Status Of Philosophy Research Articles

Ontologie et mathématiques : Théorie des Ensembles, théorie des Catégories, et théorie des Infinis, dans L'Être et l'événement, Logiques des mondes et L'Immanence des vérités

This paper examines the relationship between philosophy and its conditions. The affirmation “mathematics is ontology”, which I posited thirty years ago, has certain inconveniences. In this article, I present six varying possibilities for ontology. My own philosophical decision was to proclaim that being is a pure multiplicity, without the One and without any specific attribute such as “matter” or “spirit”. This movement of thought brought me to study the mathematical condition of philosophy and to search for a rigorous structuration of my speculative decision within the field of mathematics. However, my initial postulate that “Being is the multiplicity without the One” is not a mathematical but a philosophical statement. This paper concludes with a presentation of the relationship between mathematics and philosophy in Being and Event, Logics of Worlds, and The Immanence of Truths.

PHILOSOPHY AS A SYSTEM OF CONDITIONALS

Philosophical statements are often suppositions. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz proposes in Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humain, 1704, a method of the construction of assertive conditionals occurring between any philosophical suppositions. If we can infer a philosophical statement from any suppositions then the implication between these suppositions and the obtained statement is assertive. In the article, some examples of the application of Leibniz’s method are considered.

Is the Universe an Illusion?: A review article shedding light upon one of the mind boggling paradoxes

We use the Russell’s paradox to dive into the philosophical aspect of life that mathematically supports the philosophical statement “We are all just a thought”. Just as the wind carries the fragrance of its source, so does this article. We mention how the Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory came into existence and also its axioms (two of them in detail). We have also mentioned two other paradoxes, which are similar to the Russell’s Paradox. These ‘simple-statement’ paradoxes provide a clear path to understand the Russell’s paradox. Though, they are not directly derived from the ‘most-argued’ Russell’s paradox, but are mere interpretations of the same. A view of these paradoxes provides clarity over the statement of the Russell’s Paradox. Keywords: Paradox, Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory, Axiom of Extension, Axiom of Specification, Principle of Bivalence. Cite this Article: Parul Khanna, V. Vijai. Is the Universe an Illusion?: A Review Article Shedding light Upon one of the Mind Boggling Paradoxes. Research & Reviews: Discrete Mathematical Structures. 2020; 7(2): 1–5p.

Motives of loneliness in poetry by Todos Osmachka: existential and dialogical interpretation

The paper deals with the works by the Ukrainian poet Todos Osmachka (1895—1962). Attention is focused on the motive of loneliness in the poems from the collection “The Tassels of Time” (1953). Taking into account the memories of the poet’s contemporaries, the researcher analyzes the texts and interprets their existential meanings. The poems contain both individual facts of human life and philosophical generalizations. The loneliness of T. Osmachka’s lyrical character is caused by historical events, emigration, the absence of friends and his beloved one. The hero is an artist, so he needs a reader who can understand and feel his work. The poet expresses feelings of an emigrant writer who left his unhappy occupied country. The poems depict the author’s life among people who are strangers for him in terms of spirit. The poet needs loneliness for his creative work, and it is high loneliness of spirit.
 Osmachka’s philosophical statements make sense of the human solitude as a feature of unique individual existence. The researcher cites the works of philosophers M. Heidegger, J. Ortega y Gasset, G. Marcel, which help to interpret T. Osmachka’s texts. M. Heidegger’s ideas of being-toward-death, Dasein, human self, essential loneliness, and others were used as parallels to the poetic texts. The researcher refers to the theses of Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy concerning loneliness as the initial state of a man and attempts to find the Other, friendship, and love. The article also uses the theory by Marcel on the phenomenology and metaphysics of hope.
 The dialogue between poetry and existential philosophy reveals the meanings of poetic images and specifics of creative work. The analysis allowed the researcher to define some distinctive style features of T. Osmachka’s philosophical poems and indicate some samples of expressionistic and surrealistic poetics in his works.

