The existence of a daco-roman Christianity in the carpato-danubiano-pontic areal is confirmed not only by the historians, but also by the Romanian theologians and philosophers. Inspired by the Scripture’s letter and by the teachings of the Holy Fathers, most of them developed this link in the purpose of argumentation of a “Romanian dimension of the existence”. From Nae Ionescu, Crainic, to Vulcănescu, Cioran, Ţuţea, and then Ioan Gh. Savin, Dumitru Stăniloae, I.G. Coman or Nestor Vornicescu, the entire (...) class='Hi'>Romanian cultural elite makes a very important confession about the Christian foundation of the Romanian existence. With the help of a theological and spiritual heritage, therefore enforced by daco-roman specific, the work of these illuminated people of our nation determinates “the eternal Romanian icon of understanding the world”, finishing in the end with the confessing of “a Romanian dimension of existence”. In their kind of thinking, these “prophets of Romanian nation” “the skyline of Romanian world lays down from ordinary as far as legend, from here to beyond, from presence to absence, from then till now, from now as far as eternity, with an entire variety of Romanian modulation of nature, like Constantin Noica named them in his Romanian Feeling of Essence. And among these worlds, the passing through comes senseless, in an organic way; through a custom, but custom like place of passing through, not like a forbiddance, personally integrated in the existence like a step, not like threshold. All these words: beyond, absence, eternity are for the Romanian people qualities of his own nature”. (shrink)

The debate concerning the legitimacy of awarding reparations for historical injustices focuses on the issue of finding a proper moral justification for granting reparations to the descendants of the victims of injustices which took place in the remote past. Regarding the case of Romanian communism as a more recent injustice, and analyzing the moral problems entailed by this historical lapse, within this paper I argue that overcoming such a legacy cannot be carried out, as in the case of historical (...) injustices situated more remotely in time, through the means of selective reparations, such as restitutions or compensations. For, even though they are justified from the perspective of rectificatory justice, selective reparations do not fulfill the requirements of social justice. Rather, I argue that the fall of the Romanian communist regime should have been followed by an equal distribution of all properties illegitimately seized by the state, to all adult Romanian citizens at that time, in order to attain the imperative of equal distribution of property among all citizens. The equal distribution thesis is the only way through which the Romanian society could have complied, at that moment of political and social renewal, with the requirements of justice. I also aim at explaining why other principles of justice, which either have or could have been implemented, cannot be properly justified. Finally, I analyze two main objections which could be invoked against my thesis, namely the economic efficiency objection and the legal realist objection. (shrink)

The paper presents a critical evaluation of the existing anthologies of Romanian oratory and analyzes the pertinence of a new research line: how to trace back the foundations of Romanian versatile political memory, both from a lexical and from an ideological point of view. As I argue in the first part of the paper, collecting and editing the great speeches of Romanian orators seems crucial for today’s understanding of politics (politicians’ speaking/ actions as well as voters’ behavior/ (...) electoral habits). In the second part, I focus on the particularities generated by a dramatic change of media support (in the context of Romania’s high rates of illiteracy at the end of the 19th century): from “writing” information on the slippery surface of memory (declaimed political texts such as “proclamations,” “petitions,” and “appeals”) to “writing” as such (transcribed political speeches). The last part of the paper problematizes the making of a new canon of Romanian eloquence as well as the opportunity of a new assemblage of oratorical texts, illustrative for the 19th century politics, and endeavors to settle a series of virtual editing principles. (shrink)

The present research studies more thoroughly and extends from global perspectives the ideas elaborated in a former study dedicated to that which was named there – related to libraries, but not exclusively – symbolic marketing, embodied and objectified as a metaphor. “Living”, active and efficient metaphor. The analyses focus, on the one hand, on the theoretical, conceptual – and even philosophical – aspects of “symbolic marketing”. On the other hand, applying these theoretical considerations, we present and examine as a case (...) study the journal entitled Philobiblon (http://www.bcucluj.ro/philo/), edited by the Lucian Blaga Central University Library (Cluj, Romania), and the marketing procedures associated with it. The periodical is a transdisciplinary scientific organ published in English, destined from its beginnings to the market of international interlibrary publication exchange, which has developed an entire network of peculiar, individual and characteristic marketing structures and initiatives: living, objectified symbolic-metaphoric structures which are evolving and getting diversified not only in the context but also with a view to globalization. (shrink)

Romanian pedagogical theory rests on the assumption that any educational content can be taught and learned faster and better by recourse to a battery of teaching methods. In the present study we question that assumption and show that the methods generally recommended have no didactic merits when it comes to teaching philosophy and the human sciences. In order to prove that we commence by rendering manifest the origins, the specificity and the presuppositions of the teaching methods described in the (...) literature. Afterwards we determine the specificity of the objects of study of philosophy and the human sciences in general. On these bases we develop a series of three arguments that show why, given the particularity of both, the recourse to methods for teaching philosophy and the human sciences is inadequate. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to show that the philosophy of Mihai Şora can both be seen as a phenomenological treatment of being and as a general theory of being in its most rigorous sense. At least, this philosophy could be designated as a phenomenological ontology which opens up itself towards an originally metaphysical perspective based on a specific type of knowledge of the sort of “global disclosure”. I will argue too that within Şora's philosophy one can have a twofold (...) approach: one starts from what we could call the phenomenology of the “common givenness” (“ordinary/ quotidian givenness”) and then proceeds (in a phenomenological manner) to a general theory of being, which is represented in Şora's philosophy by the constitution of the model of the “sphere with the null ray”; the second commences with the treatment of the ontological model as such (the model, which is already formed, represents in the end the symbolic structure of reality), that is, from this “general theory of being” (or of the constitution of being) and then advances step by step towards various (phenomenological) applications of this ontological model to the multifaceted spheres of the domain of being (the sphere of language, of temporality, of ethics, of the social, of politics, etc.). (shrink)

