"One" and "Many" in Islam - The Path (Sirat) and the Ways (Subul) in the Qur'an

Author(s): Habibollah Babaei / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2014

The Qur'an considers both one path (sirat) and many ways (subul) simultaneously as a direction to righteousness and religiosity. The same kind of one and many has been revealed about wickedness and unrighteousness as well. Now, the question arises here, what is the relationship between plurality and unity in both righteousness and unrighteousness? I think considering these questions will offer a new perspective in regard to 'unity and plurality' which is an important issue in a pluralistic world such as ours. In order to respond to these questions, it would be significant to illuminate the relationship between many divine ways and the one divine path on the one hand, and to clarify the distinction between divine ways and devil ways on the other.

(Mis)reading Matters in Titus Andronicus: Ekphrastic Displacements and the Aemulatio Game on the Renaissance Stage

Author(s): Carmen Florescu / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

This essay studies Titus Andronicus‘s (mis)reading of the classics in order to tease out certain displacements which Shakespeare‘s play effects relative to its sources. Arguably, aemulatio in Titus can also suggest concerns with theatrical issues, such as the presencing onstage of characters and acts inspired by classical texts, as well as constituting an aemulatio of other Elizabethan playwrights, however problematic with respect to the object of emulation: escalating violence to (re)map gender hierarchy through multiple instantiations of the playwright persona. While, as Shakespeareans agree, the Philomela myth in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses is central to shaping, even scripting, the plot of Titus, I find a particular detail in Ovid worth re-reading, namely the tapestries woven by female characters such as Philomela, which no longer make sense onstage and which Shakespeare therefore dispenses with, or rather transmutes. I argue that Shakespeare‘s multiple displacements of the Ovidian tapestry – and generally the repurposing of ekphrasis – render visible the silent assumptions of patriarchy as encoded by Ovid, through ekphrasis, in a male-authored text cross-voicing female plight: that women can/should be and have been objectified under patriarchy, and that their reified condition may at times recall an aesthetic artefact which arrests the gaze and may (or may not) move to pity, but cannot challenge the foundational violence of patriarchy

(rec). Paweł Gondek, Projekt autonomicznej filozofii realistycznej. Mieczysława A. Krąpca i Stanisława Kamińskiego teoria bytu, Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu i Wydawnictwo KUL, Lublin 2015

Author(s): Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2016

(rec.) Dawid Lipski, Jan Peckham i Tomasz z Akwinu. Spór o jedność formy substancjalnej w człowieku, seria: Opera philosophorum medii aevi (textus et studia), tom 15, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, Warszawa 2015

Author(s): Jacek Grzybowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2016

(rec.) Vittorio Possenti, Il realismo e la fine della filosofia moderna („Realizm i koniec filozofii nowożytnej”), Armando Editore, Roma 2016

Author(s): Andrzej Kobylinski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2017

A COMMENTARY UPON GADAMER’S INTERPRETATION OF HEGEL

Author(s): Anton Crisan / Language(s): English / Issue: Sp.Iss./2015

A Commentary upon Gadamer’s Interpretation of Hegel. In light of a renewed scholarly undertaking of the Hegel‒Gadamer connection, the purpose of the present paper is to carry further this much needed re-approach of the issue by stressing yet another one of its aspects. I am referring to the scholarly insights that Gadamer himself provides us with in his interpretation of Hegel. Since many of Gadamer’s essays on Hegel are actually studies originally meant as contributions to major journals dealing with Hegel’s work, my claim is that we can retrieve from them answers to many ongoing debates in the Hegel scholarship. I will insist on only one of these issues, namely Gadamer’s account of Hegel’s relation to metaphysics.

A Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Implication in Some Contemporary Logical Systems and Their Origins in Antiquity

Author(s): Doroteya Angelova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2017

This article examines the main characteristics of the concepts of implication in relevant, connexive and paraconsistent logics and discusses the origins of these concepts in Antiquity. It is made a comparative analysis between the meaning of this connective in the three logics in regard to their correspondence to the conditional “if…., then….” used in natural language and presents arguments that the notion of implication, proposed by relevant logic, provides the most adequate formal explication of the conditional connective in the mentioned sense.

A Contextual and Philosophical Analysis of Aquinas’ Fourth Way

Author(s): Matthew W. Knotts / Language(s): English / Issue: 59/2014

The task of this essay is a reconsideration and rehabilitation of the fourth way of Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. The argument ex gradibus is first presented with attention to the philosophical-theological context of the five ways, in addition to matters of historical context. It will become clear that the arguments are enthymematic and should thus be read charitably in connection with other aspects of Aquinas’ philosophy (cf. Copleston 1976; Fogelin 1990; Kerr 2001). Moreover, in contrast to the prevailing sentiment that the fourth way should be read primarily in a Platonic light (cf., e.g., Van Steenberghen 1980), I argue that the fourth way should rather be read in connection with other crucial aspects of Aquinas’ metaphysics of being (cf. Urban 1984). Finally, I reconsider some of the fundamental aspects of the argument, e.g., the ‘principle of the maximum’ (cf. Flew 1966, Kenny 1969, Van Steenberghen 1980, Doolan 2008). The upshot is a clearer understanding of what Aquinas actually means in the fourth way, which in turn enables a more informed evaluation of the argument itself.

A fiktív karakterek és a lehetséges világok metafizikája

Author(s): Dombrovszki Áron / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 3-4/2016

A Japanese-American Sam Spade: The Metaphysical Detective in Death in Little Tokyo, by Dale Furutani

Author(s): Carla Portilho / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

The aim of this essay is to discuss the legacy of the roman noir in contemporary detective fiction produced outside the hegemonic center of power, here represented by the novel Death in Little Tokyo (1996), written by Japanese-American author Dale Furutani. Starting from the concept of the metaphysical detective (Haycraft 76; Holquist 153-156), characterized by deep questioning about narrative, interpretation, subjectivity, the nature of reality and the limits of knowledge, this article proposes a discussion about how these literary works, which at first sight represent a traditionally Anglo-American genre, constitute narratives that aim to rescue the memory, history and culture of marginalized communities. Typical of late modernity detective fiction, the metaphysical detective has none of the positivistic detective’s certainties, as he does not share in his Cartesian notion of totality, being presented instead as a successor of the hardboiled detective of the roman noir. In this article I intend to analyze the paths chosen by the author and discuss how his re-reading of the roman noir dialogues with the texts of hegemonic noire detective fiction, inscribing them in literary tradition and subverting them at the same time.

A less simplistic metaphysics: Peirce’s layered theory of meaning as a layered theory of being

Author(s): Marc Champagne / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2015

This article builds on C. S. Peirce’s suggestive blueprint for an inclusive outlook that grants reality to his three categories. Moving away from the usual focus on (contentious) cosmological forces, I use a modal principle to partition various ontological layers: regular sign-action (like coded language) subsumes actual signaction (like here-and-now events) which in turn subsumes possible sign-action (like qualities related to whatever would be similar to them). Once we realize that the triadic sign’s components are each answerable to this asymmetric subsumption, we obtain the means to track at which level of complexity semiosis finds itself, in a given case. Since the bulk of such a “trinitarian” metaphysics would be devoted to countenancing uninterpreted phenomena, I argue that current misgivings about sign-based ontologies are largely misplaced.

