Transcendental Turn in Contemporary Philosophy-5: The Transcendental Method and Modern Science

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“Noema” and “Noesis” by Information after Husserl’s Phenomenology Interpreted Formally

Husserl’s “noema” and “noesis” are main concepts in phenomenology able to represent its originality. Following the trace of a recent paper, its formal and philosophical approach is extended to both correlative notions, in the present article. They are able to reveal the genesis of the world from consciousness in a transcendental method relevant to Husserl, but furthermore described formally as a process of how subjective temporality appears being isomorphic to objective temporality of the “world by itself” (an abstraction meaning it out of consciousness or transcendental consciousness): thus, it shares the same mathematical structure, which is embodied in the physical process of decoherence by the physical quantity of quantum information. The temporal world is able to appear naturally . The same process translated by formal and mathematical tools as interpreted in terms of “noema”, “noesis”, or transcendental consciousness is isomorphic to how “Self” appears in virtue of transcendental consciousness.

“Noema” and “Noesis” by Information after Husserl’s Phenomenology Interpreted Formally

Along with “epoché” or his “reductions”, Husserl’s “noema” and “noesis”, being neologisms invented by him, are main concepts in phenomenology able to represent its originality. Following the trace of a recent paper, its formal and philosophical approach is extended to both correlative notions, in the present article. They are able to reveal the genesis of the world from consciousness in a transcendental method relevant to Husserl, but furthermore described formally as a process of how subjective temporality appears being isomorphic to objective temporality of the “world by itself” (an abstraction meaning it out of consciousness or transcendental consciousness): thus, it shares the same mathematical structure, which is embodied in the physical process of decoherence by the physical quantity of quantum information. The temporal world is able to appear naturally (rather as a ridiculous effect of the mythical “Big Bang”). The same process translated by formal and mathematical tools as interpreted in terms of “noema”, “noesis”, or transcendental consciousness is isomorphic to how “Self” (including in an individual and psychological sense) appears in virtue of transcendental consciousness.

Repdigits as Product of Terms of k-Bonacci Sequences

For any integer k≥2, the sequence of the k-generalized Fibonacci numbers (or k-bonacci numbers) is defined by the k initial values F−(k−2)(k)=⋯=F0(k)=0 and F1(k)=1 and such that each term afterwards is the sum of the k preceding ones. In this paper, we search for repdigits (i.e., a number whose decimal expansion is of the form aa…a, with a∈[1,9]) in the sequence (Fn(k)Fn(k+m))n, for m∈[1,9]. This result generalizes a recent work of Bednařík and Trojovská (the case in which (k,m)=(2,1)). Our main tools are the transcendental method (for Diophantine equations) together with the theory of continued fractions (reduction method).

Ontological and epistemological models of the transcendent and transcendental in ancient metaphysics

The article is devoted to the analysis of ontological and epistemological models of the transcendent and transcendental in ancient philosophy, which allows us to understand the genesis and foundations of the main variants of metaphysics in classical thought. In general, constructions of ancient Greek thought are characterized by the understanding of the transcendent as "other" being, the higher sphere of the "cosmos of nature", which has specific spatio-temporal properties, which is outside the immanent world of man. Ontological terms, the Cosmos was subdivided into earthly being, in which a man lives, and being "beyond", inaccessible to a man because of his bodily and vital limitations. In epistemological terms the transcendent was considered incomprehensible for sensory cognition, but accessible for cognition of the speculative, although not in full. The metaphysical model of the transcendental created by antiquity did not provide for the existence of an independent "human cosmos" isolated from the external world. The main task of the transcendental method was to determine the conditions by which it is possible to think of the data of empirical observations.

