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Structural-Systematic Philosophy in the Realism-Antirealism Debate
Wellistony Carvalho Viana
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022
Pages:
55-62
Received:
31 March 2022
Accepted:
22 April 2022
Published:
31 May 2022
Abstract: This paper presents some contributions of Structural-Systematic Philosophy (SSP) to the realism-antirealism debate. The debate seems to have come to a dead end in recent decades, with nothing new to spur progress or any synthesis between the two positions. The purpose of this paper is to present a well-elaborated theoretical framework that helps us to rethink the foundations of the debate and our conception of language, which should be understood not just as a concrete semiotic system, but also as a dimension of reality itself. After we present some features of the realism-antirealism debate, we introduce the essential factor in overcoming the impasse between realists and antirealists, that is: the ultimate dimension, beyond which there is absolutely nothing and through which the gap between mind/language and the world is overcome. According to SSP, the ultimate dimension cannot be other than the “unrestricted universe of discourse,” namely, the all-embracing dimension of Being as Such and as a Whole. This conception implies the thesis that mind/language is intentionally coextensive with Being. The conclusion will show how the theoretical framework can assure that Being as Such and as a Whole is intelligible and expressible in itself, and how the very structure of the world/Being can be captured by mind/languages.
Abstract: This paper presents some contributions of Structural-Systematic Philosophy (SSP) to the realism-antirealism debate. The debate seems to have come to a dead end in recent decades, with nothing new to spur progress or any synthesis between the two positions. The purpose of this paper is to present a well-elaborated theoretical framework that helps us...
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Transference and Countertheories, From a Moral Standpoint
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022
Pages:
63-68
Received:
14 January 2022
Accepted:
15 March 2022
Published:
8 June 2022
Abstract: Although Alfred Adler is known as one of the first relationalists, he pays scant attention to the therapeutic relationship per se. The landscape changes with Ferenczi, O. Rank and H. Racker, and as interpersonalists and relationalists of neo-Freudian and object relations schools explicitly take up the questions of love and hate in the analytic setting. For Jung and Lacan, it is not only acknowledged but methodologically key that desire play itself out in the clinical space as it does everywhere else, but particularly here, given the paradoxical combination of intimacy and inhibition that characterizes this dyadic situation. It has by now become commonplace in the literature to acknowledge erotic (or anti-erotic) feelings, one-sidedly or mutually, and take these as normal and as contributive to the therapeutic process. Yet what does it mean that relationship “feelings” can be utilized therapeutically? And how is it that asymmetry - imbalance of power and knowledge - can be construed as therapeutic in a clinical context, but unhealthy in “real” relationships? This essay begins with an overview of friendship in general, best articulated by Aristotle; and then broadly surveys the normative implications of the instrumentalization of relationships and feelings in clinical work. Such considerations may either confound or greatly enrich our conception of practical reason.
Abstract: Although Alfred Adler is known as one of the first relationalists, he pays scant attention to the therapeutic relationship per se. The landscape changes with Ferenczi, O. Rank and H. Racker, and as interpersonalists and relationalists of neo-Freudian and object relations schools explicitly take up the questions of love and hate in the analytic sett...
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In Quest of De Re Identity: Whether Its Directly Referential or Attributive
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022
Pages:
69-75
Received:
8 February 2022
Accepted:
28 February 2022
Published:
14 June 2022
Abstract: We know that metaphysics deals with the ultimate reality: what there is, what really exist? What is the real nature or fundamental structure of the material world? What is the intrinsic property of an object that it could not lack, even if it lacks the property it could not be what it is. I am in quest of that essential attribute that an object must have. How to get that essence: through description or by mere ostension? Are they attributive or directly referential, bare substratum? Is there any real property at all by which we can identify an individual? Is there any real connection between proper name and the individual itself? As Aristotle said Substances are the ultimate subject of predication. There must be a single substance of which we see the attributes. Now among these attributes which one is essential and which properties are accidental? For instance, being human, is an essential property of Socrates but being snub-nosed is an accidental one. In order to search of that essential attribute I have gone through an extensive survey of literature where I have started with Aristotle and followed up with in the views of Quine, Kripke, Plantinga and Adams. For Quine, To Be is To Be the Value of a Variable, words do not have any meaning of its own. It depends on the way we describe it. Quine attacked the possibility of ‘necessity’ on open context. Quine rejected the possibility of de dicto necessity as it violates the principle of extensionality whereas necessity as expressed by a semantical predicate applicable on names of statement does not hold principle of substitutivity, it leads us to referential opacity. Kripke brought back names to their original nondescriptional status. I have discussed a controversy between proper names and definite descriptions, whether there is some definite description for every proper name or proper names are mere rigid designators. In this context, I have discussed Mill, Frege, Russell, Kripke Plantinga theory on proper names. Within this exercise I have tried to find out if there is any essentialist stance among the views of these analytic philosophers. Finally, I have sought to wind up this work with a leaning towards essentialism...
Abstract: We know that metaphysics deals with the ultimate reality: what there is, what really exist? What is the real nature or fundamental structure of the material world? What is the intrinsic property of an object that it could not lack, even if it lacks the property it could not be what it is. I am in quest of that essential attribute that an object mus...
