Electronic technologies, from the internet to virtual reality and advanced robotics, are transforming the world we live in, and especially our methods of learning, far more radically than any factors since the invention of the printing press. The process is at its beginnings; it is largely unavoidable; it also presents an opportunity for learning and research. We academics ought to meet this educational and civilizational challenge and make it our own. Otherwise, the process may be appropriated by bureaucratic and narrow business interests, largely to the detriment of academic learning. We have a chance to enjoy shared knowledge as never before, which I call opening the doors to the true Library of Alexandria.Structural changes are necessitated by this new paradigm. Those incorporate three aspects: First, integration of the web into our lives; second, the use of such integration in research and education, which highly increases the opportunities but is unforgiving of excessive individualism and other inefficiencies; third the philosophically broad perspective of non-reductive naturalism facilitated by this global integration.

In today’s world driven by technological innovation and change, publisher John Brockman has proclaimed scientists as the new “humanists”. Many in the science arena have seized the public podium not only to discuss advances in their area of expertise, but often to speak almost ex cathedra, on the social and philosophical implications for humans and the planet itself. The break with The Church in the 15th & 16th century set in motion a secular humanism which began the movement within the scholarly communities to separate knowledge into disciplines. Following the Enlightenment, many in the social arena turned from the theory based, deductive, approaches toward the sciences with the hope that this inductive methodology would yield the same success found in the bio-physical arena. While this approach has failed to achieve such heights, “science envy” is now driving academic institutions, particularly in the United States and manydeveloping countries, to reposition The Academy to become innovative and contribute to both the private and public sector much in the same manner that Science’s handmaiden, Technology, has contributed in the bio/physical arena.The Humanities, as sensed by Brockman and others, has turned inward or has been ineffective in responding except to utter the mantra that its area represents humanity’s soul and thus provides the critical knowledge needed to save the planet and thus humans. Yet philosophy has not been able, or is unwilling, to accept the challenge and enter the academic lists or command the public pulpit. In this default, a surrogate, religious fundamentalism, has raised its head above the trenches reminiscent of the ancient Science/ Church confrontation and seeks to restore the idea of salvation in the next world, hoping to destroy the Gnostic ideal of humans being able to create such peace on earth.

Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses in his paper “New Media Technology, Interculturalism, and Intermediality” the importance of new media technology and the concept of intermediality with regard to the relevance of interculturalism in today's society. Intermediality refers to the blurring of generic and formal boundaries among different forms of cultural practices and in the field of pedagogy. The trajectories of intermedial spaces, actions, and processes of types of new media including the world wide web, hypertextuality, online publishing, blogs, interactive media, etc., suggest possibilities and potentials to work toward interculturalism. Interculturalism is understood as a practice of social life including government at all levels, education and pedagogy, as well as all instances of every-day life towards active recognition and inclusion of the Other and a commitment against essentialisms. In this process, the potential roles of new mediasuggest as of yet un-tapped resources and possibilities.

The article presents some conclusions arising from an educational experiment conducted by the University Centre for Distance Learning (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin). The aim of the experiment was to verify the applicability of Second Life for educational purposes. The most important conclusion of the experiment is that SL is not as much productive as an e-learning platform but it is quite efficient for the realization of multi-disciplinary projects. It is also effective as a tool for creating digital animations and simulations. Moreover, the article presents some factors indispensable for the successful application of SL observed during the realization of the project.

Due to the Internet, the traditional media monopoly has been irretrievably broken. Available technologies have created unavailable earlier conditions for personalization and manipulation of information that is generating to the Internet users. It is sharply noticeable with reference to the computer games, media and the potential of Web 2.0, social networking. The freedom of information concerning the social networking seem to be a temporary phenomenon—effectively dominated by the commercialization.

In this paper I argue that recent technological transformations in the life-cycle of information have brought about a fourth revolution, in the long process of reassessing humanity’s fundamental nature and role in the universe, namely the idea that we might be informational organisms among many agents, inforgs not so dramatically different from clever, engineered artefacts, but sharing with them a global environment that is ultimately made of information, the infosphere. In view of this important evolution in our self-understanding, and given the sort of IT-mediated interactions that humans will increasingly enjoy with their environment and a variety of other agents, whether natural or synthetic, we have the unique opportunity of developing a new ecological approach to the whole of reality.

