Jul 2026· Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia· Vol 82, pp. 171-196· 0 citations
Abstract
This article argues that Jean Baudrillard’s theory of qualities in Les Stratégies fatales can be clarified through a Schellingian interpretative key. Reconsidering Graham Harman’s object-oriented reading of Baudrillard, the paper addresses three related problems: the meaning of seduction as a “passage to a higher level,” the status of absence in Baudrillard’s anti-dialectical logic, and the nature of his theory of qualities. These issues converge in a single theoretical problem structured by intensification, redoubling, and qualified identity. First, Baudrillard’s use of Steigerung is reconstructed as an anti-Hegelian logic of potentiation or elevation to a higher potency, paralleling Schelling’s account in the 1813 draft of Die Weltalter. Second, Baudrillard’s treatment of absence, hyper-determination, and antagonism is interpreted through reduplicative identity (reduplicatio), which in Schelling grounds Steigerung. Third, Baudrillard’s “fatal qualities” are shown to concern not intrinsic and relational properties, but a theory of qualified identity in which a term becomes absolute by absorbing the energy of its contrary. On this basis, the article suggests that Baudrillard’s own strategy for thinking the passage from identity to non-identity without sublation takes shape through a reading of Schelling.
Sandra Newman’s Julia (2023) represents a new approach among the rewritings of George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). A retelling of Orwell’s dystopia from the perspective of Winston Smith’s love interest, Newman’s novel interrogates 1984’s representation of women. It is fundamentally feminist in tone, in that it gives voice to an underutilised female character, while also making it clear that the society imagined by Orwell is almost inevitably misogynistic inasmuch as it devalues, degrades, and prohibits personal relationships, erasing the very sphere that is traditionally female. In this respect, a key moment occurs when Newman’s Julia herself acknowledges that, under patriarchy, women are by definition “unpersons”—an Orwellian term referring to the erased identities produced by torture. This paper seeks to explore an inherent contradiction in the rewriting’s relationship to Orwell’s original, focusing on how, through Julia’s character, Newman’s novel navigates the ambiguity surrounding the possibility of a viable “female” world and ethics within Oceania’s patriarchal system which rigidly confines women to specific roles and positions.
Réka Törzsök· Journal of English Studies· 0 citations
The purpose of the article is to clarify the key aspects of Schopenhauer's moral theory. To achieve this goal, several tasks are solved: (1) Schopenhauer's meta-ethical position is clarified, (2) the arguments that Schopenhauer gives in defense of his own moral theory are discussed, (3) the counter-arguments that Schopenhauer brings against Kant's moral theory are analyzed. The methods of conceptual analysis, hermeneutical interpretation of primary sources and rational reconstruction are used. The content of the article is divided into three parts. The first part analyzes the main meta-ethical theses of Schopenhauer's moral theory: it clarifies (1) how the concepts of law and obligation are defined, (2) what meaning is attributed to the predicates “morally good” and “morally right”. A fragment of Schopenhauer's possible normative theory is reconstructed. The main theses of Schopenhauer's theory of motivation are clarified. In the second part, Schopenhauer's objections to the prescriptive concept of morality and the imperative form of moral theory are analyzed in detail. The critique of some theses of Kant's moral philosophy is discussed. Schopenhauer's argument against the “juridical” interpretation of the concept of morality is reproduced. Schopenhauer's reflection on the limits of applicability of the concept of obligation is analyzed. The issue of the boundaries of the deontic interpretation of moral concepts is discussed. The third part examines Schopenhauer's moral theory proper. The thesis of the normative primacy of intentions is analyzed. Schopenhauer's argument in favor of motivational internalism is clarified. The issue of the relationship between reason and emotions within the practical activities of agents, as well as the issue of the role of moral principles, is discussed. The issue of justification of moral actions is considered separately and Schopenhauer's answer to the question of the value of moral actions is analyzed.
