Kind Of Philosophy Research Articles

The Philosophy of Literature: Four Studies by Donald Phillip Verene

Reviewed by: The Philosophy of Literature: Four Studies by Donald Phillip Verene Jeffrey Dirk Wilson VERENE, Donald Phillip. The Philosophy of Literature: Four Studies. Eugene, Ore.: Cascade Books, 2018. xii + 138 pp. Paper, $20.00 This book consists of a preface and introduction, in which Verene sets forth his own philosophy of literature, and then four chapters in which he applies his method to particular works of literature. In the preface, Verene explains that he means to investigate four different relationships of philosophy to literature. First, there is "literature as a kind of philosophy" in which the author asks the reader to think "both philosophically and poetically at the same time." El immortal of Jorge Luis Borges exemplifies this relationship "as the power of the word to embody thought." Like Vico, Borges confronts "us as readers with a style that we may call poetic learning." Granted that Vico is philosophical first and poetic second, while the relation is reversed for Borges, both can be read as refutation of Ockham's razor, for "fiction is always a doubling up," thus suspending the principle of noncontradiction since fiction makes it possible for us to "think the unthinkable," specifically in El immortal, immortality. Verene teases out an ethics of immortality by educating the memory in a way that comforts and guides us through the terror of our irreversible mortality. The second relationship is "philosophy of literature." The text is not intended philosophically and yet, also, the text can be fully comprehended only in relation to one or more philosophical works. James Joyce's Finnegans Wake is the focus here, a work to which Verene has dedicated two earlier books. Earlier in this work, Verene claims "sincerity" to be the [End Page 384] poison of both good writing and reading and that its antidote is irony, but this irony contributes to the philosopher's and poet's disturbing of the peace. Joyce expects the reader to laugh along with him (and wake him?) as he writes, thereby denying time, the devourer of us all, writer and reader alike. Finnegans Wake has no meaning; it is what it says, a speech ontologically and poetically complete, "a bolt of lightning" (Longinus) that illuminates the world perfectly, brilliantly, instantaneously before leaving us in complete darkness. The third relationship is "philosophy in literature" when "philosophical ideas reside" in a literary work. Throughout Carl Sandburg's The People, Yes!, "his sense of the joke" is never far from "his sense of human justice." Sandburg's poem is something of an origins' myth, concerned not with the creation of the world, rather with the creation of the people. Verene sees in Sandburg's "politics" something inimical to poetry and which the people should limit, thereby arriving at "the poetic politics of the people" in which "tradition" "that incorporates the wisdom of the ancestors" counteracts the "progress" of "technological society" in which self-knowledge and poetry are not possible, leaving the people without a language and defenseless against all-devouring time. The final relationship is when philosophy stands in dialectical counterpoint to literature, that is, "philosophy and literature." This occurs when philosophical and literary texts illuminate each other because "they are both concerned with the same theme but each takes it up differently." While Sebastian Brant's Das Narren Schyff is the announced work, in fact Verene reflects also on the Moriae encomium of Erasmus, Die verkehrte Welt of Ludwig Tieck, and other folly literature. Verene companions Hegel throughout this chapter and claims, in effect, that Descartes's evil genius replaces the fool, and deduction replaces folly, while Hegel restores the fool in his dialectic of opposites and bounding folly with decorum. Again, it is memory that comes to the rescue. Deduction can operate in a vacuum of forgetfulness, but folly remembers everything though upside-down and front-to-back. One has to remember everything with the fool in order to laugh with him. By providing catalyst to memory, the fool liberates the thinker from Cartesian deduction: laughter too can strike like lightning. Unlike deduction, neither laughter nor dialectic comes to a conclusion. A recurring theme with which Verene closes is the doubleness of things, especially of subjective knower and knowable...

The Incorporeal: Ontology, Ethics, and the Limits of Materialism. Elizabeth Grosz. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Pp. viii+322.

<i>The Incorporeal: Ontology, Ethics, and the Limits of Materialism</i>. Elizabeth Grosz. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Pp. viii+322.

