Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Στην παρούσα ανακοίνωση θα επικεντρωθούμε στο θέμα της χρήσης ψηφιακών εργαλείων στη διδακτική πρακτική της φιλοσοφίας στη Δευτεροβάθμια Εκπαίδευση στη θεωρητική θεμελίωσή της. Η φιλοσοφία και η διδασκαλία της με τη χρήση ψηφιακών εργαλείων σε πολλές περιπτώσεις θεωρούνταν ασύμβατες. Ωστόσο, όπως συμβαίνει και σε κάθε άλλο γνωστικό αντικείμενο, η διδασκαλία της φιλοσοφίας μπορεί να συνδυαστεί με τις τεχνολογίες της πληροφορίας και της επικοινωνίας1. Άλλωστε η διδακτική προσέγγιση των μαθημάτων στη σημερινή εκπαιδευτική πραγματικότητα έχει τροποποιηθεί, ακολουθώντας τις εξελίξεις μίας εποχής αδιαμφισβήτητα τεχνολογικής.

Harmony is one of the most important philosophical categories in Chinese Taoism and the practice of Tao in the life of Lao Tzu. It emphasizes the unity of Heaven and Earth, humans, all creatures, society, physical and mental substance. By the demonstration and exposition of many Taoist scholars, Harmony has been greatly extended to the social field, and has been very useful in the development of effective programs to manage conflicts among persons, organizations and states. According to Lao Tzu, Harmony could be achieved by returning back into the power of an infant, since an infant is capable to be peaceful, harmonious, soft and natural. Thus, an infant possesses and manifests the greatest morality.

Most scholars accept the proposition that the doctrine of the “Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove” was inherited from Chuang-Tzu school. However, most of them believe that Hsiang-Hsiu and Kso-Hsiang’s commentary on Chuang-Tzu flourished Chuang-Tzu’s doctrine in Wei-Chin period. This paper argues that Hsi-Kang’s thought was of great significance, when we make use of “realistic sentiments” connect the thought of Hsi-Kang and Chuang-Tzu together. This paper highlights the significance of Hsi-Kang for the rise of Chuang-Tzu school in Wei-Chin period. Firstly, Hsi-Kang was concerned with individual life and longed for the freedom of the individual as a way to “transcend norms and be obedient to self-nature” in order to explore the spirit of the times. Secondly, by stating that to “transcend norms and be obedient to one’s own mind”, I thereby illuminate that Hsi-Kang appropriated Chuang-Tzu’s doctrine to include a vision of heaven and earth thinking and hoping for breaking through the plight of reality, and thus to develop an open mind. Finally, by Hsi-Kang’s reflection on the traditional functional viewpoint on music, I will explain how Hsi-Kang’s doctrine of “three voice” fable, states that “natural harmony of sound, and unrelated human feelings” can restore the free space of music and art.

According to Daoism, the Dao offers a macro-perspective of observing life, illustrates the whole life from the beginning to the end, and answers the question about the ultimate meaning of life. At the same time, it presents methods for achieving the ultimate value, the core of which is to use the living system of light and sound and, gradually, to integrate with the Dao.

The aim of my presentation is to show that the impact of knowl­edge on the present society is less than one believes. The means is the focus on a special form of knowledge-wisdom. First, I circumscribe the concept of wisdom from the standpoint of opposite as well as close notions. The fact of two levels on which the concept has been conceived is especially highlighted: that of a fragmented and separated cognisance and manners to manage one’s own existence whether this entity is an individual person or a small or large community and that of an integrated wisdom of humanity in a holistic approach. These two levels of wisdom manifest in both the (old and new) popular culture and in the history of social sciences and humanities. The second part questions the experience of life as the origin of wisdom. The point is that, on the one hand, this experience is incommunicable, and on the other hand, the human knowledge is accumulating. This problem of communication of wisdom is inquired in order to emphasise the social constraints (mainly the power relations) that enframe the manifestation of wisdom/wise life at both the individual and social level.

Since World War II social theory has generated two major critical analyses of science as a social phenomenon: that of the Frankfurt School, and of Science and Technology Studies. These academic efforts grew out of a broader movement in Western societies in the decades following the war to reach a better accommodation between science and society, motivated by deep-seated popular anxieties about the challenges posed by the advance of science and technology. In this paper, I first examine the overlooked parallels between these two academic efforts, and go on to explain why they would in the end prove fruitless, indeed somewhat self-defeating. The explanation points to the instrumentalist and constructivist conception of science shared by the two schools which would eventually play into the hands of the “entrepreneurial university” and the commodification of science.

