t. 1. Lubi︠a︡nka-Ėkibastuz ; Sozidateli i razrushiteli -- t. 2. Teorii︠a︡ gustot : opyt khristianskoĭ filosofii kont︠s︡a XX veka ; Mekhanika na kvantovom urovne -- t. 3. K teorii gustot ; Postulaty marksizma i zakony prirody ; Pustota bezbozhii︠a︡ ; Politėkonomii︠a︡ na ėnergeticheskoĭ osnove ; Derzhava sozidateleĭ ; K edinenii︠u︡ khristian -- t. 4. Mysli o raznom ; Solzhenit︠s︡yn i deĭstvitelʹnostʹ ; Statʹi v zapadnoĭ presse.

In this article, moving from being to becoming, we construe the ‘self’ as a dynamic process rather than as a static entity. To this end we draw on dialectics and Bayesian accounts of cognition. The former allows us to holistically consider the ‘self’ as the interplay between internalization and externalization and the latter to operationalize our suggestion formally. Internalization is considered here as the co-construction of bodily hierarchical models of the world and the organism, while externalization is taken as the (...) collective transformation of the world. We do not consider these processes as sequentially linked, but rather as a dialectic between the collective and the individual. This leads us to the suggestion of the self as a historical product of dialectical attunement across multiple time scales, from species evolution and culture to individual development and everyday learning. Subsequently, we describe concrete means for empirically testing our proposal in the form of two-person psychophysiology and multi-level analyses of intersubjectivity. Taken together, we suggest that a fine-grained analysis of social interaction might allow us to reconsider the ‘self’ beyond the static individual, i.e. how it emerges and manifests itself in social relations. Such an approach, we believe, could be relevant in multiple fields, from ethics and psychiatry to pedagogy and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Computational perspectivalism has been recently proposed as an alternative to mainstream accounts of physical computation, and especially to the teleologically-based mechanistic view. It takes physical computation to be partly dependent on explanatory perspectives and eschews appeal to teleology in helping individuate computational systems. I assess several varieties of computational perspectivalism, showing that they either collapse into existing non-perspectival views or end up with unsatisfactory or implausible accounts of physical computation. Computational perspectivalism fails, therefore, to be a compelling alternative to perspective-independent (...) theories of computation in physical systems. I conclude that a teleologically-based, non-perspectival mechanistic account of physical computation is to be preferred. 1Introduction 2The Mechanistic View of Computation 2.1Teleological functions and meeting the desiderata 3Varieties of Perspectivalism 4Computational Perspectivalism 4.1Computational perspectivalism and pancomputationalism 4.2Computational perspectivalism and miscomputation 5The Varieties of Computational Perspectivalism Assessed 5.1Innocuous computational perspectivalism 5.2Non-innocuous computational perspectivalism 5.2.1Computational instrumentalism 5.2.2Ontic perspectivalism 6Concluding Remarks. (shrink)

I examine a major objection to the mechanistic view of concrete computation, stemming from an apparent tension between the abstract nature of computational explanation and the tenets of the mechanistic framework: while computational explanation is medium-independent, the mechanistic framework insists on the importance of providing some degree of structural detail about the systems target of the explanation. I show that a common reply to the objection, i.e. that mechanistic explanation of computational systems involves only weak structural constraints, is not enough (...) to save the standard mechanistic view of computation—it trivialises the appeal to mechanism, and thus makes the account collapse into a purely functional view. I claim, however, that the objection can be put to rest once the account is appropriately amended: computational individuation is indeed functional, while mechanistic explanation plays a role in accounting for computational implementation. Since individuation and implementation are crucial elements in a satisfying account of computation in physical systems, mechanism keeps its central importance in the theory of concrete computation. Finally, I argue that my version of the mechanistic view helps to provide a convincing reply to a powerful objection against non-semantic theories of concrete computation: the argument from the multiplicity of computations. (shrink)

How baroque was Spinoza in his treatment of the prophets? I examine this question by comparing the pictorial treatments of Moses from the Netherlands to Spinoza’s treatment of Moses at the beginning of the Theological Political Treatise. I concentrate on two representations of Moses descending from mount Sinai, one by Ferdinand Bol and the other by Rembrandt. Of particular importance is the idea of hierarchy. I will argue that Spinoza takes an ambiguous position in relation to baroque, on the one (...) hand following the baroque’s drastic spatiotemporal condensation that questions hierarchies, but on the other refusing the baroque’s representation of unmediated or unjustified sovereign violence. (shrink)

