Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1996) has exerted a profound influence on 20th-century continental philosophy. This anthology, including Levinas's key philosophical texts over a period of more than forty years, provides an ideal introduction to his thought and offers insights into his most innovative ideas. Five of the ten essays presented here appear in English for the first time. An introduction by Adriaan Peperzak outlines Levinas's philosophical development and the basic themes of his writings. Each essay is accompanied by a brief introduction and (...) notes. This collection is an ideal text for students of philosophy concerned with understanding and assessing the work of this major philosopher. (shrink)

Although Emmanuel Levinas is widely respected as one of the classic thinkers of our century, the debate about his place within Continental philosophy continues. In _Beyond: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas,_ Adriaan Theodoor Peperzak shows Levinas's thought to be a persistent attempt to point beyond the borders of an economy where orderly interests and ways of reasoning make us feel at home--beyond the world of needs, beyond the self, beyond politics and administration, beyond logic and ontology, even beyond freedom and (...) autonomy. Peperzak's examination begins with a general overview of Levinas's life and thought, and shows how issues of ethics, politics, and religion are intertwined in Levinas's philosophy. Peperzak also discusses the development of Levinas's relations with Husserl and Heidegger, demonstrating thematically the evolution of both Levinas's anti-Heideggerian view of technology and his critical attitude toward nature. (shrink)

The fruit of the author's many courses on Emmanuel Levinas in Europe and the United States, this study is a clear introduction for graduate students and scholars who are not yet familiar with Levinas's difficult but exceptionally important oeuvre. After a first chapter on the existential background and the key issues of his thought, chapters 2, 3, and 4 concentrate on and include a short text, "Philosophy and the idea of the Infinite," which contains the program of Levinas's entire oeuvre. (...) Chapter 5 is a companion to the reading of Levinas's first opus magnum, Totality and the Infinite. It analyzes the structure of this book and shows how its questions and answers adhere together. "Through phenomenology toward a saying beyond phenomena and essence" could be the summary of Levinas's attempt to think, with and against Martin Heidegger, the otherness of the Other. -- Amazon.com. (shrink)

This book, the result of 40 years of Hegel research, gives an integral interpretation of G.W.F. Hegel's mature practical philosophy as contained in his textbook, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, published in 1820, and the courses he gave on the same subject between 1817 and 1830.

Ethics as First Philosophy brings together original essays by an outstanding group of international scholars that discuss the work of Emmanuel Levinas. The book explores the significance of Levinas' work for philsophy, psychology and religion. Ethics as First Philosophy comprises an excellent collection of work on this major contemporary thinker. The book presents Levinas philosophy from a wide and well-balanced variety of perspectives. The contributions range from thematic discussions of Levinas central concepts to explorations of his affinities and differences with (...) other key writers such as Kant, Kierkegaard, Rosenzweig, Benjamin, Blanchot and Derrida. Some of the authors focus on the religious and philosophical issues presented by Levinas while others analyze the role of Levinas within phenomenology in or within recent French philosophy. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas has exerted a profound influence on 20th-century continental philosophy. This anthology, including Levinas's key philosophical texts over a period of more than forty years, provides an ideal introduction to his thought and offers insights into his most innovative ideas. Five of the ten essays presented here appear in English for the first time. An introduction by Adriaan Peperzak outlines Levinas's philosophical development and the basic themes of his writings. Each essay is accompanied by a brief introduction and notes. (...) This collection is an ideal text for students of philosophy concerned with understanding and assessing the work of this major philosopher. (shrink)

That we are a conversation -- On the unity of thematic philosophy and philosophy as history of thought -- The relevance of intersubjectivity for first philosophy and the history of philosophy -- Education: responsive tradition -- Philosophy: wise about friendship? -- Vocative -- Philosophy versus faith? -- The universality of a Christian philosophy -- Sacrificium laudis, sacrificium intellectus -- Philosophy as mediation between faith and culture.

