Mebadi Uluslararası Felsefe Dergisi

Examples of Philosophical Guidance from Epictetus

Mehmet Önal — 2024-12-31

There are three main pillars that guide services aimed at humans: psychology, sociology, and philosophy. However, almost all fields of knowledge and humanities that address human beings and society in general are among its sources. Philosophy, as one of the knowledge fields forming the basis of guidance services, can be regarded as a form of philosophical guidance service if it is conducted as a thought and action activity closely tied to real life. Based on this idea, philosophers began considering by the 1980s that they could offer "Philosophical Guidance" services. According to Lahav, one of the first advocates of this idea, philosophy's practical function in life today emerges as philosophical guidance. This is because the activity we call philosophical guidance is by no means separate from a philosophical life or philosophical culture. In this sense, the article will first provide a preliminary evaluation to closely examine the concepts of guidance and counseling in general. Subsequently, the philosophy of Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher of the Roman era, will be presented as an example of philosophical guidance. The deliberate choice to use the term "guidance" instead of "counseling" or "therapy" in the article is noteworthy. This is because, technically speaking, guidance, which involves merely providing information without imposing any solutions and without acting as a specialized consultant to resolve a problem, aligns more closely with the spirit of philosophy than counseling or therapy services.

“Nothing” in Function: Heidegger’s Ontological Difference

Sedef Beşkardeşler — 2024-12-31

This paper examines the role and function of Nothing in Heidegger’s understanding of philosophy as metaphysics, contending that Heidegger’s treatment of Being and Nothing are equiprimordial with respect to the ontological difference. That is, the ontological difference concerns not only the difference between beings and Being but also the difference between beings and Nothing. I base my examination on two main moments. First, Nothing is interrogated with respect to the transcendence it enables; featuring the field beyond beings. There, the basic relation between metaphysics, Nothing and Being are explored chiefly by means of Heidegger’s revival of the question “Why are there beings at all instead of nothing?” (why-question). Following from the first one, the second part tackles anxiety to its center as the very phenomenon through which Nothing itself comes to the fore. The paper in its culmination argues that the why-question and the Nothing it reminds Dasein of, functions as an existential trigger, and an ontological threshold, respectively for revealing Dasein’s potentiality-for-authenticity and the inherent-transcendence that occupies the open field which signifies the ontological difference.

Alain Badiou’s Anti-Philosophy Seminars: Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan

Ali utku — 2024-12-31

Alain Badiou, the most widely read living French philosopher, turned his attention to the theme of “anti-philosophy” and the figure of the “anti-philosopher” immediately after his systematic attempt to reinstate philosophy through works such as Being and Event (1988), Manifesto for Philosophy (1989), and Conditions (1992). In line with his Platonic stance, Badiou sought a polemical engagement with the contemporary versions of the sophists—those eternal adversaries or rivals of philosophers—whom he labeled “Great Sophistry” in Manifesto for Philosophy. For Badiou, anti-philosophy fundamentally aims at an act of unconditional rupture, indeterminate transformation, and an unfounded leap into the new. In any case, there is much for the philosopher to learn from encountering the anti-philosopher. Indeed, Badiou believed that such encounters could at least help philosophy clarify its agenda through the challenges posed by this particularly unsettling “other.” With this in mind, Badiou devoted his annual seminars at the École Normale Supérieure from 1992 onward to four major anti-philosophers: Nietzsche (1992–1993), Wittgenstein (1993–1994), Lacan (1994–1995), and Saint Paul (1995–1996). This article problematizes Badiou’s reading of Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Lacan as anti-philosophers, figures to whom he accorded a privileged place in his anti-philosophical canon. In terms of its findings, Badiou’s Anti-Philosophy Seminars constitute anti-historical, immanent critical readings that seek “the outside within” the history of philosophy as a way to continue its project.

Kuhnian Paradigm Shift on the Question of Neolithic Revolution

Birdal Akar — 2024-12-31

The question of Neolithic Revolution was posited by Gordon Childe in early 1930s along with its first answer in history of thought and Childe’s approaches have been theme or starting point of many historical theories, archaeological investigations and methodological propositions so far. Childe’s theory has become a Kuhnian paradigm since 1930’s. The approaches of asking and answering forms of Neolithic Revolution question had been written without any compulsion of accounting with anomalies which could cause any crisis and so they had been approved and discussed in archaelogical circles just as the paradigm of Childe. However the new discoveries made in South East Anatolian and Levant regions have made Childe’s paradigm encounter with some anomalies which it cannot explain. Therefore, particularly during the last three decades, the researchers who investigate the Late Epipaleolitic and Early Neolithic epoches of Anatolia and Levant seem to be in a crisis era. In this paper, the researches of Anatolian and Levantine neolithisation are examined specificly to paradigms of Childe and Cauvin, by the way of Kuhn’s scientific revolution and paradigm shift theories.

A Study on the Similarities of Religious Themes in Plato's Works with Iranian Mythology and Religious Tradition

Sedat Altunkanat — 2024-12-31

Ancient traditions share similar and common mythologies, religious themes, and cultural motifs. Throughout history, there has been an encounter and interaction between Greek and Iranian civilizations. One of the important representatives of Greek culture is Plato. In Plato’s works, there are reflections of Greek culture and tradition from his period, including themes such as morality, religion, gods, sacrificial rituals, and holiday ceremonies. There is also information about Greek mythology and surrounding cultures. Plato criticized certain social and religious beliefs that he considered wrong and immoral. As though making a reform, he sought to interpret his own ideas on morality and religion within the framework of law and the state, with the aim of building a new society. The religious understandings, traditions, and ideas depicted in Plato's works evoke and resemble Iranian mythology and Zoroastrian traditions in some ways. Both traditions reflect their own spirit.

From Kant to Hawking: A Journey into the Nature of Space-Time

Mustafa Koç — 2024-12-31

This study aims to examine the interaction between Immanuel Kant's philosophy of knowledge and Stephen Hawking's scientific approach, shaped by his work on the beginning of time and black holes, in fields such as cosmology and physics. In particular, it considers how these two perspectives shape our understanding of the nature of space and time. Kant recognizes space and time as the fundamental building blocks of the world we experience and argues that these concepts are the a priori categories of our minds. This duality leads to the conclusion that space and time are both transcendental ideals and empirical realities. According to Kant space and time, in which change takes place and which contain all the objects we experience, appear as a form of sensibility, not of the faculty of understanding. This view is incompatible with Newton's view that space and time are absolute entities. Kant argued that the early solar system consisted of a mass of gas and dust orbiting itself, and that this formation was deterministic. Laplace, acting independently and without Kant's awareness, advanced the principle of scientific determinism with the objective of establishing a comprehensive set of laws. In the context, Hawking and Penrose have developed a mathematical model based on the spherical nature of space and time. According to this model, space-time is not only bent inward by massive objects, but also by the density of energy in it, which bends rays inward and compresses them to zero in finite time. This supports the existence of a starting point for time. This approach provided evidence for an ontological problem posed by Kant regarding the nature of time. Although Hawking and Kant have different views on the nature of reality and the role of the human mind, they share a common understanding of the importance of models in understanding the workings of the universe. Although Hawking's view of model-based realism and Kant's epistemology offer different perspectives, they both emphasize that mental designs and models play an important role in our perception of reality and our interaction with the universe.