Ill Fare the Humanities

The starting point of our considerations is the two books published in 2010: “Ill Fares the Land” by the late Tony Judt and “Not for Profit” by Martha Nussbaum. The authors of both books share the conviction that neoliberal changes in the world of global capitalism radically impoverish culture and their consequences may be dramatic and irreversible. In our paper we would like to emphasize the dangers to solidarity and social cohesion posed by neoliberal postulates. We also claim that promoting the neoliberal ideology in the context of higher education and institutions of civic society endangers the very democracy understood as reasonable pluralism (in John Rawls’ terminology), consisting in rationality, plurality of opinions, lifestyles and conceptions of good, as well as consensus as the aim of social and political practices

NEW ATHEISM AND ITS ENEMY

[The popularity of New Atheism in the market of ideas in the last decade is unprecedented. This informal movement introduced radical atheism into the mainstream of public considerations and created a massive resentment amongst philosophers and theologians. Many critiques come predictably from conservative groups, which makes them conventional. But lately also the left-wing thinkers began to turn to religion and its emancipation potential. One of the prominent left-wing thinkers, Terry Eagleton, proposed a wholesale critique of New Atheism in his Reason, Faith, and Revolution. Reflections on the God Debate (2009). What I’m trying to do in this paper is to critically compare his animosity towards New Atheism with his positive project of rehabilitation of an orthodox Christianity, the latter being a means towards realizing Eagleton’s political agenda. This agenda is, I presume, based on theological if not metaphysical notions and sentiments.

David Hume and the Naturalness of Religion

The paper traces Hume's naturalism on both empirical and methodological levels. By ignoring the absolutness of Hume's distinction between the natural and the artificial, we can see that religion is natural in both senses. Firstly, it appears from the natural instincts and natural curiosity, and while the speculative metaphysics involved in it deforms those sentiments, the basic mechanisms of religion are still reducible to them. Secondly, and far more importantly, because Hume's skeptical epistemology tends to reduce the metaphysical overhang, what remains of religion is purely of this world and as such is prone to be the subject of natural sciences, just like the physical world is prone to be the subject of natural philosophy.David Hume i naturalność religiiArtykuł poświęcony jest naturalizmowi Hume’a rozpatrywanemu zarówno na płaszczyźnie empirycznej, jak i metodologicznej. Jeśli uznamy, że poczynione przez Hume’a rozróżnienie pomiędzy tym, co naturalne i tym, co sztuczne nie ma charakteru absolutnego, dostrzeżemy, że religia jest naturalna w obu powyższych znaczeniach. Po pierwsze, pojawia się ona na bazie naturalnych instynktów oraz naturalnej ciekawości i o ile zawarta w niej spekulatywna metafizyka zniekształca owe uczucia, tak czy inaczej podstawowy mechanizm religii można do nich sprowadzić. Po drugie, co jest o wiele ważniejsze, ponieważ sceptyczna Hume’owska epistemologia ma tendencję do redukcji naleciałości metafizyki, to, co zostaje z religii, ma charakter całkowicie doczesny i jako takie może być przedmiotem nauk szczegółowych dokładnie tak samo, jak świat fizyczny może  być przedmiotem filozofii naturalnej

Pochwała eklektyzmu

Wybór tekstów zamieszczonych w numerze 30 Internetowego Czasopism Filozoficznego HYBRIS, stanowi pokłosie jubileuszowego, X Zlotu Filozoficznego, który odbył się w Warszawie w dniach 3-5 lipca 2014.Numer został przygotowany przy wsparciu Ministerstwa Nauki Szkolnictwa Wyższego

Hume’a rozum ateologiczny

Hume’s naturalism, the consequence of which is not only the reduction of the cognitive powers to sophisticated instincts but also the destruction of the epistemological aspirations of theological speculation, forced, contrary to the opinion prevailing quite commonly in Hume’s times, a redefinition of the way of investigating religious issues within philosophy. The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is still a critical text, seemingly removing religion beyond the realm of (epistemological) reason. Still, the simultaneously written the Natural History of Religion is a positive exposition of what Hume believes a philosophy of religion should be. In this paper, I would like to look at Hume’s strategy of criticizing the objective claims of theology and at the project of naturalizing religion and making a reflection on it a part of scientific rather than metaphysic investigation.Hume’owski naturalizm, którego konsekwencją jest nie tylko sprowadzenie władz poznawczych do wysublimowanych instynktów, ale także destrukcja epistemologicznych aspiracji spekulacji teologicznej, wymusił – wbrew opinii panującej dość powszechnie w czasach Hume’a – redefinicję sposobu rozpatrywania zagadnień religijnych w obrębie filozofii. Dialogi o religii naturalnej są jeszcze tekstem krytycznym, pozornie usuwającym religię poza obszar rozumu (epistemologicznego), ale pisana równolegle Naturalna historia religii stanowi pozytywny wykład tego, czym zdaniem Hume’a powinna być filozofia religii. W artykule chciałbym przyjrzeć się Hume’owskiej strategii krytyki roszczeń obiektywistycznych teologii oraz projektowi naturalizacji religii i unaukowienia namysłu na jej temat

Epistheological ideal of knowledge and its rejection

In the paper I try to present what I termed epistheology in its relation to basic concepts of theory of knowledge: the knowledge itself, its unity and systemic character, criteria of truth and selfevidence, and the questions of justification (of knowledge and criteria of knowledge both) and ethical ideal of knowledge as the contemplation of God's design. Epistheology is thus an epistemic discourse based on and warranted by theological concepts. I analyze Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz and the like to demonstrate the way this discourse operates. In the second part of the paper I sketch the British approach: empirical, secular, and most importantly based on the concept of verisimilitude. Humean philosophy is in this way not only seen as antagonistic to its continental predecessors, but also victorious as a foundation of new and fertile paradigm of secular science