АНТИУТОПИЧЕСКИЙ ПАФОС И СПЕЦИФИКА ХРОНОТОПА В РАННЕЙ ПРОЗЕ В.О. ПЕЛЕВИНА

Author(s): Anastasia Leonidovna Bobyleva,Tatiana Gennadevna Prokhorova / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2014

The paper analyses the dystopian tendencies in Victor Pelevin’s prose of the 1990s. The features of the chronotope and the dialogic connections with classic dystopias are revealed. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the dystopian look at the future is replaced in Pelevin’s works by the post-utopian view on the present. At the same time, the nature of the chronotope is determined by the Buddhist conception of human life as a chain of sufferings and the idea of the circle of samsara. However, both post-utopian and Buddhist paradigms undergo travesty, which leads to the transformation of the chronotope and the conflict as well as to the reduction of the dystopian pathos. As a result, the genre of dystopia becomes an object of parody.

Shaftesbury as a Popperian: critical rationalism before its time? Part II

Author(s): Lydia Amir / Language(s): English Issue: 36/2016

Shaftesbury has assigned humor an unparalleled role within philosophy, which may be encapsulated in the following tenets: (1) ridicule is the test of truth; (2) humor and good humor have a habilitating function with regard to truth; (3) the most effective criticism is humorous; and (4) humor is the mark of rationality. In the present article, I introduce Shaftesbury’s views on ridicule, good humor and humor in order to assess both the originality and viability of Shaftesbury’s contribution. I argue, first, that Shaftesbury’s views on ridicule as a test of truth and on good-humor as habilitating truth are thoroughly original, but cannot be implemented without adhering to his metaphysics and epistemology. Second, Shaftesbury’s views on humor are only partially original, though these can be implemented independently of metaphysical and epistemological assumptions for the greatest benefit of philosophers in general and critical rationalists in particular. I conclude that not only does Shaftesbury anticipate the view that critical thinking is the core of rationality, the main principle of the view known as critical rationalism associated with the renown 20th century philosopher of science and social philosopher, Karl Popper, but he also offers a viable means to enhance criticism as rationality by taking into consideration the psychological resistance to criticism that Popper acknowledges but refuses to address.

Как се държим: за един арт експеримент по Фуко

Author(s): Frédérique Bergholtz,Grant Watson / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3-4/2016

‘How We Behave’ is a research project undertaken by curator Grant Watson. Based on the research for his PHD in Curating and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College in London, this interview project and its resulting video portraits are the outcome of a commission by the arts organisation If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution within its Performance in Residence programme. After its ‘première’ with If I Can’t Dance in Amsterdam (2014), How We Behave has been presented at Nottingham Contemporary (2015), The Showroom in London (2015), MIMA, Middlesbrough (2015), and State of Concept in Athens (2016). An upcoming presentation will take place in Whitechapel Gallery, London. A key document for the ‘How We Behave’ project is an interview with Michel Foucault of the same name, published in a 1983 issue of Vanity Fair. In this interview Foucault poses the question: “What if life itself was a material of art making?” This provocation is taken as the departure point for an extensive and ongoing series of interviews commenced in 2012, and traversing a number of cities around the world including New York, São Paulo, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Athens and most recently Mumbai. ‘How We Behave’ addresses the different ways that contemporary individuals experiment with unconventional life patterns – at work, through alternative family structures, through new forms of intimacy, sexual behaviour, sociality and political engagement. Foucault’s concern was not with ‘lifestyle’ but with what he considered to be the politically urgent question of our time how we model our subjectivity and invent new ways of life and relations to others that can be understood as resistance to power.

Метафорика на вкуса: Пруст и Кант

Author(s): Victoria Kirilova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2-3/2017

Our assumption is that the aesthetic concept of taste is a metaphor. Aesthetic perception occurs precisely when taste is understood as something different from tasting, although it is metaphorically connected precisely with the latter. As a metaphor, taste arises through both the similarity and the difference between concept and sensation, so that the indirect meaning overbuilds the literal one without negating it, and the relationship between the two remains. We consider taste as a metaphor in Marcel Proust’s "In Search of Lost Time". In our view, the important aspect here is the relationship in question and the distinction drawn between state of mind and sensation. We are referring to the sensory dimension of taste (tasting) and its metaphorical transformation into concept and experience. It is a basic aspect, which actually marks the beginning of "In Search of Lost Time". In the first part, entitled "Combray", the narrator talks about the taste of a small cake called “petite madeleine” and the unconscious reason which provokes the pleasure caused by an extraordinary similarity. The same episode is examined in Time Regained as part of the overall conception of "In Search of Lost Time". The sudden similarity occurs between two sensations and between two otherwise different moments. Thus, the particular state is identified, whereby an unknown but very valuable essence is expressed. We assume that in the episode of the small madeleine, taste actually represents the way of manifestation of all the moments associated with the advantage of involuntary memory (la memoire involontaire), insofar as through it is manifested the hidden nature of things that had not been experienced before. This is possible, even though the manifestation of the essence has no logical explanation and the unknown state transcends the boundaries of conceivable experience. We associate this idea with Kant’s aesthetic concept of taste, which is a metaphor, because of the similarity of characteristics, and insofar as the metaphor expresses essence in "In Search of Lost Time".

