Još o neopozitivizmu kod nas
article from iussue 1/1938 of the journal »ŽIVOT. ČASOPIS ZAPOPULARIZACIJU NAUKE«, there pp. 37 to 51
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article from iussue 1/1938 of the journal »ŽIVOT. ČASOPIS ZAPOPULARIZACIJU NAUKE«, there pp. 37 to 51
More...Normativna etika Ričarda M. Hera
According to Hare’s device, an adequate association of two mutually akin but independent theoretical disciplines – metaethics (universal prescriptivism) and normative ethics (utilitarianism) – enables the formation of the complete and coherent moral system. The main subject of this book is reception and critical analysis of Hare’s constructivism; but much more attention is dedicated to the substantive aspect of his doctrine, where idea of all-encompassing ethical theory is fully developed and crystallized. In Hare’s opinion, the fact that something like this is possible is approved by detailed inquiry of the structure of so-called “moral thinking”, which, although in theory divided into three plateaus or levels, in practice can operate as unique faculty. The first part of the book considers Hare’s metaethical doctrine, i.e. metaethical level of moral thinking. This part especially analyzes semantic and logical properties of the moral words and judgments, which Hare grasps and marks off as elements that constitute specific ethical theory in narrow sense under the name of “universal prescriptivism”. Thence, it contrasts the theory with the most prominent types of rival metaethical conceptions; this is a way of showing its supremacy over them. The second part analyzes Hare’s multiple ways of connecting his metaethical with his normative doctrine, which is in formal sense determined as “Kantian utilitarianism”, and in substantive sense as “preference-utilitarianism”. Critical references to both dimensions of utilitarian doctrine aim at indication on scopes and limits of Hare’s ambitious redefinition of the doctrine. In addition, this part accessorily affirms a proposal about certain more rigorous terminological delimitation of different kinds of normativity. Further on it discusses about so-called “necessary ingredients” of moral reasoning, where special attention is being paid on element of “sympathetic imagination”, which Hare grasps in his developed theory not only as a normative demand but also as a logical thesis. Finally, it considers kinds of preferences that can or cannot be recognized (with help of established set of criteria) as morally relevant. The third (the last) part displays so-called “two-level theory” of normative moral thinking (“intuitive” level and “critical” level), including goals that are intended by its establishing. Given Hare’s holism, the metaethical level, considered as fundamental or the “third” level, has notable effect on process of normative reasoning, especially if it is taken as one of the determinant of the critical moral thinking. Upon examining the (utilitarian) character of the theory, its plausibility is verified in the light of its application to one specific theoretical realm – the realm of philosophy of moral upbringing and education.
More...A Theory of Philosophical Explanation
In his latest book Pivčević argues that the scope and limits of rational explanation are set by a number of fundamental categories and principles which are all mutually complementary and interdependent. This lattice of basic categories and principles not only helps make sense of what we experience but conveys how the world is actually made up. In developing this thesis Pivčević is at the same time outlining some of the key features that mark out specifically philosophical explanation as opposed to other types of explanation such as those commonly found in the natural sciences and in naturalistic theology. Reasons for belief can be all sorts, but when do such reasons amount to a rational explanation? The thesis advanced in this book is that the scope and the limits of rational explanation are fixed by a number of fundamental ideas and principles which are all mutually complementary and interdependent, and provide an insight into how the world is actually made up. It is a logical requirement of rational explanation that such ideas, and the principles that go with them, should form a self-supporting analytical system. One such idea and a vital component of the system is the idea of self. This runs counter to what might be described as a ‘naturalistic’ approach to explanation. A naturalistic explanation, essentially, is based on the assumption that the world is fashioned by factors that exist independently of the conditions under which they may feature as objects of belief, rational or otherwise. The ideas in terms of which we make sense of what we experience are treated, accordingly, as ‘emergent’ phenomena and products of human evolution. This feature of naturalistic explanations does not necessarily detract from their capacity to serve as useful prognostic tools. Nevertheless such pragmatic utility as they may have cannot hide their philosophical limitations.
More...Ontological Frameworks for Explanation from Contemporary Quantum Theories
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.
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Book review of: Panorama współczesnej filozofii, Jacek Hołówka, Bogdan Dziobkowski (ed.), Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa 2016, pp. 559.
More...Teme i tumačenja Vitgenštajnove filozofije
This book consists of eight chapters, which encompass various themes, such as the nature of philosophical thinking, methodology of social sciences, problems in political philosophy, character of the human nature and rationality, problems of philosophy of mind and question of rule-following in philosophy of language, all conjoined by Wittgenstein’s late philosophy.
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In this paper I shall try to present the role of analytical tradition in the development of Bulgarian philosophical thought – the critical attitude to it, the acceptance of its results of importance and the sizing of its typical problems. My main thesis is that at present the ideas and problems of analytical philosophers going through a veritable revival in my country.
