bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Quality as Presentation
Authors: Kramchynski Robert
Published: November 2019

The underlying thesis examined here maintains that meaning is simply subjective value which has been presented (i.e., enlarged or made explicit) in words or in some other plastic or static medium. This presentation of meaning consists in the extending of what is felt by the creator-subject to the other subjects. Although this extension of the primary agent may be the very thing which ultimately creates the space from where reflection might occur, the act of expression itself is not explicitly reflective. In other words, one might say that integral meaning is not reflective but rather is purely informing, while reflective meaning has to some degree lost its integrity. Working from these basic claims, I will examine how quality (or qualification) and quantity (or quantification) are related as functions of the languages of art and of science.
Malebranche’s Occasionalism
Authors: Bozovic Miran
Published: November 2019

According to Malebranche, Adam should be considered as an occasionalist philosopher. Not only did philosophy originate in paradise, but it in fact originated as Malebranchian occasionalism. It was in order to be able to persist in his occasionalist belief that Adam was given exceptional power over his body, that is, the power to detach the principal part of his brain (i.e., the seat of the soul) from the rest of the body. It was only in continually detaching the principal part of his brain from the rest of the body that Adam was able to persist in his occasionalist belief despite the unmistakable testimony of his sense to the contrary. Having once sinned, he thereupon lost his psychophysical privilege. Whereas pre-lapsarian physiology made Adam's belief in the causal efficacy of God possible, post-lapsarian physiology, in contrast, necessarily engenders and sustains belief in the causal efficacy of bodies. It was only as a result of the post-lapsarian physiology that some of the central problems of early modern philosophy arose. Contingent upon Adam's psychophysical privilege, occasionalism was possible only in paradise.
Les Enjeux de L’éducation pour la Critique Lockienne des Idées Innées
Authors: Charles Syliane
Published: November 2019

Au lieu de tracer séparation trop nette entre les écrits pédagogiques de Locke, sur la base de leur caractère souvent anodin, et ses ouvrages philosophiques, en particulier l'Essai philosophique concernant l'entendement humain, nous voulons montrer qu'il faut bien plutôt chercher à bâtir des ponts. L'oeuvre de Locke est construite autour de quelques intuitions fondamentales, dont celle qui définit son empirisme, et qui se concrétise dans sa réfutation de l'existence d'idées innées, et celles-ci se retrouvent et se renforcent mutuellement à différents niveaux. Si l'exemple de l'acquisition tardive par les enfants des principes logiques tout d'abord, et de principes pratiques comme l'idée de Dieu ensuite, ruine l'argument du consentement universel et ainsi prouve que ceux-ci ne sont pas innés l'anti-innéisme confère réciproquement à la pédagogie un rôle essentiel qu'elle se doit d'assumer pour le bien de l'individu et celui de la société. Ce qui donne à comprendre l'enjeu bel et bien philosophique de l'intérêt de Locke pour l'éducation des enfants.
L’Égoisme raisonnable des temps moderns
Authors: Drozdowicz Zbigniew
Published: November 2019

Je vais fonder mes réflexions sur la thêse de l'apparition et de la popularisation parmi l'élite intellectuelle laique du XVIème, du XVIIème et du XVIIIème siècle du modèle de l'égoiste raisonnable, c'est-a-dire de celui qui veut et qui est capable de coexister et de collaborer avec les autres, mais non pas par charité ni-comme au Moyen Age-par une contrainte exteriéure, mais par un choix rationnel, ayant constaté que le bilan des pertes et de profits était positif. Dans la présentation de ce phénomène, je me limiterai à la culture française, sans toutefois essayer de trancher dans quelle mesure les processus en question sont paralleles à ceux qui ont eu lieu dans d'autres pays. Je n'en suis pas moins persuadé que la creation et la popularisation de ce modèle intervient dans toute l'Europe occidentale, non sans differences détails. C'est le XVIème siècle qui y sert de point de depart, car c'est dans ce centenaire qu'on a lancé la raison et le calme intérieur en tant que valeurs morales /vertus/ essentielles et réelles: ce fut le premier succès sérieux de l'egoiste raisonnable, la raison lui donnant la possibilité de défense contre les plus sérieuses menaces du côté du monde extérieur /social et naturel/, tandis que le calme intérieur lui permettant de garder une distance par rapport à tout ce qu'il considerait comme étranger. Cette idée est bien illustrée par des Essais de Montaigne. Au XVIIème siècle cet égoiste raisonnable note un autre succes important que fut le lancement de l'intellectualisme en tant que forme suprême de la connaissance de la réalite. Cette forme de l'égoiste raissonnable est bien illustrée par 'la morale d'attente' de Descartes. Au XVIIIème siècle on a observé que c'etait une raison assez étroite et un égoisme assez borné, et on y apporta plusieurs modifications essentielles. En consequence, l'égoiste raisonnable devait mieux s'adapter à son milieu, être mieux disposé à apprécier le rationnalité et l'égoisme des autres, et en fin des comptes, être plus efficace dans ses entreprises. Toutes ces proncipes ont trouvé leur forme expresse dans la Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen en 1789.
Radical Evil and the Possibility of the Conversion into Good
Authors: Filho Edgard José Jorge
Published: November 2019

