A lét és a jó egysége Augustinus filozófiájában

Author(s): Amália Soós / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2019

The aim of this paper is to sketch some of the philosophical guidelines of Augustine’s thinking on the problems of good, evil and being. Starting with the early Cassiciacum dialogues, the research continues with the dialog On the Free Will and the anti-Manichaean treatise about the nature of good, focusing mainly on the Neoplatonic influence concerning the idea of unity and on the ways Manichaean doctrines justify the vivacity of Augustine’s philosophical thoughts on good and evil.

ACCIDENTE DE CIRCULAŢIE A IDEILOR FILOSOFICE

Author(s): Sebastian Grama / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2017

In regard to the to the art area, the optimalstrategy that we can deduce from the Aristotelian thought is not to oppose in an abstract manner the Idea and life, but to let what is alive to talk to us, meaning to participate to essence in an own way, to come to us and inhabit our discourse not from the outside, but recognizing us, identifying itself in our words. The ruthlessness of Destiny, the immobility of the being as a being would remain a common entertainment if a guy would not assume Oreste's costume, gestures and mask. Accident is just as essential to essence as it is essential to think of an essence of the accident. The effect of this simultaneity can be given (finally legitimate) the name of life.

CUM ESTE POSIBILĂ O RETORICĂ A ISTORIEI OMULUI DORINŢEI?

Author(s): Oana Şerban / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2017

The aim of this paper is to examine and define the so-called „history of the desiring man” that Foucault explains in a genealogical framework inspired by the Greek Antiquity, recognizing Aristotle`s ethics as one of its constitutive paradigms. The main challenge of this theoretical inquiry is to show that Aristotle`s perspective on the human desires is as actual as it used to be 2400 years ago, in a puzzle that evaluates the relationship of the individual with himself and his access to the truth, in the terms of Aphrodisia, Chresis, Enkrateia, Sophrosyne.

ARISTOTEL, PROFESOR DE ACTORIE

Author(s): Liviu Lucaci / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1-2/2017

This article talks about two concepts drawn from Aristotle, the verisimilar and the necessity and the way we use them to create something that can flow only in one sense, as a one-way street, what we call truth on stage. If that happens, the people in the room will witness an unrepeatable event, and you as an actor will achieve performance.

The Highlights of Descartes’ Epistemology (An Introduction)

Author(s): Przemysław Gut,Arkadiusz Gut / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Descartes (and Spinoza) on Intellectual Experience and Skepticism

Author(s): John Carriero / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Descartes’s epistemology is rooted in his profound interest in and respect for what might be called intellectual experience, especially lucid intellectual experience. (Lucid intellectual experience is my term for what Descartes calls perceiving clearly and distinctly.) This interest, it seems to me, was shared by Descartes’s rationalist successors Spinoza and Leibniz. In the first part of this paper, I locate the phenomenon of lucid intellectual experience, focusing on Descartes and Spinoza. I try to show if we do not give enough attention to the character of such experience, we risk losing touch with a central motivation behind their respective epistemologies. In the second part of the paper, I consider intellectual experience in the context of skeptical doubt, particularly radical doubt. Although Descartes and Spinoza are often taken to be opposed here, I think they share more than is commonly appreciated.

Epistemic Functions of Intuition in Descartes

Author(s): Monika Walczak / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The topic of the paper is the notion of intuition in Descartes’ philosophy and its epistemic functions. Descartes introduces his notion of intuition in the context of a description of his method and process of knowing and doing science. Intuition is a significant component of this process. I intend to show that the main epistemic functions of intuition in Descartes’ philosophy are differentiated. Intuition is essential not only in the context of justification (the Cartesian synthetic method of proof) but also and especially in the context of discovery (the Cartesian analytic method of discovery). It plays not only a role in the foundation of the cogito but also on different stages of constructing the system of knowledge. Intuition has important functions in grasping simple natures, forming primary concepts, comprehending complex natures, forming primary propositions (including primary principles), and capturing relationships between them and building deductive reasoning (the role of intuition in deduction). Hence, intuition is the foundation for all primary stages of producing knowledge. It is active and important element of pure thinking (a priori) in human knowledge, and science. It fulfils these functions due to its specific epistemic properties. I also argue that intuition is not an autonomous and complete type of knowledge. Nor is it an intuitive thesis, but rather the basis of a justification for theses (including the cogito).

The Epistemic Significance of Current Clear and Distinct Perceptions in Descartes’ Epistemology

Author(s): Przemysław Gut / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

In this article, I discuss the epistemic role that Descartes believed was played in knowledge construction by current clear and distinct perceptions (the ideas or propositions which appear most evident to us when we are attending to them). In recent literature, we can find two interpretations about the epistemic status and function of current clear and distinct perceptions in Descartes’ epistemology. The first may be called the psychological, the second normative. The latter states that current clear and distinct perceptions are utterly immune to all doubt, even before God’s existence is proven and the general rule of truth is established. Thus, their certainty is for Descartes not merely psychological, but normative. I endorse the normative interpretation for a number of what I believe to be cogent reasons. However, there are also some difficulties with it. Therefore, after presenting positive arguments for the interpretation (sections I–IV) I discuss the difficulties of textual and substantive nature that the normative interpretation needs to address if it is to be upheld (sections V–VI).

