People construe reality by using words as basic units of meaningful categorization. The present theory-driven study applied the method of a free association task to explore how people express the concepts of the world and the self in words. The respondents were asked to recall any five words relating with the word world. Afterwards they were asked to recall any five words relating with the word self. The method of free association provided the respondents with absolute freedom to choose any (...) words they wanted. Such free recall task is suggested as being a relatively direct approach to the respondents’ self- and world-related conceptual categories, without enormous rational processing. The results provide us, first, with associative ranges for constructs of the world and the self, where some associative dimensions are defined by semantic polarities in the meanings of peripheral categories (e.g., Nature vs. Culture). Second, our analysis showed that some groups of verbal categories that were associated with the words world and self are central, while others are peripheral with respect to the central position. Third, the analysis of category networks revealed that some categories play the role of a transmitter, mediating the pathway between other categories in the network. (shrink)

The personality traits of social work leaders are important factors influencing ethical decision-making in organisations. The lack of empirical evidence with regard to the relationship between personal authenticity and ethical decision-making in social work stimulated the present study. Two hundred thirty-eight leaders (81.9% female) from organisations working in various fields of social work were administrated with the Authenticity Scale, Managerial Ethical Profile, and conducted two free association tasks with the cue words authenticity and self. Authenticity was positively correlated with ethical (...) decision-making. In contrast, authenticity was not correlated with the tendency to make decisions in an effort to maximise economic profit for the organisation. The results of the present study have important practical implications for the social work sector. The positive correlation of authenticity with ethical decision-making indicates that positive reinforcement of authenticity in leaders could possibly lead to supporting ethical decision-making within an organisation. Therefore, supporting authenticity in leaders working in social work may also help foster quality services and prevent unethical behaviour. (shrink)

A tension between perspectives that emphasize deterministic versus stochastic processes has sparked controversy in ecology since pre-Darwinian times. The most recent manifestation of the contrasting perspectives arose with Hubbell’s proposed “neutral theory”, which hypothesizes a paramount role for stochasticity in ecological community composition. Here we shall refer to the deterministic and the stochastic perspectives as the niche-based and neutral-based research programs, respectively. Our goal is to represent these perspectives in the context of Lakatos’ notion of a scientific research program. We (...) argue that the niche-based program exhibits all the characteristics of a robust, progressive research program, including the ability to deal with disconfirming data by generating new testable predictions within the program. In contrast, the neutral-based program succeeds as a mathematical tool to capture, as epiphenomena, broad-scale patterns of ecological communities but appears to handle disconfirming data by incorporating hypotheses and assumptions from outside the program, specifically, from the niche-based program. We conclude that the neutral research program fits the Lakatosian characterization of a degenerate research program. (shrink)

This paper deals with the theoretical concepts of image and imagery as used by the foremost imaginal psychologists. Attributing primary epistemological status to image and imagery, imaginal psychology school developed a new theory of image and imagery, questioning the older thesis on the derivative and secondary epistemological status of the image. Using Jung’s concept of the autonomous psyche of an essentially archetypal nature, Hillman started to question Jung’s concept of the Self as a central archetype symbolizing a sort of disguised (...) traditional monotheism (the Christian God, the Jewish Yahweh etc.) like Freud’s sexuality (id) or central cultural myth (the Oedipus myth). Imaginal psychology defends essential sovereignty and the equality of all images and the resultant polytheist psychology. Jungian studies set out it this direction, giving birth to parallel developments to imaginal psychology in various fields. Derrida’s and Feyerabend’s rejection of an ultimate referential frame was not identical to but corresponds to Hillman’s and Vannoy Adam’s discovery that it is fantasy that rules the psyche. (shrink)