The location and composition of Group 3 of the periodic table

Group 3 as Sc–Y–La, rather than Sc–Y–Lu, dominates the literature. The history of this situation, including involvement by the IUPAC, is summarised. I step back from the minutiae of physical, chemical, and electronic properties and explore considerations of regularity and symmetry, natural kinds, and quantum mechanics, finding these to be inconclusive. Continuing the theme, a series of ten interlocking arguments, in the context of a chemistry-based periodic table, are presented in support of lanthanum in Group 3. In so doing, I seek to demonstrate a new way of thinking about this matter. The last of my ten arguments is recast as a twenty-word categorical philosophical (viewpoint-based) statement.

The Form and Communicative Impact of Shona Postproverbials

Abstract This article explores the syntax-semantics nexus of Shona postproverbials in the contemporary Zimbabwean society. In terms of syntax, Shona postproverbials are aligned to the following types of sentences found in the Shona language; substantival, verbal, and a combination of both. Like traditional proverbs, there is no postproverbial that takes the form of the ideophonic sentence. The communicative power of postproverbials is an inherent, inbuilt, and internal property stemming from their syntactic and lexical properties. The postproverbial forms, studied in this article, exhibit innovation and ingenuity of the users. The communicative force of the postproverbials arises from the correspondence and cross-correspondence of the structures and grammatical items that constitute them. Congruence and contrast of the lexical items found in the postproverbials also contribute to meanings. The study established that, just like the traditional proverbs, postproverbials are pithy and terse philosophical statements that resonate with a people’s collective experience. In most cases, the postproverbials provide a conduit for people to comment on issues regarded as politically ‘taboo’ and sensitive in a society where the state does not tolerate open criticism.

Réplica a Luis Garagalza

This is a reply to the presentation by Luis Garagalza’s paper called: “Following the Steps of Hermes: The Symbolic Hermeneutics as a Contribution to the Imaginary Studies”. which attempts to level overly extreme claims of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, mainly from philological practice and from the Latin American gender perspective. If contemporary hermeneutics accesses a philosophical status from philology, here we try to review whether some of its most radical claims remain consistent with philological practice and from the present gender perspective. There are extreme statements such as the cancellation of the validity of the methods or that there are no facts but interpretations, which require a more sensible balance. We believe that a work of grief is imposed regarding the omnipotence of the old epistemic methods, which does not imply the cancellation of its guiding validity, but only an awareness of its limitations. This grief work should not imply a complete break with the past models but a letting go of the non-functional expectations, but also a recovery of what is valuable.

Réplica a Luis Garagalza

This is a reply to the presentation by Luis Garagalza’s paper called: “Following the Steps of Hermes: The Symbolic Hermeneutics as a Contribution to the Imaginary Studies”. which attempts to level overly extreme claims of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics, mainly from philological practice and from the Latin American gender perspective. If contemporary hermeneutics accesses a philosophical status from philology, here we try to review whether some of its most radical claims remain consistent with philological practice and from the present gender perspective. There are extreme statements such as the cancellation of the validity of the methods or that there are no facts but interpretations, which require a more sensible balance. We believe that a work of grief is imposed regarding the omnipotence of the old epistemic methods, which does not imply the cancellation of its guiding validity, but only an awareness of its limitations. This grief work should not imply a complete break with the past models but a letting go of the non-functional expectations, but also a recovery of what is valuable.

With Friends Like These… or: How Not to Respond to the Imposition Objection

Many analytically trained philosophers argue that for a movie to do philosophy it must contain arguments, or develop thought experiments, or provide counterexamples, otherwise whatever philosophy might seem to be in it is just the viewer's projection. Most of the analytic responses to what Tom Wartenburg calls the “the imposition objection” (IO), including his own, share an assumption I argue is unfounded, namely, that the traditional philosophical text is the standard by which we should judge the philosophical status of anything, including movies. I argue that tethering movies’ philosophy bona fides to standard philosophical works actually invites IO, absent a known philosophically minded creator behind the production. Accepting the argument-centric written text as the standard also begs the question about the nature of philosophy, and discounts (or worse) the philosophical powers of movies and other media; such a position also impoverishes the many and complex ways philosophy deepens our understanding of the world, of others, and of ourselves. I offer a liberating example in my account of Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia on its own philosophical terms.

