Do sada neobjavljeni tekst iz rukopisne ostavštine Gaje Petrovića.Rukopis je za objavljivanje priredio Vinko Grgurev.Zahvaljujemo Asji Petrović što je tekst učinila dostupnim javnosti.

The conception of man as an economic animal is implied by the view that economic production is the determining “factor” or “sphere” of man or society. Against this conception can be put another, that of man as praxis. This takes account of man as a creative being, capable of realizing his freedom through his own activity. In this article the theory of the determining role of the “economic factor”, and the theory of factors in general have been examined. The economic (...) interpretation of history, a variant of the theory of factors, has been acknowledged as partly true for the self-alienated man and society, but the theory of factors in any variant has been found inadequate as a general theory of man, or society. The possibility of freedom cannot be reduced to the fact that the determining roles played by “factors”, vary, or to the hope that the economic “factor” can be subordinated to a “better” one. Man's freedom consists in his resolving the conflict of “factors”, and in realizing himself as an integral creative being, no longer split into independent and mutually opposed spheres. (shrink)

The author?s approach is based on three premises: 1. that Gajo Petrovic?s Praxis was an outstanding phenomenon in Croatian, Yugoslav and European culture, a challenge of freedom in a repressive society; 2. that there has never been such a thing as "Praxis group", "philosophers of practice" or "Praxis philosophers" with a unified philosophical and socio-theoretical orientation; and 3. that political and ideological attacks on Praxis were part of the repressive system that targeted every instance of cultural and scientific (...) dissent. The political leadership of Tito?s regime, its ideological and propaganda apparatus systematically disseminated allegations, denunciations and accusations against Praxis and Gajo Petrovic. The same style has survived through radical historical changes from the appearance of Praxis until today. The attackers have often been the same persons, with the difference that in earlier times they denounced Praxis and Gajo Petrovic as enemies of "socialism" and the "socialist self-management system", and in the changed political fashion as "servants" of Tito?s authoritarian rule. The fate of Praxis in the former regime has been triumphantly interpreted as a "family quarrel". This paper attempts a sociological analysis of the political destiny of Praxis. The analysis is essentially determined not by old and new political and ideological questionings of Praxis, but by Gajo Petrovic?s fundamental belief that there is no freedom without the human or humanity without freedom.. Osnovu autorovog pristupa cine tri stava: 1. da je Praxis Gaje Petrovica bio izuzetna pojava u hrvatskoj, jugoslovenskoj i evropskoj kulturi, izazov slobode u drustvu represije; 2. da ne postoji tako nesto kao "praxis-grupa", "filozofi prakse" ili "praxis filozofi" koji bi imali jedinstvenu filozofsku ili drustveno-teorijsku orijentaciju; 3. da su politicka i ideoloska osporavanja Praxisa bila deo represivnog sistema kojem je bilo podvrgnuto svako neistomisljenistvo u kulturi i nauci. Politicki vrh Titovog rezima, njegov ideoloski i propagandni aparat sistematski su sirili insinuacije, denuncijacije i optuzbe o Praxisu i Gaji Petrovicu, da bi taj manir u bitno promenjenim istorijskim okolnostima, trajao od pojave Praxisa do danasnjeg dana. Cesto su i akteri napada bile iste osobe, samo sto su nekada osporavali Praxis i Gaju Petrovica kao neprijatelje "socijalizma" i "sistema socijalistickog samoupravljanja", a u promenjenoj politickoj modi kao "sluge" Titove autoritarne vladavine. Sudbinu Praxisa u prethodnom rezimu slavodobitno su tumacili kao "obracun u obitelji". Rad je pokusaj socioloske analize politicke sudbine Praxisa, koju ce bitno odrediti temeljno uverenje Gaje Petrovica da nema slobode bez coveka ni ljudskosti bez slobode, a ne stara i nova politicka i ideoloska osporavanja Praxisa.. (shrink)

