Young Philosopher Research Articles

The Legitimacy of Didactic Philosophizing for Children in Light of the Digital Revolution

The cognitive and digital explosion in Western thought makes it imperative to reflect on the project of creating a young philosopher, by anchoring a strategy to establish critical thinking from childhood—in Algerian society. This approach reflects the sociocultural orientations of the learner, where the teacher plays a crucial role in shaping the child’s consciousness, while addressing the challenges that hinder this process. For this, it is crucial to exploit Western experiences such as that of Matthew Lipman in the United States and Michel Tozzi in France. Algeria has the potential to become a model in the didactic, pedagogical, and cognitive foundations of philosophy for children. The philosophical project aims to develop critical thinking according to criteria of truth and falsity, by encouraging a culture of questioning based on children's skills and orientations. It is also about opening specific educational programs for children and improving their performance based on the principles of philosophy: problems, understanding, argumentation.

Иван Ильин и Алексей Боровой: история одной дружбы

The publication is devoted to the reconstruction of the relations that established between the philosopher, sociologist, anarchist A.A. Borovoi and the young philosopher I.A. Il’in. The ideological and political position held by A.A. Borovoi as a Private Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law of the Moscow Imperial University is reconstructed, as well as his attitude to other colleagues, in particular to P.I. Novgorodtsev, B.A. Kistyakovsky. The evolution of the views of the young Ilyin, who initially sympathized with radical political trends and the anarchist movement, and then switched to the positions of liberal conservatism, is demonstrated. Based on memoirs, letters stored in the archives of A.A. Borovoi in RSALA (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art), memoirs and letters of I.A. Il’in, as well as studies dedicated to Borovoi and Ilyin, the period of meetings of thinkers in Paris in 1911–1912 is reproduced in more detail. The details of the changes that occurred at the Faculty of Law of the Moscow Imperial University in connection with the “Casso Case”, which had a different impact on the fate of thinkers, are revealed. The relationship between Borovoi and Il’in with B.A. Kistyakovsky, who was also in Europe in 1911, is mentioned. An assumption is made about the reasons for the cessation of communication between I.A. Il’in and A.A. Borovoi during the World War I, which could be associated both with the ideological differences between the philosophers and the activities to which each of them devoted himself during these years. The meeting between Borovoi and Il’yin after the February revolution could have given rise to a resumption of communication, but the difference in assessment of the October revolution (imaginary or real) became a stumbling block. Based on the fragment mentioned by Borovoi from the book by G.I. Kish “Hitler and others” and the archive of I.A. Il’in there is reproduced an episode of the thinker’s speech at a meeting of the “Men’s Club” in March 1930. The article recreates the history of relations between I.A. Il’in and representatives of the conservative wing of German entrepreneurs and the failed cooperation with the centrist party represented by German Catholics.

Иван Ильин и Алексей Боровой: история одной дружбы

The publication is devoted to the reconstruction of the relations that established between the philosopher, sociologist, anarchist A.A. Borovoi and the young philosopher I.A. Il’in. The ideological and political position held by A.A. Borovoi as a Private Associate Professor of the Faculty of Law of the Moscow Imperial University is reconstructed, as well as his attitude to other colleagues, in particular to P.I. Novgorodtsev, B.A. Kistyakovsky. The evolution of the views of the young Ilyin, who initially sympathized with radical political trends and the anarchist movement, and then switched to the positions of liberal conservatism, is demonstrated. Based on memoirs, letters stored in the archives of A.A. Borovoi in RSALA (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art), memoirs and letters of I.A. Il’in, as well as studies dedicated to Borovoi and Ilyin, the period of meetings of thinkers in Paris in 1911–1912 is reproduced in more detail. The details of the changes that occurred at the Faculty of Law of the Moscow Imperial University in connection with the “Casso Case”, which had a different impact on the fate of thinkers, are revealed. The relationship between Borovoi and Il’in with B.A. Kistyakovsky, who was also in Europe in 1911, is mentioned. An assumption is made about the reasons for the cessation of communication between I.A. Il’in and A.A. Borovoi during the World War I, which could be associated both with the ideological differences between the philosophers and the activities to which each of them devoted himself during these years. The meeting between Borovoi and Il’yin after the February revolution could have given rise to a resumption of communication, but the difference in assessment of the October revolution (imaginary or real) became a stumbling block. Based on the fragment mentioned by Borovoi from the book by G.I. Kish “Hitler and others” and the archive of I.A. Il’in there is reproduced an episode of the thinker’s speech at a meeting of the “Men’s Club” in March 1930. The article recreates the history of relations between I.A. Il’in and representatives of the conservative wing of German entrepreneurs and the failed cooperation with the centrist party represented by German Catholics.

