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(Mock-)Thinking about the Same

Author(s): Alberto Voltolini / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2017

In this paper, I want to address once more the venerable problem of intentional identity, the problem of how different thoughts can be about the same thing even if this thing does not exist. First, I will try to show that antirealist approaches to this problem are doomed to fail. For they ultimately share a problematic assumption, namely that thinking about something involves identifying it. Second, I will claim that once one rejects this assumption and holds instead that thoughts are constituted either by what they are about, their intentional objects, or by what determines their proposition-like intentional contents, one can address the problem of intentional identity in a different way. One can indeed provide a new solution to it that basically relies on two factors: a) what sort of metaphysical nature intentional objects effectively possess, once they are conceived as schematic objects à la Crane (2001, 2013); b) whether such objects really belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is. According to this solution, two thoughts are about the same nonexistent intentional object iff i) that object satisfies the identity criterion for objects of that metaphysical kind and ii) objects of that kind belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is, independently of whether they exist (in a suitable first-order sense of existence). As such, this solution is neither realist nor antirealist: only if condition ii) is satisfied, different thoughts can be about the same nonexistent intentionale; otherwise, they are simply constituted by the same intentional content (provided that this content is not equated with that intentionale). Third, armed with this solution, I will hold that one can find a suitable treatment of the specific and related problem of whether different people may mock-think about the same thing, even if there really is no such thing. Finally, I will try to show that this treatment can be also applied to the case in which different thoughts are, according to phenomenology, about the same intentionale and yet this intentionale is of a kind such that there really are no things of that kind. For in this case, such thoughts are about the same intentionale only fictionally.

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30 lat Dizajnu na co dzień. Komentarz i recenzja przekładu książki Dona Normana

Author(s): Witold Wachowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2019

Book review of the Polish translation

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A Bigger God and the Pre-Creation Situation: Some Remarks Inspired by William Hasker

Author(s): Jacek Wojtysiak / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In the present essay, while entering into discussion with William Hasker, I addressed two divine dilemmas in “the pre-creation situation.” My considerations focused on the reasons for creating a world—the love (grace) reason and the manifestation reason—which in some way prevailed over the reasons against creating a world (the no need reason and the imperfection reason) and whose concurrence prompted the image of an (rather relatively) optimal creatable world. It turns out that the latter resembles both our world and the world suggested by Hasker’s theism. In that world, God has brought to existence both what is unworthy (thus showing his grace in a special way) and what displays high degrees of excellence (thus manifesting his glory). On this view, the eschatological conclusion of the world would be the full actualization of divine grace and of the manifestation of God. In the final part of the essay, I attempted to show that my view does not entail the rejection of the idea of divine impassibility.

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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.

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A COMMENTARY UPON GADAMER’S INTERPRETATION OF HEGEL

Author(s): Anton Crişan / Language(s): English Issue: Sp.Iss./2015

A Commentary upon Gadamer’s Interpretation of Hegel. In light of a renewed scholarly undertaking of the Hegel‒Gadamer connection, the purpose of the present paper is to carry further this much needed re-approach of the issue by stressing yet another one of its aspects. I am referring to the scholarly insights that Gadamer himself provides us with in his interpretation of Hegel. Since many of Gadamer’s essays on Hegel are actually studies originally meant as contributions to major journals dealing with Hegel’s work, my claim is that we can retrieve from them answers to many ongoing debates in the Hegel scholarship. I will insist on only one of these issues, namely Gadamer’s account of Hegel’s relation to metaphysics.

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A Different Take on Humanities

Author(s): Włodzimierz Bolecki / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2015

The foreword to this issue focuses on the core functional differences between the humanities and hard sciences (i.e. different approaches to such phenomena as language, translation, teamwork, writing, discipline.s history, publishing, tradition, innovation). Yet, this dichotomy is questioned in the conlusion. The author argues that whenever human artifacts are at stake, both the humanites and experimental sciences are equally hard, because they inquire the same matter, ie. how the products of human cognitive activities were created and what are their social functions. Therefore, the author calls for a new model for interdisciplinary studies.

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A Dilemma about the Mental

Author(s): Guy Dove,Andreas Elpidorou / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one-viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory-is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. The purpose of this essay is to argue that attempts to characterize the mental encounter a similar dilemma: currentism with respect to the mental is likely to be inadequate or contain falsehoods and futurism leaves too many significant questions about the nature of mentality unanswered. This new dilemma, we show, threatens both sides of the current debate surrounding the metaphysical status of the mind.

