This volume offers essays on the nature of God and the fundamental tasks of philosophy and theology written by internationally recognized thinkers in the ...

This essay explores how Schelling’s Philosophy of Art promotes a theory of the imagination (Einbildungskraft) correlative to that reason informing his Philosophy of Identity. Against the background of Kant’s and Fichte’s transcendental-philosophical notion of the imagination, it shows how Schelling conceives the absolute identity of the ideal and the real in terms of its expression in and asthe imagination. As a name for the self-constitution of absolute identity, the term “Einbildungskraft” denotes for Schelling not merely the formative activity of picturing, (...) but instead the generative dynamic of imprinting, and this as the singular operation of unification in the sense of genuinely making the disparate—the finite and the infinite—into one. How this theory involves a view of artistic symbols as instantiating pure unity is discussed with reference to Schelling’s theory of tragedy as well as Hegel’s criticism of this conception. (shrink)

In this revision of his doctoral dissertation at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Menahem Rosen aims to furnish the conception of dialectic which underlies Hegel’s logical-scientific thought with the contemporary intelligibility which he considers it to lack. Six topics define the chapters of this ambitious reconstruction of dialectic as “basically a logic of ambiguity and paradox” : identity, difference, and contradiction; the beginning of philosophy; its end; matter and nature; language; and dialectical explanation. Specifically, Rosen aims “to prune” the Wissenschaft (...) der Logik and so win “Hegel the dialectician” for the analysis of “human reality qua social, cultural and historical reality,” in distinction from “natural reality qua physical, chemical or biological reality,” by exhibiting the incompatibility of “Hegel the ‘spiritual monist’” with the dualism which actually informs his own method and prevents its totalization. Speculative logic may provide the guidelines of a revised theory of subjectivity, but it does not deliver a metaphysics of the absolute, either as the final unity of thinking and being or even as that of thinking itself. If it is initially unclear exactly what is meant by the declaration that as Hegel’s successors “we are in a privileged position to add to his work, without showing thereby any genuine wisdom”, the issue becomes somewhat more certain through the assurance that “in the face of principles, reality is always right, even at the price of a certain lack of coherence”. The justification of objective reality before the principles of thought is supposed to follow from the inevitable disruption of conceptual order by its ineradicable empirical element. (shrink)

In this revision of his doctoral dissertation at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Menahem Rosen aims to furnish the conception of dialectic which underlies Hegel’s logical-scientific thought with the contemporary intelligibility which he considers it to lack. Six topics define the chapters of this ambitious reconstruction of dialectic as “basically a logic of ambiguity and paradox” : identity, difference, and contradiction; the beginning of philosophy; its end; matter and nature; language; and dialectical explanation. Specifically, Rosen aims “to prune” the Wissenschaft (...) der Logik and so win “Hegel the dialectician” for the analysis of “human reality qua social, cultural and historical reality,” in distinction from “natural reality qua physical, chemical or biological reality,” by exhibiting the incompatibility of “Hegel the ‘spiritual monist’” with the dualism which actually informs his own method and prevents its totalization. Speculative logic may provide the guidelines of a revised theory of subjectivity, but it does not deliver a metaphysics of the absolute, either as the final unity of thinking and being or even as that of thinking itself. If it is initially unclear exactly what is meant by the declaration that as Hegel’s successors “we are in a privileged position to add to his work, without showing thereby any genuine wisdom”, the issue becomes somewhat more certain through the assurance that “in the face of principles, reality is always right, even at the price of a certain lack of coherence”. The justification of objective reality before the principles of thought is supposed to follow from the inevitable disruption of conceptual order by its ineradicable empirical element. (shrink)

To assert that a 'clash of civilizations' follows inexorably from the different religious convictions at the foundations of Western Judeo-Christian and Arabic-Islamic cultures means to deny that a common political rationality can articulate genuinely universal, albeit culturally situated values. The eleven contributions to the present volume take up this controversy by challenging its premise that the heritage of classical Greek thought is exclusively part of Western political identity. By exploring the tradition of Platonism informing both Arabic-Islamic and Western political thought (...) and intellectual history in key stations in their history, the contributors show how Platonic political theory can still bear fruit in the present day, especially in the context of dialogue between cultures. (shrink)