V příspěvku připomínáme originální spolupráci s prof. P. Maternou, která začala v 60. letech minulého století a vedla ke vzniku třísložkové teorie jazyka, jejímiž autory jsou spolu s Pavlem Maternou Karel Pala a Aleš Svoboda. Články o třísložkové teorii byly publikovány v r. 1976 a 1979, ovšem jméno P. Materny se v titulcích článků ne­smělo objevit, byl tak komunistickým režimem trestán za vyloučení z KSČ v r. 1969. Třísložková teorie jazyka, jak název naznačuje, pokrývá tři základní komponenty sys­tému jazyka, (...) tedy syntax, sémantiku a pragmatiku, a je plně srovnatelná s podobnými pokusy u nás i v zahraničí. Stala se východiskem pro další propojení logiky, lingvistiky a informatiky díky působení K. Paly a P. Materny na Fakultě informatiky od roku 1995. Do této spolupráce se zapojili studenti Fakulty informatiky, zejména Aleš Horák, jehož zásadním příspěvkem je počítačová implementace systému transparentní intenzionální logiky (TILu) ve vztahu ke zpracování přirozeného jazyka (češtiny). (shrink)

This book reflects on Indonesia's recent experience with REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), all set within a broader discussion of neoliberal environmentalism, hyper-capitalism and Indonesian carbon politics. Drawing on the author's political ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Jakarta, Central Sulawesi and Oslo, where the author examined Norway's interests and role in implementing REDD, this book discusses the long evolution of the idea that foreign state and private financing can be used to protect tropical forests and the carbon stored (...) within them, resulting in both local economic development and global climate benefits. It shows how neoliberal environmental approaches to climate change, of which REDD is a leading example, increases the severity of political contestations that must be overcome to reach global climate mitigation goals, and how recent incarnations of REDD have tended to forget earlier scholarly advice to couple anti-deforestation approaches with policies that reduce industrial carbon emissions. In Indonesia, tectonic political and economic forces are shown to have negatively impacted REDD implementation. Using a political ecology approach, the book links the literature on REDD with that covering Indonesia's recent democratic regression, highlighting how the country's environmental performance is inextricably linked to the timbre of its political governance. Given the severity of the political contestations that must be overcome to reach its stated goals, REDD cannot replace global policies that drastically reduce industrial carbon emissions. This book will be of great interests to students and scholars of political ecology, deforestation, climate change, environmental politics, natural resource management and environmental conservation. (shrink)

The paper is primarily devoted to Nietzsche’s account of cruelty, which represents an indispensable key to understanding Nietzsche’s genealogical project in many of its essential aspects. This study is complemented by parallels with two other outstanding intellectual figures of the late nineteenth century: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Dostoevsky wrote that “civilisation has made mankind if not more bloodthirsty, at least more vilely, more loathsomely bloodthirsty.” Nietzsche went a step further in this assessment: not only does civilisation not (...) make us immune to cruelty, but it must itself be seen to emerge directly from cruelty at every significant step it has taken. What brings Nietzsche close to Masoch, on the other hand, is the fact that these historical or even prehistorical developments that have shaped humankind and civilisation are not only related to cruelty, but must be observed as various forms of the internalisation (“spiritualisation”, “deification”) of cruelty. The core of the study is devoted to analyses of different forms and aspects of Nietzsche’s concept of the internalisation of cruelty (in relation to power-relations, subject-object relations, mutations of pleasure, and perversions). (shrink)

This essay is part of a project that has set out, as one of its primary objectives, to observe perversions as important indicators of broader changes and developments within society. Both of the momenta I follow in this study meet all the requirements for such an inquiry. The first development to be examined is what I will call the decline of pornography. At a time when all of society is increasingly becoming pornographic in so many ways, it sounds strange to (...) talk about the decline of pornography. And yet pornography as a genre is, I believe, losing ground to something else – to a distinctly different system of unfolding sexuality and its economic exploitation. The second development to be discussed is the rise of masochism. In this context, I will analyse certain reports that show that, especially since the outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19, the number of people practicing masochistic “heavy play” has increased significantly. It appears that in a period when one would expect people to be dreaming of the lifting of restrictions, freedom, or whatever, many have chosen to undertake the cruel path of “servitude”. Eventually, I will show that these two developments are essentially connected, probably even consubstantial. (shrink)

