Thesis on metaphysics featuring Galen Strawson and Noam Chomsky. I discuss Strawsons' Materialism, panpsychism and the topic of reference. I compare Strawson's view with Chomsky's in relation to panpsychism, the nature of reference and the limits of human understanding by reviewing important historical events in the history of philosophy. I also cover some aspects of neuroscience to see if empirical evidence in any way contradicts the claims made by Strawson and Chomsky. I conclude by recasting the questions of metaphysics under (...) an epistemological framework. (shrink)

Se realiza la investigación con el objetivo de perfeccionar la obtención del consentimiento informado en las amputaciones mayores de causa vascular en el Servicio de Angiología del Hospital Universitario Manuel Ascunce Domenech. Se constató debilidades en la institucionalización del consentimiento informado y específicamente en el caso de tales amputaciones. Se utilizaron métodos y técnicas del nivel empírico: encuestas a 30 pacientes con riesgo inminente de amputación. El 64% eran mayores de 65 años, 73 % femeninos, todos escolarizados y 73% (...) residentes urbanos. Los resultados más relevantes fueron: que el 54% de los pacientes manifestaron debe existir consentimiento en la aceptación de la amputación, aunque un grupo no despreciable el 37% declinó este derecho a favor de sus familiares. A los médicos se les realizó una entrevista y aunque no hubo unanimidad de criterios, todos coincidieron en que debía legislarse este consentimiento, como parte del perfeccionamiento de los servicios de salud. Research is conducted to improve the process of obtaining informed consent for major amputations due to vascular causes in the Angiology Service of the Manuel Ascunce Domenech Teaching Hospital. Deficiencies were identified in the institutionalization of informed consent protocols, most specifically as they relate to major lower limb amputations. Empirical methods and techniques were used. Thirty patients at imminent risk of amputation were surveyed by questionnaire methods; 64% of those surveyed were of 65 years of age, 73% were female, all of them had an average educational level, and 73% were urban residents. The results indicated that 54% of patients recognized the importance of informed consent in cases of amputation, although a rather considerable group declined this right for their families. Physicians were also interviewed and, although there was no unanimity of criteria, all of them considered that this consent should be legislated as part of the improvement of health services. (shrink)

Why are we still intrigued by Nietzsche? This chapter argues that sustained interest stems from Nietzsche’s challenge to what we might call the ‘staticism’ inherent in our ordinary experience. Staticism can be defined, roughly speaking, as the view that the world is a collection of enduring, re-identifiable objects that change only very gradually and according to determinate laws. The chapter discusses Nietzsche’s rejection of remnants of staticism in Hegel and Schopenhauer (1). It outlines why Nietzsche deems belief in any variant (...) of the staticist picture as problematic (2); and examines his adualistic-dialetheic stance towards, for example, first-person and third-person descriptions in the philosophy of mind (3). The chapter closes with a discussion of the contributions of "Nietzsche on Time and History". (shrink)

The paper gives an overview of primate research and the economic-ethical 'lessons' we can derive from it. In particular, it examines the complex, multi-faceted and partially conflicting nature of (non-) human primates. Our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, apparently walk on two legs: a selfish and a groupish leg. Given evolutionary continuity and gradualism between monkeys, apes and humans, human primates seem to be bipolar apes as well. They, too, tend to display a dual structure: there seems to (...) be a pro-social and a self-interested side to our species and a bipolar tension seems to exist between competition and cooperation respectively between self-interest and the common good. We are apparently at the same time Homines oeconomici and Homines culturali. Our inner ape tries to combine self-interested and common good motives. Based on de Waal's Russian doll model, the essay investigates the evolutionary origins of morality and 'eusociality'. With the help of selected case studies stemming from behavioural sciences/economics, the paper illustrates examples of empathy, altruism, reciprocal fairness, pro-social and other-regarding preferences, inequity aversion and altruistic punishment in (non-)human primates. Beside this selfless and groupish side, the paper also reflects on the self-interest and egoistic nature of (non-)human primates and the behavioural and cognitive differences between monkeys, apes and humans. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene el objetivo de argumentar cómo se manifiesta la generosidad en la vida y obra de José Martí. Muestra la necesidad e importancia de recurrir a sus obras para fortalecer este valor desde los escenarios familiares, escolares, comunitarios y sociales. Se concluyó que la generosidad constituye en la actualidad una tarea pedagógica de gran importancia y el legado martiano es una vía obligada a recorrer. This work has the objective of analyzing how the generosity in Marti's life and (...) work is expressed. It shows the need and importance of turning to his works to strengthen this value from the family, scholar, community and social scenes. It was concluded that generosity constitutes at the present time a pedagogical task of great importance and the Martian legate is an obligated way to travel. (shrink)

