In tackling emergentist Marxism in depth, this well-written volume demonstrates that critical realism and materialist dialectics are indispensable to theorizing the functioning of complex social and physical systems. Author Sean Creaven investigates Marxâes dialectics of being and consciousness, forces and relations of production, base and superstructure, class structure and class conflict, and demonstrates how they allow the social analyst to conceptualize geo-history as embodying a tendential evolutionary directionality, rather than as simply random or indeterminate in terms of its outcomes. For (...) those interested in social and political theory, Marxism and communism and contemporary social theory, this outstanding volume is an in important read and a valuable resource. (shrink)

Auschwitz is still the greatest challenge for philosophy and reason, rather than representing their end, as Lyotard most prominently seems to imply. The article shows how the evolution of the question of dialectics from Hegel to postmodernism must be thought in relation to Auschwitz. The critics of reason and Hegel such as Lyotard, Derrida and Foucault are highlighting the break between reason and unspeakable suffering, for which Auschwitz is the most prominent symbol, but reintroduce ‘behind’ the scene much more (...) speculative concepts than Hegel himself (Plasma by Lyotard, khora by Derrida and power as an absolute by Foucault). Adorno for his part thought that only a negative dialectics could address the problem adequately but transferred the unity of opposites just in the realm of utopia. But there is no negative (Adorno) or positive dialectics, only dialectics which mediates and posit the positive and the negative on a higher level. (shrink)

The fundamental problems of a philosophy of science emerge as a set of antinomies: relativism-Absolutism, Subjectivity-Objectivity, And theory-Practice. Each one of these antinomies is overcome in dialectical philosophy. Science is a dialectical process and requires a dialectical philosophy. But unlike the hegelian dialectic which is initiated by only internal limitations, The dialectic of science is also generated by the external intervention of nature. Science is then necessarily a historical process. Therefore, A scientist is true to (...) science and acts ethically "as a scientist" only if he acts to secure the historical possibility of science in the future. Science is ethically complete when it creates only itself. (shrink)

Starting with the distinction of the historical versus the adaptative approach towards dialectical philosophy, The author provides a critical discussion of rod's "dialektische philosophie der neuzeit." he charges rod, Among others, With reducing a problem of dialectic to a simple alternative: either dialectic is an ordinary analytical method and does not merit separate name, Or it is a separate framework for interpreting scientific research and deserves its name, Or it is metaphysical and remains outside science. The author (...) traces the results of accepting such alternatives in the discussion of present day dialectic and demonstrates the necessity of suspended judgement, As far as controversial issues within this field are concerned, At least until further research validates a more definite stand. (shrink)

An analysis of how Adorno's "pure" philosophy can be seen to provide a justification of the rationality required by critical theory.

The late Imre Lakatos once hoped to found a school of dialectical philosophy of mathematics. The aim of this paper is to ask what that might possibly mean. But Lakatos's philosophy has serious shortcomings. The paper elaborates a conception of dialectical philosophy of mathematics that repairs these defects and considers the work of three philosophers who in some measure fit the description: Yehuda Rav, Mary Leng and David Corfield.

This collection of ten essays on African American philosophy addresses a wide range of issues beyond the bounds of traditional racial discourse. The essays are dialectical in the sense that they are conversations between personal histories, between ideologies, and between changing ways that the races talk to one another.

This is an exploration in depth of the social theory of the Russian-born thinker Pitirim A. Sorokin, who played a large role in American thought. Sorokin's contributions to theories of culture, social change, modernity, and dialectics are evaluated in this wide-ranging study. The book emphasizes the place of values in the comparative study of civilizations. This volume includes a translationby Lawrence T. Nichols of Sorokin's essay in Russian on Tolstoy as philosopher, as well as a chapter by Nichols on Tolstoy (...) and Sorokin. In this book, Palmer Talbutt, Jr. examines his former teacher, Sorokin, within intellectual, educational, and cultural contexts. The work will be of especial interest to scholars in social philosophy, the philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of culture, and comparative cultural studies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article approaches the problem of post-truth and the opposition between philosophical dialectics and sophistic rhetoric. The antagonism is addressed through a reading of Žižek's depiction of the ongoing discussion between Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin, the “new version of the ancient dialogue between Plato and the sophists,” as stained by sexual difference, and the dialectics between Parmenides and Gorgias. The article argues that only through acknowledging the inescapable failure of these sides to ever establish a complete totality are (...) we capable of overcoming the antagonism that resides at their core, thus making a dialectical sophistics, on the basis of Žižek's thought, possible. Thus, only by taking the path through post-truth can we attempt to reach the disavowed core of truth that haunts every failed system. (shrink)

The article show that the purpose of the final elaboration of Merleau-Ponty is thus to find a new idea of philosophy in which both Hegelian and Husserlian phenomenology can converge. But this tension in no way constitutes an element of rupture in the theoretical continuity of the Merleau-Pontian philosophy.

