May, 22, 2024
Speaker:
Luke David O'Sullivan
Associate Professor,
Department of Political Science,
National University of Singapore,
Faculty of Art and Social Sciences
Title: "Categories, History, and Historiography".
History deals with individual events or periods. The collapse of the Soviet Union or the Cold War era can never be repeated. But this is is why history as a genre of thinking has traditionally been deprecated; it did not deal in universals. This view is traceable to the ancient world; it can be found in the thought of Plato and Aristotle. Their influence on subsequent Western thought ensured that philosophical emphasis remained on knowledge of universals. Medieval thought insisted that there is no science of singulars, and modernity inherited this view. Kant and Hegel remained fixated on so-called universal history, narratives of the past that treated it as important only insofar as it revealed a general plan or design at work. By the later twentieth century this way of thinking about the past had become deprecated as 'metanarrative'; a story about the past that was really designed to legitimate some other agenda. Such metanarratives, it was alleged, were becoming obsolete. The experience of the twenty-first century suggests, however, that metanarrative has not in fact gone away, and that history as the study of events in their individuality remains of marginal philosophical interest. There is reason to think that this situation is undesirable insofar as discourses about the past that legitimate aggressive political behaviour can end up imposing avoidable costs on a global scale. Better-informed historical conversations are thus one part of the puzzle in creating a more peaceful future.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 313
April, 30, 2024
Speaker:
OKSANA DOVGOPOLOVA
Co-founder and co-curator of the memory culture platform Past / Future / Art, Doctor of Science (in Philosophy), Professor at the Philosophy Department at the Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University, member of the Memory Studies Association, author of scientific and educational publications
Title: «Artistic reflection of the imperial heritage»
Oksana Dovgopolova graduated from the Odesa Mechnikov National University with a degree in history, defended her candidate’s and doctoral theses on “Social Philosophy and Philosophy of History.” She completed an internship at the Swiss Peace Foundation (2022), Konsortium Ziviler Friedensdienst (2020-2022), the Museum of Second World War in Gdańsk (2019), the Yad Vashem Museum (2018), Central European University (2012), etc. Experienced in higher education, she has been working in the public sphere. Since 2014, she has been participating in dialogue initiatives in Odesa; launched the public history site Hubs of History. In 2015–2018, she organised several international student schools and public history projects focusing on societal reconciliation in the context of collective memory. Since 2018, she has been a curator of public programs for art projects at the Odesa National Art Museum, the Odesa Museum of Contemporary Art, Oleksandr Bleshchunov Municipal Museum of Private Collections, and the IZOLYATSIA fund. In 2018–2019, she developed the Memory Lab experimental unit at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. In 2019, together with Kateryna Semenyuk, she founded the Past / Future / Art memory culture platform. From February 24, 2022, after russia’s full-scale invasion, the project continues its work with a focus on the commemoration of the Russia-Ukraine war.
About Past/Future/Art https://pastfutureart.org/en/about
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 273
March, 26,
Speaker:
Olena Mishalova
Associate professor of the Philosophy Department
Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University
Title: "Russia’s War in Ukraine as a «War for Identity» and Appropriation of Cultural Tradition".
Abstract: We propose to analyze Russia's current war in Ukraine through the perspective of Francis Fukuyama's concept of identity politics based on Samuel Huntington's civilization approach. We argue that Russia's war against Ukraine is a new type of war – a «war for identity» – a war that is waged primarily for the appropriation of Ukrainian cultural identity and historical heritage, rather than for political or economic resources. We believe that an effective explanatory framework for its consideration is provided by Huntington's civilizational concept of the world order, in which the most widespread and dangerous conflicts will be between peoples belonging to different civilizations (and cultures). The article emphasizes that the Russian war in Ukraine is a direct consequence of two factors: on the one hand, Russia is not satisfied with its own cultural tradition and seeks to appropriate Ukrainian cultural identity and historical heritage in order to restore the «lost empire»; on the other hand, Russia is historically a region of civilizational fault line between the countries of Western civilization and the countries of Eastern civilizations, it is a «torn» state in terms of cultural identity and has maintained its integrity for centuries only due to its authoritarian political regime, and constantly produces numerous conflicts around its borders.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 300
February, 27
Speaker:
Maksim Vak
Assistant professor at CUNY (City University of New York).
