Toma Gruica

In 1993, Peter Kramer in his book famously proposed that psychiatrists should "listen to Prozac", that the behavioral and affective changes induced by fluoxetine might teach us something important about the biological underpinnings of personality and mood. Kramer's metaphor of listening was chosen deliberately, and it has a certain ironic resonance. Listening implies receptivity, attunement, an orientation toward meaning. Whether Prozac itself can be listened to, whether it discloses something about the structures of human selfhood or only papers over them, is the question that phenomenological philosophy has been attempting to answer for the past three decades. The question has become considerably more urgent. SSRIs are now among the most widely prescribed drugs in the Western world, with estimates suggesting that one in eight adults in the United States has taken such medication in the past year. The rate has more than doubled among adolescents since 2006. Yet over this same period, rates of depression have risen sharply rather than declining, and the conceptual foundations of SSRI pharmacology, the so-called "chemical imbalance" or serotonin deficiency hypothesis, have been subjected to a systematic and, by now, largely decisive empirical critique. A landmark umbrella review published in Molecular Psychiatry in 2022, examining seventeen prior studies and numerous meta-analyses, found no consistent evidence linking low serotonin to depression across any of the major lines of inquiry that had been proposed. This monograph approaches the SSRI question from a different angle than the biochemical critique, though one that ultimately converges with it. It asks: What does taking an SSRI feel like from the inside? And what does phenomenological philosophy, the tradition most rigorously concerned with the structure of lived experience, make of those feelings?

The biomedical, cognitivist, and behaviorist frameworks through which mental illness is currently studied have each, in their own way, bracketed a question they did not need to answer in order to do their work. That question is not about mechanisms or correlates or symptom profiles. It is about the kind of thing a mental disorder is, what it means for a human being, already always embedded in a world, oriented toward a future, inhabiting a body that is normally not an object but a medium, to undergo the specific transformations that depression, or schizophrenia, or anxiety involve. These frameworks have not needed that question because their methods do not depend on it. This book does depend on it, and so it begins there, with the structure of human existence itself, asking what has to already be in place for these kinds of experiences to be possible. Rather than beginning with a model of the subject and applying it to illness, the analysis begins with the ontological structures of Dasein, with what must already be structurally in place for anything resembling mental illness to be possible at all. Illness, understood from this vantage, is not alien to existence; it does not arrive from outside to disrupt an otherwise intact subject. It is a disclosure of what existence always already was, an achievement, recursive and precarious, rather than a given. The depressed person does not lose access to a world that continues to exist intact behind their diminished reception of it; the structure of world-disclosure itself is transformed, the ecstatic temporal unity that normally holds past, present, and future in a livable orientation fractured into the "frozen present" that clinical phenomenology has already documented. The question "what has gone wrong?" can only be answered, at the appropriate ontological depth, by a prior question. What kind of going-right constitutes the enactment of a human world? This book is a phenomenological analysis of mental disorders. Phenomenology, as it functions here, does not designate a description of the contents of disordered experience. It does not ask what sluggishness in depression feels like, or attend to the texture of symptoms through which mental illness announces itself. It asks what allows for that sluggishness. From where in human existence, experience and cognition does it arise? Why is human experience organized in such a way that these kinds of disruptions are possible at all? The analysis is thus directed at the organization, generation, and replication of experience. This requires a clarification that must be stated plainly. Nothing in the argument treats mental disorders as "illnesses of cognition" or as "illnesses of the mind." No claim of that kind is made here, and none follows from the framework. Nor is Dasein being described as something that can be ill in any straightforward sense. The biomedical and psychiatric research traditions that have documented mental illness empirically are taken seriously throughout; the question pursued here runs alongside that research, not against it.

This paper develops a phenomenological analysis of compulsive pornography consumption, with particular attention to the experiential structures underlying autogynephilic identification as a recurrent feature of addictive engagement. Departing from clinical taxonomies and from social, moral, and aesthetic critiques of pornography, the study applies a phenomenological epoché to bracket normative and causal explanations, attending instead to pornography as it is lived by the consuming subject. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the lived body and body schema, Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology, and Freud’s accounts of drive and repetition compulsion, the analysis examines how compulsive pornographic consumption restructures intentionality, temporality, and bodily self-understanding. The paper introduces the concept of the closed event to describe the self-contained experiential structure of pornographic consumption, characterized by solipsistic intentionality, temporal collapse into a non-teleological present, and proprioceptive dissonance between the lived body and the mediated body on screen. Drawing on netnographic material gathered from online support communities and naturalistic consumption contexts, the analysis identifies a recurrent pattern of identificatory rather than voyeuristic engagement, in which consumers imaginatively inhabit the proprioceptive position of the female performer while maintaining heterosexual self-identification and reporting no attraction to the male body. This pattern is reframed phenomenologically as an effect of mimetic incorporation and body schema sedimentation produced through habitual consumption rather than as a fixed cross-gender identity. The phenomenon Blanchard designated as autogynephilia is reconsidered as a dynamic, consumption-dependent structure of embodied identification that the closed event’s collapse of self-other boundaries renders intelligible without recourse to etiological or taxonomic reduction.