This book explores and details the actuality of Hegel’s social and political philosophy--its relevance, topicality, and contemporary validity. It asserts--against the assumptions of those in a wide range of traditions--that Hegel’s thought not only remains relevant to debates in current social and political theory, but is capable of productively enhancing and enriching those debates. The book is divided into three main sections. Part 1 considers the actuality of Hegel’s social and political thought in the context of a constructed dialogues (...) with later social and political theorists, including Marx, Adorno, Habermas, and Rawls. Part 2 explores Hegel’s internal criticism of Enlightenment rationality as well as the unique manner in which his thought reaffirms both the classical tradition of politics and the Christian conception of freedom in order to deepen and further develop our understanding of modernity and modern secularity. Part 3 considers Hegel’s contribution to current theorizing about globalization. (shrink)

Our study aims to deal with different and similar conditions between Ghazzali and Kant, as characters at whom can show two different thinking form and two different cultural structure in their thoughts, in the context of the same subject. The article investigates the stages of these two thinkers approaches to the topic of transcendental dialectic and tries to display that why and how two different cultural worlds incline to this subject.

Hegel’s account of conscience at the conclusion to the chapter on morality in the Philosophy of Right has had more than its share of detractors. Theunissen tries to explain why the account is “so meager,” Findlay deems it “thoroughly scandalous,” and Tugendhat goes so far as to label it the pinnacle of a “no longer merely conceptual, but rather moral perversion.” Even commentators committed to rescuing Hegel’s discussion of conscience from such extreme reproaches agree that it is “one-sided” and (...) “problematic.” The source of this widespread conclusion about Hegel’s political incorrectness is not difficult to discern. In the wake of the nationalistic excesses and horrors of the last two centuries, there is an understandable suspicion about the motivations underlying claims that “the state cannot recognize conscience in its distinctive. form, that is, as subjective knowing”. When Hegel declares that the “formal subjectivity” of conscience, as the final achievement of morality, is “on the verge of turning into something evil”, he seems clearly out of step with the reigning liberal political traditions, traditions that regard the individual’s freedom to abide by his or her conscience as both an unassailable right and an inherent good. (shrink)

The summer of 1989 was an especially eventful one for Poland, but in the midst of all the political ferment some two dozen scholars from 10 countries —including the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, China, Bulgaria, Italy, Israel, and the USA—spent five days together in a guest house owned by the Polish Academy of Sciences in the tiny village of Mogilany, a half-hour’s drive from Krakow. They were assembled for a conference organized by Prof. (...) Marek Siemek, Director of the Philosophical Institute of the University of Warsaw. Though the conference bore the general title, “Transcendental Philosophy and Dialectic,” almost all of the contributions were specifically concerned with aspects of the philosophy of J. G. Fichte. This was only fitting, since the ostensible occasion for the conference was to celebrate the 70th birthday of the world’s best-known Fichtean, Prof. Reinhard Lauth of the University of Munich. Since the majority of the participants had also participated in the two International Fichte Conferences held in Austria in 1977 and 1987 there was something of an air of a class reunion about the gathering, which made for an especially congenial conference. (shrink)

This book explores and details the actuality of Hegel’s social and political philosophy--its relevance, topicality, and contemporary validity. It asserts--against the assumptions of those in a wide range of traditions--that Hegel’s thought not only remains relevant to debates in current social and political theory, but is capable of productively enhancing and enriching those debates. The book is divided into three main sections. Part 1 considers the actuality of Hegel’s social and political thought in the context of a constructed dialogues (...) with later social and political theorists, including Marx, Adorno, Habermas, and Rawls. Part 2 explores Hegel’s internal criticism of Enlightenment rationality as well as the unique manner in which his thought reaffirms both the classical tradition of politics and the Christian conception of freedom in order to deepen and further develop our understanding of modernity and modern secularity. Part 3 considers Hegel’s contribution to current theorizing about globalization. (shrink)