„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.

Метафорите на Ерос

Author(s): Nevena Krumova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2-3/2017

The author aims to study the manifestations of Eros as an element of the virtual. The metaphor is the field, the language, in which we speak of the phenomena of the virtual. Hence, the article studies the metaphors of Eros. However, Eros has two sides – there is an objectivated and a non-objectivated Eros (earth and heavenly Eros). Therefore, a question arises: do the metaphors of the non-objectivated Eros differ from the metaphors of the objectivated Eros? To ingress the specificity of such a study, we will review in greater depth the metaphors relevant to Eros used by certain authors in Russian religious philosophy. The article discusses how schematism works for these metaphors with respect to the objectivated and non-objectivated aspects of Eros.

Хенри Дейвид Торо между

Author(s): Plamen Antov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2-3/2017

This essay situates H. D. Thoreau in a row of large cultural aporiae. The author argues an uncommon approach to Thoreau, not in the Kantian key of Transcendentalism, but as situated at the midpoint where Transcendentalism meets its antipode corporeality and reality: the author views the gesture Walden as a hidden expression of the kind of activeness that is of the essence of modern bourgeois-capitalist aggression against nature.Thoreau is seen as an American proto-philosopher who revolts against the European Cartesian metaphysization of philosophy, a trend whose ultimate manifestation is precisely Kant. Thoreau is seen as restoring the primordial totality of philosophy, similarly as the ancient philosopher who, in order to refute the assertion of his opponent that there is no motion in the world, simply stood up and took a few steps. – The gesture Walden is interpreted as an attempt to walk back those steps. As an attempt to restore the reality of the world, which has been lost in the course of civilization (seen as a process of increasingly dense veiling of reality under a network of symbols-simulations). Walden is at the center of this plot, personified by two mutually contrary cultural myths – the “European” Hamlet and the “American” Robinson Crusoe.Thus, on the other hand, Thoreau is seen as situated at the beginning of American Pragmatism considered as a philosophy of the “lower part” of the body (Bakhtin), of the thinking stomach. This fundamental non-metaphysicality of the American cultural genotype (world view) – the domination of bodily activity over reflection – has been paraphrased by a number of US presidents in the 20th and 21st century as the maxim “Bomb first, seek arguments later”. Yet at the same time, precisely in moving away from the European tradition, Thoreau finds himself at the point where the East begins. In Thoreau’s gesture Walden, the author finds and interprets the potential of this whole complex of dialectically “sublating” aporiae (at the core of which is the radical anti-cultural gesture, which is also a radical cultural gesture).

Паметта като проблем пред мисълта (ноематика на забравата)

Author(s): Andrey Leshkov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2-3/2017

Here we attempt to delineate a vanishing point of consciousness, the point where its contents are lost track of. This leads to a phenomenology of forgetting, which impresses an orientation to that which acts preconsciously within consciousness itself. When the vanishing point is reached, that point becomes its own other. This recession marks its flowing-away in time. However, the point is wedged between the limits of horizons. In the reduced world, that which is encountered horizontally is connected by the I can as a mode of access. For an I, all the horizons are modalities of forgetting. Its prevalence testifies to the finitude inherent in the ἔκστασις of consciousness. Here, cognition itself is based on a forgetting: anything known as enduring is pitted against the forgotten. And We have to face the forgotten in order to reveal forgetting’s contemporaneity with reflection. But in forgetting, I must be aware of forgetting: I is ineluctably implicated in cognizance (as illustrated by an approach to Husserľs intertwined themes of finitude and temporality). The phenomenology of forgetting points towards the situation of individuals and puts them vis-a-vis it in a reflective responsiveness, relating them to thinking in such a way that they can know themselves as being present in their thoughts. We should reconsider, then, the conviction that the transcendental ego no longer represents an abiding insight.

Метакритика над пуризма на разума (1784 г.)

