I consider three questions concerning the relation of the good will to the moral worth of actions. (1) Does a good will consist simply in acting from the motive of duty? (2) Does acting from the motive of duty presuppose that one has a good will? (3) Does the fact that one has a good wilI entail that all of one’s duty-fulfilling actions have moral worth, even if they are not (directly) motivated by duty? I argue that while only (...) persons with a good will are capable of acting from the motive of duty, it does not follow either that a good will consists in acting from duty or that if one has a good will, all of one’s dutiful actions will be motivated by duty. Whereas the good will is constituted by the agent’s highest-order maxim (the moral law itself), moral worth is a function of the agent’s first-order maxims. (shrink)

I consider three questions concerning the relation of the good will to the moral worth of actions. (1) Does a good will consist simply in acting from the motive of duty? (2) Does acting from the motive of duty presuppose that one has a good will? (3) Does the fact that one has a good wilI entail that all of one’s duty-fulfilling actions have moral worth, even if they are not (directly) motivated by duty? I argue that while only (...) persons with a good will are capable of acting from the motive of duty, it does not follow either that a good will consists in acting from duty or that if one has a good will, all of one’s dutiful actions will be motivated by duty. Whereas the good will is constituted by the agent’s highest-order maxim (the moral law itself), moral worth is a function of the agent’s first-order maxims. (shrink)

Essays by Julius Baum, C. G. Jung, C. Kerényi, Hans Leisegang, Paul Masson-Oursel, Fritz Meier, Jean de Menasce, Georges Nagel, Walter F. Otto, Max Pulver, Hugo Rahner, Paul Schmitt, and Walter Wili.

Essays by Ernesto Buonaiuti, Friedrich Dessauer, C. G. Jung, Werner Kaegi, C. Kerényi, Paul Masson-Oursel, Fritz Meier, Adolf Portmann, Max Pulver, Hugo Rahner, Erwin Schrödinger, and Walter Wili.

A series of papers beautifully reprinted from various issues of the Eranos-Jahrbücher, including Walter Wili's "The Orphic Mysteries and the Greek Spirit," C. J. Jung's "Transformation Symbolism in the Mass," and Hugo Rahner's "The Christian Mystery and the Pagan Mysteries."--D. R.

Views from one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century, Walter Benjamin.

An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges (...) the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Marking the centenary of Walter Benjamin's immensely influential essay, "Toward the Critique of Violence," this critical edition presents readers with an altogether new, fully annotated translation of a work that is widely recognized as a classic of modern political theory. The volume includes twenty-one notes and fragments by Benjamin along with passages from all of the contemporaneous texts to which his essay refers. Readers thus encounter for the first time in English provocative arguments about law and violence advanced by (...) Hermann Cohen, Kurt Hiller, Erich Unger, and Emil Lederer. A new translation of selections from Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence further illuminates Benjamin's critical program. The volume also includes, for the first time in any language, a bibliography Benjamin drafted for the expansion of the essay and the development of a corresponding philosophy of law. An extensive introduction and afterword provide additional context. With its challenging argument concerning violence, law, and justice-which addresses such topical matters as police violence, the death penalty, and the ambiguous force of religion-Benjamin's work is as important today as it was upon its publication in Weimar Germany a century ago. (shrink)

A companion volume to Illuminations, the first collection of Walter Benjamin's writings, Reflections presents a further sampling of his wide-ranging work. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, reminisces about Berlin in the 1920s, recalls conversations with Bertolt Brecht, and provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin. He moves seamlessly from literary criticism to autobiography to philosophical-theological speculations, cementing his reputation as one of the greatest and most (...) versatile writers of the twentieth century. Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times. (shrink)

This classic is the benchmark against which all modern books about Nietzsche are measured. When Walter Kaufmann wrote it in the immediate aftermath of World War II, most scholars outside Germany viewed Nietzsche as part madman, part proto-Nazi, and almost wholly unphilosophical. Kaufmann rehabilitated Nietzsche nearly single-handedly, presenting his works as one of the great achievements of Western philosophy. Responding to the powerful myths and countermyths that had sprung up around Nietzsche, Kaufmann offered a patient, evenhanded account of his (...) life and works, and of the uses and abuses to which subsequent generations had put his ideas. Without ignoring or downplaying the ugliness of many of Nietzsche's proclamations, he set them in the context of his work as a whole and of the counterexamples yielded by a responsible reading of his books. More positively, he presented Nietzsche's ideas about power as one of the great accomplishments of modern philosophy, arguing that his conception of the "will to power" was not a crude apology for ruthless self-assertion but must be linked to Nietzsche's equally profound ideas about sublimation. He also presented Nietzsche as a pioneer of modern psychology and argued that a key to understanding his overall philosophy is to see it as a reaction against Christianity. Many scholars in the past half century have taken issue with some of Kaufmann's interpretations, but the book ranks as one of the most influential accounts ever written of any major Western thinker. Featuring a new foreword by Alexander Nehamas, this Princeton Classics edition of Nietzsche introduces a new generation of readers to one the most influential accounts ever written of any major Western thinker. (shrink)

