In this essay I argue that the notion of religious transcendence was a latecomer in human evolution. It did not appear before the Axial Age, and in its extreme form as a realm of ultimate meanings beyond human reach it had only a locally and temporally bounded existence. Once it appeared, however, the idea of religious transcendence set an evolutionary dynamic in motion, which soon led to various forms of “immanent transcendence,” starting from the “Papal Revolution” and (...) continuing with the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Kantian notion of the transcendental and its Hegelian and Habermasian modifications. In my conclusion I briefly discuss two alternative versions of modern immanent transcendence—cognitive and exemplary—and their consequences for political philosophy. (shrink)

The doyen of university presidents emeriti, Patrick (Paddy) Masterson remains one of UCD's most admired scholars and leaders twenty-five years after he was its President. A Festschrift is the crowning accolade for an academic, and the present volume is testament to the high esteem in which Paddy Masterson is regarded by his peers. It is also a token of gratitude from his Alma Mater. Outside of Ireland, he has been honoured in Portugal, Italy, the United States, and his beloved France. (...) He shares his intellect and wit by continuing to publish in philosophy and his more recent passion, fiction.. (shrink)

Religion is undergoing a transformation in current Western society. In addition to organized religions, there is a notable movement towards spirituality that is not associated with any institutions but in which experiences and notions of transcendence are still important. Transcendence can be described as God, the absolute, Mystery, the Other, the other as alterity, depending on one's worldview. In this book, these shifts in the views of transcendence in various areas of culture such as philosophy, theology, (...) art, and politics are explored on the basis of a fourfold heuristic model (proposed by Wessel Stoker)"--Back cover. (shrink)

This paper seeks to retrace human nature and transcending the vision of humanity, by identifying, describing and analyzing the Hahnemannian principles and their relevance to anthropology of transcendent philosophy. Using the qualitative data from Hahnemann’s works with special reference to his Organon we found that Hahnemann’s principles are, unquestionably, a philosophical system in its own right. The primary goal of his philosophy, however is not solely speculative, indeed it is a medical philosophy written in brief aphoristic style, (...) aimed more of guidelines at curing suffering human beings, rather than winning adherents to its speculative creed. The main concern of Hahnemann with regard to his medical philosophy is actually the question of suffering human well-being. The answer to this question will provide an indication of the relevant of Hahnemannian principles to anthropology of transcendent philosophy. Thus Hahnemann’s principles cannot be properly understood apart from some grasp of his conception of human nature and philosophy as a whole. Nonetheless his ideas are against the new emergence mainstream thought pattern of modern Europe which in turn spread all over the globe. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1. An Ethical Transcendental Philosophy 1 -- 2. Beyond Being. Ontology and Eschatology in the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas 33 -- 3. The Rationality of the Philosophy of Levinas 56 -- 4. Levinas on Substitution 83 -- 5. Judaism and Hellenism in the Philosophy of Levinas and Heidegger 101 -- 6. Ontological Difference (Heidegger) and Ontological Separation (Levinas) 115 -- 7. Enmity, Friendship, Corporeality 133 -- 8. The Rationality of Transcendence 147 (...) -- 9. Levinas on Theology and the Philosophy of Religion 169. (shrink)

Making sense of our human existence can be difficult, but we may experience particular moments that prompt us to search for something deeper. Os Guinness tells stories of people who experienced these "signals of transcendence" and followed them to find new meaning and purpose in life-and the same can be true for us.

This book offers a cutting-edge interpretation of the philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling by critically reconsidering the interpretations of some of his "successors". It argues that Schelling's philosophy should be read as an ontology of immanence, highlighting its relevance for ongoing debates on ethics and freedom. The book builds on a key notion from Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation where he outlines the process through which transcendence must return to immanence in order to be grasped and understood. The (...) author identifies Jaspers, Heidegger, and Deleuze as the main interpreters of Schelling's philosophical activity, highlighting their relevance for subsequent Schelling scholarship. Heidegger and Jaspers refer to Schelling's philosophy in negative terms, namely as an incomplete and unviable philosophical system, whereas Deleuze holds the immanent core of Schelling's ontological discourse in high regard. The author's analysis demonstrates that reading Schelling's philosophy as an ontology of immanence not only avoids Heidegger's and Jaspers's criticisms but is also more fitting to Schelling's original meaning. Accordingly, his reading allows us to fully grasp Schelling's thought in all its strength and consistency: as a philosophy that avoids metaphysical abstractions and maintains the concreteness of concepts like God, nature, freedom by binding them to a solid and material account of Being. Finally, the author uses Schelling to propose an innovative reading of freedom as a matter of resistance, and of philosophy as an activity whose main purpose is that of seeking the actual extent and place of (human) life and freedom within nature. The author originally emphasises the relevance of these conclusions on contemporary debates in Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent. From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in 19th-century Continental philosophy, German idealism, and Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. (shrink)

