This article examines ethical themes in the works of the celebrated writer on urban affairs, Jane Jacobs. Jacobs' early works on cities develop an implicit, 'ecological' conception of the human good, one that connects it closely with economic and political goals while emphasizing the intrinsic good of the community formed in pursuit of those goals. Later works develop an explicit ethics, arguing that governing and trading require two different schemes of values and virtues. While Jacobs intended this ethics to apply (...) to all forms of productive activity, it is particularly illuminating when applied to her own urban ideas and activism. (shrink)

"Providing a concise and accessible introduction to the work of the twentieth century's celebrated German philosopher, Hans-Georg Gadamer, this book focuses on the aspects of Gadamer's philosophy that have been the most influential among architects, educators in architecture, and architectural theorists. Gadamer's philosophy of art gives a special place to the activity of "play" as it occurs in artistic creation, in language, and in thinking. His ideas on the function of symbols and meaning in art draw upon his teacher, Martin (...) Heidegger, while developing further the applicability of Heideggerian thinking. His theory of interpretation, or "philosophical hermeneutics" offers profound ways to understand the influence of the past upon the present, and to appropriate the past in ever new forms. Gadamer's sensitivity to the way that theory arises out of practice and must maintain its relevance to practice gives his thought a remarkable usefulness and applicability. For architects, architectural theorists, architectural historians, and undergraduate and postgraduate students of architecture, Gadamer's thinking opens a world of possibilities for understanding how building today can be rich with human meaning, relating to architecture's history in an insightful manner that does not merely repeat nor merely repudiate that history"--. (shrink)

Jane Jacobs’s classic 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, famously indicted a vision of urban development based on large scale projects, low population densities, and automobile-centered transportation infrastructure by showing that small plans, mixed uses, architectural preservation, and district autonomy contributed better to urban vitality and thus the appeal of cities. Implicit in her thinking is something that could be called “the urban good,” and recognizable within her vision of the good is the principle of subsidiarity—the (...) idea that governance is best when it is closest to the people it serves and the needs it addresses—a principle found in Catholic papal encyclicals and related documents. Jacobs’s work illustrates and illuminates the principle of subsidiarity, not merely through her writings on cities, but also through her activism in New York City, which was influential in altering the direction of that city’s subsequent planning and development. (shrink)

Comparisons that have been made between the philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Bernard Lonergan on such topics as transcendence, authenticity, and the inadequacies of substance metaphysics are justified, but they must be understood against the background of a disagreement over the meaning and role of ontological difference. A reading of Heidegger that emphasizes the negative or recessive aspect of the ontological “lighting” or “clearing” in being puts this disagreement into sharp relief and forms a charge against Lonergan of “forgetfulness of (...) being.” A response to the charge is offered in the form of three approximations, focusing, respectively, on the way that Lonergan uses the term, “intelligibility,” the role he gives to question, and the way he finds ontological significance in a particular range of intentional acts. (shrink)

Despite being associated with different philosophical traditions, the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Bernard Lonergan can be seen to possess a surprising number of fundamental and important points of intersection. Central among these is the conviction that the structure of interrogation provides not only the normative element in human knowing but also the principle clue for grasping the notion of being. From this confluence of ontological positions there follow a number of shared elements in the two thinkers’ approaches to basic (...) questions in epistemology, philosophy of the person, and the philosophy of nature and natural science. (shrink)

This article explains the value of Heideggerian thought for Lonergan scholars through an appreciation of the work of William J. Richardson, S.J. While Richardson is correct that a Heideggerian would see Lonergan's thought as onto-theological and subject-ist, there is an under-appreciated ontological dimension to Lonergan's thought that situates him closer to Heidegger, in some respects, than one might expect. The link below is to a pdf file of the entire Volume 19 of this journal.

This is a translation of Le Bergsonisme, published in France in 1966. Deleuze's compendious study offers not an introduction but an interpretation and integration of central Bergsonian concepts and themes. The author assists the reader who has at least some familiarity with Bergson's texts in seeing the notions of duration, memory, élan vital, and intuition--notions spread across various of Bergson's writings-within a single philosophical program. The book is thematically organized and reserves detailed readings of particular Bergsonian texts for only the (...) thorniest of problems. (shrink)