On the Will to Be Free in Spite of History: Tran Duc Thao and the Activist Roots of “French” Postcolonialism, 1944-1951

Between 1944 and 1951 a brilliant young philosopher from Vietnam addressed the Parisian public by means of activism and philosophical writing to teach them about the experience of colonial rule. This paper will answer the main question as to what Tran Duc Thao taught the Parisian intellectual scene concerning colonialism, freedom and democracy. To this end this paper investigates Tran Duc Thao’s activist attempt to rally the French public to the cause of decolonization. It will discuss how Tran Duc Thao’s activism shaped his anticolonial philosophy. The essay compares Tran Duc Thao’s conception of decolonial freedom to Jean-Paul-Sartre’s existentialist conception of freedom. The most important findings of this paper are first that Tran Duc Thao considered capitalism and colonialism to be related phenomena exploiting conscripts of modernity in a broad sense. Second, that his anticolonial philosophy was a means to explain why people in France did not understand this. Third, that Tran Duc Thao’s philosophy of freedom better fits contemporary postcolonial philosophy and environmental philosophy. While Tran Duc Thao’s work became obscured, he was nevertheless responsible for introducing anticolonial activism in the French university. His concept of the imperial horizon is a powerful tool for historians to understand why so many Europeans failed to support the wish for freedom and democracy of colonial peoples after WW II.

Хайдеггер, Ничто и преодоление страха смерти

The article examines the “philosophy of anxiety” of early Heidegger. The influence of Niet­zsche on the young philosopher is noted, as well as the traumatic experience of World War I, which very strongly influenced the worldview of the author of Being and Time, making him reconsider, among other things, his attitude to the “system of Catholicism”. The article examines Heidegger’s description of the situation where one is seized by anxiety, where one would not expect it at all, where one normally feels at home. Normally, being fallen, that is, being in the world and bustling with daily chores, one feels secure in the midst of beings, at home. However, something happens to him that robs him of his tranquility. This occurs because the existent (Dasein) is disturbed im Grunde seines Seins, at the core of his being; one is aware of his own mortality and the finitude of being, which constitutes a threat, opening the possibility of anxiety (immortal beings, such as angels, treat being dif­ferently, for them the analysis of Dasein is irrelevant). Fear belongs to the ontic, it relates to the fallen state. When one ascends to the Nothingness, which is revealed as Being, that is, when one rises above being in some respect, one surpasses fear as well. In the course of the article, the question of translating some of Heidegger’s concepts into Russian is dis­cussed, which is an urgent task for the Heideggerian studies.

