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The article discusses the response of Hinduism to the diversity of religion and post-mortem progress in Europe. It mentions the indication of representing its belief and practice to Christianity. It also notes universality of Hinduism and religious pluralism along with the faith of patriarch Abraham.

Recent revolutions in literary and cultural theory have come full circle – or perhaps spiralled back around – to a quest for universal values and perspectives and beliefs. After several decades of accentuated splintering into national, regional, sexual, racial, and religious particularisms, the cry has gone up for attempting to recover some sense of a common bond of universal democratic enfranchisement. Of course, the notion of the universal ‘returns’ metamorphosed. It is no longer the universality of a closed system or of a delimited concept, but rather an open universal that is in question. The crucial breakthrough in the rethinking of universality can best be understood as construing it not as conceptual but rather as what defies conceptualization. This is a non-predicative universality and must be thought of as that which resists or exceeds the closure of identity. It opens a radically alternative vision to that of the Enlightenment philosophies that have typically paraded under the banner of universality, although it also undermines the traditional opposition between rational enlightenment and religious or mystical obscurantism. The universal in this new sense opens up a mysterious region of incommensurability as, paradoxically, our only common measure. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Latter-day Saints do not regularly speak about other religions, but when they do, they often manifest a spectrum of approaches which mirrors Mormonism's own tension between exceptionalism and universalism. In this essay I aim to reflect about this very tension in the European context and suggest a few factors which may uniquely influence the perceptive dynamics of other religions among Mormons in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the evolution in large firms' strategy and structure in a new spatial and temporal context (Spain 1993-2003). The central question of this work is to determine whether transformations undergone in this country have led Spanish companies' strategies and structures to converge with those of other European countries, following the predictions of 'universalistic' theories of strategy and organization; or whether cultural/institutional effects have remained strong, following a path-dependence/cultural-lag type logic. The Spanish experience is particularly significant for theory in general because its late development and very distinctive institutional origins allow us to test theories applied before in a new country and more recent time period. Our findings show that a changing context (e.g. liberalization) has led Spanish firms to converge with those of other European economies in the pattern of strategy and structure (increasing levels of diversification and divisionalization). Thus, the findings of this study in a new context are consistent with universalistic predictions that strategies and structures will evolve towards a common model of corporate development, as Chandler postulated initially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karl Rahner's theology is essentially spiritual and pastoral. His theology arose from his experience as a Jesuit, living at the heart of the traumas of twentieth-century Europe and, at the same time, interpreting the new academic insights in Church history and the early Fathers, scholasticism and modern philosophy, within the framework of the Church's traditional teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to connect personal values to self-esteem in 14 samples (N = 3612) of pre-professionals, high school students, and adults, from Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, and Estonia. Self-enhancement values (power, achievement) and openness to change values (self-direction, stimulation) were positively, and self-transcendence values (universalism, benevolence) and conservation values (tradition) were negatively related to self-esteem. These direct relations between values and self-esteem were only partly consistent with predictions derived from Maslow's theory of growth and deficiency needs. In samples of pre-professionals, self-esteem was correlated with congruence between personal values and the prevailing values environment. On the group-level, endorsement of achievement and universalism values was more strongly and positively related to self-esteem in samples where these values were considered more important. In contrast, endorsement of self-direction and hedonism values was more strongly and positively related to self-esteem in samples where these values were considered less important. These group-level results are interpreted as suggesting that attainment of culturally significant goals may raise self-esteem, but that high self-esteem may be required for the pursuit of less socially desirable goals. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the relationship between civilization and fascism. The author believes that the social rejection of historical relativism and universal values, which are equated with modernity itself, causes societies to develop toleration for fascism. This perspective is used to frame the development of fascism as the rejection of enlightenment values and the compromise of the intellectual life of societies such as Nazi Germany, Vichy France, and Benito Mussolini's Italy in the first half of the twentieth century. The significance of ideology in the development of fascism as a political philosophy is related to the history of ideas, which the author believes can explain incidences of fascism better than other approaches.

