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The author of this book speaks out again in regard to the Enlightenment. His inspiration comes not only from new observations occasioned by own studies, but also from the recently read material as well as opinions and appraisals of the era articulated lately at academic conferences. Although they have not led the author to perform a fundamental revision of his views in regard to the nature of Enlightenment and its crucial contributions to the Western culture, they did afford a better understanding of its complexity. They also made him more aware that his interpretation and presentation of that era depends considerably on what its prominent representatives had to say, as well as on the worldview-based assumptions and methods of appraisal adopted by its later observers and interpreters.
The treatment of Descartes' philosophy within this book takes it to be a specific instance of rationalism. Descartes gave the human intellect the central role in this system; thus, it is considered a variant of an intellectual rationalism.
This volume contains four essays which may attract the attention of those readers, who are interested in mathematical cognition The main issues and questions addressed include: How do we achieve understanding of mathematical notions and ideas? What benefits can be obtained from mistakes of great mathematicians? Which mathematical objects are standard and which are pathological? Is it possible characterize the intended models of mathematical theories in a unique way?
The standards of rationality are treated in this book as certain regulators of social life. They are compared to the rudders of the great vessels constituted by social communities. The diversity exhibited by those standards do not only result from the differences of time and space of their implementation, but also from the differences in the sets of ideas put forward by the leading social thinkers accompanied by the different characteristics of their designated audiences. (Series: Development in Humanities - Vol. 7)
This book focuses on the standards of philosophical rationality, corresponding to a philosophy that aspires to be more than the wisdom that stems from and addresses everyday human needs. It is a search for standards that would, as it were, show the way to philosophical wisdom for anyone who is willing and able to assess it. One of the problems is that people have had a different understanding of the basic concept of rationality, which is the rationale. (Series: Development in Humanities - Vol. 1)
This book is dedicated to the problems faced by universities. The author frequently refers to those events from the past that resulted in universities becoming institutions of public benefit. This benefit is of course understood in various ways, but in ways always involving the institutions’ function of serving. What is debatable is whom and what they were and are meant to serve, and how they can and how they should fulfil these functions. Although such questions are global in character, the answers to them can be both global and local, meaning that they may relate to both the most general tasks of universities and to those that might be or are to some degree only performed by institutions of a particular type.
This monograph is about an exciting episode in the intellectual history of Europe: the vigorous debate among leading Polish historians on the sources of the economic development and non-development, including the origins of economic divisions within Europe. The work covers nearly fifty years of this debate between the publication of two pivotal works in 1947 and 1994. Anna Sosnowska provides an insightful interpretation of how local and generational experience shaped the notions of post-1945 Polish historians about Eastern European backwardness, and how their debate influenced Western historical sociology, social theories of development and dependency in peripheral areas, and the image of Ea...
Facing otherness in everyday interpersonal relations, making decisions within demanding contexts, living with the plenitude of values - all of these experiences permanently challenge one's moral cognition. Neither a single moral agent nor ethics itself can pretend omniscience when dealing with complex, real world situations. In this book, author Ewa Nowak presents her own research findings to account for the experimental nature of ethics. Nowak questions a popular conviction that declaring values and following norms is a sufficient condition to be moral. She applies Georg Lind's dual-aspect theory of morality to all sorts of spectacular contexts. (Series: Development in Humanities - Vol. 6)
The resurgence of religiosity in post-communist Europe has been widely noted, but the full spectrum of religious practice in the diverse countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been effectively hidden behind the region's range of languages and cultures. This volume presents an overview of one of the most notable developments in the region, the rise of Pagan and "Native Faith" movements. Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe brings together scholars from across the region to present both systematic country overviews - of Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, and Ukraine - as well as essays exploring specific themes such as racism and the internet. The volume will be of interest to scholars of new religious movements especially those looking for a more comprehensive picture of contemporary paganism beyond the English-speaking world.
Essays collected in this volume deal with various problems from the philosophy of mathematics. What connects them are two questions: how mathematics is created and how it is acquired. In 'Three Worlds of Mathematics' we are familiarized with David Tall's ideas pertaining to the embodied, symbolic and formal worlds of mathematics. In 'Basic Ideas of Intuitionism', we focus on an epistemological approach to mathematics which is distinctive to constructive mathematics. The author focuses on the computational content of intuitionistic logic and shows how it relates to functional programming. 'The Brave Mathematical Ant' carefully selects mathematical puzzles related to teaching experiences in a way that the solution requires creativity and is not obtainable by following an algorithm. Moreover the solution gives us some new insight into the underlying idea. 'Degrees Of Accessibility Of Mathematical Objects' discusses various criteria which can be used to judge accessibility of mathematical objects. We find logical complexity, range of applications, existence of a physical model as well as aesthetic values.