The main conclusion of Herman Philipse’s God in the Age of Science? is that we should all be atheists. Remarkably, however, the book contains no argument whatsoever for atheism. Philipse defends the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness, but those arguments count only against an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, not against just any god. He also defends the claim that there cannot be any bodiless spirits, but, of course, not all religions take their gods to (...) be bodiless. However, because his main tar- get of criticism is monotheism and adherents of monotheism usually claim that God is a bodiless spirit, this paper discusses Philipse’s arguments against the existence of a bodiless spirit. I argue that his three main claims about religious belief in a bodiless spirit are false. First, contrary to what he says, there is good reason to think that the expression “bodiless spirit” is meaningful. Among other things, the Wittgensteinian semantic theory of psychological attribute ascription on which his argument relies turns out to be untenable. Second, Philipse’s thesis that the existence of a bodiless spirit is impossible is also problematic. We can properly use the word person for bodiless spirits. Also, an attribute such as presence or omnipresence can be understood metaphorically without the definition of “God “thereby losing too much meaning. And we do not need any criterion for diachronic personal identity of bodiless spirits; such identity may very well be a primitive fact. Third and finally, there is no reason to think that the existence of a bodiless spirit is improbable. The fact that science has discovered a dependence relation between mental states and brain states and the fact that science has never been able to detect bodiless spirits provide no reason to think otherwise. (shrink)

A professor is brought before a secret tribunalin his law faculty for the purpose of decidingthe appropriateness of a student's grade. Thegrounds of the grade appeal are that theprofessor had taught critically instead ofpractically and that he had done so with anacademic bias and prejudice. He is also allegedto have taught philosophy rather than law. After many hours of examination andcross-examination as a defendant and as anexpert witness, the professor, Flink, begins adialogue with a spirit in an effort tounderstand the (...) nature and identity of law. Flink comes to appreciate that law is adisplacing discourse rather than a structure ofcategories signified in an official writing. The analytic method familiar to officials incommon law jurisdictions, Flink comes tounderstand, excludes the experiential meaningsthat are manifested through unwritten gesturesand rituals. Officials embody signs withexperiential expectations and past assumptions.The embodiment of meaning brings life intolegal language. But such an embodiment isforgotten as officials decompose textualfragments and reported social events intoanalytic units. Legal analysis is so successfulthat officials even forget that they hadforgotten something so important as theembodiment of meaning. The professor and the spirit also ask whetherjustice is an `ought' and where one can locatesuch an `ought'. They conclude that there is astructure within which legal officials reason.The exteriority of the structure is anunwritten `ought' realm. But the structurepossesses a gap, which enters into such anunanalysable object-less realm. Analyticreasoning has assumed that reason can take anofficial only so far until she or he mustjourney outside the structure to anunanalysable realm of personal values. However, the embodiment of meanings alsoincorporates unwritten collective values ofwhich officials, precisely because of thesuccess of the analysis project in forgettingthat something was forgotten, have never beenconscious. It is such an unanalysable realmthat grounds or authorises the analyticproject. The exterior authorising origin of theanalytic units of the structure rests upon apossibility that requires faith on the part ofthe officials, a faith that there exists afoundation, radically different from theanalytic units, on the other side of thestructure. The officials can, at best, imagineor picture the authorising origin, located asit is in the unanalysable object-less realmexterior to the written language of thestructure. The imagined origin takes the `form'of a bodiless spirit. The officials are haunted by thepossibility that the structure of humanlyposited rules are ultimately authorised by aspirit. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon (...) those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time. (shrink)

Phantasmagoria explores ideas of spirit and soul since the Enlightenment; it traces metaphors that have traditionally conveyed the presence of immaterial forces, and reveals how such pagan and Christian imagery about ethereal beings are embedded in a logic of the imagination, clothing spirits in the languages of air, clouds, light and shadow, glass, and ether itself. Moving from Wax to Film, the book also discusses key questions of imagination and cognition, and probes the perceived distinctions between fantasy and deception; (...) it uncovers a host of spirit forms--angels, ghosts, fairies, revenants, and zombies--that are still actively present in contemporary culture. It reveals how their transformations over time illuminate changing ideas about the self. Phantasmagoria also tells the accompanying story about the means used to communicate such ideas, and relates how the new technologies of the Victorian era were applied to figuring the invisible and the impalpable, and how magic lanterns (the phantasmagoria shows themselves), radio, photography and then moving pictures spread ideas about spirit forces. As the story unfolds, the book features the many eminent men and women--scientists and philosophers--who in the Society of Psychical Research applied their considerable energies to the question of other worlds and other states of mind: they staged trance seances in which mediums produced spirit phenomena, including ectoplasm. The book shows how this often embarrassing story connects with some of the important scientific discoveries of a fertile age, in psychology and physics. Over a sequence of twenty-eight chapters, with over thirty illustrations in color and black and white, Phantasmagoria thus tells an unexpected and often uncomfortable story about shifts in thought about consciousness and the individual person, from the first public waxworks portraits at the end of the eighteenth century to stories of hauntings, possession, and loss of self as in the case of the zombie, a popular figure of soulessness, in modern times. (shrink)