The dynamic of religious expression employs symbolic language, actions, and art. These symbols are symbols of transcendence because it is transcendence which is the unique referent that sets apart symbols which give rise to religious understanding from symbols which do not. The main objective of this book is to demonstrate that in Louis Dupre's work all religious expression, insofar as it has a transcendent reference, is intrinsically symbolic. Religious language is never purely objective nor purely subjective, but a (...) dialectical relation with a transcendent dimension. True to the teachings of Dupre, this book uncovers that without a transcendent referent, religious symbols lose their religious significance. This is the plight of the (late-post)modern condition which resulted from the fracturing of nature into its cosmic, human and transcendent components. To regain a sense of transcendence the believer is forced to make an inward turn akin to the mystical practice of past ages. This does not recover a sense of transcendence for culture but can do so for the believer's personal spiritual life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TRANSCENDENT MAN IN THE LIMITED CITY: THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CHARLES N. R. McCOY ]AMES v. SCHALL, S.J. Georgetown University Washington, D. C. The history of political philosophy since the time of St. Thomas has been a history of successive failures to relate ethics to politics and of successive attempts to find a substitute for theology, either in politics itself... or in economics.... Men are today oppressed (...) by false theologies erected into political systems, and those who are not so oppressed are in risk of becoming so oppressed by an intellectual and moral inability to defend themselves. St. Thomas's political science will not give us the answers to problems of hydro-electric development or technological unemployment ; but it will give us the answer to the most vital of contemporary problems: how to secure the rational foundations of humane living. -Charles N. R. McCoy," St. Thomas and Political Science." 1 I IN WRITING ABOUT the small but rich corpus in political philosophy by Charles N. R. McCoy, the temptation is almost irresistible to call it, wittily, " The Real McCoy," or, more academically, a theoretic essay on the reasons for our " intellectual and moral inability to defend ourselves." The kind of being we are, no doubt, needs defense, needs an explication that justifies its unique givenness. Charles N. R. McCoy is not generally wellknown, though he has a small and (one hopes) growing number of admirers. The very cultural unlikelihood of his central theme, 1 On the Intelligibility of Political Philosophy: Essays of Charles N. R. McCoy, edited by James V. Schall, S.J. and John J. Schrems (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1989), p. 38. 63 64 JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J. which 1s m no sense Hegelian, that there is indeed a coherent philosophical intelligibility-a "structure "-to political philosophy, makes his work both unique, profoundly appealing, and perhaps even prophetic. McCoy was concerned to explain the transcendence of each person, each citizen, beyond the city, indeed beyond this world, without denying his exact political nature and the reasons for its limits. Man was both a political and a philosophical animal to whom more than either politics or philosophy was given. The dignity of the city was essentially revealed in its limits, in what good it could do with its own means while leaving other admitted goods untouched, in what questions it could legitimately bring up because of its experienced life, but still could not answer by itself. On reading him carefully in one's own pursuit of philosophic wisdom in an age replete with sundry mental and moral confusions, it is tempting to affirm that, at last, in political philosophy here is found a body of reflection which is indeed " the real McCoy." Here is a consistent examination of philosophic principle that accounts for the contours of the whole of the discipline in its most radical origins and clearest limits. McCoy's "reality" does not, to be sure, exist for most of the political science profession itself nor for Christian thinkers in the field of political thought. This situation is unfortunate on both counts. Political philosophy, for its part, has pursued in modern times the line of its own autonomy in rejecting the great tradition which affirmed the limited place of politics in the order of being, its position as a practical, not speculative science. Theology-itself seeking relevance in lieu of transcendence-has largely imitated this modern turn in political thought. The crisis in theology is, more than anything else, the result of a crisis in political philosophy, its evolution in modernity. Thus in a discipline in which so many of the ultimate human issues are either not confronted at all or are at best confused, in a theological environment which is itself largely infected with the theoretical deviations McCoy chronicled, this benign neglect of his work may turn out to be an advantage. McCoy's independence of these ideological movements, grounded POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF CHARLES N. R. MC COY 65 as it is in the philosophical tradition from which these movements systematically deviated, provides a new and fresh way of coming to terms with the meaning of political philosophy itself. In a spirit of... (shrink)

