Philosophy today is undergoing a transformation away from modernism. The problem is that it is far from clear what this transformation is moving toward. I examine the transition from the premodern to the modern philosophical world and contrast it with our current situation. While the moderns were clear in their rejection of Aristotelian scholasticism and sure of their methods, in our own time we are neither clear about the extent to which we reject modernism nor our methodology moving forward. I argue that the uncertainty of the postmodern philosophical world is, in an important sense, a necessary consequence of the rejection of modernism itself.

I argue for a significant slowing down in philosophy. In today’s hectic world, the ‘slow movement’ has had a salutary effect in a variety of domains, from mental health to food and music. But the academic world, philosophy included, has yet to catch on. And this, in spite of the fact that university culture has become increasingly focused on productivity and performance, thus creating a managerialist ethos and an “academic Darwinism” where scholars are placed under pressure to “publish or perish”, with little opportunity to allow their thoughts to mature organically. In response to this commodification of philosophy, I offer an alternative: ‘slow philosophy’. Inspired by the Greco-Roman ideal of philosophy as a ‘way of life’ (in Hadot’s terms), the goal in such philosophizing is not only to inform but to transform every aspect of one’s being, to achieve the kind of wisdom which brings peace of mind and inner freedom, as well as deeper understanding. But this requires a slowing down: taking time with the texts we read and write, making time to read and re-read, not forcing the meaning or desiring immediate comprehension, not philosophizing in haste but in grace, in a wondering spirit of contemplative open-endedness and receptivity to the other – thereby opposing the current regime of seeking to get everything done at once.

Pierre Hadot is famous for his work on ancient philosophy, and the notion that ancient philosophia was conceived in the Greek schools as a way of life, including existential practices to reshape students’ beliefs, desires, and actions. Yet his last published book before his death in 2010 was the study N’Oublie Pas de Vivre, on the oeuvre of the modern German thinker and litterateur, Goethe. Hadot’s work throughout refuses to make a sharp distinction between ancients and moderns, interested rather, as in this last book on Goethe, on the way the notion of philosophy as a bios has been carried over into modern thought in figures like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Montaigne, and even Kant. The paper is a critical reflection on Hadot’s conception of philosophy, suggesting he was as much ‘modern’ as ‘ancient’. Hadot’s final work on Goethe, we will argue, revealingly recasts his larger work on the ancients, and the singularity of his interpretation of classical Hellenistic and Roman thought.

The term “paradigm” (Kuhn) has been used for years with pretensions to scientific validity also in metaphilosophical researches, namely in theoretical and philosophical studies, the subject of which is the historical evolution and development of the philosophical thought. Ancient ontology and contemporary philosophy are formed as two different “paradigms” of the philosophical thinking both at the contents’ level (of the problematic, the ideas and the arguments) and at the scientific level of the exposition of ideas. Ancient ontology as metaphysical research, which is called to answer the question what does the world consist of (the reality) and which the first principles of its structure are, pivots on the principle of identity and is self-determined as “phonocentric”. Contemporary philosophy as metaphilosophical research, which seeks the establishment of the philosophical rationality in the open relationship between the thing and the language, is self-determined as grammatological thought, which means that “writing” (Derrida) becomes the first principle of the philosophical thinking itself. According to Hegel, “philosophy is its own time apprehended in thoughts”. In a contemporary interpretive wording, the Hegelian definition of philosophy means that the “notion” as self-consciousness of the thing itself and reality are identical. Having as metaphilosophical criterion the Hegelian definition of philosophy both ancient ontology as metaphilosophical research and contemporary philosophy as grammatological thought constitute two different types of philosophical rationality (“paradigms” of philosophical thinking). Between these two “paradigms” of philosophical thinking a dialectical relationship is developed, which entails two things; First: that the historic research of the philosophical tradition is replaced by the metaphilosophical reflection, according to which the integration as to the content of ancient ontology in the problematic of the contemporary philosophy is the new condition of philosophical thinking. Second: the grammatological reconstruction of the philosophical thinking re-determines the relationship between the thing and the language based on the philosophical rationality, which functions as pragmatological condition for the appearance of new philosophical things, as for example is the communication and the language.

