Turturica ‒ the Bird of Existential Predestination in the Short-Story Epic

This article analyzes the ballad Amărâta turturică (The Embittered Dove) in accordance with the symbolism of this bird in folk environments, being presented in different situations and existential hypostases, in accordance with the allegory of human destiny. The image-symbol "embtittered dove" is put at the service of remedying different contradictory states and feelings, depicting the drama of an existential destiny, marked by falls and inner collapses. The ballad about the widowed dove is related to a series of motifs and renders a "synthesis of symbols", tangent to the archetypal significance of some bird topos in our ritual folklore, to foreshadow the culmination of serious existential feelings. As metaphors of predestination, both the hunter and the dove express some tragic entities of human life, outline the meaning of a polarized destiny, marked by inner contradictions, deepen the idea of nostalgic loneliness in the face of irreversible passage.

Robert A. Johnson’s concept of romantic love

The topic of love has been discussed in philosophy since the ancient times, and, as in other areas of philosophical deliberations, a common perspective on the matter has not yet been reached. Observing Western society, American Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson reached a conclusion that ideas about love, which function in this society, are full of inner contradictions. The aim of this article is to present Johnson’s concept of romantic love, which fills in certain gaps in existing theories and offers a broadening of perspective on the problem of love. The article presents the analyst’s opinion regarding the genesis of the Western idea of romantic love, which goes back further than Romanticism. The causes of the mixed attitudes towards love in the West are also discussed. Finally, the article presents Johnson’s suggestion on solving this issue, based on Jungian analytical psychology.

Psychology of Worldviews (selective translation)

The paper presents an author’s translation of fragments of previously unpublished in Russian «Psychology of Worldviews» by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. The excerpts have been chosen to illustrate the basic considerations of the philosopher and psychiatrist regarding the metaphor of the shell introduced to describe a rigid worldview standpoint that people take to obtain support and shelter from the vulnerability and the uncertainty of environment, while, at the same time, paying for the seeming stability and certainty with the loss of their vitality and intensity of experiencing their own life. As Jaspers highlights, the shell as antinomic in its nature, and the inner contradictions related to the antinomies are resolved at the psychological level of existence, when the shell is melted and moulded into a new form, rather than at the level of formal logic, involving the reason. The author also supplies the translation with some comments and his own considerations on the topic.

Stimulating and Impeding Factors For Inner Democracy

Some factors that stimulate inner democracy and some that impede it are extensively described in this chapter. Stimulating factors include the following: the flexibility to change from one perspective to another one, tolerance for uncertainty, the capacity to discern inner contradictions, learning to be empathic, and the sensitivity to see the multi-voicedness in other persons. Factors that impede inner democracy include the following: mutually exclusive truth claims, strong negative emotions, the epidemic spread of narcissism, and the temptation to embrace utopias, along with the simultaneous failure to note their apparent shadow sides and even their failures. The chapter also offers a summary of the case made for the workings of inner democracy.

Respect My Right to Dominate

In this article, we present how the recognition framework of political and historic representation has enabled reactionary political forces, which increasingly recognize its inner contradictions and turn them against the basic principle of universal dignity, with the clear aim of corroding the whole recognition political edifice from the inside out. Taking the field of the symbolic construction of European identity as our main focus, we will reconstruct how the takeover of recognition politics has destabilized political and historic representation in Europe and ended up undermining European integration rather than enhancing it. Following one of the most important theorists of political and historic representation, Frank Ankersmit, we introduce the conceptual distinction between antifoundationalist vs. founda-tionalist representation in order to account for the series of decisive institutional changes that since the 1970s have contributed to the intersection of two separate fields into ‘memory politics’ and led to the rise of a new and inherently non-democratic foundationalism, of which recognition politics is one of the main symptoms.

“Dark Ontology” in the Historical Context of the Denial of Consciousness

We discuss the “axioms of dark ontology” proposed by the US philosopher Levi Bryant. The axioms are analyzed in a context of the historical development of diverse philosophical viewpoints united by the concept of the denial of consciousness. The “deniers” declare the direct conscious experience to be an illusion. As for the philosophical provisions that will not fit into their very limited conceptual straitjacket, they proclaim those inimical to science and therefore subject to elimination from the epistemological discourse altogether. Analyzing the viewpoints of the denialist philosophers, we show their inner contradictions that primarily are related to their inability to apply their assertions about consciousness to their own methods, arguments, and conclusions. We review the historical development of the critique regarding the denialists’ views taken from sometimes very diverse philosophical corners. We show that Bryant’s assertions are not axioms in any logical sense, but rather a scientism manifesto created in response to a technocratic demand for dehumanization. We also show how Bryant’s rejection of the human-centered position of philosophy follows from deconstruction practices undertaken by the structuralists and poststructuralists. To advance his ideas, Bryant imitates Ludwig Wittgenstein’s forms of discourse. He also engages moralizing and sophistry. We show that Bryant’s failure to create a robust, coherent system demonstrates weaknesses in the poststructuralist ideas that his concepts stem from. We conclude that the process that the doctrine of the denial of consciousness becomes mainstream attests, in Heidegger’s terms, the final stage of European nihilism and the crisis of science and philosophy of knowledge.

Concepts of Time in Late Modernity

This chapter demonstrates how the problems of “polar inertia” and its implications have been the subject of intensified philosophical reflection and debate since the 1980s. Polar inertia is the condition in which we have arrived at a temporal limit. However, we have also arrived at the absolute dead end of the modern time regime, in terms of both its compatibility with the rhythms of human life and the logic internal to the dynamics it has unleashed. The positions taken all grapple with the aporias, or inner contradictions, of the modern temporal regime and its possible alternatives or compensations. However, they do not lose sight of the epistemic presuppositions of this temporal ontology in the process.

Mit Złotego Wieku we wczesnoromantycznej Bildungsgeschichte albo o aporiach programu wychowania rodzaju ludzkiego w historiozofii Novalisa

The subject of the article is reconstruction of assumptions and postulates of Novalis’s education program of the human race aimed at indication of the distinctive features of early Romantic historiosophy as its dependence on Enlightenment thought. Examination of both these aspects in their interpenetration allows revealing the inner contradictions of Novalis’s project determining its utopian character, which manifests itself in the vision of the Golden Age as an expression of the Romantic “new mythology”.

Maoist Laughter

This volume aims to restore laughter to its proper position in the Mao-era culture. The Mao era was actually a period when laughter was bonded with political culture to an unprecedented degree. Spurred by dynamic political exigencies, many cultural products sought to utilize laughter as a more pliable form of political expression. Laughter was used to highlight antagonisms or downplay differences, to expose and ridicule the class enemy, or to meliorate and conceal contradictions; it could be ritualistic or heartfelt, didactic or cathartic, communal or utopic. In Maoist culture, laughter became a versatile discourse that brought together the political, the personal, the aesthetic, the ethical, the affective, the physical, the aural, and the visual. Therefore, the art of laughter was carefully moderated and regulated for political ends. Maoist laughter reveals the diversity, complexity, dynamics, and inner contradictions in the cultural production and reproduction in Mao’s China.