Against the widespread antiplatonism of our century, noted philosopher, Hegel, and two great postmodern thinkers, Heidegger and Levinas, transform Plato's thoughts about reality, truth, and the Good into elements of their own reflection. He then presents his own retrieval of Platonic themes and arguments, showing how fruitful a critical reexamination of Plato's work can be, even today. Anyone interested in continental philosophy, phenomenology, ethics, or the history of philosophy should read this book.

Dieser Kommentar zur Hegel'schen Philosophie des Geistes stellt ihre Struktur und die Hauptlinien ihrer Argumentationen heraus. Dazu stutzt sie sich auf eine Wort-fur-Wort-Analyse derjenigen Paragraphen der Berliner Enzyklopadie, in denen Hegel die Grundbegriffe und die Hauptubergange seiner Geistesphilosophie ausfuhrt. Die Rekonstruktionen des Hegel'schen Begriffs des Geistes, seiner Psychologie, seiner Auffassung des Verhaltnisses zwischen subjektivem, objektivem und absolutem Geiste sowie die ausfuhrliche Diskussion der Kapitel uber die Religion und das absolute Wissen ermoglichen eine neue Interpretation der Schlusse, mit denen die Enzyklopadie (...) endet. (shrink)

Since the truth is only the whole, no statement or discipline can be true unless we understand how it relates to all other statements and disciplines within one encyclopedic knowledge. This theorem also applies to the perspective from which the exposition of the whole truth can be approached. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, in a sense gathers the entire truth, but its perspective is the specific phenomenological one of experience and Bildung. All partial perspectives taken together, however, understood in (...) the necessity of their unity, form the one and overall perspective—which no longer is a perspective—that constitutes the truth of the truth beyond which nothing exists or can be known. This one and total Idea can be known by us, finite intelligences, only in the unfolding and time-consuming form of a discursive system. It knows itself in the eternity of its self-differentiating and self-temporalizing identity with itself. (shrink)

Philosophers speak—or, rather, they respond to various forms of speaking that are handed to them. This book by one of our most distinguished philosophers focuses on the communicative aspect of philosophical thought. Peperzak’s central focus is “addressing”: what distinguishes speaking or writing from rumination is their being directed by someone to someone. To be involved in philosophy is to be part of a tradition through which thinkers propose their findings to others, who respond by offering their own appropriations to their (...) interlocutors.After a critical sketch of the conception of modern philosophy, Peperzak presents a succinct analysis of speaking, insisting on the radical distinction between speaking about and speaking to. He enlarges this analysis to history and tries to answer the question whether philosophy also implies a certain form of listening and responding to words of God. Since philosophical speech about persons can neither honor nor reveal their full truth, speaking and thinking about God is even more problematic. Meditation about the archaic Word cannot reach the Speaker unless it turns into prayer, or—as Descartes wrote—into a contemplation that makes the thinker “consider, admire, and adore the beauty of God’s immense light, as much as the eyesight of my blinded mind can tolerate.”“ Thinking is a work of genuine and original scholarship which responds to the tradition of philosophical thinking with a critique of its language, style, focus, and scope.”—Catriona Hanley, Loyola College, Maryland. (shrink)

This work renews the basic questions and principles of philosophical ethics and provides a thorough account of how being oneself presupposes freedom and responsibility. _Elements of Ethics_ focuses on the descriptive and conceptual analysis of the experiences through which human lives become aware of themselves and shows how we are provoked to respond appropriately to the various dimensions and phenomena of the universe. Operating on the provocative thesis that "if the ethical is real, it cannot be proved, because it is (...) either nothing at all or an irreducible origin," this book pursues the question that defines ethics: "How should I live?" After setting out a preliminary definition of terms, _Elements of Ethics_ gives insight into the relation of human individuals and the world by showing that the traditional separation between "is" and "ought" overlooks their profound coincidence, and by clarifying the determining, though often overlooked, role of _affectivity _ and _katharsis_ in all ethical experiences. (shrink)

