Metaphysical Theory Research Articles

Covid-19, the Eucharist and spreading disease through Christianity’s holiest rite

During the Covid-19 pandemic in the USA, churches were faced with a question of medical and metaphysical importance: can Christianity’s rite of Holy Communion spread Covid-19? This article examines Christian responses to Covid-19 through a case study of five of Christianity’s multifaceted Covid eucharistic policies, arguing that the responses of churches in times of crisis reflect a nuanced understanding of the metaphysical theories surrounding the Eucharist. The goal of this article is to serve as a primer on the relationships between beliefs of the Eucharist and Covid-19 in American churches, seeking to provide an overview and facilitate further inquiry into modern concerns of Christianity’s holiest rite and the spread of disease.

The Metatheoretical Location of our Commitments: Heterodox Truthmaking as a Case Study

This paper explores the ‘metatheoretical location’ of principles in metaphysical theories, using the debate between Cameron and Goff as a case study. These principles can be situated either in a pre-theoretical framework or within the process of theorizing itself. Traditional truthmaking theorists, like Goff, view truthmaking principles as pre-theoretical assumptions that guide metaphysical inquiry. In contrast, Cameron advocates for a heterodox approach, where such principles are treated as theoretical conclusions reached through contentious debate and argumentation. This distinction has significant implications for how theories are evaluated. By examining this debate, the paper highlights how the metatheoretical positioning of methodological principles influences theoretical discourse in analytic metaphysics.

The Theory of Being and the Argument for Forms in Plato’s Sophist

Abstract This paper argues for two claims. First, that in the Sophist a metaphysical theory of being is constructed from the ground up, largely on the basis of a claim treated as an axiomatic principle, the ‘dunamis proposal’ (247d–e), which, I will argue, ought to be understood as Plato’s own definition of being. Second, once its core is in place, the theory is put to use to provide dialectical arguments against proponents of alternative metaphysical theories for the existence of various entities in the ontology. These include—notably—an argument for the existence of Forms.

Comforting delusions? How to evaluate the plausibility of mystical-type insights in psychedelic experiences

ABSTRACT Psychedelics can facilitate mystical-type insights and beliefs, such as the belief that the fundamental nature of reality is loving consciousness. These belief changes could underlie the positive effects of psychedelics on wellbeing. However, mystical-type beliefs have been criticized of being delusional, as they contradict naturalism. Here I argue that naturalism is one metaphysical position among several competing ones. There is no definite way of choosing one metaphysical theory over others, as there are several metaphysical positions that are internally consistent and compatible with scientific knowledge. This calls for metaphysical agnosticism, which entails that psychedelic-facilitated metaphysical beliefs cannot be considered as delusional simply if they contradict naturalism. However, the challenge is to distinguish between beliefs that are strictly metaphysical and other mystical-type beliefs, which can include, for example, paranormal beliefs. Metaphysical agnosticism does not apply to the latter and they can be considered as problematic. I apply metaphysical agnosticism to evaluate mystical-type belief changes associated with the use of psychedelics, as indicated by empirical research. I consider the possibility that mystical-type beliefs are ineffable and non-conceptual, which entails that we should not take conceptualizations of them too seriously. I conclude by discussing the implications of metaphysical agnosticism for psychedelic-assisted therapy.

The metaphysics of mechanisms: an ontic structural realist perspective

Existing metaphysical accounts of mechanisms commit to the existence of objects or entities posited in scientific theories, and thus fall within the category of maximal metaphysics. In this paper, I demonstrate the incompatibility of object-based metaphysics of mechanisms with the prevailing trend in the philosophy of physics by discussing the so-called bottoming-out problem. In response, I propose and flesh out a structuralist metaphysics of mechanisms based on Ontic Structural Realism (OSR), which is a kind of minimal metaphysics. I argue that the metaphysical underpinnings of mechanisms are structures, whose metaphysical nature is elaborated through comparison with existing metaphysical theories of mechanisms. After that, I address the concern of whether objects in mechanisms can be accommodated in my account by invoking existing metaphysical theories of objects in special science by structuralists, such as Ladyman, J., & Ross, D. (2007). Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. Oxford University Press.)’s real pattern account, and suggesting a potential alignment between OSR and processual ontology. Finally, I demonstrate how my view can naturally serve as the metaphysics for Mechanism 2.0 and be applied to systems biology.

