152 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:1 JANUARY 1996 knowing." Absolute knowing is "the human community's coming to a reflective nonmetaphysical understanding of what it must take as authoritative grounds for belief and action..." . Since this involves us in a continuous dialectic, dialectic "does not end in absolute knowing; it begins the task of renewing itself" . From Hegel we get "a new paradigm for philosophy..." . The final chapter offers an account of the Philosophy of Right, and (...) takes up the question of the nature of the institutionalized structure of our modern social space. This account focuses on the ambiguity of "rights" and of "autonomy" and the conflicts that these ambiguities foster. Pinkard offers a penetrating and useful analysis of our modern social and political existence. Pinkard's treatment of the relativist questions arising from such a historicist posi- tion deserves our attention. The book also offers a very clear statement of a "nonmetaphysicar' perspective on Hegel. Finally, if Hegelian philosophy is "open" as Pinkard argues, then the relevance of Hegel for our present human condition is unquestionable; for we have our own social space to examine, a social space that has developed since Hegel. The dialectic, as Pinkard understands it to work -- that is, very differently from the mystified, metaphysicalized, dogmatic understanding the text- book versions have given us -- is our most powerful tool in coming to.. (shrink)

This fascinating study offers a complete interpretation of the philosophies of both Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. It finds in Nietzsche's philosophy an expression of the scepticism and relativism of the modern world to which he gave the name «nihilism.» If Nietzsche's conclusion that «there is no truth» poses the basic problematic of modernity, Professor Martin understands Wittgenstein's philosophy as addressing, in a radically new way, the overcoming of this nihilism. Martin offers a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's life work as focusing on (...) «the groundlessness of the human situation» and as restoring «truth» to its legitimate place within the conventions of language. The final chapter explores the spiritual implications for modern man of seeing clearly «the limits» of human language. (shrink)

152 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:1 JANUARY 1996 knowing." Absolute knowing is "the human community's coming to a reflective nonmetaphysical understanding of what it must take as authoritative grounds for belief and action...". Since this involves us in a continuous dialectic, dialectic "does not end in absolute knowing; it begins the task of renewing itself". From Hegel we get "a new paradigm for philosophy...". The final chapter offers an account of the Philosophy of Right, and takes up the (...) question of the nature of the institutionalized structure of our modern social space. This account focuses on the ambiguity of "rights" and of "autonomy" and the conflicts that these ambiguities foster. Pinkard offers a penetrating and useful analysis of our modern social and political existence. Pinkard's treatment of the relativist questions arising from such a historicist posi- tion deserves our attention. The book also offers a very clear statement of a "nonmetaphysicar' perspective on Hegel. Finally, if Hegelian philosophy is "open" as Pinkard argues, then the relevance of Hegel for our present human condition is unquestionable; for we have our own social space to examine, a social space that has developed since Hegel. The dialectic, as Pinkard understands it to work -- that is, very differently from the mystified, metaphysicalized, dogmatic understanding the text- book versions have given us -- is our most powerful tool in coming to... (shrink)

Nishitani was a Japanese student attending Heidegger's Freiburg lectures on Nietzsche's nihilism in the late 1930s. As a young thinker he absorbed western philosophy and literature, focusing especially on the growing tide of nineteenth- and twentieth-century voices expressing the collapse of traditional Western values and the advent of nihilism. Recognizing that the phenomenon of nihilism encompasses our human situation in a way that transcends any particular cultural tradition, the self-overcoming of nihilism became fundamental to his lifetime philosophical project. A progressively (...) deepening understanding of the role of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition in comprehending the possibility of a breakthrough beyond nihilism culminated in the 1961 publication of what may be Nishitani's magnum opus: Religion and Nothingness. (shrink)