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The article is devoted to Internet-trend on Existentialism in Russian social networks. Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Franz Kafka became popular characters for Russian young people who are active Internet users. They correlated Existentialism with concepts of “hopeless”, “Futility”, “emptiness”. We made an attempt to analyze this phenomenon and tried to explain that Existentialism is not directed against the person but for him.
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The article is concerned to a considerable philosophical problem of truth which is basically a pragmatist conception. The professor of the Sofia University Dimitar Mihalchev offers a discussion of the possibility to apply the method and the criterion of pragmatism conception in the science.
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Relying on arhival materials the article attempts at providing an answer to the question why Todor Pavlov as philosopher is predominantly negatively assessed. The need to revisit and revise the imposed today interpretative schemata is pointed out.
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Christianity illuminated the world in the age of Antiquity but it differed significantly from the life of the ancient world. The Christian writers of IV–V cc. treat the ancient mythology in a negative way. The present article discusses the characteristics of ancient mythology which were unacceptable from a Christian point of view. Why are the concepts of ‘mythology’ and ‘religion’ opposed in the minds of the Christian writers? Christian literature depicts a different world. What are the characteristics of this world? What demonstrates its realityand veracity? The answers to these questions are given in the article “Mythology and Religion in Latin Christian Literature of IV–V cc.”
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This paper explores the paradoxical nature of contemporary art, which is a negation of all previous values, criteria and practices. It conceptualizes the problem of cognitive and aesthetic indistinguishability between art and non-art in 21st-century art practices. The result of the lack of criteria for judging and evaluation is the irrelevance of categories and differences. Aesthetic uncertainty is the new canon.
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In this work, we deal with the basic postulates and the common question of brotherhood and sisterhood based on the encyclical of Pope Francis, Fratelli tutti, “We are all brothers and sisters”, the content of which, as is written in the introduction, was inspired by meetings with Sheikh Al-Azhar Ahmad Al-Tayyib. Al-Azhar University has a distinguished reputation among a majority of Muslims around the world. The Pope refers to Saint Francis of Assisi, who, inspired by the content of the New Testament, addressed these words to all people: brothers and sisters, men and women, all people of good will, God’s creatures. We examine the links between the faiths and why it is important to read the Pope’s encyclical as an incentive to accept the other, to accept differences and to develop a culture of dialogue; and the implications the encyclical has for theological dialogue, ethical monotheism and social justice. The encyclical has a clear link to the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Coexistence that Pope Francis and Sheikh Al-Azhar Ahmad Al- Tayyib signed on February 4, 2019 in Abu Dhabi. In this text, we are primarily interested in the parts that indicate the necessity of developing and nurturing a culture of dialogue and accepting believers as brothers and sisters, and the importance of ethical monotheism, which strongly unites all followers of monotheistic religions. Three segments are important to us in our work: the theological openness of the Pope’s third encyclical, ethical issues and social context, and populism and liberalism. These questions are also important for our area, considering the centuries-old intertwining and common life of Christians and Muslims in this part of the world.
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Literary texts can be understood as the staging of what Bernhard Waldenfels refers to as »causality between counter-happening and response«, as the representation of a responsive event that is composed of counter-happening, affection, and response. This event occurs between the perceiver and the perceived, i.e. on the level of action, reception, and narration. The paper deals with perception on the level of the narrative and addresses the question of whether texts can be distinguished regarding the narrative staging of responsivity.
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The theme of euthanasia and assisted suicide calls for certain moral issues, but also for some legal issues. The two procedures are similar; however there are divergent elements, namely the fact that, in the case of euthanasia, the medic is the one who performs the act of killing, whereas in the case of assisted suicide, the patient plays the active role. Opinions on this issue are divergent and there are endless talks regarding these procedures, as EU countries do not have common laws on this matter. However, we believe that the most important argument which supports the right of a person to decide when to end his/her life is based on the principle of dignity and individual autonomy.
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The author of the article analyses the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of a possible dialogue between biopolitics and biophilosophy. It is argued that the pandemic, despite the horrific sufferings it has caused to humankind, had a certain positive side to it as it made us raise our ethical, social and political consciousness to a qualitatively new level. In this sense, the new coronavirus might be viewed as a pharmakon, that is, both as a poison (as the etymology of the Latin word virus suggests) and as a remedy – or as a gift. The author, drawing attention to the fact that viruses, strictly speaking, are neither alive nor dead, yet play a significant role in the evolution of living organisms, argues that the “poisonous” gift of the new coronavirus and the gift of COVID-19 vaccines interact – either by way of the initiation of the selection process or by way of its correction (limitation) – in the process of natural selection of the members of human population, thus affecting human evolution: the “poisonous” gift of the virus acts positively, presenting a biological challenge to humans, and the gift of vaccines acts negatively, by way of correcting this process, that is, selectively limiting the extent and intensity of the challenge posed by the virus. It is evident that individuals vaccinated against COVID-19, though they are not completely exempt from the dangers of coronaviral infection, participate in the process of natural selection, initiated by the action of coronavirus, to a significantly lesser extent and degree. Bearing in mind that personal decisions to accept or decline the gift of a COVID-19 vaccine are related to certain personal convictions, one might claim that, in the process of this particular case of natural selection, holding to certain specific convictions selects humans for certain cognitively, ethically and socially important personal traits that play a role in personal decision-making and are, as we might suggest, at least partially influenced by genes. Therefore, not only the urgency to act promptly – to act in a biopolitical sense – in the face of such challenges as COVID-19 pandemic (and, in the future, in the face of dangers posed by similar pandemic diseases), but also the necessity to reflect – to reflect in biophilosophical sense – on the interaction between humans and viruses that takes place on a global scale and in a common biological medium highlight the importance of a new trend – that of the convergence between biopolitics and biophilosophy
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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.