Mind and Tissue Raya Peata djelo je koje od prvog izdanja 1973. godine zauzima nelagodnu poziciju na marginama akademskog diskursa, preopširno za uske specijalizme, prespecifično za filozofsku esejistiku, a metodološki previše slobodoljubivo za biomedicinsku znanost. Upravo ta rubnost, međutim, jest produktivna; knjiga otvara tematski prostor koji suvremena filozofija uma, enaktivistička kognitivna znanost i fenomenološka psihopatologija u međuvremenu prepoznaju kao legitimno istraživačko polje, premda Peata u tom kontekstu rijetko citiraju. Peat, koji je doktorat stekao disertacijom o Williamu Blakeu pod Allanom Wagnerom, a kasniju karijeru posvetio fiziologiji i endokrinologiji, donosi u ovoj knjizi sintezu ruske neuropsihologije, organicistički obojene filozofije biologije i kontinentalne filozofije, sintezu koja, unatoč nesumnjivim teorijskim manjkavostima, ima izrazitu hermeneutičku snagu u kontekstu filozofije medicine i psihopatologije

Ovaj rad razvija okvir za razumijevanje mentalnih poremećaja kroz integraciju enaktivističke kognitivne znanosti, Heideggerove fenomenologije i teorije utjelovljene kognicije. Tvrdimo da mentalni poremećaji ne proizlaze iz kategorijskih razlika u funkciji mozga, nego iz poremećaja u autopoetskim ciklusima kognitivnog angažmana sa svijetom. Oslanjajući se na Heideggerove koncepte moda angažmana zuhandenheit (priručnost) i vorhandenheit (prisutnost-pred-rukom), kao i na Varelin enaktivizam i teoriju Manfreda Eigena o replikaciji pogrešaka u autopoetskim sustavima, predlažemo da patologija nastaje kada normalni ciklus raspada i reintegracije postaje ukočen, sprječavajući pojedinca da odgovori na ono što Heidegger naziva “pozivom” (der Ruf). Ovaj okvir objašnjava zašto identična iskustva mogu biti traumatična za neke osobe, ali ne i za druge, smješta podrijetlo određenih mentalnih poremećaja u uvjete društvene otuđenosti, te pruža naturalističko objašnjenje psihopatologije koje izbjegava dualističke pretpostavke o umu i svijetu.

The traditional approach to cognition, often labeled cognitivism or representationalism, posits that intelligence operates primarily through the creation and manipulation of internal symbolic mappings of an external, pre-given world. In this model, cognitive agency is successful insofar as the "formulas" possessed by the agent accurately hold in the environmental model, rendering the representation of the world correct. This foundational commitment to representation implicitly necessitates a form of systemic self-enclosure, where meaning is derived from pre-given, abstract correspondences and calculations. The critique leveled against this framework by alternative theories, specifically the enactivist paradigm, is radical and fundamental. Enactivism, attributed to the seminal work of Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch in The Embodied Mind (1991), argues that cognition is not the internal processing of representations, but rather the ongoing, embodied enactment of meaningful relations within the environment. The strategic rejection of representationalism continues to mark a crucial difference between enactivism and cognitivism. Critically, the difference between these paradigms is not merely a dispute over whether one model explains more phenomena than the other. Rather, the conflict centers on the very criteria used for explanation and evaluation. Representationalism, by its nature, aims for systemic closure; the goal is to render the world fully comprehensible and appropriable within the system's predefined categories. However, an ontological analysis reveals the failure of representationalism to account for true alterity. If a system is structurally designed to map static external objects and process difference (das Andere), it is inherently incapable of integrating the truly radical and un-categorizable Strange (das Fremde) without destabilizing its own internal structure. This limitation demonstrates the philosophical necessity of abandoning the paradigm of internal world-modeling in favor of an open-ended, relational model of cognitive life. This report establishes a comprehensive theoretical line to overcome this cartographic challenge. The central argument posits that a non-representational account of cognition is defined by its responsive openness to what resists appropriation. This framework is constructed by synthesizing three core philosophical movements: Martin Heidegger’s existential analytic, which provides the ontological grounding for world-disclosure; the Enactivist paradigm, which supplies the embodied, anti-representational mechanics of sense-making; and Bernhard Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology, which introduces irreducible alterity as the constitutive structure of cognitive emergence.