Admitting hospital patients: a qualitative study of an everyday nursing task In recent years new modes of nursing work have been introduced globally in response to radical changes in healthcare policies, technology and new ideologies of citizenship. These transformations have redefined orthodox nurse–patient relationships and further complicated the division of labour within health‐care. One distinctive feature of the work of registered nurses has been their initial assessment of patients being admitted to hospital, and it is of interest that this area (...) of nursing practice remains central to the registered nurse's role at a time where other areas of practice have been relinquished to other occupational groups. This qualitative study, drawing on conversation analysis and ethnographic techniques, explores this area of everyday nursing work. Initial nursing assessments have attracted considerable interest in the nursing literature, where it is clearly stated that assessments should be patient centred and seen as the important first step on the road to a therapeutic nurse–patient relationship. Results from this study lead to the conclusion that the actual nursing practice of patient assessment on admission to hospital is at odds with the recommendations of the literature and that a more routinised, bureaucratic form of work is devised by nurses as a means of expediting the process of admission. (shrink)

The article is primarily a study of Nietzsche’s unpublished fragments from the period spring-autumn 1881, in which Nietzsche first developed his thought of the “eternal recurrence of the same.” In the article, I attempt to accomplish two goals: the first goal is to explain Nietzsche’s theses on the eternal recurrence, which at that time were still remarkably clear and coherent. And the second goal is to try to find in these same theses an explanation for their future silence. In other (...) words, the article examines the relationship between Nietzsche’s theses that he developed in 1881 and his book _Thus spoke Zarathustra_, which, in Nietzsche’s own words, relies on these theses as their “grounding thought,” but nevertheless never fully reveals them. Both lines of inquiry lead to the conclusion that the core of Nietzsche’s introduction of the idea of eternal recurrence is his concept of _Einverleibung_ or embodiment. Indeed, the analysis shows that Nietzsche’s main concern with the thought of eternal recurrence was not to set forth its clear articulation within consciousness, but rather to construct it in such a way that it could become an unconscious instinct capable of gradually displacing the “embodied mistakes” that dominate our thinking from within itself. (shrink)

In experimental cognitive psychology, objects of inquiry are typically operationalized with psychological tasks. When interpreting results from such tasks, we focus primarily on behavioral measures such as reaction times and accuracy rather than experiences – i.e., phenomenology – associated with the task, and posit that the tasks elicit the desired cognitive phenomenon. Evaluating whether the tasks indeed elicit the desired phenomenon can be facilitated by understanding the experience during task performance. In this paper we explore the breadth of experiences that (...) are elicited by and accompany task performance using in-depth phenomenological and qualitative methodology to gather subjective reports during the performance of a visuo-spatial change detection task. Thirty-one participants were asked to remember either colors, orientations or positions of the presented stimuli and recall them after a short delay. Qualitative reports revealed rich experiential landscapes associated with the task-performance, suggesting a distinction between two broad classes of experience: phenomena at the front of consciousness and background feelings. The former includes cognitive strategies and aspects of metacognition, whereas the latter include more difficult-to-detect aspects of experience that comprise the overall sense of experience. We focus primarily on the background feelings, since strategies of task-performance to a large extent map onto previously identified cognitive processes and discuss the methodological implications of our findings. (shrink)

Context: In sciences of the mind, cognitive phenomena are typically investigated with the use of psychological tasks. These usually represent highly constrained environments that isolate and make ….

Context: Perceptual presence is the experience wherein veridical objects are experienced as belonging to an observer-independent world. Problem: Experimental investigations of perceptual presence ….

