scholarly journals The Philosophy of the Enlightenment as a Paradigm of Transhumanism

Problemos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 186-197
Author(s):  
Marius Markuckas
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Program ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Status ◽  
Intellectual Influence ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

In the works devoted to the phenomenon of transhumanism, it is widely recognized that philosophy of the Enlightenment had a great intellectual influence on the formation of transhumanism. Yet, this article states that the ideas of Enlightenment philosophy can be reasonably treated as not only consisting the conceptual transhumanism core but also as being a source of its internal contradictions. The paper defends the position that transhumanism in general is an intrinsically controversial project and introduces the premises for this contradiction – the basic anthropological views inherited from philosophy of the Enlightenment. Finally, the article questions the status of transhumanism as a techno-scientific program and states it to be an ideologically engaged project in anthropological engineering, which, in its turn, is devoid of any clear theoretical and practical outline.

scholarly journals PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL AGENCY IN THE WRITINGS OF FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
AVI LIFSCHITZ
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
State Service ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
Window Dressing ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Status ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

Abstract Frederick II's writings have conventionally been viewed either as political tools or as means of public self-fashioning – part of his campaign to raise the status of Prussia from middling principality to great power. This article, by contrast, argues that Frederick's works must also be taken seriously on their own terms, and interpreted against the background of Enlightenment philosophy. Frederick's notions of kingship and state service were not governed mostly by a principle of pure morality or ‘humanitarianism’, as argued influentially by Friedrich Meinecke. On the contrary, the king's views were part and parcel of an eighteenth-century vision of modern kingship in commercial society, based on the benign pursuit of self-love and luxury. A close analysis of Frederick's writings demonstrates that authorial labour was integral to his political agency, publicly placing constraints on what could be perceived as legitimate conduct, rather than mere intellectual window-dressing or an Enlightened pastime in irresolvable tension with his politics.

scholarly journals Aristocratic libraries in Slovakia – status, research, history

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-441
Author(s):  
Michaela Sibylová
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Adverse Impact ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Research History ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Times

The author has divided her article into two parts. The first part describes the status and research of aristocratic libraries in Slovakia. For a certain period of time, these libraries occupied an underappreciated place in the history of book culture in Slovakia. The socialist ideology of the ruling regime allowed their collections (with a few exceptions) to be merged with those of public libraries and archives. The author describes the events that affected these libraries during and particularly after the end of World War II and which had an adverse impact on the current disarrayed state and level of research. Over the past decades, there has been increased interest in the history of aristocratic libraries, as evidenced by multiple scientific conferences, exhibitions and publications. The second part of the article is devoted to a brief history of the best-known aristocratic libraries that were founded and operated in the territory of today’s Slovakia. From the times of humanism, there are the book collections of the Thurzó family and the Zay family, leading Austro-Hungarian noble families and the library of the bishop of Nitra, Zakariás Mossóczy. An example of a Baroque library is the Pálffy Library at Červený Kameň Castle. The Enlightenment period is represented by the Andrássy family libraries in the Betliar manor and the Apponyi family in Oponice. 

scholarly journals The Enlightenment Philosophy Impact on the Musical Culture of Russia in the 18th–19th Centuries

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 30-37
Author(s):  
A.V. Kamenets ◽  
◽  
L.V. Molina ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
The West ◽  
Russian Music ◽  
Democratic Attitudes ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Life Problems ◽  
West European ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

this article discusses the key ideas of the philosophy of the Enlightenment (applying democratic attitudes, referring to real-life problems and issues, promoting humaneness and humanism) that have influenced the Russian musical culture. A connection is traced between the worldview of the West-European philosophers of the Enlightenment and the works of European composers and musicians that influenced the Russian musical culture in the 18th and 19th centuries. The article highlights how the philosophy of the Enlightenment affected the development of the operatic and singing art in Russia and how it in many ways dictated subsequent trends in the Russian music.

Jürgen Moltmann as a Doctrinal Theologian: The Nature of Doctrine and The Possibilities for its Development

1995 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-506
Author(s):  
Richard Clutterbuck
Keyword(s):  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Status ◽  
Intellectual Legacy

Moltmann derives much of the power of his theology from his willingness to endure the tensions of paradox, a willingness signalled early in his career with the title of his work, The Crucified God. Such paradoxes, however, leave unanswered questions and the need for further explorations. It is the argument of this article that an aspect of Moltmann's theology in particular need of exploration is the area of the status of Christian doctrine and its appropriate development. There is a major tension, we will suggest, between the disavowal of‘doctrine’, ‘dogma’, ‘tradition’ and ‘system’ as helpful concepts, and the strongly doctrinal and systematic content of Moltmann's theology. This tension, we believe, has something to do with the ambivalence in Moltmann's attitude to the intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment, to ‘modernity’. We shall try to show that Moltmann operates with a mixture of internal criteria (based on key doctrines) and external criteria (based on perceived human needs) for assessing authenticity in doctrine. Finally, within the dynamic of Moltmann's theology, with what we shall identify as its emphasis on historicality, there are resources for advancing an account of the theological significance of the development of doctrine. We explore these and ask why Moltmann himself has not put them to greater use.

scholarly journals The Saint and the Cynic: Resentment and Jewishness in Améry, Sloterdijk, and Wyschogrod

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Menachem Feuer
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Harold Bloom ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Peter Sloterdijk ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Modern Condition ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

