This paper seeks to identify, clarify, and perhaps rehabilitate the virtual reality metaphor as applied to the goal of understanding consciousness. Some proponents of the metaphor apply it in a way that implies a representational view of experience of a particular, extreme form that is indirect, internal and inactive (what we call “presentational virtualism”). In opposition to this is an application of the metaphor that eschews representation, instead preferring to view experience as direct, external and enactive (“enactive virtualism”). This paper (...) seeks to examine some of the strengths and weaknesses of these virtuality-based positions in order to assist the development of a related, but independent view of experience: virtualist representationalism. Like presentational virtualism, this third view is representational, but like enactive virtualism, it places action centre-stage, and does not require, in accounting for the richness of visual experience, global representational “snapshots” corresponding to the entire visual field to be tokened at any one time. (shrink)

This paper traces the shift from the age of realism to the age of virtualism we are currently witnessing. To do so, I draw on older theories announcing this advent (mostly Baudrillard in Simulacra and simulation. Transl. Sheila Glaser. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1994 [1981]; Serres in Atlas. Édition Julliard, Paris, 1994; Virilio in The vision machine. Transl. Rose J. Indiana UP, Bloomington, 1994). I will describe how AI destabilizes fundamental distinctions upon which reality is built—such as the difference (...) between truth and fiction, between existence and simulation, between the actual and the potential, between game and everyday life, between person and avatar. Against the backdrop of a broader notion of the virtual (drawing on Deleuze in The actual and the virtual. Transl. Eliot Ross Albert in Parnet C Dialogues. Bloomsbury, London, pp 148–152, 2006 [1996]), I will read current realist theories (Chalmers in Reality plus—virtual worlds and the problems of philosophy. Allen Lane, London in 2022; Gabriel in Why the world does not exist. Transl. Gregory S. Moss. Polity, Cambridge, 2015; Ferraris in Positive realism. Zero Books, Arlesford, 2015; Meillassoux in After finitude—an essay on the necessity of contingency. Transl. Brassler R. Bloomsbury, London, 2008) as symptoms of the ongoing shift (rather than countermeasures against it), because they result in an inability to do justice to the epistemic and existential changes resulting from the erosion of the foundations of reality. The consequences of this shift are hard to predict and can only partially be outlined in this paper, which will end in a cautious attempt to do so (chapters 5 and 6). Starting off with a brief overview on this topic (chapter 1), I will trace the reasons for my diagnosis focusing first on what I call the “age of reality” currently coming to an end (chapter 2), then on why virtuality cannot be subsumed under reality (chapter 3), then how virtuality is currently replacing reality (chapter 4). (shrink)

Valentin Kanawrow develops his system of critical metaphysics across five systematically linked monographs. The core of this pentalogy is the original concept of virtualistic transcendentalism. Kanawrow creates a new metaphysical system as a continuation and reorganization of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. The virtual is the domain of the pure a priori form of thought, which, however, must reach and realize experience in its regions. This transition from a priori to a posteriori is mediated by transcendental schematism – an entirely new theory (...) developed by Valentin Kanawrow. In its descent to experience, the transcendental schema devirtualizes itself and deduces the phenomena as formats of the true ontologizations of the given in experience. Transcendental phenomena result in plural regional critical ontologies, such as special metaphysical domains. The large-scale system of critical metaphysics of Valentin Kanawrow ends with a transcendental anthropology demonstratively developed on the conducted Analytics of the transcendental phenomena constituting the lifeworld of human being. (shrink)

This essay provides a conceptual account of contemporary aesthetics defining it as post-nonclassical. The author shows that this aesthetics, which is the direct consequence of the current state of a technogenic, globalizing civilization and is its self-consciousness, is composed of three parts: classic aesthetic metaphysics; opposed to it nonclassical aesthetics, which emerged on the base of a verbal fixation on twentieth-century art practice ; and aesthetic virtualistics, which generalizes the experience of emerging digital and network art experiments. The author (...) introduces the basic aesthetic vocabulary specific to each of the constituent parts of contemporary post-nonclassical aesthetics. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:The aim of the present text is to reflect on Kanawrow’s Tetralogy as an original approach to Kantian critcal metaphysics with a view to achieving the greatest clarity level of theoretical philosophising in formal and conceptual sense. Special light will be thrown here on some logical aspects of the transition from intentionality to intensionality. Transcendental synthesis is explicated toroughtly as a generative mechanism towards initially independent objectness: the virtual topos of thinking needs an emphasis on its metaphysically clarified purity. In (...) accordance with my own approach the transition from a priori to a posteriori should be clearly explicated as a transition from intentionality to intensionality – to regional (actual) human experience which falls in the range of presumed open valences of thinking. The newly considered virtualistic phenomenon is in use in accordance with transcendentalising of actual experience. In addition, logical functionality of thinking receives a cognitive significance against our actual experience. That guarantees a variety of successful routes of transcendental schematism in its virtualistic version (transcendental phenomenology).KEYWORDSCRITICAL METAPHYSIC, VIRTUALISTIC METAPHYSICS, VIRTUAL TOPOS OF THINKING, UNLOCKING, DEVIRTUALISATION, TRANSCENDENTAL SYNTHESIS.RESUMENEl objetivo del presente texto es reflexionar sobre la tetralogía de Kanawrow como un enfoque original de la metafísica critica kantiana con el fin de alcanzar el mayor nivel de claridad de filosofar teórico en el sentido formal y conceptual. Se esclarecerán especialmente algunos aspectos lógicos de la transición de la intencionalidad hacia la intensionalidad. La síntesis trascendental se explica como un mecanismo generativo hacia la objetividad inicialmente independiente: el topos virtual de pensamiento necesita un énfasis en su pureza que es metafísicamente aclarada. De acuerdo con mi propio enfoque la transición de a priori a a posteriori debe estar claramente explicada como una transición de la intencionalidad a la intensionalidad - hacia la (real) experiencia regional humana que se encuentra en el rango de valencias abiertas presumidas del pensamiento. El considerado virtualistic phenomenon está en uso, de conformidad con transcendentalisacion de la experiencia actual. Además, la funcionalidad lógica del pensamiento recibe un significado cognitivo en contra de nuestra experiencia real. Estas consideraciones garantizan una variedad de rumbos exitosos del esquematismo trascendental en su versión virtualistica (fenomenología trascendental).PALABRAS CLAVESMETAFÍSICA CRÍTICA, METAFÍSICA VIRTUAL,TOPOS VIRTUAL DE PENSAMIENTO, DE VIRTUALIZACIÓN. (shrink)

