The 1924 Church reform, through which the Romanian Orthodox Church decided to adopt the Revised Julian Calendar, led to dissent movements, mostly comprised of peasants, especially in the villages of Moldavia and Bessarabia. Considering the calendar change a heresy, these groups soon developed into religious communities that came to be known as Old Calendarists, or “stylists,” followers of “the old-style calendar.” Led by defrocked priests and monks who rejected the reform, the groups very quickly became the target of the secret (...) police and the Gendarmerie. What also drew the attention of the authorities and the Orthodox Church was that women, especially the younger ones, seemed to play important roles within the communities, not only in terms of membership, but also in preserving and spreading the Old Calendarists’ beliefs and religious ideas. As many members of the communities were being arrested, and their churches were destroyed, these women also suffered imprisonment, monastic incarceration, or were forced to hide from the authorities in caves or huts that they built in the woods. Though subjected to various forms of persecution, which continued through the communist period, the majority of them held strong to their beliefs and contributed to the forging of a religious identity. Using archival documents, in the forms of letters, postcards, photos, and declarations as primary sources, and drawing on interviews conducted with contemporary nuns and members of the Old Calendarist communities, the present article explores the personal stories of young Old Calendarist women. Building upon the work of Anca Șincan, this article challenges the notion that transmission of religion was the exclusive prerogative of older women. (shrink)

After the consultative synod at Constantinople in 1923, the Romanian Orthodox Church agreed to adopt a revised version of the Julian calendar. This meant a break with tradition that brought about a series of crises on a spiritual and political level. Dissent movements, known as Old Calendarist, started to emerge in the villages of Moldavia and Bessarabia; led by defrocked monks, these groups posed a threat for the Romanian Orthodox Church and for the newly formed state and its modernising goals. (...) Accused of sympathising with the communist ideas, as well as of propagating them, the Old Calendarist leaders were labelled as dangerous Bolsheviks and aggressive measures were adopted by both state and church authorities in order to destroy the movements and disperse their members. Based on press articles of the time and archival documents, the present study analyses the development that the Old Calendarist movement underwent in Bessarabia, a region with a strong monastic tradition, as well as the discourse and politics of state authorities against this specific community. (shrink)

Starting from the premise that nowadays media has a privileged status in the way we relate to the other, the paper explores the ethical challenges raised by the growing mediated nature of communication. Since the mediated communication calls for a multidisciplinary examination, the article uses conceptual tools offered by a different framework. First, we draw on M. Buber’s ontology of relation in order to discus mediation in terms of authenticity. Then, we analyze different views on the special dynamics of the (...) relation between ethics, religion and mediated communication. In the last part of the article, we emphasize the idea that, in order to acknowledge the true significance of the recent changes that affect the way we communicate, they should be read in terms of a postmodern ethics. (shrink)

A brand is a complex construction. In addition to its tangible and intangible dimensions, it implies an intrinsic relational dimension associated to any brand building process. The relational dimension is even more visible in the case of the political brand. The political brand brings with it a symbolic construction in which the experience of a diffuse form of sacredness is central, by the presence of the inadequate report specific to the manifestations related to the sacred representations. On the one hand, (...) we are experiencing a meeting that creates the context of identity, and on the other hand a cohabitation that highlights the role of alterity. The brand imposes itself as a symbolic construction based on this game of identity and alterity in a global communication market. Communication advisers must pay attention to this symbolic dimension. It is the expressive form in which interpersonal relationships manifest themselves as assuming the values and meanings that individuals place under the idea of having a better life. The orientation towards the development of political brands understood as personal brands corresponds to a phase of professionalization of politics and political communication in electoral campaigns, but also in the stages between campaigns. At the same time, political brands grow in importance in times of crisis, both because they offer exemplary models and because they synthesize the mythological elements of the imaginary of abundance, trust and authentic dialogue. (shrink)

Computational implementations are special relations between what is computed and what computes it. Though the word “isomorphism” appears in philosophical discussions about the nature of implementations, it is used only metaphorically. Here we discuss computation in the precise language of abstract algebra. The capability of emulating computers is the defining property of computers. Such a chain of emulation is ultimately grounded in an algebraic object, a full transformation semigroup. Mathematically, emulation is defined by structure preserving maps (morphisms) between semigroups. These (...) are systematic, very special relationships, crucial for defining implementation. In contrast, interpretations are general functions with no morphic properties. They can be used to derive semantic content from computations. Hierarchical structure imposed on a computational structure plays a similar semantic role. Beyond bringing precision into the investigation, the algebraic approach also sheds light on the interplay between time and computation. (shrink)

Stephane Moses, Sistem si revelatie. Filosofia lui Franz Rosenzweig Bucuresti, Ed. Hasefer, Colectia Judaica, 2003.

