SPRING and SUMMER

Author(s): Merabi, Maczarashvili | Abstract: Poems by a freelance writer from the Republic of Georgia

RVP books over the years have served three purposes: (a) to stimulate and communicate the innovative work of the philosophical research teams in all cultures, (b) to make less heard voices available to thinkers and policy makers across the world, and (c) to put their important texts into the hands of scholars who often work with limited to library resources.
Recently the RVP has shipped sets of 36 of its new and recent titles to 350 university libraries across the world: 54 in Africa, 83 in East, South and Southeast Asia, 29 in North America, 50 in Central and South America, 7 in Australia/New Zealand, 40 in Western Europe, 76 in Central and Eastern Europe.

Full Text Available for Free Download
 on the Web  in the Google Book Partner Program RVP books are in multiple modes: (1) the full texts in html free downloadable format on the RVP's website www.crvp.orgunder "publications"; (2) full text, exact image versions of all RVP books are now available through the Google Book Search Partner Program.Though not downloadable there, all pages of each book appear in exact image for word search and research citation.Search by name of book, author, or title of any book or individual chapter at www.books.google.com.The theme was: "Philosophy Emerging from Culture: Indonesian Culture and Islamic Thought."The goal was to harvest the contributions of this culture to Islamic thought and to share this across the Islamic crescent from Indonesia to Morocco, and indeed with all philosophers.This was an important initiative of the new International Society for Islamic Philosophy (ISIP) newly founded in collaboration with the RVP.For full report please see http:// www.crvp.org/conf/2009/java.htm.

INDONESIA: 10 UNIVERSITY CONFERENCES ON "PHILOSOPHY EMERGING FROM CULTURE", JANUARY 2009
The International Society for Islamic Philosophy (ISIP) (email: isisophy@gmail.com):founded by the participants in the RVP Islamic seminar in March 2008, elected Professor Gholamreza Aavani, Director of the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, as President at its meeting during the World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul last August.Professor Osman Bakar, Vice Director of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia, was appointed Vice President in January 2009 along with a set of regional directors.The ISIP cosponsored with the RVP the 10 university conferences in Indonesia and will cosponsor as well the fall RVP seminar on "Living Islam Faithfully in Our Day" described below.A meeting on "The status of Philosophy in the Present-day Islamic World" is envisaged for November, 2009 in Tehran.Contact Gholamreza Aavani, President of ISIP, aavani@irip.ir.

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY (ISIP) UPCOMING EVENTS, JUNE-OCTOBER, 2009
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 24-25, 2009, "The Role of Philosophy in the Development of South East Asia".A full description and draft program can be found on the web at http://www.crvp.org/conf/2009/cambodia.htm.
In the aftermath of great tragedies a new generation of Cambodian philosophers is now emerging.A first sign of this is the invitation of The Philosophical Association of Cambodia (PAC) to host the bi-annual RVP Southeast Asia regional meeting -held previously in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia.This meeting will be supported by UNESCO in collaboration with the PAC and the RVP.Theme: The first session will reflect on how philosophy is rooted in the culture of a people whence it emerges through a process of progressively deeper reflection and understanding.The second session will identify elements especially characteristic of Cambodian philosophy.On this basis the conference will then turn to the contributions which Cambodian philosophy can make to education for development and in turn the challenge which such a task constitutes for the philosophy and philosophers of South East Asia today.
Theme: The May 4th movement in 1919 thought it necessary to put aside the ancient wisdom of Confucius in order to usher in "Mr.Science" and "Mr.Democracy."More recently, the very success of the resultant "hard power" of modernization has evoked a rethinking of May 4th.What now is the role of the "soft power" of the culture, values and virtues previously put aside; are these now needed to inspire and humanize the powers of the Enlightenment in order that all might continue to benefit from their fruits; rather than being exiled could Confucius and his classical confreres now be needed more than ever in these postmodern times as genial hosts enabling the "two misters" to be truly and fruitfully at home?

