THE CONCEPT OF THE SOUL IN PLATO AND IN PATRISTIC THOUGHT

This article is focuses on Plato's conception of the soul, through which man as a psycho-physical being, lives with the perspective of immortality. The pre-existence and immortality of the soul is in fact the basis of Platonic philosophy. Plato presents the existence of the soul in the Phaidon Dialogue starting from the hypothesis that something called the soul has existence in the form of pre-existence and post-existence and has an intelligible nature, similar to the structure of Eidos (Ideas). The second part of the research considers the transition from ontology to metaphysics, focused on a different perspective given the patristic thinking in which man is created in his divine image, as a personal being composed of body and soul, a synthesis of the intelligible world with the material.

« Le mal ne s’enracine pas dans l’instauration ». La question du mal dans le shiʿisme ismaélien

As is the case with other Shiʿi traditions, Ismailism developed a dualistic worldview ruled by the opposition between good and evil, light and darkness. However, it is a rather moderate form of dualism, as the principle of evil is not coexistent with the Creator or has not been created by Him. Evil only appears at a lower level of the cosmic hierarchy. This doctrine has been elaborated in four different ways in the history of Ismailism. We first meet a gnostic thesis where evil is the result of a rebellion in the intelligible world; second, there is a Neoplatonic thesis where evil and imperfection are caused by the process of emanation itself; and third, we distinguish a philosophical thesis where the generation of evil by “second intention” belongs to the rule of divine providence. Finally, Ṭayyibī authors in the 12th century made a synthesis of the three positions. L’ismaélisme, à l’instar d’autres courants shiʿites, prône une vision dualiste du monde marquée par l’opposition éternelle entre le bien et le mal, la lumière et les ténèbres. Cependant, il s’agit d’un dualisme mitigé, où le mal n’est ni coexistant avec le Créateur, ni instauré par Lui, mais apparaît à un degré inférieur de la hiérarchie cosmique. Cette thèse a été développée de quatre manières différentes au cours de l’histoire doctrinale de l’ismaélisme. Nous distinguons successivement une thèse gnostique où le mal est le résultat d’une révolte dans le monde intelligible, une thèse néoplatonicienne où le mal et l’imperfection sont générés par le processus de l’émanation, et une thèse philosophique où le mal est causé par « seconde intention » par la Providence divine. Une synthèse de ces trois thèses a été élaborée dans le Ṭayyibisme à partir du 12e siècle.

LITERARY REALISM IN THE SHAPING OF SLOVAK CULTURE

Aim. The aim of the study is to clarify the internal complexity of the Slovak literary realist discourse and its diverse relations to the heterogeneous artistic, cultural and ideological discourses of the last third of the 19th century. Attention is focused on the appropriation and adaptation of stimuli from other social systems, as well as on the specific literary operations that modify literary realism as an artistic discourse constructing an intelligible world in a cultural sense. Methods. As a theoretical concept, realism is defined as a type of representation or representation technique associated with a set of textual conventions, complex referential and self-referential figures. As a literary-historical discourse and event situated in a particular moment of history, realism is governed by period-specific principles (operating in the mechanism of culture) of selection, evaluating and connecting the phenomena of reality. Only with this dichotomy the multiplicity of paradoxes, syncretism and heterogeneous character of Slovak literary realism can be captured. The theory of social systems (N. Luhmann) allows for a more complex view of realist literature as an autopoietic system in the context of modern society as a system of communications differentiated into a network of separate social subsystems interrelated by the medium of language. Finally, the theory of fictional worlds proposes selective and formative operations that explicate the construction of realist fictional world and the stratification of its functions (B. Fořt). Results. Among the configurational relations of Slovak literary realism, the concept of ideal realism is highlighted as a model of literary aesthetics that flexibly interacted with the discourse of national revival to provide an adequate expression of contemporary Slovak cultural and national interests. Two literary-aesthetic modifications of ideal realism (creative and voluntarist, originated by Svetozár Hurban Vajanský, and deterministic, represented in the prose works of Martin Kukučín) are analysed in detail in order to show the inner complexity of the literary-realist discourse and to manifest its semantic multidimensionality in the 1880s.

Jean Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology as a Theory of Knowledge Based on Epigenesis

This article aims to highlight Jean Piaget’s theory of knowledge and situate it in this context since its beginnings in Ancient Greece where, in Plato, we already find this seminal idea: knowledge is acquired in successive and upward moments (dialektikê), starting from an opinion on the sensible world (doxa) towards the épistêmê of the intelligible world, the world of Ideas or concepts. Piaget’s Theory of Knowledge, we believe, was determined by four moments: 1) his research as a malacologist under the guidance of Godet and Raymond, 2) the acquaintance with Kant’s philosophy at age of 21, 3) his internship at the Binet/Simon laboratory, 4) his studies on the Limnaea Stagnalis. His core idea: it is possible for human beings to attain the necessary and universal knowledge due to the exchange processes of their organisms with the environment, which give rise to the epigenetic ontogenesis of their specific organic mental structures, framed for the specific act of knowing. Epigenetic ontogenesis begins with the infans first actions in the world, from the very moment of birth. Around two years of age, these actions will be represented and organized in groups linked to empirical experience, until the brain be able to perform the operations of the Abelian Group. The physiological development ends here, and the logico-mathematical knowledge becomes possible.

