This is a translation from Russian to English of Nikolai Onufriyevich Lossky’s “Tpaнcцeндeнтaльнo-фeнoмeнoлoгичecкiй идeaлизмъ Гyccepля”, published in the émigré journal Пyть in 1939. In this article, Lossky presents and criticizes Husserl’s transcendental idealism. Like many successors of Husserl’s “Göttingen School,” Lossky interprets Husserl’s transcendental idealism as a Neo-Kantian idealism and he criticizes it on the ground that it leads to a form of solipsism. In light of his own epistemology and his metaphysical system, he also claims that, although Husserl is (...) more radical than Descartes in his methodological doubt, he is not radical enough, because his abstention from existential judgment with regard to the external world is itself an existential judgment. In this regard, Lossky affirms that his own critically-informed defense of naive realism is in fact more radical than Husserl’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

The Russian philosopher Nikolai Onufrievich Lossky considered himself a Leibnizian of sorts. He accepted parts of Leibniz’s doctrine of monads, although he preferred to call them ‘substantival agents’ and rejected the thesis that they have neither doors nor windows. In Lossky’s own doctrine, monads have existed since the beginning of time, they are immortal, and can evolve or devolve depending on the goodness or badness of their behavior. Such evolution requires the possibility for monads to reincarnate into the bodies of (...) creatures of a higher level on the scala perfectionis. According to this theory, a monad can evolve by being progressively reincarnated multiple times through a sort of process of metamorphosis from the level of the most elementary particles all the way up to the level of human beings or even higher. Lossky argues that the works of Leibniz contain scattered elements of such a systematic doctrine of reincarnation. He attempts to reconstitute this doctrine in an article that appeared both in Russian and German in 1931. The Russian version, ‘Ученiе Лейбница о перевоплощенiи какъ метаморфозѣ’, was published in the Сборникъ Русскаго института въ Прагѣ, vol. 2, 1931, pp. 77–88. The German version appeared under the title ‘Leibniz’ Lehre von der Reinkarnation als Metamorphose,’ in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. 40, n. 2, 1931, pp. 214–226. The content of the Russian and German versions is roughly the same, except for the omission, in the German version, of a mention of David Hume in the second sentence and of one paragraph and a half at the end of the article. The following is a translation of this article. I translated the text from the Russian version, which was in all appearances written first, but I also took the German version into account. The original pagination is added in angle brackets. Angle brackets are used wherever the additions are mine. — Frédéric Tremblay. (shrink)

We argue that while it is a valuable contribution, Carruthers' model may be too restrictive to elaborate our understanding of the development of mindreading and metacognition, or to enrich our knowledge of individual differences and psychopathology. To illustrate, we describe pertinent examples where there may be a critical interplay between primitive social-cognitive processes and emerging self-attributions.

Dès le moment de la Réforme, l'Église protestante s'est constituée en une communauté plurielle, marquée par des sensibilités diverses. Cette diversité paraît justifier le constat de tendances plus libérales marquant une confiance plus optimiste dans les capacités d'action des hommes, tandis que des tendances plus doctrinales soulignent plus volontiers le poids du mal. Après le rappel des caractéristiques et développements d'une tradition libérale moderne au XIX° siècle, avec l'évocation de la figure d'Harnack, l'auteur soulève la question des rapports de cette (...) tradition avec le mouvement oecuménique, rapports marqués par les événements liés aux deux Guerres mondiales, ce qui lui fait évoquer en terminant la figure de Karl Barth.From the moment of the Reformation the Protestant Church constituted itself into a plural community, marked by diverse sensibilities. This diversity appears to justify the appearance of more liberal tendencies, which indicate a more optimistic confi­dence in the capacities of men's actions, while the more doctrinal tendencies readily underline the weight of evil. After recalling the characteristics and developments of the modern liberal tradition in the 19th century, evoking the personage of Harnack, the author raises the question of the relationships of this tradition with the ecumenical movement. These relationships were effected by the events related to the two World Wars, which leads the author to refer, at the end, to Karl Barth. (shrink)

