Filozofia is an academic journal publishing original articles in a wide range of areas including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, history of philosophy, social and political philosophy, and related disciplines, such as logic, methodology and ethics. Filozofia is double-blind peer-reviewed journal and is open to all authors, independently of their methodology and/or theoretical background. Filozofia is published 6 times per year: in February (no. 1), April (no. 2), May (no. 3), September (no. 4), October (no. 5), and December (no. 6).
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Introduction to the Monothematic Block: The Human Being in the Coordinates of Symbolic Structures
Rôzne (Z vedeckého života, Rozhľady, Anotácie, …
Copyright (c) 2025 Jaroslava Vydrová, Jon Stewart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
FACUNDO BEY (Ed.): Hans-Georg Gadamer. Cuestiones abiertas / Open Questions
A book review of Facundo Bey's (ed.): Hans-Georg Gadamer. Cuestiones abiertas / Open Questions. Quito: Filosófica Editorial 2025, 476 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 Martín Prestía https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Michel Eltchaninoff: Lenin Walked on the Moon
A review of the book of Michel Eltchaninoff: Lenin Walked on the Moon, trans. by Tina Kover. London: Europa Editions, 2023, pp. 256.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mark Coeckelbergh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Introduction to the Monothematic Block: Socrates in the 20th Century
Copyright (c) 2025 Jozef Majerník, Refik Güremen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Hegel and Gombrich on the Particular Forms of Art and their Persistence
Hegel’s aesthetics is not only organized around a developed account of the differing artistic genres (from architecture to poetry) but also articulates the importance of the particular forms of art (i.e., the symbolic, classical and romantic). The oppositions involved in Hegel’s treatment of the particular forms of art – particularly that between the symbolic and the classical – also have an importance for the twentieth-century art historian E. H. Gombrich, who frames their relation as an opposition between what he called the “incarnational” side of art and the “challenge to the senses” that he thought the symbolic art form posed. This paper compares Gombrich’s and Hegel’s views of these art forms and turns in a final section to an exploration of the post- Hegelian, post-Gombrichian legacy of these issues.
Copyright (c) 2025 Allen Speight https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Mohol by byť veľký jazykový model (LLM) vedomý?
There has recently been widespread discussion of whether large language models such as the GPT systems might be sentient or conscious. Should we take this idea seriously? I will discuss the underlying issue and will break down the strongest reasons for and against.
Copyright (c) 2025 David J. Chalmers https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Vasil Gluchman: Podoby sekulárneho humanizmu na Slovensku v 20. storočí (do roku 1989)
A review of the book of Vasil Gluchman: Podoby sekulárneho humanizmu na Slovensku v 20. storočí (do roku 1989). Prešov: Prešovská univerzita v Prešove 2024, 228 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dmytro Tomakh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Patočka’s Socrates and His Socratic Politics
This paper gives an account of Jan Patočka’s reception of the figure of Socrates. Patočka sees as Socrates’ most important insight his knowledge of ignorance – the fact that we lack knowledge of the most important things in life, but we merely have opinions of them. Socrates then questions and examines such opinions, his own as well as those of others, and this practice of questioning thinking is what Patočka calls care for the soul, and which he understands as the general form of all genuine philosophic questioning. The mature Patočka understood the entirety of Plato’s thought as rooted in his account of the self-moving soul, and this account as arising from reflection on Socratic questioning. Finally, I argue that Patočka’s decision to actively engage with the Charter 77 movement was explicitly motivated by the example of Socrates.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jozef Majerník https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Experience of Strangeness and the Possibility of Manifestations in Social Roles with Reference to A. Schutz and H. Plessner
The aim of the article is to describe the peculiar situation of a stranger and a homecomer from the perspective of what they have at their disposal and how they occur in social relations. In this regard, firstly, we explore the configurations of the experience, and secondly, the forms of performing roles in private and public space, diplomacy and tact. This is examined with reference to the ideas of liminal subjectivity in A. Schutz and radical artificiality in H. Plessner. Both thinkers drew from the phenomenological tradition and were concerned with questions of social relations, although they rarely appear together in theoretical considerations. The study does not intend to compare them; however, it does indicate how an exploration of their ideas can contribute to gaining greater insight into peculiar intersubjective relations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jaroslava Vydrová https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Feuerbach’s Anthropomorphic Critique of Kant’s Theism
Scholars have not noticed that Immanuel Kant’s theoretical and practical (moral) conceptions of God inspired the structure of Ludwig Feuerbach’s general account of God in his The Essence of Christianity and that Kant’s theism is a primary target in Feuerbach’s anthropomorphic critique. To recognize the role of Kant’s account of God in Feuerbach’s Essence opens up new vistas in understanding both philosophers on the origin, nature and reality of the concept of God. I conclude by defending the plausibility of Feuerbach’s anthropomorphic critique of Kant’s theism, although Feuerbach does not always construe Kant’s views accurately.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lou Matz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Precursor to Dialogical Philosophy? Buber’s Ambiguous View of Socrates
Martin Buber’s reception of Socrates is complex and its emphases shifted over time. In the present article I first demonstrate how Buber included Socrates in his project of dialogical philosophy and depicted him as an ally in his confrontation with monological philosophical paradigms. Subsequently, I highlight those aspects of Socrates’ doctrine which Buber considered problematic, often discussing them in connection with Jewish spirituality. I continue by analyzing Buber’s ideal of dialogical education, in which his confrontation with Socrates plays a central role. Finally, I present an overall evaluation of Buber’s reception of Socrates, commenting on its development and dynamics.
