The public domain is the fundamental institution in a society. A society can only exercise its political activity when allowing the free dialogue in this arena. Legitimacy rests on rational public ...agreement. To realize its nature, this dialogue needs to be carried out with the participation of equal and autonomous beings whose contributions to the debate are based on information and reflection. Manipulation and the promotion of particular interest erode the legitimacy to be achieved in this dialogic exercise. Education helps society for a responsible dialogue in which human capacities flourish. On the other hand, the free press warrants a political ethos where ideas and reflections are shared without undue restrictions. The promotion of a free, informed and rational dialogue directs society towards rational decisions not based on the narrow conceptions of instrumental rationality.
Le domaine public est l'institution fondamentale d'une société. Celle-ci ne peut exercer son activité politique que si elle permet le libre dialogue dans ce domaine. La légitimité repose sur un accord public rationnel. Pour réaliser sa nature, ce dialogue doit être mené avec la participation d'êtres égaux et autonomes dont les contributions au débat sont basées sur l'information et la réflexion. La manipulation et la promotion d'un intérêt particulier érodent la légitimité à atteindre dans cet exercice dialogique. L'éducation aide la société à un dialogue responsable dans lequel les capacités humaines s'épanouissent. D'autre part, la liberté de la presse justifie un éthos politique où les idées et les réflexions sont partagées sans restrictions indues. La promotion d'un dialogue libre, éclairé et rationnel oriente la société vers des décisions rationnelles qui ne sont pas fondées sur les conceptions étroites de la rationalité instrumentale.
La esfera pública es la institución básica de la sociedad. Una sociedad solo puede ejercer su actividad política si permite el diálogo libre en esta esfera porque la legitimidad solo se sostiene sobre el acuerdo público racional. Para que este dialogo alcance su razón de ser debe ser llevado a cabo con la participación de seres autónomos e iguales cuyas contribuciones se basan en el genuino conocimiento y la reflexión. La manipulación y la promoción de intereses particulares socava la legitimidad que puede ser alcanzada por el ejercicio dialógico. Para este objetivo debe asegurarse la educación y la prensa libre. La educación prepara a la sociedad para un diálogo responsable en el cual florecen las capacidades humanas. Por su parte, la libertad prensa garantiza un ethos político en el que se hace circular sin restricciones indebidas la información y las reflexiones. La promoción del diálogo libre, informado y racionalidad dirige la sociedad hacia decisiones racionales que no se basan en la noción estrecha de la racionalidad instrumental.
O domínio público é a instituição fundamental em uma sociedade. Uma sociedade só pode exercer sua atividade política quando permite o livre diálogo nessa arena. A legitimidade repousa no acordo público racional. Para perceber sua natureza, esse diálogo precisa ser realizado com a participação de seres iguais e autônomos, cujas contribuições para o debate sejam baseadas em informação e reflexão. A manipulação e a promoção de interesses particulares corroem a legitimidade a ser alcançada nesse exercício dialógico. A educação ajuda a sociedade para um diálogo responsável, no qual florescem as capacidades humanas. Por outro lado, a imprensa livre garante um ethos político onde ideias e reflexões são compartilhadas sem restrições indevidas. A promoção de um diálogo livre, informado e racional direciona a sociedade para decisões racionais não baseadas nas conceções estreitas da racionalidade instrumental.
The debates concerning global terrorism focus on "radical Islam" and the way it can be "moderated" or pacified by appeals to its peaceful side. These debates include the discussion of the clash of ...civilizations, tolerance and its limits, and military means to defeat the perpetrators. Such cultural clashes appear in various parts of the globe, including India, Pakistan, and even among sects of the same civilizations. This monograph explores the nature of these cultural clashes and the resurgence of global terror to look at a more fundamental set of issues, including the misguided search for truth, resulting in Western post-modernism and "post-truth," spanning the globe in the guise of multi-culturalism. The analysis of this context leads to questioning the basic composition of civilizations, their compatibility, and radical differences, leading to a dimension of awareness that has not been addressed by scholars studying civilizations. What is at issue is the inevitable "anarchistic terror," which includes most unpredictable acts by "unsuspected" individuals, not only from Islam, but also by those emboldened by a specific mode of awareness. This level "dissolves" the various claims that the fundamental clash is among civilizations and points to two, modern, Western levels of this dissolution: literature and theory. The former calls for the collapse of anything resembling features of the world that are accessible to human awareness. The second level places the world at an arbitrary service for human "needs." The result is made manifest by the claims from anarchistic terrorists that the modern West is "Satanic" and destructive of the created order of all things, which is a totally anarchistic point of view, while the answer from the modern West points to the fundamental anarchism of those who terrorize "Western" ways. The analysis of this context shows that both sides are anarchistic and face an inevitable collision without any possible justification. The collision is designed to unfold into a final domain that requires an "ontological" account of how such a collision in human life is possible, without relying on previously inadequate explanations. The text includes contemporary "turmoil" in global relationships, the various trends toward "autocracy" and "strong man" solutions to our predicaments. Such tendencies appear in the phenomenon of the conjunction of state and religion, so well pronounced in Russia, in Confucian China, the Middle East, the United States, and in European nations. It is to be noted that such solutions do not depend only on personality cults, but above all, on "legitimating" their stories. The point is that such stories are equally anarchistic.
