PROBLEMOS. 1998, vol. 52The annual journal of Vilnius University. Founded in 1968. The articles are published in Lithuanian and other languages. |
The editorial board:
Prof. habil. dr. ANTANAS ANDRIJAUSKAS (VDA), doc. dr. LEONIDAS DONSKIS (KU), prof. habil. dr. ALGIRDAS GAIÞUTIS (KMI), doc. dr. ÈESLOVAS KALENDA (VU, vyr. redaktorius), prof. habil. dr. BRONISLOVAS KUZMICKAS (LFSI), prof. dr. ALGIS MICKËNAS (Ohajo u-tas, JAV), prof. habil. dr. EVALDAS NEKRAÐAS (VU), doc. dr. ZENONAS NORKUS (VU), prof. habil. dr. ROLANDAS PAVILIONIS (VU), prof. habil. dr. ROMANAS PLEÈKAITIS (VU), prof. dr. KÆSTUTIS SKRUPSKELIS (Pietø Karolinos u-tas, JAV), doc. dr. TOMAS SODEIKA (VDU), doc. dr. KRESCENCIJUS STOÐKUS (VU), prof. habil. dr. ARVYDAS ÐLIOGERIS (VU).Contact Address:
Vilniaus universiteto Filosofijos katedra,
Didlaukio 47, 2057 Vilnius; tel. 770706.
ROMANAS PLEÈKAITIS
Descartes’ homo cogitans manifested a new understanding of human value. It meant the scientific personality that suggested that science was the highest value, the universal mean of acting and explanation. It was discovered during the time that scientific methods and technology created according to these methods were not the only possible methods which met human’s requirements and abilities. Science did not recognize, and even suppressed, a large part of human experience, which did not fit into the scientific explanatory framework. Though contemporary homo cogitans maintains the heritage of Descartes’, who was a critic and doubtful as well, and did not assume the truth so clearly and distinctly, Descartes’ intuition maintained naive, and his knowledge seemed to be probabilistic.
EUGENIJUS VASILEVSKIS
This article is an analysis of Rene Descartes’ considerations about the human being. Those considerations take us into the realm of philosophical anthropology. Referring to its base, Descartes analyzed onthological and ethical problems. Contents of the Human mind and consciousness attracted the great scientist’s attention. His conclusion, "Cogito ergo sum" – If I think, I exist – was dualistic and one-sided. Rational understanding of the human being brought the classics into the wrong propositions of the subject question.
EDMUNDAS KRAKAUSKAS
Almost four hundred years ago R. Descartes (1596–1650) argued cogito ergo sum. This argument has been analyzed up to the present day and will continue to be analyzed in the future. Is man real as a spiritual being or is he with two natures: material and spiritual? A man is not material (that is his body). The words man and body are not synonyms. Man is only real as a rational being; he is only an understandable phenomenon. The body is a phenomenon of sensation (that is, at the biological level). The argument for the material nature of man is impossible; in such a case the argument itself must be treated as a natural phenomenon.
ÈESLOVAS KALENDA
The idea of nature control in Western civilisation is not only connected with ecological-climatic conditions as well as with social conditions but also with the nature of people and the properties of thinking, which are only typical to the human brain’s functional asymmetry. It was decisive in the West, differently from the East, that a rational, analytic rudiment was developed which legalized the antipode between subject and object, nature and spirit.
Being one of the most outstanding successors of this tradition R. Descartes, a pupil of the Jesuit college, was devoted to a comparatively moderate position concerning the problems of nature control without any claim to global domination that was distinct to the gnosticism and hermetism of that time. Descartes’ ontology based on rationalism has, however, contributed to the strengthening of the mechanistic world model and, owing to it, granted a philosophical approval of man’s aspiration to remake and control nature.
NERIJUS MILERIUS
The article deals with the problem of the nongnoseological dimension of the Cartesian subject. The Cartesian theory of subject has centered around the gnoseological discourse of philosophy of the New Ages. On the other hand, namely due to this reason, the crisis of the gnoseological discourse has made clear the indispensable contradictions of the Cartesian subject theory itself. According to the author, the only possibility to discuss the problem of the nongnoseological dimension of the Cartesian subject is to analyze the procedures by means of which the thinking I transforms itself into an acting and knowing subject. Analysis of these procedures, however, have revealed their uniqueness and indefiniteness. Thus, the definition of the nongnoseological dimension of the Cartesian subject does not seem to be possible.
