Program: APVV

Philosophical Anthropology in the Context of Current Crises of Symbolic Structures

Project coordinator: Jon Stewart

Duration: July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2025

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Project description

In the current philosophical -anthropological discourse we encounter many different definitions of man. In the present project we view man primarily as “animal symbolicum” (E. Cassirer). We are concerned with how man creates, interprets and changes symbolic structures and how they affect him. The understanding of man’s relation to symbolic structures is the key to understanding both the changes in man’s self -conception, his modes of decision-making and the means by which he encodes and solves problems.

The philosophical reflection, which builds upon the Kantian and Herderian line of thinking about human nature, shows that our relations to Being are realized in the form of differentiated symbolic forms (E. Cassirer), orders of life (M. Weber), or regimes of truth (M. Foucault) such as science, art, politics and religion. These structures form the framework with which man defines reality. They help man to express himself and control his relations to others and reality. An essential component of all our relations i s reflexivity, which means that in his relation to the world, others and himself man constitutes himself as a subject.

The present age is characterized by a number of interrelated crises of symbolic structures. These crises provoke crucial changes in man’s relations to himself, others and Being. They are not merely manifestations of dysfunctions, but also complex processes of transformation which provide new opportunities. It is our aim to examine chosen crises of symbolic structures, determine their mutual relations, and demonstrate how they affect man and change the anthropological framework of research. The composition of the research team guarantees a multiperspectival approach and consequent anchoring of the research in both the international and the domestic milieu. The results of the research will provide relevant answers to fundamental questions and will represent an original contribution to the current debates in philosophical anthropology.

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Editor-in-chief of the new series:

New Research in the History of Western Philosophy (Brill)

Today research in the history of Western philosophy is a global phenomenon. The series features the work of leading scholars from the different subfields, regardless of where they are found in the world. Philosophy is a discipline substantially enriched by a broad dialogue of perspectives that transcend the local contexts — the series New Research in the History of Western Philosophy provides a forum for this dialogue. The series also strives to showcase the modern importance and relevance of the history of Western philosophy to pressing issues of our day. It seeks single-author monographs and collected-author volumes that demonstrate that the texts, figures, and debates from the Western philosophical tradition are still very much alive not only in the academic field of philosophy but also in many other areas beyond its conventional boundaries. The series welcomes new approaches and studies on lesser-known figures and texts.

Editor-in-chief of the series
Studies in the History of Western Philosophy

Series: Value Inquiry Book Series

Editor: Jon Stewart
Today research in the history of Western philosophy is a global phenomenon. The series features the work of leading scholars from the different subfields, regardless of where they are found in the world. Philosophy is a discipline substantially enriched by a broad dialogue of perspectives that transcend the local contexts – the Studies in the History of Western Philosophy series provides a forum for this dialogue. The series also strives to showcase the modern importance and relevance of the history of Western philosophy to pressing issues of our day. This series seeks single-author monographs and collected-author volumes that demonstrate that the texts, figures and debates from the history of the Western tradition are still very much alive in the academic field of philosophy, and in many areas beyond its conventional boundaries.

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First volume of the series under the new editorship:

Modern and Postmodern Crises of Symbolic Structures:
Essays in Philosophical Anthropology

Edited by Peter Šajda
Leiden and Boston: Brill 2021

In debates about philosophical anthropology human beings have been defined in different ways. In Modern and Postmodern Crises of Symbolic Structures, the contributors view the human being primarily as animal symbolicum. They examine how the human being creates, interprets and changes symbolic structures, as well as how he is affected and impacted by them. The focus lies on the context of modernity and postmodernity, which is characterized by a number of interrelated crises of symbolic structures. These crises have affected the realms of science, religion, art, politics and education, and thus provoked crucial changes in the human being’s relations to himself, others and reality. The crises are not viewed merely as manifestations of dysfunctions, but rather as complex processes of transformation that also provide new opportunities.

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The second volume of the series under the new editorship:

The Bounds of Myth:
A Logical Path from action to Knowledge

Edited by Gustavo Esparza and Nassim Bravo
Leiden and Boston: Brill 2021

The articles in The Bounds of Myth, edited by Gustavo Esparza and Nassim Bravo, shed light on the internal shapes of the mythological discourse, showing the way in which myth borders religion, science, literature, theology, i.e., other forms of rationality. The contributing authors of the volume claim that myth is a valid form of thought and that the former evolves within other forms of discourse, even though its composition is independent and even precedes the latter.
The articles collected here demonstrate the importance of myth as a form of thought that is in constant development, a feature that shows in turn that in spite of its remote and archaic origin, myth remains a valuable and relevant tool to interpret our own culture.

