Philosophical Writings Research Articles

Philosophical Anthropology of B. V. Markov. Part 1. Philosophy of the Era of “the Death of Man”

The article is devoted to the study of the Philosophical Anthropology of the recently deceased famous St. Petersburg philosopher Boris Vasilyevich Markov (1946-2023). Thanks to him, Russian Philosophical Anthropology started to develop actively in the 1990s. It is the peculiarities and significance of the philosophy of that period, are analyzed in the article. The writings of French philosophers, primarily the concept of the “death of man” by M. Foucault, were of central importance for the new Russian philosophy and Philosophical Anthropology of that time. The works of the archaeological and genealogical stages by Foucault had a great influence on Markov. The author of the current article examines in detail the significance of Foucault’s concept of the “death of man” and, in general, the understanding of man in Postmodernism for the development of Philosophical Anthropology of B. V.Markov in his works of the 1990s. To do this, the genesis and features of the development of European, primarily French, philosophy of the second half of the 20th century, presented in such concepts as episteme, deconstruction, archeology of knowledge, genealogy of power, language, are critically touched upon and analyzed. Based on these principles, Markov’s philosophical anthropology can be characterized as an archeology and genealogy of power in relation to man in culture, society and everyday life. The author emphasizes that the development of Philosophical Anthropology in the era of the “death of man” was a complex and controversial process, since such critical analytics led to the depersonalization of human being. The research presented in the article seeks to critically reveal the foundations of such an essentially anti-anthropological philosophy. Analysis of philosophy of B. V. Markov allows us to reveal its great significance for the development of domestic Philosophical Anthropology in the era of the “death of man”.

Human Cyborgisation: Social and Cultural Aspects

The author of this article presents human cyborgisation as a paradigmatic shift in the evolution of Homo Sapiens, in which the integration of technology into the human body not only alters physical capabilities but also reshapes social and cultural landscapes. The paper examines a few current narratives surrounding the cyborgisation of the human and explores their implications for human identity, agency and, more generally, 'the human'. Drawing on several interdisciplinary sources, including the philosophical writings of contemporary scholars and the legal discourse on the specific situation in Slovenian jurisprudence, the author analyses an engineering-pragmatic narrative focused on human progress and enhancement and a cultural-humanist narrative based on the discourse on the preservation of human dignity and autonomy. The study also considers a biological-evolutionary perspective, which sees cyborgisation as one illustration of adaptability and a tool for human cognitive enhancement. Through this analysis, the author seeks to illuminate some facets of the complex interplay between technological progress and the social system within which modern humans exist, and to contribute to the debate on the role of cyborgisation in the ongoing development of humanity.

Iliados komentaras kaip priešprieša karui. Simone Weil ir graikai

The article focuses on some of Simone Weil’s philosophical writings against war, which she published in the context of the Second World War. Her translations and commentaries on Greek myths, philosophy, and poetry were at the core of her political thought and action. One of the main purposes of this article is to study Weil’s idea of the Trojan war as paradigmatic in human history. The philosopher’s interest in ancient authors was determined by her philosophical, pedagogical, as well as social activities. Weil’s translations and commentaries on Homer’s Iliad were deeply influenced by her reflexions on the origins of Hitlerism. Weil’s philosophical gloss on the Iliad was based on a radical cultural and political confrontation between Greek philosophy, which she associated with spirituality, and ideology of violence, which she attributed to Roman imperialism. Within the broader context of Weil’s philosophy, the article focuses on the key concepts that the philosopher introduced in her commentaries on the Iliad, such as hero, misfortune, thing, and force. Weil’s philosophy seems to be very timely in wartime because it underscores the demand for a pure inner and courageous view of war by philosophers – just like Homer’s view of the Trojan war.

