Experimenting with Living Nature: Documented Practices of Sixteenth-Century Naturalists and Naturalia Collectors

Author(s): Florike Egmond / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

This article discusses experimentation in the context of sixteenth-century natural history, or natural science as I prefer to call it here. It uses predominantly textual sources, many of them manuscript letters, from different European countries, mainly Italy, the Low Countries, France and Germany-Austria. The focus is on the practice of experimentation and its documentation, partly because I proceed from the assumption that the investigation of living nature did not necessarily entail the same type of experimentation as contemporary alchemy, pharmacy, or medicine, although all these domains of knowledge and their practitioners overlapped. The subject matter to some extent imposed its own rules. The first part of this essay analyses experimentation in the garden, which often combined practical purposes with research ones. The second and third parts discuss experimentation with both plants and animals that originated in more general questions or led to more wide-ranging conclusions about natural phenomena. The final section discusses the links with natural philosophy in these different types of experimentation in natural science, and addresses the possible implications for the concept of experimentation itself in the period shortly before the ”new science” of the seventeenth century.

A sokféleség két formája és a homogenizáció

Author(s): János Tóth I. / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

Diversity is the unity of sameness and non-sameness (difference). In a basic situation, the more significant the difference, the greater the diversity. However, the organic systems based on relatively homogeneous groups, sub-units and structures are governed by special rules. The heterogenization of groups, that is, their dissolution decreases diversity. I propose to present this paradox effect of homogenization through examples taken from biology and social studies. The structural diversity of humanity is closely linked to the objective and subjective sameness and identity of individuals. There are three fundamental, political approaches to relate to human diversity: hierarchy, the approach that emphasizes difference; equality that emphasizes sameness, and equality that emphasizes difference. The first approach belongs to the outworn past, therefore the battle for defining the future takes place between the remaining two approaches. The aspect that these approaches are debating is whether it is the individual form of diversity (globalization, deconstruction) or its structural form (emancipation, sovereignty) that must be promoted.

Lehet-e természetes a digitális?

Author(s): Dénes Tamás / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

The essay’s concern is to estimate the digital phenomenon. First, it tries to understand clearly the phenomenon itself, the threefold connection between digitalization – virtuality – digital world. The essay then charts the apocalyptical approaches related to digitalization. All this in order to interpret the dismissive representations and behaviors related to different aspects of the digital world, looking at the phenomenon both from the point of view of possibilities and of losses.

Ut pictura poesis – adalék a posztmediális állapot előtörténetéhez

Author(s): Adrienne Gálosi / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

By examining the art history of the middle of the 20th century, the study attempts to show how the medium as an ontological concept of art was challenged and then dismissed, and how the question of the nature of art became fully conceptual. Starting from Clement Greenberg’s theory of medium specificity, it explores how abstract expressionism, then minimalist sculpture, and finally conceptualism could relate to time and space, how they could form their own time and space perceptions, and sensations, and how this determined the question of what constitutes a work of art.

A kép „nyelve”

Author(s): Mónika Jáger-Péter / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

In my paper I wish to prove that the truth of the pictures does not stand in correlation with reality. The picture is not the reflection of everyday things, but a different, truer representation of things. The privilege of pictures stands in their being able to always go beyond themselves. The picture possesses a particular kind of logic, as its delotic logos, that is, its nature of showing the thing itself but from a different perspective as well in the same time, cannot be grasped conceptually or by language translation.

Hannah Arendt az ágostoni szeretetfogalomról

Author(s): Erzsébet Kerekes / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

In 2019, 90 years have passed since the publication of the doctoral thesis entitled Der Liebesbegriffbei Augustin. Versuch einer philosophischen Interpretation, written by Hannah Arendt under the supervision of Karl Japsers, and 2020 marks 1590 years since the death of St. Augustine. On the occasion of these anniversaries, we investigated the influence of St. Augustine on Hannah Arendt’s work. The philosophical analysis of the Augustinian concept of love made by Hannah Arendt in her doctoral thesis has decisively influenced the complete work of the thinker, the elaboration of the basic concepts, and the specific philosophical problems.

Az összetartozáson innen és túl

Author(s): Dávid Horváth / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

In my paper, I investigate Heidegger’s Parmenides-interpretations. My question is: what is the relation between them and the Heideggerian interpretation of the so called Likeness Principle – like is understood only by like – which is known especially from hermeneutical texts. I analyse the interpretations of the 3rd fragment of Parmenides in a chronological way and I attempt to accompany the German thinker on his thinking path leading to the German terms Selbe and Zusammengehören that are probably untranslatable within the Heideggerian context. Meanwhile, I intend to reveal the turns and the junctions, which characterise Heidegger’s point of view relating to both Parmenides and the Likeness Principle, and also the differences that could be detected between their Heideggerian reading and an idealistic one. Moreover, the less explicit intention of this paper is the following: helping with the preparation of a future, deeper account regarding the Likeness Principle.

