From the dawn of human intelligence to the present era, the question ‘does God really exist?’ has been important for human being. Is there any proof of his existence? Philosophers, scholars, preceptors, monks and even atheists have tried to find the answer in their own ways. Various schools of Indian philosophy have also expressed their views about God’s existence. Some schools of Indian philosophy have accepted the ideas of karma (deeds), karmaphala (effects of deeds), rebirth etc. They have denied to admit the existence of God due to their own philosophical standpoint hence they have presented a series of arguments to refute the existence of God. Udayanāchārya, a famous Indian philosopher of the 10th century A.D., belonging to the Nyāya School, has shown some refined arguments to prove the existence of God. This paper presents his way of reasoning examining whether the belief in the existence of God is reasonable or not.

I propose here an image of knowledge based on the concept of symbol: according to it, the relation of representation that constituting cognition is a symbolization. It is postulated that both the representing conceptual model, i.e. a pre-linguistic entity acquired in cognition, and the true sentence it generates are of symbolic and not of mirroring (copying) character. The symbolic nature of cognition carries dialectical tension. We have at our disposal conceptual models and true sentences which symbolically represent reality. However, it is not possible to lift the symbolic disguise over knowledge, because precisely this disguise is its essence. Reality appears only as symbolically, nonimitatively encoded. The proposed here symbolic realism rejects the traditional adopted dichotomy between, on one side, realism and the absence of the subject’s factors in the cognitive result, and, on the other, idealism and the subject as a factor which is viewed as inevitably leading to the idealistic nature of knowledge.

We briefly review and discuss symbolic expressions of the cognitive architecture of the human mind/brain, focusing on the Quaternion, the Axis Mundi and the Tree of Life, and elaborate on a quaternary diagram that expresses a contemporary worldview. While traditional symbols contain vertical and horizontal dimensions related to transcendence and immanence, respectively, in the contemporary interpretation the vertical axis refers to diachronic processes as biological evolution and cultural history, while the horizontal axis refers to synchronic relations as the interactions of individuals in society. In spite of these differences, we claim that old and new symbols are similar, expressing the cognitive architecture of the human mind/brain in the world of experience.

Collaboration must be based on careful representation and communication of each stakeholder’s knowledge. Using a foundational logical and epistemological point of view, we explore how such representation and communication can be accomplished. We tentatively conclude, based on careful delineation of logical technicalities necessarily involved in such representation and communication, that currently a complete representation is not possible. This inference, if correct, is discouraging. However, we suggest two actions. First, we can strive to make stakeholders more aware of the incompleteness of knowledge representations. Second, moderating one’s certainty of “Truth” should increase each stakeholder’s humility, thereby promoting the efficacy of collaborations.

The article introduces an idea of practical philosophy, a philosophy which is aimed at changing a philosopher, not at developing philosophical knowledge. Philosophy is not another theory of being or knowledge, but a way of holding oneself in the state of being open (to truth). It is stated that this philosophy is based on differentiating the experience of the encounter (the entrance) and its conceptualization, that they are not equal. A philosophical concept not only points at the source of the philosophical thinking, but also eclipses it. The main obstacle for a philosopher is his/her own self, tempted by his/her own philosophy.

Modern barbarity will soon get rid of the human species unless a new form of violence is found able to compete with the state, without turning into a new form a state. This new form is authoritative, legitimate intimidation. But what are the conditions to speak out authoritatively? Are they not distinctive state conditions? Moreover, does authority lie in the form of discourse? If not, because consentment has superseded mere submission, which are the authoritative sources of discourse which, though neither overtly nor primarily conflicting with the state, nor with corporations, could somehow not completely coincide with the interests of it and even work against it, though like it? This paper examines these questions.

The importance of education can never be underplayed in any society as it is the most potent weapon given to man to transform, change and liberate him and society from the slavery of ignorance and backwardness. Education allows man to attain a rapid development in all ramifications. It should be known from the outset that universities in Africa are moulded on the foundation and systemic structure of the Western ideologies. There are salient multi-faceted and multi-dimensional barriers towards the pursuit of higher education in Africa. The aim of this paper is to examine the challenges of higher education in Africa, which hinders its process of producing a body of knowledge that will elevate the human condition and posit it for all-round development.

This work attempts to address some basic feasibility concerns in the global taxation policy proposal. In recent years, moral-political philosophizing has extensively advanced the idea of transnational justice through volumes of scholarly literature. In moving the discussions beyond an ideational level and projecting it onto a practical realm, moral-political thinkers have proposed a global taxation policy, the proceeds of the implementation of which are meant to cater for the global poor. This proposal is morally laudable, given that it would substantially benefit the global needy. Nonetheless, the proposal raises some basic feasibility concerns, such as the moral and legal justifiability of the proposal; the nature of the object to be globally taxed and how it is to be globally taxed; the nature of the globalist institution to implement the proposal; the legitimacy challenge of the globalist institution, and the challenge of practical implementation of the proposal by the institution. If the proposal is to succeed, the critical issues ought to be constructively addressed. Given that institutionalism necessarily emerges in the feasibility concerns, an institutionalist approach is advanced in this work to constructively address them.

I would like to discuss—on the basis of a phenomenological argumentation—the different meanings of our everyday claim that we are free in our actions and decisions. First, I reject deterministic theories in the naturalistic approach by using Husserl’s argument that the subsumtion of human decisions under the causal paradigm is simply an unjustified extension of a methodical idealization in the framework of naturalization. Then I argue for Husserl’s understanding that humans are generally subjects under a manifold of effective influences but they are nevertheless free. In the end some aspects of our freedom are delineated.

