Professor PhD Carmen Cozma
Carmen Cozma studied music at “Octav Băncilă” College of Arts, and philosophy at „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Romania. She is a PhD Professor of Ethics and Phenomenology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social-Political Sciences, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, performing various activities of teaching, research, lecturing (in Romania and also in Japan, Poland, Republic of Moldova, USA), scientific advising for a doctor's degree in philosophy, attending many international congresses and conferences (held in Argentina, Belgium, China, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Moldova, Serbia, Sweden, The Netherlands, Turkey, UK, USA).
Her main research interests are focusing on moral philosophy, applied and professional ethics, phenomenology of life, phenomenology of arts, philosophical counseling, pedagogy, and music education. She is the author of philosophical books including Meloethics: A Semiotic Essay on Moral Values of the Artistic Musical Creation (1996); Ethos of Music Art: Essays in Moral Philosophy (2000; 2nd reviewed and augmented edition 2007); Introduction to Aretelogy: A Short Treatise of Ethics (2001; 2nd edition 2004); On Ethical in the Phenomenology of Life (2007); Lucian Blaga: El filosofar “Bajo el signo del misterio”. Con un estudio sobre la “fusión de los horizontes”: Lucian Blaga y Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (2015). She has published many articles and essays in academic journals and volumes, edited by Aracne Editrice, ATINER, Circulo de Fenomenología y Hermenéutica, Edizioni Universitarie Romane, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Peter Lang, Poietiké, Springer, etc.
In 1996, Cozma coined the concept of meloethics: a holistic dynamic philosophical and musical notion. It is a metaphorical “returning to primary roots” of moral beauty through chant, proving a fruitful hermeneutical role within a phenomenology of art music. “To substantiate her new concept, the meloethics, Carmen Cozma calls on a phenomenological hermeneutics able to satisfy the need to think and understand the essence of music related to ethics” (Ion Gagim, Music and Philosophy, Știința Press, Chișinău, 2009, pp. 116-127).
A particular contribution of Cozma's publications is to emphasize the great valences of ethics as an „aretelogical approach”, for a better understanding of moral philosophy and applied ethics in its different articulations - see for example Introduction to Aretelogy: A Short Treatise of Ethics, Iași, 2001; On the Ethical in the Phenomenology of Life, Rome, 2007. The latter reveals one of the central research interests of the author, namely the “ontopoietic” phenomenology of the “logos of life” established by A.-T. Tymieniecka; in this regard, “the book On the Ethical in the Phenomenology of Life, by the Romanian philosopher Carmen Cozma, is indisputably original on two accounts: it is the first book-length treatment in English of the philosophy of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, and it is the first work in English to extend the ethical implications of Tymieniecka's grand project of a phenomenology of life” (Thomas Ryba, “The Aretological Challenge”, Phenomenological Inquiry, Volume 32, 2008, pp. 173-182).
The deep affinity with phenomenology of life is a kind of red line within the commentary on the metaphysics of mystery elaborated by Lucian Blaga; especially, concerning the infinite power of creative imagination that makes Carmen Cozma “to articulate and develop a trajectory of fusion of the cultural horizons between two creators of anthropological and cosmological visions, actually two masters of the metaphysical logos” (Gloria Vergara, “Lucien Blaga y la filosofía del misterio”, Interpretextos, Volume 18, 2017, pp. 201-204).
At the same time, Cozma is a promoter of thematizing the ethical counseling, which is tackled by its in-depth moral meaning as the core dimension of philosophical counseling. She has delivered lectures on this topic in Athens (January 2017), Tokyo (September 2017), Beijing (August 2018), and Iași (October 2019).
Carmen Cozma is editor-in-chief of Agathos: An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences. She is a member of the World Phenomenology Institute (Bridgewater MA, USA); Asia Association for Global Studies (Tokyo, Japan); International Society of Phenomenology of Religion (Rome, Italy); Athens Institute for Education and Research (Athens, Greece). She is a member of the scientific board of book series and journals (published in Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Republic of Moldova, and Romania).