"Le présent ouvrage est né de l'examen d'un dictat dont on peut dire qu'il constitue aujourd'hui un véritable article de foi, en ce sens qu'on ne le discute même pas, auprès du monde moderne, philosophique comme séculier ; à savoir que 'tout est dans le devenir'. Il est apparu à l'auteur que, contrairement à ce dogme, il existe dans l'esprit humain certains comportements qui, derrière l'infinie diversité de leurs manifestations, demeurent les mêmes depuis que nous avons des documents sur cet (...) esprit, c'est-à-dire depuis trois mille ans, et continuent de demeurer tels ; qu'en d'autres termes il existe certaines constantes de l'esprit humain ou encore que tout dans cet esprit n'est pas 'dynamisme', mais qu'il s'y montre des statismes. Le présent livre pourrait s'appeler : 'Pour le statisme'." Julien Benda. (shrink)

on ethics provides an opportunity to go beyond some of the controversies generated by his work of the 1970s. It was thought, for example, that Foucault had overstated the extent to which individuals could be ‘subjected’ to the influence of power, leaving them little room to resist. This paper will consider the ‘politics’ of self-creation. We shall attempt to establish to what extent Foucault’s later notion of self-formation does in fact succeed in countering an over determination by power. In the (...) end, though, it would appear as if Foucault’s turn to ethics amounts to a substitution of ethics, understood as an individualized task, for the political task of collective social transformation. What is at stake is whether or not Foucault’s insistence on individual acts of resistance amounts to more than an empty claim that ethics still somehow has political implications whilst having in fact effectively given up on politics. It will be argued that the subject of the later Foucault’s ethics, the individual, can only be understood as political subjectivity, i.e. that the political potential of individual action is not only ‘added on’ as an adjunct, but that individual action is intrinsically invested with political purport. Key Words: care of the self • ethics • politics • power • power/knowledge. (shrink)

Il dinamismo.--L'esistenzialismo.--La dialettica materialista.

Ernst Cassirer occupies a unique space in Twentieth-century philosophy. A great liberal humanist, his multi-faceted work spans the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, intellectual history, aesthetics, epistemology, the study of language and myth, and more. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is Cassirer's most important work. It was first published in German in 1923, the third and final volume appearing in 1929. In it Cassirer presents a radical new philosophical worldview - at once rich, creative and controversial - (...) of human beings as fundamentally "symbolic animals," placing signs and systems of expression between themselves and the world. This major new translation, the first for over fifty years, brings Cassirer's magnum opus to a new generation of students and scholars. Volume 1: Language is a fascinating examination of arguably the most fundamental of these systems of expression: human language. Cassirer traces the problem of language and expression far back in the history of philosophy, considering the work of the early Greek rationalists. He then examines the later empiricist tradition, up to the romantic tradition in the nineteenth century tackling fundamental questions about representation, signification and expression as well as language and conceptual thought in mathematics and science. Correcting important errors in previous English editions, this translation reflects the contributions of significant advances in Cassirer scholarship over the last twenty to thirty years. Each volume includes a new introduction and translator's notes by S. G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and a thorough index. (shrink)

In addition, this volume offers us a much needed critical revaluation of key issues in Levinas's thought which are, more often than not, uncritically ...

Egocentricity and Mysticism is a philosophical milestone that clarifies our relationship to language, social interaction, and mortality. Ernst Tugendhat casts mysticism as an innate facet of what it means to be human--a response to an existential need for peace of mind.

Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik ist ein unveränderter, hochwertiger Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1890. Hansebooks ist Herausgeber von Literatur zu unterschiedlichen Themengebieten wie Forschung und Wissenschaft, Reisen und Expeditionen, Kochen und Ernährung, Medizin und weiteren Genres. Der Schwerpunkt des Verlages liegt auf dem Erhalt historischer Literatur. Viele Werke historischer Schriftsteller und Wissenschaftler sind heute nur noch als Antiquitäten erhältlich. Hansebooks verlegt diese Bücher neu und trägt damit zum Erhalt selten gewordener Literatur und historischem Wissen auch für die (...) Zukunft bei. (shrink)

Drawing upon political philosophy and political economy, Benda Hofmeyr presents a Foucaultian analysis and historical contextualisation of the rise of neo-liberal governmentality. Historical, sociological and cultural studies help excavate the geneaology of the capitalist subject within the neo-liberal governmental context of the last four decades.

