History Of European Philosophy Research Articles

Apprehensive vigilance: Martin L. Davies, philosophy, and the ecological imperative of knowledge

ABSTRACT This essay discusses what I describe as the ecological imperative of knowledge underpinning the work of Martin L. Davies in light of some well-known developments in the history of European philosophy. It also offers some observations that seek to elucidate his view of intellectual life through clarifying his approach to the social and cognitive activities that define it. It ends, in tribute, with some personal recollections of him and his work prompted by his death in late 2021.

On the immanentization of the religious ideal in the culture (according to "Diaries" of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann)

The problem of the immanentization of the religious ideal is explicated in the context of cultural history as a synchronous "movement" from idea to ideal and from ideal to idea. In the process of realizing the idea of the transcendent within the framework of the Christian tradition, its immanentization takes place – reduction to ultimate forms that can be considered based on the intuition of potential infinity (ancient tradition) and based on the intuition of actual infinity (Christian philosophy). The intuition of actual infinity is actualized in the eschatological relation to the Other, and the intuition of potential infinity in the principle of hierarchy, universal for the Christian tradition. The synthesis of these intuitions, with the predominance of one of them, is a tragedy for the Christian tradition, which determines the peculiarities of the spiritual searches of thinkers. The reflection of this tragedy in the works of Alexander Schmemann suggests a return to the "attitude" characteristic of early Christianity for the future, correlating with the preserved tradition based on hierarchy. At the same time, the philosopher's spiritual quest reflects the process of devaluation of the hierarchical principle in Christian culture, stimulating the inversion of the hierarchy, when transcendence can be realized through low-ranking humor and foolishness. The work uses the method of historical and philosophical reconstruction, which allows to identify the features of the interaction of the transcendent and immanent in certain philosophical and religious concepts. The synchronic method explicates the mutual correlations between philosophical and religious concepts belonging to the same historical period. The diachronic method makes it possible to actualize the features of the immanentization of the religious ideal in the work of thinkers belonging to different historical periods. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the combination of reflection on the relationship between the transcendent and the immanent, carried out on a rational basis by European philosophy and the study of the experience of transcendence described by specific Christian writers and thinkers (in particular St. Augustine). Thanks to this combination, the study realized the possibility of considering the relationship of the transcendent and immanent in the history of European philosophy using the logic of the symbol by A.F. Losev, when the structure of the interaction of the symbolized and the symbolizing is extrapolated to the correlation of the transcendent and immanent, and the scope of the concept of "transcendent-immanent" becomes equivalent to its content. The process of immanentization of the transcendent is considered simultaneously from the outside (from the point of view of the dialectic of concepts) and from the inside from the point of view of changing the paradigm of religious life in culture, which allows us to take into account its features.

Myslenie Svätopluka Štúra a Benedetta Croceho: neznáme paralely z kontextu obdobia totalitných režimov v Európe

In the history of European philosophy, we can find many similarities among philosophers from different countries that have shown that philosophical thinking knows no boundaries, despite language barriers. In this context, we must consider the difficulties of many Slovak philosophers writing in the Slovak language, and the fact that their works have not been translated into other European languages. For this reason, many European philosophers did not know the thought of other philosophers, who struggled like them against negative phenomena, such the fascist doctrine. Based on these facts, we have identified some similarities between the Slovakian philosopher Svätopluk Štúr and the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, who before and during World War II took a clear stance against the fascist regime and all expressions of extremism. Štúr was familiar with Croce's philosophy through translations into Czech, whereas Croce did not have Štúr's works available due to the lack of translations. Despite language barriers, we can see how the two philosophers were able to fight against totalitarian regime through the weapons of thought, in the name of the ideals of humanism and the freedom of nations.

Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays ed. by Eric S. Nelson

Reviewed by: Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays ed. by Eric S. Nelson Taylor Carman Eric S. Nelson, editor. Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 287. Cloth, $99.99. Since his death in 1911, Wilhelm Dilthey has, for many, loomed large as an important yet perennially underappreciated figure in German philosophy. As Jean Grondin says in his contribution to this volume, Dilthey's reputation was at once enhanced and compromised by the attention Heidegger paid him in the 1920s—enhanced by his indebtedness to Dilthey's account of the historicality (Geschichtlichkeit) of human existence; compromised by the trenchant criticism he deducted from that debt, charging Dilthey with uncritical reliance on notions of subjectivity and expression of "inner experience" on one side, and of the validity and objectivity of scientific knowledge on the other. In a similar spirit, Gadamer criticized Dilthey for aestheticizing culture and relinquishing the truth claims inherent in language and historical existence. The essays in this book plead in a variety of ways, and with varying success, that Dilthey has not fully emerged from the shadow of his ambivalent reception to claim his rightful place in the history of European philosophy. Rudolf Makkreel rightly says that Dilthey is routinely misread as having insisted on a categorical distinction between understanding and explanation (as if causal explanation plays no part in the human sciences), and as being a Weltanschauung relativist, whereas in fact it was the conflict among worldviews that he sought to assuage by viewing them through the lens of a kind of objective idealism. Makkreel defends in particular Dilthey's quasi-Kantian account of the immanent purposiveness of sociohistorical life. In his essay, Jos de Mul adds that Dilthey posited a third category of functional, teleological explanation proper to biology, midway between the natural and the human sciences. Michael Forster's essay is easily the most provocative, bluntly delivering "the bad news" along with the good. The bad news is, he says, that "Dilthey's interpretation of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is … deeply unsatisfactory" (62). Moreover, "Dilthey's own hermeneutics, insofar as he has one" (67), inherits many of the shortcomings he (wrongly) ascribed to Schleiermacher's, stressing interiority and individuality over against sociohistorical context. The good news is that Dilthey improved upon Schleiermacher's [End Page 525] narrow focus on language by including in the purview of hermeneutics the entirety of what Hegel called "objective spirit." Dilthey's most important contributions, Forster says, were (1) his conviction, contra Schleiermacher, that interpretation can be a science, not just an art; (2) that the human sciences have their own distinctive methods; and (3) that those sciences are indeed genuine sciences, in the business of "discovering facts" (73). Of those, it seems to me, (1) and (3) are less plausible than (2), and perhaps not surprisingly, Forster's arguments in support of them are weak. For example, interpretation is "an extremely difficult task and needs to employ rigorous methods in order to achieve success—just like natural science!" (74). And just like carpentry, one might add. Further, interpretation relies on drawing comparisons and reasoning inductively, as does natural science (76). But again, so do architecture and journalism. As for the scientificity of the human sciences, "Dilthey's position is … that the umbrella of science is broad enough to cover a diversity of methods" (75). But what makes the umbrella the size that it is, or should be? Broad consensus that the empirical sciences deserve the name 'science' only goes back a few hundred years; Locke, adhering to ancient usage, reserved the term for domains of inquiry that could yield certain rather than merely probable results. (The English word 'scientist' was not coined until 1834, by William Whewell.) We can, of course, stretch the umbrella of 'science' as broadly as we like, just as we can the word 'fact.' The problem with this ecumenical path is that it opens onto a slippery slope: if literary criticism and jurisprudence are sciences, why not the writing of travel guides and memoirs? Frederick Beiser observes that Dilthey was aware of and responded to the antihistoricism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, though he misunderstood them in crucial ways. His reply to their skepticism...

Так называемый парадокс художественной литера­туры и трансцендентальная онтология

While the phenomenon of our feeling of empathy for literary characters has escorted the history of imaginative writing from the very beginning, its ontological foundations have been investigated only from 1970s. The question is about different theories of “the paradox of fiction” which was introduced by Colin Redford. The basic idea behind the paradox is that empathy for the nonexistent characters of fiction and their interrela­tions as real is paradoxical and so demands explanation. Having presented the main doc­trines related to the subject matter, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a paradox in this case. What there is is a single-level reductionist naturalistic worldview which comes into collision with both the phenomenology of the relevant feeling of empathy and the definitions of existence offered by the history of European philosophy as well as their reliable counterparts outside it. According to these definitions, to exist is to be perceptible and have causality, the latter “index” being em­phasized in the article to the result that the activity of literary characters provides them with a higher ontological status compared to some other classes of mental objects. All this justifies the author in advancing the conception of heterogeneity of existence and his attempts to use quantifiers in relation to it.

