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Review of the book: Jean-Paul Gagnon: Democratic Theorists in Conversation: Turns in Contemporary Thought
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This paper is a short summary of the life and work of Jaroslava Pešková. This woman hasn´t been only a philosopher but a very important person on teaching philosophy at the Charles University also.
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The concept of the state is in the centre of debates in social sciences. This legitimizes the interest in the philosophical sources of the distinctive category of the modern state which is defined by its main atribute – the sovereignty. In the first part, this article presents the concept of the lawful state, elaborated in the celebrated work of French political theorist Blandine Kriegel, at one time a collaborator with Michel Foucault. The lawful state was based on the idea of sovereignty and was developed by the lawyers as an opposite to Roman concepts dominium and imperium. Until now it can be seen as the pre-condition of non-despotic politics and a major force for human liberty. Further, the article discusses the political philosophy of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes. Bodin and Hobbes developed the doctrine of sovereignty. The analysis of Hobbes´s artificialism is connected with the examination of the modern individualism. It is argued that Hobbes´s theory could be seen as the suitable basis for the further development for the modern liberal and democratic state. Liberal democracies would have been impossible without the political basis provided by the lawful state.
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This text deals with the concept of freedom and its related responsibilities as space while creating the moral dimension of political action. In this context we are analyzed Arendt, Patocka and Bělohradský terms sovereignty, political power, totalitarian system and liberal democracy. Their reflection is guided by a deep respect for the Socratic-Platonic tradition of political thought. Mentioned thinkers also combines their common interest in the phenomenological method. Arendt perceives freedom as the very reason of the existence of politics. Bělohradský repeats Husserl’s and Patočka’s appeal consisting in the search for the original European legacy, i.e. the return to the last instance of your decision-making – personal conscience.
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The paper compares different views on technological society that develop the posthumanist position but avoid technological determinism or social constructivism. Special attention is given to the dichotomy between the concept of biopolitics (Foucault) and the concept of cosmopolitics (Latour) in relation to the issues of plurality and hybridity.
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Kristina Andělová hájí kolegu Kandu argumentem, že jsem použil nevhodnou formu vědecké polemiky, když jsem — pokud to shrnu — zesměšnil jeho seriózní vědecký výklad. S tím nehodlám polemizovat, ani se za to nehodlám kát: je na čtenářích, aby posoudili, nakolik byla moje polemická strategie adekvátní posuzovanému textu. Nicméně měl jsem důvod, proč jsem zvolil právě tuto formu polemiky. A nebyla to jen předpojatost příslušníka generace, který si s marxismem užil své. K takovémuto druhu reakce mě totiž pohnula — a domnívám se, že to lze z mého textu snadno vyčíst — skutečnost, že Roman Kanda ve své stati odpůrcům marxismu sice cosi vyčítá, ve skutečnosti to však sám zcela účelově činí. Řečeno konkrétně, vyčítá jim ahistorismus, sám však ve své argumentaci postupuje důsledně ahistoricky, abstrahuje, řečeno s Marxem, „od historického příběhu“. Proto jsem také použil přirovnání k Cimrmanovu „kroku stranou“.
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Responses to the journal’s questionnaire regarding the evolution and configuration of today’s continental philosophy, its relation with analytic philosophy, the social and natural sciences, and today’s cultural scene in general.
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До XIX века политическая философия была всеобъемлющей наукой о человеке и обществе. Но с появлением и развитием других социальных наук, всего за сто лет, политическая философия достигает точки закрытия. Исайя Берлин и его коллеги смогли продемонстрировать, что предмет политической философии остался неизменным со времен Древней Греции. Иными словами, до тех пор, пока в нашем обществе не доминирует только одна цель, пока существуют различные интерпретации эмпирических событий, и авторы, способные открывать нормативные истины, политическая философия будет занимать свое место среди общественных наук. Ее место находится между позитивной политической наукой и философией. В то время как первая отвечает на вопрос «что есть?», философия ищет ответ на вопрос «что (должно быть сделано)?», а политическая философия содержит вопрос «что делать, когда есть разногласия по поводу того, что делать». Таким образом, в самом своем бытии остается нормативный подход, но он не обсуждается в каком-то вакууме. Цели и предмета, конечно, недостаточно, чтобы называть дело наукой, но оно должно обладать систематическим и организованным знанием предмета в форме поддающихся проверке объяснений или принципов, каких-то правил поведения или методов. Благодаря теории справедливости Ролза, а также политическим теоретикам его века, мы получили методы, которые проверяют мыслительный процесс теории. Однако использование одного и того же метода не приносит с собой равного уровня теоретизирования. В то время как теория справедливости Ролза создает новое общество, нормы которого противоречат нашему 359 существующему обществу, теория консоциальной демократии Лейпхарта участвует в модернизации существующей системы, опираясь на эмпирические данные и дедуктивные выводы. Другими словами, теория справедливости является вершиной теоретической области, а с другой стороны, теория консоциальной демократии показывает нам нижнюю границу теоретизирования, необходимую для теории.