The oil crisis at the end of the 1970s and, soon after, the sovereign debt crisis of socialist Romania had a huge impact on the domestic cultural system—mainly through austerity mechanisms of cutting production costs and increasing minimal mandatory revenues. One effect was the reshaping of cultural exports and exchanges on new, market-oriented bases, meant to also support the economic reorientation towards the Global South. In this article, I intend to follow the way the Romanian communist regime used culture, in (...) general, and particularly international film production and distribution as a tool for advancing not so much propaganda purposes, but prosaically more commercial ones. The article also shows how the contextual landscape led to a lack of consistency and efficiency in both the economic and propaganda efforts. (shrink)

Life strategy in personal dimension could be identified as a complex phenomenon, which includes main key dimensions and categories that characterize person’s life and behavior. Life strategy is a way of life self-determining, self-establishing, self-expression and self-organizing as well as the ability to bring living conditions according with personality own values and individual uniqueness. The student life strategies directly connected with higher education. Author’s sociological research examines the main features of life strategies of modern Ukrainian students. In the article, the (...) author's typology of the main types of life strategies of students is proposed. The tipology reflects the crucial connection with the appropriate understanding of the place and role of higher education: career-pragmatic, universal education, and adaptive-conformist. (shrink)

The game of Go was the last great challenge for artificial intelligence in abstract board games. AlphaGo was the first system to reach supremacy, and subsequent implementations further improved the state of the art. As in chess, the fall of the human world champion did not lead to the end of the game. Now, we have renewed interest in the game due to new questions that emerged in this development. How far are we from perfect play? Can humans catch up? (...) How compressible is Go knowledge? What is the computational complexity of a perfect player? How much energy is really needed to play the game optimally? Here, we investigate these and related questions with respect to the special properties of Go (meaningful draws and extreme combinatorial complexity). Since traditional board games have an important role in human culture, our analysis is relevant in a broader context. What happens in the game world could forecast our relationship with AI entities, their explainability, and usefulness. (shrink)

We define emergence algebraically in the context of discrete dynamical systems modeled as transformation semigroups. Emergence happens when a quotient structure (coarse-grained dynamics) is not a substructure of the original system. We survey small groups to show that algebraic emergence is neither ubiquitous nor rare. Then, we describe connections with hierarchical decompositions and explore some of the philosophical implications of the algebraic constraints.

Sebastian Şebu, Monica Opriş, Dorin Opriş, Metodica predării religiei (Methodology of Teaching Religion) Reîntregirea Publishing House, Alba Iulia, 2000.

MICHAEL ZANK, NEW PERSPECTIVES ON MARTIN BUBER, TÜBINGEN: MOHR SIEBECK, 2006.

The assumption underlying this paper states that the organizational stories, regardless of their type, act as narratives generating symbolic meanings, thus responding the postmodern man impetus for authenticity and significance. The first part of the paper is focused on the organizational communication’s symbolic dimension, in relation to the process of personal identity construction. The investigation of the relation between identities and narratives within the framework of organizational culture opens an interesting perspective on the field of organizational communication, more precisely, on (...) the way in which the information about the organizational responsibility, understood as a source of symbolic meanings, is communicated. Starting from the analysis of the evolution of social responsibility to its strategic stage, the paper underlines the importance of how the assumed responsibility is communicated and integrated into the meaningful stories the organization tells the public and its members. (shrink)

Catherine Clement, Julia Kristeva, Femeia si Sacrul Editura Albatros, Bucureoti, 2001., 244 pg.

