Introduction

The history of German philosophy’s thinking about guilt deserves our attention for: (i) German philosophy was more consistently interested in guilt than other European philosophical traditions; (ii) it presents different approaches to the phenomenon of guilt and thus provides an opportunity to survey the phenomenon from three distinct perspectives, metaphysical (Kant, Schelling, Schopenhauer), naturalist (Rée, Nietzsche), and phenomenological-existential (Heidegger); (iii) no sustained examination of the history of the philosophy of guilt with special emphasis on the German tradition has appeared. A main claim is formulated in this introductory chapter the examination of the history of German philosophy reveals that the different approaches to guilt embodied by the three perspectives follow upon each other in dialectical fashion. Some conceptual clarifications and methodological reflections are presented. Of central importance is the distinction between empirical or factical guilt (guilt for specific misdeeds) and ontological guilt (guilt in one’s very being).

Being Guilty

What can guilt, the painful sting of the bad conscience, tell us about who we are as human beings? This book seeks to answer this question through an examination of the views of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, Paul Rée, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger on guilt, freedom, responsibility, and conscience. The concept of guilt has not received sufficient attention from scholars of the history of German philosophy. The book addresses this lacuna and shows how the philosophers’ arguments can be more deeply grasped once read in their historical context. A main claim of the book is that this history could be read as proceeding dialectically. Thus, in Kant, Schelling, and Schopenhauer, there are variations on the idea that guilt is justified because the human agent is a free cause of his or her own being—a causa sui—and thus responsible for his or her “ontological guilt.” In contrast, in Rée and Nietzsche, these ideas are rejected, and the conclusion is reached that guilt is not justified but is explainable psychologically. Finally, in Heidegger, we find a synthesis of sorts, where the idea of causa sui is rejected, but ontological guilt is retained and guilt is seen as possible, because for Heidegger, a condition of possibility of guilt is that we are ontologically guilty yet not causa sui. In the process of unfolding this trajectory, the various philosophers’ views on these and many other issues are examined in detail.

Unveiling the Unseen: The Role of the Gulf over the Sudanese Transition Period

Sudan, an African-Arab country, has in recent years been witnessing the political transformation process of the revolution-coup spiral. The Sudanese people, who overthrew the 30-year-old regime, are not satisfied with the revolution that came into power in 2019. This new conjuncture, which can barely be called a revolution, did not solve the structural problems such as corruption, unemployment, injustice, or inability to rule. Therefore, the fire of revolution and the desire for democracy have not yet died out in Sudan. However, the role of external and internal actors influencing the country’s transformation process deserves scrutiny. In this sense, this piece seeks to answer the question of how Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been actively involved in and diverting the transformation process in Sudan. The main claim of the study is that the Saudi-UAE axis is diligent in establishing an authoritarian military regime in Sudan. The notions of secularization and normalization with Israel stand out among the projects that the UAE is trying to implement in Sudan. The UAE and Saudi Arabia, using petro-dollar as a tool, are directly engaging in Sudan’s transition period.

Fuzzy Lexical Representations in Adult Second Language Speakers

We propose the fuzzy lexical representations (FLRs) hypothesis that regards fuzziness as a core property of nonnative (L2) lexical representations (LRs). Fuzziness refers to imprecise encoding at different levels of LRs and interacts with input frequency during lexical processing and learning in adult L2 speakers. The FLR hypothesis primarily focuses on the encoding of spoken L2 words. We discuss the causes of fuzzy encoding of phonological form and meaning as well as fuzzy form-meaning mappings and the consequences of fuzzy encoding for word storage and retrieval. A central factor contributing to the fuzziness of L2 LRs is the fact that the L2 lexicon is acquired when the L1 lexicon is already in place. There are two immediate consequences of such sequential learning. First, L2 phonological categorization difficulties lead to fuzzy phonological form encoding. Second, the acquisition of L2 word forms subsequently to their meanings, which had already been acquired together with the L1 word forms, leads to weak L2 form-meaning mappings. The FLR hypothesis accounts for a range of phenomena observed in L2 lexical processing, including lexical confusions, slow lexical access, retrieval of incorrect lexical entries, weak lexical competition, reliance on sublexical rather than lexical heuristics in word recognition, the precedence of word form over meaning, and the prominence of detailed, even if imprecisely encoded, information about LRs in episodic memory. The main claim of the FLR hypothesis – that the quality of lexical encoding is a product of a complex interplay between fuzziness and input frequency – can contribute to increasing the efficiency of the existing models of LRs and lexical access.

The Dramatic Arc in the Development of Argumentation Skills of Upper Secondary School Students in Geography Education

Geography education can facilitate learners’ critical thinking and argumentation skills to make well-reasoned decisions on social and environmental issues. This study reports on a geography course consisting of 18 lessons, each of them 75 min, designed to afford intensive practice in argumentation to upper secondary school students (n = 21) and following the dramatic arc. The study produces examples of different developmental pathways of upper secondary school students’ argumentation during the geography course. In this qualitative case study, the data were collected from learning diaries and analyzed using content analysis following ARRA-analysis (Analysis of Reasoning, Rhetorics and Argumentation), which is based on Toulmin’s argumentation model. The results indicated that most of the students developed justified arguments and composed clear claims and relevant rhetorical modes such as qualifications, rhetorical questions and rebuttals. Justification categories that were mainly used were backings, grounds and warrants. However, some students had difficulties in recognizing the main claim and arguments. The students developed their argumentation skills following the dramatic arc. They possessed the prerequisites for argumentative reasoning and writing but needed further practice in analytical and critical writing.

