Topic of the issue: PHENOMENOLOGY, ONTOLOGY, CRITICISM
Issue editors: Sylvia Borissova and Kristiyan Enchev
CONTENTS & Abstracts & Keywords
Alex Kostova (Master of Philosophy at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
The Later Heidegger and the Non- Abstract: Metaphysical Grounds of Existence: Language–Thing–Art
This text aims to shed light on the nature of the appropriation of metaphysics (Verwindung) in the later Heidegger as a distinctive operation of revealing the grounds and limits of traditional metaphysics that are tacitly presupposed but not explicitly addressed in metaphysical theories. In order to do this, we shall delineate and discuss the non-metaphysical grounds of existence: (1) language as a house of being and the role of poetry, (2) the localist revealing of being in the thing (das Ding) and (3) the revealing of the truth of being in postmetaphysical thinking (Denken) and the work of art (Dichten). This discussion reveals the main aspects and the legitimacy of the postmetaphysical project of the later Heidegger.
Keywords: later Heidegger; appropriation of metaphysics; language; the thing; fourfold; thinking; art.
Tsvetelin Angelov (Chief Assistant Professor, PhD at the IPS – BAS)
The Ontological Dimensions and the Essence of Truth in Art in Martin Heidegger's Philosophy
Abstract: Art is that through which Dasein joins the being that transcends all that exists. The language of art, and particularly that of poetry, is the prelogic and preconceptional original language–the 'house of being', through which joining the being by man is carried out. All this gives Heidegger reason to assume that the language of being is pro-nounced– from being–in–man–through–art, as this primordial-and-original language is the immediate manifestation of being as the truth of/for the existing in undisguisedness, i.e. aletheia. In this way, art performs not only a mediating, but a directly collecting and uni-fying function in relation to the being and the existing.
Keywords: truth, Being, human, Dasein, the existing, work of art, ?ëÞèåéá [aletheia], undisguisedness, language, creative work.
Nikolay Turlakov (Associate Professor, PhD at the IPS - BAS)
The Meaning of Nietzsche's Understanding about the 'Eternal Return of the Same' as 'Reversal' of Metaphysical Thinking in and beyond the Interpretation of Heidegger
Abstract: In this essay I make an attempt to clarify the ambiguous meaning of Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy as metaphysics and as the end of metaphysics.
My thesis is that the main problem and weakness in Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche's thought is ignoring the fundamental role and interpretation of Dionysian wisdom in Nietzsche's conception of Being as will to power and eternal return of the same.
Keywords: metaphysics, meaning, Being, time, nothing.
The Later Heidegger and the Non- Abstract: Metaphysical Grounds of Existence: Language–Thing–Art
This text aims to shed light on the nature of the appropriation of metaphysics (Verwindung) in the later Heidegger as a distinctive operation of revealing the grounds and limits of traditional metaphysics that are tacitly presupposed but not explicitly addressed in metaphysical theories. In order to do this, we shall delineate and discuss the non-metaphysical grounds of existence: (1) language as a house of being and the role of poetry, (2) the localist revealing of being in the thing (das Ding) and (3) the revealing of the truth of being in postmetaphysical thinking (Denken) and the work of art (Dichten). This discussion reveals the main aspects and the legitimacy of the postmetaphysical project of the later Heidegger.
Keywords: later Heidegger; appropriation of metaphysics; language; the thing; fourfold; thinking; art.
Tsvetelin Angelov (Chief Assistant Professor, PhD at the IPS – BAS)
The Ontological Dimensions and the Essence of Truth in Art in Martin Heidegger's Philosophy
Abstract: Art is that through which Dasein joins the being that transcends all that exists. The language of art, and particularly that of poetry, is the prelogic and preconceptional original language–the 'house of being', through which joining the being by man is carried out. All this gives Heidegger reason to assume that the language of being is pro-nounced– from being–in–man–through–art, as this primordial-and-original language is the immediate manifestation of being as the truth of/for the existing in undisguisedness, i.e. aletheia. In this way, art performs not only a mediating, but a directly collecting and uni-fying function in relation to the being and the existing.
Keywords: truth, Being, human, Dasein, the existing, work of art, ?ëÞèåéá [aletheia], undisguisedness, language, creative work.