Popular psychology often speaks of trauma as something the body “stores,” a residue in muscle or neurology waiting to be “triggered.” This reframing moves away from Cartesian dualism and Freudian repression only to fall into a new metaphysics: the self as a sac-bound archive of unprocessed wounds. Trauma becomes not a disruption in world-relating but a somatic curse, a “lesion in flesh” that dictates life unless purged. This presentation examines metaphors like being “stuck” at the age of trauma or having trauma “stored in the body,” arguing that while such tropes validate suffering, they obscure more dynamic, enactive models of experience. Drawing on ontology, ethics, and embodied cognition, I argue these metaphors risk casting trauma as an inert entity lodged in the soma, fostering helplessness rather than active re-engagement with the world.

Socijalna filozofija Martina Luthera usredočena je na doktrinu "dva kraljevstva", teološkog koncepta koji je ocrtavao uloge crkve i države u društvu. Prema Lutherovom mišljenju, duhovno se kraljevstvo odnosilo na pitanja vjere i spasenja, s crkvom kao autoritetom, a zemaljsko kraljevstvo obuhvaćalo je „kneževske poslove“, uključujući upravljanje i pravdu, s kneževima kao autoritetom. Kroz svoju socijalnu filozofiju, Luther je naglašavao važnost poslušnosti svjetovnim vlastima i sudjelovanja u građanskom životu, budući da je vjerovao da je Bog uspostavio svjetovne vlade kako bi održavale red i štitile dobrobit svojih građana. Međutim, također je upozorio protiv pretjeranog uplitanja crkve u svjetovna pitanja, zalažući se za primarni fokus crkve na duhovnim pitanjima.

Članak donosi pregled recepcije i odjeka Schellingove misli na području današnje Republike Hrvatske. Pritom će se osobita pozornost posvetiti analizi načina na koji je Schellingova misao bila shvaćena, preoblikovana i uklopljena u domaće intelektualne, kulturne i političke kontekste. Poseban će se naglasak staviti na trodijelnu vremensko-linearnu segmentaciju: a) Schellingovi suvremenici misaono aktivni tijekom prve polovice 19. stoljeća; b) Schellingova bogonaklona mišljevina u žrvnju liberalno-komunističkih nastojanja 20. stoljeća; c) suvremena recepcija Schellingove misli u okviru doktorskih disertacija i prirodoznanstvenih (kozmoloških) usmjerenja. Ovim pregledom cilj je odati počast velikanu njemačke, a naposljetku i svjetske filozofske misli – Wilhelmu Friedrichu Josephu Schellingu (1775.–1854.) – povodom 250. obljetnice njegova rođenja.

Max Weber’s interpretive sociology examines the complex structure of human social action, emphasizing tradition as a central focus to clarify the relationship between past and present. In phenomenological terms, traditions function as mechanisms through which historical experiences are subjectively interpreted. Phenomenology, which prioritizes the intentionality and subjectivity of consciousness, aligns with Weber’s analytical focus on how individuals assign meaning to historical processes. Philosophers such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty provide frameworks for analyzing how individuals ascribe significance to historical phenomena within daily life. Traditions, therefore, are not passive repositories of historical data but dynamic processes through which the past is continually reinterpreted and re-experienced by successive generations. The interaction between the lifeworld (Lebenswelt) and historical consciousness, a key concern in phenomenological studies of history, parallels Weber’s analysis of how traditions inform an individual’s perception of their temporal existence. This paper argues that Weber’s methodological imperative, to analyze history as a subjectively constructed experience rather than as a series of objective events or utilitarian systems, converges with phenomenological approaches to historicity.

