Search Results (215)

The classic definitions of God and Trinity involving the concept of personhood are grounded in the lexical fields of ancient theological and philosophical discourse. They raise the question of the extent to which a believer is required to enter into those worldviews and conceptualities. If a semantic approach is adopted, it becomes apparent that a term like “person” may be re-accentuated according to context. This is an approach which is itself found within patristic methodology, not least in the transitions from Hellenistic philosophy to Greek Christian theology, and then from Greek to Latin. With this method in place, readers may approach such terms using materials derived from their own culture and context, not just those of antiquity. The Kiswahili proverb, Mtu ni watu (a person is people), provides an example of such a term, used to define personhood. Its adoption means that African Christians may approach a core doctrine of the Christian faith easily from their own cultural perspective without requiring a grounding in European thought and history, using a methodology already adopted by their Christian ancestor, Augustine of Hippo. Full article

This study conducts a comparative legal analysis of South Korea’s Framework Act on Artificial Intelligence (enacted January 2025, effective January 2026) and the EU AI Act (effective August 2024), focusing on the structural implications of their divergent regulatory philosophies for sustainable digital governance. Employing legal interpretive analysis (textual, systematic, and teleological) and comparative legal methodology, supplemented by risk-based regulation theory and the theory of hardening of soft norms, this paper examines three interconnected dimensions: the conceptual distinction between “high-impact” and “high-risk” AI, the legal nature of self-regulatory structures, and the potential distortion of civil liability attribution. The analysis reveals that Korea’s adoption of the “high-impact” concept, while strategically reducing compliance costs and avoiding stigma effects, generates significant legal gaps, including potential violations of the constitutional principle of clarity, a “liability lightning rod” phenomenon transferring responsibility from AI operators to frontline practitioners, and insufficient institutional prerequisites for effective self-regulation. In contrast, the EU’s ex-ante preventive framework provides greater legal certainty through direct enumeration of high-risk sectors and mandatory conformity assessments. Drawing on the growing body of EU AI Act scholarship, this paper proposes a five-step legislative model for dynamic regulatory adjustment tailored to Korea’s constitutional structure, encompassing statutory core criteria, periodic re-evaluation with parliamentary oversight, phased mandatory enforcement, and a presumption of conformity system, thereby offering a co-regulatory framework that balances innovation promotion with fundamental rights protection. Full article

Research on school leadership preparation and development on the African continent has been growing significantly in recent years. A close examination of this literature reveals a deficit bias that presents leadership preparation as inadequate leading to perceptions of ineffective leadership practice. In this literature, leadership preparation is understood as the formal training of school principals and those who hold similar positions of authority. The paper argues that this conception is premised on Western models that center individualism and the hierarchy of leadership and is incongruent with the socio-cultural realities within the African context. Within this contextual dissonance, leadership learning is narrowly conceptualized and is thus constraining to the applied context. The paper adopts a critical post-structural analysis to make a case for a dialogical and transformative approach to leadership preparation and development. It draws upon Global South philosophies of Paulo Freire—a South American philosopher whose approach to leadership development centers dialogue, critical consciousness and continuous engagement; Sophie Oluwole, a Nigerian philosopher from the Yoruba tribe, whose philosophy centers cultural acceptance that promotes dialogue and continuous criticism; and the Ubuntu-centered philosophy of Mogobe Ramose, which encourages critical dialogue between knowledge systems. The constant engagement and dialogue espoused in the three philosophical stances allow for contestation and fluidity that serve as bedrocks for healthy and trusting environments for leadership development, permitting a more nuanced understanding of how leadership is learned. The proposed approach politicizes leadership learning and recognizes it as contextual, collectivist and contested. The paper thus advances a radical way of thinking about school leadership preparation and development, which arguably holds better prospects for leadership that is more responsive, inclusive, and sustainable. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems increasingly mediate how individuals learn, work and make decisions, raising foundational philosophical questions about the nature of knowledge, agency and autonomy. This article integrates philosophical analysis with illustrative empirical cases from Romania to examine how AI restructures human epistemic and practical activity. A central empirical observation, the engagement–performance paradox, reveals that AI-driven learning environments can produce dramatic increases in learner interaction while generating only marginal improvements in understanding. Interpreted through post-phenomenology, virtue epistemology and theories of autonomy, this paradox highlights the emergence of epistemic superficiality: a condition in which algorithmically mediated engagement replaces reflective, conceptually grounded learning. Complementary findings from AI-supported workplace contexts further illustrate how intelligent systems automate aspects of decision-making, thereby reshaping autonomy, responsibility and the phenomenology of action. Synthesizing these insights, the article argues that AI functions as a structuring force that co-authors human agency by reorganizing the conditions under which cognition and action occur. The study contributes to contemporary debates in the philosophy of technology, epistemology and AI ethics by proposing the concept of structured agency as a lens for understanding how AI-mediated environments transform the foundations of knowledge, autonomy and human flourishing. Full article

