The author of this paper focuses on an interpretation of Kant’s conception of the history of metaphysics as being a history of pure reason. Kant develops this conception both in the Critique of Pure Reason and in a later work in response to a question commissioned by the Royal Academy of Sciences: What advances has metaphysics made in Germany since the time of Leibniz and Wolff? Key passages in these writings will be given analytical attention. It will thus be shown that Kant’s purpose was not to eliminate metaphysics, but to correct it, and especially in his work On the Progress of Metaphysics, the philosopher from Königsberg points out the importance of skepticism within the history of metaphysics.
The debate surrounding the nature and attributes of God as presented in the Bible has garnered significant attention and critique from various philosophical perspectives like Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and David Hume. This philosophical critique emphasises the inconsistency in the nature of God and challenges traditional theological beliefs. The expression of regret by the God of the Bible in Genesis 6:6 raises philosophical dilemmas regarding divine attributes and the problem of evil. The contradiction between God’s regret and the affirmation of his creation as good underscores fundamental questions about divine omniscience, omnipotence and benevolence. The presence of evil and suffering in the world poses a significant challenge to the notion of a loving and all-powerful God. Examples of human suffering, such as slavery, colonisation, apartheid and natural disasters, further highlight the complexity of reconciling divine attributes with the existence of evil. Philosophically analysing biblical narratives, such as the story of Job, Noah’s flood and the plagues of Egypt, raises ethical concerns regarding divine justice and the moral agency of humanity. Additionally, the indiscriminate punishment of innocent individuals in these narratives challenges the credibility of a benevolent and compassionate God. The philosophical inquiry into the problem of evil and natural disasters underscores the need for a nuanced understanding of divine attributes and their implications for human existence.
Contribution: The study encourages reflection on key questions about the nature of divinity, the morality of divine actions, and the compatibility of traditional theology with rational thought. It highlights how inconsistencies in certain biblical accounts challenge those trying to balance faith with reason and scientific understanding. While some may view these narratives as metaphors or allegories, others find it difficult to align them with their intellectual beliefs, resulting in tensions between religious faith and scientific rationality.
The subject of the study is the essential content and interpretation of the essence of “information”, its symbolic metaphysics. The emphasis is on the sign-symbolic level of perception of information, as well as its meaning (significance) of the sequence in the subsequent interpretation of information. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the concept of “information”. including as a result of intellectual activity. Also discusses the legal mechanisms that are designed to regulate such a multi-border phenomenon as “information”. The conclusions are formulated that due to the original immaterial (ideal) nature of information, including for the purpose of its perception, it is inextricably linked with the corresponding material (physical) carrier, which acts as a form for its objectification, thereby the form and content of information are inextricably linked within the framework of the regulation of the information exchange process. Based on the research carried out, the authors define and substantiate the concept of systematization of legal regimes of information, which is based on the levels of its objectification.
The main purpose of this article is to answer the question of what methods and resources the philosopher has at his disposal in answering the goals of First Philosophy and in order to achieve philosophical theories, and how much and how to use them properly. In order to answer this question, the present article believes that determining the methods and resources used in First Philosophy is dependent on the purpose and subject of this science, and if the question is to be answered, what sources and methods are allowed for the philosopher to use in answering a philosophical question, the position of the goal, and the subject of philosophy must be carefully examined. It is worth mentioning that as a result of this study, other issues raised in this framework, such as the relationship between intuition, revelation, and experience with First philosophy and the scope of their influence on First Philosophy are also clarified. Therefore, the premise of the article in answer to this question is that there is a direct relationship between the purpose, subject, and method of philosophy, and determining the method and sources of knowledge used in First Philosophy is dependent on the purpose and subject of First philosophy. By considering the subject and issues raised in First Philosophy, the discussion of the commonalities between the subjects of science or various facts is discovered to be the main goal of First Philosophy. And by considering two basic stages in the methodology of sciences: 1) Problem design and hypothesis making, and 2) Assessment and exploration of theory, we come to the conclusion that they play a role alongside rational analysis in the area of philosophical problem design, specific and general intuitions (sensory-internal) transfer and experience. Due to the fact that the discussion of commonalities is related to the multiplicity of subjects and facts, and that multiplicities and facts can be identified through different sources, First Philosophy owes its existence to different sources of knowledge. But in the position of judgment and measurement, in matters related to absolute existence, the only usable source is rational analysis, and in matters related to the principles and divisions of existence that deal with the subjects of science, given that these divisions may reach cases whose study requires the use of intuition or revelation or experience, along with rational analysis; intuition, sense, and experience are also used. Considering the purpose of universality and universal provability requires the impossibility of using narrative methods (albeit definitive) in the study of philosophical issues, the stipulation of certainty in philosophical results and theories will also pave the way for the use of uncertain methods such as incomplete induction in the design of philosophical claims. Therefore, in the field of measuring and exploring theories, it should be considered in detail if we emphasize the universality of the provability of philosophical problems to accidents of existence, only rational analysis (rational intuition) is applied and to the principles of existence and divisions of existence – related to the subjects of science – rational analysis is applied along with intuition, experience, and induction. And if epistemic reference is not considered in detail, in all three cases, in addition to rational analysis and experience, definitive citation can also be used.
