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The author clarifies the point of publishing a series of translations of some fundamental texts regarding the conception of politics/the political. The selection includes the following: "The Political Paradox" (1964/1957) by Paul Ricoeur; What is Politics? (1993) by Hannah Arendt; "An epilogue" (1968/1962) by Leo Strauss; and For a Conceptual History of the Political (2003) by Pierre Rosanvallon. In contemporary political theory, the conceptual differentiation between politics and the political is termed "Political Difference". The contribution to reflection on this conceptual pair in the political theories of Schmitt, Arendt and Lefort is briefly outlined. The problem matter is masterfully presented and critically valued in Oliver Marchart's book Post-Foundational Political Thought (2007). This paper summarizes and evaluates the sense of Marchart's theoretical investigation of "political difference" as a conceptual differentiation between the ontological moment and the ontic moment of new political ontology. The radically new concept of the political is a transcendental prerequisite for the possibility of existence of society, while politics is a social sub-system and a special type of activity. "Political difference" is, in fact, political-ontological difference; it constitutes a theoretical field which eludes both traditional political philosophy and political science. Marchart's principal theoretical insight is that, in political difference, the political appears in two meanings: as the ontological moment of original commencement and the way of establishing the social, and also as the way of relating two moments in their irrevocable difference, but also in their essential interdependence. The primacy of the political over politics (and the social in general) is thus manifest in the mediationally understood political, which discursively constitutes and maintains political difference between the ontologically understood political ("moment" of Being) and the ontically understood politics ("moment" of being). And this is precisely the conceptual determination of freedom. Adapted from the source document.

The actual recession/depression is a radicalized continuation of a cyclical forty years long transformational slowdown of growth through basically stagnant fluctuations. With this slowdown is connected a serial of controversial, crisis-generating & finally unsuccessful general politics- & policy-change unprecedented in the contemporary world. An analysis of the societal history through sequences of developmental counterpoints & through the logic of great societal, political-economic & political cycles demonstrates that causes of cyclical economic & societal movements in general, & of actual stagnation & crisis especially, are mostly noneconomical. They are mainly political. In short, their political foundation is in a radical actual & previous change in the equilibrium of a dynamic tendency of the modern political space. This equilibrium is here called "modern normal." The modern normal (MN) is for us a tendentional space/structure of equilibria in the middle of (1) the political, (2) the personal/individual, (3) the whole world space, & (4) the space of the state/society. The actual kind of that disequilibrium or denormalization of modern normal indicates a process which is usually called totalitarian. In our actual case, the focal point is moved toward financial corporations as pseudo-statal regulators of economy, politics & society. Here, this is the Matrix-capitalism as a feedback of an urban legend & an analytical pattern. Generally, in the long run it is also a process of denormalized or bad & unsuccessful public- & business-policy, especially as development-, growth- & transformation-policy. This Matrix-capitalism, which is dominated by global financial corporations, is developing itself in a cyclically denormalised tendentional space/structure between: (1) the unpolitically "economical," (2) the unindividually "personal," (3) the unwholly "global," & (4) the unstately, unsocially, & anti-economically "denational." The Matrix-capitalism is functional only in a virtual world of ideologized economics & casino-business operations with derivatives etc. Cyclically interfaced with economic, social, cultural, political, personal, & national/world's reality, Matrix-capitalism will every time be more unsustainable even for its mega-corporative core. Adapted from the source document.

Although our talk about human rights is part of the ethical awareness of contemporary politics, it still has not received adequate theoretical justification & foundation. Serious philosophical problems arose in the very beginning of the history of the "human rights" concept, with Locke's liberal natural right & Kant's reasonable right. According to the author, the difficulty stems from the concept of person, for in every liberal legal theory the person is perceived as bearer of human & fundamental rights. Meanwhile, the dominant constitutional theory of human & fundamental rights starts from the identical meanings of "person" as an individual, in its uniqueness, & of "man" as a general definition. It is, however, necessary to start from the fundamental difference between the two key concepts. While the "man" concept is defined universalistically, there is no universal concept for persons & no possibility of breaking them down into subcategories. While every individual, as instance of the concept, must be defined in the same way as everyone else, persons are defined individualistically; each person is a unique individual which can be neither duplicated nor multiplied. The author proposes a solution of the fundamental rights problem-matter within the framework of constitutional law. Personal rights are brought to existence as follows: organs of the state, in accordance with positive law, give to the individual the title of state-citizen as an individualistically unique legal person. Everyone receives it, in the same way, as a unique & irreplaceable person. In the normal conditions, the state has the obligation to make sure, via courts & the police, that everyone's personal right is untouchable. On the basis of this logic, a demarcation line can be drawn between the personal fundamental rights & the collective rights of citizens (such as political rights, which the individual can practice only together with others). Only such an interpretation would provide our libertarian fundamental rights with a consistently secular character, with no concession to the internal attachment, in whichever way it may be concealed, to metaphysical or religious presuppositions. Adapted from the source document.

