2026-02-18
Chengbing Wang
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.
2026-02-18
Tautvydas Vėželis
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.
2026-02-18
Olha Honcharenko
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.
2026-02-18
Elina Kibenko
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.
2026-02-18
Vladimir Drekalović
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.
2026-02-18
Ernestas Jančenkas
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.
2026-02-18
Vytis Valatka
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.
2026-02-18
Lietuvos mokslų akademija
2026-02-18
Lietuvos mokslų akademija