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Translation of Michel Henry’s study « Le christianisme : Une approche phénomenologique ? » (In: Phénoménologie de la vie. Tome IV. Sur l’éthique et la religion. Paris: Puf, 2004, pp. 95-111), which was originally published in the Annales de Philosophie, Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth (18 [1997], pp. 3-17.) In it, the author asks himself about the possibility of a phenomenological approach to Christianity, and it is not just a proposal of interpretation, but an “approach” that should be able to lead us to the core of Christianity. He does not follow the path of historical Husserl’s phenomenology but of his own ideal phenomenology of life.
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The paper explains the nature of the dispute between the Dominican and Jesuit orders to the resolution of which Congregatio de auxiliis (1597-1607) was established. From the philosophical point of view, there is the prima facie incompatibility between the primary divine causation and free human decision-making. From the theological perspective, divine predestination and the workings of grace might clash with the libertarian notion of free human decision-making. We also focus on the key issue whether divine predestination occurs before the foreknowledge of merits (ante praevisa merita) or after their foreknowledge (post praevisa merita). We present various solutions to the issue arising among the Jesuits whose priority is precisely to salvage libertarian freedom in the solution to the theological problem (F. Toledo, L. Lessius, Gregory of Valencia, Luis de Molina, R. Bellarmine, F. Suárez). After that we introduce the ante praevisa merita conception of predestination in J. D. Scotus who is the main reference point for Baroque Scotists. Among the latter we introduce those who favor libertarian freedom and predestination post praevisa merita which is easier to square with the aforementioned kind of liberty (C. Frassen, J. Poncius). In passing, we also mention some Capuchin theologians who follow especially St. Bonaventure.
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In his essay, the author reflects on the death of ‘beauty’ within the context of the present state of nature (the phenomenon of the forest and its problems), modern art (the transformations within visual art) and language (the demise of dialects, the destruction of language by contemporary ideologies). The fact that ‘beauty’ is not merely a subjective category and is not purely a matter of individual taste means that we can rationally discuss its renewal (nature), the talent, craftsmanship and diligence involved (art), and the relationship between language ideas and thoughts (how ‘nicely’ we speak).
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The author considers historical origin of social-democracy and so-called marxism of the Second International during the last quarter of nineteenth century, while endeavouring to analyze a widely accepted interpretation of the Second International as an achieved connection between mass workers’ movement and Marx’ revolutionary thinking. He considers along these lines the destiny of Marx political messages and the way of their realization in the social-democratic movements, while having in mind many open issues of organizational, program, political, ideological and theoretical nature. The author points at limited, contradictory and controversial aspects of Marx’ thinking in the social-democratic parties of European countries and, through them, in the Second International. At the same time he tries to supply some elements of explanation of such historical development of the socialist movement and the so-called marxism of the Second International, whose contradictions in tendencies of integration and revolutionary ideas are reduced in essence to the rift between the reform and the revolution within the social- -democratic political doctrine.
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The article examines certain aspects of human life, pointing out the variety of problems of freedom of choice in the modern world. For examples, phenomena and situations understood by many, which correspond to the real circumstances of reality, were taken. This is the need to show that the problems of freedom of choice in the 21st century are still relevant and absolutely real.
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The problem of social order in the periphery of modern society is problematized on the conceptual architecture of the General Theory of Social Systems (TGSS), tracing the semantic and expectative forms of the structures’ institutionalization, and the reproduced and parasitized artifacts in those structures which, paradoxically, construct the functional and differentiated preeminent order in the modernity of modern society. The capture of the state apparatus by particular structures has been one of the characteristics that define the articulation of order in the region. Structures (family, group, clientelistic inclusion networks) that have been stabilizing, and even define the expectations that guide the assumptions of functional differentiation, operating factually with the logic of a stratified social order, promoting clientelist relations and practices and excluding exclusivity that, rather than weakening, strengthens the ‘citizen’ experience, promoting the permanent oscillation between ‘legality’ and illegality that permeates deeply the organic and structural interstices of the social order in this periphery.
