Philosophical Positions Research Articles

The Image of Philosophy in Herman Melville’s Story Cock-A-Doodle-Do! or, the Crowing of the Noble Cock Beneventano

The work of the outstanding American writer Herman Melville (1819–1891) is widely acknowledged for its profound philosophical depth. It parallels various philosophical and religious traditions, works, figures, ideas, etc. However, the author’s philosophical position remains insufficiently researched. Among his works, one key in this regard is the short story “Cock-A-Doodle-Do! or, The Crowing of the Noble Cock Beneventano” (1853). It offers Melville’s feedback on a few ideas of such representatives of American transcendentalism as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), with a particular focus on Thoreau’s analogy likening the purpose of philosophy to the crowing of a rooster. This story is almost completely unknown in Ukraine. Trying to reconstruct Melville’s view on Thoreau’s idea, the author recreates the context of creating “Cock-A-Doodle-Do!”, reviews available scholarly literature, and renders a technical translation of the narrative into Ukrainian. Throughout this process, the author provides commentary and clarifies its connection to ideas of Thoreau and Emerson, works by other authors, additional pieces by Melville, his biography, and related topics. The textual and intertextual analysis highlights the limitations of a common point of view whereby “Cock-A-Doodle-Do!” is only a piece of satire aimed exclusively at discrediting transcendentalism and the image of philosophy proposed by Thoreau. The author suggests that the story manifests Melville’s general attitude characteristic of his work overall and his philosophical method of philosophizing technique grounded in consistent skepticism towards any beliefs, convictions, and assertions, including those held by oneself. The systematic application of this method reveals universal ambivalence. Accordingly, Melville’s reflections on Thoreau’s idea of cockcrowing as a metaphor for philosophy reveal both critical and apologetic dimensions.

The Philosophical and Sociological exposition of Suicide in Lesotho

One of the philosophical problem is the phenomenon of suicide. In the Kingdom of Lesotho as many nations the nature of suicide can be understood from the philosophical and sociological lenses. Among the countries in the world with the highest suicide rate is Lesotho. How come? This research article delves into the complex relationship between individual agency and social factors in context of the existence of suicide in Lesotho, drawing upon philosophical and sociological approaches. The main philosophical and sociological positions of suicide in this paper are presented. A qualitative method has been applied in this paper, secondary data has been subscribed from electronic database from various reliable sources such as World Health Organization (WHO) reports, government and private documents related to suicide and mental affairs reports. A comparative analysis of philosophical and sociological perspectives, the article seeks to deepen our understanding of the factors contributing to suicidal behaviours and their implications for prevention and intervention strategies. This paper also discusses the richness of Durkheim’s insight on suicide and four etiological types of suicide. This paper concludes by putting forward that young people in Lesotho who have serious mental illnesses at an early age have a higher risk of suicide.

Творческие задачи человечества в аспекте эсхатологических представлений Н. А. Бердяева и В. В. Зеньковского

The article analyzes the views of Nikolai A. Berdyaev and Vasily V. Zenkovsky on the meaning of creativity and the significance of human activity in the eschatological perspective. The comparison of the thinkers’ views on the “end of history” and the creative tasks of mankind leads the authors to the following conclusion. The philosophers alike argued for the need for a dynamic understanding of the “eschaton”. At the same time, they were supporters of two different “projects” of the future that had long been characteristic of religious consciousness: the Gnostic-Manichean one, which implies the “dematerialization” of the world, and the Christian one, based on ideas of the “rematerialization” of the world. It is claimed that both philosophical positions, despite significant differences between them, converge in the assertion of the crisis of modern culture. However, while Berdyaev sees the cause of this crisis in the subordination of a person’s spiritual creativity to the products of the cultural activity, which is objectified, Zenkovsky sees it in the separation of a secularizing culture from its Christian foundation.

Camus y Sartre, ¿disputa o afinidad filosófica? Concepciones en torno a la idea de responsabilidad existencial

This essay is based on the question: how to represent the argumentative contrast of the concept of responsibility in the philosophical postulates from Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus?The main objective of this study is to link the way in which bothauthors address, agree, and differ on various philosophical pointsof view about this idea (individual and social human responsibility) throughout their works, and to compare this contrast tothe disputes they have during their life, looking for establishconnections and differences between both philosophical positions (Existentialism and Absurdism), as well as to approach to the foundations of their ideas. This study is based on Sartre byhimself (1955) and The Existentialism is a Humanism (1946),by Sartre, and The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and The Revel Man (1951) by Camus.

