Austrian Philosopher Research Articles

Is there a place for conversational thinking (CT) in Europe?: Germany/Austria in perspective

“Is there a place for conversational thinking (CT) in Europe? – Germany/Austria in perspective interrogates the visibility of the African philosophical method, namely Conversational Thinking in the philosophical praxis, teaching, and research in Germany and Austria. It will be considered in the light of epistemic injustice. The paper argues that the emergence of intercultural philosophy in the German/Austrian academic and intellectual cultural space affirms that conversational thinking should have a place. However, uncertainty points to a historically shaped academic, cultural consciousness informing cognitive orientation in engaging with African philosophy. The paper argues that for conversational thinking to have a place, it demands openness beyond the current approaches to intercultural philosophical engagement, which includes German and Austrian philosophers’ readiness to question the logic that shaped their thought and philosophical investigation. By logic, I mean something other than formal elite logic that shapes the context of thought and praxis.

Black Universals and Alain Locke's Notion of Value

Black Universals and Alain Locke's Notion of Value

Nature, Obligation, and Transcendence: Reading Luce Irigaray with Mary Graham

This paper addresses the relation between Luce Irigaray’s work and politics by asking what it means to read her work locally, in place. The philosophical work of Indigenous scholar, Mary Graham, on the law of obligation, serves to ground such a local reading presenting, simultaneously, a case for a uniquely Australian philosophy. By way of suggesting possible connections between the work of Irigaray and Graham, the paper places Graham’s work on obligation alongside Irigaray’s work on the importance of a symbolic re-distribution of value suggested in her philosophy of horizontal transcendence. Such a reading encourages us to consider what it means to engage work, such as Irigaray’s, in a here and now that differs from the European context of her writing.

ПЕР. СТ.: РИФФЕР Ф. СОЗНАНИЕ: ТОЧКА ЗРЕНИЯ ФИЛОСОФИИ ПРОЦЕССА И ГЕНЕТИЧЕСКОГО СТРУКТУРАЛИЗМА - КРИТИЧЕСКОЕ СРАВНЕНИЕ И НЕКОТОРЫЕ ПОСЛЕДСТВИЯ

A selective translation of the article by the Austrian philosopher, theologian, psychologist and teacher from the Department of Pedagogical Sciences of the University of Salzburg F. Riffer seems appropriate, since it highlights the modern philosophical debates about the phenomenon of consciousness based on D. Chalmers' distinction between its easy and difficult problems. A.N. Whitehead's philosophy of the process provides a promising basis for solving a difficult problem in connection with the rootedness of the concept of consciousness in metaphysical theory. Whitehead's reflection is compared with the results of empirical studies of the phenomena of consciousness of J. Piaget. If they partially coincide, the position of the former seems to be more reasonable. This corresponds to W.E. Seeger's suggestion to pay more attention to processalism or the concept of a philosophical process. Whitehead's point of view on learning, consciousness and artificial intelligence is considered.

Виды свойств vs типы предикации: проблема различения типов существования в философской традиции А. Майнонга и Э. Малли

This paper is based on a comparative analysis of two concepts of Austrian philosophy and several concepts within the analytical philosophical tradition. In 1912, Ernst Mally wrote a work that influenced the theory of his teacher, Alexius Meinong, and the new tradition within the framework of analytical metaphysics. First, he clarifies the theory of Meinong by providing a more rea­soned answer to the criticisms expressed, in particular, by Bertrand Russell. Sec­ondly, he also introduced the distinction between encoding and exemplification, which perhaps enabled the object theory to better implement that task, but vio­lates the basic principles of Meinong’s theory. These two distinctions have influ­enced the formation of two traditions. All authors generally believe that they have adequately adapted theories of Meinong and Mally, slightly optimizing their conceptions. The aim of this research is to understand whether their distinc­tions are just a formalization of the original distinctions, or whether their theo­ries are completely independent, inspired by Austrian philosophers.

