A los efectos de mostrar el compromiso de Utopía de Moro con el ideal republicano de una civitas libera se siguen en este trabajo tres pasos o momentos. Tras unas breves, pero necesarias consideraciones terminológicas acerca de los dos principales sentidos de “república” a comienzos del siglo XVI, se desarrolla la concepción acerca de la naturaleza y legitimidad del poder defendida en la obra. Luego se analiza cómo dicho principio se traduce en las instituciones y prácticas de la comunidad utopiense. (...) Y finalmente se intenta dar cuenta de cómo dichas instituciones y prácticas cristalizan en aquel modelo político (típico del republicanismo renacentista) llamado “régimen mixto”, que combina la monarquía, la democracia y la aristocracia. Ahora bien, la expresión concreta de este último aspecto en la vida de Utopía da lugar a una interesante tensión interna. En efecto, por una parte, produce una significativa restricción de la libertad política al reconocer derechos desiguales al “pueblo” (que solo elige, pero no puede ser elegido para las principales magistraturas) respecto del estamento intelectual (que es el único que puede ser elegido para las mismas). Pero, al mismo tiempo, si tenemos en cuenta que la pertenencia a dicho estamento no depende en absoluto de la riqueza (puesto que en Utopía no hay propiedad privada, sino propiedad común), de aquí podemos inferir que se ha comenzado a pensar de modo decidido y disruptivo la igualdad material como condición necesaria de la auténtica libertad política. (shrink)

It has often been argued that Thomas More’s Utopia is fundamentally concerned with outlining and theoretically justifying an ideal model of society and not with determining what would be the practical steps required for its establishment in the real world. Even if we were to accept this widespread interpretation, I consider that it is possible to recognize in the text indications that suggest two different and even opposing paths along which the political construction of Utopia could take place. The first, (...) and strictly speaking, the only one that the work is trying to put forward, is individual, elitist, coercive, and top-down. The second that, for its part, seems to be presented rather with the intention of preventing it from coming to fruition is hence, on the contrary, collective, popular, insurrectionary and from below. The present article tries, first, to show how and through what arguments these two models of action are presented in More’s work, taking note, in addition, of the important difficulties involved in the one which it intends to propose. After this, two historical realizations immediately after Utopia was published that illustrate them are developed. Finally, the present article tries to establish what relationship these two paths have with each other according to the work’s approach and, also, suggest what alternative relationship they could maintain if a different point of view was attempted. (shrink)

The progressive publication -along the past two decades- of the courses taught by Heidegger in his first years in teaching has allowed the reconstruction of the process of creation of Being and Time , its multiple textual references and influences. Among these, St. Augustine's thought bears a prominent place, for which reason I intend to consider its noticeable presence in some of the key concepts in the work mentioned. The first to be considered is Sorge , with which Heidegger characterises (...) the fundamental ontological constitution of human existence. His first drafts emerged from the reflection upon the famous "inquietum cor nostrum" and the cura for the vita beata from Confessions X. Based on this same text Heidegger had offered a phenomenological interpretation of temptation, which constitutes one of the first elaborations of the so-called "fall", precisely one of the structural moments of the Sorge. Explicit references or suggestive analogies between both thinkers can also be appreciated between the explanation of "tempus" as "distentio animi" in Confessions XI and the heideggerian thesis of "temporality" as the basis of the constitution of human subjectivity; the road from the search of God to the exploration of the interiority of the one who looks for Him and the way back from the question about the "being" to the question about the one who understands the "being", in other no less significant cases.La progresiva publicación a lo largo de las últimas dos décadas de los cursos dictados por Heidegger durante sus primeros años de docencia ha permitido reconstruir el proceso de gestación de Ser y Tiempo , sus múltiples referencias textuales e influencias. Entre ellas, ocupa un lugar destacado el pensamiento agustiniano, por lo cual me propongo considerar aquí su fuerte presencia en algunos de los conceptos centrales de dicha obra. El primero a tener en cuenta es el de "Sorge" con el que Heidegger caracteriza la constitución ontológica fundamental del existir humano. Sus primeros esbozos habían surgido de la reflexión en torno al célebre "inquietum cor nostrum" y a la cura por la vita beata de Confesiones X. A partir de este mismo texto Heidegger había realizado también una interpretación fenomenológica de la tentación, que constituye una de las primeras elaboraciones de la llamada "caída", precisamente uno de los momentos estructurales de la "Sorge". Referencias explícitas o sugerentes analogías entre ambos pensadores pueden apreciarse también entre la explicación de Confesiones XI del "tempus" como "distentio animi" y la tesis heideggeriana de la "temporalidad" como fundamento de la constitución de la subjetividad humana; el tránsito desde la búsqueda de Dios a la exploración de la interioridad de aquel que lo busca y el retroceso desde la pregunta por el "ser" a la pregunta por el que comprende el "ser", entre otros casos no menos significativos. (shrink)