Presupposition, vagueness, and oddness can lead to some sentences failing to have a clear truth value. The homogeneity property of plural predication with definite descriptions may also create truth-value gaps: The books are written in Dutch is true if all relevant books are in Dutch, false if none of them are, and neither true nor false if, say, half of the books are written in Dutch. We study the projection property of homogeneity by deploying methods of general interest to identify (...) truth-value gaps. Method A consists in collecting both truth judgments and, independently, falsity judgments. The second method, employed in experiment series B and C, is based on one-shot ternary judgments: completely true vs. completely false vs. neither. After a calibration of these methods, we use them to demonstrate that homogeneity projects out of negation, the scope of universal sentences and the scope of non-monotonic quantifiers such as exactly two, to some extent. We assess our results in light of different theoretical approaches to homogeneity—approaches based on presuppositions, scalar implicatures, and something like supervaluations, respectively. We identify free parameters in these theories and assess various variants of them based on our results. Our experimental paradigms may be of broader significance insofar as they can be applied to other phenomena which result in the failure of a sentence to have a definite truth value. (shrink)

This paper discusses the logical space of alternative conceptual engineering projects, with a specific focus on (1) the processes, (2) the targets and goals, and (3) the methods of such projects. We present an overview of how these three aspects interact in the contemporary literature and discuss those alternative projects that have yet to be explored based on our suggested typology. We show how choices about each element in a conceptual engineering project constrain the possibilities for the others, thereby giving (...) rise to distinct groupings of possible projects under the banner of conceptual engineering. We conclude with a critical reflection on the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of effectively putting conceptual engineering into practice. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering means to provide a method to assess and improve our concepts working as cognitive devices. But conceptual engineering still lacks an account of what concepts are (as cognitive devices) and of what engineering is (in the case of cognition). And without such prior understanding of its subject matter, or so it is claimed here, conceptual engineering is bound to remain useless, merely operating as a piecemeal approach, with no overall grip on its target domain. The purpose of this (...) programmatic paper is to overcome this knowledge gap by providing some guidelines for developing the theories of concepts and of cognition that will ground the systematic unified framework needed to effectively implement conceptual engineering as a widely applicable method for the cognitive optimization of our conceptual devices. (shrink)

SummaryThe French Idea of History: Joseph de Maistre and His Heirs, 1794–1854 is a monograph by Carolina Armenteros describing the historical thought of Joseph de Maistre and recounting its posterity among French traditionalist, socialist and positivist thinkers. This article presents Armenteros's reflections on some of her book's themes and on the place they occupy in current scholarly debates. She notes that commentators today tend to assume politics' primacy over spirituality as a human motivator. A product of the de-spiritualisation (...) of human experience in late modernity, this view is associated with the polarisation of the concepts of tradition and Enlightenment, and with ideas of liberty and reason ill-adapted to interpreting Maistre's thought. Armenteros shows how her portrait of an anti-absolutist, empiricist and reasonable Maistre disappointed with kings and bent on resolving the problem of violence through spiritual means is the necessary consequence of investigating his historical and political thought in context. (shrink)

In the background to Ortega’s controversial relationship with some of the most prominent members of the Spanish Generation of '98, there is a gradual shift in Ortega’s original idealism towards a pragmatism. This move takes him from an original confrontation with Maeztu and Baroja to a later critical —even cryptic— acceptance of several of their philosophical theses. The 50th anniversary of the deaths of Ortega and Baroja is a good opporunity to begin an exploration of the question.

