Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-5 of 5 documents


1. Idealistic Studies: Volume > 46 > Issue: 2
Igor Hanzel

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
I shall compare John McDowell’s Mind and World with Hegel’s later philosophy in the Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences in Outline. I begin by presenting McDowell’s epistemology. I then delineate the most important aspects of Hegel’s epistemology and, because McDowell claims that he draws on Kant’s views on the relation between receptivity and spontaneity, their relation to Kant’s epistemology. Here, I suggest that even if Hegel’s epistemology displays idealistic features which determine the construction of the category-clusters in the Science of Logic and Encyclopedia, these clusters can make a valuable contribution to epistemology once subjected to a realistic reinterpretation. Next I compare Hegel’s epistemology with that of McDowell and show that under this reinterpretation Hegel’s epistemology can be used to overcome the limitations of the epistemology presented by McDowell. Finally I propose a return to the reconstruction of categories as the direction towards which the future development of epistemology should go.

2. Idealistic Studies: Volume > 46 > Issue: 2
Jennifer Marra

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In this paper, I seek to explore the increasing popular claim that the performance of philosophy and the performance of humor share similar features. I argue that the explanation lies in the function of humor—a function which can be a catalyst for philosophy. Following Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and utilizing insights from various philosophical and scientific perspectives on the nature and origins of humor, I argue that the function of humor is to reveal faulty belief or error in judgment. Once such errors are revealed the mind demands resolution, and this is the work of philosophy. But philosophy cannot solve a problem unless it recognizes that there is a problem to solve. That is, the move from ignorance to philosophy requires a mediating step. Humor can act as that step, and, as such, humor can serve as a catalyst for philosophy while being necessarily distinct from it.

3. Idealistic Studies: Volume > 46 > Issue: 2
Richard McDonough Orcid-ID

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Most scholars understand para. 608 of Zettel (Z608) to suggest that language and thought might arise from chaos at the neural centre. However, this contradicts Wittgenstein’s signature view that the philosopher must not advance theories. The paper proposes an alternative model of Z608 based on the Austrian Gestalt-movement that influenced Wittgenstein. Z608 does not suggest that language and thought might arise from chaos in the brain but that they may arise in a different non-causal sense from the “chaos” of activities in forms of human life on analogy with the way a Gestalt-image “arises” from a “chaos” of perceptions. The concepts of chaos and the centre in Z608 are not neurophysiological concepts but refer to aspects of forms of human life. The Gestalt-interpretation also clarifies why Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is quite different from “ordinary language philosophy.” Finally, the Gestalt-interpretation clarifies why Wittgenstein is not, as is often believed, making an attack on legitimate empirical psychological investigations.

4. Idealistic Studies: Volume > 46 > Issue: 2
Seung-Ug Park

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In this paper, I have attempted to make the role of mathematical thinking clear in Husserl’s theory of sciences. Husserl believed that phenomenology could afford to provide a safe foundation for individual sciences. Hence, the first task of the project was reorganizing the system of sciences and to show the possibility of apodictic knowledge regarding the world. Husserl was inspired by the progress of mathematics at that time because mathematics is the most logical discipline and deals with abstract objects. It was the most suitable model for Husserl’s project. In fact, we can find structural similarities between his project and F. Klein’s Erlangen Program; further, the procedure of the essence intuition can be explained by a mathematical induction. Mathematics is certainly a new path for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. In order to clarify the relation between Husserl’s theory of sciences and mathematics, this study focused on the problem of classification. Lastly, another implication of Husserl’s phenomenology as a theory of sciences is that his work is still meaningful for today’s dynamic reality of sciences.

5. Idealistic Studies: Volume > 46 > Issue: 2
Nahum Brown

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Aristotle claims in book 9 of the Metaphysics that potentiality is distinct from actuality yet also that potentiality exists only for the sake of actuality. This essay presents the relationship between potentiality’s existence and actuality’s priority as an aporia, where potentiality remains distinct from and exists in excess of actuality, even though it exists only as actuality. I claim that this aporia helps the early Heidegger of Being and Time to conclude, contrary to Aristotle, that potentiality stands higher than actuality.