Kant’s work, taken as a whole manifests a diversity of styles of writing, of which the disparity between his critical and popular style is salient. In this paper, this diversity is connected with, what Lyotard calls ‘the absence of a homogeneous language’ in Kant’s system. Taking this connection as a point of departure it is argued that the stylistic diversity in Kant reflects the burden of coordinating the realist and idealist aspects of his philosophical outlook. That Kant labels the skepticism about the deductibility of practical validity from theoretical rightness as a scandal of philosophy is taken as an indication that he is concerned about this problem. In view of this it is asked, with reference to the occurrence of moral and juridical terms (δίκη [justice], τίσις [reparation], αδικία [injustice], διδόναι δίκην [do justice]) in de text in which Anaximander’s key metaphysical ideas about nature and world order are cast what lessons can be learned from the origins of the European philosophical tradition to come to terms with Kant’s problem, which is considered as a problem for metaphysics in general, given its cosmopolitical tendency.

In the late 1940s, Quine influentially talked about “the ontological problem”, claiming that it concerns the issue of what there is. I shall adopt this Quinean notion as a basis for an initial characterization of ontological discourse as language use or thought involving existential assumptions or commitments. I will also assume that we engage in ontological discourse in at least three discernible types of contexts, namely those of (i) everyday experience, (ii) the special sciences, and (iii) categorial frameworks of being. In this paper, my main argument is that Quine’s way of situating ontological discourse out of the first context of everyday experience and into the second context of the special sciences is somewhat problematic because he mostly doesn’t seem to exhibit a developed enough a conception of the third context of categorial frameworks of being. I suggest that this problem is connected with Quine’s narrow ontological pragmatism which has its eye too restrictively fixed on the context of the special sciences. In place of the narrow Quinean conception, I suggest a broader kind of ontological pragmatism which gives proper acknowledgement to the very general and fundamental nature of the categories of being. The suggestion makes it possible to see that due to its generality, the third context of categorial frameworks of being both transcends and unites the other two. This structural recognition is important in itself, but it also provides an effective metaphilosophical ground for answering many of the much debated issues raised by the naturalistic, reductionist and scientific tendencies often seen in Quine’s thought and influence.

This paper proposes an analysis of the relation between metaphilosophy and “first-order” philosophical inquiry based on pragmatism, specifically the holistic pragmatism developed by Morton White. It is argued that philosophy and metaphilosophy are mutually dependent and entangled and that it is, therefore, impossible to draw a sharp dichotomy between them. Rather, our metaphilosophical and “first-order” philosophical views and commitments constitute a holistic web that can only be critically examined as a totality.

The aim of this paper is to think about the relationship between criticism, philosophy and normativeness. I will outline a conception of philosophy which is not completely sceptical with regard to itself. So I will begin by considering that the notion of criticism is central to a philosophical activity which is not reduced to a merely descriptive analysis. Therefore, I will outline some features and the conditions of possibility of a notion of philosophical criticism which can fulfil a new normative role: it allows us to see the normative level of contexts (world images, forms of life, traditions, cultures, etc.). But, at the same time and most importantly, I will argue that philosophy allows us to undertake a metanormative and trans-contextual criticism. Such an understanding also brings philosophy closer to the activities which somehow contribute to produce change, whether change refers to one’s own context (one’s own image of the world, one’s own form of life, tradition or culture) or to a different context. From philosophical positions closely intertwined with political practice and with specific vital needs, it has become evident that a kind of trans-contextual connection within normativeness has again become indispensable for human beings.

In this paper, I attempt to argue for a different kind of philosophical discourse. Namely, I delineate a philosophical approach that can be defined in opposition to traditional philosophy, conceived as a more or less ahistorical and transcendental inquiry. According to this approach, exemplified in the thought of Richard Rorty, the different ontological and epistemological claims of philosophy are nothing but variations of the same metaphysical themes, constitutive of its very tradition. In order to present and argue for this point, I show how Rorty’s nominalist, conceptualist, and particularistic stance can be better understood in light of Raymond Geuss’ and Ian Hacking’s two metaphilosophical schemas. I also attempt to show how certain conceptual tensions that seem to emerge from the use of these schemas for understanding Rorty’s stance, can contribute to the critique of philosophy traditionally conceived.