Se ha señalado con frecuencia el escaso tratamiento de Heidegger acerca del amor. Se busca recuperar y articular algunas alusiones importantes. Cabe distinguir tres registros temáticos: como modo de “encontrarse”, como “actitud” con los otros y como rasgo del “ser mismo”. Se intenta no solo comprender el fenómeno amoroso en el pensamiento heideggeriano, sino mostrar la incidencia que habría tenido en la interpretación de otras cuestiones y, sobre todo, en el asunto central sobre el sen-tido del Ser.

Se ha señalado con frecuencia el escaso tratamiento de Heidegger acerca del amor. Se busca recuperar y articular algunas alusiones importantes. Cabe distinguir tres registros temáticos: como modo de "encontrarse", como "actitud" con los otros y como rasgo del "ser mismo". Se intenta no solo comprender el fenómeno amoroso en el pensamiento heideggeriano, sino mostrar la incidencia que habría tenido en la interpretación de otras cuestiones y, sobre todo, en el asunto central sobre el sentido del Ser. Heidegger's scarce treatment (...) of love has been frequently pointed out. This article aims to recover and articulate some important allusions. A distinction can be made between three topical registers: as a way of "finding oneself"; as an "attitude" with others and as a trait of "being itself". An attempt is made not just to understand the phenomenon of love in Heidegger's thoughtbut also to show its impact on other topics, and, above all, on the central topic of the meaning of Being. (shrink)

Edizione e traduzione italiana della Questio de aqua et terra di Dante Alighieri.

KOHAN, Walter Omar. Infância. Entre a Educação e a Filosofia. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2003.

Will Kymlicka ha sido considerado como compatibilizador de liberales y comunitaristas en cuanto a los derechos de las minorías. Su distinción entre derechos de grupo como protecciones externas y como restricciones internas buscó dar cuenta de las reivindicaciones minoritarias sin vulnerar el principio liberal de autonomía. En este artículo se buscan dos objetivos: primero, adoptar una perspectiva crítica, al afirmar que tal distinción soslaya el eje central de la discusión, esto es, la problemática de la titularidad del derecho, y, segundo, (...) proponer una nueva clasificación de los derechos aplicables a las minorías que sea capaz de servir de modelo para futuros diseños institucionales. Will Kymlicka has attempted to harmonize the positions of liberals and communitarians with respect to minority rights. His distinction between group rights as external protections and internal restrictions sought to account for minority vindications without violating the liberal principle of autonomy. The objective of this article is twofold: first, to adopt a critical perspective by arguing that said distinction avoids the core of the discussion, that is, the issue of ownership of rights, and, second, to proposed a new classification of rights applicable to minorities that can serve as a model for future institutional designs. Will Kymlicka tem sido considerado como compatibilizador de liberais e comunitaristas quanto aos direitos das minorias. Sua distinção entre direitos de grupo como proteções externas e como restrições internas pretendeu dar conta das reivindicações minoritárias sem vulnerar o princípio liberal de autonomia. Este artigo apresenta dois objetivos: primeiro, adotar uma perspectiva crítica ao afirmar que essa distinção elude o eixo central da discussão, isto é, a problemática da titularidade do direito; segundo, propor uma nova classificação dos direitos aplicáveis à s minorias que seja capaz de servir de modelo para futuros desenhos institucionais. (shrink)

No âmbito da educação institucional a filosofia tem sido entendida como elemento de cultura com data de nascimento na história. É neste sentido que ela se tornou uma tradição: a tradição de pensar conceitualmente o mundo, pensá-lo na sua universalidade. Por ser uma tradição é que a filosofia permanece em nosso meio; passou de geração para geração e de cultura para cultura. É certo que nessas passagens sofreu transformações (desterritorializações e reterritorializações) que dizem respeito tanto ao filosofar como ao seu (...) produto, as diferentes filosofias. (shrink)

