Philobiblon Vol XX 2015 NR 1 PDF

Lucian Blaga Central University Library
Research Department
PHILOBIBLON
Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary
Research in Humanities
Volume XX
Number 1
– January - June 2015 –
Cluj University Press

Philobiblon – Vol. XX (2015) No.1
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PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS (including Bio- and Medical Ethics), AESTHETICS,

ANTHROPOLOGY (including Medical Anthropology) and MEDICAL
HUMANITIES:
Friedrich-Wilhelm von HERRMANN, Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg im
Breisgau, István FEHÉR M., Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Member of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Csaba OLAY, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest,
Ion COPOERU, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Dan Eugen RAŢIU, Babeş-
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; István KIRÁLY V. , Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-
Napoca; Ecaterina PĂTRAŞCU, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest; Mihaela
FRUNZĂ, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Luminiţa FLOREA, Independent
Rechearcher, (Eastern Illinois University), Charleston; Pavel PUŞCAŞ, Gheorghe
Dima Music Academy, Cluj-Napoca; Andrei NEGRU, Romanian Academy – Cluj-
Napoca Branch, Social Sciences and Humanities Institute, Marius LAZĂR, Babeş-
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Marius ROTAR, 1 Decembrie 1918 University,
Alba-Iulia, László Nándor MAGYARI, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Călin GOINA, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Doina COSMAN, Iuliu
Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca; Dan L.
DUMITRAŞCU, Iuliu Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy; Richard A.
2
STEIN, Princeton University, Department of Molecular Biology and Cecília LIPPAI,

Independent Researcher, (Central European University), Budapest.
HISTORY, HISTORY OF CULTURE, HISTORY OF MENTALITIES,

HISTORY OF BOOKS:
Moshe IDEL, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Franco ANGIOLINI, University of
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Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Andrei Octavian POP, Universität Basel,
Kunsthistorisches Seminar; Ionuţ COSTEA, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca;
Stelian MÂNDRUŢ, Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca Branch, George Bariţiu
Institute of History; Marian PETCU, University of Bucharest; Alin Mihai
GHERMAN, 1 December 1918 University, Alba-Iulia.
LITERARY HISTORY AND THEORY, LINGUISTICS:

Gyöngyi ORBÁN, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Florina ILIS, Babeş-Bolyai
University, Cluj-Napoca, Csilla GÁBOR, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca;
Mihaela URSA-POP, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Edit KÁDÁR, Babeş-
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Zsuzsa SELYEM, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-
Napoca; Alina PREDA, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Aurel SASU, Babeş-
Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca.
THEORY AND CULTURE OF INFORMATION, LIBRARIANSHIP AND

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of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca and Lecturer, Doctoral School of Iuliu
Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca; Ana Maria
CĂPÂLNEANU, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca; Zsuzsa TÓTH, Researcher–
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University, Cluj-Napoca.
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4
CONTENTS
MAN – BOOK – KNOWLEDGE – SOCIETY

– ORIGINAL STUDIES AND ARTICLES –
Radu ALBU COMĂNESCU, Marthe, Princess Bibesco (1886–1973). Diplomacy

through Arts and Letters ............................................................................................. 9
Anna JANI, Individuality and Community. Construction of Sociality

in Edith Stein‟s Early Phenomenology ..................................................................... 19
Ştefan BOLEA, The Nihilist as a Not-Man. An Analysis of Psychological

Inhumanity .................................................................................................................. 33
Carmen ŢÂGŞOREAN, Testimony over Time. The Rebellion in Bucharest in

Words and Pictures (January 21–23, 1941) ............................................................. 45
Mircea-Andrei GOLBAN, The Task of the Poet and the Task of

the Translator – Comparing Two Types of Discourses........................................... 67
Mihaela URSA, Antifeminist Ideologies in Romanian Popular Culture.

Advertising, Power Discourses and Traditional Roles ............................................ 77
Daniel JUGRIN, Negation and Mystical Union in Plotinus ..................................... 94
Francisc ÖRMÉNY, Paganism and Barbarism in the French Philosophy of the

Eighteenth Century (Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau) ................. 109
Béla MESTER, Man-Made Values in an Inhuman Cosmos ................................... 138
István FEHÉR M., Irony and Solidarity: Two Key Concepts

of Richard Rorty ....................................................................................................... 149
Lajos András KISS, The Efficiency of Applied Philosophical Thematization:

The Works of István Király V. in the Context of European Philosophy ............. 177
István KIRÁLY V., The Names of the Nothing ......................................................... 212
Angela MARCU, Daniela TODOR, Referinţe critice – a Bibliography of

Romanian Literary Exegesis ................................................................................... 221
5
MISCELLANEA
Anca Elisabeta TATAY, The Repertory of Typographers, Engravers, Editors,

Patrons of Romanian Books (1508–1830) – Review ............................................... 231
Alina BRANDA, The Gusti(an) Sociologists in the Interwar University. Studies

– Review..................................................................................................................... 233
Ovidiu PECICAN, Perennial and Timely Existentialism – Ştefan Bolea‟s

Existentialism Today – Review ................................................................................ 237
Iulia GRAD, Sandu Frunză – Symbolic Communication and Seduction

– Review..................................................................................................................... 241
Ana-Maria DELIU, Love – Its Many Faces. Towards a New Definition

– Review..................................................................................................................... 244
Amalia COTOI, Cultural Memory – Review ........................................................... 247
ILLUSTRATIONS FOR THIS NUMBER
Teodora COSMAN, (Almost) Nothing to See. An Essay-Like Review of

Photographs by Patricia TODORAN and Irina DUMITRAŞCU MĂGUREAN.... 254
6
MAN – BOOK
KNOWLEDGE – SOCIETY
ORIGINAL STUDIES
AND ARTICLES
7
8
Marthe, Princess Bibesco (1886–1973)

– Diplomacy through Arts and Letters –
Radu ALBU COMĂNESCU,

Faculty of European Studies, Babeş-Bolyai University
Keywords: Romania-history; literature and diplomacy: aristocracy; francophile;

cultural diplomacy; Bibesco, Marthe
Abstract. With a European high-life and known for being a famed writer and
socialite of the 1900s-1930s, Marthe Bibesco proves to have had played the role of a
cultural diplomat ‗avant la lettre‘. Revealed by her writings and ideas, her
perspectives on Europe‘s politics, civilization and way of life, as well as those on
her country‘s role and cultural vocation, were astutely put together in order to create
the image of a Romania whose complexity was as enchanting as Europe‘s own.
E-mail: radu.albu@euro.ubbcluj.ro
―You do personify Europe to me.‖

(Charles de Gaulle to Marthe Bibesco, 1970)
Described by her biographers as ―the last Belle-Epoque orchid‖ or ―the 1
enchantress‖,2 Marthe, princess Bibesco was – for many of those who met her – a
remarkable personality. Roumanian aristocrat, writer, aesthete, Bibesco was highly
educated, beautiful, charismatic, and – last but not least – a creative author. During
her entire life – covering almost 87 years from 1886 to 1973 – she moved in
Europe‘s royal, political and intellectual élite circles. She was friend, confidante, and
sometimes intimate of European monarchs, prime ministers and presidents.3 It was
1
Ghislain de Diesbach, Prinţesa Bibescu. Ultima orhidee (Princess Bibesco. The Last
Orchid), Bucharest: Vivaldi, 1998. First edition, La Princesse Bibesco. La dernière orchidée
(Paris: Perrin, 1986).
2
Christine Sutherland, Enchantress. Marthe Bibesco and Her World (New-York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1996).
3
Mircea Eliade, Journal. 1970–1978 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), vol. 3,
252: ―I‘ve read ‗La vie d‘une amitié‘, annotated correspondence between Marthe Bibesco
and the abbé Mugnier. The most interesting letters are those from Marthe Bibesco, and yet I
heard so much about the extraordinary abbé Mugnier! Marthe Bibesco was endowed with a
prodigious memory. In addition, all the kings, all the dignitaries, all the monsigniors, dukes,
princes, famous writers, men of state, and scholars who lived after 1900 were among her
friends and her acquaintances. How extraordinary would be the biography entitled ―Marthe
Bibesco and Her Contemporaries‖!
9
this aspect of her biography that justifies, in many ways, our present attempt to
portray Marthe Bibesco as a cultural diplomat of her birth country, Roumania.1
While Marthe Bibesco‘s high-profile life and her literary triumph in the Belle-
Epoque Paris and through the ―roaring ‗20s‖ are well-known – thanks to Ghislain de
Diesbach and Christine Sutherland – Marthe Bibesco‘s political involvement and her
diplomatic activities, strongly related to how she understood Europe, how she
imagined the European unity and how she conceived her own identity, are less known.
These are joined by the manner she tactfully – and often resourcefully – promoted
Roumania in the French and British political circles of the time.
To History through Genealogy

Marthe-Lucie, Princess Bibesco, was born Lahovary in an influential family where
she could easily perceive political realities and understand the country‘s national
interest. The Lahovary were the leading Conservative political family of Roumania,
rivaling the Liberal Bratianus, and active politicians: her father – Jean Lahovary
(1844–1915) – served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and has been Minister of
Roumania to France; her uncle, Alexander Lahovary (1841–1897) was, on various
occasions, Minister of Justice, Minister of Agriculture, Industry, Trade and Property,
Minister of Public Works and Minister of Foreign Affairs; another uncle, Jacob
Lahovary (1846–1907), was Minister of War and Minister of Foreign Affairs.2
Her mother Emma Mavrocordato belonged to a princely dynasty of Greek
origins, alternatively ruling in Moldavia and Wallachia in the 18th century, illustrated
by grand names such as Alexandros Mavrocordato, dragoman3 of the Ottoman
Empire from 1673 to 1709.4 His marriage to a descendant of the founding dynasty of
Moldavia, next to his father‘s previous union to a dowager Princess of Wallachia,
positioned the Mavrocordatos as hypothetical heirs to the throne of both countries –
a position they skillfully took advantage of in the early 18th century, shaping a ruling
dynasty illustrated by strong personalities. Cultured and refined, with a touch of
eccentricity, art lovers and owners of renowned book collectionsm,5 the
1
We shall use the classic British spelling of Roumania (related to the French ‗Roumanie‘) for
România, instead of the Americanised version ―Romania‖ (officially in use since 1965), as in
2001 the Roumanian Academy decided to return to the use of the British spelling. (Thus, the
international code of Roumania was changed in the same year from ROM to ROU.) — We
shall also use the Frenchefied or Anglicised versions of the Roumanian names, some of which
established by Marthe Bibesco herself in her texts (e.g. the Mogoshoaia spelling for the
residence, the palace of Mogoşoaia): Brancovan for Brâncoveanu, Bibesco for Bibesco, etc.
2
More details on their genealogy, Costel Iordăchiţă, Familia Lahovary. Ascendenţă şi destin
politic (The Lahovary Family. Genealogy and political destiny) (Piteşti: Carminis, 2004).
3
The equivalent of a Minister of Foreign Affairs.
4
He was the main negociator of the Porte with the Austrian Monarchy during the Austro-
Turkish War of the 1680s, and author of the treaty of Karlowitz (1699). The house of Austria
honoured him with the rank of Serene Highness in the same year. See Alexandre A.C.
Sturdza, L'Europe Orientale et le rôle historique des Maurocordato, 1660–1830 (Oriental
Europe and the Historical Role of The Mavrocordatos) (Paris: Plon, 1913), 25–47, 50–60.
5
When Constantine Mavrocordato (III), Prince of Moldavia and of Wallachia, considered
selling his private library, he received offers from Pope Clement XII, the Holy Roman
10
Mavrocordatos were best illustrated by Constantine (III), whose Enlightened

despotism was embodied by the fundamental law he granted to his subjects:
Constitution faite par S[on] A[ltesse] M[onsieur] le Prince Constantin Mauro
Cordato, Prince des deux Valachies & de Moldavie, le 7 Février 1740 (&c),
published in the Mercure de France of July 1742. By the end of the century, the
Mavrocordato were completely Roumanianised.1
It was for Marthe to conclude: ―I had, being born, two families; one was
political, the other dynastic (…) One ruling in the past, the other governing the
present.‖2 This background, strongly connected to the historical and political
existence of the Roumanian Principalities since the 17th century, was going to be
achieved by Marthe‘s marriage to a distant cousin, George Valentin, 4th Prince
Bibesco (1880–1941).
A fairly old western Wallachian family – dating back to the 16th century –,
emerging to political power in the second half of the 18th century and especially
during the 19th century, the Bibesco gradually split into three main and three cadet
branches. One of the main became known as Ştirbey, themselves acquiring a
princely title as Princes of Wallachia in the 1850s; a second one inherited the
Austrian-German and Roumanian princely title Bassaraba de Brancovan, next to the
consequent fortune; a third one continued the princely Bibesco line. Both the
Bibesco, the Brancovan and the Ştirbey developed powerful Austrian, German,
French, Belgian, Italian, Spanish and British alliances, most of which in close
connection to royalty. They were also politically active.
This was going to offer Marthe not only an additional social dimension, but
also an extended European frame where she felt she could speak on behalf of her
own country when the case, as a diplomat. Years later, Louise Weiss, French
journalist and politician, would write: From her numerous and glorious [family]
alliances [Marthe Bibesco] had created an imaginary map, built on blood streams.
The most famous places of the Continent were thus united by rivers belonging to her
literally, and whose history she liked to treasure. (…) At the end of each of these
Emperor Charles VI of Austria, from King George II of Great Britain and from Louis XV of
France (Corneliu Dima-Drăgan, ―La bibliophilie des Mavrocordato‖ (Mavrocordatos‘
Bibliophilia), in Symposium. L‘époque phanariote (The Phanariot Aeon) (Thessaloniki:
Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974), 215–216.
1
Six sovereign Princes of both Moldavia and Wallachia stemmed from this family –
Nicholas, John, Constantine, John II, Alexander and Alexander II Mavrocordato – covering
most of the 18th century, but also the last Princesses of Wallachia, Zoe Mavrocordato,
adopted heiress to the princely house of Bassaraba de Brancovan and spouse of George
Demetrius Bibesco (1804–1873), Prince-sovereign of Wallachia before the 1848 Revolution.
Their children would inherit the Bassaraba de Brancovan princely title (in Austria, 1828 and
1860) and the Roumanian Bibesco princely title (Sturdza, L‘Europe Orientale, passim; Dan
Berdindei, ―Urmaşii lui Constantin Brâncoveanu şi locul lor în societatea românească.
Genealogie şi istorie‖ (Constantine Brancovan‘s posterity and their role in the Roumanian
society. Genealogy and History), in Constantin Brâncoveanu, edited by Paul Cernovodeanu
and Florin Constantiniu (Bucharest: Editura Academiei, 1989), 275–285.
2
Manuscript, ‗Le Cousinage‘, archive folder, box V, Bibesco papers, Manuscrits
Occidentaux, NAF D. 29738, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
11
genealogical rivers, when they were about to lose their ways into the Acheron, a
phoenix [= saviour] was born again, known only to her, provoking their rebirth.1
Surrounded by the historical resonance of all the aristocratic family
alliances, with a love for history carved in her spirit since her young years, for
Marthe Bibesco politics – in a diplomatic sense – was a responsibility, both
agreeable and gratifying. She knows she can contribute to History for the sake of
Europe; and, even if she cannot do it in the manner her sovereign ancestors did, nor
in the fashion her father and uncles could (as Ministers of Foreign Affairs), she
would gracefully choose to follow the steps of Chateaubriand, in many ways her role
model.2 Not just contributing to Europe‘s history, but discerning the aftermath of the
events, the direction they would take, calculating the risks, deciphering their
profound meaning was an intellectual exercise she gave into.
Such an approach, next to her erudition, built Crownprince Ferdinand of
Roumania‘s confidence in her and in her opinions. Their amity continued after he
succeeded as King in 1916. King Alphonso XIII of Spain was also fond of her... But
Marthe‘s penchant for politics and diplomacy became even more obvious in her
good relations with Wilhelm, Crownprince of Germany and Prussia (a fact which
would cause much gossip by Marthe‘s foes, in days of war, when diplomatic
nuances fade away). Their friendship – started in 1909 – was built on admiration, as
documents prove above all.3 While feeling pleased and privileged to be his part-
confidante, Marthe esteemed the Kronprinz‘s almost philosophical concern to be a
good emperor. In return, Wilhelm admired her poise, intelligence, sophistication and
her grasp on statesmanship. Their long epistolary exchanges are, in this respect,
eloquent. It was her that he entrusted, for instance, with secret details about the
Eulenburg scandal of 19084 and, later, with the mission of examining the opinion of
French political circles in 1915–1916: ―I would be very interested in you writing me
about what people think there [about the war and about himself] (…) Most probably
you will meet leading politicians and you will hear their positions.‖ The
Crownprince had drafted a peace treaty, 7 months after the start of the war, and was
suggesting Marthe Bibesco to disclose it to the French officials: ―I believe France
would accept our peace [proposal] with the following conditions: 1° we return the
occupied provinces [Alsace and Lorraine], 2° we give France a part of Belgium and
keep the rest, 3° France allows us to use Calais as long as the war against England
shall last (…) These are my personal opinions. I do not know what the government
considers, but I imagine they would be interested in knowing my plans. I write you
all this because it is a great pity that France and Germany wage war while the d***
1
Louise Weiss, Mémoires d‘une européenne (Memoirs of a European), transcribed fragment
in the Bibesco papers, V.
2
Diesbach, Prinţesa Bibescu, 73.
3
Constantin Iordan, Martha Bibescu în timpul ocupaţiei germane la Bucureşti, 1916–1917
(Marthe Bibesco during the German Occupation of Bucharest, 1916–1917) (Bucharest:
Anima, 2005), 10–100; idem, Martha Bibescu şi Prinţul moştenitor al Germaniei. File de
istorie, 1909–1910 (Marthe Bibesco and the German Crownprince. Pages of History, 1909–
1910) (Iaşi: Institutul European, 2010), 45–183.
4
12
English just take advantage. (…) I wish that Roumania joins us, taking Bessarabia
and good parts of Russia and Bulgaria, as well as half of Serbia, leaving the other
half to Austria.‖1
Marthe Bibesco, whose sympathies were international, not exclusively
national, formulated a smooth answer: ―It is a great misfortune that the
circumstances and the high dignity God invested You with, next to so many other
things, prevent us to openly discuss the subject You commenced in the last letter. I
feel the same about the peace, but well-thought reasons make me believe France will
never accept to seize the smallest part of the Belgian territory. It is a psychological
fact – the French public opinion has learned to consider the Belgians victims as
well, and heroes. Convincing them to accept a peace treaty ‗à l‘amiable‘ would
require a completely different approach than offering a compensation in Belgian
lands; they would be ashamed to accept it. — I have been to England a few days
ago. I noticed lots of ‗sang froid‘, not hatred, but a great trust in the final victory. It
is the feeling every warrior has when confronted with their ennemy in this war that
reached a world-wide scale.‖2
The same spirit of diplomatic openness presided over Marthe Bibesco‘s
residences, the palace of Mogoshoaia – a few kilometers from Bucharest – and the
mansion in Posada (by Comarnic), neighbouring the Peleş royal castle in the
mountains. Once the restoration of Mogoshoaia was achieved in 1927, Marthe
hosted reunions and dinners with British, French, American, German, Spanish and
Swiss diplomats (chargés d‘affaires, ministers to Roumania, ambassadors to various
countries, delegates to the League of Nations); the closing reception of the 1931
Congress of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale3 took place in her residence,
and so did, partly, one of the Congresses for South-Eastern European Studies. The
royal and aristocratic set of Europe was also attending her reunions when in
Bucharest. Marthe‘s spiritual conversation, the excellent cuisine, the historical
grounds (Mogoshoaia had been the spring residence of Wallachia‘s last national
dynast, Constantine Bassaraba de Brancovan, 1688–1714, to which the Bibescos
were main heirs and successors) made her invitations sought after. The glittering
international society gathering there turned Mogoshoaia into ―the second Geneva‖ or
1
Letter of Prince Wilhelm (Crownprince of the German Empire) to Marthe Bibesco, p.XCV,
d 2, ff 88–89, the ―Alexandru Saint-Georges‖ files, Archive of the National Library of
Roumania, Bucharest.
2
Letter of Marthe Bibesco to Prince Wilhelm, p. XCV, d2, ff 90–91, the ―Alexandru Saint-
Georges‖ files.
3
Grigore Gafencu, Însemnări politice (Political Notes) (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1991) 260.
Founded on 14 October 1905, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI / The World
Air Sports Federation, in English) was and still is the world organisation for air sports,
aeronautics and astronautics world records, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. First
presided by Prince Roland Bonaparte, it gradually became an institution reuniting the (back
then) newly created and strategic Ministries of Air/Aviation of different European countries
and of the United States. George Valentin, Prince Bibesco (1880–1941) presided the FAI
from 1931 to 1941 (F.A.I. History, accessed December 2014, http://www.fai.org/about-
fai/history and F.A.I. presidents, accessed December 2014, http://www.fai.org/about-
fai/presidents, last modified Monday, 26 November 2007).
13
―the second League of Nations‖, as Louis Barthou, French minister of foreign affairs
– himself a visitor – put it.1
This sophistication, comprehensive understanding of circumstances and
proximity to the political milieus of Europe turned Marthe Bibesco into a privileged
diplomatic messenger when the case. It was through her that Ramsay MacDonald,
the British Prime-Minister – and friend –, or Léon Blum (French Prime-Minister)
informally contacted Roumanian governments of the late 1920s and the early 1930s.
In 1942, it was, again, through her that the US Minister to Switzerland, Leland
Harrison (previously US Minister to Roumania) notified Antonescu on the American
opposition to Roumania‘s pursuit of war against the Soviet Union east of Dniestr.2
Her political awareness was also innovative. Earlier, in the 1930s, she had
suggested the creation of an intervention force, an aerial military fleet controlled by
the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale and placed under the authority of the
League of Nations, destined to prevent regional aggression.3 In this, her opinion
coincided perfectly with that of her husband, president of the FAI. Today, we can
only speculate on how Europe would have looked in the second half of the 20th
century, had the idea been put into practice…
The Chateaubriand Way: Literature and Diplomacy

Marthe Bibesco sees herself as a European whose preferences are directed towards
France and Paris. While she understands nationalism, she resents its excesses which
she often calls ―a plague of the spirit‖, because nationalism – be it French, German,
Roumanian or other – alters what Marthe dreams about and attaches importance to:
the European unity. Mixing Roumanian, Greek and French blood, she feels it is
easier to navigate on different cultural seas and identify the already existing cultural
unity of Europe. In her eyes, this unity is first of all based on the ancient Greek and
Roman heritage, as well as on a common Christian legacy dually shared by the West
and East as Catholicism – centered on Rome – and Orthodoxy, centered on the
Second Rome, Constantinople. We are all Greeks, she used to say, quoting Shelley,
the English poet, himself a friend of Marthe‘s collateral ancestor Alexandros
Mavrokordathos;4 it was, in a way, a revival of La Fontaine‘s famous line: nous
sommes tous d‘Athènes. Greekness is a symbol for an endless universality, the
prestigious start of a fully stated trans-europeanity: ―Nous sommes transeuropéens
comme l‘art, la géométrie, la musique, tout ce que vaut la peine d‘être désiré.‖ [We
are all transeuropeans like the Arts, the Geometry, the Music, everything worthy of
being desired.] This fundamental identity, which is European, is augmented and
fortified by the national ones: Roumanian, French, Hellenic, Italian, Polish, etc. ―Je
ne renoncerai, pour ma part, à aucune de ces patries particulières. Mais
1
Diesbach, Prinţesa Bibescu, 550–554.
2
Marthe Bibesco, La vie d‘une amitié. Ma correspondance avec l‘abbé Mugnier, 1911–1944 (The
Life of a Friendship. My letters to aboot Mugnier, 1911–1944) (Paris: Plon, 1957), vol. 3, 527.
3
Idem, Echanges avec Paul Claudel: nos lettres inédites (Exchanges with Paul Claudel. Our
unpublished letters), Paris:Mercure de France, 1972.
4
1791–1865, one of the founders of the modern Greek state, chargé d‘affaires in different
European capitals, Minister of Finance and ultimately Prime-Minister of Greece.
14
j‘appartiens d‘abord à l‘Athènes céleste qui fut transporté de mon temps à Paris,
arche sainte.‖ [I shall not relinquish, me, any of these particular fatherlands. But
first of all I belong to Celestial Athens, which had been transferred in my days to
Paris, a sacred Ark (of the Covenant)], the princess considered. Celestial Athens is –
in Marthe‘s literary symbolism – the metaphor for the quintessence of the European
culture so perfectly illustrated by the city of Paris; Paris had to be the capital of a
Europe whose supreme duty was to find its unity.1
It is for this reason that she starts writing, in the 1920s, La Nymphe Europe.
The first volume – out of 27 planned, each dedicated to a European country –
reached 650 pages. Published in 1960, when Marthe Bibesco was already living in
exile, La Nymphe Europe was the literary outcome of entire decades of political and
social observation. It is a history and genealogy of Europe based on Marthe‘s in-
depth knowledge of the European aristocracy, a « symphony of history, philosophy
and mythology » (as Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi saw it), delivered as an auto-
biography throughout the centuries. Marthe‘s aim was to spiritually reconquer
Europe against all the forces keeping it divided. Nymph Europe would therefore turn
into a reflection of the European unity achieved by a transnational family, which
was Marthe‘s own. The term ―family‖ was extended from birth to alliance; this vast
extension of lineages, of intertwined ancestors and dynasties, of overlapping
political interests in the Past were enough to prove and build Europe‘s unity, as
Louise Weiss perceptively noticed.2 Eulogies follow the publication, and among the
most representative of all are the opinions of Charles de Gaulle, France‘s president
and Marthe‘s friend, who writes her: Quel raccourci et quelle perspective! Quelle
histoire et quel conte! Vous avez saisi l‘Europe! [What a view and what a
perspective! What a history and what a recounting! You‘ve depicted Europe!].3
Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi is another admirer, writing her and confessing that
he and Marthe must have met in another life through his Kalergi and her
Mavrocordato ancestors who shared the same ideals.4
But it is not just the genealogical alliances of Europe‘s monarchies and
aristocracies that build the unity of Europe. From East to West, Europe displays
political, social, societal, anthropological, linguistic and geopolitical similarities
which are, again, a proof of an underlying unity needing to be revealed and
explained. This is – to Marthe, and not only – the cultural and civilisational heritage
of Greece and Rome.
1
The quotes above are taken from Marthe Bibesco, La Nymphe Europe, Mes vies antérieures
(Nymph Europe. My previous lives) (Paris: Plon, 1960).
2
The title of the book is in itself highly suggestive. Europe is incarnated by a feminine
symbol – a nymph, from the Greek nymphē, also meaning wife. This nymph is spirit, it is
memory and also an abducted princess that her brother, Phoenix, searches for all over the
world. But the phoenix bird is exactly the heraldic symbol of Marthe‘s maternal family, the
Mavrocordato; hence, analogically, daughter of the Phoenix herself, Marthe takes upon her
the duty to find Europe and her spirit.
3
Letter of Charles de Gaulle to Marthe Bibesco, 1960 (2nd half of the year), typewritten
copy, Bibesco papers, V.
4
Letter of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi to Marthe Bibesco, August 12, 1960,
typewritten copy, Bibesco papers, V.
15
Patricia Todoran, On Obstacles 5

40 cm x 50 cm, lambda print, 2015
It was in her Roumanian masterpiece, Isvor, Pays des saules (Isvor, Land of
the Willows), that Marthe Bibesco explores the antique Roman and Hellenic
backgrounds of her native country. The book was also conceived as a diplomatic
message, destined to highlight Roumania‘s Occidental credentials and imply that a
nation representing the only Latin community in Central-and-Eastern Europe should
not be abandoned by its Western European relatives – mainly France, Italy and
Belgium.
Written in Switzerland in 1917, the book is the expression of a revived
cultural experience. Away from home because of the war, and missing it, Marthe
starts writing about her country in an attempt to feel closer to Roumania. She
searches for the nation‘s deepest and most hidden cultural sources – those that can
be seen clearer only when looked upon from afar. She plunges in folklore and
reinterprets Roumania by revealing the entire complexity of this nation who
absorbed influences coming, in time, from Paris and London, from Constantinople
and Moscow or Sankt-Petersburg, from Venice and Krakow. The geographic
location and the tumultuous history explains Roumania‘s exceptionalism – rarely
understood – and her multiple singularities: the only Latin yet Orthodox nation in
Europe; the only Latin nation located in Central and Eastern Europe; the only Latin
country having used, for centuries, the Cyrillic alphabet; the only country belonging
equally to Central Europe, South-Eastern Europe and to Eastern Europe; a country
whose cultural heritage imposes on it to perform despite the often hostile
geopolitical context; a country hesitating between openness and reclusion. In one of
her books, she wrote: ―The heart of Roumania, my native land, hangs forever in the
16
balance—half Orient, half Occident. Hers is a dual nature, two distinct faces, and
two opposing elements which yet powerfully attract each other. Land of contrast, of
flame and of frost, she is one of the infinitely sensitive points de résonnance of the
universe.‖ She compares the country to Byzantium, Granada, Ravenna, Venice or
Ragusa, ―which are other sensitive points of Europe, where Orient and Occident
meet‖ creating a ―stagger of aesthetic emotions‖.1
Her immense erudition serves her in this quest to discover Roumania‘s roots
and commonalities with the rest of Europe. The poetic spirituality of the myths,
legends and folk traditions, so similar to those of the Celts, Germans, Slavs, adds to
the affinities to the Græco-Roman culture. Wasn‘t Europe‘s unitas multiplex,
unidiversity, reflected in Roumania‘s cultural richness?... Marthe Bibesco adds: ―But
that is the secret of Roumania—her profound resource, the key to her dual heart.
Whoever judges her by only one of her faces mistakes her. Whoever loves her only
for one of her beauties does not truly love her. Whoever criticizes her for her faults
does not know how to offset them by her redeeming qualities.‖2
But poetry was not just poetry. Marthe‘s poetic vision was the seductive part
of a political and diplomatic expression. In her writings, when describing Roumania,
she always finds a comparison to places more familiar to Western politicians,
diplomats, aesthetes and literati – so that one can already create a mental projection
not only of Roumania‘s atmosphere but also of the country‘s natural and
civilisational perfect compatibility with Europe. For instance, she referred to
Roumania as ―Dacia felix‖. It was a livresque manner to revive the beautiful past of
a European territory that had shown much potential when a part of the Roman
civilisation, and also an indicator of a promising future if the country was properly
governed. She also facilitates the understanding of tradition or of ancient Roumanian
art by referring to the Byzantine and Italian artistic patrimony, or sometimes to
Germany‘s or Spain‘s; the understanding of geography by jolly transliterations of
the Roumanian toponymy; the understanding of the language by revealing Latin
etymologies and establishing comparisons to Italian and French; the understanding
of rural society by comparison (mainly) to the French.3 In this, her talent was
unparalleled. It was easy to do so, as she felt European and she thought in a
European manner. This is most probably why, when visiting Roumania in May
1968, Charles de Gaulle – Marthe Bibesco‘s last grand political friend – took Isvor
to read in order to culturally understand the country he was going to visit for the first
time, part of his Europe des patries.4
Last but not least, the recurring historical references constitute a discreet
message sent to those unable to understand enough the nuances hiding behind factual
truths: Roumania was not a newly built country, emerging only in the second half of
the 19th century on the map of Europe under the rule of foreign sovereign and Liberal
1
Bibesco, ―My Roumania‖, in Vogue Magazine, London, 15 June 1925. (Also available at
http://www.tkinter.smig.net/romania/Bibesco/index.htm, accessed July 2014.)
2
Ibid.
3
Maria Brăescu, Interferenţe româneşti în opera Marthei Bibescu (Roumanian influences in
Marthe Bibesco‘s writings) (Bucharest: Minerva, 1983), 145–165.
4
17
government. If the foreign prince could rule upon a 121,000 km² Roumania –
following a decision of the country‘s political élites in 1866 – it was because this
country, larger than Portugal, had been built by two national dynasties, the Bassaraba
of Wallachia and the Mushat of Moldavia, generation after generation, century after
century, confronting the powerful neighbouring states, especially the Ottoman Empire.
Roumania‘s second monarchy – a newcomer introduced by political resolution –,
could not ignore the country‘s heroic past, the achievements of the preceding
monarchs, nor the cultural and civilisational results so intimately related to the Greek-
Orthodox and the Mediterreanean worlds, illustrated by an architectural heritage
appreciated by European scholars and connoisseurs. Modern Roumania, a young,
Liberal, Francophile country, was obliged, first of all, to a deeper-rooted Roumania,
original, resilient, wise, a cultural and political heiress of Byzantium and of Roman
traditions, influenced by Italy and the Germanic world; secondly, the 1900s Liberals
were indebted to the first generation of enlightened modernisers, the Princes-sovereign
of Wallachia and Moldavia from the 1830s-1850s.1
Marthe Bibesco‘s Roumania is a cultural projection, built on structures that
revolve around those of Europe‘s celebrated societies in terms of history, geography
and heritage. It was Marthe‘s precise will – and capability – not only to shed light on
the ethos of her native country but also to reveal the intricate ways Roumania
belonged to the rich, diverse and wide-ranging profile of the European civilisation:
the very civilisation whose composite cultural unity had been built centuries before.
What Europe needed was just to be aware.
1
This set of ideas is a few times expressed in her book La Nymphe Europe II. Où tombe la
foudre (Nymph Europe II. Where the lightning strikes) (Paris: Grasset et Fasquelle, 1976).
18
Individuality and Community.

Construction of Sociality in Edith Stein‟s Early Phenomenology
Anna JANI
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Faculty of Humanities, Institute of Philosophy
MTA-ELTE Hermeneutics Research Group
Keywords: Edith Stein, phenomenology, humanities, empathy, community,

experience, individuality, social value, intersubjectivity, individuality
Abstract: The problem of individuality lies at the basis of phenomenological

investigations both in Edith Stein‘s earliest and mature works. Her doctoral thesis,
the On the Problem of Empathy, focuses on the phenomenological acts of perceiving
persons in an intersubjective situation. She aims at a conception of the person
beyond a construction based on the pure ―I‖ or the stream of consciousness.
According to her, the psycho-physical subject can comprehend the foreign living
body as an individual. Dilthey is not interested in the individual in a
phenomenological sense, but rather in the question as to what constitutes value in
the society. Although all of Stein‘s references to Dilthey‘s views in her doctoral
thesis are of critical nature, there is still a connection between the two thinkers. In
this paper, I would like to investigate the relationship between Edith Stein‘s critique
of Dilthey‘s understanding of the individual with a particular focus on Stein‘s
conception of empathic act as the founding act for the community.
E-mail: janianna@web.elte.hu; anna.vargajani@gmail.com
Edith Stein’s beginnings in philosophy used to be characterized as

being influenced by Husserlian phenomenology. Furthermore, it is also remarkable
that her philosophical intention was influenced by other philosophical impulses. On
the other hand it is to be noted that, from the start, she aimed at a phenomenological
method of her own, even if her philosophical theses, especially in her early years,
betray a clear Husserlian effect. In the following essay, I will investigate the specific
phenomenological method of Edith Stein, starting from her first methodological
question on the problem of empathy, which leads to her later work on the
phenomenological aspects of the social experiences. While reflecting on the
contemporary impulses of the early texts On the Problem of Empathy and the
Individual and Community, the following text will examine how the
phenomenological method becomes a method for the ontology of sociality. It is also
noteworthy that Edith Stein‘s interest in Dilthey was guided by the problem of the
community, and what she found in Dilthey‘s descriptive psychology was an
alternative for her first investigations on empathy. In my opinion, it is not only in her
first philosophical work that Edith Stein pays attention to empathy as a
phenomenological act, but she also considers it the basic act of experience in her
19
later investigations. Dilthey‘s theory of the community becomes the guiding thread
for her to investigate the transition from the individual experience to the experience
of the community life. According to my thesis, this subjective act presupposes a
collective world experience that makes it possible to experience the subject as a
subject. This two-sided interpretation of the act of empathy as, first, the founding act
of community life, and, furthermore, something that is founded on co-subjectivity, is
what constitutes the essential phenomenological method of Edith Stein.
The empathy as the basic act of experience

Stein‘s first philosophical work, the On the Problem of Empathy, aims both at a
historical reconstruction and a philosophical interpretation of empathy. She analyzed
the problem of empathy in Theodore Lipps‘s works and transformed her historical
interpretations into the systematical analysis of methodical questions. Stein tried to
arrive at a systematical elaboration of the problem of empathy both by reviewing the
prevailing views and by applying the Husserlian phenomenology. She started to
work on her doctoral thesis while she participated at Husserl‘s lecture Nature and
Spirit in 1913. In his lecture, Husserl emphasized that the world is constituted
intersubjectively, ―through a plurality of perceiving individuals who relate in a
mutual exchange of information. Accordingly, the experience of other individuals is
a prerequisite. To [this] experience, an application of the work of Theodore Lipps,
Husserl gave the name Einfühlung [Empathy].‖1 In her doctoral thesis, Stein refers
twice to Husserl‘s phenomenological thesis of the world constitution. Firstly, in the
Foreword of her work, as she defines empathy as the perceiving of foreign subjects
and their experiences2, and secondly, as she attributes the intersubjective world
constitution to the individuals. According to Husserl, Stein remarks, ―the empathy as
the basis of intersubjective experience becomes the condition of possible knowledge
of the existing outer world.‖3 These two constituents of the world constitution, the
empathy as the act of the experience of foreign subjects, on the one hand, and the
individuality that is the basic component of intersubjectivity, on the other hand, form
the two segments of Stein‘s work.
Since in the second chapter of her dissertation Stein analyses the empathy in
contrast to other acts, in the last two chapters she then focuses on the individuality of
foreign persons. The latter theme serves as a bridge from Edith Stein‘s doctoral
thesis to her Individual and Community in 1922. This essay is concerned with the
connection between the eidetic analysis of the act of empathy and the life in the
community. The life of the community was investigated by Edith Stein in the second
chapter of the doctoral thesis, and the life in the community becomes the primary
question of the constitution of the community by the individuals in her later work.
According to this division, the central question is how Edith Stein can convert the
1 Edith Stein, The Collected Works of Edith Stein. Life in a Jewish Family, eds. Lucy Gelber
and Romaeus Leuven, trans. Josephine Koeppel (Washington, 1986), 269.
2 Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, trans. W. Stein (Hague: Nijhoff 1964), 3.
3 Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, 60.
20
phenomenological act of empathy to an act of the community life.1 This question

leads to a second problem concerning the type of act: do the act of empathy and the
act of the community differ from each other (the one derived from the other by a
transformation), or are the two the same? Considering that Edith Stein approaches
both the individuality and the community life in a phenomenological and not a
psychological way, her inquiry of community leaves open two ways of
interpretation. According to this direction, Edith Stein‘s thinking raises the question
whether there is exactly a phenomenological relationship between individual life and
community life; and, accordingly, she saw in the act of empathy a solution to
Dilthey‘s problem of individuality and community.
The second chapter of the doctoral thesis is concerned with the
phenomenological acts in contrast to the act of empathy. Stein‘s central statement and
initial point of her analysis are the participation of the subjects in a phenomenological
act. In the case of empathy, it implies a mutual phenomenological experience: ―The
world in which we live isn‘t only a world of physical bodies but also experiencing
subjects external to us, of whose experiences we know. This knowledge isn‘t
indubitable. Precisely here [we] are subject[ed] to such diverse deceptions that
occasionally we are inclined to doubt the possibility of knowledge in this domain at
all. But the phenomenon of foreign psychic life is indubitably [there], and we now
want to examine this a little further.‖2 Stein focuses on examining the empathy on the
ground of two elements of the experience, which play a basic role both in intentions at
objects and the intentions of subjects. She distinguishes the content of the act from the
object of the act and attributes a temporal dimension to every intentional act, which
determines the experience in its primordiality or non-primordiality. Both in object
experience and subject experience, the experience has a temporal dimension that
constitutes a correlation between the object and the content of the experience. Across
1 It must be remarked here that the notion of social act, adopted by Stein from Adolf Reinach,
is not identical with her notion of the act of community. Reinach interprets the social act as the
communal experience of feelings, while Stein calls these acts as free acts, because of their
freedom from the objectivity. This means that Stein focuses on the content of the act, while
Reinach is interested in the intention of the act. The scholarly literature is divided by the
evaluation of the relationship between Stein and Reinach: some regard Stein's interpretation of
Reinach's social acts as a misunderstanding of Reinach's ideas. Others, however, claim that
Stein understands free acts as the act of love, hate etc. which are aimed at single phenomena in
the common life. My article focuses not on these single acts but on the perception of the
community as a basic phenomenon of our life. Cf. Beate Beckmann, Phänomenologie des
religiösen Erlebnisses. Religionsphilosophische Überlegungen im Anschuss an Adolf Reinach
und Edith Stein (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 2003); Adolf Reinach, ―Nachgelassene
Texte. Nichtsoziale und soziale Akte,‖ in Karl Schumann and Barry Smith, eds. Sämtliche
Werke. Textkritische Ausgabe in zwei Bänden. vol. 1. (München: Philosophia, 1989), 355–
361.; Adolf Reinach, ―Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechts. Die sozialen
Akte‖, in Sämtliche Werke, 141–335.; Alessandro Salice, Urteile und Sachverhalte: ein
Vergleich zwischen Alexius Meinong und Adolf Reinach (München: Philosophia, 2009); Karl
Schumann, ―Edith Stein und Adolf Reinach,‖ in Reto Luzius Fetz, ed. Studien zur Philosophie
von Edith Stein. Internationales Edith Stein Symposium Eichstätt 1991, Phänomenologische
Forschungen 26/27. (Freiburg: Alber, 1993), 53–89.
21
the temporality, there is an analogy between considering the memory, expectation and
fantasy and acts of empathy in which the experiences are given non-primordially.
Edith Stein regards primordiality as the main term characteristic of the different types
of acts: the memory of joy, for example, is primordial as a representational act, but
non-primordial in its content, since its content belongs to a situation in the past. ―This
act has the total character of joy which I could study, but the joy is not primordially
and bodily there. Rather, it has once been alive (and this ‗once‘, the time of the present
experience, can be definite or indefinite).‖1
The experience of empathy is similar both to the memory and to the fantasy
in presenting the content of experience. Similar to them, the act of empathy has a
temporal dimension both as an acting process and in its experience. ―When I inquire
into its implied tendencies (try to bring another‘s mood to clear givenness to
myself), the content, having pulled me into it, is no longer really an object. I am now
no longer turned to the content but to the object of it, am at the subject of the content
in the original subject‘s place.‖2 According to Stein, there is a transition between the
experience of the foreign person (which is my non-primordial experience) and my
experience of the others (which I conceive as my primordial experience). As Dan
Zahavi says concerning the intersubjective life-constitution, there is a smooth
transition from the experience of the others to the other forms of personal
experiences as imagination and recollection, but it must be realized that the empathy
is the irreducible form of intersubjectivity.3 Thus there is a twofold level of time
constitution that belongs to the primordial experience of the others on the one hand
and to the fulfilling explanation of a foreign personal experience on the other hand.
By this way, Stein distinguishes three grades of the representation of experiences:
the emergence of the experience, the fulfilling of explanation, and the
comprehensive objectification of the explained experience. ―This other subject is
primordial although I do not experience its primordiality; his joy is primordial
although I do not experience it as primordial. In my non-primordial experience I
feel, as it were, led by a primordial one not experienced by me but still there,
manifesting itself in my non-primordial experience.‖4
Stein distinguishes the theoretical and the so-called sentient acts (Gefühlsakt
as translated in the works of E. S.), which leads her thinking to value ethics. She
asserts that the value ethics is grounded on the act empathy, and this way it is
constituted by the individual. From this point, Stein concludes, the present
experiences overwrite the experiences of the past. Based on this statement of Stein,
1 Ibid., 8.
2 Ibid., 10.
3 Dan Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood. Investigating the First-Person Perspective,
(London: MIT Press 2008), 155.: ―To be more specific, empathy has typically been taken to
constitute a unique and irreducible form of intentionality, and one of the classical tasks of
phenomenological analysis has been to clarify its precise structure and spell out the
difference between it and other forms of intentionality, such as perception, imagination, and
recollection. In the fact, the empathic approach has occasionally been assumed to constitute
the phenomenological approach to intersubjectivity.‖
22
Alasdair MacIntyre argues in an essay on Edith Stein‘s Philosophy of Psychology

and the Humanities that Stein‘s sentient act is an affective act through which the
individuals encounter values, but earlier experiences always presuppose this
experience.1 The sentient acts could augment or overwrite the content of earlier
experiences. The fact that the experiences are rebuilt in the stream of consciousness
every time indicates us the inadequate form of the pure I. The ―I‖, taken in the sense
of the stream of consciousness, is always in contrast with the Other, whose ―I‖ is at
the same time the subject of experience. ―This otherness is apparent in the way than
‗I‘. Therefore, it is ‗you‘. But, since it experiences itself as I experience myself, the
‗you‘ is another ‗I‘. Thus, the ‗I‘ doesn‘t become individualized because the Other
faces it, but its individuality, or as we would rather say (because we must reserve the
term ‗individuality‘ for something else), its selfness is brought into relief in contrast
with the otherness of the other.‖2 The constitution of experience indicates the
possibility of experience of community in the stream of consciousness.
Stein asserts that the individual experience is manifested not only in the
bodily experience of the others but also in the form of the givenness which refers to
a foreign ―I‖ that is not mine. Therefore, a conscious unity of ―I‖ and physical body
belongs to the individual ―I‖. The perception of the foreign ―I‖ in virtue of the
experiences of the others is simultaneous with the experience of the foreign physical
body that is analogue to my own. Following Husserl, Zahavi remarks that the
problem of the perception is just the embodiment of the person, (embodiment,
however, can have two distinct meanings indicated by the German nouns Körper
[physical body] and Leib [living body]).3 The physical body behaves like a living
body that can have sensations from the outer world. ―Thus the foreign living body is
‗seen‘ as a living body. This kind of givenness that we want to call ‗con-
primordiality‘, confronts us in the perception of the thing.‖4 The perception of the
foreign body as a living body is realized in the mutual psychical act in which my
own physical body is perceived as a living body belonging to the outer world. Stein
1 Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein. A Philosophical Prologue, (London: Continuum 2006),

119.: ― ―Of central importance are Gemütsakte, affective acts, for it is through these that
individuals encounter values. Such acts have two elements. In them we are presented with
objects as bearers of value, as goods, and those values elicit from us affective attitudes. Our
states of feeling are responses to and presuppose the value of the objects presented to them.‖
2 Stein, On the problem of Empathy, 36.
3 Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood. Investigating the First-Person Perspective, 156.: ―How
and why should our subjective embodiment prepare the way for an encounter with the other?
If we begin with Husserl, one of the issues explicitly empasized in his phenomenological
analysis of the body is its peculiar two-sidedness. My body is given to me as an interiority, a
volitional structure, and as a dimension of sensing, but it is also given as a visually and
tactually appearing exteriority. What is the relation between that which Husserl called the
―Innen-‖ and the ―Aussenleiblichkeit,‖ that is, what is the relation between the lived bodily
inwardness on the one side, and the externality of thee body on the other (Hua 14/337)? In
both cases, I am confronted with my own body, but why is the visually and tactually
appearing body at all experienced as the exteriority of my body? When I touch my own hand,
the touched hand is not given as a mere object, since ti fells the touch itself.‖
23
called this co-givenness of the physical and psychical attributions of the ―I‖ as a
psycho-physical individual. This is not merely a pure ―I‖ separated from the
psychical elements of experience, but rather, ―my own hand feels the foreign hand‘s
sensation ‗with,‘ precisely through the empathy whose essence we earlier
differentiated from our own experience and every other kind of representation.‖1
The transition from the act of empathy to the act of community

This leads us to the question as to how empathy and individuality could belong
together if both presuppose each other in the perception of subjectivity? Stein claims
that the object of the perception is always determined by the types of more
fundamental cognitions. My perception and my imagination are guided by the
typical elements of earlier experiences which, however, could overwrite the present
experience. The individual is thus developed by a community or by the bodily
givenness of the foreign living body in the outer world. Since the pure ―I‖ is a
stream of consciousness, the constituent or the internal carrier of experiences, it is
unable to express the correlation between the bodily objects and living bodies. The
living body as the zero point of orientation finds itself between other zero points of
physical bodies which determine each other‘s world experiences. The world is given
for us in an intersubjective form, whose perception includes the empathic contact of
the living individuals with each other. ―From the viewpoint of the zero point of
orientation gained in empathy, I must no longer consider my own zero point, but as a
spatial point among many. By this means, and only by this means, I learn to see my
living body as a physical body like others. At the same time, only in primordial
experience is it given to me as a living body. Moreover, it is given to me as an
incomplete physical body in outer perception and as a different from all others. In
‗reiterated empathy‘ I again interpret this physical body as a living body, and so it is
that I first am given to myself as a psycho-physical individual in the full sense.‖2
The psycho-physical individuality is given to me in the intersubjective world
constitution, and I can perceive my own bodily givenness only intersubjectively,
which means that the world is not constituted for me without a reflexion to my
bodily conditions. According to Zahavi, the understanding of intersubjectivity calls
for an examination of embodied subjectivity, and this way the possibility of
intersubjectivity is rooted in the bodily constitution of intersubjectivity. ―Many
phenomenologists have also argued that a better understanding of the relation
between subjectivity and world will increase our comprehension of intersubjectivity.
More precisely, they have argued for intersubjectivity to be granted a place in the
intentional relation between subjectivity and world, be it in the social character of
tool use, in the public nature of perceptual objects, or in the historicity of our
understanding.‖3 I should not perceive myself as a psycho-physical individual,
unless I participate at the intersubjective world constitution by the act of empathy. In
experiencing the outer world, I must at first discover this analogy between my own
1 Ibid., 54.
2 Ibid., 58.
3 Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood. Investigating the First-Person Perspective, 163.
24
bodily life and the living bodies of the foreign subjects. ―Corresponding to the
individual personality, which is constituted in the individual experiences and out of
which in turn the individual experiences are to be understood, there could very well
be a collective personality as that whose experiences the communal experiences are
to be regarded as.‖1 This analogy, the discovering of the community feelings
between two bodily expressions, is the guarantee of the act of empathy, and vice
versa. But is it possible at all, and if so, then exactly how could we talk about the
common sense of the community? These are the questions raised by MacIntyre,
relying on Stein‘s notion of community feeling. ―Two sets of questions arise. The
first concerns what it means to speak of the purposes or hopes or fears or grief of a
community. What is the relationship between the purposes, hopes, fears, and griefs
of individuals which are theirs qua individuals and those which are theirs qua
members of a community. A second set of question concerns the differences
between the two imagined individuals. What is it for an individual to be open or not
to be open to those experiences that are communal? What is it for an individual to
identify or to fail to identify with the purposes of a community? What kind of
changes in an individual might membership in a community bring about?‖2
The dissertation of Edith Stein investigates the relation between empathy
and other psychical acts by elucidating the perception between the psycho-physical
bodies. Since the development of the individual takes place in the life of the
community, every bodily effect manifests itself as an interior psychical causality,
which is at the same time responsible for individual development. The aim of the
first part of The Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, the ―Sentient
Causality‖, is to show how psychical effects determinate the whole constitution of
experiences and delineate the core of the person. The causality of the physical
impact could be the same for different individuals, but it may involve different
psychical causalities for the different individuals. ―Along with these effects of outer
causes, we grasp effects within the individual himself. For example, we may see a
child actively romping about and then becoming tired and cross. We then interpret
tiredness and the bad mood as the effect of movement. We have already seen how
movements come to givenness to us as alive movements and how tiredness comes to
givenness. As we shall soon see, we also grasp the ‗bad mood‘ empathically.‖3 The
observation of an event in the outer world causes the same experience in its object,
but it can refer to different content for the participants at the same time. MacIntyre
asserts that, for Stein, empathy is always directed at a concrete situation, the
meaning of which is defined by earlier experiences.4 The foreign living body as a
1 Edith Stein, Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, ed. Marianne Sawicki, transl.
Marie Catharine Baseheart and Marianne Sawicki (Washington, 2000), 135.
2 MacIntyre, Edith Stein. A Philosophical Prologue, 109.
4 MacIntyre, Edith Stein. A Philosophical Prologue, 112.: ―Here Stein first recognizes that
what is given in experience sometimes can only be characterized adequately in term that
takes us beyond that experience, in terms that presuppose some external point of view from
which what is given in experience has to be understood. And so it is with another aspect of
psychic causality.‖
25
conveyor of psychic life is surrounded by other background experiences as well,

which determine its present experience.
Patricia Todoran, The Door,

This means, on the one hand, that the psychic causality is not limited to the
experience, but the experience of now is motivated by the future and the past,
expectation, fantasy and memory. According to MacIntyre, this is the life-feeling
and life-power which influences our experiences: ―The changing life-feelings that
have effects on how we experience what we experience are to be understood as
manifestation of life-power, the power that we draw upon as living beings. Among
the effects of variations in life-power is varying receptivity of experience. The
powers that I bring to my discriminations of features of my experience are
themselves manifestations of another and more fundamental power, that of life itself.
And this stands as cause to effects that encounter in experience.‖1 An individual is
not only a closed conveyor of experiences but also an expression of his life. Stein
1 Ibid., 112.
26
considers the reaction of the individual and the causal chain of his expressions as the
personal character of an individual. You can read the sorrowfulness of a person from
his or her face, I express my cheerfulness by my smile. These common emotional
expressions belong to the present situation, but their experience introduces other
non-primordially experiences. ―Meaning is always a general one. In order to grasp
the object intended right now, we always need a givenness of the intuitive basis of
the meaning experiences. There is no such intermediate level between the expressed
experience and the expressing bodily change.‖1 According to MacIntyre, Stein
makes a difference between the act of the person as an intersubjective act of
empathy among subjects and between the act of community which is turned to the
upper-subjective horizon of the community.‖ So once again, when she discusses the
ebb and flow of life-power within communities and between individuals and
communities, she once again treats these phenomena as susceptible of causal
explanation. And, as she did with individuals, she understands life-power as
informing a range of communal acts and experiences, including those forms of
cooperation through which communal experience is constituted. Many individuals
may by their actions contribute to a common and communal goal.‖2
The language as the transition between the expression of personal effects
and the communication channel of the community symbolizes the mental life of the
psycho-physical individual. This linguistic expression is not primordial but can be
empathized. ―I can bring the circumstances of which the statement speaks to
givenness to myself. If I hear the words, ‗It is raining,‘ I understand them without
considering that someone is saying that to me. And I bring this comprehension to
intuitive fulfillment when I look out of the window myself.‖3 As Zahavi says: ―On
the one hand, there is something right about the claim that the feelings and thoughts
of Others are manifest in their expressions and actions. In many situations, we do
have a direct, pragmatic understanding of the minds of the Others. We see the anger
of the Other, we emphatize with his sorrow, we comprehend his linguistically
articulated beliefs; we do not have to infer their existence. On the other hand, there
also seems to be something right in the Cartesian idea that the mental life of another
is, in some respect, inaccessible.‖4 All our outer perception is carried out in mental
acts. We interpret the foreign living body as an ―object-constituting consciousness‖
and consider the outer world as its correlate. The transition from the individual
experiences to communal world constitution is realized in values which are
constituted by the mind in the acts of feeling. According to Edith Stein, ―Our whole
‗cultural world‘, all that ‗the hand of man‘ has formed, all utilitarian objects, all
works of handicraft, applied science, and art, and reality, they have become the
correlate of the mind.‖5 This whole value system of the human life is grounded on
the individual experiences, and the cultural sciences constitute the second level of
the human life. Stein claims that the elements of the cultural sciences, facts and

27
historical events, are not in causal contact with the personal life of the individual,
but they are in genetic correlation with the life of the community. ―The
Geisteswissenschaften (cultural sciences) describe the products of the mind, though
this alone does not satisfy them. They also pursue, mostly unseparated from this,
what they call history, literary history, history of language, art history, etc. They
pursue the formation of mental products or their birth in the mind.‖1 These two
functions of the cultural sciences, the formative process of the mental products, on
the one hand, and the succession of the mental acts of the individuals, on the other
hand, raise the question, whether there could be a connection between the
methodology of the cultural sciences as a scientific formation of the community and
the act of empathy on a subjective level of the community.
As we saw, the last chapter of Edith Stein‘s doctoral thesis aims to establish
the empathic act as an act of the mental person. This raises the question, whether the
act of empathy is only applicable at the experience of the outer world and the
interconnections of foreign individuals or whether it can be also understood as a
value constituting act that can re-actualize non-primordial experiences. It is precisely
this latter sense in which Stein discusses Dilthey‘s theory of the cultural sciences.
Stein‘s excerpts refer only to Dilthey‘s Introduction to the Human Sciences, Ideas
about the Descriptive and Analytical Psychology, the Contributions to the Study of
Individuality, and The Imagination of the Poet,2 and she leaves the theoretical
improvement of Dilthey untouched. Starting from Dilthey‘s Ideas, Stein formulates
her own question as to whether it is possible to arrive at the act of empathy from the
cultural sciences. ―Empathy was necessary for the constitution of these objects, and
so to a certain extent our own individual was assumed. But mental comprehension,
which we shall characterize in still more detail, must be distinguished from this
empathy. But from Dilthey‘s mistaken exposition, we learn that there must be an
objective basis for the cultural sciences beside the clarification of method, an
ontology of the mind corresponding to the ontology of nature.‖3 When Dilthey,
claims Stein, finds in the Idea the connection between the individual‘s life and the
cultural sciences by a psychological method, then it is, according to Stein, a science
of nature: ―‗descriptive‘ is not the proper word, for descriptive psychology is also
the science of the soul as nature.‖4 Stein advocates a more phenomenological
approach to the psychical causality as she claims that mental acts are in ―mental‖
relationship to each other, the ‗I‘ ―passes over from one act to another‖ in the form
of motivation.5 According to the second part of the Philosophy of Psychology and
1 Ibid., 84.
2 Cp. Wilhelm Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften. Versuch einer Grundlegung
für das Studium der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte. ed. Bernhard Groethysen,
(Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1914); Wilhelm Dilthey, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung
in die Philosophie des Lebens. Erste Hälfte: Abhandlungen zur Grundlegung der
Geisteswissenschaften. ed. Georg Misch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1924);
Wilhelm Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften. ed.
Bernhard Groethysen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1927).
4 Ibid., 86.
5 Ibid., 87.
28
the Humanities, titled the ―Individual and Community‖, every psychical act is
constituted phenomenologically as a mental act and these mental acts of psychical
experiences ground the stream of experiences in the consciousness. ―With the
individual ego we didn‘t distinguish between a current of consciousness and a
current of experience, because here the originally productive flow of experiencing
and the series of persistent experiences that is constituted within it as a unity came
into congruence, and because the term consciousness in the usual manner of
speaking extended from the moment of the experience that we so designate to the
overall experience. But with communal experience, we‘ve got to distinguish strictly:
here there‘s no current of consciousness as an originally constitutive flow.‖1 This
―meaning context‖ of consciousness builds the basic element of the mental world,
which is achieved by theoretical acts that incorporate the structure of all feelings. ―It
is possible to conceive of a subject, only living in theoretical acts, having an object
world facing it without ever becoming aware of itself and its consciousness, without
being there for itself. But this is no longer possible as soon as this subject not only
perceives, thinks, etc., but also feels.‖2 When I am turning towards an object, then it
is pre-given to me in theoretical acts, but the value realm belonging to this act is
acquired only in the realm of our personality. Following Stein, MacIntyre raises the
question as to what the difference is between the community sensation and the
feeling of the individual, if the community sensation is grounded on the personal
expressions. We can talk about both the joy and grief of the individual, but also
about the common understanding of feelings. ―The intentionality of the mental acts
and states of individuals can be directed towards common objects, objects of shared
feeling, objects of common understanding, objects of shared values. So individuals
may share grief or joy, may understand some task in which they are engaged with
others by exchanging views of that task from different standpoints, may use a
common idiom to describe and analyze what they are doing together, and may find it
worthwhile for the same reasons. But individuals can share in these ways without
considering a community. What then is specific to communal sharing?‖3
Stein finds a mutual transition between the perception of the cultural
objection, the communal appreciation of cultural phenomena and their individual
interpretation. The last chapter of her doctoral thesis will be elaborated in her
―Individual and Community‖ by her interpretation of the individual life in the
community. According to the communal life, mental life is already presupposed by
attitudes that hold for an objective fact. The apprehension of an objective phenomenon
is not possible without an ―act-realization‖, i. e. the mental connectivity of the
individuals. According to Zahavi, intersubjectivity is already present as
consubjectivity even prior to my concrete empathic encounter with another subject.4
This remark of Zahavi attests that the intersubjective life-perception occurs in a face-
to-face dimension between two individuals which is grounded on the historicity of
understanding, the basis of which is the act of empathy that is a fundamental act for
the community life. ―It is natural to conclude that a reflection on the intersubjective
1 Stein, Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, 140.

29
nature of tool-use, perception, and the historicity of understanding reveals that

intersubjectivity cannot be reduced to a thematic and concrete face-to-face encounter
between two individuals. In other words, there are modalities of intersubjectivity that
cannot be accounted for by means of a theory of empathy. However, as we have also
seen, some have sharpened this criticism and gone on to claim that empathy is, in fact,
derived form of intersubjectivity.‖1
Since the empathy is a derived form of intersubjectivity, Stein finds a
difficulty in Dilthey‘s approach to the cultural sciences taken as an approach to the
entirety of cultural sciences. The basic element of cultural sciences, according to
Dilthey, is the soul that absorbs the psychical effects of the outer world. If analytical
psychology is the foundation for the natural sciences, then there is a connection
between descriptive psychology and cultural sciences. The difference between the two
psychological sciences is merely methodological. According to Dilthey, there is a
circular reference between the psychical-emotional experiences and their mental forms
in the mind. Both the descriptive and the analytical psychology are grounded on
psycho-physical experiences, but, if the analytical psychology is looking for a relation
between the physical life and its real assumptions, then the descriptive psychology is
engaged in the typical elements of the soul‘s life.2 The first part of the Philosophy of
Psychology and the Humanities presents the phenomenological approaches of the
individual to the ontology of the mental and physical world. According to Stein‘s
thesis in her dissertation, there is a smooth transition from the feeling of physical
bodies to their constitution in various levels on the mind. ―There are essential
relationships among the value feeling and the feeling of the value of its reality and its
―I‖ depth.‖3 It is clear that the constitution of values depends on the constitution of the
individual and the psycho-physical empirical person, which is a more or less complete
realization of the mental one, but this does not solve the problem of difference
between cultural sciences and value ethics. Edith Stein‘s question to Dilthey is how
we can distinguish between rational lawfulness of the mind and the constitution of
values. Since the experience of values is realized in the empathic acts and the value of
personality is given by the acquisition of its type, there is also a value constitution of
the communal life by the individual. ―The communal intention, toward which the
intentions of the single members furnish contributions, rests upon the communal
content, which is constituted as a communal experience, corresponding to the value as
a communal object on the basis of the same individual data.‖4 The connection between
value ethics in the communal life and the constitution of the cultural life will be
investigated in the Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities. The two
components of the investigation, the sentient causality, on the one hand, and its mental
constitution, on the other hand, constitute the relationship between individual and
communal life. MacIntyre points out that Stein, in order to grasp the psychical acts of
1 Ibid., 167–168.
2 Cf. Wilhem Dilthey, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens. Erste
Hälfte: Abhandlungen zur Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften. Gesammelte Schriften
V. ed. Georg Misch, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924), 186, 194.
30
the individual, adopts from Dilthey the vocabulary of ‗life-feelings‘ and ‗life-power‘.
Life-power is at this point the name of an otherwise unknown cause, whose variation
produces variations in its effect. ―Life-power is not completely under the subject‘s
control. And so a consideration of life-power raises the question: how far is the life of
the psyche causally conditioned.‖1
The first part of the work, the ―Sentient Causality‖, shows us how the core of
the person is formed by the psychical affects and how the physical and the mental
experiences control this core. The mental world, which is the unity of living persons‘
value configurations, is an independent entity, which, however, consists of the actual
living personalities. ―Before anything else, if you want to understand in what sense you
can talk about the universe of sentient reality into which the lone psyche fits as a
member, you‘ve got to clarify a determinate form of living together of individual
persons.‖2 The community life and the consciousness of the community are not identical
with the life of the subject and at least the subject has a private life without a reflection
on the community. To speak of communal consciousness is to speak of the
consciousness of those individuals who are members of some community and who
constitute it by what they share.3 According to Edith Stein, I can have individual
experiences and communal experiences as well, which constitute the universal mental
life and the value system of the community. The individuals constitutively connect to the
community in the common experience, but this experience is different for each:
―Communal experiences, as we saw, are constituted by solitary experiences both as to
their content and as to their being experienced.‖4 Stein clearly distinguishes the
experiences of the individuals from the experiences of the communal life, and she claims
that we can distinguish between the act of the intersubjective world constitution and the
reflexion on the experience of the communal-cultural life. Zahavi interprets the act of the
community as a mental act, which makes impossible to realize the object of the act. ―In
sort, the basic idea is that we should avoid construing the mind as something visible to
only one person and invisible to everyone else. The mind is not something exclusively
inner, something cut off from the body and the surrounding world, as if psychological
phenomena would remain precisely the same even without bodily and linguistic
expression.‖5 The constitution of the intersubjective life is realized in the acts of the
empathy, in which every individual is developed during the empathic act. On the other
hand, there is the community as a super-individual which also has a personal life
different from my individuality and the individuality of others. My participation in the
life of the community is a very special kind of participation, which is coextensive with
the life of the community. ―Exchanges between individuals are effected for the most part
in ‗social acts‘ in which the one act is pointed at the Other, turned toward it. One is
speaking and the Other is understanding him. And it belongs to the sense of these acts
that the material content pronounced, and accordingly heard, is not only meant but also
imparted and received.‖6 Not only the primer social phenomena – like the everyday

31
interactions – constitute an ontology of the community life, but all scientific activities
are performed in this form. ―That which I contribute to it ‗on my own‘, achievements of
original thinking, arise on the basis of the already accumulated repertoire of thought that
take over; and for its part, it becomes the basis upon which others build further. And
with this mental doing of mine, I find myself inserted into a great network of motivation,
the knowledge-process of humanity.‖1 This remark of Edith Stein indicates a mutual
transition from the intended empathic act of the individual to its act of the community,
which is always intended at the mental phenomenon of the community. ―It‘s a
peculiarity of ‗social‘ acts (in the broadest sense) that they cultivate new objectivities:
relations between persons like friendship, enmity, companionship, authority, and the
like. And these exhibit both an individual and a typical side, just like the sources from
which they spring. These types, moreover, have an influence upon the behavior of the
individuals that enter into them, behavior that‘s motivated by the types in a typical way.
Indeed, the most general mode of social relationships of all – the mere being together of
persons – determines a modification of the total course of experience, as opposed to the
solitary life of the soul.‖2
Regardless of the involvement of the two types of acts in both the experience
of the Other and the experience of the community life, Stein made a sharp difference
between the individual experiences and that of the communities. While communal
experiences are not the sum of single experiences and single effects, but rather arise
from those as something new and unique beyond them,3 we can talk about the
different acts in the two kinds of experiences. Against Dilthey, who connects both the
individual life and the cultural life to the psychical acts and who explains the cultural
development by the spiritual effects on the individuals, that is, he does not make a real
difference between the experience of community and the experience of individual life,
Stein argues for social acts of communal life: ―These typical manners of behavior
aren‘t ‗masks‘ that the individual takes up and under which the individual conceals his
‗true face‘ (although that can be the case too). Rather, the individual renders himself in
the ‗social perspective‘ which is required by the ‗social slant‘ of the moment, and
which at each moment corresponds to one or another of his essential traits. For in
every single case, the typical behavior and the type itself receive their individual
imprint from the persons who enter into them.‖4 According to Stein, there is a smooth
transition from community life to individual life, but they are on the reflexive level.
The reflexion on the individual life is realized in empathic acts, and the community
life is apprehended in the social acts of friendship, hostility, companionship, etc. Edith
Stein considers the act of the empathy as a basic act of the community which grounds
the social elements of the community. The connection between empathy and social
act, according to Stein, is secured by the value constitution, which is realized by the
individual act of empathy whose meaning is achieved by the reflection on the
community life, and this way it turns beyond the individuals.
1 Ibid., 170.
2 Ibid., 292.
3 Ibid., 190.
4 Ibid., 293.
32
The Nihilist as a Not-Man.