Before it succumbed to political censorship in Croatia in 1974 and afterward, a movement known as praxis philosophy reached its pinnacle as a critical response to the conceptually and socially corrupted dialectical and historical materialism which dominated the former Yugoslavian region. Two of the most prominent philosophers of "praxis movement" – Milan Kangrga and Gajo Petrović – the Praxists – remained to be an inspirational source for junior and senior scholars to date. Recently, a debate was initiated regarding the (...) value of "praxis philosophy", and has notably produced a series of assessments that were atypical in comparison to virtually all previous reviews. The praxis movement was scorned by many commentators who concluded that Praxists were logically inconsistent and that their errors were covered up by too abstract, confusing concepts that lacked proper articulation. Among other things, it was significantly pointed out that their philosophical investigations neither had nor will have any useful application in our society. In this paper, I offer (1) a refutation of these conclusions by (2) describing the structure of praxis philosophy, thus far absent from praxis studies. My ultimate objective was to show that Praxists intentionally developed an alternative philosophical thought to subdue the type of thinking which is fundamental for sterile criticism, and thus I aimed to explain that Praxists self-consciously chose to oppose the approach they were accused of neglecting. Their central idea was to send a message opposite of what their recent criticists think they failed to do. (shrink)

The first beginnings of modern logic in Croatia are recognizable as early as in the middle of the 19th century in Vatroslav Bertić. At the turn of the 20th century, Albin Nagy, who was teaching in Italy, made contributions to algebraic logic and to the philosophy of logic. At that time, a distinctive author Mate Meršić stood out, also working on algebraic logic. In the Croatian academic philosophy, until the publication of Gajo Petrović's textbook (1964) and the contributions by (...) Heda Festini, a critical or indifferent attitude toward modern logic prevailed. The first comprehensive modern logic textbook in Croatian was written by mathematician Vladimir Devidé (1964), known, for example, for his axiomatizations of natural numbers and classical propositional logic. In the Croatian philosophy of the 1980s and 1990s, influential logicians are Goran Švob and mathematician Zvonimir Šikić. At the turn of the 21st century, logical investigations are being intensified and extended to various branches of the contemporary logic. (shrink)

Tekst je potaknut polemikom Gaje Petrovića sa Savkom Dabčević Kučar iz 1965. godine, odnosno člankom »O nepoštednoj kritici svega postojećeg« . Petrović kritiku poima prije svega kao analitičko sredstvo kojim se dopire do bîti .No Petrović integrira kritiku u čitav sustav svoje filozofije povezujući je s pojmovima ‘sloboda’ i ‘praksa’. Naime sintagma »sve postojeće«, koja se veže uz kritiku, daje joj aktivno i društveno značenje . Petrović ironizira situaciju u našem društvu toga vremena gdje »nema predrasuda«, pa nisu potrebna »ograničenja«, (...) »izuzetci« i »dopuštenja« za kritiku. Moglo bi se reći da je kritika bit filozofskog opusa Petrovića, koji se stavlja u poziciju kritičara dogmatske filozofije i politike koja prisvaja monopol nad kritikom. Upravo stoga valja istaknuti važnost Gaje Petrovića, a značenje kritike svega postojećega – što podrazumijeva i kritiku kao društvenu privilegiju i moć – aktualno je i danas.This text was inspired by the discussion between Gajo Petrović and Savka Dabčević Kučar in 1965, that is, by the article “About the Unrelenting Criticism of All that Exists” . Petrović conceives criticism primarily as an analytical vehicle that reaches the essence .However, Petrović integrates criticism into his entire philosophical system, linking it with concepts of freedom and practice. To be more specific, the syntagm “all that exists” combined with criticism, gives both an active and a social meaning . Petrović ironically assesses the situation in our society of the time, where “there is no prejudice”, so no “limitations”, “exceptions” or “permissions” for criticism are necessary. One might say that criticism is the essence of Petrović’s philosophical opus, because he positions himself as a critic of the dogmatic philosophy and politics, which appropriate monopoly over criticism. This is precisely why it is necessary to emphasize the importance of Gajo Petrović, and why the meaning of criticism of “criticism as a social privilege” and power, is still valid today. (shrink)