This article endeavors to present a phenomenological portrayal of the concept of mental health, employing the philosophical insights of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger as guiding principles. The embodied nature of existence, intersubjectivity, and the existential-phenomenological proposition of being-in-the-world and being-towards-the-world, as conceptualized by the Maurice Merleau-Ponty, will be juxtaposed with the contemporary psychopathological phenomenological notions put forth by Thomas Fuchs and Giovanni Stanghellini. Moreover, the argumentative discourse will be fortified in the subsequent section of the article, drawing analogies between the preceding analysis and the motivating factors outlined in the works of Martin Heidegger. This exploration will specifically delve into Heidegger's existential analysis of Dasein, emphasizing the postulate of being-in-the-world as an encompassing environmental existence that includes society. In this context, the societal conventions and norms will be examined as causal factors, giving rise to what Heidegger would characterize as inauthenticity.

Članak za cilj ima uokvirenje središnjeg paradoksa – Bitak kao "ništo" —istražujući teologiju Ivana Skota Eriugene, Heideggerovo odbacivanje onto-teologije, Przywarina analogia entis i kontrast između arborescentne i rizomatske metafizike kroz filozofiju Jean-Luc Mariona. Izraz "Deus est nihilus..." predstavlja jedinstveni izazov u smislu jezika i filozofije, kako možemo govoriti o nečemu što „nije“. Ideja "teologije bez bitka" Jean-Luca Mariona je kljućna za ovo istraživanje, jer sugerira način govora o Božanskom koji nadilazi tradicionalne jezične strukture. Heideggerova vlastita evolucija u mišljenju, od prvobitnog isključivanja pojmova poput "duha" i "Boga" do pisanja o njima, također naglašava važnost jezika u oblikovanju našeg razumijevanja Božanskog. Stoga, ovaj će rad istražuje Eriugeninu filozofiju i teologiju, s potkrepljenima iz djela Ericha Przywara, Martina Heideggera i Jean-Luca Mariona, kako bi se ispitao njegov pristupi jeziku i pojmovima ništavila, bitka, i Boga, kroz objektiv suvremene ontologije. Istražuje načine na koje Eriugenine ideje o bitku i ništavilu doprinose našem razumijevanju onoga što znači govoriti o nematerijalnom i Božanskom.

This paper examines the complex relationship between metaphysics, poetry, and mathematics through Heidegger’s reading of Plato. Plato’s dialogues reveal a deep ambivalence toward poetry: he recognizes its divine origin but condemns its irrationality. Heidegger challenges traditional readings of Plato to critique philosophy’s concealment of Being. Poetry remains tied to nature’s unpredictability, while mathematics becomes a self-grounding access to the Forms. This shift marks the rise of a metaphysics of technicity, which suppresses the chthonic nature of poetry in favor of rational control and abstraction.

Anna Smajdor’s proposal for “whole-body gestational donation” (WBGD) rests on a utilitarian analogy: if brain-dead individuals can donate organs, why not their reproductive capacity? This logic, however, triggers a visceral ethical disquiet—a phenomenological uncanniness—that exposes deeper tensions about bodily integrity, gender, and the ontology of death. To interrogate this disquiet, we must move beyond bioethical frameworks of autonomy and utility and ask, what does it mean to reduce a deceased woman’s body to a gestational tool? And how does this proposal reconfigure the boundaries between life, death, and moral personhood? This paper intervenes in bioethical debates by reframing WBGD as not just a question of ethics but of ontology—a violation of the corpse’s ambiguous being and the maternal body’s intersubjective legacy. The paper weaves together perspectives from phenomenology, enactivism, Heideggerian existentialism, and Levinas’ ethics to critically engage with Anna Smajdor’s proposal of using brain-dead women as gestational surrogates.

This paper examines Alessandra Tanesini's social constructivist framework of intellectual virtues, which posits virtues as products of communal mindshaping practices. While acknowledging the strengths of her approach, the paper identifies key limitations, including its neglect of biological constraints and transmission mechanisms. Drawing on primate ethnography, hormonal studies, and memetics, the paper, following Tanesini’s model, proposes a biocultural hybrid extension of virtue formation. Through three pivotal interventions; primate behavior studies, Eisenegger's testosterone research, and memetic theory; it argues that intellectual virtues emerge from the dynamic interplay of genetic predispositions, ecological niches, and cultural narratives. This model reconciles social scaffolding with biological underpinnings, offering a more nuanced understanding of virtues as neither purely innate nor socially constructed but as enactive patterns shaped by embodied, ecological, and communal forces.

