Eon, vol. 7, nr. 2 / 2026

Adrian MARCU

Title: "Between Ethnography and Metaphysics: The Structure of Knowledge in the Work of Ernest Bernea"

Abstract: This article proposes a reassessment of Ernest Bernea as a thinker situated at the intersection of ethnography, rural sociology, philosophy of culture, and the study of symbolic life. Rather than treating his work as a merely descriptive account of traditional peasant culture, the study argues that Bernea's ethnographic writings imply an epistemology of culture, in which custom, ritual, temporality, and communal life function as forms of lived knowledge. The analysis places Bernea within the Romanian interwar debate on modernization and cultural continuity, while also bringing his work into dialogue with broader theoretical frameworks associated with Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Clifford Geertz, Charles Taylor, Lucian Blaga, Mircea Eliade, Dimitrie Gusti, and Constantin Noica. The article maintains, however, that such comparisons must remain interpretive rather than genealogically absolute. Its central claim is that Bernea's work should be read not only as ethnographic documentation but also as a reflection on how a community inhabits meaning, organizes spiritual and symbolic order, and transmits intelligibility through tradition. In this sense, Bernea emerges as an author of intellectual frontier significance, whose writings illuminate the relation between culture, understanding, and communal being in twentieth-century Romanian thought.

Keywords: Ernest Bernea, ethnography, cultural knowledge, tradition, symbolic order.

Alexandru OFRIM 

Title: "Dreams and Visions in Interwar Rural Romania: Towards an Anthropology of Oneiric Experience"
Abstract: This article examines the status of dreams and visionary experiences in the Romanian rural world of the interwar period, drawing on field materials collected by members of the Bucharest Sociological School during monographic campaigns (notably Henri H. Stahl, Traian Herseni, and Gheorghe Focșa). The first part highlights the ways in which these researchers interpreted peasants' narratives of dreams and visions, interpretations that oscillated between a neutral methodological stance and a tendency to pathologize such experiences. The article also underscores the limits of these approaches, marked by the absence of a systematic engagement with the oneiric domain, despite the existence of a diffuse "visionary culture" in rural Romania, in which dreams and visions were not perceived as exceptional but rather as integral to the religious imagination of everyday life. Dream narratives mobilize a recurrent repertoire of motifs (journeys to the otherworld, encounters with supernatural agents, and revelation mediated through sacred texts) situated at the intersection of oral tradition, apocryphal literature, and religious iconography.

Keywords: dreams, visions, Bucharest Sociological School, anthropology of dreaming, oneiric narratives, literacy.

Cristian PAȘCALĂU 

Title: "Semeiosis, Knowledge and Creativity in C.S. Peirce"

Abstract: Continuing the previous essay, we focus, synthetically and in an organizing manner, on C.S. Peirce's semiotic-pragmatic conception, with partial recourse to an exegetical line of thought, in order to discern the explanatory values of unlimited semiosis in the problem of knowledge and cultural creativity. Briefly, we discuss the tripartite classification of signs, emphasizing the role of the symbol in the project of constructing the self, which gives us the opportunity to explore an existentialist vein in the Peircean line of thought. The scope of Peirce's semiotic conception experiences numerous openings, from the theory of simulacra to assumptions related to the emergence of creativity and the Christian Trinity.

Keywords: sign, semeiosis, object, knowledge, creativity, intuition, symbol.

Diana PĂULEȚ & Virgil DRĂGHICI 

Title: "Phenomenology and constructivism"

Abstract: The general frame of the philosophical reflections nowadays is dominated by the dispute realism (R) – antirealism (AR), centred on two fundamental concepts: the truth and its correlative the existence. The difference between (R) and (AR) is that between a concept of ontic transcendence of reality (objective existence), associated with the thesis of the truth-correspondence (in the sense of classical semantics) and a concept of constructive existence, based on the procedures of subjectivity, the concept of truth being identified with such procedures of legitimation (justification, confirmation, proof). The present paper concerns strictly the (AR)-perspective, represented by two particular forms: phenomenology and mathematical constructivism, both originated in Kant's transcendentalism. The aim of our paper is to argue that the common feature of these options is a concept of reality procedurally ratified, i.e., a concept of reality based on the inseparability of existence from its legitimation, a thesis leading, finally, to the identification of ontology and aletheiology.

