Spinoza and Judaism, by D.Rakhmian.- Spinoza and materialism, by L.I.Akselrod (Ortodoks) - Spinoza's world-view, by A.M.Déborin.- Spinoza's substance and finite things, by V.K.Brushlinski.- Spinoza's ethical world-view, by S.Y.Volfson.- Spinoza and the state, by I.P.Razumovski.- The historical significance of Spinoza's philosophy, by I.K.Luppol.

This volume's aim is to clarify, criticize and theoretically develop some of Whitehead's major philosophic ideas and insights. Eighteen distinguished contributors follow Whitehead in his unique attempt to integrate the often disparate concerns of science , art, religion, social life and common sense. They manage to avoid the twin pitfalls of uncritical acceptance and impatient rejection of Whitehead's thought. They delineate Whitehead's indebtedness to and divergence from the philosophic traditions of Plato, Leibniz, Hume, Hegel, Bergson and others. Some of the (...) distinguished philosophers contributing to this volume are: Charles Hartshorne, William Ernest Hocking, Richard M. Rorty, Gregory Vlastos, William A. Christian, Sr., Nathaniel Lawrence, Ivor Leclerc, Victor Lowe, Robert M. Palter, and Donald W. Sherburne. Originally published in 1963 by Prentice-Hall, this edition contains a new preface by the editor. (shrink)

On February 24-25, 1956, in a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Nikita S. Khrushchev made his now famous speech on the crimes of the Stalin era. That speech marked a break with the past and it marked the end of what J.M. Bochenski dubbed the "dead period" of Soviet philosophy. Soviet philosophy changed abruptly after 1956, especially in the area of dialectical materialism. Yet most philosophers in the West neither noticed nor (...) cared. For them, the resurrection of Soviet philosophy, even if believable, was of little interest. The reasons for the lack of belief and interest were multiple. Soviet philosophy had been dull for so long that subtle differences made little difference. The Cold War was in a frigid period and reinforced the attitude of avoiding anything Soviet. Phenomenology and exis tentialism were booming in Europe and analytic philosophy was king on the Anglo-American philosophical scene. Moreover, not many philosophers in the West knew or could read Russian or were motivated to learn it to be able to read Soviet philosophical works. The launching of Sputnik awakened the West from its self complacent slumbers. Academic interest in the Soviet Union grew. (shrink)

In Polo’s anthropology, the personal transcendentals constitute the first act of the human being. To achieve an understanding of the contribution to the natural growth of the person of human actions performed in space and time, it is required to investigate how the intensity of this act can increase naturally in the context of the doctrine of act and potency. Review of the constitution of human beings in Aristotle, Aquinas and Polo and the real distinction between their ontological components, together (...) with the concept of instrumental causality served to propose an explanation of the natural growth of the person. (shrink)

After a generous introduction to the subject, essays follow on transcendence and spirituality from a multidisciplinary and multifaith perspective: a focus on Abrahamic, Oriental, and African religions, a study of transcendence in Nazism, etc.

I know about you only from your valuable books and from the little that was communicated to me by telephone in Moscow in September. Nevertheless, we share a warm interest in Greek culture generally and philosophy in particular.

All the authors of the sixteen essays gathered in this volume are concerned, in their different ways, to clarify, criticize, and develop key ideas and insights of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), one of the towering figures of twentieth-century speculative thought, whose "process philosophy" has, in recent decades, aroused intense intellectual interest both in this country and abroad. The present volume is intended to complement, but not to duplicate, an earlier selection of important Whitehead studies, Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on His (...) Philosophy, ed. G. L. Kline (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1963). (shrink)

Während der letzten zehn Jahre wurde viel über den ‘Humanismus’ des jungen Marx gesprochen. Osteuropäische Marxisten, die bemüht sind, ihren Anti-Stalinismus durch Berufung auf die Autorität von ‘Marx selbst’ zu untermauern, gebrauchen den Ausdruck ‘Humanismus’ in einem ungenauen Sinn, etwa gleichbedeutend mit ‘Anthropozentrismus’. Aber wenn man sagt, daß Marx’ Haltung anthropozentrisch sei, so sind damit die Hauptfragen erst gestellt, nicht schon gelöst.‘Humanismus’ mag etwa soviel wie ‘Säkularismus’ bedeuten — der Mensch, nicht Gott, wird als im Mittelpunkt stehend gedacht. Die anthropozentrische (...) Haltung kann verschiedene Formen annehmen, vor allem die Formen, die man als ‘Humanismus der Ideale’ und als ‘Humanismus der Prinzipien’ bezeichnen könnte. Der Humanismus der Ideale ist ausdrücklich an derZukunft orientiert, der Humanismus der Prinzipien aber an derGegenwart. Nur ein Humanismus der Prinzipien, dem es darum geht, den Eigenwert existierender Individuen zu behaupten und zu verteidigen, verdient es, ‘ethischer Humanismus’ genannt zu werden. Marx, sogar der jüngste Marx, war kein ethischer Humanist in diesem Sinn. Und nur ein Humanismus in diesem strengen Sinn würde einen philosophischen Standort bieten, von dem aus man den Stalinismus oder Neo-Stalinismus angreifen könnte.Marx war ein Säkularist, und er entwarf ein humanistisches Ideal für die Zukunft, aber humanistische Prinzipien für die Gegenwart lehnte er ab. Er betonte, daß nur dem nicht entfremdeten, produktiven Individuum der kommunistischen Zukunft ein eigener Wert zukomme. Bis dahin haben Individuen nur einen geschichtlich instrumentalen Wert: jene, die an der Verwirklichung der kommunistischen Gesellschaft arbeiten, sind zu respektieren; diejenigen, welche dabei Widerstand leisten oder versagen, müssen ausschließlich als Hindernisse auf dem Wege des geschichtlichen Fortschritts behandelt werden.In diesem Sinn ist der Leninismus und sogar der Stalinismus und Neo-Stalinismus in dem zukunftsorientierten Humanismus der Ideale des jungen Marx einbegriffen, oder zumindest davon nicht ausgeschlossen. Selbst der jüngste Marx machte sich den Modeirrtum des 19. Jahrhunderts zu eigen — den Irrtum des ‘aufgeschobenen Wertes’ oder des ‘zeitlich verstellten Wertes’ und nahm damit eine mit dem ethischen Humanismus grundsätzlich unvereinbare Position ein. (shrink)

FOR MANY YEARS the received wisdom--proclaimed by certain physicists and philosophers of physics and received by certain metaphysicians--was that, in Bertrand Russell's inimitable phrase, "time is an unimportant and superficial characteristic of reality. Past and future must be acknowledged to be as real as the present." Moreover, according to Russell, "it is a mere accident that we have no memory of the future"--presumably because the future, regarded as no less determinate than the past, is held to be equally "there" to (...) be known and hence "remembered.". (shrink)