Эмиль Бутру. Моральное учение Канта и современность

This article precedes the publication of the Russian translation of the work by Emile Boutroux, a famous French spiritualist philosopher, epistemologist and historian of philosophy, “Kant’s Morals and Modernity”. The interpretation of Kant’s teachings proposed by Boutroux is considered. Based on some of Kant’s ideas and criticizing others, Boutroux sought to update meta - physics through reflection on science and scientific knowledge. Noting aspects of his concept that gave reason to attribute it to French neo-Kantianism, the author of the article also highlights significant points that are determined by Boutroux’s own philosophical position and do not allow him to be considered a faithful follower of the Königsberg thinker: the denial of dualism and the necessary nature of scientific knowledge.

Рефлексия о технике в социальной мифологии В.Ф. Одоевского: финал романтического механицизма

The article is devoted to the origins of reflection on technology in Russian philosophy and literature from the 19th and 20th centuries. Our focus is on the technical developments and the phenomenon of technology as it appears in the works of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Odoevsky. The appeal to Odoevsky’s ideas is of particular relevance in today’s context of the formation of technological societies and perspectives. It is with the achievements of mechanics and technology that Odoevsky correlates his hopes for the good development of man and society, he connects the enlightenment and education of young people. At the same time, Odoevsky sees the danger lurking in mechanism and rational knowledge. This danger will be the loss of integrity, decay and devastation that will befall the world that has survived the crisis of culture. Turning to the work of the thinker, we trace the trends in reflection on technology from a philosophical position, as well as in unity with the poetic and musical. The theoretical basis of the study is the opposition of Odoevsky’s technical and poetic as vectors of social development. As a result of the analysis, the author of the article comes to an ambivalent assessment of the role of technology by Odoevsky, contrasting the romanticization of technology with the negative prospects of the “industrial”, “egoistic” century, which are further developed in the domestic and foreign philosophy of technology and anti-utopia of the 20th and 21th centuries. In his futuristic projects, Odoevsky discovers the potential of scientific foresight, embodied in the achievements of modern science and technology. The transition in the assessment of technology from idealism to scientific realism and positivism, reasoning of a social orientation (“Russian Nights”, 1844), the key opposition in Odoevsky’s concept of the romanticization of technology to the negative prospects of technical expansion is further developed in the domestic and foreign philosophy of technology of the 20th and 21th centuries. The modern appeal to reflection on technology in Russian philosophy and literature is due to the expansive introduction of technology into the life of society, the rejection of ethical neutrality and the trend towards autonomy, as well as the demand for the modern educational process, university training programs for both humanitarian and technical orientation.

Деборинцы – философы науки (естественные науки)

The article attempts to give a panoramic overview of the works of philosophers of the school of Academician A.M. Deborin in the field of philosophical problems of special sciences. It is noted that the very model of the organization of philosophical knowledge according to the type: philosophical methodology – philosophical problems of special sciences – was formed in the Deborin school, then developed in Soviet philosophy and after the defeat of the Deborin school, and in general, with the corresponding changes, was inherited by the post-Soviet philosophy. At the same time, those philosophers who laid the foundations for the development of philosophical problems of particular sciences were forgotten, since almost all of them were repressed, and their works were withdrawn from free access in li­braries. The formation of the problematics of the philosophical problems of sciences during the “Thaw” period was based on the traditions of the Deborin school. But at the same time, the names of philosophers themselves were erased from history. This article will focus on those representatives of the Deborin school who dealt with the philosophical problems of mathematics (Yu.P. Shein), physics (B.M. Hessen, T.N. Gorshtein, E.F. Lepin, M.L. Shirvindt), chemistry (I.P. Rozen), biology (I.I. Agol, M.L. Levin, V.N. Slepkov) and medicine (S.G. Levit). The most general characteristic of their scientific works, the prob­lems they posed, the philosophical positions they occupied are given. The relevance of the in­dividual provisions put forward by them in the field of philosophy and methodology of spe­cific sciences is noted.

