At the beginning of the twentieth century in the Russian-speaking philosophical space philosophical projects emerged which brought ontology and gnoseology closer together. One can observe this process, for example, in the philosophical doctrines of the Russian intuitivists Nikolay Lossky and Semyon Frank. I demonstrate that the emergence of these doctrines and the development of their onto-gnoseological categorial apparatus were mainly connected with the criticism of the Neo-Kantian theory of cognition and the possibility of transcendent knowledge as such. The (...) main sources of my study are The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge and The World as an Organic Whole by N. O. Lossky and The Object of Knowledge and The Unknowable by S. L. Frank. My investigation makes it possible to treat Lossky’s categorial framework as the representation of a system of levels of the universe each of which is characterised by two aspects: the ontological, i.e. it is part of the unity of the world, and the gnoseological, i.e. it has an independent cognitive significance. Frank considers categories to be an organic part of the ontological proof of intuitivism. A common trend in the construction of categorial schemes by Lossky and Frank is their striving to combine gnoseological and ontological descriptions of categories. The key difference is the way an onto-gnoseological system as a whole is justified. In revealing the contradictions in Lossky’s conception, I proceed from the critical remarks of S. A. Askoldov, pointing out that these contradictions stem from an absolutisation of intuition in cognition, the renunciation of the idea of gnoseological transcendence, incompleteness of the theory of immanence and discordance between onto-gnoseological categories. Askoldov’s critical comments clarify the substantive features of Lossky’s theory and the essence of the transformations carried out in Frank’s absolute ideal-realism. (shrink)

Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to show that the paradigm of viewing the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness in analytic philosophy makes it a pseudo-problem rather than a ‘hard problem’. The objectives of this research included showing the reasons for the authors’ thesis, demonstrating the irreducibility of consciousness as a special layer of reality, and proposing a way to overcome these difficulties. Design/methodology/approach: In this article, the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is viewed from the standpoints of the transcendental-phenomenological (...) and dialectical approaches and is analyzed through the prism of the principle of onto-gnoseological uncertainty. Findings: It is shown that the way of formulating the ‘hard problem’ in the analytical philosophical tradition inevitably makes it a pseudo-problem. At the same time, with the consistent realization of the principle of onto-gnoseological uncertainty, the antinomy of solutions to the problems of consciousness is eliminated, which opens up a way to a productive solution of problems related to the interpretation of consciousness both in natural sciences and in philosophy. Originality/value : This research reveals the methodological potential of applying the principle of onto-gnoseological uncertainty to the problems that arise in modern philosophy in connection with the achievements of natural sciences. (shrink)

This work aims to depart from conventional interpretations of Spinoza’s notions of essence and existence by offering an alternative perspective called the onto-gnoseological reading. Typically, these concepts of essence and existence are approached from an ontological standpoint or are simply disregarded. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that Spinoza, within his corpus associates these notions with the activity of the genres of knowledge rather than with the ontological realm. This reinterpretation of the concepts from a gnoseological standpoint (...) allows for a deeper comprehension of Spinoza’s philosophical undertaking. It becomes evident that this project involves the coexistence of gnoseological duality in perfect harmony with the univocity of reality, serving as a crucial instrument for recognizing the boundaries and possibilities of human knowledge and, subsequently, the potential for achieving human virtue. (shrink)

Although the concept of “pure knowledge” is one of the most interesting and singular concepts in the philosophical work of Vasily Seseman, it can only be presented after a comprehensive analysis of the philosopher’s numerous works devoted to ontological, epistemological and logical problems. Seseman believes that the main philosophical trends at the beginning of the twentieth century, namely neo-Kantianism, intuitionism and phenomenology, could not present this concept, although they did try. According to the philosopher, the main reason for the inability (...) of neo-Kantianism, intuitionism and phenomenology to start talking about pure knowledge is their inability to assert the essential difference between objective and non-objective knowledge. Sesemann pays special attention when substantiating his concept of “pure knowledge” to the difference between his approach and that of the founder of modern phenomenology. The philosopher points out that even Husserl, who concentrated attention on the specifics of inner experience, puts this specific, in the end, in dependence on the process of cognition and reflection, completely ignoring its ontological foundations. While pure knowledge, according to Seseman, is neither non-objective, nor objective knowledge, nor non-objective, nor objective being, it, in fact, is non-knowledge and non-being. It is precisely this understanding by the philosopher of this phenomenon that allows him to characterize pure knowledge as premiseless and limitless and, in general, as free from any ontological or epistemological determinations. However, on the other hand, Sesemann insists that the phenomenon of pure knowledge has the meaning of not just a regulatory idea, an infinitely distant ideal, but also a real constitutive meaning, as a principle that reveals and determines the human striving for knowledge as an interconnected and necessary process that ascends from the onto-gnoseological stage of non-objective knowledge to the epistemological, and then the logical stage of objective knowledge. (shrink)