Human Research Methodology

Scientific research methods are essential. Each science has its subject matter and different methodologies that produce different cognitive results. Science is human life, however, science becomes a metaphysical theory, it is governed by the methodology of philosophy in history or mathematics. Philosophy and mathematics are theoretical sciences, making the related sciences into models, ideals, and pure reason. The inability of science becomes human misfortune, science becomes strange to people. True science starts from human life and becomes a methodology for researching related scientific disciplines. When studying the outside world, people uphold the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness, development, specific history, and practice. When studying life, the object is perceived that human beings are living in the process of creating abilities and needs that make life rich and diverse. Humans are both the subject and the object of scientific research. Interdisciplinary sciences have in common that they take human life as the object of research.

SCIENTIFIC LIFE

Objective: The objective of this study is to clarify the unity between science and human life. Thereby clarifying that science is a product of human life. Science becomes a commodity in trade to make money. This study aims to contribute to clarifying the difference between creativity and scientific instinct. Methods: To achieve the above-stated goals, this study uses a qualitative method. In particular, the content of this research is reviewed and analyzed from human science. In addition, the subject accesses documents mainly from Karl Marx's complete works and academic articles referring to human life. Results: Examining human life as directly related to science reveals several important findings. First, science takes the methodology from the history of philosophy and mathematics as scientific instinct. Second, true science is closely related to human life, that is creativity in science, this is the most basic characteristic of true science. Third, creativity in science becomes a scientific commodity, making the products of science have a money instinct. In human life, science becomes a money instinct. Conclusion: Science is human life. Human life is expressed in different professions and job positions. Different job positions have different abilities and needs. One person's ability is another person's need. Satisfying ability is creativity. The creation of life is science. That is scientific life. Science separated from life becomes metaphysical theory and pure reason. Pure reason becomes a cognitive methodology, making science strange. All perception depends on pure reason, making the rest of life an aspiration and an ideal that is foreign to real life.

Юридическая логика: генезис, значение и место в современной теории государства и права

This paper examines the theoretical and historical issues of the emergence, formation and development of special legal logic, and predicts possible trends in the further development of legal logic as a special theory of state and law. The question of the relationship between special legal logic and general formal logic is considered. The author's view on the periodization of the formation and historical development of legal logic as a scientific discipline about the laws of legal thinking is given. Within the framework of this work, the question of the relationship and role of metaphysical and dialectical methods in legal research, which is important for the methodology of legal science, is examined, the historical relationship of these methods is considered, an attempt is made on the basis of scientific sources on which the authors relied when preparing this study, as well as with taking into account the author’s own position developed when working on this research, forecast trends in the further development of legal logic and identify emerging trends in the development of legal methodological research. For the purpose of studying the problems of interaction between logical and legal sciences, determining the subject of legal logic by considering historical examples of attempts to “logize” state legal phenomena using universal logical constructions, the result of which, contrary to the expectations of the researchers carrying them out, was the reverse process of “legalization” of the applied universal logical constructions, their enrichment with the specifics of state-legal phenomena and institutions, justifying the independence of the subject area of legal logic, special attention in this work is paid to the study of the process of transformation of the metaphysical theory of G.V.F. Hegel into his political dialectics. For the purpose of identifying trends in the development of the methodological foundation of legal logic, this work examines the problems of the relationship between rationalistic and empirical approaches in legal research. At the conclusion of this study, the authors consider the question of the possibility of forming special theories of state and law, which was previously raised by Professor A.B. Vengerov, outlines the author's approach to this issue, and proposes an approach to the question of the place of legal logic in the system of scientific knowledge as a special theory of state and law.

