Contemporary Philosophy Research Articles

Eugenio Bulygin’s Methodological Legal Positivism (In Memory of an Outstanding Personality)

This article is dedicated to the memory of Eugenio Bulygin (1931–2021)—a native of Kharkiv and an eminent Argentine legal philosopher, honorary professor at the University of Buenos Aires, president of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (1999–2003), and one of the most influential representatives of contemporary legal positivism. Drawing on autobiographical details, memories of friends, and the author’s personal interactions with this remarkable figure, the article outlines the key stages of Eugenio Bulygin’s life and work: his Kharkiv, Austrian, Argentine, and cosmopolitan periods. The profound impact of his academic contributions and personality on the development of contemporary philosophy and legal theory in Ukraine is positively evaluated. Special attention is devoted to analyzing Eugenio Bulygin’s legal-philosophical worldview, which he unequivocally identifies as legal positivism. However, upon deeper analysis, his understanding of law incorporates distinctive features and can be defined as analytical, methodological, and humanistic legal positivism. The article elucidates the core methodological tenets of Bulygin’s legal theory, including his concepts of normativity, validity, and addressing legal gaps, among others. His talent for polemics is demonstrated through examples of his debates with Hans Kelsen and Robert Alexy.

Justice, Community and Freedom: XXX World Congress on the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy

The article is dedicated to the review of the XXX World Congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR), which took place in the summer of 2022 in Bucharest, Romania. The overall theme of the Congress, “Justice, Community, and Freedom,” raises fundamental questions about the correlation between two fundamental values of modernity – justice and freedom – mediated by the community, within which the realization of both justice and freedom is possible.The author focuses the discussion on the plenary reports of the Congress participants, who examined the relationship between justice, community, and freedom from various perspectives. The plenary speakers addressed such topics as realism in political and legal philosophy, the civilized right of nations, the administration of justice and the fight against severe human rights violations, human rights judges; gender, law, and equal freedom; rhetoric as philosophy; the war in Ukraine and philosophy of law; paradoxes of existence; structural racial injustice in the context of Rawls' theory; human rights theory and practice for the Anthropocene; reflexive inclusivity and the prospects of cultural confrontation; privacy, critical definitions, and racial justice, as well as many other current issues in contemporary philosophy of law.

The Rise of the Term ‘Analytic Philosophy’ in Britain in the Early 1930s and Its Contemporary Evolution: Conceptual Creativity and Conceptual Engineering

Ernest Nagel’s two-part article entitled “Impressions and Appraisals of Analytic Philosophy in Europe” undoubtedly played a crucial role in the development of analytic philosophy in both Europe and the United States. Nagel articulates the shared metaphilosophical assumptions embraced by philosophers from various centres, including Prague, Vienna, Lviv, Warsaw, and Cambridge. Nevertheless, it is important to note that philosophers began to describe themselves using the term “analytical philosopher,” or a similar term, particularly within the intellectual centre of Cambridge, in the early 1930s in Britain. In this article, I shall compare how these philosophers conceptualized “analytic philosophy” with the metaphilosophical assumptions outlined by Nagel. Then, I shall draw a comparison between the understanding of analytic philosophy in the early 1930s in Britain, and contemporary conceptions such as “conceptual creativity” and “conceptual engineering.” As it turns out, a part of contemporary analytic philosophy is more open to social-practical issues than it was in the early 1930s in Britain, especially in the intellectual centre that was Cambridge.

