‘Nothing over and above’ or ‘nothing’? On Eliminativism, Reductionism, and Composition

Author(s): Jiri Benovsky / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

In this article, I am interested in an issue concerning eliminativism about ordinary objects that can be put as the claim that the eliminativist is guilty of postulating the existence of something (atoms arranged tablewise), but not of something that is identical to it (the table). But, as we will see, this turns out to be a problem for everybody except the eliminativist. Indeed, this issue highlights a more general problem about the relationship between an entity and the parts the compose it. Furthermore, I am not interested in this issue only for its own sake and for the sake of understanding and defending eliminativism, but also for the way it allows me to discuss the differences and relations between eliminativism and reductionism. What difference is there between eliminating an entity and reducing it to something else?

“NATURAL WORK” AS SELF-CAPABILITY: REMAINING HUMAN IN THE ERA OF TURMOIL. IN MEMORY OF GRIGORY SAVVICH SKOVORODA

Author(s): Andrey I. Matsyna / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

A great wandering humanist philosopher, enlightener and outstanding poet Grigory Savvich Skovoroda’s work pertains to a difficult period in the life of the 18th century Eastern Ukraine. Against the background of growing injustice and evil, the decline of spiritual values, an authentic practical philosophy of individual opposition to a self- serving world steeped in vice was born. Skovoroda’s philosophy completely lacks the intention to consider proprietary interests as the driving force of human development. Its key principle of human development is self-examination within one’s own energy- activity-object-related space. The call for self-examination from the perspective of the authentic idea of “natural work” is revealed dynamically as the process of bringing the objective world into harmony with the nature of an individual. “Natural work” is a pro- cess of individual’s constant creative self-overcoming on the ascent to subject identity; total communion of man with the universal whole.

“The Jingle Man” and the Transcendental Issues

Author(s): Saša Simović / Language(s): English Issue: 26/2021

Edgar Allan Poe neither cherished nor appreciated the fundamental standing points of American Transcendentalism, never missing the opportunity to express his “disagreement” with the ideas discussed by some leading figures of this religious, literary and philosophical movement in antebellum America. He criticized their “obscurity for the sake of obscurity“, their being prone to vagueness and imprecission as well as the way they perceived the Universe, the Oneness, the Soul of the World and the Soul of the Individual. The aim of this paper is to highlight Poe’s perspective on Transcendentalism, both on the literary scene of the day and in some of his short stories.

„(...) tak wielbiłem obraz starego Geulincxa, zmarłego w młodym wieku, przyznającego mi wolność (...)” — Samuel Beckett czytający Arnolda Geulincxa

Author(s): Joanna Usakiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

Arnold Geulincx (1624–1669), like the Occasionalism which he represents, was pushed to the margins of philosophy and, at present, is known almost exclusively to historians of philosophy. However, Samuel Beckett (1906–1989), the brilliant writer and dramatist, did certainly read his works, especially his Ethics. References to Geulincx and his views, together with explicative comparisons in Beckett’s own writing — as, for example, in Murphy, Molloy and The End,— testify to this fact. In this article, the author demonstrates the inspirational influence of Geulincx’s thought upon Beckett through an analysis of the ways in which the famous playwright read and made use of the words and images of the philosopher.

„Bardzo nieliczni czują, że ich życie nie jest życiem, lecz śmiercią”. F. Dostojewski i L. Szestow wobec idei szczęścia i egzystencjalnej satysfakcji

Author(s): Michał Kruszelnicki / Language(s): Polish Issue: 33/2016

In my paper I set the existential interpretation of Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground proposed by Lev Shestov against the religious and psychological interpretations of this novel in order to excavate a vital problem in Dostoevsky, which is the inversion of hierarchy in pairs of oppositional categories such as normality-pathology, happiness-unhappiness, harmony- dissonance, omnitude-lack, certainty-uncertainty, joy-despair, faith-doubt. Following Shestov I argue that Dostoevsky embraces those categories that are traditionally mistrusted and negatively valorized and by so doing he rehabilitates the “underground”, accursed and unhappy existence at the expense of regular, “normal” life, easily founding spiritual certainty and every day satisfaction. Such an un-problematic life Dostoevsky’s man from the underground regards as a false, smug and eventually – “dead”. In further part of my study I focus on the religious aspect of Shestov’s later philosophy and try to prove that the perspective of faith gradually introduced to his reading of Dostoevsky in no way cancels Shestov’s early philosophy of the underground, despair and tragedy. On the contrary: if faith “obtained” is likely to become yet another mask of “evidence” and “certainty” and in this way might put stop to existential doubts and spiritual dissatisfaction, then neither Dostoevsky, nor Shestov himself, can easily trust it. In this situation despair and tragedy cannot but hold in Dostoevsky’s and Shestov’s thought and the circle of searching and suffering must remain vicious. I demonstrate the consistency in Shestov’s philosophical thought on Dostoevsky and its constant adequacy for understanding one of the crucial existential dilemmas in the works of the Russian writer.

