Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series IVA, Central and Eastern Europe, Volume 35 General Editor George F. McLean Romanian Philosophical Culture, Globalization and Education Romanian Philosophical Studies, VI Edited by Stefan Popenici Alin Tat The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Copyright © 2008 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Box 261 Cardinal Station Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Romanian philosophical culture, globalization and education / edited by Alin Tat, Stefan Popenici. p. cm. -- (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IVA, Eastern and Central Europe ; v. 35) (Romanina philosophical studies ; 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Philosophy, Romania—20th century. 2. Philosophy, Romanina—2st Century. 3. Education and globalization—Romania. 4. I. Tat, Alin. II. Popenici, Stefan. B4822.R66 2007 2006102787 199’.498--dc22 CIP ISBN 978-1-56518-242-4 (pbk.) Table of Contents Introduction 1 Stefan Popenici and Alin Tat Part I. Romanian Philosophical Culture Chapter 1. Aesthetics and Philosophy of Culture in Tudor Vianu 7 Vlad Alexandrescu (University of Bucharest, Romania) Chapter 2. The Philosophical Periods of Emil Cioran 17 Ciprian Valcan (Tibiscus University Timisoara, Romania) Chapter 3. The Phenomenological Movement in Romania: 37 A Historical and Systematic Overview Mădălina Diaconu (University of Wien, Austria) Chapter 4. Noica, a Thinker in a Time of Need and 53 the Philosophy of Becoming unto Being Laura Pamfil (University of Bucharest, Romania) Chapter 5. Alexandru Dragomir: 85 Notebooks from the Underground Gabriel Liiceanu (University of Bucharest, Romania) Part II. Romanian Philosophical Inquiries into Globalization and Education Chapter 6. Globalization, Nationalism and Romania’s 127 Educational Reform(s). Stefan Popenici (Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Education, Canada) Chapter 7. Global Processes: What Has Education to 149 Learn from Globalization Ciprian Fartusnic (Institute for Educational Sciences, Romania) Chapter 8. Education and Globalization in 165 Pseudo-Modern Romania: The Issue of Difference Catalina Ulrich (University of Bucharest, Romania) Chapter 9. Romania: A Developing Country and 189 the Challenges of Globalization Paul Blendea (Institute for Educational Sciences, Romania) Chapter 10. The Dilemma of the Cultural Researcher: 203 Are Global Answers Suitable for Local Queries? Serban Iosifescu (Institute for Educational Sciences, Romania) Chapter 11. Globalization and Cultural Diversity 213 Zeno Reinhardt and Oana Almasan (National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Faculty of Communication and Public Relations, Romania) Index 225 Introduction Does a history of Romanian philosophy exist? This question was raised some time ago by Gabriel Liiceanu and his answer was rather negative. Part I, “Romanian Philosophical Culture,” of this book does not pretend to answer that question in a speculative manner, but to show some of the contributions of Romanian philosophers to such key philosophical themes as: being and becoming, art and the beautiful, reason and faith, and the meaning of life. These studies about the Romanian philosophy offer a cultural background for the discussions in Part II on integrating specific cultures in the specific context of global education. We have chosen to present the work on Romanian philosophers in two different ways: by general presentations of some authors (Vianu, Cioran and Dragomir), and by particular themes in other philosophers (Noica and Patapievici). There is also a group portrait of the Romanian contribution to phenomenology. This selection is not exhaustive, and cannot pretend to do complete justice to authors and works. One easily remarks the absence of such “classical” Romanian philosophers as: Ion Petrovici, C. Radulescu-Motru, P.P. Negulescu, Nae Ionescu, Mircea Vulcanescu, Lucian Blaga, D.D. Rosca, Mihail Sora and such more recent names as Gabriel Liiceanu (himself a contributor to this volume), and Andrei Plesu. Yet Part I on the cultural presuppositions of present day debates and provides a bases for thinking and imagining the future. In the first chapter, Vlad Alexandrescu presents a comprehensive view of Tudor Vianu’s philosophy. “In his fertile activity in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy of culture, theory of values, stylistics, literary history and criticism, he integrated the academic philosophical style with the exigencies of independent research. His philosophical works stand out as a series of rich and personal syntheses which speak of a multi-faceted philosophical attitude.” In the second chapter, Ciprian Valcan presents the philosophy of Emil Cioran, with a