Against the background of the fact that speakers not seldom intend to convey imports which deviate from the linguistically expressed meanings of linguistic items, the present article addresses some consequences of this phenomenon which appear to still be neglected in textual studies. It is suggested that understanding behaviour is in some respect a primary objective of exegesis and that due attention must be attributed to the high diversity of behaviour-related criteria by which interpretations of linguistic items are to (...) be evaluated. Although we intimate in addition that individual (meaningful) sentences occurring either in oral conversations or in written documents generally exhibit a multiplicity of contents of diverse types and that the circumstance that sometimes only a content equalling the linguistic significance of a pertinent unit matters for purposes of interpretation is caused by a material coincidence of different varieties of content, the tenets advocated in the paper do not essentially depend on that view. On the other hand, the following assumptions are relevant in the present connection: (a) A number of deviances between imports conveyed by linguistic utterances and literal meanings of expressions occur due to maxims of linguistic behaviour that are quite independent of lexical and syntactic features of individual natural languages. (b) It is by no means an exceptional phenomenon that imports not derivable by grammatical rules of a particular language alone possess primary importance for interpretation and textual exegesis. In view of significant affinities between understanding of sentences and of texts it is argued that the consideration of diverse aspects of behaviour possesses relevance for textual exegesis at least in the following respects: (1) By delivering a heuristic device for discerning problems affecting adopted interpretations it encourages searches for alternatives. (2) It provides means for evaluating the degree of acceptability of particular textual exegeses and possibly rejecting them on a more rational basis than mere intuition. (3) It offers possibilities for critically assessing the validity of explicit arguments advanced in favour of or in opposition to some interpretation. (4) It furnishes a background for assessing certain disputes about translation. The dimension of linguistic behaviour also attains importance in connection with questions of exegesis which are not concerned with assessments of (propositional) contents intended to be communicated, such as the ascertainment of the function which some argument possesses in a context. For substantiating the thesis that omission of raising relevant questions concerning behaviour is not an isolated phenomenon two examples will be employed: (1) A discussion concerning the exegesis of a crucial passage of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya and the Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti, (2) a critical appraisal of a recent publication dealing with the interpretation of the second chapter of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā-s. (shrink)

The article deals with some facets of the phenomenon of the underdetermination of meaning by (linguistic) data which are particularly relevant for textual exegesis in the historico-philological disciplines. The paper attempts to demonstrate that lack of relevant information is by no means the only important reason why certain issues of interpretation cannot be definitely settled by means of traditional philological methods but that the objective nonexistence of pertinent data is equally significant. It is claimed that the phenomenon of (...) objective under-determination possesses among others two major consequences: (1) A strict separation between the exploration of the history of (Indian) philosophy and philosophical criticism is theoretically incorrect. (2) Transference of indeterminacy and vagueness to the target langue in translations of textual sources is not only legitimate but sometimes most appropriate. Presumably the relevance of the discussed issues is not strictly confined to the area of Indian philosophy. (shrink)

The Vida de Santa Oria is the most problematic of Gonzalo de Berceo's works. There is disagreement about its textual integrity, and important elements of its structure are imperfectly understood. The intent of this article is to demonstrate Berceo's use of literary and iconographic material prominent in the thirteenth-century monastic culture of San Millán de la Cogolla to construct a moral and eschatological definition of the contemplative life. The Vida de Santa Oria renders Christian eschatology through an elaborate symbolic (...) structure, circumscribed physically and spiritually by the cloister walls of San Millán, where Berceo, a secular priest, served as notary of one of the abbots. The economy of Berceo's communicative method is no small part of the excellence of his poem; his artistic self-cloistering mirrors the existential condition of his hagiographic subject. It derives from a conscious and complex choice, rather than from any limitation of his intellectual horizons. (shrink)

This work of intellectual and cultural history seeks to understand the recurring connection of teaching with contradiction in some major texts of the European Middle Ages. It moves comfortably between patristic and monastic exegesis, the Paris schools of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and late medieval Spain; between Latin and vernacular, between religious and secular. It assimilates the methodologies of religious and erotic texts, thereby displaying the investment of each in the sensuality and analytical power of language. The book (...) begins by exploring Christian exegesis, in which biblical contradiction is the textual incarnation of a Truth that is at once and paradoxically singular and multiple. Exegesis teaches us of the possibility of maintaining the truth in one biblical proposition and, equally and simultaneously, in its apparent opposite. Under the aegis of dialectic and the Aristotelian rule of non-contradiction, however, we are next taught to read either/or, and to resolve contradiction not through suspension and multiplicity, as in exegesis, but rather through a judgment that favors either one proposition or the other. The writers studied here are John of Salisbury, whose Metalogicon is an ostensibly moderating critique of the intellectual extremism of the School of Paris logicians, and Peter Abelard, in whose life and writing the forces of contradiction work with maiming and illuminating violence. The book then considers the teaching-textuality of two great secular works of the Middle Ages, formed under the double instruction of the master disciplines of monastic exegesis and dialectic and under the tutelage of Ovid. Calling simultaneously on the both-and of exegesis and the either/or of dialectic, the teaching of these two texts is both biblical and worldly—impossibly, both at once, always in motion. The De Amore of Andreas Capellanus teaches two opposite propositions and commands that either one or the other must be chosen, yet in practice shows each proposition to be deeply embedded in the other. The concluding chapter turns from the Latin to the vernacular tradition to study one of the lesser-known examples of contradictory teaching, the fourteenth-century Libro de Buen Amor of Juan Ruiz, whose titular "good love" conflates the contrary things of spiritual and carnal love, while reminding readers that the difference between the two is urgently consequential. (shrink)

This paper analyses the discussion between Foucault and Derrida on the subject of Cartesian doubt. In order to find a solution, the methodology applied retains some aspects of Foucault's analysis of discursive practices and, at the same time, goes beyond the intra-textual Derridian exegesis. In particular, the relevance of the Cartesian evil genius allows to read Cartesian philosophy in terms of baroque thought, instead of the classical rationalist reading of his works.

