Volume 14 (2018)

In order to explain the irreconcilable disagreements within philosophy, the following paper argues for a tripartite theory of thinking based on three kinds of logic: of understanding, of reason, and of speculation.

The following paper traces the odyssey of three paradigmatic concepts – understanding, reason, and spirit – that determined the modernity of the European culture.

Nowadays it is usually considered that we have two research codes: one digital and one analogous. But the reality to be researched is rather “continuous” than separated in “rigid” categories. That’s why analogue language seems more appropriate on a continuous scale of natural thinking in the process of knowing. Ultimately, one cannot go beyond analogy, because the analogical terms are the very condition of the possibility of conceptual thinking, the ultimate “unity” of thinking. But the thinking has three main faculties (Alexandru Surdu): understanding, reason and speculation. Although these faculties can be described and treated differently (in a more didactic perspective), the present study attempts to capture the continuity between them through analogy, which gives a certain unity to the faculties of thinking.

The logic of understanding is “the theory of the forms of shaping (outlining and representing) of the states of affaires”. It is identifiable in the so-called symbolic or mathematical logic, and employs a symbolic language at the linguistic level. The logic of reason is “the theory of the abstract and generalized forms of reflection of perceivable objects, psychologically realized through contemplation and reflection”. It makes use of a notional language, being recognizable in the classical, or traditional, logic. The logic of speculative thinking is a formal theory whose logical forms are categories in various oppositional relations.

The author attempts to describe the conditions of a “rational experience”. First, the concept of experience is understood in terms of its relationship with a “subject” as an individual in flesh and bones. Second, the term “rational” is related to the significance of “reason” as a faculty of forms. The so-called „rational experience” involves the metamorphosis of a judgment as a logical form into a pre-judgment, or prejudice (through a process of subjectivizing), and then again into a judgment with a constitutive role in a new discourse (through a process of de-constituting).

The article intends to explain the negative impact the faculty psychology had on Maiorescu’s disciples by investigating a set of philosophical assumptions that underlie their thought. The Romanian debate on mind faculties comes to a turning point with Alexandru Surdu’s logical approach that overcomes the difficulties of the essentialist metaphysics and offers an explanation for the occurence of disagreements within philosophy.

The following paper approaches the relationship between reason and speculative philosophy starting from the investigation of speculative thinking in the work of the Romanian contemporary philosopher Alexandru Surdu, titled Gândirea speculativă: coordonate istorico-sistematice (2001). While emphasizing the main aspects of the relationship between reason and speculative thought, the present investigation proceeds to identify the limits of reason within the tripartite theory of thinking, as was developed by Alexandru Surdu.

The alignment with transcendence, whose meaning we seek in our individual existence, means metaphysical anxiety, which cannot be realized (only) as cognitive self, but as poietic self. Poiesis is the transcendence of the self, the exit from the self, from the isolation of the subject, which can never be creative in itself, but must be complete in the sense of Creation.

Alexandru Surdu’s approach is an extensive dialogue with the history of Romanian and world philosophy. In a Hegelian spirit, Alexandru Surdu argues that the dialectico-speculative logic is able to go beyond the limits of the formal exercise, becoming an organon of philosophy and of culture in general. In this capacity, logic is capable to bring into harmony the categories that account for the real existence of man and his world.

While outlining the ideas at the core of Alexandru Surdu’s Pentamorphosis of Art, the following article runs through the creative dynamics of numbers as explanatory patterns of world and human being.

Following the lead of Alexandru Surdu’s interpretation, our paper attempts to emphasize the way that aphaeresis as method works within the philosophical and artistic areas, through investigating some features of Constantin Noica’s hermeneutics and of Constantin Brancusi’s view on art.