Philosophical Alternatives 6/2025

Ivan Stefanov (Professor, DSc at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
Artists Eliminated Normative Aesthetics
https://doi.org/10.58945/FONI9475
Abstract: In its search for radical change, modern art naturally ceased to conform to the prevailing theoretical tradition. As a result, aesthetics lost its significance as a strict normative science, insofar as aesthetic norms could only be a product of new artistic developments. Aesthetics had to be transformed. Thus, it began to address questions about the concrete possibilities for the existence of art. In this way, it became a means of reflexively understanding art, which had been greatly changed by modernism, and its historical emergence in its encounter with the public. The change is very significant: aesthetics is no longer located in the initial processes of the birth of works of art but in the final processes of their recognition and interpretation by the public.
Keywords: normative aesthetics; cognitive reflection; cognitive reflective aesthetics; Christo; Mukarzhovsky; Golashevska; Duchamp; Luhmann; Adorno

Miglena Nikolchina (Professor, PhD at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”; Member of Academia Europea)
“The Play of Quantities Behind the Twilight of Qualities”: Mamardashvili and a Game of Numbers
https://doi.org/10.58945/RURQ7715
Abstract: The publication of Philip Sollers ' novel Numbers (1968) was immediately followed by two extensive commentaries on the novel, each of which drew separately considerable attention: “Engendering the formula” by Julia Krasteva and “Dissemination” by Jacques Derrida. Today this unique intersection of perspectives invites tackling two overlapping questions: on the one hand, the question whether there is still a chance for the heroic task of modernism, as Mamardashvili put it, of resisting the drift of societies towards slavery; on the other hand, the question whether there is still a future for literature in the age of inorganic language production, of artificial intelligence and language automata. Turning the game for three into a game for four, in my article I add Mamardashvili with key moments from his reading of Proust in the two volumes of Psychological Topology of the Way. The focus of my short text – which should be seen as just a proposal for a more extensive analysis of the “play of quantities behind the twilight of qualities” – will be the quotation which is “not quotation” (as all four authors claim), but “crossroad” (Sollers), “graft” (Derrida), “engendering” (Kristeva) and, ultimately, “work inside life… in the organically grown shared reality” (Mamardashvili).
Keywords: quoting; borrowing; correspondence; artificial intelligence; organic writing; Sollers; Derrida; Kristeva

Nikolay Alexandrov (Doctor of Philosophy of Law and Politics, Doctor of Journalism at the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”)
Pre-Philosophical Elements in the Religious Ideas of the Ancient Jews
https://doi.org/10.58945/PGPM6488
Abstract: This article analyzes the peculiarities of the pre-philosophy of the ancient Jews and their religious and mythological ideas, traces of which remain in the Bible. The text emphasizes the connection of the Israelites with the culture of the Ancient Near East and, more specifically, with the spiritual heritage of Canaan and Mesopotamia, on which the cult of Yahweh grew, marking a qualitatively new stage in the development of ancient Eastern pre-philosophy in the face of monotheism and the new idea of divinity. At the same time, the evolution of the ancient Jews' concepts of the soul, death, and the afterlife is traced, as well as the traces of primitive animistic ideas, according to which not only people but also animals, trees, and even inanimate objects possess souls. The role of witchcraft and sorcery and the rituals associated with them, illustrating the peculiarities of the pre-philosophical worldview in the context of the methods of magical influence on the processes in objective reality, which also exist among other Near Eastern peoples, is also examined here. The demonology of the ancient Jews is also presented as a stage in the evolution of pre-philosophy.
Keywords: Bible; pre-philosophy; monotheism; polytheism; cult; religion; consciousness; deity; ritual

Dimitar Tsatsov (Professor, DSc at the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”)
“We All Live Here as Strangers to One Another!” (Words on the Philosophical Memory)
https://doi.org/10.58945/TRBZ5498
Abstract: A few years ago, the London publishing house Forgotten Books and the University of California republished Dimitar Mihachev's monograph “Philosophische Studien. Beitrage zur Kritik des Modernen Phychologismus, Leipzig, 1909,” which, however, has not yet been translated into Bulgarian. This is an occasion to express alarming words about the Bulgarian philosophical tradition, about the originality, and about the new nihilism towards Bulgarian cultural values.
Keywords: originality; traditions; nihilism