An Analysis of Psychological Inhumanity*
Ştefan BOLEA
Faculty of Letters
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Keywords: E. M. Cioran, F. Nietzsche, Osamu Dazai, antihumanism, overman,

nihilism, literature, existentialism, philosophy
Abstract. A new philosophical and anyhropological-psychological concept is

needed for the alienated and radically different human being according to the nihilist
Romanian-French philosopher E.M. Cioran. This concept of the not-man describes a
post-anthropological subject, which is ―inhumanˮ from a psychological point of
view, emphasizing estrangement and otherness in the definition of humanity. I have
compared Cioran‘s provocative and unusual term with Nietzsche‘s analysis of the
overman – the difference between the two concepts proceeding from two conflicting
nihilist perspectives – and I also have identified the not-man in the novel of the
Japanese writer Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human.
E-mail: stefan.bolea@gmail.com
―I was man and I no longer am now…‖

(E.M. Cioran, The Twilight of Thoughts)
1. Cioran’s Not-Man
In his first Romanian book, On the Heights of Despair (1934), Emil Cioran
constructs, in his ambiguous and lyrical style, a definition of a new concept, the not-
man: ―There are among men some who are not far above plants or animals, and
therefore aspire to humanity. But those who know what it means to be Man long to
be anything but … If the difference between Man and animal lies in the fact that the
animal can only be an animal whereas man can also be not-man – that is, something
other than himself – then I am not-man.‖1
Cioran seems to be saying that there are undeveloped human beings, who
are not at the level of mankind. The pride of being human is a symptom of the lesser
men, who worship their deficit. Exaggerating, Cioran notes that these creatures are
*
This paper is a result of a doctoral research made possible by the financial support of the
Sectoral Operational Programme for Human Resources Development 2007–2013, co-
financed by the European Social Fund, under the project POSDRU/159/1.5/S/132400 -
―Young successful researchers – professional development in an international and
interdisciplinary environment‖.
1
E. M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair, trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1992), 68–69.
33
almost at the level of plants and animals. Those who know that Man is a dead end, a
being unable to evolve, despise the phenomenon of man. An important question
must be asked: if we renounced humanity, whereto would we head? Should we
become theocentric instead of anthropocentric? Or if the way towards divinity is
closed, should we go back to animality? We understand that the not-man is no
longer human. But how could one define it? From a psychological point of view, the
not-man is a stranger (alius), a spiritual mutation. For instance, the overman
transcended the human nature and occupied a new territory (as we shall see later,
Cioran claimed that the overman conquered the domain of deity). However, the not-
man went beyond humanity but found no such domain: that is why from the
perspective of mankind, the not-man is a subman, a being unable to find a proper
home and essence, a punishable psychological outsider.
In another Romanian book, The Twilight of Thoughts (1940), Cioran further
develops this definition of non-humanity: ―Cynics are no longer supermen or
submen, they are post-men. One begins to understand and even love them, when a
confession addressed to one or maybe to no one escapes from the pains of our
absence: I was man and I no longer am now…‖1 One can ask: what do we become
when we cease to be human? From a theological perspective we become demons,
from a mythological perspective, we become Titans, from a psychological
perspective we become psychopaths, from a philosophical perspective – nihilists.
These four metaphors can describe the psychological future of the human
race. The not-man is the other, the alterity of man. If God created the man in his own
image (Genesis 1.27), the not-man breaks from the pattern of the likeness: it is almost
as if he was created by an acosmic God who no longer exists. We must note the not-
man is not simply anti-human (a term we must use for the misanthropic anti-
humanism of Lautréamont, who hoped for the destruction of the human race: ―were
the earth covered in lice like grains of sand on the seashore, the human race would be
annihilated, stricken with terrible griefˮ2), he rather is in-human. It is more likely that
the not-man is the being of the future, who looks back at the history of mankind and
analyses it from a non-human perspective. If ―man will be erased like a face drawn in
sand at the edge of the sea‖3, the not-man will be its successor. If the over-man were
an alternate god, the not-man would be an alternate, estranged (alienus) man.
2. What Is Nihilism?
Perhaps a basic understanding of nihilism would be helpful for our task: ―Nihilism is
the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or
communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical
skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have
1
E.M. Cioran, Amurgul gîndurilor (Twilight of Thoughts) (Bucharest: Humanitas Publisher
House, 1996), 126, italics mine (my translation).
2
Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror & The Complete Works, trans. Alexis Lykiard
(Cambridge: Exact Change, 1998), 83.
3
Michel Foucault, The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London:
Routledge, 2005), 422.
34
no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.‖1 There are
at least two important traits of nihilism one can discern from Alan Pratt‘s definition:
the baselessness of values and the negativist ―appetite for destruction‖. Here is what
Friedrich Nietzsche, the first important theoretician of nihilism, said about values:
―What does nihilism mean? That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is
lacking; ‗why?‘ finds no answer ... Briefly: the categories ‗aim,‘ ‗unity,‘ ‗being‘
which we used to project some value into the world – we pull out again; so the world
looks valueless.‖2
We can easily understand Nietzsche‘s definition when we contextualize the
affirmation ―God is dead‖ with the attack against values of nihilism: God, the
highest value of ontology, theology and even history has disappeared (has
―devaluated itself‖) and cannot, as Jean-François Lyotard and other postmodern
thinkers have shown, serve as a source of legitimation. God, once the highest value,
is now valueless. Moreover, nihilism could very well be defined as a project of
destruction of society, as we learn from the novel which mentions for the first time
in the history of literature the term ―nihilist‖, Fathers and Sons (1862) by
Turghenev. Destruction, ―the clearing of the ground‖ becomes almost religious,
making up the meeting point between nihilism and anarchism:
―ʻNowadays the most useful thing of all is rejection—we reject.ʼ

ʻEverything?ʼ
ʻEverything.ʼ ...
ʻBut allow me,ʼ Nikolai Petrovich began. ʻYou reject everything, or, to put it more
precisely, you destroy everything ... But one must also build.ʼ
ʻThat‘s not for us to do ... First, the ground must be cleared.ʼ ―3
We will come back to nihilism understood as the being of destruction at the

end of the third chapter when we portray the overman as an active nihilist. For now
one can observe that nihilism has two distinct sides: ―A. Nihilism as a sign of
increased power of the spirit: as active nihilism. B. Nihilism as decline and recession
of the power of the spirit: as passive nihilism.‖4 Anticipating, we must say that
active nihilism is correspondent to Nietzsche‘s overman and that passive nihilism is
more likely to be applied to Cioran‘s not-man. Cioran‘s abhorrence of action places
the Romanian philosopher closer to Schopenhauer and Buddha, in a nostalgic and
melancholic territory where ambiguous nihilism seems to act against itself.
1
Alan Pratt, ―Nihilism‖, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-
0002, http://www.iep.utm.edu/, 01.08.2014.
2
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and
R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), 9–13.
3
Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, trans. and ed. Michael R. Katz (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1996), 38.
4
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 17.
35
3. Nietzsche‟s Overman
One can reconstruct the definition of the overman by taking into consideration three
fragments from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The first one: ―What is the ape to man? A
laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the
overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way
from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even
now, too, man is more ape than any ape.‖1
There is an evolutionist mystique in this text: the ape and the overman mark
the limits of human evolution. The ape, metaphor for an ignoble past, when the
animal soul was engaged in biological immediacy, is the human being fallen asleep.
The ape is the term which best expresses stagnation, the radiography of the minus
human being (―man is more ape than any ape‖). The man is the achievement of the
ape, an achievement so grand that makes the initial draft ridiculous. From an
opposite perspective, the ape is a warning and a reminder for man. The warning
says: ―You can go back to subhumanity‖. The reminder: ―Anything you do, the ape
mirrors you‖. One must observe that it is impossible to build a mythology without
constant reference to zoology.
Another relevant text for the configuration of the definition of the overman
follows: ―The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman
shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the
earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-
mixers are they, whether they know it or not.‖ (TSZ, p. 125) We have here the
second dimension of the overman: the faithfulness to earth and the understanding of
the fact that otherworldly hopes are poisonous. These hopes are counterproductive,
therefore infecting the will to power: while they create an imaginary world, they
curse this very world. ―To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful sin‖ (TSZ,
p. 125). The worshippers of God took refuge in a transcendent world, therefore they
neglect this world. Moreover they abandoned the existential idea of responsibility,
claiming that this life is only a prelude to future ―eternal‖ life. Now that ―God died‖
and his worshippers ―died with him‖ (TSZ, p. 125), the disciples of the overman can
make the point that we must be faithful to this immanent earth and to the ―here‖ and
―now‖ of the earthly existence.
Now we can describe the third dimension of the overman: ―Behold, I teach
you the overman: he is this sea; in him your great contempt can go under. What is
the greatest experience you can have? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour
in which your happiness, too, arouses your disgust and even your reason and your
virtue.‖ (TSZ, p. 125) Two things have defined so far Nietzsche‘s overman: his
ability to transcend the basic human being and his faithfulness to a sense of
immanency. Now, in the ―hour of the great contempt‖, the overman becomes an
active nihilist, renouncing happiness, reason and virtue. This active nihilism claims
that the avoidance of pain and the ―compulsive‖ pursuit of happiness is a symptom
of weakness: ―What matters my happiness? It is poverty and filth and wretched
1
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter
Kaufmann (New York: Viking Press, 1982), 124; hereafter abbreviated TSZ.
36
contentment. But my happiness ought to justify existence itself.‖ (TSZ, p. 125)

Something superior to the notion of happiness must serve as a fundamental drive.
This percept sounds strange to any reader of Nietzsche: what else if not happiness
may be our supreme motivation? Nietzsche‘s answer is straightforward: (the will to)
power is more fundamental and also has a higher finality than happiness.
To summarize, the overman may be defined through three terms: self-
overcoming (man is overman‘s ape), faithfulness to this world and existence (and
conversely the existential realization that otherworldly hopes are poisonous) and
active nihilism, as one can see from the destruction of the notion of happiness (―my
happiness … is poverty and filth‖). We can redefine the overman as an active
nihilist, who whishes to overcome humanity and forever renounces the Platonic and
Christian delusion of the ―other world‖. ―[Nihilism] reaches its maximum of relative
strength as a violent force of destruction – as active nihilism… Nihilism does not
only contemplate the ‗in vain!‘ nor is it merely the belief that everything deserves to
perish: one helps to destroy… It is the condition of strong spirits and wills, and these
do not find it possible to stop with the No of ‗judgment‘: their nature demands the
No of the deed.‖1
The active nihilist has a huge ―appetite for destruction‖, which brings him an
almost anarchistic trait of character: he no longer says No through judgment, he says
No through action. The nihilist becomes the being of destruction, annihilating
anything that ―deserves to perish‖. Here Nietzsche echoes Bakunin, who claimed
that ―the passion for destruction is a creative passion‖.2 However, one should
remember what the German philosopher has written elsewhere: ―Only as creators
can we destroy!‖3 Therefore, we can conclude that nihilism is pre-anti-nihilism for
Nietzsche, a propedeutics for the future destruction of nihilism itself.
4. Cioran Against the Overman

There are at least three arguments against the Nietzschean overman, according to
Cioran. First, the Romanian-French philosopher argues that Nietzsche ―demolished
so many idols only to replace them with others‖.4 In other words, Cioran claims that
the overman is a sort of God, an idol [idole, Götze] (a being at the level of gods, not
something that shares a common essence with man). There is a fragment in
Nietzsche, which supports the claim that the overman is an alternate God: ―Dead are
all gods: now we want the overman to live‖ (TSZ, p. 191). However, we must not
forget that the overman is ―faithful to the earth‖ and committed against the
poisonous Platonic other world, which means that the overman must be as immanent
as the existing real human being. So, is the overman God-like or rather man-like?
Probably both: the overman can be seen as a transgressor, as a being that creates
beyond itself, while remaining in the same time a creature that has more in common
1
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 17–18.
2
Sam Dolgoff, ed., Bakunin on Anarchy (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), 57.
3
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, ed. Bernard Williams, trans. Josefine Nauckhoff and
Adrain del Caro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 70.
4
E.M. Cioran, The Trouble of Being Born, trans. Richard Howard (Chicago: Quadrangle
Books, 1976), 85.
37
with the blood and entrails of this earth than with the fantastic and dreamy character
of divinity. Cioran claims that Nietzsche ―observed men only from a distance. Had
he come closer, he could have neither conceived nor promulgated the superman, that
preposterous, laughable, even grotesque chimera, a crochet which could occur only
to the mind without time to age, to know the long serene disgust of detachment‖.1
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Untitled 03 (from the series Anonymous)

50 cm x 50 cm, photograph, 2013
The Romanian-French writer criticizes Nietzsche‘s lack of psychological

insight, suggesting that the German philosopher would not have invented the notion
of overman had he really known the human nature. Nietzsche‘s so-called ―naïveté‖
springs – or so Cioran says – from his spiritual ―adolescence‖ and from his
1
E.M. Cioran, The Trouble of Being Born, 85.
38
enthusiastic attachment to mankind. Had he reached Cioran‘s age, Nietzsche would

have renounced his pseudo-humanism and his nihilism and would have become a
misanthropic skeptic. This is all really debatable and (of course) impossible to
prove. Perhaps the German writer, if he were spared his mental breakdown, would
have become more radical in his seniority and would have discovered a new fire in
him, similar to the counter-cultural poets Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski,
who kept their spirit young and were just as anxious and dissatisfied in their later
works as before. Perhaps Nietzsche would have written in his sixties a Counter-
history of Philosophy, after Ecce Homo and long before Michel Onfray. Perhaps he
would have written a novel in the spirit of Tolstoy‘s Resurrection, had he time to
age. So I am arguing against Cioran‘s belief that Nietzsche‘s rebellious spirit would
have fallen asleep while aging. The one who said not long before his mental collapse
―I am not a man, I am dynamite‖1 could have become in different conditions a
titanic activist and an even more important historical and political figure.
In an interview taken by George Carpat-Foche in 1992, Cioran brings yet
another argument against the overman: ―If we evoked the vices of animals, this only is
enough to be repelled. The vices of man are, however, incomparably worse. An
overman would have exceptional qualities, but also the disadvantages of those
qualities and those disadvantages would be horrendous, incomparably more awful
than the human ones.‖2 The argument of the Romanian born philosopher goes against
historical progress and evolution. To rephrase it in Nietzsche‘s terms from Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, a man is a work of art compared to an ape. However, he is also a devil
compared to the naive ape, asleep in the night of spirit. Had Cioran been in Adam‘s
shoes, he would have refused to touch the apple of knowledge and would have wished
to remain forever in the Garden of Eden. In this context, to use a Nietzschean insight,
to speak against the overman is to speak for the ape, to speak for both innocence and
bondage. We must be frank: the vices of the overman may be horrendous, what about
his virtues? From an aesthetical point of view the transgression toward overman is
justified because this new species of man would be able to transfigure the face of
Earth: ―man must become better and more evil‖ (TSZ, p. 331).
A third argument against the overman can be found in The Fall into Time
(1964): ―To believe it his responsibility to transcend his condition and tend toward
the superman is to forget that he has trouble enough sustaining himself as man, that
mainspring, to the maximum.‖3 Actually this argument is quite commonsensical and
could be rephrased in this way: When you try to overcome yourself, hoping to
achieve absolute excellence, be careful not to lose contact with the deep and basic
human energy, be careful not to become a subman. To put it otherwise, it is difficult
enough to be a human being; it is dangerous to wish to become something far
greater. When one ―becomes who he is‖ (to use a Nietzschean principle), he must be
careful to keep ―becoming‖ and ―being‖ in balance. As too much being produces
1
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce homo & The Antichrist, trans. Thomas Wayne (New York:
Algora, 2004), 90.
2
E.M. Cioran, Convorbiri cu Cioran (Conversations with Cioran) (Bucharest: Humanitas
Publisher House, 1993), 244.
3
E.M. Cioran, The Fall into Time, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Seaver Books, 1976), 183.
39
stagnation, too much becoming brings chaos. What is the danger? To fall and to
break, to become a ―man‖ who loses not only superhumanity but also humanity, to
become an ―essence‖ not only without becoming but without actual being. In other
words, the man who tended toward the overman but was defeated in his quest, losing
both humanity and desired excellence, might fall ―outside‖ the human species and
become a not-man.
Cioran therefore believes that the overman is a concept that fails in three
crucial points: he is an ―idol‖ replacing another one (God); he would be much
crueler and more vicious than man; moreover, when one tries to become an
overman, one could lose his very humanity. But what would Nietzsche have said
about Cioran‘s not-man? Nietzsche could have argued that if one does not transcend
the human race, one falls ―outside‖ it, ―disqualified as a human being‖1 and turning
into subman. From a Nietzschean perspective, the not-man is the last man (―The
earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small.
His race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle; the last man lives longest‖ [TSZ, p.
129]). Moreover, seen through Nietzsche‘s lenses, the not-man displays an attitude
characteristic to Cioran, i.e. passive nihilism: ―the weary nihilism that no longer
attacks; its most famous form, Buddhism; a passive nihilism, a sign of weakness.
The strength of the spirit may be worn out, exhausted, so that previous goals and
values have become incommensurate and no longer are believed‖.2
5. The Not-Man In Osamu Dazai‟s Novel No Longer Human

Dazai‘s novel begins with the description of three pictures of the main character of the
book, the one whom we call a not-man in all his rights. The first picture was taken when
he was a child. Although at first the boy seems a smiling regular ten year old, ―the more
carefully you examine the child‘s smiling face the more you feel an indescribable,
unspeakable horror creeping over you. You see that it is actually not a smiling face at all.
The boy has not a suggestion of a smile. Look at his tightly clenched fists if you want
proof. No human being can smile with his fists doubled like that. It is a monkey. A
grinning monkey-face.‖ (NLH, p. 14) We have two ideas here: man feels horror and
repugnance when he feels the proximity of the not-man. Moreover, for the ordinary
human perception, the not-man is a subman, an animal, a ―monkey‖ or a ―toad‖: ―That is
what I was – a toad. It was not a question of whether or not society tolerated me,
whether or not it ostracized me. I was an animal lower than a dog, lower than a cat. A
toad.‖ (NLH, p. 122) Perhaps what the Japanese writer seems to imply is that the not-
man (i.e. the alterity, the other of man) must be hunted like a witch or sacrificed like a
scapegoat. Like the Jews and the Gypsies in WW2, the not-man represents the projected
shadow of the empowered and dominant individuals and cultures. There are no human
rights for the not-man – like an alien, he is beyond protection.
Moving on to the second picture, taken while our character was a student,
we see now that ―he is ... extraordinarily handsome. But here again the face fails
1
Osamu Dazai, No Longer Human, trans. Donald Keene (New York: New Direction Books,
1973), 166–167; hereafter abbreviated NLH.
2
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, 18.
40
inexplicably to give the impression of belonging to a living human being ... In fact,
if you look carefully you will begin to feel that there is something strangely
unpleasant about this handsome young man.‖ (NLH, p. 15) The young man began to
adjust and tried to emulate the human being, hiding among enemies, in plain sight.
However, there still is a great discrepancy between persona and shadow (to use
Jungian terminology), or if you would like, between appearance and essence.
Although he developed a mechanism of survival through mimesis (thinking the
situation in Heideggerian terms, if one bowed to the they-self, this would take him
under its wings), there is something in his essence, in his very core (the alien soul)
that cannot ever emulate humans and begins to shatter once we take a closer look
(antimimesis). We can see the face of the stranger, of the outsider, of the not-man
passing like a dark cloud above our everyday blue sky.
We do not know when the third picture was taken but we can guess that it was
shot towards his death, when the mask of the character disappeared and when his
essence was truly revealed. For us ―humans‖, for the beings trapped in the comfortable
prison of the they-self, this picture is disturbing: ―The picture has a genuinely chilling,
foreboding quality, as if it caught him in the act of dying as he sat before the camera ...
the face is not merely devoid of expression, it fails even to leave a memory. It has no
individuality ... I think that even a death mask would hold more of an expression,
leave more of a memory. That effigy suggests nothing so much as a human body to
which a horse‘s head has been attached.‖ (NLH, pp. 16–17)
Until now we could only hint the not-man: now we almost have a working
definition. Firstly, the not-man is a living dead, a being for whom non-existence takes
precedence over existence, in other words a nihilist or a being who feels that ―the
living is only a form of what is dead‖1 and that being alive expresses death better than
death itself would. For the not-man seen as a nihilist who favours non-existence, the
wisdom of Silenus seems the absolute guide: ―The very best thing is utterly beyond
your reach not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best
thing for you is: to die soon.‖2 Why should one choose non-existence over existence?
Because the Buddhist-Schopenhauerian equation states: life = pain.
Secondly, the not-man ―has no individuality‖, it is impersonal. Is this
impersonality the one of death, the one of animality or the one that belongs to a
different species? Perhaps the not-man looks like a being that has ―zero‖ and
―otherness‖ tattooed across his self, bearing the seal of nothingness. We come back
to animality or better said to inhumanity: from the perspective of ―man‖, the not-
man cannot be more than a subman. But how can we catch the suggestion of a being
caught between animality, estrangement, death and nothingness? How do we see the
unseen? In my perspective, Dazai‘s not-man is beyond physical death (―even a death
mask would hold more of an expression …‖) and can be recaptured at the realm of
spiritual death. We can catch a glimpse of the not-man looking at the pictures of
great spirits after they have lost their spirit, looking at the last photos of Nietzsche or
1
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 110.
2
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy And Other Writings, ed. Raymond Geuss and
Ronald Speirs, trans. by Ronald Speirs, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 23.
41
Cioran. Following a familiar line of argument, one could say that insanity is more
terrifying than death because it kills us while we still are alive.
The main affect of the not-man is anthropophobia (i.e. fear of man): ―All I
feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one
who is entirely unlike the rest ... I had a mortal dread of human beings … It is true, I
suppose, that nobody finds it exactly pleasant to be criticized or shouted at, but I see
in the face of the human being raging at me a wild animal in its true colors, one
more horrible than any lion, crocodile or dragon ... I have always shook with fright
before human beings … I was frightened even by God. I could not believe in His
love, only in His punishment … The ‗world,‘ after all, was still a place of bottomless
horror.‖ (NLH, pp. 26, 28, 117, 133) The not-man feels like he is ―the only one …
entirely unlike the rest‖. There is no better description of the dissolution of the
pattern of likeness. The peculiar being born at the border of humanity would fear
both man and his God, whom are united through the discussed pattern. He is the
other, the one we must keep either at the door or in the cage.
This pathologic fear, this passive nihilism leads only to suicide or madness,
two versions of the same thing, death. ―I want to die. I want to die more than ever
before. There‘s no chance now of recovery ... I want to die. I must die. Living itself is
the source of sin‖ (NLH, pp. 163–164), writes Dazai‘s main character, accessing the
epistemology of the suicides, knowing what each of them knows in the enlightening
moment of transgression, that life is not only torment, horror and pain but also a
punishment and a disease. Dazai‘s not-man continues to reflect in an access of self-
consciousness uncharacteristic to committed psychopaths: ―I was no longer a criminal
– I was a lunatic. But no, I was definitely not mad. I have never been mad for even an
instant. They say, I know, that most lunatics claim the same thing. What it amounts to
is that people who get put into this asylum are crazy, and those who don‘t are normal
... And now I had become a madman. Even if released, I would be forever branded on
the forehead with the word ‗madman,‘ or perhaps, ‗reject.‘ Disqualified as a human
being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being.‖ (NLH, pp. 166–167)
We can almost say that asylums are the zoos where the human beings
imprison the ―others‖, the inhumane ones, the not-men or the submen. Seen from
this point of view, the ―human‖ is a dictatorship which always enslaves, imprisons
and destroys the exception. Who is to testify for the abuse against the ―other‖?
Probably suicides, madmen and strangers and outsiders, the so-called inferior
spiritual race, the ones who supported the genocide of dominant mankind. Cioran
and Dazai, their ideas and their characters, introduce a new concept (the one of
psychological inhumanity), which could make a career in anthropology, not only in
philosophy and psychology.
6. The Overman and the Not-Man Facing Authenticity and Death

One can minimally define authenticity as a test of our own individuality, as the
quality of being true to ourselves. Emerson‘s definition from Self-Reliance is one of
the best introductions in this domain: ―Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of
your own mind... No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad
are but names very transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my
42
constitution, the only wrong what is against it.‖1 In Emerson‘s vision authenticity
can be understood as a sort of autonomy (self-law in its etymological construction):
no one else has to govern us, to impose us a law ―foreign‖ to our nature. The
autonomy of individuality is almost anomic (―my law as opposed to the objective
law: my law transcends their law‖), and therefore, somehow a(nti)social (―I am my
own Master and not the they-self‖). Charles Guignon is one of the most interesting
theoreticians that observed this feature of authenticity: ―To be authentic is to be in
touch with something that is concealed to the people who accept the outlook of
society. At some level, to be authentic is already to be asocial. What is more, being
authentic involves having a personal ʻtakeʼ on reality that is ʻOtherʼ to the social, a
deeper reality that is masked by social customs.‖2 Moreover, the American
philosopher claimed that ―everyone is an artist, because each person creates his or
her own life, and each person has the ability to create it as a work of art.‖3
How can we consider the overman in the light of two of authenticity‘s
components, autonomy and self-creation? We keep in mind that we have defined the
overman as (1) a transcending individual, capable of overcoming the ―human being
fallen asleep‖, (2) a person with a sense of immanency, faithful to this very life and
world, (3) an active nihilist, who chooses (the will to) power instead of happiness,
reason and virtue. The overman is authentic because he has to create his own destiny
in pure immanence, in the absence of God, the former source of legitimation. He no
longer can take God as a model, in him ―existence precedes essence‖, as Jean-Paul
Sartre has put it. He is ―condemned to be free‖, he is forced to forge a new being,
which broke from the aforementioned pattern of likeness. Moreover, he is not only
being but also transgressive ―becoming‖: he must be of this world but also beyond
this existence, faithful to immanence and transcending humanity. How does an
overman look like? We are yet to find out.
If the overman were potentially authentic, would we rush to consider the
not-man inauthentic? The not-man was defined as an ―alternate man‖, a ―passive
nihilist‖, a ―subman‖. If the overman were the higher other of man, the not-man
would be the lower other or maybe the other‘s other, the radical alterity one also
fails to imagine. But perhaps it is fundamentally wrong to view the not-man through
the hermeneutical lenses of the overman. What does Cioran‘s affirmation stand for:
―I was man and I no longer am now‖? If we transcended humanity and became
overmen, absolute ―beings of destructions‖ and active nihilists, we would still have a
region for our transformation: we would become alternate gods, probably the human
beings of the future, the post-humans that combine technology and computer science
with basic human traits. But if we transgressed humanity and became not-men, there
would be no region for our development: we would be crucified in pure nothingness,
in the utter unnamable. We would become something else for which there is no
name, because the not-man is only an approximation. So, keeping this in mind, the
not-man is not inauthentic but the bearer of a strange dark authenticity: the overman
1
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays (New York: Dover Publications,
1993), 21–22.
2
Charles Guignon, On Being Authentic (London: Routledge, 2004), 40.
3
Ibid., 36.
43
is autonomous and gives his own ―sacred‖ law and so is the not-man, who gives
little regard to ―they-self‖ or ―persona‖, knowing that he is – not superior but –
completely different. If the overman were antisocial, the not-man would be asocial:
both are isolated and true to their anomic and abnormal ―nature‖.
When these two versions of (in)humanity are facing death, what do they
become? We ought to say that we are thinking of existential death, one which is
divorced from the vulgarities of the biological phenomenon. A certain human being
and even a certain God have to die in order for the overman to live. In other words,
the overman has to kill the humanity and even the potential divinity from himself, in
order to become himself. This death could be an existential condition for the beings
of the future post-history: they must go beyond themselves in order to become
alternate (high-tech or digital) gods. One must also view death as transformation, as
mythology and religion teach us: true life begins only after the first ―death‖. The
ones who fail to integrate the initiation of this first ―death‖ are doomed to a life of
ignorance and sleep. If the overman ―stepped upon death‖ and as an alternate god
enjoyed a sort of spiritual immortality, the not-man (in Dazai‘s version) would be
(spiritually) dead while still alive, he would be a living dead. For him, as we have
shown, ―being alive expresses death better than death itself would‖. If the overman
died as man in order to live completely as a post-human being, for the not-man death
would hold no surprise: he would be sworn to death in life, an existence dedicated to
paralyzing consciousness, to ―sickness unto death‖ and to the agony of passive
nihilism. The not-man cannot die anymore: he is condemned to (eternal) life because
his very existence symbolizes death. A similar life is virtual (immanent) damnation,
a condemnation to the inferno of ―here and now‖, the work of the last man or
Sisyphus: this is basically death in life. And while the not-man is doomed to this
dying existence, the overman is the inheritor of the life (―la Vita nuova‖ as Dante
has put it) which begins after the first ―death‖. One is created for a dead life, the
other is called for a deathless existence.
44
Testimony over Time

The Fascist Rebellion in Bucharest in Words and Pictures
(January 21–23, 1941)
Carmen ŢÂGŞOREAN,
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences
Keywords: WWII, Jewish, pogrom, testimony, anti-Semitism, photography, drama,

trauma, history of Romania, memory, Holocaust
Abstract: If until the outbreak of World War II the anti-Semitic manifestations were
generally limited to verbal abuse and in isolated acts of physical violence, the
alliance with Nazi Germany created the framework for the implementation of the
anti-Semitic policies. The pogroms in Romania described in various books were also
immortalized in photos. The photographs taken by the Jewish community reveal a
vivid picture of the atrocities committed. This study aims to present the human
losses, the moral and physical trauma, and also Jews‘ property devastation during
the fascist rebellion in Bucharest reflected in the scientific works and in photos.
E-mail: carmen.tagsorean@ubbcluj.ro
Preliminary Ideas
A fragment in Emil Dorian‘s personal diary describes the tense reality of the year
1938 when a major change was about to happen in the life of the Jewish
communities all across Europe: ―The stifling atmosphere of anticipation for events
and grave news was thickening like a dense smoke through which one cannot figure
out anything. It‘s got so far, that every piece of news seems possible. One cannot tell
fact from fiction anymore. Logic has disappeared in unfolding events. Hope
becomes insensitivity, and your Christian friend cannot comfort you anymore.‖ In
truth, facts are coming together in a catastrophic way: ―in Germany the fire hatred
continues, in Poland the anti-Semitic hatred gets the government‘s blessing, in
Austria the Jews are being exterminated, and in Hungary the Jewish project becomes
law which means starving the Jews based on arithmetic.‖1
The Holocaust marks a turning point not only in the history of Jewish
communities, but in European history as well. The Jewish communities of all
European countries during WWII went through ―a great tragedy, one of the greatest, if
not the greatest of the 20th century‖2, which marked ―a radical rupture not only in the
1
Emil Dorian, Jurnal din vremuri de prigoană (A diary in times of persecution) (Bucharest:
Hasefer, 1996), 38.
2
Aurel Vainer and Dorel Dorian, eds., Holocaust 1940–1945. Suferinţe, compasiune,
solidaritate (Holocaust 1940–1945. Suffering, compassion, solidarity) (Bucharest: Scrib,
2009), 79.
45
Jews‘ history, but also in the European history of civilization, in general. All spheres
of human creativity had to be redefined, taking into consideration, more or less
knowingly, the impact of this phenomenon on the mentality and life of the Western
world.‖1 For the Romanian Jews, it was also a century of extreme demographic
changes, this community facing a population increase towards the end of the 19th
century and the beginning of the 20th, but the Holocaust first and the territorial losses
later, led to a dramatic decrease in population in a very short period of time. This
demographic fluctuation, but also the historic events changed forever the relationship
of this minority with the Romanian state and the Romanian people as well as ―the
general image of the Jewish ethnicity in Romania. Not only the demographic trend
underwent new stages and developments, unknown till then, but even in its essence,
this category of population transformed itself profoundly, modifying its principal
coordinates of existence, valid for this territory along history.‖2
One of the great injustices the Jewish population was exposed to during
WWII was a total lack of help from the allied countries, which, in spite of the Jewish
support for the cause, simply left this community at the mercy of the German Nazi
aggression: ―The European Jewish world had no allies. At the trying time, Judaism
was alone, and when its leaders from around the world realized that, they went into
shock.‖3 An ally of Germany in the first stage of the war, Romania was no exception,
despite the fact that her material resources, geographic position and, very importantly,
Hitler‘s respect for Gen. Ion Antonescu, could have taken a different position. The
alliance with Nazi Germany was a move that justified Romania‘s desire to retrieve her
lost territories (North Bucovina, Bessarabia, Transylvania, South Dobrogea), but also
Gen. Ion Antonescu‘s belief that communist Russia was a real threat to our state
security.4 An ample anti-Semitic propaganda and manipulation campaign took place in
the army to depict the Jews as responsible for ―the mistreatment, and even the death of
some Romanian soldiers during the retreat of 1940‖.5 Just like in other stages of
history, the Jews were used as scapegoats this time around again. For authorities it was
the easiest way because prejudice and stereotypes were widespread and very common
in the ―collective subconscious‖. The defeat in the battlefield of WWI found a perfect
explanation in the character ―slated‖ for the Jews: fear, cowardice, lack of patriotism,
treason, espionage. All these stereotypes would be used in the anti-Semitic campaign
in preparation for the Pogrom of Iaşi. A serious matter was that this kind of attitude
was not only adopted by the army, but also condoned with internal memos that the
Jewish soldiers should be carefully watched as potential traitors ―all being inclined to
1
Sandu Frunză, Dumnezeu şi Holocaustul la Elie Wiesel. O etică a responsabilităţii (God
and the Holocaust at Elie Wiesel. An ethics of responsibility) (Bucharest: Contemporanul,
2010), 43.
2
Silviu Costache, Evreii din România. Studiu de geografie umană (Jews in Romania. A
study in human geography) (Bucharest: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2004), 109–111.
3
Raul Hilberg, Exterminarea evreilor din Europa (The extermination of Jews in Europe)
vol. 2 (Bucharest: Hasefer, 1997), 165.
4
Tom Gallagher, Furtul unei naţiuni. România de la comunism încoace (The stealing of a
nation. Romania after communism) (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2004), 53.
5
Elena Chiriţă, Holocaust. Destine la răscruce (Holocaust. Fates at the crossroad)
(Bucharest: Editura Universitară, 2013), 190.
46
espionage and treason‖. There were secret orders to position the machineguns as to
open fire on the Jews in case they were about to flee to the enemy.1 Under these
conditions, the Jews had no chance of acceptance into the Romanian society, except
for freedom of religion.
Romania had become a satellite state of Germany, opportunistic, and the
destiny of her Jewish population depended entirely on the participation to the war.
As a result, Romania was obligated to respond to the Nazi murderous policy towards
the Jews in the same way as Germany. This opportunistic attitude can also be found
in the behavior of the general population on this issue: ―In their attitude towards
Jews, Romanians showed the same opportunistic ambiguity.‖2 With political
pragmatism set aside, the tragic events that took place between 1940 and 1944 were
a dark page in our national history. The Jews of Romania were subjected to the same
inhuman treatment as in the rest of Europe, only the methods of torture were
different: ―The Holocaust in Romania was different in terms of development and the
number of victims, compared to other countries where it was run by the Germans
themselves and took the ugliest forms possible (Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary,
Germany). The massacre in Romania lacked scientific organization and
extermination technology, like gas chambers and crematoria to get rid of the
corpses. People were either beaten to death or suffocated in train cars whose vents
were deliberately closed. In some cases, they were selected at random from a
marching column on the way to a concentration camp and executed for their clothes
to be sold to the highest bidder.‖3
Without denying political responsibility, some voices consider that ―there is
no collective guilt or innocence, and, even if there were, nobody could be guilty or
innocent‖, as governments and countries take upon themselves the moral
responsibility for ―their good deeds or evil actions.‖4 One of the representative
personalities of the Jewish community in Romania, Elie Wiesel, says that the past
has to be a lesson of life that allows us not to repeat the mistakes, while memory
may be the foundation that a new conscience can be built on. It would not have the
wit to give us all the answers, but, combined with responsibility, it is ―an important
part for what we agree to be a common future.‖5 To keep this memory alive, it is
necessary ―to find some decisive answers for the understanding of the human being
and Western civilization, but, at the same time, it means raising an incomparably
bigger number of questions that may not find an answer.‖6
1
Andrei Oişteanu, Imaginea evreului în cultura română. Studiu de imagologie în context est-
central-european (The image of the Jews in Romanian culture. A study in imagology in a
Central and Eastern European context), 3rd ed. (Iaşi: Polirom, 2012), 306–7.
2
Hilberg, Exterminarea evreilor din Europa, vol. I, 655–68.
3
Matatias Carp, Holocaust in Rumania. Facts and documents on the annihilation of
Rumania‘s Jews. 1940–44 (Budapest: Primor Publishing Co., 1994), 27.
4
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann în Ierusalim. Un raport asupra banalităţii răului (Eichmann in
Jerusalem. Report on the banality of evil) (Bucharest: Editura All, 1997), 323–4.
5
Frunză, Dumnezeu şi Holocaustul la Elie Wiesel, 141.
6
Ibid., 59.
47
The Holocaust in Romania had some specifics, ridden with ―contradictions

and paradoxes‖. The victims of the rebellion in Bucharest were few, compared to the
pogroms during the war. Just like in neighbouring countries, Hungary and Bulgaria,
the Jews were living in territories claimed by other countries (Bessarabia, North
Bucovina, Transylvania). Compared to other European countries, where there was
no communication between the Jewish community leaders and the state, in Romania
―the lines of communication remained open and these leaders, in person or through
petitions, were in permanent contact with authorities.‖1 In the early 40‘s, there were
two Jewish organizations in Romania: The Union of the Romanian Jews (led by
Wilhelm Filderman) and The Jewish Party (led by Theodor Fisher).2 Once the war
broke out, and the anti-Semitic laws got stiffer, the role of the two organizations
became essential for the defence and safety of the community. 3 The Federation of
the Union of Jewish Communities (FUJC) was in charge for the communication
between Jews and the state. As long as at the helm of FUJC was Wilhelm Filderman,
the totalitarian state had no leverage and no means of propaganda inside this union.
In order to gain full control over it, on 16 December 1941, FUJC was declared
illegal by decree.4 Between 1940–1944, ―the Romanian authorities negotiated with
Wilhelm Filderman, then with Gingold, and finally, again with Filderman, based on
the success or defeat of the German army on the battlefield.‖5 The disappearance of
FUJC did not bring Filderman‘s activity to a halt, who, in spite of the imposed
limitations, ―remained the principal representative of the Romanian Jewish
community.‖6 The dissolution of FUJC was a result of an initiative signed by Radu
Lecca and the pressure of an SS counsellor, Richter. Marshall Ion Antonescu signed
the decree, but he also created the Jewish Council.7 The historian Shimon
Schafermann analyzed psychologically Ion Antonescu‘s reactions to pressure and
influence and concluded that his hesitation and some other times his harshness in
dealing with the Jewish community came from his relationship with Nazi Germany,
as this was going up and down all the time. Ion Antonescu was trying hard to keep
some independence from Berlin, but, at the same time, stay the course of anti-
Semitism without hurting too bad the feelings of his former high school classmate,
Wilhelm Filderman to whom he was doing favours because he respected him for his
intelligence in his defence for his people. Against all odds, Ion Antonescu managed
to maintain a balancing act, fulfilling his obligations toward Hitler, but also
understanding the hard times the Jewish community had fallen into. Wilhelm
1
Radu Ioanid, Evreii sub regimul Antonescu (Jews under the Antonescu regime) (Bucharest:
Editura Hasefer, 1997), 399.
2
Ibid., 9.
3
Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid and Mihail E. Ionescu, eds., Raport final (Final report) (Iaşi:
Polirom, 2005), 226.
4
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, Războiul împotriva evreilor. 1933–1945 (The war against the Jews)
(Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1999), 349.
5
Hilberg, Exterminarea evreilor, 674.
6
Friling and Ioanid and Ionescu, Raport final, 218.
7
Hilberg, Exterminarea evreilor, 689–90.
48
Filderman knew that Ion Antonescu had the pride and ambition ―to solve the Jewish
problem on his own and not led by others‖.1
Romania was at the time a sovereign state that today bears the entire
responsibility for the actions that targeted the Jews. ―Secondly, the assassination of
Jews under Romanian administration was not only the result of planned
extermination, but also the result of mass-deportation.‖2
As far as Ion Antonescu‘s personal policy toward the Jews is concerned, it
can be judged as different from Europe‘s, unfolding over two periods: 1941–1942
(the elimination of the Jewish population from Bessarabia and Bucovina, with
survivors deported to Transnistria), and 1943–1944 (a fairer treatment for the Jews
of the Old Kingdom and their unofficial help to emigrate to Palestine). One of Ion
Antonescu‘s statements during his postwar trial, partially true, reads: ―If the Jews
are alive in the Old Kingdom today, it‘s because of Antonescu‖. It is true that those
who managed to survive the assassinations, purges, and random violence at the
hands of murderous legionnaires did so because Ion Antonescu called it off. On the
other hand, Ion Antonescu is responsible for the death of the Jews from Bessarabia
and Bucovina, and their deportation to Transnistria: ―The Jews of Romania owe both
their life and death to Antonescu.‖3 The change of attitude between 1943 and 1944
can be justified by the same opportunism that had made Ion Antonescu sign an
alliance with Hitler. An excellent strategist, Ion Antonescu anticipated the fate of the
war and he was trying to secure his place at the negotiation table. His bargaining
chips were again the Jews. The second explanation may be that of rampant
corruption in the Romanian society. In Andrei Şiperco‘s opinion, there was also a
third explanation: ―the true humanitarian feelings typical to the Romanian nation
even in the murky time of war.‖4 In our opinion, this can be partly true if we
consider the events in and around Bucharest, where violence against Jews was not as
common as in other areas of the country.
The Romanian anti-Semitic governance had begun in 1867 and covered half
a century, a period in which 196 anti-Semitic laws were passed, denying the Jewish
population‘s basic civil liberties.5 Gen. Ion Antonescu, a lawful man, but also his
ruling body, were this way able to justify their actions and find moral comfort at the
same time. The legislation during WWII created the legal basis that made possible
deportation, eviction, expulsion, and internment of Jews in ghettos. It was according
1
Teşu Solomovici, România Judaica. O istorie neconvenţională a evreilor din România.
2.000 de ani de existenţă continuă (Judaic Romania. An unconventional history of the Jews
in Romania. 2000 years of continuous existence) (Bucharest: Editura TEŞU, 2001), 434–5.
2
Dennis Deletant, Transnistria: Câteva consideraţii despre semnificaţia acesteia pentru
Holocaustul din România, in Viorel Achim, Constantin Iordachi, coords., România şi
Transnistria: Problema Holocaustului. Perspective istorice şi comparative (Bucharest:
Curtea Veche, 2004), 162.
3
Ioanid, Evreii sub regimul Antonescu, 373.
4
Andrei Şiperco, Ecouri dintr-o epocă tulbure. Documente elveţiene 1940–1944 (Bucharest:
Editura Hasefer, 1998), 15.
5
Carp, Holocaust in Rumania, 122–3.
49
to this legislation that the entire population of Bessarabia and the majority of
Bucovina were deported.1
Limiting political, civil and economic rights of the Jews was not new to this
part of the world. It had begun before WWI and culminated with the anti-Semitic
legislation passed by the Octavian Goga and Alexandru Cuza government (28
December 1937-February 10, 1938).2 All governments between world wars
supported and implemented anti-Jewish legislation and decrees, and ―whatever the
Goga government had left unfinished was picked up by the Gigurtu administration‖,
namely Decree 2650/1940, stipulating that ―Romania belongs to Romanians‖ and
―defending the blood is the moral basis for the recognition of the supreme political
rights‖.3 Legislation passed over a few years was in fact a real program to reorganize
the Romanian society so that the Jews would be not only pushed out of political,
social and economic activities, but also ―hurt in their civic and human dignity‖.4
Between the two world wars the national minorities (Jews and Hungarians) were
perceived as enemies, so branded even by influential political leaders.5
The next fateful moment for the Romanian Jews was the nomination of Ion
Antonescu as head of government, nicknamed ―The Leader‖ on September 4, 1940.6
1940.6 There was only one more step to take over the entire country and on
September 14, 1940 King Mihai signed the decree by which Romania became ―a
national Legionnaire state‖, run by Gen. Ion Antonescu and the Legion Movement
was the only legally recognized political force in Romania. 7 Under these terms, the
Constitution and all legislation had to be adapted to the new political reality.8 This
absolute power in the hands of a single person meant the concentration of both the
legislative and executive powers into one. Starting with 1940, Ion Antonescu passed
anti-Semitic legislation that according to Hannah Arendt was ―the harshest in
Europe even compared to Germany‘s.‖9 In contrast to the religious anti-Semitism of
the legionnaires, Ion Antonescu‘s anti-Semitism was based on political, economic,
and social reasons. In case the legionnaires were in power for the long run, this
legislation could have been stiffened, applying the German model.10 Ion
1
2
Iaacov Geller, Rezistenţa spirituală a evreilor români în timpul Holocaustului (1940–
1944). Viaţa economică, educaţia şi cultura, asistenţa socială, religia, rabinatul, salvarea
refugiaţilor şi emigrarea în Israel (The spiritual resistance of Romanian Jews during the
Holocaust (1940–1944). Economic life, education and culture, social services, religion, the
Rabbinate, saving the refugees, emigration to Israel) (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 2004), 11.
3
Solomovici, România Judaica, 347.
4
Lya Benjamin, ed. and Sergiu Stanciu, coord., Evreii din România între anii 1940–1944.
(The Jews in Romania between 1940 and 1944), Vol. 1, Legislaţia antievreiască (Anti-
Judaic legislation) (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1993), XX.
5
Daniel Hrenciuc, Dilemele convieţuirii: Evreii din Bucovina (1774–1939) (Dilemmas of
cohabitation: Jews in Bucovina) (Iaşi: Editura Tipo Moldova, 2010), 8.
6
Geller, Rezistenţa spirituală, 11.
7
Benjamin and Stanciu, Evreii din România..., 61.
8
Ibid., 11.
9
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann în Ierusalim. Un raport asupra banalităţii răului 208.
10
50
Antonescu‘s policy regarding the Jews depended on the geographical area where the
Jews lived, in some distant provinces or in Romania proper (called The Old
Kingdom). His policy was strategic. He admitted that some categories of Jews had
contributed to the country‘s development and emancipation. He really saw ―their
usefulness for the Romanian state‖, especially in the army. We dare say that Ion
Antonescu‘s anti-Semitism was not extremist.1 It is true that Ion Antonescu installed
installed a military dictatorship because under his command the country had to be
prepared for the oncoming war with Russia and reunification with Bessarabia and
Bucovina, lost earlier through Russian ultimatum. He was a soldier. His anti-Semitic
stand meant to play along with Hitler the fanatical legionnaires ―whom he actually
despised. This was a big chance for the Jews!‖2 His anti-Semitic position had its
roots in the nationalist doctrine peddled in the media by journalists, writers and
intelligentsia. It took 10 years (1930–1940) to sell to the masses this new ideology,
based on hatred and discrimination, rather than peace and understanding. The idea of
an ethnically pure state penetrated all levels of communication, and to make matters
worse, even education, which, as we know, starts in the family and continues in
school. The ideas of purity, ―the nostalgia of essence‖, ―the quest for perfection‖,
―aspiration for purity‖ were some of the catchwords widely publicized by the
propaganda machinery set into motion for political gain.3
The anti-Semitic legislation and measures came in 3 categories: 1. Purges
(the expulsion of Jews from official positions or state jobs, school and college
students from the education system in an attempt to ―Romanize‖ it) 2. Confiscation
(of property both commercial or housing, the annulment of business licenses and
driving permits) 3. New taxation laws on this ethnicity (plus forced labour for
community benefit, and mandatory contribution with goods, like clothing, etc.).4
The worst year for the persecution of Jews was 1941, when anti-Semitism
broke out into all aspects of daily life: economic, judicial, social, moral, religious.
Moreover, in some areas like Dorohoi or Iaşi, random killings, pogroms and
deportation peaked. In spite of all these, half the Jewish population managed to
survive.5 The legionnaires‘ rampage engulfed the entire country and targeted not
only the Jews.6 These acts of vandalism and violence were tolerated by Ion
Antonescu from the fall of 1940 till January 1941, when his political cooperation
with the Legion was about to end. According to Marius Mircu, Ion Antonescu‘s
desire to remove the Legion from the government was necessary because they
wanted to overthrow the government and run the country by themselves: ―When
1
Friling, Ioanid and Ionescu, Raport final, 115–6.
2
Solomovici, România Judaica, 354–5.
3
Victor Neumann, Istoria evreilor din România. Studii documentare şi teoretice (The history
of Jews in Romania. Documentary and theoretic studies) (Timişoara: Editura Amarcord,
1996), 212–3.
4
Arendt, Eichmann în Ierusalim, 351–2.
5
Lya Benjamin, Dumitru Hîncu, Harry Kuller, Ioan Şerbănescu, eds., 1941. Dureroasa
fracturare a unei lungi convieţuiri (1941. The painful fracture of a long cohabitation)
(Bucharest: CSLER, 2001), 7.
6
Marius Mircu, M-am născut reporter! (I was born a reporter!) (Bucharest: Editura Cartea
Românească, 1981), 386.
51
Antonescu realized that the legionnaires pushed beyond the limits of anti-Semitism
and now they were attacking the Romanian commerce and industry, hinting directly
at the exclusive power in the state, he decided that time had come to take action
against them.1 This point of view is shared also by the central press that says, ―their
thought and purpose were to get their hands on the entire power‖. Two newspapers,
Acţiunea (The Action) and Universul (The Universe), ran 3 copies of documents that
back up this theory: the establishment of the legionnaire police, the transfer of arms
from the Ministry of Interior to the Legion, and the letter by Ion Zelea Codreanu that
read: ―I‘m so much against these phony legionnaires like Horia Sima‖.2 Ion
Antonescu‘s first measure to anger the legionnaires was the elimination of the
position of ―Romanization Commissar‖ from the administration. Their immediate
reaction was to ask for his resignation. Events are precipitating with the
assassination of German Major Döring, the dismissal of the minister of interior Gen.
C. Petrovicescu and the chief of police, Al. Ghica. As expected, the legionnaires
reacted violently. They holed up in a few official buildings: State Security,
Prefecture, their own, Iron Guard, Public Guards Patrol Barracks and on the evening
of Jan. 21, 1941, the rebellion began in full swing.3 Marius Mircu considers the
assassination of the German Major Döring ―a «fortunate» event‖ that served Gen.
Ion Antonescu a good reason to dismiss two important leaders, ―the chief of state
security and the chief of police, who were main public figures supporting the
legionnaires, even providing them with guns.‖4 With the rebellion underway, the
rebels also took over the official radio station and printing houses so that the
general‘s appeals to public order never reached the public.5
It has been repeated over and over that the difficulty of getting the truth
about the Holocaust was because it was too complex an event. For John K. Roth the
difficulty lies in the ―inability of words‖ to describe in comprehensive images the
psychological trauma, the despicable scenes of random violence, and the humiliation
of fellow man by man that the Jews had to go through. The idea is completed by Elie
Wiesel who says that ―the human mind cannot fathom and fit that kind of reality into
a rational, explanatory, and coherent system‖.6 The many books written on the topic
by historians offer detailed accounts of the horrific events, marked by torture,
pillage, looting, arson, beatings, and humiliation. To complete the picture, there are
personal memoires and diaries, very accurate and emotional, written by the lucky
ones, the victims who lived to talk about this human tragedy. These are personal
experiences that flash events and emotions of those who lived them – a year in a
1
Ibid., 385.
2
―Rebeliunea a fost premeditată şi pregătită demult‖ (―The rebellion has long been
premeditated and prepared‖) Acţiunea 124 (1941): 3; ―Rebeliunea a fost premeditată şi
pregătită de mult‖, Timpul 1345 (1941): 1.
3
Ioanid, Evreii sub regimul Antonescu, 73–4.
4
Mircu, M-am născut reporter!, 380.
5
Jean Ancel, Contribuţii la istoria României. Problema evreiască, (Contributions to the
history of Romania. The Jewish problem) vol. I, 1933–1944 (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer,
2003), 407.
6
Frunză, Dumnezeu şi Holocaustul la Elie Wiesel, 45.
52
blink and a blink in a year. Back to back, these events seem surreal. Life lived in
daily routine pulverized by the outbreak of a pogrom followed by deportation to
concentration camps. Terrifying moments that look impossible for a contemporary
world. But it was real. It actually happened. Where the words become unreliable or
unable to resonate, the still photograph comes in to drive the message home. ―A
picture is worth a thousand words‘ – the saying goes. But how about a picture that is
worth an entire book? Because that‘s what comes to mind when you see
smouldering ruins that a day before was a suburban grocery store or a clearing in the
woods of Jilava full of corpses strewn about the place? We live in an era
oversaturated with information which allows us little time to read ample studies in a
society driven by images. If we talk about the ―Facebook‖ generation, the
fascination with images that capture their attention is overwhelming. Regardless of
the language they speak or their education level, a picture‘s message is understood
by everybody. Moreover, technology of today allows its users to share instantly
information and images with peers wherever they may live on the planet. In the
same way, even those who are not keen on history, may find useful to know that
there was a Holocaust in Romania, and sooner or later will take an interest in the
details of this moment in the troubled times Romania went through in those years.
The black and white pictures, original and uncensored, possibly more expressive
than colour pictures, are vivid proof that, at times, life may come down to this kind
of event. Without any words, the faces or the bodies of those people relay their pain
and bewilderment at what happened to them, and even some sort of resignation to it.
The pictures that show burned synagogues, ransacked homes and looted stores with
broken windows and doors, deliver a powerful message that cannot be denied. The
visual impact delivers the message loud and clear that atrocities were committed
there, an impact more powerful than any words. If in the case of a written account
the reader may think that the facts are exaggerated, the pictures leave no room for
doubt because the picture ―speaks‖ by itself. Set these pictures side by side in a slide
show and we get the terrifying film of an entire tragedy. The rebellion of Bucharest
was captured in many pictures, both official and private, and the way they were
taken also reveals the attitude of the photographer towards the events. In official
photographs one can see that the man behind the camera took the pictures in such a
way as not to harm the prestige of the totalitarian regime. The violence and
devastation against the Jews are not to be found in this category. The relevant
pictures for our study can be found in the unofficial gallery where reality prevailed
and nobody tried to fix them.
Picture is a modern means of manipulation of the public opinion. Success in
manipulation depends on the ability of the man behind the camera to impress his
target-public with pictures that relay powerful emotions like: fear, terror, and panic
because the impact triggers the attention of one of the principal senses – the eye.
Focusing puts the viewer right into the situation making him identify with the subjects.
There are numerous pictures with the devastation of Dudeşti and Văcăreşti
suburbs (burned synagogues, private stores and property) or the killings in Jilava
Woods. Matatias Carp was one of those who knew history had to be recorded and
did just that between 21–23 of January, 1941. So did F. Brunea-Fox and Marius
Mircu who published the pictures of the Romanian Holocaust. Worldwide, the
53
Holocaust is the subject of over 20 million pictures, making it one of the best
documented events ever.1 In spite of all this, in different books we see only the same
pictures. Modern technology allows us to process them digitally and soon we will
have unlimited and free access to all of these documents of historic importance.
The present study intends to show only specific aspects of the atrocities
committed during the fascist rebellion of Bucharest, namely those in the
photographs made by eyewitnesses. The study also presents briefly the historic
context, but does not insist on the forces that generated the event and what this
represented in terms of number of victims and who was responsible. Those are
complex issues and will be debated in other ample studies.
The Rebellion in Bucharest

Bucharest was an exception in terms of the Jewish community due to the large
concentration of prominent personalities who were part of the Romanian cultural
elite (writers, journalists, actors, etc.), and also professional associations (bankers,
lawyers, medical doctors, etc.) Fully aware that culture played a major role in the
life of a society and was appreciated properly, these important people who had been
excluded from public life by anti-Semitic laws, joined the new legal formations: The
Community and The Jewish Central. This concentration of forces allowed some
normalcy in carrying out life on an everyday basis, cultural and spiritual, and also
some organized resistance to purges, discrimination, and persecution.2 The Pogrom
of Bucharest was illustrated in the works of quite a few Jewish intellectuals like
Mihail Sebastian, F. Brunea-Fox, Emil Dorian, Matatias Carp, Alexandru Şafran,
Marius Mircu, who lived through the terror of those days and witnessed firsthand the
violence and devastation of the legionnaires. For F. Brunea-Fox, Matatias Carp and
Marius Mircu these moments were forever engraved in their memory because they
saw the terrifying events unfolding with their own eyes, whether those were the
massacre in the Jilava Woods, at the Bucharest slaughterhouse, or on the streets of
the capital city. For example, F. Brunea-Box, a master of words with great impact,
describes what he saw at the slaughterhouse: ―The Jews, picked up in the middle of
the night in their homes, dragged there and slaughtered like animals. The long knife
like a sword that used to give me the chills in the past, sharp like a razor blade, slits
the throat in a blink of an eye‖. The victims lifted up and hanged in the hooks ―to
drip‖.3 There are two clues to show that the victims at the slaughterhouse were
executed: entry bullet wounds at the head and neck and the fact that all victims‘
hands were tied behind their back.4 To add insult to injury, the ―butchers‖ tagged
1
Marianne Hirsch, The Surving Images: Holocaust Photographs and the Work of Post
Modernity, http://www.fsf.ane.ru/attachments/article/157/mar%20f.pdf (accessed September
24, 2014).
2
Friling, Ioanid and Ionescu, Raport final, 225.
3
F. Brunea-Fox, Oraşul măcelului. Jurnalul rebeliunei şi al crimelor legionare (The city of
slaughter. The Diary of the legionnaires‘ rebellion and crimes) (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer,
1997), 78.
4
Matatias Carp, Cartea neagră. Fapte şi documente. Suferinţele evreilor din România 1940–
1944. vol. 1. Legionarii şi rebeliunea (Bucharest: Atelierele Grafice SOCEC&Co., S.A.R,
1946), 231.
54
their victims with the message ―Kosher meat‖.1 An act of humiliation that was not
strange to the Jews who seemed to have gotten used to or so thought their
tormentors. These thought that the weak resistance the Jews put up in the mayhem
was a sign of cowardice or guilt. This misinterpretation reveals a lack of judgment
and a criminal drive to hurt people. The pictures taken there do not show what
happened during the events, but show the shocking consequences that need no
explaining. Words just can‘t do it. Reading the expressions on those faces who in the
last moments of their lives cried out a booming ―Why?‖ will be heard over centuries.
Nowadays people are exposed to a fabricated violence of ―make believe‖ (in
movies, mass-media, or electronic games) that is simply unimpressive, but a still
picture in black and white showing a mass murder, irrational and aimless sends
shockwaves through the universal conscience.
The Rebellion of Bucharest took place between January 21–23, 1941, in 3
areas: Jilava Woods, Bucharest Slaughterhouse, and residential areas2, and had two
components: one against the Romanian state authority and one against the Jews with
the help of local ―hooligans‖3, who, ―animated by a zest for destruction [...] set on
fire entire residential blocks in Bucharest (Dudeşti, Văcăreşti), kill hundreds of
people at the slaughterhouse, in the adjacent woods, in the street and in homes.‖4
The legionnaires proved themselves very ingenious when it came to methods of
torture, not common to all of them, except for their pleasure to inflict pain and death
to their victims.5 Mihail Sebastian is bewildered by the people‘s violent behaviour:
―What really makes you freeze, especially in the mass carnage in Bucharest, is the
absolute beastly ferocity of how things were carried out. This comes out even in the
neutral official communiqué [...] But what is told by the word of mouth is a lot more
frightening than the official press release.‖6 The victims were forced to drink a mix
of salt, petrol, gasoline, and vinegar and then denied access to the bathrooms. During
the so-called investigations (with no official charges as these were innocent people
rounded up from their homes) they were stripped naked and beaten to a pulp. The
children were tortured in front of their parents. ―The lucky ones‖ – those who made
it out alive – were released after two days only with their shirts on, barefoot, through
the snow to go to their homes that were devastated and burned.7 On January 21,
1941, 200 Jews were brought to the legionnaires‘ centre on Călăraşi Avenue where
all their belongings were confiscated and they were forced to march up and down
the stairway between the cellar and the attic ―under a rain of strikes, as on every step
there was a legionnaire with a whip or an iron rod.‖ Torture was also going on in a
room where the Jews were beaten with whips and iron rods over their naked bodies.
Then they were split into two groups. The first was taken to Străuleşti where they
1
Mihail Sebastian, Jurnal 1935–1944 (Bucharest: Humanitas, 1996), 299.
2
Geller, Rezistenţa spirituală a evreilor, 34.
3
Alexandru Şafran, Un tăciune smuls flăcărilor. Comunitatea evreiască din România 1939–
1947. Memorii (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1996), 62.
4
A. Simion, Regimul politic din România în perioada septembrie 1940–ianuarie 1941 (Cluj:
Editura Dacia, 1976), 253.
5
Jean Ancel, Contribuţii la istoria României, 422.
6
Sebastian, Jurnal, 299.
7
Carp, Cartea neagră, 219–24.
55
were beaten for two days in a row, stripped naked and released. Those in the second
group were taken to Jilava Woods and shot dead.1 Their corpses were mutilated by
grave robbers who ―used knives to pry jewellery and golden teeth off their victims‘
fingers, ears and mouths‖.2 One of the few survivors of the massacre at Jilava
Woods was rabbi Zvi (Herş) Guttman.3 His tragedy was reported by historians over
and over. It says that in the beginning, when the hell broke loose, he ignored the
noise of mayhem outside of his Văcăreşti home, thinking that it wouldn‘t touch him,
as some incidents of vandalism against Jewish property had happened before: ―No
Jewish resident of the capital city, locked inside his home as soon as the machine
gun fire erupted knew that this was all planned in advance and a major objective of
the rebellion – the most vindictive and the bloodiest – was the pogrom‖. The tension
became unbearable the moment they realized the final objective of their tormentors
was to kill them: ―I kept cool as much as I could for the sake of the boys, and they,
poor guys, were biting their lips to muffle their moaning‖.4 Rabbi Zvi (Herş)
Guttman was picked up from his home together with his two sons Iaacov and Josef
who were killed in Jilava Woods.5 The father held his sons‘ hands until their last
beat of life, ―their pulse was slower and slower until it stopped.‖6 When he woke up
from his faint in the snow of the Jilava Woods, rabbi Zvi Guttman ―saw the
legionnaires pulling off the rings on the dead bodies, the watches and golden teeth‖.7
teeth‖.7 He then met some farmers who were there to take the goods left behind by
legionnaires. ―Mercifully‖, these ―let him go and even told him which direction to
take to avoid falling again into the hands of those beasts from the city hall‖.8
Seriously shaken up, he had to face not only the despair for the loss of two sons, but
also the criminal conduct of those who were supposed to protect him under the law.
He was arrested again, taken to Jilava Woods again with 7 fellows, shot at but
missed. He escaped just to be picked up the third time, taken to the city hall where
he was beaten and his beard pulled, then, as if his tormentors got tired of this rabbi
who didn‘t want to die, they let him go. He went back to Jilava woods and tagged
his sons‘ bodies so that they could be easily identified.9
1
Ioanid, Evreii sub regimul Antonescu, 76–7.
2
Carol Iancu, Shoah în România. Evreii în timpul regimului Antonescu (1940–1944).
Documente diplomatice franceze inedite ( Shoah in Romania. Jews in the time of the
Antonescu regime [1940–1944]. Unpublished French diplomacy documents) (Iaşi: Polirom,
2001), 113–7.
3
Brunea-Fox, Oraşul măcelului, 96.
4
J. Alexadru, L. Benjamin, D. Brumfeld, A. Florean, P. Litman, S. Stanciu, coords.,
Martiriul evreilor din România 1940–1944. Documente şi mărturii (The martyrdom of Jews
in Romania 1940–1944. Documents and testimonies) (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer, 1991),
76–83.
5
Geller, Rezistenţa spirituală a evreilor români, 35.
6
Carp, Cartea neagră, 229.
7
Iancu and Iosif Guttman, Slove de martir... publicate de părintele lor Rabin H. Guttman
(Martyr‘s words... published by their parent, Rabbi H. Guttman) (Bucharest: Editura Hasefer,
2008), 425.
8
Brunea-Fox, Oraşul măcelului, 100–4.
9
Carp, Cartea neagră, 229–30.
56
Corpses of the victims killed in

Jilava Woods –
collections.yadvashem.org/photosar
chive/eng-us/52466.html (accessed
September 22, 2014).
Corpses of the Jews killed after

they were robbed of all belongings
Corpses of the Jews Killed in Jilava

Woods
57
Jews killed in Jilava Woods –

chive/eng-us/5854513.html
(accessed September 22, 2014).
On January 24, 1941, authorities started picking up the corpses by military

trucks to take them to the city morgue where their relatives – men, women, and
children – were waiting to identify them. They were looking in desperation to
―naked, cut, and mutilated bodies‖, hoping that their dear ones were not among
them.1 The mutilated bodies, hard to recognize, were showing torture as their cause
of death: ―Jaques Costin‘s brother could hardly be identified by his relatives. He had
only in the head four bullet holes. The lawyer Beiler was bullet ridden and his throat
slit.‖2 According to Marius Mircu‘s reports, people were staying in line to enter the
morgue ―where the victims were exposed for identification.‖3 On that same day,
people travelling along Bucharest-Ploieşti road saw dead bodies around Băneasa,
stripped of their clothes and mutilated.4
Corpses of the murdered

Jews at Bucharest Morgue
–
collections.yadvashem.org/
photosarchive/eng-
us/5854513_29183.html
(accessed September 22,
2014).
1
Ibid, 78–9.
2
3
Marius Mircu, M-am născut reporter!, 393.
4
Hilberg, Exterminarea evreilor..., 672.
58
The Morgue of Bucharest –

Matatias Carp, Cartea Neagră.
Fapte şi documente. Suferinţele
evreilor din România 1940–1944,
vol. I: Legionarii şi rebeliunea
(Bucureşti: Atelierele Grafice
SOCEC&Co., S.A.R.,1946), 82.
The Morgue of Bucharest –

http://collections.yadvashem.org/ph
otosarchive/en-us/6081906.html
Mutilated Corpse –
Cronica anilor risipiţi (The Chronicle of Wasted Years), by Serge

Moscovici, describes the reality of the Bucharest streets in those days of nightmare,
filtered through his own sensitivity. The carefully picked words depict the
atmosphere of the year 1941, and succeeds to get his message across to us about the
fright and the panic of those peaceful people whose lives were turned upside down
59
in a blink of an eye: ―Fright, the helpless fright before violence that one could watch
becoming harder and harder to control […]. It seemed that fearful eyes were looking
at me from all the windows. Stores were hastily boarded up, waiting for a new wave
of terror. […] Volunteer informers were pointing out Jewish stores and homes to the
looters. […] a little farther down the street, stones started flying and baseball bats
swinging at a few pedestrians, all in a middle of a frightening mayhem. […] The
entire street smelled like fire burning […]. The buildings looked like devastated by
bombs. Many of them were blackened by smoke. Smoke was coming out from the
windows of stores and homes alike. And cohorts of bandits were on a rampage,
while occasional pedestrians passed by with their heads down‖. This image makes a
striking contrast with that of the looters who seemed to be revellers ―at a popular and
cruel party‖.1 Right from the start of the rebellion, within 24 hours, the feeling that
took over the entire Jewish community was fright: ―it was a night of terror […]
From the tiny window of the attic I saw Dudeşti Avenue (it was close) towards
Văcăreşti Avenue the sky was red‖. That night shops and homes were set on fire ―on
both sides of the streets the front and the inside of the buildings were still
smouldering. All shops (Jewish) were destroyed and looted of their goods‖.2
Ransacked book store and shop on

Dudeşti Avenue, No. 78 –
https://www2.landesarchiv-
bw.de/ofs21/bild_zoom/zoom.php?
bestand=20946&id=1304422&scre
enbreite=1440&screenhoehe=852
Looted Jewelry Store on Văcăreşti

Avenue –
bw.de/ofs21/bild_zoom/zoom.php?
bestand=
20946&id=1304408&screenbreite=
1440&screenhoehe=852 (accessed
1
Solomovici, România Judaica, 360–1.
2
Mircu, M-am născut reporter!, 391.
60
Looted cookware store on

Văcăreşti Avenue –
bw.de/ofs21/bild_zoom/zoo
m.php?bestand=20946&id=1
304405&screenbreite=1440
&screenhoehe=852 (accessed
Burned down store on

Văcăreşti Avenue –
bw.de/ofs21/bild_zoom/zoom.
php?bestand=20946&id=1304
411&screenbreite=1440&scre
enhoehe=852 (accessed
Looted drug store on Văcăreşti

Avenue –
bw.de/ofs21/bild_zoom/zoom.
php?bestand=20946&id=1304
412&screenbreite=1440&scre
enhoehe=852 (accessed
The attacks against the Jewish suburbs started at the same time. Within a few
hundred yards one could see the devastation inflicted: ransacked homes, Jews
marching under armed escort, temples still burning.1 The suburbs of Dudeşti and
1
Carp, Cartea neagră, 77.
61
Văcăreşti, inhabited mainly by Jews were lying in shambles: ―What happened in

Văcăreşti, Dudeşti and neighbouring areas cannot be described ...There is no need to.
All one has to do is enumerate the horrific murders, the destruction and the pillage.
But even this wouldn‘t be enough as more and more crimes are discovered every day.
[...] We know the number of the dead and the missing, but the exact number will
never be known or the maddening details of the fright before the end came. The
devastating fury didn‘t spare anybody and anything...store after store with windows
and doors shattered, smouldering buildings, a desolate and empty landscape, nobody
could say what was there before.‖1 Even four days after the rebellion was crushed,
after the first cleanup, ―the view was still overwhelming‖ to a visitor: ―The disaster
was in Văcăreşti and especially in Dudeşti. There was no house or shack untouched,
ransacked, looted and burned. Try to imagine the suburb burning Wednesday night
while the marauding gangs were shooting people crazed by fright.‖2
Home of Bellina Dr.

Wolfshaut Dudeşti
Avenue no. 59 – Matatias
Carp, Cartea Neagră.
Fapte şi documente.
Suferinţele evreilor din
România 1940–1944, vol.
I: Legionarii şi rebeliunea
(Bucureşti: Atelierele
Grafice SOCEC&Co.,
S.A.R.,1946), 220.
Dining room of a home Col.

Prero St. no. 11 – Matatias
Carp, Cartea Neagră. Fapte
şi documente. Suferinţele
evreilor din România 1940–
1944, vol. I: Legionarii şi
rebeliunea (Bucureşti:
Atelierele Grafice
SOCEC&Co.,
S.A.R.,1946), 221.
1
Dorian, Jurnal din vremuri, 146.
2
62
Bedroom of a home on
Col. Prero St. no. 11 –
Matatias Carp, Cartea
Neagră. Fapte şi
documente. Suferinţele
evreilor din România
1940–1944, vol. I:
Legionarii şi rebeliunea
(Bucureşti: Atelierele
Grafice SOCEC&Co.,
S.A.R.,1946), 221.
Vandalized home –
http://collections.yadvashe
m.org/photosarchive/en-
us/14665.html (accessed
It is important to know how the information spread: ―All acquaintances who

met in the street were sharing information about murders and looting. And as far as
torture, beating and maiming are concerned the list is infinite and contains the entire
record of real dementia – Jews forced to drink gasoline mixed with salt, crosses
carved in flesh, beatings and murders committed by women and so on and so on.‖1
Since there was no official communiqué on the events, rumours were making the
rounds all over the city: ―I found out from Alice that last night, Văcăreşti and
Dudeşti were set on fire. It seems that the same thing happened on Rahova Avenue
and many other parts of town‖.2
The attacks were not limited to people, shops, and homes. Being symbols of
this ethnic group, the synagogues were also targeted, all at the same time. The
assault on the Coral Temple was carried out at the time service was going on inside
1
Dorian, Jurnal din vremuri, 147.
2
63
and everybody in there was picked up at gun point, taken to Jilava Woods and shot.
Another synagogue, one of the most beautiful in Europe, Cahal Grande, was burnt to
the ground during the Bucharest rebellion.1 The destruction of these important
symbols was well orchestrated because the perpetrators of this anti-Semitic wave of
violence wanted to strike at the heart of this community and destroy
The Spanish Temple on Negru

Vodă
St. – Matatias Carp, Cartea
Neagră. Fapte şi documente.
Suferinţele evreilor din România
1940–1944, vol. I: Legionarii şi
rebeliunea (Bucureşti: Atelierele
Grafice SOCEC&Co.,
S.A.R.,1946), 214.
Damaged Pulpit of the Great

Synagogue – Matatias Carp, Cartea
Neagră. Fapte şi documente.
Suferinţele evreilor din România
1940–1944, vol. I: Legionarii şi
rebeliunea (Bucureşti: Atelierele
Grafice SOCEC&Co.,
S.A.R.,1946), 217.
1
Friling, Ioanid and Ionescu, Raport final, 112–3.
64
Destroyed Tora Papirus –

Devastated Synagogue –
The attacks on the synagogues and homes were carried out by the
legionnaires, but for looting and destruction of the stores the locals jumped in.
Beside of being a criminal act, this also resulted in driving this social category into
poverty because the small shop was their only source of income. Not even the poor
Jews from the outskirts were spared. They were robbed too.1
Ion Antonescu‘s intervention would have saved lives and property, but he
chose to stand idle for ―political reasons‖.
Conclusions
1
Ancel, Contribuţii la istoria României, 435.
65
The Bucharest Rebellion was a tragic event in the life of the Jewish community in
this country, ignored by some or encouraged by others who took active part in the
violence and pillage. Besides the material loss inflicted by rioters, a lot more painful
and contemptible was the loss of life, the torture, and the humiliation inflicted
between 21 and 24 January 1941, a dark page in Romanian history. It is a clip of
history we are not proud of, but it should remind us of our moral duty not to repeat it
and pass this as a vow to the generations to come. A poll ordered by the Elie Wiesel
National Institute for the Study of the Romanian Holocaust, published in April 2007,
showed that ―less than a quarter of the Romanian population knows that during
WWII the Jews were victims of an anti-Semitic and criminal policy. The poll also
showed that those who had information about the Holocaust thought that it was
about loss of civil rights and loss of liberty. Extermination and the pogrom, as
manifestations of the Holocaust scored very low.‖1 Chances are that from 2007 to
present these data may have sunk even deeper. Taking into consideration the virtual
world that the young live in and the lack of time adults live with, we think that the
still photograph becomes essential in communication. A picture may have a more
powerful impact than a text, needs no explaining and can be understood by all,
regardless of the level of education. Moreover, in digital times the access to
information of more people than ever before makes it a success in the preservation
of history, especially that part that we do not want to repeat.
1
Lya Benjamin, Alexandru Florian and Anca Ciuciu, eds., Cum a fost posibil? Evreii din
România în perioada Holocaustului (How was it possible? Jews in Romania in the time of
the Holocaust) (Bucharest: Editura Institutului Naţional pentru Studierea Holocaustului din
România ―Elie Wiesel‖, 2007), 8.
66
The Task of the Poet and the Task of the Translator

Comparing Two Types of Discourses
Mircea-Andrei GOLBAN
Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj
Faculty of Letters
Keywords: Walter Benjamin, philosophy of language, pure language,

transformation, source, encoding, decoding, negotiation, adequacy, postcard, poetry,
theory of the translation
Abstract: The essay joins together the concepts of transformation, negotiation and
adequacy with the concept of translatability. Firstly, I conducted my research on
Walter Benjamin‘s text about translation. What stands out is the difference between
the poet and the translator, but mainly the concept of pure languageas described by
Benjamin. Secondly, I reviewed Benjamin‘s text through a poststructuralist
perspective (Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Paul de Man and Paul Ricœur), finally
reaching the acknowledgement of the impossibility of a perfect translation. Lastly,
the paper gives an example of the reason why a text can be difficult to translate
(Derrida‘s letters).
E-mail: mircea.golban@gmail.com
The following essay intends to compare and contrast the poetic work with the act of
translation, touching both upon the convergent and the opposing elements which
configure these two types of discourse. A first undertaking would require a reading
of the German theorist Walter Benjamin.
I. The perfect translatability

In his 1930 essay ―The task of the translator‖, Walter Benjamin distinguishes
between two types of discourse, proposing that the translator‘s intention is
derivative, ultimate and ideational,1 therefore it is predetermined by an intention of
the writer, the latter being spontaneous, primary and graphic.2 By analogy with
translating, one can state, assuming the writer does make a translation, that he is
actually dealing with pre-language, a concept which in Benjamin‘s point of view is
equivalent to specific linguistic contextual aspects.3 Pre-language, namely that
which does not yet exist in language and which, at the same time, can represent a
1
Walter Benjamin, Iluminations (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 76–77.
2
Benjamin, Iluminations, 76.
3
Ibid., 76.
67
source of an originating language, but not non-language, if this concept excludes the
possibility of communication.
In my point of view, pre-language is the writer‘s intent of expressing a
referent through language; as such, joining these specific linguistic contextual
aspects targets a dialogic feature. Once these specific linguistic contextual aspects
are brought together, a decrease in what the work of art seemed to convey happens,
due to the materialization in language of the numerous combinations which existed
in pre-language. In other words, by uttering the work of art loses some of the
potential it initially had in the first stage of creation, namely in pre-language.
The task of the translator, unlike that of the poet (pre-
language→language), is already limited by a language which has to be converted
into another language (language → language). Besides the fact that the translation
follows the original text (derivative), it must also render the intended meaning.
Benjamin asserts that there is a similarity between language and meaning. In fact,
the text under discussion aims to recover the perfect language, as in the Bible, where
―meaning has ceased to be the watershed for the flow of language and the flow of
revelation. Where a test is identical with truth or dogma, where it is supposed to be
«the true language» in all its literalness and without the mediation of meaning, this
text is unconditionally translatable‖.1 The German theorist thus creates the perfect
pattern which should serve as a guideline for every translation. This pattern is based
on the perfect match between language and revelation, the latter representing, in my
opinion, the writer‘s purpose.
Walter Benjamin‘s theory considers translation a failed attempt, with the
exception of the Scripture, a text which is defined by the strong bond between
signifier and signified. When it comes to translating literature, accessing the perfect
language can be done by detecting the differences which stem from the
incongruence between the original text and the translation. These differences
reconstruct the language spoken before the time of Babel. Even though the perfect
language can be attained only as a metaphysical construct, the purpose of translating
is not to emulate the original but to make the differences between the translated
work and the original one stand out. Moreover, even the language in which the work
of art is rendered for the first time, is in its turn a ―translation‖ of the perfect
language. Before the Tower of Babel there was only a sole language. The beginning
of its construction ended those times and started another epoch. The latter is defined
by language pluralism.
Before I go any further with my analysis, I must distinguish between two
types of translation: the profane translation and the sacred one. On the one hand, I
define profane translation (profane text →profane translation) as the translation of
any text into another language, except for the Scripture (sacred text → sacred
translation). ―Profane‖ should not be understood as a malicious translation of the
Bible; I have not been using this adjective with its standard meaning but to describe
the translation of any text that is not related to the Bible. I think this is the meaning
that Benjamin should attribute to any fallible translation because Benjamin does not
nominate the type of translation he makes reference to throughout his text. Instead,
1
Ibid., 82.
68
he uses only one term (signifier), when in fact he renders two meanings (signified).
On the other hand, the sacred translation is perfect at all times, even when it is not.
In other words, it is never fallible because its perfection consists in the numerous
alternatives it grants.
The biblical message does not lose the potential it can access in the first stage
of creation – in this respect, there is a great difference between the sacred language
and the profane language. In other words, the sacred language, even when it is uttered,
it maintains the same characteristics as in pre-language. The numerous content
combinations available in pre-language should not be mistaken with language
pluralism. In the Bible, there is a unique meaning which can have a multitude of
signifiers. To conclude, the signified has the greatest importance of all because it stays
the same irrespective of the various signifiers which are attributed to it.
II. The belief effect

The perfect translatability can be achieved, as I have previously demonstrated, if the
signified and the signifier merge into an inseparable entity. In ―Positions‖ (which
later on became the manifesto of the deconstruction movement), Jacques Derrida
claims that the perfect translatability can be validated only as long as it is in
connection with the concept of a transcendental signified. This transcendental
signified is either an entity of the biblical text or an entity of a literary text. As an
entity, it ensures the cohesion between language – what is being communicated –
and the precise rendering of the content.
Like translation, described by Benjamin as ideational, the transcendental
signified falls into the same category as intuition. The signifier and the signified
form an inseparable entity, especially in the case of the sacred translation. As
opposed to the sacred translation, I would state that the profane translation uses
intuition to a lesser extent. However, even in this instance, I would identify two
meanings of ―intuition‖. On the one hand, profane translation forms itself on a
reason-based intuition. On the other hand, the sacred translation is determined by an
epiphany.
Another example of an unmodified conveyance of meaning is when the
belief effect becomes active, as in Pierre Bourdieu‘s notion: ―The sensitive
translation conceals the structure, in the very form in which it presents it, and thanks
to which it succeeds in producing a belief effect (more than a reality effect). And it is
probably this which means that the literary work can sometimes say more [...] But it
says it only in a mode such that it does not truly say it‖.1 In his study, Bourdieu
refers evidently to the social dimension to which he belongs and that he inherently
renders for the reader. In fact, this highly plausible rendering either of the social
background or of other constitutive elements of the text, is a consequence of the
belief effect. By analogy with semantics, the writer can create this effect which
guarantees him universal understanding, thus transcending meaning, even in the case
of a limited sequence of words. Moreover, one must bear in mind that perfect
1
Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1995), 32.
69
translatability seems to appear in the biblical text or in the literary one, on the
condition that the latter has the aforementioned effect on the entire structure.
The belief effect pertains, in my opinion, mainly to profane texts and it is a
consequence of the epiphanic intuition that is specific to the sacred text. Although
the reader‘s intuition in respect to the profane text is lessened (profane text→the
belief effect), the belief effect is still a reminiscence of the belief that the sacred text
succeeds to render (sacred text→belief). As one can notice by comparing the
diagrams in the brackets, the belief effect deals with profane texts and it indicates
more likely an apparent cohesion between the signified and the signifier. Regarding
the sacred text, I would argue that it has a universal meaning, despite the numerous
alternatives of the signifier. All the same, in the case of profane texts, just one
signifier receives multiple meanings, hence the belief effect enables the occurrence
of a transcendental signified effect. The latter is an elusory feature because it does
not function properly, due to the multiple understandings it authorizes on its behalf.
The perfect translatability theory is overruled by Jacques Derrida. The
French deconstructivist refers to the difference (which in fact is never pure) between
the signified and the signifier. Translation always disrupts the entity constituted by
these two components. Thus, if translation cannot be perfect (due to its disruptive
feature), then ―for the notion of translation we would have to substitute a notion of
transformation: a regulated transformation of one language by another, of one text
by another‖.1 The perfect translatability is a concept which does not match reality.
Translating cannot reveal the equivalent pairs of signifiers relating to one another.
Instead, it reminds us that it is rather a process, like thinking, like deconstruction
(because this is the philosophical field from which it emerges). It is an endless
process which questions not only translation‘s finality but also its starting point. The
deconstruction movement subverts perfect translatability and, at the same time, it
affects the literary work and its creation stage.
The notion of transformation suggested by Derrida expresses simultaneously
that any translation is an ongoing procedure since the interpretation of a text is never
completed. Translation is a hermeneutical act which can always undergo
transformations. Last but not least, Derrida discredits, on the one hand, the perfect
translatability theory and, on the other hand, the creation stage as a compatible
conveying between the referent and the signified. The writer‘s intention and the
translator‘s intention are, for Derrida, fallible notions.
III. The disarticulation of the original

In the third part of my paper, I will refer to Paul de Man‘s article ―Walter
Benjamin‘s «The Task of the Translator»―. Even though the article was first
published in 1983, my aim is not to emphasize the time period that passed until De
Man‘s thesis but to highlight the conceptual contrast between these two theorists, De
Man being, first and foremost, a poststructuralist philosopher.
Paul de Man notices a major difference between what Benjamin attributes to
poetry as compared to translation. The poet, unlike the translator, does not have any
1
Jacques Derrida, Positions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), 20.
70
restrictions regarding her/his understanding by a reader. Namely she/he is not limited

by an intralinguistic activity, an activity that is bounded to language. The emitter, in
our case the poet, does not depend merely on the receiver, certainly the reader. In this
respect, Paul de Man asserts the existence of a ―naiveté‖ of the poet which is
characterized by that fact that ―he has to convey a meaning which does not necessarily
relate to language.‖1 Instead, the type of relationship that translation has with its object
is predetermined because ―the relationship of the translator to the original is the
relationship between language and language.‖2 The desire to utter something is absent
or at least it is diminished. Translation has the same configuration as a paraphrase, a
clarification or an interpretation; a copy in that sense.3 Therefore, De Man states that
the poetic act is per se an original occurrence, having both the meaning of an authentic
act and of a primary one. Also, I would argue that it is an activity which is related
more to external features, excluding linguistic components.
Patricia Todoran, Run

Throughout his analysis, Paul de Man likens translation to literary theory,

literary history and critical philosophy (generated by Kant), suggesting that these
types of literary and philosophical investigations resemble translation due to their
relationship with language. Literary theory, for example, has an intralinguistic type
1
Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1986), 81.
2
De Man, The Resistance to Theory, 81.
3
Ibid., 82.
71
of relationship with the work of art because it only uses the existing words from the
original text. In a deconstructivist manner, De Man demonstrates that both
translation and its similar types of literary and philosophical investigation ultimately
reveal their failure to read the text because paradoxically they focus too much on the
written text. Paul de Man identifies this failure with an intrinsic disarticulation
already at work in the original. One can consider that the reading‘s failure is an
effect of excessively focusing on the written text. Hence, it can be said that one is
dealing with a textual reading. More importantly, what should be clear to us is the
fact that primary disarticulation never leads to a perfect coherence of the text. The
original poetic act alludes to another meaning which is extralinguistic and it cannot
be grasped only by a textual reading. This is the point in which De Man‘s theory and
Derrida‘s coincide; if Derrida replaced the notion of translation with transformation,
Paul de Man would also overrule the idea of a primary and resolute language.
Moreover, the disarticulation of the original is more obvious when
translating into another language rather than in the stage of just reading the original
text. When translating, the junctures where the text breaks itself become obvious.
The translation‘s ambiguity is a result of the junctures in the text, the points in which
meaning becomes loose. This is precisely the moment when one can recognize that
the original text was already a ―corrupted‖ text. Also, one can infer how difficult it is
to translate a text whose meaning is equivocal.
Thus, the (profane) translation of any work of art will eventually prove that
translating is fallible not only because of the language in which the original text is
translated but also due to the primary language in which it was written at first. The
specific linguistic contextual aspects, in my opinion, are lost once ―the first
translation‖ (thinking→language) is performed. The specific linguistic contextual
aspects cannot be restored by another translation because they are already
diminished through uttering. If there is indeed a case in which they could be
flawlessly restored, one should bear in mind the belief effect that a profane text can
inspire to its readers. Nonetheless, for De Man, the sacred translation (a term he does
not mention explicitly) shares the same connotations as profane translation, namely
that both are disarticulated.
Understanding a text can be quite demanding in the absence of the external
factors that triggered the text‘s creation. But the translation‘s failure and also the
text‘s failure to assembling a structure as a meaningful entity has a more profound
reason: ―Translation, to the extent that it disarticulates the original, to the extent that
it is pure language and is only concerned with language, gets drawn into [...]
something essentially destructive, which is in language itself‖.1 Language seems to
be the disruptive element of the text. Language is indeed the component which binds
the text but it is not altogether its source (maybe with the exception of metatextual
works of art). In other words, language is productive up to the point in which it
cannot render what it initially wanted to.
To conclude, one can notice the following structure: firstly, according to the
romantic paradigm (Walter Benjamin‘s theory), the sacred text‘s entity between the
signified and the signifier will be rendered irrespective of the signifier. This leads to
1
Ibid., 84.
72
the belief effect which occurs in profane texts. Secondly, due to deconstructivist
thought, once humanity was aware of the original text‘s disarticulation, the profane
texts‘ belief effect is undoubtedly lessened. We are part of a postromantic stream of
thought in which the language crisis begins with the mistrust in any primary forms
of speech (as when casting a spell) and ends with the modernist language crisis
visible in any cultural work but especially in the poetic one because it deals, first and
foremost, with language.
IV. The negotiation of meaning

In contrast with the concept of perfect translatebility, Paul Ricœur‘s theory on
translation is another step forward. The French philosopher brings to our attention
the necessity of finally accepting the impossibility of perfect translatability.
Once one can accept that perfect translatability is impossible, one can adopt
the pair of terms ―fidelity/betrayal‖ at the expense of dismissing the pair of terms
―translatable/untranslatable‖. It can be proved by a deconstructivist analysis that in
such a binary opposition, none of the terms could prevail over the other. One cannot
state for a fact (unless one is dealing with a very poor translation) to what a degree a
translation is faithful to the original text or it betrays it because, in the first place,
any translation depends on the language it is translated into. Namely every language
has its specific peculiarities. Secondly (and vice-versa), the conditions through
which a work of art emerges into different languages also depend on the peculiarity
of the work of art. If such a binary opposition is disproved, one can state that there is
always a constant negotiation between these two terms and inferentially between the
two languages above-mentioned. The meaning of negotiation should be understood
as the acknowledgement of having to lose something in order to gain something
else. The perfect overlapping between one language and another would be the
equivalent of a non-translation and it would exclude the possibility of negotiation.
Negotiation is the fundamental part which enables translation. Analogously, the
uneven overlapping between one language and another is a mark of
misinterpretation, an act that even deconstruction does not acknowledge.
Another reason (and, at the same time, a resemblance between Derrida‘s
approach and Ricœur‘s theory) which supports the idea of a constant negotiation
between the original text and its translation is the absence of a third text (the pure
language). This third text would offer the possibility of a collation between two existing
versions. Walter Benjamin assumes (from a romantic thought point of view) that (the
sacred, I would add) translation is in fact ultimate. From Ricœur‘s perspective,
negotiation develops as a series of retranslations: ―In the absence of this third text,
where the actual meaning would lie, the semantic original, there is only one recourse, i.e.
the critical reading of a few, if not polyglot then at least bilingual, specialists, critical
reading equivalent to a private retranslation, where our capable reader redoes the work
of translation, for his own purpose, taking on, in turn, the test of translation and meeting
with the same paradox of an equivalence without adequacy‖.1
1
Paul Ricœur, On translation (London & New York: Routledge, 2006), 7.
73
Retranslations are one and the same with Derrida‘s notion of transformation.
I would argue that there is also a distinction regarding this particular aspect: unlike
the sacred text which does not require any retranslation due to its complete
understanding, the profane texts are instead committed to all sorts of revisions and
reintrepretations.
Both translation and the poetic act can have two distinct influences. In his
essay Paul Ricœur makes reference to George Steiner‘s After Babel, one of the first
substantial works on translating. Steiner classifies translation in two categories: there
are translations which are directed towards the target (the language into which the
work is translated) and translations which are directed towards the source (the
language from which the work is translated). The French philosopher prefers to
embrace the source translations because (and this is a major philosophical theme of
the paper) the image of oneself can only be created in relation with alterity. Ricœur
has in mind a united Europe, but since this is an underlying aspect of his paper, I
will not approach it now.
The prototype of target translations is the equivalent of a bourgeois art, as it
is called by Ricœur in his The Rules of Art. The bourgeois art, in contrast with art
for art‘s sake, is a mercenary type of art, focused on consumerism. In my
judgement, the prototype of source translations corresponds to the idea of art for
art‘s sake and it should be adopted by the poetic act as well. From an ethical
standpoint, these two types of discourse resemble each other because they have the
ability to stay true to the source. In the case of translation, on the one hand, such a
tendency is inferred by a respect for the original language of the text. It is, in a
manner of speaking, a ―hosting‖ of the source text by the target language. This
aspect is amply discussed by J. Hillis Miller in his Ethics of Reading. In our case,
translation can be regarded as a form of reading, due to its hermeneutical viewpoint.
In the case of the poetic act, on the other hand, the creation of the poem would be
more authentic if it would bear in mind the source rather than the target. Whether
one speaks about translation or about poetry, both of them should undoubtedly
negotiate as well as they can their emanation.
V. Encoding and decoding

The poetic text, most of all, is the one which attempts to create a proper, unique,
authentic language. In order to succeed in doing so, namely in creating an idiolect (a
type of language which bears the distinct signature of its addresser), the poetic text
has to encode its meaning. Hence, the difficulty of translating. If the poetic text is
an encoding, then its translation should therefore be seen as a decoding.
A powerful example of this is the first section (―Envois‖) of Derrida‘s The
Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. The deconstructivist philosopher
makes an analysis of the post card. In this first chapter he includes letters that most
likely are fictitious because the identity of the addresser is not revealed.
Nevertheless, the author signs himself under various disguises such as: j‟accepte
(Jacques sept); derrière les rideaux (behind the curtains); by using the suffixes der
(a variation of the German definite article), id (immediately or idiom) and da (the
German adverb of place) and by employing the mirroring initials JD (Jacques
74
Derrida) and DJ (from déjà), a typical opposition by which deconstruction manifests

itself. These methods belong to encoding. The poetic text becomes difficult to
translate once it is doubled (enriched) through encoding, something that also
happens in the aforementioned poetic-like section.
The difficulty that lies in translating, especially when it comes to the profane
texts, is a consequence of encoding. The profane texts lose some of their specific
linguistic contextual aspects that they would have conveyed if there had not
occurred a weakening of the entity between the signifier and the signified which is a
consequence of the separation from the sacred text. Only the addressee can at once
decipher what the addresser meant. A translation is needed only for a different
reader than the addressee. For the latter, translation has sacred features, meaning that
the connection between the signifier and the signified is indistructible. For the
common reader, the encoded aspect of the text is opaque. At the same time, the
translation of the very same text has, for an ordinary reader, profane characteristics.
Still, the profane translation succeeds to a certain extent to decode the
signatures which belong to the author. There are cases, as the previous one, when the
translator correctly infers the encoded signs. Even so, the translation has to choose
which meaning to convey and eventually to add a footnote to indicate other possible
intrepretations. This proves that there is no perfect translation. Having to use
annexes is an argument that supports this statement. The sacred translation has no
need for annexes. The profane translation, however, relies on these. The modern
crisis of language previously discussed in this essay stems from a failure of the
poetic act to render a full meaning without resorting to annexes (foreign elements).
One, thus, witnesses an external immersion that occurs in the original text; the text‘s
inability to assert itself in the outside world and to create it with words.
If the strategically placed signs cannot be decoded, what ensues is a loss of
meaning, invariably risking that some of the meaning is lost to the reader, just as
letters (private and deliberate messages) can be lost: ―letters can always not arrive at
their destination, and that the mail, in all languages, does not always tell the truth,
even the most certain one―.1 This neverending wandering of the meaning, similar to
Ulysses‘ journey (which is the modern man‘s plight), is caused by the dissolution of
the entity formed by the signifier and the signified. Meaning always goes back and
forth between these two elements.
When it comes to literary works, the path from pre-language
(subconscious) to language (conscious) is impeded. Translation is a temporary
practice, being influenced by adjustment and transformation. The only option left for
such speeches is adequacy. The concept of adequacy must be borne in mind both by
the poet and the translator. The addressee, nevertheless, must get acquainted with the
text on his own. Adequacy also implies negotiation because the former determines
what does not get included and what is kept as a constituent of the text. Adequating
these types of discourse (to encode and decode) implies focusing on the source (if
one also considers its ethical aspect), such an endeavour resulting in a stronger bond
between the signifier and the signified, a more authentic and, at the same time,
1
Jacques Derrida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1987), 515.
75
simpler discourse for the reader, i.e. alterity. This can be achieved by an epiphanic
intuition rather than by a rational one.
VI. Drawing conclusions

Initially, the purpose of my research was to thoroughly understand Benjamin‘s ―The
Task of The Translator‖ in order to have the knowledge that would enable me to
make a comparison between his theory and its subsequent interpretations by other
philosophers. During this endeavour, I noticed that Paul de Man discovers a striking
difference between the act of translation and the poetic one. Namely, translation
converts a language into another one, whereas poetry expresses in language
something that does not belong to language – and it is in this aspect that the poet‘s
freedom lies.
All the same, not even the poetic discourse is as indepedent as it may seem.
Both the poet and the translator must make their discourse suitable to their sources: the
referent (for the poet) and the original language (for the translator). If they adhere
to this principle, the end result of their work will be an ethical one. Even though
Benjamin argues that there is such a thing as perfect translatability, all other
philosophers who came after him were of a different opinion. Derrida, Paul de Man
and Paul Ricœur each develop their own concepts despite Benjamin‘s. Derrida, for
example, favours the concept of transformation over Benjamin‘s pure translatability.
Paul de Man claims that a disarticulated original text can only produce a
disarticulated translation (hence it is flawed). Lastly, Paul Ricœur asserts that one
should not focus on the pair of terms ―translatable/untranslatable‖ but instead employ
―fidelity/betrayal‖ because the latter better reveals the fact that translation misleads
from the very beginning.
My personal contribution to the article was enriching Benjamin‘s concept of
translation with two new meanings and then transfering these two understandings to
the other theorists I referred to. The meanings I advanced are the following: sacred
translation and profane translation. By making a comparison between poetry and
translation, I reached the conclusion that the sacred text can be promptly read and
translated, while the profane text is more difficult to conceive and to be apprehended
by readers because of the reasons I previously stated throughout the paper.
76
Antifeminist Ideologies in Romanian Popular Culture.

