Philosophical Alternatives 4/2026

Ricardo Mendes Grande (Mathematican, master in mathematical physics; PhD in logics; post-doctorate in philosophy of quantum mechanics; postdoctoral researcher at the Center of Logics at UNICAMP – Brazil)
On Aristotle’s Logic
https://doi.org/10.58945/AJDZ4266
Abstract: Aristotle’s logic has undergone many transformations through the years since its creation more than 2200 years ago. After the publication of Leibniz’s manuscripts on logics and the work of Łukasiewicz, the theory of syllogism came close to mathematical logic. In this paper we discuss and review important features of Aristotle’s logic and some of its transformations to try to understand which interpretation best suits Aristotle’s original work.
Keywords: Syllogism; Aristotle; Ancient Logic

Andrew Schumann (Professor at the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow, Poland)
Formal Reconstruction of the Qal Wā-ḥōmer from Axiomatic and Topological Perspectives
https://doi.org/10.58945/KHCG8054
Abstract: Traditional logics, including Aristotelian, Stoic, Epicurean, Indian, and Buddhist systems, might be dismissed as lacking formal axiomatization and standard algebraic structures. However, these “logics” inherently possess rigorous doctrines of inference. To bridge this gap, this paper evaluates ancient logical systems through the lens of modern pure mathematics, specifically Univalent Foundations and Homotopy Type Theory. We introduce the concept of the logeme: a finite, consistent fragment of a logical theory closed under its specific inference rules. Unlike infinite axiomatic systems, a logeme captures the discrete, self-contained “molecules” of historical reasoning. By factoring the formulas of a logeme by logical equivalence, we construct a Lindenbaum-Tarski algebra that naturally forms a partially ordered set (poset). We then map these posets to simplicial complexes to analyze their geometric realization. Guided by the Univalence Axiom, we define two logemes as mathematically identical if and only if their corresponding posets share the same homotopy type. This topological framework is applied to the a fortiori (qal wāḥōmer / kaimutika-nyāya) argument across Talmudic, Christian, Hindu, and Confucian traditions. By translating ancient inference rules into topological spaces, we demonstrate that these historical phenomena can be formalized, compared, and validated as rigorous mathematical structures, revealing a universal, univalent foundation underlying diverse ancient epistemologies.
Keywords: Poset; univalent foundations; logeme; simplicial complex, qal wāḥōmer

Boyan Dafov (PhD student at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
Speculative Logic and Time: The Limit of Totalization and Structural Temporality in Hegel
https://doi.org/10.58945/ZHOA7257
Abstract: This article proposes a philosophical analysis of the relationship between time, eternity, and the concept within the tradition established by Hegelian speculative logic. It defends the thesis that temporality, rather than functioning merely as an external condition of thought, constitutes an immanent limit of thinking itself—one that prevents conceptual totalization. The study proposes a non-eternal and non-totalizing logic of subjectivity, in which negativity, difference, and repetition operate not as deficiencies but as essential forms of thought understood in its development and non-completion. In Hegel’s speculative logic, the concept strives for self-coincidence in the Absolute, but counterintuitively – this very striving temporalizes it. Speculative thought does not culminate in an eternal totality but remains deferred within the self-differentiation of time. Such an understanding allows for the grounding of a “logic of subjectivity” based on incompleteness, where thought exists precisely in its impossibility of completion. By examining the dialectics of finite–infinite and necessary–contingent, as well as the principles of circularity and teleology in the Science of Logic, the article argues that the Absolute Idea does not constitute a static formal totalization but a dynamic self-consistency that can be conceived only as temporal self-movement. Speculative logic is therefore a logic of incompleteness and structural temporality. It is within temporal self-differentiation that the concept preserves its necessity. In this way, time appears not as a limit that thought must overcome, but as the very limit that makes speculative thinking possible.
Keywords: temporality; non-eternity; concept; negativity; negation; non-totalization; speculative logic; necessity and contingency

Krasimira Filcheva (Assistant Professor, PhD at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Propositional Structure in Natural Language Is Transcendental
https://doi.org/10.58945/EQYD5632
Abstract: My goal in this paper is to argue that propositional structure in natural language has a representation-constitutive function. It constitutes a necessary condition for the possibility of any propositional linguistic representation. Natural languages must contain propositional connectives in order to possess any representational characteristics at all. Establishing this claim is part of a broader project of establishing the transcendental view of logic, according to which the logical laws have a representation-constitutive function in natural language.
Keywords: representation-constitutive; logical structure; transcendental; logical laws; propositional

Kristiyan Enchev (Associate Professor, PhD at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
The Problem of the Ontological Status of Logic
https://doi.org/10.58945/BYFO7717
Abstract: The problem of the ontological status of logic has been central to philosophy from Antiquity to the present day. Does logic describe reality, or does it constitute the conditions for thinking about it? The question of the autonomy of logic has been raised even in modern philosophy. According to Immanuel Kant, “General logic, as we have shown, abstracts from any content of knowledge, i.e., from any relation of this knowledge to the object and considers only the logical form in the relation of knowledge to one another, i.e., the form of thinking in general.” However, this abstraction does not eliminate the ontological question but rather radicalizes it.
The contemporary debate further complicates this issue by introducing logical pluralism, semantic relativism, and the revival of metaphysical inquiry in analytic philosophy. The ontological status of logic thus appears as a nexus where epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language intersect.
Keywords: ontology; transcendental logic; non-classical logic; philosophical logic; logical pluralism