Problem duša–um–tijelo, drevno je pitanje koje je mučilo mnoge filozofe. Još od Platona i predstoika mnogi su filozofi pokušavali odgovoriti na pitanja odnosa između tih “dijelova”. Ovaj rad je pregled teorije o holonima koju je predložio Arthur Koestler i njezinih implikacija u modernoj kinematografiji, posebno na primjeru anime filma Ghost in the Shell. Postoje mnoga pitanja koja su aktualna i povezana s problemom duha i tijela, a koja proizlaze iz moderne kinematografije i TV emisija, no obično su zanemarena ili previđena. (...) U tim serijama i filmovima nalazimo suvremene ideje o kiborzima i transhumanizmu koje je spomenuti anime film popularizirao. Većina suvremenih serija bliža je transhumanizmu i postmodernizmu, no zbog opsega članka, biti će spomenute samo imenom.Drugi problem koji se nameće u modernoj kinematografiji je individualizam i egocentrizam koji nije usmjeren na transcendentalno ili čak transcendentno. Namjera ovog rada je pokazati da kroz Koestlerove ideje o holonima moramo uzeti u obzir širi pristup transhumanizmu, te da taj pristup ne smije biti fokusiran samo i isključivo na pojedinca. (shrink)

Osiurak and Reynaud's account of human tool cognition misses key element: human capacity for functional representations and teleological inferences. I argue that the teleofunctional approach accounts better for some features of human tool cognition and points to a viable candidate for the cognitive “difference-maker” behind human technological success.

The aim of the present article is to demonstrate that the hermeneutical activity of Lucius Annaeus Cornutus is best characterized as ‘ethnographical’ rather than merely ‘allegorical.’ Without denying the presence of allegorical interpretation in the philosopher’s work, the paper establishes that Cornutus’ etymological interpretations aimed first and foremost to extract the archaic vision of the world that motivated every theogony. Thus, the philosopher regarded conventional mythology and traditional religion as sources of information about the primeval accounts of the cosmos: his (...) analyses of various etymologies discovered not merely the origin of the word in question but, first of all, the origin of the ancient world picture that underlay the particular system of beliefs. As a result of this, interpreting myths was for Cornutus tantamount to gaining profound insights into the mind of primordial man and his world. Key words CORNUTUS, ALLEGORY, MYTH. (shrink)

The term „Latin Averroism" was introduced by P. Mandonnet to define a heretical version of Aristotle's teaching inspired by Averroes' philosophy. Latin Averroism separated philosophy from theology, negated free will, and stated that there was an eternal world and one intellect for all mankind. Those statements were taken from Averroes' commentaries on De anima by Aristotle. It was agreed that it was enough for any statement to bear rational truth and not necesserly Church dogma. That opinion was criticized by theologians. (...) The Latin Averroism was introduced in 13th century at the university in Paris in the faculty ofartes liberales — Siger from Brabant, Boethius from Sweden and others - as well as at Oxford University and Hohenstaufen School. The development of Latin Averroism was slowed by criticism of this doctrine in 1270 and 1277. However, it did not stop it. (shrink)

The metaphysical doctrine of the Stoics is a remarkable instance of a theory that appears to be materialism, but is in truth a form of unconscious ideal-realism. It is worth while to give an exposition of it in order to show that this is really the case, and, incidentally, to explain why a materialistic philosophy seems so attractive to many minds. I will refer chiefly to the teaching of the ancient Stoics, i.e. of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, and also to (...) the later doctrine of Posidonius. (shrink)

SUBJECT AS AN EFFECT OF LANGUAGE The article presents a detailed analysis of language as a dispositive. Drawing a general idea from the writings of Foucault, Deleuze, Agamben and Virno, the project of the linguistic constitution of the subject is developed in distinguishing three levels of the analysis, these levels being also the three modes of the existence of languagedispositive: the sentence, the enunciation and the utterance. According to the idea presented in the article, the analysis of the languagedispositive consists (...) in showing the basic oppositions, on which each level of the existence of the language operates, and how each of these oppositions enables the linguistic constitution of the subject – with these oppositions being: sense/reference, signiefié/signifiant and meaning/showing. The article concludes with the analysis of negation and negativity as the phenomenon introduced into the life of the human animal through language-dispositive. The distinction of the three modes in which language as a dispositive operates enables a complete presentation of how negation can be understood as a function of the process of subjectivization. (shrink)

This is a translation from the Russian of Nikolai Lossky’s review of Henri Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion (1932). The review was published in the Parisian émigré journal Новый Град (Cité nouvelle) in 1932. In this review, Lossky criticizes Bergson for leaving some key problems of the philosophy of religion unresolved, namely that of God’s relation to the world (theism vs. pantheism), that of immortality, as well as that of evil. He also criticizes Bergson’s (...) “extreme biologism” in his explanation of morality, which, in his view, subjectivizes the objects of religion. For Lossky, the symbolic images of the Christian religion are not subjective “fabulations,” but real symbols through which God reveals himself to us. Likewise, according to Lossky, true morality cannot be explained in terms of biological adaptation, but must rely on the foundation of an objective, i.e., Platonic, axiological sphere. (Frédéric Tremblay). (shrink)

