Religions, ideologies try to give a complete vision of the world a vision containing both its origin, explanation and a “normative kit”: a collection of precepts and rules, which should regulate human activities and behavior. Their synergetic meaning is clear: if embraced by all they allow for development of strong synergetic effects on the social macro scales. These in turn may lead to creation of order and beauty, of intellectual, spiritual and moral development within men and in society. In this (...) consist the elements of their natural—i.e. not explicitly reasoned out—wisdom. However, as they contain also some elements of harmful consequences—at least if they are literally accepted and in a fundamentalist manner practiced—they cannot be universally accepted. But—rejecting them we lose also the important sourcesof natural—or should we say instinctive—wisdom.Could the solution of this contradiction, of this one of the basic human sources of suffering be looked for in the modern science of complexity?Synergetics and the sciences of complex systems in general offer a solid scientific base for a meta-philosophical, universalist intellectual framework. Its offspring the social synergetics offers concrete propositions of optimized social structures. Optimized in the sense of espousing the main synergetic effects with being at the same time free of the negative “side effects” happening when religions or ideologies are the source of synergism.Finally a connection is discussed between the presented ideas and the concept of “love of wisdom”. The term “love of wisdom” may be understood as striving not only to possess a “sound and serene judgment regarding the conduct of life” but also a practical ability to act according to that judgment.This ability may be also expressed using the information-thermodynamic concepts of synergetics. Indeed without the ever continuing negentropy transformation neither survival of a complex system like man or society nor its continuing development—uncovering of all his “hidden potentials” is possible.To assure maximization of this transformation process creation of strong synergetic effects—of reinforcement, of positive feedback—between all human beings—i.e. not excluding any nations, any social groups, and any individuals—are necessary. Acting towards local and global realization of such a structure everywhere on our planet constitutes the essence of social wisdom.Removing all obstacles towards this goal—obstacles existing on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual level—should be one of the most important tasks of various institutions, of state structures, of purified from mythical elements ideologies, of man oriented sciences and above all of the modern universalism.Thus striving towards its realization is an expression of the love of wisdom. Of wisdom once based on the elements of mythos and now regained in the full light of Logos. (shrink)

Rush Rhees, a close friend of Wittgenstein and a major interpreter of his work, shows how Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ concerns logic, language, and reality – topics that occupied Wittgenstein since early in his career. Authoritative interpretation of Wittgenstein's last great work, _On Certainty_, by one of his closest friends. Debunks misconceptions about Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ and shows that it is an essay on logic. Exposes the continuity in Wittgenstein's thought, and the radical character of his conclusions. Contains a substantial and (...) illuminating afterword discussing current scholarship surrounding _On Certainty_, and its relationship to Rhees's work on this subject. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 23 Heft: 2 Seiten: 75-84.

The idea that knowledge as an individual mental attitude with certain propositional content is not only true justified belief but a belief the truth of which does not result from any kind of luck, is widely spread in contemporary epistemology. This account is known as anti-luck epistemology. A very popular explanation of the inconsistency of that concept of knowledge with the luck-dependent nature of truth (so called veritic luck taking place when a subject’s belief could not be true if not (...) by mere coincidence) presumes that the status of propositional knowledge crucially depends on the qualities of actions that result in the corresponding belief, or processes backing them, which reflect the socalled intellectual virtues mainly responsible for subject’s relevant competences. This account known as Virtue Epistemology presumes that if a belief is true exclusively or mainly due to its dependence on intellectual virtues, it just cannot be true by luck, hence no place for lucky knowledge. But this thesis is hard to prove given the existence of true virtuous beliefs which could nevertheless be false if not for some lucky (for the knower) accident. This led to an appearance of virtue epistemological theories aimed specifically at an assimilation of such cases. Their authors try to represent the relevant situations as such where the contribution of luck is not crucial whereas the contribution of virtues is crucial. This article provides a critical analysis of the corresponding arguments as part of a more general study of the ability of Virtue Epistemology to provide justification for the thesis of incompatibility of propositional knowledge with veritic luck. It is shown that there are good reasons to doubt that Virtue Epistemology can do this. (shrink)

Our main result is that the following cardinal arithmetic assumption, which is a slight weakening of GCH, “2κ is a finite successor of κ for every cardinal κ”, implies that in any countably tight compactum X there is a discrete subspace D with . This yields a confirmation of Alan Dow’s Conjecture 2 from [A. Dow, Closures of discrete sets in compact spaces, Studia Math. Sci. Hung. 42 227–234].

