1/2025
BEYOND HISTORY: ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF A HEALTHY PLANET. WHAT ARE THE CONCEPTUAL
TECTONICS FOR GLOBAL RELATIONS AMONG PEOPLES?
EDITORIAL
BEYOND HISTORY: ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF A HEALTHY PLANET. WHAT ARE THE CONCEPTUAL
TECTONICS FOR GLOBAL RELATIONS AMONG PEOPLES?
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253511
The World Congress of Philosophy held in Rome, Italy in August 2024 was extraordinarily successful with more than 5,000 participants from countries spanning the globe. Papers for the Round Table with topic Beyond History: Envisioning the Future of a Healthy Planet. What are the conceptual tectonics for global relations among peoples? were presented by a panel representing at least three different countries, specifically Nigeria, Peru and the United States, which was a requirement of the congress for each round table, insuring a truly international composition: Participants: Columbus Ogbujah, Nigeria; Victor J Krebs, Peru; Martha Beck, Jean Campbell and Daniel Krieglstein, USA. With the exception of Daniel Krieglstein, whose presentation was based on a slide show, the papers of this panel are included in this issue.
Taken as a group, their work draws on the wisdom of all times and all places to explore principles for cooperative life among peoples globally. Ancient (Socrates et al.) and modern (Immanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell et al.) thinkers and contemporary (Hilary Putnam, Timothy Snyder et al.) research provide analysis and models for our efforts to resist the centralized control made possible by the advanced technologies of our age. Knowledge is incremental while faith is immediate. How can we learn the humility required to respect each other and the precious gift of life? How can coordinated effort replace the violence of war? The imperatives of liberty and cooperation to counteract both material and intellectual control and domination in the basic spheres of education, satisfaction of needs and spiritual life are articulated.
Through a masterly historical review of competing interpretations of business ethics, Columbus Ogbujah poses the essential foundation of a holistic approach, permeating all basic human activities with scope far outside the limited arenas aligned with the compartmentalization of the issues examined. In this way virtue ethics is considered through the unity of social organization, reaffirming the need for Aristotle’s cultivation of human excellence in all areas of endeavor.
With explorations of the notion of face, Victor Krebs challenges the traditional understandings of ontology to open the possibility for direct interrelationships beyond those bound by human consciousness and representation. Building on thework of Graham Harman, among others, he poses the prospect of connecting more directly to the “complexity of matter and our deep entanglement within its ever-unfolding web.”
Given the current epidemics of disease plaguing all parts of the world, Martha Beck revisits the Greek Olympic models for a healthy mind in a healthy body. Aristotle’s formulation of flourishing is adopted as the standard against which these various corruptions are exposed. Professor Beck invokes the original liberalism of Ancient Greece for insights to attain unity of a sustainable life now.
Jean Campbell’s contribution reflects on the dangers of centralization of the creation and management of the flows of money at the foundation of global commerce. Oddly, Lord Bertrand Russell anticipated such centralization due to potentials of technological innovation as early as the 1950s. She stresses the importance of actions made in good faith and honesty as antidotes to the widespread corruption in these spheres which has so widely been tolerated.
Introducing the principle of relativity formulated by Einstein as an analogy for differing perspectives, Daniel Krieglstein considers ways polarized viewpoints can be put forward and interpreted in the context of an active dialogue. He also postulates the need for especially cultures with a most local profile and reach to have a digital presence to help maintain their identities and presence going into the future.
Consult the panel’s papers in the following pages for further examination of these issues. It was more than gratifying to connect in Rome with other scholars of the world sharing this interest.
Jean Campbell
PhD, New York University
ABSTRACTS
Martha C. Beck
HOW THE OLYMPICS AND ARISTOTLE’S MODEL OF PRACTICAL WISDOM PROVIDE A WAY OF UNDERSTANDING THE ILLNESSES THAT PLAGUE US AND HOW TO ADDRESS THEM
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253512
The year 2024 is proving to be a landmark in the explosion of diseases all over the world. Collectively, we are experiencing a huge rise in obesity and related diseases like diabetes type 2 and heart disease; a huge rise in mental illnesses, leading to deaths and diseases of despair; a huge increase in the gap between the world’s billionaires and everyone else; a huge increase in authoritarian populist leaders replacing democratic political candidates. The Olympic Games are part of the national identity of almost every nation in the world. They were institutionalized as a way to encourage each citizen to cultivate a healthy mind in a healthy body. This paper begins with the view of a healthy civilization underlying all aspects of the Olympic Games. The underlying view also follows Aristotle’s model of a flourishing citizen in a flourishing society. A number of recent books that focus on some aspect of the many diseases people experience today, including physical and mental health, refer explicitly to Aristotle’s model of flourishing as the standard against which they expose corruptions and a model to follow as we create a healthier culture in the future. The World Congress in Rome, the Center for Values in Philosophy and the ISUD also support the work of scholars who bring together ideas about how to create a healthier international civilization so that future generations can survive and thrive.
