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1. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Robert R. Clewis

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My aim is both theoretical and practical. By characterizing what I call points of convergence between analytic and continental philosophy, I offer suggestions about how to bridge the gap. I do not attempt to retrace the moment at which the divide occurred nor offer historical explanations of the rift, but instead discuss points of convergence, with reference to Kant. I summarize this discussion in two tables. I give theoretical and practical suggestions for moving forward. I conclude with some comments on the need for dialogue and reflect on the historicity of philosophy. I compare the current situation to that of ancient Greece and Rome, when there was also a plurality of schools. By comparison, philosophers today specialize more, making it difficult to converse with philosophers from other schools or even to other sub-disciplines within their own school. Moreover, there is an enormous quantity of philosophical texts to read, and contemporary philosophers are not very tied to the idea of philosophy as the love of wisdom. The paper’s topic opens up the deeper queries, “How does philosophy differfrom scientific and other disciplines” and “What is philosophy?” It includes a bibliography of the recent, growing literature on the divide.
2. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Prof. Ph.D. Teodor Dima

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The goal of this study is to provide arguments for the idea that Francis Bacon initiated the first modern theoretical programme of a heuristic methodologist strategy. This strategy has been developed by modern science in order to investigate nature and formulate general enunciations on nomicity, causality, connection and spatio-temporality.Francis Bacon uses amplifying induction, induction by simple enumeration and especially induction by elimination. He thus initiates a new manner of thinking about the knowledge achieved in experience, of its reasonable interpretation and systematization.

articles on other topics

3. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Marin Aiftinca

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If culture is the whole of spirituality (of nation or mankind), philosophy is part of this whole together with the other spiritual values. Philosophy frees itself from thiswhole and, at times, rises over it by concepts. In this way philosophy is itself conscious of culture. Consequently philosophy is autonomous in the system of cultural values with which it has biunivocal relations.Arising out of the signs of one culture (national or regional), philosophy, in its aspirations towards knowledge and truth, expresses the universal. Under the negativist pressure of the present which is prevalent through the utilitarian, philosophy cannot abandon its finality. It remains to catch its time in thoughts, as Hegel has argued.
4. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Mircea Dumitru

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In this paper I examine some presuppositions of toleration and pluralism. I explore two models, viz. a deontological and a consequentialist model, respectively, which could support the view that rational agents should act in a tolerant way. Against the background which is offered by the first model I give two arguments in favor of the view that people are better off and more rational if they act in a tolerant way. The first argument draws upon a principle of charity which one usually makes use of in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language but which could work equally well with regard to this foundational issue in ethics and philosophyof action. The second argument is built upon the epistemic principle of fallibilism and it is meant to show that from this vantage point acting in a tolerant way is the rational thing to do.
5. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Ivelina Ivanova

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The paper examines the perspectives of an exchange between the phenomenological ontology of Martin Heidegger and a theory of history in the context of the problem of interpretative approaches in historical writing. The hypothesis is that the analyses offered by Heidegger in Being and Time and Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity provide the foundation for mapping out new perspectives in the concept of interpretative approaches. The concept of interpretativeapproaches came to be actively used in academic texts relatively recently, since the 1980’s, and has often been employed quite unreflectively. But its wide currency, its heterogeneous and unreflective usage turned the concept of interpretative approaches into a theoretical problem. This paper will present a possible answer to that problem by examining the conceptual foundations of a redefined concept of interpretative approaches, drawn from the lectures read by Heidegger in the summer semester of 1923, more precisely §§16–28, 21–26, and the relevant discussion in Being and Time, starting with §12 and focusing on Part I,Chapter 5 (mainly §§32 and 33).
6. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Tea Logar