Previous studies (by the author of this article) on coverage of the EU in 1993 and 1996 by four leading Nordic newspapers generated three theoretical categories for a 'European political journalism'. The categories were named participation, legitimacy and mondialization/universalism. The present study revisited the same Nordic newspapers over 10 years later in 2005, shortly before and after the referenda on the proposed new EU Constitution in France and the Netherlands, to test the validity of these categories. Generally speaking, the same conceptual landscape still applies to Nordic journalism on the EU, but some of the empirical material seemed to demand the new category of 'identity'. This category seemed to be linked both to threats to national identity and to the loss of an emerging 'core European identity'. The article suggests that the core category of journalism's sense-making about the EU is the question of 'participation'. This core category is grounded on the classical Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft distinctions. The three other important categories - legitimacy, mondialization and identity - can be seen as supporting categories in the analysis of media coverage of the European Union. Within this general and normative conceptual frame, there are remarkable differences in the way the Nordic newspapers contribute to such European political journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review provides a reading of Tomoko Masuzawa's The Invention of World Religions (2005) based upon the psychoanalytically-inflected, post-structuralist approach that Masuzawa developed in her first book, In Search of Dreamtime (1993). It is argued that there is a tension in the book between two theses—(i) that the discourse of world religions perpetuates Christian theological universalism and (ii) that the discourse of world religions perpetuates a Eurocentric view of the world. Ambiguity about this question within Masuzawa's narrative allows those who propound a broadly secular approach to the study of religion ("the guild' to which the author aligns herself) to read her work as a critique of ongoing Christian theological trends in the study of religion despite the fact that the primary narrative direction of the book offers an account that seeks to cut across the secular-theological dichotomy by challenging the Euro-(American) paradigms (whether Christian or post-Christian and secular) that continue to dominate this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural variation of economic activity is wide and multidimensional. In my presentation I will refer to the analyses of the culture of capitalism provided by Alfons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner. According to them there are seven processes and related dilemmas which are important in analyzing the construction of a cultural system of economy. I will focus only on one of them, universalism versus particularism. Using the database of Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner I will show how this dilemma was solved by managers from different European countries. That will be starting point for my analysis of universalism-particularism attitudes of respondents of European Social Survey (ESS). I will be particularly interested in verification of hypothesis on the place of Poland on the mosaic of European cultures of capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second part of the text the author looks into the paradox of the concept of justice as discerned by Jacques Derrida, and analyzes the tradition of the European constitutional law. Since the constitution and politics are discordant and semantically irritating mediums, the author argues that the European Union is an open semantic relationship of legal acquisitions and political processes. The European Union should be explained by means of contemporary, postmodernist theories derived from the linguistic and deconstructivist reversals of the modern substantial rationalism, universalism and cosmopolitism. Consequently, the constitution and the law are not underpinned by the political or any other specific power; on the contrary, it is the unspecific power of the constitution and the law that enables the gradual development and strengthening of the European law and the constitution without the extra constitutional authorities as the disguised power that traditionally legitimizes law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europe is a cultural space of meeting, mixing and clashing; a space of sharing (and not sharing) economic, cultural and symbolic resources. Dominant ideologies of Europeanism project an image of Europe as a common and distinct cultural Home, a Home that excludes and (re-)creates Otherness when it does not fit a model of universalism and appears as competing particularism. Cultural diversity has always characterised Europe, but growing potentials for mobility and communication have led to the emergence and intensification of diverse cultural experiences and formations. In this context, the growing numbers and kinds of diasporic media have significant implications for imagining multicultural Europe and for participating (or not) in European societies and transnational communities. What is argued here is that diasporic media cultures do not emerge as projects that oppose the universalistic projects of Europe and of global communication, but that they gain from ideologies of globalisation and democratic participation as much as they gain and depend on ideologies of identity and particularism. Drawing from a cross-European mapping and three specific case studies, I try to explain why diasporic media cultures challenge both the limits of European universalism and of diasporic particularism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International law is a European tradition. Nevertheless, like many other European traditions, it imagines itself as universal. Throughout its history, it has been associated with projects such as Christianity, secular statehood, enlightenment, 'civilization', free trade and human rights. International law's association with particular ideas or preferences does not, however, even slightly undermine it. There are no authentic universals that one could know independently of their particular manifestations. The key question is a political one: Are there good reasons for extending the scope of such ideas or preferences? Answering this question may not have been assisted by the turning of some of them into kitsch. But is that the condition of their universality? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author's argument is that Europe must renounce Kant's universalism and adopt political means in resolving its permanently conflictual situations. In that way it is to construct its new identity that stems neither from the divergent past of its members nor from their divergent perceptions of the future, but is being built in the politically active present. The European Union as a community sui generis is founded on a paradox. Namely, it does not grow from its familiar historical identity, but is growing into it by permanently resolving the conflictual situations of the state of nature by political means. That paradoxical political project may be subscribed to only politically: mythologies, religions, ideologies and metaphysics would, as it were, create a state of nature but only at a higher cultural level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the background of the intense cross-national networking activities, which have characterized feminist research and education in Europe since the beginning of the 1990s, the article discusses politics of national and regional location. Illustrated by a discourse analysis of three Europe-based feminist research journals with an explicitly marked international scope, it is pointed out that it seems to be a difficult task to avoid the pitfalls of universalism, on the one hand, and particularism, on the other. The three selected journals are: Feminist Theory , The European Journal of Women's Studies , and NORA, Nordic Journal of Women's Studies . Along the lines of Yuval-Davis ( 1997 ), the article argues for a feminist approach to European networking, which should be based on a dialogic and transversal feminism. The assessments of the politics of location of the three journals are, moreover, inspired by the notion of transnational feminism, developed within the context of post-colonial feminism (Grewal and Kaplan 1994 ; Kaplan, Alarcón and Moallem 1999 ). The article has two main sections. First, it discusses tenacious universalisms, using examples from the journal Feminist Theory . Afterwards it proceeds to a complementary pitfall - that of particularism. Examples are here drawn from NORA and The European Journal of Women's Studies . In conclusion, some guidelines are suggested that might usefully be taken into account when engaging in European feminist activities such as publishing journals, organizing conferences and networks etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is quite probable that current developments will result in a growing and ultimately explosive antinomy between different groups of human beings and society and perhaps even Poland's civilization's self-destruction as political threats mount alongside the ever-lurking metaphysical dangers stemming from humanity's frailties and contradictions, its existential dimension and religious, cognitive, existential, ontic and axiological incertitude. Modem also contemporary history tells of repeated genocide committed in the very heart of Europe and instances when mankind virtually toyed with self-annihilation.