Origin of the German Trauerspiel was Walter Benjamin's first full, historically oriented analysis of modernity. Readers of English know it as "The Origin of German Tragic Drama," but in fact the subject is something else--the play of mourning. Howard Eiland's completely new English translation, the first since 1977, is closer to the German text and more consistent with Benjamin's philosophical idiom. Focusing on the extravagant seventeenth-century theatrical genre of the trauerspiel, precursor of the opera, Benjamin identifies allegory as the (...) constitutive trope of the Baroque and of modernity itself. Allegorical perception bespeaks a world of mutability and equivocation, a melancholy sense of eternal transience without access to the transcendentals of the medieval mystery plays--though no less haunted and bedeviled. History as trauerspiel is the condition as well as subject of modern allegory in its inscription of the abyssal. Benjamin's investigation of the trauerspiel includes German texts and late Renaissance European drama such as Hamlet and Calderón's Life Is a Dream. The prologue is one of his most important and difficult pieces of writing. It lays out his method of indirection and his idea of the "constellation" as a key means of grasping the world, making dynamic unities out of the myriad bits of daily life. Thoroughly annotated with a philological and historical introduction and other explanatory and supplementary material, this rigorous and elegant new translation brings fresh understanding to a cardinal work by one of the twentieth century's greatest literary critics.--. (shrink)

In this essay the visual arts of the machine age morph into literature and theory and then back again to images, gestures, and thought.

Walter applies the methodology of neurophilosophy to one of philosophy's centralchallenges, the notion of free will. Neurophilosophical conclusions are based on, and consistentwith, scientific knowledge about the brain and its functioning.

Originally published in 1959, The Faith of a Heretic is the most personal statement of the beliefs of Nietzsche biographer and translator Walter Kaufmann. A first-rate philosopher in his own right, Kaufmann here provides the fullest account of his views on religion. Although he considered himself a heretic, he was not immune to the wellsprings and impulses from which religion originates, declaring it among the most vital and radical expressions of the human mind. Beginning with an autobiographical prologue that (...) traces his evolution from religious believer to "heretic," the book touches on theology, organized religion, morality, suffering, and death—all examined from the perspective of a "quest for honesty." Kaufmann also subjects philosophy's faith in truth, reason, and absolute morality to the same heretical treatment. The resulting exploration of the faiths of a nonbeliever in a secular age is as fresh and challenging as when it was first published. In a new foreword, Stanley Corngold vividly describes the intellectual and biographical milieu of Kaufmann’s provocative book. (shrink)

(1994). The moving boundary: Art, science, and the construction of reality. World Futures: Vol. 40, Art and Science: Studies from the World Academy of Art and Science, pp. 27-34.

In this radical reinterpretation of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Walter E. Wehrle demonstrates that developmental theories of Aristotle are based on a faulty assumption: that the fifth chapter of Categories is an early theory of metaphysics that Aristotle later abandoned.

Depuis l'exil, le philosophe W. Benjamin recompose, dans une sA(c)rie de brA]ves vignettes, ses souvenirs d'enfance A Berlin. Loin de l'anecdote, il s'agit d'une vA(c)ritable plongA(c)e dans l'enfance et dans l'histoire, oA se retrouvent les thA]mes essentiels de la philosophie benjaminienne. Ce texte restA(c) inA(c)dit du vivant de l'auteur, est dA(c)sormais connu en plusieurs variantes, dont celle-ci est la derniA]re A laquelle il ait mis la main. Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) est un philosophe, historien de l'art, critique littA(c)raire, critique d'art (...) et traducteur (notamment de Balzac, Baudelaire et Proust) allemand de la premiA]re moitiA(c) du XXe siA]cle, rattachA(c) A l'A(c)cole de Francfort. Traduction et prA(c)face de Pierre Rusch Postscriptum de Patricia Lavelle. (shrink)

Traducción de “Neue Dichtung in Rußland” escrito por Walter Benjamin originalmente en 1927 para la revista i10, publicada en Ámsterdam por Arthur Lehning entre 1927 y 1929. Tomamos el texto del tomo II/2 de la edición canónica de los escritos reunidos, Gesammelte Schriften, editados por Rolf Tiedemann y Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Suhrkamp, 1997 (pp. 755-762). Tomás Sufotinsky, [tradução, apresentação e notas].

