Distinctio: Journal of Intersubjective Studies

Leonardo da Vinci’s Holistic Conception of Nature and Quantum Non-Separability

Sara Taglialagamba, Gino Tarozzi — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

At variance with some recent interpretations emphasizing the relevance of Leonardo’s natural philosophy for contemporary science, the aim of this paper is neither to interpret Leonardo as a precursor of quantum mechanics nor to assimilate his conception of nature to contemporary relational interpretations of quantum theory. Rather, we argue that Leonardo’s organic and holistic perspective offers an alternative to mechanistic reductionism while still preserving the epistemological distinction between observer and observed reality. Quantum mechanics, by contrast, radicalizes the crisis of separability by undermining not only the independence of physical systems through entanglement and nonlocality, but also the classical distinction between subject and object through the unavoidable interaction involved in measurement processes. Leonardo’s relational and organic conception of nature should therefore not be confused with contemporary anti-realist or purely relational ontologies, since it remains grounded in a fundamentally realist and empiricist epistemology.

Das Reale und das Ideale als hermeneutische Prinzipien in Schellings Freiheitsschrift

Matthew Nini — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Dieser Aufsatz bietet eine umfassende Interpretation von F.W.J. Schellings Freiheitsschrift (1809). Dabei wird die These vertreten, dass die Freiheitsschrift als ein ausgedehnter Dialog zwischen zwei philosophischen Prinzipien gelesen werden kann: Realismus und Idealismus. Obwohl diese Begriffe für Schelling nicht neu sind, gewinnen sie 1809 eine neue Bedeutung. Abrückend vom statischen Absoluten der Identitätsphilosophie erkennt Schelling eine produktive Spannung zwischen Realismus und Idealismus, die auf einer grundlegenden Ebene ihren Ausdruck in den logischen Prinzipien der Identität und des zureichenden Grundes findet. Das Streben nach einer Versöhnung dieser Prinzipien führt zur Suche nach einem höheren Realismus, der über Realismus und Idealismus steht und beide logischen Prinzipien integriert, wie durch den Ungrund als Substrat verdeutlicht wird, demgemäß das Einzelne eingewickelt oder entfaltet wird. Metaphysisch wird dies durch zwei Prinzipien in Gott repräsentiert: das idealistische existierende Wesen und den realistischen Grund seiner Existenz. Während diese theoretisch im Gleichgewicht bleiben, erweist sich Schellings Anwendung dieser Prinzipien auf die Moralphilosophie als problematisch: Insbesondere bei der intelligiblen Tat verlagert er das Gewicht einseitig zugunsten der idealistischen Seite und entfernt sich zu weit von der faktischen Welt. Die in diesem Aufsatz vorgeschlagenen Lösungen bestehen darin, die Freiheitsschrift abschnittsweise zu interpretieren und Schelling bisweilen contra Schelling zu lesen, um die beiden Prinzipien auszugleichen.

PRAGMATICS OF AUTHORITY

Zoran Pervan, Ivana Grbavac, Ivana Zovko-Bošnjak — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

The COVID-19 pandemic placed political leaders and healthcare experts at the center of crisis communication, requiring them to issue urgent instructions under conditions of uncertainty. This paper analyzes how authority was enacted through language, focusing on directive speech acts in political and scientific discourse in the United States and Croatia. Drawing on speech act theory, the study examines press conferences, official statements, and interviews to compare how politicians and scientists shaped public behavior through direct and indirect directives. Findings show that political leaders often preferred direct strategies, embedding directives in appeals to solidarity, unity, or political identity. Medical experts relied more on direct and explicit directives as well, framing them as scientific necessity. The study highlights the adaptability of directive speech acts as tools of authority in crisis contexts, demonstrating how they balance power and clarity.

From the Dialectic of Spirit to the Philosophy of Freedom

Ivan Čulo — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

The article explores Nikolai Berdyaev’s engagement with Hegel’s philosophy from his early writings up to his exile in 1922, tracing how his initial admiration developed into a critical transformation. Through historical and conceptual analysis, it reconstructs the genesis of Berdyaev’s view of Hegel within the broader context of Russian religious and philosophical thought at the turn of the twentieth century. The paper argues that Berdyaev reinterprets Hegel’s dialectic of Spirit as a dialectic of Freedom, replacing the impersonal logic of the Absolute with the creative act of the person. This reinterpretation not only marks the birth of Berdyaev’s personalism and philosophy of freedom but also illuminates the passage from German idealism to Russian existential thought.

Goldilocks and the Three Negations

Marko Vučković — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

I pursue a focused reading of Joanna Zylinska’s Minimal Ethics for the Anthropocene, structured around following theoretical motif: mapping the pattern in Zylinska’s notion of opposition or difference, marked by the logical negation. To account for this, Zylinska makes use of Karen Barad’s notion of an intra-action, a device for eliminating reference to binary polarity in identifying objects. The resultant picture—let’s call the negation procedure Goldilocks—is one where negation is “just right”: weak enough not to necessitate binary polarity between any two things but strong enough to “carve up” the world in myriad creative, intuitive, or useful ways. If negation is stronger than Goldilocks, we carve too much and erase the aboriginal embeddedness of things; and if it is weaker, then we miss important differences. I critique Goldilocks by claiming that: one, if there are three degrees of inferential strength to negations, then Goldilocks negations exhibit only the weakest of the inferential powers; and two, that there is a priori reason to think that denying this enriched view of negation rests on a foundational equivocation. The upshot therefore ought to be global for Zylinska’s notion of ethics: we cannot begin to think through ethics without first properly thinking through negation.

List of Reviewers for volume 3&4

Editors — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200

Why Read and Interpret Classics of Philosophy?

Jure Zovko, Michael Erler — Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0200