This article examines the 1910 philosophical dispute between Vladimir Ern and Semyon Frank in post-1905 Russia as a dispute over the criterion of philosophy itself. The controversy arose in a field where the meaning of “Russian philosophy,” the authority of neo-Kantian nauchnost’ [scientificity], the religious-ontological program of Put’, and the problem of culture had become closely interconnected. The article argues that the central issue concerned what makes a claim philosophical: participation in an antecedent order of being, or conceptual articulation, proof, and universally valid justification. Ern’s intervention is presented as an attempt to reconstitute philosophy through Logos. For Ern, modern rationalism separates the discursive-logical from the “fullness of reason,” producing ratio as an autonomous and ultimately meonic form of thought; Logos, by contrast, names the ontological principle through which thought remains inwardly bound to being. Frank’s response locates the issue in the concept of philosophy itself. While acknowledging intuition, ontologism, and the insufficiency of one-sided rationalism, he insists that every appeal to being becomes philosophical only when it enters the medium of concepts, reasons, and proof. The article argues that the controversy turns on two irreducible conditions internal to philosophy itself: thought must remain faithful to being, yet it must do so in a form through which its claims become philosophically valid. Read in this way, the Ern–Frank exchange discloses a constitutive tension between ontology and conceptual justification, and between historical embodiment and universal validity. Full article

Mohandas K. Gandhi (popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi) has primarily been recognized for his work in developing the theory and practice of nonviolence (ahimsa) for the purpose of building a culture of sustainable peace. Although Gandhi’s writings do not explicitly engage such categories as negative and positive peace, peace and international relations, or pacifism and nonviolence, scholars in peace studies have nonetheless assessed his contributions to the evolution of the field. This article advances the study of peace by emphasizing the dynamic nature of nonviolence (ahimsa), which is inextricably connected to Gandhi’s vision of sarvodaya (uplift of all). It further argues that his approach to peacebuilding, grounded in the upholding of pluralism across civic life, offers a conceptual framework for disrupting hegemonic monolithic systems. Gandhi lived in a time when the concept of pluralism had not gained currency; however, his vision, rooted in the values of diversity and tolerance, can appropriately be understood under the now widely accepted concept of pluralism. Gandhi thus uniquely connected nonviolence, peace, pluralism, and sarvodaya. For him, peaceful co-existence mandates attention to diversity—an approach that can enrich contemporary conversations in a divided political, social, and religious landscape. As a political leader and social reformer, he promoted indigenous languages, diverse village industries, local economies, and multi-faith religious education. In his later life, he also advocated for inter-caste and interreligious marriages in order to mitigate communal tensions. Such attention to diversity offers a promising path toward realizing the goal of sustainable peace and sarvodaya in a contemporary landscape increasingly prone to monolithic systems. Sarvodaya inherently requires a commitment to pluralistic, dialogical, dialectical, and nonviolent engagement in all spheres of life. By emphasizing shared humanity and committing to diversity, Gandhi offers a social philosophy of respect for all life as well as uplift of all trades, languages, and belief systems grounded in the vision of welfare of all. His practical methods of engaging diverse actors, along with his radical efforts to disrupt autocratic, authoritative, and centralized systems, affirm that the objectives of sarvodaya and sustainable peace can be realized only through a radical pluralism. Full article