Keywords: Aristotle, Olympics, polarization, globalization, eudaimonia, Socrates.
Affiliation: Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas.
Email: martha.beck@lyon.edu
Victor J. Krebs
FACE, COSMOS, ANTHROPOCENE. TOWARDS A NEW SENSIBILITY
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253513
Our understanding of the face is deeply entrenched in ocular-centrism and anthropocentric narcissism, limiting the recognition of faceness to humans alone. This restricted perspective undermines our ethical engagement with the non-human world and sustains an illusion of stability and control, blinding us to our existential fragility and diminishing our ability to address the profound challenges of the Anthropocene. Drawing on speculative realism, this essay seeks to transcend these limitations by reimagining the concept of the face as a dynamic, relational phenomenon. By broadening our discernment of faceness beyond the human, we aim to foster a more attuned and ethically responsive orientation toward the interconnected realities of our era.
Keywords: Anthropocentrism, ocular-centrism, speculative realism, faceness, ethics, Anthropocene, ontology.
Affiliation: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP).
Email: vjk5555@gmail.com
Columbus N. Ogbujah
ETHICS IN BUSINESS: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND PRAGMATIC EXPEDIENCY
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253514
In biological literature, humans are depicted as higher mammals that have suckled their young ones in all ages. This nature-induced nurturance act, among others, is indicative of inherent dispositions for kindness, integrity, tenderness, respect, and compassion – values that highlight moral responsibility. Besides the impositions of the law and the pursuit of a positive social image, the quest for moral rectitude is an elixir that propels human milk of kindness in tending the needs of their kind. The propulsive correlation between tending others’ needs and the satisfaction of one’s goals shows there is no real conflict between duty and self-interest. Nonetheless, there are times when, due to pragmatic expediency, people are wont to jettison lofty moral ideals, thereby calling into question the basis for the thesis of the milk of human kindness. This dialogue between moral responsibility and pragmatic expediency is a crucial exploration of the tensions between doing what is right (moral responsibility) and doing what seems effective or practically useful (pragmatic expediency). It is a dialogue that intends to expose the incongruity of claims that divest businesses of all vestiges of ethics and limit the business of doing business to profit-making. Through textual criticism, the study highlights the inherent dangers consequent on acquiescing to pragmatic expediency as a recurrent universal norm. It concludes by proposing new ways of striving for a more ethical and sustainable business environment that envisions the future of a healthy planet.
Keywords: Ethics, business, moral responsibility, pragmatic expediency, healthy planet.
Affiliation: Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.
Email: ogbujah.columbus@ust.edu.ng
Jean Campbell
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT CURRENCIES AND MONEY SUPPLY
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253515
This paper is an exploration of factors contributing to determinations of value and forms of currency. Among these are the market, corruption, dependence on civil society and centralized organization. Limits of policy regulation are opposed to natural business cycles; virtuous circulation of goods and services is contrasted with the value bubbles formed by the vicious cycles resulting from schemes corrupting the market-based flow of exchange as occurred in the financial collapse of 2008. Three variants to define oligarchy are cited to provide explanatory power for the contrived concentration and correlative loss of wealth enabled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Centralization, civil society, corruption, currency, market.
Affiliation: New York University, New York, NY.
E-mail: Adzijn@outlook.com
Liron Hoch
INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUES IN MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY: MAIMONIDES ON BALANCING INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETAL RESPONSIBILITIES
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253516
This article explores Maimonides’ philosophy, focusing on his innovative integration of Socratic and Platonic ideals through what will be referred to as Maimonides’ Dual Allegiance. By examining how Maimonides reconciles individual enlightenment with social responsibility, the study sheds light on his distinctive approach. It presents a comparative analysis of Maimonides and medieval philosophers like Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufail, and Ibn Rushd, highlighting Maimonides’ unique stance on balancing personal and communal duties. Additionally, the article connects Maimonides’ philosophical concepts to contemporary issues such as leadership and ethics, demonstrating their relevance in today’s context. Through a detailed examination of his “Eight Chapters” and allegorical interpretations of biblical texts, the study provides fresh insights into Maimonides’ views on intellectual and ethical development. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of Maimonides’ thought and its practical applications, bridging historical philosophy with modern challenges.
