Report on the implementation of the philosophy for children project “Dexterity and responsibility of thinking: a philosophical course for middle and high school studentsˮ, supported by the Sententiae community.

Report on the first four meetings of the Seminarium Historico-Philosophicum (26.06 – 15.11.2023), organized with the support of the Sententiae community.

Interview of Vlada Davidenko, Ryenat Shvets, Sofia Bryl with Leonid Finberg.

An overview of publications devoted to the history of philosophy articles in the journal “Filosofska dumkaˮ (2022).

Review of Kuzminski, A. (2021). Pyrrhonian Buddhism: A Philosophical Reconstruction. London & New York: Routledge.

Review of Dika, T. (2023). Descartes’s Method. The Formation of the Subject of Science. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Review of Dokman, F., & Cornelli, E. M. (Eds.). (2022). Beyond Bantu Philosophy: Contextualizing Placide Tempels's Initiative in African Thought. London and New York: Routledge.

This article aims to reveal the semantic dynamics of narratives on Rousseau in Kyiv academic philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries. through the separation of the informational layer from the rhetorical one in their content and the identification of hidden (unarticulated) elements that determined both the general nature of the narrative and the evaluative judgments of the narrators. Based on archival primary sources and printed editions (mostly bibliographic rarities), a historical and philosophic study of the narratives on Jean-Jacques (...) Rousseau and his philosophy of education performed, which were created and broadcast by professors of Kyiv Theological Academy and St.Volodymyr University Pamfil Yurkevych, Sylvester Gogotskyi, Markellin Olesnitskyi, Mykola Makkaveiskyi, Oleksandr Selikhanovych, and Vasyl Zenkovskyi. Keeping almost the same informational core, the narratives of Kyiv academicians on Rousseau differ significantly in terms of rhetoric. While the “older generation” goes into philosophical criticism of the pedagogical ideas of the Swiss thinker as the Stranger, the “younger ones”, limiting themselves to remarks about their controversial nature, represent him as the Self. This difference is due to both personal factors and institutional conditions for the development of Kyiv academic philosophy, as well as changes in the general political situation in the period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (shrink)

Review of Vogt, K., & Vlasits, J. (Eds.). (2020). Epistemology After Sextus Empiricus. New York: Oxford UP.

Review of Canhada, J. M. (2023). Le discours et l’histoire: la philosophie au Brésil au dix-neuvième siècle. (F. Brandi, Trans.). Paris: Harmattan.

Review of Lovasz, A. (2021). Updating Bergson: A Philosophy of the Enduring Present. Lanham: Lexington books.

Interview of Vlada Anuchina, Yana Dziuba and Yana Gorobenko with Yevhen Prychepii.

Review of Thompson, J. W. (2022). The Metaphysics of Resurrection in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

This paper presents and argues for a contemporary version of skepticism: neo-Pyrrhonism. Interest in the history of skepticism engendered a new, more complex and attractive conception of skepticism. Accordingly, many philosophers now claim they are skeptics. In line with what they say, I develop neo-Pyrrhonism as I see it. It has a negative part, in which dogmas are criticized, and a positive one: first, the neo-Pyrrhonist lives his life according to his skeptical principles and following everyday life, and, second, he (...) is able to describe philosophically his skeptical view of the world, thereby offering possible solutions to philosophical problems empirically conceived. (shrink)

Review of Karamanolis, G. (2021). The Philosophy of Early Christianity. London & New York: Routledge.

Review of Bromberg, J. (2021). Global Classics. Abingdon: Routledge.

Review of Baig, M., & Gleave, R. (Eds.). (2021). Violence in Islamic Thought from European Imperialism to the Post-Colonial Era (Vol. 3). Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.

Review of Vinje, H. (2022). Complete Life in the Eudemian Ethics. Apeiron, 26(2), 299-323.

Review of Kozlovskyi, V. (2023). Kantian Anthropology. Sources. Constellations. Models. Kyiv: Duh i Litera.

The article analyzes the translations and interpretations of the philosophical course Stephan Kalynovskyi taught at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 1729–1731. Drawing on unpublished translations, editorial corrections, letters, etc., the author reconstructs the history of this course’s translation for the first time, which began in the late 1960s. The author analyzes whether the researchers transcribed and translated the handwritten Latin text correctly and to what extent their interpretations of the course’s philosophical ideas are valid. The article demonstrates that researchers neither had (...) the proper knowledge of the scholastic philosophical tradition and, in some cases, its specific type of Latin nor created the necessary critical apparatus. It resulted in many flaws in their works. Ukrainian philosophers grossly misinterpreted Kalynovskyi’s course because they found the Enlightenment, Cartesian, and local Ukrainian ideas in the text, written in Paris in the 1630s. The author also demonstrates that contemporary studies of Kalynovskyi’s course mostly repeat dubious Soviet ideas, while several dishonest scholars even practice plagiarism. (shrink)

Review of Lipscomb, B. J. B. (2021). The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch Revolutionized Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reflections about authors’ participation in Alushta Schools of Young Philosophers.

