A szellem a gépben és az átlelkesített test

Author(s): Lajos Horváth / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 06/2016

In this paper, I examine the contemporary possibilities of crosstalk between phenomenology and analytical philosophy. In a wider context,the debate between analytical and continental philosophy will be reconsidered, especially focusing on the relation between Ryle and Husserl. The main goal of the paper is to answer the question whether the conceptions of embodied mind and embodied self are able to eliminate the doctrine of the “ghost in the machine”. The interdisciplinary dialogues concerning the phenomenal body are not only aimed at overcoming Cartesian dualism, but also at solving epistemological questions. However, the body-phenomenological turn in the philosophy of mind sheds light on the wider horizons of the unsettled relationship between naturalism and phenomenology, which is also one of the central themes of this paper. According to my conclusions, the result of the contemporary interdisciplinary dialogues may lead to the development of a new concept of the phenomenological unconscious, which is already lurking within the dialogues of body-phenomenology and prereflective awareness.

A tudat mint az információfeldolgozás magasabb rendű formája

Author(s): Bence Péter Marosán / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 06/2016

In this article I propose a project philosophy. My main thesis is that we can interpret consciousness as a higher form of information processing of material systems (biological organisms). I define consciousness with the following essential features: 1) representation (it represents somehow the internal or external environment of the system, of the living being), 2) first person perspective(somebody is experiencing), 3) phenomenality (qualitative character of certain experiences). By information I mean series of such internal or external effects concerning the system, which are “interpreted” as a sort of sign by the system. My hypothesis is that the emergence of consciousness is in a strong correlation with the special way of operation of a particular material system, with a special level of complexity and a special sort of information processing. In order to explain the emergence of consciousness, according to this hypothesis,one must carry out a comparative analysis of living beings of different level of complexity, with special regard to their particular way of functioning.

A tudatosság kortárs elméletei

Author(s): Miklós Márton / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 06/2016

In this paper I offer a short survey of the main contemporary philosophical theories of consciousness, and compare them. I introduce three fundamental common sense intuitions about consciousness, namely: 1. The Transitivity thesis – which says that a state is conscious if the subject is aware of it; 2. The Transparency thesis– which says that in a conscious state the subject is always aware of something else; and the 3. Non-reductivity thesis – which leans on the fact that the consciousness of a state is always a brute fact, and as such, cannot be reduced to other facts. In the paper I argue that one can associate a theory of consciousness to each of these intuitions. The Higher-Order Representation theories fit nicely to the transitivity thesis, the Representational theories express our intuition about transparency, and the Non-reductionist theories emphasize that consciousness is a brute fact of our mental life. As a result of the comparison, I argue that the first two theories can be plausibly objected to on the ground that they try to reduce consciousness to some functional facts, and that is counterintuitive, while the Non-reductionist theories can be attacked for their weak explanatory power.

A szentté/boldoggá avatás elméleti megközelítése

Author(s): József Marton / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 08/2016

Phänomenologische Kraftlinien des mitteleuropäischen Denkens: Rückgriff auf Texte der tschechischen Philosophin Marie Bayerová

Author(s): Jaroslava Vydrová / Language(s): German Issue: 60/2015

On the background of texts by Marie Bayerová (Czech phenomenologist, translator of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, and the student of Jan Patočka) the author of the paper analyzes conditions, milieu and development of phenomenological thinking in the Central-European context. Bayerová’s contribution to phenomenology is presented in three aspects: 1) methodological scope: Husserl’s reduction; 2) the aspect of the history of philosophy: Husserl and Bolzano; 3) thematic scope: cubism and phenomenology. Returning to the historical and genetic questions, author tries to locate the symptomatic tendencies which in a way disclose the phenomenology and those specific lines of thinking (spanning from logic to art) which were pursued by phenomenology in Czech philosophical discourse in the last half of 20th century; the analysis takes into account complicated existential and political conditions of an academic at that time.

