Philosophical Discipline Research Articles

How Social Philosophy is Possible: the Transition from Postmodern to Metamodern

Introduction. The establishment of the dominance of postmodernism as a key paradigm of philosophical knowledge raised the question of the subject of social philosophy as a philosophical discipline that studies the problems of sociality in relation to a person. On the one hand, this led to a crisis in the social sciences, since social philosophy lost its status as a metascience in the structure of social knowledge. On the other hand, it expanded the subject field of social philosophy, including in it objects to which the interest of social philosophers had never been directed (inanimate objects, animals). Methodology and sources. The basis of the methodology of the work is the methods of critical analysis and comparative studies, which allows us to describe the logic of the development of the problem of the loss of the unity of its subject by social philosophy within the framework of events of both real and intellectual history. Results and discussion. The article makes an attempt to describe possible transformations of the thematic field of social philosophy in the process of transition from postmodernity to metamodernity. The author, analyzing the recognized problem of modern social philosophy (its fragmentation, the absence of an object of study), demonstrates the possibility of its defragmentation during the metamodern period when research interest is turned to such issues as the study of man as a social being, the influence of new technologies on the transformation of man and the social, the rethinking of the social in the explosive development of technology, and finally, the study of the dialectics of social emotions on society and man. Conclusion. The author comes to the conclusion that in its current state, fragmented social philosophy is not ready for subject reorientation, which means the need for qualitative changes in the subject of social philosophy.

Explorations in Contemporary Analytic Metaphysics: Mind, Identity, and Society

Analytic Metaphysics represents a recent evolution of one of the oldest philosophical disciplines, now redefined by the methods of analytic philosophy. This contemporary approach reformulates the traditional ontological questions about existence, reality, and the nature of the Universe, prioritizing rigorous logical analysis and language. Analytic metaphysics, contrasted with continental ontology or traditional metaphysics, has surpassed the popularity of classical metaphysics, establishing itself as the predominant metaphysical stream in philosophical thought. In this special issue of the Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia (Portuguese Journal of Philosophy), we reflect on the current dynamics of analytic metaphysics, emphasizing its continuity with the metaphysical tradition or on new perspectives and pivotal issues driving analytic ontology.

Salvaging Consciousness from the Remains of the Day: A Sartrean Analysis

The article attempts to delve into Sartre’s main concepts in existential school of thought and trace their relevance in British modern-day fiction, particularly, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. The novel’s protagonist stands as the individual whose tracing of the modern dynamics is inherent in the interplay of social position and individual autonomy. The analysis seeks to underline the junction between disciplines of philosophy and literature, and notably, through Steven’s journey, to offer an interdisciplinary reading of the individual’s strife with freedom and responsibility that is emblematic of the contemporary age. The existential journey of Stevens, a devoted butler whose unshakable commitment to duty, professionalism, and the allure of the concept of dignity leads him to the exploration of self-deceit and repression of his authentic self. The title of the novel, too, captures Stevens’ struggle with his shattered sense of self and the ruins of a life given up to conform to social norms. Sartrean existentialism reveals this repression of genuine feelings and subsequent experience of emptiness. As a man deeply identified with his role, Stevens is tailor-made for this attainment and exploration of self-realization, humankind’s north pole of authenticity, as Sartrean terms, against life’s facticity. The concepts of “bad faith”, “reflective awareness”, “pre-reflective awareness”, “being-in-itself” and “being-for-itself” as well as “being-for-others” will be utilized to further trace this awakening from the clutches, and modern-day chains shackled on individual life, the exploration of the conscious self and Stevens’ consequential reclamation of the remains of the day.

Can Experimental Political Philosophers be Modest in their Aims?

AbstractThe last two decades have seen an increasing interest in exploring philosophical questions using methods from empirical sciences, i.e., the so-called experimental philosophy approach. Political philosophy has so far been relatively unaffected by this trend. However, because political philosophers typically rely on traditional philosophical methods—most notably reflective equilibrium in a form which requires neither empirical examination of people’s considered beliefs nor experimental attention to psychological studies of the mechanisms affecting those beliefs—it is as proper a target of the standard challenges from experimental philosophers as any other philosophical discipline. Sometimes experimental philosophers modestly present their approach as a supplement to traditional philosophical methods. I argue that the arguments in favour of experimental philosophy are such that if they are sound, then the use of empirical methods should drastically change how political philosophy is done.