Methodology of Scientific Cognizance

Methodology in scientific research is essential. Each science has its own object, and different methodologies cause and result in different perceptions. Science is human life, however, science becomes metaphysical theory because it is conditioned by the methodology of philosophy or mathematics. Philosophy and mathematics are theoretical sciences, which makes the related sciences dream, ideal, and science fantasy. The helplessness of science becomes man's misfortune, science becomes alien to man. True science begins with real people living, that is human science. Human science becomes the methodology in the study of related sciences. When studying the outside world, people uphold the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness, development, specific history, and research practice. When studying life, the perceived object begins to die from the real person, in the process, people always create possibilities and needs. The transformation between abilities, needs means and goals makes life rich and diverse. Humans are both subjects and objects of scientific research. The interdisciplinary sciences have in common that they take human activities as research objects.

The fundamental facts can be logically simple

AbstractI like the view that the fundamental facts are logically simple, not complex. However, some universal generalizations and negations may appear fundamental, because they cannot be explained by logically simple facts about particulars. I explore a natural reply: those universal generalizations and negations are true because certain logically simple facts—call them φφ—are the fundamental facts. I argue that this solution is only available given some metaphysical frameworks, some conceptions of metaphysical explanation and fundamentality. It requires a ‘fitting’ framework, according to which metaphysical theories explain the aptness of representations in terms of how things are fundamentally. Fitting frameworks conceive of the fundamental facts as those that are metaphysically ‘real’; call them the ‘facts‐in‐reality’. Moreover, we must take as primary a plural notion of the facts‐in‐reality, not the singular notion of a fact‐in‐reality. By contrast, a metaphysics that grounds facts is incompatible with my strategy for keeping the fundamental facts logically simple.

On the Question of Soul Wounding: Secular Debility, Biopolitics, and Canada's Right to Maim

Jasbir Puar has demonstrated that the targeted debilitation of entire racialized populations embodies a contemporary illustration of colonialism’s machine. For Puar, colonizing states exist as biopolitical assemblages of control, the technologies of which instrumentalize a spectrum of debilities and capacities in the service of neoliberal colonialism, which requires maiming populations who are preconditioned for injury to secure sovereign power. This paper stages a conversation with Jasbir Puar to ask what additional insights might be gained about the relationship between colonialism and debility if critical disability scholarship went beyond a Foucauldian biopolitical analysis of the management of life, death, and debility when theorizing colonial violence. This paper thus reads across postcolonial and anti-colonial thought as well as Indigenous theories of trauma to encourage critical disability studies to expand the horizon of its reading practices when engaging these questions. These approaches, I maintain, provide critical insights into sovereign power that biopolitics cannot, including critical attention to non-secular configurations of settler colonial debility that biopolitical theory misses. I aim to show that a locus of Canada’s colonial sovereignty resides in targeted attacks, or “dis-membering,” forms of Indigenous non-secular transcendent self-consciousness—that is, the sanctioned maiming of Indigenous heterogeneous agencies in the service of neocolonial economic designs. In this sense, theories of metaphysics and violence must also be accounted for when attending to debility, colonialism, and sovereign power.

The law of naming: who is who according to their actual intellectual and spiritual potential

The article analyses fundamental differences between different types of man on the basis of metaphysical theory of personality: dependent and mediocre, personality and genius. Differences in understanding of ideas, truth, morality, duties, responsibility, ability to perceive and understand philosophical categories and concepts have been revealed. Different content of consciousness and self-consciousness, professional and intellectual capabilities, motives, thinking, ability to reflection have been well-proven. Fundamental differences in the attitude toward society, the process of making decisions, existential aspects of human vital functions have been revealed. It has been grounded that metaphysical theory of personality is able to set forth criteria for understanding of human essence.

