The term freedom appears in many contexts in Kant's work, ranging from the cosmological to the moral to the theological. Can the diverse meanings Kant gave to the term be ordered systematically? To ask that question is to test the consistency and coherence of Kant's thought in its entirety. Widely praised when first published in France, The Coherence of Kant's Doctrine of Freedom articulates and interrelates the disparate senses of freedom in Kant's work. Bernard Carnois organizes all Kant's (...) usages into a logical "grammar," isolating and defining the individual meanings and pointing out their implications and limits. In a first step, he shows how Kant's notion of intelligible character makes possible a synthesis of transcendental freedom, as a problematic concept of theoretical reason, and practical freedom, as a fact demonstrated by experience. He then develops the concept of freedom under the rubric of the will's autonomy in the context of the moral law. And finally, Carnois persistently explores the role of negativity in Kant's idea of freedom. For within the magisterial coherence of the system the imperfection of human finitude is inscribed. This introduces the "history" of our freedom--a freedom which posits itself, but then inevitably denies itself, even while preserving the possibility of its regeneration. The only work in English to consider in detail all of Kant's writings on freedom, this book also introduces French Kant scholars whose works have often been unavailable to English-speaking readers. As both an interpretation of Kant and a trenchant analysis of the relationship between ethical commitments and metaphysical assumptions, it will be a useful addition to moral, religious, and political philosophy as well as to Kant scholarship. (shrink)

Selon les stoïciens, il y a en tout être vivant une impulsion vitale, un élan de la nature qui le porte à persévérer dans son être. En la plupart des êtres, cette inclination naturelle est fatale, aveugle et inconsciente. Chez l'homme, au contraire, cette tendance initiale s'élève peu à peu à la conscience et se transforme ainsi en désir. Il semble bien que l'ρμ stoïcienne présente quelque analogie avec le conatus spinoziste. Spinoza, en effet, affirme que chaque chose s'efforce de (...) persévérer dans son être : « Unaquaeque res, quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare conatur». Cet effort, quand il se rapporte à 1'homme considéré comme formé d'une âme et d'un corps, est appelé appétit. Quant au désir, il n'est autre chose que l'appétit avec conscience de lui-même : «Il n'y a nulle différence entre l'Appétit et le Désir, sinon que le Désir se rapporte généralement aux hommes, en tant qu'ils ont conscience de leurs appétits ». A ce niveau, il existe done une étrange ressemblance entre le désir selon les Stoïciens et le désir selon Spinoza, puisque tous deux ont une racine commune, à savoir la tendance de l'être à persévérer dans son être : le désir est cette tendance elle-même, telle qu'elle se manifeste chez l'être raisonnable, conscient de ses appétits. (shrink)

Le pragmatisme de Peirce vise à réaliser le salut de l'homme par la connaissance. La connaissance des choses est déjà adaptée, par les signes qui l'expriment, au but de l'univers et de l'homme : la rationalisation conjointe de l'homme et de l'univers. Les différents stades de rationalisation sont : le tychisme, le synéchisme, l'agapusme. Mais Peirce finit par mettre hors de portée de la connaissance humaine la seule connaissance qu'il ait lui-même de l'homme, c'est-à-dire le savoir de la façon dont (...) l'homme est signe. In his pragmatism, Peirce wants to realize the salvation of mankind, with the help of knowledge. Through the signs, the knowledge of things is already adapted to the goal of the universe and of mankind, i.e. to the joined rationalization of mankind and of the universe. There are three stages of rationalization : tychism, synechism and agapeism. But finally Peirce is putting out of the reach of human knowledge the unique knowledge he is having of man, i.e. the knowledge of the manner in which man is sign. (shrink)

