Aristotle defined the ethical and intellectual virtues which are recognized as fundamental even today. Contemporary virtue ethics still takes into account Aristotelian virtues. The modern moral philosophers have tried to find new ethical values in a society in which religions are in decline and the old values lost their meaning. The starting point of their research has been Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics” which has remained the most important work in ethics influencing the philosophical thinking until nowadays. This paper seeks to explain (...) the actual importance of the cardinal Aristotelian virtues and how they are seen today. (shrink)

Mihnea Dobre, Tammy Nyden. to not only notice the “anomalies,” but able to develop more useful narratives that can fully incorporate them. This work is a first step towards that end. We do not put forward an alternative narrative ourselves, but ...

Si bien existen algunos intentos de repensar el tema de la tecnología desde la filosofía de Søren Kierkegaard, no existe todavía un diálogo directo con la postura transhumanista. En este artículo proponemos un acercamiento inédito, entendido como una crítica, desde el pensamiento de Kierkegaard al transhumanismo y su concepto de singularity. Primero, analizamos el modo en el que los transhumanistas entienden el concepto de singularity y sus limitaciones; después, apoyándonos en la filosofía de Kierkegaard, defendemos que la única singularidad posible (...) y real es la persona humana como relación primigenia, fuente de angustia y libertad, pecado y amor, espíritu. Defendemos también que esta relación no puede ser replicada por una creación artificial. (shrink)

Agency in Archaeology is the first critical volume to scrutinize the concept of agency and to examine in-depth its potential to inform our understanding of the past. Theories of agency recognize that human beings make choices, hold intentions and take action. This offers archaeologists scope to move beyond looking at the broad structural or environmental change and instead to consider the individual and the group. The book brings together nineteen internationally renowned scholars who have very different, and often conflicting, stances (...) on the meaning and use of agency theory to archaeology. (shrink)

“Cartesian Visual Cosmology: Ways Towards a Digital Platform” (with Ovidiu Babeș and Ioana Bujor) In Recent Advances in Digital Humanities: Romance Language Applications, Eds. Anca Dinu, Mădălina Chitez, Liviu Dinu and Mihnea Dobre. Berlin, Germany: Peter Lang, 2022.

En este artículo propongo una relectura de la novela Apuntes del subsuelo de Fiódor Dostoievski desde la mirada de la filosofía. Considerada por algunos la novela en la cual el escritor expuso su antropología; entendida, por otros, como una crítica social en boca de un extraño personaje, desde mi punto de vista esta obra es un ejercicio que desmantela la racionalidad moderna, y hace de Dostoievski un antimoderno. El ejercicio planteado parte de la idea que el filósofo ruso de origen (...) judío, Lev Shestov, afirmaba sobre este escrito: que representa la verdadera “crítica de la razón pura”. Trataré de demostrar que la novela Apuntes del subsuelo es uno de los escritos más filosóficos de Dostoievski, porque presenta la deconstrucción de la racionalidad moderna, para lo cual analizaré cómo entendió Dostoievski la razón y cuál fue su postura con relación con ella. (shrink)

This paper presents an interpretation of the paradoxical decision of Abraham done by Søren A. Kierkegaard in his work Fear and Trembling as an ethics of silence. The main idea is to understand ethics not as moral standards or specific duties, but as the responsibility of becoming a single individual in time; singularity as the intimate and personal relationship with the calling of love. In such a way, that silence is the experience of the encounter with the paradox that being (...) human means to be singular in conditions that claim an universal and general transparent manifestation dependent of the dominant rational discourse.Then, silence becomes the fundamental ethical claim to become a human person, as spirit in time, where it becomes a time of trial and examination, a temporality, where the trial is the fidelity to love’s calling, the listening of the possibilities that are presented by the anxiety of the decision. These possibilities are not immanent to the world or to history, they call for a personal choice, always containing a space of revelation; therefore of listening to the interiority of the personal choice that for Kierkegaard is the passion of faith, communicated and lived in silence. Concluding that an ethics of silence by the image of Abraham implies to re-think the role of philosophy in relationship to faith, hope and love in time, as a silent thought. (shrink)

One of the most difficult, yet interesting change in theseventeenth-century natural philosophy was that of chemistry. This essayfocuses upon Cartesian re-evaluation of the philosophical disciplines,arguing that, from a systematic perspective, chemistry cannot find a place innatural philosophy. Chemistry, in its seventeenth-century form of“chymistry” shares a number of common features with other traditions andpractices. Descartes and his first-generation of followers discussed in thisessay – Jacques du Roure, Robert Desgabets, and Jacques Rohault – willreact precisely to this discipline of “chymistry,” opposing it (...) to their physicsbuilt on a combination between theory of matter and mechanicalexplanations. The very restrictive Cartesian theory of matter will come intotension with any intermediate explanatory entity, such as the chymicalprinciples. This essay will investigate such tensions, arguing that they arecaused by both ontological and epistemological commitments. For example,the principles of the chymists contradict the one material extension of theCartesian world. At the same time, Cartesians require a more thoroughreductive process then the one provided by chymical explanations. In thissense, chymistry is good for practical purposes, but fails in providing anexplanation in natural philosophy and, hence, to represent a science. (shrink)

Lucrarea de față explorează receptarea cosmologiei lui René Descartes ca “fizică mozaică”. În mod tradițional, teoria lui Descartes despre formarea și structura lumii a fost citită în lumina unei explicații mecanice bazate pe teoria vârtejurilor. La un nivel mai general, problemele discutate în lucrarea de față se circumscriu unui cadru mai amplu de dezbateri, specifice cosmologiei filosofice.

