RVP Panels at the 24th World Congress of Philosophy 

Re-Learning to Be Human for Global Times:

Challenges and Opportunities

China Convention Center, Beijing, P.R. China

August 13-20, 2018

Thematic Background

I. Discerning the Sign of the Times

What should be considered universally applicable now, while remaining true to the entire range of our eschatological destination? Some minorities and exceptional people may come close to this integral realization, while not demanding it of whole societies. Hence, the task of discernment is both crucial and terribly difficult: how not to lose proportions in view of the range of things that need to be understood. Much of this understanding comes not from studying the disciplines, but from engaging in activity in these fields (politics, or social movements, or living family life, etc.). Hence, discerning signs of the times should be ever more inclusive of the broad.

II. Ways of Thinking/Knowing (Social Imaginaries and Human Creativity)

Through history, there grew a gamut of new possibilities: steps toward the good, steps towards the bad; threats to previous steps towards the good, etc. New moves in the direction of values have become possible; this is largely a matter of the development of social imaginaries, which put new forms of action and responsibility on the agenda. New ethical goals come to be discerned. This often happens old taken-for-granted structures, sometimes ethically endorsed, cease to be seen as inalterables, or even to remain ethically positive.

III. Ways of Being (Learning To Be Social)

“The Categorized Human Beings”: A blind spot is created by understanding ethics as consisting in rules and codes. It becomes difficult to see how established rules burden certain people, e.g., aboriginals, people caught in bureaucracies, people with special needs. How then to learn to see the human in all its differences and variety in non-categorized way? This is a dimension of faith, that is really seeing people.

IV. Aesthetics (Universal Norms and Cultural Uniqueness)

 It takes the search beyond the one set of universal norms to the more challenging realm of discernment in diverse cultures in order to identify the proper and differentiated role of wisdom in human life i.e. how does one live more humanely in time and space. Learning to be human is then much more an aesthetic effort to wed the light and the dark into a pattern of beauty so that the lightsome might shape the whole of life into a constant pattern that would be called good or even holy.

V. Cultural, Transcendental and Religious Values (Way of Acting of the Major Civilizations) Following the classical texts” has never been integrally possible for everyone, or for whole societies. This is not only because most people resist, but also because its demands are not applied integrally to the contextual societies in which even monastic communities are encased.

Incarnation and Excarnation: The human and the divine: The articulation of contextual anthropologies and sociologies of situated freedom must take Incarnation seriously with response to its consequences for engaging the materiality of human culture and the physicality of human embodiment. The impact that a culture of excarnation and various forms of immersion in virtual worlds have upon the character, quality and the functioning of human relationality offer new possibilities and challenges to modes of human self-interpretation.

Materiality and physicality have upon how we imagine, conceptualize, and affectively engage our human vulnerability in all its manifestations and the moral vectors that are manifest in such vulnerabilities, expressions classically and lived most fully in our human history of sin and redemption, salvation and resurrections. More broadly the title of the RVP publication “Unity and Harmony, Love and Compassion in Global Times” reflects Buddhism, Christian and Moslem themes.

Panel I. "Sacred Values: Incarnation and Excarnation"

(August 13, 2018, 14.00pm-15.50pm)

Chair: Michal Valco (Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia)

Speakers:

- Pavol Dancak (University of Presov, Slovakia): “Sacred Character of Free Time as an Opportunity for the Recovering of Culture”

- Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University, the Netherlands): "Tolerance as an Individual and Societal Virtue"

- Katarina Valcova (University of Žilina in Žilina, Slovakia): “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and its Ethical Consequences”

Panel II. "George F. McLean: A Service to World Philosophy"

(August 14, 2018, 11.10am-13.00pm)

Chair: William Sweet (St Francis Xavier University, Canada)

Speakers:

- Gholamreza Aavani (Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Iran)

- John Abbarno (D'Youville College, USA)

- Joseph C. A. Agbakoba (University of Nigeria, Nigeria)

- S.R. Bhatt (Indian Council for Philosophical Research, India)

- Dan Chitoiu (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania)

- He Xirong (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China)

- Husain Heriyanto (Paramadina University, Indonesia)

- Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University, the Netherlands)

- Ouyang Kang (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China)

- William McBride (Purdue University, USA)

