Full-text resources of CEJSH and other databases are now available in the new Library of Science.
Visit https://bibliotekanauki.pl

Results found: 6

first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last

Search results

help Sort By:

help Limit search:
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
1
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

Being-against-Death

100%
Bursztyka P.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
|
2022
|
vol. 6
|
issue 4
1-7
EN
Preview: Words have weight and power; and so do narratives and ideas. They can shape and re-shape realities. They can reveal unheard and unthought of before aspects and dimensions of the world we live in, and in this sense, constitute truth for us; however, they can also, by means of the very same gravity conceal, distort or even destroy our view on reality and our vital relations with it and with ourselves. They are the basic means of our self-understanding, but they can also destroy the very fundaments of it. We always find ourselves within a certain discursive space providing us with the basic ontological, existential, and axiological coordinates for our living and acting. These coordinates indicate and are expressive of our values and concerns, our plans and projects, our normative ideals, and basic attitudes toward ourselves, others, and strangers. They are informative of who we are by pointing out where we stand. They constitute a space of mattering: the space within which our lives are possible only because first they are meaningful; that is, worth of standing for, worthy of defending. However, these spaces quite quickly can become taken for granted, then de-temporalized, de-historicized, petrified, and finally no longer expressive of our identities
2
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

De-Limitations of Culture

100%
Bursztyka P.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
|
2022
|
vol. 6
|
issue 1
1-6
EN
Culture, one can say, is the process of projecting, creating, and setting limitations. It begins with such acts as much as it lives and sustains itself through them. Culture not only sets its outward, external limits serving as a demarcation between itself and an outward sphere – a realm not belonging to it, a dark zone of what was excluded; but it is itself permeated by a whole series of internal limitations. What is at stake is in-forming an original chaos of disorganized, fragmented, inconceivable, and raw “reality.” That is, turning it into identifiable, coherent, ontologically grounded and secured world in which we can dwell. To set cultural limitations means, then, to project particular symbolic, imaginative, social, political, religious, economic, hygienic, medical, and so forth, orders. And at the same time to exclude everything falling short of the standards provided by such orders. This act creates intelligible frameworks within which all culturally mediated human experiences, from the most private and intimate through the public and common to the most sublime ones (e.g., experience of freedom), can become meaningful. This act gives them contours, actuality, and facticity. It does not mean (or it is not to be limited to) a simple acceptance of these limitations. Rather it simply indicates that all our experiences involve encountering limitations of different kinds. And as such they [experiences] are essentially nothing else than taking a stance, position, attitude – being it active or passive, positive or negative – toward them. In other words, limits, boundaries, borders, and along with them also margins, are all-pervasive, constitutive elements of culture and of our understanding of ourselves and of reality.
3
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

The Primacy of Practice

100%
Bursztyka P.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
|
2020
|
vol. 4
|
issue 4
EN
The status of philosophy of culture seems to be notoriously unclear. Since its birth as a methodologically self-aware discipline, it constantly provokes controversies and questions concerning its nature, scope, and objective field of cognitive interests. Is it to be conceived – as it was intended by Wilhelm Dilthey – as a kind of philosophical foundation for Geisteswissenschaften and even more specifically for Kulturwissenschaften – in which case it would play a parallel role to philosophy of science in its relation to natural sciences? Or is it to be understood as a kind of inter-discipline or trans-discipline whose task is to provide a synoptic view on the world we live in and try to understand? Or perhaps one should see it as a particular meta-philosophical orientation – understood rather in terms of a specific approach or a form of sensitivity than as a discipline which would be fully determined with regard to its methodology and objective field of cognitive interests? Or, as some scholars quite convincingly suggest, should be seen first and foremost as a way of life oriented around human intellectual and spiritual growth? Or still as something else? Furthermore, even if we assume a common agreement with regard to its nature and status among other philosophical (sub-)disciplines as well as its relation to humanities and natural sciences – it does not mean that it will be followed by a similar agreement with regard to its most adequate methodological approach. Should it be: descriptive, archeological, critical, procesual, teleological, normative? Perhaps a synthesis comprising all of them? Or still something different?
4
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

