Denna artikel är den första i en serie om två artiklar som introducerar astrobiologins filosofi. Detta är ett förhållandevis nytt och i Sverige nästan okänt forskningsfält som dock befinner sig i snabb tillväxt internationellt. Ämnet presenteras här i form av exempel på några centrala frågeställningar inom området. I den här artikeln presenteras några frågeställningar hemmahörande i teoretisk filosofi.

Denna artikel är den andra i en serie om två artiklar som introducerar astrobiologins filosofi. Detta är ett förhållandevis nytt och i Sverige nästan okänt forskningsfält som dock befinner sig i snabb tillväxt internationellt. Ämnet presenteras här i form av exempel på några centrala frågeställningar inom området. I den här artikeln presenteras några frågeställningar hemmahörande i praktisk filosofi.

Lisa Furberg har argumenterat för att altruistiskt surrogatmödraskap kan anses moraliskt problematiskt utifrån en perfektionistisk teori om det goda livet. I följande svar riktar jag ett antal invändningar mot Furbergs resonemang.

Det är min uppfattning att tabellen över avsiktlighet (rationalitet, medvetande, sinne, tanke, språk, personlighet etc.) som har framträdande här beskriver mer eller mindre exakt, eller åtminstone fungerar som en heuristisk för, hur vi tänker och beter sig, och så det omfattar inte bara filosofi och psykologi, men allt annat (historia, litteratur, matematik, politik etc.). Observera särskilt att avsiktlighet och rationalitet som jag (tillsammans med Searle, Wittgenstein och andra) visa det, omfattar både medvetna deliberative språkliga System 2 och omedvetna automatiserade (...) prelinguistiska System 1 åtgärder eller reflexer. Jag ger en kritisk undersökning av några av de viktigaste resultaten av två av de mest framstående studenter beteende i modern tid, Ludwig Wittgenstein och John Searle, om den logiska strukturen av avsiktlighet (sinne, språk, medvetande, beteende), med som min utgångspunkt Wittgenstein grundläggande upptäckt, att alla verkligt "filosofiska" problem är desamma-förvirring om hur man använder språket i ett visst sammanhang, och så alla lösningar är desamma, titta på hur språket kan användas i det aktuella sammanhanget så att dess sanningsvillkor (Villkor för tillfredsställelse eller COS) är tydliga. Det grundläggande problemet är att man kan säga vad som helst, men man kan inte betyda (ange tydliga COS för) någon godtycklig yttrande och mening är endast möjligt i ett mycket specifikt sammanhang. Jag analyserar olika skrifter av och om dem från det moderna perspektivet av de två tankesystemen (populariserades som "tänkande snabbt, tänkande långsamt"), med en ny tabell över avsiktlighet och nya dubbla system nomenklatur. Jag visar att detta är en kraftfull heuristisk för att beskriva beteende. Således är allt beteende intimt ansluten om man tar rätt synvinkel. Den fenomenologiska Illusion (glömska till vårt automatiserade System 1) är universell och sträcker sig inte bara hela filosofin utan hela livet. Jag är säker på att Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg och påven skulle vara skeptiska om berättade att de lider av samma problem som Hegel, Husserl och Heidegger, (eller att de skiljer sig endast i grad från drog-och sexmissbrukare i att motiveras av stimulering av deras frontalkortices genom leverans av dopamin (och över 100 andra kemikalier) via ventrala tegmentum och nukleos accumbens), men det är helt klart sant. Medan fenomenologerna bara slösat bort en hel del människors tid, slösar de bort jorden och deras ättlings framtid. (shrink)

Background We investigated the personal philosophies of eight persons with a tetraplegic condition (four male, four female), all living in Sweden with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and all reporting a good life. Our purpose was to discover if there is a philosophical mindset that may play a role in living a good life with a traumatic SCI. Methods Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews were performed by the same interviewer, a philosophical practitioner by training (de Miranda). The second (...) round systematically covered the following elements: bodily sense, sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the possible, sense of purpose and philosophical sense. This six-step method developed by de Miranda is called SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Results All the interviewees, as a consequence of their trauma, reported having gone through a reinvention of themselves which implied questioning the meaning and purpose of their life in particular and life in general. A philosophical rather than realistic sense of the possible was abstracted toward teleological growth. All interviewees developed a sense of purpose based on self-interested altruism and solidarity with disabled peers. Conclusions To reinvent a good life with SCI, in addition to physical training and willpower, one needs to consider philosophical questions about the self and life, what Kant called the cosmic interests of reason: What may I hope? What must I do? What can I know? Our results indicate that we should, in the future, explore what the philosophical health approach may bring to rehabilitation processes in the months or years that follow the trauma. (shrink)

The present article is a primary introduction to the semi-structured interviewing method SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Beyond grounding this new methodology theoretically (a work that is started here but will in the future necessitate several developments), the main motivation here is pragmatic: to provide the recent philosophical health movement with a testable method and show that philosophically-oriented interviews are possible in a manner that can be reproduced, compared, tested and used systematically with (...) a population that has received no training in philosophy. The SMILE_PH approach was conceived by the author during an ethically approved pilot study focused on the philosophy of life of persons living with spinal cord injury (SCI), with the intention of rectifying the epistemic obstacles generated by rationalist, Socratic or unstructured ways of in-depth interviewing. The six-step structure of the method is also inspired by hundreds of individual dialogue sessions with philosophical counselees, led by the author between 2018 and 2022: the SMILE_PH method progressively gathers phenomenological data about 1 – our bodily sense, 2 – our sense of self, 3 – our sense of belonging, 4 – our sense of the possible, 5 – our sense of purpose and 6 – our philosophical sense. (shrink)

Does Normative Behaviourism Offer an Alternative Methodology in Political Theory?

Book review : The philosophy of person‐centred healthcareBy Derek Mitchell, Michael Loughlin, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2023.201 pp. £64.99. ISBN (10): 1‐5275‐9058‐5, ISBN (13): 978‐1‐5275‐9058‐8.

In the chapter “Emancipatory Engagement with Oppression: The Perils of Identity in Feminist and Anti-Racist Politics” Oda Davanger argues against basing emancipatory struggles on identity categories. According to Davanger, conceptualizing oppression in terms of different axes, i.e. identity categories, can be harmful to feminist philosophy and ideology since it contri- butes to upholding whiteness and maleness as norms and there- fore fails to “dismantle the system of domination”. In opposition to different versions of identity politics and the analytical and political (...) concept of intersectionality, Davanger complements bell hooks’ notion of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy with a post-structuralist perspective. Davanger’s answer to feminist and anti-racist struggles based on identity categories is a politics that is built around an “abstract and alienated desire” that makes possible engaging in the struggle for a world without oppression based on identity, regardless of individuals’ own experience of oppression. (shrink)