Upward integration of higher education into the service sector strikes painfully the humanities and – especially – philosophy. Noticeable increase in research activity on sense of core questions of philosophy and its place in culture for the past five years can be regarded as indirect evidence for this trend. Another reason causing growth of corresponding publications lies in the controversies between processes of globalization and cultural variations, originating from different world-views. Current attempts to analyze them offer narrow – “two-dimensional” – models of the subject. It is not yet possible to carry out a strict border between information which is a part of weltanschauung and other knowledge. The author proposes a model which would unite current interest to the practical impact of philosophy with the analysis of the world-view structure. The paper represents three main ideas: 1) the structure of weltanschauung represents the decision-making situation; 2) historical types of world-views differ by the model of an explanation accepted in a picture of the world, way of justification of values and by the level of the agent’s freedom in execution or life choice programs; 3) the philosophy has been developing according to requests for rationalization of any part of world outlook.

Ever since Kant, mainstream moral philosophy has been more or less animated by the mission of discovering inescapable law-like rules that would provide a binding justification for morality. Recently, however, more and more authors have started to question a) whether this is possible, and b) what could this project, after all, achieve? An alternative vision of the task of moral philosophy starts from the pragmatic idea that philosophizing begins and ends in the actual human experience. It leads into a view where morality is seen as a ‘social technology’ that aims to make living together possible, and strengthen people’s capability to live a good life within a society. Moral rules, then, are tools that we use to influence our behavior for the better. The role of moral philosophy is, accordingly, to develop further our moral tools, to propose solutions that enhance people’s capabilities to live good lives. In other words, moral philosophers become ethical engineers that use their expertise in ethical topics to criticize existing ‘moral technology’ and construct new concepts and theories that better answer the current challenges for living a good life.

This paper defends a simple and surprisingly adequate definition of philosophy: as suggested by the “know thyself” imperative, philosophy is the “self-defining” discipline. The task of philosophizing is therefore best described as the task of self-defining. In responding to various objections, I defend four senses in which this definition holds. First, when other academic disciplines seek to define the nature of their discipline, they are generally recognized as exploring the philosophy of their discipline; only for philosophy is such an inquiry self-referential, remaining fully within the discipline itself. Second, while some genuinely philosophical topics do not explicitly involve self-defining, philosophy as a way of life always has self-examination at its core. Third, even though psychology may have largely usurped philosophy’s classical role as the guardian of self-knowledge, the goal of helping persons to refine their own self-understanding is still crucial for philosophers today. Finally, in a deep but paradoxical sense, genuine philosophy is self-authenticating. While Socrates’ maxim, “the unexamined life is not worth living” should not be taken too literally, it does correctly convey the fact that only an authentic life is really worth living.

In a fascinating paper, “Ask the Philosopher,” Dimitrios Dentsoras shows how philosophers were once integrally engaged in society as agents of practical advice on how to govern and indeed on how to live. Over the centuries, beginning in Roman times, this social role has diminished to a point where professional philosophers are largely socially irrelevant. What has changed? This paper outlines an argument that identifies a central contribution to its own demise that professional philosophy itself has made. That contribution has to do with how philosophical critique is conceived and operates. Philosophical teaching and publishing focus is on undermining opposing positions, or on eliminating opposition, rather than seeking deeper and genuine understanding. Examining certain elements of this eliminative function presents a possibility of seeing a renewal of philosophy’s previous functions of truth-seeking and accessing the Good.

In this short paper, I outline a non-standard account of what it feels like to have an intuition. According to this account, intuitive contents are ontologically ambiguous. Because intuition alone is liable to persuade us of both motivated inferences and necessary truths, it is not a reliable source of evidence. However, we would not be able to grasp the concept of necessity without intuitions. Hence, I do not think it is any good to ignore or quarantine our intuitions when forming judgments.

In this essay I argue that the traditional concept of universality entails three dogmas, the validity of which have seldom been called into question. To each of these dogmas correspond to common commitments to the universal in the Western tradition. I argue that the only legitimate answer to the question ‘what is the universal?’ requires abandoning the three dogmas of universality and the entailments that follow from them. Moreover, the question ‘what is the universal?’ requires that we adopt self-reference into our concept of the universal, a feature rarely allowed to be predicated of the universal in contemporary and classical Analytic philosophy yet required if any progress on the question ‘what is universality?’ may be had. If my argument is successful, philosophers have an obligation to investigate the work of G.W.F. Hegel more closely, since he is the only philosopher in the rationalist tradition to properly identify these dogmas and think a concept of the universal that avoids the pitfalls that follow from their adoption.