Report on the first Sententiae community meeting which took place on April 29, 2023.

Review of Olkowski, D. (2021). Deleuze, Bergson, Merleau-Ponty: The Logic and Pragmatics of Creation, Affective Life, and Perception. Indiana: Indiana UP.

Arina Orekhova’s interview with Professor Serhii Secundant, devoted to Leibniz’s concept of time and space, the peculiarities of Michael Fatch’s interpretation of this concept, and various historico-philosophical approaches to understanding Leibniz’s philosophy as a whole.

Jean-Luc Marion, in his latest book, “Sur la pensée passive de Descartes,” recently published in an English translation, challenges something he refers to, in the English subtitle, as “the Myth of Cartesian Dualism” and counters it with his original interpretation of Descartes’ notion of meum corpus. This article explores the reasons he adduces for this purpose. The case is made that Marion fails to provide sufficiently solid argumentative and textual support for his construal in this respect and that traditional substance (...) dualistic interpretative resources allow for a more straightforward and systematic reading. It is argued that Marion’s central dualism-deflecting claim, that in the Meditations, “my body” is not an extended thing but a mode of thought, is undermined by an analysis that carefully considers the context of those Descartes’ statements to which Marion appeals. (shrink)

Review of Stump, E., & White, T. J. (Eds.). (2022). The New Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

Reflections on the paradigm shift in philosophizing in Ukraine at the end of the 80s, based on the authors' personal memories of participation in the Alushta Schools of Young Philosophers.

Materials of the discussion about informal philosophical schools held in Alushta (1987–1989, 1991, 1993). The context of the Ukrainian SSR in the 1980s and the impact of Schools on Ukrainian philosophy during the period of independence are analyzed.

Review of Hashas, M. (Ed.). (2021). Pluralism in Islamic Contexts - Ethics, Politics and Modern Challenges. Cham: Springer.

Interview of Vsevolod Khoma, Illia Davidenko and Kseniia Myroshnyk with Anatoliy Yermolenko.

Review of Cioran, E. (2023). Syllogism of the Bitterness. The Fall into Time. Kyiv: Duh i Litera.

Review of Landau, I. (Ed). (2022). The Oxford handbook of Meaning in Life. Oxford: Oxford UP.

The article analyzes the philosophical course of Stephan Kalynovskyi taught at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 1729–1731. By now researchers considered this course to be one of the best monuments of Ukrainian philosophical thought of that time. However, the textual analysis has shown that the course was borrowed verbatim from François le Reés, a French author who wrote it in Paris in the 1630s. The article also analyzes all other currently known educational courses of Kalynovskyi (courses on rhetoric, history, mathematics). Neither they (...) were written by the professor himself, but borrowed, mostly verbatim, from other authors. The article drew conclusions about the (un)originality of Kalynovskyi's courses based on a comparison of his courses with their sources, identifying authorial changes, deviations, etc. In addition, an attempt was made to find out whether the verbatim borrowing of someone else's text without indicating the author during teaching could be considered plagiarism at that time. Biographical information about Kalynovskyi, as well as an overview of the church sermons that he delivered as a bishop, allows a better understanding of his educational courses. (shrink)

Interview of Illia Davidenko, Vlada Anuchina and Daria Popil with Svitlana Ivashchenko.

An overview of publications devoted to the philosophy of India, China and Japan (articles and translations of sources) in the journal The World of the Orient from 2018 to 2021 (publications in the field of Buddhist Studies are not included here).

The paper determines the status of the “Oral History of Philosophy” within the history of philosophy as a discipline. The author formulates his theses as answers to the fundamental questions Serhii Yosypenko asked in 2019. The latter subjected the first attempts to comprehend the then-new concept of “Oral History of Philosophy” to fruitful criticism. It is in response to his criticisms that the former gives now his answers which can be summarized in six points: (1) Oral History of Philosophy is (...) fundamentally different from Oral History and is not limited to the application of the interview method; (2) it is a set of dialogical methods of producing new information in the field of the history of philosophy, that is, a new methodology that can be used in any historical-philosophical research; (3) the main difference is the orientation of the Oral History of Philosophy not to personal testimony, but to joint reflection; (4) this focus on reflection determines all the methods of Oral History of Philosophy; (5) the name “Oral History of Philosophy” is due to the specifics of the situation that gave rise to this methodology rather than a conscious conceptual reflection; (6) this methodology can be given a more exact name: “Dialogical forms of historical-philosophical reflection”, while the name “Oral history of philosophy” can be used for those dialogical forms that rely on oral speech. (shrink)

Review of Ushkalov, L. (2019). The magic of energy: Mykhailo Drahomanov. Kyiv: Duh i Litera.

Olexandr Lukovyna’s interview with doctor of sciences in philosophy Oleksiy Panych, devoted to pyrrhonism’s principles, practice and contemporary status.

