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The field of modern work bears striking similarities to the inner workings of leisure pursuits such as the fantasy video games of the Elder Scrolls series in at least one small part – the quests pursued by players are often menial, and serve no explicit purpose save their very existence. Petty renumeration, meaningless aesthetic gifts; these are not fulfilment nor are they worthy reward for the work done to earn them. This work seeks to evaluate the nature of work of this type and do so through a similar analysis of the Radiant AI and the imperatives it doles out to players. Moreover, we shall delve into the issue of depth and nuance in the design of adventure games and the lack thereof when the task of game design is delegated to an AI and will summarily provide insight into enjoyment and fulfilment in the spheres of work and leisure.

ChatGPT has gained a practical importance in aiding students with academic tasks, i.e., writing essays, synthesizing difficult theories, and generating ideas for class related projects. Recent observations and analysis of academics suggests that students rely significantly on artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT to ease the academic pressures of having to read long articles and original works, formulate and write essays for subjects that require submissions of reflective and argumentative papers. The goal of this paper, however, is not to critique the impact of ChatGPT in the classroom, but to argue that AI interfaces and platforms like this confirms Louis Althusser’s thesis that education as an ideological state apparatus (ISA) turns to a mechanism that reproduces the mode of production. Althusser contends that education legitimizes and reproduces the consumerist social formation. As can be known, this thrust could be discerned from the direction of the Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) which most educational systems adapted around the world for practical purpose of ensuring quality graduates. For Althusser, besides the need to “manufacture consent” among the people, the means of production has to be secured which is accomplished by “educating” and training the learner to eventually become inducted to the labor force. Thus, the students themselves are victimized by the relentless pursuit of reproducing workers to maintain capitalist interests. This work will, therefore, argue that given the thrust of education as objective or outcomes-based, the learner begins to perceive learning through the lenses of outcomes and achievements which overlooks the process of knowledge generation.

Hegel is renowned for his view that in family members are fully recognised and the master and slave relationship does not exist in it. Among the problems of the modern society, Hegel devoted more attention to poverty, crime and alienation in the economic sense. Hegel rarely discussed problems which are commonly found in modern society despite his anthropologically nuanced philosophy, which treats the family, civil society and the state as the three highest moments in ethical life (Sittlichkeit). For Hegel, the family performs the functions of realisation of individual subjective freedom, performing deeds for the death, and the establishment and maintenance of morality on a collective level. This paper aims to move beyond Hegel’s discussions by exploring problems related to the family as a social institution, and proposes that family problems in modern society are caused by the conflicts between family as based on feelings and rationalisation based on ethical objectivity, tensions between the family and civil society, master and slave dialectic in marriage, and realisation of individual freedom through private property. Measures on alleviating family problems are suggested, and they include positive enhancement of bonds among family members through morality, re-discovery of unreflective feelings, deployment of family property, and extension of scope of Corporation to directly intervene in family problems.

This report starts with a Question: Is Russian army modern? and offers the answer based on the analysis of three topics related to the environment of Russia-Ukraine war of 2022. The first topic covers conventional forces: we focus on defining strengths and weaknesses of Russian Air Force, Navy and Ground Forces. In order to paint a picture of Russian capabilities, we designated two opposite poles as opponents: American and Ukrainian army. The second topic covers IT sector, where we dive into the use of information technology and artificial intelligence in a war conflict. The third topic focuses on the economic side of war, in which we analyse financing of the Russian army and its sources, trade within the military sector, but also implications of measures created because of the conflict, such as sanctions or ban from use of SWIFT. All of these factors were chosen based on the definition of a hybrid war provided in this article, which has been on-going since the anexation of Crimea in 2014. However, this work focuses on events happening since 24th February 2022.

In recent years, the issue of the compatibility of free will and determinism has been studied by philosophers by methods of experimental philosophy among ordinary people.  The results of these experiments led to new disputes about the definition of determinism and fatalism. I propose that to get valid results from experiments, one should first study the perception of ordinary people about what determinism and fatalism are. The research aims to study (non-expert) human perception of determinism as well as people’s views regarding fatalism.  The goal of this background research was to change the playing field of further debates on free will and determinism. The results have been summarized and compared with previous literature along with consequent inference on common grounds between determinism and fatalism.

