KIERKEGAARD'S YEAR 2023
9th INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL SYMPOSIUM OF MIKLAVŽ OCEPEK
THE 11th INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP OF SØREN KIERKEGAARD
CALL FOR PAPERS
Organizer: Central European Research Institute Soeren Kierkegaard, Slovenia
Co-organizer: KUD Apokalipsa, Slovenia
Co-organizer of the international conference: Cankarjev dom Ljubljana
Creative center Krušče, Krušče: from the 9st to the 13th of June, 2022
Cankarjev dom Ljubljana: from the 14th to the 16th of June, 2022
School of Philosophy Unije: from the 18th of June to the 25th of June, 2022
The symposium is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of KUD Apokalipsa, the 10th anniversary of the Central European Research Institute Soeren Kierkegaard and the 500th anniversary of the birth of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).
The theme: How to encourage the individual in the apocalypse to make an existential turn towards a new oikonomia of relationships?
After the apocalypse, even death itself is veiled, and man, with his/her constitution, surrenders more and more to the namelessness of fate. Modern technical civilisation is ominously revealed in a kind of civil war of false value systems which only conceal the abolition of man in the face of the idea of production and consumption, which makes him a machine and abolishes all dignity for all living creatures. Only the single individual can resist this limitless usurpation, by self-reflecting on his/her own situation and thus opening the way to communion. The modern individual is a dividuum that feeds its dividuality on self-consumption, self-promotion/selfovertaking, consumerism and mass non-culture.
Kierkegaard has beautifully shown that the single individual cannot be embodied in something mass, because the mass always flees from the particular. The existential revolution that we predicted a decade ago as a spiritual transformation can thus not take place under one or another kind of compulsion (ideology, political conviction), but only through an evolutionary growth of understanding that is reflected in acts of love. For a society that is uniformed brings about a unity that is massed, and sociability expresses duality, a dialogue, a conversation between two, face to face. The views are personally experienced, and in this sense are rooted and grounded in a true tradition.
Only this can lead to the common good.
To express this politically, it is therefore necessary to provide the conditions for the possibility of a genuine dialogue between those who are shocked, but in a mutually reconcilable, yet necessarily radical, way. Only in this way will we also be able to listen to those who think differently or to help a concrete neighbour in need. This openness to dialogue is also a farewell to the need for social power as power, in the name of a celebration of sociability that awakens the sincerity of the individual in a noble desire for radical reflection. In doing so, we are always confronted with the transcendent, where the restlessness of existence invites us to live fully. Today, the individual is lulled to sleep in an apparent democracy. The new oikonomia of relationships cannot do without the fundamental value that only the self-reliant individual can give.
This fundamental attitude requires of us a radical personal definition of the reality of the ordering of the world in which we live. Therefore, the perspective of practice, which is theoretically declared and practically repressed, must be turned from this despair to expectation and realisation. The transcendence of the meaning of one's personal existence gives a new existence, and this is why existential communication is necessary. Thus, personal responsibility comes up against the face of one's fellow man. Anything else is the arbitrariness of pseudo-existence, which can bring out the worst in man. Kierkegaard and Pascal are thus to be taken extremely seriously in their concern for the neighbour, according to that fundamental question when I ask myself whether I look at the community of the world of all living creatures with the gaze of life or death, the oikonomia of the responsibility of the particular or the orgiastic of the multitude.
Once we understand our position, we will also have a new criterion for our own action. It is subjective, a criterion that requires passionate thinking, where the question is always to understand oneself in one's own existence and at the same time to double it by concrete action: "Whoever thinks existence without thinking it passionately is as if he did not think it at all, as if he had forgotten the most important thing - that he himself is existent." (Kierkegaard, Postscript, 242)
This means a deepening of experience in an existential turn that cannot persist in mere thinking or avoid the political sphere as a dimension of existence. To be open-minded and open-hearted is thus to "will the good" and brings unity of thought and action.
We will set up our reflections by continuing them with the Philosophical School of the Unije: How to promote, by means of the existential communication, the responsibility of the single individual for an oikonomic democracy for the blessings (Salighed) and prosparity of the community of single individuals.
The knowledge that is indispensable for man is to know himself. (Pascal, Thoughts, & 144) According to Climacus (Kierkegaard, Postscript), the individual is faced with the task of becoming a subjective thinker. The secret of this thought lies in the paradoxicality of existence itself, attuned to the transcendence of the absolute. The question arises of how to turn thought in order to think both sides simultaneously in the dialogue of community (as subjects, persons, responsible individuals) and act accordingly for the universal well-being of coexistence.
Participants are expected to send their application with a short CV in English, with the title of the paper no later than the 15st of December, 2022 to the address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. In addition to a short description, the CV should also contain contact information (e-mail address, phone number).
The deadline for submitting abstracts is the 20th of January, 2023. Please note the following when submitting your abstract:
- font: Times New Roman;
- size: 12;
- line spacing: 1.5;
- max. 1.300 characters.
The deadline for submmitting the paper, of up to 20.000 characters, is the 15th of April, 2023. Papers that will meet the criteria of appropriate quality, prescribed stylistic provisions and citation methods, will be published in the journal Kierkegaard in 2023. The provisions are as follows:
- font: Times New Roman;
- size: 12;
- space lining: 1.5;
- citation style: Surname, N. (Year): Title. City: Publishing House.
Additional information: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.