Sokrates var inte bara en filosofisk nydanare. Genom sitt sätt att involvera sina samtalspartners i den filosofiska processen var han också i hög utsträckning en pedagogisk nydanare. Hans pedagogiska grundidé var den så kallade majeutiska metoden – det vill säga ”barnmorskemetoden”. Med det menade han att han inte överförde sina egna färdiga tankar till den han talade med utan han hjälpte sin samtalspartner att föda sina egna tankar. Inom pedagogiken är det vanligt att använda den så kallade ”Sokratiska metoden” vilket (...) i sin enklaste form bara innebär att man ställer frågor till studenterna. Den här artikeln kommer emellertid att handla om en mer sofistikerad metod som används för begreppsanalys/begreppsdefinition i grupp. Metoden är inspirerad av Sokrates men skiljer sig också en del från hur Sokrates själv grep sig an sina dialoger – åtminstone så som de beskrivs av Platon. Artikeln innehåller en kort historisk och pedagogisk bakgrund men syftar framför allt till att utgöra en praktisk vägledning för genomförande av sokratiska dialoger i filosofiundervisningen. Artikeln bygger framför allt på mina egna erfarenheter av att använda Sokratisk Dialog i undervisningen vid Filosofiska institutionen vid Lunds universitet, Lunds Tekniska Högskola, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet och i det privata näringslivet. Artikeln vänder sig till alla som undervisar i filosofi på universitetet eller gymnasiet eller i filosofiska metoder för studenter vid andra utbildningar, t.ex. värdeteori, vetenskapsteori eller tillämpad etik för ingenjörer eller medicinare – eller i vilket annat ämne som helst där det förekommer begrepp som saknar en enkel och knivskarp definition men som är viktiga för ämnet. (shrink)

Det är min uppfattning att tabellen över avsiktlighet (rationalitet, medvetande, sinne, tanke, språk, personlighet etc.) som har framträdande här beskriver mer eller mindre exakt, eller åtminstone fungerar som en heuristisk för, hur vi tänker och beter sig, och så det omfattar inte bara filosofi och psykologi, men allt annat (historia, litteratur, matematik, politik etc.). Observera särskilt att avsiktlighet och rationalitet som jag (tillsammans med Searle, Wittgenstein och andra) visa det, omfattar både medvetna deliberative språkliga System 2 och omedvetna automatiserade (...) prelinguistiska System 1 åtgärder eller reflexer. Jag ger en kritisk undersökning av några av de viktigaste resultaten av två av de mest framstående studenter beteende i modern tid, Ludwig Wittgenstein och John Searle, om den logiska strukturen av avsiktlighet (sinne, språk, medvetande, beteende), med som min utgångspunkt Wittgenstein grundläggande upptäckt, att alla verkligt "filosofiska" problem är desamma-förvirring om hur man använder språket i ett visst sammanhang, och så alla lösningar är desamma, titta på hur språket kan användas i det aktuella sammanhanget så att dess sanningsvillkor (Villkor för tillfredsställelse eller COS) är tydliga. Det grundläggande problemet är att man kan säga vad som helst, men man kan inte betyda (ange tydliga COS för) någon godtycklig yttrande och mening är endast möjligt i ett mycket specifikt sammanhang. Jag analyserar olika skrifter av och om dem från det moderna perspektivet av de två tankesystemen (populariserades som "tänkande snabbt, tänkande långsamt"), med en ny tabell över avsiktlighet och nya dubbla system nomenklatur. Jag visar att detta är en kraftfull heuristisk för att beskriva beteende. Således är allt beteende intimt ansluten om man tar rätt synvinkel. Den fenomenologiska Illusion (glömska till vårt automatiserade System 1) är universell och sträcker sig inte bara hela filosofin utan hela livet. Jag är säker på att Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg och påven skulle vara skeptiska om berättade att de lider av samma problem som Hegel, Husserl och Heidegger, (eller att de skiljer sig endast i grad från drog-och sexmissbrukare i att motiveras av stimulering av deras frontalkortices genom leverans av dopamin (och över 100 andra kemikalier) via ventrala tegmentum och nukleos accumbens), men det är helt klart sant. Medan fenomenologerna bara slösat bort en hel del människors tid, slösar de bort jorden och deras ättlings framtid. (shrink)

I detta dokument ger jag mina teorier, idéer och förklaringar till hur jag tror att medvetandet fungerar, vad det är och varför vi har det. Enligt mig är alla levande varelser bara biologiska maskiner, skulpterade av evolutionen för att bli så anpassad som möjligt till den miljö som de befinner sig i. Allt fungerar på ett speciellt sätt, det går att förklaras och förstås, det finns ingen magi, och medvetandet är inget undantag, det finns där av en anledning.

Scriptural Reasoning (SR) is a practice of philosophic theology that is offered as a rationally warranted albeit fallible response to the inadequacies of modern liberal and anti-liberal theologies whether they are adopted as academic projects or as dimensions of lived religious practice. In terms of everyday religious practice in the West today, SR may be characterized as an effort, at once, to help protect Abrahamic folk traditions (that is, of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) from the cultural and theological effects of (...) residual western colonialism and to help protect religiously pluralist societies in the West from reactionary, anti-modern movements within these traditions. In the terms of recent academic discourse in theology, SR may be characterized as pragmatic, postliberal, scriptural, and inter-Abrahamic. SR may be labeled “pragmatic,” because it employs philosophic reasoning only to identify problems in its practitioners’ communities of everyday practice and in the institutions that are expected to repair them. SR may be labeled “postliberal,” because it emerges as a response to problems in the projects of modern, liberal theology, in particular this theology’s inadequate attention to problems in everyday practice. At the same time, SR is equally critical of anti-liberal theologies, or those that, rejecting the autonomy of human reason, argue for the opposite: grounding all projects of reasoning on a practice of “Christian reasoning” per se (or, comparably, of other confession-grounded reasonings). (shrink)

The great American philosopher, Charles Peirce, calls his pragmatism a continuation of Jesus' teaching, "Ye may know them by their fruit," and labels his cosmology a doctrine of "Christian Love." Nonetheless, I have found Peirce's understanding of Christianity to be surprisingly unpragmatic. Peirce's pragmatism itself displays an unpragmatic side and the tension between his pragmatic and unpragmatic tendencies reappears in his philosophic theology. I am not certain what a consistently pragmatic Christian theology would look like, but I know pragmatism is (...) the rule rather than the exception in rabbinic Judaism, that is the classical, post-Biblical Judaism of the Talmud. In this paper, therefore, I evaluate Peirce's pragmatism and his Christian theology from the perspective of the rabbis. (shrink)