The phenomenon of consciousness has proved to be a notoriously convoluted concept, inviting various fields of philosophical inquiry to comprehend. In discourse on philosophy of mind, there are contentious perceptions on the elusiveness of consciousness; whether it is a reductive concept, a non-reductive concept or the easier way out, eliminating any mental language and substituting it with scientific language. This paper, by studying David Chalmers’ invaluable submissions on consciousness, provides a non-reductionist framework that will set the direction of the attempts by psychologists, neuroscientists and philosophers to comprehend consciousness. To begin with, Chalmers’ arguments for the fundamental nature of consciousness will be discussed. Furthermore, it juxtaposes Chalmers’ assertions with the reductionist approach by the sciences. Having articulated these two perspectives regarding consciousness, a framework for theorizing consciousness is put forward.

The principles of economic calculation set out by Mises (1990, 1976, 1953, 1998), namely that an agent is inspired by past prices in economic calculation, face the problem of circular argument, infinite regress, and the empirical question of which past prices the agent is inspired by, and are inconsistent with Mises’s correct assertion that action is aimed at changing the future. Principles of calculation must be based on attributions of valuation, and calculation must be based on value determinations, which Mises explicitly rejects. I provide an alternative interpretation of the problem that is future-oriented and presents principles of calculation based on the agent’s value determinations. This is made possible by a paradigm shift in interpretation based on defining individual utility and individual equilibrium. The paper presents philosophical-economic speculations on the unit of utility (util) and how it can be ontologically-informationally defined. The propositions are supported by in-depth philosophical argumentation alongside Platonic-Aristotelian-Kantian-Hegelian-Brentanian-Hayekian lines, inspired by the works of Ján Pavlik. A logical consequence of the principles presented is a description of the dynamics of price-setting (as a consequence of individual intentions) based on the individual utility of the agent. Demand-supply that are usually used as preconditions for price formation are described in the interpretation as consequences of individual intentionality and dynamic of individual utility.

This paper contends that attributor contextualism, as Keith DeRose advocates, fails to effectively address the challenges of scepticism. DeRose presents compelling approaches to addressing the sceptical problem. DeRose asserts that he has resolved the sceptical problem, going beyond merely addressing the concerns of sceptics. DeRose posits that contextualism has predominantly been formulated to address scepticism. To this end, this study examines how tenable DeRose responds to the sceptical challenge. The study is noteworthy as contextualism preserves the robustness and appeal of scepticism while asserting a resolution to the sceptical challenge. Ultimately, the study concludes that DeRose’s proposal falls short of providing a satisfying response to scepticism. Contextualism is self-defeating. Despite my assessment of DeRose’s attributor contextualism, I believe that it is commendable that DeRose has come up with some kind of explanation for the factors that contribute to such an inclination given that knowledge attribution might be contextual.

In 1966, M. Friedman published an essay on the methodology of positive economics, in which he emphasized the role of predictions as a decisive criterion for accepting macroeconomic models. This paper analyzes to what extent modern macroeconomics in 2023 is guided by these ideas. The first part of this paper deals with the role of predictions in macroeconomic models and shows that a large part of the models currently used do not contain any predictions at all. The next part of the paper explains the problem of Lucas' critique and the resulting complications in making predictions. The following section shows how modern dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are attempting to deal with Lucas' criticism. The last part of the text analyzes further fundamental complications in making macroeconomic predictions, such as the issue of free human decision-making, the butterfly effect and the normative form of the questions being studied. The paper shows that a portion of modern macroeconomic models that do not contain predictions would undoubtedly fail Friedman's test, and models created for the purpose of prediction still have not completely dealt with serious methodological complications. Due to the nature of the subject matter, macroeconomic models will likely never be able to provide completely reliable predictions.

The capabilities approach, advanced by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, represents a significant paradigm shift in development discourse, moving beyond economic indicators to emphasize human flourishing and the freedom to achieve well-being. Yet, despite its progressive outlook, the framework has been critiqued for its individualistic orientation and insufficient grounding in communal values, especially in non-Western contexts. African communitarian ethics, deeply rooted in the ontological centrality of community and relational existence, presents a powerful corrective and complement. This paper argues that the African moral framework, with its emphasis on mutual responsibility, solidarity, and harmony, can enrich the capabilities approach by addressing its cultural limitations and enhancing its contextual adaptability. Through a philosophical analysis and hermeneutical lens, the article demonstrates how a dialogical relationship between the two traditions can yield a more holistic and culturally resonant vision of development, one that foregrounds not just individual agency, but the communal networks that sustain it.

