This book comprises a selection of William McBride's essays on theory and practice in the former Yugoslavia, 1989 - 1999. It continues the critical assessment of neoliberal globalization from the vantage point of its effects on East-Central and Southern Europe that McBride presented in Philosophical Reflections. Unlike the earlier book, it situates discussions of globalization and neonationalist wars against the backdrop of the history, development, and demise of Praxis Philosophy — the one-time bridge between the progressive forces of former Yugoslavia (...) and various East-West initiatives. (shrink)

Noted scholar Joseph S. Catalano here brings together his new work on Sartre's ethics with five of his classic essays on Sartre's moral thought. In an extended opening essay, Catalano uses Sartre's notion of mediation as a means to integrate the entire range of the French philosopher's moral insights. In the second half of the book, Catalano attempts to delineate a viable notion of good faith, and to distinguish between good and bad faith on the one hand and authenticity and (...) inauthenticity on the other hand. (shrink)

Over the course of the last four decades, William Leon McBride has distinguished himself as one of the most esteemed and accomplished philosophers of his generation. This volume—which celebrates the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday—includes contributions from colleagues, friends, and formers students and pays tribute to McBride’s considerable achievements as a teacher, mentor, and scholar.

This collection of essays is a critical document in Continental philosophy, reflecting its recent history, its present state, and its debt to Calvin O. Schrag. It begins with an overview of philosophy's role and responsibility or "task" and of Schrag's contributions to it, written from the perspective of a resolute defender of the phenomenological tradition that Schrag's work has extended and reconfigured. The essays are organized around the four conceptual figures widely considered Schrag's most significant and original philosophical achievements: transversal (...) rationality, the self after post-modernity, the fourth cultural value sphere, and communication praxis. The authors focus on topics ranging from Cartesian rationality to Foucauldian rational relativism; from transcendence in relation to the self to the Schragean self's connections with discourse, action, and community; from religion's disruptive presence in contemporary philosophy to recent developments in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

The issue that I wish to address is, why protest and criticize the increasing hegemony of what has been called the “culture of consumerism”? This “why not?” objection encompasses three distinct sets of questions. First, is not resistance to it akin to playing the role of King Canute by the sea? Second, is not acceptance of it dictated by the current liberal philosophical consensus that acknowledges and endorses an inevitable diversity in different individuals’ conceptions of what is good, and must (...) not this consensus itself be taken as a given by all who are opposed to political and religious totalitarianisms? Third, does not cosmopolitanism, regarded as a value-orientation favorable to the dissolution or at least minimization of national boundaries and the practices of exclusivity associated therewith, make common cause in the present historical conjuncture with this same trend? I will argue for a “No” answer to all of these questions. (shrink)

Theoretisch befanden sich die falschen Linien in der Theorie der liberalen Demokratie schon immer an mindestens zwei wichtigen Stellen: im Prozess oder Prozedere und im Resultat. Was das Erste betrifft, so bestand das Problem darin, dass versucht wurde sicherzustellen, dass der „Wille des Volkes“ – oder zumindest der der relevanten Menschen, der wählbaren Wähler – durch anschauliche, praktische Mechanismen zum Ausdruck kommt. Entsprechend dem Konsens der bedeutendsten Theoretiker der liberalen Demokratie in der neueren Vergangenheit gelten als solche Mechanismen die Wahlen (...) für Repräsentativorgane und die nachfolgenden Stimmen der Wahlsieger. Doch auf jedem Schritt stoßen wir auf Instanzen der gewählten Regierungen, die die Mehrheitsansichten desselben Personenkreises, von dem sie ursprünglich gewählt worden waren, preisgeben. Die Theorie der liberalen Demokratie besagt, dass solange angebrachte Verfahren zum Ausdruck des Willens der Mehrheit angewandt werden im Hinblick darauf, wer sie vertreten soll, die Vertreter berechtigt sind, gegen den manifesten Willen des Volkes zu stimmen. Doch dies ist natürlich ein offensichtlicher Widerspruch. Was die Frage der Resultate betrifft, so hat sich die neueste Theorie der liberalen Demokratie eine noch tiefere Grube gegraben, da sie sich vom Begriff des Allgemeinwohls abgewandt hat, zu dem zumindest einige frühere Theoretiker in dieser Tradition standen. Die Theorie der liberalen Demokratie hat sich letztlich selbst jegliche kritische Funktion in Bezug auf die Resultate abgesprochen. Statt dessen ist sie gezwungen, jedes Ergebnis zu ratifizieren, ohne Rücksicht darauf, wie offensichtlich es irreführend oder sogar tragisch sein mag, solange es das Erzeugnis einer akzeptierten autoritativen Bündels von Verfahren und Institutionen ist. Eine neue theoretische Richtung wird sicherlich gegen alle Elemente ankämpfen müssen, die größtenteils im Rawlsschen Ansatz und den Schriften der meisten seiner liberaldemokratischen Mitläufer fehlen: mit Macht, Gewalt, Domination, Ideologie, Entschlüssen, Deutungen, politischem Ausdruck, Revolution, Geschichte, Ökonomie, Biopolitik. Was wir dringend brauchen, sind neue Modelle sozialer und politischer Philosophie! (shrink)