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In the paper is considered the history of philosophy and philosophers in Veliko Turnovo before the official foundation of our Faculty of Philosophy. Some their advantages are commented from the point of view of the present-day philosophy.
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The article offers arguments for the compatibility of specific types of internalism and externalism in epistemology through a comparative analysis of the approaches based on their aims of investigation. Such compatibility is viewed as possible after the oppositional differences that are related to the elements of justification, are overcome. In this regard, the question about the agents of knowledge is answered, with reference to the thesis about the irreducibility of the internalist condition of reflexive access. Considerations of conceptual clarity and succession are raised with regard to the externalist condition that removes the epistemic arbitrariness in the founding of beliefs.
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The paper uses the concept of microenvironment both literally and figuratively, as a targeted focus of the scientific research on delimited spaces. And the human space is the entire world of both cultural meanings and physical factors, landscapes and systems which constitute the “nest” of the human species. The point is that though there are microenvironments, the human space is more than the ensemble of all their types. Thus, the core of the paper structures around the manners in which both the scholars and the large public in different positions treat these two hypostases of space. The present situation of the treatment of space has its origin in both the different scientific traditions of the concept of space – transposed into “worldviews” (something more than philosophy) and the social relations with their constructions of practical and conceptual order. Accordingly, the paper highlights some aspects in the evolution of scientific boarding of space: especially the research of matter-energy-information as underpinning the representations of space, the objectivity and the constructed character of space, space as a receptacle or as a relation, and also continuity and discontinuity in/as space. The scientific approach of space has erased the speculative philosophy as source of knowledge about it, but this scientific approach took place after the development of philosophical speculative theories about space. The “science of space” has arrived to the demonstration of the inexistence of a unique space for all the living beings – and in some respects, for humans – and at the same time to the dialectics of objective measurements and treatment of the subjective spaces. The main concepts through which people envisage space are nowadays those related mainly to environment, to ecology. They are confronted with anthropocentrism, but first of all with the difference between the advances in the present science and, on the other hand, the inertia of practical treatment of space. Concerning science, the research of both microenvironments (of different sizes) and the ecology of Earth shows the necessity of coherent global policies in order to slow the various crises of the human space: it’s too late to stop them; but not because of objective natural logic of the processes related to space, but because of the socially induced postponement. The present crisis of the human space is so huge that one speaks about the end of the human species. The critique of this theory shows that the future is open, but at the same time that today more and more people search for and experience new ways of life. The necessity of these ways is deduced not from ideal social models but from scientific research. Therefore, the problems of space are under the sign of time, even more clear, of emergency.
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The NOEMA Journal continues to publish, in a series, the book THE SECRET OF GENIALITY (Yerevan, Armenia, Noyan Tapan Printing House, 2002) by our colleague Robert Djidjian, not only because we all must know the philosophical research and creation (in our domain of epistemology and philosophy of science and technology) from a wider geographic area than that provided by the established fashion in virtue of both extra-scientific reasons and a yet obsolete manner to communicate and value the research; but also because the book as such is living, challenging and very instructive. The title of the book is suggestive enough to make us to focus on an old age question: the dialectic of the insight, of the discovery, its psychology moving between flashes of intuitions and cognizance stored in memory, and its logic of composition of knowledge from hypotheses to their demonstration and verification. The realm of science is most conducive to the understanding of this dialectic and the constitution of the ideas which are the proofs of what is the most certain for humans: the “world 3”, as Popper called the kingdom of human results of their intellection, and though transient and perishable in both their uniqueness and cosmic fate, the only certain proof of the reason to be of homo sapiens in the frame of multiversal existence. Therefore, creation is the secret of the human geniality, and how to create science is a main part of this secret.
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The text introduces concepts which are in a way related to the conception of Aesthetics as the theory of art criticism. Through argumentation, the text aims at the integration into the wide stream of analytic Aesthetics. The writing method has two aspects: an explication of historical facts on the one hand, an analysis of rather recent concepts on the other. Many structured considerations appear as the text moves along, and that is why the whole book is opened with a short explanation of the concept of argument.
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The specialized understanding of natural kinds (NK) has a theoretical impact on the concept of emergent properties (EP) in particular, as well as on the understanding of the phenomenon of emergence as a whole. The problem is closely related to the tendencies towards their essentialization and theoretical demarcation. The theoretical tension is inevitably manifested in the attempts to consolidate the two concepts, which are generally considered in essentialist terms. A naturalistic, non-essentialist, approach could integrate them into a unified theoretical method, avoiding the problems of their traditional analysis. In the article, NK will be considered as reaction clusters, and EP as complexes of reaction clusters. Both will be directly related to the introduced concepts of reaction potential and stability. The relationship between these concepts will be defined and operationalized, thus explicating the result, considering the phenomenon of emergence as enhancing the reaction potential of a given structure or a complex system, which is in a proportional relation to its net stability.
