Machiavelli’s Revolution and Koselleck’s Sattelzeit

Author(s): Gonzalo Bustamante Kuschel / Language(s): English Issue: 97/2020

This article suggests that human action in Machiavelli is both materialistic and temporalized. It further argues that Reinhart Koselleck’s view of Machiavelli’s understanding of time as historical circularity is misleading. The author is making the case that Machiavelli drew from Lucretian materialism to strip political concepts of content via an animal-materialist anthropology and ontology holding that man, as any animal, is material reality acting under an atomic arrangement wherein no time, whether linear or circular, can exist. The conclusion is that Koselleck’s interpretation of the circularity of time in Machiavelli kept him from seeing his role as an antecedent of the conceptual and temporal revolution underlying the Sattelzeit.

Śmieciowa codzienność konsumenta. Powieść Wiktora Pielewina Generation „Π” w świetle teorii płynnej ponowoczesności Zygmunta Baumana

Author(s): Bożena Żejmo / Language(s): Polish Issue: 170/2020

The purpose of the article is to analyze the novel by Victor Pelevin Generation “P” in the context of the theory of “fluid modernity” of the Polish philosopher and sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. Both the Russian writer and the Polish scholar point out the negative effects of the modern — unusually flexible, fluid, free from borders and conditions — commercial civilization on a person’s daily life, his mentality, value system, self-identification and self-esteem.

Demokracja na burzliwe czasy

Author(s): Erazim Kohák / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17/2021

This article is a translation comprising the last chapter and summary of the book Průvodce po demokracii [A Guide Through Democracy], first published in 1997, in which Erazim Kohák shares the experiences of his life in the US and compares it with challenges faced by the new Central-European democracies. This essay describes three fundamental threats the world faces at the turn of the 21st century: demographic, ecological and moral crises. The author underlines the importance of an open dialogue and voluntary involvement of citizens in shaping the social life in a democratic system.

Universal Principles in Political Philosophy of Dante Alighieri and Immanuel Kant (Part II)

Author(s): Emiliano Mettini / Language(s): English Issue: 36/2021

Ideals of universal power able to manage and solve social and ethical (religious) questions as many ways to reach the highest wisdom, and consequently, fullest well-being of humankind to reach a perpetual peace are present throughout human history so that we can find these ideals in Plato’s Republic, in Aristotle’s Politeia and other works concerning the establishment of more or less utopic “states” and commonwealth since our days. In the present essay we shall scrutinize the universalistic vision of Italian thinker Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) and the cosmopolitan idea of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). We decided to analyze the political philosophy of those thinkers on the following grounds: on one hand, D. Alighieri took as the basis of his rumination Roman Empire that having as solid basis of its universalistic ideology Right of every Roman citizen (lying on the observance of religious and civil obligations), and the so-called pax romana , a theoretical ground on which D. Alighieri would create a communitas a secular led by Reason commonwealth, which might have replaced the so-called humanitas (in Augustinian understanding of such idea); and, on the other hand, I. Kant tried to explain how human self-improvement under the right use of Reason (that we understand like ethical ruling principle of humankind) can be achieved to lead human beings from the state of nature (a semi-brutal one) to the state of reason, which would have as final end a perpetual peace in a universal republic. On those bases we shall try to detect common theoretical and ideal features between D. Alighieri and I. Kant’s vision, so to prove that universalistic power is not a despotic power, but a unifying power under ethical and spiritual principles of the whole humankind.

CERCETARILE LUI VASILE PĂRVAN DE LA HISTRIA

Author(s): Alexandru Suceveanu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: XXIV/1993

Numele lui Vasile Pârvan a intrat în legenda neamului nostru de foarte multă vreme.

Жанровата теория на Валтер Бенямин и понятието за живот

Author(s): Bogdana Paskaleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2022

The text focuses on several of the manifestations of the concept of life in the work of Walter Benjamin, mainly in the famous study “Towards the Critique of Violence” (1921) and in the later monograph “Origin of the German Baroque Drama” (1928). The central research question regards the place of the concept of life in the general framework of genre theory, which Benjamin develops in his monograph. On the one hand, the concept of life proves to be internally double and heterogeneous, and on the other – to be one of the key genre markers that distinguish the genre of tragedy from that of the baroque drama.

