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Being One Only: The Foundations of Spinoza's Ontology
Vašíček, Jan ; Palkoska, Jan (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee)
The subject of this paper is an analysis of the fundamental principles of Spinoza's ontology, as presented primarily in the first book of Ethics. There is a parallel effort to outline a conceptual scheme, which could render this ontology in a well arranged manner. The heart of the text consists in a study of some of the important metaphysical categories, that define the space of Spinoza's substantial ontology. Namely the concepts of quantity and difference, existence and causality, immanence and finiteness. These categories represent somewhat generalised line of argumentation, in the course of which some of the traditional problems of the research in Spinoza's metaphysics will be covered. For example, the problem of shared attribute or the question of the substance-attribute relation. In the final part this will lead to an interpretation, based on the previous findings, of how nature follows from God and relates to him. 1
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The Fifth Bentham
Kopecký, Robin ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Jirsa, Jakub (referee)
Quoting "Greatest happiness for the greatest number" is, without doubt, a popular way of summarising Bentham's utilitarianism. However, it falls short of fully capturing theories which are the ground stone of Bentham's moral and political philosophy. The aim of the concept of "the fifth Bentham" is to consistently describe this prolific thinker as he finds his way from ontology to the foundation of morality. The thesis explores the historical background of the principle of utility and its proof in regard to human motivations, which have a certain role in this proof. In spite of the fact that Bentham's psychological theory is strictly reductionist, it has strong explanatory potential. Central to the thesis is the view that Bentham's moral philosophy ultimately stems from his ontology and analysis of language. The principle of utility, which is based on naturalistic ontology and language theory of fictions, will be expounded with help of classification of entities and use of operations called paraphrase and phraseoplerosis. Finally, the thesis also introduces problematic applications of the principle of utility on the hedonistic calculus and personal ethics.
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Dennett's Criticism of Qualia
Kubelková, Kateřina ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee)
Topic of this thesis is Dennett's criticism of the philosophical notion of qualia. First, the notion of qualia and the meaning it acquires within philosophy are introduced. Then, four thought experiments are presented to serve as an argument in favor of existence of qualia along with Dennett's reaction to these thought experiments. After that, Dennett's criticism of qualia as immediately apprehensible, ineffable, intrinsic and private properties of conscious mental states is introduced while one of the most common objections to this criticism is emphasized - Dennett's conception of qualia is too narrow and we can preserve it in a moderate way. Subsequently, the thesis outlines such a modest concept - the concept of phenomenal consciousness. This thesis attempts to show that there is no place for phenomenal consciousness in Dennett's heterophenomenology and Multiple Drafts model and that Dennett is as skeptical about this term as he is about the notion of qualia. In the end, the thesis asks the question whether it is really necessary to give up the concept of phenomenal consciousness if we want to study consciousness scientifically - from the third-person point of view.
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Consciousness in Nature. A Russellian Approach
Mihálik, Jakub ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Hvorecký, Juraj (referee) ; Coleman, Sam (referee)
Jakub Mihálik: Consciousness in Nature. A Russellian Approach Abstract: This thesis attempts to provide a philosophical answer to the question of how phenomenal consciousness, or experience, can exist in the physical world, i.e. in the world as it is described by science. The thesis has three parts: In the first part (chapter 1) I explicate the concept of phenomenal consciousness and contrast it with other concepts of consciousness common in the literature. Moreover, I suggest that the project pursued in this thesis can be naturally viewed as a part of the more general project of trying to find a stereoscopic view of man, taken by Wilfrid Sellars to be a crucial task for contemporary philosophy. In the second part of the thesis (chapters 2 to 4) I offer a detailed evaluation of the attempts at a materialist reduction of consciousness. While in chapter 2 I explore and critique the approach of apriori physicalism (Dennett, Lewis, Rey, etc.), in chapters 3 and 4, I focus on the more recent doctrine of a posteriori physicalism and especially its most prominent variety called the phenomenal concept strategy (Loar, Papineau, Levin, Schroer, etc.). One problem with a posteriori physicalism is that, as Nida-Rümelin, Goff and others argue, the view cannot make sense of the plausible thesis that our phenomenal...
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Late Wittgenstein's Metaphysics
Shchelkalin, Dmitry ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee)
Presented interpretation of the Wittgenstein's writings aims to clarify the particular aspects of his work, with an emphasis on the themes of language concepts and philosophical methods in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Philosophical Investigations, On Certainty and others. Plausibile understanding of Wittgenstein's positions within the classical philosophical and theoretical categories based on this analysis of the grammatical rules of language in their forms of life and of objective certainties and their application within the required method of philosophy shows the fact that normal categories are not completely compatible with Wittgenstein's positions, therefore, suggest a moderate realistic reading which will not neglect its semantics in a pragmatic overlap in non-structuralist approach. Ivestigating key Wittgenstein's ideas and methods of their presentation from early to late period allows us to eliminate improper interpretation - I mean first of all metaphysical and ontological connotations that bind to the early period. It turns out that these connotations can not be documented in the studied texts in any concrete and explicit theory, although his work has otherwise quite obvious continuity in the individual topics approaching. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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Philosophical possibilities of question of personal identity
Endrle, Jaroslav ; Palkoska, Jan (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee)
(in English): The topic of this thesis is the problem of personal identity. Its aim is to develop alternative approach to this question. To achieve this, the following course is choosen. Firstly, three most important assumptions are exposed. These assumptions steer debate about this topic in analytic philosophy and are regarded as main cause of its difficulties. These suppositions are - the ontological conception of identity, logical dissociability of mind and body and the method of thought experiment. Essential part of following thesis can be taken as proposal of technique that can overcome these assumptions and problems they cause. This attempt begins at the end of first part with development of general criticism of ontological conception of identity and with presentation of epistemic conception of identity. The second and crucial part deals with the theory of conceptual system. This theory provides a basis for alternative approach to question of personal identity. It will block the logical dissociability of criterions of personal identity - the dissociability of mind/consciousness and living body. It will also serve as fundament for epistemic conception of identity. Finaly, it is used for tracing the origin of concept "person". It will be shown that the concept of person descends from the...