Using as his starting point Hegel's explanation of the principled differentiation between the "manner of studying" & acquiring actual knowledge in the Antiquity & the Modern Age, the author demonstrates that both Hegel & Husserl, each in his own philosophical fashion, try to link the substantiality of Antiquity & the subjectivity of Modernity as well as to deepen &, consequently, put an end to the one-sidedness, both in the ancient tradition of multi-formity ("des sinnlichen Daseins") & in the modern "abstract form" of the manifesting subjectivity. The notion of "the actual knowledge" as actualization and "spiritualization" of the universal, with Hegel ends in "Selbstbewusstsein" & with Husserls in "phanomenologisches Residuum," representing "das Feld einer neuen Wissenschaft," which Husserl calls "die Phanomenologie der Lebenswelt" & Hegel "die Phanomenologie des Geistes." Hegel & Husserl evolve actual knowledge in the "form of science," which is -- as "Wissenschaft von der Erfahrung des Bewusstseins" -- different from the dogmatic metaphysics, empiricism, & positivism of sciences. "Erfahrung" cannot be reduced to sensory experience; it -- as the source of "des neuen wahren Gegenstandes" -- also represents the experience of human thought & understanding. This already envisions in Hegel's works the rehabilitation of different kinds & ways of genuine knowledge conceived by Aristotle in his Nichomachean Ethics. The author emphasizes the significance of practical knowledge, as extrapolated by Hegel in his philosophy of objective spirit &, particularly, in the notion of "Geist-Kapitel" in his Phenomenology of Spirit -- not in the form of metaphysical definitions taken over by Hegel from the practical philosophy into the speculative one, but for the sake of developing the abilities of the spirit as "reality" in the historical world & its own historical "logic." This peculiar logic of The Phenomenology of Spirit differs from the later Science of Logic like metaphysics. While the latter represents the thinking of the world prior to the creation of the world, The Phenomenology of Spirit makes for the practical philosophy of the historical world of life & requires the development of various kinds of knowledge, especially modern spiritual sciences appropriate for the contemporary reality & world history. Adapted from the source document.

To what extent is Marx's thought conceptually and analytically relevant for a systematic understanding of modern society -- this was the subject of the theoretical dialogue which engaged many researchers, including some of the most prominent ones. This text focuses on the theoretical critical confrontation of Dag Strpic (in the article "Market or Commodity Formation/Production of Society?", which is the third, partly reworked chapter of his book Karl Marx and the Political Economy of Modernity) with the philosophical project of reconstruction of Marx's science of history in Jacques Bidet's work What is To Be Done with "Capital"?. The discussion focused on two basic issues: the logical starting point and the character of exposition of Marx's theory of capital. Bidet advocates the thesis that commodity as Marx's starting point (Section I of Book I) is inadequate, and he demonstrates the non-dialectical ("genetic") character of the categorial exposition of the capitalist-way-of-production theory as a whole. In contrast therewith, Strpic demonstrates that the logical starting point of Marx's system is adequately apprehended as "commodity in general", if one perceives it from the viewpoint of the logic of the entire system and of the subject of his analysis as "capital in general". Bidet seeks to show that Marx, in defining the capital system logic, gradually abandoned, albeit inconsistently and only in part, the dialectical figures as epistemological obstacles. Strpic, on the other hand, shows what makes the Marxian modality of materialistic dialectics constitutive not only with regard to Marx's "critique", but also to the very reality of capitalist society and the possibility of surpassing it. Notwithstanding his agreement with Bidet and Strpic that a (truly indispensable) general theory of modernity can be constituted only through creative and interpretative relying on the great works of political thought of modernity, and his sincere commendation to both for their outstanding reading of Marx's work in this context, the author concludes in his final remarks that both are open to the following objection: their projects of a contemporary general theory of modernity, regardless of all aspects in which they differ, rely too much on further development of Marx's intention, and thereby lose from sight the fundamental "theological-political" problem, which Marx dissolves in the immanentism of the process of production/reproduction of the modern civil community. Adapted from the source document.