Hegel’s Theory of Time

Abstract While sharing some features in common with presentist accounts of time, Hegel’s theory of time fundamentally offers an alternative to standard A-Theories, B-Theories, and C-Theories of time. While compatible with Kantian ideality of time on the one hand and spacetime in the theory of general relativity on the other, Hegel’s theory of time reaches beyond both a transcendental form of sensibility on the one hand and a paradigm for material motion in physics, on the other. Further, while Hegel’s theory of time provides reason to reject such theories of time as the Moving Spotlight, Growing and Shrinking Block, and a range of others, my interest here is in making comprehensible Hegel’s theory of time itself. I will argue that according to Hegel’s theory, the past and the future exist as constitutive of the now, and the now is not separable from space, but rather is itself spatial becoming. Stemming from his underlying logic of actuality and becoming, Hegel espouses the view that history (the past) and future possibility are present and constitutive of the “now.” Understanding his theory of time will also help shed some light on a systematic feature found across his philosophy of nature and mind. Additionally, while his theory presents an elegant notion of time within his philosophy, it also offers an intuitive and productive solution for a traditional identity problem of concrete particulars across time and intervenes in contemporary philosophy of time.

The Eye of the Dragon: Ecological Thinking in Delicious in Dungeon

Studio Trigger’s 2024 series Delicious in Dungeon stands as a remarkable example of ecological fiction. The series’ focus on eating and being eaten, on relationships between living things and the land that they inhabit, and on shared vulnerability provides viewers with useful and novel mechanisms for reconfiguring their thinking with respect to their relationship to the more-than-human world. This work will consider Delicious in Dungeon in light of the insights offered by contemporary ecological philosophies and theologies, particularly those of Valerie Plumwood, with a view to how the series can serve as a model for ecological thinking and living.

Considering African philosophy as a way of life through the practice of philosophical counselling

Contributions of Pierre Hadot pertaining to the notion of philosophy as a way of life have had a profound and enduring influence upon philosophical counselling. Philosophical counsellors, such as Robert Walsh and Arto Tukiainen, embrace this imperative by living their philosophical counselling practices. A prevailing trend among these practitioners lies in their almost exclusive reliance upon either ancient Greek philosophical traditions as expounded by Hadot and Martha Nussbaum, or in their adaptation of Western philosophy. Regrettably, a conspicuous omission prevails regarding the incorporation of contemporary African philosophy, notably their philosophical praxes as a way of life/living, within the philosophical counselling discourse. The integration of African philosophy into philosophical counselling holds significant promise, particularly concerning the potential to impact ways of living within a southern African context. Within the wider landscape of contemporary African philosophy, certain authors have already conceptualised Ubuntu philosophy as a way of life/living. Notwithstanding, I undertake to introduce two additional African philosophical practices, namely hermeneutic African philosophy and conversational philosophy. I advance a novel interpretation of both by positioning them as relevant praxes for philosophical counselling. Emphasis is placed on interpretative actualisations in response to lived experiences, contextualised within a conversational framework. The implications for philosophical counselling are threefold: first, there is a disclosing of alternative ways of living/becoming along with the creation of new concepts; second, the relational dimension of philosophising is emphasised; and third, methodological constraints concerning the practice of philosophical counselling are transcended while embracing the transformative potential of reflective, creative and critical conversations.

Aristotle’s Zeno. How the History of Philosophy is Intertwined with Contemporary Philosophy

Aristotle’s Zeno. How the History of Philosophy is Intertwined with Contemporary Philosophy

Alessi on the Essence of Religion: Philosophical Reflections

The primary task of Philosophy of Religion is that of trying to provide answer to the question of the essential meaning of religion: “what is religion?”, “what constitutes the essence of religion?” Through the ages, but especially since the emergence of Philosophy of Religion as an academic discipline in the modern period, numerous thinkers have in different ways proffered answers to this enigmatic question. Perhaps inspired by Aquinas’ definition of religion as “<i>ordo ad Deum</i>”, the contemporary Italian philosopher, Adriano Alessi, defines the essence of religion, “<i>formaliter sumpta</i>”, as “<i>religio est essentialiter conscia et recta ordinatio hominis ad divinitatem</i>”. He argues perspicaciously that this definition captures the complex sense of the term religion as an integral human fact which embraces within itself the human being’s radical openness to the divine, his conscious experience of the divine, as well as the plexus of his expressions of his relationship with the divine in history. Though acknowledging that his is not a perfect definition of the essence of religion, and so is subject to ulterior modifications of perfectioning, he is however convinced of its correctness in defining the essence of religion. This essay wishes to analyse Alessi’s innovative definition of the essence of religion, examine the fresh insight he brings to the appreciation the Aquinas’ seminal doctrine on the essence of religion, the shed some light on the relevance of his contribution to the contemporary philosophical search for the essential meaning of religion.