On the Way to the “Geistesgeschichte der Technik” A Fragment of a Project by Hans Blumenberg

The central purpose of this study is to contextualize Hans Blumenberg's early essay The Relationship between Nature and Technology as a Philosophical Problem (1951), not to reconstruct the complex views of the German philosopher concerning technology. The following translation of Blumenberg's essay is also of interest since it can be seen as a part of an unfinished project called “Geistesgeschichte der Technik”. The study deals with Blumenberg's rootedness in discussions around technology in Germany (philosophical anthropology, pessimistic cultural criticism). The article shows how the young philosopher reacted to the issues presented by Husserl, Heidegger, Gehlen and other authors. The philosophy of technology in Scheler's Problems of the Sociology of Knowledge (1926) presumably had a decisive influence on the formulation of the question concerning technology in Blumenberg, which is one of the main theses of my article. Namely, the broader significance of Scheler for discussing technology in Germany before and after World War II boils down to three points: (1) at the heart of the process of technization of the Modern Age lies a certain instinct of power (Machtantrieb); (2) only a break with the culture of the Middle Ages makes it possible to genetically explain the world in which science and technology, in their mutual influence, are a consequence, not a cause; (3) philosophy as metaphysics allows us to see and name the ethical “guilt” of the New European society. The second thesis of this article is that Hans Blumenberg is the author who ultimately did not create the “philosophy of technology”; Blumenberg's writings on this topic are found on the periphery of his texts on the genesis of the Modern Age, which at the same time does not detract from the significance of his present statement.

Shaftesbury, Third Earl of [Anthony Ashley Cooper

Shaftesbury, Third Earl of [Anthony Ashley Cooper

A portrait of Carnap as a young philosopher

A portrait of Carnap as a young philosopher

Sociology of a disciplinary bifurcation: Bruno Latour and his move from philosophy/theology to sociology in the early 1970s

This article analyzes Bruno Latour’s transition from theology to sociology between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s. The study cross-analyzes the philosophical field of the 1970s with the progress of interaction rituals specific to disciplinary integration. By examining his Master’s degree in philosophy and a lecture carried out during his thesis, plus the report of his stay in Ivory Coast, it is possible to identify several stages of a disciplinary bifurcation. First anchored to the metaphysical sector of the philosophical field, Latour – like his masters André Malet, Jean Brun and Claude Bruaire – tried to dissolve the boundary between philosophy and theology. Nourished with Rudolf Bultmann’s hermeneutics – which generates a particularly powerful emotional energy –, the young philosopher drew from the new theological resources provided by Vatican II Council the instruments for a conversion to sociology. Before that, following in the Council’s focus on prayer as the very core of the practice of believers, he had tried to turn prayer into an adequate mode of litany for analyzing texts. He then drew on the post-colonial opening of Vatican II to engage in the field of sociology, the Council having exhausted classical metaphysical questions. His discovery of the effects of colonial domination also played a fundamental role in mobilizing once again some emotional energy. Latour’s disciplinary reclassification just before beginning his laboratory ethnography in California is based on a reassessment of the epistemological possibilities born from the theological innovations of Vatican II.

El concepto de Märchen (cuento maravilloso) en la obra temprana de György Lukács

Se parte aquí del presupuesto de que la categoría de Märchen (cuento maravilloso) ofrece una clave de acceso al intrincado pensamiento temprano de György Lukács. La perspectiva ilumina en efecto toda una problemática normalmente desatendida: el intento, por parte del joven filósofo, de superar el estricto dualismo del incipiente pensamiento sociológico alemán y de probar intelectualmente la posibilidad de una existencia digna. Esto no solo enfrenta al Märchen con el ethos de la tragedia en el temprano concepto lukácsiano de género literario; también lo convierte en una suerte de “piedra de toque” en la búsqueda de formas de la literatura que presupongan una relación sujeto-objeto de condicionamiento recíproco y, además, en una herramienta para un programa pedagógico revolucionario.

Experiências revolucionárias do fim da Idade Moderna e o conceito de liberdade em Hannah Arendt

The concept of freedom in Hannah Arendt is one of the most significant in her work. Associated as it is with human action and discourse, it encompasses levels and variants throughout history, always valued in terms of the public and private spheres of life in society. This article considers the way in which this concept is historicized in the work of the young German-Jewish philosopher, demonstrating how revolutionary experiences at the close of the Modern Age marked a dispute on the meaning of freedom towards the original Greek notion of the concept. Although at its essence, the notion of freedom is the same in antiquity and modernity, it is imperative that we identify the way in which human activities (labor, manufacturing, and action) were re-hierarchized and instrumentalized by various revolutionary experiences and regimes particularly over the last few centuries.

Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān: An Almohad Reading

ABSTRACT Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 581/1185) connection with Almohad rulers and involvement in the Almohad doctrinal and intellectual project has been addressed by Nemesio Morata and Lawrence Conrad, among others. Conrad argues that Ibn Ṭufayl belonged to the newly created Almohad elites, the ṭalaba, the empire’s doctrinarians. Morata analyses the famous passage where Ibn Ṭufayl presents Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd (Averroes) to the then prince Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf – who would become the second Almohad caliph (r. 558/1163–580/1184) – when the young philosopher was commissioned to write his commentaries on Aristotle. Ibn Ṭufayl’s Risālat Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān has, however, rarely been analysed in the Almohad context in which it was written, despite being one of the earliest works written under Almohad rule. Here I propose precisely such a reading of the text, showing Sufism, philosophy and politics as inextricably linked. This proposal, with its specific identification of the two main characters of the Risāla, Ḥayy and Absāl, considers the needs that the new polity had at the time to develop a post-Messianic orientation that would preserve the loyalty of the first followers (Berber-speaking tribesmen from the Maghrib), while attracting the urbanized Andalusis and, more importantly, their scholarly elites.

One Hundred Years After Keynes Published His 'A Treatise on Probability' in 1921, Edgeworth’s Two Reviews Still Stand Out As Being Vastly Superior to the Assessments Made by Any Other Philosopher of the Logical Theory of Probability

F. Y. Edgeworth made the only correct assessment of Keynes’s Logical Theory of Probability in his A Treatise on Probability among philosophers in the 100 years between 1921 and 2020. The reason is that he actually read the entire book, with the exception of Part II, which he was able to assess through his very careful reading of Part I. The major problem confronting any philosopher, who wants to take into consideration the various different aspects of Keynes’s A Treatise on Probability, is the unfortunate fact that there is no philosopher,with the one exception of Edgeworth (Bertrand Russell did not read Part V), who has read beyond chapters 1-4 plus some parts of chapter 6 of the A Treatise on Probability. This assessment includes every philosopher associated with SIPTA, as well as B. Koopman, I. J. Good, T. L. Fine, P. Suppes, H.E. Kyburg, I.Levi, S. Zabell, as well as younger philosophers, such as B. Weatherson, D. Rowbottom, R.Bradley, S. Bradley, J. Williamson, T. Siedenfeld, G. Wheeler, etc. The conclusion reached is that after 100 years there is only one sure path currently available to philosophers who want to know what it was that Keynes actually accomplished in the A Treatise on Probability-read and reread the two reviews made by Edgeworth. A reader is then in a good position to grasp what it was that Keynes had erected in 1921-the first mathematically and technically advanced interval valued approach to probability in history. Kyburg’s claim, that he was the first to have put forth a detailed interval valued approach for a logical theory of probability, is simply a major oversight made by Kyburg. Edwin B. Wilson's conclusion, that Edgeworth was by the far the most qualified academic to review Keynes's A Treatise on Probability, still holds good 100 years after he published his reviews of Keynes's book.

EQUALITY AND PROPHECY

As a young philosopher, a third-generation atheist and already a feminist, Michèle Le Doeuff read the Bible on her own, without anybody’s guidance and on the basis of an assumed intellectual equality between the texts and herself. Later on, her friendship with Pamela Sue Anderson also developed thanks to their firm belief that a member of a given faith and an atheist can tolerate and indeed respect each other to the full through a common involvement in feminist philosophy. All this defines a standpoint from which a host of questions can be raised and many topics transformed.