THE FAILURE OF NEW ATHEISM MORALITY

Author(s): Robert A. Delfino / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2015

New atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, generally speaking, are committed to two main beliefs. The first is scientism, which is the view that only science can give us complete and reliable knowledge of reality. The second is metaphysical naturalism, which is the view that no supernatural entities exist. In this article the author focuses on the metaphysical naturalism that new atheists and other naturalists accept, with the goal of answering the following question: Can metaphysical naturalism provide an adequate foundation for objective moral values? He argues that the answer is “no” and he discusses several serious problems inherent in a naturalistic account of the foundation of morality.

Mit o Anteuszu z perspektywy polskich losów

Author(s): Piotr Jaroszyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 25/2015

The author points out that the Greek myths still possess not only artistic charm but also have timely message. One such myth is the particularly moving myth about Antaeus. The reason is that it illustrates the importance of land as a source of strength. And since the vicissitudes of Poland include the fight for land, therefore the author focused on showing the sense, in which the old Greek myth may be associated with the Polish fate. The author concludes his divagations stating that owning land lies at the heart of the Latin civilisation as well as the values and ideals found in it. The author emphasises that the possession of land by the Poles is of pivotal significance not only from the point of view of economy or emotionality but, above all, taking into account the development of civilisation. Further to the above, in our history it has always been crucial to own land.

Boskość i kultura. Struktura realizacji duchowej w myśli tradycjonalizmu integralnego

Author(s): Bogumił Chmiel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 25/2015

The article aims at presentation of relation between the Divinity and the culture, characteristic for Integral Traditionalists. With reference to works of R. Guenon, F. Schuon and A. K. Coomaraswamy (regarded as a main representatives of Traditionasist School) author presents nature of spiritual intuition understood as a total (i.e. epistemological and ontological) ingratiation of human subject with divine Object. Traditionalist’s theory of intuition (relying on Oriental inspiration) assumes that the essence of intuitive act consist in recognition of basic identity of subject with supra-personal Divinity. Major impact on this existential recognition has culture regarded as a system of symbols reflecting divine nature of reality. According to Traditionalists all valuable cultures, behind superficial plurality, show fundamental unity embodied in symbolical structure (hierarchy of authority, religion, art, law, marriage, everyday customs) understandable only for those who, on the virtue of spiritual development, are able to “see” symbolical character of every element of the universe. This “relational” concept enable traditionalists to criticize contemporary culture for its lack of reference – instead of orienting man on his spiritual aim, modern art, law and religion close him in his individuality through creating and satisfying artificial and supra-human needs.

Философия непрерывного образования в контексте развития глобальной культуры

Author(s): Elena Aleksandrovna Pushkareva,Yury Viktorovich Pushkarev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 3/2016

The article examines the characteristics of lifelong education within global cultural environment. The aim of this article is to identify the basic concepts of an individual’s lifelong education which increases development of personal view of the world. The author points out that the leading purpose of lifelong education encompasses not only training and professional development at all levels of the education system, but also transmission of culture in general. Russian education system operates in the context of emerging trends in the contemporary world and is based on the development of high technologies and global culture. The term continuity of education is referred to as following certain cultural traditions. The strategy of education for sustainable development is based on understanding education as a lifelong process. Due to the rapid technical progress of information society, lifelong education is determined by specific educational technologies aimed at developing innovative thinking. People need to update and develop their knowledge and skills to remain innovative and effective in a world of rapid changes. Education is a continuing and ongoing process of learning through life, which contributes to shaping personal view of the world.

Zwierzęce, jakiego nie ma

Author(s): Beata Mytych-Forajter / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2015

The text constitutes an attempt to discuss the idea of the “animal” itself, which is an empty set. Following Jacques Derrida’s line of thought, we remain surprised, asking what links the elephant with the ant or the echidna with the hedgehog. The only benefit of the concept of the “animal” lies in revealing the way in which humans try to extricate themselves from the net designed by them for “animals,” but ultimately end up wrapping it tightly about themselves. The question about the socalled “animal” constitutes part of the battle over language that seems to have forgotten that it was born from the relation with animals; however, it preserves this knowledge not in the scientific jargon, but in those of its registers which allow people to talk about the individual relation not with the “animal,” but with the concrete individual of a concrete species.