This essay examines the becoming-one of man and God in the thought of Meister Eckhart and G. W. F. Hegel. It holds that the seemingly moral category of love is elevated to the onto-gnoseological dimension of the One itself in its fullness. In this very work which is love and at the same time is God Himself, God loves all things not as created, but rather inasmuch as they are created in God. This absolute process of becoming is brought (...) to perfection when empirical space and time are overcome – a transcendence expressed by Eckhart as the ‹nun› of eternal presence. (shrink)

Even though the concept of sustainability emerged from a reality-life emergency, its discourse seems diverse, built even on different onto-gnoseological and teleological assupmtions. This is mainly due to the different perceptions of life held by individuals, as well as to the hegemonic class interests. Then, derived from this different perceptions of life and interests, has been the behavior of human beings on the Earth; sometimes in accordance to it, but many others in outright aggression to it. And if life’s (...) way shows life itself, it can be changed, even collapsed by the anthropic hegemonic actions that take place in the planet. It is therefore important to reflect on the categorical and conceptual frameworks that underlie discourse, in order to build a way of thinking that includes all formas of life, that enhances the eco-existentiality of the individual and its community for the enrichment of all. (shrink)

According to Sosa (2015, 2021), the domain of epistemic normativity divides into gnoseology and intellectual ethics, a boundary that results from the key notion that gnoseological assessments are telic. We share this view here and highlight the implications that the telic claim has for different debates in contemporary epistemology. However, we also raise the complaint that Sosa’s analogy of the archer has suggested that this boundary aligns with those of the instant of cognitive performance and its attributability to an (...) individual, as featured in the Cartesian fundamental epistemic question: _What should I believe now?_ Against this Cartesian imprint, we claim that temporality and sociality may be constitutive features of gnoseology. In order to show this, we introduce alternative analogies of belief formation processes that illustrate how cognitive achievements may be collectively attained across time, features that may manifest as an epistemology of conversation. (shrink)

Author discusses the possibility of thought experiment to produce a priori knowledge. Author analyzes some arguments which come from the critics of a priori. In this paper he examines the ontological and epistemological role of thought experiment in natural science and humanities. Author claims that the concept of 'apriorism' should be considered as a crucial point for classical understanding of cognition, especially within the empiricism and rationalism tradition. However, nowadays 'apriorism' loses its epistemological meaning within some modern epistemological traditions.

This study deals both with the gnoseological system of the byzantine theologian George Pachymeres, which is constructed on the methods of the affirmative, negative and superlative theology and the inductive method that he follows at his Paraphrase of De divinus nominibus of Dionysius the Areopagite, in order general conclusions on causality to be expressed. In the context of a consistent ontological monism, G. Pachymeres, without violating the epistemological approach of the Supreme Principle as Unknown, categorizes the sensible facts according to (...) the similarities and the differences between them, so as to present God as the only cause of the produced world. (shrink)

Summary In establishing what he called the metaphysics of science , the French naturalist Buffon was confronted with the problem of situating the place occupied by man in the natural world, a problem which ultimately depended on discerning his true nature. The paradox of Descartes' dualism offered various solutions — the extremes being, either to condemn man's material nature as corrupted in order to exalt his spiritual nature as a moral being, as Pascal had done, or to reduce man's pretended (...) spiritual nature to nothing more than a manifestation of his material organization, the solution of La Mettrie. Buffon could accept neither, proves man's duality, and proceeds to establish his gnoseological principle on his critique of these two radical solutions. (shrink)

This paper studies the problem of the arrow of time from the scientific and philosophical perspective. The scientific section (Castagnino) poses the topic according to the instruments of measuring employed in physical theories, specially when they are applied to dynamic chaotic systems in which a temporal asymmetry is shown. From the analysis of “two schools” (epistemological and ontological), the conclusion is favorable to the reality (both ontological and epistemological) of the difference between past and future, with the recourse to Reichenbach’s (...) notion of global system. In the philosophical section (Sanguineti) the content of the scientific part of the article is presented in a qualitative way. The role of some philosophical choices in the scientific field is stressed, taking into account the diversity of a positivistic and realistic view. (shrink)

The author describes the Cartesian way of solving the problem of the universal method in mathematics, in particular, the problem of applying algebra in geometry when it comes to the convergence of a discrete number and a continuous quantity. The article shows that the solution to this problem proposed by F. Viète is imperfect, since it introduces vague pseudo-geometric objects, and the geometric quantity is still far from an algebraic number. The author proves that Descartes' solution to this problem through (...) the use of Eudoxus proportions is based on such Cartesian epistemological principles as: the requirement of clarity and expressiveness of thinking; the idea of the central role of a holistic mathematical science; the idea of the existence of a simple and obvious nature of length as a basis for comparing all extended things; the elevation of the concept of ratio to the rank of a single subject of mathematical disciplines. (shrink)