According to some representationalists (M. Tye, Ten problems of consciousness, MIT Press, Massachusetts, USA, 1995; W.G. Lycan, Consciousness and experience, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1996; F. Dretske, Naturalising the mind, MIT Press, Massachusetts, USA 1995), qualia are identical to external environmental states or features. When one perceives a red rose for instance, one is visually representing the actual redness of the rose. The represented redness of the rose is the actual redness of the rose itself. Thus redness is not (...) a property of one’s experience but an externally constituted property of the perceived physical object. In this sense, qualia are out there, in the external world. Here, I argue that the main representationalist arguments to this effect, if successful, establish no more than a symmetrical supervenience relation between representational content and qualia, and that a supervenience relation alone (albeit symmetrical) doesn’t suffice for identity. This supervenience thesis between qualia and representational content leaves open the question as to the essential nature of qualia. (shrink)

In the literature on the nature and role of cognitive representation, three positions are taken across the conceptual landscape: robust realism, primitivism, and eliminativism. Recently, a fourth alternative that tries to avoid the shortcomings of traditional views has been proposed: content pragmatism. My aim is to defend pragmatism about content against some recent objections moved against the view. According to these objections, content pragmatism fails to capture the role played by representation in the cognitive sciences; and/or is an unstable view (...) that ends up collapsing into one of the traditional alternatives. I argue that those arguments fail. I show that content pragmatism has as much claim to descriptive adequacy as the traditional theories. Moreover, I defend the robustness of the view by arguing that it does not collapse into any of the traditional positions. Content pragmatism therefore offers a valid and coherent account of the nature of representational content. (shrink)

In my Oriens article on Avicenna's empiricism, I present what Avicenna calls the principles of syllogism, which are the different types of propositions that form the irreducible and axiomatic starting points of syllogisms and definitions. As Avicenna states both explicitly and implicitly in numerous passages that I cite, these are all based on experience. Two of these are the primary propositions and those with built-in syllogisms, literally, "premises of fiṭra syllogisms," fiṭra being the natural operation of the intellect—thus, "premises whose (...) syllogisms are constructed by the natural operation of the intellect." In his "Note" on my article... (shrink)

Opraviti imamo s tremi zgodovinskimi stopnjami razvitja razmerja med hermenevtiko in humanistiko. Vprašanje, kako so bile te vede uspešne pri konstruiranju svojih “hermenevtičnih identitet” določa vidik moje obravnave. Članek sestoji iz treh delov. Prvi del razvije koncepcijo predzgodovine humanističnih ved. Poglavitni namen je razgrnitev korenin epistemologije semiotične interpretacije v Meierjevi »hermeneutica generalis«. Drugi del je posvečen Boeckhovemu enciklopedičnemu projektu s poudarkom na vlogi hermenevtike pri “kognitivni institucionalizaciji” humanističnih ved. Tretji del na podlagi vpogleda v Mischevo hermenevtično logiko obravnava kontroverzo med (...) interpretativno filozofijo “Geisteswissenschaften” in eksistencialno ontologijo.In this paper I argue that there are three main historical stages in the relationship between philosophical hermeneutics and the human sciences. The question of how these sciences succeed in constructing their "hermeneutic identities" provides the viewpoint of my discussion. The paper consists of three parts. Part I develops a conception of the prehistory of the human sciences. The main aim is to reveal the roots of the epistemology of semiotic interpretation in Meier's "hermeneutica generalis". Part II invokes Boeckh's encyclopedic project in giving accounts of the role hermeneutics has played in the "cognitive institutionalization" of the human sciences. Based on an inquiry into Misch's hermeneutic logic, Part III discusses the controversy between interpretative philosophy of the "Geistesewissenschaften" and existential ontology. (shrink)