There is a didactical as well as a philosophical importance to providing a commentary on the Preface to Hegel's handbook on the philosophy of right. Considering the fact that the text brings us the thought of a great and difficult philosopher in a non-rigorous, "exoteric" way, it is well suited to the task of introducing students to the world of think ing. It is, however, too difficult to do this without being supplemented by some explanation. Analysis and hints for further (...) study are necessi tated here by both the interweaving of political and philosophical viewpoints and the philosophical presuppositions with which this Preface is full. The philosophical importance of a commentary on Hegel's text can be found partially in the incessant quotation of the Preface in the literature on Hegel's philosophy to justify very different and contra dictory interpretations. As long as the specialists do not agree about the meaning of the Preface to the Philosophy of Right, anyone trying to explain it cannot avoid the task of making his or her own contribu tion to the philosophical debate concerning the nature and content of Hegel's work. (shrink)

The fundamental message of Jewish thought in Levinas' version can be summarized by the following quote: It ties the meaning of all experiences to the ethical relation among humans; it appears to the personal responsibility of man, who, thereby, knows himself irreplaceable to realize a human society in which humans treat one another as humans. This realization of the just society is ipso facto an elevation of man to the society with God. This society is human happiness itself and the (...) meaning of life. Therefore, to say that the meaning of the real must be understood in function of ethics, is to say that the universe is sacred. But it is sacred in an ethical sense. Ethics is an optics of the divine. No relation to God is more right or more immediate.The Divine cannot manifest itself except through the neighbor. For a Jew, incarnation is neither possible, nor necessary. After all, Jeremiah himself said it: ‘To judge the case of the poor and the miserable, is not that to know me? says the Eternal’. DL 209. The quote at the end is from Jerem. 22:16.The One who is revealed in this ethical religion differs greatly from the almighty and triumphant God whose image dominates any thought in which politics procures the highest perspective. The ‘Master of the world’ is power-less against human violence and sin, vulnerable and persecuted. His passing by is not in the thunderstorm, not in the earthquake, and not in the fire either, but ‘after the fire there was a voice of subtle silence’ (1 Kings 19:11–12). God penetrates the world almost imperceptibly, in extreme humility. AV 211–212 (ECED). Cf. Kierkegaard vivant (Paris: Gallimard 1966), pp. 286–288. (shrink)

Since the truth is only the whole, no statement or discipline can be true unless we understand how it relates to all other statements and disciplines within one encyclopedic knowledge. This theorem also applies to the perspective from which the exposition of the whole truth can be approached. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, in a sense gathers the entire truth, but its perspective is the specific phenomenological one of experience and Bildung. All partial perspectives taken together, however, understood in (...) the necessity of their unity, form the one and overall perspective—which no longer is a perspective—that constitutes the truth of the truth beyond which nothing exists or can be known. This one and total Idea can be known by us, finite intelligences, only in the unfolding and time-consuming form of a discursive system. It knows itself in the eternity of its self-differentiating and self-temporalizing identity with itself. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

To what extent does Bonaventure’s work contribute to a renewal of negative theology? Rather than answering this question directly, this article focuses on the negative moments which, according to Bonaventure, characterize the human quest for God and the docta ignorantia to which it is oriented. Bonaventure’s synthesis of Aristotelian ontology and Dionysian Neoplatonism is a wisdom that admires God’s being good as manifested in Christ’s human suffering and death.

Shows the way to a postmodern ethics – neither utilitarian nor deontological – by reflecting on its key concepts of freedom, value, intersubjectivity, obligation, responsibility, rights, ethos, history, and culture.

