Aquinas’s Fourth Way of Demonstrating God’s Existence: From Virtual Quantum Gradations of Perfection (Inequality in Beauty) of Forms Existing within a Real Genus

Author(s): Peter A. Redpath / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2019

The chief aim of this article is to show that St. Thomas Aquinas’s Fourth Way of demonstrating God’s existence can only be made precisely intelligible by comprehending it as a real, generic whole in light of its specific organizational principles. Considered as a real, generic whole, this argument is one from effect to cause (from a real order of more or less perfectly existing generic, specific, and individual beings [habens esse] more or less perfectly possessing generic, specific, and individual ways of being within qualitatively different, hierarchical, orders of existence to a first cause of this order of perfections). In addition, this article maintains that, to comprehend this complicated argument, readers mush be familiar with philosophical principles that St. Thomas repeatedly uses throughout his major works, but with which most of his contemporary students tend to be unfamiliar. Consequently, a secondary aim of this paper is to introduce readers unfamiliar with them to some of these principle so that they may be able better to comprehend what St. Thomas is saying in this demonstration and in other teachings of his as well.

Architektoniczność jako paradygmat sztuki Aleksandra Rodczenki.

Konteksty konstruktywizmu

Author(s): Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Alcaraz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 34/2015

There are at least a few reasons to consider deeply the art of Aleksandr Rodchenko. Undoubtedlya pretext is an exposition that had taken place in National Museum in Cracovduring the Month of Photography between May and August 2012: „Aleksandr Rodchenko.Revolution in Photography”. Nevertheless, apart from photographic creation of Rodchenkoit is worth to put an interest on his painting from one side and on the other onmanifests of constructivism and texts on art, photography, society and on his perceptionof future. Then appears an image of the whole Rodchenko’s artistic figure. In this figureseems to dominate an architectural form of seeing and of constructing of space in its‘visual, social, political, ideological and philosophical aspects.Rodchenko was looking on the world, the reality surrounding him through prism ofarchitecture, plan, construction. This architectural form of seeing, explicit in Rodchenko’sart, is present on many levels and has deeper meaning referring itself to „the constructionof the new world“ and has theoretical reasons on social, political, artistical andesthetical basis.

Arendt and Heidegger: the Human Condition Reconsidered

Author(s): Tengiz Tsimnaridze / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2019

Heidegger’s name is often brought up in connection to Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958), since his thought had a pervasive influence on Arendt’s work. Although Heidegger is not mentioned in The Human Condition, Arendt herself claims in her letter that her work “grew right out of the first days in Marburg and so is in all respects indebted to” him. Accordingly, this article is an attempt to search for the roots of Arendt’s philosophical views in her magnum opus. Based upon close reading of Heidegger’s texts, this article argues that Heidegger’s later philosophy has impacted on Arendt’s ontology and her understanding of modern society in The Human Condition. My plan is as follows: first, to note Arendt’s relationship to Western tradition of political philosophy; second, to discuss Arendtian notions of political action and public realm; and third to study her conception of modernity.

Argument Williamsona przeciwko KK-tezie

Author(s): Grzegorz Lisowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 52/2017

The KK-principle can be defined as follows: “For any subject x: if x knows that p, then she is always in a position to know that she knows that p”. This principle has been widely accepted in the history of philosophy. However, in contemporary epistemology it is considered controversial and regarded as an important part of the debate concerning the nature of knowledge. One of the arguments against the KK-principle has been presented by Timothy Williamson and it involves the so-called “safety principle”. In this paper, I argue against this account. My argument consists of two parts: in the first part, it is argued that the safety principle presented by Williamson contradicts Dretske’s account of knowledge. In the second part, I claim that the safety principle, as defined by Williamson, is not precise enough, which enables one to argue that it does not contradict the KK-principle.

Argumenty na rzecz nieredukcyjnego ujęcia tożsamości osobowej

Author(s): Mariusz Grygianiec / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 34/2016

In the debate on personal identity many different criteria of identity are proposed and defended. Criteria of identity are usually taken to state necessary and sufficient conditions of identity and are viewed, in their metaphysical interpretation, as providing truth conditions of relevant identity statements. In my paper I argue that this view is misconceived and I present some arguments for the simple view of personal identity, according to which there are no noncircular and informative criteria of identity for persons. In particular, I argue that there are no other facts of the matter than identity itself which would serve as truth conditions of statements concerning numerical identity. I also try to justify the view that in most cases criteria of identity should be interpreted either epistemically as a means for finding out whether identity holds or not or metaphysically as criteria of genidentity, which provide appropriate persistence conditions for objects of a given kind.

