CHRONOPOLITICS AS A POLITICAL ONTOLOGY OF TIME (BIOPOLITICAL ASPECT)

The work of the 7th round table «Philosophy: Hermeneutics of Concepts» is devoted to bio- and chronopolitics. Biopolitics as a powerful organization of the population’s life in the forms of medicalization, normalization and regulation has a direct impact on the biological life of the human. However, this does not mean that bio-power solves the problem of «nature versus nurture» exclusively in favor of human nature. Bio-power also seeks to design the human environment. Biopolitical tools of influence on social time can be designated by the concept of chronopolitics. Chronopolitics, being an integral part of the whole biopolitical impact on a person, appears in the forms of permanent intensification of time; metaphysical interpretation of time, which has political and legal consequences; interpretation of history, in the hermeneutic circle of which the rewriting of the past implies the goal of forming an affective post-memory, which allows us to reconstruct the present and to form trends corresponding to the image of the future bio-power. Chronopolitics accelerates social time and, by contributing to the formation of mega-machine structures that meet the teleology of bio-power, carries increasing risks for human civilization.

The Bundle Theory Approach to Relational Quantum Mechanics

The present essay provides a new metaphysical interpretation of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) in terms of mereological bundle theory. The essential idea is to claim that a physical system in RQM can be defined as a mereological fusion of properties whose values may vary for different observers. Abandoning the Aristotelian tradition centered on the notion of substance, I claim that RQM embraces an ontology of properties that finds its roots in the heritage of David Hume. To this regard, defining what kind of concrete physical objects populate the world according to RQM, I argue that this theoretical framework can be made compatible with (i) a property-oriented ontology, in which the notion of object can be easily defined, and (ii) moderate structural realism, a philosophical position where relations and relata are both fundamental. Finally, I conclude that under this reading relational quantum mechanics should be included among the full-fledged realist interpretations of quantum theory.

Lucy Allais. In Defense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism. (Book Review Allais L. Manifest Reality. Kant’s Idealism and his Realism. Oxford University Press (UK), 2015, 329 pp. ISBN 9780198747130)

In a review of the book “Manifest Reality. Kant's Idealism and his Realism” I present Lucy Allais's moderate metaphysical interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism. An overview of the structure of the book acquaints the reader with the author's argumentation strategy. Allais criticizes the dominant interpretations of Kant's transcendental idealism and reveals their contradictions. Further, she develops her own interpretation of Kant's position, combining realism and idealism, metaphysical and epistemological judgments. Intuition plays a central role in the elicited epistemological contrast between intuition and concepts, and between intuition and sensation.

Religion and Identity – Anthropological Guiding Lines

"The human being is homo religiosus through his ability to experience the sacred, laying special emphasis on the meaning of existence of all things, expressed afterwards in a metaphysical interpretation concealed behind symbolic-religious language. One of the most important processes of integration into reality is self-identification as a person and gaining a group identity –processes that take different shapes over the history of human existence. The formation of state entities has always been preceded by a process of creating a social identity that manifests itself through the spiritual life materialized in culture and religion. These processes have led to the birth of mediaeval states and then to the shaping of modern Europe, necessary to the deconstructions and reconstructions in the inter-war time. These processes are also visible today during cultural globalization. What we need is a critical approach on unity in diversity that characterizes humanity in history and that will shape the future evolution of humanity. Keywords: church, faith, state entities, globalization, identity, nation, religion."

Method vs. Metaphysics

This article discusses Descartes’s preferred focus on morally and theologically neutral subjects and points out the impact of this focus on the scientific status of theology. It does so by linking Descartes’s method to his transformation of the notion of substance. Descartes’s Meditations centred around epistemological questions rather than non-human intelligences or the life of the mind beyond this world. Likewise, in his early works, Descartes consistently avoided referring to causal operators. Finally, having first redefined the notion of substance in the Principia, Descartes would completely abandon making use of this notion in his later years. Indeed, in contrast to many authors before and after him, Descartes never showed any interest in the long-established metaphysical interpretation of substances as being causal factors of natural change. With God, nature, and mind commonly serving as instances of substantial causality, Descartes’s philosophy had a huge impact on the place of God in science and discreetly excluded theology as a subject to which his method might be applied.

ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION

The article highlights meaningful value of the concept “educational environment” and the following terms related to it such as educational system, educational field, educative, teaching and educational, educational and developmental environment based on a thorough analysis of research background. The analysis of the specified category has been conducted in the context of life space of a pre-school education establishment. The attention is focused on the developmental orientation of educational environment in pre-school within the conditions of the content integration of pre-school education. The emphasis is placed on the symbiotic relationship and interdependence between educational environment in pre-school and a child’s personality and singularity. The author points out that the specific character of the educational environment like any other one means that it cannot be comprehensible without collation with the relevant agent transforming it and at the same time being transformed. The analysis of scientific sources gives grounds to state that such phrases have become stable as educative, educational, formative, lifelike, professional, educatory, health-maintaining, teaching and educational, natural, socio-cultural, social environment, educational system. The metaphysical interpretation of the environment is connected with the idea of a system: when we pick out a certain system for consideration, everything that does not belong to it becomes its external environment and those things that belong are its internal environment. Based on the available reasonable conclusions about the components of the environment we came to the conclusion about the structure complexity of the studied conception. Concurrently, it is summed up that the educational environment of a school is a fertile ground to ensure the harmony of human relations between an educator and a pupil, a beneficial area fro development of a child’s unique personality. Taking into account the analysis of different approaches and considerations of scholars the conclusion has been made that the educational environment of pre-school is a synthesis of conditions providing the qualitative development of personality, a source for formation of a system of values.

