Deleuze’s interpretation of Nietzsche, the function of biological dialectic and the symbolic value of sign and writing in “Also sprach Zarathustra”. Sexual difference and Derridian interpretation of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

_Purpose__._ The authors aim to reveal the peculiarity of comprehension of the human phenomenon in the process of referring to the text of "Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime" by the early Immanuel Kant, which is based on the critical rethinking of the Enlightenment position. A prerequisite for its substantial solution is addressing the problem of the place of the "Observations" in the evolution of Kant’s anthropological views. _Theoretical basis__._ Our view of Kant’s legacy is based upon (...) the conceptual positions of phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics. _Originality__._ We have proved that the anthropological interest was inherent in Kant already in the pre-critical stage of his work, as shown by the still underestimated treatise "Observation". The paper give arguments that this text highlights the main topics that will later be the subject of a detailed study of both Kant himself and philosophical anthropology of the 20th century. It is revealed that Kant overcomes the Enlightenment temptation to absolutize the power of human reason and emphasizes its limitations. The specified step is a necessary condition for him to comprehend the important role of the sensual-passionate component of human nature and to recognize the importance of the metaphysical nature of man. _Conclusions._ For us today, the pre-critical Kant appears as the developer of anthropological teaching, first presented in the treatise "Observations". Already at this stage, Kant demonstrates a holistic vision of human nature. In the process of creative evolution of the thinker, this treatise should be qualified as a kind of sketch of the future concentrated development of human nature, elaborated in the pages of "Anthropology" in 1798. The author gives a key place to the metaphysics of human nature, a vivid illustration of which is, in particular, the last paragraph of "Observations" dedicated to freedom. The conducted analysis provides sufficient grounds for qualifying this text as an outline of the anthropological basis of his doctrine of pure reason, the doctrine of metaphysics as the metaphysics of man, which, in turn, gives us the key to understanding "Anthropology" as his final text. (shrink)

This book offers the most complete and up-to-date overview of the philosophical work of Evandro Agazzi, presently the most important Italian philosopher of science, and one of the most influential in the world. Scholars from seven countries explore his contributions in areas ranging from philosophy of physics and general philosophy of science to bioethics, philosophy of mathematics and logic, epistemology of the social sciences and history of science, philosophy of language and artificial intelligence, education and anthropology, metaphysics, and philosophy of (...) religion. Agazzi developed a complete and coherent philosophical system, anticipating some of the turns in the philosophy of science after the crisis of logical empiricism and exerting an equal influence on continental hermeneutic philosophy. His work is characterized by an original synthesis of contemporary analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and classical philosophy, including the scholastic tradition, and these threads are reflected in the different backgrounds of the contributors to this book. While upholding the epistemological value of science against scepticism and relativism, Agazzi eschews scientism by stressing the equal importance of non-scientific forms of thought, such as metaphysics and religion. While defending the freedom of research as a cognitive enterprise, he argues that as a human and social practice it must nonetheless respect ethical constraints. (shrink)

Schleiermacher's Copernican revolution in theology is effected through his presentation of the Christian mythos in terms of a phenomenological anthropology of self-consciousness. Moreover, as Niebuhr shows in this apt study of some features of Schleiermacher's theological thinking, the principles which determine the shape of that revolution can be deduced neither from a biblical dogmatics allegedly purified of philosophical presuppositions nor from a philosophy uninformed by theological experience. In the first part of the book, Niebuhr discusses Schleiermacher's little-known work The Christmas (...) Eve: A Dialogue, affording us a picture of the author's starting-point in the experience of a salvation or potentiated self-consciousness which is historically and socially mediated. The subsequent analysis of the lectures on hermeneutics and ethics discloses the object of Schleiermacher's inquiry to be not the supernatural being that posits the cosmos, but the creative Logos indwelling the individual and all men by means of the common, organic media of human existence in which the self both comes to be and comes to create history and culture. Finally, The Christian Faith is reviewed by Niebuhr in terms of the expression it gives to the mature Schleiermacher's theology and christology. The primordial consciousness of being-in-relation reveals the historical, societal, worldly context of the self and the various polarities of the self's existence such that religion emerges as a phenomenon coterminous with man's affective response to the relationships in which the whole of human nature is bound, and theology, the "daughter of religion," becomes the methodology by which the articulation of an affective determination of self-consciousness is achieved. The rigorously pursued explicitation [[sic]] of the forms and determinations of self-consciousness is interpreted by Niebuhr with a penetration and a sympathy at once acute and comprehensive. By giving us a series of insights into Schleiermacher's "thinking in motion," Niebuhr has contributed a cogent testimony to the nineteenth-century theologian's central importance in the fields of hermeneutical theory, philosophical ethics, philosophy of religion and culture, and theology. One would have welcomed a more critical appraisal of Schleiermacher's view of the formal and material compatibility of philosophy and theology, understanding and feeling, inasmuch as the scope of theological inquiry appears to be limited by the boundaries of reason set forth in the ethics, and philosophical anthropology is apparently reduced to a rather sophisticated phenomenology of religious experience. In any case, Niebuhr's scholarly treatment of the material should lead the reader to an informed examination of Schleiermacher's text.--J. M. S. (shrink)

Schleiermacher's Copernican revolution in theology is effected through his presentation of the Christian mythos in terms of a phenomenological anthropology of self-consciousness. Moreover, as Niebuhr shows in this apt study of some features of Schleiermacher's theological thinking, the principles which determine the shape of that revolution can be deduced neither from a biblical dogmatics allegedly purified of philosophical presuppositions nor from a philosophy uninformed by theological experience. In the first part of the book, Niebuhr discusses Schleiermacher's little-known work The Christmas (...) Eve: A Dialogue, affording us a picture of the author's starting-point in the experience of a salvation or potentiated self-consciousness which is historically and socially mediated. The subsequent analysis of the lectures on hermeneutics and ethics discloses the object of Schleiermacher's inquiry to be not the supernatural being that posits the cosmos, but the creative Logos indwelling the individual and all men by means of the common, organic media of human existence in which the self both comes to be and comes to create history and culture. Finally, The Christian Faith is reviewed by Niebuhr in terms of the expression it gives to the mature Schleiermacher's theology and christology. The primordial consciousness of being-in-relation reveals the historical, societal, worldly context of the self and the various polarities of the self's existence such that religion emerges as a phenomenon coterminous with man's affective response to the relationships in which the whole of human nature is bound, and theology, the "daughter of religion," becomes the methodology by which the articulation of an affective determination of self-consciousness is achieved. The rigorously pursued explicitation [[sic]] of the forms and determinations of self-consciousness is interpreted by Niebuhr with a penetration and a sympathy at once acute and comprehensive. By giving us a series of insights into Schleiermacher's "thinking in motion," Niebuhr has contributed a cogent testimony to the nineteenth-century theologian's central importance in the fields of hermeneutical theory, philosophical ethics, philosophy of religion and culture, and theology. One would have welcomed a more critical appraisal of Schleiermacher's view of the formal and material compatibility of philosophy and theology, understanding and feeling, inasmuch as the scope of theological inquiry appears to be limited by the boundaries of reason set forth in the ethics, and philosophical anthropology is apparently reduced to a rather sophisticated phenomenology of religious experience. In any case, Niebuhr's scholarly treatment of the material should lead the reader to an informed examination of Schleiermacher's text.--J. M. S. (shrink)

This collection contains some of Gadamer’s best essays, including: “Kant and the Question of God” ; “On the Possibility of a Philosophical Ethics” ; “On the Divine in Early Greek Thought” ; “The Ontological Problem of Value” ; “Thinking as Redemption: Plotinus between Plato and Augustine” ; “Myth in the Age of Science” ; “The Ethics of Value and Practical Philosophy” ; “Reflections on the Relation of Religion and Science” ; “Friendship and Self-Knowledge: Reflections on the Role of Friendship in (...) Greek Ethics” ; and “Aristotle and Imperative Ethics”. Rather than describe each essay, this review will content itself with presenting the predominant ethical and theological doctrines found in this compilation. (shrink)