Que la tâche de fonder la morale soit particulièrement ardue, nul n'en doute, et la diversité des positions philosophiques en ce domaine nous incline à souscrire à la formule célèbre de Schopenhauer: « Prêcher la morale est chose aisée, la fonder chose difficile.» Tout penseur qui forme le dessein de fonder la morale est done en droit de se demander si un tel problème ne passe pas l'entendement humain et s'il sera jamais possible à l'homme de le résoudre. « Quel (...) est le fondement de la morale? », voilà une question qui semble s'imposer tout naturellement à notre réflexion, dût-elle par ailleurs demeurer sans réponse. Et pourtant, n'y a-t-il pas lieu de mettre en question la question elle-même et de s'interroger sur sa légitimité? Si une telle interrogation paraît, à première vue, insolite, c'est sans doute parce que, lorsque nous parlons de «fonder la morale», notre pensée s'oriente d'emblée vers la recherche du fondement, sans que l'on songe à mettre en doute le « bien-fondé » de l'acte même de fonder. C'est précisément pour souligner notre intention de ne point éluder une question aussi radicale que nous avons formulé le thème de notre réflexion de la manière suivante: « Peut-on et doit-on fonder la morale? ». (shrink)

Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such (...) as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems. (shrink)

In Morality Bernard Williams confronts the problems of writing moral philosophy, and offers a stimulating alternative to more systematic accounts which seem nevertheless to have left all the important issues somewhere off the page.

Descartes has often been called the 'father of modern philosophy'. His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time, are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of philosophy. This is a classic and challenging introduction to Descartes by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers. Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for (...) his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes' _Meditations _are not merely a description but the very enactment of philosophical thought and discovery. Williams covers all of the key areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and philosophy generally. With a new foreword by John Cottingham. (shrink)

Die "Paradoxien des Unendlichen" sind ein Klassiker der Philosophie der Mathematik und zugleich eine gute Einführung in das Denken des "Urgroßvaters" der analytischen Philosophie. Das Unendliche - seit jeher ein Faszinosum für die philosophische Reflexion - wurde in der Zeit nach der Grundlegung der Analysis durch Leibniz und Newton in der Mathematik zunächst als Problem betrachtet, das sich nicht vollkommen widerspruchsfrei behandeln lässt. Bernard Bolzano, der heute als "Urgroßvater der analytischen Philosophie" (Michael Dummett) gilt, zeigt in diesem klassisch gewordenen (...) Text jedoch, dass es beim Nachdenken über das Unendliche, sofern man begrifflich differenziert argumentiert und klare Definitionen zugrunde legt, keine echten Widersprüche gibt und sich die "Paradoxien des Unendlichen" auflösen lassen. Bolzano setzt sich zunächst mit den Unendlichkeitsbegriffen der Mathematik und der (idealistisch geprägten) Philosophie seiner Zeit auseinander, bevor er sich Schritt für Schritt die analytischen Grundlagen einer konsistenten Theorie des Unendlichen erarbeitet. Bereits einige Jahrzehnte vor Georg Cantors bis heute maßgeblicher mathematischer Unendlichkeitsdefinition gelingt Bolzano mit diesem Werk, dessen logische Klarheit und dessen Grad an philosophischer Durchdachtheit bis heute Beispielcharakter haben, die Rehabilitation des Unendlichen für die Philosophie der Mathematik. Die "Paradoxien des Unendlichen" wurden zuerst 1851 aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben. Diese Neuausgabe beruht auf dem der Erstausgabe zugrundeliegenden Manuskript. (shrink)

This book presents the thought of the Kyoto School in comparison with continental philosophers better known in the West and addresses the affiliation of some of its members with the militarism of the 1930s and 1940s.

