Yvanka B. Raynova

In 1994, three articles from the Pétainist magazine L'Unité française were discovered by chance. They were allegedly written by Paul Ricoeur in 1941-1942. This sparked a debate in which Ricoeur himself spoke up. Criticism of Ricoeur intensified after the publication of La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli. Raynova reconstructs the various positions to demonstrate the extent to which Ricoeur took responsibility for his past, as well as to show that some of the accusations against him were unfounded. She also emphasizes that everyone is responsible for what they write about others and that calumny and self-righteousness cannot be justified as a "right to one's own opinion." Rather, they should be condemned in the spirit of Levinas.

The book brings together seven studies, which analyses some of the main discussions in Bulgarian philosophy, and offers also philosophical portraits of contemporary Bulgarian scholars of different generations: Nikolay Raynov, Azarya Polikarov, Julia Kristeva, Rosen Stupoff and Hristo Stoev. As in her previous books on Contemporary Western Philosophy, Yvanka Raynova uses here the approach of comparative and translative hermeneutics. This allows her to prove two main theses. Firstly, unlike some authors who consider Bulgarian philosophy and culture to be characterized by a lack of tradition, she maintains that tradition does exist, but that it is marked by three historical ruptures: The fall of Bulgaria under Ottoman domination in 1396, the gradual decapitation of philosophical and cultural pluralism after 1945, and the downfall of Marxism following the collapse of "real socialism" after 1990. Second, Raynova opposes the view that there were only "minor devia-tions" from Marxism-Leninism in Bulgarian philosophy during socialism, showing that a number of Bulgarian philosophers not only resisted the dom-inant ideological discourse, but also addressed serious issues, entering into discussion with the leading Western scholars of the time.

In this editorial for the special issue on Franz Kafka, Yvanka B. Raynova examines Kafka's relationship to Nietzsche as well as the very different and often contradictory interpretations of Kafka's work by philosophers and literary critics. She argues that although Kafka's novels cannot be directly "translated into a philosophical, theological, sociological, or psychoanalytical discourse" (Jürgen Born), they should not be interpreted and evaluated solely from a literary perspective, as they raise institutional questions that have led to socio-critical and political associations that are just as urgent for us today. In this context, she refers to the controversies surrounding Kafka's work in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, to his current socio-political reception in art, and to the Kafkaesque in the contemporary world.

Friedrich Nietzsche, the "Master of Suspicion". On the Nietzsche Readings of Michel Foucault and Paul Ricoeur The term "masters of suspicion", which summarizes the critical views of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, has found its way into contemporary philosophy through Paul Ricoeur and is considered his kind of "patent". It is less well known that Michel Foucault also wrote a text on the subject of "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx" in which he speaks of suspicion. The author therefore asks herself where this thematic agreement comes from and undertakes a comparison of Foucault's and Ricoeur's readings of Nietzsche. In doing so, she puts forward two theses that she attempts to prove. The first thesis is that Ricoeur actually begins where Foucault left off and leads us in a direction that is opposite to that of Foucault. The second thesis is that Foucault stays closer to Nietzsche by trying to advance his "suspicion" instead of overcoming it, as Ricoeur does.

Die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit der Freudschen Psychoanalyse, die zuerst von Foucault und dann von Deleuze, Guattari, Lyotard und Baudrillard unternommen wurde, versucht den Mechanismus der 'bürgerlichen Repressiontätigkeit,' die die europäische Menschheit unter dem Joch der Familieninstitution hält, zu enthüllen und den Terror einer erdachten und simulativen Moral, in der Freud und seine Anhänger unwillkürlich einbezogen sind, blob zu stellen. Damit zeigt die postmoderne Lektüre von Freud, dab nur die Befreiung von diesem durch Terror-verderbten Bewubtsein im Stande wäre die wirkliche revolutionäre Kraft der psychoanalytischen Kritik der Vernunft hervorbringen und die Bedeutung ihrer zwei epochalen Erfindungen-die direkte Konfrontation zwischen den Triebproduktionen und der Repression, die die Gesellschaftsmaschine auf der Triebmaschine ausübt, und die dadurch folgende Verdrängung-zurück zu gewinnen.