According to Kant, radical evil is the deep inherent blemish of our species that does not spare even the best of people. Despite judging the extirpation of such evil as an impossibility, Kant holds out the possibility of converting evil into good by means of human forces. But how can this be given the radical evil of human nature? I articulate various problems that arise from Kant’s conception of conversion while exploring certain resources in his thinking in order to clarify and resolve this difficulty. The difficulty nears an aporia when Kant asks: how can a bad tree bear good fruit? Two arguments will be presented as answers. The first maintains that free will is not definitely committed to any maxim generally accepted. The second points out the possibility of compromise between free will and a good ground maxim as the way to build up a coherent system of maxims. This would be clearly impossible if a bad ground maxim were chosen. While undecisive, the second argument is relevant because it leads to the overcoming of a certain incoherence in Kant's thought. In this way, I argue that the thesis of an existing intrinsic deficiency of the radical evil enjoys the status of a "quasi foundation" of human behavior.
Are Spinozistic Ideas Cartesian Judgements?
Authors: Kajamies Timo
Published: November 2019

Some commentators maintain that Spinozistic active ideas are judgements. I shall call this view the common interpretation, since it is popular to interpret Spinoza as reacting against Descartes's theory of ideas. According to this reading, Spinozistic ideas are considered not as Cartesian ideas but as Cartesian judgements. One clear difference between Descartes and Spinoza is that Spinoza holds that ideas are active, while Descartes does not. According to the common interpretation, Spinoza and Descartes use the concept of activity in the same way. Since Descartes holds that judgements are active, it is maintained that Spinozistic active ideas are like Cartesian judgements. I find this an overly superficial interpretation of Spinoza. I argue that, for Spinoza, activity denotes more than mere Cartesian activity. Whereas Spinoza wants to say that active ideas incorporate the property of truth or certainty, Descartes does not consider judgements in that way. In this way, Spinozistic active ideas can be called truth-expressing.
Skepticism and the Philosophy of Language in Early Modern Thought
Authors: de Souza Filho Danilo Marcondes
Published: November 2019

This paper discusses the importance of skeptical arguments for the philosophy of language in early modern thought. It contrasts the rationalist conception of language and knowledge with that of philosophers who adopt some sort of skeptical position, maintaining that these philosophers end up by giving language a greater importance than rationalists. The criticism of the rationalists' appeal to natural light is examined, as well as skeptical arguments limiting knowledge such as the so-called 'maker's knowledge' argument. This argument is then seen as capital for favoring a positive interpretation of the importance of language for knowledge.
A Kantian Interpretation of Demonstrative Reference
Authors: Wong Wing-Chun
Published: November 2019

According to Kant, we refer to what is out there in the world by performing a demonstrative act, like pointing at an object with a finger. A Kantian mode of demonstrative reference is characterized by the existence of a real, 2-placed affective relation between an intuiting subject and the referent. Parsons suggests that Kantian intuition is both singular and immediate, and immediacy demands an object of intuition to be present, a condition clearly satisfied by objects within our immediate perceptual field. But since we do not have an immediate relation with remote objects, the scope of our demonstrative reference is severely restricted by intuitional immediacy. I wish to develop a global Kantian intuition in order to extend the scope of demonstrative reference. Kant's ontology of space entails that the global representability of space be given to an intuiting subject as a form of intuition. According to Melnick, Kantian intuition is a kinematic operation which involves directing attention and moving about. To make contact with the world, the subject must move away from its locale: although a spatially remote object (W) is not immediately present, we can shift our location by taking a path such that W will become so. Once we are close enough to be affected by W, we will be able to point at W and say "This." Thus, the intuitive scope of demonstrative reference is globalized as we shift our location.
Rhythmic Foundations, and the Necessary Aesthetic in Peirce’s Categories
Authors: Kuehn Glenn
Published: November 2019

There has been a tendency in scholarship to steer quite clear of discussions of Peirce and Aesthetics, and I believe that the main reason that Peirce’s works lacks, perhaps even intentionally, a clear aesthetic theory is because his entire architectonic of experience is aesthetically founded. This thesis is based, in part, on the necessary aesthetic descriptions one is forced to use when describing something such as the categories. For example, Secondness necessarily elicits aesthetic descriptions of relations and tensions, Thirdness is described most accurately with words such as harmony and arrangement, and the process by which we come to attain a belief is an "aesthetic" endeavor aimed at satisfaction. Focusing particularly on the categories, and secondarily on the method for attaining belief, I hope to show that Peirce’s foundation is, itself, an aesthetic awareness of life.
Poetry and Private Language
Authors: LaMarque Peter
Published: November 2019