In the aftermath of the First World War, the poet Paul Valéry wrote of a "crisis of spirit", brought about by the instrumentalization of knowledge and the destructive subordination of culture to profit. Recent events demonstrate all too clearly that the stock of mind, or spirit, continues to fall. The economy is toxically organized around the pursuit of short-term gain, supported by an infantilizing, dumbed-down media. Advertising technologies make relentless demands on our attention, reducing us to idiotic beasts, no longer (...) capable of living. Spiralling rates of mental illness show that the fragile life of the mind is at breaking point. Underlying these multiple symptoms is consumer capitalism, which systematically immiserates those whom it purports to liberate. Returning to Marxʹs theory, Stiegler argues that consumerism marks a new stage in the history of proletarianization. It is no longer just labour that is exploited, pushed below the limits of subsistence, but the desire that is characteristic of human spirit. The cure to this malaise is to be found in what Stiegler calls a "pharmacology of the spirit". Here, pharmacology has nothing to do with the chemical supplements developed by the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmakon, defined as both cure and poison, refers to the technical objects through which we open ourselves to new futures, and thereby create the spirit that makes us human. By reference to a range of figures, from Socrates, Simondon and Derrida to the child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Stiegler shows that technics are both the cause of our suffering and also what makes life worth living. -- Publisher description. (shrink)

This volume is a comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, and includes extensive discussions of the play's various printed versions and its theatrical productions. Aspinall has included only those essays that offer the most influential and controversial arguments surrounding the play. The issues discussed include gender, authority, female autonomy and unruliness, courtship and marriage, language and speech, and performance and theatricality.

After more than a decade teaching ancient Greek history and philosophy at University College, Oxford, British philosopher and political theorist Bernard Bosanquet resigned from his post to spend more time writing. He was particularly interested in contemporary social theory, and was involved with the Charity Organisation Society and the London Ethical Society. He saw himself as a radical in the Liberal Party, and at a theoretical level he was a 'collectivist', considering the individual to be a part of a (...) larger social organism. He thought the state should be in harmony with the general will, and that going beyond it would lead to repression. Bosanquet's political ideas are explained in this influential work, which was published in 1899 and ran to four editions by 1923. Bosanquet begins with the theory of state, and then addresses sociological and philosophical ideas about politics before examining the idea of 'will'. (shrink)

This book contributes to current bioethical debates by providing a critical analysis of the philosophy of human death. Bernard N. Schumacher discusses contemporary philosophical perspectives on death, creating a dialogue between phenomenology, existentialism, and analytic philosophy. He also examines the ancient philosophies that have shaped our current ideas about death. His analysis focuses on three fundamental problems: (1) the definition of human death, (2) the knowledge of mortality and of human death as such, and (3) the question of whether (...) death is nothing to us or, on the contrary, whether it can be regarded as an absolute or relative evil. Drawing on scholarship published in four languages and from three distinct currents of thought, this volume represents a comprehensive and systematic study of the philosophy of death, one that provides a provocative basis for discussions of the bioethics of human mortality. (shrink)

_Explores Schelling’s Essay on Human Freedom, focusing on the themes of freedom, evil, and love, and the relationship between his ideas and those of Plato and Kant._.

Epistemic decolonization, in its various conceptual formulations and presentations, could be taken to hold promise for either the completion of the anti-colonial struggle or the self-re-discovery of the formerly colonized and oppressed. In Africa this project has had a long history as both a counter to hegemonic histories of claimed Western epistemological superiority as well as theories of racism and racist practices against black people of African descent. What is not entirely clear are the precise achievements of decolonial thought and (...) practice. I interrogate the relevance, use and continuation of decoloniality as a genre of thought and practice on the African continent against the background of the perennial problems of material underdevelopment and stifled political spaces that render the supposed beneficiaries of decolonization hopeless subjects who continue to be disempowered and oppressed in their own home. This interrogation is to be carried alongside another inquiry aimed at evaluating the achievements of African philosophy as a form of epistemic decolonization. If African philosophy is a form of decolonization, as it should be, it should be able to clearly demonstrate its achievements and how they have had an effect on broader goals of decolonizing and empowering inhabitants of the African continent. (shrink)

