Western Philosophical Tradition Research Articles

Spontaneous movement: an exploration of the concept

ABSTRACT This paper explores what is understood by the phrase ‘spontaneous movement’. We discern five different understandings of spontaneity in the usage of the phrase: 1) spontaneous movement as automatic machine-like mechanistic, 2) spontaneous movement as free, 3) spontaneous movement as primal animateness of the body, 4) spontaneous movement as embodied responsive dealing in the world, 5) spontaneous movement as a force of nature. The first two understandings are rooted in a dualistic view, with the dichotomies of voluntary/involuntary and mind/body in the Western philosophical tradition. The next two arise from a phenomenological reflection on the body, drawn from Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, while the last comes from a holistic Eastern view of the body, human beings and nature. We argue that the latter three understandings of spontaneity demonstrate three aspects of a more comprehensive picture of the spontaneity of human movement.

The Nature of Contemporary African Moral and Political Philosophy: An Introduction

Abstract While there has long been philosophical thinking on the African continent, it was not until the middle of the 20th century that professional philosophy emerged on the continent. Though traditional African cultures have rich oral histories that some contemporary philosophers explicitly draw upon, it was not until universities emerged that there was philosophy conducted by professional philosophers who published their findings in academic venues. To date, much of this work has been conducted in English. The emphasis this tradition places on the community and social harmony will probably stand out immediately to any reader steeped in the Western philosophical tradition. The articles in this issue represent different styles of conducting African philosophy, such as employing analytic methods in order to develop moral theories, questioning the use of Western epistemic standards, and mining ideas from the history of Africa.

From Mythos to Logos: Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Birth of Rational Inquiry

This paper examines the important shift from mythological to philosophical thought instigated by pre-Socratic philosophers in ancient Greece by examining influential figures such as Thales, Anaximander, and Heraclitus in their pioneering efforts at rational analysis. The theories of these philosophers challenged the traditional mythical descriptions of the universe and man's existence, initiating the paradigm shift from mythos (myth) to logos (logic) that reshaped philosophical discourse and laid the foundations for Western philosophical traditions. This paper seeks to reveal the nature of pre-Socratic rational thought and its lasting impact on the history of Western philosophy. It emphasizes the importance of the contributions of pre-Socratic philosophers to the promotion of critical thinking, empiricism, and logical reasoning. Finally, the paper emphasizes the role of the pre-Socratic period in the development of Western philosophy and philosophical approaches to inquiry.

Sartre on Action: Decentring the Will

ABSTRACT The Western philosophic tradition has tended to tie the question of action to that of freedom, with the relationship structured around the free will/determinism opposition. In contrast, I show that in Being and Nothingness, Sartre offers a stringent and radical critique of these approaches. I briefly outline the conceptual parameters of Sartre’s early ontology, before showing that he rejects the free will tradition because of its underlying conception of freedom and insistence that action is reflective and will-based. According to Sartre, consciousness is not a sum of parts, with one aspect (will) guiding the rest. Consciousness is a differentiated whole, divided between reflective and pre-reflective levels. Will is tied to the reflective level of consciousness and so cannot be said to be foundational given that reflectivity depends upon pre-reflectivity. Instead, it is an expressive effect of consciousness’s spontaneous, pre-reflective, projection of itself towards a particular end and value.

Connecting enaction and indigenous epistemologies in technology-enhanced learning