Keywords: phenomenology, constructivism, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Heyting, truth, existence.

Tudorel-Constantin RUSU

Abstract: Within the Eastern Orthodox Church, the role of preaching is primarily assigned to bishops, followed by priests, as outlined in the church canons. However, Nicolae Steinhardt, despite not being an ordained priest and serving only as a monk at Rohia Monastery, was entrusted with the blessing – and thus the responsibility – to deliver sermons to the monastic community and the faithful on various occasions. Responsibility, he acted very successfully. My research identifies and presents Steinhardt's ambon declamations that best circumscribe and fall within Aristotle's first means of persuasion – ethos. Considering that Neo-Aristotelian rhetorical criticism is primarily used if the artifact is a speech, my paper analyses two Steinhardtian artifacts about which there is solid evidence that they are declaimed homilies or ad litteram transcriptions: The Renunciation of Christ (Lepădarea de Hristos), and Sermon Orthodoxy Sunday (2) (Predică la Duminica Ortodoxiei 2).

Keywords: Nicolae Steinhardt, homilies, ethos, credibility, persuasion.

Alexandru LAZĂR 

Abstract: This study examines the emergence and development of Christian universalism in late eighteenth-century America through a comparative analysis of Elhanan Winchester and John Murray, situating their activity within the broader framework of the "architecture of American Christianity." Rather than treating universalism as a marginal or isolated doctrine, the article argues that it functioned as a significant theological and institutional force within a religious landscape marked by pluralism, mobility, and the absence of centralized ecclesiastical authority. Focusing on the interconnected themes of preaching, conflict, and organization, the study demonstrates that the development of universalism followed two distinct but complementary trajectories. In Philadelphia, Winchester's universalism emerged within an established Baptist context, generating intense doctrinal controversy and institutional rupture, while simultaneously producing a sophisticated hermeneutical model that sought to reconcile biblical texts on judgment with those affirming universal restoration. In contrast, Murray's activity in New England illustrates a more stable process of institutionalization, in which universalism, shaped by the theological influence of James Relly, was articulated in a coherent Christological framework and successfully embedded within newly formed religious communities. By comparing these two models, the article highlights the dual dynamic through which universalism became a durable feature of American religious life: as a polemical and exegetical challenge that redefined theological discourse, and as an organized movement capable of sustaining communal identity and expansion. Ultimately, the study argues that universalism played a constitutive role in shaping the architecture of American Christianity, not by resolving the tension between divine justice and universal salvation, but by preserving and intensifying it as a central theological question.

Keywords: Christian universalism, Elhanan Winchester, John Murray, American Christianity, New England, Philadelphia.

Florin GHIURGIU 

Title: "Epistemic entropy and the resilience of knowledge in the infosphere"

Abstract: The expansion of digital infrastructures has managed to transform access to information on an unprecedented scale. However, the increasing availability of information has not been accompanied by a corresponding growth in orientation, understanding, or epistemic stability. This article argues that the central challenge of the digital age lies not in information scarcity but in the fragility of the conditions that allow information to acquire meaning and become knowledge. Drawing on the philosophical frameworks developed by Luciano Floridi and Byung-Chul Han, the text explores how acceleration, recontextualization, and the infrastructural organization of visibility affects the processes through which information is interpreted and validated. To describe this transformation, the article introduces the concept of epistemic entropy, understood as the progressive degradation of the interpretive and justificatory relations that sustain knowledge. In response, it develops the notion of epistemic resilience as the capacity of an informational environment to preserve the conditions necessary for evaluation, correction, and shared understanding. The article concludes that safeguarding knowledge in the digital era requires not only protecting truth claims but also sustaining the informational infrastructures that make meaning, interpretation, and epistemic orientation possible.

Keywords: Infosphere, epistemic resilience, epistemic entropy, meaning, digital knowledge, philosophy of information.

