Imago Dei in St. Thomas Aquinas: A Philosophical and Anthropological Analysis of Man Created in the Image of God

Author(s): Wojciech Kilan / Language(s): English Issue: 62/2023

Image as a philosophical concept has a long and complex history that begins as early as antiquity. Christian scholars included it in their philosophical studies in the form of imago Dei. In this paper, I analyzed the works of St. Thomas Aquinas to determine the anthropological consequences that follow from the idea of human creation in the image of God. I first establish that humans as beings created in the image of God participate through their intellect in God’s nature. I then present three stages of human participation in God. Subsequently, I defend the classical theory of Aquinas against contemporary reinterpretation of his thought. I argue that Aquinas rightly claims that only the intellectual part of the human soul is, strictly speaking, created in God’s Image, while the human body (and other irrational creatures) resembles God in the likeness of a trace.

Imaging the Absolute: Can Philosophy Visualize Abstractions?

Author(s): Leon Miodoński / Language(s): English Issue: 62/2023

This article consists of three parts: the first gives a synthetic outline of intellectual tendencies in post-Renaissance thought (Hermeticism, Alchemy, Kabbalah, which generated the iconic turn (emblematics, iconology). Its essence boils down to the integral relationship of the motto (lemma), the engraving (imago), and the poetic text (subscription). The second part is a more detailed analysis of one of the illustrations contained in the first volume of the German edition of Jacob Böhme’s works from 1682 (Gutenberg Project). The epoch, aesthetic tastes prevailing at that time and the Theosophical content of the work allow us to read this illustration from the point of view of iconology. The third part is devoted to two issues: First, one of the central themes in German idealism was the discussion around the notion of the absolute—whether the absolute can be grasped in concepts (Hegel) or in internal intuition (Schelling). Romanticism was dominated by a tendency to a subjective and speculative approach to the absolute. The philosophy and art of Romanticism was modeled on, among other things, medieval German mysticism and Böhme’s theosophy, seeking in these sources the best representation of what is unrepresentable, i.e., the absolute. Secondly, philosophical and artistic Romanticism developed a new type of imagery–language images. The dilemma that resulted from the discussion in German idealism—the notion or inner vision—from the modern point of view should be solved by a compromise: word and image.

Transgression of the Self—the Total Act in Jerzy Grotowski’s Laboratory Theatre and Jungian Archetype Experience

Author(s): Patrycja Neumann / Language(s): English Issue: 62/2023

This article will be devoted to one of Jerzy Grotowski’s most important discoveries, the total act, a specific kind of action and experience. It was created as part of theatrical practice, but apart from the function related to the dramaturgy of performances, it had a higher purpose, associated with the search for the essence of humanity and sources of the experience of reality. Jerzy Grotowski sought to transform actors and observers, open them to what is authentic, alive and present. This achievement was a kind of experience in which the sacrum and the profanum are overcome. The total act allowed a person “to become watched” and, paradoxically, allowed them to participate in the duality of passive action, in which a person becomes an observer and agent at the same time. My goal is to describe the role of the principle of coexistence of opposites in the work of J. Grotowski. I am describing the total act as an opportunity to reach an experience of reality in which the mind and the body merge with each other. Humankind as a psychophysical unity precedes all differences in this experience, he or she is able to reach the very center of their own self, that which Jung called Selbst. According to J. Grotowski, this state is possible when the influence of myths and collective ideas is overcome.

Утопия и идеология в практиката на „реалния социализъм“

Author(s): Ivaylo Znepolski / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/1997

Комунистическата идеология и частното съществуване

Author(s): Bogdan Bogdanov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/1997

Илюзиите за една илюзия

Author(s): Petar-Emil Mitev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/1997

Миналото на една илюзия: илюзията за универсалния характер на Руската революция

Author(s): Ivan Yotov Krastev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/1997

Pro- i antynatalizm. Spór o sens życia i sposoby ratowania planety

Author(s): Robert Florkowski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 4/2021

Successive generations have been raised and socialized to procreate in a spirit of pronatalism. For a vast majority of society members, parenthood is “taken for granted”. Anti-natalists argue with pronatalists, claiming that people should give up procreation as it is morally wrong. In their view, life is a string of suffering that is difficult to make sense of, while self-consciousness is a curse. A man emerges from non-being and quickly returns there. The return is often accompanied by mortal terror, which is the apogee of tragedy. Anti-natalists stress that due to the hegemony of the colossal population of homo sapiens sapiens, an unprecedented annihilation of the biosphere is taking place. Radical adherents of this philosophy claim that the voluntary extinction of our species would be the best solution to human problems and a chance for the entire planet to return to its balance. This position, so contrary to the cultural mainstream, is usually ignored, stigmatized, excluded, and tabooed.

