Dialogue and Universalism

The article explicates the main fields of hermeneutic research activity of Alicja Kuczyńska in which Neoplatonic inspirations, Renaissance models of life, and the values and traditional paradigms for understanding aesthetic categories that are dominant within them—such as image, creation, fiction, and mimesis—are viewed against the background of the phenomena, transformations, and problems that are unique to our own times, thereby providing old frameworks with new forms of philosophical relevance. Kuczyńska’s research topics, i.e. beauty, love, the anthropological dimension of creativity, the role of imagination, and deification of creative personality gain revised interpretations, in which the accent is placed on creative activity and its value-creating dimension consisting in the transcendence of everyday reality. Characteristic of her research attitude is the tendency to consider philosophy and art in the context of transcending the finite dimension of being and undertaking anew and in different ways the effort to reach what is infinite, unconditioned, lost, truly existent in the Platonic sense. Kuczyńska’s research of this tendency takes on the dimension of positive valorisation of the state of “being in between” and exploration of artistic figures of “ascending.”

This article reconstructs and interprets the evolution of the Minoan myth’s reception in literature, fine arts, and urban development during the twentieth century. The author’s understanding of this evolution is based on three assumptions: a) myth is a polysemantic symbol of metaphysical and historical origins and function; b) myth reflects the relationship of the cognitive vs. creative mechanisms of human activity; and c) as symbolic, myth’s form must be treated as an image as much as it is a (discursive) narrative. As a motif in literature and the arts, the Minoan myth in particular has displayed all three of these aspects by allowing first its heroic narrative and, more recently, its formal structure (i.e., the tragic maze of moral and intellectual values) and visual setting (i.e., the actual labyrinth) to serve as porte-paroles of ongoing social and civilisational transformations: aestheticisation, deconstruction of cognitive and political hierarchies, technicisation, and intensive urbanisation. The displacement of the narrative and of the figure of the Minotaur is interpreted from the perspectives of psychoanalysis and post-structuralism.

The subject of my analyses is the concept of melancholy developed by Alicja Kuczyńska. I am interested in the connection between the creative aspect of melancholy—understood as a certain kind of philosophical attitude—and the concept of a whole. Taking a whole to be an “ideal model in the evaluation of the world and of things” gives us an insight into the meaning of being provided by the philosophical attitude of melancholy. Kuczyńska believes the application of this model is connected both with the possibility of harmonising the parts of this whole and with the search for what varies within the same whole. As a result, melancholy comes to the fore as a state of suspension between repetition and originality—an essential requirement for creativity.

Garden and melancholy have been analysed by Alicja Kuczyńska from the standpoint of Renaissance Neoplatonism. I try to work out a common denominator for them, and attempt to compare Renaissance and Romantic melancholy—in the garden space. I see a positive moment in the notions developed by Kuczyńska, namely in that melancholy, as an expectation, acquires a positive dimension, approaching hope.

The paper examines some rare specific features of Alicja Kuczyńska’s aesthetics. It is demonstrated that Kuczyńska connects the field of aesthetics to the realm of philosophical anthropology and social philosophy. Her interdisciplinary approach is based on postulated bonds between art, society, aesthetics and sociology.

While there are many stories of man, one moment seems to recur in all of them. This is the belief that we need to be able, and want, to look in the mirror of something that is qualitatively larger than us. This is the intention of the tradition whose philosophic patron is Plato. This need for unreality—the need for another world—presumably manifests itself in every area of human activity. One can therefore talk about a specific need for unreality that every real life satiates itself with. I provide examples of this need: science, religion, love, past and future. In the light of eternal life, we would be continually beset by the values for which we would be obliged to sacrifice our lives. In the light of earthly life, such values are inconceivably less frequent. We learn the difficult art of living in a consumer world where we do not have to die.

Aristotle’s concept of justice as an areté of logos is pinpointed in his main ideas. It serves as an introduction to the part of Pico’s philosophy. One of the main goals of his activity was to unify the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. The category of pax philosophica can be seen then as a test for the practical realisation of these ideas. Finally there are questions important for today’s man in the context of his present and future life. The most important, however, is the question of justice, which inevitably sends us to the question of logos as it is understood today.

