Philosophical Commentary Research Articles

Navigating the uncommon: challenges in applying evidence-based medicine to rare diseases and the prospects of artificial intelligence solutions.

The study of rare diseases has long been an area of challenge for medical researchers, with agonizingly slow movement towards improved understanding of pathophysiology and treatments compared with more common illnesses. The push towards evidence-based medicine (EBM), which prioritizes certain types of evidence over others, poses a particular issue when mapped onto rare diseases, which may not be feasibly investigated using the methodologies endorsed by EBM, due to a number of constraints. While other trial designs have been suggested to overcome these limitations (with varying success), perhaps the most recent and enthusiastically adopted is the application of artificial intelligence to rare disease data. This paper critically examines the pitfalls of EBM (and its trial design offshoots) as it pertains to rare diseases, exploring the current landscape of AI as a potential solution to these challenges. This discussion is also taken a step further, providing philosophical commentary on the weaknesses and dangers of AI algorithms applied to rare disease research. While not proposing a singular solution, this article does provide a thoughtful reminder that no 'one-size-fits-all' approach exists in the complex world of rare diseases. We must balance cautious optimism with critical evaluation of new research paradigms and technology, while at the same time not neglecting the ever-important aspect of patient values and preferences, which may be challenging to incorporate into computer-driven models.

Fazang’s mereology as a model for holism

Recently, much attention has been given to Buddhism as a precursor to contemporary holistic theories, and more specifically to the Huayan school’s radical holistic metaphysics (often given the metaphorical name of The Net of Indra), as well as to Huayan’s most elaborate theoretician, Fazang. Nevertheless, contemporary interpretations of Fazang have been weighted by either too strict an adherence to atomistic logic or by unfortunate translations. In this paper, I present new translations of the key passages of Fazang’s The Rafter Dialogue, as well as a philosophical commentary that his departure from atomism. I then proceed to argue that the six characteristics Fazang attributes to a whole that cannot be reduced to its parts are both sufficient and necessary for holism.

The wounds of war and the scars of culture: Simone Weil and René Girard on the symmetry of violence

The philosophical discourses of violence developed in the 20th century can be grasped in two fundamental paradigms: the paradigm of force (Simone Weil) and the paradigm of domination (Horkheimer and Adorno). This article aims at situating René Girard’s theory of the culture within the paradigm of violence as an immediate force, stemming from Simone Weil’s phenomenological description of force in The Iliad. Simone Weil can be read as a model for modern reflection on violence in different ways. One of them can be identifying her interpretation of The Iliad as a starting point for the critique or even unmasking of blind reifying violence through the philosophy of culture: an example of this kind of translation can be found in Girard and his analyses of the figure of the scapegoat and rituals of violence, (sanctioned within myth), transferring violence into a sacral sphere. The pivotal point of the comparison is the concept of kydos, “the triumphant fascination of superior violence,” developed by Girard in Violence and the Sacred. The Greek term, which connects violence, understood in the mode of immediate force, with the magical and sacral dimension, serves as a key concept for comparison of the two thinkers’ conceptualizations of force. It allows interpretation of the conceptual tenets of Girardian theory, such as unanimity, symmetry, mimesis, and myth in the light of the key concepts of Weil, such as reification, symmetry, unawareness, and the blind mechanism of force. It also allows us to point out the discrepancies between the two conceptualizations (above all, the tensions between the rationality and irrationality of violence) and to grasp Girard’s theory as a philosophical commentary on Weil’s insights. This is going to fill a space on the map of modern discourses of violence.

When a woman becomes a plant: looking at philosophical discourses through literary narratives

ABSTRACT Transcending the human perspective has always been a challenge – for philosophical as well as for literary and scientific narratives. The present study focuses on such a transcendence from humans to plants through a joint reading of a philosophical and a literary narrative in a form of interdisciplinary conversation. Instead of interpreting literature by means of philosophical commentaries, the philosophical narrative itself will be focused and illuminated through the literary text. The essay La vie des plantes (The Life of Plants) (2016) by Emanuele Coccia is chosen as the philosophical component of this approach. The literary lens for focusing on Coccia’s phenomenological treatise enacts the imagery concerning the gradual transformation of a woman into a plant in the story ‘The Fruit of my Woman’ published in 1997 by the South Korean author Han Kang.