What would a Jewish process theology look like if it also adopted the a priori principles of rabbinic Judaism - among them, the authority of Torah given on Sinai, an historically particular revelation of divine instruction for a particular people, and the authority of the Oral Torah, an historically evolving hermeneutic, according to which that revelation becomes normative practice for communities of observant Jews? I trust this would not be a naturalism, since it would be a theology that found its (...) grammar or regulative logic in a textual hermeneutic rather than in an account of the orders of perception and imagination. It would not, for the same token, be an anti-naturalism, but rather a theology for which the distinction between natural and super- or non-natural was not definitional. For such a theology, for example, the world out there would belong to the order of creation (maaseh bereshit), rather than to "nature." This would mean that, since God creates through words, language (at least some sort of language) and world would be intimately connected rather than extrinsic phenomena, It would mean, furthermore, that for language to "know" the world would not be surprising and that something like a form of realism would not be out of the question, While it would presuppose the authority of divine speech and even of some human interpretations of it, this other-than natural theology would not, as naturalists might suppose, present a heteronomous conception of divine law, If the distinction nature/not nature would not be definitive for this theology, neither would those of autonomy/heteronomy, body/spirit, this world/other world, This theology would present its own variety of neutral monism; in this case, however, the undifferentiated plenum would be termed a plenum of undifferentiated signification (or pure semiosis), of which undifferentiated feeling (or pure experience) was an instance; "prehension" would be another term for interpretation, Max Kadushin was the first and, as far as I know, the only Jewish thinker to articulate a process theology in the service of what he considered the behavioral or halakhic authority of classical rabbinic literature. In this paper, I examine Kadushin's work as the foundation of a rabbinic text process theology, I assume, from the outset, that such a theology may complement a Jewish natural process theology and that a Jewish process theology, in general, would appear as a process of dialogue between textual- andnatural-process theologies. (shrink)

In this essay, I offer several claims about how postmodern preoccupation with DIFFERENCE may be reread, pragmatically. The claims are based on the following, creatively interpretive model of the pragmatic maxim, as applied to what Peirce calls "intellectual concepts." According to the model, the maxim may have a variety of uses, but it can be proven only in so far as it is applied to the one species of "intellectual concepts" that results when real doubts are misrepresented as paper doubts. (...) These concepts are the products of theoretical inquiries that represent themselves as merely theoretical, when in fact they are stimulated by urgent concerns. The pragmatic maxim offers a rule for converting this species of what appear to be merely intellectual concepts into symbols of some theoretically minded inquirer's attempt to respond to these urgent concerns. But what kind of urgent concern would tend to be misrepresented in this way? According to the model, these are not concerns about failed rules of everyday conduct — or about concrete cases of flesh-and-blood suffering; they are, instead, concerns about failed rules for repairing everyday suffering. The attempt to repair such rules of repair is both theory-laden and urgent (urgent because failed rules of repair are ultimately sources of suffering; theory-laden because they are not immediately so). According to the model, Peirce's name for the practice of urgent theorizing is philosophy, or coenoscopy: not a science of common or everyday practices, but of rules for repairing everyday practices. It is philosophy that is most prone to misrepresenting what is urgent AS what is merely theoretical, because both theory and urgency are proper to it. The pragmatic maxim is, in this view, a rule specifically for repairing urgent philosophy that presents itself as merely paper philosophy. (shrink)

A Pragmatic Method of Reading Confused Philosophic Texts: The Case of Peirce's "Illustrations" In 1878, Charles Peirce introduced a method for making confused ideas clear. In this essay, I put Peirce's method to work as a method for making confused writing clear, in particular, for clarifying the meaning of confused philosophic arguments as they appear in philosophic essays. In Section I, I introduce the method as a Pragmatic Method of Reading Confused Philosophic Texts. In Section II, I re• view Peirce's (...) 1877-78 "Illustrations of the Logic of Science"\ as examples of confused texts. In Section III, I apply the Pragmatic Method, reading Peirce's "Illustrations' as expressions of fundamentally contradictory "leading tendencies of thought." While it does not resolve such contradictions, the Pragmatic Method renders a confused text clear by enabling us to read it as a collection of two "implicit" texts, or two sets of meanings. (shrink)

William James declared a moral war, Charles Peirce a metaphysical one: "fall into the ranks then" was his battle cry, follow your colonel. Keep your one purpose steadily and alone in view, and you may promise yourself the attainment of your sole desire, which is to hasten the chariot wheels of redeeming love. (6.448:1893) Peirce's was a war not against war, but against the metaphysical equivalent of war, individuation. In the field of social philosophy, Peirce's enemy appeared under the alias (...) of Darwinism, which Peirce fought with Christian Love. In the field of metaphysics, it appeared under the alias of nominalism, which Peirce fought with his special brand of pragmatic realism. But most challenging of all, the enemy appeared within Peirce's own thought under the alias of what I call Kantian conceptualism, and it took Peirce most of his career to win the battle. (shrink)

Des lecteurs dune récente livraison de Monist, The Relevance of Charles Peirce, pourraient chercher l'actualité de Peirce chez des philosophes contemporains influencés par lui. J'essaie de montrer que Peirce est actuel parce que son apport principal, le pragmatisme, se rattache profondément à des sujets qui nous sont familiers. Formé dans la tradition cartésienne et kantienne de l'epistemologie, l'oeuvre de Peirce intéresse les héritiers de cette tradition.Cependant, son pragmatisme fait apparaître les hésitations de cette tradition qui offre à ses héritiers une (...) incertitude epistemologic ue générale dont l'effet est de les engager vers un fondationalisme égocentrique qui isole plusieurs philosophes de l'actualité. Readers of the recent Monist publication, The Relevance of Charles Peirce (La Salle, Illinois, 1983) may seek to locate Peirce's « relevance » in the number of contemporary philosophers influenced by any aspect of his work.I argue, instead, that Peirce is relevant because his central work, pragmatism, relates deeply to matters immediately at hand. Since he is trained in Cartesian-Kantian tradition of epistemology, Peirce's work interests disciples of that tradition. In the end, however, his pragmatism discloses the errent tendency of that tradition : to offer its disciples over-generalized epistemological uncertainty and, therefore, the compensatory need to engage in egocentric foundationalisms. These foundationalisms isolate many contemporary philosophers from « mutters immediately at hand ». (shrink)

"Over three years of study and fellowship, sixteen Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars sought to answer one question: “Do our three scriptures unite or divide us?” They offer their answers in this book: sixteen essays on how certain ways of reading scripture may draw us apart and other ways may draw us, together, into the source that each tradition calls peace. Reading scriptural sources in the classical and medieval traditions, the authors examine how each tradition addresses the “other” within its (...) tradition and without, how all three traditions attend to poverty as a societal and spiritual condition, and what it means to read scripture while facing the challenges of modernity. Ochs and Johnson have assembled a unique approach to inter-religious scholarship and a rare look at scriptural study as a pathway to peace. “Scriptural reasoning, the growing practice of Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading their scriptures together, makes good academic and common sense in a time of crisis. This ground-breaking book, the outcome of an imaginative 3-year experiment by the Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry, shows scholars and thinkers of the Abrahamic traditions going deeper into the traditions and into their contemporary situation. The result is something new, wise, and relevant… full of promise for the future. Where else can one find testimonies to Jews, Christians, and Muslims coming together not only in study, thinking, and wisdom-seeking but also in play, joy, and friendship?”--David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Director, Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme". (shrink)

This is a genealogical study that traces a “broadly Cartesian” pattern of argumentation: from Augustine’s scriptural semiotic to the “narrowly Cartesian” practice of foundationalism to Charles Peirce’s pragmatic and reparative semiotic. The essay argues (1) that Augustine transformed Stoic logic into a scriptural semiotic; (2) that this semiotic breeds both Cartesian foundationalism and the pragmatic semiotic that repairs it; (3) that Peirce’s semiotic displays the latter. In sum, Augustine’s inquiry risks foundationalism but also breeds a self-corrective “reparative reasoning.” This reasoning (...) is at once scriptural and philosophic. (shrink)

