Sententiae

Gaspar da Madre de Deus: a Brazilian Confronted with Aristotelianism and Anti-Aristotelism in the 18th Century

2025-11-26T13:54:32+02:00

This paper examines how the local reception of philosophies spread throughout the world took place in the work of Brother Gaspar da Madre de Deus, an 18th-century Brazilian philosopher, particularly in his reflections on the concepts of noun, verb, and sentence, as presented in the manuscript Philosophia Platonica. Although the title suggests a certain Platonism, the analysis reveals a theoretical commitment to Aristotelianism and, simultaneously, a dialogue with Iberian anti-Aristotelian authors, such as Soares Lusitano and Arriaga, whose thought Friar Gaspar critically rethinks within the scope of Colonial Scholasticism.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Manfredo Oliveira

2025-11-26T14:30:44+02:00

Manfredo Oliveira’s philosophical thought is part of a Western debate between continental philosophy and analytical philosophy. Manfredo’s position in this discussion is dialectical in the sense that it structures his thought based on a dialogue about the potential and limits of transcendental philosophy, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics. His starting point is a critical appropriation of the limits of Kant’s and Husserl’s transcendental philosophy, resulting in an intersubjective resignification of the transcendental based on the linguistic turn. In the final phase of his philosophy, he places the metaphysics of primordial being at the center of his reflections.

Feminist Philosophy in Brazil: From Nísia Floresta to Lélia Gonzalez

2025-11-26T14:54:45+02:00

This article deals with the trajectory of feminist philosophy in Brazil, from Nísia Floresta, who introduced Mary Wollstonecraft's ideas in the 19th century, to the reception of the second-wave feminism agendas among Brazilian activists and intellectuals, emphasizing the specificities of the national context, marked by the military dictatorship. It also presents the contributions of Lélia Gonzalez, whose pioneering works articulated gender, race and class from the experience of black Latin American women, expanding epistemic boundaries. Thus, the text contributes to understanding the interactions between Brazilian feminist works and the global scenario of feminist thought, highlighting the local specificities and challenges that have marked this trajectory.

Fernando de Azevedo: Public and Intellectual Trajectory of an Eminently Brazilian Scholar

2025-11-26T15:26:30+02:00

The article situates Fernando de Azevedo within the perspective of Brazilian intellectuals who sought to think about Brazil’s cultural reality. Starting from the notion of trajectory as an element that showcases the features of the life path of an eminently Brazilian intellectual, this piece presents a synthesis of the author’s academic career and their intellectual and public work. As a result, it highlights (1) Fernando de Azevedo’s contribution to education and the humanistic nature of his work; (2) some of the influences of sociological and philosophical ideas (particularly related to global trends) on his work; (3) his public participation in both political and educational debates; and (4) his work Brazilian Culture, which contains a specific analysis of Brazilian culture and history.

A Practical-Po(i)etical Philosophical Position

2025-11-26T15:41:14+02:00

Pragmatic Po(i)etics, not another “-ism”, is a nickname for the practical philosophical, social material, historic, point of view that I propose: a philosophy of praxis as poiesis, attentive to action and social reality as material/sensory (sinnlich), interactive/relational, productive, artifactual. A detranscendentalized, non-representationalist, civil, philosophical suggestion, here presented through a conversational itinerary, about some familiar, related, European and North-American philosophical trends, to explain it by comparison and distinction, convergence or opposition. From this set of elements, I will demonstrate an understanding of philosophy as materialist discourse, public act, and civil normativity.

