NotaBene

NotaBene е електронно списание за философски и политически науки. Повече за нас

Ontological structures

In this issue

Journal NotaBene Issue 59 (2023) Editor: Antoaneta Nikolova

Topic of the issue: Ontological structures

From the Invisible to the Visible”: The Fabric of the “Book of Changes” (11th century BC)

Статията е замислена да разкрие веригата на вплитане на видимо (хоризонтал), невидимо (вертикал) и прозримо (Аз/себесност) в тъканта (основа и вътък) на „Книга на промените“ като трактат, използващ богат набор от семиотични системи и подсистеми на кодиране (образи, символи, писмени знаци, числа и т.н.), до тяхното единение в „развръзката“, отчитайки и това, че текстът поема в себе си като органична цялост диахронията на редица коментари (най-ранните сумарно наричани „Десетте крила“ плюс огромно количество по-късни).

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Space and Symbol (A Reception of Florensky`s Philosophy of Space)

The paper is a reception of the analyses of the spatial symbolism by Pavel Florensky. Any depicted space, whether abstract or specific, is, in a broad sense, a symbolic space in so far as it is a reality that conveys the energies to another reality. The happening of this symbolic transfer is the “failure” of the space of the work in order to manifest the space in the work, which, according to Florensky, is the only entrance into artistic content. The new geometry reveals a new spatial imagery, introducing the view of curvature into its spatial syntax. This innovation rebuilt the rules for the organization of space, the reviving of art its inherent power to create spatial structures independent of Euclid schemes. If art has anything to do with reality at all, it is its effort to fit its power interactions into a spatial configuration.

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The sphere of the demonic according to the period of classical antiquity as a forgotten essence of existential ontology

The text is two-faced: on one side it’s a study of the understanding of Greek antiquity’s understanding of demon, unifying the meaning of the latter into a total concept; on the other it’s a reflection on the existential meaning of the concept. From the first, it defends the actual unity of the forementioned variety. From the second – the claim that this unity speaks in a defining manner regarding the fundaments of existential ontology. Even more precisely the unitary concept does this, conceptualizing the blind spot of contemporary thought, which otherwise considers itself to be particularly existential in thought – the structuring of the existential sphere as a sphere of relationships of meaningful character, expressed noetically and pneumatically throughout the forementioned tradition of antiquity.

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Podium

Global Redistribution of Geopolitical Power

Abstract: Contemporary security challenges, risks and threats are characterized by increased dynamism and global coverage. The dominant tendency on the world stage is the global redistribution of geopolitical power. Because of this trend, there is destabilization (economic, political, military, etc.) of certain regions in the world and emergence of many crisis hotspots. This is clearly evidenced by the conflicts (wars, military interventions, coups) that have taken place in recent decades in various parts of the planet, with global consequences. One such consequence is the growing awareness of the existence of common and indivisible interests at the international level. Is it possible to anticipate the basic outlines of the new world order on the basis of current events that indicate a global redistribution of global power? To what extent will the world as we know it change? Is a new geopolitical cycle beginning? Is this the beginning of the creation of a multipolar world? In the paper, we are looking for possible answers to these questions.
Keywords: geopolitical power, globalism, redistribution, multipolar world, armed conflicts.

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Challenges to Communication in the Political Sphere

The perception of politics as a choice foregrounds the importance of information flows from political parties and leaders to interested public groups about policies and decision-making. Therefore, communication is a building block of the relationship between the governed and the rulers. In this context thе article outlines challenges to effective communication between politicians and citizens. The basis for the authors' analysis is the impact of digital technologies on communication. The subject of research is the use of social networks as a tool for dialogic communication on a significant public issue.
Keywords: political communication, social media, social networks, online communication, challenges, dialogue

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Minima moralia

The Poet in Exile: Native and Foreign

The paper analizes the literary interpretation of Vera Mutafchieva of the notions native, own, foreign within the context of the complicated existential experience in exile of her characters: the poet Saadi and Cem sultan, also a poet. Understanding and experiencing of native is situated within the context of important existentials: friendship, morality, creative vocation.The analysis emphasizes the experience of the native in the context of the creative vocation as the most essential power of the personality (as shown in the case of the “late” Saadi in “The case of Cem sultan”). As far as the poetic vocation is connected to the native language, the homeland appeared to be an irreplaceable topos for practicing and for sharing its poetic fruits with the reader and the listener as word and message.
Keywords: poetic vocation, exile, homeland, friendship, native language

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Religion and sexuality – the eros of the Silver Age