Given the need to ensure well-balanced socio-economic development and to meet the needs of the inhabitants of the Earth without compromising the needs of future generations, the need to transform the economy into a sustainable one is justified. Based on a theoretical analysis of scientific studies and other literature sources, the study argues that a sustainable economy represents a shift from the neoclassical paradigm and is associated with a holistic paradigm, a new global development paradigm - the sustainable development paradigm. Confirmation of the move towards a sustainable economy is the emergence of new trends in economic thinking, new economic models and also some new economic initiatives.

Technology, in its broadest sense, is the greatest resource of the human species. If philosophers contemplate the cosmos in its entirety, they do so by using a wide range of technical tools, developed over the course of human history. Moreover, as part of the cosmos, philosophers contemplate technology itself: not only the development of technology, but also the reason for its use and how it is passed on to future generations. Education therefore assumes a central role in the existence of humankind. While in the first instance the task of education is the transmission of technical skills, in the second instance it is perhaps more important to educate to judge technology and technological progress. Judging technology is crucial whenever progress leads to new gaps in the normative system and value system of a human society.

The thesis deals with the issue of private armies in the form of a case study of the American private military company Blackwater and the Russian private military company Wagner Group. For both companies, their formation, operations and impacts are covered. The objectives of the work are: to evaluate the deployment of both military companies; to find out whether they are effective instruments of state power; to compare the operation of these organizations in terms of loyalty and morale of their members with Machiavelli's knowledge about war; with regard to the just war theory, to determine whether the members of these organizations can be identified rather as mercenaries fighting for their own enrichment, or fighters of a just war.

Karl Marx's thinking became the basis of dialectical-historical materialist philosophy and so-called scientific communism. Marx's philosophical development was complex and before the dialectical-historical materialist  and communist phase Marx had gone through a phase of critical-idealism and had been one of the Young Hegelian philosophers who advocated a certain interpretation of the German philosopher Hegel and this interpretation justified the demands for radical social change. The paper shows that there is a deeper relationship between the younger, critical-idealistic, and older, dialectical-historical materialistic phases than the temporal-causal or logical ones, and this relationship is called the implicit presence of the critical-idealistic phase in the dialectical-historical materialistic phase. As a result of Marx and Engels' intervention in the development of the communist movement, in which they gained a leading ideological position, the defense of communism changed radically and on the basis of the contribution of Marx and Engels so-called scientific communism and socialism arose. It justifies communism through moral arguments as little as possible and justifies it as a necessity of history which follows from scientific knowledge. This transformation of the communist ideal had fundamental consequences for the communist movement and the future emergence of socialist systems that ideologically invoked Marx's teachings.

In a recent article, Matej Cíbik claims that some tattoos are immoral because they are imprudent. (Cíbik 2020) In response, I argue that a tattoo can only be immoral if it causes harm to a third party, so that no tattoo is immoral simply because it is reckless. Conflating prudential and moral requirements in the way that Cíbik does would strike at the heart of liberalism, and has deeply counter-intuitive consequences, as we can see when we consider Cíbik's own discussions of suicidal individuals and smokers. After discussing the role of the self/other distinction in liberal moral philosophy, I affirm both the moral neutrality of tattoos and the importance of adopting non-judgemental attitudes towards the choices which a person makes concerning her own body.

Human enhancement in the broad sense, i.e. both individual and social, requires the most accurate definition of human nature, character or essence, because only on its basis it is possible, whether at an individual or collective level, to decide which interventions into the individual, community and society are useful and beneficial and which, on the contrary, harmful and dangerous with regard to their short-term and especially long-term interests. We discuss this problem with regard to a series of important research articles published in the Slovak academic journal Filozofia, that with a few exceptions, for various reasons, have not even come close to fulfilling the stated epistemic goal since 2014.