En la siguiente exposición se propone un comentario de la obra del filósofo cubano Pablo Guadarrama González, denominada Pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano. Humanismo, método e historia. La perspectiva humanista que es postulada contiene una serie de precisiones que son analizadas en sus implicaciones teóricas y prácticas. Asimismo, se extiende su estudio de las ideas filosóficas a distintos momentos del desarrollo particular seguido en América Latina, al igual que está acompañada esta tarea historiográfica de consideraciones metodológicas que resultan significativas. Desde el conjunto (...) de temas planteados por el autor se retoman sus aportes en relación a debates que se inscriben en el cruce disciplinario de la filosofía y la historia de las ideas, que se ubican inicialmente en el contexto latinoamericano pero aspiran a una proyección con alcances universales. We comment the Cuban philosopher Pablo Guadarrama González’s Latin American philosophical thinking. Humanism, method and history. The humanistic perspective posited therein contains some assumptions that we analyze in their theoretical and practical implications. Furthermore, we extend his study of philosophical ideas to different moments of Latin America’s particular development, being this historiographic task accompanied by significant methodological considerations. Of all the themes posed by this author, we take his contributions to the debates raised in the interdisciplinary intersection of philosophy and the history of ideas, initially located in a Latin American context but with universal projection. (shrink)

A filosofia ambiental surge na década de 1970 movida pelo ímpeto de reflexão sobre a iminência de uma crise ecológica e suas causas mais profundas. E a questão central que motivou os trabalhos pioneiros neste campo foi a crítica ao centramento humano em termos de valor moral, isto é, a assunção de que o _homo sapiens_ constitui o único _locus_ de valor frente às demais espécies e à natureza mais que humana como um todo. A demanda por uma nova ética, (...) de caráter ambiental, nasce precisamente do desafio ao antropocentrismo predominante na tradição filosófica ocidental, à luz das ideias de continuidade e interdependência do humano em relação ao mundo mais que humano, sugeridas pelos princípios da ciência ecológica. Tal proposta, entretanto, suscitou um interessante debate acerca da viabilidade e implicações de posturas senciocêntricas, biocêntricas e ecocêntricas, como forma de fundamentar o valor intrínseco para além da esfera da agência moral. A chamada _clivagem antropocêntrico-ecocêntrico _demarca precisamente os polos deste debate, que marcou os primeiros passos da filosofia ambiental e se estendeu à ecologia política. Apesar de algumas tentativas de retratar posturas não antropocêntricas como um dogma a ser superado na evolução da pesquisa em ética ambiental, este artigo procura argumentar que a questão permanece em aberto, sobretudo a partir de uma recente retomada das críticas ao antropocentrismo por um grupo de autoras e autores ligados às ciências ambientais. (shrink)

¿Qué entendemos cuando hablamos de eutanasia? Etimológicamente, el término procede de las raíces griegas eu (bueno, buena) y thanatos (muerte). Sin embargo, una definición etimológica parece insuficiente, ya que la noción que se tiene de tal concepto ha variado a través de la historia, así como su misma práctica.Para comprender el por qué no se ha podido establecer un consenso acerca de lo que se entiende por eutanasia, podría ser útil mencionar algunas culturas y sus prácticas del “buen morir”. Ciertas (...) culturas nómadas, por ejemplo, dejaban atrás a enfermos y ancianos. Los espartanos abandonaban en la corriente de un río a los recién nacidos en caso de que éstos tuviesen alguna deformidad o poca probabilidad de seguir viviendo. En el mismo caso, los romanos los dejaban morir en la intemperie. Entre los battaki, es una práctica común que el padre de familia, ya viejo, suba a un árbol, y simbolizando un fruto maduro, se deje caer; posteriormente, sus familiares lo matan y se lo comen.Ahora bien, ¿cuál es la intuición que parecen tener estas culturas acerca de una muerte causada pero no mal intencionada? En principio, podríanse juzgar tales prácticas como inmorales e inhumanas, pero eso sería cometer imprecisiones contextuales acerca del carácter histórico y moral de tales actividades. La correspondencia más clara entre tales culturas y su concepción del final de la vida se muestra en pos de un respeto y aceptación de la muerte, es decir, una conciencia de la inevitabilidad de la muerte y nuestro artículo versa sobre todo ello. (shrink)