On rivers, mountains and secrets : an introduction to the study and its subjects -- Talking to God-- and God talking back -- Mind embodied : spiritual practice and consciousness -- Place and the making of religious practice -- The spirit of the work : challenging oppression, nurturing diversity -- Conscious sex, sacred celibacy : sexuality and the spiritual path.

Of laws in general -- Of laws directly derived from the nature of government -- Of the principles of the three kinds of government -- That the laws of education ought to be relative to the principles of government -- That the laws given by the legislator ought to be relative to the nature of government -- Consquences of the principles of different governments, with respect to the simplicity of civil and criminal laws, the form of judgements, and inflicting of (...) punishments -- Consquences of the different principles of the three governments, with respect to sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women -- Of the corruption of the principles of the three governments -- Of the laws in the relation they bear to defensive force -- Of laws, in the relation they bear to offensive force. (shrink)

Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806) has long enjoyed a reputation as a Romantic poet, but her philosophical contributions have largely been neglected. This paper is one of the first to address Günderrode’s political thought, especially her view of the interrelationship between human society and the broader environment. The paper argues that Günderrode develops resources for reconceiving the relationship of human beings to the nonhuman and to each other that work against an instrumentalizing view of nature and programmatic political ideals. Günderrode’s normative (...) restraint, concept of harmony, and view of human beings as part of and the same in kind as the rest of nature contribute to a vision of sociality, grounded in her metaphysics, that envisions small communities fostering connections between human beings and the nonhuman. On Günderrode’s model, these connections can grow and strengthen and eventually, perhaps, enable the emergence of the single, perfect organism that she calls the “realized idea of the earth.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Spirit of Settler Colonialism and the City Streets:A Response to Mishuana GoemanErin C. Tarveri want thank dr. goeman for her excellent paper and for introducing us to these extraordinary artists. Their work is beautiful and important, and I am grateful for the opportunity to witness it and think about it and to consider in particular in its relation to its setting in Los Angeles.In what follows, I want (...) to consider that setting—a city, as Dr. Goeman notes, containing some of "the most expensive real estate properties in the United States," commercial areas officially defined by "colonial encompassing property logics," and marked by "noise and [the] reverberation of mass consumerism" ("Caring for Landscapes 57). My interest will be in putting Dr. Goeman's analysis of these works and the Indigenous artist-activists who create them in dialogue with Jane Addams's diagnosis of the problems of early twentieth-century American urban life in her book The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. I will suggest that Dr. Goeman's paper illuminates the limitations of Addams's approach to responding to the alienation of modern urban life—which, while rightly critical of the harms of mass consumer culture and the reduction of city life to economic productivity in conditions of industrialization, does not grapple with its own implication in settler colonialism and dispossession, and therefore cannot care for the land or its inhabitants as these artists invite us to do. I will also invite her to reflect on whether Addams's suggestion that play and recreation are essential components of urban human flourishing is borne out in the work of these artists.Jane Addams, in 1909, discussed the problems of urban life in post-Industrial Revolution Chicago in similar terms to those Dr. Goeman uses to describe the contemporary landscape of Los Angeles. The contemporary city, Addams writes, in forgoing spaces for public play, art, creativity, and non-production, has "entered upon a most difficult and dangerous experiment … at the very moment when the city has become distinctly industrial, [End Page 71] and daily labor is continually more monotonous and subdivided" (4–5). In this context, young people are increasingly alienated and isolated, valued solely for the products of their labor, and desperate for social connection. The playfulness and creativity of youth cannot be entirely stifled, yet without clear public spaces or institutions for outlets, young people become easy targets for capitalists who promise pleasure and self-actualization through consumption—of liquor, of fashion, of music, and so on. Lamenting the impoverished state that the city of mass consumption leaves us in, Addams writes:The spontaneous joy, the clamor for pleasure, the desire of the young people to appear finer and better and altogether more lovely than they really are, the idealization not only of each other but of the whole earth which they regard but as a theater for their noble exploits, the unworldly ambitions, the romantic hopes, the make-believe world in which they live, if properly utilized, what might they not do to make our sordid cities more beautiful, more companionable? And yet at the present moment every city is full of young people who are utterly bewildered and uninstructed in regard to the basic experience which must inevitably come to them, and which has varied, remote and indirect expressions.(15–16)There is, for Addams, a basic human need for play, creativity, and connection—to a community and to the natural world itself—whose unsatisfaction in a city devoted entirely to industry is nothing short of dehumanizing. So basic are these needs that they cry out for fulfillment in the most unexpected moments. She quotes a young man who describes his experience thusly:I never had a chance to go into the country when I was a kid, but I remember one day when I had to deliver a package way out on the west side, that I saw a flock of sheep in Douglas Park. I had never thought that a sheep could be anywhere but in a picture, and when I saw those big white spots on the green grass beginning to move and to turn into sheep, I... (shrink)