Nikolay Turlakov (Associate Professor, PhD at the IPS - BAS)
The Meaning of Nietzsche's Understanding about the 'Eternal Return of the Same' as 'Reversal' of Metaphysical Thinking in and beyond the Interpretation of Heidegger
Abstract: In this essay I make an attempt to clarify the ambiguous meaning of Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy as metaphysics and as the end of metaphysics.
My thesis is that the main problem and weakness in Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche's thought is ignoring the fundamental role and interpretation of Dionysian wisdom in Nietzsche's conception of Being as will to power and eternal return of the same.
Keywords: metaphysics, meaning, Being, time, nothing.
Maya Gorcheva (Associate Professor, PhD at the ULSIT, Sofia (Bulgaria))
Fictional vs. Actual and Possible Worlds: Truth Value and Ontological Status
Abstract: How can we define fictional worlds if we use the criteria of logic or ontology? Starting from this question, the current article deploys the possible worlds theory to examine the specifics of fictional worlds as opposed to that of the actual and the possible worlds. In conclusion, the article presents the viewpoint of aesthetic practice, as well as Albert Camus' concept of the novel as an achieved unity and integrity in the understanding and comprehension of the world.
Keywords: fictional world; imaginary world; possible worlds theory; Albert Camus.
Kristiyan Enchev(Associate Professor, PhD at the IPS - BAS)
Technological Forms of Life and Desorganization
Abstract: The text explores the possibility of technological forms of life to be considered as bodies without organs. Synchronous thinking of the concepts of 'unsticking perspectives', 'detached life forms' and 'writing off the body' allows desorganization to be linked to the discursive plan of different unsticking perspectives, to look for ways to set life forms free from presetting technological matrices.
Keywords: unsticking perspectives, temporal trans-form, writing off, desorganization.
Fictional vs. Actual and Possible Worlds: Truth Value and Ontological Status
Abstract: How can we define fictional worlds if we use the criteria of logic or ontology? Starting from this question, the current article deploys the possible worlds theory to examine the specifics of fictional worlds as opposed to that of the actual and the possible worlds. In conclusion, the article presents the viewpoint of aesthetic practice, as well as Albert Camus' concept of the novel as an achieved unity and integrity in the understanding and comprehension of the world.
Keywords: fictional world; imaginary world; possible worlds theory; Albert Camus.
Kristiyan Enchev(Associate Professor, PhD at the IPS - BAS)
Technological Forms of Life and Desorganization
Abstract: The text explores the possibility of technological forms of life to be considered as bodies without organs. Synchronous thinking of the concepts of 'unsticking perspectives', 'detached life forms' and 'writing off the body' allows desorganization to be linked to the discursive plan of different unsticking perspectives, to look for ways to set life forms free from presetting technological matrices.
Keywords: unsticking perspectives, temporal trans-form, writing off, desorganization.
Paula Angelova(PhD in Sociology, Anthropology and Cultural Studies, defended at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. Independent scholar at The Centre for Advanced Study–Sofia (Bulgaria).)
Constructive and Regressive Phenomenology. Notes on the Husserlian Concept of Phenomenological Movement
Abstract: The concept of the phenomenological analysis described in terms of zigzag movement was already present in the programmatic Logical Investigations. As for the more operative terms used by Husserl, a comprehensive definition of it is though hard to be found in his Nachlass. Thus, the following article offers a reading of this notion through a second-degree methodological reflection that addresses the issues of eidetics and transcendental facticity, beginning with Logical Investigations up to the late Husserl's manuscripts. Beyond the prism of the static and genetic phenomenology, Fink's Sixth Cartesian Meditation and Richir's Phenomenological Meditations pave the way to approach this question through the phenomenological regression and progression and the primordial inderminacy of the phenomenon in order to offer a non-standard outline of late Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and its anthropological axes.
Keywords: constructive and regressive phenomenology; static and genetic phenomenology; zigzag movement; transcendental facticity; eidetics; primordial facts.
Galin Penev(Chief Assistant Professor, PhD at theIPS – BAS)
Theological Aesthetics. The Version of John Manoussakis
Abstract: The article considers some points of departure of Manoussakis' project for theological aesthetics. His work comprises a survey in the fields of phenomenology of religious experience, aesthetics of epiphanic phenomena and iconic issues. The paradoxical logic of iconic, sound and tangible reciprocity between me and the other claims an inverted intention in the theological aesthetics. Each chapter of the book intends to sketch a picture of symbolic unity of immanence and transcendence in epiphanic phenomena.