Advertising, Power Discourses and Traditional Roles
Mihaela URSA
Faculty of Letters, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj
Head of the Department of Comparative Literature,
Keywords: popular culture, traditions, literature and philosophy, discourse analysis,

hermeneutics, ideology, publicity, power-discourse, gender roles, gender metaphor,
virile illusion
Abstract: The present paper concludes a multidisciplinary research on the

appearance and popularization of traditional gender ideologies by means of specific
public power discourses. While, on declarative levels, the Romanian establishment
favors political correctness, freedom of choice and self-identity, there are subtle
messages within power discourses that state the opposite and encourage the
perpetuation of traditional gender roles, the stigmatization of those who do not
observe them, as well as dangerous gender segregation. The research takes into
account three levels of ideology-dissemination in Romania after the year 2000:
product publicity, public speech of prominent representatives of Romanian politics
and public messages of the cultural elite.
E-mail: mihaelaursa@gmail.com
Antifeminism and sexism are manifest in present-day Romania on more

than one level: trivial contexts, records of everyday life, but also the most subtle levels
of intellectual existence, public life and even elitist discourses. A great amount of
offensive publicity still exists on media channels, both written and visual. Apart from
that, a different kind of publicity serves the status-quo, coming from discourses which
one might expect to initiate social change, not social stereotypes. Too many Romanian
intellectuals or politicians find no reason why they should not make public their own
judgments about how women should still happily take on traditional roles and places
in contemporary society. Negative value judgments pass undisturbed, by means of
public speech and visual publicity, to the mainstream, where the sum of these
derogatory messages turns into ideology. This does not mean that Romanian
participants to the public sphere are necessarily more misogynist than their peers in
Western societies. Rather, while somewhere else organizations against discrimination
have enough authority to be taken into account, at least with regard to public life and
space, there are little sanctions in Romanian public life for gender offenses.
It is my contention that there are at least three discourses that bear equal
responsibility for this state of affairs: 1) a great part of the advertising campaigns for
consumer products, 2) public discourse of prominent representatives of Romanian
politics and 3) written messages of the cultural elite. Derogatory speech and sexist
77
complicity seem to numb rational recognition of real-life gender roles1 and expose
Romanian society to an ideology of conflict, opposition to change and judgmental
conduct. The three discourses that I have targeted above have different aims: the
goal of the first one is to boost consumerism and give the best chance to a given
product. This is why it is more susceptible to protect traditional and cliché
representations, as long as they trigger identification2 and desire. The second one
aims to convince the electorate that a certain party ideology is trustworthy,
regardless if this means to promote new representations or to endorse existent
stereotypes. The third discourse is the most problematic one, because it belongs to
the intellectuals, whose goal is identified by Foucault as the opposition to power
discourses and the disclosure of ideologized tenets.3 Let‘s examine the three
discourses one at a time.
1) Consumerist Advertising Discourse

Difference in itself does not imply any value judgment and does not state any gender
hierarchy. Patriarchal thinking emerges when difference in constitution or existential
evaluation is transformed into hierarchy and is understood in terms of value
judgment. There is a silent complicity between popular culture (where unfair value
judgments and politically incorrect statements are to be expected) and a sphere of
representations of the mainstream culture (where public values are endorsed by
official discourses, whether negatively or positively). As already demonstrated by
Mikhail Bakhtin, there is a ―popular culture of laughter‖4, populated by masks: when
the jester puts on his mask, he places himself at a distance from ―the real world‖,
becoming not only an exterior presence, but also an alien one. This way, he gets to
say what nobody else is capable of saying, he gets to joke about things that nobody
else is allowed to joke about, for fear of social disruption. However, while the jester
is allowed his impropriety when wearing his mask, he loses this privilege once he
becomes one of the ―real‖, social persons again. This is the insertion point for many
derogatory speeches outside the popular culture of laughter.
It is one thing to joke about blondes at a party, where it is assumed that
speeches bear no axiological relevance and where the jester has his mask on, and
quite another story to build an entire advertising campaign for the national
telecommunications company (aired on TV and radio in 2004–20055) on an
anecdote about the blonde who asks the operator ―how long does it take to go by fast
1
Donna Gill, ―REAL Women and the press: An ideological alliance of convenience,‖
Canadian Journal of Communication 14–3 (1989).
2
Herbert Marcuse, One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial
society (New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968).
3
Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, ―Intellectuals and power‖, in Language, counter-
memory, practice, ed. Michel Foucault and Donald Fernand Bouchard (Ithaca and New
York: Cornell University Press, 1977): 205–17.
4
Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Literature and Aesthetics (Athens: Plethron, 1980), passim,
especially Chapter VI of part three.
5
Doru Pop, ―Birdie mnum-mnum. Visual Exploitation of Women in Romanian Media
Representations‖, Caietele Echinox 10 (2006): 300–307.
78
train from Bucharest to Constanta?‖ and is satisfied with the answer: ―Just one
second.‖ In cases like these, the stereotype of the stupid blonde (that makes the
delight of many other popular cultures) turns, from a manifestation of the ―popular
culture of laughter‖, to a public statement. Even more, making these public
statements on national TV is an option based on public expectancies and implicitly
on the idea that they sound humorous, and not derogatory to the targeted audience.
This kind of ideological connivance is bound to perpetuate gender-offensive speech
in the public sphere.
Unfortunately, a public debate on sexual identity is largely missing in
Romania, or takes place in unfortunate contexts, where informed opinion leaders are
missing. For instance, since 2000, a number of TV talk-shows or reality-shows
claimed to open the above-mentioned debate. Talk shows like De trei ori femeie
(Three times a woman), aired on Acasă TV in the first part of the decade, or Femeia
e la putere (Women in power) on Euphoria TV, of the same period of time were
designed for majoritarian feminine audiences (as are the respective channels).
However, they offered stereotypical images of women as well: the falsely
independent woman, often a divorcée, who takes pride in her man-hating attitude,
while at the same time has little education and parades, like spoils of war, her new
gained fortune from the divorce; the hypersexed woman (possibly hyperemotional as
well), modelled after her favourite heroine from the most recent soap opera, having
no subject of conversation other than sex and fashion, maybe cosmetic surgery; the
family mother, whose identity is entirely derived from her domestic value and who
is lost once her children grow up. A reality show running at the end of the first
decade of the new millennium, still broadcast today on channel Prima TV, Schimb
de mame (Mother swap), presents two mothers, who do not previously know each
other, exchanging families and lives for a few weeks. Designed to promote the
image of the modern Romanian woman, who juggles a career and a family, this
reality-show constantly promotes an intolerant traditional type of woman. Between
their most precious values, that they would hopefully instil to the ―other family‖, the
women shown value house order and tidiness before anything else. Very few of
them are really preoccupied by something other than their domestic identity, than
their kitchen rules or their regulations regarding cleanliness.
It is probable that the cliché that says a good woman is a woman who keeps
her house really tidy, so frequent in this particular reality show, has inspired
advertisers to launch a promotion campaign in 2013 for two Romanian cleaning
products (Nufăr and Triumf – a toilet detergent and a stove cleaner) on a line that too
many mothers from Schimb de mame get to utter: ―nobody tells me how to clean my
house!‖ Imagined as an altercation between a housewife and a door-to-door seller of
new, foreign cleaning products, the campaign promotes an idea of traditional
Romania (both products were also used before 1989 in national households) in the
same package as the idea of a woman whose identity is primarily given by her
cleaning-related knowledge.
On channels like Antena 1 or Antena 3, frequently criticized for the poor
quality of their programs and for the highly ideologized political commentaries,
there are a few family shows which can be easily accused of harmful, stereotypical
representation of women. In Noră pentru mama [A daughter-in-law for my mother],
79
the web of traditional complicities and Oedipal transfers between mother, son and
daughter-in-law is so thick, the life standards so low, the language so defective, it
becomes almost too hard to watch. While it could present contemporary, modern
realities of the mother – daughter-in-law relationship, the show seems to be a
collection of the worst stereotypes of the issue, starting with the fact that a young
man does not just like a woman, but chooses his mother‘s ―daughter in law‖.
It is probable that Romanian culture has given one of the most violent
narratives of the relationship between the new bride and her mother-in-law in the
tale entitled Soacra cu trei nurori (The mother-in-law who had three daughters-in-
law), an ideological source of inspiration for this reality show. Originally a folk tale,
the story was re-written by the storyteller Ion Creangă in the 19th century and is still
very popular at a symbolic level. In the story, the mother-in-law has the attributes of
the evil stepmother of folktales, psychoanalytically embodying characters of ―the
bad mother‖ (projection of the ordering, intrusive component of motherhood). First,
the mother-in-law functions as a stepmother in the economy of the tale (the three
brides come to live fraternally in her home; her sons help her reinforce the rules of
the house, etc.). Then she deliberately makes up a monstrous image for herself (she
exploits her daughters-in-law to exhaustion under the threat of her continuous
wakefulness, she censors every move they make using her alleged ―eye on the back
of her head‖, a sign of a superhuman pervasive consciousness). Of the three
daughters-in-law, two are ―hard-working and submissive‖ and the third, chosen by
the youngest son in an act of disobedience towards his mother, is cunning and
proves destabilizing to the other two. In due time, they organize what can be
described as a true Sabbath of witches, where they torture their evil mother. The
detailed description of all the tortures is made to be entertaining and funny, possibly
inspiring good cheer and empathy towards the vindictive girls. By this kind of
images of women, the Romanian patriarchal world gives a problematic design to the
relationship between husband and wife, fractured within the evil triangle in which
not only the man is disputed by the two women of utmost importance in his life, but
there is also a sacrifice needed: one of the two power poles has to disappear,
although the war is never definitively won.
A large number of advertising campaigns still use this peculiar design of the
relationship between the new bride and her mother-in-law. Although the tortures
may be missing from the picture, there is still a cold war going on between the two:
for instance, in a 2011 campaign for a wall paint (Savana), the dictatorial mother-in-
law comes to the renovated apartment of her son‘s new family just to reject and
criticize everything her daughter-in-law has designed. The one who makes things
better between the two is not the missing son (who is absent from this picture, as he
is absent from Creangă‘s tale), but the painter, who compliments and flirts with the
old lady, who – as a result – ends her criticism.
Apparently, shows like the ones mentioned above rank high in public TV
preferences. Therefore, they are efficient vehicles of ideological transfer: on the one
hand, they confirm to the viewer that these representations are valid (since they are
used as identifying marks); on the other, they reinforce the same representations as
popular good choices to the new generations of viewers. While it is true that
commercial TV was never preoccupied with education and that the goal of these
80
shows is entertainment, not education, it is equally true that this kind of

representation of a stereotyped woman filling the life of a stereotyped man gains
public power through publicity. This situation makes it even more urgent for popular
Romanian culture to counterbalance these ideological images somewhere else.
These prefabricated products of consumer culture should find counterpoints in more
nuanced, more rational public stands. One might hope that the public discourse of
politicians is the place to counterbalance politically incorrect and stereotyped gender
representations, but let‘s analyze if this is the case.
2) Public discourse of politicians

Things do not radically change if one takes a closer look to the rational, educational
side of the public life. At the National Conference of the National-Liberal Party in
Alba Iulia, in April 2006, the Romanian MP Ludovic Orban publicly blamed three
female colleagues, exposing them as negative examples of women who used their
seduction to gain political promotion. When asked to withdraw his sexist accusation,
due to a subsequent media scandal, his apology rather resembled the vaguely
amused pose of a benevolent wise man, who does not begin to try to understand a
whimsical creature like a woman, so different from him. The situation describes,
fairly accurately, the extent to which a public intrinsic ideology, emanating from the
highest poles of stately power, is detrimental to a fair representation of gender
identity. Gender insult does not only come, in the above example, from the
slanderous nature of such an accusation (which, to be fair, can be proven to be true
or not, with due amount of evidence), but from the fact that the same member of the
ruling party has never found it useful or relevant to talk in his public speeches about
his male fellows‘ illicit ways of political ascension.
This logic of sexual politics1 is quite transparent: it is as absurd as it is
useless to stigmatize a man who uses unethical means to get into politics, because
the practice is commonly (thought tacitly) accepted and recognized as a ―natural‖
reality in political combat. However, political wars excuse any means only as long
as they are fought by male politicians. Seen as a modern, social form of competition
(which, in primitive communities, passes as a natural call), political struggle with
illicit methods is only denounced if it involves women, since their illicit weapon is
sexuality (belonging to one‘s private life) and so they can be blamed for mixing it
with political activity (belonging to one‘s public life). The more a woman is active
politically, socially and publicly, the more she is subjected to accusations involving
her ―femininity‖ or possibly her sexuality – this is a sad, but obvious, conclusion on
the power of sexist ideology in present-day Romania.2 The episode cited above is
even more important once we look at how it was reported by the media: with almost
no exception, the news reports were clearly empathizing with the politician and his
all-too-human ―blunder‖, and often sarcastic towards the three female politicians
1
Robert William Connell, Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics
(Stanford University Press, 1987.)
2
Doru Pop, Alegerile naibii. Fals tratat despre metehnele imaginarului politic autohton
(Hell‘s elections. A false treatise on the lacks of Romanian political imaginary) (Cluj:
Editura Indigo, 2007), 81–92.
81
whom Orban had accused of prostitution on political currency, often represented as

ridiculous ladies throwing a fit of hysteria.
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Travesti

10,8 cm x 8,5 cm, polaroid, 2015
The series of examples that one can use in support of the idea that Romanian
political discourse (even the liberal one) perpetuate dangerous clichés about evil
actions of evil women is too large to be accommodated in this article. At times, the
examples imply outrageous conduct, such as the one of the mayor of Constanţa,
Radu Mazăre, a prominent member of the Social Liberal Union. While a socialist,
82
according to his party‘s doctrine, Mazăre is well known for entertaining an opulent
life-style, with many scandalous ideological options: from parading as a Nazi officer
at a public event, to posing for Playboy magazine as a sultan surrounded by women
who are ready to please him or as Napoleon having won the sexual submission of a
large number of women, this politician has violated lots of rules of political
correctness and insulted different social communities.1 His public conduct was
sanctioned by the press on occasions, but was never amended by his party, who did
not express any public blame and – even more – did not expel him for the party.
One last example should be invoked here, since it features a very important
character of Romanian politics, Antonie Iorgovan, who died in 2007. A member of
the Social Democratic Party, he is best remembered as ―the father of our
Constitution‖ and, as such, functions as a symbolic father substitute in Romanian
politics, which is known to have had such ―fathers‖ during and after the fall of
communism. In a radio interview,2 Antonie Iorgovan was invited to state his
position on women in politics and women in public life in Romania. The MP
seemed initially to sympathize with women whom he depicted as victimized by
Romanian public parochialism (―we believe that we have a problem: we cannot
overcome this mindset, that women should know their places‖). Up to this point, he
stuck to the usual doctrinal declarations of his party (and most others). Later,
however, his personal misogynist views became clear. Iorgovan believes there are
two types of women (both of which will prove to be unmistakable antifeminist
stereotypes). The first one is the ―good woman‖ (i.e. passive, submissive, solely
preoccupied with home and her family), and the second one is the ―bad woman‖ (i.e.
seductive, bringing misfortune on a man she exhausts through sexual magnetism).
The ―father of our Constitution‖ has no doubt that ―real women‖, the ―nice ones‖ are
―the majority in Romania‖, dealing with the roles assigned to them by tradition. In
contrast, seductive women are described as ―parachutes‖, ―mistresses of trade‖, and
are considered to be using their erotic potential to go into politics at the expense of
naive career diplomats who accept the role of sugar-daddies. Towards the end of his
speech on the radio, Iorgovan quotes a poem by Marin Sorescu that we should quote
and analyze for a while.
Entitled Rânduieli (Right Ways), the poem nostalgically and comically
reveres, in the colourful words of a peasant, about the good old days when women
were women and men were men: ―Where I come from, women kiss their men‘s
hands / Or so they used to - said Marin son of Peter/ And do not ever call them by
their first names./ Women made their men three or four kids, but never dared to call
them by their first names./ There were of course the prouder ones, who had
ambition, and these did not call their men anything./ A woman here knows the right
ways, she can hold her plates,/ And her pots by the fire, squatting by the fire place,/
And she can leave politics - that‘s our concern, this is for us men - / Woman, what
1
For a briefing on the matter, see: http://www.gandul.info/magazin/galerie-foto-radu-
mazare-spartan-maharajah-ofiter-nazist-si-aviator-avatarurile-primarului-constantei-9920955
2
Entitled ―Questionnaire on women‖, the show was broadcast on Radio InfoPro on the 10 th
of May 2006.
83
does the woman know?‖.1 If we take a closer look at this poem, we can easily spot
the antagonistic views on women and their roles: on the one hand, the traditional
woman, who ―kisses her man‘s hand‖, is understood as an incomplete man. She
lacks all knowledge of ―politics‖, that is to be left in men‘s care. She freely admits to
her enslavement, as an eternal male pupil in the care of male rationality. In this
ideological view, female subordination to men is structural, professed as natural and
justified by the comparison between a full term (man) and a derealized one
(woman), in a system with comparable terms.
On the other hand, the first concept is dislocated by the intervention of
―prouder women‖, who appear later in the poem, in the unquoted section of it, as
―women of today‖ who cannot even ―properly bear your kids as they should‖.2 This
second configuration of women (unreasonable, stubborn, conniving) is possible to
associate with the metaphor of the complete Other, of a woman who, given her alien
nature, lives in conflict with man. In the world of the poem, the servant-woman
clearly belongs to a golden age of man, identified with a primitive patriarchy,
whereas the alien-woman, who refuses her traditional place, is the sign of a
breakdown of the right ways, a sign of man‘s entry into an iron age of his glory, an
obscure matriarchy. Gender hierarchy is untroubled even in the second case,
although the ideology changes. No longer comparable terms (since woman appears
to man utterly ―incomprehensible‖), the two are hierarchized by means of the
axiological privileging of those terms pertaining to the semantic field of the
masculine and by ridiculing corresponding terms in the field of the feminine.
In the same poem, there is an overlapping mechanism whose relevance goes
far beyond the framework of text analysis. It is the mechanism by which male values
become generic terms. The most obvious example is to be found in: ―this is for
men‖. The overlap of ―man‖ (homo, generic term for all humanity, regardless of
gender) and ―man‖ (vir, selective denomination of a single sex) is neither new, nor
incidental. It echoes in many cultures at a linguistic level (see Engl. Man or Fr.
Homme, or regional Romanian ―om‖). A less visible overlap is that of the semantic
sphere of ―politics‖ and a much broader content than that justified by the explanation
in the dictionary. Here, ―politics‖ means rational discourse, male esoteric
knowledge. It is not by accident that such a term contributes to further ostracism of
those women fleeing from the private sphere to the public one. That women should
leave politics to man, in this poem, actually means women should be excused from
exercising their reason, being incapable of rational actions and of public impact.
In his interview, Antonie Iorgovan actually uses poetic speech and the above
quoted poem just as he would use ideological speech, assigning it a doubtless truth
1
Marin Sorescu, excerpt from ―Rânduieli‖ (Right Ways), a poem of the cycle La Lilieci
(1973, 111). My translation. Original version: ―La noi muierea pupa mâna bărbatului/ Până
mai adineaori – zicea Marin al lui Pătru,/ şi din dumneata nu-l scotea niciodată,/ îi făcea trei,
patru copii, dar nu-ndrăznea să-i zică tu./ Cele mai mândre, care se ambiţionau, nu-i ziceau
nicicum./ Femeia are socotelile ei, ea să ţină de coada cârpătorului,/ Să ţină oala de mănuşă,
la foc, să stea ciucită la vatră/ şi să lase politica – de-asta ne ocupăm noi, asta e pentru
oameni -/ Femeia, ce ştie femeia?‖.
2
Original version: ―nici copii nu-ţi mai face ca lumea‖. My translation.
84
value, although poetry should be ―freed from truth criteria‖.1 This is why I have
conducted the textual analysis of this poem on improper ways, namely those of
ideological interpretation. My justification is given by the fact that more than once,
literature dealing with women and men is read (especially by the large public)
ideologically, much in the way one would read and adhere to ideas from sapiential
texts. For this particular case, I agree with Kenneth Burke2 and his proposition to
replace ―ideology‖ with ―philosophy of myth‖, since Iorgovan‘s aim is not a change
in social consciousness, but the condemnation of a certain philosophy of public
action. ―Let mistresses stay just that, mistresses‖, Iorgovan decrees when quoting
Sorescu‘s poem, ―and let them leave politics to us men‖. This way, the politician
uses the term ―politics‖ just like Marin son of Peter, the rural character speaking in
Sorescu ‗s poem would do. Going further than Ludovic Orban, Iorgovan has the
nonchalance or the cynicism to explicitly say what the other MP did not follow
through, that all women should know and observe their traditional places.
Few noted the paradox that, while in most areas of life urban Romanians
want to see some changes, mostly understood in terms of Europeanization, as far as
gender relations are concerned, change has the resonances of a shaking threat.
While, as we have seen in the examination of the first level of discourse, the
perpetuation of traditional gender representations is somehow inevitable in
consumerist publicity, for reasons that belong to audience expectancies, one can
only deplore the fact that public discourses and ideographs3 of Romanian politicians
(investigated at the second level of discourse) are no different. The kind of publicity
they make through sexist endorsement of dubious gender representation, while being
less explicit and hidden in certain rhetorical mechanisms, has dangerous impact
upon mainstream representation of gender and of the relationship between them.
What about the third level? Can Romanian culture put its hopes for a fair
public representation of gender in the intelligentsia and in the messages coming
from cultural elites? One could think so, but it is worth taking a closer look.
3) Public messages of intellectual discourse

In a well-known book entitled Şase maladii ale spiritului contemporan (Six
Maladies of the Contemporary Spirit), the Romanian philosopher Constantin Noica
defines ―todetitis‖ as ―the malady caused by a deficiency in assuming
individuality―.4 According to him, all spirits can be affected by one or more of the
1
Gilles Deleuze in Foucault and Deleuze, ―Intellectuals and power,‖ 207.
2
Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969),
197–203.
3
In the sense given to this term by Michael Calvin McGee, in ―The ideograph: A link
between rhetoric and ideology,‖ Quarterly Journal of Speech 66, no. 1 (1980): 1–16. The
author‘s definition suggests that a description of political consciousness is possible from the
structures of meaning exhibited by a society‘s vocabulary of ―ideographs‖, where ideology
and mythical symbolism meet.
4
Constantin Noica, Spiritul românesc în cumpătul vremii. Şase maladii ale spiritului
contemporan (The Romanian spirit in the thinking of the age. Six illnesses of the
contemporary spirit) (Bucharest: Editura Univers, 1978), 50.
85
six philosophical maladies he makes up in this beautiful essay, but todetitis is sure to
affect the spirit of each and every woman. Consequently, even if the above
mentioned text does not hold an explicit antifeminist tenet, the reader is faced with a
double simplification. On the one hand, Noica‘s text operates the typical reduction
of essentialist discourse when it levels the diversity of what he names ―the female
half‖ of mankind to a single generic term (―women‖). Besides, there is an implicit
condemnation involved. Although the book is not explicitly incriminating or openly
ideological, since it merely states that there can be described a certain pathology of
―the contemporary human spirit‖, in the chapter on todetitis, ―women‖ are set to
illustrate an unfortunate case-study: ―this is a typical disease for half of humanity,
that is, for women, who constantly seek to fix the generality of the species in
something individual: a love, a child, a home.1― In other words, the ―contemporary
spirit‖ under study in Noica‘s book is, excepting its part affected by todetitis, the
masculine one, since the female spirit is, as we can deduce, afflicted, with no
exception. In some other text, the same philosopher wishes one of his disciples – a
male one, of course – ―the good fortune of having a single vocation‖, that is of going
through a minor (preferably zero) series of failures in different areas. Altogether, the
two references - seemingly insignificant - lead to the perception of the female gender
as a fatal sentence to imposture.
That conviction is based on at least two biases: on the one hand, ―the
woman‖ imagined by Noica is meant to be a housewife, is natural by conformation,
as well as emotional and erotic by structure (love is her main existential purpose).
She is born necessarily equipped with maternal instinct and a wish to serve
(spending all of her self-identifying efforts inside the gyneceum). The existence of
this woman is impossible to imagine per se, since it makes no sense outside a
relational context: love, family, motherhood, home-making. The presence of man is
the sine qua non that enables both her love and the appearance of children or the
transformation of her house into a ―home‖. The stereotype of a natural woman is
probably the most common of all the gender clichés in the history of the intellectual
Western world, being the source of a hierarchical ideology based on a Romantic
philosophy of systemic oppositions. The immediate implication of conditioning
women biologically leads straight to the second bias. Descriptions of a natural
vocation of the domestic woman imply that any other vocation or career would mean
missing ―what is right‖, or taking an inappropriate – if not counterfeit – identity.
The above example is not as benign or as minor as one may think, since it
has a value of generalization. Noica‘s book matters a great deal in almost all
canonical libraries in the formative path of young Romanian intellectuals of both
sexes (or so it did until the new millennium), so its real impact can only be measured
in time. To be fair, Noica‘s understanding of the role of an intellectual, conforming
to his generation‘s understanding, does not recommend a politics of social action,
but rather an elitist, individualist stand. However, the intellectual is already
politically involved,2 by means of his position within a given society and a given
ideology and by means of his discourse.
1
Noica, 54.
2
Foucault and Deleuze, ―Intellectuals and power,‖ 205–07.
86
As a woman in present-day Romania (or elsewhere, for that matter), one is

hardly given ―the good fortune of having a single vocation‖ (even if we consider
housekeeping to be a matter of ―vocation‖, some other callings hide behind this
domestic investment). This statement should not be read as fatal determinism.
Rather, it is likely that women may not favour such a ―good fortune‖, since they may
not value themselves by the standards of a single-path career or life choice. Some
women may find excellence in one single area to be neither interesting, nor
stimulating. Continuing to play the tune of sexist reductive discourses, we may have
to accept different ways of evaluating one‘s own sense of identity and self-value:
while someone‘s sense of identity may come from excelling in one field, someone
else‘s may just as well come from ―sampling‖ different abilities at multiple levels,
by assuming multiple tasks.
Proponents of the idea that a woman has no place in politics and public
discourse should know that antiquity had invented an institution to deal with this
particular form of censorship, that is, the institution of the gynaiconom. The
gynaiconom used to regulate public women behaviour, but also public conduct of
those men who were ―lacking in manliness, controlled by passions and feminine
irreverence in times of mourning‖.1 This refers to the few men who mourned like
women, by scratching their faces to blood, singing mourning verses, openly grieving
at the grave of persons other than their relatives or coming to their graves after the
day of the funeral. In other words, the penalty did not only apply to women who
acted ―like men‖, but also to ―men who acted like women‖.
How comfortable can the experience of gender identity be in present-day
Romania? How acute is the discomfort of gender hierarchy? Possible answers
cluster around the negative pole: too many women feel discriminated in Romania, or
not at all comfortable in their gender identity. Stereotypes, however, bias both
female identity and the male one. Quite a few of the Romanian men live under the
pressure imposed onto them by a sort of manly totalitarianism, which dictates, rather
than states, the content of male identity. Among the prejudices surrounding feminine
identity, perhaps the strongest is the cliché of a natural woman, who is designed to
fulfil a procreative destiny and to fit, without deviations, the traditional role of wife
and mother. This stereotype stands on one of the two following basic ideologies: the
idea of a masculine universalism where man is the ultimate achievement of an ideal
design, or the idea of a perpetual war, conflict or opposition between everything
male and everything female. According to the first ideology, woman becomes –
inside this male universalism – an incomplete, deficient man, whose destiny is to
function as a pupil besides the ―real man‖ (and to seek the protection of a father, a
big brother, or finally her husband). The second ideology imagines an ancillary
woman born solely to be helpful to her husband (who cannot be absent, even in this
case, from her destiny).
Examining the latter, one realizes that much of the feminine ―blame‖ comes
from an ideological reading of religious posits, such as Christian messages, within
1
Plutarh, Vieţi paralele (Parallel lives), vol. I, Introd., trans., and notes prof. N. I. Barbu.
(Bucharest: Editura ştiinţifică, 1960), 221. My translation of excerpt.
87
church ritual.1 It is ironic that some passages of sacred texts, where both husband
and wife have equal status to martyrs and are seated in a relationship of mutual
dependence, as well as in one of vertical dependence to God, have come to be
invoked as doctrinaire excuses of domestic violence. The justifying of a husband‘s
brutality towards his wife is absurdly inferred from the privileging, within the public
reception of the Orthodox celebration of the wedding union, of the excerpts which
state the subjection of woman to man. By comparison, the excerpt referring to the
husband‘s duty, although bearing equal importance within the sacred text, is much
less visible or known in public reception of the same ceremony. This way, the
fragment that states that all of man‘s actions come from the love he must have for
his wife, equal in amount and quality to self-love, bears no public value.
Finally, another stereotypical gender image, frequently found in the
Romanian public sphere is the woman as the Other. Both the metaphor of a ―bad‖ or
even ―evil‖ woman and the metaphor of ―the witch‖ come from this ideological
source, but also apparently ―positive‖ terms like ―the feminine je ne sais quoi‖ have
their roots here. To explain, this is just another name for a mysterious occult
essence, an unknown energy or fluid, which turns women into entities completely
unknown and foreign to men. This second cliché is still very active in present-day
urban Romania, where the public activity of women cannot be ignored. The greatest
danger of this stereotype is that it clearly supports the ideology of a permanent war,
a conflict between sexes that both men and women may fuel.
In an inquiry conducted among women-writers on how they perceive the
masculine and feminine in Romania,2 some well-known woman writers have
provided extremely relevant answers. Here are some excerpts: ―Only when I got to
Western Europe I realized that being born a woman is not necessarily a handicap.
Oh, of course, not all men I know are misogynistic and rude. There are, thank God,
normal men, too. Around them I feel good and feminine. And happy.‖ (Marta Petreu
); ―I have for a long time been lacking female solidarity, so to speak, perhaps as I
have let myself be convinced by the cultural environment in which I was beginning
my own development as a young intellectual. [...] Today, I believe in the need for
female solidarity – not against something, not against men, just solidarity.‖ (Simona
Popescu); ―I am not a feminist, [...] but I wouldn‘t dislike to be considered an
Amazon‖ (Aura Christi); ―I am not a feminist. [ ... ] The typical lover of the
Romanian novel loves by despising the very woman he loves.‖ (Doina Jela); ―As
long as boys know from their mothers that school failure is explained by the fact that
girls are just hardworking (nerdy), while boys are the ones who are really smart, that
[ ... ] no girl is good enough for them and that when they get married they practically
give themselves to some women who clearly do not deserve them, the intention to
educate mature men, full of resentment and frustration well planted in them by their
1
See the excellent commentary of Mihaela Miroiu, in Convenio. Despre natură, femei şi
morală (Convenio. On nature, women and morals), 2 nd ed. (Iaşi: Editura Polirom, 2002).
2
Ruxandra Cesereanu, ed., ―Masculin versus feminin în literatura română‖ (Masculine vs.
feminine in Romanian literature) Steaua 5–6 (2001), thematic inquiry answered by Marta
Petreu, Simona Popescu, Aura Christi, Doina Jela, Sanda Cordoş, Irina Petraş, Saviana
Stănescu, Irina Nechit, Magda Cârneci, Ana Blandiana.
88
own mother, is largely bound to fail‖ (Sanda Cordoş); ―I wish I were a feminist, that
is I wish I could bluntly claim, knowing that I speak for an entire community, equal
treatment for equal competence‖ (Irina Petraş); ―I am not an advocate of a
conservative, dogmatic feminism; [...] the Romanian intellectual is, by definition as
we know it, a man, and the woman is generally his inspiring muse. [...] Either that,
or the prostitute who relaxes the same deep thinker of existential crises‖ (Saviana
Stanescu); ―traditionally, writing is a male occupation – a manifestation of spiritual
and physical virility, and when a woman masters the art of words, the glow of her
writing makes subtle changes in the phenomenology of creation‖ (Irina Nechit);
―maybe it‘s just a late balancing of the sexes in an aging humanity and excessively
calibrated on the hard, tough, possessive, rational values of the Power dimension of
generic human nature.‖ (Magda Cârneci); ―I am not a feminist, [...] I have never
thought of my books as being written by a woman‖ (Ana Blandiana).
Most quoted writers have carefully included in their statement some form of
dissociation from feminism. The first reason may be that feminism has connotations
of a reversed sexism in Romanian public perception, as an aggressively egalitarian
ideology, that irritates men and makes women virile.1 An important vote against
feminism, given by women from Eastern Europe, may be due to the fact that the
professed emancipation has been negatively associated with the professed
emancipation imposed by communism. Forcing women to leave their traditional
domestic role in order to work alongside men to build the new communist world
meant operating two different roles at the same time, resulting in a serious identity
fracture. Yet another reason for the resistance to feminism is the resistance to any
visible ideology, gained by the East-European woman through the communist
ideology-vaccine. Regardless of its particular manifestation, the ideological agenda
of feminism includes change and aims to alter social, political and cultural roles, etc.
Beyond that, one can also notice within the statements of the above-quoted
women-writers a tendency to adopt the role of a bold woman, who breaks access to
cultural creation. The woman-writers either eliminate the perception of gender and
claim they are just authors, or perceive the field of cultural creation as a battlefront,
where victory belongs to the one who really makes the effort (the case of those who
refute the common perception that the Romanian intellectual is male by definition).
We can also take into account that a few of them enjoy radical images like the
Amazon, or antimasculine idiosyncrasies that echo in linguistic harshness. Finally,
one notable aspect is especially the quasi-unanimous need for feminine solidarity, a
solidarity whose aim is not belligerent (in preparation of a world war against men),
but relational. This conclusion appears both in their wish to speak on behalf of a
class, and in the attempts to restore a flawed communication between different
generations of women.
1
Further development on the reasons for oppositions and resistance to feminism, as well as
a good typological understanding of feminism vs. antifeminism vs. nonfeminism, in Lori J.
Nelson, Sandra B. Shanahan, and Jennifer Olivetti, ―Power, empowerment, and equality:
Evidence for the motives of feminists, nonfeminists, and antifeminists,‖ Sex roles 37/3–4
(1997): 227–249 and Susan E. Marshall, ―Ladies against women: Mobilization dilemmas of
antifeminist movements,‖ Social Problems (1985): 348–362.
89
This latter point touches a sore spot, that is, the myth (probably of Oriental
origin) of the conflicting archetypal relationship between mother and daughter-in-
law (i.e. between the woman who gives birth and then educates the future man and
the woman who psychoanalytically takes her place). In many products of the
Romanian popular cultures, as I have stated before, the two women not only hate
each other and place themselves in perpetual conflict, but also are presented to find
supreme joy in their mutual annihilation. The fact that the popular culture of the
Western societies does not support this conflicting archetype and that the incidence
of conflicting relations between mothers and daughters-in-law is much lower should
give food for thought to women in Romania: they could see that, instead of an
immutable archetype, we operate with a variable – and therefore modifiable –
representation.
4. Stereotyping men
In the Western world, the crisis of male identity – exacerbated in the 70s – has led to
the development of hundreds of departments of Men‘s Studies.1 In Romania and
Eastern Europe, being feminist is tacitly frowned upon by members of both genders.
As seen above, creative women who act on the public scene feel the need to detach
themselves from feminism, although not being a feminist is already a sign of
retrograde conservatism in the Western world. To my knowledge, there are no
departments of Men‘s Studies in any of the Romanian universities, even if Gender
Studies professors sometimes approach this topic, too. This is a clear indicator that
male identity is assumed without much dilemma in this cultural space.
One of the most authoritarian stereotypes of men, at work in contemporary
Romanian culture, is the ―tough man‖, which brings together qualities of the macho
man, of the provider and of the family protector, possibly of the rational head of the
mystical union that the couple is perceived to be. The Romanian man is asked, first
of all, to fulfil a heroic fantasy. Should one read into this that female imagery is
somehow haunted by a premonition of violence, always seeking a rescuer and a
white knight? It is my contention that there is a clear correspondence between
domestic violence (whose frequency makes Romania one of the most conflictual
countries of East-Europe in this respect) and the need to imagine a providential man,
a saviour who will offer protection. In most cases, in crisis situations, Romanian
women expect a man‘s intervention. I do not just refer to social conflicts here, when
regardless of who is responsible, regardless of the size of the problem, a very dear
form of protest is to call for the President of the country or the Prime minister to be
present in person wherever something goes wrong. I indicate strictly minor
incidents, like having to fix a doorknob, to change a flat tire, to make an important
family call, to calm a daily turbulence of pubertal children (―wait ‗till your father
comes home‖), to fight a small social battle. The solving of these small disasters is
still expected to come from a man, in an overwhelming number of cases.2
1
Cf. Elisabeth Badinter, XY. De l‘identité masculine (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1992), 15–18.
2
See a detailed analysis in Mihaela Mudure, Feminine (Cluj: Napoca Star, 2000).
90
The female psyche responsible for this mechanism is marked by insecurity

and convinced of its weaknesses. The situation is no different in Romanian daily life
than in Romanian literature. When figures of ―weak men‖ appear as characters in
Romanian modern novels, they are depicted as entirely obnoxious and ridiculous.
No amount of psychological depth seems able to save them from the predicament of
an aprioric negative value judgment. Ladima, a classic example of masculine
character, created between the two World Wars by the writer Camil Petrescu, is a
perfect example. Some critics say he was inspired by the real poet Mihai Eminescu,
whose status is still monumental in the national culture. In Camil Petrescu‘s novel,
the virile ideology makes Ladima not only problematic (in psychology), but also
doomed to social and erotic failure for not following the pattern of a ―tough‖, manly
man. In contrast, the equally dilemmatic Apostol Bologa, of the psychological novel
of Liviu Rebreanu of the same period, Pădurea Spînzuraţilor (Forest of the hanged),
is a military and, in his way, a tough man, keeping his heroic aura to the end, where
he is given deep moral justification for his choosing his conscience over his
obedience to the military law. The first, Ladima, inspires pity at best, if not a kind of
repulsion, while the second, Bologa, demands at least respect, if not admiration.
An indicator of the Romanian obsession for virility is also the frequency of
daily sexual swearing. Being used in almost any context, sexual bad language loses
the imprecation value, rather approaching the semantic neutrality of verbal tics.
Results are often hilarious: men sexually threatening inanimate objects (cars, ATMs
and so on), but also women proffering borrowed male swearing, untroubled by the
absence of the corresponding genitals from their own anatomy, using them as
symbolic objects, invested with phallic power. The image of a tough man (protected,
in Romanian popular culture, by both masculine and feminine options) also goes
through a negative update, when men are discriminated. Discrimination is not
practiced only by the major protagonists of the public space: there is also a marginal
discrimination which occurs when the awareness of one‘s own marginality
motivates the formation of a caste spirit. A good example can be found in popular
culture when the female community treats men as enemies, intruders of the private
sphere: for instance the discriminatory counterpoint of the all too sexist idea that
―man is the head of the family‖ is: ―yes, but woman is the neck of the family‖. The
same name can be applied to a material in a women‘s magazine entitled: ―how to
fuck them up‖.1 Both examples support the idea of an animal man, a rudimentary
being, whose brute force can be channelled towards the fulfilment of the goals of
women, through sexual manipulation (in fact, the theme of women withdrawing
sexual privileges from their husbands has made a career in classical literature since
Aristophanes onwards).
The Western model of couple life brings a pressure that Romanian men are
barely beginning to feel. It can be defined as the pressure of entertaining a schizoid
manhood. If we consider the ideological power of publicity, than we must take into
1
―Cum să-i facem pe bărbaţi‖ (How to have men), see analysis in Mihaela Ursa, 2Portrete de
femei, portrete de bărbaţi‖ (Women portraits, men portraits), in Tzara mea. Stereotipii şi
prejudecăţi 9My country. Stereotypes and prejudices), edited by Ruxandra Cesereanu (Iaşi:
Institutul Cultural European, 2006).
91
account the challenges in store for representations of male gender identity. Here is
an excerpt from a women magazine publicly speaking about a possible identity
change: ―More and more men claim that couple life is in an impasse and that women
are responsible for it. Women offer less and less while asking for increasingly more.
Men feel deceived in their expectations, their desire is slowly dying, and they cannot
communicate. So, man is in pain, couples are agonizing. [ ... ] Their companions ask
them to take on too many responsibilities: to succeed professionally, to be perfect
lovers, tender and virile at the same time ... So they live in constant fear of not being
good enough. The result? Three quarters of our men are simply afraid of their
women. At least so the statistics say.1―
A first difficulty in assuming masculine identity today comes from the
collision of two opposite imperatives: ―be a man!‖, which asks for the macho man
action hero, and simultaneously ―be nice and sweet!‖, which requires a change of
content that men have not agreed upon, even if occasionally they consent to it in
spite of their own agenda, for various reasons. A second difficulty comes from the
assertion of some form of female aggression (a vagina dentata - type of image),
resulting from the replacement of traditional feminine values (passiveness, patience,
silence, obedient nature) with modern values (activism, determination, overt
rapacity, refusal of ―love sufferings‖).
Holding on to a conflict between the sexes is not entirely manmade. In 2005,
a Romanian literary review called a response2 to a popular volume of short stories
by Mircea Cărtărescu, entitled De ce iubim femeile (Why we love women). The
review issue consists of the interventions of women of culture, meant to illustrate
―Why we love men‖. In her speech entitled ―Why we don‘t love men‖ Alexandra
Olivotto writes one of the most virulent anti-masculine texts of our culture ,
composed, basically, of the sequencing of all the negative stereotypes about men:
―Because they smell of sweat, cheap tobacco or their upper lip sweating make them
feel not unsanitary, but increasingly virile. Because they can only smile to all small
children passing once they have planned to perpetuate the species. [ ...] Because
hypochondria was invented by and for them, but they endure it with unexpected
courage. Because they go to bed with you like a summer rain, to show you that they
love you. Because if they take care of all the nagging and petty chores of the house,
they have either beaten you, or cheated on you the night before. [ ... ] Because they
always have the simplest orgasms and because post-coital sadness is just a myth that
assures us of the depth of their feelings,‖3 and so on. A small percentage of
Romanian men (slightly higher among educated men4) do not feel at all comfortable
in the position of being daily forced to ―be‖ something. While a woman is never
asked to ―be a woman‖ (but possibly ―be a good /nice woman etc.‖), her identity as a
woman being unquestioned, as hard evidence, the fact of being a man seems to
1
Mihaela Spineanu, ―Imposibila iubire‖ (The Impossible Love), Elle (February 2003): 47.
2
Alexandra Olivotto, ―De ce nu iubim bărbaţii‖ (Why we do not love men), Vatra11–12
(2005), themed issue ―De ce iubim bărbaţii‖ (Why we love men), edited by Nicoleta
Sălcudeanu.
3
Olivotto, ―De ce nu iubim bărbaţii‖, 113.
4
See issue ―Fii bărbat!‖ (Be a man!) of magazine Dilema (2004).
92
demand further efforts. ―It is never enough to have a chromosome formula of the
XY type and a functional penis to feel you are a man‖ (Badinter 1992: 59). Since he
is considered mature enough, man must assert himself by dissociation: he is ordered
not to be a woman, not a child, and finally, not a homosexual. If most Romanian
men accept the challenge (at least theoretically), there is a more radical solution in
the Western world, where male identity is no longer measured against the virile
illusion. There is also the possibility to be a ―soft man‖. This should not be confused
with the ―weak man‖, who represents a failure in the virile challenge. Rather, the
―soft‖ model eludes the virile illusion altogether.
This proves that clichés about men roles are diversifying. As it has been
discovered by anthropological research on islands1, gender stereotypes are variable
(only in some of the analyzed populations man is associated with heroic hardness, in
others he is associated with a pronounced erotic shyness or with a good aesthetic
sense). Also, they are movable (i.e. unstable). In the meantime, however, in the East-
European world, a man who takes the place of his wife, asking for his two-year
leave of absence for childcare makes it into the evening news and, almost certainly,
must be prepared for a long ridicule in his circle of male friends.
Several conclusions
In general, the stereotypical description of man and woman in Romania happens at
the intersection of two gender representations. Firstly, the Western frame represents
the woman with multiple skills and the man outside the illusion of virility, no longer
under the obsession of macho hardness. Secondly, these images suffer the by-pass of
another, far more authoritative frame, the one coming from traditional Eastern
Europe and even the East, where gender images are strongly segregated and well
polarized. In this second case, the woman is still either domestic, passive (―good‖),
or seductive and erotic (―bad, evil‖). The man is in turn represented as the manly,
rational dictator head of the family and the couple.
As I have stated before, the representations by themselves cannot be accused
of being true or false. However, they never appear alone in an empty space.2 These
ideological representations populate the public sphere and bear public truth value.
Whether they come within product advertising, political discourse or elite culture,
they can affect social and cultural change, delaying the solutions that could be given
to serious problems like domestic abuse, implicit gender segregation, social
discrimination, manipulative rhetoric or simply stereotyped understanding of gender
roles.
1
Margaret Mead, Coming of age in Samoa: A psychological study of primitive youth for
Western civilisation (London: HarperCollins, 2001).
2
Melvin J. Hinich and Michael C. Munger, Ideology and the theory of political choice
(Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1996).
93
Negation and Mystical Union in Plotinus
Daniel JUGRIN
Al. I. Cuza University, Iaşi
Keywords: Plotinus, ancient philosophy, negative theology, mystical union, ecstasy,

unknowing,
Abstract: The Plotinian description of mystical union derives from his –

philosophical and theological – view regarding the One. Firstly, the process of
abstraction (aphairesis) implies the removal of all that has been an addition to the
soul by its descent into a body. Secondly, it requires a rigorous intellectual
purification of thought in relation to the One. The mechanism by which Plotinus
imposes the ―negation of negation‖ (Enneads 5.5.6.32) and ―taking away
everything‖ (Enneads 5.3.17.38) manifests itself by transposing the soul from the
stage of discourse and cognition towards the noetic contemplation on the level of
Nous, and, finally, towards the mystical union with the One.
E-mail: jugrindaniel@gmail.com
Negation (ἀπόυασις)
The Plotinian negative theology is extremely radical, especially if it is judged in the
context of Plotinus‘ view on the One. Thus negative theology is guaranteed –
foremost, but not exclusively – by his views on the reality of the One. This
foundation must be taken into consideration mostly when we try to understand the
contents and the functions of the Plotinian negations whenever the One is brought
into discussion. On this basis, it is necessary to perceive the Plotinian negative
theology within the broader context of the soul‘s ascension towards the mystical
union with the One, which is in itself a way of return of all things back to the One:1
therefore, even in the case of mystical union, the Plotinian understanding concerning
the One shapes, in the last instance, and the other dimensions regarding the soul‘s
relation with the One in the state of union, but also the state of union itself.2
Among researchers,3 there is a well defined intention of making a distinction
between the two forms of negation in Plotinus: apophasis and aphairesis, though
both function generically as negation of some aspect or other in respect to the One.
1
See Andrei Cornea, ―Lămuriri preliminare‖ (Preliminary clarifications), in Plotinus, Opere
(Works), vol. I (Bucharest: Humanitas, 2002), 108 and 124.
2
Cf. Todd Ken Ohara, The Internal Logic of Plotinian and Dionysian Apophasis, Ph.D. Diss.
(New Haven: Yale University, 2007), 144.
3
E.g., John Bussanich, The One and its relation to Intellect in Plotinus (Leiden: Brill, 1988);
Pieter A. Meijer, Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9): An Analytical
Commentary (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1992); Michael Sells, Mystical Languages of
Unsaying (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1994).
94
If apophasis is applied in order to explain the fact that the One is not thus and such,
aphairesis operates instead somehow differently, on the basis of three conceptual
models. The first model1 is the one of the sculptor which removes the addition of
clay to arrive at the completely finalized figure.2 The second one refers to the
mathematical model of subtraction, through which Y is subtracted from X, having as
residuum Z.3 The first model – and the last one – concerns abstraction, according to
which aphairesis functions as a way of conceptualization of a hypothetical state of
things: i.e. we abstract from what is factual to expound something about the reality,
transcendence and independence of the One. In each model, something is
definitively negated, though having as a result the fact that something else remains.4
In Enneads V.5.6., Plotinus argues explicitly for the fact that even negations
(ἀποθάζειρ) concerning the One must be, in the end, negated: ―for perhaps this
name [One] was given it in order that the seeker, beginning from this which is
completely indicative of simplicity, may finally negate (ἀποθήζῃ) this as well,
because, though it was given as well as possible by its giver, not even this is worthy
to manifest that nature;‖5
Previous to this declaration, Plotinus had explained that the name of the One
is best expressed in the form of ―a suppression or negation of multiplicity (ἀποθάζει
ηῶν πολλῶν).‖6 He goes further and teaches us that even the name of ―One‖ itself –
understood as ―negation of multiplicity‖ – must be, in the end, denied or negated.
Admitting this ―negation (ἀποθήζῃ) of negating multiplicity (ἀποθάζει ηῶν
πολλῶν)‖,7 Plotinus acknowledges implicitly the fact that negations or denials
1
Most researchers tend to agree that Plotinus adopted the discursive practice of aphairesis
from Pythagorean or Neopythagorean philosophies. Moreover, they pretend that Dionysius
itself would have taken the method following the Plotinian use of aphairesis in relation to the
first conceptual model brought into discussion. Cf. John N. Jones, ―Sculpting God: The
Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology,‖ Harvard Theological Review 89, no. 4 (1996): 357,
n. 8.
2
Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.9.8 sq.: ―Go back into yourself and look; and if you do not yet see
yourself beautiful, then, just as someone making a statue which has to be beautiful cuts away
(ἀθαιπεῖ) here and polishes there and makes one part smooth and clears another till he has
given his statue a beautiful face, so you too must cut away (ἀθαίπει) excess and straighten
the crooked and clear the dark and make it bright, and never stop working on your statue till
the divine glory of virtue shines out on you…‖ [trans. A.H. Armstrong, in Plotinus, vol. I
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 259].
3
Jones (―Sculpting God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology‖, 357, n. 8) defines the
process of subtracting attributes from a subject in terms of the rejection of the logician.
Ohara (The Internal Logic of Plotinian and Dionysian Apophasis, 95, n. 152) is rather
tempted to associate the method of the rejection of the logician proposed by Jones with what
results from an act of apophasis. Even though the second Plotinian model was often coupled
with the one present in Pythagoreanism/ Neopythagoreanism, nonetheless, Ohara thinks that
Plotinus also uses aphairesis in other ways.
4
Cf. Ohara, The Internal Logic of Plotinian and Dionysian Apophasis, 95.
5
Plotinus, Enneads 5.5.6.30-34
6
Ibid., 5.5.6.28.
7
Cf. also Deirdre Carabine, The Unknown God. Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition.
Plato to Eriugena (Louvain: Peeters Press, 1995), 124.
95
themselves are, in the last instance, inadequate in the attempt to express the reality
of the One alongside other things; and this is because they function by means of and
in relation to the things ―posterior‖ to the One. In other words, the One is treated by
means of a reference which relates to the things that are not the One itself, things
that are, from a metaphysical point of view, ―under‖ the One or are inferior to the
reality of the One.1
Negations are improper when applied to the reality of the One for other
reasons also. Firstly, negations are improper because, even when someone would
have a mystical contact with the One, such negations do not contain, do not express
and neither do they deliver a knowledge of the One.2 This idea is crucial for the
understanding of the limitations of any discourse, including the one belonging to
negation. According to Plotinus, the act of negation or denial – no matter how it is
practiced: on cognitive or verbal level – does not mean and neither does it constitute
an apprehension or at least a thinking of the One. It is simply impossible to know the
One by bringing it within the frame of the human mind, because the One is,
metaphysically, too simple, and thus indeterminate.3 Strictly speaking, our concepts
about the One fail to circumscribe the One.4 Even though to a certain extent it can
direct its ―gaze‖ towards the One, still even the Nous cannot know, think or
understand the One.5
All discourse concerning the One – positive or negative – functions, lastly, in
view of the soul‘s ascension to the state of mystical contact with the One: ―Raised
up, then, towards that by what has been said one should take hold of that itself, and
he will see also himself and will not be able to say all that he wishes.‖6 In this
broader sense, the apophatic discourse achieves its goal to finally indicate the
direction of the ascension towards the mystical union of the soul with the One. The
movement by which Plotinus imposes ―the negation of negation‖ (ἀποθήζῃ7…
ἀποθάζει ηῶν πολλῶν) and ―the removal of all‖ (Ἄθελε πάνηα8) behaves in the
sense of transposing the soul from the level of discourse and cognition to the level of
1
Cf. Plotinus, Enneads 5.5.10.1 sq.: ―But do not, I beg you, look at it through other things;
otherwise you might see a trace of it, not itself; but consider what this might be which it is
possible to grasp as existing by itself, pure, mixed with nothing, in which all things have a
share, though nothing has it; for there is nothing else like this, but there must be something
like this (trans. Armstrong, V, 185).
2
Cf. Plotinus, Ennead 5.3.14.2-3: ―we certainly do not speak it, and we have neither
knowledge or thought of it‖ – οὐδὲ γνῶζιν οὐδὲ νόηζιν ἔσομεν αὐηοῦ (trans. Armstrong, V,
121).
3
Cf. Ibid., 6.8.13.1 sq.: ―But if one must bring in these names of what we are looking for, let
it be said again that it was not correct to use them, because one must not make it two even for
the sake of forming and idea of it‖ [trans. A.H. Armstrong, in Plotinus, vol. VII (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 267].
4
Cf. Ibid., 5.4.1.9 sq.: ―there is no concept or knowledge of it‖ – μὴ λόγορ μηδὲ ἐπιζηήμη
(trans. Armstrong, V, 141).
5
Cf. Ohara, The Internal Logic of Plotinian and Dionysian Apophasis, 133–134.
6
Plotinus, Enneads 6.8.19.1 sq. (trans. Armstrong, VII, 291).
7
Ibid., 5.5.6.32.
8
Ibid., 5.3.17.38
96
Nous, of noetic contemplation and, finally, on the level of mystical union with the
One: ―Now if you want to grasp the isolated and alone1, you will not think;‖ (Η
ἔπημον καὶ μόνον ἐὰν ἐθελήζῃρ λαβεῖν͵ οὐ νοήζειρ).2 It thus results that a necessary
necessary condition for the transposition of the soul to ―the ascension towards the
union with the One‖ is given by the ceasing of the noetic activity of the soul, and in
this manner are emphasized the function, the status and the value of apophasis as a
final instrument of preparation for the transposition of the soul in a state of mystical
union with the One.3
Abstraction (ἀυαίρεσις) and purification (κάθαρσις)

The Plotinian description of mystical union results from his vision regarding the
One. As the summit of our soul stays in an eternal union with Nous, the same the
highest level of Nous – named ―Nous in love‖ or ―that in Nous that is not Nous‖ –
remains in eternal union with the One. Thus, the One is not compelled to return
towards us; it is permanently present at the core of our being. In order to achieve
this, we must ―take off everything‖ or ―put away otherness.‖4
Through ―the process of abstraction‖ (aphairesis), the Soul is capable to rise
to the contemplation of the Nous and then to what is beyond Nous – to the
contemplation of the Good.5 In practical terms, this process implies, first of all, the
removal of all that was added over the soul by his descent into a body – i.e. the
removal of all that is extraneous to its true nature. Secondly, this process requires an
intellectual rigorous purification of thinking in relation to the Good, purification
which is necessary because our thinking is not simple.6
The Plotinian understanding of purification is categorically preoccupied
foremost of moral purification: moral excellence7 is therefore an a priori for the
1
Plato, Philebos 63b.
2
Plotinus, Enneads 5.3.13.32-33 (trans. Armstrong, V, 121).
3
Cf. Ohara, The Internal Logic of Plotinian and Dionysian Apophasis, 137–138.
4
Cf. Rich T. Wallis, ―The Spiritual Importance of Not Knowing‖, in Arthur Hilary
Armstrong, ed., Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman (New York:
Crossroad, 1986), 473.
5
The Soul becomes conscious of itself and realises that it depends on a divine superior
Intellect which illuminates it and which allows it to think; it also realizes that it emanates
from a transcendent Good which is superior to the Intellect and which constitutes the subject
of its attraction. Cf. Pierre Hadot, ―Neoplatonist Spirituality. Plotinus and Porphyry‖, in
Armstrong, ed., Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, 234.
6
Cf. Bussanich, The One and its relation to Intellect in Plotinus. A commentary on selected
texts, 113: ―This epistemological and ontological procedure of abstraction or subtraction
deepens the moral and psychological κάθαπζιρ.‖
7
Plotinus itself was a remarkable model of moral purification; Porphyry relates that Plotinus
―was mild and kind, most gentle and attractive, and we knew ourselves that he was like this.
It says too that he sleeplessly kept his soul pure and ever strove towards the divine which he
loved with all his soul, and did everything to be delivered and escape from the bitter wave of
blood-drinking life here‖ (See Porphyry, The Life of Plotinus, 23.1 sq., trans. Armstrong, I,
69). On the moral aspect of Plotinus‘ thought see, e.g., John M. Rist, ―Plotinus and Moral
97
purification of the intellect.1 Aphairesis implies the abandonment of multiplicity and

of all human preoccupation, the soul being hence confronted with the task of
becoming pure and unalloyed: i.e., to become the same as the One, in its simplicity. 2
The other aspect of aphairesis imposes the purification of those concepts regarding
the Good. We must ―remove all‖ because the One is none of the things of which
origin it is.3 Even though we cannot predicate anything about it: either Being,
substance or life, we can still think it by the elimination of all that was added over
the idea of Good; in this manner, we will be filled with wonder and will know
through intuition the way it is in itself.4
This is one of the most radical consequences of negative theology, because it
imposes imperatively grasping the Good through the absolute negation of all
referential terms which we are familiarized with. We can know the One just through
what comes after it – i.e. its ―results‖ –, and the knowledge thus obtained is not the
knowledge of its nature, but just the knowledge of the fact that the One constitutes
the transcendental cause of all things:5 ―We say that he is, but we cannot say what he
is6 – a familiar idea in the writings of the early Christian Fathers. Yet, in the
Enneads, the paradox is that the Good cannot be known truly through his sequents:
he cannot be known through them in a way that will tell us of his nature but only in
so far as they tell us what he is not‖.7
Plotinus will be the one to also include in the equation of knowledge the
purification, κάθαπζιρ being the element which accompanies virtue and implies
obligation‖, in Idem, The Significance of Neoplatonism (New York: State University of New
York Press, 1976), 217–233.
1
Having as a starting point Arnou‘s interpretation [René Arnou, Le désir de Dieu dans la
philosophie de Plotin (Paris: Libraire Félix Alcan, 1921), 202, 217], which does not seem to
decipher a negation of an intellectual order in Plotinus‘ case, Trouillard emphasizes the
importance of an asceticism of the spirit which is distinguished from the moral effort. It‘s
about the ascesis which consists in the annihilation of illusions, in the criticism of the mental
limitative forms and in preferring night in the detriment of some obvious facts. On the
distinction between intellectual negation and moral negation see Jean Trouillard, ―La
Négation‖, in Idem, La purification plotinienne (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France,
1955), 137–139.
2
Plotinus – the same as Plato, Dionysius and Meister Eckhart – makes appeal to the image of
the sculptor which splinters a piece of rock in order to reveal the statue free of all obstacles
and additions (Enneads 1.6.9). In this way, the soul becomes liberated of all that was added
to its real nature and it is led towards the state of contemplating the Good. Cf. Carabine, The
Unknown God, 132–133.
3
Plotinus, Enneads 5.3.17.38; 5.5.13.13.
4
Cf. Ibid. 3.8.10.31-32. The view that Plotinus voices here – viz. that we must look for the
Good outside the created things – is one of the typical forms of negative theology in the
manner illustrated by Philo of Alexandria, Dionysius, Eurigena, and Meister Eckhart. Before
all things came into being, the One was and It is now as it was before bringing all things into
existence. Therefore, we must not add to its existence anything that belongs to the realm of
created being. Cf. Plotinus, Enneads 5.5.12.42-43 and 6.7.23.9-10.
5
Ibid. 6.8.11.1-3 and 3.8.10.32.35.
6
Ibid. 5.5.6.
7
Carabine, The Unknown God, 134–135.
98
asceticism – i.e. the detachment of the soul from the body:1 ―What then do we mean
when we call these other virtues purifications, and how are we made really like by
being purified? Since the soul is evil when it is thoroughly mixed with the body and
shares its experiences and has all the same opinions, it will be good and possess
virtue when it no longer has the same opinions but acts alone.‖2
In this sense, it must be pointed out that Plotinus highlights moral purification
and intellectual purification to an equal degree: ―But what could the purification of
the soul be, if it had not been stained at all, or what its separation from the body?
The purification would be leaving it alone, and not with others, or not looking at
something else or, again, having opinions which do not belong to it – whatever is the
character of the opinions, or the affections, as has been said – and not seeing the
images nor constructing affections out of them.‖3
In Enneads 4.7.10.40, Plotinus will speak of κάθαπζιρ as a maneuver which
leads ―in a state of knowledge of the best‖4 (γνώζει ηῶν ἀπίζηων). In some other
place, the Neoplatonic philosopher introduces a ―hierarchy‖ of spiritual stages:5 at
first, ―moral purification‖ – which gives birth to ―virtues‖ (ἀπεηαὶ) and ―adorning‖
(κοζμήζειρ) –, and then a superior level of knowledge, achieved when the soul is
―gaining footholds in the intelligible‖.6
On the first level, the journey of the soul may follow two different routes. The
first road consists in ―contemplating the splendor of the sensible world‖ in order to
rise to the World Soul which generates it and to discover thus the superiority of the
soul in comparison with the body.7 Therefore, the first path will lead the human soul
soul to self consciousness – as a force of transcending the body – and to receiving
light from the divine Intellect. The second trajectory – which converges with the
first – makes direct reference to inner experience: initially, ascetic experience and,
subsequently, the experience of thinking.8
The union (ἕνωσις)
1
In its first stage, the journey of the soul may follow two routes: one that consists in
reflecting upon the existence of the sensible world; the other turns firmly back inside the
soul. Both are destined to reach the same goal: the spiritual separation of the soul from the
body and life in conformity with the Intellect. Cf. Hadot, ―Neoplatonist Spirituality: Plotinus
and Porphyry‖, 234 sq.
2
3
Ibid., 3.6.5.13-19
4
Trans. A.H. Armstrong, in Plotinus, vol. IV, 385.
5
Cf. Plotinus, Enneads 6.7.36.8-10: ―but we are put on the way to it by purifications and
virtues and adorning and by gaining footholds in the intelligible and settling ourselves firmly
there and feasting on its contents‖ – ποπεύοςζι δὲ καθάπζειρ ππὸρ αὐηὸ καὶ ἀπεηαὶ καὶ
κοζμήζειρ καὶ ηοῦ νοηηοῦ ἐπιβάζειρ καὶ ἐπ΄ αὐηοῦ ἱδπύζειρ καὶ ηῶν ἐκεῖ ἑζηιάζειρ
6
A certain support for the first level could be the fact that the only instance of κόζμηζιρ
seems to makes reference to moral preparation: ―the preparation (παπαζκεςὴ) and the
adornment (κόζμηζιρ) are clearly understood, I think, by those who are preparing
themselves‖ (Plotinus, Enneads 6.7.34.11-12); Cf. Bussanich, The One and its relation to
intellect in Plotinus, 195–196.
7
See Plotinus, Enneads 5.1.2.1-5.
8
Cf. Hadot, ―Neoplatonist Spirituality – Plotinus and Porphyry‖, 234.
99
To make the One the object of knowledge implies its transformation into a multiple,
and, as the One is absolutely simple, it is clear that it cannot be any thought about
it.1 Nevertheless, the ascension towards the supreme entities is operated first by the
movement towards the Nous and then beyond Nous. We first contemplate the
intelligible and then – leaving behind the intelligible – we move beyond it. Only
through the contemplation of the intelligible world the soul can rise to what it‘s
beyond it.2
To describe the arrival of the soul in the intelligible realm, Plotinus uses the
words of Platonic fashion ἐπιβάζειρ (―ascension‖) and ἑζηιάζειρ (―banquet‖). The
first belongs to a quote from Plato‘s Republic, where it is said that ―hypotheses‖ (ηὰρ
ὑποθέζειρ3) are ―stepping stones to take off from, enabling it to reach the
unhypothetical first principle of everything‖.4 For the second one, a plausible source
source could be Phaidros: ―And when the soul has seen all the things that are as they
are and feasted on them, it sinks back inside heaven and goes home‖5 – which may
very well be a parallel closely related to Plotinus‘ ―intelligible banquet‖.6
In order to become simple – the same as the One – we must abandon the
process of thinking the One, which is, by its nature, multiple. When the soul
becomes the same as the Intellect, it reaches the union with the Nous, by means of
which we understand that the Good is.7 When the soul leaves behind all other things
and becomes pure thinking, then it will attain – the same as the Nous – the
contemplation of the One.8
The way of reaching the unity with the Good or the vision of the Good –
simply implies the renunciation of all things, including knowledge: 9 Plotinus‘ way
goes beyond knowledge:10
1
Plotinus, Enneads 5.3.14.2-3.
2
Ibid., 3.8.11, 5.5.6 and 6.8.7. Cf. Carabine, The Unknown God, 140.
3
Plato, Respublica 511b5. [trans. G.M.A. Grube and rev. C.D.C. Reeve, in J.M. Cooper
(ed.), Plato, Complete Works (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997),
1132].
4
Ibid., 511b6-7: οἷον ἐπιβάζειρ ηε καὶ ὁπμάρ͵ ἵνα μέσπι ηοῦ ἀνςποθέηος ἐπὶ ηὴν ηοῦ πανηὸρ
ἀπσὴν ἰών
5
Plato, Phaidros 247e2-4: καὶ ηἆλλα ὡζαύηωρ ηὰ ὄνηα ὄνηωρ θεαζαμένη καὶ ἑζηιαθεῖζα͵
δῦζα πάλιν εἰρ ηὸ εἴζω ηοῦ οὐπανοῦ͵ οἴκαδε ἦλθεν [trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul
Woodruff, in Cooper (ed.), Plato, Complete Works, 525].
6
Cf. Bussanich, The One and its relation to intellect in Plotinus, 196.
7
8
Ibid., 6.9.5 and 1.1.8. Cf. Carabine, The Unknown God, 140.
9
The whole doctrine of the unity of the intellects and souls is destined to explain the
concrete experience of soul which, on concentrating on itself and by returning to its original
source, abandons the body, surpasses its discursive activity, and experiences the union with
the divine Intellect. It discovers itself as an intellect which, by self-knowledge, is a part, an
element of the total Intellect. In discussing this stage from the journey of the soul, inside
which, by surpassing rational and discursive activity, we experience the unity with the divine
Intellect, we can speak of a mystical experience. Cf. Hadot, ―Neoplatonist Spirituality –
Plotinus and Porphyry‖, 236.
10
Schomakers considers the treatise 6.9 from Plotini Opera as the first systematic
philosophical description of mystical philosophy – i.e. of knowledge beyond knowledge,
100
―One must therefore run up above knowledge and in no way depart from
being one, but one must depart from knowledge and things known, and from every
other, even beautiful, object of vision. For every beautiful thing is posterior to that
One, and comes from it, as all the light of day comes from the sun.‖1
Even though it could be found at least one fragment where Plotinus does not
totally eliminate intellection when it comes to the Good, the most frequent way that
is supported is the non-conceptual way.2
Silencing all intellectual activity and harmonizing with the simple nature of
the Good – i.e. without being duality anymore – the soul cannot do anything else
―but to wait quietly till it appears‖ (ἀλλ΄ ἡζςσῇ μένειν͵ ἕωρ ἂν θανῇ).3 The
experience of ―expectation lacking thinking and concept‖ is not such an easy state to
come to, but if someone persists, the soul can ―wake another way of seeing, 4 which
everyone has but few use.5 This awakening towards another way of knowledge is a
rouse to the presence of the Good, which it can neither come, nor go; it is
permanently present, as without its presence, the universe cannot be.6
This perception of the Good cannot be named anymore knowledge, as the
Good cannot even possess self knowledge:7 it is ―presence superior to knowledge
(καηὰ παποςζίαν ἐπιζηήμηρ κπείηηονα)‖.8 The Good offers something much more
important and grand than the simple fact of knowing it: ―he gives them rather to be
in the same place with him and to lay hold on him‖ – ἀλλὰ μᾶλ λον ἐν ηῷ αὐηῷ͵
καθόζον δύναηαι͵ ἐθάπηεζθαι ἐκείνος .9 The One is unknowable, and all the other
things, even though they cannot know it, can still enter into contact with it – a
contact that is beyond knowledge.10 Neither the Intellect, nor the thinking is the
supreme Good, but they are suspended in each of us by a superior presence which is
antecedent to the noetic order.11
which is made possible because of a rigorous rejection of other types of knowledge, thus
being constituted the first treatise of negative theology. See Ben Schomakers, ―Knowing
through Unknowing. Some Elements for a History of a Mystical Formula‖, in Nancy van
Deusen, ed., Issues in Medieval Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Richard C. Dales (Ottawa:
The Institute of Mediaeval Music, 2001), 34.
1
2
See Ibid., 6.7.40.32-36 and 6.7.35.44-45.
3
Ibid., 5.5.8.3-4
4
See also Ibid., 6.9.11.22-23. Cf. Schomakers, ―Knowing through Unknowing…‖, 35.
5
Ibid., 1.6.8.25-27 (trans. Armstrong, I, 259).
6
Cf. Carabine, The Unknown God, 140.
7
Plotinus, Enneads 6.9.4.3. Cf. Ibid. 5.6.6.31. On the fact that the One does not think – as a
recurring theme in Plotinus, see Arthur Hilary Armstrong, ―The Escape of the One. An
investigation of some possibilities of apophatic theology imperfectly realized in the West‖,
Studia Patristica 13, Part. II (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975), 81.
8
Plotinus, Enneads 6.9.4.3 (trans. Armstrong, VII, 315).
9
Ibid., 5.6.6.34-35.
10
We are all in the One (Good) and then we can enter into contact with It in a super-
intellectual way. See Cornea, in Plotinus, Opere (Works), vol. II (Bucharest: Humanitas,
2006), 124–125, n. 28.
11
Cf. Jean Trouillard, ―Valeur critique de la mystique plotinienne‖, Revue philosophique de
Louvain 59 (1961), 431.
101
Nevertheless, Plotinus does not proclaim the abolition of reason, but he

asserts that we must surpass the Nous: at the highest level of the Plotinian ascension,
the vision of the Good is made through the power of the Intellect, but through a
Nous emptied of content. The perception of the presence of the One is described by
Plotinus as a kind of simple intuition, which is experienced just when the soul
completely becomes one with the Nous.1
While the state of being in the presence of the Good is a gift given by the
Good, it is still a state that the human intellect can reach just under the impulse of
aspiration, of longing towards the Good, but also by following the example of a wise
mentor. Nonetheless, there are some situations when the soul may be raised from
this state towards an experience of absolute unity with the One. Even though this
type of experience can be understood as being different from the experience of the
awaiting of the presence of the Good2, the distinction is still not that obvious in the
Plotinian texts. Plotinus specially underlines the passive state of the soul intrinsic to
such a union, as the longing of the soul has ended. The veil of the Nous is the one
which raises the soul united with it towards a different horizon of experience:3
―It is there that one lets all study go; up to a point one has been led along and
settled firmly in beauty and as far as this one thinks that in which one is, but is
carried out of it by the surge of the wave of Intellect itself and lifted on high by a
kind of swell and sees suddenly (ἐξαίθνηρ), not seeing how, but the vision fills his
eyes with light and does not make him see something else by it, but the light itself is
what he sees.‖4
The term ἐξαίθνηρ5 (―unexpectedly‖) expresses a type of vision or of union
which – as Armstrong6 takes note of – does not constitute a state which can be
planned or called at any moment someone desires to do so. Moreover, the fact that
the soul is raised from this state contradicts the position of those who seemed to
pretend – in Plotinus‘ case – that the soul attains the unity with the Good by its own
effort.7
1
Plotinus, Enneads 3.8.10.31-32: ―But if you grasp it by taking away being from it, you will
be filled with wonder‖ – Εἰ δὲ ἀθελὼν ηὸ εἶναι λαμβάνοιρ͵ θαῦμα ἕξειρ (trans. Armstrong,
III, 397). In this way, Plotinus‘ mystics can be considered a mystics of the nous. Cf. Philip
Merlan, Monopsychism, mysticism, metaconsciousness. Problems of the soul in the
neoaristotelian and neoplatonic tradition (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1963), 2.
2
Cf. Carabine, The Unnknwon God, 141–142.
3
See Plotinus, Enneads 6.7.35.36-40.
4
Ibid., 6.7.36.15-21 (trans. Armstrong, VII, 201).
5
The references for this term also include Ibid. 5.3.17.28; 5.5.3.13; 5.5.7.23 and 6.7.34.13.
Cf. also Plato, Symposium 210e.
6
See Plotinus V, trans. Arthur Hilary Armstrong (Cambridge Mass./London: Harvard
University Press/William Heinemann, 1984), 135, n. 1.
7
102
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Untitled