Within educational scholarship, and in particular technology-enhanced learning research, the ‘enactivist’ conception of cognition has been steadily gaining in prominence over the past few decades (Begg, 2002; Leonard, 2020). Enactivism can be defined as a philosophical proposition contending that cognition emerges by way of active interplay between an organism and its context. Enactive theory sees that organisms create experiences and understandings through their actions and are not passive receivers of input from an environment. They are ‘actors,’ such that what they experience is shaped by how they act (Varela et al., 1991). Enactivist understandings of learning see education as emergent processes in which ‘knowing’ for an organism stems from, and is embedded in, complex systems of relations between individuals and how they influence and are influenced by cultural contexts. These in turn are also influenced by, and influence environmental circumstances (Begg, 2002). Concerning educational technology (edtech), enactivist approaches have gained attention due to this cognitive position being based upon circular forms of influence, in which tools used, environments, social interactions and more, all contribute to cognition occurring (Author 2, 2021). Additionally, indigenous epistemologies and worldviews are also being looked to by many within edtech research, to define and conceptualise learning technology in more ecological, embodied, and co-relational ways (Hradsky, 2023; Meighan, 2022; Reedy, 2019). Indigenous worldviews offer more interconnected, ecological, and systems-oriented ways of viewing education and edtech, connecting to circular enactivist positions. Indigenous worldviews and enactivism relate in that both are interconnected and holistic viewpoints, which see less separation between individuals, other beings, environments, and ‘the world.’ This is important, as in a world full of ‘wicked’ socio-ecological problems, bridges need to be built between ecological and relational indigenous viewpoints, and traditional western science and philosophy (reductionist and rationalistic) (Authors, 2021). In this presentation, we posit that there are potential unexplored links between enactivist educational approaches which utilise technology (such as XR interventions. See: Author 2, 2020, Author 1, 2018; Author 1, 2021), and indigenous approaches and philosophies of technology enhanced learning (Authors, 2022). Such contemporary projects which contribute to this conversation include O-Tu-Kapua (Author 2, 2017), Kōrimurimu (Author 1, 2018) and Pipi’s World (Author 2, 2021; Author 2, 2019). In particular, Kōrimurimu (2018) fostered an educational ‘ecosystem’ in which students could engage and interact with the learning using a variety of different technologies, approaches, and through stimulation of different senses. Embodied and holistic methods were utilised to stimulate learning in not purely rationalistic/cognitive ways. These approaches tied both enactive and indigenous perspectives of knowing and building knowledge experientially and sensorially. Here we present some initial research and conceptual propositions around potential links between these theoretical areas and highlight some proposed methodological approaches to investigating and detailing these connections. Such links between enactivism and indigenous worldviews we have identified include circularity regarding learners to their tools/devices and environment, embodied views of cognition and learning, holistic and interconnected paradigms, and a shift away from Cartesian conceptualisations of separation between mind and body.

Ketiadaan Mutlak dalam Buddhisme Zen dalam Perspektif Pemikiran Nishida Kitarō dan Korelasinya dengan Realitas

This essay discusses Nishida Kitarō's view of absolute nothingness, a concept influenced by the tradition of Zen Buddhism. Methodologically, it is designed as philosophical hermeneutics and aims to provide a new perspective in the study of philosophy. Nishida's thinking is based on the tradition of Western philosophical thought, especially Hegel, Kant, and Heidegger. However, in its development, Nishida created a new philosophical construction that attempted to criticize the Western philosophical tradition. This paper shows that Nishida Kitarō internalized Zen Buddhism into his philosophy. Nishida brings together Zen Buddhism as a philosophical thought with various types of thought and figures in the Western philosophical tradition. Zettai mu or absolute nothingness is at the heart of all of Nishida's metaphysical edifice. This absolute nothingness is built on a spatial logic that allows contact between the subject and the object. Nishida understands the concept of absolute nothingness in three phenomenologies of personal identity. These three stages lead to the contradiction of absolute self-identity. These findings can contribute to forming new enlightenment in freeing oneself from false perceptions of reality and wrong views.

Translation and traditions: Taha Abderrahmane’s intersectional views as a threshold for cultural dialogue

ABSTRACT Translation Studies, like other disciplines within humanities and social sciences, is marked by a certain scholarly dominance of Eurocentric episteme and Western philosophical tradition. The significance of other translation histories and orientations appears to be simply obliterated or relegated to peripherical statuses. Recently, there has been a growing upsurge in cross-cultural calls to decentralize these Studies by encouraging openness to other non-western traditions of translation. The emergence of new anthologies, for instance, celebrating Arab and Chinese traditions of translation may testify to this new trend in Translation Studies. This paper aims to shed light on Arabs’ contribution to the field of translation practice and theory. This is meant to pave the ground for discussing the intersectional translation view of Taha Abderrahmane, a contemporary Moroccan philosopher and thinker who, broadly speaking, works on Arab-Islamic philosophy. The paper argues that Taha’s understanding of translation allows for intertextual discursivity and cultural interchanges between different traditions. This perspective seeks to furnish the canvas for open dialogue that is free of essentialism and politicized fanaticism.