Background/Objectives: Schizophrenia is one of the most extensively studied yet conceptually unstable disorders in the history of medicine and brain sciences. Since its formalization at the turn of the twentieth century, the disorder has been repeatedly redefined, reflecting changes in clinical observation, diagnostic philosophy, and neuroscientific models of brain function. The objective of this review is to critically examine the historical evolution of schizophrenia as a medical construct and to analyze how shifts in diagnostic systems have shaped the search for biological and molecular biomarkers. Methods: A narrative-historical review of the literature was conducted, integrating classical psychiatric texts, diagnostic manuals, and contemporary neuroscientific studies. Key milestones in the conceptualization of schizophrenia were analyzed alongside the development of biological hypotheses, including neurochemical, electrophysiological, neuroimaging, genetic, immunological, omics-based, and digital approaches. Emphasis was placed on identifying conceptual continuities, ruptures, and methodological limitations across historical periods. Results: The analysis reveals that the evolution of schizophrenia has been characterized by increasing diagnostic standardization accompanied by growing biological heterogeneity. While successive biological models have provided valuable insights into specific aspects of the disorder, none have yielded single, robust diagnostic biomarkers. Instead, findings consistently reflect partial overlaps between clinical phenotypes and biological signals, strongly influenced by historically derived diagnostic categories. Conclusions: The persistent absence of definitive diagnostic biomarkers for schizophrenia reflects not only technical limitations but also the historical construction of the disorder as a heterogeneous clinical category. Understanding this historical context is essential for interpreting current findings in brain sciences. Future research is likely to benefit from stratification-based, dimensional, and integrative frameworks that move beyond categorical diagnosis while preserving clinical relevance. Full article

Softness-Weakness constitutes a core category in Laozi’s philosophy, while in Yan Zun’s Laozi zhigui of the Western Han dynasty, Harmony-Weakness becomes the key concept for interpreting Laozi’s thought. This conceptual transformation from Softness-Weakness to Harmony-Weakness both reflects the intellectual background of Confucian–Daoist synthesis in the Han dynasty and marks the creative development of Daoist philosophy during this period. Building upon complete inheritance of Laozi’s Softness-Weakness thought, Yan Zun achieved a theoretical reconstruction of Daoist philosophy through introducing Harmony—this Confucian core category. At the cosmological level, Yan Zun creatively incorporated Supreme-Harmony into the sequence of the Dao’s generation, establishing its ontological position as the “progenitor” of the myriad things. Through the proposition “Harmony is its destination, Weakness is its function”, Yan Zun endowed Harmony-Weakness with a clear teleological dimension and value orientation, elevating Harmony-Weakness from a survival strategy to a fundamental principle of cosmic generation. At the practical level, through the Harmony-Weakness concept, Yan Zun constructs a complete system integrating self-cultivation and politics, developing Daoist thought from relatively dispersed wisdom discourse into systematic theory. This conceptual transformation transcends the simple opposition between Softness-Weakness and hardness-strength, achieving a unity in which hardness and Softness mutually assist each other under Harmony’s regulation. However, while the introduction of Harmony deepened the theory, it may also have somewhat weakened the critical edge of Softness-Weakness thought, and the substantialization of Supreme-Harmony may have departed from Laozi’s nihilistic spirit. This theoretical tension precisely demonstrates the theoretical dilemmas and historical choices that Daoist thought faced in its Han dynasty development. Full article

Background/Objectives: Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are rapidly being integrated into healthcare for tasks ranging from clinical documentation to diagnostic support. Current ethical discussions focus predominantly on bias, privacy, and accuracy, leaving three critical governance questions unresolved: What kind of knowledge does an LLM output represent in clinical reasoning? When is a clinician’s or patient’s trust in that output justified? Who bears responsibility when an AI-informed decision leads to patient harm? This study proposes the Epistemic Authority–Trust–Responsibility (ETR) Architecture, a normative conceptual framework that addresses these three questions as an integrated governance challenge. Methods: The framework was developed through normative conceptual analysis—a method that constructs governance proposals by synthesising philosophical principles, ethical theories, and empirical evidence. The literature was identified through structured searches of PubMed, PhilPapers, and EUR-Lex (January 2020–March 2026), drawing on the philosophy of medical knowledge, the ethics of trust and testimony, and the moral philosophy of responsibility. Results: The ETR Architecture produces four outputs: (i) a four-tier classification system that distinguishes LLM outputs—from administrative drafts to clinical evidence claims—and matches each tier to appropriate verification requirements; (ii) the concept of the ‘epistemic placebo’, formally defined as a governance measure that creates a documented appearance of compliance while lacking at least one operative element of genuine oversight; (iii) a model specifying four conditions under which trust in healthcare AI is justified; (iv) four testable hypotheses with associated research designs connecting governance design to trust calibration and patient safety. Conclusions: The 2025–2027 regulatory transition period offers a critical window for shaping how healthcare institutions govern AI. We argue that deploying LLMs without explicitly classifying their outputs and building appropriate oversight risks allows governance norms to be set by technology vendors rather than by evidence-informed, patient-centred policy. Full article

