Penseur et philosophe, Max Planck a dominé par sa personnalité toute la science moderne. Pour Albert Einstein, il a " doté le monde d'une grande idée créatrice " dont la découverte deviendrait " la base de toute la recherche en physique au XXe siècle ". C'est dans le domaine de la thermodynamique que fit irruption sa découverte révolutionnaire, en 1900, alors qu'il s'intéressait au rayonnement émis par les corps qu'on échauffe et aux propriétés de la matière avec laquelle ce rayonnement (...) interagit: contrairement à ce que supposait la physique classique, les échanges d'énergie entre le rayonnement et la matière ne peuvent se faire que par paquets discontinus, les quanta. Une hypothèse de quantification vis-à-vis de laquelle Planck lui-même exprima la plus extrême réticence mais qui signa l'acte de naissance de la physique quantique. Au terme de sa vie, à l'âge de quatre-vingt-sept ans, l'illustre savant revient une dernière fois sur son oeuvre et nous livre la démarche même de son esprit au travail. Un témoignage inestimable, suivi de quatre grandes conférences, qui furent aussi ses derniers écrits : " Les faux problèmes de la science ", " La signification et les limites de la science ", " Le concept de la causalité en physique " et, tel un testament spirituel, " Science et religion ". (shrink)

Les historiens qui se sont intéressés à la sexualité au xviie siècle ont souvent noté qu’il était rare d’accéder à une parole féminine. Quelques bribes en subsistent pourtant, que délivrent les biographies et autobiographies spirituelles de femmes dévotes et les archives des tribunaux d’Église. À partir de cette parole enchâssée dans d’autres discours – ceux des hommes et femmes d’Église qui les recueillent, ceux des juges qui les enregistrent –, opacifiée par des visées particulières – hagiographique ou judiciaire (...) –, censurée parfois, on ne peut espérer atteindre la réalité des pratiques sexuelles. En revanche, les silences qui la ponctuent donnent à voir l’importance de l’ignorance, de l’innocence et de la feinte dans l’expérience féminine de la sexualité depuis les fantasmes et les découvertes de l’enfance jusqu’aux premiers temps du mariage. (shrink)

Les historiens qui se sont intéressés à la sexualité au xviie siècle ont souvent noté qu’il était rare d’accéder à une parole féminine. Quelques bribes en subsistent pourtant, que délivrent les biographies et autobiographies spirituelles de femmes dévotes et les archives des tribunaux d’Église (Officialités). À partir de cette parole enchâssée dans d’autres discours – ceux des hommes et femmes d’Église qui les recueillent, ceux des juges qui les enregistrent –, opacifiée par des visées particulières – hagiographique ou (...) judiciaire –, censurée parfois, on ne peut espérer atteindre la réalité des pratiques sexuelles. En revanche, les silences qui la ponctuent donnent à voir l’importance de l’ignorance, de l’innocence et de la feinte dans l’expérience féminine de la sexualité depuis les fantasmes et les découvertes de l’enfance jusqu’aux premiers temps du mariage. (shrink)

Essai montaignien, maximes et fragments, confessions, exercice spirituel, journal, mémoires ou autobiographies, autant de genres abordés dans ce volume. Certains relèvent d'une tradition de la méditation et de l'exercice spirituel, alors que d'autres sont plus inventifs. Les interprétations proposées ici invitent à réssusciter ce mouvement qui animait l'écriture avant qu'il ne se fige.

John Stuart Mill was one of the most influential English-language philosophers during the Victorian era. His autobiography recounts his rigorous tutelage under a domineering father, his mental health crisis at age twenty, and his struggle to regain joy amid self-reflection and a reassessment of theories he once believed to be true.