Keywords: Maimonides; Dual Allegiance (MDA); medieval philosophy; Socratic and Platonic ideals; leadership.
Affiliation: Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Zefat Academic College, Zefat, Jerusalem St, Israel, 972.
E-mail: lironhoch@hotmail.com; lironhoch5@gmail.com
Nataliia Shelkovaia
LEV PLATONOVICH KARSAVIN’S ALL-UNITY IS ALL-UNITY? PHENOMENOLOGY OF ALL-UNITY IN PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION AND SACRED ART
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253517
The article attempts to identify the essence of genuine, not limited by a confessional framework, all-unity in philosophy, religion and sacred art. It is focused on the philosophy of all-unity by Lev Karsavin. The idea of all-unity is illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing Vitruvian Man. The disclosure of its symbols allows us to see various manifestations of all-unity from the level of human to the Universe. These same aspects of all- unity can be found in the teachings of Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Nicholas of Cusa and the founder of the “philosophy of all-unity”—Vladimir Solovyov. Based on the origins of the concept of all-unity in the One God, one can trace the deep unity of all religions and ideas of sacred art. An unbiased corporate analysis of the religions and sacred art of Christianity, Islam and Chan Buddhism led the author to identify their common ideas and to put forward a hypothesis about the deep unity of God the Creator in Christianity and Shunyata in Buddhism. The inner feeling of the organic connection of all things occurs only in the heart—the center of person, the place of meeting with God and love, the essence and manifestations of which are studied by the adherents of all-unity, in particular Solovyov and Karsavin. Only by opening his heart to God, love, the world, and acquiring a mystical worldview, does a person become a true person, feeling with their whole being the organic unity of everything in the Universe.
Keywords: All-unity, philosophy, religion, God, sacral art, mysticism, love.
Affiliation: Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University. Member of Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN) (Iran).
E-mail: shelkovaya@snu.edu.ua
Ledian Rusta, Damiano Aliaj
CARL SCHMITT AND THE QUESTION OF WORLD UNITY
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253518
In The Concept of the Political, Carl Schmitt excludes the possibility of a World State from the perspective of the structure of the political. As a fundamental category in which all political phenomena can be resolved, at its core stands friend-enemy antagonism. The concept implies a decision regarding the enemy, and therefore, about the state of exception and sovereignty. A world State, according to Schmitt, not only excludes the enemy, which in its human form is included in the planetary ordering of humanity, but it eradicates the political as political. Nevertheless, in The Nomos of the Earth, the changing global spaces and political orders determine the end of the classical concept of the enemy and, as a result, the modern State. Keeping current global events in mind, the paper aims to evaluate Carl Schmitt’s thought on the possibility of a politically unified world in geopolitical dynamics that appear to announce a new nomos of the Earth as a multipolarity of superpowers. Faced with the political future of humanity, which manifests itself as a pluriverse, an inquiry into the concept of the political might help us grasp the orderings and localizations of contemporary nomos.
Keywords: The political; enemy; World State; nomos; complex; multitude.
Affiliation:
Ledian Rusta — Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tirana, Albania; “Gjergj Fishta” Boulevard,1001, Tirana, Albania
Email: ledianrusta@gmail.com
Damiano Aliaj — Institute for the Integration of the Former Political Victims, Albania “Nicola Tupe” Street, 1001, Tirana, Albania
Email: damianoaliaj@hotmail.com
Stanisław Czerniak
CONTINGENCY AND IDENTITY. ON THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORICISM OF HERMANN LÜBBE
https://doi.org/10.5840/du20253519
The author reconstructs the concept of „anthropological historicism” of Hermann Lübbe, a contemporary German philosopher (born 1926), one of the main representatives of the so-called Joachim Ritter School. Lübbe reduces human identity to human individuality and individual awareness of the uniqueness of one’s own biography—the history of the individual, which accumulates in a series of contingent experiences and their biographical effects. This approach omits the social and axiological dimension of the identity of a human being, which is emphasized by social philosophers (Georg Herbert Mead, Thomas Luckmann). In the second part of the article, the author criticizes Lübbe’s concept from these sociological positions, referring to the relevant polemics in German literature on the subject.