Contributors are: Nassim Bravo, Claudio Calabrese, Teresa Enríquez, Gustavo Esparza, Ethel Junco, Enrique Martínez, Cecilia Sabido and Jon Stewart.

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The third volume of the series under the new editorship:

The Original Age of Anxiety:
Essays on Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries

By Lasse Horne Kjældgaard
Leiden and Boston: Brill 2021

Why was anxiety such a major issue for Søren Kierkegaard and his contemporaries? This book revisits the “original” age of anxiety, the time and place where Kierkegaard’s ground-breaking thoughts on anxiety were formed. The pseudonym used by Kierkegaard in The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Vigilius Haufniensis, is Latin for “the watchman of Copenhagen.” A guiding question is what the vigilant Haufniensis might have observed in his city—and especially in the literary culture of his time and day? Exploring freedom in many forms, Kierkegaard and his contemporaries found combinations of fear and desire that have later been considered symptomatic of modernity.

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Editor-in-chief of the series Texts from Golden Age Denmark

In order to meet the need for the new international interest in the celebrated period of the Danish Golden Age, Museum Tusculanum Press has, since 2005, been publishing a translation series entitled, Texts from Golden Age Denmark (ISSN 1903-3346) under the general editorship of Professor Jon Stewart. The main goal of his interdisciplinary series is to make available for the first time in English some of the most important texts from the leading writers and intellectual figures of this period.

The texts featured come from many different authors, representing many different fields, e.g., literature, philosophy, theology, drama and art history. They serve to paint a more complete picture of the cultural milieu of the period and to make its rich intellectual life available to the world of international scholarship.

Read more: Texts from Golden Age Denmark

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Reviews
"Stewart has taken great care in positioning each of the chosen texts in their historical as well as philosophical context, and the reader necessarily comes away having been given a privileged window into a central concern of the Danish Golden Age. These volumes...function as gateways to further research into the Danish Golden Age and its historical and cultural moment."
Scandinavian Studies, vol. 80, no. 2, 2008, pp. 254-256.

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"This series represents a welcome expansion of the excellent work done at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, which here once again cements its competence in the theological and philosophical literature of the Danish Golden Age....For the first time it is possible for the English reader to look beyond Kierkegaard out into the wider landscape of outstanding texts from Danish philosophy....The present reviewer...can...only recommend these...excellent volumes of translations to the English reader. They open up a new world of possibilities for Kierkegaard research, but this is ultimately only a small part of what they really offer. With them the road is cleared into the treasure chest of wonderful philosophical texts from the Danish Golden Age."
Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter, no. 51, 2007, pp. 43-45.

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The following volumes have been published to date:

Volume 1
Heiberg’s On the Significance of Philosophy for the Present Age and Other Texts

Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2005. Hardback. xxii+467pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3084-2

Volume 2
Heiberg’s Speculative Logic and Other Texts

Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2006. Hardback. xviii+387pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3091-0

Volume 3
Heiberg’s Introductory Lecture to the Logic Course and Other Texts

Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007. Hardback. xvii+334pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3085-9

Volume 4
Heiberg’s Contingency Regarded from the Point of View of Logic and Other Texts
Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2008. Hardback. vxi+457pp. ISBN 978-87-635-1099-8

Volume 5
Mynster’s “Rationalism, Supernaturalism” and the Debate about Mediation
Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2009.Hardback. vxi+683pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3096-5

Volume 6
Heiberg’s Perseus and Other Texts

Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2011. Hardback. xiii+406pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3170-2.

Volume 7
Sibbern’s Remarks and Investigations Primarily Concerning Hegel’s Philosophy
Trans. and ed. by Jon Stewart
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2018
Hardback. xvi + 451pp. ISBN 978 87 635 4598 3

Volume 8

Poul Martin Møller's "Thought on the Possibility of Proofs of Human Immortality" and Other Texts
Trans. and ed. by Finn Gredal Jensen and Jon Stewart

Leiden: Brill 2022. Hardback. xxi+515 pp. ISBN 978-04-51790-5

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Editor-in-chief of the series Danish Golden Age Studies

Since 2007 Museum Tusculaum Press has been producing a monograph series entitled, Danish Golden Age Studies (ISSN: 1903-3338) under the general editorship of Professor Jon Stewart. The series is dedicated to advancing international research on different works, figures and discussions from the Danish Golden Age, i.e., the period from 1800 to around 1850 when writers and thinkers such as Hans Christian Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard were active.