This is a translation from the Russian of Nikolai Lossky’s “Heдocтaтки гнoceoлoгiи Бepгcoнa и влiянie иxъ нa eгo мeтaфизикy” (The Defects of Bergson’s Epistemology and Their Consequences on His Metaphysics), which was published in the journal Boпpocы филocoфiи и пcиxoлoгiи (Questions of Philosophy and Psychology) in 1913. In this article, Lossky criticizes Bergson’s epistemological dualism, which completely separates intuition from reason, and which rejects reason in favor of intuition. For Bergson, reality is continuous, indivisible, fluid, etc., and reason distorts it (...) through its acts of division, abstraction, extraction, and so on. Lossky argues that this conclusion does not follow. Reason does not distort the living flow of reality; it rather provides a window unto aspects of the otherwise undivided seamless flowing organic whole. In fact, reason is itself a species of intuition in its own right, namely an intellectual intuition, the object of which is the atemporal facet of the world (the Platonic ideal realm), which is necessary for the existence of its temporal facet. Lossky thus challenges Bergson’s one-sided and self-defeating reduction of being to a flux of changes devoid of changing things. (Frédéric Tremblay). (shrink)

Many psychological studies have shown that human‐generated sequences are hardly ever random in the strict mathematical sense. However, what remains an open question is the degree to which this (in)ability varies between people and is affected by contextual factors. Herein, we investigated this problem. In two studies, we used a modern, robust measure of randomness based on algorithmic information theory to assess human‐generated series. In Study 1 (), in a factorial design with task description as a between‐subjects variable, we tested (...) the effects of context and mental fatigue on human‐generated randomness. In Study 2 (), in online research, in experimental design, we further investigated the effect of mental fatigue on the randomness of human‐generated series and the relationship between the need for cognition (NFC) and the ability to produce random‐like series. Results of Study 1 show that the activation of the ability to produce random‐like series depends on the relevance of the contextual cues (), whether they activate known representations of a random series generator and consequently help to avoid the production of trivial sequences. Our findings from both studies on the effect of mental fatigue (Study 1 – ; Study 2 – ) and cognitive motivation () demonstrate that regardless of the context or task's novelty people quickly lose interest in the random series generation. Therefore, their performance decreases over time. However, people high in the NFC can maintain the cognitive motivation for a longer period and consequently on average generate more random series. In general, our results suggest that when contextual cues and intrinsic constraints are in optimal interaction people can temporarily escape the structured and trivial patterns and produce more random‐like sequences. (shrink)

Author: Domaradzki Mikołaj Title: SYMBOL AND ALLEGORY IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL EXEGESIS OF THE STOICS (Symbol i alegoria w filozoficznej egzegezie stoików) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.13/14, number: 2011/2-3, pages: 719-736 Keywords: STOIC EXEGESIS, SYMBOL, ALLEGORY, CHRYSIPPUS, CORNUTUS, HERACLITUS THE ALLEGORIST Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The present paper aims to ascertain whether, and if so, to what extent the modern distinction between the concepts of ‘symbol’ and ‘allegory’ can be (...) applied to Stoic hermeneutical activity. The philosophy of the Stoics invites such a discussion, since the philosophers were the first thinkers in antiquity to actually have used the terms with reference to the process of retrieving the hidden meaning of various literary constructions. Thus, Chrysippus’ interpretation of the myth of Athena’s birth provides the point of departure for our considerations, since it is in the philosopher’s exegesis that we find the very first use of the word ‘symbol’ understood as a theoretical tool for interpreting texts. Subsequently, the article proceeds to discuss the interpretations of the same myth that were presented by Cornutus and Heraclitus who use the words ‘symbol’ and ‘allegory’ interchangeably. While the paper argues that in none of the cases analyzed do we find an understanding of the terms ‘symbol’ or ‘allegory’ that would entirely correspond to modern definitions of the terms, it also stresses that the impossibility of classifying Stoic interpretations as either solely ‘symbolical’ or solely ‘allegorical’ does not diminish the cultural import of Stoic hermeneutical activity. (shrink)