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Articles published in Eurozine
Spinoza and philosophers today
Celebrated by Marxist philosophers in the 1960s as a pioneer of the concept of ideology, Spinoza is today of renewed interest in philosophy and neurophysiology. In a round-table interview, leading experts discuss the 17th-century thinker's relevance today. [more]
Radical demophilia
Reflections on Bulgarian populism
Populism in Bulgaria feeds off two phenomena: a pure hatred of political parties and the constant emphasis in the public discourse on an alleged contrast between ordinary people and the political elite. [more]
An amorphous society
Lithuania in the era of high post-communism
"High post-communism" in eastern Europe is defined by efforts to control collective memory, political discourse dominated by abstract concepts, and the cult of entertainment -- a view from Lithuania. [more]
The populist moment
Unlike the extremist parties of the 1930s, the new populist movements do not aim to abolish democracy: quite the opposite, writes Ivan Krastev. What we are witnessing is a conflict between elites suspicious of democracy and increasingly illiberal publics. [more]
"Why Nietzsche today"
Despite the major criticisms to be made of Nietzsche's philosophy, his writing on morality and politics continues to raise important issues, writes Bela Egyed in an introduction to a series of texts first published in Kritika&Kontext. [more]
Soul craft
On Nietzsche's teaching of self-overcoming
Nietzsche's writing on solitude and friendship belies the impression his philosophy preferred the ecstatic over the measured way of life. For Nietzsche, self-overcoming required both, writes Horst Hutter. [more]
The heaviest burden
Nietzsche and the death of God
Nietzsche's response to having lost faith, but not being able to live without it, was to invent the figure of a new creator -- someone who could bring together Man and World once again. In order to do this, man had to begin to think through his own existence: the heaviest burden of all. [more]
Questioning authority
Nietzsche's gift to Derrida
Nietzsche's deconstruction of authoritarian subjectivity shares much with Derrida's postmodern critique of the subject as privileged centre of discourse. Alan D. Schrift discusses Derrida's Nietzschean refusal to "hypostatize the subject". [more]
Nietzsche's anti-democratic liberalism
A Nietzschean politics is less a critique of political events so much as a diagnosis of the forces and tendencies driving them -- and therein lies its liberalism, writes Béla Egyed. [more]
What does Nietzsche mean to philosophers today?
Excessively sensitive, anti-liberal, and irrelevant, or radical, prescient, and misunderstood? Six philosophers answer Kritika&Kontext's questions on Nietzsche. Their responses make one thing clear: Nietzsche still divides opinion. [more]
On the mystery of human consciousness
Philosophers and natural scientists regularly dismiss consciousness as an irrelevant subject of enquiry. However, even they agree that consciousness is less a problem than a mystery. One way into the mystery is through an understanding of autism. [more]
A rejoinder to Béla Egyed
Richard Rorty defends the charge of abdicating objectivity and critical rationality in his essay "Democracy and philosophy". In a rejoinder written in March 2007, Rorty writes that being rational has nothing to do with the attempt to reduce moral disagreements to clashes between abstract principles. [more]
Richard Rorty
Editorial for "Kritika & Kontext" 34 (2007)
"A true sceptic remains silent in depression, a cynic laughs with Schadenfreude, while Rorty pleads with us before it is too late – sadly, after 8 June, only through his texts", writes editor Samuel Abrahám in an issue of Kritika & Kontext dedicated to "our intellectual mentor". [more]
"We anti-foundationalists"
In Richard Rorty's article "Democracy and philosophy", he argued that moral insight is "not a product of rational reflection but a matter of imagining a better future, and observing the results of attempts to bring that future into existence." For Bela Egyed, this constitutes cultural and historical relativism and an abdication of critical rationality. [more]
Democracy and philosophy
Moral insight "is a matter of imagining a better future, and observing the results of attempts to bring that future into existence". In "Kritika&Kontext", Richard Rorty (1931-2007) outlines the anti-foundationalist premise of his philosophy. [more]
Dirty secrets of a translator
"No translator can translate every author equally well. The problem is that you don't know whom you can and can't translate until you try, and by then it's too late." George Blecher divulges the translator's dirty secrets... [more]
Gained in translation
What is the translator's job? To bring the text to the reader or the reader to the text? And either way, do translators receive the credit they deserve? [more]
The reason of borders or a border reason?
Translation as a metaphor for our times
How does translation affect and change our notions of multiculturalism and cultural identity? [more]
The dull decencies of normality
A debate on the contemporary uses of liberalism
Will utopian promises gain sway over the "dull decencies of normality" offered by liberalism in the coming century? Why is it that liberalism's most vehement critics come from within its charmed circle? And how will liberalism and its institutions respond to global social and economic change? Leading Canadian and American political philosophers in correspondence with Slovakian journal Kritika & Kontext. [more]
Public disagreement: The greatest contribution of liberal politics
Can liberalism work in Slovakia? A look at what liberalism truly means and the benefits of liberal politics -- most importantly, the right to disagree. [more]
Bush, Putin and a shining example of Slovakia
The Bush-Putin summit in Bratislava could make one think that Slovakia is a country without spirit and influence. However, that is not the whole truth. [more]
The architecture of the European city
How will the great European cities - London, Paris and Vienna develop in the future, both in a political and in an architectural sense? The Serbian architect Bogdanovic argues that Europe must preserve the civilization of its cities, whilst preventing them from turning into megapolitan cities. [more]
The history of innovation and revolt
An Interview with Jacques Le Goff
What historians fight over. [more]
Media, third sector and intellectuals in Slovakia
What are the chances for self-correcting mechanisms in Slovakia's media- and party politics? [more]
Havel's paradox comes to an end
Martin M Simecka talks to the power brokers of the NATO-summit in Prague. [more]
Europe's Dilemma
An essay on freedom and its relationship to legitimacy
What the European Union must do to stand up to its legitimacy deficit. [more]
Notes from the Rubble
To describe as "conflicted" the political feelings of Americans these days is to make an almost comic understatement: everybody thinks everything simultaneously, writes George Blecher as he reflects on the atmosphere in the US after September 11th. [more]
Without illusion, but with conviction
The pragmatism of Richard Rorty
"The goal of establishing a world federation, a 'Parliament of Mankind', seemed much more realistic fifty years ago than it does now. Then it was thought that the United Nations might evolve into something like a world government. Now nobody has this dream, even though the need for such a government has grown much more urgent", says Richard Rorty in this 1999 interview. [more]
Articles published in the partner section
Spitzer still offers dialogue today
The introduction to an issue of "Kitika & Kontext" dedicated to the Slovak writer, poet and dissident Juraj Spitzer (1919-1995). [more]
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