This essay is devoted to the analysis of the scholarly achievements of Victor V. Bychkov, a renowned Russian expert in aesthetics. It demonstrates that he has analyzed systematically and in detail the history of implicit aesthetics of the countries of the Eastern Orthodox region and has subdivided it into four principal stages: Patristic aesthetics, Byzantine aesthetics, Old Russian aesthetics, and Russian theourgic aesthetics. He has devoted special monographs to each of the four areas. Bychkov has created a present-day version of (...) theoretical aesthetics—post-nonclassic aesthetics—which he subdivided into three principal sections: classic, aesthetics; nonclassics ; and aesthetic virtualistics. Based on his analysis of twentieth-century art, Bychkov has suggested the hypothesis "Culture-post-culture," has brought to light the metaphysical meaning of contemporary, art and has provided contemporary definitions of the subject of aesthetics, of principal aesthetic categories, and of the main principles of art. (shrink)

In the report are considered initial theses – philosophical ideas and paradigmatic representations, - for formation of a new scientific direction – virtual linguistics: virtual philosophy of linguistics. Focus of interests of virtual linguistics lays in studying attitudes of the internal (virtual) human and language as virtual object of the internal (virtual) human. For ordinary consciousness virtual - concerning computers. It only is partly true. The virtualistic as the paradigmatic direction is developed in Russia since 80th years of the last (...) century. The virtualistic not scientific discipline, and the paradigmatic approach which can be applied in any sphere of human activity. Virtual psychology - one of its most developed directions. The virtual psychology considers mentality of the person (its internal space) as a virtual reality. The main message, the thesis: want a hypothesis, want the statement: the human should cease to be in linguistics a figure of default. The maxim is well-known: language - the house of life. It is less obvious, that the human - the house of language. But, certainly, simultaneously the human is the son of language. In particular, it is possible to ask a question - what ontological structure outside of language space of mental sphere? In this connection some perspective directions of works at philosophical, theoretical, methodological and empirical levels have been considered. The invitation to cooperation of colleagues of linguists - one of the central purposes present article. (shrink)

In this essay I critique a particular reading of Bergson that places an excessive weight on the concept of the ‘virtual’. Driven by the popularity of Deleuze’s use of the virtual, this image of Bergson (seen especially through his text of 1896, Matter and Memory, where the idea is introduced) generates an imbalance that fails to recognise the importance of concepts of actuality, like space or psychology, in his other works. In fact, I argue that the virtual is not the (...) key concept for Bergsonism and that there is a good deal of evidence in Bergson’s other writings, especially those connected with his actualist notion of ‘refraction’, to think of him as a perspectivist philosopher. Moreover, it will be seen that Virtualism resides within an economy of reflection that is subsumed within the broader paradigm of Actualist refraction. Taking these optical metaphors seriously, the virtual becomes a perspectival image seen from an actual position, or rather, an interacting set of actual positions. This interaction is termed ‘virtualization’, denoting the substitution of a substantive conception with a processual one. In the first two parts of the essay, I direct my remarks more towards Deleuzian readings of the actual rather than Deleuze himself (Deleuze is so open about the biases he brings to his reading of Bergson as to be beyond criticism). In the second two sections, I pursue a philosophical argument for the probity of a non-Virtualist position as such within philosophy, based upon the concept of refraction. This is done not only because it is important that we remain open to other readings of Bergson that are not so heavily mediated in one direction, but also in view of the power of refraction as a new concept for reconciling actual modes such as molar identity, the present, and extension, with their virtual opposites. (shrink)

Автор досліджує визначення «віртуальна реальність» та його історичне становлення у філософії від найдавніших часів до наших днів. Розглянуто тривалий шлях формування терміна: у різні епохи його визначали по-своєму. Відзначено, що в античній філософії віртуальне було ознакою буття і представлено двома лініями тлумачення: Платона і Арістотеля. У середні віки філософи також використовували поняття «віртуальність». І тут вже поєднались елементи як платонівської, так і арістотелівської моделей. У Новий час концепція віртуальності зустрічається у працях Г. Лейбніца, І. Канта, Г. Гегеля та ін. Наприкінці (...) XIX – на початку XX ст. ідея віртуальності продовжувала розвиватися як ідея наявності особливого, проміжного стану чогось. Зазначається, що сьогодні варіативне тлумачення ідеї віртуальності продовжує виявлятися у різних галузях науки і техніки, корелюючи між ними. Автор відзначає, що сучасні технології та Інтернет надають визначенню нові аспекти. Розглядається поступове нашарування інтерпретацій терміна, яке до нині має досить розмите визначення. (shrink)