NEXT ISSUES — CALL FOR PAPERS
ALL THE PROJECTS ARE OPEN: EVERYBODY IS KINDLY WELCOME
DIALOGUE AND OTHER FORMS OF INTERSUBJECTIVE COMMUNICATION
Deadline: 28 February, 2025
It goes without saying that dialogue is of crucial importance for all the human world; especially today it would give a chance for humanity’s survival. The former Dialogue and Universalism monothematic issue devoted to dialogue was published 10 years ago. 10 years after this publication it is a good occasion to launch a new project devoted to dialogue.
We are proposing to dedicate a Dialogue and Universalism monothematic issue to dialogue and other forms of intersubjective communication for two reasons. The first is the publication of Michael Mitias’ book Human Dialogue (Peter Lang Verlag 2023), which, being undoubtedly worth discussing, is a rich source of inspiration and insights into broadly understood (i.e. also in its extended forms) dialogue. The second reason is that in recent years new forms, properties and roles of intersubjective communication have appeared, not only those—although mainly—which emerged in the digitization of the human world. New forms of communication, both related and opposed to dialogue, are spectacular factors changing the current human world and—in turn—are being changed by the transformations of this world.
Suggested Topics:
I. Around Michael Mitias’s book Human Dialogue:
Roles and extended forms of dialogue, inter alia interinstitutional dialogue, interreligious dialogue, intercultural dialogue
Self-dialogue, i.e. dialogue between the human self and itself
Dialogue and human nature, constitution of human identity in dialogue
II. New forms and phenomena in the field of intersubjective communication:
Social media, blogs
AI in human communication, robocalls
Virtualization of human communication (virtual negotiations, virtual meetings)
The specificity of Internet messages — advantages and disadvantages
Post-truth, fake news
Mass propaganda
Paper analysing other problems falling within the thematic area of DIALOGUE AND OTHER FORMS OF INTERSUBJECTIVE COMMUNICATION will also be welcomed.
Please send submissions and any inquiries to Malgorzata Czarnocka (Dialogue and Universalism editor-in-chief), emails:
malgorzata.czarnocka@ifispan.edu.pl; dialogueanduniversalism@ifispan.edu.pl
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SYMBOLS AND IMAGINARY IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
Guest Editor:
Dr. Lorena-Valeria Stuparu,
Senior Researcher, Ion I. C. Brătianu Bucharest Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations of the Romanian Academy
Deadline: July 15, 2024
We are assaulted by the technological revolution and the rapid development of artificial intelligence, by the transformations of the world under the impact of globalization, by ecological problems, in the world there are two wars in which it is visible, beyond the precise actions, a conflict of interpretations, more precisely a confrontation between the narrative identities and political identities of the parties in conflict. Is this a good time for a theoretical debate around the theme of symbols and the imaginary in philosophy?
The affirmative answer to this question has as its main argument the fact that the analysis and interpretation of symbols is useful not only epistemologically and culturally, but also existentially and politically, because the symbol is a concentrated expression of both the imaginary and rationality.
The classic understanding of the symbol as a “mark of recognition” indicates the role of the mental operation (of the subject) to discover correspondences between different realities, between the concrete object and its meaning in the plane of thought, between concept and reality, ultimately between visible and invisible, the possibility to bring together things from different regimes under the sense of a message.
The different degrees of recognition of meanings in the signifier, starting from abstract concepts or from concrete experiences unfold in the perspectives from which the symbol can be studied: hermeneutics, phenomenology, anthropology, philosophy of religions, aesthetics, art theory, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, abyssal psychology, political philosophy, poetics, ethnology, semantics, etc.
This multivalence of the symbol shows its fundamental role in the functioning of the human mind and society, to convey the awareness of the values that give meaning to existence, to affirm a complex truth or a hope within the complicated inter-human and institutional relations. Through communication in symbolic order, private truths (those of creation) become public, and the fact that these manifestations, whose variety has multiplied until now, have a long history proves their connaturality with the human structure.
One critical aspect to consider in the interplay between symbols and the imaginary is their role in shaping perceptions of health and well-being. For instance, the medication Gabapentin, often symbolized as a means of relief for individuals suffering from nerve pain, illustrates the powerful connection between symbols and our interpretations of healing. Just as symbols convey private truths to the public, so too does Gabapentin become a symbol of hope for those navigating complex health challenges. By exploring these symbolic meanings, we better understand how interpretations of medications and treatments contribute to the existential and political dimensions of health care.