From Mesocosmos To Cosmos: Man In Search Of His Oikos

Author(s): Zbigniew Łepko / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

This study draws on the cybernetic concept of living beings’ presence in the natural environment formulated by Jakob von Uexküll, which points to the cognitive basis for the presence of a living being in its surroundings. In this perspective, living beings are perceived as subjects, since they transform their surroundings into an environment which is optimal for their survival in the world of average measurements, called mesocosmos. Thus understood, mesocosmos is synonymous with both the ecological and cognitive niche of a living being. Consequently, we can say that living beings, in the course of their characteristic pursuit of a better world, find only such a world that matches their cognitive and behavioral abilities. This, in turn, means that the basic level of knowledge about the reality achieved by living beings expresses the utilitarian nature of that knowledge; in this respect, it is genetically determined and is, therefore, a function of a species’ aspiration to survive in the mesocosmic environment. In this context, the uniqueness of man, who due to his remarkable cognitive abilities is able to transcend the mesocosmos, becomes clearly evident. This transcendence is achieved, in particular, through scientific knowledge which is, in a sense, unlimited and points to the fact that human environment comprises (can comprise), in fact, the whole universe

Uproszczone systemy dekodowania sygnałów w mechanistycznej koncepcji wyjaśniania zjawiska wtórnej odpowiedzi immunologicznej

Author(s): Tomasz Rzepiński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 50/2016

The paper deals with the procedure of explaining the secondary immune response. First, the basic concepts of the mechanistic account of explanation developed by Machamer, Darden and Craver will be considered. Subsequently, I will focus on the concepts describing the activation of the elements of the immunological system viewed as a signal decoding process. The analysis will make it possible to argue for the thesis that the explanations of the secondary immune response, formulated in immunology, aim to describe the possible procedures of simplifying the signal decoding process. The following considerations will make it possible to show the specificity of the mechanistic explanations formulated in immunology, and to demonstrate their significance for medical sciences.

Lo Bello y la belleza en el comentario Tomasino al De Divinis Nominibus

Author(s): Hugo Costarelli Brandi / Language(s): Spanish Issue: 3/2016

While St. Thomas Aquinas has not written any separate treaty on beauty, the theme of beauty regularly appears in his writing from its very beginning as that which corresponds with the Platonic doctrine presented by Dionysius the Areopagite in his De Divinis Nominibus. The article is focused on three essential elements in Aquinas’ doctrine on beauty: 1) its identity with the subject, 2) its difference from the reason, and 3) its difference from the good.

Nowoczesny kontekst i perspektywy filozofii pracy

Author(s): Artur Pastuszek / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2015

A modernity is a time, when as a result of modernization processes determining both dynamics of transformations in area of the technology and economics, but also modifying the social space, the stable and coherent image of world became liquid and ambivalent. This conversion affected similarly all dimensions of the human life, including of all kinds of his activity. It became a source of specific experiencing the disintegration of the subject. Labour, constituting the basic kind of the activity of the man, was also written down into the antinomic tension between pleasure and the compulsion, between the self-realization and the alienation and between the subjectivity and objectifying. Therefore the modernity generated the row of critical discourses which called direction of current transformations into question. A thought of Stanisław Brzozowski is becoming part of an area of such critical rhetoric. However this thought constitutes only a pretext for the recall of theses determining the condition of the modern man here and to problematization of effects of dynamic developing the nature.