This paper offers an interdisciplinary reinterpretation of the Book of Job that goes beyond traditional readings centered on submission, obedience, or divine retribution. Drawing on comparative theology, Pauline typology, and philosophical existentialism, the paper proposes that Job’s deepest cry is not for justice or reward, but for intimacy with a God who seems distant, indifferent, or even cruel. While Islamic conceptions of submission (islām) frame suffering as a path to metaphysical alignment, Job rebels against the logic of passive surrender, seeking instead a Redeemer who will stand with him in the flesh. This longing, articulated in Job 19:25-27, is read typologically as a prefiguration of the incarnational logic found in the Gospel of John and Pauline theology, where divine love becomes accessible through mediation, embodiment, and friendship. The article explores how Job, stripped of all worldly meaning, confronts not merely divine silence but the trauma of metaphysical abandonment, thus opening a theological space in which suffering is no longer punishment but a site of relational hope. In refusing to be consoled by moral rationalizations, Job anticipates a theology of grace that transcends submission and redefines righteousness as the capacity to desire a God who desires us back.

This paper investigates the fundamental limits of human knowledge by examining two landmark results in formal reasoning: Gödel's incompleteness theorems and Cantor's diagonal argument. Gödel demonstrated that any sufficiently powerful formal system is inherently incomplete, containing true statements it cannot prove, while Cantor showed that mathematical definability is similarly constrained, with certain numbers provably existing yet indefinable within the system. Both results reveal a structural limitation: through self-reference and diagonalization, a system’s own resources expose boundaries it cannot overcome. Building on this insight, the paper argues that empirical science exhibits an analogous limitation. Scientific reasoning relies on assumptions such as the reliability of perception, the uniformity of nature, and the validity of induction, assumptions that cannot be justified without already presupposing them. This circularity, like the limitations of formal systems, is not a flaw but a defining feature of knowledge production. By synthesizing these formal and empirical cases, the paper contends that all knowledge is framed by its unprovable foundations. The choice of a framework, whether a formalist approach to mathematics or a pragmatic reliance on empirical methods, is not a matter of absolute proof but of coherence, utility, and philosophical commitment. Recognizing these limits clarifies the domain and strength of different forms of reasoning, offering a more mature understanding of the scope and reliability of human knowledge.

This paper offers an analysis of Peirce’s phenomenology in relation to classical metaphysical and religious traditions as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives, such as Kant, Heidegger, and Levinas. By engaging Gnostic, Christian, and Platonic accounts of the divine and of evil, the study situates Peirce’s categories within a broader metaphysical conversation. Particular attention is given to the phenomena of pain and pleasure, understood as elemental structures of Firstness that, when developed within lived existence, disclose a vision of the human condition that bears striking affinities to Gnostic interpretations. Through this reading, Peirce emerges as a thinker whose phenomenology, though pragmatist in orientation, opens onto an almost Gnostic apprehension of human suffering, finitude, and the possibility of transcendence.

This article argues that the primary ethical significance of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) lies not in the specific content they transmit, but in their capacity to restore communicative agency to individuals otherwise excluded from ethical engagement due to conditions such as complete locked-in syndrome. While current ethical frameworks focus largely on risks, privacy, and clinical outcomes, this analysis foregrounds the ontological dimension: BCIs safeguard and re-establish the practical conditions under which autonomy, recognition, and interpersonal accountability can be exercised. Drawing on documented clinical cases, the article applies the concept of communicative reinstatement to describe how BCIs reconfigure relationships between patients, caregivers, and the broader moral community. The argument culminates in a normative claim: societies have an ethical obligation to maintain and protect communicative capacity where feasible, treating BCIs not merely as therapeutic tools but as infrastructures of moral inclusion. This reorientation carries implications for regulation, informed consent, policy, and distributive justice.

