Filosofija. Sociologija

Title

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Human Values in a Technological Society

Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

In this introductory article, the current volume editor of the journal Philosophy. Sociology analyses the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) development on human values, the meaning of work, and the existential conditions of contemporary technological society. AI’s ability to take over both routine and creative tasks raises the question of whether traditional work will continue to be the primary source of human identity and self-realisation. From an axiological perspective, the article discusses the importance of moral values for regulating technology and promoting human well-being. It also examines universal basic income and the role of philosophy in fostering critical thinking. The article emphasises that, to avoid an existential vacuum, new models of meaning beyond traditional work must be developed.

Between Bacon and Descartes: Vico’s Methodology and the Critique of Algorithmic Reductionism

Adnan Akan, Güvenç Şar — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This paper examines Giambattista Vico’s Scienza Nuova as an epistemological alternative to the algorithmic rationality underlying artificial intelligence. Grounded in Vico’s verum-factum principle that humans can only truly know what they have created, it argues that data-driven models distort knowledge by detaching it from its historical and creative origins. Through a comparative analysis of Baconian empiricism and Cartesian rationalism, the study demonstrates how Vico synthesises these traditions into a hermeneutic methodology centred on the mondo civile: the human-made world of meanings, laws and institutions. By uniting philologia (the domain of historical particulars) with philosophia (the pursuit of universal truths) within a dynamic interpretive circle, Vico establishes the autonomy of the human sciences against technological reductionism. His concepts of sensus communis (communal understanding) and ingenium (contextual judgment) reveal why algorithms can simulate but not comprehend meaning. The article concludes that Vico’s human-centred framework offers an indispensable foundation for preserving interpretive understanding in the digital age.

Enduring Philosophical Implications of William James’ Radical Empiricism

Chengbing Wang — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

William James was one of the first American philosophers with a significant global influence. His radical empiricism served as his metaphysical philosophy but has not received a sufficient scholarly attention. James’ radical empiricism formed and emerged gradually, ultimately holding that pure experience is the key to understanding reality while emphasising the reality of relations and the integrity of experience. As a pragmatic metaphysical theory, this radical empiricism joins with James’ view of truth to form the whole of Jamesian philosophy. A historical evaluation shows that radical empiricism has close connections with Henri Bergson’s philosophy and early phenomenology, and served as a bridge between Jamesian philosophy writ-large and contemporary European philosophical currents. In the context of comparative philosophy and global philosophical dialogues, the doctrine of radical empiricism stands as a significant topic in the dialogue and comparison between Eastern and Western philosophy.

Epistemic Responsibility, Gettier Analysis and its Influence in Feminist Philosophy

Baiju P. Anthony, Anupam Yadav — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

The Idea of Epistemic Responsibility (ER) emerged in epistemology was initially a response to Gettier. Classical thinkers, in response to Gettier, offered different directions for epistemic justification and strengthened the notion of ER. This study examines the evolution of ER from its classical origins in responses to Gettier’s critique of the justified true belief (JTB) model to its feminist reformulation in Lorraine Code’s Epistemic Responsibility. It hypothesises that Code’s concept of ER offers a philosophically robust and ethically grounded resolution to the Gettier problem by shifting epistemic justification from the abstract cognition to the situated, morally engaged practice. Using an analytic and comparative method, the research juxtaposes classical epistemologists such as Sosa, Chisholm, Bonjour and Kornblith with feminist theorists, especially Code, to trace how moral accountability, situated knowledge and relational trust redefine justification. The findings reveal that feminist conceptions of ER transform epistemology from a formal, context-free model into an ethically responsive framework that views knowledge as a moral and relational achievement. ER reframes the Gettier-style epistemic failure as a lapse of moral and cognitive responsibility rather than a mere problem of epistemic luck. Integrating intellectual virtue with moral accountability, ER thus bridges classical and feminist epistemology, offering a holistic, context-sensitive model of knowing.

Visibility, Visual Awareness, and Philosophy

Paweł Bytniewski — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

The article aims to explore how the philosophical approach to problematising visuality interacts with its pre-philosophical meanings and cultural roles, revealing that the significance of this confrontation is evolving into a completely new perspective today. Currently, the discursive and non-discursive aspects of this confrontation are shaped by technological changes in visuality. The challenge that technology poses to visuality is twofold – it questions our philosophical beliefs and also disrupts everyday practices rooted in traditional culture. Therefore, technology is a difficult partner for both philosophy and daily life practices. It challenges philosophy by introducing questions and problems that are often unfamiliar or unrecognised, and it complicates the efforts of practitioners who still struggle to adapt technical tools to their nearly timeless routines.