Philosophy within Data Science Ethics Courses

There is wide agreement that ethical considerations are a valuable aspect of a data science curriculum, and to that end, many data science programs offer courses in data science ethics. There are not always, however, explicit connections between data science ethics and the centuries-old work on ethics within the discipline of philosophy. Here, we present a framework for bringing together key data science practices with ethics topics. The ethics topics were collated from 16 data science ethics courses with public-facing syllabi and reading lists. We encourage individuals who are teaching data science ethics to engage with the philosophical literature and its connection to current data science practices, which are rife with potentially morally charged decision points.

Bioethics and the Value of Human Life.

Bioethics as a philosophical discipline deals with matters of life and death. How it deals with them, however, depends on the kind of life particular bioethicists focus on and the kind of value they assign to it. Natural-law ethicists and conservative Kantians emphasize biological human life regardless of its developmental stage. Integrative bioethicists also embrace nonhuman life if it can be protected without harming humans. Liberal and utilitarian moralists concentrate on life that is sentient and aware of itself, to the exclusion of biological existence devoid of these. Extinctionist and antinatalist philosophers believe that life's value is negative and that its misery should be alleviated and terminated by not bringing new individuals into existence. As the last-mentioned approach reverses the idea of life's positive value, it could be called oibethics.

QURANIC VERSES RELATED TO HALAL SCIENCE: A STUDY APPLYING THE TAFSIR AL-MAWDUIYMETHOD

To achieve success in the science and technology of halal, numerous kinds of stakeholders, including academics, industry players, and governmental entities, are making a major contribution. Simultaneously, there exists an interest in the discipline of philosophy that includes the discourse on epistemology, ontology, and axiology. This aims to inhibit the publics comprehension of halal science, which is fundamentally factual and scientific. As a result, the fundamental framework for comprehending halal science is through the study of the Quran. This paper analyzes the concept of halal science as presented in the Quran. This literature study employs a systematic approach of Tafsir al-Mawduiyto delineate and then examine the terminology of halal science in the Quran. The study identified three principal topics of halal science terminology in the Quran: first, the truth of the natural worlds creation second, revelation as the foundation of knowledge and third, human ethics and values. These three themes are the philosophy of Islamic science that are the basic paradigm in facing the theoretical issues of the halal science industry.

От эстетики к сомаэстетике: о формировании философской позиции Р. Шустермана

The subject of the article is neopragmatic aesthetics; its formation, methodological foundations and specificity of the object of research. To reveal the stated goal, the author turns to the works of the American philosopher Richard Shusterman, who most consistently and clearly substantiates his philosophical position. The American philosopher, despite the strong influence of the analytical school, restores the connection with pragmatism, with the aesthetics of John Dewey, points out the dead ends and problematic points of the analytical approach. The article presents the evolution of American philosophical aesthetics with an emphasis on the transitional stage from the analytic tradition to a neopragmatic one. It is shown that Shusterman’s attempt to get rid of the “Platonic stigma” in the philosophy of art is carried out at the expense of criticizing analytic aesthetics. Thus, Shusterman makes critical arguments about the established habit of identifying art in its multivariate manifestation with the notion of “high” fi ne art associated with the sublime and true art. Shusterman shifts the focus of attention from the problem of defining art to the analytics of aesthetic experience, which allows him to transform aesthetics into somaesthetics – a body-oriented, practical philosophical discipline. The author concludes that Shusterman’s concept of somaesthetics emerges in a polemic with fundamentalist foundations in aesthetics, namely, the tradition of distinguishing objects, works of art from what is not, i.e. defining art. The author notes that a key figure for the formation of the theoretical basis of somaesthetics was Shusterman’s acquaintance with the position of Noel Carroll, who moves from the search for the essence of art to the investigation of the internal standards and motives of art. Schusterman, picking up on this strategy, affirms his anti-essentialist position. In polemics with his colleagues, he shifts and rethinks the problem field of aesthetics, declaring war on “Platonism,” criticizing the Greek philosophical tradition, to which we owe the fact that practical activity has become valued much less than theoretical activity. Along with this, the author concludes about Shusterman’s sophistic strategy and logic of thinking, citing arguments from the work of postmodernist researcher Barbara Cassin.

