O n the Transformations and Antinomies of E uropean Axiology

Abstract

AxiologyAbstractThis article is an attempt to analyse the transformations and antinomies of European culture from the perspective of values. I focus on the aspects that allow us to understand the differences and convergences between European and Chinese culture. I analyse some of the axiological changes that took place after the Enlightenment, which led to the successes of Western civilization, but also have become the source of the crisis of the identity of Europe and Europeans. As the most important change, I indicate the emergence of modernist conceptions that emphasize the need for progress and reject the value of tradition. I also discuss the difficulties in the concept of the individual, created in the Enlightenment and developed by liberalism. I point to new directions of axiological research carried out by European philosophers, which can be a bridge between our culture and Chinese culture. In this perspective, I analyse the possibilities of enriching both cultures, by acknowledging the values that they cherish, and indicating the dangers that they can avoid. In this perspective, I highlight the advantages of the existential personalism, represented by K.Wojtyla and J. Tischner, who emphasized the role of community and family relations in the integral development of human being.