An important part of the world we live in is represented by symbols, and mediated images and mass media are the main sources of the symbolic material used in the process of shaping the postmodern self. The cultural industry and the communication technology are growing rapidly and they capture important areas located until recently under the tutelage of traditional social institutions such as the family or the church. If we think of the contemporary society in terms of the weak theology (...) proposed by John D. Caputo as a de-secularized space where the individual’s need for the sacred is strongly revealed, the crucial role played by the media in the construction of the contemporary world becomes obvious. Certainly, within this vast territory represented by the media culture, advertising is one of the most relevant areas for analysis of the manner in which symbolic structures are reintegrated in contemporary society. Therefore, our paper focuses on advertising as an important force that creates symbolic meanings in the contemporary culture. Along with the symbolic content of advertising, a significant part in augmenting its cultural force is attributed to the way it succeeds to contain religious dimensions in its mechanisms. (shrink)

Review of Sandu Frunză, O antropologie mistică. Introducere în gîndirea Părintelui Stăniloae. București: Eikon, 2016. 176 pag.

The purpose of this article is to open a dialogue between research in social sciences concerning collective emotion and historical investigation concerning a religious and political movement of the...

Why did Kierkegaard prefer to write his masterpieces under different pseudonyms and what was the theatrical logic behind the constant playfulness of an author otherwise doomed to melancholy? What were the reasons of his ongoing philosophical, theological and aesthetic hide-and-seek that he did not want to finish until the very last, nearly tragic phase of his authorship? How much inspiration did Kierkegaard receive from theatrical performances, from playwrights and even from actors and actresses of 19th-century Copenhagen, which seemed to be (...) sometimes stronger than the influence exercised on him by his professors, masters and theologians of Denmark’s “Golden Age”? Can the difference between direct and indirect communication that basically characterized Kierkegaard’s oeuvre be described in theatrical terms or even to approach it as an ongoing dramatic dialogue? Should we rather call it a “polylogue” as different actors are present throughout the texts that were often polemic with each other, simultaneously reflecting certain issues from different angles and finally Kierkegaard denying that any of those were written by him? Could his own name be a pseudonym, as his brother suggested when giving the eulogy on the prodigal son, who learned to doubt from Socrates and from Descartes, yet could not give up his intention to question even the final axioms of human existence? The author tries to find answers to these questions by reconstructing the very special Kierkegaardian method, so familiar from the stage, in the spiritual, cultural and theatrical context of Kierkegaard’s Denmark. (shrink)

Prospective memory (PM) is the accurate execution of an intention in the future. PM may be negatively impacted by negative affect, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Rumination may increase the frequency of task-irrelevant thoughts, which deplete attentional capacity and reduce performance. To date, no studies have examined state and trait rumination on an online measure of PM. The present study examined the effects of state and trait rumination on an event-based, focal PM task embedded within a one-back task over (...) multiple sessions. 95 non-depressed adults (18–53 years) completed measures of state/trait rumination, mood, and PM on at least two occasions. Using multi-level modelling, we found that a derived measure of trait rumination, but not an established trait rumination survey, nor negative mood, predicted poorer PM accuracy. These novel findings demonstrate that trait rumination may partially underlie the association between negative affect & PM in a non-clinical sample, and highlight the potential of online methods to study PM. (shrink)

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is tasked with facing the hundred-year history of Indian Residential Schools. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is frequently invoked in relation to the Canadian TRC, perhaps because this is one of the few TRCs worldwide that Canadians know. Whilst the South African TRC is mainly applauded as an international success, I argue that loose analogizing is often more emotive than concise. Whilst much indeed can be drawn from the South African experience, it (...) is important to specify the Canada–South Africa analogy. In this article, I do so by focussing on the institutional approach to truth and how this relates to issues of settler/White denial. The South African experience teaches that narrow approaches to truth collude with superficial views of reconciliation that deny continuities of violence. Consequently, I argue that Indigenous–settler reconciliation requires a broad truth that locates residential schools on a continuum of violence, linking extraordinary abuses with structural injustices and historic colonization with lived relationships. (shrink)

Dans les années 1900, la cérémonie du thé fut érigée en art total, comme la quintessence même de l’esprit japonais. Par-delà le biais des enjeux politiques de cette artification, le discours académique portant sur la cérémonie du thé a également été perméable à l’esprit contradictoire inhérent à cette pratique. Nous tentons de dépasser ces difficultés par une vision réticulaire de l’art telle que la défend Simondon dans sa techno-esthétique, tandis que la Glass Tea House Mondrian de Sugimoto Hiroshi offre une (...) métaphore permettant d’approfondir la place de l’abstraction dans la voie du thé. Dans cette réflexion, au détriment de l’objet réel conçu comme une entité isolée, le geste technique, outillé, s’avère jouer un rôle plus déterminant que ne lui accorde la tradition. (shrink)

Emil Brunner, Christianity and Civilisation. Foundations and Specific Problems. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. 2009.

