With respect to the responsibility of intellectuals, there are still other, equally disturbing questions. Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions. In the Western world, at least, they have the power that comes from political liberty, from access to information and freedom of expression. For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden (...) behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us. The responsibilities of intellectuals, then, are much deeper than what Macdonald calls the " responsibility of people," given the unique privileges that intellectuals enjoy. (shrink)

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)--"founder of German existentialism" (Martin Heidegger) and "a lucid and flexible intelligence in the service of a genuine and ...

A bold new interpretation of Aristotelian thought is central to Bernard Yack's provocative new book. He shows that for Aristotle, community is a conflict-ridden fact of everyday life, as well as an ideal of social harmony and integration. From political justice and the rule of law to class struggle and moral conflict, Yack maintains that Aristotle intended to explain the conditions of everyday political life, not just, as most commentators assume, to represent the hypothetical achievements of an idealistic "best regime." (...) By showing how Aristotelian ideas can provide new insight into our own political life, Yack makes a valuable contribution to contemporary discourse and debate. His work will excite interest among a wide range of social, moral, and political theorists. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt has been one of empathy’s most formidable and influential critics among contemporary political theorists. In this article, I suggest that her argument against empathy is no argument at all. The line she draws between empathy and imagination is arbitrary, and imagination cannot – in and by itself – sustain the work of representative thinking, which Arendt assigns to it. With this critique of Arendt, and the introduction of an alternative view of empathy put forth by Karl Jaspers, Arendt’s (...) mentor and friend, I hope to open the way for a reconsideration of the distrust with which empathy is met among many political theorists. (shrink)

The article deals with the question of how the breach in tradition became a topos of "Philosophy of Existence" after a particular set of historical experiences - - namely the genocide of the Jews in Europe and the collapse of European nation-states. More concretely, the article explores the ramifications of the biographical ruptures engendered by the years of National Socialism in the lives of several philosophers. Martin Heidegger had already worked with the metaphor of a "breach in tradition" in the (...) 1920s, but this early conception of a "breach" referred to thinking's turn toward the reflecting subject and consciousness, and had its origins in early modernity. The profound historical dislocation, the most visible expression of which was the genocide of the European Jews, effected a certain realignment in the term's use. For Hannah Arendt, the beach appeared in the mid-20th century and had far-reaching ramifications for her thinking about the political. Karl Jaspers, too, began to reflect upon philosophical thinking after the catastrophe; he connected philosophy of existence and moral philosophy. What was at stake when Arendt, Heidegger, and Jaspers started reflecting upon the "breach in tradition"? (shrink)

The article deals with the question of how the breach in tradition became a topos of "Philosophy of Existence" after a particular set of historical experiences - - namely the genocide of the Jews in Europe and the collapse of European nation-states. More concretely, the article explores the ramifications of the biographical ruptures engendered by the years of National Socialism in the lives of several philosophers. Martin Heidegger had already worked with the metaphor of a "breach in tradition" in the (...) 1920s, but this early conception of a "breach" referred to thinking's turn toward the reflecting subject and consciousness, and had its origins in early modernity. The profound historical dislocation, the most visible expression of which was the genocide of the European Jews, effected a certain realignment in the term's use. For Hannah Arendt, the beach appeared in the mid-20th century and had far-reaching ramifications for her thinking about the political. Karl Jaspers, too, began to reflect upon philosophical thinking after the catastrophe; he connected philosophy of existence and moral philosophy. What was at stake when Arendt, Heidegger, and Jaspers started reflecting upon the "breach in tradition"? (shrink)