European Philosophy

In 1930, the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) wrote one of his most well-known novels, San Manuel Bueno, mártir [Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr]. The novel is about the fictional character Manuel Bueno, a catholic priest from a small Spanish village who, despite being unable to believe the Christian claim that there is an after earthly death life, devotes himself to the spiritual care of his people, being thereby sanctified after his death. The aim of this paper is to show (...) that the guideline of San Manuel Bueno, mártir is the expression, in fictional, non-philosophical language, of the conception of religious faith Unamuno had already defended in his major philosophical work, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y los pueblos [The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations]. (shrink)

John McDowell’s Mind and World takes us on a philosophical journey leading from the concept of experience to the concept of tradition. It also traces a conceptual path from a Kantian to a Gadamerian problematic. In this paper, it is argued that a final step is missing in order to complete the conceptual arc of Mind and World and make the book come full circle: The Kantian conception of experience articulated on the first pages of of the book needs to (...) be integrated into the hermeneutic framework articulated on its last pages, transforming it into a more encompassing, fully hermeneutic conception. This can be achieved, I contend, by drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s conception of experience in Truth and Method. I show that Gadamer’s conception of “dialectical experience” conceives of experience as an event, a process unfolding in time, and as inextricably intertwined with the notions of tradition and critique. Explaining this conception, I claim that it gives us reason to revise McDowell’s Kantian conception of experience as „openness to the world“ in an important respect: We should not understand openness to the world as unproblematically and transcendentally given, but as an inherently self-critical event unfolding in time, too. (shrink)

This short interview explores the influence of Evald Ilyenkov’s work on contemporary philosopher, art theorist, and writer Keti Chukhrov. The interview focuses on Evald Ilyenkov’s contributions to Soviet culture, dialectics, and epistemology. She reflects on the distinct intellectual milieu of Soviet thinkers like Ilyenkov, Vygotsky, Davidov, and Lifshitz, who established connections between Marx and the broader world culture. The interview also addresses Žižek’s interpretation of Ilyenkov’s cosmology, emphasizing the ethical dimension of Ilyenkov’s communist spirit. Furthermore, Chukhrov touches on Ilyenkov’s critique (...) of cybernetics and its relevance in contemporary discussions about AI and philosophy. (shrink)

This article deals with the theme of subjectivity. One of the most pressing questions today is what theoretical and practical efforts should be made to avoid being a powerless tool in the hands of others and under what conditions one’s own “subjective opinion” becomes the real, reliable fulcrum as far as purposeful activity, free and reasonable goal-setting are concerned. The desire to derive subjectivity from individual, singular existence today forces a thinker as prominent as Slavoj Žižek to search for its (...) form as “purified from” ideological layers and the contingencies of life. In his search for such a form, he turns to the psychoanalytic tradition, to the work of Jacques Lacan and his attempts to formalize the structures of subjectivity in isolation from the universality that generates them as necessity. This abstract consideration of subjectivity leads him to recognize subjectivity as a “distorting factor” in view of the insurmountable rupture between being and thinking. Evald Ilyenkov takes a different approach to the question of active self-determination. He conceives of personality as universal—the traits of a person are formed in the course of interaction between individuals in the process of producing the means of life. The individual becomes a personality or an acting subject, appropriating the generic powers of humanity, while being included in a system that implies a human relationship to the thing and, through it, to another individual. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es explorar la manera en que Joaquim Xirau y Miguel de Unamuno concibieron el amor. A pesar de que no hay motivos suficientes para concluir una influencia directa y filosóficamente relevante de Unamuno en la obra de Xirau, sí podemos concluir que la forma en que ambos autores concibieron el amor guarda ciertas similitudes. Así, ambos coinciden en concebir la entrega amorosa como un ejercicio de afirmación individual que trae consigo un incremento de la propia (...) singularidad. También, tanto Unamuno como Xirau conciben la entrega amorosa como un acto que, aun surgiendo del propio individuo y no de como es de hecho el mundo, personifica aquello amado, dejando de ser así visto como un mero objeto y mostrándose bajo una forma personal. Y ambos, aunque de un modo distinto, hacen del relato bíblico acerca de la vida y Resurrección de Cristo un aspecto central de sus maneras de entender el amor. (shrink)

[174 pages] This third book in the series 霍耐特选集 [Selected Works of Axel Honneth] is a Chinese translation of Axel Honneth’s and Jacques Rancière’s Anerkennung oder Unvernehmen? Eine Debatte directly from the German.

