Features Of Philosophy Research Articles

Speculative Fetishism

Quentin Meillassoux, like his mentor Alain Badiou, is sometimes accused by his critics of “fetishizing mathematics.” Without embracing the negative judgment implied in such a charge, this essay asks: what might be gained by taking seriously the link between fetishism and speculative philosophy? The claim that Meillassoux “fetishizes” mathematics potentially reveals something fundamental not only about the formalism at the heart of his speculative realism (whose “glaciality,” inanimacy, or inhuman character might sustain a certain disavowal, namely of “finitude” or castration) but about fetishism itself, whose philosophical character is attested not only by its ideality or relation to the absolute, but by its concern with thought or construction. The aim of this essay is thus not to dwell at length on the work of Meillassoux, but rather to think about the “speculative realism” specific to fetishism itself, and its unique contribution to speculative philosophy.

ANTONY FLEW’DE TANRIYA DAİR PARADİGMA DEĞİŞİKLİĞİ

Antony Flew is one of the most devout names of philosophical atheism. He spent almost all his life in defense of atheism. On the other hand he was distinguished from his fellow atheists by so-called dramatic shift that ensued in his philosophy. He who had committed all his philosophical efforts to the denial of the existence of God due to insufficient evidence has gave up his claim by the same token. Flew has believed that justification of any claim, idea or belief was possible only with its rationality and demonstrability and worked within this framework. He thus stated that this principle has also shaped opposing intellectual processes that he underwent in regard to God. As a consequence of this argument, he has been targeted numerous critiques both negative and positive. Flew has amplified upon this transition with justifying reasons in his “There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed his Mind” , the book that put him on the spot. (The book is also translated into Turkish) The chief purpose of this article is to trace this transformation and analyze its motives in a critical manner.

Heidegger and Derrida on the Nature of Questioning: Towards the Rehabilitation of Questioning in Contemporary Philosophy

In this article, the Heidegger and Derrida controversy about the nature of questioning is revisited in order to rehabilitate questioning as an essential characteristic of contemporary philosophy. After exploring Heidegger's characterization of philosophy as questioning and Derrida's criticism of the primacy of questioning, we will evaluate Derrida's criticism and articulate three characteristics of Heidegger's concept of questioning. After our exploration of Heidegger's concept of questioning, we critically evaluate Heidegger's later rejection of questioning. With this, we not only contribute to the discussion about why Heidegger rejected questioning in his later thought and whether this rejection is legitimized, but also to the rehabilitation of questioning in contemporary philosophy.

The European Cultural Code in A.I. Solzhenitsyn's Prose: Specific Features of Artistic Functioning

The article considers some features of artistic functioning of the European cultural code in certain works by A.I. Solzhenitsyn (the story “Matryona's Place” and the novel “The First Circle”). Consistency of the writer’s reference to a medieval Western code, despite its traditional character and close interaction with the Russian classical tradition, is determined by the special outlook of the author, poetics of his creative work and the tasks facing the writer in artistic realization of each concrete work. The theme of Russia (authentic, “nutryanaya”), vividly presented in the story “Matryona's Place” through the symbolic image of Matryona, is a connecting thread not only with the Russian classical tradition and Biblical imagery, but also with the medieval novel about Tristan and Isolde which enables the writer to expressively highlight the opposition “true – false”, including the level of implication, to strengthen the realization of the “vice versa” principle and the principle of “false mirrors”. The camp theme stated in the novel “The First Circle” logically leads the writer to Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, to “Dante’s” code, forming not only ideological and symbolic value of the novel, but also its architectonics. The symbolics of a circle organizes the chronotopes of the novel, Stalin’s hell circles and the horizontal of Non-freedom. The knightly code through the writer’s reference to the Grail symbolics and his symbolic search, which is transformed into the search of Truth and Verity in a totalitarian state, forms a moral and philosophical core of the work, a special symbolics - the symbol of a ladder, the way of the knight up to the Grail Castle, which forms a symbolic vertical of Freedom and turns the motive complex of the novel (first of all – the motives of nativity, resurrection, lavation, moral rebirth, etc.) into special moral and philosophical integrity. The genuine Russianness of the writer solving in his creative work not only concrete historical problems, but also the problems of moral and philosophical character in search of universal human values, the Truth, the Verity, the Perfection, brings him to a wide field of the West European culture, in particular, of the medieval one. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s2p121