The topic
"Reevaluation of Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism"
The recent reemergence of totalitarianism in Russia makes exigent an examination of the origin and structure of totalitarian regimes. In my paper I reexamine the origin of totalitarianism in confrontation with the seminal work of Hannah Arendt, reading her work from the perspective of Nietzsche’s Genealogy. In my reading, Arendt’s phenomenology of totalitarianism assumes without question fundamental moments in understanding of the formation of nations: the role of truth in forming a national world view, the role of history and memory in forming a national world view, the role of imagination in forming nations, and the place of nihilism in the will of nation. In consequence, Arendt assumes that truth can undermine totalitarian falsehood, and that history and the preservation of memory can help to oppose the development of totalitarianism. In her rigorous interrogation of the origin of totalitarianism – its historical and economical conditions, as she does not question its genealogy – she does not address the nihilistic character of nations, which become the native soil for totalitarianism. In my paper I reexamine the notion of ‘truth’, assumed by Arendt, from the perspective of the will to power as a regime of power. Memory and history are reexamined accordingly as expressions of will to power. History in this power game is a product of imagination, a creation of myth in support of a dominant power. It is an esthetic game to foster the art of living. To understand the genealogy of totalitarianism I distinguish between the two types of nihilism and the two corresponding types of creation of history – active and reactive. In my paper I argue that reactive type of nihilism, which prevails in forming Russian ‘spirit’, inevitably delivers and redelivers totalitarianism on Russian soil. To illustrate my argument, I ‘imagine’ the birth of Russian national spirit at the beginning of the XIX century in the Karamzin’s history and its further development through following centuries as a history of a birth and development of reactive nihilistic spirit.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 291
January, 30.
The Speaker:
Svitlana Ovcharenko
Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy, Full Professor, Ukraine
Associate Research Global Governance Centre of
Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva)
The topic
“Another rational” regularities of information war:
The Russian-Ukrainian case
Abstract. An information war is analyzed as a special case of culturally determined artificial reality, in which communicative processes take place on a rational and non-rational level. Non-rational aspects of the use of information for military purposes are investigated in the context of the ubiquity of aesthetic factors in the functioning of social space, which provides grounds for applying conceptual theoretical generalizations from the field of art studies to a wide range of socio-political phenomena. The concept of "another rationality" allows us to interpret the manifestations of artistic thinking in non-artistic phenomena as a general principle of mindset and activity that is naturally applied in informational confrontation. The typical characteristics of the Russian way of information warfare against Ukraine are the embodiment of the laws of “anrational” thinking, which enables its effective emotional influence and rational irrefutability.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 256
November, 21
The Speaker:
Hans-Herbert Kögler is Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, and regular guest professor at Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt, Austria. Major publications include The Power of Dialogue: Critical Hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault (1996; 1999); Michel Foucault (2nd ed., 2004, 2016); Kultura, kritika, dialog (2006; 2014); the co-edited Empathy and Agency. The Problem of Understanding in the Human Sciences (2000; 2018); Enigma Agency (2019); the edited Reconceiving Religion in the Postsecular Public Sphere” (2020); an edited volume dedicated to Hans-Herbert Kögler’s Critical Hermeneutics (2022). Numerous essays in critical hermeneutics, critical social theory (Frankfurt School), philosophical hermeneutics, philosophy of language, poststructuralism, cultural studies, and social and political philosophy.
