“Dishonourable philosopher” as contradictio in adiecto

Author(s): Marek Olejniczak / Language(s): English Issue: 1-2/2008

The basic thesis of the article is that dishonourable philosopher does not really exist and the idea of “dishonourable philosopher” is a nonsense. According to the author, if we deal with the philosopher who acts dishonourably, we can be certain that he was temporarily blinded by something, or probably we deal with a distinguished expert in philosophy, historian of philosophy or writer of philosophical verve but not with a philosopher. In order to prove it, the author refers to the classic Platonic understanding of philosophy as the love of wisdom and to the phenomenology of Max Scheler who perceives a particular moral attitude of a person as a precondition of the ability to look inside the essence of the matter

“DOBRI BOŠNJANI” I “BONI HOMINES”

Author(s): Srećko Džaja / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 01+02/2006

This article is a polemical contribution to the study of the terminology of mediaeval Bosnia, which is one of the “less well researched aspects of mediaeval Bosnia.”. This scientific research lacuna has contributed to the fact that some terms dating from mediaeval Bosnia are used uncritically, and even at time accorded “mythological and magical meaning,” which has the result, particularly on the part of certain Bosniac historians, of claiming an “unbroken continuity between the mediaeval Bošnjani and the Ottoman Bošnjaks (Bosniacs)”. This applies in particular to the adjectival certainty “dobri Bošnjanin” the content of which, in this view, relates to “mediaeval Bošnjani as a ethos in its entirety.” The article refers to several sources and uses appropriate historical analogies in an attempt to demonstrate that the meaning of the adjectival syntagma “dobri Bošnjanin does not feature in any historical document as an ethnic category, but invariably in its broad sense as a social and ethical category.”

“Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit” .The German Beer Hall as Place of Cultural Performance

Author(s): Claudia Bosch / Language(s): English Issue: Vol.3/2/2011

Festzelte are the beer halls (actually tents) of German Oktoberfest style celebrations—generally called Volksfest. Being transient buildings, the tents can be massive and intimidating. 5,000 or more visitors may find a place to drink, eat, sing, dance and celebrate wildly. Chants proclaim the “Gemütlichkeit” [coziness/snugness] despite an atmosphere supercharged with wild behaviors and heavy drunkenness. Norm breaking, liminal behavior is not only tolerated but even expected and intended (up to a certain point). Victor Turner’s concept of cultural performance helps explain the revelry in a beer tent. The tents with their specific rural and folkloristic decorations, spatial structure, and furnishings facilitate the joyous actions. Their staging, as well as the celebratory actions themselves, provide a sacred play-space for anti-structure and communitas, flow and performative reflexivity. The active celebratory participation creates a place where alterity reigns and enables a sense of belonging.

“Epistemological Reading”: Stanley Cavell’s Method of Reading Literature

Author(s): Magdalena Filipczuk / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Not many readers will recognize ‘Disowning Knowledge: Seven Plays of Shakespeare’ by Stanley Cavell as either a piece of philosophical writing or literary criticism, so it may be useful to ask what method Cavell uses to read literature, what are the main features of his approach, and whether he has a coherent view on what reading literature means. I examine Cavell’s interdisciplinary eclecticism, the feature which makes his work so original, and I describe his moving away from the British and American analytic tradition in which he was trained to other sources of inspiration, especially Thoreau. I also stress the important fact that Cavell does not avoid autobiographical motifs in his writings, the style of which derives to some extent from the Jewish tradition of storytelling. In his writings Cavell declares his adherence to an ahistorical approach, maintaining that in a sense philosophy is trans historical. In many of his books the central issue is the challenge that skepticism poses, and he endeavors to make a convincing case against it. Although Cavell’s work covers a broad range of interests, including tragedy and literature, as well as Romantic poetry, Shakespeare, Henry James and Samuel Beckett, I try to answer the question of why his analyses of skepticism in literature focus especially on the works of Shakespeare.