Keywords: Identity, individuality, contingency, historicism, biography, narrative, social role, holding accountable.
Affiliation: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nowy Świat 72, 00-330, Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: stanislaw.l.czerniak@wp.pl
Martha C. Beck
CREATING GLOBAL CIVILIZATION: INTEGRATING GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE WITH INDONESIAN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURE
https://doi.org/10.5840/du202535110
Indonesia has 240 million Muslims, 220 million of whom are committed to democracy. Indonesian scholars publish extensively on the religious tolerance of Muhammad and the pluralistic nature of Islam. The five points of Indonesia’s political philosophy listed in the Preamble to their Constitution are: 1) Belief in God that includes Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam and animism; 2) Humanitarianism; 3) Unity in diversity, nationalism; 4) Achieving wisdom through deliberation; and 5) Social justice. These principles are compatible with Aristotle, Greek humanism and democracy. Beginning with my Fulbright in 2012, I have worked with Indonesians at the Islamic State Universities in Indonesia. The paper discusses the extensive dialogue I have had with them about how both Americans and Indonesians can learn from the legacy of the Greeks. Americans can learn from Indonesian professors who are required to unite theory and practice and be involved in a University Community Engagement Project.
Keywords: Aristotle, Indonesia, Islam, Humanism, religious pluralism, Greek democracy.
Affiliation: Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas.
E-mail: martha.beck@lyon.edu
Olga Malyukova
LAWS OF ARGUMENTATIVE RHETORIC
https://doi.org/10.5840/du202535111
The laws of argumentative rhetoric, first, mean the laws of rhetoric as a social science. Rhetoric, being the oldest of the humanities, has not created its laws of argumentation different from the laws of logic. This paper attempts to formulate the laws of rhetorical reasoning based on the historical experience of rhetoric. The concept of the laws of science and the humanities belongs to the field of philosophical methodology; their presence characterizes the level of development of exact knowledge. The laws of science and the humanities, in this case, rhetoric, describe the corresponding subject area and form a rhetorical picture of the world. It is in this field that we should look for the laws of rhetoric. These laws include the law of the correlation between word and action, the law of adequate description, the law of complete and finished narration, and the law of argumentative speech in natural language. The proposed construction of laws represents a model of functioning and further development of rhetoric. The role of rhetoric in the modern world is great, and it reasonably pretends to play the role of methodology for knowledge in the humanities.
Keywords: Philosophical methodology, law, traditional logic, symbolic logic, rhetoric, neo-rhetoric, argumentation, narrative, description, the law of correlation between word and action.
Affiliation: Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Russia
E-mail: Ольга Малюкова <o.maliukova@list.ru
Kuniko Miyanaga
ICONIC ACTION—REDEFINING RITUAL AS LANGUAGE IN THE BODY
https://doi.org/10.5840/du202535112
This article redefines as iconic action what has been conventionally described as ritual. Beginning with the primary definition of “ritual as repetition,” the article describes iconic action as social construct built in the combination of iconic significations and cosmology, and shows that this structure is similar to that of the word and syntax in language. Repeating the iconic action in this structure, values and meanings in cosmology become assimilated into the practitioner. The icon as a signifier consistently evokes a specific emotion in the practitioner. In repetition, the consistent evocation of specific emotions stabilizes the pair relation between the icon-signifier and the emotion-referent, making their relation into a structure. In this structure, meaning and the values which icons carry become adopted into the platform of emotions by the practitioner.
Cosmology is a condensed vision of the universe, in which icons stand out like keywords, representing in their images its major values and meanings. The performances become the embodiment of the cosmology and the expressions of these values and the meanings through action in the specific emotions. In repetition, the vision of the universe becomes held in the emotions and expressed through the actions of the body, the iconic action. A vision of the universe is lived in experience, “spoken” and expressed in, and by, the “language” of the iconic action of the individual performer. This structure becomes self-perpetuating, when the iconic action achieves spontaneity through repetition.
Keywords: Social construct of structure, iconic signification, evocation of emotions, repetition of organized actions, cosmology
Affiliation: Currently retired from teaching.
Email: miyanaga@kuniko.com; competent.7283@gmail.com