METHOD OF DOMAIN ONTOLOGY AUTOMATED REPLENISHMENT FOR THE SUPPORT OF NEW TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS SYNTHESIS. PART I

To solve the problem of information support for the synthesis of new technical solutions, a method of extracting structured data from an array of Russian-language patents is presented. The key features of the invention, such as the structural elements of the technical object and the relationships between them, are considered as information support. The data source addresses the main claim of the invention in the device patent. The unit of extraction is the semantic structure Subject-Action-Object (SAO), which semantically describes the constructive elements. The extraction method is based on shallow parsing and claim segmentation, taking into account the specifics of writing patent texts. Often the excessive length of the claim sentence and the specificity of the patent language make it difficult to efficiently use off-the-shelf tools for data extracting. All processing steps include: segmentation of the claim sentences; extraction of primary SAO structures; construction of the graph of the construct elements f the invention; integration of the data into the domain ontology. This article deals with the first two stages. Segmentation is carried out according to a number of heuristic rules, and several natural language processing tools are used to reduce analysis errors. The primary SAO elements are extracted considering the valences of the predefined semantic group of verbs, as well as information about the type of processed segment. The result of the work is the organization of the domain ontology, which can be used to find alternative designs for nodes in a technical object. In the second part of the article, an algorithm for constructing a graph of structural elements of a separate technical object, an assessment of the effectiveness of the system, as well as ontology organization and the result are considered.

Finite-time ruin probability of a perturbed risk model with dependent main and delayed claims

This paper considers a delayed claim risk model with stochastic return and Brownian perturbation in which each main claim may be accompanied with a delayed claim occurring after a stochastic period of time, and the price process of the investment portfolio is described as a geometric Lévy process. By means of the asymptotic results for randomly weighted sum of dependent subexponential random variables we obtain some asymptotics for finite-time ruin probability. A simulation study is also performed to check the accuracy of the obtained theoretical result via the crude Monte Carlo method.

The Heritage of Ibn Sīnā’s Concept of the Self

This contribution discusses Ibn Sīnā’s (the Latin Avicenna, d. 1037 CE) introduction of a new concept of self-awareness by looking at four of the most important arguments related to it. The main claim is that we can reconstruct a plausible concept of self-awareness underlying all of these arguments. The contribution also addresses briefly some of the most important phases in the reception of Ibn Sīnā’s new concept in both the Latin and the Arabic Middle Ages.

Comment on “The COVID-19 infodemic does not affect vaccine acceptance”

In a recent paper by Valensise et al [1], the authors present an analysis of social media data – from Facebook and Twitter – and vaccine hesitancy data – from Facebook – to provide evidence that the overabundance of potentially unreliable information, known as infodemic, does not affect vaccine acceptance. If confirmed, this result could have a dramatic impact on public health policies across the world, suggesting that current actions taken in place to contain and prevent the spreading of disinformation and misinformation might be useless to significantly hinder vaccine hesitancy. We disagree with this conclusion on the basis of existing literature that the authors fail to consider,of methodological concerns that suggest that their approach might have crucial flaws, and of an alternative empirical analysis unraveling a broader and richer picture to interpret.Simplistic analyses are not enough to assess the complex interplay between two complex social and behavioral phenomena such as vaccine hesitancy and infodemic: more sophisticated analyses are needed to account for the different intervening socio-cultural, behavioral, environmental and epidemiological factors. Under these conditions, we conclude that the authors’ main claim is conceptually and empirically unsupported. We are sincerely concerned that, if measures disregarding the circulating disinformation around the COVID19 vaccines were endorsed by policy makers in the design of future public health policies, it might lead to serious negative consequences by dangerously overlooking a major potential driver of dysfunctional behavioral responses to public health policies and goals.

The counter argument against environmental reductionism in Latinx immigration debates: Tracking the discussion and empirical evidence

This article discusses the debate and empirical bases of the environmental argument against Latinx immigration to the United State (US) since the 1980s decade. The environmental argument against immigration states that the level of immigration (undocumented and legal) has a statistical impact on the CO2 emissions, quality of air, and pollution. The argument also declares that immigrants exceed the emissions if they remained in their country of origin since the 1980s decade, and that immigration rapidly consumes environmental resources such as water, air, land, and increases biodiversity loss. This argument has neo-Malthusian, social Darwinism, and racist biases. This paper presents the core debates around the primary premises, the evolution inside the environmental movement in the US. This paper argues that the environmental argument against Latinx immigration lacks generalizable studies, objective data, and scientific validity. The environmental argument evolution has not present enough academic to support to its main claim that connects immigration with environmental degradation. Instead, we argue that immigration it is not the only cause of population growth, the environmental argument denies the strong evidence and studies that linkage environmental degradation with industrialization levels, emissions, economic development, and consumption levels of the US citizens.