Disabled People in Play.Toward an Existential and Differential Phenomenology of Moving with Dis-Ease

Abstract Disability has become an increasingly important field of investment for modern welfare policy-visible in architecture for wheelchair users as well as in budgets for health care. This documents a gain in solidarity, but it implies also some challenges of practical and philosophical character. Play and games (of, for, and with disabled people) make these challenges bodily. These challenges will here be explored in three steps. In the first step, we discover the paradoxes of equality and categorization, normalization and deviance in the understanding of disability. Ableism, a negative view on disability, is just around the corner. The Paralympic sports for disabled people make this visible. However, play with disabled people shows alternative ways. And it calls to our attention how little we know, so far, about how disabled people play. The second step leads to an existential phenomenology of disablement. Sport and play make visible to what degree the building of “handicap” is a cultural achievement. All human beings are born disabled and finally die disabled-and inbetween they create hindrances to make life dis-eased. Dis-ease is a human condition. However, and this is an important third step, disablement and dis-eased life are not just one, but highly differentiated. These differences are relevant for political practice and have to be recognized. Attention to differences opens up a differential phenomenology of disablement and of disabled people in play-as a basis for politics of recognition.

What is Law?

Theorists who tackle “What is law?” usually acknowledge the difficulty of the question, then, with hardly a pause, launch into their proposed answer. Instead, focusing on three main categories of concepts of law, I examine in detail why previous attempts have failed to achieve a consensus. Several factors have contributed. One source of disagreement involves clashes among intuitions about law. Further problems are created by the narrowness of functional analysis, on which nearly all concepts of law are based. Confusion also arises because law shares basic characteristics with many social institutions, as I show drawing on insights from the philosophy of society. Theorists also typically fail to recognize two distinct orientations of law, and multiple forms of law, which singular concepts of law cannot accommodate. Finally, variability and change owing to the social-historical nature of law defeats efforts of legal philosophers to identify essential features and universally true concepts of law. At the conclusion I present a way of understanding law that emerges out of the lessons learned from past unsuccessful efforts.Here are the topic headings in the essay: Three Categories of the Concept of Law; Pivotal Role of Intuitions About Law; Over-Inclusiveness of Functionalism; Under-Inclusiveness of Functionalism; Why Functionalism Cannot Answer ‘What is Law?’; Error of Conflating ‘Rule System’ and ‘Legal System’; Law as Part of the Institutional Substrate of Society; State Law’s Two Orientations; Coexisting Multiple Legal Forms; Necessary and Essential Features Or Typical Features; Universal Application Versus Universal Truth; What is Law?

Philosophiekritik als Aufklärung?

Some contemporary readings of Averroes put special emphasis on the philosophical and critical character of the work of the Muslim theologian and mystic al-Ġazālī, who is also known as the “Proof of Islam”. They even regard him as some pioneer of Enlightenment thought. This paper therefore investigates the thesis of Averroes as a critical philosopher. It sets forth that one can indeed find some essential elements of critical thought in al-Ġazālī’s writings: for example Ġazālī’s critique of reason and especially his rejection of تقليد (taqlīd), which means the nonreflective imitation of a teacher, authority or tradition, especially in matters pertaining to religion. Nevertheless, comparing him to both, Kant and Descartes, we will try to show that his thought falls short of critical thinking and even of philosophy itself. To this end we will proceed as follows: First, we analyze his critique of taqlīd. Secondly, we investigate his critique of Aristotelian Arabic philosophy as a variety of taqlīd. Thirdly, we consider his skeptical suspension of reason in favor of immediate prophetic perception. Fourthly, we look upon the relationship between the super-rational perception and reason. Fifthly, we show that Ġazālī dismisses the idea of autonomous reason.

Howard Caygill on resistance: ecce homo

Howard Caygill’s On Resistance (2013) is changing the landscape of how the concept of resistance is understood. In his book, he theorises a concept of resistance rooted in the Kantian aporia of judgement, in the Hegelian notion of Force, in Clausewitz’s idea of resistance as a capacity and in the Nietzschean notion of affirmation. He employs these against philosophies of dialectic and resolution. I trace these themes back through some of his earlier work, to reveal the tensions that persist in his own thinking, and which underpin the puzzles, the aporias, that are central to his notion of resistance. I argue that in his earlier work a notion of (Hegelian) philosophical education receives more generous treatment. By retrieving this notion of learning and locating it within On Resistance, we can get closer not only to the relationship between actuality, possibility and necessity, that are so important to Caygill’s notion of resistance, but also to the philosophical character of the man Caygill: ecce homo.