Ad Serapionem I, 20 by Athanasius was of paramount importance for theology of Nicephorus Blemmydes, John XI Beccus and Gregory of Cyprus. Blemmydes seems to have produced several changes of words in the passage making Athanasius say of the Spirit as of the Life and Energy of the Son. In such a form Ad Serapionem I, 20 gave Blemmydes an excellent opportunity for substantiating his own doctrine on the Spirit's eternal illumination through the Son. In his teaching no strict demarkation (...) line had been drawn between the Person and energy of the Spirit. Nicephorus might have tried to approach to a more "essentialist" discourse in triadology, e.g., like that which is found in Symeon the New Theologian. By his sometimes ambiguous, but generally fresh and suggestive pneumatology Nicephorus has paved the way for Gregory of Cyprus, Gregory Palamas and the Palamites. While taken at face value, Nicephorus' teaching seemed to open a path for early Scholastics, with John Beccus at their head, as well as for subsequent anti-Palamites, whereas the Palamites took pains to interpret Blemmydes along the lines of traditional Cappadocian, Maximian and Photian triadology. (shrink)

I analyze a tension at the core of the mechanistic view of computation generated by its joint commitment to the medium independence of computational vehicles and to computational systems possessing teleological functions to compute. While computation is individuated in medium-independent terms, teleology is sensitive to the constitutive physical properties of vehicles. This tension spells trouble for the mechanistic view, suggesting that there can be no teleological functions to compute. I argue that, once considerations about the relevant function-bestowing factors for computational (...) systems are brought to bear, the tension dissolves: physical systems can have the teleological function to compute. (shrink)

This paper represents an attempt to articulate the basic principles of a hermeneutic philosophy of science. Throughout, the author is at pains to show that both (i) overcoming epistemological foundationalism and (ii) insisting on the multiplicity, patchiness, and heterogeneity of the discursive practices of scientific research do not imply a farewell to an analysis of the constitution of science's autonomous cognitive structure. Such an analysis operates in two directions: “continuous weakening” of epistemological foundationalism and “hermeneutic grounding” of a cognitive structure. (...) Carrying out the analysis in both directions leads to a (post) foundational picture of science. The main thrust of the first part of the paper is to outline the tenets of a constitutional analysis of scientific research. This part focuses especially on the notion of “unified narrativestructures” which refers to the “effective histories” of the main epistemic types of science. (shrink)

The subject of this article is the concept of natural liberation in classical Sāṃkhya. On the basis of the Sāṃkhyakārikā by Īśvarakṛṣṇa and its traditional commentaries, I will attempt to demonstrate that liberation from suffering in Sāṃkhya is not the result of rational inquiry—the prevailing view among contemporary scholars. The Sāṃkhya does not necessarily prescribe yogic practice as argued by other scholars. Instead, I will defend a position expressed by K.C. Bhattacharyya and Frank R. Podgorski, according to which liberation in (...) classical Sāṃkhya is a natural and spontaneous process of suffering transforming into its own cure. I will argue that although traditional authorities may disagree over the form the liberating process takes on the phenomenal level, there is a general agreement that the natural forces are the primary drives and agents of liberation. (shrink)

I argue that a distinction between three autoimmunities is implied in Derrida’s _Rogues_. These are the autoimmunities of democracy as a regime of power, of democracy to come and of sovereignty. I extrapolate the relations between three different autoimmunities using the figure of the internal enemy in order to argue for an agonistic conception of democracy.

Those of Collingwood's interpreters who insist that the science of being was abandoned in the later writings, tend to display also a marked dissatisfaction with the logic of question and answer, at least as it is presented in the Essay on Metaphysics. The most influential statement of this interpretation is undoubtedly Rex Martin's. It was initially published as an article in 1989 and was later institutionalized through its incorporation in his 'Editor's Introduction' to the Oxford University Press revised edition of (...) the Essay. I start from the assumption that Collingwood should be read as a hermeneutic philosopher. Having shown elsewhere what this means for Collingwood's conception of being and ontology, I will concentrate here to show that Collingwood's hermeneutics cannot be reconciled with an interpretation that finds no place for question and answer in his philosophy. The logic of question and answer is indispensable to the hermeneutics of Collingwood. I will argue that Martin's expunction of question and answer from Collingwood's philosophy rests on an a sense of meaning that is foreign both to hermeneutics and to Collingwood. (shrink)

