nr 74/2022

Zawartość numeru 74/2022

Philosophical Schools after 1950
Edited by Agata Łukomska, Andrea Vestrucci, Filip Łapiński,
Goran Rujević, Marcin Trepczyński

[Abstrakty są dostępne tylko dla artykułów naukowych, aby odróżnić je od pozostałych materiałów.]

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Franca d’Agostini

Is There Still (if There Has Been At All) an Analytic–Continental Divide?PDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2150.0014
ORCID: 0000-0002-9419-0065

Abstract:
In this paper I reconstruct the nature, origins and survivals of the divide between the “analytic” and “continental” traditions – a famous dualism which has affected the development of philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. I also present a theory of it, stressing that its intra-philosophical causes are to be found in the mutual resistance between critical (transcendental) and semantic (logical) approaches in philosophy. I conclude by noting that good philosophers (more or less knowingly) are and have always been sensitive to the transcendental and logical aspects of the philosophical work.

Key words: analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, birth of modern logic, transcendental philosophy

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Agnieszka Kozyra

The Kyoto School after 1950: The Problem of Its Unity and MethodologyPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0015
ORCID: 0000-0001-7977-7987

Abstract: The Kyoto School (Kyoto-gakuha) is a group of Japanese thinkers who developed original philosophical theories inspired both by Western philosophy and the philosophy of East Asia, especially by Mahayana Buddhism and Daoism. As is reflected in the name of the School, its founding members were associated with Kyoto University. The Kyoto School originator, Nishida Kitaro (1870–1945), did not think of himself as a founder of any school and always encouraged independent thinking in his students. In the beginning, the so-called Kyoto School philosophers studied and taught at Kyoto University, they developed their thinking under the influence of Nishida as well as in dialogue and debate with him and with one another. However, after 1964, when Nishitani Keiji, Nishida’s student, retired from the Chair of Philosophy of Religion, Kyoto University has ceased to be the main place of Kyoto School philosophers’ activity. The aim of this paper is to prove that after 1950 we should understand the Kyoto School mainly as a specific theoretical frame and methodological approach. All thinkers branded as “Kyoto School philosophers” studied Mahayana Buddhism, especially Zen and Shin (True Pure Land) schools, in a non-dogmatic and non-sectarian manner. One of the characteristic methodologies of the Kyoto School is “selective identification,” by which I mean explaining Buddhist concepts using selected Western terms or theories but taking them out of their original context. Another method of the Kyoto School philosophers is to develop Western philosophical theories in a new direction (sometimes quite unexpected by Western philosophers) by confronting them with the Buddhist worldview.

Key words: Kyoto School, Nishida Kitaro, absolute nothingness, overcoming modernity, Mahayana Buddhism

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Mina Đikanović, Nevena Jevtić

Praxis School and the Lifelong
Critical Philosophical Attitude of Milan KangrgaPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0016
ORCID: 0000-0003-0582-3922
ORCID: 0000-0002-1764-3251

Abstract: Milan Kangrga was one of the foremost members of the Yugoslavian Praxis School, a school of philosophy active in the 1960s and 1970s. Members of the school founded the journal “Praxis” (1964–1974) and declared their goal in the first editorial: “The primary task of Yugoslavian Marxists is to critically discuss Yugoslavian socialism.” It fuelled their theoretical work, their monumental translating achievements, and their commitment to strengthening the philosophical culture of the region in decades to come. Kangrga’s book Ethical Problem in the Works of Karl Marx, published in 1963, became an outline of the school’s programme for an alternative reading of Marx. He related Marx to the philosophical tradition of German idealism, mainly Hegel’s philosophy. Twenty years later, Kangrga published Ethics or Revolution, further arguing in favour of the fundamental significance of German idealist thinkers for understanding Marx (being the first one who brought Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s practical philosophy to the Yugoslavian public). Kangrga maintained a lifelong critical philosophical attitude and his example is a part of the Praxis School’s living legacy at the University of Novi Sad to this day.

Key words: Yugoslavian Marxism, Praxis School, philosophy, revolution, socialism, Milan Kangrga

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Max Urchs, Klaus Wuttich

“Complex Logic” in Berlin: The Becoming
of a Scientific School and Its Premature EndPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0017
ORCID: 0000-0002-5406-6684
ORCID: 0000-0002-0747-5442

Abstract: Building on ideas of Aleksander Zinoviev, Berlin logician Horst Wessel further developed a conception of so-called complex logic in his research group at the Humboldt University of Berlin in the 1970s. That new orientation within philosophical logic included a theory of logical consequences, a non-traditional theory of predication and a logical theory of terms. The logic group at Humboldt University disintegrated during the reorientation of higher education policy in the wake of German unification. By then, the school had produced some recognized logicians and it had educated a few highly talented young researchers among graduate students. In our paper we try to answer the question of whether the Berlin group would have had the potential to become a school of science under more favourable circumstances.

