{"title":"Logical Positivism, Wittgenstein and Ethical Value of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus","authors":"V. Surovtsev","doi":"10.5840/EPS20215817","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/EPS20215817","url":null,"abstract":"The problem of interconnection of L. Wittgenstein and logical positivism is considered. It is proved that mutual influence did not exist and could not exist due to dissimilarities between the tasks proposed in the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” and the goals that are basic for the representatives of the Vienna Circle. But the difference between the tasks and the goals does not diminish the value of the philosophy of early Wittgenstein, if even his philosophy cannot be interpreted from the point of view of the Unified Science. But the ethical value of the “Tractatus” is problematic too. It does not contain any positive decisions for the humanities.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71003797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Abstraction Through the Lens of Neuroscience","authors":"V. Bazhanov","doi":"10.5840/eps202158222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202158222","url":null,"abstract":"The interpretation of the abstraction process and the use of various abstractions are consistent with the trends associated with the naturalistic turn in modern cognitive and neural studies. Logic of dealing with abstractions presupposes not only acts of digress from the insignificant details of the object, but also the replenishment of the image due to idealization, endowing the object with properties that are absent from it. Thus, abstraction expresses not only the activity of the subject but the fact of “locking” this activity on a certain kind of ontology as well. The latter, in the spirit of I. Kant’s apriorism, is a function of epistemological attitudes and the nature of the subject's activity. Therefore, in the context of modern neuroscience, we can mean the transcendentalism of activity type. An effective tool for comprehension of abstractions making and development is a metaphor, which, on the one hand, allows submerge the object of analysis into a more or less familiar context, and on the other hand, it may produce new abstractions. Naturalistic tendencies manifested in the fact that empirically established abstractions activate certain neural brain networks, and abstract and concrete concepts are \"processed\" by various parts of the brain. If we keep in mind the presence of different levels abstractions then not only neural networks but even individual neurons (called “conceptual”) can be excited. The excitation of neural networks is associated with understanding the meaning of some concepts, but at the same time, the activity of these networks presupposes the \"dissection\" of reality due to a certain angle, determined in the general case by goals, attitudes and concrete practices of the subject.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71003912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From Modernization to Greening","authors":"I. Gerasimova","doi":"10.5840/EPS20215812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/EPS20215812","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses the problem of complex relationships between the two leading areas of scientific, technical and socio-cultural development – modernization and greening. The emergence of new general scientific methodologies and interdisciplinary types of knowledge is largely due to the release of human demiurgic activity to the planetary level. A new interdisciplinary area of research is gaining momentum – geoecology. Natural and socio-humanitarian sciences are involved in the study of geoecological problems. In social epistemology, the problem of interaction between science, technology and society goes to the global level. Philosophical concepts of nature constitute the prerequisites for scientific paradigms, which in the era of global crisis and transformations of public consciousness are multiple and compete with each other. The ideas of scientific vitalism find expression in the life sciences and environmental sciences. Scientific and public discussions on the problems of the new climate regime, pandemic and other global challenges actively influence the formation of new modes of “collective thinking”, involving science, engineering, geopolitics, business, society and culture. Author makes a conclusion about the formation of the methodologies of the ecogeosystem approach, in which living beings, humans, natural environments, the planet as a whole and the surrounding space are considered as open, interacting systems. The common interests of the people of the Earth form a new type of community – geosociality. Humanity is facing a radical value choice – unlimited modernization or reasonable greening? Ideal of a common world or egoism of elites? A turn to an effective ecological worldview is possible only in the context of transformations of public consciousness, restoration of the rights of humanitarian culture and the advanced development o fenvironmentally friendly design.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71003974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Cultural-Historical Epistemology and Individual Methodological Attitudes of a Scientist","authors":"I. Shchedrina","doi":"10.5840/eps202158228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202158228","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, the author proceeds from the conceptual reversal of cultural-historical epistemology to the personal, historical, and social experience of a representative of an intellectual culture (scientist, philosopher) and his understanding and rethinking of his methodological attitudes. The idea of the article is that cultural-historical epistemology makes it possible to present natural-scientific and philosophical individual reflection as a specific component of the development of special tools, which are capable of recording and assessing the methodological effectiveness of research activities taking into account individual cognitive experience. For this purpose, the author turns to the issue of an autobiographical narrative – a narrative containing the personal experience of working scientists rethinking their own methodological attitudes. The specific character of ego-documents, and moreover, ego-texts of a natural scientific kind in this case is corroborated by the ideas of cultural-histori - cal epistemology. A scientist is turned to Other, whether in himself or in the narrative. Here scientific methodology and autobiographical narrative are conceptually mixed. As the main material reveals the meaning of the above idea, ego-texts by A.A. Ukhtomsky (his notes in notebooks, correspondence, and memoirs) were selected. While comprehending the fate of domestic and foreign science and also perfectly imagining the further development of multiple “systems of knowledge”, Ukhtomsky still saw a living person – the Interlocutor – behind this process. The need to preserve this image in front of oneself, to preserve the Dominant on the face of Other, this internal orientation, are brought by Ukhtomsky to a conceptually higher level. In this case, the narrative is viewed as a type of reflection that allows one to explicate and give a personal assessment of the effectiveness of the methodological guidelines, based on which the scientist chooses certain areas of research.