A kapitalocén – avagy mibe kerül az olcsó természet?

Author(s): Attila Szigeti / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 25/2019

In the last decades the Capitalocene discourse was emerging in the Marxist ecological thinking. This approach offers a sociohistorical explanation to the current ecological crisis by questioning the historical narrative of the Anthropocene discourse. Authors of Capitalocene are arguing that climate change and ecological crisis was not caused by the collective and homogenous humanity (predetermined by the human nature). According them capitalism’s accumulative and expropriative socioeconomic relations are responsible for climate crisis.This paper analysis how Capitalocene-arguments are applying the Marxist critique of capitalism, especially the labour theory of value and its contemporary expansions and corrections in the understanding of the current ecological crisis. The first two subchapters are summarizing World-Ecology theory of Jason W. Moore, than I interpret the debate of Moore with the Metabolic Rift school (John Bellamy Foster, Paul Burkett, Andreas Malm and others), and finally I analyse the possible normative ecopolitics from the theoretical perspective of Capitalocene.In the last decades the so-called Capitalocene discourse was emerging in the Marxist ecological thinking. This approach offers a sociohistorical explanation of the current ecological crisis by questioning the historical narrative of the Anthropocene discourse. Authors of Capitalocene are arguing that climate change and ecological crisis were not caused by the collective and homogenous humanity (predetermined by the human nature) in general. According them capitalism’s accumulative and expropriative socioeconomic relations are responsible for climate crisis.This paper analysis how Capitalocene-arguments are applying the Marxist critique of capitalism, especially the labour theory of value and its contemporary expansions and corrections in the understanding of the current ecological crisis. The first two subsections are summarizing World-Ecology theory of Jason W. Moore, than the paper interprets the debate of Moore with the Metabolic Rift school (John Bellamy Foster, Paul Burkett, Andreas Malm and others), and finally it analyses the possible normative ecopolitics from the theoretical perspective of Capitalocene.

Commentary piece

Author(s): Jennifer Marra / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Many of Ernst Cassirer’s later works are concerned with the dangers of political myth. His analysis speaks at length about the role of philosophy during the rise of the Third Reich, and Cassirer argues that philosophers failed to combat the dominant ideology. Today, philosophers struggle to explain their relevance to greater public and governmental powers that see no intrinsic value. Given the current political situation in the US, we find ourselves at a crossroads as philosophers. We can either retreat and remain within the comforts of academia, or we can take up arms against dangerous and divisive political forces. If we take Cassirer’s prescriptions seriously, we must choose the latter. Fortunately, philosophy has not disappeared from public consciousness completely. An emerging theme in contemporary cultural studies is the exploration of connections between humour and philosophy. I argue we ought to take advantage of the status of the comedian as public philosopher, and for philosophers to take seriously the political power of comedians. To do this responsibly, I analyse a portion of Cassirer’s work that has been widely ignored in scholarship – his understanding of the politics and morality of humour. By analysing these passages in relation to Cassirer’s later works, we are given the tools to understand the power of humour in political discourse, as well as the responsibility of that power. I argue that “joking responsibly”, for Cassirer, means to reveal the motives and values which underlie sophistry, particularly the sort which lends itself to political manipulation.

Култура и политики на паметта в Германия - предпоставки и критика

Author(s): Daniela Decheva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2021

The paper analyses the contemporary debate about memory culture and memory policy in Germany which are highly valid for Europe as well. They base on the political consensus that the memory of collective crimes committed in the past, especially of the Holocaust, and the honour to the victims, are a basic prerequisite for the protection of human rights. In the second part of the paper different critical views on the conception and practice of memory culture and memory policy in Germany are discussed.