Věda a vědecká práce jsou dle obecně přijatého axiomu považovány za něco, co generuje vědecké objevy, a tím pozitivně posouvá lidskou civilizaci směrem dopředu. Vědeckým objevům v určitých oblastech však vytváří bariéry základní vlastnost široké skupiny jevů - neměřitelnost. Zejména ve společenských vědách je neměřitelnost jevu spojena s absencí tzv. tvrdých dat, která omezuje okruh metod, jež by mohly být aplikovány v cestě za vědeckým objevem. Existuje však metoda, která si klade za cíl eliminovat tento deficit a s jejíž pomocí (...) lze, pří dodržování zásad správného použití, kvantifikovat proměnné, které se zdají být na první pohled neměřitelné. Tato metoda se nazývá škálování. Text příspěvku pojednává o přístupu filozofie a metodologie vědy k neměřitelným faktorům a jejich potenciální kvantifikaci pomocí jednorozměrné šalovací metody nazvané Likertovo škálování. Stať paperu se věnuje popisu této metody, analýze jejích kladů a záporů a detailnímu návodu na její aplikaci. V závěru je zodpovězena otázka, zda má pro vědce smysl věnovat čas studiu nových metod (např. právě škálování), když toto pro vědce vzdělaného v určitém oboru generuje velmi vysoké náklady obětované příležitosti? Studium nových metod smysl rozhodně má, neboť obětovaná příležitost je dle výkladu středního proudu v ekonomii označována jako "druhá nejlepší varianta" za podmínky dokonalé informovanosti o dostupných alternativách. Bez uspokojivé znalosti studovaných nových metod však nemůžeme označit doposud aplikovanou metodu za nejvhodnější - to je hlavní argument podporující studium nových metod. (shrink)

This book focuses on how 'cult rhetoric' affects our perceptions of new religious movements (NRMs). 'Cult' Rhetoric in the 21st Century explores contemporary understandings of the term 'cult' by bringing together a range of scholars from multiple disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, psychology, and religious studies. The book provides a renewed discussion of 'new religious movements', whilst also considering recent approaches toward a nuanced study of contemporary religion. Topics explored include online religions, political 'cults', 'apostate' testimony and the current 'othered' position (...) of the study of minority religions. (shrink)

Fenomenologie není pouze specifická metoda filosofického zkoumání, ale též svébytná filosofická pozice. Husserl je znám a diskutován spíše jako autor právě zmíněné metody, ovšem ta přeci měla sloužit jakožto organon pro vytvoření samostatné filosofické nauky. Proto se bude v příspěvku věnovat pozornost Husserlovu chápání toho, co je to filosofie, a to v kontrastu proti dobově populárním filosofickým pozicím, jimiž byly naturalismus a filosofie světového názoru s jeho nejodpudivější podobou nazývanou Husserlem pejorativně „Tiefsinn“: důvtipná duchaplnost. Husserl zamýšlí odstranit oba zmíněné typy (...) filosofie skutečně přísně vědeckou filosofií, jež bude filosofií fenomenologickou. (shrink)

The article draws attention to a certain multi-layered parallel between Nietzsche and Badiou’s theory of the event, which the author argues Badiou evaded by a kind of strategic relocation. The article does not focus so much on (and certainly not against) Badiou’s philosophy, but attempts to assess the possible implications of this relocation for Badiou’s interpretation of Nietzsche. In the first part of the article, the key concepts of Badiou’s account of Nietzsche are introduced, such as “archi-politics”, “antiphilosophy”, and the (...) “event Nietzsche”. Later, it is shown that, despite some fundamental differences, there is a strong resemblance between some key concepts of Badiou’s theory of the event, especially those related to the notion of “intervention”, and some concepts found in Nietzsche. Finally, the paper focuses on the problem of the “death of God”, which is somehow absent in Badiou’s interpretation, even though the term itself resonates strongly in various aspects of Badiou’s philosophy. (shrink)

The vertebrate eye lens has been used extensively as a model for developmental processes such as determination, embryonic induction, cellular differentiation, transdifferentiation and regeneration, with the crystallin genes being a prime example of developmentally controlled, tissue‐preferred gene expression. Recent studies have shown that Pax‐6, a transcription factor containing both a paired domain and homeodomain, is a key protein regulating lens determination and crystallin gene expression in the lens. The use of Pax‐6 for expression of different crystallin genes provides a new (...) link at the developmental and transcriptional level among the diverse crystallins and may lead to new insights into their evolutionary recruitment as refractive proteins. (shrink)