Аскетизм и юродство в философии Ф. Ницше

The article considers the phenomena of asceticism and foolishness for Christ in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The author substantiates the thesis that asceticism and foolishness for Christ are subjects of Nietzsche's philosophical reflections. The author also shows that the figures of the ascetic and the holy fool also act as “conceptual characters” of Nietzsche's philosophizing. The author suggests that Nietzsche himself felt a tendency towards self-identification with these characters and therefore tried to “dis-identify”, which he did not always succeed in. The article concludes that Nietzsche's position in relation to asceticism is ambiguous and internally contradictory. The philosopher exposed and criticized ascetic ideals, but this criticism is also directed at himself. Nietzsche himself, his character and way of thinking reveal a significant degree of kinship with ascetic views. Therefore, Nietzsche's criticism of asceticism is in many ways an attempt to overcome the ascetic in himself. For this task, Nietzsche appeals not only to the figures of an atheist and a pagan, but also to the image of a jester, a holy fool. The author substantiates the idea that one of the main distinguishing features of the holy fool's lifestyle is that he does not seem to be what he really is. A real fool, a real insane person is not a holy fool. The holy fool undertakes the feat of appearing to be a fool or insane, while he himself is not. In this way, the holy fool renounces the world and himself in the world, the state when his behavior corresponded to the norms and criteria of this world. Thus, a view of the world from a reverse perspective is achieved. Something close to this mode of thought and behavior is found in Nietzsche's philosophy. His philosophizing is deeply personal, but, at the same time, he constantly does not show the reader who he really is. Nietzsche's style is a constant play with masks and disguises. As a result of the study, the author concludes that Nietzsche's position in the history of European philosophy can be characterized as foolishness for Christ. His doctrine is formed during the crisis of European metaphysics and is the self-awareness of this crisis. Belief in reason, in the ability to comprehend God in terms of reason, characteristic of Western philosophy, is denied. This conviction in the omnipotence of reason was criticized already in Kantian philosophy, but criticized by means of reason itself. This was the peculiar “cunning of reason”, which, having preserved itself as a tool of criticism, subsequently triumphed in Hegel's philosophy. The claim of reason to absolute significance cannot be refuted by means of reason itself. Nietzsche understood this. He realized that breaking the impasse in which Western metaphysics found itself thanks to the deification of reason requires a completely different path.

Im Kreis sitzen und reden

Summary Volker Nies, Protestant theologian and theatre pedagogue, deals with the role of body and language in TCI and criticizes the dominance of language orientation. He compares the use of body-oriented methods in TCI and drama pedagogy of K. Stanislawski’s theory of acting. He briefly presents the body-soul problem in the history of European philosophy in contrast to the anthropology of the Old Testament. He describes the ambivalence of man in the tension between »having a body« and »being a body« in reference to H. Plessner. He introduces the concept of »corporeality« of the »New Phenomenology « by H. Schmitz. With the term »embodiment« he sketches a current development in psychology, which emphasizes the immediate bodybound nature of all psychological processes and consciousness. Using the empirical example of a TCI course sequence, he illustrates his understanding of successful body-centered TCI work.

The Ecological Tasks of Poetry: Women and Nature in Biancamaria Frabotta

In the history of European philosophy and culture, women have been both linked to nature and excluded from writing. Because of this, feminist poets face the task of rethinking the two realms together. This essay argues that Biancamaria Frabotta’s poems experiment with alternative stories of women’s intimacy with “nature.” Her poems include an expansive natural world together with distinctive narratives of a woman writer’s selfhood. The language and style for both loving and eschewing nature derive from Frabotta’s attentive gatherings from literary history. The complexity especially of the world of plants and the intricacies of gendered cultural traditions are best read together as discourses that mirror each other in Frabotta’s work.