Lessons from Confucius Ideas: Chinese Universities’ African Students Reflections

In most normal universities in China, Confucian lessons are included in the in-ternational students study programs. This is because Confucianism is the most prevalent deep rooted historical philosophy in China. It is based on the teach-ings of Confucius (551 - 479 B.C.), a virtuous man who never wanted to be as-sociated with insincerity, immorality and corruption. Though he failed to im-plement his ideas when he was alive, he lived forever and became “a king without a crown” when his principles were accepted and implemented by Chi-nese authorities many hundred years later, which has partly contributed to the current socio-economic landscape of China. In contrast, Africa continues to face a lot of challenges chiefly caused by moral degradation and poverty. Do Confucian lessons have an impact on the African students who study them? This paper qualitatively analyzed the views of ten former African students in China regarding Confucius and his philosophies and their reflections on how Africans can benefit from the ideas and philosophies of this Great Sage. The key finding was that the majority of respondents acknowledged that they in-deed took home a lot of lessons from their studies regarding Confucius and his philosophies. It was also noted that Confucius studies made the majority of these foreign students to understand the values of selflessness and virtuous life in leadership as well as the importance of expanding access of education for the benefit of all people. Africa can surely develop if leaders tap lessons from these kinds of philosophies.

Afterword to the Panel Discussion on Armchair Philosophy

In this paper I discuss Timothy Williamson’s panel paper “Armchair Philosophy”, the objections of the participants of the panel discussion and other possible reactions to it. The correspondence of the content of Williamson’s paper to the main themes of his book “Doing Philosophy” is shown, as well as the greater emphasis of his paper on the method of model building, upon which he bases his hope for the future of armchair philosophy. The analysis of the responses to the paper by Williamson received from Daniel Stoljar, Joshua Knobe, Daniel Dennett, and Anton Kuznetsov shows, however, that the version of the armchair philosophy proposed by Williamson does not raise much objections among principal opponents of the armchair approach and thus does not promote an a priori methodology that this kind of philosophy is supposed to defend and promote. More effective defense would require the use of a conceptual analysis that promises getting a priori or conceptual truths. Williamson, however, doubts the prospects for productive conceptual analysis. Nevertheless, the author of this afterword tries to show that the traditional conceptual analysis can be improved and that it is possible that such an improved analysis would perform its function of promoting the radical armchair philosophy much more effectively. Instead of clarifying some more or less interesting concepts conceptual analysis might aim at clarifying our natural beliefs, such as belief in causal dependance of ordinary events, in independent existence of the objects of our experience, in identity of some objects, in other minds, etc. In the process of such a clarifying we can also try to understand some non-trivial relations between our natural beliefs. The author provides an example of such an analysis, resulting in getting a truth which has all the marks of necessary conceptual truth, claiming there are a lot of similar truths to be found.

Провокативна філософія освіти: Fata Morgana універсалізму та спокуси сингулярності (К. П. Лісман, Р. Д. Прехт і А. Реквітц)

Some polemic versions of the contemporary philosophy of education are regarded which lend it the character of the provocatively through setting accents on the intern paradoxes of changes designed of the educational modernization and formed under the pressure of globalization. The contextual conditions of the postindustrial transformations in the educational system are explicated which were structured by the influences of the industrial imperatives. The theoretical explorations of K.P. Liessmann, R.D. Precht and A. Reckwitz were chosen to show the structure and the content of changes in education including the consequences of the educational globalization. The tendency to refuse the European educational priorities is critically analyzed. There is the negative way to state the logic of the industrialism as the logic of the universality preserving postmodern singularity of the educational institutions what makes evident the ambivalence of the knowledge society. Some attempts are explicated, which try to give rehabilitation for the “useless knowledge” in the curriculum options what is connected with getting back the ideal of the cultivated man and with actualizing the hidden senses of conservatism (Liessmann) or pseudo-revolutionary appeals (Precht). The provocative philosophy of education in its different representations might be regarded as a special mode for activation of the theoretical critical thinking with the purpose for early detecting of risks, cultural and pedagogical pathologies appearing through postindustrial shifts in the culture, which can provoke some symptoms of the re-feudalization in the academically communities. It is concentrated not only on the positive side of the educational transformations, but else on their negative effects, loading of social and psychological traumas, and proposes different variants answering on the claims of the contemporary education aiming their additionally verification. The intrinsic contradictoriness of this kind of philosophy can be acceptable as a articulating of its openness, connected with its principle infinitely, and might be regarded as productive strategy of communication in the discourse devoted to the perspective of the development of education in the uncertain postindustrial conditions.

