Gheorghe Sferlea | : Cet article examine les premières tentatives d’interprétation théologique du titre marial Theotokos au IVe siècle. Au coeur de cette histoire on retrouve Apollinaire, évêque de Laodicée et figure importante du camp pro-nicéen, qui a élaboré une théorie controversée sur l’unité du Christ, notamment en excluant l’intellect humain de la constitution du Sauveur. C’est dans le cadre de cette préoccupation plus large qu’il vit l’opportunité de tenter une appropriation théologique du titre Theotokos et qu’il en fit (...) un outil polémique dans la stratégie d’ériger sa propre position en orthodoxie christologique. L’idée que je défends ici est que Diodore de Tarse, Grégoire de Nazianze, Grégoire de Nysse et Théodore de Mopsueste se sont tous confrontés à l’interprétation proposée par Apollinaire et ont cherché les meilleurs moyens d’y réagir. | : This article examines the first attempts of theological interpretation of Marian title Theotokos in the fourth Century. At the centre of this history stands Apollinarius, bishop of Laodiceea and a significant character of the pro-Nicene movement, who elaborated a controversial account on the unity of Christ that excluded human intellect from Saviour’s constitution. It was within this broader concern that he saw the opportunity of attempting a theological appropriation of title Theotokos and made it a polemical tool in the strategy of establishing his own Christological stance as authoritative. My contention is that Diodore of Tarsus, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa and Theodore of Mopsuestia all found themselves confronted with Apollinarius’ interpretation and searched ways of reacting to it. (shrink)

The paper contains a conceptual proposal, its key idea being that the successful functioning of a rule embedding artifact designed to regulate a practice (not pertaining to its use) produces the same result as the successful performance of the rule-invoking non-communicative actions belonging to the practice in case.

This investigation discusses the relation between ontology and metaphysics. They are different, but how different? While metaphysics is transcendental and has as purpose the justification of being as existence, it establishes it, too. Metaphysics is speculation (as theoretical approach in the strong meaning of the term) on being. This relation can only emphasize the aporetic quality of metaphysics.

Technology and society are deeply interconnected, as technology emerges from the existent cultural framework and consequently shapes society on the micro level of human interaction and the larger scale of social structure and system. This paper tackles the digital transformation present in Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. We analyse disruptive digital technologies by focusing on the social or cultural context of their creation, their core philosophy, and the impact they seem to have or how society may be shaped by their (...) extended implementation and adoption. As technology is basically not neutral in its purpose, serving different personal and organizational interests, we use a multiple point-of-view approach to our study in order to elaborate an encompassing representation of the phenomenon. (shrink)

This paper presents an analytical framework for analyzing how multimodal resources of emotion expression are semiotically materialized in discursive interactions specific to political discourse. Interested in how political personae are emotionally constructed through multimodal meaning-making practices, our analysis model assumes an interdisciplinary perspective, which integrates facial expression analysis – using FaceReader™ software –, the theory of emotional arcs and bodily actions (hand gestures) analysis that express emotions, in the analytical framework of multimodality. The results show how the multimodal choices that (...) political actors make during discursive interactions allow them to build their political brand and make connections with the audience on an emotional level. (shrink)

The main thesis of my article is that the viability of the European Union does not depend so much on its political structure as on its being anchored in a culture-based public sphere and on the establishment of a cultural European citizenship. The public sphere could be defined as an unique world, characterized by consensus and cooperation, in which only public goods can be sought and acquired, or as an unique world, characterized by rivalry and competition, in which everyone could (...) pursue their private interests, but only if there is a consensus regarding an objective and fair procedure. In any way, we cannot speak of a pluralism of public spheres - like the black public sphere, the LGBT public sphere, etc. - but (at the most) a plurality of interests represented in the public sphere, under the reserve of respecting a fair procedure, which allows the expression of axiological judgments. The EU needs a progressive citizenship, from civil citizenship to cultural citizenship, depending on the acquired skills, behavior and virtues. One deserves cultural citizenship and have the right (or, perhaps the privilege) to manifest - in the public sphere - a way of life and a cultural identity only if promote authentic values: virtues, rationality, free will etc. The problematic aspects of the European media sphere are obstacles on the way to establishing an authentic European cultural citizenship. They can be kept under control by assuming a healthy reactionary attitude and associating every element of change and contingent progress (speed, reductive simplicity, user's solitude, pictoriality, lateralness, data overload, immediacy, segmentation, social amnesia, etc.) with an element of moderation and equilibrium. Only thus can the media contribute in the making of a viable union of the European peoples, grounded on a well articulated European cultural citizenship. (shrink)