Der Artikel hinterfragt kritisch die Krise in der Gesetzesherrschaft im Kontext der zeitgenössischen US-Politik. Es werden einige Beispiele der US-amerikanischen Innen- und Außenpolitik angeführt, die mit dem sog. ,Demokratiekult’ in Zusammenhang stehen. Der Text beschäftigt sich in seinem ersten Teil mit dem offiziellen Verhältnis der USA zur internationalen Gesetzgebung, des Weiteren mit der Institution des Präsidentenamtes und seiner Macht sowie mit der Rolle des Obersten Gerichtshofes der USA. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit werden bestimmte philosophische Implikationen der amerikanischen Politik in (...) Bezug auf Fragen der Demokratie und der Gesetzesherrschaft hinterfragt. (shrink)

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Existentialist Ethics Ethics was Sartre's principal concern, beginning with his famous and complex treatment of "bad faith" in Being and Nothingness, and continuing through his massive posthumously-published Notebooks for an Ethics of the late 1940's, and his mostly unpublished lecture notes that date back to 1964. This volume contains highly informed analyses of all of these materials and other Sartrean works on ethics, as well as interpretations emphasizing the confrontation of his ethical ideas with inauthenticity, sexism, and racism.

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection of essays and reviews represents the most significant and comprehensive writing on Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. Miola's edited work also features a comprehensive critical history, coupled with a full bibliography and photographs of major productions of the play from around the world. In the collection, there are five previously unpublished essays. The topics covered in these new essays are women in the play, the play's debt to contemporary theater, its critical and performance histories in Germany and Japan, (...) the metrical variety of the play, and the distinctly modern perspective on the play as containing dark and disturbing elements. To compliment these new essays, the collection features significant scholarship and commentary on The Comedy of Errors that is published in obscure and difficulty accessible journals, newspapers, and other sources. This collection brings together these essays for the first time. (shrink)

Existentialist Ontology and Human Consciousness The majority of the distinguished scholarly articles in this volume focus on Sartre's early philosophical work, which dealt first with imagination and the emotions, then with the critique of Husserl's notion of a transcendental ego, and finally with systematic ontology presented in his best-known book, Being and Nothingness. In addition, since his preoccupation with ontological questions and especially with the meanings of ego, self, and consciousness endured throughout his career, other essays discuss these themes in (...) light of later developments both in Sartre's own thought and in the phenomenological, hermeneutic, and analytic traditions. (shrink)

Existentialist Politics and Political Theory The publication of the Critique of Dialectical Reason in 1960 marked the culmination of Sartre's efforts, begun in his more occasional political writings in what became essentially his journal, Les Temps Modernes, and developed more systematically in his important essay, Search for a Method, to forge links between existentialism and a non-orthodox version of Marxism with a view to developing a new philosophy of politics, society, and history and a new approach to the philosophy of (...) the social sciences. The articles provide a wide-ranging, insightful exploration of Sartre's successes and failures in this domain. (shrink)

John Wild, phenomenology in America, and the origins of SPEP Content Type Journal Article Pages 281-284 DOI 10.1007/s11007-011-9194-5 Authors William L. McBride, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA Journal Continental Philosophy Review Online ISSN 1573-1103 Print ISSN 1387-2842 Journal Volume Volume 44 Journal Issue Volume 44, Number 3.

The unfinished, posthumously published second volume of Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason consists for the most part of a study of the evolution of the Soviet Union under the reign of Stalin. Essentially, Sartre sees this history as amounting to a lengthy deviation from the goal of socialism, a deviation that he regards as thoroughly intelligible in light of social and historical circumstances. Some ten years after abandoning his work on this book, on the occasion of the Soviet invasion (...) of Czechoslovakia, Sartre concluded that this ‘deviation’ was permanent. At the same time, Sartre believed, as he had stated already in Volume I of the Critique, that the post-Stalinist era must be characterized as ‘One World’, a historical turning away from the plurality that had prevailed in all of past human history. The present essay attempts to capture Sartre's approach to history as ongoing ‘totalization’ – conflict-filled, subject to contingency and chance and the frequent occurrence of ‘holes’, and nevertheless intelligible. Although Stalin died many decades ago, and the Soviet Union itself no longer exists as such, it is argued here that Sartre's approach in this book is very useful as a key to the present time. Future history is indeed unpredictable, but Sartre's techniques of historical analysis remain valid. It is also contended, more controversially, that today the ideal of democracy may be in the process of following the path of socialism in the direction of permanent deviation. (shrink)

Offers various views on phenomenology and existentialism.

The dramatic events of 1989 and their aftermath raise fundamental questions about the nature of social and intellectual change, about the relation of philosophy to politics, and above all about human values within the global structures of today. This book offers a sober, critical analysis of the post-Marxist realities of the old Eastern Bloc and provides an overview of significant aspects of both the 'bygone era' and the present situation in the region. It analyzes the phenomenon of ideological conversation, re-examines (...) the relationship of philosophy to politics, and revisits questions about freedom, democracy, justice, civil society, religion, nationalism, and human relationships, in light of the changes there, together with the entire question of 'globalization.'. (shrink)