En este trabajo se analiza la discusión entre Foucault y Derrida a propósito de la duda cartesiana. En el intento de darle solución, se opta metodológicamente por una interpretación del problema que se sitúa más acá del análisis foucaultiano de las prácticas discursivas, pero más allá de la exégesis puramente intra-textual derridiana. En concreto, se muestra la gravedad que para el asunto tiene la hipótesis del genio maligno, comparando el tratamiento cartesiano con el que décadas antes propusiera Francisco Suárez (...) en sus Disputationes Metaphysicae y apostando por una lectura más barroca que racionalista de la filosofía de Descartes. (shrink)

The Second Edition of _Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity_ now includes extensively revised and supplemented coverage of the Wittgenstein's complex and controversial remarks on following rules. Includes thoroughly rewritten essays and the addition of one new essay on communitarian and individualist conceptions of rule-following Includes a greatly expanded essay on Wittgenstein’s conception of logical, mathematical and metaphysical necessity Features updates to the textual exegesis as the result of taking advantage of the search engine for the Bergen edition of (...) the _Nachlass_ Reflects the results of scholarly debates on rule-following that have raged over the past 20 years. (shrink)

Este trabajo se ocupa de una interpolación textual transmitida por sólo dos manuscritos altomedievales en el capítulo que Isidoro de Sevilla dedica al libro de Job en sus Prooemia: Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. Barberini 505 y Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek Cod. Augiensis Perg. 229. A partir de la transcripción del texto de ambos manuscritos y de la identificación su fuente (un pasaje de los Moralia in Iob de Gregorio Magno), ofrece una reflexión acerca de la semejanza entre (...) los procedimientos exegéticos de Gregorio e Isidoro como elemento que pudo motivar la redacción interpolada del capítulo. (shrink)

In the De Generatione et Corruptione II 9, Aristotle aims to achieve the confirmation of his theory of the necessity of the efficient cause. In this chapter he sets out his criticism on the one hand of those who wrongly attributed the efficient cause to other kinds of causality and on the other, of those who ignored the efficient cause. More specifically Aristotle divides all preceding theories which attempted to explain generation and corruption into two groups: i) those which offered (...) an explanation by using the formal cause ii) those which provided an explanation by using the material or the instrumental causes. According to Philopo­nus, when Aristotle reproaches the other philosophers for adducing no proper notion of the efficient cause he alludes to both Anaxagoras and Plato. Regarding Anaxagoras, in our view this cannot be confirmed by internal textual evidence. In terms of Plato, in this chapter we trace an explicit and an implicit criticism of the Platonic Forms as causes. Aris­totle’s implicit criticism is that the Forms are not at all active causes. We can understand better the grounds for this criticism if we also consider his relevant arguments in Book Lambda of his Metaphysics. His explicit criticism, articulated in two arguments, is formulated in GC 335b18–24. We examine the different lines of its interpretation in the second­ary literature, but primarily we focus on Philoponus’ exegesis, which contributes significantly, not only to the clarification of Aristotle’s thinking, but also to the manifestation of the arguments articulated in defence of the Platonic theory of the Forms. In this paper, through the analysis of Philoponus’ exegesis we set out to prove that Aristotle’s criticism of the Platonic causes can be construed from the perspective of either Aristo­telian theory or the Platonic and Neoplatonic influence. Finally, based on Philoponus’ exegesis, we examine Aristotle’s criticism of those who posited matter or instrumental causes as efficient causes. (shrink)

The Second Edition of _Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity_ now includes extensively revised and supplemented coverage of the Wittgenstein's complex and controversial remarks on following rules. Includes thoroughly rewritten essays and the addition of one new essay on communitarian and individualist conceptions of rule-following Includes a greatly expanded essay on Wittgenstein’s conception of logical, mathematical and metaphysical necessity Features updates to the textual exegesis as the result of taking advantage of the search engine for the Bergen edition of (...) the _Nachlass_ Reflects the results of scholarly debates on rule-following that have raged over the past 20 years. (shrink)

The debate over the authorship of the allegorical interpretation of Heliodorus’ novel extant in codex Marc. Gr. 410 bequeathed to subsequent scholarship the assumption that the text belongs to the Neoplatonic allegorical tradition of reading Homer. This essay aims to revisit this philosophical attribution and argue that the terms and philosophical categories alluded in this allegory are characteristic of a long tradition of Patristic analysis, and more specifically of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor’s exegesis. Setting forth new (...) class='Hi'>textual evidence, it argues that the exegetical practice displayed in the allegory reflects Maximus Confessor’s anagogical exegesis and Gregory of Nyssa’s pedagogy of desire and doctrine of spiritual progress as set forth in the Homilies on the Song of Songs and The Life of Moses. (shrink)

The paper argues on the basis of internal textual evidence that Nietzsche's statement that Essay 3 of On the Genealogy of Morality illustrates an aphorism has hitherto been misinterpreted. The aphorism in question is Section 1 of Essay 3 (which was in fact inserted a late stage of publication); the remainder of Essay 3 is the commentary on it. Those interpreters who have taken the short epigram concerning 'wisdom as a woman' to be the aphorism on which Essay 3 (...) is the commentary have invented theories concerning what Nietzsche means by 'intepretation' that are rendered unnecessary by locating the correct aphorism. (shrink)

John Paul II is often misread as more of a philosopher than a theologian. But his Theology of the Body, rightly read, is in its entirety an exercise in exegesis. By focusing on the Bible, he gives a more fully theological account of his topic, one focused on the mystery of redemption by grace, rather than on merely human efforts.