Reflections of Violence: The Mirror Trope and Identity in Fiction Film

Juan Carlos Carrillo, Gustavo Echevarría-Navarro — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This article examines the representation of violence in the fiction film as a means of engaging with identity and meaning through cathartic experiences. It argues that while real-world violence often lacks inherent purpose, cinematic violence acquires significance within a narrative framework that enables viewers to process complex emotions. Using the mirror trope, and with necessarily brief examples, the study suggests that films not only reflect societal and individual struggles but also actively shape viewers’ understanding of themselves and their ethical beliefs. By connecting Aristotle’s concept of catharsis to contemporary theories of cinematic representation, the article reveals how cinema can transform discomforting portrayals of violence into opportunities for ethical and emotional reflection. The discussion highlights cinema’s dual role as both an art form and a critical space for exploring moral issues, inviting further research on the impact of on-screen violence across diverse cultural and demographic contexts.

The Relationship Between Body and AI Literacy as a Problem in the Philosophy of Education

Michal Černý — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This study undertakes an analysis of the concept of AI literacy, a topic that is becoming increasingly prominent in contemporary education, particularly with regard to its philosophical underpinnings. The argument presented herein demonstrates that reducing humans to purely spiritual beings, a prerequisite for common understanding of AI literacy gives rise to unsustainable epistemic and educational assumptions. It is proposed that, in accordance with empirical realism as derived from the pragmatic philosophy of Lakoff and Johnson, the definition of AI literacy should be established as a dynamic structure of critically reflected experiences from interactions with AI. This is posited to enable the ability to effect change in everyday life and address the challenges facing humanity.

On Certain Aspects of Mathematical Objectivity

Vladimir Drekalović — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, psychology, sociology, history, and similar sciences that deal with empirical facts can describe the reality they investigate in varying levels of detail and provide specific statements and results about it. However, the question of describing mathematical objectivity appears to be more challenging than describing the objectivity addressed in the aforementioned sciences. This difficulty likely stems from the immaterial nature of mathematical objects, as well as their physical and temporal indeterminacy.
In this text, we will revisit one of Cantor’s attempts to describe mathematical reality, select a few comments of that description, and analyse them. Additionally, we will compare Cantor’s approach with some contemporary representations of mathematical Platonism that incorporate significant empiricist elements. Finally, we will propose what we believe to be a promising approach to understanding mathematical reality, one that we think offers a promising support for Platonism in mathematics.

The First Age of Logic in Lithuania: An Interpretation of Discursus and Syllogismus

Vytis Valatka — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This publication is a part of a larger corpus investigating the 16th century Lithuanian Logic. It analyses the explanation of the third operation of human intellect, that is, reasoning, or discourse (ratiotinatio sive discursus). The author of the article focuses on the interpretation of a certain precognition as the necessary precondition of the discourse, as well as on the conception of syllogism as the most prominent species of the discourse. The article comes to the conclusion that the authors of the aforementioned logic traditionally affirmed that, in order to reach the conclusion in the discourse, it is necessary to know in advance the significates of the conclusion’s terms, the fact of the existence of the conclusion’s subject as well as the fact that the premises of the discourse are true statements. It was also traditionally asserted that the precognition required for the discourse has nothing in common with Plato’s concept of anamnesis that was regarded as entirely fictional one. The article also concludes that scholastic tradition was as well followed within frames of the conception of syllogism.

Kant’s Condition of Hospitality

Peter Kyslan — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This paper reinterprets Kant’s cosmopolitan right of hospitality as a minimal juridical status whose primary function is peacetime prevention – it civilises the first contact in ordinary cross-border encounters such as work, study, trade, and cultural exchange. It asks how Kant’s legal notion of hospitality can regulate non-emergency interactions so as to help prevent conflict, and advances two claims: hospitality is a right of visit, not a charitable duty nor a right to settlement and its principal force is preventive, operating in peacetime by structuring non-hostile encounters. Using conceptual analysis and a hermeneutic reconstruction of Perpetual Peace (AA 8) in dialogue with recent scholarship, the article shows that this reading clarifies the reciprocal duties of host and guest, illuminates the connection to commerce and cosmopolitan education, and steers a course between moral maximalism and realist minimalism.