Interview of Vlada Anuchina, Yana Dziuba and Yana Gorobenko with Yevhen Prychepii.

The purpose of the article is, firstly, to explicate and give a critical assessment of the methodological, epistemological, and philosophical foundations that led to the “rhetorical turn” in modern philosophy, and, secondly, to answer the question of how justified the grounds for such a “rhetorical turn” are. The answer proposed is based on a reconstruction of Eugene Dupréel’s critical arguments that were directed against the “classical philosophy” and their reception in Chaim Perelman’s works during his “turning point” period (1947 – (...) 1949). The article proves that these two scholars’ critique of classical philosophy proceeds from a realistic position, therefore it does not apply to the epistemological principles of idealistic philosophy. Their criticism of the classical theory of progress and the ideal of universally valid knowledge is “axiological” in nature and boils down to a reassessment of all traditional values. As a result of this reassessment, the methodological principles of sophistry (subjectivism, pragmatism, pluralism, relativism, conventionalism, etc.) are actually rehabilitated. The criticism of philosophy that appeals to spoken language and everyday knowledge, is not justified, since it is based on a misunderstanding of the conceptual and constructive nature of the philosophical language. Although the rhetorical analysis of philosophical texts should be recognized as fruitful and useful, rhetoric cannot be an instrument of philosophizing, since the interpretation of values depends on their understanding, which is given by “classical philosophy”. (shrink)

Review of Reuter, M., & Svensson, F. (Eds.). (2019). Mind, Body, and Morality: New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza. Oxon: Routledge.

Olexandr Lukovyna’s interview with Professor Plínio Junqueira Smith is devoted to skeptic research in Brazilian philosophy, the beginning of skeptic studies in Brazil, Oswaldo Porchat’s and Ezequiel de Olaso’s roles in establishing the tradition of skeptic studies, contemporary studies in skepticism, and the global state of affairs in skeptic research.

Interview of Vsevolod Khoma with Professor Tamara Yashchuk within the framework of the research program “Ukrainian Philosophy of the 60s–80s of the 20th Century” of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy.

У статті проаналізований філософський курс Стефана Калиновського, який той про-читав у Києво-Могилянській академії в 1729–1731 рр. Цей курс вважався дослідниками одною з кращих пам'яток української філософської думки того часу, а втім, як засвідчив текстуальний аналіз, він дослівно запозичений у Франсуа Ле Ре, французького автора, який написав його в 1630-х рр. в Парижі. Також проаналізовані всі інші наразі відомі на-вчальні курси Калиновського: риторичний, історичний, математичний. Вони теж напи-сані не викладачем, а взяті, переважно дослівно, в інших авторів. На основі порівняння навчальних курсів (...) із першоджерелами, виявлення авторських змін, відхилень тощо, зроб-лені висновки про (не)оригінальність курсів Калиновського. Крім того, здійснена спроба з'ясувати, чи можна вважати дослівне запозичення чужого тексту без зазначення автора під час викладання плагіатом в тогочасному значенні цього слова. Зрозуміти особливості навчальних курсів дозволяють біографічні відомості про їхнього викладача, а також огляд церковних проповідей, які той виголошував у сані єпископа. (shrink)

The text fragments that make up Blaise Pascal's “Penséesˮ are traditionally published in different sequences, according to the difference in the conceptual positions of the editors. So, the problem of correlating different editions is very difficult. Translations of “Penséesˮ reflecting several numbering systems are currently available to Ukrainian readers. The author offers two comparative tables for these numberings. In Table 1, the numberings of Louis Lafuma, Jacques Chevalier and Michel Le Guerne are expressed through the numbering of Leon Brunschvicg, which (...) is currently the most common in Ukraine. In Table 2, Brunschvicg's numbering is correlated with the First Copy of the manuscript, the Port-Royal edition of 1670, as well as editions by Bossuet, Lafuma, Chevalier, Le Guerne, Tournier-Anzieu, and Dolgov. (shrink)

Offered to discussion theme has to fundamental question of philosophical conscience self-definition, question about reliable beginning of thought. General starting point is acknowledging that modern European metaphysics assumes fundamentalism as a principle of thought. Considering this thinking strategy theses are put forward: 1) fundamentalism is impossible; 2) fundamentalism was not universal modern European strategy of thinking; 3) theoretical clarity and systematicity of thinking are to be opposed to fundamentalism; 4) fundamentalism and systematicity os thinking – are mutually exclusive. Because only (...) religious fate by definition corresponds with being, then modern European philosophy solves purely religious question using fundamentalism. But for philosophers as a topos of correspondence of being and thinking is knowledge. But till knowledge is reliable beginning of thought, and science is positivistic, untill then philosophy ought to be in permanent crisis. Hence philosophy, by opening new possibilities of being, more and more relies on new metaphysical topos – existential experience. The aim of neo-scepticism is to metaphysically defend existential experience. (shrink)