O zdolności myślenia według Hannah Arendt. Uwagi podstawowe

Author(s): Paweł Polaczuk / Language(s): Polish Issue: 41/2018

The author presents Hannah Arendt’s views on thinking. He stresses that in Arendt’s deliberations thinking constitutes a mental activity that cannot be reduced to will and judgment. He reconstructs relationships that connect these three autonomous faculties of the mind. Moreover, he discusses Arendt’s observations concerning the nature of thinking. As the starting point for his discussion, the author analyses comments on the subject and conditions of thinking. He then pays attention to the distinction between intellect and reason as emphasized by Arendt.

SKĄD PRAWO PUBLICZNE? ZNACZENIE TEORETYCZNEGO I PRAKTYCZNEGO ROZUMOWANIA W KANTOWSKIEJ NAUCE PRAWA

Author(s): Bernd Ludwig / Language(s): Polish Issue: 43/2018

KIEDY SPRAWIEDLIWOŚĆ DOMAGA SIĘ NIERÓWNOŚCI

Author(s): John Thrasher,Keith Hankins / Language(s): Polish Issue: 45/2019

Symbolická reprezentace jako způsob porozumění současné politice

Author(s): Kateřina Kňapová / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2019

The aim of this article is to introduce the concept of symbolic representation into a discussion about contemporary politics. Politics these days is transforming and departing from what we were used to in past decades. These changes naturally influence the way how we understand representation these days. The bond between those who represent and those who are represented is becoming vaguer and based more on the current articulation of this bond than pre-existing political identities. Use of the concept of symbolic representation and the more important concept of the representative claim introduced by Michael Saward will be illustrated on the discourse of Tomio Okamura and his Freedom and Direct Democracy Party.

Ewikcjonizm i zasada ubi jus ibi remedium. Problem aborcji w filozofii politycznej libertarianizmu

Author(s): Łukasz M. Dominiak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2018

The article deals with the problem of permissibility of abortion from the libertarian point of view. It employs Block’s theory of evictionism and Hohfeld’s analysis of normative relations to demonstrate that, according to libertarianism, there is a natural right to kill the late foetus, provided that the foetus violates the mother’s property rights and killing it complies with the proportionality-gentleness principle. It is also shown that the proportionality principle in self-defence, contrary to the proportionality principle in retribution and restitution, must be interpreted as the gentleness principle (Block) in pain of violating the principle of ubi jus ibi remedium (no right without a remedy) and the law of non-contradiction. Notwithstanding the above, killing the foetus is not the ‘gentlest manner possible’ (Block) of stopping the violation of a mother’s property rights at the current stage of developm ent of medical science. Therefore, a mother is only permitted to evict the foetus in a non-lethal way.

Karl Löwith. Stoicki odwrót od świadomości historycznej

Author(s): Jürgen Habermas / Language(s): Polish Issue: 41/2019

ПРИКАЗ

Author(s): Danijel Pantić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 4/2007

Review of: Данијел Пантић - БАШТИНА ФИЛОЗОФИЈЕ ЛИБЕРАЛИЗМА, (Драган Д. Лакићевић, Божо Стојановић, Илија Вујачић: ТЕОРЕТИЧАРИ ЛИБЕРАЛИЗМА, Службени гласник, Београд, 2007, стр. 296.)

Is That West of Us Still the West? A Note on the Humanist Approach to the Question of Continuity vs. Discontinuity

Author(s): Paweł Armada / Language(s): English Issue: 57/2018

The article takes up the concept of “Central Eastern Europe” only to show that it makes sense if we can reshape our political imagination. What is crucial is our perception of the West which now is based on intellectual assumptions about the continuity of Western civilization. Rather, we should reflect on the role of discontinuity as the key to contemporary politics or, more broadly, to modernity. To explain this possibility, the Humanists’ (Irving Babbitt’s and Paul Elmer More’s, preceded by Thomas Hulme’s) approach is briefly surveyed, with special reference to the question of civilization vs. barbarism as the most relevant, or most urgent, distinction in the modern world. The main message is that we, the “Central Eastern Europeans,” are very much in need of political realism. This ought to be, however, a type of realism based on profound philosophical insight, like that of the Humanists.

The Other Europe: Identity Problems of Central Europe

Author(s): Alvydas Jokūbaitis / Language(s): English Issue: 57/2018

Philosophers in Central Europe are highly dependent on the Western European tradition of philosophy, while politicians in the region tend to use arguments that are often foreign to the ones used in Western Europe. The philosophical tradition of Central Europe is dependent on Western European tradition – it would be impossible to speak about any kind of distinct regional philosophical paradigm. The situation with political self‑understanding in the region is very different. The politicians in the region are aware of the various differences between the two cultural and political traditions. Today these differences have become especially clear in various disagreements between politicians from the Visegrád Group and their colleagues in Western Europe. Politicians from Central Europe propose their own understanding of the meaning of Western civilization. This phenomenon can be described as a new political Messianism. The old Messianims of the 19th century today are being replaced by new consciousness of the specific mission of the region. Conservative politicians propose an understanding of the region which is based on cultural differences from Western Europe. Various conceptions about the singular identity of the region that were developed in the ninth decade of the 20th century by Czesław Miłosz, Milan Kundera and György Konràd today are gaining a new political significance.