Too often associated with suspicion rather than trust, Ricœur's hermeneutics is understood by many primarily as a critical endeavor. In this way, the fragile balance that he is trying to maintain between the two approaches is ignored. The objective of the following study is, by means of Ricoeur's "dialectical game of suspicion and trust", to elucidate the complexity of his hermeneutics and to demonstrate that trust is as pivotal as suspicion. At the difference of some authors who maintain that trust and suspicion are opposed, even mutually exclusive approaches of two kinds of hermeneutics, it will be shown that Ricoeur has developed a single hermeneutics which encompasses both approaches and explores them on different levels (epistemological, anthropological, ethical, sociopolitical). In the limited number of contributions dedicated to Ricoeur's concept of trust, these different levels are frequently conflated, whereby the relationship between religious belief and trust/mistrust is completely ignored. Consequently, the divergent perspectives of his early and late philosophical work, as well as certain discontinuities, are overlooked. Therefore, this study places a central emphasis on the neglected religious level of suspicion and trust.

After the end of the era of "absolute idealism", philosophy is falling into a sort of "identity crisis," which requires the constant rethinking of its essence as a specific type of knowledge, and also of its subject and method. As a result of the attempts to "save" philosophy, meta-physics was replaced by ontology, the absolute - by the attempts of an "open system" and/or integral thinking, and the place of the identity of truth, good and beautiful were taken by axiology. Consequently, notions as world, horizon, life, life world, self, alterity, and values became of crucial importance. In this context, the author argues several interrelated theses: Firstly, that in post-Husserlian phenomenology, especially in its French versions, a reinterpretation of the notion of "life world" based on Heidegger Being in the World is done, which turns in a sense against Husserl's transcendental justification of phenomenology. Secondly, this reinterpretation gradually leads to a departure from Heidegger's ontology towards the practical philosophy and axiology, respectively, towards the values denied by Heidegger. Thirdly, the living world becomes a crossroads between the problems of theoretical and practical philosophy, as it stands at the center of value discourse.

Philosophical translation between "linguistic violence" and translative hermeneutics. Translational considerations from the perspective of the translation of Jean-Paul Sartre's L'être et le néant The establishment of translatology as a scientific discipline is a late phenomenon to which not only linguistics but also the philosophy of language has contributed significantly. Although the considerations of Schleiermacher, Ricoeur, Derrida, Balibar, Cassin and other philosophers are very stimulating for the examination of the translation problematics, they do not offer a particular translation theory of philosophical texts. Most of their works are of little help in practice when it comes to translating a complicated philosophical text. That is why I will take in this paper the opposite path and start from my own experience as a translator of philosophical literature into Bulgarian and, more concretely, from my translation of Jean-Paul Sartre's L'être et le néant. On the base of this key work of contemporary philosophy and its translations into different languages, I will address the difficulties and the specifics of philosophical translation, discuss various translation methods, and argue several theses, which could serve as impulses for a further development of translation theory and translation practice in the field of philosophy.

At a time when narrow scientific and philosophical specialization dominates our "academic" landscape and by which respective competence is also measured, a thinking that unfolds in broad ways is always viewed with some suspicion. This, however, is not the case of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics. Even though it has triggered various debates, e.g. on the part of Habermas, Derrida, Ricoeur and others, Gadamer's influence and impact is still present today in the most diverse fields of philosophy and the humanities. The editorial takes up some of these debates and shows their continuing effects today.

