Мишел Фуко и западната медицина

Author(s): Dmitry Mikhel / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2020

The article analyzes Michel Foucault’s philosophical ideas on Western medicine and delves into three main insights that the French philosopher developed to expose the presence of power behind the veil of the conventional experience of medicine. These insights probe the power-disciplining function of psychiatry, the administra¬tive function of medical institutions, and the role of social medicine in the adminis¬trative and political system of Western society. Foucault arrived at these views by way of his intense interest in three elements of the medical system that arose almost simultaneously at the end of the 18th century: psychiatry as “medicine for mental illness”, the hospital as the first and most well-known type of medical institution, and social medicine as a type of medical knowledge focused more on the protection of society and far less on caring for the individual. All the issues Foucault wrote about stemmed from his personal and professional sensitivity to the problems of power and were a part of the “medical turn” in the social and human sciences that occurred in the West in the 1960s and 1970s and led to the emergence of medical humanities. The article argues that Foucault’s histories of the power of medical knowledge were philosophical histories of Western medicine. Foucault always used facts, dates, and names in an attempt to identify some of the general tendencies and patterns in the development of Western medicine and to reveal usually undisclosed mechanisms for managing individuals and populations. Those mechanisms underlie the practice of providing assistance, be it the “moral treatment” practiced by psychiatrists before the advent of effective medication, or treating patients as “clinical cases” in hospitals, or hospitalization campaigns that were considered an effective “technological safe-guard ” in the 18th and most of the 19th century.

Епископът и философите: Мил

Author(s): Liuben Sivilov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2020

In a series of six articles the reactions of philosophers to the epochal achievement of Bishop Berkeley, set out in his “An Essay Towards A New Theory of Vision“ are followed. The comments to the theory of Berkeley became the occasion for the modern reader to focus on overwhelming conclusions about the philosophical life and philosophical education in Bulgaria. The fourth article deals with John Stuart Mill.

Фигурата на гения: варианти на граничност

Author(s): Sylvia Borissova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2020

The word ‘genius’ has a particularly strong aura in the so-called ‘star age of geniuses’ (I. Passy) – during those memorable for modern Western aesthetics three decades from the late eighteenth – early nineteenth century, when in the face of Kant and the early Romanticists both an unprecedented flowering of the creative individuality with its endless labyrinth of inner worlds and attention to it were observed. Over time, the word ‘genius’ enters everyday language, which enriches the layers of its meaning. The pledge of this article is to typologize the basic nuances of the philosophical-aesthetic concept of genius, which means: to outline the main types of borderness of genius as an aesthetic figure.

Креативната потенция в даоизма като онто-поетическа корелация

Author(s): Desislava Damyanova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2020

The essential wisdom of a thinker is intangible, unknowable and unspoken: the synthesis of poetical and ontological experience. The basic principle of Daoist philosophy and poetry implies the non-differentiating awareness of the enlightened mind – the root of creativity lies in the spontaneity of nature and a certain state of consciousness without strict logical parallels. By his communion with the cosmic rhythm the poet finds a spiritual resonance with all things and living creatures (the myriad entities – wanwu). The creative process of Dao is also the potentiality of the artist who transforms his ego in the constructive act and becomes part of the universe following the ‘self-so’ (zhiran). The highest level of accomplishment is impossible without the transformation of the self through meditation and concentration in order to reach the creative potential that animates all things without any division, reflection and artificial distinctions.

Essay on the manner of understanding truth in criminal proceedings

Author(s): Małgorzata Żbikowska / Language(s): English Issue: 30 (2)/2020

The subject matter of the article is a short reflection on the concept of truth in criminal proceedings. The author raises the question about the manner of understanding the truth in a criminal trial, as well as about the relation of truth to proof and probability – are such concepts compatible, mutually exclusive or differentiated in terms of categories? As a result of such contemplation, the author decided that the text of Article 2 § 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure concerning material truth – in view of the today’s criminal law scholars and commentators – is similar to the concept of ontological truth, i.e. the understanding of truth in a way that does not refer to the state of affairs only (ontic truth), but also to the statements and judgements made with respect thereto. Such an understanding of truth also allows one to acknowledge the fact that the truth and belief that a certain event (that needs to be proven or made plausible) occurred are two different epistemic categories.