Rousseau, a philosopher of history? The suggestion may startle those who know him as an enemy of history, the founder of Counter-Enlightenment who rejected his century’s hope in progress and conjured quasi-utopias devoid of time. Alone, the political texts seem to justify this interpretation. Side by side with the Emile and Julie sagas, however, they disclose a new Rousseau, the weaver of a master plot that governs private and public history. This essay describes Jean-Jacques’ overarching narrative and the two main (...) subnarratives that compose it by juxtaposing his political and fictional works. In doing so, it contests current conventions about his ideas on women, challenges assumptions about his educational ideals, retrieves new aspects of his debt to Fénelon, and foregrounds the pivotal role that the idea of ‘true love’ plays in his philosophy as the foundation of political community. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. However, little has been written about how best to conceive of concepts for the purposes of conceptual engineering. In this paper, I aim to fill this foundational gap, proceeding in three main steps: First, I propose a methodological framework for evaluating the conduciveness of a given concept of concept for conceptual engineering. Then, I develop a typology that contrasts two competing concepts of concept that can be used in conceptual (...) engineering — namely, the philosophical and psychological ones. Finally, I evaluate these two concepts of concept using the proposed methodological framework and I show that, when it comes to making conceptual engineering an actionable method, the psychological concept of concept outclasses its philosophical counterpart on all counts. This provides a baseline from which the concept of concept can be further improved for the purposes of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Si observamos con detenimiento la realidad, veremos que no hay efecto sin fin, de modo que la subordinación de todos los agentes se lleva a cabo en función de los fines para los que están dispuestos, pues todo lo que se realiza, se realiza en vista de un fin. Sin embargo, el materialismo racionalista, empirista e idealista, sólo acepta que hay un bien útil o deleitable y rechaza el bien honesto y al negar la finalidad en la que lo imperfecto (...) se subordina a lo perfecto, no sólo se excluye a Dios, sino que, una vez que una persona muere, no hay más que la descomposición del cuerpo quedando descartada la trascendencia. Por otra parte, la negación del principio de finalidad también afecta el primer principio práctico que es la sindéresis con lo que se compromete el orden moral. Esa es la razón por la que vemos importante recuperar el pensamiento de santo Tomás de Aquino y algunas de sus implicaciones en torno al principio de finalidad, ya que, al presentar la universalidad, evidencia e importancia del principio de finalidad, santo Tomás demuestra la apertura del hombre a la trascendencia y el orden moral que se requiere para alcanzarla. (shrink)

The debate surrounding ‘big tech’ and antitrust has dominated public policy discourses over the past few years in many parts of the world. Noteworthy is that several countries and regions, including China, the European Union, and the United States, have launched investigations into the allegedly anticompetitive and exclusionary business practices of companies such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google and their Chinese counterparts, Alibaba and Tencent. This paper builds on the renewed interest in the topic and discusses in detail – (...) and from an ordoliberal perspective – the key characteristics of the digital economy, the business conduct of tech platforms, and the corresponding antitrust concerns, as well as possible reform steps which could help to strengthen modern-day competition law and policy (and antitrust enforcement). (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our concepts. Some have recently claimed that the implementation of such method in the form of ameliorative projects is truth-driven and should thus be epistemically constrained, ultimately at least (Simion 2018; cf. Podosky 2018). This paper challenges that claim on the assumption of a social constructionist analysis of ideologies, and provides an alternative, pragmatic and cognitive framework for determining the legitimacy of ameliorative conceptual projects overall. The upshot is that one should (...) not ameliorate for the sake of truth or knowledge, in the case of ideologies—at least, not primarily. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad-spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation-involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad-spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad-spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association (EPA) from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of (multinational) corporations (i.e., political corporate social responsibility), and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in (...) which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

In the light of several ongoing antitrust investigations in the E.U. and the U.S., the following research paper analyzes whether ‘big tech’ – same as the big banks – need special regulatory (and economic -political) attention and if so, how an updated form of regulatory policy for the digital era could look like. It does so by utilizing – and reviving – the normative and business -ethical ideals of German ‘neoliberalism’, also known as (classical) ordoliberalism. Especially, Walter Eucken’s work has (...) the potential to inform and enrich the current debate concerning the regulation of big tech. The main goal of the paper is to outline a potentially new regulatory framework – one that combines (and revises) Eucken’s ordoliberalism with the competition policy of the European Union. (shrink)

Los gināns son un corpus de literatura religiosa ismailí del sur de Asia. Su temática es muy variada e incluye cuestiones como el amor divino, la cosmología, la meditación, la práctica ritual, la escatología y el comportamiento ético. La palabra ‘ginān’ deriva en última instancia de la raíz sánscrita ‘ŷñāna’ y está relacionada etimológicamente con la palabra griega ‘γνῶσις’, o ‘gnôsis’, que tiene derivados en muchas lenguas. Varios estudiosos han señalado el doble significado del término ‘ginān’ entre los ismailíes, ya (...) que se refiere tanto a su literatura sagrada como a la gnosis. Este estudio exhaustivo explora el significado y el uso de la palabra ‘ginān’ en la propia tradición ginān. Como la mayoría de los gināns se recitan en melodías particulares, este estudio de la tradición ginān se inspira en la organización de la sinfonía tradicional. Al igual que una sinfonía, composición extensa en la música clásica occidental, suele estar dividida en cuatro movimientos, este estudio de la Sinfonía de la Gnosis se compone de cuatro secciones, cada una de las cuales explora diferentes aspectos acerca de cómo se define la tradición ginān. (shrink)

