Sanja Ivic

This article explores Vietnam’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of good ethical practice in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak. Vietnam’s response to the pandemic is in accordance with the ethics of care which emphasizes solidarity and responsibility. Vietnam’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic is also in accordance with the third generation of human rights that promote solidarity and responsibilities towards the community. A full implementation of human rights requires more emphasis on responsibilities, especially in the time of crisis.

The Archetypal World of Nikola Tesla (2010), written by Prof. Dr. Ivan Nastovic, looks at the scientist Nikola Tesla in the light of the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung. Unlike psychoanalysis, which deals with research of the individual unconscious, that is, what is solely personal, Jung's analytical psychology allows us to comprehend what is found on the other side of the personal. Nastovic discusses several archetypes that shaped Tesla's world. He first points out the importance and the function of the Great Mother archetype and Tesla's white dove in order to fully understand his personality and his work. While introducing the reader to Tesla's opus, Nastovic explains the archetype of light, strongly present in Tesla's personality, the archetypal roots of Tesla's discovery of the rotating magnetic field, and the mysticism of his personality and his creativity. He also looks at Nikola Tesla in light of Hillman's acorn theory.

Human rights of older adults are still not sufficiently developed. The "older adults" are still perceived as homogeneous social group within legal framework, which leaves room for multiple discrimination. However, the experience of the old age is different and it depends on race, class, gender, occupation, place of living, and so forth. This paper will explore how the rights of older adults are regulated within European law. Ageing in Europe is accelerating and puts pressure on welfare systems. That is why both the retirement system and the perception of older adults should be revised. In dealing with the problem of discrimination against older adults, this paper will inquire whether citizenship which transcends any idea of age represents a symbolic and normative imperative of Europe today.

The purpose of this inquiry is rethinking the concept of European identity within the framework of the Declaration on European Identity and the Charter of European Identity. It will be argued that those documents employ modernist notion of centered, rational, stable, autonomous and unified self. However, this idea of the self leads to exclusion and essentialism. In this way, European identity cannot embrace the multiculturalism of European societies. Thus, it should be replaced by a more flexible, dynamic and shifting concept of identity.

A number of authors in the past two decades emphasised that the problem of “democratic deficit“ in the European Union could be solved by application of the principles of deliberative democracy. However, the notion of “deliberation“ haven’t become the part of the EU policy and discourse until 2005. The problem of “democratic deficit“ is officially recognised by European Commission in 2005, when the Commission supported and funded a number of initiatives for the promotion of active citizenship and deliberative democracy. This paper will analyse European Commission’s Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate. It will explore whether this plan led to deliberation and more inclusive citizenship.

The concept of EU citizenship reflects EU politics of (fixed) identity, which guarantees rights only to the homogeneous groups (and individuals as representatives of these groups). Hence, it leaves room for marginalizing, othering, excluding and other forms of discrimination, by creating binary oppositions: we/they, citizen/alien, EU/non-EU and so forth. EU citizenship is based on the modernist ethics of priority of right over the good. It is created to promote European idea, so it has only instrumental value. On the other hand, the politics of affinity leads to the substantive EU citizenship founded on multiple identities. The politics of affinity requires a new ethics which will lead to transformation of the main concepts of EU legal discourse.

This paper will explore the visa liberalisation process and its implications affecting Western Balkan countries from the perspective of postmodern politics. It will be argued that the idea of citizenship which is deduced from the entire idea of visa liberalisation process for Western Balkan countries rests on a modernist notion of citizenship which is based on the idea of stable and fixed identity. This idea of citizenship is contradictory to the concept of European citizenship as a postnational, and, thus, postmodern concept based on multiple and shifting identities. Postmodern European politics should overcome universalist assertions of modernist Europe, which do not acknowledge the “non‐European world“.

Ricoeur’s narrative theory can be applied to scientific theories. Scientific theories as well as narrative plots represent a “synthesis of heterogeneous” based on productive imagination. On the other hand, narrative plots can be perceived as an answer to the “why?” questions as well as scientific explanations. In this paper it will be argued that an analogy between narrative and scientific paradigms can be made. In the 18th and 19th centuries, both narrative and scientific paradigms aspired to represent a mimesis of reality. However, in the 20th century, those realist aspirations were rejected or supplemented with an idea of fragmented and mind-dependent reality. This point of view opened the question of the role of non-existent (and non-referential concepts) in science. In literature, novels without traditional plots arose.

Poststructuralist approach can offer a useful tool for refiguration of some basic concepts employed in European legal discourse. However, this approach is mostly used in gender studies, and its potential is mostly neglected in European studies. In this article, the Udine Declaration will be analyzed from the poststructuralist perspective. It will be shown that this Declaration does not represent a move toward greater freedom and broader notion of identity, because it employs essentialist concepts.

