"Universalia ante res" vs. "Universalia in rebus"

Как съвременната аналитична метафизика решава проблема за универсалиите?

Author(s): Denitsa Zhelyazkova / Language(s): Bulgarian / Issue: 3/2018

The problem of universals has a long history. The inheritance of tradition marks the development of philosophy, especially during the Middle Ages, and occupies a central part of the overall philosophical issues of Modernity. There are three main camps that try to answer the question what the nature of universals is – realists, nominalists and conceptualists. One of the main tasks of modern analytical metaphysics is to provide a metaphysical explanation for the existence and essence of the universals. Analytical philosophy tries to solve the problem of universals by introducing a new theory. Whether the theory of tropes repeats earlier nominalist theories, is the subject of many discussions at the moment. The supporters of the theory assert the view that the world (in whole or in part) consists of the so-called tropes and that the tropes that characterize reality are abstract properties. The thesis I will defend in this article is that the theory of tropes is much closer to realism than to nominalism.

(Nie)obiektywna podmiotowość

Author(s): Piotr Piotrowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 36/2016

In this article, I analyze the issue of subjectivity in the form in which it appears in Charles Taylor’s and Richard Rorty’s writings. Positions of these philosophers are generally regarded as contradictory. I will, however, argued that the position on subjectivity represented by Rorty finds its complementation in Taylor’s concept. To do this, I will show firstly that both Rorty and Taylor use the category of contingency, presenting some common thesis about subjectivity. This way I will show that the location of the category of subjectivity and the scope of its use in each of them concept is closely related to the understanding of objectivity accepted by each of them. This will allow then to reconstruct the concept of subjectivity presented by Taylor and Rorty. Next, in the conclusion, I will present such a summary of those two standpoints, which will include justification of the thesis of their complementarity.

A Critical Thinking Approach to Globalisation and Culture

Author(s): Steluța Stan / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The diverse and complex cultural consequences of the present time have been subject to various studies. The new non-material digital forms of communication make the global cultural flows to move easier and more freely around the globe, a phenomenon that has been associated with many cultural consequences. Major theses, such as homogenization (standardization around a Western or American pattern), polarization (resistance to cultural conformity or standardization and emergence of cultural alternatives), and hybridization have been used as relevant analysis criteria. Having in mind the final objective (respectful contact with other cultures and successful intercultural communication), the present study, as part of a larger enterprise, is an introduction to a critical thinking approach to cultural awareness and the need for a cultural paradigm shift.

A Fair Version of the Chinese Room

Author(s): Hasan Çağatay / Language(s): English / Issue: 96/2019

By the Chinese room thought experiment, John Searle (1980) advocates the thesis that it is impossible for computers to think in the same way that human beings do. This article intends firstly to show that the Chinese room does not justify or even test this thesis and secondly to describe exactly how the person in the Chinese room can learn Chinese. Regarding this learning process, Searle ignores the relevance of an individual’s pattern recognition capacity for understanding. To counter Searle’s claim, this paper, via examining a series of thought experiments inspired by the Chinese room, aims to underline the importance of pattern recognition for understanding to emerge.

A methodological analysis of the scientific research

Author(s): Kadzik OGANYAN / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The article addresses the structure of scientific research in the context of the methodology of science. This goal is realized through the concrete material of physical theory, detailing the structure of scientific research and its elements; its process and the laws it obeys; its results, which leadthe process; its motives, e.g. the "driving forces" of research and the role of philosophy in the process.The paperexamines the theoretical phase of researches as a synthesis of the empirical and the speculative,in contrast to the existing literature that presents the opposition between theoretical and empirical research. The steps of knowledge of the objective laws in a particular area are analysed: the empirical research,the non-fundamental theoretical,the speculative, and the fundamental theoretical; this analysis allows the generalization of the patterns of scientific research. Particular attention is paid to the speculative research and its main elements. The“methodological mechanism” of formation of new fundamental conceptions in science is unravelled. The essence of this mechanism consists of some non-logical cognitive operations (idealization, choice of “Gestalt”, substitution, generalization). The knowledge of corresponding combinations of these operations made by the investigator facilitates the process of research, decreases the probability of errors in the scientific cognition.