Key words: school of science, meme, menome, Berlin school of complex logic

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Décio Krause

A Brazilian Southern School in the Philosophy of Physics: Identity, Indistinguishability, and Individuality in Quantum TheoriesPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0018
ORCID: 0000-0003-0463-2796

Abstract: This paper presents the works developed by a group of researchers mainly in the South of Brazil on the philosophy of physics, dealing mostly with the logic and metaphysics of the notions of identity, indistinguishability, and individuality of quantum entities.

Key words: South of Brazil, philosophy of physics, identity and individuality of quantum entities, non-individuality, quantum metaphysics, quasi-set theory

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Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik

The Lublin Philosophical School: Its Promising Paradigm of Philosophizing and Social RelevancePDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0019
ORCID: 0000-0002-4834-318X

Abstract: The term “Lublin Philosophical School” refers to a mode of philosophizing (which might be called a paradigm) and a teaching programme devised in the 1950s at the Catholic University of Lublin. Against the background of the concept of “school,” the paper first shows the origin of and motives for developing a specific mode of philosophizing as well as phases of the Lublin School’s development. It then discusses some methodological features, indicating that realism, empiricism and accepting the truth as a goal of philosophical cognition are decisive for this mode of philosophizing. In spite of substantive debates within the School, it constitutes the unitas in pluribus. The paper then shows that those methodological features, also wisdom-directedness, justify the roles in individual and social life that the School ascribes to philosophy, including its role as a self-consciousness of culture and a basis for dialogue. The paper claims that this mode of philosophizing can take up issues that arise in our contemporary intellectual environment, and it constitutes a promising paradigm for solving them. Thus, even if the Lublin Philosophical School was founded seventy years ago, its methodology and theoretical approaches are of value for us today and therefore it is worthwhile to develop further its achievements.

Key words: Lublin Philosophical School, realism, empiricism, truth, wisdom, philosophy as self-consciousness of culture

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Anna Brożek

The Lvov-Warsaw School after 1950PDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0020
ORCID: 0000-0003-1807-7631

Abstract: Although most historians of philosophy agree about the date of the Lvov-Warsaw School’s beginning (the year 1895, when Kazimierz Twardowski was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy in Lvov), the question of the end of the School’s activities is an object of controversies. A few decades ago, the prevailing view was that the School ceased to exist between 1939 and 1950 as a result of World War II and its aftermath. Today, it is more and more common to say that the School also existed in the second half of the 20th century, although in a slightly different form than before. After presenting this controversy over the Lvov-Warsaw School’s existence in the first part of the paper, in the second and third parts I sketch the history and main features of the School and the reasons why World War II and its consequences caused its collapse. In the fourth part, I first list the criteria of the existence of philosophical schools and then analyze to what degree the Lvov-Warsaw School fulfilled these criteria after 1950. I end with some remarks on the recent developments of the Lvov-Warsaw philosophical tradition.

Key words: philosophical schools, Lvov-Warsaw School, Polish analytic philosophy

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Ricardo Arturo Nicolás-Francisco

On the Polish “Via Modalization” Approach to ParaconsistencyPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0021
ORCID: 0000-0001-5490-9357

Abstract: In this paper, I survey the history of the Polish tradition of paraconsistency and its chronological development. I outline the features of this tradition to provide some insights into the more general notion of philosophical schools. The main features of the Polish tradition of paraconsistency are the continuation of research on a previous philosophical tradition and international collaboration.

Key words: Polish tradition, discussive logic, paraconsistent, modal logic, inconsistency

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Marcin W. Bukała, Wojciech W. Gasparski

The Polish School of Praxiology: Historical Background, Essential Features, the Founder and Main RepresentativesPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0022
ORCID: 0000-0002-6489-9137
ORCID: 0000-0002-0286-9303

Abstract: The text is dedicated to the Polish School of Praxiology, founded primarily by Tadeusz Kotarbiński. The aim of the article is to present an outline of the history of the School, to review the scientific contribution of its main representatives, and to indicate its essential features. The School connects praxiology sensu scricto (theory of action), ethics, together with felicitolology, within the framework of practical philosophy. Kotarbiński’s concept of praxiology can be described as “small philosophy” in contradistinction to many 19th-century all-encompassing syntheses, which were often substitutes of worldviews; in the interpretation of Wojciech W. Gasparski this concept is also called “philosophy of practicality.” In the article, the Polish School of Praxiology is compared in some aspects with the Lvov-Warsaw School and the Austrian School of Economics (more precisely, with the philosophical foundations of the latter school).