The appearance of scientific journals in the second half of the seventeenth century not only presented new opportunities for the dissemination of knowledge, but also offers the historian a privileged view of the shared knowledge within the scientific community. The Journal des Sçavans, founded in 1665, proclaimed its ambition to disseminate news about books and people concerning the République des lettres. Given the reportedly high interest in and opposition to the rise of Cartesianism among contemporary philosophers, this paper explores the (...) discussion of Cartesianism within the pages of the Journal. It is shown that debates on Cartesianism formed only a small portion of the articles in the Journal. Although the majority of commentaries referred to the metaphysical foundations of Cartesian philosophy, a considerable number of instances were found referring to empirical tests of the theory. Finally, as the Journal does not mention the condemnations or censorship of Cartesianism, we cannot speak of a general feeling of hostility against Cartesian philosophers among the editors or intended audience of the Journal. (shrink)

Paper presented in the 3rd edition of Bucharest Colloquium on Early Modern Science.

This article addresses the problem of Jacques Rohault’s Cartesianism. It aims to enrich the current portrayal of Rohault (1618–72) as a Cartesian natural philosopher concerned with experimentation. The modern evaluation of Rohault as an experimentalist can benefit from another explanatory layer, emphasizing the mathematical physics that shapes his natural philosophy. In order to argue for this complementary account, I focus on an early episode in Rohault’s career, represented by his reply to Fermat’s attacks against Descartes’s law of refraction (1658). The (...) source has been discussed, so far, solely as part of the dispute in optics between Fermat and the Cartesians. The reading endorsed here explores the source from a different angle, suggesting an alternative account grounded on a more contextual understanding of Rohault’s contribution to Cartesianism. More diverse dimensions of Rohault’s intellectual formation are revealed, which in turn provides a more complex picture of this strain of Cartesian natural philosophy. (shrink)

"Jacques Rohault, Preface to the Traité de Physique. A critical edition and commentary of four early modern versions of Rohault’s preface.” (critical edition and scholarly study; co-edited with Ovidiu Babeș, Ioana Bujor, and Grigore Vida). Special issue of Society and Politics, vol. 15/1 (29), 2021. [Open Access].

Siendo un pensador peculiar y entendido como un out-sider, Lev Shestov es el creador de una filosofía genuina que viene a romper el pensamiento para reconstruir; es decir, poner las bases de una filosofía con sentido trágico que se opone a todo pensar especulativo y positivista. Las raíces de esta filosofía las encuentra en la escritura de Kierkegaard, entre otros. El filósofo danés es un pensador que lo atormenta y que representa para su creación un momento decisivo, ya que le (...) devuelve a Shestov la esperanza de que su filosofía de la tragedia encuentra un sustento en la filosofía existencial creada por el filósofo danés. En estas páginas el objetivo es evidenciar aquello que Lev Shestov descubre al leer la obra de Kierkegaard para sustentar el desarrollo del significado de lo que denominará cómo filosofía de la tragedia; una filosofía que nace en la desesperación, en la repetición, en la segunda dimensión del pensamiento; en la angustia y en la fe, y en la revelación. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este artículo se propone recuperar un acercamiento peculiar en la comprensión de la realidad a través del concepto del silencio. A pesar de que sobre el silencio hay varías indagaciones, la mayoría relacionadas con la obra de Martín Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein o Merleau-Ponty, este artículo tiene la intención de extender la comprensión de una filosofía del silencio que no sería completa sin la contribución de Max Picard. Siendo este último un pensador original y el autor de una obra peculiar, (...) el objetivo de estas páginas es analizar el silencio, para comprender por qué el filósofo suizo lo entiende como una realidad originaria y positiva y no como una ausencia, creando así una metafísica del silencio como una filosofía integral ; una filosofía en la cual el silencio une, a través del lenguaje, al hombre con lo divino, creando una relación de complementariedad ABSTRACT This article aims to recover a peculiar approach in the understanding of reality through the concept of silence. Although there are several inquiries about silence, mostly related to the work of Martín Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein or Merleau-Ponty, this article intends to extend the understanding of a philosophy of silence that would not be complete without the contribution of Max Picard. Being an original thinker and the author of a peculiar work, the purpose of these pages is to analyze the silence, to understand why the Swiss philosopher understands it as an original and positive reality and not as an absence, thus creating a "metaphysics of silence" as an integral philosophy ; a philosophy in which silence unites, through language, the human and the divine, creating a relationship of complementarity. (shrink)

Considered one of the most complex categories in Søren Kierkegaard’s thought, the repetition continues to raise much restlessness within his own authorship. Although about this category we find some first sketches in an unfinished book called Johannes Climacus or De homnibus dubitandum est, much later Kierkegaard will return to the category of repetition in his writing of the same name: Repetition, a peculiar work, very difficult to understand in its own dynamics. For this reason, in this essay we propose an (...) interpretation of the category of repetition in relation with that text, to understand why repetition is a spiritual category as Kierkegaard himself thought it, starting from the idea that for the Danish philosopher the repetition is what canbe called a “philosophy of the future”. (shrink)

The book presents a new conceptual framework and a set of research principles with which to study and interpret technology from a phenomenological perspective.