Minimal states of awareness across sleep and wakefulness: A multidimensional framework to guide scientific research

I introduce a novel multidimensional framework tailored to investigate a set of phenomena that might appear intractable and render them amenable to scientific inquiry. In particular, I focus on examining altered states of consciousness that appear to the experiencing subject as “contentless” or “objectless” states in some form, either by having disrupted or reduced content of awareness, or content that appears as missing altogether. By drawing on empirical research, I propose a cluster of phenomenological dimensions aimed at enhancing our understanding of this group of experiences of minimal awareness, including Richness of the Content, Bodily-Awareness, Passage of Time, Attentional Focus, and Self-Revelation. The result is a robust framework that provides precise scientific terminology, facilitating its operationalisation and adaptability for future empirical work. I show the explanatory power of this framework through a case study of the state of clear light sleep—a state widely reported by Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions as an instance of pure awareness during sleep, a state of consciousness-as-such. This rare phenomenon has gained increasing attention in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind for the study of the nature of consciousness. However, we still lack consensus on its characterisation and potential identity with other associated states. I end the paper by illustrating how the state of clear light sleep can be situated in relation to other associated states and more ordinary ones as regions of a multidimensional state space.

Looking beyond Popper: how philosophy can be relevant to ecology

Current workflows in academic ecology rarely allow an engagement of ecologists with philosophers, or with contemporary philosophical work. We argue that this is a missed opportunity for enriching ecological reasoning and practice, because many questions in ecology overlap with philosophical questions and with current topics in contemporary philosophy of science. One obstacle to a closer connection and collaboration between the fields is the limited awareness of scientists, including ecologists, of current philosophical questions, developments and ideas. In this article, we aim to overcome this obstacle and trigger more collaborations between ecologists and philosophers. First, we provide an overview of philosophical research relevant to ecologists. Second, we use examples to demonstrate that many ecological questions have a philosophical dimension and point to related philosophical work. We elaborate on one example – the debate around the appropriate level of complexity of ecological models – to show in more detail how philosophy can enrich ecology. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to initiate collaborative projects involving both ecologists and philosophers.

Slovak philosophical generations: From the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century

Abstract The leitmotif of the article is an analysis and interpretation of disputes about the nature of Slovak philosophy in the contexts of the formation of individual philosophical generations from the middle of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. In the content core of the article, the dispute is about the nature of Slovak philosophy in the first generation of its representatives, which was represented by the followers of the so-called “Štúr School”. As a follow-up to this dispute, the article analyzes the ideological confrontations of followers of religious and secular philosophical thought in Slovakia during the first Czechoslovak republic. It is a dispute between followers of classical (European) positivism and, partly, Masarykism with the representatives of contemporary religious philosophy in Slovakia. At the end of the paper, the trend of disputes about the nature of Slovak philosophy is outlined even in the period after the Stalinist, and, later, the so-called normalization indoctrination of Slovak philosophy.

Assessing David levy's sex robot utopianism from the personalist perspective

The coming of sex robots has generated a lot of discussions. The scholarly debate on love & sex with sexbots has been ignited mostly by David Levy's book in 2007, Love + Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships. Levy is an enthusiastic advocate for sex with sexbot, but his positive assessment of sexbots is contradicted by severe criticisms of the use of sexbots, most of which come from the radical feminists like Kathleen Richardson but other critics provide a personalist critique of Levy. In this essay, I will explore this personalist critique in some details. I will also engage with Levy's detailed arguments, & put these discussions within the context of contemporary philosophy of sex.