The text discusses one of the bright phenomena in the spiritual atmosphere of the Russian Silver Age – the affirmation of erotic experiences as a path to God and to earthly immortality. Some of the most characteristic attitudes of the era, inherent in a part of the intelligentsia of the time, shared at the meetings held at the beginning of the 20th century with representatives of the clergy, are discussed. As an emblematic example, the experiment undertaken by three philosophizing writers – Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Filosofov, to create a new religion based on the ambition to sanctify the world (with its flesh – the entire material and spiritual sphere of man) and reject of the monastic abhorrence of it. The article also examines the ideal of human androgyny launched by Nikolay Berdyaev; an ideal leading to victory over birth and death.
The conclusion presents the failure of the imagined new religious forms, called to overcome sexual asceticism, insofar as they again presuppose it. Fruit of the desire for entertainment, these religious-utopian experiments also have serious consequences – decadence instead of renaissance, misogyny instead of the ideal of Eternal Femininity, etc., which cast a shadow on the silver of the century.

Keywords: Silver Age, erotica, religion, "new church", Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gipius, Nikolai Berdyaev, religious-sexual utopianism

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Chess and death

The text stretches the relative, referential and connotative web: chess – game – death, arriving at interesting discoveries. Chess becomes a signifier with the signifier – death in their transversal interchangeability in painting.

Keywords: chess - death; Dance of Death; Triumph of Death; The Black Death, La Danse Macabre; choreomania; memento mori; Vanitas; avarita; La Calavera Catrina.

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Announcement

The Failed Attempt at Existential Communication between Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers as a Genuine Loss to Political Philosophy: Part I

Our contemporaneity is marked by what is called “global boundary situations”. Karl Jaspers introduced the concept of “boundary situation” to designate situations in which the individual confronts the ultimate limit between what can possibly be known and what cannot be known at all. This is the limit of one’s worldview, which suffers a dysfunctional failure. Through one’s authentic failure, as a shock to one’s fundamental ground, one is nonetheless granted the opportunity to adapt and to self-reeducate. Classically, boundary situations were defined as individualistic, but now are placed and interconnected into a global inter-subjective plane, giving rise to a single global boundary situation. In the current paper, my intention is to use as a lesson the interaction, both personal and professional, between Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, the two “fathers” of German existentialism, which resulted in a complete breach of communication, manifested as inauthenticity, loss of being and betrayal of reason, in order to illustrate how it, in fact, in the spirit of political philosophy, could elucidate the anamneses of the present-day relationship between politics and philosophy, as well as the political discourse effected during global boundary situations and its efficiency. As philosophers, Heidegger and Jaspers were very successful; in the political sphere, they both failed to achieve what was an imperative then, namely: a successful quest for a new German identity and a rejuvenation of the German universities. Neither did they succeed in developing a shared philosophical and/or political project. The text is divided into two parts. Both thinkers failed in their endeavors, which were individualistic, and they did not benefit from their personal friendship and professional academic relationship as a possibility to improve and to augment their ideas and thus alter the results of the practical implementation of these very ideas.
Key words: Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, communicative breach, comparative historico-philosophical analysis, (patho)biographical analysis, political philosophy, German existential philosophy, collaboration.

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COVID-19 and human rights

This report aims to examine the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of the complex and contested relationship with human rights. On the one hand, this is necessary because the pandemic period has caused disastrous years for human rights in Europe. While for several years parts of the entire continent have increasingly wavered on some of the commitments to respect human rights standards, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the erosion of the democratic structure of European society. Along these lines, the pandemic could be compared to both 11/11/2001 and the financial crisis of 2008. On the other hand, this topic is necessary because of the potential that COVID-19 gave to many governments, providing them a pretext to use a different palette of fears that the pandemic has provoked. From this point of view, such an analysis should establish from the outset that Europe is at a crossroads, and the direction that will be chosen will shape the future of the continent to a large extent.
Keywords: covid-19, human rights, Europe, healthcare

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Рецензии

The history of silent cinema speaks….

Review by Assoc. Prof Marijana Piskova on the book of Petar Kardzhilov, Irina Kitova, and Zornitsa Krasteva "Chronicle of the silent cinema in Sofia (1896-1933)", Sofia: G8 Cultural Center, 2022, 235 pp.

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Religion within the context of the „secularization – desecularization” debate

Review by Prof. Nonka Bogomilova on Professor's Mirko Blagojević studies on (de)secularization

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Religion and Secularity in Eastern Europe

Review by Prof. Nonka Bogomilova on the book Islam, Christianity, and Secularism in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe. The Last Half Century (2022). Simeon Evstatiev and Dale F. Eickelman (Eds.) Brill: Leiden, Boston

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