- Asha Mukherjee (Visva-Bharati University, India)

- Herta Nagl-Docekal (University of Vienna, Austria)

- Theophilus Okere (Owerri, Nigeria)

- S. Panneerselvam (University of Madras, India)

- Debika Saha (University of North Bengal, India)

- Vincent Shen (University of Toronto, Canada)

- L.P. Singh (Delhi University, India)

- Tran Van Doan (National University of Taiwan, Taiwan)

- João J Vila-Chã (Gregorian University, Italy)

Panel III. "Challenges and Opportunities from the Perspective of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion"

(August 14, 2018, 14.00pm-15.50pm)

Chair: Brigitte Buchhammer (University of Vienna, Austria)

Speakers:

- Cornelia Esianu (University of Vienna, Austria): “The Conception of Love in Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Schlegel: Its Relevance for a Comprehensive Theory of the Human Being”

- Maureen Junker-Kenny (Trinity College of Dublin, Ireland): “Transformations of Doctrine as Cases of Mutual Learning between Religions and Cultures: Schleiermacher’s Proposal for Translating Christology in Modernity”

- Claudia Melica (Sapienza University Rome, Italy): “Menschlichkeit’: Lessing’s Ideal Model for Culture, Religion and Ethics Today”

- Herta Nagl-Docekal (University of Vienna, Austria): “Educating Humanity. A Core Concern of Kant’s Philosophy of History”

- Ludwig Nagl (University of Vienna, Austria): “What is it to be a Human Being? Charles Taylor on ‘the Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity”

Panel IV. "A Feminist Perspective"

(August 14, 2018, 16.10pm-18.00pm)

Chair: Asha Mukherjee (Visva-Bharati University, India)

Speakers:

- Katia Lenehan (Fujen Catholic University, Taiwan): “Women’s ‘Personhood’ in Taiwan”

- Asha Mukherjee (Visva-Bharati University, India): “Are Women Human with their Body and Self? Indian Perspective”

- Gail Presbey (University of Detroit Mercy, USA): “Wisdom from Women in Kenya and Peru: The Maasai and Amuesha”

- Robin Wang (Loyola Marymount University, USA): “Female Daoist Way: Making the Body and Linking the World”

Panel V. "The Role of Intercultural Encounters"

(August 15, 2018, 11.10pm-13.00pm)

Chair: Dan Chitoiu (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania)

Speaks:

- Jove Jim Aguas (University of Santo Tomas, Philippines) "Humor as Intercultural Encounter"

- Carmen Cozma (Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, Romania): “The Today’s Need of Virtue and the Timeliness of Lao-Tzu and Aristotle’s Teachings”

- Wilhelm Danca (University of Bucharest, Romania): “Person first. For the Dignity of the Human Being”

- Thomas Menamparampil (Peace Institute, India) "Cultural Translation"

- John T. Ozolins (Catholic University of Australia, Australia) "Identity, Diversity and the Modern World"

- Vincent Shen (University of Toronto, Canada): “Becoming Human in a Globalizing Context of Interculturality”

Panel VI. "Islam and Culture"

(August 15, 2018, 14.00pm-15.50pm)

Chair: Husain Heriyanto (Paramadina University, Indonesia)

Speakers:

- Gholamreza Aavani (Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Iran): “Philosophy as a Way of Self-Realization: An Islamic Perspective"

- Sanjib Kumar Dutta (Kalyani University, India) 

- Sirajul Islam (Visva Bharati University, India): “Islam and Contemporary Indian Cultural Milieu: An Analysis for Re-learning to be Human”

Panel VII. "Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Onto-Political Dimensions"

(August 15, 2018, 16.10pm-18.00pm)

Chair: João J. Vila-Chã (Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Italy)

Speakers:

- Joseph C. A. Agbakoba (University of Nigeria, Nigeria): “Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the African Context”

- Alfredo Co (University of Santo Tomas, Philippines): “Forgiveness and Reconciliation: The Chinese Approach”

- Miguel Giusti (Universidad Católica del Peru, Peru): “Hegel on Forgiveness”

- John T. Ozolins (Catholic University of Australia, Australia): “Augustine on Forgiveness”

- Brendan Sweetman (Rockhurst University, USA): “The Politics of Forgiveness”