50 Years After Wittgenstein’s Vienna. On Wittgenstein, Toulmin and Philosophy. Tomasz Zarębski in Conversation With Allan Janik

In this interview, Tomasz Zarębski speaks with Allan Janik, co-author of Wittgenstein’s Vienna (1973, with Stephen Toulmin), on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of this pathbreaking book. The conversation concerns the circumstances, motivations and reasons for his undertaking the work on the book, as well as its reception and place in Wittgenstein scholarship. A large part of the discussion refers to his perspective of Wittgenstein, Toulmin’s philosophical writings, and Janik’s own vision of philosophy. The interview took place in Innsbruck on 23rd and 25th August 2023.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN «POLITICAL POWER» AND «PSYCHIATRIC POWER» IN THE WORKS OF MICHEL FOUCAULT

The article demonstrates a retrospective analysis of the problem of the formation of the concept of power in the scientific activity of the French philosopher Michel Foucault. The transformational socio-political processes of the postmodern era require a radical rethinking of classical theories and concepts. Foucault proposes to look at historical structures and social phenomena in a new way, to modernize them away from superficial explanations and primitive interpretations revealing hidden and less obvious political mechanisms and their functioning. The problems of the 20th century draw the thinker's attention to a deep rethinking of power and strongly recommends abandoning classical canons in order to avoid social problems in the future. M. Foucault's post-structuralist concept of power proves that the variety of types of power generates not only reality and objects of knowledge, but also the «rituals» of their understanding. Contemporaries point out that the philosopher's writings lack a logical process of understanding a problem, but this is why he attracts not only scientists. Foucault's cognitive process is dynamic and discursive. Having associative thinking, the thinker engaged in a pure search, free from any biased attitude. M. Foucault suggests considering power relations in the broadest context, which includes the following power positions: men to women, parents to children, psychiatrists to mentally ill patients, doctors to patients, and authorities to people's lifestyles. However, the philosopher's most interesting explanation of power is medical power, particularly power in psychiatry. M. Foucault interprets power and knowledge in classical psychiatry, the problems of psychiatry of the 20th century and explains the meaning of mental illnesses from the patient's point of view. While studying at the «Ecole Normale» school, where a unique atmosphere reigned, despite his erudition and organizational skills as a leader, M. Foucault began to experience psychological disorders. This is what provoked the future thinker to investigate the power relations between the psychiatrist and the patient. This paper also examines the philosophical paradigm of the formation of psychiatry and the phenomenon of mental illness. Foucault understands mental disorders as alienation from reality, as a desire to exist in a hostile world. Madness, or alienation in the deep sense of the word, becomes the main problem of anthropology.

Feeling Happiness, Feeling Science: Diffractive Readings of Émilie Du Châtelet’s and Sophie Germain’s Philosophical Writings

Abstract In this paper I read diffractively the philosophical writings of Émilie Du Châtelet and Sophie Germain, particularly focusing on their engagement with happiness, both as a theoretical notion and as a lived experience. What I argue is that their take on happiness has nothing to do with the gendered norms and discourses of happiness that they were seen and judged by, in the longue durée of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their happiness was more in line with the joys and pleasures of knowledge, understanding, living, and creating. While feelings are central in both women’s theorization of happiness, they are deployed along different strands in the philosophical history of emotions and affects, and despite their original and unique contribution, they are still absent from it.

Colloquium 4 Plato’s Statesman and the Nature of Philosophical Writing

Abstract The Visitor’s inquiry into the expertise of statesmanship in Plato’s Statesman consistently privileges knowledge as the sole source from which to derive legitimate authority to command. And yet the section of the dialogue to which he refers as a “play” (δρᾶμα, 303c8) of satyrs and centaurs (291a–303d) complicates matters significantly by spelling out the difficulty of identifying a true statesman and the dangers of thinking ourselves able to do so. Reading the account of human community provided in the myth of the cosmos together with the “good imitation” of knowledge in the satyr play, a limited notion of properly human wisdom comes into view as the horizon within which to interpret knowledge and dialectical division in the dialogue. I conclude that the education of the dialectician is connected to the problem of the absence of the true statesman, and that the Statesman is prescribing ways in which members of the philosophical community ought to understand themselves in dialogue with the written word.

Abicht and Śniadecki: about a Turbulent Philosophical Dispute at the Imperial University of Vilnius in 19th century

The article presents the results of source research conducted on the scholarly and teaching activities of the German philosopher and educator Johann Heinrich Abicht (1762–1816) who in 1804 was employed at the Imperial University of Vilnius. Research in Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian, and German archives has revealed many facts about Abicht’s scholarly and teaching activities in Vilnius, most of which fall during the period when Jan Śniadecki (1756–1830) was Rector at the Imperial University of Vilnius. In this paper I argue that it was Abicht and his Vilnius-based scholarly and teaching activities that were the direct cause of Śniadecki’s publication of the essay On Metaphysics in 1814, and indirectly also the trigger for all of Śniadecki’s later philosophical writings.