Not Even Absent: Dependent Origination, Emptiness, and the Two Truths in the Thought of Nāgārjuna

As one of the most pivotal thinkers in the history Mahāyāna Buddhism, the writings of Nāgārjuna have long attracted the attention of scholars aiming to interpret in declarative terms the meaning of the arguments contained therein. However, the very aim of such an endeavor that seeks to ascribe to Nāgārjuna a philosophical position is fundamentally at odds with the unwaveringly critical nature of his project. In order to illustrate the singular character of Nāgārjuna’s methodology, this article seeks to clarify three crucial points concerning his thought: (1) the central concept in his philosophical works, dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), ironically denotes the non-origination (anutpāda) of any entity (bhāva) whatsoever and is universal in scope; (2) emptiness (śūnyatā) is not a meaningful predicate of any entity, meaning that no entity exists that can be identified as being empty; and (3) the Two Truths (satyadvaya) are not a philosophically significant device for Nāgārjuna and subsequently do not provide a means by which to mitigate the radical consequences of his arguments. As a result, we can understand Nāgārjuna’s claim to have no postulative thesis (pratijñā) as a statement that he predicates no quality (dharma) of any subject (dharmin), and that his methodology is strictly critical, offering us no constructive theory by which to make sense of reality.

Wandering "paper" dominants: positions and functions of high-rise accents in the urban development projects of Pushchino, 1950–1980s

The subject of this study are the architectural and urban planning projects of the scientific town of Pushchino of the USSR Academy of Sciences, developed in the second half of the 20th century. It focuses on high-rise accents planned in the master plans from the 1950s to the 1980s, which, though never realized, played a crucial organizing role in the city's developmental compositions over the years. These "paper" projects significantly influenced the actual architectural ensemble of the city. Specific changes in the creative concepts are correlated with personnel shifts within the team that developed the projects for Pushchino. The dynamics and direction of architectural searches are considered within the broad context of the history of Soviet architecture and are compared with global processes and the positions of architectural theorists and philosophers. The research employs a formal and comparative analysis method, structured historically to segment the creative process into periods that reflect both the subject of the research and the broader historical and architectural context of the era. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the comprehensive analysis of numerous urban planning and architectural projects, gathered through extensive research in state and personal archives. This allowed for the first time to consider the work of architects on the planning projects of Pushchino as a dynamic process, revealing changes that occurred at each of its stages. Through the analysis of the development of “paper” dominants, wandering from project to project, changes in the global urban planning concepts of the city were traced. Consequently, the article provides insights into the development of urban planning in Pushchino, viewed through the lens of high-rise accents. It also paves the way for further research into other aspects of the process, contributing to a more comprehensive and profound understanding of urban architectural development.

An Analysis of the Debate between al-Ṭūsī and al-Kātibī on Contingency Argument

This article addresses a written debate between Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī (d. 675 AH/1277 AD) and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672 AH/1274 AD) on the contingency argument, which is one of the most well-known proofs offered in history regarding the existence of God. According to thinkers before al-Kātibī, the contingency argument verifies the Necessary Being, and then it debunks the possibility of infinite regress. By “earlier thinkers,” al-Kātibī means especially Avicenna (d. 428 AH/1037 AD) and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210). According to al-Kātibī, the notion of the Necessary Being was proved through the contingency argument they put forward, but a careful examination of their arguments indicates that they presented no definitive proof refuting the notion of infinite regress. Therefore, according to al-Kātibī, what Avicenna and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī claimed to prove the impossibility of infinite regress through the contingency argument is not valid. As al-Ṭūsī responded to al-Kātibī’s objections, a debate consisting of three letters from each side emerged between them. At the end of the debate, al-Kātibī found al-Ṭūsī’s explanations reasonable, and he admitted that they were correct. However, the parties did not mention the agreed version of the argument at the end of the debate. For this reason, I added this agreed argument at the end of this study in accordance with the parties’ declarations. The purpose of the present study is to analyse this debate in its natural order and to eliminate technical ambiguities it involves, defending Avicenna’s, al-Rāzī’s, and al-Ṭūsī’s philosophical position in the contingency argument about proving the impossibility of infinite regress through the argument. On the other hand, this debate is an epitome of the classical debate tradition. It is also significant in the sense that it reveals one of the best examples of the interdisciplinary discussion between kalām and philosophical schools, and the application of classical logic to theoretical disciplines. As a result of our analyses of the debate, we have concluded that the objections brought by al-Kātibī against the contingency argument in parallel with the conclusion of the debate accepted by the parties, maintain the contingency argument. According to this conclusion, the contingency argument is a proof which invalidates infinite regress while proving the existence of the Necessary Being.

