In his paper “Scientific research is a moral duty”, John Harris argues that individuals have a moral duty to participate in biomedical research by volunteering as research subjects. He supports his claim with reference to what he calls the principle of beneficence as embodied in the “rule of rescue” , and the principle of fairness embodied in the prohibition on “free riding” . His view that biomedical research is an important social good is agreed upon, but it is argued that (...) Harris succeeds only in showing that such participation and support is a moral good, among many other moral goods, while failing to show that there is a moral duty to participate in biomedical research in particular. The flaws in Harris’s arguments are detailed here, and it is shown that the principles of beneficence and fairness yield only a weaker discretionary or imperfect obligation to help others in need and to reciprocate for sacrifices that others have made for the public good. This obligation is discretionary in the sense that the individuals are free to choose when, where, and how to help others in need and reciprocate for earlier sacrifices. That Harris has not succeeded in claiming a special status for biomedical research among all other social goods is shown here. (shrink)

Discussion of sublime response to natural environments is largely absent from contemporary environmental aesthetics. This is due to the fact that the sublime seems inextricably linked to extravagant metaphysical ideas. In this paper, I seek to rehabilitate a conception of sublime response that is secular, metaphysically modest and compatible with the most influential theory of environmental aesthetics, Allen Carlson’s scientific cognitivism. First, I offer some grounds for seeing the environmental sublime as a distinctive and meaningful category of contemporary aesthetic experience (...) of nature. Next, from historical and contemporary sources, I reconstruct two philosophical accounts of what I call ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ sublime response. Finally I show how these responses are compatible with scientific cognitivism, though the latter more so than the former. (shrink)

If one holds that an engagement with tragedy is to some extent pleasurable, then one ought to recognize two distinct problems of tragedy. First, given the grim subject matter, what is the source of the pleasure in engaging with works of this genre? Second, is there some sort of affective irrationality involved in the experience? In this paper I reconsider Schopenhauer's theory of tragedy and offer a fuller reconstruction of his complex solution to these problems than has hitherto been given (...) by commentators. Next, I draw out Schopenhauer's distinctive contribution to thinking about these problems, in contrast to contemporary, more univocal solutions. Finally, I argue that the strength of Schopenhauer's complex solution lies in its recognition that our serious engagement with tragedy is a cognitively rich oscillation between feelings of humility and pride. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Kantian Symbol The Schopenhauerian Metaphor? The Schopenhauerian Metonymy Gracián's Poetics and Schopenhauer as Poetic Metaphysician Conclusion References.

This book articulates and defends an interpretation of Schopenhauer's ethics as an original and credible contribution to the history of ethics. It presents Schopenhauer's ethics of compassion in direct tension with his resignationism and aims to show surprising continuities with Kant's ethics.

Schopenhauer singles out Kant's theory of the sublime for high praise, calling it ‘by far the most excellent thing in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement’, yet, in his main discussion of the sublime, he ridicules Kant's explanation as being in the grip of scholastic metaphysics. My first aim in this paper is to sort out Schopenhauer's apparently conflicted appraisal of Kant's theory of the sublime. Next, based on hisNachlaß,close readings of published texts and especially of his account of the experience (...) of tragic drama, I offer a reconstruction of Schopenhauer's theory of the sublime which understands it – against prevailing scholarly views – as atransformation ofrather than as a realdeparture fromthe Kantian explanation. Finally, I suggest that my interpretation of Schopenhauer's theory of the sublime has far-reaching consequences for a proper understanding of his views on freedom. (shrink)