El objetivo de este artículo es clarificar la noción de «vida auténtica» tal y como es descrita por Joan Roura-Parella en su última obra Tema y variaciones de la personalidad (1950). Por «vida auténtica» se entiende una vida autogobernada, que permite al individuo realizar su propia singularidad y, por tanto, preservar su autonomía y dignidad como persona. Una vida dominada por factores ajenos al propio individuo, sean cuales sean éstos, es una vida alienada, que no permite el desarrollo del individuo (...) en tanto la persona que es. Se señala la relevancia filosófica de la propuesta de Roura-Parella, que es la de ofrecer una justificación no-evidencial para una forma de vida cristiana, agapística. De acuerdo con Roura-Parella, una forma de vida basada en la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo está justificada en tanto que ésta es el resultado último de nuestra propia condición natural, constituyendo así un acto de afirmación personal y siendo, por tanto, condición necesaria para gozar de una vida auténtica — «la vida alcanza su hondo sentido al salirse de sí misma para darse a los demás» (Roura-Parella, Tema y variaciones de la personalidad, 1950, p. 229). Se señalan las diferencias y semejanzas de la propuesta de Roura-Parella con respecto a las de Miguel de Unamuno y Joaquim Xirau, autores que fueron cercanos a Roura-Parella y quienes, aunque partiendo de razonamientos distintos a los de Roura-Parella, también concibieron la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo como un acto de afirmación personal. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es clarificar la noción de «vida auténtica» tal y como es descrita por Joan Roura-Parella en su última obra Tema y variaciones de la personalidad (1950). Por «vida auténtica» se entiende una vida autogobernada, que permite al individuo realizar su propia singularidad y, por tanto, preservar su autonomía y dignidad como persona. Una vida dominada por factores ajenos al propio individuo, sean cuales sean éstos, es una vida alienada, que no permite el desarrollo del individuo (...) en tanto la persona que es. Se señala la relevancia filosófica de la propuesta de Roura-Parella, que es la de ofrecer una justificación no-evidencial para una forma de vida cristiana, agapística. De acuerdo con Roura-Parella, una forma de vida basada en la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo está justificada en tanto que ésta es el resultado último de nuestra propia condición natural, constituyendo así un acto de afirmación personal y siendo, por tanto, condición necesaria para gozar de una vida auténtica — «la vida alcanza su hondo sentido al salirse de sí misma para darse a los demás» (Roura-Parella, Tema y variaciones de la personalidad, 1950, p. 229). Se señalan las diferencias y semejanzas de la propuesta de Roura-Parella con respecto a las de Miguel de Unamuno y Joaquim Xirau, autores que fueron cercanos a Roura-Parella y quienes, aunque partiendo de razonamientos distintos a los de Roura-Parella, también concibieron la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo como un acto de afirmación personal. (shrink)

The present article is an attempt at a closer reading of Ivan Ilyin’s relationship to fascism. This is explored primarily through a selection of articles in which Ilyin wrote in positive terms of Italian fascism, and in one case also of German National Socialism. The author of this article first presents a summary of relevant historical and biographical information, revealing that although Ilyin praised fascism in his articles, his personal experience of German Nazism was negative. This is followed by an (...) examination of Ilyin’s own concept of fascism, concluding that it in fact derived from his understanding of the Russian White Movement. The examination focuses on three selected aspects, key notions for both fascism and Ilyin’s philosophy: the principle of the leader, the idea of the elite and the notion of chivalry, and nationalism and anti-Semitism. This analysis demonstrates that Ilyin drew upon idealized versions of these concepts, as integral parts of his projected utopian vision of a future Russia. (shrink)

This paper focuses on what can be said to be the definitive features of the approach to theology by three Russian theologians: Fathers Sergii Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky as well as the Venerable Father Sophrony Sakharov. The article argues that the following common themes characterize the nature of their theology. First, personalism, in other words, the use of the term “person”, which they extensively applied to both God and human and angelic beings. The concept of person is indispensable in the (...) thought of all three theologians. The second common theme is how the authors understood the relationship between theology and experience and what is the significance of religious experience for philosophical theology. Finally, all three theologians agree that when theological truths are expressed in human language the problem of interpretation consequently arises. However, they answer in different ways the question of the number and status of possible theological languages. I conclude that it is St. Sophrony Sakharov who in his life and theology realized Florovsky’s famous call for a neo-patristic synthesis. (shrink)

