This paper seeks to argue that advances in the study of freewill and responsibility are directly relevant to jurisprudence. Following Daniel Dennett attempts to discredit the existence of freewill with the help of experiments can be checked by arguing that freedom should be understood as something that has evolved over time rather than being a pre-existent feature of our species. The major function served by freedom is to ensure responsibility for actions. This understanding of freedom as something that evolved to enhance responsibility suggests that freedom can be developed further. This can be understood as enhancing the ability to follow social norms by overcoming factors that limit responsibility. Jurisprudence has to take into account the ability to follow norms as a variable, even within the category of adults, and treat violations accordingly. Further, efforts to enhance the capacity to be free from habitual reactions need to be made part of education, and the state has to focus on this aspect without which the task of ensuring adherence to law of citizens will remain incomplete.

Alfred North Whitehead, although probably known best for his collaborative work with Bertrand Russell on the Principia Mathematica, also developed an original theory of learning and instruction which has much to offer for our times. His theory will be discussed in this paper. In order to do so, two criteria are first developed which in their combination give rise to five categories: radical behaviorism, cognitivism, and radical constructivism, with the intermediary categories of moderate behaviorism and moderate constructivism. A great number of educational researchers are ascribed to one of these five categories. After discussing the shortcomings of the three major philosophical proponents of these three major educational approaches (Hume, Kant, and Berkeley), the basic assumptions of Whitehead’s philosophy of organism are presented, and his assumptions concerning learning and teaching are discussed in view of it. Finally, it is shown that Whitehead’s organismic philosophy is able to offer a frame for integrating Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism, thereby solving a long standing scandal of education.

The paper explores the intricate interplay of two parallel developments: on the one hand, the Socratic turn in epistemology with its shifting focus on information retrieval, evidence-based reasoning, and the cognitive relevance of questions; and the advance of dynamic epistemic logic with its accent on knowledge-acquisition. Both are relevant for any realistic model of knowledge which pays due attention to learning. It is argued that the formal models are still wanting in some key respects, but the development of alternative and mutually complementing logical systems marks a promising trend for re-establishing the close links between epistemology and epistemic logic.

Whitehead believed that education must give us ideas that are usable in our actual lives. This line of thought is naturally provoked by the significant abundance of inert ideas that people pile up though education. The main reason for that, I claim, is the wrong focus of traditional education. It aims at producing individuals that would deliver high results on exams and tests. I take Whitehead’s claim the education must put emphasis on usable ideas as my starting point. I give a specific interpretation of useable ideas as abilities or functions. This provides a ground for connecting Whiteheadian thought to an already existing educational platform, offered by Nel Noddings. Noddings develops a cognitive theory of education which places cognitive structures (I assume a robust analogy between structures, functions, and abilities) in the center of educational concern. At the end of the paper, I estimate some consequences from adopting the terminology of functions for connecting between human and machine learning.

An undiscovered chapter in the history of architecture comes from the ex-Soviet Republic of Georgia. Poetics of Architecture is the name given to the studioworkshop at the Georgian Technical University set up by the Georgian architect Shota Bostanashvili (1948–2013). From 1990 until his death he delivered insightful, playful and rather provocative lectures on architecture at this university. He preferred to call his architectural philosophy, critical discourse on architecture. Themes ranged from poetics to metapoetics of architecture. His philosophy of architecture is illustrated by some of his designs and executed projects which demonstrate a drift from existentialism to the philosophy of play. This study includes reference to his last building, a project whose demolition Bostanashvili witnessed before passing away. Based on the concept of the return of the sacred, this edifice was a sort of counter movement to technogenic architecture.

The purpose of the present study is that of examining what I call Robert Nozick’s “evolutionist turn” in ethics. More specifically, my aim is to provide an answer to the following question: what type of ethical theory does Robert Nozick sketch in his last book, Invariances? My first objective will be that of delineating the philosophical framework which will accommodate my future discussion, highlighting the distinction between the metaphysical and scientific approaches to ethics as proposed by Ken Binmore, but also Emanuel Socaciu's taxonomy of ethical theories, which stems from the particular way in which moral philosophers tackle the nature of ethical norms and moral motivation. I then set forth to show that, in the philosophical framework previously described, Robert Nozick's approach from Anarchy, State, and Utopia should be seen as a metaphysical one. The last and most important part of my study aims to show how Nozick's “evolutionist turn” took place and developed, from his perspective on rationality in The Nature of Rationality, to his ethical theory advanced in Invariances.