The series is published by Brill.

This series features many different kinds of monographs, such as Ph.D. dissertations, Habilitation theses, and conference proceedings. The series is interdisciplinary and thus features research monographs in areas such as philosophy, theology, literature, history, aesthetics, art history and drama. The goal of this series is to promote international interest in and research on this rich cultural period of Danish history.

Read more: Danish Golden Age Studies

The following volumes have been published to date:

Volume 1
K. Brian Soderquist, The Isolated Self: Truth and Untruth in Søren Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007. Hardback. viii+247pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3090-3
Paperback edition, Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2013. ISBN 978-87-635-4065-0

Volume 2
Robert Leslie Horn, Positivity and Dialectic: A Study of the Theological Method of Hans Lassen Martensen Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007. Hardback. xviii+246pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3089-7

Volume 3
Jon Stewart, A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark
Tome I: The Heiberg Period: 1824-1836 (2007).
Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007. Hardback. xxi+629pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3086-6

Tome II: The Martensen Period: 1837-1842
Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel 2007. Hardback. xx+775pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3101-6


Volume 4
Curtis L. Thompson, Following the Cultured Public’s Chosen One: Why Martensen Mattered to Kierkegaard Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2008. Hardback. xvi+216pp. ISBN 978-87-635-1097-4

Volume 5
Jon Stewart (editor), Johan Ludvig Heiberg: Philosopher, Littérateur, Dramaturge, and Political Thinker
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2008. Hardback. xxii+548pp. ISBN 978-87-635-1096-7

Volume 6
Jon Stewart (editor), Hans Lassen Martensen: Theologian, Philosopher and Social Critic
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2012. Hardback. xv+351pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3169-6

Volume 7
Jon Stewart (editor), The Heibergs and the Theater:
Between Vaudeville, Romantic Comedy and National Drama
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2012. Hardback. xi+267pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3897-8

Volume 8
Katalin Nun, Women of the Danish Golden Age: Literature, Theater and the Emancipation of Women
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2013. Hardback. xvi+180pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3913-5

Volume 9
Jon Stewart, The Cultural Crisis of the Danish Golden Age: Heiberg, Martensen and Kierkegaard
Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2015. Hardback. xxii+337pp. ISBN 978-87-635-4269-2

Volume 10
Gerhard Schreiber and Jon Stewart (editors), Magnús Eiríksson: A Forgotten Contemporary of Kierkegaard Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2017). Hardback. xiv+487pp. ISBN 978-87-635-4390-3.

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Co-editor of Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook (KSYB)
edited by Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart and Karl Verstrynge
Berlin and New York: De Gruyter 1996-present

Since the Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook was first published in 1996, it has served as the leading periodical in the field. Starting in 2011 the Yearbook has been a peer-reviewed publication open to submissions by all Kierkegaard scholars. The Yearbook is published on behalf of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen. The goal of the Yearbook is to advance Kierkegaard studies by encouraging top-level scholarship in the field. The editorial and advisory boards are deeply committed to creating a genuinely international forum for publication which integrates the many different traditions of Kierkegaard studies and brings them into a constructive and fruitful dialogue. To this end the Yearbook publishes articles from all related fields (philosophy, theology, literary studies etc.) in English, French and German.

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Co-editor of Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series (KSMS)
edited by Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart and Karl Verstrynge
Berlin and New York: De Gruyter 1996-present

Since the Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series was first published in 1997, it has served as a leading book series in the field. Starting from 2011 the Monograph Series created a formal the peer-review process with a new editorial and advisory board. The Monograph Series is published on behalf of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen. The Monograph Series publishes outstanding monographs in all fields of Kierkegaard research. This includes Ph.D. dissertations, Habilitation theses, conference proceedings and single author works by senior scholars. The goal of the Monograph Series is to advance Kierkegaard studies by encouraging top-level scholarship in the field. The editorial and advisory boards are deeply committed to creating a genuinely international forum for publication which integrates the many different traditions of Kierkegaard studies and brings them into a constructive and fruitful dialogue. To this end the series publishes monographs in English and German.