In a new retelling of the romantic rationalist adventure of ideas that is Hegel's classic The Phenomenology of Spirit, Robert Brandom argues that when our self-conscious recognitive attitudes take Hegel's radical form of magnanimity and trust, we can overcome a troubled modernity and enter a new age of spirit.

The Phenomenology of Spirit was Hegel's grandest experiement, changing our vision of the world and the very nature of philosophical enterprise. In this book, Solomon captures the bold and exhilarating spirit, presenting the Phenomenology as a thoroughly personal as well as philosophical work. He begins with a historical introduction, which lays the groundwork for a section-by-section analysis of the Phenomenology. Both the initiated as well as readers unacquainted with the intricacies of German idealism will find this to be an accessible (...) and exciting introduction to this great philosopher's monumental work. (shrink)

In Michel de Certeau’s Invention of the Everyday, improvisational community dance function as a catalyst for the subversive art of the oppressed, via its ancient Greek virtue/power of mētis, being “foxlike.” And in de Certeau’s The Possession of Loudun, this foxlike dance moves to the stage, as an improv chorus that disrupts the events at Loudon when reimagined as a tetralogy of plays at City Dionysia. More precisely, Loudun’s tetralogy could be interpreted as a series of three tragedies and one (...) comedy, the latter of which involves the chorine nuns’ channeling of anomie into a proto-feminist transfiguration. More precisely, the tactical prowess of the nuns’ chorus leader, namely the prioress Jeanne des Anges, elevates her to the status of an angelic prophet, which in de Certeau’s theatrical dancing critique makes her the Loudun tetralogy’s Dionysian, foxlike mage. In conclusion, this analysis suggests de Certeau’s relevance for revolutionary social justice today. (shrink)

Yoga is thousands of years old, but because of its current popularity, some people wrongly dismiss it as just another exercise fad made fashionable by celebrities. In fact, as author Kathy Phillips demonstrates in this large, beautifully illustrated book, yoga is a gentle but powerful means of achieving strength, flexibility, serenity, and a healthy balance between body and mind. Originating on the Indian subcontinent at the dawn of civilization, yoga is now accepted worldwide as an effective way to deal with (...) physical and emotional stress. The Spirit of Yoga is a sensible introduction for beginners, and a source of inspiration for current practitioners who would like to learn more. It explains differences among the various yoga disciplines, enabling readers to make a considered choice that best fits their needs. The author uses her experience as a yoga teacher to describe exercises and postures-also shown in color photos-that can promote physical health and body flexibility while inducing emotional tranquility. Yoga positions are suggested as effective remedies for physical ailments and for discomforts produced by everyday stress. The author's witty approach to her subject demystifies today's yoga hype while offering readers sound guidance and emphasizing the entirely real benefits they can derive from this honorable discipline. The book's foreword is by the international fashion model Christy Turlington. Hundreds of color photos and illustrations. (shrink)