„O teorie a dreptății“ și reconectarea filosofiei politice românești la sursele contemporane ale modernității

Author(s): Laurenţiu Gheorghe / Language(s): Romanian Publication Year: 0

After 1990, the Romanian political philosophy freed from the compulsory official Marxist dogma had to choose between a range of inadequate options from the viewpoint of current reality: reconnecting with the interwar tradition but in a different historical context; replaying the cold war ideological clash this time from the anti-Marxist perspective, that seemed redundant given the political and economic failure of Marxism or embracing the western post modern discourse, that didn’t reflect in any way the current Romanian political and social realities. Faced with these alternatives it was necessary to regain a philosophical experience of the transition from modernity to post-modernity that will enable the adequate approach to the realities of the transition from communism to post-modern capitalism. Given this context, from a certain philosophical perspective, the study of Rawls from A theory of Justice to Political Liberalism provided a unique opportunity to escape tradition without canceling it, to overcome the socialist-capitalist dichotomy and to connect to contemporary philosophical debates without losing the local perspective.

„Абсолютна метафорология“ ли е „абсолютната митология“? Мостът между Лосев и Блуменберг

Author(s): Silvia Borisova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2-3/2017

The article seeks to find and highlight the conceptual links between Losev’s “absolute mythology” and Blumenberg’s “absolute metaphorology”, viewed in the context of Blumenberg’s work on myth. For this purpose, the simultaneous affinity and contradistinction of myth and metaphor is taken as a support; the two are seen in their inevitable dialectic and in the ontological impossibility of one existing without the other. This dialectic marked Schelling’s idea of primordial (pre-mythical, pre-metaphorical) monotheism, of consubstantiality with otherness. For it’s part, Schelling’s philosophy of myth produces a kind of “mythology of the lost paradise”, which the author outlines in the article, beyond the formulations given in Schelling’s early and later writings. The author thereby proposes a possible way of consolidating the bridge between Losev’s and Blumenberg’s ideas.

„Задачата на преводача“ на Валтер Бенямин и невъзможността за пряко съобщение

Author(s): Kristiyan Enchev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2021

The text analyzes the possibilities to think of pure language as indicated in the harmonization of modes of intention in the translation activity. This language is, in a sense, a regulative idea and it have to be liberated in translation. It is essential to distinguish between the modes of intention and intended objects, between what is named in pure language and what is „overnamed“ in human languages. One of the theses in this text – that language in its auto-relation undergoes auto-modalization – makes the connection with Kierkegaard's understanding of the impossibility of direct communication. The indication of the untranslatable is an opportunity in the language of the translator to insert as indicated the elusive in the translation and thus to introduce the use of a broken language. Awakening of the "echo of the original" means a „thinking more“ (according to Kant) through the figure.

„Изкуствата на тялото“: автор, творба, публика

Author(s): Nikolina Deleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2020

The work is devoted to different forms of body art, where the author uses his own body as a material for making art. These art practices are related to questions about their ontological nature and the criteria for defining and distinguishing art and reality, object and subject, author and work of art. An Identification of different components of the art process - author, work, public, as well as the relationship biological–mechanical–virtual have also been considered.

„Кое характеризира диалога?“

Концепцията на Гадамер за диалога и мястото на „Другия“

Author(s): Joe Momoh / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 4/2019

In day-to-day discourse, human beings engage in dialogue. Problems arise in the interpretation of language; according to Gadamer, these problems are the basis of hermeneutics (Gadamer 1989: 455). In Truth and Method, Gadamer seeks to provide a link between culture and the understanding of the interpretation of language. Most importantly, Gadamer is concerned with what understanding the “others” have of the information they receive or read and how they make sense of this information, taking into consideration the cultural implications.

„Между историята и вечността“: философският избор на Мишел Фуко през 50-те години

Author(s): Elisabetta Basso / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

This article examines the manner in which Foucault is being related to the existential psychopathology during the 50s, according to the newly deposited Foucauldian archives at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in 2013. In particular, the text concentrates its attention on an unpublished and unedited manuscript: one of the courses of lectures at the University of Lille done by Foucault in 1952–1954, and especially the course on “Phenomenology and Binswanger” (1953–1954). While analysing this Foucault’s course of lectures where the emphasis lies on the philosophical reflexion on the anthropological problem of psychopathology, we are becoming finally able to throw some light upon Foucault’s project of analysing the historicity of the ‘forms of experience’ – a project that has been placed in the very heart of Foucauldian “archaeology” of madness in 1961.

