Disputatio philosophica: International Journal on Philosophy and Religion
Disputatio philosophica is an international scientific journal at The Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Zagreb, which annually publishes articles in philosophy, religious studies and theology in English, German, Italian, Spanish and French language. Currently, Disputatio philosophica is indexed in Scopus, The Philosopher's Index and CEEOL (Central and Eastern European Online Library).
Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Danijel Tolvajčić, Teodicejski problem u suvremenoj filozofiji religije
Danijel Tolvajčić, Teodicejski problem u suvremenoj filozofiji religije. Zagreb, Grafički zavod Hrvatske d.o.o., 2023, 151 pp.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Douglas Groothuis, Beyond the Wager: The Christian Brilliance of Blaise Pascal
Douglas Groothuis, Beyond the Wager: The Christian Brilliance of Blaise Pascal. Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 2024, 224 pp.
Matt Lutz, Spencer Case, Is Morality Real? A Debate
Matt Lutz, Spencer Case, Is Morality Real? A Debate. London: Routledge, 2023, First Edition 260 pp.
Jonathan Fuqua, Robert C. Koons (eds.), Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God
Jonathan Fuqua, Robert C. Koons (eds.), Classical Theism: New Essays on the Metaphysics of God. London: Routledge, 2023, X + 344 pp.
The Normativity of Language Games in the Context of Psychoanalysis and Mental Health
Language profoundly shapes human perception and social interactions. Sigmund Freud emphasized the role of language in uncovering and addressing unconscious conflicts, particularly in the treatment of mental illness. Ludwig Wittgenstein examined the everyday use of language through his concept of “language games,” thereby revealing its normative function in shaping meaning, behavior, and societal norms. This paper compares Freud’s and Wittgenstein’s approaches to language, highlighting their shared emphasis on its normativity and therapeutic potential. While their perspectives differ — Freud focusing on the unconscious structures underlying speech and Wittgenstein on the rule–governed nature of language use — they both illustrate that language is an active force that shapes human experience rather than a passive medium. Finally, the paper argues that Freud’s insights into the symbolic dimensions of language and Wittgenstein’s emphasis on linguistic practice together suggest the need for a culturally sensitive and holistic approach to therapy.
Private Language in Philosophical Investigations: The Viability of Hintikkas’ Interpretation
In this paper, we analyze Jaakko and Merrill Hintikka’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s arguments against epistemic privacy. The main focus of the paper is to explore their views on this issue and examine the connections between their argumentation and that of Saul Kripke to see to what extent these views coincide. The reason for comparing the said authors is that they all oppose the received view of the argument against private language, which claims that the discussion of private language begins with PI 243. In fact, these philosophers claim that Wittgenstein already discussed the issue of the impossibility of a private language in his rule-following reflections, especially in PI 201 and 202. We will also explore some drawbacks of the interpretation of Wittgenstein offered by the Hintikkas and attempt to provide an overall perspective of the viability of their position in relation to Wittgenstein’s argument against epistemic privacy.
Knowledge of God in the Philosophy of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Abstract The philosophy of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, shaped by the historical context of the Renaissance and an academic environment inclined toward syncretism, leaves an impression of a complex and stratified system to this day. In his philosophical approach to the knowledge of God, Pico relies on various philosophical and theological sources, thereby constructing a distinctive representation of the spiritual journey toward a mystical union with God. The authors explore his philosophical approach to the knowledge of God through three points, or degrees, by which human introspection, philosophical inquiry, and theological reflection lead toward God. After a brief overview of Pico’s thesis with respect to the capacity of knowing God, the authors go on to elaborate on the position of rationality and the capacity to abstract the attributes of God, as well as the nature of contemplation and the mystical union with God, relying on Oration on the Dignity of Man (De hominis dignitate) and On Being and Unity (De ente et uno).