Preeminent psychoanalyst Mortimer Ostow believes that early childhood emotional attachments form the cognitive underpinnings of spiritual experience and religious motivation. His hypothesis, which is verifiable, relies on psychological and neurobiological evidence but is respectful of the human need for spiritual value. Ostow begins by classifying the three parts of the spiritual experience: awe, Spirituality proper, and mysticism. After he pinpoints the psychological origins of these feelings in infancy, he discusses the foundations of religious sentiment and practice and the brain processes (...) associated with spiritual experience. He then focuses on spirituality's relationship to mood regulation, and the role of negative spirituality in fostering religious fundamentalism and demonic possession. Ostow concludes with an analysis of an essay by the psychoanalyst Donald M. Marcus, who recounts his own spiritual experience during a Native American-style "vision quest" in the woods. Marcus's account demonstrates the constructive potential of spirituality and the way in which spirituality retrieves and recapitulates feelings of attachment to the mother. Persuasively and brilliantly argued, _Spirit, Mind, and Brain_ brings the disciplines of religion, behavorial neuroscience, and philosophy to bear on a groundbreaking new method for understanding religious ritual and belief. (shrink)

This book introduces Hegel's best-known and most influential work, Phenomenology of Spirit, by interpreting it as a unified argument for a single philosophical claim: that human beings achieve their freedom through retrospective self-understanding. In clear, non-technical prose, Larry Krasnoff sets this claim in the context of the history of modern philosophy and shows how it is developed in the major sections of Hegel's text. The result is an accessible and engaging guide to one of the most complex and important works (...) of nineteenth-century philosophy, which will be of interest to all students and teachers working in this area. (shrink)

Of laws in general -- Of laws directly derived from the nature of government -- Of the principles of the three kinds of government -- That the laws of education ought to be relative to the principles of government -- That the laws given by the legislator ought to be relative to the nature of government -- Consquences of the principles of different governments, with respect to the simplicity of civil and criminal laws, the form of judgements, and inflicting of (...) punishments -- Consquences of the different principles of the three governments, with respect to sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women -- Of the corruption of the principles of the three governments -- Of the laws in the relation they bear to defensive force -- Of laws, in the relation they bear to offensive force. (shrink)

Of laws in general -- Of laws directly derived from the nature of government -- Of the principles of the three kinds of government -- That the laws of education ought to be relative to the principles of government -- That the laws given by the legislator ought to be relative to the nature of government -- Consquences of the principles of different governments, with respect to the simplicity of civil and criminal laws, the form of judgements, and inflicting of (...) punishments -- Consquences of the different principles of the three governments, with respect to sumptuary laws, luxury, and the condition of women -- Of the corruption of the principles of the three governments -- Of the laws in the relation they bear to defensive force -- Of laws, in the relation they bear to offensive force. (shrink)

A unique and honored figure in American intellectual history, Josiah Royce stands out as a master of many disciplines who made significant contributions to mathematical logic, psychology, social ethics, literary criticism, and history as well as metaphysics. These thirteen lectures elucidate his early philosophical idealism and explore the historical framework of his doctrine. Spanning three centuries of the speculative concerns of philosophy, Royce discusses the theories of Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and other important thinkers. A lucid and readable (...) text, this volume provides students and other readers with scholarly views of the important developments in modern philosophy from the 1600s to the dawn of the twentieth century. (shrink)

A unique and honored figure in American intellectual history, Josiah Royce stands out as a master of many disciplines who made significant contributions to mathematical logic, psychology, social ethics, literary criticism, and history as well as metaphysics. These thirteen lectures elucidate his early philosophical idealism and explore the historical framework of his doctrine. Spanning three centuries of the speculative concerns of philosophy, Royce discusses the theories of Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and other important thinkers. A lucid and readable (...) text, this volume provides students and other readers with scholarly views of the important developments in modern philosophy from the 1600s to the dawn of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This compilation explores the significance of religion for the controversies stirred up by populist politics in European and American contexts, engaging Jewish, Christian, and Islamic political thought. Moving beyond essentialist definitions of religion, the contributions offer critical interpretations and constructive interventions for political theology today.

