Vabalaitė, Rūta Marija

The aim of the presentation is to reflect on several meanings of the word edge in contexts related to the phenomenon of art. First of all, the work of art as an impetus for the confrontation between artistic and political views in society. Secondly, artistic or, in a broader sense, visual expression as a privileged stimulus and means of public self-understanding. Thirdly, the purpose of the work of art itself, on the edge between the pursuit of artistic value in the narrow sense and the attempt to educate a wider public.

This book is part of the research project “The Dissemination of Teilhard de Chardin’s Ideas in the Diaspora and Lithuania,” which was conceived in order to explore the ideas of this French palaeontologist, theologian, and philosopher, who significantly influenced not only the worldview of the intellectuals of the Lithuanian diaspora, but also those within Lithuania itself. Ramūnas Labanauskas has already prepared and published an article introducing readers to the personality and ideas of Teilhard de Chardin. Therefore, this book does not repeat these discussions, but instead immediately analyses the reception of de Chardin’s ideas in the diaspora within the first chapter by considering reports, articles, series of articles, and smaller notes, as well as the three books that specifically discussed interpretations his ideas. In the first part of the chapter, the author, Rūta Marija Vabalaitė, traces the chronology of reception and introduces the main authors and the periodicals that have paid the most attention to this topic. In the second part of the chapter, the author analyses the most controversial aspects of Teilhard de Chardin’s theory, as well as the opinions of authors in exile on these ideas and their attempts to argue for their own interpretations. The chapter concludes with a bibliography of works published in the diaspora that mention or analyse Teilhard de Chardin’s ideas in greater depth, and a list of the archival data used. The second chapter, authored by Ramūnas Labanauskas, analyses the reception of Teilhard de Chardin’s ideas and the few, but significant, evaluations of them by authors in exile that reached Lithuania and met both the traditions of Lithuanian philosophical thinking and the heterogeneous Catholic worldview. Due to the abundance and significance of documents testifying to the reception of these ideas, this book presents a brief analysis of them, and the results of the detailed research carried out will be published in a separate publication. This chapter is divided into four parts. First, a panorama of the worldview of Lithuanian society in the second half of the twentieth century is provided. The second part describes the sources of research on the reception of Teilhard de Chardin’s ideas, discussing chronology and channels of reception. The third and fourth parts analyse this reception separately in Lithuanian Catholic society and professional philosophy. The second chapter, like the first, concludes with a list of the archival documents used and a bibliography of the most important works published by Lithuanian professional philosophers and Catholic clergy that mention or analyse Teilhard de Chardin’s ideas in a broader way. An important part of the book is a translation of Teilhard de Chardin’s own work, Le coeur de la matière, which he himself considers to be the best representation of the totality of his philosophical thought. The author of the translation, Povilas Aleksandravičius, accompanies the very complex, multidimensional and unique concepts and notions of the work with commentaries that help to understand the meaning and significance of the text. This translation allows us to appreciate all of the nuances of the debates on Teilhard de Chardin’s thought, both in the diaspora and in Lithuania, and at the same time expands the boundaries of current Lithuanian cultural discourse.

The article explores the debates and interpretations of the work of the French scholar and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in the Lithuanian diaspora community. The reception of his ideas, that took place among the thinkers of the diaspora has not yet been started to be researched, even though discussions in the emigrant press, which arose due to his thought, have been and continue to be the most extensive Lithuanian public discussions on philosophical concepts. Some hints of Teilhard de Chardin written by Lithuanian authors appeared in periodicals from the late 1950s. Several Catholic priests as well as a doctor of chemistry and a doctor of mathematics gave lectures on Teilhard de Chardin’s life and thought in various Lithuanian diaspora gatherings, which attracted a lot of concern and discussion. From the second half of the 1960s the periodicals have been publishing an increasing number of articles on Teilhard de Chardin's works. According to our data, between 1950 and 1990, as many as 99 publications appeared in the diaspora that mentioned or analysed Teilhard de Chardin's ideas in more detail. Cultural journals informed about his newly released books and the new publications on his thought, the thoughts of his predecessors, supporters, and critics were reviewed. Most of the writings on Teilhard de Chardin have been by Catholic priests of those times, but in addition to them, a number of now almost forgotten secular thinkers have also published on his thought. Some of them ventured into the very debate on the relationship of Teilhard de Chardin's writings to Christianity. The most active debaters have been philosopher Antanas Maceina as well as psychologist and priest Antanas Paškus. Like the most prominent foreign supporters and critics of Teilhard de Chardin's ideas, our expatriate theoreticians have differed in their assessment of various aspects of his concept. There were different opinions on whether it could be considered a synthesis of science and religion. Many expatriate thinkers, not finding in this conception a traditional formulation of a divine creation out of nothing, accused the French theologian of pantheism, pan-spiritualism, positivism, agnosticism and even materialism. There were no experts in evolutionary theology or process theology among the Lithuanian expatriate thinkers, so Teilhard de Chardin's theory was interpreted in the context of the Catholic theology of the time. The only exception might be Paškus’ attempts to conceive of Teilhardian theory in terms of becoming and to recognise the divine creation as a continuous creation in the universe.