Основные предпосылки к новой комплексной теории права

In this article, the author proves that only after a sociological study establishes the real nature of society, how ethical research gives the basic principle of moral activity, and the philosophy of law will show the legal expression of this principle, can we begin to build a policy that is only carrying out moral and legal goals in this public environment. Sociological data on the nature of society and philosophical statements on the foundations of morality constitute the necessary prerequisites for any really grounded theory of state and law, since only they can serve as a reliable foundation for the construction of theoretical jurisprudence.

The concept of «reception study» in the context of methodology of the history of philosophy

The article analyzes the concept of «reception», which has recently gained popularity, but remains not sufficiently clarified in studies of the history of philosophy. It is assumed that the concept has become the subject of explicit methodological reflection only in the reception aesthetics (Rezeptionsästhetik) of the Constance School of Literary Studies, where it not only opposes the concept of influence, but is interpreted in the context of a horizontal structure for text understanding. At the same time, it is important to distinguish not only the «historical horizon» and the «horizon of modernity» (Gadamer), but also the «horizon of expectations» in its duality: both coded in the text itself and the life practice of the reader, «inter literary» and «external literary» horizons of expectation. The empirical trend of the reception study, developed later, makes it possible to formulate a number of specific proposals for the methodology of historical and philosophical research, which focuses on the principle of «history of receptions». It is clear that only «reproductive» and «productive» reception categories are relevant to this type of research. In particular, it is an analysis of the institutional prerequisites for the reception, the classification of the source base of that received, the channels (re)broadcast of that received, the specification of the types of scientific communication, the tradition determined positive or negative factors of reception, the status of philosophy in particular historical periods.

A cricket game, a train ticket and a vacuum to be filled: Ayer’s logical positivism as a focal point for post-war British cultural struggles

ABSTRACT In 1948, A.J. Ayer was attacked on the pages of The New Statesman and Nation magazine where it was claimed that his views were partly responsible for increasingly Fascist attitudes at Oxford. Ayer was charged with promoting a philosophy of values (or one lacking therein) that allowed Fascism to fill the moral vacuum. Ayer noted that he knew who had written the article (and the ones that followed) and that this person had done so for entirely contingent and non-philosophical reasons. This paper aims to examine the historical context by discussing the article and the events that followed it; to show that the specific charges against Ayer were rooted in deeper philosophical/practical issues, namely the nature and status of philosophy; and to demonstrate that logical empiricism, or rather logical positivism as a movement, was indeed especially sensitive to political issues.

Come due specchi prospicienti

Beginning with the relation between the question of Nature and the status of philosophy, this essay interprets the theme of the mirror through the chiasm between multiplicity and thought. This relation is not substantial dualism’s relation of the subject with the object, but rather, following the image used by Merleau-Ponty, it is like the relation between two mirrors facing each other, thus suggesting that the “subject” herself is a multiplicity. From thence, drawing inspiration from this quote in Eye and Mind, “the Cartesian does not see himself in the mirror”, I formulate both the problem of the body and the question of intersubjectivity as a field of individuation for all possible forms of subjectivity. Following this theme, the essay retraces the use of the mirror in the Note on Machiavelli. Finally, given that the theme of subjectivity as a multiplicity is related to the theme of corporeality (granting the principle of reversibility characteristic of a Merleau-Pontian ontology), the essay ends with an analysis of the idea of the body-mirror (and not simply the “body in the mirror”) which, from an intersubjective point of view, becomes an expressive relation in which each body is mirror and expression of the whole universe, thus unlocking an existential monadology.

