scholarly journals From the Death to Rebirth of Religion: Evolution of Leszek Kołakowski’s Thought in the Context of the Question: “Who Is Man?”

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 199-223
Author(s):  
Marek Sikora
Keyword(s):  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Liberal Theory ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Concept ◽  
Marxist Concept

In his numerous books and articles, Leszek Kołakowski brought up a number of topics in the fields of the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy. His work offers valuable insights into problems revolving around Karl Marx’s philosophy, social philosophy, and the philosophy of religion, to mention but a few. In all these areas of thought, the Polish philosopher centres his focus on the fundamental question of man. The present paper is aimed at discussing Leszek Kołakowski’s contribution to the philosophical debate on this topic. The evolution of Kołakowski’s views is traced from the Marxist concept of man which, after a certain period, is discarded by the philosopher in favour of a religious concept, to be confronted again with a liberal theory. Kołakowski is not uncritical about any of the conceptions, which testifies to the profound complexity of every attempt to gain insights into the very essence of the human being which, irrespective of the doctrine or perspective taken for interpretation, escapes clear-cut definition. However, despite the lack of unambiguous definitions Kołakowski recognises that the sole point of reference in any attempts to gain an understanding of the human condition in culture is religion.

The Cultural Revolution and the Chinese Political System

1969 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 63-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tang Tsou
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Political System ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Differential Distribution ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
History Of ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
The Masses ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

One of the most extraordinary and puzzling events of the twentieth century is surely the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. This most profound crisis in the history of the Peking regime provides us with the best available opportunity to study the Chinese political system. For it is during a crisis that the nature, the strength, and the vulnerabilities of a political system fully reveal themselves. Further-more, we can attempt not only to note the unique features of this extraordinary event, and of Chinese politics itself, but also to see whether the seemingly unique Chinese experience does not reveal some universal dilemma of the human condition and fundamental problems of the socio-political order in a magnified and easily recognizable form. It is my belief that the Chinese political system prior to the Cultural Revolution is one of the purest forms found in human experience of a type of association in which there is a clear-cut separation between the elite and the masses. If one follows Ralf Dahrendorf in asserting that in every social organization there is a differential distribution of power and authority, a division involving domination and subjection, the Chinese political system can be taken as one of the polar examples of all social organizations, showing clearly their possibilities and limitations, their problems and dilemmas. From this perspective, the Maoist vision as it has revealed itself in its extreme form during the early phases of the Cultural Revolution can be considered a critique of this type of political organization.

Locke on Personal Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson ◽  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Fundamental Point ◽  
Legal Term ◽  
Word Consciousness ◽  
History Of

John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves—yet it is widely thought to be wrong. This book argues that in fact it is Locke's critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point. The book argues that the root error is to take Locke's use of the word “person” as merely a term for a standard persisting thing, like “human being.” In actuality, Locke uses “person” primarily as a forensic or legal term geared specifically to questions about praise and blame, punishment and reward. This point is familiar to some philosophers, but its full consequences have not been worked out, partly because of a further error about what Locke means by the word “consciousness.” When Locke claims that your personal identity is a matter of the actions that you are conscious of, he means the actions that you experience as your own in some fundamental and immediate manner. Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity.

Atonement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Shared Attention ◽  
History Of Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Eleonore Stump

The doctrine that Christ has saved human beings from their sins, with all that that salvation entails, is the distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Over the course of many centuries of reflection on the doctrine, highly diverse understandings have been proposed, many of which have also raised strong positive or negative emotions in those who have reflected on them. In this book, in the context of this history of interpretation, Eleonore Stump considers this theological doctrine with philosophical care. The central question of the book is the nature of the atonement. That is, what is it that is accomplished by the passion and death of Christ (or the life, passion, and death, of Christ)? Whatever exactly it is, it is supposed to include a solution to the problem of the post-Fall human condition, with its guilt and shame. This volume canvasses major interpretations of the doctrine of the atonement that attempt to explain this solution, and it argues that all of them have serious shortcomings. In their place, Stump employs an extension of a Thomistic account of love and forgiveness to argue for a relatively novel interpretation of the doctrine, which she calls ‘the Marian interpretation.’ Stump argues that this Marian interpretation makes better sense of the doctrine of the atonement than other interpretations do, including Anselm’s well-known theory. In the process of constructing the Marian interpretation, she also discusses love, union, guilt, shame, forgiveness, retribution, punishment, shared attention, mind-reading, empathy, and various other issues in moral psychology and ethics.