This article deals with a critical summary of the main ideas and reflections expressed in the book The Burnedout Society. The author of the five essays that make up this book is Byung-Chul Han, a German-writing philosopher from Seoul, Korea. The ideas of this author are elaborated in detail in the essay Society of Fatigue, which was logically included in the first place in the book. The central idea of this treatise, and indeed of the author's entire set of reflections, is the current decrease in negativity that surrounds contemporary man and that leads to an excess of positivity and the emergence of a society of performance. According to Han, it results in the fact that contemporary man becomes his own exploiter. This central theme is further elaborated in the following four essays. The author of this article has a critical attitude to some of Han's propositions and at the same time finds parallels to Han's main ideas introduced in the work To have or to be? by Erich Fromm. Above all, the author questions Han's construct of paradoxical freedom and also contradicts Han's heralded end of the viral epoch.

In the modern capitalist society, the balance between promoting the well-being of the majority and respecting individual rights raises significant moral dilemmas. This paper explores two frameworks of morality: the maximization of utility and the categorical imperative. While the maximization of utility focuses on maximizing overall happiness and well-being, it may require sacrificing the well-being of a few individuals for the greater good. On the other hand, the categorical imperative emphasizes universal moral principles and the inherent dignity of individuals, prioritizing individual rights and justice. In the context of a capitalist society, the paper argues that the categorical imperative holds a more promising approach to well-being. It emphasizes the importance of respecting and protecting the inherent rights and dignity of individuals, ensuring fairness and equality. While capitalism can provide opportunities for economic growth and individual freedoms, it requires ethical considerations and regulations to ensure that it operates within a framework that upholds human rights. The tension between these frameworks challenges our perspectives on morality and highlights the complex ethical dilemmas that arise in a capitalist society. Ultimately, finding a balance between promoting well-being and respecting individual rights is crucial for creating a just and inclusive society within the capitalist framework.

The relationship between image and text has been a topic of debate since the Ancient Greek era. Plato considered image as more natural than text, therefore the image is readily understood. Simónides de Ceos has begun the sister arts tradition between image and text, by his phrase ut pictura poesis (as is painting, so is poetry). In contrast to the Ancient Greek, Modern thinkers tend to sharply distinguish between image and text. We can trace modern philosophical discourse on image and text from Leonardo da Vinci’s superiority of painting over poetry, Lessing’s distinction of painting and poetry, Burke’s words as the sublime medium, Clement Greenberg’s and Michael Fried’s medium specificity, to Rosalind Krauss’s grid of modern art. This study examines discourse on image and text relationship in the historical analysis view. Eventually, the researcher attempts to answer the problem of image and text relationship, in the light of contemporary and multimodality theories.

Managing the war economy during World War II presented many fundamental challenges to the U.S. Federal government. Fiscal policy was a key tool for completing this daunting task. This revolutionary time saw the establishment of many new elements in the American economy and fiscal policy; some have not been removed since. The aim of this study is to analyze and critically evaluate major trends in the development of the war economy and fiscal policy in the United States during World War II. The sub-research questions concern the role of the Federal government during structural changes in the economy as well as the importance of government in economic growth in the context of other GNP spending components. In fiscal policy, the structure of the expenditure side of the Federal budget is examined with respect to the dominance of war (defense) spending; the distribution of the tax burden among economic agents and direct and indirect taxes; or the methods of financing increased government spending. Based on the GNP growth decomposition method and time series analysis, we argue that there was a strong crowding-out effect of household consumption and business investment by government spending. Naturally, this conclusion also applies to the results of the structural analysis of GNP. Hence, the regulatory role of the Federal government was quite crucial in many submarkets. In terms of fiscal policy, war spending significantly dominated the expenditure side of the Federal budget. In war-unrelated spending, chapters like trade and transportation and international affairs and finance had the most prominence. On the revenue side of the budget, direct progressive taxes on individuals increased significantly, as did taxes on corporations. The deepening fiscal deficit was financed primarily by higher tax collection and to a lesser extent by debt accumulation and monetization.