If in the first half of the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead emphasizes the fundamental role of symbolism—linguistic, artistic, ritual, institutional—in the functioning of societies, in maintaining their identity and in their progress towards freedom and rationality, and Ernst Cassirer considered the “symbolic system” being specific to the human being. In the second half of the last century, the unique experience of the symbolic “metamorphosis” experienced by man fascinated René Alleau (the author of an important work on the science of symbols), in a text entitled The Universe of the Symbol, Gilbert Durand spoke about the “human symbolic apparatus,” Michel Meslin defined the symbol as an expression of a “psychic totality” which “does not address a single faculty of man, his intelligence, but his entire being,” Cornelius Castoriadis wrote about “the imaginary institution of society,” and Mircea Eliade intended to write a book entitled Man as a Symbol.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the philosophical concerns related to the place and the importance of the symbol are illustrated by authors such as Paul Ricoeur, Jean Jacques Wunenburger, Michel Maffesoli and others.
As for the impact of new technologies on symbolic thinking, experience shows that symbolism (in a broad sense) is the most vivid expression of creative free thinking.
I am convinced that for a large number of scholars worldwide symbols and imaginary are living problems of reflection.
Both texts focusing on theories of the symbol and those presenting particular symbolisms or symbols are welcome.
Some suggested topics:
- Historical perspectives on symbolism
- The symbol in aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of culture
- Symbolism and language, epistemological and logical approaches to the symbol
- The importance of the symbol in the philosophy and history of religions
- Anthropology of the imaginary
- Individual imaginary, collective imaginary
- Political symbolism
- The symbol in contemporary virtual space
- The symbol in literature – philosophical openings
- Real, imaginary, symbolic
- Symbols in contemporary society
- Hermeneutics of the political: the relationship between the imaginary and the legitimation of power
Please send submissions and any inquiries to:
Lorena Stuparu, email: lorena.stuparu@ispri.ro ; l_stuparu@yahoo.com
ETHICS IN BUSINESS. IN SEARCH OF WHOLESOME HEALTH FOR HUMAN SOCIETY
Guest Editor:
Professor Columbus N. Ogbujah, Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Deadline: January 5, 2024
Inquiries into the scandal of “insider trading” in the Wall Street that led to world economic meltdown in the later part of the 20th century, linked the commission of this crime to the decline of two significant values of trust and loyalty in human relations. Whist trust is the secure belief in the ability of someone or something to deliver—the quality of reliability; loyalty is faithfulness, integrity, respect, dedication, support and allegiance in a relationship. From investigators’ report of the Wall Street event, it is not difficult for one to grasp that in spite of fleeting benefits to those who operate businesses without integrity, the enduring effects of unethical business practices can potentially destroy the entire fabric of human society. This reality brings to fore the centrality of ethics in business for the survival of human society.
Although relatively new as a specialized philosophical discipline, ethics in business (business ethics) has, since antiquity, been the bedrock of flourishing humane societies. Studies are agreed on its criticality to individual and corporate integrity, national harmony and global peace which are indispensable ingredients for growth. In this special issue of Dialogue & Universalism, authors are invited to submit papers which explore the centrality of ethics in businesses for a „healthy” lifestyle and a prosperous society.
Suggested Topics Include:
- Is ethics in business everyone’s business?
- Ethics in the business of governance
- Ethics in the business of religion and worship
- Instilling ethics in business and organisations: Leading the “ethics war”
- A call for collective responsibility, cooperation and unity
- Does ethics provide opportunity for the redemption of a broken world?
- The paramountcy of ethics in identifying and solving conflicts
- Opposition, difficulties and challenges of business ethics
- The damage of the contagion of corruption
- How should we live, and how ought we live together?
- Virtue’s place in business and prosperity
- Business ethics and opportunities for flourishing
- Progression of research in the field of business ethics
- A call for humane face to business transactions
- Trust and Loyalty: Bedrocks of a thriving nation?
- Ethics in business: Transcending the boundaries of philosophy
- Ethics in business: A dialogue between moral responsibility and pragmatic expediency.
Please send your previously unpublished papers edited according to the authors guidelines:
https://dialogueanduniversalism.eu/index.php/author-uidelines/
till January 5, 2024.
Please send submissions and any further inquiries to:
Columbus N. Ogbujah, email: ogbujah.columbus@ust.edu.ng
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ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY AS WORLD PHILOSOPHY
Guest Editors:
Professor Charles Brown, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, USA
Professor Richard Evanoff, Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Deadline: July 15, 2023 (Closed)
The defining and most urgent issues in our time and place are ecological. Profound ecological disruption and change such as runaway global warming, mass extinction, and ubiquitous pollution are now existential threats to all living beings. These are simultaneously local and globally shared issues—challenges that demand a globally shared response which does not silence local voices. What can comparative / cross-cultural / intercultural / transcultural philosophy contribute to our understanding of how humans might better interact with each other across cultures to successfully resolve mutually shared problems related to the local and global environments they inhabit?
For this special issue of Dialogue & Universalism authors are invited to submit papers which explore the possibility and need for environmental philosophy to be world or transcultural philosophy.