Copyright (c) 2025 Peter Šajda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Conflict between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars and Kierkegaard’s Relation with Speculative Thought
In this article I offer a historical analysis of Kierkegaard’s early, unpublished theatrical work, The Conflict between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars. In this comedy, it is possible to trace a number of expressions that ridicule the philosophical view of Martensen, which in turn is associated with Hegelianism and speculative thought. However, I wish to argue that, if one pays close attention to some passages in Kierkegaard’s early journals in the 1830s, specifically the so-called journal of Gilleleje, one notes that he actually seems to agree with Martensen on several points. In my view, this would show that, despite Kierkegaard’s hostility towards Martensen in the Soap-Cellars, he was actually sympathetic to some of the latter’s ideas. This analysis would help us to better understand the philosophical position of young Kierkegaard, who, as it turns out, had a more favorable opinion of speculative thinking than is often thought.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nassim Bravo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
When the discourse on crises sidesteps the system’s shortcomings democracy is in a bad way. Institutions, social networks and individualism are to blame. It's the fault of the “radicalism of extremes,” or even of our powerlessness in the face of economic violence, which needs to be softened. Yet capitalism is founded on the division between the economic and the political, which makes it fundamentally anti-democratic.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nancy Fraser https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Problém vnitřku vnitřního vědomí v Husserlově fenomenologii se zřetelem k pojmu vnitřního u Platóna
This study explores parallels between Plato’s soul structure and Husserl’s intentional consciousness regarding the “inner.” It argues Plato’s “inner” is a relational view of soul and world via action, surprisingly connected to Husserl’s overcoming psychologization and dynamic intentionality. This path suggests that what appears a subjectivist or Cartesian legacy within phenomenology has deeper roots, namely Husserl’s central motif of the inner as inner consciousness, the ground in which all constitution occurs. Despite parallels, the study notes key differences in their architectonics (soul vs. immanent consciousness, ideal, theoria). Ultimately, it shows phenomenology’s approach to the “inner” as unveiling external meaning’s presuppositions offers a distinct yet complementary perspective to Plato’s soul structure in the order of Forms.
Copyright (c) 2025 David Rybák https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Socrates provides the model for philosophy for Gadamer, who follows Plato and the example of Socrates with the claim that philosophy is dialectic and that dialectic is carried out through dialogue. The Socratic dialogues are exemplary in their open-endedness and their embrace of finitude. Gadamer is influenced by Heidegger’s thought, yet he resists Heidegger’s interpretation of Plato. The essay examines Gadamer’s account of the proximity of the thought of Plato and Aristotle and Gadamer’s claim that Aristotle’s ethics can already be found in Plato. I argue that Gadamer does not adequately attend to the distinction of logos and nous in the thought of Plato and Aristotle.
Copyright (c) 2025 Robert J. Dostal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Truth, Plurality, and Political Phenomenology: Hannah Arendt’s Socrates
This paper examines Hannah Arendt’s Socrates. I argue that Arendt construes Socrates as a model of the compatibility of philosophy and politics. This model uniquely articulates this compatibility through a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, where truth is conceived as a perspectival disclosure of meaning in the plural and discursive world of politics. I further contend that the more solitary features of Arendt’s Socrates (thinking as internal dialogue, and speechless wonder) also contribute to the political realm as a site of truth.