One of the iconographic trends that became especially articulated in the XII century is the strengthening of the role of typological logic in the selection and organization of subjects within the iconographic program of monuments of decorative and applied art, book illumination and stained glass. Interest in this kind of visual exegesis, based on the symbolic parallelism of the Old and New Testaments, generates experiments in the field of iconographic programs, which leads to the appearance in the late XII (...) – early XIII centuries a number of monuments in which detailed typological cycles are used (the Klosterneuburg altar, typological stained glass windows of French and English cathedrals). The subject of the research in this article is the connection of the described iconographic trend with texts of a theological, theosophical and liturgical nature. Despite the fact that some of the mentioned texts have already been involved by researchers of Christian iconography for the interpretation of pictorial programs, a special study of the sources of "typological iconography" in the XII century has not been implemented yet. Based on the analysis of a number of texts and iconographic analysis of fine art monuments, an attempt is made to identify a group of sources that could be familiar to the compilers of iconographic programs. Among the monuments of fine art, works created in the Rheno-mosan region (as well as derivatives of this tradition) are of particular interest in the XII century. In this group of works of art (including processional and altar crosses, phylacteries, portable altars, works of stained glass and book illumination), searches in the field of typological iconography are consistently realized. (shrink)

Textual exegesis is used to show that Marx's concept of social labor is transhistorical, referring to a collective activity of humans as a species. The collective nature of labor is suspended in capitalist production because of the anarchic character of market relations. But the suspension is skin deep: The sociality of labor asserts itself in a mediated manner through the alienated empowerment of goods with value. This is commodity fetishism, which vanishes when relations of production become actually collective?matching (...) the transhistorical essence of labor. Marx's concept of social labor is adjudged inadequate. It amounts to asserting that the actions of agents could be ex ante calculated according to a global rationality. In this respect, Marx's concept of social labor is reminiscent of the equally deficient notion of perfect competition in mainstream neoclassical economics. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is to provide support for the contention that two fundamental treatises representing the teaching of Madhyamaka, viz. the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās and the Vigrahavyāvartanī, were designed to establish and justify a metaphysical tenet claiming that no particulars of any kind can exist on some level of final analysis and that this was the only primary concern of those works. Whereas the former text is in the first place dedicated to providing proofs of the central metaphysical thesis the major (...) objective of the second treatise lies in a defense of the claim against possible objections. A correlate of this view regarding the content of those two works is on the one hand that the philosophy of the founder of the Madhyamaka-school essentially consists in a metaphysical teaching implying a radical rejection of a stance propagated in earlier Buddhist schools according to which objects of ordinary experience could be reduced to or explained by the existence of other sorts of particulars that can be theoretically postulated. On the other hand the exegesis advocated in the article implies that theorems pertaining to the nature of language or the relationship between language and non-linguistic reality are not at all a predominant issue in the pertinent texts and presumably were not a major matter of concern of early Madhyamaka in general. Accordingly matters pertaining to questions of semantics attain relevance at best in the form of objective consequences which the metaphysical doctrine might entail. The paper focuses on the second chapter of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās as well as the segment of the Vigrahavyāvartanī which deals with the first major problem, represented by the verses 1–4 and 21–29. The reason is that a detailed and thoroughgoing investigation of these two textual passages is suited to disprove a contention voiced by Western scholars who suppose that the teaching of the founder of Madhyamaka embodies a particular claim pertaining to the relationship between language and non-linguistic reality. (shrink)

On the basis of careful textual exegesis and philosophical analysis, and contrary to the received view, Mark R. Wheeler demonstrates that Aristotle presents and systematically explicates his definition of the essence of the truth in the Metaphysics. Aristotle states the nominal definitions of the terms "truth" and "falsehood" as part of his arguments in defense of the logical axioms. These nominal definitions express conceptions of truth and falsehood his philosophical opponents would have recognized and accepted in the context (...) of dialectical argument. On the basis of these nominal definitions, Aristotle develops his definitions of the essences of truth and falsehood--his "real" definitions of truth and falsehood. Aristotle's methodical exposition of his essential definitions of truth and falsehood in the Metaphysics serves as a well-developed example of how his philosophical inquiry starts with nominal definitions and ends with real definitions. Wheeler also argues for the novel claim that Aristotle defines the most fundamental kind of truth in terms of accurate measurement. Aristotle's metrical conception of truth serves as the theoretical basis for specifying the truth conditions of various assertions, for identifying the sorts of beings implicated in these truth conditions, and for explaining the nature of approximate truth and falsehood. Far from offering us a minimal account of truth, Wheeler shows how Aristotle offers us a sophisticated and metrical theory of truth. (shrink)

This paper undertakes textual exegesis and rational reconstruction of Mukula Bhaṭṭa’s Abhidhā-vṛttta-mātṛkā, or “The Fundamentals of the Communicative Function.” The treatise was written to refute Ānandavardhana’s claim, made in the Dhvanyāloka, that there is a third “power” of words, vyañjanā (suggestion), beyond the two already accepted by traditional Indian philosophy: abhidhā (denotation) and lakṣaṇā(indication).1 I argue that the explanation of lakṣaṇā as presented in his text contains internal tensions, although it may still be a compelling response to Ānandavardhana.