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This contribution shows how the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas has been confronted autobiographically with National-Socialism (1933-1945) and how his personal experience and the experience of the Jewish people under Hitlerism were translated in his philosophical understanding of ‘being’ as ‘il y a’ (in English: ‘there is’). The Holocaust provides a unique negative point of entry to understand Levinas’ ontological category which is as such not understandable since in the il y a, there is no longer a subject that stands before the objectivity of reality. On the contrary, the il y a is exactly the category that expresses a situation where the subject itself has no longer the ‘right’ to exist as such but still does not stop to exist. This violence of being is exactly what Hitlerism wanted to do in creating the Holocaust and submitting the Jewish people to it. This makes understandable how the whole philosophy of Levinas is an effort to overcome the il y a through a moral answer to the Holocaust.
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The main purpose of the study undertaken in this paper is a synthetic presentation of the major stages of the dispute over the legalization of assisted suicide in Italy as well as an analysis of selected ethical and legal aspects related to this issue. Assisted suicide is medical and administrative aid provided to a person who has decided to take their own life. It differs from direct euthanasia in the fact that the final act of taking one’s own life, involving deliberate administration of the necessary substances is performed entirely by the patient themself without interference of any third parties. In 2017, the institution of the living will was introduced in Italy, which allows to make a declaration of intent for potential future loss of consciousness and ability to make decisions regarding one’s treatment and saving one’s life. In 2019, the Constitutional Court obliged the parliament to draft a law regulating the termination of life on request. In March 2022, the relevant provisions were voted in the Chamber of Deputies. They were then forwarded to the Senate. Ultimately, this bill was not passed, due to the collapse of the government in July 2022 and the dissolution of the parliament. The conducted analyses showed that the Italian ethical and legal dispute regarding the legalization of assisted suicide is an important element of the contemporary global debate, concerning, among others, medical ethics, value and quality of human life, conscience clause, ethical aspects of suffering and death.
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In this paper I will offer a reading of Alberto Moreiras’ recently published books, but within the context of his life’s work as a whole: which I will consider from the point of view of a questioning of the idea of the time/history difference. After briefly tracing that overarching concern in his early work, I move to a consideration of a move away from Hegelianism in the more recent publications. This non-Hegelianism is not simply an anti-Hegelian stance. Understanding the difference will take us into the true dimension of infrapolitics. This aspect of Moreiras’ contribution to contemporary debates will be illustrated by way of his paradoxical and unrecognizable Antigone.
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Everyday life under state socialism was characterized by a series of antagonistic values. How was it possible to maintain a coherent, consistent value system, behavior and mentality under such circumstances? The present analysis is focused on the theft of state property, which is undeniably a reprehensible moral issue, still it was a widespread practice. Through the example of theft, I argue that practical coherence of the value system was maintained – among others – by the psychosocial mechanisms of selective moral disengagement. I also sketch the related processes of institutionalization and socialization through which theft became a socially embedded practice.
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The ethical acceptability of most products produced and marketed by a company is beyond any doubt. However, the pressure of competitors, pursuit of profits and attempt to achieve better business performances are the main reasons for companies to evade ethical guidelines in production, marketing and advertisement of some product. Therefore, the moral analysis of the products needs to be focused on the main product characteristics as the quality, aesthetics, pricing, safety etc, and to find a way of establishing a so called „moral product.“
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This article addresses “Creativity after Computation” by looking into the concept of artificial imagination, namely the machine’s ability to produce images that challenge artmaking and surprise human beings with the aid of machine learning algorithms. What is at stake is not only art and creativity but also the tension between the determination of machines and the freedom of human beings. This opposition restages Kant’s third antinomy in the contemporary technological condition. By referring to the debate on the question of imagination in Kant, Heidegger, and Stiegler, the article suggests that imagination is always already artificial and that it is more productive to develop an organology of artificial imagination. It clarifies the notion of artificial imagination and offers an organological reading through a reinterpretation of Leibniz’s monadology, Kant’s sublime, and Schiller’s aesthetic education against the backdrop of recursive algorithms.
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This paper focuses on the theme of human dignity. Human dignity is one of the key terms used to describe the characteristics of a life worth living. Special attention is dedicated particularly to the following, based primarily on Slavic authors’ views: 1. The theme of memory (autobiographical memory), as one of the important conditions and frameworks for thinking about dignity; 2. The theme of the crisis of human dignity, and its direct implications to political and social events in Central Europe and the Western Balkans during the so-called post-Socialist era. The text describes one of the possible approaches to the complex and ambiguous subject matter.
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The topic Interviews of Ivo Andric on the electronic media is challenging because through this analysis we reach new forms and insufficiently explored work of the writer’s personality and his critical view of the world and the media. From the research aspect this topic is significant because the interviews on electronic media, and the paper explores only television interviews, uncover now facts important for the understanding and interpretation of Andric’s work and persona. They show how the writer had wisely distanced himself from the impassioned Yugoslav daily politics and primitivism and remained a gentlemen in comparison to his contemporaries – not just as a great writer, but also through his relationship with the media.
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