Recent clinical trials show that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can be given safely in controlled conditions, and can cause lasting psychological benefits with one or two administrations. Supervised psychedelic sessions can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and improve well-being in healthy volunteers, for months or even years. But these benefits seem to be mediated by "mystical" experiences of cosmic consciousness, which prompts a philosophical concern: do psychedelics cause psychological benefits by inducing false or implausible beliefs about (...) the metaphysical nature of reality? This book is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to the philosophical analysis of psychedelic drugs. Its central focus is the apparent conflict between the growing use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the philosophical worldview of naturalism. Within the book, Letheby integrates empirical evidence and philosophical considerations in the service of a simple conclusion: this "Comforting Delusion Objection" to psychedelic therapy fails. While exotic metaphysical ideas do sometimes come up, they are not, on closer inspection, the central driver of change in psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics lead to lasting benefits by altering the sense of self, and changing how people relate to their own minds and lives-not by changing their beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. The upshot is that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism (the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is). Controlled psychedelic use can lead to genuine forms of knowledge gain and spiritual growth-even if no Cosmic Consciousness or transcendent divine Reality exists. Philosophy of Psychedelics is an indispensable guide to the literature for researchers already engaged in the field of psychedelic psychiatry, and for researchers-especially philosophers-who want to become acquainted with this increasingly topical field. (shrink)

Wisdom holds that the reference in many religious beliefs to what lies beyond the world and "transcends" the senses is misleading. religious beliefs speak and can only speak about the world we know by means of the senses. to embrace much of what christians believe means for a person to change in himself and come into contact with something "within" him. i argue, first, that there is a sense of transcendence which is immune from wisdom's criticism and, secondly, that (...) while wisdom is right in his emphasis on the "inner life" he confuses the spiritual with the psychological. (shrink)

The main aim of this dissertation is to trace the systematic development of Husserl's early theory of intentionality, particularly as it reflects and influences his understanding of the mind-world relation. The dissertation is divided into two parts. ;In the first part, I trace the historical roots of phenomenology back to Husserl's teacher Franz Brentano. I argue that for Brentano, intentionality is a purely mental relation between a mental act and a mentally immanent intentional object or content. I also argue that (...) Brentano embeds this view in a roughly Lockean or "critical realist" position which adds a third element to the two elements of the intentional relation, viz., a really existing, extramental or worldly object---or, as Brentano prefers to call it, "thing." This "thing" is not psychologically accessible but is rather hypothesized by the natural scientist as a causal explanation for our intentional experiences. ;In the second part of the dissertation I chart the course of Husserl's early intellectual development in the period immediately following his philosophical apprenticeship under Brentano, again focusing on intentionality. I document Husserl's initial adoption of the Brentanian view, as well as his growing doubts about Brentano's immanentism. Through his work on the problem of nonveridical intentionality and the descriptive psychology of perception, Husserl is led to reject altogether the idea that intentionality is a genuine relation and to adopt instead an adverbial account which explains intentionality as an exclusive feature of mental acts, one that can be studied without any reference to the objects at which these acts aim. In the Logical Investigations , this conception of intentionality is coupled with a Cartesian, epistemologically oriented methodology to yield a conception of the philosophical study of the mind and its experiences in which no reference is made to the objects of the real world. I conclude the dissertation by indicating briefly how Husserl in subsequent years would augment and deepen this position through his concept of the noema. (shrink)

