Editorial. Values and Ideals. Theory and Praxis

• Authors: Czarnocka Małgorzata , Brown Charles
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

It is our great pleasure to publish the first of a series of issues of Dialogue and Universalism displaying the selected, peer-reviewed materials submitted to the XI World Congress of the International Society for Universal Dialogue. The essays published here reflect the theme of this World Congress: Values and Ideals: Theory and Practice. ISUD’s XI World Congress, held in Warsaw, Poland, 11–15 July 2016, reaffirmed its guiding values and core mission while remembering and celebrat-ing its 1989 founding in Warsaw. ISUD’s socially oriented mission promotes philosophical dialogue as a means toward building a more decent human world. This is not an armchair vision of philosophy that sees philosophical thinking as isolated from the real problems of human life. By exploring the essence of reali-ty and by reflecting on values and ideals philosophy achieves the intellectual power to change the world. ISUD believes that philosophical dialogue may help illuminate and free human minds imprisoned by the ideologies of mass culture or simply weighed down by the mundane chores of life. The world today is more dangerous than when ISUD was founded. Ideolo-gies dominating mass culture continue to crowd out rational thinking needed for open and free reflection thereby leaving us alienated and deprived of authentic ideals. The result is xenophobic nationalism, religious fanaticism, and the cult of self-interest. We see this result in the social world with rising levels of con-flict, wars, economic inequality, and homeless refugees who are too often un-wanted and reviled by others. We see this in the natural world as the capacity of the Earth to provide a home and sanctuary for all steadily declines. These nu-merous destructive factors are accompanied by the more and more frequent breaks of communication—between nations, religious communities, and within previously stable social groups. At the same time, the problem of cultural diversity and the need to cultivate dialogical relations between nationalities and cultures is too often set aside. Differences between cultures exist just as differences within cultures and within individuals do. Such differences do not render cultural or individual perspectives incommensurable as each culture and each individual is an expression of the underlying common and universal humanity of our species: Homo sapiens. From our perspective, the state of the world today calls for a robust inter-cultural dialogue to develop and explore a more authentic understanding of human needs and aspirations. Critical and creative rational thinking is an opportunity for humankind to re-sist the lies and illusions of ideological manipulations that serve as instruments of enslavement and oppression. ISUD’s vision of philosophy as an expression of human rationality offers a chance to free people’s awareness, to open their minds, and to extend their possibilities of thinking and acting. In doing so, philosophical reflection and dialogue is able to refine and renew old ideals and values as well as to create new ones. It is these two aspects—free consciousness and new ideals—that are necessary to build a more decent human world. The ISUD community is convinced that philosophy has an important role to play in the struggle for the future of humanity. The first part of this issue includes the keynote addresses commissioned by ISUD while the second part includes essays selected as recipients of the Jens Jacobsen Research Prize for outstanding philosophical work. The keynote addresses and the Jacobsen Research Prize papers propose new inspirational ideas for consideration by the ISUD community. While these ideas sometimes challenge the original formulations of the guiding values and ideas of ISUD they also work to reaffirm and renew those ideals and values. The materials presented here seek to focus ISUD’s attention on the following questions: What are main objectives of universal dialogue, crucial for the fate of humanity, for our time in history? How best can the ISUD pursue a more decent future of humanity and inspire others to join with us or to pursue com-plementarily projects? These new ideas and directions take their place among earlier elaborated perspectives, views, and issues as part of the ISUD intellectu-al legacy.

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Journal: Dialogue and Universalism
• Year: 2016
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 5-6

Contributors

author

Czarnocka Małgorzata

• Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Nowy Świat 72, 00–330 Warszawa, Poland

author

Brown Charles

• Emporia State University in Emporia, Kellogg Cir, Emporia, Kansas S 66801, USA