This study focuses on the differences in the perception of business ethics across two groups of management students from France and Romania (n = 220). Data was collected via the ATBEQ to measure preferences for three business philosophies: Machiavellianism, Social Darwinism, and Moral Objectivism. The results show that Romanian students present more favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism than French students; whereas, French students valued Social Darwinism and Moral Objectivism more highly. For Machiavellianism and Moral Objectivism the results are consistent with (...) the literature and our hypotheses. However, contrary to our expectations, we find that Social Darwinism is more important in France than Romania. The results indicate that religious practice does not influence preferences for the three business philosophies. In terms of gender differences, women have less favorable attitudes toward Machiavellianism and more favorable attitudes toward Moral Objectivism than men. (shrink)

The volume Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania is the first contribution that aims at showing to the Japanese reader a sample of contemporary philosophy in Romania. At the same time a volume of contemporary Japanese philosophy is translated into Romanian and will be published by the University of Bucharest Press. -/- Applied Ethics. Perspectives from Romania includes several original articles in applied ethics and theoretical moral philosophy. It is representative of the variety of research and the growing interest in (...) applied ethics in the last few years in Romania. The philosophy practised here is at the same time an international activity, but also a kind of research deeply involved in Romanian realities. The contributors to the volume are Romanian philosophers from the most important Universities in the country, including members of the Romanian Academy, but also junior researchers. -/- This volume was made possible thanks to the relationship established between the Applied Ethics Centres of the University of Bucharest, Romania, and Hokkaido University, Japan. (shrink)

Se vorbește îndeobște mai mult despre un spirit al timpului (Zeitgeist) și amprenta acestuia asupra modului în care noi înțelegem și reflectăm lumea – asemenea cerului, al cărui joc de lumini și umbre oferă un contur de culoare lucrurilor. Nu trebuie însă să uităm solul din care ideile încolțesc și spiritul locului (Raumgeist) care le‐a animat creșterea. În acest orizont au loc întâlnirile, împlinirile, speranțele și dezamăgirile care ne edifică ca oameni și ne orientează busola căutărilor filosofice și spirituale. Există (...) roade pentru care dăm socoteală în secerișul vieții de zi cu zi și există resturi de care recolta zilei nu pare să ia seama – aparent neînsemnate pentru logica zilei, aceste resturi de roade sunt tocmai cele care la urmă, la apus, dau sens întregii strădanii. Avem sarcina existențială de a nu lăsa iarna vieții să se aștearnă pe resturile rămase în urma secerișului. Acesta este și imboldul volumului de față, care se dorește a fi un spicilegium, care în limba latină înseamnă „un mănunchi de resturi de spice rămase în urma recoltei”. Așadar, o antologie de paisprezece texte filosofice de diferite dimensiuni și subiecte, dar care reprezintă expresia unei comunități de cercetători, profesori, doctoranzi și pasionați de filosofie aduși împreună de filosofia studiată sau trăită cândva la Cluj‐Napoca. Chiar dacă este compus din texte eterogene, cititorul atent al acestui volum va putea sesiza cum spiritul acestui loc subîntinde toate tematizările: propensiunea față de idealism, profunzimea psihanalizei, subtilitatea fenomenologiei, pasiunea realist speculativă și fervoarea căutării autentice a binelui, adevărului și frumosului în lume, în gândire și artă sunt predispozițiile care însuflețesc și textele de față. - Dan Siserman. (shrink)

Revista Cunoașterea Științifică este o publicație trimestrială din domeniile științei și filosofiei, și domenii conexe de studiu și practică. -/- Cuprins: -/- EDITORIAL / EDITORIAL -/- Nicolae SFETCU Defense Against Advanced Cyber Attacks Apărarea împotriva atacurilor cibernetice avansate -/- ȘTIINȚE NATURALE / NATURAL SCIENCE -/- Nicolae SFETCU Cosmological Tests Based on General Relativity for Gravity Teste cosmologice bazate pe relativitatea generală pentru gravitație -/- Ștefan-Daniel FLOREA Integrating modern technology into seismic risk management Integrarea tehnologiei moderne în gestionarea riscului seismic -/- (...) ȘTIINȚE SOCIALE / SOCIAL SCIENCE -/- Dan D. FARCAȘ Some opinions regarding the ethnogenesis of the Romanians (2) Câteva opinii privind etnogeneza românilor (2) -/- Aliona ROZOVEL UTA Gagauzia, de jure an integral and inalienable part of the Republic of Moldova, de facto tends towards separatism UTA Găgăuzia de jure parte integrantă și inalienabilă a Republicii Moldova, de facto tinde spre separatism -/- ȘTIINȚE FORMALE / FORMAL SCIENCE -/- Constantin POMPARĂU What is the Riemann hypothesis and why it cannot be proved Ce este ipoteza Riemann și de ce nu poate fi demonstrată -/- Ana Denisa CUTEAN și Iulia Denisa MOGA Accounting for infrastructure assets Contabilitatea activelor de infrastructură -/- Iulia Denisa MOGA The technique of the cost approach: construction evaluation Tehnica abordării prin cost: evaluarea construcțiilor -/- FILOSOFIE / PHILOSOPHY -/- Nicolae SFETCU The Republic of Plato: A Philosophical Odyssey Republica lui Platon: o odisee filosofică -/- ISSN 2821-8086 ISSN-L 2821-8086, DOI: 10.58679/CS26154. (shrink)