Philosophy of religion. Psychology of religion. Religion in relation to other subjects
Living systems are complex dynamic information processing energy consuming entities with properties of consciousness, intelligence, sapience, and sentience. Sapience and sentience are autonomous attributes of consciousness. While sapience has been well studied over the years, that of sentience is relatively rare. The nature of sapience and sentience will be considered, and a metacybernetic framework using structural information will be adopted to explore the metaphysics of consciousness. Metacybernetics delivers a cyberintrinsic model that is cybernetic in nature, but also uses the theory of structural information arising from Frieden’s work with Fisher information. This will be used to model sapience and sentience and their relationship. Since living systems are energy-consuming entities, it is also natural for thermodynamic metaphysical models to arise, and most of the theoretical studies of sentience have been set within a thermodynamic framework. Hence, a thermodynamic approach will also be introduced and connected to cyberintrinsic theory. In metaphysical contexts, thermodynamics uses free-energy, which plays the same role in cyberintrinsic modelling as intrinsic structural information. Since living systems exist at the dynamical interface of information and thermodynamics, the overall purpose of this paper is to explore sentience from the alternative cyberintrinsic perspective of metacybernetics.
El artículo analiza desde una perspectiva crítica las tentativas de interpretar a Nietzsche como un precursor del transhumanismo. Tras una breve contextualización del fecundo debate en torno a Nietzsche y el transhumanismo, se evalúa el carácter fraccional o parcial del alegato de Stefan Sorgner en favor de un “transhumanismo nietzscheano”. Después, se investiga la tensión entre humanidad, la superación del ser humano y su cría en los escritos de Nietzsche. Una vez ejecutado este análisis, y sin ánimo de caer en el anacronismo, se sostiene que Nietzsche anticipa ciertamente un germen de la idea de post-humanidad, en su crítica de la cultura humanista y en su invitación a transformar el ser humano y superar el nihilismo, pero no asimilable a la vertiente tecnológica del transhumanismo. Para concluir, se sugiere una prospectiva de análisis del transhumanismo desde una perspectiva nietzscheana, tomando como ejemplo la imagen de las “sombras de Dios”.
In past work on Chinese “cosmology”, I have resisted using the term “metaphysics” because of the history of this term in classical Greek philosophy. Angus Graham has warned us of the equivocations that arise in eliding the distinction between Greek ontology and classical Chinese cosmology. In this essay, I have been inspired by my dear friend the late Yu Jiyuan’s distinction between classical Greek “metaphysics” and “contemporary metaphysics with ambiguous edges” to adapt the term “metaphysics” for use within the classical Confucian corpus. In the language of Confucian “metaphysics”, the ultimate goal of our philosophical inquiry is quite literally “to know one’s way around things’” (zhidao 知道) in the broadest possible sense of the term “things”. In the application of Confucian metaphysics, “knowing” certainly begins from the cognitive understanding of a situation, but then goes on to include the creative and practical activity of “realizing a world” through ars contextualis—the art of contextualizing things. I apply the insight that “metaphysics” so understood in the Confucian context provides a warrant for establishing a useful contrast between a Greek conception of the “human being” and a Confucian conception of “human becomings”.
Social sciences and state - Asia (Asian studies only)
Dimensional psychopathology and process philosophy form together a potentially fruitful research field in psychiatry and philosophy. The continuum of mental disorders and the tradition of unitary psychosis might profit from process metaphysics, which emphasizes flowing processes in a creative nature that comprises consciousness. Seeing dimensions through the lens of process philosophy means that there are internal relations among psychopathological manifestations, that is, they are not detachable, isolated things and do not simply present themselves randomly side by side. Electromagnetism and quantum physics show a dematerialized nature in which vibrations, forces or energies act flowingly at the basis of reality: matter would be derivative or moments in a process. Psychiatric syndromes can be considered moments in a process as well. Nature is more vivid, loaded with a panexperientialism or pansubjectivism, making it less problematic, or rather a misplaced question, the riddle of how the mind arises from objects.
