A „másik” esztétikai jelenléte Hobbes szerződéselméletében

Author(s): Mihály Szilágyi-Gál / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

In several of his works, Thomas Hobbes contrasts rhetorical and scientific speech. Although in Leviathan his position is changed, Hobbes continues to emphasize the inordinate, excessive nature of rhetorical speech in politics and distinguishes it from sovereign scientifically true and legally correct speech. According to my thesis, both models of persuasion, the rhetorical and the anti-rhetorical model, have an aesthetic character in Leviathan. This fact is evident in the doubling of the person who represents both his/her self and his/her fellow citizens as dependent subjects in their public/political roles. This self-representation as the inherent imaginary act of the political man echoes the rhetorical hierarchy of the difference between the private and the public.

Oświecenie i kontroświecenie czasów Królestwa Polskiego. Polemika o. Karola Surowieckiego z ministrem Stanisławem Kostką Potockim

Author(s): Rafał Szczurowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

By criticizing the world around them, the supporters of the idea of Enlightenment brought about profound transformations in all areas of life. This did not mean, however, that such ideas and transformations gained widespread acceptance. On the contrary, their opponents, who saw decline and demoralization in lieu of ‘enlightenment’, developed the Counter-Enlightenment movement. Critically perceiving modernity, they asked questions about the arbitrariness of human reason, the concept of human nature and human morality, giving answers from the position of Christian apologists. Therefore in the period of the Kingdom of Poland, the Polish anti-Enlightenment movement persevered against eighteenth-century philosophy, opposing everything they considered harmful to modernity and religion.

A Cosmos Without a Creator: Cesare Cremonini’s Interpretation of Aristotle’s Heaven

Author(s): Pietro Daniel Omodeo / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

In the years after the first circulation of Sidereus Nuncius, Galileo’s Padua anti-Copernican colleague, the staunch Aristotelian philosopher, Cesare Cremonini, published a book on ‘traditional’ cosmology, Disputatio de coelo in tres partes divisa (Venice, 1613) which puzzled the Roman authorities of the Inquisition and the Index much more than any works on celestial novelties and ‘neo-Pythagorean’ astronomy. Cremonini’s disputation on the heavens has the form of an over-intricate comment of Aristotle’s conceptions, in the typically argumentative style of Scholasticism. Nonetheless, it immediately raised the concern of Cardinal Bellarmin, the Pope and other Inquisitors. At a close reading, Cremonini’s interpretation of Aristotle’s cosmos proved radically anti-Christian. It represented a radicalization of Pomponazzian Alexandrism. In fact, Cremonini did not only circulate Aristotelian principles used by Pomponazzi to argue for the soul’s mortality (first, no thought is possible without imagination and the latter faculty is dependent on the body; secondly, all that is generated will eventually perish). He also wiped away all transcendence from the Aristotelian cosmos. In fact, he marginalized the function of the motive Intelligences by explaining heavenly motions through the action of animallike inseparable souls although he did not erase nor reduced all Intelligences to only one, in accordance with Alexander. Also, he put at the center of Aristotle’s cosmos the idea of its eternity, a thesis which he explicitly connected with the rejection of the idea of God the Creator. Cremonini assumed that the universal efficiens, that is the efficient cause of all motion and change in the world, is nothing but the first heaven. As a result of this radically naturalist reading of Aristotle, he banned God from the cosmos, reduced Him to the final cause of the world, and deprived Him of any efficiency and will. This essay on less explored sources of Renaissance astronomical debates considers the institutional, cultural and religious setting of Cremonini’s teaching and conceptions. It assesses the reasons for his troubles with the religious authorities, and the political support he was granted by the Serenissima Republic of Venice in spite of the scandalous opinions he circulated as a university professor. My reconstruction of his views is based on the Disputatio de coelo of 1613 and later works, which are directly connected with cosmo-theological polemics with the religious authorities: his Apologia dictorum Aristotelis de quinta coeli substantia (1616) and the unpublished book De coeli efficientia, two manuscript copies of which are preserved in the libraries of Padua and Venice.