The paper discusses three theses in relation to poetry: (1) the Inadequacy Thesis: language is inadequate to capture, portray, do justice to, the quality and intensity of the inner life; (2) the Empathy Thesis: descriptions of certain kinds of experiences can only be (adequately) understood by a person who has had similar experiences; (3) the Poetic Thesis, which has two parts: (a) only through poetry can we hope to overcome the problem of the Inadequacy Thesis and (b) the difficulty of (some) poetry is at least partly explained by the Empathy Thesis. The paper argues that there are important truths underlying each thesis but that it would be wrong to connect this kernel of truth with a Lockean view of language, and in particular with a view of language as 'private', in the sense implied by Locke and criticized by Wittgenstein. The romantic conception of poetry, to which the theses are related, neither relies on the Lockean view nor does it succumb to the Wittgensteinian view.
Relaciones Entre las Actitudes Bellas y las Morales
Authors: Palazón María Rosa
Published: November 2019

There are no a-moral texts, even though amorality may be described by them: an amoral author would not dare into the search of beauty; it depends on a game of faculties that, also, play with the form. A moralizing literary text is not due to a game of author's faculties, but only to the author's conscience. Thus, it rebounds heavy and ugly. An ugly immoral literary text assaults on a redundant and calculated way some moral rules in favor of the "forbidden". Then, it is not a beautiful text. The aesthetic function is the one treating the stimulus as a purpose and not only as a means. This spontaneous behavior is condition of possibility for the moral act (the follower of the second kantian imperative). The one who spontaneously has the attitude that considers the other (alter) as a purpose and not only as a means, is a beautiful person. Its argued that it is not yet a morally good person. Anyway, "beau-ty" on its Latin etymologies (beau-t‚ and bello) means good, which involves a project that is dialoguing, truthful, respectful and advantageous for the community. It also means that the decision of using the proper means for the goal, has been taken. Once accepted the project, the individual shall act spontaneously on a ludicrous way so that the project may become real. He will be a more meritorious beautiful person if his spontaneous goodness means the overcoming over the experiences that have hurt hi. The matter is: is the moral beauty the highest point of morality? I will work on this topic on the basis of Schiller, Kant, Gadamer, and Sartre.
Aesthetic Experience and Verbal Art
Authors: Roeffaers Hugo
Published: November 2019

In this paper I intend to present a philosophical account of what is commonly called verbal or literary art. Starting from the Hegelian conception of language and of the aesthetic experience, I shall argue that literary, and more specifically poetic, discourse can be defined as the verbal completion of an aesthetic experience, and that this distinctive feature marks off literary discourse from other types of discourse, such as scientific and philosophical discourse. In his phenomenological description of the growth of a subject's identity, Hegel situates the birth of language in the transition from consciousness (Verstand) to self-consciousness (Vernunft). In his Philosophy of Fine Art, this transition also marks the locus philosophicus of the artistic experience.
Regret and Obligation
Authors: Räikkä Juha
Published: November 2019

In Albert Camus' 1950 play Just Assassins, terrorists are at work in nineteenth-century Russia. They kill people, and they all believe that there is a superior moral reason for doing so. But they also know that killing is wrong. In their own view, they are innocent criminals; innocent, because their action is justified, but criminals, because they kill. So tacitly they conclude that they deserve punishment that will remove the regret from their shoulders. Their execution, by the same despotic authorities they are attacking, completes their actions: regret, caused by justified killing, gets its counterpart. Regret is an interesting mental phenomenon. Some people say that feeling regret is irrational, or even that it is immoral. But surely the usual opinion is that in some situations regret is an appropriate way to react. An interesting question is what it means to say that sometimes it is 'appropriate' to feel regret. Do we have a moral obligation to feel regret sometimes? How could one have an obligation to feel anything, since, at least seemingly, feelings are not voluntary acts. If we do have a moral obligation to feel regret in some cases, does it follow that all good people are emotionally "hot," while "cool" persons, who are not able to feel deep regret, are bad?
Vernun und Terror
Authors: Raynova Yvanka
Published: November 2019

Die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Freudschen Psychoanalyse, die zuerst von Foucault und dann von Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard und Baudrillard unternommen wurde, versucht den Mechanismus der 'bürgerlichen Repressiontätigkeit,' die die europäische Menschheit unter dem Joch der Familieninstitution hält, zu enthüllen und den Terror einer erdachten und simulativen Moral, in der Freud und seine Anhänger unwillkürlich einbezogen sind, blob zu stellen. Damit zeigt die postmoderne Lektüre von Freud, dab nur die Befreiung von diesem durch Terror-verderbten Bewubtsein im Stande wäre die wirkliche revolutionäre Kraft der psychoanalytischen Kritik der Vernunft hervorbringen und die Bedeutung ihrer zwei epochalen Erfindungen-die direkte Konfrontation zwischen den Triebproduktionen und der Repression, die die Gesellschaftsmaschine auf der Triebmaschine ausübt, und die dadurch folgende Verdrängung-zurück zu gewinnen.
The Metaphysics of Performance
Authors: Tassi Aldo
Published: November 2019