The article takes as its venture-point the thesis that – whilst speaking of Nietzsche’s critique of objectivity – it is impossible to avoid the following fundamental problem: according to Nietzsche, objectivity and criticism are two facets of the same tendency that the “philosophy of the future” will have to overcome in the higher form of the philosophical “creation of new values”. From this perspective, it also becomes possible to explain Nietzsche’s decision to focus his critique in an attempt to intervene (...) against what he calls Rangverschiebung, the “shift in rank ordering,” of the relationship between philosophy and science. Namely, by doing so, he immediately positioned the philosophical critique on a terrain that does not allow for the critique to follow its spontaneous tendency towards the ideal of objectivity. The first part of the article addresses the epistemological aspect of Nietzsche’s critique of objectivity, i.e. it explains why Nietzsche rejected all philosophical criteria of the foundation of objective understanding. The second part, by contrast, explains how it is possible, according to Nietzsche, to intervene against the ongoing process of the “shift in rank ordering” within the relationship between philosophy and science, which ultimately leads to a harmful complete monopolisation of truth by the ideal of scientific objectivity. (shrink)

In the mid 30s of the 20th century Martin Heidegger attempted to explain the “history of Being” leading to what he called “the oblivion of Being”. In this he focused on the impact of the modern science, which he grants to be a sort of metaphysics. According to Heidegger, the main feature of the modern science consists in what he calls the mathéma-character. The Greek word “to mathéma” means “it what can be learned” and “what must be know beforehand”. It (...) is Heidegger’s intention to show that the mathéma-character of the modern science is deciding about the general understanding of the meaning of “being” and that modern science is replacing the metaphysics, which is the origin of the modern science. (shrink)

This book proposes a new interpretative key for reading and overcoming the binary of idealism and realism. It explores the way human consciousness unfolds through the relationship between the I and the world-a field of phenomenological investigation that cannot and must not remain closed within the limits of its own disciplinary boundaries. The book focuses on the question of realism in contemporary debates, ultimately dismantling prejudices and automatisms that one finds therein. It shows that at the root of the controversy (...) between realism and idealism there often lie equivocations of a semantic nature. By returning to the origins of modern phenomenology this study mines the Husserlian concept of transcendental idealism. Following this path, and neutralizing the extreme positions of an acritical idealism and a naïve realism, the book proposes a "transcendental realism": the horizon of a dynamic unity that embraces the process of cognition and that grounds the relation, and not the subordination, of subject and object. The close reading of this reciprocity offered here allows one to surpass the limits of the domain of knowing, leading one to fundamental questions about the ultimate sense of things and their origin. (shrink)

During development of the anterior eye segment, cells that originate from the surface epithelium or the neuroepithelium need to interact with mesenchymal cells, which predominantly originate from the neural crest. Failures of proper interaction result in a complex of developmental disorders such Peters' anomaly, Axenfeld–Rieger's syndrome or aniridia. Here we review the role of transcription factors that have been identified to be involved in the coordination of anterior eye development. Among these factors is PAX6, which is active in both epithelial (...) and mesenchymal cells during ocular development, albeit at different doses and times. We propose that PAX6 is a key element that synchronizes the complex interaction of cell types of different origin, which are all needed for proper morphogenesis of the anterior eye. We discuss several molecular mechanisms that might explain the effects of haploinsufficiency of PAX6 and other transcription factors, and the broad variation of the resulting phenotypes. BioEssays 26:374–386, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In the late 19th century, T. G. Masaryk presented his national programme. This vision of modern Czech society rested on the ideals of humanity, thus infusing the national ethos with a universal dimension. The significance of T. G. Masaryk's thought is investigated by current Czech thinkers in this volume.