The Fourth Meditation and Cartesian Circles

Author(s): C.P. Ragland,Everett Fulmer / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

We offer a novel interpretation of the argumentative role that Meditation IV plays within the whole of the Meditations. This new interpretation clarifies several otherwise head-scratching claims that Descartes makes about Meditation IV, and it fully exonerates the Fourth Meditation from either raising or exacerbating Descartes’ circularity problems.

The Curious Sensations of Pain, Hunger and Thirst. Reliabilism in the Second Part of Descartes’ Sixth Meditation

Author(s): Stefaan E. Cuypers / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

This paper discusses the epistemic status of bodily sensations—especially the sensations of pain, hunger and thirst—in the second part of Descartes’ Sixth Meditation. It is argued that this part is an integral component of Descartes overall purely epistemological project in the Meditations. Surprisingly perhaps, in contrast with his standardly taken infallible, internalist and foundationalist position, Descartes adopts a fallibilist, externalist and reliabilist position as regards the knowledge and beliefs based on bodily sensations. The argument for this conclusion is justified by an analysis of both the criterion of nature’s teachings and the concept of true errors of nature in terms of Wilfrid Sellars’ distinction between the logical space of reasons and the empirical space of causes.

Cartesian Social Epistemology? Contemporary Social Epistemology and Early Modern Philosophy

Author(s): Amy M. Schmitter / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

Many contemporary social epistemologists take themselves to be combatting an individualist approach to knowledge typified by Descartes. Although I agree that Descartes presents an individualist picture of scientific knowledge, he does allow some practical roles for reliance on the testimony and beliefs of others. More importantly, however, his reasons for committing to individualism raise important issues for social epistemology, particularly about how reliance on mere testimony can propagate prejudices and inhibit genuine understanding. The implications of his views are worked out more fully by some of his immediate successors; I examine how François Poulain de la Barre, and (briefly) Mary Astell analyze the social conditions for epistemic agency in a Cartesian vein.

Thomas Hobbes’s Elements of Law and His Third Objections to Descartes’s Meditations

Author(s): Krzysztof Wawrzonkowski / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

In this article I endeavour to present the axis of the dispute between Hobbes and Descartes on the ground of Meditation, and its most important moments. I focus primarily on the analysis of the most important accusations made by Hobbes and the reconstruction of some of his views, which at the time could only be found in The Elements of Law, Nature, and Politics. This work was the first major and coherent attempt to speak out on cognitive-theory and social issues; I strive to defend the thesis that understanding the content of Objections requires knowledge of this work. The mature form of the work shows that the Englishman already had his views well thought-out and could feel quite confident in formulating from their perspective critical remarks on Descartes’s philosophy, to which, it seems, he may have owed quite a lot.

The Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism of Locke’s Concept of Personal Identity

Author(s): Adam Grzeliński / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

This article focuses on the relationship between the conceptions of personal identity presented by Descartes and by Locke. Contrary to common readings, I claim that the difference between them cannot be reduced to a simple contrast between rational substantialism and genetic empiricism. Locke does not resign from the substantialist position but delimits the two spheres: natural cognition with its foundation in experience and philosophical speculations, in which he tries to present a rational interpretation of religious dogmas which is consistent with his epistemological programme. Locke’s criticism is directed against the Cartesian notion of a thinking thing as a substance independent of the body and his description of the differentiation of experience and his depiction of human subjectivity is expanded in relation to Cartesian philosophy: personal identity gains explication at four complementary levels: psychological, biological, socio-legal, and religious.

Bellows in Malaga: Thomistic Insights via Pablo Picasso

Author(s): Daniel Fitzpatrick / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

The paper begins by clarifying St. Thomas’s teaching on the problem of the one and the many by answering three questions: 1) What is a genus? 2) How are genera organized according to contrary opposition, and what role does virtual quantity play in such organization? 3) How do a knower and the thing known constitute opposite poles of a genus? With these answers firmly in hand, we then turn to an analysis of art, with particular reference to Picasso, with a view to clarifying three complementary points: 1) How the artist and his work constitute a genus, and how the work of art and the viewer constitute a genus; 2) How the work of art affirms the generic relation of sense object and sensate being; 3) How the artist subordinates the practical to the speculative in his work and what this implies for the role of the artist in an increasingly practical age.

Sapientia. Sagesse et philosophie morale selon Robert Holcot († 1349)

Author(s): Pascale Farago-Bermon / Language(s): French Issue: XXV/2019

This contribution examines the definitions of wisdom that appear in the first two lessons of Robert Holcot’s In Sapientiam. The Dominican master writes in his famous commentary that he does not retain the theological and peripatetic definitions of wisdom, but prefers the definition given by moral philosophers. Holcot’s notion of philosophia moralis is compared here with its occurrences in the divisions of philosophy and curricula of the first half of the thirteenth century. The interest in non-peripatetic ancient sources manifested by this “classicizing friar” (Beryl Smalley) seems to suggest his work was a continuation of that of his near medieval predecessors, at the very time of the first humanism.