El concepto clásico de observación en la astrofísica contemporánea ha sufrido cambios considerables debido, en gran parte, a ciertas observaciones llevadas a cabo a través de simulaciones computacionales. Al considerarse la evolución que ha tenido esta noción en las últimas décadas, se analizarán diferentes reflexiones filosóficas acerca de la observabilidad. Se mencionará la dicotomía teórico-observacional, el debate realismo-antirrealismo y aquellos tratamientos actuales más afines a las prácticas científicas, aludiendo a la distinción entre entidades observables e inobservables. En este trabajo se (...) abordará, mediante un estudio de caso, la problemática en torno al rol de la validación externa en este ámbito disciplinar. Teniendo en cuenta los datos adquiridos tanto por la vía tradicional u observacional, como por aquélla lograda mediante modelos de simulación, se analizarán los diferentes mecanismos de producción de datos y su eventual reducción en astroinformática. A propósito, se desarrollará la propuesta ofrecida por Reiss (2019), examinando los argumentos a favor y en contra de la validación externa. Así, se identificarán aquellas estrategias vigentes de validación en modelos de datos diferentes, estableciendo los vínculos necesarios para una valoración cuantitativa y cualitativa de observaciones y de simulaciones. A partir del inter-juego entre estas últimas se mostrará el estatus y la conformación de la evidencia disponible y su dependencia con el diseño de las observaciones actuales. Se concluirá que la interacción entre modelos de observación y de simulación no sólo contribuyen al desarrollo de guías heurísticas, sino que permiten una retroalimentación favorable en los procesos de validación externa de ambos modelos. (shrink)

Le livre de Gianvito Brindisi se propose d’étudier la pensée de Michel Foucault en essayant de mettre en lumière la multiplicité des perspectives qu’elle offre pour l’élaboration d’une généalogie des pratiques de jugement dans le champ juridique et moral. L’analyse du droit comme pratique et exercice de vérité, comme instrument de partage et de gouvernement des conduites et comme lieu de constitution des subjectivités nous permet, selon Brindisi, de tirer du travail foucaldien une aide précie...

Este presente artigo tem por objetivo fazer considerações acerca da origem tardia do Corpus Hermeticum, assim como seu possível desenvolvimento, a partir do caldo multicultural e das similaridades religiosas entre as escolas filosóficas da Grécia clássica e helenística, em específico por influência direta de Pitágoras e de Platão, por meio de Plutarco, da escola eclética e de certa influência indireta das escolas do oriente, em específico a egípcia, na tentativa de revelar a possível, mas bem provável, origem posterior ao séc (...) I dos escritos conhecidos como Corpus Hermeticum. Essa conjunção de escolas de pensamento, podem ter tido o efeito em comum e uma possível responsabilidade de formarem, ou até mesmo de servirem como agente acelerador, do pensamento filosófico grego pré-socrático, que irá influir diretamente no pensamento clássico e helenístico. (shrink)

Opportunistic behaviors are considered ethically and strategically troublesome since they disrupt otherwise mutually beneficial relationships. Previous literature has shown that firms attempt to protect their investments from opportunism by generating a large amount of patented marginal innovations in domains central to their industry. However, this approach may generate some ethical dilemmas by preventing firms and societies from more radical, collaborative, and much-needed environmental progress. We extend the environmental innovation literature using strategic and ethical lenses to analyze the potential of an (...) alternative, divergent way to provide financial opportunities for a focal firm without aiming to prevent innovative opportunities for competitors. Our longitudinal analysis of 6768 environmental patents from 59 large companies worldwide in the electrical components and equipment industry shows that high levels of innovation intensity, environmental scope, bargaining power, and environmental expertise increase the incidence of patented environmental innovations related to domains in which industry competitors are less focused (i.e., technological divergence). We also show a positive relationship between this divergence and market-based firm performance. Our results suggest that pursuing innovative divergence to avoid opportunism may make ethical and market sense and we also identify the organizational factors that can support these efforts. (shrink)