The question of transcendence, as it is understood in the perspective of the husserlian transcendental phenomenology, is the preliminary to any questioning about knowledge. How is it possible to grasp something? What is the proof of the reality of what is grasped? These are the questions on the basis of which we can determine a primary idea of transcendence understood as a “going beyond of oneself in the direction of things”. What is in question here does not concern (...) the going beyond in itself, but this undetermined self, the being who performs the « transcending ». Modern philosophy since Descartes understands this being as a “consciousness” or a “ subject ”. Sartre remains in the same perspective, whereas Heidegger breaks in a decisive manner with it. This is what is at stake here: the confrontation of the heideggerian notion of Dasein with the sartrian philosophy of consciousness. Sartre elabores in Being and Nothingness a philosophy of consciousness in spite of the fact that in the preceding years he had begun the reading of Being and Time, in which it is clear that Heidegger wants precisely to get over the notion of consciousness. Being and Nothingness is nevertheless deeply marked by the influence of Heidegger, so that one can see in it a discussion of Being and Time. One may even consider that Sartre’s “fruitful misinterpretation” of Heidegger ’s major work was the very origin of Being and Nothingness. But the best way to decide if this misinterpretation was really fruitful is to try to compare the heideggerian and sartrian understanding of transcendence. (shrink)

A comparison of the views of Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and Kazantzakis on the topic of transcendence. A fresh model for understanding this important yet complex notion is offered by the author.

This article seeks to understand a puzzling aspect of Georg Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money, namely, the many religious analogies Simmel uses to characterize money. We argue that with these analogies Simmel indicates how what he would later term ‘the transcendent character of life’ permeates mundane monetary interactions. Specifically, we articulate how key religious forms of experience – faith, unity, and individuality – exist in monetary exchange and point toward a distinctively Simmelian way to understand the interplay between religion (...) and economics. (shrink)

''The problem of Transcendence is the problem of our time. " I Needless to say, Transcendence was a particularly lively i~sue when Karl Heim wrote these words in the mid-1930's. Within the province of philosophi cal theology and philosophy of religion, however, it is always the prob lem, as Gordon Kaufman has recently reminded us. 2Por the question concerning the nature and the reality of Transcendence has not only to do with self-transcendence, but with the (...) being of Transcendence-Itself, that is to say, with the nature and the reality of God as experienced and understood at any given time or place. Now there are those today who would claim that any further discus sion of the latter half of this proposition, namely,Transcendence-Itse1f or God, is worthless and quite beside the point. Such persons would claim that the particular logia represented by the theological sciences has collapsed by virtue of its object having disappeared. Indeed, when one surveys the contemporary scene in philosophy and theology, there is a good deal of evidence that this is the case':"" theology of late having be come something of a "spectacle," to use Pritz Buri's term. One of the reasons for this, we here contend, is that the richness and the diversity of the meaning of Transcendence has been lost. And even though we do not here intend to resolve the issue, neither do we assume that such an enqui ry is either impossible or irrelevant. (shrink)

English translation of Jean Wahl, “Le Problème du choix: L’existence et la transcendance dans la philosophie de Jaspers,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 41, 3, 405–44; republished in Jean Wahl, Études kierkegaardiennes, 510–52.

Modern epistemology is reluctant to presume the objectivity of a mental event. Because a valid theory of knowledge is subjected to objective standards of rationality, the invocation of a transcendent ground of existence termed ‘god’ is deemed extra‐systematic. This reference lacks warrant because it fails to satisfy the impartial criteria methodologically basic to contemporary paradigms of knowledge. Still the biochemist Arthur Peacocke (1924–2006) claimed defensible public truth for an ultimate reality based on the ‘supremely’ rational nature of existence; it is (...) the further contention of this paper that there are intelligible patterns to the universe whose discovery is incapable of ‘objective’ explanation. By failing to meet these criteria, however, they do not fall into irrationality, still less do they disqualify or exclude themselves from public consideration; quite the opposite. There are perhaps depths to human experience then, including science, to which an existentialist epistemology is appropriate. In this connection the philosophy of Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) provides a compelling account of the transition of scientific research into aesthetics and theological discourse. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Science Fiction: Henri Bergson and the Fabulations of Philip K. Dick explores the deep affinity between two seemingly quite different thinkers, in their attempts to address the need for salvation in (and from) an era of accelerated mechanization, in which humans' capacity for destroying or subjugating the living has attained a planetary scale. The philosopher and the science fiction writer come together to meet the contradictory imperatives of a realist outlook-a task which, arguably, philosophy and (...) science fiction could only ever adequately undertake in collaboration. Their respective approaches meet in a focus on the ambiguous status of fictionalizing, or fabulation, as simultaneously one of mechanization's most devastating tools, and the possibility of its undoing. When they are read together, the complexities and paradoxes thrown up by this ambiguity, with which both Bergson and Dick struggle on their own, open up new ways to navigate ideas of mechanism and mysticism, immanence and transcendence, and the possibility and meaning of salvation. The result is at once an original reading of both thinkers, a new critical theory of the socio–cultural, political and ethical function of fictionalizing, and a case study in the strange affinity, at times the uncanny similarity, between philosophy and science fiction. (shrink)