Keywords: Epiphany; reciprocity; iconicity; Other; distance.
Milena Popcheva (Independent Researcher in Philosophy, Stockholm (Sweden). Master in Psychology at Stockholm University and Bachelor in Philosophy at Södertörn University (Sweden))
Plato's Daemonic Eros in the Dialogues Phaedrus and the Symposium
Abstract: The purpose of the current study is to present an interpretation of Eros and its dàemonic aspect as it is described in Plato's dialogues Phaedrus and the Symposium as well as to attempt to shed some light on the question in which way the erotic as such influences Plato's notion of the philosophic way of life. In the first part of the study an account is given of the Platonic Eros as a unifying element and as striving for Being. I defend the position that in the context of the interpreted dialogues, philosophy is thought of as an erotic enterprise which manifests itself as a coming closer to the object of love. This coming closer takes place as recollection in Phaedrus and as creating in beauty in the Symposium. Further, I suggest that the creative activity in which the philosophic lover is involved lets a certain daemonic time arise. In the second part of the study, I identify and discuss a twofold structure in the erotic dynamics which consists of a daemonic pull on the side of the beloved giving rise to an erotic striving on the side of the lover. The lover is pulled towards the beloved which is perceived by the lover as something daemonic, as the effect of a foreign commanding power over him. What pulls the lover is the beautiful itself and it is the way in which Being appears to the philosophic lover. At the end of this part, I discuss the consequences of this way of appearing of Being for Plato's thinking. In the third part of this study, I focus on mindfulness as a necessary condition for the initiation of a philosophic life. I maintain that the purpose of mindfulness is the attainment of freedom and a reflective stance in respect to one's erotic strivings.
Keywords: Eros, daemon, Phaedrus, the Symposium, Plato.
Francheska Zemyarska(PhD student at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
The Mask as a Work: Patroclus and Penthesilea in Marguerite Yourcenar's Fires
Abstract: The prose poetry book Fires (1936) by M. Yourcenar can be read through two prisms–through the prism of the theatre of life and through the prism of the scene of death. The last scene of “Patroclus, or, Destiny” gives a kind of negative to the idea of a masquerade ball: the unmasking of Penthesilea reveals another mask–the death mask. The notion of a death mask is introduced in the framework of Belting, Blanchot, Nancy to analyze the death of Penthesilea as her last gift to Achilles. I use the concept of death in “Patroclus, or, Destiny” as an autotextual introduction to Yourcenar's great novel Memoirs of Hadrian.
Keywords: Yourcenar, Nancy, death mask, Achilles, Penthesilea, Patrocle, autotextuality, Leitmotif, Écriture, suicide, sacrifice.
Constructive and Regressive Phenomenology. Notes on the Husserlian Concept of Phenomenological Movement
Abstract: The concept of the phenomenological analysis described in terms of zigzag movement was already present in the programmatic Logical Investigations. As for the more operative terms used by Husserl, a comprehensive definition of it is though hard to be found in his Nachlass. Thus, the following article offers a reading of this notion through a second-degree methodological reflection that addresses the issues of eidetics and transcendental facticity, beginning with Logical Investigations up to the late Husserl's manuscripts. Beyond the prism of the static and genetic phenomenology, Fink's Sixth Cartesian Meditation and Richir's Phenomenological Meditations pave the way to approach this question through the phenomenological regression and progression and the primordial inderminacy of the phenomenon in order to offer a non-standard outline of late Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and its anthropological axes.
Keywords: constructive and regressive phenomenology; static and genetic phenomenology; zigzag movement; transcendental facticity; eidetics; primordial facts.
Galin Penev(Chief Assistant Professor, PhD at theIPS – BAS)
Theological Aesthetics. The Version of John Manoussakis
Abstract: The article considers some points of departure of Manoussakis' project for theological aesthetics. His work comprises a survey in the fields of phenomenology of religious experience, aesthetics of epiphanic phenomena and iconic issues. The paradoxical logic of iconic, sound and tangible reciprocity between me and the other claims an inverted intention in the theological aesthetics. Each chapter of the book intends to sketch a picture of symbolic unity of immanence and transcendence in epiphanic phenomena.
Keywords: Epiphany; reciprocity; iconicity; Other; distance.