The author attempts to contribute to the debate about the value of Aquinas’s account of love to philosophical personalism. He argues that to understand adequately Aquinas’s account of love in general and the aspect of the gift of self in particular, we must appreciate the importance of his account of appropriate self-love; moreover, self-love and love as a gift of self constitute two foundational poles on which we should base any development of a theory of love within Thomistic personalism. First, the author offers brief overviews of Wojtyla’s concept of love as a gift of self and Waldstein’s comparative study of Wojtyla and Aquinas on this issue. Second, he examines Aquinas’s notion of self-love, distinguishing between the good and bad kinds of self-love. Finally, he shows how self-love actualized in self-friendship creates the possibility for friendship with others.
This article analyzes the three texts of the existence of God who the thinker Francisco Suárez presented in his famous <em>Metaphysical Disputations</em> (XXIX). In addition to the speculative interest and the degree of penetration of the author in the proofs, these are an example in itself to determine the specificity of Suarez’s interpretation of Metaphysics. Specifically, Suárez a priori shows the existence of a single and necessary entity in the third of the demonstrations, deducing it from the attribute of the unit. The distinction of reason attributes, bears witness to the different character of Suárez’s metaphysics. Meanwhile, the two previous tests of empirical nature, are intended to clean up the remains of philosophical paganism who were present in some of the physical evidence used by the first Scholastics. These were times of an apologetics battle within the Church, and Suárez, a member of the Jesus Society, reflects in all these texts the relevance of both material and intellectual instruments to be employed in the defense of the Catholic faith.
NEWEN, Albert. Die Entwicklung der Wittgensteinischen Sprachphilosophie von 1929-1932. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, Band 51 (1997), 3. 427-447.
En este trabajo analizo algunos aspectos de la interpretación del modelo causal kantiano que E. Watkins presenta en su libro Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. Según el autor, sólo su interpretación permite volver inteligibles las relaciones de acción recíproca que Kant presenta en la tercera analogía de la experiencia.
Contra esta posición, intento demostrar, por un lado, que la tercera analogía podría resultar inteligible de acuerdo con el modelo causal “evento-evento”, que Watkins critica, y que, por otro lado, el modelo propuesto por este autor podría volver ininteligible, o al menos oscurecer, el sentido de la segunda analogía de la experiencia
The question of who speaks in Beckett’s work is one that has intrigued critics ranging from Maurice Blanchot do Jacques Derrida. This undecidibility stems predominantly from a modernist poetics characterized by authorial neutrality, the effect of which is a floating, anchorless and disseminated subject that resists articulation and has no definite point of origin. The speaking voice, therefore, becomes the proxy for this subject, itself a spectral entity which incessantly presents the subject despite its desire for silence. The aim of this article is to examine subjectivity in Beckett’s fiction, especially the third part of his trilogy, The Unnamable, in reference to the agency of the voice as its defined in Maurice Blanchot’s concept of the neutral voice. Blanchot’s theory of neutrality gives insight into the paradoxical nature of subjectivity in Beckett’s fiction by foregrounding the irresolvable aporetics undermining the objective/subjective dualism at the heart of Western metaphysics.
In this article, it's tried to study Aristotle's narrative of pre-Socratics on the base of Aristotle's texts and mainly using metaphysics, physics, genesis and decadence books. It is also tried to show how Aristotle has interpreted all the pre-Socratics in one way and on the base of his own philosophy framework. He interprets pre-Socratic Arche as an element that means comprehensive matter which is nothing itself, but everything is combination of it and even considers that as substance and the other things as accident. He interprets the distinction of Arche and other things on the basis of this contrast in his philosophy. Aristotle, also analyzes pre-Socratics' viewpoint to change on the base of his distinction among change, genesis and corruption. All these cases show that Aristotle has interpreted the pre-Socratics on the basis of his thought, as Aristotelians. On this basis, since Aristotle's thoughts are the first and the most important sources of pre-Socratic philosophy, Aristotle's role should be considered in studies.
This article compares the discussion on the overcoming of metaphysics in Heidegger, Carnap, and Wittgenstein. The goal is to determine if we really live in a post-metaphysical world, and to show that metaphysics cannot ignore practical philosophy.
O presente texto visa abordar a pertinência crítica da filosofia kantiana da história tentando assinalar o lugar transcendental da noçáo de fio condutor da natureza, para nós urn princípio regulativo passível de ser usado pelo discurso filosófico da história, que por isso náo se toma urn conhecimento teórico, mas nem por isso deixa de ser uma espécie de conhecimento, de cunho prático.