Anthropology as storytelling: Fetishism and Terror in Michael Taussig’s early Works

Author(s): Lorenzo D'Angelo / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2016

Among anthropologists inspired by Walter Benjamin and the early Frankfurt School, Michael Taussig is notable. For Taussig, Benjamin is like a muse, a source of inspiration to ponder over his extended fieldwork in South America. This article outlines a possible reading path through Taussig’searly works, a path specifically influenced by Benjamin’s insights into topics such as fetishism, violence, and storytelling. In particular, it examines the way Taussig approaches two issues: the Marxian question of commodity fetishism, and the question of writing against terror. The analysis of commodity and State fetishism leads Taussig to reject the symptomatic reading offered by thinkers such as Marx and Freud. The issue of violence or terror drives him to reflect on the politics of representation. In line with Benjamin’s reflections on the role of the storyteller in bourgeois society, Taussig intertwines these two lines of thought and interprets anthropology as a form of storytelling. This article highlights some of the epistemological and ontological assumptions behind this provocative idea. It argues that despite the radical nature of its premises, Taussig defends a weak conception of criticism.

Throw the Bathwater out but save the Baby: New Perspectives in Critical Theory

Author(s): Giacomo Pezzano / Language(s): English Issue: 14/2016

In this paper, I discuss the status of critical theory and thinking, claiming that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater: if a certain way of conceiving and practicing it has nowadays become partial and unfit, then it’s not true that it is qua tale useless, old-fashioned, or dead. I start stressing that, in general, Critical Theory highlights that there is a problematic relation between individuals and social structure, which has to be pointed out, to indicate actual and possible transformations. Then, I propose a heuristic distinction between two main paradigms of Critical Theory and thinking (the modern Critical Theory and the postmodern Critical Theory), discussing three main aspects, separated but intertwined. The first is more strictly philosophical, involving the problem of the transcendent or immanent position of the critique: on the one hand, we have the external condemnation of the society, in the name of some kind of superior truth; on the other hand, we have the inner problematization of a given social field, according to criteria that have been posited by itself or that are implicit in it (§ 1). The second is more strictly anthropological, dealing with the problem of human nature and alienation: on the one hand, we have the hope for the restoration of a lost state of originary plenitude; on the other hand, we have the effort of learning the better way to deal with human openness and relationality (§ 2). The third is more strictly sociological, posing the question of ways and forms of life: on the one hand, we have an ironical attitude, aiming to elaborate a true counter-society that should take the place of the false present one; on the other hand, we have a humoristic attitude, that attempts to make the problem that a society both poses and tries to answer a problem that reemerges, so that it can be again for the first time seen as a problem.

Sollevarsi dallo stagno afferrandosi per il codino. L’attualità della metacritica di Theodor W. Adorno

Author(s): Luca Baldassarre / Language(s): Italian Issue: 14/2016

In this article the author highlights some issues about Adorno’s thought that are fundamental to be acquired in the present age. It focuses on the questions most criticized in the postwar period: cultural industry, managed world, presumed snobbery about mass society, decline of aura, end of individuality, post-individual or pseudo-individuality, ticket mentality. Therefore, the author suggests to explain contemporary age starting from the Adornian model, an important interpretive antecedent to understand new media and the world that they produce. So this article underscores the similarity about many causes for reflection in Theodor W. Adorno and also H. Marcuse: in spite of oustanding differences, both theorists persist on the “power of negative thinking” and on the “feeling of the contrary”. This persistence lays the foundations of critical thought in Adorno, who shows parodying art such as the critical model par excellence. Finally, last pages are directed to remark the importance of Adorno’s thought such as metacritical philosophy, surely more fruitful than the paradigm of the “second generation” in the following decades.

La societá del paradosso e il paradosso della societá. Una riflessione Adorniana

Author(s): Valeria Ferraretto / Language(s): Italian Issue: 14/2016

Critical Theory offers a new way to understand not only the society, but also the individual. In particular, I will focus on the thought of Adorno and his conception of society. First, I want to investigate the Adornian description of society in its totalitarian face and in its paradoxical relationship with the individual. The individual, first element of society, without which any society cannot be imaged, paradoxically finds – in the society – its liquidation and destruction. Secondly, I want to consider the Adornian revolutionary statement in a conversation with Horkheimer of a need of a “New Manifesto”. Do we need it even today? Would be really possible a new Marxian society in our world? The attempt to answer to those questions will conclude my paper.