Rusia lui Voltaire

Author(s): Irina Vlăşcianu / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 1/2009

La Russie a commencé à exister en tant qu`Etat sur la carte philosophique et politique de l`Europe, à l’époque de l’affirmation des principes des Lumières Françaises. L’Occident a découvert la Russie grâce aux oeuvres historiques de Voltaire, L’Histoire de Charles XII, L’Histoire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand, et grâce à la correspondence du roi philosophe avec Catherine la Grande. Chacune des oeuvres historiques de Voltaire représente un tableau des réalités de la société russe au XVIII-ème siècle. En fait, il s’agit aussi d’une illustration de la théorie voltairienne sur Le Grand Homme, l’homme qui crée des nations comme l’ont fait Pierre le Grand et Catherine la Grande. Voltaire n’a jamais voyagé en Russie et c’est pourquoi il n’a pas connu la vraie Russie: la Russie de l’illettrisme, du servage et de l’autocratie. La Russie des Lumières françaises est une Russie européenne, une Russie qui n’appartient plus aux moeurs barbares, une Russie qui se trouve sur la voie du progrès et de la civilisation. La Russie voltairienne est le royaume des plus grands réformateurs et monarques que l’Europe a jamais connus: Pierre le Grand et Catherine la Grande.

Will There Rather Be Nothing Than Something? On Modern Pantheism and Its Aporias in Ernst Bloch

Author(s): Agata Bielik-Robson / Language(s): English Issue: 29/2021

The purpose of this essay is to put Ernst Bloch’s philosophy to a test suggested by Hans Blumenberg in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. According to Blumenberg, modernity constitutes the second, successful, attempt at overcoming Gnosticism, after the first attempt, undertaken by Christianity, had failed. However – Blumenberg argues – it was not modern philosophy, but only science which had managed to escape Gnosticism’s ontological trap of viewing the world as an illusion bordering on nothing. Modern metaphysics had proved unable to liberate itself from the powerful pull of the Gnostic rejection of being, in spite of all philosophical efforts to affirm the existence of material reality. Even when claiming to be materialist, it had remained, in its core, suspicious about matter as an imperfect and privative mode of being. Ernst Bloch, one of the strongest proponents of panthestic vitalism in late modernity, seems to be trapped in a similar aporia: while he attempts to use – and simultaneously overcome – his early apocalyptic Gnosticism, fully manifest in The Spirit of Utopia, for the sake of the material reality and speculative materialism which combines Marx, the Aristotelian Left, and Schelling, he still remains a thinker of the apocalypse, who wishes the world to end in a violent destruction of all matter.

Философия и религиозная политика в «Философской истории» Дамаския

Author(s): Eugene Afonasin / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2022

In the paper, I consider some aspects of religious politics in late antiquity on the basis of select fragments from Damascius’ “Philosophical History,” translated into Russian for the first time. I also observe that the archeological finds, often better than the biased literary evidences, show both the different strategies of interaction between the adherents of pagan cults and official Christianity in late antiquity and, more importantly, the non-linearity of the paths by which Christians advanced towards their goal, without ever reaching it. We see that the church authorities often permitted the total destruction of pagan sanctuaries, as happened in 392 with the Serapeum, by initiating the full-scale persecution of pagans and their physical elimination, as Damascus testifies in many sections of his history. On the contrary, in some cases they sought only to "neutralize" the pagan cult, depicting crosses on statues and using ancient temples as churches and, accordingly, to attract the pagan intellectual elite to their side. All in all, this material allows us to take a more comprehensive view of history, reconstructing a complex cultural context.

Viziunile lui Crainic, mistica germană și cinematograful lui Herzog

Author(s): Florin Alexandru Iordache / Language(s): Romanian Issue: LXI/2022

The article will explore the similarities between the mystical theory of the soul, as revealed in a volume of memoirs by the academic Nichifor Crainic (1889–1972), the philosophical current of German mysticism manifested in the 15th century by Meister Eckart and the filmic discourse of the contemporary filmmaker Werner Herzog. By analyzing the large number of common elements (symbols, motifs and metaphors) it will be shown that the phenomenon of mysticism, part of a Christian identity discourse spread throughout Europe, manifests itself in various periods of history as a transhistorical and transcultural pattern.

Предисловие к переводу статьи Ал. Кожева "Заметка о Гегеле и Хайдеггере". Заметка Кожева в себе и для себя

Author(s): Ivan Kurilovich / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2022

This article aims to contextualize and problematize Alexandre Kojève’s Note on Hegel and Heidegger, written in 1936 and unpublished during his lifetime, which is being introduced into Russian-language scholarship. A translation of the Note is published in the same issue with the permission of the copyright holders. This paper provides a general introduction to Kojève’s philosophy, illustrates possible reading strategies for Kojève and the place of the translated Note in his corpus of the philosopher’s texts, and describes the philosophical and historical circumstances of the text, namely that it was composed as an extension of a review on Tragische Existenz. Zur Philosophie Martin Heidegger by Alfred Delp written and published by Kojève that same year in Recherches philosophique. The article reconstructs the lines of reference that are essential to understanding Alexandre Kojève and provides a critique of certain statements. Finally, on the basis of an analysis of Kojève’s language, it offers a broader thesis on the epistemological problems of Kojève’s philosophy, the discovery of which led him to make a series of debatable statements in the philosophy of history (on the necessity for the philosopher to participate in the realization of the end of history), in anthropology (on the difference between people in their capacity to be philosophers or sages depending on a philosophical and religious attitude that is not entirely dependent on them), and in his decision to leave academia and turn to the ideological and diplomatic provision of economic integration of European states during the Cold War.