В конце концов, мы могли бы быть каннибалами. Декарт и его история самопознания

In the light of contemporary discussions on the European philosophy as an instrument of colonial domination, the necessity of redefinition and redescription of the history of philosophy is beyond any doubt. A brief review of the historiography on modern philosophy shows that the most typical manner to present it is still to find some inner logic that would determine the appearance and development of the particular theories (Cartesian, or Kantian, etc.), without any reference to the external, that is historical, social, cultural etc., circumstances. Mean­while, from the Latin American point of view, which the author of the article takes as a starting point in this paper, the “discovery” of America – or the “invention” of America (Edmundo O’Gor­man) – was one of the most important factors in the latter history of European philosophy, which exerted influence on a number of concepts including the pattern of rationality, subjectivity, modernity etc. In this paper the author focuses on the philosophy of Descartes and re-thinks it from this history-oriented approach. While doing this, the author also tries to avoid a new form of exaggeration: turning Descartes into a theoretician of colonialism. For example, in the very center of Cartesian project of the self one can find the unavoidable doubt that can be covered only by the act of narration in which the self-conscious individual subject constitutes itself. Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum” can be interpreted, thus, not so much as ego conquiro (as it is often presented by Enrique Dussel and his continuators), but rather as a manifestation of the total loss of certainty which can not be restituted in a dialectical, but only practical way. This internal ambivalence of the Cartesian philosophy is, the author concludes, the actual trace of the impact of the discovery of America on his thought.

Возвращаясь к напечатанному...

In addition to the publication in the Literaturnyi Fact (No. 15, 2020), the article presents O.E. Mandelstam’s newly discovered manuscripts from his collection in Princeton (USA) — two synoptic notes (1912?) on the history of European philosophy: “Humanism in Rome” and “Nominalism”.

ГІДНІСТЬ ЯК ПСИХОЛОГІЧНА СКЛАДОВА МОДЕЛІ СОЦІАЛЬНОГО ПАРТНЕРСТВА

Соціальне партнерство, як співпраця між учасниками освітнього процесу, громадськими організаціями, приватними й державними установами, є засобом залучення підростаючої молоді до процесів реалізації проєктів широкого спектру. Важливість соціального партнерства висвітлена також у статуті Міжнародної організації праці (ILO), який підкреслює вплив особливостей співпраці між усіма ланками робочого процесу на почуття гідності людини. Соціальний діалог як механізм реалізації партнерства є фактором впливу на формування та розвиток особистості як члена суспільства. Отже, соціальне партнерство, ґрунтуючись на безумовному визнанні гідності людини як базової моральної цінності людства, передусім сприяє зміцненню почуття власної гідності на особистісному рівні громадянина. Останній зі свого боку впливає на соціальну поведінку особистості, яка набуває як морального, так і громадянського забарвлення. На сучасному етапі розвитку української державності потреба у вихованні нової генерації самостійної, критично мислячої, демократичної молоді з розвиненим почуттям гідності стає нагальною. Саме надання переваги цінностям свободи, незалежності та вільній, відповідальній самореалізації закладене у Концепцію нової української школи, яка так само є однією із ланок соціального партнерства у вихованні зростаючого покоління свідомих громадян. Так, визначено, що необхідним психологічним компонентом побудови функціонуючої моделі соціального партнерства є почуття гідності особистості. В статті представлений аналіз зарубіжного та вітчизняного досвіду побудови моделей соціального партнерства та взаємодії між інституціями різного типу для виховання компетентних, незалежних, креативних, демократичних громадян, проаналізовано психологічний компонент соціального партнерства, а саме гідність особистості. Автором проведене практичне дослідження, спрямоване з’ясувати смисловий контент, що вкладається у поняття «гідність» студентами психологічних спеціальностей закладів вищої освіти.

