This new reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau challenges traditional views of the eighteenth-century political philosopher's attitudes toward women and his perceived pessimism about human experience. Mira Morgenstern finds in Rousseau an appreciation of the complexities and multidimensionality of life that allowed him to criticize various easy dualisms promoted by his fellow liberal thinkers and point to the crucial mediating role that women fulfill between the private and public spheres. Morgenstern sees Rousseau as an important contributor to the feminist thoughts and concerns (...) that animate so much of our public and private discourse today. While Rousseau is commonly seen as a patriarchal misogynist, Morgenstern finds evidence in his writing that belies much of this claim. Rousseau was very much a man of his time, but he also believed that women were the key to transmitting his ideals of personal and political authenticity, thereby transforming his theory from ephemeral ideas into practical reality. A careful evaluation of Rousseau's writings on women reveals his highly complex sense of reality, especially his awareness that the solutions to life's complex problems are often temporary and must be renegotiated over time. Rousseau is more persistent than most in highlighting the weaknesses and pitfalls of liberal political thought, whose fundamental characteristic is its categorization of life on the basis of dualistic categories: public and private, outside and inside, male and female. Ultimately, what makes Rousseau worth reading today, argues Morgenstern, is his ability to illuminate critical weaknesses in the dualisms of liberal political theory and his pointing out, if only by implication, alternative ways of reaching the full measure of our individual and communal humanity. In honoring the traditional liberal emphasis on individual liberty and self-development, Rousseau’s meditations on the proper aim of political life are especially helpful to those today who seek ways to expand liberalism's promise of freedom and authenticity, while not losing sight of the common threads of meaning and community that continue to bind us together. (shrink)

This article presents a first edition of three Mandaic lamellae from the Schøyen Collection, MS 2087/10, 2087/11, and 2087/18, which are the product of the same scribe and probably constituted a single amulet. The language of the amulet differs from that of other Mandaic texts, and demonstrates unknown or rare phonetic and morphological features. In addition, several lexemes that were hitherto unattested in Mandaic have been identified. Some of the amulet’s formulae are familiar from previously published texts, but in several (...) cases the new textual evidence allows us to improve upon their readings. (shrink)

Systematisch aufgebaute und am Alltagsleben orientierte Einführung in die philosophischen Einzeldisziplinen. Im Anhang ein Abriss der Philosophiegeschichte und ein Lexikon philosophischer Begriffe und Personen.

Ich lernte Hans Alberts Traktat über kritische Vernunft bereits während meiner Studienzeit kennen. Bei meinen Bemühungen, mir einen Überblick über die Philosophie der Gegenwart zu verschaffen, befasste ich mich mit analytischer Philosophie und moderner Wissenschaftstheorie und wurde dabei auch auf Karl Popper und Hans Albert aufmerksam. Popper begann ich als Verteidiger der offenen Gesellschaft und als Verfechter einer wissenschaftlichen Denkweise zu schätzen und Hans Albert beeindruckte mich mit seiner Kritik des Letztbegründungsdenkens, insbesondere mit seiner Kritik an der transzendental-pragmatischen Ethik von (...) Apel und Habermas, die damals in aller Munde war. Ich fühlte mich dabei schon ziemlich früh dem Kritischen Rationalismus verbunden. (shrink)

Das Anliegen der Metaphysik, die Welt aus wenigen Grundprinzipien zu begreifen, ist seit Hume und Kant häufig als illusionär kritisiert worden. Dennoch hat die 'totgesagte' Metaphysik immer wieder 'Auferstehungen' erlebt. Auch in der Moderne werden die alten Fragen nach Welt, Mensch und Gott gestellt, doch geschieht dies vor einem veränderten wissenschaftlichen Hintergrund und auch häufig mit anderen Methoden. Insgesamt zeigt sich in der Moderne ein allmählicher Übergang von einer apriorischen zu einer hypothetischen, wissenschaftsorientierten Metaphysik. Die vorliegende Abhandlung thematisiert acht zentrale (...) Strömungen der Metaphysik seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Im Zentrum stehen dabei die philosophischen Weltbilder ihrer Hauptvertreter sowie ihre Standpunkte zum Leib-Seele-Problem und zum Problem der Willensfreiheit, aber auch ihre Stellungnahmen zu den Fragen nach Gott, Unsterblichkeit und dem Sinn des Lebens. (shrink)