Against the Pathology Argument for Self-Acquaintance

ABSTRACT Are we acquainted with the self in experience? It may seem so. After all, we tend to be confident in our own existence. A natural explanation for this confidence is that the self somehow shows up in experience. Yet philosophers in both the Eastern and Western philosophical traditions have been sceptical of self-acquaintance. Despite centuries of debate, the matter remains controversial. But the persistence of this dispute is puzzling. Why can we not simply settle this question by introspection? Here, many philosophers hold that the self is elusive. Hence, to address this question we need to use a more indirect method. To this end, philosophers have turned to pathologies of self-awareness such as depersonalization and thought insertion to argue for self-acquaintance, a strategy I label the Pathology Argument. In this paper, I criticize the Pathology Argument on the grounds that we can better explain the symptoms of these disorders without appeal to self-acquaintance.

Dyskurs strukturalnej konieczności jako czynnik totalitaryzacji polityki i prawa. Efekt cieplarniany i pandemia COVID-19 jako polityczne „hybrydy”

This article discusses the contemporary discourse of justifying the abandonment of the protection of rights by a higher necessity, which is presented as resulting both from the indications of science and from the structural features of modern society. Such ideas are proclaimed, among others, on the occasion of the phenomena referred to as the COVID-19 pandemic and the greenhouse effect and climate crisis, and are in turn addressed by institutional and political actions. The aim of the article is to analyze this discourse and its effects on the way of understanding politics and law, and in particular the totalitarian tendencies it generates. The author adopts a hermeneutical perspective as a methodological starting point and refers to a certain understanding of politics and law as based on practical reason, which is established in the Western philosophical tradition. This then serves to outline an ideal type of discourse of structural necessity as a rejection of this type of rationality. In doing so, the author refers to the interpretation of commonly known ideological tendencies and institutional facts. The presentation of the less obvious feature of this discourse, i.e. the identification of natural and political necessity, is supported by the author with references to contemporary philosophical and political concepts dealing with the relationship between the social and natural spheres. The conclusion is that this discourse eliminates the idea of the subject, politics understood as the sphere of manifestation of subjectivity, law as an art based on practical rationality, and finally the separation of science and power.

Virtue Ethicist of the Ideal Type

There has been an impressive revival of virtue ethics as a rival to deontology and consequentialism in contemporary Western normative ethics. Correspondingly, many comparative philosophers have shown a great interest in finding virtue ethics potentials in other philosophical traditions in the world, the most impressive of which is Confucianism. While the result of such comparative studies is equally impressive, in almost all these studies, scholars tend to use a historical example of virtue ethics in the Western philosophical tradition, particularly the Aristotelian one, as the ideal type of virtue ethics, to measure historical examples of virtue ethics in other philosophical traditions. The result is thus conceivably skewed: however great these non-Western examples of virtue ethics are, they are perceived to be deficient in one way or another in comparison with the Aristotelian one. In this paper, I first construct an ideal type of virtue ethics in its contrast with ideal types of consequentialism and deontology: a normative ethics in which virtue is primary. I then use this ideal type of virtue ethics to measure Aristotle’s virtue ethics and Zhu Xi’s virtue ethics, both regarded as historical types of virtue ethics, concluding that Zhu Xi’s is closer to the ideal type of virtue ethics than Aristotle’s.

Levinas on Face A Preliminary Exploration of Levinas's Ethical Phenomenology

According to Levinas, there exists a totalizing characteristic within the Western philosophical tradition that reduces the other to sameness. This subjectification of the other implies a violence towards the other. In resistance to this totalizing violence, Levinas endeavors to construct a theory with ethics as the first philosophy. By introducing an absolutely external other and shifting the focus from the "self" in phenomenology towards the absolute heterogeneity of the "other," Levinas establishes an ethics of the other. This is built on the foundation of a "face-to-face" relationship, creating a framework where the ego bear an infinite responsibility towards the other. On one hand, the other disrupts my exclusive possession of the world through the presence of their face, rejecting my conceptual grasp. On the other hand, through discourse, the other makes an ethical plea to the ego, and the ego bear an absolute responsibility towards the other, becoming a "hostage" to the other. The central theme of Levinas's ethics is the other, focusing on the primal experience of face-to-face encounters where the other precedes my understanding of existence and knowledge objects.

The Conceptual Plurality in Jürgen Habermas’s Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie

In Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (Also a History of Philosophy), Jürgen Habermas weaves together various themes such as faith and knowledge, history and theology, naturalism and epistemic justification, learning processes and moral development as well as multiculturalism and deliberative democracy in a transnational public sphere. This article argues that to articulate these multiple elements, Habermas adopts a robust framework built upon four conceptual pillars that can be clearly identified: postmetaphysical, postconventional, postnational, and postsecular. This “conceptual plurality” underlies his genealogy of the centuries-long tension and mutual learning between religious faith and scientific knowledge in the Western philosophical tradition. By considering the interplay of these concepts, it is possible to understand the several ways in which religion emerges in contemporary society and the equally multiple strategies Habermas uses to interpret religion throughout his career, which are masterfully reconsidered and articulated in his opus magnum on religion.

