"GERMAN WORLD" OR THE ORIGINAL CULTURE: SWISS-GERMAN CULTURAL RELATIONS IN 1930-1940

Author(s): Dmytro Vedenieiev,Victoriya Pechyborshch / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2016

The objectives are to analyze the development of the relations in the sphere of the culture between Switzerland and Germany in the 1930-40’s and to determine the reasons for termination of the cultural dialogue between the countries after the arrival of national socialists in German and conditions of its recovery after the Second World War. The historical-genetic and comparative methods were chosen for the study. With the use of the historical-genetic method, the evolution of the German-Swiss cultural relations in the first half of the XX c. was explored. Appeal to the comparative method has enabled to draw the conclusions about the features of the bilateral cultural relations between Switzerland and Germany in the period between the two world wars, during the war of 1939 – 1945 and post-war years. Scientific novelty of the proposed article is that for the first time in Ukrainian historiography an attempt to explore the development of the cultural relations between Switzerland and Germany in 1930 – 40's was made. Conclusions. The main reasons of the Swiss efforts to withdraw from the involvement in the German cultural world in the late 1930's – 40's were memories of the First World War, when the conflict between the French and German communities had put in jeopardy the peace within the Swiss society, and a desire not to create the pretext for the global public accusations against Switzerland of its involvement in the crimes of the national socialists, which could raise doubts about the issue of Swiss neutrality. The background for the restoration of the cultural dialogue between the countries was the desire of Swiss to support the formation of a new democratic regime in the neighboring country, which was realized through the activities of both individual private artistic associations and institutions, and the work of the Swiss diplomacy, which through the analysis of the cultural situation of the particular German states was searching for the potential areas and ways of cooperation.

(De)kanonizujące wymiary powiastki filozoficznej. Casus Jerzego Szaniawskiego

Author(s): Katarzyna Starachowicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2013

The article is an attempt of describing the relation of a philosophical tale as a genre to the canon. It is characterized as (de)canonization: on the one hand the story fights with the existing canon by means of satire, on the other – by such negative references and ironically using the satire against itself – builds it. Such ambivalence, hidden in the structure of realizing the genre – which was shown on the example of stories by Jerzy Szaniawski – is inscribed into the author’s attitude – hermeneutic openness and supporting soft truths.

(META)ETYKA A FILOZOFIA PRAWA

Author(s): Monika Zalewska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 26/2014

In this paper I have focused on methodological problems of ethics and legal philosophy. My main goal was to determine relation between meta-ethics and legal philosophy. In the first part I tried to describe historical context, how jurisprudence become independent form ethics. Then in second part I examined relations between main disciplines of ethics and legal philosophy pointing out that although there are some similarities, there is even more differences. Finally in the third part I explored relation between meta-ethics and legal philosophy. My conclusion was that the problems of meta-ethics also exists in legal philosophy but the level of significance is lower. The reason for it lays in the specific character of legal norms which existence depends on the will of competent authority in contrast to moral norms which need other, meta-ethical justification.

... a bramki są dwie

Author(s): Marcin Wiatr / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2017

In the book Wilimowski (Wrocław, 2016) Bosnian writer Miljenko Jergović describes the phenomenon of Silesian identity through the story of Ern(e)st Wil(l)imowski, one of the most outstanding Upper Silesian footballers of the 20th century.

...Beyond Folie à Deux...

Author(s): Sanja Milutinovic Bojanic / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

In this text I attempt to recognize and identify two conditions that make engagement possible. One certainly refers to the word, while the other is inscribed onto the body – every or any body – and it regards affect. I illustrate the first condition by a brief reading of a poem by Samuel Beckett, whose English translation the author dedicated to his friend and long-term collaborator, Joseph Chaikin. The second condition I place into Spinoza’s, that is, Deleuze’s understanding of affect.

