Editorial. Varia

• Autorzy: Czarnocka Małgorzata
• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

From the very beginning of its existence, i.e. from 1973, nearly every issue of Dialogue and Universalism has been monothematic (let me remind that this journal, published as a single title,1 was called Dialectics and Humanism until 1990, and later, from 1990 to 1995, Dialogue and Humanism. The Universalist Quarterly). Throughout the journal’s first ten or so years, monothematic issues in philosophical journals were a rarity. Today, the situation is different— monothematic issues appear increasingly often, and some journals have even made this their main format. However, it is justified to say that Dialogue and Universalism—under its two earlier titles—was a forerunner (probably insuffi- ciently noticed at the time) of the monothematic trend. Dialogue and Universal- ism owes this original and pioneering publishing policy to its founder and long- time chief editor, Professor Janusz Kuczyński. Monothematic issues in academic journals have their pros and cons. They do serve to fulfil a journal’s mission in a concrete way and not just declaratively, and the editorial team’s job is not limited to merely selecting the submitted texts. All journals that publish monothematic issues face a task involving more than just the passive reception of materials found to meet adopted criteria. They are also active vehicles for propagating the problems addressed in such issues, and related philosophical trends. They also participate in hierarchising philo- sophical problems according to an accepted system of values. Today journals that publish monothematic issues issues are evolving into policy-makers that map out the directions of philosophical study, alongside academic institutions, institutions that finance research, today’s most authorita- tive thinkers, and—more rarely—informal research groups. This way, they co- create mainstream philosophy. Monothematic issues are also known to be useful in other ways: they help bring order into philosophical study, they also bring the problems and solutions they address, as well as the authors of the published materials, to broader public attention. If not gathered in single, monothematic issues, such materials would be almost lost, or be less noticeable, in today’s deluge of philosophical publications. In the course of preparing monothematic issues informal and unofficial re- search groups form to discuss the issue at hand. In effect, such publications are gradually becoming like collectively-authored monographs, but this is not all. They also increasingly function similarly to philosophical schools, and in fact are beginning to replace them—especially today, when “large-scale” schools that take up fundamental issues are on the wane, and the rank, research scope, and influence of those that do exist is seriously diminished. For instance, it would be difficult to compare the phenomenological school, which still follows Edmund Husserl, with today’s produced constructs, whose role is chiefly to resolve relatively narrow-scale problems. One can even say that at least some of today’s philosophical schools are in fact micro-schools. Monothematic issues have similar aims to those of such (often short-lived) research groups, which are sometimes referred to as schools. Dialogue and Universalism’s monothematic issues differ somewhat from the above-mentioned trend. For many years now, step by step, Dialogue and Uni- versalism has pursued an open research meta-project which does not aspire to the status of a philosophical school because it has no preordained programme. Dialogue and Universalism aims to propagate the idea of dialogue (between individuals, social classes, philosophical schools, nations, societies, cultures, religions, civilisations), universal ideas and other universal attributes of the human world. The journal’s monothematic issues provide an in-depth view of the various facets and aspects of this very broad problem sphere, but without dictating any programmatic rigours, views on or approaches to the discussed problems, and with respecting the principle of openness and freedom in theoret- ical research. This mission coincides with the mission pursued by the Interna- tional Society for Universal Dialogue. The publication of monothematic issues becomes problematic when it begins to dominate to the extent that it leaves no room for original works that do not belong to the thematic range they propound—which, bluntly speaking, do somehow form part of the official mainstream. The ceaseless production of monothematic material reduces the rank of independent and individual research, condemning such authors to a mild form of ostracism. The restriction of freedom and every pressure in philosophy runs against the very essence of philosophy itself. “Enslaved philosophy” is an oxymoron. From the dawn of time, philosophy has always been deeply individual, producing a variety of paradigms and conceptions which have been able to coexist with one another. Freedom of inquiry is the fundamental value in philosophy, one that allows room for other values—primarily truth. Because of this dual (I would like to call it balanced) approach to monothe- matic issues, Dialogue and Universalism is also open to contributions by indi- vidual researchers without a pre-set thematic line. Until now we have published only Varia thematic blocks, now we are bringing out a whole issue Varia in a gesture of appreciation for individual philosophical research, whose im- portance is strongly tied to the freedom of philosophy.

• Wydawca: Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk; Fundacja Filozofia Na Rzecz Dialogu
• Czasopismo: Dialogue and Universalism
• Rocznik: 2023
• Numer: 1
• Strony: 5-7

Twórcy

autor

Czarnocka Małgorzata

• IFiS PAN