Anca-Elena DAVID

Title: "The Romanian Academy as Reflected in the Nineteenth-Century Transylvanian Press"

Abstract: Romanian cultural figures from the 19th century campaigned in unison for the unity of the language as a sine qua non condition for achieving the ideal of national unity. In their conception, the history of the nation is equivalent to the history of the language, the linguistic instrument being assigned an eminently political function, so that the destiny of the nation is identified with that of the language (David 1980, 13). The press constituted the terrain in which discussions took place between scholars of the time animated by the valorization of the culture of the language in conditioning the general state of the nation: "the language of a nation reworks upon its spirit" (Bariț 1842, 8). One of the topics presented in publications from Transylvania and beyond was the establishment of a higher court, society or academy, to decide on language matters.

Keywords: Romanian Academy, press, unity, culture, discussion.

Paulin Bertrand LENGUE KWAMEN 

Title: "A literary approach to Heritage Formation"

Abstract: The globalized world is characterized by an erectile tendency that leads to an increasing disproportion between different cultures. Such a disproportion is synonymous with a peril for some cultures. In order to avoid the disparity of local cultures, some writers are referring to the novel as a media of oral traditions. It is the case for Fatou Diome with the works Le Ventre de l'Atlantique and Impossible de grandir. The two novels clearly appear as the memories of Serere traditions in Senegal. Thus, it seems accurate to read this corpus to the purpose to testify a literary approach to patrimonialization. The study is directly connected with the question of oral traditions backup by the means of the novel. The links between scripturality and traditional speech betray the characteristic of the novel writing as a media serving oral traditions. Consequently, the analysis is giving an interest to media interactions between novel and oral genres. This intermediality is underlined through an intertextual reading of the corpus. Therefore, the study is based on the hypothesis stipulating that the texts in the corpus are manifestations of a "secondary orality" that allows the protection and the diffusion of endogenous heritage.

Keywords: orality, patrimonialization, culture, traditions, intermediality, intertextuality.

Andra ANDREI & Daniela-Maria CREȚU

Title: "Parental Involvement in the «School Otherwise» Program: Perceptions and Participation Levels"

Abstract: For over a decade, the "School Otherwise" program has become an integral part of pre-university education in Romania, being assimilated into the organizational culture of educational institutions. Thus, the program continues to represent an important framework for the development of students' competences, while also facilitating the educational partnership between school and family.This study explores parents' perceptions of the "School Otherwise" program and their involvement in the program in a pre-university educational institution. The research focused on the importance attributed to parental involvement, the level of actual participation, the degree of satisfaction, the facilitating factors and barriers identified, as well as the perceived benefits and suggestions for optimizing the program. The data were collected using a questionnaire distributed and completed online by 37 parents. The results highlight a favorable attitude towards the program, but also the existence of a gap between the perception of the importance of involvement and actual participation. Lack of time has been identified as the main obstacle to greater parental involvement in the program. The study emphasizes the need to strengthen a genuine school-family partnership and to develop flexible mechanisms for parental involvement in the "School Otherwise" program.

Keywords: "School Otherwise" program, non-formal education, parental involvement, school-family partnership, educational activities, barriers.

Amel BOUMARAF & Noura BOUMARAF 

Abstract: This research explores how both students and teachers perceive the influence of intercultural podcasts on fostering identity awareness among learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). In an era marked by increasing global interconnectedness, developing intercultural understanding and a reflective sense of identity has become essential within language education. Podcasts, recognized for their authenticity, accessibility, and diversity of cultural content, expose learners to multiple viewpoints, potentially shaping their understanding of their own identities as well as others'. To gain a fuller picture of these perceptions, the study employs a mixed-methods design. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to (30) EFL students from various academic levels and through interviews conducted with 8 English language teachers at the Department of English, Abbes Laghrour University, Khenchela. Results reveal generally positive perceptions of intercultural podcast use. Students noted improvements in motivation, participation, and personal reflection about cultural and linguistic identity. Teachers highlighted podcasts as valuable tools for encouraging critical thinking and promoting intercultural dialogue, while also noting difficulties related to choosing suitable content and integrating it effectively into lessons. Overall, the study suggests that intercultural podcasts can play a meaningful role in enhancing identity development and language learning. The paper concludes with recommendations for structured incorporation of podcasts to support learners' intercultural awareness and overall educational development.
Keywords: interculturality, podcasts, identity, awareness, motivation.

