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Cioran and the Existential Philosophy of Lev Shestov. Cioran is said to have been influenced by Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the author of La Chute dans le temps thus enrolling in the line of existential philosophy. Much less - or not at all - is mentioned in this context Lev Shestov, who exerted a considerable influence on the intellectual environments in France, but also in Romania, in the period immediately following the First World War. Cioran considered Shestov as one of his spiritual masters, the influence of the Russian thinker being present both in his youthful writings and in those written later in France. We will try to highlight some of Shestov’s ideas which have been creatively taken over by Cioran and that can be found constantly throughout his work.
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When Descartes made his scientific work public he ushered in a worldview based almost entirely on mechanical motion, which brought along a complete rejection of “occult” forces. Thus, the foundation of astrology was equally rejected by many prominent Cartesians. However, the popularity of Descartes’ system lead to its rapid adoption by many subjects, astrology included. Here, I will take a look at the curious case of Claude Gadroys, whose primary work, Discours sur les influences des astres (1671), defends a mechanical account of astrology that accords with Descartes’ principles.Gadroys’ Discours employs a sophisticated strategy to rehabilitate astrology of the 17th century against Pico della Mirandola, among other critics. Gadroys’ theory even incorporates Descartes’ discovery, contra the scholastics, that the sublunary and celestial spheres do not differ in kind. Surprisingly, Gadroys uses Descartes’ discovery to substantiate the stars influencing the Earth, whereas earlier astrologers required such a distinction. Gadroys’ adoption of Cartesian philosophy highlights two major theses. First, the advent of mechanical philosophy in no way necessitated the downfall of astrology; instead, it merely changed the direction of astrological explanation for those that followed current science. Second, it shows selective nature of Cartesian explanation and hypotheses.
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U dvanaestom poglavlju Biographie Literarie Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772- 1834) će napisati: "Sveukupno znanje proistječe iz podudarnosti objekta i subjekta" 1 (CW 7,1:252) i time dotaći ključnu temu u svojoj teoriji, temu pomirenja suprotnosti (reconciliation of opposites), povezanu s Coleridgeovim nastojanjem da formulira jedinstvenu teoriju života i dokine teorijsku podijeljenost nauke, umjetnosti i kršćanske vjere.
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[John Schuster, Descartes-Agonistes: Physico-mathematics, Method & Corpuscular-Mechanism 1618–33, Dordrecht: Springer, 2013; Frédéric de Buzon, La Science cartésienne et son objet. Mathesis et phénomène, Paris: Honoré Champion, 2013] 1
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The submitted paper offers a philosophical analysis of contemporary society based on the ideas of Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy. Kant focused on the issue of society in terms of the a priori principles of freedom, equality, and independence and his ideas on social issues are analysed in the first part of the paper. The analysis then serves as a prerequisite for philosophical-critical assessment of contemporary society, especially in the region of Central Europe, presented by philosophers and authors of various fields of study. In the second part of the paper the authors aim to analyse basic social problems of contemporary society and its situation from the point of view of philosophical criticism and referring to the topicality of Kant’s ideas in today’s philosophical thought.
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Leibniz’s juvenile work De arte combinatoria of 1666 included the “Proof for the Existence of God.” This proof bears a mathematical character and is constructed in line with Euclid’s pattern. I attempted to logically formalize it in 1982. In this text, on the basis of then analysis and the contents of the proof, I seek to show what concept of substance Leibniz used on behalf of the proof. Besides, Leibnizian conception of the whole and part as well as Leibniz’s definitional method have been reconstructed here.
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Big Data technologies are about how to extract information from the rough data. The intermediate stage is represented by preprocessed data. But, even from preprocessed data to information the way is long and complex. First of all, we must understand what information means. There is no widely accepted definition for information. By proposing and using a working definition for the concept of information, we present the main techniques involved on the way from the rough data to the useful information. How the information is generated, extracted and how it emerges is shortly introduced. The role played by information in the knowledge process leads to the way information, as structure acting by its meaning, must reconsider the philosophical approach of existence.