The problem of meaning in an apparently indifferent universe has long been a central concern of existential philosophy. Classical existentialism addressed this question by emphasizing human freedom, responsibility, and the creation of meaning in the absence of transcendental guarantees, yet it largely remained framed within an anthropocentric horizon. This article introduces the concept of cosmic existentialism as a philosophical framework that situates human existence within the broader context of a scientifically understood cosmos. Through conceptual philosophical analysis, the paper reinterprets key existential categories such as angst, authenticity, and freedom in light of contemporary cosmological perspectives. Within this framework, the indifference of the universe is interpreted as a fundamental existential condition within the cosmological framework adopted in this study that reveals the fragility and contingency of human life. The analysis suggests that recognizing humanity’s lack of cosmic privilege does not lead to nihilism but instead allows meaning to be interpreted as a local, finite, and relational phenomenon. Cosmic existentialism therefore offers a philosophical perspective that integrates existential reflection with modern cosmological understanding and provides a framework for thinking about human existence within an indifferent universe. This standpoint is articulated through several principles, including cosmic indifference, the existential locality of meaning, and the contingency of human existence within the cosmos. Rather than emphasizing the scale of the universe itself, the present analysis suggests that the philosophical significance of cosmology lies in the removal of any privileged standpoint from which human existence can be interpreted. Full article

During the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the introduction of Western scientific knowledge to China, facilitated by Western missionaries, included logic as a critical element of Western philosophy and scientific culture. This concept was translated, interpreted, and disseminated, carrying both academic contribution and a historical mission of cultural integration and intellectual enlightenment. The development of the Chinese conceptualization of logic mirrors the intricate process of cultural negotiation and conceptual accommodation between Chinese and Western intellectual traditions. This process went beyond simple terminology translation, representing a significant epistemological shift that introduced into traditional Chinese thought a mode of systematic reasoning previously underdeveloped in the indigenous scholarly tradition. Unlike the systematic formalization of logic in the Western tradition, logical reflection in classical Chinese culture took different forms without coalescing into a comparable systematic field. This paper finds that the introduction of Western logic, with its emphasis on formal deduction and systematic reasoning, constituted an early but significant encounter that contributed to the longer-term transformation of Chinese philosophical discourse in three aspects: it introduced a cognition-centered methodological framework that offered an alternative to the ethically oriented traditional Chinese concepts; it provided intellectual resources that encouraged a gradual shift from purely moral speculation toward incorporating empirical investigation and logical demonstration; and it laid the essential conceptual groundwork for the eventual establishment of logic as a modern academic discipline in China. Collectively, these translated texts and concepts introduced new conceptual possibilities into the Chinese intellectual landscape, contributing over time to a gradual shift from prioritizing moral introspection and analogical reasoning toward increasingly valuing empirical investigation, formal demonstration, and systematic argumentation. Ultimately, the translation of logic was not a passive reception but an active intellectual engagement that introduced new conceptual possibilities into Chinese philosophical discourse, contributing over time to a broader reorientation toward rationality and systematicity. Full article