Research has shown that the knowledge worker, the decisive driver of the knowledge economy, works increasingly longer hours. In fact, it would appear that instead of working to live, they live to work. There appears to be three reasons for this living-to-work development. First, the knowledge worker ‘has to’ on account of the pressure to become ever more efficient. Such pressure translates into internalized coercion in the case of the self-responsible knowledge worker. Secondly, working is constant, because the Internet and (...) smart technologies and mobile devices have made it ‘possible’. It gives the worker the capacity and management omnipotent control. In the final instance, the neoliberal knowledge worker works all the time because s/he paradoxically ‘wants to’. It is a curious phenomenon, because this compulsive working is concomitant with a rise of a host of physical, emotional, and psychological disorders as well as the erosion of social bonds. The paradox is exacerbated by the fact that the knowledge worker does not derive any of the usual utilities or satisfactions associated with hard work. Elsewhere I have ascribed this apparent contradiction at the heart of the living-to-work phenomenon to the invisible thumotic satisfaction generated by knowledge work. In the present article, I argue that neoliberal governmentality has found a way to tether thumos directly to the profit incentive. I draw on Foucault’s 1978-1979 Collége de France lecture course in which he analysed neoliberal governmentality with specific emphasis on the work of the neoliberal theorist of human capital, Gary Becker. (shrink)

What happened during the fairly long silence following The History of Sexuality? … had he [Foucault] not trapped himself within the concept of power relations?’ asks Deleuze. According to him, Foucault would have answered ‘that power does not take life as its objective without revealing or giving rise to a life that resists power’ . The object of this essay is to assess what happens ‘if the transversal relations of resistance continue to become restratified’. When the long silence was finally (...) broken, Foucault proposed a more affirmative – aesthetic – mode of countering power, but what exactly is the contemporary pertinence of the late Foucault’s insistence that an aesthetics of existence provides us with the means to resist an over-determination by power. This essay follows the trajectory of Foucault’s turn to aesthetics: from care of the self as a reaction against constraining governmental regulations and institutionalised normalisations; to self-formation as a more affirmative strategy; to the present day in which cultural capitalism has usurped all aesthetic strategies of resistance. The essay therefore questions the potentially subversive status of self-creation in the light of the fact that contemporary governmental rationalities encourage self-stylising individuality, alternative life-style choices and original ways of being different. It concludes by arguing in favour of its continued relevance. (shrink)

Comprehensive evaluation and study of man's theories and knowledge of genetical characteristics and the evolutionary processes.

Explores the development of the ideas of evolutionary biology, particularly as affected by the increasing understanding of genetics and of the chemical basis of inheritance.

Six essays which analyze the non-national thought processes that influence culture.

The anthropological scale -- Organ projection -- The first tools -- Limbs and measure -- Apparatuses and instruments -- The inner architecture of the bones -- Steam engines and rail lines -- The electromagnetic telegraph -- The unconscious -- Machine technology -- The fundamental morphological law -- Language -- The state.

In this volume, Ernst Troeltsch embraces historical relativity while rejecting historical relativism, and thereby provides a model for the philosophy of history. The volume remains as relevant as it was in 1923.

Le texte qui suit est une conférence donnée par Ernst Cassirer en 1945 au Cercle linguistique de New York. Il est publié pour la première fois – à titre posthume – dans le numéro inaugural de la revue _Word_ sous le titre « Structuralism in modern linguistics » (_Word_, 1(2), 1945, 99–120. https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1945.11659249 ). La présente traduction s’accompagne d’une bibliographie rassemblant toutes les références citées par Cassirer. Nous renvoyons également, lorsque celle-ci est disponible, à la traduction française des textes (...) cités. (shrink)

Provides a philosophical analysis of such biological concepts as natural selection, adaptation, speciation, and evolution.

