Silence as a symbol of death in the reflection of Gisèle Brelet and Tōru Takemitsu

Author(s): Marek Dolewka / Language(s): English Issue: 03 (30)/2016

The link between silence and death has been a recurring theme of human thought and can often be found in reflections on music. Among many attempts to approach this problem, the author of this paper focuses on those done by Gisèle Brelet and Tōru Takemitsu. The “faithful companion” of music which “perpetually is born, dies and is born again” – this is one of the ways in which French musicologist describes silence. “For a human being, there is always the duality of life and death. Music as an art form always has to connect vehemently with both” – notices Japanese composer, who in another statement combines silence with “the dark world of death”. Interestingly, both Brelet and Takemitsu arrive at the conclusion that such connotations may well be the source of the fear of silence that affects some composers or performers. Despite different contexts, some analogies to their thought – like connecting silence with nothingness and loneliness – may be also found in the Canadian composer Raymond Murray Schafer’s writings, presented fragmentarily in the last subsection. The differences in the notion of the problem between the authors are, moreover, discussed in this paper.

Изложба „Вотиви“ в ИЕФЕМ-БАН

Author(s): Iglika Mishkova / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 4/2016

Записки по Русо: „Свободното възпитание“ – проект или утопия

Author(s): Veska Guviiska / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 9/2017

The paper offers a new interpretation on Rousseau in the context of Richard Rorty’s concepts on the philosophy of language and the linguistic turn developed at the end of the 20th century. The classical interpretation of Rousseau’s ideas of freedom in view of upbringing as a rule juxtaposes nature and culture. The present paper argues that this opposition can be overcome through the application of the metaphor approach to both upbringing and the value-neutral character of language. In this sense the question to be answered is how the languages of the teacher and of the student co-exist in Rousseau’s ideas and what the mechanism is that turns these languages into means of upbringing. The research employs arguments in favour of the hypothesis that in terms of the metaphor of “upbringing” created by Rousseau in Emile or on Education, the concepts language of nature and language of society overlap.

Идейното наследство в началото (история, време и историческо време на Философски факултет на ВТУ “Св. св. Кирил и Методий”)

Author(s): Evlogi Dankov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 2/2014

In the paper is considered the history of philosophy and philosophers in Veliko Turnovo before the official foundation of our Faculty of Philosophy. Some their advantages are commented from the point of view of the present-day philosophy.

EMIGRATION FROM THE ROMANIAN VILLAGE - THE EFFECT OF THE DISORGANIZATION OF THE TRADITIONAL SCHEMES

Author(s): Maria Crăciun / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

The purpose of this article is to draw an overview of a major cause, which, in our opinion, determined, at different times, the emigration processes in the Romanian villages, especially after 1989 - the disorganization of the traditional models. In this approach, we proceeded from WI Thomas's social disorganization theory, which showed that European peasants emigrated from the process of reorganizing their lives on new foundations after many of their traditions had been rejected. Thomas's thesis is of great relevance to the crisis of the Romanian village after 1989, generated by the models of social guidance that destroyed the peasants of the spiritual cadres of life without generating even economic welfare.

EXPLANATORY PARADIGMS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND REPORTING TO REALITY

Author(s): Vlad Ovidiu Cioacă / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

This article seeks to outline the polemics on the relationship between language and dialect and between language and social inter-action, and to present, in an analytical, synthetic and comprehensive manner, some theoretical models that provide explanatory patterns regarding the way in which language, as the basis of culture, is influencing how we relate to objective reality. First we will make a conceptual distinction on the relationship between dialect and language, we will review the philosophical premises of the issues addressed, after which the emphasis will move on the analysis of the language from four distinct paradigmatic positions: evolutionary, relativist, interactionist and constructivist.

Tzvetan Todorov: The West Defined and Defining the East

Author(s): Guergana Gougoumanova / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This study explores how the West defines the East in the works of Tzvetan Todorov and how the definition of the West itself shifts with the discovery of the New World in the XVI century. We will take as an example the impression of French travelers in Bulgaria in the XIX century in order to show that the image of the East gets often misunderstood by the West. With the discovery of America, the definition of what West means changes. These definitions are fluid and modifiable and are essential in order to understand how later historical interactions between East and West are carried out.