The anthropological turn, which Pannenberg decisively and successfully executed in the early 1980s, has provided his latest ethical argumentation with an extra dimension and increased depth. Pannenberg now believes that ethics has its foundations in anthropology rather than directly in dogmatics. The ethical as a common concern of all humankind must not be isolated and made independent of metaphysics and religion. For only then can the claim of universal validity for ethics be sustained, which in turn Pannenberg sees as the (...) condition of its binding nature for Christians. Our awareness of moral obligations would become vague when it cannot be clarified in terms of any universally valid norms. Our final verdict on Pannenberg's new approach, however, must await greater clarity on whether his universal moral claim can withstand the potent challenge arising in today's increasingly pluralistic world; otherwise, his latest methodology would only bring him from the historicist fringe to the anthropologist margin. (shrink)

Abstract. Don Browning's career involved a deep exploration into the frequently hidden philosophical assumptions buried in various forms of psychotherapeutic healing. These healing methodologies were based on metaphors and metaphysical assumptions about both the meaning of human fulfillment and the ultimate context of our lives. All too easily, psychological theories put forward philosophical anthropologies while claiming to be operating within a modest, empirical approach. Browning does not fault or criticize these psychotherapeutic enterprises for making such claims because he thinks these (...) claims are implicit in all discussions of psychological health. But he does fault these methodologies for not being more forthcoming about their shift from a narrow empirical investigation to a broad-ranging philosophical and even quasireligious orientation. Browning can be described as a “horizon analyst” who constantly pulled back the curtains and helped us see the deeper symbols, images, and metaphysical assumptions behind our psychological investigations. (shrink)

It is the contention of this paper that ethics of work ought to be anthropological, and artificial intelligence (AI) research and development, which is the focus of work today, should be anthropological, that is, human-centered. This paper discusses the philosophical and theological implications of the development of AI research on the intrinsic nature of work and the nature of the human person. AI research and the implications of its development and advancement, being a relatively new phenomenon, have not been comprehensively (...) interrogated in the social and ethical teachings of the Catholic Church. This paper, therefore, proposes a path for this interrogation by expounding a discourse which is believed to be epistemically helpful in the developing discourse of AI in the ethical and social teachings of the Church. The advancement in the research on AI is not only redefining the meaning of work, but, even more so, it is questioning the metaphysical notion of the human person and the theological notion of work as an intrinsic part in the selfhood and dignity of the human person. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION: Philosophy is the unique science which considers all other sciences in systematically unity (Kant). The classical anthropology (Platon, Aristoteles, Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc.) considers the human and his "spheres" (biological, psychological, logical, philosophical, theological) and his interdependence with nature and society. A philosophical theology investigates spiritual phenomena, described by religions and parapsychology in context of ethics, epistemology (incl. metaphysics), aesthetics. A theological anthropology should consider these phenomena multidimensional in context of a holisticscience, i.e. physico- (Kant), bio- (Lüke), psycho-, logico-, (...) philosophical theology, etc. [Lit.: Neu, Michailov: Integralanthropology. In: Proc. 21st World Congr. Philos. Istanbul. Press FISP 280‐281, 2003; Theol. Anthrop. In: Book: New Pathways for Eur. Bioethics. Ed.: Eur. Ass. Med. Ethics, Leuven, p. 53/60, 2006; Med. Ethics, 21st Ann. Conf. EACME (Ed.) Zürich, p. 53, 2007]. CONCEPTION: Regrettably philosophical theology is reduced to nearly philosophical and theological ethics: Both ethics in the future should realize a common scientific integrated ethics based on philosophy, theology, and psychology incl. of great cultures - Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianism-Mosaism, Confucianism, and Mohammedanism. The present moral philosophy is very pluralistic: Many views concerningnormative and metaethics (deontology, axiology), also relativism, absolutism (incl. utilitarism), noncognitivism are present. A similar situation exists in moral theology: Not only in context of philosophy (consequentialism, justice, protectionism), but more - of theology are existent contradictionary differences concerning ethics in the great religions (related to God, Spirit/Soul, reincarnation, etc.). A future philosophical theology needs a renewal of its scientific theoretical andexperimental fundamentals (controlled observations: criterion for intersubjectivity) concerning theological anthropology incl. not only occidental epistemology (metaphysics, scientific theory, etc.), but also oriental - esp. Brahmanistic and Buddhist (self realization by Yoga, Tibetan, Zen Buddhism) and scientific evaluation of spiritual phenomena by biophysics, physiology, psychology and formal (Aristoteles, Gautama), real, transcendental (Kant), metaphysical (Hegel) normal logic. Areconsideration of application of philosophy of arts, esp. aesthetics in philosophical theology is also necessary (incl. inspirations in music/Bach, Beethoven, Händel, painting/Leonardo da Vinci, sculpture/Michelangelo). CONCLUSION: Scientific and political support for a renovation of theological anthropology and philosophical theology could help essentially for a realization of UNO-Agenda 21 for better total (incl. spiritual) health and peaceful world. (shrink)

Rebirth and the Stream of Life explores the diversity as well as the ethical and religious significance of rebirth beliefs, focusing especially on Hindu and Buddhist traditions but also discussing indigenous religions and ancient Greek thought. Utilizing resources from religious studies, anthropology and theology, an expanded conception of philosophy of religion is exemplified, which takes seriously lived experience rather than treating religious beliefs in isolation from their place in believers' lives. Drawing upon his expertise in interdisciplinary working and Wittgenstein-influenced approaches, (...) Mikel Burley examines several interrelated phenomena, including purported past-life memories, the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, efforts to 'demythologize' rebirth, and moral critiques of the doctrine of karma. This range of topics, with rebirth as a unifying theme, makes the book of value to anyone interested in philosophy, the study of religions, and what it means to believe that we undergo multiple lives. (shrink)

Purpose. To consider the personal nature of Cartesian metaphysics. Its implementation involves: a) outlining methodological changes in the philosophy of the twentieth century; b) analysis of ways to interpret anthropological component of philosophizing in Descartes studies; c) appeal to Descartes’ texts to clarify the authentic form of his interpretation of metaphysics. Theoretical basis. I base my view of Descartes’ legacy on the conceptual positions of phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics. Originality. Based on Descartes’ own concept of teaching, the author substantiates the (...) personal nature of Cartesian metaphysics. Important prerequisites for its comprehension are attention to the ethical motive as the driving force of philosophizing and recognition of the importance of the poetic worldview. The idea of the basic role of poetics finds its meaningful confirmation in the texts of the philosopher, who interprets the main areas of philosophy as the forms of art. Conclusions. Based on his own vision of anthropology and metaphysics as the forms of completion of the revolution initiated by Copernicus, the author defends the idea of the constitutive presence of personality in Descartes’ metaphysics. In the process of studying the research literature, methodological guidelines are outlined in the form of the importance of personal determination of the search for truth, the key role of ethical motive and art as components of philosophizing. The thesis about the poetic form of presentation of metaphysics by Descartes as a form of fixation of its personal dimension is substantiated. (shrink)

The three intertwining careers of William Torrey Harris [1835-1909] in philosophy, philosophy of education, and educational administration converge in twelve of the Annual Reports of the board of directors of the St. Louis public schools, most of the essential features of which he formulated as the superintendent of schools from 1867-79. These twelve reports, comprising philosophical and educational principles, have been acclaimed nationally and internationally to be among the most valuable official publications in American educational literature. The major purpose of (...) this paper is to clarify the nature and scope of the philosophical principles of Harris expressed in his Annual Reports. The areas of philosophy represented are metaphysics, anthropology, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. While the motivation and context of these philosophical principles are pedagogical in orientation, it is evident that Harris produced here a philosophical synthesis worthy of consideration in a formal survey of the history of American philosophy. (shrink)

Locke: Ethics The major writings of John Locke are among the most important texts for understanding some of the central currents in epistemology, metaphysics, politics, religion, and pedagogy in the late 17th and early 18th century in Western Europe. His magnum opus, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is the undeniable starting point for … Continue reading Locke’s Ethics →.

