Collingwood's faith in the historian's intuitive capacity for discerning the meaning of past actions by re-enactment" is too unqualified. However, his thesis that through actions alone can reasons and inner meanings be discovered is true. This assumes that actions can be traced to recognizable agents and that these agents are able to acknowledge their reasons. The relation between knowing and doing and between knowing and understanding is a form of causality not inconsistent with teleological reasoning. Characteristic of human action are (...) the constitutive nature of causality, the delimiting effect of rationality on human autonomy, and the role of purpose as a mediating link between intention and outcome. Despite the fact that emphasis on impersonal actions and interactions seriously calls into question Collingwood's theory of understanding, any radical revision of this theory proves no less problematical. (shrink)

The avowed simplicity of thomasius' practical philosophy conceals its real complexity. His treatment of reason and will, Moral and political obligation, And freedom and authority particularly bears this out. The impact of his political philosophy was to transmute the operative ethos of absolutism by demonstrating that while absolute power was possible, Absolute authority was an absurdity.

Reason and Self-Enactment in History and Politics also offers a reappraisal of basic political principles and constructs. Barnard argues for bridging differences among a plurality of truths and forming practical judgments through cultivation of a sense of situational appropriateness.

"Growth," a term borrowed from biology, is often used to describe change in human history. The use of such terms, however, tends to obscure the fundamental differences between historical and natural causality. Vico and Herder were among the first to make a radical distinction between our understanding of events in nature and of those in human affairs. They argued that man can make conscious decisions which make his actions different from events in the nonhuman world. Yet, they also believed that (...) human history has a purpose of its own, which man cannot alter. However, if human choice is to be truly free, then the outcome of human history cannot be entirely predetermined. Though Vico and Herder, like many other writers, attempted to merge these two notions, they failed to provide a satisfactory theory. (shrink)

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language. They had for the most part not been previously available in English. In his introduction, Professor Barnard analyses the basic premises of Herder's political thought against the background of the Enlightenment. He examines Herder's concepts of language, community and culture, his theory of historical interaction, and his approach to the problem of change and progress. Finally, (...) he provides a brief comparative analysis of traditionalist thought following the French Revolution, showing how substantive writers like Burke differed from Herder despite the close similarity of political vocabulary. (shrink)

The core of J.G. Herder's philosophy of nationalism lies in the conviction that human creativity must be embedded in the particular culture of a communal language. While he acknowledged that this cultural particular must be integrated into a more universal humanity, he insisted that each culture should preserve its incommensurable distinctiveness. He also called for a new method of enquiry regarding history, one that demands empathetic sensitivity toward the uniquely individual while realizing that there are few gains without losses. F.M. (...) Barnard demonstrates that Herder, despite his innovative work on the idea of nationality, was fully aware of the dangers of ethnic fanaticism, but also of the hazards of what is now known as globalization, recognizing that these must be tempered by a sense of universal humanity. Barnard shows that Herder anticipated modern theories of the dynamics of cultures and traditions through the problematic interplay of persistence and change and that his speculations on cultural and political pluralism, on language as a democratic bond, and on the possible fusion of communitarian and liberal dimensions of public life remain relevant to contemporary debates. (shrink)

First published in 1986. Nations have a unity often described as 'cultural'; and within them there are divergences some of which are termed 'political'. But culture and politics do not, therefore, comprise two wholly distinct zones or orders of experience, the one marked by unity, the other by plurality. Unity and plurality interpenetrate. These insights, which derive from the thinking of Herder, have been fundamental to the work of F. M. Barnard. In this volume a number of scholars contribute, (...) in Barnardian vein, reflections on the tensions between unity and plurality in the history of ideas. The central underlying question is, in essence, 'what is the context of political life?' The question remains of more importance than any single answer. (shrink)

Some of the commentators on Intricate Ethics complain of my method. One finds the main ideas ‘Kammouflaged’ because the relevant causal distinctions are so fine-grained and the cases that illustrate them so numerous. Some say that they do not have the intuitions about many cases that I have, that I concoct dubious and ad hoc distinctions and invest them with moral significance; I am Ptolemaic in that new crystalline spheres and epicycles are constantly being added in an attempt to fix (...) the appearances. (shrink)

Bioethical Prescriptions collects F.M. Kamm's articles on bioethics -- revised for publication in book form -- which have appeared over the last 25 years and which have made her among the most widely-respected philosophers working in this field.

This book is a philosophical discussion of moral, legal, and medical issues related to aging, dying, and death. One of its aims is to decide whether and when it might make sense to not resist or bring about the end of one's life. To answer this question it considers views about meaning in life and what makes life worth living. It also evaluates recent attempts to help the general public plan in advance for the end of life. It also considers (...) whether or not physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible and if it should be legalized. (shrink)

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture, terrorism, and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur, in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive, even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it (...) is the intention to harm civilians, rather than harm to them being 'collateral damage,' or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason, in the sense of a right intention, is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about, so as to make the declaration of war permissible. (shrink)

Zeller argued that the ‘innumerable worlds’ mentioned in accounts of Anaximander's system must be an endless succession of single worlds, not an unlimited number of coexistent worlds scattered through infinite space, some always coming into being while others are passing away. Zeller pointed out that a succession of single worlds is grounded in the principles of the system. ‘Things perish into that from which they had their birth… according to the order of Time,’ a cycle of birth, existence, and destruction. (...) A world ends, and the living divine stuff begets a new world to take its place. On the other hand, there is much in the system to contradict the idea of coexistent worlds. Anaximander's successors, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Diogenes, show that this idea is not a necessary consequence of the unlimitedness of the original world-stuff. Nothing in the appearances of Nature suggests it. Anaximander is a monistic hylozoist, whereas Democritus is a pluralist with his innumerable independent atoms producing, by similar processes, independent world-systems in different parts of an infinite void. (shrink)