Kant and the Science of Logic by Huaping Lu-Adler

Reviewed by: Kant and the Science of Logic by Huaping Lu-Adler J. Colin McQuillan LU-ADLER, Huaping. Kant and the Science of Logic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. 272 pp. Cloth, $74.00 Huaping Lu-Adler's Kant and the Science of Logic represents the very best that contemporary Kant scholarship has to offer. Lu-Adler's book combines analytical rigor, sensitivity to the historical context in which Kant thought and wrote, and mastery of an extensive body of scholarly literature with methodological insight and clarity of presentation. It is essential reading for Kant scholars, historians of logic, and other historians of philosophy. The structure of Kant and the Science of Logic is straightforward. In the first chapter, Lu-Adler surveys the sources and materials that are necessary to reconstruct Kant's views on logic and explains how they are to be evaluated. She is rightfully suspicious of the textbook published as Kant's Logic (1800) by Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche. While Jäsche's logic can be helpful, it should never be read apart from Kant's Reflexionen, the transcripts of his lectures, and his other published works. It is only when these sources are compared, using what Lu-Adler calls a "perspectival approach," that Kant's distinctive views on logic can be understood. Once this approach has been adopted, Lu-Adler argues, the "critical eclecticism" of Kant's approach to logic becomes apparent. According to Lu-Adler, Kant's conception of logic is both critical and eclectic, because it begins [End Page 375] with "a constructive analysis of how past philosophers might have sought to build and support their systems." However, this is merely a preliminary phase in the construction of a system, in which one must evaluate one's own opinions and those of one's contemporaries, in order to arrive at sound principles and architectonic unity. Lu-Adler thinks this approach helps to avoid the problems of uncritical syncretism and dogmatic system-building, while connecting fruitfully with "Kant's view of what it means to become a genuinely independent thinker," which can be achieved only within "a community of autonomous truth-seekers, through an honest exchange of ideas and perspectives." Chapters 2 and 3 reconstruct the problems that Kant's conception of logic was meant to address. Lu-Adler surveys, in chapter 2, the history of logic from antiquity to the renaissance, highlighting the place logic was thought to occupy within philosophy as well as the utility it was thought to have. Lu-Adler's chapter brings into sharp relief the ambiguous place logic has occupied in the history of European philosophy, showing that it is by no means clear, within that history, whether logic was a science; whether it is a theoretical or practical discipline; whether it has its own subject matter; whether it is merely an aid to grammar, ethics, or metaphysics; and whether the development of a technical, formal logical is to be celebrated or condemned. In chapter 3, she extends this inquiry into the early modern period. Lu-Adler argues that early modern European philosophers faced many of the same problems as their medieval and renaissance predecessors, though their views on logic were also affected by the new methods being developed in the natural sciences (Bacon), a new emphasis on intellectual freedom (Locke), as well as a desire to formalize the rules of thinking and explain their relation to mathematics (Leibniz and Wolff). In chapter 4, Lu-Adler identifies two "breakthroughs" in Kant's philosophy of logic during the pre-critical period. The first is a distinction between (1) the logic of the common understanding and (2) the logic of learned understanding, which corresponds, roughly, to the distinction between pure and applied general logic. Kant insists in the transcripts of some of his logic lectures that the logic of the learned understanding is a science, because it is grounded in a priori principles, but he denies that the logic of the common understanding is a science, because it is grounded in empirical principles. The second breakthrough is the development of Kant's conception of transcendental logic, which Lu-Adler traces back to Kant's characterization of ontology as a subjective...