A New w-Stable Plane

Author(s): Gianluca Paolini / Language(s): English / Issue: 55/2020

We use a variation on Mason’s α-function as a pre-dimension function to construct a not one-based w-stable plane P (i.e. a simple rank 3 matroid) which does not admit an algebraic representation (in the sense of matroid theory) over any field. Furthermore, we characterize forking in Th(P), we prove that algebraic closure and intrinsic closure coincide in Th(P), and we show that Th(P) fails weak elimination of imaginaries, and has Morley rank w.

A Note on Tichý’s Paper ‘On Describing’

Author(s): Pavel Cmorej / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2007

P. Tichý finished, and probably also began to write, this paper in 1973. At that time, he was affiliated at the University of Otago, New Zealand, for already three years. From there he sent the paper to Pavel Materna and me. The paper ‘On Describing’ is connected to, in its content, Tichý’s paper ‘An Approach to Intensional Analysis’ which appeared in Noûs 5, 1971, 273 – 297. The former paper was intended by Tichý to make the public familiar with some ideas published in the technically more demanding Noûs paper. In so doing, he pays particular attention to prospects his conceptual apparatus has for solutions of certain philosophical problems. In the second half of the paper, he utilizes a slightly modified language of Chuch’s theory of types (enriched with possible world variables) that Tichý had introduced already in the paper ‘An Approach to Intensional Analysis’. The study ‘On Describing’ is an excellent introduction into Tichý’s work, in particular his semantics. Fundamental intuitive ideas involved in the paper go throughout, in modified forms, all his work.

A PLEA FOR THE PLURALITY OF FUNCTION

Author(s): Tony Cheng / Language(s): English / Issue: 15/2016

In this paper I defend a pluralistic approach in understanding function, both in biological and other contexts. Talks about function are ubiquitous and crucial in biology, and it might be the key to bridge the “manifest image” and the “scientific image” identified by Sellars (1962). However, analysis of function has proven to be extremely difficult. The major puzzle is to make sense of “time-reversed causality”: how can property P be the cause of its realizer R? For example, “pumping blood” is a property of hearts, but a property of hearts cannot be the cause of the presence of hearts, since properties cannot predate their realizers and be causes of them. In section 2 I discuss Wright’s etiological analysis, Cummins’ causal-role analysis, and their critics. In section 3 I defend a version of the “consensus without unity” strategy proposed by Godfrey-Smith from Christopher Boorse’s recent critique (2002). In Section 4 I conclude by reflecting on the relation between functional discourses and physicalism.

A Quasi-fregean Solution to ‘The Concept Horse’

Author(s): MIHAIL-PETRIŞOR Ivan / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2015

In this paper I offer a conceptually tighter, quasi-Fregean solution to the concept horse paradox based on the idea that the unterfallen relation is asymmetrical. The solution is conceptually tighter in the sense that it retains the Fregean principle of separating sharply between concepts and objects, it retains Frege’s conclusion that the sentence ‘the concept horse is not a concept’ is true, but does not violate our intuitions on the matter. The solution is only ‘quasi’- Fregean in the sense that it rejects Frege’s claims about the ontological import of natural language and his analysis thereof.

A Radical Reinterpretation of Quinean Naturalism and Its View of Consciousness

Author(s): Pamela Ann J. Boongaling / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2019

McGinn maintains that Quinean naturalism cannot provide a viable position in the debate on the existence of consciousness and the external world for it does not have a place for phenomenal experience in its naturalized epistemology. In effect, it cannot or will refuse to address any version of a sceptic’s argument regarding the lack of sufficient grounds to prove the existence of consciousness and the external world. I argue otherwise by pointing out that Quinean naturalism must provide an account of phenomenal experience to ensure the consistency of its epistemic and ontic assumptions with its naturalistic worldview. In the process, I demonstrate that Quinean naturalism allows us to infer that the best explanation for the existence of both consciousness and the external world can be derived from how the roles of subjectivity and objectivity in our creation and assessment of our conceptual schemes are primarily derived from our phenomenal experience of the external world.

