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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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Justificatory Status of Perceptual Beliefs
Sedláková, Jana ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Glombíček, Petr (referee)
The main subject of this essay is the problem of the relationship between sensation and perceptual beliefs in terms of their justification. Wilfrid Sellars and his Empiricism & The Philosophie of Mind are central for this essay. Sellars criticizes the theory of fundamentalism and sense data theory by pointing to the Myth of the Given. The perceptual beliefs could not be basic and self-justifying. Such a hierarchical structure is implausible, because we need a lot of other concepts for understanding and forming the perceptual beliefs. The justification has to be placed in the space of reason, when we are able to be responsible for our beliefs, to give reason, to understand the objections and react to them. This debate is not examined only in terms of an isolated, static subject. On the contrary, this subject is embedded to a dynamic social structure. Sellars' position contains three main elements: normativity, intersubjektivity and holism. All these elements will be more closely examined and placed in a broader context. Finally, I will present a critical view on Sellars' position on the basis of three questions: 1, to what extent is plausible the prior character of "It is" talk to "It looks" talk 2, to what extent can we talk about the non - inferential beliefs 3, to what extent is Sellars'...
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Silence
Šterbáková, Daniela ; Thein, Karel (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee) ; Fulka, Josef (referee)
Silence is a negative term denoting absence of sounds. However, our ordinary way of speaking about silence suggests that the latter is some perceptible reality, 'some- thing' perceived. But is it legitimate to say that we hear silence - absence of sound? What implications about perception does such a way of speaking have? The aim of the present thesis is to analyse these questions. The analysis unfolds along three axes. The first part of the thesis reconstructs the problem of perception of silence in John Cage's 'silent piece' 4'33" in context of its conceptual origin, Cage's aesthetics, and reflection of his work in his written texts. Hence the introduction of the problem of perceptible silence in recent thought. It discusses the thesis that we cannot hear absolute silence, not even in the soundproof chamber, and considers the question whether it is adequate to say that we can hear silence if we expect to hear music, but the music does not sound - a question that was raised by the premiere of 4'33". The second part of the thesis scrutinizes the position according to which we can directly hear/listen to silence which is the absence of sounds, namely the arguments of Roy Sorensen and Ian Phillips. Emphasis is put on Sorensen's theory since it is in direct contrast to Cage's position (though Sorensen...
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Hypothetical Judgements, Truth and Assertibility
Punčochář, Vít ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Sedlár, Igor (referee) ; Bílková, Marta (referee)
Vít Punčochář Dissertation: Hypothetical Judgements, Truth and Assertibility Abstract: The main topic of this thesis is the logic of indicative conditionals, i.e. sentences of the form If A then B. In classical logic, these sentences are analysed with the help of the so- called material implication. However, the analysis is problematic in many respects. Some chapters of the thesis are devoted to the explanation of the problems, which one necessarily faces when analysing conditionals with the apparatus of standard classical logic. The stress is laid upon the fact that here we are led to a paradoxical situation: some general principles of classical logic (e.g. the principle according to which one can infer If not-A then B from A or B) seem to be unquestionable, but they have very controversial consequences. In the thesis, attempts are presented to defend classical logic as well as to revise it. The approaches to the logical analysis of conditionals are classified into two basic kinds: the first one might be called ontic and the second one epistemic. The ontic approach defines all crucial semantic notions in terms of the concept of truth that is modelled in logic as a relation between sentences of a given language and states of affairs. In contrast, the epistemic approach is not based on the concept of truth...
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Žižek's Logic of Generality and the Dialectics of Consciousness
Pašek, Adam ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Ritter, Martin (referee)
Hegelian dialectics is normally described using the traditional scheme thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Thesis put in the first step of the scheme in negated in the second one. In the third step the negation is negated itself. However, that doesn't conclude in a return to the thesis but in its being mediated in a determinate negation. The problem how to understand the "productivity of negation" is adressed by Jean Hippolyte in his book Genesis and Structure of Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. I think that he touches a genuin problem of the simple triadic interpretation of the dialectics. For that reason I present in my work a supplement to to the standard interpretation. It is constructed based on Lacan's formulae of sexuation taken in the way they are explained by Slavoj Žižek in Less than Nothing. Then it is elaborated further alongside with a reading of the two first chapters of Phenomenology of the Spirit (Sense Certainty and Perception) and applied on their dialectics. That is why I consacrate the main part of the work to the question of how the dialectical turn, by which the consciousness shifts from e.g. from sense certainty to perception, happens. The analysis of this phenomenon uses the interpretation of the formulae of sexuation elaborated in the first part. In doing this it hinges on the...