1 Introduction1 In the 1980s, hermeneutics was often incorporated into deconstructionism and literary theory. Rather than focus on authorial intentions, the nature of writing itself including codes used to construct meaning, socio-economic contexts and inequalities of power,2 Gadamer introduced a different perspective; the interplay between effects of history on a reader’s understanding and the tradition(s) handed down in writing. This interplay in which a reader’s prejudices are called into question and modified by the text in a fusion of understanding and (...) topic revitalized the study of the printed word. Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being also appealed to the post-modern antipathy toward modernity and metaphysics.3 If the truth and validity of interpretations are limited to communities of language, then our mode of being in history cannot but be historical. This point of view rendered Gadamer’s phenomenological hermeneutics vulnerable to the critique of moral and epistemological relativism. However, Gadamer’s theory of interpretation also stems from re-examination of the beginning of knowledge in the Pre-Socratics and Plato, and on this basis, is receptive to another dimension of inquiry than that which was trending in North America. -/- At the East-West Center, University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 1982, Chung-ying Cheng for the first time introduced onto-hermeneutics to an audience of esteemed philosophers including Li Zehou, Ren Jiyu, Feng Youlan, and Zhang Liwen.4 In contrast to schools of deconstruction and literary theory that had disengaged the interpreter from trans-historical sources of meaning and truth, Cheng explained that interpreters exist within a cosmological order inextricable from responsibility to harmonize Heaven and Earth in creative acts of interpretation. By integrating Chinese cosmology into hermeneutics through ontology, he tacitly challenged philosophers in the West to re-examine assumptions about humanity’s place in nature and by implication, Gadamer’s recovery of the beginnings of knowledge in Western philosophy. -/- Cheng’s Neo-Confucianism is inspired by the method and goals of Thomé H. Fang. The following words by Fang seem to prefigure, although in an indistinct and bundled way, aspects of Cheng’s philosophy including a Mencian theory of human nature, comprehensive observation, and creativity: “In the very process of living in concord with creative Nature, Man is charged with an ideal to be fully realized in the light of the principle of comprehensive harmony.”5 Like Fang, Cheng reinvigorates Chinese culture and language, but not solely in order to vindicate the insights of Neo-Confucianism. He has studied Western thought, from pragmatism and the analytic school to German idealism and phenomenology, to unlock and clarify philosophical concepts within the Yijing tradition and thereby render them intelligible to Anglophones. The result has been an awakening of Western scholars to the moral and cultural consequences of decoupling their thought from metaphysical foundations that are neither dogmatic nor doctrinal. -/- Not unlike the dialectic of Gadamer’s dialogue form, onto-generative hermeneutics integrates contrary positions on the same topic in order to blend both sides into a world philosophy, or as Cheng says, a “totalizing or integrative theory,”6 not to be confused with a theoretical rewording of a theory. On the contrary, the universal scope and relevance of hermeneutics stems from personal experience. Just as Gadamer, in response to faction and strife, immersed himself in Plato during the war years, and developed a method with which to harmonize opposites, so too, according to On-cho Ng, was Cheng moved by faction, strife and political persecution to develop a path toward unity.7 Gadamer taught at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and Cheng at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa among other institutions in North America. They facilitated trans-continental educational and cultural ties. Similar experiences yield similar insights irrespective of differences of time and place. Hence, authors in this issue who reside in Europe, China and North America, delineate the differences between Gadamer and Cheng, yet also, in light of Cheng’s onto-generative method and cosmology, develop integrative theories. Due to the page-budget restriction of the publisher, certain articles of this special theme will be subsequently published in the next issue. -/- 2 Integrative Theory This special issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy confirms a dimension of hermeneutics that Cheng has both motivated and inspired. The contributors do not abide by the conviction that since thought is mediated by language, interpretations cannot transcend culture. On the contrary, their research exemplifies the fruits of trans-historical onto-dialogical hermeneutics within limits defined by their field inquiry, organized into Parts I and II, around three themes: language, the philosophy of history and ethics. -/- Andrew Fuyarchuk introduces the theme of ontology in relation to Gadamer’s turn to language. Fuyarchuk argues that Chung-ying Cheng’s criticism of Gadamer’s hermeneutics is informed by Heidegger’s concept of Dasein and thereby overlooks how Gadamer’s Platonic-Pythagorean problem of the division between the One and Many is harmonized in the event of language, which in turn positions Gadamer in proximity to the presupposed grounds of receptivity in Cheng’s onto-generative hermeneutics. Lauren Pfister’s contributing article addresses the year 2000 meeting between Cheng and Gadamer in Heidelberg and expands the transhistorical grounds of meaning in Gadamer to matters of theology. Pfister’s summary of the written Chinese record of their conversation indicates that Cheng does not address the role of Christian philosophy and hence, the role of the inner word in Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This is important not only for detecting changes in Cheng’s philosophical development, but also for modifying his hermeneutics along the lines of a living conversation, possibilities explored by Pfister in a sequel to the article submitted to this issue. Nevertheless, by raising the issue of how Gadamer’s turn to language for understanding the meaning of Being extends possibilities in Cheng’s thought, Pfister anticipates the article by Katarina Gajdosova. She returns to the roots of Chinese thought during the Warring States period and broadens the meaning of names in recently excavated texts. Contrary to the conventions about how to understand terms, she appeals to both Heidegger’s ontology and Cheng’s notion of receptivity and creativity to reinterpret naming in relation to cosmology. Along the same lines, insofar as the event of Being is lingual, Jay Goulding captures its emergent structure in an evolving community of scholars and scholarship. He recalls his philosophical journey toward Cheng’s philosophy that begins in conversations with Gadamer at McMaster University in Hamilton, leads to Heidegger and Asian thought, expands into turning points with teachers and colleagues from various backgrounds that by increments contributed to Goulding’s formulation of “Daoist phenomenology.” -/- Although differing traditions guide their inquiries and research, Cheng and Gadamer recall the wisdom of the past to ameliorate the fragmentation in contemporary life. This leads them to re-examine the origins of philosophy; historical roots and thus sources of creative re-interpretations East and West whose affinities are developed in contributions by Hyun Höchsmann and Friederike Assandri. Höchsmann assesses convergences and divergences in the origins of Chinese and Western philosophy (Confucius and Socrates, the Yijing and Pre-Socratics) that culminates in pairing Gadamer’s understanding of paideia in the context of Plato’s political cosmology in the Timaeus with moral and social cultivation in The Western Inscription. She delineates the limits of this comparison which in turn justifies introducing Vattimo’s notion of locality. Assandri’s comparative analysis moves between India and China, Buddhism and Tang Daoism. Based on Gadamer’s argument that writing detaches concepts from their cultural moorings, she defines and applies three levels of understanding in onto-generative hermeneutics to Buddhist terms that were assimilated into the Benji Jing and in so doing clarifies essential dimensions of Daoism. -/- Contributions by Stephen Palmquist and Nicholas Brasovan position Cheng in relation to Kant and Gadamer by way of Aristotle’s ethics respectively. On the one hand, Palmquist plots Cheng’s evolving criticism of Kant’s moral philosophy and draws on crucial dimensions of Gadamer’s hermeneutics to reposition that criticism in a constructive relation to Kant’s emphasis on the philosophical conditions of morality while also indicating how religious dimensions of his thought answer Cheng’s concerns for lived moral action. For Palmquist, Gadamer enables a constructive criticism of Cheng. On the other hand, Brasovan compares Cheng’s Yijing-based account of moral deliberation with Gadamer’s Aristotelian-based ethics and reasons that in contrast to Cheng, Gadamer’s hermeneutical consciousness is disengaged from practical knowledge. For Brasovan, Cheng is a constructive critic of Gadamer. Palmquist and Brasovan’s divergent angles on Gadamer and Cheng map onto a dialectic of contrast and complementarity that constitutes the inner logic of Cheng’s philosophy. In other words, Gadamer and Cheng ought to be read alongside one another for the sake of removing discrepancies and contradictions, which constitutes the organic structure of their thinking. -/- 3 Our Mode of Being in History Is Not Historical The conversations between Cheng and Gadamer in this issue of The Journal of Chinese Philosophy pivot on language, philosophy of history and ethics within a comparative framework of analysis, but also explore the grounds that make the comparisons possible. Those grounds are informed by Chinese cosmology, and function to wrest Gadamer from the shadow of Heideggerian facticity and reposition him within the range of Cheng’s ideas about our place in nature that is embedded in his question about how mind emerges from inorganic matter.8 -/- For Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, human finitude, our ownmost individuating death ensures that hermeneutics is always open to the other as other, always on the way toward understanding the meaning of Being. To arrest the process in a concept of “the Absolute” cannot but represent someone’s point of view, and thereby render hermeneutics indistinguishable from ideology. However, insofar as finitude is defined by them in terms of an onto-theological concept of immorality, finitude is a metaphysical concept consistent with epistemologies and confuse beings with the meaning of Being. As a result, the celebrated political value of hermeneutics to always be on the way toward an understanding of the meaning of Being admits subtle variations on the same worldview that are insufficiently self-critical. -/- Gadamer scholars of Heidegger are right. A transformation in ethos and opening to the meaning of Being depends on awareness of finitude. Yet this awareness does not yield openness to more of the same, i.e., discourse structurally incapable of coming to unity but instead, for both Gadamer and Cheng, openness to a distinctly different ontological dimension of reality. As Sandra Wawrytko and So-Seong Park indicate,9 this ontological dimension is prefigured in the experience of being-as-a-whole or the totality of all possible relations in both Chinese totemic shamanistic rituals,10 and Greek Dionysian festivals.11 Through these religious experiences human ethos and therefore consciousness is expanded and elevated from being centered on one’s ownmost concerns toward an affinity with all sentient beings from insects and plants to animals. The channel for this affinity is an auditory disposition and hence, the emotions, compassion, and feeling response. -/- The capacity for an auditory disposition, or as Gadamer calls it, listening consciousness to respond to the inter-relationality and therefore inherent balance of nature is developed through music, song and dance of the religious rituals and festivals. They facilitate the unity of mind with nature. This use of music, that transforms ordinary consciousness, explains Cheng’s emphasis on the receptivity of feeling response in comprehensive observation, and Gadamer’s emphasis on openness to the other in attunement. However, an auditory disposition characteristic of pre-literate oral cultures that reveals the “All” need not rely on religion. As theorists about the evolution of language have explained,12 modern languages preserve their pre-historical past in music or prosody. That is to say, the song and dance that revealed the totality of inter-related beings to an ethos of comprehensive observation and attunement toward beings in classical civilizations is retained in the back-and-forth movement or rhythm of the dialogue form. Our mode of being in history is a mode of being in nature – through the music of language. -/- While alerting the reader to the limits of a nominalist interpretation, Gadamer expresses the inner law of the nature as follows: “in perishing there is always becoming, and in becoming there is always perishing.”13 Considered in process, opposites generate and blend into each other. This law of nature applies to everything.14 Hence, in a manner comparable to Pfister’s concluding insights, onto-dialogical hermeneutics is not only open to discrete events of otherness but moreover, to the moving structure of reality expressed, as Gajdosova suggests, in the existential moment of naming. Considered as interplay of tension and resolution with a life of its own, the dialectic of a dialogue is self-similar to the way in which an organism grows (by instinct). There is, therefore, a sense in which the art of interpretation extends the human mind into the eternal cycles of nature such that we participate in the articulation of the inner telos/homeostasis toward which all beings strive and importantly for Gadamer scholars of Heidegger, within the material limits of energy to which our embodied minds are self-evidently subject. In mortality there is always immortality. (shrink)