Задача момента (Конспект лекции, прочитанной Иваном Ильиным в мае 1917 года)

This publication is devoted to one of the episodes of I. A. Ilyin’s activity in the period “between two revolutions”. Before the October revolution, the young philosopher was inspired by the events of February 1917 and devoted a lot of time to speeches and publications on the possibility of building a new order in the state. The published archive text indicates that the development of Ilyin’s doctrine “on legal consciousness” falls precisely at this tragic moment in the history of Russia.

«Sogno un ultimo viaggio ispanico». Seven Letters by Arturo Farinelli to Eugeni d’Ors

Italian scholar Arturo Farinelli was strongly connected with Catalonia and Spain’s cultural environment. In early 20th century, he met young Catalan philosopher Eugeni d’Ors and, despite their opposed aesthetical and ideological positions, the two became friends and started an epistolary relationship attested by seven letters of Arturo Farinelli, sent between 1920 and 1943 and located in the Arxiu National de Catalunya. During World War I, both intellectuals defended neutrality, but moving from antithetical ideological assumptions, such as a humanistic internationalism in the case of Farinelli, and European imperialism promoted by Ors. Differences between them lie also in their aesthetic judgements about Baroque and Romanticism.

Novalis and the problem of the original action of the I

Between 1795 and 1796 Novalis produces a vast group of fragments on Fichte’s philosophy, the posthumously entitled “Fichte-Studien”. Among the topics therein approached, one of the most important is that of the original action of the I (Urhandlung), and the possible or impossible union of the opposites which model human life and thought, feeling and reflection. The aim of this article is to inquire Novalis’ view of this problem of paramount importance for a philosophy of the I; namely, to investigate the contours of Novalis’ circular conception of the problem, and its differences regarding Fichte; to expound the dilemma of the necessity and yet impossibility of a union between opposites; and to show how the young philosopher considers this problem both in its real and in its ideal prism, thereby proposing, as a solution, a union in disunion, an (im-)possible union between opposites, which Novalis affirms as a new conception of the circular study of the I and as the foundation for a new philosophizing.

Honors and theater: Spinoza’s pedagogical experience and his relation to F. Van den Enden

Franciscus Van den Enden (1602–1674) is commonly considered as the man who taught Latin to B. de Spinoza (1632–1677). It is unknown if he actually taught him something else, but we do know he used a pedagogy of his own and made the young philosopher aware of the importance of pedagogical issues. The present article helps to document their relationship from a historical and theoretical perspective, by clarifying Van den Enden’s ideas on a most debated subject: the use of honorary titles to distinguish pupils in the classroom. In particular, it shows how the rejection by Van den Enden of titles commonly used in Jesuits schools finds echoes in Spinoza’s philosophy. At the same time, the article argues that through their common participation in theatrical plays, Van den Enden and Spinoza shared a pedagogical experience that helped to overcome the problems linked to the introduction of a hierarchy, not theoretically, but in practice.

Editors’ Introduction

Editors’ Introduction

Ortega y las <em>Meditaciones del Quijote</em>

Este trabajo pretende conmemorar al mismo tiempo Meditaciones del Quijote (1914) de José Ortega y Gasset y la obra magna de Cervantes, la segunda parte del Quijote, cuyo centenario se cumple en 1915. Se han resumido algunos de los últimos trabajos de excelentes orteguianos que han propuesto viejas y nuevas teorías para comprender y desentrañar el primer libro del filósofo del Escorial. Algunos de ellos han considerado que en el primer libro de Ortega se encuentran los fundamentos de toda su filosofía posterior. Otros han observado la influencia y la rivalidad de Ortega con las filosofías de Husserl y Heidegger. Por nuestra parte hemos querido equilibrar la controversia afirmando por una parte que algunos vestigios de las principales obras de madurez de Ortega se encuentran en Meditaciones, pero no lo suficiente como para poder afirmar que el joven filósofo de 1914 había concluido su itinerario filosófico. Es el mismo Ortega que repite continuamente que la filosofía es evolución y cambio de punto de vista, porque, entre otras cosas, el pensador necesita estar a la altura de los tiempos.