Rahid Ulusel

Rahid Ulusel (official: Rahid Suleyman Khalilov) – An Azerbaijani philosopher, cultural and literary theorist, essayist, critic. Doctor of Philosophy in Science, Professor

Biography and activity
Rahid Ulusel (Ulusel – author’s pen-name) was born on August 13, 1954 in Kelbahuseynli village (former – Qaladibi) of Masalli district of the Republic of Azerbaijan. He has studied at the Faculty of Philology of Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University (ASPU) and graduated with honors from ASPU in 1975. From 1975 to 2001 he has worked as a teacher, vice-governor for the humanitarian issues at the Executive Power of Masalli district, and editor-in-chief of “New Newspaper”. He received his Ph.D. from the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) in 1986 and Doctor of Philosophy in Science from the Baku State University in 2007. He has been awarded the Medal of the Ministry of Education of former USSR in1990 for the project of “Metasystem of the Humanities”. Since 2002 he has been is senior research scholar at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) and Azerbaijan Ataturk Center. From 2005 to 2007 he has lectured on the philosophy and cultural studies at the Western University. In 2005 he founded the Association of Global and Civilizational Studies (AGCS). As a first research organization in Azerbaijan and all the South Caucasus AGCS under his presidency was admitted to the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP) in 2011.

Rahid Ulusel has become a member of the former USSR Union of Writers (now Union of Azerbaijani Writers) since 1989. He is a member of the Dissertation Council at Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Law of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) since 2009, a vice-president from Asia of the Biocosmological Association, and a member of Organizing Committee of the Biocosmological Association (Russia) since 2010. He has participated at the XXII World Congress of Philosophy (Seoul, Korea, 2008), the VIII World Congress (Stockholm, Sweden, 2010), the II International Conference for academic disciplines (USA, Harvard University, 2011), and other prestigious international conferences. He has implemented the project “The Integration of Azerbaijan into the World Community: The Silk Way of Cultures” granted by the Council of State Support to NGOs under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and published the book series in the extent of this project. He has published more than 200 articles and 17 books, including monographs.

Main ideas, paradigms and conceptions
Professor Rahid Ulusel has given systematic analysis of the harmony philosophy. According to harmony philosophy, the three interconnected laws of dialectics by Hegel, i.e. the laws of quantity changes to quality, opposites interpenetrate, negation of the negation, function separately and interacting with each other, as a component of the world’s law of the harmony. Universal connections of being, that interactively accomplishing the internal interconnection of systems and subsystems are synergized on stages, phases and processes of the harmony of space, time and movement. On the base of the harmony law: (1) being transforms into the world-system, (2) movement transforms into dynamics, (3) time transforms into history, (4) antroposhere is generated as biospheric phase, (5) psycologos is generated as a phase of cosmologos, (6) culture is generated as a phase of the nature. Thus, the first greater mega-phase: Being – World – Creation of the Human, transforming homocivilization into the important evolution act of planetary life, gets completed from mega-phases, supplementing each other and creates conditions for transition to a new phase. The harmony philosophy (the Harmonics) represents a new concept of global self-organization of the world, as a self-ruling system based upon the criteria and principles of the harmony. The idea of realization of global unity of the world comprises the foundation of the harmonic philosophical weltanschauung. The basic concept-purpose of the harmony philosophy is to prioritize harmony-generating beginning in human activity and social life.

The philosophical thought acquires its integrity in the triad of Dialectics – Synergetics –Harmonics (the last term is used here as a philosophical category and not in terms of the musical harmony theory). Global problems of the modern world also receive optimal opportunities for study by means of methodology of this triad, which is systematized into the harmonics.

The structural, causal, synergetic, symmetric, chaotic, functional, differential, integral, temporal, spatial, static and dynamical harmonies are the main forms of manifestation of harmony. Harmonia progressio, conditioned by harmonia praestabilita, harmonia modificatio and harmonia modulation (dynamic attributes of the harmony) is Logos of the world development.

Universal principles of the harmony are the principles of unity in variety, coordination, logos, dichotomy, co-evolution, projection, “golden section”, criteria harmonias, regulation, consensus, convergence, divergence, concentration and a “mirror” principle, which are closely inter-conditioned with each other intercondition each other. Enrichment process of self-creation of the Universe continues every time and at space interval of its life on the base of these principles of the harmony.

Professor Rahid Ulusel determines the principles of diasynchrony of planetary development, the dialectics of space-expansion and time-intensity; reveales historical genesis of global structuralization – the formation of Eastern and Western geopolitical and civilizational blocs and the motives of this planetary dichotomy; puts forward the conception of “homouniversalism” as an alternative to “globalization”, a philosophical paradigm for the world development towards global civilization; investigates the formational process of megasocium (homouniversum) – in which mankind cognizes his planetary unity; formulated the theoretical foundations of civilizatiology (theory of  civilization studies) as a new branch in the system of the humanities; correlates the Eastern one-dimensional monological thinking model with the Western multi-dimensional dialogical thinking. At the same time, he systematically investigates the dynamics of Turkic civilization, the phenomenon of Azerbaijani philosophical poetry, the theoretical and methodological problems of the contemporary Azerbaijani criticism; creates the examples of comparative essayistics (“Imadeddin Nasimi and Nicolaus Cusanus”, “Muhammad Fuzuli and Michelangelo Buonarroti”, “The Prophet”s of Huseyn Javid and Gibran Khalil Gibran”).