Aristoteles in Nietzsches Rhetorik-Vorlesungen: Eine kritische Rückkehr zu antiken Quellen

Author(s): Kamila Najdek / Language(s): German / Issue: 61/2016

The paper’s point of departure are Nietzsche’s lectures prepared for the students of classical philology. While scrutinizying them I am trying to demonstrate that Nietzsche drew far more from the ancient philosophy than we usually assume. I believe he had a good reason to be concerned with rhetoric, even if the subject was considered of lesser importance in his days and downplayed. By asking about the importance of rhetoric he could, in anexemplary manner, realize the program delineated in his „Untimely Meditations” – he showed certain historical phenomenon, firmly rooted in the past, and confronted it with the contemporary situation; his lectures on the history of rhetoric are used to confront the modernity, as evidenced in his criticism of Victor’s Hugo left -wing demagoguery. Preserved notes and lectures show how young professor worked and the list of those subjectshe was focusing on and those he omits clearly illustrate his philosophical and aesthetic preferences. Fragments of translations of Rhetoric of Aristotle, his way of reasoning and peculiar lack of dispute with the Sophists prove that Nietzsche „enters”, so to speak, in the language of Stagirite, thus taking over his valuation of rhetorical enthymem. Consistent with the intuitions of Aristotle is Nietzsche’s assessment of the social role of the rhetoric itself. In the ideal case it is intended to establish consensus in the situations where it is impossible to know something for certain, in the case of abuse – rhetoric boils down to plain cheating. Nietzsche develops the issue of working out decision by asking about the talk itself and more precisely – about the cognitive status of the language. Lectures also shed new light on Nietzsche’s style, or, if you want, Nietzsche’s styles. On the one hand, they reveal his appreciation for the simplicity and clarity (as evidenced by the attic style preference), on the other hand – they demonstrate his knowledge of the classic figures of thought which means that the so-called „great”, bombastic style was for him a sign of irony. If you follow this path of interpretation, „Zoroaster” would be a reflection of his teachings i.e. as ironic, it would instruct to keep the distance.

Aristotle and Aquinas on the Virtue of Money as a Preservative of Justice in Business Affairs and States

Author(s): Peter A. Redpath / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2019

While Aristotle’s and St. Thomas’s teachings about economics are often ridiculed today, this article argues that actually what they had to say about this issue, especially about the nature of sound currency, backed up by force of law, is quite profound. According to both of them, sound money plays an essential role in the preserving commutative justice within States. By so doing, it preserves communication between talented people who make qualitatively unequal contributions to a State’s continued existence and welfare.

Aristotle, Phenomenology, and the Mind/Body Problem

Author(s): Valeria Bizzari / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The mind-body relationship is a fundamental issue that has interested philosophers from very different schools of thought. Nowadays we can observe several positions being taken on this topic — my aim is to emphasize the phenomenological perspective on the mind-body relationship and, in particular, the role of Aristotelian thought in the contributions of philosophers such as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. This paper consists of three different parts: in the first part, I will briefly sketch out a phenomenological account of the living body in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty; in second part, I will try to find parallels between phenomenology and Aristotle’s philosophy. Finally, I will argue for an Aristotelian reading of schizophrenia, a pathology that seems to be caused by a disruption of the corporeal Self

ARISTOTLE, THE NAMES OF VICES AND VIRTUES: WHAT IS THE CRITERION OF QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF THE MORAL BEHAVIOUR?

Author(s): Ana Bazac / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2017

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle has given a tableau of the desirable virtues and their infringement through the surpassing of their limits. Thus, every virtue is framed or delimited by vices that represent either its excess or its deficiency. However, this type of defining is related to deep, metaphysical reasons: since every being, especially the liv-ing one, has its telos. Man’s telos is to practise and fulfil his human specificity, i.e. reason, and reason is the measure/quality of virtue as such; the excess or deficiency in his behaviour perverts and even stops the realisation of the humanity of man. And this humanity is, in turn, in accordance to the telos of nature, the good in and for the preser-vation of all things. If, hypothetically, persons would not be virtuous at all, this accord-ance would not be realised and man would be an accident in the logic of nature: and accidents are removed, sooner or later. The criterion of the “quantitative” moral evalua-tion is thus qualitative: a quality, the good aimed at by mindfulness applied to the con-crete particular moral relations and learned from experience.

Aristotle’s Principles for Modern Economic Science

Author(s): Ricardo F. Crespo / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2019

This paper is an attempt to illuminate today’s economic science with the light of Aristotle’s philosophy of economics. The author first describes Aristotle’s thoughts about the economy. Then, he distinguishes and discusses three Aristotelian principles: (a) economics should be a classical practical or moral science, (b) economics should not look for an unlimited wealth, but for the wealth necessary for the good life, and (c) economics should be aimed at the common good.