This study analyses the problem of change. The problem of change can be defined from the point of view of Parmenides who thought there is no change at all. This study explains how change can be viewed as narrative. If we accept that change is narrative, such approach will enable us to look at the central problem in metaphysics, the problem of change, from a fresh perspective and apply Bakhtinian concepts of ‘carnival’, ‘grotesque’, ‘dialogic relationship’, and ‘unfinalizability’ to change. The (...) discussions on change usually have been revolving around the observed system. Bakhtinian perception shows another theoretical orientation by highlighting the role of the observer who decides what the change is. Regarding the question of change for a specific object, a few questions are significant: For whom is the change happening? What is changing? When is the change happening? Where is the change happening? (shrink)

St. Teresa worried over the genuineness of her mystical experience. Her worries have sense within a form of life. Pike argues that her claims must be downgraded if no justification of the form of life can be given. The Devil could deceive us about any justification, Mavrodes argues, but certain experiences can be self-authenticating. Treating forms of life as though they were interpretations, Katz concludes that we must be agnostic about their truth. The paper argues that confusions between forms of (...) life and judgements within them lead these authors to conclusions which obscure the confessional character of truth in these contexts. (shrink)

Speeches and persuasion dominate Plato’s Crito. This paper, paying particular attention to the final passage in the dialogue, shows that the focus on speeches, persuasion and allusions to many other elements of rhetoric is an integral part of Plato’s severe criticism of democracy, one of the main points of the Crito. Speeches allow members of a democracy – represented in our dialogue by Crito – firstly to break the law for self-interested reasons while considering themselves still to be law-abiding citizens, (...) and secondly to feel that they are in a tolerant society preferring logos/persuasive speech above bia/compulsion. Socrates counters Crito’s speeches with speeches of his own, not only to defeat him at his own game, but also to make him aware how dangerous the game is. Real knowledge is preferable to speeches, but a democracy without speeches and rhetoric is doomed. (shrink)

Hegel’in Jena döneminde zamanın diyalektiği sorununu yalnızca Tinin Fenomenolojisi’nin “Duyusal Kesinlik” bölümünde ele aldığına yönelik genel anlayış, geçtiğimiz yüzyılda orta Jena dönemi derslerine ait el yazmalarının yayımlanmasıyla yeni bir boyut kazanmıştır. 1804-1805 ile 1805-1806 yıllarına ait olan “Jena Sistem taslakları”nda Hegel’in doğanın zamanın üç boyutuna dair kapsamlı bir diyalektik geliştirdiği görülür. Bu çalışmada Christophe Bouton, söz konusu iki sistem taslağında doğanın soyut zamanına ait momentlerin ürettiği sonlu diyalektiğin Hegelci mantıksal ikili sonsuzluk teorisiyle nasıl aşıldığını inceler. Bouton’a göre orta Jena dönemi (...) taslakları sadece Hegel’in düşünsel gelişim sürecine ışık tutmaz, aynı zamanda Hegel’in Berlin döneminde açıkça ortaya koyacağı doğanın zamanı ile Tinin zamanı olarak tarih arasındaki ilişkiyi de temellendirir. Bu bağlamda Heidegger, Koyré ve Bloch gibi yorumcuların aksine Bouton, Hegelci zaman diyalektiğinin kökeninde geçmişin ya da geleceğin önceliği tezini reddeder. Bouton’a göre Hegel felsefesinde zamanın anlamı, zamanın diğer iki boyutundan yalıtılmış olan geçmişte değil, üç zamansal boyutu kendinde içeren somut şimdidedir. Bouton, zaman ve zamana tabi olan hadiselerin yarattığı açmazın yanı sıra, ezeli ve ebedilik ile somut şimdi arasındaki ilişkiyi Jena dönemi ile Berlin dönemine ait dersler ışığında inceler. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Organizing the Notes for On Certainty Groundlessness and Language‐games Searching for Primary Links Between Language and Reality Seeing Logic and Practice Pictures, Propositions and Reality Forms of Life Practices and Parallels Is the Title on Certainty a Happy One? Is on Certainty a Polemic against Moore? Is Wittgenstein's Main Interest in Moore's Propositions the Nature of Nonsense? Does Wittgenstein Say that the Propositions he is Interested in Form a Class, and Does he Say the Same (...) of all of Them? Are Wittgenstein's Propositions Context‐free? What is the Connection between Wittgenstein's Propositions and Logic? Is Wittgenstein Appealing to Primitive, Pre‐linguistic Reactions as the Basis of our Language‐games? What is Meant by the Sureness in Our Language‐games? How are Our Conclusions Related to the Notions of a Form of Life or World‐picture? How do Wittgenstein's Conclusions Differ from Some Classical and Contemporary Views of Our Relation to the World? Rhees's Development of Wittgenstein's Concerns. (shrink)