Suchergebnisse

Heinrich August Dietrich was a gardener with a deep interest in mycology. He published a two-volume monograph dealing with over 1,000 fungal and fungal-like taxa, the first cryptogamic research of this kind for the Baltic region. Between 1852 and 1857, H. A. Dietrich issued nine volumes of exciccatae named Centuria Plantarum Florae Balticae cryptogamarum. The preserved eight Centuriae and additional collections from Estonia (then the Imperial Russian Baltic province, Estonian Governorate) are revised and their current status in collections is presented. As a result, a new myxomycete species for Estonia, Physarum gyrosum, and the once doubtfully-reported species, Arcyria oerstedii, are recorded, and the earliest vouchers of some endangered ascomycetes, such as Poronia punctata and Sabuloglossum arenarium, are identified in his material. The most remarkable findings among lichenized fungi are Alectoria sarmentosa, Dibaeis baeomyces, Flavoparmelia caperata, Lasallia pustulata, Nephroma laevigatum, Peltigera venosa and Ramalina calicaris, as well as the oldest Estonian specimen of Lobaria pulmonaria.

As a modern academic Ulysses, the historical scientist is enticed by numerous plausible scientific theories that can explain the historical data in search of the truth. However, the predicament of her work is to inevitably crash onto the rocks and cliffs of uncertainty. The problem discussed in this paper is that several scientific models can be suitable to account for the same empirical observations. The risk of falling into speculation is looming, and exceedingly dangerous in science. This is also the case in archaeological sciences, such as bioarchaeology. A bioarchaeologist frequently encounters traces of disease in ancient skeletons, and pertinent patterns may often result from equally probable different causes. This is a methodological issue commonly encountered in the interpretation of pathological patterns in human remains, and constitutes part of the problem known in bioarchaeology as the osteological paradox. During an informal trilogue, three characters discuss the osteological paradox, and attempt to define it in philosophical terms. The aim of this work is to present the problems of scientists with the philosophical approach to the debate between scientific realism and antirealism, focusing in particular on the so-called problem of underdetermination. Our original approach is to apply the distinction between 'how-possibly' models and 'how-actually' models by Alisa Bokulich to archaeological issues, integrating various fields of science with a multidisciplinary and omnivorous approach. The trilogue ends providing the historical scientist with reasons and means to believe in her ability to conceive of true and reliable scientific models to interpret the historical past.

Rakstu krājums aptver 13 pētījumus, redaktoru sagatavotu ievadu un noslēdzošo eseju, kuras autors ir Jānis Krēsliņš. Izdevuma uzmanības centrā ir Ziemeļvalstu grāmatu kultūra agrajos jaunajos laikos, īpašu uzmanību pievēršot grāmatu kolekcijām, kas tika iegūtas kā kara laupījums. Rīgas Jezuītu kolēģijai 1621. gadā konfiscētās grāmatas, kas tika aizvestas uz Upsalas Universitātes bibliotēku, bija pirmā zviedru nolaupītā bibliotēka. Lielāko 17. gadsimta daļu pakļautajās teritorijās Zviedrijas karaļa uzdevumā tika konfiscētas daudzas katoļu institūciju bibliotēkas. Tas tika darīts, gan lai atņemtu šīm institūcijām to intelektuālos "ieročus" cīņā ar protestantismu, gan lai apgādātu ar grāmatām jaundibinātās Zviedrijas universitāšu un skolu bibliotēkas. Tomēr daudzas šādi iegūtās katoļu grāmatas drīz izrādījās nepiemērotas luterāņu skolām. Šāda pārvietošana dažos gadījumos ir veicinājusi gan kādreizējo grāmatu kolekciju saglabāšanu, gan – citkārt – to iznīcināšanu. Krājumā apkopotie raksti aplūko vairākus bibliotēku izveidošanas, nolaupīšanas un atkārtotas izmantošanas gadījumus Baltijas reģionā. Grāmatas uzmanības lokā ir arī šo bibliotēku apzināšana un (virtuāla) rekonstrukcija mūsdienās. Krājuma elektronisko versiju iespējams bez maksas lejuplādēt izdevēja tīmekļa vietnē.