Straipsnyje analizuojama išeivijos autorių prancūzų mokslininko ir religinio mąstytojo Pierre Teilhard de Chardin‘o (1881 – 1955) evoliucijos sampratos recepcija septintajame XX a. dešimtmetyje. Pirmą kartą išeivijos lietuvių spaudoje Teilhard’as buvo paminėtas 1950 m. rugsėjo mėn. „Aiduose“ prancūzų jėzuito Jean Daniélou straipsnio vertimo publikacijoje. Patys išeivijos mąstytojai ėmė gilintis į Teilhard’o idėjas tik antrojoje šeštojo dešimtmečio pusėje. Įvairiuose lietuvių išeivijos sambūriuose katalikų kunigai Ambrozijus Prakapas, Jonas Kubilius, Petras Celiešius, Vytautas Bagdanavičius, Vytautas Zakaras, chemijos daktaras Jonas Rugis, matematikos daktaras Arūnas Liulevičius skaitė susidomėjimo ir diskusijų sulaukusias paskaitas. 1961 m. „Aiduose“ kunigas Pranas Gaida-Gaidamavičius publikavo straipsnį „Viešpatijos naujos epochos brėkšmėj“, kuriame yra pirmoji spausdinta polemika su Teilhard‘o idėjomis, išdėstytomis jo knygoje „Žmogaus ateitis“. 1963 m. „Tėviškės žiburiuose“ pasirodė pirmoji platesnė publikacija, kurios autorius Antanas Pamituviškis specialiai aprašė Teilhard‘o idėjas ir joms visoms pritarė. Vėliau straipsnius apie Teilhard’o koncepciją “Drauge”, “Aiduose”, Laiškuose lietuviams” publikavo jau minėti autoriai ir kunigai Juozas Prunskis, Feliksas Jucevičius, Juozas Venckus, Kęstutis Trimakas, Ambrozijus Prakapas, Antanas Paškus, Juozas Vaišnora bei filosofas Antanas Maceina, istorikas Juozas Jakštas, fizikas Andrius Ignaitis. Įžymių mąstytojų diskusijomis apie Teilhard‘o koncepciją domėjosi ir kunigas Tomas Žiūraitis, sumanęs ir 1965-1969 m. realizavęs mintį žurnale „Aidai“ publikuoti pasaulėžiūrinio pobūdžio užsienio autoriųknygų apžvalgas. Išeivijos mąstytojų nuomonės apie Teilhard’o evoliucijos sampratos santykį su krikščionybe išsiskyrė: nuo ypatingai teigiamų kunigų Kubiliaus ir Prunskio iki radikaliausiai neigiamo žurnalisto Juozo Mačernio vertinimų. Aktyviausia polemika užsimezgė tarp Maceinos ir Paškaus, į ją įsijungė ir kiti autoriai. Daugiausia nesutarimų kilo dėl Teilhard’o koncepcijos santykio su mokslu, dėl jos ontologinių pagrindų, dėl „Alfos“ ir „Omegos“ sąvokų santykio su katalikiškąja dieviškumo samprata bei dėl dieviškosios malonės ir aktyvių paties žmogaus veiksmų vaidmens santykio, apsprendžiant to žmogaus ir visos žmonijos ateitį.