The experience of the unity in terms of vision and light is one which
presupposes the lack of a real object present in front of our eyes: the real terminus
point of the wandering soul is the direct vision of that light in itself and not by
means of any other thing: ―the self glorified, full of intelligible light – but rather
itself pure light – weightless, floating free.‖1
This type of vision excludes the very possibility of the soul of knowing the
fact that it is united with the One, as it cannot be anymore a distinction between
itself and the object of its intuition: ―But one must transport what one sees into
1
Plotinus, Enneads 6.9.9.57-59 (Armstrong, VII, 339).
103
oneself, and look at it as one and look at it as oneself.‖1 ―This alone is the eye that
sees the great beauty‖.2
The ecstasy (ἔκστασις)

Plotinus also imagines the experience of being ―outside-of-itself‖ or of ecstasy
(ἔκζηαζιρ) in terms of another way of seeing. Jean Trouillard deems regrettable the
fact that the mystical stage was rendered by the term ἔκζηαζιρ (―ecstasy‖), which
Plotinus used just once, and which would rather express a fleeting migration (un
exode passager) towards pure transcendence; he favours instead the word ἅπλωζιρ3
(―simplification‖). Porphyry tells us that, for Plotinus, his aim and his goal were
hiding the desire to be intimately united with the god who was beyond all.4 This
union was attained by the master four times and by his biographer just one time. 5 It
is thus described as an event.6
The ecstatic moment does not do anything else but to actualize its eternal root
and to recover its expressions.7 For Plotinus, ―ecstasy is but the momentary
revelation of an eternal datum‖.8 It is the experience of thinking which exceeds itself
and at the same time realizes its highest possibility (seine höchste Möglichkeit).9 In
this ―self-surpassing‖, the thinking conscience will not go back just to its
―foundation‖; it will find in itself its own origin and it will not attain it by the means
of thinking or of not-thinking, but, in fact, it is united with it, it is identifying with it
beyond any concept of thinking (den denkenden Begriff hinaus).10
There is an intimate connection between the movement of thinking which
surpasses itself in the tension towards the One and the discovery of its origin, the
unification, or the fact of becoming one: in this event of ―becoming simple and one
with itself‖, it is produced the overcoming of the spirit or of the Intellect towards the
One. The unification or the simplification of the self is the condition of the union
with That which is one and simple. The overcoming of the self, the simplification11 –
or the unification of the self – and the union with the origin coincide.12
1
Plotinus, Enneads 5.8.10.40-42 (Armstrong, V, 273).
2
Ibid., 1.6.9.24-25.
3
Ibid., 6.9.11.23.
4
Porfir, Vita Plotini 23.15-16: ηὸ ἑνωθῆναι καὶ πελάζαι ηῷ ἐπὶ πᾶζι θεῷ.
5
See Porphyry, Vita Plotini 23.
6
Cf. Hadot, ―Neoplatonist Spirituality – Plotinus and Porphyry‖, 245: ―This is why the
mystical experience is presented as an eceptional phenomenon and as transitory.‖
7
Cf. Trouillard, ―Valeur crititique de la mystique plotinienne‖, 433.
8
Eric R. Dodds, ―Tradition and Personal Achievement in the Philosophy of Plotinus‖, The
Journal of Roman Studies 50 (1960), 6.
9
Cf. Werner Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen. Studien zur Neuplatonischen philosophie und
ihrer wirkungsgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klosterman, 1985), 123.
10
Ibid., 123.
11
Cf. Pierre Hadot, Plotin ou la simplicité du regard (Paris: Pion, 1963).
12
Cf. Ysabel de Andia, Henosis. L‘union Dieu chez Denys l‘Aréopagite (Leiden/Köln/New
York: Brill, 1996), 6.
104
For Plotinus, this unification is accomplished in stages, beginning from the

ascending movement of the Soul towards the Intellect and from the Intellect towards
the One.1
a) The man is placed at first in the multiple. The first moment of unity is
ἀθαίπεζιρ, ―the abstractive negation‖, which Beierwaltes defines both as abstraction
of the multiple and return to interiority:2 ἀθαίπεζιρ – the abandonment of outer life
and the return towards the inner one – does not mean just the overcoming of the
multiple, but truly it recognizes itself in its position concerning the One.3 The soul
searches in itself something more original, which – in comparison with discursive
thinking which disperses itself in time – is more simple, more one.4 Thus
proceeding, the Soul returns towards the Intellect.5
b) The movement of abstracting the world and of interiorizing extends
through a process of transforming the Soul by means of virtue – by which it
becomes intellectualized (νοωθῆναι6) – and through a conversion to Nous – which
tends to unite with it.7
―When one contemplates, especially when the contemplation is clear, one
does not turn to oneself in the act of intelligence, but one possesses oneself; one‘s
activity, however, is directed towards the object of contemplation (κἀκεῖνο
γίνεηαι)‖.8 The Soul in contemplation transforms itself in the contemplated object.
Similarly, in its relation with the Intellect, the Soul transforms in it:9 ―Must we say
then that unchangeability belongs to Intellect, but that in the case of Soul, which lies,
so to speak, on the frontier of the intelligible, this change can happen, since it can
also advance further into Intellect.‖10
Penetrating the intelligible realm, the Soul acquires its qualities and – from
changing – becomes immutable:11 ―when it is purely and simply in the intelligible
world it has itself too the characteristic of unchangeability. For it is really all the
things it is: since when it is in that region, it must come to unity with Intellect, by the
fact that it has turned to it, for when it is turned, it has nothing between, but comes to
Intellect and accords itself to it, and by that accord is united to it without being
destroyed, but both of them are one and also two‖.12
c) Nonetheless, the union of the Soul with the Intellect does not constitute the
final point of the anagogic movement towards the One, but just the fact of being
united with the One.13 If the union of the Intellect with the Good is eternal,14 the
1
See de Andia, Henosis, 6–7.
2
Cf. de Andia, Henosis, 6.
3
Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen, 129.
4
Ibid., 131.
5
6
Plotinus, Enneads 6.8.5.35.
7
8
Plotinus, Enneads 4.4.2.4-7 (trans. Armstrong, IV, 141).
9
10
11
12
13
14
105
unifying experiences of the soul are exceptional. They appear unexpectedly and they
cannot be self induced. The exercise of inner unification which prepares them is not
sufficient to induce them; they also disappear unexpectedly.1
Plotinus prefers the term ἕνωζιρ in order to illustrate the union of the Soul
with the Intellect,2 but, for the union with the Good, he appeals either to the word
ἑνωθῆναι: to be united, to become united – as Porphyry does in The Life of Plotinus
–, either to the expression ἓν ἄμθω: ―nor are there still two but both are one‖ (οὐδ΄
ἔηι δύο͵ ἀλλ΄ ἓν ἄμθω)‖.3
The experience of the Good, or of the One, is represented in Plotinus through
the model of the loving union.4 The relation with the Good cannot be but one of
love:5 the Good excites the desire and in this manner the Good is the one which will
become the object of love. This love incites the soul to assimilate itself to the loved
object and to withdraw from all that could separate it from the object.6 As the Good
lacks form and thinking, anyone who loves it wishes to abandon all form and
thinking. We cannot be attached to the Good and remain in the same time attached
to something outside it. The detachment from all corresponds to a form of
asceticism: the Soul must detach from the body, the passions, from all memory of
external objects, and then from all ideas and from all intelligible forms. 7 As is the
case with lovers, so is the desire of the Soul to be alone with the loved one, all the
more so as the loved one is the only One.8 The Soul refuses to stay in any form no
matter how elevated, and it experiences thus the infinite love of the One.9
Knowing through Unknowing

In treatise 5.5.7, Plotinus uses a phrase which will be germinal for Dionysius the
Areopagite‘s negative theology: ―Intellect, veiling itself from other things and
drawing itself, when it is not looking at anything will see a light, not a distinct light
in something different from itself, but suddenly appearing, alone by itself in
independent purity‖.10 So just by unseeing anything else the soul will reach to the
vision of the Good. The soul, returning from all objects of knowledge and seeing,
must learn to see and to know in another way. This idea is central for the ―way of
negation‖: just by unknowing – i.e. by unknowing the creation – can someone reach
to the knowledge of the transcendent.11
Knowing by unknowing the One expresses the fact that this knowledge is in no
way comparable or translatable with any form of knowledge which the common man
1
Ibid., 6.7.34.13; 36.18; 5.3.17.29; 5.5.7.35; 6.9.9.60-10.2. Cf. Hadot, ―Neoplatonist
Spirituality – Plotinus and Porphyry‖, 245.
2
Ibid., 4.4.2.26.
3
Ibid., 6.7.34.13-14 Cf. de Andia, Henosis, 7.
4
Ibid., 6.9.9.39; cf. Ibid. 6.7.34.3 and 14.
5
Ibid., 6.7.22.1-36.
6
Ibid., 6.7.31.11.
7
Ibid., 6.7.34.1-8.
8
Ibid., 6.9.11.50.
9
Ibid., 6.7.32.24-28. Cf. Hadot, ―Neoplatonist Spirituality – Plotinus and Porphyry‖, 245–246.
10
Ibid., 5.5.7.31-34
11
106
is accustomed in day to day life – whether it is practical or philosophical.1 The idea of

knowing through unknowing claims a pivotal place in the guidance of the mystic
towards the One, and the fact that Plotinus emphasizes an essential unknowing, surely
does not equal with the admission of ―absolute ignorance‖ concerning the One, by
which any hope for knowledge is abolished. B. Schomakers2 outlines a double-faceted
faceted typology of ―knowing by unknowing‖ in Plotinus. In the first instance, it could
be defined as ἀθαίπεζιρ – which does not ultimately presupposes ignorance or the
unknowing of all things, but rather a certain type of unknowing – viz. that of rejecting
all familiar concepts and all attempts to reach the One through them.3 Secondly,
unknowing may symbolize also the final unification which follows ἀθαίπεζιρ: in this
situation, the soul – ―seeing by unseeing‖ – receives and totally experiences the One,
giving itself to it and being confiscated by it.
Once the simplicity is created and the presence of the One is felt, the Soul
feels an enormous tension, because it desires to come closer to the One, but, as
Plotinus relates, from that moment we must not follow it, but we must stay calm and
wait until the One turns up, as the sun does in the horizon.4 The subjective passivity
which describes the experience of the One itself introduces a new type of unknowing
– which is even higher than the unknowing of ἀθαίπεζιρ. For the soul gives itself to
the One, it is filled by the amazement of its presence. Here he sees by unseeing; here
at stake is another kind of vision: that of being the One – the only desire to be
reached; here there are not two, but a fusion takes place.5 The favourite Plotinian
metaphor – which also appears in many Dionysyan instances – is that of illumination
or rather that of the fact of being filled with light and of becoming identical with it.
There isn‘t anything in the Soul but the shining One.6
In the unity of the soul with the Good, the soul is restored to the state that was
before turning up from the Good. Nonetheless, the soul cannot stay for long in the
experience of unity, ―because one has not yet totally come out of this world‖:7 ―the
self florified, full of intelligible light – but rather itself pure light – weightless,
floating free, having become – but rather being a god; act on fire then, but the fire
seems to go out if one is weighed down again.‖8 The human experience of the One is
is one of absence and presence, for we are sometimes risen to the stage of
experiencing the unity with the One, and we know it, while, other times, we are
deprived of its presence and we don‘t know it. As Deirdre Carabine9 explains, in the
Enneades, this dialectic has the tendency of operating on two levels.
Firstly, from a metaphysical perspective, the One is everywhere and nowhere;
it is neither limited, nor unlimited; it is either in all things and still in none of them;
1
Cf. Schomakers, ―Knowing through Unknowing‖, 41.
2
See Ibid., 34–41.
3
See Ibid., 37–38.
4
Ibid., 5.5.8.1-7.
5
Cf. Ibid., 6.9.11.22-25 and 6.9.10.12-13.
6
Ibid., 6.9.4.17-21 and 6.7.36. Cf. Schomakers, ―Knowing through Unknowing‖, 39.
7
Ibid., 6.9.10.1-2
8
Ibid., 6.9.9.57-60
9
See Carabine, The Unknown God, 146–147.
107
it comprises everything without being itself comprised; it is simple and it is still not
simple; it is the Shape without shape; and the unity without parts; the multiple but
still beyond all multiplicity. On short: all the things are and aren‘t the One:1 it may
be affirmed that all things are One, as It is present in them as their source; on the
other hand, they aren‘t the One, because the One cannot be any of the things into
which its power is poured.2
On the second level of dialectic, operative in the Enneades, the One is both
present and absent, not only through the metaphysical manifestation of itself, but
also in terms of its presence, as It exists in the universe, as it exists in itself: It is
neither far, nor close, neither here, nor there.3
The tension produced by the dialectical understanding of the One, in the Enneades,
was to become an important part of subsequent negative theology. By this, Plotinus
positions itself at the beginning of a tradition that took over Plato‘s dialectic, as it
was applied in Parmenides, bestowing to it a new meaning, one with strong
theological connotations concerning the nature of the first principle – the One.4
1
Cf. Plotinus, Enneads 5.5.2 and 5.3.12.
2
Cf. Ibid., 6.4.3.
3
Cf. Ibid., 5.5.9; 6.4.2; 6.4.3 and 6.9.4.
4
E.g., in Dionysius the Areopagite, God is all things and still neither of things; It is both
manifest and hidden. See De divinis nominibus II.11; V.10 and V.11.
108
Paganism and Barbarism in the French Philosophy

of the Eighteenth Century
(Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau)
Francisc ÖRMÉNY 
Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj
Faculty of Philosophy
Keywords: Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, paganism, savagery,

revolutionary spirit, religion of the citizen, religion of man, objects of worship and
intentional objects.
Abstract: The present study attempts to show in which cases the barbarism
discussed and sometimes openly advocated by the French philosophers of the 18th
century (Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau) relates back to some pagan
habits and realities for mystically-romantic and for nostalgically-instinctual reasons
and in which cases it has to do with rudimentary and bloodthirsty uses of reason. As
these thinkers ignited the first precious and powerful sparks in the direction of a
historical recuperation of the phenomenological and aesthetic roots of man, our
material represents an attempt to explain the political and historical phenomenon
which brought back to the table the discussion concerning the cultural origins of
Europe and which resurrected the pagan fascinations and fears within the cultural
imaginary of the coming epochs.
E-mail: ormenyfrancisc@yahoo.com
1. Introduction: The Philosophers of the French Revolution

Although history did not record Diderot, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau for a
direct participation in the bloody events of the French Revolution, their ideas
influenced the learned active political men of the time – doctors, lawyers, merchants
and bankers – that is, those who defined the actual public leadership and who were
more aware than the king and his court of the difficulties of the peasants, but also
and most of all, of the social and economic force that the downtrodden and
oppressed ones could embody, if triggered emotionally and given a realistic social
trajectory. Unlike the peasants who were more or less illiterate and forced to work to
exhaustion just to be able to feed themselves; the four philosophers could indulge in
introspections and seize by means of theories the coming inevitable discharge of
repressed energies (they had the necessary time and intellectual means to think their

As a post-doctoral researcher at Babeş-Bolyai University – Faculty of Philosophy (under
the coordination of The West University of Timişoara), the author would like to express his
gratitude for the financial support of his post-PhD research to the team coordinating the
POSDRU 140863 Project.
109
historical situation and to create the conceptual premises for some logically
inevitable changes in society).
Their most important contribution remains perhaps the elaborate way in which
they approached two complex concepts: that of liberation from imperial structures
and a corresponding or subsequent issue of pagan savagery and exuberance. They
addressed these issues from political, sociological, philosophical, historical and
theological angles, while trying to operate directly at the level of the status quo of
the holders of authority and tradition – in order to deconstruct the idea of
―forbidenness‖ and to reveal the imposture of the power relations on which political
authority was built and through which it was sustained.
What truly unites their writings is perhaps one of the strangest possible
combination: an almost ―religious‖ feeling of devotion towards reason (and a self-
imposed belief in the power of this reason to create heavenly places here on Earth),
combined atypically with an exuberant (romantic, intoxicating) pagan lust for the
purity of freedom. Their ideas about how freedom should be gained and about the
real meaning that should accompany such a state of mind went hand-in-hand with a
confidence in the transformative power of instincts. Their revolutionary fervour was
savoured by the medium of a deviant socio-melancholy – we say ―deviant‖ in an
epistemological sense, because it was, after all, a politically induced and sustained
pensiveness, one roughly divorced from the classic romantic (politically-
disinterested) definition of melancholy.
2. Montesquieu‟s free and enslaved conquerors

The Spirit of the Laws contains a lengthy historical meditation around the ways in which
the values and the obsessions of the Roman Empire got or could get reflected,
assimilated and transformed in the light of modern reason and philosophical experience.
In order to understand the implication of the notion of rebellion within an
imperial structure, as part of a resurrected pagan spirit and lust, we must go back as far
as the times of the Roman Empire and see the relations between the dominators and the
incoming populations, into what was considered to be ―the civilized (urban) areas‖.
According to Henry Bradley the tribes of the Goths played a key-role in the
fall of the Roman Empire because of their strong dissidence as manifestation of a
vivid identity, and of a fighting and daring spirit. As untameable conquerors, when
they sought refuge in the Roman Empire they could not accept the price that the
Romans demanded in exchange for having given them shelter and secure conditions
for life: the dismembering of their familial nuclei:
―Orders were sent to the Roman governors on the banks of the Danube to
make preparations for bringing the Visigoths across the river, and when a
sufficient number of boats had been collected, the great immigration began.
Day after day, from early morning till far into the night, the broad river was
covered with passing vessels, into which the Goths had crowded so eagerly
that many of them sank on the passage, and all on board were lost. At first
the Romans tried to count the people as they landed, but the numbers were
so vast that the attempt had to be given up. (...) If the Goths at first felt any
110
thankfulness to the Romans for giving them a safe refuge from their savage
enemies, their gratitude was soon turned into fierce anger when they got to
know that their children were to be taken from them, and sent away into
distant parts of the empire. The reason for this cruel action was that the
Romans thought the Goths would keep quiet when they knew that their
children might be killed if a rebellion took place; but it only filled the minds
of the barbarians with a wild longing for revenge.‖1
And the Goths took their rebellion so far that they ended up crowning their
kings in Rome itself, and imposing their laws on the whole of Southern Europe.
Having in view this historical aspect, we could say that the concept of Gothic culture
(as part of the 18th century revolutionary spirit that animated the whole Europe) is
built around the idea of rebellion (though, as we shall see, quite often rationalization
itself is also condemned by the conservative ―factions‖ as being a venal form of
rebellion), or that it contains strong rebellious ideatic stems as inherited from the
Forefathers (the Goths) of this trend in the European history of the empires.
In the historical evolution of Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the
second most important episode of rebellion (from the point of view of its cultural
effects), destructuring from within an otherwise overwhelming imperial structure,
was the French Revolution. And it is no coincidence that Charles de Secondat Baron
de Montesquieu, one of the most modern voices of the 18th century and a major
source of inspiration for all future ways of thinking the sense of history, when
advocating the cause of a massive and reviving re-organization of France, went
back, for reasons of exemplarity, to the episode with the Goths.
In a fascinating chapter from his The Spirit of the Laws, entitled ―That,
when the peoples of Northern Asia and those of northern Europe conquered, the
effects of their conquests were not the same‖, Montesquieu proved an unprecedented
power of understanding the dynamics that ensure the functioning of the progressive
engines of history, showing that a savage conquest (be it in the form of a rebellion
from within an empire or of an outer invasion of an imperial domain) as such does
not and cannot exists, that it can only be culturally acknowledged if placed on an
incisive vector by means of a political determination.
Different political determinations establish different types of vectors of
infiltration. In this respect Montesquieu compares the Asian conquests with those of
the Vikings, claiming that when the invaders seize a structure as slaves, they only
install there a new type of slavery (basically perpetuating and even aggrandizing or
turning truly malignant their social oppressive cell), while, on the contrary, when
they seize it as free men, they create the very conditions for equality of chances and
for progressive meritocratic development. And, according to Montesquieu, the
Goths knew about the Vikings and their ways and, inside the Roman imperial
space2, they turned the Nordic model into a law of being and, mostly, into a law of
becoming of the conscious and entrepreneurial human subject:
1
Henry Bradley, The Goths From The Earliest Times To The End Of The Gothic Dominion
In Spain (Whitefish - Montana: Kessinger Publishing , 2005), 66–67.
2
It is well known that by the time the Vikings (in their strong identitary countenance and
skillful enterprises) entered into the Mediterranean, what was left of the Roman Empire hired
111
―The peoples of northern Europe have conquered as free men; the

peoples of northern Asia have conquered as slaves and have been victorious
only for a master. The reason is that the Tartar people, Asia‘s natural
conquerors, have become slaves themselves. They constantly conquer southern
Asia, they form empires; but the part of the conquering nation that remains in
this country is subject to a greater master, who is despotic in the south, who also
wants to be so in the north and who, with arbitrary power over the conquered
subjects, claims it also over the conquering subjects.(…). The spirit of Europe
has always been contrary to these mores; and what the peoples of Asia have
always called punishment, the peoples of Europe have always called gross
offence. When the Tartars destroyed the Greek empire, the established servitude
and despotism in the conquered countries; when the Goths conquered the
Roman Empire, they founded monarchy and liberty everywhere. I do not know
if the famous Rudbeck, who in Atlantica has so praised Scandinavia, has
mentioned the great prerogative that should put the nations inhabiting it above
all the peoples of the world: it is that they have been the source of European
liberty, that is, of almost all of it that there is today among men.
The Goth Jordanes has called northern Europe the manufactory of
the human species. I shall rather call it the manufactory of the instruments
that break the chains forged in the south. It is there that are formed the
valiant nations who go out of their own countries to destroy tyrants and
slaves and to teach men that, as nature has made them equal, reason can
make them dependent only for the sake of their happiness.‖1
And it is not at all accidentally that in other sections of his book Montesquieu insists
as well on the Gothic model of dismantling the Roman political organization and of
slowly creating social equilibrium and equal opportunities within the Great Empire:
―The Goths who conquered Spain scattered throughout the country and soon
were very weak. They made three noteworthy regulations: they abolished
them as mercenaries and there was no need for any kind of savage dissension between the
two civilizations. Here, the most significant case remains perhaps that of the Hagia Sophia
building in Istanbul, Turkey. A former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and
now a museum, Hagia Sophia contains on its marble parapets a series of runic inscriptions,
most probably engraved there by such Viking mercenaries serving the Eastern Roman
Empire. The most famous such inscription is the one that refers to a Norse character called
Halfdan. Yet, apart from the name itself it remains pretty illegible and open to speculations.
According to Elisabeth Svärdström (―Runorna i Hagia Sofia‖, Fornvännen 65 [1970], 247–
49) it seems to say something that could equal our modern formula ―Halfdan was here‖. We
could conclude that such peripheral historical contingencies remain ―mere‖ episodes of
mercenary ―attachment‖ between the Romans and the Vikings, a relation that would pretty
much fit the contemporary American label of ―soldier of fortune‖ – if we are to consider both
the personal gain and love of adventure that motivated the alliance.
1
Charles Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Editors and Translators: Anne M. Cohler,
Basia Carolyn Miller, Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1989), 282–283.
112
the former custom that prohibited them from allying themselves with the
Romans through marriage, they established that all those freed from the fisc
would go to war on pain of being reduced to servitude; they ordered that
each Goth would lead to war and arm a tenth of his slaves. This number was
not very large by comparison with the number who remained. In addition,
these slaves led to war by their master did not make up a separate body; they
were in the army and remained, so to speak, in the family.‖1
We can see that Montesquieu praises the pagan initiative and independent
entrepreneurial spirit,2 while attributing the human savagery to former slaves who
can‘t see beyond their social conditioning and who, when they get to be kings and
other types of rulers, by virtue of the most brute inertias of life, keep on perpetuating
and reinventing the severe harm that was previously inflicted on them. A pagan in a
state of nature, according to him, is always an inventor, an adventurer, a conqueror
and even a civilizer.
3. Diderot „s resurrected use of the human entrails as tool for hanging and as
chain of historical consequences
Denis Diderot remains perhaps the most fascinating and viscerally-authentic case of
paganism – though one never noticed as such, because of the heavy accent placed by
his exegetes on his encyclopaedic spirit and on his liberal use of rationalism.
His discourse from his extremely complex lifework entitled Encyclopédie
(Encyclopedia) mostly challenged the ecclesiastical institution and its influence upon
other social and political forms of organization, identifying as the heart of the problem
of the various forms of social slavery the doctrine that stated the so called ―divine‖
right of a prince to hold power over others (as a ―true‖ reflection of ―God‘s will‖).
He advocated a religion and a political choice based on reason (a) and on
personal freedoms and initiatives (b):
(a)―All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and

without regard for anyone‘s feelings...We must ride roughshod over all these
ancient puerilities, overturn the barriers that reason never erected...‖3
(b)―The eclectic is a philosopher who, by riding roughshod over prejudice,

tradition, antiquity, universal consent, authority, in a word, everything that
subjugates the mass of minds, dares to think for himself, goes back to the most
clear and general principles, examines and discusses them, while admitting only
what can be proven by experience and reason. After having analyzed all
philosophical systems without any deference or partiality, he constructs a
personal and domestic one that belongs to him. I say a personal and domestic
1
Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 256–257.
2
In his case, we could claim to have come into contact with ideas and theories that would
pretty much fit today‘s modern etiquette of ―entrepreneurial conquest‖.
3
Denis Diderot, The Encyclopedia: Selections, translated and edited by Stephen Gendzier
(New York: Harper, 1967), 93.
113
philosophy because the ambition of the eclectic is to be the disciple of the

human race rather than its teacher, to reform himself rather than others, to know
rather than to teach the truth.‖1
As it can be observed from the lines above, with Diderot it begins the hectic practice
of reason, in an attempt to launch a web of general influence in this direction. Yet
Diderot did not overstep the functions or the roles of processes of rationalization,
maintaining himself in a constant liberal stream of consciousness, one which
honours him even today among the free-thinkers.
His preference for a personal and domestic philosophy places him among
the pioneering voices (advocates) of a return to a primordial (archaic) form of reason
and of self-determination, controversially labelled later as ―state of nature‖. As it can
be seen in the quotation above, like the most modern pagan thinkers and artists, he
encourages a return to a more intense and endurant form of wisdom and of
emotionality, one better connected to the a-temporal essentials and constants of
human existence, and also one that has always truly sustained all continuities and
reliable precious persistencies amidst the fluxes and refluxes of human historical
intentionalities (see in the above quotation the passages where he states that man
should go ―back to the most clear and general principles‖, and that he should ―know
rather than (...) teach the truth‖).
A fascinating chapter within his writings remains his defence of the pagan
virtues of the Roman god Aius Locutius, where he denounces the vulgar and
aggressively-irreverent agitators and critics of other peoples‘ faith and sacred inner
areas. Diderot proposes a model within which reason, far from undermining
anything, strengthens and sustains the religious feeling (―those who really think
know what to believe‖) and makes true believers (complex believers, not mere
followers) immune to cheap attacks. We could say that Diderot shyly offers the
ancient pagan society as model of tolerance:
―Aius Locutius, God of speech, whom the Romans honored by this

extraordinary name. As it is also necessary to hold one‘s tongue, they also
had the god of silence. When the Gauls were about to invade Italy, a voice
coming from the wood of Vesta was heard to cry out: ‗If you do not raise the
walls of the city, it will be taken.‘ This advice was disregarded. The Gauls
arrived and Rome was taken. After their retreat, the oracle was recalled and
an altar was raised for him under the name that we are discussing. A temple
was then constructed in Rome at the very place where he had made himself
heard for the first time. Cicero says in the second volume of his study On
Divination that this god spoke when he was not known by anyone but kept
quiet the moment he had a temple and altars. The god of speech became
mute as soon as he was worshiped. It is difficult to reconcile the singular
veneration that the pagans had for their gods with the patience that they also
had for the discourses of certain philosophers. Did the Christians whom they
persecuted so much say anything stronger than we can read in Cicero? The
1
Diderot, The Encyclopedia: Selections, 86.
114
books On Divination are merely irreligious treatises. But what an impression

must have been made on the people by certain pieces of oratory in which the
gods were constantly invoked and called forth to witness events, in which
Olympian threats were recalled to mind-in short, where the very existence of
the pagan deities was presupposed by orators who had written a host of
philosophical essays treating the gods and religion as mere fables!(...) Since
it will always be impossible to prevent men from thinking and writing,
would it not be desirable to allow them to live among us as they did among
the ancients? The works of incredulity are not to be feared, for they only
affect the masses and the faith of simple people. Those who really think
know what to believe; and a pamphlet will certainly not lead them off a path
which they have carefully chosen and follow by preference. It is not by
trivial and absurd reasoning that a philosopher can be persuaded to abandon
his God. Impiety is therefore not to be feared except for those who let
themselves be guided.‖1
If we analyze deeper the meaning of this passage, we see that what Diderot really
emphasizes is the ancient peoples‘ capacity to erect inside themselves temples of
humane virtues and of gratitude towards the benevolent superior forms of energy,
inner buildings which make them self-confident, strong and reliable people. As such,
they did not react in aggression to Cidero‘s and to other philosophers‘ misplaced
criticism, as they were secure enough in their faith and in their reason – a two-pan
balance which functioned in a decent way in the epoch and which caused no need
for religious wars.
But is this rather pastoral and pleasantly (elegantly)-entrepreneurial
resurrected old wisdom the real manifestation of Diderot‘s pagan appetite? Or it is
but the sociably-acceptable face of Janus – that of the appeased, settled and ripened
melancholies?
In order to answer this double-question one should remember that, at
Diderot, a humane religiousness is possible only in the context of a total extraction
of the religious feeling from the grasp of both the state apparatus and the church – an
idea illustrated by the French thinker in a radical and powerful language which,
consciously or subconsciously, goes back to the savage (and also somehow
superstitious) imaginary of the old tribes:
―Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the
last priest.‖
We think that it is here where Diderot‘s real and pungent paganism reveals
itself. The sentence was read in a variety of classic cultural codes (always within the
acknowledged systemic webs of references) by sociologists, philosophers and
political theorists – but never taken for an instinctively incisive pagan statement, one
with strong historical references in what concerns the physical ritualistic aspects
invoked by the author.
1
Ibid., 57–58.
115
3.1. The classic interpretations of Diderot‘s dream of kings strangled with the
entrails of priests
The tradition of liberalism assumed Diderot‘s weird statement as a radical but
strongly metaphoric (endowed with an intense symbolism) expression of our desire
to gain a Free Will, one that should operate beyond the grasp of the morally-biased
authorities (the state institutions and the Church). We are talking here about a will
resulting from a genuinely independent thinking style, one based on a creative
semantics and, in our vision, one bordering on Karl Mannheim‘s free-floating social
intelligentsia or ―socially unattached intelligentsia‖.1
The anarchists still use it as a manifesto for the musealization of the places of
worship and governance and for the elimination of the power seekers from the
public scene (because ―absolute power corrupts absolutely‖); while the atheists see
in such a line an opportunity for their deconstructionist and, in most of the cases,
left-wing propaganda (though the statement was written during the Enlightenment as
a general warning against the oppressive politicized forms of social cohesion).
Yet the most credible interpretation circulating today through the agency of the
discourses of the universities is the one belonging to the sphere of political
philosophy – one which claims that what Diderot actually wanted to stress when
uttering this controversial statement, was an extremely acute need to separate the
government from the Church. Regarded as radicalization of the necessity to keep the
religious and the civic-minded individuals away from each-other‘s influence and to
1
The idea as such is perfectly explained by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann in their The
Social Construction of Reality, as a way of transcending one‘s social position, class-interests
and cultural conditioning through an accumulation of perspectives on the same subject – an
increase in information, in concepts, in representations and in ideas which helps the object of
study become clearer, or reveal itself as an active transformer and adapter within the field of
research known as ―the sociology of knowledge‖. Such clarity leads to concrete
understandings based on relationism and not on relativism or isolationism: ―With the general
concept of ideology the level of the sociology of knowledge is reached – the understanding
that no human though (…) is immune to the ideologizing influences of its social context. By
this expansion of the theory of ideology Mannheim sought to abstract its central problem
from the context of political usage, and to treat it as a general problem of epistemology and
historical sociology. (…) He coined the term ‗relationism‘ (in contradistinction to
‗relativism‘) to denote the epistemological perspective of his sociology of knowledge – not a
capitulation of thought before the socio-historical relativities, but a sober recognition that
knowledge must always be knowledge from a certain position. (…) Be this as it may,
Mannheim believed that ideologizing influences, while they could not be eradicated
completely, could be mitigated by the systematic analysis of as many as possible of the
varying socially grounded positions. In other words, the object of thought becomes
progressively clearer with this accumulation of different perspectives on it. This is to be the
task of the sociology of knowledge, which thus is to become an important aid in the quest for
any correct understanding of human events. Mannheim believed that different social groups
vary greatly in their capacity thus to transcend their own narrow position. He placed his
major hope in the ‗socially unattached intelligentsia‘ (freischwebende Intelligenz, a term
derived from Alfred Weber), a sort of interstitial stratum that he believed to be relatively free
of class interests.‖ Peter L. Berger, Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality:
A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 10.
116
prevent an apocalyptic fusion between their spirits poisoned with sick devotions,
such a declaration signals the main obsession of the late 18th century European
societies and their understanding of the freeing of the ways to progress – in other
words, a premonition1 that managed to materialize itself in an overwhelming
zeitgeist of both the 18th century and of the centuries to come.
3.2. The literal pagan interpretations of Diderot‘s dream of kings strangled with the
entrails of priests
Yet, in the logic of our present study, we will regard all these interpretations and
appropriations of Diderot‘s controversial words about priests, kings and entrails as
obsolete and as purely philosophical and aesthetical decipherments. In our view, all
the exegetic directions mentioned previously interpreted Diderot‘s statement
metaphorically, allegorically and in any possible way that allows one to avoid
crossing the t‘s and dotting the i‘s, that is, to regard the words for what they really
(actually) say: ―the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest‖. This
line advocates and resurrects an old pagan ritualistic use of the entrails: making the
most of their elasticity and endurance when used as ropes.
And historians – especially historians of religion such as Mircea Eliade –
have documented the use of animal and human intestines as ropes as early as the
times of the Roman Empire, from the first to the fourth centuries AD, within what
remained known until today as the ―Roman Mithraism‖ – a mystery religion
(Mithraic Mysteries) tributary to Persian or Zoroastrian sources (inspired from the
cult of an Old Persian god Mithra who was always represented as a predatory force
renowned for his act of bull-slaying [tauroctony] as a forced and bloodily-
invigorating forging of human life against the overwhelming background made of
grandiose primordial presences [symbolized through the fierce image of the bull]).
We are discussing here the case of the Roman Mithraism as opposed to
Christianity because, as an ultimately elitist and military cult, this religion is
regarded by the researchers of the diachronic evolutions of cultures as the strongest
historical pagan alternative to Christianity: ―When the Mysteries of the Mithra are
discussed, it appears inevitable to quote Ernest Renan‘s famous sentence: ‗If
Christianity had been halted in its growth by some mortal illness, the world would
have been Mithraist‘(Marc Aurele, p. 579).‖2
The community of the mystai would use entrails as an important ritualistic
piece at the very (triumphant) end of their sophisticated trail of symbolic acts: they
used chicken-intestines whose role was to both reflect the captivity and the
disorientation of the neophyte and to provide the opportunity for the apparition of a
redeemer in the form of a liberator. What resulted at the end of a tumultuous
symbolic display of ravenous energies awaiting and struggling to embody
1
We call it ―premonition‖ when relating it to the inseparability that still exists in the Muslim
between state and church world with dreadful consequences.
2
Mircea Eliade, History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the
Triumph of Christianity, translated by Willard R. Trask (Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1985), 326.
117
themselves and to reach a historical form of selfness was order, an order symbolized
through the image of the soldier and of the lion that conquers the previous chaos:
―(…) so we may conclude that the scenario of Mithraic initiation did not
include ordeals suggesting death and resurrection. Before their initiation the
postulants undertook on oath (sacramentum) to keep the secret of the
Mysteries. A passage in Saint Jerome (Ep. 107, ad Laetam) and a number of
inscriptions have supplied us with the nomenclature of the seven grades of
initiation: Crow (corax), Bride (nymphus), Soldier (miles), Lion (leo),
Persian (Perses), Courier of the Sun (heliodromus), and Father (pater).
Admission to the first grades was granted even to children from the age of
seven; presumably they received a certain religious education and learned
chants and hymns. The community of the mystai was divided into two
groups: the ‗servitors‘ and the ‗participants‘, the latter group being made up
of initiates of the grade of leo or higher. We know nothing of the initiations
into the different grades. (…) the Christian apologists refer to a ‗baptism‘,
which presumably introduced the neophyte into his new life. ‗Probably this
rite was reserved for a neophyte preparing him for the grade miles.‘ We
know that he was offered a crown, but the mystes had to refuse it, saying
that Mithra ‗was his only crown‘. He was then marked on the forehead with
a redhot iron (Tertullian, De proem. haeret. 40) or purified with a burning
torch (Lucian, Menippus 7). In the initiation into the grade of leo, honey was
poured on the candidate‘s hands and his tongue was smeared with it. Now
honey was the food of the blessed and of the newborn infants. According to
a Christian author of the fourth century, the candidates‘ eyes were
blindfolded, and a frantic troop then surrounded them, some imitating the
cawings of crows and the beating of their wings, others roaring like lions.
Some candidates, their hands tied with the intestines of chickens, had to
jump over a ditch filled with water. Then someone appeared with a sword,
cut the intestines, and announced himself as the liberator.‖1
The entrails symbolize and condense within these rituals the whole history of man‘s
previous incapacity to disrupt his flesh (and his will and his spirit) from the
apocalyptically-bulging protoplasmic and proto-historical sarcoid mass of the all-
absorbing chaos (a sinisterly placentary threatening presence). Their endurance and
elasticity as well as their dramatically-reversed biological presence constitute
aspects that turned them into a total symbol of the acts of seizing, of immobilizing
and of devouring. A rope made of intestines becomes a devastating image of the
defeat (in the case of the victim) and an over-visceral allegory of engulfing and of
conquering through constriction (in the case of the victor): it is as if the intestines
acquired a life of their own, because they didn‘t want to wait for the mouth and for
the other organs to provide them with food. To this end they got out of the body and
assumed the role of an attacking snake (or of the human hand, for that matter).
1
Eliade, History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of
Christianity, 324–325.
118
In the following centuries it was on the Germanic and Baltic mystical lands
that the ritual got re-actualized but also drastically radicalized. According to the
historians Jacob Grimm and Johannes Voigt, the pagans in these parts of Europe no
longer used intestines of chickens but human entrails: they punished their
adversaries by using the victim‘s own intestines, after disembowelment, as rope with
which he/she was ―woodened‖ into a tree.
It is this real use of human intestines that echoes in Diderot‘s words and
resurrected pagan imaginary:
―From the 15th century, a number of ordinances are retained that threaten
with a terrible punishment for those who stripped off the bark of a standing
tree in the common woods. A typical wording is found in the 1401
ordinance from Oberursel1:
‗und wo der begriffen wird, der einen stehenden baum schälet, dem wäre
gnad nützer dan recht u. wann man deme sol recht thun, soll man ihm seinen
nabel bei seinem bauch aufschneiden u. ein darm daraus thun, denselbigen
nageln an den stamm u. mit der person herumgehen, so ,lang er ein darm in
seinem leib hat‘ [‗and whoever is caught stripping off a standing tree, mercy
would have been more benificial to him than the law is; for when law is to
be fulfilled, then one is to cut up his stomach at the navel, and pull out a
length of the gut. The gut is to be nailed to the tree, and one is to keep going
around that tree with the person, so long as he still has any part of the gut
left in his body‘]
Jacob Grimm observes, that no actual case where this punishment
was carried out has been found in records from that time period (15 th
century). However, some 300–500 years earlier, the Western Slavic tribes
like the Wends are said to have revenged themselves upon Christians in this
way, by binding the guts to an erect pole, and driving them around until the
person was fully eviscerated.2 In the 13th century, members of the now
extinct Baltic ethnic group of Old Prussians in one of the battles against the
Teutonic Knights, are said to have captured one such knight in 1248, and
made to undergo this punishment.3―1
1
Wikipedia‘s reference: ―For a number of such ordinances, see Grimm, Jacob (1854).
Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer. Göttingen: Dieterich. pp. 519–20. Retrieved 2013-03-13.‖
2
Wikipedia‘s reference: ―i) General comment, with connotations of this being a type of
human sacrifice Hübner, Johann (1703). Kurtze Fragen aus der politischen Historia, volume
6. Gleditsch. p. 500. Retrieved 2013-03-13., ii) 8th century description from 772–73, Caesar,
Aquilin Julius (1786). Beschreibung des Herzogthum Steyermarks, Volume 1. Gräz:
Zaunrith. pp. 88–89. Retrieved 2013-03-13., iii) Danish 1096 retaliation on Wends, by like
execution method, Sell, Johann Jakob (1819). Geschichte des Herzogthums Pommern,
volume 1. Berlin: Flittner. pp. 88–89. Retrieved 2013-03-13., iv) 1131 pagan attacks on
Christians by Wends, Röper, Friedrich L. (1808). Geschichte und Anekdoten von Dobberan
in Mecklenburg. Dobberan: Self-published. pp. 111–13. Retrieved 2013-03-13.‖
3
Wikipedia‘s reference: ―Voigt, Johannes (1827). Geschichte Preussens: Von den altesten
Zeiten bis zum Untergange der Herrschaft des Deutschen Ordens. Die Zeit von der Ankunft
119
As a dangerous shadow of the past or a as a reactivated psycho-splanchnic nerve, the

ritual as such seems to have appealed to the rebellious voices of the French
revolution – hence Diderot‘s gory minded meditation. Of course, nobody can deny
that Diderot‘s wish to see ―the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last
priest‖ withholds a special flavour of mystery and even of psychological riddle –
and that is why it acquired such a rich spectrum of interpretations.
Still, Diderot‘s use of intestines to induce a sense of mystery and a
challenging enigma is nothing but another use of an ancient Pagan symbolism in
what concerns some of the viscera. Mircea Eliade shows that the earliest (we could
say, the instinctual) symbolism relating to the intestines was one which associated
these parts of the human body with the labyrinth:
―But the historian of religions encounters other homologies that presuppose

a more developed symbolism, a whole system of micro-macrocosmic
correspondences. Such, for example, is the assimilation of the belly or the
womb to a cave, of the intestines to a labyrinth, of breathing to weaving, of
the veins and arteries to the sun and moon, of the backbone to the axis
mundi, and so on. ―2
4. Voltaire‟s wicked rationalization of the objects of pagan worship

corrected through Edmund Husserl‟s theories on the “merely intentional”
objects (or why not all barbarians are also pagans)
Voltaire‘s (or, by his real name, François-Marie Arouet) three-year exile in England
(an alternative to being imprisoned in Bastille without any limit of time – as a
consequence of an arbitrary penal decree signed by French King Louis XV) and his
contact with the modern conservatism in there, made him a hybrid thinker, we could
even say, a rebel without a precise cause.
Unlike Montesquieu and Diderot, in the eyes of the English conservatists he
represents a radically different type of barbarism – the excessive incisiveness and
the irreverent cold-grinding and attrition of a fierce rationality. As a keen historian,
he had a vast-enough perspective on human customs and mentalities so as to be able
to release a heartless criticism on mysticism, faith, idolatry and on any form of
accepted mysterious reverence.
des Ordens bis zum Frieden 1249, Volume 2. Königsberg: Bornträger. pp. 613–614.
Retrieved 2013-03-13.‖
1
Wikipedia‘s page for ―Disembowelment‖: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disembowelment
(accessed September 7th 2013).
2
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, The Nature of Religion, Translated by Willard
R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1959), 169.
120
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Silence

In the logic of our study here, we could say that, when projected into the
English intellectual environment, Voltaire represented not the threat of a resurrected
paganism, but the very opposite phenomenon – the extreme intensification of reason
and of calculations that threatens to erase the sacred territories of imagination and to
replace them with patterns and matrixes of automatons. Because of this aspect he
even typifies the triggering element of a desperately-recuperatory pagan (archaic,
mystic) instinct in the British Gothic art. English Gothicism resurrected pagan
frantic, undomesticated and spellful contexts, images, intuitions and creatures
121
especially when it saw the private and collective ancestral sacred memories of
modern individuals (their immemorial hopes and fantasies and their fragile and
unconfessed expectancies) invaded and attacked by hungry, heedless and, we could
say, spoiled rationalists.1 Voltaire was one of them and he began showing a
discourteous disdain (if we are to attempt a poetic emphasis here) and abhorrence
explicitly (―with a special dedication‖ – in modern ironic terms) for the pagan
historical roots of mysticism and fancy, that is, for the pagans‘ ways of worshiping
ardently their gods and of gaining unsuspected strengths from such fusions.
This kind of an abstract intellectual rejection was stemming, in his case, as it
was normal, from an overwhelming accent placed on the glamorization of reason
and of heavy criticism (ignoring the limit beyond which they become a form of
denigration).
Voltaire speaks of faith (in the article using the word as its very title
[―Faith‖] from his Philosophical Dictionary) in terms of a depletion of the capacity
to reason and to see the broader ontological perspective; in terms of intellectual
laziness or of aristocratic spiritual convenience (conservatism at best); and maybe
even in terms of some inherent limits that unimaginative and unambitious people
carry within and whose existence they instinctively deny. According to Voltaire,
such denials are possible only by labelling such limits not for what they really are
but for what their believers hope them to be: mystery as the very proof of the living
possibility of the impossible; magic as the confirmation that it is not we that bear the
responsibility and the necessary vision for our lives but another entity; omnipresence
and ubiquity as calming (soothing) marks of the conceivability of an overprotective
quality of energy unfolding itself all over us:
―What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly

evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and
intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason (...). Divine faith,
about which so much has been written, is evidently nothing more than
incredulity brought under subjection, for we certainly have no other faculty
than the understanding by which we can believe; and the objects of faith are
not those of the understanding. We can believe only what appears to be true;
and nothing can appear true but in one of the three following ways: by
intuition or feeling, as I exist, I see the sun; by an accumulation of
probability amounting to certainty, as there is a city called Constantinople;
or by positive demonstration, as triangles of the same base and height are
equal. Faith, therefore (...) can be nothing but the annihilation of reason, a
silence of adoration at the contemplation of things absolutely
incomprehensible. Thus, speaking philosophically, no person believes the
Trinity; no person believes that the same body can be in a thousand places at
once; and he who says, I believe these mysteries, will see, beyond the
possibility of a doubt, if he reflects for a moment on what passes in his
1
English Gothic during the eighteenth century meant ―a revival of imagination in an era that
privileged rationality‖ – James Watt, Contesting the Gothic. Fiction, Genre and Cultural
Conflict, 1764–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1.
122
mind, that these words mean no more than, I respect these mysteries; I
submit myself to those who announce them.‖1
It is not hard to anticipate that the ―natural‖ development of such a way of thinking
is to label the true believer as the truest ignorant and to regard such ignorance as the
fertile soil on which the tyranny of kings blossoms into crude and carnivorous
flowers. In Voltaire‘s vision, enslavement is achieved and effected through the
cultivation of ignorance; an ignorance which he sees as having its roots in the old
pagan world where people would practice rituals of worshipping (idolatrizing)
wooden, stone or metal idols (sculptured or painted representations):
―As for polytheism, good sense will inform you that once there were men,
which is to say weak animals, capable of reason, subject to all sorts of
accidents, to illness and to death, these men felt their weakness and their
dependence; they readily recognized that there is something more powerful
than them. They felt a force in the earth that produces their food; one in the
air that often destroys it; one in the fire that consumes and in the water that
submerges. What more natural in ignorant men than to imagine beings who
preside over these elements! What more natural than to revere the invisible
force that made the sun and the stars to shine in their eyes? And as soon as
one wished to form an idea of these powers superior to man, what more
natural again than to configure them in some sensible manner?‖2
This passage is part of a famous article entitled ―Idol, Idolator, Idolatry‖, conceived
for and published in Diderot‘s Encyclopedia. As if anticipating Edmund Husserl‘s
notion of ―natural attitude‖, Voltaire is among the first and rare thinkers of past
centuries to interpret ignorance as falling into a natural state (the unproblematic
condition of beasts [of burden]). The entire article constitutes an unprecedented
diatribe against, we could say in modern terms, ―the (desperate) absolutization of
otherness‖ through objects of cult. If the pagans regarded their gods as ―absolute
others‖, as ultimate carriers of promises, Voltaire attempts to defuse such tense (and
dense) adhesions by introducing a principle of intellectual relativity as opposed to
the brute (natural) abandonment at the mercy of chance and of fascination:
―But what precise notion did the ancient nations have about all these
simulacra? What virtue, what power was attributed to them? Was it believed
that the gods descended from heaven in order to come hide themselves in
these statues? Or that they (the gods) communicated to them (the statues)
some portion of the divine spirit? Or that they did not transfer to them
1
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltaire/dictionary/chapter
196.html, (accessed April 23rd, 2013)
2
Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de. ―Idol, Idolator, Idolatry.‖ The Encyclopedia of Diderot
& d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Erik Liddell. Ann Arbor:
MPublishing, University of Michigan Library, 2006. Taken from http://hdl.handle.net/
2027/spo.did2222.0000.523 (accessedApril 23rd , 2013)
123
anything at all? On this, people have so far written very little of use; it is
clear that each man judges of them according to his degree of reason, or
credulity, or fanaticism. It is evident that the priests attach the greatest
divinity to their statues, in order to attract more offerings; it is known that
the Philosophers detested these superstitions; that the warriors mocked them;
that the magistrates tolerated them, and that the people, absurd as ever, did
not know what it was doing: such, in a few words, is the history of all the
nations to whom God did not make himself known.‖1
With Voltaire, the French philosophy enters a first major process of relativization,
one which makes its ―pioneering‖ attempts to replace eternal truths with temporary
truths, and the fascination with the unexpected paths with the contentment with the
logical units of measurement of possibilities.
Voltaire accused the pagans of being mindless worshipers of objects
(personifying various idols or gods) and, in order to sustain his idea, he provides his
readers with two famous contrastive examples from history - a positive one from
the Roman world (where, according to him, the gods were regarded as being present
first of all in the actions of men), and a negative one from the very building of Hagia
Sophia (a case discussed previously in this study and a site which remains truly
fascinating because it witnessed and withstood an almost entire spectrum of
transformations of the religious thought and behaviour):
―When the Roman and Carthaginian captains sealed a treaty, they called all
the gods to witness. ‗It is in their presence,‘ they said, ‗that we shall swear
peace.‘ Now the statues of these gods, of which the number was very long,
were not in the general‘s tent. They regarded the gods as present in the
actions of men, as witnesses, as judges, and it was assuredly not the
simulacrum which constituted divinity. (...) it is an abuse of terms to call
idolaters the peoples who rendered worship to the sun and stars. These
nations did not long have simulacra or temples; if they were deceived, it was
in rendering to the stars what they owed to the creator of the stars.‖2
―Since men very rarely have precise ideas, and still less do they express
them in precise words and without equivocation, we have called the
Gentiles, and above all the Polytheists, by the name idolaters. (...) Genghis
Khan among the Tartars was not an idolater, and had no simulacra; the
Muslims who fill Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, India and Africa call
the Christians idolaters, giaour, because they believe that the Christians
render worship to images. They broke all the statues that found in
Constantinople in Hagia Sophia, in the church of the holy Apostles and in
the others which they converted into mosques.‖3
1
Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de. ―Idol, Idolator, Idolatry‖ http://hdl.handle.net/ 2027/
spo.did2222.0000.523 (accessed April 24th , 2013)
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
124
It is pretty hard to understand the essence of Voltaire‘s war against carved, melted or
sculptured idols, in the context where his religious position remains unclear and so
does his message in this regard. Not being able to assign his ideas to a recognizable
spiritual form of whatever kind, nor to a sacred or at least artistic vision, we can only
regard them as part of an attempt to replace religion with logic or to turn logic and
scepticism into a religion for the otherwise irreligious ones (or, better said, into the
only possible form of fidelity and devotion for the infidels and for the undevout
[profane] ones by nature). By calling idolatry deeply offensive, Voltaire wrongly
generalizes and, with a rational (this time) fanaticism he unsustainably considers
that idolatry can bring no helpful insight, that it can arouse no true passion and no
true connection, that it creates only utopian and improbable visions disrupted from
the real life, together with an exacerbated symbolism:
―It appears that there has never been any people on the earth who took for
themselves the name of idolater. This word is an insult that the Gentiles, the
Polytheists seemed to deserve; but it is certain that if one had asked at the
senate of Rome, at the areopagus of Athens, at the court of the kings of
Persia, ‗Are you idolaters?‘ they would hardly have understood the question.
No one would have replied, ‗We worship images, idols.‘ One finds the
words, idolater, idolatry, neither in Homer, nor in Hesiod, nor in Herodotus,
nor in any religious author of the Gentiles. There has never been any edict,
any law which commanded that people should worship idols, that they
should serve them as gods, that they should believe them gods.‖1
For sure, reason and passion are not mutually exclusive, nor are science and religion
(as the American pragmatists had clearly showed it in the 19th century). Both reason
and religious passion should be used and understood so as not to block initiatives,
not to obstruct the revelation of a sense of the Self, or to generate distrust for
anything outside the sphere of the object of worship, or, in the other cases, outside
the sphere of the (explicit) possibility of making sense of a phenomenon. In other
words, the ―impossibility‖ of something should be regarded as a viable
phenomenological condition in the construction of meaning. Because if it is used
inadequately, it creates bad self-presentations. Nevertheless, objects, when
approached with the right spirit and with a warm and cosy-enough obsession, can
reveal themselves as important magnetic junctures and as synthetic crystals of the
Self, in both its physical and metaphysical coordinates (trails of progressive and
regressive [with the sense of recuperatory] unfoldings).
We consider Voltaire an incomplete and still confuse exercise into both the spirit of
reason and the reason of the spirit and we use Husserl‘s theories about intentional
1
Ibid.
125
and true objects in order to try to correct Voltaire‘s prejudiced perception of special
(sacred) objects through an ill-natured use of reason.
Husserl‘s discussion in this respect revolves around the dichotomy of the
―objectless ideas‖ (―mere fictions‖ – here the intention lacks an external object) and
the ―ideal objects‖ (concrete [not fictitious] numbers, qualities and principles).
A ―merely intentional object‖ is for Husserl an objectless idea and the
analogue of an intention that lacks its intended object. According to Husserl, the
reality of an object is not something exhaustible by the brute (physical) existence
(presence) of that object. On the contrary – we could claim by using a modern
terminology – the ―genetic code‖, the ―design‖ or the ―matrix‖ of an object, the
sacredness of its possibility (the mother-emotion and state-of-mind that stands
behind all human endeavours across histories) is to be found first and foremost in
our intentions. The presence of an object in our intentions gives the real quality to
the human project, and not the physical or brute presence of an object into our
environment – because when still in our intentions, that object ―embodies‖ an
infinite potential and a total presence of energy:
―If I represent God to myself, or an angel, or an intelligible thing-in-itself, or

a physical thing or a round square etc., I mean the transcendent object
named in each case, in other words my intentional object: it makes no
difference whether this object exists or is imaginary or absurd. ‗The object is
merely intentional‘ does not, of course, mean that it exists, but only in an
intention, of which it is a real (reelles) part, or that some shadow of it exists.
(our italics) It means rather that the intention, the reference to an object so
qualified exists, but not that the object does. If the intentional object exists,
the intention, the reference does not exist alone, but the thing referred to
exists also.‖ 1
Moreover, we could try to radicalize Husserl‘s idea and claim that the purity of our
intentions (and the fascinating transformative force of the energies therein) is given by
the lack of the object in our effective reality – in which case the physical absence of an
object becomes a constitutive absence, because that absence triggers a fabulous
spectrum of possibilities or, to put it otherwise, it releases the object back into its pure
godly (divine) possibility (Husserl‘s ―merely intentional object‖ reassumed by the
Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden as a ―purely intentional object‖). Following
this logic, we could say that the physical presence of the object impurifies the
intention and that it chases away the divine and the mesmerizing spirit of an object.
Since we do not live in a perfect reality, no intention can be said to relate
perfectly to its object, even when that object has a definite physical reality. In other
words the effective and the affective qualities of the objects surrounding us remain
peculiar to the intention as such – as a transformative divine essence of man – rather
than derived from the relation existing between an object and its intention
1
Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, Volume II. Translated by J.N. Findlay (London
and New York: Routledge, 2001), 127.
126
(intentional relation). And this remains a rather mysterious phenomenal quality of

the object – a reality often managed for us by our imagination but still independent
of this human faculty and having its roots in the divine spheres of the purity of the
energies and essences. This is, we think, the real meaning of Husserl‘s strange words
from the passage cited above and according to which ―some shadow of the object‖
persists in our intentions, that is, there is some shadowy quality of the object than
can never be fully transposed into reality and that invests that object with its sacred /
magic aura of mystery-as-possibility.
This is the ―mechanism‖ of the divine quality present in the objects of
worship. Such objects of worship function as special mirrors or as remainders of the
providential shadowy presences in our intentionality that keep each and every object
(and the ideas which those objects stand for) as open-possibilities. The openness of
such possibilities are signalled (made intelligible) through mystery and fascination.
Some of the old pagans managed to intuitively relate to this reality-creating and
reality-sustaining phenomenon, and constructed around it the meaning of their lives
as religious feeling, while Voltaire failed to grasp this mysterious power of the
sacred objects and preferred to barbarously mock them. He becomes in the act an
atypical and modern barbarian or an unique savage – a wicked rationalist. Just a
barbarian, but not a pagan.
5. Rousseau‟s comparative look between the ancient natural fusion between

religion and politics and the modern artificial reconstruction and re-
enactment of this societal impulse
Jean Jacques Rousseau represents a crucial point in the Western political philosophy
as he was the first to see and to criticize the way in which the modern societies
retrace and reconstruct the previous pagan natural fusion between the spiritual
dominants and the immediate strategic purposes. He also signalled the critical and
harmful level differences that appear in such staged and forced social frauds
(historical anomalies): if in the ancient societies the worshiping of the gods was
inevitably the same thing with the loyalty to the state (to the tribe, better said) and
the conquered populations adopted by virtue of a truly natural necessity (the pure
need for survival and the no less purer recognition of the force of their victorious
opponents) the gods and the habits of their conquerors, modern societies, according
to Rousseau, turned religion into a supreme law of intolerance and into an abstract
and thus unnatural reason for destroying other civilizations and territories. They
even divided the world into two purely intellectual categories – the infidels and the
elects – two so-called ―total‖ states of positive and negative purity, things that have
nothing to do with any real situation or human specificity. From this point of view
Rousseau adopts the pagan model as the original archetypal structure that sustains
from behind and from within any society and he attempts to show the evils that
appear when such a structure is transplanted from a natural configuration into an
abstract and falsifying one: because a universal religion – Christianity –, with a
credo designed so as to maintain and construct the webs of political influence in a
society, when compared to the previous strong local and regional pagan specificities,
reduces the religious feeling to a bleak and barren vision that chases away all the
127
warmth and cosiness that constituted the heart of the previous pagan sweet
superstitions, shiverings and auroral devotions – all of them derived from the unique
details of the landscape, and from the nature of the human and natural resources.
Here we will assume Rousseau‘s lines of reasoning inside Timothy O‘Hagan‘s grid
of interpretation:
―‗Primitive‘ religion, for Rousseau, was a polytheism practiced by

small societies relatively isolated from one another: ‗From the very fact that
God was set over every political society, it followed that there were as many
gods as peoples…National divisions…led to polytheism, and this in turn
gave rise to theological and civil intolerance‘ (SC IV.8.460/216).
Rousseau‘s history is not an innocent one. He uses the historical narrative in
order to contrast the relationship between religion and the state as it is in
modern times and as it was in the past. Thus ‗primitive‘ intolerance is
different from modern intolerance, so that ‗in paganism, where each society
had its worship and its tutelary deities, there were no wars of Religion‘
(ibid.). Indeed, in the Geneva Manuscript, Rousseau even talks of the
‗mutual tolerance‘ at the heart of ‗pagan superstition‘ (GM 338/119).
Rousseau removes that latter comment from the published version and with
it an apparent contradiction. But if we bear in mind the contrast between the
ancient and the modern, we can understand Rousseau‘s train of thought like
this. Ancient peoples were aggressive towards neighbouring peoples. Since
religious identity and political identity were more or less fused, ‗political
war was also theological war‘ (SC IV.8.460/216) and ‗since the obligation to
change one‘s religion was the law of the vanquished, one had first to be
victorious before one talked about [conversion]‘ (SC IV.8.461/217). In that
sense the pagans of old were intolerant. But at the same time they observed a
‗mutual tolerance‘ (GM 338/119), since, unlike modern crusaders, they did
not go to war in order to convert the infidel. Such an idea makes no sense
until the arrival of monotheist religions with ambitions of universal
conversion. Instead, among polytheistic pagans, the defeated recognized the
conquerors‘ gods as part of the panoply of their power. The unification
imposed by the Roman Empire put an end to the diversity of polytheism
within its borders, and ‗paganism throughout the known world finally came
to one and the same religion‘. The moment of Christianity was at hand: ‗It
was in these circumstances that Jesus came to establish a Spiritual kingdom,
which, by separating the theological from the political system, made the
state no longer one, and caused the internal divisions which have never
ceased to trouble Christian people.‘ (SC IV.8.462/217) (…)‘this double
power and conflict of jurisdiction [which] have made all good polity
impossible in Christian States; and men have never succeeded in finding out
whether they were bound to obey the master or the priest‘(Sc
IV.8.462/218).‖1
1
Timothy O'Hagan, Rousseau, (The Arguments of the Philosophers, edited by Ted Honderich)
(London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 153–154.
128
Basically, at Rousseau the conflict between paganism and Christianity appears as a

sheer conflict between the natural and the unnatural; or between the one which lives
and breeds out of its inner clear harmonies (a self-sustained collective psyche that
projects itself completely in the environment and in his acts; or, we could say while
using a modern terminology, an exuberant psyche untouched by various types of
castration) and the one which grows against itself, against its construction and the
elevating power of its instincts.
In matters of religion, the causes of revolt in his writings coincide with the
very causes of this unnaturalness and aberrant insufficiency brought about by the
sustained institutionalization of Christianity. Thus, when he attacks religion, he
attacks not the pagan primordial sense of this imperative necessity seeded deep in
the fibres of man, but the modern institutional sense – and he implicitly advocates
the need to return in spirit1 and not in letter to the pagan model of feeling and of
intuition:
―The Geneva Manuscript begins with an overview of the theme of the

chapter, which bridges the speculative history and the normative
programme. ‗As soon as men live in society‘, says Rousseau, ‗they need a
Religion to keep them there. No people has ever survived or will survive
without religion…‘ The ‗need‘ for religion is not spiritual, but practical.
Without religion, a people would soon be destroyed: ‗In any state which can
require its members to sacrifice their lives, any person who does not believe
in the after-life is either a coward or a madman…‘ (GM 336/117)‖2
As it can be noticed, Rousseau discusses the relationship between state, Christianity

and previous pagan customs solely in the context of what is known as the dichotomy
between the ―civil religion‖ and the inner sacred religiousness. He observes that,
when because of the historical situation created by the Roman Empire the peoples of
Europe abandoned their previous pagan gods and ―embraced‖ Christianity, a serious
derangement of the social apparatus took place and it generated atypical and often
incompatible forms of legitimation, motivation and justification: if in the ancient
pagan societies the spiritual identity and the political one were organically
intertwined and they constantly mirrored back each-other‘s essence and purposes, in
the Christian context the Church became an universal power in itself, by itself and
for itself, and it basically liberated its representations and its ideas from specific
geographical or racial areas, managing to cast over the world a self-relevant levelling
philosophical canopy. Meanwhile, politics remained stuck in local purposes and
discourses and resented very bitterly this identity-split. This tension (now a fierce
competition between religion and politics for finding, opening and maintaining
social spheres of loyalty) projected itself heavily upon the citizens and caused
therein deep traumas, especially at the level of traditional local communities who
were not at all used to such a division in the ethos of their society – as they were still
1
We are talking here about one of the two main types of religion which he advances, namely
―the religion of man‖, a subject on which we will insist later on.
2
O'Hagan, Rousseau, 153.
129
acutely impregnated with the old pagan integrated vision. Having to solve this
problem of legitimation and, after all, of profit and of influence sharing disturbing
modern societies, the authorities eventually found a solution and invented the so
called ―religion of the citizen‖, a religion which combines aspects of faith with
political interests and which sits at the basis of the historically fatal artificial fusion
between the Christian Church and the political institutions of the state – a fusion
which later (in the 19th and 20th centuries) became both the symbol of social
cohesion, identification and acknowledgement and the obsession of the
philosophical critical attacks, the most prominent voices being those of Friedrich
Nietzsche and of Michail Bakunin.
This assimilative use of religion for social and political purposes found its
prototype, as Frank Pagano observes when analyzing the previous case of
Montesquieu, in the Roman Empire‘s need to extend its influence over vast
geographical areas containing an otherwise irreconcilable diversity of races and
spiritual visions and needs:
―Montesquieu testifies in an early work, Dissertation sur la Politique des

Romains dans la Religion (1716), that ‗…the Romans following the example
of the Greeks adroitly confounded foreign divinities with their own; if they
found in their conquests a god that had a relation to some one that they
worshipped at Rome, they adopted it, as it were, while giving to it the name
of the Roman divinity…‘ (...) [a.n. Greeks] were not as tolerant as the
Romans. Every Greek knew the fate of Socrates. Since Rome was more
tolerant than the Greeks, it was easier for it to adapt foreign gods to its use.
Rome used them to construct its empire (our italics). ― (1949:158)1
Mutually exclusive, the two types of religion symbolize in Rousseau‘s logic the very
split between the pagan and pre-pagan savage worlds of the Self and the socially
pre-fabricated influence and constellations of interests of modern Christianity.
From now on, the core of the problem is no longer the savage purity and
beauty of the religious feeling and of its authenticity as a possible mirror of a personal
or of a collective identity, but the inadmissible and the horrid (extremely disagreeable
and offensive) intrusion of politics into the sacred places and palaces of the Self –
places and palaces which, Rousseau seems to suggest (though he officially speaks in
an almost ―politically correct‖ manner of a balanced argumentation ), deserve being
defended with an equally savage and justified instinct of self-preservation:
―‗Considered in relation to society, which is either general or particular,

religion can be divided into two kinds, namely the religion of man and that
1
Frank N. Pagano (St. John‘s College Santa Fe, NM), ―Greek Pettiness in Montesquieu‘s
Considerations of the Grandeur of the Romans‖. P.6. Material prepared for delivery at the
2005 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1–September
4, 2005 Copyright by the American Political Science Association. Available on-line at
http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/3/9/7/6/pages39762/p397
62-1.php, (accessed September 4th 2013)
130
of the citizen. The former, without Temples, altars or rites, limited to the
purely internal worship of the Supreme God and to the eternal duties of
morality, is the pure and simple Religion of the Gospel, or true Theism. The
latter, inscribed within a single country, gives it its Gods, its tutelary
Patrons. It has its dogmas, its rites and its external form of worship
prescribed by the laws; outside the single Nation that follows it, everything
is considered infidel, foreign, barbarous; it extends the duties and rights of
man as far as its altars‘ (SC IV.8. 464/219)
The religion of the citizens is here indistinguishable from the polytheistic
cults described in the historical sketch. The religion of man, in contrast, is an
ideal type, supposedly extracted from the Gospel, a combination of
monotheism and moral duty. (…) Rousseau then outlines the positive and
negative features of the two main types. From this it emerges that each is the
precise inverse of the other. The religion of the citizen:
‗is good in that it unites divine worship with love of the laws, and in making
the homeland the object of citizens‘ adoration, it teaches them that to serve
the State is to serve its tutelary God… But it is bad in that, being founded on
error and lies, it deceives men, makes them credulous and superstitious, and
drowns true worship of the divinity in vain ceremonial. It is bad too when it
becomes exclusive and tyrannical and makes a people bloody and
intolerant…‘ (SC IV.8.464-5/219-20)
(…) the religion of man (…) Its disadvantage is that it: ‗having no particular
relation to the body politic, leaves the laws with only their intrinsic force
without making any addition to it; and so one of the great bonds which can
unite a particular society remains without effect. Even worse, far from
attaching the hearts of the Citizens to the State, it detaches them from all
earthly things: I know of nothing more contrary to the social spirit.‘ (SC
IV.8.465/220)‖1
6. Conclusions: politics and poetry – the poetry of war?

The interesting initial twist that Rousseau gave to the conflicting alliance between
the Church and the State is to be found in the fact that he explicitly-enough assigned
the personal (inner sacred) religious motivation (―the religion of man‖) to a
persisting pagan feeling and to its intense but often concealed (subconscious)
nostalgia, while melancholically opposing it to the modern social processes of
levelling and of assimilation through a combined religious and political strategy
(―the religion of the citizens‖) – an alliance of pettiness and a fractured reproduction
(abstract, inconsistent with itself and insignificant at the deep personal levels of
motivation and of devotion) of previous archaic models of organically and
emotionally mixed spiritual and strategic visions.
Despite the fact that his analysis of the two types of religious expression and
implementation remains that of a pragmatic politician and not of a warrior-poet, a
bittersweet longing for past harmonies and (sacred) inner peaces breathes heavily
1
O'Hagan, Rousseau, 154–155.
131
from behind all his analytic lines, and so does a deep sense of revolt against the
politicized, abusive and fake modern world.
The latter is a feeling that is a full part of Janus‘ double face – the Roman
god of new beginnings and impossible transitions – and, as such, it ultimately
redefines itself in the form of a need to return to basics of naturalism.
Later exegetical echoes, such as the one represented by Frank N. Pagano‘s
analysis on Montesquieu, redefined Rousseau‘s dichotomy of the religion of the
citizen and the religion of man as a dichotomy of the political religion and poetical
religion. Pagano speaks about religions conceived so as to serve the state, and about
states conceived so as to serve religious purposes. The Roman paganism was such a
religion constructed around the objectives of the state (a political religion) and it
rightly appeared to the modern progressive thinkers of the 18th century as a ridiculous
(because painfully obvious) artefact (Rousseau‘s ―religion of the citizen‖).
The mistake, however, of Voltaire and of other similar voices was to
generalize this pattern and to apply it to all forms of religious feeling – or, to put it
otherwise, to filter all religious experience through the Roman (politically-biased)
model within which religious devotion was either a case of fancy extravagance or one
of military mystic devotion (we could say, the historical cornerstone of the future ―cult
of heroes‖ so venomously implemented by the Nazi regime in 20th century Europe).
―The Roman legislators, according to Montesquieu, differed from those of other

peoples, including the Greeks, in that the Romans made their religion for the state
while the others made the state for religion (81). Roman paganism was the most
ridiculous of all religions, and its unreasonableness allowed it to be the perfect
political religion. (...)As it was, educated people found it too fantastic to believe. Yet
the general populace believed that the more fantastic it was, the more credible it was
as religious truth. Montesquieu ends his Dissertation with this claim: ‗The credulity
of peoples, which is always beyond the ridiculous and extravagant, repairs
everything‘ (92). Because the populace believed that the entrails of birds predicted
the future, the sophisticated could follow the maxim that good omens must always
indicate the good of the republic, and early political leaders would repeat sacrifices
until the omens indicated the course that the leaders judged good for the republic.
Montesquieu maintains that the Roman religion had two politically beneficial
consequences: the people kept their oaths, which was the nerve of their military
discipline, and the nobles dedicated themselves to the good of the republic.
While stories of forswearers descending to a hell of pain would instil among
a credulous people an abhorrence of oath-breaking, there does not seem to be a
religious reason that kept the nobles dedicated to the good of the republic
(1951:121, note a). Roman religious credulity therefore had a deeper foundation
than mere extravagance. The Greek religion lacked this foundation perhaps
because their paganism was poetic and therefore less popular. (...) Montesquieu
notes that the Romans actually felt this strength in themselves and therefore for
them it was believable in ancient heroes. For some reason, the Greeks did not
feel this same strength. The Romans were credulous because from the founding
of Rome they were adherents to a brand of materialism. They grounded their
beliefs in a trust of their bodies. They believed their senses: what they saw,
132
heard and felt. The Romans easily believed in the gods and heroes because the
Roman way of life and its emphasis on exercise made Rome‘s citizen-soldiers
feel strong. The heroes were merely stronger extensions of Roman soldiers.
Consonant with their belief in the feeling of their own strength was the
punishment of soldiers with blood-letting. They were made to feel weak in their
bodies and in consequence they felt diminished in spirit. Romans of all classes,
whether commoners or nobles, believed in the truth of spectacles.‖1
*
Such visions and theories later agglutinated into a solid and nucleic concept within
the political philosophy, the concept of the ―state of nature‖ – one which finds in
Montesquieu, in Diderot and mostly in Rousseau its founding fathers; and one which
was a profound influence for all subsequent nostalgic, repressed or feared pagan
apparitions in arts (Gothic literature especially).
The dichotomy between the patriarchal autarkic households (founded on
personal liberties and initiatives) and the overwhelming influence of the state
authority over the lives of citizens (constant control and external demand legitimized
with arguments that refer to the wellbeing of the community and to the continuity
through stability of the state or of the city-structures) is (as it has always been)
surpassable at the level of the religious feeling.
As an emotional supra-solicitation of man‘s potential and as an
overwhelming trans-contextual stream of motivation – religion has always had
access to man sacred crystals or, otherwise said, it has always been able to reveal
man‘s full spectrum of identitary planar faces and, most of all, to release the
unknown and unapproachable essences that unite such faces into consistent, clear,
transparent and impenetrable structures of the Self (crystals), structures
encapsulating both the urges and the transforming visions into harmonious formulas.
7. Extroduction: The Stallion of Reason

The unusual length of the quotes justifies itself by the fact that they offer
indispensable information to the approached theme, in a form which is almost
completely sketched/mapped/worked out at a conceptual and even at a stylistic-
existential level; a collection of rhetorical over-bids (and overcalls) that serves, in an
essential manner, the correct placement (from a methodological and from a
―logically-emotional‖ viewpoint) within the epistemological frames and within
those of the history of ideas. Nevertheless it should be mentioned that although some
of them come from the so-called ―secondary sources‖, those which are specially
chosen have a sufficiently powerful synthetic and, mostly, syncretic character,
decisive and of a matrix nature (from the perspective of the cohesiveness and
coherence of the base structure of the ―towing― force of the conceptual chains)
anchored (in the ―quote within quote system‖) in the concreteness of the prime
source – namely in the most successful and intensely circulated, at an academic
level, translation into English from the classic texts of the period (Rousseau‘s case).
1
Pagano, ―Greek Pettiness in Montesquieu‘s Considerations of the Grandeur of the Romans‖, 7.
133
At the same time it is very important the remark according to which, the
present essay, although it broadcasts and conveys classical themes of the 18th century
philosophy, it does so more in virtue of some aesthetic and neo-phenomenologically-
poetic purposes than in virtues of some conceptually-analytic or cognitively-
―anaclitic‖ ones. It uses conceptual organizations and conceptual juxtapositions and
connections only as frames of reference, as foundations and as mechanical flanges for
the integrated pressure-transmission of some more esoteric designs; of some quasi-
transcendental corpuses made of streamy manifestations of the primal focuses of
consciousnesses that, by the pure grace of their inevitably primitive axial nature,
outlive and outshine the cultural frames and that, as such, do not really survive in their
natural form except in the darkest and most peripheral and unsuspected (as well as
uncontrollable) corners of the discourses and, especially in-between their main lines
(inside our essay, this is the case of our ultra-daring interpretation of Diderot‘s vision
of a last king strangled with the entrails of a last priest).
These strayed ardours of the dangerously-unexplored inner powers haunt, hunt
and corner the reason from everywhere, as shadows from Hell, but, interestingly, they
constitute simultaneously the terrifying beauty of the rhythm of poetry (but, beware!,
not of the poetries of the rhythm) actually living in and from the involuntary visceral
violences, exacerbations and enthusiasms of formulations (of expressions).
In this way, the fact that in some cases we insist more on one philosopher
while in other cases we use a significantly diminished accentuation, is not due to a
superficiality of the approach and of the research behind it, but to the fact that –
from Diderot, for example – we were interested to take into account only some very
isolated aspects from the thinker‘s work and to introduce them on the orbit of a new
course of thought (a way of thinking that almost seeds a thirst for a philosophical
revisionism), and, ultimately, of feeling: one strongly personalized and vibrant at the
very level of (or consonant with) the dangerous and downright toxic veins of the
text. Far from insignificant is in here the special ideational delta which is created in
the whirlings and in the maelstroms of the deconstructions made not in/with the
letter but in/with the spirit of postmodernism: it is the case of an otherwise very
interesting and important place from the perspective of the cultural influence, and
our essay tries to use its themes in order to highlight once more the existence of a
special place of assimilation within the contemporary cultural ethos: the trans-
textuality where the esoteric melts into the exoteric: let‘s think for example how
would a listener of the Death-metal musical current (more precisely of the band
Cannibal Corpse) read Diderot‘s phrase about entrails used for strangling, and what
would it say about the French thinker a possible/eventual Proustian jouissance of
this latter one (at the hearing of the words of the maestro of the Encyclopedia about
commanding figures being strangled with entrails), a jouissance of that precise type
described by Proust: ―Every reader finds himself. The writer‘s work is merely a
kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what,
without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.‖(Marcel Proust)1
1
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/246311-every-reader-finds-himself-the-writer-s-work-
is-merely-a, (accessed March 25th , 2014)
134
Our essay attempts, thus, to open a line of thought which does not
particularly want to ―do justice‖ to the historical character which is Diderot, but
rather to read between the lines and even in the subconscious of the author and of his
historical epoch (one in which the enthusiasm of the change skidded voraciously and
uninhibited in any way, un-castrated, un-fragmented and culturally un-syncopated).
We preferred this diachronically unusual approach, deconstructivist in an a-
historical and poetically-visceral sense, in order to be able to realize or at least to
localize that which has not been read until now in the work of the previously
mentioned thinkers – although, this ―something‖ clearly existed there as some
impassible and implacably-defiant exclamation marks at the address of culture‘s
heavy and deafening blankets: the slime of culture that Heidegger spoke about,
seeing it as clouding, as darkening (blackening with a cold-acre disheartening and
very bad-omened darkness) and as drowning with mud and silt the capture-pipes and
the glades of the Being.
We preferred the present approach being motivated precisely by the weight
with which ―the mantras‖ (the heavy instruments of thought) of the canonical
cultures press on the revealing feelings, but also on the resentments (re-sentiments)
of the possibilizing inconsistencies1 (where the ―re-― is the ―re-‖ of the Husserlian
phenomenological reduction, of the reinvention and of re-actualization of the self in
and from its very deadly/fatal crevices [inconsistencies]).
Therefore, our essay is a direct expression, precisely because it is honestly
and sincerely bricolated (from where the impression of an article being turned into a
―hazy‖ [freestyled] enumeration of different ideas), of the mystico-cynical and
enterprisingly/craftily-Machiavellian faith according to which the author gets to be
better read in his small slips than in his big themes – the much ovated ―big themes‖
being, after all, ―but‖ those (tired and expired avant- and devant-la-lettre) closely-
studied exercises in concatenations (restoring adhesion, we may say, to the old and
strongly worn down/deteriorated icons, with the purpose of the rehabilitation of the
monumentality through which these prefabrications dominate and possess the social
landscapes) on those political lines of a ferociously-disreprovable sterility of
―elegance‖ (correct only within an emotionally-, poetically- and
phenomenologically-impracticable pathology of the abstract2).
In today‘s accepted academic body of specialized words relating to a
particular subjects, the present article as such could be regarded as a faithful echo of
1
In other words, (press) on any interpretation of any salutarily-augurous, dissident and
apostatic remainder from the work of the author.
2
Which abstract becomes, in this case, a third degree Platonic copy, a prefabricated
weakness of the Idea of force – which is otherwise incarnated by the same abstract by
breathing it as an act inspiring [inhaling] itself [we use ―inspiring‖ both in the sense of
absorbing/capturing air, and in the sense of allowing itself to be inspired], in the realms of
the transcendental, that is, in the supra celestial world in which the Name written with capital
N designates, practically, the prototypes, the matrixes, the archetypes and other premieres
still vague and deformed / or decanted for the very first time from the subterfuges of the
deliverances that lie and await in the phenomenal refuges which are naturally created, like
ravines, when the vortex that make turbulent the abysses of chaos retreat.
135
Umberto Eco‘s ambition to re-open the works of art and of criticism alike (his idea
of an ―open work‖ or ―opera aperta‖ in Italian).
Far from being an attempt to outline a ―reasonable paganism‖, on the
contrary, the article is a (re)fine(d) irony (slightly deconstructivist because it is
elegant and discreet or at least postmodernly-demured) directed against reason and
against the ways in which it still is compatible, or can still be said to be able to
recover ―safely‖ (that is, inside a recognizable and academically-accreditable
discourse) some deep structures of the instinct and of the archetypal abysses that
pond threateningly within us, along seriously distressing mind-sloughs, until they
inevitably erupt.
Considering the exacerbated rationalism of the 18th century, the discussion
on reason, approached here slightly postmodernly, will be ―reduced‖ to affirming
that reason is an indispensable methodology, but still a much too poor and an
obviously insufficient one for a convincing rendering of the grave level-differences
or of the crevices which appear in man‘s psyche and soul when he begins wandering
about how to re-conquer some holy lairs of the self.
Here the discussion about reason begins to be reduced already to one about a
mandatory, but still a ―backgroundish‖ structure (so to say, to a simple ―principle of
balance‖ of the aesthetical and phenomenological whorls which, however, never
exceeds its function by jumping into the foreground and by dictatorially oppressing
the evolving structures from there, through its rigidities [as it usually happens in
modal logic]) that only sustains the dark and the diabolically-reptilian revealing
stylistics.
Reason can thus be used elegantly and liberally as it is the case with
Montesquieu (as I was saying, as a background-principle for a balanced stylistic of
the self and of its projections within the discourse), purely methodologically as it
happens with Rousseau, or downright in a barbarically-resentful style (that is, as an
ostentatious and tyrannically-intolerant foreground, as a displacement that consumes
its anomaly and its inadvertence with a total and truly brutal indifference to the frail
concealments from the unique details), as it appears at Voltaire.
What links the four thinkers is an uncertain (paganly-confusing) dance
(heretical [Voltaire], apostatical [Diderot, Montesquieu] or juridical and formal
[Rousseau]) around reason and around the shy ways in which it can still make a
decent peace with the already betrayed, forgotten and ―hijacked‖/diverted (from
their substantializing and essentializing savour) instincts.
The article is therefore a plea for the necessity of an atavic elegance in the
use of reason, as a prerequisite to the subsequent aesthetics of the instinct – one not
founded rationally but ―just‖ started ( ―dishevelled‖ or ―decanted‖) rationally, in a
first phase, and prepared in this way for future evolutions in thinking that will
invent a reason of their own or, maybe will ―only‖ know how to relocate the
resources of reason within other rhizomes of the instinct, in such a way that the force
of life, the Eros that Marcuse later spoke about, would be the one that governs the
stallion of reason and that frames it a human elegance: like a horse that dances.
The dance of this horse is the dance of the demon of theory inside us, the
instinct brought to the predatory purity of the elegance of the style (which only here
136
becomes the equivalent of the man that handles it1), the graciously-perfect beast in
its possessive and a-historical veilings. Looking back at the 18th century through the
eyes of the modern man, we can realize that Reason can only still be today the
harmony and the symmetry from the dance of this horse, from the dance of the
perfect beast (redemptively found once more and maturely introjected) – Reason as
the rhythm of the elegance but not as the elegance of the rhythm.
1
Georges-Louis Leclerc‘s (Comte de Buffon‘s) ―Le style c‘est l‘homme même‖.
137
Man-Made Values in an Inhuman Cosmos
Béla MESTER
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Research Centre for the Humanities
Institute of Philosophy
Keywords: natural philosophy, mineralogy, axiology, environmental thinking,

historicity, humanisation, inhumanity, concepts of nature
Abstract: After the emergence of natural sciences in the age of Romanticism, a new
approach of nature has appeared due to the historical view of the objects of natural
philosophy. Mineralogy was paradigmatic; it made culturally valuable, historical
objects, exhibited in Museums, from the objects of dead, culturally neutral nature,
which was evaluated before as an unhistorical world. In works of Kant, Herder,
Schelling and others was established the topic of the early history of Earth as a
preface of the history of the humanity. My paper outlines the consequences of the
idea of humanised and historicised dead nature.
E-mail: mester.bela@btk.mta.hu
There is an intrinsic tension in the vocabulary of environmental thinking and

bioethics, hidden in their intentions connected with axiological topics. There are no
texts where nature, the biosphere, the life and welfare of the inhuman beings are free
from the concept of values, which is the fundamental category of philosophical
axiology. The world of values as a phenomenon of human thinking and as the object
of axiology, of the conscious reflection on it, was always considered the inevitable
part of the human, societal world, without a possibility of the usage of this word by
any inhuman meaning. However, we use the term of value as a human concept in the
axiology: different concepts of nature have important roles in the history of the
revaluation of values in the history of philosophy. It seems that from as early a time
as the Cynic doctrine of following the way of nature the concepts of nature had an
instrumental role in philosophical cultural criticisms, that of the constructed point of
view, outside of the human world, created just for criticising it. Nature in these
constructed situations is merely an instrument of axiological thinking within the
sphere of the societal world of humanity, and it cannot be a value-in-itself.