МеДиалог: медиите като логос и диалог?

Author(s): Ventsislav Dimov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2017

The introductory article of the first issue of 'Medialog' journal presents the new academic journal, part of a new media culture portal. 'Medialog' is a journey into the media worlds. 'Medialog' is an invitation to dialogue addressed to academic researchers and university lecturers, PhD students and students; to all who are curious to understand something more and different about media, communications and culture.

The microenvironment and the human space

Author(s): Ana Bazac / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

The paper uses the concept of microenvironment both literally and figuratively, as a targeted focus of the scientific research on delimited spaces. And the human space is the entire world of both cultural meanings and physical factors, landscapes and systems which constitute the “nest” of the human species. The point is that though there are microenvironments, the human space is more than the ensemble of all their types. Thus, the core of the paper structures around the manners in which both the scholars and the large public in different positions treat these two hypostases of space. The present situation of the treatment of space has its origin in both the different scientific traditions of the concept of space – transposed into “worldviews” (something more than philosophy) and the social relations with their constructions of practical and conceptual order. Accordingly, the paper highlights some aspects in the evolution of scientific boarding of space: especially the research of matter-energy-information as underpinning the representations of space, the objectivity and the constructed character of space, space as a receptacle or as a relation, and also continuity and discontinuity in/as space. The scientific approach of space has erased the speculative philosophy as source of knowledge about it, but this scientific approach took place after the development of philosophical speculative theories about space. The “science of space” has arrived to the demonstration of the inexistence of a unique space for all the living beings – and in some respects, for humans – and at the same time to the dialectics of objective measurements and treatment of the subjective spaces. The main concepts through which people envisage space are nowadays those related mainly to environment, to ecology. They are confronted with anthropocentrism, but first of all with the difference between the advances in the present science and, on the other hand, the inertia of practical treatment of space. Concerning science, the research of both microenvironments (of different sizes) and the ecology of Earth shows the necessity of coherent global policies in order to slow the various crises of the human space: it’s too late to stop them; but not because of objective natural logic of the processes related to space, but because of the socially induced postponement. The present crisis of the human space is so huge that one speaks about the end of the human species. The critique of this theory shows that the future is open, but at the same time that today more and more people search for and experience new ways of life. The necessity of these ways is deduced not from ideal social models but from scientific research. Therefore, the problems of space are under the sign of time, even more clear, of emergency.

Is a Philosophy of Ecology possible as a Scientific Method?

Author(s): Nikolai Mihailov,Lidia Sakelarieva / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2020

The advancement of science and the change of moral norms in a market-driven society not only generate prosperity but also challenge the future of humankind. Most of the changes and problems in the environment can be foreseen if we turn to the knowledge that we acquire through ecology not only as an interdisciplinary but also as a transdisciplinary science. It is of no less important though that this knowledge should be rationalized in accordance to values and moral norms – in terms of a philosophy that explains the meaning of the technologically changing world and the consequences for the future.

Questioning the Role of Moral AI as an Adviser within the Framework of Trustworthiness Ethics

Author(s): Silviya Serafimova / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

The main objective of this article is to demonstrate why despite the growing interest in justifying AI’s trustworthiness, one can argue for AI’s reliability. By analyzing why trustworthiness ethics in Nickel’s sense provides some well-grounded hints for rethinking the rational, affective and normative accounts of trust in respect to AI, I examine some concerns about the trustworthiness of Savulescu and Maslen’s model of moral AI as an adviser. Specifically, I tackle one of its exemplifications regarding Klincewicz’s hypothetical scenario of John which is refracted through the lens of the HLEG’s fifth requirement of trustworthy artificial intelligence (TAI), namely, that of Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness.