Filosofar hoy. Entrevista con Leonardo Polo

Leonardo Polo answers the following questions posed to him by the editor of the Anuario Filosófico: 1) What is the present state of philosophy? 2) What kind of philosophy can be cultivated nowadays? 3) How does one philosophize?

Natural Philosophy and Natural Logic

Natural Philosophy and Natural Logic

Phenomenology and Theology

Examining the ways in which two representatives of the “theological turn in French phenomenology” speak of the interrelationship between philosophy and theology, one may detect a number of tendencies which are deleterious both to philosophy and theology. The idea of an autonomous philosophy, pursued as an end in itself, needs to be defended against claims that philosophy can only flourish under theological tutelage. Again, the integrity of theology as a science of faith excludes any identification of theology as a kind of philosophy. Interaction between the two disciplines, especially in the border areas of apologetics, fundamental theology, religious philosophy, and philosophy of religion, can be fruitful only if a keen sense of their radical difference of orientation is sustained. Behind the swamping of phenomenology by theological concerns lies a series of misunderstandings of metaphysics and its overcoming as well as a misguided notion that phenomenology allows revealed theology to re-enter the French university under the rubric of philosophy.

The concept of rationality in Andrew Gleeson’s antitheodicy

ABSTRACTUnder an ‘antitheodicy’, I understand any attempt to show the principal impossibility of a morally respectable and rationally convincing theoretical answer to the theoretical problem of evil which is understood as a problem of consistency and rational coherence between propositions. In this paper, I will analyse the concept of rationality which is presupposed at least in some strands of antitheodicy. A. Gleeson’s ‘A frightening love. Recasting the Problem of Evil’ presupposes a dichotomy between an engaged-existential and a detached-impersonal kind of philosophical thinking which are respectively characterized by a stress on authenticity and the acknowledgement of particularity and contingency in the first case and by precision, logic, provability and an instrumental understanding of rationality in the second case. The second kind of reasoning which underlies all theodicies is inapt for dealing adequately with the real problem of evil. I try to show that the dichotomy of impersonal objective and existentially subjective kinds of philosophy is not a contradictory one but leaves out a broad field in-between which can be characterized as ‘informal reasoning’ and which allows a morally sensitive answer to the theoretical problem of evil which is not isolated from the ‘real’ problem of evil.

Filosofiya poliloga

The article considers a new tendency in historical and philosophical studies – intercultural philosophy, or philosophy of polylogue. This kind of philosophy is expected to be an alternative to comparativism as a methodology of historical and philosophical research, on the one hand, and to postmodernist philosophy, which leads to relativism by rejecting the possibility of comprehending truth, on the other hand. Polylogue philosophy is based on the principles asserting the equality of philosophical traditions, schools, trends, the possibility to achieve truth in different ways, the dependence of philosophical cognition on the cultural, social and ideological conditions. This makes it possible for all contemporary philosophers, regardless of their positions, to discuss urgent problems as well as to look for the support of philosophers of the past. Since philosophy is the result of original, creative thinking, it is wrong to believe that European philosophical tradition is the only true one. Polylogue philosophy should develop without considering European philosophy to be the necessary example to follow. Instead of imitating great European thinkers, we should take into account different doctrines appeared in different countries on condition that they resulted from creative and original philosophizing. The intercultural methodology allows to gain a real meeting of minds between philosophers rather than to grasp the absolute truth. It is mutual understanding that is really important nowadays. Therefore, modern philosophy should be polylogical.