Towards a framework for care-full teacher learning: stories from the British art show professional development programme

ABSTRACT The education system in England can arguably be characterised as care-less. Art teachers, for example, are rarely offered opportunities to acquire subject-specific knowledges. This paper reports on a programme which supported art teachers to engage with the critical, find comfort with/in the indeterminate, and take up the questioning approach espoused in contemporary arts philosophies. We draw on interviews with fourteen teachers and a feminist ethic of care to suggest that the programme’s focus on particularity, politics and purpose recognised the realpolitik of teachers’ work. Unlike the logic of cause and effect, teachers were trusted to direct their own learning and, over time, they changed their practices. We suggest that this ethical care framework could be more widely used to support transformational teacher learning.

Sense and historicity: rethinking history with Martin L. Davies

ABSTRACT This essay examines the unique positioning of Martin L. Davies within contemporary theory and philosophy of history, giving particular attention to the once again timely question of what is meant by historicity and historicization, as well as exploring the ways in which Davies suggests our relation to historical knowledge can, and perhaps should, be reconceived. The examination proceeds in three main parts, lingering on Davies’ relation to ‘postmodern’ theory of history, his all-consuming conception of historical thought and his views on how this sense of ‘history’ might be countered and questioned. These issues are viewed as especially important in the current disciplinary and societal context, where – arguably – disciplinary history is losing ground and parahistorical, often quite loosely historical thought and remembrance, dominate. The importance of assessing Davies’ contribution to all these questions cannot be overstated.

Respect and Struggles for Recognition: Kant and Honneth

Philosophers and scholars often overlook Kant’s foundational contribution to the concept of recognition (Anerkennung), yet it proves challenging to develop a comprehensive theory without integrating Kantian moral philosophy, particularly his conceptualization of respect. I contend that the demand for recognition necessitates a Kantian moral perspective, which revolves around the feeling of respect. In this regard, I draw upon the insights of contemporary philosopher Axel Honneth, who acknowledges the influence of Kant’s moral philosophy in shaping the conceptualization of the struggle for recognition.

Produktives Täuschen. Dissimulatio artis zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie

Abstract In our paper, we discuss the role of deception (apáte) in the conflict between rhetoric and philosophy. While Parmenides and Plato seek to escape the possibility of being deceived in general, their counterparts, the sophists and early theorists of rhetoric, emphasize that this is neither possible nor desirable. In contrast to their philosophical contemporaries, they do not assume a dualism of truth and deception, but rather a gradualist spectrum that contains many shades of gray. Furthermore, they emphasize a certain productivity of particular deceptions that can help us increase our imagination and prefigure possibilities of life and praxis that would not be possible without being deceived. Moreover, we ask whether and how the potential of classical rhetoric for theorizing deception can be used for a critique of deception that is aware of its own proneness to illusions. The guiding hypothesis is that rhetoric, as a technique of verbal deception, can also provide an important key for criticizing deceptive strategies. This applies in particular to the concept of dissimulatio artis, which goes back to Aristotle’s Rhetoric and had been developed further by Quintilian, Ovid, and the anonymous author of the treatise Perí hýpsous. This concept makes it possible to describe simulations of unsimulatedness in philosophy as well as in politics.

Religion Against Violence: Insights of Contemporary Philosophy and Eastern Patristics