Autobiography of John Stuart Mill by John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 - 8 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory and political economy. He has been called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century." Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. Mill expresses (...) his view on freedom by illustrating how an individual's drive to better their station, and for self-improvement, is the sole source of true freedom. Only when an individual is able to attain such improvements, without impeding others in their own efforts to do the same, can true freedom prevail. Mill's linking of freedom and self-improvement has inspired many. By establishing that individual efforts to excel have worth, Mill was able to show how they should achieve self-improvement without harming others, or society at large. (shrink)

Bien des difficultés que nous éprouvons à comprendre les oeuvres philosophiques des Anciens proviennent souvent du fait que nous commmettons en les interprétant un double anachronisme: nous croyons que, comme beaucoup d'oeuvres modernes, elles sont destinées à communiquer des informations concernant un contenu conceptuel donné et que nous pouvons aussi en tirer directement des renseignements clairs sur la pensée et la psychologie de leur auteur. Mais en fait, elles sont très souvent des exercices spirituels que l'auteur pratique lui-même et fait (...) pratiquer à son lecteur. Elles sont destinées à former les âmes. Elles ont une valeur psychagogique. (shrink)

This early work by Robin G. Collingwood was originally published in 1939 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'An Autobiography' is the story of Collingwood's personal and academic life. Robin George Collingwood was born on 22nd February 1889, in Cartmel, England. He was the son of author, artist, and academic, W. G. Collingwood. He was greatly influenced by the Italian Idealists Croce, Gentile, and Guido de Ruggiero. Another important influence was his father, a professor (...) of fine art and a student of Ruskin. He published many works of philosophy, such as Speculum Mentis (1924), An Essay on Philosophic Method (1933), and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940). (shrink)

Autobiography and Teacher Development in China investigates the roles of autobiography in teacher education, as several scholars in China recontextualize Western conceptions of teacher development, combining them with uniquely Chinese cultural conceptions to articulate a reconceptualization of teacher development that holds worldwide significance. Framed by the work of Zhang Hua and William F. Pinar, these theoretical and practical essays point to an internationally inflected reconceptualization of teachers' professional development, pre-service and in-service. This volume addresses multiple movements of teacher education reform (...) worldwide, focused on crafting a nationally distinctive course not only internationally, but also culturally, historically, and locally. (shrink)

This paper examines epistemic injustice in knowledge production concerning autism. Its aim is to further our understanding of the distinctive shapes of the kinds of epistemic injustices against autists. The paper shows how Ian Hacking’s work on autistic autobiography brings into view a form of hermeneutical injustice that autists endure with respect to their firsthand accounts of their experiences of autism. It explores how understanding the distinctive shape of this hermeneutical injustice can help us further appreciate dangers and harms of (...) using interpretive frameworks for autistic experience that neglect autists’ own contributions to the formation of words and concepts for capturing their experiences. In particular, the paper argues that even when autists are included in knowledge production concerning autistic experience, they remain vulnerable to forms of hermeneutical marginalization that can stifle the coming into being of autistic experience. (shrink)

We emerge into everythingness. The senses mingle incestuously. Nothing is distinct or differentiated. Everything is no-thing. How is it we come to be as distinct entities? Let me personalize: In what manner did I become an "I"? Is the motive force behind this much-maligned, much-altered, much-abused body my soul? my genes? me?

Exploring the connections between autobiography and postmodernism, this book addresses self-representation in a variety of literatures - Native American, British, Chicana, immigrant, and lesbian, among others - in genres as diverse as poetry, naming, confession, photography, and the manifesto. The essays examine how different writers respond to the culturally specific pressures of genre, how these constraints are negotiated, and what self-representation reveals about the politics of identity.

In this fascinating autobiography from the foremost genius of twentieth-century physics, Max Planck tells the story of his life, his aims, and his thinking. Published posthumously, the papers in this volume were written for the general reader and make accessible his scientific theories as well as his philosophical ideals, including his thoughts on ethics and morals. Max (Karl Ernst Ludwig) Planck was a German physicist and philosopher known for his quantum theory, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics (...) in 1918. Planck was born in Kiel, Germany, in 1858 to an academic family, and he valued education from a young age. He attended the Universities of Munich and Berlin to study physics under the great scientific leaders Kirchhoff and Helmholtz. His early work mainly focused on the study of thermodynamics, and in 1900 he published a paper on his quantum theory that would change the face of modern physics. Planck worked as a professor at Berlin University his entire life, and he also served as the president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Promotion of Science. During World War II, Planck experienced great hardships while he remained in Germany but openly opposed the Nazi regime. One of his two sons was executed during this time for an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler's life, and Planck's home in Berlin was eventually bombed. He continued to write on physics and philosophy until his death in 1947. (shrink)

WITH A PREFACE BY W. Y. Evans-Wentz M.A. D.Litt. D.Sc.