Authored by an interdisciplinary team of experts, including historians, classicists, philosophers and theologians, this original collection of essays offers the first authoritative analysis of the multifaceted reception of Greek ethics in late antiquity and Byzantium, opening up a hitherto under-explored topic in the history of Greek philosophy. The essays discuss the sophisticated ways in which moral themes and controversies from antiquity were reinvigorated and transformed by later authors to align with their philosophical and religious outlook in each period. Topics examined (...) range from ethics and politics in Neoplatonism and ethos in the context of rhetorical theory and performance to textual exegesis on Aristotelian ethics. The volume will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy, classics, patristic theology, and those working on the history of education and the development of Greek ethics. (shrink)

Harmony is a concept essential to Confucianism and to the way of life of past and present people in East Asia. Integrating methods of textual exegesis, historical investigation, comparative analysis, and philosophical argumentation, this book presents a comprehensive treatment of the Confucian philosophy of harmony. The book traces the roots of the concept to antiquity, examines its subsequent development, and explicates its theoretical and practical significance for the contemporary world. It argues that, contrary to a common view in (...) the West, Confucian harmony is not mere agreement but has to be achieved and maintained with creative tension. Under the influence of a Weberian reading of Confucianism as "adjustment" to a world with an underlying fixed cosmic order, Confucian harmony has been systematically misinterpreted in the West as presupposing an invariable grand scheme of things that pre-exists in the world to which humanity has to conform. The book shows that Confucian harmony is a dynamic, generative process, which seeks to balance and reconcile differences and conflicts through creativity. Illuminating one of the most important concepts in Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, this book is of interest to students of Chinese studies, history and philosophy in general and eastern philosophy in particular. (shrink)

The paper explores the extent to which one of the most cited passages in the Western literature on Madhyamaka furnishes a solid basis for particular interpretations regarding the author of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikās. On the one hand it is attempted to show that MMK 24.18 harmonizes well with an exegesis according to which the creator of the concerned work propagated a view that could be labelled by the designation ‘Metaphysical Illusionism’. On the other hand particular features pertaining to natural language (...) and linguistic communication in general are explored in order to a) account for methodological principles as well as limitations to which exegetical undertakings in the pertinent matter are subject and b) to provide an explanation for certain characteristics of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy. (shrink)

In A Philosophical Defense of Culture, Shuchen Xiang draws on the Confucian philosophy of "culture" and Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms to argue for the importance of "culture" as a philosophic paradigm. A defining ideal of Confucian-Chinese civilization, culture (wen) spans everything from natural patterns and the individual units that make up Chinese writing to literature and other refining vocations of the human being. Wen is thus the soul of Confucian-Chinese philosophy. Similarly, as a philosopher who bridged the classical (...) age of German humanism and postwar modernity, Cassirer implored his and future generations to think of humankind in terms of their culture and to think of the human being as a "symbolic animal." The philosophies of culture of these two traditions, very much compatible, are of urgent relevance to our contemporary epoch. Xiang describes the similarity of their projects by way of their conception of the human being, her relationship to nature, the relationship of human culture to nature, the importance of cultural pluralism, and the role of the arts in human life, as well as the metaphysical frameworks that gave rise to such conceptions. Combining textual exegesis in classical Chinese texts and an exposition of Cassirer's most important insights against the backdrop of post-Kantian philosophy, this book is philosophy written in a cosmopolitan mode, arguing for the contemporary philosophical relevance of "culture" by drawing on and bringing together two different but strikingly similar streams in our world tradition. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle reflects the lively international character of Aristotelian studies, drawing contributors from the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and Japan; it also, appropriately, includes a preponderance of authors from the University of Oxford, which has been a center of Aristotelian studies for many centuries. The volume equally reflects the broad range of activity Aristotelian studies comprise today: such activity ranges from the primarily textual and philological to the application of broadly (...) Aristotelian themes to contemporary problems irrespective of their narrow textual fidelity. In between these extremes one finds the core of Aristotelian scholarship as it is practiced today, and as it is primarily represented in this Handbook: textual exegesis and criticism. Even within this more limited core activity, one witnesses a rich range of pursuits, with some scholars seeking primarily to understand Aristotle in his own philosophical milieu and others seeking rather to place him into direct conversation with contemporary philosophers and their present-day concerns. No one of these enterprises exhausts the field. On the contrary, one of the most welcome and enlivening features of the contemporary Aristotelian scene is precisely the cross-fertilization these mutually beneficial and complementary activities offer one another. The volume, prefaced with an introduction to Aristotle's life and works by the editor, covers the main areas of Aristotelian philosophy and intellectual enquiry: ethics, metaphysics, politics, logic, language, psychology, rhetoric, poetics, theology, physical and biological investigation, and philosophical method. It also, and distinctively, looks both backwards and forwards: two chapters recount Aristotle's treatment of earlier philosophers, who proved formative to his own orientations and methods, and another three chapters chart the long afterlife of Aristotle's philosophy, in Late Antiquity, in the Islamic World, and in the Latin West. (shrink)

The article tries to prove that the famous formula "epekeina tês ousias" has to be understood in the sense of being beyond being and not only in the sense of being beyond essence. We make hereby three points: first, since pure textual exegesis of 509b8–10 seems to lead to endless controversy, a formal proof for the metaontological interpretation could be helpful to settle the issue; we try to give such a proof. Second, we offer a corollary of the (...) formal proof, showing that not only self-predication of the form of the Good, but of any form is not possible, that is: no form of F has the form of F. Third, we apply Spinoza’s distinction between an ens imaginarium and a chimaera to Plato’s Idea of the Good. (shrink)