Johann Konrad Schwartz – an Early Modern Researcher of Plagiarism

2025-11-26T17:25:45+02:00

Johann Konrad Schwartz (1676-1747), whose professional academic life is associated with the Koburg Gymnasium, authored four printed works on the phenomenon of plagiarism. His “Book on Literary Plagiarism” (1706) constitutes a significant supplement to the principal early modern treatise on the subject, Jakob Tomasius’s “Philosophical Dissertation on Literary Plagiarism” (1673). Schwartz’s work also significantly expands the list of conditions under which the unacknowledged use of another’s text would not have been considered plagiarism by early modern intellectuals. He emphasizes the role of genre and author, arguing that not all texts entail the same expectations of originality and not all authors are equally subject to accusations of plagiarism. In early modern thought, plagiarism was regarded as the theft of the fame associated with authorship. Accordingly, Schwartz insists that before one levels such an accusation, it is essential to consider whether the text in question is, in fact, something from which fame could be derived.

Klymentiy Hankevych: «In» or «Out» the Canons of the National Philosophy?

2025-11-26T17:40:46+02:00

The article examines whether Klymentiy Hankevych can be considered a representative of Ukrainian philosophy. In the beginning, I define the criteria for a philosopher’s belonging to national philosophy by analyzing the concepts of Gaukroger-Peden, Sorley, and Hösle. Despite some differences between these authors, I argue that they all recognized such criteria as: (1) language, (2) institutionality, (3) intellectual continuity. Analyzing the lexicon of some of the Hankevych’s publications and his activities as a university lecturer, I conclude that he fully meets the three aforementioned criteria. Based on it, I argue that Hankevich’s philosophical legacy undoubtedly belongs to the Ukrainian philosophical tradition.

Henri Bergson and the Birth of the Idea of Philosophy as the Creation of New Concepts

2025-11-26T17:54:54+02:00

“Philosophy is the creation of new concepts” is primarily associated with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s “What is Philosophy?”. However, Henri Bergson had explicitly advanced this idea long before them. This facet of Bergson’s philosophy remained overshadowed by his more spotlighted topics for a long time. Only in recent years have researchers begun to give it due attention and to relate it to the central aims of his positive metaphysics. However, it has not yet been established when exactly Bergson first formulated this idea, nor what precisely prompted him to do so. Contrary to the claim made, for example, by Giuseppe Bianco, this idea is not directly related to the renewed emphasis on individual creativity in the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly in the works of representatives of French spiritualism. I argue that it in fact arose out of a polemic with thinkers from the opposing camp – the positivists, and above all with Gustave Belot.

Yājñavalkya’s Concept of Ātman: A Philosophical Argument between Magic and Religion

2025-11-27T08:33:01+02:00

This article seeks to interpret Yājñavalkya’s teaching on ātman within the problem context of the historical types of knowledge. The focus falls not on external phenomena but on the nature of magical, religious, and philosophical knowledge, approached through the very criteria employed by Yājñavalkya himself. Within this framework, the category of religious knowledge is significantly narrowed. Such an epistemological approach enables a clearer differentiation between religious and magical knowledge within any given religious tradition.

Between Freedom and Dependence: Philosophy ‘in’ Tradition or Can It Be Beyond Its Boundaries?

2025-11-27T08:48:08+02:00

The article explores the possibility of the Ukrainian national philosophical tradition in the global world. The author justifies an approach to this tradition based on the following theses: 1) this tradition is constituted fully, rather than fragmentarily, with the emergence of the Ukrainian state; 2) the war has significantly intensified the need for self-determination in Ukrainian philosophizing; 3) the national tradition is enabled by the Ukrainian language and its conceptual resources, which determine the formation of the disciplinary structure of Ukrainian philosophy, as well as the diversity of currents and directions for researching contemporary issues; 4) an important part of Ukrainian philosophy is the phenomenon of philosophy in Ukraine, which must exist not as a negation or confrontation with the national philosophical tradition, but in a modality of interaction, discussion, and dialogue. All traditions must preserve freedom of philosophical expression.