By definition, “logic of postmodernism" would appear to be a contradiction in terms: philosophic post¬modernism emerged as a critique of attempts to found philosophy on some principle of reasoning and to found reasoning on some formal guidelines for how we ought to think. Nonetheless, there are two reasons why Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) ought to be labeled the logician of postmodernism — the philosopher who, more than any other, etched out the normative guidelines for postmodern thinking. The first reason is (...) that Peirce attempted to accomplish the impossible, or at least the contradictory. He launched his philosophic career with a logical critique of "Cartesianism" — his label for the modernist attempt to found philosophy on some formal principles of reasoning. He then attempted to replace the principles of Cartesian reasoning with a set of anti-modernist principles that proved themselves to be as modernist as their contraries. The second reason for giving Peirce his label is that his failures to accomplish the impossible engendered in him something he was unable to achieve willfully: a habit of self-critical yet self-affirming thinking that was neither modernist nor anti-modernist but, rather, a disciplined variety of postmodern thinking. In his later years, Peirce began to sketch out the principles of philosophic postmodernism by describing features of his own emergent habit of thinking. This sketching comes close enough to what I would label a logic of postmodernism — where the method of logic is as postmodern as the thinking it describes. (shrink)

After twelve years of productive work, the Society for Textual Reasoning has reason to reflect on the rules of reasoning it has nurtured and tested but has not yet adopted, self-consciously, as the rules of its textual reasoning . This essay illustrates some ways of reflecting on these rules. The first section of the essay presents a brief history of STR. The following section, the focal section of the essay, illustrates the rules of TR as displayed in a recent internet (...) discussion sponsored by the Society. The brief third section suggests ways that the Society might go about adopting standards for selecting its rules of textual reasoning. The final section illustrates what these standards might look like. (shrink)

In the course of. his philosophic career, Charles Peirce made repeated attempts to construct mathematical definitions of the commonsense or experimental notion of 'continuity'. In what I will label his Final Definition of Continuity, however, Peirce abandoned the attempt to achieve mathe­matical definition and assigned the analysis of continuity to an otherwise unnamed extra-mathematical science. In this paper, I identify the Final Definition, attempt to define its terms, and suggest that it belongs to Peirce's emergent semiotics of vagueness. I argue, (...) further, that it marks the transformation of Peirce's synechism. Before the time of his Final Definition, Peirce adopted a theory of continuity as a foundational principle of metaphysics and assumed this principle might be formalized in a mathe­matics of continuity. After the Final Definition, Peirce abandoned his foundationalism in favor of what he called a critical common-sensism. This is the claim that philosophy (and with it, logic) derives its norms from the observation of actual cognitive practices and that continuity is a distinguishing mark of actual as opposed to merely possible or imagined practices. (shrink)

Jag argumenterar för att oorganiserade kollektiv, såsom kollektivet av alla människor, kan handla moraliskt rätt och fel. Storskaliga problem likt den globala uppvärmningen är till exempel resultatet av en sådan kollektiv handling, nämligen hela mänsklighetens utsläpp av växthusgaser. Denna kollektiva handling är dessutom moraliskt fel, på grund av dess dåliga konsekvenser. Jag bemöter också en invändning mot denna uppfattning om kollektivt handlande, enligt vilken det är intuitivt orimligt att oorganiserade kollektiv såsom ”hela mänskligheten” kan handla.

How is Jewish-Christian theological dialogue possible today? Assuming that the possibility of dialogue is not something to be envisioned by any individual thinker a priori, I offer here a study of two examples of successful Jewish-Christian theological dialogue: George Lindbeck's dialogue with Jewish sources and Michael Wyschogrod's dialogue with Christian sources. To garner some general lessons from these examples, I try to reconstruct the general conditions of dialogue which they appear to share. Discovering that the two dialogues may share identifiable (...) conditions of problem-solving, I label these "pragmatic" conditions, after Charles Peirce's definition of pragmatism as the claim that the purpose of rational inquiry is to solve the problems that stimulate it. I conclude that these are the conditions that may underlie theological dialogue among the specific group of Jewish and Christian theologians to which I believe Lindbeck and Wyschogrod belong. These conditions may underlie dialogues typical of other groups, too, but there is no way to know this a priori. (shrink)

In HEBREW SCRIPTURES, in rabbinic literature and for most Jewish thinkers, "truth" (emet) is a character of personal relationships. Truth is fidelity to one's word, keeping promises, saying with the lips what one says in one's heart, bearing witness to what one has seen. Truth is the bond of trust between persons and between God and Humanity. In Western philosophic tradition, however, truth is a character of the claims people make about the world they experience: the correspondence between a statement (...) and the object it describes, or the coherence of a statement with what we already know about the world. As if divided by their dual allegiance to the traditions of Jerusalem and of Athens, Jewish philosophers often believe themselves forced to choose between the two meanings of truth, producing what we may call objectivist and personalist trends in Jewish thought. I suggest that, for a type of scripturally grounded Jewish philosophy, truth names the end of a process of inquiry that passes through several stages of trusting, reexamining, yearning, witnessing, critically testing, and re-sourcing. I suggest that this process bears analogy to Charles Peirce's pragmatic account of the stages of problem solving. -/- . (shrink)

You ask if metaphysics is possible after modernity, or after Barth and Wittgenstein and Derrida and the critique of foundationalism? May I invite you, by way of response, to listen in on a conversation? It is a dialogue between what I will call a postcritical philosopher ("P") and a postcritical scriptural theologian —— I'll label the latter a "textualist" ("T"). What I mean by "postcritical" would be displayed as the pattern of inquiry traced by this dialogue. I take the term (...) "postcritical" from George Lindbeck, whose theological work is described by his commentators as more properly "textualist" rather than "philosophic." I believe my usage is, however, true to Lindbeck's discourse. This means that one of the arguments of this essay is that there is a mode of philosophic inquiry proper to the postcritical orientation in theology that we may associate with such Christian theologians as Hans Frei, etc., as well as Lindbeck. A second argument, offered indirectly, is that there is a family of Jewish thinkers whose work may also be labeled "postcritical" on the model of these Christian thinkers, and that this Jewish postcritical theology would also be displayed in dialogues between philosophic and textualist tendencies. A third argument is that, if we listen in on the philosophic side of any of these dialogues, we will hear a postcritical philosophy. By philosophy, I mean primarily logic, defined as an inquiry that examines problematic rules of reasoning and recommends testable ways of correcting them. Secondarily, philosophy includes metaphysics, defined as an inquiry that, for the sake of assuring people about the reliability of a given logic, constructs pictures of the world whose existence would warrant this logic. We need not assume either that logic and metaphysics can be conducted only in the manner of modern and scholastic foundationalism, or that non-foundationalist theology must be "textualist" in a manner that excludes any philosophic generalization. I will argue that there are, indeed, non-foundationalist ways of conceiving of both logical and metaphysical inquiry and that these ways contribute to the dialogic activity of postcritical inquiry. (shrink)