Spinoza’s Model of God: Pantheism or Panentheism?

The philosophical God of Spinoza is branded as a pantheistic God so often that, regarding at least Western philosophy and philosophical commentaries, Spinozism seems to be practically synonymous with pantheism. Since the times of German idealism, there have also been attempts at a panentheistic reading, which are still alive to this day. The article analyses both theological models in their core claims to adequately qualify Spinoza’s theological system while considering the established levels of philosophical-theological interpretation. By identifying systemic pantheism and essentialist panentheism in his system, it is argued that both accounts or readings of Spinoza’s theory might be correct in their own way, provided that the models behind them are correctly applied to their respective levels of thought.

Ibn ʿArabī’s School of Thought: Philosophical Commentaries on Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, not a Sufi Order

Followers of Ibn ʿArabī are considered to constitute an “Akbari” school of thought. The use of the term ‘school’ assumes some sort of cohesion, but the nature of this has been little studied. I argue that adherents found a substitute for the in-person study sessions (sing. majlis) that were common among Sufis, by identifying Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam with Ibn ʿArabī. Thus they were able to establish a direct connection with their preferred master by reading and commenting on this book. By placing their own commentary among other commentar­ies on the Fuṣūṣ, they created a bookish majlis; a dialogue with their master and other students similar to an in-person majlis. Whether conscious or subconscious, this idea became prevalent: no real organization such as a Sufi order came to be, but instead we have dozens and dozens of direct commen­taries. Making Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam an icon for Ibn ʿArabī became, at times, so strong as to turn the book into an idol or effigy.

Вопросы о типах дистинкций. <Вопрос 7>

This publication is a translation of a Latin text by the Franciscan philosopher and theolo­gian of the first third of the 14th century, Petrus Thomae (c. 1280–1340). Petrus Thomae is one of the early followers of the philosophy and theology of John Duns Scotus and probably the most interesting and important metaphysician belonging to the emerging among the Franciscan scholars in the 1310s–1330s “schola Scotica”. We have translated the text of the 7th question from the metaphysical treatise of Petrus Thomae “Questions on the modes of distinctions” (written around 1325). This question is an explication of the concept of “formality” fundamental to the early Scotist tradition and its relation­ship with the metaphysical concept of a thing, as well as an analysis of the problem most discussed among the first followers of Scotus: to what extent the formal distinction (or the distinction between formalities) coincides with or differs from the real distinction as a distinction between different things. Thus, this rather brief question by Petrus is an exploration of a problematic at the heart of the metaphysics and epistemology of the early Scotists, and of paramount importance both for the consideration of questions of scholastic theology and for the philosophical analysis of finite being and its constitu­tion. The translation from Latin was made from the “working edition” of the Latin text of this question prepared by the translator, which was constituted on the basis of a colla­tio of 6 manuscripts of the 14th–15th centuries. The translation is accompanied by a histo­rical and philosophical commentary and preliminary remarks by the translator.

Egzystencjalne spojrzenie na „Opowiadania Muminków”. Filozoficzny komentarz do „Muminków. Droga do dojrzałości” Olgi Tokarczuk

The article is a philosophical commentary on Olga Tokarczuk’s therapy program Moomins: Road to Maturity . The main goal of the article is to show the existential background of Moomin Stories , and thus go beyond the interpretation proposed by the Nobel Prize winner in the perspective of depth psychology. The article emphasizes the adoption of a different attitude towards Tokarczuk’s reading of Moomins , which is reductionist and deterministic. Meanwhile, the existential interpretation allows for a critical discussion of the assumptions adopted in the psychological and developmental reading of the Nobel Prize winner.