THE “WATERWHEEL” OF GUILT: THE TAUTOLOGY OF CONSCIENCE IN WITTGENSTEIN’S NOTES

The implicit conception of conscience from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notes from 1929 is brought into comparison with the theory of conscience as a paradoxical identity of guilt and innocence by Philip Konrad Marheineke (which served as a pattern for Kierkegaardian concept of “despair”) and of conscience as a (grammatical and temporal) redoubling by Vladimir Jankélévitch. Wittgensteinian views on conscience and feeling of guilt tend to Marheineke-Kierkegaard’s model (the guilt hides in innocence and vice versa) and to Jankélévitch’s model (the wrongdoing from the past makes us regret the innocence which preceded it in a far remote past). I explore these tautological models of conscience using the example of Wittgensteinian metaphor of “waterwheel”: of an engineering failure producing a constant sentiment of guilt. Austrian philosopher describes his “incapacity to think” as a source of background, freely floating guilt. “Uselessness” and “mediocrity” or as he puts it “groundlessness of your own existence” altogether with “incapacity to think”—those are the self-accusations of the thinker. This torturing state he at the same time considers to be the source of his own philosophical productivity. Would a conscience be possible which would be free of this tautological structure and of this endless “rumination” of the petty guilt? The article proposes a hypothesis how one could break the tautological circle of an idling scrupulous conscience.

„Philosophy is dead”: Kajica Milanov on dialectical and historical materialism

Kajica Milanov (1905-1986) was educated in Vienna, Belgrade and Berlin. He taught philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy (University of Belgrade). During World War II Milanov was in German captivity. Afther the war Milanov was asked to teach philosophy in the spirit of Marxism. Because of the political pressure he had to emigrate to Austria, and eventually to Australia (1949). In 1954 Milanov became a Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy in Hobart, University of Tasmania (UTAS). At that time the most notorious scandal in the history of Australian philosophy broke out (Orr case). In that troubled period Milanov managed to keep alive studies at the Philosophy department (1956-1969), with which he has been credited today. He continued to work at the same department as a Senior Lecturer until 1975. Milanov had authored several books and special publications.

Functional Aspects of Language Games in Political Discourse

The article analyzes various aspects of communication in political discourse. One of its major arguments says that politicians who disrespect major rules of communication violate the basic principles of interaction, namely in that they introduce their own new patterns of language games. Adequate principles of interaction are an indispensable requirement for political discourse as such in that they guarantee efficient communication and help avoid conflicts. Such principles are based on general rules of communication. The article underlines the importance of a structual logical chain of political communiction along the following lines: intention – strategy – tactic – means of realization. In general, human beings acquire languages according to basic linguistic forms and models. Тhe Austrian philosopher L. Wittgenstein introduced the term “language game”. In a similar vein, the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure established a link between language and the sphere of games in that he compared the systems of natural languages to the rules of chess. The language games of political discourse are represented by imperative intentions, emotive senses and various means of the manipulative use of linguistic units; they usually focus on factors of impact. The article discusses the intentions of language games as a point of activization of cognitive and communicative activities for the achievement of goals related to strategies and tactics of politicians. The nature of these intentions exerts impact on the realization of the linguo-pragmatic potential of the functions of perlocutionary linguistic acts (requests, orders, etc.). The perlocutionary functions of language are the basis of political manipulation which manifests itself as a systematic combination of traditional political instruments with contemporary communicative approaches to various aspects of the manipulative impact on political consciousness and behavior. Average citizens who react to political discourse automatically take part in broader intellectual and communivative activities; they also demonstrate their own participation in political processes. Therefore political discourse has an impact on the formation and development of civic society and its relations to the state. As a rule, politicians develop their communicative strategies along programs and platforms that are designed for central subjects of the political process (the government, political parties and leaders). This limited circle of addressees causes a certain lack of efficiency that should be corrected inasmuch as the ultimate goal of any communicative strategy should be a certain change of the addressee’s worldviews. Political tactic is an important component of political communicative technologies. Political communicative activities include various aspects of tactical measures and methods that start on a local level and go viral according to strategically devised lines. In this setting, specific political texts with their particular pragmatic implications appear to be units of political discourse with their own semiotic structure. Politicians create messages based on their world views and ideologies. The role of the addressee should be understood as a priority in political communicative acts that are usually characterized by polemics, a high degree of axiology and persuasiveness. The article focusses on linguistic tools that politicians use in order to manipulate the electorate. To influence the electorate, politicians use manipulative linguistic items on the lexical, idiomatic and metaphorical level. In political discourse, such linguistic items often turn into stereotypical linguistic tools of particular politicians that leave their mark on the electorate’s ideas of their values and beliefs. The article emphasizes the importance of the use of “strong” linguistic items that help create, in the best case, an image of the politician that includes humoristic associations with his or her individual professional language.

