Critical Remarks Research Articles

Universality as a Historical-Political Problem: On the Limits of Buck-Morss’ Conceptualisation of Universality

ABSTRACT The present article revolves around the notion of universality and its relation to freedom and temporal orientation in contemporary political thought, with a focus on Susan Buck-Morss' notion of universality. The purpose is twofold. Firstly, I discern and critique the historico-political premises of her approach. Secondly, I suggest an alternative historico-political approach to universality addressing the drawbacks of her approach. I present three objections to her approach. Drawing on Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom, I first present a critique of the conceptualisation of freedom on which Buck-Morss' approach hinges, arguing that she overemphasises the moment of liberation. Thereafter, I turn to her reflections on historical orientation. My third objection concentrates on Buck-Morss' concept of universality. As a heuristic tool to expound on my critique, I activate the distinction between fictive and ideal universality as suggested by Étienne Balibar. I contend that Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom efficiently elucidates the questions at stake in Balibar's discussion, as well as how his distinction points to the limits of Buck-Morss' argumentation. Ultimately, I contend that these critical remarks open up for a more dialectical approach to universality as a historical-political problem.

Contemporary Critical Reflections on Ion Bria’s Vision for Ecumenical Dialogue

In this study, I will expose the perspective of the ecumenical dialogue in the theology of Fr. Ion Bria, one of the well-known Romanians involved in the ecumenical movement. In the first part, after a short introduction, I will present the most important biographical milestones of the Romanian theologian, as well as some details about his activity in the World Council of Churches. Then, in the second part, I will critically present the most important aspects of Bria’s ecumenical theology, as well as the reception of these ideas in contemporary Orthodox theology, in discussion with common witness and eucharistic communion within ecumenical dialogue. In the last part, I will present the critical remarks on ecumenism in Bria’s theology. Through this analysis, I will emphasize important directions that the ecumenical dialogue can exploit today to overcome some historical, cultural or theological preconceptions and misunderstandings.

Reflections on Habermas’s discourse ethics

In this article Habermas’s discourse ethics is critically interpreted. The article starts with a brief intellectual biography of Habermas (section 1), showing that his life and work has always had a strong ethical and political dimension – leading to the concept of discourse ethics. Next, it is indicated how Habermas’s work in the 1970s culminated via four steps in his major philosophical work – the Theory of Communicative Action (section 2) published in 1981. In the next two sections Habermas Theory of Communicative Action is applied to ethics and morality in the form of his discourse ethics – the heart of this contribution (section 3). In this process the following four aspects of Habermas’s discourse ethics are discussed: Its qualified Kantian deontological dimension, as well as its universalist, cognitivist, and formalist dimensions. In the following section (4) the discussion of discourse ethics is shifted to Habermas’s theory of law, deliberative politics, and democracy which is a further application of ideas developed in his Theory of Communicative Action. The contribution then ends with some critical remarks on Habermas discourse ethics and sketch of law and politics (section 5) Three arguments are presented in this regard. First, Habermas argument is judged to be too closely related to abstract rationality. Secondly the distinction that Habermas makes between morality and ethics is critically investigated. Finally, the Habermasian use of justification in his argument is critically compared with the concept of application. These points of criticism, though, indicate that the debate on Habermas’s discourse ethics is ongoing.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article deals with the concept of discourse ethics (in the Kantian tradition of ethics) as developed firstly by Karel Otto Apel and later refined by Jurgen Habermas for his own purposes. The line of argumentation developed here has significant relevance for philosophy, moral theory, law, and theology. Discourse ethics can be considered as a contemporary version of Kantian deontological ethics after the linguistic turn.