This text is based on my lectures at the conferences entitled 13th Lošinj Days of Bioethics,
18th–21st May 2014, Mali Lošinj, Croatia; Man-Made World, 21st–24th September 2014,
Cres, Croatia, both of them organised by the Croatian Philosophical Society. My researches
on the topics of these lectures were supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund.
138
Introduction: An Axiological Problem of Bioethics - Nature as an Inhuman

Value – Conceptualised by Humans
The above mentioned instrumentality of nature in the world of values is clear on the
surface of the environmental thought, especially in its old-fashioned writings, before
the emergence of deep ecology. The word natural was used in the meaning that
something is optimal for the humans; it is fitted to human nature. The identification
of nature with the human environment, and the interpretation of its existence as the
prerequisite of human life, and of its good condition as the prerequisite of human
welfare is also a wide-spread method in the environmental discourse of today. There
is the opposite approach of the axiological relationship of humans and the other parts
of nature: the enlargement of the world of values for a restricted part of inhuman
nature, usually for several animals, especially mammals. A known example is
Benthamian classical utilitarianism with the use of the utility calculus for a well-
defined sphere of an animal-human continuum, which has individuals who are able
to feel pleasure and pain.1 It is clear that the concept of Bentham‘s inhuman moral
subjects was based on his anthropological ideas. He calculated with individual
beings, not with populations, species or ecological systems, based on his
individualistic view of the human society, and he modelled their welfare on his
conception of the welfare of humans. By his method of the morally humanised
nonhumans another problem has emerged, that of the boundaries; which part of the
universe can be a part of the moral world, and which will always be out of it? What
are the criteria of the distinction? Supposing that the enlargement of the utility
calculus for all the beings of the biosphere were possible, the problem of the
humanisation of nonhumans is not clear on the surface of bioethical thinking. A
more radical idea, enlargement of the world of values for the universe must suppose
a new moral quality for the non-living objects of the cosmos as a pass for the world
of values that is itself the inhumanity, the human-free character of the universe.
In the following sections I will speak about the dilemma of the ambivalent
concept of axiological thinking, based on this paradox concept of the values of
inhumanity for the humans, and conceptualised by the humans. In the first part I will
touch the antique roots of the axiological problems of environmental thinking. The
controversies of the theory of humanised nonhumans will be discussed in the second
part; and the enlargement of the question for non-living nature is the topic of the
third part. The roots of the humanisation of nature in the history of sciences and
philosophy will be discussed in the fourth part. The emergence of the idea of
historicity of nature, its role in the humanisation of nature, and the triumph of the
historicist model are the topics of the fifth, sixth, and seventh parts. A special case of
1
―It may come one day to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin,
or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a
sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the
faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog, is
beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversible animal, than an infant of a
day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it
avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?‖
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 2nd edition
(London: Pickering, 1823), Vol. 2, 236, footnote.
139
historicism in the sciences is the emergence of mineralogy, which will be discussed

in the eighth, and the last part before the conclusions.
Antique Roots of the Axiological Problems of Bioethics, and Environmental

Thinking
However, the idea of the harmony with nature and the rule above the nonhuman
beings of the biosphere is a controversial thesis; it is well-known in the history of
philosophy. The solution of the controversy is hidden in the different concepts of
nature. In the thought of the classical or early Stoic philosophy, Chrysippus, by the
testimony of Cicero in his well-known De finibus bonorum et malorum, the ideal of
the human being as cosmopolitēs and the human rule above the animals often appear
in neighbouring loci. The Stoic philosopher, in the interpretation of Cicero, declares a
universal, juridical covenant between the gods and all the members of humanity on the
one hand, and the impossibility of any covenant, juridical relationship, or obligation
between humans and animals. His opinions and vocabulary about the instrumental
usage of the animals by humanity are almost the same as that of the point of view of
the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. However, humans are just special kinds of
animals by Chrysippus, and the relationship between the animal-human continuum
and its environment, nature, is based on the same principle of the oikeiōsis both in the
cases of the animals and humans; human beings can be the citizens of the Stoic
cosmopolis only, animals are just materials and instruments for human usage in the
same world, expressed in the next step of his thinking.1 It is clear that the concept of
the physis of the Stoics is highly different from our modern concept of nature. The
Stoic term refers to the whole of the cosmos, and the Stoic philosophers are sometimes
ambivalent about its part called by modern term biosphere. To be a good citizen of the
cosmopolis, following the way of the physis, and using the biosphere merely
instrumentally, in the same time, it is possible within the framework of the Stoic
doctrine.2 This theoretical controversy is not the privilege of the antique thought.
Nowadays, in the idea of the political and juridical representation of the future
generations is hidden a similar tension of the initial ideas. By this proposal of the
green movements, the future generations have the right for living in as natural an
environment as we do today. It is clear that this argumentation implies an enlargement
of the political community for the cosmopolis, because the idea can work in global
measurement, only. In the same system, biosphere appears just instrumentally, just the
property, or fortune of our heiresses and heirs. For a non-instrumental point of view of
nature another theoretical background is needed, which takes another subject of the
demanded new rights.
1
―It follows that we are by nature fitted to form unions, societies and states. Again, they hold
that the universe is governed by divine will; it is a city or state of which both men and gods are
members and each one of us is a part of this universe; from which it is a natural consequence
that we should prefer the common advantage to our own‖ Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Finibus
Bonorum et Malorum (Cambridge/MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 63–64.
2
For a more detailed analysis of this question see my recent article: Béla Mester, ―Human
Nature and the Nature Itself: Natural and Social Aspects of the Human Nature‖, Limes:
Borderland Studies 2 (2012): 71–81.
140
Living Nature as an Inhuman Value – Conceptualised by Humans

The opposite approach within the framework of the environmental thinking is based
on similar political and juridical terms as the above mentioned theory. In this case
the subjects of the demanded new rights are the nonhuman beings themselves,
especially the animals. Contrary to the above mentioned instrumental interpretation
of the biosphere, and the animals in it, which is deeply rooted in the tradition of the
western thought, life and welfare of the nonhuman beings are values in themselves
within the theoretical frame of this characteristically modern idea. One of the
consequences of the juridical and political terminology is a palpable humanisation of
the nonhuman subjects of the demanded new laws. Subjects of the law can appear as
individuals, separate entities, not as organic parts of an ecosystem. For instance, a
natural environment, which is needed for survival and welfare of the individually
registered representatives of a protected species, can be a part of an article of the
animal protection as the territory, quasi-property of these animals. In this juridical
framework, the environment of several privileged individuals of several privileged
animal species; the existence of mice is as instrumental in an act for the protection of
owls, as that of the whole biosphere was in the previous theory. A couple of owls
with their property, and the youngs of birds in the nest as their heirs in the ownership
of their territory, protected by the law; it is a highly idyllic, but much
anthropomorphized model of the animal rights. Within this type of the
argumentation for the animal rights have emerged new kinds of the demanded rights,
which are rooted in an anthropomorphic thinking, and come from the moral canon of
the western civilisation. Amongst them the rights of several privileged animals for
privacy is the most characteristic, for example in the practice of the recent actions
for the animal welfare, the right of the female whales in the time of their labour.
Enlargement of the Axiological Dilemma for Non-Living Nature

The above discussed intrinsic anthropomorphic element of the current argumentation
for the animal rights has a principal theoretical problem with practical consequences;
the anthropomorphised protected animals have lost their autonomy as nonhuman
entities, consequently their several nonhuman needs can be on the blind spot of this
way of thinking. The axiological autonomy of the nonhuman entities requires a new,
different theoretical approach, which is based directly on their inhumanity. By this
reasoning, values of the natural objects are the consequences of the absence of the
signs of any human activity on theirs; the absence of the humans is a value in itself
in this way of thinking. The logic of the argumentation of this theoretical discourse
follows the idea of the values of non-living nature, at this point. Non-living objects
are more alien ones from the humans than the living ones, consequently they contain
more values. A contemporary example for this way of thinking is the discourse
about the pollution of the space. Several elements of this discourse are the parts of
the anthropocentric environmental thinking; the space-trash near the Earth is
dangerous for the practical human practices and services, which use the polluted
space. Other elements of this way of thinking, like the interpretation of the footprint
of Armstrong on the face of the Moon as a trash in nature, caused by humans, or the
protestation against the explorations of the Moons of other planets by firing and
141
destroying their surface. In the latter cases the inhuman fundaments of the idea are
clear with a hidden, developed aesthetics and ethics; someone is beautiful and good,
if it has no human spectators, or interactions. On the bottom, there is a hidden
anthropomorphic metaphor of personified nature as virgin.1
Patricia Todoran, The New Blends with the Old

Humanisation of Nature in the Sciences and in Natural Philosophy2

The personification of intact nature awakes our suspicion about the effectiveness of
the approach for considering axiological autonomy for the nonhuman beings and
non-living objects of nature, based purely on their inhumanity. In the end, it will be
always demonstrated that this point of view has its roots in a negative
anthropomorphism, which is not better and not worse, but more sophisticated than
the direct humanisation of the privileged animals in the cases discussed above. This
negatively humanised nature is not able to contain axiological values, as an entity,
1
For a more detailed analysis of this question see my article: Béla Mester, ―A Wanted
Environment – Alive or Dead‖, Philobiblon 14 (2009): 174–183.
2
This question was discussed in details in my recent paper in Hungarian, see: Béla Mester,
―As ásvány mint történeti emlék. Az élettelen természet történeti szemléletének kialakulása
(Mineral as Memory of History. Rise of the Historical Aspect of Inanimate Nature)‖, in:
Dezső Gurka, ed., Formációk és metamorfózisok. A geológia, a filozófia és az irodalom
kölcsönhatásai a 18–19. században (Formations and Metamorphoses. Interactions of
Geology, Philosophy, and Literature in the 18 th and 19th centuries) (Budapest: Gondolat,
2013): 97–105, with English summary.
142
which is intact from humanity; its concept was pre-formed by the history of the
philosophy and the sciences in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was the topic of a
separate presentation to outline the process of the changing images of nature from
the unhistorical models of the seventeenth-century cosmologies till the recognised
historicity of inhuman and non-living nature in the middle of the 19th century.
Emergence of the Idea of Historicity of Nature

In the previous sections at first I have outlined the core of the axiological problem in
the environmental and bioethical thought; later I have discussed the methods of the
instrumental calculation with nature in the human welfare, a direct and an indirect
way of its humanisation, with the causes of the latter one in the history of
philosophy and science. In my opinion, all the fallacies of the above mentioned
models are rooted in an instrumental usage of a culturally embedded concept of
nature for the cultural criticism. My chain of ideas was rooted in the paradox of the
postulated inhuman values as an intrinsic problem in the environmental system of
ideas. The world of the values, and the reflection on it, called axiology, was a human
world, a counterpart of inhuman nature. A concept of nature was used mainly as an
instrument for the critique of the civilisation from the time of the Cynic
philosophers. ―Follow nature (physis)‖ meant that you should not follow the societal
laws and customs (nomos); nature has not any intrinsic value in itself in this way of
thinking. When Jeremy Bentham enlarged the boundaries of the utility calculus for
the beings able to observe pain and pleasure, as it was mentioned above; it was just
an enlargement of an individualistic anthropology, and, consequently, the human
world of values, for all the animals. An opposite approach was a colonisation of the
non-human world in the concept of nature as a prerequisite of the human welfare,
from the form of human–nature relationship, formulated by Chrysippus, to the
conception of the representation of (humanised) nature as a part of law. In the latter
thoughts nature is just a human property, a heritage of the future generation, without
values in itself. Neither the enlargement of human values for the animals, nor the
colonisation of nature could offer a theory for a special, inhuman axiology of nature.
It has its roots in the idea of the value in itself of inhuman nature. It is the
inhumanity as a value in itself, formulated by humans for humans, hidden in nature.
This concept of nature is based on several features of the sciences at the turn of the
18th and 19th centuries, when historicity emerged in the exploration and
interpretation of nature, connected by several hidden axiological elements. By my
hypothesis, we cannot find inhuman values in nature, excluding the ones which were
put into a concept of nature. In this meaning, nature with moral values, whether
human or inhuman ones, is a man-made world. A reconstruction of the rise of the
historicity in the history of the research of nature has a crucial role in my
argumentation. The confirmation of my thesis about the intrinsic axiological
problems of the environmental thought depends on the truthfulness of my theses on
the history of philosophy and sciences. According to my narrative, the historical
method has penetrated into the explorations of nature and into natural philosophy
within two centuries. The protagonist of this change of the point of views was the
mineralogy. The institutional symbols of the change are the museums of natural
143
history, where the objects as the signs of typical natural processes have become the
witnesses of a narrative of nature, a needed prehistory of the humanity, on the same
level with the archaeological objects as the witnesses of the human nature. In this
interpretation, historicised nature has been fulfilled with the human values of the
historical way of thinking, and it has been suddenly humanised. The above
mentioned model of the axiological autonomy of nature takes this humanised
concept of nature, and considers it an inhuman, autonomous axiological value, but
the signs of the original humanisation will be unmasked in several cases during the
chain of the argumentation within this model.
A Humanisation of an Alienated Earth, and an Alienation of a Humanised Cosmos

After the rise of the natural sciences of the early modernity, in the age of
Romanticism a new approach of nature appeared on the historical view of the living
and dead objects of natural philosophy. From this point of view, the mineralogy of
the late 18th and early 19th centuries was paradigmatic; it has made culturally
valuable, historical objects, worthy of exhibiting them in a Museum, from the object
of dead, culturally neutral nature, which was evaluated before as an unhistorical
world. In the following, at first I will show the role of mineralogy in the new system
of the modern knowledge, in the sciences, and in philosophy. Natural history
(historia naturalis) has become a really historical discipline, a part of the new
historicist system, with the establishment of the scientific narrative of non-living
nature. This process will be exemplified by the classics of philosophy, by loci of
textbooks and popular manuals of this epoch, and by data of the history of the
sciences. Textbooks and manuals as systematic works show well the supposed role
of the new sciences in a new system of knowledge. My first topic will be the jump
from causality to teleology in an early work of Kant, and in an 18th-century textbook
of physics. The second one is the historicity of the geosciences in the works of
Herder, Hegel, and in a 19th-century Hungarian manual. My next topic is the
problem of the presence in contemporary geosciences. In the end of my article, I will
return to the initial problem: whether the hidden moral values, observed in nature,
were put into nature, before, by the historicist program of the sciences.
Transition from an Ahistorical Model of Nature to an Historical One in the

Turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries
The approach of the middle of the 18th century is clearly mirrored in the main work
of the pre-critical period of Immanuel Kant, entitled General Natural History and
Theory of the Celestial Bodies; or, an Attempt to Account for the Constitutional and
Mechanical Origin of the Universe, upon Newtonian Principles (1755). Its aim is to
offer a general scientific interpretation of the jump from the non-living to the living
sphere, and, consequently, from the causality to the teleology.1 This problem is as
ancient as Plato‘s Timaeus; but Kant‘s work contains several elements of a new,
1
Immanuel Kant, Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels oder Versuch von
der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltgebändes nach
Newtonischen Grundsätzen abgehandelt (Königsberg–Leipzig: Petersen, 1755).
144
hidden system of knowledge. The first challenge is to explain the origin of the living
being, with its intrinsic teleology, based on the rules of the Newtonian physics; by
Kant‘s words, the real challenge is a clear and entire deduction ―of the emergence of
a single leaf of grass, or that of a worm from the laws of mechanics‖.1 The next
teleological jump is to describe the genealogy of the Universe, and the history of the
Earth, based on the same Newtonian basis, as an entity being for living nature, and
for the humanity. Kant‘s hidden programme in this period is to establish a historical,
at least, narrative system of knowledge. In his framework, non-living nature is not a
neutral, ahistorical scenery of the human activity; it has its own history, and the
scientist‘s task is to offer a link between the two narratives, the history of the
Universe, and the history of humanity, and to unify them.
A widespread textbook of physics of the second part of the same century,
written by a good Central-European Jesuit professor, who later, in the nineties
became an anti-Kantian protagonist, Horváth‘s Physica particularis mirrors the
dilemmas of the transition from historia naturalis to the modern physics, from the
point of view of the school philosophy.2 Horváth was a typical figure of the so-called
Jesuit Enlightenment; his physics was based on Newton, his philosophy remained an
old-fashioned late Scholasticism. His work was characterised by this difficult
background; its main part contains the disciplines of modern physics; other parts
discuss geographical and geological questions, with a short botanical appendix. His
textbook has in its structure two crucial points by the point of view of the scientific
methodology. The first one is the gap between the eternal, testable laws of physics
and the reconstructed narrative of the history of the Earth; the second one is the gap
between non-living and living nature. However, these gaps are out of the
disciplinary boundaries of modern physics, they are the central questions of the
science and philosophy of his lifetime.
Telling a relatively unified narrative of the Universe, Earth, living nature,
and humanity is the achievement of the German historicism of the next generation.
In Herder‘s masterpiece, Outline of a Philosophical History of Humanity,3 the
history of the Earth, within the whole of geology, is a prehistory of the human
history. The unified narrative from the cosmogony to the human culture is
surprisingly continuous; jumps from non-living to living nature and from nature to
humanity have not clearly formulated methodological problems in his basically
teleological interpretation.
Hegel, in his Encyclopaedia (1817) has found a structured description for
the jumps within nature, and between nature and history. In the second part of his
work he describes the history of minerals as the steps for living nature. Another
1
Ibid., XXXV.
2
I have discussed its Venetian edition, based on several previous versions, published since
the sixties of the 18th century by the Hungarian University: Joannes Baptista Horváth,
Physica Particularis. Auditorium usibus accomodata, excuebat Antonius Zatta, Editio Prima
Veneta (Venetiis 1782). With a short Italian preface written by the editing committee of the
Serenissima Repubblica.
3
Johann Gottfried Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit Vol. I.
(Riga–Leipzig: Hartknoch, 1784).
145
problem for him is the method of the description of the world of the minerals
historically. His metaphors in the relevant loci are interesting from this point of
view. On the one hand, ―the Earth is a whole, a system of the life‖; but ―as a crystal,
it is dead, similar to a skeleton‖, on the other. New theories of geognosy, both the
concurrent Neptunist and Vulcanist theories and the moderated Plutonism of the later
period are based on a method of reconstruction, borrowed from the relatively new
science of archaeology. Both the human history and the history of the Earth have
historical facts, which can be reconstructed on the basis of the physical signs of the
activity in the past. The task of the archaeologist and that of the geologist are the
same, reconstructing a history, a narrative, and describing the subject of their
research by its history. The historical value of a stalactite or a stalagmite in a cave is
similar to an ancient arrow and bow in the same cave; however, they are used for the
reconstruction of different, human and non-human histories.
The link between the new, historical humanities of this epoch, and the another
new science, called mineralogy, was formulated clearly, within a program of the
system of sciences, by Schelling, in his On University Studies: ―Every mineral is a true
philological problem‖.1 (Schelling, in here, probably follows a commonplace,
established by the letters written by Johann Georg Hamann to Immanuel Kant about
natural philosophy in 1759.) From our point of view it is important that Schelling here
thinks of the new, historical linguistics of his age, which was a kind of archaeology of
the language. ―Excavations for the fossils of the language‖ on the one hand, and
―reconstruction of the grammar of the stones‖, on the other were parts of the same
metaphoric language of the new historicity emerged in the sciences in this epoch.
A typical 19th-century real-lexicon (1829–1831) summarised the problems
of the historicity of the natural sciences in its system of knowledge.2 According to
the Schellingian author, all the sciences are organised by historicity; they are divided
for the historical disciplines proper, and for the auxiliary disciplines of the history,
amongst them narrative disciplines, natural history (Naturgeschichte) of the Heaven
and the Earth, as real historical studies. In this system, which consciously refers to
Kant‘s work, mineralogy is the part of natural history of the latter one, and the
geological findings are equal with the archaeological ones by their cultural values, as
witnesses of an inhuman and human epoch of the history of the Universe. Historicity
of the mineralogy, and the value of geological and paleontological findings, by the
cultural and moral meaning, has become evident for the public opinion, in this time.
Historicity in the Modern Geosciences as a Problem of Methodology

Nowadays, when mineralogy exists in the social environment of ahistorical natural
sciences in the universities and research centres, its intrinsic methodological
historicity, inherited from the age of Romanticism, the founding time of this
discipline, appears as a question of identity for the scientific community. Historicity of
1
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, ―Vorlesungen über die Methode des akademischen
Studiums‖, in: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Werke Vol. II. (Leipzig 1907), 576.
First edition was published in 1803.
2
István Nyiry, A‘ tudományok öszvesége (A Universe of the Sciences) Vol. I–III. (S. Patak:
Nádaskay, 1829–1831).
146
their own discipline was interpreted by the mineralogists within the framework of the
informatics from the seventies. Their mineral findings as witnesses of the past were
evaluated as a container of information, and the mineralogist‘s task was to reconstruct
the crashed information from the remained elements, and decipher them.1 It is a
reformulation of the old historical method within the new requirements of the
scientific methodology, saving cultural and moral value of the potential geological
finding, as valuable information-containers. Another solution of the methodological
tension is the aim for making mineralogy and geology a synchronic, modern science,
instead of the diachronic view of its old historicity.2 Why not? If, by Schelling, ―every
mineral is a true philological problem‖, mineralogists can choose the descriptive
method of synchronic linguistics, instead of the diachronic view of historical
linguistics, which was a dominant approach in the time when mineralogy as a modern
discipline was established. Surprisingly, this experiment of changing the
methodological view of the geosciences, has not become a recognised theory, it
remained an interesting, but isolated idea of the Novosibirsk school of geology.
It is characteristic that the last serious contribution to the philosophy of
geological research recognises the historical method as evidence. In the
argumentation of professor Şengör, the parallelism of the humanities and
geosciences, based on their historicity, is more evident than it ever was.3 The
author‘s main question – Is the present the key to the past or is the past the key to the
present? – is a fundamental problem of the philosophy of history. His direct
comparison of the historical interpretations of the father of the Vulcanist school of
geology, James Hutton, and Adam Smith on the one hand, and the father of the
Neptunists, Abraham Gottlob Werner and Karl Marx on the other makes clear that
there is one, homogeneous historicity in the sciences, only, for him. By the evidence
of the title, all the mentioned ancient authors, both the mineralogists and
philosophers have just interpreted history in the same sense.
We can say based on the evidences of this short overview that historicity in
mineralogy, with all its consequences for the world of values, and for non-
living/living, and nature/human relationships, seems to be a fact in science today. It
concerns our initial problem.
Conclusion
In the first half of my paper I have outlined my hypothesis about the intrinsic
axiological tension within the environmental thought, in the approach of nature as a
morally valuable entity, whose value is based on its inhumanity. I have supposed
1
For an overview of the question in Hungarian see: István Viczián, ―Történeti szempontok a
kőzettanban (Historical Aspects in Mineralogy)‖ MTA X. Osztályának Közleményei
[Transactions of the 10th Department of HAS] 1–2 (1976): 83–89.
2
The Novosibirsk school of mineralogy, under leadership of Yuriy Voronin was a
characteristic representative of this approach. For the details see: Yuriy Voronin – E. Eranov,
Facii i formacii: Paragenesis (Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1972).
3
Ali Mehmet Célan Şengör, Is the present the key to the past or is the past the key to the
present? James Hutton and Adam Smith versus Abraham Gottlob Werner and Karl Marx in
interpreting history (Special Paper 355: Geological Society of America, 2001).
147
that this paradoxical concept of the value of inhumanity of nature, formulated by

humans, for humans, is based on a view of nature rooted in the historical method of
research. Historical approach of non-living and living nature is not neutral
concerning the moral and cultural values. In the second half I have shown by the
data of the history of philosophy and science, from the pre-critical Kant, through
Herder, Schelling, and Hegel to the contemporary analyses of the philosophy of
geology that historicised nature must be full of human values.
In other words, nature in our eyes always remains a man-made world.
148
Irony and Solidarity: Two Key Concepts of Richard Rorty
István FEHÉR M.
―Eötvös Loránd‖ University/
Andrassy German Speaking University
Budapest
Keywords: irony, solidarity, vocabulary, metaphysics, morality, knowledge, hope,

epistemology, anti-foundationalism,
Abstract: Irony and solidarity are two key concepts characteristic of the vocabulary
of Richard Rorty. Their thematization can be done on a narrower or wider basis of
texts. In the present paper I attempt to contextualize and reconstruct them against the
background of other important concepts of Rorty‘s vocabulary, such as, first of all,
the concept of contingency. The concept of irony is shown to derive, for Rorty, from
Sartre‘ conception of the humans who are claimed to be what they are not, and not to
be what they are. The non coincidence of humans with themselves, or, with their
„essence,‖ is argued to lead the way to the basic attitude of irony. The concept of
contingency may be shown to lead up to the concept of solidarity as well, in that the
realization that what we are we are in a contingent way implies the possibility of
being radically other than what we happen to be. (I.) In a second step, the basic
concepts of Rorty, thus far reconstructed, are shown to be dependent on Rorty‘s
basic philosophical stance of anti-foundationalism; the latter is claimed to have a
hermeneutical background. (II.) In a final part the outlines of a tradition are sketched
from Kant to the present, characterized by an anti-metapyhsical flow, whereby the
importance of solidarity and morality is stressed without the attempt to anchor it in a
metaphysical theory of humans or any kind of epistemology destined to provide
knowledge rather than hope. Indeed, Rorty shows that hope stands over and above
knowledge, and it contributes to making us humans more than a project to attain any
kind of (secure) knowledge is ever capable of.
E-mail: feher@ella.hu
When trying to gain access to the thoughts of important philosophers one of

the most customary modes is to scrutinize or closely inspect some of their central
concepts, or ---with Richard Rorty‘s expression--some of the entries of their
vocabulary. Looking into the vocabulary of Rorty himself in search for his key
concepts – in addition to finding that one of the prominent entries of this vocabulary
is precisely the concept of ―vocabulary‖1 – the two concepts signalled in the title are
1
Besides the fact that one of the basic concepts of Rorty‘s ―vocabulary‖ is ―vocabulary‖
itself, it is also not unessential, and sheds light on Rorty‘s ideas on the finiteness and
contingency of ethno-centrism, language and community, that while in English the terms
―dictionary‖ and ―vocabulary‖ are overlapping and synonymous, ―dictionary‖ is only used to
149
very likely to be listed as two of Rorty‘s key concepts. Irony and solidarity: these are
two central subjects in Rorty‘s thinking, which seem adequate, along with other
topics, to be used as guidelines for a cross-section of Rorty‘s thinking. The basic
concepts are however not isolated or independent from each other. They are linked
directly to other specific concepts, their meaning is embedded into groups of other
concepts, while they are also interconnected in various ways. (This insight is also an
important part of Rorty‘s vocabulary as the expression of a basic meaning-
theoretical contextualism). Irony for Rorty is, for instance, connected to liberal hope
and thus liberalism itself, while solidarity is embedded into some of the particular
problems of the contemporary world, among others the phenomenon of
globalization. These key concepts can be reconstructed on various textual bases, and
to various depths – in the present paper I will confine discussion to delineating and
highlighting some of the aspects of ―irony‖ and ―solidarity‖ in Rorty‘s work (I., II.).
Lastly, based on the reconstruction, I will attempt to present Rorty as the – so far –
last significant representative of a tradition which may be called anti-metaphysical in
relating knowledge and action to one another—a tradition, to which he can be
unproblematically assigned, and to whose thinkers Rorty himself often refers. (III.)
I.
It is of importance for our theme to note that the development of the concept of
irony is embedded by Rorty into the exposition of the concept of vocabulary as a
sort of meta-concept. This is hardly accidental, since irony itself (like anything else)
can only be characterized with the help of some sort of a discourse or description –
that is, a sort of ―vocabulary.‖ Human beings, claims Rorty as his starting point,
carry with themselves a set of words with which they tend to justify their actions,
beliefs, lives. Rorty calls this a ―final vocabulary‖, where the adjective ―final‖ is not
the forms published as books (language, professional, etc.), while ―vocabulary‖ has an extra
dimension of meaning which is beneficial to Rorty‘s use. Various dictionaries offer various
descriptions for this dimension of meaning of ―vocabulary‖; as the Cambridge Dictionary of
American English puts it: ―all the words used by a particular person‖, The Advanced
Learner‘s Dictionary of Current English: ―(range of) words known to, or used by, a person,
in a trade, profession, etc.‖, Webster‘s: ―all the words used by a particular person, class,
profession, etc., sometimes all the words recognized and understood by a particular person,
although not necessarily used by him (in full, passive vocabulary)‖; for the term ―dictionary‖
in the same dictionaries, in the same order, the following descriptions are given: ―a book that
lists words alphabetically with their meanings given in the same or in another language, and
often includes other information‖; ―book, dealing with the words of a language, or with
words or topics of a special subject (e.g. the Bible, architecture), and arranged in ABC
order‖, or: ―a book of alphabetically listed words in a language, with definitions [...] [or]
with their equivalents in another language [...] [or] related to a special subject: as a medical
dictionary‖ (see Cambridge Dictionary of American English [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000], 973, 236; The Advanced Learner‘s Dictionary of Current English,
2nd ed. [London: Oxford University Press, 1969], 1120, 272; Webster‘s New World
Dictionary of the American Language [Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing
Company, 1966], 1633, 407).
150
to imply that this vocabulary is beyond history or unsurpassable. It only means:

unreferential and ungrounded: in case of doubts, there is no way to argue for them in
a non-circular way.1
Rorty uses the adjective ―ironic‖ to describe the attitude of a person able to
confront the contingency of her basic views and desires, who is nominalist and
historicist enough to give up the idea that these views and desires refer back to
something beyond time and incidence.2 According to the more detailed definition
the persons characterized as ironic have to meet three conditions: 1. they should
radically and persistently doubt about their own final vocabulary, because of the
influence of other vocabularies (considered final by people they know); 2. they
should admit that these doubts cannot be either confirmed or eliminated by any kind
of arguments formulated in the current vocabulary; 3. if they formulate
philosophical ideas about their current situation, they should not think that their own
vocabulary lies any closer to something such as ―reality‖ than any of the other
vocabularies; whereby their choice of vocabulary does not take into account any
kind of meta-vocabularies or it is not motivated by the intent to go forth to reality,
but much rather by the ambition to replace the old with the new.3
The three conditions are obviously interconnected, and they are joined
together by a kind of concealed and here unuttered premise (which appears
nevertheless in the paper discussed, but only incidentally): the notion of contingency
(the concept which appears emphatically, at the first position in the title of Rorty‘s
book). Ironists can never take themselves fully seriously, Rorty mentions in passing,
for they are aware that the concepts they use to describe themselves are always
subject to changes – in other words, they are ―always aware of the contingency and
fragility of their final vocabularies, and thus of their selves.‖4
I would like to comment on Rorty‘s remarks in two directions. First, this
observation is a good starting point for clarifying the relationship of the two
1
CIS 73. Bibliographical note: I refer to Rorty‘s works with the following abbreviations:
PMN = Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1979); CP = Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1982); CIS = Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1989); PP 1 = Philosophical Papers, Volume 1. Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); PP 2 = Philosophical Papers, Volume 2.
Essays on Heidegger and Others (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); PP 3 =
Philosophical Papers, Volume 3. Truth and Progress (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998); AOC = Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); PSH = Philosophy and Social Hope
(London: Penguin, 2000). Other abbreviations: : EN = Jean-Paul Sartre: L'être et le néant.
Essai d‘ontologie phénoménologique, édition corrigée avec index par Arlette Elkaďm-Sartre
(Paris: Gallimard (collection Tel), 1998); GW = Hans-Georg Gadamer: Gesammelte Werke,
vol. 1–10, (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985–1995), [vol. no., page no.]; SZ = M. Heidegger: Sein und
Zeit, 15th ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1979).
2
CIS xv. Rorty confirmed this summarizing definition almost word by word in a later
retrospection, see PP 3, 307. fn. 2.
3
CIS 73.
4
CIS 74.
151
concepts (irony and solidarity) appearing in the title of my paper and the three
concepts in the title of Rorty‘s book (contingency, irony, solidarity). Second, I wish
to dedicate some attention to the fact that Rorty draws on Sartre at this point,
introducing as he does the concept of irony in relation to Sartre‘s ideas, thereby
offering an opportunity for an interesting parallel.
I propose to discuss the first problem partly detached from Rorty‘s text. The
concept of contingency is adequate to function as a mediating concept between irony
and solidarity – connecting and bridging between them. Let us start from the
relationship of contingency and irony. At a closer look the former leads up to the
latter. This is so because the realization that we and our vocabulary are originally
contingent, that is, not a necessity, suggests a distanced attitude which may rightly
be called ironic insofar as irony means detachment from the thing, the cessation of
identification with it, or a kind of hovering above it.1 Relating with a kind of
distance, doubt or modesty to our contingently being who we are – looking at
ourselves this way: contingent and modest – is perhaps not completely inconsistent;
and this, coupled with the view that the language and vocabulary we use to describe
our world and ourselves is just as contingent, means relating to ourselves with (self-)
irony, that is, a sort of distance.
However, in addition to irony, from contingency there is a way leading up to
solidarity as well. If I am not necessarily what (and who) I am, then I could just as
well be someone else; and this consideration may lead to solidarity with that
someone or those others.2 It may entail solidarity with those others of whom I could
happen to be one, although I happen – although not necessarily – not to be one of
them. I could be one of those others, insofar as it is in a contingent way that I am
who I am. To distance from myself is to approach to, to make a step towards, the
others. I might just as well be him (in exactly the way he could be me) – on my view
this is one of the fundamental (perhaps even hermeneutical3) theses of solidarity,
1
If someone says something ironically, it means that she/he does not identify with it, does
not mean it literally, and relates to her/his own discourse or chosen vocabulary in a specific –
precisely ironical – way.
2
This formulation is not suggested by some kind of compulsory stylistic modesty, but just as
much by the choice to be consistent: a philosophy which starts from and centres around
contingency cannot speak about necessary connections or relations without risking to be self-
contradictory.
3
As long as Gadamer‘s hermeneutics considers the other (whether text or fellow human) as
formulating statements with truth and knowledge claims no less than I do, and who may in
principle always be right against me. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revised edition,
revisions by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall, New York: Crossroad, 1989,
reprinted London/New York: Continuum, 1999, 355: „In human relations the important thing
is [...] to experience the Thou truly as a Thou—i.e., not to overlook his claim but to let him
really say something to us‖ ( = Gadamer, GW 1, 367: „Im mitmenschlichen Verhalten kommt
es darauf an [...], das Du als Du wirklich zu erfahren, d. h. seinen Anspruch nicht zu überhören
und sich etwas von ihm sagen zu lassen―). See also J. Grondin, ―Die Weisheit des rechten
Wortes. Ein Porträt Hans Georg Gadamers‖, in Information Philosophie 5 (1994): 28; Idem,
Einführung in die philosophische Hermeneutik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1991), 160. Cf. Gadamer, GW 2, 116, 505; GW 10, 274; Gadamer: Die Vielfalt Europas. Erbe
und Zukunft (Stuttgart: Robert Bosch Stiftung, 1985), 29.
152
which is however hardly possible without first acknowledging contingency as its

presupposition. (If I necessarily am who I am, then I cannot not be who I am, so it is
impossible for me to be one of the others.) Admitting my contingency – not only the
quod, but also the quid, not only that I am contingently, but also that I contingently
am who/what I am, and thereby the fact that the vocabulary which I use to describe
myself and the world is just as contingent – might beneficially increase my ability to
identify with other people and their vocabularies (for I could be any one of them,
and I could use any one of their vocabularies). It is also worth adding: to be someone
(i.e., a determinate person) and to use a certain vocabulary (in order to describe
ourselves among other things) cannot really be separated, or what is more, they are
almost identical. The way we describe ourselves and the way we relate to ourselves
cannot really be separated. If the self-description (the vocabulary) changes, our
relation to ourselves also changes, and therefore we change as well. For the way we
relate to ourselves is mostly decisive also about who and what we are. I am who I
am because I use a certain vocabulary – and not another one – although this
vocabulary – let us emphasize again – is itself contingent. Our ―redescription‖ and
our transformation greatly overlaps; if I describe myself differently, I have become a
different person.1 Irony in this sense is the recognition of the power of redescription
and the faith in it.2
Although important enough, it seems less discussed or acknowledged in the
literature that Rorty expands on the concept of irony starting from and drawing upon
Sartre. As Sartre constructed his independent and original worldview drawing on,
but differing in several aspects from, Heidegger, Rorty takes up some of the basic
thoughts of Sartre and develops them in a direction which primarily highlight his
own, rather than Sartre‘s, views.
The fact that the choice between final vocabularies is incommensurable, that
it is not taken on the basis of certain criteria, creates a situation of instability –
claims Rorty – that Sartre called meta-stable.3 Rorty gives no further commentary to
this term, nor any bibliographical clarification, but after some investigation we find
indeed this term in Sartre,4 namely, in his characterization of the concept of bad
faith. Bad faith is for Sartre very much a kind of faith; a faith, however, the first act
of which is none other than a decision (obscured even from oneself) on the nature of
faith itself, a decision which is itself conceived in bad faith, by which this faith
makes a non-evident, non-persuasive evidence to be the criterion of evidence. This
structure is originally and hopelessly unstable. Indeed, in contrast to the being-in-
itself characterized by coincidence with itself, by being ―what it is‖, human reality,
consciousness, the structure of the being-for-itself is, according to Sartre,
characterized by non-coincidence with itself: it is not what is it, and it is what it is
not. Considering this, bad faith tries to escape from this ontological nature of human
1
This relation is best described by Rorty‘s interpretation of the Gadamerian term of Bildung.
Through Bildung, which has no other purpose than itself, we become different people, and an
essential moment of this process is that we admit the historical contingency and relativity of
descriptive vocabularies. See PMN 359, 362.
2
See CIS 89.
3
CIS 73.
4
EN 104.
153
existence precisely towards the stability, permanebce, and coincidence with itself
characteristic of the being-in-itself. Meta-stability in the wide sense is not only valid
for bad faith. Human reality – inasmuch as it is not what it is, and it is what it is not,
it exists at a certain distance from itself (and this is the starting point of irony for
Rorty) – is itself unstable, it does not coincide with itself, and therefore there is no
statement about it (in Rorty‘s later perspective: ―vocabulary‖) which could
adequately ―grasp‖ it one way or another, (linguistically) ―identify‖ it, ―put it in
words‖, and thus record it. ―I cannot make any statement about myself,‖ Sartre
writes in a characteristic passage, ―that would not become false the moment I make
it‖ (―je ne puis rien énoncer sur moi qui ne soit devenu faux quand je l'énonce‖);
elsewhere he writes: the being-for-itself ―is always different from what may be said
about it‖ (―il est toujours autre chose que ce qu'on peut dire de lui‖).1 The idea of the
contingency and plurality of the final vocabulary may be seen from this perspective
as a consistent continuation of this idea.
If we look at Rorty‘s concept of irony in his considerations on Sartre, then in
addition to a general reference to meta-stability,2 the second part of the same
sentence offers a more specific – and in a certain sense more substantial – clue,
although Sartre‘s name is no longer mentioned there. The ironists who find
themselves in the position that Sartre calls meta-stable, in Rorty‘s further exposition
―are never quite able to take themselves seriously because [they are] always aware
that terms in which they describe themselves are subject to change‖, they are
―always aware of the contingency and fragility of their final vocabularies and thus of
their selves‖. ―[...] never quite able to take themselves seriously‖: this formulation
recalls Sartre‘s critical remarks towards the end of Being and Nothingness on what
he called the ―spirit of seriousness‖, and which takes up and elaborates on what has
been said in the first part of his work about ―bad faith‖. For the ―spirit of
seriousness‖ [esprit de sérieux] the values constituting in human projects appear
―transcendent givenness independently of human subjectivity‖ (―données
transcendantes indépendantes de la subjectivité humaine‖), and the ―desirable‖
(―désirable‖) nature of things is also part of the material constitution of things. 3 The
―spirit of seriousness‖ is characterized by the fact that it escapes the basically
volatile, contingent, free nature of human reality, unjustifiable and unfounded for
itself, towards the stability of the being-in-itself. Man tries to freeze himself into a
rock – as seen about Flerieur, the protagonist of Sartre‘s short story, ―The Childhood
of a Leader‖ – and strives to acquire some kind of personality and, through this,
stability, justification of his existence, or self-identification by a thoughtless
connection to commonplaces, mass ideologies or meaningless views.4 The ―spirit of
1
EN 151, 483. (Emphasis in the original)
2
See the expression also in CIS 113. Rorty also uses the term meta-stability, for the
mentioned reasons, for Heidegger‘s Dasein; the basic Heideggerian terms describing the
Dasein are inherently ironic, he claims; it could even be said that the Dasein is Heidegger‘s
term for the ironist. (ibid.)
3
EN 674.
4
The representation of various forms of bad faith and the spirit of seriousness frequently
appears in Sartre‘s literary works and essays; see my somewhat more detailed references in
154
seriousness‖, in other words, takes itself very seriously, it tries to be this and this
(and anchor itself in this and this), identify with itself one way or another with the
greatest seriousness (thereby concealing that any such endeavour is the result of free
choice), it flees from freedom and the anxiety that accompanies it, which would
result in the consideration that to choose something rather than something else in a
necessary way– as Kierkegaard was already very much aware of it1 – is an
impossible task. This kind of ―seriousness‖ is not a serious confrontation with life
and things, but intellectual and moral arrogance and rigidity, conceived in bad-faith;
it is a flight from freedom and the responsibility that goes with it, from choosing,
from plurality.
Patricia Todoran, Feel

Actually, Rorty‘s way of taking up Sartre‘s theme on this point is simple

and disarming. He takes seriously Sartre‘s critique of the ―spirit of seriousness‖
inasmuch as from there he deduces irony as a correct (authentic) attitude in contrast
to the ―spirit of seriousness‖. Sartre‘s critique of the spirit of seriousness could
István Fehér M., Jean-Paul Sartre (Budapest: Kossuth, 1980), 33. Elsewhere Sartre
describes this ambition as an attraction to ―the permanence of rock‖ or the ―impenetrability
of stone‖ (Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, translated by George J. Becker, New York: Schocken
Books, 1995, 19, 38).
1
See S. Kierkegaard: Entweder – Oder. Teil I und II, Unter Mitwirkung von Niels Thulstrup
und der Kopenhager Kierkegaard-Gesellschaft hrsg. von Hermann Diem und Walter Rest,
München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2005, 725: „[...] eigentlich fordert sie [sc.
philosophy], daß man notwendig handle, was ein Widerspruch ist―.
155
indeed very much suggest this interpretation, but Sartre does not proceed to embrace
this possibility lying in his own ideas. Irony in Sartre – if at all –appears at most as
an occasionally sarcastic and defiant unveiling of various forms of bad faith,1
manifest more in our attitude towards the criticized opponent, rather than in the
(right) relation to ourselves. As regards the latter, the lack of the coincidence of
human reality with itself appears in Sartre mainly accompanied by pathetic-tragic
accents; Rorty however simply puts these aside, considers them to be a metaphysical
sediment. In fact, Rorty still considers Sartre as being ―metaphysical‖ when, for
example, Sartre calls man ―a useless passion‖.2 And indeed: Sartre‘s oeuvre (in both
its phases) is penetrated by a kind of pathetic-tragic tone and attitude, which is
difficult to harmonize with the criticism of the spirit of seriousness, or is itself prone
to overlap with the spirit of seriousness. The relevant passage at the end of the
existentialist work is worth quoting: ―Every human reality is a passion in that it
projects losing itself so as to found being and by the same stroke to constitute the In-
itself which escapes contingency by being its own foundation, the Ens causa sui,
which religions call God. Thus the passion of man is the reverse of that of Christ, for
man loses himself as man in order that God may be born. But the idea of God is
contradictory and we lose ourselves in vain. Man is a useless passion.‖3
Rorty (and his modest irony) is quite far from this dramatic tone: for him, it
bears the traces of the sort of metaphysics that he gave up and systematically
distanced himself from it, influenced by the critique of metaphysics taken over from
the second period of Heidegger‘s work (and just as much from the tradition of
American pragmatism). If man‘s ambition to become God as part of traditional
metaphysics becomes meaningless in the light of a radical critique of metaphysics,
then it also becomes meaningless to characterize man in terms of a ―useless
passion,‖ following from the failure of this ambition (and Sartre leaves little place
for doubting the failure of this ambition). ―The topic of futility‖, says Rorty, ―would
arise only if one were trying to surmount time, chance, and self-redescription by
discovering something more powerful than any of these. For Proust and Nietzsche,
however, there is nothing more powerful or important than self-redescription.‖4
Dependence on time and incidence as relativity – provided we think with radical
1
See, e.g., Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, translated by Carol Macomber, New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 2007, 39: „Essentially, that is what people would like to
think. If you are born a coward, you need not let it concern you, for you will be a coward
your whole life, regardless of what you do, through no fault of your own. If you are born a
hero, you need not let it concern you either, for you will be a hero your whole life, and eat
and drink like one.‖
2
CIS 99; cf. also PP 2, 131; PSH 61.
3
Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, English
translation by Hazel E. Barnes, London: Methuen & Co, 1958, 615. See EN 662: ―Toute
réalité-humaine est une passion, en ce qu'elle projette de se perdre pour fonder l'être et pour
constituer du même coup l'en-soi qui échappe à la contingence en étant son propre fondement,
l'Ens causa sui que les religions nomment Dieu. Ainsi la passion de l'homme est-elle inverse de
celle du Christ, car l'homme se perd en tant qu'homme pour que Dieu naisse. Mais l'idée de Dieu
est contradictoire et nous nous perdons en vain ; l'homme est une passion inutile.‖
4
CIS 99. Rorty repeatedly returned to Sartre‘s topos of man as a ―useless passion‖. See note 19
156
consistency about relativity – is not identical with, and does not account for, futility
(this could be the reconstruction of Rorty‘s possible answer to Sartre at this point).
Futility presupposes absolute standards. The ironist might find it meaningful to
apply the concept of ―better description‖, but has no criterion for this term,
therefore the concept of ―the right description‖ is useless for him. So he finds no
futility in man‘s not being able to become a being-in-itself, être-en-soi. The ironist is
distinguished from the metaphysician precisely in that he never wanted to become
one (or he wanted never to want to become one).1
The human project as an ambition to become God (just as Heidegger‘s view
in his letter on humanism about man as the ―pastor of being‖2) is hardly compatible
with Rorty‘s pragmatist attitude, his pragmatic view on man as a cooperative social
being. In this respect, Sartre was not radical enough for him, or, so to say, not
existentialist (anti-metaphysical) enough. By contrast, Sartre‘s dissolution of the
strong relationship of metaphysics and politics is very consonant with Rorty‘s views
on Dewey, emblematically expressed also in the title of his influential study: ―The
Priority of Democracy to Philosophy‖.3 In his study entitled Materialism and
Revolution, Sartre criticizes the view that the materialistic metaphysics and the
revolutionary attitude are strongly interrelated, and the philosophy of revolution or
the liberation of man could only be brought by dialectical materialism (that is, one
could only be a true revolutionary if one were to accept the materialistic
metaphysics that Sartre considers absurd).4 There is no necessary connection
between metaphysics and political position, and the political position or the
commitment to democracy needs no kind of philosophical (metaphysical)
foundation. It is hardly the case that one cannot be a good democrat or liberal unless
one embraces some theory on some atemporal, unchanged human essence. ―A
liberal society‖ – goes the rightfully ironic note – ―is badly served by an attempt to
supply it with ‘philosophical foundations‘.‖5 Its necessity is a concept which goes
1
CIS 99; cf. also PP 2, 131.
2
Heidegger, ―Brief über den ‘Humanismus‘‖, in Idem, Wegmarken (Frankfurt/Main:
Klostermann, 1967), 175–196, 145–194, here: 162, 172.
3
See J.-P. Sartre, ―Materialism and Revolution,‖ in Sartre, Literary and Philosophical Essays,
translated by Annette Michelson, New York: Collier Books, 1962, 198--256, here in particular
200 (it is to be asked ―whether materialism and the myth of objectivity are really required by
the cause of the Revolution and if there is not a discrepancy between the revolutionary's action
and his ideology‖), 215f, 221, 234 (―But, once again, is the materialistic myth, which may have
been useful and encouraging, really necessary?‖), 241, 243f .
4
PP 1, 175–196. Here mainly 180.
5
CIS 52. At the end of his classic study entitled Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1958), Isaiah Berlin approvingly cites the words of Joseph A. Schumpeter: ―To realise
the relative validity of one‘s convictions, and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what
distinguishes a civilised man from a barbarian‖ (Joseph A. Schumpeter: Capitalism,
Socialism, and Democracy [London, 1943], 243.). Rorty quotes both Schumpeter, and
Berlin‘s commentary on it approvingly: ―To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and
incurable metaphysical need; but to allow it to determine one‘s practice is a symptom of an
equally deep, and more dangerous, moral and political immaturity‖; CIS 46.). Berlin also
writes: ―It may be that the ideal of freedom to choose ends without claiming eternal validity
157
back to the scientism of the Enlightenment. The liberal society is a historical

formation; however, acknowledging its contingency does not have to shatter one‘s
committment to it, nor does one have to turn away from it; it can still be loved,
supported and perfected. And which is not better enforced or confirmed by wanting
to make it seem necessary by metaphysical or pseudo-philosophical arguments.
I have tried to find a connection with irony from the direction of the concept
of contingency, and highlight this connection in certain respects. And while irony is
explicitly derived from Sartre, it must be mentioned that the concept of contingeny
may also derive from Sartre, for it does not appear at all at Heidegger, while for
Sartre it is one of his central philosophical concepts.1 Before proceeding, one might
also refer to the fact that this connection appears literally in the expression ―the
ironists‘ sense of contingency‖,2 as something that, according to the refutations and
reproaches of some liberals, as an unserious attitude undermines the moral operation
of democratic societies. But freedom is the recognition (not of necessity, but) of
contingency3 – says Rorty through his original and characteristic thesis created as
the reverse of the well-known philosophical thesis. We excessively and
unnecessarily overrate philosophy if we want to use it to metaphysically support or
justify political systems (any such attempt is circular anyway). Liberal democracy is
much rather in need of concrete social measures to relieve the starvation, pain and
humiliations of the many (a liberal is a person who thinks that cruelty is the worst
for them [...] is only the late fruit of our declining capitalist civilisation: an ideal which
remote ages and primitive societies have not recognised, and one which posterity will regard
with curiosity, even sympathy, but little comprehension. This may be so; but no skeptical
conclusions seem to me to follow. Principles are not less sacred because their duration
cannot be guaranteed. Indeed, the very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and
secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or
the absolute values of our primitive past.‖ Rorty says largely the same when claiming: ―The
fundamental premise of [my] book is that a belief can still regulate action, can still be
thought worth dying for, among people who are quite aware that this belief is caused by
nothing deeper than contingent historical circumstance‖ (CIS 189.)
1
It is one of the most characteristic concepts of Being and Nothingness, see e.g. EN 118. „
L'événement absolu ou pour-soi est contingent en son être même.‖; Ibid. 119.: „le pour-soi est
soutenu par une perpétuelle contingence, qu'il reprend à son compte et s'assimile sans jamais
pouvoir la supprimer‖. Contingency means for Sartre the lack of foundations – just as later for
Rorty it implies the rejection of foundationalism. The Sartrean concept of „injustifiable‖ is also
characteristic in this respect. (EN 73f, 118f.) Sartre‘s protagonist, Roquentin, says in Nausea:
„one cannot define existence as necessity‖; „those who exist let themselves be encountered, but
you can never deduce anything from them [...] contingency is [...] the absolute,‖ (Sartre:
Nausea, New Directions Publishing 2007, 107.). Sartre uses the concept of facticity as a
synonym for contingency (EN 119.), while in Heidegger only facticity appears, albeit very
emphatically (see, e.g., SZ 12. §, 56.: Die Tatsächlichkeit des Faktums Dasein, als welches
jeweilig jedes Dasein ist, nennen wir seine Faktizität‖), contingency does not (probably
because Heidegger considers inappropriate the very pair of contingency-necessity; if Dasein
cannot be necessary, then it cannot be its opposite, contingent, either.)
2
PP 3, 325.
3
PP 3, 326.
158
thing we can do – claims Rorty‘s definition taken over from Judith Shklar).1 Novels,
reports and newspaper articles are much more capable of reporting on such things.
Expressions like ―late capitalism‖, ―modern industrial society‖, ―conditions of the
production of knowledge‖ must be replaced by ―workers‘ representatives‖,
―association of journalists‖, ―laws against financial manipulation‖.
II.
Before we proceed, we should mention a thesis of Rorty‘s ―vocabulary‖, strongly

interrelated with the tenet of contingency, as it has already been implicitly assumed
in the above considerations as a silent premise. For, as quoted above, not only do we
―badly serve‖ a liberal society by supplying it with ‗philosophical foundations‘, but
thereby we also attempt to make something that – in addition to being a ―bad
service‖ – is also an impossible task: one more reason to give up this endeavour.
Rorty‘s rejection of any idea of foundations (anti-foundationalism)2 is very closely
connected to the tenet of contingency – actually, the former is a premise for the
latter. Views of Heidegger, the late works of Wittgenstein, Sartre, Gadamer and the
American pragmatists inform Rorty that it is just as hopeless as it is unnecessary to
find foundations for man, the (democratic) community, for ―values‖ or anything
else. There is no super-historical human essence just as there is no neutral matrix or
an ―objective,‖ super-historical viewpoint and language which would not be the very
own of contingent communities and language games.3 The first three studies in his
contingency book argue precisely for the contingency of the three central concepts
of Western philosophy: language, the self, and liberal community. By these
considerations Rorty drew upon himself, of course, the accusation of relativism,
irrationalism and anti-democraticism, and he took great pains to prove: one could be
a good liberal without running after metaphysical guarantees in the (false)
conviction that one cannot believe – legitimately, ―coherently‖ – in Western values,
liberal democracy, etc., unless one finds appropriate philosophical (metaphysical)
1
CIS, xv.
2
See e.g. PSH xvi, xxxii, 36, 151. (The latter place is a summary of the rejected idea of
foundationalism: ―Foundationalism is an epistemological view which can be adopted by
those who suspend judgement on the realist‘s claim that reality has an intrinsic nature. A
foundationalist need only claim that every belief occupies a place in a natural, transcultural,
transhistorical order of reasons – an order which eventually leads the inquirer back to one or
another ‘ultimate source of evidence‘. Different foundationalists offer different candidates
for such sources: for example, Scripture, tradition, clear and distinct ideas, sense-experience,
common sense. Pragmatists object to foundationalism for the same reasons as they object to
realism.‖). Cf. also Ibid. 155. – The rejection of foundationalism is not only based on relating
to the views of philosophers influencing Rorty; it also has a kind of independent
―theoretical‖ background, summarized in his biographic writing as follows: ―There seemed
to be nothing like a neutral standpoint from which these alternative first principles could be
evaluated. But if there were no such standpoint, then the whole idea of ‘rational certainty‘,
and the whole Socratic-Platonic idea of replacing passion by reason, seemed not to make
much sense‖ (PSH 10.)
3
See PMN 348f; CP 161, 226; CIS 44, 50, 52; PSH 116.
159
foundations for them. (Just as it was thought once that one can only believe –
legitimately, ―coherently‖ – in the social objectives of Marxism if one accepted
materialism, or dialectical materialism as a theory.)
In the light of the fact that Rorty shows not much understanding for
phenomenology, as he considers it a late descendent of Platonic-Kantian Western
metaphysics1 – the idea of philosophy as science, the view that man is a cognitive
being, whose essence is to know or discover essences2 –, it is especially important
that, seen from the perspective of a hermeneutically transformed (let‘s say,
Heideggerian) phenomenology, for which things should be taken as they appear (not
in consciousness, but) in life, Rorty proves, in fact, to be a good phenomenologist.
Most of his arguments are descriptions, uninfected with inherited theories,
metaphysics and epistemology, of how things are in real life, for an unbiased regard.
For instance, to show solidarity to my fellow human beings, I do not need any theory
on the I or on the human essence; a much more restricted, concrete, contingent – or
with Rorty‘s word, parochial3 – consideration, or rather emotion, would also do it. I
help because ―She is, like me, a mother of small children‖4 (and not because she is
also part of, or embodies, the same unchanged human essence). Nor should we be
much worried if someone objects saying: our practical activity is only ―consistent‖,
―coherent‖, if it is based upon an appropriate theory. As things are in real life,
practice precedes theory – this is what pragmatism, Heidegger, Sartre, Gadamer and
the late work of Wittgenstein teach for Rorty.
The Heideggerian as well as Sartrean thesis that there is no human essence,
and that human existence precedes its essence is shared by Rorty, too – with the
single difference that for him this is less dramatic than for the other two
philosophers, and even entails some ironic consequences. This ironic attitude would
stand in opposition with the thought of solidarity only if the latter were in need of a
metaphysical foundation, perhaps connected to the super-historical essence of
human nature, or the permanent, inalienable human rights. But since this is not the
1
See ―Philosophy in America Today,‖ In CP 211–230: here 213, 226. On page 226 one can
read: ―Husserl‘s quest for a phenomenological method was, like Reichenbach‘s logical
positivism, an expression of the urge for »the secure path of science.« But Husserl was a
brief and futile interruption of the Hegel-Marx-Nietzsche-Heidegger-Foucault sequence
which I am taking as paradigmatically »Continental« [...]. What distinguishes Nietzsche,
Heidegger, and Foucault from Hegel and Marx is precisely the increasing wholeheartedness
with which they give up the notions of »system,« »method,« »science« [...]‖. Rorty‘s lack of
understanding for phenomenology is related to the fact that Rorty only wants to hear
Husserl‘s urge for ―strict knowledge‖ and ―apodictic truths‖ – not unjustly, considering
Husserl‘s verbal manifestations, but still onesidedly, considering the general practice of
phenomenology established by Husserl, see PMN 8.); therefore Husserl often appears for
him next to Russell‘s similar endeavours (especially those that wish to clean logic of
psychologism, resulting in a complementarity of Husserl‘s term ―essence‖ and Russell‘s
―logical form‖) [see on this PMN 166f.]); see PMN 4, 8, 166ff, 269, 369, 390; CP xvi, 37f,
160, 165, 169; PP 2, 10, 12, 19, 21, 23, 32, 109ff; PSH 176.
2
PMN 367.
3
See e.g. CIS 73; PP 1, 21.
4
CIS 191.
160
case, the lack of such a foundation is not a barrier to solidarity. If we look at things
as they are, we see: helpfulness is not a matter of adequate theories.
The dilemma lies in the fact that, while solidarity seems to be a serious thing,
it raises the question: could anyone feel solidarity for others while being ironic at the
same time? In other words: can anyone show solidarity ironically? Is it not a
contradiction? Rorty senses this possible reproach himself. As he writes in the
introduction to his book on contingency: ―ironism has often seemed intrinsically
hostile not only to democracy but to human solidarity.‖1 However, this presupposition,
as he convincingly argues, is basically false. ―[...] But it is not. Hostility to a particular
historically conditioned and possibly transient form of solidarity is not hostility to
solidarity as such.‖,2 he writes. What he calls here ―Hostility to a particular historically
conditioned and possibly transient form of solidarity‖, refers in fact to the concepts of
solidarity with metaphysical foundation. Solidarity however, and this is Rorty‘s main
thesis, is not a matter of philosophical investigation and theoretical foundation. Nor is
it the result of research or reflection: it is simply a product of imagination or
―imaginative ability,‖ it simply rests on our ability ―to see strange people as fellow
sufferers.‖3 To see the other, the strange people (not necessarily as a fellow human
being in the first place, but) as fellow sufferers: this summarizes the concept of
solidarity. One may speak about ―imagination‖ because pain, as Rorty convincingly
explains, is not a linguistic phenomenon. People who are the victims of cruelty, who
suffer hardly have words or a message to express in language. What could they
possibly ―say‖? Some kind of objective ―accounts‖ or ―reports‖ on their suffering?
Therefore there is hardly anything like the ―voice of the oppressed‖ or the ―language
of the victims‖. The language once used by victims no longer functions, or the victims
have suffered too much to be able to coin new words. Therefore the linguistic
expression of their situation is a work that someone else must do for them. The liberal
novelist, poet or journalist know how to do that – the liberal theoretician does not.4
Rorty later describes the concept of ―imaginative ability‖ as ―imaginative
acquaintance‖, ―skill at imaginative identification‖.5 Solidarity is much more about
this, rather than an agreement upon common metaphysical truths. Meditations on
―human nature‖ or ―human dignity‖ presuppose a great deal of reflection, while the
sufferers hardly have access to such reflections or the ―vocabulary‖ created in result.
―Such reflection will not produce anything except a heightened awareness of the
possibility of suffering,‖ but it ―will not produce a reason to care about suffering.‖6
We may of course ease our (theoretical) consciousness by creating a new theory on
1
CIS xv; cf. Ibid. 87.
2
CIS xv.
3
CIS xvi.
4
CIS 94.: ―Pain is nonlinguistic [...] So victims of cruelty, people who are suffering, do not
have much in the way of a language. That is why there is no such things as the ‘voice of the
oppressed‘ or the ‘language of the victims‘. The language the victims once used is not
working anymore, and they are suffering too much to put new words together. So the job of
putting their situation into language is going to have to be done for them by somebody else.
The liberal novelist, poet, or journalist is good at that. The liberal theorist is not.‖
5
CIS 92f, 190f.
6
CIS 93.
161
human nature or the inalienable human rights, but have we thereby helped those who
suffer? Is it this – a new theory – that they need? Is it not bad faith to ease the
consciousness this way? Rorty‘s fundamental reproach that he addressed to the
American left – primarily the university left, that Allan Bloom called ―Nietzscheized‖
– was that, besides the sweeping criticism and over-sophisticated, or, better said,
―over-philosophized‖ theoretical commentaries of Western civilization, ―rotten to the
core‖, it has lost all receptivity or susceptibility to the suffering and dispossessed;
apart from the global criticism of the ―system,‖ it has nothing to say, it has no
recommendations about practical actions, or the political reforms to reduce inequality
– it looks into the distant future, and disregards the present.1
The connection of solidarity as a matter of imagination to irony, as
mentioned before, can be presented with the mediation of the concept of
contingency. Taking up my previous formulation: the insight that I am who (and
what) I am not by necessity, but by contingency, is equal to the insight that I could
be someone else as well; and this may lead to the solidarity and empathy with
other(s). What can be added to all these, is the role of imagination and imaginative
identification in this process. Irony, or the lack of stable self-identification, the
abandonment of one‘s identification once and for all makes one receptive to the
understanding and experience of life situations which could be one‘s own, and it
ultimately points in the direction of community existence. ―Solidarity – the
recognition of the other as your equal and as entitled to your sympathy – is the
natural companion of irony, and becomes, for Rorty, the true basis of political life‖ –
writes Roger Scruton.2
Rorty takes up and develops several themes of Gadamer‘s hermeneutics, and
the idea of solidarity appears at Gadamer as well. Not unimportantly, the concept
appears in Gadamer‘s major work as one of the leading humanist concepts. This
means that – as I shall soon dwell on it a little – there is a connection between
humanism and solidarity: humanism is related to solidarity, and solidarity refers to
humanism. The concept of solidarity appears in Gadamer amongst the leading
humanist concepts, in the analyses of sensus communis, but since the leading
humanist concepts (―formation‖, ―sensus communis‖, ―power of judgment‖, ―taste‖)
are interconnected on several levels – their common characteristic is that they do not
give some general knowledge that still needs to be applied, but a knowledge which
is just as much existence, and having-become existence, which carries the
application within itself, and thus in each case it is a knowledge for life which has its
place in the life of people, or rather the community life, for which reason it is
connected to all of them, especially the most important leading concept of the
leading concepts themselves, Bildung.
―The sensus communis is an element of social and moral being‖, writes
Gadamer, and this concept, in the course of its long history expressed, from time to
1
See PSH 129; AOC 78ff, 98. Only the rightists speak about the consequences of
globalization. (AOC 91.). Cf. also PP 2, 133.
2
Roger Scruton, ―Richard Rorty‘s legacy‖, 12 June 2007 – emphasis by I. F. M.; see:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy_power/people/richard_rorty_legacy).
162
time, ―a polemical attack on metaphysics,‖1 or in other words, a criticism ―against

the theoretical speculations of the philosophers.‖2 From this perspective, there
appears here the motif of the humanist opposition to scholastics, in addition to the
community creating aspect (sensus communis is the sense that makes a
community3). The fact that Gadamer opposes the leading humanist concepts and
humanism in general to the ―school‖,4 that is, to scholasticism and the scholastic
ideal of learning corresponds to the way Rorty opposes the ―mainstream‖
epistemology- or metaphysics-based European philosophy, and the self-serving (and
not less conceited) theory and knowledge creation of its newest form, ―analytical
philosophy‖; or – in this particular case – the metaphysical foundation of the idea of
solidarity, or any kind of philosophical approach to ―human nature‖ for that matter.
Sensus communis is a ―social virtue‖ for Shaftesbury, stresses Gadamer, and he
mentions with consent that ―ancient Roman concepts [...] include in humanitas a
refined savoir vivre, the attitude of the man who understands a joke and tells one
because he is aware of a deeper union with his interlocutor.‖5 The idea of solidarity
also appears later in connection with community feeling, insofar as this is precisely a
―genuine moral and civic solidarity‖.6 It is not without significance that in one of his
later works, Gadamer also developed the central concept of hermeneutics,
understanding, in the direction of solidarity: understanding the other is to make an
effort to think with and show solidarity with him; solidarity is the basic premise to
form common convictions, albeit slowly, and in this sense understanding has a
―significance for world politics‖(―weltpolitische Bedeutung des Verstehens‖).7
1
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 29 (= GW 1, 38: ―Der sensus communis ist ein Moment des
bürgerlich-sittlichen Seins. Auch wo dieser Begriff, wie im Pietismus oder in der Philosophie
der Schotten, eine polemische Wendung gegen die Metaphysik bedeutet, bleibt er damit noch
in der Linie seiner ursprünglichen kritischen Funktion.‖)
2
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 20 (= GW 1, 28: „ein gegen die theoretische Spekulation der
Philosophen gerichteter Ton‖).
3
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 19: „here sensus communis obviously does not mean only
that general faculty in all men but the sense that founds community.‖ ( = GW 1, 26: „Sensus
communis meint hier offenkundig nicht nur jene allgemeine Fähigkeit, die in allen Menschen
ist, sondern er ist zugleich der Sinn, der Gemeinsamkeit stiftet.‖)
4
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 18 (= GW 1, 26).
5
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 22 (= GW 1, 30: Shaftesbury „folgt […] auch darin
altrömischen Begriffen, die in der humanitas die feine Lebensart mit einschlossen, die
Haltung des Mannes, der Spaß versteht und macht, weil er einer tieferen Solidarität mit
seinem Gegenüber gewiß ist.‖)
6
Gadamer, Truth and Method, 29 (= GW 1, 38: ―echte sittlich-bürgerliche Solidarität‖).
7
H.-G. Gadamer, ―Vom Wort zum Begriff‖ (1995). In Gadamer Lesebuch. ed. J. Grondin
(Tübingen: Mohr, 1997), 100–110, here 109, 108. I think it is evident that understanding-
agreement is inherently related to solidarity. These implications of Gadamer‘s hermeneutics,
related to the philosophy of science, were expanded by Rorty. He formulated in his major
work that the only usable meaning of the concept of ―scientific objectivity‖ was ―agreement‖
(PMN 33: ―our only usable notion of ‘objectivity‘ is ‘agreement‘, rather than mirroring‖); and
that scientific praxis as such, with its need for objectivity and rationality, is rooted in a
determined form of human cohabitation: solidarity. This idea was later expressed in several of
his writings: „the only sense in which science is exemplary is that it is a model of human
163
The relation of understanding and solidarity is therefore fundamental for

Gadamer: one could formulate the thesis ―the more understanding, the more
solidarity‖. Irony is the point where Rorty enriches the picture compared to Gadamer
– and, as we have seen, also Sartre. Although the relation of irony and solidarity at
Rorty is predicted by some background aspects in Gadamer; for instance, that
Gadamer first mentions solidarity in connection to jesting as if taking one step
towards Rorty‘s subsequent concept of irony.
Rorty hardly ever uses the concept of understanding. Therefore Gadamer‘s
thesis ―the more understanding, the more solidarity‖ can only be loosely connected
to Rorty. Another thesis can be connected to this one however, which is more
justified for Rorty as well: ―the more Bildung, the more solidarity‖.
There are two considerations in connecting this thesis to Rorty‘s thinking: a
general and a specific one. The first one: explaining the Gadamerian concept of
Bildung, Rorty explains emphatically and legitimately that this concept is for Gadamer
the alternative of ―knowledge‖ (―as the purpose of thinking‖). Bildung is not so much
about gaining ―knowledge‖ (as the faithful representation of reality), but about
something radically different: to ―become different persons‖, ― ‗recreate‘ ourselves‖.1
The recreation of ourselves (with or without redescription) is one of Rorty‘s central
issues,2 and the premise of this is our own unfixed nature and the irony by which we
admit it, which is connected to solidarity – thus Gadamer‘s concept of Bildung and
Rorty‘s concepts of irony and solidarity are comprehensively interconnected.
The more specific connection can be elucidated starting from the concepts of
―imaginative ability‖, ―imaginative acquaintance‖, ―skill at imaginative
idenitification‖. Emphasizing the practical aspect of his concept of understanding,
Gadamer referred to the fact that ―understanding [...] is especially able to contribute
to the extension of our human experiences, self-knowledge, and horizon of world.‖3
solidarity.‖(PP 1, 39f.) Rorty then extended to notion of solidarity to other, wider fields of
community existence. See e.g. ―Solidarity‖, CIS 189–198.
1
PMN 359. „Metaphysicians think‖–writes Rorty elsewhere– „that human beings by nature
desire to know‖ (CIS 75). They are opposed to the ironists, who think that the purpose of
discursive thinking is not knowledge in the sense of ―reality‖, ―true essence‖, ―objective
viewpoint‖, ―the correspondence of language of [recte: to] reality‖. Their purpose is not the
representation of reality.
2
See e.g. Rorty‘s requirements for the ―humanist intellectual‖. ―[The humanistic intellectuals‘]
idea of teaching–or at least of the sort of teaching they hope to do–is not exactly the
communication of knowledge, but more like stirring the kids up. When they apply for a leave
or a grant, they may have to fill out forms about the aims and methods of their so-called
research projects, but all they really want to do is read a lot more books in the hope of
becoming a different sort of person.‖ (PSH 127). Elsewhere he writes: ―Unmethodical criticism
of the sort which one occasionally wants to call ‘inspired‘ is the result of an encounter with an
author, character, plot, stanza, line or archaic torso which has made a difference to the critic‘s
conception of who she is, what she is good for, what she wants to do with herself: an encounter
which has rearranged her priorities and purposes‖. (PSH 145).
3
Gadamer, ―Hermeneutik als praktische Philosophie‖. Rehabilitierung der praktischen
Philosophie, ed. M. Riedel (Freiburg i.Br.: Rombach, 1972), vol. I, 342f. ―Verstehen [...]
vermag in besonderer Weise dazu beizutragen, unsere menschlichen Erfahrungen, unserer
164
Dilthey also wrote about the effect of the extension of the horizon on our being in
the introduction of his classic study on hermeneutics: ―Our action always
presupposes the understanding of other persons; the major part of human happiness
derives from the reminiscence of strange states of mind [...] The historical
consciousness built on these makes it possible for the modern man to possess the
entire past of the humanity as being there in itself: it gains insight into foreign
cultures beyond all limits of his own age; it absorbs their power and enjoys their
magic; and from this derives a major increase of happiness for himself.‖1 Dilthey
talked about the ―never satisfied need‖ to ―complete our individuality by
contemplating the individuality of others‖, and that ―understanding and
interpretation [...] are always alive in life itself.‖2
The widening of horizon happening through Bildung, as long as it is able to
shape one‘s personality, changes not only the knowledge, but also the existence of
man, thus it has a community creating function and has an effect of increasing
solidarity. Bildung can increase that which solidarity depends on in Rorty‘s view:
the imaginative ability, the imaginative acquaintance, and the skill at imaginative
identification. Education makes one able to imaginative identification. As a result of
the extension of horizon caused by Bildung man learns to take into account the
perspective of others, to see the world as they see it. The reverse side of it is that
meanwhile he also learns: the way he sees the world is only one possible way to see
it. And this, in Rorty‘s perspective, means irony (and not to the least the awareness
of our contingency). Only the uneducated may think that things cannot be otherwise
than the way they see them.
Selbsterkenntnis und unseren Welthorizont auszuweiten‖ (emphasis by I. F. M.). Eduard