Hud Hudson presents an innovative view of the metaphysics of human persons according to which human persons are material objects but not human organisms. In developing his account, he formulates and defends a unique collection of positions on parthood, persistence, vagueness, composition, identity, and various puzzles of material constitution. The author also applies his materialist metaphysics to issues in ethics and in the philosophy of religion. He examines the implications for ethics of his metaphysical views for standard arguments addressing the (...) moral permissibility of our treatment of human persons and their parts, fetuses and infants, the irreversibly comatose, and corpses. He argues that his metaphysics provides the best foundation in the philosophy of religion for the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Hudson addresses a broad range of metaphysical issues, but among his most strikingly original contributions are his defense of the "Partist" view and his argument for the compatibility of Christianity with a materialistic theory of human persons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:694 BOOK REVIEWS Exercises in the Work of HUvB," Antonio Sicari writes on "Theology and Holiness," and Georges Chantraine writes on the relationship of "Exegesis and Contemplation." Missing from Henrici's account of Balthasar's philosophical presup· positions, as well as from the other contributions, are further sugges· tions for exploring possible relationships with some of the current con· cerns in North America like the hermeneutical debates or those surrounding other (...) methodological issues. Much work is still needed in this area, especially a more thorough encounter between the position of Balthasar and those of Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, and Paul Ricoeur, to name but a few of the dominant figures in North American theological circles. Schindler's volume is highly to be praised as an invaluable introduction to the work of one of the giants of our century. Let us hope that more such studies will be forthcoming. Concordia University Montreal, Quebec CHRISTOPHE PoTWOROWSKI The Anthropological Character of Theology: Conditioning Theological Understanding. By DAVID A. PAILIN. New York: Cambridge Uni· versity Press, 1990. Pp. 300. $54.95 (cloth). That the discipline of theology is an activity of human beings whereby even in the most pronounced theologies of revelation the " creaturely form" of theology is acknowledged is not a matter of dispute. What is debated is the extent to which this Barthian rendering of the anthropological moment of theology " conditions " our theological understanding. It is in the interests of sorting this out that David Pailin, Reader in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Manchester in England, devotes this volume. The result is a rather systematic study in which the author explores the various angles where one can register theology's human dimension-from basic theistic claims to doctrinal formulations-while simultaneously justifying the integrity of theological inquiry in philosophical perspective. Indeed, throughout, it is the hand of a philosopher of religion that is at work, synthesizing and categorizing the contemporary theological landscape and carving out the true subject matter of theology, namely, that which is "ontologically, valuatively and rationally ultimate" (p. 4). The book is best read with an eye to each of these poles. On the one hand, the ostensible project is to examine, evaluate, and clearly affirm the human character of the theological enterprise. Simply BOOK REVIEWS 695 acknowledging the theological identification of human being, ergo the theologian, as a creature addressed by the divine word is inadequate. Even if this should require the practitioner to engage in a " laborious movement from one partial human insight to another" (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I, 1, p. 14), it does not give due recognition to the formative influence exercised by the theologian's fallible and culturally specific situation in life. These include language, conceptual perspective, metaphysical commitments, social location, and religious experience. On the other hand, Pailin is mindful that attention to theology's anthropological character and his methodological accentuation of it is in danger of yielding to the reductionist charge that religion is a complex of human projection and anthropomorphic description. In response Pailin consistently argues the case for the justifiability of religious belief, theistic claims, and theological predication. In this respect his work is not only descriptive of what theologians are doing but it attempts a revisionary intervention in the realms of philosophical and systematic theology. Classical theistic renditions of the divine attributes are subjected to critical scrutiny, e.g., divine impassibility and its relationship to divine love, and traditional interpretations of Christian doctrines are relativized by their cultural context, e.g., Anselm's theory of atonement. His own constructive subtext betrays a clear preference for neo-classical process theology and its conceptualization of God's relationship to the world and history. The key issue that governs Pailin's view of the integrity and limits of theological understanding revolves around the relationship between formal and material predication. What we mean by God and what we say about God are inextricably bound up with our speculative efforts to understand the nature of ultimate reality. The theologian and the metaphysician are in pursuit of similar quests with the proviso that the farmer's judgments are ensconced within a religious perspective. This does not exempt theological judgments from being rationally... (shrink)

Alfred Stein, em memória de quem esse artigo é dedicado, mantinha, enquanto filósofo da história, a crença em valores absolutos como obsoletos bem como, enquanto filósofo da ética, o convencimento sobre a aleatoriedade relativista-cultural na valoração moral da ação humana. De uma tal valoração aparece indicado reconstruir a ação adequadamente, ou seja, compreendê-la intencionalmente e explicá-la por meio da causalidade. No decorrer desse compreender e desse explicar, se deve fazer uma referência a isso que Stern com, entre outros, Blaise Pascal, (...) chama de “a condição humana” (la condition humaine): o fato de que o humano é um ser consciente de si mesmo, de que ele é determinado por uma vontade de autopreservação, de que ele ama e odeia, de que ele sofre, busca escapar do sofrimento, de que ele sabe de sua mortalidade e, por fim, morre. De maneira semelhante à anthropéia physis de Thukydides, essas condições variantes resultam decorrer de ação bem diferentes e padrões de comportamento, de acordo com as especificidades da situação histórica – parecido com como um balão sobe, sob o efeito da mesma lei da gravidade, uma pedra, entretanto, cai ao chão. Seguindo essa construção compreensivo-explicativa da ação, vêm a sua valoração moral. Esta é, com Stein, guiada pelo princípio da liberdade como de um ser-livre de pressão e pelo princípio da maior minimização possível do sofrimento humano. (shrink)