A pedagógia elnyomottja

Author(s): Tamás Tóth / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 28/2021

The most common way of articulating educational problems and questions is by speaking the language of social sciences, and using the grammar of political logics. What is the proportion of disadvantaged students? Does this and that project for inclusion appear to be effective? Since when has the school been reproducing inequalities? And so on. What I would like to discuss here is that it is possible to talk about education educationally and along educational logics. While the logic of the political refers to the way the social is born, the logic of the educational signifies the way birth becomes social – namely, our collective and political attitude toward the fact that newcomers are constantly coming into our common and old world. I will present four educational logics characteristic of our epoch, which are discussed in depth by the proponents of an experimentative critical pedagogy. They do understand these logics of the educational in a radically different, twisted way if compared to the mainstream educational discourse, thus laying the groundwork for a new kind of radical left-wing pedagogy. In agreement with them, I want to argue here that pedagogy is not the praxis of the future, but of the present, in which it is more important not to know certain things than to want to know everything, because this is how we can break the chains of the prevailing order here and now: by putting gods and masters into brackets, and ignoring the expectations of the society, as well as the hopes of yesterday which constantly defer revolution.

THE CONCEPT OF JUSTICE IN REFERENCE WITH PHILOSOPHIES OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE: A CRITICAL STUDY

Author(s): Sooraj Kumar Maurya / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2021

The concept of justice has been a constant issue since its conception. The Greeks also attempted to define justice. They have observed justice as goodness in deeds and so a virtue. In the Greek mind, fairness was an attribute of the spirit or soul, while injustice was a sin. Both Plato and Aristotle defined justice as kindness as well as a desire to follow the law. It alluded to the connection between rights and duties. In human interactions, justice was the pinnacle of excellence and the attitude that animates folks in the right fulfillment of their responsibilities. The development of harmony and peace in thinking and conduct was pre-eminently social. In the same way, Aristotle's and Plato's fairness are complementary; both philosophers seek to discover a concept of ability by which unity, harmony, virtue, and pleasure may be produced in a community. Despite this shared agreement, they are fundamentally different in many ways. In this paper, an attempt has been made by the author to discuss the similarities and dissimilarities in theories of justice propounded by Plato and Aristotle.

Against the “Anthropocene Apathy” About the Rescue Potential of Postsecularism (on the Example of Works by the Romany Poetess Papusza)

Author(s): Anna Filipowicz / Language(s): English Issue: 7/2021

In this day and age, the ovewhelming hopelessness in the face of the anthropocentric paradigm makes thinking about the future of our planet constrained, while in turn reinforcing pesimism and helplessness. The foregoing refers also to the ecocritical humanities, which point to the need of conscious transformation aiming at the containement of the climate catastrophy. However, the said current in humanities requires an assistance from reality-changing tools that would respond to the social needs of the whole, sense, and spirituality, whilst remaining open to non-western religiosity patterns. It is especially worthwhile to keep it in mind upon studying post-secular thought, which marries the rational and the intuitive way of understanding reality.

I Stink, Therefore I Mink: A Manifesto

Author(s): Marie-Dominique Garnier / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

The recent mass culling of mink in Denmark and elsewhere, following the animals’ contamination by a COVID-19 variant, is taken as a re-entry point into Derrida and Lacan’s mink-mediated conversation in The Beast and the Sovereign. Out of the etymological ‘stink’ attached to the mink emerges an animot gifted with (unlimited) ink, with a potential to disturb philosophies of language, to write back or strike back, as it has recently done in the form of alignments of dead yet resurfacing animals. In the wake of Derrida’s verbal disseminations around the vison, and of Lacan’s attribution of a ‘sort of language’ to the animal in The Formations of the Unconscious, this essay follows an animal pack with includes the 17 million mink programmed for (double) extinction by inhumation and cremation. A hauntology follows, adumbrated by Lacan’s interest in the ‘secretion’ of fur, mink oil and (psychoanalytic) sense, and by Derrida’s encounter with the neoliberal, crypto-vison Alain Minc in 1994.

Bugging: The Kaleidoscopic Literary Politics of Insects

Author(s): Nina Seiler / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2021

This article analyses the appearance of insects in Polish literature of the mid-socialist period. It will elaborate a post-humanist perspective on the peaking presence of flies, wasps, bugs or worms in literary texts both as a motif and as an aesthetic strategy. The article investigates the way the deployment of insects in and through the text modulates the view of and the perspective on their human fellows, and how these modulations can be traced to the social reality of the socialist 1960s and 1970s.

Homo (nie do końca) sapiens

Author(s): Robert Piechowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 71/2021

For millennia, philosophers have pondered the question, “Who are we?” It becomes a burning question at an age of scientific and technological civilization and a world full of conveniences, mainly because human life is still not comfortable. Adam Hart takes up the challenge of confronting the evolutionary achievements of the Homo species and the environment it has produced, showing that our life—for fundamental reasons—cannot be the realization of idyllic visions.