Most published discussions in contemporary metaethics include some textual exegesis of the relevant contemporary authors, but little or none of the historical authors who provide the underpinnings of their general approach. The latter is usually relegated to the historical, or dismissed as expository. Sometimes this can be a useful division of labor. But it can also lead to grave confusion about the views under discussion, and even about whose views are, in fact, under discussion. Elijah Millgram’s article, “Does (...) the Categorical Imperative Give Rise to a Contradiction in the Will?” is a case in point. In it, he takes the New Kantians to task for various flaws in their interpretation of Kant’s moral theory, to be detailed shortly. He concludes with a question and a suggestion. In order to properly dissect the first, “universal law” formulation of the Categorical Imperative, he argues, we first need to understand “why an agent wills the universalization of his maxim” (549). He also suggests that in order to answer this question, we must recur to what Kant himself actually says (550). His question is a good one, and his advice on how to go about answering it is sound. But to take Millgram’s advice is to call this division of labor into question, at least for this case. For it demands close and sustained exegesis, not only of his argument against the New Kantians, but also – in order to assess whether and where they go wrong – of Kant’s text itself. (shrink)

"Andrew Norris and the contributors to this collection have not only performed extraordinary feats of textual exegesis but also produced a critical context and ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking with Heidegger:Rethinking Environmental Theory and PracticeKevin Michael DeLuca (bio)Environmentalism is tired. It is a movement both institutionalized and insipid. The vast majority of Americans claim to be environmentalists while buying ever more SUVs, leaf-blowers, and uncountable plastic consumer goods. Indeed, environmentalism itself has become just another practice of consumerism, a matter of buying Audubon memberships, Ansel Adams calendars, and 'biodegradable' plastic bags with one's Sierra Club credit card. (...) As a practice of everyday life, environmentalism has devolved into another lifestyle choice.On the political front, carbon-copy blow-dried presidential candidates proclaim their allegiance to the environment, an allegiance that is more a sign of fealty to opinion polls than a concern with environmental issues. In the world of real-politic, environmental regulations are gutted as corporations write legislation for the politicians they have bought. Outspent and outmaneuvered, mainstream environmental groups preach at the altar of broken promises about the potential of lobbying and insider access while awaiting the blandishments of the next candidate. As [End Page 67] a political practice, mainstream environmentalism has degenerated into a marginal special-interest group.On the intellectual front, a confusing array of reform environmentalists, deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, wilderness advocates, social justice activists, social constructionists, and Christian ecologists offer a cacophony of competing paradigms and programs while exchanging charges and countercharges of wrong-headedness and infidelity. If on the level of practice an exhausted environmentalism has achieved both institutionalism and irrelevance, intellectually environmentalism has reached several stasis points. This is crucial, for at a level that is unusual for social movements, environmentalism has always highlighted the importance of how we think about the environment, that ideas of nature are powerful because practices follow from ideas. In other words, how we think about nature guides how we act toward nature. In the midst of this melee I want to suggest we reconsider the work of Martin Heidegger.I want to think Heidegger in distress: in the distress of machination; in the distress of the technological enframing of the earth; in the distress of the environmental crisis. In rejecting a Heideggerian hermeneutics, a piety to textual exegesis, I hope to stress Heidegger in order to stress environmental theory. With few exceptions,1 two insufficient responses typify the reception of Heidegger in environmental thinking. One is to champion Heidegger as some proto-environmentalist. Certainly, quotes from such works as Being and Time, Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Age of the World Picture" inspire such a reading. Such readings, however, present a simplified Heidegger. For example, a poor reading of an essay such as "The Question Concerning Technology" produces the conclusion that Heidegger was anti-technology.2 These misreadings are not merely accidental but a result of the goal of the citation. The challenge of Heidegger is not engaged to develop environmental theory; rather, Heidegger is cited to lend some borrowed legitimacy to the fledgling enterprise. The most prominent example of this move occurs in Devall and Sessions' Deep Ecology, wherein Heidegger joins a potpourri of thinkers, including Dogen, Job, St. Francis of Assisi, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thoreau, Chief Seattle, Herman Melville, John Muir, Aldous Huxley, Gandhi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Aldo Leopold, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Stanley Diamond, and [End Page 68] David Brower from a host of traditions, including Taoism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Native American thought, Romanticism, and ecological science (1985, 79–108). The result is confusion, at best.On the other hand, in a second response Heidegger serves as a kind of bogeyman, a Nazi used to tar the more radical environmental groups. The syllogism is simple and simplistic: Deep Ecologists are bio/ecocentric; Deep Ecologists quote Heidegger; Heidegger was a Nazi; Therefore, Deep Ecologists are Nazis/fascists. (To push this thinking to its logical extreme, then, all nonanthropocentric thinking is fascist.) Both responses may be useful for polemics but serve to prevent a possibly productive exploration of Heidegger for the engagement of the difficult problems that have stumped environmentalism on multiple levels.Violating HeideggerAs a prefatory word, even a cursory glance at Heidegger's work reveals him to be a thinker who... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking with Heidegger:Rethinking Environmental Theory and PracticeKevin Michael DeLuca (bio)Environmentalism is tired. It is a movement both institutionalized and insipid. The vast majority of Americans claim to be environmentalists while buying ever more SUVs, leaf-blowers, and uncountable plastic consumer goods. Indeed, environmentalism itself has become just another practice of consumerism, a matter of buying Audubon memberships, Ansel Adams calendars, and 'biodegradable' plastic bags with one's Sierra Club credit card. (...) As a practice of everyday life, environmentalism has devolved into another lifestyle choice.On the political front, carbon-copy blow-dried presidential candidates proclaim their allegiance to the environment, an allegiance that is more a sign of fealty to opinion polls than a concern with environmental issues. In the world of real-politic, environmental regulations are gutted as corporations write legislation for the politicians they have bought. Outspent and outmaneuvered, mainstream environmental groups preach at the altar of broken promises about the potential of lobbying and insider access while awaiting the blandishments of the next candidate. As [End Page 67] a political practice, mainstream environmentalism has degenerated into a marginal special-interest group.On the intellectual front, a confusing array of reform environmentalists, deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, wilderness advocates, social justice activists, social constructionists, and Christian ecologists offer a cacophony of competing paradigms and programs while exchanging charges and countercharges of wrong-headedness and infidelity. If on the level of practice an exhausted environmentalism has achieved both institutionalism and irrelevance, intellectually environmentalism has reached several stasis points. This is crucial, for at a level that is unusual for social movements, environmentalism has always highlighted the importance of how we think about the environment, that ideas of nature are powerful because practices follow from ideas. In other words, how we think about nature guides how we act toward nature. In the midst of this melee I want to suggest we reconsider the work of Martin Heidegger.I want to think Heidegger in distress: in the distress of machination; in the distress of the technological enframing of the earth; in the distress of the environmental crisis. In rejecting a Heideggerian hermeneutics, a piety to textual exegesis, I hope to stress Heidegger in order to stress environmental theory. With few exceptions,1 two insufficient responses typify the reception of Heidegger in environmental thinking. One is to champion Heidegger as some proto-environmentalist. Certainly, quotes from such works as Being and Time, Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Age of the World Picture" inspire such a reading. Such readings, however, present a simplified Heidegger. For example, a poor reading of an essay such as "The Question Concerning Technology" produces the conclusion that Heidegger was anti-technology.2 These misreadings are not merely accidental but a result of the goal of the citation. The challenge of Heidegger is not engaged to develop environmental theory; rather, Heidegger is cited to lend some borrowed legitimacy to the fledgling enterprise. The most prominent example of this move occurs in Devall and Sessions' Deep Ecology, wherein Heidegger joins a potpourri of thinkers, including Dogen, Job, St. Francis of Assisi, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thoreau, Chief Seattle, Herman Melville, John Muir, Aldous Huxley, Gandhi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Aldo Leopold, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Stanley Diamond, and [End Page 68] David Brower from a host of traditions, including Taoism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Native American thought, Romanticism, and ecological science (1985, 79–108). The result is confusion, at best.On the other hand, in a second response Heidegger serves as a kind of bogeyman, a Nazi used to tar the more radical environmental groups. The syllogism is simple and simplistic: Deep Ecologists are bio/ecocentric; Deep Ecologists quote Heidegger; Heidegger was a Nazi; Therefore, Deep Ecologists are Nazis/fascists. (To push this thinking to its logical extreme, then, all nonanthropocentric thinking is fascist.) Both responses may be useful for polemics but serve to prevent a possibly productive exploration of Heidegger for the engagement of the difficult problems that have stumped environmentalism on multiple levels.Violating HeideggerAs a prefatory word, even a cursory glance at Heidegger's work reveals him to be a thinker who... (shrink)