「玄解」《世說》：以「桓公入峽」、「孫、褚論南北之學」為示例

<p>胡曉明在序龔斌《世說新語校釋》時，提出「正解與通識如何可能」的問題，並以「得意忘言」作為通識的美學向度，此一進路已納玄入美而為《世說》的解讀展開思想層面上的拓深，但筆者尤期待可以進一步運用魏晉玄學兩端的辯證性思維，使《世說》與「玄學」之間形成更為密切的連結，基於這樣的反省，本文選取「桓公入峽」、「褚、孫論南北之學」作為玄解以開新的示例。</p> <p>筆者針對這兩章的文本與歷來解釋展開深入的考察及精讀，從《世說》兩種傳統解讀向度─史評與文賞之得失出發，進而另闢並賦予「玄解」一後設解讀的新進路，在此脈絡下的玄解，實有別於以往扣緊清談論題的玄學，而是重回《世說》裡具體生動的人物言行，去發現玄學與生活的相濟為美，並且透過歷來解釋的不同視域，積極回應我們當下的處境與問題，以掘發《世說》與時俱進的文化潛力。</p> <p>面對這本兼攝文史哲的偉大奇書，筆者力圖建構世說學「史評+文賞+玄解」三合一的詮釋學，自有其合理性與必要性，尤深盼經此融舊納新的努力，使詮釋學不必成為全然假手於西學的知識型態，亦能有助於爾後中國詮釋學的深植與拓展。</p> <p>&nbsp;</p><p>When writing a preface to Gong Bin&rsquo;s Shishou Xinyu Jiao Shi, Hu Xiaoming put forward the question of &ldquo;how a correct interpretation and a general understanding can go hand in hand&rdquo;. He based his aesthetic pursuit of a general understanding on deyi wang yan, an approach that has already adopted both aesthetic and metaphysical perspectives from which to interpret Shishuo. However, the present author particularly endeavors to utilize the dialectical thinking prevalent in Wei-Jin metaphysics, hoping to bring a closer link between Shishuo and metaphysics. This article addresses this issue by using as its examples &ldquo;Huangong ruxia&rdquo; and &ldquo;Sun&rsquo;s and Chu&rsquo;s Commentaries on Nanbeixue&rdquo;</p> <p>The present researcher conducts an in-depth investigation into and an intensive reading of the two key texts. The analysis starts from the two traditional interpretations of Shishuo &ndash; the history and the literary appreciation of the work &ndash; and it then renders a Wei-Jin metaphysical interpretation with a meta perspective. Different from the metaphysical discourse, the new approach situates reading in the context of Shishuo by paying equal attention to Wei-Jin metaphysics and life at that time. Through the multifaceted lenses afforded by different historical periods, this project actively seeks to respond to our current situation and problems, in order to explore the rich cultural potential of Shishuo, which accumulates with time.</p> <p>In the face of this great literary, historical and philosophical classic, the author attempts to develop a hermeneutic approach that combines history commentaries, literary appreciations, and Wei-Jin metaphysics. As such, hermeneutics does not have to rely on the Western knowledge of the subject but is being developing from within the study of Chinese literature.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

Reflective Access, Closure, and Epistemological Disjunctivism

In this paper, I consider the so-called Access Problem for Duncan Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012). After reconstructing Pritchard's own response to the Access Problem, I argue that in order to assess whether Pritchard's response is a satisfying one, we first need an account of the notion of ‘Reflective Access’ that underpins Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism. I provide three interpretations of the notion of Reflective Access: a metaphysical interpretation, a folk interpretation, and an epistemic interpretation. I argue that none of these three interpretations comes without problems. I conclude that, until we have a clear and unproblematic account of Reflective Access, the Access Problem remains a challenge for Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism.

Space Emergence in Contemporary Physics: Why We Do Not Need Fundamentality, Layers of Reality and Emergence

‘Space does not exist fundamentally: it emerges from a more fundamental non-spatial structure.’ This intriguing claim appears in various research programs in contemporary physics. Philosophers of physics tend to believe that this claim entails either that spacetime does not exist, or that it is derivatively real. In this article, I introduce and defend a third metaphysical interpretation of the claim: reductionism about space. I argue that, as a result, there is no need to subscribe to fundamentality, layers of reality and emergence in order to analyse the constitution of space by non-spatial entities. It follows that space constitution, if borne out, does not provide empirical evidence in favour of a stratified, Aristotelian in spirit, metaphysics. The view will be described in relation to two particular research programs in contemporary physics: wave function realism and loop quantum gravity.