Administration of Sacraments in casu necessitatis by Nurses in Croatia — A Few Qualitative Examples from Clinical Practice
Modern healthcare requires a holistic approach and person–centered care. Rare examples are highlighted in this paper, in which this type of experience is seen not only in view of a patient’s autonomy but also through actions that go beyond certain standardized procedures. It is a higher level of understanding of a human compared to the one of the prevalent biomedical model. This paper outlines the experiences of three nurses from the Republic of Croatia who participated in the administration of sacraments during their regular work in nursing care. These experiences include administering the sacrament of baptism to a newborn with a predicted fatal outcome as the priest was unavailable, and the sacrament of Holy Communion to a patient whom the priest could not physically access. Preliminary results are presented along with a review of the literature, with the aim of preparing a more comprehensive study with a greater number of respondents. The first results show that in the healthcare system of the Republic of Croatia, there are nurses who participate in the administration of sacraments, but they state that they do not have sufficient knowledge about the process. During the formal education of nurses, there are no contents that would deal with the described phenomena, although the necessity of meeting the spiritual needs of patients is emphasized.
Disputatio philosophica: International Journal on Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 26 No. 1, 2024
Valentin Goranko, Temporal Logics. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2023, IV + 112 pp.
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
David L. McConnell, Marilyn D. Loveless, Nature and the Environment in Amish Life. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, 312 pp.
Simposio scientifico internazionale — 1 dicembre 2023. “La Lega Aquilina Croata e l’Azione Cattolica”
Examination of Christian Liturgy in the Journal Islamska misao
What characterizes Islam is its openness to other religions and the “spirit of dialogue”, which is one of the essential ideas of the Holy Qur’an. For the dialogue to take place, the Other is required, the one who will try to understand. The journal Islamska misao (Islamic Thought) was partly dedicated to the said idea, which is substantiated by the texts that we aim to analyze in this paper. All of this testifies to a slow opening that characterized the period in which the journal was published, and both political emancipation, as well as the need to understand others to whom Muslims are directly addressed in their totality. Special emphasis is placed on the Christian ritualistic aspect, where we show numerous conceptual similarities in many religions, as well as peculiarities, all of which contribute to a more diverse religious spectrum which is in Islam perceived as a reflection of the divine plan or will. This is what Muslim authors had in mind when choosing topics in the journal.
Research on Boethius’s Views on the Nature of Good and Evil
This inquiry delves into the nuanced perspectives of Boethius on the existence of evil, placing a particular emphasis on its ontological dimensions within the overarching framework of absolute good. The primary focus of this analysis centers around Boethius’s seminal works, The Consolation of Philosophy and Hebdomads which serve as the key repositories of his philosophical reflections. In the former, Boethius conducts a profound exploration of the problem of evil and good, with a specific focus on the ontological realm. The latter work, Hebdomads contributes a metaphysical foundation for a more profound comprehension of these philosophical concepts. This study bifurcates the thematic exploration into two core aspects: the ontological–metaphysical dimension, scrutinizing the concepts of good and bad beyond the realm of human action, and the ethical– moral dimension, acknowledging its importance for a comprehensive understanding of the metaphysical. This dualistic approach enriches the hermeneutic perspective, facilitating a more holistic understanding of Boethius’s intricate thoughts on the nature of good and evil. The synthesis of these levels not only illuminates Boethius’s intellectual journey but also contributes to the broader discourse on the philosophical exploration of ontological dimensions within the context of absolute good.
The centuries–old model of the Church as a community of lay people and clerics who inspire and guide them was entering a functional crisis. In the era of revolutions and liberalism, the laity found itself in a new, contradictory position: at the same time, they are believers loyal to the Church and citizens loyal to secular society. Looking for a way out of the crisis, the Church relied on the democratic capacity of the laity, who promoted Christian values with their social presence, but also fought for the Church’s political rights. The organized Catholic laity had a specific role: to form, culturally and morally, the lay classes. The prehistory of the creation of the Catholic lay movement (Catholic Action) gives insights into the complexity of societies in the second half of the 19th, and the beginning of the 20th century, but also the high level of inventiveness of both the laity and the hierarchy in activating the laity, which will turn out to be an epoch–making success of the Church of the 20th century.
Wittgenstein, Religious Belief, and Incommensurability
Wittgenstein begins his Lectures on Religious Belief by saying that he would not contradict a religious person’s belief in the Last Judgement, even though he personally does not share such beliefs. Later, he expresses uncertainty about whether religious believers and non–believers truly understand each other. Some philosophers interpret these remarks as showing that Wittgenstein thought that the religious and the non–religious discourse are incommensurable, in the sense that a non–religious person cannot understand a religious person when they are talking about their beliefs, and that religious beliefs are immune to outside criticism as a consequence of the supposed incommensurability. Hilary Putnam claimed that Wittgenstein believed that the dialogue between religious and non–religious individuals involves talking past each other, not due to incommensurability but for other reasons. I propose an alternative perspective on the “no contradiction situation” and Wittgenstein’s stance on religious belief, while agreeing with Putnam that the incommensurability thesis cannot be attributed to Wittgenstein.