special focus on the differences between his Romanian and French works. In the third chapter, Mădălina Diaconu presents the Romanian work in phenomenology “as an apparent paradox because the main original Romanian thinkers, even those who were explicitly influenced by phenomenology, with few exceptions, neither practiced exegetical studies in phenomenology, nor even called their own work phenomenological.” In the fourth chapter, Laura Pamfil presents the core of Constantin Noica's philosophy of becoming unto being. What “singles him out in the Romanian cultural landscape is that he provided an ontological perspective on the question of national identity.” His ontological works hinge on modulations 2 Introduction of the verb "to be". Inspired mainly by Hegel, Noica was the most important Romanian thinker to deal in his work with the classical philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and, in modern times, of Kant, Hegel and Heidegger. In the fifth chapter, Gabriel Liiceanu tells the philosophical story of Alexandru Dragomir, a very interesting and until recently unknown figure in Romanian philosophy. A friend of the Romanian philosopher Constantin Noica, Dragomir did not publish during his lifetime, but his works are now being edited. Part II is on “Romanian Philosophical Inquiries into Globalization and Education”. Present day, discussions about globalization within academic literature seem restricted to the capital market. This is true even when we look at the fields of philosophy and education which are supposedly concerned with supporting and strengthening our common humanity. Similarly, International Education is approached by both its critics and supporters from an equally narrow perspective as they, too, focus almost exclusively upon financial flow and capital gains. This single-mindedness is not unfounded: in the year 2004 more than two million students worldwide studied outside their home countries; and, it is expected that this number will rise to eight million by 2025. Foreign students contribute more than $12 billion to the United States’ economy each year. Export revenue related to international student mobility amounted to an estimated $30 billion in 1998, or roughly three percent of global services exports. Beyond these legitimate but limited interests, we find that the present challenges of our world include the very real threats of religious fanaticism, extremist nationalist movements, global warming and ecological disasters. Even so-called “local issues” such as social injustice or inequity, corruption and poverty can no longer be approached from only a regional perspective. Organized crime, including such corruption as the trafficking of humans, now acts on a global scale, often with ramifications on two or more continents. All of these concerns require a more profound philosophical analysis of globalization and its accompanying issues. Academics in the education field are heeding this calls for a deeper understanding of the limits and challenges of globalization. This includes examining the oft overlooked aspect of knowledge exchange in a debate that is too often dominated by financial arguments and narrow ideological stances. Addressing the challenges presented by globalization, a group of Romanian academics in the field of education here confront the elusive concept of globalization from different perspectives. The opening study, “Globalization, Nationalism and Romania’s Educational Reform(s)” analyses globalization from the perspective of a country that has been isolated by communism and which is now eager to use and enjoy the benefits of globalization and hence to Introduction 3 reconnect with the international community. This study opens the debate on the conflicting positions of globalization and nationalism and looks at this issue in relation to educational and democratic reforms. To do so it studies the complex and often disjointed initiatives of educational reform in Romania and discusses how future development projects for public education must utilize educational imagination to re-connect Romanian youth with their democratic roots and the humanistic cultures of the world. This study ends with an open challenge to begin a further study on the globally imagined community based upon common human values, ecology and mutual interest. “Global Processes: What Has Education to Learn from Globalization” by Ciprian Fartusnic extends the ideas of the previous study one step further by an in-depth analysis of the influence exerted by the process of globalization upon curricular reform in Romania. Defending the statement that globalization should not be ignored by those in the field of education, the author bases his analysis upon a structured definition of citizenship that goes