Article
Une philosophie dans les marges. Le cas du conceptualisme moscovite
The late Soviet period, and its philosophy, remains little known, even if it is precisely the moment when emerges a community of trans-disciplinary thinkers. The Brezhnev period, rich of theoretical and speculative activity, even if practiced under multiple ideological constraints, sees the emergence of an artistic movement, Moscow Conceptualism, which will play a key role in getting philosophy out of its narrow disciplinary field as well as for the future development for thought in Russia. If its inscription in Russian art history is well known, its place in the history of ideas and in the birth of a non-official philosophy is rarely studied. The aim of this article is to give an account of this exceptional moment of thought, the impact of which is still to be felt up to this day.
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason aims to determine boundaries of reason. Reason is a
faculty of the soul. But Kant does not deal explicitly with the question what a faculty of the soul itself may be. The dissertation construes Kant’s implicit notion of a mental faculty in relation to psychological debates in 17th and 18th century Germany. It can be shown that Kant agreed with Christian August Crusius in that faculties are real properties, an assumption that was denied by Christian Wolff. This poses a problem which is fundamental for understanding Kant’s project: How can we have knowledge of mental faculties at all? If knowledge of faculties was empirical for Kant, it would belong to psychology rather than to epistemology which, according to Kant, must not rely on empirical facts. In order to find out whether there can be knowledge a priori about mental faculties, the book provides a close reading of relevant passages from published texts and other sources (lecture transcripts, Reflexionen). The final result is negative: Kant has no conclusive argument for the real existence of mental faculties. Nevertheless, an awareness of Kant’s unwritten “metaphysics of the mental” is essential for understanding implicit premisses of Kant’s thought.
Herbarts Allgemeine Metaphysik erscheint 1828-29 als Ergebnis langjähriger Reflexionen und vervollständigt Herbarts konstruktive Kritik des kantschen Werkes, die er bereits in seiner Psychologie als Wissenschaft (1824-25) vorgelegt hat. Herbarts Metaphysik findet zu seinen Lebzeiten kaum Beachtung – woran sich bis heute im deutschsprachigen Raum nichts geändert hat. Aus diesem Grund werden die theo-retischen Grundlagen von Herbarts Metaphysik auf Basis neuerer internationaler In-terpretationen erörtert. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass Herbarts methodologischer Ansatz und seine relationale Ontologie zur Begründung einer realistischen Metaphysik beitragen. Herbart ersetzt das Inhärenzverhältnis durch eine funktionale Auflösung des Gegenstandes, dadurch rückt sein Werk schließlich in die Nähe zeitgenössischer Diskussionen. Dieser Punkt wird anhand von Paolo Valores Vergleich mit Quines Ontologie gezeigt.
How is metaphysics possible? The answer to this question can be received by means of Kant’s transcendental method. According to Kant, the basis (background) of any metaphysics is metaphysica naturalis, which is conceived as human reason speculation demand to arise and solve questions that are beyond possible experience and exceed the limits of a current ‘physical’ situation. Thereby the man is homo metaphysicus (Aristotle. Kant). Possibility of metaphysica naturalis roots in the human faculty of imagination and is connected with our language, its metaphysics. There are two modus of the academic metaphysics. Possibility of metaphysica generalis is connected with presence in our language (resp. Mind) special metaphysical (ontologic) predicates (categories). Possibility of metaphysica specialis is connected with presence in our language (resp. Mind) wholeness, or encompassing totalities (comp. with the Encompassing of K. Jaspers).
The paper discusses the development of metaphysics understood as a philosophical discipline or science. The author would like to propose that the last period of Greek philosophy, that going from about the 3rd to the 6th centuries A.D., made new and interesting contributions to metaphysics as a philosophical discipline, indeed made metaphysics into a metaphysical science, while also bringing out the limits of such a science. The paper has four parts. In part I, D. O’Meara introduces the way in which the great Aristotelian commentator of the early 3rd century, Alexander of Aphrodisias, in interpreting Aristotle's metaphysical treatise, sought to find in it a metaphysical science. In part II of the paper, he attempts to show how the Neoplatonist philosopher of the early 5th century Syrianus, not only adopted Alexander's reading of Aristotle, but was also inspired by it in finding this same metaphysical science already in Plato. In part III of the paper, the author will show how all of this resulted in a masterpiece of metaphysics, the Elements of Theology written by Syrianus' pupil Proclus. Finally, in part IV, he would like to refer to what is perhaps the last great metaphysical work of Greek philosophy, the Treatise on First Principles written by Damascius, a work in which the limits of metaphysical science are explored with extraordinary subtlety and insistence. In adapting Alexander's formalization of Aristotelian metaphysical science to Platonism, Syrianus knew that such a science was a means towards, not the equivalent of, knowledge of the transcendent. Proclus knew it too, even if his Elements of Theology, in presenting metaphysical science with such systematic beauty, could give the impression of being a definitive statement. And, lest we have any illusions about the adequacy of our metaphysical science, Damascius could cure us of these, opening our minds to what lay behind, or above, our own metaphysical efforts.
Edward Zalta's axiomatic metaphysics or Theory of abstract objects is a philosophical theory with powerful logical unit which enables us to analyze a lot of ontological categories, such as non-existent objects, properties and relationships, possible worlds, states of affairs and many others that are in focus of modern analytic philosophy. Rich expressive power of the Theory are directly related to its fundamental premise — the distinction between the two modes of predication: exemplification and encoding. The main concern of the paper is to clarify the structure of the universe which arise on the ground of that distinction and to demonstrate some of its problematic consequences.
An article describes one of the earliest prose texts (never published or even known about) of Vsevolod Nekrasov, Russian concretist and conceptualist: it adds some significant information on "second avant-garde" notions of "classical literature".
The paper is devoted to the problem of rehabilitation of metaphysics in the contemporary analytic philosophy. It traces the connection of analytic metaphysics with Aristotelian and Kantian approaches to this subject; it also marks its main features and demonstrates a new understanding of realism in analytic philosophy.
The article considers the Views of L. N. Tolstoy not only as a representative, but also as a accomplisher of the Enlightenment. A comparison of his philosophy with the ideas of Spinoza and Diderot made it possible to clarify some aspects of the transition to the unique Tolstoy’s religious and philosophical doctrine. The comparison of General and specific features of the three philosophers was subjected to a special analysis. Special attention is paid to the way of thinking, the relation to science and the specifics of the worldview by Tolstoy and Diderot. An important aspect is researched the contradiction between the way of thinking and the way of life of the three philosophers.
Tolstoy's transition from rational perception of life to its religious and existential bases is shown. Tolstoy gradually moves away from the idea of a natural man to the idea of a man, who living the commandments of Christ. Starting from the educational worldview, Tolstoy ended by creation of religious and philosophical doctrine, which were relevant for the 20th century.
The article is concerned with the notions of technology in essays of Ernst and Friedrich Georg Jünger. The special problem of the connection between technology and freedom is discussed in the broader context of the criticism of culture and technocracy discussion in the German intellectual history of the first half of the 20th century.