The essay attempts to point out the benefits of reading Peter Sloterdijk’s works from the perspective of German studies. In the course of the paper, Sloterdijk is introduced in his various individual roles. First, his early steps in German studies are described, followed by an assessment of the influence of his German-studies works on the formulation of philosophical problems and stances. After that, Sloterdijk is presented as an exponent of certain typical development, as a diagnostician of problems that post-war Germany (...) faced in its transformation into a civic society. The final part consists of reflections on his observational abilities in descriptions of interdisciplinary misunderstandings and in the creation of transdisciplinary analogies. (shrink)

Přednáška poukazuje na roli O. Marquarda v úvahách o poválečném němectví. Jeho studie Obtíže s filosofií dějin je představena jako cenné vodítko, které napomáhá lépe charakterizovat hlavní rysy reflexe němectví a současně nastiňuje východisko ze slepých uliček, do nichž se toto téma dostává v literárních i neliterárních textech. Marquardem nastíněný střet mezi filosofií dějin a antropologií, který u něho vyústil do skeptického postoje, je v této studii analogicky přenášen mimo filosofii. Vypovídá o opakujících se rozporech mezi německými historiky a rovněž (...) umožňuje výstižně popsat proměny úvah o němectví v díle německých literátů – Marquardových vrstevníků -, jako jsou Martin Walser, Günter Grass nebo H. M. Enzensberger. (shrink)

The lecture focuses on the role of O. Marquard in the discussions on post-war Germany. His study The Difficulties with Philosophy of History is introduced as a valuable guide to the characterization of the main features of the reflection of German identity and it outlines the ways to the resolution of a stalemate that this theme has reached in both literary and non-literary texts. In this study, the clash between philosophy of history and anthropology, which Marquard outlined and which resulted (...) in his sceptical stance, is applied outside philosophy. It describes repeated conflicts between German historians and enables an apt characterization of the changes in the discussions on German identity in the works of German authors – Marquard’s contemporaries – such as Martin Walser, Günter Grass or H. M. Enzensberger. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl obdržel v roce 1927 nabídku od Jamese Louise Garvina, britského editora Encyclopædia Britannica, ať napíše pro novou, tehdy čtrnáctou edici článek „Fenomenologie“. Garvin stanovil rozsah článku na 4000 slov a termín vydání na září roku 1929. Husserl pracoval na článku v časovém rozmezí mezi zářím a prosincem roku 1927, během kterého vyhotovil celkem čtyři verze. Husserl požádal o spolupráci na prvních třech verzích svého žáka Martina Heideggera, který toho času zastával profesorský stolec na univerzitě v Marburku. Heidegger strávil (...) v říjnu 1927 u Husserla několik dní, během kterých intenzivně pracovali na řečeném článku. Nicméně jejich spolupráce vedla ke vzájemnému profesnímu odcizení, protože práce na formulování článku dala vytanout nepřekonatelným obsahovým diferencím mezi oběma filosofy. Na základě Heideggerových nepřijatelných návrhů a připomínek Husserl nakonec sepsal finální, čtvrtou verzi článku již sám. Tuto poslední verzi čítající 7000 slov pak Husserl předal oxfordskému učenci Christopheru V. Salmonovi, který ji měl zkrátit a přeložit do angličtiny. Salmon sice v únoru roku 1928 opravdu dodal do redakce EB text čítající 3844 slov bez bibliografie, ovšem nejednalo se vpravdě o překlad, nýbrž dost svévolnou parafrázi. Tato podoba Husserlova článku se pak objevovala ve čtrnácté edici EB, jež se vydávala až do roku 1974, jen do roku 1956, kdy byla nahrazena článkem napsaným Johnem N. Findlayem. Původní podoba Husserlova článku byla poprvé zveřejněna až roku 1962 v rámci jeho sebraných spisů známých pod označením Husserliana, podle jejichž IX. svazku jsme vyhotovili předložený překlad z německého jazyka. Podle této edice rovněž uvádíme paginaci, která je uvedena v hranatých závorkách, přičemž stránkový přechod indikuje v textu umístěná značka |.U příležitosti 80. výročí Husserlova skonu, který připadl na rok 2018, bylo naším záměrem připomenout přínos a odkaz tohoto našeho krajana tím, že napravíme absenci překladu jeho patrně nejvíce instruktivního, přehledného a programového textu, který byť ve zkomolené podobě anglického „překladu“, po dlouhou dobu seznamoval učenou veřejnost s tím, co je to fenomenologie. (shrink)