Hand and Engraving: from Flocon’s Engravings to Bachelard’s Philosophizing

"This text deals with the relationships between the phenomenalizations of hand and engraving art, especially against the background of Gaston Bachelard’s philosophical commentaries on the works of Albert Flocon. Special space is devoted to the interpretation of Flocon’s engraving of two hands in connection with Escher’s similar lithography. Another thematic field is the role of the tool and the hand equipped with the tool. However, the central axis of this thinking is the interconnection or intertwining of body and matter, the interactive relationship between human being and matter, between visual observation and dynamic haptics, which require a certain force and thus also experience the back pressure of matter. The conclusion of the text draws attention to a specific engraving, such as writing, especially the writing of a philosophical text, as we read about it in Bachelard’s book The Flame of a Candle, the last word of which is—surprisingly—engraving. Keywords: poetics of touching, engraving, instrumentality, resistance of matter, work of art "

The commentarial strategies of “Jie Lao” (Explaining the Laozi)

“Jie Lao” (Explaining the Laozi) is a chapter of the Hanfeizi and an early example of the genre of philosophical commentary. The commentator explains and analyses the Laozi’s propositions and simultaneously, on their basis, develops another set of teachings. He activates the term pattern (li) to design ways for putting the Laozi’s Dao to practical use. The article documents the contrast between both commentarial strategies. It thereby throws some light on an early stage of China’s long tradition of commentarial writings.

Античная метафизика и христианская теология в «Гимнах о Троице» Мария Викторина

The article deals with the reception of ancient metaphysics in the “Hymns of Trinity” of Marius Victorinus. In the first part, the author investigates a hypothetical time of writing and the literary, artistic, and compositional features of the hymns, which, in all likelihood, were written ca. 363, in the mature period of Victorinus’ literary activity, and represent a summary of his entire philosophical and theological system, which makes the hymns extremely important for understanding the evolution of his thought. In the second section of the article, the author analyzes the basic doctrinal issues where the links between ancient metaphysics and Christian theology are evident. First to be mentioned is the doctrine of the three Ones and three Beings, based on the dialectic of the One and many in Plato’s Parmenides and on the philosophical system of Plotinus. According to Victorinus, the first, or absolute, One, deprived of any multiplicity, corresponds to God the Father; the second One, born from the first One, is the One-Being, which corresponds to the Son-Logos; the third One, which is generated by the Logos, is the world as a whole, which includes all intelligible and material beings, forming a single “chain of being”. At the same time, it is noted that Victorinus also considers the third One and the “third Being” as the Holy Spirit, which is the “Power of the One”, binding all things together and making them one. Further, three metaphysical triads are considered: substance – form – cognition, being – life – intellect, and remaining – procession – reversion, by means of which Victorinus describes Christian Trinity. Finally, the author examines the doctrine of the Logos as the “Seed of Being” and the source of life for all beings, and of the Holy Spirit as the source of true knowledge and the way a human soul returns to God. It is pointed out that the concept of the Logos as the “Seed of Being” in Victorinus was influenced by the Stoic concept of pneuma as the seed of all things and a related doctrine of the “spermatic logoi”, as well as the Platonic concept of the world Soul. The return of souls to God as their prime cause is viewed as the result of a long process of their enlightenment and spiritualization, which is accomplished by the action of the Holy Spirit as the Wisdom of God and the “hidden Christ”. The first Russian translation of the first “Hymn on Trinity”, along with detailed historical and philosophical commentaries, is attached.

Bioethics and Covid 19: Critical Reflections on Public Health Sector Corruption in Nigeria

Generally characteristic of poor nations are special or vulnerable populations of the poor, especially the helpless and malnourished. The global health phenomenon Covid 19 brings to the fore an interplay of how the physical and mental health of a citizenry could either mitigate or contribute to the deepening of vulnerable populations. With particular reference to Nigeria, the paper critically examined the bioethical dimensions of the content of governmental responses to covid19. A philosophical commentary, the paper carried out critical and analytic reflections on data gathered from existing literature on governmental responses to Covid19 in Nigeria. The major finding is that the phenomenon of corruption is not only an established ethical threat to the Nigerian nation, but also a threat that has deep bioethical implications for the health sector in Nigeria; a phenomenon which the paper conceptualized as a twindemic (that is, a combination of Covid pandemic and Corruption pandemic). In its quest for sustainable healthcare for vulnerable poor populations in Nigeria, the paper deepened discussions on the need to fight corruption in the health sector - through conscious adoption and implementation of appropriate bioethical policies and frameworks.

