Domas Junelis

This article examines the notions of subject and nature as well as their relationship in F. W. J. Schelling’s naturephilosophy (Naturphilosophie), primarily based on the contemporary interpretation provided by I. H. Grant. It is explained that naturephilosophy, which treats the subject as produced by nature, and nature itself as absolute productivity, at the same time critically reacts against the inclination of I. Kant’s transcendental idealism to hypostasize the subject by separating it from nature. The article argues that naturephilosophy comes close to materialist logic, according to which, the subject, being the product of nature’s productivity, is one of the nature’s moments, and therefore its pretentions to once and for all define nature are doomed to fail. This indeterminacy is not the effect of epistemological lack, but the ontological condition of nature and its products.

This article examines the notions of subject and nature as well as their relationship in F. W. J. Schelling’s naturephilosophy (Naturphilosophie), primarily based on the contemporary interpretation provided by I. H. Grant. It is explained that naturephilosophy, which treats the subject as produced by nature, and nature itself as absolute productivity, at the same time critically reacts against the inclination of I. Kant’s transcendental idealism to hypostasize the subject by separating it from nature. The article argues that naturephilosophy comes close to materialist logic, according to which, the subject, being the product of nature’s productivity, is one of the nature’s moments, and therefore its pretentions to once and for all define nature are doomed to fail. This indeterminacy is not the effect of epistemological lack, but the ontological condition of nature and its products.

This text examines the relationship between thinking and language from a philosophy of mind perspective. It focuses on a comparative review of the theories of Donald Davidson and Wilfrid Sellars, philosophers of language and mind, revealing some of the authors’ assumptions concerning Kantian transcendentalism, the presentation of specific theories of consciousness, the conflict between descriptivity and normativity, and a pragmatic approach to the problem of thinking about consciousness and the general human condition. The main pillar of this comparative study is the definition and evaluation of the two world-images or vocabularies of Davidson and Sellars: the scientific, or physical, and the manifest, or mental. The interpretation synthesizes the two authors’ approach to the theory of consciousness, not only by introducing the principle of the possibility of two types of thinking about the world, but also by the pragmatic gesture underlying the rationality found in it.