Version Of Philosophy Research Articles

Framing the predictive mind: why we should think again about Dreyfus

AbstractIn this paper I return to Hubert Dreyfus’ old but influential critique of artificial intelligence, redirecting it towards contemporary predictive processing models of the mind (PP). I focus on Dreyfus’ arguments about the “frame problem” for artificial cognitive systems, and his contrasting account of embodied human skills and expertise. The frame problem presents as a prima facie problem for practical work in AI and robotics, but also for computational views of the mind in general, including for PP. Indeed, some of the issues it presents seem more acute for PP, insofar as it seeks to unify all cognition and intelligence, and aims to do so without admitting any cognitive processes or mechanisms outside of the scope of the theory. I contend, however, that there is an unresolved problem for PP concerning whether it can both explain all cognition and intelligent behavior as minimizing prediction error with just the core formal elements of the PP toolbox, and also adequately comprehend (or explain away) some of the apparent cognitive differences between biological and prediction-based artificial intelligence, notably in regard to establishing relevance and flexible context-switching, precisely the features of interest to Dreyfus’ work on embodied indexicality, habits/skills, and abductive inference. I address several influential philosophical versions of PP, including the work of Jakob Hohwy and Andy Clark, as well as more enactive-oriented interpretations of active inference coming from a broadly Fristonian perspective.

Идея культуроцентризма в современной российской философии

The concept of “cultural centrism” was traditionally used to characterize Russian philosophy of the 19th century, which was called culture-centric, since the issue of Russia's cultural identity was at the center of its attention. In Soviet Russia, the idea of culture-centrism fades into the background, as Marxist-Leninist philosophy positions culture as a superstructure on top of the economic basis. In post-Soviet Russia, as a result of the crisis of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, a serious epistemological shift is taking place — a transition from a formational approach to a civilizational one. Within the framework of the latter, culture is defined as the basis — the fundamental factor of social development. Thus, the idea of culture-centrism is actualized. The paper provides the analysis of various interpretations of the idea of culture-centrism in Russian philosophy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The purpose of the study is to highlight the assessment of the worldview and methodological potential of this idea by leading Russian philosophers. The methodological apparatus of the research results out of synthesis of methods: qualitative content analysis in its historical and philosophical version, hermeneutics and comparative studies. The authors represent both apologetic and critical positions regarding the understanding of the worldview and methodological potential of the idea of cultural centrism, consider the possibility of turning this idea into the principle of social being and cognition. In conclusion, the paper comes up with the statement that the fate of the idea of culture-centrism in Russian philosophy will ultimately depend on how it manages to gain conceptual validity and scientific rigor.

Dostoevsky's Christianity

The article refutes the widespread view that Dostoevsky's Christian beliefs were strictly Orthodox. It is proved that Dostoevsky's religious and philosophical searches' central tendency is the criticism of historical, ecclesiastical Christianity as a false, distorted form of the teaching of Jesus Christ and the desire to restore this teaching in its original purity. Modern researchers of the history of early Christianity find more and more arguments in favor of the fact that the actual teaching of Jesus Christ is contained in that religious movement, which the church called the Gnostic heresy. The exact philosophical expression of the teaching of Christ was received in the later works of J.G. Fichte, whose ideas had a strong influence on the Russian writer. Like Fichte, Dostoevsky understands Christ as the first person who showed the possibility of revealing God in himself and gaining divine omnipotence and eternal life directly in earthly reality. In this sense, every person can become like Christ. Dostoevsky's main characters walk the path of Christ and show how difficult this path is. The article shows that Dostoevsky used in his work not only the philosophical version of true (Gnostic) Christianity developed by German philosophy (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel), but also the key motives of the Gnostic myth, primarily the idea that our world, filled with evil and suffering, is created not by the supreme, good God-Father, but by the evil Demiurge, the Devil (in this sense, it is hell).

How to Be a Christian Ultimist? On Three Lessons J. L. Schellenberg and the Christian Theist Can Learn from Each Other

In this text, in discussion with J. L. Schellenberg, I develop a position that I call Christian ultimism. This position lies between Schellenberg’s simple ultimism and traditional Christian theism. Christian ultimism is more apophatic than personalistic, though it more clearly emphasizes the presence of a supra-personal and communicative element in the Ultimate Reality. The proposed position is resistant to a philosophical version of the hiddenness argument, but it must answer to the challenge of the theological problem of the lack of universal access to Christian revelation. Schellenberg’s idea of deep time both magnifies this problem and provides the tools for solving it: the awareness of deep time does not allow us to judge the future, but it does allow us to hope for a revelation accessible to all at the eschatological end of time.