This essay focuses on Schopenhauer’s aesthetics and philosophy of art, areas of his philosophy which have attracted the most philosophical attention in recent years. After discussing the subjective and objective aspects of aesthetic experience on his account, I shall offer interpretations of Schopenhauer’s theory of the sublime and solution to the problem of tragedy. In addition, I shall touch upon the liveliest interpretive debates concerning his aesthetic theory: the intelligibility of the “Platonic Ideas” as the objects of aesthetic experience and (...) the very possibility of aesthetic experience within Schopenhauer’s system. Another aim of this essay is to suggest how some of Schopenhauer’s aesthetic doctrines may be interpreted in a less metaphysically extravagant way. When understood in this manner, contemporary aestheticians might be inclined to take a closer look at Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory and philosophy of art, for it is distinctive in the tradition of Western philosophical aesthetics in its attempt to highlight and balance the hedonic and cognitive importance of aesthetic experiences; in its sensitivity both to the aesthetic experience of nature as well as of art; in the high value placed on the experience of music ; and in the innovative solution to the problem of tragedy it offers. (shrink)

Bioethics at the Movies explores the ways in which popular films engage basic bioethical concepts and concerns. Twenty philosophically grounded essays use cinematic tools such as character and plot development, scene-setting, and narrative-framing to demonstrate a range of principles and topics in contemporary medical ethics. The first section plumbs popular and bioethical thought on birth, abortion, genetic selection, and personhood through several films, including The Cider House Rules, Citizen Ruth, Gattaca, and I, Robot. In the second section, the contributors examine (...) medical practice and troubling questions about the quality and commodification of life by way of Dirty Pretty Things, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and other movies. The third section's essays use Million Dollar Baby, Critical Care, Big Fish, and Soylent Green to show how the medical profession and society at large view issues related to aging, death, and dying. A final section makes use of Extreme Measures and select Spanish and Japanese films to discuss two foundational matters in bioethics: the role of theories and principles in medicine and the importance of cultural context in devising care. Structured to mirror bioethics and cinema classes, this innovative work includes end-of-chapter questions for further consideration and contributions from scholars from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Israel, Spain, and Australia. Contributors: Robert Arp, Ph.D., Michael C. Brannigan, Ph.D., Matthew Burstein, Ph.D., Antonio Casado da Rocha, Ph.D., Stephen Coleman, Ph.D., Jason T. Eberl, Ph.D., Paul J. Ford, Ph.D., Helen Frowe, M.A., Colin Gavaghan, Ph.D., Richard Hanley, Ph.D., Nancy Hansen, Ph.D., Al-Yasha Ilhaam, Ph.D., Troy Jollimore, Ph.D., Amy Kind, Ph.D., Zana Marie Lutfiyya, Ph.D., Terrance McConnell, Ph.D., Andy Miah, Ph.D., Nathan Norbis, Ph.D., Kenneth Richman, Ph.D., Karen D. Schwartz, LL.B., M.A., Sandra Shapshay, Ph.D., Daniel Sperling, LL.M., S.J.D., Becky Cox White, R.N., Ph.D., Clark Wolf, Ph.D. (shrink)

The bleakness of Schopenhauer’s notoriously pessimistic take on the human condition is mitigated to some extent by his recognition of the possibilities of aesthetic experience and of denial of the will-to-live. However, as Schopenhauer himself acknowledges, his account of the latter appears inconsistent with his determinism, and we argue that this is no less the case with regard to his account of the former. After outlining what we take to be the basis and extent of Schopenhauer’s deterministic picture of human (...) beings, we develop and discuss the possibility that the apparent inconsistency of this picture with his accounts of denial of the will-to-live and aesthetic experience may in fact be no more than appearance – the extent, that is, to which the latter may be construed as varieties of experience to which we are essentially passive. We argue that while there is something to this suggestion, there are aspects of Schopenhauer’s conceptions of both aesthetic experience and denial that remain in tension with his determinism. Indeed, we suggest, ultimately Schopenhauer’s deterministic picture of human beings portrays a kind of creature for whom aesthetic experience in general, let alone denial of the will, should simply be impossible. We turn next to Schopenhauer’s conception of the ‘moral’ or ‘transcendental’ freedom of human beings, and consider how the latter may be appealed to in explaining the possibility of aesthetic and ascetic experience in Schopenhauer’s terms. Schopenhauer’s own appeal to transcendental freedom in this context is, we argue, unpersuasive. In the end, we conclude, he leaves wholly mysterious the freedom inherent in his conceptions of aesthetic and ascetic experience. (shrink)