POLÍTICA E RELIGIÃO COMO EXPRESSÕES DO HOMEM-NO-MUNDO: CONTRIBUIÇÕES BUBERIANAS

This article aims to think about politics and religion as expressions of man-in-the-world and to understand that such expressions contain numerous ways of presenting themselves, which can be modified based on human experiences and the relationships that man establishes throughout your life. It is within this atmosphere of understanding about politics and religion, seen in a broader and more relational way, that we bring the Austrian philosopher, Martin Buber, to subsidize us on this path of reflection on other ways of facing these themes. It is worth mentioning that we do not intend to present Buber as a model or a hero, but as a person who, despite having been educated within an orthodox religious perspective (Judaism); that, even though he had lived through three great wars, he did not succumb to the atrocities and did not close himself within the rituals and dogmas of the religion to which he was inserted since he was a child. On the contrary, he faced reality based on its authenticity, opposed the contents of faith transmitted by the religion in which he was raised and did not bow to the adversities imposed by those who thought differently from him. For Buber, human responsibility is linked to the concrete world that surrounds it. And it is here that the notion of religiosity of that philosopher bequeaths us an important learning: we live immersed in contexts that speak to us and that demand an answer; and we have the opportunity, all the time, to dedicate our attention to these contexts and respond to them in the most unique way possible, driven by an ethics of responsibility. From the reflections presented, we can also say that politics and religion, understood as an expression of man-in-the-world, must be seen as the responsibilities of this singular man. With this, we do not want to say that external conditioning does not influence man in the response he gives to the world, but we want to emphasize that the duality of human existence (I-You/I-That) allows man to respond from all your being or just with fragments of it. Keywords: Religion. Politics. Ethic. Responsibility. Martin Buber.

Современные немецкие философские и социологические науки об «обществе риска»

The article is devoted to the analysis of the ideas of a number of Austrian and German social philosophers on the problem of social risk, its correlation with danger taking into account the time component of decisions made under conditions of uncertainty. At the same time, it is important for the author to establish clear criteria for distinguishing between what depends on the actions of the person or community and what does not. On the one hand, we can talk about the risk, both justified and unjustified, and on the other hand, we mention the danger. It is the danger that is the opposite of stability, and the risk implies both, new chances and dangers that occur if actions have side effects that were not foreseen by the initiators of the actions. The differences in risk management on the part of those who make decisions and those whose interests are affected by these decisions are also analyzed. While the former may consider the situation as risky, the latter as dangerous due to the fact, that they do not have the ability to influence social processes. However, if decision-makers spread knowledge about the danger, delegate some of the resources and powers to overcome risks to society, then it will gradually learn flexible risk management, which implies a variety (and not rigidly fixed) ways of behavior. The society will also be able to take into account the mobile nature of the border separating risky behavior from dangerous: in what conditions and for whom the risk is justified, and for whom and when the danger occurs. Competent risk management leads to an increase in the reflexivity of society, which implies the creation of a favorable social environment for the spread of creativity. At the same time, each individual faces the task of constantly finding himself and self-development. It is reflexivity and creativity that allow society to get out of the state of stagnation, which is characterized by the primacy of the security mindset.