Reconceptualizing Eastern Europe: Toward a Common Ethos

100%
Bursztyka P.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
|
2023
|
vol. 7
|
issue 3
67-102
EN
The aim of this essay is a philosophical reconstruction of the category of Eastern Europe (as topographical and ethical, and only by implication a geographical one). This will proceed in three steps. First, deconstruction of the category in question by exposing its colonialist and post-colonialist origins. Second, projection of a new cultural geography of Eastern Europe. The main criteria of which are: 1) belonging to the European community of values, 2) being directly and permanently exposed to a paradoxical cultural formation, neither European nor Asian, which poses a constant threat to all neighboring states and nations – Russia. In the third step, Eastern Europe is presented as a specifically determined way of living, experiencing, and self-understanding, localized in particular space(s); that is, a particular ethos rooted in a concrete topos/topoi. This ethos has been driven by the ideals of freedom, equality, cultural diversity, and the sovereignty of the people; and actualized in a kind of cultural flexibility, hybridity, and polyphony. However, this ethos has never been something given. It has been gradually developing throughout its dramatic history, and this was not only a history of those sublime ideals (and their partial actualization), but also of their real and brutal negation. That is why this ethos is grounded in a constantly renewed activity of self-questioning and self-searching, in a persistently recurrent will of self-determination; and that is also why Eastern Europe cannot be enclosed in a single narrative, but it expresses itself through different and often competing stories.
5
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

Eastern Europe: Cultural Construct or Way(s) of Living?

100%
Bursztyka P.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
|
2025
|
vol. 9
|
issue 1
1-14
EN
Preview: The category of Eastern Europe is deeply problematic. It is so on many levels. To better realize that, it suffices to ask a citizen of any country once belonging to the “Eastern bloc” if they consider themselves Eastern European. In most cases they will do whatever possible to slip away from such a categorization, considering it deeply shameful. “Eastern Europe” sounds like a curse, a stain, a stigma. Obviously, on a superficial level there are some clear political, social, and economic reasons for that; reasons associated mostly with the postwar period when almost half of the continent found itself in the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union. Being on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain meant, for several generations, a painful condition of debasement, deprivation of the basic human rights, economic poverty, destruction of the social sphere, lack of possibilities, and so forth. So, the category in question sounds like a reminder of this painful past. However, it goes back far beyond Sovietism. For all the countries located on the eastern frontiers of Europe it is very clear: the main motivation for escaping such a categorization lies in the fact that Eastern Europe has, for a very long time, been commonly recognized as the sphere of Russia’a cultural dominion. It suffices to look at the departments of Eastern European/Slavonic studies among Western (e.g., Western European, US, Canadian) universities. In most cases, their names and programs a priori grant Russia and its culture a superior position. Thus, it is not surprising that being classified as “Eastern European” is seen and experienced as being associated with and/or subordinated to this monstrous cultural formation. This is an erroneous way of viewing Eastern Europe, if only because Russia itself simply does not belong to Europe. And in fact, it never has. It has never genuinely shared the cultural patterns characteristic of the European cultural project, its guiding values, and ideals.
6
Publication available in full text mode
Content available

Philosophy and the Fight for Freedom

63%
Wendland A. J., Bursztyka P.
Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
|
2022
|
vol. 6
|
issue 4
123-126
EN
Preview: /Aaron J. Wendland interviewed by Przemysław Bursztyka/ “What Good Is Philosophy?” took place on 17-19 March 2023, and it aimed to raise the funds required to establish a Centre for Civic Engagement at Kyiv Mohyla Academy. This Centre will provide support for academic and civic institutions in Ukraine to counteract the destabilizing impact that Russia’s invasion has had on Ukrainian higher education and civilian life. Keynotes at the conference were delivered by world-renowned author, Margaret Atwood, one of the most celebrated scholars of Ukrainian history, Timothy Snyder, and two of Ukraine’s preeminent public intellectuals, Mychailo Wynnyckyj and Volodymyr Yermolenko. Lectures were also given by some of the most influential philosophers writing today, including Peter Adamson, Elizabeth Anderson, Seyla Benhabib, Agnes Callard, Quassim Cassam, Tim Crane, Simon Critchley, David Enoch, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sally Haslanger, Angie Hobbs, Barry Lam, Melissa Lane, Dominic Lopes, Kate Manne, Jeff McMahan, Jennifer Nagel, Philip Pettit, Kieran Setiya, Jason Stanley, Timothy Williamson, and Jonathan Wolff. The closing remarks were delivered by Ukraine’s Ambassador to Canada, Yulia Kovaliv. This benefit event was designed to provide members of the public, individual academics, colleges and universities, professional associations, charitable foundations, and private companies with a way to support students, scholars, and civic institutions in Ukraine. The entire conference is now available to be viewed online via on the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy’s YouTube channel. Here is the relevant link. I encourage everyone who watches the conference to make a donation to support students, scholars, and publicly engaged academics in Ukraine. All donations can be made here. And as the conference organizer, I am extremely grateful for any and every contribution to this cause.
first rewind previous Page / 1 next fast forward last
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.