LA AUCTORITAS SUBVERTIDA: MAGISTER Y DISCIPULUS EN LA EXPOSITIO VIRGILIANAE CONTINENTIAE DE FULGENCIO EL MITÓGRAFO

The Expositio uirgilianae continentiae – written by Fulgentius the Mythographer around the end of the 5 th century A. D., or at the beginning of the 6 th – is articulated on a series of assumptions that immediately refers us to the imaginary of two didactic discursive scenarios of Late Latin Literature. On one hand, the school of the grammaticus, with the omnipresence of Virgil, and linguistic and cultural normative. On the other hand, philosophical commentary, similar genre, but external to school and more interested in interpretation and exegesis. Fulgentius articulates his work in the form of a dialogue, through which Virgil's work is explained allegorically in terms of the stages of man's life. After that, the Christian sanction is added in order to close the meaning. Fulgentius asks Virgil, as grammaticus, to propose the allegorical interpretation of his poem, and then he completes the reading with the Christian sanction, through the quotation of the Holy Scriptures. This narrative design leads to the redefinition of the categories of magister and discipulus , as to a reformulation of the concept of auctoritas . The present paper aims to study the construction of the figures of magister and discipulus in relation to the subtexts of late antique commentary, with the purpose of detecting the transformations operated, the register in which these transformations take place, and the reading key proposed by Fulgentius in order to read Virgil's work.

Taijiquan as a Way of Life: The Philosophy of Cheng Man-ch’ing

ABSTRACT Cheng Man-ch’ing (1901–1975) is as responsible as anyone for the wide popularity of taijiquan in the West. While his stature as a master and teacher of taijiquan is legendary, he is less well-known as a philosopher. Yet Cheng wrote a number of philosophical commentaries on Chinese classics that shed light on his understanding of taijiquan. In this paper I propose that a consideration of Cheng’s philosophical reflections shows him to be a twentieth century Neo-Confucian who saw taijiquan as a key component of the overall aim of moral self-cultivation. In transmitting taijiquan to his fellow Chinese and to the West, Cheng was attempting to convey traditional Chinese thought and action as expressed in Neo-Confucian moral ideals. For Cheng, taijiquan was more than a martial art or physical exercise; it was a way of life.

Commentary to B. Williams’s French Introduction to "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy"

The English original of Bernard Williams’s Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy was published in 1985. Since its publication, it has provoked a substantial body of philosophical commentary, sympathetic as well as critical. Williams’s introduction to the 1990 French translation of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is an unusual text and an illuminating new source for readers of Williams. Refreshingly, it reflects an effort on Williams’s part to establish a connection with a new set of readers. It is also the work of a philosopher relishing the freedoms that come from not having to connect with the old one. Does his introduction itself benefit from a further introduction? We believe that it does, and for the same reason that the book needed some prefatory words before it could be put into the hands of French readers: because the work is not, or no longer, fully self-explanatory.

Berkeley`s "An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision” and his immaterialism

The article discuses George Berkeley’s An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision with respect to his immaterialism. The author concentrates on works written by Berkeley circa 1709: his Philosophical Commentaries, a work not meant for publication, and A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge published in 1710. The end of the article is to show, firstly, that it is beyond doubt that in 1709 Berkeley was a mature immaterialist, secondly, that the shape of his Essay, problematic for interpretation in the light of his later philosophy, derives indeed from the strategy adopted by him in order to prepare his readers for immaterialism. The author offers an interpretation, according to which technical parts of the Essay are subsidiary to Berkeley’s immaterialistic project and were intended to consolidate religion, and, moreover, notices that notions essential for Berkeley’s philosophy of 1710 are already present in the 1709 Essay. The author finally discusses Berkeley’s conception of the object as well as the problem of stability of experience, arising after the exclusion of external objects from the world.