Conditions of Visibility

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
Shared Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Prejudice ◽  
Historical Past

We often assume that works of visual art are meant to be seen. Yet that assumption may be a modern prejudice. The ancient world - from China to Greece, Rome to Mexico - provides many examples of statues, paintings, and other images that were not intended to be visible. Instead of being displayed, they were hidden, buried, or otherwise obscured. In this third volume in the Visual Conversations in Art & Archaeology series, leading scholars working at the intersection of archaeology and the history of art address the fundamental question of art's visibility. What conditions must be met, what has to be in place, for a work of art to be seen at all? The answer is both historical and methodological; it concerns ancient societies and modern disciplines, and encompasses material circumstances, perceptual capacities, technologies of visualization, protocols of classification, and a great deal more. The emerging field of archaeological art history is uniquely suited to address such questions. Intrinsically comparative, this approach cuts across traditional ethnic, religious, and chronological categories to confront the academic present with the historical past. The goal is to produce a new art history that is at once cosmopolitan in method and global in scope, and in doing so establish new ways of seeing - new conditions of visibility - for shared objects of study.

scholarly journals A Narrative Review of the History of Skin Grafting in Burn Care

Medicina ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 380
Author(s):  
Deepak K. Ozhathil ◽  
Michael W. Tay ◽  
Steven E. Wolf ◽  
Ludwik K. Branski
Keyword(s):  
Donor Site ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Skin Grafting ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Surgical Instruments ◽  
Wound Management ◽  
Burn Wound ◽  
Medical Progress ◽  
Burn Care ◽  
History Of

Thermal injuries have been a phenomenon intertwined with the human condition since the dawn of our species. Autologous skin translocation, also known as skin grafting, has played an important role in burn wound management and has a rich history of its own. In fact, some of the oldest known medical texts describe ancient methods of skin translocation. In this article, we examine how skin grafting has evolved from its origins of necessity in the ancient world to the well-calibrated tool utilized in modern medicine. The popularity of skin grafting has ebbed and flowed multiple times throughout history, often suppressed for cultural, religious, pseudo-scientific, or anecdotal reasons. It was not until the 1800s, that skin grafting was widely accepted as a safe and effective treatment for wound management, and shortly thereafter for burn injuries. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries skin grafting advanced considerably, accelerated by exponential medical progress and the occurrence of man-made disasters and global warfare. The introduction of surgical instruments specifically designed for skin grafting gave surgeons more control over the depth and consistency of harvested tissues, vastly improving outcomes. The invention of powered surgical instruments, such as the electric dermatome, reduced technical barriers for many surgeons, allowing the practice of skin grafting to be extended ubiquitously from a small group of technically gifted reconstructive surgeons to nearly all interested sub-specialists. The subsequent development of biologic and synthetic skin substitutes have been spurred onward by the clinical challenges unique to burn care: recurrent graft failure, microbial wound colonization, and limited donor site availability. These improvements have laid the framework for more advanced forms of tissue engineering including micrografts, cultured skin grafts, aerosolized skin cell application, and stem-cell impregnated dermal matrices. In this article, we will explore the convoluted journey that modern skin grafting has taken and potential future directions the procedure may yet go.

Mind and soul? Two notions in the light of contemporary philosophy

2021 ◽  
pp. 0957154X2110100
Author(s):  
Enrico Berti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
History Of

From the perspective of the Aristotelian notion of ‘Form’, the author explores the history of the concepts of mind and soul focusing on their ontologized version, as entertained by conventional science. He concludes that current neuroscience lacks the conceptual wherewithal required to deal with the meaning of mind and soul and with agential consequences such as free will and moral decision making. [GEB]

Hume and Smith on Natural Religion

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Graham
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Psychology Of Religion ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

AbstractThe prominence of David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in contemporary philosophy of religion has led it to overshadow his other short work, The Natural History of Religion, and thus obscure the fact that the social psychology of religion was in many ways of greater interest and more widely debated among the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment than philosophical theology. This paper examines and compares the social psychology of religion advanced by Hume and Adam Smith. It argues that Hume's account of the psychological sources and social significance of religion is less satisfactory than Smith's.

