Pavel Matail

The essay begins a series of translations and interpretations of Alexander of Aphrodisias' commentary on Aristotle's critique of Plato's theory of Ideas. The authors present a commentary on two passages at the beginning of Aristotle's Metaphysics Α 6. In the first passage, Alexander explains the influences and reasons that led Plato to introduce Ideas. In the second, Alexander clarifies the relationship between Ideas, Forms, and particulars by drawing on Aristotle's concepts of synonymy and homonymy. While the first passage rather repeats Aristotle's original formulations, the second passage offers a deeper explanation not found in Aristotle's surviving texts.

The essay examines the possible meanings of the term "meaning" in the phrase "meaning of life." The authors explain the frequent ambiguities in discussions about the meaning of life by pointing to the ambiguity of the term "meaning of life" itself. Instead of a classical conceptual analysis based on essential characteristics, they propose analyzing the term "meaning of life" as a cluster of intertwined, interdependent concepts. Using a number of examples, they show that in everyday discourse, the concept of the meaning of life is used in at least eight different meanings: purpose, impact, value of life, positive value, sense of fulfillment, comprehensibility, narrative, and personal essence. They argue that satisfying one of these seems not sufficient for having a meaningful life, but satisfying more of them in some combinations may be sufficient.

The essay presents a lesser-known area of Kant's early work, when the philosopher was engaged in natural philosophy. Kant's reflections on the nature of the Sun are analysed, particularly from Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) and from the short essay Succinct Exposition of some Meditations on Fire (1756). In the first work, he deals with the origin and nature of the Sun, focusing primarily on what "fuel" the Sun burns and why it has not yet burned out, thereby answering the question "why does the Sun shine and heat?" He presents hypotheses about combustible light substances on the surface, the supporting role of air, and air-filled cavities inside the Sun. In the second work, these ideas are linked to his original theory of fire, which connects fire, heat, light, and aether into a single elastic substance.

The paper aims to assess whether the neuroscientific theory of cognitive map resembles Kant’s a priori form of space as John O’Keefe and the Nobel Committee claim. With this purpose, I investigate the theoretical foundations of both theories, uncover their common categories and compare how much they truly agree. O’Keefe sees the resemblance primarily in relation to sensory experience, which, according to him, is preceded by spatial apparatuses. The ways in which these apparatuses precede experience are, however, distinct in the theories. Moreover, the cognitive map lacks the category of necessity that is crucial to the a priori form. Thus, one cannot consider these theories similar in decisive points.

The study concerns a possible private language in the philosophy of Gottlob Frege, particularly in his scarce investigation of indexicals such as ‘I’ and ‘now’. The indexicals may be seen as private from the late-Wittgensteinian perspective because their sense (Sinn) cannot be repeated outside of a specific linguistic context of the expression. The study examines whether these indexicals presuppose a private language. If Frege’s philosophy contains such privateness (for which only insufficient evidence can be found), it would be peculiar since a major part of his work implies that all thoughts are objective and publicly communicable. However, the privateness in Frege’s remarks rather differs from Wittgenstein’s, for the indexical’s sense should be principally expressible at any time.