Foreigners in Pre-Modernity: On Losses of Negatability and Gains of Unfamiliarity

Author(s): Peter Strohschneider / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

The essay draws on the concept of ‘asymmetric counter-concepts’ as developed by Reinhart Koselleck starting with twin-formulas such as ‘the familiar and the unfamiliar’ which are generally used to establish collective designations of the self and others and which institutionalize the axiological and the epistemological. These counter-concepts can have different semantic temperatures. The focus is on the underlying meaning-production schemes which produce value-asymmetries. The essay tries to show that a process of heating up these value-asymmetries is only one side of the history of such asymmetric counter-concepts from medieval to modern times. Simultaneously a cooling down can be observed in written texts from different periods; examples include the 12th century Rolandslied and the 16th century Essais of Michel de Montaigne. Full negation eliminates uncertainties and value insecurities. But the complexities and contingencies that emerge since Early Modern times then lead to losses of negatability (Negierbarkeitsverluste), which in turn render gains in unfamiliarity. The modern experience of the foreign is indeterminate otherness instead of determined negation that characterized pre-modern alterity. Modern societies therefore need to mediate between validity and contingency under the circumstances of plurality. Interpretational demands and uncertainty about the relevant interpretive frames increase. Foreignness is then experienced as unfamiliarity. This presupposes intellectual attitudes like irritability, curiosity, and willingness to learn. The modern concept of ‘culture’ then is proposed as a comparative pattern where only unavoidable structural asymmetry remains. It explains cultural differences and the experience of foreignness through heterogeneity. Using this specifically modern pattern, there is no longer a legitimate value slope between one’s own position and its negation. The distinction is then between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

From sensorium hominis to sensorium Dei

Author(s): Grigore Vida / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Dirk van Miert, The Emancipation of Biblical Philology in the Dutch Republic, 1590–1670, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, xxiv +296 pp.

Author(s): Alexandru Liciu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Ursula Franke, Baumgartens Erfindung der Ästhetik. Mit einem Anhang: Baumgartens Ästhetik im Überblick von Nicolas Kleinschmidt, Münster: Mentis Verlag, 2018, 207 pp.

Author(s): Alessandro Nannini / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Sarah Carvallo, L’Homme parfait. L’anthropologie médicale de Harvey, Riolan et Perrault (1628–1688), Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017, 301 pp.

Author(s): Katerina Lolou / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

ROBERVAL’S SCEPTICISM IN THE ARISTARCHI SAMII DE MUNDI SYSTEMATE

Author(s): Ovidiu Babeș / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

This paper argues for a different interpretation of Roberval’s scepticism in his Aristarchi Samii de mundi systemate. Roberval’s mild sceptical attitude, along with his fake attribution of hiscosmological treatise to the ancient Aristarchus of Samos, are explained by prudential reasons related to censure. I will instead provide a more internalist reading. There are deeper metaphysical and epistemological reasons for Roberval’s pessimism about the prospect of a perfect science of celestial motions, as well as for his (non-realistic) acceptance of heliocentrism as just a more plausible system than Ptolemy’s or Tycho’s. I start by spelling out two distinct sceptical worries conflated in the Aristarchi. The first is a general agnosticism regarding certainty about the causes of the motions of the heavens—it is more of a worry that the true system of the world can never be known. The second is a particular pessimism regarding the prospects of improving astronomy. The same effect (the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies) can be produced by diverse causes. Judging by what seemed to be the most probable physical causes of the heavenly motions, Roberval saw no reason for the existence of a precisely predictable regularity in heavenly motions. Both sceptical attitudes have to do, aside from the cosmology of the Aristarchi, with the theory of science he expounds in his private Principes du debvoir et des cognoissances humaine, and in a fragment he wrote for Mersenne’s Curiouse perspective de Niceron.