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The article examines the political ethos based on Aristotle. Political ethos refers to a political historical community in which citizens jointly nurture the juridical state as an environment for the well-being and happiness of the individual. On the one hand, the ethos of citizenship forces participation in court and governance. On the other hand, the participation in these common public affairs forms and expresses a political ethos. Episodes of Socrates’ life are examined, raising the question of political ethos. Socrates was sentenced as an outstanding individual who disturbed the routine in a polis for a living political ethos. Issues of metapolitics and metacommunication, inseparable from the political ethos, are discussed. When discussing the ethical limits of politics in dialogue, metapolitics works together with metacommunication. Thus, metapolitics, which implies a political ethos, is a political practice by which citizens test the limits of politics. A semiotic cube is presented covering the interconnections between (meta)politics, (meta)communication, and (meta)education. The ancient cases appeal to contemporary democracy and its crises.
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The article discusses the influence of Aristotle on Ptolemy I. It is established that Ptolemy I managed to put into practice the ideas of Aristotle about a virtuous monarch and a state in which citizens lead a contemplative life. The reign of Ptolemy I fully corresponded to Aristotle's ideas of absolute monarchy. According to Aristotle, a monarch can have absolute power only if he has exceptional virtue. According to Aristotle, the main political virtue is prudence. This virtue is associated with making the right decisions in public administration. As we have shown, Ptolemy I was a very prudent monarch who managed to build a strong and prosperous state in Egypt. Also, Ptolemy I brought to life the idea of Aristotle on the establishment of a major research center. The Museum and Library in Alexandria became the place where Greek scientists and philosophers could lead a contemplative life in full accordance with Aristotle's views on the ideal state.
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In order to understand today’s social and political situation in East-Central Europe, one should examine in particular the consequences of post-socialist transformation. The negative and often very painful effects of the social changes that affected Central and Eastern Europe over the last three decades have not been overcome until today. This makes it all the more important to be better “prepared” philosophically for future social changes. François Jullien comes up with a theoretical solution. In the first part of my paper, taking Jullien’s book The Silent Transformations as a point of departure, I show that many of the problems that still exist in East-Central Europe largely result from placing too much emphasis on the event of the revolution and too little on the transformation experienced by the region’s populations. Such “intellectual blindness” may be seen as a consequence of the dominance of the transitological approach in political and social sciences of the time, which is analyzed towards the end of the first part through (an outline of) Boris Buden’s critique. In the second and third parts, I suggest, pace Jullien, a way towards a moderate, “sober”, but nevertheless creative and productive understanding of the active agent by appealing to the work of Hans-Herbert Kögler and Fabian Heubel.
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The goal of this paper is to bring together the constructivist approach to public policy and Michel Foucault's concepts of knowledge, power, and truth, and to synthetize useful insights for public policy research from that connection. First, the characteristics of the constructivist approach are elaborated, and commentary is provided on the distinction between "rigid" and "soft" constructivism, and the answers to certain criticisms of constructivism are provided. Then, Foucault's concept of truth is elaborated in detail, as well as other important concepts in Foucault's conceptual apparatus such as knowledge, power and discourse. Finally, the connection between Foucault's work and constructivism is presented. The overarching question of the paper is the question of the possibility of establishing objective truth in the area of social sciences, and the relevance of objective truth for public policy and the political field in general.
