Prof. Marko Uršič, Ph. D.
Department of
Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University
of Ljubljana, Slovenia, EU
e-mail: marko.ursic@guest.arnes.si
and/or marko.ursic.fil@gmail.com
Curriculum vitae: I was born
in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on May 18, 1951. I graduated in 1975, philosophy and
psychology. From 1975 to 1991, I worked in several professions, among them as a
journalist and as a book editor. Master-degree in 1984 (Aristotle's Modal
Logic), PhD in 1990 (Implication and Deductive Necessity), both in
the University of Ljubljana by Professor Frane Jerman. Post-doc specialization
in Salzburg by Professor Paul Weingartner (logic of relevance) in 1991. From
1992 on I was a university teacher at the University of Ljubljana, from 2003 as
a full professor. Meanwhile, I have been a visiting professor and/or researcher
for shorter periods in several universities (Zagreb, Praha, Berlin, Tokyo
&al.). Now I am retired (as an active professor from 2018 on), but I
continue my philosophical work, studying and writing.
Fields
of work: My profession is philosophy, love of wisdom. I
am active in several domains of philosophy: logic, philosophy of nature, space
and time, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy of religion. I have written also
some fiction books, philosophical prose.
Courses in the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (archive, up
to 2018):
Philosophy of Nature
Contemporary
Philosophical Cosmology
Philosophy of Space and Time
DayX of my life: “I saw the pines grow” (it is a verse by Srečko Kosovel): a
peripatetic conversation between me and my student Jaka Gerčar on August 10,
2019, and a photo at Kazlje by Ana
Zibelnik.
Books in English:
·
Shadows
of Being: Four Philosophical Essays.
2018. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
·
Mind in Nature: from Science to Philosophy, 2012. With co-authors Olga Markic and Andrej Ule:
Nova
Science Publishers, New York (abstract).
Books
in Slovene (in chronological order, regressive; some
fragments are translated and available here below):
1.
Reflections of the Land of
the Rising Sun. University of Ljubljana
Press, 2025.
2.
Transcendent Presences: Essays on Plotinusʼ
Metaphysics of Light (Presezne prisotnosti: Eseji o Plotinovi metafiziki svetlobe).
Cankarjeva zalozba, Ljubljana, 2021. A short
presentation for the Frankfurt Book Fair, 2023 (see pp. 59–62 of this
Catalogue); and here is a longer fragment: “Plotinus'
Interpretation of Phidias' Statue of Zeus”.
3.
Four Seasons (Stirje casi, i.e. “Four Times”), Vol.
I–IV, a tetralogy of philosophical dialogues and monologues
(all together more than 2500 pages), Cankarjeva zalozba, Ljubljana, 2002–2015.
Motto: Four seasons (“times”) are given
to man: past, present, future and eternal.
Vol. I: Spring
(2002).
Vol. II: Summer: On the Renaissance Beauty
(part 1, 2004), in
Croatian language: O renesansnoj ljepoti (tr.
Ksenija Premur, Naklada Lara,
Zagreb, 2016); and: The
Sevens (part 2, 2006), in Croatian: Sedmerke (tr. K. Premur, 2018).
Vol. III (2010): Autumn: The Closely Distant
Sky, Man and Cosmos, a philosophical investigation of modern cosmology,
from big-bang to multiverses and beyond (700 pages). Parts of this book are
translated into English and included in the book Mind and Nature (see above); see also the lecture Universe
or Multiverse?
Vol. IV (2015): Winter: On Shadows (from metaphysics
and physics to virtual reality …).
4.
Gnostic Essays: philosophy, mythology and
comparative religiology, 1994. One of these essays, “On Plato’s Cave”, is
available here in German.
5.
Pilgrimage
to Anima, a philosophical novel-diary, 1988.
6.
Matrices of Logos,
philosophical essays and studies, 1987.
7.
Cracks, a
novel, 1985.
8.
Enivetok, a
philosophical essay, 1981.
A textbook: Elements of Logic (in Slovene, with Olga Markic), for bachelors in philosophy, 1997
(reprinted 2003 and later, up to 2019).
Papers and/or presentations in English:
1. “A Comparison of
Nishida’s basho from his Middle Period with Plato’s chóra and the One of
Plotinus”, Asian Studies, Vol. 11
No. 1 (2023): Special Issue: Transcultural (Post)Comparative Philosophy, Part
2: Philosophical Dialogues between East Asia and Europe: From Plotinus to
Heidegger and Beyond, pp. 71–90.
2. “Pico
della Mirandola on the Dignity of
Man and Some Contemporary Echoes of His Philosophy”, Clotho,
Vol. 2, No. 2 (2020), pp. 59–72.
3. “Shadow as a Metaphysical
Metaphor”, presentation of the book Shadows of Being (2018) in
Tokyo, Rissho University, 2019.