Copyright (c) 2025 Antoine Pageau-St-Hilaire https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Úvod k monotematickému bloku: Megarici a ich miesto v sokratovskom hnutí
Copyright (c) 2025 Vladislav Suvák https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Other of the Other: Seth Benardete’s View of Socrates
Following in the footsteps of his teacher Leo Strauss, Seth Benardete devoted his life to understanding “the problem of Socrates”: Plato’s complex and enigmatic portrayal of the ironic Socrates’ embodiment of the philosophic life. This paper introduces Benardete’s rich and dense interpretive work by focusing on his understanding of two of Socrates’ most distinctive characteristics: his daimonion and his eros. Like Strauss, Benardete reads Plato’s dialogues as a response to Aristophanes’ fundamental but friendly critique of Socrates in the Clouds. In this context, the daimonion and eros emerge as the manifestation of Socrates’ self-knowledge, and thus of political philosophy as the “eccentric core” of philosophy. Guided by Plato, Benardete subsequently moves beyond the “quarrel between poetry and philosophy” to trace the Socratic turn and the origins of political philosophy all the way back to Homer.
Copyright (c) 2025 David Janssens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Topoanalysis and Cultural Images: The Case of the cul-de-sac
The study deals with the possibilities of using the topoanalytical method applied to cultural images of urban spaces. As a guiding example, the phenomenon of a specific space, such as the cul-de-sac, is highlighted here. The author shows how the metaphor of the cul-de-sac as a description of a dead-end situation developed. It was historically imagined in three modes: as a dark and narrow alley (with an emphasis on the play of light, darkness, groping around and uncertain steps), as a space of wandering and being-lost, and finally as an image of impassability, of stopping and thus of a situation without a way out. Beyond the metaphorical and symbolic use of this image, attitudes to the place of the cul-de-sac in urban infrastructure have also changed: from its elimination in urban planning to its invocation as a positive value.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anton Vydra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
“Art Has No Power over Schein through Its Abolition”
Theodor Adorno’s aesthetics takes up the German Idealist and Romantic idea of “Schein” – the “beautiful illusion” characteristic of authentic art – and reinterprets it through the lens of his own very particular kind of dialectical Marxism. Unlike his friend, Walter Benjamin, who welcomed the overcoming of so-called auratic art, Adorno believed that Schein can thus be vindicated. Whether this is so, the article argues, depends on how far one accepts Adorno’s adoption of a Marxist-Hegelian conception of social meaning.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michael Rosen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Mark Coeckelbergh: Zelený Leviathan aneb Poetika politické svobody. Průvodce svobodou v době klimatické změny a umělé inteligence
Knižná recenzia - Mark Coeckelbergh: Zelený Leviathan aneb Poetika politické svobody. Průvodce svobodou v době klimatické změny a umělé inteligence. Praha: Herrmann & synové, 2024, 167 s.
Copyright (c) 2025 Břetislav Horyna https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Fregeho Der Gedanke ako konkurenčný projekt k Wittgensteinovmu Traktátu
Based on the contents of the correspondence and an analysis of Der Gedanke and the Tractatus , and a comparison of the two, particularly in terms of the question What is fact? and What is the world?, we have attempted to provide a justification for the hypothesis that Frege’s essay Der Gedanke was conceived as a rival project to Wittgenstein’s nascent Tractatus. Our hypothesis explains Wittgenstein’s long-lasting animosity towards the contents of this particular treatise even decades after Frege’s death. We consider the key difference between the two projects to be the question of the explication of the concepts of fact and world. For Frege, the external world of sense-perceptible things (the World 1) is only the ground for objective facts, which are true thoughts that are composed exclusively of abstract entities. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, says that the world itself is the totality of facts which are special complexes.
fakt, svet, abstraktná entita, pravdivá myšlienka, komplex
Copyright (c) 2025 František Gahér https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Order of Art and Ethical Disorder: Levinasian Thoughts on Creation and Resistance
This article proposes a reflection on the status of art, and particularly literature, in the work of Emmanuel Levinas. In the French phenomenologist’s thought, literature occupies an ambivalent position: he frequently engages with it in his philosophical discourse, yet when confronting it directly, he excludes it from the ethical realm. In this study, I seek to highlight a series of arguments that can be advanced from a Levinasian perspective in favor of an ethical literature. I do so first by contrasting Levinas’s thought with Hannah Arendt’s reflections on narration. Then, I analyze a text that appears particularly suited to a Levinasian reading: Atonement, by Ian McEwan. Finally, I show how art can serve the ethical purposes Levinas envisioned: the de-automatization of the conatus, that is, the human being concerned solely with the preservation of its own life.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nicolás de Navascués https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Komentáre k vybraným zlomkom Eukleida z Megár
Selected fragments of Euclid of Megara concentrate on the testimonies that modern historians consider important for our efforts to reconstruct the early phase of the so-called Megarian Socratic school. Three of the fragments in this selection come from the doxographer Diogenes Laertius, who takes them from earlier Peripatetic and Alexandrian sources (fragments SSR II A 30, SSR II A 32, and SSR II A 34, according to Giannantoni’s edition); the fourth fragment comes from Cicero (SSR II A 31). The main method in the interpretation of the fragments is a hermeneutical reading of the text and the context, based on linguistic analysis and comparison of the various theses attributed to Euclid with the corpus of Socratic literature as well as with Hellenistic philosophy. The purpose of this paper is not to provide an interpretation of the fragments, but to review the basic strategies of modern historians in interpreting these testimonies, so that the reader can get a comprehensive picture of how the fragments have been interpreted in the last two centuries.