La contemporaneidad es facticidad sin sentido, un “espacio de crisis” donde al “ocultamiento de Dios” (teología) le corresponde “la imposibilidad del Absoluto” (filosofía), y a ambos les son correlativas la imposición de un “universo infinito e inestable” (ciencia) y la consecuente pérdida de significancia (semiótica) que implican el vacío y las ausencias. Esa contemporaneidad es asimismo preludio que inaugura la emergencia hegemónica de la efectividad (tecnología), al costo de una debacle espiritual que tiene consecuencias trágicas para la vida y la (...) convivencia humanas. El agotamiento de las dimensiones imaginarias o no de ese universo, determinadas por las repeticiones inexorables de su geografía máxima y mínima, o la imposibilidad de progresar “más allá de la inmanencia” que reitera los recorridos reales y virtuales por la materia, proyecta nefastos efectos desexistenciarios sobre una humanidad que se hunde en la facticidad sin sentido y pervierte cualquier posibilidad de conocimiento, valor y virtud. La emergencia de novedosas modalidades de subjetividad, que atentan contra la existencia colectiva de comunidades, culturas y modos de vida, tienen directa relación con originales formas de reproducción del capital (economía) y modos traumáticos para realizar el prometeico sueño de producción de poder privado (política). También influye de manera decisiva la vigencia de un sistema de poder tecnocrático que sustituye “lo real” por virtualidades e impone una “convivencia” determinada por flujos digitales efímeros e inconsistentes. Esta obra demuestra que tales cuestiones económicas o políticas, científicas o técnicas, lejos de ser contradictorias con un tratamiento teológico o filosófico de la realidad, dependen de la previa respuesta de éste a los problemas elementales que la ciencia y la tecnología deben tener por resueltos antes de aplicar sus progresos por más elocuentes que estos pudieran parecer. Y tal demostración, en el presente texto, no gira en el vacío sino que perdura fundamentada en un recorrido ejemplificador a través de las diversas culturas “occidentales” que han predominado, primero en la misión de “ordenar a la Humanidad” en el tiempo y el espacio, para luego desatar la tragedia que signa un porvenir de convulsiones y pérdidas. Un “mundo” llega a su fin y las formas y elementos que lo sostenían se degradan fungiendo una transición hacia nuevas dimensiones de un “futuro” donde el hombre será un mendigo de lo inexorable. Sólo la conciencia plena del colapso y las causas que lo generan puede abrir una herida en ese futuro a favor del ser humano, evitando la pérdida de su condición de persona y de las virtudes propias que pueden salvarlo. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene por finalidad analizar la vision de dos autores sobre aspectos del poder y de la justicia entre los estados. Para ello tomamos dos de sus obras representativas que buscan comprender la politica de su tiempo: Leviatän escrito por el ingles Thomas Hobbes, publicado en 1651, y Politica entre las naciones escrito por el alemän Hans Morgenthau, publicado en 1948. El poder es la razön del soberano, su büsqueda estarä por encima de la justicia. Pero la instituciön de (...) principios normativos que regulan el comportamiento de la sociedad es imperativa para mantener el orden y la paz. Esta paz es fruto del poder y no de la justicia, es fruto de la imposiciön del mäs fuerte y su capacidad para mantener el orden dependerä de la normativa juridica y de la fuerza coactiva para defenderla. Las pasiones humanas terminan en la razön que sostiene al Estado hobbesiano, las pasiones de los estadistas terminan en el orden juridico internacional morgenthauniano. El realismo de la büsqueda del poder constituye la base filosöfica para el desarrollo de una teoria emprrico-normativa que sirve de base a los analistas de politica exterior para comprender los actos de los estadistas e incluso adelantarse a sus acciones. La teoria en Morgenthau es la verificaciön de los hechos histöricos para darles sentido, mediante un metodo, a traves de la razön. La historia humana atravesada por el concepto de lucha por el poder es el enlace metodolögico que une a los dos autores. (shrink)

Nosso objetivo com o texto é o de apresentar o projeto Filosofia na Escola aos leitores, visando uma melhor compreensão dos demais textos que constituem o “Dossiê Filosofia na Escola”. Nessa apresentação destacamos, primeiro, aspectos históricos e estatísticos; em seguida, alguns princípios norteadores da produção teórica e prática, bem como momentos e atividades da organização do projeto e, por fim, procuramos indicar os sinais que orientaram as investigações no ano de 2004 e que resultaram nos textos constituintes do Dossiê.

