Volumul XX (2015), nr. 1

Cuprins

Studii

Radu ALBU COMĂNESCU
Instituția:
Faculty of European Studies, Babeş-Bolyai University
Email:
radu.albu@euro.ubbcluj.ro
Abstract

With a European high-life and known for being a famed writer and socialite of the 1900s-1930s, Marthe Bibesco proves to have had played the role of a cultural diplomat ‘avant la lettre’. Revealed by her writings and ideas, her perspectives on Europe’s politics, civilization and way of life, as well as those on her country’s role and cultural vocation, were astutely put together in order to create the image of a Romania whose complexity was as enchanting as Europe’s own.

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Anna JANI
Instituția:
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Faculty of Humanities, Institute of Philosophy, MTA-ELTE Hermeneutics Research Group
Email:
janianna@web.elte.hu, anna.vargajani@gmail.com
Abstract

The problem of individuality lies at the basis of phenomenological investigations both in Edith Stein’s earliest and mature works. Her doctoral thesis, the On the Problem of Empathy, focuses on the phenomenological acts of perceiving persons in an intersubjective situation. She aims at a conception of the person beyond a construction based on the pure “I” or the stream of consciousness. According to her, the psycho-physical subject can comprehend the foreign living body as an individual. Dilthey is not interested in the individual in a phenomenological sense, but rather in the question as to what constitutes value in the society. Although all of Stein’s references to Dilthey’s views in her doctoral thesis are of critical nature, there is still a connection between the two thinkers. In this paper, I would like to investigate the relationship between Edith Stein’s critique of Dilthey’s understanding of the individual with a particular focus on Stein’s conception of empathic act as the founding act for the community.

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Ştefan BOLEA
Instituția:
Faculty of Letters, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Email:
stefan.bolea@gmail.com
Abstract

A new philosophical and anyhropological-psychological concept is needed for the alienated and radically different human being according to the nihilist Romanian-French philosopher E.M. Cioran. This concept of the not-man describes a post-anthropological subject, which is “inhuman" from a psychological point of view, emphasizing estrangement and otherness in the definition of humanity. I have compared Cioran’s provocative and unusual term with Nietzsche’s analysis of the overman – the difference between the two concepts proceeding from two conflicting nihilist perspectives – and I also have identified the not-man in the novel of the Japanese writer Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human. [*]

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[*] This paper is a result of a doctoral research made possible by the financial support of the Sectoral Operational Programme for Human Resources Development 2007–2013, co-financed by the European Social Fund, under the project POSDRU/159/1.5/S/132400 -  “Young successful researchers – professional development in an international and interdisciplinary environment”.

Carmen ŢÂGŞOREAN
Instituția:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences
Email:
carmen.tagsorean@ubbcluj.ro
Abstract

If until the outbreak of World War II the anti-Semitic manifestations were generally limited to verbal abuse and in isolated acts of physical violence, the alliance with Nazi Germany created the framework for the implementation of the anti-Semitic policies. The pogroms in Romania described in various books were also immortalized in photos. The photographs taken by the Jewish community reveal a vivid picture of the atrocities committed. This study aims to present the human losses, the moral and physical trauma, and also Jews’ property devastation during the fascist rebellion in Bucharest reflected in the scientific works and in photos.

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Mircea-Andrei GOLBAN
Instituția:
Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj, Faculty of Letters
Email:
mircea.golban@gmail.com
Abstract

The essay joins together the concepts of transformation, negotiation and adequacy with the concept of translatability. Firstly, I conducted my research on Walter Benjamin’s text about translation. What stands out is the difference between the poet and the translator, but mainly the concept of pure languageas described by Benjamin. Secondly, I reviewed Benjamin’s text through a poststructuralist perspective (Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Paul de Man and Paul Ricœur), finally reaching the acknowledgement of the impossibility of a perfect translation. Lastly, the paper gives an example of the reason why a text can be difficult to translate (Derrida’s letters).