Human Rights, Racism and Migration: A philosophical approach

Author(s): Dimitris Georgiadis / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2023

Today, one in every 50 human beings is a migrant worker, a refugee, asylum seeker, or an immigrant living in a ‘foreign’ country. Current estimates by the United Nations and the International Organization for Migration indicate that some 150 million people live temporarily or permanently outside their countries of origin (2.5% of the world’s population). Many of these, 80-97 million, are estimated to be migrant workers and members of their families. Another 12 million are refugees outside their country of origin. These figures do not include the estimated 20 million Internally Displaced Persons forcibly, displaced within their own country, nor tens of millions of internal migrants, mainly rural to urban, in countries around the world. Throughout centuries, philosophers from Kant to Walzer have debated questions of freedom of movement, state coercion and belonging. As Agnes Woolley has argued, these issues are given a new urgency in the context of climate change and the crisis of global capitalism, requiring us to face them with a ‘planetary consciousness’. Increasing ethnic and racial diversity of societies is the inevitable consequence of migration. Increasing migration means that a growing number of States have become or are becoming more multi-ethnic and are confronted with the challenge of accommodating people of different cultures, races, religions, and languages. Addressing the reality of increased diversity means finding political, legal, social, and economic mechanisms to ensure mutual respect and to mediate relations across differences. But xenophobia and racism have become manifest/obvious in some societies which have received substantial numbers of immigrants, as workers or as asylum-seekers. In those countries the migrants have become the targets in internal disputes about national identity. In the last decade, the emergence of new nation states has often been accompanied by ethnic exclusion. Migration in the modern world raises some of the most pressing philosophical questions. Aim of this presentation is to present the relationship between Human Rights, Racism and Migration.

THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN AZERBAIJAN

Author(s): IMANOVA Sevda / Language(s): English Issue: 17/2022

The paper deals with the issues of forming and developing students’ intercultural competence (IC) level and the demands for culture-based, appropriate teaching materials including social websites in Azerbaijan. In order to succeed in fostering students’ intercultural competence, the content and teaching strategies of foreign languages, all educational documents, programs, syllabi, and teaching materials must be thoroughly designed based on culture. The swift development of global economy, transportation, and communication necessitates the tendencies relating to intercultural competence meaning that people from multicultural backgrounds has made intercultural competence very relevant. In this context, social media play a key role in increasing the Internet users’ culture awareness and improving intercultural competence. In this study, the questionnaire was designed in order to gain the influence of social media in the development of intercultural competence and the impacts of learning foreign languages among the students who study at Azerbaijan University of Languages. Using social media in the classroom environment contributes to understanding of foreign cultures which facilitates the language acquisition

Truth and Modalities (II)

Author(s): Fabrice Pataut / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

I contrast two construals of the thesis that truth is independent of verifiability in principle: a modal one and a non modal one. I argue in favor of the modal construal and then, on that basis, that independence holds across the board, i.e., even for statements that are verifiable by us relative to familiar, customary, non-skeptical standards.

Writing and death: An overview of the concept of death in Albanian literature

Author(s): Blerina Rogova Gaxha / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

From Antiquity to the Postmodern world, the approaches of philosophical and literary thought to death have changed but also remained similar from philosopher to philosopher and from writer to writer. Many of these approaches emphasize the dualities of life/death and soul/body, relying on the argument that everything arises from its opposite through the continuous process of reproduction, just as everything dies. This paper will deal with the concept of death in the work of three authors, Ndre Mjedja, Lasgush Poradeci, and Mitrush Kuteli, who are the main writers and cultural personalities in Albanian literature of the 20th century. The selected authors conceive, create, and promote a plurality of discourses and themes, highlighting the theme of death, through which they reveal the philosophical power of the literary text and the possibilities implicit to literature itself. Their views provide a poetic and cultural background for a theoretical discussion of literary and cultural facets of death. A prelude exploring the concept of death generally will be followed by a discussion of the authors’ works, and finally, a theoretical analysis of these works will round off the investigation of death as a literary and philosophical theme in Albanian letters.

