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Writing his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley was well aware that his thesis about non–existence of material substance would not be welcomed equally by learned and ordinary people. However, he was prepared for the expected discussion and tried to answer some objections in advance. He continued the fight against his opponents in his second work, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. The controversy embraced many topics and the aim of this paper is to present Berkeley’s attempt at showing his immaterialism as a position being in complete agreement with the world view (and cognition thereof) of so–called plain people. Berkeley considered himself a defender of their common sense, standing in opposition to the views of the learned. Berkeley maintained that the concept of material substance was an abstract idea invented by philosophers to explain the structure of the material world, but in his view the very idea was at the same time simply incomprehensible and redundant. He tried to persuade his readers that a ‘plain man’ neither uses nor needs the abstract idea of substance to understand and know the world he perceives. Berkeley points out some common–sensical beliefs and then puts forward arguments that his immaterialistic thesis is in full agreement with these beliefs. What is more, he argues that the views of his opponents stand in contradiction to these very common–sensical beliefs. To prove this, he identifies some metaphysical consequences of the representationalistic theory of perception. He says that in the world of this theory there exist only some material particles furnished with primary qualities but no objects from our ordinary sensory experience. According to this theory, we cannot trust our senses and that is why we must abandon it and adopt the position of presentationalism and common sense.
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This paper discusses Thomas Aquinas’ stance on the relation between intellect and human soul, where the former is a power and the latter its principle. Due to the fact that Aquinas understands soul as the form of a body, rather than its mover, the problem of how to separate and characterize intellective powers arises. For it is accidental intellectuality that enables cognitive and volitional acts, which are independent of body in their essence. To explain his own position, Aquinas employs the so-called “impediment argument” for the spirituality of the human intellect. He also employs the whole/part distinction when discussing the relation between intellect and soul as whole/part categories. As a result, his account can avoid Averroistic flaws without having to identify intellect with the soul or the whole human being (as argued by Albert the Great). M. Gogacz’s thesis that the intellectual accident of the soul is identical with the possible intellect seems to solve the problem of the accidental and potential character of this particular human power.
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The article "Philosopie als strenge Wissenschaft" ("Philosophy as a Rigorous Science") by Edmund Husserl published in 1911 at the request of the editors of "Logos" is a specific manifesto of phenomenology. The article combines Husserl’s early philosophy, the so–called eidetic phenomenology, with transcendental phenomenology. Also, it presents an outline of the project of philosophical, scientific and cultural revival. This project is a return to the classical ideal of philosophy as theoretical cognition that constitutes the ultimate reason. Philosophy so understood gives priority to the thing itself, and its aim is truth as an absolute value. The project of philosophical revival as outlined by Husserl was born in a particular intellectual situation of the 19th century. This situation was marked by two great philosophical traditions: Kantism and positivism. The former was the formalism a priori, the latter – the empiricism (however it restricted the object of possible experience to the material world). Both of them eventually departed from the thing itself, either considering it unknowable or accepting its depiction proposed by natural sciences. It resulted in agnosticism, scepticism, scientism and psychologism. The remedy for such a state of things lay in building a new philosophy of the absolute beginning. This philosophy was supposed to be a rigorous science in the form of phenomenology as the science of pure consciousness.
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Book Review: Arturo Escobar, "Sentir-penser avec la Terre. Une écologie au-delà de l’Occident", Seuil, coll. Anthropocène, 2018, 240 pp
This book review is about the French translation of a book by the anthropologist Arturo Escobar that, though it has not been translated into English yet, deserves to be known by English readers. This book is quite important since it allows one to understand occidental, capitalist and modern hegemony not only as an economic domination but above all as a cultural, epistemological and ontological colonisation. Indeed, according to Escobar, this domination takes its roots in the Occident’s ontology which translates into hegemonic practices that are concrete threats to the other worlds and their dwellers. Thus, Escobar highlights the deep link between ontologies and practices and argues for a new field of study he calls political ontology or ontological politics. To accompany the proposition of a shift from a universal nature to a pluriverse composed of many worlds, Escobar does not only undermine the prejudices of modernity but also puts forward the relational ontologies from indigenous communities of Latin America that concretely resist colonisation, underlining the ontological dimension of their struggles. Such a framework enables one to overcome or at least minimize the distinction between theory and practice.
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The paper offers a kind of a critical reflection on the discussion about the philosophy of Skolem-Lowenheim’s theorem between J. Życiński and A. Lemańska. This discussion appeared on the pages of "Studia Philosophiae Christianae" between 1986 and 1988 and focused on the question of the limits of extrapolation of the Skolem–Löwenheim’s theorem outside the area of formalised discourse. The author takes an intermediate position between the “extrapolation’s optimism” of J. Życiński and the “extrapolation’s scepticism” of A. Lemańska.
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In this article I argue that alternative music can change the world when it migrates from the realm of music to that of ideas. I take the example of My Chemical Romance, and I break down the claim that it changed the world of their fans firstly through a “change of language”, by using the structuralist tool of intertextuality, and secondly through a “change of hearts”, by building on the cathartic usage of emotions, both for themselves and their fanbase. I also explore the dangers intricate in the process, and I discuss a sample of accusations they were subjected to from the media.
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V. Beron's life and activities ensure the uniformity of our spiritual growth. In his work „Logic" he uses idealistic and teological ideas with aspects of transcendental philosophy. There is a conceptual proximity with Kant in respect of the purpose and the borders of cognition . He accepts philosophy as ontology, gnoseology and methodology simultaneously . He shows the philosophical essence of logic which consists in the search for truth. He poses the conception for the methodological functions of logic and considers the interrelations between psychology and logic, between mathematical and logical thought, too. Beron expresses a dialectical attitude to scientific cognition and thought in his idea of system. The conditions, which he poses, for constructing the systematic entity, get near the contemporary opinion for a syntactic fullness and a logical consistency of the system. His idea concerning the doctrine of system finds it objective expression in the contemporary science for abstract or cybernetic systems.
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In this paper I will investigate and distinguish the basic form and meaning of the overcoming of nihilism in the philosophical thinking of Nietzsche.
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review of: Николина Сретенова. Постмодерната наука и нейните критици. Sofia, Херон Прес, 1998
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