A Renaissance mathematician’s art

Author(s): Ryszard Mirek / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

Piero della Francesca is best known as a painter but he was also a mathematician. His treatise De prospectiva pingendi is a superb example of a union between the fine arts and mathematical sciences of arithmetic and geometry. In this paper, I explain some reasons why his painting is considered as a part of perspective and, therefore, can be identified with a branch of geometry.

A Simple Method for Solving Simple and Complex Syllogisms

Author(s): Jana Yaneva / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2004

Has Traditional Logic come out of date over the last 122 years since the publication of John Venn’s Symbolic Logic? As it might be expected, it would be difficult to stop Tradition in a discipline such as Traditional Logic. This is so because it is founded upon a perfect theory of inference: Syllogistics. In spite of constant attempts to present it from a contemporary point of view, Syllogistics remains an indispensable method for natural reasoning in a natural language, and it has important real-life applications. The standard topics included under Traditional Logic are: Concept, Proposition, Reasoning, Proof, and so on – all that serves to provide us with practical skills for inferencing truths from other truths. There is no doubt that the main theory of inference in Traditional Logic is Syllogistics. [...]

ABOUT PRACTICAL PROBLEM SOLVING

Author(s): Arto Mutanen / Language(s): English / Issue: 89/2016

Knowledge is, by definition, reliable and, hence, it can be applied to a variety of different problems. Nevertheless, in practical problem solving, we do not rely on mere truthful knowledge, but also on information which frames the practical acceptability. We are not looking for truthful solution but an optimal solution. Optimal solution is found out by optimizing some given (practical) parameters. The optimization is both theory based and practice based process. That is, practical problem solving is a human deliberation that interconnects theoretical and practical knowledge. So, the philosophical foundation of practical problem solving interconnects theoretical and practical philosophy. Especially ethical deliberation plays – or should play – central role in practical problem solving. The complexity of the advanced scientific knowledge needed in solving present day practical problems separates the people who know, from the people who do (decide). The situation makes immediate that we need some deeper pedagogical conviction: we need ecological education.

Ako nakladať s referenčným systémom úplne odlišnej kultúrnej tradície?

Author(s): Marína Čarnogurská / Language(s): Slovak / Issue: 3/1999

Až teraz vlastne chápem, prečo som na medzinárodnej transdisciplinárnej konferencii s názvom Diskurz - Intelektuáli - Sociálna komunikácia, zorganizovanej Kabinetom výskumu sociálnej a biologickej komunikácie SAV v roku 1996 v Bratislave, upútala pozornosť prof. Flewa, rovnako ako naopak on, spomedzi všetkých ostatných zahraničných .účastníkov, najväčšmi upútal moju pozornosť i môj filozofický záujem oňho.

Aksjomatyczna teoria Absolutu Osobowego

Author(s): Edward Nieznański / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/1999

Filozofowie, którzy podejmują się prób argumentacji na rzecz istnienia absolutu, poprzestają zwykle na `wykazywaniu tezy, że byt konieczny jest, tzn. jest realnie, po czym przeskakują – bez argumentacji – do prostego stwierdzenia, quod omnes dicunt Deum.Tymczasem byłoby równie pożądane wykazać, że wyprowadzony filozoficznie absolut jest Bogiem osobowym, wszechmocnym i wszechwiedzącym. To nader złożone zadanie może wyprowadzić niejednego filozofa w pole, wtrącić go do „wieży Babel”, skazując na puste wysiłki myśli w pomieszanych językach.