This is a response to a Symposium on Phenomenology and Scripture. In examining a move from phenomenology to scripture, this symposium does not address all possible readers; it addresses a specific readership, for a specific reason, and within the framework of specific assumptions. By way of response, I want first to identify a few features of what I take to be the symposium’s specific address or context. Then, I will comment on what messages I believe the authors have delivered to (...) this context. The symposium specifically addresses those who participate willy nilly in the transcendental project of modern philosophy and of modern northern Europe. In that project, knowing, as noesis, means intentionality: its subject or agent is ultimately reducible to the unity of apperception; and its object— noema—is the object of the ego’s intentional knowing—the thematized object. It appears, furthermore, that the symposium identifies phenomenology not only with the species of Husserlian philosophy, but also with the broader genus of all efforts, from Descartes to Kant to Hegel to Husserl to Heidegger, to identify philosophy with an effort to frame the a priori conditions for, or the possibility of, knowing what we would know: from self to world to being itself—or to God. (shrink)

Modern philosophy's fascination with language - for the last century, its obsession- may illustrate the axiom that we love to talk about what we desire and we desire what we don't have. From the perspective of traditional Judaism, philosophic obsession with language reflects the modern philosopher's dislocation from those speech communities in which, alone, language has meaning. Natural speech communities, meaning those whose origins are either unknown or referred to an indefinite past, are characterized by inherent semiotic norms: rules for (...) transforming elements of the natural world into meaningful signs (morphology), for determining relations among those signs (syntax), for determining relations between signs and intended objects (semantics), and for determining relations between signs and the actual behavior which they recommend (what the American philosopher Charles Peirce calls pragmatics). For the traditional Jew, these norms are collected in what is called Torah: God's speech to Israel and the literary and behavioral history of Israel's attempts to interpret what that speech means. For this Jew, dislocation from the speech community of Israel would imply dislocation from Torah, and, thereby, from the possibility of meaningful speech and controlled behavior. Jewish philosophy is the attempt to find means of reintegrating dislocated persons into appropriate speech communities: in particular of reintegrating Jews into the speech community of Israel. On the following pages, I describe what modern philosophy looks like in terms set by Torah. Without apology, the Jewish philosopher first defines the non-problematic (the language of Torah), then the problematic (the enterprise of modern philosophy), then suggests means of placing the two in dialogue. (shrink)

The German Jewish philosophers Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig introduced a critique and extension of Kant's transcendental philosophy that looks to us today like the foundations of a rabbinic semiotics. It is a theory about the semiotic character of our knowledge of the world, of other humans and of God. And it is a claim that such a theory is embedded in the classical literature of rabbinic Judaism. More recently, the American rabbinic thinker Max Kadushin presented a more (...) elaborate analysis of the logic of what he called the rabbis' "organic thinking." While influenced in some ways by Charles Peirce, Kadushin did not offer his analysis as a semiotic. In this paper, I suggest that Kadushin's analysis is better served if it is restated more precisely in the vocabulary of Peirce's semiotics. The resulting construction then serves as a complement to the work of the German Jewish philosophers. (shrink)

In 1992, Peter Ochs and a few Christian and Muslim colleagues began to gather small groups, in and outside the classroom, to practice close and attentive reading of the sacred Scriptures of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions. The hope was that members of different religions could hear one another through the patient, respectful reading of each other's Scripture. Hearing each other, participants might enter into interreligious relationships that might point a way to the peaceful engagement of religions--especially those who, (...) after September 11, 2001, too often found themselves at each other's throats. It was a hope for religion without violence. In Religion without Violence, Ochs reflects on the practical and philosophic lessons he has learned from hosting hundreds of Scriptural Reasoning engagements. He introduces the "scriptural pragmatism" of Scriptural Reasoning." He painstakingly recounts instances of successful scriptural reasoning and warns where and how it might fail. He provides guidance on how to introduce and facilitate Scriptural Reasoning in the classroom. He shows how reading out of the "hearth" of a faith can contribute to peace building across religions. And, drawing on the resources of rabbinic tradition, Augustine, and Charles Peirce, he moves beyond practice to reflect on the implications of Scriptural Reasoning for discerning what kinds of "reasoning" best address and help repair societal crises like religion-related violent conflict. (shrink)

John Rawls A Theory of Justice har haft ett monumentalt inflytande på den moderna politiska filosofin. Jag försöker här genom några nedslag i den nutida diskussionen förmedla en bild av detta inflytande, och av bokens fortsatta filosofiska relevans. Jag inleder med en kort presentation av huvuddragen i Rawls rättviseteori. Efter det går jag igenom, och bemöter, kritiken mot idealteori. Jag diskuterar sedan förhållandet mellan rättvisa och ekonomisk ojämlikhet, och förklarar varför teorin är radikalare än vad många kritiker insett. Slutligen går (...) jag igenom hur en kontraktsteori av detta slag kan hantera frågan om rättvisa mellan generationer. (shrink)

The problem with ontological commitment is that when we symbolize the statements that we make about what 'exists' or what is 'real', they do not always translate to exactly that which we intend to express. In this essay, I explore the relation between 'Reality' and how we describe reality. I evaluate the accounts of three prominent philosophers on the topic, address their shortcomings, and introduce my own account; which I call "The Natural Definition of Reality".

A Review of Outward Signs: The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine’s Thought by Phillip Cary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xxiv + 344 pp. -/- Phillip Cary has written another highly significant book on Augustine, and his writing displays the art of a master stylist. A complement to his Inner Grace, Outward Signs extends Cary’s thesis in Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self: that Augus- tine’s Trinitarian and semiotic theology, groundbreaking as it was, remains beholden to a (...) Platonist privileging of inner vs. outer and idea over sacramental performance. Outward Signs should be of special interest to readers of Modern Theology, because the inwardness Cary interrogates displays a dimension of Augustine’s work that receives significant attention from a number of Modern Theology authors. Once again, Cary has offered an appropriate warning about any uncritical embrace of Augustine as theologian for the church today: the embrace could bring with it a turn to spiritualism, subjectivism, intellectualism, and also supersessionism (since the Old Testament and Jewish “law” belong to the merely outward life of the Word). Like Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty before him, Cary captures the line of potential influence that moves from Plato to Augustine to Descartes and Kant. Here, knowledge tends to ocular knowing, and Cary shows how inadequate that model is to account for performative knowing in the church, of which sacramental life is one instance. But performative knowing would apply, as well, to the study of Augustine’s writ- ings. Read “outwardly,” Augustine’s corpus generates several possible vectors of theological practice. The stronger vectors may point “inward,” but readers should also attend to those (weak or strong) which point to that which is inward, outward, both, and neither. (shrink)