Starting from the problematization of the meanings of science and library professions and institutions, the paper surfaces and analyzes from perspectives equally philosophical, epistemological, and scientometric, the premises and conditions which situate – willingly or not – the project of a (any) genuine research which intends to study the Romanian literature on librarianship as it appears in books and periodicals. To this end, earlier researches will also be placed on the dissection table of analysis, but meanwhile the problematic and (...) even symptomatic experiences that the editors of the journal Philobiblon and its Romanian anthologies by the title Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria – Antologie Philobiblon have to confront are also organically exposed. These experiences outline as well the issues that practically any present or future responsible research of this type should focus on, as also the neuralgic points and mental traps which – once identified – will have to be either avoided, or assumed in the course of these researches. These traps, resulting precisely from the functioning and environment of this literature – which is, or pretends to be, equally professional and scientific – are and can be dangerous in the future, yet also eloquent with regard to their publishing and affiliation institutions. (shrink)

Omul a căutat dintotdeauna să descopere în viața sa chintesența elementelor existențiale. Adunate laolaltă ca un imens puzzle cosmologic, întrebările Filosofiei au avut cel puțin capacitatea revelatoare a marilor problematizări în ascendența omului de la imanent la transcendent. Prima etapă notabilă în atingerea acestei performanțe îi este negreșit tributată „Filosofiei”, socotită de Platon drept „cea mai mare artă”. Mai concis, pornind de la termenul de artă (gr. μουσικη – lumea muzelor), ni se arată în mod inspirat că „Filosofia este cea (...) mai înaltă muzică pe care a creat-o și a intonat-o mintea omenească. Numai prin acordurile și armoniile acestei muzici a filosofiei, înțelepții lui Platon se puteau ridica până la cel mai înalt cerc al sferelor cerești, unde erau învredniciți de epopteia divină a sublimelor Idei și unde se desfătau cu inefabila muzică a sferelor, muzica universală, cosmică”. Temele fundamentale descoperite prin atare contextualizări, în ceea ce privește filosofia platonică, au rămas până astăzi: „Binele”, „Adevărul” și „Frumosul”. Pentru lămurirea și înțelegerea lor deplină avem însă, negreșit, nevoie de interdisciplinaritate, aplecându-ne așadar spre contextualizarea filosofică, juridică și nu în cele din urmă, teologico-religioasă. „Marii filosofi ai antichității, Socrate, Platon sau Aristotel, ca să enumerăm pe cei mai importanți dintre ei, au cultivat în rândul contemporanilor gustul valorilor eterne, pentru bine, adevăr și frumos, pregătind astfel terenul pentru răspândirea Evangheliei lui Hristos, ca sinteză a valorilor supreme și în primul rând a iubirii. Dacă există până astăzi continente mai puțin receptive la valorile creștine, acestea se datorează în bună măsură absenței unor filosofi care să ridice mintea omului la înălțimea valorilor ideale. Filosofia antică a făcut parte din planul lui Dumnezeu pentru plinirea vremii, în vederea întrupării Fiului lui Dumnezeu. Dacă Vechiul Testament poate fi considerat, după cuvântul Sfântului Apostol Pavel, ca un pedagog către Hristos pentru evrei, tot astfel și filosofia antică a îndeplinit în lumea păgână același rol de pedagog către Hristos. Ca o dovadă a prețuirii lor, Biserica răsăriteană a așezat chipurile lui Platon, Socrate sau Aristotel în rândul personajelor din tinda locașului de cult”. Înainte de a analiza interdisciplinar aceste valori perene ale culturii universale, este necesar să conștientizăm ascendența omului spre dobândirea deplină a virtuților. Astfel, în perspectiva descoperirii omului corect, filosofia platoniciană merge până la experierea directă a paideei conceptelor de persoană, stat și societate, de unde trece foarte ușor spre problematizarea Binelui absolut. „Așa trebuie gândite în statul platonic, înțelepciunea, curajul cumpătarea și dreptatea ... Respingerea tiraniei și unitatea reală a corpului social impun acțiuni reciproce ale individului și statului. Sensul și limitele libertății sunt determinate prin formula educației prin stat și pentru stat”. Această absorbție statală a individului l-a depărtat pe Aristotel de Republica lui Platon, „Stagiritul având un simț deosebit al concretului, ca orice observator al naturii”. (shrink)

Following Michael S. Jones’ call for articles showing the contemporary value of the great 20th century Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga in various spheres of expertise, I have immediately thought of George F. Steiner’s recently published book, Neanderthals in Plato’s Cave. The evolutionary model forwarded by Steiner draws heavily on philosophical insights provided by Blaga and, although the volume was written for a scientifically-minded public, the author has adopted, updated and expanded some of Blaga’s anthropological perspectives. In our e-mail correspondence, (...) Steiner has acknowledged Blaga’s influence and has enthusiastically endorsed my attempt to review the similarities between some of the postulates of contemporary research in the various disciplines that inform cognitive archaeology – Steiner’s field of expertise – and the conceptual evolutionary/cultural hypothesis outlined in Blaga’s philosophical system. (shrink)

This is an introduction to the book Fiinta istorica (The Historical Being), written by the 20th century Romanian philosopher Lucian Blaga. Blaga was an important thinker, authoring over 30 books of philosophy and a great many articles. Unfortunatly very little of his work is translated into English. This book is the very last that he wrote. It was published posthumously.