Intellectual History and the History of Philosophy

SummaryThe issue which I wish to address in this paper is the widespread tendency in Anglophone philosophy to insist on a separation between the history of philosophy and the history of ideas or intellectual history. This separation reflects an anxiety on the part of philosophers lest the special character of philosophy will be dissolved into something else in the hands of historians. And it is borne of a fundamental tension between those who think of philosophy's past as a source of ideas and arguments of interest to the present, and those who hold that the philosophy of the past should be studied on its own terms, in relation to its immediate context, without reference to the present. The challenge, then, is to re-historicise the history of philosophy, and to keep the philosophers onside.

John White on philosophy of education and philosophy

John White offers a provocative characterization of philosophy of education. In this brief reaction, I evaluate the characterization and urge the maintenance of a strong connection between philosophy of education and philosophy.

The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology: Contextualizing Augustine’s Pneumatology by Chad Tyler Gerber (review)

Reviewed by: The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology: Contextualizing Augustine’s Pneumatology by Chad Tyler Gerber Constant J. Mews Gerber, Chad Tyler, The Spirit of Augustine’s Early Theology: Contextualizing Augustine’s Pneumatology (Ashgate Studies in Philosophy & Theology in Late Antiquity), Farnham, Ashgate, 2012; hardback; pp. 234; R.R.P. £50.00; ISBN 9781409424376. Augustine’s theology prior to his becoming Bishop of Hippo has a much more optimistic, philosophical character than his later writings which were directed against various heresies. He tends to be remembered more for his teaching about original sin and grace mediated through Christ than for what he has to say about the Holy Spirit. Chad Gerber has produced an excellent corrective to such assumptions by focusing on his earlier writings, with particular attention to the neglected topic of his pneumatology. Gerber does well to situate Augustine’s Trinitarian thought within the context not just of Nicene doctrine, but also the philosophical context of Neo-Platonism. Just as he understands the emanation of the Son from the Father to be as that of Intellectus from Principium, so he understands the Holy Spirit as akin to the Psyche or Soul of Plotinus, emerging from these two principles, informing and giving life to the created world. This is an excellent study of how Augustine’s Trinitarian theology (prior to his famous discussion in the De trinitate) was shaped by Neo-Platonist philosophy. By examining various early writings, notably the De quantitate animae and the De moribus ecclesiae catholicae (contrasted with the way of life of the Manichaeans), Gerber considers how central the Holy Spirit is to Augustine’s understanding of the world, understood both as the reason and the love by which creation is underpinned. In this early phase, Augustine was not concerned with issues of the will and its corruption through original sin, as he was in his writings directed against followers of Pelagius, or even in the Confessions; reason (ratio) was both human and divine, offering a degree of optimism to his perspective not found in later years. In a final chapter, Gerber reflects on the writings from Thagaste (389– 91) in which Augustine is principally concerned to refute the Manichaeans, exploring in depth themes of the goodness of creation, governed by reason and love. The Spirit emanates from the Father and the Son, but is that through which all things exist. This monograph does not explore in detail how Augustine’s early thought differed from that of Ambrose, by whom he was much influenced. Nonetheless, it reminds us of core themes in Augustine’s theology, prior [End Page 224] to the focus on human weakness and need for grace by which he is often remembered. Constant J. Mews Monash University Copyright © 2014 Constant J. Mews

Logiškumas kalboje ir mąstyme

Logicality means clear and sound reasoning according to the rules of logic or formal argument. Logicality is a traditional, associated with thinking and speech, value, which has a great importance in the area of scientific discovery. In the era of trans-disciplinary research, cognitive sciences unite the efforts of philosophers, psychologists, neurologists, linguists, anthropologists, biochemists and the artificial intelligence specialists to understand the thinking and cognition, thus increasing the importance of logicality. Perhaps therefore it has been presumed that the speech we use for communication is functioning according to the rules of logic, using the rules of grammar as a base. The speech is a highly important part of thinking, although the actual role it plays in the process of thinking is highly debatable. Since we cannot observe directly the moments when thoughts turn into words, we do not know why the structures of speech that consist of the same words can be slightly different or why the same words have both, direct as well as indirect, meanings. The changes in thinking can be observed only via the changes in speech. However, here the factors that influence these changes must be taken into account. One of such factors discussed in this paper is the long term effect of information technologies on human thinking.