This paper has the following goals: 1) to prove that the contract of usury suffers from a self-contradiction, both from the viewpoint of the lender and the borrower; 2) to demonstrate the self-contradictory nature of the contract of usury by means of the Fisher model of the inter-temporal choice; 3) to prove that both the lender and the borrower pronounce the consent to the basic contract involuntarily because the former as well as the latter is acting under the indirect coercion; 4) to respond to Paretian objection that the Pareto improvement implies the mutual voluntariness, which is why there is no justification for the state to not enforce the contracts of usury. The author contends that from a subjective viewpoint, the contract of usury is a complex of two contracts which contradict each other: the basic contract and the super-contract. From the lender’s perspective, the basic contract is a loan and the super-contract is a sale of the loan. Since the lender negates his will to give a loan by the sale of the loan, the lender’s consent to the contract of usury as whole is self-contradictory. From the borrower’s perspective, the basic contract is a gift to the lender and the super-contract is a sale of this gift for a loan. Since the borrower negates his will to give a gift by the sale of the gift, the borrower’s consent to the contract of usury as a whole is self-contradictory. Next, the author contends that from an objective viewpoint, the contract of usury is an example of a non-equal “exchange”, i. e. a complex of an exchange (loan) and a transfer (usurious interest). Since the borrower does not give the transfer voluntarily, the lender violates the commutative justice by the contract of usury. To the Paretian objection that since both the lender and the borrower move onto a higher indifference curve thanks to the contract of usury, it must be a voluntary exchange, the author responds that the Pareto improvement does not imply the mutual voluntariness. The way how both the lender and the borrower move onto a higher indifference curve is not a voluntary exchange. There is no way to move onto a higher indifference curve in the contract of usury through a voluntary exchange. The contract of usury is neither an exchange, nor voluntary. It is not an exchange because it violates the equality in exchange. It is not voluntary, either, because it suffers from a double self-contradiction and voluntariness cannot be predicated to a self-contradictory (i. e. non-being) act of will. The author concludes that the state cannot and must not enforce the contracts of usury. It cannot because these contracts suffer from a double self-contradiction. It must not, either, because these contracts violate the commutative justice and it is the purpose of the state to protect the justice.

Contractual moralists, such as Bowie and Donaldson, have argued that contractual agreement explains why corporations have a moral obligation towards the society in which they operate. They argue that a corporation’s moral obligation emerges from a hypothetical social contract that establishes its legitimacy to operate in society. Their assumption appears to indicate a logically necessary relationship between a corporation’s moral obligation and contractual agreement that establishes the corporation. We argue that there is no such relationship: a corporation’s moral obligation does not necessarily emerge from a social contract. We suggest that instead of assuming that a corporation’s moral obligation emerges from a social contract, it should be said that a corporation’s moral obligation is sustained by a social contract. This helps answer the question of why corporations have a moral obligation towards the society where they operate in a better light.

The quality of life of people in societies depends heavily on the economy, and in order to ensure the humane and socio-economic development of people and human society, the current economy needs to be humanized. In this context, the study focuses on two important assumptions – the renaissance of the main goal of the economy and a humane approach to human resources, which are increasingly taking a back seat in the current profit-oriented economy and economic prosperity. It draws on the views of the economist L. von Mises, but also outlines the views of contemporary economists and representatives of the social and human sciences, which provide impulses for reflection on the real reasons for the renaissance of the fundamental goal of the economy and also for ensuring humane approaches to human resources and, ultimately, for reforming the whole economy in favour of the human. So as to bring it at least partially closer to the moral ideal represented by the model of a humanistic economy.

This paper aspires to meet a philosophical challenge posed to the author to give treatment to what was seen as a particularly nice Meinongian case; namely the case of Galician Meigas. However, through the playful footpaths of enchanted Galician Meigas, I rehabilitate some relevant discussion on the justification of belief formation and come to some poignant philosophical insights regarding the understanding of possibilities. I hope both the leading promoter of the challenge and, of course, other philosophical readers are satisfied with the outcome.

Scheler argues in his work Wesen und Formen der Sympathie, that based on a specific manifestation of the phenomenon of love it is not possible to classify love as a feeling, that emerge as a reaction to some external stimulus. Love is not one of the feelings, of which the main reason is to motivate man to react adequately to the presence of some beneficial or harming object, and so to help organism to survive. Love is on the contrary independent and spontaneous act of spiritual part of man – Person. In my article I’m trying to analyse his most important arguments and to show, that in spite of his observances, it is not possible to completely refuse the view, that love is a feeling. Insufficiency of his arguments does not lie in false observations, but rather in improper separation of abilities, faculties and values from Person.