The topic of this presentation was prompted by an almost literal match of Jaspers’ theory of “loving struggle” (das liebende Kampf) as the kind of existential communication and early Abramović’s and Ulay’s performance, which is called “Rest Energy” (1980). The task of the analysis is to compare Jaspers’ and Abramović’s concepts of the work of art and their thought about the fundamental existential questions. The research of Jaspers’ philosophy of art is based on his ideas presented in his three-volume book “Philosophy” (Philosophie, Berlin: Springer, 1932); Abramovic’s ideas are reconstructed from her book “Walk Through Walls” (New York: Crown Archetype, 2016) and her recent public lectures, interviews and video-recordings of performances. The presentation is focused on the ideas of approaching social intercourse as a meeting between the two authentic selves and reflecting on possibilities to experience the realm which transcends our daily world as distinct from communication that is motivated by the struggle for social capital, practical interest, or utility. It is argued that as if echoing Jaspers’ suggestions for those who are searching for the true personal existence, contemporary performances might be conceived as the involvement of the public in the silent or direct communication and a joint search for new existential experiences, for changes in our understanding of ourselves and of the world around us.

Tęsiama pirmųjų Goluchovskio traktatų analizė. Argumentuojama, kad jo mintys apie individą ir visuomenę atliepia gerai žinomas Machiavellio, Hobbes‘o, Rousseau politinės filosofijos idėjas. Aptariama, kaip filosofas polemizuoja su pagrindinėmis Smitho Tautų turto nuostatomis. Palyginamos jo ir Fichte‘ės Prakalbose vokiečių nacijai aiškinamų galimybių apriboti vien utilitarinį žmonių interesą interpretacijos. Nagrinėjama, kaip mūsų autorius, sureikšmindamas individualumo principą, įsijungia į romantinės ir į pokantinės hermeneutinės filosofijos autorių gretas. Pabrėžiama, kad Goluchovskis trečdaliu amžiaus anksčiau už Millį akcentavo skirtingų individų požiūrių ir veiklų vertę visai visuomenei. Konstatuojama, kad individų įvairovės sureikšminimas iš esmės skiria mūsų filosofo idealios valstybės sampratą nuo platoniškosios. Analizuojami Goluchovskio ir gyvenimo filosofijų sąryšiai.

Straipsnyje analizuojamos fizinės kultūros sampratos, išdėstytos Vydūno kūrinyje „Sveikata, jaunumas, grožė“, S. Šalkauskio knygoje „Fizinis lavinimas ir jo tikslai“, A. Maceinos darbuose „Pedagoginio vitalizmo problema“ bei „prof. St. Šalkauskio pedagogika“ ir Sezemano studijoje „Laikas, kultūra ir kūnas“. Siekiama nustatyti Lietuvos filosofų požiūrių panašumus ir skirtumus bei įvertinti jų minčių originalumą. Teigiama, kad visi filosofai fizinę kultūrą vertina kaip sąlygą organizuoti savo kūną ir ją mąsto kaip neatsiejamą nuo dvasinės kultūros. Vydūnas akcentuoja „kultūros“ žmogaus fizinės kultūros stoką, V. Sezemanas argumentuotai paaiškina jos būtinumą pačiai kultūrinei veiklai bei kartu su kitais dviem autoriais įžvelgia ir profesionalaus sporto bei kūno kulto problemas, kurios prabėgus beveik šimtmečiui tapo dar aktualesnės

The article deals with the problem of the local and global significance of Lithuanian philosophy. We discuss questions related to the meaning of the very concept of Lithuanian philosophy and evaluation of its scope. A controversy whether to cover all philosophical works written in the territories of historical Lithuania or to include only the works of ethnic Lithuanians (or at least the works written in Lithuanian) is talked over. The problem of the priorities in determining the relevant sources of the history of philosophy in Lithuania is described by pointing to the complexity of an assessment as the importance of the text for the development of Lithuanian self-awareness or its social significance scarcely coincide with its impact on global philosophy. The question of the priority of the texts written in the national language versus the translations of the main heritage of Western philosophy is addressed. We proceed further with a description of the works and the authors related to Lithuania and at the same time relevant to the philosophy of Europe, or at least neighbouring countries. The characteristics of the creative opposition between Protestant and Counter-Reformation thinkers is given. Martinus Smiglecius book on Logics and the main figures in the reception of German classical philosophy are discussed. Finally, the philosophical aspects of Litvak Judaism and their research are referred to.