This paper discusses Kant’s prospect of ‘hope’ that entangles with interrelated epistemic terms like belief, faith, knowledge, etc. The first part of the paper illustrates the boundary of knowing in the light of a Platonic analysis to highlight the distinction between empiricism and rationalism. Kant’s notion of ‘transcendent metaphysical knowledge’, a path-breaking way to look at the metaphysical thought, can fit with the regulative principle that seems favourable to the experience-centric knowledge. The second part of the paper defines ‘hope’ as an interwoven part of belief, besides ‘hope’ as a component of ‘happiness’ can persuade the future behaviours of the individuals. Revisiting Kant’s three categorizations of hopes (eschatological hope, political hope, and hope for the kingdom of ends), the paper traces out Kant’s good will as a ‘hope’ and his conception of humanity.

Τhis paper addresses the issue of the metaphysical status of sets and their interconnections. It discusses a foundational approach of the iterative set theoretic hierarchy comparatively to a regressive approach. Then it takes under consideration some naturalistic accounts of set theory and presents certain difficulties naturalism faces. It claims that the ontological status of sets should be dealt with in non-naturalistic terms and suggests that the issue in question could rather be placed in the context of a metaphysical discussion concerning abstract objects. So it investigates the operation ‘set of …’ as governed by necessary ontological dependence. After comparing some of the platonistic views S. Cowling (2017) has discussed, it proposes one of them as an appropriate account of sets as abstract objects with a modal status.

Heidegger claimed that world beings, existing or extant, including artworks, become intelligible in the preservation of perceptual determinations instigated by some extraordinary art that stands apart in being world-disclosive. In the lack of adequate premising scholarship has found this claim so incoherent, that it dismissed its seriousness and has treated all art Heidegger pointed to as equal. Besides being an issue in itself, this relinquishing leaves unanswered the biggest liability in Heidegger’s philosophy, the so-called “Münchhausen circularity” between Being and Dasein in the creation of world. But there is evidence to actually validate the exorbitant claim, evidence Heidegger himself did not see emerging as a potential from within his own conjectures. A phenomenological reduction that allows the implementation of suprasegmental theory of prosody suggests that Blonde Youth, an early fifth century Greek statue is the missing art through which all art, and with it all world constituency, has become intelligible.

Democritus, the Epicureans, and Seneca were deeply interested in the topic of the fear of death. They believed that this passion is generated by many wrong beliefs about its harmfulness that must be removed in order to help individuals lead a blissful mortal life. But all three also affirmed that, in some extreme cases, the fear of dying leads humans to paradoxically search for the very death they are trying to flee. Indeed, they argued that the fear of death sometimes results in self-destruction or suicide, and sometimes in a bad and unhappy form of life that is a state close to death, a condition comparable to «a long time in dying» (Democritus), of the sleepwalker (the Epicureans), or of a “half-life” (Seneca). In this paper, I try, on the one hand, to explain what this movement of the “escape-chase” of death is, and on the other, to recognize both the similarities and the differences between the three moralists.

Stoic scholarship over the past several decades has identified the centrality of phantasiai or impressions for their accounts of action, determinism, and overall moral theory.ii While not disputing the importance of impressions, I do think that there are important unresolved issues surrounding their interpretation. In this paper, I shall identify two of those problems. Though I shall hint at a possible solution to one of the problems, my goal is not to placate but to agitate, for (as I argue in my conclusion) these problems ought to be disquieting to those interested in understanding Stoicism.

From the ideas of Aristotle, De Saussure and Wittgenstein, philosopher Herbert McCabe elaborated an original anthropology. 'Meaning' means: the role played by a part towards the whole. Senses are bodily organs and sensations allow an animal to get fragments of the external world which become 'meaningful' for the behaviour of the whole animal Besides sensations, humans are ‘linguistic animals’ because through words they are able to 'communicate', that is, to share a peculiar kind of meanings: concepts. Whereas, sense-images are stored physically in our brain and cannot be shared, even though we can relate to sense-images by words (speech coincides with thought). However, concepts do not belong to the individual human being qua individual, but to an interpersonal entity: the language system. Therefore, on the one hand, to store images is a sense-power and an operation of the brain, whereas the brain (quite paradoxically!) is not in itself the organ of thought. On the other hand, concepts do not exist on their own.