This paper attempts to analyze the place that Christianity occupies within the framework of Martin Buber’s thought and to present some of the arguments brought by Buber in order to support his conception regarding Christianity. There is a great number of books, articles and studies belonging to Buber that touch, on different levels, the topic proposed, nevertheless, the most significant for this paper is Buber’s book Two types of faith, intended as a comparative analysis of Judaism and Christianity. Buber’s perception (...) on Christianity is characterized by the dualistic perspective that defines his whole philosophy. The two paradigms that represent the basis of Buber’s entire thought (the world of Thou and the world of It) are to be found at the basis of “the duality of faith” he postulates. Thus, the analysis will be carried on two different levels, which, however sometimes share common elements. (shrink)

The subject of gender discrimination in language and the relation between language and social structures is well known and widely debated. Nevertheless, everyday experiences show, over and over, the linguistic hierarchy at work when men and women are concerned. This paper has two main parts. The first one concerns the image of women in language and the other one treats the manner in which women usually use the language. Despite the fact that these social unwritten rules and deep rooted preconceptions (...) are, in my opinion, difficult to ignore, the initiative of analyzing such facts represents an important first step in reducing the negative effects of the phenomenon. Obviously, we are aware of the fact that the problem is extremely profound and the imposed usage of certain nondiscriminatory terms represents not a very efficient solution, but, all in all, this analysis is the first phase of a much profound change that hopefully will occur. (shrink)

Zygmunt Bauman, Comunitatea. Cãutarea sigurantei într-o lume nesigurã (The Comunity) Prahova: Ed. Antet, 2005.

Philosophical counseling is a dialogical practice which aims to explore and elucidate issues that do not fall into the pathological sphere, focusing on: common situations you may experience in daily life, moral dilemmas, existential crises due to lack of meaning or purpose of life, ethical conflicts in the workplace, reconciling present experiences with previous thoughts and painstakingly careful inquiries. Sandu Frunză reminds us that philosophical practices should not be understood as a way to satisfy the counseled person or applying painstakingly (...) careful inquiries by finding a viable solution to the problem that worries them, but rather offers them an opportunity to broaden their horizons of knowledge by confronting ideas and beliefs different from his own. In the light of these statements, it would not be to bold to reassure that one of the main purposes of philosophical counseling could only be the search for and acquisition of wisdom. Practicing counsellors as well as scholars and advanced students of philosophy, communication, counseling, and educational and ethical guidance will find the volume Philosophy and everyday life: Books might change your life of particular importance. (shrink)

Cet article entend examiner l’iconographie d’un bas-relief qui se trouve à Budapest et provient probablement de Naples. Il a été sculpté en lychnites de Paros vers la fin de l’époque hellénistique ou aux tout débuts de l’époque impériale. Il représente une scène unique : Éros se posant sur une roue en train de tourner. Cette scène n’est pas le cliché instantané d’un quelconque jeu d’équilibre, et il n’existe pas non plus de mythe auquel l’associer. Il faut donc l’interpréter de manière (...) métaphorique, pour lui-même. Cette image d’Éros peut évoquer différents types de champs sémantiques, dénués de véritables rapports les uns avec les autres, voire se contredisant. Si l’on passe en revue les multiples significations des motifs composant l’image dans la culture gréco-romaine à partir de sources iconographiques, archéologiques et textuelles, il existe cinq thématiques différentes qui peuvent être rapprochées de la scène du relief. De plus, cet Éros représenté dans une situation d’équilibre précaire est lié au Kairos, le « Moment opportun ». L’objet, œuvre unique d’un sculptor doctus anonyme, montre donc les traits essentiels du dieu. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are now capable of producing artifacts that mimic human creation, such as visual art, text or music. The remarkable sophistication of these results reignited the debate on authorship, calling into question issues such as intent, originality, autonomy or aesthetic engagement. I will present and explain the main positions on authorship that have emerged from this questioning, drawing on Emanuele Arielli’s recent account in AI-aesthetics and the artificial author (2023). Furthermore, I will show how Roland Barthes’ The (...) Death of the Author (1967) and Michel Foucault’s What is an Author? (1969) are central to understanding the philosophical implications of the debate and how conceptualisations pursued in these works inform current perspectives on authorship when AI is involved. (shrink)