EDITORIAL
CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
Influence of Mass Culture on Ethnic Culture and Its Overcoming
Abstract. The intensification of world processes has acutely raised the problem of preserving traditional ethnic culture. Preservation of cultural heritage in a mass society is the most important problem of our time. In this regard, the question of influence of mass culture on the culture of an ethnos and its overcoming is actualized. In the article, on the basis of the literature review, the concepts of “mass culture” and “ethnic culture” are analyzed. It is revealed that ethnic culture is multi-component and includes both traditional components and elements of mass culture.
The consequences of the impact of mass culture on the culture of the Yakut ethnos- acculturation and marginalization – are revealed. Conditions for overcoming the influence of mass culture on the culture of an ethnos – the dialogue between western and eastern cultures, the cessation of mindless copying of the Western way of life – are developed.
Keywords: mass culture; ethnic culture; traditional culture; marginality; modernization
Anzhelina Koriakina
North-Eastern Federal University (Russia)
MORAL PHILOSOPHY
20 A Virtue-based Model for Medical Ethics and Practice in Edmund Pellegrino
Abstract. This paper deals with the resurgence of interest in virtue ethics in professional ethics, specifically as it applies to Edmund Daniel Pellegrino’s account in medical ethics. Pellegrino investigates in a clear manner the ethical problems of contemporary medicine from a virtue ethics point of view and offers a virtue-based ethic for medicine as an effective tool and a practical guide for confronting the challenges of modern medicine. His account builds on a thesis of the indispensability of virtuous character traits for a sound medical practice. Pellegrino’s virtue ethics offers a plausible and distinctive alternative to utilitarian and Kantian (principle-based) approaches to understanding and evaluating professional roles. It is hoped that our exploration of Pellegrino’s account will underline the place of a virtue ethics in medicine and stimulate a similar inquiry into social welfare, and into other forms of human professions and disciplines.
Keywords: medical ethics; virtue ethics; principle-based ethics; medicine
Philemon Ayibo
The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (Poland)
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Кант и развитието на геометрията
Absract. The aim of the paper is to show that the standard criticism directed to Kant that he allegedly accepted the uniqueness and objectivity of the three dimensional Euclidean geometry is irrelevant. Long before the birth of non-Euclidean geometries it occurred to Kant that extensions could exist with other properties and dimensions, which describe other possible worlds. And long before Hilary Putnam to explain the differentiation of the notion of straight line that obeys two types of laws – geometrical and physical, Kant has presented the possibility of this differentiation in his first Critique.
Keywords: extensions with non-Euclidean geometries; strait line; geodesic line in Riemannian geometry
Prof. Anguel S. Stefanov,
nstitute of Philosophy and Sociology -
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Natural Kinds and Emergent Properties. A Naturalistic Attempt to Consolidate the Two Concepts
Absract. The specialized understanding of natural kinds (NK) has a theoretical impact on the concept of emergent properties (EP) in particular, as well as on the understanding of the phenomenon of emergence as a whole. The problem is closely related to the tendencies towards their essentialization and theoretical demarcation. The theoretical tension is inevitably manifested in the attempts to consolidate the two concepts, which are generally considered in essentialist terms. A naturalistic, non-essentialist, approach could integrate them into a unified theoretical method, avoiding the problems of their traditional analysis.
In the article, NK will be considered as reaction clusters, and EP as complexes of reaction clusters. Both will be directly related to the introduced concepts of reaction potential and stability. The relationship between these concepts will be defined and operationalized, thus explicating the result, considering the phenomenon of emergence as enhancing the reaction potential of a given structure or a complex system, which is in a proportional relation to its net stability.
Keywords: natural kinds; emergent properties; emergence; reaction cluster; naturalism
Mr. Kaloyan Nechev
Sofia University
HERMENEUTICS
Modern Quranic Hermeneutics: Abdulkarim Soroush on the Expansion of Prophetic Experience
Abstract. Since early times, Muslims have speculated on the nature of Revelation and the Divine Speech. This has resulted in Muslim scholars developing divergent approaches to this problem. With the constitution of the orthodoxy, the former school became dominant and it postulated that the Quran is the Word of God dictated to Prophet Muhammad through the angel Jabrail. However, during the last decades in Iran emerged scholars, such as Abdulkarim Soroush, who proposed new approaches to understanding and interpreting Revelation. This paper discusses the hermeneutical project put forward by Soroush by discussing his article on the “Expansion of Prophetic Experience”. In this article, the author argues that his modern hermeneutics is radically different from orthodox theology and problematizes that the idea that the Quran as a human creation brings about other implications outside theology, such as for instance opening the Muslim thought and liberating it from scriptural readings.