Effect of Eco-Friendly Perceptions on Behaviour of Guests in Eco-Rated Camps at the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

In the current era where environmental degradation is alarming, hospitality enterprises have picked up pace and put greater effort in finding practical solutions to the problem. In this regard, the main driver of environmental conservation is stakeholders’ support, especially that of clientele. However, effectiveness of ecological measures mainly depends on favourability of hotel guests’ perceptions towards the initiatives. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, this study sought to establish the effect of eco-friendly perceptions on behaviour of guests in eco-rated camps at the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The philosophical position of the study was pragmatism with an embedded mixed methods research design. The study population comprised of 44 eco-rated camp managers and 208, 620 visitors to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 10 managers and 399 hotel guests were selected using clustered, stratified, and proportionate random sampling techniques. Quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics while, inferential statistics were derived from Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) based on the Partial Least Squares technique (PLS). Qualitative data was analysed using narrative analysis. The results showed that perceived behavioural consequences and perceived behavioural control had significant effect on eco-friendly behaviour of guests β=0.0317, p = 0.005 <0.05 and β=0.289, p = 0.001 <0.05, respectively. However, perceived subjective norms had no significant effect on eco-friendly behaviour of guests β=0.008, p = 0.36 >0.05. The study recommends environmental protection campaigns that strengthen favourable behavioural and control beliefs as well as a better understanding perceived subjective norms and precise socio-cultural contexts in order to augment the most compelling practices. Future research approaches could narrow the sampling frames and test the predictive role of normative beliefs in a specified socio-cultural setting

«Белая свитка и алый кушак...» (<1915>) Сергея Есенина: о поэтике вещи в народном костюме

Sergey Yesenin could get the idea of a thing as an object of science from the lectures of professors of the Moscow City People’s University named after A.L. Shanyavsky while studying at the historical and philosophical department in 1913-1915. At that time, the term “thing” was used in law and philosophy, which was reflected in explanatory dictionaries and encyclopedias. Yesenin attended lectures mainly on literature, and in his subsequent work the word “thing” appears regularly, but only in journalism and letters. The term “thing” was widely used in criticism in the first quarter of the 20th century, and Yesenin’s friends recalled the poet’s use of this word in conversations. The purpose of this article is to analyze the items of the “clothing code” from an artistic and philosophical position in Yesenin’s poem “The White Zipun and the Scarlet Sash...”, understanding them as “things”. Conclusion. The zipun and the sash are folk festive clothing, with its regional names, they have a long tradition of reflecting them in fiction, and in Yesenin they emphasize the event time and the emotional experiences of the hero.

Taking Dworkin’s Legal Monism Seriously

Abstract In this review essay, I analyse two philosophical positions presented by Cormac Mac Amhlaigh in New Constitutional Horizons – namely, a pluralistic analytic legal theory, which offers a criterion of ‘individuation’ of legal systems in the context of transnational laws (to explain the relationship between domestic and international law), and a pluralistic account of constitutionalism, which understands the concept of ‘constitution’ and related political concepts in the context of transnational legal relationships (treating them as ‘interpretive concepts’ in the sense of Ronald Dworkin). My main target is not Mac Amhlaigh’s account of constitutionalism, with which I agree, but, rather, his analytic legal theory. After a brief summary of the former, to make explicit the interpretive methodology of the book, I respond to the latter in two ways: first, I present Dworkin’s argument to defend Hans Kelsen’s international legal monism against H.L.A. Hart’s objections, and, second, I argue that the analytic ambition to provide a test to distinguish sharply between municipal law and international law, treating them as separate while simultaneously valid systems, is unachievable. I end with a claim that Dworkin’s thesis of the unity of value entails a distinctive version of legal monism, which is more plausible than Kelsen’s traditional legal monism because it is not committed to a ‘linear’ or ‘hierarchical’ theory of law.

Perspectivism and Health Professions Assessment.

