Religious, philosophical, and theological views on the self vary widely. For some the self is seen as the center of human personhood, the ultimate bearer of personal identity and the core mystery of human existence. For others the self is a grammatical error and the sense of self an existential and epistemic delusion. This volume documents a debate between Eastern and Western critics and defenders of the self or of the no-self that explores the intercultural dimensions of this important topic.

Guanxi is essential to doing business in China. Even those who are minimally familiar with business in the People’s Republic seem to know this. How should Western business organizations look at guanxi? Further, if guanxi is seen as essential, what is the responsible approach to guanxi building? These questions may have different answers depending on one’s perspectives. First, what is guanxi?

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 99 Heft: 1 Seiten: 314-319.

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 1 Seiten: 391-397.

Guanxi is essential to doing business in China. Even those who are minimally familiar with business in the People’s Republic seem to know this. How should Western business organizations look at guanxi? Further, if guanxi is seen as essential, what is the responsible approach to guanxi building? These questions may have different answers depending on one’s perspectives. First, what is guanxi?

For philosophers who would think “with” religion, rather than simply to theorize “about” it, the question of the relationship between religious imagination and philosophical rationality is a matter of constitutive importance. The way we answer this question would have far reaching implications for how we understand the work we do as philosophers who take religion seriously, and how we situate ourselves within broader academic contexts. Indeed, the answer to such a question –insofar as we can give any sort of definitive (...) answer to it –would convey us to the core of what it means for us to “philosophically” appropriate religious and theological materials. We could do worse, I think, than to phrase the question in these terms: do religious imaginaries –representations, narratives, gestures, sacraments, etc. –anticipate a pure, conceptual reflexivity, or do they represent the impossibility of such a standpoint? This question is not only constitutive for philosophical reflection on religion. It is of a more general, formal relevance as well; it effectively raises the additional question as to whether the limits of conceptuality can themselves be conceptually articulated or whether they must be representationally displayed in such a way as to lead thought, obliquely, to an encounter or an experience of its limits. We can distill the question further: does philosophy comprehend religion, or does religion serve to mark the limits of what can be conceptually expressed by philosophy? Is religion the scene of the concept’s satisfaction? Its infinite longing? Or its transcendental frustration? (shrink)

La question de Dieu dans la philosophie d'Emmanuel Levinas est notablement complexe. D'une part, elle ne cesse de la traverser, d'autre part, elle s'y trouve à peine explicitée. Cette complexité se révèle surtout dans la plurivocité de la notion de 'trace' indissociable du sens que le mot 'Dieu' y acquiert. La densité tripartite de cette notion, inscrite dans le 'visage d'autrui', dans la 'passivité du sujet' et dans le 'dire prophétique', donne à penser Dieu comme absence-présence d'une transcendance radicale ; (...) celle-ci, à même sa séparation absolue, affecte l'immanence et s'incarne comme intelligibilité première. Aussi est-ce l'événement de 'la trace' en ces trois modalités, tel qu'il pénètre l'oeuvre de Levinas, que la présente étude cherche à examiner."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency.I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not.Pride and Prejudice has been read in many ways. I argue that this well-known love story not only foregrounds the battle of the sexes but also places center stage the pros and cons of different types of family systems and reciprocal altruism. Humans have long evolved to become homo familiaris. In its Latin origin, the word family does not (...) necessarily refer to blood relations or kinship. Rather, the ancient Romans used familia to refer to "household property—the fields, house, money and slaves owned by a man. The Latin word famulus means 'servant.'"2In Family and Friends in... (shrink)

In today's world, the boundaries within which Christian theologians operate are becoming ever more permeable, and Christian theology is increasingly influenced and challenged by multiple “outside” factors. In Western Europe, two such factors stand out in particular: the so-called “turn to religion” in continental philosophy and religious diversity. Theologians working with contemporary continental philosophers and theologians engaging the multireligious world tend to work quite separately from one another. The aim of the present book is therefore to initiate a conversation between (...) these two groups of theologians. The question of truth was chosen because it is both a key issue in contemporary-philosophical debates (in the continental and analytic traditions) and one that arises in complex and problematic ways in the praxis of, and theoretical reflection on, interreligious dialogue. Some of the pressing questions that are addressed by the contributors to this volume are: What is truth? What is theological truth? How does the issue of truth arise from interreligious encounter? To what extent can or should the nature of truth be discussed explicitly during interreligious dialogue? Or should the question of truth be rather postponed in the interest of successful interreligious encounter? Is there a hermeneutical concept of truth and, if so, how can it be of help for theological reflection on the question of truth and on the role and place of truth in the context of dialogue between religions? (shrink)

Scholars have paid limited attention to the crucial relationship between Hegel's racism, his support for colonialism and his views on religion. This essay offers a critical reconstruction of how race and coloniality shape the question of religion (and vice versa) throughout Hegel's attempts to critique and ultimately vindicate European modernity. Paying special attention to the seminal role of ‘fetishism’ in his works, I argue that Hegel's intellectual concerns are racialized from the inception of his project. I conclude by suggesting an (...) alternative philosophical approach to the concept of the ‘fetish’ and ‘fetishism’ to resist Hegel's racist and pro-colonial tendencies. (shrink)

In Georges Bataille’s view, the Hegelian interpretation of kenotic sacrifice as passage from Spirit to the Speculative Idea effaces the necessarily representational character of sacrifice and the irreducible non-presence of death. But Hegel identifies these aspects of death in the fragments of the 1800 System. In sacrificial acts, subjectivity represents its disappearance via the sacrificed other, and hence is negated and conserved. Sacrifice thus provides the representational model of sublation pursued in the Phenomenology as a propaedeutic to Science. Bataille’s critique (...) clarifies the fragments of the 1800 System, contextualizing Hegel’s rehabilitation of kenotic sacrifice in the Phenomenology. Bataille’s poetics parodies Hegelian kenosis via repetition of material difference, enacting an ecstatic temporality which Hegel perhaps suppresses as the condition of his system. Finally—if Bataille is correct in his assessment—the system would be subjected to a reversal, with radical implications for the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The series was founded in 1896. It is dedicated to important Greek and Latin texts together with translations and commentaries, as well as detailed introductions, thus rendering them more accessible to a broader readership. Since 2000 the series has concentrated on "Homer's Iliad. A full commentary", presenting the text of the Iliad (by M. L. West), a translation (by J. Latacz) and a commentary in German.

Analysis of a diverse cross‐sample of plant‐insect interactions suggests that the abundance of vitamin C (L‐ascorbic acid, ascorbate or AsA) in plants influences their susceptibility to insect feeding. These effects may be mediated by AsAs roles as an essential dietary nutrient, as an antioxidant in the insect midgut, or as a substrate for plant‐derived ascorbate oxidase, which can lead to generation of toxic reactive oxygen species. Ascorbate can also influence the efficacy of plant defenses such as myrosinases and tannins, and (...) alter insects' susceptibility to natural enemies. Conversely, herbivores appear to influence both de novo synthesis and redox cycling of AsA in their host plants, thereby potentially altering the nutritional value of crops and their susceptibility to pests. The recent development of genetically modified crops with enhanced AsA content provides both an impetus and a tool set for further studies on the role of AsA in plant‐insect interactions. (shrink)