This paper examines Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical development from Totality and Infinity to Otherwise than Being as a self-critique and revised understanding of Martin Heidegger. It focuses on later Levinas’s analysis of language in terms of the difference between Saying and Said. For Levinas, the Said represents the betrayal of ethical Saying into ontological essence. This echoes Heidegger’s notion of the forgetfulness of Being in beings. However, Levinas critiques Heidegger’s own philosophy as remaining within the Said. The paper explores three strategies (...) of “unsaying” that Levinas discerns in Western philosophy to disrupt ontological Said: ontology itself, skepticism, and philosophical conversation. It argues that Levinas ultimately seeks an alternative “prophetic” mode of language beyond philosophy that enacts difference, which the paper relates to Talmud. The paper claims that the later Levinas no longer simply opposes Greek to Jewish thought, but rather seeks to deploy a specifically Jewish form of language to interrupt Western metaphysics from within. (shrink)

This essay interprets and responds to Richard Kearney's metaphysics of possibility and hermeneutics of religion against the background of Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God and the theodicy problem. Kearney's work is thus read as an interesting but ultimately problematic attempt to preserve or perhaps reinstate religious thought after the modern critique of idols. In addition, his positions are compared and contrasted with some of authors with whom he seems to be in limited agreement (for example, Plotinus, Hillesum) as (...) well as some with whom he clearly breaks (for example, Girard, Sölle). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 225-226 [Access article in PDF] John H. Zammito. Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. x + 576. Cloth, $68.00. Paper, $29.00. Zammito's book continues two recent trends in the study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German philosophy, viz., the reassessment both of Kant's pre-Critical thought and of his contemporaries. Zammito situates Kant's later pre-Critical (...) work within the "popular philosophy" tradition, especially those elements of the tradition that could be broadly construed as anthropological in focus. If Zammito is correct, during the late 1760s Kant was a popular philosopher of a sort whose influence was greater than generally recognized. In this light, he reexamines Kant's influence on Johann Herder as well as Herder's reception of Kant. The terminus of the study is the emergence of anthropology as a discipline and the roles that Kant and Herder played therein.Zammito's interpretation of this period (roughly, 1762 to 1773) marshals a vast array of material (notes and a bibliography number nearly 200 pages), which sheds light on both the intellectual climate of the time and Kant's and Herder's place within the same. Beginning with a useful survey of the Aufklärung during the 1760s, Zammito focuses on the growth of "popular philosophy" (which opposed the "school philosophy" and focused on the ethical and socio-historical dimension of the Aufklärung). Popular philosophy emerged as a self-styled defense of enlightenment values at a time when both the university and scholar faced crises of self-image and self-justification. Zammito juxtaposes these crises with the breakdown of Kant's attempt to construct a system of metaphysics. His point is that an "altogether different Kant," to use Vorländer's expression, emerged during the mid and late 1760s, a Kant qua popular philosopher.Zammito's Kant of this period was an essayist more interested in the "vocation of man" than in traditional metaphysics. Focusing on the period from the Observations on the Feelings of the Beautiful and the Sublime to the curious Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, he outlines Kant's encounter with popular philosophy. The discussion of Rousseau's influence on Kant is both useful and fascinating, and supports Zammito's interpretation nicely. Furthermore, by placing Kant in the context of his contemporaries Zammito sheds light on the scope and originality of Kant's work of this period. But Zammito's point is also that Kant faced personal and professional crises that led to this experiment with popular philosophy. He discusses at some length Kant's relation with women and an alleged "repression" that was thereby produced. These are some of the weaker (because more speculative) sections of the book. [End Page 225] Zammito claims that we must read Kant's texts of this period with the eyes of a psychologist as well as those of a philosopher, but such excursions detract from the clarity of this effort at intellectual history.Kant's "critical turn" is given an interesting interpretation. His foray into popular philosophy seemed to be leading him toward anthropology as a foundational discipline. But, as Zammito claims, though this might have been the logical extension of Kant's focus during this period, Kant's more traditional interest in providing a foundation for metaphysics and meeting the skeptic's challenge won out. Zammito is deft in addressing the clash of these interests, and explicates how Kant's anthropology lectures from 1772-73 provide a touchstone for understanding why metaphysics trumped anthropology for Kant. As Zammito concludes, "Kant created the 'critical philosophy' at the cost of forsaking the 'science' of anthropology" (348).Herder's own development is discussed in the context of this Kantian backdrop. "It [is] possible," Zammito claims, "to see Herder as fulfilling the promise that Kant abandoned" (7). Indeed, Zammito sees in Herder's hermeneutic historicism a "road not taken" by Kant, a road that privileged anthropology over philosophy. The discussion of Herder is illuminating, and does a fine job of detailing his... (shrink)

On 18–19 May 2018, a symposium was held in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Ronald W. Hepburn (1927–2008). The speakers at this event discussed Hepburn’s oeuvre from several perspectives. For this book, the collection of the revised versions of their talks has been supplemented by the papers of other scholars who were unable to attend the symposium itself. Thus this volume contains contributions from (...) eighteen notable scholars of different disciplines, ranging from contemporary aesthetics and art theory through to philosophical approaches to religion, education and social anthropology. It also includes a bibliography of Hepburn’s writings. The essays were first published in two special issues of the Journal of Scottish Thought, vols. 10–11 (2018–2019). -/- Ronald William Hepburn was born in Aberdeen on 16 March 1927. He went to Aberdeen Grammar School, then he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy (1951) and obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (1955). His tutor at Aberdeen was Donald MacKinnon (1913– 1994), a Scottish philosopher and theologian, the author of A Study in Ethical Theory (1957) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974). Hepburn taught as Lecturer at the Department of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen (1956–60), and he was also Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University (1959–60). He returned from the United States as Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. In 1964, he was appointed as a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and between 1965 and 1968 he was also Stanton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. From 1975 until his retirement in 1996, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 23 December 2008. His philosophical interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics. Notably, Hepburn is widely regarded as the founder of modern environmental and everyday aesthetics as a result of the influence of papers in the 1960s which pioneered a new approach to the aesthetics of the natural world. (shrink)

The article considers a particular case of Richard Kearney's characteristic hermeneutical exploration of `the possible' as an `imaginative' way of casting light upon philosophical issues. This particular case is his recent hermeneutical and phenomenological consideration of `Otherness' in the context of philosophy of religion. This consideration, strongly influenced by philosophers such as Heidegger, Levinas, Ricoeur and Derrida, is developed in two of his recent works Strangers, Gods and Monsters and The God Who May Be . The article examines how he (...) seeks to navigate an interpretation of divine otherness as an ethical appeal which escapes the dilemma of a God either so transcendent as to be anonymous or so immanent as to be a mere projection. It outlines how, rejecting onto-theology in favour of eschatology, Kearney envisages the divine as an ethically enabling possibility. This possibility, he claims, enables us to achieve, beyond our own intrinsic resources, an ethical order of justice and love through which the kingdom of God — the God Who May Be — is accomplished. There is a co-relativity between the divine as enabling possibility and humanity which accomplishes this possibility. It investigates the way in which Kearney seeks to legitimize, within a phenomenological frame of reference, an experiential affirmation of this conception of divine transcendence as eschatological possibility. It argues that this phenomenological consideration needs to be qualified and complemented by certain metaphysical considerations which Kearney disputes. Key Words: eschatology • ethics • God • hermeneutics • metaphysics • Otherness • phenomenology • possibility. (shrink)

