Contemporary Afghanistan outlook: between counterinsurgency and search of the social contract

Author(s): Andrius Bivainis / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This article is based on reassessment of the contemporary results of counterinsurgency and nation-building in Afghanistan. Nation-building initiatives have been started in the country since the Bonn agreement in December 2001. This agreement brought into reality the current governing system of Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has been initiated in full mode since 2009 after a sound success on Iraqi frontier. However, each operational area is bringing its own specifics into play. The same was with Afghanistan. The newly established constitutional presidential republic has faced with inheritance of unresolved sensitive ethnical identity issues, confrontation between different groups for self-governing authority and security of essential resources. These preconditions have brought a diversified and even confrontational social environment into reality. Prolonged military operations in Afghanistan could show that diversified social environment and misevaluated cultural heritage has led to misleading assumptions that centralized presidential governing system could become an effective ruling model for post-Taliban country. One of the key notions of this article is that historical lessons taught by long years of colonialist rule in Afghanistan has not been learned and misevaluation of diversified and confrontational local entities has brought another historical lesson of Afghan tribal resistance. More than that, diversified and confrontational entities of Afghanistan have not been a favorable subject for possible social contract. The term social contract was introduced as explanatory method of national political behavior and systemic structure by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 18th century Europe. Afghan society has become the subject to this model of political philosophy only as counterinsurgency campaign gained full capabilities around 2009. Reassessment of long term nation building efforts in this article is based on evaluation of Afghan social contract’s progress.

Технохуманизмът и дейтъизмът – новите религии на бъдещето

Author(s): Vasil Sivov / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 3/2017

Нетокрацията – новата класа в мрежовото общество

Author(s): Vasil Sivov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The author analyzes the process of formation of a new political regime under the conditions of genesis of global information society. Considered in the article are virtual mechanisms, methods and ways of social government by ruling elites in the new historical epoch. Special attention is paid to the complex, contradictive character of the revolution in communications, reforming the process of alteration of the world socium, greatly influencing the character of formation of the new political regime. Object of the research is the emerging of netocracy as a new class in the net society.

Башлар и неговите вълшебства

Author(s): Jean Libis / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2017

The article presents a sincere and personal view of Bachelard’s philosophy and his place in the philosophical community.

Проблемът за пасивната синтеза у Хусерл

Author(s): Maya Georgieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2017

Transcendental subjectivity becomes a problem for Husserl in relation to the egological consciousness. Genetic phenomenology must reveal the paradoxical nature of the time of consciousness, which is not equal to the consciousness of time. The answer is in the passive synthesis, shaping up the pre-reflexive, in the so-called “live present”, the flow of consciousness.

Obraz krytyczny (obraz krytyki)

Author(s): Georges Didi-Huberman / Language(s): Polish Issue: 5/2016

The anthropological image of criticism (the image of the individual filtering truth from untruth) focuses on the power and meaning of the gesture, which seems more essential than merely ‘conceptual’ philosophical categories. Negative dialectics proposes a new definition of criticism: in view of the catastrophes of the twentieth century we need a vision of criticism that makes it possible to voice our despair and to create a ‘sad science’ in the place of Nietzsche’s ‘gay science’. To make this possible we must draw on the imagination and the image, for it is images that are brittle enough to elude the totalizing power of conceptualization and at the same time strong enough to become agents of criticism.

Polak Mały i fantazja impotencji

Author(s): Adam Lipszyc / Language(s): Polish Issue: 6/2016

Lipszyc analyses Polish collective memory from a psychoanalytical perspective. Building on the work of Melanie Klein and its application to international relations as proposed by Hanna Segal, he tries to show that the Polish collective subject and the memory that defines it exist in a particular form of the paranoid-schizoid position. The defining characteristic of this position is a fantasy of one’s own impotence, which allows the subject to disregard his or her own agency and to eschew responsibility for his or her own actions. Lipszyc enhances his analysis by drawing on Walter Benjamin’s notions on myth and the demonic.

