In Time Reborn and elsewhere physicist Lee Smolin identifies Peirce as a precursor to his view that natural laws evolved, a view that runs counter the received opinion within physics that time isn’t real. After discussing Smolin’s arguments for the reality of time, two approaches advoacated by Smolin –cosmological natural selection and Quantum Energetic Causal Set Theory– are discussed in the context of Peirce’s cosmology. It is shown that Peirce’s approach provides a possible ground for a (...) physical theory like Quantum Energetic Causal Set Theory, opening the way for a full-fledged cosmology that does justice to contemporary physics. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger was the first philosopher to see skillful coping as the basis of our understanding of the world and ourselves. But he acknowledges that such average understanding is banal and conceals more than it reveals. He, therefore, holds that, to ground intelligibility, people must conform to everyday practical norms, but that, by acting in the face of anxiety, a person can resist conformism and refine standard ways of acting. His model is Aristotle’s phronimos (man of practical wisdom) who responds (...) with ethical expertise to the demands of the concrete situation. Further, Heidegger suggests that, when a person is fully authentic, he or she can transform everyday practice. Here, his model is Kierkegaard’s reborn individuals whom Heidegger sees as radical world disclosers capable of changing the issue for their age and so of changing history. (shrink)

The papers in this volume reflect much of the current unease of a world that perceives itself once more at the edge of chaos. The authors present different vistas of that experience and their inherent dialectic, expressed in numerous and ceaseless conflicts between ordering and disordering processes. They can be read as comments on the ongoing processes that lead toward greater complexity.

Antonin Artaud, words, drawings, and the extreme and traumatic condition of an individual who pushed back the boundaries of history, of his own time, in Europe’s darkest days. Such is my scope in the pages that follow. This essay examines the drawings produced by Artaud between 1944 and 1946. They offer a particularly helpful starting point for a series of reflections on, on the one hand, a concept of identity that had emerged and re-emerged with a new critical awareness (...) following the close of the Second World War, and on the other, how – leaving behind a modernism in which the cracks were clearly showing – it is from madness and suffering that the contemporary notion of the individual is reborn. (shrink)

Traditional Western conceptions of immortality characteristically presume that we come into existence at a particular time , live out our earthly span and then die. According to some, our death may then be followed by a deathless post-mortem existence. In other words, it is assumed that we are born only once and die only once; and that – at least on some accounts – we are future-sempiternal creatures. The Western secular tradition affirms at least ; the Western religious tradition (...) – Christianity, Judaism, Islam – generally affirms both and . The Indian tradition, however, typically denies both and . That is, it maintains both that we all have pre-existed beginninglessly, and that we have lived many times before and must live many times again in this world. The Indian picture, then, is that we have died and been reborn innumerable times previous to this life and we will be reborn many times in the future. This is sometimes called the Indian belief in reincarnation. The difficulty with this usage is that the term ‘reincarnation’ suggests a belief in an immortal soul that transmigrates or reincarnates. However Buddhism, while affirming rebirth, specifically denies the existence of an eternal soul. Thus the term ‘rebirth’ is preferable for referring to the generally espoused Indian doctrine. (shrink)

In the face of the ever-growing effect the actions of the present may have upon future people, most conspicuously around climate change, democracy has been accused, with good justification, of a presentist bias: of systemically favouring the presently living. By contrast, this paper will argue that the intimate relation, both quasi-ontological and normative, that Derrida's work establishes between temporality and justice insists upon another, more future-regarding aspect of democracy. We can get at this aspect by arguing for two consequences of (...) the deconstructive affirmation of sur-vivre, of the alterity of death in life. Firstly, justice is not first of all justice for the living, but intergenerational from the start. This is so because no generation coincides with itself; rather, it dies and is reborn at every moment, and so – and this is the second consequence – consists in taking turns. Affirming life as living-on means affirming that it involves exchanging life's stations, as the young become the old, and the unborn become the dead. In this sense, the justice of living-on, I will argue, shares an essential feature with democracy, whose principle of exchanging the rulers with the ruled led Derrida to characterize it in terms of the wheel. Democracy consists in the principled assent to power changing hands, a switchover life demands of every generation at every turn. This assent further requires an acceptance of the gift of inheritance without which no life can survive. But as the gift can also never be fully acknowledged or appropriated, it must be passed on to the indefinite, unknown future, in a turning that is the time of life. (shrink)

