Resumo Ao encerrar a sua explicação concernente à noção de Lei, no capítulo VI do segundo livro do Contrato social, Jean-Jacques Rousseau apresenta algumas inquietações referentes à capacidade de uma população prematura elaborar um sistema de legislação. Tais inquietações conduzem o pensador genebrino a preconizar a necessidade de uma figura polêmica e excepcional, na engrenagem política republicana: o legislador. Considerando a excepcionalidade dessa figura, o presente artigo sustentará a hipótese de que, mais do que alguém hábil em formular um conjunto (...) de leis para um determinado povo, a função republicana primordial de um legislador é a de contribuir para engendrar um espírito público em cada cidadão pertencente à república. A hipótese aventada será defendida a partir de três objetivos: primeiro, examinar-se-ão as razões pelas quais Rousseau julga ser necessário um legislador na ordenação republicana; segundo, analisar-se-á por que a construção de um espírito público pelo legislador pode ser considerada uma função republicana; terceiro, perscrutar-se-ão quais são as condições necessárias para um povo receber uma boa legislação.In closing his explanation concerning the notion of law, in chapter VI of the second book of the Social contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has some concerns about the ability of a premature population to develop a legislation system. Such concerns lead the Genevan thinker to advocate the need for a controversial and exceptional personage in the republican political machinery: The legislator. Considering the exceptionality of this personage, this article will support the hypothesis that, more than being one skilled at presenting a set of laws to a particular people, the primary republican function assigned to the legislator is to contribute to engender a public spirit in every citizen belonging to the republic. The hypothesis presented will be defended from three objectives: first, I shall examine the reasons why Rousseau deems it necessary to have a legislator in the republican order; Second, I shall analyze why the construction of a public spirit by the legislator may be considered a republican function; third, I shall look into the conditions necessary for a people to receive a good legislation. (shrink)

This article explores and seeks to appropriate theologically the African notion of vital force as a relational, non-reductionist ecological concept that would enrich the Christian doctrine of pneumatheology. The understanding that relational and pneumatological categories are viable within the theology–science dialogue is the broader framework within which this article is conceived. The relationship between natural theology and revelation provides an epistemological standpoint that does not divorce Spirit and reality.

The will to Qi -- Returning to the source: the history of energy and its uses -- Opening the energy gates of the body -- Powered by breath -- Cultivating mind and heart -- The elements of daily practice.

In The Vitality of Contradiction, Bruce Gilbert provides an exposition of Hegel's political philosophy to establish not only that societies fail because of their contradictions, but also how the unsurpassable oppositions of social life cultivate freedom. He moves beyond Hegel's works to consider the limits of liberal-capitalism and the contemporary social movements around the world that stretch us beyond the global economic system. Drawing on key Hegel texts such as Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right, Gilbert shows (...) how societies outgrow themselves as they come to recognize key aspects of freedom and justice. He argues that the dialectic requires that we recognize how liberal-capitalism has both cultivated freedom and yet fails to lead us to more sophisticated forms of freedom. Gilbert also highlights organizations including Brazil's Movement of Landless Workers and the Mondragon cooperative in Spain and the sophisticated ways in which they are teaching the world new and better ways to be free. Engaging and perceptive, The Vitality of Contradiction illuminates the basic principles behind Hegel's political thought and indicates the ways in which his work encourages people to strive for a form of socialist democracy. (shrink)

Spirit of the Environment brings spiritual and religious concerns to environmental issues. Providing a much needed alternative to exploring human beings' relationship to the natural world through the restrictive lenses of 'science', 'ecology', or even 'morality', this book offers a fresh perspective to the field. Spirit of the Enironment addresses: * the environmental attitudes of the major religions; * the relationship between art and nature; * the Gaia hypothesis; * the non-instrumental values which have inspired environmental concern. Contributors (...) range from a variety of disciplines including philosophy, comparative religion, education and social anthropology, providing students with an intriguing survey on the role that spirituality and religion play in nature. This is a vital collection for those eager to examine the relationship between the spiritual and the environment. (shrink)

Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes’s theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings of many seventeenth-century authors. In his illuminating account of Cartesian physiology in its historical context, Des Chene focuses on the philosopher’s innovative reworking of that field, including the nature of life, the problem of generation, and the concepts of health and illness. Des Chene begins (...) by surveying works that Descartes would likely have encountered, from late Aristotelian theories of the soul to medical literature and treatises on machines. The Cartesian theory of vital operations is examined, with particular attention to the generation of animals. Des Chene also considers the role of the machine-model in furnishing a method in physiology, the ambiguities of the notion of machine, and of Descartes’s problem of simulation. Finally, he looks at,the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul. Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene’s highly regarded exploration -- begun in his previous book, Life’s Form -- of the scholastic and Cartesian sciences as well as the dialogue between these two worldviews. Introduction 1 Part One - Tales of the Bête-Machine [ 1 ] - Self-Movers 13 [ 2 ] - Where Do Machines Come From? 32 [ 3 ] - The Uses of Usus 53 Part Two - Machines, Mechanisms, Bodies, Organs [ 4 ] - Tools of Knowledge 71 [ 5 ] - Jeux D’Artifice 103 [ 6 ] - Unity of the Body 116 Conclusion 153 Bibliography 159 Index 177. (shrink)

