Previous PS Seminars

January 23, 2026.
Prof. Dr. Yaroslav Shramko (Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Ukraine),
https://kdpu.edu.ua/personal/yavshramko.html  

Seminar title: Fregean Truth Values as Aristotelian Focal Points”
Abstract:  In this talk, I examine the ontological status of truth by bringing together two ideas that are rarely discussed in a unified
framework: the Fregean conception of truth values and Aristotle’s account of pros hen being. I begin from the familiar philosophical role of truth values as formally neutral and functionally defined objects, and ask whether truth, understood in this way, can still be treated as a property—and if so, what kind of property it is and what it is a property of.
The discussion focuses on the structural role played by truth values in logical semantics and on how this role can be illuminated by G. E. L. Owen’s interpretation of pros hen meaning. I argue that Owen’s notion of focal meaning offers a useful methodological bridge between objectual and predicative conceptions of truth. On this basis, I propose the idea of a “focal point” as an ontological counterpart to semantic centrality.
The resulting perspective aims to clarify the categorial status of truth while also suggesting a broader lesson about the metaphysical relevance of logical constructs, especially those that are often regarded as merely technical or formal.

December 19, 2025
Speaker: Dr. Tetiana Gardashuk - Head of the Department of Logic and Methodology of Science, H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy,
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Seminar title: NUCLEAR ENERGY AND FEAR OF RADIOACTIVE POLLUTION
Seminar Description: The lecture is dedicated to the dual role of nuclear energy and potential threats from its military and non-military use. It
aims to contribute to reshaping the ethical framework for the identification of attitudes to nuclear technology for civilian and military purposes within the context of the current Russo-Ukrainian war. M. Douglas; ideas about the symbolic meaning of danger and dirt (including radioactive dirt/pollution) are used for the analysis of existing nuclear threats. The research also employs Sloterdijk's concept of new types of war and the
necessity of reassessment of technological optimism and risks in wartime. Hans Jonas’ principle of the heuristics of fear is employed for rethinking the meaning of both responsibility and existential fear of nuclear threats.

November 27, 06:00 PM (Kyiv time / EEST)

Speakers: Illia Davidenko, Director, Chief editor, Academic-archival Center “Archivum Sententiarum”. Head, Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy. Researcher, Department of Philosophy of Culture, Ethics, and Aesthetics, H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. PhD student, Faculty of Philosophy, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. CEO, “Philosophical Community «Sententiae»” (NGO).

Vlada Davidenko, Editor, Academic-archival Center “Archivum Sententiarum”. Executive editor, Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy. PhD student, Department of Social Philosophy, H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. PhD student, Faculty of Philosophy.

 
Seminar title: Revisiting the History of Ukrainian Philosophy of the 20th Century: Oral History of Philosophy, Archival Studies, and
New Generational Perspectives
 
Seminar Description: The seminar explores the recent transformations in Ukrainian philosophical life amid war, crisis, and institutional decline—yet also within a period of remarkable intellectual renewal. It focuses on initiatives linked to the Sententiae journal and its Community, particularly the emergence of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy and the Academic-Archival Center “Archivum Sententiarum.”
The first presentation will trace the development from the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy to the establishment of the Academic-Archival Center “Archivum Sententiarum,” analyzing the methodological, infrastructural, social, and economic dimensions of this ongoing process of institutional and intellectual formation. This evolution is viewed as part of a broader effort to revisit and reshape the history of Ukrainian philosophy of the 20th century from the perspective of a new generation of scholars, reflecting both the continuity of earlier research ambitions and the emergence of a qualitatively new historical narrative.
The second presentation will focus on a specific research trajectory that examines the interrelations between academic philosophy, political dynamics, and cultural processes in the Ukrainian SSR during the second half of the 20th century, highlighting the continuity and gradual realization of long-term intellectual projects within the evolving Ukrainian philosophical community.

September 19, 2025
Speaker: Anastasiia Strelkova, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences (DSc), Senior Researcher, Sector of History of Eastern Philosophy, Department of History of Foreign Philosophy, H.S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Web page:  www.filosof.com.ua/anastasiia_yuriivna_strelkova, www.tdsf.kiev.ua 

Seminar title: The concept of appamāda – the Buddha's testament
Seminar Description: If you were a founder of a world religion, what would be your last message to your disciples and the mankind? Buddha
Shakyamuni is the founder of Buddhism – a religious and philosophical tradition which emerged about 2500 years ago and along with Christianity and Islam is considered to be a ‘world religion’.
According to the Pāli Buddhist canon, the Buddha’s last message formulated in the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta (A Discourse on the Great Parinirvana) was just one word – appamāda (Skt. apramāda). After having being preaching for forty years and having already exposed all the extensive teachings of Buddhism (forming now the corpus of Buddhist Canon), in his last moments Buddha Shakyamuni considered important to stress the main point, something very important, without what the progress on the Dharma Way would be impossible. It was appamāda or ‘thoughtfulness’. However, given the importance of the last words of Buddha, there are endless discussions concerning the exact meaning of the term ‘appamāda’. Like many other important concepts, appamāda has no exact analogue in our western philosophical dictionary. Every Buddhist teacher or researcher of Buddhism is looking for his own translation based on his understanding of the teaching of Buddhism.
We have translated into Ukrainian and analyzed a series of verses from Dhammapāda (a prominent text of Early Buddhism, written in Pāli, containing 423 poetic aphorisms proclaimed by Buddha himself, translated into English by now, probably, more than hundred times). Our attention was focused on the relation between the notions of thoughtfulness-appamāda and fool-bāla. What is a feature shared by a fool, a little child and a mad person?
All these types of human beings are deprived of thoughtfulness-appamāda. The fact that they cannot act thoughtfully suggests that they cannot understand clearly the reality of things. As a result, they do not get what they want – just because the things they do are not leading to their goal. A little child would not survive without parents. A mad person does not survive without help of mentally healthy people. A fool, being deprived of the ability to think critically, will never create a civilization based on scientific knowledge and true spiritual values. The English
word ‘mad’ is etymologically and semantically related with the Pāli-Sanskrit māda. So, we may say that appamāda is ‘not-madness’. If we want to survive, we have to think critically. If we allow the fakes to conquer our consciousness we will die. This means that without ‘thoughtfulness’ (in Buddhist terms appamāda) the further evolution of human beings on our planet is impossible.