CONTENTS Tom Nenon: Freedom, Responsibility, and Self-Awareness in Husserl Steven Galt Crowell: Authentic Thinking and Phenomenological Method Burt C. Hopkins: Authentic and Symbolic Numbers in Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic Karl Schuhmann: The Development of Speech Act Theory in Munich Phenomenology Gianfranco Soldati: Early Phenomenology and the Origins of Analytic Philosophy Heribert Boeder: The Submodern Character of Linguistic Analysis Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert: On Oskar Becker's Phenomenological Aesthetics Orrin F. Summerell: Identity, Subjectivity, and Being Other than the Same: Thinking beyond Hegel (...) and Heidegger George Heffernan: Language, Logic, and Logocentrism in Transcendental Phenomenology Edmund Husserl: Philosophy as Rigorous Science (1911) (new translation) Edmund Husserl: On the Task of Logic (1898), ed. and intro. Karl Schuhmann (German/English) Johannes Daubert: Remarks on the Psychology of Apperception and Judgment (1902), ed. and intro. Karl Schuhmann (German/English) Jacob Klein: The Problem of Truth (1924). (shrink)

Die unendlichen Vermogen des menschlichen Geistes dokumentierten sich fuer den Wiederbegruender der Platonischen Akademie in Florenz, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) vor allem in weltgestaltenden Handlungen und fuehrten ihn so zur These von der Gottlichkeit des Menschen. Anlaalich des 500. Todestages des Renaissancephilosophen werden die Grundlagen und praktischen Konsequenzen dieses bis heute nachwirkenden Menschenbildes aus den unterschiedlichsten Blickwinkeln diskutiert. Mit Beitragen von: Jorg Hardy, Udo Reinhold Jeck, Hubert Benz, Achim Wurm, Detlef Thiel, Orrin F. Summerell, Matthias Bloch, Alexander F. Lohner, (...) Burkhard Mojsisch. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.4 (2000) 15-37 [Access article in PDF] Kant's Strange LightRomanticism, Periodicity, and the Catachresis of Genius Orrin N. C. Wang We might say that in deconstruction history is always posed as a question, at once urgent, ubiquitous, and insoluble, whereas ideological demystification conceives of its relation to history as an answer, a solution, to its critical hermeneutic. Certainly, this critical truism has special force in Romantic studies, (...) a field very much shaped by the complex relation between deconstruction and ideological critique over the last twenty-five years. But it could just as well be said that the full implications of this relation are especially clarified by the field of Romantic studies, not least because its object of study replays the tensions between these two modes of inquiry. Studying Romanticism means knowing it as a historical period but also knowing it as a figure that stands for something else: an aesthetic practice, a form of consciousness, a political aspiration, an ideology, the possibility of historicity itself. That as a figure Romanticism can be either transhistorical or tied to its historical identity makes its situation all the more complicated and compelling. Romanticism especially dramatizes the interlocking relation between period identity and trope, and the investment of literary studies in that dynamic. Romanticism is the period metaphor that both stabilizes and disrupts the very concept of period metaphors.1 The deconstruction and demystification of Romanticism is very much about the deconstruction and demystification of history, its existence as either question or calculation, trope or immanent being.But even as Romanticism asserts its special relation to history it must also confront an opposite trajectory, how its meaning is best understood through a constellation of other, larger historical identities, such as the Enlightenment and modernity itself. At present the potential disciplinary reorganization of Romanticism into the long eighteenth century is the most vivid academic expression of the question, where does the historical specificity of Romanticism reside, within itself or something larger, or both?Sorting this issue out is certainly a historical proposition, but as Romanticism's special relation to history reminds us, it is also, in Paul de Man's sense, rhetorical. Which is to say, Romanticism's relation to history is, paradoxically, not special-or, more precisely, it is a trope for something pervasive among all the period fields of literary studies, insofar as they remain particular and distinct from one another. This includes those historical entities that might subsume or entangle with Romanticism itself, that would enact historicity by absorbing a field so intent on both the enabling and worrying of historical thought. Approached tropologically, the relation of Romanticism to these larger historical periods is not simply about events and formations that constitute [End Page 15] the boundaries of historical identities. It is also about best identifying and clarifying the workings of figure that create the intelligence of such periodicity.Such labor, what de Man designated innocently enough by the term "reading," calls for its own crossing of a particular set of boundaries. A philosophical text, generated by the entanglement between Romanticism and the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, might contain sections exemplary in their recording of the interstice between trope and historical periodization. Immanuel Kant's short meditation on genius in the third Critique is, like the rest of his book, about the limits and possibilities of the judging subject; his words on genius are also specifically about the artistically creative subject. In resolving the contradictions between aesthetic judgment and creation, Kant transforms the solar light of human genius into the historical genius of the Enlightenment, which is very much the linguistic genius of Romanticism. This all occurs in a register not of consciousness or of historical truth, but of something else before either's constative realization.Kant's text is especially telling in its reflexive expression of this situation, so much so that it helps illuminate the sharp distinction between deconstruction and ideological demystification. For if deconstruction always poses history as the pressure of an insoluble, omnipresent question, it does so through figure, before truth. In contrast, ideological demystification, with... (shrink)