A Mythic-Symbolic Perspective on Politics

Author(s): Sandu Frunza / Language(s): English / Issue: 40/2015

In an era of generalized communication, democratic societies cannot escape the radical changes that the development of different types of communication claims. Political communication determines new types of political practice and adhesion. As in the case of postmodern communication in general, in political communication, expressions of symbolic communication characteristic for traditional societies are still being used, even if those expressions are presented as contemporary symbolic constructs, as for example the construct of “postmodern tribes”. This text focuses on how these elements are highlighted in the socio-analysis of Vasile Sebastian Dâncu, one of the most renowned experts in the Romanian political culture. The public space, shaped in the past by the intellectual elite, bearer of values and symbolic conscience, is being seized by television stars, by the online communication specialists. This leads to new fragmentations in and coagulation of political space, and to a prevalence of sentimentalities, mythical stories, and mystical experiences at the expense of rationality, civic involvement and ideologies. The new configuration of political groups of interest and the new ways of adhesion typical for “political followers” belonging to the Facebook generation are regarded from a mythic– symbolic mentality which links them to a behavior and a kind of solidarity characterizing tribal groups which are acting on a postmodern political scene.

A Philosophical Critique of the Concept of Miracle as a “Supernatural Event”

Author(s): Adam Swiezynski / Language(s): English / Issue: 49/2017

The notion of the supernaturality of an event may be understood in various ways. Most frequently ‘supernatural’ means ‘separated from nature’, i.e. different from nature. Thus, what is meant here is the difference in ontological character. The definitions of miracle, present in literature, emphasize the fact that we may talk about a miracle only when the phenomenon takes place beyond the natural order or stands in opposition to it. The description of a miracle as a ‘supernatural event’ contains in itself the reference to that which is natural. The supernaturality of an event means that it surpasses (transcends) naturality. Additionally, this transcendence contains a kind of opposition to that which is natural. However, the miracle as a supernatural event takes place within the scope of that which is natural, although it takes place in a different way from natural events. It seems that this supernaturality may involve two things: (1) the course of the miraculous event; (2) the cause of the miraculous event. We should consider each of them separately and specify what we understand by the supernatural course of the event and by the supernatural cause of the event. If we could prove that we can talk about supernatural events at least in one of the two signaled aspects of supernaturality, then we would be able to define the miraculous event as a supernatural one. The analyses proposed in the paper allow us to formulate the following statement concerning the miraculous event, which is, to a great extent, a critical correction of the traditional way of understanding it: the miracle may be correctly understood as a supernatural event, only when this supernaturality concerns the personal cause of the event and not its course.

A Posthumanist Microethnography of Multiculture: Olfactory Assemblages in Rome’s Banglatown

Author(s): Elisa Fiore / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2016

The present article draws from a wider research project conducted in the months of February and May 2015 in Tor Pignattara, one of the twelve urban zones constituting the V Municipality of the city of Rome. The project, which takes the shape of a multisensory, posthumanist microethnography of multiculture, mainly attempts to investigate how affective urban materialities are capable of organizing and co-participating in the iterative reconfigurings of everyday experience with/in the locale. In particular, it looks at how material social practices such as racialization, gendering and classing intra-act (Barad 2007) in the production of constitutive in/exclusion(s) with/in it. After a brief introduction about the context of the research and the process of gendered racialization by which it is currently invested, this article proposes feminist new materialism as a theoretico-methodological framework that counters the epistemological identity politics responsible for the essentialization and reification of constituencies in the locale. By conceiving identity structurations as more-than-human assemblages given by the intra-action of human and nonhuman actants, feminist materialism challenges their assumed discreteness and poses them as co-constitutive, dynamic and overlapping historical formations rather than as pre-existing givens. In fact, it accounts for the enactment of the nonhuman in the materialization of what there is. This article proposes a feminist new materialist reading of food and kitchen odors in Tor Pignattara as a tool to denounce the arbitrariness of the dichotomous thinking that structures life in late western modernity.

