Thanks to developments in genomics,dietary recommendations adapted to genetic riskprofiles of individual persons are no longerscience fiction. But what are the consequencesof these diets? An examination of possibleimpacts of genetically tailor-made diets raisesmorally relevant concerns that are analogous to(medical-ethical) considerations aboutscreening and testing. These concerns oftengive rise to applying norms for informedconsent and for the weighing of burdens andbenefits. These diets also have a broaderimpact, especially because food patterns arefull of personal, social and cultural meanings.Diets will change one's food patterns (...) and one'sattitude towards food, and this may implychanges in one's identity. We argue that suchan impact does not necessarily raise moralproblems. Moral concerns are, however, relevantif collective values and shared meanings infood practices are at issue. Therefore, thedevelopment of genetically tailor-made dietsdoes not merely require emphasis on weighingpersonal benefits and burdens and on informedconsent. It also asks for attention to andmoral reflection on the collective valuesinvolved in food practices. (shrink)

This paper responds to the commentaries from Stacy Carter and Alan Cribb. We pick up on two main themes in our response. First, we reflect on how the process of setting standards for empirical bioethics research entails drawing boundaries around what research counts as empirical bioethics research, and we discuss whether the standards agreed in the consensus process draw these boundaries correctly. Second, we expand on the discussion in the original paper of the role and significance of the concept of (...) ‘integrating’ empirical methods and ethical argument as a standard for research practice within empirical bioethics. (shrink)

Das Buch "Der kleine Hobbit" gilt als Vorläufer der wichtigsten Fantasy-Bücher aller Zeiten - den drei Bänden von "Der Herr der Ringe". Mit diesem Buch über die Abenteuer des Hobbits Bilbo Beutlin, zusammen mit 13 Zwergen und dem Zauberer Gandalf, schuf J.R.R. Tolkien schon jene Fantasiewelt, die uns alle später beim "Herrn der Ringe" nachhaltig beeindruckte. Elben, Trolle, Orks und ein Drache halten kleine und große Leser schon seit Jahren in Atem. Man stelle sich folgende Geschichte vor: Ein Mensch wohnt (...) in einer Höhle und lebt dort ein ruhiges, geordnetes und unaufgeregtes Leben, das schon seit Geburt an in den gleichen Bahnen verläuft. Eines Tages verlässt der Mensch seine Höhle und geht hinaus in die Welt. Dort sieht und erfährt er Dinge, die ihn nachhaltig verändern und reifen lassen. Er wird nach dieser Reise nie wieder derselbe sein wie vorher. Es ist nicht ungewöhnlich, wenn das bekannt klingt: Es handelt sich dabei um Platons Höhlengleichnis - eines der wichtigsten Gleichnisse bzw. Beispiele der Philosophie, genauer der Erkenntnistheorie. Die Handlung passt aber auch genau auf die Geschichte eines anderen Autors: J.R.R. Tolkien und sein Buch "Der kleine Hobbit". Auch hier verlässt eine Person (der Hobbit Bilbo Beutlin) die sichere und geordnete Umgebung des Auenlandes und zieht in die Welt hinaus. Diese abenteuerliche Reise wird ihn verändern und - wie wir alle wissen - mit dem Fund des EINEN Ringes für Mittelerde weitere große Folgen nach sich ziehen. Es ergibt also Sinn, den "kleinen Hobbit" mit seinen Inhalten unter der philosophischen Linse zu betrachten. Es ist nicht nur eine Kindergeschichte, sondern eine Auseinandersetzung mit Werten wie Mut, Freundschaft, Demut, Gnade und Weisheit - um nur einige zu nennen. (shrink)

