Philosophical Alternatives 5/2018

Gergana Farkova – Body Language in Business Communication
Abstract: : What does body language reveal about us and others? Darwin was the first to connect facial expressions to behavior patterns that are of much earlier origin than spoken language. According to social anthropologist Edward T. Hall, in a conversation between two people, only 35% of the socially relevant information is passed through words. Nearly 65 % of the cues in the direct communication process pass through paraverbal channels. When there is a discrepancy between cues, we usually trust the non-verbal ones. Signs and gestures do not lie; they reflect a person's true intentions. All mental changes appear immediately at a non-verbal level and the signals received through sight, which are charged with much more information, are directly processed by the brain without being filtered. Body language can also serve as an effective tool of influence. The ability to master it and use it is particularly important in the business world. The article discusses the practical effects of non-verbal communication and seeks to explain why non-verbal codes should not be underestimated.
Keywords: body language; business communication; intercultural communication; communication strategies; communication skills; meaningful behavior.

Nikolay Mihaylov – Philosophical Ethics and Contemporary Virtuality
Abstract: : The article attempts to analyze the problems that the phenomenon of virtuality raises for moral philosophy. Virtuality is increasingly asserting itself in all areas of human activity. On the other hand, digitization, especially in the field of communication and media, is another important process requiring ethical analysis. It is important to ascertain whether philosophy has the ambition to establish the human presence in every universalized form of messaging and information. The author's main idea is that, despite the growth of modern communication technologies, philosophical ethics must preserve the value of the spiritual, the moral sources that form us as persons.
Keywords : virtuality; digital media ethics; communication; philosophical ethics; identity.

Svetlana Stankova – Digital Political Dialogue and Social Networks
Abstract: : The article focuses on the changes that social networks bring about in digital political dialogue. The author analyzes the background to the inclusion of social networks in political communication, and specifically, Donald Trump's use of tweeting accounts as a main channel of communication. The underlying hypothesis is focused on the implications for digital political dialogue when the use of technological innovations outpaces moral criteria and professional and intellectual maturity. The article also analyzes the motivations of Donald Trump's virtual followers and the reasons why his tweets have such an impact. The author uses the methods of discourse analysis and rhetorical and interpretive analysis. The empirical study of Trump's tweets is based on the published 2,608 tweets written during his first year as President of the United States.
Keywords: digital political dialogue; social networks; tweet; affect; emotionalization; manipulation.

Katarina Držajić, Dragan Kolev – The Humanistic Communicative Approach in Modern Education
Abstract: : The humanistic approach to education has become so popular in modern society that teaching methodology, as a discipline and subject in the university curriculum, has been oriented to this approach. In view of frequent complaints in recent years about the poor ability of students to apply the knowledge they acquire during their education, it seems universities are adopting the Western trends and strive to provide students with as much teaching methodology as possible. However, the question that every graduate student starting work as a teacher asks him/herself is whether the humanistic approach can still be applied in an actual classroom situation? In addressing this question, the article aims to define what humanistic communication actually represents and to determine the differences between the humanistic versus the so-called traditional communicative approach to teaching.
Keywords : teaching; humanistic approach; educational psychology.

Lyudmila Ivancheva – The phenomenon Technoscience: Some Contemporary Aspects in the context of Philosophy of science and of Science and technology Studies
Abstract: . The paper traces out the origins and the evolution of the concepts of technoscience, considering the main driving ideas and arguments. The key new moments are outlined, distinguishing the technoscience from the traditional science and technologies. Special attention is paid on the role of social factors in the conceptual maturing in relation to this phenomenon. Further, the basic nowadays philosophical assumptions (in regard of epistemological, ontological and axiological aspects) and some widely accepted views on technoscience in S&T studies are discussed. A generalised idea of technoscience as a convergence and hybridization of science and technologies, forming a new emerging phenomenon, is also presented.
Keywords : technoscience; philosophy of technoscience; science & technology studies; technoscience and society; ethics of new technologies.

Nikolay Aleksandrov – The Reformation and Protestant Ethics as Precursors of Liberalism
Abstract: : This article is devoted to an important development in European history, which took place at the borderline between the Middle Ages and the New Age. The author attempts to analyze and rethink the Reformation and Protestantism as the phenomena that underlie the 16th century bourgeois worldview, which stemmed not only from the economic processes and the emergence of capitalism, but also from the moral system of Protestant ethics, which, with the withering of trust in Catholicism, called for a new interpretation of Christian faith, morality, and norms of civil life.
Keywords : Protestantism; Catholicism; ethics; Reformation; Middle Ages; Christianity; Bible; asceticism. Анотация: Настоящата статия е посветена на един важен процес в Европа, който се извършва на границата на Средновековието и Новото време. Текстът е опит за анализ и преосмисляне на Реформацията и протестантството като явления, стоящи в основата на формиращия се през ХVІ век буржоазен мироглед, водещ своето начало не само от икономическите процеси и зараждането на капитализма, но и от нравствената система на протестантската етика, която след изчерпването на доверието към католицизма налага една нова интерпретация на християнската вяра, морала и гражданско-житейските норми. Ключови думи: протестантство, католицизъм, етика, Реформация, Средновековие, християнство, Библия, аскеза.