Freedom and Obligation

This chapter has three aims. First, it gives an overview of the reception of Kant’s project of moral justification up to the twentieth century, showing that Kant’s first readers detected no great rift between the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. A consensus that Kant reversed or rejected the argument of Groundwork III only takes shape in 1960. Second, this chapter returns to the details of Groundwork III and argues that Kant appeals to the idea of an intelligible world to warrant our possession of a free will. Third, this chapter argues that, while the second Critique is mostly continuous with Kant’s earlier argument, it goes further by including a theory of moral sensibility.

Introduction

This introductory chapter looks at how philosopher Richard Rorty advanced the thesis that Platonism and philosophy are more or less identical. The point of insisting on this identification is the edifying inference Rorty thinks is to be drawn from it: If one finds Platonism unacceptable, then one ought to abandon philosophy. Hence, a rejection of Platonism is really a rejection of the principles shared by most philosophers up to the present. The chapter then poses the opposition between Platonism and Naturalism as the opposition between philosophy and anti-philosophy. Plato states in his Republic in a clear and unambiguous way that the subject matter of philosophy is “that which is perfectly or completely real,” that is, the intelligible world and all that it contains. If Rorty is right, then the denial of the existence of this content is the rejection of philosophy. But self-declared Naturalists divide over whether philosophy has a distinct subject matter. Nevertheless, the most consistent form of Naturalism will hold that with the abandonment of the Platonic subject matter must go the abandonment of a distinct subject matter for philosophy.

Plato’s Critique of Naturalism

This chapter discusses Plato's critique of Naturalism. A metaphysics of the natural world as conceived of by Naturalists is quite different from a metaphysics of the natural world conceived of by Platonists. For Naturalists, topics like identity, existence, cause, and time, all have to be approached as principles exclusively for knowledge of entities in a three or four-dimensional framework. By contrast, Plato assumes and Aristotle argues that identity is equivocally applied not just to artifacts and to things that exist in nature, but also to that which is immaterial. Plato's designation of the subject matter of philosophy as, roughly, “the intelligible world,” obviously excludes an extension of the term “philosophy” to that which is non-intelligible. But the sensible world, as Plato says in Republic, participates in the intelligible world in some way. Accordingly, insofar as it does, it belongs to the subject matter of philosophy. The difference between the natural scientist and the philosopher on this account is, as Plato says, that the former “hypothesizes” its foundations, while the latter grounds these in the “unhypothetical first principle.” The chapter then studies Socrates' “autobiography” in Phaedo, as well as the subject matter of philosophy in Republic, Theaetetus, and Sophist.

Platonism and Naturalism

In his third and concluding volume, the author presents an innovative account of Platonism, the central tradition in the history of philosophy, in conjunction with Naturalism, the “anti-Platonism” in antiquity and contemporary philosophy. The book contends that Platonism identifies philosophy with a distinct subject matter, namely, the intelligible world and seeks to show that the Naturalist rejection of Platonism entails the elimination of a distinct subject matter for philosophy. Thus, the possibility of philosophy depends on the truth of Platonism. From Aristotle to Plotinus to Proclus, the book clearly links the construction of the Platonic system well beyond simply Plato's dialogues, providing strong evidence of the vast impact of Platonism on philosophy throughout history. The book concludes that attempts to seek a rapprochement between Platonism and Naturalism are unstable and likely indefensible.

The Logos according to Philo of Alexandria

This chapter highlights the Alexandrian philosopher Philo who ventures the world of Platonic, or more precisely Middle Platonic, philosophy in Jewish garb. It talks about how Philo's God is absolutely transcendent. To refer to him, Philo uses the Platonic term to on, “that which exists,” or ho agenētos, “the Uncreated One.” The chapter emphasizes that everyone knows that God exists, but they will never know what he is or his essence. Nevertheless, emanating from this God are “forces” or “powers”, facets of the unknowable and unattainable God, which through many stages embody the transcendent to on and enable its transition down to our visible world. It also focuses on Logos, who is responsible for the emergence of the purely intelligible world of ideas and Wisdom for the world perceived by senses.

On the Ethical Significance of Fichte’s Theology

This article shows that Fichte’s ethics and theology in the Jena period are conceived in intimate connection with each other. It explores what Fichte’s theology, as it is promulgated in the “Divine Governance” essay of 1798, might tell us about his account of the ethical law’s material content, as it is expounded in the System of Ethics of the same year. It does so with the aim of defending the standard interpretation of Fichte as a staunch advocate of deontology. From the theological vantage point, a plan for the realization of the final end is laid out in and through the moral world-order. The material of our duty is signified by the place we are assigned in and through the order. On account of our lack of insight into the “higher law” through which our place in the order is determined, no abstract, discursive criterion for what we ought to do here and now is forthcoming. While Fichte characterizes ethically right actions in terms of their tendency to produce the final end, he regards them as being so in an ideal, intelligible world rather than the real, empirical one.