In Michel de Certeau’s Invention of the Everyday, improvisational community dance function as a catalyst for the subversive art of the oppressed, via its ancient Greek virtue/power of mētis, being “foxlike.” And in de Certeau’s The Possession of Loudun, this foxlike dance moves to the stage, as an improv chorus that disrupts the events at Loudon when reimagined as a tetralogy of plays at City Dionysia. More precisely, Loudun’s tetralogy could be interpreted as a series of three tragedies and one (...) comedy, the latter of which involves the chorine nuns’ channeling of anomie into a proto-feminist transfiguration. More precisely, the tactical prowess of the nuns’ chorus leader, namely the prioress Jeanne des Anges, elevates her to the status of an angelic prophet, which in de Certeau’s theatrical dancing critique makes her the Loudun tetralogy’s Dionysian, foxlike mage. In conclusion, this analysis suggests de Certeau’s relevance for revolutionary social justice today. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the reasons for which the incorporeal ultimate reality called the “Gnostic Body” (jñānakāya) is categorized as a “body” in the Kālacakra tradition. It examines the diverse ways in which the body imagery is applied to ultimate reality within this tradition. Although conceptions of the Gnostic Body (jñāna-kāya) as a special category of the Buddha-body have been included in all of the unexcelled yoga-tantras (anuttara-yoga-tantras), they are most extensively elaborated upon in the Kālacakra literature. For this reason, the (...) analysis is primarily based on the Indian Kālacakratantra literary corpus (11th century) (From among the Kālacakratantra literature, I consulted the Kālacakratrantra with the Vimalaprabhā, Nāropā’s Sekoddeśaṭīkā, Sādhuputra’s Sekoddeśaṭipaṇī, and the Ṣaḍṅngayoga of Anupamarakṣita.) and to the closely related Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti, Raviśrījñāna’s commentary on the Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgīti, the Amṛtakaṇikāṭippaṇī, and Vibhūticandra’s subcommentary Amṛtakaṇikodyotanibandha (12th–13th centuries). In so doing, it will bring forth the evaluative and classificatory usages of the term jñāna-kāya in the aforementioned sources, and the analysis is concerned with both the heuristic and provocative functions of their discourses. It also addresses the interpretative framework through which the Kālacakra tradition constructs the notions of embodiment and suggests that Buddhist esoteric discourse can be useful in demonstrating that the concept of a body can be understood as a broader category that extends from a physical body, to an immaterial perceptible form, and to the pure nondual awareness. An analysis of the multileveled constructions of the Gnostic Body (jñāna-kāya) in the Indian Vajrayāna tradition opens new questions and new avenues of investigation with respect to critical assessments of the rubric of the “body,” while bringing to light new models of embodiment. (shrink)

This paper propounds a new reading of Berkeley's account of the activity of finite spirits. Against existing interpretations, the paper argues that Berkeley does not hold that we causally contribute to the movement of our bodies. In contrast, our volitions to move our bodies are but occasions for God to cause their movement. In answer to the question of wherein then consists our activity, the paper proposes that our activity consists in the dual powers to produce (1) our volitions (...) ? the acts of willing ? and (2) our ideas of imagination. (shrink)

"This book is a sorely needed corrective. Animal Spirits is an important--maybe even a decisive--contribution at a difficult juncture in macroeconomic theory.

**** A reprint of Gilson's estimable book of 1936 (Sheed and Ward) (endorsed by BCL3). These 20 lectures were delivered as Gifford Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Pentecostalism is known for the belief in Spirit baptism that is accompanied by the doctrine of initial evidence, that is, speaking in tongues. The practice of the doctrine of initial evidence has become a unique feature of Pentecostalism for many years since its beginning. Similarly, Spirit baptism and the doctrine of initial evidence are practised in African Pentecostal Christianity, especially in classical Pentecostal churches and charismatic movements. However, there are challenges with this doctrine: speaking in tongues is perceived as the (...) only evidence, and there is an emphasis on gifts than fruit of the Holy Spirit and a great emphasis on public spiritual experiences than personal encounters with God. In re-imagining the doctrine of initial evidence in African Pentecostal Christianity, speaking in tongues should not be emphasised or practised as the only evidence of Spirit baptism because there are other evidences that demonstrate the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The emphasis should be on prayer than the speaking of tongues. In addition, priority should be given to the fruit of the Spirit and on a personal encounter with God. Finally, speaking in tongues should be accompanied by interpretation in a public service because the public cannot understand the language. (shrink)

1. Metaphysics -- 2. The mind -- 3. Desire and emotion -- 4. Freedom from bondage -- 5. Transcendence.

Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws is an enduring classic of social and political theory deserving a fresh reading every generation. The modern reader, however, is likely to find a work that ran to over a thousand pages in its two-volume first edition a bit overwhelming. Presented here, therefore, is the first English-language compendium of The Spirit of Laws, together with the first English translation of the posthumously published treatise containing the physiological theory underlying Montesquieu's theory of climate.

This is a new release of the original 1929 edition.