Rein Vihalemm has defined the concept of φ-sciences primarily through scientific models, while emphasising that they are empirical sciences. His specification of such sciences includes references to Galileo, Kant, and Heidegger, but lacks in detail and, most notably, fails to explicate how the models of these sciences are linked to the material world they aim to describe. I first analyse Galileo's theoretical proceedings in terms of preplanning, the essence of phaenomena, and mathematicity, which can either explicitly or implicitly be viewed as important characteristics of φ-sciences, acknowledged by Vihalemm. Based on this new clarification and additional sources, I will then explore φ-scientific measurement as the link between models and matter and discuss whether Galileo's own measurements can be regarded as such.

The Estonian philosopher Rein Vihalemm (1938–2015) wished to reform realism in the philosophy of science. He was dissatisfied with the mainstream analytic philosophy of science—scientific realism and the various anti-realisms alike. He considered these approaches theory-driven and hence too distanced from actual scientific practice. His alternative, which he called practical realism, was inspired and influenced by Joseph Rouse's original reading of Thomas Kuhn. Moreover, Vihalemm viewed as important some lessons from Marxism, which was prevalent in Estonian philosophy during the Soviet occupation. For him, Marx himself inaugurated practical realism with his novel notion of practice that does not consider agency distinct from nature. He also mentions Kant, interpreted in a realistic manner, as a significant influence for his thesis that concepts only apply to practice. In this article, I will critically examine practical realism from the standpoint of classical pragmatism. My primary question is: what kind of realism practical realism can possibly be.

In this article, I present my view that only through value conflicts can we become aware of the relevant values influencing science. The discussion about values in science has been ongoing for the past decades; unfortunately, a crucial part of the discussion—value awareness—has not been addressed. This article tries to bridge this gap by focusing on the problem of value recognition through analyzing several cases of value conflicts. I will show that unless some value conflict occurs, the values influencing science remain invisible to us. This means that to discuss the relevant influences of values in science, we need to focus on value conflicts occurring in science. Only then can we recognize the values influencing science and have a meaningful debate about them. This article is the first foray into the issue of value recognition and can help clarify some unaddressed issues in the values in science debate.

In his book Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism, Nicholas Maxwell intends to solve the problem of scientific progress. For that, he distinguishes between eight relevant issues: the problem of induction, the problem of underdetermination, the problem of verisimilitude, the problem of what it means for a theory to be unified, the question of what rationale we have to prefer unified theories, the problem of the scientific method, the problem of justification of the scientific method, and the problem of scientific discovery.

his article compares three of the most horrific shootings against protesters in Riga, Tallinn, and Minsk during the Revolution of 1905. The aim of this comparison is to find similarities in these events that would reflect the tsarist authorities' principles on the use of deadly force against protesters in general. The article also claims that shootings against protesters in the Western borderlands of the Russian Empire all together had more influence on radicalising the situation than it has been acknowledged in studies that give a general perspective of the Revolution of 1905.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that assessment relativism entails the assessment-sensitivity of the sentential truth-predicate, but not of the propositional truth-predicate. The central idea of assessment relativism is that a single token claim evaluated within a single world can have different truth-values when considered in different contexts of assessment. John MacFarlane in Assessment Sensitivity: Relative Truth and its Applications (2014) and also Max Kölbel in the article 'Global relativism and self-refutation' (2011) have argued that this position leads to relativism about the propositional truth-predicate. I argue that this is not the case—it entails relativism only about the sentential truth-predicate.

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming increasingly autonomous and will soon be able to make decisions on their own about what to do, AI researchers have started to talk about the need to align AI with human values. The AI 'value alignment problem' faces two kinds of challenges—a technical and a normative one—which are interrelated. The technical challenge deals with the question of how to encode human values in artificial intelligence. The normative challenge is associated with two questions: "Which values or whose values should artificial intelligence align with?" My concern is that AI developers underestimate the difficulty of answering the normative question. They hope that we can easily identify the purposes we really desire and that they can focus on the design of those objectives. But how are we to decide which objectives or values to induce in AI, given that there is a plurality of values and moral principles and that our everyday life is full of moral disagreements? In my paper I will show that although it is not realistic to reach an agreement on what we, humans, really want as people value different things and seek different ends, it may be possible to agree on what we do not want to happen, considering the possibility that intelligence, equal to our own, or even exceeding it, can be created. I will argue for pluralism (and not for relativism!) which is compatible with objectivism. In spite of the fact that there is no uniquely best solution to every moral problem, it is still possible to identify which answers are wrong. And this is where we should begin the value alignment of AI.