Ion Dur is an authentic scholar. His working methods, his interest and freshness of his discourse are placing him among the active contemporary Romanian philosophers and critics. Among the constant coordinates of his work are the attempt to guide readers "towards the North point of value". Ion Dur distinguishes himself by depth of his analysis on culture, criticism and journalism. The aim of this study is to offer, to young researchers and others as well, an Ariadne‘s Thread to the (...) hermeneut‘s work. In preparation of this article, extensive documentation was made and most diverse sources have been used in order to illustrate the author's ideas and to highlight the warm reception of his writings. Among others, in 1995, the essayist has re-established Sæculum, a journal founded by Lucian Blaga, in 1943, coordinated by Ion Dur for 20 years. We are writing this article in honorem to a scholar and an university Professor who this year climbed onto the seventieth step of his life. (shrink)

Despite the fact that Mary Shelley and E. M. Cioran have never been previously analyzed in the same context (they belong not only to different ages but also to divergent genres), we will find that they share at least two similar themes. The motif of solitude, common among Romantic poets (Coleridge, Byron, Poe), finds a deep expression in Shelley’s Frankenstein and in Cioran’s early oeuvre. A more thorough investigation of the British novelist and the Romanian-French self-described “anti-philosopher” discloses that (...) hatred (a theme that is not frequently researched from a philosophical point of view) might be another of their obsessions. The concept of the nihilistic not-man becomes useful when we will follow the tripartite shape of hatred (of others, of myself and of God) not only in literature or philosophy but also in pop culture. (shrink)

The history of phenomenology is usually portrayed within its methodological scope and the same goes for its turning points, such as the hermeneutical approach developed by Martin Heidegger. I argue, however, that Gustav Shpet’s hermeneutical phenomenology has an ontological bearing and its methodological acceptance is subsidiary. I extract textual pieces of evidence from his critical appraisal of Husserl’s Ideen I, i.e. Appearance and Sense (1914), as well as from his phenomenological essay, The Consciousness and its Owner (1916), in order to (...) show that at the basis of hermeneutics as a method lies a hermeneutical being on its own. I support this claim by comparing in a topological-contemplative way—that is a methodological procedure found in Viorel Cernica’s work on history of Romanian philosophy—the ideas of Gustav Shpet and those of Martin Heidegger that converge on this point. I show that both of them conceived human subjectivity as being both unique and historical, a notion that denounces Husserl’s transcendental turn. However, I claim that this differentiation doesn’t imply a dissent from phenomenology, but rather its recasting into a different philosophical ethos. (shrink)