I argue that Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego draws on Kant's theory of spontaneity to articulate its metaphysical account of consciousness's mode of being, to defend its phenomenological description of the intentional structure of self‐consciousness, and to diagnose the errors that motivate views of consciousness qua person or substance. In addition to highlighting an overlooked dimension of Sartre's early relation to Kant, this interpretation offers a fresh account of how Sartre's argument for the primacy of pre‐personal consciousness works, and brings (...) the extent of his proximity to idealist models of mind into greater relief. It also affords Sartre the resources to respond to criticisms that his account of self‐consciousness relies on a spurious distinction and that his view of freedom cannot explain how consciousness is conditioned by its world. (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

Scholarly discussions of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics tend to focus on his philosophy of painting. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to his philosophy of literature. However, he also draws significant conclusions from his work on literary expression. As I will argue, these reflections inform at least two important positions of his later thought. First, Merleau-Ponty’s account of “indirect” literary language led him to develop a hybrid view of phenomenological expression, on which expression is both creative and descriptive. Second, a (...) study of literature furnished him with the resources to develop a novel account of phenomenological “essences”, which holds that essences are revisable explanations of first-order experience. Both results have been overlooked by commentators. They demonstrate the systematic import of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of literature and language, and amount to a qualified extension of a basic Husserlian position. (shrink)

This article examines the connection between lying and the concept of freedom, especially in the wake of the social contract tradition. I show that the liar poses a particular threat to the social contract. As a result, lying has been portrayed as a pernicious threat to the political. This culminates in Kant’s outright rejection of lying under any circumstance. From the Kantian perspective, one can be free only if one does not lie. Conversely, Spinoza’s co-implication of virtue and power entails (...) that lying is acceptable under certain circumstances, which enhance one’s freedom. The contrast between Kant’s and Spinoza’s response to lying reveals two fundamentally different ways of conceiving freedom. (shrink)

The difficulty with democracy is always how to define the demos—the people. Can we think of democracy in a different way? My starting point is to ask what it would mean to take kratos (power) rather than demos as the starting point of the thinking of democracy. I will argue that this is consistent with Solon’s first democratic constitution and that it leads to a thinking of democracy in terms of agonism. Maybe such a conception of agonistic democracy will allow (...) us to conceptualize as well as actualize a political space not predetermined by the “fickle multitude” that can be manipulated and is pray to the forces of populism. (shrink)

In my presentation, I will try to develop a picture of scientific research in terms of heremeneutic phenomenology. I will claim that theoretical objects of science do exist at once as "inscriptions" on the horizon of possibilities for doing research, and as "traces" left by practices of formalization, experimentation, calibration, measurement, and calculation. The possibilities become appropriated in the research process, whereby a conceptual structure of scientific domain gradually takes shape. According to this, the horizon of possibilities remains always an (...) open fore-structure of interpretation concerning the structure of the domain. In elaborating on this view, I will sketch out a phenomenological program of "cognitive existentialism". (shrink)

This article addresses the ongoing debate between transcendental pragmatics and philosophical hermeneutics. I argue that Apel's version of linguistic transcendentalism is to be refuted, if one succeeds in demonstrating that the normative conditions of intersubjective validity of the argumentative discourse are `derivable' from the fore-structure of the discursive-practical medium of communication. Loci for specifically hermeneutical investigations of this fore-structure include the proto-normativity of the discursive practices, the effective-historical openness of the medium of communication, and the interplay between argumentative discourse and (...) medium. (shrink)

In The Principles of Art, R. G. Collingwood pursues, on the one hand, a ‘definition’ of art, and, on the other, a ‘metaphysics’. The Principles is divided into three Books. Book I is devoted mostly to craft, while Book II pertains largely to metaphysics. The fact that Book II is twice the size of Book III, where the discussion of ‘art proper’ takes place, is proof enough that the metaphysical part of the Principles is not a mere excursus. Collingwood’s ontology (...) is indispensable for understanding his aesthetics, and vice versa. The crucial link is the imagination. What Collingwood calls ‘total imaginative experience’ is described in the Principles as the sine qua non of both thought and sensibility. The aim of this article is to examine the ontological import of Collingwood’s conception of the total imagination. (shrink)