The Corporal-oriented approach to Education: a Turn towards the Whole Person

Author(s): Svitlana Hanaba / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2021

Recent anthropological studies consider the corporal experience as an indispensable attribute of a person’s life world. They declare to go beyond the dichotomy of body and mind and present a modern person as a complex integrity of all systems and characteristics of a living organism. Body and mind are a union of vitality with different forms of their manifestation. The corporal is not regarded as an essential complement to the mental, the corporal is the mental, just in a different form of its manifestation. The implementation of a methodological turn from a rational-cognitive approach to a holistic understanding of human nature and the peculiarities of cognitive processes outlines the problem of education transformation in both theoretical and practical terms. Taking into account the complexity and multiplicity of tasks in solving this problem, the guideline in defining conceptual ideas is the understanding of a person as a multi-temporal being who lives simultaneously in multiple hierarchical levels, ontological time and the scale of processes. It is a question of necessity to construct educational activity in semantic planes: mind-body-culture, mind-body-activity, body-consciousness-reaction and others.

History of states, history of individuals. Eminescu on Austria and the Romanian Principalities

Author(s): Daniel Citirigă,Cătălin Pavel / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

The present article aims to offer excerpts f an essential article by the Romanian “national poet” Mihai Eminescu in the English translation, with a historical commentary. The translation aims to make Eminescu’s text available to an international audience of scholars, helping to write a more accurate social and cultural history of 19th century Europe. In turn, the commentary aims to show that Eminescu’s political vision, although substantially conservative, incorporated a number of tenets that were to become an inspiration for a number of politicians of highly diverse backgrounds, from the Iron Guard nationalists to the Socialists and Communists. Eminescu’s work was used, in ways he could no longer control, in order to legitimize their varied, and at times downright contradictory, claims.The article discussed here, on “The Austrian influence on the Romanians in the Principalities” (1876) offered Eminescu the opportunity to cast a critical eye on the state organization of the Romanians. His conclusion is exceedingly pessimistic: their state organization is presented as a failure, with the main sources of this failure being the personal interests of the Romanians themselves, compounded by the influence of foreigners. Hence the society based on corruption, rather than on principles, a society where having a job meant ruling, and not having one, being in opposition. In this gloomy picture, the author singled out a class on whose back the whole people lived: the Romanian peasants. The future of this class could not possibly be bright, as Eminescu expected that it be crushed from within, and “along with it, the state and the nation”. Did he also envisage a solution? In order to escape the situation in which “the proximity of Austria is devastating for us, unless we wake up soon”, Eminescu pinpointed three redeeming elements: stability, labour and economy. In other words, hereditary monarchy, the revocation of privileges for the “proletariat of the pen” and the careful spending of public budgets. The alternatives were the Austrian rule, or the Russian rule, none of which comes across to Eminescu as a solution.

Amartya Sen, Home in the World. A Memoir

Author(s): Mihaela Gligor / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2022

Review of: Amartya Sen, Home in the World. A Memoir, Allen Lane, an Imprint of Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2021, 464 pp., ISBN: 978-1- 846-14486-8.

From Critique of Mass Culture to Culture: Modernity and Arendt’s Political Aesthetics

Author(s): Tengiz Tsimnaridze / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2022

In this article, I intend to discuss the Arendtian conception of culture. In her influential essay “Crisis in Culture: Its Social and Its Political Significance,” Arendt argues that culture is at risk of disappearing under conditions of modernity. In her view, modernity is the age of mass society that leads to the destruction of culture and the development of mass culture. This is the situation Arendt has in mind when she speaks of a “crisis in culture,” a situation she describes as worldlessness. Culture, according to her, is a phenomenon of the world. Because of this conviction, argues Arendt, culture has a closer relationship to politics. The article is divided into two parts. In the first part, I explore Arendt's critical reflection on the modern attitude to culture. In the second part, I examine her analysis of the relationship between culture and politics. Throughout these parts, I suggest a reading of Arendt that illustrates her understanding of culture based on the authority of Greek and Roman thought and Kant’s Critique of Judgment.

Zanim na Syberii nastąpi odwilż, jeszcze spadnie śnieg. Przed czy po imperium? Jędrzej Morawiecki: „Szuga. Krajobraz po imperium”. Czytelnik, Warszawa 2022, 280 s.