Successor views in the free will literature are views that reject the assumption behind the compatibility question, the question of whether free will is compatible with causal determinism. Specifically, they challenge the assumption that the compatibility question must be answered with either a yes or a no (in the exclusive sense of “or”). One premise typically found in arguments for successor views is the premise that there are certain challenging cases where we have compatibilist and incompatibilist intuitions within the same case. This paper gives empirical support for that premise by presenting an experiment that yields an actor-observer asymmetry in intuitions about the compatibility questions. Given causal determinism, intuitions are incompatibilist when we think about someone else doing an action, but intuitions are compatibilist when we think about our own action as judged by someone else.

Psychological Sequentialism holds that no causal constraint is necessary for the preservation of what matters in survival; rather, it is sufficient for preservation if two groups of mental states are similar enough and temporally close enough. Suppose one’s body is instantaneously dematerialized and subsequently, by an amazing coincidence, a group of molecules are configured to form a qualitatively identical human body. On this view, these events preserve what matters in survival. Despite its unpopularity, several philosophers have argued for this view. One of the main arguments is that a psychologically sequential person is bound to have the same psychological traits and inclinations, and thus preserves what matters in the original person’s survival. In this paper, I argue that this argument fails to establish that no causal constraint is necessary. I also argue that if sequentialism is true, I should be content with the prospect of my bodily destruction followed by the creation of a series of short-lived beings whose mental states are sequential to mine. I suggest that the implausibility of this implication is sufficient to reject the view.

In the paper I present the main assumptions of Leszek Nowak’s negativistic unitarian metaphysics on the metaphilosophical, methodological and postulative plane. From a metaphilosophical angle the fundamental theses concern: metaphysical radicalism and theoretical pluralism. Among the methods applied by L. Nowak, I point out the method of idealization and concretization (main constructional method), as well as the method of paraphrase allowing to ‘collate’ philosophical concepts. I also outline basic metaphysical statements which indicate that unitarian metaphysics is a pluralistic negativistic attributivism, i. e. it develops the ideas of: plurality-of-worlds, non-substantialism and negativism.

Scientific progress in the 20th century has shown that the structure of the world is hierarchical. A philosophical analysis of the hierarchy will bear obvious significance for metaphysics and philosophy in general. Jonathan Schaffer’s paper, “Is There a Fundamental Level?”, provides a systematic review of the works in the field, the difficulties for various versions of fundamentalism, and the prospect for the third option, i.e., to treat each level as ontologically equal. The purpose of this paper is to provide an argument for the third option. The author will apply Aristotle’s theory of matter and form to the discussion of the hierarchy and develop a form realism, which will grant every level with “full citizenship in the republic of being.” It constitutes an argument against ontological and epistemological reductionism. A non-reductive theory of causation is also developed against the fundamental theory of causation. I will argue that Aristotle’s in re forms, not Plato’s ante rem Forms, are involved in causation on each level of hierarchy. Based on ontological reductionism, I will argue against epistemological reductionism.

The paper I am willing to present in the 23. World Congress of Philosophy deals with the central philosophical figure of the so-called Ger-man Idealism movement, G.W.F. Hegel. In concrete I will discuss the grounds which led Hegel to an organicist conception of reality, resulting from the social and philosophical problems of his time. After having discussed the intellectual and political background I will provide a reconstruction of Hegel’s magnum opus, the Science of Logic, putting the focus on its structure and its basic ar-gumentative means: the positive re-evaluation of contradiction and the use of logical instability (dialectics). These insights, as I will further argue, allow He-gel to substantiate his claim, which is to be seen as an argument against phil-osophical enterprises, operating on the basis of otherworldly, inconceivable entities in order to explain reality. In the conclusion I will sketch what Hegel is actually trying to articulate with his organicist thesis and show that the concept of Logical Life is not to be narrowly understood as a theory dealing with living organisms but rather as the core of a philosophy which illustrates reality as a logical and ontological self-sufficient organic whole.