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The article, exploring the genesis of the idea of the university, reveals how its value bases and mission have changed over time. The fate of the University as a social institution is inextricably linked with society and bears the imprint of the transformations taking place in the social environment. In relation to the University in the modern world, the existence of a serious crisis is universally stated and, as shown in the article, it is associated with the processes of globalization, the establishment of market fundamentalism and postmodern culture.
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The Kantian Opus postumum can be seen, in general, as a metaphysical extension of some critical topics such as space, time, matter, substance, God, which in the Critique of Pure Reason have been treated in order to satisfy the requirements of a phenomenological knowledge. The present text deals with the rethinking of space in relationship with matter and in its absence, as a void space. In the form of sensible intuition defining space, the objects of the external senses are given to us, primarily in intuition, which the intellect relates through synthetic unity to the unity of the diversity of these a priori intuitions, a unity which is thought in their composition; it is not a form of our thinking, but an intuition of that which is nothing outside of our thinking and representation, and must be filled with matter, to repel the void space, which is in conflict with the original gravitational attraction. Its role is to understand, with the help of the ether, the phenomenon of the driving forces of aggregation, through the system of the connection of the diverse of these forces; so that, finally, to achieve the unity of the possible experience, after giving up the metaphysical temptation of the void space.
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Starting from Aristotle’s reflections, the paper discusses the possibility and the actuality of directly unseen material objects: not from the standpoint of ontology of objects, focusing on their persistence as such in time and space, but from an epistemological perspective, indebted to phenomenology, about the process of knowing those objects. This process begins with their seeing, but seeing as such involves two steps: detection and full visualisation. How to see distant, thus invisible objects, which may simply be inexistent? First, we discover them (on the basis of some effects and correlations of appropriable physical parameters). The core concept here is presence, however not in relation with past and future but with actuality or reality for the subject. After pointing the meaning of full visualisation, the last chapter suggests that no matter how precise is the measurement giving the tele-detection of distant material objects, they are not fully present if they are not directly felt by the sense organs, the gate to the human meanings of objects, i.e. if they are not given meanings, including practically, without being again tele-detected. However, we are used with their sketched presence, necessary step to their as many sided analysis, thus image, as it is possible; but we are not used with the tele-presence of members of the human species.
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Challenged by the concept of pleasure(s), considered by Evanghelos Moutsopoulos as expressing one of the most important criteria and values of the human life, the paper deploys an analysis of pleasures as conditions of the (human) Being and also as “more-than-being”. Since the pleasures are feelings, these ones are caught as relationships of the consciousness with its internal and external environment. Therefore, the levels and dimensions of the consciousness light how and why the human consciousness creates meanings, articulated and transmissible, and how only accompanied by pleasures these meanings are produced in a solid way, the only one that assures the existence and development of the human being.
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The evolution of our thinking is a very interesting and instructive story. The standard bearers are founders of religions, philosophers, sometimes scientists too. The pioneering work of the latter was little understood by most of people. Our aim in this paper is to present a concrete situation, in which we could fallow the previous ideas: the acceptance of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus in Transylvania. We will do it through two paintings on wood of the Solar system, in two Transylvanian churches: one in a Greek-Catholic church in S, urdes, ti (Maramures, county), and the other in a Unitarian church in Ocland (Harghita county). Although they were made in the same period, these two paintings represent two opposite systems: the geocentric one and the heliocentric one. How was that possible?
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We publish a relevant paper of Academician Athanase Joja (1904-1972) who subordinated the inherent passion of philosophers, the history of philosophy, to his main professional passion, logic. Athanase Joja has many relevant papers. We chose the present one, about tertium non datur1 , not only because it explains clearly the topic – at the level of the 60s of the 20th century – but also because the topic itself is important in the present context of relativistic manner of the dominant thinking. This relativistic manner was taken over by those who did not know and understand the convergence and unity of the dialectical approach – that “seems” to invite relativism – and the rigour of analysis that always emphasises its criteria and the problem of criteria as such. Put more directly, the rigour of tertium non datur was rejected by the lay supporters of relativism in the name of a vague unity of things, of a “complexity” that cannot be deciphered and on which ground “those who know” can only urge the acceptance of tertium and the avoidance of tertium non datur.
