JournalTOCs

Problemos
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This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 1392-1126 - ISSN (Online) 2424-6158
Published by Vilnius University

[38 journals]

Political Philosophy as a Vocation
- Authors: Andrius Bielskis
  Abstract: Publikuojame tekstą viešos paskaitos, kurią Mykolo Romerio universiteto profesorius Andrius Bielskis, Aristotelio ir kritinės teorijos studijų centro direktorius, Lietuvos nacionalinės Martyno Mažvydo bibliotekos kvietimu perskaitė 2023 m. balandžio 20 d. Paskaita, skaityta autoriaus 50 metų jubiliejaus proga, – reikšmingas Profesoriaus intelektualinės autobiografijos fragmentas, brėžiantis dar vieną akademinio maršruto variantą.
  Autorius dėkoja visiems, kas dalyvavo, klausėsi, skaitė ir komentavo jo mintis, ypač šeimos nariams – Severijai ir Nickui, atvykusiems iš Londono, Jolantai ir Samueliui Andriui, broliui Putinui, taip pat ir Nacionalinei Martyno Mažvydo bibliotekai už jos svetingum
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
Reapprendre à voir: Images, Symptoms and the Media of Appearance
- Authors: Benediktas Vachninas
  Abstract: Emmanuel Alloa interviewed by Benediktas Vachninas Emmanuel Alloa, Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at the University of Fribourg, is one of the most active contemporary thinkers in the field of new visual studies. His areas of research include aesthetics, phenomenology, theories of image, theories of media, and the French philosophy. Professor Alloa has authored and (co)edited numerous books, of which, the most important ones are Looking through Images. A Phenomenology of Visual Media (Columbia University Press, 2021), Dynamis of the Image. Moving Images in a Global World (De Gruyter, 2020), Partages de la perspective (Fayard, 2020), Resistance of the Sensible World: An Introduction to Merleau-Ponty (Fordham University Press, 2017). He is the recipient of the Latsis Prize 2016 and the Aby Warburg Prize 2019 and currently serves as President of the German Society of Aesthetics.
  In 2021, Professor Alloa gave an online cycle of lectures titled Orbis Pictus. A Media Phenomenology in an Image World at Vilnius University. This year, I had the pleasure to hold an online conversation with Professor Alloa as he kindly agreed to discuss the topic of images and his project of symptomatology. The interview encompassed questions about the relation of an image with the image theories, the differences between the symptomatological approach to images and the visual semiotics, Derrida’s contribution to the problem of mediality, and the role of images in the philosophy today.
  This interview was taken on the 20th of June, 2023
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
The Problem of Image’s Status: E. Alloa’s Symptomatology
- Authors: Benediktas Vachninas
  Abstract: This article analyzes one of the most recent theories of visual thinking – Emmanuel Alloa’s symptomatology of images. The article focuses on the problem of the status of image, which is considered in various ways by authors of the pictorial and iconic turns. The article raises the question “What is the status of image in respect of language'” The article goes back to the origins of symptomatology of images, in particular, to Nelson Goodman’s theory of symbols. This allows showing the originality of Alloa’s model of symptoms and rehabilitating the status of symptomatological investigation. It is thus claimed that the iconic status of images in relation to language can be reformulated raising the question of the symptom’s identity. In this respect, the symptoms of iconic are instruments that enable the description of images with regard to different layers of iconicity.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
The Differences in Understanding Hominized Being in the Art Philosophy of
Šliogeris and Heidegger
- Authors: Tomas Kavaliauskas
  Abstract: Two different philosophical attitudes towards the hominized Being are analyzed: the one of Arvydas Šliogeris and the other of Martin Heidegger. The aim is to show the philosophy of Being in relation to particular paintings. Šliogeris interprets the picture of The Great Pine Tree by Paul Cézanne, whereas Heidegger – the picture of A Pair of Shoes by Vincent van Gogh. The author of the article explains how Aristotle’s concept of the individual substance is related to the art philosophy of Šliogeris. The article also shows how Šliogeris’ critique of the hominized Being consistently evolved starting with his book The Thing and Art and culminating with his major work, titled The Silence of Transcendence. At the end of the article the author brings to the reader’s attention two self-contradictory notions of an artist that we find in different books of Šliogeris: the first notion that speaks of a Human-artist who supposedly imbues ‘more Being’ into a painting than we find it in nature; whereas the second notion speaks of a Nature-artist and provides to things ‘more Being’ than we find it in art.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
Leaving the Dream Behind: Why the Metaphysics of Consciousness cannot be
Unveiled by Conceivability Arguments
- Authors: Luis Alejandro Murillo-Lara
  Abstract: In this paper, I present a novel objection to Chalmers’s “master argument” against the privileged strategy of ‘type B’ physicalists to account for the explanatory gap (the “phenomenal concepts strategy”). Specifically, I argue that the second horn of the master argument gets wrong why zombies cannot have our epistemic situation with regard to consciousness. Zombies cannot have a kind of mental state that we have. If something must have all of our psychological attributes to share our epistemic situation, then zombies cannot serve the purpose of the second horn of the dilemma. By way of background, I begin by briefly outlining a related argument against physicalism, also advanced by D. Chalmers – the “conceivability argument.” I highlight some of the primary challenges with this argument and present additional criticisms. Finally, through a brief examination of panprotopsychism, I consider what lies ahead if Chalmers’s arguments are conceded. I conclude that the phenomenal concept strategy is a sound explanation for why the conceivability of zombies likely does not imply their metaphysical possibility.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