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The article ventures a detailed and critical exposition of the first three sections of David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which represents, in a revised fashion, most of Book I of his Treatise of Human Nature. Through a careful examination of such core concepts of Hume’s epistemology as ‘perception,’ ‘impression,’ and ‘idea,’ the article arrives at the conclusion that the Humean theory of human understanding is best construed as a kind of methodological dualism: on the one hand, Hume proceeds as a philosopher making statements about the nature of human understanding with the force of a priori evidence, on the other, he acts as a natural scientist gathering empirical data, examining it, and drawing an inductive generalization therefrom. Hume is thus both a theoretical epistemologist and an empirical psychologist with a semi-disguised propensity to reduce the duties of the former to those of the latter.
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The author initially considers the philosophical circumstances that lead to the contemporary affirmation of ontology as the primary philosophy in the beginning of the 17th century. To better distinguish the difference between the “old” and “new”, that is, the classical and modern philosophy, the relation between Descartes’ thematization of being, according to the Aristotle’s request to investigate the being in different manner, is analyzed. This relation is expressively reductive, as it leaves only one of Aristotle’s four ways – displaying the false and true – with Descartes. The display of the false and the true is based on a certainty that the pros hemas, in relation to us, integrates that in itself, kat’auto. In the second part of the paper, the difficulties that come from the synonymous use of the terms philosophia prima, metaphysica and ontology are analyzed. The author concludes that the new term, in case of ontology, has not resulted in an establishment of a new kind of a philosophical discipline, but has in turn marked a new manner of deliberating through the old philosophical problems. The source of the confusion and the ostensible synonymy between ontology and metaphysics has appeared as a consequence of the constellation within which the new deliberation of old problems was easily identified with old disciplines. Taking that into consideration, it is pointed out that the consistent steps taken by the modern promoters of ontology were made to eliminate the term of metaphysics from the philosophical horizon, and not to create a false interchangeability with ontology. Starting with Jacob Lorhard, that is with the first act of the establishment of ontology, the introduction of the new term is somewhat stultified.
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The concept of God in this essay is analyzed through similarities and differences of its forging and development in philosophy of Descartes, and the tradition of scholastic philosophy. The author is trying to reveal the way in which Descartes’ thought was determined by this philosophical tradition, both in its critical aspects and in the view of continuity of history of philosophy. Given analysis is to reveal the mechanisms of Descartes’ reforging of scholastical idea of God and the strategies of its argumentative foundation in the philosophical concept of God.
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If he lived in a state constituted according to Descartes' principles; in a state established by Cartesisus himself, illuminated by natural light; or at least in a state established by a ruler enlightened by Cartesisus' reasonable, clear and distinct, completely certain insights, that is, by the distinct truths about the best state of them all; the "subject" of this state would, in fact, live - more precisely, he would have to conduct himself in his "worldly action" (of course, i f he wants to be "good" subject of that state) - exclusively according to Descartes' "provisional moral code" (which is concurrently, as we shall try to suggest, his theory of state and law).
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The aim of this paper is to show how and why the method of radical interpretation can solve the problems that are formulated in a variety of sceptical scenarios. First of all, the method of radical interpretation deprives Cartesian sceptical scenario – both in its traditional and more recent versions – of the status of philosophical problem appealing to the difference between intended and unintended lies. The paper also formulates an argument in favour of expanded version of naturalized epistemology due to the introduction of social factors. In particular, there are always at least two necessary limitations imposed by the communication of our hypothesis about knowledge and delusion. In addition, the article explains the need of a moderate externalism (both perceptual and social) for the variants of Descartes and Hume’s sceptical scenario.