Doroteya Angelova (Associate Professor, PhD at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Main Principles and Philosophical Aspects of Neuro-Symbolic Artificial Intelligence
https://doi.org/10.58945/YOWU9677
Abstract: The present article aims to examine the main factors that have led to the emergence of hybrid approaches in the field of artificial intelligence and mainly of neuro-symbolic artificial intelligence. It is primarily concerned with clarifying and analyzing its principles and fundamental characteristics and their role in obtaining reliable knowledge. At the same time, the article outlines and discusses several philosophical questions and proposes some interpretations related to its nature and development. One of the proposed hypotheses in the paper is that neuro-symbolic artificial intelligence, on the one hand, possesses the capacity to come very close to achieving artificial general intelligence and, on the other hand, has the potential to prevent such an outcome, which depends on the objectives and moral values embedded in the design and implementation of a particular neuro-symbolic AI system.
Keywords: neuro-symbolic artificial intelligence; generative AI; classical AI; philosophical problems

Kosta Bentchev (Senior Assistant Professor at University of Veliko Turnovo “St. Cyril and St. Methodius”)
Basic Attitudes and Sub-Attitudes in Contemporary Philosophy. A Taxonomical Essay
https://doi.org/10.58945/HDQI6900
Abstract: This article is an attempt to taxonomically define contemporary philosophy as a no man’s land among other cultural forms using three basic theoretical subdivisions (basic attitudes within it – the phenomenological, the dialectical and the analytic one, they being explained through their specific apprehensions of/relations to time while also comparing their elements) sub-attitudes in a systematic way with both formal and substantial viewpoints.
Keywords: Contemporary philosophy; morality/religion; science; esotericism; everyday life; phenomenology; dialectics; analytic philosophy

Stoyan Stavru (Professor, DSc at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Justice and Captain Hook: Little “Peter Pan” and Large Language Machines in Adjudication
https://doi.org/10.58945/UXMS3499
Abstract: With the advent of generative artificial intelligence in the domain of adjudication, new modes of interpreting the concept of justice have emerged. This article examines the articulation of justice in the children’s novel Peter Pan, using literature as a field for philosophical experimentation. It explores the intuitions the novel develops around justice: through the noble sense of justice embodied by Mr. George Darling, who subjects himself to punishment, and through the ontological wound experienced by the child in encountering, for the first time in life, injustice. Peter Pan, the eternal boy who does not remember his parents and feels no guilt, and Captain Hook, the one-handed pirate who insists on refined manners, are reconfigured as conceptual personae through which the challenges facing adjudication, arising from the possibility of generating judicial decisions with the assistance of large language models, can be understood and addressed.
Keywords: justice; generative artificial intelligence; literature; adjudication; Peter Pan

Vladimir Radenkov (Associate Professor, Dr. at University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Sofia)
Death as a Horizontal Limit of the Possible, Defining the Possible
https://doi.org/10.58945/NTZC3276
Abstract: The subject of the article is the existential-ontological concept of death, expressed by Martin Heidegger in Being and Time. The main points of the interpretation presented in it are the following: death is a horizontal limit of the possible, the self-projection towards which is implied in every possibility of Dasein as that which negatively determines its direction; the priority self-throwing of Dasein into the meaningfully unaimed possibility of death transforms the found inauthentic possibilities into authentic ones; anxiety is the mood in which Dasein reveals its thrownness in this possibility that constantly claims its commitment; fear is a privative modification of anxiety in which Dasein alienates itself from its authentic Self, “fetishizing” death as an intra-worldly event successively forthcoming for the One; inauthentic being towards death occurs in the manner of the obscuring avoidance from being towards death.
Keywords: https://doi.org/10.58945/NTZC3276

Hristina Guteva (Specialist at Technical University, Varna)
Metaphor as an Event of Meaning (On the “Mistake of Language” – Between Psychoanalysis and Philosophy)
https://doi.org/10.58945/GHPJ7142
Abstract: The paper argues that the so-called “slip of the tongue” should not be understood as a deviation from meaning but as a specific mode of its emergence. Building on Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, the analysis proposes a philosophical reinterpretation, according to which slips of the tongue are not merely symptoms of repressed intentions but events of meaning. Through the analysis of a concrete example, the paper demonstrates that metaphor is not a secondary deviation from literal language but a primary mechanism of meaning production. The argument is developed with reference to Paul Ricoeur, Martin Heidegger, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Keywords: metaphor; slip of the tongue; meaning; intention; philosophy of language

Silviya Mineva (Professor, Dr. at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
On John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism and His Philosophy of Happiness
https://doi.org/10.58945/LONE6747
Abstract: This article is written on the occasion of the 220th anniversary of the birth of the eminent British philosopher John Stuart Mill. The focus of attention is on his ideas of pleasure, happiness, and utility, their historical significance, and their influence on contemporary ethics, political theory, and social research. These ideas are presented within the context of the historical development of ethics and Mill’s argumentation regarding their connection to human desires, social justice, and scientific progress.
Keywords: John Stuart Mill; Utilitarianism; happiness; pleasure; utility; justice; ethical hedonism

Dobrin Todorov (Professor, Dr. at the University of Mining and Geology “St. Ivan Rilski”, Sofia; Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Bulgarian Philosophical Culture – IBPC)
The Fifteenth Anniversary of the Institute for Bulgarian Philosophical Culture
https://doi.org/10.58945/ZCQY6556
Abstract: The text is a review of the activity of the Institute for Bulgarian Philosophical Culture (IBPC) up to now and its publication – the “The Bulgarian Philosophical Review”, prepared on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Institute. It dwells on the statute and mission of IBPC. The main characteristics of our website have been presented as well as the publications of the academic institution and its journal. The results of “The Philosophical 20th Century in Bulgaria” research project have been reported in brief. The forums and events held with the participation of IBPC as well as other initiatives have been described. The sources of funding of the IBPC and its publication and the main problems they face have been pointed out.
Keywords: Institute for Bulgarian Philosophical Culture; Bulgarian Philosophical Review