An Unoccupied Place: Theoretical Emulations of the Subject

More than thirty years ago, Jean-Luc Nancy was urged by his American and Italian colleagues to invite several French philosophers to address “post-subjectivity” in a special issue of the journal Topoi entitled “Who comes after the subject? ” What Nancy’s colleagues provided was not in the end so much a deconstruction of the subject, but more a critique and, of course, a reflection on the conditions that make the question itself possible. The question as stated was ambiguous: it could be read in the spirit of deconstruction, and the answers made to it would then be various options for a non-subjective reconfiguration; or it could be interpreted as a forecast or even a hidden threat. In any case, “Who comes after the subject? ” is to be read as relevant to the future, an invitation to prognosticate and an opening up of perspective. What conceptual movement are we making when we think about “conditions of possibility,” that is, when we produce a critique in accordance with the precepts of the Kantian transcendental method? The “condition of possibility” is a principle of seriality, a movement in search of the conditions of conditions; hence, the critical maneuver can be performed indefinitely. But there is a logically possible alternative to a “condition of possibility” if we change the terms of the search from conditions of conditions to the possibility of possibility. To think of the “unoccupied place” of a subject means that the attempt is not working with the category itself, but instead with its conceptual context because the category itself can be interpreted as a presence. The thinking in the issue of Logos introduced by this article represents a slice of modern speculative, theoretical, hermeneutic work neither in the tradition of transcendentalism nor explicitly outside it, but alongside it. At the same time, some of the efforts being proposed are devoted to classical topics and problems of the conceptual field in question (the historical subject, capabilities, action), and some others demonstrate how the problems of the transcendental tradition are projected onto political theory, sociology and cybernetics.

Understanding the Virtues of Enlightenment Epistemology

The paper tries to demonstrate the hypothesis that the Enlightenment epistemology is the unity of the constructivist theory of knowledge—that developed the transcendental conditions of knowing—and the ethical maximalism of the categorical imperative. Actually, the ethical maximalism was conceived of and is conceivable only in tandem with and as a result of the epistemological constructivism that alone enables the responsibility without which the ethical stakes remain an exterior normative speculation. The unity supported the development of the concept of critique as autonomous use of reason, of education of the critical spirit, and of public presence of critiques. Surveying Kant’s What is Enlightenment and Contest of Faculties, the concepts and the logic related to the critical spirit are described, as well as their interpretations mainly by Foucault. The radical character of Enlightenment is given not by its liberal political theories but just by the above mentioned unity. With Enlightenment, criticism became more than the critique of empirical facts and abstract theories: it became a transcendental method uniting the conditions of every type of criticism and advancing the logic of self-criticism and moral construction.

AXIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ORTHODOX AND PHILOSOPHICAL THEISM (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF V.D. KUDRYAVTSEV-PLATONOV)

The article analyzes the transcendental method applied to the axiology of Russian religious philosophy on the example of V.D. Kudryavtsev-Platonov’s works. The author offers a description of the contradiction between the transcendental method in the form in which it was implemented in Platonism and Kantianism as variants of non-Christian philosophizing, and Orthodox theism. Platonism and Kantianism tried to justify such a variant of the relationship between the transcendent and the immanent, which can be called transcendentism. In axiological terms, transcendentism represents the sphere of values as something that belongs to a special world: in Platonism, the sphere of values is identical to the sphere of ideas; in the Kantian tradition, it is placed in the consciousness of a conditional transcendental subject. Both versions of philosophizing lead to the divorce of the spiritual and material principles of the world due to their abstraction, and not concreteness. The author concludes That V...

Moral Problems in Russian Neo-Kantianism: The Specifics of the Formation of Transcendental Philosophy in Russia

The article is devoted to the complex problem of the development of Russian Neo-Kantianism in the context of the history of transcendental philosophy. The general tendency of the development of transcendental philosophy in the form of “the history of motives”, identified on the basis of historical and philosophical analysis, is outlined. The formation of Russian Neo-Kantianism as an original creative direction is the result of its development in the context of German Neo-Kantian methodology and the pursuit of Russian philosophers for independent thinking. The specificity of moral issues and its originality are most clearly reflected in the writings of Russian Neo-Kantians, starting with A. I. Vvedensky. Nevertheless, the general vector of development of their views is consistent with European philosophical tradition. B. A. Focht and V. E. Sezeman deal with the problems of the transcendental method, and S. I. Hessen directs his efforts to the formation of the philosophy of education on the principles of critical idealism of I. Kant. The novelty of the study consists in the identification of the specifics of the Russian NeoKantian methodological approach in the context of the development of transcendental philosophy project. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the relationship between freedom and responsibility, the specifics of the disclosure of the “principle of obligation”. In conclusion, it is noted that a characteristic feature of Russian neo-Kantianism is the rethinking of the inextricability of a holistic worldview and the complementarity of three “Critics” of I. Kant.