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), all 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 in the University of Ljubljana, from 2003 as a full professor, I have been retired since 2018.

Work: My profession is philosophy, love of wisdom. I am active in the following disciplines 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

Highlights in English:

Books in Slovene (in chronological order, regressive; some fragments are translated and available here):

1.    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”.  

2.    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 …).

3.    Gnostic Essays: philosophy, mythology and comparative religiology, 1994. One of these essays, “On Plato’s Cave”, is available here in German.

4.    Pilgrimage to Anima, a philosophical novel-diary, 1988.

5.    Matrices of Logos, philosophical essays and studies, 1987.

6.    Cracks, a novel, 1985.

7.    Enivetok, a philosophical essay, 1981.

A textbook: Elements of Logic (in Slovene, with Olga Markic), for bachelors in philosophy, 1997 (sd. edition 2003).

Selected philosophical papers (and/or presentations):

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.    “The Gaze of the Soul and of the Angel in the Renaissance Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino”, Ars & Humanitas, IX/1 (2015), pp. 58-73.

4.    “Boscovich’s distinction between the potential and the actual space …” (ppt-presentation from Manchester Congress, 2013); published in Almagest 6.1 (2015).

5.    “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.

6.    “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).

7.    “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.

8.    “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. 

9.    "Who Speaks in Montaigne's Essays?", Primerjalna književnost [Comparative Literature], Ljubljana, 2010 (a paper in the conference "Essay and Singularity", Ljubljana, 2009).

10. "Socrates' Logos, Daemon, Ethos", a short essay, 2010.

11. "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.

12. “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).

13. "Surely the second coming is at hand", Diotima: A Philosophical review. 2002, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. [31]-45.

14. "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.

15. "A remark on the 'unreality of time'", Acta Analytica 25, Vol. XV (2000), pp.161-172.

16. "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.

17. "Some traces of Theravãda Buddhism in the gnostic Nag Hammadi manuscripts", in: Sudesika: Festschrift Bhikkhu Nanajivako (Čedomil Veljačić), ed. Đokić, Siniša. Zagreb: Antibarbarus, 1997, pp. 159-166.

18. "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.

19. "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).

20. "Validity and consistency in relevant logics", Acta analytica, No. 10 (1993), pp. 31-48.

See this page (the larger version) in Slovene.