The articles in this book display the originality and creativity of Eros and Eris, and their important role in the history of our culture, particularly in the history of philosophy and its role in today's systematic philosophy. Although these contributions to a hermeneutical phenomenology in this compilation are organized in a linear-chronological order (treating Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Cusanus, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger and Levinas), they all carry out their own hermeneutical movement in the (...) history of philosphy on the basis of a commitment with out life, here and now, and a thematic, professional interest. Among the contributors are: R. Bernasconi, J. Colette, J.F. Courtine, L. Dupré, Kl. Düsing, J. Greisch, J. Kockelmans, P.-J. Labarrière and G. Jarczyk, E. Levinas, Al. Lingis, J.-L. Marion, O. Pöggeler, W. Richardson, P. Ricoeur, J. Sallis, M. Theunissen and S. IJsseling. (shrink)

Kant's formalism remains unreal if it cannot be concretized in a historical ethos. An ethos belongs—with texts, contexts, structures, processes, networks, etc.—to an economy of customs and opinions, which presupposes that participating individuals have been and are being initiated and acculturated to it. The analysis of education, transmission, and transition unveils the irreducible—noneconomic and non-textual— essence of addressing and interlocution, without which no culture could exist. The otherness that is involved implies, but is not confined to, "you." The third and (...) I myself are also other by imposing the same inescapable responsibility for them on me. (shrink)

THE REAL LIFE of philosophy is the actual philosophizing of living persons within a limited period of time, in which some, but not all, possibilities of philosophical thought are realized with more or less adequacy. The factual philosophers of a period share certain language games, fragments of logic, general prejudices, certain motivations and experiences. Some of them discuss some of the theses sustained by some of their colleagues. A universal dialogue is a never-realized ideal, but at least some discussion is (...) necessary if one wants to become a participant in the realm of philosophy. (shrink)

Modern philosophy has had difficulty attempting to show the unbreakable unity of the individual with communal aspects of human existence. A number of modern thinkers began their treatises by rationally, even geometrically, constructing a more or less real or ideal community based on a multiplicity of individuals. Yet others, convinced that no form of individualism could ever supply insight into the communal structure of human life, saw all individuals from the outset as members — or even as organs — of (...) a collective whole. While the former struggled in vain to show that contracts or other forms of freely chosen exchangenecessarily mutate into communal dispositions and institutions, the latter had to cope with the modern dogma that all philosophy must begin from an autonomous (individual or transcendental) ego. Modern philosophy, then, has not produced a wholly satisfactory synthesis of individualism and communitarianism. This failure could be a symptom of a faulty start, which may be due to the initial questions: Can individuality and commonality be opposed? Does their distinction concerntwo aspects, two levels, two dimensions of one reality? How do they evoke, provoke, imply, and fortify one another? (shrink)

Modern philosophy has had difficulty attempting to show the unbreakable unity of the individual with communal aspects of human existence. A number of modern thinkers began their treatises by rationally, even geometrically, constructing a more or less real or ideal community based on a multiplicity of individuals. Yet others, convinced that no form of individualism could ever supply insight into the communal structure of human life, saw all individuals from the outset as members — or even as organs — of (...) a collective whole. While the former struggled in vain to show that contracts or other forms of freely chosen exchangenecessarily mutate into communal dispositions and institutions, the latter had to cope with the modern dogma that all philosophy must begin from an autonomous ego. Modern philosophy, then, has not produced a wholly satisfactory synthesis of individualism and communitarianism. This failure could be a symptom of a faulty start, which may be due to the initial questions: Can individuality and commonality be opposed? Does their distinction concerntwo aspects, two levels, two dimensions of one reality? How do they evoke, provoke, imply, and fortify one another? (shrink)

Is human reason natural? After the crisis of the modern idea that genuine philosophy is based on rational autonomy, the context forthis question has drastically changed. If a philosopher who is also a self-conscious and reflective Christian, tries to reformulate thequestion of reason’s independence, what can he or she learn from a close reading of Rom 1:18–23?

Der Kommentar rekonstruiert die Struktur und die Bedeutung der Hegelschen Philosophie des Willens und des objektiven Geistes, soweit sie enthalten ist in den drei Fassungen der Enzyklopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften. Eindringliche Textanalysen zeigen, wie Hegels praktische Philosophie sich zwischen 1817 und 1830 verandert hat; einige Exkurse arbeiten ihren ethischen und politischen Gehalt heraus. Das Buch ist ein wichtiger Beitrag zur Diskussion uber die Bedeutung und die Logik der Hegelschen Philosophie der Freiheit und des Rechts.