One of the perennial questions of philosophy concerns the simple statements which say that an object is so and so or that such and such objects are so and so related: simple predicative statements. Do such statements have an ontological basis, and if so, what is that basis? The answer to this question determines—or in any case, is expressive of—a specific fundamental outlook on the world. In the course of the history of Western philosophy, various philosophers have given various answers (...) to the question of predication. This essay presents the main, crucial answers: the paradigms and theories of predication of the Sophists (and of all later radical relativists), of Plato, of Aristotle, of the Aristotelian-minded non-nominalists, of Leibniz, and of Frege. In addition, the essay follows (to some extent) the most influential—the Aristotelian or mereological—paradigm of predication in its continuity and modification through the many centuries of its reign. However, the essay is not content to adopt the merely historical point of view; it also poses the question of adequacy. Prior to Frege, there was no philosophically adequate theory of predication, and the essay points out the shortcomings (besides aspects that can be viewed as advantages) of each pre-Fregean predication theory considered in it. Frege, in the nineteenth century, brought the philosophy of predication on the right track, but his own theory of predication has its own deficits. The essay ends with the presentation of a theory of predication that the author himself considers adequate. (shrink)

Starting with the emphasis that Levinas puts on the role of otherness in the constitution of subjective dimension, this paper discusses how the articulation of this process and the consequences that derive from it recall specifically Fichtean themes. Although the relation between Levinas and Fichte has not been thoroughly examined in the literature yet, it can nevertheless be shown that themes such as the “call” of the subject from the outside, from the unattainable dimension of an otherness irreducible to any (...) immanence and the factual and finite character of its correlative freedom can be understood by reference to the categories that Fichte develops in his texts on law and morals. The reference to Fichte, who already in his considerations on the Wissenschaftslehre recognizes an external Anstoß as determining the reality of the subject, will allows to elucidate the fundamental structure of Levinas’ thought. Particular attention is paid in Levinas to the belonging of otherness to an immemorial past, which in the impossibility of being traced back to the presence of consciousness finds the guarantee of its radical transcendence. Thus, another temporal dimension is configured which also in Fichte refers to an “exteriority” that cannot be assumed by the subject, but only ascertained a posteriori, hence its factual character. Through an interpretation of the fundamental meaning that the primacy of otherness over sameness has in Levinas and the attempt to reflect this relationship through the reference to similar Fichtean motifs, it becomes clearer that the basic meaning of a radical thought of otherness does not cancel the sameness of subject, but on the contrary allows to found it by referring it to its constitutive, unavoidable heteronomy. (shrink)

Celem artykułu jest próba przedstawienia krótkiej genealogicznej historii medium mowy i pisma, która wykorzystuje, rozwija i rekonstruuje zarazem, poglądy i punkt widzenia Sloterdijka na ten temat. Przedmiotem analiz jest formacja dyskursywna o mowie i piśmie ukształtowana w kulturze zachodniej, składająca się z argumentacji i wyobrażeń zawartych w Biblii, tekstach filozoficznych, głównie Platona i Hegla, i literackich, tu tylko sygnalnie odnotowanych. Chodzi wreszcie także o historię społeczną, spojrzenie na rewolucje i kolonializm przez pryzmat medium druku/pisma — opartych na nim relacji władzy (...) i panowania. Dla Sloterdijka wszystkie te zdarzenia dyskursywne i społeczne mają wspólne podłoże resentymentalne — zakłada on bowiem za Nietzschem, że u źródeł kultury czai się okrucieństwo i perwersja. Pytanie: po co to robi, co nowego ta zużyta historycznie rama interpretacyjne pozwala mu powiedzieć o mediach dawniej i dziś? (shrink)