Concentration Camps and (Ir)Rationality

Olha Honcharenko — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Concentration camps became a subject of philosophical reflection after the Second World War. Some philosophers have linked their emergence and functioning to rationality. Skepticism toward rationality in relation to concentration camps is present in the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, Giorgio Agamben and Zygmunt Bauman. According to these philosophers, concentration camps hold the key to understanding modern society. It is widely acknowledged that concentration camps were, to a certain extent, effective tools of totalitarian regimes, if evaluated from the perspective of the empirical approach, but is there any moral justification for such rationalisation if their result is the transformation of a human being into an ordinary thing?A moral perspective on concentration camps may reveal their inherent irrationality from the perspective of the transcendentalist approach. The central thesis of this article is that in philosophical studies about concentration camps, it is necessary to distinguish two concepts of rationality – empirical and transcendentalist, only in this way it becomes clear that treating a person as a means, rather than an aim, arises from irrational reasoning. This article presents an analysis of the goals and means of concentration camps from the perspective of Kant’s categorical imperative and compares them with Karl Popper’s two approaches to social construction – gradual and utopian engineering, as well as a distinction between rationalism and irrationalism. The conclusion is made about the appropriateness of considering the problem of concentration camps from the standpoint of contrasting rationality and irrationality, rather than rationality and empiricism. With this approach, the prospects of modern society become clearer: open – thanks to rationality, and closed – through irrationality.

Climatic Determinism and Race: A Comparative Analysis of Ibn H̱aldūn’s and I. Kant’s Racialist Anthoropologies

Ernestas Jančenkas — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This paper attempts to examine and compare Ibn H̱aldūn’s and I. Kant’s racialist theories. The paper shows how the theories of Avicenna, Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī and Ibn H̱aldūn contended that the interplay of climatic determinism and humoral constitution of humans produced human phenotypic and behavioural differences. The study shows a conceptual overlap between the European racial theories as found in Comte de Buffon and I. Kant and the ideas found in Arabic texts. Their fundamental differences lie in the treatment of ethnic groups. While Ibn H̱aldūn positioned the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions as the civilisational centre, European racial geography is Eurocentric. Kant placed Europeans at the pinnacle of human excellence. This conceptual shift largely reflects a changed historic and political context. Thus, the article illustrates how power generates a racial discourse that legitimises the existing relations between the masters and slaves, between the colonisers and the colonised.

Philosophical Aspects of Managing Environmental Values in Urbanised Areas: Copenhagen, Shenzhen and Kaunas

Yizhi Qin, Lingxian Jiang, Vera Komarova — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This article offers a philosophical and ontological analysis of how environmental values are embodied in urban governance practices, using the examples of Copenhagen, Shenzhen and Kaunas. The initial hypothesis holds that sustainable development requires not only regulatory instruments but also the deep cultural integration of values. The study applies qualitative comparative analysis, hermeneutic examination of strategic documents, and phenomenological reduction. The findings show that in Copenhagen, values are integrated into everyday practices; in Shenzhen, they are reduced to digital metrics; in Kaunas, they are enacted through local initiatives. The conclusions highlight the importance of ethical infrastructures and cultural sensitivity in managing sustainable urban development.

Experience of Aloneness in Information Society: Distinction Between Solitude and Loneliness Within Dichotomy Social/Individual

Elina Kibenko — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

The article discusses the concepts of solitude and loneliness, exploring their distinct roles in human experience within the context of the modern information society. It argues that while both involve a degree of separation from others, solitude is a voluntary, constructive state that supports self-reflection and inner growth, whereas loneliness is an involuntary, painful condition resulting from a lack of meaningful social connection. The study contends that digital technologies – despite offering constant connectivity – often exacerbate loneliness by fostering shallow interactions that fail to meet deeper relational needs, while simultaneously eroding opportunities for true solitude. The findings emphasise that solitude remains an essential, unchanging element of human nature, providing space for autonomy and inner dialogue, while loneliness has intensified in the digital era, reflecting both the breakdown of authentic communication and the illusion of connection. The article concludes that reclaiming the value of solitude and addressing the structural causes of loneliness are critical steps toward emotional well-being in today’s hyperconnected world.

China as the Absolute Other and Mirror of the West in the François Jullien’s Theory

Tautvydas Vėželis — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0200

This article aims to define and name the contribution of the French sinologist and theorist François Jullien to the field of comparative studies, looking at the intersections of Chinese and Western civilisations. It reveals how this theorist, drawing on the legacy of Chinese thought and developing new concepts and individual methodology, challenges traditional comparative studies, opening up opportunities to look at the heritage of Western civilisation’s thinking from the outside, discovering what was not thought of in it. Such a rigorous deconstruction of the traditional Western norms of thinking opens the way to new possibilities for research on different civilisations.