“Everyone Says I-Love-You” An Analysis of the Declaration of Love

Author(s): Rafał Nahirny / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and John L. Austin’s studies have offered a new concept of language. Should one, in the light of The Philosophical Investigations and How to Do Things With Words, limit himself or herself exclusively to investigating the manner in which feelings are spoken about, whilst remaining tacit as to the very nature of feelings? Can love be talked about using the language of analytic philosophy? The Author’s quest is one forgiving replies to those queries; to this particular end, declaration of love is made subject to detailed analysis from the standpoint of Wittgenstein’s concept of linguistic games and Austin’s speech act theory.

“Film je mrtav! Živio film!”. Peter Greenaway o budućnosti medija

Author(s): Angelina Milosavljević-Ault / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 7/2015

Peter Greenaway, director and artist is rethinking the notion of cinema in relation to other media and technologies, such as TV, painting, theater. “The Cinema is Dead! Long Live the Cinema!” is an interpretation of the known phrase that implies the continuation of the institution in spite of changes in personell. During the short history of cinema as an “aesthetic technology”, or “technological aesthetics”, Greenaway recognizes three periods of style which correspond to Winckelmann’s periodization of art: birth, maturity and decline. The director builds his thesis on the maturity of cinema of today in this premise, claiming that the cinema not annihilated, but invogorated by new technologies, which enrich both the cinema and our aesthetic experience. According to Greenaway, cinema has a glorious future.

“Givenness from Above”

The I Can and its Limits

Author(s): Karl Hefty / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

This article compares the concept of the living body (or “flesh”) in Edmund Husserl’s Ideas II with that of the French phenomenologist Michel Henry. It locates in their descriptions of the I Can a basic difference in the way they understand the roles that impressionality, affectivity, and perception play in the phenomenological method. It then examines Henry’s concept of “auto-affection” and argues that the “strong” and “weak” senses of auto-affection must be understood in terms of what Henry, following Kierkegaard, calls the “dialectic of pathos.” Henry finally distinguishes three degrees of passivity—of sensibility with regard to the world, of flesh with regard to itself, and of flesh with regard to incarnation. In the shift from the second to the third, we see a shift from a concept of givenness to a concept of “givenness from above.” It is here that the article locates the presence of a “transcendence” in Henry’s work, which in turn helps to clarify how he understands the boundary between phenomenology and theology.

“God’s Elect Nation” Myth: Religious and Secular Dimensions

Author(s): Nonka Bogomilova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

The paper analyzes the religious and the secular dimensions of the “God’s elect nation” myth, outlining that associating religion and mythology is one of the social-psychological mechanisms used to create and maintain the nation. The cultural mechanisms of the paradoxical reduction of religious universality to the local/national, the transformation of that which binds into that which separates are explained. The thesis is elaborated that the “nationalization” of God, whereby his transcendence is replaced by historical immanence, holds a potential to engender conflicts even between communities of the same religious confession. A sufficient number of historical instances indicate that most nations and peoples have each their own specific religious or secular myth of divine election or messianic myth of some exclusive mission or value; these myths are activated under conducive conditions. The situations that provoke feelings of ethnic or national unity and activate messianic mythologies are outlined. The religious radicalization is analyzed either as resulting from political and ethnic radicalization, from war, or as involved in these processes. The functions of intellectuals, of rationality and reason are discussed.

“I am thou… Thou art I…”

How Persona 4’s Young Adult Fiction Communicates Japanese Values

Author(s): Sven Dwulecki / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2017

Life is Strange, INSIDE, Oxenfree—all these video games represent a seemingly entirely new genre. Young Adult videogames diverge from the male, gloomy grown-up stereotypes and replace them with adolescent protagonists in their coming of age stories. Their commercial success seem to validate their endeavors. However, YA narratives are hidden in plain sights for many years within JRPGs. Shin Megami Tensei – Persona 4 (short Persona 4 or P4) is a cultural ambassador. This paper examines how the game’s procedural rhetoric in combination with its Young Adult story advocate in favor of specific Japanese values. The time structure of P4 reinforces a longterm orientation and requires strategic planning as well as tactical flexibility. So-called “Social Links” represents Japan unique take on collectivism. Each link encapsulates a small YA narrative and offers different benefits to social-active protagonist. Finally, grinding mechanics reflect the notion of repetition-based learning. Japanese schools teach through engaging with developing several solutions to a singular problem. The same holds true for the grinding process. All these elements combined create a game rhetoric promoting these aspects of Japanese culture

“Immunology of music”? A short introduction to cognitive science of musical improvisation.

