- Ivo Urbančič
Infobox Philosopher
region =Western Philosophy
era = 20th- /21st-century philosophy
color = #B0C4DE
image_caption =
name = Ivo Urbančič
birth = birth date and age|1930|12|11Most na Soči , Kingdom of Italy (now inSlovenia )
death =
school_tradition = Phenomenology
main_interests =Ontology ·Ethics ·Technology ·System theory
notable_ideas =
influences =Martin Heidegger ·Friedrich Nietzsche ·Dušan Pirjevec Ahac ·France Veber ·Karl Marx ·Niklas Luhmann ·presocratics ·Edmund Husserl
influenced =Tine Hribar ·Jože Pučnik ·Dean Komel Ivo Urbančič (born
12 November 1930 ) is a Slovenephilosopher . He is considered to be one of the fathers of the phenomenological school inSlovenia . His role in the development of the philosophical thaught is comparable to the one ofMihailo Đurić inSerbia orVanja Sutlić inCroatia . AlongsideJože Pučnik , Urbančič was the foremost thinker of the so-calledGeneration of '57 , a dissident intellectual group inCommunist Slovenia in the late 1950s and early 1960s which challanged the essential ideological presuppositions of theTitoist regime.Biography
He was born as Ivan Urbančič in the small town of
Most na Soči in what was then the Italian administrative region ofJulian March to a middle-class Slovene family. When he was still a child, his family left the region in order to escapeFascist persecution and moved to theKingdom of Yugoslavia . Ivo spent most of his childhood in the village ofBistrica in south-west Macedonia, where his family had settled together in a colony of Slovene immigrants from the Julian March. After the Axisinvasion of Yugoslavia the family was relocated in centralSerbia . After the end ofWorld War Two they moved toSlovenia , settling in the village ofČrešnjevec nearSlovenska Bistrica . There, the young Ivo met withJože Pučnik , with whom he established a lifelong friendship.Urbančič frequented the high school in
Maribor and later enrolled to theUniversity of Ljubljana where he studied philosophy. In his student years, he became involved with a group of young intellectuals, known as theGeneration of '57 . He developed a critical stance towards theTitoist regime which prevented him from getting a job in the academic sphere.He worked as an editor in the prestigious publishing house "
Slovenska matica ", where he supervised the translation and first edition of many major Western thinkers inSlovene language . Among others, he was instrumental in the publishing of the complete works ofNietzsche .In the early 1980s, he was one of the co-founders of the alternative review "
Nova revija ", and in 1989 one of the co-founders of theSlovenian Democratic Union , one of the first democratic political parties opposing the Communist regime in Slovenia. Although he hasn't participated in active politics since the end of theSlovenian Spring in the early 1990s, he has been known as a supporter of theSlovenian Democratic Party and its presidentJanez Janša .He currently lives in
Ljubljana .Work
Urbančič was one of the first who introduced the thought of
Martin Heidegger toSlovenia . He also wrote several monographies onFriedrich Nietzsche . He has been interested in questions regarding the issue ofpolitical power , the individual existence in the modern and post-modern technological world. He developed an interest in thesystem theory , namely in the functioning of large social systems in the intersection of culture, politics and technology. He has been preoccupied and fascinated by the issue of modernnihilism which he sees, following Nietzsche, as the the essense of modern man society.Urbančič has also written several works on the history of philosophy in the
Slovene Lands .Selected works
*"Evropski nihilizem" ("The European Nihilism". Ljubljana, 1971);
*"Leninova "filozofija" ("Lenin's "Philosophy"". Maribor, 1971);
*"Vprašanje umetnosti in estetike na prelomu sodobne epohe: estetska in filozofska misel Dušana Pirjevca" ("The Question of Art and Esthetics at the Turning Point of Our Epoch: the Ethetic and Philosophic Thought of Dušan Pirjevec". Ljubljana: 1980);
*"Uvod v vprašanje naroda" ("Introduction on the Question of Nation". Maribor, 1981);
*"Neosholastika na Slovenskem" ("Neoscholasticism in the Slovene Lands". Ljubljana, 1983);
*"Zaratustrovo izročilo I & II" ("Zarathursta's Legacy I & II". Ljubljana, 1993 & 1996);
*"Moč in oblast" ("Power and Authority". Ljubljana, 2000);
*"Nevarnost biti" ("The Danger of Being". Ljubljana, 2003).References
* [http://www.slovenskapomlad.si/2?id=36&highlight=urbančič Ivan Urbančič: webportal Slovenska pomlad]
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