Art and civic values: the role of fiction-reading

The quality of a civic life is to some extent dependent on its citizens’ capacity for empathy, imagination, and the appreciation of the varieties of experience that shape us. Many have argued that fictions of various kinds can enlarge these aspects of mind. Philosophers are among them, though they have rarely acknowledged that the claim needs serious empirical support. Psychologists, meanwhile, have been searching for the evidence. I reflect on a recent project across the disciplines of philosophy and psychology that sought to extend the evidence a bit, as well as providing a richer understanding of the explanatory options. At the end of our study we undertook a large-scale meta-analysis; I summarise our findings, commenting on their implications for bias, and their limitations. I address the unease people in the humanities sometimes express about this kind of empirical work. (This article is published in the thematic collection ‘The arts and humanities: rethinking value for today—views from Fellows of the British Academy’, edited by Isobel Armstrong.)

The paradox of process metaphysics

This essay critically discusses the rising interest in process philosophy in recent years. I argue that the appeal of process philosophy lies in its ability to circumnavigate the binary dichotomies pervasive in European philosophy and defend an interpretation of process philosophy in terms of relationality, difference, and change. After outlining the central tenets of process philosophy, Graham Harman’s critique of a relational account of process philosophy is examined, particularly his assertion that this type of philosophy cannot fully explain genuine change. Despite the merits of Harman’s critique, I will show that his object-oriented ontology faces similar limitations. Turning to Graham Priest’s dialethism I suggest that philosophy, instead of striving for a consistent representation of fundamental metaphysics, must embrace paradox to some extent. This leads the philosophical discipline to understand itself as a transformative process.

Does Philosophy Need to Know Its History?

AbstractThe point of doing the history of philosophy is to confront that which is completely foreign to us and seems unassimilable, in the hope of thereby getting some distance from our own form of life, and of learning to treat what is alien on its own terms. This is more difficult to do than might first seem to be the case, because of our almost irresistable tendency to assimilate that which is radically different to that which seems familiar to us. In history, one of the major forms this takes is anachronism. How can one avoid making them-then too much like us-now? The motivation for doing the history of philosophy is, therefore, basically ethical and political. In a society characterised by the division of labour, it is perfectly permissible for individual philosophers to pursue different goals, and deploy different parts of the huge corpus of knowledge which we have at our disposal. There is no need for each individual philosopher to integrate the study of the history of philosophy into each of their individual projects. The essay leaves it to the judgment of the reader to decide to what extent the active, sympathetic engagement with the alien is an ethical and political goal which is desirable — perhaps even so desirable as to count as a demand. In any case, this is a demand on the institution, not on individuals. Even if one thought that it was highly advisable that the history of philosophy form an integral part of the discipline of philosophy, it is hard to see this as a “necessity”.

«Среди великих философов нет атеистов…»: рассуждения об опыте, знании и вере в письмах Н.О. Лосского Г.В. Флоровскому (1947–1955 гг.). Письма Н.О. Лосского Г.В. Флоровскому (1947–1955). Публикация, археографическая работа и примечания Е.В. Сердюковой

In 1946, Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky moved from France to his younger son Andrey who lived in the United States, where Lossky taught at the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary for several years. His correspondence with G.V. Florovsky continued, and, as before, they are connected by their friendship, teaching activities, and, most importantly, their scientific and philosophical interests. “Is it true that Russian philosophy is not scientific?” This question became crucial for N.O. Lossky during the “overseas” period of his life and work (1947–1955). His letters sent to G.V. Florovsky from New Haven, New York, and Los Angeles testify to his interest in the concrete metaphysical foundations of holistic (intuitive) worldview, within which faith and knowledge find their indispensable places. Lossky discusses in his letters Florovsky’s upcoming move to America and the organization of teaching philosophical disciplines at the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. Furthermore, he draws Florovsky’s attention to how scientists of that time (A. Eddington, B. Bavinck, D. Jeans, M. Planck, P. Leconte du Nouy, and others) try to answer the question of the relationship between natural sciences (physics, biology, etc.) and the transcendental foundations of religious experience. In addition to this, Lossky is interested in Étienne Gilson’s “History of Medieval Philosophy” (which describes specific intellectual attempts to “reconcile” faith and knowledge) and the epistemological experience of Russian Freemasonry presented in G.V. Vernadsky’s book. And, of course, a special place in Lossky’s letters is devoted to the preparation of the book “History of Russian Philosophy” for publication in New York as part of the works series of the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