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The content of political doctrines and dominant lines of practical politics is legitimised by the ef- fort to implement the ideal of a good, free society by applying the idea of reason. At the same time, its performance not only defines the conditions for the theoretical justification of the idea of power, but also becomes a tool for its implementation. The primary goal of this paper is in an endeavour to place the normative nature of current (democratic) political regimes where we encounter the need for a more fundamental theoretical argument that would enable us to respond to their dynamic, often contradictory development. One of the consequences of such fixation is in the division of sciences into the realms of nature and society, the independence of their methodological orientation, or the factual and theoretical division of human reality into rationalism (means, technology, efficiency) and human values and mean- ings which become the domain of irrationalism. Therefore, from the perspective of modern political systems, irrationally conditioned modelling of reality under the guise of rationality may be considered an important aspect of the ideological compromise between politics, economics, and the media sphere on the lasting continuity of prosperity for the rich ones.
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The subject of this article is anarchism interpreted as a form of opposition and an alternative to the dominant narrative about the contemporary Western world. The aim of the article is to indicate the areas that shape the dominant narrative about the world and the methods and arguments used by anarchists in attempts to disrupt this narrative by creating their own narrative. The author formulated a hypothesis according to which European anarchism defined the idea of freedom in opposition to the concept of freedom inherent in liberal democracy and consumerism, redefined democracy, criticized the tendencies inherent in modern politics, such as European integration and militarism, as well as the spread of economic patterns inherent in neoliberalism and materialistic and consumerist attitudes of modern societies. The method used to verify this hypothesis is an aspectual analysis carried out in the context of the above mentioned problems on the basis of program documents, propaganda texts and journalism of the contemporary anarchist movement in Europe.
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The North Korean state doctrine Juche regards itself as philosophical system, though from a Western angle, it fails to fit into the definition of philosophy. Nevertheless, it is interesting to analyze whether it shares the basic characteristics demanded of a philosophical system with emphasis to system, because if it is a systemized thought, then it might be transferred into a philosophical stage. To do so, it must have a philosophical nature as ground which has to be excavated from all the non-philosophical elements and laid bare to unfold. In this paper, we will see that though Juche itself is not fully systemized, it consists of principles which are of philosophical nature, as well as extensions to accelerate the power in the hands of a few and guarantee obedience. If these undemocratic features are given up, several doctrines might unfold that could give a perspective, while Juche as it is now has no future to lead into transformation to a democratic nation-state.
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This paper offers an outline of practical and theoretical relations between truth and rhetoric. A point of departure for considerations to follow are philosophical theories of the sophists, Plato, and Aristotle as well as modern commentators of political rhetoric. I argue that the predominantly rhetorical nature of contemporary culture is inextricably bound up with the controversial issue of political deception, its definition and function. I refer to the theories of Hannah Arendt and Jacques Derrida pertaining to the following issues: a relation between acting and lying, mass deception, and self–deception in totalitarian states. I further propose that classical ethics developing from Plato, Aristotle and Kant fails as a basis for the analysis of political and social processes in democratic societies. Key to grasping these processes is rhetoric – as an art of persuasion – which has nothing to do with the traditional true–false dichotomy.
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Interview with Javor Gardev who is a visiting Fulbright fellow at Northwestern University. He is currently a PhD Candidate at the New Bulgarian University of Sofia, under the supervision of Professor Hristo Todorov. He wrote and defended his MPhil thesis “Phenomenology of the Ecstatic Theatre” at Sofia University “St. Kliment of Ohrid” in 1997. He also holds an MFA degree in directing from The National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia. He has staged 48 theatrical productions in his home country and abroad, which were presented in Sofia, Berlin, Paris, Lille, Bern, Seattle, Chicago, Gdansk, Moscow, St.Petersburg, Lisbon, Rotterdam, Utrecht, etc. His feature film debut Zift won nineteen domestic and international awards and was presented at fifty-four film festivals. Zift was part of the catalogues of the Independent Film Channel, Sundance Channel, Netflix, and HBO Go. Javor Gardev has directed several radio-dramas and authored performance art and video art works. He is a member of the European Film Academy and an affiliated director of the Drama League of New York.
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