In this essay, I trace different motives in Alicja Kuczyńska’s thought that are linked together in her philosophy of image. According to Kuczyńska, the creative power of forming artistic images is deeply rooted in existential experience that can be described in terms of finitude, fragmentality, evanescence. The desire to find a way out of such a state is the origin of philosophical as well as artistic creation. It is hope which joins together the individual wish or desire and culture. Hope can be treated as yearning for indeterminacy that is characteristic of existence, as longing for the state of lost totality.

The point of this essay is to draw on the resources of phenomenology to argue that a global environmental ethics is one that should embrace cultural pluralism. My further claim is that due to the presence of a large variety of what Edmund Husserl understands as home-worlds and alien-worlds, any attempt at a universal environmental ethics might be impossible and perhaps unattractive. Nonetheless, I do believe there should be a dialogue that unfolds across these differences for the sake some operative environmental ethics. I believe that an aesthetic model that can help us understand the former is the idea of “polar harmonies” put forth by Hebert Speigelberg. I end by claiming that even when a “common nature” is discovered through the interaction with the alien-world, what is found cannot become universalized due to the unavoidable influence of cultural differences upon this very commonality.

The paper examines the perception of nature and of the human-nature relationship which is deeply marked by the collective memory of human’s destroying domination over nature, especially in the Western world. In this segment the positive contribution of Christian theological eco-feminism is of utmost importance, as it discloses and breaks down the prejudice of the model of human’s superiority over nature by means of a critical historical overview of individual religious traditions. The centrepiece here is an analysis of the tensions inherent in contemporary gender and nature religious policy and the implication of theological eco-feminist ethics of interdependence in everyday life and in understanding the identity of women and nature from this perspective.

This paper offers a contribution to ecophilosophy from the perspective of the scientific research of the environment. The problem considered in the paper deals with a specific issue of environmental risk, namely, the problem of radon ionizing radiation and the highest permissible security norms of it. This problem, now rarely discussed in ecological communities, is one of more important for humankind’s health and safe existence. The awareness of harmful and beneficial biological effects of various environmental factors is a basic step towards ensuring the security of public health. The admissible norms of radon radiation are different in different countries. The article suggests possible causes of these differences and puts forward the thesis that today’s science alone is not a sufficient ground of resolving ecological problems.

Interesting for the debate on human security is the concept of coexistence of culture and civilization. According to Albert Schweitzer, civilization and culture were not mutually exclusive and did not compete against each other. However, if civilizational growth began to dominate over cultural development, or, in other words, if culture began to lag behind civilization, human life would be reduced to its biological aspect and man would become unable to take the adequate care of his natural and social ecosystems. He/she, dominated by the impersonal forces of nature and economy, would be reduced by them to an object. That is what Schweitzer called the neoprimitive man. Contemporary man is in danger of becoming the neoprimitive man.Culture adapted to contemporary technological civilization grows out of a thought paradigm ordered by a metaphor rooted in the eco-system concept, which replaces the modern machine metaphor. In thinking based on eco-systemic relations the difference between them does not antagonize but enriches, and rivalry is replaced by synergy. In this new paradigm the axiological aspect of the modern-day development concept becomes very complicated and needs the qualifier “sustained,” thanks to which development ceases to threaten the coincidental and ruthless change. The application of the term “sustained development” to the relation between technological civilization and culture forces the discourse on human security to take stock of the human capacity for metanoia and existence within the ethical dimension, and make room for education in formulating creative responses to danger.

This article studies the phenomenon of overcoming and provides a rationale of the understanding of the totality of human experience that integrates the situation of overcoming as that of the transcendence of human existence. As the basis of the research we use an integrated model of archaic cultural overcoming of the life–death dichotomy—a metaphysics of overcoming. A result of this metaphysics is a specific dialectical ontology of myth, represented as an ontology of return. Manifestationism, holism, alogism, metamorphism, animism, cyclism, and sacralism are the general principles of this ontology. Return ontologies are in conflict with the ontology and metaphysics of the finite present in the religious and scientific worldviews. The author sees the prospects for a further study of the phenomenon of overcoming in using the subjective energistic approach that leads to understanding the phenomenon of overcoming at the biosocial level. The results of the research can be used as a philosophical basis for the development of an archaeological activity theory, in particular, a unified integrated approach to the ancient burial ritualism. They also allow to deepen the theoretical concepts of man, society, and culture.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the role of humanistic education (Bildung) played in the cultural project of the early German Romanticism through tracing back to Plato’s idea of philosophical cultivation (paideia). Like Plato, the early German Romantics postulate Bildung or the education of humanity as the central goal or the highest aspiration for the cultural practice of mankind in order to settle the fundamental problems concerning the social and political crisis. This attitude is similar to Plato’s critique of the degenerate regime in the guise of democratic politics. There is an apparent and inevitable divergence between Plato’s aristo-cracy and the Romanticism poesie-cracy. That is to say, the early German Romanticism wagered a war against ancient moral idealism represented by Plato and finally turned it on its head, but they write a paradigmatic apocalypse of the soul for moderns.