A semmi nevei

Author(s): István Király V. / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 10/2014

A Spiritual Philosophy of Recovery: Aquinas and Alcoholics Anonymous

Author(s): A. William McVey / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The article is an attempt to formulate a Thomistic spiritual philosophy of recovery. The author faces two issues. One, what do recovering alcoholics mean when they say: “I am spiritual, but not religious?” He comes to the conclusion that it means recovering alcoholics are experiencing spiritual healing in their willingness to trust a loving God who has performed a miracle of recovery from alcoholism in their life. As a result of this experience, they are prepared to live a life of virtuous habit. Two, recovering alcoholics have discovered a spiritual second nature of moral character. The author explains why there are many in A.A. who discover that as God comes into their life and they turn to the path of virtue they rediscover religious worship and devotion is essential to the one day at a time journey.

A Trial of Interpretation of Meister Eckhart’s Thought on God and Man through the Analysis of Its Paradoxes

Author(s): Zbigniew Kazmierczak / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

This article interprets Eckhart’s contradictions by presenting them as a result of an existential search for salvific power. It is shown that power is ambivalent in nature: it is the power of what is and the power of (self)overcoming (of what is). Just because power is in itself ambivalent and the process of searching for it existentialist (so not completely conscious), Eckhart’s mystical texts are full of contradictions and the German mystic is apparently not aware of it. The sample of them is shown in this article with regard to his ideas on God and man. Three other interpretations of Eckhart’s (“apophatic,” “educational,” “methodological”) are presented and argued against.

Abgeschiedenheit Mistrza Eckharta w fenomenologicznej wykładni Bernharda Weltego

Author(s): Joachim Piecuch / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2016

The basis of analyzes carried out in the article is the work of Bernhard Welte: Meister Eckhart. Gedanken zu seinen Gedanken. The central subject of research is the idea Abgeschiedenheit (“isolation”). Following the interpretation of Welte it has been considerated a phenomeno‐ logical description on two ways. From the practical experience, as a modus vivendi a religious man, and from the theoretical, as speculative thought. Theoretical considerations consist of analysis of the concept of truth and goodness, which Eckhart identifies with the idea of God. Welte shows that these concepts of medieval thinker at the starting point considerations are still sink in the schemes of metaphysical thinking, but in the next stages of its argumentation he overcome metaphysical discourse. The purpose of the article, guided by the suggestion Weltes interpretation, is to show ways of reaching the source forms of religious experience. At the same time the text raised the issue of problematic use formulas of mystical union and noticed parallels have been taking place between the method of phenomenological reduction and the idea of Abgeschiedenheit.

Absoliutaus Vienio Akivaizda Plotino Ir Zhuangzi Filosofijoje

Author(s): Agne Budriunaite / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 72/2012

The paper analyzes a phenomenon that could be called, from the philosophical point of view, a ’presence of absolute Oneness’. Descriptions of the phenomenon may be found in the writings of the mystics of all major religions. The constructivists, nevertheless, repudiate the possibility of an unmediated mystical experience. The paper focuses on the notion of the Absolute and its presence in human consciousness as it is found in the writings of Plotinus and Zhuangzi. These two philosophers talk similarly about the One as the source and purpose of all Being, despite belonging to different intellectual traditions. The paper analyzes the state of the wakeful though contentless consciousness that is of most importance for both authors. It is not an achieved union between the human and the Divine and not a perception of the oneness of the world observed from the outside. The paper raises the question: even though such presence of absolute Oneness is described in terms of a particular religious and/or philosophical tradition, can it be considered a ’religious experience’ or even ’experience’ at all?

ABSOLIUTIZMO IR RELIACIONIZMO KONTROVERSIJA: NEWTONAS VS. LEIBNIZAS

Author(s): Jonas Ciurlionis / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 90/2016

The article deals with a controversy between absolutist and relationist conceptions of space and time. Comparison between Newton’s and Leibniz’s theories is drawn. Points of view of other philosophers who took part in the discussion are also analysed. Strong and weak parts of both theories are revealed. The article is not aimed at taking sides in the debate rather it provides the reader with a possibility to construct his own assessment. The publication states that premises of both conceptions of space and time are metaphysical rather than physical. However, this classical debate is still relevant in today’s modern scientific context.