One of the most potent motivations for retributivist approaches to punishment has been their apparent connection to an ethical background shaped by the Kantian notion of morally autonomous and rational human agency. The present article challenges the plausibility of this connection. I argue that retributivism subverts, rather than embodies, the normative consequences of moral autonomy, justifying a social practice that conflicts with the considered judgments that the proper recognition of moral autonomy would authorize. The core of my case is the (...) analysis of whether a punishment should be understood as a restriction of a criminal's freedom properly understood. I argue that the affirmative view faces serious difficulties that have not been, and are not likely to be, resolved by retributivist justifications that draw their support from Kantian moral theory. (shrink)

abstract: I argue that Merleau-Ponty's reading of Hegel's account of experience exerts a significant and hitherto overlooked influence on his attempt to recast Phénoménologie de la perception 's account of intentionality. This reading informs two important claims of his later projects: that intentional relations are more fundamental than their relata, and that a metaphysical condition irreducible to consciousness or object constitutes the structure of intentionality. I argue that these positions inform key tenets of reversibility, and that a revisionary interpretation of (...) Hegel's absolute offers Merleau-Ponty a model for the principle that individuates the basic conditions of experience. In addition to demonstrating that he was a more assiduous reader of Hegel than many commentators assume, and highlighting some overlooked debts to Hegel, these results show that Merleau-Ponty's later thought inherits significant idealist commitments, which should motivate us to reconsider its standing within post-Kantian philosophical currents. (shrink)

In this paper I point out main shortfalls of the three main families of theories of perception and I propose a sort of inferential realism. In addition, I argue that there cannot be a scientific variant of direct realism and illustrate this point with reference to P.F.Strawson's attempt to reconcile, not naïve realism and the scientific variant as he amounts to, but rather, direct and indirect realism. I draw the distinction between four cases of illusion, and I refer to one (...) of these, namely to the case of veridical illusion, to show that Strawson's view, put in terms of the Fregean sense-reference distinction, fails. As regards indirect realism, I argue against the representationalist account and the Lockean picture of primary and secondary qualities. Phenomenalism is rejected in terms of the impossibility to identify an object throughout different contexts and I suggest that what is for x to be that x in different contexts can be given only by a realist analysis of a material object. Finally, I provide an account of what it is for A to perceive that x with respect to different contexts and I conclude with what conditions should veridical perception meet and therefore propose the framework of a new theory of perception. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s view of philosophical explanation. Some commentators stress his indebtedness to the transcendental tradition, but this influence does not extend to his view of explanation. I argue that Merleau-Ponty gives up on the transcendental ideal of explanatory completeness, shared by Husserl and Kant. Motivated by a distinctive understanding of transcendental expression, he argues that phenomenological reflection, and the explanations that issue from it, must both have a circular structure if they are to provide a (...) persuasive account of experience. This circular view of phenomenological methodology is further developed in later texts, which stress the openness and incompleteness of both reflection and explanation. Merleau-Ponty’s reliance on the concept of circularity testifies to the increasing importance of Hegel for his view of phenomenological explanation and philosophical methodology. (shrink)

The Univalent Foundations of Mathematics provide not only an entirely non-Cantorian conception of the basic objects of mathematics but also a novel account of how foundations ought to relate to mathematical practice. In this paper, I intend to answer the question: In what way is UF a new foundation of mathematics? I will begin by connecting UF to a pragmatist reading of the structuralist thesis in the philosophy of mathematics, which I will use to define a criterion that a formal (...) system must satisfy if it is to be regarded as a “structuralist foundation.” I will then explain why both set-theoretic foundations like ZFC and category-theoretic foundations like ETCS satisfy this criterion only to a very limited extent. Then I will argue that UF is better-able to live up to the proposed criterion for a structuralist foundation than any currently available foundational proposal. First, by showing that most criteria of identity in the practice of mathematics can be formalized in terms of the preferred criterion of identity between the basic objects of UF. Second, by countering several objections that have been raised against UF’s capacity to serve as a foundation for the whole of mathematics. (shrink)

Structuralist foundations of mathematics aim for an ‘invariant’ conception of mathematics. But what should be their basic objects? Two leading answers emerge: higher groupoids or higher categories. I argue in favor of the former over the latter. First, I explain why to choose between them we need to ask the question of what is the correct ‘categorified’ version of a set. Second, I argue in favor of groupoids over categories as ‘categorified’ sets by introducing a pre-formal understanding of groupoids as (...) abstract shapes. This conclusion lends further support to the perspective taken by the Univalent Foundations of mathematics. (shrink)