ZusammenfassungIn diesem Artikel vertrete ich die These, dass die christliche spirituelle Theologie das Potenzial hat, die Theologie eines mündigen Christentums zu sein. Um meine These zu belegen, stelle ich das theologische Denken des libanesisch-orthodoxen Bischofs George Khodr vor, der neben den theologischen Beiträgen der frühen griechischen Kirchenväter und auch Gedanken vieler westlicher und östlicher Denker und Theologen, deren Beiträge im Laufe der Geschichte für Spiritualität stehen, in sein Denken integriert hat. Die christliche spirituelle Theologie ist also eine Theologie, die auf (...) einer Einsicht und Erkenntnis beruht, die das Ergebnis eines originellen, kreativen Denkens ist, dessen Grund im Menschen selbst liegt. Die spirituelle Theologie ist auch existentiell und kann als anthropologische Theologie wahrgenommen werden, da sie das ganze Engagement der Person erfordert und die menschliche Suche nach dem Göttlichen zum Ausgangspunkt hat. Und schließlich hat die spirituelle Theologie das Kreuz in ihrem Zentrum, was bedeutet, dass ihr Endziel auch der Geist ist, in dem und durch den die Einheit des Menschlichen und des Göttlichen möglich wird. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell remains one of the greatest philosophers and most complex and controversial figures of the twentieth century. Here, in this frank, humorous and decidedly charming autobiography, Russell offers readers the story of his life – introducing the people, events and influences that shaped the man he was to become. Originally published in three volumes in the late 1960s, _Autobiography_ by Bertrand Russell is a revealing recollection of a truly extraordinary life written with the vivid freshness and clarity that has (...) made Bertrand Russell’s writings so distinctively his own. (shrink)

An examination of the genre of philosophical autobiography sheds light on the role of personal judgment alongside objective rationality in philosophy. Building on Monk's conception of philosophical biography, philosophical autobiography can be seen as any autobiography that reveals some interplay between life and thought. It is argued that almost all autobiographies by philosophers are philosophical because the recounting of one's own life is almost invariably a form of extended speech act of self-revelation. When a philosopher is the autobiographer, this (...) self-revelation illuminates the interplay between thought, life, and personality. Understanding how this works allows us to address three problems of biography raised by Honderich: how to give an account of something as large and complex as a human life; how a life-story is also a judgment; and how we can justify identifying one part of a causal circumstance as 'the cause'. There is also a new ethical problem raised about the autobiographer's right to make public details of a shared private life. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 and died in 1970. One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy and can lay claim to being one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many other topics, made him one of the most read and revered writers of the age. This, (...) his autobiography, is one of the most compelling and vivid ever written. This one-volume, compact paperback edition contains an introduction by the politician and scholar, Michael Foot, which explores the status of this classic nearly 30 years after the publication of the final volume. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 and died in 1970. One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy and can lay claim to being one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many other topics, made him one of the most read and revered writers of the age. This, (...) his autobiography, is one of the most compelling and vivid ever written. This one-volume, compact paperback edition contains an introduction by the politician and scholar, Michael Foot, which explores the status of this classic nearly 30 years after the publication of the final volume. (shrink)

Influential libertarians from diverse backgrounds and professions who have worked toward a freer society across the globe share their personal and intellectual journeys, including what their lives and thoughts were before they embraced libertarianism; which people, texts, or events most inspired them; what experiences, challenges, tribulations, and achievements they have had as participants or leaders in this movement, and how this philosophy has affected their private and professional lives. The volume’s 80 contributors span the political-philosophical spectrum of libertarianism, including anarcho-capitalists, (...) monarchists, constitutionalists, classical liberals, and thick libertarians. Their essays express different perspectives on many issues even while articulating such core principles as an appreciation for individual liberty, private property rights, the rule of law, and free enterprise. Together, they represent myriad individual journeys toward libertarianism, however defined. By bringing together a range of contemporary voices from outside the dominant left-right paradigm, this book aims to contribute to the viewpoint diversity that is crucially needed in today’s public discourse. These autobiographies not only offer compelling insights into their individual authors and the state of the world today, but may also inspire the next generation to make our society a freer one. (shrink)

