"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.

(In)distinct Languages: Revisiting the Dualism of Literal and Literary Meaning in Roman Jakobson and Donald Davidson

Author(s): Aleksandar Mijatović / Language(s): English Issue: 21/2021

The paper traces the relationship between the literal and literary language that is found in structuralism and analytic philosophy. The paper’s gist provides a comparative account of Roman Jakobson’s and Donald Davidson’s notions of poetic language and their relation to the general idea of language as it is given in their work. In reconsidering Jakobson’s and Davidson’s arguments, I propose abandoning the dualistic hypotheses of the oppositions between literal and non-literal language, and between literal and literary language. I contend that the notions of first and literal meanings are necessary for other types of interpretation. The dualistic hypothesis requires the cascade model, which displays a bottom-top transition across hierarchically arranged levels of meanings. Instead, I outline the multilayered structure of language with two thresholds: mimetic and semiotic. Therefore, the cascade model should be replaced with the palimpsest model of concurring, merging, and blending layers of meanings.

(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 Causal-Mentalist View of Propositions

Author(s): Jeremiah Joven Joaquin,James Franklin / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In order to fulfill their essential roles as the bearers of truth and the relata of logical relations, propositions must be public and shareable. That requirement has favoured Platonist and other nonmental views of them, despite the well-known problems of Platonism in general. Views that propositions are mental entities have correspondingly fallen out of favour, as they have difficulty in explaining how propositions could have shareable, objective properties. We revive a mentalist view of propositions, inspired by Artificial Intelligence work on perceptual algorithms, which shows how perception causes persistent mental entities with shareable properties that allow them to fulfill the traditional roles of (one core kind of) propositions. The clustering algorithms implemented in perception produce outputs which are (implicit) atomic propositions in different minds. Coordination of them across minds proceeds by game-theoretic processes of communication.

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 CRITIQUE OF SUSAN HAACK’S FOUNDHERENTIST THEORY OF EMPIRICAL JUSTIFICATION

Author(s): Olanshile Muideen Adeyanju / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

In traditional epistemological discourse, the tripartite theory of knowledge is the conception of knowledge as justified true belief. Each condition of knowledge – belief, truth and justification – has evoked critical discussions among philosopher. However, for its nature of epistemic normativity, justification has evoked more critical reviews and there has been the development of different theories in its regard. Among traditional theories of justification are foundationalism and coherentism. Susan Haack argues that these two are inadequate theories of justification due to some flaws – foundationalism is susceptible to the problem of infinite regress while coherentism is susceptible to circularity problem. She proposes foundherentism, an intermediate theory of justification between foundationalism and coherentism, which she argues addresses the flaws of the traditional theories through an epistemic combination of the relevance of experience for the justification of empirical beliefs as well as pervasive mutual dependence among beliefs. In this paper, I argue that Haack’s foundherentism fails as an adequate theory of justification. The position of this paper is that foundherentism does not pointedly address the problems of regress and circularity, hence it fails on the same ground as foundationalism and coherentism.

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 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

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: 09/2016

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).