RASA ÞIEMYTË
Descartes’ influence on phenomeno-logy is revealed in the context of other persons by whom E. Husserl was influenced. Some general ideas of Descartes and Husserl (which both resemble each other and are different, from each other) are compared to the phenomenological perspective. Cartesian philosophy is criticised in a Husserlian manner.
GINTAUTAS MAÞEIKIS
The Renaissance’s sources of Descartes’ method are discussed in this article. Main attention is paid to the cabbalistic principles of Ramon Lull’s "Short Art" and Brunian and Ramist art of memory. Descartes knew Lull’s art to which he reffered to in very derogatory terms. The same logical, Pythagorean, and cabbalistic principles of Lullism, however, became the basis for the art of memory of the Renaissance and for the natural magic of the Renaissance, which Descartes knew. The occult art of memory of the Renaissance is also considered. J. Bruno was a great follower of occult art of memory and of the system of Lullism. The art of Peter Ramus arises to counterpose the official Catholic system of memory and the occult art of memory in the Protestant countries. The chief aim of the Ramist movement for the reform and simplification of education was to provide a new and better way of memorizing the subject. This was to be done using a new method, whereby every subject was to be arranged in a "dialectical order."
Descartes exercised his great mind on the art of memory and how it might be reformed. The mnemonic author who gave rise to his reflections was Lambert Schenkel. Descartes interpreted the traditional sacral Medieval art of memory and Renaissance occult art of memory as "corporeal memory" and "outside of us" as compared with "intellectual memory", which is within us and incapable of increase or decrease. There is a hypothesis that the art of memory, radical doubt, and some ideas of the Protestant movement were the sources of Descartes’ scientific method.
KÆSTUTIS MASIULIS
This article discusses Descartes’ input into the world picture of exact sciences of the Modern Age. The analytical geometry created by Descartes is considered to be the first successful attempt to develop analytical mathematics as a language of exact sciences. In the article, the author looks at Descartes’ rationalism and its impact on the development of modern sciences. The article analyses Descartes’ notions of inertia and the interrelation between matter and space.
NIJOLË AUKÐTUOLYTË
The common tendency of the New Ages to search for exact methods of nature investigation brings out the mathematical reflection of the world. In the development of the cognitive content mathematization, the transformation of mathematics into a universal scientific method gave R. Descartes the idea of universal mathematics which deals with the common form of rational cognition, the latter being generalized into the idea of universal scientific language. The idea of universal language allowed him to not only obtain a mathematical model of organizing knowledge, but also a paradigm of the language capable of representing the world.
ALGIRDAS AÞUBALIS
In mathematics R. Descartes was the first to arrange algebraical symbolics and to ground the method of equations, analytic goemetry, the coordinate system, and the concept of function. He was also the firs to approach the methods of differential and integral calculations.
The first Lithuanian book of problems in arithmetic was issued in 1885 (prepared by J. Spudulis and P. Matulionis), the P. Vileiðis textbook of arithmetic theory being issued in 1886. Both books are based on the method of equations. Algebraical symbolics was first presented in Lithuanian by A. Smetona in a translated textbook. The introduction of the concept of function into mathematics courses in school was initiated by Professor Z. Þemaitis’, whose idea was realized in algebra textbooks by J. Maðiotas, Z. Balutis-Balevièius, M. Ðikðnys, J. Dailidë, and by A. Dambrauskas-Jakðtas in trigonometry textbooks. Textbooks of higher mathematics for schools were written by J. Stoukus, B. Ketarauskas, A. Juðka and J. Gailevièius, while those for universities were prepared by O. Folkas, P. Katilius, Z. Þemaitis and Vikt. Birþiðka.
EVALDAS NEKRAÐAS
The article deals with some aspects of positivism’s place in philosophy. The adversaries of positivism are distinguished from representatives of philosophical trends such as Marxism and pragmatism, which, like positivism, present themselves as scientific philosophies. Fighting for social progress under the same banner of science, they are allies of positivism, not enemies.
