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1. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Małgorzata Czarnocka Editorial — Philosophical Problems of the Living World. Dialogue. Wisdom
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i. philosophical problems of the living world
2. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Włodzimierz Ługowski The Problems of Origin. Life as a Property of Matter
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I take the view that the inclusion of the problems of origin in scientific researches was a philosophical breakthrough, in three aspects—ontological, epistemological, and con-cerning the consciousness of scientists (precisely, it consists in deciding if the issue of the origin is worthy of consideration). It turns out that following a philosophical approach it is possible to (1) have a good grasp of the essence of the most important breakthrough which came in the twentieth-century natural history, (2) establish the circumstances in which it happened, (3) to explain the reasons why the foremost representatives of neo-positivist orientation has put so much effort to replace the truth with the legend in recent years. I demonstrate that the dispute over the nature (and over the assessment) of philosophical ideas, which were at the root of the above-mentioned breakthrough, led to a polarization of stances but also to completely unexpected alliances.
3. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Asok Kumar Mukhopadhyay Life within the Akhanda Worldview
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Life cannot be understood in isolation from consciousness, mind, self and information on one hand, and space, time, matter, energy on the other. There are deep interconnections amongst these nine entities constituting the operational divisions of the unbroken whole within the Akhanda worldview. The author postulates that material evolution culminates in developing the state called the living state of matter which supports and helps to manifest the intangible, all-pervasive and irreducible life-principle as life-form, living entity or living being. The enclosure of life-principle within matter and the creation of a bioenergetic membrane have cosmological, biological and spiritual purposes.
4. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Krzysztof Chodasewicz Is the Nature of Life Unknown? Predictions in Evolutionary Biology and Defining Life
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Some biologists and philosophers are convinced that no definition of life can be formulated. I polemicize with this skepticism. Especially, I discuss the argumentation of Carol E. Cleland and her co-workers. I demonstrate that the theory of evolution is a proper theoretical foundation for defining life. I show that downgrading the importance of the theory of evolution is not based on the traditional arguments against the scientific character of this theory (e.g. Popper’s argument). New arguments are deduced from the belief that every mature theory of life should explain all forms of life. I also consider conclusions derived from my analysis, showing that they lead to a functionalist view of life.
5. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Andrzej Gecow Spontaneous Order, Edge of Chaos and Artificial Life as Missing Ideas in Understanding Life
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The hypothesis “life on the edge of chaos” results from the stability of RBN, but living objects are not random; their structure and function are selected just for stability by Darwinian natural selection. The order of a crystal emerges spontaneously. The networks modeling living objects can be simultaneously ordered and chaotic on a similar level. They use chaotic parameters of RBNs. It is another edge of chaos. Definitions of artifacts are subjective and imprecise; problem should be described in other perspective. Basic properties of natural life (including the role of purpose) result from its spontaneity, which suggests a limit of using artificial life in investigations of life.
6. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Andrzej Elżanowski Whither “Naturalization of Morality”?
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The issue widely discussed under the heading of “naturalization of morality” in-volves at least three major components of “morality”: (1) value-laden experience which is the source of all genuine values; (2) received morality, a system of behaviors and attitudes that are transmitted from generation to generation and control the exchange of primary values; and (3) an analytic-evaluative agency, here referred to as ethics, that assesses norms and assumptions underlying received moralities against an independent knowledge of values. This task requires the use of both scientific information (on values and received moralities) and domain-specific ways of ethical reasoning that are appropriate for the subject. While the transmission of moral systems is fully explicable and thus naturalized in terms of evolutionary theory and psychology, the ongoing naturalization of ethics appears to be more complex.
7. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Yuri M. Serdyukov Near Death Experience and Subjective Immortality of Man
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The life of the brain is believed to be a major factor determining the existence of subjective reality during clinical death. The duration of the existence in question cannot be measured in the units of astronomical time for two reasons. Firstly, it is impossible to determine once and for all how long the brain survives after cardiac arrest and termination of breathing. Secondly, the duration of subjective time during near death experience (NDE) differs from that typical of daily regular experience. Immobilization, loss of the sensation of one’s body, state of affect and severe sensory deprivation ensure that consciousness is focused and fixated in and onto itself exclusively which, in its turn, diminish and slacken the course of time so that it expands to eternity and subjective reality goes beyond the usual limits of the temporal “past-present-future” paradigm.
8. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Marek Łagosz Philosophy of Life. Few Arguments against Euthanasia
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This paper considers and withstands the ideology of a “good death” (euthanasia). I consider some ontological statements about life and death and also some ethical motivations. In that light I show that legalization of the euthanasia is morally problematical.
9. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Urszula Czyżewska Planetary Ecosynthesis—Environmental Ethics and Scientific Implications
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The article examines selected issues of planetary ecosynthesis from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. The main object of the examination is terraforming—a purposeful alteration of a planetary environment to improve the chances of the survival of an indigenous biology or, in the absence of any native life-forms, to allow for the habitation of most, if not all, terrestrial life-forms. Although this process has been lively debated within environmental ethics for many years, it still requires more precise ethical analyses as well as an applicable legislation on the international space policy.
10. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Serena Cattaruzza, Paolo Tosolini Beyond Stereotypes. Knowledge and Medical Care in the Man-Animal Relationship
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The possible contribution that the figure of the veterinarian provides to a progressive clarification of the knowledge inherent in the animal subject can be highlighted by an epistemological reflection which throws into relief the distinctive modes of approach and the most suitable curative procedures. At the same time a comparison between such procedures and the methods developed by different contemporary philosophical-scientific sectors, including those of the human sciences, could prove instructive in reporting the junctions and obligatory crossings of common problems.
11. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Józef Andrzej Stuchliński Conceptual Classifications versus Collections of Objects in Biology
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In logic the concepts of set and class are understood in two senses: distributively (in set theory) or collectively (in mereology). This paper discusses problems of the usefulness of both the concepts in evolutionary biology, particularly in cross–researches of the biological taxonomy, evolutionism and genetics.
12. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Andrzej Gecow Steps or Revolutions—Emotions in Biology
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The development of biology too frequently and inappropriately takes on the character of large revolutions instead of consecutive approximations. Revolution means a change of the basic factors of explanation. It leads to struggle and emotions. Revolutions in science and of political systems have common rules and lead to simplifications. I just point out these simplifications, including the lack of grounds for treating many discoveries as revolutions on given scale. Ordering of the range and the importance of the discoveries from Cuvier, Lamarck and Darwin to genetics and Jablonka, is necessary for the abolition of current simplifications and the unblock of the path to the next approximations.
ii. dialogue
13. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Vir Singh Universal Dialogue as a Universal Phenomenon
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Universal dialogue serves as a stimulant for discussions leading to definitive social actions. The dialogues which are not universal are irresponsible, retrogressive, and lead only to negative social actions. Mal-dialogue (casual or customary dialogue), lethal dialogue (dialogue with the fury of religious fundamentalism), ecocidal dialogue (favoring economy based on nature’s plunder), and cyber dialogue (confusing dialogue) are opposed to universal dialogue; they all pose a challenge for humanity. Lethal and ecocidal dialogues are extremely dangerous and they have to be effectively opposed. Lethal dialogue can be defied by absorbing the ideas of cultural pluralism. The Gandhian philosophy is important of the issue of dialogue—it is replete with ideas fundamental in reversing the processes of ecocide inherent with globalism (the highest stage of economism) and in restoring ecological balance and ecological integrity. Universal dialogue reflects human’s universal attributes such as altruism, consciousness, responsibility, reasoning, ethics, wisdom, creativity, and justice, and promotes a discussion vital to promote human evolution synchronized with universal evolution.
14. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Elina B. Minnullina Communicative Grounds of Philosophical Reflection
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The paper examines communicative grounds of philosophical reflection in the context of post-metaphysical paradigm. It is shown that the characteristic of reflection is the ontologisation of language. Drawing on the basic questions of the linguistic and communicative transformation of metaphysics, such as the subject-object dichotomy replaced with intersubjectivity, and substantive rationality replaced with a formal conception, the author deals primarily with the problem of communicative rationality and intersubjective being-in-the-speech.
15. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Zhanna Vavilova The Subject in Dialogue: a Visual Semiotic Perspective
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What does it mean to communicate with visual messages and to convey ideas with the help of images? Is the visual sign capable of substituting the subject when he or she is not present? Can it be relied upon in communication? Can it happen that a gap between the subject’s visual image and identity becomes an insurmountable barrier on the way to understanding? This paper attempts to discover visuality as a weighty addition to the spoken word, to reconsider its role in communication so that it is treated not as a deceptive simulacrum but a representation of the subject in dialogical space, an embodiment of an eternal pure impulse, an aspiration to unfold oneself in front of the other.
16. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Svetlana Shumakova Circus Art: an Aspect of Cross-Cultural Dialogue
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The paper examines the problem of cross-cultural interactions; within this context circus art is analyzed. Art, in general, and especially, circus art can be considered as a field of dialogical communication, and as a way of giving new human experiences, spiritual values and worldviews. It is hypothesized that circus art is a complex polyfunctional social and cultural phenomenon which inherits communicative properties of art. It is possible and desired to study circus art in the context of cross-cultural dialogue. The article deals with modern cultural situation, its orientation on cultural dialogism, and displays general factors forming the role of circus art in the cross-cultural interaction.
iii. wisdom. discussion about andrew targowski’s book: harnessing the power of wisdom: from data to wisdom. 2013. new york: nova publishers
17. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Marek J. Celinski Harnessing the Power of Wisdom Is Not Easy but Necessary, Nonetheless
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18. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Bernard T. Han Wisdom. About Harnessing the Power of Wisdom: from Data to Wisdom by Andrew Targowski
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19. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Hisanori Kato A Way to Wisdom
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20. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 24 > Issue: 2
Konstantin S. Khroutski From Aristotle’s Wisdom to the Contemporary Integralist Wisdom—2400 Years Later
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