This article examines the concepts of violence and religion as social phenomena of modernity. Religion and the church are presented not as specific organizations or denominations, but as important social institutions and are reflected in philosophical and anthropological terms. I carry out the idea that religion as a modern social institute in cooperation with other social communities can resist violence, especially its aggressive forms. Based on some philosophical theories, the causes of the emergence of the different forms of social violence, as well as definitions of violence, are explored. In this context, the article presents the ideas of Hanna Arendt, Carl von Clausewitz, Bertrand de Jouvenel, James Mill, and Max Weber. Special attention is paid to the conception of the mimetic origin of aggression and violence in “primitive” or “archaic religions” elaborated by the French philosopher René Girard. He compares the social roots of aggression and violence in these religions with the Biblical ones and prefers the latter for their potential in preventing and overcoming the imitation types of violence. Girard’s anthropological justification of the mentioned historical religious traditions is presented. A significant part of the paper is devoted to the views of the Eastern Church Fathers of Early Christianity, considered in the concurrence of their humanistic ideas with those of noted contemporary philosophers. I see meaningful ideas for preventing extreme forms of violence and aggression in the contemporary world in the doctrines of the Early Eastern and Byzantine Fathers, especially those of the classical patristic period. In this regard, this article presents the anthropological and humanistic teachings of Athanasius the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, and John of Damascus. The Early Church Fathers’ ideas are analyzed from a philosophical point of view, as having rational and anthropological grounds which are relevant for the present day’s human existence.

Creation as divine absence: A metaphysical reframing of the problem of evil

Abstract The philosophical ‘problem of evil’ goes back at least as far as Epicurus and has remained a powerful argument against the existence of God in contemporary philosophy. The argument is rooted in apparent contradictions between God’s divine attributes and various conditions of human existence. But these contradictions arise only given certain assumptions of what we should expect both God and the world to be like given God’s existence. In this article, I argue that we can utilise the work of the twentieth-century French philosopher Simone Weil to craft a coherent metaphysical picture of God, creation, and suffering that rejects these common assumptions. Further, I contend that this picture very plausibly follows from commonly accepted tenets of traditional monotheism. Given this, I argue that this Weil-inspired framework provides serious reasons for reframing the problem of evil and its corresponding theodicies by presenting a radically different view of how God must relate to creation. Yet, this picture does not necessarily vindicate the theist. I argue that this picture may leave us with a new question about creation in the face of evil. Namely, is it possible to understand God’s initial creative act as Weil describes it – as an act of love?

Lying To Our Children

Most parents lie to their children. They do it for fun, as a method of behaviour control, and to protect children from what they consider to be dangerous truths. At the same time, most parents bring their children up with the message that honesty is a virtue and that lying is usually wrong. How should our practice and our preaching be reconciled? In this paper, I examine the ethics of parental lies. Most philosophers who have written on the ethics of deception have focused on deception of and by autonomous adults. I therefore begin by surveying this literature. Contemporary philosophers have given three types of reason to explain what makes lying wrong (when it is wrong): negative consequences, breaches of trust, and interference with autonomy. I briefly analyze what constitutes a breach of trust and identify four factors that affect how bad a breach is. I then explicate how lying can constitute a wrongful interference with autonomy. A long-running debate concerns whether lying is ethically different than other forms of deception. I argue—briefly—that we do not need to resolve this debate in order to evaluate parental deception. Armed with a framework for what makes lying to autonomous adults wrongful, I turn to the special case of parental lying. Since the parent-child relationship is typically very close, lying to one’s child is a relatively serious breach of trust. This is exacerbated in the case of serious lies that implicate the parent-child relationship or the child’s identity. On the other hand, at least for young children, concerns about autonomy are less significant than for autonomous adults. I close by applying my analysis, along with data on the consequences of parental deception, to different types of parental lie. I argue that lying to one’s child is more rarely justified than is commonly thought, and delineate the circumstances in which it can be justified.

The cardinal philosophical virtutes and contemporaryness

This article analyzes the cardinal philosophical virtues that have been elucidated by the ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle, being further developed by medieval, modern and contemporary philosophers. The author refers to the characteristic of these virtues – prudence, courage, temperance and spirit of justice, by analyzing the views on them from antiquity to the present day. Particular attention is paid to courage as an ethical virtue that constitutes a primary form of resistance and a necessary condition for learning other virtues because it constitutes the power to resist evil within us and around us. At the same time, a special place is assigned to the spirit of justice, which records the fact that no one is above the law and other people. In conclusion, it is noted that man must, above all, in contemporary conditions, when the responsibility for the future of the existence of human civilization is immense, follow the cardinal philosophical virtues by practicing and applying them permanently.