The constellation of pain, resentment, the body, and time – as they exist in the wake of the Enlightenment and in the dawn of a new barbarism - is found throughout the work of Jean Améry and Peter Sloterdijk. Both thinkers were especially influenced by Nietzsche’s readings of resentment, his challenge to the Enlightenment, and his turn to the body as the basis of a new kind of thinking which starts with pain, dwells in irreversible time, and ends with the possibility of action and joy. While this new thinking is novel and appeals to all humankind, the most unexpected points of convergence between Améry and Sloterdijk can be found in their particular neo-Nietzschean articulations of Jewishness: using what Harold Bloom would call revision, they both propose a revision of Nietzsche’s reading of Judaism as resentment. Améry associates Jewishness with “revolt” while Sloterdijk associates what he calls “kynicism” (as opposed to cynicism) with Jewishness.1 Intensely aware of the mortal blows that have been dealt to the Enlightenment, philosophy, and modernity as well as to the human body during the Holocaust, Améry and Sloterdijk both address – either directly or indirectly – the meaning of cynicism in relation to Jewishness, in particular, and the modern condition, in general. 

scholarly journals Enlightenment philosophy and scepticism

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
Sławomir Sztajer
Keyword(s):  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

The article discusses the role of scepticism in the Enlightenment. For many historians of philosophy, Enlightenment was a hiatus in the history of scepticism. Ideas often attributed to the Enlightenment, such as the cult of reason, optimism and the belief in progress, seem to be contrary to scepticism. I argue that this simplistic view of the Enlightenment is far from reality. The Enlightenment not only brought forth such great followers of scepticism as Hume, but also influenced other thinkers in many different ways. The influence of scepticism is not always clearly visible in the philosophical works of that time. Moreover, few philosophers would describe themselves as sceptics. Nevertheless, if one considers different ways in which scepticism influenced Enlightenment philosophy, it becomes apparent that the assertion that scepticism was allegedly absent in the Enlightenment is untenable.

scholarly journals Replenishment of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Library with new Editions in the 1770-80s: Initiators, Implementers, Needs

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-141
Author(s):  
Oksana Prokopyuk
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
The Status ◽  
Printed Materials ◽  
Translated Literature ◽  
Book Culture

The article examines the socio-cultural aspects of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Library functioning in the 1770–80s. The focus is on acquiring the books as a purposeful way to form a collection of books that best demonstrated the monastery’s needs for books, interests and reading tastes of the fraternity. The author attempts to reconstruct the network of «book agents»: people who assisted in books acquisition; determine who was the initiator and who was the implementer of procurement; specify the needs in the printed books, as well as whether printed books completely displaced the manuscripts at the end of the 18th century.The author discovers the interest of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in replenishing the book collection not only to meet the readers’ needs of the fraternity but also based on the understanding of the importance of a well-stocked library to confirm the status of the monastery. It has been established that the «book agents» were the Lavra attorneys in Moscow and St. Petersburg, who carried out various assignments of the monastery; former Lavra monks transferred to other dioceses; or persons loyal to Lavra, specifically involved for this purpose. There is interest in translated literature, periodicals, new publications, and activity in the purchase of printed materials, which generally signals changes in the reading practices of the monastic corporation. The analysis of the repertoire of purchased books confirmed the spread of the ideas of the Enlightenment and the growing demand for secular and educational books on science and nature. The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, while remaining quite traditional in the segment of theological literature, where Latin continued to dominate, demonstrated openness to new trends in book culture of the second half of the 18th century.

scholarly journals The Silence of Nature in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: An Ecocritical Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (37) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sambit Panigrahi
Keyword(s):  
Central Position ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Heart Of Darkness ◽  
Universal Scheme ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy ◽  
The Way

Nature’s passivity in modern man’s discourse has been the area of focus in Ecocriticism. Ecocritics do believe that Nature has lost its vibrancy and vitality in the realm of modern man’s exclusively anthropocentric culture. Such ‘otherization’ of Nature has its roots in the Western philosophical and discursive practices. The Enlightenment philosophy has been instrumental in taking the dehumanization of Nature to a new low in the sense that it sees Nature as an inert, dull and dispirited entity that has its existence only for the material benefit of man. This kind of an attitude is clearly seen in the way the colonizing people in Conrad’s fiction dehumanize Nature and delineate it as a dull and lifeless entity. Based on these precepts this article intends to reread Conrad’s fiction from an ecocritical perspective and thus desires to expose the mechanism through which the human assumes for itself a central position in the universal scheme of things and relegates Nature to the realms o silence and instrumentality.

scholarly journals Critical theory and holocaust

2006 ◽  
pp. 37-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Predrag Krstic
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Jewish Question ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Status ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
Social Critical ◽  
Historical Theology ◽  
The Relationship

In this paper the author is attempting to establish the relationship - or the lack of it - of the Critical Theory to the "Jewish question" and justification of perceiving signs of Jewish religious heritage in the thought of the representatives of this movement. The holocaust marked out by the name of "Auschwitz", is here tested as a point where the nature of this relationship has been decided. In this encounter with the cardinal challenge for the contemporary social theory, the particularity of the Frankfurt School reaction is here revealed through Adorno installing Auschwitz as unexpected but lawful emblem of the ending of the course that modern history has assumed. The critique of this "fascination" with Auschwitz, as well as certain theoretical pacification and measured positioning of the holocaust into discontinued plane of "unfinished" and continuation and closure of the valued project, are given through communicative-theoretical pre-orientation of J?rgen Habermas?s Critical Theory and of his followers. Finally, through the work of Detlev Claussen, it is suggested that in the youngest generation of Adorno?s students there are signs of revision to once already revised Critical Theory and a kind of defractured and differentiated return to the initial understanding of the decisiveness of the holocaust experience. This shift in the attitude of the Critical Theory thinkers to the provocation of holocaust is not, however, particularly reflected towards the status of Jews and their tradition, but more to the age old questioning and explanatory patterns for which they served as a "model". The question of validity of the enlightenment project, the nature of occidental rationalism, (non)existence of historical theology and understanding of the identity and emancipation - describe the circle of problems around which the disagreement is concentrated in the social critical theory.

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