Walter Benn Michaels's The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History makes the ostensive cul-de-sac of identity politics the dominant symptom of postmodernism per se. The Shape connects its argument to the controversy over intention and interpretation created by Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels's twenty-year-old essay "Against Theory." This very connection, however, highlights the not-quite-acknowledged presence of a certain type of romanticism in both works that each also wants to attack. Misunderstanding Paul de Man's notion of (...) materiality, Michaels becomes the latest thinker hoping to free us from the inchoateness of romantic sensation, both as the indulgence of sensory experience and the cognitive sloppiness of nonmeaning as the sense of meaning. Far from a Fukuyama-inspired postmodern condition, Michaels's scenario actually adumbrates a basic problem between romanticism and modernism-as-modernity. (shrink)

Classification of sciences; Moslem scholars; Africa, North.

In Practicing Safe Sects F. LeRon Shults provides scientific and philosophical resources for having “the talk” about religious reproduction: where do gods come from – and what are the costs of bearing them in our culturally pluralistic, ecologically fragile environment?

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)

A new English translation of Schelling’s unfinished magnum opus, complete with a contextualizing introduction by the translator.

First published in 1818, The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion, in an attempt to account for the world in all its significant aspects. It gives a unique and influential account of what is and is not of value in existence, the striving and pain of the human condition and the possibility of (...) deliverance from it. This new translation of the first volume of what later became a two-volume work reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names and bibliography, and succinct editorial notes, including notes on the revisions of the text which Schopenhauer made in 1844 and 1859. (shrink)

Part novella, part philosophy, Clara was Schelling's most popular work during his lifetime, and appears here in English for the first time.

Portraits of Wittgenstein is a major collection of memoirs and reflections on one of the most influential and yet elusive personalities in the history of modern philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Featuring a wealth of illuminating and profound insights into Wittgenstein's extraordinary life, this unique collection reveals Wittgenstein's character and power of personality more vividly and comprehensively than ever before. With portraits from more than seventy-five figures, Portraits of Wittgenstein brings together the personal recollections of philosophers, students, friends and acquaintances, including Bertrand (...) Russell, G. E. Moore, F. R. Leavis, A. J. Ayer, Karl Popper, Friedrich von Hayek, G. H. von Wright, Rush Rhees, Freeman Dyson, G. E. M. Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley and Mary Warnock. These authors testify to the life-long influence Wittgenstein had on the lives of those he met. Their fascinating memoirs, reflections and commentaries, often at odds with each other, reveal Wittgenstein's kindness, and how much genuine friendship meant to him, as well as his suffering and despair. They show too how the philosopher's ruthless honesty and uncompromising integrity often resulted in stern advice and harsh rebukes to friends and foes alike. Now available in a single, revised and updated volume, Portraits of Wittgenstein includes new selections, revised contributions, photographs, maps and introductory overviews that provide historical context to Wittgenstein's relationships with his intellectual and social circle. This collection of valuable and hard-to-find material is an indispensable resource for scholars and students of the life and work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Globalization; Islamic countries; Arab countries.