Podcast Interview Transcript

Podcast Interview Transcript Madelyn H. Labella, Janelle Leppa, and Larkin Strong Welcome to Progress in Community Health Partnerships’latest episode of our Beyond the Manuscript podcast. In each volume of the Journal, the editors select one article for our Beyond the Manuscript post-study interview with the authors. Beyond the Manuscript provides the authors the opportunity to tell listeners what they would want to know about the project beyond what went into the final manuscript. In this episode of Beyond the Manuscript, Associate Editor, Larkin Strong, interviews Madelyn Labella and Janelle Leppa, authors of “Promoting Resilience by Improving Children’s Sleep: Feasibility among Families Living in Supportive Housing.” Your browser does not support the audio tag. Beyond the Manuscript. Click to hear audio Larkin Strong: Well, thank you Janelle and Madelyn for joining me in this interview. We’ll go ahead and get started. So the first question is that the manuscript describes how the partnership was initiated by the Simpson Housing Services staff who approached researchers at the University of Minnesota. Could you please talk more about how this happened and how the partnership came to be? Madelyn Labella: Sure, this is Madelyn. I am a doctoral candidate at the University, so I am on that side of things. And I was put in touch with Janelle by my academic advisor Ann Masten, who does a lot of research on understanding what helps children and families who are dealing with housing instability – homelessness or frequent moves – what helps them to be successful and resilient. And she had really identified self-regulation as one of those big factors and Janelle can talk a little bit more about how that sparked her interests and made her want to get connected to our research team. Janelle Leppa: Yes, thank you Madelyn. So, this is Janelle and yes at Simpson Housing Services we have been long fans of Dr. Masten and the amazing research team that she works with. They’ve done – I guess they’ve made enormous contributions towards work – really looking at the unique needs that children who’ve experienced homelessness have experienced and so, it’s something that we had benefitted from greatly. And I had the opportunity to run into Dr. Ann Masten at some point and we initiated a conversation around you know, kind of philosophy around her research, what some of their findings have been and just thought we really should get to know each other better and so I think there was some observation on both parts. She sent some of her research team to some of our family events and also we—my staff and I—had the opportunity to go and observe some of their, not sure what the word would be, some of maybe like a workshop in progress with families. [End Page 295] Janelle Leppa: And so I really had a high level of confidence going in and so I’m not sure, Madelyn, I’m not sure if it was with you, but I initially talked with somebody about how over and over again, I am hearing from parents that sleep is a struggle. Sleep – transitioning from an environment where families were sleeping in shelters often meant that families were in one room sleeping together and it was challenging to make a transition to sleeping maybe in a situation where you know the mom or dad had a room and the kids were in different spaces. A lot of just, you know children moving from place to place can throw a wrench in routine and so families struggled there. But also just how to settle before bed and I saw an amazing webinar, I think it was called like “Sleepless in America,” and it made these incredible connections between what just one or two hours left of sleep a night, how that can really impact a child in their motor mechanics and like their ability to focus. And it was just like seeing so many of the concerns that parents had raised and of course academics—children who...

Was jüdische Philosophie sein könnte (wenn es sie gäbe)

In a classic paper, Leon Roth asked »Is there a Jewish Philosophy?« to which he replied No. In this paper, focusing on the case of Medieval Jewish Philosophy, I argue, first, that we cannot characterize Jewish philosophy in terms of the identity, religious or secular, of its philosophers, in terms of a language in which it was written or conducted, in terms of a particular style or school, or in terms of content: as philosophy specifically of Judaism the religion. I then go on to argue that all the medieval Jewish philosophers were doing was Philosophy, although I sketch two different conceptions of what a philosophical interpretation of Judaism and the Jews might be: a Saadyanic model and Maimonides’. However, even though there is no kind of philosophy called »Jewish philosophy« as opposed to simply »Philosophy,« I argue that we can identify (medieval) Jewish philosophy as a philosophical »tradition,« a causally related sequence of philosophers who influence and are influenced by each other and who engage in a distinguishable dialogue or conversation among themselves. In the last part of the paper, I critically discuss various recent arguments that purport to show that there is something paradoxical, self-contradictory, and philosophically illegitimate about the very idea of a Jewish philosophy.