Alasdair MacIntyre jako krytyk oświeceniowego projektu uzasadnienia moralności (I): Przyczyny kryzysu etyki nowożytnej

Author(s): Sebastian Gałecki / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 13/2016

In the famous “disquieting suggestion” Alasdair MacIntyre has written identifying the hypothetical state of modern ethics as a set of mutually antagonistic, chaotic, irrational and ultimately arbitrary positions. The later work of this extremely popular contemporary Scottish (although for many decades living in the United States) philosopher, sometimes referred to “an interminably long history of ethics”, is devoted mainly two purposes: to prove the arguments put forward in the “disquieting suggestion” and to overcome this crisis. This series of two articles is devoted to the presentation of the first, negative aim of MacIntyre. The eponymous reasons for the crisis of a contemporary moral philosophy, MacIntyre summarizes the three slogans: incommensurability of terms and language, the conceptual incommensurability of rival arguments and the ostensible impersonal, objective rationality. These three elements are a characteristic of all modern ethical theories realising “the enlightenment project of justifying morality.” As an example MacIntyre has shown two post-Enlightenment ethical traditions: liberal individualism (negating the social dimension of the person and the communal base of practical rationality) and emotivism, which is based on the negation of rational discourse, leading to persuasion and propaganda in the moral sphere.

Alice Returns From Wonderland

Ontological Frameworks for Explanation from Contemporary Quantum Theories

Author(s): Mladen Domazet,Mladen Domazet / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 2012

Alice returns from Wonderland discusses scientific explanation and its importance for scientific knowledge. The classical ideal of coherence and completeness of physics was shaken in the early 20th century with the appearance of quantum mechanics, and this opened the floodgates of skepticism about the explanatory potential of science. Through extensive examination of principle and constructive approaches to methodology and explanation in quantum theory, Domazet discusses realist and antirealist approaches to scientific enterprise as a whole. The need for modification of the everyday conceptual framework through modification of some foundational units of the realist material ontology arises. The book argues for the reintroduction of the metaphysical component of science; to base explanations of empirical phenomena on ontological commitments. Despite the unfamiliar phenomena like quantum teleportation, imaginary Alice finds a way to hold on to familiar macroscopic objects, as one of many instances of durable generalized objects subjected not only to spatio-temporal constrictions but also to ontologically primitive fundamental laws of temporal evolution.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the Perception of Reality from the Visual Field of the Other: Analysis of the Relation between Ordinary Language Philosophy and Poststructural Critique of Vision

Author(s): Margareta Jelić / Language(s): English / Issue: 9/2016

The first objective of this work is to establish a parallel between the ordinary language philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein as well as the philosophy of Stanley Cavell and poststructuralism and its theories through their apprehension of vision and seeing as conceptual categories. The second objective is the analysis of perception of reality from the visual field of the other (children, women, other civilizations and peripheral parts of society) as a place of position of the subject in the frame of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic poststructural theory, Jacques Derrida’s deconstructivism and psychoanalytic poststructural feminist theories (Irigaray, Kristeva).

ALMAN İDEALİZMİNDE FICHTE’NİN BEN FELSEFESİ

Author(s): Abdurrazak GÜLTEKİN / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 16/2018

When talking on Philosophy of Self, the philosophical vision thought on the subject by centring the essence of the “Self” that is the subject, comes to mind. The expression that philosophy is a reflexive attitude shows us that philosophy is an activity of reflection on itself. Thinking is always to think of something. When thinking about a subject, this sometimes can be a table, sometimes a desk, sometimes a soul or a God, as well as it can be even a thinking of Self. From this point of view, thinking also means to think itself. Namely, it means to think thinking itself or to think on the person who thinks. This is literally Philosophy of Self. Especially German philosophers have created a philosophical tradition on German Idealism and the Philosophy of Self.

An Anscombean Reference for ‘I’?

Author(s): Robert J. Stainton,Andrew Botterell / Language(s): English / Issue: 54/2018

A standard reading of Anscombe’s “The First Person” takes her to argue, via reductio, that ‘I’ must be radically non-referring. Allegedly, she analogizes ‘I’ to the expletive ‘it’ in ‘It is raining’. Hence nothing need be said about Anscombe’s understanding of “the referential functioning of ‘I’”, there being no such thing. We think that this radical reading is incorrect. Given this, a pressing question arises: How does ‘I’ refer for Anscombe, and what sort of thing do users of ‘I’ refer to? We present a tentative answer which is both consistent with much of what Anscombe says, and is also empirically/philosophically defensible.