July 11, 2025
Speaker: Yaroslav Lyubiviy (H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine).
Yaroslav Lyubiviy – Doctor of Science in Philosophy, full Professor, Leading Researcher of the Department of History of Foreign Philosophy, G. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, NAS of Ukraine. 

Further information:  https://filosof.com.ua/en/department_history_foreign_philosophy

Seminar title: Crisis of values ​​in the age of civilizational transformations.
Seminar Description: The lecture examines the changing value system in the context of modern civilizational transformation. What is the ontological status of values ​​as such and are there absolute values exist? What is the nature of values ​​themselves in the context of self-organizing processes of being? What is their role in the self-regulation of society that exists in a certain natural environment? What is the hierarchy of values ​​themselves? To clarify the nature of values, the author uses the self-organization concept as a whole and focuses on its informational aspect and universal feedback mechanism. This mechanism provides an empirical process of a person's evaluation of the environment and the development of a strategy for responding to external signals. The development of a value system as a strategy for the
actions of individuals and social organisms based on trials and a mechanism for correcting errors is similar to the development of an action strategy for complex self-managed systems by artificial intelligence. In the value regulation of society, absolute, basic, instrumental, spiritual values, as well as values ​​of identity, values ​​of survival and development, etc. should be distinguished. It is possible to build a hierarchy of values, but the correlation of different values ​​depends on the situation in which a person and society find themselves. This situation can
especially change in conditions of social catastrophes and civilizational transformations.

June 13, 2025

Speaker: Christoph Lumer (University of Siena, Italy) 

Further information:  www.lumer.info https://docenti.unisi.it/en/lumer

Seminar Title: Instrument Welfarism - An Instrumentalist Praxeology for Welfare Ethics

Seminar Description:  The lecture deals with the ethical question: What should we do from a moral point of view? It presents a theory on this topic, called instrument welfarism. This theory belongs to the spectrum of welfare ethics (such as utilitarianism, utility egalitarianism or prioritarianism), but goes beyond the approaches developed so far in this field in the following ways.

1. The ethical question of what we should do is usually answered with a theory of moral duties. Apart from the often highly controversial proposals regarding the content of these duties, however, the ontological nature of these duties is very unclear. Are they, for example, imperatives – and if so, by whom and with what authority? Instrument welfarism proposes the following: Moral duties are constituted by morally good social norms. Social norms are ways of acting that are widely followed in a particular group and whose known non-observance is generally punished formally (by specially authorised persons and institutions) or informally (by any person). Morally good social norms (including moral duties) are instruments for the moral improvement of the world.

2. However, they are not the only instruments for the moral improvement of the world. Virtues, rules, moral education, institutions, organisations,
states, confederations of states and, of course, individual actions can also be such instruments, namely when they are primarily or to a significant extent aimed at improving the world morally. The task of a comprehensive instrumentalist praxeology in ethics, which goes beyond a theory of moral duties, is to research and develop such possible instruments and guidelines for their application and to propose them for practical implementation. – These are the theses. Details and justifications will be provided in the lecture.

March 25, Tuesday
Speaker: Natalia Kudriavtseva, Professor of Translation and Slavic Studies at Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Ukraine. Her research can be classified under three major interrelated strands: language ideology, language and power, and translation as a social practice. Her recent publications include a co-edited volume Language and Power in Ukraine and Kazakhstan: Essays on Education, Ideology, Literature, Practice, and the Media (Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2024) (with Debra A. Friedman). She has held fellowships at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (USA), the University of Cambridge (UK), Alfried Krupp Institute for Advanced Study Greifswald, Hanse Institute for Advanced Study (Germany), Centre for Advanced Study Sofia (Bulgaria) and the School for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Paris (France). Prof. Kudriavtseva is currently a non-resident fellow at George Washington University and a non-residential scholar at Indiana University (USA).

Seminar Title: New Speakers of Ukrainian: Ideologies of Linguistic Conversion.
Seminar Description:  In this lecture, I examine ideologies behind linguistic conversion – a widespread transition to Ukrainian from Russian – which intensified in Ukraine after the beginning of Russian aggression in 2014, and particularly after the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion. My study draws on semi-structured individual interviews with twenty-one new full-time Ukrainian speakers recruited among current and former participants in informal language learning initiatives in Ukraine. The primary focus is on the ways in which the new speakers legitimise their ownership of the Ukrainian language: how they imagine their positions in the socially constructed traditional hierarchies of Ukrainian speakers, based on the mastery of the standard language, and what new ideologies arise out of challenging them. The findings reveal that, in most of the cases, traditional hierarchies are deconstructed as new ideologies prioritising fluency and elevating translingual practice emerge in the linguistic safe spaces of grassroots language courses and clubs.