Comprehending Sociality: Hegel Beyond his Appropriation in Contemporary Philosophy of Recognition

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-292
Author(s):  
Christian Krijnen
Keyword(s):  
Frankfurt School ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Substantial Modification ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Axel Honneth ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

AbstractContemporary philosophy of recognition represents probably the most prominent direction that presently claims to introduce an updated version of classical German idealism into ongoing debates, including the debate on the nature of sociality. In particular, studies of Axel Honneth offer triggering contributions in Frankfurt School fashion while at the same time rejuvenating Hegel’s philosophy in terms of a philosophy of recognition. According to Honneth, this attempt at a rejuvenation also involves substantial modification of Hegelian doctrines. It is shown that Honneth underestimates the implications of Hegel’s thoughts about the theme, method and systematic form of philosophy. As a consequence, Honneth’s social philosophy is, on the one hand, in need of a plausible foundation. This leads, on the other hand, to a different construction of the social within philosophy than Honneth offers.

scholarly journals The Evolution of the Text: The Author’s Comment by N. V. Gogol on the Poetics of the Comedy “The Government Inspector”

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-174
Author(s):  
Igor A. Vinogradov
Keyword(s):  
Last Judgment ◽  
Whole Number ◽  
Final Scene ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Concept ◽  
Rough Draft ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Numerous Author ◽  
Preliminary Description

<p>The article touches upon the analysis of the historical and literary circumstances of the appearance of one of the numerous author&rsquo;s comments by Gogol on the comedian &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo;, such as the article &ldquo;The Prenotification for those who would like to play &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; as it should be&rdquo;. A&nbsp;whole number of facts indicate that the origin of the &ldquo;The Prenotification&hellip;&rdquo; is related to the history of the creation by Gogol of the second edition of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; in late December 1840&nbsp;&mdash; February 1841. Together with the new edition, Gogol, unsatisfied with the staging of his comedy in St.&nbsp;Petersburg and Moscow theatres, first of all with the impersonation of Khlestakov, conceived a new presentation of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo;, believing that the revised edition would contribute to the theatrical updating of the play&nbsp;&mdash; performed &ldquo;as it should be&rdquo;. The text of the &ldquo;The Prenotification&hellip;&rdquo; precedes the creation of those fragments of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; that Gogol sent for the new edition of the play in spring 1841 from Rome to Moscow for M.&nbsp;P.&nbsp;Pogodin and S.&nbsp;T.&nbsp;Aksakov and is a kind of a test experiment, a &ldquo;rough draft&rdquo; for &ldquo;The excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; to one writer&rdquo;, sent at that time to Aksakov, and simultaneously it is a preliminary description for subsequent explanations of the &ldquo;silent scene&rdquo; of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; in the text of the very comedy. In addition, there is a connection between the &ldquo;The Prenotification&hellip;&rdquo; with drawings made by the artist A.&nbsp;A.&nbsp;Ivanov for the same final scene of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo;, which were created during the author&rsquo;s reading of the comedy in Rome in February 1841. Thus, it is established that the &ldquo;The Prenotification for those who would like to play &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; as it should be&rdquo; properly was written not in the autumn 1846, as it is common to think, but five and a half years earlier, in early 1841. It is an opening article in the manuscript for the second edition of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; in 1841, instead of which Gogol published here an accompanying article &ldquo;The excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; to one writer&rdquo;. The study allows us to conclude that Gogol&rsquo;s interpretations are deeply organic to the original religious concept of comedy. The plot stem of the &ldquo;The Government Inspector&rdquo; is the &ldquo;thunderstorm&rdquo; of a distant government law, and of the even more inevitable Last Judgment. &ldquo;The Prenotification&hellip;&rdquo; addressed to the actors, and containing an appeal to take seriously and conscientiously the performance of the roles they were cast in, to pay special attention to the final scene, is an important component of Gogol&rsquo;s strategy to bring back to his play the meanings lost due to inept staging. The presence of a number of motifs in the &ldquo;The Prenotification&hellip;&rdquo;, traditionally attributed only to the &ldquo;late&rdquo; Gogol, in the light of a new dating allows asserting the idea of the indissoluble unity and integrity of the artist&rsquo;s creative path.</p>

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