Paul Tillich and Paul Ricoeur on the Meaning of "Philosophical Theology" Introduction

This paper will examine the meaning and divergences of “philosophical theology” in Paul Tillich and Paul Ricoeur. If according to Tillich the philosophical theology implies a theology with a philosophical character, which, in turn, implies a theology without philosophical character, towards a kerygmatic theology, for Ricoeur the philosophical theology is an expanded view of philosophy rooted in existence and driven to theology and a theology that not only draws from but also significantly intersects with philosophy.

Concretude simbólica e descrição etnográfica (sobre a relação entre antropologia e filosofia)

O artigo procura refletir sobre a relação entre antropologia e filosofia a partir de características centrais da descrição etnográfica e da importância da dimensão simbólica da vida social. Tendo como referência as diferentes manifestações da vida social e a diversidade das sociedades e grupos ou segmentos sociais estudados pelos antropólogos, o artigo examina as condições de inteligibilidade do trabalho etnográfico como uma questão que perpassa a pesquisa antropológica onde quer que ela tenha lugar, impondo permanentemente uma reflexão de caráter filosófico para dar conta de problemas concretos, bem circunscritos e empiricamente delimitados. Neste empreendimento, o texto explora inicialmente as condições de inteligibilidade de práticas de bruxaria estudadas pelos antropólogos, para concluir com uma discussão sobre a inteligibilidade das disputas judiciais e das demandas por direitos em sociedades modernas.

Alienation—New Perspectives from Environmental Ethics, Social Philosophy, and Action Theory; an Introduction

The philosophical history of the concept of alienation is unsteady, to say the least. As is well known, its heyday was in the 18th and in the 19th century. It occupied center stage in the grand philosophies of history of Rousseau, the Romantics, the German Idealists, and the early Marx. For these authors, modern life was characterized by the fact that modern man has lost some important kind of connection with some or all of the following: his own inner nature, outer nature, and other people. This state of alienation was seen either as a transitory state that will automatically be rendered obsolete as history progresses, or it was seen as a state that political, philosophical or poetic efforts should struggle to overcome. In any case, the goal of human history was to re-establish the original kind of connectedness, albeit on a higher, reflective level. This broad diagnosis fell into disrepute among philosophers in the 20th century. Not only did they lose trust in universal ideas of historical progress quite generally. Also, they came to regard the specific diagnosis of alienation and the goal of overcoming it as suspicious. To these critics, diagnoses of alienation seemed to be naive in their idealized pictures of an original state of harmony and in the envisaged goal of reconciliation. Whether or not it does justice to Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and the Romantics, the concept of alienation has come to be associated with over-simplified laments about a loss of immediacy and naturalness. Thus, many philosophers in the 20th century lost interest in the concept. In analytic philosophy, it has largely been ignored (apart from occasionally resurfacing in debates about personal autonomy or about utilitarianism and integrity). Many “continental” philosophers, however, not only lost interest but rejected the concept as an articulation of a moral view that is not only simplistic but radically wrong. Among the most outspoken critics were thinkers who actually have close intellectual ties to German Idealism and Marx. According to the influential work of Adorno and Horkheimer, modernity suffers not so much from experiences of otherness and estrangement but from a lack thereof. According to them, the image of an enlightened world in which nothing is strange to us is simply the mirror image of the dangerous and alien environment that our ancestors feared, and no less terrifying than the latter. Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2014) 17:7–11 DOI 10.1007/s10677-013-9470-z

Predicting Philosophical Disagreement

AbstractWe review evidence showing that disagreement in folk and expert philosophical intuitions can be predicted by global, heritable personality traits. The review focuses on recent studies of intuitions about free will, ethics, and intentional action. These findings are philosophically important because they suggest that while some projects cannot be done, other projects must take individual differences in philosophical character into account. But care needs to be taken when interpreting the implications of these individual differences. We illustrate one way that these differences have been abused. We then illustrate two ways that these findings can be legitimately used to help illuminate philosophical issues. Given the large and readily available body of evidence, neglect of persistent and predictable philosophical differences is irresponsible.