No reader of The Relevance of Charles Peirce will fail to be impressed by what Max Fisch calls "The Range of Peirce's Relevance.' This exciting volume invites scholars in many of the fields of contemporary philosophy to see what Peirce has to contribute to their methods and their conclusions. Articles in the collection offer a more divided interpretation, however, of the meaning of Peirce's relevance. For some, Peirce's relevance is "extensive": like a Renaissance genius, his intellect surveys the universe of (...) human expression, and, by Jove, he has some• thing smart to say about everything! The authors of these articles show us how Peirce enriches the various, established disciplines of philosophy of interest to them, pointing out both the significance and the limitations of his contribution. For others, Peirce's relevance is "intensive": like some philosophic physician, Peirce struggles to cure a malady that infects the Cartesian-Kantian tradition to which he ultimately belongs. Selecting particular instances of this struggle, the authors of these articles try to show how Peirce challenges accepted practices in contemporary philosophy, succeeding in his critical task without necessarily offering unproblematic alternatives. As a whole, the collection successfully promotes the first interpretation of Peirce's relevance, but fails to give sufficient attention to the second. Perhaps the failure is prudent. For the sake of attracting interest among the uninitiated, The Relevance of Charles Peirce offers the most Peirce with the least offense. For that, we are indebted to Eugene Freeman, editor of the collection, as well as of The Monist Library of Philosophy. Freeman first proposed devoting two issues of The Monist to "Peirce's Relevance" (Vol. 63, No. 3, and Vol. 65, No. 2), then did us the service of publishing the present volume by binding The Monist articles together with five other already published pieces. (shrink)

Fenomenologie není pouze specifická metoda filosofického zkoumání, ale též svébytná filosofická pozice. Husserl je znám a diskutován spíše jako autor právě zmíněné metody, ovšem ta přeci měla sloužit jakožto organon pro vytvoření samostatné filosofické nauky. Proto se bude v příspěvku věnovat pozornost Husserlovu chápání toho, co je to filosofie, a to v kontrastu proti dobově populárním filosofickým pozicím, jimiž byly naturalismus a filosofie světového názoru s jeho nejodpudivější podobou nazývanou Husserlem pejorativně „Tiefsinn“: důvtipná duchaplnost. Husserl zamýšlí odstranit oba zmíněné typy (...) filosofie skutečně přísně vědeckou filosofií, jež bude filosofií fenomenologickou. (shrink)

