Hellenic Political Philosophy and Contemporary Europe
The Conference is organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Science of Montenegro and will be held in Herceg Novi, an ancient town on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, and an intersecting point of different cultures during ancient and medieval times.
As one of the institutions participating in the COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) Action entitled Reappraising Intellectual Debates on Civic Rights and Democracy in Europe, the Center for Hellenic Studies organized a series of lectures, presentations and round tables, participated by eminent experts in philosophy, history, political theory, theology, classics, and other disciplines. As the final phase of the project, the Center deemed opportune to initiate a debate on the achievements, values and guide marks that Hellenic political philosophy can have for contemporary Europe, in which the apprehension of the political is chiefly reduced to the interests of powers and corporations, being thus exclusively linked to the technique of conquering and maintaining dominance.
Ancient Hellenic conception, that gave birth to notions like freedom, democracy, parrhesia, publicity and other, reminds us that ancient Greeks understood politics not only as a fundamental designation of human beings – as, according to Aristotle, anyone who does not partake of society is either a beast or a god – but also as inseparably linked to ethics.
If politics in the modern world, according to Napoleon’s famous dictum, became a sort of fatalité moderne, or what the ancient Greeks called moira, then dealing with questions and issues posited by the conference’s topic does not represent a subject of a mere intellectual exhibition and strictly academic discussion, but a crucial question of human destiny and human being’s position in the contemporary world.
The Conference is of an interdisciplinary character, and aims at addressing different social and political issues from perspectives of history, philosophy, economics, theology, history of ideas, anthropology, political theory and other disciplines. Such conception of the scholarly exchange does not fulfill only the purpose of an historical investigation, but will provide a systematic treatment of the topic, thus clarifying existing ideas and advancing new ones. The themes to be covered include, but are not limited to, the following:
- The concept of the polis in antiquity and modernity
- Freedom and democracy
- Politics and economy
- Democracy, liberalism, totalitarianism
- The philosophy of the polis: Citizen, polis and cultural ideals
- Autonomy and responsibility in politics
- The philosophy of the cosmopolis
- The polis and happiness
- Ethics and politics
- The “political” before and after Machiavelli: Similarities and differences
- Imperialism and (neo)colonialism – political, ideological, cultural, linguistic
- Democracy and revolution
- Intellectuals and social change: The free intellectual and “secular priesthood”
- Politics and the media
- Globalization, unification, otherness
- European Union: Foundation, possibilities, perspectives
- Law and justice
- International law: Sovereignty and territorial integrity
- The politics of difference and the problem of interventionism
- Cultural politics