Author(s): Paweł Rogalski / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2023

Through a critical analysis of J. Morawiecki’s Szuga. Krajobraz po imperium [Szuga. Landscape after the Empire], Paweł Rogalski ponders a number of questions: Does Russia still exist in the 21st century in the imperial discourse? Has the superpower paradigm, as a certain manifestation of anarchy and a fallen myth, not already been ruined or exhausted? Is the empire an episode necessary historically to balance forces in a global crisis? Is the war in Ukraine (2014 and 2022) perhaps the “new-old” founding murder of the Eastern civilization, incorporating the model of the Russian empire? Does ideology as a glue, instead of positively constructing the subjectivity of the community, contribute to building a new, dangerous phantasm of the empire? In this context, the travel narrative authenticates the message by reaching abandoned and blurry places, where the encountered human subject generates not only events and adventures, but is a record of ideological traces left on the body and the psyche. As Czesław Niedzielski wrote: “In all varieties of reportage prose, the identity of the speaking subject and the author (regardless of the form of the reporting) is one of the basic premises determining the documentary and, most of all, the authentic qualities of the genre”.

Ethics and Solidarity as Hope in the Philosophy of Józef Tischner

Author(s): Pavol Dancák / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2022

In this paper, the concept of solidarity will be introduced as voluntary cohesion, mutual help and support not only within a loose group, but, above all, within the whole human race. Tischner wants to help contemporary man because he is aware that contemporary man has entered a period of profound crisis of his hope. The reflection on solidarity and hope in the philosophy of Tischner represents a neuralgic point which has its justification in Christian thought. Hope is the prospect of something better which, together with mutual support, removes both fear and isolation, and brings about the development of both the individual and the community. The deepest solidarity is solidarity of conscience. The community of solidarity differs from many other communities precisely because it is “for him” that is fundamental. It is only on this foundation that the community of “we” grows.

Kobieta – naukowiec – mutant. Płeć w opowiadaniach Julii Nideckiej

Author(s): Kinga Wyskiel / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1 (21)/2023

Kinga Wyskiel’s article concerns the issue of gender in science fiction stories by Julia Nidecka. The following stories have been analysed and interpreted: “Wilki na wyspie” [Wolves on the Island], “Taśmy prawdy” [Tapes of Truth], “Kwiaty w bukiecie” [Flowers in a Bouquet] and “Goniący za słońcem” [Chasing the Sun]. Wyskiel considers two dominant strategies for the representation of femininity in these stories and focuses on Nidecka’s images of the woman scientist and the mutant woman present in them. Wyskiel also points out that gender is an a priori category in Nidecka’s future worlds and that, consequently, the construction of those worlds has been based on the gender matrix.

„Dajcie nam cywilizację naukową” – federacja ludów Europy, Naukowa Liga Narodów i ostatnia wojna o pokój. Ritchiego Caldera i Stefana Barszczewskiego fantastyczne wizje pokoju

Author(s): Jerzy Stachowicz / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1 (21)/2023

In this article, Jerzy Stachowicz examines selected literary works the represent the science fiction genre of the interwar period. He focuses on pacifist visions of the future in those works and argues that these scientistic, military, and superpower fantasies have an anti-war potential, and that fantasy literature itself can, to some extent, be regarded as a „pacifist practice”.

The Death Knell for Joy?

Author(s): Tamara Trojanowska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2024

The essay explores the puzzling relationship between joy and the problems of postmodern culture, which affect the quality of our being in the world. Reflection on the precarious status of joy and its uncertain position in contemporary culture allows for a unique perspective on this relationship. The higher the political, economic and social stakes, the more the search for joy becomes a search for meaning, an essential nourishment for cultural forms. Such joy, filtered through our struggles with life’s challenges, compels us to examine the consequences of its absence (pain, suffering, joyless existence) and its manifestations in art (music), religion (Christianity), and philosophy (freedom). The power of joy lies in recognizing the inevitable imperfection of all solutions to our problems that do not include it as a fundamental component of life.