Milena Popcheva (Independent Researcher in Philosophy, Stockholm (Sweden). Master in Psychology at Stockholm University and Bachelor in Philosophy at Södertörn University (Sweden))
Plato's Daemonic Eros in the Dialogues Phaedrus and the Symposium
Abstract: The purpose of the current study is to present an interpretation of Eros and its dàemonic aspect as it is described in Plato's dialogues Phaedrus and the Symposium as well as to attempt to shed some light on the question in which way the erotic as such influences Plato's notion of the philosophic way of life. In the first part of the study an account is given of the Platonic Eros as a unifying element and as striving for Being. I defend the position that in the context of the interpreted dialogues, philosophy is thought of as an erotic enterprise which manifests itself as a coming closer to the object of love. This coming closer takes place as recollection in Phaedrus and as creating in beauty in the Symposium. Further, I suggest that the creative activity in which the philosophic lover is involved lets a certain daemonic time arise. In the second part of the study, I identify and discuss a twofold structure in the erotic dynamics which consists of a daemonic pull on the side of the beloved giving rise to an erotic striving on the side of the lover. The lover is pulled towards the beloved which is perceived by the lover as something daemonic, as the effect of a foreign commanding power over him. What pulls the lover is the beautiful itself and it is the way in which Being appears to the philosophic lover. At the end of this part, I discuss the consequences of this way of appearing of Being for Plato's thinking. In the third part of this study, I focus on mindfulness as a necessary condition for the initiation of a philosophic life. I maintain that the purpose of mindfulness is the attainment of freedom and a reflective stance in respect to one's erotic strivings.
Keywords: Eros, daemon, Phaedrus, the Symposium, Plato.
Francheska Zemyarska(PhD student at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
The Mask as a Work: Patroclus and Penthesilea in Marguerite Yourcenar's Fires
Abstract: The prose poetry book Fires (1936) by M. Yourcenar can be read through two prisms–through the prism of the theatre of life and through the prism of the scene of death. The last scene of “Patroclus, or, Destiny” gives a kind of negative to the idea of a masquerade ball: the unmasking of Penthesilea reveals another mask–the death mask. The notion of a death mask is introduced in the framework of Belting, Blanchot, Nancy to analyze the death of Penthesilea as her last gift to Achilles. I use the concept of death in “Patroclus, or, Destiny” as an autotextual introduction to Yourcenar's great novel Memoirs of Hadrian.
Keywords: Yourcenar, Nancy, death mask, Achilles, Penthesilea, Patrocle, autotextuality, Leitmotif, Écriture, suicide, sacrifice.
Megi Popova PhD student at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
Context and Influences on the Critical Theory of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
Abstract: This text aims to reveal and to analyze certain moments of the historical, biographical, cultural, and intellectual context which influenced the critical theory of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. The method of contextualization has its theoretical groundings that correspond with the critical approaches of social analysis of the authors in focus: that the theoretical sphere is not separated from the practical and social sphere and to understand fully certain theory one should explore its context. The text is focused on the intellectual influences excluding Marx because that would require a longer and separate investigation.
Keywords: context, critical theory, Frankfurt school, influences, Adorno, Horkheimer, the Weimar period, Institute for Social Research
Valentin Kalinov(Assistant Professor, PhD at University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski”)
On the Dogma of the “Inseparable Bond” between Cure and Research in Psychoanalysis–A Return to Freud
Abstract: The paper intends to outline the parameters of a conceptual analysis on the so-called “dogma of the inseparable bond” (das Junktim dogma), which is said to exist between the processes of cure and research in the psychoanalytic interaction. Using Michel Foucault's strategy of “returning to the origin”, which, according to the French thinker, marks the status of discourses, whose very possibility figures like Freud and Marx articulate, we argue that each analysis has its obligation to produce specific psychoanalytical knowledge about the unconscious and its functioning. It follows that the analyst–apart from their primary role in the course of treatment–is charged, by the very fact of their being an analyst, with the absolute responsibility of broadening the horizons of analytical knowledge.
Keywords: psychoanalysis, discourse, knowledge, truth, research, cure, Freud, Lacan, Foucault.