The Silent Communication Mickūnas, Algis
Filosofija, sociologija,
01/2024, Letnik:
35, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The essay discloses dimensions of communicative awareness, which are both local and general in the sense that they are recognised in all civilisations and pervade the researches of anthropologists, ...archeologists and historians. These dimensions are bodily activities composed of six practical orientations: up-down, left-right and forward-backward. Our social architecture, our systems of practical implements, our spaces and times of orientations are inscribed by both, the specific bodily situations and their silent background in all communicative awareness. Even languages are variations on these silent dimensions of activities: we face the future – a forward orientation; we leave the past behind – pertaining to our backward dimension; there are upper and lower social classes, left and right political movements. These silent dimensions are both universal and contingent.
The essay is designed to investigate the foundations of the conjunction of modern/postmodern premises that the world is a construct of discourses and their power. Such premises require the exclusion ...of the world of perception, including the lived world, and the appearance of the modern subject and its specific interpretation of reality. The question is as follows: how must the modern subject access such reality when it is assumed that such reality is not accessible to direct, perceptual intuition? Here we encounter the way how the subject must construct methodological and theoretical discourses which do not represent, but ‘make’ modern reality.
The crossing of borders Mickunas, Algis
Studies in East European thought,
12/2022, Letnik:
74, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The article draws a comparison between the Peloponnesian War between ancient Sparta and Athens, on the one hand, and Russia and the West, on the other. Rather than economic and utilitarian ethics, ...the author proposes that aggression on the part of oppressive as opposed to democratic regimes is driven by the fear of future insignificance. Democracies represent a threat to autocracies not so much by their military power and expansionist politics, but by their very existence, openness, and the freedoms they grant their citizens. This framework is used to explain Russia’s imperialist aggression and oppression of its neighbors and its fear of democracy.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is viewed as one of the technological advances that will reshape modern societies and their relations. While the design and deployment of systems that continually adapt ...hold the promise of far-reaching, positive change, they simultaneously pose significant risks, especially to already vulnerable people. This work explores the meaning of AI, and the important role of critical understanding and its phenomenological foundation in shaping its ongoing advances. The values, power, and magic of reason are central to this discussion. Critical theory has used historical hindsight to explain the patterns of power that shape our intellectual, political, economic, and social worlds, and the discourse on AI that surrounds these worlds. The authors also delve into niche topics in philosophy such as transcendental self-awareness, post-humanism, and concepts of space-time and computer logic. By embedding a critical phenomenological orientation within their technical practices, AI communities can develop foresight and tactics that can better align research and technology development with established ethical principles -- centering vulnerable people who continue to bear the brunt of the negative impacts of innovation and scientific progress. The creation of a critical-technical practice of AI will lead to a permanent revolution in social, scientific, and political communities. The years ahead will usher in a wave of new scientific breakthroughs and technologies driven by AI research, making it incumbent upon AI communities to strengthen the social contract through ethical foresight, a capability which only phenomenology can deliver, ultimately supporting future technologies that enable greater well-being, with the goal of delivering practical truths. A Critical Understanding of Artificial Intelligence: A Phenomenological Foundation is
an essential read for anyone interested in the complex debate and phenomenology surrounding AI and its growing role in our society.