Szemle

Author(s): András A. Gergely,Botond Bakcsi,András Áron Ivácson,Annamária Lázár,Szilárd Zoltán Ilyés,Pál Petki / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

Book-reviews: A. Gergely András: Közös tudás, kultusz, örökség-megértés — Bakcsi Botond: Filozófiai átjárások — Ivácson András Áron: A tudomány a neoliberális fordulat után — Lázár Annamária: Ötszáz év történéseiről — Ilyés Szilárd-Zoltán: Közös dolgainkról — Petki Pál: Az önmagaság metamorfózisai és határai

The Three Faces of the Cogito: Descartes (and Aristotle) on Knowledge of First Principles

Author(s): Murray Miles / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

With the systematic aim of clarifying the phenomenon sometimes described as “the intellectual apprehension of first principles,” Descartes’ first principle par excellence is interpreted before the historical backcloth of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. To begin with, three “faces” of the cogito are distinguished: (1) the proto-cogito (“I think”), (2) the cogito proper (“I think, therefore I am”), and (3) the cogito principle (“Whatever thinks, is”). There follows a detailed (though inevitably somewhat conjectural) reconstruction of the transition of the mind from (1) via (3) to (2) and back again to (3). What emerges is, surprisingly, a non-circular, non-logical, and ultimately non-mysterious process by which first principles implicitly contained in a complex intuition are gradually rendered explicit (and, if abstract, grasped in their abstract universality). This process bears a striking family resemblance to that intuitive induction (“grasping the universal in the particular”) which Aristotle scholars have distinguished from empirical forms of induction.

Dialogical and Mediatory Potential of an Integral Ecology

Author(s): Stanisław Jaromi / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The encyclical Laudato si’ is a Catholic document synthesizing the reflection on the main issues related to ecology as well as to nature and climate protection. It provides a new perspective for ecological activity in the light of integral ecology principles. In many countries, this encyclical has become a point of reference for Catholics in the context of the ecological crisis, especially by the fact of its highlighting the religious and spiritual perspective and giving concrete examples of both ecological and Christian lifestyles. Chapter 5 of the encyclical outlines, moreover, the concept of dialogue that brings hope for abandoning the spiral of self-destruction in which humanity is now sinking. The concept of communicative humanism and its mechanisms i.e. actions restoring values and creating a community have been proposed to establish the platform for this dialogue. The program is based on personalism and Christian hermeneutics, and its goal is a Church interested in the world and its problems, a one which on a par with others wants to say STOP to the destruction of the earth and its irresponsible exploitation.

The Relationship between Performance of the Administrative System and National Authority of Governments: An Islamic Point Of View

Author(s): Jafari Mahtab / Language(s): English Issue: 10/2018

Each government consists of two dimensions: 1) a sructural dimension that involves policy- and decision-making bodies and, 2) a functional dimension that is a set of government institutions and administrations. Also, national authority in a country is an outcome of three components, including legitimacy, acceptance, and efficiency of its government. The authority of governments is not merely limited to their structural legitimacy and acceptance; but, their functional dimension and the performance of their administrations also play a crucial role in building and strengthening their legitimacy. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to investigate how the administrative system of a government affects its national authority, with an emphasis on the Islamic point of view. To do so, this research has been carried out within the framework of theoretical research with practical purpose. The research method of the current study was descriptive-analytical. In the present study, the relationship between two variables—namely, “administrative system” and “national authority”--has been investigated within the framework of causal research. Due to the theoretical nature of this study, the resources used mostly include documents and library resources. The results of this study indicate that there is a direct and causal relationship between the national authority of governments (effect) and the performance of their administrative system (cause). Also, this relationship reveals how the administrative system affects national authority.

WASILY KANDINSKY’NİN DOĞAÇLAMALARI VE MANEVİ DUYGU

Author(s): Yasemin Tümer Çelik / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 15/2019

This research is based on Kandinsky’s improvisation and his philosophy. In this study; the concept of of stimming and its similar sides with islamic philosophy is tried to be revealed. Kandinsky’s life and artistic stages have been mentioned throughout the research.

Papierowa elitarność

Author(s): Tomasz Bielak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 28/2019

In the article I focus on six numbers of the Polish edition of "Vogue" magazine. The analysis concerns the opening issue and September issue. I link interpretations of selected fragments of the magazine, covers, the most popular models, influencers and so-called "interesting people" quite experimentally. Thinking of the hermeneutical way of reading texts of culture, I use a method from qualitative sociology: auto-ethnography. I read the texts (articles, interviews, photos, signatures of advertisements) without scientific distance, connecting conclusions with the beginnings of Polish capitalism and the lack of a clear, self-aware, educated middle class. The story of "Vogue" is a story about the generation of today's forty-year-olds. The magazine enabled them to think about a sentimental journey to the beginnings of the free market economy and democracy after 1989.