Ethik (Ethics)

Does Goethe’s work contain an ethical system? Goethe’s life coincided with the flowering and end of ethics as a philosophical discipline, and his two Wilhelm Meister novels—Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795–96; Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship) and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, oder die Entsagenden (1821/29; Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, or the Renunciants)—constitute a reflection in the position of the individual in the Age of Ethics. In the Lehrjahre, Goethe narrates the travails of the individual in a world no longer secured by the moral cosmology of Christianity, while, in the Wanderjahre, he paints a picture of a fragmented world, dominated by the single value of utility, in which the individual seems scarcely to play any role at all. Each novel contains a sustained engagement with a philosophical ethics—the former, that of Kant and his notion of the Ideal; the latter, that of Spinoza and the relationship between the part and whole—that it seeks not to represent, but rather to adapt as a narrative and hermeneutic practice. In this way, both Wilhelm Meister novels stand, together, as one single plea for an artistic ethics in a world at once administered and disintegrating.

Psychology as a Science of the Soul: Evangelos Christou's The Logos of the Soul (1963).

After Evangelos Christou (1923-1956) studied philosophy at King's College, Cambridge, with Wittgenstein and others, he earned a doctorate at the Jung Institute in Zürich. He then returned home to Alexandria, near which he died in a car crash. The Logos of the Soul, published posthumously, argued for a psychology that would be neither a natural scientific psychology, devoted to causal analyses, nor a philosophical discipline that analysed mental events. Psychology would be an autonomous science of the soul, an unknown distinct from body and mind. Science deals with bodies and behaviours; philosophy with the mental concepts and acts. Psychology deals with "psychological experience". Dreams and fantasies can be sources of psychological experience, but so can perceptual acts and mental acts. Meaning occurs when something encounters an ego or self in a psychological experience. Observation in psychology is participant observation, akin to witnessing of a drama. Psychological methods, such as psychotherapy, are both means of discovery and means of becoming. Christou's work brought together Jung's analytical psychology and mid-century British philosophy in order to stake out the ground for psychology that would be an empirical analysis of psychological experience and a logical analysis of the concepts used in that psychology.

Ethics in Health Care

Ethics has the task not only to acquaint people with the concept of morality, but also to take a critical view of existing moral practice. The purpose of ethics as a philosophical discipline is precisely to know and explain the essence of human action, human practice with regard to its moral quality, to know the action and shaping of moral consciousness. Medical ethics plays an important role in medical education and later in medical careers. It prepares students to be able to discern ethical problems and issues and to analyze and solve them in a logical way. The ability to make ethical decisions is a fundamental attribute for the education of medical and health professionals. Making quality decisions is often impossible without considering certain ethical issues.

“It takes a village to write a really good paper”: A normative framework for peer reviewing in philosophy

AbstractThat there is a “crisis of peer review” at the moment is not in dispute, but sufficient attention has not yet been paid to the normative potential that lies in current calls for reform. In contrast to approaches to “fixing” the problems in peer review, which tend to maintain the status quo in terms of professionalising opportunities, this paper addresses the needs of philosophers and how peer‐review reform can be an opportunity to improve the academic discipline of philosophy, whereby progress is understood as making the discipline more fair to the global academic community and more conducive to the flourishing of academic philosophers. The paper evaluates recent categories of relevant norms and correlating reforms. In conclusion, it recommends that philosophy pursue the norms of transparency and democracy explicitly when proposing peer‐review reform and suggest that proposals for forum‐based models of peer review are most likely to support those norms.

(Dis)confirming theories of consciousness and their predictions: towards a Lakatosian consciousness science.