“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.

The Russian Orthodox Church: Building a Doctrinal National Identity in the Beginning of the 1990s

Author(s): Heta Hurskainen / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2017

The building of a national identity for the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) at the beginning of the 1990s can best be understood by examining what are roughly the early years, from 1991 to 1994, when the foundations for the identity building were established. During these years, which were a time of chaos and reconstruction for the Russian nation, the ROC started to develop its understanding of national identity. This development took place in reaction to different kinds of crises, conflicts and problems, which the ROC faced due to a changed societal situation and which needed an answer, although the inner rebuilding of the ROC was still unfinished. The aim of this paper is to analyse the doctrinal argumentation on national identity that took place during those tumultuous times, when the ROC found itself situated within new national borders. My specific questions are: Were religious doctrinal arguments about a nation completely unthinkable in the chaotic situations at the beginning of the 1990s? Does a doctrine lose its religious nature and motivation when the ROC uses it as a means of co-operation with the state and politics? Did the ROC’s doctrinal interpretations generate a nation of peace or conflict in the 1990s?

La pensée transmédiale : une étude des actions appliquées à la pensée critique dans le domaine de la littératie transmédia

Author(s): JIMÉNEZ-MORALES Manel / Language(s): English,French Issue: 22 (2)/2018

The generation of so-called digital natives assumes the paradox of having a series of competences for which they have not been trained: those related to transmedia and digital communication. Their context and their surroundings make them prone to an everyday and effective use of nwe technologies, but not necessarily reflective, mature and appropriate. This article presents an analysis on the crossing of competences related to Transmedia Communication and those that have to do with Critical Thinking. Its fusion is what we have called Transmedial Thinking. To this aim, a case study has been taken as a reference, the Guidance Project by the Pompeu Fabra University, in Barcelona. Through it, a series of university and secondary school students develop Transmedia and Critical Thinking skills that enable their personal and social empowerment.

Culture informationnelle et pensée critique, vers une approche créative

Author(s): DESFRICHES DORIA Orélie / Language(s): French Issue: 22 (2)/2018

This article proposes an articulation between the conceptions of information literacy and a cultural and social approach of critical thinking, implemented through an original methodological approach of analysis and cartography of controversies. We begin by discussing some dimensions of the digital environment that affect the definition and consideration of the fields of Information Literacy (IL) and Critical Thinking (CI) and their articulation. We go on to present a state of the literature on critical thinking that reflects divergent visions. We extend this reflection by proposing a synthesis of the convergences between the concepts of information literacy and critical thinking and a form of articulation between the two fields. Subsequently, we present a reflexive analysis of our teachings on controversies at university since 2014, and which constitute an adequate support for teaching our cultural, social and creative approach of critical thinking.

Varia – kontynuacje – antycypacje: Postsekularyzm jako sposób reanimacji lektury postkolonialnej? O granicach i paradoksach secular criticism

Author(s): Alina Mitek-Dziemba / Language(s): Polish Issue: 37/2018

Even though it is difficult to imagine a phenomenon more closely intertwined with the processes of colonization and decolonization than secularism, there are scant references to it in the postcolonial writing and accompanying critical theory. The critics’ reticence seems hardly justifiable considering the fact that secularization processes have been in the centre of the hottest political and ideological debate for more than a decade now, while their critical examination and evaluation appears inevitable due to the ongoing process of undermining the historical view of the religious vs secular divide by alternative ways of ordering the public space in non-Western societies, especially as the latter have also become, on the immigrants’ arrival and vocal presence, a powerful factor in the political game played out within Western countries. As the violent course of events after 9/11 has prompted most of the postcolonial critics to perceive Western democracy and secularism in the black-and-white mode by inscribing it in the Eurocentric and colonial framework, the secular-religious opposition has become one of the postcolonial studies’ fundamental dichotomies that it seeks to transgress and overcome, even though the attempt may well be in vain. Consequently, the term “postsecular,” despite all the subtlety with which it was introduced into the fields of philosophy, theology, sociology and literature, has come to indicate a posture of critical aversion to the secularist order as quintessential for the Western modernity and Enlightenment project and opting for the radical division between the public reason and the need for faith. The aim of the article is thus to examine the meanings ascribed to the terms such as “postsecularism” and “postsecular spirituality” in postcolonial theory, as well as to evaluate the attempts at their application to the field of literary studies.