Today’s world is one of quick civilization changes, influencing the development of human thought and the understanding of many basic values. Particularly the last decades have posed a concrete question about freedom and its limitations. The value of freedom is still today being reborn and restructured, once suspicious as a source of sin, now a challenge and a responsible task for the human. Similar questions have also arisen as to the ideas of human dignity and mutual respect, as inherent (...) parts of the human condition.The contemporary world, despite being a new era in human history, does not, in fact, differ much from the Europe of the Middle Ages—divided and united by Christianity, paradoxical in that we strive to build solidarity and closeness and at the same time feel lost and helpless against the evil of the world. With that knowledge we may avoid unnecessary tragedies, learning from St. Francis times, where there was everything in that world—wars, fears, diseases on the one hand, asceticism and self-denial on the other—but no joy. A question may arise whether the voice of St. Francis would still be heard and listened to today. Whether his example would teach love, ecumenism and evangelical joy.The word «ecumenism» is and has been widely used, but often without any deeper reflection on its rich history and variety of meanings. Against the divisions and hatred of contemporary world, the idea of ecumenism increases its importance, becoming one of the main areas of Christian concern. Vatican II brought about a new era of ecumenical thinking, not only defining the theological basis for dialogue, but most importantly, showing its value and encouraging active participation of the faithful. Such participation requires, however, a man’s inner change–which cannot occur without appropriate formation and everyday practice of ecumenism. That presupposes respect for the other, pursuance of mutual trust, openness to widely understood cooperation and elimination of prejudice and fears. Such formation and change must encompass everyone without any difference, laymen and clergy, the faithful and the searching, so that the actions show true concern for the human as such. In that sense, ecumenism is an “inner conversion” (as says A. Skowronek), a new attitude towards the other—religion, human, culture.Against the above mentioned background, one can say that St. Francis exceeded whole centuries of ecumenical dialogue. However, to analyze his phenomenon, one must concentrate on the historical picture, leaving aside any strictly legendarymythological images.St. Francis’s popularity seems to be—almost irrationally—growing with the passage of time, despite not offering anything new or revealing. As a matter of fact, St. Francis reappears in all centuries, teaching the Christian message and teaching to love. His humanism is realized in kindness, solidarity, authentic respect and pure love of God and the human. The human is central in St. Francis’s thinking—great, beautiful and dramatic, full of dignity, and full of the conflict of his inborn goodness and threatening evil. The key to understanding him is only love, assuring freedom and spiritual richness. Yet St. Francis claims: Love is not loved. Re-reading the Gospel anew is a way to meet that Love, and oneself.The human always needed love. Love is inextricably connected with goodness and hence a positive relation towards the other. Those qualities, together with respect, acceptance and search for the truth, are also fundamental to ecumenism. Love appears to be the answer. St. Francis loved not only God, not only the human, but he loved and praised the beauty of all of God’s creation, his love being “the most literal realization of the message contained in the Gospel” (K. Starczewska). But as the first step to love and respect is for the human to respect his own dignity in himself. In that way, he shall also discovers his right to freedom and the truth about himself.The conclusion is the following: Undoubtedly, the character of St. Francis is a universal one. He spoke of his love of God—and human—in concrete deeds of love, never in abstract concepts. Tradition and legend have partly made St. Francis to a cheerful, carefree troubadour of love; however, he knew well the modern world, with its disagreements, hatred and half-truths. A simple tool in God’s hand, he made others overcome the prejudice in them and shake hands in reconciliation, practicing good deeds. Whether that still happens today, and the world adopts St. Francis’s humanistic attitude, depends also on us. (shrink)

The use of private military force by states has been a long-standing phenomena in the history of warfare. Armies of mercenaries, privateering and recruitment of foreign nationals into armed forces have been common during the Middle Ages and later on. However, with the invention of effective firearms and artillery, standing regular armies, conscription and other developments that resulted in the essential rise of costs of war, the role of private military entrepreneurs diminished. By the end of XIXth century the state (...) became almost the only subject that was able to wage a full-scale war. Nevertheless, already in the middle of the XXth century mercenarism has been reborn in Africa’s colonial and post-colonial wars. The end of the XXth century and the beginning of the XXI century witnesses an enormous rise of private security and military companies (PSMC) that are hired to perform different functions related to use of force not only by states, but also by other clients such as international organisations, transnational corporations, etc. A PSMC may be defined as a profit-seeking private enterprise, which is established according to the national law of the state and which is providing, on the basis of a contract, services directly or indirectly connected with the use of military force or its institutions whether in time of armed conflict or peace, notwithstanding how such company describes itself. International humanitarian law has no specific regulation of PSMC. Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to state that the activity of PSMC is not regulated, because international humanitarian law in any case, in one or another way, is applicable to the personnel of PSMC if it is engaged in armed conflict of either international or non-international character. (shrink)

In his compelling novel Blindness, José Saramago tells us about victims stricken by a contagious form of blindness who were quarantined and came to see themselves as pigs, dogs, and “lame crabs.” Of course, they were all human beings - although unable to perceive themselves, or others, as members of the human community. The disciplines of bioethics, health law, and human rights are likewise all members of the broad human rights community, although at times none of them may be able (...) to see the homologies, even when responding to a specific health challenge.The boundaries between bioethics, health law, and human rights are permeable, and border crossings, including crossings by blind practitioners, are common. Two working hypotheses form the intellectual framework of this article: we can more effectively address the major health issues of our day if we harmonize all three disciplines; and American bioethics can be reborn as a global force by accepting its Nuremberg roots and actively engaging in a health and human rights agenda. (shrink)