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The paper analyses theoretical presuppositions of the predominant form of semantic naturalism in contemporary analytic philosophy. The aim is to show that irrespective of the fact that the doctrine of semantic naturalism is grounded in ontological and epistemological naturalism, and is developed on the basis of semantic externalism, this conception of foundational semantics rests on internalist premises, and therefore should be construed as Cartesian. Theories and their interrelations that are assumed by semantic naturalism are explicated by relying on the tripartite interpretation of “the problem of intentionality”. The Cartesian aspects of the assumed theories – and thus of the form of semantic naturalism that is analysed – are then specified in the context of Hilary Putnam’s version of semantic externalism.
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Dans ce mémoire nous nous proposons de presénter l’historique d’une longue polémique que René Descartes avait menée aves plusieurs de ses contemporains – notamment Caterus, Arnauld et Gassendi – essayant de défendre la thèse qu’il y a une différence réelle entre l’âme et le corps. Il est curieux de voir cette polémique se prolonger à travers les siècles, jusqu’à nos jours. Nous nous efforcerons donc de démontrer que certains des commentateurs da la thèse cartésienne, même ceux d’aujourd’hui, négligent trop souvent le fait que Descartes lui-même avait déjâ, dès son vivant, répondu d’une manière claire et distinct aux questions qu’on lui ne cessait de lui poser. En ce sens, il s’avére que notre Philosophe reste une fois pour toute à l’abri de toutes ces objections qui visent à compromettre son argumentation prétendant qu’il s’agissait d’un pur et simple non sequitur.
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In this paper I defend an idea that the proof for God’s existence in Descartes represents the most important part of his metaphysics, i.e. of his entire philosophy. Ability to prove God is for Descartes the only way to overcome radical scepticism, which is based on the ontological gap between the mind and the world. Descartes confronts scepticism with the idea that all knowledge begins with the self-evident non-provable premises. The starting point is his “cogito, ergo sum.” This is the basic and intuitive undeniable truth that is evident from the thinking subject alone. Still, the remaining problem is how the self-evidence of the subject implies the existence of the world of objects? Descartes’ solution is the foundation of a new theistic metaphysics based on the proof for the existence of God, which is established on the self-evidence of the subject: subject is able to prove God on the basis of his/her self-evidence alone. After the proof is established, God himself becomes the foundation for any conceptual certainty about the world.
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The notion of democracy as the ontological premise of the social being is one of the main themes in the contemporary reception of Spinoza’s political philosophy. The article presented below is an attempt to explain the ontological dimension of democracy in Spinoza’s thought. The Spinozist approach towards democracy is confronted here with Hobbes’ view on democracy – by this juxtaposition I want to show how the question of the democratic foundation has constituted one of the most important discrepancies of modern political discourse.
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In this paper, we treat Ryle’s The Concept of Mind as a polemical work. The main question is as follows. On what grounds does Ryle associate “an intellectual tendency” he criticizes with historical Descartes? We defend the following thesis: “the Myth of Descartes” is a rhetorical construction that does not reflect the main aspects of Descartes’ dualism. Two conclusions are drawn. First, without providing clear criteria for analysis, Ryle tries to give his work a systematic character through rhetorical means. Secondly, the contrasts between Meditations and “the Myth of Descartes” reveal that Ryle fails to give due reflection to his relationship with the philosophical tradition.
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Pod týmto názvom sa v dňoch 28.-29. 3. 1996 uskutočnila na Filozofickej fakulte UPJŠ v Prešove filozofická konferencia s medzinárodnou účasťou, žiaľ, bez francúzskych kolegov, ktorú organizačne i obsahovo pripravila Katedra filozofie. Veľké jubileum - 400. výročie narodenia R. Descarta, ktoré si pripomína v tomto roku celý filozofický i kultúrny svet, stalo sa mimoriadnou príležitosťou na aktuálnu filozofickú analýzu myšlienkového odkazu zakladateľa novovekej filozofie. Jednotlivé príspevky, ktoré na konferencii odzneli, boli orientované na rôzne dimenzie Descartovej filozofickej inciatívy.
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