The confessional work of the Church has been from the very beginning a foundation and basis for the Divine Truth. Starting from this real necessity, the Apologetic Theology claims some important research directions, grounded on the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition. Given this historical and doctrinal context, we can highlight the next support coordinates of the Christian Apologetics background: “the truth of God’s existence, the reality of the supernatural world and man’s immortality. All of this are, as we can (...) say, the Christian specific starting from the first ages. The truths about the divine origin of Christianism are to be found here, on the dignity of this revealed doctrine, on the divine-human character of his Founder, on the importance and necessity of Christian Church for the religious and morale life of human kind”. . Apologetics and (or) Fundamental Theology The reason why the Church must justify her teaching in the context of her missionary activity does not rise up from inner necessity. It does more from external misconceptions. In this context we can define the main concern of apologetics as a theological discipline. On the other hand, one can discover almost the same meaning in Fundamental Theology. However, as a difference between them, Fundamental Theology is interested in the direction and bears informative message, since “it aims at basic religious principles systematic presentation, both external and internal, as well as their justification before the scientific-theological conscience of believers. Thereafter, Christianity can be considered the only true religion”. On the other hand, one can claim that the name of “Apologetics” rises up from the necessity that the Christian arguments must be scientifically enforced and illustrated externally. Therefore, the mission of Christian Apologetics is to reject the anti-Christian objections through the power of the theological arguments in dialogue with philosophy, culture or science. In fact, even the object of Apologetics is "the scientific ground of Christian truths" with the purpose to "offer the Truth, reject error, and eradicate lies." In order to achieve its goal, Christian Apologetics offers us a positive method, which consists in "a logical and direct development of a certain thesis, in clarifying a certain truth, by revealing its content and the outcomes deriving from it". Therefore, we have a very dynamic field through which this discipline comes and supports the active life of the Church. Moreover, the method of the Apologetics as a theological subject is based on a conceptual struggle, very active starting with the very first centuries of the Early Church. Due to its energetic character, Fundamental Theology won its most important place among Christian doctrines. “Through struggle, Fundamental Theology imposed itself as a theological subject and became individualised. Through struggle and only through struggle, Fundamental Theology must exist and strengthen the positions of Christianity”. In its theologically mission, Christian Apologetics identifies and also prevents the alteration of the doctrinal truth. In this concern, it has the responsibility to enforce of believers’ moral conscience in their spiritual process of development. As a subject, one can say that the mission of Apologetics is “rational, objective and represents a very important basis for the Christian truths of faith”. Therefore, one can notice that the most important aspect of our subject is to enforce the Christian faith and experience through proper knowledge of the fundamental principles of the doctrine. This is the reason why we also mention Apologetics together with Fundamental Theology. However, we must highlight a few important details regarding the sensible difference between both of the denominations. Therefore, historically speaking, “they both arise from those who personally share Christian faith and act within the believing community and in its service. They both aim to respond to objections raised by critics and to offer a trustworthy account of main beliefs about matters as the existence of a personal God, the divine self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and the nature of faith”. On the other hand, we can identify almost three important differences between Apologetics and Fundamental Theology. “First, a Christian apologist can simply address a question: does the existence of horrendous evil in our world rule out the existence of almighty and all-loving God? or has science caused faith in God to be demoted in the past? … Second, good Apologetics has typically a sharply defined audience: Apologetics can seek, for example, to alert non-believers to the weakness of the case currently being against God and religion. But Fundamental Theology addresses to a wider range of readers … Third, polemics (in the good sense of this word and not as mindless ranting) belong to the exercise of Apologetics … The tone of fundamental theologians, even when rebutting objections to Christian faith, is or should be more expository and less polemically inclined to illustrate defects in opposing positions”. Moreover, we must mention that Apologetics can be considered as a particular subject. Although, it is similar in terms of content with Dogmatic and Philosophy through its method, our subject has its own research direction. Therefore, if Dogmatic is defined by an expositive and imperative character, Apologetics is demonstrative and constraining. In other words, dogmatic rationality, which has a subsidiary role, in Apologetics becomes primordial. In this case, “the faith truths become truths also for the rationality and moreover, the eternal truths of the Divine Reason become constraining for the human reason, too. Truths of natural religion, which are in fact the object of the Philosophy of Religion, are conditioned in Apologetics by the Absolute Truth completed in the Christian faith”. In all its theological and external interaction perspectives, Apologetics holds the main role to “expose, defend and justify with rational meanings the general truths of religion”. It is necessary to clear up one aspect: as subject, Apologetics is different from Apology. On the one hand, one can speak about the general research background and, on the other hand, one can describe a singular part of theological approach. Therefore, these two “theological sisters” are different depending on the type of approach. However, Apology is older than Apologetics. Among the first Christian apologists, we mention: Saint Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, Tatian, Athenagoras or Tertullien. In its current meaning, Apologetics is of a western theological origin, having its beginning in Middle Ages. Even so, its blooming age is the 18th century, when the Western Catholic Church replied to the materialist and atheistic philosophy. In the Eastern Church this type of confession had a more profound theological overview, in a theonomic perspective. “In the light of the Holy Scripture, the eastern theological thinking always shows priority to the divine Revelation in spite of the philosophical human systems and places the Creator - Logos at the basis of all creation, in the light of biblical thoughts”. -/- II. “Rational-spiritual Apologetics” Reverend Professor Dumitru Popescu, one of the most important Romanian theologians, develops the concept of “Rational-spiritual Apologetics”. In his theological approach, he illustrates the fact that one of the most essential part of the Church’s confessional work are the relations between rational arguments and spiritual purpose of the Christian life. In this case, we can identify two possibilities of argumentation: rational and spiritual, each of them in connection with the knowledge of God. This is in fact, the Orthodox specificity of the Apologetics, as theological subject, in contrast with the principles of western scholastic. Therefore, the most important argument, which Dumitru Popescu brings up in the support of his thesis, belongs to Saint Maximus the Confessor’s theology: “The Scripture provide a double knowledge of the divine things. One is relative and consists in its rationality and meanings, without the direct feeling of God. Through it we are guided in this life. The other one is in a true sense true and consists in leaving experience of divine grace, outside rationality and meanings, having the complete experience of God. Through it we will receive in the future life the deification”. On the other hand, we can understand that the purpose of human rationality is not to replace the spiritual perspective, since human mind does not own the divine mystery. In this case, rationality can be useful in discovering and demonstrating the existence of God from natural realities to a point where we must assume a spiritual understanding. Consequently, in the context of human deification, the orthodox theology cannot conceive the gnoseological process in rational terms. Therefore, Rev. Dumitru Popescu carries out a dual argumentation: 1. since God is not a solitary power, but descends and interacts with man providentially (through His divine grace and energies); 2. because the created world doesn’t have an independent rationality through which man can receive the possibility to reach God. Therefore, Father Professor Dumitru Popescu concludes that “the deification process is here, on the earth, a foretaste of immortality, which springs from the personal meeting of man with God”. One of the most recent Romanian Apologetics academically approach is the book of professor Adrian Lemeni: “Truth and Demonstration”. Except his very complex analysis on the interaction between theology and science, Professor Lemeni goes further and perfects Dumitru Popescu’s theological view, on the “Rational-spiritual” character of Orthodox Apologetics. Therefore, he offers a very important example, starting from Saint Gregory Palamas’ theological view. In his work “the authority of Patristic gnoseology” is illustrated, which is offered by the “Eternal Truth, God’s Word, incarnated in the Person of Jesus Christ”. “The authority of patristic gnoseology” – notes down Adrian Lemeni – “is expressed along the process for searching the truth of knowledge illustrated by deeds and life. In his debate with Varlaam from Calabria, Saint Gregory Palamas insists on the power of persuasion which arises from the Church’s Tradition, biblical and patristic fundamentally. In an ultra-confident argument, based on the autonomic logical power, we believe that one word has power over another. But Saint Gregory Palamas shows that the truth is based and validated through spiritual and ecclesiastical experience. Truth is validated by the words and deeds of the Holy Fathers, in direct connection with apostolic Tradition. Any argument can be fought against by another argument. Nevertheless, the apologetic concession based on the deeds of the saints is unbookable. This is the thesis which Saint Gregory Palamas develops in complete harmony with the patristic gnoseological Tradition”. Therefore, we can consider that the position of the subject of Apologetics (of Fundamental Theology) is one of interactions. It has connections with all domains external to Theology. In this case, we can consider it sets up a dialogue or debate with philosophy, culture or science. Starting from the historical argument, this interaction between theology and other sciences has existed from the very first Christian century. Therefore, we have an apologetic literary genre starting with the first patristic writings. Including the Early Church, we can identify three important stages in terms of historical apologetics development: 1. The Christian apologists struggle age with Judaism and paganism; 2. From the issue of Islam to the Middle Eve; 3. From the period of the Renaissance of Western sciences to the present day. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I present data involving the use of the Romanian slur ‘țigan’, consideration of which leads to the postulation of a sui-generis, irreducible type of use of slurs. This type of use is potentially problematic for extant theories of slurs. In addition, together with other well-established uses, it shows that there is more variation in the use of slurs than previously acknowledged. I explain this variation by construing slurs as polysemous. To implement this idea, I appeal (...) to a rich-lexicon account of polysemy. I show how such a theory can be applied to slurs and discuss several important issues that arise. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Titu Maiorescu had a special relationship with psychology under the influence of both Kant and Herbart. The following study presents Maiorescu’s answers to the main issues raised by the materialism controversy that broke out in Germany in the mid-1850s century, at a time when he was writing and defending his doctoral thesis in Giessen. Most of these issues were related to the mind–body liaison and the capability of science to explain the mind. KEYWORDS: materialism controversy; mind–body relationship; psychology and (...) metaphysics; materialism vs, spiritualism; transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Between Mircea Eliade and Rudolf Otto many connections can be made concerning the idea of sacred. Even though, the scientist of Romanian origin perceives the sacred reality differently from the German theologian. If the latter puts an emphasis on the irrational side of the divine, the former argues that the sacred has to be perceived twofold: as irrational and rational in the same time, the concept of coincidentia oppositorum best embodying the sacred reality. The sacred’s materializations are the hierophanies, (...) the history of religion being nothing else than a sum of hierophanies. Finally, for Eliade, the ascred is connected to the life of homo religiosus. (shrink)