One typically thinks of the relevance of Kant’s aesthetic theory to Western art in terms of Modernism, thanks in large part to the work of eminent critic and art historian Clement Greenberg. Yet, thinking of Kant’s legacy for contemporary art as inhering exclusively in “Kantian formalism” obscures a great deal of Kant’s aesthetic theory. In his last book, Arthur Danto suggested just this point, urging us to enlarge our appreciation of Kant’s aesthetic theory and its relevance to contemporary art, because, (...) for Danto, “Kant had two conceptions of art.” In this essay, I support and build on Danto’s claim that there are really two conceptions of art at work in Kant’s third Critique, and that the second conception offers a non-Modernist/formalist way that Kant’s aesthetic theory remains relevant to post 1960s art. My ultimate aim is to highlight another facet in the continuing relevance of Kant’s aesthetic theory to post-Expressionist contemporary art, namely, the explicit attention to the differential aesthetic values of nature and art respectively. I shall do this by putting it in dialogue with the art practice of Latvian-American artist, Vija Celmins whose illustrious career since 1960s has made her an ‘artist’s artist’ but who has also recently garnered much wider attention with a retrospective titled “To Fix the Image in Memory.” Celmins takes up artistically a problematic that is quite central philosophically to the concerns of the third Critique, and thus her work illustrates another way in which Kant’s aesthetic theory is of great continuing relevance to the artworld today. (shrink)

In most circles today, it is taken to be an uncontroversial fact that human beings are having an impact on Earth's climate, and one that is exceedingly worrisom.

For well over a hundred years, commentators have examined the importance of the famous ‘neglected alternative’ (NA) objection to transcendental idealism. By contrast, very little attention has been paid to what the NA objection means for a later philosophical system of the 19th century that was highly indebted to Kant, namely, that of Arthur Schopenhauer. I seek to redress this lacuna in Schopenhauer scholarship and argue first that Schopenhauer acknowledged NA ( avant la lettre ) and took it seriously. Second, (...) I evaluate the arguments he gave against NA and in favor of the exclusive subjectivity of space and time, and thus for the thesis that the thing in itself is aspatiotemporal. Finally, I consider the threat posed by NA for Schopenhauer's thought in general. This investigation ultimately yields a clearer understanding of the basis upon which Schopenhauer founded his metaphysics, and how he attempted to provide a more self-consistent version of transcendental idealism. These topics have not been sufficiently appreciated by commentators to date. (shrink)

Danto's end of art thesis as well as his partial definition of art as “embodied meaning” have sparked much controversy, but I shall not quarrel with either here. Rather, my aim is to suggest that there was another distinct chapter in the grand narrative described by Danto, one taking place right under his nose. This was an environmental chapter, crystallized most forcefully in my view by the work of Latvian‐American artist Vija Celmins (1938‐ ), especially by her work To Fix (...) the Image in Memory I‐XI (1977‐82) consisting of 11 pairs of perceptually indiscernible stones, one found one made. Without the benefit of seeing her first retrospective in 2019, it would have been very hard to see how her own artistic narrative, culminating in these indiscernible stone pair works, offers “the appropriate next stage in the story.” Inspired by Danto, this is exactly what I hope to show. (shrink)

Rustin Cohle, the protagonist of the first season of True Detective, declares that he is "in philosophical terms, a pessimist". The doctrine of "pessimism" espoused by Rust is remarkably similar to the view adumbrated by Arthur Schopenhauer, who holds that conscious life (both human and nonhuman animal) involves a tremendous amount of suffering that is essentially built into the structure of the world and there is no Creator (providential or otherwise) to redeem all of this suffering, by, say, punishing the (...) wicked and rewarding the good. Rust finds some grounds for hope, and he chooses to continue on the path of compassion and justice, the path to try to improve the world. This prompts the question of whether he ever really embraced suicide in principle, and just lacked the constitution to pull it off, or whether, like Schopenhauer, he perhaps always found the intellectual grounds for such a radical decision to be shaky. (shrink)

