Bulletin Philosophy and Society 2021-3

The third issue of Philosophy and Society from 2021 brings a collection of three texts that examine the object of hatred. These papers emerged from the seminar Can Hate Ever Be Appropriate? which was held at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Theory in 2019. In addition, this issue of the journal covers a number of diverse topics such as war and group solidarity, women’s activism in India, Martin Heidegger’s aesthetics, the proof of God’s existence, environmental activism, as well as ethnic identification. Finally, the third issue of the journal contains two book reviews and an interview with the British sociologist Michael Burawoy.

Thomas Szanto’s paper entitled “Can It Be Right or Feel Right to Hate: On the Appropriateness and Appropriateness of Hate” raises the question of what is actually wrong with hating others. Having distinguished between the moral and the immoral sense of the suitability of hatred, Santo attempts to show that hatred cannot be appropriate since its object is indeterminate.

In his paper, “A Critical Review of the Concept of Deobjectified Hate,” Mark Losoncz critically re-examines Santo’s thesis about the inappropriateness of hatred. Losoncz claims, namely, that the paradigmatic examples of hatred have a clearly defined object and that in many cases the quasi-rational genesis of hatred can be reconstructed. On this basis, the author concludes that hatred can in fact be appropriate.

The last paper on the topic of the appropriateness of hatred is Igor Cvejić’s article entitled “Reflections on Unfocused Hate: The Identity of the Hated and the Criteria of Adequacy.” In his paper, Cvejić pays particular attention to two related problems. Namely, the author first examines whether the inappropriateness of hatred is related to the possibility that the hated person does not identify herself with what she is hated for and points out to the possibility that (certain) criteria of the adequacy of hatred are rooted in the cultural and social framework in such a way that they need not be justified by their connection to the focus of the emotion and the importance it has. Under such circumstances, hatred would still be inappropriate, but these criteria would create the quasi-appropriateness of hatred.

In his paper, “Warfare and Group Solidarity: from Ibn Khaldun to Ernest Gellner and Beyond”, Siniša Malešević first presents Ibn Khaldun’s theory of social cohesion according to which the development of group solidarity lies in the ascetic way of life; the author then presents Ernest Gelner’s theory of social cohesion according to which social cohesion is the product of different material living conditions. Malešević, however, criticizes these two models of social cohesion and presents an alternative explanation that places the social dynamics of group solidarity in the organizational and ideological legacy of warfare.

Inspired by the understanding of gender in India, Milica Bakić-Hayden’s paper entitled “Women’s Activism in India: Negotiating Secularism and Religion” discusses new strategies for women’s activism especially in the context of aggressive political action of some women’s groups that are associated with right-wing political parties. According to the author, their actions shook the image that some had of women as essentially peaceful as well as the belief that gender identity could transcend the caste and religious affiliation of women in India.

In “Heidegger’s Aesthetics. The Philosophy of Finite Human Freedom and Basic Moods and Emotions”, Nebojša Grubor considers Heidegger’s understanding of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline as well as the problems associated with that definition. The aim of the paper is to point out that Heidegger’s aesthetics of truth can be understood as a philosophy of ultimate human freedom, basic moods and emotions, according to its inner intentions, which is closer to the aesthetics of the sublime than the aesthetics of the beautiful.

 Aleksandar Fatić’s paper “An Ethics-Based ‘Identity-Proof’ of God’s Existence. An Ontology for Philotherapy” deals with the arguments about the existence of God. Namely, Fatić examines the persuasiveness of the so-called analytical proofs of God’s existence and argues that they are not successful. In addition, the author argues that a more meaningful strategy of argumentation is the “ethical proof” for God’s existence which shifts the emphasis of proof towards a functional, practical and achievable standard of proof.

In his paper entitled “‘Environmentalism without Ideology’ and the Dreams of Wiping out Humanity”, Ondřej Beran questions the rhetoric of expertise as objective, neutral and devoid of ideology on the example of environmental policy. The author tries to show that there is a distorted understanding of expertise, ideology and politics, and concludes that this leads to sad ignorance or undisguised cynicism as well as to the moral failure of environmental activism.

 In her paper “Becoming an Ethnic Subject. Cultural-Psychological Theory of Ethnic Identification”, Ana Đorđević offers an alternative theoretical consideration of ethnic identification in psychology. Namely, she takes culture and the self as two conceptual domains of social identification that follow from the meta-theoretical position of cultural psychology. The main focus of the work, therefore, is the cultural development of a person, specifically her ethnic identification, in the social context of a given culture.