The image of the Chechen War on the pages of the American daily newspaper The New York Times: headline review

The subject of the research in the article is the image of the First and Second Chechen Wars, created by journalists of The New York Times newspaper in the 1990s and reflecting the views of the American democratic public. The subject of the study is the headlines of articles related to this topic in the American daily newspaper The New York Times. At the end of the 20th century, the periodical press continued to play a significant role in public life, including shaping the news agenda and creating the image of certain events. Often, journalists sought to impose their vision of Russian politics on the reader. Reputable publications, avoiding the techniques of the "yellow press", used more subtle and unobvious manipulative forms. Such manipulations include the newspaper's choice of lexical units with a certain connotation and the frequency of their use. In this study, the author attempts to explicate the hidden information that is embedded in the headlines of The New York Times. To analyze the information identified by the author in the headlines of The New York Times newspaper, the article used methods such as historical, comparative and quantitative content analysis. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the headlines of The New York Times newspaper of this period were first considered as a source of analysis of the transforming view of the American democratic press on the events of the First and Second Chechen Wars. According to the results of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: the image of the Chechen conflict of the 1990s in the American press has undergone significant changes. If the First Chechen War in The New York Times appears as a legitimate struggle of the Russian authorities against the separatist movement in Chechnya, albeit with a number of critical remarks, then the image of the Second Chechen War is radically different from the previous campaign. The newspaper presents the events of the Second Chechen Campaign as a new colonial war, while the emphasis was shifted towards criticizing the Russian leadership for violating human rights and freedoms in the Chechen Republic, as well as a direct impact on destabilization in the North Caucasus region.

Remarks on Ángel Pinillos’s Why We Doubt

Abstract In these brief remarks, I describe the author’s Bayesian explication of the narrow function of the meta-cognitive, heuristic algorithm (pbs) that is at the heart of his psychological explanation of why we entertain skeptical doubts. I provide some critical remarks, and an alternative Bayesian approach that is (to my mind) somewhat more elegant than the author’s.

Word, Sense, Freedom: Patočka and Nancy on the Way Beyond Onto-Theology

This article compares two currents of thought that are in search of a philosophy beyond onto-theology: the differential ontology of Jean-Luc Nancy and the asubjective hermeneutical phenomenology of Jan Patočka. Both claim that the demise of traditional metaphysics culminates in a new understanding of the “world.” Their reflections on the primacy of the world, on freedom, and on meaning which exceeds rational understanding show remarkable similarities. The discussion of their differences results in a few critical remarks concerning ideas of Nancy.

Conceptual Thought: Differentiating a Bergsonian Topic

Bergson tends to see concepts as pragmatic functions, enabling our skilful orientation in the world. This conducts him to search for philosophical alternatives to epistemic strategies founded on conceptual determination. It is here that he introduces intuition, a function later on cherished in quite different philosophical and literary settings. In order to understand the Bergsonian project, it is important not to be misled by the ordinary connotations of the word intuition and see how Bergson develops his topics in a metaphysical context which concerns the relation between life, knowledge, and consciousness. Some questions however arise concerning the Bergsonian way of describing concepts as an equivalent to the fixed, practically important points of orientation in vital perception. It is not evident how we should understand reflective conceptual thinking in this context. Is Bergson's view of concepts perhaps too instrumental? A comparison with the ancient tradition in general and Aristotle in particular, allows to shed some light on these matters and suggests a possibility of ontologically rehabilitating the stable, which for Bergson is often confounded with the rigidity of instrumental reason. Through these critical remarks it can also become clearer how Bergsonian philosophy of life can add some important modifications to the metaphysical tradition.

Critical remarks concerning the theory of general principles of law and its methodological implications

In the Latvian discourse of the theory of law and legal practice, there is a set of influential ideas that constitute a theory of general principles of law. This article aims to offer some critical remarks on the aforementioned theory and to explore some resulting methodological implications. In this article, two main research methods are used: the descriptive and the deductive methods. The examination of the theory resulted in the conclusion that it is self-contradictory to assert that the basic norm (a democratic state based on the Rule of Law) can determine the entire content of the legal system. Following are some methodological implications: First, instead of asserting that all legal methods are general principles of law, one should adopt a more general norm that is flexible enough and avoids contradictions between different obligations to use legal methods, i.e. the principle of reasonable application of legal norms. Second, the interpretation of written legal norms and the concretisation of unwritten ones cannot coexist if the basic norm determines the entire content of the legal system because of the postulate which asserts that writing down unwritten legal norms in a normative act does not change its unwritten nature. Keywords: general principles of law; legal method's; legal theory.