This thought-provoking book initiates a dialogue among scholars in rhetoric and hermeneutics in many areas of the humanities. Twenty leading thinkers explore the ways these two powerful disciplines inform each other and influence a wide variety of intellectual fields. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde organize pivotal topics in rhetoric and hermeneutics with originality and coherence, dividing their book into four sections: Locating the Disciplines; Inventions and Applications; Arguments and Narratives; and Civic Discourse and Critical Theory. Contributors to this (...) volume include Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Gerald L. Bruns, Charles Altieri, Richard E. Palmer, Calvin O. Schrag,.Victoria Kahn, Eugene Garver, Michael Leff, Nancy S. Streuver, Wendy Olmsted, David Tracy, Donald G. Marshall, Allen Scult, Rita Copeland, William Rehg, and Steven Mailloux. For readers across the humanities, the book demonstrates the usefulness of rhetorical and hermeneutic approaches in literary, philosophical, legal, religious, and political thinking. With its stimulating new perspectives on the revival and interrelation of both rhetoric and hermeneutics, this collection is sure to serve as a benchmark for years to come. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Die spekulative Frage, wie das Denken sich und somit ein Selbst denken kann, ist die prinzipientheoretische Grundfrage der Philosophie. In ihr ist auch die transzendentale Frage nach den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit des Denkens eines Gegenstandes überhaupt enthalten. Wie sie darin enthalten ist und inwiefern die transzendentale Fragestellung auf die spekulative verweist und ihrer bedarf, wird im Anschluß an Kant zu zeigen sein, denn die spekulative Frage ist nicht die Ausgangsfrage Kantens. Kant geht aus von der Antinomie von empiristischem Skeptizismus und (...) ontologischem Dogmatismus und spielt sie an der Differenz von Ding und Denken durch, die dieser Antinomie zugrundeliegt. Die Ontologie wird darum von ihm belehrt, daß sie das Gedankending nicht mit dem Gegenstand der Erfahrung und das Denken nicht mit dem Erkennen verwechseln dürfe. Der Empirismus wird hingegen belehrt, daß die Gegen-stände der Erfahrung und ihre Zusammensetzungen kein Gegebenes, sondern ein vom Denken mit Bezug auf das Anschauungsmaterial Gemachtes sind. Die Differenz von Ding und Denken bleibt solcherart in Kants transzendentaler Frage nach den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit des Denkens eines Gegenstandes überhaupt aufbewahrt. Sie macht sich in Kants Antworten auf diese Frage aber auch geltend und bleibt als bloße Differenz von Verstandesspontaneität und rezeptiver Sinnlichkeit der blinde Fleck, um den seine Argumentationen kreisen. Die ersten vier Kapitel des vorliegenden Buches folgen diesem Kreisgang der Kantischen Beweisführung. Das Beweisziel: die transzendentallogische Entdeckung der Formen des Denkens eines Gegenstandes überhaupt, versuchen die Kapitel 5 und 6 einzulösen, indem - im Gegensatz zur ‚exoterischen‘ Lehre Kantens und zur nach-idealistischen Standardinterpretation des Kritizismus - die Vereinbarung von transzendentalem Idealismus und empirischem Realismus nicht in einem Apriori gesucht wird, das schlechterdings mit dem ‚Verstande‘ zu identifizieren wäre, sondern das gegenstandskonstitutive Verstandesapriori vielmehr aus ursprünglichen - die Differenz von Verstand und Sinnlichkeit allererst ermöglichenden - Weisen der Synthesis entwickelt wird. Diese genetische Grundlegung des Apriori ist anhand der Prinzipien der klassischen Logik und einer Analyse des Seinssinnes der Kopula “ist” als transzendentallogische Differenzierung der Urteilssynthesis durchzuführen und mit Bezug auf die Gegebenheitsweisen Raum und Zeit durch eine korrespondierende transzendental-phänomenologische Analyse zu vervollständigen. Da das genetische Apriori aber nicht unmittelbar, sondern nur vermittels der reflexiv-synthetischen Bewußtseinsstruktur auf die Kantischen Gegenstandskategorien bezogen werden kann, bleibt in Fortführung des Nachweises der Vollständigkeit der Kantischen Kategorientafel die spekulative Frage zu beantworten, wie Synthesis (Vermittlung) und damit das Denken selbst zu denken ist. Dieser Aufgabe und den damit untrennbar verbundenen Problemen der Verhältnisbestimmung von transzendentaler und formaler Logik, sowie von regulativer und konstitutiver Apriorität, sind die letzten vier Kapitel gewidmet, wobei in diesem Problemzusammenhang der Begriff der Transzendentalphilosophie in Auseinandersetzung mit einigen ihrer vor- und nach-kantischen Positionen noch näher zu klären sein wird. Wollte man das Ergebnis dieser Klärung vorweg zusammenfassen, dann ließe sich in Abwandlung eines oft zitierten Kantischen Satzes sagen, daß die transzendentale Logik seit Platon keinen Schritt rückwärts und mit Kant erst einen Schritt vorwärts hat tun dürfen und folglich schon von den ältesten Zeiten her nahezu vollendet sei. Vordergründig betrachtet, relativiert dieses Resultat den historischen Anspruch, den Kant an seine ‚Revolution der Denkungsart‘ geknüpft hat, es bekräftigt dafür jedoch um so mehr den systematischen Anspruch, den die Transzendentalphilosophie als Prinzipientheorie erheben und auch einlösen muß. (shrink)