The work of Jacques Derrida can be seen to reinvent most theories. In this book Robert Smith offers both a reading of the philosophy of Derrida and an investigation of current theories of autobiography. Smith argues that for Derrida autobiography is not so much subjective self-revelation as relation to the other, not so much a general condition of thought as a general condition of writing - what Derrida calls the 'autobiography of the writing' - which mocks any self-centred finitude of (...) living and dying. In this context, and using literary-critical, philosophical, and psychoanalytical sources, Smith thinks through Derrida's texts in a new, but distinctly Derridean, way, and finds new perspectives to analyse the work of classical writers including Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Freud, and de Man. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 and died in 1970. One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy and can lay claim to being one of the greatest philosophers of all time. He was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many other topics, made him one of the most read and revered writers of the age. This, (...) his autobiography, is one of the most compelling and vivid ever written. This one-volume, compact paperback edition contains an introduction by the politician and scholar, Michael Foot, which explores the status of this classic nearly 30 years after the publication of the final volume. (shrink)

R.G.Collingwood's Autobiography is the next of Collingwood's books to be revised for a new edition by Oxford University Press.It will include new manuscript material, include his Log of a Journey to the East Indies In addition there will be a number of scholarly essays relating Collingwood's ideas to his life and broader concerns.It is opportune to make available in English two introductions to the German and Romanian editions of An Autobiography.

The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico is significant both as a source of insight into the influences on the eighteenth-century philosopher's intellectual development and as one of the earliest and most sophisticated examples of philosophical autobiography. Referring to himself in the third person, Vico records the course of his life and the influence that various thinkers had on the development of concepts central to his mature work. Beyond its relevance to the development of the New Science, the Autobiography is also of (...) interest for the light it sheds on Italian culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Still regarded by many as the best English-language translation of this classic work, the Cornell edition was widely lauded when first published in 1944. Wrote the Saturday Review of Literature: "Here was something new in the art of self-revelation. Vico wrote of his childhood, the psychological influences to which he was subjected, the social conditions under which he grew up and received an education and evolved his own way of thinking. It was so outstanding a piece of work that it was held up as a model, which it still is.". (shrink)

Der Band bietet die erstmalige Edition der handschriftlich überlieferten Autobiographie des mystischen Spiritualisten Friedrich Breckling (1629-1711). Die Quelle, die detailliert kommentiert wird, enthält exakte genealogische Daten zu Brecklings familiären Verhältnissen sowie zu seinem Lebenslauf und gibt u.a. Aufschluss über die Beschaffenheit von Brecklings dichtem Kommunikationsnetz. Autobiographie, Chronik und apokalyptischer Traktat verbinden sich in dieser Schrift zu einer literarischen Mischgattung, die unter den frühneuzeitlichen "Ego-Dokumenten" eine wenn nicht einzigartige, so doch besondere Stellung einnehmen dürfte. Detaillierte Register erschließen das Werk.

In making the condition for its own possibility its deepest concern, philosophy is necessarily about itself—it is autobiographical. The first part of The Autobiography of Philosophy interprets Heidegger's Being and Time, Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals, Aristotle's Metaphysics, and Plato's Lysis as examples of the implicitly autobiographical character of philosophy. The second part is a reading of Rousseau's The Reveries of the Solitary Walker.

Most philosophical writing is impersonal and argumentative, but many important philosophers have nevertheless written accounts of their own lives. Filling a gap in the market for a text focusing on autobiography as philosophy, this collection discusses several such autobiographies in the light of their authors' broader work, and considers whether there are any philosophical tasks for which life accounts are particularly appropriate. Instead of the common impersonal and argumentative forms of ordinary philosophical discussion, these autobiographical texts are deeply personal (...) and largely narrative or explanatory. The contributors to this book examine the philosophical significance of philosophers’ autobiographies and whether or not there are broadly philosophical tasks for which this sort of writing is particularly suited. _Autobiography as Philosophy_ contains a general discussion about the relation between philosophical and autobiographical writing, and essays on the specific writings of Augustine, Abelard, Montaigne, Descartes, Vico, Hume, Rousseau, Newman, Mill, Nietzsche, Collingwood and Russell by specialists on the works of these individuals. Original and distinctive in its efforts to think about the writings of historically recognized philosophers as communicative acts governed by their own distinctive interests and purposes, the book reveals that it is as much about the texts and the authors as it is about their doctrines and arguments. As a result the book steps back from many of the issues of substantive philosophical discussion to reflect on certain forms of writing as means to philosophical ends, to consider what those ends have included. (shrink)