Matthias Ernst untersucht vier unterschiedliche Werke aus dem 16. Jahrhundert, in denen Dialektik in deutscher Sprache erstmals Thema war. Diese Dialektiken bearbeiten auf der Basis diverser Quellen Themen wie Ideenfindung, Argumentation und Logik, wobei auch die Rhetorik als assoziierte Kunst zur Sprache kommt. Sie nehmen nicht nur hinsichtlich der verwendeten deutschen Sprache eine Pionierrolle ein, sondern befassen sich eigenstandig und kritisch mit der zur damaligen Zeit aktuellen Theorielage. Das macht sie zu wichtigen Zeugnissen des Renaissance-Humanismus. Die spezifische Auspragung der (...) dialektischen Theorie wird fur jedes einzelne Werk ebenso herausgearbeitet wie der Umgang der Autoren mit logisch-dialektischer Terminologie. (shrink)

In der vorwiegend analytisch gepragten philosophischen Emotionsdebatte der Gegenwart findet die Erlebnisdimension von Emotionen bislang wenig Beachtung. Dieses Buch mochte einen neuen Impuls setzen, indem es die liebes- und hassphanomenologischen Entwurfe von Max Scheler und Aurel Kolnai fur den aktuellen Diskurs fruchtbar macht und alternative Begriffe von Liebe und Hass entwickelt, die sich primar an der emotionalen Erfahrung orientieren. Zentrale Bedeutung kommt hierbei dem besonderen Wertbezug dieser beiden Emotionen sowie der Person als ihrem spezifischen Objekt zu.

The following lecture on Monism is an informal address delivered extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This philosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and most important problems of scientific investigation, much that was indisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged immediate rejoinder and a statement of (...) the opposite view. As I had for thirty years been very closely occupied with these problems of the philosophy of nature, and had set forth my convictions with respect to them in a number of writings, a wish was expressed by several members of the Congress that on this occasion I should give a summary account of these. (shrink)

Our studies of aesthetics and knowledge have long tended to privilege the visual - at the expense, Wolfgang Ernst argues, of the aural. 'Sonic Time Machines' aims to correct that, presenting a striking new approach to theorising sound that investigates its split existence: as a temporal effect in a techno-cultural context and as a source of knowledge and information. Ernst creates a new term for the concept at the heart of the book, "sonicity," a flexible and powerful term (...) that allows him to consider sound with all its many physical, philosophical, and cultural valences."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

In the Preface of Animal Species and Evolution (1963), I wrote that it was "an attempt to summarize and review critically what we know about the biology and genetics of animal species and their role in evolution." The result was a volume of XIV ...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The ancients were interested in the questions of what love really is, why it exists, and how it is experienced. This book presents the best examples, from Homer to Apuleius, interpreted and analyzed by the author. Through an examination of these selections from Greek and Latin literature, some main themes are revealed: success in love with the help of a god; the pursuit of happiness, unity, and completeness; love and beauty; love as an illness, wound, or suffering; betrayal in love, (...) adultery, murder, and death; love as the creating force of the world; the existence of friendship; the basis of parental love; the meaning of love for oneself; the basis and the results of the gods' love for humans. Also included is a comparison of ancient ideas of love with those in later literature and our own ideas about love today. (shrink)

This essay critically considers the differences and complementarities between Emmanuel Levinas’s and Jean-Luc Nancy’s respective accounts of ontology and ethics. A comparative reading reveals that while both insist upon a relational conceptualization of subjectivity, they base relationality on differing notions of alterity. The simultaneous proximity and distance between these two thinkers’ respective transphenomological quests yield critical force that enables a mutual critique, while opening up productive avenues for overcoming some of the problems inherent to their views.

This collection of revised and new essays argues that biology is an autonomous science rather than a branch of the physical sciences. Ernst Mayr, widely considered the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the conditions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major developments in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its (...) own history, trajectory and impact. Ernst Mayr, commonly referred to as the "Darwin of the 20th century" and listed as one of the top 100 scientists of all-time, is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. What Makes Biology Unique is the 25th book he has written during his long and prolific career. His recent books include This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (Belknap Press, 1997) and What Evolution Is (Basic Books, 2002). (shrink)

Provides a thorough overview of historical and contemporary theories of evolution, discusses key concepts and terms, and argues that our understanding of evolution has changed the beliefs and values of modern humankind. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.