Something extraordinary has happened to metaphysics. At the very moment when philosophy is focusing its efforts at bringing metaphysics to an ‘end,’ metaphysics finds itself flourishing in the theatre, which speaks of itself as ‘metaphysics-in-action’ and publishes treatises carrying such titles as The Act of Being: Toward a Theory of Acting. The irony of the situation appears to have been lost on postmodern philosophers. What this paper sets out to do is explore the potential consequences of the metaphysical weight that has been acquired by the theatre for the practice of philosophy. It argues that the theatrical performance is in fact an ‘enactment’ of the performance of being and that, as such, it is possible to extend our understanding of this performance from the theatrical stage to the ‘theatre of the world.’ Finally, in doing so, we can establish the context for a metaphysics that does not privilege presence.
Hacia una Ontología del Nombre
Authors: Díez Ricardo O.
Published: November 2019

Conforme a la inquietud del Vigésimo Congreso Mundial de la Filosofía he querido delinear algunos aspectos de la función educativa a través de tres pasos. (1) El primero dice algo de la palabra mediadora en la enseñanza. La lectio, meditatio y oratio son los apotes que rescato del medioevo junto a los cuatro sentidos de la Escritura. (2) La referencialidad de la palabra constituye el segundo paso de la comunicación. Por ella los que dialogan deben aprender a mirar juntos en una misma dirección. (3) Finalmente se propone una figura y una ontología. La figura en X es el quiasmo dibujado entre las palabras y las cosas. Dos direcciones relacionan los extremos que se cruzan en un punto. Mediante estos movimientos el sentido va desde lo que es al texto, y la significación desde el lenguaje a lo real. En el punto crucial se edifica el nombre que invoca y convoca a los que dialogan. El diálogo en su ejercicio involucra al pensar y al corazón. El primero cumple su función en la interpretación de la palabra y en la visión de realidad. El segundo en la ordenación cordial del mundo y en la sumisión de todo lenguaje a la dimensión de quien escucha. Educador y educando, palabras y cosas configuran cuatro ámbitos de la tarea educativa. La extensión de la comunicación nos hizo limitar a la horizontalidad realizada por el quiasmo y el modo como el pensamiento juega junto a la expresión y la realidad. El pensar ve los movimientos que dibuja la figura quiástica. Mediante el uso correcto de una gramática centrada en el nombre que narra la vida, la acción pensante edifica una ontología que usa de la palabra para edificar los afectos que construye el mundo con lazos cordiales.
In Search of a Methodological Foundation for Applied Ethics
Authors: Logister Louis
Published: November 2019

The problems that face contemporary applied ethics are indissolubly related to some characteristics of postmodern civil society. In this paper I will try to take a stand in the discussion between a proponent of a particularistic approach and one who favors a universalistic approach to the present difficulties that accompany human action. Karl-Otto Apel combines in his ethics of discourse a focus upon universal and normative structures of communication with a Kantian transcendental method of thought. Paul van Tongeren follows Aristotle and Nietzsche in arguing that the local and historically determined contingent traditions are the basis on which to approach our ethical questions. After giving a brief presentation of their respective contributions to the discussion, I shall end with some reflections on the difference between, and the merits and demerits of, a universalistic and a particularistic ethics.
Understanding of Intersubjectivity and Life in Theodors Celm’s Philosophical Works
Authors: Kúle Maija
Published: November 2019

Theodors Celms (1893-1989), a prominent Latvian philosopher, was one of Husserl's best students. Intersubjectivity was an important theme in the "psychological" reading of phenomenology when Celm turned to the problem of the transcendental "I" and to a living-rather than logically defined-subject. Celms concluded that Husserl's phenomenology could not address the question of intersubjectivity because in the course of its development it merely substituted pluralistic solipsism for monistic solipsism. What is most essential in phenomenology-the process of sense (or meaning) formation-remains hardly noticed in Celms' work. Contemporary phenomenology has developed as a philosophy of new thinking-a phenomenology of life that can be applied in different ways toward solving various problems of intersubjectivity.
The Space of the Self
Authors: McCarthy Erin
Published: November 2019

In this paper, I will first examine the spatial aspect of self as found in Watsuji Tetsuro’s Climate and Culture. My study will focus almost entirely on the first chapter of this work where Watsuji sets out his theory of climate. I will then turn to his recently translated Ethics and examine the spatiality of the self as ningen, concentrating mainly on Chapter Nine, "The Spatiality of a Human Being." I do not pretend to give a full account of Watsuji’s philosophy, but hope to raise questions in order to think of space and self in a different manner, recognizing space as an essential element in the constitution of a concept of self — one forgotten in Heidegger’s Being and Time and in many contemporary accounts of personal identity.
Parfit, the Reductionist View, and Moral Commitment
Authors: Palmer Daniel E.
Published: November 2019

In Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues for a Reductionist View of personal identity. According to a Reductionist, persons are nothing over and above the existence of certain mental and/or physical states and their various relations. Given this, Parfit believes that facts about personal identity just consist in more particular facts concerning psychological continuity and/or connectedness, and thus that personal identity can be reduced to this continuity and/or connectedness. Parfit is aware that his view of personal identity is contrary to what many people ordinarily think about persons, and thus if his view is correct, many of us have false beliefs about personal identity. Further, since many of our views about morality are based upon our views about personal identity, it follows that we may also have to change our beliefs about morality as well. Parfit, however, thinks that in many cases such changes represent an improvement over our former beliefs and better fit with our considered moral judgments. But instead, I argue that Parfit’s account poses a serious threat to considered moral judgments, and, in particular, that it seriously undermines any substantial notion of moral commitment. As such, even if Parfit is metaphysically correct, I suggest we may have practical reasons, based on our moral concerns, for holding to a more weighty view of the nature of persons.
Personal Selfhood(?) and Human Experience in Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism
Authors: Yong Amos
Published: November 2019