This project was provoked by the almost nonexistent pushback from the Democratic liberal establishment to the (2020) exoneration of Kyle Rittenhouse, despite his acknowledged killing of two Black Lives Matters protesters against the police murder of George Floyd. It builds on three prior articles arguing for the revival of ancient Dionysian practice, Haitian Vodou, and Indigenous South American shamanism to empower leftist revolution. In essence, I propose an assemblage of spiritual practices that are accessible today for the neo-colonized 99% of (...) the global population, by synthesizing and reconstructing three democratic, lower-SES, Indigenous religions, all of which share a militant defiance of their respective tyrannical plutocracies. To avoid cultural appropriation, I center these reconstructed spiritual practices on the figure of the “mage,” a psychosocial healer loosely analogous to a shaman. And the mage’s signature activity, “magic,” I redefine naturalistically as free interpersonal performative action, practiced using two theoretical disciplines (philosophy and psychology) and two practical disciplines chosen by each mage. More precisely, Spirit/Dance channels the “spirits” of dead ancestors, historical figures, legendary heroes, mythical beings, and fictional characters, into the three ultimate objectives of “mindfulness” for psyches/souls, “liberation” for mindful bodies, and “social justice” for liberated communities, indirectly empowering long-term revolution. (shrink)

The Spirit of the Soil challenges environmentalists to think more deeply and creatively about agriculture. Paul B. Thompson identifies four `worldviews' which tackle agricultural ethics according to different philosophical priorities; productionism, stewardship, economics and holism. He examines current issues such as the use of pesticides and biotechnology from these ethical perspectives. This book achieves an open-ended account of sustainability designed to minimise hubris and help us to recapture the spirit of the soil.

The author outlines his thoughts on the force that animates body and mind, discussing how it can provide happiness when present and how its lack can cause illness.

"I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes." These are the first words of Jacques Derrida's lecture on Heidegger. It is again a question of Nazism--of what remains to be thought through of Nazism in general and of Heidegger's Nazism in particular. It is also "politics of spirit" which at the time people thought--they still want to today--to oppose to the inhuman. "Derrida's ruminations should intrigue anyone interested in Post-Structuralism. . . . . This study of Heidegger is (...) a fine example of how Derrida can make readers of philosophical texts notice difficult problems in almost imperceptible details of those texts."--David Hoy, London Review of Books "Will a more important book on Heidegger appear in our time? No, not unless Derrida continues to think and write in his spirit. . . . Let there be no mistake: this is not merely a brilliant book on Heidegger, it is thinking in the grand style."--David Farrell Krell, Research in Phenomenology "The analysis of Heidegger is brilliant, provocative, elusive."--Peter C. Hodgson, Religious Studies Review. (shrink)

In the tripartite psychology of the Republic, Plato characterizes the “spirited” part of the soul as the “ally of reason”: like the auxiliaries of the just city, whose distinctive job is to support the policies and judgments passed down by the rulers, spirit’s distinctive “job” in the soul is to support and defend the practical decisions and commands of the reasoning part. This is to include not only defense against external enemies who might interfere with those commands, but also, and (...) most importantly, defense against unruly appetites within the individual’s own soul.1 Spirit, according to this picture, is by nature reason’s faithful auxiliary in the soul, while appetite is always a potential enemy to be watched .. (shrink)

Bloch's The Spirit of Utopia, here presented for the first time in English translation, is one of the great historic books from the beginning of the twentieth-century. A peculiar amalgam of biblical, Marxist, and Expressionist turns, drawing on both Hegel and Schopenhauer for the groundwork of its metaphysics of music, but consistently interpreting the cultural legacy in the light of a certain Marxism, The Spirit of Utopia is a unique attempt to rethink the history of Western civilizations as a process (...) of revolutionary disruptions and to reread the artworks, religions, and philosophies of this tradition as incentives to continue disrupting. The first part concerns a mode of 'self-encounter' which presents itself in the history of music from Mozart through Mahler as an encounter with the problem of a community to come. The second part is entitled 'Karl Marx, Death and the Apocalypse'. (shrink)

Organized across national boundaries and with millions of supporters worldwide, transnational environmental activist groups such as Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, and Friends of the Earth play a central role in the way the world addresses environmental issues. This book provides the most systematic and theoretically informed study to date of the strategies these organizations use to advance global environmental protection. Based on case studies of three transnational groups, it argues that in addition to lobbying governments, activists operate within and (...) across societies to effect widespread change. They work through transnational social, economic, and cultural networks to alter corporate practices, educate vast numbers of people, pressure multilateral development banks, and shift standards of good conduct. Wapner argues that because this activity takes place outside the formal arena of inter-state politics, environmental activists practice "world civic politics"; they politicize global civil society. The theoretical import of this book is to bring the practice of world civic politics into sharp relief and generalize its significance beyond environmental affairs to explain the efforts of all NGOs in world politics. (shrink)