Spranger speaks about the ―Ausweitung der Individualität über sich selbst hinaus‖ in
reference to Humboldt (Spranger, Wilhelm von Humboldts Humanitätsidee [Berlin: Reuther
& Reichard, 1909], 2nd ed. 1928, 12.). See also the similar ideas in Andrew Abbott‘s
influential speech: ―Education is a way of expanding experience. [...] education is good in
itself because it expands the range of your experience, both temporally and spatially. [...]
education is a habit that expands experience‖ (Andrew Abbott, ―The Aims of Education
Address‖, The University Of Chicago Record (21 November 2002): 4–8: here 7; see
http://home.uchicago.edu/~aabbott/Papers/aims2.pdf>; reprint: ―Welcome to the University
of Chicago‖. Forschung und Lehre, 8 (2007, Supplement): 1–22: here 17f.
1
W. Dilthey, ―Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik‖, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, 317: „Unser
Handeln setzt das Verstehen anderer Personen überall voraus; ein großer Teil menschlichen
Glücks entspringt aus dem Nachfühlen fremder Seelenzustände; die ganze philologische und
geschichtliche Wissenschaft ist auf die Voraussetzung gegründet, daß das Nachverständnis
des Singulären zur Objektivität erhoben werden könne. Das hierauf gebaute historische
Bewußtsein ermöglicht dem modernen Menschen, die ganze Vergangenheit der Menschheit
in sich gegenwärtig zu haben: über alle Schranken der eigenen Zeit blickt er hinaus in die
vergangenen Kulturen; deren Kraft nimmt er in sich auf und genießt ihren Zauber nach: ein
großer Zuwachs von Glück enstpringt ihm hieraus‖ Dilthey‘s formulation contains
nevertheless an ―aestheticist‖ undertone (the attitude of the ―lover of art‖), which is later
criticized by Heidegger and Gadamer.
2
W. Dilthey, ―Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik‖, 328: „Und nun kommt diesem Werk das
unersättliche Bedürfnis entgegen, die eigne Individualität zu ergänzen durch die Anschauung
anderer. Verstehen und Interpretation sind so im Leben selber immer regsam und tätig.―
165
The educated man, writes Hegel, ―also learns that there are other and better
ways of behaviour and action, and that his is not the only possible way.‖ 1
Interpreting the discussion of the concept of Bildung in Hegel‘s Propedeutic,
Gadamer writes: ―contemplating ourselves and our purposes with distance means to
look at these in the way that others see them‖.2 We should realize that, seen from
Rorty‘s perspective, to ―contemplate with distance‖ implies irony, for the latter
means precisely giving up the naive identification with ourselves; it means
distancing ourselves from ourselves. If one learns other ways to judge things, he
remains less of a captive of the provincial narrow-mindedness3 which closes him up
in the world of his own restricted environment and experiences. One remains less of
a captive of the naive belief that the world cannot be seen otherwise than one sees it.
Rorty is also familiar with this closing up within oneself, and makes a critical
remark about it. Interestingly enough, and unusually for Anglo-Saxon philosophy, as
well as for his own thinking, he identifies the criticized viewpoint, not unjustly, as a
kind of common sense perspective. ―The opposite of irony is common sense‖ – he
writes. It is characteristic for those who describe everything with the help of the final
vocabulary that they and their environment are used to. This kind of common sense
takes it for granted that the statements formulated in its final vocabulary are also
appropriate to describe the actions and life of those who use other final vocabularies.4
It would be a kind of philosophical extension or levelling of the common sense, as
urged by the ―metaphysicians‖ to justify the standpoint of the common sense. The
metaphysicians do not question the plain truths of common sense – they do not offer
redescriptions – but they analyze old descriptions with the help of old descriptions,
insisting on the principle of the one true reality and vocabulary.5 The ironist opposes
both of them – both the common sense and the metaphysics of the common sense.
Rorty‘s opposition at this point can be seen as the opposition between narrow-
mindedness and Bildung. The former, narrow-mindedness, is characteristic thus both
for common sense and metaphysics. Open-mindedness, on the contrary, means irony
and awareness of contingency; it sensitizes for solidarity and identification with other
people. It makes me aware that I might just as well be the person who suffers. Bildung
and the awareness of contingency opposes narrow-mindedness, the conceitedness of
common sense, as well as the philosophy that justifies it, and last but least the self-
satisfied, posing attitude of self-righteousness.6
1
Hegel, Philosophische Propädeutik, §. 42. Theorie Werkausgabe. vol. 4, 259. (―Indem der
Mensch über das, was er unmittelbar weiß und erfährt, hinausgeht, so lernt er, daß es auch
andere und bessere Weisen des Verhaltens und Tuns gibt und die seinige nicht die einzig
notwendige ist. [...]‖).
2
See Gadamer, GW 1, 22f.: „Sich selbst und seine privaten Zwecke mit Abstand ansehen,
heißt ja: sie ansehen, wie die anderen sie sehen‖.
3
Cf. Andrew Abbott, ―The Aims of Education Address‖: ―[...] education is a habit that
expands experience so as to overcome that provinciality by increasing ties between your
locality and other human meanings.‖ See note 54 above.
4
CIS 74.
5
Ibid.
6
See my remarks on this attitude in István Fehér M., ―Hermeneutika és humanizmus‖
(Hermeneutics and Humanism),in Hans-Georg Gadamer - egy 20. századi humanista (Hans-
166
III.
Insofar as a moral-political stance and action renounces any kind of philosophical

(theoretical, metaphysical) foundation in addition to emphasizing the idea of
solidarity and the importance (and absolute primacy for life) of such a stance and
action,1 Rorty is only the last link in the chain of a respectable tradition, which
started with Kant in the modern age, and displayed names such as Kierkegaard,
Rickert and neo-Kantianism, Weber, Heidegger and Sartre, Popper and Feyerabend.
This tradition is characterized by the conviction that practical action, a right life
lived with morality, based on freedom and responsibility is not dependent on
knowledge, and especially not on metaphysical knowledge (on the world‘s
‖objective‖ essence and human essence) – to the extent that the latter is opposed to
it, and makes it impossible, rather than possible. Taking it one step forward and
formulating it sharply: aim and pursuit to metaphysically ground morality, in
ultimate analysis, and not quite unjustly, can also be placed under moral suspicion.
To present the main stations of this tradition as a last step is even more justified
because Rorty refers to some of the authors as precedents of his own views.
The presented point of view appears in Kant‘s radical approach.2 The
Critique of Pure Reason, according to Kant‘s self-understanding, forces the
speculative mind within barriers, and its role is negative in this sense, but its
important positive effect is that ―it eliminates an obstacle which threatens the [pure
Georg Gadamer – a 20th century humanist), ed. Miklós Nyìrő (Budapest: L'Harmattan, 2009),
43–117: here 104ff. This attitude, rejected by Emilio Betti, then by Rorty and Gadamer, was
not unknown to the classical liberal tradition. John Stuart Mill wrote about it as ―moral
police‖. Mill, On Liberty (London: Watts & Co., 1936), 105. Mill also adds: this is one of the
most universal of human attitudes. The term ―righteous indignation‖ also appears at Rorty,
see PP 1, 37.
1
This stance is best summarized in the fragment quoted in note 26: ―The fundamental
premise of [my] book is that a belief can still regulate action, can still be thought worth dying
for, among people who are quite aware that this belief is caused by nothing deeper than
contingent historical circumstance‖ (CIS 189). The claim of contingency means here to
renounce any kind of (ultimate philosophical) foundation, or any kind of (historical,
philosophical, or other) necessity, or any ultimate certainty about life conduct or anything
else. Briefly and sharply: life usually needs no kind of theory; but if it still does, definitely
not the kind that makes a contingent practice seem necessary and leads to self-deception.
2
The reconstruction below is the– partly shortened, partly extended – exposition of thought
that I formulated in some of my earlier writings in different contexts: István Fehér M., Az
élet értelméről. Racionalizmus és irracionalizmus között (On the meaning of life. Between
rationalism and irrationalism) (Budapest: Kossuth, 1991), 35–43; ―Sartre, hermeneutika,
pragmatizmus‖ (Sartre, hermeneutics, pragmatism), Holmi VI/12 (1994), 1810–1831: here
1820f, 1828f; ―Polgári kultúra, polgári műveltség, polgári filozófia: Kant és a
neokantianizmus világszemlélete. I. rész" (Bourgeois culture, bourgeois culture, bourgeois
philosophy: Kant and the worldview of neo-Kantianism), Protestáns Szemle 1 (2002): 29–
55: here 33–36; ―Hermeneutika, etika, nyelvfilozófia" (Hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy of
langauge), Világosság 5-6 (2003): 73–81: here 75f.
167
practical] reason [...] with complete elimination.‖1 That our knowledge is restricted
to phenomena revealed by experience, and we cannot know the world-in-itself, is
definitely a disadvantage from the point of view of knowledge. But this disadvantage
is fully balanced by admitting: if the necessary order of the world revealed by
knowledge gave us not only the world of phenomena, but the world-in-itself too,
then the causal relation would become universal, and would extend to the being-in-
itself. If we made no difference between phenomena and beings-in-themselves, that
is, if we knew the being-in-itself through cognisance, this would mean that the more
perfect our cognisance is – while cognisance is the more perfect the more necessity
or causality is within it – the more human freedom turns to nothing. Simplifying a
little, but probably not incorrectly, we may say: the world of cognisance
(knowledge) is a world of necessity, while the world of action is a world of freedom.
Let us assume, Kant argues, that morality presupposes freedom, but the difference
between things as objects of experience and as beings-in-themselves had not been
made; in this case the thesis of causality acquires a universal meaning. ―I could not
say about the same being, e.g. the human soul, [...] that its will is free, but it is still
subject to natural necessity‖; in this case ―freedom and morality with it [...] must
give way to the mechanisms of nature‖.2 To put it briefly: ―If phenomena are things-
in-themselves, then freedom is beyond recovery.‖3 There would only remain one
world, the natural world guided by necessary laws (revealed by scientific
knowledge, as a world-in-itself), and in its closed causality chain the human soul
would itself be only one link, deterministically defined. The Critique of Pure Reason
paves the way at this point for the Critique of Practical Reason, ethics. The
deficiencies and the limited, imperfect nature of our human cognisance ground
precisely the possibility of our action as free, moral beings.
This recognition is the key to understand Kant‘s thesis, not easily
comprehensible, and often explained and misinterpreted, that ―I had to deny
knowledge in order to make room for faith [Ich mußte das Wissen aufheben, um
zum Glauben Platz zu bekommen]‖.4 Kant reduced knowledge in order to make
place for freedom, morals and faith. The knowledge that he wanted to ―remove‖ or
―deny‖ in the first place, is expressed in the haughty statement of dogmatic
metaphysics that it is able to know the ―ultimate‖ things – God, freedom,
immortality – with the help of theoretical reason; and in this regard Kant does not
only claim that there is no such kind of cognition, and to state this is mere deception,
but, beyond this, also that precisely this dogmatism is the true source of faithlessness
and immorality.5 Probably the easiest way to shed light on this state of facts is to
1
See Kritik der reinen Vernunft, BXXV: „Daher ist eine Kritik, welche die erstere [the
theoretical reason] einschränkt, so fern zwar negativ, aber, indem sie dadurch zugleich ein
Hinderniß, welches den letzteren [practical] Gebrauch einschränkt, oder gar zu vernichten
droht, aufhebt, in der That von positivem und sehr wichtigem Nutzen, so bald man überzeugt
wird, daß es einen schlechterdings nothwendigen praktischen Gebrauch der reinen Vernunft
(den moralischen) gebe […].‖
2
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B XXVIIff.
3
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A 537=B565;
4
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B XXX
5
Cf. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B XXX.
168
suppose for a moment that we possess immovably stable, indubitable knowledge

about all this, then we ask: what happens then with human freedom and ethical
actions? It is worth mentioning an example of Karl Popper, completely Kantian in
this respect. He writes that, supposing one could precisely foresee what will happen
in the future, the question of how one should act, for instance which side should one
take or what kind of morality should one accept, still could not be clearly decided.
The question whether one would accept the morality of the future – just for being the
morality of the future – is a moral question in itself, and no kind of knowledge or
anticipation of the future may help to answer it. ―The fundamental decision cannot
be derived from any knowledge of the future.‖1 Rorty fully agrees with Popper at
this point: Marx was wrong to think that starting from Hegel‘s dialectics one may
make predictions for the future, and Popper rightfully criticized this kind of
historicism.2 Seen from here and coming back to Kant, one could say that the desire
for an absolute metaphysical knowledge is connected to, or is a sign of, moral
weakness. It is characterized by what Kant said about looking into the future in his
fundamental work on the philosophy of religion: ―In my opinion there can be no
certainty in this respect, and it is not even beneficial from a moral point of view.‖ 3
The weight, responsibility and dignity of action – action which is not a technical
production – are given precisely by the risk that we cannot fully see its effects and
consequences, and indeed, it is not even desirable that we do. If someone still thinks
it is desirable, since – using Popper‘s above example – he wants to stand on the side
of the winner order in the future – well, we could hardly be very happy about it,
even if the will of knowledge is usually regarded as a praiseworthy thing.
This Kantian thought was preserved and applied in neo-Kantianism. The
novelty and specific contribution of neo-Kantianism was the inclusion of history
(quite neglected by Kant) into the Kantian worldview, the elaboration of the
concepts of culture and cultural science, and its protection against natural sciences.
The neo-Kantian addition to Kant, seen from our perspective, lies in the fact that it
completes the field of ethical action with a domain of being yet unknown for the
Enlightenment thinker, a domain called history and culture. It was primarily the
Baden-based neo-Kantianism that undertook the defence of history and the
compatibility of freedom and history, against the reduction of history to knowledge
and cognition.
―If we could predict the future in its individuality‖, writes Rickert, ―if we
knew precisely about everything that must come, then will and action would
immediately lose their sense.‖ The ―irrationality‖ of reality sets the limits of the
natural scientific thinking as soon as individuality comes forth; but this irrationality,
this impossibility to be known ―is one of the major assets for him who always strives
forward ambitiously. Merciful is the hand that wrapped the future for us [...] in an
impenetrable veil. If future in its individuality and strangeness were also the object
1
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), 2nd
ed, vol. 2, 206.
2
AOC 19.
3
Kant: Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, Kant, Werkausgabe, Werke in
zwölf Bänden, edited by Wilhelm Weischedel, vol. VIII, 724: „Gewißheit in Ansehung
derselben ist dem Menschen weder möglich, noch, so viel wir einsehen, moralisch zuträglich.‖
169
of our knowledge, then it could never be the object of our will. In a world that
became perfectly rational nobody would be able to act.‖1 ―A metaphysical idealism‖,
he writes later, ―which is supposed to know the general evolutionary law of the
world, makes the one-time course of history just as meaningless and futile as
metaphysical naturalism, which considers the absolute reality a permanent cycle. [...]
History is only possible as long as we do not grasp the world metaphysically.‖2
History is unknowable but free: this is how one could summarize the
message of Rickert and neo-Kantianism, but this thesis could also be put this way:
history is unknowable because it is free – and the pledge of its freedom is its
unpredictability and unknowability. The world of knowledge is a world of necessity,
while the world of action is a world of freedom, I summarized Kant‘s tenets above,
and now it could be added: if something like history must belong to the world of
action, if actions take place in a domain called history, then they must also be
unknowable.
The Kantian duality of metaphysics and ethics, knowledge and freedom
(free action) can also be found in Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard criticized Hegelians for
being able to fly in the cosmic heights of absolute knowledge, that is, ―they can
mediate Christianity and paganism, [...] they can play with the titanic forces of
history,‖ but they are unable to tell the simple man what to do with his life‖, for
―they do not know what to do themselves.‖3 Hegelian philosophy is only valid
supposing that the present is an absolute age, that there is no future – a supposition
which is very difficult to be embraced by the existing man, to build his life upon it.
But if there is future, then the age in which the philosopher lives is not an absolute
age, if the world history is not over, then ―the system is in permanent becoming‖,
that is, there is no system, which means here: knowledge has no system.4 Hegelians,
says Kierkegaard, interchange two spheres, the sphere of thinking and that of
freedom; and in the sphere of thinking, where Hegel‘s philosophy dwells, ―necessity
1
Heinrich Rickert, Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, 2nd ed. (Tübingen:
Mohr, 1913), 464: „Könnten wir die Zukunft wirklich in ihrer Individualität vorausberechnen,
und wüssten wir also genau, was kommen muss, so verlöre sofort alles Wollen und Handeln
seinen Sinn. Wir haben daher nur Grund, uns zu freuen, dass es keine historischen Gesetze giebt.
Die Irrationalität der Wirklichkeit, die allem naturwissenschaftlichen Begreifen eine Grenze setzt,
gehört zugleich zu den höchsten Gütern für den, der immer strebend sich bemüht. Es ist eine
gnädige Hand, die für uns Menschen die Zukunft in einen undurchdringlichen Schleier gehüllt
hat. Wäre auch das Künftige in seiner Individualität Objekt unseres Wissens, so würde es niemals
Objekt unseres Wollens sein. In einer vollkommen rationalen Welt kann Niemand wirken―. ―To
act‖ means of course here to act morally. „In einer rational gewordenen Welt‖, he writes towards
the end of his book, „gäbe es nicht nur keine Geschichte und kein sittliches Wirken sondern auch
keine Religion‖ (ibid., 641).
2
Ibid., 578f.: "ein metaphysischer Idealismus, der das Entwicklungsgesetz der Welt zu kennen
glaubt, macht den Verlauf der Geschichte genau ebenso sinnlos und überflüssig wie ein
metaphysischer Naturalismus, der die absolute Wirklichkeit für einen ewigen Kreislauf hält.
[…] Nur so lange wir die Welt nicht metaphysisch begreifen können und die empirische
Wirklichkeit in einem irrationalen Verhältniss zu Werthen steht, ist also Geschichte möglich.‖
3
Kierkegaard: Entweder – Oder, 721.
4
Ibid., 723, the following two quotations: ibid., 723, 724.
170
rules‖. Thereby we return back again to the Kantian difference between the world of
knowlede and the world of freedom. In this respect Hegel‘s absolute philosophy is a
philosophy of necessity – a critique that the old Schelling already formulated against
Hegel.1 And if Kierkegaard says that ―philosophy is unable to send man to action‖,
this evidently refers to Hegel‘s philosophy, which refuses to be aware of the other
sphere, that of freedom, or is only aware of it in such a way that it has eliminated its
freedom in the necessity of thinking.
The basic ambition of foundationalism, namely to acquire well-founded
(metaphysical) knowledge and to ground practical actions on this knowledge,
becomes thus fundamentally questionable: the very concept of knowledge becomes
thus unstable. The result could be summed up approximately like this: human mind
is unable to attain a coherent, ―objective‖ knowledge of the world, but this may be
not a great problem. We may not be able to reach our desired goal, but possibly it is
not even desirable in all repects to reach this goal. The analysis can shed light on the
unreflected, naive, even dogmatic desire for an absolute knowledge of the world. For
if we ask why we need such an absolute knowledge, why we long for it, then the
answer would be this: in oder that we may know our purpose in life, the way to act
correctly, and get guidance for our actions. But if our reconstruction has been
meaningful then we might realize: although we cannot reach our goal, it is not at all
certain that attaining it would fulfil the hopes we connect to it. If we could somehow
peep into the absolute order of the world, would it offer us any clear guidance as to
what our purpose is? And if so, if we could so indecently look into the ways of
destiny or providence, would we not become a little like a cheater, for whom the
game is already over?2
The summary of the Kantian tradition is largely similar to how Rorty
understands Kant‘s work. At an important section of the concluding part of his
major work, there is a fundamental reference to Kant. Rorty places emphasis on
Kant‘s dismissal of the traditional concept of mind in order to make place for moral
faith, and considers this idea precisely as Kant‘s ―greatness.‖ What this is about – he
sums up briefly and to the point – is ―the philosopher‘s special form of bad faith –
substituting pseudo-cognition for moral choice‖.3 ―Kant‘s greatness – he writes –
was to have seen through the ‘metaphysical‘ form of this attempt, and to have
destroyed the traditional conception of reason to make room for moral faith. Kant
gave us a way of seeing scientific truth as something that could never supply an
1
Cf. Schellings sämmtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. Schelling (Stuttgart und Augsburg: J. G. Cotta,
1856–61), vol. 10, 159.
2
This is similar to how Wittgenstein questions the supposition of the immortality of the soul:
„Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the human soul, that is to say
of its eternal survival after death; but, in any case, this assumption completely fails to
accomplish the purpose for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by
my surviving for ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle as our present life?‖
(Tractatus logico–philosophicus, 6.4312). Wittgenstein‘s words can be understood as being
meaningful for the immortality of the soul as long as it is expressed as a desire against the
finiteness of human life. But if we wish to think it autonomously then it becomes just as
mysterious as what it should have had to offer a result for as against a mystery.
3
PMN 383.
171
answer to our demand for a point, a justification, a way of claiming that our moral
decision about what to do is based on knowledge of the nature of the world.‖1
Clearly, this is what Rorty considers to be Kant‘s basic idea. At the same time, he
also criticizes Kant for not being able to keep up with this idea, and for having
formulated his diagnosis on science – ―unfortunately‖ – under the heading
―inevitable subjective conditions‖, claiming that there was a procedure of decision
for solving moral dilemmas.2 Seen from here, Kant is part of the main trend of
European philosophy starting with Plato, and criticized by Rorty, that is concerned
first and foremost with putting philosophy on the stable path of science.3
Returning to the tradition starting from Kant, the thesis of the independence
and unconnectedness of (scientific) knowledge and (practical) action (a moral and
political decision and position) also plays an important role in the work of Max
Weber, connected on several points to neo-Kantianism. As he exposed it probably
most clearly in his influential lecture Science as a Vocation, scientific knowledge
and practical decisions form two separate, unrelated realms. No science is capable to
ground the individual‘s decisions (religious, political, or regarding one‘s
worldview). Such things as ―scientific worldview‖ or ―scientific politics‖ are
therefore impossible, they serve only to conceal decisions or shift the responsibility
for autonomous action onto some kind of ―knowledge‖.4 The very question about the
meaning of science is not a question to be answered with the means of science. The
distinction of facts and values, science and politics/ethics, the recognition that
practical positions cannot be scientifically grounded may give reason to a certain
degree of disappointment or disillusionment (in virtue of questioning the
omnipotence of science) against the background of the hope of some kind of
ultimate metaphysical knowledge of the world. Its acceptance is therefore a matter
of ―intellectual rectitude‖,5 which can hardly be proved at all with scientific means.
The best way to characterize Weber‘s stance is by a thesis of Karl Popper. Although
―ethics is not a science‖, Popper writes, and ―there is no ‗rational scientific basis‘ of
ethics‖, ―there is an ethical basis of science‖6 It is worth mentioning: this difference
shows significant parallels with Gadamer‘s claim, in the preface of the second
edition of his major work, that, although the ―hermeneutics‖ he elaborated is not a
science – not a ―system of professional rules‖ or ―methodology‖ – but it ―invites to
‗scientific‘ correctness‖.7
1
Ibid., emphasis in the original. See also CIS 34.
2
PMN 383.
3
This is the interpretation of Kant that Rorty has in mind when he mentions Kant together
with Plato, or talks about a ―Plato-Kant canon‖. (See e.g. CIS 33, 45, 61, 76, 78f, 96f, 106,
118, 154; PP 2, 65, 157; PSH xvii, 34.) It is this Kant who seeks certainty, and not the Kant
to demolishes knowledge for the sake of faith that he will oppose Sartre to (as we shall see
later). See PSH 13: „Jean-Paul Sartre seemed to me right when he denounced Kant‘s self-
deceptive quest for certainty‖.
4
See Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures, eds. David Owen and Tracy B. Strong,
Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004, 17ff, 26ff.
5
Max Weber, The Vocation Lectures, 20 (―intellektuelle Rechtschaffenheit‖).
6
Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol 2, 238.
7
Gadamer, GW 2, 438: „‗wissenschaftliche‗ Redlichkeit―.
172
The thesis of the difference of scientific knowledge and moral responsibility

also appears in Paul Feyerabend, radical representative of the philosophy of science,
rethinking Karl Popper‘s position. Knowledge offers certainty and security, action
offers uncertainty and risks. ―Certainty – writes Feyerabend – if it were attainable,
would mean the absence of responsibility. It is precisely the other way round: since
certainty is unattainable, therefore we accept the responsibility and become adults. It
is interesting to see that the researchers of epistemology and theory of science strive
for relations in which we would be less mature than we would like.‖1 The desire to
escape responsibility in this context goes together with renouncing human maturity,
with the childish desire to remain immature, to remain forever under age. The
question of how we can act if there is no certainty, can be answered like this: the
question is bad or of bad faith. We can act only if there is no certainty. This position
parallels the above cited formulation of Rickert‘s: if ―the future were the object of
our knowledge, then it could never be the object of our will. In a world that became
perfectly rational nobody would be able to act.‖
With respect to Heidegger, a short reference may suffice, which claims that
for him science and the scientific attitude is just one of the modes of being of the
human Dasein – not the single one, and not the most original one.2 One of these
modes of being is the authentic being – in which man appropriates himself and –
relating to the Feyerabend-quotation – gains or rather wins his maturity for itself. In
order to attain this, however, the derivative mode of being of the contemplative
knowledge of the world offers no help. The assuming of one‘s thrownness, to own
up to the being that relates to death, responsibility and conscience: these are the
concepts that describe for Heidegger the transition to authentic existence – and this
is a completely different level than the possibly ―objective‖ definition of the merely
existing things.
Rorty himself offers important additions to the interpretation of Sartre‘s ideas
from our perspective. Commenting on Sartre, Rorty emphasizes: the attempt to
acquire objective knowledge on the world and ourselves is for Sartre none other than
an attempt to ward off the responsibility for choosing our own project.3 Rorty‘s
interpretation can also be justified by a fragment he did not analyze. If for Sartre man
is a being that (in Sartre‘s peculiar formulation) is what it is not, then it means that – as
he explicitly states – any statement I make about myself becomes false in the very
1
Paul Feyerabend, Wieder den Methodenzwang. Skizzen einer anarchistischen Erkenntnistheo-
rie, (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1976), 49. ―Gewißheit – wenn sie erreichbar wäre –
bedeutet Fehlen der Verantwortlichkeit. Vielmehr ist es so: da sich Gewißheit nicht erreichen
läßt, nimmt man die Verantwortung auf sich und wird ein reifer Mensch. Es ist interessant zu
sehen, daß Erkenntnistheoretiker und Wissenschaftstheoretiker Verhältnisse anstreben, in denen
unsere Reife geringer ist als wir vielleicht wünschen.‖
2
SZ, 4. §., 11.: ―Wissenschaftliche Forschung ist nicht die einzige und nicht die nächste
mögliche Seinsart dieses Seienden.‖ In his pragmatist stance Rorty fully agrees with this
approach; he emphatically and approvingly mentions that in Being and Time Heidegger
considers ―‘objective scientific knowledge‘ as a secondary, derivative form of Being-in-the
World‖ (PP 2, 11)
3
PMN 361.: ―[Sartre] sees the attempt to gain an objective knowledge of the world, and thus
of oneself, as an attempt to avoid the responsibility for choosing one‘s project.‖
173
moment of utterance,1 and this also confirms Rorty‘s interpretation. The need for
―objective knowledge‖ is connected for Sartre to ―bad faith‖ (―mauvaise fois‖). The
attempt to grasp ourselves in some kind of ultimage objective description (suggested
by the ―spirit of seriousness‖2) is therefore not only futile and hopeless, but – even
more importantly – the aspiration itself is conceived in bad faith. Lying behind it is the
tacit intention to turn the being-for-itself into being-in-itself, into a thing.
―This attempt to slough off responsibility," writes Rorty, "is what Sartre
describes as the attempt to turn oneself into a thing-into an etre-en-soi. In the visions
of the epistemologist, this incoherent notion takes the form of seeing the attainment
of truth as a matter of necessity, either the 'logical' necessity of the transcendentalist
or the 'physical' necessity of the evolutionary 'naturalizing' epistemologist. From
Sartre's point of view, the urge to find such necessities is the urge to be rid of one's
freedom to erect yet another alternative theory or vocabulary. Thus the edifying
philosopher [the sort whose primary concern is not knowledge of metaphysical
truths, but the edification of humans – I.M.F.] who points out the incoherence of the
urge is treated as a 'relativist,' one who lacks moral seriousness, because he does not
join in the common human hope that the burden of choice will pass away."3 Sartre
was definitely lacking ―moral seriousness‖ since he did not want at all to take off the
―burden of choice‖ from people‘s shoulders, and in his major work he thoroughly
criticized the spirit of seriousness (―esprit de sérieux‖), and referred ironically to
―serious people‖ even in his popular lecture.4
Rorty‘s remark that Sartre (and what Rorty calls edifying philosophy) ―lacks
moral seriousness‖ should evidently not be understood literally, containing as it does
irony. Sartre (similarly to all representatives of the mentioned tradition, beginning with
Kant) embodied and expressed a kind of (often rigorous) moral attitude and strictness –
one that rejects any kind of self-deception and self-delusion, any kind of wishful
thinking, one that is ready and able to ruthlessly confront the fallibility of the contingent
man which urges him to ―substitute pseudo-cognition for moral choice.‖5 However,
1
EN 151; cf. also ibid, 483: the being-for-itself is always different from what may be said
about it („toujours autre chose que ce qu'on peut dire de lui‖; emphasis in the original).
2
See Sartre: ―Materialism and Revolution‖, Sartre, Literary and Philosophical Essays, 215,
where Sartre writes about materialism that it is „one of the forms of the spirit of seriousness and
of flight from one's own self‖ (translation modified; see Sartre, Situtions, vol. III, Paris:
Gallimard, 1949, 162: „une des formes de l'esprit de sérieux et de la fuite devant soi-même‖).
3
PMN 376. Rorty writes further on: ―Sartre adds to our understanding of the visual imagery
which has set the problems of Western philosophy‖ by showing the traditional image of the
―unveiled mirror of Nature‖ as the image of God. From this point of view Rorty concludes: „to
look for commensuration rather than simply continued conversation–to look for a way of
making further redescription unnecessary by finding a way of reducing all possible descriptions
to one–is to attempt escape from humanity‖ (PMN 376f.). In a later writing, explaining Sartre,
Rorty writes: ―We shall not need a picture of ‘the human self‘ in order to have morality‖ (PP 2,
160), cf. also CIS 42, PP 2, 132.: ―Sartre‘s point that we have a tendency to repudiate and evade
this freedom of choice is perfectly just‖.
4
See EN 674, also: Sartre, L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Paris: Nagel, 1946), see:
http://www.mediasetdemocratie.net/Textes/Existentialisme.htm>
5
PMN 383.
174
the measures are reverse for the man who escapes responsibility and himself; for
him, it is the rejection of the urgent desire for certainty-security-stability that counts
as ―lack of moral seriousness‖. Be it as it may: Rorty is receptive of Sartre‘s critique
of the ―spirit of seriousness‖; his answer – as I have outlined earlier – is irony (and
hope, as will be mentioned in the concluding part).
―Jean-Paul Sartre seemed to me right when he denounced Kant‘s self-
deceptive quest for certainty‖ – says Rorty.1 In his major work, in reference to Quine
and Sellars, Rorty talked about a concept of philosophy, trying at the same time to
raise sympathy for it: ―holism produces, as Quine has argued in detail and Sellars
has said in passing, a conception of philosophy which has nothing to do with the
quest for certainty.‖2 This certainty is illusory and unachievable: the quest for it is
nothing else than self-deception, evasion of life, and all this in the best of the cases.
For a false certainty and the illusion of certainty may stabilize and grow into an
ideology, they may lead to self-justification, in the possession of which man may
pose as morally superior. The moral suspicion might extend to other philosophical
disciplines in addition to ethics, and ultimately also to philosophy as such.
***
This paper could be concluded with the following remarks. One of the basic
metaphysical questions of Kant – the third one – sounds like this: ―Was darf ich
hoffen?‖ (What may I hope for?)3, and for Rorty also it is primarily about hope.
From Rorty‘s perspective, hope plays a fundamental role both in the lives of people
and in the philosopher‘s life. The expression itself appears often in his texts and in
the title of one of his books as well: Philosophy and Social Hope. One chapter of
this book indicates the narrow context of this phrase: Hope in Place of Knowledge.
Hope stands, therefore, for Rorty – just like for Kant – in the place of knowledge. If
Kant demolished knowledge to make place for faith (Ich mußte also das Wissen
aufheben, um zum Glauben Platz zu bekommen),4 than we could state by analogy:
Rorty demolished knowledge to make room for hope. Solidarity for Rorty does not
depend on the existence of common truths, common language, or some final
1
PSH 13. See also the the bibliographical indications in note 81.
2
Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1979, 171. See also J. Grondin, ―Die Hermeneutik als Konsequenz des kritischen Rationalismus‖,
Philosophia naturalis 32 (1995), book 2, reprint: Hermeneutik und Naturalismus, ed. B. Kanit-
scheider, F. J. Wetz (Tübingen: Mohr, 1998), 42f. „[...] die kartesianische oder, im allgemeinen,
die wissenschaftliche Sicherheitsobsession einer ‘Flucht‘ des Daseins vor seiner eigenen Zeit-
lichkeit oder Geschichtlichkeit entstamme. Heidegger und die Hermeneutik sehen nun in dieser
»Sorge um Gewißhet« eines der Grundmotive der abendländischen Philosophie und Wissen-
schaft, sofern sie nach »letzten Fundamenten« streben‖
3
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B833: ―Alles Interesse meiner Vernunft (das spekulative
sowohl, als das praktische) vereinigt sich in folgenden drei Fragen: 1. Was kann ich wissen?
2. Was soll ich tun? 3. Was darf ich hoffen?‖. See also: Logik. Ein Handbuch zu Vorlesungen.
ed. G. B. Jäsche, in Kant: Schriften zur Metaphysik und Logik. 2, Werkausgabe. ed. W.
Weischedel, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1974, vol. 6. 448.
4
Kritik der reinen Vernunft, BXXXI
175
vocabulary, but on the receptivity for pain, suffering and humiliation, and the
common hope that everybody‘s own world with the little childish things and
individual vocabulary would not be destroyed.1
As Rorty exposed in his influential writing discussing the common features of
the Bible and the Communist Manifesto, both teach the sensitivity to inequality, and
feed the hope in the future. Both want to encourage, and not formulate knowledge
claims (about the second coming of Christ, or about the realization of the communist
society). Christianity and socialism – they both mean the same, so something like
―Christian socialism‖ is almost a pleonasm: ―nowadays you cannot hope for the
fraternity which the Gospels preach without hoping that democratic governments will
redistribute money and opportunity in a way that the market never will.‖.2
The question ―Was darf ich hoffen?‖ is for Kant sharply separated from the
question ―Was kann ich wissen?‖. And not by chance. If I knew everything that was
possible to know – everything I want to know – I would not have much to hope for.
Hope is only possible where knowledge does not have access to. Hope is at home in
the world of action – it motivates, urges and guides our actions. As such, it is
connected to practical life, and not to knowledge. I do not – I cannot – have hopes
about things that I know.3 The life of omniscience, the life lived in omniscience
would therefore be a life without hope, that is, a hope-less life in the emphatic sense
of the word and in each of its multiple senses: perhaps not unthinkable for Gods, but
hardly conceivable for humans.
Translated by Emese Czintos
1
CIS 92. Cf. ibid., 89, where Rorty writes about the little things of the child that he fantasizes
about, and that some adults would tend to describe as ―trash‖ and throw them away.
2
Cf. PSH 201ff. quote on 205.
3
And what I hope for cannot be the object of my knowledge. The statement ―I know that
twice two is four‖ can hardly be meaningfully replaced by the statement (which is doubtful
as it is) ―I hope that twice two is four‖. The latter cannot be deduced from the former, nor is
it some kind of weakened form of the former. Knowledge may have its gradations (―I know‖,
―I don‘t know‖, ―I am certain‖, ―I am uncertain‖), but I cannot be connected to the object of
my knowledge by a practical – hopeful – interest. In other words: what has got into the scope
of knowledge, cannot get into the scope of hope, and vice versa. In his writing discussing the
parallels between the Bible and the Communist Manifesto, Rorty claims: ―there is a
difference between knowledge and hope. Hope often takes the form of false prediction, as it
did in both documents [...] When reading the texts themselves we should skip slightly past
the predictions, and concentrate on the expression of hope.‖ (see PSH 204f.)
176
The Efficiency of Applied Philosophical Thematization:

The Works of István Király V.* in the Context of European Philosophy
Lajos András KISS

College of Nyíregyháza, Hungary
Keywords: freedom, existence, being, mortality, death, history, illness, applied

philosophy, medical humanities, thematisation, Király V. István, Martin Heidegger,
Ernst Bloch, Nicolai Berdyaev, Emmanuel Lévinas, Jean-Paul Sartre, fundamental
ontology, hungarian philosophy
Abstract: The subject of this paper is the presentation and contrasting analysis of the
so-called ―ultimate metaphysical questions‖ in the works of Istán Király V., who had
spent several decades of consistent fathoming of the senses of life, death, freedom,
history and illness. Although Király‘s Heideggerian thinking, his commitment to
fundamental ontology and hermeneutics is beyond dispute, he can be regarded as an
independent thinker who forms his own thinking autonomously and independently
from the authors he prefers to refer to (Kierkegaard, Heidegger, etc.) His originality
lies in the fact that he rethinks and takes forward the Heideggerian questions and
answers, trying to join the abstract views of fundamental ontology with the ―life-
commitment‖ of applied philosophy. This way he sees the questions of death, freedom
and illness connected to euthanasia or abortion, that is, the concrete questions of
human existence which often test the limits or paralyse freedom. The paper does not
claim that Király‘s radical interpretation of being is an isolated attempt. Therefore the
author of the paper compares Király‘s applied philosophy experiment with other
similar approaches of the 20th century, such as Ernst Bloch, Nicolai Berdyaev,
Emmanuel Lévinas, and Jean-Paul Sartre, in the mirror of whose works the originality
and challenging innovation of Király‘s thoughts is even more apparent.
E-mail: kisslaj@zeus.nyf.hu
Some two years ago I found myself in an interesting and revealing debate on
the current position of Hungarian philosophy with a friend of mine who is of course
also an expert of the field, what‘s more, a well known researcher of the history of
Hungarian philosophy. I happened to say, partly by conviction, partly as a
provocation (a debate is a debate) that the quality of Hungarian philosophy is not
*
István Király V., Kérdő jelezés…. (Question marking…) (Pozsony [Bratislava]: Kalligram,
2004), 219p. Idem, Halandóan lakozik szabadságában az ember (Mortally dwells man in his
freedom) (Pozsony [Bratislava]: Kalligram, 2007), 309p. Idem, Kérdés-pontok a
történelemhez, a halálhoz és a szabadsághoz (Question-points to history, death and freedom)
(Cluj-Napoca: Presa Universitarǎ Clujeanǎ, 2008), 253p. Idem, A betegség – az élő
létlehetősége (Illness – A Possibility of the Living Being (With a detailed English summary)
(Pozsony [Bratislava]: Kalligram, 2011). 198p.
177
significantly different today than it was in the 1960s–1970s. I tried to prove my

claim in the following manner: if one is a regular visitor of larger second-hand
bookstores, cannot but notice that the works of philosophy edited thirty-forty years
ago are still lining up on the philosophy shelves, almost untouched for years. For
instance, the works of István Hermann (A gondolat hatalma [The power of thought],
A szfinx rejtvénye [The riddle of the Sphynx], etc.), without anyone being apparently
interested in them (although Hermann gave good titles to his books, and if nothing
else, this should really be worth learning from him). ―Do you think we are any more
worthy than the previous generations? Will anyone still be interested in our works
thirty years from now?‖ – I asked my friend. Waiting for no answer, I continued:
―For we ourselves are good for nothing else than repeating the lesson, just like them.
Don‘t add any extra! – claims the imperative of Hungarian philosophy. Rorty said
this, Derrida said that – and this is basically how far our thinking reaches. How are
we any more special than they were?‖ Then – with a hint of envy – I started
explaining how different all this is in Slovenia for example, where Slavoj Žižek,
Alenka Zupancic or Mladen Dolar, unlike Hungarian philosophers, dare think as
well on their own, something that should supposedly not be very far from the nature
of philosophy... Of course, as I have mentioned, I myself was just half serious about
what I said, I merely like to tease the dedicated followers of capitalist
parliamentarism (my friend is one of them), who say that ―in whatever way things
may have changed since the regime change‖, we now live in freedom, and ―to whom
may freedom be more important than precisely the philosophers?‖
And indeed, if one reads the books of István Király V., one can be sure that
there may be some truth in my friend‘s argument, since the Transylvanian
philosopher is one of the few who ―swim against‖ the tide and try to live with the
possibilities offered by this (relative and) often threatened freedom, and dare even
think. The author‘s major study on freedom engaging in a dialogue with Gadamer
and Heidegger also has a personal reference: István Király V. personally
experienced the power of periodically reviving censorship which continues to poison
the public life of contemporary Romania (and Hungary).1 The author‘s ―existentially
committed‖ and ―emphatic‖ style also betrays the author‘s commitment to freedom,
while his quite original phrasing, syntax and punctuation also reveal a ―free thinker‖.
This original tone of Király appears in all three of his books. That is to say, Király
has no connection with that widespread objective tone which characterizes today not
only analytical philosophy and works of philosophy of science (in which case it may
even seem in order), but which also counts as an almost unbreakable norm also in
works of so-called life philosophy. One could say: for István Király V., philosophy
and philosophizing has had, and will have an existential stake, therefore it appears to
him as almost a question of life and death what he writes, where he stands, who he
fights with or agrees with, at least in part. For the author wants to be permanently
present in person on the pages of his book, and this subjectivity lends a special
dynamics to the works of the Transylvanian philosopher, committed also to the rules
of rational argumentation. After this introduction it would probably be most
1
Cf. Király, Kérdő…83–131. If not marked otherwise, all foreign-language quotations are
translated into English by Emese Czintos.
178
appropriate to structure my impressions and critical remarks about his studies around
his most recently published book. While doing this, I will make references to the
chapters of the other two books which dwell in more detail on, or are more
argumentative in underlining, the theses formulated in this latter, visibly synthetic
volume.
Patricia Todoran, On Obstacles

The first chapter centres on the consubstantial nature of human existence,

death and history: namely, that there is no history without death, and that death –
just like life, the mortal life – ―is only meaningful‖ if placed in a historical-
existential dimension.1 In other words, Király claims that the meaning of history can
only be given if it is ―directed to its end‖, since all ―(...) factic life is always,
factically, somehow approaches on death‖.2 ―Approaching on death‖, at least in
terms of man, is by no means identical with biological disintegration.3 Death is
much rather a force that compels one to acknowledge the radical finiteness of the
future and also naturally the past (that is, of time), which can be faced, but can also
be avoided. This latter is what usually happens, in our author‘s view. However, to
1
Halál és történelem – Prolegomenák egy ―történelemfilozófiai‖, illetve történelemontológiai
lehetőséghez. (Death and history – Prolegomenae to the possibility of a ―philosophy of
history‖ and ontology of history), in Kérdés-pontok. 7–110.
2
Ibid., 27.
3
―Dying, human death is never merely biological, never a process or event defined merely by
the natural laws of the living world‖. Király, Halandóan…107.
179
ignore the burden of radical finiteness, to turn away from the problem of death is not
merely a matter of the ―genetic weakness of will‖ of historical subjects. Actually, the
flight strategies which turn man away from taking on the true burden of the radical
end (death understood as dying) are in fact built in the very foundations of European
(and extra-European) cultural traditions. These flight directions always aim, one way
or another, at minimizing our personal implication deriving from the existential
nature of death (meaning that it cannot be transferred) either by promising the
immortality of the soul, or by transforming the ―issue‖ of one‘s own death into the
―issue‖ of the other people‘s death. The first direction is taken by religions and so-
called philosophies of religion, while the second direction is shared by medicine,
ethnology, historiography, cultural anthropology, etc.
In what follows, I will present some strategies ―to avoid the problem of
death‖ which differ from the traditional problem of the immortality of the soul and
some of which are also at times taken into account by Király V.; his judgment is of
course almost always ―ruthlessly rejecting‖, as a direct consequence of the author‘s
admittedly fundamental ontological commitment.
The utopian victory over death I. – Ernst Bloch‟s philosophy of hope

The traditional problem of the immortality of death is not a primary concern of
Király‘s philosophy. This is clearly stated in his response to one of his opponents in
an application.1 The criticism formulated in the context of conservative protestant
philosophy of religion reproached the author that he completely neglected the
several thousands of years long Christian interpretations of the immortality of the
soul. Now, there was indeed not much to be done with this criticism, betraying quite
a conservative kind of thinking. If I am not mistaken, this question was last
discussed with a philosophical depth by Bernard Bolzano and Ludwig Feuerbach –
the former in a rather affirmative way, the latter in a rather critical tone. 2
Nevertheless, the problem of immortality has its other kinds of materialist or rather
quasi-materialist approaches too, among which one of the most notable is the
version of Ernst Bloch‘s philosophy of hope.3 Starting from the ancient cultures of
human history, Bloch outlined a series of a kind of anti-death utopias which oppose
death and are somehow able to domesticate it. One last link in this series is the
baroque tragedy analyzed by Walter Benjamin with its allegorizing tendencies. The
death of the tragic hero – says Benjamin – releases the spirit ―in a spiritual way‖,
1
See Kérdő… 86–92. Berdyaev, who has a way of seeing the existential relation to death in
many respects similar to that of Lévinas – or rather, Lévinas‘s is similar to Berdyaev –,
writes: ―The question of the immortality of the soul is one of the now obsolete metaphysical
questions‖. Nikolai Berdyaev, O naznacsenyii cseloveka – opit paradoxalnoj etyiki [English:
The Destiny of Man] (Paris YMCA-PRESS, 1981), 268.
2
Cf. Bernard Bolzano, A lélek halhatatlansága, avagy Athanasia  Mi a filozófia? (The
immortality of the soul, or Athanasia * What is philosophy?), trans. Csikós Ella (Budapest: Szent
István Társulat, 2001); Ludwig Feuerbach, ―Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit.‖ In Idem,
Frühe Schriften, Kritiken und Reflexionen (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1981), 175–517.
3
Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Verantwortung, vol. 3. (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1956)
(Hoffnungsbilder gegen den Tod), 196–279.
180
whilst the body can also enforce its rights. The physis can only be allegorized by the
dead body. ―And the actors of the tragedy die because they can only reach their
allegorical homeland as corpses‖1 Bodies become emblems, says Bloch, rethinking
Walter Benjamin‘s analysis, because history in general is a huge pile of ruins and as
such, in a Baroque emblem, ―the deadness of the figures and the abstractness of the
concepts is therefore a precondition for the allegorical transformation of the
pantheon in a world of magical conceptual creatures.‖2 Although the hero dies in the
Baroque tragedy, his figure lives on in the allegory.3 Although the complaint against
death appears in the tragedy, it is eventually set aside, since the hero – at the expense
of losing his factual life – acquires an immortal character. Bloch regards death as it
appears in German tragedy as a sort of chisel: with the function of shaping the
character of the hero, and make it immortal in its final form. This form of death can
by no means be regarded as an unsurpassable possibility of human existence. This is
the form achieved – at least in Bloch‘s view – in the victory of socialist
consciousness over death. The communist hero does not simply immunize the fear
of death in his consciousness (like for instance the martyrs of Christianity), but goes
well beyond it. At the same time, Bloch strangely argues that the communist hero
can neither be regarded a pantheist thinker who hopes that the atoms of his body
would simply merge into the universe after his death. Although it is true that the
communist hero dies without the hope of personal resurrection, Bloch still says
about the death of Sacco and Vanzetti that their martyrdom is in fact not even
martyrdom. The martyrdom of a communist martyr is not individual, but also not a
general collective martyrdom, but a previously inexistent unity of the individual and
the collective; and this is what Bloch terms solidarity.4 True solidarity does not
merely mean the cohesion of those who live close together in space, but it is also an
essentially temporal cohesion as well: the sacrifices of the past meet, or rather
become present in the actions of future winners. Still, however skilfully might Bloch
use the dialectical possibilities offered by the German language, every kind of
teleological and utopian philosophy of history must face the inevitable fact of
individual death, and therefore he himself cannot possibly avoid the question of the
individual‘s existential end-orientation. On the last pages of his analysis of the
problem of death, Bloch intends to reveal the ontological structure of the ―actual
being related to death‖, and these are precisely the thoughts that Lévinas reflects on
in his book on death.5 Bloch states that man approaching death does not cease to be
inquisitive. And this inquisitiveness also contains the affect of cheerfulness, as the
world does not cease to offer original experiences to the very last breath of the dying
man. ―And this instinct urging for research presupposes of course an I which tries
1
Ibid., 264. ―Und die Personen der des Trauerspiels sterben, weil sie nur so, als Leichen, in
die allegorische Heimat gehen.‖
2
Ibid., ―Abgestorbenheit der Gestalten und Abgezogenheit der Begriffe sind also für die
allegorische Verwandlung des Pantheons in eine Welt magischer Begriffskreaturen die
Voraussetzung.‖
3
Cf. Ibid., 264.
4
Cf. Ibid., 270.
5
Emmanuel Lévinas, La mort et le temps (Paris: Éditions de l‘Herne, 1991), 106–122.
181
hard to preserve itself while dying, in order to be able to observe death.‖1 The desire
for knowledge triumphs over anxiety, and in this sense it also becomes apparent that
the power of epistemological commitment may turn at times into an ontological
fact.2 All this, according to Bloch, is inseparably connected to the ultimate
experience of existential time. Bloch claims that the experienced existential now as
absolute directness occupies precisely that spot which cannot be experienced.3 The
new or the moment as not-being-there (Nicht-Da-Sein) appears to the mortal as the
entangled fabric of his arranged and unarranged fate. Man is born, and by this his
origin is lost in the past, since we can never remember the moment of our birth,
although it most intimately belongs to us. Death through its other side, which
remains problematic in all respects (as the definite in the world, where it appears
rather as fragments to define), never opposes, not even despite being the strongest
anti-utopia, the trivial realities that are there in the mass of hopes and suspicions
connected to death. However, it does oppose the categorical system of scientific-
concrete utopias (because of the lacking continuities connected to one‘s previous
life). The ―meaning‖ of death appears in the darkness of the given moment, or in
other words: in the blind spot of the given moment. That is to say, the not yet
defined how, or how-being (Daβ-Sein) must break through the factual givenness of
being-there (Da-Sein) without finding a stable grab in his previous life. The question
stays of course: do the moment being lived and death not have the same root? ―(...)
namely the not yet involved how-being without the being-there (...)‖4 Undoubtedly
Block sees the death of man as appearing in the essential kernel (Kern) of every
thinking and acting being existent in time. In contrast to religious utopias, in Bloch‘s
utopia of hope, in the projection of the not-yet-being-there (meaning the problem of
1
Cf. Bloch, Das Prinzip Verantwortung, 273. ―Dieser Forschungstrieb setzt freilich ein Ich voraus,
das während des Sterbens, ja nach ihm erhalten bleibt, um den Tod beobachten zu können.‖
2
This is not to say, of course, that the dying person is able to accurately communicate the
phenomenology of the process he undergoes. István Király V. is right to claim: ―What could
such a thought- or actual experience which is probably not useless, but, as we have
emphasized, asking for its actual happening, possibly ―inform‖ about? Is it not precisely that
the gradually dying phenomenologist gradually but definitely loses his ability to gradually
communicate his interpretations and experiences – recte: phenomenological description – of
dying, becoming more and more obscure?!‖ Király, Halandóan… 66. Of course, even in the
case of a person with extraordinary ―self-control‖ who could perhaps offer an ―objective‖
exposition of the process of his dying to the last ―moment‖ of his life one would have to face
almost unsolvable dilemmas. That is, it would still be problematic whether one could get any
closer to disclosing the enigma of dying even in such a strange and special case. One would
have to face the question often asked by Luhmann whether self-observation can be any more
objective than external observation. Undoubtedly, I have a privileged access to my own
mental state. This means: nobody can see into my head. But I have no access to the
observation of my own observation. This could be thought of as an all-seeing eye which
would not just want to see everything, but also how it sees everything. According to
Luhmann, the blind spot of one‘s own observation can only be corrected by taking into
account external observations. These are of course only occasional observations which
should be clarified by further investigations, but this is not the place for such an endeavour.
3
Ernst Bloch, Das Prinzip Hoffnung. I. (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1954), 313.
4
Bloch, Das Prinzip…III. 275. (…nämlich noch nicht involviertes Daβ-Sein ohne Da-Sein
182
the liberation of mankind) the ―death present in an anticipated way‖ does not belong
to the dying person. ―The kernel (Kern) of existing beings, as that which has not yet
come into being, always falls outside Creation and Passing, of which neither is able
to grasp the core of our being.‖1 And this is how it happens, argues Bloch, because
an exterritorial dimension is absolutely necessary to successfully achieve the human
essence transposed into the future. The negativity of death surrounds the subject-
kernel as a hard shell, but is it not impossible to break this kernel. And if the hard
shell can be successfully broken, says Bloch, then an incorruptible novum, opposing
transience, appears in this earthly ―salvation history‖.
Beyond doubt, Bloch‘s utopia of hope – with its extraordinary complexity
and terminological sleight – shows some similarity with Heidegger‘s interpretation
of death. Nevertheless, one must not be silent about the weaknesses of Bloch‘s
interpretation of death. For he also, as well as any teleological vision of the
philosophy of history, must face that uncomfortable side effect that the last
generations of history can only be happy at the expense of the suffering of their
predecessors. (I shall return to this question in the next chapter).
Victory over death II. – Projects of communism and postmodernity

It may seem quite baffling, or even distasteful at a first sight to be concerned these
days with the problem of attaining immortality. It might pass somehow in a B
category Hollywood movie, but such fantasies are hardly acceptable today as objects
of serious philosophical treatises. Boris Groys, one of the best known art
philosophers of our age, has a different opinion on this: ―Of course, it was all
different earlier. It did not count as embarrassing to speak about immortality,
because it was thought that the soul can outlive the body. And it seemed as a
completely meaningful and noble thing to wonder, even during worldly life, where
would the soul go after death – to handle the question, before anything else, which
part of the soul is potentially immortal, and which part is mortal.‖2 From Platonic
philosophy to modernity, the problem of metanoia (the moving of the soul from this
world to another) counted as a cardinal issue of any philosophy. However, one of the
most important assets of modernity is precisely that the anticipations connected to
personal immortality became inauthentic, but the acceptance of this fact was
anything but easy. If the body alone becomes the sole reference point of man living
in the world, then – in parallel with the acceptance and recognition of his mortality –
his place in the world also becomes problematic. Many modern people try to solve
this dilemma by considering their body completely independent from their soul (and
God, who had been declared ―dead‖ meanwhile), or also hold it as natural that as a
1
Ibid., 278. ―Der Kern des Existierens ist, als noch ungeworden, allemal exterritorial zum
Werden und Vergehen, von welch beiden unser Kern noch gar nicht erfaβt ist‖
2
Boris Groys, ―Politik der Unsterblichkeit,‖ in Idem, Die Kunst des Denkens (Hamburg:
Phili Fin Arts, 2008), 35. ―Früher war dies freilich anders. Es galt nicht als peinlich, über die
Unsterblichkeit zu reden, denn glaubte, dass die Seele den Körper überleben würde. Und es
schien durchaus edel und vernüntftig, sich noch während des irdischen Lebens Gedanken
darüber zu machen, welchen Weg die Seele nach dem Tod nimmt  vor allem die Frage zu
behandeln, welcher Teil der Seele potenziell unsterblich und welcher Teil vergänlich ist.‖
183
talking, acting being, they have completely stuck amidst spatial coordinates. This is
how the class, the race or these days the gender could become new reference frames
of human action, where natural determinants were replaced – and are still being
replaced – by social (self)determinations. This has a fundamental influence on the
transformation possibilities of the metanoia as well. For, if there is no soul any
more, then the body (or perhaps the corpse) could just as much be a vehicle of
immortality. The corpse is of course something that decays and finally perishes.
―However, the process of rotting is potentially endless – one can never say that this
process will definitively end sometime, since the remains of the body can be
identified for a long time. But even in the case if the trace of the corpse can no
longer be identified, it does not mean that the body has completely disappeared, it
only means that the elements of the body, the molecules, atoms, etc. have been
dispersed in the universe and that the body is practically united with the universe, or,
if we wish, it has turned into a body without organs‖.1 This new, evidently cosmic
perspective creates a new possibility for metanoia. It is not the soul, but the body
which intends to become immortal. Part of the citizens of the Western world
anticipates the possibilities of the perpetuation of the body just as they used to do it
before with the soul. Groys uses the term heteronoia to denote the recent visions in
fashion of the after-life transformations of the body – although, thinking of the
Egyptian mummies, the ideas of the immortality of the body seems even older than
the anticipations of the immortality of the soul. It is definitely worth mentioning that
Groys builds on the concept of heterotopia introduced by Foucault. The body, as it
―frees itself‖ from the soul, moves to a new place: the graveyard. Foucault, says
Groys, points out the museum and the library, in addition to the graveyard, and
eminent manifestations of heterotopias. The body, by entering a new kind of life-
time, transcends the graveyard or the museum. Man experiences thus a kind of
heteronomia, as he ―experiences‖ his body as a corpse even in his lifetime. At this
point we do not ask where he comes from, but where he will be taken after his death
– and this very heterotopic endpoint is the starting point of his worldview.2
European philosophy has been concerned for a long time with the
metaphysics of the corpse. The decadent movements of the 19th century were centred
precisely on the questions of the metaphysics of the dead body. Among others,
Groys refers to Walter Benjamin‘s allegory interpretation mentioned in the previous
chapter. Jacques Derrida‘s deconstructivism may also belong here. In his case, one
can speak about a kind of metanoia as well: Derrida thematizes a kind of post-
1
Ibid., 37. ―Dieser Vorgang des Verwesung is potenziell unendlich  mann kann nicht sagen,
wann dieser Prozess definitiv endet, denn die Überreste des Körpers lassen sich lange genug
identifizieren. Aber auch in dem Fall, dass sich die Leichspuren nicht mehr identizifieren
lassen, bedeutet es nicht, dass der Körper verschwunden ist, sondern es heiβt nur, dass sich
seine Elemente, d. h. Moleküle, Atome usw. so sehr über das Ganze der Welt verteilt haben,
dass der Körper mit dem Ganzen der Welt praktisch eins oder, wenn man so will, definiv zu
einem Körper ohne Organe geworden ist.‖
2
Ibid., 38–39. So kann der Mensch eine Heteronoia erleben, indem er schon während seines
Lebens seinen Körper als Leiche erlebt. Dann fragt man sich nicht, woher man kommt,
sondern wohin man nach dem Tod gebracht wird – und man diesen heterotopischen
Endpunkt zum Ausgangspunkt seiner Weltbetrachtung.
184
mortem falling apart, which already began in one‘s ―real life‖. It is a permanent
bodily fall, which has no beginning and no end. Or Giorgio Agamben‘r ―Muslim‖
could also be mentioned, interestingly described in the Italian philosopher‘s book
entitled Homo sacer.1 The ―Muslim‖ is the ―living corpse‖ of German concentration
camps. Or rather, the Muslim is a ―man‖ not completely alive but also not
completely dead; he is almost impossible to be defined on the basis of a dual logic.
(I must note that the homo sacer condition is not identical with the liminal situations
of Jaspers, or the frequently mentioned death experience of people who survived
coma. It is in connection to them that Király repeatedly mentions that there is no
such thing as ―someone is a little dead, and a little not dead.‖2 The Muslim is in fact
already dead, or more precisely a dead person whose death is constructed by
biopolitics in a way elaborated with technical precision. That is to say, the death of
the homo sacer can only be perceived in its real meaning if embedded into a social
perspective). In Groys‘s opinion we find very similar phenomena in the mass
cultural imagination of our age as well. ―We are dealing here also with immortal
bodies without souls. It is primarily zombies, clones and living machines, that is,
various immortal beings, which stand in the centre of contemporary mass culture.‖3
Still, the real stages of bodily immortality are cultural archives, and especially art
collections, claims Groys. Art museums are outstanding showcases for the storage of
dead things: the things preserved and put on display have already lost their
connection with life practice, their function, and they are offered as mere spectacle.
Works of art live a vampire-like life: just like vampires, they must be protected from
light. Modern avant-garde has always considered its primary role, and continues
doing so, to demonstrate pure corporeality, that what is corpse-like. Avant-garde art
fights the average art consumer who tries to project ―a soul‖ into the works of art in
the form of interpretations or historicizing. By this, however, the viewer prevents the
possibility of heteronomia: the viewer tries to look at the work of art from a worldly
perspective instead of changing the perspective and looking at the world from a
museum perspective, that is, learning to experience the world as a corpse. Art is
becoming more and more radical in fighting this false reaction: it does its best to
reduce even more the experiential world to a corpse. The world of artistic
representation becomes more and more deserted, disintegrated, having no reference.
Groys considers Malevich‘s painting Black square against white background one of
the purest projections of the dead body.4
1
Giorgio Agamben, Homo sacer (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002). I analyzed
this book in detail in my book Haladásparadoxonok – bevezetés az extrém korok
filozófiájába (Paradoxes of progress – introduction to the philosophy of extreme ages)
(Budapest: Liget, 2009), 25–33.
2
―(...) the reports of people brought back from the experience of ―clinical death‖ or – as a
result of medical science – saved or revived in increasing numbers inform about experiences
of people who eventually did not die.‖
3
Boris Groys, ―Politik der Unsterblichkeit,‖ 40. Es handelt sich dabei meistens um
unsterbliche Körper ohne Seele. So stehen vor allem Zombies, Klone und lebende
Maschinen, d. h. unterschiedliche Untote, im Zentrum der heutigen Massenkultur.
4
See also Codrina Laura Ionita‘s recent interesting study on Malevich: ―L‘au-delà du visible ou
l‘abstraction dans l‘art,‖ Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai. Philosophia 1 (2010): 107–123.
185
This strange, ―necrophile‖ turn of the aesthetic experience was prepared by

the eccentric Russian philosopher of the 19th century, Nikolai Fyodorov, although
his initial intention was completely different. Fyodorov has been the object of fierce
disputes in Russia lately. According to some, he was a mad monomaniac, who by
mere accident had some revelations, but must not be taken seriously. Others say,
however, that no great spirit like him has been born in Europe in the last 500 years,
and only Leonardo could be measured to him. What lies therefore behind this
strange man and strange teachings? Fyodorov, who became the librarian of
Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow in the 1860s, was eccentric in all respects. He
never published a book in his lifetime, but two years after his death, in 1905, two of
his disciples, Kozhevnikov and Peterson, published his ―dictated writings‖ in two
volumes entitled Philosophy of the Common Task. Fyodorov‘s gigantic project was
built in fact on two elements. One part of his theory is a technicist utopia founded on
religion, connecting the victory over the cosmos with the task of the universal
dissemination of Christian faith. If there are rational beings in the universe, then it is
the duty of man to introduce to them the ideas of Christianity. A less known fact is
that Tsiolkovsky was himself a follower of Fyodorov, and as a religious mystic, he
also worked on rocket theory with the aim of the cosmic dissemination of
Christianity. The excellent scholar of Fyodorov‘s works, the German Michael
Hagemeister, thinks nevertheless that ―(...) Tsiolkovsky‘s plans of astronautics were
most definitely influenced more by the works of Jules Verne and Camille
Flammarion, while the direct influence of Fyodorov cannot be proven.‖1 It can be
said nevertheless: it is the strange irony of history that the Soviet astronautics,
always so proud of Tsiolkovsky, did not actually apply his theory in practice.
Although the similarity is very apparent, at least structurally, since the dominant side
in Soviet astronautics was also the spiritual one, the cosmic dissemination of
communist ideas, and not the technical one.
Fyodorov‘s other ―idea‖ is connected to the resurrection of the dead.
―According to Fyodorov, the resurrection of the dead is not only a scientific
possibility, but also a moral responsibility. He thinks that we have to focus all our
power to this end, and we can only hope for the successful solution of seemingly
independent problems like war, poverty and the destruction of the environment, if
the entire mankind undertakes the task of resurrection.‖2 As Groys also mentions,
Fyodorov looked at Rumyantsev museum as the utopian model of the society of the
immortal. He thought of the possibility of a kind of common social heteronoia,
which should have had to turn into a heterotopias in order for it to become the living
space of the entire mankind. Fyodorov saw the state as a kind of museum, with the
people in it as works of art.
Fyodorov‘s views were met with ridicule all his life, although he could be
regarded as the forefather of many ideas only accomplished in our time, from gene
technology to the internet (!). Hagemeister also writes in his monograph on Fydorov
1
Michael Hagemeister, ―Az orosz kozmizmus az 1900-as években‖ (Russian cosmism in the
1990s), in G. B. Rosenthal, ed., Az okkult az orosz és a szovjet kultúrában (Occultism in
Russian and Soviet culture), trans. Katalin Teller (Budapest: Európa, 2004), 261.
2
Ibid., 216.
186
that the idea of international inter-library loan also comes from him. If nothing else
were connected to Fyodorov‘s name, his name would still be worth remembering for
these. The ascetism of Fyodorov‘s private life is strangely completed by his
alchemistic/occult activism, since, as Eliade writes: ―The alchemist on its part strives
to realize the dream of prolonging his body and the youth, force and flexibility of his
body.‖1 For this reason, from an occultist‘s perspective the nature which lacks
human activity is wild and cruel in itself. Maxim Gorky, who – and few know this of
him – trained himself, albeit as an autodidact, to be an extremely well-informed
philosopher – viewed nature in a similar way. In addition to Dostoevsky, he used
many elements of the teachings of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Eduard von
Hartmann for elaborating his anarchist-Gnostic worldview. He wrote in his article
On culture in 1928: ―Nature is the chaos of unorganized, instinctive forces. These
forces afflict man with earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, drought, intolerable heat or
unbearable cold (...) Nature unreasonably wastes its force on useless microorganisms
causing all sorts of diseases – bacilli carried by dangerous insects – mosquitoes,
flies, lice -; these carry the poison of typhus, malaria and others of the kind over to
the blood of people. Nature has created countless dangerous and completely useless
plants and animals. A legion of parasites sucks on the healthy juices, and thus
weakens the organism (...).‖2 In another of his writings, Gorky uses – in a witty
formulation – the expression stepmother-nature instead of mother-nature known
from myths. Gorky‘s contempt of nature however was not unmatched in the age.
Representatives of just forming Soviet Marxism had a similar way of thinking. Ivan
Skvortsov-Stepanov states in his handbook Historical materialism and modern
natural sciences published in 1926: ―It is impossible not to recognize the rough,
barbaric, destructive, devastating processes of nature (...) Where is the ‗providence‘,
‗harmony‘, ‗expediency‘ so often referred to? These are the wild actions of the blind
processes of blind nature! Man acts incomparably more reasonably and expediently
when he creatively... penetrates the processes of nature and begins to control,
regulate and rule them.‖3 ―A new world must be created!‖ – claims Gorky, and this
way he actually returns to his younger anthroposophist-Gnostic self. Gorky
anticipated the concept of the ―socialist Übermensch‖ already in his poem Man, an
outstanding work of his young age. The most important idea of this work rhymes
with the famed Nietzschean thought that ―God is dead‖. Man must overcome his
natural determination and, reclining on the unlimited creative power of reason, he
must step into the place of the dethroned God. It clearly emerges from these that
Gorky was not the least a materialist. Rethinking Oswald and Bogdanov‘s
energetism, he saw as the basis of material phenomena the inexhaustible energetic
transformations, which – in his view – the superior man is able to guide by his own
will. The new man is even able to defeat death with the help of energy freed from
the prison of the matter.
1
George M. Young Jr., Az okkultizmus Fjodorov-féle változatai (The Fyodorov-type
variations of occultism), trans. Katalin Teller, in Rosenthal, Az okkult az orosz és a szovjet
kultúrában, 227.
2
Cited in Mikhail Agursky, ―Velikii eretik (Gor'kii kak religioznyi myslitel')‖ Voprosy
filosofii 8 (1991): 56.
3
Cited in Ibid., 56.
187
Returning to Fyodorov‘s strange views, following Groys‘s interpretation, it

is evident that the opposition with the utopian equality idea of 19th-century Socialist
doctrines plays an important role in them. I would also add that Fyodorov in his
strange way also pointed out the greatest weakness of all teleological concept of
history: progress can only be achieved in fact if the successful generations of the
future only use their contemporaries and even the previous generations as
instruments to attain their own happiness. ―Socialism functions so that it exploits the
dead to the benefit of the living – and so that it exploits those living today to the
benefit of those living in the future.‖1 But this is unacceptable, Fyodorov claims, for
the well-known Kantian imperative, namely that one should never use their fellow
human beings as instruments, must not only be understood horizontally (that is to
say, it is not only valid for living generations, for one‘s own contemporaries, but
also vertically: the categorical imperative must refer to earlier generations as well.2
In contrast to Fyodorov, Gorky had no intention of resurrecting the dead, but
in one of his lectures delivered in 1920 he projected that death could be defeated
forever in the not very distant future. ―Human reason proclaims its fight against
death perceived as a natural phenomenon. Yes, against death. It is my deep
conviction that sooner or later, in 200 years, or perhaps 100 years will also be
enough, man will actually attain immortality‖.3 The idea of the resurrection of the
dead and the unrestricted perfection of nature appears, besides journalism and quasi-
philosophical literature, also in the literature of the age. Hagemeister cites an
interesting fragment of Platonov‘s novel The Foundation Pit, the protagonist of
which said in a funeral speech that the meaning of Lenin‘s embalming was that he
could be resurrected sometime in the near future, at a more developed level of Soviet
science. Merely as a curiosity, I must mention that about a year ago I read in a
newspaper that Russian geneticists claimed: they were able any time to obtain cells
adequate for cloning from the eighty-year old mummy. In another of Platonov‘s
novels, The Sea of Youth, one of the characters (agronomist Visokovsky) ―(...) hoped
that the evolution of the animal world which has previously come to a halt would get
into full swing again in the age of Socialism and every poor, fury being which thinks
dimly today will raise to the level of conscious existence (...) Communist natural
science will raise the earthly flora and fauna to close relatives of the human being‖.
1
Groys, ―Politik der Unsterblichkeit,‖ 44. (Der Sozialismus funktioniert als Ausbeutung der
Toten zugunsten der Lebenden – und als Ausbeutung der heute Lebenden zugunsten der
später Lebenden.)
2
Fyodorov understands correctly Kant‘s intentions in this case. It may suffice to mention
Kant‘s work entitled The Conflict of the Faculties (German: Der Streit der Fakultäten, in
Schriften zur Anthropologie, Geschichtsphilosophie, Politik und Pädagogik. Erstel Teil,
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964). This kind of approach is also
accepted by István Király V. For example: ―This does not mean however that death in itself,
any kind of death would be, directly and explicitly, annihilation. On the contrary: the
historicity of human existence lies in the fact that the generations living in their mortality
base their lives on the works of generations past, continuing, caring for, and changing them,
giving them up or taking them on... In fact, maximum four generations of people (can) live
on the Earth at one time, all the rest is either already dead or have not yet been born...
3
Quoted by Agursky, ―Velikii eretik,‖ 61.
188
But another character goes even further, saying: ―Not even your most daring dream
may surpass the perspectives offered by our party (...) We erect an eternal bridge
between live and dead nature.‖1
These seemingly naïve phantasms turned very important in the last decades
because of the degree of the interference with natural processes, which could
previously only be imagined by the greatest fantasts. Bionics (the connection of
human flesh and technical instruments, like pacemakers), biotechnology (the
connection of biology and information technology, e.g., researches conducted on
computer-controlled human organs), and especially the most recent achievements of
genetics are now definitively confusing us about the undisturbed application of
natural and unnatural codes.2 All this is completed with the ever stronger tendency
of modern art since Baudelaire that art should not imitate nature but be a creator of
alternative worlds. The penetration of biotechnology and nanotechnology into art
can increasingly be perceived ever since the 1980s. Three famous representatives of
body-art, Matthew Barney, Stelarc and the French Orlan (who was originally a
woman!) claim that the natural human body is no longer natural in our age, therefore
in the age of technology the body must be trained to that technological, political and
social milieu we inhabit. The solitary creation of the solitary artist is doomed, artists
must cooperate with physicists, technicians, engineers, information technologists,
plastic surgeons, etc. There is a need for new body techniques, the successful (!?)
application of which may result in the complete transformation of the Homo sapiens.
While being a fairly well-known body-artist in France, Orlan also tries to
theoretically explain his strange activity, interpreting his work as a special kind of
existential critique. To Orlan, the primary boundaries are not the social
determinations; she is not content with the human body‘s nature of being ―given‖
once and for all. It is precisely corporeality (charnel) from where the world can be
questioned. In the view of Orlan and other body artists the body is not a ―givenness‖
but a ―commitment‖, a possibility shaped almost unlimitedly. Orlan has been
transforming her body in operations from the beginning of the 1990s. She also uses
the computer to compose her new looks. She puts together her continuously
changing body identity from the representations of man and chimaeras of Greek and
Oriental mythologies, her own imagination and all kinds of computer software. Her
most important concern is never to resemble the female ideal that began to shape
beginning with European Renaissance culture and – at least to her mind – has hardly
changed ever since. In this, she follows the views of radical feminist Judith Butler,
who claims that the female gender identity is nothing else than a product of the
colonization of male culture. Orlan has been planning lately to grow her nose several
times its length with plastic surgery. Earlier she also had small horns operated on her
forehead. The Orlan regarding herself as ―her own‖ Pygmalion intends to continue
the radical transformation of her body ever ―after her death‖. More precisely, she is
interested in the possibility of attaining immortality or at least quasi-immortality
(just like Fyodorov, as we have seen earlier). ―Death will not come for Orlan for
1
Andrej Platonov, Munkagödör (The Foundation Pit) (Budapest: Európa, 1989), 220.
2
Joël de Rosnay, L‘Homme symbiotique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2000).
189
we‘ll find her mummified body some day in a museum, inserted into an installation
with interactive video.‖1 Just like the representatives of Russian cosmism once (and
the Bolsheviks too, who also relied quite heavily on the views of the cosmists but
kept discreetly silent about their names) who wanted to turn natural laws into
obedient instruments of their will, Orlan also fights against all external
determinations. ―My work – she notes – is a fight against the innate, the inexorable,
against nature and DNA (which is our direct rival as performance artists) and God.‖2
Of course, in Orlan‘s case we tend to say that this is merely the fantasy of an
eccentric and solitary artist. But this is not quite the case. As one of her French
critics says: the identity that Orlan changes through her body from time to time is
itself subordinated to the collective phantasms produced by a mediatised society.
Plastic surgery may indeed give us a face that we would like to see in the mirror
later. But for this view to rise to aesthetic standards, there is need for much more. It
is precisely the mediatised world of images conveyed by television which provides
the ammunition even for individual revolt. It is still a question of course whether
there is a constant ―natural‖ basis for a body constructed by society, which resists its
unlimited transformability. These dilemmas – which, whether we want it or not,
always become ethical problems – appear not so much in connection with bionics
and biotechnology (as these technologies clearly have no effect on future
generations), but with the vertiginous possibilities of human genetics.
It seems that István Király V. is completely uninterested in these variations
of radical anthropological endeavours and the linking of these strange fantasies with
the problem of death. It is obviously so because clearly for Király any historical,
sociological, cultural anthropological, medical ethical interpretation of death
necessarily misses the metaphysical/fundamental ontological meaning of dying, that
is, such reductionist ―interpretations of death‖ are unable to inquire about the ―(...)
ontological-existential resultants (...)‖ of death.3 However, Király claims, even the
purely philosophical problematizations most often miss the essence of the problem
of death, even though it is only pure philosophical thinking that takes itself seriously
that is the only ―(...) mode (of being) or “area” in which we humans can face or
confront death, our death and the problem of death, with all its dead ends,
difficulties and weight, in our most authentic and responsible – although not
quite comforting – way possible.‖4 As I have mentioned, the author is quite critical
about the history concept of the entire Greek-Jewish-Christian culture, which, at
least in his opinion, hardly thematizes death as dying as a sui generis philosophical
problem, or, if it does on occasions, it tries to get rid, as soon as possible, of its true
weight, often even at the expense of trivializing the problem. For the telos of our
culture inspires us primarily to perceive our basic relationship to death as its
1
David Le Breton, L‘Adieu au corps (Paris: Éditions Métailié, 1999), 44. La mort n‘arrêttera
pas Orlan, car son cadavre momifié doit se trouver un jour dans un musée, inséré dans une
installation avec vidéo interactive.
2
Ibid., 44. Mon travail, écrit-elle, est en lutte contre l‘inné, l‘inexorable, la nature, l‘ADN
(qui est notre rival direct en tant qu‘artiste de la représentation) et Dieu.
3
Király, Halandóan…13.
4
Ibid., 26.
190
―handling‖ or ―management‖ (and therefore elimination). Institutions and

organizations like churches and various branches of the humanities (anthropology,
psychology, sociology, etc.) have undertaken and continue to undertake this task
even today.
István Király V. considers that every historical, social psychological and
religious interpretation of death necessarily falls into the error of relativism: this is
how people died in the Middle Ages, and this is how they die today amidst the
clinical conditions of the modern world. This is why he hardly treats the works of
Philippe Ariès, Huizinga, Mikhail Bakhtin and other famed philosophers of culture.
Király claims that all of the sociological approaches extend over their real
possibilities, and chance on the obscure field of suppositions. For a
historical/sociological reconstruction may give a more or less adequate answer to the
―external questions‖ regarding death: namely, what was the religious, artistic,
cultural, political, ethical or medical/pragmatic relation that man created throughout
the ages to ―handle‖ the fact of death, how he tried to domesticate the almost
―unconceivable‖. But an authentic interpretation of death is only possible through
metaphysics that keeps in mind the constant or at least quasi-constant character of
nature and ―(...) it is not understood as a kind of philosophical ‗discipline‘ (...), but a
possibly actual existential and ‗theoretical-conscious‘ relation to finitude and
death‖.1 Although István Király V. claims nowhere explicitly that he considers
human nature constant, this is what derives from his argument. For the author, a
committed Heideggerian thinker (with all its advantages and disadvantages) only
recognizes two kinds of modes of being: an authentic and an inauthentic attitude to
the world. As if independently of time and space. The consequence of this radical
anti-historicist attitude is that for Király there are only some thinkers in the entire
history of philosophy who are indeed able to adequately guide us through the
―problem of death‖. Evidently, Király ―handles‖ these philosophers apart from the
rest and with obvious respect. They are Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger,
whose particular existentialist and fundamental-ontological views he considers an at
least ―discursible‖ starting point to penetrate to the deepest layers of the problem of
death, or, as he puts it, to the root and origin of the problem of death.2
The theses of Heidegger‘s existential ontology are in all respects the most
important guidelines for Király; Heidegger is almost the only philosopher that he
unconditionally trusts. This is not to say, of course, that he gives up his right to even
confront his ―master‖ at times, when the formulation of his own, autonomous
standpoint requires so. I shall come back to the Heideggerian problem of death and
Király‘s interpretation of it, but first I would like to sketch the wider interpretive
frame which, according to the author, offers the best chance not to miss the question
of death.
1
Kiráy, Halandóan….69.
2
Király, Kérdés… 19.
191
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Photogram