Previous research on the role of negative emotions in social bargaining games has focused primarily on social emotions such as anger and guilt. In this article, we provide a test for behavioural differences between two prototypical decision-related negative emotions—regret and disappointment—in one-shot social dilemma games. Three experiments with two different emotion-induction procedures (autobiographical recall and imagined scenarios) and two different games (the ultimatum game and the 10-coin give-some game) revealed that regret increased prosocial behaviour, whereas disappointment decreased prosocial behaviour. These (...) results extend previous findings concerning differences between regret and disappointment to interdependent (social) situations. (shrink)

Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking is the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. Participants saw a short video fragment of a non-biological agent as main character. The movements of this agent were either described as intentional or as unintentional. Furthermore, participants (...) were instructed to either take the perspective of this non-biological agent or not. Results show that perspective taking and perceived intentionality both lead to action co-representation of non-biological actions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking is the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. Participants saw a short video fragment of a non-biological agent as main character. The movements of this agent were either described as intentional or as unintentional. Furthermore, participants (...) were instructed to either take the perspective of this non-biological agent or not. Results show that perspective taking and perceived intentionality both lead to action co-representation of non-biological actions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Until recently, it was assumed that co-representation of others’ actions, an essential part in joint action, is biologically tuned. However, research demonstrated that we also simulate actions of non-biological interaction partners under certain conditions. In the present study, we investigated whether perceived intentionality or perspective taking is the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon. Participants saw a short video fragment of a non-biological agent as main character. The movements of this agent were either described as intentional or as unintentional. Furthermore, participants (...) were instructed to either take the perspective of this non-biological agent or not. Results show that perspective taking and perceived intentionality both lead to action co-representation of non-biological actions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

What is the value of an early diagnosis of dementia in the absence of effective treatment? There has been a lively scholarly debate over this question, but until now patients have not played a large role in it. Our study supplements biomedical research into innovative diagnostics with an exlporation of its meanings and values according to patients. Based on seven focusgroups with patients and their care-givers, we conclude that stakeholders evaluate early diagnostics with respect to whether and how they expect (...) it to empower their capacity to care. They value it, for instance, with respect to whether it explains experienced complaints, allows to start a process of psychological acceptance and social adaptation to the expected degeneration, contributes to dealing with anxieties, informs adequately about when to start preparing for the end of life, informs the planning of a request for euthanasia, or allows society to deal with a growing amount of dementia patients. Our study suggests that information about disease is considered ‘harmful’ or ‘premature’ when recipients feel unable to act on that information in their care. The results of this research offers input to further ethical research. It invites to adopt a care perspective in evaluation and to seek ways to prevent the ‘harm’ that such diagnostic methods can bring about. (shrink)

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The discovery that hypocretins are involved in narcolepsy, a disorder associated with excessive daytime sleepiness, cataplexy and unusually rapid transitions to rapid‐eye‐movement sleep, opens a new field of investigation in the area of sleep control physiology. Hypocretin‐1 and ‐2 (also called orexin‐A and ‐B) are newly discovered neuropeptides processed from a common precursor, preprohypocretin. Hypocretin‐containing cells are located exclusively in the lateral hypothalamus, with widespread projections to the entire neuroaxis. Two known receptors, Hcrtr1 and Hcrtr2, have been reported. The functional (...) significance of the hypocretin system is rapidly emerging in both animals and humans. Hypocretin abnormalities cause narcolepsy in dogs, human and mice. The role of the hypocretin system in normal sleep regulation is more uncertain. We believe hypocretin cells drive cholinergic and monoaminergic activity across the sleep cycle. Input from the suprachiasmatic nucleus to hypocretin‐containing neurons may explain the occurrence of clock‐dependent alertness. Other functions are suggested by pharmacological and neurochemical experiments. These include regulation of food intake, neuroendocrine function, autonomic nervous system activity and energy balance. BioEssays 23:397–408, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the discussion of the moral demandingness of Kantian ethics by critically discussing an argument that is currently popular among Kantians. The argument from the system of duties holds that (a) in the Kantian system of duties the demandingness of our duty of beneficence is internally moderated by other moral prescriptions, such as the indirect duty to secure happiness, duties to oneself and special obligations. Furthermore, proponents of this argument claim (b) that via these prescriptions Kant’s system (...) of duties incorporates into morality what current debates on (over-)demandingness call happiness and personal projects. These two claims are in conjunction supposed to establish that Kant’s ethics, at least when it comes to beneficence, is not plagued by the problem of excessive moral demands. We show that claims (a) and (b) are mistaken given what Kant says about beneficence, the application of imperfect duties and about emergencies. We finally argue that special obligations towards loved ones, a class of obligations largely overlooked by advocates of the system of duties, are the most promising candidates for internal moderation. These duties are, however, of a narrow scope. (shrink)