Ruiny dialektyki

Author(s): Michał Pospiszyl / Language(s): Polish Issue: 18/2020

Неевклидова геометрия в „Критика на чистия разум“?

Author(s): Rosen Lyutskanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2021

The paper discusses a traditionally construed as problematic aspect of Kant's philosophy of mathematics: the place and importance of non-Euclidean geometry in the structure of mathematics. Kant's conception of pure intuition in mathematics is usually considered incompatible with the existence of mathematics, leaving no place for the latter. In this paper I argue that we can find a place for them, provided we know where to look. Of key importance in this respect is the concept of symbolic construction, which Kant employs in his discussion of algebra. The concept makes it possible to sidestep the limitations related to the requirement of constructibility in pure intuition. The development of Hilbert's formalism in the philosophy of mathematics can be seen as a continuation of this move that makes manifest its full potential, which was not, and even could not, be realized by Kant.

Introduction

Author(s): INETA KIVLE,Raivis Bičevskis: / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The thematic coverage of this special issue was to some extent influenced by the international interdisciplinary conference “Let things be! Edmund Husserl 160, Martin Heidegger 130,” which took place at the University of Latvia, Riga in December 2019, the proceedings of which can be read in the journal “Horizon. Studies in Phenomenology” (Kivle, Bičevskis & Lācis, 2020, 373–381). Any researcher of phenomenology and hermeneutics was invited to contribute to the content of this issue. As a result, the journal’s topics cover issues of the history of phenomenology, the detailed application of the phenomenological method in the study of specific phenomena, Husserl’s or Heidegger’s concepts and the importance of phenomenology and hermeneutics in other fields of knowledge and art. The topics of the journal deviate from in-depth analysis of transcendental philosophy, fundamental ontology, and phenomenological methods, and draw attention to the understanding of certain concepts and their possible modification in specific situations and thematic areas, looking at the history of phenomenology in a regional context.

Смирение и оправдание или бунт и борба – философски бележки за отношението към страданието в религиозната вяра и обичайната нравственост

Author(s): Nikolay Turlakov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2021

In this paper, I consider an essential difference between religious faith and morality with regard to their respective attitudes towards suffering. Humility and justification or rebellion and struggle against suffering – this is the framework in which I try to outline the difference in question and to trace the choices made by heroes such as Sisyphus, Abraham and Job, and literary characters such as Zossima, Father Ferapont, Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov, Dr. Rieux and Jean Tarrou. Based on the example of these characters, I find that certain acts of unconditional religious faith dismiss the bad human conditions and earthly purposes (pain, suffering, bodily need, etc.), in contrast to the norms and maxims of morality deriving from people in their joint human existence and struggle. Insofar as religious faith is first and foremost turned to itself (it is a personal feeling that relates to the individual in his individuality) and is intended to achieve salvation (deliverance, healing, the attainment of Nirvana, etc.) of the believer’s soul, it can be said that faith in one’s attitude to life is ultimately a personal attitude (stemming from fear, reverence, or love) of man towards God or towards the divine. By contrast, acts of morality stem primarily from a perspective on human existence as coexistence with others, from empathy for others based not on the faith they share with us, but on the fact that they feel, understand and share with us the common destiny of vulnerable but authentic human beings.

Otwartość Boga. Wieczność i wolna wola

Author(s): Eleonore Stump / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

This article is an analysis of the doctrine of divine eternity. The sources for this doctrine can be traced back to the philosophy of Boethius or Thomas Aquinas. According to the doctrine of divine eternity, the existence of God is not determined by the linear passage of time – God exists in the eternal present. From an eternal perspective, God has simultaneous access to all moments of nature’s linear time. The doctrine of divine eternity is meant to be an antidote to the alleged contradiction of God’s omniscience with the freedom of human will. However, the doctrine of divine eternity has been criticised. Recently, its effectiveness in solving philosophical problems has been undermined by Alvin Plantinga or William Hasker, among others. This work is an attempt to creatively argue against the Hasker’s position. Hasker sees his position as an alternative to classical theism as represented, for example, by Thomism. Hasker rejects Thomism for two reasons. First, the Thomistic God cannot be intimate with human beings or responsive to them. Secondly, the Thomistic view of God as timeless solves the problem of God’s foreknowledge and of the existence of free will only at the cost of making God’s timeless knowledge useless to him in interaction with the temporal world. This paper analyses Hasker’s reasoning leading to the conclusion that free will and timeless knowledge are compatible and gives reasons for concluding that his argument is itself incompatible with the doctrine of eternity. Subsequently, it has been shown that the same conclusion is made even more clearly on the basis of considerations derived from the concept of eternity. Finally, these considerations are used to challenge Hasker’s conclusion that timeless knowledge might be useless to God in directing his actions over time.