Thomas Hobbes’–Georg Hegel’s Ideas of Knowledge in Development Narratives and the Challenge of Human Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author(s): Felix Olatunji,Oni Adetunji / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The understanding of Thomas Hobbes’s analysis on the importance of reason signifies the essence for the establishment of human capacity project, which will be rooted and reckoned with in the quest for the development of human thoughts. The quest for right reason in Hobbes is a necessary point in Georg Hegel, which stipulates reason as the determinant of development in Hegel’s dialectism that development can only be realised in union with the ultimate realisation of the Spirit as reason rules the world. This is the fact that the principle of development enables a being to produce and reproduce itself, and by making itself actually what it already was potentially. It is pertinent to understand from the outset the significance of knowledge-based society as the foundation for security in the quest towards the attainment of authentic development. This means that security of lives and property is founded on the establishment of adequate knowledge necessary for action. Thus, human security for development is based on the level, attainment and utilisation of knowledge in human society. This paper will, therefore, employ analytic methodology to thematise that human security is a conditio sine qua non in the attainment of authentic development among societies of the Global South particularly sub-Sahara Africa. It is expected that the intent of the paper will interrogate the extent and the ways human security would be struggled for, in order for development to be guaranteed, which would be premised and thematised from the stand-points of Hobbes and Hegel.

Женското: актуален фокус на изследване

Author(s): Ivanka Stapova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

Идеята за човека в политическата философия на модернизма

Author(s): Stoyanka Georgieva / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2022

The article analyzes the development of the idea of the "political man" in the context of its dependence on the specifics of the political system, as well as the dependence of the power system on the idea of human freedom. The problem of the transformation of the individual into a citizen, whose political independence is stimulated by the existence of rights and his expression in the public sphere, is studied in the article. Unveiling the human dimension of polity provokes the need to analyze the problem of the political subjectivity of the individual, the autonomy of the will and the dignity of man.

ON JUST, JUSTICE AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE: A CRITICAL AND COMPARATIVE DISCOURSE

Author(s): Sooraj Kumar Maurya / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2022

Despite being endlessly debated, a unanimous impetus on the nature of just, justice, and distributive justice appears entirely untouched to the desirable scientific certainty so far. Aristotle asserts treating’ equals equally and un-equals unequally’ but in proportion to their relevant differences. John Rawls says 'justice as fairness.' To both Aristotle and John Rawls, justice meant for the good and a willingness to act by the laws to ensure the highest good of society. Antecedently, both agree that justice is a master imperative for good human relationships and coexistence. However, despite the universal agreement, they differ in many fundamental respects. Aristotle denies the outbound distribution of an individual's rights as only the head of the family has the right to free speech in the family. But, Rawls distributes each right to the individual level. The paper attempts to discuss the similarities and dissimilarities in Aristotle's and John Rawls'ideas of just, justice and distributive justice. It has been argued that the aim of both philosophers was the same, i.e., to find out a theory of justice through which unity, harmony, virtue, and happiness can be attained to the fullest in a nation.

Energia, praca i walka z entropią

Author(s): Michał Krzykawski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 44/2022

This paper argues that what we commonly mean by “labour” in industrial democracies stems from the obsolete theoretical assumptions of neoclassical economics, which also serve as foundations for a highly entropic economic process. Therefore, to determine the new purposes and functions of what working means is necessary in order to redesign economy and, consequently, to offer an alternative to the Anthropocene. The article develops Bernard Stiegler’s take on work and discusses the way Stiegler brings up to date the theoretical reflection on the transformations of work undertaken by André Gorz. The article addresses the question of work in relation to energy crisis and work automation. Advocating for a redefinition of work beyond employment, the article envisages work automation as a new opening for what work denotes, rather than the end of work. However, two conditions must be met in order to make such a change possible; it is necessary to redefine work beyond employment and socialize benefits from work automation.