The focus of this paper is personal selfhood and personal identity in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead’s theory of human personhood is formulated within the fabric of his highly original western metaphysical vision. Rejecting the Aristotelian doctrine of substantive being, Whitehead embraced instead an ontology of becoming that sought to categorize the things of this world within a naturalistic continuum. His understanding of human selfhood was therefore explicated in terms of this continuum and avoided both the rhetoric and conceptualization of substance philosophy. Thus, human selfhood is better understood in Whitehead’s system as a continuously developing series of events or actual occasions, rather than in terms of a substantive soul. After detailing the main lines of Whitehead’s doctrine of self and personhood, three detractors of his theory are introduced: A. H. Johnson, Peter Bertocci, and Rem Edwards. Their primary objections revolve around the human experience of self and personal identity and Whitehead’s highly controversial epochal theory of time. The primary question that arises is whether or not Whitehead was finally able to do justice to the most profound insights and experiences of human beings regarding personal identity, and it is on that score that his understanding of personal selfhood is tested and found wanting.
Antropologia de Lain Entralgo segun sus escritos
Authors: Idoate García Victor M.
Published: November 2019

Se define como cuerpo a la totalidad de acciones, potencias, posibilidades, constituyentes...que al actuar como un todo integra las actividades que mediante el cuerpo somático se realizan: la historia, la percepción, las emociones, la conducta, la amistad, el encuentro, y la relación médico enfermo. Se considera que el hombre esta vertido en la realidad, porque la versión (desde el interior hacia afuera) es desde el cuerpo, por ser el hombre un ser de realidades, y por existir un mecanismo de versión. La unidad psico-orgánica que constituye el hombre presenta varios momentos, unos constitutivos (basados en vía de fundamentación): estructural (sistema de notas psico-orgánicas), conducta (conducta humana) y personal, otros moduladores: eutímico (salud) y el patológico (patología como afección). El animal vive entre estímulos, mientras que el hombre al inteligir los estímulos los aprehende y los convierte er realidad. El mecanismo de la versión es la aprehensión sentiente de los estímulos y la intelección de estos como reales. La persona se encuentra indigentemente arrojado en la realidad.
Homo Mensura-Philosophie
Authors: Rudolph Martin
Published: November 2019

Philosophische Anthropologie teilt sich in Europa seit der Zeit der alten Griechen in zwei Richtungen: die theologische (deus mensura) und die anthropologisch-medizinische (homo mensura)-Platon und Demokrit, Kant und La Mettrie. Für beide Richtungen steht Paideia (Lernen, Formen, Bilden, Kultur, Humanität) in Zentrum der Philosophie. Für homo-mensura-Philosophie entscheidend ist Analepse (ungefiltertes Aufnehmen) im Gegensatz zur Paralipse (filterndes Auslassen). La Mettrie ist ein wichtiger Vertreter der homo-mensura-Philosopphie (l'homme machine-l'homme mesure). Als 'Darwinist' (100 Jahre vor Darwin), für den das Gehirn die mabsetzende lebendige 'Maschine' ist, ist er Vorläufer einer evolutionären Philosophie. Homo-mensura-Philosophie ist (wie Thukydides, einer ihrer Vertreter, sagt) ein ‘Besitz für immer.'
The Self, the Other, the Self as An/other
Authors: Stawarska Beata
Published: November 2019

This article critically examines the way in which Sartre dealt with the problem of alterity in his early works, proposing that Sartre presented an unsatisfactory account of alterity in his first philosophical work entitled The Transcendence of the Ego, though his study of imagination offers ample opportunities to re-examine the question of alterity and to arrive at a more adequate formulation of the way in which the self relates to the other. I therefore begin by demonstrating that the Transcendence of the Ego perpetuates the Cartesian tradition where the self is defined primarily in terms of thinking-that is, self-consciousness and immanence. Next, I turn to the Sartrean Psychology of Imagination to find another way of conceptualizing the problem. I inquire into his general theory of the imaginary consciousness defined as a 'picture consciousness' and argue that it reduces the alterity of the imaginary object to sheer absence. As such, the theory of imagination does not allow us to bring the fundamental character of alterity to light. Still, we uncover a more adequate way of dealing with alterity in the context of the imaginary life. I show that the notion of the 'picture itself' allows us to conceptualize alterity as the radical withdrawal of the other. Finally, I make evident that the imaginary subject is necessarily divided between itself and itself as another and due to that internal split, can grasp the alterity of another person.
The Life, Work and Death of Self-Consciousness in Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic
Authors: Waterman Joseph
Published: November 2019