Welche Werte und Normen als moralisch verbindlich erklärt werden und ob diese universelle Gültigkeit beanspruchen können, ist umstritten. So ist z.B. keineswegs geklärt, wozu wir gegenüber unserer Familie verpflichtet sind oder welche Verantwortung für uns aus dem Umgang mit der Vergangenheit erwächst. Können wir also je nach Belieben handeln? Sind durch den Wertepluralismus und die Vielfalt der Handlungsoptionen in modernen Gesellschaften allgemeingültige Werte und Normen überholt? Woran können wir uns dann noch orientieren? Die Beiträge von Konrad Paul Liessmann, Barbara Bleisch, (...) Herfried Münkler und Susan Neiman geben einen tiefen Einblick in das Spannungsfeld zwischen Wertepluralismus und moralischer Verantwortung. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: The availability of costly safety measures against transfusion-transmissible infections forces Western countries to confront difficult ethical questions. How to decide about implementing such measures? When are such decisions justified? As a preliminary to addressing these questions, we assessed which concerns shape actual donor blood safety policymaking in five Western countries. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Our qualitative study involved determining which issues had been discussed in advisory committee meetings and capturing these issues in general categories. Appropriate documents were identified in (...) collaboration with local decision-making experts in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The introduction of hepatitis B virus nucleic acid testing and selected measures against variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, West Nile virus, and Q-fever were chosen as cases representing decision-making on safety measures with high costs and low or uncertain added safety. RESULTS: A broad inventory of concerns was established, including: 1) nine categories of advantages and disadvantages of candidate safety policies; 2) six kinds of difficulties in assessing risks and forecasting the effects of safety policies; 3) 13 decision-making principles; and 4) six kinds of practical barriers hampering the translation of candidate policies into decisions. CONCLUSION: Blood safety policymaking involves a wide variety of competing concerns, and approaches to reconcile these considerations are themselves contested. Developing a systematic decision-making approach requires ethical reflection on, among others, reasonable costs of safety and the value of transparency in public policy. (shrink)

The relationship between philosophy and aesthetic criticism has occupied Robert Pippin throughout his illustrious career. Whether discussing film, literature, or modern and contemporary art, Pippin's claim is that we cannot understand aesthetic objects unless we reckon with the fact that some distinct philosophical issue is integral to their meaning. In his latest offering, Philosophy by Other Means, we are treated to a collection of essays that builds on this larger project, offering profound ruminations on philosophical issues in aesthetics along with (...) revelatory readings of Henry James, Marcel Proust, and J. M. Coetzee. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the causation of diseases, particularly on the idea of a “genetic cause” taking Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) as an example. We (1) provide some historical information and a synopsis of the current knowledge on the etiology and pathogenesis of AD, (2) analyse some conceptual problems related to the notion of “genetic disease” (3) elaborate on the alleged (genetic) cause of AD, and (4) place the discussion on the cause of AD in a broader philosophical context, paying attention (...) to a constructivist perspective, the notions of causal connection and causal selection, and to some practical and normative consequences of our analysis. We conclude (a) that AD is not a specific disease entity with one specific cause, (b) that the idea of a single (sufficient) cause can still function as a heuristic tool in AD research and practice, and (c) that a “belief” in causation can go together with the notions of multicausality and probability. (shrink)

