The separation between ethics and politics: Max Weber on ancient Judaism and modernity

For Max Weber, modernity is characterized by a tragic conflict among value spheres, each claiming to possess the ‘true meaning’ of human life. In particular, Weber argues that while the political sphere is dominated by the unifying, exclusionary, power-driven, and war-prone nation state, the ethical sphere is characterized by the universalization of individually based, deontological norms. For Weber, I argue, the modern separation between the ethical and political spheres originates in ancient Judaism. His work on Judaism, mostly neglected by political theorists, describes the emergence of politics as an autonomous, naturalistic sphere with the establishment of kingship. Biblical prophets, simultaneously, were the inventors of an idealistic, mulish, universal ethics Weber termed the ‘ethics of ultimate ends’. Thus, against the Greek model harmonizing ethics and politics, Judaism invented an antagonistic model of the two. This Jewish imagination lay dormant for almost two millennia but returned to the stage in secularized modernity.

Hegel’s Antigone: The Birth of the Constitution from the Spirit of Tragedy

Sophocles’ Antigone has been studied intensely for more than two thousand years, but it was especially Hegel’s allegorical use of this tragedy in several of his works (first and foremost the Phenomenology of Spirit) that added yet another fascinating facet to its possible reading: the birth of the legal order and therewith a constitutional system from the conflict between two normative orders. In this contribution, I interpret the dialectic structure of Antigone in a manner in which each normative position – both Antigone’s and Creon’s – are equally justified and thereby antithetic in the ethical world of the Greek polis. It is therefore only by transcending this tragic conflict between the human and the divine orders that we can transform necessary externalities (‘fate’) into a process of a legal status which eventually allows individuals to become the authors of the law itself and thus to guarantee their freedom. I denote this reading of Hegel’s Antigone as ‘symmetrical’, since it accepts both positions – Antigone’s divine law and Creon’s human law – as equal and makes freedom and justice only possible through the law. This means that an ‘asymmetrical’ reading, giving prevalence to either position (for instance, found in Goethe or Habermas) and localizing freedom and justice beyond the law, can never effectively result in a legal status that would allow individual persons to become legal persons.My principal argument consequently is that only a symmetrical view of this normative conflict can justifiably be regarded as making a constitutional order possible in the first place. It is feasible only in a dynamic-genealogical fashion (ie, by constantly generating this order through conflict and the transcending of this conflict through mutual recognition) that concurrently also respects individuals as particular individuals, not just as formal equals among equals, by allowing them to realize their personalities and to find themselves through the arts, science, and philosophy. This is more than a merely formal or negative constitution which recognizes every person as equal and free, but disregards their particularities; this is a material and positive constitution that can guarantee both equality and self-actualization. Such a constitutional order guarantees an identity of universal laws and individuality, and accordingly offers individuals a solution to the conflicting ethical orders of the ancient polis in which they would otherwise remain trapped.

Mystery in the poetics of romantic tragedy genre (“The Spaniards” by Mikhail Lermontov)

This paper focuses on the role of the poetics of mystery in the formation of the romantic trag-edy genre. “The Spaniards” by Mikhail Lermontov is considered as a characteristic example of this genre, manifesting “melodramatization” of tragedy and tendency towards genre-generic synthesis. The action of “The Spaniards” is based on events related to the sphere of the mysterious, which are exceptional in life and common in melodrama. Central to the plot is the motif of the loss of a child. The secret of Fernando’s birth and “ignobility” form the con-flict and organize two storylines (love and family) and two (everyday life – melodramatic, and existential – tragic) levels of conflict. Mystery also plays an important role in revealing the inner world and expressing the romantic ideal of the hero. The ability to comprehend the mysterious, to pass beyond human experience and logic is not only the motivation of his ac-tions, but it also connects the hero with the ideal sphere. The study examines how the charac-ters’ anticipation of the “terrible” motivates their moral choices. Analyzing the interaction of lyrical motifs, the author suggests the motif of mystery as important for implementing the main (tragic) conflict, unlike melodrama, where the functions of mystery are plot-forming, stimulating the spectator’s interest and maximizing the dramatic tension. Mystery in the plot and the lyrical concept of the tragedy contributes to the understanding of the essence of the romantic conflict, has a suggestive impact on the audience, and deepens the psychologism.

THE POLITICS OF RELIGION: LIBATION AND TRUCE IN EURIPIDES’ BACCHAE

Euripides’ Bacchae is one of the most intensively studied Greek tragedies. Generations of scholars have explored the play from different perspectives and offered fascinating insights. But there are still aspects that have not received the attention they deserve. One such aspect is Euripides’ use of libation as a dramatic motif. Even though this motif relates directly to the question of the tragic conflict between Dionysus and Pentheus, it has never been discussed in detail and its dramatic impact has not been fully acknowledged.

Desire Under the Elms and The Emperor Jones is a picture of tragic- conflict by O'Neill in modern American drama

This paper aims to study The Desire Under the Elms and The Emperor Jones as the pictures of conflict. The dramatist, O’Neill attempts to reveal the metaphorical expressions in the selected plays. These metaphorical expressions lead to the tragedy in modern American drama. The researchers use the qualitative method, the narrative analysis as the storytelling techniques. This study uses the conceptual metaphor theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980-1988) to justify the metaphorical expressions in the plays of O'Neill to tackle the characters, the actions and plot in the plays mentioned above.