Creative and research segments of European humanism: Development of a single cultural space

Author(s): Olena Onishchenko,Svitlana Kholodynskaya,Iryna Muratova,Yevheniia Myropolska,Maryna Ternova / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

The relevance and theoretical weight of the mentioned topic of research consists in the definition of the phenomenon metamodernism, which, in modern humanitarian knowledge and in literary and artistic practice, determines the need to distinguish and analyse segments of European humanism as means of in-depth reproduction, nuance and personalisation of historical and cultural stages, in the context of the specified systematisation of the movement of segments from the middle of the 19th to the first two decades of the 21st century. The main goal of this study, considering the creative and research potential of segments that contributed to the gradual layering of specific features of European humanism, is the reconstruction of arguments for and against those processes that caused the development of a single cultural space. The basis of the methodological approach in this study is the principles of historicism with the assignment of analytical, comparative, and chronological approaches to the determination of a wide range of issues that are of significant importance in the context of the stated topic. In the course of carrying out this research, results were obtained that have significant theoretical and practical significance, because they contribute to the further scientific and theoretical understanding of the dynamics of the European humanistic movement from the second half of the 19th to the first two decades of the 21st century, and can be used in lectures on aesthetics, philosophy, cultural studies, history and the theory of art for students of humanitarian and artistic creative universities. The results obtained during the implementation of this research, and the conclusions formulated on their basis, are of significant importance in the context of determining the key trends in the recognition of the creative and searching tendencies of European humanism, which play an important role in the process of forming a single cultural space.

The normativity question in Quine’s naturalism: The context of the language learning situation

Author(s): Shonkholen Mate / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

Quine has been charged with eliminating the normative dimension from his naturalized epistemology. The aim of the paper is to look at the role of empathy in Quine’s language learning situation, which in its simplest form is constituted by the parent-child relation. We will explore the normativity of the role of empathy thereof by exploiting the sociality of the language learning situation. Since the sociality of Quine’s notion of empathy is implicit, to explore the normativity expression thereof, we will examine the explicit sociality of Wittgenstein’s language learning situation–also constituted in its simplest form by the master-novice relation–and the normative character of it. By explicating the normativity of the calibrating role of the master and of rule following generally, we will parse the moral dimensions of the empathizing role of the linguist in Quine’s language learning situation. Finally, by examining the nature of normativity in empathizing, we will establish that the normativity of empathizing involved in Quine’s language learning situation is socially grounded without denying its individual dimension. We will conclude that the norma-tivity objection against Quine’s naturalism thus stands refuted.

The art of education: Creative thinking and video games

Author(s): Lina Georgieva,Alexander Nikulin / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed new light on some significant problems that have been present in the education systems for decades. Тhe lack of various educational methods is becoming more and more evident, leading to a decreasing interest in learning and critical thinking. Оn the other hand, more and more research shows that different types of digital games can enhance creative and critical thinking in students. А closer look at the requirements of the educational programs shows how strict they are in their demands on students. Digital games like role playing games can be a bridge between students’ imaginations and complex educational material. Video games feature a variety of game mechanics that stimulate creative thinking and spark interest in otherwise difficult to understand topics. Motivation and engagement in digital games can be used in a specific way for educational purposes. If we think of teaching as an art in itself, what better method of teaching than through interactive arts.

The endophilosophy of interculturalism as a new terminology to describe the equilibrium of Being within the construction of Culture and Identity

Author(s): Arjan Çuri,Ilda Kashami / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2023

Research on the meanings of self and others’ perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes in intracultural and intercultural relations is of significant social relevance. A micro-analysis of its development as a whole process differentiated by the single substrates from an endophilosophical and ontological viewpoint will allow the implementation of a new definition of the self, being, and other according to the principles of dynamics and interculturality. This new sense of defining being will not only produce a good conception of the impact of culture on identity but also depict how the opposite, or pathogenic identity, should be considered, especially in times of existential crisis and change. Healthy or pathogenic patterns themselves organize situations where the basic needs of interaction with space are constructed and the equilibrium of everyone is maintained. Therefore, depending on the received information, professionals can formulate an objective analysis of the conscious self.