In this paper we respond to Angus Dawson’s and Marcel Verweij’s recent editorial on ‘Solidarity: A Moral Concept in need of Clarification’. While Dawson’s and Verweij’s call for a broader solidarity-based research agenda is highly timely, their critique of our Report on ‘Solidarity as an Emerging Concept in Bioethics’ (2011) is based on some mistaken assumptions and misinterpretations of our arguments. These are (1) a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of practice in our conceptualisation of solidarity; (2) a misinterpreration (...) of the normativity of our concept; and (3) a misrepresentation of our case study of public policy in the context of pandemics and in turn, of the relevance of our concept for policy-making. We correct each of these and in a final section we comment on the model of rational and constitutive solidarity put forward by Dawson and Verweij as an alternative to our conception of solidarity. (shrink)

Daniel Marcelle, Aron Gurwitsch, The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch, Volume I: Constitutive Phenomenology in Historical Perspective, Dordrecht: Springer, 2009; Volume II: Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010; Volume III: The Field of Consciousness: Theme, Thematic Field, and Margin, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010; Claudia Șerban, Jean-Luc Marion, Certitudes negatives, Paris: Grasset, 2010; Christian Rössner, Hans-Dieter Gondek, László Tengelyi, Neue Phanomenologie in Frankreich, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2011; Daniel Dwyer, Hans-Helmuth Gander, Husserl-Lexikon, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2010; Délia Popa, Jean-François Lavigne, Acceder au (...) transcendantal? Reduction et idealisme transcendantal dans les Idées directrices pour une phénoménologie pure et une philosophie phénoménologique de Husserl, Paris: Vrin, 2009; Mădălina Diaconu, Lambert Wiesing, Das Mich der Wahrnehmung. Eine Autopsie, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2009; Mădălina Diaconu, Sam B. Girgus, Levinas and the Cinema of Redemption. Time, Ethics, and the Feminine, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010; Rolf Kühn, Frédéric Seyler, ≪ Barbarie ou culture ≫ : L’ethique de l’affectivitedans la phenomenologie de Michel Henry, Paris: Kimé, 2010; Stephan Steiner, Mette Lebech, On the Problem of Human Dignity. A Hermeneutical and henomenological Investigation, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2009. (shrink)

Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings concerning the relationship between envy and schadenfreude. Three studies examined whether the distinction between benign and malicious envy can resolve this inconsistency. We found that malicious envy is related to schadenfreude, while benign envy is not. This result held both in the Netherlands where benign and malicious envy are indicated by separate words (Study 1: Sample A, N = 139; Sample B, N = 150), and in the USA where a single word is used (...) to denote both types (Study 2, N = 180; Study 3, N = 349). Moreover, the effect of malicious envy on schadenfreude was independent of other antecedents of schadenfreude (such as feelings of inferiority, disliking the target person, anger, and perceived deservedness). These findings improve our understanding of the antecedents of schadenfreude and help reconcile seemingly contradictory findings on the relationship between envy and schadenfreude. (shrink)

This book is the fruit of a critical inquiry into the nature and scope of Marcel's philosophie achievement. As such, it is concerned less with affixing the appropriate label (personalist or existentialist) to Marcel's thought -and with it making it stick - than with discovering the precise impulse and tenor ofhis philosophy. In the process ofthat more general inquiry, the writer found being forced upon hirn a central concept as integrating focus of Marcel's philosophie investigations. This eoneept (...) was that of the person. Gradually it emerged as a concept not only of prime importance for understanding the underlying harmony that pervades Marcel's professedly unsystematic researches, but equally as one of profound significanee for any philosophy that pretends adequately to aecount for human experienee. Furthermore, it seemed that the eoneept derived much ofthat significance from its acceptance precisely in the context of Marcel's thought. This feature ofMareel's philosophie writings alone is warrant enough for overeoming any initial embarrassment aroused in Anglo-Saxon breasts by his style. For, to speak candidly, that style is of a generation and a climate whose tastes little aecord with palates trained to a greater astringeney. Nor will Marcel's evident and unashamed coneern with life and its problems necessarily evoke a warm response in minds aceustomed to operate in an atmosphere of stricter and more aeademic reserve. (shrink)