THEATER DISCOURSE IN A. P. LOSENKO’S PAINTING

The article is devoted to the analysis of the representation of theatricality in painting by A. P. Losenko. On the example of his works, most closely related to stage art, the theatrical component of his creative method is revealed. The article analyzes two works by A. P. Losenko, directly related to the circle of the first Russian theaters: “Portrait of actor F. G. Volkov” and “Vladimir before Rogneda”, which are considered in the context of the theatrical discourse of European theater culture of the second half of the XVIII century as peculiar declarations of the artist about the personality of the artist and the mission of theater art in society. Almost all the historical paintings by A. P. Losenko are written in a tragic way with the characteristic color of the conflict, the characterization of the characters and the construction of mise-en-scenes. In particular, in “Vladimir...” the tragic conflict lies in the need for revenge on the hero to the insulter and a sense of love for her, which arose under the impression of her beauty. However, this situation is emphasized already in the spirit of the Enlightenment era with its cult of sensitivity. The conflict loses heroic-political acumen, and is transferred to the lyric-psychological register. The article concludes that the “theatricality” of Losenko's paintings is an important component of his creative method, that its principles are rooted in the historical and cultural context of the Enlightenment. In A. P. Losenko’s “theatrical” paintings, actual searches for both European and national art culture in the field of stage arts were reflected. And, in turn, his work influenced both the development of historical painting and the theatrical art of Russia of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries.

Russian historical novel in a new way: “Tobol” by Alexey Ivanov

The article aims to find out the deep artistic meanings of the novel by A. Ivanov “Tobol” to show the originality and significance of its structure, modifying in many ways the genre of the historical novel. This is evidenced by the author's tangible focus on the possible transformation of the novel into a form of cinema - accented visual imagery of the novel's components (landscapes, architectural sketches, paintings of everyday life) and, most importantly, the exciting drama in the development of the plot, in all its lines, with a powerful energy of actions and dialogues of the characters (the tragic conflict of the Siberian governor Gagarin and tsar Peter I, the clash of Remezov and Gagarin, the struggle of schismatics, the resistance of the Voguls in their conversion to Christianity, the war with the Dzungars). The article suggests that the Siberian reality of the Peter the Great era is considered by the writer from a very deep angle: Siberia, with its many national and socio-historical identities (pagans-Voguls, nomadsDzungars, Cossacks, etc.), with their inevitable struggle, is seen as the “key to Russia”, to understanding the complexity of its historical destiny. An important task is also to pay attention to the connection in the novel of the forms of realistic narrative with the magic of the wonderful, fantastic (in the images of the pagan view of the world of many characters), bringing together the work of A. Ivanov with modern magical realism in literature.

Situating Ethical Costs in Context

This chapter argues that ethical costs are unfairly leveled on students born into disadvantage for three contingent reasons: socioeconomic segregation, an inadequate safety net, and cultural mismatch. It shows how several of the ethical costs strivers face are not a necessary feature of striving itself but are instead dependent on how opportunities are unequally distributed in the United States. The chapter explains how strivers are more likely to bear ethical costs in a society that suffers from socioeconomic segregation, inadequate safety net, and cultural forces that privilege those who are already otherwise advantaged. It talks about how strivers are liable to face tragic conflict more frequently than those who are better off because of the socioeconomic structures into which they are born. It also points out ethical costs that are embedded in larger social, economic, and cultural structures that do not occur in a vacuum and affect everyone equally.

Hegel's Time: Between Tragic Action and Modern History

This paper offers an alternative perspective to the traditional interpretation of Hegel's philosophical reflection on history, departing from a reinterpretation of Hegel's reading of the tragic action of Antigone in Chapter VI of the Phenomenology of Spirit. The customary interpretation of this text affirms that Hegel shows how the conflict of tragic action finds its truth and its end in the identity of spirit. Tragic conflict is left behind to the same extent that (modern historical) spirit sublates the Greek ethical substance. This way, spirit can guarantee that our historical time is released from the past of the substance, or the spiritual movement of mediation from the immediacy of an ‘in-itself’. My reading, by contrast, finds under the tragic conflict of this text of Hegel's nothing but the ‘no’ of death that negates itself, or a principle that has the form of an original and irreducible conflict. Under this interpretation of Hegelian spirit, it becomes clear that it can neither fail to posit some form of ‘in-itself’ nor sublate its own tragic nature. This way it is shown that Hegel's reflection on the past does not reassure the superiority of the identity of the (modern) present (as the end of history), but rather illuminates its ‘broken’ nature. I thus offer an alternative view on Hegel's comprehension of the relation between present and past and between philosophy and time.

Profesora Marka Jana Siemka imperium filozofii prawa

In his philosophical opus Marek J. Siemek not only revisited Hegelian two-stage developmental model of the law. He also created his own legal philosophy which is rooted in the tragic conflict of Greek Sittlichkeit. Siemek, however, clearly demonstrates how can an abstract legal system achieve its ethical (sittliche) qualities at modern times, as being mediated by the structures of reciprocal recognition. Siemek’s unique proposal belongs to the neo-positivist and, at the same time, to the post-positivist approaches of the law. The author focuses on the intellectual potential of Siemek’s legal and social thinking as well as on his concept of philosophizing in the era of permanent crisis we experience again today.