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Feeling and Freedom: The Medical Model from a Moral Standpoint
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022
Pages:
76-81
Received:
14 January 2022
Accepted:
15 March 2022
Published:
20 June 2022
Abstract: In 1958, G. E. M. Anscombe began her paper on modern moral philosophy by stating that moral philosophy had become impossible, and should be laid aside at present “until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking.” In 1979, S. Cavell asserts that the difficulty with moral philosophy is that the “facts” upon which it operates are our relationships with one another, which are markedly different in kind from the facts of the physical sciences. Is there anything left, then, for modern moral philosophy to do, or have its issues been reduced to questions for psychology, or perhaps anthropology and sociology? Or shall we just study Aristotle? We are reminded of the criticism which Husserl leveled against the naturalistic sciences at the time when psychology and psychoanalysis (and sociology) were just earnestly beginning, namely that they have inherited a problem which enlightenment philosophy had tried, and failed, to solve. It is the problem of freedom, with its implications for rationality, moral agency, and intersubjectivity. This brief essay seeks to draw out the “antinomy” that continues in the conflict between scientific and humanistic approaches, despite the efforts of phenomenology and existentialism. The suggestion is that moral philosophy does have a province of its own, which contributions from both the transcendental tradition and the psychological studies equip it to address.
Abstract: In 1958, G. E. M. Anscombe began her paper on modern moral philosophy by stating that moral philosophy had become impossible, and should be laid aside at present “until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking.” In 1979, S. Cavell asserts that the difficulty with moral philosophy is that the “facts” upon w...
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Thinking for Oneself Is Thinking with Others: Enlightenment Reason and Gemeinschaftsgefühl
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022
Pages:
82-89
Received:
14 January 2022
Accepted:
15 March 2022
Published:
20 June 2022
Abstract: It has been a perennial puzzle that Kant’s notion of reason, or thinking, must be taken as necessarily sui generis, and that construing it otherwise - say, as socially embedded and developmentally contingent - undermines the transcendental project: if thinking is historically contingent, it cannot be free. This might seem to reduce to the problem of the third antinomy, but I argue that it does not, and is not amenable to transcendental critique alone. Its solution requires its own existential analytic, an examination of reason’s prior structures. This can be accommodated by the Kantian architecture, in which the outlines of a constitutive intersubjective orientation are already to be found. In what follows, I re-examine the Kantian paradox of autonomy and spontaneity in light of psychoanalytic traditions and current research in cognitive science, to make the case that, even for Kant, “thinking” is not only “intersubjective” from the ground up; it is also as “affective” as it is “rational”. In addition to the a priori structures contributed by the understanding, imagination, and pure forms of intuition, there is a further a priori, implicit in the Third Critique, which can be considered “relational”. This ties in well with Alfred Adler’s notion of “Gemeinschaftsgefühl”, in which both affective and cognitive capacities converge in the idea of social feeling as a marker of psychological health. In this sense, Adler inherits the Kantian legacy but corrects practical reason of what has been construed as its rationalistic and solipsistic bias.
Abstract: It has been a perennial puzzle that Kant’s notion of reason, or thinking, must be taken as necessarily sui generis, and that construing it otherwise - say, as socially embedded and developmentally contingent - undermines the transcendental project: if thinking is historically contingent, it cannot be free. This might seem to reduce to the problem o...
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The Logical Study of Non-Well-Founded Set and Circulation Phenomenon
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2022
Pages:
90-95
Received:
12 June 2022
Accepted:
21 June 2022
Published:
29 June 2022
Abstract: In recent years, since a great deal of circular phenomenon, there has been a furry of interest in them. To explain various circular phenomenon, the study of set theory extended well -founded sets to non-well-founded set. Based on this basis, the paper discusses the logical theoretical basis of circular phenomena. Non-well-founded set theory ZFA allows primitive existence. Primitive is an object that has no elements and is not a class in itself. It is based on the set theory ZFC after the axiom of foundation FA is removed, and the anti-basic axiom AFA is added to ZFC. ZFC here refers to ZF set theory with axiom of choice. According to axiomatic set theory, for ZFC's regular axioms, the set in its universe is a well set. If the regular axiom is removed, and the infinite decline is allowed to belong to the relational chain, then the non-well-founded set can be introduced. Firstly, this paper introduces the basic concept of non-well-founded set, the foundation axiom and the anti-founded axioms. Secondly, we dicusses the limit of the foundation axiom. Thirdly, we exhibit the history and present situation of the research on non-well-founded sets are briefly reviewed. Finally, the applications of non-well-founded sets in philosophy, linguistics, computer science, economics and many other fields is discussed. Because non-well-founded set theory will provide a better tool for dealing with circular phenomena naturally, it can be argued that circle is not vicious.
Abstract: In recent years, since a great deal of circular phenomenon, there has been a furry of interest in them. To explain various circular phenomenon, the study of set theory extended well -founded sets to non-well-founded set. Based on this basis, the paper discusses the logical theoretical basis of circular phenomena. Non-well-founded set theory ZFA all...
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