The vacuum is the lowest energy state of a field in a certain region of space. This definition implies that no particles can be present in the vacuum state. In classical physics, the only features of vacuum are those of its geometry. For example, in the general theory of relativity the geometry is a dynamical structure that guides the motion of matter, and, in turn, it is bent and curved by the presence of matter. Other than this, the classical vacuum (...) is a structure void of any physical properties, since classically properties are strictly associated with physical objects such as particles and finite-amplitude fields. The situation is very different in quantum physics. As I will show in this paper, the difference stems from the fact that in quantum physics the properties are not strictly tied to objects. We know for example that physical properties come into existence - as values of observables - only when the object is measured. Thus, quantum physics allows us to detach properties from objects. This has consequences: one does not need pre-existing real objects to create actual properties, and indeed under certain perturbations the quantum vacuum produces observable effects such as energy shifts and creation of particles. An open question is if by necessity the vacuum comes with an embedded geometry, and if it is possible to construct viable physical theories in which geometry is detached from the vacuum. (shrink)

The paper argues that the balanced relationship between freedom and justice enables man to achieve the social good ontologically speaking, i.e. the one that holds together everything that exists. Reflecting the ontological Good on a social level is made on zoon politikon translated by “being together with the others,” where freedom and justice coexist in equilibrium. Justice and thus lay contribute to the achievement of ontological Good by the fair sharing of the existing goods on a social level and by (...) human equality before courts. (shrink)

Over the past 20 years, along with official endeavors directed towards the accession of Romania into the European structures, political parties tried to integrate themselves into wider European families. Approaching the European People’s Party (the most prominent group in the European Parliament) - dominated by Christian democrats whose existence was largely influenced by the Catholic social teaching - seemed to be one of the most difficult tasks. For their first European elections held in 2007 several Romanian political parties - apart (...) from the National Christian Democrat Peasant Party (a member of the European Christian Democratic Union since 1987) - changed their orientation and claimed themselves as Christian Democratic. This article intends to explore the extent to which Romanian political parties who assert themselves as Christian-democratic can be considered to belong to this political family or whether their claim has a rather administrative motivation. (shrink)