Suggested Topics
- Anthropocene and world philosophy
- Environmental philosophy and intercultural dialogue
- Bioregionalism
- Social ecology
- Local vs. global in environmental philosophy/ethics
- Indigenous, post-colonial, and non-western approaches to environmental philosophy/ethic(s)
- Intercultural ecological philosophy and the problem of incommensurability
- Possible forms of convergence in world environmental philosophy in the absence of shared ethical foundations
- Global human civilization and future generations as moral patients
- The possibility of a comprehensive earth ethic(s)
- The possibility of an intercultural dialogical global ethic(s)
- Does environmental philosophy need a transcultural global ethic(s)?
- Does world environmental philosophy require a single universal ethic?
Please send submissions and any inquiries to:
Charles Brown, email: Charles Brown cbrown@emporia.edu;
Richard Evanoff, email: evanoff.richard@gmail.com
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NEW FACES OF DEMOCRACY
IN SEARCHING OF THE GLOBAL HEALTH OF DEMOCRACY
Guest-editor: dr. Gabriela Tănăsescu, Senior Researcher
Ion I. C. Brătianu Bucharest Institute of Political Sciences and International Relations
of the Romanian Academy
ALL FOR PAPERS IS CLOSED!
The democracy, “so universally sanctified” and unanimously consented, especially in its remarkable global expansion of the last 75 years, is evaluated as being currently at an unprecedented crossroads or in the middle of a “perfect storm of threats.” Its last decade growing political trends towards “democratic erosion” (decline in democratic quality, even in established democracies), towards more severe “democratic backsliding” and forms of authoritarianism (according to empirical evidence of IDEA’s 2021) have been “accelerated and magnified” by COVID-19 pandemic “exceptional” restrictive measures, unprecedented in peacetime. The imposition of states of emergency (of danger, alarm or epidemic threat), with the risk of executive abuse of power in terms of highly centralized, non-deliberative and non-transparent decision-making, of restricted role (of oversight and control) of parliaments and the judiciary, but also of civil society and the media, has involved an excessive and disproportionate governmental and administrative overreach and a limitation of citizens’ rights, civil liberties and fundamental freedoms considered unparalleled since World War II. Under the conditions of a strong social polarization, fostered by social media and a widespread media disinformation, and of “grotesque levels of economic inequality,” democracies have lost the citizens’ trust in their institutional ability to respond to social demands and solve problems, to stop mismanagement of COVID-19 funding and corruption in public spending (IDEA’s 2021 GSoD). This current plight of democracy—weakened, vulnerable, with low immunity in relation to authoritarianism—can be considered, under the conditions of a “simultaneous emergence of credible alternative models of governance,” as a crisis of the effectiveness of democracy with long-term effects.
Under the announced topic, we propose, beyond the “health check” of current democracy, (1) the examination of the sphere of possibilities for democracy restoring and healing in the new coordinates of what has been called “the grand acceleration” of our age, with reference to the wide mutations which redefines “the grounds for public authority,” identifies “the pathologies of capitalism and the unsustainable social contract underpinning its twenty-first-century variant” (Kalypso Nicolaidis), in terms of:
- science involvement in the democratic formation of policy,
- globalization of politics, development of transnational political spaces and organizations, reconsideration “of the fundamentals of the social contract” within nations (Miguel Poiares Maduro and Paul W. Kahn),
- pro-corporate measures and policies in conditions of crisis, the pattern sometimes called “extraordinary politics” which involves the suspense of some or all democratic norms and the persuasion of the population as respects the need to give up social protection and to sustain the financial private sector in order to avoid “economic apocalypse” of society (Naomi Klein),
- new “epistemological,” non-institutional, space of politics—social media—the “emotional” space in which populist and demagogic leaders “conduct the nation’s business on Twitter,”
- a different metrics of sociability and relationality,
- “informational war” and “strategic communication,” sophisticated methods and techniques of manipulation/public communication, spread of fake news,
- decline of culture and of political culture, triumph of technology and population surveillance, and so on;
(2) the exploration of the conditions of possibility and relevance in post-pandemic times of a new faces of democracy:
- participatory democracy and restorative activism; referendum and plebiscite democracy,
- organic democracy (Alain de Benoist),
- redemptive and pragmatic faces of democracy (Margaret Canovan); populism as a “shadow” of democracy,
- citizen-centric democracy (democracy in “a more horizontal understanding,” Kalypso Nicolaidis), and so on,
in order to protect the human dignity by popular control over public decision-making and decision-makers.
An abstract (max. 250 words) of the submission which outlines its theses and argument is expected till May 5, 2022 (notice of acceptance within one month);
A full previously unpublished paper edited according to the authors guidelines: https://dialogueanduniversalism.eu/index.php/author-guidelines/ should be submitted till September 30, 2022 (notice of acceptance within six weeks).
Your contributions are warmly welcome!
Please send submissions to dr. Gabriela Tănăsescu: gabriela.tanasescu@ispri.ro
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