Romania, philosophy in

Author(s):  
Marta Petreu ◽  
Ioan Muntean ◽  
Mircea Flonta

The origins of Romanian philosophical thinking can be traced back to the late Middle Ages. The first attempts were made in monasteries and princely courts; the language used was Church Slavonic or Latin. The first original philosophical work in Romanian dates from 1698 and was written by Dimitrie Cantemir, Prince of Moldavia. The first Romanian philosophical school, the Transylvanian School, formed in Transylvania at the end of the eighteenth century, was an expression of Enlightenment ideas. Romanian philosophical thinking in the nineteenth century was imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment and Kantianism. Romanian modern culture and, implicitly, modern Romanian philosophy were born in the second half of the nineteenth century, under the influence of Titu Maiorescu, a major cultural personality. At the peak of its evolution between the two world wars, Romanian philosophy had the following characteristic features: it was closely related to literature, in the sense that most Romanian philosophers were also important writers; it showed excessive preoccupation with the issue of Romanian identity; it was involved in Romania’s historical, political and ideological debates, fuelling attitudes in favour of or against Westernization and modernization; it synchronized quickly with Western philosophical thinking; and it was (and still is) lacking in ethical thought. During the first half of the twentieth century, Romanian philosophers focused mainly on discussing the status of metaphysics and its right to existence, followed by any individual efforts to set up an original philosophical system; secondly, they were interested in the issue of identity, the theme of Romanian-ness, which led to the development of the philosophy of culture and history, and to the involvement of philosophers in politics. The most important original philosophical constructions were those of Lucian Blaga and Constantin Noica. During the communist regime, an initial period of complete stagnation of independent thinking was followed, at the beginning of the 1960s, by a relative liberalization that favoured research in logic, the philosophy of science, and the writing of literary-philosophical essays. Romanian philosophy since 1989 has made efforts to restructure its institutional framework, reclaim the formerly forbidden fields, and synchronize - through translations and studies - with contemporary world philosophy.

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-47
Author(s):  
Farish A. Noor

This paper will look at the process of transnational transfer of ideas, beliefs and value-systems, with a special emphasis on the transfer of Islamist ideas and ideals through the vector of student movements and organisations that were set up in Western Europe and North America as well as the rise of a new generation of Islamist intellectuals in Malaysia in the late 1960s for whom the idea of the ‘West’ was turned on its head and re-cast in negative terms. It begins by looking at how the ‘West’ was initially cast in positive terms as the ideal developmental model by the first generation of post-colonial elites in Malaysia, and how – as a result of the crisis of governance and the gradual decline in popularity of the ruling political coalition – the ‘West’ was subsequently re-cast in negative terms by the Islamists of the 1960s and 1970s who sought instead to turn Malaysia into an Islamic society from below. As a consequence of this dialectical confrontation between the ruling statist elite and the nascent Islamist opposition in Malaysia, the idea of the ‘West’ has remained as the central constitutive Other to Islam and Muslim identity, and this would suggest that the Islamist project of the1970s to the present remains locked in a mode of oppositional dialectics that nonetheless requires the presence of the ‘West’ as its constitutive Other, be it in positive or negative terms.


Author(s):  
Mark S. Massa

This chapter narrates the promulgation of Pope Paul VI’s famous letter on birth control in 1968, and the unfavorable response it received by Catholic theologians. It offers a historical overview of how St. Thomas Aquinas utilized Aristotle’s idea of natural law, making that concept basic in Catholic sexual teaching. The author describes the nineteenth-century followers of Aquinas as “neo-scholastics” who prided themselves on a systematic interpretation of Catholic doctrine in light of an unchanging law embedded in an almost objectivist understanding of “nature” by God, discoverable by human reason, the moral implications of which were equally unchanging. The author argues that it was this rigid nineteenth-century neo-scholastic natural law tradition that helped to set up the collapse within the American Catholic community in the decades after the 1960s.


2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-217
Author(s):  
Morag Martin

AbstractThough male doctors gained prominence at the bedsides of pregnant mothers in nineteenth-century Europe, the clinical training they received in medical academies remained cursory. In France, to supplement the medical faculties, the government set up schools for both health officers and midwives which were meant to teach practical obstetrics. This paper focusses on the city of Arras, where these two groups of students competed for the limited numbers of pregnant patients on which to practice their future professions. Like many in their field, two prominent instructors in Arras at each end of the century promoted male obstetrical education over female, arguing that practical education for health officers would lead to safer births for mothers and infants. By the 1870s, the obstetrics instructor adopted germ theory, tying improved hygiene and thus mortality rates to male students’ access to hospitalised patients. Despite their arguments, in Arras, the male students never gained priority in clinical obstetrical training, which midwifery students kept. To keep male students out of maternity wards, local administrators used fears that gender mixing would lead to immoral acts or thoughts. In doing so, they protected the traditional system of midwifery rather than invest in more costly male medical education. Championing midwifery students’ rights to the spaces and bodies needed for their education, however, delayed adoption of hygiene and antiseptic practices that led to lower maternal mortality. Unable to adapt to changing requirements by the state, the medical school closed in 1883, while the midwifery programme thrived until the 1960s.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Rhys H. Williams