Заметка о Гегеле и Хайдеггере

Author(s): Alexandre Kojève / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2022

Дельп действительно сравнивает Хайдеггера и Гегеля. И он даже говорит: «В значительной степени хайдеггеровское Dasein является лишь переносом (verendlichte Parallele) Гегеля в конечное» (Delp, 1935, 56, n. 41). К сожалению, Гегель продолжает быть для Дельпа «панлогистом», этой коварной выдумкой Шеллинга, которому почти удалось искоренить из истории философии подлинную гегелевскую мысль.

On the Interpretation of Values in Radoslav-Andrea Tsanoff's Works

Author(s): Tatyana Batuleva / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

The object of analysis in this paper is the interpretation of values in Radoslav-Andrea Tsanoff's works. The Bulgarian-born American philosopher calls for a new approach to moral values and their inclusion in a new scale. The main emphases are: the connection between knowledge and values; value aspects of reality; differentiation between sharable and non-sharable values. The conclusion is substantiated that Tsanoff's theory of values is the main connecting element providing a successful transition between two types of discourse: ethical and socio-political. His original optics, aimed at inscribing moral imperatives in economic and political relations, take him much further than his initial goal: “to discover new aspects of traditional virtues and vices” and to build a new scale of values. His theory of values attempts to bring a new in the economic and political relations because, without a “vital moral principle” to sustain it, any economic or political reform would lose its positive charge. The ethical perspective is organically woven into the socio-political narrative. With his analysis of the ambivalent role of scientific and technical discoveries (progress is not only a function of science's progress but also of this progress's role in upholding specific values), Tsanoff is once again “ahead of his time”. In this case, he fits into a discourse highlighting the part of “responsibility”, which makes him particularly relevant.

Онтологическата база на историята в теорията на Асен Игнатов

Author(s): Georgi Belogashev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2023

This article aims to point out Ignatov's heuristic approach in revealing the ontological status of history, the metaphysical factors and conditions for it to be as it is, as well as the specific position of man as an individual among these essential circumstances forming socio-historical reality and her history.Ignatov indicates these initial circumstances as material, spiritual and ideal, placed in a time-space discourse, and in relations with each other. The essence of history as such, and the history of social communities, is revealed through the oppositions individual/common, nature/history, spirit/history, man/genus, which, as interrelationships, reveal changes in social existence at a deeper ontological level.

SYMBOLISME DES OBJETS DANS LES RITES DE PASSAGE NUPTIAL

Author(s): Ioana Laura Marina (Cergheș) / Language(s): French Issue: 26/2021

The scientific research of the ritual of the nuptial passage is not limited to the simple description of the facts, but also involves a systematization of various incarnations, a structural analysis of these to establish categorical models, then, by comparison of models, a typology. structural. Most of the symbols present in this nuptial ritual are linked to the idea of forming the couple, of unifying two polar principles, masculine and feminine, which in the thought of the ancestors were placed at the foundation of the whole edifice of the world. The folk texts, composed of prayers, songs and cries, present during the ceremony of the wedding flag, as well as the dramatic and acting elements as well as all the ritual objects involved, we consider to be subordinate to the founding of a family, the union of the two young people the vision of a new type of social, emotional and moral existence. The scenario is charged with the drama of the unification of opposites, tensions and conflicting states that accompany the harmonization of the two complementary principles. Being an act of ritual communication, this ceremony is carried out through actions and objects of symbolic value.

Темпоралностите на обществените науки

Author(s): Maurice Aymard / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2003

Антропология и история. Един квази-трансцендентален подход към историческото познание

Author(s): Heinz Wismann / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2003

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STUDY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

Author(s): Ştefan Lifa / Language(s): English Issue: 28/2022

A first problem in the historical study is that of the way of presenting the events, of the historical facts. There are several factors that determine this way of presenting. There are also various points of view regarding the evolution of the society and the division in various periods of the society's history. We tried to refer to them.

Разказ и идеология в царските новели на Херодот

Author(s): Bogdan Bogdanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/1998

За разумната здравина

Author(s): Dimitar Denkov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/1998