In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Benedict XVI, A Life: Volume 1, Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927–1965 by Peter SeewaldEmil AntonBenedict XVI, A Life: Volume 1, Youth in Nazi Germany to the Second Vatican Council 1927–1965 by Peter Seewald, translated by Dinah Livingstone (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2020), xi + 500 pp.What better way to spend Pope Benedict XVI's ninety-fourth birthday than by reviewing a Ratzinger biography while having Apfelstrudel (...) and some traditional Bavarian beer?German journalist and author Peter Seewald, who in his many interviews has asked Joseph Ratzinger / Pope Benedict XVI a total of two thousand or more questions (ix), has written a splendid biography that surprises even someone who has already read dozens of books by and about Benedict XVI. Written in an extremely enjoyable style and divided into chapters of just the perfect length, this page-turner deserves the highest praise. It will likely take its place alongside George Weigel's famous (and equally massive) biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope.The German biography has been divided into two volumes in English (vol. 2 was just published in November of 2021). Volume 1 deals with the years 1927–1965, dominated by two historic "Twos": World War II and Vatican II. Theologically, this is the period of the progressive Ratzinger (regardless of whether he "converted" to a more conservative stance later on), or as Seewald puts it, a man formed by "liberal Bavarian Catholicism" (124).Seewald provides lots of new and interesting information about Joseph Ratzinger, both bitter and sweet. One example from the early chapters concerns the origins of Ratzinger's mother. It turns out that she was an illegitimate child and not actually from South Tyrol, contrary to what her children had thought. A local historian has discovered that Ratzinger's mother Maria was actually born in Mühlbach "in the district of Rosenheim,... in a house that specialized in helping unmarried pregnant women to give birth" (15).For the romantic, the sweetest story of the book comes when Seewald [End Page 963] pushes the reserved Pope Emeritus to reveal more about the "painful decisions" that the young Munich seminarian had to make in relation to his vocation as a celibate priest. "'Were you in love with a girl?' 'Perhaps.' 'So, yes?' 'It could be interpreted like that.' 'How long did this passionate time last? A few weeks? A few months?' 'Longer'" (219). Ratzinger was in love! Or at least it could be interpreted like that! Other heart-warming details include the revelation that Ratzinger's childhood teddy from Marktl followed him all the way to the Apostolic Palace, as well as the fact that, when his blind brother Georg (now deceased) needed a housekeeper, Benedict XVI personally organized the job interview in the Vatican gardens.A darker episode, minimized in Ratzinger's autobiographical memoirs, concerns his role in the radar crew of the German anti-aircraft forces in World War II. The future Pope was entrusted with the task of targeting British bombers. Seewald fills in the narrative: "Ratzinger delivered readings for three guns,.... The more precisely Joseph measured, the higher the hit rate. As the war demanded" (101). Years later, Ratzinger confessed that these experiences still occasionally gave him sweaty nightmares.Seewald goes on to describe the exceptional postwar context in which Ratzinger prepared for the priesthood. The future priests knew that they would soon have to hear confessions of ex-Nazis who had shot people in the war (153). Indeed, after the war, many old Nazis turned to the Church and attempted to get de-Nazification certificates. Ratzinger's parish priest even joked that one day "they will say the only Nazis were the priests" (131).As did everyone, Ratzinger also felt the effects of poverty in postwar Germany. Whenever a festive dinner had to be given for a visitor at the seminary, "we went hungry on the most meagre rations for four long weeks in order to gather the ingredients" (189). After a short period of pastoral ministry subsequent to his ordination, the stellar theologian went back to the seminary as a teacher. Barely twenty-five-years-old, he was younger... (shrink)

Rousseau tries to show that civic patriotism is compatible with genuine moral cosmopolitanism as well as republican cosmopolitanism (the compatibility thesis). I try to clarify these concepts, and distinguish them from other types of cosmopolitanism, such as moral, cultural, economic, and epistemological cosmopolitanisms. Rousseau winds up with a form of rooted cosmopolitanism that tries to strike a balance between republican patriotism and republican as well as thin moral cosmopolitanism, offering a synthesis through education. A careful reading of Émile shows that (...) this is a book about the formation of a moral and cognitive cosmopolitan who avoids the deformations of a commercial society influenced by processes of globalisation. (shrink)

The “Italian invert’s confessions” have long been known to historians of sexuality, yet this new edition lends them an authenticity never before enjoyed. The Prime Mover in the publication is Micha...

Hans Reichenbach, Philosophic Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1944.Georg Pólya, How to Solve It, a New Aspect of Mathematical Method; Princeton University Press, 1945.

PART ONE IDENTITE ET REALITE The program of Emile Meyerson's investigations is to discover inductively the a priori principles of human thinking. ...

Traditionally Rousseau has been interpreted as an advocate of modern nationalism and nationalist education. This article tries to show that Rousseau defended a form of civic patriotism, which is in principle compatible with genuine moral as well as republican cosmopolitanism. While Rousseau attacked several forms of cosmopolitanism espoused at his time, such as commercial or natural law cosmo politanism, he himself developed a kind of »rooted cosmopolitanism« which tried to strike a balance between republican patriotism and legitimate forms of cosmopolitanism. (...) A careful reading of Émile shows that this is a book about the formation of a moral and cognitive cosmopolitan who avoids the deformations of commercial society. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage d’Emile Bréhier trouve son premier point de départ dans un cours donné à la Sorbonne dans l’hiver 1921-1922. Il a principallement porté son attention sur l’intelligible : l’Un, l’Intelligence, l’Ame; mais la réalité intelligible chez Plotin garde toujours un caractère sensuel : « la contemplation de l’intelligible est sur la même ligne que la contemplation du sensible; elle la continue directement sans passer du tout par l’intermédiaire d’idées logiquement enchaînées. […] Ce que l’expression est au visage, la réalité (...) intelligible tout entière l’est à l’ensemble du monde sensible; cette réalité est comme la physionomie de l’univers, l’expression du visage qu’il montre à nos sens. »En cherchant à dégager le problème fondamental de la philosophie de Plotin, cet ouvrage d’introduction aura contribué à en faire apparaître l’arrière-plan religieux et jusqu’à l’orientalisme, et parfaitement réussi à caractériser l’originalité de cet idéalisme que Hegel avait qualifié d’“élevé”. (shrink)

Despite the radically different interests that motivate Emil Fackenheim’s and Henry Harris’s respective interpretations of Hegel, the two have significant points of commonality. They in fact come the closest precisely at points where they seem to differ most. The need and the possibility of ‘reconciliation’ is the theme that animates both interpretations, and both also agree in their assessment of Hegel’s treatment of ‘evil.’ There are nevertheless crucial differences separating the two, which the essay details. The essay concludes wondering, (...) on the one hand, how seriously Harris recognizes that, in a post-Holocaust world, ‘reconciliation’ calls for existential conditions such as Hegel could never have imagined; and on the other hand, how much Fackenheim would be willing to admit that his immersion into history will necessarily bring violent consequences in train for which there will have to be an accounting. (shrink)