In the quest for a new social turn in philosophy of science, exploring the prospects of a Vygotskian perspective could be of significant interest, especially due to his emphasis on the role of culture and socialisation in the development of cognitive functions. However, a philosophical reassessment of Vygotsky's ideas in general has yet to be done. As a step towards this direction, I attempt to elaborate an approach on scientific representations by drawing inspirations from Vygotsky. Specifically, I work upon Vygotsky’s (...) understanding on the nature and function of concepts, mediation and zone of proximal development. -/- I maintain that scientific representations mediate scientific cognition in a tool-like fashion (like Vygotsky’s signs). Scientific representations are consciously acquired through deliberate inquiry in a specific context, where it turns to be part of a whole system, reflecting the social practices related to scientific inquiry, just scientific concepts do in Vygotsky’s understanding. They surrogate the real processes or effects under study, by conveying some of the features of the represented systems. Vygotsky’s solution to the problem of the ontological status of concepts points to an analogous understanding for abstract models, which should be regarded neither as fictions nor as abstract objects. -/- I elucidate these views by using the examples of the double-helix model of DNA structure and the development of our understanding of the photoelectric effect. (shrink)

In this paper I try to establish three claims. First, I try to identify the distance from Dilthey's psychologism taken by Georg Misch in his hermeneutic reformulation of the philosophy of life. Secondly, I try to argue that the outcome of Misch's criticism of transcendental and hermeneutic phenomenology is the integration of a certain paradigm of constitutional analysis in the philosophy of life. Finally, I try to show that Misch's project for a hermeneutic logic is quite relevant to the process (...) of conceptual construction in the human sciences. It is my contention that the common of denominator of the antipsychologist orientation, the elaboration on a constitutional theory, and the development of a hermeneutic logic is Misch's critical reception of Kant's transcendental logic. (shrink)

Rockmore’s paper offers a nice discussion on how classical German idealism provides a plausible account of the Parmenidean insight that thought and being are identical and suggests that idealist epistemic constructivism is arguably the most promising approach to cognition. In this short commentary, I will explore the implications of adopting other interpretations of Parmenidean identity thesis, which arguably lead to different conclusions than the ones drawn by Rockmore. En route to disavow the distinction between ontology and epistemology, I argue that (...) one may adopt an approach on cognition which would be immunized to worries that prompt Rockmore’s elaboration and also embrace (at least) some of its benefits. (shrink)

In this work, I have compared the views of Hans Georg Gadamer and Emmanuel Levinas on various concepts of culture and understanding of the ‘man’ within the framework of Western civilization with the help of three of their essays. In two lectures of Gadamer—‘Culture and Peace’, delivered at Salzburg in 1980, and ‘Man and His Hand in Modern Civilization’, delivered in Munich in 1978—and several essays by Emmanuel Levinas such as ‘The Philosophical Determination of the Idea of Culture’ (1983). If (...) both authors are critical of the rational based on the technique and calculation of the concept of culture inherited from the Enlightenment, and further, if this concept is embodied in the bourgeois and later in industrial societies, as retraced in the first chapter, the authors differently see the way out of the dehumanizing crisis of the modern era. (shrink)

It is often put forward that the entire political project of epicureanism consists in the overcoming of fear, whereby its scope is deemed to be very narrow. I argue that the overcoming of the fear of death should actually be linked to a conception of freedom in epicureanism. This idea is further developed by Spinoza, who defines the free man as one who thinks of death least of all in the Ethics, and who develops this idea more in the Theological (...) Political Treatise. (shrink)

Since Husserl, the task of developing an account of intentionality and constitution has been central to the phenomenological enterprise. Some of Merleau-Ponty's descriptions of ‘the flesh’ suggest that he gives up on this task, or, more strongly, that the flesh is in principle incompatible with intentionality or constitution. I show that these remarks, as in Merleau-Ponty's earlier writings, refer to the classical, early Husserlian interpretations of these concepts, and argue that the concept of the flesh can plausibly be understood to (...) advance a refined account of intentionality and constitution. Instead of a first-personal, unidirectional act or embodied motor project, intentionality is a latent openness to things, where the roles of subject and object are reversible. Whereas the view of constitution as meaning-bestowal is untenable, the flesh has a constitutive role, which is supported by a ‘constitutional passivity’ from the subject. On this reading, Merleau-Ponty's later work aims to develop basic tenets of his earlier thought, albeit at a critical distance, an attempt he thought was continuous with the central problems that Husserl claimed a phenomenological philosophy must grapple with, even if Merleau-Ponty's answers to these problems are not Husserl's. (shrink)