Walter Block discusses publications by Robert Nozick, the unjustifiably ignored Michael Levin, and Ayn Rand, each of whom has criticized anarcho-capitalism, the system that takes laissez-faire capitalism to its logical extension: here, all goods and services, particularly including courts, police, and armies would be provided by competing private firms and individuals. This paper considers their arguments and rejects them.

It is shown that the first-order theory Th R (A) of a countable module over an arbitrary countable ring R is ℵ 0 -categorical if and only if $A \cong \bigoplus_{t finite, n ∈ ω, κ i ≤ ω. Furthermore, Th R (A) is ℵ 0 -categorical for all R-modules A if and only if R is finite and there exist only finitely many isomorphism classes of indecomposable R-modules.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.3 (2002) 265-269 [Access article in PDF] The Psychology and Physiology of Depression Walter Glannon Trauma and stressful events can disrupt the physiologic homeostasis of our bodies and brains. The physiologic stress response consists of neural and endocrine mechanisms whose function is to reestablish homeostasis. These mechanisms include the secretion of glucocorticoids (cortisol) and catecholemines (epinephrine and norepinephrine). Once an external event has ceased (...) to be a stressor or threat to a human organism, an integrated system of negative feedback loops inhibits the continued production of these hormones and effectively shuts down the stress response. These mechanisms are adaptive in the sense that they ensure the survival of the organism by reestablishing homeostasis. But prolonged exposure to real or perceived stressors can trigger prolonged secretion of stress hormones, thereby disrupting the feedback systems and causing a cascade of pathogenic events. The stress response is a double-edged sword. An acute stress response can protect an organism from external threats and reestablish homeostasis. But a chronic stress response can cause the body's defenses to become damaging rather than protective and to result in various disorders. Acute stress responses are adaptive. Chronic stress responses are often maladaptive and pathogenic.In "Depression as a Mind-Body Problem," I characterized major clinical depression as a disorder resulting from a maladaptive chronic stress response (Glannon 2003). Specifically, I argued that depression often results when our beliefs and emotions are out of proportion to the true nature of external events. The mind prolongs rather than constrains the physiologic stress response. Depression is not a disorder of the brain alone or the mind alone, however. Endocrine and immune dysfunction can contribute to the dysfunction in the brain and central nervous system that are involved in depression. Moreover, the contents of the mental states that initiate the sequence of events leading to depression are reflections of the person's natural and social environment. Thus, a satisfactory account of depression requires an analysis of the interconnections among the central nervous, endocrine, and immune systems, as well as the mind and the environment. All of these factors support the description of depression as a psychoneuroimmunologic disorder.Mike Martin (Martin 2003) and Thomas Fuchs (Fuchs 2003) discuss important aspects of depression that I did not elaborate in my paper. Martin argues that I fail to distinguish between depression as a mood and depression as a disorder. This is pertinent to the distinction evolutionary psychiatrists draw between moods that are adaptive and moods that are maladaptive. In contrast to my negative characterization of depression, Martin also makes a case for the positive [End Page 265] contributions of depression to meaningful life. Fuchs explores the notion of the brain as an organ of translation enabling patients to have meaningful subjective experience. The emphasis on subjectivity has important implications for potential preventive and therapeutic interventions for depression. For whether a person perceives an external event as a stressor may play a crucial role in the physiologic stress response. I will address the main points of these two authors in turn.Contrary to what Martin claims, I explicitly defined chronic depression as an affective (mood) disorder. My focus was on the clinical definition of major depression as a moderately severe to severe chronic disorder. It consists of affective, cognitive, and even physical dysfunction that interferes with a person's ability to carry out the normal tasks of daily life. This characterization of major chronic depression distinguishes it from milder forms of depression, such as dysthymia. Because these milder forms do not involve the same type or degree of dysfunction as more severe forms, they are not appropriately characterized as pathologies. For this reason, I focused on Nesse's (2000) discussion of depression rather than on his discussion of low mood. In fairness to Nesse and Stevens and Price (2000), not all forms of depression are pathologic according to the evolutionary view they defend. Some passive aspects of mild depression may be useful in alerting us to dangerous or wasteful behavior. It does seem plausible to describe depressed moods as falling along a continuum from those that... (shrink)