First, says Király, one should start from the fact that death or the ―discourse
of death‖ unfolds at the narrow confines of complete rationality and complete
irrationality. ―From a certain point of view the difficulty or problem connected to
death is precisely that, on the one hand, it is rationally almost fully comprehensible
by nature (physis) (...) On the other hand, still, death is fully ‗irrational‘ – that is,
‗incomprehensible‘.‖1 Király terms the ―unitary thinking‖ of this strange paradox as
―thinking-nothing‖.2 Although he does not refer here to Nietzsche, in all probability
he thinks in his spirit, as long as Nietzsche also makes a difference between ―not
1
2
Ibid., 83.
192
wanting anything‖ and ―wanting Nothing‖.1 For ―wanting Nothing‖ presupposes

freedom or the need for freedom, and if this need does not exist or is trivialized, the
direction of the correct interpretation of the problem of death will again be missed.
Király‘s unequivocal formulation needs no further commentary: ―So, although this
necessarily sounds like a paradox, we should still say that, without freedom, human
death, that is, ‗becoming mortal‘ is impossible!!! The question is only whether this
is valid also the other way round? Namely, is freedom, actual human freedom
possible without mortality and death?‖2 Freedom, according to Király, does not
equal the formal legal equality. Freedom is based on correct recognition of man‘s
unique and unrepeatable nature, claims Király. And it is only such a philosophical
―thanatology‖ which recognizes the triad of being, death and freedom and takes it as
a necessity, which is capable of not trivializing the problem of death. However, as I
have mentioned, interpretations usually go in different directions and tend to give
way to easier solution which can be better coped with. One quite frequent direction –
which will probably be even more enforced in the future with the development of
modern medicine – is the minute description of the physiological process of death,
which presents dying as a slow and unproblematic falling asleep. The ancestor and
in all certainty unsurpassable figure of this approach is the French philosopher active
in the second half of the 18th century, Xavier Bichat. Király refers to Bichat and
Schopenhauer, who also reduces the existential fact of death to the decline of vitality
(which is in fact the incarnation of Weltwille) visible on the level of the individual.3
This approach partly of the metaphysics of will and partly based on natural sciences
considers that its main task is to ensure life‘s almost unnoticed passage to death.
Naturally, the problem in itself is not that, accepting the argument of this approach,
1
Cf. Slavoj Žižek, Die Tücke des Subjekts (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001), 151.
2
3
Ibid., 124. I mention Bichat‘s genial description of the process of dying as a mere curiosity,
which simultaneously proves the heights of the great physiologist‘s knowledge of nature and
spirit of observation, and insensitivity to the existential problem of death: ―Natural death is
remarkable because it almost completely ends the animal life before the organic life would
come to an end. Let us look at a man who died at the end of a long life: this man dies in
pieces, almost step by step; his external functions cease one after the other; the causes which
usually trigger normal perception, now just run across him. The gaze grows dim and
becomes confused, and no longer transmits the image of objects: this is the so-called old age
blindness. Sounds begin to transform into obscure noise in the ear, but soon this will also
cease. The skin surface becomes hard because it turns into keratin, and its place is partly
filled with clogging blood-vessels, and now it is nothing more than the centre of a confused
and hardly distinguishing sense of touch. It also becomes his habit to perceive his feelings
bluntly. First it is the organs depending on skin that weaken and die. The body hair and beard
grow grey. In absence of biological nutrients the body hair and most of the hair falls out.
Smells only cause a very faint impression in the nose. Isolated in his natural environment,
and deprived of most of the functions of his senses, the old man soon finds himself facing his
diminishing brain activity. He hardly has any perception (...), his imagination dims, and
slowly it even disappears. His memory of present things also fades away: the old man forgets
almost in the same instance what he was told (...).‖Xavier Bichat, Recherches physologiques
sur la vie et la mort (Paris: Marabout, 1973), 109–110. Quoted in Giorgio Agamben, Ce qui
reste d‘Auschwitz (Paris: Rivage poche/Petite Bibliothèque, 2003), 166–167.
193
the truth value of statements like ―XY is still alive‖ or ―XY is already dead‖ is
impossible to decide, but that death, and its complement: life, both lose their weight.
Actually the weakest point of such kinds of approaches is that they makes almost
impossible the ―possibility of the impossibility of the absolute being-here‖ of death,
even if death, says Heidegger, ―reveals itself as that possibility which is one‘s
ownmost, which is non-relational.‖1 Király in his own ―death discourse‖ closely
follows this quite paradoxical Heideggerian death definition, and even continues it
with a series of individual interpretation possibilities. Of course, the definitions
Király uses most often are also apophatic, but this cannot possibly be held against
him. In case of ―deadly serious‖ questions this is totally in order. Apophatic or
negative definition means that we find out in the first place what a ―thing‖ is not, but
we can only have slight suspicions about what it actually is. In this sense death is by
no means a reversible event, the author claims. Therefore the accounts of those who
―return from clinical death‖ are no references to figure out the nature of death, since
those who return stand as evidence precisely for ―not having died yet‖.2 The very
expression of clinical death is a term created by medicine which can be completely
misunderstood: as we have seen, for a philosophical (metaphysical) relation to death,
it is a completely unacceptable statement to say that ―somebody is a little dead and a
little not dead‖. But one‘s relation to death also misses the point, claims the author,
when we look at it as some kind of extreme situation, as Jaspers does in his
commentaries on liminal situations. For extreme situations can also be survived!
Since ―No matter how much a liminal situation pushes someone very close to death,
its experience can only become an original source of philosophy if it has a
contemplative, reflecting survivor‖.3 This clearly results, claims the author, in the
fact that the problem of death is not the problem of the last minutes of human life,
neither a ―temporarily eminent problem‖, but the problem of the entire, reflected
human life, conscious and self-aware. Nevertheless, a new difficulty does arise here,
that I have briefly touched upon before. As I mentioned, a differentiation should be
made in the investigation of the phenomenon of death between the metaphysical fact
of death and its reduced form, the concept of death.4 This means, in all probability,
that death is more than what can be expressed of it conceptually. The Greek
philosopher Philolaus said: ―some concepts are stronger than we are‖.5 This is why
István Király V. can rightly claim that ―the road is narrow‖ to establishing the
phenomenon of death, and it can hardly be expressed conceptually.6 The author also
adds, however, that this is not a problem raised only by the phenomenon of death,
since: ―The notion of ‗pine tree‘ is also never identical with the ‗pine tree that I am
1
Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2001), 250–251.
2
Cf. Király, Halandóan…68.
3
Ibid., 70.
4
Cf. Ibid., 42.
5
Cited in Jacques Rolland, Parcours de l‘autrement. Lecture d‘Emmanuel Lévinas (Paris:
PUF, 2000), 357.
6
This problem is also treated in detail by Vladimir Jankélévitch, to whom Király frequently
refers. Cf. Vladimir Jankélévitch, La Mort (Paris: Flammarion, 1977). Especially chapter La
mort dans l‘instant mortel, 219–256.
194
looking at‘ (...)‖1 This dilemma, which seems to resemble in some of its aspects that
ancient debate of nominalism vs. realism, is usually of no consequence in the
average topics of the life world, but it cannot be fully disregarded with respect to the
phenomenon of death. Király solves this existential problem clad in epistemology by
distinguishing between the validity level of the concept of death and the fact of
dying. However, he still thinks that these two levels can be connected at a further
step, for it must be clear, the author claims, that the concept of death can and must
be meaningfully conceived together with the fact of dying. But how can one
communicate about this, the approximately adequate concept of death, in a way that
is meaningful for the other? However witty Király‘s proposed solution might be, it is
still incapable of reassuringly freeing us of the persisting discomfort coming from
the inextricability of the tension between the radical singularity of existential
experiences and the universalism of communication by language which necessarily
neutralizes every personal experience. (I might be wrong in this judgment, and it
may indeed belong to the essence of the facticity of death that the theoretical
reasoning that wishes to face it is doomed to eternal uncertainty and anxiety.) For
István Király intends to (and indeed does) explore wise ideas about death in such a
way that he considers the experience of death absolutely singular and irreproducible.
As he writes one place: ―So the experience of death as one‘s own dying is
impossible to communicate also because it absolutely always and with everyone
only happens once.‖2 This is so in all probability. However, this radicalism has its
costs. On the one hand, it is somewhat disturbing that the existential facticity of
death is often mixed up in Király‘s argumentation with the conceptual universalism
of the philosophical discourse on death. Nevertheless, we must still face here the
duality of language/meta-language, although the facticity of death should be
regarded not so much as language, but rather as an anti-language. In short: clearly,
no man who died will ever talk out of his grave saying: ―Sir, you were right, it was
indeed Heidegger who saw things right, and not Jaspers and Lévinas.‖ Therefore we
must accept that the incommunicable ―facts of dying‖ are on the opposite side of the
more or less acceptably formulated philosophical sophistries on death. To this,
another difficult question is added: how can one differentiate an authentic life
history narrative including the phenomenon of death from a narrative which escapes
the fact of dying?3 Then there is a further dilemma, deriving from the fact that – as
mentioned before – in the case of man death is by no means identical with passing,
with transition to ―non-being‖. This is a problem that Heidegger himself had to face
after WWII. We have seen: for Heidegger, death appears to man as the absolute
possibility of all possibilities, unsurpassable and non-relational. Therefore death as
1
2
3
―By simply stating: the life history narrative, no matter how many histories of fate, ‗events
of faith‘ it might attest, it does not project or think them over, and does not UNDERSTAND
them to the end of the life history called as death and happening factually as dying...‖ Cf.
Halandóan…131–132. (The author‘s personal completion, sent to me as a result of the
present review).
195
such is privileged imminence.1 However, the events that happened in extermination

camps place this quite enigmatic death-interpretation of Heidegger in a special
context. For, so it seems, the camp is precisely the privileged place where death as
an unsurpassable possibility could be ―experienced‖, for everything was lacking in
those camps but death. Heidegger himself felt after the war that something is still not
right, and tried to reformulate the problem of death in 1949. His first lecture in
Bremen, dealing with the risks of a technicized life (Die Gefahr), tries to grasp the
phenomenon of death more clearly (meaning: historically specified) than it had been
exposed in Being and Time, now also calculating with the Nazi extermination
camps. I quote Heidegger: ―Sterben sie? Sie kommen um. Sie werden umgelegt.
Sterben sie? Sie werden Bestandstücke der Fabrikation von Leichen. Sterben sie?
Sie werden in Vernichtungslagern unauffällig liquidiert (…) Sterben aber heißt, den
Tod in sein Wesen austragen. Sterben können heißt diesen Austrag vermögen. Wir
vermögen es nur, wenn unser Wesen das Wesen des Todes mag. (…) Massenhafte
Nöte zahlloser, grausig ungestorbener Tode überall  und gleichwohl ist das Wesen
des Todes dem Menschen verstellt.‖2 On the one hand, Heidegger is undoubtedly an
extremely sensitive analyzer and interpreter of the horrors of the concentration
camps. On the other hand, in this lecture he still insists on the aristocratic and
strongly reductionist interpretation of the phenomenon of death, that is, the facticity
of dying. For, if we take Heidegger‘s words seriously, then we cannot call the
passing, destruction or extermination of many of our fellow humans dying, but we
should find different terms to name their ―death‖. This may even be in order for
those people whom we ―know for sure‖ to escape the acknowledgment of the ―non-
relational facticity‖ of death, but then how should we call the death of our fellow
humans who were murdered, died in an accident, or of a serious illness, and even at
a very young age? We cannot say in their case that they escaped the only
―unsurpassable possibility‖ of life. They simply had no chance to consider the
―essence of death‖ their own. Heidegger says in Being and Time that the
―unfinished‖ Dasein also ends.3 This is so in all probability. Just as the ―finished‖
Dasein also ends! But how could one make a difference between these two forms of
―finishing‖, or how could this definition of difference be made on the grounds of an
intersubjectively valid consensus? Heidegger cannot be expected to give much help
on this issue. Naturally, as I have hinted to it, this is not to say that Heidegger would
be completely insensitive to these problems. That said, I still think it is problematic
to apply ―differentiated concepts of death‖. What is more, if we tried to introduce
1
―… als die eigenste, unbezügliche, unüberholbare Möglichkeit. Als solche ist er ein
ausgezeichneter Bevorstand.‖ Cf. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 250–251.
2
Martin Heidegger, Bremer und Freiburger Vorträge. Gesamtausgabe, vol. 79., 56. Quoted
in Agamben, Ce qui reste d‘Auschwitz, 79–80. (―Have they died? They perished. They were
eliminated. Have they died? They became the products of an industrial corpse fabrication.
Have they died? They were liquidated discreetly in extermination camps (...) But being able
to die means to suffer death in its essential sense. Being able to die means to be able to
accept the ultimate suffering. But we can only do that if we consider the essence of death our
own essence (...) The number of terrible undied deaths around us is impossible to count –
still, it is the essence of death that has been forbidden for man.‖)
3
―Auch ‘unvollendetes‘ Dasein endet.‖ Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 244.
196
some kind of semantically ―appropriately‖ differentiated ―concept-family of death‖

into everyday language to denote ―modes of passing of dying‖ of different value –
beyond the fact that the success of such an endeavour is highly doubtful – would we
not divide the human race even more than it is now? For with this ―conceptual
clarification‖ affair we would take away even their equality in death, for this would
divide the human race into first-class (authentic) and second-class (inauthentic)
dead.1 Although Király is totally right to state that the differentiation is valid with
respect to the so-called ―accomplished‖ life preceding death and the ―potential
values‖ of a not lived life: ―For what else is most terrible in a murder that if not the
fact that the victims are deprived not only of their lives but also of the possibility of
facing their death, or undertaking their own dying.‖2
Of course, this dilemma can be dissolved in a way, by voicing the
interpersonal aspects of the question of dying, and Király does undertake indeed this
possibility, much more than Heidegger.3 The true meaning of euthanasia – and Király
is very much right about this – can only be achieved if the interpersonal meanings
―(...) cannot influence or liquidate that basic self-reference, or that I definitely have to
take my death, my dying only and exclusively upon myself, and I cannot assign it to
something or somebody else.‖4 Therefore the science of ―good death‖ can by no
means be exhausted merely in that one person makes the death of the other easier.
According to István Király V. the interpersonal dimension of euthanasia is special
compared to every other kind of interpersonal relation in that this dimension ―(...) is
reflexive to the highest possible degree!‖5 The authenticity of this interpersonal
relation is given by the fact that the partners taking place in the interaction ―(...) be in
an authenticity-seeking relation with their own mortality (...)‖6
Although the medical or professional aspects of euthanasia, the conditions
of prohibition or permission can – and need to – be regulated by law, but it will
never be possible to elaborate such a perfect legal framework, protocol, etc. which
might replace that persisting evidence that the final decision is not taken in the form
of ―inductive deductions‖ from the laws, but ―(...) it can only actually derive from
those ontological and existential sources from which, usually in a concealed and
non-admitted way, these regulation themselves derive.‖7 Euthanasia becomes
1
This division would definitely not be grounded in the ―moment‖ of dying, but
retrospectively: it would be the entirety of one‘s lived life that would count as authentic or
inauthentic, which of course changes nothing.
2
3
Király, Halandóan…Exkurzus – The chapter Az eutanázia, avagy a méltóság(á)hoz segìtett
halál (Euthanasia, or death assisted to its dignity), 136–183. In this chapter the author,
probably guided by respect for Heidegger, says that ―The ‗unreferentiality‘ of death and
dying, and the connected circumstance that death and dying makes claim to the Dasein as
‗unique‘ does not mean – even for Heidegger – that it has no ‗interpersonal‘ weight, meaning
or importance.‖ Ibid, 156. Later on, I will try to briefly express my opinion that Heidegger
misses the very basis of the problem of interpersonality.
4
Ibid., 156–157.
5
Ibid., 159.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid., 160.
197
legitimate if the dialogue of the doctor and the dying person (whether actually dying
or potentially dying in the sense of ―living testament‖) reveals that the dying person
―(...) is indeed a victim, but not the victim of the other person who does the
euthanasia or helps (him) with it, but only of his own illness, condition and
situation.‖1 The practice of a well understood euthanasia – even if it seems like an
attack against the value of human life considered absolute and intangible – still
proves that the existential solitude of dying is not completely impossible to share
and communicate: if we are all mortals, then we have the right to make our fellow
humans understand what this mortality means to us. Therefore the existential fact of
death can be grasped precisely in the paradox that the death of the Dasein is, on the
one hand, indeed impossible to be assigned or replaced, while on the other hand we
can still make, or sometimes must make statements understandable and perceivable
for our fellow humans on this impossibility of assignment or replacement.
While Király is very close to Heidegger‘s existential-ontological conception,
he is quite critical about Emmanuel Lévinas‘s ―thanatological meditations‖. He is
right to say: ―Broadly speaking, Lévinas has two basic objections against
Heidegger‘s philosophy. One is that he [Heidegger – A.L.K] centres or restricts all
philosophy to ontology, and the other is that the Dasein analysis he never
completely transcended actually only examines the latter singularly, in its isolation
from the ‗Other‘.‖2 I would like to quote a remarkable observation of Lévinas, a
good rendering of the difference between the two viewpoints. In one of his
interviews, Lévinas says: the fundamental difference between Heidegger‘s views
and his own is that Heidegger underestimates too much the intersubjective world of
everyday life. It is widely known that Heidegger‘s terms Mitsein or Miteinandersein
express the fundamental dimension of human being-together. According to Lévinas,
―this is, however, only one instance of our being-in-the-world. It is by no means
central. The preposition Mit always expresses a lateral togetherness (à côté de…)
and not a face-to-face one. This kind of togetherness (Zusammensein) may perhaps
be understood as marching together (zusammenmarschieren).‖3 While on the one
side we see that Heidegger underestimates the interpersonal relations of everyday
life (let us think of his term of chatting which is impossible to be understood without
a pejorative sense), Lévinas‘s elevated and ceremonious concept of dialogue on the
other side threatens, at least seen from everyday communication, to dive into a
mysticism incomprehensible for the discursive mind. For Heidegger, my death
(Heidegger‘s concept of Dasein is simply an alternative name for the first person
singular personal pronoun), while for Lévinas, the death of the Other means a
starting point and at the same time the ultimate point of reference as well. Lévinas is
of course consistent in his own way, for to his mind the ultimate basis of the I-
identity must be sought outside the limits of the I: in the Other or in You. Lévinas‘s
concept must be understood as a kind of reverse intentionality: that is to say, it is not
I who looks at the Other, but the Other looks at me, as if ―I myself am seen in the
1
Ibid., 172.
2
Ibid., 94.
3
Emmanuel Lévinas, Entre-Nous – Essais sur le penser-l‘autre (Paris: Grasset, 2000), 126.
198
face of the Other.‖1 This is why Király‘s conclusion that all this applied to the
problem of death means in Lévinas‘s case that the death of the Other actually belong
more to me than my own death.2 István Király V. sees this view again as the well-
known over-moralized return of the problem of death. It is true, Lévinas himself
often claimed that for him ethics preceded ontology. But it must also be observed
that Lévinas has a very specific way of interpreting the ethical dimension. It is well
known that almost all modern conceptions of moral philosophy starts from the
symmetric relation of moral subjects. But Lévinas builds on the radical asymmetry
of the I-You-relation. Several serious difficulties emerge however from this
asymmetry, first of all that the I becomes a hostage (otage) and victim (sacrifié) or
defendant of the You. The vulnerability of the I is fulfilled on looking at the masque-
like face of the dead You, since from that time on it can no longer expect any
―external‖ help to define its own identity. But is it possible at all to build a
discursive ethics on such an unusual semantic foundation? For in this peculiar
linguistic world the spontaneity and activity of the I exhausts in that it allows itself
to be absorbed by the demand of the You (the Other). This is how Georg Römpp
argues against Lévinas: ―A relationship can only be called ethical if the demand in it
is formulated as a must coming from the Other in which the submissive party
actually submits to its own freedom, and not the suffocating compulsion deriving
from becoming the Other‘s hostage.‖3 But perhaps this dilemma can be somewhat
dissolved, claims Király, if we do not exclude an interpretation of Lévinas‘s texts
which suggest that he might also speak about the fact that ―(...) in the first place,
death should be thought of precisely with reference to ourselves‖.4 Nevertheless, the
Transylvanian philosopher is merciless, for he is very quick to reject this option. He
claims: amidst the worrisome and responsible care for the death of the Other (and
every ―Other‖) ―(...) the problematization and acceptance of One‘s own, Our own
death is actually, always and permanently unrecognized!‖5 I suspect: some of those
who will face these ―ruthlessly consistent‖ thoughts of Király may accuse him of
―ontological autism‖. I ask them: please don‘t! For the author does not want to be
the prophet of the nowadays trendy ideology of ―self-caring society‖, and does not
want to urge ―everybody to care for themselves‖ so everything is settled. Király‘s
radical programme of the ―self-centring‖ of death is preserved for an outstanding
event (happening) which must not be generalized since the facticity of death owes its
ontological privilege to precisely the fact that it stubbornly resists any attempt of
generalization.
With all the resoluteness that Király holds on to the exclusive ―authenticity‖
of Heidegger‘s death interpretation, it must be seen nonetheless that there are many
1
Cf. Emmanuel Lévinas, Teljesség és végtelen (Fullness and infinity), trans. László Tarnay
(Pécs: Jelenkor, 1999), 161–162, and Étienne Feron, De l‘idée de transcendance à la
question du langage (Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 1992), 39.
2
Cf. Király, Halandóan… 95.
3
Georg Römpp, ―Verantwortung als Obsession? Kritische Anmerkungen zu Lévinas‘
Philosophie des Subjekts,‖ Theologie und Philosophie 4 (1999): 544.
4
Király, Halandóan…, 99.
5
Ibid., 100.
199
other conceptions as well, opposing Heidegger‘s. Lévinas has just been mentioned.
But Nikolai Berdyaev or Jean-Paul Sartre are also harsh critics of Heidegger‘s
views. Berdyaev says that ―Death is an insanity which derives from ordinariness.
The everyday consciousness approaches death with the sense of the paradoxical and
irrational. This rationalization as social everyday in its ultimate consequences is
eager to forget about death, shut people away from it, buries the dead almost
unnoticed... The victorious spirit in everyday life is that which opposes the Christian
prayer that we must preserve the memory of our dead. In this respect the civilized
man is deep below the ancient Egyptians. The paradox of death is not only ethical,
but it also takes on the form of aesthetic expression. Death is the extreme form of
ugliness, of deformity. Falling apart, losing the face, the complexion, and the regard
is in fact the victory of the inferior material world. But death is at the same time also
beautiful, it may become the ultimate dignity of mortals (...) The moment will come
when it becomes more beautiful and harmonious in its ultimate tranquillity than it
was as a living being.‖1 Of course, Berdyaev‘s religious personalism rejects death,
and calls man to defeat it. The categorical imperative of the personalist activism
revolting against the new, objective world order goes as follows: act so that you
assist at all times the defeat of death and the attainment of eternal life in your
relation with your fellow beings. Berdyaev thinks that love is the force which can
defeat even death. He writes in his philosophical biography: ―Thinking of myself, I
arrive to the conclusion that I am mobilized by the revolt against objectivation, the
revolt against the objectivation of reason, life and death, religion and values. (...)
Christ defeated death. This victory was accomplished in the subject, that is, in the
true primary life and primary reality. The objectivation of this victory is nothing else
than making it comprehensible for an average consciousness. (...) However, I am not
satisfied with the purely spiritualistic conception of the immortality of the soul, just
as I am not with the idealist teaching about the immortality of the universal spiritual
force.‖2 For Berdyaev the acceptance of the finiteness of being would equal the
capitulation before the rule of things. Undoubtedly, says the Russian philosopher,
they we can only break out of the world of average ordinariness if the authentic life
undertakes also the defeat of the laws of the material world, or at least never gives
up the hope of victory.
This point of view is utterly unacceptable, at least at a first sight, both for
István Király V. and Martin Heidegger. For both of them stand at the position of
radical confrontation with radical finiteness. For them, the ―true domain‖ of the fight
1
Berdyaev, O naznacsenyije… 272.
2
Nikolai Berdyaev, Önmegismerés (Self-knowledge), trans. Gyula Gasparics és Erzsébet
Kovács (Budapest: Európa Kiadó, 2002), 402–403. Berdyaev stronly believed in the
demiurgic and emancipatory power of love. This aspect is the direct continuation of Vladimir
Solovyov‘s ―erotomane‖ views: ―Death is unacceptable even for the last, most deplorable
creature, and if we didn‘t strive to defeat it in our relation to it, then the world could not be
justified, and actually could not be accepted. Everything and everyone must be resurrected
for eternal life. This means that the ontological principle of eternal life must be enforced not
only in our relations to human being, but also in animals, plants, or what is more: even in
objects. Man must act as a life-giver always and in his relation to everyone, and must be able
to light the creative energy of eternal life.‖ Berdyaev, O naznacsenije…273.
200
against death is where death happens as one‘s absolutely own death, and this fact
(which is at the same time an artefact1) makes also possible – or enables through
itself – the almost incommunicable, authentic interpretation of death.2 Facticity and
hermeneutics are almost inextricably linked in Király‘s metaphysics of death. It
remains a question still: is it not so that the authentic fact of dying (which is also an
interpretation of death), even if uncommunicable, is distinguished from inauthentic
death (and interpretation of death) by the fact that the former version did defeat
death after all? And if the light has been born once, why could it not be born again?
Finally, Jean-Paul Sartre‘s understanding of death, which again disputes
Heidegger‘s ―domestication of death‖, is also worth looking at. According to Sartre,
it is impossible to relate to death in a non-subjective way, since every manifestation
of man necessarily bears the signs of anthropomorphism. Furthermore, and this
argument is addressed distinctly to Heidegger: in fact every human activity is
individual and unassignable, not only the facticity of death: ―Nobody can love
instead of me, meaning that he cannot make the vows which are my vows,
experience the emotions (however trivial) which are my emotions‖ (―Nul ne peut
aimer pour moi, si l‘on entend par là faire ses serments qui sont mes serments,
éprouver les émotions (si banales soient-elles), qui sont mes émotions‖)3 It can be
objected of course that the missed love can perhaps be replaced even in the case of
the same person or another one, while the missed or false (that is: ―inauthentic‖)
death is actually unrepeatable. However, one may reply that my betrayal (let us think
of historically tense situations) is also unreplaceable in the sense that nobody can
take over my responsibility. In Sartre‘s opinion it is the unrepeatable and
unreplaceable situatedness that belongs to the Dasein‘s ―always mine‖ nature, and
not the external and absurd facticity of death. What is more, modern mass wars
mostly prove that man can die practically instead of anyone else, for he is nothing
but a statistical data in the calculations of military strategies. (Naturally, as we have
seen earlier, for Heidegger and Király this kind of death is not even a true death,
much rather merely a ―destruction‖. Such an approach would definitely be
acceptable, although I must repeat the formerly asked question: how can one make
any difference between an authentic and inauthentic death from the external
perspective of an observer?) Furthermore, the time management connected to death
also seems almost like a impossible endeavour, says Sartre, since I cannot wait for
death as for my friend Peter coming with the night train. Death is not the single most
1
For Heidegger, the ―ability of being‖ of the existence running forth to death means at the
same time ―being‖ and ―reflection on being‖, thus it comprises both the ontological and the
epistemic level. ―However, to project oneself on one‘s ownmost ability-of-being means: to
be able to understand oneself in the being of a so revealed being: to exist. Running forth
proves to be the possibility of the understanding of one‘s ownmost and ultimate ability-of-
being, that is, the possibility of actual existence.‖ (―Auf eigenstes Seinkönnen sich entwefen
aber besagt: sich selbst verstehen können im Sein des so enthüllten Seieneden: existieren.
Das Vorlaufen erweist sich als Möglichkeit des Vertsehens des eigensten äuβersten
Seinkönnens, das heiβt als Möglichkeit eigentlicher Existenz‖). Heidegger, Sein und Zeit,
262–263.
2
Cf. Király, Halandóan…43.
3
Jean-Paul Sartre, L‘être et le néant (Paris: Gallimard, 1943), 579.
201
promising possibility of man, on the contrary: it is the annihilation of all my further

possibilities. ―Death means the victory of the other‘s point of view over the point of
view that I am myself‖ (―[…] elle est le triomphe du point de vue d‘autrui, sur le
point de vue que je sui moi-même‖)1 Death is the lack of meaning, a kind of anti-
hermeneutics, claims Sartre, which resists any kind of metaphysical domestication.
Another important ―field of research‖ of István Király V. is the problem of
freedom and the virtually unrejectable ―compulsion of questioning‖ deriving from the
deeper meanings of freedom. That is to say, in the author‘s view living in freedom
means nothing else than never giving up the right to questioning. (The term ―right‖ is
not used in the usual formal-legal sense, but meaning that man recognizes himself
precisely in the ontological situation of being questionable and problematic, compelled
to question.) The author actually warns us, with the implication of the most varied
digressions of the history of ideas, epistemology, language theory and logic, to take
seriously the original programme of European philosophy: that every philosophical
experiment that takes itself seriously unfolds in the dynamic force field of the
connection to, and the delimitation from, tradition. This means that freedom comprises
the right of both preservation and change, naturally without the possibility to decide,
in the name of some a priori hierarchy, which freedom is ―more original‖.2 ―Actually,
one of the most important roles and missions of philosophy with respect to factic life
is precisely to make questionable that what is never a question in its direct actuality
and generality for the lively factic life. No tradition or bequeath becomes questionable
just ―by itself‖. It might only become extinct.‖3 Király analyses the hermeneutical
problems of freedom, emancipation and openness primarily with a focus on the works
of Heidegger and Gadamer. It is therefore natural that the author always finds a close
relationship between the necessarily ―language-based‖ nature of freedom, questioning
and the human world. Rethinking Gadamer‘s thesis, Király stresses that man, deriving
from his environmental openness, has some kind of autonomy from names, since he is
free to ―practice his linguistic abilities in various ways‖, but since language exists in
its practical realizations (firstly in discussion), this freedom can always only acquire its
historically possible forms in the context of cultural tradition. This way the problem of
tradition, freedom and language, despite the undeniable conflicts between these, is
only worth analysing in the dimension of ―co-original belonging together‖.4 Tradition
is always problematic; language is condition and limitation at the same time, since the
unhindered dialogues that make tradition questionable always have the take into
account that they will once also become part of tradition, and paradoxically it is
always precisely the successful dialogues which have to face this fate.
István Király‘s third volume, the Question-points, investigates the problem
of the genetic belonging together of history, death and freedom. There is no history
1
Ibid., 585. What is more, by my death, after my death I will be completely at the mercy of
the interpretive power of future generations, since from now on they say who I was (am), and
I am not able to defend myself. Cf. Marc Crepon, Vivre avec – La pensée de la guerres et la
mémoire des guerres (Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2008), 56–57.
2
Cf. Király, Kérdő… 100.
3
Ibid., 122.
4
Ibid., 109.
202
without death! This is basically the main thread of the author. This statement would
of course be difficult to refute. So they say, the ancient Greeks had no philosophy of
history for their cyclic conception of the world based on reincarnation had no
concept of the dramatic nature of history (Berdyaev).1 Temporality, death-related
existence and historicity belong together not only in a conceptual, but also in an
ontological sense, claims Király. Or, in other words, history and death belong
together in a co-original way, for it is only the finite being, and the reflection on the
finite being which is able to create history, and inhabit it in an understanding way.
The historians‘ work is paradoxical, inasmuch as they do their work against death,
and at the same time as a parasite of death. ―Historiography, the historian‘s work is
therefore something which in its essence – that is, athematically, independently from
the analyzed theme – is forced and tries to turn death, by death and against death,
towards a summarizing or analytical knowledge of the past, primarily addressed to
the present (but probably also referring to the future).‖2 What is most often
unrecognized in historical works, claims Király, is precisely that the historian/
questioner does not take it into account that he is himself part of history, so that the
stories of the past did not simply become past, but become ―concluded facts‖ by the
cooperative surplus of historical memory. The past is not a simple givenness for
the present, but a task which becomes real past, that is, history as a simultaneous
realization of the radical finiteness (mortality) and obligatory freedom of those who
remember in the present.
The other main ―question‖ of Kérdés-pontok is about human freedom.
According to Király – formulated with some simplification – the essence of human
freedom lies in the fact that the man never ceases the ask questions about the finiteness
of human existence. The primary concerns of the author are not the free will or the
possibilities/impossibility to confront natural-causal determinations, but the ways and
directions of the ―problematization of being‖. ―The actual meaning of freedom, human
freedom (...). Ultimately, the question and questioning of being itself, opening to
beings and the being always in search for meaning.‖3 It is obvious that the author is
not so much concerned with the successfulness of questioning; his primary interest is
always the steadiness and persistence of questioning. Király considers that to question
the dying, the freedom, the finiteness and weight of being is in itself a value that must
be an acceptable accomplishment almost regardless of the answer. What is truly
important for him, can be summarized in the following thesis or imperative: ―It is only
important that the co-original belonging together of death, freedom and history must
not be lost, since this is only which gives real weight to the questions of the
1
Aron Gurevich says: ―The ancient Greeks contemplated and experienced the world not
through the categories of change and development, but either as a state of immobility or a
rotation on a huge circular track. The events happening in the world are not singular: the
alternating ages repeat, the people and phenomena of times past return after the end of the
―great year‖, the Pythagorean era.‖ Aron Gurevich, Időképzetek a középkori Európában
(Concepts of time in medieval Europe), In Történelem és filozófia (History and philosophy),
ed. Tibor Huszár, trans. Csaba Könczöl (Budapest: Gondolat, 1974), 36.
2
Király, Kérdés-pontok… 65.
3
Ibid., 200.
203
questioner.‖ This stance lies at the basis of the author‘s very serious treatment of the
current problems of the teaching of philosophy. In the context of modern university
mass education, there is even greater risk that philosophy is instrumentalized, that is to
say, by the logic of capitalist market economy it is reduced to a mere marketable
commodity. ―Chair philosophy‖ degrades thinking to a simple subject (and a course),
therefore it, as a ―philosophical thing‖, unproblematically integrates into the
comfortably manageable world of technical order. Philosophy becomes thus a
corrupted surrogate of ―keeping up‖, ―alignment‖ and ―adaptation‖, giving up its
original destination. In contrast, Király insists on the original intention of philosophy:
to be the primary stage and forum of freedom. Therefore: ―(...) philosophy can only
be taught by philosophizing even at university level, regardless of the fact that the
direct audience – the students – would want to invest their scholarships or tuition
fees for “philosophy itself” or exchange it for other horizons
(“instrumentalization”).‖1 The addressee of real philosophy is the autonomous
individual, just as he is the perpetuator of philosophical tradition. For this reason any
person seriously dealing with philosophy must also take into account that sooner or
later he/she will be regarded as an uncomfortable, or even directly suspicious person.
As a summary to the problem of death, I only wish to mention: István V.
Király‘s works are also afflicted by their chosen subject: the questions asked by the
author imply further questions, and challenge the reader to further questioning. I
suspect this is not at all contrary to the author‘s intentions.
***
In addition to the existential philosophical meaning of death, Király has been

concerned in recent years with the problem of illness as a particular possibility of
being.2 The author clarifies in the introduction to his book that illness for him is a sui
generis philosophical problem. This is of course and acceptable viewpoint in case of
work of philosophy; I, nevertheless – taking on the role of the devil‘s advocate –
start the analysis of the mentioned work with the sociological aspect, and try to
reiterate Király‘s position returning from there.
In relation to the sociological interpretation of the ill body, Christine Detrez
speaks about the fact that in English the semantic field of ―ill health‖ is described by
three, semantically well differentiated notions: disease means the biological
(pathological) changes of the body; illness the person‘s subjective feeling unwell;
and sickness refers to the social construct of illness (meaning the person who is
considered ill by the environment, or by medical power).3 In a sociological
interpretation, illness has a particular geography and history, which may take on the
most varied forms of value and representation. All this clearly indicates that illness
1
Ibid., 216.
2
István Király V., A betegség – az élő létlehetősége. Prolegoména az emberi betegség
filozófiájához. Részletes angol nyelvű összefoglalóval / Illness – A Possibility of the Living
Being. Prolegomenae to the Philosophy of Human Illness. A Detailed English Summary,
trans. Emese G. Czintos (Pozsony [Bratislava]: Kalligram, 2011).
3
Christine Detrez, La construction sociale du corps (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2002), 100.
204
cannot be reduced merely to the biological sphere even from the point of view of
sociology, because the problem of illness versus health has several social and
community aspects which are ―outside‖ the fundamental-ontological or existential
interpretive framework used by Király; however, the sociological approach can be
regarded as the entrance hall to the problem of illness conceived as a fundamental
existential problem.
Approaching the problem of illness starting from history, it can be stated
with considerable certainty that people had been thinking for a long time – and to a
certain degree still think – about health as the ―lack of body‖: if I am healthy, I
hardly notice I have a body. (Psychological illnesses in the current sense hardly
existed before the birth of modern psychology). The ―silence of the body‖
guaranteed health. In the twentieth century the X-ray revealed the traces of illness
even on a seemingly healthy body, for instance the signs of tuberculosis on the
lungs, like in the case of the protagonist of Thomas Mann‘s novel The Magic
Mountain, who arrived to the sanatorium as a healthy man for a simple medical
check-up, and remained there as an ill man.1 Moreover, one cannot disregard the
change of concept that nowadays it means more or something else to be healthy than
simply not to be ill. In other words in the cultural milieu of late capitalism it is not
enough to define illness merely with the help of privation, but health also contains
such positive determinations like saying that someone is ―fit‖, ―agile‖, ―impulsive‖,
―full of vitality‖, etc. In this sense being healthy is not a state but a task that one
must prove day after day in a way visible for the environment.
Király‘s starting point builds on that evidence of the life world that illness is
―(...) an actually universal and necessary experience‖2 of all human existence. For
hardly is there any person who has never met any kind of illness in their lifetime.3 We
cannot be exonerated from accepting illness, or rather the existential consequences of
illness. In spite of this, the history of philosophy most often offers examples for how
the majority of thinkers analyzed the strategies to avoid illness, while the problem of
facing illness was neglected. However, an existentially committed philosophy cannot
leave ―unthematized‖ this question, for, in the author‘s words: ―The fundamental task
and mission of philosophy stands precisely in the currently possible philosophical
exhibition of precisely these directions or detours.‖4
But the endeavour to interpret the problem of illness solely through the
―purely positive‖ definition of health is also debatable. For in this understanding
―being healthy‖ is identical in fact with living in total mental harmony with
ourselves. Or, as the author puts it: with the state of social satisfaction and ―well-
being‖. This kind of approach does not only lead the problem of illness astray, but
1
Ibid., 112.
2
Király, A betegség…, 13.
3
It cannot be excluded of course that there were and are people who lived their life in
complete health and then ended it with a sudden death. But as Bernard Andrieu warns, aging
is an ―undesired fatality‖ which we might perhaps delay for a while, but cannot avoid. And
aging is itself a specific sort of illness. See Bernard Andrieu, La nouvelle philosophie du
corps (Ramonville Saint-Agne: Éditions Érès, 2002), 145.
4
Király, A betegség…, 16
205
also identifies, without any further ado, health with happiness. This interpretation
preserves of course something of the interpretation of illness as the opposite (or
relational term) of health, ―but – says Király – in such a way that meanwhile it
obscures the essential relation between health and illness.‖1
However, one must also face that fact that philosophy cannot undertake the
task to come up with a compact, all-inclusive and comprehensive definition of
illness. What philosophy can do is that it consciously deals with the fact that illness
is a possibility organically (literally and metaphorically) pertaining to human
existence. A possibility which – in case of its successful realization – points beyond
itself because, perspectively, it promises to grasp and understand the entirety of
human existence. It is also true, the author acknowledges, that a philosophical
approach cannot fully eliminate the biological, medical and sociological terminology
from the analysis of the problem of illness. To formulate more clearly: Király knows
and respects the endeavours that analyze the discourse of illness/health from the
perspective of medical power or biopolitics. Still, he does not wish to pursue the
path of Foucault or Canguilhem, but asks the existential questions of human
existence, and precisely in connection with illness. He is interested in finding out
what lies behind the fact that ―(...) the human being experiences, reveals and records
illness continuously, actually, existentially always as a possibility, a particular
possibility pertaining to the essence of life, and also relates to it this way.‖2 In
addition to this, a philosophy that thematizes illness does not only want to reveal,
through the phenomenon of illness, the possibility of human life, but the living
being‘s possibility of being and the possibility of living-being.
It is a further question to ask what one means by the term of possibility. The
concept of possibility and contingency usually means that something is not
necessary, but neither it is impossible. The author mentions another interpretation
that he calls popular: that possibility stands close to the concept of probability.
Probability is usually understood as a mathematical probability which can be
calculated and expressed in numbers. The author accepts neither of the two above
interpretations, but chooses an ontological approach: ―the possibility of illness
pertains to life itself and – evidently in a particular way – also to human life, to
human existence.‖3
However, Király‘s reflections do not exclude completely the aspects of
cultural and science history. The excursus entitled Schematic considerations about the
problematic issues of ―Christian medicine‖ and ―Christian healing‖ is a good
example for such analyses. The author starts from the historical fact that the Christian
Middle Ages faced a almost unsolvable dilemma or series of dilemmas when it tried to
introduce the phenomenon of illness into its worldview. First, it considered all
illnesses as a consequence of the original sin, from a twofold perspective: first, the
divine punishment afflicted the human race in general with all kinds of illnesses and
epidemics, and second, it ―punished‖ every person in particular, based on their sins,
with individual and specific forms of illnesses. Király very wittily argues that the
1
Ibid., 20.
2
Ibid., 23.
3
Ibid., 25.
206
medieval man saw the possibility of ―ontological difference‖ accomplished by divine

providence in the endless, individualized variations of illnesses and the suffering they
caused. This meant, he continues, that, ―if (...) we give a serious thought to it, it looks
very questionable whether the human-medical efforts to confront and heal these divine
punishments called illnesses count indeed as respectable human endeavours
―corresponding‖ to the divine intentions and destinations?‖1 Based on those above,
one can rightly say that the medieval theological and philosophical medicine did not
heal in the strict sense of the word, but rather only relieved the pain or offered
consolation, and trusted the divine mercy and miracle. The author is right to say that
medieval medicine actually hindered the development of ancient (Mesopotamian,
Greek, Latin, Jewish etc.) medicine because the practice it exercised was caretaking
rather than healing. As Király himself mentions, this kind of quasi-medicine lived well
into the Late Middle Ages (let us only think of the French kings healing by laying on
their hands), but there are such practices even today, for instance in the primarily
American neo-Protestant churches the bizarre manifestations of ―healing procedures
appearing in collective prayer‖.
Therefore, however harsh the author‘s judgment may be, Christian medicine
is an essential contradiction.2 This is of course not to say that the medieval ―medical
culture‖ may not have tried to canonize some ancient physicians possibly considered
―monotheistic‖ (e.g. Galen), but this was only enough to create a medical paradigm
which ruled for almost a millennium almost without ever being questioned.
The aforementioned methods of healing also delimited the possible
boundaries of medical discourse. It is extraordinarily interesting how Király
analyzes the etymology of the Hungarian word ―orvos‖ (medical doctor). The author
thinks that ―(...) [the Hungarian] word ―orvos‖ understands illness as a depriving,
sneaking force, effect, action or process which is treacherous and insidious.‖3
(I myself consider that medical power has preserved something of this
demonic or shaman-like tradition to this day. Neil Postman in his bestseller published
more than two decades ago presents a strange variation of medical power that
appeared in the 19th century. The story is connected to the invention of the
stethoscope. This nowadays very ordinary instrument was invented by the French
doctor René- Théophile-Hyacinthe Laënnec in 1816. One time he wanted to auscult
the heart of an elderly and quite corpulent female patient, but the lady refused to have
the doctor‘s ear pressed against her chest, therefore Laënnec thought of rolling a piece
of thicker paper into some sort of tube-like shape and auscult the woman‘s heart with
this instrument. The idea worked brilliantly and from then on other parts of the body
could also be ―looked‖, or rather listened at. The stethoscope (the meaning of the
Greek word: ―I see in the chest‖) has then become the symbol of internists. In England
for instance internists walked on the street with a stethoscope near their top hat so that
everybody saw they were not just any kind of doctor but an internist.4)
1
Ibid., 27.
2
Ibid., 29.
3
Ibid., 31.
4
See Neil Postman, Das Technopol. Die Macht der Technologien und die Entmündigung der
Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am Main: S. Ficher Verlag 1992), 107–108. Trans. Reinhart Kaiser;
Original: Technopoly (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 1991.
207
This digression into medical and cultural history is especially important,

claims the author, by clearly stating the necessity to return to the original starting
point. In this sense illness is not a violent force breaking into a healthy person‘s life
from outside, but a possibility of the living being. This is of course not opposed to the
evidence that ―(...) the norm, the normality of the living being is still to be healthy.‖1
Health perceived this way is therefore not a static state given once and for all, but a
kind of battleground where illness may appear any time for illness itself belongs to the
essential possibilities of the ill person. Therefore it is very difficult to draw a distinct
line between health and illness, as shown by the life of viruses and parasites.
The chapter entitled Dialogue with Aristotle deepens the analysis of the
problem of illness. In order to see and understand illness as a particular possibility of
being in its philosophical complexity, it is indispensable to reiterate the categorial
analyses in Aristotle‘s Metaphysics. Most importantly, the author talks about the
necessity of the complex analysis of the concepts of dynamis, energeia, entelechia,
and physis as concepts of possibility interpretable in new dimensions. This
procedure is all the more justifiable as Aristotle himself interprets possibility first of
all in the semantic field of dynamis. The word dynamis contains the most varied
versions of the meaning of ―possessing force‖, ―having power‖. At the same time the
dynamis also connects to the essence (ousia), for it is ―(...) precisely because it is the
dynamis, the possibility which penetrates the ousia, the essence, and its entirety, its
complexity, its richness, and all its sides, even the dark ones.‖2 Any kind of change
is the actualization of the dynamis, which is at the same time energeia. On the other
hand, claims the author, movement itself is none other than dynamis, that is, the
actualization of possibility(ies). ―That is: energeia. Thus the force now actually at
work and functioning‖.3 However, the dynamis appears not only as positive activity,
but also has a kind of negative activity: it possesses the ability of passivity or that of
bearing. However we may look at it: energeia is the force appearing in
―actualization‖, in functioning. Energeia and actualitas do not only distance
themselves in dynamis but also lean back to it.
For the understanding of the content of activity, it seems especially
important to analyse another fundamental category of Aristotle. This is the
entelecheia, of which the author says the following: ―The entelecheia is one of
Aristotle‘s most wonderful ideas and words. Maybe he coined it himself to see and
name as accomplishment the movements and changes of things and processes and
the essential function – that is, telos meant not only as ―purpose‖ – of human
activities connected to these, first in the contradictory and indefinite tensions of the
colourful dynamis, then in the explicit functioning of the energeia.‖4 Man however
has a special purpose and function: namely, that within and also beyond the
possibilities offered by the physis he may develop his existential historical
possibilities and create a so-to-say physis ―beyond physis‖. For the ―task‖ of the
1
Király, A betegség…, 36.
2
Ibid., 43.
3
Ibid., 44.
4
Ibid., 61–62.
208
human being is primarily to ask, investigate and shape its own historically given but
unfinished (open horizon) modes of being.
One of these modes of being – and precisely one of the most special modes
of being because of its painful or suffering forms of appearance – is the one
burdened with illnesses. ―Illness itself is primarily, in its primary relation to the
privation, damaging or deficiency of health, but as such, it is still an essential
possession, its own ―positive‖ property (ousia) and not just some external ―attribute‖
of the ill person.‖1 The lack (steresis), the privation from something does not simply
appear here as emptiness, for it has a constructive role. It appears as a very
―energetic‖ activity which damages, impairs health. This is why Király is right to
claim that in the relation health versus illness: ―the ousia of illness and health is the
same, for both are essential possibilities of the same being.‖2 Therefore the state of
recovered health after illness is not merely the restoration of a previous state but the
act of the birth of a different kind of health.
Illness is of course not only present in the mode of the being of the living in
its actualized form, but as a danger or threat permanently lurking in the background.
This fear is an experience with the ―structure of challenge and trial‖. Illness as
deficiency is woven into the multitude of human modes of being. That is to say, it is
both a challenge and a possibility for medicine, health care, humanities culture,
religious, literature, and various everyday activities. If for no other reason,
deficiencies therefore cannot be described as mere lack, or empty negativeness.
It is a fact that the illness radically rearranges and restricts the ill person‘s
being-in-the-world, but – paradoxically – opens ways to new possibilities of action
and interpretation. The incurable diseases and devastating epidemics yield to
possibility both for the ill person and their environment – precisely for the reason of
deficiency – to reveal the ―previously concealed‖ aspects of being. As the author
puts it: ―and it may suffice to refer here to the lengthy and repeated, let‘s say,
medieval epidemics of plague and smallpox. Which at that time could not be either
stopped or healed, and which therefore restructured mankind both immunologically
and biologically.‖3
The understanding of health as deficiency also offers a possibility to reveal
the real existential relations of health, for ―health must be reclaimed from illness.‖
However, we must also see, claims the author, that illness is a sign of special
importance: it warns us that we are mortal! Just like in his works treating death and
mortality, Király emphasizes again: ―For the so-called ‗immortals‘ however neither
illnesses and suffering, nor their easing, healing or caretaking etc. may have any
kind of stake or significance.‖4
These recognitions drive us almost as a necessity to the philosophical
thematization of the relation of illness and freedom. In a first approach we can say
that illness robs the healthy person for it ―deprives‖ him of precisely one of his most
important assets. A more thorough reflection however point way beyond this
1
Ibid., 68.
2
Ibid., 71.
3
Ibid., 84.
4
Ibid., 92.
209
ordinary obviousness – says the author. It is worth starting from the fact that the
essence of freedom is questioning, or rather the ability or gift of ―questioning well‖.
But no ―subject‖ is more prone to questioning or ―curiosity‖ than illness. An ill
person does nothing else – at least at the beginning – than asks questions. (Why did
it happen to me, what have I done wrong to bear this terrible suffering, etc.) But, as
seen above, it is not all the same what questions we ask and what kind of meaningful
answers we expect. For instance, we can by no means regard freedom as a medicine
giving solace to the ill person. Such an interpretation ―would be unworthy of the
case, its existential weight and of philosophy itself.‖1 It seems like a much more
productive approach to stars – partly based on Gadamer – from the question-
structure of the experience of illness (as a fundamental experience of being).
Because the understanding of the world with the help of questions is also self-
understanding. And it is not in need of painful instances. ―This is why Gadamer
claims with Aeschylus so nicely that experience is actually nothing else than
learning at the expense of suffering.‖2 For where man is successful in questioning
well, meaningfully, there freedom also appears. However surprising it may sound,
says the author, the illnesses which can indeed be regarded as human ―(...) actually
are only possible in the all-time horizons, ontologically constitutive and existentially
world-like, of human freedom.‖3 That is to say, the questions directed to the ill
person and his illness are never merely questions directed at a specific ―illness-
object‖. The case is much rather the curiosity regarding the essential possibilities of
human existence, and dwelling on the nature of existential threats. Caring about
illness does not only aim at the avoidance or prevention of illness, and it is not
merely about listing the losses caused by the illness, ―(...) but about what resources
does [the ill person] have meanwhile (...) and the struggle of his world and
―environment‖ with the illness, rearticulated and re-outlined in this situatedness...‖4
This way the suffering is not merely a ―pathos‖ understood in the sense of passivity,
but an active and acting experience. For the same reason one must not see illness
merely as the ill person‘s deprivation from freedom (although that too), but as the
creation of new horizons of experience enabled by the restructured life conditions.
Therefore we can learn from illness, our illnesses. But not only how we can protect
ourselves from falling ill again (our possibilities are still very limited even today, in
an age of modern technology applied in the health care system), but to learn to find
and then esteem the true values of life. Another way to formulate this is that illness
and ill people of the one hand, and the world on the other are complementary
notions. For ―(...) the world does not really exists ‗without‘ illnesses and ill people.‖5
To SERIOUSLY examine illness and illnesses primarily means: to enrol into the
basic course of the understanding of being. For illness, and suffering and learning
from it, is the primary way for anyone to test what he is actually capable of...
1
Ibid., 103.
2
Ibid., 104–105.
3
Ibid., 109.
4
Ibid., 111.
5
Ibid., 116.
210
As a final conclusion, Király‘s insight in the concluding sentences of his

book is: ―Every illness has its own dynamis on the one hand, while on the other hand
every illness is the ill person‘s illness (...) it is individual and singular. That is why I
argued that it could possibly still be able and meaningful to philosophically examine
various illnesses to a certain degree, which always presupposes – or would
presuppose – an essential, ontological and existential, clarifying insight on them. As
a result of which we would then better understand our being, our modes of being,
and consequently our illnesses and the free meanings of life inevitably connected to
them. And as a result, also our existence as humans.‖1
1
Ibid., 126.
211
The Names of the Nothing
István KIRÁLY V.
Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj
Department of Philosophy
Keywords: Philosophy and Poetry, Hermeneutics, Linguistics, Nothing, Ontology,

Metaphysics, Anthropology, Hungarian philosophy, Philosophy
Abstract: Every discourse about the nothing seems fully and ultimately empty.
However, this cannot be true precisely because it is language – that is, discourse –
which always brings forth the nothing, the word of the ―Nothing‖. The language
therefore speaks about the nothing and perhaps also ―speaks nothing‖. In its primary
– and abstract – appearance, the nothing is precisely ―that‖ ―which‖ it is not.
However, its word is still there in the words of most languages (for we cannot know
all). What is more, since it is not, at a first sight all the nothing has is its word, its
name... and this is precisely what protrudes. But the word of the nothing utters in
language only that which has no being. That is therefore not just any kind of
negation, but the negation of being, the name of the negation of being. The
―nothing‖ is therefore the mere word of the negation of being. Which lives standing
in languages. As deeply that its translation presents no problems. The German das
Nichts can be translated unproblematically to the English nothing, the French rien or
néant, the Slavic nić, the Romanian nimic or the Hungarian semmi, etc. However, if
we go on deeper into the problem, it shows that, despite the unproblematic
translation, being and (its) negation articulates in different ways in the names of the
nothing. The writing analyses this in detail, with special emphasis of the Hungarian
word of Nothing [Semmi]. It concludes by initiating a philosophical dialogue with a
poem of Attila József.
E-mail: kiraly_philobib@yahoo.com
Every discourse about the nothing seems fully and ultimately empty. However,
this cannot be true precisely because it is language – that is, discourse – which always
brings forth the nothing, the word of the ―Nothing‖. The language therefore speaks
about the nothing and perhaps also ―speaks [the language of] nothing‖.
It is a question, however, whether the language does indeed think about the
nothing?
In its primary – and abstract – appearance, the nothing is precisely ―that‖
―which‖ it is not. However, its word is still there in the words of most languages
(for we cannot know all). What is more, since it is not, at a first sight all the nothing
has is its word, its name... and this is precisely what protrudes.
It is in fact that word or name of the nothing which most directly stands
before us and – as we also utter it – within us. So the word of the nothing explicitly
212
is the not a contingent, but precisely a necessary subject and field of the outspoken
and questioning thinking about it. Which awaits consideration.
However, to consider the words of the nothing may mean nothing else than
thinking into these words. For, I repeat, the only ―nothing‖ that is problematic – at
least for now – stands in front of us only and exclusively as a mere word. We can
only say – perhaps – what its significance and importance in our languages is ―after‖
thorough consideration. So we can only understand the various directions of the
meaning of the dictionary word. Not the other way round.
But: the name of the nothing only utters in language that which has no
being. It is therefore not just any kind of negation, but the word or name of the
negation of being. This is how Hegel could find that – as concepts – the Nothing and
the Being are identical. With this, however, the nothing as a concept is exhausted
and it disappears, and what remains as its precedent is only and exclusively the word
of the nothing. For the work, the name precedes the concepts (and Hegel of course).
So the fact that the nothing disappears in its concept, is merely one more
reason or basis to take seriously its word or words! For what is ―here‖ most directly
is the language which utters it, the speaker, and the nothing as a word that the
speaker speaks. These are not ―concepts‖ but – rather – experiences, which witness
the togetherness of language, speaker and the nothing and – as we shall see – also
articulate it. Because the ―unutterable‖ can have nothing to do with it. For it is
uttered, it is expressed.
The nothing as utterance is a mere word. As a concept, it is empty with
existential tension (Hegel), for it is connected to being – as a concept – precisely by
negation, precisely by the negation of being. And vice versa... This is why it cannot
be avoided in the course of thinking about being, the human being, and existence,
for it is not a contingency, but a law-enforced possibility which thus has a huge
impact. For it may be – or perhaps it is certain – that the being constituted in
questions of meaning may lose its existence in time... so this belongs to being itself
and the being of the ―speaker‖ as well.
The discourse of the ―speaker‖ is the language or languages. It is in
language that the speakers utter the words of the nothing. Therefore the words of the
nothing are just as special and historical as the utterers themselves. This is how these
(the words of the nothing) belong to, or rather constitute, articulate the history of
being, in the language.
The ―nothing‖ is therefore the mere word of the negation of being. Which
lives standing in languages. As deeply that its translation presents no problems. The
German das Nichts can be translated unproblematically to the English nothing, the
French rien or néant, the Slavic nić, the Romanian nimic or the Hungarian semmi,
etc. However, if we go on deeper into the problem, it shows that, despite the
unproblematic translation, being and (its) negation articulates in different ways in
the names of the nothing.
The German word of nothing is one block, one syllable: das Nichts. It was
Martin Heidegger who considered this word most deeply. The word sends, of
course, Heidegger to negation, for thinking in the horizon of the German utterance
of this word, starting from the nothing, one may consider first of all the negation
itself (das Nichts) as saying NO. Guided from this, Heidegger analyzes the series of
213
complexities of negation: negative and privative NO (steresis). Concluding that the

Nothing not only precedes, or is more original than negation, but that negation
derives from an articulately denied being – actually the Nothing, that is, a being left
inarticulate in the German language. That is why Heidegger must leave the German
language and turn to Greek, to Aristotle‘s steresis. The das Nichts negates the being
in such a way that, uttering and considering it, founds and articulates the negation
itself in the first place. But it leaves inarticulate the negated being itself.
So if we look at it abstractly, the Nothing means negation in all the words
connected to it, in all its names and in all languages: the negation of Being. Thanks
to this abstraction, the names of the Nothing can usually be translated into different
languages without problem.
However, the negation of being characterizing any name of the Nothing is
differently carried and articulated in different languages. Negation and Being are
articulated differently through the structure and utterance of these words. Therefore
we must try to consider some of these words to be able to ―join them together‖.
The Nothing is a word by which our languages express in the first place the
deficiencies and insufficiencies of our existence, the uncertainty of the ground, our
failures and destructions, and so on. And it is precisely this how the Nothing gets to
becoming a word in our languages because it is brought to utterance by the existence
of our being. Therefore, with reference to the Nothing, the aim of philosophy is not
– and cannot be – to create some kind of ―concept‖ or ―idea‖ out of its words, but
merely to penetrate and record everything by thinking which these, as words, mean
in language. The ―nothing‖ is therefore a simple word that we are compelled to utter
at any time.
Some languages express the Nothing with simple, monolithic words. As we
have seen, the German das Nichts is one of these. In other languages the word for
Nothing is a compound. Such are the English ―nothing‖, the Romanian ―nimic‖, or
the Hungarian ―semmi‖. The Latin origin ―néant‖, which expresses the Nothing as
pure non-being, the pure negation of being, is also a compound.
We must now examine how the negation and the being articulate in the
words of the Nothing in the languages accessible to us. Heidegger‘s German word
(das Nichts) takes to the negation of Being primarily through the foundation of the
NO, of negation. It negates Being by founding the negation itself by its origin. The
negated being remains in its original indeterminacy, but this is precisely how the
negation finds the being and appropriates the origin of its articulations.
In contrast, the English name of ―Nothing‖ expresses the negation of a
Being grasped and articulated in its ―thing-ness‖. Negation does not ―work‖ here
therefore in a completely inarticulate way, but the negated Being is articulated in the
English word in its ―object-like‖ quality.1
1
In his habilitation paper written on the problem of negation analyzed from the viewpoint of
functional grammatics, Peter Kahrel deduces the English term ―Nothing‖ from the concept of
negation understood as a 0 (zero) quantifier fused with an ―undetermined‖. Therefore it must be
especially emphasized as a fact indispensable to understand the word Nothing that this
―undetermined‖ is in fact always a ―thing‖. However, in the background of this superficial
understanding there is always a much deeper misunderstanding about the sui generis searching
214
Just as interesting is the French name of the Nothing: rien. Originally this
word meant precisely ―thing‖, but in the manifestation which is not the thing‘s
―own‖, in which the thing ―cannot be found‖, that is, in which it appears as negated.1
Therefore the word ―rien‖ gains its current meaning by the assimilation and
association of ―thing-ness‖ and negation, but in such a way that neither the negation
nor the ―thing-like‖ being are articulated in it, only merged together.2
The situation is completely different however when we analyze the
articulations of the Romanian term ―Nimic‖! This is also a compound, created from
―nici‖, meaning ―neither‖ and the adjective ―mic‖, meaning ―little, small‖. The
negative ―nici‖ is completely different, however, than the German ―das Nichts‖, and
different from the completely inarticulate English ―Nothing‖. For the Romanian
―nici‖ articulates the negation as a searching negation! On the other hand, the ―mic‖
denotes a kind of being diminished in a quantitative respect, thus the Romanian
―nimic‖ means precisely that no Being ―can be found‖ ―either‖ for the searcher (so
we cannot find it) that could be grasped at least in its ―smallness‖. That is: the
negation grasped in its searching nature and being and manifested as such loses its
―quality‖ of an abstract logical operation, and linguistically records its originally
existential nature. Meanwhile the Romanian ―Nimic‖, if only in its quality of
uttering a diminished quantity, articulates the being again only in its ―thing-like‖
nature. (For ultimately only the things can be really ―small‖.)
nature of the negation of the Nothing, and its connection to the negated Being. The negation
left in the void of the inarticulate undetermined and the 0 quantifier and the articulation of the
negated Being is in fact impossible to be considered. What we see here is probably just as
much the limitation and trap of the English language than the deficiency of the method. Still,
Kahrel analyzes forty words of forty languages in statistics and tables, among which also the
Romanian and Hungarian words of the Nothing. In spite of this, the negation for him is simply
a 0 quantifier! Supposedly this is why it can be ―applied‖ in an undetermined way. The
―Nothing‖ and the ―Nobody‖ (the ―body‖ articulated as human) can only be regarded just as
(differently) undetermined only in the indeterminacy of the negation. That is: just as co-
originary. But actually the ―Nothing‖ is ―closer‖ to the origin than the Nobody‖! But this can
only be achieved by the real understanding of the searching-questioning ―No‖. The ―Nobody‖
– also in Romanian, ―Nimeni‖ – means ―not somebody‖. The ―Nobody‖ contains a sending to
the searcher: where there is ―Nobody‖, there is only the one who searches (for them). But
meanwhile the horizons of searching can be ―full with things‖. However, in the NOTHING we
go beyond an undetermined ―thing-ness‖, first reaching to the WE – the searchers who do not
find –, then becoming that ―WE OURSELVES‖ who do not find precisely OUR SELVES.
Where there is ―Nobody‖, there is only the lonely searcher. Thus the ―Nobody‖ does not mean
―neither‖, but, on the contrary, it means ―alone‖. That is, the searcher of the ―neither‖ will
actually never find the ―Nothing‖ in the ―Nobody‖, only its own Self. The ―Nobody‖ is thus in
fact the only I which derives from the ―Nothing‖. See Peter Kahrel, Aspects of Negation
(Amsterdam: Akademisch Proefschrift, 1996), 30–43.
1
Albert Dauzat, Jean Dubois, and Henri Mitterand, Nouveau Dictionnaire Étimologique et
Historique (Paris, 1964).
2
Perhaps this is why French thinkers prefer to use the technical term ―Néant‖ instead of the
―rien‖, which, as all technical terms, connects mere notions merely conceptually: the Being
grasped in its conceptual inarticulation and the negation also grasped in its logical-
conceptual inarticulation.
215
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Untitled

10,8 cm x 8,5 cm, Polaroid, 2015
The Hungarian word for nothing, ―Semmi‖, also articulates negation as

originally searching. However, considering its articulation, it tells perhaps even more
than the ones previously analyzed. The Hungarian SEMMI is also a compound of ―sem‖
(here also neither) and the personal pronoun ―mi‖ (meaning ―we‖). The negative ―sem‖
expresses in fact ―neither here‖ (―sem itt‖), ―nor there‖ (―sem ott‖), ―neither then‖ (―sem
akkor‖), ―neither me‖ (―sem én‖), ―nor him/her‖ (―sem ő‖), etc. That is: I/we have
216
searched everywhere, but I/we have found nothing, nowhere, never. However much we
thought about it: the NOT to which the ―sem‖ sends is not the negating ―Not‖, nor the
depriving ―Not‖ that Heidegger revealed in the analysis of ―das Nichts‖.
The ―Not‖ in the ―sem‖ is – as we have seen – a searching Not! It says in
fact that searching, we have not found. By this, it says that the way we met, faced
and confronted the Not is actually a search. Thus the ―sem‖ places the negation in
the mode of search, and the search into the mode of Not (that is, negation).
What does all this mean in its essence? Firstly, it means that, although the
SEM is indeed a kind of search which ―flows into‖ the Not, still, as a search, it
always distinguishes itself from the not-s it faces and runs into. For searching is
never simply a repeated question, nor the repetition of a question, but a question
carried around. Therefore the SEM is always about more than the tension between
the question and the negative answer given to it. For the negation itself – the Not – is
placed into the mode of search! And reversely.
Therefore the ―sem‖ never negates the searching itself, only places and fixes
it in its deficient modes. Those in which it ―does not find‖ in any direction. This way
the SEM charges, emphasizes and outlines the Not, but, it also stimulates the search
until the exhaustion of its final emptiness. Therefore the contextually experienced
Not – that is, the SEM – is actually nothing else than an endless deficiency of an
emptied, exhausted, but not suspended search.
These ensure on the one hand the stability of the SEM, which is inclined to
hermetically close up within itself, while on the other hand they also ensure an inner
impulse for the search which, emanating from it, continues to push it to its
emptiness. And it is in the horizon of this emanating impulse that the SEM merges
with the pronoun MI, in the Hungarian name for NOTHING.
The MI in Hungarian is at the same time an interrogative pronoun and the 1st
person plural personal pronoun. Whether or not this phonetic identity is a
―coincidence‖, it conceals important speculative possibilities that should not be
overlooked. For the ―Mi‖ pronoun with the ―Sem‖ negative always says that it is
WE (Mi) who questioningly search, but find NOTHING (SEMMI). Merged in their
common space, the SEM and MI expresses that the questioners grasped in the
plurality of their searching questions, facing the meaning of the SEMMI, only
arrived at, and ran into the NOT, the negation.
In the space of its articulation the Hungarian word of the nothing offers a
deeper and more articulated consideration of what it ―expresses‖, fixing not only the
search and its – deficient – modes, but also the fact that it is always WE who search
and question, even if we cannot find ourselves in ―that‖, in the Nothing. That is to
say, the Nothing – in one of its meanings – is precisely our strangeness, foreignness
and unusualness, which belongs to our own self, and therefore all our attempts to
eliminate it from our existence will always be superfluous.
The Hungarian word of the Nothing also reveals that all this is not merely an
external negation of Being, but such which always takes part in our being and
existence. However, in order to understand it we must consider the articulation of
the various words of the Nothing.
However, it also reveals that the interrogative pronoun MI? (what?) carries
other impulses as well and sends to different directions. It mobilizes through the
217
following questions: ―MI ez?‖ (What is this?), ―MI az?‖ (What is that?), etc. Of
course the MI? question in the name of the Nothing (Semmi) always stands in the
horizon of the SEM, the searching Not. The impetus of searching therefore runs into
the wall of the NO. However, one cannot disregard, despite any fate-like negativity
– that the search of the searching NO and the question of MI? always mutually urge
and drive each other. The MI? question in SEMMI never lets our search stop
completely, no matter how negative the ―findings‖ or ―answers‖ may be (see SEM).
It is therefore not only the negation which articulates it as a searching No, but the
Being as well which carries and makes necessary this negation. The Being takes part
in this negation first by surpassing its ―thing-like‖ nature, which, however, still
belongs to ourselves as the final outcome and vector of our searches.
It is actually an original form of Not, the searching Not that we found in the
Romanian and Hungarian words of the Nothing: the ―Nici‖ and ―Sem‖ are in fact
―open‖ nots in a way, which are therefore capable of carrying deeper and more
dynamic existential meanings of negation. It is this searching Not which carries and
originates both the privative and the negative Not, if in a non-considered way. In
addition, its Hungarian names also resonates a special tension which is not found in
any other words of the Nothing that I know of. For here – even if it is predestined to
negation, in it the question of MI? is still born, sounds and resonates in this, which
also originally belongs to our own selves (MI).
What more is there to hope and expect for a question which always sounds
and resonates even without an answer? Naturally, it cannot hope or expect anything
else ―instead‖ of an answer than a joint which – without being entirely satisfactory –
articulately joins them together.1 That what – in the word of the Nothing – cannot
hope and expect for any answer as its fate, but what always is reborn and
regenerated in it, cannot hope and expect for anything else – as an attachment which
matches it – than a miracle.
Indeed, the Hungarian word of SEMMI the deaf, but irremovable attachment
of the MI? question of expectation is precisely the csoda (miracle): ―MICSODA?‖
and the answer which replies to it in the Semmi: SEM-MI-CSODA! That is: where
―there is‖ Nothing (Semmi), there ―is not even‖ ―a miracle‖!
Still, in the Hungarian word of Nothing, any time it is uttered, the silent
question about the expectation of the miracle is voiced, even if it is not thought
through, even if it runs directly into the positivity of the lack carried in the searching
negation of ―Sem‖. That is why the expectation of the miracle is actually
indestructible and irremovable, since it basically resides in the original relation of
the Dasein, the being-here and the Nothing – and through this the Being.
For the same reason, beyond the expectation which articulates the attachment as a
―miracle‖, the Hungarian word of the Nothing – directly and explicitly – also
incorporates a sending into another direction. In this direction it sends our existence
back to itself.
1
By ―joining‖ I mean that something is ―attached‖ to something else but still remains always
external to it.
218
Closing Excursus:
Nothing‟s branch
In the last stanza of his poem entitled Without hope, Attila József invents, articulates
in the depths of poetry the name/word of the Nothing. The poem:
WITHOUT HOPE
Man comes at last to a vast stretch
of sandy, dull, waterlogged plain,
looks round in wonder, the poor wretch,
nods sagely and knows hope is vain.
I too am genuinely trying

to look round unconcernedly.
An axehead, a silvery sighing,
Shudders across the poplar tree.
My heart is perched on nothing`s branch,

a small, dumb, shivering event:
the gentle stars jostle and bunch
and gaze on in astonishment.1
How should one understand this last stanza and the Nothing in it? Is this a
―simple‖, admirable poetic image, or something that invites to a philosophical
dialogue?
The poet‘s heart is perched on nothing‘s branch, shivering. But does the
nothing have a ―branch‖? And if so, how does this branch grow? What is the relation
between the branching nothing and the pensive, shivering (poetic) heart?
Well, the deficiency of the searching (SEM), taken around and belonging to
Us (MI), which by its fate brings to newer and newer questions and searches,
CRACKS again and again (with and within us)… Every new question and every
impulse of searching originating from the Nothing and falling back into it is a new
branch of the nothing.
Therefore: without a shivering, and always questioning-searching, pensive
heart, on the one hand, there ―is no‖ nothing, and one the other hand it cannot be
anything else than a questioning and searching, repeatedly cracking (widely
branching) universal exposedness that cannot be exhausted (only died2). WE (MI),
all of us. Which can only open shiveringly – always questioningly – to the gentle
pure coldness of the universal stars without self-deceit and miracle. (Sem-mi/neither
us … nor some empty miracle to hope for).
1
Translation by George Szirtes. In Gyöngyi Végh, ed., Inspired by Hungarian Poetry –
British Poets in Conversation with Attila József (London: Balassi Institute Hungarian
Cultural Centre, 2013), 28–29.
2
―An axehead, a silvery sighing,/ Shudders across the poplar tree‖
219
The shivering heart ―sits‖ at the essence of being and life, at the roads‘ ends
of the branches of searches constituted by negations and denials, sent to itself
(shivering, beating), and swung back to the human and non-human universe…
where it shivers sitting in – or on – the Nothing. Shivering is therefore here the
question, the searching which does not ―find‖ anything with any of its frowns.
The nothing is not an endless universe of stars, and this is not even void…
but it is precisely the existence searching-questioning itself mortally which belongs
to the human and non-human universe (precisely on account of its mortality!), and
draws it in its irrhythmic shivering to being; in its newer and newer branches,
mindfully and undeceptively, it cracks the Nothing.
Just such a being can situate itself in meaning, in the questions of meaning
cleverly and judiciously, and just such a being may accept – shaking off the
deceptive and easy ―hopes‖ – the Nothing essentially related to its being, ―being
born‖ and unraveled through it.
The search for the meaning of the being, of life is a kind of loneliness, a
kind of alienated, creative suffering of turning-to-the-world. In which the suicide
does not mean senselessness, but the unbearable torment of a clear vision…
Therefore we do not simply fall into the Nothing, but reach it on a poetic-
philosophical path. One that the poet treads in a deserted, ―vast stretch‖, a clear and
clever mind, and a shivering heart, slowly and pensively. And to which he arrives
also this way.
For the entire poem is an arrival after a kind of existential journey –
pensive, slow, devoid of any magic of initiation. Which is, however, not about
reaching a destination. It is the destiny of man, of ―life‖ that – willingly or not –
takes a creative mind pensively to that spot (Man comes at last…) The path is about
freeing oneself from deceptive hopes and renouncing them. The result is first of all
the clear, undeceptive mind. Which nods wisely and cleverly, being freed of, or
rejecting hope.
The ―vast stretch‖ found once the deceptive and self-deceptive hopes have
been slowly abandoned is of course deserted and sad… But it is real and authentic.
Like the stars. So this is precisely the spot of the Nothing, on whose branch the
shivering heart – and life – sits, mortally and questioning-searchingly, in the
―company‖ of stars ever since the origins.
Is this all perhaps only and exclusively the experience of a ―strange-special‖
―individual‖ called ―Attila József‖? Or simply a wonderfully concocted poetic
image?
The answer lies again in the consideration of the name or word of the
Nothing. For we have seen that the word ―Semmi‖, also used by Attila József,
expresses the NEM in the first person plural. Which then inhales every individual
in the Nothing and with the Nothing... (We/Mi = all of us and any of us.)
*
Finally... : ―Man comes at last...‖
220
Referinţe critice
a Bibliography of Romanian Literary Exegesis
Angela MARCU
Central University Library Cluj
Daniela TODOR
Central University Library Cluj
Keywords: periodical index; Romanian literature; Romanian writers; literary

bibliographies; history of Romanian bibliography
Abstract. This paper tries to identify the position of the Referinţe critice (Critical
references) bibliography among all the other bibliographical works of literary
periodicals. It also attempts to present this work with its ups and downs which have
been recorded during its uninterrupted appearance for almost fifty years, and to
propose a project for further continuation and development of the work.
E-mail: angela.marcu@bcucluj.ro, daniela.todor@bcucluj.ro
Among the other Romanian literary bibliographies, Referinţe critice (Critical

references) is part of the very little represented series in Romanian bibliography of the
works currently recording studies and articles of history, criticism, aesthetics and literary
theory in literary and cultural periodicals. Since the 1983 volume, the work has also
included studies published in volume or editions accompanied by forewords.
Genesis of work and its position within all literary bibliographies

Referinţe critice (Critical references) has an exceptional longevity among literary
bibliographies. The first issue of the work was elaborated by Teodora Oprescu in the
department of documentation and bibliography at the University Library in Cluj and
was published in 1967. At that time, the head of the bibliographic department of the
CUL in Cluj was Dumitru Stan Petruţiu, a researcher from Lucian Blaga‘s
entourage. In all the 48 years of uninterrupted publication, the work has maintained
a modest graphical appearance, being designed for the internal use of researchers
and students and edited with limited library resources by multiplying it in the library
binding workshop. However, it is regrettable that the work has never benefitted from
the collaboration of Cluj academics, as it happened in the case of the Bibliografia
istorică a României (Bibliography of Romanian History), achieved mostly with the
contribution and expertise of the bibliographic department of the CUL in Cluj. We
estimate that such a collaboration would have been very beneficial and the work
would have gained in terms of scientific value, prestige and impact in the scientific
environment for which it was created.
The bibliography of studies and journal articles has drawn the interest of the
bibliographers since 1895 when, in the well-known Bibliographic Plan suggested by
221
Ion Bianu and approved by the Romanian Academy, the creation of the retrospective
bibliography of periodical titles and the analytical one of journal articles was
envisaged. The project has been postponed for seventy years. Until World War I, the
universal bibliographies aimed at the retrospective restitution of cultural written
contributions, and afterwards - due to the acceleration of scientific progress - the
focus has been mainly on current bibliographies.
Among the factors behind the creation of the work, an important role must
have been played by the tradition of literary references in Cluj through the Revista
periodicelor (Periodicals review) of the prestigious magazine Dacoromania led by
Sextil Puşcariu and published within the Muzeul limbii române (the Romanian
Language Museum) of Cluj between 1921–1948. As an analytical and critical
bibliography of high intellectual standard, Revista periodicelor (Periodicals review)
aimed to be as exhaustive as possible, noting and evaluating through annotations all
works of letters and literary history. Revista periodicelor (Periodicals review) was
not actually a bibliography of literary criticism and history because it covered letters
altogether, especially language; nevertheless it described in an exquisite manner
literary articles and studies both analytically and critically. Retrospectively, we can
assert that a great deal of the tools needed for literary research have been achieved in
Cluj, the place where most of the dictionaries of Romanian literature have been
created, and since 1996 the Bibliografia literaturii române (The Bibliography of
Romanian literature) has been continued due to the endeavour of the librarians at the
library of the Cluj branch of the Romanian Academy, a well known work edited
under the auspices of the Romanian Academy and projected by Tudor Vianu as a
work of national scientific interest.
We should also mention here another work considered by Barbu
Theodorescu in Istoria bibliografiei române1 (History of Romanian bibliography) as
―the soul son of the Dacoromania‖, that is Bibliografia publicaţiilor privitoare la
cultura românească veche (The bibliography of the publications on old Romanian
culture), published in 5 volumes between 1934–1943 and referring to 1931–1940.
This work was initiated by Nicolae Cartojan and performed by students at the
University of Bucharest under the coordination of N. Georgescu Tistu. The
bibliographic data covered both books and periodicals.
The sustained activity in the national bibliographical field has been greatly
determined by a moment of crucial consequences for Romanian bibliographic
activity, that is Decizia nr. 1542/1951 (Decision no. 1542/1951) which led to the
creation of Camera cărţii (Book chamber) with the precise objective to record all
publications printed in Romania, the execution of legal deposit provisions and the
publication of national current bibliography.2 As a result, in 1952 Bibliografia RSR.
Cărţi, albume, hărţi, note muzicale3 (Bibliography of the SRR. Books, albums,
1
Istoria bibliografiei române (History of Romanian bibliography) (Bucharest: Fundaţia
Regele Mihai I, 1945), 132.
2
D. Drăgulănescu and V. Moldoveanu, Istoria documentării în România (History of
documentation in Romania) (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Române; Agir, 2002), 139.
3
The common title of the six series underwent several changes, the better known are:
Buletinul bibliografic al Camerei cărţii din RPR (The Bibliographic Bulletin of the Book
222
maps, notes) and Bibliografia RSR. Articole din publicaţii periodice şi seriale
(Bibliography of the SRR. Articles from periodical and serial publications) was
issued. On the other hand, the time for Referinţe critice (Critical references) (1967)
has been prepared by an ample activity of recording the articles from the Romanian
periodicals and their sorting by the UDC in systematic catalogues. It was the time
when Lucian Blaga – at that moment employed by the Cluj branch library of the
Romanian Academy as a researcher - was delivering an interesting lecture for his
fellow librarians on the UDC.1
Beside the above mentioned works, another current bibliography in the field
of literary criticism and history was published in the Revista de istorie şi teorie
literară2 (Review of literary history and theory) during 1966. Initially, this work has
been conceived as a permanent column to quarterly signal ―all the volumes of literary
history, theory and criticism published in our country, all editions of literary works
accompanied by forewords and critical annotations, the most relevant specialized
works in the collections of the main libraries, together with selective specialized
studies in periodicals (Note to the volume for 1966, part 1, p. 201). The bibliography
also signals works of foreign authors in the field of interest published abroad in books
or periodicals and acquired by Romanian libraries. It appears that this work and
Referinţe critice (Critical references) have been initially conceived as complementary
works: the first comprising data from books, while Referinţe critice (Critical
references) recorded data from periodicals. However, as it results from Lămuriri
(Explanatory note) to the first volume of Referinţe critice (Critical references)
published in 1967, Teodora Oprescu, the editor of this first volume which reflected at
that time only data from articles in periodicals, was fully aware of the bibliography in
the Revista de istorie şi teorie literară (Review of literary history and theory), making
reference to this work for the studies recorded in the volume and for the editions
accompanied by forwards. Only since 1983 this type of description has been included
in Referinţe critice (Critical references). Unfortunately, there was no further
collaboration between the editors of these two works for sharing the types of
documents to be recorded. Actually the bibliography from Revista de istorie şi teorie
literară (Review of literary history and theory) was sporadically resumed in issues 3
and 4 in 1968, signed by Ion Stoica and Mihail Vatan.
As far as the retrospective bibliographies of articles from literary and
cultural periodicals are concerned, literary research is being supported by a valuable
work, Bibliografia relaţiilor literaturii române cu literaturile străine în periodice3
Chamber in the SRR), then Bibliografia RSR (The Bibliography of the SRR) and today
Bibliografia Naţională (The National Bibliography).
1
Cornelia Vaida, ―Aspecte bibliologice ale activităţii lui Lucian Blaga‖ (Bibliological
aspects of Lucian Blaga‘s activity), Biblioteca şi învăţământul VI (1982): 86–103.
2
15, 1 (1966): 201–210; 15, 2 (1966): 403–407; 15, 3 (1966): 589–597; 15, 4 (1966): 689–699.
3
13 volumes of this work have been published until now, structured in two distinct
categories: Bibliografia relaţiilor literaturii române cu literaturile străine în periodice :
1859–1916 (Bibliography of the relations of Romanian literature with foreign literatures in
periodicals: 1850–1916) coordinated by Ioan Lupu, Cornelia Ştefănescu et. al. (Bucharest:
Editura Academiei RSR, 1980–1985, 3 vol.) and Ana Maria Brezuleanu et. al., Bibliografia
relaţiilor literaturii române cu literaturile străine în periodice : 1919–1944 (Bibliography of
223
(Bibliography of Romanian literature in relation with foreign literature in periodicals),

published during 1980–2009. This bibliographic work is highly prestigious among
Romanian bibliographies and represents a valuable information source for those
interested in perceiving the values of world literature in Romanian culture. It was
achieved by a team of researchers from the Institutul de Istorie şi teorie literară ―G.
Călinescu‖ (G. Călinescu Institute of literary history and theory) in Bucharest.
Patricia Todoran, On Obstacles 6