This text offers both a clear and thorough introduction to normative ethical theory and an extensive survey of moral issues that show how ethical theory is applied in practice. The first section presents a survey of the main methods of ethical reasoning, introducing four normative theories in four separate chapters. A case study introduces each chapter to provide a background for further explanations and to illustrate relevant features of the theory. The second section of the text presents separate chapters on (...) ten ethical issues-including such subjects as nuclear war, euthanasia, sexual ethics and capital punishment. (shrink)

The past few years have seen the opening of several antitrust investigations against some of the most dominant and powerful companies in the world—e.g., the U.S. Department of Justice, numerous states, and the Federal Trade Commission have sued Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and the E.U. has launched additional proceedings against Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. This paper looks at the latest trends and developments in the E.U. and the USA and analyzes the different regulatory approaches taken from a distinct business (...) ethics, that is, ordoliberal perspective. The paper aims to derive ordoliberal-inspired antitrust principles and apply them to the current antitrust proceedings and investigations, thereby assessing their strengths and weaknesses. It also aims at developing ordoliberal-inspired reform proposals which might help to strengthen and “harden” modern-day antitrust regimes. (shrink)

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)

The central aim of the present investigation is to shed light on Nietzsche’s understanding of happiness and a good life, starting from Nietzsche’s appropriation of Plato’s and Aristotle’s doctrine of a hierarchy of human beings and forms of life.

Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad‐spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation‐involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad‐spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively (...) defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad‐spectrum version of conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Ratio, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 286-302, December 2021.

In this paper I criticize libertarianism and skepticism about free will. The criticism of libertarianism takes some steps towards filling in an argument that is often mentioned but seldom developed in any detail, the argument that libertarianism is a scientifically implausible view. I say "take some steps" because I think the considerations I muster (at most) favor a less ambitious relative of that argument. The less ambitious claim I hope to motivate is that there is little reason to believe that (...) extant libertarian accounts satisfy a standard of naturalistic plausibility, even if they do satisfy a standard of naturalistic compatibility. The argument against skepticism about free will tries to show (1) perhaps the most prominent form of skeptical argument against the existence of free will does not work, and (2) there is a good general argument against skepticism about free will. (shrink)

Firms engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) because they consider that some kind of competitive advantage accrues to them. We contend that resource-based perspectives (RBP) are useful to understand why firms engage in CSR activities and disclosure. From a resource-based perspective CSR is seen as providing internal or external benefits, or both. Investments in socially responsible activities may have internal benefits by helping a firm to develop new resources and capabilities which are related namely to know-how and corporate culture. In (...) effect, investing in social responsibility activities and disclosure has important consequences on the creation or depletion of fundamental intangible resources, namely those associated with employees. The external benefits of CSR are related to its effect on corporate reputation. Corporate reputation can be understood as a fundamental intangible resource which can be created or depleted as a consequence of the decisions to engage or not in social responsibility activities and disclosure. Firms with good social responsibility reputation may improve relations with external actors. They may also attract better employees or increase current employees’ motivation, morale, commitment and loyalty to the firm. This article contributes to the understanding of why CSR may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how RBP can be used in such endeavour. (shrink)

Understanding what motivates employees is essential to the success of organizational objectives. Therefore, properly capturing and explaining the full range of such motivations are important. However, the classical and most popular theories describing employee motives have neglected, if not omitted entirely, the importance of the ethical and spiritual dimensions of motivation. This has led to a model of a person as self-interested, amoral, and non-spiritual. In this paper, we attempt to expose this omission and offer a more complete taxonomy of (...) motivations which include these dimensions. Although more work will need to be done to fully develop the ethical and spiritual dimensions of motivation, the expanded taxonomy will provide the foundations and serve as a guide for such further research. Furthermore, this new categorization of motivations brings out the full dimensions of being human, which promises to lead to improved management practices with regard to employees and foster greater human flourishing in the workplace. (shrink)

Este artículo, partiendo de un proceso metalingüístico estandarizado, pretende mostrar algunas alternativas psicolingüísticas al aprendizaje conversacional. El desarrollo del estudio corresponde al siguiente esquema: (1) Importancia de la comprensión metalingüística en el perfeccionamiento de una le..