Although much recent work in Anglo-American aesthetics on tragedy has focused exclusively on the ‘problems’ of tragic pleasure, in the long tradition of reflection on tragedy philosophers have focused more on tragedy as a genre of particular moral and political-philosophical significance. In this paper, we investigate the tragedy of our day in light of these latter concerns in order to determine what works of this genre reveal about the sense of the terrible necessities or near-necessities with which our contemporary Western (...) culture must grapple. We do this by focusing on cinematic tragedies since film is a medium that has become more popular than theatre. Surprisingly, contemporary aestheticians do not have a good definition of tragedy as it has developed to the present. Thus, we start with some definitional work taking Aristotle as a base. After adumbrating some plausible necessary conditions for tragedy, we note that there are not many films today that are genuine cinematic tragedies. Many contemporary films partially court a tragic structure but operate much more in the mode of melodrama. We shall categorize such films that share the pathos and suffering protagonists of the tragic genre but which generally eschew the tragic ending as part of what we call the ‘silver-lining genre’, a sub-genre of melodrama. Finally, we turn to a film that constitutes a genuine, contemporary cinematic tragedy, Into the Wild (dir. Sean Penn, 2007) and offer an analysis that reveals what this film says about our culture’s most serious and possibly intractable ethical and political problems. (shrink)

This essay offers a discussion of how Arthur Danto educated me philosophically both through his personal example and through his work. Along the way, I detail what I take to be his most important lesson: to engage deeply and seriously with the subject of one’s philosophy, in his case predominantly art, and thus always to retain contact with the world outside of philosophy. Danto modeled a truly engaged philosopher of art, attending to history, actual practices and contemporary currents, without sacrificing (...) philosophical clarity and depth. (shrink)

This essay offers a discussion of how Arthur Danto educated me philosophically both through his personal example and through his work. Along the way, I detail what I take to be his most important lesson: to engage deeply and seriously with the subject of one’s philosophy, in his case predominantly art, and thus always to retain contact with the world outside of philosophy. Danto modeled a truly engaged philosopher of art, attending to history, actual practices and contemporary currents, without sacrificing (...) philosophical clarity and depth. (shrink)

This comprehensive Handbook offers a leading-edge yet accessible guide to the most important facets of Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophical system, the last true system of German philosophy. Written by a diverse, international and interdisciplinary group of eminent and up-and-coming scholars, each of the 28 chapters in this Handbook includes an authoritative exposition of different viewpoints as well as arguing for a particular thesis. Authors also put Schopenhauer's ideas into historical context and connect them when possible to contemporary philosophy. Key features: Structured (...) in six parts, addressing the development of Schopenhauer's system, his epistemology and metaphysics, aesthetics and philosophy of art, ethical and political thought, philosophy of religion and legacy in Britain, France, and the US. Special coverage of Schopenhauer's treatment of Judaism, Christianity, Vedic thought and Buddhism Attention to the relevance of Schopenhauer for contemporary metaphysics, metaethics and ethics in particular. The Palgrave Schopenhauer Handbook is an essential resource for scholars as well as advanced students of nineteenth-century philosophy. Researchers and graduate students in musicology, comparative literature, religious studies, English, French, history, and political science will find this guide to be a rigorous and refreshing Handbook to support their own explorations of Schopenhauer's thought. (shrink)

I argue for an interpretation of Kant's aesthetics whereby the experience of the beautiful plays the same functional role in the invisible church of natural religion as Scripture does for the visible churches of ecclesiastical religions. Thus, I contend, the links that Kant himself implies between the aesthetic and the moral are much stronger than generally portrayed by commentators. Indeed, for Kant, experience of the beautiful may be necessary in order to found what Kant views as the final end of (...) morality — the ethical community — since human moral psychology requires embodiments of moral ideas. Finally, I seek to modify Martha Nussbaums' argument in Poetic Justice for the increased use of the literary imagination as a means for improving public moral reasoning in this country, with the Kantian insight that aesthetic autonomy is the key to any aesthetic-moral link. (shrink)