It is customary to consider late Imperial historiography as a barren waste of meagre and inaccurate chronicles and incompetent rhetorical epitomes, all overshadowed by the giant figure of Ammianus Marcellinus, the greatest literary genius, as E. Stein has called him , between Tacitus and Dante. In fact, however, the fifth century A.D. produced at least one writer who was, in the words of Niebuhr, ‘second to no historian even of the best ages in talent, good faith and wisdom; elegant (...) and very pure in style, he justly acquired praise and glory both among contemporaries and succeeding ages’. Niebuhr was referring to Priscus of Panium in Thrace, but Priscus was a member of a school of historical writing which had been founded earlier in the fifth century by Olympiodorus, an historian of scarcely less merit than Priscus and author of what J. B. Bury called ‘a highly important work’. Since even Schmid-Stahlin are not able to refer to a single essay or mono-graph on Olympiodorus, it may not be amiss to assemble the facts which are known about him and to try to discover, so far as the scanty materials permit, what sort of man he was and what sort of work he produced. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When an Arab Laughs in Toledo: Cervantes’s Interpellation of Early Modern Spanish OrientalismE. C. Graf (bio)My purpose has been to place in the plaza of our republic a game table which everyone can approach to entertain themselves without fear of being harmed by the rods; by which I mean without harm to spirit or body, because honest and agreeable exercises are always more likely to do good than harm.—Miguel (...) de Cervantes Saavedra, Prologue to Novelas ejemplares [my translation]We are engaged in a technical enterprise at the species scale.—Jacques Lacan, “L’agressivité en psychanalyse” [my translation]While I was all intent on watching him, he looked at me, and with his hands he spread his chest and said: “See how I split myself!”!—Dante Alighieri, Inferno 28.28–30 Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.Sandro Botticelli, The Virgin and Child (c. 1490). Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; ©1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College. Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.Salvador Dalí, Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening (1941). Courtesy of Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; ©1999 Artists' Rights Society (ARS), New York.For much of this century, Hispanists have labored in an effort to elevate Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (1605, 1615) to the coveted status of the “first modern novel.” Today this kind of criticism may strike our postmodern sensibilities as a rather traditional enterprise, the kind more interested in establishing an elite hierarchy of literary tastes than in saying anything new about an author or text. For many, the study of literature is still an aesthetic beauty pageant in which “great books” like Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1767) or Marie de la Vergne de La Fayette’s La princesse de Clèves (1678) are paraded across the stage in a contest to seduce the Western intelligentsia. 1 The postmodern student of literature may not have much concern for this age-old territorial contest, but she might be interested to learn that the fallout from Hispanism’s quest for the “first modern novel” has involved so much attention to, indeed complication of, Don Quixote, that the book now resembles more a postmodern text than an early modern one. At the turn of the century, we have been left with what Jorge Luis Borges would recognize as an “aleph”: an infinite ideological labyrinth that reflects and/or cannibalizes all forms, thereby escaping all attempts [End Page 68] to describe it. 2 Whatever we currently mean by “Cervantes” (an author, a collection of texts, an ideological construction, and so forth) carries with it an impressive range of critical responses. Cervantes has been labeled converso (Castro, Canavaggio), Christian humanist (Castro, Bataillon, Forcione, Herrero, Vilanova), disillusioned secularist (Lukács, Cascardi), precapitalist (Johnson), anti-essentialist (Wilson), anti-Eusebian (Presberg), Menippean (Bakhtin), feminist (El Saffar, Rabin, Cruz), sadist (Nabokov), ethnocentric imperialist (Mariscal), medieval (Gorfkle), homophobic (Martín), non-organicist Aristotelian (Read), and either discursively or actually homosexual (Combet, Rossi, Smith, Arrabal). This list is nowhere near complete, but the reader will grasp the robust effects of the plurality of perspectives on Cervantes.Each of these interpretations is valid to varying degrees within various contexts, but at present I am interested in reading Cervantes as the author of a multicultural manifesto on behalf of the Moriscos of Southern Spain. 3 Within the contexts of French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser and Palestinian postcolonial literary critic Edward Said, materialist, postcolonial, and multicultural critiques of various forms of power and their ideologies can be seen as the fundamental propositions of Cervantes’s Don Quixote. 4 Cervantes’s ultimate orientation may perhaps be inescapably Eurocentric, but his responses to the European experience of the rise and expansion of an ethnocentric militaristic nation state are relatively centrifugal when compared to the attitudes of many of his contemporaries.In surveying some of the antihegemonic details of Cervantes’s novel, I am also interested in dispelling the popular myth of Don Quixote. Especially in the English-speaking world, and particularly in the United States, Don Quixote remains captive to a... (shrink)