Most philosophical writing is impersonal and argumentative, but many important philosophers have nevertheless written accounts of their own lives. Filling a gap in the market for a text focusing on autobiography as philosophy, this collection discusses several such autobiographies in the light of their authors' broader work, and considers whether there are any philosophical tasks for which life accounts are particularly appropriate. Instead of the common impersonal and argumentative forms of ordinary philosophical discussion, these autobiographical texts are deeply personal (...) and largely narrative or explanatory. The contributors to this book examine the philosophical significance of philosophers’ autobiographies and whether or not there are broadly philosophical tasks for which this sort of writing is particularly suited. _Autobiography as Philosophy_ contains a general discussion about the relation between philosophical and autobiographical writing, and essays on the specific writings of Augustine, Abelard, Montaigne, Descartes, Vico, Hume, Rousseau, Newman, Mill, Nietzsche, Collingwood and Russell by specialists on the works of these individuals. Original and distinctive in its efforts to think about the writings of historically recognized philosophers as communicative acts governed by their own distinctive interests and purposes, the book reveals that it is as much about the texts and the authors as it is about their doctrines and arguments. As a result the book steps back from many of the issues of substantive philosophical discussion to reflect on certain forms of writing as means to philosophical ends, to consider what those ends have included. (shrink)

L’enjeu de cet ouvrage est de mettre au jour une continuité des exercices spirituels dans la philosophie contemporaine depuis Ralph Waldo Emerson et Henri David Thoreau jusqu’aux philosophes que sont, entre autres, Pierre Hadot, Hilary Putman, Stanley Cavell, William James, John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty ou encore Richard Shusterman. A travers le pragmatisme, le méliorisme, le perfectionnisme ou l’esthétique de l’existence, ce parcours de près de deux siècles met en évidence l’idée que la philosophie comme pratique des (...) exercices spirituels demeure, que celle-ci perdure dans notre espace contemporain en s’appropriant parfois de nouveaux terrains comme l’art, le corps... (4e de couv.). (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique : "Ce livre commence par définir ce qu'est un exercice spirituel. Quelle est cette notion qui est aussi une pratique dans l'antiquité? Il analyse en détail l'expression en s'interrogeant sur les théories et les mises en oeuvre qui peuvent s'y référer dans l'antiquité : de l'ascèse à la méditation, de la conversion à la maîtrise de soi ou encore le travail de l'âme. Enfin, cet ouvrage questionne également la continuité des exercices spirituels des Anciens, leurs (...) reprises à l'aube du christianisme, mais également par les philosophies de la Renaissance (Montaigne), des époques classique, moderne (Descartes) et par celles des Lumières (Shaftesbury, Kant, Rousseau).". (shrink)

Viele Menschen suchen nach Authentizität und Wahrhaftigkeit spiritueller Erfahrungen. Dabei werden Konfessions- und Religionsgrenzen überschritten, um der persönlich-existenziellen Innenseite von Religion auf die Spur zu kommen. Dieses Werk nimmt in einem interdisziplinären Austausch zwischen Spiritual Care und Philosophie diesen „Spiritual Turn“ wahr. Der Fokus liegt darauf, spirituelles Erleben aus philosophischen Perspektiven zu beschreiben und nach der Alltagspräsenz und -relevanz von Spiritualität zu fragen. Jedes Nachdenken über Spiritualität thematisiert die Zusammenhänge von Selbsterkenntnis und Selbsttranszendenz. Es geht somit bei der Spiritualität (...) auch um Ethik, um die Anerkennung von Grenzen, um die Bereitschaft zur Grenzüberschreitung und um Spiritualität als Element der Leiberfahrung in Gesundheit und Krankheit. Sowohl von spiritueller als auch von philosophischer Seite öffnet sich ein therapeutischer Horizont – besonders dann, wenn die Sinnfrage in Lebenskrisen aufbricht. Daraus können Impulse für Spiritual Care in Wissenschaft, Praxis und in den jeweiligen Kontexten der Organisationen und Institutionen des Gesundheitswesens erwachsen. (shrink)

This paper explores questions of access to perceptions of educational policy by members of policy elites. In particular, it reviews some possibilities of broadening how national education policy is contructed by examining the utility of published autobiographical tests.