The initial problem for feminist Jewish theology has been its very definition as theology. Whereas, from its beginning, Christian feminism has defined the transformation of theology as a major goal, the nature and boundaries of the Jewish feminist project have been more amorphous. In part, this is because the theological tradition to which Christian feminists react is highly systematized. The nature and methodology of theology are more open questions in Judaism. Biblical and rabbinic Judaisms embody a variety of theologies in (...) narrative, prayer, law, and textual exegesis. While in every period of postbiblical Judaism there have been influential theologies utilizing philosophical forms and categories, there is no standard way of systematizing their Jewish content. That is because Jewish philosophical theologies serve dual purposes. (shrink)

Alfred North Whitehead's first book as a professor of philosophy at Harvard University, Science and the Modern World, is not only a historical treatment of the rise and fall of scientific materialism. It also marks his turn to metaphysics in search of an alternative cosmological scheme that would replace matter in motion with organic process as that which is generic in Nature. Among the metaphysical innovations introduced in this book are the somewhat enigmatic “eternal objects.” The publication of the first (...) and second volumes of Whitehead's Harvard Lectures on the philosophical presuppositions (HL1) and general metaphysical problems (HL2) of science provides students of his corpus with an opportunity to catch the thinker in the act of creating his concepts. In searching through student notes for glimpses of what Whitehead really meant, I have kept in mind his admonition that “no thinker thinks twice” (PR 29). Whitehead never ceased philosophizing, and surely he intended for us to continue thinking with but beyond the letter of his ideas. In this spirit and in light of HL1 and HL2, this article seeks to elucidate the role of eternal objects as a category of existence in Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism, with the goal not simply of textual exegesis, but of showing how the meaning of the fifth category of existence (as he refers to eternal objects in PR) is exemplified in the gradual ingression of the idea in Whitehead's imagination. My aim is to sustain the effort at constructive thought he began, making his speculative hypothesis as explicit as possible so as to better prepare it for critical improvement (PR xiv). (shrink)

Are the standards of reasoning and rationality in divination, religious practice, and textual exegesis different from those in the sciences? Can there be different standards of reasoning and rationality at all? The intense “rationality debate” of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s focused on these questions and the related problems of relativism across cultures and systems of practice. Although philosophers were at the center of these debates at the time, they may appear to have abandoned the question in recent (...) years. On the contrary, I discuss recent developments in philosophy that approach the issue from a number of new directions, changing our understanding of reasoning and rationality. I argue that, in comparing the diviner to the scientist, focusing on reasoning is likely to be a red herring. Instead, I argue that a careful treatment of rationality, paying particular attention to its context-dependence, untangles longstanding confusions. Moreover, it points the way forward to investigating modest but interesting ways for there to be alternative standards of rationality. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of research methods in the history of economic thought. In reviewing the "techniques" which are involved in the discipline, four broader categories are identified: a) textual exegesis; b) "rational reconstructions"; c) "contextual analysis"; and d) "historical narrative". After examining these different styles of doing history of economic thought, the paper addresses the question of its appraisal, namely what is good history of economic thought. Moreover, it is argued that (...) there is a distinction to be made between doing economics and doing history of economic thought. The latter requires the greatest possible respect for contexts and texts, both published and unpublished; the former entails constructing a theoretical framework that is in some respects freer, not bound by derivation, from the authors. Finally, the paper draws upon Econlit records to assess what has been done in the subject in the last two decades in order to frame some considerations on how the past may impinge on the future. (shrink)