The study of individual experience during the performance of a psychological task using a phenomenological approach is a relatively new area of research. The aim of this paper was to combine first‐ and third‐person approaches to investigate whether the strategies individuals use during a working memory task are associated with specific task conditions, whether the strategies combine to form stable patterns, and whether the use of specific strategies is related to task accuracy. Thirty‐one participants took part in an experiment in (...) which they were instructed to remember colors, orientations, or positions of stimuli presented in a change detection task. After every 7th–15th trial, participants took part in an in‐depth phenomenological interview in which they described their experiences during the trial that immediately preceded the interview. Qualitative analysis revealed a set of 18 strategies that participants used while performing the task, which we divided into active and passive strategies of encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. Quantitative analysis revealed that while many strategies were used in all task conditions, some strategies and their combinations may be better suited to the specific task demands, while others are more general in nature. The results also suggest a distinction between strategies for encoding object identity and spatial features. Finally, our results did not provide robust evidence for a relationship between specific strategies and task accuracy. (shrink)

This interview is inspired the most important working-hypothesis presented in the volume Aesthetic Revolutions and the Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Movements, edited by Aleš Erjavec, that questions the legitimacy of the distinction between aesthetic and artistic avant-gardes, supported by the relationship of each concept with the modern revolutionary politics. The relevance of this contrast for determining modernity both in its ideological shape and its continuity, in the terms of postmodernity will be criticized in our discussion with professor Erjavec, reflecting on the (...) manner in which the artistic communities representative for Surrealism, Russian constructivism, Situationist International, Dadaism, Italian Futurism, 1960s American Art, as well as for Slovenian, Mexican or Romanian artistic movements of the 20th century opened the path for different democratic or totalitarian political attitudes, practices and ambitions. (shrink)

The aim of the study presented here is to show that Jasper’s idea of university is intended to present a defence of philosophical life of a university against its reduction to a merely utilitarian concept. Jaspers follows up on the enlightened role of philosophy within university education and develops it in the conditions of the dark twentieth century. He views philosophical life as a precondition for preserving university as a place of a close bond between science and humanity, which turned (...) out to be much needed at a time of the rise of Nazism in Germany. The study shows the crucial importance of philosophy, science and education in Jaspers' thought for the preservation of a free university. This study shows, within a historical context, the restoration of university in democratic conditions after the end of the Nazi Era. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to analyze the way in which Edith Stein describes the human subject throughout her research, including her phenomenological phaseand the period of her Christian philosophy. In order to do this, I trace essential moments in Husserl’s philosophy, showing both Stein’s reliance upon Husserl andher originality. Both thinkers believe that an analysis of the human being can be carried out by examining consciousness and its lived experiences. Through suchan examination Stein arrives at the same conclusion (...) as Husserl, namely, that the human subject is formed of body, psyche, and spirit (Geist). Stein’s originalityconsists in a further development of the complexity of the human being. She maps this out, providing detailed analyses of the I, the soul, the spirit, and, ultimately,the person. She makes use of medieval philosophical anthropology, including that of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. (shrink)

In the study of the soul between psychology and phenomenology in Edith Stein works it becomes clearer that it is only phenomenology that really comes to gripswith the question of psychic causality by correlating the two moments and it is therefore only phenomenology that can respond to Hume’s objections while yetremaining on his selfsame terrain. It is very important to distinguish between psychology and phenomenology and also to clarify the relationship between psyche and consciousness; there is thus reproposed the distinction (...) already made by Husserl, who stressed that when one sets out to look for the causes that determine psychic life, they must not be sought in life feelings (Lebensgefühle) but rather in the „modes” of a life force (Lebenskraft) that is announced in them. All this is indicated here within limits because psychology in itself is undoubtedly not a science of the spirit, though the psychic states, on the other hand, will not be validly understood unless and until one arrives, as is demonstrated in the essay under consideration, at the motivation and therefore the spiritual sphere. We would say that our body is animated by a psyche and further enlivened by the spirit. (shrink)