This article intends to show the distance between work-life balance as a political and social issue at the EU and Romanian level, through the lens of the local gender equality policies following the process of EU accession. The article provides, in its first part, a brief presentation of the main theoretical axes structuring the available literature, followed up by the analysis of the occurrence of the work-life balance issue at the European level. Then the study examines the normative dimension (...) of work-life balance in post-communist Romania, seeking to understand to what extent work-life balance policies have been designed and implemented in the last 25 years. (shrink)

Mircea Eliade’s ideas developed in the scientific and literary works had considerable influence over the past century, both among historians of religions, imposing the discipline that he promoted in many prestigious universities from America and from around the world, and among other researchers in related fields of the history of religions. The question today is about what is left of Eliade’s work after a careful analysis according to the grids of thought of our century. The question that has not yet (...) found a definitive answer is of special interest, because the themes dealt by the Romanian scientist are universal and permanent. Among them, the problem of the timeliness of myth occupies the essential rank closely related with all the concepts developed by Eliade in his works. In this sense, the relationship between the man of archaic societies, often called homo religious, and the Christian man is also defined by how the myth is perceived by the two of them. Through its exact understanding human religiosity from forever and everywhere can always be redefined. (shrink)

Migration generates well-being for individuals and communities, but the pursuit of well-being is not without risks. Tens of thousands of Romanian children are affected by the migration of their parents, others have to cope with the effects of their own migration. Should migrants have difficulties adjusting when returning “home”? Is readjustment even possible for all remigrants, without support? The article aims to present some issues that the remigrants are confronted with when trying to readjust to their communities of origin. (...) The article shows how readjustment is influenced by the social image, which in turn influences the social support for their adjustment and subsequent development. (shrink)

The present paper explores diffident and dissident practices reflected by the political talk at the end of the 19th-century in Romania. Relying on Jacques Rancière’s theories on the ‘aesthetic regime of politics,’ the introduction sketches a historical frame and proposes a focus change: the relation between ‘politics’ and ‘aesthetics’ does not stand on a set of literary cases, but on political scripts as such. Thus, the hypotheses investigated by the next three parts can be formulated as follows: 1. though determined (...) by an ideological direction (Conservative or Liberal), the political speech still preserves his tendency towards aesthetic autonomy. 2. oratorical merits (hinting at aesthetic autonomy) can turn into practices of political autonomy, diffidence and, then, dissidence. Methodologically, two types of aesthetic practices organize the chosen materials; both the diffident script and the theatre of dissidence help us to perceive how the philosophical and moral meaning of these practices could change into an ideology of dissidence. The formalization of diffident practices, their conversion to outspoken dissidence, also corresponds to the symmetrical symptom of unlimited authority; when old-time politicians warned on ‘Caesarism,’ ‘Vizierate,’ ‘Despotism,’ ‘Omnipotence’ or ‘Tyranny,’ the Romanian society had already been training for a long experience of ‘dictatorship.’. (shrink)

Besides his philosophical essays, Emil Cioran also maintained a vast correspondence. He sent and received numerous letters; from his parents and his brother Aurel, as well as from various personalities, friends and romantic interests. These represent a part of the philosopher’s personality which deserves to be organically integrated in the corpus of Cioran’s work and writings. Most of Cioran’s letters are inevitably literary; they preserve a productive ambiguity and express attitudes and feelings belonging to both the organic man and the (...) thinker who brushed against life. The letters thus appear as notes the philosopher sent from the underground of his being. The present text analyses two fragments of correspondence: with Alina Diaconu (1985–1989), a journalist and writer of Romanian origin settled in Argentina; and (in German) with the editor and philosopher Wolfgang Kraus (1971–1990). (shrink)

The paper is an intervention in the dispute about the moralism of the recent realist trend in political philosophy. It is particularly focused on analysing the debate on this subject between Niklas Erman and Eva Möller (2015a; 2015b) and Robert Jubb and Enzo Rossi (2015a; 2015b). Examining the main arguments of both parties, I argue that realists (i.e., Jubb and Rossi) lost the debate, that realism is, in fact, moralism in disguise, and that its main methodological request – giving up (...) „pre-political” moral principles and values in political philosophy – is „unrealistic” (i.e., unfeasible). (shrink)

Law is ‘sovereign’, it has been said. Since the poet Pindar expressed this fulminating thought in the 6th century B.C., the whole western tradition, from Aristotle to Cicero, from Heidegger to Schmitt, hasn’t stopped raising questions about the ambivalent relationship connecting law, strength and violence...