The topic Empathetic Morality, Geopolitical Power & Lasting Peace
How (not) to conceptualize the ‘multipolar world order’ after Ukraine
Abstract:This talk presents follow-up reflections on my lead essay “Democracy or Dictatorship? The Moral Call to Defend Ukraine” in the European Journal of Social Theory (Vol. 26, 4, Nov. 2023). In that essay, I invoke the moral sentiment to assist someone in danger or being attacked as a core phenomenon to ground solidarity. I qualify this sentiment with normative reflections on the need for consequentialist considerations, the recognition of the Other’s status as self-determining subject, and the universalist orientation of the ‘moral call of support.’ This normative scaffold serves to challenge the geopolitical approach that reflects solely the interests of collective players, and to normatively reject demands for an unconditional peace now. These points are developed by analyzing Putin’s imperial strategy, Dugin’s cultural essentialism, and biopolitical war practices. Normative principles are suggested based on the whole complex situation. In this talk, I will reconstruct and deepen the ethical foundation of support & solidarity (including military support) for Ukraine; suggest a theory of power & domination which overcomes the methodological and moral abstractions of geopolitical realism; rehearse the role and critique of Dugin’s Eurasian cultural essentialism in Putin’s neo-imperialist perspective; and briefly discuss the normative principles relevant for a newly emerging world order.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 293
October, 6, 17 CEST/18 EEST
Speaker: Dr. Tetiana Gardashuk
H.Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy, NASU
Title of the talk: "The weaponization of nature as a manifestation of anti-vitality of war"
Abstract. The full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine (24 February 2022) changed the world drastically. The scale of it and its global impact raised numerous questions concerning human rights, international safety, justice, etc., all requiring solutions both urgent and viable in the long-term perspective. The negative human and environmental impacts of Russian aggression in Ukraine are among them. The war destroys landscapes, ecosystems, habitats, and populations of species. It disrupts the natural life support systems and violates the inherent “Nature’s right to exist” and the principle of biophilia. I consider the war to be an anti-vital phenomenon, and thus a crime against life and “the world as a community” (Mitwelt), which includes both nature and everything which is involved in it [Meyer-Abich, 1993], while peace is a universal and vital value.
One of the particular features of the current war is the severe weaponization (that is the use as a weapon of something that is not conceived under the usual meaning of this word) of different kinds of resources – water, energy, and food.
Since it is not possible within one seminar to analyze in detail all aspects of nature weaponization in the current Russo-Ukrainian war I will focus my presentation on weaponization of water and its multiple negative effects for the environment and humans, as well as on the role of values for valuing and efficient management and protection of water and the equitable and just access to it.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 309
June, 30, 17 CEST/18 EEST
Speaker: Anda Pleniceanu
Anda Pleniceanu holds a PhD from The Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western University, Canada. She conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of continental philosophy, aesthetics, and literary theory. Working with the concepts of subjectivity and negativity, she is broadly concerned with the construction of circular systems of thought and aesthetic representation. Her research interests include speculative theory, avant-garde and post-avant-garde aesthetics, French poststructuralism, negative dialectics, and violence. Her dissertation, published under the title You Unseen Cathedrals: A Study of the Conceptual Conditions of Negativity, focuses on the modern and post-modern articulation of the concept of negativity, particularly in relation to the post-Kantian notion of subjectivity."
Title of the talk: Violence: Necessity versus Contingency
Abstract: This seminar presentation is premised on a continuing dialogue with Professor Sergii Shevtsov’s research on the concept of violence. I begin by surveying several points made in his article “On the Ontology of Violence,” such as the inclusion of violence into a dialectical and deterministic framework. As the transference of violence from a socio-historical contexts to philosophy proves to be challenging, I focus on the equation of violence with labor and transformation. I consider this conceptual chain of associations in different contexts, such as Heraclitean thought, Hegelian dialectics, and Marxist critique, and offer a critical perspective on these theories regarding their relationship with violence. I argue that these approaches are not helpful in understanding the particularity of violence in the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine because they diminish the excessiveness of violence with a chain of causation that diffuses the gravity of the acts and, consequently, the responsibility of the perpetrators. In addition, following Professor Shevtsov’s example of René Girard’s concept of violence as based on the mimetic nature of desire, I discuss the issues with this approach, which connects modern-day violence with ancestral and mythological violence. I argue that Girard’s approach is similar to Sigmund Freud’s in the latter’s theory of civilisation, which is premised on inherited and embedded violence.