The New Humanities: In Search of Boundaries

Author(s): Agata Bielik-Robson / Language(s): English Issue: 44/2022

This article attempts to discuss the philosophical contexts and meaning of the new humanities in the context of the philosophy of subjectivity. At the foundation of the new humanities, as it is argued, is not enlightenment, but Heidegger’s thought, with his excoriating critique of modern subjectivity and its Machenschaft. The article points to the foundational hubris that the new humanities oppose, and to the attempt to reinstall the subject within fixed boundaries. The new humanities, and posthumanism in particular, might backlash with violence against civilisation, comparable to that they endeavour to renounce. In order to manoeuvre through these convoluted figures of subjectivity, the article supports its theses with insightful readings of Hölderlin and Adorno.

book reviews

Author(s): Václav Bůžek,Ivo Cerman,Kateřina Pražáková,Josef Hrdlička,Rostislav Smíšek / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2022

Разширяването на Европейския съюз и ролята на Украйна

Author(s): Ani Dimitrova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 6/2022

The war in Ukraine has led to a fundamental rethinking of European security, with further enlargement of both the EU and NATO being discussed today. Kyiv demanded a quick procedure for membership in the European Union, and the EU has categorically shown that Ukraine belongs to the European family. Enlargement policy has proved to be one of the most successful instruments in promoting political, economic and social reforms, as well as in consolidating peace, stability and democracy in Europe, proving that the European Union's enlargement policy is not purely technical process, but a geopolitical tool that also requires a more strategic approach. As a result of EU support, Ukraine is pursuing an ambitious fiscal policy, institutions are showing increasing resilience in their efforts to guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect and protection of minorities. The present academic research examines the possible scenarios for the development of the European Union and the war in Ukraine from now on. The possible scenarios are separated into two groups, “Emotional” and “Temporal”, and the combination between the two groups allows a total of 9 possible scenarios to be outlined.

Не заради човека, а заради ползата – литературното образование в риск

Author(s): Natalia Hristova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2022

Drawing on the research of Martha Nussbaum, the article focuses on the “devastating” crisis experienced by modern education systems entailing their consistent subordination to the dominant economic logic and the resulting neglect of the literature and humanities in the school curricula. According to Nussbaum, should this trend continue to prevail, very soon the education systems will be simply producing generations of efficient machines incapable of human empathy and devoid of any critical reflection. Literary education, Nussbaum emphasizes, can not only help cultivate empathy and humane attitude towards the other, but also become one of the main factors in developing these traits. Stimulating the active emotions and imagination of the children, literature encourages them to think about others, about strangers with whom their real life experience will not give them the opportunity to meet. Reading literature helps one to build an inner intuition for the common human vulnerability, and thus counteracts the temptation to respond to human imperfections and weakness by pursuing total control.

ОБРАЗЪТ НА ЦЪРКВАТА В БЪЛГАРСКАТА ПРОЗА ОТ ОСВОБОЖДЕНИЕТО ДО КРАЯ НА ПЪРВАТА СВЕТОВНА ВОЙНА. РЕЛИГИОЗНОСТ И ПАТРИАРХАЛНОСТ – АВТЕНТИЧНАТА ДУХОВНОСТ НА БЪЛГАРИНА, ВЯРНОСТ КЪМ ТРАДИЦИЯТА И ОБИЧАЯ

Author(s): Daniela Belichovska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 21/2022

The image of the church, presented in history and sociology, is of an institution, a supporter of patriarchal morality, which is of key importance for the preservation of Bulgarian identity. Religion and traditions preserved the memories of our past greatness and independence. During this period, the church became a key factor in preserving our national identity. The question of the religious psyche of the Bulgarian villager has been studied by most historians, many of whom believe that the patriarchal man is self-aware as directly connected with tradition and customs, his spirituality is a consequence of this relation.

Krytyka w technopresji

Author(s): Michał Krzykawski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 2 (20)/2022

In the article, it is argued that in order to rejuvenate critical theory we need to revive the critique of technology first and, by the same token, redefine the very concept of critique in the context of the digital reality, with an account of how digital devices impact our ability to think in general. The function and meaning of critique under new circumstances (conceptualized as technostress) is discussed in a dialogue with three thinkers: Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, and Bernard Stiegler. It also suggests how Bernard Stiegler’s philosophical critique can be fruitfully these combined with social theory developed by Hartmut Rosa.