Originally published in 1910, Principia Mathematica led to the development of mathematical logic and computers and thus to information sciences. It became a model for modern analytic philosophy and remains an important work. In the late 1960s the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University in Canada obtained Russell's papers, letters and library. These archives contained the manuscripts for the new Introduction and three Appendices that Russell added to the second edition in 1925. Also included was another manuscript, 'The Hierarchy of (...) Propositions and Functions', which was divided up and re-used to create the final changes for the second edition. These documents provide fascinating insight, including Russell's attempts to work out the theorems in the flawed Appendix B, 'On Induction'. An extensive introduction describes the stages of the manuscript material on the way to print and analyzes the proposed changes in the context of the development of symbolic logic after 1910. (shrink)

Part I. Phenomenology -- Phenomenology and the return to beginnings -- Delimitations: phenomenology and the end of metaphysics -- Part II. Sallis's Plato interpretation -- Being and logos: reading the Platonic dialogues -- Chorology: on beginning in Plato's Timaeus -- Platonic legacies -- Part III. Art/Sallis -- Stone -- Shades-of painting at the limit -- Topographies -- Part IV. Sallis and other thinkers -- The gathering of reason -- Spacings-of reason and imagination in texts of Kant, Fichte, Hegel -- Echoes: (...) after Heidegger -- Crossings: Nietzsche and the space of tragedy -- Part V. Sallis speaks directly -- Double truth -- Force of imagination: the sense of the elemental -- On translation -- The Sallis/Derrida dialogue -- Derrida's "Tense" and Sallis's The verge of philosophy. (shrink)

In "Global Spencerism" the authors analyse the communication and appropriation of Herbert Spencer s ideas around the globe. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century Spencer s distinctive theory of evolution, based on Lamarckianism, was almost as influential as Darwin s.".

Peu de philosophes contemporains choisissent de faire vivre leurs outils critiques grâce au terreau d'une association, d'un collectif. C'est le cas de Bernard Stiegler, qui a fondé Ars Industrialis en 2005. Le manifeste de l'association, Réenchanter le monde (Flammarion, 2005 ; 7400 ventes en Champs), devait connaître un grand retentissement. Depuis, les travaux et contributions fleurissent (de l'économiste André Gréau au comédien Robin Renucci, en passant par les spécialistes des digital studies), et Ars Industrialis franchit un cap en s'associant (...) à des collectivités locales (Nantes) ou en nouant des partenariats internationaux (Grande-Bretagne, Allemagne). Cet ouvrage fournit une synthèse de tous ces travaux en proposant un vocabulaire philosophique à la fois ambitieux et accessible. Qu'est-ce le marketing - le psychopouvoir - et pourquoi est-il un des dangers majeurs de notre époque? En quoi la technique influence-t-elle des fonctions aussi capitales que la mémoire ou l'écriture? Quelle nouvelle vision de l'éducation devons-nous mettre à jour depuis l'avènement du numérique? Que sont la bêtise et l'intelligence? Comment aider la transformation de citoyens passifs et débordés en amateurs, acteurs et membres d'une communauté de goûts et de savoirs? Faire attention propose, dans ces courts essais-définitions, le manifeste d'une époque charnière qui voit définitivement s'éloigner le monde ancien, tout en souhaitant mettre les outils de l'extrême contemporain au service d'un nouvel humanisme. (shrink)

Boucs émissaires, violences sacrificielles, désir mimétique, autant de thèmes que René Girard (1923-2015) n'a cessé d'explorer et qui sont devenus des ressources essentielles pour notre compréhension des sociétés. L'anthropologie mimétique, dont il a posé les bases, a en effet eu des échos multiples dans les sciences humaines et les religions. Avec ce livre, Bernard Perret offre une présentation éloquente de ce vaste chantier théorique. Il éclaire notamment la fonction et la signification de la violence dans les rapports humains, des (...) origines à nos jours, tout en explorant les liens et les différences entre la pensée de Girard et celle d'autres grands auteurs du XXe siècle (Lacan, Lévi-Strauss, Mauss...). Le lien particulier de Girard aux Écritures juives et chrétiennes, le sens à la fois novateur et controversé qu'il donne à la passion et à la mort du Christ, ne sont pas éludés, tout comme sa vision apocalyptique du politique. En exposant la cohérence profonde et la fécondité d'une pensée majeure de notre temps, ce livre permet de ressaisir tous les débats passionnants auxquels elle a donné et donne toujours lieu."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The paper examines the view that Nietzsche's perspectivism about practical judgments, understood as a form of internalism about practical reasons, implies that any legitimate criticism of judgments emanating from a foreign perspective must be in terms that are internal to this perspective. Insofar as it is thought to be motivated by certain general theoretical strictures of perspectivism, this view is incoherent. The paper argues that, on the contrary Nietzsche's recourse to a strategy of internal criticism is motivated by his own (...) particular commitment to preserving the freedom of spirit of his interlocutors. The paper concludes with a discussion of how freedom of spirit is preserved by internal criticism, and how the nature of freedom of spirit affects the particular form such criticism will assume. (shrink)