The painter as a prophet turned towards the past

This article deals with the problem of recognition of the romantic model of memory in contemporary art and theory, which emerged after the so-called “narrative turn”. The ambi­guous philosophical statement by Friedrich Schlegel is taken as a key-phrase for the analysis. It unlocks the character of the artist’s (painter’s) visions and ambitions settled at the beginning of the 19th century. A constitutive role of active memorization in the process of romantic creativity required commemoration to be the central aim of artistic expression. It is also a rudiment of popular contemporary artistic strategies. Imaginative narratives and subjective myths spread in numerous, inertial, visual metaphors. Are they overcoming the romantic intention or extending it? Following the insights of Andreas Huyssen, Franklin Rudolf Ankersmit and other researches, this analysis tries to touch upon a huge transformation in the understanding of memory and em­phasises that there are important abandoned aspects close to the highly psychologized version of romantic memory, which lie in the philosophical-theological interpretations of romanticism. They do not allow us to reduce memory to a “theme” or an “object” of an artistic project. The author highlights the influence of the power of memory upon the creation of form and the inner anticipation of meanings. Without this positive and idealized understanding of memory (empha­sized by romantic philosophies), pictorial expression would lose its uniqueness.

VL. Solovyov’s creatıve herıtage as a sıngle text (about the book: Stahl H. Sophia im Denken Vladimir Solov'evs – eine ästhetische Rekonstruktion. Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2019)

This article deals with the study «Sophia im Denken Vladimir Solov'evs – eine Ästhetische Rekonstruktion» written by the well-known German Slavist and researcher in the field of literary studies Henrike Stahl (2019). The main topic of the study – the coming into being and evolution of the concept of «Sofia» in Solovyov’s heritage – is indicated. Attention is drawn on the originality of the author's interdisciplinary research strategy on Solovyov's heritage: both Solovyov’s literary and philosophical works are analyzed by the author from the point of view of the thinker’s mystical experience, which gives, in the author's opinion, the opportunity to read his philosophic works as fictional texts, and these latter as philosophical statements. It is concluded that this approach is extremely productive, since the scrupulous study of the text, which is characteristic of philological science, has been supplemented and enriched by its philosophical interpretation. Also considered is the structural unity of Vl. Solovyov’s creativity manifested in the composition and stylistic features of his philosophical prose and revealed in constant ternary and binary oppositions permeated with holistic conceptions. The scrupulousness of H. Stahl's monograph, the originality of its methodological strategy, and attention to various aspects of Vl. Solovyov’s heritage allow to consider that work as one of the most striking studies of Solovyov’s philosophy undertaken in the 21st century, which in turn allows to conclude that the active German-language reception of the creative heritage of the domestic philosopher, which went on throughout the 20th century, continues in our time, keeping Germany well ahead in Western Solovyov studies.