As presented in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the aim of Life is to free itself from confinement "in-itself" and to become "for-itself." Not only does Hegel place this unfolding of Life at the very beginning of the dialectical development of self-consciousness, but he characterizes self-consciousness itself as a form of Life and points to the advancement of self-consciousness in the Master/Slave dialectic as the development of Life becoming "for-itself." This paper seeks to delineate this often overlooked thread of dialectical insight as it unfolds in the Master/Slave dialectic. Hegel articulates a vision of the place of human self-consciousness in the process of Life as a whole and throws light on the role of death as an essential ingredient in the epic drama of life's struggle and Spirit's birth.
The British Avant-Garde
Authors: Fitzgerald Deborah
Published: November 2019

British Avant-Garde art, poses a challenge to traditional aesthetic analysis. This paper will argue that such art is best understood in terms of Wittgenstein’s concept of "seeing-as," and will point out that the artists often use this concept in describing their work. This is significant in that if we are to understand art in terms of cultural practice, then we must actually look at the practice. We will discuss initiatives such as the work of Damien Hirst, most famous for his animals in formaldehyde series, and that of Simon Patterson, who warps diagrams, e.g., replacing the names of stops on London Underground maps with those of philosophers. Cornelia Parker’s idea that visual appeal is not the most important thing, but rather that the questions that are set up in an attempt to create an "almost invisible" art are what are central, will also be discussed. Also, if we concur with Danto’s claims that "contemporary art no longer allows itself to be represented by master narratives," that Nothing is ruled out.", then it is indeed fruitful to understand art in terms of seeing-as. For application of this concept to art explains what occurs conceptually when the viewer shifts from identifying a work, as an art object, and then as not an art object, and explains why nothing is ruled out.
Philosophic Principles of Creativity
Authors: Iakovlev V.A.
Published: November 2019

The principle of universal significance of the creative process is promoted in this thesis. The principles of the ecology of creation and of the subject's humanistic orientation of the cognitive and practical activity, will also be investigated.
Art and Republicanism
Authors: Inciarte Fernando
Published: November 2019

Republicanism is contrasted with liberalism with special reference to the notions of presence, absence and representation. The contrast is more conspicuous in the Platonic tradition of republicanism than it is in the Aristotelian tradition, the former being more likely to degenerate into some form of totalitarianism. Examples thereof are given in accordance with the distinction between a strong and a soft iconoclasm, as it is found both in Antiquity and in Eastern and Western Europe’s quest for absolute presence or—as in avantgarde art of modernity—for absolute self-presence of the work of art. Having left such political and artistic utopias behind it, the pendulum is now swinging back in the direction of representation, but no longer in the illusionist sense which has dominated Western art form the Renaissance to the beginning of our century. Tied to the question of iconoclasm is the debate about the end of art inaugurated by Hegel in the general introduction to his Aesthetics and resumed in our days.
Runaway Statues: Platonic Lessons on the Limits of an Analogy
Authors: Benedikt Amélie Frost
Published: November 2019

Plato’s best-known distinction between knowledge and opinion occurs in the Meno. The distinction rests on an analogy that compares the acquisition and retention of knowledge to the acquisition and retention of valuable material goods. But Plato saw the limitations of the analogy and took pains to warn against learning the wrong lessons from it. In this paper, I will revisit this familiar analogy with a view to seeing how Plato both uses and distances himself from it.
Poetry, History, and Dialectic
Authors: Halper Edward
Published: November 2019

Twice in the Poetics, Aristotle contrasts poetry with history. Whatever its didactic value, the contrast has not seemed to readers of special philosophical interest. The aim of this paper is to show that this contrast is philosophically significant not just for our understanding of tragedy but also for the light it sheds on Aristotle’s overall methodology. I shall show how he uses the method sketched in the Topics to define tragedy and explain why the same method will not define history. In particular, tragedy admits of definition because its parts constitute a unity, and much of the Poetics aims to show how, despite being defined through six distinct parts, tragedy can be one. In contrast, history, though a proper preliminary to poetics and concerned also with human action, does not admit of scientific treatment because it contains no essential unities. Aristotle’s understanding of ‘science’ is used here to explain why any attempt to create a scientific history would turn history into poetry.
Discours Des Droits De L’homme Au Sens D’un Retour A Aristote
Authors: Park John K.
Published: November 2019

It is interesting to see Aristotle's observation of natural law in order to renew the ideal of law against the Marxist theory of society, to renounce the normative theory of the nation, and to study the liberal theory of information. All this allows us to expect the realization of social justice and human rights from the institutionalization of markets (agora) and the precondition of the boundary of the general culture (paideia), namely the communitarian ethics and the moral reformation against the genealogist tradition. We find in the tradition inaugurated by Aristotle the function of ethical discussion about the common good, thus imbricating the differences stratified by the economic evolution in the polis.
Ethics and Community in Aristotle
Authors: Sim May
Published: November 2019