In this landmark volume, Samuel Hollander presents a fresh and compelling history of moral philosophy from Locke to John Stuart Mill, showing that a ‘moral sense’ can actually be considered compatible with utilitarianism. The book also explores the link between utilitarianism and distributive justice. Hollander engages in close textual exegesis of the works relating to individual authors, while never losing sight of the intellectual relationships between them. Tying together the greatest of the British moral philosophers, this volume reveals (...) an unexpected unity of eighteenth and nineteenth century ethical doctrine at both the individual and social level. Essential reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, political economy, history of ethics, history of political thought and intellectual history. -/- Samuel Hollander is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada, and an Officer in the Order of Canada. (shrink)

Once the Luwian hieroglyphics for God “” and Gate “” were discovered at Göbekli Tepe, this author was able to directly link the site’s carved pillars and pillar enclosures to the Abrahamic/Mosaic “Word of God”,. Archaeologists and anthropologists have long viewed the Bible as mankind’s best guide to prehistoric religion, however, archaeologist Klaus Schmidt had no reason to believe that the site he spent years excavating at Göbekli Tepe might be the legendary “Pillars of Enoch”, carved by the first Biblical (...) holy man and scribe. To make this connection, the author first had to decipher Judaism’s Razah D’Oraytah (Secret of Knowledge) from the Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Creation). The Book of Creation is the only text to explain the Secret of Knowledge, and the only text attributed to the prophet Abraham within the rabbinical community. The Zohar, Judaism’s most accessible Kabbalistic text, admits that it lacks knowledge of “deep and hidden things which issue from God’s thought and are taken up by the Voice [of God] which are not disclosed till the Word [] reveals them”. Abrahamic/Mosaic “Word of God” encrypts the mathematics of sound that emanates from God’s “Voice” in terms of ancient string theory. Just as modern string theory defines a Theory of Everything (ToE) within theoretical physics, so too does this ancient string theory define the Theory of Everything that Abraham named the “Living God”. The author’s previous paper ties Jewish sources to Göbekli Tepe, while the current paper applies this sonic “God Table” to the textual exegesis and hermeneutics structuring all religious creation allegories, including the writings of Sumer, Assyria, Babylonia, Vedic India, pre-Dynastic Egypt, Ugarit, and Israel. This paper will apply Göbekli Tepe’s structural template to archaeology’s oldest legible cuneiform tablets, including the Kesh Temple Hymn, Sumerian King List, and the Akkadian Ark Tablet. It will also be demonstrated that Göbekli Tepe holds the key to the Rig Veda, Hinduism’s oldest text, and defines the essence of Plato’s metaphysics. (shrink)

Both theology and jurisprudence deal with the exegesis of texts. Textual exegesis respectively textual interpretation aims at giving an explanation of the meaning of the text itself but also refers to wider social contexts. Since theology and jurisprudence share this objective, this article wants to line out the method of theological exegesis on the one side and legal exegesis on the other side.Both sciences are closely related to basic conditions of social life. Yet, biblical (...) texts are ,,holy“ and immune to textual changes. Legal codifications however are - in general - open to change. Nevertheless, there exist certain codifications, namely constitutions or articles of a constitution, that are seen as expressions of quasi-religious faith. (shrink)

Śākta tradition is one of the major branches of Hindu Theism which focuses on the divine feminine. Recent scholarly researches on Śākta tradition mainly orient toward either its sacred text or its ritual customs; however, textual exegesis and ritual studies have mostly been two separate spheres. This paper presents an attempt to integrate the two. It explores one of the most essential practices of Śākta tradition, the Caṇḍī pūjā, and discusses its relationship with Śākta theology in the principal (...) Śākta text Devī Māhātmya. My research revolves around two questions: in what ways does the theology in Devī Māhātmya inform the praxis of Caṇḍī pūjā? How does ritual practice help its practitioners to understand the theology of Śākta faith tradition? The paper examines the pūjā practice from three aspects: ritual structure and the liturgical use of the text; ritual materials and their theological functions; and ritual activity—spotlighting one specific moment of the Candā pūjā. I draw the conclusion that there is a reciprocal interaction between ritual and theology—the theological message in Devī Māhātmya provides the foundation for the ritual and the ritual acts as an experiential way for understanding Śākta theology. (shrink)

The Frankfurt School attacked Veblen ’ s claims regarding machine-induced rationality in industrial societ y. Their criticisms stemmed in part from the fact that Veblen failed to present his ideas systematically in a formal treatise on either economics or sociolog y, and because he did not use concepts or jargon familiar to the critical theorists. This article thus aims at: (1) demonstrating through textual exegesis the meaning of social rationality in the corpus of Veblen ’ s writing, especiall (...) y The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904); (2) elucidating the problems that arose in the Frankfurt School ’ s critique of Veblen because he used nomenclature and conceptualizations unfamiliar to Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer; (3) reiterating Veblen ’ s thesis on the impact of ‘transfer effects’ on workers interacting with the machine process; and (4) outlining the failure of the Frankfurt School adequately to examine his claims in the American political environment in which they were made. (shrink)

