The article discusses Nicholas Rescher’s metaphilosophical view of orientational pluralism. In his essay Philosophical Disagreement: An Essay towards Orientational Pluralism in Metaphilosophy Rescher explains a substantial difference between philosophy and science—namely, that philosophers—differently than scientists— continuously propose and undermine various solutions to the same old problems. In philosophy it is difficult to find any consensus or convergence of theories. According to Rescher, this pluralism of theoretical positions is caused by holding by philosophers different sets and hierarchies of cognitive values, i.e. methodological orientations. These orientations are chosen in virtue of some practical postulates, they are of axiological, normative, but not strictly theoretical character. Different methodological orientations yield different evaluations of philosophical theses and arguments. This article shows that Rescher’s account does not determine clearly acceptable cognitive values. If there are no clear criteria of evaluation of methodological orientations, then the described view seems to be identical to relativism adopting the everything goes rule. In addition, accepting orientational pluralism it is hard to avoid the conclusion that discussions between various philosophical schools are futile or can be reduced to non-rational persuasion.

Computational modeling plays an important role in the methodology of contemporary science. The epistemological role of modeling and simulations leads to questions about a possible use of this method in philosophy. Attempts to use some mathematical tools to formulate philosophical concepts trace back to Spinoza and Newton. Newtonian natural philosophy became an example of successful use of mathematical thinking to describe the fundamental level of nature. Newton’s approach has initiated a new scientific field of research in physics and at the same time his system has become a source of new philosophical considerations about physical reality. According to Michael Heller, some physical theories may be treated as the formalizations of philosophical conceptions. Computational modeling may be an extension of this idea; this is what I would like to present in the article. I also consider computational modeling in philosophy as a source of new philosophical metaphors; this idea has been proposed in David J. Bolter’s conception of defining technology. The consideration leads to the following conclusion: In the methodology of philosophy significant changes have been taking place; the new approach do not make traditional methods obsolete, it is rather a new analytical tools for philosophy and a source of inspiring metaphors.

In the book The Work of Music and the Problem of Its Identity Roman Ingarden presented multi‑sided conception of the work of music. The crucial problems of this book are of ontological character and they concern the ontic category and the essence of the music composition. In the present article, Ingarden’s conception is criticized internally and externally. At first, Ingarden’s conception is analyzed from the point of view of his own assumptions. Then, the very assumptions are revised. Ingarden bases his investigation on the elitist analytic corpus (he considers only outstanding works of Western Music) and employs liberal ontological assumptions (he allows many different categories of objects). With these assumptions in place, Ingarden reaches his solution, namely that the work of music is a schematic, purely intentional object. This seems optimal. The perspective changes, if we go beyond the elitist corpus or accept more restrictive ontological assumptions.