Annals of the University of Craiova. Philosophy Series

ASPECTS OF GANDHI'S INTERPRETATION OF BHAGAVAD GITA

Kathrin BOUVOT — 2024-07-28

The intent of our investigation is to expose and interpret aspects of Gandhi’s meditation on the Bhagavad Gita. One of the aims of Gandhi’s meditation on the Gita consists in searching for the foundations of the right moral thought and for the foundations of the right individual education. The revelation of the Gita is for the individual, among other things, a journey towards the discovery of himself and of his position in the reality; it is a journey towards the discovery of the possible developments of his own soul.
The foundation of the right individual education has immediate social aspects: the right education proves to represent the very foundation of the right political action. In Gandhi’s view, the political doctrine and the political action ought to have as their own foundation the teachings of the Gita. The revelation of the Gita gives the individual the right moral education and the right moral foundation: it gives the knowledge of truth, of God, of reality, and of the individual nature. Through and thanks to the teachings of the Gita, the individual’s education finds the due foundation. The correct moral education is the basis of a right political and social order; it represents the basis for the dialogue between individuals and for the peaceful coexistence between individuals. The morally right order of the society is the consequence of the morally right order of the individual.
Thus, the meditation on the Gita constitutes the foundation of the possibility of a right political strategy. Thanks to the education obtained through the meditation on the Gita, the individual is able to understand the right moral behaviour: this has an immediate effect on the structure and organisation of the whole society. In order that the society can be morally changed, the individual ought to develop his moral constitution in a right way. There may not be any right political programme without a previous individual right moral education.

The analysis of the position of individuals within the reality and the investigation on the individual soul constitution enables the individual to reach an appropriate strategy for a right moral education. Since individuals consist of the three gunas — sattva, rajas, and tamas —, individuals are, as such, complex entities. Individuals are, moreover, dynamic entities: the development of the three gunas inside the individual soul, the relationships between the gunas in the soul, and the prevalence of a guna over the other gunas within the souls are not given once and for all; they depend on the education and on the life choices of the individuals. The prevalence of a guna over the other ones is due to the free decision of the individual; depending on how the individual decides to orientate his own life and depending on which parts of the soul the individual decides to cultivate, the soul of the individual will take a corresponding direction and will have a corresponding development. The responsibility for the development of one’s one life belongs to the individual.
The corporeal dimension puts precise limits on the individual capacity of self-improvement within the corporeal life. Individuals ought to accept the limits due to their bodily dimension. At the same time, individuals ought to steadily try to improve themselves by promoting the virtues connected to sattva; the being-limited of individuals does not imply an absence of responsibility of the individuals as regards the moral value of their own actions. Individuals have the responsibility for being aware of their own constitution and for fighting against the limitations of their own condition.
The fact that individuals are constitutively imperfect entails that individuals ought to educate themselves continuously; the individual ought to reach a moral foundation and ought to steadily pay attention to the stability of his own character.
The main works analysed throughout our inquiry are Gandhi’s Discourses on the “Gita”, contained in The Collected Works of
Mahatma Gandhi, XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), pp. 94–376, and the work of Mahadev Desai, The Gospel of selfless action or The Gita according to Gandhi.

MILL’S PHENOMENALISM AND WHY HE PREFERRED IT

Constantin STOENESCU — 2024-07-28

My aim in this paper is to argue that the depreciative historical image on Mill’s empiricism is unjustified and biased, and that at least some of his theories and insights were still fresh and available as solutions to some philosophical problems in spite of the opposite public image claimed by his critics. I think that the strong rejection of a priori knowledge and his preference for a radical empiricism were turned into a straw man which is ready for an easy criticism. Mill’s aim was to develop a radical empiricist theory regarding the sources of new knowledge following the so-called “new psychological way” based on the associationists principles. In the same time he balanced this woking hypothesis with the relativity of knowledge principle.
As a result, he tried to solve this philosophical puzzle and to find a sort of empiricst theory able to avoid some historical weaknesses, such as idealism and skepticism. He developed a phenomenalist theory based on the odea of permanent possibilities of sensation which seem to be the most wanted form of empiricism.

CONVIVIR EN LA DIVERSIDAD: UNA RELECTURA DE KARL MANNHEIM

Juan MESEGUER — 2024-07-28

After explaining the distinction between multiculturalism as a socio-political project and multiculturality as a sociological reality, this article reviews some of the main models that have been formulated to articulate coexistence between people from different cultures. It then outlines a proposal for social organization in the light of the sociology developed by Karl Mannheim in his English period. The text concludes by presenting Mannheim’s vision of the refugee as an interpreter between two cultures, closely related to Robert E. Park's concept of “marginal man”.