Higginbotham argued that certain linguistic items of English, when used in indirect discourse, necessarily trigger first-personal interpretations. They are: the emphatic reflexive pronoun and the controlled understood subject, represented as PRO. PRO is special, in this respect, due to its imposing obligatory control effects between the main clause and its subordinates ). Folescu & Higginbotham, in addition, argued that in Romanian, a language whose grammar doesn’t assign a prominent role to PRO, de se triggers are correlated with the subjunctive (...) mood of certain verbs. That paper, however, didn’t account for the grammatical diversity of the reports that display immunity to error through misidentification in Romanian: some of these reports are expressed by using de se triggers; others are not. Their IEM, moreover, is not systematically lexically controlled by the verbs, via their theta-roles; it is, rather, determined by the meaning of the verbs in question. Given the data from Romanian, I will argue, the phenomenon of IEM cannot be fully explained starting either from the syntactical or the lexical structure of a language. (shrink)

This article is in three parts. The first discusses trends in philosophy. The second defends reliance on intuitions in philosophy from some doubts that have recently been raised. The third discusses Philip Kitcher's contention that contemporary analytic philosophy does not have its priorities straight. While the three parts are independent, there is a common theme. Each part defends what is regarded as orthodoxy from attacks. Of course there are other reasonable challenges to philosophical methodology. The article's aim is just to (...) respond to some charges that have been made. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the standard conception of Spinoza as a fellow-travelling mechanical philosopher and proto-scientific naturalist is misleading. It argues, first, that Spinoza’s account of the proper method for the study of nature presented in the Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) points away from the one commonly associated with the mechanical philosophy. Moreover, throughout his works Spinoza’s views on the very possibility of knowledge of nature are decidedly sceptical (as specified below). Third, in the seventeenth-century debates over proper methods in the (...) sciences, Spinoza sided with those that criticized the aspirations of those (the physico-mathematicians, Galileo, Huygens, Wallis, Wren, etc) who thought the application of mathematics to nature was the way to make progress. In particular, he offers grounds for doubting their confidence in the significance of measurement as well as their piece-meal methodology (see section 2). Along the way, this chapter offers a new interpretation of common notions in the context of treating Spinoza’s account of motion (see section 3). (shrink)

How does Newton approach the challenge of mechanizing gravity and, more broadly, natural philosophy? By adopting the simple machine tradition’s mathematical approach to a system’s co-varying parameters of change, he retains natural philosophy’s traditional goal while specifying it in a novel way as the search for impressed forces. He accordingly understands the physical world as a divinely created machine possessing intrinsically mathematical features, and mathematical methods as capable of identifying its real features. The gravitational force’s physical cause remains an outstanding (...) problem, however, as evidenced by Newton’s onetime reference to active principles as the “genuine principles of the mechanical philosophy”. (shrink)

This article offers an account and defence of constructionism, both as a metaphilosophical approach and as a philosophical methodology, with references to the so-called maker's knowledge tradition. Its main thesis is that Plato's “user's knowledge” tradition should be complemented, if not replaced, by a constructionist approach to philosophical problems in general and to knowledge in particular. Epistemic agents know something when they are able to build (reproduce, simulate, model, construct, etc.) that something and plug the obtained information into the correct (...) network of relations that account for it. Their epistemic expertise increases with the scope and depth of the questions that they are able to ask and answer. Thus, constructionism deprioritises mimetic, passive, and declarative knowledge that something is the case, in favour of poietic, interactive, and practical knowledge of something being the case. Metaphilosophically, constructionism suggests adding conceptual engineering to conceptual analysis as a fundamental method. (shrink)

There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, unity (...) or explanatory power does not permanently commit science to the thesis that nature is simple or unified. This current ‘paradigm’ is, I argue, untenable. We need a new paradigm, which acknowledges that science makes a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, theories being chosen partly on the basis of compatibility with these assumptions. Eleven arguments are given for favouring this new ‘paradigm’ over the current one. (shrink)

Introduction and translation of “The Four Phases of Philosophy” by Franz Brentano.

The very first permanent Romanian representation to the United States of America was established in Washington D.C. pursuant to the Royal Decree no. 1027 of 24 September 1917, led by Dr. Constantin Angelescu (1869-1948) in capacity as of head of legation with the rank of plenipotentiary minister. The game of history made it so that he took office on 15 January 1918 – the birth anniversary of our great Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu. The Secretary of the legation was (...) Prince Anton (Antoine) Bibescu (1878-1951), the ambassador-to-be of Romania to the United States between 1921 and 1926. (shrink)

In this chapter, I bring insights from the social sciences, about the role of time in exclusionary practices, into debates around the under-representation of women in philosophy. I will suggest that part of what supports the exclusionary culture of philosophy is a particular approach to time, and thus that changing this culture requires that we also change its time.