As an alternative to these models of thinking violence, I offer a different configuration based on contemporary and 20th-century French thought. In general, I propose the concept of contingent violence: violence whose only ontological necessity is its very contingency. Although violence can be contextualised, explained, and incorporated at the level of history, ontologically, the eruption of violence does not follow the principle of sufficient reason. My proposition is informed by Quentin Meillassoux’s distinction between contingency and facticity in After Finitude, Time Without Becoming, and The Number and the Siren. By establishing a distinction between existence and ontology, and by offering a different treatment of violence at both levels, my overarching aim is to develop a framework in which violent acts could not be theorised as part of a “natural,” “mythological,” or even “ontological” necessity.
Along with the concept of contingent violence informed by Meillassoux, I will consider Jean-François Lyotard’s idea of the differend (différend in French) with a focus on the posture of the victim of violence and Gilles Deleuze’s concept of cruelty from the Logic of Sense and “To Have Done with Judgement,” which offers a radically different conceptualization of violence, breaking away from the guilt-based dialectical system that ultimately incorporates violence as always-already the responsibility of the victim.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 280
May, 31, 17 CEST/18 EEST
Speaker: Prof. Olexandr Kulyk (Oles Honchar Dnipro National University)
https://philpeople.org/profiles/oleksandr-kulyk
Title of the talk: 'The Issue of Evil in the Context of Russia’s War against Ukraine'
Abstract: This research is an attempt to address the issue of evil in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine in an analytical way, trying to specify what evil is and check whether this or that feature of evil is applicable to the reality of the war. It is argued that there are the following three conditions that are separately necessary and jointly sufficient for the characterization of something or somebody as evil: the phenomenon needs to be the result or the source of (1) wrongful acts of action or inaction that (2) lead to the ruination of lives of other people and (3) are either planned or foreseen or being the results of willful blindness about consequences of the acts. The research gives arguments in favor of the thesis that many acts of a significant part of the people of contemporary Russia show the abovementioned features. Moreover, it is argued that their evildoing is also characterized by regularity. Then it is argued that evil in Russia’s war against Ukraine exists in the following three modes: the factual evil (acts of ruining lives), the active evil (initiators and implementers of ruining lives and those who actively support them) and the passive evil (those who do nothing to stop the acts that are ruining lives).
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 300
April 26, 17 CEST/18 EEST
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Christoph Lumer
Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Siena (Italy)
http://www.lumer.info, https://docenti.unisi.it/en/lumer
Title of the talk: "Methods in Philosophy – From Applied Philosophy to the Fundamentals".
Abstract: This contribution seeks to give an overview from a normative perspective of methods currently used in philosophy. 'Normative perspective' here means that good methods are presented and justified in detail, while bad ones are criticised briefly - briefly, because the contribution is mainly intended to be constructive. 1. Applied philosophies (e.g. applied ethics) should, according to the idea, actually only apply principles developed on a more fundamental level, i.e. logically derive a decision on certain cases from these principles and empirical situation descriptions. This is explained using the example of welfare-ethical evaluations, especially the ethics of war. Applied philosophies, however, often go beyond this empirical deductive practice. 2. The dispute over methods in philosophy concerns above all the more fundamental parts of philosophy, e.g. the methods to be applied in nomative ethics. Here, for example, the following methods are in conflict: methodological naturalism; various types of intuitionism from reflective equilibrium to certain varieties of experimental philosophy; conceptual analysis including conceptual engineering. A brief critique of such methods with an eye to the goals of philosophy is then followed by the innovative main part of the contribution: the presentation of four ideal types of theory in philosophy together with their methods, which are also implemented in real terms (although seldom purely), but are not theorised in the methodological discussion to date: descriptive-nomological, idealising-hermeneutic, technical-constructive and ontic-practical theories.
- Автор: Козаченко Надія Павлівна
- Перегляди: 279