Processuality as refusal to “freeze,” “eternize,” and fragment reality is an attempt to deconstruct the I’s main mechanism, which is, as it was named in psychoanalysis, the compulsion of repetition. Through this deceit and illusion fabrication mechanism, the knowing I tries to “freeze”, to “fixate” and to fragment reality, through “catching” it in different images, formulae, dogmas, theories, ideologies, symbols and systems which become just as many “icons” or graven images of reality. This attempt of deconstruction is made from the perspective of a philosophy/vision of process, quite sporadic in the Western space, bringing arguments from the perspective of Henri Bergson and Emil Cioran’s intuitionist philosophy, as well as from that of the new scientific paradigm of quantum mechanics. All these philosophies could be seen as philosophies of process, demanding as it were an understanding of reality in terms of process, and not of result. This understanding of process takes place with the help of intuition, the only one which can grasp, beyond the static, rigid and artificial concepts or categories of the intellect, the movement, “verb” or interior pulsation of things within the framework of an integration process which reveals the unity, non-separability, intercorrelation and mutual interconnectivity of things.

In the present inquiry I explore the concept of conceptual analysis, looking for ways for it to be improved, and I come to the following conclusions. Conceptual analysis as ordinarily understood in analytic philosophy is a method which consists in drawing a conclusion about what the definition of a predicate is on the basis of an armchair investigation into whether the predicate is semantically applicable in different possible cases; but, the concept of conceptual analysis can be improved by making two changes to it: 1) the investigation into whether the predicate is semantically applicable in different possible cases is not to serve as a basis for a conclusion about what the definition of the predicate is, but as a basis for a conclusion about whether this-and-this is an only necessary, only sufficient, both necessary and sufficient, or neither necessary nor sufficient condition for the predicate’s semantic application; 2) the investigation into whether the predicate is semantically applicable in different possible cases is done not only from the armchair, but also empirically.

In the first part of this text, the author exposes the main features of the liberal or civic state, because both communitarians and multiculturalists tend to criticize that type of state. Their critique of the liberal state and the liberal self as an unencumbered self is “culturalist” by its character. However, it is an expression of conceptual confusion, i.e. of their incomprehension of an essential difference between two conceptual levels: one that belongs to the purely normative rights-justifying perspective and the other that refers to the ontological perspective. Consequently, both of them reject the central liberal thesis according to which the right is prior to the good.The author agrees with an assessment of Richard Robson that multiculturalism is only a form of communitarianism. Contrary to communitarians and multiculturalists, he additionally argues that collective rights are incompatible with the civic state in its pure form because there are structural differences between civic and specific minority rights.Further, the author attempts to show that communitarianism and multiculturalism are forms of postmodernism. Namely, brought to their ultimate logical consequences, the mentioned orientations can be connected to the postmodern notion of radical, irreducible difference.In the conclusive part of the text, he summarizes the common points of communitarianism and multiculturalism and emphasizes the importance of these contemporary theoretical tendencies.

The present paper intends to show that computer simulations used in science are akin to fiction. Starting from the problem of defining computer simulation, the paper discusses the uses and disadvantages of simulations in science. Computer simulations have a representational function, but they do not resemble the phenomena that they purport to represent. Computer simulations do not preserve the content of the models, input data, and theories from which they proceed, since the content is modified by computational processes. Because of the complexities of these processes, we cannot control or test the methods used to process the content of computer simulations. Still, simulations may help to explain the behaviour of a possible aspect of the phenomenon under examination. Although their role in doing so may be limited, by conforming to and immersing us in the worldview of science, simulations, thus reinforce the intuitions of the existing body of scientific knowledge, and similarly to the “believable fiction” described by John Woods, provide genuine understanding.

The aim of this article is to show how the ambivalent nature of reality might impact artificial intelligence (AI) use in medicine. The work illustrates that machine learning (ML) modelling requires some significant levels of data straight-jacketing to be efficient. However, data objectification will be counter-productive in the long run in AI-enabled medical contexts. The problem is that the ambivalent nature of realities requires a non-objectified modelling process, which is missing in machine learning at the moment. On the basis of this, the study hypothesizes that AI-enabled medicine will continue to depend largely on human intelligence to be efficient at least for the foreseeable future. The implication of this is that intelligent machines should be viewed as co-workers with man. The study draws from the theories of ontology in the Western continental tradition (especially the Heideggerian ontology) and the African philosophical tradition to ground the discourse.

Organic Marxism, a new development in the history of Marxism, has elicited scrutiny in China. Beyond merely being considered absurd, it has been accused of curbing China’s development on the pretext of ecological motivations,weakeningChina’s dominant ideology by introducing ideological competition, and enabling religious infiltration by promoting Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy and constructive postmodern philosophy, which are of a religious nature. Fortunately, organic Marxism has survived despite fierce attacks from fundamentalist Marxists. This paper intends to answer three questions related to this topic: How can organic Marxism survive in China? What is it about organic Marxism that attracts the Chinese most? What lessons can be learned from the fundamentalist Marxists’ attacks?