Keywords: modern Quranic hermeneutics; Abdulkarim Soroush; Revelation; expanding prophetic experience; Islamic orthodoxy
Abdulla Rexhepi, Isa Memishi
University of Prishtina (Kosovo)
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Cultural Identity as Security and a Philosophy of Development for Africa: Reflections on Amilcar Cabral
Abstract. The paper looks at the problem of national and human security in many parts of Africa today, seen in the inability of most governments to guarantee the adequate protection, peace and well-being of the citizens due in part to foreign dominating ideas. Cabral in his cultural and political thought offered philosophical insights and applied culture to the analysis of security for modern Africa. His theory of security is build upon the struggle for liberation from the colonial ordinance and his philosophy of identity is based on a combination of theory and praxis in the pursuit of reality. This requires the unearthing of the deep cultural roots and causes of things. This harmonization of interests is not just between men and men, but also between men and nature. The question is; what principles and values can best facilitate the crucial sense of security in most African societies?
Keywords: identity; culture; development; Africa; security
1)Philip Ogo Ujomu, 2)Felix O. Olatunji
1)Federal University (Nigeria), 2)University of Technology (Nigeria)
Modern European Separatism: the Role of the European Union and Wealth
Abstract. The article is aimed at the change of the separatist discourse from ethnic self-determination to secession based on public spending and wealth redistribution. Further, it aims to explain the role of the European Union, its legislation and politics, in these processes amongst its Member States. Besides establishing that such role is both increasing and diminishing separatist tendencies due to the Single Market, legislation on regions or siding with Member States against secession, the article argues that the paradigm may change yet again to the notions of human rights, citizenship and immigration, due to the stall of economic secessionist aspirations.
Keywords: separatism; European Union; secession
Veselin Vasilev
BOOK REVIEWS
Philosophy and Life Sciences in Dialogue
Abstract. The volume Philosophy and Life Sciences in Dialogue is a result of the IV International Summer School Bioethics in Context, organized by Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and FernUniversität in Hagen. The book is exemplary in many ways. It contains 11 high-quality articles on fundamental themes and concepts with real philosophical depth – nature, autonomy, the future of trans- and post-humanism, the meta-topic of bioethics and its relations with life sciences. The authors present illuminating historical backgrounds as a context to these theoretical discussions and a source of interesting or forgotten arguments. Most of the articles analyze recent and avantgarde scientific research with its social implications: CRISPR-Cas9 technology, digitalization of health care, justification of animal experiments, questions of human cloning, moral enhancement and the artificial synthesis of life. The main idea of the book is that bioethics is necessarily connected to human practice: it is not just knowledge but a living culture.
Keywords: bioethics; life sciences; nature; autonomy; CRISPR-Cas9; moral enhancement; digitalization; human cloning
Vassil Vidinsky
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)
A New Monograph of Vesselin Petrov on Whitehead
Serghey Gherdjikov
Sofia University
Frege in Two Dimensions
Abstract. The review outlines the content of Kamen Lozev’s book In the Eve, Or the Other Revolution: Gottlob Frege, 2019. The paper emphasizes that for the first time in the Bulgarian philosophical literature an attempt is made to present an extended portrayal of Frege as a revolutionary figure in both fields – Logic and Philosophy of language. The aim of the review is to help future readers of Kamen Lozev’s book better comprehend the necessary connection between Frege’s logical investigations and his inevitable discoveries in Semantics. Lozev’s book argues that during the years of ‘the eve’ (end of the Nineteenth and the beginning of the Twentieth century) along with the revolution in Natural sciences another revolution, started by Frege and no less important, was well underway which gave in, the end, the Twentieth century philosophy its most dominant trend – the Analytic philosophy.
Keywords: Gottlob Frege; modern logic; Philosophy of language; Analytic philosophy
Nikolay Tsenkov, Elica Tihomirova
South-West University “Neofit Rilski” (Bulgaria)