The paper presents the phenomenological conception of bodily perception (leibliche Wahrnehmung) as a possible therapeutic model for treating melancholic depression. At the beginning, it discusses some key concepts of Freud’s psychoanalysis: instinct (Trieb), memory, perception, narcissism and melancholia. Next, the Freudian theory of melancholia is compared with studies of phenomenological psychopathology (Binswanger). It is investigated how melancholia is based on the division of temporal relations. Finally, the main problem of the paper is investigated: can the structure of perception and its constitutive openness toward the future represent a theoretical model for therapeutic practices designed to treat melancholic depression?

Gernot Böhme’s philosophical anthropology combines a historistic-descriptive and a normative approach (“historical models of man,” the axiological “sovereign man” project).The author describes both types of philosophical narrative in detail, together with the categorial and argumentative inconsistencies which appear on their crossing point. His thesis is that the German philosopher attempts to neutralize these aporias by reference to the category of “relief” (Entlastung) and an argumentative strategy close to the position of thinkers like Jürgen Habermas, who made use of the “relief” category in his critical bioethical analyses.

This article tends to connect phenomenological research with the psychoanalytical approach by focusing on the issue of conflict as the crucial dimension of human nature and its dynamics. On this basis, it becomes clear that human nature cannot be explained through a strict causal schema; rather, it can be grasped by exploring the dynamic motivational structures of experience which are expressed in the ambivalent tensions and striving tendencies of persons as subjects of the lifeworld. I stress that conflict is not a mere additional and accidental characteristic of experience that can somehow be eliminated, but it rather affects the fundamental structure of personal experience and should therefore be understood as a constitutive moment of human nature. Thereby, my claim is that both self-experience and the development of community can only be understood in the light of motivational conflicts.

This article attempts to present Gehlen’s concept of language in the context of his project of philosophical anthropology. The emphasis will be put on showing the role of language in: 1) the formation of motor and sensory imagination, 2) the crystallization of human drives and, finally, 3) the development of cognitive competences. Gehlen refers in his project directly to the thoughts of Herder, and therefore—according to the chronological order—a reconstruction of the origins of “the linguistic anthropology” will start from outlining the main objectives of Herder’s philosophy of language (the first chapter), and then will consider Gehlen’s considerations devoted to the genesis of language competence and to the impact of speech for the constitution of human self-knowledge (second chapter).

I analyse Brentano’s argumentative strategy from his lectures in the Deskriptive Psychologie and how he introduces and reframes his fundamental psychological theses. His approach provides us with the reasons why psychology can be distinguished into different domains of investigation and how the tasks of one of these domains—the descriptive-psychological one—imply a specific understanding about the structure of consciousness. Thereby a mereology of consciousness is developed, which offers the theoretical background to the aforementioned reframing of the Brentanian theses.

This paper discusses the criticism of naturalism based on the irreducibility of first-person-perspective facts. This critique considers naturalism insufficient since it proposes the view of reality as a centerless dimension. However, simply reintegrating subjective facts into a naturalistic view of reality we eventually produce a split situation in which conscious and self-conscious forms of life require a special consideration, thus appearing as separated from the whole of reality. In order to overcome what turns out to be a dualistic interpretation of reality, this paper considers Helmuth Plessner’s nonnaturalistic approach. It elaborates the notion of positionality and aspectivity as characteristics of all natural forms of life, thus leading to the consideration of reality an essentially centered dimension and of humans as part of nature.

This paper attempts to answer questions about, first, the historical motives which brought the “race” issue into the focus of phenomenological reflection, and, secondly, the theoretical grounding for calling such reflection “phenomenological.” The basis for this reconstruction will be the psychological race theory developed in the 1920s and 30s by Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss, a somewhat forgotten student of Edmund Husserl, and its rooting in the history of the phenomenological movement. Discussed will be both, the theory’s historical background—which, in keeping with the paper’s main thesis, is best-expressed by Max Scheler’s reflections on “European patriotism”—and its relation to Husserl’s concept of phenomenology as a “strictly scientific philosophy.”

One of the constitutional moments of the structure of kinesthesia—that is the motions of the body—is the practical orientedness of motions towards something. In this article I will deal with this structural moment in the practical life of the subject. I will first differentiate between teleology in the instinctive movements of the body and the intentionality in the practical activities of the subject. Whereas the former refers to the primary and instinctive orientedness of the bodily motions toward something generally determined fulfilling the instinctive needs of the body, the latter is to be understood as the pre-reflexive orientedness of the bodily motions toward a goal in the practical sphere of subject-life. At the end I will examine Husserl’s idea of the universal teleological structure of reason, which has its roots in the primary instinctive life of the subject.

The paper offers a systematic account of Vasily Sesemann’s aesthetics. First, I argue that, due to the primacy this aesthetics grants to intuition, intentionality and the objectivity of aesthetic values, its underlying principles are decidedly phenomenological. Secondly, I offer an account of the general structures of perceptual acts and I contend that the distinctive nature of aesthetic perception lies in the unique disposition of the aesthetic attitude. Thirdly, I maintain that there are three fundamentally different ways in which one can speak of aesthetic truth: in terms of formal requirements, subjective material requirements, and objective material requirements. Fourthly, I open a short dialogue between Sesemann and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and argue that an artwork fulfills the objective requirements of material truth when it succeeds in disclosing those levels of experience, on which the theoretical and practical attitudes rest and from which they take their departure.