On the Value of Freedom: Ricoeur's Value Theory vs. Sartre's?The following article is an attempt to reconstruct Sartre's and Ricoeur's theories of value in its main features, to compare it and to make some conclusions in regard of Ricoeur's Sartre reception. Thus, the task is to fill a gap in contemporary research since Sartre's value theory has been rarely examined, while that of Paul Ricoeur continue to be a blind spot within the study of his work; Ricoeur's Sartre reception has been hardly raised, but not in a explicit axiological context. In contrast to Françoise Dastur the following analysis is showing that in Le volontaire et l'involontaire Ricoeur not simply sided with Marcel by arguing against Sartre, but that he tried to mediate between the positions of the two thinkers. Finally, the author shows that Ricoeur's axiological concept, which emerged from this exchange, was retained partially in his later works precisely in that part which brought him closer to Sartre and detached him from Marcel, namely – freedom as a value and as a fundamental human capability of creation and invention of new moral and social values.

The aim of the following paper is to discuss Jaspers' disappointement of politics and his confession about the powerlessness of the Spirit, expressed at the end of his life. This confession may seem to contradict some of his earlier statements and positions. Yet, by analizing the evolution of his views about the complex relation between philosophy and politics, the autor claims that Jaspers' philosophy is an emblematic illustration of a tension, inherent in contemporary philosophy, namely that between the faith in Reason and the scepticism about its potentialities to achieve a substantial changement of human nature and society.

The aim of the following paper is to show that it is not possible to penetrate into the depths of Nikolay Raynov's universe and to comprehend its wholeness, without posing and investigating the question about the origin or the foundation of his various creative occupations, i.e his novels, philosophic and theosophic writings, art history and critique, paintings, decorative design etc. This question is far too complex to be answered briefly without being simplified, and therefore two main directions will be articulated: the recption of Orphism developed in Plotinus' and Porphyry's Neoplatonism – which is the basis of modern Theosophy –, and the synthetic understanding of art, which puts Raynov's views in close proximity to Wassily Kandinsky and Nicholas Roerich.

"The Age of Non-Philosophy": Martin Heidegger and François Laruelle In his lessons at the College of France, Merleau-Ponty noticed that something ended with Hegel and that we perhaps entered in an age of non-philosophy. This poses the question if philosophy is coming to an end or if it can be rebuild from within by retaining its essence. While Merleau-Ponty is trying to restore philosophy from the inside, Heidegger and Laruelle open two different paths of a non-philosophical thinking from the outside. The purpose of the article is to compare these two paths more in detail in order to articulate their differences as to the problems of identity, of the "thing of thought", of the role of science etc., and to show the radicality of Laruelle's undertaking, which aims not a Verwindung, nor an Überwindung of philosophy but its appropriation in a new unified theory of thought. One of the main thesis of the author is that Heidegger should not be considered only as a "philosopher of difference" but also as a thinker of identity as he has expounded four different identity concepts. Hence, it is argued that if Laruelle's critique of the convertibility of Erignis' identity is legitimate, his critique of Heidegger's amphibology of the One is questionable.

The Critique of the Transcendental Ego: On Sartre's and Ricoeur's Heidegger InterpretationsAccording Otto Pöggeler Heidegger's main brake with Husserl consists in his rejection of the tran-scendental constitution conceived as the life of an "absolute Cogito," replaced by Heidegger by the "factual life" from which phenomenology should always begin. The author of this paper argues that the problem about the starting point of phenomenology also appears later in the debates between Heidegger and Sartre, as well as in Ricoeur's Heidegger interpretation. Thus, the aim of the article is to analyze to what extent the positions of Heidegger, Sartre, and Ricoeur contradicts or even exclude each other, and to what extent they cross or eventually complement each other. The inquiry shows that Heidegger's accusation of Sartre's forgetting of the question about the sense of being of Dasein is unjustified. Equally untenable is Sartre's critique of Heidegger, that he had bypassed the Cogito as a starting point of the existential analysis, because Sartre's transcendence of the Cogito, which pretends to involve the transphenomenal Being, cannot be derived from it and risks to fall again in the trap of "phenomenalism," which Sartre reproached to Husserl. Ricoeur's Heidegger interpretation brings clarity to this discussion by pulling together the decentration of the subject and the limits of apodicticity of the Cogito. But his elaboration of the hermeneutics of the Self contains the risk of a hyperbolization of the role of language.