The hermeneutic straightaway

This review article offers a critique of René Arcilla's theory of education as destiny in Wim Wenders's Road Movie Philosophy: Education Without Learning. After exploring Arcilla's long-standing interest in developing a dramatic approach to educational philosophy, one that avoids both bloodless theorising and melodramatic kitsch, it is contended that Arcilla's own interpretation of Wenders is melodramatic. Life is lived inside the hermeneutic circle. Breakthroughs are dogged by regret and fresh waves of contingency, uncertainty and disorientation. By contrast, in the destiny narrative articulated by Arcilla, we are released from this daily drama, suggesting the philosophical version of a Hollywood ending.

Espécie & Monstro

O ensaio investiga o conceito darwiniano de espécie a partir de A origem das espécies e de algumas de suas versões científicas e filosóficas. O objetivo principal é demonstrar o caráter essencialmente problemático do conceito, cujo estatuto oscila, no plano lógico, entre a categoria e a imagem, e, no plano vital, entre tipo e aberração. Argumenta-se para tanto que a teoria darwiniana da evolução da vida comporta uma teratologia, segundo a qual origem das espécies é pensada como potencial de diferenciação das formas vivas, sendo a monstruosidade o seu caráter mais originário. Por fim, conclui-se com a hipótese metafísica, inspirada pelo neoevolucionismo, e aplicada retroativamente à teoria darwiniana, de que as espécies naturais, enquanto formas de vida, são obra da imaginação metabólica e simpoiética dos viventes.

Inapt gratitude: against expansionist views

Psychologists and philosophers have written much about gratitude recently. Many of these contributions have endorsed expansionist views of gratitude, counseling agents to feel and express gratitude in many circumstances. I argue that the essential features of the moral norm of gratitude are that a beneficiary acknowledges and appreciates benefits provided by another who is acting from beneficence, and is disposed to provide a comparable benefit to the benefactor if a suitable occasion arises. The best-known philosophical version of expansionist views claims that gratitude is apt even in cases where the “benefactor” not only did not intend to benefit the other, but intended to harm her. In the psychological literature, expansionists typically do distinguish between being grateful to and being grateful that. But they also write as if there is one general character trait of gratefulness. In this paper I argue that the philosophical position considered is mistaken on conceptual and moral grounds, and that the dominant view among psychologists fails to recognize the difference between two different traits of gratitude, one a moral virtue and the other a prudential virtue.

Індія Ніцше як філософський неакадемічний варіант орієнталізму

Індія Ніцше як філософський неакадемічний варіант орієнталізму

Death as a global annihilation of life in the perspective of Hans Jonas’s ethics of responsibility

The phenomenon of death is an issue which was very frequent in philosophy. However, almost all reflections on this subject were usually from the anthropocentric perspective. In the cognitive horizon, for example, the issue of the essence of death was investigated, human helplessness was discussed in its face, models of existential attitude towards inevitability were constructed. This anthropocentric attitude changed only in the second half of the twentieth century in the result of the ecological crisis. From then on, in the philosophical debate, not only is discussed the death of a man but also death in the sense of total annihilation of life on Earth. According to the concept of global death, the passing ceases to be accidental. It loses connotations close to the metaphor of further life. It also ceases to be identical with the cosmic metamorphosis. Instead, it becomes a synonym of evil, which delivers the final blow to everything that lives in the biosphere. In this vision, one can grasp death cognitively and oppose its physical abandonment. Man, regarding global death, can remain a causative agent. One of the philosophical versions of stopping the invasion of death was proposed by Hans Jonas. He called his strategy the ethics of responsibility. Fear heuristics, new axiology and the ideal of human attitudes play a key role in it.