Author(s): Johann Georg Hamann / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2017

In his short essay, the author Johann Georg Hamann reacts critically to the very core of Kant’s anti-metaphysical project by trying to show that the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments on the one side and between pure intuitions and concepts on the other side does not affect at all the hidden laws of language. He claims that certain forms of life itself, manifested in different kinds of creative artifacts as part of all human expression, being strongly backed by religious experiences in the Judeo-Christian tradition, do for sure lead in a strikingly modern way to lots of unsurpassable contributions towards deeper understanding of the roots of our reason through their imaginative and morally relevant findings and/or revelations

The Structure of Reality, or Where to Find the Final Theory?

Author(s): Alexander Panov / Language(s): English Issue: 19/2017

The main objective of the present article is the methodological analysis of the structures of physical theories that could apply to the theory of quantum gravitation or the unified theory of all interactions (other terms are the “Final Theory” or “The Theory of Everything”, TOE). In the first step of this discussion, it is shown that, unlike widely believed, quantum theory, in principle, allows representation by local classical hidden variables. The possibility of such representation is proved by the possibility of an exhaustive simulation of quantum systems by means of a local and classical device — the computer equipment plays a role in the local classical hidden variables. Details regarding the realization of such a representation are discussed using the example of an actual computer program simulating a correlation experiment using Einstein-Podolsky-Rozen pairs. This example explicitly violates the theorems of impossibility for hidden classical variables in quantum theory.The fact that these theorems ignore the possibility for a situation, which, in this article, is characterized as the splitting of the layers of reality, is the reason that a possible violation of the theorem of impossibility for hidden variables exists. There are two such layers in the computer example — a reality layer where computer equipment exists, and a layer of simulated quantum reality. The analysis of this example results in a general idea about the layers of reality, which are the main subject of the subsequent discussion.The computer example plays a role of the existence theorem. It follows that, in principle, a fundamental local and classical structure may exist behind physical quantum reality. However, such a “local realism” leads to the idea that an immense “space container” exists for classical objects of such a layer of reality. The problem is overcome if the fundamental ontology is classical but nonlocal. Then, a space container for it is not required. It is shown that such a classical, but nonlocal, structure is very similar to a formal mathematical system. It leads to a thought that the ideal mathematical system can be a fundamental ontology of the TOE, or it is reminiscent of something beyond mathematics — a nonreducible pseudomathematical structure.In this regard, the analysis of the nature of mathematics is given. It is shown that mathematics is not only a result of the imagination of people, but that mathematical forms and all mathematics holistically exist objectively. Moreover, the statement about the objective existence of mathematical forms has an empirical status based on Popper’s criterion of falsifiability. It transfers a question of objectivity for mathematics from the field of philosophy to the field of empirical science. Then, a connection on the bases of mathematics and physics is established — namely, with the existence of the classical sector of quantum theory and with a causal structure of space-time. In this sense, the existing mathematics is not the only objective, but they also possess physics. That is, mathematics, in a sense, is a thing but it is not a thought, and this quality can be considered as an objective layer of reality that can be a substrate of the physical world.In the final part of this paper, several modern directions in the quantum gravity theory or TOE (string theory, loop quantum gravity, and causal sets) are considered regarding, as far as these theories are concerned, the formation of an abstract mathematical substratum. It is shown that the tendency to develop an of structure like an abstract mathematical substratum definitely exists. This means that a TOE can be not just a physical theory, but rather an abstract mathematical structure.

Chaos i ciemność. Kilka uwag o Zagadce Kaspara Hausera Wernera Herzoga

Author(s): Michał Filipczuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 29/2017

“The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser” by Werner Herzog could be treated as an allegory of the human condition, akin to the vision of writers belonging to the broadly defined existentialist tradition – as far as the world vision and the conception of man, presented in the movie, are concerned. As the aforementioned allegory we can treat life history of the movie’s protagonist, Kaspar Hauser, the child of nature, thrown by an unknown dark force into completely incomprehensible for him human civilization, into the world of an absent – or negated – Absolute. It’s best formulaic description – “the empty Transcendence” – we can find in the poetry of Bolesław Leśmian. To some extent Herzog’s work could be treated as an evocation of so understood transcendence and as an expression of the existentialists’ diagnosis of our human fate: the man comes out of darkness and in the darkness he finds his ultimate destination.

Философската антропология във възгледите на Лудвиг Фойербах

Author(s): Sasho Vasilev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2015

In the wider sense, the concept of philosophical anthropology covers all views on the nature and essence of man since the remotest antiquity, whereas in its narrower associations it points to a philosophical discipline and a conceptually diverse movement that differentiated itself in the first half of the 20th century, joint together by the intention to define the foundations and spheres of man’s own being. It is considered to have formed upon the philosophical reflections of M. Scheler, H. Plessner, E. Rothacker, etc. Many scholars, however, have failed to recognize the fact that a number of the basic principles developed later on in the different views on man, were, for the first time, already to be found in a complex form and in the highest degree in the philosophy of L. Feuerbach.