90-letni Zygmunt Bauman: Schopferkraft i jego dwoistość

Author(s): Tony Blackshaw / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2016

A Biological Theory of Death: Characterization, Justification, and Implications

Author(s): Michael Nair-Collins / Language(s): English / Issue: 55/2018

John P. Lizza has long been a major figure in the scholarly literature on criteria for death. His searching and penetrating critiques of the dominant biological paradigm, and his defense of a theory of death of the person as a psychophysical entity, have both significantly advanced the literature. In this special issue, Lizza reinforces his critiques of a strictly biological approach. In my commentary, I take up Lizza’s challenge regarding a biological concept of death. He is certainly right to point out that science is not value-free; however, this does not imply that there cannot be a characterization of biological death that can be shown to be superior to other concepts. After characterizing and justifying such a theory of biological death, I show that patients who meet the diagnostic criteria for brain death are unequivocally biologically alive. However, with respect to concepts of personhood and related ideas (as opposed to biology), I urge the acceptance of a pluralism of such concepts for matters of public policy.

A bűnbak: vallás, erkölcs és politika kapcsolata René Girard kultúrafilozófiájában

Author(s): Lajos András Kiss / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 09/2015

A CRITICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE COMMONS FROM A MARXIST PERSPECTIVE

Author(s): FAITH AGOSTINONE-WILSON / Language(s): English / Issue: 6/2016

Going beyond a traditional understanding of commons as land and resources, a knowledge commons involves collective, cumulative informal experience, scientific research, the arts, and procedural, practical information, often with economic implications. However, much confusion exists around the terminology of today’s knowledge commons. This article clarifies the differences between open source and free software movements and provides an examination of copyleft and what it means for academics and activists. The author connects these movements to a Marxian vision of a knowledge commons for all.

A filozófiai „más”

Author(s): Zoltán Gyenge / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 09/2015

A gonosz arcai a szcientológiában

Author(s): Izabella Demeter / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 07/2012

„A Szcientológia egy vallás, amelyet L. Ron Hubbard fejlesztett ki, és amely az ember való- di szellemi természetének és önmagához, családjához, csoportokhoz, az Emberiséghez, minden életformához, a fizikai univerzumhoz, a szellemi univerzumhoz és a Legfelsõbb Lényhez való viszonyának teljes és biztos megértéséhez kínál pontos útvonalat”1 – válaszolja a Mi a szcientológia? kérdésre a nemzetközi hivatalos honlap tájékoztató része. Napjaink egyik leggyorsabb ütemben terjeszkedõ egyházáról lévén szó, jelen írásban nem vállalkozom a kérdésre adott feleletek átfogó összegzésére – maga az egyház több ezer kötetet jelentetett meg, az ellene felszólalók is majdnem ugyanennyit –, ehelyett a vallás kialakulása és meghirdetett alapelvei kerülnek e gondolatmenet fókuszába, Alain Badiou Etikájának2 lencséjén át szemlélve.

A hit eredendő hibája és ennek társadalmi kihatásai

Author(s): Mátyás Brendel / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 05/2014

A Holistic Understanding of Death: Ontological and Medical Considerations

Author(s): Doyen Nguyen / Language(s): English / Issue: 55/2018

In the ongoing ‘brain death’ controversy, there has been a constant push for the use of the ‘higher brain’ formulation as the criterion for the determination of death on the grounds that brain-dead individuals are no longer human beings because of their irreversible loss of consciousness and mental functions. This essay demonstrates that such a position flows from a Lockean view of human persons. Compared to the ‘consciousness-related definition of death,’ the substance view is superior, especially because it provides a holistic vision of the human person, and coheres with the perennial axiom about the ‘whole and parts.’