Religion, Theology, and Philosophical Skills of LLM–Powered Chatbots
In this study, I demonstrate how religion and theology can be useful for testing the performance of LLMs or LLM–powered chatbots, focusing on the measurement of philosophical skills. I present the results of testing four selected chatbots: ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, and Llama2. I utilize three examples of possible sources of inspiration from religion or theology: 1) the theory of the four senses of Scripture; 2) abstract theological statements; 3) an abstract logic formula derived from a religious text, to show that these sources are good materials for tasks that can effectively measure philosophical skills such as interpretation of a given fragment, creative deductive reasoning, and identification of ontological limitations. This approach enabled sensitive testing, revealing differences among the performances of the four chatbots. I also provide an example showing how we can create a benchmark to rate and compare such skills, using the assessment criteria and simplified scales to rate each chatbot with respect to each criterion.
The article examines the authorship and dating of Ātmabodha, a popular philosophical poem that, in a popular and poetically imaginative manner, expounds on the main teachings of the Indian philosophical school of Advaita Vedānta. Although traditionally attributed to the renowned philosopher Śaṅkara (8th century), the article presents arguments for placing the work several centuries after Śaṅkara. In addition to the state–of–the–art stylometric method, the General Imposters Framework, which does not recognize Ātmabodha as Śaṅkara’s work, Ātmabodha also does not meet Hacker’s colophon criterion. The paper places particular emphasis on instances of post–Śaṅkarite doctrinal and terminological developments in Ātmabodha, specifically in the comprehension of the concept of ignorance, alongside the introduction of later terminology and concepts. The available evidence suggests a tentative dating of the work between the 11th and early 14th centuries.
Disputatio philosophica: International Journal on Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 25 No. 1, 2023
Dorota M. Dutsch, Pythagorean Women Philosophers: Between Belief and Suspicion
Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Renny Thomas, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment
Some Philosophical Aspects of Elza Kučera
The focus of this work are two aspects of the philosophy of Elza Kučera (1883 — 1972). Kučera received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Zurich in 1909, becoming the first Croatian woman born in Croatia to receive a PhD in philosophy. Her main interest was psychology, and later library science, and, apart from her PhD theses, almost all her published works are within these disciplines. However, among her handwritten and unpublished works that are preserved in the archives of the National and University Library in Zagreb a certain number of “purely” philosophical texts can be found. In order to present her philosophical approach, we analyze two particular questions she dealt with. The first is the problem of causality that she discussed in her overview of Thomas Brown’s epistemology in her dissertation entitled The Epistemology of Thomas Brown: A Historical Study (Die Erkenntnislehre von Thomas Brown: eine historische Studie, Zagreb, 1909). The second is the question of national philosophy, which she developed in a short unpublished text from 1918 or 1919. Given that Elza Kučera, as the first woman philosopher, experimental psychologist, and woman librarian in Croatia, has not received due attention to this day, we also present her biography.
The soul–body–mind problem is an age–old question. Ever since Plato and pre– Stoics, many philosophers have tried to answer the questions of dependence and relationship between these “parts”. This paper is an overview of the theory of holons proposed by Arthur Koestler and its later implications in modern cinema, specifically the anime Ghost in the Shell. There are many issues that are current and related to the mind–body problem that arise from modern cinema and TV shows, but are usually neglected. In these shows and movies, we can find modern ideas about cyborgs and transhumanism, which were popularized by the mentioned anime. Most modern shows are closer to transhumanism and postmodernism and will therefore be mentioned only by name. Another issue that arises from modern cinema is individualism and egocentrism that is not focused on the transcendental or even the transcendent. The intention of this paper is to show that using Koestler’s ideas of holons we need to take into consideration a broader approach to transhumanism, and that it should not be focused only on the individual.