To counter the imbalance in vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic, Albertsen and more recently Germaniet alhave suggested a new system of taxation coined as ‘VaxTax’ that would force higher-income countries to fund the access of low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to new vaccines in times of pandemic. I will argue that this idea faces numerous challenges of ethical, sociopolitical and economical nature that may hinder any effort to solve the numerous health challenges that LMICs face. I argue that while (...) it is an interesting idea, it is neither sufficient nor will it ever be easily implemented because of socioeconomic or practical reasons. (shrink)

Recently, we have faced the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 in the world, which has attracted the attention of all people. Stress has become a word familiar to all people. The stressors of life are relatively clear and some of them cannot be eliminated by humans. One of the stressors in the life of humans is the COVID-19 pandemic. Doctors believe that the virus is controllable but its prevalence is quicker and deadlier than other viruses. In addition, the virus (...) puts the elderly and those with underlying diseases at extreme risk. Therefore, more care is seriously required to protect members of society. However, this psychological imbalance caused by the virus is associated with stress and anxiety. Lack of proper management of this stress will be associated with emotional impacts, physiological impacts, cognitive impacts and behavioural impact.Contribution: Given the importance of this topic, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between religious beliefs and coping with COVID-19-related stress amongst Muslim students in three cities of Russia – Ingushetia, Chechnya and the Republic of Dagestan – in 2020. Data were collected using questionnaires, the validity and reliability of which were previously confirmed. According to the results, religious beliefs had an impact on stress coping by p = 0.657. In other words, students’ ability to cope with stress improved by 0.657 units, with each unit of enhancement in their religious beliefs. (shrink)

In the article these are considered ethical and legal problems caused by the ongoing pandemic of the new coronavirus disease. New challenges for health care, economy, education not only revealed rather a high level of stability and mobility, but also showed a poor readiness of response to sudden risks, which had a certain impact on all spheres of life of the whole society. The authors have conducted a brief cross-cultural analysis of the issue basing on data quoted by the international (...) network of UNESCO chairs in bioethics, sessions of the Bioethics Committee within the RF Commission on UNESCO affairs, as well as official open sources of the health care system and judicial sphere of the Russian Federation. Strong reciprocal link of legal risks in the interdisciplinary field of medicine and law are made discernable: on the one hand, introduction of sanitary and hygienic regulations are aimed at the realization of the right of protecting the health, while on the other hand they represent a violation of basic human rights. Besides the theoretical approach to the problem of the observance of the constitutional rights of citizens in the pandemic conditions there exists a real threat of their violation due to absence of special mechanisms of their realization in frames of sanitary and hygienic measures with regard to the vulnerable and socially disadvantaged sections in the society. It is made conclusion about necessity of the international collaboration for the purpose of joint decision-making and action in the sphere of health care taking into account an international character of ethical and legal challenges triggered by COVID-19 pandemic, as well as national, economic, cultural and confessional peculiarities. (shrink)

In the last decades ontology has been successfully developed in many directions and has fostered various approaches for depicting the contemporary ontological landscapes. An important task is to outline recent thought on the conceptual interfaces between science and philosophy. The present volume opens up a view onto the plurality of different ontological schemes. The papers collected here discuss the interfaces between ontology and empirical research that are created by the notions of a whole, a thought, a number, a quality, an (...) ability, a kind, notions of causation, dynamicity, and social objects, the application of relevant logical tools for the reconsideration of ontological paradigms, as well as the investigation of the consequences in cognitive sciences on the development of ontology. (shrink)