The focus of the author’s attention has been on the emblematic sense concentration in the philosophical system of Hryhorii Skovoroda. The study aims to reveal the artistic and style features of eide emblematic formation in the texts of the Ukrainian sophist, their origin, context, and conceptual classification by the author himself. The theoretical generalizations were essentially based on the philosophical treatises and dialogues by Hryhorii Skovoroda and the studies of other scholars. To analyze the issues under scrutiny, the author applied (...) structuralist and semiotic methodology. The article highlights the emblematic sense, conveyance, and dominance in Skovoroda’s works. Emblematic forms of signification play a unique role in elucidating the anthropological, metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic, and hermeneutic dimensions of the Ukrainian poet and philosopher. Skovoroda considers emblemacity a particularly effective pictorial and verbal (iconic-conventional) type of “significative” speech, functioning as metalanguage. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of this article is to explain in religious, secular, and post-secular contexts the functional potential of conceptualizing the miracle as a text or message with a motivational effect. _Theoretical basis._ Max Weber, Ernst Tugendhat, Alexander Geppert and Till Kössler analysed the processes of enchantment and disenchantment of the world on a philosophical basis. The representatives of the Frankfurt school (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin) and their followers describe the cultural processes of post-secularism (Jürgen Habermas, Peter Sloterdijk) in (...) detail. The logic of cultural and social representation of amazing events and their descriptions can be realized by combining hermeneutic analysis with a functionalist approach based on the model of Niklas Luhmann and the discursive ethics of Karl-Otto Apel. _Originality._ Desired cultural, social and political situations in society often arise unexpectedly and suddenly, which provokes to characterize them as a miracle. However, at the basis of the emergence of such situations are the rules of social communication, in particular those that provide for asymmetric communication with questions that await answers. A miracle appears at the moment of transformation of asymmetric communication into a symmetrical one: each specific miracle-phenomenon needs its own metaphorical understanding and interpretation as a message. _Conclusions._ The article proposes an analysis of miracle phenomenon in its cosmological, anthropological and educational implications. Some tendencies fixed by communicative turn of the contemporary philosophy are also contributed to considering the miracle in its objective and subjective representations. The semantics of the miracle is analysed according to the relevant problem fields. The functionality of miracle is examined on its ability to show orientation for the contemporary societies with their tendency to post-secularity. The fusion of Pre-modernity and Late Modernity is taking into account when the semantics of miracle is described accordingly to their communication functionality. The enchanting and disenchanting dialectic is explained on semantics of miracle as a world and cosmic events. (shrink)

This book sets out a new reading of the much-neglected philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By questioning the common perception of Jaspers either as a proponent of irrationalist cultural philosophy or as an early, peripheral disciple of Martin Heidegger, it re-establishes him as a central figure in modern European philosophy. Giving particular consideration to his position in epistemological, metaphysical and political debate, the author argues that Jaspers's work deserves renewed consideration in a number of important discussions, particularly in hermeneutics, anthropological reflections (...) on religion, the critique of idealism, and debates on the end of metaphysics. (shrink)

I support Abram Brummett’s contention that there is a need for secular clinical ethics to acknowledge that various positions typically advocated for by ethicists, concerning bedside decision-making and broader policy-making, rely upon metaphysical commitments that are not often explicit. I further note that calls for “neutrality” in debates concerning conscientious refusals to provide legal health care services—such as elective abortion or medical aid-in-dying—may exhibit biases against specific metaphysical claims regarding, for instance, the ontological and moral status of fetuses or the (...) valuing of the phenomena of life, suffering, and dying/death, as constitutive of medicine’s internal morality as a profession. I conclude that there is an operative distinction between metaphysical views founded essentially upon religious tenets and those founded upon rationally defensible premises. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I will establish a conversation between Rorty and the recent proposal of post-critical pedagogy. The assumption is that through this dialogue some tenets of the latter could find a Rortyan redescription that avoids the risk of ‘metaphysical’ formulations, whereas Rorty’s ideas can increase in their relevance with respect to education thanks to the post-critical perspective. In particular, the conversation will develop by focusing on the shared attitude towards the critical-negative attitude of poststructuralist thought, the significance of (...) the subject-matter in education and an interpretation of pedagogical hermeneutics through the lens of the Rortyan idea of edification. In the conclusion, by distinguishing two views of hope – an eventist and a transitionalist – it is argued that it is precisely in this theme, which seems to be a privileged meeting ground for Rorty and post-critical pedagogy, that there may lie a major fault line. (shrink)

Politics and Religion in the New Century contains a collection of philosophical reflections on the intersection of religion and the political in contemporary social, political and intellectual life. Based on new research, the essays raise questions about the contemporary philosophical engagement with religion that orientate it on its practical rather than metaphysical dimension. That is, its social, political and ethical significance. This collection provides important insights for those interested in: philosophy, religious studies, politics, human rights, globalisation, social theory, ethics, sociology, (...) political economy, government, anthropology, contemporary culture, and issues of justice and power generally. (shrink)

This book sets out a new reading of the much-neglected philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By questioning the common perception of Jaspers either as a proponent of irrationalist cultural philosophy or as an early, peripheral disciple of Martin Heidegger, it re-establishes him as a central figure in modern European philosophy. Giving particular consideration to his position in epistemological, metaphysical and political debate, the author argues that Jaspers's work deserves renewed consideration in a number of important discussions, particularly in hermeneutics, anthropological reflections (...) on religion, the critique of idealism, and debates on the end of metaphysics. (shrink)

Sex, Love, and Gender is the first volume to present a comprehensive philosophical theory that brings together all of Kant's practical philosophy — found across his works on ethics, justice, anthropology, history, and religion — and provide a critique of emotionally healthy and morally permissible sexual, loving, gendered being. By rethinking Kant's work on human nature and making space for sex, love, and gender within his moral accounts of freedom, the book shows how, despite his austere and even anti-sex, cisist, (...) sexist, and heterosexist reputation, Kant's writings on happiness and virtue (Part I) and right (Part II) in fact yield fertile philosophical ground on which we can explore specific contemporary issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, sexual or gendered identity, marriage, trade in sexual services, and sex- or gender-based oppression. Indeed, Kant's philosophy provides us with resources to appreciate and value the diversity of human ways of loving and the existential importance of our embodied, social selves. Structured on a thematic basis, with introductions to assist those new to Kant's philosophy, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone who cares about these issues and wants to make sense of them. -/- Alternatively: Sex, Love, and Gender identifies a set of possibilities that define human beings’ sexuality. These sets come with their own concepts, which specify how the possibilities are realized and what effects they have on our lives lived together. Partly the task is descriptive. The description has to be plausible. Plausibility comes from the phenomenology (and not the other way around). Partly the task is normative. The normative content also has to be plausible. Plausibility here comes from vindicating the principles that underwrite the possibilities that define human beings’ sexualities and sexual experiences and behaviors lived by human beings and from the philosophical explanations and conclusions that follow. Overall plausibility, then, comes from discursive analysis of alternatives, from a priori argument, and, in the evaluative case, from showing how the Kantian account of a good life fits with reasonable conceptions of goodness consistent with the phenomenology of human lives. Although this exploration leads us, as we will see, to most corners of Kant’s practical philosophy, including his metaethics and metaphysics, the main focus is on an account of human sex, love, and gender explored explicitly with respect to happiness and ethics (virtue) and justice (right). It is because of this focus that the book is divided into two parts: Part 1 (“Human Sexuality and Virtue”) and Part 2 (“Human Sexuality and Right”). (shrink)

Known as the 'Father of modern theology' Friedrich Schleiermacher is without a doubt one of the most important theologians in the history of Christianity. Not only relevant to theology, he also made significant contributions in areas of philosophy such as hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy of religion, and the study of Plato, and he was ahead of his time in espousing a kind of pro to-feminism. Divided into three parts, this Companion deals first with elements of Schleiermacher's philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology (...) of religious knowledge, ethics, hermeneutics, and contributions to Plato scholarship. Second it discusses theological topics such as sin, redemption and Christology, and the final section is devoted to Schleiermacher's understanding of culture. This is the first book in English introducing readers to all the important aspects of Schleiermacher's thought in a systematic way, containing essays by some of the best scholars in Germany and in the English speaking world. (shrink)

This book sets out a new reading of the much-neglected philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By questioning the common perception of Jaspers either as a proponent of irrationalist cultural philosophy or as an early, peripheral disciple of Martin Heidegger, it re-establishes him as a central figure in modern European philosophy. Giving particular consideration to his position in epistemological, metaphysical and political debate, the author argues that Jaspers's work deserves renewed consideration in a number of important discussions, particularly in hermeneutics, anthropological reflections (...) on religion, the critique of idealism, and debates on the end of metaphysics. (shrink)

