renewal through the emerging confrontations, engagements, and creative dialogues between Asian, other non-Western, and Western philosophical perspectives.
117. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 45
Tommi Lehtonen Implicaturism: A pragmatic view on existential claims in religion
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In this paper, I will introduce and argue for a new view on religious faith and language, a view that focuses on the use and context of use of religious expressions. I call this view implicaturism. As one may guess, ‘implicaturism’ comes from ‘implicature’, a term coined by Paul Grice. For Grice, implicature is a technical term for certain kinds of inferences that are drawn from statements without those inferences being logical implications or entailments. In the view of religious faith and language, implicaturism denotes the claims about the existence of God or other supernatural beings as pragmatic conclusions of the expressions used in religious practice, not the ground or presupposition of religious practice. In other words, in religious context, the claims of the form “X exists” (e.g. “God exists”) or “there are Xs” (e.g. “There are angeles”) are inferences that are based on prayers and worship expressions and their relatedbackground assumptions. This pattern of reasoning is not deductive, but abductive, thus inference from consequences to a possible cause. This kind of inference is logically invalid, in that the conclusion “God exists” is not a logical consequence of the premises: the religious expressions. The existential claims in religion (”God exists” or “There are angels” as examples) are thus some sort of a posteriori reasons or explanations for religious behaviour and related expressions, not their prior presuppositions.
118. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 45
Robin Attfield Creation and Evolution
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
It is not inconsistent to believe in both creation and in Darwinian evolution at the same time as rejecting creationism, and endorsing a realist stance about religious and scientific language. Belief in creation is argued to be every bit as defensible as Darwinism, and reconcilable with phenomena such as predation. If (as Richard Dawkins holds) evolution is the only possible pathway to life as we know it, then a life-loving creator would select this pathway. If it is not the only possible pathway, the alternatives could well preclude the conditions of freedom among creatures, and if so, then evolution remains the pathway that a life‐lovingand freedom-loving creator would select. Evolution, however, can be argued to be more than a pathway, because of the intrinsic value of the flourishing lives (nonhuman as well as human) that emerge at every stage, and this intrinsic value supplies a further ground for belief in creation. (These are among the conclusions of my recent book, Creation, Evolution and Meaning, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.)
119. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 45
Timoschuk Alexey Unity and Diversity Principle in Jagannatha’s Worship
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Xenophanes claimed that God is a ball, which means that he is a perfect body. This idea is well developed in Jagannatha worship, who is a central Deity in Orissa, India. It’s a round form of Krishna, who is usually depicted in a human like form. Jagannatha, his brother Baladeva and sister Subhadra are justified as round forms because of their specific manifestation of ecstasy, that, according to aesthetical theory (rasa tattva) happened to them. Yet there are many other explanations of the Jagannatha’s roundness. Round form personifies unity and diversity principle in Jagannatha worship, whose image was dear in Orissa duringlong historical period to different religious groups: Vaishnavas, Shaivaites, Jains, Buddhists and even some Muslims. Orissa also has a blending of different cultures, sub-cultures and traditions. Even now, it has 62 distinct tribal groups, that makes a largest collection of diverse tribes in a single state. As the legend goes, Jagannatha made His first appearance in the tribe of Savaras thousands of years ago. Up until now, there are cooks in the Jagannatha kitchen that are called sauviras. In worship of Jagannatha we find the model of axiological globalism, when the difference in the vision of the reality does not obscure the interior mood of wholeness, unity.
120. Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 45
Eduard I. Sorkin Rethinking Ideas of Newton, Berkeley and Mach Today
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The report is dedicated to modern understanding of the correlation between science and religion that is based on the analysis of certain ideas formulated by Newton, Berkeley and Mach. Newton proceeded from the existence of infinite (absolute) Space that he interpreted as the Sensory of the intelligent omnipresent Being (God) who sees things themselves intimately, and throughly perceives and comprehends them. Human being also has his little “Sensoriums” perceiving the images of things, the Order and the Beauty of their arrangement. Mach emphasized that since Newton’s period space and time have become “immaterial substances that form the most important basis of our sensual world outlook”. Apparently, this “immateriality of substances” manifests itself in the way Machinterprets our perceptions, conceptions, will, feelings, i.e. all inner and outer world, which he understands as small number of homogeneous elements called sensations (Empfindungen). These sensations are compared in the report to what Berkeley called ideas while he denied the existence of the real absolute noncreated space that is part, or attribute, of God. If we accept the idea that beside space and time inseparable from matter as it is scientifically comprehended, there exist absolute space and time as Newton interpreted them, then these space and time must exist outside our universe or parallel to it. This brings us to the panentheistic model (Eduard I. Sorkin, ХХIst World Congress of philosophy, Abstracts 2003, pp. 374‐375). According to Mach the law of causality is separated from space and time while the laws of nature are just limitations that our experience dictates to our expectations. The report shows that if the Mach’s concept had been supplemented by the “idealistic” views of Newton and Berkeley, it would have been more convincing – something contrary to fideism.