The Crossing of Borders Mickunas, Algis
Problemos,
01/2022, Letnik:
102, Številka:
102
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
There are various accounts for the war in Ukraine; this essay is not contesting such accounts but, taking the classical understanding of the war between Sparta and Athens, elucidated by Thucydides, ...there seems to be a “hidden reason”. The latter is the declining political significance of Sparta and the expanding importance of Athens. The brief analysis of the war by Thucydides is used to establish a framework for clear understanding of behavior of nations and their leaders when, despite an absense of military threat, they opt for war. Given this context, the question arises why Russia, not being threatened militarily, opts for war against its harmless neighbor. The Soviet Union was a global power equivalent to NATO alliance, and this power was inherited by Russia. The latter could not be afraid of military invasion by the West and yet it opted for war aiming to demonstrate that it is as significant as the West. The difference between Traditional Russian autocracy and modern Western democracy is such that the latter “crosses borders” by attraction and not by military power.
The scientific modern Western pronouncement that everything has to be treated with objective impartiality requires the positing of our own culture as one among others, having no value claim to be ...privileged in its various pronouncements. The claim to scientific objectivity is an aspect of Western modern culture and belongs only to its interpretive context. Hence, the very claim to Western scientific superiority as having methods to access all phenomena objectively is a culture bound position that cannot be universal. After all, “objectively speaking” other cultures, as equal, have very different understandings that do not include such tandems as “objectivity” or for that matter “subjectivity.” Culturally objectively speaking, we cannot deny them their different reading of cultural, and indeed all other, phenomena. To say that the others are wrong would be tantamount to saying that we have a criterion of the “right culture” which belongs only to our culture. But in this sense, one abolishes the treatment of other cultures as given objectively and equivalently. We then would posit our scientific culture as universal and require that all others interpret themselves in terms of our own requirements. If social theory is part of modern western culture, then it is limited by that culture and cannot claim universality.Keywords: civilizational awareness, common daily world, life world, transitional awareness.Socialinė teorija civilizacijos požiūriuAlgis MickūnasSantraukaModerni mokslinė Vakarų nuostata, kad viskas turi būti traktuojama objektyviai ir nešališkai, reikalauja mūsų pačių kultūrą priimti kaip vieną iš daugelio, nesuteikiant privilegijuoto statuso jokioms jos formoms. Mokslinio objektyvumo reikalavimas yra šiuolaikinės Vakarų kultūros bruožas ir priklauso tik jos interpretaciniam kontekstui. Taigi, pati Vakarų mokslo pretenzija į metodų, leidžiančių pažinti visus reiškinius objektyviai, monopolį yra kultūriškai sąlygota ir negali būti universali. Kitoms kultūroms, kaip lygioms, būdingos visai kitokios nuostatos, kuriose nerasime Vakarams įprasto „objektyvumo“ ir „subjektyvumo“ tandemo. Kultūriškai objektyviai kalbant, mes negalime paneigti kitokio jų kultūrinių ir kitokių fenomenų supratimo. Sakyti, kad kiti klysta, yra tas pat, kas teigti, jog turime teisingos kultūros kriterijų, kuris priklauso tik mūsų kultūrai. Taip būtų neigiamas kitų kultūrų traktavimas kaip objektyviai duotų ir lygiaverčių. Taip mes laikytume savo mokslinę kultūrą universalia ir reikalautume visas kultūras interpretuoti pagal mūsų kultūros standartus. Jei socialinė teorija yra modernios Vakarų kultūros dalis, ji turi išlikti toje kultūroje ir negali pretenduoti į universalumą.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: civilizacinis supratimas, kasdienis pasaulis, gyvenamasis pasaulis, pereinamasis supratimas.
In the article, we examine the promotion of hate and autocracy in the environment of liberal democracy and market economy, comparing economic values with social capital, as well as the relationship ...between ideology and authoritarian populism. We use the method of critical analysis, together with a synthetic method to describe the integrated socio-politico-economic phenomena. We develop the theses as follows. 1. The free market is inseparable from the freedom of speech and press. 2. Freedom of speech and economic activities has many limitations including the responsibility of actors, social state politics, and ideology. 3. The biggest threat to freedom lies in very democracy which tends to evolve into populist autocracy. 4. The constitution guarantees both freedom of speech and economic activities but it is effective only when the majority is convinced of the value of constitutional democracy.
The discussion follows the logic of Western modern metaphysics (mathematical) and ontology (atomistic materialism) in order to demonstrate how scientific discourses assumed a power to construct the ...environment. A discourse of any discipline is constructed on the basis of its value to be applied on the material, homogeneous environment, to yield desired technical products, including genetic, chemical, electronic, physiological, etc. Thus, each discourse contains the ‘power’ to remake the environment in accordance with its rules. The result is the following: environment is a discursive construct. Such constructivism is accepted by post-modern writers who claim that all discourses are a power which determines how we understand and treat the environment.
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