A Man of Late Modernity and Multimedia Civilization

Author(s): Andrzej Tarnopolski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 10/2013

The author raises the problem of the influence of the so called civilization of multimedia onthe way to describing the said world by modern humans. He proposes a thesis that the amount ofinformation that is increasing all the time, available to modern humanity, triggers the mechanismsof the exclusion of intelligence. Rationalisation is to consist in the reduction of information orknowledge. It is believed that the primary mechanism of the selection that is being genetated off atthis stage of civilizational development is specific simplification of the image of the world and thelowering of the level of intellectual perception so that the image of the world in the media couldsatisfy the requirements of a common effigy. The electronic form of this is aimed at itsobjectivization while getting rid of the disadvantages of commonness, allowing at the same timethe great creators of the media to perform manipulations, which is easy to do with such subjectand the recipient is molded in this way. Człowiek późnej nowoczesności a cywilizacja multimedialnaAutor porusza problem wpływu tzw. cywilizacji multimedialnej na sposób opisywania tego świata przez człowieka współczesnego. Stawia tezę, że przyrastająca ciągle ilość informacji, dostępnej człowiekowi współczesnemu uruchamia mechanizmy ekskluzji wiedzy. Racjonalizacja polegać ma na jakiejś redukcji informacji/wiedzy. Sądzi, że podstawowym mechanizmem selekcjiuruchamianym w tej fazie cywilizacyjnego rozwoju jest specyficzne upraszczanie 􀄞wiatoobrazu,obniżanie poziomu intelektualnej percepcji tak, aby medialny obraz świata spełniał wymogi obrazupotocznego. Elektroniczna forma owego obrazu ma za zadanie obiektywizował go likwidując jakoby wady potoczności, umożliwiając jednocześnie wielkim kreatorom medialnym manipulacje,łatwe do wykonania z tak􀄅 materi􀄅 i z tak ukształtowanym odbiorcą.

A modern political education. Nonviolent perspectives

Author(s): Claudia SECCI / Language(s): English / Issue: 3(13)/2016

The article deals with a nonviolent perspective of political education and with some theories that may conjugate these two domains: Nonviolent Culture and Political Education. Methodologically an approach rooted in the theoretical and bibliographical research has been privileged. The discourse investigates the causes of the actual political disaffection, and follows the purpose to highlight the irrevocable role of a structured nonviolent perspective (like Gandhi’s one), in the rehabilitation of politics. Nonviolence does not remove Marxist elements of legitimation in their entirety – as Gramsci’s theory will highlight – provided that they correspond the “conquest of violence” that needs to succeed first and foremost in the “intimate” individual’s awareness. Moreover, the importance of contemporary ecological theories, which embed the nonviolent perspective in a general epistemological view, will be also discussed to reaffirm the crucial significance of the latter. Through this path, different authors, hailing from diverse backgrounds, such as philosophical, pedagogical and anthropological studies, show meaningful affinities and matching points, presenting, in some case, political education in terms of education and training of the “political emotions”. The reflection highlights the relevance of an expanded political participation and experimentation through praxis, as ways of an actual political education, in the belief that emphasizing the pedagogic dimension of political activity, means nothing less than searching for its deepest fundament.

A Need for Dialogue to Develop Tolerance

Author(s): Corina Yoris-Villasana / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

The authoress claims that civic education must be grounded in a deep sense of belonging, which, in turn, involves values such as freedom, equality, civility, justice, pluralism and, above all, ensures the development of dialogue and tolerance in the individual, dialogue and tolerance which are essential attributes of a democratic attitude. Tolerance and dialogue are the pivots of citizenship in a society which is to function peacefully. She concludes that by developing these values individuals can better participate in the pursuit of social ideals.

A Podemos és a baloldali populizmus

Author(s): Omar Hassan / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 22/2017

This article examines the rise of Podemos in 2014 and its trajectory since then. Podemos was born right after the rise and fall of the Indignados movement, which was responding to the global economic crisis and subsequent austerity policies. Hassan argues that Podemos successfully avoided Indignados’ weaknesses, the traps of anti-political and anarchistic sentiments. The essay argues that Podemos’ political activity is more than an instinctive populism, as the party consciously and directly uses Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s post-Marxist theory of populism. However, Hassan formulates a fundamental criticism of both Laclau and Mouffe’s theory and of the politics of Podemos. As he follows the political trajectory of Podemos from 2014 to 2016, Hassan reveals that the party’s politics based on the theory of populism gave up its anti-capitalist stance, weakened its own internal democracy and consequently detached the party structure from the mass movement.