ARNOLD GEHLEN’S ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY OF INSTITUTION

Author(s): Rafał Michalski / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

The article reconstructs main assumptions and the theoretical context of Arnold Gehlen’s conception of institution. I argue that this conception is mainly a theory of action. At its centre Gehlen sets not so much specific institutions but rather specific forms of human activity that bring to life the over-individual normative structures. He describes them by means of a series of categories which, in his opinion, have a universal character. We do not find any genealogical analyzes here, but only a constellation of concepts deduced a priori, referring to empirical facts.

Arystoteles na nowo odczytany

Author(s): Elżbieta Jung / Language(s): Polish / Publication Year: 2014

Prezentowana książka jest efektem wieloletnich badań dotyczących wyjątkowego okresu w historii nauki średniowiecznej, mianowicie początków fizyki matematycznej. Składaj się na nią dwie części: monografia, w której autorka odpowiada na pytanie, czy czternastowieczna fizyka matematyczna, inspirowana nominalistyczną. filozofią Wilhelma Ockhama, doprowadziła do zerwania z jakościową fizyką Arystotelesa już w wieku czternastym, oraz tłumaczenie Kwestii o ruchu Ryszarda Kilvingtona – jednego z twórców szkoły Oksfordzkich Kalkulatorów. W swoich kwestiach Kilvington podejmuje analizę zagadnienia zmian, rozumianych, zgodnie z definicją. Arystotelesa, jako ruch przestrzenny, zmiany jakościowe oraz ilościowe w ujęciu nominalistycznym, czyniąc matematykę właściwym językiem opisu przyrody. Jakiego rodzaju są te „obliczenia” i jakie dzięki nim osiągamy rezultaty, Czytelnik dowie się z lektury obydwu części tej książki.

ASPEKTY NORMY – PROBLEM HOLISTYCZNEGO UJĘCIA WZORCA NORMATYWNEGO W ŚWIETLE MYŚLI PÓŹNEGO WITTGENSTEINA

Author(s): Wojciech Graboń / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 44/2018

In Polish legal theory there is a generally accepted distinction between legal norms (normative standards) and legal provisions (independent editorial units of a legal text). One of the most developed theories of the interpretation of law, the derivative theory of M. Zieliński, however, also includes the postulate of the reconstruction of the entire legal system as one comprehensive norm (the so-called holistic approach) in the process of applying the law. This postulate stems mainly from assumptions regarding the adopted methods of interpretation. The holistic approach has often been criticized as inadequate in pragmatic terms, but the derivative theory has not yet been thoroughly modified in this respect. In this paper, I propose to apply Wittgenstein's concept of aspect perception as providing adequate conceptual framework to describe the mechanism of identifying relevant parts of the legal norm that deals with the pragmatic inadequacy of the holistic approach, but does not affect the core of the derivative theory of interpretation.

Ateş Savaşı Filminde Tabiat Haliyle İlgili Sinematik İmgelerin Felsefi İlişkileri

Author(s): Nilay Erbalaban Gürbüz / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 7/2019

Jean Jacques Annaud’s La Guerre Du Feu (Quest for Fire, 1981) is a film that tells the cinematic images of adventure of fire at prehistory, the most important discovery, which causes people to advance from nature to society. In this film, at a time when the possession of a fire meant to have life, events evolving around the fire were also transformed into cinematic images, based on the philosophical conception of nature. It is emphasizes how the experience of human’s life in the past which explained both anthropologically and philosophically legitimate his current life. It is tried to show philosophical thoughts behind film by use of Rousseau, Hobbes, Nietzsche and Marx’s philosophical explanations of the pre-communal period of man. It reveals the image of the discovery of fire in culture, one of the important stages in the adventure of mankind through Quest for Fire’s philosophical meaning.

Atheism in The Universal Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Author(s): Zofia J. Zdybicka / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2018

The author considers the problem of atheism. She discusses the history of atheism, forms of atheism, and the causes and motives of atheism. She concludes that (a) the history of the negation of God indirectly confirms the endurance of the idea of God and the affirmation of God throughout time; although there are various forms of the negation of God, the idea of God persists, for there is no ultimate negation that could resolve this question once and for all; (b) an erroneous conception of God could be a motivation for seeking a better understanding and expression of the truth about God in a more suitable and more easily understood language; (c) systems that presuppose absolute atheism (like those of Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre) show that with the negation of God all other values collapse and are supplanted by relativism and, ultimately, nihilism; (d) the myth of the “deified” man has not been verified in practical Marxism nor in the “supermanhood” of certain nations; the various absolutes that man has established—Man, Humanity, Nature, Science, History—are not sufficient, and ultimately along with the “death of God” they lead to the “death of man.”