LA PHÉNOMÉNOLOGIE DE L'IMAGE DANS LA PHILOSOPHIE DE SARTRE. UNE LECTURE DU POINT DE VUE DU CONCEPT SARTRIEN DE « CONVERSION »

Adriana NEACȘU — 2024-07-28

This article addresses Sartre's conception of the image, developed by him from a phenomenological perspective. The author
points out that Sartre rejects the conception of his time about the image as a content of consciousness, placed in it as a material thing in space, and advances the hypothesis of the identity between them. For him, the image is a form of consciousness, an active and creative phenomenon. Sartre's phenomenological approach, carried out within the framework of eidetic psychology and situated on the plane of reflective experience, considered infallible, determines him to establish the features of the image, its main types and to realize their description. These are the express subject of the article. Numerous
other aspects of the image are placed by Sartre in the sphere of experimental psychology, and that's why they are not the subject of this article. At the end of the article the author emphasizes the importance of Sartre's conception of image in substantiating his conception of man and freedom.

INCOMPATIBLE DEPLOYMENT: THE NON-CREATIVE DESTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN CONSTRUCTIONS

Ana BAZAC — 2024-07-28

The sketch of this somehow odd environmental philosophy topic is made from the standpoint of ontology of the human. This perspective is heuristic to more than the specific material domain discussed here. Indeed, many times we feel that the analysis of the couple construction-destruction is metaphorical, sending us to a lot of rich experience of this relationship and its meanings. The thesis is that a main cause of the present global unsustainability, leading to major risks for the human civilisation, is the absurd destruction of the material domain of the artificial world. It is the result of the unsustainable frensy of capitalist development for private profit and is pendant of the destruction of natural biodiversity and resources. The focus is on immobile constructions, they are the working model, including for the attitude towards mobile artificial objects. The significance of destruction and the hypothesis of creative destruction are decomposed with the concepts of form, telos, validity, intention, and difference between the evil and the necessary: thus, exceeding the legitimation of fatalism: “destruction as price
and precedence of construction”, and “equivalence of all types of destruction”. On the contrary, criteria of (both construction and) destruction are presented. Similarly, a holistic approach, surpassing their isolated consideration. They influence the surrounding “near space” and, through local/specific areas, the global environment, on both short intervals and long terms. The logic of bioeconomy is thus their suitable treatment. It is consonant with its legal basis, a “natural contract” sparing the natural resources and equilibria and the world civilisation. Destruction of the material human constructs as an essential element of unsustainable development signals the constitutive intertwining of the immediate, the substantive condition of the human life with the ideas of transcendence and aspiration to the lasting.

WAYS OF JUSTIFYING THE PRESENCE OF ETHICAL STANDARDS IN PEDAGOGY

Marek JEZIORAŃSKI — 2024-07-28

The article addresses issues related to how ethical standards in pedagogy can be justified. This is an issue that lies in the area of theoretical research. The main problem of the article is as follows: How can the presence of ethical standards in pedagogy be justified? The answer to this question is based on two models of the relationship between pedagogy and ethics. In this context, one can speak of pedagogy that subjects educational activity to ethical evaluation (model 1) and one that excludes this evaluation, or at least excludes its extra-disciplinary conditions (model 2). The adoption of the former results in an approach where pedagogy merely ‘translates’ general ethical standards into its own environmental and development contexts. The adoption of the latter, however, will lead to the presence in pedagogy of a conventional way of introducing ethical standards, often expressed in the form of a code. Then the standards will also be produced in the area of pedagogy itself.

DISEÑO Y VALIDACIÓN DE UNA HERRAMIENTA PARA MEDIR ACTITUD, COMPORTAMIENTO Y COMPROMISO ÉTICO ANTE LA AGENDA 2030 Y LA SOSTENIBILIDAD EN LOS ESTUDIANTES UNIVERSITARIOS

Cristina María RUIZ-ALBERDI FERNÁNDEZ — 2024-07-28

Aware of the need for training on the objectives of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs as part of the comprehensive training of university students, the need arises for tools to assess the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes and commitments of students with these subjects. Method: An instrumental design was carried out combining content validity through expert judgment with construct validity based on Exploratory Factor Analysis through the application of the questionnaire to a pilot group of 351 university students from 10 Spanish universities (7 public and 3 private universities). Results: The results showed a scale of 23 items with three factors (knowledge, affectivity, and action), which allow measuring the knowledge and commitment of young people to sustainability. Conclusion: This tool presents evidence of validity and reliability for its application in Spanish university students; and fills the existing gap in the literature with respect to tools on sustainability and ethical commitment.

Anton Adămuț, Dacă tăceai, filosof rămâneai?, Editura Junimea, Iași, 2024

Catalin Stanciulescu — 2024-07-28

Anton Adămuț's recent book, Dacă tăceai, filosof rămâneai (If You Had Remained Silent, Would You Have Remained a Philosopher?), includes several essays, thematically varied, stylistically unitary, published with the same titles, but in a considerably smaller form, in several specialized journals. Rich thematically, varied in terms of the perspectives taken into account in each commentary and each analysis, interesting and attractive through the conclusions obtained, surprising through the associations and developments constructed, Anton Adămuț's book is, through the proposed objectives and the means put into play for their realization, a valuable collection of academic exercises; Due to the variety and consistency of the sources used and the illustrations it contains, it is a particularly useful study tool.