There are few opinions as soundly rooted and commonly acknowledged as the notion of usefulness of education. There is a deep belief, proved right by the experience of mankind, that an educated person has the advantage over a simpleton. It is considered (rightly) that educated individuals understand themselves and the world around them better. Therefore, they are more a homo rationalis than uneducated ones.In the world changing as in a kaleidoscope an educated person must have the skill to absorb incoming information easily and quickly, to select it and then process into substantial knowledge about the world. At the same time, they need to be reliable and highly efficient in its particular applications. In a word, an educated person needs to know how to develop their individual capital of knowledge. The average age of starting a career increases. Keeping up with fast occurring civilisation changes requires some outside assistance, and so the tasks for higher education are expanding to include theneed to organise lifelong learning.I think that the more effectively will an educational system deliver the abovementioned objectives-acquiring knowledge as such, understood as acquiring the truthabout the world and as increasing the intellectual potential of the society-the ’better’ it will be. This leads to perceiving also the system’s effectiveness as a value in itself, and achieving this value becomes the system’s priority.However, are the values and goals of the higher education mentioned above exclusive? What tradition is backing the priorities of universities nowadays? What should be changed to make the education in universities more efficient in the changing world?I am asking those difficult questions while not quite convinced that my opinion is the best and the only one possible, but I would like to make a small contribution to the discussion on values of education.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that, in order for the debate in Computing and philosophy to move forward with respect to its current state, the advances of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence of the last decades must be taken into account. Computational reflection, one of these advances, is presented in detail and its philosophical implications are discussed, in contrast with old-fashioned views of computational systems such as those presented by Lucas’ papers on Minds and Machines.

The phenomenon of immersion mainly appears and relates to human existence in the interactive electronic environment. Immersion can produce an experience of electronically generated reality, which consists of feelings similar to those known from the experience of the physical world and can influence our sensuous and intentional attitude (Michal Heim). A person enters the electronic world, frequently finding there the value of being and a sphere for her/his own activity, which can release personality and produce the kind of emotional attitude which sometimes possibly does not appear in the physical world. Immersion was also described in electronic interactive art as a phenomenon which operates on the basis of aesthetic experience, where it is connected with feelings of being surrounded by outside influences, or with the “absorption” of perceiver by the work of art. The description of immersion on the basis of interactive artbecame the foundation for treating it as a general feature of art and also makes it possible to treat art as an immersive environment, where immersion becomes a historical notion, shaped by the historical development (Oliver Grau).

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.

This paper traces the shifts in relative emphasis on knowledge and wisdom as educational ideals from the time of Plato to the present. In the Industrial Era, the increasing pressure towards specialization made professors serve primarily as content experts. This role, however, often threatened to trivialize the academic calling, and there were many attempts to restore a lost unity to knowledge. Today, with the advent of the Internet, the easy accessibility of information diminishes the importance of specialized knowledge. It is no longer essential for an instructor to serve as a provider of factual material. He or she will, however, be more necessary than ever to assist students in placing information in a meaningful personal, professional, and socio-historic context. Pre-industrial, even ancient, educational models such as those of Aesop or Socrates assume renewed importance. Wisdom, rather than knowledge, may again become the most important quality of the educator in post-industrial society.

The changing of our way of being, toward homo sapiens digital, is also responsible for the transformation of the learning/teaching in the 21st century. In K12 education we could speak about “Digital Natives/Digital Immigrants” “herding”, “digital multipliers” etc. In Academe, the focus has to be on creativity and digital wisdom.

The author’s firm belief is that transitional humanity is not yet humanity proper but pre-humanity. He is especially intrigued by the essence and purpose of today’s contradiction between humanity’s immense advancement in micro-electronics, digital technology and social lore and its shocking moral shortcomings, best visible in its stagnant unchangeability—especially regarding the passionate quest for ever-better weaponry. Will our transience turn out to be nothing more but a phase on the road to human perfection, or will it petrify into an “inborn” scar? These are the main questions the author attempts to answer.As a species we are praehomine, pre-humans, a natural phase of ethical and esthetic imperfection. Typical for transitional humanity is the coexistence of progress. Nonetheless transitional humanity also carries the potential necessary to attain Wisdom, Good, Completeness and Perfection.