Ренесансовият скептицизъм на Санчес в „Quod nihil scitur“

Author(s): Krasimir Delchev / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 4/2019

The article analyzes the skepticism of Francisco Sanchez.

From the category theory in mathematics to bio-cosmology

Author(s): Milan Tasić / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

We argue that philosophy and mathematics could accomplish far more fruitful encounter with the Being, since by number it is possible to go to such an extent behind the reality (Pythagoras) and if the four causes of Aristotle would be (especially in the human sphere) over again actualized. Alain Badiou has already pointed that "mathematics is ontology," and now we have that the category theory in mathematics – having already covered other fields of this science – continues to find applications in a series of "non-traditional" domains of reality. In that correlation, philosophy could express too, its (primary) need for truth, justice, beauty, as well as for an overall development in the sense of human purposes – due to the undreamed power of the technological progress (say of hardware and software in informatics) today. In that manner, the philosophy of mathematics could radicalize its claims from the perspective of the slogan ''One and All'' of the first philosopher Thales and of such a (powerful) mathematical idiom in front of the reality of Being – this time, in the spirit of bio-Cosmology (neo-Aristotelism).

Американският неореализъм и съзнанието

Author(s): Georgi Belogashev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2019

The article focuses on the theoretical understanding of the nature of consciousness in the various conceptual developments of thinkers of American neo-realism. Identical theoretical thesis are shown of the nature of consciousness, of objects, as well as their relation, knowledge sphere and cognitive field of consciousness, the correlation between consciousness and biophysical human organization. The insignificant differences in the detailed definition of the nature of consciousness are revealed, which do not change the characteristic theoretical position concerning the problem.

SAINT JOHN CASSIAN’S VISION ON THE RELATION BETWEEN GRACE AND LIBERTY

Author(s): Nicuşor Tucă,Corneliu-Dragoş Bălan / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The orthodox doctrine states that the beginning of salvation is made by divine grace, as uncreated energy, combating Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. Saint John Cassian, rightly included among the “great teachers and spiritual masters”, is considered by Owen Chadwick, together with Blessed Augustine, the personality who dominated the 5th century. Saint John Cassian highlights in his writings, especially in the second series of “Conferences” (Conferences XI-XVII) his teaching regarding the relationship between grace and free will, a teaching he had learned from Scripture, from theologians from the East and from many of the Western writers before Augustine (West theologian who supported predestination). The 13th Conference is a broad analysis of the relationship between grace and will of freedom, not only in the context of human effort to obtain salvation and perfection, but also in the process of conversion.

Śmierć intelektualisty. Nareszcie!

Author(s): Jacek Zych / Language(s): Polish Issue: 16/2019

Until recently, the “intellectual” was a figure associated with many myths. Karl Marx abandoned a career as a bourgeois academic and journalist to become a permanent political exile; György Lukács gave a pen to a KGB officer, after he had been asked to lay down arms; Kuroń and Modzelewski wrote a “Letter to the Party,” and as a result they spent years in prison; Sartre declined the Nobel Prize… Now the figure of the intellectual is dead. The contemporary Polish academic could not be more distant from this topos. The contemporary Polish academic is a conformist and careerist producing articles in the same way a factory worker produces commodities. However, in contrast to the latter, the former is unable either to reflect on or to fight for anything, even himself. But although bourgeois economists believe that “There has been history, but there is no longer any” and will be content to convert intellectuals into wage labourers, history is only just beginning. Total alienation, the subsuming of the faculty of thought to the accumulation of capital, demands total rebellion.

Bajki dla deleuzjanistów

Author(s): Adam Lipszyc / Language(s): Polish Issue: 16/2019

Pozostać z tyłu. Parę uwag o mistycyzmie Simone Weil na marginesie Świadomości nadprzyrodzonej

Author(s): Mirosław Dzień / Language(s): Polish Issue: 33/2019

The article focuses on some of the issues present in the selection of Simone Weil’s writings – Supernatural Consiousness. Issues such as existentialist motives in the context of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, the issue of humility and necessity and the issue of self-reduction of God.

Going Global with a Local Subaltern

Author(s): Gabriela Robeci / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The notion of the Subaltern has come to have deep roots in understanding postcolonial history. Established by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, it has come to define the essence of global cultural relations, as we perceive them today. However, the origin of this theory could not have been less regional, with a starting point in Calcutta in the first half of the 20th century. The way in which it describes the relations of power between India and the British Empire gives place to a global understanding of a dominant culture took control of subjects in minority. This paper is going to seek to expose the roots of the notion of Subalterns, not refraining from touching upon disparities between genders, nations, and traditions.