Personal identity theory has become increasingly sensitive to the importance of the first-person perspective. However, certain ways of speaking about that perspective do not allow the full temporal aspects of first-person perspectives on the self to come into view. In this paper I consider two recent phenomenologically-informed discussions of personal identity that end up yielding metaphysically divergent views of the self: those of Barry Dainton and Galen Strawson. I argue that when we take a properly temporally indexical view of the (...) first-person perspective, and thereby resist the assumption that phenomenally-figured and theoretically-figured identity claims must have a common object, the metaphysically awkward accommodations each of these authors is compelled to make cease to be necessary. (shrink)

This essay presupposes that Friedrich Nietzsche and Rudolf Carnap champion contrasting reactions to the fact that, throughout history, persons have been engaged in metaphysical disputes. Nietzsche embraces a libertarian reaction that is in agreement with his anti-democratic aristocratic political views, whereas Carnap endorses an egalitarian reaction aligned with his democratic and socialist political views. After characterizing these reactions, the essay argues for two claims. The first claim is that the stated contrasting reactions are to be considered, not only by the (...) few scholars who are interested both in Nietzsche’s and Carnap’s writings, but by a far larger group that includes those who have addressed the continental-analytic gap; those who are concerned with the development of contemporary philosophy; and/or those who are interested in the writings of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, David Lewis and/or Peter van Inwagen. The second claim is that we have to entertain a synthesis of Nietzsche’s libertarian and Carnap’s egalitarian reaction in order to overcome the continental-analytic gap. (shrink)

I suggest that we can read Marx in the light of recent analytic, neo-Hegelian thought. I summarize the Pittsburgh School philosophers’ claims about the myth of the given, the claim that human experience is conceptual all the way out, and that we live in a space of reasons. I show how Hegel has been read in those terms, and then apply that reading of Hegel to Marx’s argument that capital is akin to what Hegel called Geist, or spirit. We can (...) understand capitalism as a space of reasons that is contradictory: while the space of reasons is supposed to make human freedom possible, our space of reasons makes freedom impossible. Reading Marx in this way is helpful, because it avoids the flaws of analytical Marxism, existentialism and structuralism. However, it raises a large problem of its own: Can the theory of the space of reasons be applied to a society that is not free of alienation? I argue that it can, but only in ways that would not satisfy the analytic neo-Hegelians themselves. (shrink)

Understanding and explanation are usually considered in the context of continental philosophy in Ukraine, based on Wilhelm Dilthey’s distinction between understanding and explanation as the opposite methods for humanities and natural science respectively as well as relying heavily on hermeneutical philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer when it comes to understanding. However, this is not an exclusive feature of continental philosophy, and this article aims to show that the terms are actively used in English-speaking philosophy. This is done by (...) focusing on philosophy of history and philosophy of science which are the areas that actively use such terms. Considering the number of works within these areas helps to outline the general situation in the English-speaking philosophy and demonstrates that the opposition of explanation and understanding is quite artificial now. The first part of the article regards the two-sidedness of the English-speaking philosophy of history, which means that history seeks to be both science and art. The second part of the article analyses understanding and explanation as they are used in philosophy of science. Particularly, it has been shown that such a classic of analytical philosophy as Georg von Wright considered understanding of the humanities to be a continuation of a teleological explanation as well as explanation within natural science to be a different type of explanation: a causal one. It is also shown that a contemporary researcher Kareem Khalifa introduces an important term ‘explanatory understanding’ which appears in the case of a correct scientific explanation within natural science. Based on the materials involved, the author of the article demonstrates that both areas of contemporary English-language philosophy view explanation and understanding not as antipodes but as co-dependent notions.Manuscript received 10.08.2020. (shrink)