Kuşku ve Empati: Kartezyen Teori Bağlamında “Blade Runner 2049”da İnsan Felsefesi

Author(s): Mikail Boz / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 8/2019

In this study, Blade Runner 2049 (2017), directed by Denis Villeneuve, is analyzed within the context of the Cartesian methodic doubt, self, consciousness and human philosophy. The quest put forward by the film, the attitude towards the solution of this quest, the thesis highlighted and the layers of the philosophical frame surrounding them were tried to be revealed. The Cartesian philosophy offers a methodological skepticism that is directed towards purifying all suspicions. Thus, an unquestionable soul, or subject, is built upon and the material world is conceived by virtue of the specific relationship of the subject with God. In this case, that kind of problem arises. How does subject recognize and portray itself and others? How to define the other not as automat or Android, but as the specific limit of what is defined as human? The “blade runner” android K., who identified human essence with their empathy ability, offer the opportunity to study a suspected subject, gradually losing its anchoring points. The relationship of this subject with the creatures and the creator, the new space in which the identity and the self is built, shows the suspicion as the most important element in the foundation of a paranoid individual type. The general quest in the film is to see if an egalitarian relationship between self and the other can be established and an answer it must be established. The film has an affirmative attitude to this answer. The thesis of the film is that quest, suspicion, compassion and pain are essential elements in the construction of the self. A dystopic, colonialist and authoritarian administrative framework is presented. The film provides an important basis for the construction of identity, with a paranoid and schizophrenic suspicion and a natural empathy ability.

Görme Biçimleri ve Video Anlatı

Author(s): Tarık Aylan / Language(s): Turkish Issue: Sp. Iss/2020

In this text, by using the concepts of Rene Descartes, Brauch Spinoza and Gotfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the concept of human view in the early modern period have been tried to clarify. Shortly after these philosophers, the works of the thinkers who tried to formulate the mechanical aspect of the gaze and the laws of thought were expressed. After the invention of phptograph, which is different from the representative image and can produce technical image independently of the human eye, the human perspective has enriched and gained new forms of vision. In this study, it is stated that people will have different perspectives and think by using apparatus such as camera, cinema and video which produce technical image. The cinema, which can record the motion picture, was able to create its own narrative with the participation of sound. The video device, which emerged about 70 years after the cinema and can imitate the narrative of the cinema, has been used in many fields of our time, but has created a unique narrative. In this study, the use of video in art and science and its proximity to subjectivity have been defined and the potential of the innovations that it can provide to visual forms has been clarified. It is claimed that we can see with the video that produces technical image and think differently with this device.

Lanthimos’un Kutsal Geyiğin Ölümü (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, 2017) Filminde Moderniteden Postmoderniteye Düşüncenin Dönüşümünün İzini Sürmek

Author(s): Erdinç Yılmaz / Language(s): Turkish Issue: Sp. Iss/2020

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) which was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos is about a surgeon who lives a life shaped by scientific rules, his family's desperation over the spell of a 16-yearold teenager and their struggle between rational reason and metaphysical ambiguity. The characters' robotic dialogues, their indifference to the outcomes of everyday life which are specific to humans, and their acts of rational mind rather than intuition, show that the rational mind prevails in this dystopian world created by Lanthimos. However, the characters ' motor-sense mechanisms are disrupted by the penetration of magic into their worlds, and they go on the path of finding the truth by using their intuition. In this context, the film highlights the triumph of the intuitive against rational reason. Rationality, as one of the most important preconditions of Enlightenment thought towards the ideal of creating a new society, was firmly committed to the adoption of a system of thought based on the revulsion against traditionalism and the reliability of scientific knowledge. In contrast, postmodern thought, supported by poststructuralist theory, questions truth and knowledge and considers them unattainable on a slippery ground. While Modern Thought has the power to build individuals as social subjects by bringing the rational mind into circulation, postmodern thought highlights the individual's spiritual presence and gives it dominance. In this case, knowledge based on authority in the modern period is transformed into knowledge based on anarchy, which is pre-determined, pluralistic and interpreted in postmodernity. The basis of this dichotomy can be seen in Kant's positioning of human knowledge against empirical reality in understanding phenomena, and in Bergson's intelligence-intuition dichotomy. The aim of this study is to examine the change of understanding of knowledge and truth from modernity to postmodernity and the images of such a transformation from rational mind to intuitive thinking in cinema. To this end, Yorgos Lanthimos's film The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) will be examined in the context of a conflict between rational thinking and intuitive thinking.