Kontrowersje wokół ulepszania człowieka. Na podstawie książki Ulepszanie człowieka. Perspektywa filozoficzna

Author(s): Marcin Ferdynus / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2020

This work is a review of the book Human Enhancement. Philosophical Perspective (edited by G. Hołub and P. Duchliński, Jesuit University Ignatianum Press in Krakow, Krakow 2018). The main purpose of the text is a critical review of selected problems and views that are included in this publication. The article contains additions, comments, and polemics, as well as methodological remarks based on the literature in Polish and English.

EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM IN WILFRED OWEN’S ANTI-WAR POEM “FUTILITY”

Author(s): Goran J. Petrović / Language(s): English Issue: 72/2020

This paper analyzes “Futility”, one of the best poems by Wilfred Owen, a renowned British poet-soldier of the First World War. It shows that, in philosophical terms, the poem is based on existential nihilism as a view that human existence is intrinsically non-teleological. As the paper argues, Owen does not develop such a pessimistic world-view because of his great knowledge of Darwin’s or Nietzsche’s work as being emblematic of late nineteenth and early twentieth century pessimism, but because of his firsthand experience with the horrors of history’s first mechanized war. Owen’s nihilistic philosophy is viewed in contrast with the ideology of progress and utopianism as being prevalent over pessimism up until the outbreak of WWI and as being equally propounded by the secular philosopher Herbert Spencer and the Protestant liberal theologians. In brief, “Futility”, as a poem which presents the demise of a nameless British soldier, ends in the poet’s rhetorical question which explicitly doubts the purposefulness of human history. The paper also deals with “Futility’s” stylistic traits, and in doing so comes to the conclusion that the poem’s mood is for its most part temperate and elegiac with, in emotional terms, a somewhat more intense ending, just as it reveals that its irregular rhyming and metre reflect the poet’s reaction to the spiritual emptiness and chaos of war.

“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.

Anxiety and Kierkegaard’s Angest

Author(s): Adrian Arsinevici / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

This is a translator’s inquiry into what one may call the untranslatability, or near-untranslatability, of a Kierkegaardian concept. The article consists of five sections. Section I (Translating Angest) presents my personal reasons for embarking on this article. Since Kierkegaard employs Angest both colloquially and as a concept, Section II (Colloquial Angst) is a brief presentation of the general definition and uses of this word in everyday Danish, and Section III (Kierkgaard’s Angest) is an analysis and panoramic view of Angest as concept, based on quotations extracted mainly from Begrebet Angest. Section IV (German Angst, English ‘anxiety’, Danish Angest) is a short semi-historical presentation of some previous attempts to find and establish a suitable equivalent for Angest. Section V (The Conceptual Inheritance of Søren Kierkegaard) reiterates the idea that Angest, as a Kierkegaardian, Nordic concept, is not suitable for rendering into another language because too many of its connotations and original meanings would be lost in translation.

Reception and Renewal in the Kierkegaard Literature

Author(s): Zoltán Gyenge / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

This essay will try to define the beginnings and contemporary events of Hungarian Kierkegaard research, but it must be made clear that we can only examine the most significant works written about Kierkegaard. Before the Second World War, Hungarian culture and intellectual life were closely linked to German intellectual life. Therefore, the reception of Kierkegaard’s philosophy in Hungary can only be discussed regarding the period coming after the publication of his works in German. Moreover, it is an important fact that Kierkegaard became known to European culture through his German reception. It must be said that studies on Kierkegaard before the Second World War were probably deeper and more detailed than they were after the war. The 1980’s and 90’s saw a rebirth of the reception of Kierkegaard, mainly due to political changes going on in Hungary.