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The Role of Convention in Austin's Speech Act Theory
Josisová, Pavlína ; Peregrin, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee)
The diploma thesis examines the role of convention in J. L. Austin's speech act theory. It describes the possibility of "how to do things with words": such an analysis of language will be suggested that does not focus on the category of truth when dealing with particular utterances but rather replaces it with the category of felicity of a speech act in the social context. After having offered the explication including the central points of the given theory, there starts the investigation of which parts of the speech act theory are conventionally based and what role do conventions play in the speech act theory as a whole.
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Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in the Light of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Smiešková, Kornélia ; Hill, James (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee)
The point of departure for the bachelor's work is the thesis that there is a certain paralel between Wittgenstein's early philosophy as it is presented in his work Tractatus and Kant's transcendental idealism. Wittgenstein's thesis that logic (and also philosophy) cannot be explicative and that it must take care of itself is based on a difference between factual and conceptual examination. This difference refers to empirical and transcendental use of concepts in Kant who claims that the knowledge of reality can be achieved only within our experience, through concepts that relate to the objects of experiential world. The aim of our work is to examine the above mentioned thesis and compare relevant parts of the main works by Kant and Wittgenstein (Tractatus logico - philosophicus, The Critique of Pure Reason) and focus on substantial parallels, possible connections but also differences, therefore the aim of the work is to examine the content not historical circumstances. The introductory parts will explain the concept of transcendental idealism, and the analysis of primary texts will follow, while the focus will be given to Tractatus and it will be put in context mainly with Kant's transcendental dialectics. Our procedure leads a dialogue with secondary literature.
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Instrumentality of knowledge: instrumentalism in philosophy of scienc
Cvek, Boris ; Peregrin, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Kolman, Vojtěch (referee) ; Švec, Ondřej (referee)
Richard Rorty's main thesis in his work Philosphy and the Mirror of Nature centers on a critique of representationalism in a fundamentally relativistic way. The aim of this disseration is to grasp Rorty's ideas in broader sense as a critique of inadequate interpretation of knowing- that and shift the attention to knowing-how as a key to new understanding the success of natural sciences. The fact that something is reproducibly possible for us to make in the surrounding world is not relative, and it is precisely in this way that technology (knowing- how) spreads so successfully even at multi-cultural level. In contrast, the explanatory function (knowing-that) of the natural sciences is relative, making sense only in the context of what is already known and accepted. Natural sciences are so successful because their experiments and only then take agreement of hypothesis with experimental practice (knowing-how) as the criterion of its acceptability. This dissertation offers, as a way out of Rortian relativism, the concept of "open authority" and proposes a new development in philosophic pragmatism based on it.
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Are there any pohotographic representations? Roger Scruton and his critics
Bergmann, Dominik ; Kolman, Vojtěch (advisor) ; Petříček, Miroslav (referee)
This thesis focuses on the answering whether photographic representations exist or not. The answer is searched for in discussions of Roger Scruton and some of his critics. According to Scruton's argument presented in the essay entitled Photography and Representation a photograph cannot be a representation. Scruton claims that only such medium can become a representation that has a certain intentional relation to its subject, however a photograph is defined merely by its causal relation to such object. Scruton's critics believe that a photograph is a representation and criticize him for: i) underestimating the role a photographer's intentions play in a photograph; ii) disregarding a photograph's ability to provide a new way of seeing and thus becoming representational; iii) equivocating between the subject of a painting and the subject of a photograph. It is demonstrated that arguments of Scruton's critics are not able to show Scruton's concept of photography to be false. However, an alternative approach to representation provides a basis to demonstrate in what sense a photograph may be a representation. For that reason it is suggested to consider a photography as an essentially paradoxical medium merging into itself the intentional and causal. Keywords: photograph, representation, intentional...
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