Copyright (c) 2025 Vladislav Suvák, Andrej Kalaš, Jaroslav Cepko https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Dimitar Ganev https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
What makes phenomena such as birth, death, creation or fate specifically “limit phenomena” within Husserl’s phenomenology is not simply their difficulty, but also that they seem to threaten phenomenology as a transcendentalist project. As a transcendentalist project, phenomenology tries to overcome contingency by seeking the apodictic and necessary, leading Husserl to focus on normal, optimal, typical phenomena. It is at the margins that phenomenology is threatened by collapsing back into contingency. In my paper, I propose the concept of “rupture” as that which best expresses the limit-character of limit phenomena. The rupture in the normal course of experience calls for re-configuration that introduces novelty. I suggest that a systematic investigation into phenomenology of rupture may help phenomenology to address the problem of novelty.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michal Lipták https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Cassirer a krajina ako multisenzorická a časovo-priestorová syntéza
The study focuses on the issue of landscape developed in twentieth-century German philosophy. In addition to Georg Simmel and Joachim Ritter, Ernst Cassirer also devoted himself to this topic. The aim is to prove that Cassirer is part of a line of thinking drawing mainly on the aesthetics of Immanuel Kant and landscape painting. At the same time his theory of landscape reveals interdisciplinary overlaps between aesthetics, art, and the natural sciences. Cassirer’s theory is similar to Simmel’s, but for Simmel, landscape is a creation of contemporary man, while for Cassirer it is a sign of man as such, only with different meanings in historical periods. Landscape is then perceived as a multisensory and time-space synthesis.
Copyright (c) 2025 Romana Javorčeková https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Data Toxicality: A Techno-Philosophical Inquiry into Digital Harm
In biochemistry, toxicity denotes the potential of a substance to cause harm within a biological system. Over time, the concept has been extended beyond its scientific origins to describe forms of social and psychological harm, as reflected in expressions like “toxic masculinity” or “toxic relationships.” This paper introduces the concept of “data toxicality,” a techno-philosophical perspective on harmful sociopsychological effects emerging from data practices in the digital age. Unlike biochemical toxicity, data toxicality manifests in interpersonal and institutional dynamics, affecting autonomy, power structures, and digital ethics. The discussion examines both direct and indirect harms resulting from data misuse, surveillance, and algorithmic bias, while considering “unfindability” as a conceptual alternative to data deletion.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gerhard Schreiber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Sacrum and Holiday: The Case of Tragedy in Jan Patočka’s Thought
The article aims to elaborate the meaning of “holiday” in the context of Jan Patočka’s late philosophy. The article addresses two aspects of Patočka’s work. First, it presents Patočka’s concept of the sacrum and its relation to the question of authenticity and modernity. Second, it connects these considerations to Patočka’s earlier texts on Greek tragedy. According to Patočka, tragedy stands at the historical threshold between subjection to myth and openness to problemacity, the non-givenness of the final ground of meaning. This is not only due to changes in mythical narration, but also to the fact that tragedy is a form of manifesting ritualistic behavior. This context allows the author to discern various types of holidays regarding its meaning and the meaning of ritual practices: mythical and tragic, religious and modern.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michal Zvarík https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
H.L.A. Hart’s Liability-Responsibility in F.A. von Hayek’s Thought
This study delves into Hayek’s treatment of liability-responsibility. Although Hayek does not systematically classify concepts of responsibility, his observations align closely with Hart’s typology, which includes liability-responsibility. This type is invoked when the violation of established norms is associated with a specific sanction. Among the types distinguished by Hart, liability-responsibility is most extensively discussed in Hayek’s works, justifying its exclusive examination. This focus also relates directly to fundamental themes in Hayek’s thought. The paper examines how Hayek perceives liability-responsibility in legal and moral dimensions, emphasizes the importance of the rule of law as a guarantee of individual freedom, and explores the role of informal social mechanisms in safeguarding moral traditions to minimize the need for coercion.
Copyright (c) 2025 Halina Šimo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0