Украденные гаметы и мереорганическая преемственность

The article is a commentary on the work of Roman Kochnev Teletransporter and Other Troubles, which is a critical remark on the work of Alexey Kardash Teletransporter and Origami. First, the article reconstructs Kardash’s argument against survival in Parfit’s teletransporter, as well as Kochnev’s criticism. Next, the principle of mereorganic continuity proposed by Kardash is defended as a condition for the survival of the person. To answer Kochnev’s criticism, examples of stolen gametes are simulated, which demonstrate that mereorganic continuity is a detector of causal relationships necessary for the survival of the person. The article concludes by addressing the problem of the implicit dualism inherent in Parfitian views on survival in teletransporter.

МАРИЯ ЛЬВОВНА ТОЛМАЧЕВА: НЕИЗВЕСТНЫЕ СТРАНИЦЫ

The memoirs of Maria L. Tolmacheva (1867–1942) proposed for publication have been preserved in the archive of the Indicative Library for Children’s Reading and have not appeared in the field of view of the scientific community until this moment. The manuscript is a valuable historical and biographical material, containing interesting facts from the childhood of the writer herself, describing her childhood reading circle and her first experience of writing, revealing unknown characteristics of some representatives of the literary life of St. Petersburg in the 1910s. The introduction of such materials into scientific circulation allows, on the one hand, to replenish the bibliography of popular writers in the past, on the other — to immerse oneself in the author’s self-reflection on creativity, to learn about his perception of critical remarks, to find out the position of critics of children’s literature, to get an idea of the writer’s responsibility, to immerse oneself in the atmosphere of “editorial Wednesdays” of the popular children’s magazine “Tropinka” at that time. In the memoirs of Maria Tolmacheva, there are living portraits of Blok’s mother, Polyxena Solovyova-Allegro, Natalia Manaseina.

The ‘Ex Officio’ Doctrine of the CJEU Revisited: On the Active Role of the Courts in Unfair Contract Terms Law – Critical Remarks on the Lintner Ruling (C-551/17) of the CJEU

The ‘Ex Officio’ Doctrine of the CJEU Revisited: On the Active Role of the Courts in Unfair Contract Terms Law – Critical Remarks on the Lintner Ruling (C-551/17) of the CJEU

Experience versus Recollection: Reinhart Koselleck and Aleida Assmann on Collective Memory

Abstract Since the 1990s, Reinhart Koselleck has been one of the critics of the concept of collective memory. This includes contributions to practical debates on the one hand and reflections on a more theoretical level on the other. In contrast, with her concept of cultural memory, Aleida Assmann has taken a more positive view of the concept of collective memory. She defends this concept against Koselleck’s critical remarks, referring to him as an implicit addressee of her reflections. This essay takes this disagreement as an opportunity to look more closely at the ‘dialogue’ between them by addressing three overlapping aspects, primarily on a theoretical level: the distinction between experience and recollection, the collective conditions of recollection, and the opposition between history of memory and memory of history.

Prevalence and type of MMR expression heterogeneity in colorectal adenocarcinoma: therapeutic implications and reporting.

Mismatch repair (MMR) immunohistochemical (IHC) evaluation has entered pathology routine practice as the first-line screening method to identify patients with MMR deficient (MMRd)/microsatellite instability (MSI) colorectal cancer (CRC), and its misdiagnosis may significantly impact the personalization of CRC patient care. To determine the prevalence of MMR protein intratumor heterogeneity in real-world practice, we collected a series of 8282 CRCs tested for MMR proteins in the setting of Lynch syndrome universal screening. Four heterogenous cases were also investigated for tumor infiltrating lymphocytes count, MSI status, and consensus molecular subtypes by Nanostring nCounter® Platform. Overall, 1056 (12.8%) CRCs showed a MMR altered status, with 46 cases showing a heterogeneous MMR profile (0.56% of the total, and 4.36% of all MMRd cases). To conclude, the authors make some critical remarks regarding the approach to MMR heterogeneity in clinical practice and routine diagnostics.