Spirituality in the Philosophical Thought of Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Spirituality for Seyyed Hossen Nasr is an inner reality that becomes a religious central in Islam. It is the esoteric dimension hidden in the reality of exoteric Islam. That view on spirituality brings Nasr to the philosophical thought that cannot be separated from religious metaphysical doctrine. Nasr argues that philosophy is more than just a ratio but also the activity of intellect that can reach the meta-cosmic nature to find the essence of truth namely the universal and eternal truth that lies behind the physical and relative truth. The philosophical efforts to find this truth are a combination of the optimizing potential of reason and intellectual intuition. Nasr refers to ḥikmah or wisdom as a kind of philosophy that combines logic and intellectual intuition. That philosophical view brings Nasr on a dualistic view of nature which not only has a cosmic dimension as such but also has a meta-cosmic dimension. This dualistic view is his fundamental reason in formulating the concept of metaphysical cosmology as a solution to the crisis of modern science that has caused a variety of ecological damage due to the secular vision. &#x0D; DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v20i2.812

Review: Barbara Cassin (ed.), Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon

The Dictionary of Untranslables: A Philosophical Lexicon, a translation of Vocabulaire européen des philosophies (2004), is an invaluable resource for researchers in philosophy and the humanities more generally. Gathering together the work of over 150 philosophers, this encyclopaedic project focuses on a series of philosophical terms that prove difficult to translate, disclosing their historical and linguistic intricacies. This review aims to provide a succinct analysis of its structure and rationale. It is suggested that a gap exists between the framing of the Dictionary in relation to a critical European cultural politics and the kind of philosophy it performs – a highly erudite contribution to both the history of philosophy and to philology. It is further argued that this does not get simpler with the edition of this book into English and the potential ‘globalization’ of its scope.

Planes of Immanence: Deleuzian Assemblage as a Mode of Thought in the Theatre of Ricardo Monti