Context and Influences on the Critical Theory of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno
Abstract: This text aims to reveal and to analyze certain moments of the historical, biographical, cultural, and intellectual context which influenced the critical theory of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno. The method of contextualization has its theoretical groundings that correspond with the critical approaches of social analysis of the authors in focus: that the theoretical sphere is not separated from the practical and social sphere and to understand fully certain theory one should explore its context. The text is focused on the intellectual influences excluding Marx because that would require a longer and separate investigation.
Keywords: context, critical theory, Frankfurt school, influences, Adorno, Horkheimer, the Weimar period, Institute for Social Research
Valentin Kalinov(Assistant Professor, PhD at University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski”)
On the Dogma of the “Inseparable Bond” between Cure and Research in Psychoanalysis–A Return to Freud
Abstract: The paper intends to outline the parameters of a conceptual analysis on the so-called “dogma of the inseparable bond” (das Junktim dogma), which is said to exist between the processes of cure and research in the psychoanalytic interaction. Using Michel Foucault's strategy of “returning to the origin”, which, according to the French thinker, marks the status of discourses, whose very possibility figures like Freud and Marx articulate, we argue that each analysis has its obligation to produce specific psychoanalytical knowledge about the unconscious and its functioning. It follows that the analyst–apart from their primary role in the course of treatment–is charged, by the very fact of their being an analyst, with the absolute responsibility of broadening the horizons of analytical knowledge.
Keywords: psychoanalysis, discourse, knowledge, truth, research, cure, Freud, Lacan, Foucault.
Emilia Chengelova – (Professor, DSc at the IPhS –BAS), Albena Nakova (Associate Professor, PhD at the IPhS –BAS)
Methodology and Conception on the Composition and Calculation of the Shadow Economy Tolerance Index (SETI)
Abstract: The article proposes an innovative methodology and concept for the design and calculation of the Shadow Economy Tolerance Index (SETI), which is without analogue in European or Bulgarian research practice. The need for its construction is related to the fact, established in previous studies on the shadow economy, that there is a tendency among the Bulgarian population to view deviant economic behavior as acceptable, as the “new normal”, and that nearly two thirds of Bulgarians apply various models of deviant (shadow) economic behavior. In structural terms, the SETI Index is to comprise three components, each of which includes 10 indicators: Component 1. Basic notions and attitudes towards the shadow economy; Component 2. Psychological readiness to take part in shady practices; Component 3. Level of real involvement in shady practices. Each of the three components has a different relative weight, namely: 50:35:15. The first calculation of the SETI Index will be made in early 2022 on the basis of empirical data collected in a national representative survey of the population in Bulgaria and will subsequently be repeated every two years. The necessary information will be collected through a specially designed online questionnaire. The questionnaire will be filled in by the same panel of respondents in order to ensure the representative quality of the information.
Keywords: shadow economy, tolerance, Shadow Economy Tolerance Index.
Methodology and Conception on the Composition and Calculation of the Shadow Economy Tolerance Index (SETI)
Abstract: The article proposes an innovative methodology and concept for the design and calculation of the Shadow Economy Tolerance Index (SETI), which is without analogue in European or Bulgarian research practice. The need for its construction is related to the fact, established in previous studies on the shadow economy, that there is a tendency among the Bulgarian population to view deviant economic behavior as acceptable, as the “new normal”, and that nearly two thirds of Bulgarians apply various models of deviant (shadow) economic behavior. In structural terms, the SETI Index is to comprise three components, each of which includes 10 indicators: Component 1. Basic notions and attitudes towards the shadow economy; Component 2. Psychological readiness to take part in shady practices; Component 3. Level of real involvement in shady practices. Each of the three components has a different relative weight, namely: 50:35:15. The first calculation of the SETI Index will be made in early 2022 on the basis of empirical data collected in a national representative survey of the population in Bulgaria and will subsequently be repeated every two years. The necessary information will be collected through a specially designed online questionnaire. The questionnaire will be filled in by the same panel of respondents in order to ensure the representative quality of the information.
Keywords: shadow economy, tolerance, Shadow Economy Tolerance Index.
Stiliyan Yotov – Aphorism as an Artistic Challenge and the Moral Challenges of the Aphorism. Excerpt from Minima Moralia by Theodor Adorno
Antoaneta Koleva – On The Courage of Truth by Michel Foucault, excerpt from the book
Antoaneta Koleva – On The Courage of Truth by Michel Foucault, excerpt from the book
Asen Davidov. A Path in Philosophy and Faith