Zoltán Somhegyi’s Reviewing the Past: The Presence of Ruins takes the reader on a captivating journey through the phenomenon of ruins. It is a remarkable achievement that, I believe, only someone like Somhegyi--a philosophical aesthetician as well as an art historian, and one who has studied ruins on a global scale--could pull off so brilliantly.What I focus on in this essay, however, is on the side of ruins that I believe gets shorter shrift in this book, namely, the environmental side. (...) First, I take up some difficult cases for Somhegyi’s ontology of ruins, which I believe his account handles quite well, namely, the phenomenon of contemporary industrial and commercial ruins and the case of so-called ruins brought about through the destruction of war. Next, I turn to my main criticism of his treatment of ruins: that he looks at them predominantly through the lens of art, and not enough through the lens of nature. I suggest that Somhegyi is not sufficiently alive to consequences of the ruin’s artistic/natural hybridity; more specifically, I think he neglects some of the consequences of nature being a co-creator of the ruin. Finally, I propose further attention to the environmental views embodied in the change from the picturesque to the sublime treatment of ruins in art. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

By the start of the twenty-first century, the notion of ‘the sublime’ had come to seem incoherent. In the last ten years or so considerable light has been shed by empirical psychologists on a related notion of ‘awe’, and a fruitful dialogue between aestheticians and empirical psychologists has ensued. It is the aim of this paper to synthesize these advances and to offer what I call a ‘two-tiered’ theory of the sublime that shows it to be a coherent aesthetic category. (...) On this theory, sublime experiences begin in an ‘awe response’ (the ‘thin sublime’) and might, with the additional element of temporally-extended reflection, turn into a ‘thick sublime’ response. Building on accounts of the sublime as a species of ‘aesthetic awe’ (Clewis, 2019a and 2019b; Arcangeli, et al., 2020) I aim to show that this two-tiered theory helps to explain why sublime experiences seem to have a basic, primordial core, but also seem to be historically and culturally quite variable (as Nicolson, 1963 [1959]; Battersby, 2007; and McMahon, 2017 have stressed). On this model, the cultural and historical variability comes in largely at the point of the temporally-extended reflection characteristic of the thick sublime, due to the cognitive stock that the subject brings to the encounter. Thus, sublime experiences really lend themselves to being interpreted quite variously by the subject (as well as by the theorist) of these experiences, as, for example, affording insight into the Divine, our moral vocation, or our metaphysical unity with the entire universe, among other lofty thoughts. (shrink)

The aesthetic category of the sublime has been theorized (especially in the Kantian tradition) as integrally intertwined with the moral. Paradigmatic experiences of the sublime, such as gazing up at the starry night sky, or out at a storm-whipped sea, lead in a moral or religious direction depending on the cognitive stock brought to the experience, since they typically involve a feeling of awe and reflection on the peculiar situation of the human being in nature. The monumental is a similar (...) aesthetic category, integrally intertwined with the political, but, by contrast, has garnered almost no attention from aestheticians. My main goal in this paper is to sketch a theory of ‘the monumental’ as an aesthetic category—one that is a species of the sublime but differs qualitatively from the natural/environmental sublime in significant ways, and thus merits a distinctive label. In doing so, I aim to shed light on the nature and power of monuments specifically, and to begin to address a lacuna in our understanding of a long-standing and culturally important form of public art. (shrink)

The study of aesthetics concerns the arts broadly conceived, as well as the nature of aesthetic experience, which includes our responses to beauty, sublimity, ugliness, and other such qualities found in works of art, nature, the built-environment and in the course of everyday life. Although the term "aesthetics" to denote this area of study goes back only to the eighteenth century with the work of Alexander Baumgarten, the field has had a long and distinguished history dating back to classical antiquity. (...) Aesthetics is currently the scene of provocative philosophical exploration, and one which has become increasingly connected to work in disciplines outside of philosophy such as art history, psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, gender studies, and critical race theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACTCommentators have generally seen the compassionate person as a second-rate character vis-à-vis the ascetic ‘saint’ who denies the will-to-life and resigns from willing altogether in Schopen...