Marina Yu. Vasilieva, Dmitry G. Mironov· Philosophy of the History of...· 0 citations
This paper provides a critical analysis of Christine Korsgaard’s constructivist attempt to ground moral obligation in the reflective structure of “practical identity.” Korsgaard posits that the normative force of moral laws stems from the agent’s internal necessity to maintain a coherent self-conception. The central argument of this paper is that in Korsgaard’s framework, moral motivation devolves into a form of “conditional self-interest,” as the authority of the moral law becomes contingent upon the agent’s psychological desire for self-preservation. This paper examines this structural weakness through the “shmagency” challenge (Enoch) and the case of the “idealized Mafioso” (Cohen), including a reconstruction of Korsgaard’s own responses to these objections, in order to show that her replies do not dissolve the fundamental problem. Crucially, the paper frames this critique not as a failure to satisfy Kantian standards, for Korsgaard consciously departs from Kant, but as an internal failure: her constructivist framework cannot secure the unconditional normative force it sets out to establish, even by its own lights. Furthermore, when compared against rival accounts of normativity, including moral realism and the Fact of Reason, the constructivist grounding proves less adequate. The paper concludes by defending Dieter Schönecker’s intuitionist reading of the “Fact of Reason” (Factum der Vernunft), arguing that moral authority must be recognized as an objective, non-deductive a priori structural necessity rather than a subjective product of reflective endorsement.
Background: Arthur Schopenhauer’s On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (in its revised 1847 edition) has been variously interpreted as an epistemological prelude to his metaphysics of will, as a continuation of Kantian transcendental philosophy, or as an early expression of Schopenhauer’s broader soteriological concerns. These readings often differ in emphasis but converge in treating the text primarily as subordinate to Schopenhauer’s later system or early intellectual development. Methods: This article offers a systematic textual reconstruction of the 1847 edition within the Kantian tradition of transcendental critique. It proceeds through close reading and conceptual analysis of Schopenhauer’s articulation of the principle of sufficient reason, situating individual argumentative steps within both Kantian and post-Kantian debates. The aim is not to deny the relevance of systematic or developmental readings, but to clarify the internal philosophical function of the text’s argumentative structure. Results: The analysis shows that Schopenhauer’s account of the principle of sufficient reason consistently operates as a critical and immanent framework for structuring possible explanation rather than as a metaphysical grounding principle. Across its four domains, the principle is differentiated into irreducible forms governing distinct types of object-relation, thereby constraining illegitimate transitions between epistemic justification and ontological explanation. This reading highlights (i) the internal differentiation of explanatory forms, (ii) the restriction of causal claims to intra-phenomenal relations, and (iii) the systematic limitation of metaphysical grounding strategies. Conclusions: On this reading, the Fourfold Root does not function primarily as a foundational doctrine for Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will, but as a critical investigation into the limits of metaphysical explanation within experience. It thereby reconfigures metaphysical inquiry as a reflective clarification of the conditions under which explanation is possible, rather than as a doctrine of ultimate ontological grounds.
This article investigates the concept of freedom through a combined philosophical and theatrical framework, grounded in Baruch Spinoza’s theory of knowledge and its relevance to contemporary acting practice. Drawing on Spinoza’s distinctions between adequate and inadequate ideas, as well as between active and passive affects, the study argues that freedom should be understood not as the absence of constraint, but as the capacity to act in accordance with necessity through reason and knowledge. Freedom is examined as the outcome of a disciplined process of self-knowledge in which mind, body, and affect function in a dynamic relationship. The analysis situates this framework within key paradigms of actor training, including Konstantin Stanislavski’s psychotechnical system, Jerzy Grotowski’s laboratory theatre and via negativa, and Bertolt Brecht’s alienation effect. These approaches are interpreted as distinct but complementary strategies for organizing the relationship between control, expression, and scenic cognition. The article demonstrates that the actor’s freedom on stage is directly proportional to their degree of discipline and understanding of theatrical laws, with spontaneity emerging only within an internally assimilated rational structure. By integrating imaginative and rational modes of knowledge, the actor may attain what Spinoza defines as intuitive knowledge, understood here as a higher form of cognition through which freedom becomes an acquired ethical and artistic capacity, as well as a central benchmark of theatrical creation.