Nina Mireva-Ilieva – The Shylock Case: Fairness Above Law or over the low or the low of fairness
Abstract: : The text is centered on the issue of the relationship and the boundary between the law and fairness. The dramatic character Shylock is used to express the relation between the law in a subjective and in an objective sense, a relation where the laws and legality do not depend on, and do not require a criterion of fairness. The abandonment of the idea of, and requirement that there must be, a necessary connection between the law and fairness, in a world built on pseudo-values, additionally destroys the notion of a truly real world. Humans are unable to properly evaluate what is actually happening, which brings them one step away from the “banality of evil”.
Keywords : self-value; autonomous person; fairness; meaning; good; spirituality.

Ivan Katsarski – Gabriel Tarde's Philosophical System
Abstract: : The study presents philosophical system of Gabriel Tarde, an eminent figure in the intellectual life of France at the end of the 19th century. He enjoyed great esteem during his lifetime, but was almost forgotten after his death, being overshadowed by his opponent Йmile Durkheim. His work has been revisited in the last three or four decades and his ideas have found a place in contemporary philosophy and social theory. My aim here is to present Tarde's ideas in their basic systematic interconnection, without probing into particular fields. I consecutively discuss Tarde's theory of primary elements of being, monads, and the universal principles of the basic spheres of the world. I then analyze Tarde's theory of society, history and civilizations. In the conclusion, I briefly comment on some ideas in Tarde's conceptual legacy in view of their significance for contemporary philosophy and social theory.
Keywords : Gabriel Tarde; monads; repetition; imitation; opposition; adaptation; amplification; progress; history; civilizations; future of humanity.

Georgi Belogashev – Leibniz's Solution to the Mind-Body Relationship Viewed in Dimitar Mihalchev's Philosophical Perspective
Abstract: : The article is focused on Dimitar Mihalchev's analysis of the solution to the mind-body relationship proposed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. After analyzing the fundamental ontological and epistemological ideas of Leibniz's philosophy, the Bulgarian thinker indicates the reasons for his conclusions and assessments in the perspective of his own theory. The fact that a philosopher like Mihalchev was interested in Leibniz's scientific views indicates the importance of the latter's theory.
Keywords : Leibniz; Mihalchev; pre-established harmony; monads; mind; body; relationship.

Krasimir Delchev – Two Reports by Clement of Alexandria Regarding the Music of the Thracians
Abstract: : The article examines two informative reports by Clement of Alexandria regarding the music of the Thracians.
Keywords : Shamanism; aliopathy; Orphism; tragedy.

Adelina Ilieva – Classical Foundations of the Ethics of Science. Rethinking Robert Merton's Ethos
Abstract:: The foundations of the ethics of science as a separate and particular research domain were laid in the 1930s by Robert Merton. He was the first to formulate the structure of the ethos of science as well as to present the first conjectures concerning the specific mode of action in science in terms of habits, collective expectations, incentives, encouragements, and the how these are built into the individual scientist as his/her “duty”. Unfortunately, the first elements of this foundation remained incomplete; Merton's concept was poorly understood and later neglected, considered irrelevant to contemporary ethical practice. My research investigates the roots of Merton's ethical categories in the process of knowledge production, in which the negative effects of the violation of these categories also occur. The article further demonstrates that the ethical norms are correlative with, and complementary to, the norms of knowledge production (the latter, similar to ethical norms, are tacitly shared and transmitted by tradition). Tentative steps are taken to reveal how the building of ethical norms takes place in the individual's mind during his/her specialized education in science. The separate layers of Merton's integral ethical categories are identified in order to show that they regulate a larger cluster of violations than those listed by him. The rethinking of the classical ethical categories and their mode of action furthers the completion of the classical foundations of the ethics of science.
Keywords: ethos; the ethics of science; R. Merton; process of knowledge production; the process of science.

Martin Tabakov – Further Remarks on Paradoxes in Elections
Abstract: :
Abstract: : In Tabakov 2016, I gave a curious example of an unexpected result in the Hare-Nieheimer system: “A situation where, if a political party P increases its votes and the votes for other parties remain the same, the voting results of P will be worse. The number of its elected deputies will be smaller. The publication provoked interest, and the main questions that were put to me were the following: - Is the example really original, cannot other examples be given? - Are there other paradoxes related to electoral practices? - Can some mathematical results (theorems) related to my example be given? - Is it appropriate to call such surprising results "paradoxes"? Here I discuss these four questions. I analyze some paradoxes of majority systems and prove а theorem that gives a sufficient condition for the non-monotony of the largest residue method in the case of a quotient less than 1. I discuss whether a paradox can be interpreted as proof of the non-universality of some principle and the non-existence of an object. Hence, “do real paradoxes exist?“. I propose the following criterion: “the more the principle refuted by the 'paradox' is important and necessary to a given theory, and the less successful are the attempts to develop the theory without using this principle, then the more justified it is to remove the quotation marks and consider it a true paradox”.
Keywords : paradox; voting paradox; voting system; elections; intuition;

Anna Mantarova – Traditional Religious Worldviews and 21st Century Values
Alexander Gungov – History and Meaning: Anthropological and Cosmological Principles in Teleological Evolution
Dimitar Ganov – How the “Deferral of Meaning” Reads Films and Watches Philosophy
Hristo Hristov – The Human Body as Expressing the Idea of Personal Inviolability
Kiril Popov – The Return of the Traditional System of Values
Stefan E. Nikolov – The Multifaced Megapolis
Silvia Pencheva – An Alternative Idea of Modernity