Nikolina Deleva (Dr. at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
Theoretical Reflections on Hybrid Forms of Techno-Bio-Art
https://doi.org/10.58945/ESRE4385
Abstract: The article attempts to outline possible directions for conceptualizing hybrid forms of techno-bio-art. They are a challenge for aesthetic theory as a transborder area between science, art, and technology. Their undefined ontology, transgressivity, and transboundary nature create methodological difficulties regarding how to classify and consider them within the framework of existing scientific fields and disciplines. On the one hand, they are considered a problem of aesthetic theory – legitimizing them as forms of art, defining their aesthetic value, and relating them to the concepts of authorship, originality, and uniqueness. On the other hand, the philosophical questions and ethical dilemmas provoked by these art practices are taken into account and articulated. An attempt is made to evaluate their potential as a form of art that is yet to develop, as well as their presumed impact on the future of man as a biological species.
Keywords: techno-bio-art; bio aesthetics; transboundary nature; hybridization

Ivan Svilenov Stefanov (PhD student at the National Academy of Art, Sofia, Specialty of Photography)
Constructing Visual Truth: The Credibility at the Intersection of Painting and Photography
https://doi.org/10.58945/OETM4689
Abstract: The article examines the issue of illusion and veracity in visual arts, focusing on the relationship between photography and painting. Photography, due to its optical nature, is often perceived as a more reliable medium for capturing reality. However, examples of falsified documentary evidence challenge the modern concept of its factual objectivity. In this context, photorealism and postmodern staged photography are analyzed as examples of reevaluating the boundaries between the arts—established in the first half of the 20th century—based on the dichotomy of veracity and illusion. Veracity in visual arts is not an absolute attribute but a construct shaped by context and cultural interpretation. Differences in the medial conventions and audience perception reveal that both photography and painting can create compelling, yet not necessarily factually accurate, two- dimensional illusions.
Keywords: reality; illusion; veracity; two-dimensionality; staged photography; photorealism

Marina Aleksandrova (Assistant Professor, Dr. at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
Light as Conceptual and Pictorial Material: A Prism-Based Method for Contemporary Visual Arts
https://doi.org/10.58945/CQWK8414
Abstract: This paper proposes a compact analytical apparatus for reading light in contemporary visual arts through three historically grounded painterly strategies – sfumato, chiaroscuro, and tenebrism. Treated not as stylistic labels but as operational categories, these “prisms” map three stable modalities of light: atmospheric diffusion and boundary-softening (sfumato), constructive contrast and compositional structuring (chiaroscuro), and concentrated dramatic accent within darkness (tenebrism). Drawing on Leonardo’s Trattato della pittura [cap. 176], Baxandall’s “period eye,” and Friedlaender’s account of Caravaggio’s radical use of darkness, the study argues for the transferability of these strategies beyond painting – into installation, photography, and time-based media. Three concise case studies (Ann Veronica Janssens, Vija Celmins, and Cornelia Parker) demonstrate the method’s contemporary validity: light operates not as décor but as a structuring agent of perception and meaning.
Keywords: light; sfumato; chiaroscuro; tenebrism; methodology; perception; contemporary art; visual arts; painting; mixed media; installation art; art analysis; visual perception; art theory; atmospheric effects

Vyara Popova (Associate Professor, Dr. at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
The Multiple Truth in the Painting of René Magritte
https://doi.org/10.58945/EIFP5720
Abstract: The article starts from the synthesis of two images into one by René Magritte, and continues with the combination of two genres in one pictorial field, reaching the word-pictures or picture-words constructed by him, affecting the question of the multiplicity of truth and stories.
Keywords: René Magritte; portrait; still life; landscape; calligram; Guillaume Apollinaire; ideogram; Michel Foucault; Lars O Erikson; word-pictures; picture-words; multiple truth; stories

Kalin Nikolov (Art critic and artist, curator of the Graphics Department of the National Art Gallery, Sofia)
Mircho Kolinkoev. Almost Like a Revival, but Not Quite…
https://doi.org/10.58945/GHLG1359
Abstract: The work of Mircho Kolenkoev (1905–1938), a Bulgarian artist who worked in the USSR, where he ended up as a polymigrant after 1925, has remained completely unknown until now. Yet it is deeply connected and contains a strong, authentic language with examples from the modern trends of both post-revolutionary Russian art and European movements. Faithful and opposed to the conservative imposition of literal realism with an illustrative and literary ideological stamp, Kolinkoev was arrested, put on trial on trumped-up charges, and shot. The article reveals both the facts surrounding his tragic fate, that of himself and a number of his close colleagues, and analyses his artistic legacy.
Keywords: VHUTEMAS; Pavel Florensky; Bera Witz; Alexander Drevin; Robert Falk; David Schierenberg; Stalin's repressions

Nonka Bogomilova (Professor, DSc at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences)
About “Philosophy of Feelings” by Ivan Kolev
https://doi.org/10.58945/BTEV7357

Malina Belcheva (Dr. at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and Head of the Laboratory for Conservation and Restoration of Literary Monuments at the University Library of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
A Discourse on the Hermeneutics of the Illustrations in the Canticum Canticorum
https://doi.org/10.58945/JBOH6935