This paper develops Tone as Ontology, a structural account of being grounded in the invariants of generative systems. We articulate the ontological significance of tone, distinguishing this foundational work from a companion paper that explores its methodological application and formalization. We redefine “tone” as the structural profile of constraints that allows entities to maintain coherence under transformation. The tonal ontology formalizes three invariants—Resonance, Responsibility, and Closure—as conditions of persistence that bridge operational and metaphysical ontology. Concretely, we specify Resonance (relational continuity via recursive feedback), Responsibility (traceable accountability that conserves integrity across transformations), and Closure (recursive self-consistency enabling bounded openness). In contrast to informational or substance-based views, tonal being is understood as the conservation of structure through change. The resulting framework unites physical coherence, informational integrity, and ontological continuity into a generative ontology of integrity, suggesting that to exist is to maintain one’s tone. This paper addresses fundamental questions in meta-ontology, demonstrates how tone generates classical ontological frameworks, and advances a conceptual reorientation for understanding existence as resonant persistence. It outlines testable implications across philosophy of mind, AI ethics, and social/environmental theory. Overall, tonal ontology is presented as a post-informational, structurally grounded account of being. Full article

In this contribution, I explore the idea that reality is best understood as fundamentally dynamic and interdependent, i.e., processual, bringing together resources from process thought, phenomenology and the Madhyamaka school of Buddhism. I furthermore explore how this view shapes the ways we speak about, investigate, and understand the natural world. What is novel in my approach is that I bring a phenomenological reading of process in dialogue with Buddhist thought. My paper unfolds in two stages: first, I map key points of convergence between phenomenologically clarified process philosophy and Madhyamaka; second, I consider the broader epistemological and practical consequences of viewing reality as impermanent and dependently arising by looking at Whitehead’s and Nāgārjuna’s views in dialogue. Engaging with Buddhist philosophy alongside phenomenological process thought enables a deeper investigation into the ethical, and lived dimensions of metaphysical inquiry, which are dimensions often sidelined both in Western metaphysics and in some versions of phenomenology, because metaphysical and phenomenological analysis can remain stuck on the conceptual level, detached from both lived experience and practice. By contrast, Buddhist traditions explicitly link philosophical reflection with lived experience and embodied practice throughout. For this reason, sustained dialogue with Buddhist views and practices can expand Western methodology as such and can enrich process-based phenomenological approaches in particular by showing ways to reconnect speculative metaphysics, observation, and the concrete in practical ways. Full article

The distinction between signs and expressions is essential to unlock Deleuze’s interpretation of Spinoza. However, during a lecture delivered on 13 January 1981, Deleuze makes a passing remark that complicates this distinction. For Spinoza, Christ’s religion, like political society, is a systems of signs pertaining to the collective imagination that nevertheless is meant to facilitate the transition towards the domain of expressions, that is, to the domain of reason and philosophy. The aim of this paper is to shed light on this ambiguity between signs and expressions in Deleuze’s work on Spinoza. First, I discuss the scattered passages in Spinoza’s oeuvre dealing with the figure of Christ. I then go on to reconstruct Deleuze’s Spinozistic taxonomy of signs. Third, I reconstruct Deleuze’s comparison between Spinoza and Hobbes regarding the emergence of political society from the state of nature. I then propose a close reading of chapter 7 of the Theological-Political Treatise to argue that Christ’s religion, according to Spinoza, should be seen as fulfilling the function of political society in times of crisis. I end with an extensive analysis of Spinoza’s formula “the Spirit of Christ, that is, the idea of God” in light of Deleuze’s reading of the first half of Ethics V. To conclude, I suggest we look at Christ as the conceptual persona of Spinozism. Full article

At the end of Deleuze’s lectures on Spinoza of 1980–1981, he asks his students to “imagine a Spinozist gambler.” Yet he ends the course offering few clues about how to picture this figure. Here we provide an interpretation of the Spinozist gambler based on both its Spinozist conceptual context and its place in Deleuze’s broader philosophy of gambling play. Accordingly, we examine Spinozist gambling in terms of Deleuze’s account of Spinoza’s three types of knowledge, and we compare the Spinozist gambler to Deleuze’s more prominent figure of the Nietzschean dice-thrower. We thereby offer a tripartite characterization of the Spinozist gambler following its place in Spinoza’s epistemology, which we further refine by examining Deleuze’s comments on indeterminism in Spinoza and Nietzsche. We argue that, according to Deleuze, the Spinozist gambler controls chance through rational organization, whereas the Nietzschean gambler affirms and embraces chance itself. And by means of this analysis, we advance our knowledge of both Deleuze’s Spinozism and his philosophy of play. Full article