Any human activity can be easily presented as a chain of preparing, making and implementing decisions. The importance of decision-making for social philosophy is due to their role in the life of society and the single individual. The decision is an event which is socially conditioned; it integrates knowledge, interests and the world-view of the person. In the modern world, risk is a feature of everyday life and affects everyone. The choice of a decision in the conditions of risk is usually based on a certain model of rational behavior, which highlights the question of what actions can be considered rational. The answer to this question presupposes certain philosophical and methodological foundations. Philosophy in this case performs an integrating function, combining approaches of various disciplines on the one hand, and forming a common conceptual basis on the other. The paper presents the author’s methodological position that risk is always related to the agent and decisions that he or she makes. In the conditions of risk there always is a quantitative evaluation of the decision’s consequences which is not possible in the conditions of uncertainty, and this is the key factor in distinguishing risk and uncertainty. The author provides justification for the thesis that decision-making in the conditions of risk is not an agent’s confrontation with circumstances beyond their control but a conscious and rational choice. The author also shows the importance of procedural rationality for decision preparation and making.

Since Hegel, Fichte’s theory is called subjective idealism. The theory is divided into a theoretical part and a practical part. The concept of need is very important. It functions as the bridge between the two parts of the overall theory, which literally builds on the concept. The concept of need is different from the concept of drive in Fichte. Since the drive is found in the ‘pure I’, it can’t be fulfilled. Through experience, need which derive from the drive can be satisfied. According to the moral law, the class of scholars should make men acquainted with their true needs and direct their future needs, and also function as the means for satisfying those needs. Only then can society be improved in orienting itself toward the goal of total unity.

The authors estimate up-to-date communicative situation as a crisis one and it is revealed in this article. The problem of intercourse in the sphere of total communication is dramatic. The progressing growth of the world of It happens simultaneously with reduction of I-You relations (inter-course) at the expense of it. Loneliness turns into a global problem of a modern man and raises a question how to overcome this condition practically, which are the methods to overcome it, what thing they depend on, what their in-fluence on an individual is. Deformation of the communicative world causes special method of self-organization of intercourse by this or that display of compensatory intercourse which has reciprocal value and unpredictable re-sults. Particular concern under the conditions of up-to-date communicative situation causes illusive compensatory processes in the sphere of communi-cation that provides forming social communities with negative direction and oriented at illusive self-affirmation and primitive hedonism. We believe that comprehensive understanding of compensatory intercourse allows mastering its productive forms, promoting all-round individual development, clarifies the ways of performing of transzensus from illusive forms of self-affirmation to dialogic self-affirmation, by performing the ways of “direct compensation” by the means of communication to “overcompensation”.

In this paper, I propose to undertake the following four things: first, I want briefly to point up the fractured state of western society which, according to many commentators, has permitted individualism to thrive unchecked and left collective well-being to wither. Second, I wish to rehearse the broad Aristotelian argument that human beings are essentially social animals, and that, therefore, human flourishing is best undertaken in social gatherings or communities. This, then, leads to the third, and main argument that the fashioning of a particular way of life is likely to aid human flourishing, and one of the best accounts of just such a way of life is to be found in the works of the French philosopher, Pierre Hadot. My concern is to offer a (necessarily truncated) analysis of Hadot’s overall thesis which rests on the recasting of certain ancient spiritual exercises as four ‘learnings-to’: learning to live, learning to die, learning to dialogue, and learning to read. Fourth, and last, I wish to say something about the central and iconic figure that embodies these spiritual exercises, namely, Socrates. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate that Socrates’ example of how to live a life is central to our current concerns, and that the reasons for actions in contemporary society may be derived from what I call ‘the Socratic imperative’: a transformation of the self, and a counter-cultural critique which aims at the transformation of society.