The Hermeneutics of Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece
The abundant literature on the Ghent Altarpiece, one of the most important artworks of the Northern Renaissance, completed in 1432 by Van Eyck, often claims that the Annunciation scene on that altarpiece is simply an illustration of the text Lk 1:26–38, followed faithfully by Van Eyck. Although it is beyond doubt that Van Eyck drew inspiration from that text, this paper attempts to establish and explore a different hypothesis, namely that Van Eyck intentionally moved away from Luke’s text of the Annunciation, and for a very good reason, which is related to the composition and the message of the Ghent Altarpiece as a whole. The paper approaches this ‘unconventional’ hypothesis primarily by analyzing two possible approaches to the text of the Annunciation; the idyllic and the kenotic one. In this context, Van Eyck’s way of presenting the Annunciation is observed from the perspective of the theoretical contributions to the hermeneutics of Luke’s text, primarily in the work of Søren Kierkegaard and Joseph Ratzinger, in line with the kenotic (or existential) interpretation.
Analysis of the Person Concept in Nursing Theories
The notion of the human as a person influences immediate action, which is especially evident in care during illness and suffering. Although medicine is as old as humanity, in the last two centuries it has developed within a bio–medical paradigm marked by positivism. Since Florence Nightingale, nursing has been trying to develop within its own paradigm characterized by four concepts of which the person is central. It is only in the past half century that unique nursing theories have been developed in which the features of personalism can be discerned. The attempts by some theorists to define the concept of person have brought it closer to the classical definition of a person as found in philosophical anthropology. The fact that there are theoretical models that direct practice from bio–medical to holistic and personalistic view speaks in favor of the maturing idea about the importance of observing man as a person with all the immediate positive effects of such a view.
Postulate of Phenomenological Ontology and its Significance for Science and our Worldview
This work offers an interpretation of phenomenological ontology by formulating its fundamental propositions in order to explain their significance for science and our personal worldview. In the paper, phenomenology is understood as the proper method of ontology or the “science of being” as the most general philosophical discipline. This embodies the idea of a “first philosophy” that is free from all prejudice and that rejects or criticizes metaphysics, the subject–object dualism, empiricism, rationalism, realism, idealism, materialism, skepticism and relativism. The paper dismisses ontological objectivism as a methodological fallacy and seeks to reach a clear understanding of science, as well as of ourselves and our relation to the world. As such, it represents an introductory part of the methodology of scientific work, as well as an alternative perspective on the issues of existentialism, religion and spiritualism.
How Science Transformed Descartes’ Philosophical Discourse
This paper is about the relationship between science and philosophy, or about the naturalization of philosophy. In the first part of the paper, we aim to present Quine’s theoretical framework related to the scientific impact on philosophical discourse and inquiry. In his philosophical writings, Quine emphasized the importance of science, in naturalized or normative epistemology forms. The idea of a more tenable, science-dependent knowledge position, is often seen as central to Quine’s epistemology. Far from any form of cosmic exile, philosophers, according to Quine, adopt the best knowledge available to them at a given time. Something very similar occurs in Descartes’ concept of animal spirits, showing that the use of the best available scientific knowledge at a given moment can easily be found in the French philosopher’s work. Quine’s conception, developed in the field of analytic philosophy, is found in Descartes’ notion of animal spirits, demonstrating the influence of the dominant scientific paradigm on philosophical discourse. Since we consider the Quinean framework very relevant, we have adopted his view as a sort of interpretative paradigm that helps us to better understand a particular problem from the domain of history of philosophy. The second part of the paper presents the notion of animal spirits seen in Descartes’ philosophy as intermediary entities linking mind and body. Once a powerful scientific notion, animal spirits withered away with the advancement of science and were substituted with other scientific paradigms. The notion of animal spirits was seen as Descartes’ critical point and was often neglected in philosophical analysis. In this paper, we advance a hypothesis on how science transformed Descartes’ philosophical discourse by analyzing the curious case of animal spirits, showing at the same time the limitations and shortcomings of this new modus philosophandi.
Disputatio philosophica : International Journal on Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 24 No. 1, 2022.
Summer School 2021: In and Out – Questioning the Philosophical Canon
Romain Rolland, Naš Gandhi, Zagreb: Croatian - Indian society, 2021, 299 pp.