The article deals with a seldom exposed but ubiquitous method in the 18th century philosophy, named conjectural history by Dugald Stewart. Its characteristic feature is a peculiar combination of historically verified facts and speculations, which in some authors are even openly fictitious. The hypotheses about prehistory (always set forth in the form of temporal historical narrative) are meant to aid a certain classic philosophical topos of the 18th century: the quest for origins. The article first surveys and compares common points (...) as well as peculiarities of various “treatises on the origins” in the Scottish and French Enlightenment. In the second half it focuses on an implicit but clearly identifiable conjectural history in Diderot's Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville, and on the application of conjectural history in the domain of the intellect and knowledge in the Encylopédie. It seems that the genealogy of knowledge in d'Alembert's Preliminary Discourse most manifestly confirms the initial designation of conjectural history: that it is in fact another name for philosophy. If this holds true, than it might prove useful to search for its first seeds in Descartes’ Discourse on method, a work which places itself on the cross-section of history and fable. (shrink)

During 'cyclic' historical periods it would be correct to interpret religious processes in terms of interaction of two essentially different, but substantially, structurally and functionally comparative types of integrating cultural complexes that, in historical perspective, compete with each other on the effect on individuals and society in general. Such complexes represent secular and religious culture. Contemporary socio-cultural situation can be defined as an asymmetric representativeness of both secular and religious cultures. In a modern secular society, dominance of a secular culture (...) over a religious one can be manifested in three basic dimensions: substantial, regulative and subjective ones. Secular culture is adopted during the primary socialization process. However, religious culture is still adopted through conscious, voluntary selection in younger or more mature age. It may be possible to determine two basic attitudes of the contemporary man towards religion. The first attitude may be called 'reversive' and the other one 'conversive'. Za 'ciklicne' istorijske periode ispravna je interpretacija religijskih procesa u terminu uzajamnog dejstva dva sustinski razlicita ali sadrzajno, strukturalno i funkcionalno komparativna tipa integrisucih kulturnih kompleksa koji u istorijskoj perspektivi jedan drugom konkurisu u uticaju na pojedinca i drustvo. Takvi kompleksi su svetovna i religiozna kultura. Savremena sociokulturna situacija se moze definisati kao asimetrija reprezentativnosti svetovne i religiozne kulture. Dominacija svetovne nad religioznom kulturom u savremenom sekularizovnom drustvu manifestuje se u tri osnovne dimenzije: predmetnoj, regulativnoj i subjektivnoj. Svetovna kultrura se masovno usvaja u procesu primarne socijalizacije. Religiozna kultura se pak, usvaja samosvesnim, voljnim izborom u mladjem ili starijem uzrastu. Moguce je izdvojiti dva osnovna nacina obracanja savremenog 'sekularizovanog') coveka religiji. Prvi nacin mozemo nazvati 'reverzivnim' a drugi 'konverzivnim'. (shrink)

Avtor obravnava Serresovo kritiko koncepta globalne zgodovine na eni strani in njegovo relati-viziranje koncepta rekurentne zgodovine znanosti na drugi strani. Iz dejstva, da je mogoče v realni zgodovini znanosti odkriti vsaj dva osnovna tipa temporalnosti: sekano, diskontinuirano temporalnost invencije in kontinuiteto tradicije, izpelje Serres trditev, da lahko kompleksnost zgodovinskega razvoja znanosti pojasnimo le s kombinacijo zveznih in nezveznih modelov zgodovine znanosti.

Alf Ross je želel izoblikovati »pristno« realistično teorijo prava. To pomeni, da naj bi bila ta sposobna po eni strani razrešiti probleme, s katerimi sta se soočali tako Kelsnova normativistična teorija kot teorija ameriških realistov, po drugi strani pa poustvariti njihove razprave na znanstveni način. Rossova izvirnost tiči v njegovem pojmu pristojnostnih norm, ki jih je pred vsemi drugimi obravnaval kot »konstitutivna pravila«. V nasprotju s trditvami mnogih komentatorjev takšen pojem konstitutivnih norm ni neskladen z Rossovo realistično teorijo prava. V (...) luči njegovih zgodnjih zapisov je mogoče kompetenčne norme razumeti kot racionalizacije, ki lahko izrazijo nagnjenost naslovnikov norm, da določena dejstva prepoznajo kot pravo. Zato je mogoče Rossa šteti za prehodnika postpozitivizma. (shrink)

The paper offers a comparison between the legal theory of normative facts on the one hand, and Bruno Celano’s theory of pre-conventions on the other, suggesting two ways that the latter may be of use to well-meaning jurists.

In his article on pre-conventions, Celano presents, what the author calls, the Ontological Commitment Thesis and the Normative Bite Thesis. In this short comment, the author argues that the two theses are together both incompatible with the idea that pre-conventions are facts which have causal powers in human behaviour; also, if the ontological thesis is abandoned, normative determination could not be obtained. In other terms, the author argues that either pre-conventions are part of our causal explanation of human behaviour or (...) pre-conventions are abstract entities able to determine human behaviour normatively. In the first case, pre-conventions lack normative meaning, while in the second pre-conventions cannot integrate our causal explanation of human actions. Tertium non datur. (shrink)