Planes of Immanence:Deleuzian Assemblage as a Mode of Thought in the Theatre of Ricardo Monti Milton Loayza (bio) It may be that to believe in this world, in this life, has become our most difficult task, the task of a mode of existence to be discovered on our plane of immanence today. —Gilles Deleuze1 Introduction: Performance and Immanence Argentine playwright Ricardo Monti belongs to a generation, which includes authors such as Eduardo Pavlovsky and Roberto Sosa, who experienced the revolutionary and utopian impulses of the 1960s and 1970s in Argentina, in conflict with repressive forces that led to the dictatorship of 1976–1983. Since the return of democracy, Monti continues to write a politically and historically engaged theatre; he is considered a major reference for new generations of playwrights. Various scholarly studies of Monti’s theatre (by Monteleone, Pellettieri, and Graham-Jones, for example) are in agreement when establishing that theatrical dynamism, symbolic density, intertextuality, and experimentation with alternative structures are present in his work.2 Four main features characterize his work: the use of metatheatrical devices, the presence of various forms of parody, its reference to past history, and the ambiguity of its narrative resolutions. These highlight Monti’s search for alternative expressions of reality through theatre, as well as the eccentricity of his aesthetics. Nevertheless, identifying these characteristics falls short of pinpointing the source of the work’s impact, its unity, and its specific innovations. One reason for this shortcoming, I argue, is the treatment of the plays as representation, leading to hermeneutic impasses that, even as they are related to Argentina’s conflicted history, do not translate into a unified vision. A Deleuzian approach, where an author uses theatre for a project related to performance instead of representation, will be more efficacious in conveying continuity in Monti’s work. Rather than confronting us with aporias and/or indeterminacy, the plays are performances that draw paths of becoming. Monti believes that as an artist engaged in the bourgeois practice of theatre, he must commit to critique its thought immanently from the inside of that [End Page 79] practice.3 The plays, then, exploit theatre as an image of thought in the Deleuzian sense of “giv[ing] itself of what it means to think, to make use of thought, to find one’s bearings in thought.”4 The Deleuzian concept of immanence, specifically, as Laura Cull has suggested, allows us to “rethink performance itself as a kind of philosophy.”5 The aesthetics of Monti’s plays, the nature of their theatricality, and their ethical/political sense, come into prominence when his dramatic work is understood as a thought experiment that spans the playwright’s career. Like Gilles Deleuze’s theories, Monti’s work concerns contemporary frustration about our mode of investment in the world, whether it may be understood in personal, political, economic, or historical terms. Deleuze understood this crisis as one of the plane of immanence; that is, our capacity to engage our human desire and potentiality in pure becoming with no transcendental end or reference. For Deleuze, it is not an issue of believing in the world but “in its possibilities of movements and intensities, so as once again to give birth to new modes of existence.”6 The search for planes of immanence is a historical task because it is tied to a critique of global capitalism, and to a recognition of the openings and obstacles for revolutionary transformation that globalization offers. Immanence therefore defines practices that engage the state of things as a being in crisis, yet refuse to seek a transcendent path out of the crisis. Instead, this practice chooses to produce more immanence and freedom from the givens in the status quo. In relation to theatre, Deleuze translates the issue of immanence as a rejection of the fixity of representational theatre, which emphasizes perception, while searching for a theatre that takes root in the instability of becoming. This means that theatre must yield to the productivity of desire and thought. Similarly, the plays of Ricardo Monti insist on the theatrical condition of characters and actors, because theatre, unlike the illusions that inform our situation in the world, gives us a better...

Jakiej filozofii pedagodzy potrzebują? O początkach pedagogiki uniwersyteckiej w Krakowie

The article is primarily concerned with the first three decades of the 19th c. but it also refers back to the origins of the (reformed) University of Krakow, and to the times of activities of the Committee of National Education. It discusses historical events connected with the functioning of the university, and the philosophy and pedagogy taught there. In those times the lectures were based on the then novel assumptions found in foreign manuals. The title of the article is a paraphrase of the title of Rev. K. Jaroński's lecture: 'What kind of philosophy do Poles need?' - delivered a year after the University of Krakow was once again able to lecture in the Polish language. The text places particular emphasis on the essential connection between pedagogy and philosophy which is the source of necessary axiological fundamentals for the former. At that time, in Krakow there was a heated 'debate about Kant', the best known and accepted argument being that presented by 'the Scottish school' or realistic 'common sense philosophy'.