Kehinde Wiley became a household name and widely recognized as one of the most important living American artists with the 2018 unveiling of his official Smithso.

https://revistes.uab.cat/enrahonar/article/view/v55-shapshay-ferrell.

For the past several decades, popular culture, especially feature films and television, has been utilized with increasing frequency in bioethics teaching and reflection. This seems quite fitting, for, in the words of cultural historian and film critic Leo Braudy, even more than standard newspaper articles and other analytical texts, popular culture constitutes a “sounding board or lightning rod for deep-rooted audience concerns” Refiguring American film genres. University of California Press, Berkeley, pp 278–309, 1998). Further, many audience concerns in advanced-capitalist societies (...) relate to the promises and perils of science and technology in general and biomedicine in particular. In this essay, I offer an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing popular culture for bioethical reflection and pedagogy, and provide a framework for thinking through the promises and pitfalls of popular culture for researchers, teachers and practitioners of bioethics and biomedicine. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to scrutinize a contemporary standoff in the American debate over the moral permissibility of human reproductive cloning in its prospective use as a eugenic enhancement technology. I shall argue that there is some significant and under-appreciated common ground between the defenders and opponents of human cloning. Champions of the moral and legal permissibility of cloning support the technology based on the right to procreative liberty provided it were to become as safe as in vitro (...) fertilization and that it be used only by adults who seek to rear their clone children. However, even champions of procreative liberty oppose the commodification of cloned embryos, and, by extension, the resulting commodification of the cloned children who would be produced via such embryos. I suggest that a Kantian moral argument against the use of cloning as an enhancement technology can be shown to be already implicitly accepted to some extent by champions of procreative liberty on the matter of commodification of cloned embryos. It is in this argument against commodification that the most vocal critics of cloning such as Leon Kass and defenders of cloning such as John Robertson can find greater common ground. Thus, I endeavor to advance the debate by revealing a greater degree of moral agreement on some fundamental premises than hitherto recognized. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This thesis is primarily an attempt at solving some issues in Schopenhauer’s theory of salvation. My aim is to provide ways in which Schopenhauer’s soteriology could work. It is a partially reconstructive project in that I will be bringing to the forefront some of Schopenhauer’s assertions at the expense of others. My aim is to show that we are able to provide a much more cohesive and satisfying reading of Schopenhauer’s philosophical project if we let go of some of the (...) more orthodox assumptions in the Schopenhauer scholarship – chief amoung these being that Schopenhauer is committed to the view that the will constitutes ultimate reality. While this reading is a departure from the vast majority of the traditional readings of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, I believe it has the twin advantages of both aligning Schopenhauer’s thought much closer with the eastern traditions he believes his work is in sympathy with, and ultimately, providing a new platform from which to assess the ‘traditional’ reading of Schopenhauer’s thought as ‘hopelessly pessimistic’. It is my contention that while it remains true that Schopenhauer is very much a pessimist about the world as manifested will, it is the perceived difficulties of his philosophy of salvation that have provided the most significant road block preventing critics from seeing that there are dimensions to Schopenhauer’s thought that cannot so easily be labelled as either pessimistic or optimistic. This thesis is an attempt to shed light on possible new readings of Schopenhauer’s project in light of attempts to resolve issues in his soteriology. I begin with the question – why do we need saving? I attempt to answer this through an analysis of the terms ‘will’, ‘will-to-life’ and ‘affirmation and negation of the will-to-life’. Next, I attempt to argue that the will should not be seen as ultimate reality in Schopenhauer’s system and that this is both closer to the account which Schopenhauer himself was inclining towards later in his writings as well asa necessary sacrifice in order to save Schopenhauer from more problematic inconsistencies. I next attempt to solve inconsistencies in Schopenhauer’s account of personal identity. I argue that there can only be a denial of the will-to-life if there is more to our identity than willing. I will also examine the possibility of a denial of the will-to-life at all. I will be engaging with recent scholarship from Christopher 3 Janaway on the possibility of negating the will-to-life and the implications of this for Schopenhauer’s account of willing. I will then attempt to resolve the on-going debate in the secondary literature concerning Schopenhauer’s ethical pronouncements and his theory of the negation of the will-to-life. I will argue, contrary to Sandra Shapshay and Tristan Ferrell, that it is possible to be one in whom the will has denied itself while remaining one who wills ethically and that this can be the case if we focus our attention on what Schopenhauer may truly mean by a compassionate will to help others. Next, I will be asking why exactly it is good to be one in whom the will has denied itselfand what this means for our understanding of value for the will-less subject. Finally, I will be focusing on Schopenhauer’s pessimism and how a new reading of Schopenhauer’s soteriology means that we can introduce new ways of assessing both the world as well as the place of Schopenhauer’s philosophical system within it. Ultimately, I will conclude that any interpretation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy presents the scholar with a choice and that we are subsequently only able to make new evaluative assessments on Schopenhauer’s philosophy, as well push back against the charge that it is wholly pessimistic, if we choose to accept major revisions to his metaphysics of the will. However, because Schopenhauer himself seemed to be moving towards such revisions, we should not be afraid of doing so either. (shrink)

Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

In print for the first time in over ten years, Act and Crime provides a unified account of the theory of action presupposed by both Anglo-American criminal law and the morality that underlies it. The book defends the view that human actions are always volitionally caused bodily movements and nothing else. The theory is used to illuminate three major problems in the drafting and the interpretation of criminal codes: 1) what the voluntary act requirement both does and should require; 2) (...) what complex descriptions of actions prohibited by criminal codes both do and should require ; and 3) when two actions are 'the same' for purposes of assessing whether multiple prosecutions and multiple punishments are warranted. The book both contributes to the development of a coherent theory of action in philosophy, and it provides both legislators and judges a grounding in three of the most basic elements of criminal liability. (shrink)

In this short, dense essay, Jean Cavaillès evaluates philosophical efforts to determine the origin - logical or ontological - of scientific thought, arguing that, rather than seeking to found science in original intentional acts, a priori meanings, or foundational logical relations, any adequate theory must involve a history of the concept. Cavaillès insists on a historical epistemology that is conceptual rather than phenomenological, and a logic that is dialectical rather than transcendental. His famous call (cited by Foucault) to abandon "a (...) philosophy of consciousness" for "a philosophy of the concept" was crucial in displacing the focus of philosophical enquiry from aprioristic foundations toward structural historical shifts in the conceptual fabric. This new translation of Cavaillès's final work, written in 1942 during his imprisonment for Resistance activities, presents an opportunity to reencounter an original and lucid thinker. Cavaillès's subtle adjudication between positivistic claims that science has no need of philosophy, and philosophers' obstinate disregard for actual scientific events, speaks to a dilemma that remains pertinent for us today. His affirmation of the authority of scientific thinking combined with his commitment to conceptual creation yields a radical defense of the freedom of thought and the possibility of the new. (shrink)

Tri filosofskikh "opravdanii︠a︡" (teodit︠s︡ei︠a︡, antropodit︠s︡ei︠a︡, kosmodit︠s︡ei︠a︡ Serebri︠a︡nogo veka) -- Russkai︠a︡ sofiologii︠a︡ i kabbala -- S. Bulgakov : nauka sofiologii︠a︡ (ili konet︠s︡ religii) -- Tretiĭ Zavet o. Sergii︠a︡ Bulgakova -- Tretʹezavetnai︠a︡ misterii︠a︡ ("malai︠a︡" trilogii︠a︡ Bulgakova).

v. 1. pt. 1. Babaji's glimpses of the Tamil 18 Siddhas. pt. 2. [non-Roman data].