This volume, an assemblage of essays previously published in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, conveniently and strategically brings together some of the trenchant interpretations and analyses of the salient, structural aspects of the philosophy of the Yijing. They reveal how the ancient Classic offers a graphically vivid and conceptually dynamic dramaturgy of the ways in which the natural world works in conjunction with the human one. Its cosmological architectonics and philosophical worldview continue to have enormous purchase on our (...) current imagination, even though readerly imperatives and responses have rendered this classic into a text of multiple significances, catering to pluralistic readerships and clienteles. Nonetheless, the essays in this volume lay bare some of the original authorly visions and insights of the Yijing, clearly showing that their apparent truthfulness to our cosmic and human conditions inspire philosophical and even theological questions. The Yijing's authorial designs of the eight trigrams and hexagrams, which encapsulate the primordial state of homo-cosmic phenomena and situations, together with the yin-yang forces and the dao, are taken for granted as integers in a grand universal equation, factored out to represent a ceaselessly changing cosmos in which heaven, earth and humanity commingle, such that the whole and unity can be found in the individual and the opposite, and vice versa. (shrink)

This volume, an assemblage of essays previously published in the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, conveniently and strategically brings together some of the trenchant interpretations and analyses of the salient, structural aspects of the ...

Salomon Munk (1803-1867) belonged to a group of German-Jewish scholars who pioneered the systematic study of Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and Islamic philosophy in Western Europe in the nineteenth century, as part of a movement that came to be known as the Science of Judaism. The Science of Judaism applied the tools of modern science (in particular philology) to the study of Judaism, seeking to shed light on its manifold aspects and historical contexts--an undertaking which eventually led to the birth of (...) Jewish studies as an academic discipline. Munk's ground-breaking studies of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic sources were to play a central role in this process, exerting a major influence on nineteenth century German and French Oriental studies as well as on modern philosophical historiography, and paving the way for the scientific study of the relationship between medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Christian thought. This book is an attempt to restore this extraordinary representative of German Jewry to the pantheon of the Science of Judaism, and in the process, to illustrate the fascinating origins of the academic field of Jewish and Islamic Studies. (shrink)

An important question in Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and its associated literature is how OOO relates to its competitor theories. This article is a meta-philosophical investigation into OOO and its grounding, which hopes to fully theorise this relation, deriving ultimately a “negative dialectic” that emphasises the irreducible differences between OOO and non-OOO. Beginning by analysing the use of OOO as a “starting point”, I consider Althusser’s various contributions to meta-philosophical debates. This leads me to focus on Harman’s notion of “hyperbolic (...) reading”, and on how attempts to hyperbolically ground OOO force it to immanently include its competitors. Finally, I apply these insights to systematise both the negative dialectical relation between OOO and non-OOO and the becoming-OOO of thinking, by applying Laruelle’s Non-Philosophy. (shrink)

The scope and importance of the present work is manifest even to a casual glance; the actual heights of scholarly penetration and disinterestedness to which it rises can only be appreciated by the detailed examination of its text. From this latter examination, it readily appears that we are confronted with no ad hoc construction, no work cut, so to say, to fit a present need, however valid and cogent; but a work reflecting a near lifetime of application and animated by (...) a relentless devotion to documentary truth. For this reason, any account of it must, in simple justice, begin with a brief historical notice of the work itself. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of Schleiermacher's Dialectic, the first of his eight forays into the foundations of thinking that aims at knowing. This text, representing Schleiermacher's succinct preparatory notes for his 1811 lectures, offers a remarkably apt introduction to his thought at the onset of the modern age. This study edition features extensive notes and commentary by the translator, and indexes of names and places, subjects and concepts.

The Dialectics of Absolute Nothingness examines the influence of German philosophical traditions on the development of the Kyoto School. Contributors explore the Kyoto School's engagement with Western thought, highlighting the centrality of German philosophy while also showing the many ways the Kyoto School critiques the philosophical traditions it incorporates.

In her book Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher, Ann Hartle argues that Montaigne’s thought is dialectical in the Hegelian sense. Unlike Hegel’s progressive dialectic, however, Montaigne’s thought is, according to Hartle, circular in that the reconciliation of opposed terms comes not in the form of a newly emergent term, but in a return to the first term, where the meaning of the first is transformed as a result of its dialectical interaction with the second. This analysis motivates Hartle’s claim (...) that Montaigne is not a skeptic at all, let alone a Pyrrhonian skeptic. In this paper, I argue that Hartle’s circular-dialectical interpretation of Montaigne is not only compatible with Pyrrhonism, but is in fact an ideal model for understanding Sextus Empiricus’s skeptical therapy. (shrink)