M. K.T. Gallagher a entrepris la t^che difficile d'introduirele public philosophique américain dans l'univers de la pensée de Gabriel Marcel. Tâche difficile, non pas tant parce que la mentalité américaine serait plus qu'une autre réfractaire à cette pensée—on pourrait faire remarquer en effet l'influence exercée très tôt sur la formation et l'évolution de la pensée marcellienne par J. Royce—mais en raison de la nature toute particulière de la manière m≖me dont Marcel philosophe.

The Persistence of Subjectivity examines several approaches to, and critiques of, the core notion in the self-understanding and legitimation of the modern, 'bourgeois' form of life: the free, reflective, self-determining subject. Since it is a relatively recent historical development that human beings think of themselves as individual centers of agency, and that one's entitlement to such a self-determining life is absolutely valuable, the issue at stake also involves the question of the historical location of philosophy. What might it mean to (...) take seriously Hegel's claim that philosophical reflection is always reflection on the historical 'actuality' of its own age? Discussing Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, Leo Strauss, Manfred Frank, and John McDowell, Robert Pippin attempts to understand how subjectivity arises in contemporary institutional practices such as medicine, as well as in other contexts such as modernism in the visual arts and in the novels of Marcel Proust. (shrink)

Early in the 1930s, a number of French Catholic and secular philosophers debated the question of the meaning, even the very possibility, of Christian philosophy. Positions articulated during these debates provided intellectual background to debates about nature and grace, and the interaction of philosophy and theology that informed theological debate before and during the Second Vatican Council. These questions continue to be raised in theological debate today. -/- This selection of previously untranslated documents from the French debates about Christian philosophy (...) provides a long-needed complement to available English-language literature on the subject. These documents show that the debates were highly complex, involved multiple sides, and prompted development of certain participants' positions. Four of Maurice Blondel's contributions are included, as are selections by Gabriel Marcel, Etienne Gilson, Fernand Van Steenberghen, among others. A detailed historical introduction provides much-needed background to these intertwined debates. -/- The editor's thematic outline of seventeen different participants' positions and engagements includes but also goes beyond the selections translated in the volume. It provides a full and balanced treatment of the numerous participants, and sets the complex intellectual context for understanding the positions, issues, and main personalities of the debate. A chronological bibliography of literature comprising and commenting on the debates and their issues is also included and will serve as an invaluable aid to further scholarship. (shrink)

In many Catholic colleges the first exposure to philosophy is a course in the philosophy of man. The text-anthology is specifically designed for use in such courses and forms one third of a series with further volumes on metaphysics and ethics. Views on man's knowledge, freedom, unity, and immortality, are presented in short selections from five philosophical traditions. Each section has an introductory essay, a glossary, topics for student discussion and term papers, and a short bibliography. A contributing editor is (...) responsible for each section. The general editors coordinated the study aids, including a list of films related to the teaching of philosophy. Elizabeth Salmon edited Classical and Scholastic Thought: Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas. Robert Kreyche edited American Pragmatic-Naturalist Thought: Peirce, James, Dewey, and Santayana. The section on Dialectical Thought, edited by R. T. DeGeorge contains, in addition to Hegel, Marx, and Engels, a selection from a book by Adam Schaff. Margaret Gorman edited Analytic-Positivist Thought. This section includes Hume, Russell, Ayer, Carnap, Ryle, Strawson, Hampshire, and Wittgenstein. Although pointing out to students that the interests of this tradition preclude discussion of the reality behind the four core problems, the introductory section is appreciative of the analytic method. The final part, Existentialist-Phenomenological Thought, is edited by R. Sokolowski. A passage from a forthcoming translation of Husserl's Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften, sets the problem; readings from Sartre, Marcel, Merleau-Ponty, and August Brunner treat the themes of temporality, corporeal space, intersubjectivity, decisions, the emotions, and speech. Finally, short passages from Heidegger tell the reader that the above factors "open man to being." In this way the Phenomenological-Existentialist school is shown to provide a philosophy of man which can serve as a first step in metaphysics, and thus as a bridge to the next book in the series.--M. B. M. (shrink)