_In Boccacio's Decameron, Cervigni sees a parodic echo of the circles of Dante's Divine Comedy, and asks whether Bocaccio envisions the voyage of the brigata as similar to Dante the Pilgrim's journey toward the center, first the abysmal center of Lucifer, then towards the highest center, God._.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 167 they regard as the Standard of every Thing, and which they will not submit to the superior Light of Revelation?" (p. 21) is the Hume we have come to accept, Hume the philosopher, Hume the foe of superstition and enthusiasm. Indeed, upon reading the Letter it seems that one must ask himself if Hume;s desire for this position--and the financial security it would offer--has not (...) affected his response. We know that in his later life Hume flatly refused to debate the multitude of clergymen who attacked his works. Not even so respectable a philosopher as Thomas Reid could elicit a public response from him. Why then did he reply to a philosophical scoundrel such as Wishart? Of course, one could suggest that Courts and Kames and perhaps others may have urged Hume to this reply in his own interest. But that, to me, is precisely the point: Why so unusual a concern in just this case, and why one which seems to undercut some of what are thought to be Hume's most daring and creative analyses? These are not rhetorical questions, but queries of importance to those who wish to see Hume and his work whole. The Letter ]rom a Gentleman does shed important light on the Treatise. Professor Mossner was quite correct in his surmise. But I believe that it raises more questions than it answers--and for this reason too we are fortunate that it has been added to the Hume bibliography. DAVZDFATE NORTON Edinburgh, Scotland THE HEGELIAN DANTE OF WILLIAM TORREY HARRIS William Torrey Harris is remembered as the foremost American exponent of Hegelianism; as founder of the Philosophical Society (1866); as editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (1867-93); as U.S. Commissioner of Education (1889-1906); and as founder, with Miss Susan E. Blow, of the first permanent public school kindergarten in America. He also gave Melville Dewey the order of the ten subiect classes of his famous book classification system, and was co-founder of the Library Journal. Harris was born in North Killingsly, Connecticut in 1835. He studied at Phillips Andovcr Academy, and at Yale University, from which he withdrew in his junior year to accept a teaching position in St. Louis, Missouri in 1857. In St. Louis he met Henry C. Brockmeyer, a German immigrant and intellectual, and under his influence began a lifelong commitment to the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He states that Hegel's philosophy became the center of all his thinking, but he nevertheless ~vent on to study the works of the other great thinkers, including those of Dante Alighieri. In 1883-84 he gave a series of lectures in St. Louis on Dante, and again in 1886 at the Concord School of Philosophy. These lectures were later expanded and published as The Spiritual Sense o] Dante's Divina Commedia, in Boston, by Houghton in 1889, and reissued in 1896. 168 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY The form of the Divina Commedia is a massive triadic structure of written words developed by exhaustive repetition of the terza rima. Structurally it is a development of the concept of The Trinity. The reader who knew not a single word of Italian could not escape having the Trinitarian notion hammered into his consciousness. Harris, however, was more concerned with meaning than form, and so he considered the triadic format a relatively trivial matter. Harris uses the Commedia to illustrate by imaginative representation the dialectic of the Holy Trinity to the American Protestant while explaining it with Hegelian logic. In summary he writes, "The doctrine of the divine form, or the self-activity of the absolute, involves the common nature of man and God, or God as divine human. This is the great central truth (of which the doctrine of the Trinity is the symbol) on which all modern civilization is built, and it is its open secret." Dante's Inferno corresponds with Hegel's logical and ontological level, called "Sein," the realm of abstract-unconscious-being-for-another. The Purgatory corresponds with his level "Wesen," the realm of mediated being in which the self is conscious of its being-in-and-for-another... (shrink)

The question of the import and role of Christian allusions in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has received much historical attention, and this continues into the present. Often juxtaposed in this interpretive issue are two questions: Does Hegel think that “the ontological project was first a Greek event from which Christianity would have developed an outer graft”? Or is it more accurate to say that, “for Hegel at least, no ontology is possible before the Gospel or outside it”? In the latter (...) case, Hegel might well place the Greeks precisely where Dante had - in the First Circle of Hell. Those who would make Hegel first a philosopher in the Socratic line tend to emphasize his early work. Those who would make Hegel first a Christian tend to emphasize the later work. This question is too broad to find adequate discussion in the present essay. (shrink)

Averroës emerged from an eminent family in Muslim Spain to become the first and last great Aristotelian of the classical Islamic world; his meticulous commentaries influenced Christian thinkers and earned him favorable mention in Dante's _Divina Commedia_. _The Book of the Decisive Treatise_ was and remains one his most important works and one of history's best defenses of the legitimate role of reason in a community of faith. The text presents itself as a plea before a tribunal in which (...) the divinely revealed Law of Islam is the sole authority; Averroës, critical of the anti-philosophical tone of the Islamic establishment, argues that the Law not only permits but also mandates the study of philosophy and syllogistic or logical reasoning, defending earlier Muslim philosophers and dismissing criticisms of them as more harmful to the Islamic community than the philosophers' own views had been. As he details the three fundamental methods the Law uses to aid people of varied capacities and temperaments, Averroës reveals a carefully formed and remarkably argued conception of the boundaries and uses of faith and reason. (shrink)

The main thrust of this book, novel and yet convincing, is that medieval philosophy cannot be studied without noting the importance its participants paid to political matters. The selections are mostly whole sections of different works, thus enabling the reader to form his own judgments without fear that he is reading the philosophical interpretations of the editors. Writings of al-Fârâbî, Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Abravenel, Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Dante are among the twenty-five entries.--C. E. B.

