Jana Plichtová

The aim of our research is to explore how Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are represented in the Slovak media. Data consisted of text documents from the Newton media database. Search criteria included TV, radio, print and web sources that mentioned the words “Alzheimer” and “dementia” between 2015 and 2018. A thematic discourse analysis was applied in order to identify the themes and their mutual semantic relations. The analysis was focused primarily on the headlines (n = 227). The results show that the biomedical perspective currently dominates at the expense of a socio-psychological one. Persons with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are represented as tragic cases and victims of a cruel disease. Responsibility for care and prevention is individualized. Our findings suggest that a new perspective is needed. Such an approach should recognize the dignity and humanity of persons with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia despite their cognitive deficits and respect their socio-psychological needs.

In her groundbreaking work, Elinor Ostrom suggested that communities are able to self-organize and develop rules which allow them to effectively manage common-pool resources while avoiding the “tragedy of the commons”, as proposed by Hardin. Based on empirical case studies of how forests, irrigation, grazing land and fisheries are organized all over the world, Ostrom suggested several principles that can serve as guidelines for managing common-pool resources. In the 21st century new initiatives have been based on sharing. There are various examples such as car and bike sharing in cities, internet platforms such as Wikipedia, community gardens and many others. There is a reason to believe that these efforts will continue to grow and become more popular as people realise the economic, social and ecological benefits. The aim of this paper is to analyse to what extent Ostrom’s findings are relevant to these new, often urbanised or digitalised forms of sharing. Can the famous design principles for which she won the Nobel prize be applied or do we need to search for a different set of principles that are more suitable for these new emerging forms of ‘the commons’? Our findings suggest that although Ostrom’s framework needs to be adapted before being applied to the reality of urban and digitalised environments, some of her findings remain relevant.

The paper presents a comparative analysis of the evolution of the legislative process concerning ART in the specific cultural, societal and political contexts of two countries- Slovakia and Germany. Our analysis is based on 1. mapping the variety of discourses on ART in order to gain an understanding of the perspectives of the main actors and their arguments; and on 2. exploring the reasons for the differences in the current regulation of ART among European Union member states. In both Slovakia and Germany we found there was a deficit of democratic legitimacy, because the arguments and experiences of those primarily affected by the restrictive measures on the use of ART in medical care-infertile women and men-are not taken into consideration with any seriousness. On the contrary, government and legislators pay too much attention to the ethical opinions of the Catholic Church. Government intervention in Germany is highly problematic because there is no sufficient justification of the reasons behind restrictions on parental autonomy and the procreative freedom of women and men. Moreover, the restrictions are not consistent across an array of similar cases and are not applied equally to all. Instead of an interventionist approach which protects the embryo against its own potential mother, it would be more sensible to adopt the “women-centered” approach already suggested by several authors. It holds that both the mother and embryo have to be at the centre of bioethical and legal considerations, instead of there being an exclusive reliance on ethical principles and expert opinions with regard to the embryo alone.

The paper gives a comparison of Durkheim´s sociogenetic approach, according to which the specific character of human knowledge consists in its being commonly created, culturally transmitted and transgeneratively communicated, with the biological approach, which considers the culture to be a continuation of biological nature. As an example the author uses the famous case study of Phine Gage, who as a consequence of a brain damage suffered from a serious personality disorder. This and other similar cases are interpreted as an evidence of a specific inborn module of social thinking and decision making. More adequate is, according to the author, to consider this disorder as a disorder of the ability to integrate the rational and emotional regulations. Her argument is, that it is impossible to explain the human thinking and acting as a consequence of biological regulation - otherwise the controlling function of the neocortex looses it evolutionary importance

Freedom of Religion, Institution of Conscientious Objection and Political Practice in Post-Communist Slovakia1 The example of Slovakia is used to show how one of the post-socialist countries failed in fulfilling the demanding task of securing freedom of religious belief and, at the same time, securing all other human rights. An analysis of the methods used for changing the policies of pluralism and neutrality of the state into a policy of discrimination was carried out, followed by an analysis of a mechanism used for guaranteeing freedom of conscience of the members of the Catholic Church. The treaty violates the prohibition of discrimination against women, because it makes it more difficult for them to have access to some health care services. Our hypothesis states that the hurriedly introduced right to conscientious objection is misused in this context as a means of regulating the politics of reproduction. In general, the re-Catholisation of the Slovak Republic follows two aims—to help in the fight for votes in the elections, and to improve demographic development in the Slovak Republic, through hindering free access to abortions.

The explanation of human nature exclusively from the perspective of biological evolution faces two paradoxes. The core of the first one can be summarized as follows: The characteristics of the specifically human behavior, such as symbolic thinking, intentional and planned activity, cooperative work distribution, creation of cultural artifacts and social institutions, needed an incommensurable shorter time to develop when compared with the changes effected by the selection of random mutations. The second paradox says: Although the cultural accumulation of Homo sapiens sapiens grew exponentially during the last 10 000 years, the capacity of human brain remained unchanged. What were the mental pre-adaptations, which made these rapid changes possible? The paper discusses the psychological researches, which aim at contributing to the explanation of these paradoxes

The paper's argumentation is for the conception of mind as an open, although internally structured system. Mind, however, is not just an actualization of dispositions, but also the accommodation and cultivation of the latter in the process of a continuous interaction with the intelligible structures of the other minds as well as with the products of the historical development of culture.The author's presupposition is, that the language as the most important product of the semiotic activity became an accelerator of the evolution of culture, the basic code of human way of being. Expanding and enriching of the communication nests led to the rise of a new world, which has transcended the natural world and changed the human nature. The science investigating the human mind, which ignores the existence of the semiotic activity cuts off the substantial aspects leading to its understanding. Therefore, the author suggests the dialogue as a basic method of the examination of mind. It is the dialogue, through which the minds overcome the isolatedness of their beings and through which an intersubjectively valid knowledge is created. The dialogical method is compatible with its substance, as the mind is seen not as a monological, but rather as a dialogical entity.