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Publication Details

Syncriticism as a Philosophy and a Way of Life

(Original title: Synkriticizmus ako filozofia a spôsob života)
Filozofia, 57 (2002), 7, 475-492.
Type of work: Papers
Publication language: Slovak
Abstract

The paper offers a basic characteristic of the syncriticism as a philosophical and methodological attitude or approach, which crystallized in the second half of the 80-ies in Standing seminar Integration at the Comenius University in Bratislava. The vital idea of syncriticism is that it does not aim at the removal of any relationships regarded as negative - i. e. harmful, destructive, immoral, unpleasant etc. ones, but rather at their most efficient cultivation. Syncriticism tries to transform conflicts into their spiritual or playful forms and thus to provide an imagination with bloodless fields of application. Syncriticism is an effort to reach the dominance of syncrisis (uderstanding correlation, comparison) over diacrisis (through separation, distance, quarrel).

Syncriticism is based on four presuppositions: 1. The essence of human being is his/her transcendence or selftranscendence. 2. The maximum of human being is his being cultural; a human being cannot be more than a cultural one. 3. The essence of the cultural human being is the inscendence, i. e. the inward transcendence, spiritualization. 4. The maximum of the cultural human being is the meaningfulness, or fullness saturated with sense.

Welding (syncrisis) of our life consists in restoring the interzonal interaction of cultural tracts forming our life. It would deprive it of its schizoid qualities of the private and the public, concentrating on the relationship between oneself and others, work and rest, mine and yours, etc.

Humility, therefore, should be the welding factor of our life, but not in relation to the others and their creations and inventions, but rather as a result of our being aware of our own limits in facing the transhorizontal reality, which not only surrounds us, but also penetrates into us like darkness penetrating into day.

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