ARVYDAS ŠLIOGERIS
This article asks a traditional question of Western metaphysics: what the reality is all about? Yet the traditional, ontological direction of this question is changed and the reality is questioned in terms of what the autor of this article calls an ontotopical point of view. So the question is about where the mortal being meets the reality as absolute transcendence. Two imanently given orientatins towards this ontotopical reality are discovered: the intensiveness-plus which spurts from vast expanses of sensible things, and the intensiveness-minus emanating from the expanses of pure language. The corresponding instance of the first intensiveness is the first hand, immediate vision of the sensible thing; the corresponding instance of the second one is an immediate belief and absolute trust in pure word. That is why the two places of the reality are ultimately discovered - the alpha-reality and omega-reality, the senseless sensual thing ard the senseless transsensual word.
VYTAUTAS RIMVYDAS LITVINAS
The realization of Platonic stratified universality image arises difficulties to set a unifying foundation. Scrutinizing the meaning of the phenomenon and idea Aristotle solves their interrelation by introducing notions of potential and actual existence and relating those two existential modes in the highest actuality of Primary mover. Material and form are the specific aspects of Primary mover's activity, Universal components unifiedin actual infinity (this way the Primary mover can be called). That is Aristotle considers the unanimous Universal as an epiphahy of Absolute filling up all the ontic existence levels.
AUDRIUS BEINORIUS
The philosophical interpretation of the Buddhist concept of consciousness and stratification of its levels is analysed in the article with the reference to the Sanskrit sources of early Yogacara philosophy. A special attention is drawn to the treatises of Vasubandhu and by applying the phenomenological, comparative and semantic methods of research.
The tradition of the Yogacara school emerged as a reaction to various metaphysical and psychological attitudes of Theravada Buddhism and to philosophical nihilism of Madhyamaka school. Vasubandhu considers that is very important to follow the radical empirical epistemology that was formulated by Buddha. In the very important his treatise Trimsika Vasubandhu strictly follows the early tradition of Abhidharma cannon and precisely analises all elements of the process of perception, by avoiding metaphysical implications of Sarvastivada school. In his analysis of the three phases of transformation (parinama) of consciousness he extends the traditional Buddhist structure of consciousness by changing the function of mental consciousness (mano-vijnana) and intelect (manas), and by introducing the new for Buddhist phenomenology of consciousness the concept of the store-consciousness(alaya-vijnana). Introducing of the concept of the store-consciousness helped for yogacaras to solve a lot of philosophical and psychological problems concerning the question of the nature of person.
The issue of the reality of the external world is itself insignificant in Yogacara. The knowledge of the reality of the object is distorted by the personal perception and by the subjective mental conceptualisation. That is why his analysis of perception is directed against the existence of the metaphysical subject and the statement that it is possible to know anything purely objectively. What is real for him - not the ontological consciousness (vijnana), but purely epistemological representation-only (vijnapti-matrata).
AIVARAS STEPUKONIS
The Kantian concept of a priori manifests a twofold meaning: first, that there is a kind of knowledge that is independent of experience; second, that such knowledge is independent of experience through a kind of relatedness to that experience. In short, a priori means both 'being prior' and 'bing prior to' Kant's a priori encompasses the whole man and is not limited to his intellective facylty. Above all it is an anthropological category, whereas epistemology is but one of its specifications. The term a priori designates a structural dimensions of the being of man which pre-exists al that can ever be given to man and whose application is a necessary subjective cindition for anything to be giveable to man at all.
Hildebrand claims that each a priori proposition as such possesses three universal features: (1) strict necessity, (2) incomparable intelligibility, and (3) absolute certainty. But what does it mean to call something necessary, intelligible, certain, and a priori? Von Hildebrand leaves this question unanswered. His a priori in no way supplements, what he calls, propositional necessity, intelligibility and certainty and hence seems to be redundant. Hildebrand uses a priori in yet another sense, namely, in the sense of 'independent of blunt observation', but, he does not take the pain of explaining the meaning of the latter phrase.
Objective a priori for Scheler means the ontic antecedence of the ideal to the real. As soon as the essences are apprehended by some mind there arises a case of subjective a priori. When somebody apprehends an essence he is affected by that essence and his mind builds up a functional-categorial apparatus whereby it conceptualizes the world. As a result, a thing though or liked becomes a manner of thinking or liking. Scheler names this process 'the functionalization of essences', whole outcome is the subjective a priori structure of the mind. The Schelerian treatment of a priori seems to be the most balanced of the three considered. It takes in Kant's subjective a priori as 'a mental function' and complements it with an objective a priori represented by some ideal essence.