Widzialne i niewidzialne piękno matematyki

Author(s): Małgorzata Makiewicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2016

The article deals with a beauty of mathematics as a phenomenon, which can be approached both from the aesthetic and intellectual levels. It has been illustrated by the series of photographs which are visual representations of the selected mathematical objects. The aim of the paper is to outline chosen aspects of perception and understanding of the aesthetics of mathematics in the context of photographic exemplification of concepts and patterns. All presented photographs have been taken by the participants of International Photography Competition Mathematics in Focus. The competition is organized regularly since 2010 by the University of Szczecin, Poland. Its popularity is growing systematically, what is reflected in the number of participants submitting their works: in 2010 there were 400 people who participated in the competition whereas in 2015 the total amount of them surpassed 8000. The gallery of all awarded works can be viewed at: http://www.mwo.usz.edu.pl/galeria-prac-nagrodzonych.

Pledoarie pentru limba vorbită

Author(s): Thomas Ciocşirescu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2016

The discreet relationship between voice and spoken language is very important in defining and understanding the world. Theater has a great role in that. The human voice, schematically, is defined as a „transmitter” of articulate sounds, but permanent irregularities from recognized rules of spoken language will bring us in the situation of using the inarticulate sounds (privilege of symptomatic neuro-vegetative actions) for human relations. The actor is a „keeper” of the spoken language, is a mission that we advocate to uphold.

Kształcenie jako problem filozoficzny w ujęciu Gastona Bachelarda

Author(s): Marta Ples-Bęben / Language(s): Polish Issue: XXVIII/2016

The purpose of the article is to discuss the main problems of Gaston Bachelard’s pedagogical philosophy. The French philosopher explored the fundamental issues of teaching – inter alia, the inquiry of the relations between teacher and disciple that he understood as dialectical exchange, the question about the most effective methods of teaching, the idea of the school as community tending to the same values – in the wide perspective of his philosophical system. Consequently, Bachelard’s philosophy of pedagogy can’t be studied apart from the most important concepts of his philosophy – the epistemological obstacle, the psychoanalysis of the scientific mind, the philosophy of “no”, and the new scientific mind.

IDEA PANSOFII W INTERPRETACJACH Ja.-A. KOMENSKOHO

Author(s): Vira Novosad / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2/2017

The pansophy ideas in the interpretation of John Amos Comenius are shown as universal wisdom, the reflection of the world of things, the mirror image of the macrocosm, where the structuring of the world is a prerequisite for the structuring of knowledge, it leads to the understanding and correction of the world, history and life as the true educators of a man as unification of different forms of human experience. The original methodological idea is unity, according to which everything in the world and in human life is closely interconnected, and thus, as the unification of various forms of human experience, the "soul of things" is a system and harmony. In order to ensure universal agreement between individuals and peoples, it is necessary to grasp the prevailing world-wide harmony, to disclose it through education.

Patočka and Socratic knowing of the unknown

Author(s): Róbert Stojka / Language(s): English Issue: 37 ENG/2017

Socrates as a philosopher is remarkably present in Patočka’s thought in all periods of his philosophical life. Patočka accepts the Socratic idea of knowing the unknown. He is developing this idea step by step throughout the various periods of his philosophical work. Socratic knowing of the unknown, transformed successively through the problematisation and the moment of negativity into the principle of historicity, means for Patočka the essential resort to his own concept of philosophy of history in its top form. With this concept, he attempts to advance a new, historical understanding of the sense of human life, and also of the sense of history. For Patočka, history is understood as constant problematisation; it is infinite, unresolved and opened — and it must remain so if we want to avoid the end of history.

Duchowość Polaka. Próba portretu filozoficznego

Author(s): Bolesław Andrzejewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 38/2017

The article deals with the history of Polish philosophy. Particular attention is given to its practical, at times even pragmatic overtone. The praxis dominates in the Middle Ages, modern philosophy and also in contemporary thought. After the appearance of Kantianism, there emerges in Poland a theoretical consciousness. These practical and theoretical dimensions lead to a synthesis that is referred as “Polish humanism”.