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Review of: Ioan Biriş, Lucian Blaga - Conceptele dogmatice, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Scoala Ardeleana, 2020.
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The actuality and significance of marxism has been the subject of lively and controversial discussion in course of the eighties. The dominant thesis was the one of the crisis of marxism, of its being surpassed and of the impossibility to provide the answers to the questions of our times. While reviewing the results of these discussions, the author endeavours the following: (a) to identify the themes by applying theory and method thereof, as well as the problems and dilemmas of marxism (discrediting of official marxism, the crisis of legitimacy, unresolved contradictions of Marx’ thinking); (b) to analyze in a critical way the „high tides and ebb tides” of marxism in Yugoslavia (tendencies of ideological and intellectual becoming lazy of the ruling communist party, intellectual ostracism, complex relationship between marxism and the global society); (c) to indicate provisional answers to composite questions and problems which have put both socialism and marxism at the serious test of history (critical confronting with the contradictions and insufficiencies of Marx’theory and plea for a theoretical dialogue regarding the new project of socialism). Settling of these problems are of prime importance for the historical outcome of the present-day crisis of marxist theory and of socialism. In contrast to negative trend in contemporary marxism (namely, the crisis of the official marxism and the new orthodoxy), the author considers that revolutionary forces and authentic humanistic contents of Marx’ thinking have not exhausted their creative possibilities. Contemporary nihilistic criticism and the unilateral rejection of marxism mean a great danger, since in such a way radical emancipatory movements of the working class and of other social forces of the revolution may be left without the intellectual compass and without a developed revolutionary strategy.
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The problem of jusnaturalism and marxism viewed through their relationship has been insufficiently treated. In order to attempt such treatment, it is necessary first of all to describe these two courses of socio-political thinkings, and then to put forward a corresponding definition of law. This enables legal-philosophical consideration of a series of important issues, and first of all the distinguishing beteween „the natural law" and „the positive law". This also requires knowlede, and a thorough one too, of the entire theory of Marx, then the explanation of the notion of „nature" and of the property of „naturalness", and more particularly one should emphasize the critical consideration of the „positive law", both in the sphere of jusnaturalism and of marxism. According to the author, in all stages of his creation, Marx has always distinguished the „natural law" from the „positive law". This has been done by Marx also implicitely. The author makes relevant quotations, which help also in making corresponding conclusions. Naturally, due to different approaches and ways of interpreting Marx, two tendencies did shape accordingly until now, namely: the first one, which is expressed in Bolshevism and Stalinism, denies any connection between marxism and jusnaturalism; the second one, the tendency which found its expression at Austrian marxists, emphasizes that there exists marxian reception of some basic ideas of jusnaturalism; however, the most significant in elaborating this conception is E. Bloch who did research in the sphere of natural law and human dignity within the framework of utopian thinking; the third tendency, which is mostly represented by H. Kelsen, affirms that jusnaturalism and marxism are identical since they emphasize under the title „natural law" only ideological principles — and this has no connection with the reality. Due to the above, the author points at the need for a deeper and more modem research of Marx and marxism since only in such a way one could be able to inquire into the relationship between marxism and jusnaturalism. According to the author, Marx has treated the „positive law" as a complex of the existing regulations, but he has constantly warned about the existence of another deeper „layer" of law, and this layer is, mainly, that what is called „natural law". After pointing at the main values in the sphere of law (man, his dignity, freedom, equality, justice, basic human rights), the author concludes that jusnaturalism and marxism are connected, both in terms of history and reason; they could be therefore viewed also as a problem of „marxist jusnaturalism".
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