И отново: към какво няма интерес естетическата незаинтересованост? (Шопенхауер след Хобс)

Author(s): Ognian Kassabov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 5/2023

The article retraces a broader context for the emergence of the notions driving the disputed idea of aesthetic disinterestedness, first, by looking at how Shaftesbury aimed to counter Hobbes’s concept of desire as an individual-centred, unsatisfiable drive to possess. In a second step, the article maps those tensions onto tensions within Schopenhauer’s aesthetics and metaphysics (usually classed in a quite different tradition of thinking), where we meet a notoriously extreme version of disinterestedness. The article argues that to make sense of it, it is worthwhile to interpret Schopenhauer’s contrast between a desire-driven, growth-seeking everyday life and the calm repose of aesthetic contemplation as a radical version of an opposition to the emerging capitalist lifeworld that put its mark onto aesthetics as it shaped itself as a self-standing discipline through the 18th–19th centuries.

Poznanie intelektualne duszy ludzkiej oddzielonej od ciała (anima separata) a intelekt czynny i możnościowy

Author(s): Michał Zembrzuski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2022

The purpose of this paper is to attempt the answer to the question of how the soul comes to know, not as a form of the body, but as a subsistent form, independent in its existence from the body, but dependent on its own created act of being (ipsum esse). We will be interested in the question of how the separated soul comes to know: Whether the two intellectual powers that are naturally in the soul - the possible intellect and the active intellect - will realize their acts, and therefore whether the soul will come to know at all, and whether it will come to know individual reality? There will be a theological theme in the paper, that is, a theme determined by the issue of the completion of the human structure in the body (the resurrection of the body) and the related beatific vision, which is the achievement of the end of human intellectual activities. It seems that the question of anima separata is not a purely speculative problem, since it contains the answer to the question of understanding human nature, an answer that is most relevant to philosophy in its practical field. For Aquinas, the existence of a separated soul, suspended, as it were, be-tween existence in an animated body and existence in a glorified body, is “hypothetical”, and the humanity of such an entity is incomplete. However, given that Thomas is essentially considering real and not possible entities, the topic of the existence and workings of the separated soul should not be within the field of his subject matter. It seems, however, that Thomas was interested in confronting such a theme, which would reveal the uniqueness of human nature also in this aspect.

Pojęcie „ius gentium” w „Summa Theologiae” św. Tomasza z Akwinu

Author(s): Bartosz Zalewski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2022

The subject of the considerations in presented paper is the concept of ius gentium in two selected fragments of St. Thomas Aquinas: S.Th. I-II, q. 95, a. 4 and S.Th. II-II, q. 57, a. 3. The introduction to their detailed analysis is the discussion of three issues necessary for the correct interpretation of Aquinas’ argu-ments, i.e. the concept of ius gentium in the first book of the Justinian Digest, the definition of ius gentium in the Etymologies of St. Isidore of Seville and an explanation of the relationship between the concepts of ius and lex in the Summa Theologica. The conducted research allows to conclude that the Angelic Doctor uses the concept of ius gentium in a twofold sense. The first of them is of a juridical nature and can be equated with the understanding of this term on the basis of the sources of Roman law. Ius gentium is therefore a set of legal norms common to all peoples, which enable, first of all, mutual economic turnover, although to some extent also apply to the external activity of the state. The second meaning of the term ius gentium, although also to some extent inspired by the sources of Roman law, has a broader character and a deeper philosophical foundation. On the basis of the treaty on justice, ius gentium constitutes the social order of functioning of all people based on natural reason (naturalis ratio).

Moralny wymiar apostazji. Uwagi w kontekście filozofii klasycznej

Author(s): Marian Szymonik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 11/2022

Apostasy is a phenomenon which is gaining strength especially in contemporary religious life in Poland. This paper addresses the issue of the moral dimension of apostasy. A definition of apostasy is the starting point of this analysis. Then conditions of departure from faith are presented. The first are objective con-ditions connected with the state of contemporary culture and philosophy. Contemporary thought is marked by philosophical nihilism, whose main manifestation is the abandonment of metaphysics. In the next part subjective conditions of apostasy are discussed, which basically derive from misconstrued human freedom. The phenomenon of apostasy is also affected by social factors. The discussion closes by drawing attention to the connection between the axiological crisis and apostasy. The paper seeks to draw attention to the moral responsibility of man for the act of apostasy. Man is a free being. A particularly sensitive area of this freedom is religion. Man’s openness to truth makes him open to God as the ultimate fulfilment of man. Just as truth is the means of human existence, so also religion appears as the sphere of the highest values that give meaning to human life. From the philosophical, especially moral point of view, apostasy appears as a form of man’s escape from a deeper, and at the same time difficult, insight into the sense of his own life and the whole of reality.