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The article shows that Ludwig Wittgenstein used mostly pragmatic analysis to study the problem of knowledge in the later period. Without giving clear definitions of epistemological concepts, he argued that our interpretations of knowledge depend on the context of language-games, ideas of truth, certainty and justification, as well as the level of education and culture that form our way of life. It was found that the ideas of pragmatics were useful to Wittgenstein in order to more clearly define the nature of true knowledge, to outline the specifics of our refleсtions about certainty, as well as to analyze in detail all aspects of the justification. It is stated that his epistemological researches and discussions around them raised a wide range of not only linguistic but also psychological, cognitive and metaphysical issues, which made our understanding of the nature of knowledge much more comprehensive.
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The article examines Ludwig Wittgenstein’s views on the world and human beings in it. It is emphasized that the philosopher, in addition to paying a lot of attention to the study of language, which determined the basis of his method of cognition, followed a number of worldview ideas about reality. They were supported by the achievements of physics of that time, although Wittgenstein himself argued that the study of reality is not possible without understanding the metaphysical issues concerning the unspeakable, supernatural, spiritual, and so on. It shows how Wittgenstein interpreted the world and reality, distinguished between different levels of being, studied logical atoms, not laws, analyzed facts, not things, comprehended not only the macrocosm but also the microcosm, and as a result built a pragmatic ontological-cosmological conception, in which human and the way of their being in the world occupied a significant place.
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When philosophy of mind goes into every detail in explaining about consciousness and its every aspect, the problem of other minds being its part is not spared. In such context going against the traditional way of giving justification Wittgenstein novel approach to other minds is remarkable and is close to the phenomenological understanding. The analysis of the sensation of pain as one of its important factors in solving the other minds problem is unique and it is this that proves how Wittgenstein dissolves the problem rather than giving a solution. This article focuses Wittgenstein’s two important factors: Private Language Argument and the concept of the sensation of pain in dissolving the issue. And in this I have made an attempt to show how his novelty in approaching this problem gains importance even today.
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Man is often told that life begins with birth. Hindu tradition is one of those examples that highlight the fact that life begins much earlier, with early stages of pregnancy. We shall not adopt a position from a medical or ethical point of view, but will emphasize this claim judging by the care and effort put into the well-being and good health of foetus and expectant mother by members of this religious tradition from ancient times. Archaic Hindu society was very strongly under the spell of the supernatural and magical, which surfaces in many sacred texts. It is interesting to notice and understand how the supernatural, religious and social intertwine and bring order into the lives of its people.The present paper focuses on pre-natal rites of passage as having an ordering quality in man’s life, mentioning key examples from sacred texts related to cultural and religious details that are the backbone of Hindu tradition. It is a shy attempt to bring to light features in the thought process of the ancient Hindu society in order to better relate and comprehend the treasures of its rich past.
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Analytic description, according to members of the Lvov-Warsaw School (LWS) like Czeżowski, Ajdukiewicz, Ossowska, Tarski is a powerful and an indispensable tool, not only in philosophy but also in any natural science – in psychology especially. It should be equally respected together with empirical analysis and even it is recommended that it should precede any further research. Therefore, the book Analiza i konstrukcja: o metodach badania pojęć w Szkole Lwowsko-Warszawskiej [Analysis and construction: on the methods of researching concepts in the Lvov-Warsaw School] can be recommended to philosophers as well as scientists.
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The article shows that in matters of philosophy of religion, when the sphere of interest of Wittgenstein went beyond logical and linguistic analysis, he attached special importance to a pragmatic approach to the interpretation of religious experience. Wittgenstein’s philosophico-religious studies were largely inspired by the events of his own life , as well as the ideas of individual thinkers, including the pragmatic philosopher William James. In Wittgenstein’s work one can find both a substantiation of the originality of religion and its impossibility of analysis from the standpoint of science, and a conviction in the expediency of religious experience in human life. It is revealed how Wittgenstein, analyzing the main manifestations of religious experience, pragmatically eliminated contradictions in the comprehension of knowledge about God (as unspeakable), pointed out the importance of transition from skepticism to belief as a basis for experience of absolute safety, took into account socio-practical aspects of various ethico-religious experiences such as feeling guilty. The author finds out how Wittgenstein interpreted the practical value of religious experience, analyzed the language of religion, as well as revealed its socio-psychological and ethical aspects.
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This article investigates one of the main notions of pragmatic linguistics, namely, the theory of speech acts. Aleksandra Paliczuk analyzes relations between thought, word, and action. The project involves examining the structure of language and of its components through the ideas of different linguistic schools. It aims to answer the question posed in one of John L. Austin’s works, How to Do Things with Words (1955/1962). It endeavors to explain the capability or the possibility of understanding some words, expressions or sentences, even if their literal meaning differs from the intended one. This article defines the concept of the speech act, also in relation to the contemporary possibilities of communicating in the virtual world, and explains why it entails the three components of thought, word, and action. As a result, we find out that there are many complex relations regarding different human abilities and other forms of activity.
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