„Süße des Lebens“, „Schmecken des Schönen“ und höchstes Gelingen. Hêdonê und Eudaimonia bei Aristoteles

Author(s): Ralf Elm / Language(s): German Issue: 1/2020

The topic of the phenomena joy, lust or pleasure (hêdonê) is repeatedly astonishing and at the same time a quite ambivalent field for Aristotle. His numerous statements about the hedônê made throughout the work, his basic definitions and systematic analyzes, in particular the two so-called pleasure treatises in the 7th and 10th book of Nicomachean Ethics and their consideration in the examination of emotions in the second book of Rhetoric are very stimulating. In my lecture, I would first like to (I) visualize some of the phenomenal diversity that Aristotle had in mind. In a second step (II) I will briefly introduce Aristotle’s engagement with anti-hedonism in his first treatise (EN VII 12-15) and introduce his understanding of pleasure as “unhindered activity”. This is then deepened in the third section (III) with Aristotle’s second treatise on pleasure (in EN X 1-5) and his second suggestion of pleasure as a “perfection that comes to perfection”. That self-referential relationships always play a role in lust and displeasure, for which the elementary corporeality is just as important as the intersubjectivity of friendships (for example, in the context of Aristotle’s political philosophy) is addressed in the final section (IV).

What is a World? Deception, Possibility, and the Uses of Fiction from Cervantes to Descartes

Author(s): Justin E. H. Smith / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

In this short essay I will aim to show that literary fiction is consistently at the vanguard of the exploration of philosophical problems relating to the concept of world, while what we think of as philosophy, in the narrower sense, typically arrives late on the scene, picking up themes that have already been explored in literary texts that are explicitly intended as exercises of the imagination. I will pursue this argument with a sustained investigation of the shared aims and methods of Miguel de Cervantes and René Descartes.

Leibniz and Calvino, Possible Worlds and Possible Cities, Philosophy and Fiction

Author(s): Ohad Nachtomy / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2016

Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities presents a wide array of possible cities—cities whose composition turns on a productive ambiguity of their being described or invented by Marco Polo in his conversations with Kublai Khan. Implicit in this book is also a theory about how all possible cities are composed. The method turns on decompos¬ing a city down to its basic elements and recomposing it in different ways through the imagination. I argue that there is a close affinity between Calvino’s theory of fictional cities and Leibniz’s theory of possible worlds. The main similarity is that both theories are combinatorial—they suppose that possibilities are produced by combination and variation of basic elements. The paper presents Leibniz’s theory of possibility in its metaphysical context and explores the similarity (as well as some differences) with Calvino’s cities in their literary context. I suggest that there is a rather strong relation between the theory of literary fiction implicit in Invisible Cities and Leibniz’s theory of possibility, in that both define the possible in terms of the conceivable. Indeed, Leibniz often refers to literary examples to substantiate his position, and I argue that this reveals an essential feature of his theory.

Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Anna Akasoy and Guido Giglioni, Dordrecht: Springer, 2013, 405 pp.

Author(s): Lucian Petrescu / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2016

-

THE ENLIGHTENMENT EPISTEMOLOGY AND ITS WARNING AGAINST THE INSTRUMENTALISATION OF SCIENCE

Author(s): Ana Bazac / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

The paper is written in order to demonstrate the lack of soundness of the present counter-Enlightenment attacks against reason and science. The characterisation of Enlightenment cannot only refer to the logical consequences of the universally manifested reason –(the wishful thoughts about) the humans‘ education and educability and thus the changing the world for the better –without substantiating them. Kant has substantiated the Enlightenment epistemology that supports even today the human endeavour to live in a better world. As the purpose of the analysis is the epistemological way of comprehension –i.e. the rational all the way, coherent to the end, thus the scientific questioning of the premises of every theory –the paper thus features only a selection from among the coryphaei of the Enlightenment movement. It starts from Kant‘s ―Copernican revolution‖ –a metaphor used by him that may rightfully be employed in order to evaluate his philosophy –which, in the view expressed here, consists in the interdependence of the constructivist epistemology and the categorical imperative ethics. Actually, and this is the thesis promoted here, this epistemology and this ethics constitute a continuous and unique structure and just this unitary epistemological-ethical structure, called here even the Enlightenment epistemology, is the basis of the Enlightenment perspective and theory of comprehension. But this perspective and comprehension form a methodological pattern for the approach of the world and for the reason to be of the human knowledge. Thus, the paper is not a simple reminder of an old page of the history of philosophy. And neither should the history of philosophy be thought of as an evolution of ideas, where there would exist just a simple transmission and taking over of the relay from one paramount theory to another and where at one time or another the respective preponderant theory would exist alone. The Enlightenment pattern was not the only one when it appeared, and so much less today. The epistemological analysis of some contemporary facts emphasizes the contradictory views expressed within the Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment manners. There are presented Enlightenment type arguments and anti-Enlightenment arguments, put face to face. Thus, the paper shows that the Enlightenment perspective and understanding defeat the counter-Enlightenment attacks and they outline a methodological framework for the current interpretation of science and technology.