This dissertation reconceptualizes psychopathology through a synthesis of Heidegger’s existential analytic and contemporary enactivist cognitive science. It argues that dominant models in psychiatry, particularly biomedical and representationalist frameworks, remain constrained by Cartesian assumptions and fail to account for the embodied, relational, and world-disclosing nature of mental illness. Drawing on Heidegger’s distinction between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand, this work reinterprets breakdowns in practical coping not as internal dysfunctions but as disruptions in the existential structure of being-in-the-world. The lived body, rather than being a mechanistic substrate, is revealed through its participatory role in world constitution. When illness emerges, it signals not a failure of bodily function but a collapse in the integration of self, body, and world. Using comparative phenomenological analysis, the dissertation integrates concepts from ecological and developmental psychology, pragmatism, phenomenology, and enactivist theory, particularly autopoiesis and participatory sense-making, to explore how Dasein’s identity is enacted through embodied interaction and relational responsiveness. It develops a non-dualistic account of selfhood in which psychopathology is understood as a failure of adaptive equilibration rather than as a deviation from normativity. Mental illness is thus reframed as a transformation in the structure of affordances and world-relation; it often reveals the fragile, recursive nature of identity and its dependence on meaningful engagement. Central to this project is a reinterpretation of Heidegger’s concept of authenticity. Rather than being a normative ideal, authenticity is presented as an existential dynamic; a mode of regaining coherence through the confrontation with fragility, fallenness, and temporal rupture. Authenticity allows for reintegration into everyday life not by transcending inauthenticity but by making it visible as a necessary horizon for sense-making. Drawing on both phenomenological and enactivist perspectives, the work shows how Dasein’s existential freedom is situated, embodied, and contingent upon its capacity to maintain ontological flexibility in the face of crisis. The thesis concludes by arguing for a therapeutic model rooted in the restoration of existential orientation rather than the elimination of symptoms. Health is reframed as the capacity for world re-engagement, not as equilibrium or normality. Illness discloses the limits and possibilities of sense-making; it exposes the constitutive role of fragility in selfhood. This approach calls for a hermeneutic and relational understanding of psychopathology, attentive to the embodied structures of mood, care, and temporality. By bridging Heidegger’s ontology with enactivist models of cognition, the dissertation offers a conceptual foundation for a phenomenologically grounded, ethically responsive, and clinically relevant account of mental illness. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing debates in philosophy of psychiatry and cognitive science while challenging reductive assumptions that obscure the lived meaning of suffering.

Katherine Withy’s Heidegger on Being Affected (2024) offers a clear and insightful account of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of affectivity, emphasizing how Befindlichkeit (“Disposedness”, finding) and Stimmung (attunement) shape our existence as beings entangled with the world. By rooting Heidegger’s ideas in Aristotle’s concept of pathē and connecting them to other fields like psychology, psychiatry, and artificial intelligence, Withy reveals the enduring importance and relevance of Heidegger’s thought. The book argues that affectivity, our capacity to be moved by entities, grounds our understanding of Being, from everyday experiences to existential moments and experiences like angst and boredom.

Nikada prije u svijetu nije bilo očitije da mediji i tehnologija mijenjaju ljudsku percepciju stvarnosti, nego u suvremenom razdoblju. Priznanje toga, u našoj potrazi za tehnološkim napretkom, čini se kao najbolji put naprijed. Dok mnogi u nesmetanom širenju tehnologije i masovnih medija vide emancipatorski alat, postoje i oni koji s ciničnim pogledom pristupaju tom pitanju. Koristeći se filozofijom Martina Heideggera, Jean Baudrillarda, ovaj rad nastoji analizirati reklamiranje kroz pojam hiperrealnosti, kao oblik iskrivljene svijesti koja mijenja percepciju i način ljudskog svakidašnjeg življenja. Moderna filozofija stavlja subjekta u centar, kao razumnog, razmišljajućeg i djelujućeg, koji koristi razum kako bi razumio svijet objekata oko sebe; prema ideji hiperrealnost, redoslijed se u suvremenom postmodernom društvu obrnuo. Tehnika koja je nekoć bila alat čovjeku, je izgubila kontrolu i subjekt sada postaje subjektiran od strane tehnike, koju jedna osoba ne može u svojoj cijelosti kontrolirati niti razumjeti. Sve od globalne trgovine, do viralnih medija, klimatske promjene; sada je svijet objekata taj koji vlada nad subjektom.

Hannah Arendt, istaknuta filozofkinja i politička teoretičarka, oblikovala je osebujnu i nijansiranu koncepciju ljudskog tijela unutar svog djela Condito Humana, posebno u kontekstu radne aktivnosti. Njezina razmišljanja o tjelesnosti neraskidivo su utkana u njezin sveobuhvatni filozofski okvir, onaj koji naglašava dinamiku ljudskog djelovanja, sferu zajednice i zamršeno tkivo političke egzistencije. Unutar svoje analize, tjelesnost pojedinca nalazi se unutar „zabačene domene” privatnosti, domene odvojene od domene politike i rada, namjerno zaštićene od javnog „razgolićenja”. Tijelo je za Arendt „nužnost”, činjeničnost i preduvjet za svaku analizu, te su u Condito Humana tijelesnost i utjelovljenost kao aspekt ljudskog stanje stavljeni sekundarni samim tjelesnim aktivnostima. Stoga ovaj rad nastoji, udubljujući se u Arendtino i Heideggerovo prikriveno istraživanje tjelesnih iskustava, rasvjetliti potencijal za fenomenologiju političkog angažmana ukorijenjenog u opipljivom ljudskom obliku.

