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Balkan Journal of Philosophy

Volume 3, Issue 1, 2011
The Dialogue between Analytic and Continental Philosophy

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

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articles

2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Stephen Mulhall

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5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Marta Jorba-Grau

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The topic of this paper concerns the relation between thinking and phenomenality as it is discussed in the Philosophy of Mind. Thus, I am addressing the following questions: does the domain of phenomenal consciousness include thinking? And if so, is the phenomenality of thinking (PT) proprietary or not? I will firstly present the debate and the main notions involved in it, by contrasting a certain mainstream picture of the mind with the one offered by Phenomenology. Second, I will consider the particular question of a proprietary phenomenology of conscious thought through the examination of the reductionist and antireductionist positions, concluding with a sceptical remark towards this dialectics.
10. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Scott O'Leary

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Paul Ricoeur’s narrative and critical hermeneutics provides the conceptual resources to accommodate Barthes’ and similar critiques of subjectivity whilepositing a revised form of authorial intention similar to the “postulated author” of Alexander Nehamas and the “creative process” of Richard Wollheim. Though influenced by Barthian critiques, all three thinkers retain a notion of authorial intent*one distinct from the intentions of the historical author*necessary for the understanding of meaning in the philosophy of literature. Yet, the implications of this allow us to reverse the Ricoeurian insight of understanding human action as a text, and show how human action provides clarification on authorial intention. Using Ricoeur and Nehamas, I would like to revisit the issue of authorialintention in order to show the insights this offers for hermeneutics and philosophy of literature. If authorial intention is properly reestablished as distinct from theintentions of the historical writer, we can turn to a minimalistic version of the analytic philosophy of action based on Ricoeur and Carlos Moya to provide auseful heuristic conceptual framework to look at both authorial and ‘readerly’ intention.In employing the philosophy of action, this conceptual framework will be used instrumentally in aid of interpreting the text and providing further analysisand conceptual clarity to the notion of authorial intention. Further, analyzing ‘writerly’ and ‘readerly’ intention as action*communicative action*sidesteps thephilosophical issue of the ‘artistic process’ which had absorbed the attention of aesthetics since Plato, without sidestepping the issues of authorial intention andreaderly intention.1 I will argue that in using variants of the philosophy of action, we can ignore psychological issues and instead focus on the broader issues ofmeaning-expression at the heart of both readerly and writerly intention. I will then demonstrate this heuristic framework using Hölderlin’s epic poetry and Blanchot’s The Writing of the Disaster.
11. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Andreas Vrahimis

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In 1911, Bergson visited Britain for a number of lectures which led to his increasing popularity. Russell personally encountered Bergson during his lecture atUniversity College London on the 28th of October, and on the 30th of October Bergson attended one of Russell’s lectures. Russell went on to write a numberof critical articles on Bergson, contributing to the hundreds of publications on Bergson which ensued following these lectures.Russell’s critical writings have been seen as part of a history of controversies between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘Analytic’ philosophers in the twentiethcentury. Yet Russell’s engagement with Bergson’s thought comes as a response to a particular British form of Bergsonism and is involved with the widerphenomenon of the British import of Bergsonism (by figures connected in different ways to Russell, such as Hulme, Wildon Carr or Eliot). Though this may challenge the view of Russell and Bergson as enacting an early version of the ‘Analytic’-‘Continental’ divide, there are however some particular characterisations of Bergson by Russell which contribute to the subsequent formation of the ‘rotten scene’ (Glendinning 2006: 69) of the divide in the second half of the twentieth century.
12. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Michel Weber

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The so-called bifurcation between analytic and continental philosophies is discussed, from the perspective of Whiteheadian process thought, with the help of four questions: what is the scope and goal of philosophy? do philosophical debates require radical empiricism? could or should philosophy become anexpertise? how does the analytical divide impacts the democratic ideal?

book reviews and letters

13. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Sabin Totu

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14. Balkan Journal of Philosophy: Volume > 3 > Issue: 1
Lester Embree

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