Shanghai: Fudan University
Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, July 2-3, 2009 "Diversity in Unity: Harmony in a Global Age".
Theme: Global times call for the protection, promotion and interrelation of human diversity and creativity.In order for these multiple and diverse humane factors to make their rich contribution to social well-being in these times of global interaction, they must be able to be appreciated not as conflictual, but as complementary and relational.Does this, in turn, call for a new paradigm in which they are understood as existing within a larger, integrating whole?Will this enable the diverse realities to be essentially related, not merely physically, but in terms that engage the human search for meaning and purpose?What are the keys to the respect for nature and for one another on which truly global human comity can be built?If philosophy looks even further for the principles which reveal all as intelligible or true, and as life giving or good, does this call for a renewed understanding of the classical unity of "all under heaven" (Tian Xia), both for its inherent relationality and for the implications of this source and goal for the meaning and purpose of all?Here the classical philosophical issue of the one and the many reemerges in today's terms of the global whole.
Xian: Xian Jiaotong University, July 5, 2009 "The Role of Philosophy in the Development of China's Northwest".
Theme: Philosophy is challenged to guide the process of change along progressive paths that perfect and improve the status of nature and of humanity itself.For this it is necessary to understand human nature and continuingly to evaluate and adjust possible action so that the immense human effort, now broadly integrated across civilizations, will be positive and constructive.
This evaluative task is extensive as it touches upon every aspect of the changing world.It is itself multilayered, reaching from utilitarian and self-interested advantage to an ever deeper sense of the human person, to a broader and more inclusive range of social reality, and to the natural world in which we live and which we shape.

Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Xian: Xian Jiaotong University Urumqi: Xinjiang University, July 13, 2009 "Local Culture and Social Progress".
Theme: The Xinjiang region is the frontier of two great civilizations.If a civilization is the cumulative achievement of a set of cultures evolved over millennia as a concrete way of striving for human fulfillment, then this border situation is now of the greatest moment.For as we enter the global age life today is characterized not simply by one or another single culture or civilization, but by the interaction of multiple civilizations.This is the making of the global world whose nature will be determined by the way in which the multiple civilizations, like gigantic techtonic plates, interact and adjust to one another.This suggests the particular importance for human progress of the dynamics of local cultures on the frontier as they intersect and are mutually enriched and transformed thereby.What is the basis and degree of such mutual compatibility and complementarity; how can conflict be transformed into mutual reinforcement; can change be progressive for all concerned?These and other crucial issues must be considered in this colloquium.

Islamic Seminar: Faith and Reason: Living Islam Faithfully in Our Changing Times
The RVP annual five week Fall Seminar in 2009 will be held September 28-October 30, 2009, on living cultural and religious heritages in the context recently described by Charles Taylor in his A Secular Age.
Theme: The work of Professor Taylor has recounted how from a time in which it was difficult not to believe the converse has become true.Sociological surveys reflect this to be an age marked by an existential search for identity and meaning, rather than by commitment to specific religious visions or communities.For philosophy this reopens in contemporary terms the deepest issues of the role of immanent and transcendent values and aspirations for the socio-political and the religious orders.Special attention will be devoted to appreciating the unique differences and the relatedness of the world's religious cultures, their relation to the achievement of secular goals, and parallel to this the positive contribution of secular concerns for living religion fully in this world.The search is for a paradigm that enables mutual understanding and communication in which the many peoples and cultures, both sacred and secular, can be related in a positive manner as complementary.This effort will be extended during the following 18 months by three research teams studying in detail aspects of the issue for personal growth, political life, and relations between cultures and civilizations in our global age.
Seminar on: The Sacred and the Secular: Complementary and/or Conflictual (II) The printed versions of the RVP publications can be ordered from usual book sellers (Amazon, etc.) and also from its new book distribution center: Council for Research on Values and Philosophy -OST, San Antonio, TX (attn.Mathew Martin) 285 Oblate Dr., San Antonio, TX 78216, USA Telephone: (210)341-1366 x205; Email: mmartin@ost.eduOn January 4-16, 2009 the RVP in collaboration with International Society for Islamic Philosophy (ISIP) and The Islamic College for Advanced Studies (ICAS), Jakarta, sponsored a series of 10 colloquia across the Isle of Java, Indonesia.It was carried out with the generous support of the host universities, especially ICAS, Mizen Publishing and the H&L Bradley and Raskob Foundations.