Time Metaphor and Prime Numbers in Anatol Vieru's Symphony No. 5

Time Metaphor and Prime Numbers in Anatol Vieru's Symphony No. 5 Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea (bio) and Joel Crotty (bio) Introduction We argue that Eminescu's poetry has the potential to generate a distinctive musical aesthetics. Anatol Vieru captured this aspect in his Fifth Symphony and directed it towards an original musical poetics rooted in a series of "key words" from Eminescu's poems, such as: moon, horn, longing, death, ever, comfortless, far away. A unique approach to Eminescu's imagery is the association between the idea of the passing of time and the increase of the distance to the mathematical origin of the prime numbers and their multiples. We also suggest that the metaphor of the deepening in time is also mirrored by the generally augmenting gap between two consecutive prime numbers towards infinity.1 Vieru metaphorically expresses this parallel especially in the first part of his Fifth Symphony, based on the poem "Peste vârfuri"2 (… Mai departe, mai departe, Mai încet, tot mai încet, … [Far away and ever [End Page 43] farther, Softer still, its fading breath …]3). In Vieru's The Book of Modes4 the composer provides the analyst with a few ways into understanding the processes behind his Fifth Symphony, with some emphasis on the first part. Brief commentaries on the other parts of the symphony will complete the presentation: folkloric essence (Part II Colinde, colinde5); symbolistic alliterations (Part III Dintre sute de catarge6) and philosophical statement (Part IV Glossa7). This paper focuses mainly on the first part of the Symphony, based on Eminescu's poem Peste vârfuri, which is rich in philosophical ideas about time, space and loneliness. Our study presents synthetically and in an original graphical manner the mathematical underlying network of the first 97 bars of the first part of the Vieru's Symphony No. 5, revealing the superimposed and interconnected layers of events that metaphorically refer to Eminescu's philosophy of time. The analysis takes into account the use of prime numbers in the organization of chords unfolding and further provides brief observations about rhythmic values and macrostructure, which are also in connection with primes. Over the last one hundred years or so, many composers including Bartók, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ligeti, Niculescu, Grisey, and Gubaidulina have developed musical organizational methods that have derived from extra-musical realms, like special applications (formal or metaphorical) of mathematical principles8 such as: the use of symmetry, golden ratio, Fibonacci series, calculus of probability and statistics, magic square, set theory, group theory, fractal theory, etc. Common descriptions of their music may include loose references to physics: centricity9 paralleled with gravity (posttonal or modal and spectral music) or non-centricity (atonal), crowded textures or nonthematical surfaces (see Ligeti's micropolyphony in Requiem) associated with mass, energy, tension. Another inspirational source for composers' musical imagination came from acoustics (waves, spectrum, harmonic/inharmonic spectrum, polyspectrum, etc.), resulting in various forms of spectralism10 (Murail, Grisey, Radulescu) or from psychoacoustics (spectral listening, sensory consonance or dissonance).11 Terms derived from quantum mechanics (fusion or fission) are to be found in musicology, like spectral fusion or spectral fission (Sethares, 2005). A number of procedures used in electronics have inspired composers like Reich, Riley, Adams, Penderecki, Ligeti, Saariaho (loops, synchronization/non synchronization, sound/noise continuum, ring modulation, condensation/rarefaction, etc.). [End Page 44] In his Fifth Symphony (written between 1984–85 and premiered in 1986), Anatol Vieru reveals a method of organizing the occurrence of major and minor triads upon algorithms based on the unfolding of prime numbers and their multiples reduced to primes, according to the principle of the Sieve of Eratosthenes (that is a mathematical method of extracting prime numbers from composite numbers and thus eliminating nonprimes).12 In previous of his works such as Clepsidra I (1968–69), Clepsidra II (1970), Sita lui Eratostene (1969), or Symphony No. 2 (1973), he used the Sieve of Eratosthenes principle to control the appearance of certain musical events.13 "Time passing" and its poetical perception is the core of interest for Anatol Vieru in the Fifth Symphony. "Eternity is the ephemeral raised to continuum power"14 wrote Vieru in his...

Distinguishing personal belief from scientific knowledge for the betterment of killer whale welfare – a commentary

We contest publication of Marino et al. regarding captive killer whale (Orcinus orca) welfare because of misrepresentations of available data and the use of citations that do not support assertions. Marino et al. misrepresent stress response concepts and erroneously cite studies, which appear to support Marino et al.’s philosophical beliefs regarding the cetacean hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis. To be clear, these misrepresentations are not differences of scientific opinion, as the authors’ conclusions lack any scientific basis. More extensive review of Marino et al.’s citations reveal a dearth of empirical evidence to support their assertions. Further, Marino et al.’s approach to animal welfare is not consistent with conventional veterinary approaches to animal welfare, including their apparent opposition to use of preventative and therapeutic veterinary interventions. While Marino et al. argue that killer whales’ cognitive and spatial needs preclude management of this species under human care, misrepresentation of the citations used to support this opinion invalidates their arguments. Misleading interpretations of data relative to killer whales’ cognitive and emotional needs and specious and unsubstantiated comparisons with states experienced by humans with posttraumatic stress disorder and other conditions, represent a number of strategies used to misrepresent knowledge regarding killer whale welfare. These misrepresentations and fallacies are inconsistent with scientific ethical standards for credible, peer-reviewed journals (ICMJE, 2018), and are barriers to rigorous discourse and identification of strategies for optimizing killer whale welfare. Assertions in the paper amount to nothing more than a compilation of conclusory, philosophical statements. We would also like to mention that manuscripts such as Marino et al.’s do great damage to the fields of comparative psychology and to behavioral science as a whole.