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to 9/11, agonistic democracy promised to navigate away from both liberalism and dialectical materialism. How can we renew that discourse to highlight its significance in the times of COVID-19? I answer this question by looking at three articulations of the apple metaphor.

Graeco-Arabic studies, or the study of the translations of classical Greek works into Arabic during the early ‘Abbāsid caliphate of the Arabs (ca. 750–1000), is a field that is well known; it has been cultivated, with significant results for the study of medieval Islamic civilization, for more than a century and a half now. What is less well known is the opposite trend of translations from Arabic into (Byzantine) Greek, which began after the Photian renaissance — as a direct result, (...) I have claimed, of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement — and is of comparable significance for the study of Byzantine civilization. For reasons that it might be interesting to investigate at some point, Byzantinists have shied away from Arabo-Greek studies, to the great detriment of a deepened study of Byzantine writings, especially the scientific literature. The book by Dr. Hélène Condylis under review here, a study of the Greek translation of the famous Arabic book of fables Kalīla wa-Dimna (originally of Indian provenance), finally breaks open this unduly neglected area and makes a most impressive first contribution to Arabo-Greek studies that will, in years to come, be considered as pioneering. (shrink)

Extreme self-sacrifice in the context of phenomena, such as sports hooliganism, combines aspects of local and extended fusion. How can we best account for such phenomena in the light of the theory presented here, and how can we make a tangible distinction between the two types? I propose ways to explore and operationalize this distinction and the concept of fusion more generally.

L'A. mette in parallelo quattro fonti interrelate della tradizione narrativa relativa al passaggio delle conoscenze filosofiche e mediche da Alessandria a Baghdad. I testi esaminati, presentati in traduzione inglese, sono di Alfarabi , dello storico al-Masudi , del medico ibn-Ridwan del Cairo e del medico ibn-Gumay . Le origini della tradizione testuale sono individuate in un canone di insegnamenti ippocratici e galenici originatosi ad Alessandria poco prima della conquista araba, e comprendente i cosiddetti Summaria alexandrinorum. L'A. si sofferma inoltre sulla (...) propaganda anticristiana connessa a tali testi e sugli insegnamenti di logica e filosofia aristotelica, con particolare riferimento alla redazione di Alfarabi. Una bibliografia chiude il saggio. (shrink)

Spinoza's political thought has been subject to a significant revival of interest in recent years. As a response to difficult times, students and scholars have returned to this founding figure of modern philosophy as a means to help reinterpret and rethink the political present. Spinoza's Authority Volume I: Resistance and Power in Ethics makes a significant contribution to this ongoing reception and utilization of Spinoza's political thought by focusing on his Ethics. By taking the concept of authority as an original (...) framework, this books asks: How is authority related to ethics, ontology, and epistemology? What are the social, historical and representational processes that produce authority and resistance? And what are the conditions of effective resistance? -/- Spinoza's Authority features a roster of internationally established theorists of Spinoza's work, and covers key elements of Spinoza's political philosophy, including: questions of authority, the resistance to authority, sovereign power, democratic control, and the role of Spinoza's "multitudes". (shrink)