Opening Teachers’ Minds to Philosophy: The crucial role of teacher education

Why has the ‘Philosophy for Children’ movement failed to make significant educational inroads in Australia, given the commitment and ongoing efforts of philosophers and educators alike who have worked hard in recent decades to bring philosophy to our schools? In this article we single out one factor as having particular importance, namely, that, on the whole, teachers consider philosophical inquiry to be futile. We argue that the explanation rests with teachers’ underlying epistemological beliefs and that openness to philosophy depends upon teachers being disposed to engage in the practices of reason-giving and reason evaluation, being aware of the epistemic value of such practices and, concomitantly, having highly developed reasoning skills. Drawing on both anecdotal evidence and wide-ranging research from within cognitive psychology, we go on to make a case for change within teacher education programmes.

The enduring allure of objective probability

Probability measures are properly considered subjective, if only as a result of the knowledge limitations of human experience. Even if objective probability can be demonstrated as an unambiguously verifiable property of the physical world, our necessarily imperfect access to such aspects of reality would necessitate the construction of subjective probability measures for examinations of human behavior. This paper will explore the distinction between subjective and purportedly objective probability in principle, and demonstrate that actual probabilities can only be subjective, at least ex ante. The paper will next examine the persistent efforts of philosophers, mathematicians, and particularly quantitatively-inclined social scientists, to construct and employ mistaken conceptions of purportedly objective probability. The neo-indeterminist interpretation of sub-atomic particle physics is addressed next, with its attempt to construct an objective-probabilistic account of reality based on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. An explanation is suggested for the persistent allure of objective probability in the social sciences, which purports to offer a more economical and parsimonious basis for human behavior and the formation of expectations. The view that there are ontologically privileged, objectively-verifiable probabilities and expectations, will be examined and criticized. It appears to be one source of the discredited, though nonetheless widespread and persistent, belief in the efficacy and feasibility of central economic planning.

Visual Music after Cage: Robert Breer, expanded cinema and Stockhausen's Originals (1964)

Within William Seitz's 1961 exhibition The Art of Assemblage for the New York Museum of Modern Art, the question of framing – of art's exhibitionary situation within and against a given environment – had emerged as perhaps the major issue of postwar avant-garde practice. Beyond the familiar paintings of Johns and Rauschenberg, a strategy of radical juxtaposition in this time extended well beyond the use of new materials, to the very institutions of aesthetic exhibition and spectatorship. Perhaps the most significant example of this disciplinary juxtaposition can be found in the intermingling of the static and the temporal arts. Like many artists of the twentieth century, Robert Breer was fascinated by the aesthetic and philosophical character of movement. Trained as a painter, he turned to cinematic animation as a way of extending his inquiry into modernist abstraction. While the success of his initial Form Phases spurred what would be a lifelong commitment to film, Breer quickly grew frustrated with the kind of abstract animation that might be said to characterise the dominant tradition of visual music. Starting in 1955, his Image by Images inaugurated a radical new vision of hyperkinetic montage that would paradoxically function at the threshold of movement and stasis. As such, Breer's film ‘accompaniment’ to the 1964 production of Stockhausen's Originals has a curious status. While untethered from the musical performance, Breer's three-part ‘film performance’ extended Stockhausen's aesthetic and conceptual framework in rich and surprising ways. It might thus be understood as a ‘post-Cagean’ form of visual music, one in which the sonic and visual components function in a relation of autonomous complementarity within an overarching intermedia assemblage.

On the Definition of Mass in Mechanics: Why Is It So Difficult?

In spite of the concerted efforts of physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, and logicians, no final clarification of the concept of mass has been reached. So concludes Jammer in his book on the history of the concept.1 The Nobel laureate Wilczek called our attention to the problem in his papers on the concepts of the fundamental equation of dynamics.2 In 2005, Roche wrote a paper whose title asks the question “What is mass?”3 Hecht sums up the situation in textbooks in the title of his article “There Is No Really Good Definition of Mass.”4 Where the difficulty in defining mass in classical mechanics lies is the question addressed in the present paper. Before dealing with this topic, it is important to make explicit what the problem consists of, since sometimes people think that there is no problem with mass at all.