This new reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau challenges traditional views of the eighteenth-century political philosopher's attitudes toward women and his perceived pessimism about human experience. Mira Morgenstern finds in Rousseau an appreciation of the complexities and multidimensionality of life that allowed him to criticize various easy dualisms promoted by his fellow liberal thinkers and point to the crucial mediating role that women fulfill between the private and public spheres. Morgenstern sees Rousseau as an important contributor to the feminist thoughts and concerns (...) that animate so much of our public and private discourse today. While Rousseau is commonly seen as a patriarchal misogynist, Morgenstern finds evidence in his writing that belies much of this claim. Rousseau was very much a man of his time, but he also believed that women were the key to transmitting his ideals of personal and political authenticity, thereby transforming his theory from ephemeral ideas into practical reality. A careful evaluation of Rousseau's writings on women reveals his highly complex sense of reality, especially his awareness that the solutions to life's complex problems are often temporary and must be renegotiated over time. Rousseau is more persistent than most in highlighting the weaknesses and pitfalls of liberal political thought, whose fundamental characteristic is its categorization of life on the basis of dualistic categories: public and private, outside and inside, male and female. Ultimately, what makes Rousseau worth reading today, argues Morgenstern, is his ability to illuminate critical weaknesses in the dualisms of liberal political theory and his pointing out, if only by implication, alternative ways of reaching the full measure of our individual and communal humanity. In honoring the traditional liberal emphasis on individual liberty and self-development, Rousseau’s meditations on the proper aim of political life are especially helpful to those today who seek ways to expand liberalism's promise of freedom and authenticity, while not losing sight of the common threads of meaning and community that continue to bind us together. (shrink)

Inspired by the Enlightenment readings of Hebrew biblical texts generated in the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, Mira Morgenstern's _Reframing Politics in the Hebrew Bible_ goes beyond the pioneering interpretations of various biblical texts penned by such noted Bible students as Spinoza, Rousseau, and Angelina Grimké to present an introduction to the Hebrew Bible as a whole from the perspective of a modern-day political theorist. In doing so, it offers a brilliant thematic guide to the Hebrew Bible's most politically salient (...) passages, complete with text and commentary. Morgenstern's account of the significance of these ancient yet strangely modern texts will fascinate students of both ancient and modern political theory—as well as all readers of the Hebrew Bible itself. (shrink)

Mit der 1836 erschienenen Schrift Ueber den Willen in der Natur bricht Schopenhauer, wie er in der 1835 geschriebenen Einleitung erläutert, sein 17-jähriges Schweigen. Seit der Veröffentlichung des Hauptwerks Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung im Jahr 1818 hatte er vergeblich auf eine öffentliche Resonanz und Würdigung seiner Philosophie gewartet, und in der Hoffnung, bei einer anstehenden zweiten Auflage des Hauptwerks weitere Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen vornehmen zu können, hatte er jahrelang Material gesammelt.

Die Bedeutung Schopenhauers für Nietzsches Denken wird in der Nietzsche-Forschung kontrovers beurteilt. Während zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts Schopenhauers Einfluss häufig als bedeutend eingeschätzt wurde, haben ihn spätere Interpreten wie Jaspers, Heidegger und Löwith als unwesentlich veranschlagt. In jüngerer Zeit zeichnet sich wieder eine Aufwertung der Rolle Schopenhauers ab. 0In Anknüpfung an die jüngere Nietzsche-Forschung zeigt diese Arbeit, dass sich die Entwicklung von Nietzsches Denken in immer wiederkehrender Auseinandersetzung mit der Philosophie Schopenhauers vollzogen hat. Vor allem seine Überlegungen zur Metaphysik (...) und Ethik werden häufig vor dem Hintergrund der Schopenhauerschen Auffassungen erst richtig verständlich. (shrink)

In a recent issue of this journal, Theodore Kwasman and Christa Müller-Kessler have taken issue with several of the present author’s writings, in particular his edition of the incantation bowl BM 135563, and presented serious claims of professional incompetence. The present contribution addresses several of the misleading arguments that they have raised, and demonstrates that they are often based upon misunderstandings, mis-citations, or inaccurate prejudices regarding the use of terminology.