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A Discriminative Ontology for Future Selves

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A Discriminative Ontology for Future Selves

Author(s): Juraj Odorčák / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

The article presents a critique of the commonly held assumption about the practical advantage of endurantism over perdurantism regarding the problem of future-directed self-concern of a person. The future-directed self-concern of a person crucially depends on the possibility of the right differentiation of diverging futures of distinct persons, therefore any theory of persistence that does not entail a special non-branching relation of a person to only their future self seems to be counterintuitive or unrealistic for practical purposes of personal persistence. I argue that this pragmatic rationale about future-directed self-concern is equally challenging for both theories of persistence. Moreover, I indicate, that both of these theories fall and stand on the practical feasibility of hidden ontological presuppositions about specific second-order notions of concerns of persons for their future.

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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.

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A Few Comments on the Linda Problem

Author(s): Adam Olszewski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017

This paper discusses an experiment in cognitive psychology called the Linda problem. Firstly, some natural conditions for the correctness of the interpretation of psychological experiments (such as the Linda problem) are formulated. The article is essentially a critique of the interpretation of the results of the Linda problem experiment provided by Kahneman and Tversky as well as – indirectly – their concept of heuristics. It is shown that the interpretation provided by Kahneman and Tversky does not meet the aforementioned conditions for correctness. The main argument is justified utilizing such rules of rationality as conditional probability and Grice’s conversational maxims. It is also pointed out that this argument can be reformulated in terms of the intuitive system of reasoning.

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A Model-Based Method of Extension and Intension

Author(s): Miguel López-Astorga / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The semantic method of extension and intension presented by Rudolf Carnap may have some problems from the current perspective in cognitive science. For example, that method is strongly linked to logic, and it is hard to determine where its state-descriptions come from, how many they are, and what the relation of accessibility between them is. This paper tries to solve difficulties such as those by updating the method resorting to the theses and results of a contemporary reasoning theory: the theory of mental models. Basically, the update consists of replacing the state-descriptions of the original method with the possibilities of the theory of mental models. That allows reformulating several relevant concepts in Carnap’s method in order to better adjust them to the real characteristics of human language.

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A Neo-Lockean Theory of the Trinity and Incarnation

Author(s): Joseph Jedwab / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

I present two problems: the logical problem of the Trinity and the metaphysical problem of Incarnation. I propose a solution to both problems: a Neo-Lockean theory of the Trinity and Incarnation, which applies a Neo-Lockean theory of personal identity to the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation.

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A New Supplement to Spiritual Leadership from Spiritual Intelligence Conceptions and Etymologic Research

Author(s): Michael Hagemann / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

In recent years, both the topic of "Spiritual Leadership" and "Spiritual Intelligence" have been described many times independently of each other. Furthermore, in none of the various studies is the original meaning of "spiritual" referenced, nor are the definitions of “Spiritual Intelligence" integrated into the concept of "Spiritual Leadership”. This study, therefore, pursues a twofold objective: First, commonalities between different concepts of "Spiritual Intelligence" are used to formulate a new construct with four main principles. Then, the origin and original understanding of "spiritual" will be researched and discussed. Both are applied to the concept of "Spiritual Leadership” and supplement its structural framework.

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A Novel Reading of Thomas Nagel’s “Challenge” to Physicalism

Author(s): Serdal Tümkaya / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

In passing remarks, some commentators have noted that for Nagel, physicalism is true. It has even been argued that Nagel seeks to find the best path to follow to achieve future physicalism. I advance these observations by adding that for Nagel, we should discuss the consciousness problem not in terms of physical and mental issues but in terms of our desire to include consciousness in an objective/scientific account, and we can achieve this only by revising our self-conception, i.e., folk psychology, to develop a more detached view of experience. Through the project of objective phenomenology, Nagel aims to achieve some sort of objective, detached, and scientific explanation of the subjective nature of experience. This project seeks to make the truth of physicalism intelligible and consciousness more amenable to scientific study, potentially raising an even broader concept than the one physicalism originally proposes.

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A POSSIBLE TRANSDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF TODAY'S TECHNOLOGICAL EXPANSION

Author(s): Gabriela Pohoață / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

The current research work aims at analyzing the relationship between the intellectual development of the human being and the advancement of current technology, trying to identify the limits of this relationship. We start from the premise that the transdisciplinary approach, by making use of fundamentals, can provide an insight both into the current technological reality and its future perspectives. The recourse to philosophy to understand what is happening today with man in relation to technology is conferred by the need to seek the basis of this progress of human thought that is not immune to insurmountable difficulties and undesirable effects.

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A Psychoanalytic Reading of Selected Persian Children’s Plays

Author(s): Zeinab Karimi,Bahee Hadaegh / Language(s): English Issue: 02/2020

Once theatre aims at children, who are the citizens and decision makers of the future, it can influence the course of society through the values and worldviews that it promotes. The exceptional capacity of this medium in engaging the audience, along with children’s receptiveness, necessitates a meticulous study of the ideologies embedded in plays. This study unravels how these ideological factors can hamper the theatre’s main purpose which is to encourage the audience to form individual fantasies. Accordingly, Žižek’s theories are drawn upon for their hints on ideology, fantasy, reality, and subjectivity. Taking his psychoanalytic views into account, four Persian plays are examined to determine what ideologies underlie these plays’ motifs and instructions, as well as what may justify their presence in plays. On close inspection, it becomes evident that these plays are loaded with conscious manipulative ideologies which are intended to train homogeneous social members rather than present objective glimpses of real life.

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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.

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A Reason to Avoid the Causal Construal of Dispositional Explanations

Author(s): Lilia Gurova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

Those who argue that dispositional explanations are genuine explanations usually construe them as causal explanations. There are several well-known arguments against the causal efficacy of dispositions, but there are as well demonstrations that on some minimal conditions, dispositions could be viewed as causally relevant to the effects which they are taken to explain. Although the latter position is generally tenable, it may be shown that in some important cases it is not a good idea to commit to a causal construal of dispositional explanations. The argument goes as follows: (1) Dispositional explanations are valued for certain specific extra-inferences which they allow us to draw; (2) The causal construal of dispositional explanations can account for some of these extra-inferences only on the assumption that the disposition is a common cause of its manifestations; (3) However, under certain circumstances, the common cause assumption is refuted on theoretical or empirical grounds; Therefore, (4) under certain circumstances, the causal construal of dispositional explanations cannot account for what these explanations are valued for. The latter conclusion is a reason to argue that in some cases at least, the causal construal of dispositional explanations should be avoided.

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A Trial of Interpretation of Meister Eckhart’s Thought on God and Man through the Analysis of Its Paradoxes

Author(s): Zbigniew Kaźmierczak / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This article interprets Eckhart’s contradictions by presenting them as a result of an existential search for salvific power. It is shown that power is ambivalent in nature: it is the power of what is and the power of (self)overcoming (of what is). Just because power is in itself ambivalent and the process of searching for it existentialist (so not completely conscious), Eckhart’s mystical texts are full of contradictions and the German mystic is apparently not aware of it. The sample of them is shown in this article with regard to his ideas on God and man. Three other interpretations of Eckhart’s (“apophatic,” “educational,” “methodological”) are presented and argued against.

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Abejoti dėl laiko. Belaikiškumas vėlyvojoje Paulio Celano kūryboje

Author(s): Inga Bartkuvienė / Language(s): Lithuanian Issue: 4/2019

The poetry of Paul Celan has a reflected intention to ask about the temporal determination of human being and simultaneously questions the term and definition of time. In may of his works he reflects he the catastrophic transformation, the reflection also includes the revision of the conventional conception of time. He tries to show, that beside the usual forms of historical, causal und linear time, individuals also perceive timelessness. Paradoxically, the accomplishment of a historical event (Holocaust) evokes a consciousness of the historical caesura, and thus of the untold and the inhospitable. In his perception, for the poet, writing (after holocaust) means writing after apocalyptic break, where history does not exist, in other words surrounded by the timelessness. The task of preserving the memory of what happened in poetry goes hand in hand with the awareness of a disorder and often borders on the impossibility of verbalizing what has happened or even being able to express itself verbally. The experience of disconnection from the temporal sequence of events (through trauma) coincides with the moments of speechlessness, emptiness in consciousness, verbal utterance, and time experience overlap. This tendency is radicalized especially in his late work. In this article late works of Paul Celan, that deal with the questions of timelessness and manifestations of it are analysed (“Zeitlücke”, “Die Trombonestelle” “Largo” and others).

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