Critique of Continental Feminism

Critique of Continental Feminism Elaine P. Miller It could be argued that nominally continental feminism emerged as a category of philosophy in 2007 with the founding of philoSOPHIA: A Society for Continental Feminism by Kelly Oliver, even though, of course, philosophers such as Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, and even Simone de Beauvoir had already been de facto writing in the genre for decades. As part of the initial group of continental feminist philosophers who met and formed the society and the journal, we to a certain degree assumed the self-evidence of our identity: we were all feminists whose work in continental philosophy had already established us to some degree as professional philosophers, and the feminist perspective allowed us to both turn a critical eye toward and bring new meaning out of the classical texts that were most often our subject of research. Today, as that self-evidence is being queried and sometimes critiqued, a demand arises to look more closely into the meaning of the designation "continental feminism." What do we mean when we name this category? In particular, we must ask ourselves if, in aligning ourselves, however non-mindfully, with the "continent" of Europe, we repeat injustices inherent in Western language and systems of thought. In addition, we might inquire into the value of reading canonical texts from the history of European philosophy, and ask if this can be done in a way that exhumes and reinvigorates rather than entombs the ideas within them. I will proceed by looking at the meaning of the word "continent," its terrain and its implications, as does one of my co-discussants in this roundtable, Jami Weinstein. "Continent" comes from the roots continens, or continuous, and terra, or earth. Although, as Andrew Cutrofello notes, the very notion of continental philosophy is in large part a negative, "Anglo-American disciplinary [End Page 149] formation" (Continental Philosophy, 25), continental philosophy has embraced its given name. The continent of Europe, in contradistinction to the island countries that neighbor it, connects many nations to each other, allowing them to share some kind of common identity, one that is continually being negotiated even today. Not coincidentally, questions of earth, territory, and the related concepts of blood, kinship, nation, and race, are concepts that, predominating in Western philosophy as a whole, also mark continental philosophy, although it prides itself in subjecting the history of metaphysics and all its stable categories and concepts to critique. What, then, does it mean to "add" feminism to continental philosophy, and can this new discipline really be considered an addition, an accretion, or is it important, necessary even, that feminism, along with antiracism, anticolonialism, and attention to disability and sexual identity, disrupt the continuity, the disavowed yet omnipresent assumption of totality, foundationalism, and belonging that the word terra evokes? Andrew Cutrofello discusses continental philosophy as a divergent (from that of Anglo-American philosophy) approach to the conclusions of Kant. Both schools of thought wrestled with the clear distinction Kant draws between concept and intuition, seeking to overcome this dichotomy either by sensualizing concepts (British empiricism) or by intellectualizing appearances (German idealism). Continental philosophy in a sense emerges out of the impossible task of attempting to overcome what Kant took to be a necessary and insurmountable division.1 Cutrofello argues that it is Kant's conception of reflective judgment, which Kant introduces in the Critique of Judgment, that is the inspiration for much of continental philosophy's ability to go beyond analyzing the basic building blocks of reality or the conditions under which we may know or should act. Cutrofello allies reflective judgment with the "spontaneous receptivity" of intuition as opposed to the "receptive spontaneity" of the understanding; rather than subsuming an object of intuition under a pre-given concept of the understanding, reflective judgment calls attention to our inability to subsume a form under any concept that we possess (2). Reflective judgment's promise is thus one of possible newness, opening to a universal that is not predetermined. As such it has been associated with aesthetics, just as determinative judgment is associated with science, and, as Cutrofello points out, it is also at the origin of Hegel's and Schelling's...

АНТИЧНЫЕ ОСНОВАНИЯ ЕДИНСТВА ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

The author of the paper considers the unity of education as a specific way of existence, blurring the distinction between ontological and anthropological interpretations of education. This approach is supposed to adequately identify the philosophic sense of the category of education without linking it exclusively to the philosophic consideration of educational practice. The author also points out the connection between the ideas of the world unity and of a human being’s education as a process of gradual approaching one’s true and complete image in the history of European philosophy. Even though the contemporary notion of education is most elaborately presented by classical German philosophers, the author aims to show the prospects of addressing the antique philosophic tradition proposing the first conceptualization of education connected with a special ontological position. The author calls attention to the gradual development of views on the systemic nature of being, linking it to the initial didactic guideline of Greek philosophers. The example of Aristotle’s ethics proves the integrity of externally separate ways of making up of a person. The author comes to a conclusion about the necessity of taking the connection of educational concepts and a characteristic tendency to create the philosophic theory of the world, the elements of which are united in an integrated system, into account. In the author’s opinion, it will allow to define the real philosophic and pedagogical sense of the revision of the classical philosophic tradition, undertaken by the contemporary philosophy.

Hermann Cohen in the History of Russian Neo-Kantianism

The article brings to light the idea that Russian Neo-Kantians were among the first in the history of European philosophy to recognize the significance and originality of Hermann Cohen’s philosophical system. In particular, they identified two related points that revealed the ingenuity of the great Marburg thinker: the creation of a new philosophical system and the synthesis of Kant and Hegel within that system. The article also discusses the particular focus on the part of Russian philosophers at the turn of the twentieth century on Cohen’s ethical theories. It is argued that the full value of the German-Jewish thinker’s work for Russian philosophy is only starting to be appreciated, and that the work of Russian Neo-Kantians will be a great help in this endeavor.

