Introducing Chinese Philosophy to Western Readers – Lin Yutang as a Cross-cultural Interpreter

The article reconstructs selected motifs in the philosophy of Lin Yutang, a twentieth-century Chinese thinker, translator and editor, especially popular in the West, undertaken, as it were, on the margins of his work to explain and popularize Chinese culture and philosophy in the West. Lin reflects on issues such as how to effectively and accurately explain a radically alien civilization to the Western-educated reader, in his or her own language, and who can appoint himself as the representative of Chinese culture at all? As a bilingual author, Lin very accurately shows the state of suspension between two cultures, characteristic of an intercultural interpreter who attempts to simultaneously move within two disproportionate, culturally determined conceptual schemes.

Language and the African Philosophical Traditions

Are there universal principles, categories, or forms of reasoning that apply to all aspects of human experience—irrespective of culture and epoch? Numerous scholars have explored this very question from Africana perspectives: Kwasi Wiredu (1996) explored the philosophical issue of whether there are culturally defined values and concepts; Hallen and Sodipo (1986) examined the question of whether there are unique African indigenous systems of knowledge; Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1994) evaluated the role of colonialism in the language of African literature; Oyerò nkẹ ́ ́ Oyěwumi (1997) argued that “gender” is a Western cultural invention that is foreign to Yorùbá systems of sociation; and Helen Veran (2001) argued that even though science, mathematics, and logic are not culturally relative, “certainty” is nonetheless derived from cultural practices and associations. Building on these and other works, this essay argues that: (i) incommensurability of “worldviews,” “perspectives,” “paradigms,” or “conceptual schemes” springs from deeper, more fundamental cognitive categories of logic that are coded into natural languages; and that (ii) consequently, as long as African reflective reasoning is expressed solely (or predominantly) in European languages, the authenticity of the “African” in African philosophy is questionable.

Logical Identity: A Holistic Approach

It is my intention in this article to present some consequences of Quine’s thesis on the dependence of ontology on ideology (Quine, 1980), seeking an argument for my own thesis on the dependence (theoretical) existence of entities on identity type or ontology dependence on logic and language.If Quine's thesis is correct, then we can expand the resolution of this conclusion and say that ontology depends on the identity or on identification of the "identity criteria for conceptual schemes" (Davidson, 2001) which is constructed in the theory. Consequently I will speak about types of identity which adapts choice of ontology and of which depends ontology of a theory. Here I want to connect the different types of use of the term identity in Aristotle's writings and the different types of predications that are based on them with the concept of identity as the equivalence of symbols in modern logic. I want to reinterpret Quine's statement: "There is no entity without identity " in the form of imlication "What (kind of) identity such (kind of ) entity."

Ways of Unworlding: Against Aesthetic Inferentialism

I consider and support two claims about aesthetic experience: 1) that it involves encounters with a reality that is not conceptualized via such encounters; 2) that it can generate ruptures in established norms or in the production of shared worlds. This thesis is developed in the teeth of contemporary rationalist inhumanisms that draw on Nelson Goodman’s cognitivist aesthetics and his irrealist account of ‘worldmaking’ to translate the logical insights of inferentialism (or conceptual role semantics) into an aesthetics oriented towards concept-laden practices and their revision through the techniques of experimental art. I employ Derrida’s iterability argument to show that inferentialism presupposes a realist metaphysics that treats repetition and event individuation as independent of constitutive rules, conceptual schemes or ‘world versions’; indicating one way in which aesthetic material remains outside of, even recalcitrant to, the conceptual order. The aesthetic implications of this metaphysics of undecidable events are further explored by considering Jean-Pierre Caron’s recent discussion of Henry Flynt’s idea of ‘constitutive dissociations’ and, finally, the concept as, ambivalently, victim or suicide in the experimental horror of Gary Shipley’s novel Warewolff! and my own Snuff Memories.

DEVELOPMENT OF FIELD SPECTROMETRY DATABASE

The paper considers the issues in design and development of databases for storage and processing gamma-spectrometric information. A model is presented that allows one to describe the conceptual schemes for storing and processing data obtained during field gamma-spectrometric surveys in principle and, in particular, on the territory of the Semipalatinsk test site. The possibilities of the database of field spectrometry are described. The interface for interaction between the user and the database management system has been implemented.

