THE PERUVIAN JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY # 1. May 1994 (ABSTRACTS)
Dora Vidal (Universidad de San Marcos): THE CONCEPT OF MYTH IN THE PERUVIAN CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT
I am interested in J.C. Mariategui's and A.Salazar Bondy's notion of myth in relation to the problem of human action. I have investigated the function of both the revolutionary myth and the maskered myth in the Peruvian society, their manifestations, consecuences and the importance of their knowledge. Thus the matter is not the problem of myth's definition but in the way it is experimented as an existencial part of the human praxis. In order to study myth in the above authors I have elaborated the concept of "alive myth" that lets us to see a conceptual unity in them because they apparently do not have any relation. I researched in the works of Marx, Sorel, Cassirer, Malinowski, Eliade, Levy Strauss, Levy Bruhl, Mari tegui y Salazar.
Augusto Ruiz (Instituto Pasado y Presente): THE END OF VOLUNTARISM
World changes happened after the fail of Berlin Wall -whose consecuences will continue call for reflexion for much time more- let to see how far we are from the end of history. In reality we have seen the end of a way of understanding the human action and the perspectives of transformation. But if something has finished, it is the kingdom of seven decades of voluntarism that the Revolution of October inaugurated. A view that tried to resolve, in favour of men's actions, a trouble that the Western Culture has come bringing through of centuries. It is the fight time of the non-voluntarists conceptions for a great change.
Paul Kurtz (Council of Secular Humanism): IN DEFENSE OF A RE-ELIGHTENMENT: A RESPONSE TO POST-MODERNIST CRITIQUES OF HUMANISM
Post-Modernist philosophers have attacked humanism. Drawing on Heidegger, they have indicted reason, science, and technology, even democracy, freedom, and human rights. Heidegger's philosophy does not provide an adequate response to needs of humanity. This paper defends humanism as an authentic alternative to nihilism and subjetivism in a post-marxist age: (1) Humanism is an expression of the scientific outlook and the methods of science. (2) It provides a set of objetive ethical values. (3) It offers a social philosophy based on democratic freedoms and a planetary ethics for the world community. (4) It is able to respond to the concern for the meaning of life. (5) It presents some realistic foundations for optimism about The Human Prospect.
Zenon de Paz (Universidad de San Marcos): PHILOSOPHY AND HUMAN RIGHTS
This paper examines the origins of the concepts of Right and Humanity and also the different philosophical outlooks trying to base them.
Manuel Paz y Mino (Universidad de San Marcos): FINALLY, CAN WE USE PHILOSOPHY AT THE PRESENT?
Firstly the author numbers several historical notions over the meaning of Philosophy ("love of wisdom", "science of the first causes and principles", "revolutionary praxis", etc.) and comments them. Finally he concludes in some possibilities of philosophizing at the present times as an instrument of social analyses and criticism and also as a means of peoples' development. That will be possible, of course, if Philosophy is spread.