Author(s): Witold Wachowski / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2012

Studies on music in the area of cognitive sciences – quite varied despite their short history – meet with scepticism. The author of this introduction, presenting some spectacular examples of research on musical improvisation, tries to demonstrate that they enrich rather than reduce our understanding of this phenomenon.

“Imperij” uzvraća udarac. Barryjeva obrana liberalnog univerzalizma

Author(s): Zoran Kurelić / Language(s): Croatian Issue: 03/2004

The author deals with the issue of the relationship between liberalism and multiculturalism and points out certain tensions stemming from the debate between liberals and multiculturalists. The paper mentions the theoretical interventions of political philosophers such as Charles Taylor (multiculturalist), John Gray (postmodern liberal conservative) and Brian Barry (liberal universalist). By looking into Barry’s attack on Taylor and Gray, the author tries to show Barry’s mistake in accusing those two of relativism derived from incommensurability, but also gives him credit for unerringly recognizing the weaknesses of the relativist criticism of liberalism. According to the author, many theoreticians participating in the academic dispute between the liberals and the multiculturalists assume that the real targets are the liberal egalitarians (Rawls and his disciples). This has created a dramatically erroneous impression that the USA are liberal in an egalitarian way. Thus, while the leftist critics of egalitarian liberalism were finding fault with the abominable universalist theory, the antiliberals (and the antimulticulturalists) have gained prominence.

“Islam” kao oprečnost Bosni

Author(s): Rusmir Mahmutćehajić / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 04/2007

It is a dominant use of the concept of ‘Islam’ that misrepresents its genuine traditional meaning of putting all what is existing into relation to the God as Peace. Users of the concept include in this modern construction contents which are either a negative representation of themselves or a negative reaction to this negative representation. Muslim contents of the Bosnian culture are interwoven into this reified and homogenized picture of Islam. The political discourse guided by such a picture lacking in semantic determinability reveals itself to be a movement in darkness of fear. In his article ‘Islam’ as the opposite of Bosnia the author examines the reified use of the concept of ‘Islam’ within an anti-Bosnian political discourse.

“it / is true”

Author(s): Kevin Hart / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2008

Following a hint from Edmund Husserl, this paper explores theproximity of the phenomenological and aesthetic gazes. It does so with one particular poem in mind: “September Song” by Geoffrey Hill. The paper examinesthe ways in which the poem responds to a given situation, the death of a child in the Shoah, and responds to the ethical status of its own aestheticgaze. Phenomenological perspectives by Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, and Marion, are brought to bear on the questions considered, and comparisons aremade between Hill’s poem and similar poems by Dylan Thomas, Paul Celan, and W. S. Merwin

“Location of Exchange”: Algonquian and Iroquoian Occupation in the Adirondacks Before and After Contact

Author(s): Melissa Otis / Language(s): English Issue: Vol.5/2/2013

Despite westernized reports to the contrary, occupation occurred in the Adirondacks before and after European contact. Seasonal encampments scattered throughout the region were part of Iroquoian and Algonquian peoples labour for resource gathering that occurred year-round and for extended periods. The area also became a haven from colonial warfare for some Indigenous peoples; these communities dispersed by the mid-nineteenth century. Land pressures around the reservations of Akwesasne and Odanak forced some peoples to go elsewhere. A few who chose the Adirondacks settled there until White homesteaders moved nearby chasing away game. By the mid-nineteenth century especially Abenaki families settled around established tourist towns. I argue these are all examples of Indigenous occupation and we need to acknowledge this and how their occupation adapted over time.

“MADEN” FİLMİNİN MARKSİST ÇÖZÜMLEMESİ

Author(s): Birgül Alici / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 32/2016

Looking at socioeconomic changes from a perspective of a certain historical necessity, Marx focuses on the position, interests and struggle of the working class in the most capitalist and democratic societies within Marxism. In the study, a Yavuz Ozkan film "Maden" which explains the basic concepts of Marxism and the struggle of the working class, which Marx attaches great importance to, has been tried to be analyzed. The film, in which the soul of Marxism and its basic elements are studied on workers in a social realistic norm, is the result of a successful Marxist approach reflecting Yavuz Özkan's era.