In seiner „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ unterscheidet Immanuel Kant zwischen rationaler und historischer philosophischer Erkenntnis. Erkenntnis ist historisch, wenn man sich nach fremder Vernunft bildet, und rational, wenn man Erkenntnisse aus eigener Vernunft schöpft. Dazwischen liegt die historisch-rationale philosophische Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Beiträge in diesem Band machen sich alle drei Perspektiven zunutze. Unter den behandelten Themen sind formale Logik, das ‚Transzendentale‘, der Begriff des Begriffs, Begriffsanalyse und Sprachanalyse, Vernunft, Biomimetik, Idealismus, logische Analyse formaler und realer Gegenstände, Asylrecht und Umweltethik. (...) Im Fokus stehen dabei Überlegungen zur Aktualität, Zukunftsrelevanz und zu Weiterentwicklungsmöglichkeiten der Theorien von Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling und Hegel. (shrink)

Livros -- Opúsculos, ensaios prefaciais e artigos -- Agostiniana -- Palavras posfaciais, cronologia, Onomástica.

This essay highlights a methodological weakness in Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism often mistaken for a biographical shift in his philosophy. Naissance de la biopolitique is sometimes interpreted as evidence for Foucault’s conversion to neoliberalism, whereas its lack of critical acuity stems rather from its methodological limitations. Through a discussion of the “neoliberal conversion”-thesis, I highlight those limitations. Though Foucault’s appreciative tone in his neoliberalism lectures is surprising, his aim is mainly to defamiliarize readers from the dominant mode of neoliberal rationality (...) so that they can affirm the creative potential to foster new conducts, new identities, and new rationalities. Foucault did not convert to neoliberalism, but sought to destabilise it by revealing its historical contingency. However, as Foucault’s surprisingly positive tone shows, this strategy is insufficient for combatting neoliberalism. There is an elective affinity between Foucault’s own politics of creative self-reinvention and neoliberalism’s promise of a non-invasive, post-disciplinary government by indirect economic incentives alone. Foucault’s libertine stance toward subjectivity hence seems easily integrated into a neoliberal conduct of conducts. I propose to supplement Foucault’s genealogical method as he deploys it in Naissance de la biopolitique with an immanent critique of neoliberalism from the perspective of the governed. Rather than investigating neoliberal rationality as a promising endeavour for the future, we can study the real-life implementations of neoliberalism and their effects on subjective conducts. Neoliberal rationality is involved in a permanent struggle to shape the conduct of conducts along entrepreneurial and competitive lines, but subjects are refractory living beings whose conducts are not so simply transformed. Neoliberalism has had to give up its post-disciplinary aspirations and turn to the power of discipline and abandonment to enforce neoliberal norms of conduct. Neoliberalism has transformed into a negative biopolitics that sacrifices the lives of unproductive subjects as collateral damage to the overall welfare of the population. Immanent critique thereby reveals how subjects are pushed beyond their limits until neoliberal norms of conduct become unbearable. This intolerability of neoliberalism cannot be directly deduced from the writings of Becker, Friedman, or Hayek.111 It becomes manifest in the confrontation between neoliberal rationality and the material living bodies of finite human beings unable to be stretched in the ways neoliberalism requires. (shrink)

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the significance of the 'joinings' [Fugen] in Martin Heidegger's 'Contributions to Philosophy (from the Event)'.

"In Balanuye's work the reader finds effective insights into the nature of the overblown tailless monkey politely called the human race. The fragments sometimes enunciated as a chastising bolt, but mostly as a comedic nudge. And with each we have to sit up and listen - and think. That is what we deserve, do we not?" - Hüseyin İçen, Turkish translator of The Picture of Dorian Gray "An admirably collage-like and astringent contribution to the tradition, which reaches back at least (...) to Heraclitus, of aphorism and epigram." - David Shields, Author of Reality Hunger Philosophers are generally expected to engage in the three pursuits together and meticulously for a sufficient amount of time: reading, thinking, and arguing for or against by writing or speaking. According to this approach, it is possible for everyone to practice a philosophical life. Because the said approach does not allow an "all or nothing" type of rigidity; some may be more involved in this pursuit, some less. In any case, there is a difference of degree rather than a difference of type. It should be kept in mind that in the definition put forward, reading, thinking and discussion are nonetheless necessary but not sufficient elements to be an original philosopher. Allocating a serious place to all three elements in her life does not guarantee an original philosopher. Authenticity is a gem we still don't know enough about. The book in your hand consists of fragments, the shortest of which is a sentence and the longest of which is a few paragraphs. I wanted these fragments to invoke longer readings, reflection practices, and perhaps discussions, triggered by shorter readings. CONTENTS A BITE TO REPLACE THE PROLOGUE CHAPTER I: REALITY CHAPTER II: ENCOUNTERS CHAPTER III: CONTEXT ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Balanuye is a Turkish continental European philosopher and academic. His book Where Does Spinoza's Joy Come From? [published in Turkish only] went through numerous editions and contributed to the adoption of Spinoza's teaching by outside readers as well as philosophers in Turkey. He currently teaches at the Department of Philosophy at Akdeniz University. (shrink)