Biopolitics of the Zombie Corpses: Collectivity, Contagion, and Alterity
- Authors: Onur Kartal
  Abstract: Inasmuch as the society is considered as a body today, social problems should be defined accordingly, as problems of hygiene and cleanliness. In this regard, various representations of zombie corpses in zombie movies can be conceived as concrete examples of threat and a perception of disease. In this article, I claim that the zombie figures in cinema bear a positive potential for the social life of humanity, and I will define this potential as a new opportunity for meeting the absolute alterity. Within this context, I analyse 28 Weeks Later and The World War Z and The Girl with All the Gifts to put forth the idea that what enables emancipation of humanity is contagion and alterity. Rather than destroying the capitalist rationalization without offering any alternatives, zombie corpses enounce the birth of a new form of social life as analysed through Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
The Best Constitution for the Flourishing Lives: Aristotle’s Political
Theory and Its Implications for Emancipatory Purposes
- Authors: Andrius Bielskis
  Abstract: The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of the best constitution given Aristotle’s account of human flourishing articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics. There, Aristotle claims that monarchy is the supreme form of constitution. A similar claim is repeated in Politics. The paper argues that these claims sit uneasily with Aristotle’s teleological accounts of the polis, the citizen, and his discussion of the virtues of the citizen and the good man in Politics. Given Aristotle’s philosophical definition of the state as “an association of equals for the sake of the best possible life” and his notion that “the best is happiness, and that consists in excellence and its perfect actualization and its employment”, and Aristotle’s argument on the relationship between the good man and the good citizen, this paper concludes that the best constitution is politeia. Yet, simply to argue so is not enough if we are to rescue Aristotle from his inconsistencies and his claims on “natural inequalities”. Finally, a more radical interpretation of Aristotle is outlined, which rejects Aristotle’s separation between the oikos and the polis and argues that the verticality of the former is philosophically arbitrary and contradicts the revolutionary implications of Aristotle’s normative teleology.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
Platonic Politics of Moderation and Contemporary Civic Theory
- Authors: Vilius Bartninkas
  Abstract: This paper examines Plato’s later model of civic participation in relation to contemporary civic theories. It argues that, although the Platonic model satisfies such common criteria for civic theories as equality, autonomy, and empowerment, the key concept to understand this project is moderation. It is moderation that structures and unifies the constituent elements of this model (the rule of law, the persuasion of the preambles, the empowering economy and education). It also explains what kind of personal disposition is central to achieving a stable and rational political order.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
Perspectives on Heidegger’s Overcoming Nihilism in Dialogue with
East Asian Thought Traditions
- Authors: Tautvydas Vėželis
  Abstract: The article analyzes the perspectives of overcoming nihilism (Verwindung) by discussing Heidegger’s relationship with East Asian traditions of thought (first of all, chan/zen and daoism). We can consider the emergence of Enframing (Gestell or Ge-stell) of the essence of modern technology defined by the philosopher as a diagnosis of the fulfillment of nihilism and the end of the Western tradition of thought. By revealing the problem of the end of the Western metaphysical tradition and its overcoming, the aim is to understand the possibilities of the emergence of a different way of thinking by looking at the horizon of post-metaphysical thinking. Heidegger’s dialogue with the sources of Eastern thought is a search for perspectives on overcoming nihilism (Verwindung), which is inseparable from the deepening of self, other and mutual understanding.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000
Abicht and Śniadecki: about a Turbulent Philosophical Dispute at the
Imperial University of Vilnius in 19th century
- Authors: Tomasz Kupś
  Abstract: The article presents the results of source research conducted on the scholarly and teaching activities of the German philosopher and educator Johann Heinrich Abicht (1762–1816) who in 1804 was employed at the Imperial University of Vilnius. Research in Lithuanian, Polish, Ukrainian, and German archives has revealed many facts about Abicht’s scholarly and teaching activities in Vilnius, most of which fall during the period when Jan Śniadecki (1756–1830) was Rector at the Imperial University of Vilnius. In this paper I argue that it was Abicht and his Vilnius-based scholarly and teaching activities that were the direct cause of Śniadecki’s publication of the essay On Metaphysics in 1814, and indirectly also the trigger for all of Śniadecki’s later philosophical writings.
  PubDate: Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +000