MĂDĂLINA DIACONU, Tasten, Riechen, Schmecken. Eine Ästhetik der anästhesierten Sinne, 2005 ; SILVIA STOLLER, VERONICA VASTERLING,LINDA FISHER, Feministische Phänomenologie und Hermeneutik, 2005 ; KARL SCHUHMANN, Karl Schuhmann: Selected Papers on Phenomenology. Edited by CEES LEIJENHORST and PIET STEENBAKKERS, 2004 ; HIROSHI GOTO, Der Begriff der Person in der PhänomenologieHusserls. Ein Interpretationsversuch der Husserlschen Phänomenologie als Ethik im Hinblick auf den Begriff der Habitualität, 2004 ; GÜNTER FIGAL, Lebensverstricktheit und Abstandsnahme. „Verhalten zu sich“ im Anschluss an Heidegger, Kierkegaard und Hegel, 2001 (...) ; JACQUES DERRIDA, Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy, 2000. (shrink)

This paper interprets migration as an interplay of external and internal movement, of physical locomotion and becoming. The first part calls for completing Migration Studies with an experience-centred philosophy of migration from the insider’s perspective. A critical examination of phenomenological contributions emphasises how phenomenology has usually prioritised dwelling, emplacement and alterity over moving, displacement and the migrant’s reactions to being considered the “other”. The second part examines migration along its several stages, from the detachment from the home country to “arrival” (...) and integration, including the temporary or definitive return to the former “home”. Finally, the recent phenomenon of trans-migration nourishes the hope in the possibility of a non-traumatic dwelling in-between and on the move. (shrink)

People’s beliefs are influenced by interactions within their communities. The propagation of this influence through conversational social networks should impact the degree to which community members synchronize their beliefs. To investigate, we recruited a sample of 140 participants and constructed fourteen 10-member communities. Participants first rated the accuracy of a set of statements and were then provided with relevant evidence about them. Then, participants discussed the statements in a series of conversational interactions, following pre-determined network structures. Finally, they rated the (...) accuracy of the statements again. The results show that belief synchronization, measuring the increase in belief similarity among individuals within a community from pre-test to post-test, is influenced by the community’s conversational network structure. This synchronization is circumscribed by a degree of separation effect and is equivalent in the clustered and non-clustered networks. We also find that conversational content predicts belief change from pre-test to post-test. (shrink)

The ecological crisis has long since reached global proportions, so that environmental problems can no longer be tackled solely within national borders. This anthology opens intercultural perspectives on environmental ethics and hightlights the potential of non-European traditions of thought for exploring alternative paths.

This paper analyses the cluster of aesthetic features involved in the common experience of the weather. Perceptual features (framelessness, chromatics, texture, synaesthesia, ephemerality, proteism) are accompanied by 'atmospheric' moods that are irreducible to physiological well-being. Representation and imagination reach their limits due to the more-than-human spatiotemporal scale of the atmosphere. Finally, some 'transaesthetic' aspects include the agency of an active matter and the longing for an elemental alterity. The aesthetics of the weather has to account for the interdependence between aesthetic (...) and ethical values, between bodily engagement and appropriate knowledge, individual contemplation and social commitment, in order to develop ecological responsibility. (shrink)

Die erste fachübergreifende Ideengeschichte Rumäniens vermittelt anhand von Denkströmungen, Persönlichkeiten und Kulturpublizistik ein besseres Verständnis auch aktueller gesellschaftlicher Entwicklungen. Madalina Diaconu behandelt für den Zeitraum seit dem Beginn der Moderne bis in die Gegenwart die anhaltende Kontroverse zwischen prowestlicher Modernisierung und Traditionalismus, die Mythen der rumänischen Geschichte, Orthodoxie und Nationalismus, die Kulturpolitik während des Kommunismus, die Selbstsuche nach 1989 und dem EU-Beitritt von 2007. Auch andere in Rumänien lebende Ethnien sind berücksichtigt. Klar geschrieben, informativ und basierend auf Quellen aus (...) erster Hand ist der Band unverzichtbar für alle, die an Rumänien im europäischen Kontext interessiert sind. (shrink)

Die Ikonen der Ostkirche werden theologisch als „Sinnbilder im realistischen Sinne des Wortes“ gedeutet. Damit verbunden ist ein sog. sakramentaler Realismus, demgemäß das Urbild im materiellen Bild real präsent und wirksam ist. Vor der Erfindung der Fotografie spielte die mimetische Wirklichkeitsnähe bei der Heiligendarstellung kaum eine Rolle; von den ‚jüngsten‘ Heiligen gibt es aber sowohl Fotografien als auch traditionell gemalte Bilder. Der Status dieser Fotos und ihr Einfluss auf die Ikonen wurde bisher weder in der Bildwissenschaft noch in der Theologie (...) hinterfragt. Die Relevanz solcher Fotos für den Glauben wird zu einer virulenten Frage in der Ostkirche, wo das Gebot der Bilderverehrung gilt und bereits ‚Fotoikonen‘ von Heiligen kommerzialisiert werden. Als Grundlage für den Vergleich zwischen Fotos und Ikonen dient Roland Barthes’ realistische Auffassung der Fotografie in seinem Essay Die helle Kammer, der explizite Analogien zwischen Fotos und byzantinischen Ikonen enthält. „Wohl könnte ich ein Bild, ein Gemälde, eine Statue verehren, doch auch ein Photo?“, fragt Barthes dort. Im Weiteren wird versucht, diese Frage durch eine Gegenüberstellung von Fotografien und Ikonen in Bezug auf ihre Referentialität, Narrativität, Lichtsymbolik bzw. „Emanation des Referenten“, Autopoiesis, Reproduktion und Spektralität zu beantworten. (shrink)

Higher levels of trust in credible sources of information in times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic increase public compliance with official recommendations, minimizing health risks and helping authorities manage the crisis. Based on a national survey, this article explores actual levels of trust in various sources of information during the pandemic and a number of predictors of such trust. Results show that during the period studied government websites were the most trusted source of information. Trust in an (...) information source is correlated with consumption of COVID-19–related news from that specific source, media fact-checking, and self-perception about the incidence of COVID-19–related fake news. Only income and age are significant trust predictors, and only with respect to specific source types. (shrink)

Collecting goes beyond art collecting and seems to meet a more general need. Although it originally aided survival and has predecessors in the animal world, the gesture of collecting has complex motivations. After exploring the collector’s psychology and the behavioural differences between collectors and spectators, this paper analyses the logic of collecting and its principles: order, variation, attractive and meaningful display, the control of contingency, processuality and growth, seriality, and limitation. Finally, the paradoxical attempt to collect non-collectibles, such as gods, (...) clouds or human relations will be shown to illustrate a para-aesthetics of collecting which ranges from the poetics of everyday life to aestheticism. (shrink)

Aletheia: The Truth of Philosophical Translation as a Translation of Thruth.An Encounter of Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricœur and Antoine BermanThe article analyzes the specificity of philosophical translations insofar as they generate a new meaning and present themselves as originals that must be retranslated. This goes against Ricœur’s conception of translation as a creation of comparable terms. We will show that philosophical translation consists in the creation of an incomparable term, which cannot be measured in terms of equivalence, adequacy or fidelity. (...) All these terms correspond to a notion of truth understood as adequacy, therefore we operate a deconstruction of aletheia, the Greek concept for “truth”, in order to show that what we hold today to be the truth of translation has been the result of a translation. Through Heidegger’s reading of aletheia and through Berman’s account of the terms that name translation in Europe, we reinterpret the Roman philosophical translations as examples of traductio and we show, in the end, that by retranslating aletheia, the rules for the practice of translation change, allowing the latter to be guided by an ethical approach towards the otherness rather than by righteous fidelity and adequacy. (shrink)

The theme of the article relies to the particular contribution of Freemasonry in the initiation and development of modernity, focusing on science, religion and politics. We know that, during the late Middle Ages, the European society was obedient to the „Church-Tradition-Monarchy” trinity; this status-quo collapsed due to the rational way of thinking; also the establishment of the universal human rights belongs to the Enlightenment, whose theses were supported mainly by Freemasons. Many researchers have proposed to show the extent to which (...) Freemasonry helped to build the ideals of Enlightenment. The main conclusions that can be drawn, by analyzing their tracks, are: All famous leaders of the Enlightenment had connections to Freemasonry; The Enlightenment tenets overlap Freemasonry tenets, and, therefore they were supported and propagated by English, French, and American lodges; Freemasonry progressively turned into a transnational vehicle for liberal thinking, disseminating the concepts of property and freedom in Europe and across the Atlantic. (shrink)

Collecting goes beyond art collecting and seems to meet a more general need. Although it originally aided survival and has predecessors in the animal world, the gesture of collecting has complex motivations. After exploring the collector’s psychology and the behavioural differences between collectors and spectators, this paper analyses the logic of collecting and its principles: order, variation, attractive and meaningful display, the control of contingency, processuality and growth, seriality, and limitation. Finally, the paradoxical attempt to collect non-collectibles, such as gods, (...) clouds or human relations will be shown to illustrate a para-aesthetics of collecting which ranges from the poetics of everyday life to aestheticism. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 3, Page 418-419, June 2012.

Contemporary smelly artworks, installations and “scent sculptures” endorse philosophical and anthropological theories about the construction of identity as a relation to oneself and the others through consciousness and memory, as a multi-staged process of social exchange, as a game of risk and trust in making one’s own identity, and as a dialectics of agency and passivity. It is well-known that topophilic emplacement contributes to identity; olfactory site-specific installations and practices “present” specific smellscapes and reflect on their changes. Also olfactory artists (...) who produce uncanny atmospheres recall that personal identity is built along the axes of trust and anxiety. Body odors in general are corporeal signatures that enable individual recognition, yet artists extract them in order to challenge taboos, question gender stereotypes and build open identities. The crucial role of odors for both self-acceptance and non-verbal communication makes artists use them as a means of fostering a new sense of solidarity on a local as well as on a global level. Finally, other artistic projects subvert the anthropological difference and rehabilitate other species’ olfactory sensitivity. With the aid of modern technology, they promise to fulfil old dreams about enlarging the spectrum of our nose and controlling incoming odors and body emissions. Thus, in a paradoxical way, they both advocate to return to the prehuman and urge to become posthuman. (shrink)

The aim of the present article is to offer a new interpretation of Heidegger’s account of the unfolding of language by analyzing the notion of Geläut der Stille, “sounding gathering of silence.” Taking as a starting point the experience of silence described by Stefan George in his poem “The Word,” the article presents the opposition between silence and the sounding words, showing that the latter coincide with the language we speak. The passage from silence to the spoken language belongs to (...) the unfolding of language itself, which presents itself as a translation of silence, redefining thus what translation originally is. The latter, understood as violence and harmony, gathers itself under the term of “rift,” overcoming thus the ontological difference and offering us a radically new perspective over the nature of “relation” within Heidegger’s thinking. (shrink)

Our study focuses on the impact of American advertising on local consumers and industry and discusses the relationship between standardization and localization on the global market. Although America seems to be a hybridized, ‘McDonald-ized’ reality, it is in fact grounded on a multicultural and social mix that deems it highly recognizable. Consequently, we argue that reconstructing American identity means sharing similar values with other cultural spaces, whose history, religion, and social customs require a different approach to daily life and finding (...) new means of expression. Our main argument is that advertising disseminates its message in foreign markets and that American campaign models were implemented despite cultural differences. Therefore, we will study the way American heterogeneity becomes homogeneous in the advertising realm, and explain the relationship between standardization and localization in promoting brand values. Our analysis relies on examples of the post-1990 Romanian advertising revolution that showcase the global American influence on Romania’s local industry as reflected by celebrations (Valentine’s Day, Man’s Day) and other American symbols (the cowboy image, the impact of the English language) present in locally broadcast advertisements. Consequently, our paper asks a very controversial question: Does market globalization embed the American spirit in indigenous cultures through advertising, bypassing local culture, ideology and society? (shrink)

This paper presents a Conceptual Graph (CG) framework to the Generation of Referring Expressions (GRE). Employing Conceptual Graphs as the underlying formalism allows a rigorous, semantically rich, approach to GRE. A number of advantages over existing work are discussed. The new framework is also used to revisit existing complexity results in a fully rigorous way, showing that the expressive power of CGs does not increase the theoretical complexity of GRE.