„Новият“ и „старият“ Хюм

Author(s): Yana Miteva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 5/2016

This article discusses two interpretations of David Hume’s theory of causality. On one side of the debate, there is the Old Hume, whose thought culminated in skepticism, especially with regard to the concept of causality. On the other side is the New Hume, interpreted as accepting the reality of causality. The New Hume rejects the traditional skepticism of the other Hume’s interpretations. The author presents the main theses and characteristics of both the Old and New Hume. Thus emerge the key problem fields of the two interpretations, which appear to be formally identical. The Old and the New Hume apply Hume’s theses but leave their origin framework in Hume’s texts. The result is an epistemological thesis in an ontological context and an ontological thesis in an epistemological context. The problem is resolved by differentiating between these interpretations and their fields. The New Hume is related to an interpretation of causality in the context of relation of ideas. The Old Hume is related to a discussion of matters of facts.

ІСТОРИЧНА СВІДОМІСТЬ У ПРАКТИКАХ НАЦІОНАЛЬНОЇ ОСВІТИ

Author(s): Georgy Ivanovich Finin / Language(s): Ukrainian Issue: 4/2020

Problem setting. Questions of historical consciousness, historical memory, patterns of historical knowledge, and trends in the evolution of historical knowledge are constantly in the focus of philosophical research. In the spiritual world of modern youth, historical consciousness is a set of ideas, views, attitudes that allow to accept and appreciate the past in all its diversity. Historical consciousness covers events of different significance and importance is formed not only systematically (through the education system), but also disordered (through the media, fiction. Recent research and publications analysis. Historical consciousness and features of its formation have been the subject of research by such famous scientists as M. Weber, K. Popper, B. Russell, P. Sorokin, O. Spengler, K. Jaspers, M. Hrushevskyi, D. Dontsov and others. Scientists have considered various aspects of the formation of historical consciousness and historical memory. Some aspects of the formation of historical consciousness in the practices of national education in Ukraine are considered in the studies of such scholars as М. Boychenko, V. Vashkevych, А. Zemlianskyi, O. Stasevs’ka, M. Kultayeva, M. Kozlovets and others.Paper objective. The purpose of the article is a philosophical analysis and clarification of the main aspects of historical consciousness in the practices of national education.Paper main body. Historical consciousness in a broad sense should be considered as a specific form of social consciousness that realizes the connection of historical epochs, continuity in the historical process, which provides the relay race of generations. Historical memory is an integral element of historical consciousness (which conceptualizes the relationship of past, present and future) and at the same time it is one of its sources (along with official state concepts, scientific theories, historical mythology, religious teachings, works of literature and art). The main characteristics of historical memory include its social determinism, basicity in the formation of individual and social consciousness, through which it directly affects the social consciousness. Accordingly, it performs the following functions: information (accumulation and transmission of socially significant information); identification (identification of a society or its individual member with a certain historical and cultural community); organizational (structuring society in time); worldview (theoretical understanding of social experience); value-oriented (identification and translation of value meanings, definition of values). Conclusions of the research. Thus, historical consciousness in a broad sense should be considered as a specific form of social consciousness that realizes the connection of historical epochs, continuity in the historical process, which provides the baton of generations.Historical memory is an integral part of historical consciousness and at the same time it is one of its sources. One of the main characteristics of historical memory is its social determinism. Accordingly, it performs the following functions: information; identification; organizational; worldview; value-oriented.Considerable attention is paid to the formation of the historical consciousness of higher education seekers in the national education systems of developed countries, in particular in the United States.

Шелинг – от логос към мит

Author(s): Iliana Ilieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2021

This article aims to analyze the beginning of the transition from logos to myth. To incorporate the religious into his Enlightenment philosophical system, Schelling presents a reconstruction of myth. The conceptions of the religious consciousness of the Self from antiquity as presented. The myth embodies cultural reality and the history of self-consciousness, an idea that was later considered by Mircea Eliade. Myths evolve in parallel with human evolution. The need for the development of abstract thinking and the complex social environment presuppose the new mythology. Christianity in history appears as part of the mechanism of human development, which generally symbolizes the transition from mythology to Christianity. Theology must abstract mythologies from the purely divine, but together they participate in the formation of human consciousness.

Шотландската философия и Шопенхауер. Интерпретации на каузалността

Author(s): Atanaska Cholakova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2015

The analysis of causality in Schopenhauer’s conceptualization of the representative model of knowledge presupposes the mentioning of two significant representatives of the Scottish reaction against Hume’s skepticism, namely Thomas Reid and Thomas Brown. The goal of this paper is to explicate some concrete ideas from both of their theoretical systems in relation to the critique of Hume’s notion of causality and later their interpretation in Schopenhauer’s philosophy.