Sources of angst in Chinese society, ranging from concerns about the environment to political stability and the ongoing economic reforms have persisted into the late 1990s and early 2000s. While official policy often discouraged directly addressing these anxieties in public forums, several articles printed in various officialnewspapers, many of them subsequently reprinted by the People’s Daily, offer advice on dealing with stress or frustration. Self-transcendence is a characteristically Chinese method that many of these articles advocate. Self-transcendence, which one (...) could define as expanding one’s boundaries of the self to take on broader life perspectives to help one make one’s life more meaningful, has religious, philosophical, and psychological dimensions. Chinese philosophy, the historical interactions between the people and their rulers, and even their language have all worked to make the strategy of transcendence a particularly appealing one to the Chinese. (shrink)

Discussions about theological realism within analytic philosophy of religion, and the larger conversation between analytic and continental styles in philosophy of religion have generated relatively little interest among Catholic philosophers and theologians; conversely, the work of major figures in recent Catholic theology seems to evoke little interest from analytic philosophers of religion. Using the 1998 papal encyclical on faith and reason, Fides et ratio, as a major point of reference, this essay offers a preliminary account of the bases (...) for such seeming mutual indifference and offers some suggestions for future dialogue. (shrink)

Philosophy of history has been condemned in recent times; however, it is becoming increasingly evident that a new Europe cannot do without a critical philosophy of history that analyses values and gives hierarchical structure to diverse experiences and historical memories. From this hypothesis, a result of previous projects, the project “Philosophy of History and Values in the Europe of the 21st century” has these fundamental objectives: 1) critically analyze the complex forms of conceiving science, history (society), culture (...) (languages, religion), law, ethics and politics, in order to understand the full scope of the idea of Europe in which we find ourselves; 2) systemize them with the proposal for a new critical philosophy of history, based on a “practical turn” that contemplates the elements (real responsibility, solidarity and justice) that should form the foundation of social and ethical political relations; 3) apply them to the constructionof a new Europe, in which implicit diversity and the demands of internationality, interculturality and dialogue between the genders can reconcile itself with the basic principles of universality, equality and justice and with the establishment of minimum human rights. The conclusions of our research will help to provide solutions to conflicts that are occurring in the heart of Europe, which at the high point of globalization, transcend European borders. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Modern Song: curious title, a curious book. If you bought it, as I did, because you are a devoted Dylan fan, hoping to find new Dylan songs inside, or at least new Dylan prose, you will be disappointed. In the photo of three musicians on the cover, none of them is Dylan. The one on the left is Little Richard. Who are the other two? Nowhere are we told their names, nor the names of the people (...) in any of the other photos, except for the sixty-six featured artists, though we will recognize many. The photo on the back cover might or might not be of the interior of Izzy Young's “Folklore Center,” reminiscent of Dylan's early days in Greenwich Village in the Sixties, when, together with my guitarist husband, I got to hear him perform after hours at the Gaslight and knew him well enough to say Hi when passing on the street.The basis for selecting the sixty-six songs anthologized and commented on is not immediately obvious. This is not a collection of Dylan's underappreciated favorites, though the taste represented is certainly eclectic and the choices are often surprising. The title does not help the reader who has not yet got her bearings... Philosophy? As if to justify his use of the word, Dylan eventually offers a lengthy comment on Albert Camus, but how relevant is that comment to these songs? And the word modern, too, means so many things—a sudden divergence from the past in the arts and literature; up-to-date and therefore good. These songs are not that kind of modern. If anything, the book looks backward, across the years of Dylan's long life to his musical awakening. Because we are almost the same age, I recognize the hodgepodge of styles and influences assembled here as belonging mostly to the early Fifties, when, like Bob, I was entering my teens by listening to, even dancing to, songs on the radio before I fell asleep at night. Enough about me! But no more apt basis for classifying these songs is suggested. They are not arranged alphabetically or chronologically.As for the anthologized songs, each one, once named, receives a commentary, and every commentary is called