The question of the import and role of Christian allusions in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has received much historical attention, and this continues into the present. Often juxtaposed in this interpretive issue are two questions: Does Hegel think that “the ontological project was first a Greek event from which Christianity would have developed an outer graft”? Or is it more accurate to say that, “for Hegel at least, no ontology is possible before the Gospel or outside it”? In the latter (...) case, Hegel might well place the Greeks precisely where Dante had - in the First Circle of Hell. Those who would make Hegel first a philosopher in the Socratic line tend to emphasize his early work. Those who would make Hegel first a Christian tend to emphasize the later work. This question is too broad to find adequate discussion in the present essay. (shrink)

Cacciari, academic and mayor of Venice as of 1993, surveys the history of angels in Judaic, Islamic, and Christian traditions; and how Dante, Rilke, Kafka, and other writers have used the metaphor of angels to speak about the phenomenology of language. Translated from the.

Representing the themes guiding the past forty years’ work of one of the foremost theologians and philosophers of the twentieth century, these extraordinary volumes, in twenty-nine, twenty-four, and twenty-six chapters respectively, trace the tensions or problems emerging from the origins of what defines the West: the questions posed by Jerusalem and Athens and the relations of each; the place of Rome or Christianity in that equation, as well as the theological-political problem deriving therefrom; and the principles of republican government. Until (...) now, Ernest Fortin’s pathfinding work on these questions has been scattered either in articles appearing in diverse compendia or academic journals, or else in two books published in France and difficult to obtain, on the fifth-century debate between the neoplatonic philosophers and the Church Fathers and on the political teaching behind Dante’s Divine Comedy. (shrink)

This work is a "prolegomena to the study of evil," the beginning of a more ambitious project designated by the author an "ideational critique of society." Such an endeavor would include a "rhetoric that grasps the structures of consciousness, the phenomenology of history, and the dramaturgy of contemporary scenes." The bulk of the present study constitutes an essay in phenomenological sociology. Each of the seven deadly sins is insightfully described in terms of its dominant features as well as in relation (...) to and distinction from allied or similar phenomena. Significantly, the presiding intellectual presences are as often Homer, Augustine, Gregory the Great, and Aquinas as more contemporary ones such as Simmel, Marx, Weber, and Freud. The scope and sensitivity of the author is further manifested in his illuminating use of literary figures including Dante, Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Artaud. Lyman maintains that "sin has been neglected by sociology" and views this work as a first step in remedying such neglect. At the outset he states that he is not offering a way out of or elimination of evil nor the promise of good. Fortunately, much of the book and in particular its concluding chapter serves as at least a strong qualification of this posture. Though holding out no hope for redemption or a final release from sin and evil, Lyman’s effort would seem to have a commendable melioristic aim. He is concerned, however, to avoid what is for him the besetting sin of contemporary sociology—the attempt to present a sociological blueprint for earthly happiness. Lyman would like to see sociology respect "the social visions that the reason of ordinary people produces," while neither applauding nor opposing them. "The sociological task would then be to describe the processes of social architectonics, and not to build the new society in advance of them." It is evident that Lyman wishes to avoid explaining away sin or reducing it to psychological or societal deviance but it would have been helpful to have had some suggestion of his ontology or metaphysics of sin. The "reality" of sin and evil remains unclarified throughout these analyses. The citations from Homer, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Dante, and other such figures are presented without irony or condescension. Now it may be possible to distill psychological and sociological insights from these thinkers while rejecting or ignoring their theological dimensions. To do so, however, involves a process of abstraction and a contextualism which hardly leaves the phenomena as presented by these thinkers untouched and unchanged. Hence, it would seem that some justification for the "sin" character of these actions in their contemporary milieu is called for. Lyman hints that he is unhappy with the neutralization of sin resulting from contemporary social science. What is not clear is whether he rejects the naturalistic assumptions which undergird and indeed make inevitable such neutralizing interpretations. The background assumption of Lyman’s study is a Nietzschean-like "sociology of the absurd" which presupposes "a world that is ultimately and essentially without meaning" but is made meaningful "by the actions and beliefs of the people who participate in it." This is, of course, a radically different world than the one within which the sin-evil language emerged and gave this language its depth and significance. One aspect of Lyman’s continuing task, therefore, would be to show how it is possible to speak meaningfully of sin and evil when the belief in a transcendent which constituted these phenomena in their classical modes is absent. Nietzsche’s challenge must be faced: after the "death of God" we can still speak of "good and bad" but can we any longer speak of "good and evil"?—E.F. (shrink)