Preview: /Review: Paul Benjamin Cherlin, John Dewey’s Metaphysical Theory (New York, New York, Palgrave McMillian, 2023), 170 pages./ Philosophy has traditionally been defined as the love of wisdom. Understanding the love of wisdom is crucial to Paul Cherlin’s book John Dewey’s Metaphysical Theory. Cherlin’s short but broad-ranging study offers a view of the nature…
Abstract: This essay explicates the position of Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment on the problem of drugs. At the focus of my analysis are the passages in “Excursus I: Odysseus or Myth and Enlightenment” which interpret the Homeric myth of the Lotus-eaters in terms of the modern phenomenon of substance abuse. Since the Dialectic reads…
Abstract: The article discusses satisfaction with self-presentation as the way of functioning (modus vivendi) of a magnanimous man in relation to Aristotelian ethics. Even though self-presentation is usually considered as a kind of biologically determined instinct, it may be argued that self-presentation is also an aspect of the actions of a magnanimous man. Naturalist social theories concerning moral…
Abstract: We are at a moment in history where the mimetic system of attraction and repulsion, which René Girard considers the foundation of all pathologies of resentment, has reached the point of undifferentiation, both in culture and in an individual sense of agency. Describing the “explosion” associated with the “formation of organized collectives,” Jurij Lotman locates…
Abstract: The aim of this essay is to answer the question of what philosophy has to offer for the de-traumatization of unreflected history, or the historical sediments of the undifferentiated continuum of our consciousness. Often the historical sediments of everyday anxieties and imaginings have never been subjected to proper critical reflection, and the official…
Abstract: Experiencing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine gives grounds to define culture as a particular world of collective existence; one that is under an existential threat and therefore, this full-scale aggression should be considered a war on cultural world. This allows for the interpretation of the concept of culture in terms of Heidegger’s existential ontology: as being-of-the-cultural-world. Habermas’ universalist…
Abstract: The article explores a conceptualization of Eastern Europe at the intersection of literature and philosophy, focusing on two texts: The Issa Valley (1955) by Czesław Miłosz and The Other Heading (1991) by Jacques Derrida. In this context, Eastern Europe can be understood as a historical topos situated between Russian imperial violence concerning civil liberties and Western Enlightenment rationality,…
Abstract: The paper examines Eastern Europe’s complex and often problematic identity, particularly its positioning between East and West through the philosophical, historical, cultural, and geopolitical debates and their implications of this region’s identity. The paper discusses the role of cultural synthesis in shaping national identity, specifically focusing on the work of Lithuanian…
Abstract: The essay is an introductory reflection on the process of shaping Europe, including Eastern Europe. Two sources, Athens and Jerusalem, are emphasized as an important element of the historical shaping of Europe. The author focuses on the role of the Athenian tradition in this process; and argues that at the roots of European culture…
Preview: The category of Eastern Europe is deeply problematic. It is so on many levels. To better realize that, it suffices to ask a citizen of any country once belonging to the “Eastern bloc” if they consider themselves Eastern European. In most cases they will do whatever possible to slip away from such a categorization, considering it deeply shameful….