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While Heidegger didn’t seem much interested in ethical norms in his Being and Time, more recently Frederick A. Olafson has argued that Heidegger’s conception of Mitsein yields some fundamental insights for a grounding of morality. Olafson proposes an account in which truth as a partnership among people can establish a link between Mitsein and primary moral notions, such as responsibility and trust. My concern with Olafson’s account is twofold: first, I am not convinced that Mitsein really grounds people’s mutual commonality to the point he wants it to take – the point that seems to suggest that we conceive of ourselvesalmost as interchangeable with any other member of our “world”, at least to the extent to which we value our own experiences and interests over those of others. My second worry has to do with the fact that Mitsein, even if it indeed does ground ethical constraints for those who share a “world”, gives us no grounds to extend these same constraints to those outside it, and a lack of commitment to establishing moral duties that can be universalized seems to be a serious weakness in any moral theory – even in one that does not attempt to produce moral rules as objective and absolute.
7. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Tsena Zhelyazkova

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The present paper is divided into two parts. The first one inquires into the ontological notion of what it is for something to be new in a strict sense, which opens a discussion on the difference between applying and creating ontologization. I am trying to show that the second case has a greater explanatory value. Such a differentiation between two ways of elaborating ontology allows for a demarcation between definitions created by categorization and an inquiry that seeks to understand the individual nature of what is investigated.The second part concerns the problem of how individuality is to be defined. I start with a few classical topoi on the subject, and then continue with some comments on Alberto Toscano’s idea of the individual as an anomaly. My main thesis, as opposed to his position, is that although individuation processes cannot be thought in one overall pattern, there is nevertheless nothing monstrous about individuals in general.
8. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Chris Osegenwune

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Plato’s theory of justice is central in philosophical discourse. The canon of this theory is that every individual has an innate ability that can be harnessed to contribute to national development. Plato is of the view that grounding human ability in departmental excellence will promote a division of labour and enhance productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.Plato’s defense of justice is an attempt to correct the position of the sophists that injustice is preferred to justice. The Republic (Ideal state), one of his greatest dialogues, demonstrates the necessity of adopting a universal notion of justice as an instrument of social and moral regulation.Justice means one man, one job based on ones capacity and capability. Criticisms have trailed this theory as the forerunner of authoritarianism and despotism. The strongest criticism sees Plato’s paradigm as the enemy of the open society as a result of the strict division of society into dominant classes.
9. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Mihai D. Vasile

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Ars cogitandi is not the monopoly of a school, a people or an age, but it has crossed over the centuries and cardinal points, from the Platonic Academy of Athens to the Finnish University set up at Turku in 1640 and set down for good and for all at Helsingfors (the ancient name for Helsinki) in the year 1828. Ars cogitandi asphilosophy got here as a distinct brilliance following the classical Anglo-Saxon tradition of empiricism, represented at that time by Edward Westermarck (1862–1939), who was professor of practical philosophy in Helsinki and professor of sociology at London School of Economics from 1907 until 19301. The Finnish School of Philosophy acquired its decisive acknowledgement by Eino Kaila, great scholar and chief of the school, who brought over to Finland the modern logic and the philosophy of the Vienna Circle.
10. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Ana Kubuirc, Zorica Kuburic

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Reports on the empirical reality of educational systems in other countries can be useful. In this article, data on how philosophy has been taught in Serbia and Croatia are presented andcompared. Because this educational development was partially common for both countries, it is interesting to see differences today. The Croatian initiative has been greater, both then and now. The question is: What is the essential difference?

discussion

11. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2
Arvin Vos

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12. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 2

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13. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Editorial Board

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articles

14. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Nenad Miscevic

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The paper explores the rift between continental and analytic style of doing philosophy, looking at the following main philosophical thesis that arguably characterize the continental turn, from Hegel to post-structuralists: first, the anthropological and historical is deeply ontological (Hegel, Heidegger). Second, the central element of human mind is a-rational, it is either will, desire or affect (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche). Third, the basic reality of the world is akin to this a-rational element of human mind (Nietzsche). Fourth, the cognitive style, the language-style and the method of studying a given domain of philosopher investigates shouldfollow the language-style and the manner of domain itself. In particular, for a-rational domains, the cognitive style and the linguistic expression should minimize the use of traditional rationalist methods of enquiry and presentation in favor of more literary ones. Fifth, philosophy has reached its end, so that philosophers should abandon the traditional philosophical reflection in favor of participating in more concrete theoretical and political practices (Marx, poststructuralist “Theory”). Any future building of continentalanalytic bridges has to take into account the complexity of the rift, and the impact of the five theses on the contemporarycontinental thought.
15. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Akeel Bilgrami

