In this study of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Paul S. Loeb proposes a fresh account of the relation between the book's literary and philosophical aspects and argues that the book's narrative is designed to embody and exhibit the truth of eternal recurrence. Loeb shows how Nietzsche constructed a unified and complete plot in which the protagonist dies, experiences a deathbed revelation of his endlessly repeating life, and then returns to his identical life so as to recollect this revelation and gain (...) a power over time that advances him beyond the human. Through close textual analysis and careful attention to Nietzsche's use of Platonic, biblical, and Wagnerian themes, Loeb explains how this novel design is the key to solving the many riddles of Thus Spoke Zarathustra - including its controversial fourth part, its obscure concept of the Übermensch, and its relation to Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. (shrink)

While Weber’s distinction between ‘ideal’ and ‘material’ interests is one of the most enduring aspects of his theoretical legacy, it has been subjected to little critical commentary. In this article, we revisit the theoretical legacy of interest-based explanation in social theory, with an eye to clarifying Weber’s place in this tradition. We then reconsider extant critical commentary on the ideal/material interest distinction, noting the primarily Parsonian rendering of Weber and the unproductive allegiance to ‘generic need’ readings of Weber’s action theory. (...) We reconstruct the basis of the ideal/material interest distinction in the work of Rudolph von Ihering and provide a sounder basis for its analytic role in Weber’s ‘grand’ project. (shrink)

While discovery of error provides personal gain for the entrepreneur, does this process automatically allocate value equitably among all stakeholders? We argue that the entrepreneurial process can be used to generate or maintain an entrepreneur’s personal wealth through the exploitation of a stakeholder group. Thus entrepreneurship can be both an equilibrating and a disequilibrating process and that both the visible hand of government and the decisions of an entrepreneur can speed or slow our movement toward value equilibrium. Speed toward value (...) equilibrium is likely to be important to a victimized stakeholder group and deserves further scholarly attention. (shrink)

Research papers, chiefly on ancient Indic philosophy, and a few on Indian civilization.

On the method of Saint Giovanni Bosco, 1815-1888, in guidance and counselling.

Work on Mimamsa philosophy; includes Āśutoṣiṇī commentary and Hindi translation.

Is there any link between the doctrine of logical fatalism and prime numbers? What do logic and prime numbers have in common? The book adopts truth-functional approach to examine functional properties of finite-valued Łukasiewicz logics Łn+1. Prime numbers are defined in algebraic-logical terms and represented as rooted trees. The author designs an algorithm which for every prime number n constructs a rooted tree where nodes are natural numbers and n is a root. Finite-valued logics Kn+1 are specified that they have (...) tautologies if and only if n is a prime number. It is discovered that Kn+1 have the same functional properties as Łn+1 whenever n is a prime number. Thus, Kn+1 are 'logics' of prime numbers. Amazingly, combination of logics of prime numbers led to uncovering a law of generation of classes of prime numbers. Along with characterization of prime numbers author also gives characterization, in terms of Łukasiewicz logical matrices, of powers of primes, odd numbers, and even numbers. (shrink)

Scholars have long debated the relationship between Kant’s doctrine of right and his doctrine of virtue (including his moral religion or ethico-theology), which are the two branches of his moral philosophy. This article will examine the intimate connection in his practical philosophy between perpetual peace and the highest good, between political and ethico-religious communities, and between the types of transparency peculiar to each. It will show how domestic and international right provides a framework for the development of ethical communities, including (...) a kingdom of ends and even the noumenal ethical community of an afterlife, and how the transparency and trust achieved in these communities is anticipated in rightful political society by publicity and the mutual confidence among citizens that it engenders. Finally, it will explore the implications of this synthesis of Kant’s political and religious philosophies for contemporary Kantian political theories, especially those of Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls. (shrink)

This volume contains the English translation of Felix Kaufmann's (1895-1945) main work Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften (1936). In this book, Kaufmann develops a general theory of knowledge of the social sciences in his role as a cross-border commuter between Husserl's phenomenology, Kelsen's pure theory of law and the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle. This multilayered inquiry connects the value-oriented reflections of a general philosophy of science with the specificity of the methods and theories of the social sciences, as opposed to (...) abstract natural science and psychology. The core focus of the study is the attempt to elucidate how and under what conditions scientific knowledge about social facts, empirically justified and theoretically embedded, can be obtained. The empirical basis of knowledge within the social sciences forms a phenomenological concept of experience. According to Kaufmann, this concept of experience exhibits a complex structure. Within the meaning-interpretation of human action as the core of knowledge in the social sciences, this structure reaches out across the isolated act of verification toward the synthesis of external and internal experiences. The book opens with a detailed and useful introduction by Ingeborg K. Helling, which introduces the historical and theoretical background of Kaufmann's study and specifically illuminates his relation to Alfred Schütz and John Dewey. Finally, it contains interviews with and letters to members of his family, colleagues and students. (shrink)

ʻAyn al-Quḍāh al-Hamadhānī, ʻAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad, -1131. ; Ontology -- Islam. ; Knowledge, Theory of (Islam). ; Sufis -- Iran -- Biography. ; Muslim philosophers -- Iran -- Biography.