The Image of the Future in the Philosophical and Artistic Versions of Russian Cosmism

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the interpretation of the image of the future in the philosophical tradition of Russian cosmism, as well as the echoes of this vision of the future in Russian writers of the xx century. Cosmists consider reality from the point of view of what it should be, respectively, the image of the future is a model of the perfect state of the world and man. The future for them is projective, and this project should be embodied in reality. Key characteristics of the image of the future in Russian cosmism: axiology, alternative, universality, cosmicity, immortalism, unity of personality and community, assuming the completeness of the development and interaction of both. The future for Russian cosmists is connected with the transition from technical progress, increasing the power of man in the world through artificial tools, to organic progress, associated with the improvement of the human body. Artistic projections of the image of the future are given in the literary texts of the cosmists themselves (K.E. Tsiolkovsky’s sci-Fi works, V. N. Muravyev’s philosophical mystery Sofia and Kitovras), as well as in the poetry of V. Bryusov, V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, N. Zabolotsky, in the novels of A. Belyaev and I. Efremov.

La búsqueda del fundamento en Avempace

According to the muslim faith of Ibn Bâyya (Avempace) and to the aristotelism and neoplatonism of his philosophy, this Andalusian author in all his works asks for the first grounds of all reality and being. And Ibn Bâyya finds these grounds in the Agent Intellect (who, probably, is the philosophical version of God) and in the human reason and conscience. Thus, the ideal of the philosophe and of the wise is the union of both together: the reason/conscience and Agent Intellect (i.e. God) by means of an intellectualis mystic or “amor Dei intellectualis”.

The Messiah and the Great Architect: On the Difference Between the Messianic and the Utopian

ABSTRACT This articles criticizes utopian thinking—but not from the conservative perspective, seeing human society as inherently flawed and unable to progress, morally and politically. It opposes utopia in the name of messianic philosophico-theological heritage, often confused with the utopian strain or overshadowed by it. Today, mostly thanks to Derrida and his own philosophical version of “messianicity” derived from Abrahamic religions, though by no means reducible to them—the messianic idea is undergoing a revival. The article examines this revival as an interesting alternative to utopian thinking: equally optimistic anthropologically and politically, yet free of certain “architectonic” aspirations that Derrida criticizes as too strongly rooted in the “social ontology” and thus defending the political status quo. What Bloch and Derrida propose is a serious investment in the “objective fantasy,” not to be fully actualized but operative as a spectral source of “in-spiration” in the progressive transformation of social laws.

The “Idea” of Universal History: What the Owl Heard, the Angel Saw, and the Idiot Said

AbstractThis essay considers the similarities and differences between world history, global history, and universal history. It demonstrates how a philosophical, and specifically a teleological, understanding of history is central to the idea of universal history. To a certain extent, this philosophical version of universal history transcends both world history and global history in that some versions of each of those are in fact universal histories of this very kind.

Out of the Cave of the Cyclops

ABSTRACTDespite the deep respect that readers continue to discover in the great twentieth-century texts of hermeneutics, the academic career and reputation of Gadamer's philosophical version has fallen into the shadows; it seems a long time since the heady days that it could claim universality as an intellectual koiné. This decline is a genuine shame, because at the peak of its reputation it held out the promise of returning the power of humanistic judgement to greater recognition against the domination of method in an age of technique. Gadamer teased out the unreflective meta-logic of the Western traditions of prudence as an alternative paradigm and powerful antidote to our rationalist excesses. This paper offers one strategy for salvaging that effort and recuperating an important role for philosophical hermeneutics in the academy.

The Prehistory of Protolanguage’s Notion. Condillac, Rousseau, De Brosses and the Origins of Language in the Eighteenth Century

The famous prohibition of the Societe de Linguistique de Paris , issued on March 8 th , 1866, which forbade its members to submit research papers about the origin of language, reflected the mood of a precise historical and cultural situation. It was an affirmation of victory achieved by linguistic idealism and German historicis, formalized through an “edict” against the French naturalist-materialist tradition (or a European tradition tradition in general: for instance, in Italy, represented by Giambattista Vico). It was a victory against the philosophy of the Enlightenment, linked to the French Revolution. It was a political and ideological choice and an reflection of the intellectual climate of the Second Restoration, after 1848. In fact, many various and interesting proposals were made in the eighteenth century by the Enlightenment thinkers on the subject of the origin of language. The approaches were empiricist and, at the time, they were meant to counter the theological cliches about the “divine” origins of the primordial language. This theological and metaphysical thesis was opposed by the Enlightenment with a naturalistic explanation. Therefore, those events mark the real prehistory of the protolanguage thesis, concerning human nature, being linked to natural modes of life of the “first men” and primitive humanity. Our paper aims to investigate some of the most original philosophical versions concerning the prehistory of the notion of a protolanguage [1] , echoing the views of our contemporary “gesturalists” (Condillac) and “vocalists” (Rousseau) or “verbalists” (De Brosses). [1] I apologize that I will not adopt the notion of protolanguage in its technical sense, but rather in a historical and descriptive sense.