The main goal of this paper (presentation) is to prove the thesis that the attempts to transpose the cultural differentiation into the social and economical universalism and globalism must lead to repressive psychosocial totalitarianism on a large scale. Modern human sciences and politics tend to classify the individual in respect to his adaptive efficiency in interactive relation with programmed environment and to qualify him according to given imposed criteria of social functionalism. The correctly socialized individual is expected to be an exchangeable functional unit assessed according to its usefulness in performing a set of particular tasks, despite his cultural background being considered as a second-rate factor, which may affect (in a positive or negative way) the social acceptance and correctness of his behavior. However, no community is an exact representation of society because it is held together not by functions but by the values aswell as the forms of their actualization and implementation into the common organization and their way of life. The community is not a contract upon which society is based. The identity of the individual must not be removed from the culture of the community in which he lives and from its constitutive values. It is also rooted in the past and history of striving for self-determination and cultural as well as personal subjectivity. Without these significant cultural and historical components the individual identity is nothing but an operational, programmable algorithm of functional living unit assigned to perform short-term utilitarian tasks. This approach stands in contradiction to the Aristotelian concept of wellbeing and happiness considered as striving for the common good of spiritual values by individuals as well as by human communities. Any extensive and effective civilization neglecting the higher values of moral, symbolic and religious sense of the individual, must face totalitarianism or extinction.

Many scholars have argued that neoliberal economic theory articulates the justifying ideology for contemporary globalization. This ideology claims that “free market” solutions are always the best mechanisms for not only promoting economic growth but for all human problems. This first part of this paper provides a conceptual and historical overview of neoliberal economic theory with critical commentary on two key neoliberal dogma, viz., the idea that markets know best and that privatization and deregulation are inevitable. The second part of the paper discusses the impact of neoliberal policies on the environment and on indigenous peoples around the world. The paper concludes by arguing that neoliberal ideology differs from classical liberalism by privileging the Hobbesian theory of human nature and human rationality over the Kantian understanding of human nature and human rationality. The result is the ascendancy of economic liberty over political liberty.

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection finds application far outside biology, for which it was originally invented. Its consequences for science proved far-going, influencing practically every field from thermodynamics to the humanities. While acting on biological systems, the Darwinian mechanism is a source of progress and the local-scale abandonment of the universe’s general tendency towards chaos. However, observations of changes taking place in selection-exposed organisms show that evolutionary success requires some essential limitations. The application of this reasoning to social evolution may appear thought-provoking: stable evolution requires not only intense selection but also a conservative approach to ideas.

Many scholars have argued that unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some basic or core human values. Instead of engaging in a comparative empirical research, compiling lists of core values derived from different cultures, discuss their relevance for human fellowship, I examine the simple values of life that during the 1980s united people in Poland and made them to form the powerful civic movement, which was Solidarity.Poland’s Solidarity of the 1980s has not yet entered a canon of routinely studied great social movements. However, it has initiated a profound world transformation. We are no longer divided by a global confrontation between communism and liberal democracy. The main today’s issue is globalization. Although altered in many respects, the world has still been affected by many serious problems. They necessitate another positive world transformation and a new Global Solidarity that can undertake it.A Global Solidarity movement can learn from Poland’s Solidarity. My contention is that it should not be grounded in any ideological thinking, but in inclusive values—values that do not divide but can potentially unite all human beings—and these values can be derived from basic human needs. In short, Global Solidarity should be based on what I call the “righteousness of life”. It can be achieved if there is a growing recognition of what is right for life and a growing interest in protecting and enhancing life.Building a Global Solidarity is not an attempt to replace governments, but rather to exert pressure on them, so that they support international organizations and consider the welfare of all humanity. While wielding power that at present none of the NGOs represent, Global Solidarity can be a life promoting and enhancing instrument of global society through which a more humane world will be achieved.

This investigation of wisdom reflects the view of a user of philosophy. His position is that every mentally healthy person has some level of wisdom. This view was not shared by majority of famous philosophers who wisdom attributed to God only. A review of philosophers‘ perception of wisdom is evaluated through the centuries and different civilizations. A graphic model of Aristotle‘s approach to wisdom is provided. A model of the ends of live is provided by the author to fulfill Aristotle‘s postulate that since people do not know their ends of life therefore cannot be wise. The question-can philosophy deliver wisdom is raised and answered. The transformation of today‘s society towards the wise society and civilization is characterized.