Tag «Philosophy»

Values and Spirit

Values and Spirit

We live in an age that promotes life and life values. In this respect, we interpret ourselves according to the now dominant Darwinian paradigm exclusively as organic beings whose society, culture, and thoughts are rooted in organic impulses, having their inceptions in animals. We think of ourselves as animals: as highly evolved animals, certainly, but …

On Paradoxes and Discontinuity

On paradoxes and discontinuity: Drop of water

We might compare the impossibility of separating numbers inside a bigger one (of showing where the five starts and ends inside of the eight, which contains the five) with reality in general. At a deeper level, reality might be considered an all-encompassing unity. Then, despite the tremendous diversity of spatial things, the latter would exist …

Past and Present

Many Identities

Why is a pure deterministic or causal view wrong? Because, in many cases, it neglects the nature of results, or rather it neglects the fact that the results, in order to be understood, must be seen from a different level. What is a symphony or a musical piece in general? They are only bunches of …

On Epicureanism

On Epicureanism: Statue of Epicurus

People have always sought the highest Good in life. Epicureanism was one of the philosophical streams that had an important influence on the Western tradition of thought. This conception stresses that the highest Good in life is pleasure and the highest evil is pain. While maintaining this, it avails of some arguments that it takes …

Catholicism and Science

Catholicism and Science: Renaissance Painting with Galileo

‘Effectively, Catholicism lost its moral authority the minute it mixed epistemic and pisteic belief — breaking the link between holy and the profane.’ —writes Nassim Nicholas Taleb, on Medium in his article On Christianity. I think that there is enough space here for some nuances. Modern science did not appear from anywhere but was itself …

On Hegel’s Philosophical System

On Hegel's Philosophical System: Library

Certainly, the concept of a system had a long history before Kant’s philosophical system, going back even to ancient philosophy and Greek language. Usually, it meant a whole in which the composing elements are integrated organically. Therefore, they depended on each other, as organs depend on each other in an organism. The representation of such …

A priori Knowledge in German Idealism

A Priori Knowledge: A sight of Earth

Despite the contradictions discovered in the theory of the Critique of Pure Reason, a few Kantian ideas became soon after its publishing philosophical commodities concerning a priori knowledge. First, the need to transform philosophy into a deductive science based on principles, a science that could ground all the other less abstract sciences, like Newtonian physics …

Idealism vs Realism in Modernity

Idealism vs realism: Statue of Immanuel Kant

We think of Hegel not only as one of the most important philosophers but also as one of the most important representatives of the philosophy of identity. I understand here by ‘philosophy of identity’ that type of philosophy that states the fundamental identity or correspondence between the human mind and external reality. Because of its …

Matter and Repulsion

Matter and Repulsion: Newton's Cradle

What is matter, and how can we think of matter? ‘Matter’ is not something real in the sense that it can be given in our experience. It is not something that we can feel, touch or see as we see this apple tree or this cat. Matter is an ‘abstraction,’ as they say, or an …