Mugham is deeply rooted in Azerbaijan’s history as it is undoubtedly depicted as the pearl of Azerbaijani musical art. Mughаm (Azerb. Muğam) (God sent music) is one of the main genres in traditional Azerbaijani music, part of the musical-poetic art of Azerbaijan’s nation. The Mughаm embodies philosophical poetry including the philosophy of music as a complement to the harmony of being. In 2008, UNESCO proclaimed the Azerbaijani Mugham as one of the masterpieces of verbal and intangible cultural heritage. This music must be understood in its two dimensions – as an example of an art and as a way of thinking, in which Sufism and Mysticism are two lines that intersect. The aim of the article is to show the unity of Azerbaijan’s spiritual culture and the synthesis of music and religion. Special attention is focused on Mugham as a type of connection with God, through mystical love and spiritual experience. This perspective differs from that of common research and discussions of Mugham, which view it principally as a unique type of poetic-musical communication between performers and a devoted audience. The post-Soviet period allowed Western scholars to become acquainted with the musical works of Azerbaijani masters of Mugham and to compare their musical-aesthetic features with those of German Romanticism. In this paper, we move beyond such considerations to claim that Mugham ought to be recognized ‘as a spiritual process preserving the dynamism of thinking’. The report will conclude with the concomitant claim that Mugham represents an intercultural philosophy.

In the following paper, I address the worry that there is an increasing gap between the way the world is perceived by students and by their professors and teachers respectively. I argue that even if there is indeed a huge difference between our two generations, ‘the gap’ becomes irrelevant when we engage in philosophising. I will attempt to provide three short proposals on how to eradicate the gap when teaching philosophy. My hope is to show that, if we really want to make an attempt to eliminate the lack of understanding between the students and us, there are four basic rules that we could apply to our educational method. My argument makes use of the concepts of truth-value, consensus and epistemic normativity.

The article addresses the two sides of the work of Nicholas Maxwell – his criticism of science and his call to bring about a revolution in academia encouraging it to become much more effective in tackling the real problems humanity is facing. I would use: It focuses on the connection of these two aspects of Maxwell’s work and provides a critical analysis of Maxwell’s conceptual framework. It is argued here that the two sides of Maxwell’s whole conception are not necessarily connected, and do not have to be. Academia can be more effectively organized even without a change in our understanding of science. Maxwell has argued that academia has to aim at making wisdom rather than knowledge its goal. The knowledge-inquiry framework that currently prevails should be exchanged for wisdom-inquiry. Maxwell has explained his understanding of wisdom in several publications, while not being fully consistent in his explanations of what wisdom-inquiry has to embrace. In addition, Maxwell’s original approach to rationality goes against traditional attitudes. Maxwell is definitely critical of the Enlightenment but his attitude to Romanticism remains unclear. Related to these, the article addresses the future tasks of universities.

The paper is devoted to the problem of investigating the identity of a personality in contemporary philosophy. The author states that some factors (intensification of cultural and communicative exchange, population migration, information technologies) have led to a significant transformation of the phenomenon of identity at the civilizational stage. The presented points of view and approaches of contemporary philosophers (representatives of psychoanalysis, existentialism, etc.) that the author relies on indicate a crisis of identity. The author of the paper describes creativity, communication, reflection, value-semantic sphere, cultural and symbolic environment as the criteria of identity. The author also constructs her own model of the identity system based on the famous Russian researcher, G.P. Shchedrovitsky’s concept of the system, as the way to avoid a crisis of identity. The author comes to the conclusion that the identity of a modern person is wholly constructed, in contrast to the phenomenon of pseudo-identity. The results of the paper can be applied in sociology, cultural studies, psychology in the context of the problem of personal and collective identity.

This article will address descriptive and normative concepts vis-à-vis their inferential value and epistemic evolution within the social sciences. The analysis focuses mainly on the normative concept, which arises in the intersection between various disciplines of the social sciences, blending within itself a dialectic between the subjective and the objective, between the individual and the social. The descriptive concept – which acts as a link between logos qua language and the empirical reality – will have less elaborated analysis. The article’s purpose is convenient for readers acquainted with the field in question as well as those for whom the topic is less known. Indeed, the article is intended to address the above concepts from the point of view of the political scholar. However, during the research process, it was considered appropriate that these conceptions have an interdisciplinary heuristic reflection in order to be of value and interest to scholars of political science, philosophy, and law. As a first step, we will present in classical form the meaning and explanation of the concepts in question, based on linguistic and philosophical dictionaries. The article also focuses on the solid definition given to the concept of normativity – understood in legal terms – by Hans Kelsen through his idea of a Base Norm (Grundnorm) and his critique of Max Weber’s sociological conception of norms. Secondly, we will outline the dichotomy between the concepts of “is” and “ought” – the former analyzed by Kant as a hypothetical imperative, as a determinant of goals and actions based on desires and, the latter considered as a categorical imperative, as a normative determinant based on reason. Another dimension of normativity is seen from the perspective of analytical jurisprudence, the dialectic created between formalists and anti-formalists in the treatment of morality, both in subjective and social terms. Finally, the emphasis will be placed on normativity in politics and in spoken language, dimensions that define the normative approach.