Cover of The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy
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series introduction
1. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Ioanna Kuçuradi Series Introduction
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volume introduction
2. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
William L. McBride Volume Introduction
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section: the nature and tasks of social philosophy
3. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Jurate Morkuniene Contemporary Social Philosophy: The Problem of the Method and the Goals
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In the modern world, with the processes of social development gaining accelerated rates, a new philosophical image of the world emerges, accompanied by the formation of a new social philosophy. Contemporary social philosophy is not a monosemantically defined field of the usage of notions, because it generalizes the most complicated and rapidly changing objects such as society and man. In this sense social philosophy is always incomplete, relatively open and, therefore, a temporary, theoretically "imperfect", "nonsystematic". Over the last few decades social philosophy has suffered a deep crisis. This crisis was evoked by changes in the paradigm of science. Philosophy was too slow with its reaction to these changes; its former means of cognition failed to explain the new, rapid processes of social life. Philosophy began to get out of the crisis for two reasons. First, social theory felt the need of new, more general means of explanation, of a metatheory, which can be nothing else but philosophy. Second, philosophy itself changed its orientation, entered the paradigm of integrity, accepted the idea of society as an open system. The task of contemporary philosophy is not only to attain truth, but also to show how this truth can become active. Contemporary philosophy is the means of both thinking and action. Philosophy has no absolutely accomplished truth any more: it is searching for the truth of its time.
4. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Jozef Sivák Le Philosophe dans la cité
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Quelle est la place du philosophe dans son environnemen social (societe civile) en general et aux moments des grands bouleversements sociopolitiques en particulier? S'il doit en parier, doit-il agir en acteur aussi ? Ne risque-t-il pas de perdre son identite professionnelle? 1 Ä son habitus intellectuel et scientifique s'ajoute ainsi une dimension ethique allant d'une attitude de sagesse et de distance ä une interpretation axiologique et essentialiste des phenomenes politiques. Toutefois, le philosophe n'est pas politicien et s'il lui arrive ä s'engager sur le plan politique, il risque de perdre son identite professionnelle, son autorite morale, et sa liberte.
5. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Iryna Predborska The Concept of "Multi-Dimensionality" in Social Philosophy
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This paper deals with the problem of the methodological foundations of social philosophy. The notion of "multidimensionality" as one of the key concepts in the new social philosophy paradigm is analyzed. This notion reflects some expanded pictures of the social and cultural world. The paper makes reference to H. Marcuse's, A. Toynbee's, R. Dahrendorfs, and P. Bourdieu's interpretations of multidimensionality. Their different approaches are considered. The author underlines the common positions of scholars' interpretations and shows the differences in terminology. Primary attention is paid to the analysis of how researchers develop and use this new notion. The significance of this notion for the analysis of social phenomenon is underlined. This explication demonstrates the heuristic possibilities of the concept "multi-dimensionality" for the exploration of society.
6. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Thalia Fung Philosophy: A New Knowledge and an Alternative Political Science
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Philosophy can enhance communication among new forms of knowledge, existing ones, and those that will arise in light of the heuristic possibilities of the revolutions in science, technology, and thought; it can turn to a reevaluation of all of the culture that humanity has produced for its own welfare and can prevent the loss of the differentiating essences of diverse social groups. In the conjugation of the forms of knowledge, I am interested in the relationship that has emerged between specialized scientific knowledge and ordinary knowledge, between the tradition, religion, art, and the evaluation of all that has previously been treated by philosophy. But if there is one discipline that I regard as privileged because of its effect on human actions, it is political science: public policy can provide a basis for planetary consciousness, a concern for mankind and for its potential destruction. The role of political philosophy is to serve as an ideological guide for a political science that would comprehend political behavior in relation to its consequences for individual human beings and would thus support actions favorable to humanity.
7. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Antoine Côté On the Very Idea of a Democratic Empire
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The short anonymous work known as the Constitution of the Athenians has long since fascinated scholars. Written sometime in the 5th century, during or just before the Peloponnesian War, it offers a scathing attack on Athenian democratic institutions. Its author is unknown but has traditionally been called the "Old Oligarch" in reference to his obvious political convictions. But the pamphlet's interest lies not so much in its critique of Athenian democracy as in the connection the author sees between these institutions and Athens' imperialist policies in the Aegean.
8. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Edward C. Halper Spinoza on the Political Value of Freedom of Religion
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The last chapter of Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) is a brief for freedom of religion. In our enthusiasm for Spinoza's conclusion it is easy to overlook the blatant contradiction between this thesis and the central claim of the immediately preceding chapter that "right over matters of religion is vested entirely in the sovereign." There Spinoza emphasizes the necessity that there be but one sovereign in the state and the threat that autonomous religious authorities would pose to the authority of this sovereign. This last claim is, in turn, bolstered by his analysis of the deficiencies of the Hebrew state in the chapter before, chapter 18, according to which it was the usurpation of political authority by priests that ultimately undermined the state. In other words, in chapters 18 and 19, Spinoza makes the case for the strict political control of religion only to conclude his treatise by arguing, in chapter 20, that the purpose of the state is, in reality, freedom and that that freedom manifests itself, in part, in freedom of religion. How could this latter not pose exactly the sort of threat to the sovereign and the state that leads Spinoza to insist on the sovereign's absolute control of religion? How can Spinoza insist that religion be both free and controlled by the state? This paper aims to answer this question and, in the process, explains a number of troubling features of the Theological-Political Treatise.
9. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Roberto Dante Flores Las Relaciones Interestatales en Hobbes y Morgenthau
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Este trabajo tiene por finalidad analizar la vision de dos autores sobre aspectos del poder y de la justicia entre los estados. Para ello tomamos dos de sus obras representativas que buscan comprender la politica de su tiempo: Leviatän escrito por el ingles Thomas Hobbes, publicado en 1651, y Politica entre las naciones escrito por el alemän Hans Morgenthau, publicado en 1948. El poder es la razön del soberano, su büsqueda estarä por encima de la justicia. Pero la instituciön de principios normativos que regulan el comportamiento de la sociedad es imperativa para mantener el orden y la paz. Esta paz es fruto del poder y no de la justicia, es fruto de la imposiciön del mäs fuerte y su capacidad para mantener el orden dependerä de la normativa juridica y de la fuerza coactiva para defenderla. Las pasiones humanas terminan en la razön que sostiene al Estado hobbesiano, las pasiones de los estadistas terminan en el orden juridico internacional morgenthauniano. El realismo de la büsqueda del poder constituye la base filosöfica para el desarrollo de una teoria emprrico-normativa que sirve de base a los analistas de politica exterior para comprender los actos de los estadistas e incluso adelantarse a sus acciones. La teoria en Morgenthau es la verificaciön de los hechos histöricos para darles sentido, mediante un metodo, a traves de la razön. La historia humana atravesada por el concepto de lucha por el poder es el enlace metodolögico que une a los dos autores.
10. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Ferit Güven Hegel and the Dialectic of Racism
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The modern conception of an atomistic subject constituting itself by excluding and dominating its other(s) remains insufficient for rethinking a "postcolonial subject" despite its merits in explaining the historical relationship between the Western subject and the Oriental other. Hegel seems to offer a promising alternative to this model. For Hegel, the construction of the subject does not take place in terms of the exclusion and oppression of, but in terms of a dialectical relationship to, its other, hence Hegel's model of subjectivity appears to be useful in rethinking the relation between the colonizer and the colonized in terms of mutual recognition and interdependent constitution. However, this appearance is misleading. In fact, the Hegelian model of the subject is the source of problems concerning the relation between self and other in general, and between the colonizer and the colonized in particular. Not only does Hegel attribute the possibility of the dialectical movement to a particular kind of subject (European), but his model of subjectivity reduces difference to opposition, and thereby obviates the possibility of rethinking a difference between the colonizer and the colonized. This paper tries to justify this observation through a discussion of Hegel's understanding of race as articulated in the third section of the Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften. I argue that Hegel's understanding of race in the context of the natural soul allows one to draw inferences concerning his general conception of subjectivity and dialectics. Accordingly, this paper claims that rather than providing an alternative model for postcolonial subjectivity, Hegel's notion of the subject grounds the colonial model itself.
11. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Endre Kiss Friedrich Nietzsche and Political Alternativity
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Nietzsche's fundamental vision of modern democracy includes an essential aspect which many tend to neglect given the indelible historical experience with totalitarian systems of the twentieth century. "Irresistible" democracy, precisely on account of its triumphant progress, also sets the course for, or, to use another contemporary expression, instrumentalizes the activities of its very enemies. It is, to say the least, quite striking to read such a claim made by a philosopher whose work Alfred Baeumler and Georg Lukäcs have labelled as extreme political archaism, while for a long time no serious objection was raised against this absurd verdict. We can see that Nietzsche's universalistic approach assigns a definite place to democratic systems and also specifies why these systems are of special relevance for the universal-emancipatory development of humankind. By stating the prophylactic character of the democratic system in such a decisive fashion, Nietzsche reaches the very core of his philosophy. By doing so he differs markedly and positively from several other political philosophers. The difference lies in the fact that for Nietzsche a given political system is not an ultimate value or objective, but, as already mentioned, an opportunity to realize universal human ambitions. This is why his political philosophy establishes a principled distinction between various political systems while also evaluating them according to their prophylactic potential to be utilized for the purposes of universal-emancipatory development.
section: from the early to the mid-twentieth century
12. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Louis Logister State Morality Versus Individual Freedom: A Deweyan Solution
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In the contemporary western, liberal, constitutional and secularized state, the need is felt for a cohesionconserving force. Human rights and citizenship, assets of Enlightenment and Revolution, prove to be individualizing powers that miss the communitarian inclination of former times. With the rise of violence, crime and other ways of breaking the law the state seems less able to fulfil its role as guardian of assets like freedom and security. The call for a strong state that interferes in people's behavior is often heard nowadays. Is there a way in which the state can promote a certain degree of moral substance without becoming paternalistic or even totalitarian? In this paper it is argued that the political philosophy of John Dewey might provide us with some tools to approach this problem in a refreshing way.
13. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Purabi Ghosh Roy Gandhi's Socio-Political Philosophy: Efficacy of Non-Violent Resistance
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In today's world the need for cultivating non-violence is becoming more pronounced. Gandhi extrapolated an ideal society based on truth and nonviolence. The Bombay Chronicle in its issue of 5th April, 1930, reported "...For the first time a nation is asked by its leader to win freedom by itself accepting all the suffering and sacrifice involved. Mahatma Gandhi's success does not, therefore, merely mean the freedom of India. It will also constitute the most important contribution that any country yet made towards the elimination of force as an arbiter between one nation and another..." For him, two cardinal principles of life, non-violence and truth, were the essence of sociopolitical good. "Satyagraha" was Gandhi's gift to the world. The word was coined by him in South Africa. In the West it was known as passive resistance. Satyagraha signified pure soul-force. Truth or Love is the very substance of the soul. To quote Gandhi in this context: "Non-violence as supreme dharma is the proof of this power of Love. Nonviolence is a dormant state. In the working state, it is Love, ruled by Love, the world goes on.... we are alive solely because of Love....we are all ourselves the proof of this..." In a centrifugal world, Gandhi's views expressed on non-violence and love are guidance to the world today more than at any other time.
14. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Teresa Orozco Paradigmenwechsel in der Humanismusdiskussion 1918-1950
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Mit dem Humanismus- Begriff artikulieren sich widersprüchliche bis entgegengesetzte Positionen, ohne ihn dadurch zu zersprengen. An der Humanismus-Diskussion vor 1933 und nach 1945 in Deutschland kann beobachtet werden, wie sich Bildungshumanisten in den Nazismus hineinarbeiten, welche Wandlungen sie in den internen Zäsuren des NS durchmachen und wie sie in der Nachkriegszeit in den Kampf um kulturelle Hegemonie eingreifen. Sowohl die Optik der Nachkriegforschung, wie die Transformation des Humanismus in der Weimarer Republik die zur, Selbstgleichschaltung' der Klassische Philologie 1933 führte und die symptomatische Renaissance des Humboldtschen Ideals nach 1945 werden im Vortrag an exemplarischen Beispiele erläutert.
15. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Stefan Gandler Warum schaut der Engel der Geschichte zurück?: Zu Walter Benjamins Thesen über den Begriff der Geschichte
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Der Engel der Geschichte in den Thesen von Walter Benjamin schaut zurück aus drei Gründen: Erstens, weil es epistemologisch unvermeidbar und notwendig ist, zurück zu schauen, oder: Der Engel kann nicht nach vorne sehen und muß nach hinten blicken, um seine Umgebung zu verstehen. Zweitens, weil ontologisch die Zukunft nicht existiert, da der .Fortschritt' keine Tendenz einer Annäherung an eine bessere Zukunft, sondern das Sich-Entfernen vom verlorenen Paradies ist, und weil die Zeit als etwas homogenes, das automatisch voranschreitet, nicht existiert. Drittens, weil es politisch notwendig ist, nach hinten zu schauen, weil es nicht möglich ist, dem Nationalsozialismus Einhalt zu bieten, wenn er als Ausnahmezustand, der einem unvermeidbaren Fortschritt diametral gegenübersteht, verstanden wird.
16. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Mikhail Polischuk Holosophy: An Essay toward a Philosophy of the Holocaust
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The tragic experience of the 20 century, the worst expression of which is the Holocaust, is a challenge to the fundamental values of civilized society. Many generations of thinkers will try to find a response to that challenge. The terrifying symbol of that challenge is Auschwitz, Universum Terroris, "the kingdom not of this world". Its understanding is beyond classical concepts of good and evil and cannot be described in the usual categories of crime and punishment. The entrance to this "kingdom" can be illustrated by Dante's words written at the entrance to Hell (Inferno): "Abandon hope all ye who enter". Finding no help either in God (the Almighty "has covered his face", as theologians put it) or in Reason (Reason has become madness), the shattered mind has to seek a new "measure of all things", to perceive wisdom born of despair, which we call holosophy.
section: thinkers of the late twentieth century
17. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Devrim Sezer Tradition and Dialogue in Gadamer, Heidegger and Habermas: Three Rival Accounts of Political Existence
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This paper explores the political implications of the tension between tradition and dialogue in Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneu tics. The premise of the paper is this: Gadamer's account of human existence challenges two very influential modes of thinking within contemporary political philosophy, which are exemplified, arguably at their best, in Martin Heidegger's early thought and Jürgen Habermas's project of communicative action. In contemporary political philosophy the Enlightenment heritage has been interpreted in such a way that tradition has come to be conceived as inevitably opposed to the ideals of Enlightenment, and that the extension of one as a major constitutive element in social and political affairs implies the retraction of the other. However, this paper attempts to conceive the problem of tradition in a more articulated context, suggesting that Gadamer's work offers a useful corrective both to Habermas's project and to the relativistic implications of Heidegger's early thought. By drawing on Gadamer's work, with particular emphasis upon his notion of the fusion of horizons, as well as on the work of thinkers such as Charles Taylor and Alasdair Maclntyre, this paper attempts to articulate a hermeneutical, dialogical interpretation of tradition, which suggests that Gadamer's thought acknowledges that living traditions are the site of ongoing debates, internal revisions, and critical turns, and that the notion of a closed horizon that is supposed to enclose a culture is an abstraction. In so doing it goes beyond the caricaturised account of tradition that is bandied about both in modernist thought and in the conservative outlook.
18. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Stéphane Courtois Habermas's Cosmopolitan Perspective on Individual Rights and the Nation-State: A Critical Assessment
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In this paper the author examines the main features of Jürgen Habermas's cosmopolitan view of the global political order. He specifically examines the importance Habermas accords respectively to individual rights and the nationstate in such an order. After demonstrating that a global political order founded on the defence of individual human rights rather than the nation-state is an assumption that should be taken seriously, the author maintains that it would be undesirable to attribute only a secondary role to the nation-sate. In the second part of the paper, he demonstrates that the nation-state has a positive role to play in the global era, and that those who predict its imminent demise will have to revisit their positions.
19. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Hsin-I Liu The Impossibility of the Public: Habermas's Socio-Philosophical Analysis of the "Mass Public Sphere"
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This paper critically evaluates Habermas's social-philosophical exploration of the public sphere in the age of mass communication, which addresses a key question: "Is the public possible in the sociohistorical formation of the mass public sphere?" In his genealogical analysis of different public spheres from feudal to modern times, Habermas indicates that the emergence of inter-subjectivity is historically based upon the dichotomy of private / public (subjective/objective). He emphasizes the opposition of the "subjective side" of rationality to its "objective side" while dealing with the public spheres in different historical periods. Habermas points out that the notion of the public can exist only at the face-to-face level communication. It is impossible for the (impersonal) masses to construct any sense of publicness, since there are no historical and social conditions in which the masses of working class can establish an "autonomous private sphere" outside of material production and consumption, as the bourgeoisie did. In this way, Habermas ambivalently argues that the public is not possible in the mass public sphere.
20. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Volume > 2
Luiz Bernardo Leite Araújo Habermas, Rawls et le pluralisme raisonnable does conceptions du bien
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La philosophic politique contemporaine est traversee par la question (ou le defi) du pluralisme. Parmi les theories les plus influentes, qui prennent ce probleme comme point de depart d'une reflexion normative sur la vie politique, on peut compter Celles de Habermas et de Rawls. La theorie discursive et le liberalisme politique, en effet, expriment d'une fagon similaire la question ä laquelle doit repondre toute theorie politique dans le cadre des societes modernes: comment l'existence d'une societe juste et libre est-elle possible sous les conditions d'un desaccord profond et permanent entre les doctrines comprehensives ou les visions du monde qui la composent? Meme si leurs reponses au defi du pluralisme divergent ä des points importants, Habermas et Rawls partagent aussi l'idee selon laquelle la legitimite d'une conception de la justice politique depend des raisons qui peuvent etre justifiees independamment du contenu normatif propre des doctrines comprehensives ou des visions du monde. Je pense que l'idee rawlsienne de la raison publique, au moins dans sa derniere etape de developpement, permet d'envisager une nouvelle reponse ä la critique habermassienne, dans la mesure oü le consensus par recoupement n'est pas simplement une convergence heureuse qui survient par hasard, mais au contraire ne peut jouer un role approprie dans la justification politique que s'il contribue ä la stabilite sociale pour des raisons correctes. La conception politique de la justice chez Rawls partage l'idee d'une democratic deliberative organisee autour d'un ideal de justification politique dont l'aspect central est le raisonnement public des citoyens. Cette justification politique ne saurait etre interpretee comme une accommodation pure et simple des doctrines comprehensives divergentes. Elle implique l'idee d'une acceptability rationnelle fondee sur le principe liberal de legitimite. Une telle interpretation nous montre que le liberalisme politique est plus proche de la theorie discursive que ces deux penseurs, pour des raisons differentes, seraient susceptibles d'admettre.