I show that Aristotle’s ethics is determined by his notion of communities which are in turn determined by hundreds of themes in his Topics-sameness and difference, part and whole, better than, etc. These are tools for all dialectical investigations into being and action (viz. Top. I.11 104b2) for they secure definitions and get at essences of things or their aspects. Reflecting structures of being and good, they allow Aristotle to arrive at objective reality and good. Being tools for all investigations into being and values, we are not free to reject them, nor can we have any discourse or claim to reality or good. I show how permutating the combination of these topics allows for subsequent ‘sub-communities’ which are common to some. I offer an Aristotelian explanation for the origin of these topics and conclude that ethics is determined by communities, which in turn are determined by education.
Ethics as Politics
Authors: Strang John V.
Published: November 2019

This paper argues that the assertion of Nicomachean Ethics I.ii that the art that treats of ethics is politics is to be understood properly not in the sense of politics qua nomothetike but just as politike, i.e., direct, participatory politics as was enjoyed in the Athenian polis and as the formed background to Aristotle’s philosophizing on the nature of ethics. The ethical import of politics can be retrieved from Aristotle’s Ethics (in both versions) and Politics by dwelling on the connection of eudaimonia and humanity’s function as such. Aristotle does not construe this function as contemplation but rather as the practical application of reason-reason leading to action. This, however, is the subject of politics. This specific human function, the function that makes us homo sapiens, can not be displayed in rule-be-ruled institutions such as the oikos (household) since such institutions and their collateral behaviors are predetermined based on rank or role. But achieving the distinctively human telos requires that such rule-be-ruled relations and behaviors be transcended since those relations and behaviors exclude the free exercise of deliberative intelligence.
Semiotics of Human Body and Character
Authors: Vogt Sabine
Published: November 2019

Whenever we meet an unknown person, our first judgment, even unwillingly and often subconsciously, starts from his or her external appearance. Since character can be properly recognized only from words and deeds observed over some time, at first sight we have to rely on what we immediately can see. This physiognomical first approach to each other is as old as humankind, and, though it has never been able to be proved a proper science, in everyday life we all believe in and use physioculture. The earliest extant written work on the subject is the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise Physiognomonica. The author of its first part, in discussing the methodology of the art, refers to Aristotle, who develops the logical foundation of physiognomical inference: as an enthymeme, a syllogism from signs. Yet, concentrating solely on the formal logical analysis, Aristotle does not touch the central point of physiognomics; it C. S. Peirce’s discovery of the triadic relation of the sign that was able to shed new light on this central problem and to see physiognomics as a process of semiosis. Thus, Aristotle founded the formal logical basis, from which modern semiotics developed new approaches to physiognomics, taking them in account in several strands of their research.
Plato’s Moral Psychology
Authors: Wein Sheldon
Published: November 2019

I argue that Plato's psychological theories are motivated by concerns he had about moral theory. In particular, Plato rejects the modern account of rationality as the maximization of subjectively evaluated self-interest because, had he adopted such an account, his theory of justice would be subject to criticisms which he holds are fatal to the contractarian theory of justice. While formulating a theory to remain within ethical constraints sometimes violates the canons of scientific theorizing, Plato avoids this mistake.
The Confucian Filial Obligation and Care for Aged Parents
Authors: Wang James
Published: November 2019

Some moral philosophers in the West (e.g., Norman Daniels and Jane English) hold that adult children have no more moral obligation to support their elderly parents than does any other person in the society, no matter how much sacrifice their parents made for them or what misery their parents are presently suffering. This is because children do not ask to be brought into the world or to be adopted. Therefore, there is a "basic asymmetry between parental and the filial obligations." I argue against the Daniels/English thesis by employing the traditional Confucian view of the nature of filial obligation. On the basis of a distinction between 'moral duty' and 'moral responsibility' and the Confucian concept of justice, I argue that the filial obligation of adult children to care respectfully for their aged parents is not necessarily self-imposed. I conclude that due to the naturalistic character of the family, the nature of our familial obligations (such as parental caring for young children and adult children's respectful caring for aged parents) cannot be consensual, contractarian and voluntarist, but instead existential, communal and historical.
Sartre and the Rationalization of Human Sexuality
Authors: Alexander W. M.
Published: November 2019

Sartre rationalizes sexuality much like Plato. Rationalization here refers to the way Sartre tries to facilitate explanation by changing the terms of the discussion from sexual to nonsexual concepts. As a philosophy which, above all, highlights those features of human existence which seem most resistant to explanation, one would expect existentialism to highlight sexuality as a category that is crucial for considering human existence. Descartes comes immediately to mind when one focuses on Sartre's major categories. In Sartre's case however, it is not mind and matter but consciousness and its opposite: "nothingness" and "being." This irreducible dualism is the key to the trouble human beings have with existence. Humans try to deal with the tensions implied by this dualism by trying to pretend people are not subjects but objects. Sartre calls this "bad faith." He begins by attempting to take human sexuality seriously as a fundamental category, but ends by abandoning the effort in favor of other substitutes.
María Zambrano y el nihilismo
Authors: Sánchez Benítez Roberto
Published: November 2019