Carla HENGELMAN 

Abstract: This study brings forth the construction of multiple and fragmented identities in British cultural products, namely three music videos that had shaped the worldwide contemporary cultural perception ever since they got released. By incorporating the theoretical concepts and relevant scholarly perspectives included in the bibliography, the analysis aims at highlighting the following themes: the work of ideology and hegemonic forces, as well as possible forms of resistance through creative consumption, the construction of identity and subject positions in post-modern culture, stereotyped or/and unconventional representations of race/ethnicity, the contemporary city as the realm of competing discourses, representations, simulacra, globalisation and disjunctive cultural flows.

Keywords: identity, globalization, ideology, Beatles, New Order, M.I.A.

Laura-Elena ROMAN-FAUR

Title: "Archetypes of the ideal society: The role of property in shaping the perfect state"

Abstract: This paper explores how property ownership fundamentally shapes political regimes and drives socio-political stratifications. By analyzing foundational texts, the research demonstrates that property is the cornerstone of both utopian and realist political models. The first section examines archetypal writings, contrasting Plato's Republic—where society is structured around a functional division of labor based on inherent virtues—with Thomas More's Utopia, which seeks the complete annihilation of private property to eliminate social inequalities. Furthermore, the myth of Atlantis is discussed as an inverse utopia, illustrating the destructive consequences of wealth and moral decay. The second part shifts toward governance, analyzing how the ruler's character influences the fate of the state. Within classical Greek and Roman political thought, social relations were deeply intertwined with property dynamics, as evidenced by Cicero's assertion that the state's primary duty is to protect private property. Ultimately, this paper concludes that property decisively dictates political structures and egalitarian dynamics, rendering utopian ideals unfeasible due to the deeply rooted nature of private ownership.

Keywords: political philosophy, private property, Utopia, Plato, Thomas More, Cicero, ideal state.

Dragoș DRAGOMAN 

Title: "Neoliberalism or everything is for sale: The relevance of Marx"

Abstract: The current situation of neoliberal unchallenged and crushing dominance is by no means disconnected from its economic and social original settings. The commodification of all goods and services, the consumption driven market strategies, the cultural homogenization and the shallow banal intellectual environment, the lack of perspective and the profound loneliness against the brutal forces of the capital, they all point out the catastrophic alienation of those who struggle to make a living by selling their workforce. However, the current situation was set like in a nutshell at the origin of the capitalist system. Therefore, it is worth reading Marx through the lens offered by Schumpeter, who honestly acknowledges his shortcuts and partial failures, yet praises him as a gifted economist, an inspired ideologist and a clairvoyant sociologist.

Keywords: neoliberalism, social deprivation, cultural banalization, economic theory, Marx, Schumpeter.

Teodora TĂMAȘ 

Title: "Subversive Musical Reconfigurations of Folklore under Ceaușescu's Nationalism: Phoenix band (1972-1975)"

Abstract: Following the publication of the July Theses in 1971, socialist Romania entered a new phase of ideological control marked by cultural censorship, nationalist propaganda, and the instrumentalization of folklore as a privileged aesthetic form. Within this restrictive framework, most Romanian rock and pop bands were marginalized or silenced. This article examines the exceptional trajectory of the band Phoenix, which not only survived but reached unprecedented popularity by developing a distinctive musical style: ethno-rock. Focusing on three albums released between 1971 and 1975 — Cei ce ne-au dat nume, Mugur de fluier, and Cantafabule — the study analyzes the thematic, musical, and visual folklore elements employed by the band, arguing that these elements functioned in a paradoxically subversive manner vis-à-vis national-communist ideology. This subversiveness, however, should not be understood as programmatic political opposition, but rather as a cultural effect. The archaic, ritual, multiethnic, and cosmopolitan folklore recovered by Phoenix was incompatible with the state-manufactured "new folklore", generating an alternative discourse that resisted ideological appropriation while providing a space of cultural escape. Drawing on the concept of hybridized counterculture (Adrian G. Matus), the article situates this phenomenon within the broader context of the American counterculture's reception in socialist Romania, where any form of contestation was coded rather than declared.

Keywords: Phoenix (band), national-communism, ethno-rock, archaic folklore, hybridized counterculture, coded subversion.