Complex Philosophical Oeuvre and Its Complex User Community: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future Digitisation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Writings


 
 
 This paper reports the results of a user survey conducted by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen (WAB) concerning some of the digital research tools and resources it has developed over the past three decades. The authors’ analysis of the survey results is embedded within a broader discussion of the nature and history of the digitisation of Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings. It is argued that the special nature of both Wittgenstein’s philosophy—especially the later Wittgenstein’s conceptions of meaning, concepts, and philosophy itself—and its primary material sources (Wittgenstein’s “Nachlass”) inherently call for a variety of advanced digital tools and resources; for instance, a digital interactive edition of his works, such as WAB’s Wittgenstein IDP: The Nachlass in Interactive Dynamic Presentation, to complement static ones such as traditional print editions and other, non-interactive digital editions. For similar reasons, the authors argue, WAB’s ongoing and future development of digital tools and resources for the study of Wittgenstein’s philosophy must be closely coordinated with the evolving needs of WAB’s large and diverse user community.
 
 

‘Ever yours, mathematically’: women’s letters and the mathematical imagination

ABSTRACT In this paper the author looks at the letters of two renowned women mathematicians and scientists of the Victorian period, Mary Somerville and Ada Lovelace, while also considering the imperceptibility of Sophie Germain, an important French mathematician and philosopher in their epistolary exchanges and philosophical writings. Drawing on the importance of mathematical correspondences and epistolary education in the creation, circulation and dissemination of knowledge, as well as in processes of formal and informal learning, the author argues that Lovelace’s and Somerville’s letters leave traces of a remarkable genealogical line of women’s mentorship and personal relations in the nineteenth century world of British mathematics in the backdrop of contradictory discourses around gender, mathematics, and science education.

Valerius Terminus. Treatise by Francis Bacon

The paper is a preface to F. Bacon’s «Valerius Terminus» treatise. The article deals with basic facts of the treatise’s history, as well as the history of its study and the links between it and the other philosophical writings by F. Bacon.

‘The body and the ear’: an aesthetic education approach for the international social work classroom under Erasmus+ blended intensive programmes

ABSTRACT The new generation of Erasmus+ agreements offer funding for innovatively designed compact blended intensive programmes in which international students study abroad together in Europe. The heterogeneity of international social work curricula, coupled with the linguistic and cultural diversity of students, presents pedagogic challenges. Inspired by teaching on such a programme in Germany, this paper theoretically examines an ‘aesthetic education’ (arts-based) response to these challenges. The basis of this learning is heightening students’ perception of each other, their own bodies, and their embodied knowledge. Examining a music workshop and a tango workshop reveals pedagogies grounded in creative arts, and utilizing the different senses of hearing, movement, and touch. It is suggested that theoretically-founded teaching approaches utilizing non-verbal communication and learning can supplement the primarily verbal pedagogies more commonly used in the social work classroom. Investigating philosophical writings from Friedrich Schiller and sociological ideas from Hartmut Rosa, it is argued that playful interactions can lead to students deepening their understanding of bodily-based aspects of communication and thereby experiencing more resonant relations to one other. The skills and sensibilities acquired in such creative sessions have contemporary relevance, preparing the student social worker for communicative interaction with ‘the other’.

“Yet a New Phase, Wherein the Abstract Become Concrete”. Josiah Royce’s Theory of Experience Between Philosophy and Psychology

Abstract This paper aims to focus on the concept of experience and reconstruct its evolutions within Royce’s thought. To do so, I divide this paper in three parts. I begin by analysing Royce’s concept of experience, which takes roots in his interpretation of the British empiricists, such as Locke, Berkeley and Hume, in The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892). In the second part I outline Royce’s theory of experience from a philosophical and psychological point of view. My claim is that, in his philosophical writings, Royce argues that cognitions are not abstract ideas but plans of actions: meanings and concepts are embodied, situated and time-oriented. I refer also to Royce’s contribution to the psychological field, with regard to embodied aspects of cognitions. According to Royce, cognitions are enriched with elements related to sensorimotor, imaginative and perceptual faculties. Action and perception are no separated aspects of cognitions, because perception implies sensorimotor dynamics. At the same time, the perception of the object is entangled with the imagination of the would be, i.e., the result of doing different actions with the object.

