This paper aims to reconstruct Otto Weininger’s influence on the philosophy of the early Wittgenstein, with the goal of showing how Wittgensteinian metaphysics is shaped, on the one hand, by the concept of genius and, on the other, by Weininger’s account of the relationship between logic and ethics. I will to attempt to demonstrate that in Wittgenstein this relationship is articulated through the notion of the mystical, and that logic and ethics form an indissoluble unity insofar as the resolution of a logical problem coincides with the resolution of an ethical one.
This paper aims to show that Nietzsche’s break with Wagner was also due to Wagner’s assimilation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which Nietzsche regarded as a nihilistic worldview. Insofar as Schopenhauer’s thought recommended hatred of life and resignation, it proved to be nihilistic. Schopenhauer’s was a kind of passive nihilism, together with Christianity and Buddhism. Physiologically, the type incarnating passive nihilism turned out to be characterised by an abnormal feeling of exhaustion due to low metabolism. Ultimately, the article argues, among others, Nietzsche rejected Wagner’s thought because, under the influence of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, it led to passive nihilism.
This paper develops and defends a pure causal-historical theory of reference borrowing, understood as a theory that explains successful reference transmission without appeal to independently specified conceptual or descriptive content. Starting from Kripke’s insight that speakers can refer to historically distant individuals via chains of transmission, the paper distinguishes sharply between the epistemic individuation of reference—relevant to interpretation, communication, and cognitive access—and its metaphysical individuation, grounded in causal-historical relations. Against hybrid theories of reference borrowing, particularly those that posit minimal true or approximately true categorical beliefs as necessary conditions for successful borrowing, the paper advances a three-step objection based on arguments from ignorance, error, and theoretical incompleteness. Drawing on the mental files framework, it argues that descriptive information plays an explanatory role on the epistemic side of reference, but not on the metaphysical side. Through discussion of canonical cases involving historical names, fictional misunderstandings, and runic inscriptions, the paper concludes that reference borrowing can succeed in the absence of associated true descriptions, provided that the appropriate causal-historical connections are in place. The result is a programmatic defense of reference as a substantive causal relation, open in principle to empirical investigation, and irreducible to descriptive or hybrid accounts.
In this essay, I argue that our perception of the phenomenal world can be epistemically related to what exists without corresponding to it, since the human brain did not evolve to deliver a “true” image of reality but primarily to serve survival of the species. Perception is not a mere response to environmental stimuli but is a higher-level cognitive experience that provides indirect knowledge of objects and events. From this perspective, I defend a non-correspondentist, realist, and representational account of perception and language.