What was “Geschichtsphilosophie”?

This paper looks at modern philosophy of history in the sense of the German concept of “Geschichtsphilosophie”. “Geschichtsphilosophie”, as it was formulated since the heydays of German Idealism, always implied the belief that it is possible to make true statements about the future. I will take a closer look at such a version of philosophy of history by reconstructing Odo Marquard’s arguments against “Geschichtsphilosophie” and Heinz Dieter Kittsteiner’s defense of it. These two authors were asking precisely the same question about the essence of “Geschichtsphilosophie”, but came to totally different conclusions. I will defend Marquard’s position and thus will come to the position that history cannot be made or at least cannot be made in the way agents want it to be made. However, my insistence on the inevitable limits of any project to make history as it has been constitutive for modern philosophy of history, in no way precludes the possibility of making politics. Thus, at the very end of my paper, I argue for the fundamental difference between the making of history and the making of politics.

Fashion: The Game of Social Meaning as the Cynical Strategy of Consumption

The article presents the contemporary philosophical version of such a phenomenon as “fashion” and deals with the problem of the new notion of a methodological basis for this investigation. It is established that the modern view of fashion includes the reception of ideas connected with social theory, psychoanalysis and semiotics. At the center of discussion is fashion as a subject of speech, desire and consumption.

«Quod est primum in compositione, est ultimum in resolutione». Notas acerca de las nociones de «análisis» y «síntesis» en la antigüedad tardía

En este artículo se investigan los orígenes griegos y latinos de la máxima escolástica que dicta que lo primero en la composición (sunthesis) es lo último en la resolución (analusis). Estudio a la tradición que sostuvo que la síntesis procede de lo anterior a lo posterior, mientras que el análisis procede de lo posterior a lo anterior. En primer lugar, busco los orígenes de estas nociones en las matemáticas griegas. Posteriormente me ocupo de autores del platonismo medio, quienes identificaron el análisis con la diairesis platónica. Paso después a un breve estudio de las nociones de análisis y síntesis en algunos neoplatónicos. Muestro que tanto la versión matemática como la filosófica del método analítico/sintético se asoció con varios contextos nuevos.

Delight of Knowledge in al-Māwardī's View

Speaking of “delight of knowledge” al-Māwardī- explains the meaning of knowledge (‘ilm) in a sense which is alien to the philosophical tradition, but well known in the ancient Greek rhetoric. Some signs indicate that the Arabic adab-literature is in a certain respect heir to the Greek rhetoric. The presence of some elements of philosophy in al-Māwardī’s writings can be explained by the fact that the traditional rhetoric formation relied on a basic knowledge of philosophy too. This kind of the popular version of philosophy has been conveyed to al-Māwardī, and through him to the Arab readers. One has to take into account the ancient rhetoric and the adab-literature as an alternative channels through which Greek philosophy has been transmitted to the Islam.

THE ANIMAL LINE

This essay argues that a radical, non-standard, philosophical concept of the human is one that is consistently used both towards itself and others: it is an amplified concept that applies itself non-philosophically, that is, generically. Our purpose here, consequently, is to outline how Laruelle's work can be seen (or re-visioned) as performing something other than an inflation or deflation of either side of one fixed philosophical dyad (human/non-human); rather, it can be seen as unilateralising the couple, that is, expanding (amplifying, mutating, superposing) the meaning of the two alongside the One Real that resists any lone philosophical version's attempt to commandeer that meaning (and so the essence of what is human and what is nonhuman). It is the performative mutation that counts, not the terms of the dyad. As such, this essay also contends that what Laruelle explicitly does with philosophy – namely its de-authorisation and democratisation – is also what must be done, by implication, in a non-standard philosophical radicalisation of the human. Nonstandard philosophy does not know what the human is (such definitions are the task of philosophy), but this negative capability is precisely what allows it to expand, performatively, the meaning of the human in its ongoing search to discover what the human may be.