In this comparative study the author accounts for the interpretative bases of 2 Corinthians 13:5. The process of the study follows the following structure: A. Approaching the genesis of the work; B. Diachronic and synchronic reading of the text; C. Pragmatic reading and philosophical applications; D..

In 1798 the French Directory began to collect moral statistics systematically for the first time in history. The bureaucratic and scientific developments that preceded this policy are well known. Yet the reasons for its abrupt adoption, and the intellectual origins of moral statistics (as distinguished from the topographical statistics previously practiced), have until now remained obscure. This paper contends that, in the aftermath of the Terror, Joseph de Maistre sketched philosophical tools and made political observations that aided the rise of (...) the new state science. In particular, Maistre’s anti-Rousseauian essay On the State of Nature (composed 1794-1796), a critique of Rousseau’s second Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755), outlined theoretical concepts crucial to moral statistics. Maistre’s widely read Considerations on France (1797) later made these concepts available to the French public in an accessible and memorable style. In On the State of Nature Maistre set down his ideas on reason, human nature, human perfectibility, justice, conscience, Providence and chance. These ideas presented the agency of the moral in an innovative way that not only suggested immediate systematic applications, but also helped prepare the French sociological project. Indeed if any text made the theoretical shift away from the model of human nature to the paradigm of normal people with laws of dispersion that Ian Hacking claims set French sociology apart, it is On the State of Nature. Moreover, Maistre’s realist critique of Rousseau’s imagination augured the notion of the social fact that Comte transformed, and Durkheim defined. (shrink)

The 18th century figure, Joseph de Maistre, has long been regarded as characterising the Counter-Enlightenment, but his intellectual relationship to 18th-century philosophy remains unexplored. This is a comprehensive assessment of his response to the Enlightenment.

Long known solely as fascism s precursor, Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) re-emerges in this volume as a versatile thinker with a colossally diverse posterity whose continuing relevance in Europe is ensured by his theorization of the ...

This is a case study of the birth of conservative historicism out of the Jacobin Terror. The historical rupture represented by the French Revolution provoked reflections on the course and meaning of history among those who, opposed to the Revolution, would become heralds of conservatism. Highly significant -- and heretofore neglected -- among these reflections were those that the Savoyard thinker Joseph de Maistre developed in De la Souverainete du peuple, the precipitate critique of Rousseau's Du Contrat social that he (...) composed during the years 1794 to 1796. This paper contends that De la Souveraineté introduced an influential and original form of historicism founded on a combinatorial theory of political constitutions. It likewise demonstrates that, in devising a model for the history of nations, Maistre also defined concepts that would become integral to nineteenth-century positivism, to the then- nascent science of moral statistics, and to French sociology. (shrink)

Resumen:Ortega intentó comprender los problemas filosóficos en un estrato más hondo del habitual, el cual constituye el “nivel de radicalismo” de su filosofía. En nuestra opinión, dicho estrato descansa en un modelo ontológico y epistemológico intensamente pragmático, que quedó bien puesto de manifiesto durante su refriega con Descartes, uno de los más notables “adversarios” filosóficos de Ortega.PALABRAS CLAVE:PRAGMATISMO, DESCARTES, IDEALISMO, ONTOLOGÍA:Ortega tried to understand the philosophical problems to an unusually deep level, which sets up the “nivel de radicalismo” of his (...) philosophy. In our opinion, this aforementioned stratum rests on a very intense ontological and epistemological pragmatist model that became clear during his argument with Descartes, one of the most important of Ortega’s philosophical “adversaries”.KEYWORDS:PRAGMATISM, DESCARTES, IDEALISM, ONTOLOGY. (shrink)

Joseph de Maistre's reputation as a writer is legendary. His style, unique and alive, moulded the French language anew. It sabotaged his attempts at anonymous publication and earned him, through the centuries, the praises of enemies and admirers. Yet the relationship between Maistre's thought and writing remains ill-known. This collection is the first to examine how Maistre's ideas - including his denunciation of the written word - intersected with his writing practices and personas. The essays disclose an author formed by (...) duty and affectionate relationships, by the conventions of public combat, by an intense sense of history, and by the imperatives of Revolution."--Series page. (shrink)