One of America’s most influential social critics, Thorstein Veblen authored works deeply rooted in evolutionary biology and American philosophical naturalism—both of which help explain his institutional economics and radical sociology. Now, one of today’s preeminent Veblen scholars ranges widely over the man’s writings to show how evolutionary naturalism underlies his social theory and criticism, shapes his satire, and binds his work together. Rick Tilman’s study focuses on the intersections of social theory and social psychology, political economy and political theory, and (...) modern philosophy and intellectual history in Veblen’s thinking. It links evolutionary naturalism for the first time to Veblen’s aesthetics, secular humanism, sociology of control, sociobiology, and sociology of knowledge, and it makes groundbreaking observations regarding the relationship of Veblen’s own life to his thinking; his place as a cultural lag theorist; and his analysis of sports, gambling, and religion. Drawing on textual exegesis of Veblen’s work, unpublished correspondence, and selected archives, Tilman argues that only evolutionary naturalism could provide the philosophical foundations of Veblen’s thought. He also emphasizes Veblen’s role in the enhancement and embellishment of the social sciences and cultural studies, as well as his insights into the processes of change in the sociopolitical order. Veblen’s evolutionary naturalism, with its unflattering evaluation of America’s self-selected special place in the international arena, casts doubt on today’s foreign interventions, and it also provides a much-needed antidote to the resurgence of creationist thought in American culture. Tilman shows that Veblen’s ideas are still valuable to contemporary social scientists—indeed, that his method of analysis and values are sorely needed to help us avoid wasteful consumption, predation, and the persistence of religious superstition. This work offers readers a new appreciation of Veblen and the many issues he addressed, and of Tilman’s own masterful facility in bringing them to light. (shrink)

Writing deliberately in a nontechnical style so as to make his book accessible to readers who are not professional philosophers, Michael Gelven here offers an extended meditative essay on the nature and meaning of truth. He approaches this subject directly, rather than through a critique of what others have said about it, and takes off from the realization that truth has a wider meaning than that which can be found in the analysis of true sentences, which is the focus of (...) traditional epistemology. Pursuing philosophical inquiry as a voyage of discovery, the book begins with ordinary questions about the worth and meaning of truth. A fundamental distinction is drawn between the "true" and "truth" as essence, that which we confront as the ultimate terminus of our questioning—for example, between the true definition of mother as a female parent and truth as what we understand being a mother to mean, as one who sacrifices her own interests and safety for her child. The analysis then proceeds to examine the four ways in which we confront truth—through affirmation, acceptance, acknowledgment, and submission—and the existential modes of experience in which these confrontations are embodied: pleasure, fate, guilt, and beauty. Each of these four confrontations has consequences for how we understand the world in which we dwell. Thus the book concludes with interpretation of the world as our home, our history, our tribunal, and ultimately that which lures or beckons us to confront ourselves. Plato, Kant, and Heidegger are the primary sources of philosophical inspiration for Gelven, but he eschews textual exegesis and academic debate in favor of engaging the reader as co-explorer in the discovery of what it means for each of us to be in truth. (shrink)

Writing deliberately in a nontechnical style so as to make his book accessible to readers who are not professional philosophers, Michael Gelven here offers an extended meditative essay on the nature and meaning of truth. He approaches this subject directly, rather than through a critique of what others have said about it, and takes off from the realization that truth has a wider meaning than that which can be found in the analysis of true sentences, which is the focus of (...) traditional epistemology. Pursuing philosophical inquiry as a voyage of discovery, the book begins with ordinary questions about the worth and meaning of truth. A fundamental distinction is drawn between the "true" and "truth" as essence, that which we confront as the ultimate terminus of our questioning—for example, between the true definition of mother as a female parent and truth as what we understand being a mother to mean, as one who sacrifices her own interests and safety for her child. The analysis then proceeds to examine the four ways in which we confront truth—through affirmation, acceptance, acknowledgment, and submission—and the existential modes of experience in which these confrontations are embodied: pleasure, fate, guilt, and beauty. Each of these four confrontations has consequences for how we understand the world in which we dwell. Thus the book concludes with interpretation of the world as our home, our history, our tribunal, and ultimately that which lures or beckons us to confront ourselves. Plato, Kant, and Heidegger are the primary sources of philosophical inspiration for Gelven, but he eschews textual exegesis and academic debate in favor of engaging the reader as co-explorer in the discovery of what it means for each of us to be in truth. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of Kant's claim that geometry is synthetic. I begin by outlining certain criticisms of the Kantian position, criticisms selected with an eye to their popularity, rather than their importance in the abstract. I am no expert on the textual exegesis of Kant, and serious Kantian scholars would not, perhaps, be much troubled by the criticisms I propose to discuss: indeed, they might properly maintain that some of these problems (...) were, for them, resolved long ago. But within the prevailing tradition of English-speaking philosophy certain sorts of criticism of Kant do seem to have sunk deep into our attitudes. It is with these criticisms that I hope to settle accounts. This small aim leads to the more difficult one of trying to understand what Kant means when he says that geometry is synthetic: about this larger task I will make only some preliminary remarks. (shrink)

Iamblichus has long lived under the shadow of Plotinus. One can easily recognize this from the historiography of the Neoplatonic school starting, for example, with J.J. Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae (1742) and continuing with Hegel and 19th century historians like Simon and Vacherot in France, Kroll and Zeller in Germany. But from Praechter on Iamblichus was acknowledged more and more as an original thinker and the real systematizer of the late Neoplatonic School. We can see more clearly now that the (...) inclusion of theurgy into Neoplatonism does not mean a simple abandonment of philosophy or rational discourse, and that the discipline of textual exegesis does not negate the originality of the commentator. In Proclus, for one, these complementary strains are strongly present. In rebuilding the whole Platonic system, Iamblichus - the Chrysippus of Neoplatonism - skillfully incorporated elements like the Chaldean triads which were unknown to Plotinus, and presented a completely new account of the nature of theology. This feat shows a genius no less impressive, albeit of another type, than the one disclosed by Plotinus himself. (shrink)