Ludzki rozum i afektywność – stanowiska Johna Locke’a i Davida Hume’a

Author(s): Adam Grzeliński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 27/2019

The author elaborates on David Hume’s evolution in the perception of human understanding differing in effect from that represented earlier by John Locke. Historically speaking, it was the 1st Earl of Shaftesbury who came up with the new approach stressing the role of human affectivity. His theory influenced Hume via Francis Hutcheson’s writings. The author also draws a comparison between Locke’s and Hume’s positions on relations between the rational and affective aspects of experience and the functioning of human mind. Hume’s antimetaphysical and more radical empirical position highlights the diverse relations between the two aspects.

Sophie de Grouchy: filozofia oparta na polemice

Author(s): Anna Markwart / Language(s): Polish Issue: 27/2019

The article portrays Sophie de Grouchy (1764-1822) who translated Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments into French adding eight letters, Lettres sur la Sympathie, with her own comments on his work. The Lettres engage critically with Smith's philosophical analysis of sympathy. They also present her criticism of institutions and views on other matters including philosophy. The latter are in many instances in variance with those preached by Smith.

Problém identity a individuality v kontexte kvantovej teórie

Author(s): Miroslav Karaba / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 1/2020

The presented paper is dealing with the issue of identity and individuality in the scope of quantum theory, particularly in relation to the Leibniz’s principle of indiscernibility. As it turned out, the non-individuality of particles is not a necessary consequence of quantum statistics. There is a whole range of possibilities, as in a different metaphysical context, to interpret the physical basis and to provide quantum entities with the status of individual although indistinguishable objects. However, the price on such a procedure is a violation of the Leibniz’s principle. Another possibility is to focus on alternative interpretations of quantum theory, but the problem of this solution lies in the lack of reasonableness of such alternative interpretations and in their methodological deficiencies.

Tamás Demeter, David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism: Methodology and Ideology in Enlightenment Inquiry, Boston: Brill, 2016

Author(s): Matias Slavov / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

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Cartesian Privations: Material Causation in Pierre-Sylvain Régis’s Cartesian Account of Sin

Author(s): Joseph Anderson / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

Descartes’s very brief explanations of human responsibility for sin and divine innocence of sin include references to the idea that evil is a privation rather than a real thing. It is not obvious, though, that privation fits naturally in Descartes’s reductionistic metaphysics, nor is it clear precisely what role his privation doctrine plays in his theodicy. These issues are made clear by contrasting Descartes’s use of privations with that of Suarez, particularly in light of reoccurring objections to privation theory. These objections have no weight against Suarez’s use of privations, but Descartes’s mentions of privation are so few that it is not clear how his account avoids their consequences. Descartes’s brevity seems to have motivated some of his followers to develop creative accounts of the way in which privation fits in a Cartesian system. Pierre-Sylvain Régis accomplishes this task by reintroducing material causation. Régis holds that moral evil has no efficient cause since an efficient cause can only produce something real. Because he holds that moral evil can have a material cause, he is able to affirm that the soul is morally responsible for sin. In Régis’s case, accommodating this theological issue meant reincorporating Aristotelian resources into his Cartesian system.

Spinoza et les problèmes du corps dans l’histoire de la critique. Essai bibliographique (1924-2015)

Author(s): Andrea Sangiacomo / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2016

This bibliographical essay reconstructs the scholarly debate concerning Spinoza’s account of the body over the last ninety years. The paper focuses on the notion of body considered only from a physical point of view (without relationship to the mind). Questions concerning the ontological status of bodies (both simplest bodies and complex individuals), the nature of their essence, their power of operating, or the sources of Spinoza’s views have originated a long-standing discussion. This reconstruction presents the main solutions developed so far, and pinpoints the still understudied areas in the field.

Descartes et la scolastique sur la fausseté matérielle : perspectives sur les études récentes

Author(s): Ilaria Coluccia / Language(s): French Issue: 2/2016

Yitzhak Y. Melamed (ed.), The Young Spinoza: A Metaphysician in the Making, Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2015, xvi + 360 pp.

Author(s): S. T. Schifano / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

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