Predrag Cicovacki

On the puzzling value of human life

Abstract The author examines our conflicting attitudes regarding the proper value of human life. While the main issue initially appears to deal with whether or not human life has an intrinsic (or absolute) value, it turns out that a far more important and complex issue concerns the tension between the equal value of every human life and the differences in the quality of one’s life. The author discusses the views of Kant, Schweitzer, Berlin, Scheler, and then Hartmann, in whose views the author recognizes the most important contributions to this puzzle.

Philosophy as the Wisdom of Love

Abstract The author argues that love should play a central role in philosophy (and ethics). In the past, philosophical practice has been too narrowly defined by theory and explanation. Although unquestionably important, they do not belong to the very core of our philosophizing. Philosophy is primarily a way of life, centered on the soul and the development of our humanity – in its most diverse aspects and to its utmost potential. For such a life to be possible, love must play a central role in philosophy and philosophy should be understood not in the traditional sense as “the love of wisdom,” but in a new way – as the wisdom of love.

RETHINKING THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH: A CRITIQUE OF DEFLATIONISM

Various arguments advanced in favor of deflationism force us to rethink our concept of truth. Deflationists indicate numerous problems with the standard ways of defming truth (correspondence, coherence, pragmatism), and try to convince us that the concept of truth is far less interesting than philosophers usually take it to be. If deflationists are right, the perennial philosophical problems concerning the nature of truth are based on an inflated concept of truth. Their positive view is that, for any proposition (or sentence) p, a simple equivalence schema — ‘p’ is true if and only if p — captures this concept better than any traditional theory of truth. Deflationists think the schema is sufficient to describe the logical behavior of the truth-predicate and explain why it is useful to have such a device in our language1.