La otredad de la filosofía. Miguel de Unamuno y la función de la razón

El pensamiento español ha sido marginalizado dentro de la historia de la filosofía europea hasta principios del siglo XX, en gran parte debido a su carácter literario y su falta de doctrinas sistemáticas, pero en especial debido al concepto de la razón. La razón lógico-especulativa nunca tuvo la misma influencia en España que en el resto de Europa, y con Miguel de Unamuno el concepto de la razón y su función filosófica se problematiza explícitamente. El presente estudio analiza y discute la definición y la función de la razón en la filosofía unamuniana. Analiza la relación entre la razón y el lenguaje y entre la razón y la fe. Además, se discuten las consecuencias de su escepticismo hacia la primacía de la razón para su visión del hombre y para su método filosófico.<p><strong><br /></strong></p><p> </p><p> </p>

Writing the history of philosophy in Africa: where to begin?

Although the study of the history of European philosophy has a long tradition beginning with Plato's descriptions of the teachings of various thinkers in his dialogues, the study of the history of African philosophy, particularly that of sub-Saharan Africa, is a rather young discipline. The history of African philosophy offers a number of interesting challenges, such as the question of how the purely text-based European tradition is to deal with Africa's oral philosophical heritage. Furthermore, the question of where to start the history of world philosophy has to be interrogated seriously. Does the history of philosophy start in Egypt and thus pre-date ancient Greek philosophy? And if so, what is the importance of ancient Egyptian thought to philosophy in Africa? The article introduces three Egyptian manuscripts from the period of the Middle Kingdom: The Teachings of the Vizier Ptahhotep, The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, and The Dialogue of a Man with His Soul. The discussion of the texts from a philosophical perspective is followed by a closer examination of some common objections to the existence of philosophy in ancient Egypt. The paper concludes by considering the importance of the question of the origin of philosophy for the concept of philosophy as such.

Russian

The article analyzes the evolution of the concepts of ethnicity and nation in the history of European philosophy and science XVII - early XX centuries, reveals the philosophical foundations and research paradigms of the concept's origin and evolution of ethnic groups and nations. In the article are analyzed in detail naturalistic (primordialist), anthropological, political, sotsientalny (in its socio-economic and cultural versions), subjective-symbolic and ethno-symbolic approaches to the study of ethnic groups and nations , it's advantages and disadvantages. The author pays special attention to criticism of a paradigm of modern strategic relativism, which adherents (R. Brubeyker, K. Verderi, F. Cooper, etc.) suggested to refuse the concept nation. Keywords: anthropology; nation; ethnos; philosophy; ethnopsychology. Основное содержание. Широко используемые в социальной философии, социологии, политологии, этнологии, культурной антропологии, этнопсихологии и ряде других научных дисциплин, категории «нация» и «этнос» до сих пор не имеют одного - общепринятого - содержания. Это обусловлено не только спецификой предметной области и категориального аппарата наук, но и в значительной мере связано с культурно- исторической эволюцией обыденного и научного употребления этих терминов, отголоски которого можно найти во многих профессиональных и околонаучных текстах. Термины «этнос» и «нация» восходят к разным языкам и имеют разную историко- научную судьбу. Если «этнос» образован от древнегреческого ethnos (народ) и в качестве специального понятия вошел в язык европейской науки лишь во второй половине XIX столетия, то «нация» (от лат. natio, которое в свою очередь восходит к nasci, что означает «рождаться») активно употреблялось еще историками и писателями Древнего Рима. После распада великой Империи многочисленные племена и народности, входившие в империю Каролингов (обитатели Иль де Франс, Пуату, нормандцы, бургунды, лотаринги, бретонцы, франки, баварцы, саксы и др.) еще долго после ее распада именовали себя «нациями», по сути не будучи таковыми. Например, в акте коронации Оттона III (995 г.) говорится о том, что коронация имела место с согласия не германской нации, а римлян, франков, баваров, саксов, эльзасцев, швабов и лотарингов. В позднем средневековье natio наполняется новым содержанием. Так, в средневековых университетах говорят о нациях, уже понимая под ними студенческие корпорации, то есть своего рода землячества. Студенты были разделены на «nationes» по совершенно

FromThumosto Emotion and Feeling. Some Observations on the Passivity and Activity of Affectivity