Trasformazione della teoria critica e questioni politiche: un confronto tra Jürgen Habermas e Jacques Derrida

Author(s): Francesco Giacomantonio / Language(s): Italian Issue: 14/2016

The evolution of Critical Theory in the thought of Jürgen Habermas has important consequences for political questions, influencing the actual intellectual debate. This paper examines the main works and studies of Habermas about the epistemology of social sciences, the critique of late capitalist society, the public sphere and democracy, and proposes a comparison with the positions of Jacques Derrida, to have a better comprehension of this evolution.

Drepturile omului. Originile şi perspectivele unei ideologii contemporane

Author(s): Emanuel  COPILAȘ / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2016

review of: ------------------------------ Silviu Eugen Rogobete, Drepturile omului. Origini şi practici, Timişoara, Editura de Vest, 2015.

Koncepcja zdolności Marthy C. Nussbaum

Author(s): Dariusz Juruś / Language(s): Polish Issue: 3/2019

In this article, in its first part, I present some selected and most important elements of the capabilities approach developed by contemporary American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum. In the second part, I criticize certain elements of this concept, treating it, in accordance with Nussbaum’s declaration, as above all a political theory, not a moral one.

Christian Democrat policy in the face of the influx of Syrian immigrants to the Federal Republic of Germany (2015–2017)

Author(s): Agnieszka Bielawska / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2019

The aim of this article is to present the most frequently discussed actions undertaken by Chancellor Angela Merkel in order to stop the increased immigration of Syrians to Germany. The solutions proposed by Merkel are shown in the context of the reactions they triggered in CDU and CSU members. The policy of the Chancellor, and both German Christian Democratic parties and their representatives, has been presented in the context of critical discussions regarding the political costs associated with the admission of so many foreigners. The article analyzes, among other things, the issues regarding the position of Angela Merkel on the German political scene and the influence of the Willkommenspolitik on the results of the Bundestag elections in 2017.

Jak realizm generuje liderów w społeczeństwie

Author(s): Juan Pablo Stegmann / Language(s): Polish Issue: 28/2018

This paper provides a conceptual explanation to a previous paper that I wrote, which demonstrates that a realist epistemology generates better social outcomes than empiricist and subjective idealist epistemologies. Realism promotes social leadership by transforming each individual, enrichening personal wisdom, fostering individual and community values, promoting communities, based on discernment. This paper presents the role of realism, promoting social leadership, to build better lives and a better world. Realism improves the capacity of perception, developing values, integrating the persons and communities, integrating them with the superior being, generating processes of personal and community healing and transformation, promoting a better world, based on the social leadership of each agent. Realism and spirituality provide wisdom and strength to suffering people. Suffering is a reality that individuals and communities experience, as part of transformation process towards social leadership. Realism introduces the role of discernment as a richer criteria to build knowledge than the critical thinking proposed by subjective idealism.

Filozofia a cywilizacje

Author(s): Richard J. Fafara / Language(s): Polish Issue: 28/2018

In his essay “The Role of Philosophy in the History of Civilization” presented at the Sixth International Philosophical Congress at Harvard in 1926, Gilson outlined three general trends among historians of philosophy. Some reduce the history of philosophy to study sources and find explanations of the philosophy beyond itself (e.g., Marx). Others try to go beyond the source of a given philosophy to find the original intuition that generates it. A third position, which Gilson espoused, is ahistorical. It depends neither on society nor on the creative genius of philosophers; it is simply truth. Systems of philosophy are uniquely conditioned by the necessary relations that link the ideas. If philosophies are expressions of an eternal truth, dominating men and societies, which discovers itself progressively by the mediation of philosophers, philosophy is transcendent with regard to every given state of civilization and the worth of a civilization depends upon the extent it participates in truth. Gilson’s conception of philosophy can go far in restoring Western Civilization’s loss of confidence in human reason with its resulting pathologies and threats to human freedom today.

Uwagi o sprawiedliwości społecznej i jej zasięgu

Author(s): Krzysztof Wroczyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 28/2018

The comments on social justice and its scope are set out in four points. The first one discusses the problem of social justice itself and its history. While this concept is relatively young, the idea of justice, to which we refer, obviously goes far into history. The second point discusses the idea of social justice in its historical aspect. The author, however, limits himself to a chosen thread only. He argues that especially in antiquity and patriotism the basic objective sources of social injustice were formulated: property and its borders, slavery and servitude, and the problem of work. Blatant injustices in these areas are the source of the manifestation of social justice in history. The third section presents the main thrust of the discussion on the place of social justice in the traditional division into legal, measurable and distributive justice. The position of social justice within legal justice is, according to the author, possible only with a broad view of this justice. And within the framework of distributive justice only with a narrow understanding of it (economic and partly legal concepts). The fourth point discusses the relationship that must exist between social justice (a condition of social order) and social love. Attention is also drawn to mercy as a social or civic virtue.