My paper will deal with the contribution of philosophy to peace building. It provides a review of the peace concept in the works of Erasmus, a positive definition of the peace concept and an introduction of two important tools for peace building: philosophical counselling and Socratic dialogue. In line with Erasmus, I will define peace as a quality of friendship. I will distinguish an individual, social and political aspect of the peace concept and argue that we should integrate these different aspects of the peace concept in order to build peace. Dialogue seems to be the connecting substance. Philosophical practice can be the tool for shaping this substance by individual counselling or Socratic group dialogue. Philosophical practice originated in the 20th century. With a social utility in mind philosophers started counselling individual persons or moderating groups again. They criticised academic philosophy as being too theoretical and too detached from everyday life and revitalized a style of philosophy, as practiced by Socrates, Seneca, Erasmus, Descartes and many others in the history of philosophy. With respect to peace building, philosophical counselling helps individuals to deal with personal themes or problems in life and the Socratic method structures dialogue so that peace can be discussed in a rational way. Both serve attitude building and provide a philosophical experience important for peace building. As morale, I like to propose a variant of a famous saying of Erasmus, “Dulcis pax expertis”, i.e., “peace is only sweet for those who know it by experience”. I think that philosophical practice can provide us with such an experience.

An emerging approach to research is gaining ground with the aim to produce usable knowledge, able to support adaptation decisions, provide straightforward estimates of uncertainty, and meet the needs of climate sensitive sectors. An approach that implies collaboration among researchers, stakeholders and outreach specialists, gathered to develop not only a scientific contribution, but to offer a renewed appreciation of the relationships between knowledge, nature and society. What are the epistemic features of this new approach to knowledge production? How can Philosophy of Science help to conceptualize these new trends of research practices now emerging and consolidating, a trend where social scientists are not only invited to participate but to play an essential role? This presentation1 distinguishes two main senses of the concept of co-production, both playing an important elucidative function in current philosophical accounts and revisions of the relationships between science and society, human and natural systems, triggered by these new trends. One focusing on the articulation of talents, perspectives and values needed to produce new types of knowledge, and the other on the intertwined transformations of identities, institutions, languages and discourses that characterize the workings of science and technology within society.

The paper will draw on Foucault’s the last College de France lectures of to present his exploration of Cynic self-transformative practices and self-subjectivizing “ways of living” associated with social and political transfor-mation of ontology - of “life” and not just the “world” - as politics of difference, otherness, and alterity. For Foucault subjectivity is a historical production shaped through discursive practices immersed with social practices, where the transcription of power relations (and/or of other relations, such relations of strategies, of domination etc.) reflects various forms of governmentality (sovereignty, disciplinarity, control, etc.) as well as different “regimes” and “dispositifs”, combining various techniques, mechanisms, relations, effects etc. (social, cultural, political, etc.). Subjectivity is not a socially fixed determinate product but “techniques of living” (techne ton bion) that provide the foundation for the social and discursive practices and subjectivization and self-subjectivization processes, but as a foundational horizon that is (but also should remain) open, contingent, and always shifting. Foucault’s late focus on the “care of the self” (“souci de soi”) and “parrhesia” (truth-telling or freedom of speech) not only complements his analyses of regimes of truth or of mechanisms, techniques, processes, and powers associated with various forms of governmentality, but provides the final chapter of his social and political ontology.

Social recognition and social identity are closely related phenomena. Today we tend to understand them – with reference to Hegel – as a dialectical coherence, which is prominently the case in critical theory. However, the Hegelian dialectic did not survive after Hegel, and we now have two very different components of it that are both interesting as well as challenging. One is the figure of overall development of the entire society, which is predominant in the kind of dialectic thinking – and thus the notions of recognition and identity – to be found in critical theory. The other is the notion of concreteness that refers to the presence and density of historicity in our situated experience and contextual practices. The concreteness of recognition and identity, it is argued, is a topic of immediate sense and taken-for-granted meaning, i.e., of aisthesis and institution, which is more directly addressed in the corporeal phenomenology.

In this paper, I aim to identify the different cognitive, contextual and social values involved in epidemiological research on Chagas disease. As it is considered as a ‘neglected tropical disease’ by the World Health Organization, I will try to unfold the many senses of ‘neglected’ and in which sense different non-cognitive values can be manifested in research on this disease through a pluralism of disciplines and methods. The point of departure of this investigation is a model that explains the dynamics of scientific activity. The model is the one developed by Hugh Lacey, based on the notion of strategies of research, in which scientific research has to be socially framed. I will try to show that the social, political and economic conditions of certain populations, which define their ‘neglected’ character, constitute a perspective that needs to be considered in epidemiological research. Finally, this perspective is defined in the moment of adoption of strategies of research that reflects the social and ethical values adopted by scientists in Chagas disease investigations.