A comprehensive review on Basic Principles of Samkhya Darshana and their implications in Charaka Samhita

Samkhya Darshana is considered as one of the oldest and prominent school of Indian theistic philosophy. Traditionally propounded by Maharshi Kapila and was written as Samkhya Sutra, it became lost with the passage of time. Around 8th century Ishwarakrishna compiled all the principles of Samkhya philosophy in Samkhyakarika which is now considered as the most important textual resource. Samkhya philosophy propounds various metaphysical theories notably theory of Karya Karana Siddhanta as Sat Karya Vada, theory of Prakriti and Purusha, theory of evolution of universe, theory of three Gunas of Prakriti along with its unique triad of epistemology. Charaka Samhita being the most important compendium of Ayurveda has got inspired by many such philosophical theories of different philosophical schools, Samkhya and Vaisheshika being the most important among them. Charaka Samhita has adopted many philosophical understandings of Samkhya and subsequently implied them to form its own unique philosophical principles. The implications of such many theories of Samkhya like Sat Karya Vada, Prakriti and Purusha, Tri-Guna, theory of evolution of this universe and application of Pramana Vigyana (theory of knowledge) can be found in throughout Charaka Samhita. It is interesting to see how instead of blindly adopting those theories of Samkhya, Charaka Samhita has modulated them incorporating the understandings of its authors to frame out its own philosophical principles and to apply them in fulfilment of the chief objectives of Ayurveda like maintenance of health of a healthy person and alleviation of disease from a diseased person. In this study the author has tried to analyse the principle philosophical understandings of Samkhya Darshana and how those are later adopted in Charaka Samhita.

Ix—How Is Metaphysics Possible?

Abstract In the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant raises a famous question: how is metaphysics possible as a science? Kant posed this question for his predecessors in early modern philosophy. I raise this question anew for the resurgence of metaphysics within analytic philosophy. I begin by dividing the question of the possibility of metaphysics into separate questions about its semantic and epistemic possibility, and translate them into contemporary terms as: (1) Why do terms in metaphysical theories refer? (2) How do we have knowledge in metaphysics? I then argue that the inflationary conception of metaphysics cannot explain the semantic possibility of metaphysics and, consequently, cannot explain its epistemic possibility. I then argue, more briefly, that a deflationary conception cannot satisfactorily answer the Kantian questions either. The critical path alone remains open.

Empty Reality, Luminous Mind: The Metaphysics of “One Reality” and “One Mind” in Shi Sengwei’s “Shizhu jing hanzhu xu”

Abstract This paper is the first in-depth study of Shi Sengwei’s 釋僧衛 (fl. late fourth and early fifth centuries) “Shizhu jing hanzhu xu” 十住經含注序. By situating Sengwei’s text in the proper intellectual-historical context and proposing crucial emendations in its surviving recensions, I analyze its ontological and psychological claims that advance a unique metaphysical theory that explains the emergence of sense objects and individual minds as the result of the interaction between “one reality” (yifa 一法) and “one mind” (yixin 一心). I then identify philosophical and phraseological influences of Huiyuan’s 慧遠 (334–416) theory of the imperishability of the soul (shen bumie 神不滅) on Sengwei’s thought, and furthermore argue that Sengwei’s “one mind” was the source of the theory of the “one mind” in the Dasheng qi xin lun 大乘起信論.

Zhuangzi’s Copernican Revolution from the Perspective of Structural Realism

This article discusses Zhuangzi’s metaphysical theory from the standpoint of a form of structural ontology that was developed by neurophilosopher Northoff and which differs from typical studies of Zhuangzi’s metaphysics. According to Nossoff’s world–brain relationship, a structural positivism based on relationships, the body is nested in the world and the brain is nested in the body. Northoff contends that elements of Eastern philosophy support this viewpoint. I have examined three aspects of Zhuangzi’s philosophy by interpreting his texts: the existence of a world independent from the subject and mind, the subject and mind dependent on the world, and the coexistence of differentiation and inclusiveness between the world and the subject. The problem this article attempts to address is how Zhuangzi achieved a Copernican revolution within the framework of non-reductive neurophilosophy, bringing about a shift away from non-anthropocentrism.

Why Aren’t I Part of a Whale?

AbstractWe start by presenting three different views that jointly imply that every person has many conscious beings in their immediate vicinity, and that the number greatly varies from person to person. We then present and assess an argument to the conclusion that how confident someone should be in these views should sensitively depend on how massive they happen to be. According to the argument, sometimes irreducibly de se observations can be powerful evidence for or against believing in metaphysical theories.