Teil I »Psychologische Ästhetik für transdisziplinäres Design« -/- Kapitel I »Empirische Ästhetik – Der Konflikt zwischen leichter Verarbeitbarkeit, sparsamer Codierung und neuronaler Aktivierung im Beobachtersystem. Eine Untersuchung über das Wesen der ästhetischen Erfahrung. -/- Jede Designpraxis verlangt täglich eine Vielzahl von Entscheidungen, welche die Wahl von „Etwas vor dem Hintergrund anderer Möglichkeiten“ darstellen. Diese lassen sich als Probleme einer Präferenz-Ästhetik interpretieren, wobei innerhalb eines Repertoires von Alternativen die attraktivste gewählt wird. Eine empirische Ästhetik ist somit ein notwendiger Bestandteil von Designtheorie. (...) Die Überlegung, wer in welcher Situation warum was bevorzugt, führt zur Forschungsfrage: »Was ist der elementare Mechanismus für eine ästhetische Erfahrung?« In der Literatur zur empirischen Ästhetik finden sich vier wesentliche Theorie-Gruppen: (1.) Es wird eine Präferenz für einfach zu verarbeitende Stimuli behauptet und z.B. mit der Processing Fluency begründet. (2.) Andere Ansätze erklären eine maximale Stimulation des Beobachters durch komplexe Objekte zum Ideal, was auch die ästhetische Erfahrung maximieren soll. (3.) Eine dritte Gruppe vermeidet die Probleme der ersten beiden, indem eine mittlere Komplexität als Präferenz behauptet wird. (4.) Und schließlich gibt es Ansätze, die auf eine integrierende Theorie letztlich verzichten und einzelne Phänomene bzw. Effekte katalogisieren. Eine Liste ungelöster Probleme formuliert die Minimal-Anforderungen an eine integrierende Theorie. Hiermit wird geprüft, ob bzw. inwieweit die Integrative Ästhetik von Schwarzfischer (2008 und 2014) jene Probleme lösen kann. Dieser Ansatz schlägt spezifische Re-Codierungs-Prozesse als basalen Mechanismus jeder ästhetischen Erfahrung vor. Hierzu wird ein Prozess-Modell entwickelt, welches die Integrative Ästhetik überprüfbar macht. Bei der Modellbildung werden manche Konzepte der Integrativen Ästhetik erweitert und andere präzisiert. Auch die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten werden durch das Modell vielfältiger, da es nicht nur als Erklärungsmodell, sondern zudem als Gestaltungsmodell einsetzbar ist. Insgesamt zeigt die Überprüfung der Integrativen Ästhetik und des Modells, dass die Gütekriterien in einem vielversprechenden Maß erfüllt werden. Die grundsätzliche Quantifizierbarkeit wird aufgezeigt sowie die Relevanz und die Anwendbarkeit für das Design nachgewiesen. Die Forschungsfrage kann somit als hinreichend beantwortet gelten: »Der elementare Mechanismus für eine ästhetische Erfahrung scheint ein Re-Codierungs-Prozess zu sein (der auf der Nutzung von In­varianzen basiert), welcher extensionale Daten zu intensionalen Gestalten transformiert, wobei eine Ressourcen-Entlastung stattfindet und der Gültigkeitsbereich der Codierung erweitert wird (was nach Jean Piaget als Dezentrierung bezeichnet wird) – was jeweils durch eine ‚Beobachtung zweiter Ordnung‘ festgestellt wird.« -/- Teil II »Transdisziplinäre Ästhetik im Dialog« -/- Kapitel II.A »Profane und heroische Beobachtungs-Experimente: Kunst-Ästhetik als methodisches Artefakt.« -/- Es reicht nicht, eine Liste mit vorgeblich ‚schönen Dingen‘ zu erstellen, um ‚das Schöne‘ zu verstehen. Piaget & Garcia (1989) unterscheiden drei Stufen in jedem Erkenntnis-Prozess: 1. isolierte Fakten, die unabhängig von einander analysiert werden; 2. konkrete Transformationen, durch welche diese Fakten mit einander verbunden sind; 3. eine Struktur, die alle denkbaren Fälle konstruierbar macht. Sie nannten diese drei Stufen ‚intra‘, ‚inter‘ und ‚trans‘. Dies kann auf das ‚höhere Erkenntnisvermögen‘ angewandt werden wie auf das ‚niedere‘. Wissenschaftlichkeit setzt nach Popper die Falsifizierbarkeit einer Theorie voraus – und damit Prognosefähigkeit. Prognosen müssen über den Bereich der bereits bekannten Fälle hinausgehen, und finden sich folglich primär in der Piaget-Phase ‚trans‘. Diese ist davon gekennzeichnet, dass es über die Gegenstände hinausgeht (‚trans-objekt‘). Zu häufig werden Artefakte nur beschrieben (‚intra-objekt‘) oder einzelne, zufällig bekannte Transformationen von Material in Artefakte bzw. von Artefakt in Verständnis aufgezählt (‚inter-objekt‘). Erst eine ‚Integrative Ästhetik‘ jenseits von zufälligen Semantiken, jenseits von sozialen Exklusions-Rhetoriken der Künstler und der ‚Leisure-Class-Eliten‘ (nach Veblen) und jenseits der Hierarchisierung von Wahrnehmungs-Modi kann den Anspruch einlösen (‚trans-objekt‘). Daraus folgen u.a. separierbare Semantiken spezifischem Maßstabs, die sich überhaupt erst dann z.B. als ‚konventionelle Kunst-Auffassung‘ beobachten lassen. Zentrierungen auf solche Semantiken können demnach „als Kunst missverstanden werden“ – obwohl sie keineswegs das allgemeine Prinzip repräsentieren, sondern stets nur Spezial­fall bleiben. -/- Kapitel II.B »Das Gehirn als Hypothesenmaschine – Ästhetische Prozesse als Selbst-Test im Beobachter-System.« -/- Die historische Trennung zwischen Techne, Poiesis und Aisthesis scheint nach der „konstruktivistischen Wende“ obsolet geworden zu sein. Jede Beobachtung kann als Handlung betrachtet werden und setzt adaptive Aspekte schon voraus. Jedoch fehlte bislang eine tragfähige konstruktivistische Ästhetik, deren Gültigkeitsbereich hinreichend groß ist: So ist die Beschränkung auf Kunst ebenso unnötig wie jene auf Kommunikation in sozialen Systemen (also auf „Kunst-Diskurse“) oder auf eine Produktions-, Werk- bzw. Rezeptions-Ästhetik. Die definitorische Auflösung des Kunst-Begriffes (z.B. bei Gernot Böhme) löst diese Schwierigkeiten nicht. Im Wesentlichen bleibt die resultierende phänomenologische Ästhetik eine Rezeptions-Ästhetik. Ähnlich begrenzt bleibt der Anwendungsbereich der Informations-Ästhetik mit kybernetischen Wurzeln. Auch die Einbettung in eine evolutionäre Ästhetik oder Neuroästhetik scheint problematisch. Daher muss eine „Integrative Ästhetik“ sehr unterschiedliche Sichtweisen in sich vereinigen. Inzwischen klassisch zu nennende kybernetische, systemtheoretische oder informations-ästhetische Ansätze verwenden meist die Logik einer Bottom-Up-Verarbeitung (Input-Processing-Output), wie sie auch die kognitive Psychologie der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts dominierte. Dass laut Schlicht et al. (2013: S.475) selbst im visuellen Kortex nur ca. 5% der neuronalen Verknüpfungen bottom-up verschaltet sind (und der „Rest” von 95% top-down oder lateral arbeitet), stellt auch die empirische Ästhetik vor Probleme. Dieser Beitrag stellt jene Integrative Ästhetik vor, welche diese Antworten auf diese Fragen zu geben vermag – und den genannten Beschränkungen nicht unterliegt. Der elementare Prozess einer ästhetischen Erfahrung besteht hier in einer Re-Codierung von extensionalen Daten zu intensionalen Codierungen. Durch die sparsamere Codierung stellt dies eine erhebliche neuronale Entlastung dar und erhöht zudem beträchtlich den Gültigkeitsbereich des Codierten. Vom Beobachter-System wird dies subjektiv als Dezentrierung (nach Piaget) positiv erlebt. Zentral ist, dass es nun mit einem einheitlichen methodischen Rahmen möglich ist, entweder bottom-up die Wahrnehmung zu analysieren oder top-down die subjektive Motivation (z.B. die erlebte Autonomie oder die erlebte Entlastung) des Akteurs zu thematisieren. Die Richtung der Prozesse wird umkehrbar. Zudem wird die konstruktivistische Wahrnehmungs-Handlung zu einer Art von Selbst-Test des Wahrnehmungs-Systems: „Funktioniere ich sensorisch und kognitiv überhaupt? Funktioniere ich korrekt, also konsistent? Und, funktioniere ich effizient?“ -/- Kapitel II.C »Beobachtende Systeme – Dezentrierende Gestalt-Integration als Basis einer Ästhetik des Alltags.« -/- An der ästhetischen Erfahrung irritiert traditionell, dass der Effekt bekannt ist, nicht aber die Ursachen und der funktionale Mechanismus. Dies leistete Mystifikationen Vorschub, was zu diversen metaphysischen Kunst-Ästhetiken führte: Der Künstler als Schamane oder Magier. Dieser Beitrag möchte dagegen einen systemsemiotischen Ansatz für eine empirische Ästhetik vorstellen. Die aktive Rolle des Beobachters im Wirkungszusammenhang soll den Blinden Fleck erhellen, aufgrund dessen sich das Phantom eines passiven Rezipienten und „quasi-aktiver“ ästhetischer Objekte so hartnäckig halten konnte. Ausgehend von gestalttheoretischen Überlegungen wird Gestalt als implizite, algorithmische Codierung begriffen. Neuere empirische Ergebnisse der „Neuro-Ökonomie“ postulieren einen Effekt der „kortikalen Entlastung“ (bei der Forschung nach der Wirkung von Marken). Der hier vertretene Ansatz verknüpft nun beide Aspekte und glaubt, daraus eine konsistente Theorie für die empirische Ästhetik des Alltags entwickeln zu können. Es muss jedoch ein weiterer Aspekt hinzu genommen werden, den Piaget „Dezentrierung“ nennt. Ästhetische Erfahrung wird dann definierbar als das Erlebnis eines Umcodierungs-Prozesses – oder genauer: als das Erlebnis einer dezentrierenden Gestalt-Integration durch das beobachtende System. Sowohl beobachtende Systeme als auch Gestalt-Integrationen sind in unserem Ansatz als multiple zu denken. Eine semiotische Differenzierung ist nun entscheidend: Die herkömmliche Informations-Ästhetik thematisierte nur die syntaktischen Aspekte des Stimulus, ohne den Beobachter in seiner aktiven Rolle zu begreifen. Gestalt-Integrationen samt deren dezentrierender Wirkung sind jedoch auch in semantischer und pragmatischer Hinsicht zu finden. Diese werden im Beitrag dargelegt. Denn erst so kann die Vielschichtigkeit ästhetischer Erfahrungen erklärt werden, wo z.B. syntaktische und pragmatische Aspekte konkurrieren können. Auch vordergründig destruktive Akte und Artefakte sind dann als Gestalt-Integrationen anderer Dimensionen oder differierender Bezugssysteme begreifbar. (Dies streift etwa auch Fragen der Ressourcen-Allokation.) Zudem muss die Kontingenz von Beobachtungs-Maßstäben, Wahrnehmungs-Modi, Struktur-Determinanten (des beobachtenden Systems) und kultur-semiotischen Prägungen mit in Betracht gezogen werden. Erst hierdurch wird der Möglichkeitsraum potenzieller Gestalt-Integrationen (der eigentlich aus einem präsentationalen und einem repräsentationalen Raum besteht) prinzipiell beschreibbar. Wenn auch die Probleme bzw. Grenzen der praktischen Durchführbarkeit entsprechender Analysen nicht unterschlagen werden sollen: Die Möglichkeiten entsprechen gut den Erfordernissen zur ästhetischen Analyse des menschlichen Alltages – schließen die Lebenswelten von nicht-anthropozentrischen Seinsformen aber wohl methodisch aus. Dieser Beitrag möchte ich primär eine empirische Ästhetik zur Diskussion stellen, die mir als Rahmen für die weitere Forschung sehr leistungsfähig erscheint. Und doch ist nichts weniger als ein theoriebildender Ansatz das Vorhaben. Eine der Konsequenzen aus diesem Ansatz ist die These, dass es sich bei Kants Diktum vom „interesselosen Wohlgefallen“ zwar für das Individuum um ein Apriori handelt, bei der Gattung Mensch jedoch evolutionär um ein Aposteriori. (shrink)