Russian social consciousness contains a number of specific archetype images and priority mythological plots which have both a direct and indirect influence on attitude of Russians. The myth about the Hero (“a powerful hand”) is of current importance in times of crisis or in transition period. The “powerful hand” can save miraculously the nation from troubles and “put it on the right track”. Archaic character of Russian social myth is manifested in the forms of political myths which fully correspond to ancient heroic chart of the good and evil struggle. A political hero has to solve irresoluble problems, he has no real past, his personal life, human weaknesses, and all these have a mythological analog, specially created in accordance with the society’s expectations. Identification social myths become apparent most of all during the crisis periods, when the destruction of one important socio-cultural myth, which ideologically ties together all society structures, is taken place. Nowadays, the Russian consciousness is differentiated rather significantly and disintegrated, and Russian public consciousness looks like a certain many-voiced discourse which includes conceptions strikingly differed from each other on nature of Russia and its population.

My theses are the following: 1) Bergson’s open society excessively maximizes the concept of an open society. Contrary to Bergson’s view, Popper’s open society excessively minimized the concept of an open society. Both maximized and minimized models need to be reexamined. 2) It is fanaticism that is the enemy of a 21st century open society, while historicism was the enemy of 21st century open society. Fanaticism has erupted in the appearances of religious fundamentalism, closed nationalism, and political populism. 3) Fanaticism starts first from believing a certain doctrine. Fanaticism, itself does not possess a certain doctrine nor possess any specific content. It does not matter if it is any religious doctrine, racial or ethnic doctrine. Second, fanaticism has the believer blindly believing and practicing it, so it does not allow any critical attitude. Third, it does not accept any other doctrines. The world is viewed in a dichotomous way, in which one doctrine is regarded as the only good and all the others are evil. 4) The features of fanaticism are dogmatism and exclusion. I insist that both features are fatal obstacles threatening mankind’s civilization in the 21st century.

World War II had ended in splitting Korea in half between the Soviet Union and the United States. Thereafter, the Unification of the two countries of Korea reveals a continuing major obsession of Koreans on both sides of the demarcation line. In a philosophical perspective, the Korean Unification will also be a long journey, marching to democratic republicanism. The indigenous blossom of the Korean Democracy started from the Dong-hak Peasant Revolution in 1894, which was an enlightened attempt to it, but thwarted by Japanese intrusion. The second phase was the 3.1 Independence Movement in 1919, which developed into the unfinished republican revolution for the recuperation of sovereignty in a modern sense. The third stage was the Korean Emancipation in 1945 that ended in an incomplete half emancipation which divided into two Koreas. In this sense, the future Korean Unification should fulfill another half remained. Thus, it would not be an option, but an imperative to Koreans to accomplish Unification. In consideration both of our modern history of democratic republicanism and the current globalization throughout the world, this achievement of Unification should be done in the principle of acronym SMART which represents the Korean Unification as a creation of new international peace paradigm of North Eastern Asia, including the Pacific Rim power-nations.

Since the Opium War, China has changed its society from traditional agricultural civilization to a modern industrial society. Compared with other countries’ transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society, China’s modernized reforming has something in common. That is why the powerfully marked agricultural civilization and the constantly changed international environment make China’s social transition having unique features. First, it is a long time for the process of the social transition. Second, the process of social transition is extremely complicated. Third, social conflicts tend to be sharpened during the period of social transition. Last, the process and completion of social transition is quite tough.

This article analyses the process of the foundation of the Czech state and its national self-identification throughout history. For this purpose the author mentions the three key periods: the Czech Reformation, Habsburg’s pe-riod and the 20th century in Czech history. These events are closely connected with the past of the Czech lands demonstrating the difficulties of coexistence between the Czechs and the other nations as well as the way the Czech people behaved under the political oppression: they have permanently desired to sustain their own culture, language and independence. The main question of the study is how Czech people managed to preserve national identification and to create a self-sufficient state despite the external influences. According to the author`s opinion, those influence and political dependence throughout almost 500 years were the important factor that helped the Czechs to appreciate their uniqueness and to protect it from the foreign invaders. The concrete ways of this process are analyzed in the article.