Video Review: The Soothsayings of Iris

Video Review: <i>The Soothsayings of Iris</i>

Food as Feminist Portraiture in Contemporary Visual Culture

Contemporary artists Emily Eveleth and Theresa Newsome effectively subvert power structures that determine gendered roles and attributes by implicating pleasure, through food symbolism, as a trait to be newly associated with autonomous femininity. By linking pleasure to restrictive connotations of femininity, like the socially maintained correlation between women and (preparing/serving) food, artists, as Judith Butler would describe, eroticize the power that once confined female bodies. Australian philosopher Elizabeth Grosz writes that many of her ideas appear close to the patriarchal concepts she ultimately combats; however, by altering the meaning of restrictive patriarchal binds, she reclaims them. I will explain how Newsome and Eveleth follow suite. Ultimately, by using food as bodies in contemporary visual culture, artists reclaim the limitations and associations imposed on female bodies, for instance, through traits of femininity. Within my analysis of Eveleth’s use of pastries and Newsome’s use of fruit, I will demonstrate the criticality of using precisely that which contains female bodies in order to reclaim their agency through a post-structuralist and feminist lens.

Why machines cannot be moral

The fact that real-world decisions made by artificial intelligences (AI) are often ethically loaded has led a number of authorities to advocate the development of “moral machines”. I argue that the project of building “ethics” “into” machines presupposes a flawed understanding of the nature of ethics. Drawing on the work of the Australian philosopher, Raimond Gaita, I argue that ethical dilemmas are problems for particular people and not (just) problems for everyone who faces a similar situation. Moreover, the force of an ethical claim depends in part on the life history of the person who is making it. For both these reasons, machines could at best be engineered to provide a shallow simulacrum of ethics, which would have limited utility in confronting the ethical and policy dilemmas associated with AI.

Austrian metaphilosophy from Bolzano to the Vienna Circle

The purpose of the article is to compare and analyze the metaphilosophical ideas of the key Austrian thinkers of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. To achieve this goal, several tasks are solved: first, to identify the main metaphilosophical positions shared by different Austrian philosophers, second, to reconstruct some details of the discussed metaphilosophical approaches, and third, to clarify the context within which the change in metaphilosophical views took place. The author uses the methods of rational reconstruction and historical-philosophical comparisons. The main content of the article is divided into four parts. The first part discusses the metaphilosophy of B. Bolzano: describes the requirements that Bolzano imposed on philosophizing, and shows how he approached the question of defining the concept of philosophy. The second part examines the details of the metaphilosophical position of F. Brentano and such of his disciples as A. Meinong and K. Twardowski. The peculiarities of Brentano’s views concerning the method of philosophizing are examined, and some clarifications are made to avoid incorrect interpretations of this views. The author also shows what supplementations to Brentano’s metaphilosophy were made by Meinong and Twardowski. The third part analyzes the views on the philosophy of such thinkers as E. Mach and L. Boltzmann. The requirements for philosophizing on the part of natural scientists of the beginning of the 20th century are discussed. In addition, the author considers the metaphilosophical ideas of the early M. Schlick, who clarified the nature of the assistance provided to the natural sciences by philosophy in his work “General Theory of Knowledge”. The fourth part reproduces the metaphilosophy of the early L. Wittgenstein and such representatives of the Vienna circle as M. Schlick, R. Carnap and O. Neurath. The peculiarities of the Vienna positivists’ understanding of the activity-based nature of philosophy are clarified, and the differences in the interpretation of the method of philosophizing are shown.