How do we alleviate the cultural obstacles to dialogue? The answer, we argue, is by using Socratic dialogue as the architecture for the design of social systems, societies can overcome the cultural obstacles to inter-cultural dialogue of imposed insider-outsider social divisions, of imposed social hierarchies, and of imposed social walls around cultures. We elaborate on how Socratic Dialogue removes those cultural obstacles to intercultural dialogue when used as social architecture or as a blueprint for institutions that open the social gates to all “outsiders” through the social levelling of hierarchies, and through the creation of social bridges among all “parallel” cultures.

“Moral capital” is a concept emerged in the China ethical community at the end of the 20th century. The issue of moral capital arises from discussions about economy and ethics. The controversial point in this concept consists in that morality is a kind of capital. Will morality become a capital? I think it is possible. The interpretation of the concept “capital” should go back to the logical starting point of economics, namely, “rational-economic man.” From the perspective of moral philosophy, every economic activity is committed to morality. The maximization of self-interest is only a part of rationality. Rationality should also cover the acquisition of no self-interest valuable goals. People’s economic behaviors may also be connected with culture, ethics, intelligence, aesthetic appreciation or emotions. I think it is time to radically reform rationality. The issue of moral capital reinterprets capital by basing on humanity. The core of moral capital consists in the revealing of capital’s property of value; this value functions against the background of the socialist market economy system. It is the issue of economic justice in the context of contemporary China.

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophizing is deeply ontological, and can be defined as a reflexive gesture of keeping silent. The silence secured by reflexing is an essential part of a philosophy. A philosopher has to use language, but things that pass over in silence must influence things he or she says. The speech manifests not only in the spoken, but also in the unspoken. How is it possible? Through understanding a reflexive speech as an action or gesture of annihilation of speech. The expressed words in philosophy and expressed philosophical concepts are just means of referring to the ultimate value which should be thrown away immediately because it cannot say anything about the inexpressible. The philosophy as a gesture of keeping silent is an attempt to meaningfully keep silent through the constantly evolving reflexive annihilation of your own speech. The philosophizing which takes into account the importance of silence becomes a minimalistic gesture.

My reflection is dedicated to a universalist and personalistic conception of Andrzej Grzegorczyk and his main idea on deriving the sphere of spiritual values from vital ones. I try to interpret Andrzej Grzegorczyk’s ethics in a broad way, that is, as a universalistic philosophy of life. I mean by “philosophy of life” the basic aspect of the practical realization of values, that is, social life as an attitude to fate. I use Martin Heidegger’s concept of human handiness, filtered through its use by Grzegorczyk, as a tool of exposing vitality values (generated the organs of the human body) which grow into universal spiritual values

At the turn of the 17th century, in Romanian philosophy the nobility of spirit is seen as a certain but intermediate value, to be cherished while man waits for his divine reward, which is everlasting life, as presented in Divanul [The Divan] by Dimitrie Cantemir. Two hundred and fifty years later, man is regarded as having evolved from the animal forms of life in Mihai Ralea’s systematic presentation Explicarea omului [An Explanation of Man], and the sole meaning of nobility is the revolutionary one, the heroic one, that is the ethical one. From a totally different point of view, during the interwar period, Constantin Micu Stavilă developed a general theory of man and society thus compellingly arguing against the claims of all ideologists of the natural genesis of human spirituality. In this theory the nobility of spirit was said to come from work and creation. By presenting these examples, my intention is to rediscover this spiritual, moral and socio-cultural ideal in order to find its place, role and profile in designing a new view of human nature, for a more decent human world.