Preface -- Prolegomenon : Hayek's three unsettling theses -- Beyond human nature -- Beyond moral justification -- Beyond human governance -- Three enquiries on the open society -- The rise of a normative species -- A natural history of moral order -- The "starting point" -- The egalitarian revolution -- Self-interest, reciprocity and altruism -- Internalized, enforced, social rules -- The other side of morality -- Cultural evolution -- Part I : the rise and fall of inequality -- A complex (...) moral species -- The diversity and self-organized complexity -- Liberalism and the open society -- Understanding diversity -- Autocatalytic diversity -- Diversity and complexity -- Too much complexity? -- The morality of self-organization -- The social contract -- A self-organization model -- Moral diversity In the open society -- Part II: the complexities of self-governance -- Self-governance -- Macro control -- Macro structure -- Strategic dilemmas and polycentricity -- Meso-level goal pursuit -- Sectoral policy -- Self-governance from the bottom-up : simplifying the problems of governance -- Our moral nature and governance in the open society -- Liberal democracy -- Epilogue -- Appendix A -- Appendix B. (shrink)

Summary: A review of the cognitivist/extended cognition and extended mind landscape.

Альтернативные определения, излагаемые в книге, реализуют возможности продуктивного мышления, являются источником смысла творческих исканий. Для студентов, преподавателей вузов и всех тех, кто интересуется человекознанием.

Schelling's 1806 polemic against Fichte, and his last major work on the philosophy of nature. The heat of anger can concentrate the mind. Convinced that he had been betrayed by his former collaborator and colleague, Schelling attempts in this polemic to reach a final reckoning with Fichte. Employing the format of a book review, Schelling directs withering scorn at three of Fichte’s recent publications, at one point likening them to the hell, purgatory, and would-be paradise of Fichtean philosophy. The central (...) bone of contention is the understanding of nature: Fichte sees it as lifeless matter in motion, sheer opposition to be overcome, while Schelling waxes poetic in his defense of a living, organic nature of which humanity is a vital part. Indeed, we do not know ourselves without understanding our connection to nature, argues Schelling, anticipating many thinkers in contemporary environmental ethics. Dale E. Snow’s introduction sets the stage and explains the larger context of the conflict, which was already visible in the correspondence of the two philosophers, which broke off by 1802. Notes are included throughout the text, providing background information and identifying the many references to Fichte. Dale E. Snow is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Maryland and the author of Schelling and the End of Idealism, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

Bredo C. Johnsen: Observation: What Quine calls observation sentences lie at the heart of his reflections on observation and its roles in prompting our theorizing, providing evidence for our theories, and serving as the test of those theories' truth. The first four sections of this chapter – “Observation sentences,” “The two types of observation sentence,” “Introspection,” and “Roles of experience” – are devoted to expounding and clarifying his fundamental conception of these sentences, showing that he recognized both objective and subjective (...) observation sentences, that correlatively he gives introspection an important place in our cognitive lives, and, in particular, that he assigns our introspective knowledge of our sensory experiences three important roles in his epistemology. Since about 1970, Quine's conception of what constitutes our evidence about the nature of empirical reality has been radically misunderstood by almost all his readers, with disastrous consequences for the understanding of his entire epistemology; a final section – “Stimulations as evidence” – is therefore devoted to remedying this situation. (shrink)

This chapter first presents two arguments for the permissibility of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia (E) to eliminate physical suffering. I then present a third argument for PAS and E on grounds other than eliminating suffering. The chapter next considers several objections to these arguments that might be raised by Neil Gorsuch, now a US Supreme Court Justice. In the course of this I present a fourth argument for PAS and E. (I assume throughout that a patient’s free and informed (...) consent is required and present.). (shrink)