The article reviews the status of the highly diverse community of American Muslims, with reference to US national identity and immigration history, history of Islam in the USA, and civil society organization. It is found that on average, and after the civil right movement of the 1960s, Muslims are very well assimilated into the US society and economy, in which the specific American civil society and religious organizations play an important enabling part, providing networks and inroads to society for newcomers as well as vehicles for preserving ethniccultural distinctiveness. This broad pattern of development has not changed in the aftermath of 9/11 and ensuing wars on terror. Compared with the Nordic context, where Muslims are often considered challenging to a secular social order, American Muslims do not stand out as more or differently religious, or any less American, than other religious communities. It is tentatively concluded that, downsides apart, US national identity and civil society structure could be more favorable for the social integration of Muslims than the Nordic welfare state model.


Author(s):  
Tomás McAuley

Recent histories of nineteenth-century philosophies of music have been dominated by two narratives. The first narrative, that of musical formalism, holds that philosophies of music in this period were concerned primarily with identifying a distinct sphere of musical autonomy. The second narrative, that of musical idealism, holds that philosophies of music in this period were concerned primarily with music’s perceived ability to offer insight into higher truths. This chapter contends that these narratives need to be augmented—and in some cases challenged—by an awareness of the vital role that ethics played in philosophical thinking about music across the long nineteenth century. It thus provides an alternative narrative focused on the musical-ethical thought of three key thinkers of this period: Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche.


Author(s):  
Rachel Ablow

The nineteenth century introduced developments in science and medicine that made the eradication of pain conceivable for the first time. This new understanding of pain brought with it a complex set of moral and philosophical dilemmas. If pain serves no obvious purpose, how do we reconcile its existence with a well-ordered universe? Examining how writers of the day engaged with such questions, this book offers a compelling new literary and philosophical history of modern pain. The book provides close readings of novelists Charlotte Brontë and Thomas Hardy and political and natural philosophers John Stuart Mill, Harriet Martineau, and Charles Darwin, as well as a variety of medical, scientific, and popular writers of the Victorian age. The book explores how discussions of pain served as investigations into the status of persons and the nature and parameters of social life. No longer conceivable as divine trial or punishment, pain in the nineteenth century came to seem instead like a historical accident suggesting little or nothing about the individual who suffers. A landmark study of Victorian literature and the history of pain, the book shows how these writers came to see pain as a social as well as a personal problem. Rather than simply self-evident to the sufferer and unknowable to anyone else, pain was also understood to be produced between persons—and even, perhaps, by the fictions they read.