La signification est un phénomène social qui ne peut être compris de manière satisfaisante que par rapport à deux entités duales : une communauté et un langage. Elle se manifeste dans la sphère publique en tant que réponse discriminative à un stimulus sémiotique, c'est-à-dire en tant que réaction typique à un stimulus vicariant (qui rend possibles les expériences indirectes). Les modèles ou les schémas d’action sémiotique émergent de la conformité générale des membres d’une communauté à certaines conventions de langage. Si (...) les réactions à un stimulus semblent contingentes ou complètement imprédictibles, on peut en déduire qu’aucune signification n’a été (re)produite. Les significations ne sont pas de propriétés des signes et ne sont pas déterminées causalement par ceux-ci. Par conséquent, elles ne peuvent pas être transférées d’une personne à l’autre en même temps que la transmission des stimuli sémiotiques. Lorsque les membres d’une communauté font l’effort de se conformer – en tant qu’agents rationnels normaux – aux conventions linguistiques en vigueur, ils (re)créent le significations à un niveau syntactique, sémantique et pragmatique, aussi bien au niveau du langage qu’au niveau du métalangage. De plus, ayant en vue les circonstances de la communication, ils préfèrent un certain degré de socialisation des significations véhiculées ; ce degré est situé entre le niveau strictement personnel des idiosyncrasies et le niveau conformiste des significations standardisées. Les communicateurs performants essaient d’éviter les deux extrêmes à la fois, étant suffisamment coopérants pour renforcer les conventions de langage existantes, qui rendent possibles les conventions de langage existantes, tout en rendant possible la compréhension ; en même temps, ils sont suffisamment hétérodoxes pour se rapporter à des significations qui stimulent leur ouverture, leur curiosité et leur flexibilité. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to tackle the problem of living together – as dignified human beings – in a certain territory in the field of social philosophy, on the theoretical grounding ensured by some remarkable exponents of the Austrian School − and by means of the praxeologic method. Because political tools diminish the human nature not only of those who use them, but also of those who undergo their effects, people can live a life worthy of a (...) human being only as members of some autarchic or self-governing communities. As a spontaneous order, every autarchic community is inherently democratic, inasmuch as it makes possible free involvement, peaceful coordination, free expression and the free reproduction of ideas. The members of autarchic communities are moral individuals who avoid aggression, practice self-control, seek a dynamical efficiency and establish a democratic public discourse. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to highlight the underlying themes or motifs that recur in Russian war propaganda in the context of the war in Ukraine. Using the method of thematic analysis, I analyzed the messages about the war in Ukraine that Russian opinion leaders and media institutions disseminated through the lens of the "principles of war propaganda" presented and illustrated by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli. Due to the language barrier and restrictions on access to Russian news sources, (...) we limited our analysis to articles published on the TASS news agency website and Twitter posts, which reproduce and comment on the interventions of Vladimir Solovyov, considered by the United States State Department as "the Kremlin's most energetic propagandist." In total, I analyzed 58 articles from the website of the TASS news agency and 40 Twitter posts with excerpts from the show "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov" on the Russia-1 TV channel. The analysis highlights that the "principles" defined by Arthur Ponsonby and Anne Morelli govern Russian war propaganda, at least in part. Our analysis does not exclude the possibility that Russian propagandists may have used other leitmotifs or public communication themes. Their identification and presentation could be the subject of further research. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that justice is not a natural law that (re)establishes equilibrium and order in the universe, but a disposition enforced by a fighting will to render to every man his due in line with a regime of rights, powers, or immunities to use, enjoy and control some external goods. Inasmuch as there is no sense, feeling or instinct of justice, it is reasonable to assert that people regulate their conduct under the authority of a (...) legislative authority according to certain ideas of justice, which they adopt and promote through a steady effort of knowledge and will. Critical analysis of the main types of justice − associative justice, punitive justice, corrective justice, restorative justice, functional justice, normative justice, commutative justice and distributive justice − from a liberal democratic perspective highlights the formal requirements of justice in different social arrangements and in relation to various aspects of personal and social life. Because it lacks a natural foundation of justice and people have strong interests in enforcing a certain idea of justice, public debates about justice entail a clash of militant wills. Debaters engage in a struggle for political hegemony trying to exclude from the public sphere the rival ideas about justice. In other words, all substantive debates about justice are carried out in an agonistic public sphere. The more civilized and reasonable the agonistic debates about justice are, the more likely the idea of justice is to fit the vital interests of individuals and society. (shrink)

Serban Leoca, Purtãtori de adevãr Napoca Star, Cluj-Napoca; Galaxia Gutemberg, Tg. Lãpus, 2005.

The article concerns the life and work of the most important contemporary Spanish philosophers, Fernando Savater. It focuses on describing his activism and the reasons which led him to participate in the public life. The author also analyses the thinker’s two major concerns, which are anti-nationalism and the defence of democtratic values. The investigation shows that Savater’s view on the two issues is strictly related to his biography and the socio-political changes experienced by Spanish people in the last fifty years. (...) The solutions the philosopher presents for his compatriots are parallel to his proposals of shifts in the politics of the whole European Union. (shrink)