4. “New
Eschatologies in the Contemporary Virtual Reality”, paper in the conference:
“New Perspectives in European Philosophy of Religion”, University of Maribor,
November 2018.
5. “The
Gaze of the Soul and of the Angel in the Renaissance Philosophy of Marsilio
Ficino”, Ars & Humanitas, IX/1 (2015), pp. 58-73.
6. “Boscovich’s
distinction between the potential and the actual space …” (ppt-presentation
from Manchester Congress, 2013); published in Almagest 6.1 (2015).
7. “Multiverse or Universe,
after all?” (ppt from the Conference “Physics and Philosophy”, Split,
2013); published in Physics and
Philosophy, ed. F. Sokolic et al.,
Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb, 2015.
8.
“The Enigma of the Existence
of Time” (a lecture in the conference Physics
& Philosophy, Univ. of Split, 2015).
9.
“Neither the Same
nor the Other”: Cultural influences on the “near-death experiences”, especially
in comparison of Western and Japanese (Buddhist) accounts (2012, Slovene
version published in: Poligrafi
58-60. Vol. 15, 2010).
10.
“Paradoxes
of Transfinite Cosmology” (this paper was presented in the XIV. Congress of
Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Nancy, 2011, reviewed 2012). See presentation.
11.
“Starry
sky as the greatest museum of natural history”, in: Natural History, ed. David Kleinberg-Levin, Poligrafi 61-62, Vol. 16 (2011), pp. 215-229.
12.
"Who
Speaks in Montaigne's Essays?", Primerjalna
književnost [Comparative Literature],
Ljubljana, 2010 (a paper in the conference "Essay and Singularity",
Ljubljana, 2009).
13.
"Socrates'
Logos, Daemon, Ethos", a short essay, 2010.
14. “Jung’s
Archetypes and Religion”, presentation at the conference in Dept. of Philosophy, University of
Ljubljana, November 23, 2009.
15.
A cosmological lecture (slides): Universe
or Multiverse? (University of Tokyo, 2008).
16.
"Einstein
on Religion and Science", Synthesis philosophica, Vol. 21, fasc. 2 (2006),
pp. 267-283; plenary lecture on the international symposium
"Theory of Relativity and Philosophy", in celebration of the 100th
anniversary of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, Cres, Croatia,
September, 2005.
17.
“Some remarks on Plato’s poetics”,
Primerjalna književnost, 29. posebna številka, Ljubljana 2006, pp.
217-221.
18.
“Naturadeus,
a Metaphor of the Perfect Diamond”, Acta Analytica 33, Vol. XIX: Analytic
Philosophy in Slovenia (2004); see also the author’s book Four Seasons. Spring (above).
19.
"Surely
the second coming is at hand", Diotima: A Philosophical review.
2002, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. [31]-45.
20.
"Cogito ergo mundus talis est.
On some metaphysical and epistemological aspects of the Anthropic Cosmological
Principle", Acta Analytica 28,
Vol. XVII (2002), pp. 53-67.
21.
"A remark on the
'unreality of time'", Acta Analytica 25, Vol. XV (2000),
pp.161-172.
22.
"Paraconsistency and
dialectics as coincidentia oppositorum in the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa",
Logique & Analyse, Vol. XLI, No. 161-163, Brussel, 1998, pp.
203-217.
23.
"Some traces of Theravada Buddhism in the gnostic Nag
Hammadi manuscripts", in: Sudesika: Festschrift Bhikkhu Nanajivako
(Čedomil Veljačić), ed. Đokić, Siniša. Zagreb: Antibarbarus, 1997, pp.
159-166.
24. “The Creation of Man in the Gnostic Nag
Hammadi Manuscripts”, Proceedings of the Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School (MESS-age),
Vol. III, eds. Zmago Šmitek and Rajko Muršič, Piran 1998, pp.105–115.
25.
“Ƚukasiewicz's idea of temporary
limited causal chains and the problem of symmetry between past and future”,
paper in the conference Ƚukasiewicz in Dublin, July 1996.
26.
"Cogito and epoché from the point of view of logics free of existential
presuppositions", Handbook: phenomenology and cognitive science,
ed. V: Baumgartner, E. &al. Dettelbach: Röll, 1996, pp. 329-340.
27.
"The allegory of the cave", Hermathena,
No. 165 (Trinity College, Dublin, 1999), pp. 85-107. Auch in
der deutschen Ueberzetzung: "Das Hoehlengleichnis - Transzendenz in Platonismus und
Christentum" (Begegnungen, Nova
revija, Ljubljana, 1995).
28.
"Validity and consistency in relevant logics", Acta
analytica,
No. 10 (1993), pp. 31-48.
See this page (the larger
version) in Slovene.