A Metaphysical Theory Connecting Mind, Matter, and Meaning

Dual-aspect monism proposes that reality consists of a single, undifferentiated, holistic “substance” (monism) that splits into mind and matter (dual aspects). In this view, mind and matter are linked, or intimately correlated, by meaning. These tight correlations do not imply that mind causally affects matter, or vice versa, but rather they point to an acausal relation. Atmanspacher and Rickles propose that this metaphysical theory, based on deep philosophical roots and refined based on ideas from quantum mechanics, provides a satisfying model of reality that does justice to both the mental and physical domains. They describe a line of qualitative research that appears to support their theory, but they inexplicably dismiss a much larger body of quantitative studies that provide far greater support.

The national idea and ideology of personalism as a humanitarian aura of Ukrainianity

The study analyzed the role and significance of the Ukrainian national idea (UNI) and national ideology for the establishment of independence, in particular, for the spiritual victory of Ukrainians in the Russian-Ukrainian war. UNI is considered not only as a response to socio-political and economic problems of the Ukrainian nation’s development, but also as a multi-aspect – existential, metaphysical, global – challenge. In order to resolve this complex of problems, a fundamental rethinking of views on human and society and the mechanisms of their interaction was carried out. The essence of the author’s theory of stages of the person’s spiritual development has been formulated as a metaphysical theory of personality, that has a historic-philosophical tradition originating from ancient Chinese and ancient philosophy. A person in the process of his socio-political and spiritual development is able to go through the following stages of spiritual formation: dependent, mediocre person, personality and genius, although he can stop at lower stages of development. On this basis, it is proved that there can be only two paradigms of human existence: either impersonal or personal, and their fundamental features are formulated. The concepts of equality and spiritual hierarchy have been carried out. Skovoroda’s idea of unequal equality is interpreted as a combination of equality and hierarchy: civil-political, legal equality and spiritual hierarchy. It was offered to prioritize the spiritual and metaphysical theory of personality as the basis of UNI, in which the last one is the substance, that is, the primary carrier of social existence. UNI appears as a response to the dominance of the mediocre person and the depersonalized paradigm of his existence, as a unity of primary principles and primary sources (personalities), who are their creators and actors. Such understanding of the Ukrainian idea provides grounds for a holistic solution to the socio-political, existential, pedagogical, historical, and metaphysical problems of the nation and has the prospect of spiritual improvement of the covital society. On the basis of metaphysical theory of personality and UNI, the main provisions of the national ideology were formulated, the purpose of which is to form a critical mass of ethnically conscious personalities. It is argued that a military victory requires the establishment in the public consciousness of the fundamental provisions of the UNI and the ideology of personalism. It is offered to put the guiding principles of the UNI and the ideology of personalism as a framework condition of the social contract, that will contribute to overcoming impersonal tendencies in Ukrainian society.

Spinoza’s Strong Eudaimonism

In this paper I defend an eudaimonistic reading of Spinoza’s ethical philosophy. Eudaimonism refers to the mainstream ethical tradition of the ancient Greeks, which considers happiness a naturalistic, stable, and exclusively intrinsic good. Within this tradition, we can also draw a distinction between weak eudaimonists and strong eudaimonists. Weak eudaimonists do not ground their ethical conceptions of happiness in complete theories of metaphysics, epistemology, or psychology. Strong eudaimonists, conversely, build their conceptions of happiness around an overall philosophical system that extends far beyond ethics, while nevertheless being directed at the promotion of a happy life. I will show that Spinozistic happiness is not only naturalistic, stable, and exclusively intrinsically good, but that Spinoza is also a strong eudaimonist because his ethical account of happiness is incomprehensible without appeal to metaphysical, epistemological, and psychological doctrines. As well, I will explain how the apparent subjective and relativistic features of Spinoza’s ethics do not undermine the eudaimonistic reading, because both Spinoza and the ancient eudaimonists grant that the beliefs/feelings of the subject play a necessary (but insufficient) role in happiness as the highest good.