In his polemical writings, Rahid Ulusel substantiates the position that, globalization is not unipolarization. All-round development opportunities of other states, even allies, across the globe are limited or reduced for the hegemony of one state and for the dominance of one civilization in a unipolar-pyramidal construction of the world. The strategy of global or planetary civilization does not accept a deformative unipolar world’s governance construction, which has a crack between its “center” and “peripheries” and concentrates the energy of “the peripheries” into “the center” in such contradictoriness. As there is no factor of attractive integration around international interest in this distorted tendency of globalization not organic world system, which is formed by the harmony of independent subjects, but artificial constructuralization of an amorphous world happens. Neither defeaters nor winners are in need of the amorphous world. Homouniversalism cannot be created upon the construction of the amorphous world, which subjects the humanity to systematic crises and to a lack of system and control. Harmonic foundation-building of the world system, maintenance of a turning strategy of the world from unbalanced into balanced development, formation of world order on the basis of convergent idea on the world unity of nation-states, the leading way of integral globalization contrary to pyramidal globalization are the principal conditions of its progress.

Selected works

 * Contemporary Azerbaijani Philosophical Lyrics (in Russian). Baku: Science Press, 1985.
 * National Self-Understanding and Geostrategy in the Age of Globalization (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Azerbaijan National Encyclopedia, 2002. ISBN 5-89600-370-6
 * The US-Turkey-Azerbaijan Relationship and the Russian Philosophical and Political Approaches to It in the Age of Globalization. (in Turkish) // 2023 Futurological Journal, Ankara, 2003, December.
 * The Silk Way of Cultures (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Education Press, 2003.
 * Culture and Technocivilization (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Azerbaijan National Encyclopedia, 2003. ISBN 5-896000-372-2
 * Globalization and the Philosophy of Harmony (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Science Press, 2005. ISBN 5-8066-1661-4
 * Globalization and Turkic Civilization (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Chashioglu Press, 2005. ISBN 5-8066-1661-4
 * The Philosophy of Harmony in the Cultures of Islamic East and  Western Renaissance // The Problems of Eastern Philosophy (in Russian), 2005-2006, № 1-2
 * Civilizatiology as a New Scientific Field // Azerbaijan in the World, 2006, № 1
 * The Universe is the Cell, the Cell is the Universe (Aphorisms, dictums, maxims, gnomes and quips). (In Azerbaijani). Baku: Europe Press, 2008. ISBN 5-86106-117-3
 * Paradigmal Rethinking of World Development towards Global Civilization. //
 * The XXII World Congress of Philosophy, Seoul National University, 2008
 * Homouniversalism // Third Global Civilization World Congress (Web Conference) (in English and Chinese). http://www.opgc.net/cn/3rd/3rd_World_read2.htm
 * The Turks in the Civilizational Evolution of Eurasia // Problems of Art and Culture. International Scientific Journal, Baku, 2009, №4 (30). ISBN 978-9952-445-12-1
 * Essayistics (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Europe Press, 2009. ISBN 8032-9952-8032-3-5
 * Contemporary Azerbaijani Criticism (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Science Press, 2009. ISBN 978-9952-453-17-1
 * Rhythms of Life and Thought (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Chashioglu Press, 2009. ISBN 978-9952-27-141-6
 * Philosophy and Poetry: Their Synthesis in the Classics of World and Azerbaijan (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Yazichi Press, 1987 (first edition); Baku: Letterpress, 2010 (second completed edition).
 * The International Relations of Azerbaijan: from Politics to Culture (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Ideal-Print, 2010. ISBN 978-9952-447-057
 * Homouniversalism as an Integral Idea of the Multicivilizational World // International Journal of Arts and Sciences (IJAS), 2011, Vol. 4, No.23, ISSN: 1944-6934
 * Globalization and the Philosophical and Aesthetical Problems of the Contemporary
 * Literature (in Azerbaijani). Baku: Qoliaf Group Press, 2012. ISBN 978-9952-455-10-2

Translations

 * Classics. (Selected Translations from François de La Rochefoucauld, Blaise Pascal, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ralf Waldo Emerson, Rabindranath Taqore, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Cemil Meriç, Andrei Platonov). Baku: Europe Press, 2008. ISBN 8032-9952-8032-3-5
 * We and the World (Selected Translations from of the World Classics). Baku: Sabah Press, 2009. ISBN 5-806106-041-X
 * Yuri Borev. Aesthetics. Baku: Education Press, 2010