Book of Changes: Cosmological and Anthropological Metaphors in Chinese Philosophy

Ancient Chinese history holds a quality which has syncretized traditional thought with its cultural wealth unified of mystical and mythological figures in the background. Such that classical documents, which had begun to be written before Common Era, has directly influenced the political regime, education system and status of society in China. One of the most prominent features of these works is to propound collective knowledge about perception of cosmology, attitudes to earthiness, community standards, policy and morality. Among Five Classics works of these masterpieces of Chinese philosophy, Book of Changes which stands closest to metaphysical narrative, mainly consists of the texts about prophecy. While this piece of work had been referred as a divination guide in Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), it turned into a cosmological text that included a range of philosophical commentary during Warring States Period (475-221 BC). The mainstay of this remarkable change is the direct correlation of all the concepts and terms that characterize the worldly beyond along with the relevant text, especially yin-yang dualism, which symbolizes an extraordinary harmony in early Chinese thought. Traditional idea suggests reciprocity in which heaven, earth and man are interconnected to maintain natural order. However, the superiority attributed to human beings also brings compulsive responsibilities to idealize a compatible society. This paper aims to discuss influences of cosmological and anthropological items on human behaviors explained in prescriptive perspective.

The Missionary in the World: The Invention of the Soul of Saint Francis Xavier in an Anonymous Sermon: The East, Quito and Rome, 18th Century

Abstract The discovery of an anonymous Quito Sermon dating back to 1741 in the Fondo Curia 2223 in the Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome dealing with the historical and metaphorical transit between Rome and the “Orient” of the Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier (1506–52), suggests links between the universalist vocation of the Catholic mission, and the local American missionary experiences which the text omits. This article argues that the sermon has a universal resonance that invokes the East in America (as it is written to be read in public); it is a sensory experience that can be adapted to different realities (the trips, relics, and missions of Francis Xavier), but also noted is the omission of local missionary practices (i.e., the sermon is presented as produced in a place unmentioned in the text). It is above all, a reformulation of the “missionary in the world” of Western philosophical commentaries and texts that look toward the East but are enunciated in America.

Sarah Kofman and the Allure of Music

This article delves into the discreet yet persistent presence of music in Sarah Kofman's work. Three strands or movements of unequal length are explored here, each of which touches upon a specific volume of Kofman's: Nietzsche and Metaphor, L'Imposture de la beauté and, lastly, Rue Ordener, Rue Labat. More specifically, the article shows how her interpretations of Nietzsche's writings on music are almost paradigmatically neutral in their readerly fidelity to the originals, whereas Rue Ordener, Rue Labat suggests a more emotionally charged rapport with music. In closing, the article considers the possibility that these two, ostensibly divergent modes of reading and writing are very much in tune with each other in that they blur the line between interprétation as philosophical commentary and interprétation as musical performance.

Type inhabitation of atomic polymorphism is undecidable

Abstract Atomic polymorphism $\mathbf{F_{at}}$ is a restriction of Girard and Reynold’s system $\mathbf{F} $(or $\lambda 2$) which was first introduced in Ferreira [ 2] in the context of a philosophical commentary on predicativism. $\lambda 2$ is a well-known and powerful formal tool for studying polymorphic functional programming languages and formal methods in program specification and development, but its computational power far exceeds the recursive level of interest in applications. Hence, the interest of studying subsystems of $\lambda 2$ with weaker computational power. $\mathbf{F_{at}}$ is defined by restricting instantiation to atomic variables only. It turns out that the type system is still sufficiently powerful to possess embeddings of full intuitionistic propositional calculus [ 3, 4], and since the calculus has fewer connectives and strong normalizability is simple to prove [ 3], this result allows us to circumvent many of the extra computational complexities present when dealing with the proof theory of IPC. It is natural to inquire whether type inhabitation, i.e. provability in the corresponding fragment of second-order intuitionistic propositional logic, is decidable or not and in general to see whether the negative results involving the undecidability of type inhabitation, typability and type-checking for $\mathbf{F}$ still hold in this fragment. A further theme would be to study the result of adding type constructors, recursors or even dependent types to $\mathbf{F_{at}}$. In this paper, we show that type inhabitation for $\mathbf{F_{at}}$ is undecidable by codifying within it an undecidable fragment of first-order intuitionistic predicate calculus, adapting and modifying the technique of Urzyczyn’s [ 1, 7] purely syntactic proof of the undecidability of type inhabitation for $\mathbf{F}$.