Онтология трансцендентного опыта Герхарда Оберхаммера как опыта мышления на границе разума

The article presents an attempt by one of the most interesting modern thinkers, the Austrian scientist Gerhard Oberhammer, to substantiate the possibility of a transcendental experience of meeting with God and the philosophical-hermeneutic objectification of this experience. Based on the traditions of Kant’s transcendental philosophy and its hermeneutical interpretation by Karl-Otto Apel, Oberhammer also draws on the productive intentions of Karl Jaspers’ con­cept of the “ciphers of the transcendent”, experience as a person’s being captured by Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas’ hypostase. The article deals with a heuristic interpretation of these concepts for Oberhammer’s explanation of the possibility of a transcendent experience as an experience of an absolute meeting of man with God. According to the Austrian philosopher and Indologist, the place of transcendent experience is the inner world of the subject, which is characterized by two main properties: depth and openness. The latter allows us to hope for the possibility of meeting with the other, but again, not outside the subject, but inside it, realizing the hidden structures of the inner world, as a world correlated with what is outside it. That is, according to Gerhard Ober­hammer, the transcendent experience of the subject can be comprehended in its two interdependent moments related to the subject’s situation, namely, the mo­ment of its self-explanation and the moment of its correlation. The Austrian philosopher represents the religious subject as being in a constant self-overcom­ing of its limited isolation and finding its true essence, which implicitly contains both its depth and its correlation with the other, as its ability to accept this other into itself. The article substantiates the idea that the Austrian scientist builds his concept of religious and philosophical hermeneutics with a firm belief in its pro­ductivity and the possibility of using it for the analysis of any religion, since he focuses on universal transformations and events that occur in the life of a be­liever, regardless of the religious tradition to which he belongs.

АВСТРИЙСКАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА КАК ФИЛОСОФИЯ: Г. БРОХ О КРИЗИСЕ ЧЕЛОВЕКА И ОБЩЕСТВЕ ПОСЛЕ РАСПАДА ИМПЕРИИ

The article focuses on the philosophical aspect of the third part of the novel The Sleepwalkers (Die Schlaf-wandler, 1930–1932) by Austrian writer Hermann Broch (1886–1951). Broch’s views were shaped by Aus-trian literary impressionism; in his youth, Broch was also much influenced by Otto Weininger, admired Karl Kraus and Sigmund Freud. In Broch’s later works, researchers discover the legacies of Plato and Leibniz and claim that these philosophical schools were typical reference points for the Austrian thought. Analysis of literary works can help gain a better understanding of Austrian philosophy of the inter-war period. Not only do Broch’s novels mirror the versatile spiritual life of that period but they also show the development of a whole range of philosophical ideas and concepts. The style and language of The Sleepwalkers reflect the experimentation with new modes of expression in art as well as the author’s own attempts to create a new language and way of philosophizing in contrast to positivism. In the third part of the novel, Broch shows how difficult is the existence of a person who has lost their faith and the ability to comprehend com-plex metaphysical matters. The article outlines Broch’s vision of the new tasks that literature is facing in the conditions of the moral crisis he describes. Broch was mostly interested in axiological issues, around which he builds his novel. He also includes in his text extended philosophical interludes about the role of religion in the development of value orientations of his contemporaries. A special emphasis in the article is made on the concept of Sachlichkeit — practicality, which is also discussed by Karl Jaspers in his book The Spiritual Condition of the Age (Die geistige Situation der Zeit, 1932).

WHAT WORLDVIEW FEEDS THE EXISTENCE OF CRYPTOCURRENCY?

