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From its very inception,
the Romanian Academy has had prestigious
philosophers among its members. Such was
Titu Maiorescu, founding member of the
Academic Society. A powerful personality of
European scope, who dominated Romanian
cultural life in the second half of the 19th
century, Titu Maiorescu was equally gifted
as a literary critic and as an aesthetician,
philosopher of culture and logician, and
made decisive contributions to the
differentiation of cultural values and
removal of their confusion with moral
values.
For several decades, philosophy was
represented in the Academy by means of
diverse preoccupations, communications,
debates or presentations of awards for
philosophical books, although philosophers,
psychologists or pedagogues did not as yet
have a section of their own. Thus in one of
the Academy’s plenary sessions of 1872,
George Barit (member of the Section of
History of the Romanian Academy) presented
Darwin’s Theories and professed to be one of
their adepts as he stressed the role of
evolutionism in science and philosophy.
Toward the end of the 19th century, another
member of the Romanian Academy, A. D.
Xenopol, a philosopher of history, and H.
Rickert took opposite views of the idea of
value in history. Newly elected members of
the Academy in their acceptance speeches
also explored philosophical themes. In 1909,
the annual Romanian Academy Award went to
the work of a philosopher, Constantin
Radulescu-Motru, whose book was entitled
Puterea sufleteasca (Strength of Spirit).
Elected member of the Romanian Academy in
1925 and Vice President in 1935, he was the
main promoter of philosophy as a statutory
preoccupation of the Academy, which became
fact in 1941 when the Section of Historical,
Philosophical and Social Sciences was
established.
Later on, the Institute of Philosophy
(1948), the Center for Logic (1964), and the
Institute of Psychology (1950) were also
established and placed under the authority
of the Section. In 1974, they were passed on
to the Academy of Social and Political
Sciences, but returned to the Romanian
Academy in 1990. In 1995, religion sciences
were also included amongst the
preoccupations of the Academy, so that at
the moment there is a Section of Philosophy,
Theology, Psychology and Pedagogy which
coordinates the activity of the Institutes
of Philosophy, Social Theory, Psychology and
of those researchers interested in such
problems at the Institutes of Socio-Human
Research in Cluj and Iasi.
Distinguished and representative
personalities of the Romanian philosophical
sciences were elected members of the
Academy. One example is Nicolae Bagdasar,
who wrote a treatise on Teoria cunoasterii
(The Theory of Knowledge) and coordinated a
compendium on Istoria filosofiei moderne
(The History of Modern Philosophy) in five
volumes, which continue to be reference
works today. A very productive thinker and
writer, C. Radulescu-Motru, already
mentioned above, authored among others
Personalismul energetic (Energetic
Personalism). Creator of an original system
which can be applied to the Romanian forma
mentis, Lucian Blaga wrote the monumental
works Trilogia cunoasterii (The Trilogy of
Knowledge), Trilogia culturii (The Trilogy
of Culture), Trilogia valorilor (TheTrilogy
of Values), and Trilogia cosmogonica
(TheCosmogonic Trilogy). Other worthy
philosophers were Ion Petrovici, who wrote
Probleme de logica (Problems of Logic) and
Introducere īn metafizica (Introduction to
Metaphysics), and P. P. Negulescu, author of
Filosofia renasterii (The Philosophy of the
Renaissance) and Destinul Omenirii
(Mankind’s Destiny). Tudor Vianu published
an important two-volume Estetica
(Aesthetics), and Dumitru Staniloaie, a
three-volume Tratat de teologie dogmatica
ortodoxa (Treatise of Orthodox Dogmatic
Theology), translated into several foreign
languages of international circulation.
Outstanding foreign thinkers were elected
Honorary Members of the Romanian Academy,
among others Léon Brunschwicg, Benedetto
Croce, Charles Upson Clark, Thomas Masaryk,
David Magnusson etc.
Some of the works published in recent years
by researchers affiliated with the Academy
are: Contributii romānesti īn domeniul
logicii secolului XX (Romanian Contributions
to Logic in the 20th Century), Orientari
contemporane īn filosofia logicii
(Contemporary Directions in the Philosophy
of Logic), Hermeneutica si ontologie
(Hermeneutics and Ontology), Realism si
relativism īn fisosofia stiintei
contemporane (Realism and Relativism in the
Philosophy of Science Today), Valoare si
cultura (Value and Culture), Psihologie
cognitiva (Cognitive Psychology),
Introducere īn psihologia contemporana
(Introduction to Psychology), Competenta
didactica: perspectiva psihologica (Didactic
Competency: A Psychological Perspective)
etc.
Research results are periodically published
in Revista de Filosofie (Journal of
Philosophy) and Revista de Psihologie
(Journal of Psychology), which also appear
in French. |