This article aims to outline perspectivism and perspectival thinking by drawing on established scholarship from the philosophy of science and to demonstrate its relevance to health professions education. Perspectivism embraces the notion that knowledge always inherently arises from particular perspectives. "Truth" always depends on an evaluative background. Perspectivism is a form of epistemic humility that sees epistemic claims (relating to knowledge) as fundamentally historically and contextually situated. This article contends that perspectivism is a fruitful and relevant lens to apply to health professions assessment. It is a way of thinking that is all around us, even if we do not realize it. It extends discourse around the value of subjectivity in assessment and may cut through many prevailing debates on assessment practice. Perspectivism is a sort of middle-ground that is not meant to be another idea or "-ism" to add to a list of ideas, but constitutes a shift in how philosophy can be applied by adopting a broader, more holistic perspective. Applying a perspectival lens to health professions education embraces the imperative to make interpretive processes in assessment philosophically explicit. This opens the possibility of adopting multiple philosophical stances concurrently and allows actors to appreciate different methodological viewpoints with more charity. This scholarly perspective encourages the assessment community to continue to innovate through an appreciation of the importance of a wide range of assessment perspectives by uncovering the drivers of specific commitments to philosophical positions. Although the focus is on assessment in the health professions, perspectival thinking has the potential to advance medical education discourse and practice more generally beyond assessment. The hope with this essay is that by encouraging more critical reflection, this description of perspectival thinking will further aid researchers and practitioners in health professions education to better understand what is happening philosophically with more frequency.

The Mediating Role of Behavioural Intentions on the Relationship between Eco-Friendly Perceptions and Behaviour of Guests in Eco-Rated Camps at the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

The study sought to establish the mediating role of behavioural intentions on the relationship between eco-friendly perceptions and behaviour of guests in eco-rated camps at the Maasai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in Kenya. The approach of the study was guided by Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and a pragmatic philosophical position with an embedded mixed methods research design. Based on the visitor arrivals to the MMNR, 208, 620 visitors were targeted for the study from which 399 were selected using clustered, stratified and proportionate random sampling techniques. Data was collected using questionnaire survey method and analysed with the help of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) based on the Partial Least Squares technique (PLS). Based on the 272 questionnaires that were returned, the results indicated that, behavioural intentions had partial mediation effect on the relationship between perceived behavioural consequences (40.8%) and perceived behavioural control (30.6%) on eco-friendly behaviour. However behavioural intentions did not have significant mediation effect on perceived subjective norms. The findings underscored the importance of understanding behavioural and control beliefs of hotel guests. Moreover, this study singled out some socio-demographic characteristics of guests which could have an indirectly link to subjective norms and proposed addition of religion, place of origin, travel companionship and monthly expenditure to the TPB. Future researches could deepen understanding of socio-demographic characteristics and their indirect link to subjective norms in different regions as well as investigating eco-friendly behaviour of guests in eco-rated hospitality facilities in Kenyan urban areas

Ibn Sīnā, “Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ 6–10”

ABSTRACT This is the first English translation of Ibn Sīnā's (Avicenna) Commentary on Chapters 6-10 of Aristotle's Metaphysics Λ. It is significant as it is one of only a small number of surviving commentaries by Ibn Sīnā and offers crucial insights into not only his attitudes towards his predecessors, but also his own philosophical positions — especially with regard to the human intellect's connections to God and the cosmos — and his attempt to develop a distinctive mode of commentary.