Cryptocurrency is a virtual digital currency. The main reason for the popularity of digital currency is its decentralization and the peculiarities arising from it. Austrian economist and philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek In the 1970s, he became interested in the benefits of money-laundering by the state and began exploring the possibilities of alternative currencies. In 1976 he published the book: Denationalization of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Concurrent Currencies. According to Hayek, the state monopoly on the issue of money should be abolished, he writes: The special right of the country's governments to issue and regulate money could not help the society to receive much better money than it would have without the intervention of governments. It was this work by Hayek that prepared the ideological basis for the creation of decentralized digital currency. The purpose of creating a cryptocurrency is to get rid of the directives of central banks. If cryptocurrencies are created by the governments of countries, the basic idea of creating a virtual currency that virtual capital in the Internet space must be beyond the control and regulation of the government is lost. It is in this fundamental idea that the best degree of freedom is best seen, the increased degree of human dependence on free money, which raises many questions, namely:  What is the philosophical concept of creating cryptocurrency?  What worldview feeds the existence of cryptocurrency?  Does the existence of cryptocurrency have an intellectual basis?  What is the future of this venture?  What principles or obligations should the government follow when talking about cryptocurrency?  Is the world preparing for a single currency? The term decentralized digital currency has great appeal, the freedom to depend on money on this scale has long been awaited by mankind, despite the fact that we have numerous examples of independent money making in the world. Can cryptocurrency free us from default? The answer to this question is heterogeneous. One group of experts believes that they do not see default in the crypto world at all, because there will be no need to attract capital by traditional methods, there will be no need for long-term commitments, no bonds will be needed, we will move from the industrial era to the service era, cryptocurrencies. Wall Street positioners even call this view futuristic and say that bonds are a structure of contracts and rules that are not in the crypto world. In our opinion, this may be the traditional paradigm of the attitude of the old representatives of the financial world to the crypto industry. There have been serious tectonic shifts in recent geoeconomics, such as Brexit, the struggle for Catalan independence, the Donald Trump phenomenon, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan factor, and so on. All this breaks the old economic models that we previously thought were unalternative. In the final part of the research topic, we discuss the pros and cons of cryptocurrency, namely that the exchange rate of any cryptocurrency fluctuates rapidly in a very short period of time, there may be a complete depreciation of a particular currency, nothing can prevent it, Return is virtually impossible because the transactions are anonymous, there have been numerous cases of cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, it is practically impossible to investigate the fact, due to the anonymity of these transactions, cryptocurrencies are not secured by any assets, unlike shares they do not allow buyers or property. Against this background, it is interesting to see what place cryptocurrency will occupy in the new currency system. The fact is that virtual finance is a new word in online technology that will change in the future, no matter what the new model of running the economy.

Revealing Sonic Wisdom in the Works of Cat Hope

There are many ways in which wisdom pervades artistic discourse. It is only recently, however, that a concerted effort has been made to understand the wisdom embodied in music. Drawing from the literal translation of phonosophy, this article attempts to unveil what might be described as sonic wisdom from a composer’s perspective, derived from an interview between Australian philosopher Samuel McAuliffe and composer Cat Hope. Hope’s notational practice challenges the hierarchies established by common practice notation, resulting in her contemporary art music being accessible to a wider range of performers, including those that do not read any music notations. Engagement with Hope’s notation leads to a revealing and transfer of a different kind of sonic wisdom than found in more traditionally notated works, in a process facilitated by technologies and articulated through musicianship.

¿Existe un cambio de opinión sobre los temas éticos entre el primer y segundo wittgestein? – Lima, 2020

El presente artículo trata de mostrar cierto cambio de opinión sobre los temas éticos entre el primer y segundo Wittgenstein. Este viraje se puede expresar como un tránsito que va desde el silencio, opinión que defiende el filósofo austriaco en el Tractactus lógico-philosophicus (2001), al hablar sobre estos temas en un determinado contexto y forma de vida, tesis que sugiere en sus Investigaciones filosóficas (2017).

At the Intersection of Psychology, Phenomenology, Logic and Metaphysics: Philosophical Work of Alexius Meinong

The paper focuses on the philosophic evolution of Alexius Meinong. Analyzing the ways of genesis of the Austrian philosopher, the author comes to conclusion about an inter-boundary character of Meinong’s philosophical conception that finds its place at the intersection of psychology, phenomenology, logic and metaphysics, however managing to keep its autonomy. Such an inter-boundary position and a certain distance from the mainstreams of knowledge enable him to actualize new philosophical questions and discover new ways to investigate the objects that previously, due to different reasons, were believed to be unknowable.