Augustine’s Two Cities Revisited

Contemporary Approaches to De civitate Dei

Author(s): Anthony Dupont,Gregory W. Lee / Language(s): English / Issue: 61/2016

This article presents the current state of discussion in contemporary interpretation and appropriation of Augustine’s social and political vision in City of God, attending particularly to Augustine’s two cities framework for conceiving the relation between Church and world. The two cities are trans-national, trans-historical communities distinguished by their different loves. While they are primarily eschatological communities, the earthly and heavenly cities are nevertheless manifest in empirical social realities and inextricably intermingled with each other during this earthly existence. It is precisely this dynamic that generates the ambiguities and interpretive diversity characteristic of current scholarly discussion of Augustine’s political theology. The two cities framework undergirds Augustine’s position on a variety of issues this article treats in turn: pagan virtue, Christian participation in non-Christian political orders, and the nature of politics. The final section provides a roadmap for contemporary proposals concerning Augustine’s political theology.

Autonómia és világrend; bűn, sors és élettörténet

Tengelyi László munkássága az 1980-as és 90-es években

Author(s): Nóra Szegedi,Tamás Ullmann / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 06/2015

The article aims to give a picture of László Tengelyi’s early works. The first part analyses Tengelyi’s relationship to Kant and to the problem of evil in Kantian moral philosophy. The key concepts of his early works are moral autonomy, guilt, fate, history of life, and intersubjectivity. The second part presents Tengelyi’s first original work after his significant Kant-interpretations. His Guilt as Fate Event (1992) concentrates on the problem of evil, rejecting the classical conception of the metaphysical tradition based on the “privation thesis”. By showing that evil cannot be reduced to privation, nonbeing, and nullity, Tengelyi opens up another, latent tradition, that of the tragic view of culpability. The conception of guilt as an eminent event of fate is supposed to be able to substitute the privation thesis of traditional metaphysics. The elaboration of this concept is Tengelyi’s first step toward creating his own philosophy.

AUTONOMIE UND VERANTWORTUNG — ZUM MORALISCHEN STATUS DER ARZT-PATIENTEN-BEZIEHUNG AUS PHILOSOPHISCHER SICHT

Author(s): BRIGITTE FLICKINGER / Language(s): German / Issue: 2/2018

For almost two millennia the relationship between a physician and a patient, with regard to medical treatment, was settled according to the paternalistic moral principles laid down in the Hippocratic oath and later, in a modernized diction, in the Declaration of Geneva. With social und scientific changes occurring over the recent decades this structure lost its ethical balance and, thus, requires an amendment. Medicine is split into a curative part and a new field of scientific biomedicine, researched in laboratories independently from the relationship between a physician and a patient. While doctors have been experiencing increasing economic and legal restrictions, actual and potential patients have been tending to make use of the new medical opportunities, claiming their right to autonomous decisions. With advances made in biomedicine, the concept of health became broader and now it includes all sorts of the desired treatment (Wunschmedizin) and projective diagnosis. Today not only patients seek medical assistance, but also clients who, on the basis of their own right for autonomy, claim to have their bodily wishes fulfilled by medical practitioners. The article examines the ethical implications of these changes, with special attention paid to the concept of autonomy. Autonomy, in Kant’s enlightened deontological ethics, is the basis of such universal moral principles as the human dignity and the social responsibility. However, as can be shown, for contemporary biomedical ethics the concept of autonomy is based on libertarianism and utilitarianism. Moreover, the newly revised Declaration of Geneva neither is able to solve the moral dilemma physicians have to face choosing between professional duty and own conscience, nor can it compensate for the lack of responsibility of both sides in the relationship between a physician and a patient. Mutual respect can help to recreate a full-fledged notion of autonomy that would regain its moral value.

Avoiding Slipko’s Slips: Karol Wojtyla’s Two Levels of Value

Author(s): Thomas Lahay / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2019

In his paper, “The Concept of Value in the Ethical Thought of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła,” Tadeusz Ślipko argues that the thought of Karol Wojtyła was not faithful to the truth. This paper attempts (1) to bring into question the validity of Tadeusz Ślipko’s claim and (2) to show that Wojtyła can be embraced not only as an ambassador of the truth, but that such an acceptance allows us to embrace the truth itself. The paper consists of three parts. After (1) framing the stage with a more developed showcase of Wojtyła’s view of value within the bounds of morality as seen from antiquity, it (2) summarizes Ślipko’s objections and reservations and, then, (3) expands on Wojtyła’s stance in relation to the objections and offers relevant solutions.

Az ízlésítélettől a valóságélvezetig?

Marquard, Fehér és Lyotard a modernitás/posztmodernitás diszpozíciójáról

Author(s): Tamás Valastyán / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 06/2015

The paper compares Jean-François Lyotard’s, Odo Marquard’s and Ferenc Fehér’s conception of aesthetics from the viewpoint of the disposition of modernity/postmodernity. None of the authors considers the comparison between modernity and postmodernity mechanically. While Marquard and Fehér claim the modernity of the postmodern, Lyotard affirms the postmodernity of the modern, with a view to Nietzsche’s basic insight that reality can only be justified as an aesthetic phenomenon.