CONTENTS - VOL. 14, NUMBER 2, DECEMBER 2004

SYMPOSIUM

COMMUNITY'S FUTURES

GIDEON CALDER: Introduction

MARTIN BLANCHARD: Community, Politics and Language: Reconsidering Habermas and Recognition
PAUL MARTIN: Community and Identity in Cyberspace: An Introduction to Key Themes and Issues
KALLE PIHLAINEN: From Embodiedness to Community: Recognition, Alterity and the Existentialist Social Conscience
MARTIN MIKOLÁŠIK: Trinitarian Teaching and its Social Consequences
PAUL HOPPER: "Who wants to be a European?" Community and Identity in the European Union
TÜNDE PUSKÁS: Mapping Hungarianness: Configurations of Community, Past and Future

ARTICLES

MILAN PETKANIČ: Passion and Age: Kierkegaard's Diagnosis of the Present Age

BOOK REVIEWS

Monika Vrzgulová (Ed.): Videli sme holokaust (We Saw the Holocaust)
By ELENA MANNOVÁ

Milan Kováč, Arne B. Mann (Eds.): Boh všetko vidí. Duchovný svet Rómov na Slovensku (God Sees Everything. The Spiritual World of the Romanies in Slovakia)
By ZUZANA BOŠEĽOVÁ

Jana Plichtová: Metódy sociálnej psychológie zblízka. Kvalitatívne a kvantitatívne skúmanie sociálnych reprezentácií (An Insight into the Methods of Social Psychology. The Qualitative and Quantitative Study of Social Representations)
By BARBARA LÁŠTICOVÁ

ABSTRACTS

COMMUNITY, POLITICS AND LANGUAGE: RECONSIDERING HABERMAS AND RECOGNITION
MARTIN BLANCHARD

martin.blanchard@umontreal.ca

The objectives of this paper are twofold. The first aim is to work out an institutional approach to language within the communicative theory put forth by Habermas that resolves difficulties related to his thesis that the meaning of linguistic expressions is constituted by the shared practices of a lifeworld. This thesis leads Habermas in an undesirable hermeneutics of language, which some commentators have approved, while others have pointed to the contradictions of this position. The institutional approach remedies those contradictions by distinguishing between the structural features of a lifeworld and its cultural traits. In addition, this approach enables a concept of group that has political significance. The second aim of this paper is thus to argue for a recognition of communities that stays within the demanding deliberative democracy that Habermas has developed. The result is to set grounds for a constructive critique of politics of recognition in the light of a radical theory of democracy.

pp. 101-115

COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY IN CYBERSPACE: AN INTRODUCTION TO KEY THEMES AND ISSUES
PAUL MARTIN

martinp@edgehill.ac.uk

This paper argues that any comprehensive analysis of the meanings of community and identity at the start of the 21st century must include a consideration of the development, current significance, potential and associated risks of what have been called "computer mediated communication" (CMC), "cybercommunities" and "cyberindentities". The paper comprises an attempt to locate the study of such phenomena within the tradition of the sociological study of community, followed by a brief consideration of contested accounts of their potential and risk. Consideration is then given to the related issue of self and identity within virtual community and debates surrounding the potential for positive liberation or negative licence, deviance and criminality. The paper closes with some initial conclusions on the state and potential of the sociological study of this social phenomenon.