Response to Commentators on Waking, Dreaming, Being

Response to Commentators on Waking, Dreaming, Being Evan Thompson (bio) Let me begin by thanking my commentators for taking the time to read my book and to write such constructive commentaries. I would also like to thank Christian Coseru for organizing and chairing the panel at the International Society for Buddhist Philosophy at the 2015 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, at which three of the commentaries were originally presented together with my response. Finally, I am grateful to Philosophy East and West for publishing this exchange. Philosophy East and West published my first academic paper, so I am especially happy to have this exchange appear here.1 In what follows, I have arranged my response according to the topics and issues raised by the commentators, rather than responding separately to each author. Autobiography and Phenomenology Owen Flanagan invites me to say more about the autobiographical quality of my book. His invitation overlaps the first group of questions that Jennifer Windt asks in her rich and reflective commentary. She wonders whether my use of my own experience reports “exemplifies a distinct philosophical practice” and plays “a unique argumentative function.” She raises three specific questions. First, she asks “whether an author’s own experience reports have a privileged evidential status in the context of theoretical arguments, both in general and in philosophy of mind in particular.” Second, she asks whether gaining firsthand familiarity with the types of experience one is investigating is “not just beneficial, but perhaps even necessary for certain types of philosophical work, for instance on meditation or dreams.” Finally, she asks about the implications of using first-person methods and relying on experience reports for teaching philosophy. Should we provide opportunities and methods for students to observe firsthand the experiences we are philosophically investigating? Let me begin with an autobiographical remark. When I was growing up I would often hear my father say—attributing the remark to Thomas Mann—that scholarship is frequently disguised autobiography. By this he meant that scholarly narratives, usually about history or literature, tend to be hidden, projective self-descriptions. Authors present themselves as impartially defending views that are really identity constitutive of their psyche or social role, all the while remaining blind to this fact, and thereby suffering from false consciousness. It is interesting to consider whether this accusation would be justified for any given philosophical text. In any case, the fact remains that philosophers today, especially so-called “analytic” philosophers, strive for a maximally impersonal form of expression, one in which the author’s personal [End Page 982] life and history play no role in the exposition. We state and defend philosophical views, but how we came to hold these views is supposed to be a contingent matter that is of no essence to the philosophy. As we learn in the philosophy of science, there is the “context of discovery” and the “context of justification,” and justification is supposed to be what is philosophically important. In writing Waking, Dreaming, Being, I wanted to do a different kind of philosophy. I wanted to produce a philosophical narrative in which the autobiographical story behind the philosophical concerns wasn’t hidden or disguised. That meant being forthright about how I came to be preoccupied with certain questions about the self and mind and consciousness, and about why the effort to negotiate among contemplative practice, Indian philosophy, and cognitive science had become existentially mandatory for me. My hope in writing this way was that readers—especially those outside academic philosophy—would be able to see why philosophy matters and how it can animate a personal intellectual quest and the way one lives one’s life. In this way, my use of autobiography and experience reports is meant to serve a distinct philosophical practice. The practice is to write philosophy in a way that reveals its sources and motivations in one’s life, and to be forthright about how one comes to hold certain views and change them in dialogue and debate with others. The argumentative function of writing this way is not so much to argue for any particular conclusion, but rather to make a case for philosophy altogether as part of...

Seneca’s philosophic writings: lessons of humanism?

Seneca’s name is often associated with the notion of „humanism“. In this article we attempt to verify and define the meaning of this notion in the context of Seneca’s writings. Our question is: what kind of philosophy, according to Seneca, can be useful and delivering to a man afflicted with life’s many misfortunes? This question encompasses all the main meanings of both Latin humanitas and later European “humanism”, because it concerns “humanities” (humanitas as paide%a), which best of all suites the true human nature (humanitas as the true essence of human being); we also ask: what should philosophic education be so that it helps the struggling humankind (humanitas as filanqrwp%a). Such an amalgam of ideas is not our construct, but is actually found in the writings by Seneca himself. However, in this way following Seneca’s thought, we discover rather paradoxical species of “humanism”, the one which should be called “cosmo-centrism”.

The Benefit to Philosophy of the Study of Its History

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history.

Later Wittgenstein's Anti-Philosophical Therapy

AbstractThe object of this essay is to discuss Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks inPhilosophical Investigationsand elsewhere in the posthumously published writings concerning the role of therapy in relation to philosophy. Wittgenstein's reflections seem to suggest that there is a kind of philosophy or mode of investigation targeting the philosophical grammar of language uses that gratuitously give rise to philosophical problems, and produce in many thinkers philosophical anxieties for which the proper therapy is intended to offer relief. Two possible objectives of later Wittgensteinian therapy are proposed, for subjectivepsychologicalversus objectivesemanticsymptoms of ailments that a therapy might address for the sake of relieving philosophical anxieties. The psychological in its most plausible form is rejected, leaving only the semantic. Semantic therapy in the sense defined and developed is more general and long-lasting, and more in the spirit of Wittgenstein's project on a variety of levels. A semantic approach treats language rather than the thinking, language-using subject as the patient needing therapy, and directs its attention to the treatment of problems in language and the conceptual framework a language game use expresses in its philosophical grammar, rather than to soothing unhappy or socially ill-adjusted individual psychologies.