Полемика с джайнизмом об атмане в «Таттвасанграхе» Шантаракшиты с комментарием Камалашилы «Панджика»

The subject of the study is the polemics between the philosophical school of Jainism (the Digam­bara current) and Buddhism on ātman (spiritual subject, self) as it is given in the chapter “The Study of the Ātman, as it is set with the Digambars” of the section “Ātmaparīkshā” (lit. “The Study of the Ātman”) of “Tattvasaṃgraha” of Śāntarakṣita (8th century) with the commentary “Pañjikā” of his direct disciple Kamalaśīla (8th century). The article provides brief information about the authors of the text, on Jainism, its philosophical statements. The article is accompanied by the first transla­tion of the chapter from Sanskrit into Russian. The study is based on author’s own translation from Sanskrit, based on the publication of S.D. Shastri, as well as the only available translation of the text into English by G. Jha. The main conclusion is the assumption that the Buddhists in the text in ques­tion are trying to proceed from generally accepted logic, from the law of non-contradiction, while the Jains, obviously, are guided by other philosophical logic in which such a law does not apply.

ՍԻՄՎՈԼԸ ՏԱՐԱԾԱԿԱՆ ԱՌԱՆՁՆԱՀԱՏԿՈՒԹՅՈՒՆՆԵՐԻ ՏԵՍԱՆԿՅՈՒՆԻՑ/SYMBOL FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SPATIAL CHARACTERISTICS/СИМВОЛ С ТОЧКИ ЗРЕНИЯ ПРОСТРАНСТВЕННЫХ ОСОБЕННОСТЕЙ

The concept of "symbol" is one of the most discussed, multifaceted and capacious concepts in philosophy. It can be interpreted both as an intuition, and as a philosophical concept at the highest level of abstraction. The philosophical status and explanation of the concept is specified in the context of individual theories, where the authors try to explain, formulate and give various definitions of this phenomenon. However, the problem of defining the concept of symbol, hasn’t been solved in philosophy yet. In this regard, it should be noted that the problem of symbol in philosophy isn’t in the search and detection of final definition of symbol, but to discover and understand the nature of its concept. As a relatively new independent phase in the development and interpretation of symbol, the philosophy of postmodernism formulates the so-called ''non-classical'' interpretation of the symbol as a new alternative version, as it reformulates and changes, the epistemological, ontological and value characteristics of the concept of the symbol, which were accepted in the previous philosophical systems.

Генезис идеи общественного прогресса в историко-философской мысли

Development and social changes are realized in the culture and fixed by the public consciousness, beginning with the ancient civilizations. The concept of progress is viewed through the prism of the history of philosophy. Attention is focused on the creation of the first cyclical theories of the development of society by Plato and Aristotle, the spread of social change to various spheres of social structure. The perception of the idea of social progress as the flourishing and movement for a better future in the philosophical theories of the New time is shown reflecting political optimism and faith in the abilities and intelligence of human. We analyze the genesis of social progress during the 19th century, the belief in the continuous progressive development of humanity, human values, to the aid of which science and technology come. The weakening of people’s faith in absolute and endless progress is taking place against the background of the historical events of the 20th century, including wars, revolutions, environmental disasters and economic crises, resulting in the flowering of historical pessimism, disappointment and doubt in the progressive movement. Under the conditions of the modern civilizational crisis, the idea of progress is replaced by ideas about the regressive nature of social and societal changes. The evolutionary nature of philosophical concepts, the acquisition of the status of philosophy of not being an abstract theoretical concept, but a fundamentally important tool for understanding modern society and predicting historical and social perspectives, is given. The article provides the conclusion that the concepts of zero growth and restrained, gradual development are replacing the idea of progress and regress, while positivist philosophy gives way to syncretic directions and a tolerant attitude towards the world as a whole.