Philosophers who disclaim that the scientific character of philosophy is the main indicator of its value may be regarded as adversaries of positivism. They belong to two main groups: members of the first group continue the philosophical tradition (mainly that of classical German philosophy) while representatives of the second group oppose the tradition but do so resting upon principles incompatible with those of positivists.
In the article the former are represented by F. H. Bradley and R. G. Collingwood and the latter by F. Nietzsche and M. Heidegger. Among theoretical reproaches against positivism, the most convincing, it seems, is Collingwood’s claim that positivism does not comprehend the role of absolute (unverifiable and unappraisable in truth-terms) presuppositions of science and does not understand that the task of metaphysics is to detect such propositions, yet it seems that not all positivists are to be blamed for this.
Relating positivism to thinkers attacking traditional metaphysics and belonging to the second group is quite a different task. For Nietzsche, positivism is a philosophy of the weak man. At the same time he believes that positivism excels all previous philosophies and is a step leading to his own philosophy. The relation of Heidegger to positivism is ambivalent as well. On the one hand positivism is for him the spiritual expression of the modern age, an essebtial element of modern civilisation. On the other hand, he regards positivism as a peculiar form of metaphysics and as such, to be overcome together with all metaphysics. It seems, however, that Heidegger’s hope that the character of world civilisation (which has been shaped by the positive, scientific world outlook) may radically change and a new civilisation capable of hearing the language of forgotten Being may be established has so far been proven futile.
As a separate and integral trend of philosophy, positivism does not exist any longer. Its adversaries may interpret this fact as a victory, yet in the form of positive thought it remains at the heart of our civilisation. To overcome it once and for all without destroying the very foundations of our way of life and our evermore common culture is much more difficult than the most prominent critics may think.
SAMI PIHLSTRÖM
The paper deals with the relation between realism and (neo)pragmatism in the contemporary philosophy of science by investigating two rival positions: Ilkka Niiniluoto’s "critical scientific realism" and Hilary Putnam’s "internal realism." The crucial difference between these two philosophers lies in their notions of truth. It turns out, however, that Putnam has, in his most recent writings, come closer to the kind of scientific realism he earlier abandoned as "metaphysical." Many realistic critiques of his thought have, therefore, become rather irrelevant. Putnam’s pragmatic version of realism can even be seen as accommodating the traditional idea of correspondence truth, provided that this notion is liberated from all kinds of essentialism. The Putnamean pragmatist does not share Niiniluoto’s and other realists’ desire to "define" truth. What is extremely problematic in Putnam’s latest views, however, is his attempt to return to a pre- or non-philosophical way of thinking about the relation between language and the world. His pragmatism is at least sometimes unpleasantly close to Rortyan anti-representationalism.
JONAS BALÈIUS
This work rests on the assumption that Plato as ethic is undeservedly ignored. He is traditionally considered to be the author of objective philosophical idealism. A more careful analysis proves that the famous scholar of antiquity is primarily the author of ontoethical philosophical conception. His essential philosophical convictions are very close to those of his teacher and greatest authority, Socrates. The later maintained that the true objects of philosophical studies were society and individuals together with their ethical orientations. Plato supplemented these ideas with the ontoethical conception of universum. This helps one understand his theory of "ideas": according to the Greek world view, nature, in its totality, was not only considered to be beautiful and harmonious, but also sensible. So the ideas of Good, Beauty, Truth, and Justice became the real reason of the world’s existence. A new aspect of Plato’s world view is his retributionalistic conception, according to which every person’s life is assessed after death. In this sense, Plato is the author of religious ethics.
NERIJA PUTINAITË
Kant defines ethics as a theory of pure practical reason and virtue, as a disposition to the accomplishment of moral law. Happines is, for him, an empirical determinant of behaviour and it cannot only be the first, but also the passible determinant of behaviour. The human being is distinctive according to the principle of reason that Kant asserts to be of primary and supreme significance. With its judgement, reason oversteps the limits of the empirical world (and happiness) and discovers the unconditional totality of its objects, as suprema good establishes the indispensable identity of happiness with virtue.