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Dialogue and Universalism

Volume 19, Issue 11/12, 2009
Towards Universal Civilizations

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Displaying: 1-9 of 9 documents


i. inauguration of the academic year 2009/10 at warsaw university

1. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Katarzyna Chałasińska-Macukow

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2. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Jerzy Dzik, Maciej Bańkowski

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Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection finds application far outside biology, for which it was originally invented. Its consequences for science proved far-going, influencing practically every field from thermodynamics to the humanities. While acting on biological systems, the Darwinian mechanism is a source of progress and the local-scale abandonment of the universe’s general tendency towards chaos. However, observations of changes taking place in selection-exposed organisms show that evolutionary success requires some essential limitations. The application of this reasoning to social evolution may appear thought-provoking: stable evolution requires not only intense selection but also a conservative approach to ideas.

ii. fundamental values of universal civilization

3. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Andrew Targowski

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This investigation of wisdom reflects the view of a user of philosophy. His position is that every mentally healthy person has some level of wisdom. This view was not shared by majority of famous philosophers who wisdom attributed to God only. A review of philosophers‘ perception of wisdom is evaluated through the centuries and different civilizations. A graphic model of Aristotle‘s approach to wisdom is provided. A model of the ends of live is provided by the author to fulfill Aristotle‘s postulate that since people do not know their ends of life therefore cannot be wise. The question-can philosophy deliver wisdom is raised and answered. The transformation of today‘s society towards the wise society and civilization is characterized.
4. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Wit Hubert

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The subject of the article encompasses the change in social communication concerning the creation of new competition between two knowledge systems: the expert system and the system of dispersed knowledge. The expert model is the one in which knowledge is created only by the sender endowed with institutional authority. In opposition to this, there exist an alternative model which is characterized by so many existing decentralized, not-institutionalized centers of information processing and dissemination. This division can be described only in a strictly informative dimension. Social aspect is also important, more precisely the question of social stratification forming on the basis of access criteria to every source of knowledge defined this way.The article tries to describe the relation between the worlds of: producers and consumers of information, experts and laymen, professionals and amateurs. The analysis of the problem, in author’s mind, is the beginning of the debate over the role and forms of scientific knowledge protection functioning in the time of development of information society.
5. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Włodzimierz J. Korab-Karpowicz

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Many scholars have argued that unity of humankind can be established on the basis of some basic or core human values. Instead of engaging in a comparative empirical research, compiling lists of core values derived from different cultures, discuss their relevance for human fellowship, I examine the simple values of life that during the 1980s united people in Poland and made them to form the powerful civic movement, which was Solidarity.Poland’s Solidarity of the 1980s has not yet entered a canon of routinely studied great social movements. However, it has initiated a profound world transformation. We are no longer divided by a global confrontation between communism and liberal democracy. The main today’s issue is globalization. Although altered in many respects, the world has still been affected by many serious problems. They necessitate another positive world transformation and a new Global Solidarity that can undertake it.A Global Solidarity movement can learn from Poland’s Solidarity. My contention is that it should not be grounded in any ideological thinking, but in inclusive values—values that do not divide but can potentially unite all human beings—and these values can be derived from basic human needs. In short, Global Solidarity should be based on what I call the “righteousness of life”. It can be achieved if there is a growing recognition of what is right for life and a growing interest in protecting and enhancing life.Building a Global Solidarity is not an attempt to replace governments, but rather to exert pressure on them, so that they support international organizations and consider the welfare of all humanity. While wielding power that at present none of the NGOs represent, Global Solidarity can be a life promoting and enhancing instrument of global society through which a more humane world will be achieved.
6. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Charles Brown

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Many scholars have argued that neoliberal economic theory articulates the justifying ideology for contemporary globalization. This ideology claims that “free market” solutions are always the best mechanisms for not only promoting economic growth but for all human problems. This first part of this paper provides a conceptual and historical overview of neoliberal economic theory with critical commentary on two key neoliberal dogma, viz., the idea that markets know best and that privatization and deregulation are inevitable. The second part of the paper discusses the impact of neoliberal policies on the environment and on indigenous peoples around the world. The paper concludes by arguing that neoliberal ideology differs from classical liberalism by privileging the Hobbesian theory of human nature and human rationality over the Kantian understanding of human nature and human rationality. The result is the ascendancy of economic liberty over political liberty.
7. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Roman Zawadzki

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The main goal of this paper (presentation) is to prove the thesis that the attempts to transpose the cultural differentiation into the social and economical universalism and globalism must lead to repressive psychosocial totalitarianism on a large scale. Modern human sciences and politics tend to classify the individual in respect to his adaptive efficiency in interactive relation with programmed environment and to qualify him according to given imposed criteria of social functionalism. The correctly socialized individual is expected to be an exchangeable functional unit assessed according to its usefulness in performing a set of particular tasks, despite his cultural background being considered as a second-rate factor, which may affect (in a positive or negative way) the social acceptance and correctness of his behavior. However, no community is an exact representation of society because it is held together not by functions but by the values aswell as the forms of their actualization and implementation into the common organization and their way of life. The community is not a contract upon which society is based. The identity of the individual must not be removed from the culture of the community in which he lives and from its constitutive values. It is also rooted in the past and history of striving for self-determination and cultural as well as personal subjectivity. Without these significant cultural and historical components the individual identity is nothing but an operational, programmable algorithm of functional living unit assigned to perform short-term utilitarian tasks. This approach stands in contradiction to the Aristotelian concept of wellbeing and happiness considered as striving for the common good of spiritual values by individuals as well as by human communities. Any extensive and effective civilization neglecting the higher values of moral, symbolic and religious sense of the individual, must face totalitarianism or extinction.
8. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Mariusz M. Czarniecki, Maciej Bańkowski

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The author’s firm belief is that transitional humanity is not yet humanity proper but pre-humanity. He is especially intrigued by the essence and purpose of today’s contradiction between humanity’s immense advancement in micro-electronics, digital technology and social lore and its shocking moral shortcomings, best visible in its stagnant unchangeability—especially regarding the passionate quest for ever-better weaponry. Will our transience turn out to be nothing more but a phase on the road to human perfection, or will it petrify into an “inborn” scar? These are the main questions the author attempts to answer.As a species we are praehomine, pre-humans, a natural phase of ethical and esthetic imperfection. Typical for transitional humanity is the coexistence of progress. Nonetheless transitional humanity also carries the potential necessary to attain Wisdom, Good, Completeness and Perfection.

review

9. Dialogue and Universalism: Volume > 19 > Issue: 11/12
Dariusz Góra-Szopiński

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Among contemporary authors whose philosophical and social thought can be regarded as universalistic, Karol Wojtyła (1920–2005), who became the Pope John Paul II(1978–2005), seems to hold a particular place. An attempt to present the thought of Karol Wojtyła/John Paul II in universalistic categories has been recently made by thePolish philosopher and political scientist Arkadiusz Modrzejewski. The article discusses the advantages and drawbacks of his proposition.