EVROPA I DUHOVNO UTEMELJENJE ZAPADA: KAKO PREVLADATI RADIKALNI MATERIJALIZAM?/EUROPE AND THE SPIRITUAL FOUNDATION OF THE WEST: HOW TO OVERCOME RADICAL MATERIALISM?

Abstract

The paper tends to emphasise the importance of the spiritual foundation of Western culture which, essentially, contradicts the conditions imposed by a dominance of radical materialism. It is recognised that the idea of education is transformed in accordance to the interest of market economy, which separates European nations from strength of spiritual-historical existence of Western culture. This condition justifies Husserl's evidence that contemporary European science is in crisis as it loses its transcendental foundation. For this reason, it is necessary to ask: On what basis can the West be understood as the West at all? What forms of renunciation of platonism led to a dominance of radical materialism? What is the meaning of metaphysical idealism and how to understand its completion in Hegel's philosophy? In the context of these questions, an understanding of the basic features of the post-humanism, marked by Nietzsche's words „God is dead“ and Heidegger's re-turn to the Greeks, is conceived here. Finally, it is pointed out that only a philosophical historical restitution of the idea of Europe leads to a true community of European nations.