pp. 116-125

FROM EMBODIEDNESS TO COMMUNITY: RECOGNITION, ALTERITY AND THE EXISTENTIALIST SOCIAL CONSCIENCE
KALLE PIHLAINEN

kalpih@utu.fi

The argument presented in this paper hinges on the abolition or at least rethinking of the public-private distinction as it has already been performed in much of contemporary feminist and "postist" theories. The strong separation of the public from the private sphere has led to the marginalization of various issues-among which the general neglect of an embodied understanding of the world is my prime concern in what follows. I approach these issues from a perspective that can loosely be termed one of "existential phenomenology". While grouping quite diverse thinkers together under such a rubric in no way does justice to their individual philosophies, the term conveys a shared prioritizing of lived experience. I concentrate on separate stages in the thinking of Jean-Paul Sartre, briefly discussing the contrasting approaches to intersubjective relations and their grounding put forward there. I explore those approaches in connection with those of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Samuel Todes and Emanuel Levinas. The contrasts and parallels that can be drawn between the thoughts of these thinkers regarding the embodied subject and the ways in which intersubjective or social understanding may be reached provide a way of addressing the formation of what I here refer to as an "existentialist social conscience"-and, I would argue, a distinctive approach to the thinking of "community". My aim is less an exegetic reading of any of these thinkers than the outlining of a way in which communal understanding could be-and on occasion has been-grounded in an existentially-oriented phenomenology or "existentialist" social theory.

pp.126-134

TRINITARIAN TEACHING AND ITS SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES
MARTIN MIKOLÁŠIK

m.mikolasik@pobox.sk

This article will try to accentuate the relevance of Christian Trinitarian faith for some themes of political philosophy. The relationship between Trinitarian faith and social life should not be direct, but indirect or analogical. After outlining some principles of the relationship between theology and politics and the principles of Trinitarian teaching, the article will try to utilize the Trinitarian teaching on some themes of political philosophy.

pp. 135-140

"WHO WANTS TO BE A EUROPEAN?"COMMUNITY AND IDENTITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
PAUL HOPPER

paul@hopper44.freeserve.co.uk

Since the project of European economic and political integration began there has been an ongoing debate about what type of community is emerging and whether it will lead to the development of a pan-European identity. In this article the prospects for the formation of such an identity will be examined. This will include assessing the views of writers for whom the development of a collective European identity faces insurmountable obstacles, most notably the enduring strength of existing national identities. In this regard, Michael Billig (1995) believes the new experiment that is taking place within Europe will still be carried out in the existing language and concepts of nationalism and national identity.
However, it is argued here that if a pan-European identity or sense of "Europeanness" is to emerge it must be a post-national enterprise founded upon the political principles of universal citizenship, democracy and constitutionalism commonly associated with the project of modernity. But if this approach is to be implemented the EU's "democratic deficit" will have to be addressed.

pp. 141-151

MAPPING HUNGARIANNESS:CONFIGURATIONS OF COMMUNITY, PAST AND FUTURE
TÜNDE PUSKÁS

tunde.puskas@ituf.liu.se

The aim of this article is to explore the nature of ethno-national community, and how it might be understood in the Hungarian context. By the Hungarian context I mean the totality of those ethnic and/or national communities, which claim to be "Hungarian": the Hungarian nation, national minorities and diaspora groups. It is important that during the communist era problems of identity-building and ethnicity were largely concealed or neglected. Hence, the Hungarian ethno-national community as a whole has not yet had a chance to confront fully the effects of the historical legacies of the 20th century. My analysis here is an attempt to explore, in a preliminary way, the scope for such reconciliation. I do this by exploring general features of the formation and sustaining of communities, before considering the Hungarian case as a particular example.

pp. 152-164

PASSION AND AGE: KIERKEGAARD'S DIAGNOSIS OF THE PRESENT AGE
MILAN PETKANIČ

milanpetkanic@hotmail.com

Kierkegaard is well known for not being on good terms with the "spirit" of his age. Moreover, during his life, this discrepancy with his contemporaries increased and deepened stimulating him to write a principled and consistent philosophical critique of the decaying character of the period. The subject of this study is the analysis of the existential-philosophical views of Kierkegaard critically evaluating this period. In this paper, we shall try to answer two basic questions: what does Kierkegaard accuse his period of and why? Attention will be devoted to the issue of passion, which plays a crucial role in this critique and the elucidation of the specific phenomena of modern times, such as levelling, press, public and crowd.

pp. 165-182

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