The aim of this paper is to examine several philosophical interpretations in order to show how affectivity has been considered in its relations to activity and passivity throughout the history of European philosophy. The major problem is that there is a tendency to conceive affectivity either as exclusively active or as exclusively passive. On the other hand there is often a coincidence between a term used in order to describe affectivity and the passive or active nature ascribed to affectivity as a whole. Besides the termspathos, passio, passion, affectus, there are more recent categories ofemotionandfeelingon the one hand, andthumosused before Aristotle on the other. The solution in order to avoid downwards as well as upwards reductions is to interpret affectivity as a multifaceted phenomenon and to acknowledge that affectivity presents different features on several levels.

The Desire to Think: A Note on Latin American Philosophy

The Desire to ThinkA Note on Latin American Philosophy J. M. Garrido To Adriana Valdés It is necessary to prevent the danger of formulating a philosophical nationalism instead of philosophizing with the treasures of the national experience. —José Vasconcelos (1993, 337) The question of the existence or nonexistence of Latin American philosophy constituted, at least for a while, the main problem debated by Latin American philosophy. In 1925, the Peruvian thinker José Carlos Mariátegui observed, “It seems evident to me that there exists a French thought, a German thought, etc., in Western culture. The existence of a Latin American thought does not seem evident to me” (1993, 41). Naturally, Mariátegui is not concerned with testing the empirical fact of whether in [End Page 21] the territory of Latin America there has been philosophical production, or whether in European centers for philosophical research one may find some Latin American citizens as researchers. In La Philosophie en Amérique Latine (1997), Alain Guy compiles an extensive catalogue of philosophical works that have been produced on Latin American soil from the sixteenth century to the present, including the work produced by Latin American citizens in Europe. He makes no distinction between philosophical currents that began in Europe and those that seem to have begun in Latin America (such as the theology of liberation). Furthermore, he makes no distinction between works written in Portuguese or Spanish and those written in Latin (during colonial times) or English, French, and German (see, for instance pages 86–87). In Mariátegui’s diagnostic the point is different: he does not simply state that there has not been philosophy in Latin America, but that there has not been an authentic philosophy of Latin America. As Augusto Salazar Bondy states half a century later, “to register the process of Latin American philosophy— in spite of the work of great personalities and their good will—is to tell the history of the passage of Western philosophy through our countries. It is the history of European philosophy in Latin America rather than the history of an authentic philosophy of Latin America” (1993, 203). The Argentinean essayist Juan Bautista Alberdi, perhaps the first to draw attention to the specific question of Latin American philosophy, writes in 1842: “Our philosophy must rise from our needs. What are the problems that America is called to establish and resolve in these moments?” He concludes: “Latin American philosophy must be essentially political and social in its object, passionate and prophetic in its instincts, synthetic and organic in its method, positive and realistic in its procedures, republican in its spirit and destiny” (1993, 149). Nevertheless, the claim for an “authentic” Latin American philosophy is not at all something easy to justify, at least at first glance. Why should philosophy be tied to a “national” or “continental” identity, whether in a territorial or in a symbolic sense? What in Plato’s or Aristotle’s—or Thales’s or Heraclitus’s—thinking could be properly said to be authentically “Greek” (or Athenian, Milesian, Ephesian, etc.)? What, in Descartes’s Meditations, could be called authentically European or French, and even more, what in his philosophical work could be considered to be about France or Europe? [End Page 22] As José Gaos remarks, “it is not at all certain that Descartes or Comte, Kant or Hegel wanted to produce a French or German philosophy.” Indeed, the question about the existence or nonexistence of a national philosophy does not seem to have precedents in the history of philosophy. Maybe one could suggest, not without irony, that the very question about an original Latin American philosophy is already an originality of Latin American philosophy. “Considered in general,” José Gaos continues, “the desire, the intentional and explicit effort of producing a peculiar and original philosophy, a philosophy of one’s own idiom and of one’s own territory, seems to be a novelty not at all justified, at least by history” (1993, 481). Yet Augusto Salazar Bondy defines what he understands by “authentic philosophy” in the following terms: “the manifestation of the rational consciousness of a community, the explicit conception of the mode in which this community reacts to the...