In these William James lectures, Marcel traces the relationship between events in his life and his philosophical and literary works. Drawing largely on his dramatic works, he interprets and clarifies some of his key philosophical themes, such as "intersubjectivity," "participation" and "the mystery of Being."--A. B. D.

This text is designed to introduce undergraduates to metaphysics, but the authors suggest that with supplementary readings, it can be adapted for higher level courses as well. As a method aiming at both academic objectivity and personal engagement, the authors confront the students with the problems of metaphysics as formulated by Heidegger, Marcel, and Camus, and then, accompanied by these contemporary spokesmen, set their readers to the task of historical "retrieve" of the problems and convictions of ages past. There (...) are three chapters and a long appendix. The first chapter identifies metaphysics as "man's search for the meaning of being," stressing that meaning will include both descriptive and evaluative elements. It deals with the role of freedom in human life and in the origin of metaphysics. The existentialist position contributes these points: the rejection of the simplistic dichotomizing of reality into subject and object, the incorporation of affective, nonintellectual elements into metaphysics, and a use of elements from phenomenology successfully blended with a sense of historicity and dialogue in man's achieving of truth. The second chapter, drawing on Heidegger, poses metaphysics' double problem, the search for a unifying value, and speculation about the nature of being. For the former we are offered an answer in terms of communicable personality, inviting one to authenticity through spiritual love. Chapter three brings in Marcel, beginning with his distinction between the notion of "problem" and the notion of "mystery." The problem approach has three characteristics: the model of the relationship between investigator and data is that of subject and object; the influence of the investigator is minimized and his role reduced to passive observer and annotator; the problem is to be overcome. A "mystery" on the other hand, "is a problem which encroaches upon its own data, invading them... and thereby transcending itself." Since metaphysics falls within the scope of mystery, no problem-solving technique would be appropriate. The authors recommend instead Marcel's reflective philosophizing, to which the remainder of the text is devoted. The appendix consists of excerpts from Jowett's Platonic dialogues, and sets of questions of two kinds: the first aims at eliciting accurate understanding and stimulating critical reflection on the thought of Plato. The second set gives an example of the process of reflective philosophizing.--M. B. M. (shrink)

The subject is under siege. In many disciplines the self that modem thought established and fortified has fallen to critique. But while many explore the implications for epistemology, for literary theory, for psychology, or for history and social thought, few writers have pondered the question in terms of ethics. After all, ethics must rest on a subject, a person who makes choices and decides for various reasons to commit acts in one’s own name. l suggest that ethics can survive the (...) fracturing, de-centering, deconstructing of the self? A selection of passages from Marcel and Levinas is offered, with commentary. (shrink)

This book provides an overview of some of the most important critics of “Enlightenment rationalism.” The subjects of the volume—including, among others, Burke, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, T.S. Eliot, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, C.S. Lewis, Gabriel Marcel, Russell Kirk, and Jane Jacobs—do not share a philosophical tradition as much as a skeptical disposition toward the notion, common among modern thinkers, that there is only one standard of rationality or reasonableness, and that that one standard is or ought to be taken from the presuppositions, (...) methods, and logic of the natural sciences. The essays on each thinker are intended not merely to offer a commentary on that thinker, but also to place that thinker in the context of this larger stream of anti-rationalist thought. Thus, while this volume is not a history of anti-rationalist thought, it may contain the intimations of such a history. (shrink)