Hegel only published five books in his lifetime, and among them the Phenomenology of Spirit emerges as the most important but also perhaps the most difficult and complex. In this book Ludwig Siep follows the path from Hegel's early writings on religion, love and spirit to the milestones of his 'Jena period'. He shows how the themes of the Phenomenology first appeared in an earlier work, The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems of Philosophy, and closely examines the direction which (...) Hegel's thought took as he attempted to think through the possibility of a complete system of philosophy. The themes encompassed by the Phenomenology – anti-dualistic epistemology, autonomy, historicality, the sociality of reason – are thoroughly discussed in Siep's subtle and elegantly argued assessment, which appears here in English for the first time. It will be of great interest to all readers studying Hegel's thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Democracy, Spirit, and RevitalizationWalter B. Gulick (bio)The assumptions of democracy as an associational ethos of vulnerable life are, first, that we don't already know how best to order our common life and, second, that we don't know what the abstract ideals of empathy, emancipation, and equity entail in the concrete.—Michael Hogue1In American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World, Michael S. Hogue grounds his proposal for a political theology in (...) a critique of American exceptionalism and its supportive "redeemer symbolic."2 In the Anthropocene era, Hogue states, American exceptionalism "legitimates the extraction of diverse forms of value and justifies the externalization of diverse costs" (29) with unconscionable costs to the natural environment and international justice. As indicated in the passage quoted above, Hogue's reaction to the rigid assumptions supportive of American exceptionalism is to offer a humble acknowledgement of political fallibility coupled with what he terms "a theopolitics of resilient democracy" (184; see also 3–6).My concern in this essay is largely practical. I will focus on discerning what intellectual, emotional, and communal resources might be drawn upon to further develop and actually effect the needed changes that Hogue so ably points out. Relatedly, I will inquire into who the most likely candidates are to devote energy to the reconstruction of social structures and practices so that they express values that Americans at their best uphold. Finally, I will reflect upon the role that spiritual ideals and communal practices might play in energizing effective democratic action. [End Page 5]I. Hogue's Critical and Constructive TasksHogue's overriding interest is to outline an epistemic/axiological/environmental/political stance that does not give rise to the various sorts of injustices and dysfunctions that mark the Anthropocene era, especially our allegiance to policies that eventuate in what he calls "climate wickedness." The alternative vision he embraces develops pragmatic naturalism as a method of inquiry and exposition. His reflections are especially indebted to the thought of Dewey, James, and Whitehead (78–82). During a time when e-words are normally associated with forms of electronic communication, Hogue offers instead two trios of e-words with another sort of significance—one that signifies a stance he wishes to overcome and one that communicates what he hopes to achieve. Our current era is unfortunately in thrall, he says, to extraction, externalization, and exception, whereas what we should strive for is a society marked by empathy, emancipation, and equitability. Well put. He presupposes that democratic governance, deeply embedded in American history, ought to serve as the vehicle for achieving what the positive set of e-words promotes. To this end, Hogue quotes appreciatively from Dewey's article, "Democracy is Radical": Democracy "is radical because it requires great change in existing social institutions, economic, legal and cultural" (170). This understanding of democracy slumbers now; what might it take to reawaken it? And if reawakened, what changes might be made to establish the more nearly equitable political influence that is basic to the promise of democracy?Hogue, recognizing in good pragmatic fashion the importance of consequential change, states, "In contrast to foundationalist commitments to antecedents and precedents, pragmatic naturalism commits to a prospective concern with consequents" (80). Foundational commitments to antecedents may certainly impede needed change, but surely attention to the historical events and practices that gave rise to current problems is needed to avoid repeating previous errors. Hogue refers to Whitehead's vision of social symbolism, suggesting that "social change can be catalyzed by the improvised revision of existing symbolic repertoires or the innovative formation or subversive interjection of new symbols" (99). I'm not fully convinced by Whitehead's claim. I suspect that many of our social problems are rooted below the linguistic level in an array of affective issues that elude symbolic adjustment. New strategies are needed to counter the prevalence of fear and resentment in society as promoted for political and commercial reasons and tied to Hogue's strongly voiced recognition that we live in an uncertain world.Here is my understanding of how Hogue both frames our current social and cultural situation and what he says might begin to remediate these circumstances. [End Page... (shrink)

Introduction -- Tending the dark fire: the Boehmian notion of drive -- The night-side of nature: the early Schellingian unconscious -- The speculative psychology of dissociation: the later Schellingian unconscious -- Schellingian libido theory.