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71004058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Intellectually Virtuous Inquirer and the Practical Value of Truth","authors":"S. Levin","doi":"10.5840/eps202158459","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202158459","url":null,"abstract":"Veritism is the thesis that the truth is the fundamental epistemic good. According to Duncan Pritchard, the most pressing objections to veritism are the trivial truths objection and the trivial inquiry problem. The former states that veritism entails that trivial truths are as important as deep and important truths. The latter is a problem that a veritist must prefer trivial inquiry that generates many trivial truths to the serious inquiry with the hope but no guarantee to discover some deep and important truth. Both objections arise from the inability of veritism prima facie to properly rate the different types of truths. Pritchard's solution is to approach the truth from the perspective of the intellectually virtuous inquirer who would prefer weighty truth over trivial truth. In my commentary, I criticise the proposed solution as circular reasoning. The necessary virtue for an intellectually virtuous inquirer is that they would prefer the weighty truth over the trivial one and at the same time, the weighty truth is superior because it is the goal for intellectually virtuous inquirer. I suggest another path to substantiate veritism in the face of the two sibling objections. I argue that truth is the fundamental epistemic good as it makes the epistemic realm practically valuable more than any other epistemic good. The weighty truths are preferable to the trivial ones because the practical value of the deep and important truths is usually higher. The suggested path goes away from the attempts to prove the epistemic value of truth only within the epistemic realm, yet I argue it does not compel the intellectually virtuous inquirer to seek the truth only for the sake of practical reasons.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71005397","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Virtues Needed by Experts in Action","authors":"A. Lavazza, Mirko Farina","doi":"10.5840/eps202158466","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202158466","url":null,"abstract":"The current Covid-19 pandemic is illustrative of both the need of more experts and of the difficulties that can arise in the face of their decisions. This happens, we argue, because experts usually interact with society through a strongly naturalistic framework, which often places experts’ epistemic authority (understood as neutrality and objectivity) at the centre, sometimes at the expenses of other pluralistic values (such as axiological ones) that people (often non-experts) cherish. In this paper, we argue that we need to supplement such a strong naturalistic framework used to promote epistemic authority with a number of virtues -both intellectual and ethical- which include i. intellectual humility, ii. courage, iii. wisdom and cares, as well as iv. relational autonomy. To illustrate this claim, we discuss these ideas in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and analyse a set of real-life examples where important decisions have been delegated to experts merely based on their epistemic authority. We use the illustrative failures described in the case studies above-mentioned to call for a revision of current understandings of expertise (merely based on epistemic soundness). Specifically, we argue that in social contexts we increasingly need “experts in action”; that is, people with certified specialist knowledge, who can however translate it into practical suggestions, decisions, and/or public policies that are ethically more balanced and that ultimately lead to fairer, more inclusive, and more representative decisions.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71005785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Russell and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus","authors":"V. Tselishchev","doi":"10.5840/EPS20215818","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/EPS20215818","url":null,"abstract":"The author argues that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus owes much to Russell’s early philosophy. This point of view is demonstrated in the article by referring to G. Landini’s recent research on Russell’s Substitution Theory, as well as by the evaluations of the Tractatus of the prominent researchers: L. Goldstein, J. Hintikka, and J. Hacking. A skeptical view on the influence of the Tractatus and Wittgenstein personally on the doctrines of the Vienna Circle is presented by A. Koffa. The author proposes to reject extreme judgments about the Tractatus outside the context of Principia Mathematica.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71003848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Towards Protolanguage","authors":"D. Zaitsev","doi":"10.5840/EPS202158112","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/EPS202158112","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I attempt to offer a general outline of my views on the origin and evolution of language. I do not pretend in any way to a completely new conception of language evolution. It seems to me that all the most important and productive hypotheses about the origin of language have already been made before, and it is only a matter of putting the pieces of the puzzle together correctly. As far as I can see it, the evolution of language is directly related to the embedded and embodied emotional types, which served as the basis for the subsequent categorization of perceived objects, and thus laid the ground for the formation of first an internal language (of thought), and then an external verbal language. Consistent with this, the paper is organized as follows. In the Introduction I briefly describe the problem I am facing in this article and outline a plan for solving it. Next section comprises a survey of relevant empirical findings related primarily to the processing and understanding of abstract terms and concepts. In my view, it supports the idea of the close connection of abstract terms proceeding, and thus language comprehension, with emotional states. The third section provides relevant theoretical considerations of the relationship between emotions, cognition, and language. Consistently considering various theories of emotions and concepts of language formation, I pay attention to the connection between affective states and language as a sign system. In the fourth section, my views are presented directly. In so doing, I illustrate my approach with a telling example that shows how, in the course of evolution, embedded and embodied emotional responses and reactions could become the building blocks first for the internal language of thought, and then for the external natural language.","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71004083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jubilee of Alexander Yu. Antonovski","authors":"","doi":"10.5840/eps202158238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202158238","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71004421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Piama P. Gaidenko (1934–2021)","authors":"","doi":"10.5840/eps202158354","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/eps202158354","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":44031,"journal":{"name":"Epistemology & Philosophy of Science-Epistemologiya i Filosofiya Nauki","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71004951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}