Work on Philosophical Translations in 1920’s Ukraine: The Case of «Le vrai sens du système de la nature»

2025-11-27T09:08:32+02:00

The article analyzes the manuscript of the Ukrainian translation of «Le vrai sens du système de la nature» (1924-1925) in terms of editorial changes and the use of intermediate translations. Based on a study of archival documents from the 1920s, the author reconstructs for the first time the history of this text and proves that the manuscript shows signs of double editing, most likely by Andrii Richitskyi and Mike Johansen. The analysis of the editorial decisions reveals the divergence of the proposed systems of terminological equivalents caused by different approaches to the translation of eighteenth-century French terminology and the accuracy of its reproduction. In preparing the Ukrainian translation, the publishing house staff was guided by the 1922 Russian edition, as evidenced by the chosen title of the work, the translation of Semkovskyi's authorial materials, the publisher's comments, and a number of editorial proposals.

On the Experience of Using Artificial Intelligence by a Historian of Philosophy: Hallucinations and Bullshit, Creativity and Adaptability

2025-11-27T09:28:37+02:00

The spread of digital education highlights the risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching and research on the history of philosophy, particularly violations of academic integrity through the application of large language models such as ChatGPT. To initiate a conceptual engagement with this problem, the author undertook an empirical exploration – a history-of-philosophy “experiment” with this AI agent. It turned out that the system’s responses, alongside a degree of adaptability and creativity, typically contain various distortions and gaps, falsifications and fabrications, including hallucinations and bullshit. The advantages of AI, while avoiding these pitfalls, can be harnessed through classical tools offered by the history of philosophy – careful Socratic questioning, contextual-interpretative reading of texts, and systematic historical-philological source criticism.

Memoir Palette as a Historico-Philosophical Source

2025-11-27T09:38:33+02:00

The article analyzes Vadym Skurativskyi's memoirs as a specific genre type and as a potential subject of historico-philosophical research. It has been proven that the author's specific style and frequent factual errors significantly limit the use of this type of memoir as a source for the history of Ukrainian philosophy. Against this background, the advantage of new methodological tools provided by the oral history of philosophy is emphasized. These tools enable the production of texts in response to a research query, thereby significantly reducing the shortcomings of traditional memoirs as a research source.

Two letters from Ivan Mirchuk to Ivan Krevetskyi concerning the publishing of the Ukrainian translation of Kant's «Prolegomena»

2025-11-27T09:53:23+02:00

The first annotated publication of two letters from Ivan Mirchuk to Ivan Krevetskyi from 1929 regarding the publication of the Ukrainian translation of “A prolegomena to every future metaphysics that could act as a science.”

On a new semantic reading of The Phenomenology of Spirit. Horstmann, R.-P. (2024). From Apparent to True Knowledge (Wissen). Transitions in Hegelʼs “Phenomenology of Spirit”. Stuttgart; Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.

2025-11-27T10:36:36+02:00

Review of Horstmann, R.-P. (2024). From Apparent to True Knowledge (Wissen). Transitions in Hegelʼs “Phenomenology of Spirit”. Stuttgart; Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.

What is wrong with Remarks on Colour by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wallgren, T. H. (Ed.). (2023). The Creation of Wittgenstein. Understanding the Roles of Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright London: Bloomsbury Academy.

2025-11-27T10:46:34+02:00

Review of Wallgren, T. H. (Ed.). (2023). The Creation of Wittgenstein. Understanding the Roles of Rush Rhees, Elizabeth Anscombe and Georg Henrik von Wright London: Bloomsbury Academy.

Ancient political thought and Leo Strauss in the mirror of modern Chinese (mis)interpretations. Bartsch, S. (2023). Plato Goes to China: the Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton UP.

2025-11-27T10:06:49+02:00

Review of Bartsch, S. (2023). Plato Goes to China: the Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton UP.

The Brilliance of the Text and the Depth of the Commentary: a New Edition of Descartesʼ Works in “La Bibliothèque de La Pléiadeˮ

2025-11-27T10:27:47+02:00

Review of Descartes, R. (2024). Œuvres (Vols. I-II). (J.-M. Beyssade, D. Kambouchner, Eds.). Paris: Gallimard.