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The paper discusses the issue whether or not value may be seen as being in the world, thus opening the dialog between analytic tradition and authors like Marx and Heidegger, and reviving some important issues prominent in the work of John McDowell. It stresses the deep connections that exist between value and agency and a certain conception of the perceptible world which we inhabit as agents. It argues that it would be no bad thing for analytic philosophers, who are engaged with issues of naturalism, to allow themselves to be mobilized by broader terms that Weber and Marx deployed such as ‘disenchantment’ and ‘commodification’ and ‘alienation’ in order to undertand our unease with the narrow and “thin” variant of rationality, characteristic of science.
16. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Stephen Mulhall

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17. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Christopher Norris

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This article seeks to correct some widespread misunderstandings of Derrida's thought, mostly amongst philosophers working in the mainstream analytic line of descent. I put the case – with reference to Of Grammatology along with other writings of his earlier period – that Derrida has made important contributions to philosophy of language and logic, especially with regard to issues of modality, tense, and the scope and limits of classical (bivalent) reasoning. Moreover I contend, again contra the received analytic view, that his texts themselves bear witness to the highest standards of conceptual and logico-semantic precision. That there are now some signs – albeit hesitant and belated – of their coming to recognise these virtues of Derrida's work is welcome evidence that philosophers in that 'other', analytical tradition are beginning to move beyond the old outlook of mistrust or downright hostility toward their typecast 'continental' counterparts.
18. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Bojan Blagojević

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This essay is the critique of MacIntyre’s thesis that Kierkegaard isn’t trying to justify morality at all. Using MacIntyre’s account of Kierkegaard’s work Either/Or, andcomparing his interpretation to Kierkegaard’s works, I aim to show that MacIntyre’s conclusions are wrong. In doing so, I will provide a different interpretation of Either/Or, while arguing that it is possible to use later Kierkegaard’s works in that interpretation. Contrary to MacIntyre’s assertion, Kierkegaard does not change his characterization of the ethical in his later works, but outlines in Either/Or the same problems he will deal with in Fear and Trembling. The foundation of his conception of the ethical lies in his conception of the self, given in The Sickness unto Death. Analyzing this conception of self through Kierkegaard’s accountof the forms of despair, I will argue that the significance of morality lies in delivering the self from various forms of despair. As Kierkegaard’s thesis on the ubiquity of despair provides a horizon for the debate between the aesthetic and the ethical individual, we can say that the concept of despair provides a basis for his justification of morality.
19. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Dimitri Ginev

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The paper tries to demonstrate how a hermeneutic critique of scientism raises important issues not only about the dialogue between (post)analytical and Continental philosophers but also about a third way of philosophizing that gets rid of traditional dilemmas and stubborn dividing lines inherited from the “two cultures” paradigm. In outlining a conception of hermeneutic realism, the paper elaborates on a distinction between ontic and ontological forms of realism. An ontic form specifies a certain range of entities whose existence is reified as something “given”, as presence-at-hand. An ontological form of realism is realism about the reality that is ready-to-hand within the “readable technologies” of interrelated practices. The paper argues that the ontological forms of realism provide opportunities for combating scientism philosophically, while advocating a cognitive autonomy of science based upon the interpretative openness of scientific research.
20. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Maria Trofimova

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The paper reconstructs Husserl’s investigations into prepredicative experience supposed to ground predicative thinking and logic. It suggest that this investigation is one of the crucial points where phenomenology should seek out cooperation with cognitive science, especially with experimental neuropsychology and psychopathology. It suggests that these disciplines can present us with valuable descriptions of prepredicative experience, whether they be records of brain activity, observations of infant behavior, or descriptions of pathological changes in self-awareness and intentionality, although the naturalistic approach of positive science and the transcendental stance of phenomenology are based on different methodological and metaphysical grounds. It suggests a fertile dialog between phenomenology, essentially based on rational predicative thought, and cognitive science rich with information about deeper preconceptual processes of our cognitive processing.