a chapter, and every chapter is divided into two parts, spelled out in letters as bold as a movie marquee. We are given the title of each song, the date of its release, and the name of the songwriter. The first part of each commentary consists of a paraphrase of “events” in the song, told almost exclusively in the second-person you rather than the more conventional I or the third-person he or she. Here is a passage from Dylan's paraphrase of “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins: You get on well with most people, and you put up with a lot, and you hardly get caught off guard, but your shoes are something else. Minor things may annoy you, but you rise above them. Having your teeth kicked in, being pounded senseless, being dumped on and discredited, but you don't put any weight on that, none of it is as real to you as your shoes. They're priceless and beyond monetary worth.The paraphrase goes on for almost six pages, and to what end? The second half of each commentary, indicated by changes in the type, takes a few steps back to consider the sociological implications of the song in the context of its time. For instance, from the second half of the commentary on “Blue Suede Shoes”: “Shoes reveal character, station, and personality.” But Dylan does not use the opportunity to talk about his own character, station, personality. His associations with Carl Perkins and “Blue Suede Shoes” morph into an anecdote about a man called “Iron Felix, trusted consort to Lenin and Stalin.”A lengthy list of all required photo credits fills the two back pages but is printed in type so small it is almost illegible. If you want more information, and more importantly if you want to experience the songs discussed, your best bet is to search for the recordings on YouTube and to follow along, reading Dylan's commentary, one song at a time, while listening. Or, I hear rumors that we will need to purchase another book, the audio version of Philosophy of Modern Song, not yet released.Every song has its commentary, but nothing about this organization is stable, and as soon as the reader/listener thinks she has discovered a rationale for the order of the works selected, she is met with an exception. Basically, these seem to be songs about which Dylan has something anecdotal to say. More usefully, perhaps, they are organized around certain themes—those that have always preoccupied him: man's inhumanity to man, injustice, self-deception, the human situation. The anonymous author of the blurb on the jacket promises a master class in songwriting, but, if it exists at all, that lecture is exhausted in one or two observations, such as: “ ‘El Paso’ is built on five stanzas, each one two verses and a bridge and then returning to the next stanza.... ”It was almost fifty pages into the book that the sense of something missing overcame me. It was not only the words of the songs and the music that were missing; it was the author, the central intelligence that I love, the singer and songwriter whose name is credited on the cover but who never appears in the book, not even in a photograph. What I missed was Dylan. He had removed himself from his book's pages, except perhaps for a single instance: “You're an eighty-year old man, being wheeled around in a home for the elderly, and the nurses are getting on your nerves.... ”Has Bob Dylan grown weary of himself and all of his creations? The commentaries are not about Bob. In the whole book, the line quoted above may be the only exception. Does he refuse the “first person singular in the hopes of transcending ego”? Maybe; but we want to hear our master's voice. As for the philosophy of song? Besides the remarks on Camus, there is only one commentary in which Dylan explicitly states anything like a philosophy, and that is the one on “Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me,” written and performed by Joe Shaver. The song has a philosophical point of view: “Keep moving, it's better, let the train keep on rolling.”. (shrink)

In this essay an attempt is made to transcend the divide between realists and anti-realists in the philosophy of history by proposing an alternative account of understanding the past, one based on the nature of testimonies, specifically theirscopeanddepth. This is done through a critical engagement with the works of prominent realist and anti-realist philosophers of history ; other philosophers working on relevant topics such as epistemology, and historians who have written on historical method. The alternative account thus developed is (...) then tested by applying it to the case of theHistorikerstreit, the bitterly waged historian's struggle concerning the history and legacy of Nazism. On the surface it appears to affirm the anti-realist position that posits historical narratives as being inherently normative/aesthetic given the inadequacies of the ‘thick’ realist position, but upon closer scrutiny it demonstrates the merit of my alternative, testimony-based ‘thin’ realist account. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a new interpretation of the controversial concept of ‘immanent transcendence’ in the work of the Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–...