This essay develops Feyerabend’s early philosophy of science as intended as a criticism of Karl Popper’s falsificationism and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “quietism” in “Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism” [ERE (1962)]. It illustrates how Wittgenstein and David Bohm played central roles in the genesis of ERE (1962) as Feyerabend’s attempt to step out from under Popper’s shadow by criticizing his normative methodology. Part 1 shows how Feyerabend’s criticism of Popper was an attempted synthesis of Popper and Wittgenstein’s views with respect to meaning and methodology that was also intended to mediate Popper’s famous “Poker dispute” with Wittgenstein on the nature of genuinely philosophical problems. Specifically, Feyerabend argued that falsificationism cannot take testing incommensurable rival universal theories empirically into account, and so it has only a limited validity. It is limited to testing commensurable theories. Part 2 explains how this set the stage for Feyerabend’s infamous slogan “Anything goes!” — according to which all methodological rules can have only a limited validity. Feyerabend’s dispute with Popper’s school on methodology began in 1960 on a draft of ERE (1962). Seven years later, Feyerabend announced his break with Popper’s school with respect to methodology, which was sparked when Feyerabend awoke from his Popperian slumber on the 17th of December 1967, while watching Lakatos lecture falsificationism to his students. Feyerabend, who had gradually changed how he taught falsificationism over the years, realized just how far from Popper’s methodology he thought he had come. Falsificationism has only a limited validity and even ad hoc hypotheses can have a legitimate role in progress. In letters to Watkins and Lakatos, he explained that he was leaving Popper’s school because of the dispute about Popper’s methodology, which began with his 1960 draft of ERE (1962) according to which Popper’s methodology (falsificationism) shares a dogmatic element with school philosophies so that it impedes the progress it purports to promote. Part two also explains how and why Feyerabend awoke from his Popperian slumber in methodology into a living nightmare. Popper (and Popperians) misunderstood Feyerabend’s idea of incommensurability as Popperstein’s baby, just as Popper misunderstood Feyerabend’s arguments against his methodology as a “Lessing Effect”. Moreover, Feyerabend’s idea of incommensurability in ERE (1962) continues to be misrepresented by some Popperian interpretations of Feyerabend’s theoretical pluralism today. Part 3 of the essay shows how Feyerabend and Bohm were working closely together and why ERE (1962) should be seen as the fruits of that collaboration. Feyerabend directed and developed his views on incommensurability as a criticism of falsificationism while discussing these issues directly with Bohm, who was also trying to criticize what he took to be falsificationism in the same way, by limiting its validity to testing within frameworks. Bohm’s attempts to criticize Popper’s methodology clearly anticipate Feyerabend’s criticism of Popper’s methodology in ERE (1962) in many further significant respects. Bohm was using the Brownian motion example to defend his hidden variables proposal, which some had dismissed as pernicious ad hoc metaphysics and Feyerabend developed his test-model to show how incommensurable theories can be compared by crucial experiments despite meaning variance based on Bohm’s Brownian motion example and to support his methodological argument for theoretical pluralism: Because incommensurable alternatives can increase the empirical content of their rivals, they should always be welcome (even if they are ad hoc). In ERE (1962), Feyerabend developed his theoretical pluralism in contrast to and as part of a criticism of Popper’s methodology following Bohm’s lead and in support of Bohm’s quest to explain the results of quantum theory as a second kind of Brownian motion. In this way, Feyerabend’s views on methodology as set out in ERE (1962) were shaped by two formative experiences: the ad hoc dogmatic dismissal of Ehrenhaft’s effects in the late 1940s, and the dogmatic dismissal of Bohm’s ad hoc hidden variables proposal in the late 1950s.
E. Oberheim· Filozoficzne Aspekty Genezy· 0 citations