This paper offers a parallel study of the Korčula Summer School and the LCY Political School in Kumrovec, aiming to understand the evolution, challenges, and decline of communist ideology in Yugoslavia, while exploring what communism even meant in this context. Covering the period from 1964 to 1990, the study examines the role of these schools in shaping the ideological foundations of Yugoslav society and the difficulties they faced in a shifting political and intellectual landscape. Through a chronological overview, the paper seeks to illuminate how ideological systems evolved and what remained of “Yugoslav communism” as it waned.

Embodied cognition and enactivism, as a philosophy and position in the cognitive sciences, represent the idea that the human experience is the kind of experience of a fundamentally embodied entity, and this embodiment manifests itself into consciousness through “common-sense” or “ready-at-hand” knowledge; It is in the way we interact and engage with the environment that this embodiment is experienced. But, It is only through psychopathology, or disturbances in typical engagement with the world, that this embodiment is brought into explicit awareness. Phenomenology, with famous examples like Heidegger’s “Carpenter and his Hammer (Heidegger, 1967, p. 69),” or Merleau-Ponty’s “The Hand touching Itself (Merleau-Ponty, 2012, p. 106).”, illustrate that embodiment is our primary mode of being. This can be understood as embodied engagement, where cognition relies on experiences derived from having a body equipped with various sensorimotor capacities. These sensorimotor capacities exist within a broader ecological, historical, social, cultural, biological, and psychological context, known as the phenomenological life world, or being-in-the-world. Consequently, engagement implies that sensory and motor processes, perception, and action are fundamentally inseparable in lived cognition. Contrasting with the old Cartesian view, where perception is viewed as an information processing task aimed at recovering the pre-given properties of the world, the perspective here is that perception is about how the perceiver can navigate and act within their immediate environment. These local situations are in a state of constant flux due to the perceiver's activities. Therefore, the reference point for understanding perception shifts from a pre-given, perceiver-independent world to the sensorimotor structure of the perceiver. This structure, defined by how the perceiver is embodied, rather than an independent world, determines how the perceiver can act and be influenced by environmental events. A problem arises when we realize the fact, that we come into being within a world that precedes us, as Heidegger says: we are “thrown” into the world, gradually becoming aware of its presence (Heidegger, 1967, p. 135.). As we age and experience life, we start contemplating its nature. The world isn't a product of our making, but rather a revelation awaiting our discovery. However, it's this very world that enables us to engage in reflection. Thus, a cycle ensues: the world precedes our contemplation, yet it intertwines inseparably with our experience.

Martin Heidegger (1889.-1976.) svojom je, iako nedovršenom, egzistencijalnom anali zom tu-bitka u svojem djelu Bitak i vrijeme postao jedan od najistaknutijih mislilaca 20. stoljeća. Njegova hermeneutička i fenomenološka metoda te analize, kao i njome uteme ljena ideja tu-bitka kao biti-u-svijetu, sačinjavale su i temelj njegove kasnije misli. Una toč tome što se kasnija misao Martina Heideggera udaljila od ideja prisutnih u Bitku i vremenu, njome se one mogu obuhvatiti i razumjeti. Cilj je ovoga rada prikazati misaone okvire i temeljne pojmove egzistencijalne analize tu-bitka i prodrijeti u egzistencijalnu ontologiju Martina Heideggera.