Политическата антропология на Николай Бердяев

Author(s): Stoyanka Georgieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2016

The article analyzes the contribution of Nikolai Berdyaev to the disclose human dimension of politics. Special attention is given to the justification of the antinomy between the individual and society, as well as the analysis of the fundamental contradictions that characterize the historical existence of man. Originality of political and philosophical ideas of Berdyaev is derived from its particular attention to the human content of social phenomena to their religious and moral evaluation.

Политическият инфантилизъм или „болният здрав разум“ на човека-в-политиката

Author(s): Dimitar Tafkov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2016

The paper reflects on two main questions: "What is a political infantilism?", as well as - "Why do political people do evil?"

Превръщането на тялото в машина и възходът на пропагандата във визуалните изкуства в периода 1918 – 1936 г.

Author(s): Boryana Angelova-Igova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2016

This research aims to explore the visual arts from 1918 to 1935 in Germany, France and Italy. This philosophical analysis shows how the athletes’ body is transformed into the machine that produces medals and fame for the totalitarian regimes. In this period the rise of propaganda and its establishment are a matter of fact.

Отвъд живота и смъртта – биополитиката и властта на биотехнологиите

Author(s): Mariya Koleva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2016

In the following article different problems of the biopolitics are investigated. The biopolitics is a power which decides on the questions of life and death. The biotechnologies and their development, the solving of questions in which cases and under what conditions they to be used set up new and new biopolitical questions. The J. Habermas position on the role of the biotechnologies in solving the questions of life and death is presented and analysed.

Владимир Соловьов – човешката социалност, пречупена през призмата на нравствеността (национализъм, престъпност, икономика, война и право)

Author(s): Dobromir Dobrev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2016

The paper discusses Vladimir Solovyov’s views of objective ethics and the need for its implementation in our lives. It also monitors the impact he had on the next Russian thinkers and in particular on Nikolai Berdyaev.

Болестта срещу удоволствието: употреби на метафората на болестта в първите две десетилетия на комунистическия режим в България

Author(s): Gergana Popova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2016

The main goal of the paper is to analyze the usage of the metaphor of illness from the communist regime in philosophical and anthropological perspective. The metaphor of illness is showed as an important element of the communist disciplinary practices. The article focuses on its importance for the communist constructions of the ideal human body.

Философия на западната система за сигурност и нейните основни опоненти

Author(s): Dobromir Dobrev / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 3/2015

Liberal West and its philosophy security face a number of challenges. On the one hand, these are internal problems of the West, on the other hand, are different in cultural and civilizational modes.

Гражданската образованост – цел на образованието в активно гражданство

Author(s): Boris Manov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2019

The main goal of the paper is to clarify the essence and the meaning of the concept (and phenomenon) “civic educated-ness” in the context of Philosophy of Education. It is determinative, “fundamental” but neglected and omitted characteristic of civic education. A number of problems which stay in the focus of Bulgarian academic thought are discussed in the article. On the basis of a philosophical-historical analysis some original theses are propounded. The central thesis is the determination of the goal of civic education which is the achievement of civic educated-ness – a unity of personal “integrity” and “virtuousness”. Form this point of view the idea that civic education consists of two comparatively independent levels is proposed. The first level is bound with the “citizenship” in the juridical sense. The second is bound up with the realization of the socialpolitical activity and identity of the citizen and that is why this second level should be built upon the first one. It also should be the ultimate goal of the process of civic education – education in active citizenship