TOMAS KAČERAUSKAS
The purpose of the article is to show a contraversion of analytic and hermeneutic, the philosophy of explanation and understanding on basis early (Tractatus Logico Philosophicus) and late L. Wittgenstains (Philosophical Investigations) masterpieces.
The linguistic turn of Tractatus means a reduction of philosophical problems to the problems of logical semantic. It is posible, because early Wittgenstain supose an unified logical space. The meaning is an equivalent of a proposition and a fact. This "gramatic" supose an unified ontology of the world and his perception. This ontology is close to phenomenological looking. The ideas of early Wittgenstein are most original and influential comparing with Frege's, Russel's and Carnap's views.
The author of Philosophical Investigations modifies the problems of explanation to the problems of understanding. The variety of language games dosn't supose epistemic monism. So appears philosophy of speech instead of philosophy of language. Then the tasks of philosophy are regrounded. As philosophy or relativism Investigations are close to philosophy of Nietzche and Heidegger. But the understanding is without ontology. It is an adaptation usage mastering the technique. The picture as a ground of understanding links early and late Wittgenstein. The picture is given with speech, and a harmony of thought and facts in a picture is the understanding. Late Wittgenstein influenced the late hermeneutic and pragmatic analytic.
NERIJA PUTINAITĖ
The paper is an inquiry into the concept of retributive justice in Kant's "Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone" (1795). Kant proposes an explanation of theological terms (God, grace, punishment, and discharge) in the common field of moral and politic realms.
We find two kinds of justice as well as of worlds contrasted in Kant's philosophy: world of the absolute justice of God, and world of human justice. The strongest, rule-based justice is to be exercised in the world of human beings. This kind of justice must be based on the principles of speculative rationality alone. The justice of God is based on two principles: that of prudence and of grace. The possibility of grace that surpasses the speculative ability of human being is a secret or mystery to him.
Grace refers to and forms an inner moral historicity of human being. The source of historicity is change of human natural state of guilt and punishment into the state of joyful inner moral development. Only grace makes it possible for human being to change his moral inclinations from vicious to virtuous. Kant considers pain caused by vicious inclinations as a sign of God's retributive justice.
The paper raises questions about the possibility of discharge. Hypothesis is held that discharge takes place in time. It shows itself as the inner moral development of the human being and the state. The controversial notions of apologists and critics of Kant's philosophy are presented.
RŪTA MARIJA VABALAITĖ
The article deals with four actual aspects of Hegelian philosophy of morals and education. It is argued that his propositions are significant for the program of the present moral education. The first peculiarity consists in the statements, that present the matter for an analysis of the principles of morals, that are simultaneous but taken one with another are not consistent with. The other peculiarity is a topic of an activity, of bringing the issues nearer to the real life, of the conscious motivation of the actions. That argument is of particular importance to a criticism of the apathy and weakness of the modern youth. The third aspect consists in the notion of the means of moral education. Hegel speaks ironically of unfounded and futile moralising, of the criticism of present morals from the point of view of proper one, that is invented but does not exist. The fourth peculiarity, that is closely tied to the third, is Hegelian certitude in the nature of the matter of training. He points to the priority of firm discipline of thinking and to the priority of the classical education. That statements give us an opportunity to think of substantiated evaluation of the limitless tolerance that exists in our culture. The contemporary notion of subject enables us to assert that in spite of the totalitarian features of Hegelian philosophical system, his theory of morals is valuable for youth's education.
ALEKSANDRAS PATAPAS
An attempt is made to review the development of phenomenological theory. Brentano's classification of intentional acts is taken as a key of research. The possibility of developing phenomenology as an ethical theory is pointed out upon that classification. Epistemological significance of relationships between classes of intentional acts is especially emphasized. Analysis of those relationships is suggested as a possible core of disseminated phenomenological theory. Finally, the general inference about the phenomenological ethics as a very different highlight on basis of ethics is drawn out.
AUDRONĖ ŽUKAUSKAITĖ
The principle of enjoyment which is the object of our present investigations can be described by constant "sliding of meaning", caused not only by the polisemy of this concept but also by its dissemination in different areas of theorethical discourse. On the one side, the principle of enjoyment as it is formulated in the field of psychoanalysis, is displaced into the fields of ethics and ideology; this means that ethics and ideology become the object of psychoanalytical investigation. On the other side, the principle of enjoyment removes from the strictly psychoanalytical context and becomes the universal principle which organizes the structural frame of ethical and ideological discourse. In both cases these displacements or metastases signify an irreversible process: the enjoyment organizing different theorethical fields cannot be defined and explained in these fields. The enjoyment means unbearable and traumatic kernel of "the real", which conditions the symbolic universum of psychical, ethical, and ideological work, but cannot be incorporated by this universum.