Спиритуализм в истории русской религиозной мысли: ключевые оценки и трактовки

The article presents a critical review of the assessments of Modern Spiritualism in Russian philosophical historiography and positions it as a certain kind of natural theology. The author positions spiritualism as a special religious philosophy and outlines the reasons why it was considered as a practice without any philosophical significance. The article considers philosophical characteristics of Spiritualism given by Russian religious philosophers and offers some critical remarks on historiography's opinion about Spiritualism as a kind of "positivism". The author suggests, that spiritualism should be investigated in the perspective of the history of philosophical and theological thought of the early New Modern period. The article deals with analogies between the themes of early modern natural theology and the problems spiritualists were deeply interested in. It touches upon the discussions about the nature of the soul, especially, the questions of its corporeality and possible annihilation. Early modern discussions about witchcraft should be studied as a key issue, which links natural theology and spiritualism. The article proposes to compare seventeenth-century "witch-hunts", aimed to prove the existence of the spirit world, and nineteenth-century investigations of mediums. The importance of Leibnizianism and pneumatological teachings of the eighteenth century as precursors of spiritualist religious and philosophical thought is also pointed out. The article proposes to investigate Spiritualism not only as a subject for Orthodox apologetics’ criticism, but also as a special kind of Christian apologetics that emerged in the early Modern period and aimed at proving the immortality of the soul while refuting the arguments of materialist critics. Both Russian spiritualists and Russian philosophers (V.S. Soloviev, N.Y. Grot, L.M. Lopatin) were interested in "mediumistic phenomena". It is argued that the spiritualists of the late 19th century sought to overcome «positivist» limitations, and were not satisfied with the Kantian solution, which put a barrier to the cognition of the "real" world. The study of Spiritualism in the perspective of Christian natural theology makes it possible to grasp the main reason for the interest of Russian philosophers in Spiritualism and its’ "psychic phenomena" – the potential opportunity to find new arguments in favor of the immortality of the soul.

Religious Figures as Philosophers

This article looks at narratives of major religious figures to draw similarities with the philosophical way of dialogue, modeled on the maieutic example set by Socrates, and makes a case that these religious figures ought to be considered and appreciated as philosophers. The study employs Critical Discourse Analysis in order to understand the interactions between religious figures, protagonists, other characters, and the reader. Conclusions address philosophical attitudes and techniques that match the Socratic Method in order to build the case that the religious figure provokes thinking and challenges paradigm as a philosopher does. The examples include being agile in interpretation, using absurdity and paradox, playing with irony, teaching with allegory, to develop meaning in dialogue with the other. The origins of philosophy begin with a way of life, a method of provoking thinking, an interest in examining and questioning what it is to be human. Systemic philosophy and its closely related sister religion have developed into formal disciplines of distinguished paradigms, where dogmatic beliefs are prioritized over freedom of inquiry. Yet this study makes the case that important figures of major religions were working with their interlocutors on how to think, not what to think.

Altruism in the interpretation of Russian religious philosophy

Introduction. A number of Orthodox philosophers, among them K.N. Leontiev, criticized New European altruism, and N.A. Berdyaev generally rejected it, calling it “the teaching of bourgeois-democratic morality, the middle-general morality of well-being, the morality of quantities”. P.A. Florensky, N.O. Lossky, V.S. Soloviev, on the contrary, called altruism active love and Christian agape. L.N. Tolstoy believed that the good of people lies in unity and solidarity, and F.M. Dostoevsky called for active and selfless love, which is capable of transforming and purifying. This position of Russian religious philosophers arouses research interest in the author of the article. Thus, the purpose of the work is to conduct a comparative analysis of a number of concepts of Orthodox thinkers who interpreted the concept of altruism differently, but at the same time expressed similar opinions in relation to this ethical category. Methodology and sources. The author uses the hermeneutic method, which allows one to immerse oneself in the study and interpretation of the texts of Russian religious philosophers, which helps to create a voluminous hermeneutic circle of Russian culture, highlighting its features. Results and discussions. The author's approach to the study of culture and interpretation of cultural meanings through the analysis of ethical categories can be called original. A similar approach may be useful to researchers in the field of cultural philosophy as a possible method when studying a particular sociocultural system. Analyzing the concepts of Russian religious philosophers using a similar method helps the author highlight the value foundations of Russian culture. Conclusion. Altruism as a cultural phenomenon and ethical category, once on the soil of Russian culture, acquires a completely different meaning and fullness.

Ruth Barcan Marcus on the Deduction Theorem in Modal Logic

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine Ruth Barcan Marcus's early formal work on modal systems and the deduction theorem, both for the material and the strict conditional. Marcus proved that the deduction theorem for the material conditional does not hold for system S2 but holds for S4. This last result is at odds with the recent claim that without proper restrictions the deduction theorem fails also for S4. I explain where the contrast stems from. For the strict conditional, Marcus proved the deduction theorem for S4 though restricted to arguments with necessary premises. I discuss Marcus's result and analyze her philosophical position on the significance of the deduction theorem for modal systems designed to express the notion of deducibility.