Що е критика? Опит върху концепцията на Фуко за добродетелта

Author(s): Judith Butler / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 44/1/2015

ЭДМУНД ГУССЕРЛЬ О ГОРИЗОНТНОЙ СТРУКТУРЕ ОПЫТА. ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ К ПЕРЕВОДУ 8 ПАРАГРАФА КНИГИ ЭДМУНДА ГУССЕРЛЯ «ОПЫТ И СУЖДЕНИЕ»

Author(s): / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2017

We present here a Russian translation of the 8th paragraph of Husserl’s book “Experience andJudgment” (1939). The paragraph includes a systematic outline of the phenomenological conceptionof horizonedness, while in no other Husserl’s book — from “Ideas I” to “Crisis” — we can finda fragment dealing with the idea of horizon elaborated so deep. The idea however is a substantialelement of Husserl’s conceptualization of experience as an open, indefinite process. In the7th paragraph of “Experience and Judgment” the world is conceived as a universal “ground ofcertainty”, upon which all our experience is based, and in the 8th paragraph the intentional structureof experience (mostly as perception) is explicated. That structure is characterized as horizontal. Thecrucial difference here is between the “inner horizon” and the “outer horizon” of an object. The outerhorizon stretches finally into the “world-horizon” — the ultimate, universal horizon comprising allpartial horizons and perspectives. In its turn, typization functions here as a way of representation ofobjects laying beyond the field of what is given. Typization also covers latent aspects of present objectsand concerns even their patent aspects. The most general type, according to Husserl, is “object assuch” — a basic category of formal ontology. The idea of horizon has been a fundamental principleof classical phenomenology. Nowadays it provokes hot discussions among such authors as Jean-Luc Marion, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. The discussions relate to the very essence ofphenomenology. That’s why we find publication of the fragment to be important.

ЭДМУНД ГУССЕРЛЬ ОПЫТ И СУЖДЕНИЕ § 8. ГОРИЗОНТНАЯ СТРУКТУРА ОПЫТА. ПРЕДВАРИТЕЛЬНАЯ ТИПИЧЕСКАЯ ИЗВЕСТНОСТЬ КАЖДОГО ОТДЕЛЬНОГО ПРЕДМЕТА ОПЫТА

Author(s): Alexander Frolov / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2017

Однако тот факт, что всякое схватывание отдельного предмета, как и всякая дальнейшая деятельность познания, происходит на почве мира, означает нечто большее, чем просто зависимость познавательной деятельности от сферы предданного в пассивной достоверности. Познавательный акт никогда не осуществляется в отношении индивидуальных предметов опыта таким образом, как если бы они впервые были предданными лишь в каче- стве совершенно неопределенных субстратов. Мир для нас всегда уже таков, что познание в нем самым различным образом уже проделало свою работу; поэтому, несомненно, нет никакого опыта в элементарном, первичном смысле (im erstlich-schlichten Sinne) — как опыта вещи, в котором, впервые схваты- вая некоторую вещь, знакомясь с ней (zur Kenntnis nehmend) мы бы уже не «знали» о ней больше, чем «схватили». Любой опыт, что бы в нем ни было дано в собственном смысле, как само предстающее взору, eo ipso необходимо имеет знание и сопутствующее знание (Wissen und Mitwissen) относительно данной вещи, а именно, о тех ее свойствах, которые еще не проявились, не вышли на свет.

ЭКЗИСТЕНЦИЯ, ЭКЗИСТЕНЦИАЛ И ТЕЛЕСНОСТЬ ЧЕЛОВЕКА: ОСНОВНЫЕ ТОЧКИ ПЕРЕСЕЧЕНИЯ

Author(s): Olga Olegovna Dasaeva / Language(s): Russian Issue: 1/2015

The paper justifies that human corporeality can be regarded as an existential. The concepts of existence, existential, and phenomenal body are analyzed. The human body is proved to be existential after considering it as a mode of existential experience and analyzing phenomenal corporeality. The main features of existentiality and existence are singled out. Their relation to the human body is emphasized. Considerable attention is paid to the body transcendence. At the same time, the borderline nature of corporeality in the world is stressed. The novelty of the problem is that the human body is not considered as an obstacle to existence, but rather as an existential entity.

Я КАК ДРУГОЙ В ТВОРЧЕСТВЕ ДИАНЫ АРБЕНИНОЙ

Author(s): Anton Sergeyevich Afanasiev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2014

The article deals with a topical problem in modern humanities studies, i.e. the problem of personal self-identification. The investigation covers the methods of representation of this problem in the works of Diana Arbenina. Based on the play “Motofozo”, it is proved that Arbenina’s philosophy is remarkable for the perception of the Self as the Other. For the harmonious existence of a person, it is necessary that the external Self be united with the internal Self (the Other).