From all accounts, the retrospective recording of books and periodicals in

the field of Romanian literature is far from being complete, and this lack is partially
supplied by general bibliographies. For the articles in periodicals, the most important
works in the category of general bibliographies are: Bibliografia Analitică a
Periodicelor Româneşti (The Analytical Bibliography of Romanian Periodicals),
vol. 1–2 for 1790–18581 and Bibliografia R.S.R. Articole din publicaţii periodice şi
seriale (Bibliography of the SRR. Articles from periodical and serial publications),
section Literatura română (Romanian literature), for 1953–1989, becoming Cultura
în România. Referinţe bibliografice şi documentare din periodice româneşti
(1992–1999) (Culture in Romania. Bibliographical and documentary references
from Romanian periodicals) in 1992 and Bibliografia Naţională Română. Articole
din publicaţii seriale. Cultura (Romanian National Bibliography. Articles from
serial publications. Culture) since 2000. These publications edited by the National
the relations of Romanian literature with foreign literatures in periodicals: 1919–1944)

(Bucharest: Saeculum, 1997–2009, 10 vol.).
1
Editura Academiei RSR, 1966–1972.
224
Library of Romania are still being printed, and since 1998 they can also be used
online1 in .pdf format. In this brief attempt to outline the bibliographic context which
Referinţe critice (Critical references) is part of, we need to mention the database
achieved by the CUL in Jassy since 1990, Catalogul articolelor din periodice2 (the
Catalog of articles in periodicals), subsequently included in Baza de date România
(Romania database) project. This database already comprises a large amount of
valuable bibliographic information on the main Romanian periodicals. Another
online database is Catalogul România (Romania Catalogue) achieved by the CUL
in Bucharest, offering information on serial academic publications published after
2000 in the fields of philosophy, linguistics, literature, orientalism, psychology,
religion, economic sciences and political sciences.3 Lately, many Romanian
periodicals have also a digital format and even digital archives, but searching these
archives is not possible due to the lack of search engines making information hard to
retrieve. Moreover, we must mention the presence of some Romanian periodicals in
foreign databases such as the CEEOL4 where the full text of the articles is available.
This is quite encouraging but does not stand for the lack of digital resources to
reflect the national cultural heritage in books and periodicals. This is the national
bibliographic framework to relate Referinţe critice to in very broad lines.
Brief presentation of Referinţe critice (Critical references)

The work has two series: Istorie şi critică literară (Literary history and criticism)
(1966–2010) and Estetică şi teorie literară (Literary aesthetics and theory) (1966–
1981). Although a third series has been initiated - Literatură universală şi
comparată (World and comparative literature) – it was never printed, and it can be
viewed on card files in the bibliographic department of the CUL in Cluj. In the paper
Instrumente bibliografice în sprijinul cercetării literare la Biblioteca Centrală
Universitară din Cluj5 (Bibliographic tools supporting literary research at the
Central University Library in Cluj), author Cornelia Gălătescu mentioned that the
material of the third series was based on the articles and studies processed from the
periodicals published in the country beginning with 1950 until then.
The series Istorie şi critică literară (Literary history and criticism) of the
work Referinţe critice (Critical references) is rather unique in Romanian literary
bibliography, being the only current bibliography in printed form that indexes
articles about the Romanian writers in literary and cultural journals. Another
peculiarity of the work is the digital version along with the printed one, and can be
used as database which includes the volumes for 1986–2010. Although conceived as
a publication of internal use, the work has been widely spread, responding to
specific information needs. This series offers critical references on the Romanian
1
http://www.bibnat.ro/Arhiva-s237-ro.htm#6
2
www.bcu-iasi.ro/
3
www.bcub.ro/
4
Central and Eastern European Online Library, comprising 1160 journals on humanities and
social sciences among which 289 publications from Romania at the address:
http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/publicationlist.aspx
5
Biblioteca şi învăţământul (Library and education) IV (1979): 93–97.
225
writers from studies and articles in the main literary and cultural periodicals
published in Romania – and after 1990 also in the Republic of Moldova – in
monographic volumes, collection of critical studies, forewords and afterwords of
some prose and poetry volumes. Volume I issued in 1967 referred to the ―most
significant references from the main Romanian periodicals‖, as stipulated by the
author in Lămuriri (Explanatory note). Therefore, the work is a selective
bibliography. Along its publication, the criterion of selectivity has been abandoned.
In the case of studies and articles only the most important literary periodicals were
chosen to be described bibliographically, and in this case the principle of selectivity
was kept. During the forty years of publishing, there was a significant disparity in
terms of year of publication and year of reference, thus the information became
retrospective. This is a serious disadvantage of the work which has been cleared in
time. In 1992 the volume for 1985 was published causing an 11 year disparity, while
at the present moment this disparity downsized to 4 years, given that only three
bibliographers are engaged in this work with other tasks to perform in addition.
Another important inconvenient is the precarious accessibility of the Referinţe
critice (Critical references) database at the http://192.168.1.10/ris/risweb.isa address
due to a rather unfriendly searching interface. In order to overcome this
predicament, the latest volumes have been transferred in a .pdf format onto DVDs,
while the database has been made accessible for the public in the reference room in
its original Procite version with all its searching functions.
The second series, Estetică şi teorie literară (Literary aesthetics and theory)
was issued during 1971–1985. The references here have been sorted alphabetically
by subject index. This subject work has been completed with subject terms and
article authors indices. In the above mentioned paper Instrumente bibliografice în
sprijinul cercetării literare (Bibliographic tools supporting literary research at the
Central University Library in Cluj), Cornelia Gălătescu made the following remark
with regard to the subject term index: ―Setting up a vocabulary of terms, on issues of
aesthetics and literary theory remains a difficult problem, the terms of the
vocabulary are created by the nature of the topics covered in researched articles
when there is no established terminology in dictionaries in fixed patterns‖. This
work amounting to a total of seven volumes covers the period 1966–1981. It is – for
this period – the only work that indexes thematically the studies and articles from
the Romanian literary periodicals.
Although Referinţe critice (Critical references) have successfully filled in
the gap in the bibliographic field with pertinent information, the work has only
sporadically been notified. The causes are multiple. One is probably the general lack
of support and recognition of the endeavour to create bibliographic tools. Mircea
Anghelescu – one of the few literary historians concerned with emphasizing literary
research tools – considered the work ―a valuable index for reporting annually on the
history and literary criticism,‖ but little known due to its diffusion in a small number
of copies.1 Another quite enthusiastic echo reported the volume for 1984 as follows:
―A catalogue made after severe principles, an Index of articles and studies on writers
1
Mircea Anghelescu, ―Instrumentele de lucru‖ (Working tools), in Istoriografia literară
românească. 1944–1984 (Romanian literary historiography) (Bucharest: Minerva, 1984) 266.
226
from Romania, published in the country. [...] We are in great need for these tools.
Will we ever wonder who are the people who spend much of their lives pursuing
literary work step by step? A difficult road through prints with patience and
enthusiasm, with great respect for the letter, for the ministers of art; a tribute to our
culture. About some of them I have found out recently after going through a volume
of Referinţe critice (Critical reference)‖1
Development perspectives
At a first glance there might be the question whether the work Referinţe critice
(Critical references) need to be continued, or its place may be taken by Romania
Database, which partially includes information from Referinţe critice (Critical
references). A few issues related to the very structure of the two works and their
addressability should be noted from the beginning. It should be mentioned that the
national project Romania database aims to provide the interested public at home and
abroad, via the Internet, a national bibliographic database Romania, comprising the
articles in specialized periodicals published in Romania and processed first at the
central university libraries in Cluj, Iaşi and Bucharest. The functions of this database
were: web access to the catalogue, possibility to search by different entries (e.g.
author, title word / original title / title in another language; keywords in Romanian /
other languages, journal title, year). Romania database project, conceived as separate
activities of the three libraries, would become the sole objective of an independent
institution and cover all areas of scientific contribution of Romanian research. Until
the achievement of this national desideratum, the three major university libraries
have provided professional expertise and periodical collections to create a common
bibliographic catalogue. The titles of journals and areas of interest were established,
and initially they were socio-humanities: history, art, religion, literature, general
culture, politics, minority publications, later on followed by technical disciplines,
natural sciences, etc.
We need to say that the work Referinţe critice (Critical references) finds its
individuality primarily in that it is a special bibliography of literature, and then
because of the different structuring of information and addressability with a clear
target beneficiary, teachers, researchers and students interested in literary research.
However it must be mentioned that the effort of continuing and resizing the work
Referinţe critice (Critical references) in the future means a new approach involving
additional resources. Continuing should only be the result of correct evaluation of
the information needs of literary research in the academic environment.
In our opinion, there are two alternatives to consider:
1. Cessation of the work Referinţe critice (Critical references) and further

continuation of Romania Database, where the information from Referinţe
critice (Critical references) could be included in which case the literary
aesthetics and theory series should be updated, and if necessary the full
1
George Bădărău, ―Referinţe critice‖ (Critical references) in Cronica 32 (1991): 8.
227
retrospective review in digital format of the work Referinţe critice (Critical

references);
2. Continuation of the work, in which case we propose the following strategy:
 Recovery of the delay and reconfiguring the structure of the work by

resuming the series Estetică şi teorie literară (Literary Aesthetics and
Theory) and Literatură universală (World Literature);
 Retrospective digitization of the volumes of Referinţe critice (Critical
references) in reverse chronological order;
 Completion of the database with the addition of full text articles by
working with those who maintain electronic records of online
publications and digitizing service of the CUL in Cluj;
 Ensuring an effective online search system of information in this
database.
Undoubtedly, a reconfiguration of the work must take into account the new
national bibliographic context in addition to the information needs. Hermina G. B.
Anghelescu – an eminent specialist in documentary information and with good
knowledge of both the US and the Romanian realities in the field – very reasonably
assesses the state of information services in Romanian libraries in the paper Bazele
de date pe domenii – un concept tridimensional: colaborare, coordonare şi
comunicare – C31 (Specialized databases – a three-dimensional concept:
collaboration, coordination and communication – C3) and proposes solutions. As
regarding the indexing of periodical and serial publications, Hermina G. B.
Anghelescu stands for ―creating databases on specialized fields‖. Such a specialized
database in Romanian literary exegesis could be built on the platform of the work
Referinţe critice (Critical references)
1
Bazele de date pe domenii – un concept tridimensional: colaborare, coordonare şi
comunicare – C3 (Specialized databases – a three-dimensional concept: collaboration,
coordination and communication – C3) Biblioteca 15/ 11–12 (2004), 334–338.
228
MISCELLANEA
229
230
The Repertory of Typographers, Engravers, Editors,

Patrons of Romanian Books (1508–1830)
– Review –
Anca Elisabeta TATAY

Library of Romanian Academy,
Cluj-Napoca
Keywords: old Romanian books, typographers, engravers, editors, patrons
E-mail: ancatatai@yahoo.com
A recent series of articles, studies, monographs and catalogues related to

the history of books investigated from several points of view: book circulation,
history of printing, history of engraving, collections of books found in different
libraries in Romania or abroad, catches our attention and fills us with joy, to the
same extent. The first edition of the Repertory in discussion came out in 2008. It was
achieved by a group of researchers, particularly from Alba Iulia and Sibiu,
coordinated by Eva Mârza, professor at 1 Decembrie 1918 University in Alba Iulia.
This work is the outcome of project no. 733, financed by CNCSIS between the years
2006–2008.
It was the monumental work Bibliografia Românească veche [Early
Romanian Bibliography] (henceforth BRV) drawn up in four volumes between
1903–1944 by Ioan Bianu, Nerva Hodoş and Dan Simonescu that was without doubt
a chief instrument of work. It is known that BRV is far from being exhaustive. Even
if a new edition were published, comprising the new contributions signalled by
Daniela Poenaru (1973), by Dan Râpă-Buicliu (2000), or those from volume I (A-C)
accomplished by CIMEC (2004) and, last but not least, those published in countless
articles issued throughout the last century, a new book would certainly appear soon
and therefore the new BRV edition would be incomplete again. This matter has been
debated on starting with the scientific sessions devoted to early Romanian books
organized at Târgovişte prior to 1989, which were continued afterwards at Alba
Iulia, since 2007, organized by Eva Mârza and Ana Maria Roman-Negoi. Under
these conditions, the Repertory in discussion, hard to achieve, is neither complete,
nor will it be in the years to come, although the authors‘ wish is to attain this goal,
which explains the release of the new edition which contains adequate
improvements. After all, the chronicler himself stated: ―I have written with a hand of
dust and ashes, not a saint‘s one‖.

Eva Mârza, Florin Bogdan (coordinators), Repertoriul tipografilor, gravorilor, patronilor,
editorilor cărţilor româneşti (1508–1830) [Repertoryoftypographers, engravers, editors, patrons
of Romanian books (1508–1830)], the second edition, revised and enlarged, Sibiu, Astra Museum,
Techno Media, 2013, 305 p. ISBN: 978-606-8520-20-9 and 978-606-616-102-2.
231
As a result, after years of steady research work, in 2013, the second edition,
an imperative one, of Repertory of typographers, engravers, editors, patrons of
Romanian books (1508–1830) was published at Sibiu, coordinated by Eva Mârza
(whose rigorous researches in the field of the history of books and printing are
already well known in the specialized world not only in Romania but also abroad)
and the young researcher Florin Bogdan (guide at the Union National Museum in
Alba Iulia). On the forth page of the book it is mentioned that ―The Repertory is the
result of collaboration of the following authors: Teodora Ancateu, Florin Bogdan,
Silviu Borş, Diana Ciugudean, Zevedei Drăghiţă, Doina Dreghiciu, Alin Mihai
Gherman, Eva Mârza, Gabriela Mircea, Iuliana Wainberg. Ana Maria Roman-
Negoi, Dorin Wainberg‖.
Except for those of Eva Mârza‘s generation (Doina Dreghiciu, Alin Mihai
Gherman and Gabriela Mircea), the other authors belong to the school competently
formed within Alma Mater Apulensis by the eminent professor Eva Mârza during
the 25 years put in the service of the reputed University, formerly mentioned.
Printed under good graphic conditions, the book starts with an introduction
named in the title of the work: Repertory of typographers, engravers, editors,
patrons of Romanian books (1508–1830) (p. 5–8) signed by Eva Mârza, followed by
the English translation made by Adina Bogdan (p. 9–12). From the very beginning,
the coordinator states: ―we felt it necessary to draw attention to the phenomenon of
early Romanian writings from a different angle of investigation than the usual one‖
(p. 5). Therefore, while BRV deals with writings, the present repertory starts from
―the human element that contributed to printing of books‖ (p. 5). Sources of the
work are clearly mentioned, as well: ―This work is meant to be a synthesis of
information possible to be gathered from periodical or monographic publications
(those that accumulate earlier relations or new discoveries), published documentary
sources, and last but not least, from writings printed on Romanian territory up to
1830, completed with mandatory bibliographical references, finally having the role
and the shape of a dictionary‖ (p. 6).
The Repertory proper (p. 13–298) comprises the persons presented who
were evidently arranged alphabetically. A person‘s file consists of the following
headings: Name – office (Pandovici, Dimitrie – typographer, engraver); the list of
books he worked on; Observations (presents the features of books); Bibliography
(rendered through siglas and abbreviations); Biographical references (brief
biographical medallions).
Bibliography (p. 299–305) – which contains new titles as compared with the
first edition – is divided into five sections: Critical editions, facsimile editions (p.
199–301); Bibliographies (p. 301); General Bibliography (p. 302–303); Studies (p.
303–305); Webography (p. 305) – which finishes this ample and successful work.
In conclusion, we consider that through their laborious work the team
coordinated by Eva Mârza and Florin Bogdan have attained the proposed desiderata
making this Repertory constitute a very useful instrument for historians and all those
interested in the respective subject-matter.
232
The Gusti(an) Sociologists in the Interwar University. Studies1

– Review –
Alina BRANDA
Keywords: Bucharest University, interwar period, Dimitrie Gusti and the

Sociological School, University Office, access to education, gender relations.
E-mail: alinabranda@yahoo.com
The volume Gustian Sociologists in the Interwar University, coordinated

by Zoltán Rostás, is structured in three chapters of substantial studies, authored by
Ionuţ Butoi, Dragoş Sdrobiş and Theodora-Eliza Văcărescu. The studies published
in this volume have the merit of focusing on less known data about the university
(mainly the University of Bucharest), establishing a necessary connection between
this institution, the social and political mechanisms of the period and mentalities.
Thus, with the perspectives that manage to offer to readers the clear image of the
interwar period in Romania, without ignoring the international framework, the
authors of this volume adopt a lucid, critical perspective on the subjects: the
Monographic School of Bucharest, only partially known, the social history of
university life, the Social Service and the higher education of women in the interwar
period. The involvement of Gustian sociologists in reporting and finding solutions to
improve life conditions, supporting the creation of the Student Offices and
Cooperatives, the political and ideological manipulations of students and the means
by which they were implemented, describe a case of major social crisis. In the same
register, the gender relationships are interpreted, in a case study, through an analysis
of women‘s weak representation in the University, with its subtext motivations.
Overall, the volume manages to demystify the enshrined perspective on the interwar
period, glorified and idealized in many discourses.
The Introduction, whose author is the coordinator of this volume, proposes a
thematic circumscription, explaining the necessity of the research approaches herein
presented and their purpose. Therefore, the activity of Professor Dimitrie Gusti and
also the activity of the Sociology School founded by him, are still, in the author‘s
opinion, not very well known. The studies included in this book approach themes
that have not been exploited sufficiently until now, highlighting these new topics. In
the text of the introduction, the roles played by the ―University Office‖ and ―Student
Cooperative‖ in identifying the students‘ problems in the first decades of the
interwar period are focused on in particular. The problems approached sensitively
1
Zoltán Rostás, ed., Universitatea interbelică a sociologilor gustieni. Studii (The Gustian
Sociologists in the Interwar University. Studies) (Bucharest: Editura Universităţii din
Bucureşti, 2014), 171 p.; the volume was published with the occasion of the 150 th celebration
of the University of Bucharest.
233
within these frameworks, were to be approached scientifically, with a final purpose.

Practical and concrete solutions had to be found in order to improve the students‘
life and studying conditions. Moreover, following the perspectives promoted by
Gusti and the Gustians, in a fine contextual analysis, the author proves how the
conscience of the role of social and political sciences was built in those decades. An
excerpt of a text, authored by Dimitrie Gusti and published in the February 1926
issue of Revista Universitară (University Magazine), quoted in the Introduction on
pages 10–11, is illustrative in this respect. Social and political sciences play an
important role ―not only because they illuminate the citizen on his duties and form
the conscious leaders of public opinion, who seed healthy ideas but also for a special
preparation of public careers. But a special preparation, both social and political, is
vital not only for administrative careers but also for senior officers of ministries, for
a diplomatic career (it requires scholar and fine observations of nations), for a
consular career (consuls must obtain systematic and methodical information on
societies and cultures) and even for a magistrate career‖.1
Gusti‘s role as Dean of the Faculty of Letters (1929–1932) and Minister of
Instruction, Cults, and Arts (1932- 1933) is also underlined in the Introduction.
Acting in these qualities, he was concerned about the ―formation of a highly
valuable sociological school, with modern teachers of another habitus and valuable
scientific value‖.2 Gusti‘s favourite themes, aiming the university, are identified one
at a time and analysed: organisation of the Sociology Seminar, organisation of the
International Congress of Sociology in Bucharest, improving social conditions of
students and other categories of people are Gusti‘s imperative goals, discussed as
such by the coordinator of this volume. Based on the experience of monographic
campaigns, Dimitrie Gusti implements a new vision on cultural work in the villages,
insists on the necessity of setting forward a social service. This is another course of
action, present in Gusti‘s vision, mentioned in the Introduction to this volume.
Ionuţ Butoi‘s study, titled O incursiune în istoria socială a vieţii
universitare interbelice. Între revoluţia studenţească şi activism social (An Incursion
into the Social History of Interwar University Life. Between Student Revolution and
Social Activism), is the result of a thorough radiography of the period, mainly based
on the study of the Yearbooks of the most important universities in the interwar
Romania and of the CNSAS reports (old reports drawn up by the National
Intelligance and, subsequently, taken over by the communist Securitate).
The analysis proposed by the author reveals the crisis situation that marked
the society as a whole and thus the university, deeply engaged in the social
mechanisms of the period. In this regard, several points of view raised by the
intellectuals of that period are relevant and they are identified and interpreted in this
context by the author of this study: ―Europe‘s economic disaster is deeply felt in its
universities. All suffer from a lack of personnel and material, especially since the
number of students increased (D. Călugăreanu, 1923, in the Yearbook of the
University of Cluj, academic year 1921–1922, Cluj, 1923, pages 2–3)3 or ―the
1
Zoltán Rostás, ed.,Universitatea interbelică a sociologilor gustieni. Studii, 10–11.
2
Idem, 11
3
Quote on page 17.
234
dysfunctionality of promoting new capacities, which are kept outside the University
or at its limits‖.1
In this extremely thorough and documented framework, the role of Gusti‘s
projects to improve student life, to solve acute social problems, that characterized
the interwar period is emphasized: the creation of Student Offices and Cooperatives,
the launch of social surveys on the conditions of university life, the setup of a
science of university, which would gather accurate data regarding the student
population movement; the promotion of the publication Călăuza studentului (The
Student Guide). Student life, as a whole, is reproduced as it was in that time of
tensions, conflicts, atomisation (with its organizations: The National Union of
Christian Students, ASCR, IMCA), with the ideologies and religions they promoted.
The study authored by Dragoş Sdrobiş, titled Părăsirea Boemei şi
încarnarea Utopiei. Studenţimea interbelică, Dimitrie Gusti şi Serviciul Social
Obligatoriu (La Boheme Abandoned, Utopia Incarnated: Interwar Students, Dimitrie
Gusti and the Mandatory Social Service), aims at explaining, at first, the causes
leading to the political radicalization of intellectuals, referring to the interwar period
in Romania. I appreciated the way in which the two terms, La Boheme and Utopia,
were presented, at a theoretical, conceptual level, both diachronically and
synchronically (regarding the interwar period), as both terms are essential to the
research approach proposed by the author. Furthermore, the way in which the ―rural
utopia‖ arises due to Dimitrie Gusti‘s great vision, but also due to his easy access to
resources – is also in the author‘s attention and systematic observation. The social
service function is the author‘s main concern, as he tries and succeeds to decipher
the mechanisms that made its creation possible in that period: subtle manipulations
of decision-making bodies and entities, Carol II on the one hand, and Corneliu Zelea
Codreanu on the other hand, the way in which the Social Service was instrumented
also in order to combat ―the trend‖ of the legionary movement, the impact it had on
young people.
The ideological and political tensions, the ways in which youth, as essential
stake, was to be won by one side or by the other, are contextualised brilliantly. In
this context, the way in which the ―royal teams‖ had to contribute to the
―organization of a model village as every Romanian village should be‖2 is analysed,
firstly by studying the 15,201 villages with 14 million inhabitants. Therefore, the
―royal student teams had to be formed in order to meet the village in all its
complexity.‖3 They were designed on several levels, in order to correspond to the
intervention in what was called ―culture of health‖ (here the students in medicine
and sports were responsible), culture of labour (students in agronomy, veterinary
medicine and household masters), culture of soul and mind (students in theology and
sociology etc.). An entire science lay behind these teams. The Social Service
unquestionably had scientific and social intervention plans, very well configured at
1
Octav Onicescu, quote on page 19.
2
Universitatea interbelică a sociologilor gustieni. Studii, 99; quote from Îndrumător al
muncii culturale la sate (Bucharest: Fundaţia Culturală Regală Principele Carol), 13.
3
Ibid., 100
235
its establishment. All these represent particular subjects that are discussed by Dragos
Sdrobiş, the author of this study, focused on social and political context.
The approach proposed by Theodora-Eliza Văcărescu, Educaţia femeilor în
provinciile locuite de români şi în România, între anii 1880 şi 1930. Studiu de caz.
Universitatea din Bucureşti (Women Education in the Provinces Inhabited by
Romanians and in Romania, between 1880 and 1930. Case Study, University of
Bucharest) provides an analysis from the gender relations perspective of the way in
which education functioned in Romania, especially in the University of Bucharest.
The interpretation of the low presence of women in universities (due to their limited
access to education), was also built contextually. The mechanisms regarding the
marginalization or even exclusion of women from this educational area are
identified. Also, the analysis focuses on the way in which these mechanisms led to a
low self-esteem in women, to their mistrust in their own ability of bringing their
contribution to the ―production of knowledge‖. All these aspects are discussed in the
above mentioned study, starting from the interpretation of empirical data, gathered
from sociological surveys of the period and from different statistical assessments.
Also, the gender stereotypes of that period are analysed, based on a systematic
documentation. I found interesting the explanations about women‘s option for
certain domains, when they had access to education; the choice of these fields is the
result of social pressures, instrumented in order to extend the role women had within
the family, in private, in public and is also the result of internalizing a certain gender
role; the distrust in their contribution to scientific knowledge, according to the
statistics referred to on page 157, is interpreted in the same register. In turn, the
―care‖ for preserving women‘s ―morality‖ is explained in the same frames:
according to statistics, 75% of women students lived with their parents, relatives, in
boarding schools during the studies, where they were closely monitored; only 6.3%
of them rent a room independently (the data were provided by a survey, conceived
and applied by students, in the Sociology Seminar, at the time).1
The volume, as a whole, reconstructs in a realistic and vivid manner a social
context, that of the interwar period, especially in its first decades, and an
atmosphere, which is usually more difficult to obtain just using documents, source
analysis and even interpretation. The authors demonstrate consistently and almost
equally a remarkable empathic ability, an insight into the spirit of the period, by
decrypting the functioning and social representation mechanisms specific to the
period under analysis, a deep understanding of that time‘s political context.
Also, the studies as a whole highlight the role played by the social sciences
in the university and in the public sphere, in society, during the period under
analysis. Another merit of this book is that it clarifies the relationship between social
sciences, at an epistemological level and the social action and intervention in the
heyday of the Gusti School. A contextualized analysis of the relationship between
social sciences, ideology and religion is also present in the volume but is rather
implicit, giving an indirect warning on the possible danger of the specialists‘
manipulation by different power agents, by dominant narratives, in different times.
1
Ibid.,153.
236
Perennial and Timely Existentialism

(A Review of Ştefan Bolea‟s Existentialism Today)
Ovidiu PECICAN
Keywords: existentialism, postmodernism, anxiety, death, authenticity, philosophy

of literature, cinematography, art, pessimism, absurdity
E-mail: pecolino59@yahoo.com
Author of four poetry collections, Ştefan Bolea proves his professional

vocation as a philosopher by publishing his third philosophical study, Existentialism
Today (Existenţialismul astăzi) (Bucharest: Herg Benet Publishers, 2012). Unlike so
many other commentators who lose themselves in the confusion of certain themes
and motives, the young author proposes himself a precise purpose and approaches it
with well adjusted means. He wants to explain and reconstruct existentialism
through its main concepts (p. 13). Therefore, instead of dealing in historical fashion
with the genesis of the movement, the main existentialist thinkers or the analysis of
some works, the interpreter prefers to take into account three fundamental concepts
for existentialist thought: anxiety, death and authenticity. These three are analyzed
not only following their metamorphoses in the thinking of the main existentialists
(Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre) but also taking into account a postmodern spirit,
who has the possibility to test the reliability and resistance of the respective concepts
beyond the historical limits of ―classical‖ existentialism.
Another hermeneutic opening the reader owes to Ştefan Bolea is the idea of
the appreciation of the special relationship between existentialism and literature.
One remembers that in Either/Or (1843), Søren Kierkegaard was using the means of
fictional prose (masked characters, confessional diary, epic narrative and so on).
One century later, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, authors with paramount
philosophical contributions – the first with The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and The
Rebel (1951), the second with Being and Nothingness (1943) and Critique of
Dialectical Reason (1960) – chose to display their philosophical conceptions not
only in theoretical texts, but also in prose and theater, artistic fields par excellence. I
believe that Ştefan Bolea‘s proven vocation for poetry is an existential and creative
factor which brings the author close to the canonic names of existentialism a while
after the apotheosis of their fame.
It is, therefore, interesting to follow the research track, because, beyond its
letter, one deciphers a passionate personal engagement, not a plain scholastic
exercise. For Ştefan Bolea, the testing of existentialism‘s ― ―endurance‖ on three

Ştefan Bolea, Existenţialismul astăzi (Existentialism today) (Bucharest: Herg Benet
Publishers, 2012), 344 p., 978-606-8335-41-4.
237
philosophical directions (the first: Kierkegaard – Nietzsche; the second: Jaspers –

Heidegger; the third: Marcel – Sartre – Merleau-Ponty – Camus) belongs to his
personal standpoint. Even there might be readers that think some of the analyzed
philosophers are not per se existentialists – some may argue that Heidegger is a
phenomenologist and that Gabriel Marcel is a Neothomist – the nominal series
provided by the author are original and represent, themselves, the result of an
understanding and ordering process.
Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean, Photogram

10,8 cm x 8,5 cm, Polaroid, 2015
Ştefan Bolea‘s work shows that the great existentialist concepts – the
aforementioned three but also others – did not have, ante existentialism, a clear and
generally accepted categorical statue. The role of the existentialist authors as
238
concept ― ―inventors‖ turns them not only in creators of philosophical language, but
also in propellers of philosophical problematic and descriptors of life situations.
Following Ştefan Bolea‘s reading one observes that the conceptual apparatus
of existentialism creates a different mapping of life and world. This mapping seems
quintessentially modern and contemporary, locating the main authors in the 19th and
20th century. However, the suggestive span of terms like anxiety or authenticity
allows us to take a step back to the historical premises of pre-existentialist
experiences. In this light one can grasp the huge existential value of many medieval
and pre-modern paintings like Sebastian Brant‘s The Ship of Fools, the alienating
universes of Hieronymus Bosch, the works of the two Pieter Bruegels, the
masterpieces of the mannerist painters and a certain baroque sensibility, including
here the modern alchemic and esoteric meditation.
Ştefan Bolea is less interested in his book in the perennity of the
existentialist perspective and its appreciation as permanence of man‘s relationship to
life and world than in the post-historical development of a movement considered
dated. In the annexes of the study – positioned here not because they would stand for
derivative, facultative or negligible leads but because they would hinder the main
discourse of the book – he tests his exegetical track on artistic materials beyond
philosophy‘s designated perimeter (because philosophy expressed itself for a long
time in art‘s disguise, a thesis proven by Plato‘s or Lucian of Samosata‘s dialogues,
Erasmus‘s essay on folly or Campanella‘s or Francis Bacon‘s utopias). The young
philosopher alludes to the fiction of Chuck Palahniuk and Philip K. Dick and the
recent cinematography. Therefore, instinctively or programmatically – but not quite
explicitly assumed – he brings in front of the mirror (one might note here that the
highly philosophical term of speculation derives from speculum – Latin for mirror)
the philosophical and artistic projections, hoping to understand how these two types
of vision reflect the existential condition of the contemporary human being. Far from
deciding that establishing the human being under the sign of anxiety and death (in
search of authenticity) amounts to a hopelessly tragic destiny and a certain condition
of perpetual unhappiness – as thinkers like N. Berdiaeff and V. Solovyov believed –,
Ştefan Bolea considers that the dialogic attitude, the tense partnership with these
values and life perspectives can lead to less predictable and more spiritually
profitable answers. The idea is somehow surprising, because it seems to give off an
epistemic and existential optimism which has nothing in common with the
traditionally gloomy school of existentialism. The absurd of yesteryear seems to
fade away in front of the new devices proposed by the meditation of existentialist
masters. This absurdity might result from the composed and confusing character of
the postmodern experience, which seemed to swallow up all alternatives, chewing
up and burning together various stylistic heritages. In a medium configured by the
late modernity, the ― ―tragic sense of life‖ fades out while the feeling of absurdity
lost its aggressiveness and virulence, creating space for the predictable pattern of
existentialist conceptualization.
Ştefan Bolea‘s audacity and originality stem from experiments like those,
which ensure him, beyond a certain historical priority (― ―Our study is the first in the
Romanian cultural space which achieves a reconstruction of existentialism through its
concepts‖, p. 252) a distinct place in the young Romanian philosophical exegesis.
239
Based on a PhD thesis defended in February 2012, the book brings in the spotlight a
representative of the new generation of the restless partners of ideation, redeeming,
partly, the impression that the author of this review has had too many times, namely
that some young authors mistake the apprenticeship with spiritual obedience and
beating over the old ground. One might hope that after the mastery exercises
necessarily presupposed by all PhD theses, Ştefan Bolea will listen even more
unconventionally the voice of his calling, endowing our culture with original and
personal reflective ―free dives‖, essential not only for him but also for his generation.
240
Sandu Frunză – Symbolic Communication and Seduction 

- Review –
Iulia GRAD
Babeş Bolyai University
Keywords: communication, symbolic communication, seduction, religiosity, mass

media, postmodernity, advertising.
E-mail: iuliagrad@gmail.com
Symbolic communication represents an essential dimension inherent in the

human being. The volume Comunicare simbolică şi seducţie (Symbolic
communication and seduction), authored by Professor Sandu Frunză, offers a
complex and comprehensive picture of the manner in which the symbolic dimension
is regained in postmodern society.
The volume is composed of five articles published by the author in several
important journals, but this fact does not interfere at all with the continuity of the
volume altogether. On the contrary, the main parts of the volume represent different
perspectives on the topic approached by the author.
We can identify three key levels in the analysis proposed by Sandu Frunză.
At the first level, the author focuses on the necessity of a philosophy of
communication that would question the idea that in a media-based society,
communication is the main mechanism that generates the construction of symbolic
reality. Another essential aspect in Frunză‘s analysis focuses on the presence of
religiosity in postmodern society. His perspective emphasizes the importance of the
dialectic of the sacred and the profane in understanding communicational society as
a space where secularization does not eliminate the presence of the sacred, but
institutes new ways of conceiving it and relating to it, due to the presence of a weak
form of transcendence. The ―camouflaged seduction of the sacred‖, operationalized
by media communication, is described by Sandu Frunză in the analysis of
advertising, and of political communication in particular.
As a starting point for his argumentation, Sandu Frunză employs Aurel
Codoban‘s philosophy of communication, which stipulates that the postmodern
society witnesses a change of paradigm from the model of knowledge to the model
of communication in the relation with the world and that reality is in fact a
communicational construct. Along with the decline of the great narratives, man
lacks absolute essence, his identity being created in the process of permanent
communication with the alterity.

Sandu Frunză – Comunicare simbolică şi seducţie (Symbolic communication and
seduction) (Bucharest: Tritonic, 2014), 134 p ISBN: 978-606-8572-33-1
241
Mass media plays a major part in the creation of reality understood as a

communicational construct, and also in the construction of the postmodern selves. In
this context, the author underlines the necessity of a philosophy of communication, a
philosophy faithful to its synthesizer nature that would become not only a theory of
communication but also a practice of communication, understood not in its
traditional meaning as transmission of information, but as the main factor that
shapes interpersonal relationships, or even more, as an ―existential act.‖
Sandu Frunză analyses the landmarks that allow us to adequately shape the
picture of a mediated society. Thus, he considers that the ―signification-truth‖, the
truth which is constructed in the process of communication is the concept of truth
that functions in postmodern society. Obviously, this cannot be possible without
referencing the concept of ―weak transcendence.‖ The author remarks the fact that
along with religion‘s liberation from the rigid frameworks imposed by the absolute
transcendence, we witness the manifestation of a minimal ethics which allows the
rethinking of the communication ethics, an element extremely necessary in a media-
based society.
Starting from Aurel Codoban‘s analysis of the three models of
understanding transcendence (the full, positive transcendence; the empty, negative
transcendence; the weak, uncertain transcendence) and of their evolution through the
history of philosophy and their impact on the metaphorical understanding of the
world as a text, Sandu Frunză observes that the weak transcendence is the model that
represents postmodernity. He offers an evaluation of the impact of this model of
conceiving transcendence on concepts such as religion, religiosity or sacred. Even if
from the perspective of the traditional religious institution this model is perceived as
being the sign of a deep crisis, the key of interpretation proposed by the author,
inspired from Eliade‘s theory of the dialectic of the sacred and the profane
underlines the fact that this model represents in fact the possibility of new forms of
religiosity, in the context of communicational society.
In order to describe this context more accurately, the author resorts to Aurel
Codoban‘s concepts of ―ontology of the significant surface,‖ characteristic for
postmodernity, a world of significations without consistency, without origin, or
depth. Furthermore, he considers that Codoban‘s interpretation of laic atheism, as
the main creation of occidental modernity, which is actually still a form of
religiosity that brings into open new ways of acceding transcendence, concurs with
the process of shaping the image of the postmodern world.
Sandu Frunză convincingly argues that the picture described outlines the
important part played by the human intervention in the process of construction of
reality, through communication. Hence, the transcendence is regained in the
permanent pursuit of meaning and authenticity, characteristic for postmodernity.
A privileged space for the manifestation of the weak transcendence is
identified by Sandu Frunză in the media culture. Using the anthropological approach
of mass media proposed by Mihai Coman, the author emphasizes the presence of a
―dilute‖ form of myth and mythical thought in media culture. He affirms that mass
media are much more than a channel of transmission of information or values; they
become a cultural system and play an important part in shaping the political and
spiritual culture of a community, but also in the symbolic construction of reality.
242
The author considers that the thought based on a symbolic logic that differs from the
rational thought, is not alien to the postmodern man. On the contrary, he claims that
man‘s need for sacred is evident and that the symbolic thought is a human constant.
These remarks are essential for Sandu Frunză‘ s undertaking to demonstrate that
mass media play a major role in the creation of mythical content and that their
functions have the same nature as the functions that were fulfilled in archaic
societies by the instances of mythical communication.
In the investigation of the ―symbolic dynamic of modernity‖, the author
introduces the concept of ―the median space of religious experience‖, as
representing the intersection between the human and the manifestation of the sacred,
a space materialized by symbolic structures, imaginative constructs and symbolic
actions. This space offers the symbolic material used by the postmodern man in the
process of the construction of his own identity. Evidently, mass media represent one
of the most important sources of the symbolic content that occupies the median
sphere of the religious experience.
In the last two parts of the volume, Sandu Frunză focuses on the field of
political communication as representing one of the areas where the myth and the
ritual are essential dimensions in the communication process. The author describes
the ritualic and mythical construction of political reality especially during the
election campaigns.
In the context of the announced death of the areas significant for the human
condition, Sandu Frunză underlines the importance of a reconceptualization of
communication rather through the lens of a logic of significations, than through the
lens of an instrumentalized logic. Thus, Sandu Frunză asserts that the main function
of communication becomes that of a depositary and a vehicle of the significant, from
the perspective of the human condition, contents.
The author takes Aurel Codoban‘s affirmation even further by affirming that
―communication constructs reality‖, stating that advertising constructs reality,
through ―its fragmentary but full of existential engagement stories‖, through the
mythical, symbolic, ritualic, dimensions contained by advertising. The author
proposes a balanced position referring to the authenticity of the experience provided
by the media culture on the whole, and advertising in particular, stating that ―when
we affirm that advertising creates reality we refer precisely at its capacity to offer,
through damaged or hidden structures of depth, an authentic existence and an
experience perceived by the person who lives it as being as high as possible.‖
With the volume Symbolic communication and seduction, Sandu Frunză
outlines an accurate and balanced image of the postmodern context where, as Aurel
Codoban says, ―physical reality becomes more and more a footnote of the
communicational reality.‖ At the same time, the perspective proposed by Sandu
Frunză provides us precious insights into the way in which ―the camouflaged
seduction of the sacred‖ penetrates the field of communication which constructs
reality.
243
Love – Its Many Faces. Towards a New Definition

– Review –
Ana-Maria DELIU
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Keywords: history of ideas and ideologies, cultural studies, philosophy of love,

identity and belonging
E-mail: anyshk.d@gmail.com
Simon May’s book is a praiseworthy attempt to define what is

generally held to be indefinable. Although love studies is a continually expanding
field of scholarship and love is discussed everywhere in media, the author feels the
need to defend his work by showing that we are keen to discuss the psychology of
love, but not its very nature because it has become an almost sacred territory that we
do not want to question. Rather than a pure and almost divine emotion, love is more
of a social construct, which seems to have been ―frozen in time‖ since Romanticism.
Without a history of love and lovers, would we know how to love? Simon May
suggests an interesting and new approach in describing love within a historical-
discursive framework.
The novelty comes from defining love as ―ontological rootedness‖, ―the
rapture we feel for people and things that inspire in us the hope of an indestructible
grounding for our life. It is a rapture that sets us off on – and sustains – the long
search for a secure relationship between our being and theirs.‖1 Love seen as an
existential grounding based on otherness results in the disintegration of the myth of
unconditional love.
Another notable development in the philosophy of love is the author‘s thesis
about love`s deification: the history of the idea of love from ―God is love‖ to ―Love
is god‖. He describes the last phase in terms of hybris and argues that love comes to
satisfy the religious needs of the modern man, something that Nietzsche did not
realise when he lamented: ―Almost two thousand years – and not a single new
god!‖; ―Love plays God‖, as Simon May had the wit to reply.
The book focuses on four major changes regarding how love was perceived
over the course of time in Western cultures, starting from the premise that ―the
emotion of love is universal but the way this emotion gets interpreted varies greatly
from one society and epoch to another.‖ The author uses four formulae in order to
illustrate the paradigm shifts of the particular emotion – the value of love, the power

Simon May, Istoria iubirii, trans. Dana Ionescu (Bucharest: Nemira Publishing House,
2014) [Love. A History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011)]
1
Ibid., 6.
244
to love, the object of love, and the lover.1 The procession of forms through history
indicates a slow but certain deification of love: from love directed to God as a
supreme virtue, to a transcending force meant to elevate the human condition to a
divine level, to love as an emotion worthy of any human with the same intensity that
was formerly reserved to God, and finally, to a potency of being authentic through
love, to ―actualise his own nature‖.2 From exploring beyond individual, to exploring
the individual, and from manifestation of love for and to God, to love for the sake of
love, this are the cultural transformations.
To show the construction and deconstruction of an emotion, Simon May
invokes examples from The Hebrew Scripture, ancient and modern philosophy
(Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Ovid, Spinoza, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche),
from Christianity, psychoanalysis (Freud), literature (Schlegel, Novalis, Proust), and
troubadours‘ songs. In my opinion, the author should have insisted more on the
Orphic mystery cults and Assyro-Babylonian mythology when depicting the roots of
the idea of love. However, for the purpose of the book, how Plato and the Judaic
tradition view love is revealing enough, since these sources are not only more
influential in Western culture, but also a synthesis of the above.
One of the book‘s shortcomings is the fact that in the chapter dedicated to
this problem the author argues that ―God loves them [Israel‘s people] as the
guardians of his law; and his ‗choosing‘ of them to receive the law, given to Moses
on Mount Sinai, is itself an act of his love‖.3 Scholars in history of religions have
concluded that the early religion of Israel (before the prophets) was based not on
love, but on fear. Israel‘s God as a moral and loving divinity would have been
impossible to imagine before Jeremiah and Isaiah.4 Simon May acknowledges that
Yahweh can be cruel but it resolves into ―[t]his is how all love works.‖5
Nevertheless, his argument is reinforced by the idea that not the moral comportment
evokes love, but what he calls ―ontological rootedness‖.
What I appreciated is the writing style, which is not only eloquent, but also
lyrical. The argumentation is clear and logical and the poetic language does not
affect the concision. Overall, one may find the book enjoyable and challenging.
While this book represents more of a historical approach, it is worth
mentioning that Simon May is currently writing a second volume on the philosophy
of love, entitled Love: A New Theory. Although theoretical directions can be found
in Love. A History, the second book might be a critique of the idea of love. We can
assume that the author will develop the definition and directions already suggested,
and that the new theory is relating love to the feeling of existential grounding or, as
Simon May puts it, ―ontological rootedness‖.
1
Ibid., 11–12.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., 35.
4
See Robert. Henry Charles, Doctrina vieţii de apoi în Israel, în iudaism şi în creştinism (A
Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism and in Christianity)
(Bucharest: Herald, 2009), 9–20.
5
May, Love, 36.
245
The book is a recommendable reading for scholars and students interested in

love studies or philosophy of love. It describes the chronological development of the
idea of love and the inextricable link with the historical framework. Nevertheless, it
can be an enjoyable reading for everyone curious about the matter. Gathering
examples from philosophy, literature, religion and psychology, it allows the reader
to engage into a comparative study of the history of love.
246
Cultural Memory
- Review -
Amalia COTOI
Faculty of Letters, Romanian Literary Studies
Keywords: memory, remembrance, forgetfulness, identity, culture, meaning,

connective structure, tradition, history
E-mail: amaliacotoi@yahoo.com
*
Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance and

Political Imagination was written in 1992, after studies carried on by Jan Assmann
and his wife Aleida Assmann at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in the academic year
1984–1985.
Though internationally acclaimed ever since the last century, it is only in 2013
that Memoria Culturală: scriere, amintire şi identitate politică în marile culturi antice
was translated into Romanian by the Publishing House of the ―Alexandru Ioan Cuza‖
University within the ―Bibliotheca Classica Iassienesis‖ series.
While Aleida Assmann‘s paper Erinnerungsräume: Formen und
Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses concerns the problematic of cultural
memory in the Modern age, the current study refers almost exclusively to the
Antiquity (and I say ―almost‖ due to a few arbitrary examples that anchor us to the
modern world).
Thus, though with a great potential of falling in the trap of studying the
memory from an Egyptological viewpoint, the current study surpasses it, being a
―contribution to the great theory of culture‖.1
Cultural memory is divided into two parts. The first one is dedicated to the
theoretical approach of the problematic and the second one to the detailed case
studies on Egypt, the Hittite Empire, Israel and Greece. We will focus our attention
on the first part, while also making reference to the case studies when clearness of
understanding will demand it.
What is “cultural memory”?

As early as in the Introduction, we find that cultural memory is an external one, a
memory of the collectivity, with no connection to a neural system. It is ―cultural‖
because it can only be done through institutionalization and it is a ―memory‖
because it is born through socialization. Cultural memory or the culture of

Jan Assmann, Memoria cultural (Cultural memory) (Iaşi: Editura Universităţii ―Alexandru
Ioan Cuza‖, 2013), 349 p. ISBN 978-973-703-903-3
1
Assmann, Memoria culturală, 19.
247
remembrance is a universal phenomenon, it is a memory that standardizes and

regulates community.
Apart from the cultural memory, Assmann also refers to three other external
memories: mimetic memory, the memory of objects and communicative memory. A
mimetic routine that obtains ritual status or an object that gains meaning (an icon,
for instance) go beyond mimetic memory and memory of objects and grow part of
cultural memory due to becoming bearers of meaning. According to the author,
cultural memory is a memory of meaning transmission.
The theme of the current study is whether communicational memory follows
the model of mimetic and objects‘ memory and whether it melts in cultural memory
through the acquisition of meaning.
More than this, another goal of Cultural memory is the connection of three other
themes, seen mainly with regard to the chosen people, the Israelites (who have a particular
role in the study of this phenomenon): remembrance (or the reference to the past), identity
(or political vision) and cultural continuity (or the establishment of tradition).
Every society/culture lies under the sign of a so-called connective structure.
―It achieves the connection between the individual and his contemporaries by
creation of a space of experiences, expectations and common actions, like a
symbolic universe which through its cohesive and coercive power regulates
confidence and orientation.‖1 In other words, that which unites solitary individuals
in a ―we‖ is a connective structure of knowledge of rules, principles and a common
past as fundamentals. Repetition is the main means through which this is done. The
example that Jan Assmann gives in this context is that of the Seder celebration
which, for the Jews, is more than a repetition but an actualization of Exodus.
Through Haggada, the text book that is being read on this occasion, an interpretation
of this text is achieved, in addition to its remembrance. Along with the approach of
the said thematic, we have focused on this example because the author also follows
the metamorphoses and alternatives of the connective structure in the Antiquity and
the way that these could be compared.
Memory versus tradition and history

The past, according to Jan Assmann, is being set up by reference to itself. Talking
about the past two main conditions are required: the existence of evidence of this
past and the existence of a distinctive trait between the evidence and the present.
―The oldest experience of that breaking between yesterday and today, where the
issue of extinction or conservation is involved, is death.‖2 Assmann says that death
is the primary form of cultural memory. The deceased keeps living after death
through remembrance. For instance, in Roman culture, the patricians held the
custom of carrying the portraits and masks of their ancestors during the familial
processions. An exception is raised by one of the Egyptian customs through which
any man well thought of by everyone may build his own grave and write his
biography in order to ensure his living after death.
1
Ibid., 16.
2
Ibid., 33.
248
Taking into account these examples, the author is talking about cultural
memory related to tradition. If we were questioning ourselves about whether
tradition was not sufficient in talking about collective memory, the author attempts a
clarification in this respect. According to him, various phenomena described in this
book could be subsumed under tradition, but in this way we lose sight of the act of
interception, of the breakage with the past (if necessary) and of the negative aspects
such as repression and forgetfulness.
Maurice Halbwachs, as Jan Assmann emphasizes, says that even if
individual memory develops through communication, a social frame is needed too.
The author of Cultural memory believes that this theory is functional because it
explains both remembrance and forgetfulness. Besides a frame of remembrance and
forgetfulness, cultural memory also demands ―figures of remembrance‖.1 In order to
function in a group, the truth needs a concrete shape which materializes into an
event, a person or a place. The remembrance needs a space (as the topography of the
Holy Land) and a time (as a calendar with holidays). But more than that, the
memory is in close connection with its bearers, which brings identity to the
community they belong to.
The reconstruction is also tied to the belonging to a community, according
to the theory of Halbwachs, continued by Assmann. When we said ―reconstruction‖
we meant that no remembrance of the past is maintained in the initial shape, the past
being a construction of each epoch. Christian topography is a valuable example in
this sense. It does not commemorate facts certified by witnesses of those times but
proofs of beliefs in God, which were declared post factum.
Last but not least, because a debate about remembrance is also a debate about
history, Jan Assmann (through Halbwachs‘ theory) draws some explicative lines
between memory (seen as collective) and history. If collective memory is interested in
time continuity and similarities between epochs, history is concerned with time
discontinuities and differences between epochs. For history, the periods lacking events
are meaningless, whereas collective memory tries to keep a right image of the entire
past. There is more than one cultural memory but only one history.
Communicative memory and cultural memory

The historical perspective refers to two planes of thought: ―the originary epoch and the
most recent past.‖2 The two ends, the farthest (originary) past and the most recent one
correspond to cultural memory and communicative memory. In the cultural memory
of community, the two approaches are closely related. In contrast, communicative
memory is represented by the memories that the individual transmits to his
contemporaries – it is the recent past. In this case, even in literary societies, history,
seen as recent past, does not go further than 80 years. A good example in this respect
are the 3–4 generations in the Bible that must pass for the atonement of a guilt. The
essential polarity between cultural and communicative memory could be represented
by the one between sacred and profane or that between celebration and routine.
1
Ibid., 38.
2
Ibid., 49.
249
From the ―what‖ an individual of a community remembers, Jan Assmann

concerns himself with ―how‖ he remembers it, and underlines the existence of two
ways of accessing memory. It is, first, a foundational memory that refers to the
origins. Next, it is a biographical memory that relies on the individual‘s own
experiences. Foundational memory always employs concrete phenomena - rituals,
dances, myths, ornaments, scenery, paintings etc. On the other hand, biographical
memory has social interaction as object and goal. More than that, foundational
memory is the establishment and biographical memory is the growth.
From ―what‖ and ―how‖ we get to ―who‖ are the bearers of memory and
implicitly of remembrance. Without the possibility of consignment by writing, the
knowledge that represents the group‘s cultural memory has the human memory as its
only localization. Be it the poet, the griot, the shaman, cultural memory always has
special bearers. In societies lacking writing, the specialization of memory bearers
depends on the demands imposed. For instance, in Rwanda, specialists must learn
the 18 royal rituals. An interesting aspect of this is that to a temporal festive –
quotidian dichotomy the approach of collective memory associates a knowledgeable
elite – rest of the group dichotomy.
In cultures lacking writing, direct presence is the only way of participating
to cultural memory. These participations happen within celebrations or rituals.
Celebration is not opposed to the routine as a sacred time, but rather as a moment
marking an important time for the community.
Remembrance as mytho-motricity
Historical conscience is part of human nature, it is a basic instinct. Forgetfulness is,
on the other hand, stronger and more enrooted in human structure. Remembrance
and forgetfulness are better developed in some peoples than in others. A fact that,
according to Assmann, does not rely on the existence of written culture, but rather
on the existence of some factors that block or stimulate remembrance.
In search of stimulators and inhibitors of remembrance, Assmann cites the
theory of ―cold‖ and ―warm‖ societies developed by the French anthropologist Claude
Lévi-Strauss. By Assmann‘s consignment, societies that oppose the modification of
their mechanism are called ―cold‖ societies, while change-thirsty societies are named
―warm‖. If for Claude Lévi-Strauss this categorization was not seen beyond the
polarity of societies with/without history, for the author of Cultural memory it is
nothing more than the motor of a ―used‖ Ford that helps him carry on his journey until
he finds the new Ford – a well defined theory of cultural memory. As a counter-
example to the theory of warm and cold societies, Jan Assmann gives ancient Egypt –
a civilized, literary society that, however, refuses a log of its history. Thus, avoiding
the division of the world in two, the author thinks that societies can be both ―warm‖
and ―cold‖ at the same time, without the need of a categorical framing.
Having reached the subchapter The alliance between mastery and memory,
Assman involves a primary factor in the stimulation of remembrance, which is the
domination upon a people. Social transformations are desired by the ones lacking
privilege, the lower classes, and their oppression is nothing but a stimulant of
remembrance and implicitly of historical thinking. In this case, anchorage to the past
becomes a form of resistance.
250
We have seen in the prior pages how foundational remembrance is seen by

Assmann as a myth, but we have not got to comprehend the distance between the
myth and history according to the author. We come back at this moment to a
redefinition of terms for a better posterior comprehension of remembrance seen as
mytho-motricity. Thus, in practice, the myth is fiction that serves a purpose, while
history is reality seen as disinterested objectivity. But the past that enters the history of
a community, having a foundational function, is a myth regardless of whether it is a
part of fictional or a real place. For example, ―the extermination of European Jews is a
historical fact and thus object of historical research. In modern Israel, it has became
additionally, under the name of «Holocaust », foundational history and a myth through
which the state receives a great deal of its legitimacy and orientation.‖1 Regarding old
Israel, the neighbouring country used to have foundational histories built of cosmic
myths, Israel introduces a historical myth – the Exodus and conquest of the Promised
Land – and forces its historical becoming out of it.
The myth is in Jan Assmann‘s vision a ―warm memory‖2 with two functions:
a foundational one (as in, for example, the history of Exodus for Israel and the myth of
Osiris for Egypt) and one that opposes the present, that starts from baneful events from
the present and involves a glorious and historical past (the Homeric epopees, for
example). Of course, as we are already accustomed, there is also a middle path here, a
myth that can be foundational as well as counter-presential, and this is due to the
significance that the myth has in the present. The significance, a force that gives
orientation and identity, is called ―mytho-motricity‖3 by the author. A good example
of counter-presential and revolutionary mytho-motricity are the upheaval moment in
the 18th and 19th century, which are based on invented tradition.
Religion is also connected with the foundational function. Religion
perpetuates through remembrance something no longer current, thus producing a
non-simultaneity. At the opposite end we find routine, under the form of daily needs,
that produces and imposes simultaneity. A society without religion or with a reduced
influence of it, as in the Western society, tends to one-dimensionality. The only form
of salvation of these societies, as Assmann indirectly suggests, is cultural memory,
which produces two-dimensionality in the individual‘s life, meaning the ―possibility
of living in two different periods‖.4 In other words it is nothing but a function of
escapism through remembrance.
From ritual to canon

Assmann considers that the switch from a ritual coherence to a textual one is similar
to changing the focus from Egyptian culture, where the ritual is in charge of keeping
the world moving, to Jewish culture, where the representation of the world is highly
related to the interpretation of the texts. The memory of the group is carried by
culture, not by some neural network. That‘s why through community as the identity
of that particular group.
1
Ibid., 75–76.
2
Ibid., 78.
3
Ibid., 79.
4
Ibid., 83–84.
251
The ritual signifies a meaning. ―That‘s why the ritual keeps living through
repetition (as in the case of Seder celebration). But once a culture passes from a
ritual coherence to a textual one the main type of movement, while texts aren‘t or
may be only if they are in circulation. When it is out of movement, from a container
of the meaning, the text develops into a grave of the meaning. From now on, only
the interpret can read the text and bring the meaning back to life.‖1 What Assmann
says is that even if it becomes harder to be transmitted, the meaning is not frozen
once it passes to a textual coherence, but it is replaced with other meaning. The
―School of scribes‖ plays a major role in this development because it is the one
which approves the circulation of texts and preserves unaltered the main meanings.
―The House of Life‖ and ―House of Boards‖ from Mesopotamia are two examples of
establishments in charge of carrying the cultural memory of the texts.
The reason for passing from a ritualistic manifestation to a textual one was a
so called ―cessation of the flow of tradition by canonization‖2 not by the emergence
of writing, as we are tempted to think. As proofs the author brings the Jewish Bible
and the Buddhist Tripitaka. The Christian Bible and the Koran are two canons that
are connected with those earlier mentioned. Around these forms of canon and
canonization are brought to life institutions, whose main purpose is the hermeneutics
of the texts, and intellectual elite (as the Jewish Rabbi, the Buddhist etc.) who deals
with this kind of texts.
The canon is defined by Jan Assmann as being ―that tradition whose content is
absolutely mandatory and the form – inviolable‖.3 In this way the carrier of the canon,
the scribe, was part of the canonization of a text by keeping and giving it further with
legal strictness. A good example is given by the Babylonians who protected their texts
by blessings and imprecations addressed to the transmitter of the text. In the Jewish case
things are different. The birth of the canonizations for the Jews starts with the collapse of
the second Temple and the exodus, so with the loss of ritualistic continuity. By
Deuteronomy, Israel survives as a so-called connective structure.
From the dawn of Antiquity until today, the meaning of the word ―canon‖
has changed especially because of the Church. The Church was the one who claimed
the status of unquestioned authority. That‘s why besides answering the question
―what are our guiding criteria?‖, the canon – literary, philosophic or scientific –
draws a demarcation line between A and non-A, between straight and skewed, good
and bad, between beautiful and ugly, etc.
Identity and memory

Having an identity, as an individual or as a group, means having the conscience of
an unconscious self image. Regarding the birth of personal and collective identity,
Jan Assmann launches two apparently paradoxical theses. Firstly, he says that
personal identity is a sociogenic phenomenon, which means it is born through the
participation of the individual to social communication. Secondly, Assmann asserts
1
Ibid., 91.
2
Ibid., 94.
3
Ibid., 103.
252
that ―we‖ – collective identity – does not exists outside a multiplied ―I‖. Then, from
―I‖-‖we‖ we pass on to the triad ―I‖-‖him‖-‖we‖ where ―I‖ is the individual identity
that makes the individual unique with respect to the others (also on a corporal level)
and ―him‖ is the personal identity, which comprises the entirety of the individual‘s
role and social functions. In spite of the former‘s corporal quality and thus of the
danger of the pathological manifestation, both identities are developed through
reflection. The same things happen within cultural identity, where the involvement is
reflexive, whereas collective identity appears like a social belonging that has
become reflexive.
Thus, Jan Assmann concludes that because man is incapable of living
without culture, the latter becomes second nature. ―An animal adapts to its
environment by instinct. Man, while lacking these instincts, must adapt to culture as
a world of symbolic meanings.‖1 The symbolic meaning represents here a common
basis of knowledge and memories packed in a common language. At the level of
face-to-face communities, for instance, dialog is the major form of transmission of
social consensus, which is the knowledge that regulates the identity of a community.
The myths are the ones founding this identity because they tell us ―who we are,
where we come from and what is our place in the Cosmos‖.2 The ways of keeping
this identity are the rituals in illiterate societies, and the texts in literate societies.
The exception to this rule is again Egypt because here the symbol of the people‘s
birth and the nation‘ founding is represented by the building of the pyramids during
the 4th dynasty. Thus, whereas it is transmitted through a temple, a ritual, a text or
through religion (the most effective, according to Assmann), memory, as a
foundational or counter- presential myth, offers to a community its identity through
what the author calls ―cultural memory‖.
1
Ibid., 138.
2
Ibid., 144.
253
ILLUSTRATIONS FOR THIS NUMBER
(Almost) Nothing to See. An Essay-Like Review of Photographs by

Patricia Todoran and Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean
Teodora COSMAN
Université Libre de Bruxelles
Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres/
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles
Unusually for Philobiblon, the current issue is illustrated with the works
of not one but two artists, two young photographers from Cluj-Napoca, Patricia
Todoran and Irina Dumitraşcu Măgurean. The choice was made on the basis of the
―nothingness‖ of their pictures, but not in a pejorative sense. The images are a kind of
visual response to the negative ―vibe‖ that seems to traverse the current issue,
featuring such texts as Daniel Jugrin‘s Negation and Mystical union in Plotinus,
Ştefan Bolea‘s The Nihilist as a Not-Man or István Király V.‘s Names of the Nothing.
What they have in common (the images and the texts) is the refusal of
representation. But how can a picture refuse representation, how can visual
―nothing(ness)‖ look like? Modern art has long ago begun to address this issue,
pushing the limits of representation further and further away, notoriously in the case
of the monochrome. Nonetheless, the matters with photography are complicated by
the fact that a photograph is ―supposed‖ to have a referent (common sense demands
it) in order to be understood as a photograph. If we‘re culturally programmed to
recognize intentionality in a canvas covered in white, for example, that is not the
case with pictures. A blank photograph is no more than a blank piece of paper, or in
the best case, a ―mistaken‖ photograph, something that is not worth the effort to be
shown, to be seen. (If we were to reproduce a ―blank‖ photograph this would be
most likely interpreted as a typographic mistake.) Not much unlike the name of the
―nothing‖, a photograph has to show ―something‖ in order to signify ―nothing‖.
The question is how much of this ―something‖ can be put in a photograph in
order to maintain its significance as nothing? Natalie Heinich, in her work on media
culture, distinguishes between ―visuality‖ – that is the domain of the visible, and
―visibility‖ (a quality of) what is worth or demands to be seen.1 The last term
implies the idea of an election, a promotion, a special value that is attached to the
object in order to accede (in)to visibility. There is, however, an inferior and a
superior limit to the visible, that excludes from visibility realities that are ―too little‖
(in terms of importance) or ―too much‖ to be seen.
The representative practices (such as painting and photography) cast a value
judgment on their objects, enforcing them with a special dignity by bringing them
into visibility. For a picture to show ―nothing‖ it has to keep as close as possible to
the limits of the visible, without completely falling outside. The object of the picture
1
Natalie Heinich, De la Visibilité. Excellence et singularité en régime médiatique (Paris :
Gallimard, 2012).
254
has to be ―infimous‖ (if not ―infamous‖) in such a way that it is almost not there. A
mistaken photograph, like in the example given above, is an object that cannot make
it into the visible, unless a value judgment cast upon it decides otherwise.
In her work, Irina Dumitraşcu employs the strategies of ―cheap
photography‖ – that is the use of photographic error, such as blur or overexposure,
and of obsolete or amateurish techniques, such as Polaroid – raising into the dignity
of the visible objects that otherwise would have been discarded. Even in this context,
the images have a ubiquitous status depending on their degree of (figurative)
readability, going from a ―foggy‖ but still recognizable visible reality to (almost)
nothing to see. This blurring effect is used in order to signify that photography‘s
denotatum is situated beyond the visible, into the in-visible self of the other (the
photographer‘s? the model‘s?) and that‘s how the viewer should consider them: they
are pictures made not to be seen, but to be absorbed and contemplated inside oneself
with the eyes closed, as mental images.
From the point of view of the ―dignity‖ of their objects, Patricia Todoran‘s
photographs also adopt the minimal strategy: a pile of sand, a barrack, the top of
some hills. Although full of visual signs, the pictures seem devoid of any
significance. They look like a crime scene missing the clue. From this point of view
they are similar to the ―evidence‖ photographs used by the police, whose meaning
relays on the explanatory apparatus which accompany them.
Walter Benjamin famously compares photographs with crime scenes: ―But
isn‘t every square inch of our cities a crime scene? Every passer-by a culprit? Isn‘t it
the task of the photographer—descendant of the augurs and haruspices—to reveal
guilt and to point out the guilty in his pictures?‖ anticipating the practices of some
conceptual artists (such as Edward Ruscha or John Hilliard) who used the
―criminalist‖ model in order to challenge photography‘s evidential character. He
also stresses out the importance of the caption in the construction of meaning, saying
that ―inscription [will] become the most important part of the photograph‖.1
In Patricia‘s work neither do the captions explain the images, nor do the
images illustrate what is said in the caption, but rather their incongruence creates a
new meaning which falls beyond representation, in the gap created between them,
the gap of re-presentation. That kind of use of image and text reminds us of the
surrealist tradition, especially that of André Breton‘s photo-novel Nadja.2
Irina DUMITRAŞCU MĂGUREAN was born in 1985 in Cluj-Napoca. She is a

university assistant at the University of Art and Design from Cluj-Napoca, and has a
PhD in visual arts. She studied photography at the University of Art and Design,
from which she graduated in 2008.
Contact E-mail: irina.dora@gmail.com
Solo exhibitions :
1
Walter Benjamin, ―Little History of Photography‖ in Selected Writings vol.2 (Cambridge
Mass., London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), 507–530.
2
André Breton, Nadja (New York: Grove Press Inc., 1960).
255
2013 ―Zooming‖, Berliner Liste, Berlin, Germany

―Intimacy‖, Cluj, Romania
―Lisabona‖, Casino – Center for Urban Culture, Cluj, Romania
2012 ―Retratos de Natureza Rumena em Lisboa‖, Water Museum, Lisbon,
Portugal
2011 ―Punct si de la capat‖ (Start again), Gallery Alianta Artelor, Cluj, Romania
―Zboară cu mine‖ (Fly with me), The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj, Romania
2005 Exhibition for the 10h Aniversary of the Agraria Fair, Expo Transilvania,
Cluj, Romania
Selected group exhibitions:
2014 ―Combined works‖, The Paintbrush Factory, Cluj, Romania
―Unfinished projects‖, UAP Gallery, Târgu Mureş, Romania
―De aproape‖ (Close) with Rie Kuroda (Berlin/Tokyo), The Paintbrush
Factory, Cluj, Romania
2014 ―Elements of soul‖, Latarka Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
―Imago Mundi – L‘Arte dell‘Umanità‖, Treviso, Italy
2013 ―Skin‖, Dark Room Gallery, Vermont, USA
―Home‖ Ground Art Foundation, New York, USA
―Portas Abertas‖, Forum Eugenio de Almeida, Evora, Portugal
XV International Biennial of Portrait, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2012 ―6x6‖, Rochester Institute of Art, Rochester, New York, USA
―Vente au profit de Fabrica de Pensule‖, Tajan, Paris, France
2010 ―The face of an Angel‖, Opera House, Sofia, Bulgaria
Art Rotterdam, ―Tales of the Unexpected‖, Rotterdam, Holland
Art Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Holland
2009 Short View, The Art and Architecture Academy, Prague, Czech Republic
2007 Art in situ proiect şi expoziţie, Crest, France
2006 Alte Saline, Hallein, Austria
―Eurodreams‖, Karinthy Szalon, Budapest, Ungaria
Patricia TODORAN was born in 1987. She studied ―Photo-Video-Digital Image

Processing‖ at the University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca, obtaining her B.A. in
2008. Between 2007–2008 she benefited from the Erasmus Exchange Programme at
the Haute École de la Province de Liège Rennequin Sualem, Belgium. She got her
master‘s degree in visual arts in 2010, from the University of Art and Design Cluj-
Napoca. She lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Contact:
E-mail: patricia.todoran@gmail.com
Web: http://patriciatodoran.blogspot.ro
Selected exhibitions:
2015 Local Municipalities, Artists book exhibition, Visual Kontakt, Oradea,
Romania
Bus stops. Thresholds of our daily lives, Photo Romania Festival 2015, Cluj-
Napoca, Romania
256
2013 Hidden Reality III, Euroarte Association, Casa de Cultură a Studenţilor

(Student‘s Cultural Hall), Bucharest, Romania
Young Art Show 6, Slovakia
2012 Hidden Reality, Euroarte Association, Metropolitan Library Bucharest,
Romania
Hidden Reality II, Máquina de Somar Associação, Hard Rock Club, Porto,
Portugal
2011 Selection in the ―Incotro‖ Romanian Visual Survey 2010
2010 The graduate exhibition, Expo Transilvania, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
East West Fest, Baia Mare, Romania
2009 Digital Fringe 09 Open Call, part of the Impossible Exchange Project, Frieze
Art Fair London
East West Fest, Lille, France
Master 2009, Casa Matei Underground Gallery, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2008 UNARTE_FEST International Experimental Film Festival, Bucharest,
Romania
Filminute, Orange Concept Store, Bucharest, Romania
The graduate exhibition, Expo Transilvania, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Urban Fest Student Festival, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2007 European Animation Festival ANIMOTION, Sibiu, Romania
International Festival of Unconventional Arts LA STRADA, Sibiu,
Romania
International Festival of Artistic Documentaries and Photographic Arts,
Aiud, Romania
URBAN FEST Student Festival, Art Museum, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2006 Memory boxes, Nantes, France
PHOTO&GLAMOUR Student Fashion National Festival, Casa de Cultură a
Studenţilor (Student‘s Cultural Hall), Cluj-Napoca, Romania
LADYFEST, Bucharest, Romania
Memory Boxes, Transit House, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2005 Photography as an Ethnographic Document, UAP Galleries, Cluj-Napoca,
Romania
2004 Photography, 5th edition, Univers T, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
257
PREVIOUS VOLUMES OF PHILOBIBLON
Volume I. Number 1–2 / 1996 134 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Europeanism and
Europeanization; Librarianship: A Changing Profession in a Transitional
Society: Data – Conditions – Possibilities; The Special Collections of the
Library)
Volume II. Number 1 / 1997 136 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Axiological Openings
and Closures; A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data –
Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library;
Miscellanea)
Volume II. Number 2 / 1997 237 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Existential Dispositions;
A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data – Conditions –
Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library; Miscellanea)
Volume III. Number 1–2 / 1998 319 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Dictionaries –
Backgrounds and Horizons; A Changing Profession in a Transitional
Society: Data – Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of
the Library; Miscellanea)
Volume IV–V–VI–VII. 1999–2002 538 p. (Culture, Books, Society: History and

Memory; A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data –
Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library;
Miscellanea).
Volume VIII–IX. 2003–2004 573 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Censorship and the
Barriers of Freedom; A Changing Profession in a Transitional Society: Data
– Conditions – Possibilities; Varia: The Special Collections of the Library;
Miscellanea).
Volume X–XI. 2005–2006 603 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Music and Existence;
Librarianship: Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria: Data – Conditions –
Possibilities; The Special Collections of the Library; Miscellanea).
Volume XII. 2007 457 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Adrian Marino and His Horizons;
Volume XIII. 2008 672 p. (Culture, Books, Society: Living and Dying Life;
258
Volume XIV. 2009 602 p. (Culture, Books, Society: The Environment;

Volume XV. 2010 601 p. (Science, Culture, Books, Society: Time, Past, Future,
History; Librarianship: Hermeneutica Bibliothecaria: Data – Conditions –
Volume XVI. Number 1. (January-June) 2011, 1–285 p.; MAN – BOOK –

KNOWLEDGE – SOCIETY, Miscellanea
Volume XVI. Number 2. (July-December) 2011, 286–634 p.; MAN – BOOK –

Volume XVII. Number 1. (January-June) 2012, 1-316 p.; MAN – BOOK –

Volume XVII. Number 2. (July-December) 2012, 317-634 p.; MAN – BOOK –

Volume XVIII. Number 1. (January-June) 2013, 1-236 p.; MAN – BOOK –

Volume XVIII. Number 2. (July-December) 2013, 237-536 p.; MAN – BOOK –

Volume XIX Number 1. (January-June) 2014, 1-282 p.; MAN – BOOK –

Volume XIX Number 2. (July - December) 2014, 283 -615 p.; MAN – BOOK –
259

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Lucian Blaga Central University Library

Cluj University Press

Director: Doru RADOSAV

Chief Editor: István KIRÁLY V.

Editor of the English Text and Translator: Emese CZINTOS

Editorial Secretary and Marketing: Raluca TRIFU

Editor of the Illustrations: Teodora COSMAN

EDITORIAL BOARD AND PERMANENT SCIENTIFIC ADVISORS

PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS (including Bio- and Medical Ethics), AESTHETICS,

STEIN, Princeton University, Department of Molecular Biology and Cecília LIPPAI,

HISTORY, HISTORY OF CULTURE, HISTORY OF MENTALITIES,

LITERARY HISTORY AND THEORY, LINGUISTICS:

THEORY AND CULTURE OF INFORMATION, LIBRARIANSHIP AND

E-mail: philobib@bcucluj.ro and/or kiraly_philobib@yahoo.com

The PHILOBIBLON Editorial Office welcomes manuscripts for publication!

For Submission Guidelines please refer to:

The Contents of the PHILOBIBLON issues, the

OCLC number 271188595

Philobiblon is accredited by the National Research Council of Romania as a

Philobiblon is published in 2 (two) numbers per year,

MAN – BOOK – KNOWLEDGE – SOCIETY

Radu ALBU COMĂNESCU, Marthe, Princess Bibesco (1886–1973). Diplomacy

Anna JANI, Individuality and Community. Construction of Sociality

Ştefan BOLEA, The Nihilist as a Not-Man. An Analysis of Psychological

Carmen ŢÂGŞOREAN, Testimony over Time. The Rebellion in Bucharest in

Mircea-Andrei GOLBAN, The Task of the Poet and the Task of

Mihaela URSA, Antifeminist Ideologies in Romanian Popular Culture.

Daniel JUGRIN, Negation and Mystical Union in Plotinus ..................................... 94

Francisc ÖRMÉNY, Paganism and Barbarism in the French Philosophy of the

Béla MESTER, Man-Made Values in an Inhuman Cosmos ................................... 138

István FEHÉR M., Irony and Solidarity: Two Key Concepts

Lajos András KISS, The Efficiency of Applied Philosophical Thematization:

István KIRÁLY V., The Names of the Nothing ......................................................... 212

Angela MARCU, Daniela TODOR, Referinţe critice – a Bibliography of

Anca Elisabeta TATAY, The Repertory of Typographers, Engravers, Editors,

Alina BRANDA, The Gusti(an) Sociologists in the Interwar University. Studies

Ovidiu PECICAN, Perennial and Timely Existentialism – Ştefan Bolea‟s

Iulia GRAD, Sandu Frunză – Symbolic Communication and Seduction

Ana-Maria DELIU, Love – Its Many Faces. Towards a New Definition

Amalia COTOI, Cultural Memory – Review ........................................................... 247

ILLUSTRATIONS FOR THIS NUMBER

Teodora COSMAN, (Almost) Nothing to See. An Essay-Like Review of

Marthe, Princess Bibesco (1886–1973)

Radu ALBU COMĂNESCU,

Keywords: Romania-history; literature and diplomacy: aristocracy; francophile;

―You do personify Europe to me.‖

Described by her biographers as ―the last Belle-Epoque orchid‖ or ―the 1

To History through Genealogy

Mavrocordatos were best illustrated by Constantine (III), whose Enlightened

The Chateaubriand Way: Literature and Diplomacy

Patricia Todoran, On Obstacles 5

Individuality and Community.

Keywords: Edith Stein, phenomenology, humanities, empathy, community,

Abstract: The problem of individuality lies at the basis of phenomenological

E-mail: janianna@web.elte.hu; anna.vargajani@gmail.com

Edith Stein’s beginnings in philosophy used to be characterized as

The empathy as the basic act of experience

phenomenological act of empathy to an act of the community life.1 This question