Le Politique est généralement conçu comme un dialogue décousu et manquant d'unité, au mieux comme une succession de méthodes et de voies de recherche différentes (division dichotomique, mythe, paradigme) visant chacune à définir le politique. Le présent article vise au contraire à montrer que l'unité du dialogue est coextensive au développement d'une unique diaíresis, et ce en soulignant, à partir de ce que le texte dit lui-même, que le mythe, la méthode par paradigme et l'analyse des constitutions existantes ne sont (...) que des moyens permettant à la division de tracer le sentier qui mène au politique tel qu'il devrait être. L'ensemble des passages méthodologiques du dialogue permet ainsi d'expliquer comment le Politique explore les possibilités et souligne les limites de la méthode diairétique. Plato's Statesman is usually read as a tedious and carelessly written exercise in dialectic, or, more charitably, as a patchwork of loosely connected applications of different methods of definition of statesmanship (division, myth and paradigm). In this paper, I argue that this much disputed problem of the unity of the dialogue can be solved, provided one reads the whole dialogue as what it claims to be, i.e. the developpment of a single diaíresis. It can be shown that the Eleatic Visitor makes use of the myth, of the analysis of paradigms and of the treatment of non-ideal constitutions as means to following a single path, throughout the whole dialogue, that leads to the definition of statesmanship as it should be. The Statesman emerges as Plato's most profound reflection on the possibilities and the limits of the diairetic method. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to sketch a dialectical approach on scientific representations and their role in scientific cognition. In my understanding, scientific representations can be construed as ‘tools’ mediating scientific cognition. These ‘tools’ are products of our cognitive activity, by which we signify which features of certain objects or states of affairs should be embodied in abstractive representations of them. In such a context, I explore the merits of bringing some ideas of thinkers whose work is underestimated in the (...) relevant discussion nowadays (such as K. Marx, E.V. Ilyenkov, L.S. Vygotsky, M. Wartofsky) in dialogue with currently discussed approaches. (shrink)

Debate on the nature of representation in cognitive systems tends to oscillate between robustly realist views and various anti‐realist options. I defend an alternative view, deflationary realism, which sees cognitive representation as an offshoot of the extended application to cognitive systems of an explanatory model whose primary domain is public representation use. This extended application, justified by a common explanatory target, embodies idealisations, partial mismatches between model and reality. By seeing representation as part of an idealised model, deflationary realism avoids (...) the problems with robust realist views, while keeping allegiance to realism. (shrink)

La structure du comportement details consciousness-nature relations by navigating between realist and intellectualist alternatives. A phenomenological reading of form guides its attempt to formulate a view that does not reduce consciousness to matter or perceptual structure to a product of mind. I show that this strategy relies on hitherto overlooked idealist commitments. Forms are perceived objects whose intentional structure is intelligibly organized. Having denied that forms are constituted by mind or emergent from matter, Merleau-Ponty likens form-constitution to an ideal process (...) of intentional self-organization. Despite recognizing that Gestalt psychology develops fruitful models of perceptual self-organization, and adopting the transcendental view that form is significant for consciousness, his revisionary interpretation of form outstrips these accounts’ ontologies of mind and nature, and is better understood in light of a post-Kantian philosophical heritage. These results cast Merleau-Ponty’s relation to the Gestalt, post-Kantian, and phenomenological traditions in new light, challenge naturalizing interpretations of Structure, and motivate a rethinking of the status of metaphysics in his early thought. (shrink)

What I hope to do in this paper is to see whether Laudan’s normative naturalism may suggest a third alternative to normativism-naturalism dilemma in the analytical philosophy of science. In criticizing the view that all methodological rules are to be specified in the form of hypothetical imperatives, I offer the idea that a theory of scientific rationality (including its normative dimension) must go beyond the usual analytical format of “rational reconstruction”. It is precisely this idea that opens the door for (...) a hermeneutic alternative to normative naturalism. On this alternative, one has to pay attention to the contextual normativity of doing scientific research, if one wants to give an account of the articulation of methodological rules and norms. (shrink)

This paper attempts to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s later work by tracing a hitherto overlooked set of concerns that were of key consequence for the formulation of his ontological research. I argue that his ontology can be understood as a response to a set of problems originating in reflections on the intersubjective use of language in dialogue, undertaken in the early 1950s. His study of dialogue disclosed a structure of meaning-formation and pointed towards a theory of truth (both recurring ontological topics) that (...) post-Phenomenology premises could not account for. A study of dialogue shows that speakers’ positions are interchangeable, that speaking subjects are active and passive in varying degrees, and that the intentional roles of subjects and objects are liable to shift or ‘transgress’ themselves. These observations anticipate the concepts of ‘reversibility’ and ‘narcissism’, his later view of activity and passivity, and his later view of intentionality, and sharpened the need to adopt an intersubjective focus in ontological research. (shrink)