Kierkegaard’s Spatial Politics. Nations and Nationalism, Irony and the Demonic

Author(s): Anne-Christine Habbard / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

Kierkegaard is not usually considered a political thinker. However, many of the concepts and themes he develops have distinct political import. In particular, I will show that his thought functions as a counterpoint, and a counterweight, to the nation-state as constructed in European modernity. Indeed, the modern State is founded on a specific notion of space – the national territory –, which in turn has important consequences on the creation of nationhood, and on the relation to foreigners. Kierkegaard allows us to view the fallacious underpinnings of such a construct, thanks to his ingenious use and concept of space, but also to his distinctly ironic stance as an author. His analyses of irony, freedom and anxiety (and in particular, anxiety before the good, the demonic) give us insight into the defects of the nation-state, and some of its worst elements, such as nationalism. Kierkegaard offers us an alternative conception of space.

Varia. Suffering in Mental Illnesses. Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives upon Subjectivity, Corporality and the Abatements of Personal Autonomy

Author(s): Codruța Liana Cuceu,Horațiu Traian Crișan / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

Within this paper we will offer a short overview of the conceptual distinctions offered by three different contemporary philosophical perspectives, namely phenomenology, embodied cognition and applied medical ethics which prove to be useful in approaching the issue of suffering involved in mental illnesses. The aim of this article is to argue that the suffering experienced in mental illnesses can be expressed firstly as a “pathology” of subjectivity or as a difficulty occurred in structuring the subjective mundane experience. Secondly, we will attempt to explain how suffering in mental illnesses can be conceived as dysfunctionalities in the experience of the lived body’s intermediation of the subject being-in-the-world. Finally, the purpose of this article is to demonstrate that suffering in mental illnesses also employs a social component, by affecting personal autonomy and by distorting the decision-making process of the sufferer.

Mathematics and metaphysics: The history of the Polish philosophy of mathematics from the Romantic era

Author(s): Paweł Polak / Language(s): English Issue: 71/2021

The Polish philosophy of mathematics in the 19th century is not a well-researched topic. For this period, only five philosophers are usually mentioned, namely Jan Śniadecki (1756–1830), Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński (1776–1853), Henryk Struve (1840–1912), Samuel Dickstein (1851–1939), and Edward Stamm (1886–1940). This limited and incomplete perspective does not allow us to develop a well-balanced picture of the Polish philosophy of mathematics and gauge its influence on 19th- and 20th-century Polish philosophy in general. To somewhat complete our picture of the history of the Polish philosophy of mathematics in those times, we here present the profiles of some lesser-known Polish Romantic philosophers of the 19th century, namely Karol Libelt, Bronisław Trentowski, and Józef Kremer. We discuss their contributions to the philosophy of mathematics and their metaphysical perspectives, and we also show how their metaphysical ideas have found some continuity in the studies of some Catholic philosophers.

За вярата и страданието

Author(s): Anguel S. Stefanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2022

Nikolay Turlakov published a study in this journal, No. 4, 2021, entitled “Humility and Justification or Rebellion and Struggle: Philosophical Notes on the Attitude to Suffering in Religious Faith and Customary Morality”. The outlined dilemma is whether one must follow a rigorous faith and submissively encounter human sufferings, or one ought to struggle against them. I was impressed by the interesting reflections the author has made in his study, so my paper is presented here as a kind of a letter to him. My aim is directed to strengthening his attempt at resolving the dilemma by finding a way out of it on the base of the introduction of what is called a moderate religious faith.

Малка апология за Янко Янев (13 декември 1900–13 февруари 1945)

Author(s): Dimitar Tsatsov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2022

The article is on the occasion of the anniversaries of Yanko Yanev and is an attempt to show how the criticism of modernity and philosophizing without transcendence moves to reflections on the historical destiny of the Bulgarian people. In this context, his main testament emerges – the vocation of the authentic Bulgarian philosopher is a careful look at the concrete dynamics of the historical, of what is happening here and now.