This book is an account of the philosophical movement named Lebensphilosophie, which flourished at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. There many philosophers who participated in the movement, but this book concentrates on the three most important: Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel. The movement was called Lebensphilosophie—literally, philosophy of life—because its main interest was not life as a biological phenomenon but life as it is lived by human beings. They regarded human (...) life and experience as the fundamental reality, the basis of all knowledge and value, and disputed the relevance of any supernatural realm transcending human experience. The purpose of life was therefore life itself. Lebensphilosophie was the first modern philosophical movement in the Western tradition. It was “modern” in the sense that it was entirely humanist and secular, deriving all values from a non-religious perspective. Nietzsche, Dilthey and Simmel were either atheists or agnostics; they denied the relevance of any transcendent reality or being for human life. They abjured the traditional Christian concern with salvation and immortality. They also disputed the existence of natural law, teleology or a providential order; human beings created their own values and they did not conform to any made by nature. In anticipation of later existentialism, the Lebensphilosophen maintained that human beings are the makers of their own fate. Contrary to pessimism, they affirmed the great value of life while still acknowledging its frequent tragedy. The Lebensphilosophen were champions of an individualist ethics, which maintained that the highest good for a human being was self-realization, the development of a persons’s unique individuality. Their ethics was neither utilitarian nor de-ontological: it was not utilitarian because it did not regard the highest good as pleasure; self-realization could be a very unpleasant experience; and it was not de-ontological because it grounded moral norms upon the facts of human development and experience. The Lebensphilosophen were major advocates of historicism. They believed that human experience is formed by history, and that its horizons and limits are historical. Just as it was impossible to transcend human experience, so it was impossible to transcend history. All values and norms were therefore historical. In attempting to describe historical experience, the Lebensphilosophen developed the discipline of hermeneutics. They refused to accept mechanical explanation as a paradigm of explanation. This book attempts to describe and analyze the fundamental aspects of Lebensphilosophie by looking in detail at the views of its three leading figures. It examines their ethics, their religious background, their responses to pessimism and relativism, and their contributions to hermeneutics and historicism. (shrink)

In this study, which was his doctoral dissertation at the Free University of Amsterdam, Knudsen passes "through the entire range of Jaspers' idea of transcendence, from the first awareness of the boundaries in world orientation to the fullness of content in the transcendent."--R. D. G.

The article deals with the practical philosophy of Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda from the point of view of the leading trends of modern philosophical thought: the «rehabilitation of practical philo- sophy» and the communicative turn in philosophy, the components of which are the neo-Socratic dialogue, the philosophy of communication, and the ethics of discourse. The interpretation of Skovoroda’s philosophy is carried out not only in accordance with the principle «know yourself» as a method of knowledge, but primarily (...) in the dimension of the Socratic dialogue, when the methods of morals and elenctics are used in the joint search for truth, solving moral problems. The dialogic nature of Skovoroda’s method consists in searching for the truth together with other people through argumentation, the truth that also appears as a moral category. The article shows the actualization of Skovoroda’s philosophy in the pre-Soviet, Soviet and modern periods of the study of his work in independent Ukraine. The main thesis of the work consists in the statement that Skovoroda did not reduce philosophy to life, but raised life itself to philosophy. Philosophy was his life — a practical philosophy of life that formed his dialogical habitus. Socratic dialogue appears in philosophy, in everyday practices of communication with people, in particular, in the itinerant habitus of the thinker. Traveling is an important element of his philosophy, his life, and his habitus. The itinerant nature of Skovoroda’s habitus takes his dialogues beyond epistemology, transferring the dialogue to a practical, or rather, moral-practical plane. Skovoroda as an educator, relying on the habitus of Ukrainian culture and dialogic practices, transcends this habitus, elevating it to the habitus of reason. The work asserts the opinion about the need and necessity to develop and practice neo-skovorodinian dialogue as a component of the worldwide trend of development of dialogic practical philosophy and dialogic civilization. The article shows not only the significance of Skovoroda’s philosophy as a historical-philosophical phenomenon, but also its role in modern philosophical research in Ukraine, as well as the national liberation struggles of the Ukrainian people in the fight against Russia’s aggressive policy. (shrink)