The neuroscience of consciousness is undergoing a significant empirical acceleration thanks to several adversarial collaborations that intend to test different predictions of rival theories of consciousness. In this context, it is important to pair consciousness science with confirmation theory, the philosophical discipline that explores the interaction between evidence and hypotheses, in order to understand how exactly, and to what extent, specific experiments are challenging or validating theories of consciousness. In this paper, I examine this intricate relationship by adopting a Lakatosian lens. I propose that Lakatos' philosophy of science can aid consciousness scientists to better interpret adversarial collaborations in consciousness science and, more generally, to develop a confirmation-theoretic model of theory-appraisal in this field. I do so by suggesting that such a model be built upon three Lakatos-inspired criteria for assessing the relationship between empirical evidence and theoretical predictions: (i) the model should represent the 'distinction between prediction and accommodation'; (ii) the model should represent the 'structural relevance' of predictions; (iii) the model should represent the 'boldness' of the predictions. I argue that a Lakatosian model of theory-appraisal has both normative and descriptive virtues, and can move the debate forward by acknowledging that theory-appraisal needs to consider the diachronic development of theories, their logical structure, and their relationship with background beliefs and knowledge.

The Scarcity of Women’s Records in Antiquity: Where Did All the Women Go?

Abstract The scarcity of women’s writings in antiquity presents an intractable problem for feminists intending to integrate women’s perspectives into the existing philosophical canon. One way to undo the erasure of women is for feminists to look to the east; in China, there is an abundance of well-preserved women’s writings, along with their biographical records, as early as the 6th century BCE. This essay will provide a survey of those women’s records, focusing on the 6th century BCE to the 4th century CE, as a way to reimagine the discipline of Philosophy and its canon.

The cultural and philosophical foundations of the correlation of the phenomena of «artistry» and «creativity»

The object of this research is artistry and creativity as sociocultural phenomena. The subject of this research is the cultural and philosophical foundations of the correlation of the desired phenomena. The developed foundations represent the criterion foundation for differentiating artistry and creativity from the point of view of ontological, epistemological, axiological, sociocultural, anthropological, praxiological, ethical and aesthetic approaches. The phenomenon of «artistry» is justified as the creation of a previously non-existent or original, meaningful and qualitative transformation of existing being, which manifests itself in the establishment of a work of art that is valuable to the subject itself, society and culture due to its actual exclusivity. In turn, creativity is defined as a combinatorial and plagiarized comparison or formal and quantitative redistribution of heterogeneous fragments of being, which manifests itself in the emergence of an artistic work that has a certain price for a mass consumer audience due to its superficial «elitism». The methodological foundation of this research is a systematic approach, comparative-historical and analytical-interpretative methods, as well as hermeneutic and phenomenological approaches. The scientific novelty of the conducted research lies in a holistic, systematic and poly-aspect substantiation of the essence of the phenomena of artistry and creativity and the disclosure of the features of their sources, process, subject and orientation. On the basis of the developed cultural and philosophical foundations, multidimensional definitions of artistry and creativity are formulated, including the designated critical features. The research also outlines the contours of a special philosophical discipline – the philosophy of creativity and its separate subsections. The main conclusion of the research is the position on the inadmissibility of replacing artistry with creativity in order to avoid the dangers of depersonalization of the creative subject, dehumanization of social relations and degradation of cultural traditions.

The Expertise Defense and Experimental Philosophy of Free Will

This paper aims to vindicate the expertise defense in light of the experimental philosophy of free will. My central argument is that the analogy strategy between philosophy and other domains is defensible, at least in the free will debate, because philosophical training contributes to the formation of philosophical intuition by enabling expert philosophers to understand philosophical issues correctly and to have philosophical intuitions about them. This paper will begin by deriving two requirements on the expertise defense from major criticisms of it. First, precisely how philosophical training contributes to the formation of philosophical intuitions requires explanation (Contribution); second, it must be explained how philosophical training immunizes philosophical intuitions from distorting factors (Immunity). I shall argue that the Contribution requirement is crucial for the expertise defense and that this requirement can be satisfied at least in the domain of free will: recent research shows that most novices are unable to understand determinism correctly, suggesting that having intuitions about determinism requires philosophical expertise. I then discuss how this proposal can be applied to other philosophical disciplines.