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Mihaela URSA
Instituția:
Faculty of Letters, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj, Head of the Department of Comparative Literature
Email:
mihaelaursa@gmail.com
Abstract

The present paper concludes a multidisciplinary research on the appearance and popularization of traditional gender ideologies by means of specific public power discourses. While, on declarative levels, the Romanian establishment favors political correctness, freedom of choice and self-identity, there are subtle messages within power discourses that state the opposite and encourage the perpetuation of traditional gender roles, the stigmatization of those who do not observe them, as well as dangerous gender segregation. The research takes into account three levels of ideology-dissemination in Romania after the year 2000: product publicity, public speech of prominent representatives of Romanian politics and public messages of the cultural elite.

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Daniel JUGRIN
Instituția:
Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi
Email:
jugrindaniel@gmail.com
Abstract

The Plotinian description of mystical union derives from his – philosophical and theological – view regarding the One. Firstly, the process of abstraction (aphairesis) implies the removal of all that has been an addition to the soul by its descent into a body. Secondly, it requires a rigorous intellectual purification of thought in relation to the One. The mechanism by which Plotinus imposes the “negation of negation” (Enneads 5.5.6.32) and “taking away everything” (Enneads 5.3.17.38) manifests itself by transposing the soul from the stage of discourse and cognition towards the noetic contemplation on the level of Nous, and, finally, towards the mystical union with the One.

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Francisc ÖRMÉNY
Instituția:
Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj, Faculty of Philosophy
Email:
ormenyfrancisc@yahoo.com
Abstract

The present study attempts to show in which cases the barbarism discussed and sometimes openly advocated by the French philosophers of the 18th century (Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau) relates back to some pagan habits and realities for mystically-romantic and for nostalgically-instinctual reasons and in which cases it has to do with rudimentary and bloodthirsty uses of reason. As these thinkers ignited the first precious and powerful sparks in the direction of a historical recuperation of the phenomenological and aesthetic roots of man, our material represents an attempt to explain the political and historical phenomenon which brought back to the table the discussion concerning the cultural origins of Europe and which resurrected the pagan fascinations and fears within the cultural imaginary of the coming epochs. [*]

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[*] As a post-doctoral researcher at Babeş-Bolyai University – Faculty of Philosophy (under the coordination of The West University of Timişoara), the author would like to express his gratitude for the financial support of his post-PhD research to the team coordinating the POSDRU 140863 Project.

Béla MESTER
Instituția:
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of Philosophy
Email:
mester.bela@btk.mta.hu
Abstract

After the emergence of natural sciences in the age of Romanticism, a new approach of nature has appeared due to the historical view of the objects of natural philosophy. Mineralogy was paradigmatic; it made culturally valuable, historical objects, exhibited in Museums, from the objects of dead, culturally neutral nature, which was evaluated before as an unhistorical world. In works of Kant, Herder, Schelling and others was established the topic of the early history of Earth as a preface of the history of the humanity. My paper outlines the consequences of the idea of humanised and historicised dead nature. [*]

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[*] This text is based on my lectures at the conferences entitled 13th Lošinj Days of Bioethics, 18th–21st May 2014, Mali Lošinj, Croatia; Man-Made World, 21st–24th September 2014, Cres, Croatia, both of them organised by the Croatian Philosophical Society. My researches on the topics of these lectures were supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund.

István FEHÉR M.
Instituția:
“Eötvös Loránd” University/Andrassy German Speaking University Budapest
Email:
feher@ella.hu
Abstract

Irony and solidarity are two key concepts characteristic of the vocabulary of Richard Rorty. Their thematization can be done on a narrower or wider basis of texts. In the present paper I attempt to contextualize and reconstruct them against the background of other important concepts of Rorty’s vocabulary, such as, first of all, the concept of contingency. The concept of irony is shown to derive, for Rorty, from Sartre’ conception of the humans who are claimed to be what they are not, and not to be what they are. The non coincidence of humans with themselves, or, with their „essence,” is argued to lead the way to the basic attitude of irony. The concept of contingency may be shown to lead up to the concept of solidarity as well, in that the realization that what we are we are in a contingent way implies the possibility of being radically other than what we happen to be. (I.) In a second step, the basic concepts of Rorty, thus far reconstructed, are shown to be dependent on Rorty’s basic philosophical stance of anti-foundationalism; the latter is claimed to have a hermeneutical background. (II.) In a final part the outlines of a tradition are sketched from Kant to the present, characterized by an anti-metapyhsical flow, whereby the importance of solidarity and morality is stressed without the attempt to anchor it in a metaphysical theory of humans or any kind of epistemology destined to provide knowledge rather than hope. Indeed, Rorty shows that hope stands over and above knowledge, and it contributes to making us humans more than a project to attain any kind of (secure) knowledge is ever capable of.