This paper is a study of the essential property of human existence - transcendence, whose characteristics can be derived from Karl Stern’s works. By criticizing the model of contemporary psychology for its mechanistic character, Stern tries to prove that it is psychoanalysis that enables us to found a humanistic base for understanding human transcendence towards God. In this way, Stern passes over the fact that the humanistic sense of transcendence was established in Victor Frankl’s philosophy of (...) existence. Stern blemishes the basic meanings of Freud’s psychoanalysis, which, as such, is not suitable for Stern’s procedure of humanization. (shrink)

ABSTRACTBritish Idealism was the philosophical school which dominated during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Using the ideas of Bernard Bosanquet, John Caird and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison as an illustration, this paper looks at some of the ways in which the British Idealists sought to develop new and more subtle conceptions of the transcendent, able to resist the corrosive effects of late nineteenth-century critical and naturalistic thinking. The paper concludes by looking at three fields – philosophy, theology and (...) literature – in which it is possible to discern the ongoing influence into the first half of the twentieth century of their efforts. (shrink)

It is generally recognized that Adorno and Levinas should both be read as urging a rethinking of ethics in light of Auschwitz. This demand should be understood in terms of the acknowledgement of transcendence. A phenomenological account of the event of Auschwitz developed by Todes motivates my use of Cavell’s distinction between acknowledgement and knowledge. Both Levinas and Adorno argue that an ethically adequate acknowledgement of transcendence requires that the traditional concept of transcendence as represented in theodicy (...) must be rejected. This rejection takes the form of a rejection of theodicy (Levinas) and a negative theodicy (Adorno). I argue that Adorno’s response is superior because it is a response to the specificity and particularity of the event of Auschwitz as the destruction of, rather than merely the denial of, the humanity of both perpetrators and victims. (shrink)

This paper considers three essential gestures in Levinas’s theology, highlighting in each case how Levinas’s thinking allows him to either incorporate or sidestep some of the fiercest modern criticisms of traditional theism. First, we present Levinas’s vision of divine transcendence, outlining his ontological atheism and explaining how this obviates proving the existence of God and avoids the tangles of traditional theodicy. Second, we describe Levinas’s idea of the trace, showing how a nonexistent God still leaves its mark in the (...) face of the other person and explaining how this vision of divine immanence accords with the agendas of thinkers such as Feuerbach and Nietzsche, who criticized theology that elevated God while debasing humanity. Third, we present Levinas’s insistence on the philosophical primacy of ethics, showing how he infuses his ethical philosophy with religious themes, elevating moral philosophy to the level of ultimate concern in a way that even atheist social theoris. (shrink)

This book presents a philosophical study of the idea of reenchantment and its merits in the interrelated fields of philosophical anthropology, ethics, and ontology. It features chapters from leading contributors to the debate about reenchantment, including Charles Taylor, John Cottingham, Akeel Bilgrami, and Jane Bennett. The chapters examine neglected and contested notions such as enchantment, transcendence, interpretation, attention, resonance, and the sacred or reverence-worthy-notions that are crucial to human self-understanding but have no place in a scientific worldview. They also (...) explore the significance of adopting a reenchanting perspective for debates on major concepts such as nature, naturalism, God, ontology, and disenchantment. Taken together, they demonstrate that there is much to be gained from working with a more substantial and affirmative concept of reenchantment, understood as a fundamental existential orientation towards what is seen as meaningful and of value. The Philosophy of Reenchantment will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in philosophy-especially those working in moral philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, theology, religious studies, and sociology. (shrink)

The spectrum of religious experience and spirituality in contemporary postmodern, postsecular and religiously pluralized Western culture is extremely broad. Is it possible to trace the development, the shifts, breaches and patterns of religious and spiritual transcendence in this deeply diversified context? In this volume, a heuristic model of four types of transcendence is proposed and discussed. The four types are immanent transcendence, radical transcendence, radical immanence and transcendence as alterity. Of each type two examples from (...) contemporary cultural discourses, ranging from theology and philosophy to popular culture are presented and the viability of the model as such is critically assessed. The pairs of examples show how different kinds of content are given to the same type. By illuminating this dialectic between formal categories of notions of transcendence and their specific content in various areas of culture, the book can aid further exploration of the preconditions, possibilities, difficulties and limitations of relating to and expressing (a) sense(s) of transcendence within a postmodern world. (shrink)