I shall speak of ghost [revenant], of flame and of ashes.And of what, for Heidegger, avoiding means.What is avoiding? Heidegger on several occasions uses the common word Vermeiden: to avoid, to flee, to dodge. What might he have meant when it comes to “spirit” or the “spiritual”? I specify immediately: not spirit or the spiritual but Geist, geistig, geistlich, for this question will be, through and through, that of language. Do these German words allow themselves to be translated? In another (...) sense: are they avoidable?Sein und Zeit : what does Heidegger say at that time? He announces and he prescribes. He warns [avertit]: a certain number of terms will have to be avoided . Among them, spirit . In 1953, more than twenty-five years later—and this was not just any quarter-century—in the great text devoted to Georg Trakl, Heidegger notes that Trakl always took care to avoid the word geistig. And, visibly, Heidegger approves him in this; he thinks the same. But this time, it is not Geist nor even geistlich that is to be avoided, but geistig.How are we to delimit the difference, and what has happened? What of this meantime? How are we to explain that in twenty-five years, between these two warning signals , Heidegger made a frequent, regular, marked use of all this vocabulary, including the adjective geistig? And that he often spoke not only of the word “spirit” but, sometimes yielding to the emphatic mode, in the name of spirit? Jacques Derrida is Directeur d’Études at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and also teaches at the University of California, Irvine. His most recent contribution to Critical Inquiry is “Like the Sound of the Sea Deep within a Shell: Paul de Man’s War” . An English translation of De l’espirit: Heidegger et la question is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. Geoff Bennington, author of Lyotard: Writing the Event, is a lecturer in French at the University of Sussex. Rachel Bowlby, author of Virginia Woolf: Feminist Destinations, is a lecturer in English at the University of Sussex. (shrink)

Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes’s theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings of many seventeenth-century authors. In his illuminating account of Cartesian physiology in its historical context, Des Chene focuses on the philosopher’s innovative reworking of that field, including the nature of life, the problem of generation, and the concepts of health and illness. Des Chene begins (...) by surveying works that Descartes would likely have encountered, from late Aristotelian theories of the soul to medical literature and treatises on machines. The Cartesian theory of vital operations is examined, with particular attention to the generation of animals. Des Chene also considers the role of the machine-model in furnishing a method in physiology, the ambiguities of the notion of machine, and of Descartes’s problem of simulation. Finally, he looks at,the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul. Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene’s highly regarded exploration -- begun in his previous book, Life’s Form -- of the scholastic and Cartesian sciences as well as the dialogue between these two worldviews. Introduction 1 Part One - Tales of the Bête-Machine [ 1 ] - Self-Movers 13 [ 2 ] - Where Do Machines Come From? 32 [ 3 ] - The Uses of Usus 53 Part Two - Machines, Mechanisms, Bodies, Organs [ 4 ] - Tools of Knowledge 71 [ 5 ] - Jeux D’Artifice 103 [ 6 ] - Unity of the Body 116 Conclusion 153 Bibliography 159 Index 177. (shrink)

_The Letter before the Spirit_ underlines the importance for scholars to have at their disposal reliable scientific text editions – book editions or digital editions – of Aristotle’s works in the Semitico-Latin, and the Graeco-Latin, translation and commentary traditions.

Challenging the dominant scholarly consensus that Nietzsche is simply an enemy of religion, Tyler Roberts examines the place of religion in Nietzsche's thought and Nietzsche's thought as a site of religion. Roberts argues that Nietzsche's conceptualization and cultivation of an affirmative self require that we interrogate the ambiguities that mark his criticisms of asceticism and mysticism. What emerges is a vision of Nietzsche's philosophy as the enactment of a spiritual quest informed by transfigured versions of religious tropes and practices. Nietzsche (...) criticizes the ascetic hatred of the body and this-worldly life, yet engages in rigorous practices of self-denial--he sees philosophy as such a practice--and affirms the need of imposing suffering on oneself in order to enhance the spirit. He dismisses the "intoxication" of mysticism, yet links mysticism, power, and creativity, and describes his own self-transcending experiences. The tensions in his relation to religion are closely related to that between negation and affirmation in his thinking in general. In Roberts's view, Nietzsche's transfigurations of religion offer resources for a postmodern religious imagination. Though as a "master of suspicion," Nietzsche, with Freud and Marx, is an integral part of modern antireligion, he has the power to take us beyond the flat, modern distinction between the secular and the religious--a distinction that, at the end of modernity, begs to be reexamined. (shrink)