2019 ◽  
pp. 134-197
Author(s):  
V.E. . Sergei

The article is dedicated to the history of the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Corps. The author examines the main stages of the museums formation, starting with the foundation of the Arsenal, established in St. Petersburg at the orders of Peter the Great on August 29th 1703 for the safekeeping and preservation of memory, for eternal glory of unique arms and military trophies. In 1756, on the base of the Arsenals collection, the General Inspector of Artillery Count P.I. created the Memorial Hall, set up at the Arsenal, on St. Petersburgs Liteyny Avenue. By the end of the 18th century the collection included over 6,000 exhibits. In 1868 the Memorial Hall was transferred to the New Arsenal, at the Crownwork of the Petropavlovsky Fortress, and renamed the Artillery Museum (since 1903 the Artillery Historical Museum). A large part of the credit for the development and popularization of the collection must be given to the historian N.E. Brandenburg, the man rightly considered the founder of Russias military museums, who was the chief curator from 1872 to 1903. During the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars a significant part of the museums holdings were evacuated to Yaroslavl and Novosibirsk. Thanks to the undying devotion of the museums staff, it not only survived, but increased its collection. In the 1960s over 100,000 exhibits were transferred from the holdings of the Central Historical Museum of Military Engineering and the Military Signal Corps Museum. In 1991 the collection also received the entire Museum of General Field Marshal M.I. Kutuzov, transferred from the Polish town of Bolesawjec. The Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering and Signal Coprs is now one of the largest museums of military history in the world. It holds an invaluable collection of artillery and ammunition, of firearms and cold steel arms, military engineering and signal technology, military banners, uniforms, a rich collection of paintings and graphic works, orders and medals, as well as extensive archives, all dedicated to the history of Russian artillery and the feats of our nations defenders.Статья посвящена истории создания ВоенноИсторического музея артиллерии, инженерных войск и войск связи. Автор рассматривает основные этапы становления музея, начиная с основания Арсенала, созданного в СанктПетербурге по приказу Петра I 29 августа 1703 года для хранения и сохранения памяти, во имя вечной славы уникального оружия и военных трофеев. В 1756 году на базе коллекции Арсенала генеральный инспектор артиллерии граф П. И. создал мемориальный зал, установленный при Арсенале, на Литейном проспекте СанктПетербурга. К концу 18 века коллекция насчитывала более 6000 экспонатов. В 1868 году Мемориальный зал был перенесен в Новый Арсенал, на венец Петропавловской крепости, и переименован в Артиллерийский музей (с 1903 года Артиллерийский Исторический музей). Большая заслуга в развитии и популяризации коллекции принадлежит историку Н.Е. Бранденбургу, человеку, по праву считавшемуся основателем российских военных музеев, который был главным хранителем с 1872 по 1903 год. В годы Гражданской и Великой Отечественной войн значительная часть фондов музея была эвакуирована в Ярославль и Новосибирск. Благодаря неусыпной преданности сотрудников музея, он не только сохранился, но и пополнил свою коллекцию. В 1960х годах более 100 000 экспонатов были переданы из фондов Центрального исторического военноинженерного музея и Музея войск связи. В 1991 году коллекцию также получил весь музей генералфельдмаршала М. И. Кутузова, переданный из польского города Болеславец. Военноисторический музей артиллерии, инженерных войск и войск связи в настоящее время является одним из крупнейших музеев военной истории в мире. Здесь хранится бесценная коллекция артиллерии и боеприпасов, огнестрельного и холодного оружия, военной техники и сигнальной техники, военных знамен, обмундирования, богатая коллекция живописных и графических работ, орденов и медалей, а также обширные архивы, посвященные истории русской артиллерии и подвигам защитников нашего народа.


Author(s):  
Manju Dhariwal ◽  

Written almost half a century apart, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) and The Home and the World (1916) can be read as women centric texts written in colonial India. The plot of both the texts is set in Bengal, the cultural and political centre of colonial India. Rajmohan’s Wife, arguably the first Indian English novel, is one of the first novels to realistically represent ‘Woman’ in the nineteenth century. Set in a newly emerging society of India, it provides an insight into the status of women, their susceptibility and dependence on men. The Home and the World, written at the height of Swadeshi movement in Bengal, presents its woman protagonist in a much progressive space. The paper closely examines these two texts and argues that women enact their agency in relational spaces which leads to the process of their ‘becoming’. The paper analyses this journey of the progress of the self, which starts with Matangini and culminates in Bimala. The paper concludes that women’s journey to emancipation is symbolic of the journey of the nation to independence.


1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. S. Hansen ◽  
H. J. Vested ◽  
M. A. Latif

A modelling study of the hydrodynamics and spreading of wastewater from existing and future outfalls in the Bosphorus region has been conducted applying a 3-Dimensional model. The modelling is based on SYSTEM 3, which is a general modelling system for baroclinic flow simulating unsteady currents, waterlevels, salinity and temperature within the model area. The model set-up covers the Black Sea-Bosphorus-Marmara Sea junction area. The set-up is calibrated by data from a dedicated field program and previous field experience. The model is designed to describe the characteristic features of the flow in the junction area such as the effects of variations in waterlevel differences between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea on the important two-layer structure in the strait and the flow fields generated by the upper layer jet in the Bosphorus-Marmara junction. This model has been applied for evaluation of disposal of wastewater and for the subsequent water quality studies. The general use of a baroclinic 3-D hydrodynamic model to simulate disposal of wastewater is discussed. Examples of the application of the model of the junction area to evaluate the different strategies for disposal of wastewater are presented.


2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 81-108
Author(s):  
Yahya Araz ◽  
İrfan Kokdaş

AbstractThis article focuses on children taken by Istanbulite families for upbringing and employment in the Ottoman capital during the 1800–1900 period. It suggests that domestic child labor which was shaped by the concept of ‘charity’ and economic interests during the first half of the nineteenth century progressively turned into wage labor during the second half of the century. The study claims that the nineteenth century witnessed a transformation of labor relations in the domestic service market, implying the transition from reciprocal to commodified labor. The labor of children employed in domestic services underwent a monetization process throughout the nineteenth century. Parallel to this monetization, the status of children under foster care or in domestic service came to be determined by standardized legal contracts.


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