Volume 21, Issue 4

In the present paper an interpretation of the political dimension of pragmatic aesthetic reflection is proposed. The interconnection between politics and aesthetics in three classic American pragmatists: William James (1842–1910), John Dewey (1859–1952), and George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) is evoked. The author claims that by emphasizing the role of democratic values in philosophy and life, the classic American pragmatists encroach upon the field of the arts and aesthetics. Their emphasis put upon individual activity, free expression of thoughts, plurality of the forms of expression, and acceptance of criticism as a tool helping create better solutions in human cooperation can easily be converted into the postulates about the character of the artistic principles and of the nature of the aesthetic norms and values.

As an intensive housing construction drive in the late 1950s began to provide separate apartments for millions of Soviet citizens, aesthetic experts envisioned the Soviet home as a potential site for the display of works of art and for amateur aesthetic production. In the context of de-Stalinization, reformist artists and aestheticians committed to the liberalization and modernization of Soviet artistic criteria, promoted the value of amateur art and even of home decorating in the formation of the new person who would live under communism. They also pressed for affordable art and craft to be made available to ordinary people for their new homes. Thereby they would dwell in their new apartments surrounded by beauty in their everyday lives, and would thus, the experts argued, be brought closer to communist consciousness. Moreover sales of art to individual citizens would provide an alternative income stream to fund artists’ production. The possibility of private art consumption would therefore free artists to some extent from their reliance on state commissions and from the strict stylistic and thematic norms and hierarchies of Socialist Realism as established under Stalin.

This paper is concerned with monumental art in Slovakia before and after the fall of Communism in 1989. Generally, art in public spaces is important, because it influences the knowledge and feelings the people who use this space have about the past and the present, and thus influences the shared social construction of who we are as a social group. In this article we concentrate on the period of Communism and the formal and iconographic aspects that were essential to art at that time. We also look at the political use of art—the ways in which explicit and implicit meanings and ideas were communicated through art to the general public. We touch also on the present situation regarding the perception of “Communist art”. In the final section we discuss the state of affairs of the last twenty years of chaotic freedom in the post-socialist era. On the one hand, since there is no real cultural politics or conception for artworks in public spaces at the level of the state many artworks simply disappear, often without public discussion, and on the other hand, some actors use their political power to build monuments that promote their private political views.

In the present political and socio-cultural situation in Slovakia, it is natural and necessary even to ask “what position do the arts occupy in this country?” and “what role do they play within the complex global atmosphere?” Art and culture should mirror the nation. Are we aware of that? Do we realize that art has the ability and the power to move? Not many of us realize this. This is a consequence of the permanent scepticism, apathy and resentment caused by the fact that this voice has never been heard. And this is not just the case in Slovakia. Yet even today there are certain groups of artists who still believe in the arts and their power. I think that giving up on this faith is the easiest thing to do. The decision whether to fight, rebel or actively participate is extremely complex and in many cases doing so may even threaten the freedom of the person. In this article I address the issue of whether art has the power and ability to change things. I draw attention to those socially engaging activities that could be described as performance art, which occur beyond enclosed areas and in public spaces; and in order to achieve change, they openly and nakedly attack individual consciousness and the subconscious.

In this paper, I discuss Richard Rorty’s views on intercultural hermeneutics as presented in his essay “Heidegger, Kundera, and Dickens” and in his correspondence with the Indian philosopher Anindita Niyogi Balslev. In doing so, I focus primarily on Rorty’s presumption that instead of providing an “authentic” picture of another culture, the goal of intercultural studies or hermeneutics should be to look if there is anything “of use” that a given culture offers and that is not offered by ours.

The concept of Europeanization has become very popular in studies of European integration and particularly in analyses on the post-communist countries undergoing extensive transformation on the road to European Union membership. Although the Europeanization process has been quite successful in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the same scenario has not played out in the western Balkans region. With the purpose of analysing the effectiveness and impact of the Europeanization process in the western Balkans, the main subject of the paper is Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU-related reform processes. Although Bosnia has been undergoing thorough Europeanizing reforms since the late 1990s, when the country entered the Stabilization and Association Process (SAP), it is still an unstable and dysfunctional country. That makes it the perfect case for assessing the possible shortcomings of the Europeanization process. Thus far, most scholars have concluded that domestic political elites in Bosnia are the only party responsible for Bosnia’s political deadlock. However, this paper analyses the continued Bosnian deadlock from a different perspective, trying to figure out the degree of responsibility the European Union shares in the country’s Europeanization process. Although uncooperative Bosnian political elites are to a great extent responsible for the continued political and social status quo, EU leaders are not faultless either. In fact, so far European leaders have often appeared to be deeply divided, incoherent, and short-sighted in terms of Europeanization policies in Bosnia, thus further deepening the political deadlock in the country. Therefore, we can ask whether Bosnia represents a litmus test which the EU has failed.

Deliberative democracy, as a dominant paradigm in contemporary democratic theory, offers a new, attractive conception of democratic legitimacy, which represents an alternative to a democracy that functions through the mechanism of political competition. A major problem with deliberation is the issue of its institutionalisation, as the theories of deliberative democracy have not produced a more specific institutional framework or form in which it could be used in political practice. Parliaments appear to be particularly suitable places for its potential implementation. Moreover, deliberative democracy could contribute to a change in discourse quality and the way decision-making is conducted in parliaments, which is often considered problematic. Due to its incompatibility with competitive democracy, the opportunities for introducing deliberative democracy into parliaments are very limited. The study also outlines three ways of reconciling deliberative democracy and parliaments.

The paper provides an account of the pragmatist philosophical conception of reciprocity and altruism based on the ontology of “panrelationalism”. The Deweyan concepts of transaction and cooperation are also outlined in some detail as well as the pragmatist (Rortyan) idea of justice. The author attempts to show that altruism is not necessarily just reciprocal but demands as its supplement (at least) altruism without reciprocation.

In the field of African philosophy, there exists the belief among the modernists or professional philosophers that gerontocracy is coterminous with authoritarian traditions in traditional Africa which, supposedly, are responsible for the lack of sustained curiosity to look at issues from different perspectives. Drawing from the Ifá literary corpus as a store-house for Yorùbá philosophy, I argue in this paper that gerontocracy in Africa does not construe the idea that the elderly in Africa are rigid in thoughts or have immutable authority which discourages independence of thought. I conclude that the position of the modernists on the supposed manifestation of authoritarianism in Africa derives its continuing force from a conception of philosophy which gives special overtones to the ideas of individuals as opposed to a collectivistic system of thought and the assumption that the multitude cannot produce philosophy.

Understanding the selves, situations and actions of Africans can never be comprehended outside kinship. Local and foreign worldviews are first pigeonholed into culture and defined within kinship realities in Nigeria and Africa. There have been studies on kinship in Africa. However, the findings from such studies portrayed the immutability of African kinship. Thus, as an important contribution to the on-going engagement of kinship in the twenty-first century as an interface between the contemporary Diaspora, this article engaged kinship within international migration. This is a major behavioural and socio-economic force in Nigeria. Methodological triangulation was adopted as part of the research design and primary data were collected through in-depth interviews (IDIs), and life histories of international migrants were documented and focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with kin of returnees. The article found and concluded that while returnees continued to appreciate local kinship infrastructures, the infrastructures were liable to reconstruction primarily determined by dominant support situations in the traditional African kinship networks.