Finding the demarcation criterion for the identification of scientific knowledge is the most important task of normative epistemology. Pseudoscience is not a harmless leisure activity, it can pose a danger to the functioning of liberal democratic societies and the well-being of their citizens. First, there is an outline of how to define science instrumentally without slipping into the detrimental heritage of conceptual essentialism. The second part is dedicated to Popper’s falsification criterion and the objections of its opponents, which eventually led to the abandonment of “naïve” falsificationism. Then I present two promising solutions to the problem, namely the ostensive definition of pseudoscience and the cognitive research of pseudoscientific thinking. In conclusion, I suggest to further extend the typology of alternatives to science to include parascience.

War has been a subject of ethical and philosophical reflections for centuries. This resulted in many examples of tangible impacts on the character of war (i. e. ban of certain types of weapons or methods of warfare along with other restrictions inspired by the teaching of the philosophical theory of the just war, etc.). However, an unresolved question remains: in which way the long-term interaction between the two has affected philosophy itself? There seems to be no human activity where the phenomenon of war would not play a significant role, and the philosophy should not be supposed an exception. It is mainly in the field of political philosophy (and its subfield known as a just war theory), where the imprint of war can be clearly identified in the most important and most influential works of this discipline from antiquity to the present. The paper aims to draw attention to the formative impact of war events on some of the critical ideas of political philosophy and to present a large extent of mutual interactions between war and philosophy by mentioning a couple of illustrative examples.

The concepts of data, information, or metadata are tied to the theory of information, which is at the general level part of the modern scientific tradition and is based in many ways on the tradition of analytical tradition. The paper brings a recapitulation of these foundations and a recapitulation of the development of analytic philosophy, including the outcome in language relativism given by the turn in this philosophical tradition. Language relativism is also related to the issue of data and metadata in the paper. Metadata is by no means an absolute description of data objects, it is always dependent on other metadata in the background and context. So there is need to work with data and metadata purely instrumentally. Metadata is a tool for working with data objects, and their use and therefore limitations are given by this instrumentality.

Generally speaking, the existence of experience is accepted, but more challenging has been to say what experience is and how it occurs. Moreover, philosophers and scholars have been talking about mind and mental activity in connection with experience as opposed to physical processes. Yet, the fact is that quantum physics has replaced classical Newtonian physics in natural sciences, but the scholars in humanities and social sciences still operate under the obsolete Newtonian model. There is already a little research in which mind and conscious experience are explained in terms of quantum theory. This article argues that experience is impossible to be both a physical and non-physical phenomenon. When discussing causality and identity as transcendental, quantum theory may imply the quantum physical nature of conscious experience, where a person associates causality to conscious experience, and, thus, the result is that the double-aspect theory and the mind/brain identity theory would be refuted.

Awareness of intention is a phenomenal experience characterized as a conscious grasp of an action the agent is about to perform. Classically, it is identified with the moment the participant recalls deciding to move, as reported by the position of a hand on the Libet clock face. Booming research on the sense of agency produced significant knowledge but also a discussion of the methodological weaknesses, including a reliance on the experimental results on the reporting method and the arbitrary features of the reporting methods. Philosophers, on the other hand, discuss the intervening illusions and biases of consciousness or the Cartesian theater fallacy. A significant concern is the considerable heterogeneity of the experimental outcomes. A starting point for the present text is the argument that many of the issues of the research program at hand stem from the specific, implicitly held conceptualization. This implicit conceptualization understands awareness of intention as an integrated unitary process characterized by a gradual rise of premotor brain activity and sudden onset of the awareness. As I argue, this conceptual pre-understanding is mostly unreflected, contingent, and presents a significant limitation for the explanation of the empirical results currently dealt with. The text aims at outlining the new theoretical framework that goes beyond the present integrated perspective and permits to consolidate conflicting behavioral results. This reconceptualization builds upon Schooler’s theory of meta-awareness, the theory of access and phenomenal consciousness by Ned Block and also finds support in neuroscientific studies. The reconceptualization presented here introduces the dichotomy of phenomenal awareness of intention associated with the preparation of motor intention in the prefrontal cortex and a reflexive meta-awareness of intention that is likely linked to processes in the parietal cortex.