Immediately upon the death of Plato in 347 BCE, philosophers in the Academy began to circulate stories involving his encounters with wisdom practitioners from Persia. This article examines the history of Greek perceptions of Persian wisdom and argues that the presence of foreign wisdom practitioners in the history of Greek philosophy has been undervalued since Diogenes Laertius.

As Kevin Mulligan, more than anyone else, has demonstrated, there is a distinction within the philosophy of the German-speaking world between two principal currents: of idealism / transcendentalism, characteristic of Northern Germany; and of realism / objectivism, characteristic of Austria and the South. We explore some of the implications of this distinction with reference to the influence of Austrian (and German) philosophy on philosophical developments in Hungary, focusing on the work of Ákos von Pauler, and especially on Pauler’s reading of (...) Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. (shrink)

If contemporary African political philosophy is going to develop substantially in fresh directions, it probably will not be enough, say, to rehash the old personhood debate between Kwame Gyekye and Ifeanyi Menkiti, or to nit-pick at Gyekye’s system, as much of the literature in the field has done. Instead, major advances are likely to emerge on the basis of new, principled interpretations of sub-Saharan moral thought. In recent work, I have fleshed out two types of moral theories that have a (...) clearly sub-Saharan basis, that differ from Gyekye’s moral perspective, and that also happen to constitute genuine rivals to dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism, Kantianism and contractualism. In catchwords, these African moral theories are constituted by ideals regarding community or friendliness, on the one hand, and vitality or liveliness, on the other. In this article I sketch these two under-explored ethical perspectives and then suggest several respects in which their implications for salient political controversies are novel and revealing. Sometimes the new African moral theories—and the community-based one in particular--entail different conclusions from Gyekye's position, while other times their conclusions are the same as Gyekye’s, but they provide different rationales for them that are more compelling than his. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy is often presented as a new movement that avoids many of the difficulties that face traditional philosophy. This article distinguishes two views of experimental philosophy: a narrow view in which philosophers conduct empirical investigations of intuitions, and a broad view which says that experimental philosophy is just the colocation in the same body of (i) philosophical naturalism and (ii) the actual practice of cognitive science. These two positions are rarely clearly distinguished in the literature about experimental philosophy, both (...) pro and con. The article argues, first, that the broader view is the only plausible one; discussions of experimental philosophy should recognize that the narrow view is a caricature of experimental philosophy as it is currently done. It then shows both how objections to experimental philosophy are transformed and how positive recommendations can be provided by adopting a broad conception of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

A primary fault line in the analytic philosophy of action is the debate between causal/Davidsonian and interpretivist/Anscombian theories of action. The fundamental problem of the former is producing a criterion for distinguishing intentional from non-intentional causal chains; the fundamental problem of the latter is producing an account of the relation between reasons and actions that is represented by the ‘because’ in the claim that the agent acted because she had the reason. It is argued that Hegel’s conception of teleology can (...) be used to develop the interpretivist position by solving both its and the causal theory’s fundamental problems. (shrink)

If intuitions are associated with gender this might help to explain the fact that while the gender gap has disappeared in many other learned clubs, women are still seriously under-represented in the Philosophers Club. Since people who don’t have the intuitions that most club members share have a harder time getting into the club, and since the majority of Philosophers are now and always have been men, perhaps the under-representation of women is due, in part, to a selection effect.

Philosophy can shed light on mathematical modeling and the juxtaposition of modeling and empirical data. This paper explores three philosophical traditions of the structure of scientific theory—Syntactic, Semantic, and Pragmatic—to show that each illuminates mathematical modeling. The Pragmatic View identifies four critical functions of mathematical modeling: (1) unification of both models and data, (2) model fitting to data, (3) mechanism identification accounting for observation, and (4) prediction of future observations. Such facets are explored using a recent exchange between two groups (...) of mathematical modelers in plant biology. Scientific debate can arise from different modeling philosophies. (shrink)

In this essay, I draw on Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to interrogate what philosophy is and how it can continue to think. Though my answer is not reducible to the views of either philosopher, what joins them is an attempt to elaborate philosophy as a different way of seeing. In this light, I propose a view of philosophy as prosthesis—as a means and a way for seeing differently. Rather than a simple tool, philosophy as prosthesis is a transformative supplement, (...) one that our bodily perception calls for and wherein that perception is recast. Rather than a fixed or assured view, this prosthesis holds open the interval in which thinking can take place. Philosophy, I argue, must wait. It sees and thinks hesitatingly, for the temporality it inscribes is not a foreseeable development but the unfolding of life as tendency, as that which creates its own possibility as it comes into existence. (shrink)

This paper undertakes textual exegesis and rational reconstruction of Mukula Bhaṭṭa’s Abhidhā-vṛttta-mātṛkā, or “The Fundamentals of the Communicative Function.” The treatise was written to refute Ānandavardhana’s claim, made in the Dhvanyāloka, that there is a third “power” of words, vyañjanā (suggestion), beyond the two already accepted by traditional Indian philosophy: abhidhā (denotation) and lakṣaṇā(indication).1 I argue that the explanation of lakṣaṇā as presented in his text contains internal tensions, although it may still be a compelling response to Ānandavardhana.

In this paper I offer a conceptually tighter, quasi-Fregean solution to the concept horse paradox based on the idea that the unterfallen relation is asymmetrical. The solution is conceptually tighter in the sense that it retains the Fregean principle of separating sharply between concepts and objects, it retains Frege’s conclusion that the sentence ‘the concept horse is not a concept’ is true, but does not violate our intuitions on the matter. The solution is only ‘quasi’- Fregean in the sense that (...) it rejects Frege’s claims about the ontological import of natural language and his analysis thereof. (shrink)