THE GENERAL RESURRECTION AND EARLY MODERN NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS: A PRELIMINARY SURVEY

AbstractNoting that the doctrine of the general resurrection attracted renewed attention after the Reformation, and after the atomist revival led to the displacement of traditional hylomorphism by alternative matter theories, this article surveys the ways in which the resurrection was discussed by leading natural philosophers in seventeenth‐century England. These include discussion of how bodily resurrection might be possible, what resurrected bodies will be like; as well as the nature of living conditions after the resurrection. It is indicated that the resurrection seems to have played a much less prominent place in the writings of natural philosophers than the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and other issues of natural theology. Reasons for this lack of prominence are tentatively offered, chiefly focusing on its unsuitability for combatting the perceived atheism of the time. It is hoped that this preliminary survey might inspire others to extend the survey, especially to cover Continental philosophers.

A Self-Indulgent Narcissus: Performing Marxist Humanism as Individualism in the Work of Petr Štembera

Petr Štembera’s first performance Narcissus No. 1 (1974) was staged as a religious ritual of self-acceptance. During the performance, the artist used a combination of Greek mythology and Christian Eucharistic ritual as a basis for the action during which he consumed detritus from his body while looking at a portrait of himself. This method of arguably self-indulgent individualism was at the core of his broader practice as a pioneer of Czech Body Art. Using Czech philosophical writings on Marxist humanism, this article seeks to reframe individualism, selfishness, and self-indulgence not as pejoratives that are used to dismiss performance works but as a productive basis for a theory of performance-making strategy. Štembera used Zen-Buddhism and phenomenological approaches to contest the political aspects relating to the body in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia. His performance was purposefully selfish, self-indulgent, and individualistic and he strategically refused to share the specifics of his experience with his audience. Instead, he used his performance to offer permission to his audience to perform similar acts of self-indulgence, which in the context of the collectivist Socialist regime of the 1970s functioned, I argue, as a politically subversive act.

Revisiting the Controversial Category of Expository Philosophical Writing in Filipino Philosophy

Revisiting the Controversial Category of Expository Philosophical Writing in Filipino Philosophy

Avi Lifschitz, (Ed.), "Frederick the Great's Philosophical Writings"

Avi Lifschitz, (Ed.), "Frederick the Great's Philosophical Writings"

Russell and American Realism

American philosophical realism developed in two forms: “new” and “critical” realism. While the new realists sought to ‘emancipate’ ontology from epistemology and defended a direct theory of perception, the critical realists promoted a representationalist account of perception and thus argued for an epistemological dualism. Bertrand Russell’s early philosophical writings figured prominently in both of these American realist camps. However, while the new realists quite enthusiastically embraced the Russellian analytic style of reasoning (and Russell himself appreciated the American new realists as anti-idealist allies), the critical realists were significantly more reserved toward Russell’s point of view. In the present paper, I identify the reasons for this difference in reception. In particular, I will show that the critical realists’ reservations pertained primarily to a more traditionalist—‘continental’—account of philosophy, whereas the neo-realists proved instrumental in setting the stage for later full-blown analytic philosophy in the United States.

C.S. Lewis: Literary Criticism and Critical Theory A Primary and Secondary Bibliography

Excerpt: "A major problem with compiling a focused bibliography of texts related to C. S. Lewis’ work as a literary critic and critical theorist is that critical theory as a concept is a relatively recent invention. One can think of critical theory as the explicit consideration of the ontological and epistemological status of objects of literary study, and as the philosophical consideration of various aspects of the interpretation of texts (hermeneutics). Although a number of philosophical writings since the Greek Classical Period have significance for critical theory, the idea that an interpretive approach to texts can be considered philosophically probably dates from the German and British Romantic periods (c.1750–1835)."

Act of Terror and the Sublime at the Twilight of the Islamic State

ABSTRACTIn this article, the author analyzes the relationship between art and terrorism. Referring to the element of sublimity operative in philosophical writings pertaining to war and terror, the article raises questions concerning the sublimity of violence on the one hand, and the aesthetization of life and politics on the other. The article’s focus will lie particularly in Immanuel Kant’s account of the sublime in The Critique of the Power of Judgment, which will then be connected to contemporary literature on this theme. In the end, the author wishes to draw attention to the sublimity of violence operative in contemporary discourses and demonstrate the inherent tendency that aestheticized ideology has for applauding cruelty and force.