Referring to certain lexical units of Roget’s Thesaurus, the authors consider in the article philosophical interpretation of verbal means for creation and further transformation of culturally significant senses and meanings that are aligned with death and dying. Thus, the given study involves one of the most famous and historically significant treasuries of language into plentiful and practically oriented philosophical examination. The authors propose a heuristic scheme to classify lexical units according to their structure and meaning with taking general and peripheral (...) meanings into account. The article hermeneutically reveals linguistic and cultural sources of common images and concepts of death and dying. The authors make up a conclusion about sense-generative, gnoseological, world-view, cultural and communicative functions of the above-mentioned units that point to death and dying. Thus, Roget’s Thesaurus can be considered a helpful guide to philosophical examination of culturally prescribed or determined concepts of death and dying, of verbally expressed attitudes to death issues. (shrink)

Exposed in 1948, within his masterpiece on the scope and limits of human knowledge, the epistemological tenets that Bertrand Russell regarded as fundamental elements in the construction of scientific knowledge, are still worthy of a detailed discussion today. Given the excellence of the author, it will not be surprising to see that Russell's gnoseologic postulates, even for the present scientific view, address some of the most controversial questions still to be solved in the theory of knowledge.

The limits of gnoseologic paradigm, from Aristotle to Locke. The effort here has its basis in the need to overcome limits of interpretation, tabulations and classifications that often accompany analyses on classic empirism, in general and his Locke, in particular. We try to find aut in Greek philosophy the germs of moderat empirism. And if Aristotel is undeniable, such a possible start, will wonder, perhaps, Plato's thought.

In the complex and heterogeneous work of Grosseteste, it is hard to divide analytically diverse subjects separating theological from philosophical, and within those, the diverse problematic fields. However, certain connection can be established. So, it seems that the theory of light, an essential theoretical element constitutive of its metaphysics, connects directly to the theory of illumination, guiding it´s gnoseology in the agustinino-neoplatonizante line which characterized the first period of the oxoniens philosophy. At the same time, Grosseteste was an early (...) receptor of the Aristotle’s science theory, which assimilated correctly, as shown in his comments to the Seconds Analytics of the Estagirita. The connection between gnoseology and science theory seems to be a complicated issue, even unresolved. This paper aims to study the specific theme, trying to point the nexus between the mayor principles of knowledge, the epistemological lines and their concretion in a innovative science theory whose echoes might be traced in the philosophers who incurred in physic´s matters through the following two centuries. (shrink)

Ioan Chirila, Cartea profetului Osea – Breviarum al gnoseologiei Vechiului Testament Editura Limes, 1999.

ABSTRACT This essay is dedicated to Elliot Wolfson’s new book on Heidegger and Kabbalah. Wolfson’s project is read here as a philosophical reflection and scholarly intervention on the “and,” that is, on pluralism in thought. Wolfson juxtaposes Heideggerian and kabbalistic corpora as expressing the same conception of non-totalitarian, plural thought, and criticizes both Heidegger and Kabbalah for betraying this pluralism in their ethnocentric tendencies. As a scholarly “ethical corrective,” Wolfson indicates in both corpora a countermeasure: A Gnostic disengagement of thought (...) from politics, in favor of poetics. The essay critiques this corrective by pointing at the different constellations of Gnosis and politics in Heidegger and Kabbalah. (shrink)

Light and darkness were central motives in the Bible and in the Platonic tradition . First and foremost light was the essential element and the basic principle of existence and cognition in the philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius Aeropagite. His metaphysics of light contained imagery that inspired builders of French cathedrals and provided Christian thought with rich presuppositions and themes. Th e main purpose of the article is to highlight the Gnostic aspect of the refl ection on light in the writings of (...) Pseudo-Dionysius. Th e author of the Divine names speaks of light in a fi gurative sense and compares its physical properties to the process of transmission of knowledge. He uses the term “light” to describe the actualizing powers of God or God’s sovereignty over the world that he identifi es with goodness. Th is goodness is also described as “supersubstantial light” which as a transcendent Unity permits divine intellects to partake of the supreme knowledge about themselves. Th us light is shown as essential to the transmission of knowledge. It constitutes the process of enlightenment and supports the hierarchical process of transmissionof knowledge. Assuming that this is a correct reading of Pseudo-Dionysius Aeropagite theauthors conclude that contrary to the predominant interpretation his philosophy Pseudo-Dionysius did not describe emanations of beings but transmission of knowledge. Which in turn indicates that he developed his theory as a part of Christian philosophy rather than neoplatonic thought. (shrink)

The aim of the thesis is to defend the hypothesis that an anti- Aristotelian interpretation of the genesis of the process of knowing provides an interesting and fruitful means to understand the human never-ending search for knowledge and to answer doubts concerning the reliability of human knowledge of external reality. Such statement requires an explanation.