Паника и философия

Author(s): Boyan Manchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 41/2020

COVID-19 would have never been so ‘effective’ without its capacity to ‘pirate’ the global techno-economic networks: its microscopic ‘mind’ allows it to act in a macrotechnological, planetary scale. That is why the first effect of the virus was so spectacular and so disastrous: contemporary Leviathan petrified for a moment while facing its own doppelganger. This meditation on the current condition starts from a passage from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and continues by examining the possibilities of philosophy in times of global panic.

The power of paradox: notes on categories of the tragic, mono no aware, and lacrimae rerum

Author(s): Maria Korusiewicz / Language(s): English Issue: 34/2020

The paper is an attempt to investigate the intriguing convergence of the inner logic of three aesthetic categories that emerge from the experience of finitude of existence in diverse cultural environments: the awareness of the tragic in Western cultures, the Japanese category of mono no aware, expressing the painful beauty of things in their impermanence, and a famous Greco-Roman notion of lacrimae rerum (tears of things). All three – despite the deep disparities between the cultural traditions they represent – prove to be the “places” of paradox, of powerful synchronic tension resulting from the “clash” of contradictory forces, transforming one’s perception of the universum. It seems that it is the paradoxical nature of the experiences labelled by these categories (as confirmed by neuroscience) that allows us to confront our finitude with the aid of aesthetic tools.

Socialism or death: the quarantine edition

Author(s): Sławomir Konkol / Language(s): English Issue: 34/2020

Slavoj Žižek, PAN(DEM)IC! – COVID-19 SHAKES THE WORLD (New York and London: O/R Books) is a publicity stunt and a logistic achievement at least as much as a proper book. One must admire the speed with which it was produced and the foresight of its author, who began following the topic closely before most commentators in the West. It is all the more disappointing that the book’s central argument is not better organised and supported. This review considers both the moments of brilliance and the flaws of Slavoj Žižek’s most recent publication.

Filozoficzne koncepcje estymacji statystycznej

Author(s): Grzegorz Krzykowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2010

How much truth is in stereotypes?

Author(s): Szymon Czarnik / Language(s): English Issue: 68/2020

Stereotype accuracy is a contentious topic. Part of the problem is that typically stereotypes are generic statements whose truth status is unclear due to the fact that they are ill-defined quantitatively. The article focuses on the epistemic aspect of stereotypical beliefs. In the ongoing debate, I side with those who argue against stereotypes being wrong or inaccurate by virtue of definition alone. I propose that, when possible, stereotype accuracy should be assessed in probabilistic terms by inspecting how likely a generic statement is to be true when applied to individual(s) representative of the relevant group(s). This approach applies equally well to investigating the actual and the perceived accuracy of stereotypes.

Review of Gunnar Skirbekk’s “Crisis and Co-responsibility. Short Political Writings”

Author(s): Silviya Serafimova / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2020

The monograph Krise og medansvar. Politiske Småskrifter (Crisis and Co-responsibility. Short Political Writings) is one of the last monographs of the internationally recognized philosopher Gunnar Skirbekk who begins his academic career as a research assistant for Herbert Marcuse and Avrum Stroll at the University of California. Regardless that the “short political writings” form was inspired by Habermas, Skirbekk’s “short writings” display much more than simply the incorporation of intellectual impulses from Habermas and other significant intellectuals. By referring to Foucault, Skirbekk defines his approach as a matter of adopting an “ideology-critical archeology’”, while analyzing the genealogy of different phenomena such as politics and expertise, religion and modernity, culture and identity, philosophy and eco-ethics

Experimenting with “Garden Discourse”: Cultivating Knowledge in Thomas Browne’s Garden of Cyrus

Author(s): Sarah Cawthorne / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Books were materially and metaphorically botanical in the early modern period. This article uses The Garden of Cyrus (1658), Thomas Browne’s wide-ranging philosophical tract, to illustrate how the often self-conscious links between books and gardens could operate in epistemologically significant ways. It argues that Browne’s repeated positioning of his book as a garden creates a productive model for aesthetic, theological and scientific experimentation and innovation. The framework of the garden constructs a space in which the foremost, apparently contradictory, models of knowledge associated with the seventeenth-century garden—the analogical approach of the doctrine of signatures and the empirical approach associated with the “new science”—can coexist. Extrapolating from the book of nature to suggest the inherently discursive and rhetorical forms of Browne’s knowledge as well as its limitations, the article concludes by proposing a new spatial model for this kind of coterminous literary and experimental approach: the elaboratory.