Time is analyzed as being those processes by which a system notes the processes which comprise its own existence. The directionality of time is given by the concepts, past, present, and future. To understand the meaning of these concepts, a set of experiments was carried out with four male subjects in which areas of time were expanded or ablated by means of post-hypnotic suggestions. These operations were carried out singly or in combination. The data suggest that the present is primarily (...) associated with stimulus input, the past with the criteria for defining that input as well as the development of response inhibitions and the future with the directionality of that input. Marked personality changes which range from the occurence of catatonic-like states to obsessive types of reaction and manic-like reactions are associated with different combinations of time alterations. Some of the changes are in accord with the serialist position on time of J. W. Dunne. The concept of death is very important both with regard to one’s view of time and how one lives. While it is important to live in the present, the present has no meaning without at least a past or a future. Implications of these findings for psychopathology in general and schizophrenia in particular are considered. (shrink)

A travers cet ouvrage, l'auteur démontre comment la pensée philosophique, de même que l'engagement politique d'Hannah Arendt contre le nazisme et la barbarie sous toutes ses formes, sont largement héritiers de Tocqueville.

1ere edition: Aubier, 1999 En assignant pour tache a la philosophie de surmonter la contingence, Hegel accomplit un geste original et difficile. Original parce qu'il s'ecarte aussi bien des rationalismes qui pensent n'en avoir fini avec le contingent que lorsqu'ils l'ont ramene au necessaire, que des penseurs qui estiment que reconnaitre la contingence, c'est y voir le tout autre de la raison. Hegel ne prone ni le regne de la necessite ni la capitulation devant l'absurde, mais une philosophie de la (...) liberte. Difficile, parce que, en decidant de penser ensemble et la consistance et la rationalite du contingent, Hegel doit a la fois reconnaitre ce qu'il appelle son droit monstrueux et au moment meme ou la raison avoue ses limites devant une contingence sans regle et sans frein ne jamais renoncer a l'exigence de dire le sens de cette limitation meme. A travers cette epreuve de la contingence, l'ouvrage tente d'offrir une interpretation d'ensemble du systeme aussi attentive a la lettre des textes qu'attachee a mettre en lumiere les apories que la philosophie hegelienne rencontre ou engendre. (shrink)

Paris, 1943. In a flash, a book is published that will shape post-war Europe like none other. Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness discloses utterly new insights about human freedom, about feelings such as shame and desire, and about death. The new edition of the renowned book of commentary on the magnum opus of French existentialism opens access to the work through the latest state of research.

La science est un modèle qui mime dans l'abstrait le comportement de la nature. Créations du chercheur, les théories pour un fait donné peuvent être multiples et chacune valide. La science a des lois, la nature n'en a pas. L'ordre de la nature, c'est le chercheur qui l'y met. L'esprit, façonnant un amorphe premier, participe à la mise en forme de la nature produisant le Réel "en nous". Celle-ci, réciproquement, modèle l'esprit. De ce fait, l'univers n'existerait plus si l'homme disparaissait...

Volume 48, Issue 3, November 2019, Page 471-488.

Volume 48, Issue 3, November 2019, Page 471-488.