The subject is under siege. In many disciplines the self that modem thought established and fortified has fallen to critique. But while many explore the implications for epistemology, for literary theory, for psychology, or for history and social thought, few writers have pondered the question in terms of ethics. After all, ethics must rest on a subject, a person who makes choices and decides for various reasons to commit acts in one’s own name. l suggest that ethics can survive the (...) fracturing, de-centering, deconstructing of the self? A selection of passages from Marcel and Levinas is offered, with commentary. (shrink)

This thematic bibliography provides a narrative account of the most important literature comprising, and about, the 1930s debates about Christian carried out by Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Maurice Blondel, Emile Brehier, Gabriel Marcel, and many others. It functions as a companion piece to my book Reason Fulfilled By Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates In France.

Marcel Beaufils fut un pedagogue exceptionnel qui exerca une influence decisive sur l'evolution de l'esthetique musicale en France, a partir des annees 50. Or, parmi ses ouvrages, Musique du son, musique du verbe est tres certainement celui qui porte le plus fortement la marque de son activite d'enseignant au Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris ; cette mission, il semblait l'entendre davantage comme celle d'un declencheur d'idees, catalyseur, plutot que du transmetteur d'un savoir fige une fois pour toutes. (...) Bouleversant toute tentative de classification academique, toute certitude acquise, ce livre laisse des pointilles ; un grand souffle traverse son ecriture. N'en deplaise aux musicographes, il s'agit la d'un ouvrage de creation, qui nous rappelle que Marce Beaufils etait egalement un ecrivain qui savait manier le verbe a la fois en tant que dramaturge et en tant que poete. (shrink)

On the Value of Freedom: Ricoeur's Value Theory vs. Sartre's?The following article is an attempt to reconstruct Sartre's and Ricoeur's theories of value in its main features, to compare it and to make some conclusions in regard of Ricoeur's Sartre reception. Thus, the task is to fill a gap in contemporary research since Sartre's value theory has been rarely examined, while that of Paul Ricoeur continue to be a blind spot within the study of his work; Ricoeur's Sartre reception has (...) been hardly raised, but not in a explicit axiological context. In contrast to Françoise Dastur the following analysis is showing that in Le volontaire et l'involontaire Ricoeur not simply sided with Marcel by arguing against Sartre, but that he tried to mediate between the positions of the two thinkers. Finally, the author shows that Ricoeur's axiological concept, which emerged from this exchange, was retained partially in his later works precisely in that part which brought him closer to Sartre and detached him from Marcel, namely – freedom as a value and as a fundamental human capability of creation and invention of new moral and social values. (shrink)

Der folgende Beitrag ist ein erster Versuch, Sartres und Ricœurs Werttheorien in ihren Grundzügen zu rekonstruieren, sie zu ver- gleichen und daraus bestimmte Schlussfol- gerungen bezüglich der Ricœurschen Sartre-Rezeption zu ziehen. Somit wird die Aufgabe gestellt, eine Forschungslücke zu füllen, denn Sartres Wertekonzeption ist relativ wenig untersucht worden, während die von Paul Ricœur sogar einen blinder Fleck innerhalb der Ricœurforschung darstellt; die Ricœursche Sartre-Rezeption ist kaum zur Sprache gebracht worden, jedoch nicht in einem explizit axiologis- chen Kontext. Im Unterschied zu (...) Françoi- se Dastur wird aufzeigt, dass Ricœur in Le volontaire et l‘involontaire nicht einfach Partei für Marcel ergreift und gegen Sartre argumentiert, sondern dass er zwischen den Positionen der beiden Denker auch zu vermitteln versucht. Abschließend soll aufgezeigt werden, dass Ricœurs axiologis- che Konzeption, die aus dieser Vermittlung entstand, in seinem Spätwerk zum Teil bei- behalten wurde und zwar gerade in jenem Teil, der ihn in der Nähe von Sartre bringt und zunehmend von Marcel entfernt. (shrink)