Hegel on Being

With Hegel on Being, Stephen Houlgate presents an impressive philosophical analysis of one of the most obscure, but also most important texts of the whole Western philosophical tradition. Houlgate's book is an in-depth systematic investigation of the entire doctrine of being of Hegel's mature logical system. This work takes up and develops a series of reflections presented in The Opening of Hegel's Logic (2006), which were dedicated to the first two chapters of the section on quality in the Science of Logic, and extends them to the further two sections of the first part of Hegel's mature system. Houlgate's text is thus particularly interesting, especially if one considers that not many Hegel scholars have dealt with the difficulties of the sections dedicated to quantity and measure. This is probably due to the complexity of the dialectic of the categories involved in these sections of the Logic and to the necessity of approaching Hegel's dialogue with the exact and natural sciences of his time. On the interaction of Hegel's philosophy with these scientific contributions, Houlgate offers us particularly significant pages. Suffice to mention the excursus on differential calculus at the end of the section dedicated to quantity, or the analysis of the relevance of Galileo Galilei's and Johannes Kepler's discoveries in the context of the analysis of realized measure.

Writing Philosophical Autoethnography: A Review

As a book reviewer, I am penning down my thoughts restlessly on the book, Writing Philosophical Autoethnography, with a diverse audience in mind, encompassing readers, writers, and researchers of all levels from various disciplines in the social sciences and education. This groundbreaking work, edited by Alec Grant and published by Routledge, masterfully blends philosophy and autoethnography (Grant, 2023). The book distinguishes itself through its philosophical depth, with each chapter demonstrating a profound engagement with philosophical debates and theories rooted in Western philosophical traditions. This approach sets it apart from other autoethnographic works where philosophical concepts often appear to be secondary. However, the strong focus on philosophy might render the content somewhat challenging for readers who are not well-versed in philosophical theories. Despite this, the book is an indispensable resource for autoethnographers, offering practical examples of how to weave philosophy into their writing. Overall, this book expands the horizons of autoethnographic research and encourages researchers to delve deeper into the philosophical aspects of their autoethnographic work.

Decolonizing Group Analysis: What does it mean?

Decolonizing is not a finite process with a beginning and an end, though there are signs that it is being taken up in that way. It is therefore in danger of being fetishised and incorporated into the very colonial system it sets out to call into question. It is instead an ongoing dialogue, a praxis involving both colonizers and decolonizers. And it is an internal struggle for decolonizers with the colonizing and colonized parts of ourselves. It calls into question all established theories and discourses of group analysis and of Western psychotherapy generally, embedded as they are in Western philosophical traditions and forms of ‘knowledge’. It supports the empowerment of subaltern voices addressing the unity of patriarchy, racism and class exploitation wherever they occur.

The Metaphysical Turn in the History of Thought: Anaximander and Buddhist Philosophy

The present study, primarily of a theoretical nature, endeavors to accomplish two distinct objectives. First and foremost, it endeavors to engage in a thoughtful examination of the metaphysical significance that Anaximander’s philosophy embodies within the context of the nascent Western philosophical tradition. Furthermore, it aims to investigate how it was contemporaneous Buddhist thought, coeval with Anaximander’s era, that more explicitly elucidated the concept of the “void” as an inherent aspect of authentic existence. This elucidation was articulated through aphoristic discourse rather than being reliant on formal logical reasoning or structured arguments.

The Experience of the Alien and the Inter-world: From Waldenfels to Merleau-Ponty

Abstract This paper aims to lay out the main tenets of Bernhard Waldenfels’s analyses of the experience of the alien and to confront the philosophical thesis underwriting them with a central insight stemming from Merleau-Ponty’s late philosophy. In the first section, I reconstruct the outlines of the experience of the alien, as described by Waldenfels, and show that, on his account, this experience can function as a powerful impetus enabling us to call into question some of the most deeply held commitments of Western philosophical tradition: the sovereignty of the ego, the supremacy of order, the priority of the whole. In the second section, I show how a patient analysis of this experience compels us to undertake an inquiry concerning the “inter-world,” understood as the place of the encounter and the threshold of separation between the own and the alien. Finally, drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s alternative description of the “inter-world,” I maintain that Waldenfels’s account is insufficiently radical and show that the in-between realm cannot be assimilated to an interstice lodged between two insulated spheres. Rather, the “inter-world” should be conceived of as a shared dimension, subtending the partition between the spheres of ownness and alienness, as the one inclusive world.