As opposed to philosophy, theology and natural sciences, for which only the singular Man exists, for political theory the decisive fact is the plurality of men. Politics is preoccupied with common and mutual being of different men. It is created among men and established as their connectedness. Freedom exists only in the authentic interspace of politics. We are saved from that freedom in the "necessity of history", which is a revolting absurdity. When one wishes in our time to speak about politics, one must start with the prejudice towards it. The prejudice accurately reflect the truly existing contemporary situation precisely in its political aspects, and suggest that we have ended up in a situation in which we do not quite or do not yet know how to move politically. The prejudice towards politics are manifest in the notion that national politics is made up of lies and deception by corrupt interests and corrupt ideology, while foreign politics hovers between hollow propaganda and brute force. This causes a flight into powerlessness, a desperate desire for men in general to be deprived of the freedom to act. Politics is, always and everywhere, preoccupied with illuminating and dissolving prejudice. If one wishes to dissolve prejudice, one must first discover the past judgment contained therein, i.e. actually show their contents of truth. This is the task of the faculty of judgment, but not as mere capability to subject the individual regularly and adequately to the general that corresponds to it and regarding which there is agreement, but as judgment directly and with no standard. The loss of standard, which truly determines the modern world in its facticity and cannot be annulled by any return to the good, old tradition or any arbitrary setting up of new values and standards, is therefore a catastrophe of the moral world only if one presupposes that men would in fact be completely unable to judge things in and of themselves, and that their faculty of judgment is insufficient for original judgment. Politics is always centered on care for the world organized in this or some different way, without which those who care and who are political, think that life is not worth living. Where men come together, the world always breaks through between them, and all human actions take place in this interspace. Adapted from the source document.

The paper reports partial findings of a research project into Croatian ethnonationalism (Croatian: narodnjastvo) as a religion (in the sense of a human invention of the sacred). The practical problems are as follows: ethnonationalism as a religion, which implies inter alia that an ethnic community (Croatian: narod) has the potential and/or capability to develop into, and ought to become, the substratum of a (nation-)state; consequences of ethnonationalism, which include the unattainability of ethnic democracy, ethnic economy and ethnic maturity; conditions of Croatian ethnonationalism, primarily the Catholic Church as a condition in 1961-71, and also before and after the period, especially since 1990. Theoretical problems, i.e. inadequacies in scholarly knowledge of the practical problems, include the following: firstly, Croatian Constitutional Court jurisprudence on ethnic and religious communities; secondly, systematic history of law and state in Croatia and Yugoslavia 1945-90; thirdly, transformation of both communism and catholicism into ethnonationalism; fourthly and fifthly, social structure and representation/agency. To attain the general goal of the research project, which is the use of reason in public affairs, the research is carried out within the theoretical and methodological framework of an integral theory of law and state which includes a modified Lasswell and McDougal's policy analysis expanded by historical institutionalism and critical theory. The subject-matter are the following features of Catholicism as an institutionalized religion, especially in Croatia 1961-71: (1) law, i.e. (1.1) sources of law; (1.2) internal law (organs, members, means); (1.3) external law (relations with the state and non-Catholics); (2) the Church and economy; (3) the Church and nation; (4) Catholicism on theory and practice. The hypotheses (which are ideal-types and as such cannot be either verified or falsified conclusively) are that ethnonationalism in Croatia is a consequence of, inter alia, the following beliefs maintained by the Catholic Church in Croatia in the 1960s and to a significant degree later on: 1. the only acceptable relationship between the Church and the state is the partnership of two legally equal public orders over the same subjects within which the Church has the exclusive power to regulate matrimonial and other family relations, and the power to control education in public schools; 2. peasant family is the basic organic human community; 3. the subjects to the ecclesiastical -- originally feudal -- power tied in fact to land make the ethnic community (Croatian: narod), which is united with the clergy into the Christian community (Croatian: krscanski narod); 4. since fundamental truths are accessible by theology only, and practice is an application of theory, practical knowledge, especially on the appropriate relationship between the Church and the state, is valid only if in accord with Church teaching. The evidence presented in the paper supports to a significant degree the hypotheses. The research findings contribute to the solution of all the theoretical problems, providing major contributions to the second and the third: the most probable reason why the Catholic Church in Croatia was rather silent in the Yugoslav and Croatian Spring 1961-71 and quite vocal since the 1990 is the Croatian Church's allegiance in matters of Church and state more to the First than to the Second Vatican council (which abandoned the Church's "divine" right to be co-sovereign with the state, exposing the "right" as a human invention of the sacred); the Church's ethnonationalism, which facilitates the political partnership of the Church and the state and ensures the dominant position of the clergy within the Church, has coincided with the interest of Yugoslav communists to retain their might and power by a metamorphosis, with the Church's assistance honoured by a concordat, into Croatian ethnonationalists, who, as newly born capitalists, have appropriated the greater part of the former socialist property and continue appropriating the greater part of present public goods. Adapted from the source document.