“Minds: Human and Divine – Explorations at the Interface of Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Religion.”

Author(s): Mária Spišiaková / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 3/2012

“Minds: Human and Divine – Explorations at the Interface of €Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Religion.” International Conference. Hochschule für Philosophie. Munich, 6-9 August 2012

“Minör Sinema” Olarak “Duvara Karşı”

Author(s): Süleyman Kıvanç Türkgeldi / Language(s): Turkish Publication Year: 0

Deleuze ve Guattari, Franz Kafka üzerine yaptıkları incelemede “minör edebiyat nedir?” sorusuna “minör edebiyat, minör bir dilin edebiyatı değil, daha ziyade bir azınlığın majör dilde yaptığı edebiyattır; ama temel özelliği, dilin güçlü yersizyurtsuzlaşma katsayısından her koşulda etkilenmiş olmasıdır”(2015: 45) şeklinde cevap verir. Majör sözcüğü köken olarak büyük, temel ve önemli gibi anlamlara gelirken, minör sözcüğünün küçük olan gibi anlamlara geldiğini söyleyebiliriz (Nişanyan: 2016). Bu noktada felsefi açıdan bakıldığında minör kavramının neden önemli olduğunu postmodern düşünce bağlamında görmek önem arz eder. Batı düşüncesinin 20. Yüzyıla kadar genel anlamda bir “aşkınsallık” temelinde şekillendiğini söyleyebiliyoruz.

“MOĆ SUĐENJA”

Author(s): Predrag Finci / Language(s): Bosnian Issue: 04/2004

By raising the question of power and judgment in the context of the personal pronouns I, You, He, or I, Another, a Third, and of an analysis of their relationships, the paper brings one to the observation that “all three of these persons singular, which may change place, come together at a single point in the common We, which manifest themselves in sociability, institutions, and sundry forms of collectivism. In such sociability He may be privileged, but not superior. Only such a one may be a true witness of the reality of an established relationship. Only such a one becomes the mirror for my I, for your You: a mirror that is the transcendental subject. In it both difference and identity are confirmed. I am reflected in the other, I still see in my own way. Only in the Third am I seen through ‘disinterested liking’, which is not indifferent, but interest in the objectivity of the subject, in what the subject is in and for itself, what the subject is as such.”

“Moral interiority” and self-realization

The essential relationship between God and human being in Edith Stein’s thought

Author(s): Martina Galvani / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The ethics perspective which I shall focus on in this chapter is necessarily founded on Stein’s investigations about the human spiritual dimension, in which her phenomenological and metaphysical-theological research are synthesized. Stein describes the human being as “essentially spiritual”, namely intellect and will. In fact, he can comprehend reality in its “meaning” (Sinn) and act freely in it. The ethical consequences of Stein’s anthropological reflections will be explained through what we shall call “moral interiority”. Following Augustine, Stein perceives the original consciousness of oneself (interiority) as "an inner place, not a place" (interiore loco, non loco), where to start explaining intellective knowledge, and most of all free acting and consequently ethics. Action is not just expressed outwards, and is first of all self-actuation – acting and being are mutually implied. The direction of moral actions is thus already present in the ‘essence’ (Wesen) of each individual and this essence, thanks to the creative ‘essentiality’ (Wesenheiten), is ab eterno in the Logos. In view of this complex theological node, the purpose of this essay is to show how we can say, with Stein, that Christ incarnates the only possible ethics.

“More-or-less body”: the social perception of normativity of the body in Poland

Author(s): Anna M. Kłonkowska,Agniezska Maj / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The article presents results of a study aimed at exploring social concepts associated with bodily ‘normativity’ and ‘passability’: the notion of normative body weight and attitude towards over- and underweight individuals. We were particularly interested in the common concepts and notions associated with normative body weight as well as possible reasons for rejection of people whose bodies do not fall within the socially shared knowledge of what the ‘right’ body is. The article presents results of a qualitative, interview-based research study conducted with the use of visual materials.