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Displaying: 1-10 of 10 documents


research articles
1. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Filip Čukljević Reading Nehamas’s Nietzsche: An Overview of the Project of Self-Fashioning
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In this article I shall investigate Alexander Nehamas’s classic interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche in relation to the idea of self-fashioning. My aim is to dispel certain misconceptions about Nehamas’s Nietzsche and to explore what his vision of life actually involves. First, I shall expose some basic presuppositions about self-fashioning, that have to do with the nature of the self. Then I shall examine the concept of style, which is related to the concept of the self, and what it means to give style to oneself. This endeavour will further expand on the prominently literary model of life espoused by Nehamas’s Nietzsche. We will see that Nietzsche’s (in)famous idea of the eternal return plays a pivotal role within this framework. Afterwards, it will be argued that realizing the idea of self-fashioning is a pluralistic affair, unique to each person. Subsequently, the temporal structure of self-fashioning will be addressed in greater detail, by focusing on two aspects: coming to terms with the past and being open to the future. Finally, the processual nature of this project will be further revealed with the analysis of its slogan ‘become who you are.’
2. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Arnold Cusmariu Turing Algorithms in Art
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Exemplifying with sculptures the author created, the article shows that ontological algorithms can yield aesthetic content, while epistemological algorithms can capture it. Bridging the gap between art and logic creates new and exciting aesthetic opportunities, allaying Henry Moore’s fears of ‘paralysis by analysis.’ On the flip side, appreciating all that algorithmic art has to offer poses intellectual challenges that run counter to subjectivist approaches to art and its education.
3. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Yuval Eytan Rousseau: The Rejection of Happiness as the Foundation of Authenticity
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The roots of the ideal of authenticity in modern Western thought are numerous and complex. In this article, I explore their development in relation to Rousseau’s paradoxical conclusion that complete satisfaction is an aspiration that not only cannot be fulfilled but whose actual realization will make a person miserable. I argue that there is an unresolved tension between the notion of humans as creatures who by nature strive to eliminate suffering to achieve static serenity and the idea that their natural goal in society is to constantly change and enrich themselves. The purpose of this article is not to construct another pessimistic interpretation according to which our most profound desire – happiness – cannot be achieved, but rather, by understanding natural inequality as a historical phenomenon, to shed light on Rousseau’s idea that happiness should be rejected because it contradicts the new foundation of morality: the realization of people’s uniqueness.
4. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Mubarak Hussain The Moral Status of AGI-enabled Robots: A Functionality-Based Analysis
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For a long time, researchers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and futurists have hypothesized that the developed Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) systems can execute intellectual and behavioral tasks similar to human beings. However, there are two possible concerns regarding the emergence of AGI systems and their moral status, namely: 1) is it possible to grant moral status to the AGI-enabled robots similar to humans? 2) if it is (im)possible, then under what conditions do such robots (fail to) achieve moral status similar to humans? To examine the possibilities, the present study puts forward a functionality argument, which claims that if a human being and an AGI-enabled robot have similar functionality, but different creative processes, they may have similar moral status. Furthermore, the functionality argument asserts that an entity’s (a human being or an AGI-enabled robot) creation/production from carbon or silicon or its brain’s utilization of neurotransmitters or semiconductors does not carry any significance. Rather, if both entities have similar functionality, they may have similar moral status, which implies that the AGI-enabled robot may achieve human-like moral status if it performs human-like functions.
5. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Rajesh Sampath The Buried Promise of Sections 74 and 75 of Chapter V of Division Two of Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) in light of New Testament Christianity
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This article will offer a close reading of sections 74 and 75 of “Chapter V: Temporality and Historicality” of Division Two of Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927). Our goal is to expand on a speculative metaphysical reconstruction of Chapter 17 of the Gospel of John, when Jesus is finished speaking to the disciples and is addressing the Father alone. This is right before his Passion, namely the arrest, trial, crucifixion, and ultimate Resurrection. The work is not situated in either abstract systematic or biblical theology, which seeks to defend faith, particularly using modern continental philosophical resources, such as the early Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. Then again, it is not a philosophy of religion either, in the sense that it is not concerned with investigating the nature or essence of religion. Rather, it is trying to move within Being and Time to construct anew its ‘missing Division Three’ by creating new terms and distinctions beyond what is offered in the first Two Divisions. Our hypothesis is this: the supersession of Being and Time requires an imaginative metaphysical expansion of hidden secrets buried in the Gospel regarding a strange double temporalization in the discourse of Jesus to his Father. These two temporal planes are phenomenologically irreducible to either the linear sequence of events of his life as narrated in the four Gospels; or the history of theological attempts, particularly twentieth-century theological giants (Barth, Tillich, Rahner, Moltmann, Pannenberg), to think about the time-eternity-history relation with regard to the Kairos (through the Incarnation of the Son) at the fulfilled time and the Parousia, namely the Second Coming at the eschatological end of time. The article concludes with certain criteria regarding judgements on the undecidability of theism vs. atheism when attempting to go beyond Heidegger’s Being and Time. The ontological consequences, and therefore meaning of such an undertaking at a step beyond Being and Time, remain indiscernible for specific reasons.
6. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Howard Sankey Truth about Artifacts
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Truth in a correspondence sense is objective in two ways. It is objective because the relation of correspondence is objective and because the facts to which truths correspond are objective. Truth about artifacts is problematic because artifacts are intentionally designed to perform certain functions, and so are not entirely mind independent. Against this, it is argued in this paper that truth about artifacts is perfectly objective despite the role played by intention and purpose in the production of artifacts.
7. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Errata Notice
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8. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Information about Authors
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9. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
About the Journal
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10. Symposion: Volume > 10 > Issue: 1
Author Guidelines
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