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Conception of an Object as a Complex of Perceptions in David Hume's Philosophy
Fršlínek, Jan ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Palkoska, Jan (referee)
Práce pojednává o objektu (jakožto komplexu percepcí) a s daným tématem souvisejícími otázkami v kontextu filosofie Davida Huma, jak je obsažena především v první knize jeho díla Treatise of Human Nature a rovněž s přihlédnutím k dílům Enquiry Concerning Human Undestanding a An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature a dalším titulům primární a sekundární literatury. Tematizováno je v tomto kontextu tedy nejprve Humovo pojetí percepcí jako takové (a to na základě první kapitoly Treatisu, Of ideas, their origin, composition, connexion, abstraction etc.). Poté je v souvislosti s předchozím pojednáno i o Humově pojetí identity (především objektu-tělesa) a jeho koncepce individuace, resp. i stálosti a koherence. (a to na základě čtvrté kapitoly Of scepticism with regard to senses). Na konci práce jsou kontrastovány různé možné typy objektů, jež lze (dle autora této práce) chápat jako komplexy percepcí a poté je nabídnuto schéma hypotézy o individuaci tzv. materiálních těles (bodies) v prostoru.
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From Descates' Mind to Kant's Reason
Dekastello, Petr ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Palkoska, Jan (referee)
The basic subject-matter of my research is R. Descartes' Meditations On First Philosophy and I examine the term intellect and its position within the mind and its relation to thought. My work includes a study of sensation and imagination which provide the intellect with "material" to judge. The objective of my thesis is to demonstrate the role the intellect plays in terms of reason and to present an interpretation of the way in which the mind is designated in relation to reason according to Rene Descartes in his writing and in his responses to objections. The position and functions of the intellect are understood as a logical structure of mutual dependence and as the elements essential for the understanding of the human soul substance. At the end of my thesis I demonstrate that the system of reason of R. Descartes might be considered as the basis for the transcendental conception of reason in Kant's philosophy, which leads to an idealistic world conception and is founded on thinking a priori. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
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The Naturalization of Consciousness and the Meaning of Subjectivity
Toráčová, Pavla ; Moural, Josef (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee) ; Marvan, Tomáš (referee)
The thesis deals with the problem of the existence of consciousness in the physical world. It denies the approach that is prevailing in the contemporary philosophy of mind that treats the phenomenal consciousness and intentionality separately. The position held in this thesis is to claim that the phenomenal character of consciousness and intentionality are inseparable and that it is impossible to understand the former without understanding the latter, and vice versa. The problem of the existence of consciousness in the physical world is viewed as the problem of the existence of (conscious) intentionality in the physical world. With the aim to achieve an analysis of intentionality that would keep its phenomenal character and the first person point of view, and, at the same time, shed light on its realization in the physical world, thoughts of Peter Strawson, G. E. M. Anscombe, Tim Crane, Colin McGinn and John Searle are discussed. The result is an outline of intentionality that allows to explain the fundamental level of intentionality as a physical process and the higher levels of intentionality as a development of the fundamental level. Two principles are crucial for this approach: the development of intentionality from the fundamental level to the higher level is comprehensible only if we keep the...
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Modern Theories of Consciousness and the Elusiveness of Subjectivity
Košová, Michaela ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Karásek, Jindřich (referee)
This diploma thesis is concerned with the question of the right conceptual approach towards consciousness. It opens up with the thesis that the crucial characteristic of consciousness - its subjective aspect - is profoundly elusive. To understand the nature of this elusiveness we get a loose inspiration from Karl Jaspers (of the continental tradition) and his idea of "subject-object dichotomy" whose main point is a realisation that the conscious subject is in principle unobjectifiable and can never be properly grasped by objectifying thinking. This main idea is then applied to various modern theories of consciousness (coming from the analytical tradition) in order to explore and demonstrate to what extend each of the theories misses or acknowledges the specific irreducibility of consciousness to objectively describable phenomena. Thus we observe that J. J. C. Smart omits subjectivity from his identity theory altogether since he understands reality as objectively graspable in all its aspects. Colin McGinn comes with an interesting explanation of our problems with grasping consciousness as part of the physical world and asserts that we are "cognitively closed" with respect to the solution of the mind-body problem. However, he concludes that a possible solution delivered in objectifying terms exists...
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