What Confucian Eco-Ethics Can Teach Us about Solving the Dilemma of Interpreting the Concept of Sustainability

Sustainability is at the heart of the concept of the common home. By prioritizing sustainability, we can create a better common home and ensure the well-being of present and future generations. However, there is a dilemma in the interpretation of sustainability, which is mainly characterized by the irreconcilability between “weak sustainability” and “strong sustainability”. The dilemma is partly rooted in some Western philosophical traditions such as the Western separatist mindset, anthropocentrism, and technological solutionism, which have contributed to human subjugation. This paper proposes Confucian eco-ethics to resolve this dilemma. First, Confucian eco-ethics embraces the holistic worldview of “anthropocosmic” that establishes an ontological understanding of the interconnectedness and interdependence between humans and nature, which transcends the Western dichotomy of subject and object and resolves the dualism between human beings and nature. Second, Confucian eco-ethics advocates “pushing oneself to all things” and considers human beings and nature as an ethical community, which emphasizes the ethical responsibility of human beings to protect nature, thus remedying the dilemma that anthropocentrism and ecocentrism have too little or too much responsibility for nature. Third, Confucianism endorses benevolence as a core value for managing technology to achieve sustainable development, and it favors a comprehensive approach that combines technological innovation, values reform, and institutional reform to solve ecological problems. To do this, we analyze the Dujiangyan Water Hydro-Project Hydraulic Project as a case study to illustrate the practical feasibility of Confucian eco-ethics in achieving sustainable development. The conclusion suggests that Confucian eco-ethics can enrich and expand sustainability theory, offering an alternative pathway for a better common home.

The Paradox of Love: A Historical Exploration of Western Philosophical Perspectives on Love, Exclusion, and Liberatory Potential

The present work tracks some of the most well-known thinkers on love in the Western philosophical tradition, where various theories emerge, conflict, converge, and fade away. Given that many questions about its nature have persisted for centuries, love’s identity appears unsettled. Due to its unresolved identity, love might be best understood as a paradox existing between its resistance to definition and yet commonly recognized and experienced. The other central thread stemming from these philosophers of love is how the history of its theorizing constructed a restrictive notion that commonly excluded women from the experience. Offering a natural rebuttal to the history of exclusion promoted by these prominent thinkers is bell hooks’ notion of an expansive and healing love that possessed the capacity to realize more fulfilling relationships and a compassionate society. This paper concludes with thoughts on love’s liberatory nature, its capacity to create personal meaning, and its identity as a paradox without attempting to define it.

Von Hildebrand on the Roots of Moral Evil

In this article, I sketch, both in broad outlines and in selected details, the new, richer picture of von Hildebrand’s account of moral evil as it emerges from my discovery of extensive materials in von Hildebrand´s Nachlass at the Bavarian State Library in Munich dealing with the “roots of moral evil”. These manuscripts and typescripts, the critical edition of which will be published at the same time as this article or shortly thereafter, show that von Hildebrand´s account of moral evil is much richer, more nuanced, and complex than the one we can glean from the final section of Ethics, his magnum opus in moral philosophy. In this article, I also aim to situate von Hildebrand´s analysis of the roots of moral evil in the context of both Christian religious thought and the Western philosophical tradition. Von Hildebrand was, to be sure, an heir to both of these traditions, despite the thrust of his phenomenological method to “bracket” all extant theories and turn “back to the things themselves”. The mind-boggling feature of the tension between von Hildebrand´s existential rootedness in the Catholic tradition and his methodological distance to it, including the Aristotelian–Thomist philosophy, is the following: On one hand, he claims that the two ultimate roots of moral evil are pride and concupiscence, which sounds perfectly traditionally Christian. On the other hand, however, he strips these concepts of most of their traditional connotations and endows them with the meaning they acquire in the context of his phenomenological analyses. The intriguing result of this approach is the transformation of religious or moral theological concepts of pride and concupiscence into descriptive phenomenological categories which encompass an almost inexhaustible wealth of various subspecies and subordinate forms of moral evil.