Heidegger piše da je cilj Bitka i vremena razumijevanje značenja bitka; cilj kojeg može postići samo autentični tu-bitak. Čovjek, tu-bitak, je entitet koji je jedinstven među drugim entitetima utoliko što je definiran relacijom koju ima prema sebi, on ne trpi tek puku postojanost već egzistira zauzimajući stav o tome „tko“ je. Egzistencija, označava tu-bitkovu orijentiranost prema budućnosti. Svako ljudsko djelovanje je gibanje s i prema nekom cilju; želja za ostvarenjem cilja, koji se nalazi u budućnosti, je uzrok našeg djelovanja i čovjek s uspostavom cilja djelovanja već je u budućnosti. Autentičnost predstavlja gibanje koje svoj cilj dostiže kroz samo gibanje, a čovjek se u tom gibanju pronalazi ispred neizmjerne količine mogućnosti, koje ovisno o tome kako ih povezujemo, određuju tko smo kao osoba. Način tu-bitkovog postojanja stoga obuhvaća mogućnost; ono što nam je bačeno, što uključuje naše povijesno bivstvo; kao i aktualnost, stav koji zauzimamo nad onim bačenim. Čovjek se u svojoj bačenosti gubi u javnosti, među drugim ljudima i sudjeluje u samoobmanjivanju neautentičnosti naklapanja i znatiželje, sve do trenutka propalosti. U svojoj propalosti čovjek tek može spoznati sebe kao neautentičnog i odlučiti postati autentičnim. Autentičnost označava odlučnost, i reflektivno sagledavanje života u svojoj cijelosti, a to je ostvarivo tek kada spoznamo neizbježnost smrti. Čovjeku smrt predstavlja njegovu najvlastitiju vlastitost, nešto što je potpuno njegovo vlastito i što je nerazumljivo kroz smrt drugih. Uz fenomen smrti i odlučnosti, za autentičnost je prema Heideggeru potreban i fenomen savjesti. Savjest je glas koji nas navodi da postanemo autentičnim, a nastaje iz inertnosti i iz naše krivnje uzrokovane ontološkom činjenicom da je čovjek propadljivo biće u stalnoj relaciji prema ništavilu, prema smrtnosti. Krivnja označava nepostizanje vlastitih mogućnosti, potiskivanje autentičnosti, i buku neautentičnog života, gdje se onda tek može javiti glas savjesti. U krivnji izbjegavanja pitanja o smrti u čovjeku stvara i strah o smrti kao o događaju, kao o nečemu što nije naša vlastitost. Strah nastaje pred činjenicom ljudske slobode, pred činjenicom da je čovjek taj koji mora odlučiti za sebe između neizmjerne količine mogućnosti. Strah nas tako distancira od naše vlastitosti i autentičnosti. Prevazići taj strah znači prihvatiti i sagledati svoju smrtnost, što znači sagledati svoj život u cjelini. U sagledavanju života u cjelini čovjek prelazi „vulgarno“ razumijevanje vremena kao prisutnost u sadašnjosti, te svoju budućnost i prošlost razumije kao cjelovitu priču, u kojoj se značenja prošlih događaja mijenjaju ovisno o onome što se događa sada i što će se dogoditi u budućnosti. Kierkegaard navodi da je čovjek biće sinteze, da je čovjek dijalektični odnos međusobno oprečnih pojmova poput vječnosti i vremenitosti, beskrajnosti i krajnosti, slobode i nužnosti, kao i vječne duše i propadljivog tijela. U ovome odnosu krajnosti čovjek se slobodno giba, a u svojoj slobodi on se gubi, griješi, kaje se i bježi u jednu ili drugu krajnost. Čovjek u svome bijegu postaje sebičan, zavisan i ogorčen; on se udaljuje od malograđanskog života u negativnu refleksiju estetičkog života koji je ispunjen praznim zadovoljstvima i potragom za ljepotom. Ljepota nije najuzvišenija, nego je neposredno blago, i jedno kada propadne ljepota estet ostaje kao samrtnik u očaju. Čovjek nadalje bježi u etičke konstrukcije, uvjerava se da je njegov pasivni način življenja onaj ispravni i zadovoljava se filozofskim konstrukcijama i sistemima kroz koje objašnjava svijet oko sebe. Čovjek, ako je on sam paradoksalno biće između dvije krajnosti, će eventualno doći u neobjašnjive, paradoksalne situacije gdje jedino rješenje je prepuštanje sebe. Za Kierkegaarda prepuštanje označava prvo odlučnost, odlučnost u odbacivanju svih lažnih identiteta u činu „stajanja golim pred Gospodinom.“ Sve što jest je po sebi ili po drugome, a pošto je čovjek u odnosu sa samim sobom nije mogao biti po sebi, već ga je nužno morao stvoriti Bog. U prihvaćanju sebe kao stvorenog od strane Boga, čovjek može postati autentičan, može naučiti kako ljubiti Boga, kako ljubiti sebe, ljubiti druge i svijet oko sebe. U kretanju prema autentičnosti čovjek se otuđuje od svijeta oko sebe, jer nisu svi pojedinci voljni i svjesni svoga stanja neautentičnosti i neautentičnosti svijeta u kojem se nalaze. Čovjek, koje je nužno međuljudsko i društveno biće, i za kojega su potrebni drugi ljudi kako bi izgradio i upoznao sebe, se kada postane autentičan mora vratiti u neautentični svijet, s novostečenim znanjem i s ciljem aktivnog mijenjana svijeta oko sebe.