Explores a covenant of human beings in the Third European Congress of Dialogue and Universalism. Determination of the horizons of thought and experience; Development of universalism; Essence of existence.

Explores metaphilosophy and metapolitics in the Third European Congress of Dialogue and Universalism. Role of metapolitics for contemporary European society; Regulation of the theory behind European integration processes; Implications of the approach to metapolitics for the efforts for society.

Presents an invitation to the members of group YOUNG EUROPE to participate in the joint preparation of the 3rd European Congress of Dialogue and Universalism. Address and schedule for the congress; Topic of the congress; Agenda and steps in the organization of congress; Concretizations and suggessions to participate in the integration of Europe; Other information related to congress.

The essay provides food for debate rather than answers the question posed by its title. It restricts itself to an explanation of the senses expressed by terms in the title, and also attempts to formulate further questions, which may help to determine whether Europeanism has a chance to become young Europe's underlying philosophy. The essay was delivered at a session on European Identity Co-Created. Dialogue and Universalism as the Meaning of Europe at the First Polish National Youth Philosophical Forum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents letters concerning the third European congress of Dialogue and Universalism in Europe. Organization of the congress; Aim; Role of dialogue and universalism in building europeanism.

Focuses on the social and historiographic themes related to the social mission of non-government movements in Europe. Links of non-government social movements; Discussion on the pragmatic social undertakings of the organizational structures of public movements in Poland; Concept f the philosophy of universalism; Values of pluralism and tolerance.

The article focuses on contradictions in social change. The current phase of social development is marked by a profound ideological transformation that upsets and contradicts the previous values of universalism, cosmopolitanism, egalitarianism, and innovation. This universe of processes, modes, negotiation;, needs, meanings, oppositions, perceptions, and values, opens up an equal number of possibilities of explanation and realization for the human spirit. A culture is enriched when, as it produces a flow of new meanings, it also expands and creates a flow of new possibilities of realization for people. On the other hand, a culture becomes poor when it closes in on itself, recognizes that it has reached limits of development, when it confuses and reexamines the polarities of meaning it has constructed, and when it renders processes uncertain and allocations of space, time, status, and identity insubstantial. By its production of meanings a culture constructs its ideological framework, which is more or less rich and more or less stable, and this is the essential point of reference for the definition and negotiation of identity.

Describes the meeting of the Third European Congress of Dialogue and Universalism. Program of activities; Speakers during the congress; Proposal of the Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Features the program devoted to an intensive scholarly research in the areas of dialogue, universalism, and Europeanism by the Academic Board of the European Society for Dialogue and Universalism. General goals of the program; Implications of the of the emergence of the New Europe for world power; Preparation of three dictionaries.

Presents the transcript of a message regarding the Third European Congress of Dialogue and Universalism from Michal Kleiber, minister of science in Europe.

Presents the transcript of a message regarding the Third European Congress of Dialogue and Universalism from Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, minister of Foreign Affairs, and voluntary chairman of the Europe House Association.