A PORTRAIT OF FRIENDSHIP

Author(s): Manjulika Ghosh / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

This paper on friendship starts with noticing the cultural specificities of the words,“friend” and “friendship”: how they possess rich nuances and meanings in some cultures not available in others. It has then delved into Aristotle’s treatment of friendship in his three ethical treatises with special reference to the relationship between friendship and morality and that between friendship and self-knowledge. Some comments are made on whether friendship is possible between persons of unequal virtues and whether they are capable of attaining self-knowledge. This paper also discusses certain challenges to Aristotle’s claims that friendship is an unalloyed good. The point of these challenges is that friendship can also be a great bad. The paper concludes with the observation how rare has friendship become in the modern world resulting in loneliness, depression and alienation.

A Process Identity: The Aesthetics of the Technoself. Governing Networking Societies

Author(s): Oana ?erban / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

The main aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between two innovative concepts—the technoself and process identity—from a perspective inspired by process ontology. The working hypothesis is that industrialized and mass societies entered into a post-industrial or informational sphere of capitalism, becoming networking societies—also known as knowledge-based societies—which closely followed their role in approaching the plural identity of the digital Subject and the surveillance practices exercised in its governance as correspondent models for the changes of the current reality. The first section of the article is devoted to research on the technoself, a concept recently introduced by Luppicini in 2013. Criticizing the technoself in terms of process ontology and as a result of digitalization, subjectivity, and technical rationality, I will argue that the constitution of digital subjects, as well as their interactions, should be defined in terms of processes. Therefore, I introduce the concept of process identity—which includes the technoself—and explain how this approach contributes to the development of different research fields (such as speculative realism and object-oriented ontology) and how it affects Floridi’s distinction between digital ontology and informational ontology. The second section focuses on the effects of the digital environment on self-constitution practices and techniques, virtual worlds experiencing what Foucault recognizes as the aesthetics of existence. In the final part, I confront Bentham’s and Foucault’s panopticism, arguing that based on what is accomplished by process identities, networking societies represent societies of control, not disciplinary ones, and consequently this distinction should be applied in governing virtual communities. In the end, I will explain why notions such as digital personae or databased selves are insufficient, and should be replaced by the concepts of process identity and technoself, respectively, in order to improve the models of governing networking societies.

A Study of Aging Topic Focusing on the Catholic Social Doctrine and Sen’s Capability Approach

Author(s): Hsiang-Yi Lin,Daisy Tai-Hsing Day / Language(s): English / Issue: 37/2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the topic of older people in the world from the perspective of the Social Teaching of the Church. As explained in Christifideles Laici, the Catholic Church believes that the laity is summoned to pave the way for the arrival of God's Kingdom, and people who are at an advanced age should still respond to God's calling through their own unique way of contribution. In Familiaris Consortia it is emphasized that the Church should help older people manifest their roles both in families and religious groups. Although it is mentioned in these two apostolic exhortations that older people are blessed with wisdom, it is not explained as they actually acquire such a blessing. In order to address this issue and elaborate on the meaning of older people's wisdom, Grün's theory on the nature of older people's wisdom and where such a blessing comes from is insade reference to in this study. Moreover, it is emphasized in the apostolic exhortation of Familiaris Consortio that older people are often marginalized in today's industrialized and urbanized society and neglected in their families, while also enduring psychological and/or physical pain. Addressing this issue, the value of older people's work and their unshirkable missions and duties are explained in the present study by examining the nature and value of man's work as mentioned in Laboretn Exercens. Sen's "capability approach" is also utilized in the present study as a way to examine older people's values and the deprivation of their capability, allowing an in-depth analysis of this topic. The findings of this study reveal that Grun's theory of older people's wisdom being shaped by their life-experiences is significantly complementary to the messages on older people in Christifideles Laici and Familiaris Consortio. While Sen's capability approach does not offer a complete set of values or cultural system that solves this problem, the approach of "civilization of love" proposed in the Social Teaching of the church is very useful in helping one contemplate on the problems faced by older people around the world.