The teaching of Rene Descartes was an inspiration for many philosophical positions, being a point of reference, a reason to continue the themes and methods taken up in it, or finally provoking opposition and being subject to negation. The last case is in relation to the position of the contemporary Spanish philosopher Maria Zambrano (1904–1991). In her work, Descartes plays the role of the author of a harmful phrase of an epochal nature. While in her writings it is easy to see elements of criticism of modern rationalism—coming from the French philosopher—they lack an analysis thanks to which this phrase can be better understood using the theory of the ‘Dream-Creator,’ to which Zambrano devotes one of his books. This article is a form of confrontation of Descartes’s attitude and his choices with the aforementioned Zambrano criterion, and is such an analysis. The article also attempts to point out that the ‘poetic reason’ proclaimed by Zambrano, which had the character of a methodological tool, could have already appeared in Descartes himself and been consciously rejected by him. Therefore, the criticism of the father of modernity, carried out by the Spanish philosopher, is not only negative, but finds its continuation in her work, constituting its basis.
The occasionalist Arnold Geulincx (1624–1669) was convinced that there is a single cause of everything, and that cause is God. Corporeal substance, like spiritual substance, comes from God and is necessary, being His instrument. By defining God as the Creator, the Supreme Artificer, and the Mover, Geulincx simultaneously described the world and the relationship between God, a human being, and the world. Drawing on source texts, this article presents Geulincx’s views on the world, a human being and God: from his almost poetic vision of the world—the work of God the Creator, through an attempt to explain the psychophysical unity of human being by comparing God to an artificer constructing clocks, to his definition of the world as a body in motion, subject to specific laws imposed by God the Mover.
The impact that Jacob Bohme — a simple, uneducated “shoemaker from Zgorzelec” — had on the shape of European thought and culture is astonishing. Hegel not only called him the first “Teutonic philosopher,” but also, alongside F. Bacon, considered him one of the main creators of modern philosophy. The source of Bohme’s thought was a mystical experience, which he tried to present using a metaphorical language, and one dotted with paradoxes. The key position in these attempts to describe his experience was occupied by the dialectic of light and dark, good and evil, spirit and matter. Bohme’s philosophy was comprehensive in nature, his thoughts intertwined: theosophy, cosmosophy, anthroposophy, and Christosophy. Bohme’s message had a major influence, the scope of which was not limited the development of philosophy and religious movements, but also extended to many artists, poets, and scientists inspired by his works. The question of the sources of this enormous power of influence of his thoughts remains an open one. In my article I offer certain reflections on these sources.
The article touches upon the problem of causality in the philosophy of Descartes. It aims to present and compare the newer concepts of this question discussed in the Anglo-Saxon sphere of philosophy that are split between interpreting causality in Descartes’ metaphysics in the framework of an occasionalistic model, to be exact—occasional causation, or a model of transeunt ef ficient causation. Greater attention has been given to the interpretation of Tad M. Schmaltz, who despite the dominant tendencies to occasionalistic explanations, seeks to present the possibility of the model of transeunt ef ficient causation. The problem of causality is analyzed for both the instances of a body–body relation and a mind–body one. In the case of body–body relation both mentioned models seem to explain the ef ficacy of matter in an economical way, whereas in the case of mind–body relations, due to the radical ontological difference between these substances, they seem to inevitably rely on explanations that have a factum brutum character. Within the framework of the proposed explanations, the issue of causality stands out as a problem of preserving the harmony of created being.
This article aims to provide a comparative analysis of the philosophical systems of the Konigsberg philosopher Immanuel Kant and the Austrian economist Friedrich August von Hayek, whose economic theories are closely linked to his socio-political philosophy. This article presents Kant’s deontological ethics and an epistemological system based on transcendental analysis from the perspective of the assumptions contained in Hayek’s theory of cultural evolution. An analysis of the content of literary works and publications is conducted to verify the feasibility of implementing Kant’s philosophy using Hayek’s concept of social order. The text addresses social issues such as possible and limited knowledge, subjective and objective perception of phenomena, and the relationship between the human individual and culture. A comparative approach to Kant’s and Hayek’s systems is then applied in order to identify similarities and differences in their views. This, in turn, enables the formulation of an answer to the question of the Kantian inspirations for Hayek’s system. In conclusion, I argue that there are fundamental differences between the two systems, noticeable in their views on the role of humans in the world around them, as well as in the practice and shaping of a culture of knowledge.