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Lajos András KISS
Abstract

The subject of this paper is the presentation and contrasting analysis of the so-called "ultimate metaphysical questions" in the works of Istán Király V., who had spent several decades of consistent fathoming of the senses of life, death, freedom, history and illness. Although Király's Heideggerian thinking, his commitment to fundamental ontology and hermeneutics is beyond dispute, he can be regarded as an independent thinker who forms his own thinking autonomously and independently from the authors he prefers to refer to (Kierkegaard, Heidegger, etc.) His originality lies in the fact that he rethinks and takes forward the Heideggerian questions and answers, trying to join the abstract views of fundamental ontology with the " lifecommitment" of applied philosophy. This way he sees the questions of death, freedom and illness connected to euthanasia or abortion, that is, the concrete questions of human existence which often test the limits or paralyse freedom. The paper does not claim that Király's radical interpretation of being is an isolated attempt. Therefore the author of the paper compares Király's applied philosophy experiment with other similar approaches of the 20th century, such as Ernst Bloch, Nicolai Berdyaev, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Jean-Paul Sartre, in the mirror of whose works the originality and challenging innovation of Király's thoughts is even more apparent.

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István KIRÁLY V.
Instituția:
Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Department of Philosophy
Email:
kiraly_philobib@yahoo.com
Abstract

Every discourse about the nothing seems fully and ultimately empty. However, this cannot be true precisely because it is language – that is, discourse – which always brings forth the nothing, the word of the “Nothing”. The language therefore speaks about the nothing and perhaps also “speaks nothing”. In its primary – and abstract – appearance, the nothing is precisely “that” “which” it is not. However, its word is still there in the words of most languages (for we cannot know all). What is more, since it is not, at a first sight all the nothing has is its word, its name... and this is precisely what protrudes. But the word of the nothing utters in language only that which has no being. That is therefore not just any kind of negation, but the negation of being, the name of the negation of being. The “nothing” is therefore the mere word of the negation of being. Which lives standing in languages. As deeply that its translation presents no problems. The German ­­das Nichts can be translated unproblematically to the English nothing, the French rien or néant, the Slavic nić, the Romanian nimic or the Hungarian semmi, etc. However, if we go on deeper into the problem, it shows that, despite the unproblematic translation, being and (its) negation articulates in different ways in the names of the nothing. The writing analyses this in detail, with special emphasis of the Hungarian word of Nothing [Semmi]. It concludes by initiating a philosophical dialogue with a poem of Attila József.

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Angela MARCU, Daniela TODOR
Instituția:
Central University Library Cluj
Email:
angela.marcu@bcucluj.ro, daniela.todor@bcucluj.ro
Abstract

This paper tries to identify the position of the Referinţe critice (Critical references) bibliography among all the other bibliographical works of literary periodicals. It also attempts to present this work with its ups and downs which have been recorded during its uninterrupted appearance for almost fifty years, and to propose a project for further continuation and development of the work.

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Miscellanea

Ştefan BOLEA
Recenzie de
Ovidiu PECICAN
Instituția:
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Email:
pecolino59@yahoo.com
Abstract
Sandu FRUNZĂ
Recenzie de
Iulia GRAD
Instituția:
Babeş Bolyai University
Email:
iuliagrad@gmail.com
Abstract
Jan ASSMANN
Recenzie de
Amalia COTOI
Instituția:
Faculty of Letters, Romanian Literary Studies Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Email:
amaliacotoi@yahoo.com
Abstract