The present article is a critical engagement with Aleksei Yurchak’s Everything Was Forever until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. It contends that, as rich as Yurchak’s insights on the language culture of Brezhnev’s Stagnation have proven to be, his account ends up seriously misrepresenting the Stalinist episode in the life of Soviet ideology. This misrepresentation is due, in large part, to the problematic use of post-structuralist models, and particularly of Claude Lefort’s theorization of ideology in the modern (...) era. Through a re-examination of Lefort’s “Outline of the Genesis of Ideology in Modern Societies,” the present article advances an alternative understanding of the discursive “shift” in Soviet ideology. Yurchak has argued that, before being set afloat in the 1950s, Soviet official discourse was held together through the figure of the “external master,” Stalin himself. The master is able to mask what Yurchak terms the “Lefort paradox” of Soviet ideology and which he glosses as the divergence between ideological enunciation and ideological “rule.” Yet Yurchak misreads Lefort’s theory, and specifically the latter’s references to “master” and “rule.” When these terms are restored to their proper theoretical significance, it becomes possible to formulate in a new way the contradictory duality at the heart of Soviet ideology. The article contends, contra Yurchak, that this is not the duality of enunciation and actual exercise of power; but rather the split internal to ideological discourse, between the “rule of reality” and the “reality of the rule.” The “shift” of Soviet ideological discourse begins as a slippage between these two ideological representations, and not as the removal of some anchor external to representation. (shrink)

The paper questions some of the premises in studying academic spin-offs in developed countries, claiming that when taken as characteristics of ‘academic spin-offs per se,’ they are of little help in understanding the phenomenon in the Eastern European countries during the transitional and post-transitional periods after 1989. It argues for the necessity of adopting a path-dependent approach, which takes into consideration the institutional and organisational specificities of local economies and research systems and their evolution, which strongly influence the patterns of (...) spin-off activity. The paper provides new findings and original arguments in support of Balazs’ seminal theses (Balazs 1995, 1996) about the emergence of academic spin-offs during the early transition. It reveals key economic and policy mechanisms bearing on academic entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe, such as the tensions between economic and political nomenclatures of former Communist Parties, where the dismantling or preservation of the power of political nomenclature resulted in different patterns of development—rapid reforms in the ‘first wave’ of EU accession countries or the establishment of rent-seeking and assets-stripping economies in countries like Bulgaria and Romania, making the transition period especially difficult. In the latter, a specific economic environment emerged, unknown in Western Europe and in the ‘champions’ of transition—such as suppression of the authentic entrepreneurship in a number of economic sectors, disintegration of corporate structures, etc. Thus, the paper reveals the common ground behind the two conflicting tendencies in post-socialist academic spin-offs, partially outlined in other research (Simeonova 1995; Pavlova 2000): as an authentic form of academic entrepreneurship grasping the opportunities opened up by the economic crisis and compensating failures in science and technology policy on the one hand, and as specific rent-seeking strategy draining valuable public assets on the other (the latter, in turn, boosting the negative attitudes in local scientific communities). The paper provides new findings about the evolution of the academic spin-offs in Bulgaria along the two polar trends and their positive and negative repercussions on parent research institutions. The results were achieved in the PROKNOW Project, EC 6th Framework Program. (shrink)

We analyze the section from Hesiod’s Works and Days (724–760) that equips the farmer with the expertise necessary to facilitate the household’s harmonious relationship with the gods. We propose that this section with its tabular ordinances represents the earliest collection of Greek religious norms, and we contextualize it both within the structure of the W&D and within the wider framework of Greek religion. The section is carefully developed and purposefully placed towards the end of the poem, with an eye to (...) symmetry and rhythm: Hesiod distributes divinely sanctioned social norms alongside religious norms in three distinct sections of the poem, providing ever more specific cautionary advice in the form of ordinances and injunctions. The passage 724–760 is also artfully structured and divided into ἀπό and ἐπί sections. By drawing attention to overlaps of the Hesiodic material and later inscriptional ritual norms, we demonstrate that they share common linguistic and thematic features. We also demonstrate that well-informed readers such as Plato, Plutarch, and Proclus repeatedly interpreted Hesiod’s norms in the light of their own religious experience. (shrink)