Subject of prevention of road traffic offences: concept, features, classification, practical significance

The article is devoted to consideration of a number of fundamental issues related to the subject of prevention of motor vehicle offences, its main features, classifications, and the system of subjects. It is argued that the essence of preventing criminal manifestations is to eliminate or limit their determinants - causes and conditions. The study confirms the conclusion that the driving force, the dominant cause is the human factor, consciousness, will, emotions, interests of offenders, which requires activities, measures, and means which, in combination, can have a real impact on road traffic. In this regard, the author defines the subject of accident prevention, the main feature (among others) of which is the ability and capacity to eliminate or limit the criminogenic effect of "vulnerable" links in the deterministic chain of these offences using its respective resource potential. It is proposed to create a new or activate existing structures. Similar bodies have been created in many countries around the world, which have achieved significant positive results on the path of professionalisation and specialisation of actors, moving towards Vision Zero.
 The author classifies subjects according to the criterion of the functional purpose of their main activity. According to this criterion, 4 groups of entities are distinguished: entities for which preventive activity in the criminological sense is: the main, one of the main, function within other types of activity, informal public duty. It turned out that the first group of subjects of prevention is not represented in Ukraine on a permanent or long-term basis.
 The author makes a number of proposals regarding the creation of the first group of subjects, and critical remarks are made regarding the statement that the country has a system of crime prevention and its manifestation such as road traffic offences with grave consequences. Such a system has not been built in Ukraine.

Putnam and Dennett on instrumentalism and the intentional

This paper examines Dennett’s conceptions of intentionality and consciousness—focused on his concept of the intentional stance (Dennett, 1987,1991b). It chiefly proceeds from a series of critical remarks due to Putnam (Putnam, 1999). Dennett has written extensively on the philosophy of mind; his work includes many scholarly and scientific contributions. He has attracted much attention to the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and computer science; and he is an important critic of alternative views and theorists in related fields. The present paper draws on critical departures from Quine’s physicalism in publications of Putnam and Davidson (Davidson, 1963,1997); and it examines criticism brought against Dennett’s work on grounds of forms of instrumentalism and antirealism in the intentional stance. Evaluating Dennett’s posi¬tions and Putnam’s critical perspectives turn largely on understanding the relation of Dennett on intentionality, consciousness and the mental to formative and controversial theses of his acknowledged mentor, Quine (Quine, 1960). It will be argued that Dennett’s version of functionalism is best understood as a sophisticated physicalism, antirealism, and quasi-behaviorism in cognitive science.

Comment to the Article “On the Time Integral of Electromagnetic Field” by R.M. Feshchenko (J. Exp. Theor. Phys. 136, 406 (2023))

The article by R. M. Feshchenko (J. Exp. Theor. Phys. 136, 406 (2023)) is devoted to an important issue concerning general properties of electromagnetic field pulses and contains, in particular, critical remarks on our publications (R. M. Arkhipov et al. Quant. Electronics 50, 801 (2020); R. Arkhipov et al., Laser Field Lett. 19, 043001 (2022), and M. V. Arkhipov et al., JETP Lett. 115, 1 (2022)). We reply to these critical remarks and indicate a number of inaccuracies in the aforementioned article.

Ideas, Ideologies and Public Consent: Introducing the Issue

The concept of consent is essential for every society society, affecting almost all its spheres - from everyday life to socio-political bases. Therefore, it cannot be considered accidental that both the idea itself and the diverse directions of its interpretation, dating back to the era of early modernity, today constitute one of the most priorities, intellectually saturated segments in modern socio-political theory. It is impossible to deny the appeal of the doctrine of personal consent (and the parallel thesis that no government is legitimate unless it acts without the consent of the governed). It has had a great influence on the political institutions of many modern states and has been a major factor in the direction that political theory has taken since 1600. In the second half of the 20th century, two approaches prevailed in political theory, within the framework of which the process of formation of the consensus tradition: personal and historical ones. The most impact to the theory is made by criticism of the unilinear model of consent analysis in the works of George Klosko, analysis by R.D. Bernstein of the problem of consent in the form of critical remarks on the philosophical position of R. Rorty, the concept of socialist “consent strategy” developed in the 1980s by E. Laclau and Sh. Mouffe, the controversy of the Canadian political philosopher James Tully with neo-Marxist theorists, the philosophical interpretation of consent by Jürgen Habermas as part of his analysis of the “rationalization paradox” etc. This theoretical and methodological frame becomes a basis for the thematic volume, where the articles on the history of socio-political thought are followed by the chapter devoted to the problems of Russia between cleavages and social harmony. Russian problems are blended with an international context, and the issue ends with an attempt to understand the ideological attitudes of modern youth.