Heidegger se refirió al nihilismo como el proceso en el cual, al final del ser como tal, "ya no queda nada." Como se sabe, resumió en una pregunta la cuestión fundamental de la metafísica occidental: "¿Por qué hay ente y no más bien la nada?" Por otro lado, no deja de ser inquietante el que en la fase del nihilismo "consumado," como le llamara Nietzsche, asistamos a un "retorno de lo religioso." La filósofa española Maria Zambrano (1904-1991) abordó el problema del nihilismo desde la perspectiva precisamente de la "nada," consideráandola como la última forma de aparición de lo sagrado. Para ella, la nada permite superar el dilema del tiempo que el "delirio" del "superhombre"nietzscheano no logra realizar, a la vez que define la acción de la piedad en los tiempos recientes como aquella actitud de aceptación de lo "otro," del misterio y los diferentes planos de ser en los que el hombre se desenvuelve. La "nada" no puede ser pensada a partir del ser: es la sombra de la conciencia y de Dios. Sólo puede ser sentida de manera originaria (Heidegger la entreveía en la angustia). Con la "nada" el hombre ha pretendido reducir las distancias con lo divino, sólo que ha aventurado esto último a destinos terrenales.
Towards a Creative Hermeneutic of Suspicion
Authors: Bilimoria Purushottama
Published: November 2019

In this paper I will examine a contemporary response to an important debate in the "science" of hermeneutics, along with some cross-cultural implications. I discuss Paul Ricoeur's intervention in the debate between Gadamer and Habermas concerning the proper task of hermeneutics as a mode of philosophical interrogation in the late 20th century. The confrontation between Gadamer and Habermas turns on the assessment of tradition and the place of language within it; the hermeneutical stance takes a positive stance, while ideologiekritik views tradition with a hooded-brow of suspicion, tantamount to "seeing tradition as merely the systematically distorted expression of communication under unacknowledged conditions of violence." In his own rescue operation, Ricoeur combines the reanimation of traditional sources of communicative action with the re-awakening of political responsibility towards a creative renewal of cultural heritage. His fusion or consensus adverts to specific symbols of Western eschatology, viz., liberation, salvation, and hope. What will result if we juxtaposed Buddhist, Daoist and Hindu symbols of Non-being, Nature as transcendence and Intelligence, respectively?
Lyotard on the Kantian Sublime
Authors: David Anthony
Published: November 2019

In this essay I explicate J.F. Lyotard's reading of the Kantian sublime as presented in Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime (1994) and in "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism" (1984). Lessons articulates the context in which critical thought situates itself as a zone of virtually infinite creative capacity, undetermined by principles but in search of them; "Answering the Question" explores how the virtually infinite creative capacity of thought manifests in the avant-gardes. Essentially, in both works Lyotard understands the Kantian sublime as legitimating deconstructive postmodernism.
Education without Truth in Postmodern Perspectivism
Authors: Deligiorgi Alexandra
Published: November 2019

Poststructuralist relativism, following the Nietzschean critique of Western rationalism, denounces the quest for truth as a quest to legitimize various claims on the level of universal human value, by covering up the indirect coercion of their discourse or imagery. Using perspectivism as an argument against philosophical grounding of various patterns and schemes, post-modern thinkers, under the influence of Poststructuralist relativism, try to depart from the cognitivist tradition by transforming philosophical thought to an edifying discipline (Rorty) or learning (Lyotard) liberated from a theory of knowledge, and giving into a discourse of literary or prosy character. I argue that post-modern perspectivism and the individualistic or collectivistic logic which nurtures its scope can be transcended through construction of hyperperspectivistic prisms based on alogic of interrelation animated by the interdisciplinarian spirit prevailing in the field of modern science. This latter serves as the leading thread for the foundation of a new canonicity which, without losing its historical and cultural character, can make claims to truth and validity of general acceptance. The hyperspectivistic canonicity deriving from such an interrelational logic is in a position to animate a new educational model capable of overcoming both idealistic and romantic versions of Bildung.
Habermas on Virtue
Authors: Iser Mattias
Published: November 2019

Although Habermas has never worked out a conception of virtue and indeed criticizes this notion whenever he uses it, his theory crucially depends on the virtuous attitude of participants in discourse — be it in the realm of democracy and law or that of morality. In this paper, in which I deal only with the ethical foundations of morality, I argue first that the norms of discourse which are gained from a presuppositional analysis of speech as such have to be complemented by the sensitive perception on the side of the recipients. Only when the claims are understood in their full significance for the speaker does the discourse live up to the ideal which is already anticipated in every speech act. This presuppositional analysis shows secondly that it is mainly the virtuous attitude that is morally relevant and not those capacities for acting morally that the agent already possesses. However, the virtuous attitude genuinely entails the obligation to strive to perfect all those capacities that enable us to sensitively understand the other's claim. A discussion of the (discursive) capacities that have to be promoted leads to the singling out of sensitivity as contrasted to immediate empathy. It is the reflexive transcendence of the agent's evaluative patterns that allows this emotion to sit well with a post-conventional morality. Finally, I discuss a possible caveat of Wellmer and Habermas who might claim that the proposed conception of virtue would only be valid for participants in discourse, but not for agents acting in the life-world. However, because the discursive virtue is of wide latitude, it does not fall under this objection.