In his compelling novel Blindness, José Saramago tells us about victims stricken by a contagious form of blindness who were quarantined and came to see themselves as pigs, dogs, and “lame crabs.” Of course, they were all human beings - although unable to perceive themselves, or others, as members of the human community. The disciplines of bioethics, health law, and human rights are likewise all members of the broad human rights community, although at times none of them may be able (...) to see the homologies, even when responding to a specific health challenge.The boundaries between bioethics, health law, and human rights are permeable, and border crossings, including crossings by blind practitioners, are common. Two working hypotheses form the intellectual framework of this article: we can more effectively address the major health issues of our day if we harmonize all three disciplines; and American bioethics can be reborn as a global force by accepting its Nuremberg roots and actively engaging in a health and human rights agenda. (shrink)

In Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision, theologian David Wells argues that the Church is in danger of losing its moral authority to speak to a culture whose moral fabric is torn. Although much of the Church has enjoyed success and growth over the past years, Wells laments a "hollowing out of evangelical conviction, a loss of the biblical word in its authoritative function, and an erosion of character to the point that today, no discernible (...) ethical differences are evident in behavior when those claiming to have been reborn and secularists are compared." The assurance of the Good News of the gospel has been traded for mere good feelings, truth has given way to perception, and morality has slid into personal preference. Losing Our Virtue is about the disintegrating moral culture that is contemporary society and what this disturbing loss means for the church. Wells covers the following in this bold critique: how the theologically emptied spirituality of the church is causing it to lose its moral bearings; an exploration of the wider dynamic at work in contemporary society between license and law; an exposition of the secular notion of salvation as heralded by our most trusted gurus -- advertisers and psychotherapists; a discussion of the contemporary view of the self; how guilt and sin have been replaced by empty psychological shame; an examination of the contradiction between the way we view ourselves in the midst of our own culture and the biblical view of persons as created, moral beings. Can the church still speak effectively to a culture that has become morally unraveled? Wells believes it can. In fact, says Wells, no time in this century has been more opportune for the Christian faith -- if the church can muster the courage to regain its moral weight and become a missionary of truth once more to a foundering world. - Publisher. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the second one, in which (...) a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

Many professionals, mainly scientists have told me that a divine being is not necessary to explain why there is something rather than nothing. Theology and even metaphysics are redundant disciplines, they say. To me to reject a discipline a priori is irrational, whereas the methodology of science itself is basically rational. Why do Newton's equations say time is symmetrical, Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics say time is an illusion and now Smolin says time is reborn - (...) the present moment is a fundamental aspect of reality. Why has matter been the carrier of reality over centuries, then matter dissolves away becoming an ephemeral quantum activity and now information is the carrier of reality? The laws of physics were presumed to be eternal, now Smolin says they are evolving like in biology - natural selection. Why do cosmologists like Brian Greene and Leonard Susskind postulate that there are nearly infinite number of replicas of each and every one of us - doppelgangers - in an infinite number of universes when the gut feeling of each and every one of us that we are unique in this universe? For Newton, gravity was an instantaneous attraction between two masses, for Einstein it was an inherent potential even with a single mass. For Einstein, gravity acts at the speed of light. Plato says that what is observed is phenomena. Reality resides in Platonic Forms. Descartes says that knowledge is acquired through perception and deduction. No reality without the mind. Kant synthesized rationalism and empiricism. Knowledge can be derived without empirical observation. Free will touches almost everything that human beings value. But many scientists postulate that free will is an illusion. Christian theology posits that God created the universe out of nothing. Cosmologists also now say the same thing, but the definition of 'nothing' is disputed. Christian theology once postulated that there is no salvation outside the Church. Now it is not so. Why these confusions? Why these contradictions? On the present methodology of acquisition of knowledge, answers may never be possible. The Theory of Everything (TOE) is more a distant dream than reaching for the stars. However, the discipline of Zygology which is introduced into the academia, a rational explanation why this is not possible has been postulated. Knowledge is holistic - a seamless web runs through all disciplines. Necessity of a new epistemology of reality and existence is inevitable....Zygology may have the answers!". (shrink)

Just as the pleasant experience differs from the non-pleasant or unpleasant, and the aesthetic from the non-aesthetic, internally or qualitatively, and not merely in degree, or externally or relationally, so, it is natural to expect, a moment of moral living differs from a moral or immoral moment. Indeed, from many quarters, and most emphatically from the Stoic and Christian, we have been wont to hear that if we but leave our sinful or indifferent lives and put on righteousness or goodness, (...) we shall become new men or men reborn, even creatures of a different species. But according to many analyses of morality these promises of transfiguration or translation are nonsensical lies: for the moral experience, as exhibited in these analyses, differs from the non-moral or immoral only in respect of external relations, or at the most in degree. Whether the truth resides in the promises or in the analyses is, obviously, a question of no mean import. It is also a vast one, while the time and space that can be given up to an article are brief; hence the following will be barely more than a raising of the question, or a provocation, by means of rough statements, some dogmatic, others hypothetical. (shrink)