Hussism as Evaluated by the Petersburg Slavophiles (From I.S. Palmov’s Letters to V.I. Lamansky)

The article precedes the publication of two letters from the Slavist, Professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy Ivan Savvich Palmov to his teacher Vladimir Ivanovich Lamansky, which reveal the circumstances of Palmovs mission to the Slavic lands in the years 1881-1882. It is noted that during the mission, Palmov continued to collect materials on the history of the Hussite movement in the Czech Republic, referring primarily to the works of predecessors and followers of J. Huss. Lamanskys views on the origins and character of Hussiteism, which were reflected in his lecture courses at St. Petersburg University, are examined. Lamanskys point of view, which coincides in general with the Slavophile interpretation of Hussitism as an attempt to return to the traditions of the Cyrillic and Methodius (pre-Catholic) version of Christianity and to the liturgical practice of the Orthodox Church, is presented. The connection of Lamanskys perception about Hussiteism with his historiosophic conception is noted. According to this conception the doctrine of J. Huss and the wars of the Taborites was one of the manifestations of the civilizational confrontation between the Romano-Germanic and the Greek-Slavic worlds. The article reproduces Lamanskys critical remarks about representatives of the Czech intelligentsia and the contemporary situation of the Czechs, which led to the conflict in the St. Petersburg Slavic Benevolent Society. Moreover, some facts illustrating the nature of mutual relations between the two academics are presented.

Comment on “Evolution Equations of Nonlinearly Permissible, Coherent Hole Structures Propagating Persistently in Collisionless Plasmas”

AbstractRecent critical remarks, published in this journal, about the present author's analysis of electron and ion holes and their stability are addressed and shown to be misunderstandings and misrepresentations.

A Historiographical Survey of ”Ius Valachicum” among Romanians and Vlachs

The purpose of our study is to investigate the current state of research regarding Ius Valachicum in Romanian and foreign historiography. After presenting Romanian history, palaeography and the legal history of the Carpatho-Danubian space, we turn to the Polish historiography of the North Vlachs, with respect to the Serbo-Croatian historiography of the South Vlachs. Finally, we use case studies to illustrate two enacted customary laws of the Vlachs from Croatia. The methods used in this paper include description, analysis, and comparison, as well as exploratory and applied research. The article is a historiographical survey of Ius Valachicum among the Romanians and Vlachs. The medieval and premodern consuetudinary laws of the Romanians and Vlachs are reflected both in primary and secondary sources, from 14thcentury historical documents to historiographical preoccupations dedicated to Ius Vlachicum from the 18thand 19th centuries. First, we refer to the special literature explaining both ethnonyms and the historical-geographical spread of the Romanians and Vlachs. Then we present the Romanian historiography investigating the manifestations and features of Ius Valachicum in the geographical area belonging to the present-day Romanian state. Turning to the Czech and Polish historiography, the occurrence of Ius Valachicum is revealed among the North Vlachs from medieval and premodern Poland, Ruthenia, and Hungary. We also review the Serbo-Croatian historiography of the Ius Valachicum specific to the South Vlachs from Croatia and Serbia. Finally, two enacted customary laws of the Vlachs from Croatia (1436, 1630) are analysed from the point of view of legal history. These codifications of Ius Valachicum prove the juridical power and importance acquired by the Croatian Vlachs during the Middle Ages. The historiographical pros and cons, as well as the critical remarks presented at the end of this study, at the same time, offer a few methodological solutions for future investigations of Romanian and Vlach Ius Valachicum.