Robert B. Louden has produced a book that is unique in its attempt to make a wide variety of Kant’s writings relevant to his ethical theory. The main point of the book is that in addition to Kant’s moral theory which is purely based on reason, the application of this theory requires empirical and hence impure knowledge of human beings. Kant calls the empirical part of his ethics “practical anthropology” and Louden believes that, though Kant did not complete this project (...) as a separate book, the elements of a practical anthropology can be “squeezed out” of Kant’s works on education, anthropology, art, religion, and history. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to propose the structural outline and conceptual framework of a Ricœurian translation theory. Following a discussion on the ambiguities around situating Ricœur in translation theory, three major interlinked components of the theory are explored. First, the metaphysics of meaning and translation is established based on Ricœur’s hermeneutics of infinitude. Then, the language-processing component is constructed through an incorporation of Ricœur’s narrative theory. Finally, the ethics and politics of translation, particularly in globalization, are founded based (...) on Ricœur’s “age of hermeneutics theory.”. (shrink)

The impermanence of human affairs is a major theme in Spinoza’s discussions of political histories, and from our present-day perspective it is both intriguing and ironic to see how this very theme has played out in the evolving fate of Spinoza’s association with atheism. While Spinoza’s contemporaries charged him with atheism in order to impugn his philosophy (and sometimes his character), in our times many lay readers and some scholars portray Spinoza as an atheist in order to commemorate his role (...) as a founder of modern secularism. In this paper, I will argue that Spinoza deserves neither vilification nor praise for being an atheist, for the simple reason that he was not one (unless one employs the term ‘atheism’ in a very peculiar sense). I have chosen the current topic as my contribution to a volume focused on the TTP, the Ethics, and their interrelations because it is precisely these two books which brought about the common reactionary accusation of atheism by Spinoza’s contemporaries. Addressing Spinoza’s 1663 book, Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, Bayle writes: “Spinoza appears as orthodox in that book about the nature of God.” As we shall shortly see, Descartes too was accused of atheism by some of his contemporaries (though not so by Bayle). The latter designates his target quite explicitly: “[Spinoza’s] Tractatus Theologico Politicus, printed in Amsterdam, in the year 1670, is a pernicious and execrable book which contains all the seeds of the Atheism he plainly discovered in his Opera Posthuma.” François Lamy, in his 1696 Le nouvel athéisme renversé, also focused on the Ethics and the TTP in his attack on Spinoza’s atheism. Bayle’s reference to the Opera Posthuma is ostensibly targeting the Ethics at least primarily, if not uniquely. Even the most suspicious and distrustful mind would have to labor hard in order to find atheism in the Hebrew Grammar, or even in the Tractatus Politicus where Spinoza argues that it is not within the power, and hence right, of the commonwealth to induce people to adopt utterly absurd beliefs, such as “that the whole is greater than its part or that God does not exist.” The TTP and the Ethics are the works where Spinoza launches his merciless attack on anthropocentric thinking and anthropomorphic religion. Spinoza’s panentheism (“quicquid est, in Deo est”) constitutes the metaphysical foundation of the Ethics, and it is repeatedly and clearly alluded to in the TTP. Since it is these two elements – (1) Spinoza’s open assertions of panentheism and (2) his critique of andromorphic conceptions of God – which are the historical grounds for the atheism charge, it seems natural that the merit of this charge should be decided primarily by examination of these two foundational works. I will proceed in the following manner. In the first part of the paper, we will make our first acquaintance with the imputation of atheism by Spinoza’s contemporaries and Spinoza’s response to the charge (or lack thereof). In the second part, I discuss three broad strategies, or hermeneutic avenues, that have been pursued to impute atheism to Spinoza. The first of the three was dominant in Spinoza’s time, while the latter two were employed more recently. These strategies are not mutually exclusive and we can find occasionally various combinations of different shades of these three strategies. In this part, I will also raise some preliminary questions about the cogency of the hermeneutics employed by each strategy. In the third and fourth parts of the paper, I will discuss a small selection of key texts from the Ethics and the TTP, respectively, and argue that the atheist readings fail to make sense of these key passages (unless one adopts an extreme hermeneutics of suspicion which could allegedly find any view harbored in any text). Let me stress that this selection of passages is far from comprehensive, and that dozens of other passages can be adduced to establish the very same point. I hope by the end of the fourth part to convince the reader of the deep problems besetting the atheist readings. In the fifth and last part, I show that both panentheism and the critique of anthropomorphic religion and anthropomorphic conceptions of providence were quite common within rabbinic discourse. Thus, I will argue that if we are not in the business of announcing that both Maimonides and the Kabbalists were atheists, we should avoid the same imputation to Spinoza. Underlying my argument in this final part is the claim that at least some perceptions of Spinoza as an atheist are instances of what could be termed conceptual colonialism, i.e. the enforcement of the categories of a hegemonic culture (in this case, Western Christianity ) on minority cultures (in the current case, rabbinic Judaism). To be clear, this attitude need not be motivated by ill intentions or racism. It is always tempting and easy to explain the unfamiliar through the familiar, but conceptual stagnation and insistence on imposing the categories of the familiar on other cultures may quickly lead to deep distortion and blindness, despite one’s best intentions. Unless one is exceedingly careful to avoid the – completely natural – temptation to impose one’s own categories on a foreign culture (and to look for the coin only under the street light), one is likely to end up with distorted conceptions of the relevant alien culture, despite one’s best intentions. (shrink)

This important collection of more than twenty original essays by prominent Kant scholars covers the multiple aspects of Kant’s teaching in relation to his published works. With the Academy edition’s continuing publication of Kant’s lectures, the role of his lecturing activity has been drawing more and more deserved attention. Several of Kant’s lectures on metaphysics, logic, ethics, anthropology, theology, and pedagogy have been translated into English, and important studies have appeared in many languages. But why study the lectures? When (...) they are read in light of Kant’s published writings, the lectures offer a new perspective of Kant’s philosophical development, clarify points in the published texts, consider topics there unexamined, and depict the intellectual background in richer detail. And the lectures are often more accessible to readers than the published works. This book discusses all areas of Kant's lecturing activity. Some essays even analyze in detail the content of Kant's courses and the role of textbooks written by key authors such as Baumgarten, helping us understand Kant’s thought in its intellectual and historical contexts. Contributors: Huaping Lu-Adler; Henny Blomme ; Robert Clewis; Alix Cohen; Corey Dyck; Faustino Fabbianelli; Norbert Fischer; Courtney Fugate; Paul Guyer; Robert Louden; Antonio Moretto; Steve Naragon; Christian Onof; Stephen Palmquist; Riccardo Pozzo; Frederick Rauscher; Dennis Schulting; Oliver Sensen; Susan Shell; Werner Stark; John Zammito; Günter Zöller. (shrink)

This paper focuses on salient features and benefits of the assimilation of popular culture into classroom discussions in philosophy courses with students of diverse backgrounds. Specifically, the author accounts for the pedagogical success of the incorporation of Star Trek episodes, as a hermeneutical tool, into the curriculum. Each episode provides a forum for students to comprehend the timeless character of philosophy and persistent problems in the history of philosophy. The varied philosophical themes explored in each episode also provide students with (...) a general introduction to a wide variety of philosophical issues and topics ranging from metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and politics. (shrink)

Herman Bavinck (1854–1921), the Dutch master of dogmatic theology, wrote a systematic treatise in theological ethics. Bavinck is a theistic moral realist whose ethics is deontological and virtue centered. His realism—both ontological and epistemic—is reflected in his understanding of conscience and its relation to the objective moral law. Furthermore, this review article discusses issues in Christian anthropology, particularly the selfhood of the human person, the relation between nature and grace, creation and redemption, and philosophy and theology, and the distinction between (...) objective and subjective religion. It concludes with a brief reflection on Bavinck’s hermeneutics of renewal and reform in the continuity of the catholicity of the Reformed tradition. (shrink)