On how to generalize species-specific conceptual schemes to generate a species-independent Conceptual Schema of the Genome

Background Understanding the genome, with all of its components and intrinsic relationships, is a great challenge. Conceptual modeling techniques have been used as a means to face this challenge. The heterogeneity and idiosyncrasy of genomic use cases mean that conceptual modeling techniques are used to generate conceptual schemes that focus on too specific scenarios (i.e., they are species-specific conceptual schemes). Our research group developed two different conceptual schemes. The first one is the Conceptual Schema of the Human Genome, which is intended to improve Precision Medicine and genetic diagnosis. The second one is the Conceptual Schema of the Citrus Genome, which is intended to identify the genetic cause of relevant phenotypes in the agri-food field. Methods Our two conceptual schemes have been ontologically compared to identify their similarities and differences. Based on this comparison, several changes have been performed in the Conceptual Schema of the Human Genome in order to obtain the first version of a species-independent Conceptual Schema of the Genome. Identifying the different genome information items used in each genomic case study has been essential in achieving our goal. The changes needed to provide an expanded, more generic version of the Conceptual Schema of the Human Genome are analyzed and discussed. Results This work presents a new CS called the Conceptual Schema of the Genome that is ready to be adapted to any specific working genome-based context (i.e., species-independent). Conclusion The generated Conceptual Schema of the Genome works as a global, generic element from which conceptual views can be created in order to work with any specific species. This first working version can be used in the human use case, in the citrus use case, and, potentially, in more use cases of other species.

Reconceptualization of the theoretical legacy of V.L. Tsymbursky: political legitimation in the context of digitalization of international relations

The aim of the article is to reconceptualize the political science heritage of V.L. Tsymbursky in the context of digitalization of legitimation, international relations and geopolitics. At the same time, political science reconceptualization was originally understood as a refinement, adjustment of the previous political science conceptual schemes in the changed conditions. The principles of discourse analysis of three analyzed arrays of specialized literature (works of the Tsymbursky himself, studies of other authors on the works of Tsymbursky, works in the field of legitimation and digitalization) and Case Study of modern facts of legitimation of political regimes in the context of digitalization of international relations were used as a basic methodological toolkit for reconceptualization. The analysis made it possible to conditionally divide the geopolitical schemes of a political scientist into «island» and «cyclical» schemes, as well as highlight a specific scheme of «fact-recognition». Reconceptualization of the «Island of Russia» and «Great Limitroph» schemes is determined by the possibility of adapting to the analysis of the phenomenon of digital sovereignty associated with the consolidation of «island» features of regimes in the information space and the conditions of information wars of regimes in limitrophic countries. It has been determined that the schemes «Abduction of Europe» and «Extra-long military cycles» can be useful in identifying the correlations of crises of legitimizing formulas with constitutional cycles and cycles of foreign policy activity of the regimes. In parallel, it was found that the most important, umbrella, interdisciplinary nature is precisely the «fact-recognition» scheme. It allows you to link the analysis of digitalization of international relations, sovereignty with the theory of legitimation. As conclusions, it is indicated that the digitalization of international relations has led to an exaggerated role of external legitimation of the regime, «sovereignty of recognition» by other regimes, weakening the meaning of «sovereignty of fact» and reducing the monopoly of internal legitimation. The digitalization of international relations was also found to have shaken the former monopoly of top-down political legitimation. The factors of information, fake wars, challenges of digital diplomacy forced the elites to look for ways to establish an upward legitimation of their regimes, allowing elements of an empowerment strategy. The theoretical significance of the carried out political science reconceptualization is seen in the serious prospects for adapting Tsymbursky's geopolitical schemes to the actual analysis of modern digitalization of various forms of political legitimation and international relations.

COVID-19 Pandemic and Agroecosystem Resilience: Early Insights for Building Better Futures

The way the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted human lives and livelihoods constituted a stress test for agroecosystems in developing countries, as part of rural–urban systems and the global economy. We applied two conceptual schemes to dissect the evidence in peer-reviewed literature so far, as a basis for better understanding and enabling ‘building back better’. Reported positive impacts of the lockdown ‘anthropause’ on environmental conditions were likely only short-term, while progress towards sustainable development goals was more consistently set back especially for social aspects such as livelihood, employment, and income. The loss of interconnectedness, driving loss of assets, followed a ‘collapse’ cascade that included urban-to-rural migration due to loss of urban jobs, and illegal exploitation of forests and wildlife. Agricultural activities geared to international trade were generally disrupted, while more local markets flourished. Improved understanding of these pathways is needed for synergy between the emerging adaptive, mitigative, transformative, and reimaginative responses. Dominant efficiency-seeking strategies that increase fragility will have to be re-evaluated to be better prepared for further pandemics, that current Human–Nature interactions are likely to trigger.