Andrew Shanks brings together a grand narrative of theology and continental philosophy to argue that the 'solidarity of the shaken' is the kingdom of God in secular dress. Using Jan Patocka's concept of the 'solidarity of the shaken', he explores mystical theology, gnosticism and ethical phenomenology through a set of key 19th- and 20th-century thinkers that exemplified the 'pathos of shakenness'.

The Heart of the Matter explores the legacies of Ilyenkov and Vygotsky, two Russian thinkers who marshalled their passion for truth, enlightenment and independent thought to understand the human mind, not just for the sake of knowledge alone, but to help create the conditions in which human flourishing can become a reality for all. The book renders their theories intelligible against the dramatic social and historical background in which they lived and worked, bringing their ideas into dialogue with themes and (...) thinkers in Western philosophy to reveal how they illuminate philosophical issues of enduring significance. (shrink)

Tri filosofskikh "opravdanii︠a︡" (teodit︠s︡ei︠a︡, antropodit︠s︡ei︠a︡, kosmodit︠s︡ei︠a︡ Serebri︠a︡nogo veka) -- Russkai︠a︡ sofiologii︠a︡ i kabbala -- S. Bulgakov : nauka sofiologii︠a︡ (ili konet︠s︡ religii) -- Tretiĭ Zavet o. Sergii︠a︡ Bulgakova -- Tretʹezavetnai︠a︡ misterii︠a︡ ("malai︠a︡" trilogii︠a︡ Bulgakova).

Ce dialogue à deux voix s'interroge sur le concept de réification, partant de la critique de la société bourgeoise et capitaliste proposée par le jeune Lukács dans son fameux essai La réification et la conscience de classe, pour se diriger par la suite vers une analyse minutieuse de la critique radicale de la réification et du fétichisme de la marchandise, articulée par Guy Debord dans La Société du Spectacle. Dans un troisième moment, la discussion théorique et philosophique s'intéresse à la (...) façon avec laquelle l'être social réifié et aliéné de la société capitaliste laisse ses traces dans la pensée philosophique moderne, à partir au moins du 18ème siècle. Autrement dit, on s'est donné comme tâche de mettre en lumière les antinomies de la pensée bourgeoise et ses rapports complexes aussi bien que profonds avec la société bourgeoise"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Как сегодня говорить о единстве мира? Возможно ли охватить мыслью все многообразие разбегающихся в разные стороны концепций и культур? Современный отказ от господства тождества означает ли обязательно утверждение только различия? Как можно мыслить в постнеклассическую эпоху? Об этом и многом другом в книге Василия Юрьевича Кузнецова, кандидата философских наук, доцента кафедры онтологии и теории познания философского факультета МГУ. Для специалистов в области философии, аспирантов и студентов, а также всех интересующихся современной мыслью.

This is a brief guide to learn about our environment, from front-page news to controversial topics such as euthanasia and surrogate motherhood, and other more thorny ones such as death, life, love or grief. Everything you will find in these pages, written by the professor of Ethics and Philosophy, focuses on a single maxim: learning to live in harmony with oneself and the environment, avoiding empty speculation and empty talk, something that can only be achieved if we learn to think (...) for ourselves. "Everyday life is complicated because we have divinized the means and impoverished the ends. We should love ourselves more and contemplate others as companions on the same journey, distancing ourselves from the deified power and imbecility that surrounds us," summarizes the philosopher, pointing out the lack of critical judgment and common sense that lead us to be permanently mediatized and deceived. (shrink)