Nowadays the problem of Ideal is no less urgent to study than in previous centuries. Ideal interpretation is a hot topic for debate in contemporary philosophy, cultural studies, political science, public administration theory. The purpose of the article is to move from general vision of Social Ideal to its interpretation in the light of the understanding of religious form of ideation. The basic method of this research is the method of hermeneutics and cultural-anthropological analysis. The modern polysystemic vision of Social (...) Ideal problems makes it possible to explore the Ideal in the light of the definition of ideation types. There is given classification of ideation types: religious, ethical, aesthetic, which are rooted in the reality of cultural practices and have an influence on the Social Ideal formation. It is proved that religion and art are the most broad cultural practices, and ethical and aesthetic should be defined as the reflection. The article analyzes the cultural practice, which is based on a religious form of ideation. There is considered the modelling of Ideal in cultural and anthropological matrix. (shrink)

This article forms a critical reflection on the views of Spinoza, developed in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, on the role of the ‘ceremonial law’ in the moral life of ancient Hebrew culture. According to Spinoza, a merely external obedience to the ceremonial law should not be confused with the sense of obligation towards the moral Divine Law of ‘justice and charity’: only in this last one can true piety be found. The idea is defended that Spinoza’s critical attitude towards the Jewish (...) ceremonial law should be understood against the larger background of his hermeneutics of superstition throughout the TTP. In the TTP superstition is unmasked as a form of undue adherence to a particular religious tradition and to merely outer ceremonies and practices. Superstition should be distinguished, however, from true religion, which, according to Spinoza, leads towards piety and virtue. How the idea of true religion, identified in the Ethics as the practical disposition and form of life of the truly wise philosopher, could be accounted for within the context of the TTP is investigated. The central thesis of this article is that despite his critical attitude towards the Jewish ceremonial law Spinoza should acknowledge – according to his own religious anthropology – that a genuine religion for ordinary human beings presupposes the adherence in one form or another to a religious tradition. Without a religious tradition, it appears, no concrete moral life, so no piety, is possible. This implies, however, that in Spinoza’s view there remains a gap between the true religion of the philosopher and true religion as it can be found in the life of ordinary humans. (shrink)

Too often Buddhism has been subjected to the Procrustean box of western thought, whereby it is stretched to fit fixed categories or had essential aspects lopped off to accommodate vastly different cultural norms and aims. After several generations of scholarly discussion in English-speaking communities, it is time to move to the next hermeneutical stage. Buddhist philosophy must be liberated from the confines of a quasi-religious stereotype and judged on its own merits. Hence this work will approach Chinese Buddhism as a (...) philosophical tradition in its own right, not as an historical after-thought nor as an occasion for comparative discussions that assume the west alone sets the standards for or is the origin of philosophy and its methodologies. Viewed within their own context, Chinese Buddhist philosophers have much to contribute to a wide range of philosophical concerns, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of religion, even though Western divisions of philosophy may not exhaust the rich contents of Chinese Buddhist Philosophy. (shrink)

We are going to present a panorama of Byzantine Philosophy. As starting point should be considered the Patristic Thought, which preceded the Byzantine Philosophy and was established in the first centuries A.D. into the Greek-Roman world. It was based on the Old and New Testament, the apostolic teachings, as well as on Judaism and Greek Philosophy. Also, the Ancient Oriental Religions – especially those of the Greek-Roman period, i.e. the Gnosticism- exerted an influence on it. The Patristic Thought and the (...) Ancient Greek Philosophy were the two main pedestals of Byzantine Philosophy. But, we cannot separate completely Patristic thought from the Byzantine Philosophy, first because the Byzantine Philosophy used all the corpus of the preceded texts of the Church Fathers and second because the Patristic Thought was continued to the end of Byzantium in interaction with Byzantine Philosophy. When we use he term Byzantine Philosophy we refer to the ideological currents that flourished from the 9th century till the 15th in the geographical area of the Greek East. Its main task was the quest for truth from the metaphysical point of view. In this era we have not only commentaries and scholastic works, but also an assimilation of the previous philosophical and scientific developments in purpose of an interior evolution. The opposition to, and the use of, the Western scholasticism were also another two special characteristics of Byzantine Thought. The use of the logical works of Aristotle and the metaphysics of Plato made up its main theoretical body, always in relation to the Christian dogmas. The logical, metaphysical, cosmological, ethical, aesthetical and anthropological subjects were closely connected with the fixed Christian view of the World, God and Man. But despite the influence of the Christian religion and the Aristotelic, Platonic, Stoic, Neoplatonic etc. teachings, today we can arrive at the conclusion that from the ninth through the fifteen century a relative autonomy of Philosophy in Byzantium was emerged. Also, the Philosophical thought in Byzantium gave some new solutions to the old problems and dared sometimes to proceed in new rational, mystical or even empirical elaborations of original philosophical questions. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the applications of Nietzschean genealogical method to the study of religions. We focus firstly on Nietzsche’s basic concepts: force, will to power, value, evaluation, and power and then go on to discuss some genealogical investigations of the religious phenomena. According to Nietzsche, the nihilist structure of European history is metaphysics itself, understood as Platonism, other-wise explained as a separation between “the real world” (of values and ideals) and the “apparent world” (of (...) sensitive things). With the help of genealogy, values and ideals are proven to be illusions or appearances; on the contrary, senses and instincts, feelings and affections are rehabilitated. In this way, Nietzsche discovers the finitude of man and reveals the original unity between body and value, between what is given to man and what he can do alone. (shrink)

Nowadays, nature is something foreign to the human being. It is material that the human being uses, makes available, and exploits without scruples. But the human being is never a subject outside of space: he is always in lived and experienced relations to space, which determine and influence him. The individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. In order to fulfil his or her life, the human being has to be able to listen to the voice of (...) nature, and abstain from the wish to control it. In such a field the lost reverence for the living world can be cultivated. Responsibility for nature is not an empty phrase, but a moral imperative that is directly connected with human life and survival. This is why we must protect the integrity of nature, and demand there be a better relationship between the human being and nature. This paper discusses the bioethical principle of 'reverence' (German Ehrfurcht ) for the living world, a concept initially presented by Albert Schweitzer using anthropological-pedagogical methods. The point of view advanced here is based on the anthropological approach of the philosopher and pedagogue O. F. Bollnow, and makes use of work by the pedagogue Yukichi Shitahodo about the anthropological preconditions of relations between a human being and the exterior world. The thesis that 'reverence' could be the basic bioethical principle governing the relationship between a human being and his environment is also founded on the modern bioethics, particularly the 'principle of responsibility' and the 'ethical imperative of prudence' as these have been formulated by philosophical biology and anthropology. (shrink)

The Dictionary of World Philosophy covers the diverse and challenging terminology, concepts, schools and traditions of the vast field of world philosophy. Providing an extremely comprehensive resource and an essential point of reference in a complex and expanding field of study the Dictionary covers all major subfields of the discipline. Key features: * Cross-references are used to highlight interconnections and the cross-cultural diffusion and adaptation of terms which has taken place over time * The user is led from specific terms (...) to master entries which provide valuable historical and cultural context * Each master entry is followed by at least two suggestions for further reading on the subject, creating a substantial bibliography of world philosophy * References extend beyond philosophy to related areas such as cognitive science, computer science, language and physics Subdisciplines covered include: * aesthetics * ethics * sociopolitical philosophy * the philosophy of law * epistemology * logic * the philosophy of science * the philosophy of mind * the philosophy of culture and history * metaphysics * the philosophy of religion Entries are drawn from West Africa, Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, Latin American, Maori and Native American philosophy including the important and so far largely neglected instance of Pre-Hispanic thought: Nahua philosophy. (shrink)

Since the inception of their discipline, anthropologists have studied virtually every conceivable aspect of other peoples' morality - religion, social control, sin, virtue, evil, duty, purity and pollution. But what of the examination of anthropology itself, and of its agendas, epistemes, theories and praxes? Conceived as a response to Patrick Tierney's hugely inflammatory book Darkness in El Dorado , whose allegations of immoral and negligent anthropological research in South America caused a storm of protest and debate, the book combines theoretical (...) papers and case studies from eminent scholars including Steven Nugent, Marilyn Silverman and Veronica Strang. Showing how the topic of ethics goes to the heart of anthropology, it raises the controversial question of why - and for whom - the anthropological discipline functions. (shrink)