Rawls does not advocate liberal imperialism in his work. He claims that peoples have a moral nature and that they cannot be treated instrumentally. Subsequently, he argues that decent hierarchical societies should be tolerated. Rawls emphasizes that it is the peoples ( not individuals ) who are moral actors. The Law of Peoples results from a second original position in which the parties are representatives of peoples whose basic institutions satisfy the principles of justice. Therefore, Rawls rejects cosmopolitanism and the conception of global justice which is founded on the idea of original position in which parties are representatives of persons who hold different social positions

This book uses a theoretical and empirical approach to explore the philosophies of European citizenship and European identity. The author applies a focused analytical framework to argue that European identity and citizenship should be perceived as postmodern categories which are multi-layered, dynamic and fluid. The book offers a detailed review of political and legal studies which do not comprehend or explain postmodernist concepts of citizenship and identity. In the theoretical part of the book various philosophical models of citizenship and identity (from antiquity to the postmodern era) are portrayed, and the author's own theory and analytical framework is developed. The empirical part of the book discusses a variety of case studies illustrating how European Union policies apply to this framework.

This inquiry investigates the concept of European values and cultural, philosophical, legal and political presuppositions on which the idea of European values is based. There are two approaches to the idea of European values. The first one is substantive approach. The substantive approach defines European values as based on the European heritage. This conception of European values is fixed. Another understanding of European values is represented by legal/political approach. Legal and political definition of European values includes: human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Most authors consider that only from this second level, from legal and political definition, general features of European values can be achieved, that is, universal rules of the game. This paper shows how these two different approaches can be integrated, relying on John Rawls's idea of overlapping consensus. It should be emphasized that the question of European values and European identity is still a topic of debate. There are different definitions and interpretations of these concepts, regardless of the legal definitions within the framework of European declarations and treaties. European identity is a polyphonic category, which cannot be founded on monolithic definitions. Otherwise, the entire continent would fall under the rule of one homogeneous culture.

This inquiry analyzes the concept of ‘European public sphere’ within the European public discourse. In particular, it explores the European Communication Strategy for creating active European citizenship and European public sphere. The European Commission’s Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate failed, because it employed homogeneous and static concepts of public sphere and European values. In this way it reduced deliberation to a mere debate. The European Year of Citizens was not sufficiently successful for the same reason. It involved citizens debated about EU rights, but it did not produce deliberation. The purpose of this inquiry is to show the dialectical relation between ideas of European values, European identity and European public sphere. This paper emphasizes performative nature of European public sphere, European identity and European values. These concepts may be perceived as grand narratives which aim at producing universal truths.

This inquiry examines various philosophical conceptions of identity and the clash between different identity narratives in the history of philosophy. The main goal of this paper is to show how the European philosophical idea of identity was developed. This paper explores the emergence of European philosophical identity narratives, which have shaped the ideas of justice, truth and community in Europe. It studies the foundational identity narratives that underlie the contested idea of a shared European heritage in law and culture, such as the ideas of equality, tolerance, rule of law, pluralism and the rejection of totalitarianism, and their relevance for current debates on philosophical ideas of self and identity. Identity is an open process. It is a dynamic hermeneutic category, which is constantly reinterpreted and reinvented. There are various philosophical traditions of Cogito – some of them perceive it as foundation of all knowledge and some of them perceive it as a mere illusion. In all these philosophical perspectives, the self is understood only through interpretation. The self is constituted as a narrative, as a text. Understanding oneself means understanding oneself in front of a text. The self is reinterpreted all over again only in light of narratives provided by culture. The task of hermeneutics is not only understanding of a subject, but also rethinking the subject.

The purpose of this inquiry is to point to some unclearities and contradictions inside the framework of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This inquiry is based on the philosophical analysis of some basic concepts employed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The four concepts ( dignity, freedoms, equality and solidarity ) which are presented in the preamble of the Charter as “indivisible and universal values” will be analyzed. On the other hand, the definition and the scope of rights guaranteed by these values will also be examined. It will be argued that those values reflect modernist political liberalism and its universalist and metaphysical assumptions.

Human rights do not represent an absolute truth. Otherwise, they would represent ideology, which is contradictory to the basic idea of human rights itself. Consequently, there is a need for redefinition of the main presuppositions of modern conception of human rights represented in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This paper argues that Rawls's conception of human rights is significant for the refiguration of human rights. It represents the path towards postmodern idea of human rights and the recognition of difference.Os direitos humanos não representam uma verdade absoluta. Caso contrário, eles representariam a ideologia, o que é contraditório em relação à própria idéia básica de direitos humanos. Consequentemente, há uma necessidade de redefinição dos pressupostos principais da moderna concepção de direitos humanos representada na Declaração Universal dos Direitos Humanos. Esse artigo argumenta que a concepção de Rawls de direitos humanos é importante para a reconfiguração dos direitos humanos. Ela representa o caminho para a idéia pós-moderna de direitos humanos e para o reconhecimento da diferença

In the following lines the symbolic oppression founded on binary hierarchies that exist inside the framework of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms will be presented. In those binary oppositions opposed terms are not equally valued. One of these terms is dominant, while the other is subordinated and mostly defined only as the first term’s other. This symbolic oppression creates various forms of discrimination. This paper argues that this problem can be resolved by deliberative democracy. Effective deliberation leads to more informed public sphere which is capable to embrace otherness and diversity.