Om människan någon gång kommer att få förmågan att skapa nya livsformer, hur kommer det att påverka livets värde? Detta är en fråga som kan vara en källa till oro när man diskuterar konstgjort liv, men är oron befogad? I ett försök att svara på den frågan kommer jag att gå igenom några möjliga skäl till varför förmågan att skapa konstgjort liv skulle hota livets värde, och se om de verkligen ger oss skäl att oroa oss.

O introducere prin noțiuni de bază în lumea filosofiei, cu răspunsuri la cele mai profunde întrebări pe care ni le punem cu toții, prin prisma celor mai mari filozofi din lume, de la Platon și Confucius până la gânditorii moderni. Un ghid pentru natura fundamentală a existenței, a societății și a modului în care gândim. După o prezentare generală a filosofiei, cu istoria filosofiei, ramuri ale filosofiei, concepte filosofice și școli și tradiții filosofice, sunt abordate subiecte specifice în filosofie, precum (...) Dumnezeu (religia), binele și răul (etica), drepturile animalelor, filosofia politicii, aparență și realitate, filosofia științei, filosofia minții, și arta (estetica). Filosofia este studiul problemelor generale și fundamentale cu privire la chestiuni precum existența, cunoașterea, valorile, rațiunea, mintea și limba. Metodele filosofice includ întrebări, discuții critice, argumente raționale și prezentări sistematice. Întrebările filosofice clasice includ atât întrebări abstracte (Este posibil să cunoști ceva și să o demonstrezi? Ce este cel mai real?) cât și întrebări mai practice și concrete (Există o modalitate optimă de a trăi? Este mai bine să fii drept sau nedrept? Au oamenii liberul arbitru?) Filosofia se distinge de alte modalități de abordare a acestor probleme prin abordarea critică, în general, sistematică, și dependența de argumentele raționale. Alte investigații sunt strâns legate de artă, știință, politică sau alte activități. De exemplu, este frumusețea obiectivă sau subiectivă? Există multe metode științifice sau doar una? Este utopia politică un vis plin de speranță sau fantezie fără speranță? Principalele sub-domenii ale filosofiei academice includ metafizica ("preocupată de natura fundamentală a realității și a ființei"), epistemologia (despre "natura și bazele cunoașterii [și]... limitele și valabilitatea ei"), etica, estetica, filosofia politică, logica, filosofia științei și istoria filosofiei occidentale. Multe dezbateri filosofice care au început în antichitate sunt încă dezbătute și astăzi. (shrink)

The Natural Philosophy of Jan Bayer The main focus of this study is a reconstruction of the natural philosophy of the early modern Prešov's scholar Jan (Johannes) Bayer (1630–1674), with special regard to its Mosaic profile. After a critical reading of the research done on Bayer up to this point, the author concludes that Bayer’s natural-philosophical work, as such, has not yet been satisfactorily analyzed, nor has its connection to its supposedly two most important sources, Francis Bacon and Jan Amos (...) Comenius, been sufficiently explored. The study therefore concentrates on a critical analysis of Bayer’s interpretation of creation and his natural history, which are then both situated in the philosophical context of their time. The author then notes that although Bayer’s project of erecting an original and on the (especially Aristotelian) tradition independent Mosaic natural philosophy ended in failure, the thinker’s work can be assessed as a valuable attempt to synthesize Baconian and Comenian motifs while at the same time reflecting broader intellectual contexts of the period. (shrink)

English: In this paper I indicate why I consider 'experimental philosophy' to be good news, though not as good as it could be, and not as all that new. I'll argue that there is no need to restrict experimental philosophy to eliciting intuitions through questionnaires. I'll indicate that good examples of experimental philosophy already exist in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Neuroscience. Dutch: Hieronder wil ik proberen aan te geven waarom ik de experimentele filosofie weliswaar als goed nieuws beschouw, maar niet (...) half zo goed als zou kunnen, en ook niet als echt nieuw. Qua filosofische experimenten beperkt de XF-beweging zich vooralsnog onnodig door haar focus op het eliciteren van intuïties, terwijl er reeds lang diverse goede voorbeelden van XF bestaan op het gebied van de kunstmatige intelligentie en de cognitieve neurowetenschap. (shrink)

De moderne filosofie lijdt aan muziekvergetelheid. Opvallend is echter dat filosofen, wanneer ze toch aandacht schenken aan muziek, hun aandacht bij voorkeur op één bepaald genre richten, namelijk de opera. Filosofen zoals Søren Kierkegaard en Friedrich Nietzsche lieten hun gedachten over Don Giovanni, Parsifal en Carmen gaan, terwijl omgekeerd de filosofie van Arthur Schopenhauer de opera heeft beïnvloed via Wagner. Diens werk lijkt zich op het snijpunt van het grensverkeer tussen moderne filosofie en moderne muziek te bevinden. Het was zijn (...) ambitie de menselijke existentie en de menselijke geschiedenis in één panoramisch oeuvre te vatten, vanaf het primordiale begin tot en met de dramatische finale die ophanden leek: een catastrofale apotheose die een geheel nieuwe toekomst mogelijk zou maken. Dat is althans de verhaallijn van zijn meesterwerk Der Ring des Nibelungen. Aan het slot van Götterdämmerung lijkt zich een algehele verwoesting te hebben voltrokken: ‘Everything is destroyed and there is an enigmatic kind of hovering over the scene of destruction’ (Badiou 2010, p. 106), een ambivalente stemming van hoop en destructie zette Wagner op muziek. Voor Wagner is dan ook een hoofdrol in deze studie weggelegd: voor zijn muziektheoretische geschriften (waarin hij over een ‘muziek van de toekomst’ filosofeerde), maar meer nog voor de muzikale totaalkunstwerken die hij daadwerkelijk componeerde. (shrink)

How do the pictures Wittgenstein and his relatives took during his life relate to his philosophical work? The exhibition at the Leopold Museum in Vienna in 2021 demonstrated a complex network of resemblances, overlaps, and cross-references between Wittgenstein’s way of working and the pictures he collected. In this essay, the network is used as an example to argue that a combination of philosophy and artistic sensibility might be a fruitful enrichment for a philosophical practise.