Key words: Polish School of Praxiology, praxiology, praxeology, philosophia practica, philosophy of practicality, Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Ludwig von Mises, Jan Zieleniewski, theory of organization

Paweł Polak, Kamil Trombik

The Kraków School of Philosophy in Science: Profiting from Two TraditionsPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0023
ORCID: 0000-0003-1078-469X
ORCID: 0000-0003-0235-9490

Abstract: We set several aims for this paper: first, we wanted to attempt to show that from the perspective of historical and philosophical research, it is legitimate to accept the thesis for the existence of the Kraków School of Philosophy in Science, which was rooted in the activities of Michał Heller and Józef Życiński. We also wanted to make a comparative analysis of the basic specific determinants of the Lvov-Warsaw School (as a model for a philosophical school) and their correspondence in the Kraków School. Further, we wished to show how the Kraków School of Philosophy in Science is actually an adaptation of Kazimierz Twardowski’s model, of course taking into account the differences between them. Finally, we wanted to illustrate the nature of the philosophy in the Kraków School and discuss the current efforts to develop it further.

Key words: Kraków School of Philosophy in Science, Lvov-Warsaw School, philosophy of science, philosophy in science, Polish philosophy, Michał Heller, Józef Życiński, Kazimierz Twardowski

Peter Beilharz

From Capitalism to Modernity and Back:
Adventures with the Budapest SchoolPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0024
ORCID: 0000-0001-8707-5758

Abstract: The moment of the Budapest School in Australia was vital, for the visitors and for us. Was it still then a school? This is an open question. Here I focus on Melbourne, and on the work and influence of Ferenc Fehér and Ágnes Heller. I will use two essays to focus on the mutual interaction: Class, Democracy, Modernity (1983) and Why We Should Maintain the Socialist Objective (1981/1982). Fehér and Heller made the decisive, in effect Weberian, move away from the category of capitalism to that of modernity as the overarching horizon. At the same time, Heller offered a forgotten political intervention into the discourse of the Australian Labor Party, on the necessity of claims to the values of socialism. Four decades on, the latter essay seems arcane, while the former retains its potency, but is also pressured by the revived centrality of capitalism. After both cases, the core value given to democracy might now also come under question, forty years on.

Key words: Budapest School, Fehér, Heller, socialism, ALP, modernity

John Grumley

Contemporary Critical TheoryPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0021
ORCID: 0000-0001-5490-9357

Abstract: This paper employs the work of Ágnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér as a characterization of a contemporary critical theory. Critical theory is not “an argument across the ages” nor another attempt at traditional metaphysics. Like modern thinkers G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, influenced by the French Revolution, the critical theory tradition endeavours to practically engage with the present and inches towards an undetermined future. Ágnes Heller and György Márkus fuse knowledge of the modern sciences with a historical anthropology that becomes an agent of practical transformation. These émigrés from Budapest took the opportunities of the capitalist West against modern societies’ fault lines to theorize a potential better future. They marshal modern knowledge against existing social reality towards a present, still typically irrational society. Contemporary critical theory has this intent and occupies this space.

Key words: critical theory, Ágnes Heller, Ferenc Fehér, Budapest School in Australia

John Rundell

From the Budapest School to Intellectual Friendships: Reflections with Ágnes Heller and Immanuel KantPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0026
ORCID: 0000-0002-8072-6797

Abstract: Rather than considering those thinkers identified with the Budapest School in institutional terms, this paper suggests that the notion of friendship is a more appropriate way to consider the thinkers formerly associated with such a “school.” This paper explores the condition and disposition of friendship through the works of Ágnes Heller and Immanuel Kant, especially, to throw light on the notion and practice of modern friendship in the context of the historical dissolution of philosophical schools, including the Budapest School. This paper explores how modern friendship – its cultivation and dispositions – might be understood.

Key words: Budapest School, Budapest friends, Ágnes Heller, Immanuel Kant, friendship

Peter Murphy

Being Oneself: Encountering Ágnes Heller and the Budapest SchoolPDF

DOI: 10.14394/edufil.2022.0027
ORCID: 0000-0003-2507-5167

Abstract: The Budapest School of philosophers and sociologists formed around the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács in the 1960s and dissipated when many of its members went into exile from Hungary in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A number went to Australia, and the last collective works of the Budapest School were produced there just as the cooperative intellectual impetus of the group dissolved. One of the Budapest School philosophers, Ágnes Heller, took up a lecturing post at La Trobe University where she supervised the PhD of the author of this paper, Peter Murphy. The paper explores Heller’s trajectory out of group philosophy into an existential view of philosophy as a “truth for me,” and Murphy’s philosophical relationship with Heller, with the idea of a school of philosophy, and with the notion of a personal philosophy.

Key words: Budapest School, Ágnes Heller, Georg Lukács, communism, Hungary, freedom, life, beauty, Renaissance, irony, paradox, pendulum, equilibrium, dissatisfaction, happiness, Australia