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Balkan Journal of Philosophy

Volume 5, Issue 1, 2013
21st-Century Metaphysics

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Displaying: 1-14 of 14 documents


1. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Editorial Board Special issue devoted to the topic of “21st Century Metaphysics”
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articles
2. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Christina Schneider Metaphysics Between Scylla and Charybdis. An Analytical Perspective
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Seemingly, metaphysics is trapped between the Scylla of being superfluous, on the one hand, and the Charybdis of being esoteric, on the other. Is there a wayout? In discussing two large-scale metaphysical projects that are very different in character, the article analyses one of the roots of this impasse – the ontological paradigm. The author tries, further, to argue for another stance towards the theoretical task metaphysics has to submit itself to: the paradigm of transcendentals. The structural-systematic philosophy will be a point in case.
3. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
William S. Hamrick Minding Nature
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This paper interprets and extends Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s unfinished ontology of flesh in order finally to settle accounts with the Cartesian legacy that has hungover Western metaphysics for the last three centuries. The essay does this by advancing Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of two closely intertwined topics—the relationship of consciousness and Nature and the meaningfulness of Nature itself. Among other things, the essay seeks to explain the emergence of consciousness from Nature and defends a view of consciousness as the mobilization of the powers of corporeity—including intercorporeity—to investigate, articulate, and creatively adumbrate Nature and Being as such. It does so by responding to natural resonances and rhythms, through intensities of feeling andthe perception of possibilities.
4. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Tina Röck The Multiple Future of Ontology
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For centuries most ontological systems have been based on the presupposition that the paradigmatic type of being is the kind of being things like stones and houses have. But if one looks at the beginning of Philosophy, at the emergence of philosophic thought, this choice was not an obvious one. For the pre-Socratics and even for Plato and Aristotle it was not obvious that reality is composed out of static and distinct elements.In this paper I want to investigate the relationship between the static and the dynamic description of reality historically and systematically. I argue for the thesis thatstatic ontologies are ultimately based on an analysis of predication and that dynamic ontologies are mainly based on an empirical or phenomenological investigation of singular and concrete reality.
5. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Nenad Miščević The Ontology of Secondary and Tertiary Qualities - Response-intentionalism and Iteration
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Non-primary qualities are ubiquitous and humanly quite important. This paper briefly argues that they can be best understood on a dispositional model (or, that they are what is nowadays called in literature “responsedependent”), and offers a particular version of the model, the response-intentionalist one. It then discusses combinations of non-primary qualities and argues that there is a layered structure of iterated response-dependence, underlying aesthetic and other interesting properties such as meaningfulness.
6. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Ştefan Afloroaei Everyday Condition of Metaphysics
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The question I intend to answer is whether one can speak of a tacit metaphysics, not expressed conceptually, but nevertheless common. If the answer is positive and providing that it is specific to day-to-day life, such metaphysics may be called everyday metaphysics. To this end, I review the meaning of everyday life and its ambivalent character. Next, I present several milestones in the debate on the subject, from authors who have focused on a kind of usual, common or ‘natural’ metaphysics. Lastly, I formulate the idea under consideration, namely that the everyday life implies or underlies a certain metaphysics. I note that it is an implicit metaphysics – not expressed formally – and rather free. Embraced in experience with a certain degree of freedom, it is recognisable by means of certain representations active in our mind, by the manner of speaking or of understanding and by the common forms of expression. Its vibrancy, concrete and relaxedcharacter makes it highly evocative of the mental life of an era. It ensures a truly essential difference in our everyday mode of being.
7. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Gheorghe Vlăduțescu Ontology and Metaphysics: Whether They Are One
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This investigation discusses the relation between ontology and metaphysics. They are different, but how different? While metaphysics is transcendental and has as purpose the justification of being as existence, it establishes it, too. Metaphysics is speculation (as theoretical approach in the strong meaning of the term) on being. This relation can only emphasize the aporetic quality of metaphysics.
8. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Claudiu Baciu Truth and Knowledge in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind
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The following text presents the concept of knowledge that founds the Hegelian Phenomenology of Mind, as this concept is developed mainly in the “Introduction.” Starting with Hegel’s critique of the Kantian epistemological presuppositions, it shows that in Hegel’s method the terms of “object” and “subject” of knowledge receive a new signification. Due to this signification, Hegelian “knowledge” is no longer a knowledge of outer reality, but a dynamic knowledge of knowledge itself, i.e. a knowledge of the different forms and phenomena of knowledge that emerge dialectically in human history.
9. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Irena Cronin Inauthentic Dasein and Its Relation to a “Chinese-like ‘Constancy’”
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It has long been theorized that Heidegger’s idea for Dasein was highly influenced by the Chinese notion of the Dao. This is due to a misinterpretation on behalf of Heideggerian scholars and others of what the Dao represents. In fact, Heidegger, in explicating what he thought to be “the most extreme inversion of φύσης-ουσία [phusis-ousia],” made this equal to “Chinese-like ‘constancy,’” which is the basis of the Dao. Taking what Heidegger interpreted phusis to be (derived from Aristotelian metaphysics and an assumption of pre-Socratic thought) as a process of unconcealment from continuing re-concealment which signals a kind of “truth” of being [phusis], that which calls for constant presence is inauthentic Dasein, rather than authentic Dasein. In other words, Heidegger’s idea of what inauthentic Dasein calls for could be explained within Aristotle’s system as equal to aiming to replace phusis with the know-how of τέχνη [techne]. The Dao, as rightfully understood and utilized by the master craftsman and the Sage, is accessible, constant, and knowable. This could not be in more opposition to Heidegger’s notion of phusis.
10. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Iris Merkač The Structuralist Ontology of Mathematics: a Brief Introduction
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The paper offers an overview of the motivation for structuralist ontology of mathematics and of the main structuralist position. It discusses the shortcomings ofeliminativist structuralism, and then presents the more promising options: ante rem structuralism, Platonic structuralism, and Parsons’ particular version of structuralism. Our discussion does not cover all of the issues that have relevance for the choice of the particular version of mathematical structuralism, but we do focus on the problem of indeterminacy and on the solution to it. So the positions of some versions of structuralism and the solutions to the problem of indeterminacy are briefly presented and compared, and a clear picture of structuralist ontologies is drawn.
11. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Kristina Pucko On Relationist Ontology of Color
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This paper critically discusses role functionalism about color and suggests that it is not such a sui generis position as it is often considered to be. The discussionfocuses upon one, hopefully, central point. The main proponent of the idea of role functionalism is Jonathan Cohen who in his book The Red and the Real (2009)suggests a Refined Taxonomy of positions on color ontology. Namely, his proposal implies that color ontology should be divided into relationalist and non-relationalist accounts. Generally, he endorses the relationalist theory of color which roughly claims that colors are constituted in terms of some relation between objects and subjects (inter alia). Specifically, Cohen defends Role Functionalism as the best version of relationalism according to which the relations that constitute colors are functional relations. Based on his role functionalist stance, he distances himself from dispositionalists. However, in this paper I show that he could be interpreted as one and therefore needs to reconsider his Refined Taxonomy of positions on color ontology.
discussion
12. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Pro and Con Discussion Regarding the Tenets of the Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science (continuation)
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13. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Dimitri Ginev Chasing the Spectre of Essentialism
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book reviews
14. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 5 > Issue: 1
Maria Teresa Teixeira Process and Consciousness: an alternative to reductionism and materialism
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