The current study investigates the influence of variety among online providers and customers' access to knowledge on consumer networks, consumer engagement, and sustainable purchasing. Emphasis is on the underlying relationships among these constructs in the digital economy, which has evolved into a complex structure of multifarious nodes and linkages unfolding in the online environment. The underlying theoretical approaches are knowledge-attitude-behavior (KAB) and customer sovereignty. Against this backdrop, a questionnaire-based survey was given to 200 Millennials (i.e., generation Y) and gen Z (...) Italians—approached as empowered stakeholders requiring accurate information and sustainable solutions from online providers—in January 2023. The data was processed via the structural equation modeling technique PLS-SEM, based on SmartPLS 4. The findings indicated that sustainable purchasing is influenced to some extent by access to knowledge, consumer engagement, and consumer networks. The study endeavors to fill a research gap, as the relationships between variety among online providers and sustainable purchasing, as well as consumer engagement from the empowerment perspective are underexplored. The study provides new evidence of the relationships between consumer networks, consumers' access to knowledge, sustainable purchasing, and consumer engagement in the framework of online retail by inquiring respondents. (shrink)

Mădălina Diaconus Beitrag zum Bild Europas in Rumänien zieht in Betracht hauptsächlich kulturphilosophische Interpretationen seit dem Beginn des Modernisierungsprozesses in Rumänien vor etwa 150 Jahren. Vor dem Krieg überwogen die Spekulationen über eine „rumänische Seele“ und die Forderung der Synchronisierung mit der Entwicklung der westlichen Institutionen und Werte. Diese Diskussionen wurden nach 1989 wieder aufgenommen und beweisen, dass das Selbstbewusstsein der Rumänen, ein integraler Teil Europas zu sein, weiterhin ungebrochen ist.

The volume represents a selection of the articles which were presented at a colloquium on new research topics in aesthetics at the Austrian Library in Pilsen in September 2010. Their authors, Czech and Austrian scholars, address various topics, ranging from the institutional history of aesthetics to the relationship between philosophical aesthetics and psychology, and from the philosophy of literature to the aesthetics of fine arts, dramatic arts, and architecture.

‘Eine weite Wohnung unter freiem Himmel’? On the Aesthetics of Gardens of the Senses Although the common experience of nature and gardens engages all the senses, historical analysis of garden theory shows a clear tendency to reduce green spaces to their imagery and to take the visual arts as the model for garden design. A counter-tendency to this primacy of vision has, however, lately emerged -- namely, gardens of the senses or healing gardens, which accentuate also the tactile and olfactory (...) qualities of vegetation and materials. The literature on gardens of the senses provides useful empirical guidelines for garden designers, but on a rather eclectic theoretical basis that applies mainly to private jardins de plaisir. Nevertheless, the accentuation of tactile and olfactory qualities in gardens constitutes a source of well-being, and contributes to a deceleration of life, a positive experience of the natural order and rhythm, and the habitability of a place. Moreover, they are informal laboratories for the education of the senses, and their empirical taxonomies may be integrated into an aesthetic theory of sensory design. (shrink)

Der Aufsatz von Mâdâlina Diaconu thematisiert in grundsätzlicher Weise die Möglichkeiten und Dimensionen einer interkulturellen Ästhetik auch in methodischer Hinsicht. Sie verbindet ihre Überlegungen mit Reflexionen zum Begriff der Kultur und der Möglichkeit des »Inter« im Rahmen der Inter-kulturalität.

In this paper we present an interdisciplinary approach that concerns the problem of argument acceptance in an agronomy setting. We propose a computational cognitive model for argument acceptance based on the dual model system in cognitive psychology. We apply it in an agronomy setting within a French national project on durum wheat.