_Spirit of the Environment_ brings spiritual and religious concerns to environmental issues. Providing a much needed alternative to exploring human beings' relationship to the natural world through the restrictive lenses of 'science', 'ecology', or even 'morality', this book offers a fresh perspective to the field. _Spirit of the Enironment_ addresses: * the environmental attitudes of the major religions; * the relationship between art and nature; * the Gaia hypothesis; * the non-instrumental values which have inspired environmental concern. Contributors range from (...) a variety of disciplines including philosophy, comparative religion, education and social anthropology, providing students with an intriguing survey on the role that spirituality and religion play in nature. This is a vital collection for those eager to examine the relationship between the spiritual and the environment. (shrink)

Gil Germain's Spirits in the Material World reflects on the vital role technology plays in liberating humankind from the real world of space and time, and examines the broad implications of this development for contemporary society. Germain argues that we ought to be wary of our spiritual sojourn and suggests ways to offset technology's otherworldly impulse.

This essay proposes to discuss the manner in which Jan Baptista van Helmont helped to transform the Neoplatonic notions of vital spirit and of ferment by giving these notions an unambiguously chemical interpretation, thereby influencing the eventual naturalization of these ideas in the work of late seventeenth century chymists. This chemical interpretation of vital spirit and ferment forms part of Helmont’s hybrid ontology, which fuses a corpuscular conception of minima naturalia with a non-corporeal conception of semina (...) rerum. For Helmont, chemical alterations involve the minima as physical units but also depend upon ferments that are contained in the semina, which function as formative spiritual agents. Helmont’s nuanced ontology ultimately contributes to the development of modern corpuscularian theory by explaining many chemical reactions in fundamentally corpuscular terms, as the addition and subtraction of particles. (shrink)

Many religions and religious philosophies say that ultimate reality is a kind of primal energy. This energy is often described as a vital power animating living things, as a spiritual force directing the organization of matter, or as a divine creative power which generates all things. By refuting older conceptions of primal energy, modern science opens the door to new and more precise conceptions. Primal energy is referred to here as ‘spirit’. But spirit is a natural power. (...) A naturalistic theory of spirit is developed using ideas from information theory and thermodynamics, such as the maximum entropy production principle. Spirit drives the evolution of complexity at all levels of existence. (shrink)

The term ‘vitalism’ is most readily associated with a series of debates among 18th- and 19th-century biologists, and broadly with the claim that the explanation of living phenomena is not compatible with, or is not exhausted by, the principles of basic sciences like physics and chemistry. Scientists and philosophers have continued to address vitalism - mostly in order to reject it - well into the second half of the 20th century, in connection with classic concepts such as mechanism, reductionism, emergence, (...) complexity and artificial intelligence, and in connection with approaches such as information theory and cybernetics. This article problematizes and transforms the claim that vitalism is obsolete by evaluating it diachronically, in the spirit of the historian and philosopher of medicine, Georges Canguilhem. It discusses the contrast between classical vitalism and Canguilhem’s own claim that vitalism is ‘an imperative rather than a method and more of an ethical system, perhaps, than a theory’. At the same time, it argues that Canguilhem’s position cannot be reduced to a ‘polemical vitalism’ devoid of compromising references to reality or ontology. In relation to contemporary forms of engagement between social theory and biotechnoscience, Canguilhem’s vitalism continues to provide the critical corrective that is proper to its ‘vitality’. (shrink)

Conceptions of "the self" have received significant recent attention in philosophy, anthropology, and cultural history. Scholars argue that the introspective self of the modern West is a distinctive phenomenon that cannot be projected back onto the cultures of antiquity. While acknowledging such difference is vital, it can lead to an inaccurate flattening of the ancient self. In this study, Carol A. Newsom explores the assumptions that govern ancient Israelite views of the self and its moral agency before the fall (...) of Judah, as well as striking developments during the Second Temple period. She demonstrates how the collective trauma of the destruction of the Temple catalyzed changes in the experience of the self in Israelite literature, including first-person-singular prayers, notions of self-alienation, and emerging understandings of a defective heart and will. Examining novel forms of spirituality as well as sectarian texts, Newsom chronicles the evolving inward gaze in ancient Israelite literature, unveiling how introspection in Second Temple Judaism both parallels and differs from forms of introspective selfhood in Greco-Roman cultures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The concept of vital force in African philosophy received its first full articulation in Placide Tempels’s Bantu Philosophy and has evolved over time from the ontological dimension of a universal actuation and energizing principle to an element of mind, notably in the work of Kwame Gyekye. In this essay, I present the concept of vital force and trace its evolution from the time of its first full articulation by Tempels up to its identification with spirit, or (...) mind, in Gyekye’s thought. I try to defend the thesis that the concept of vital force can ground the notion of mood that takes a pivotal position in the twenty-first century philosophy of consolationism. I adopt an analytical and constructive method in this paper. (shrink)

My subject is the role of philosophical and social idealism in liberal theology, and I will argue that both are tremendously significant in the history of liberal theology and both are problematic, adaptable, and still important. There is no such thing as a vital or relevant progressive theology that does not speak with idealistic conviction, however problematic that may be. I am currently writing a large book on this topic, so some compression is necessary today.The book begins, as it (...) must, with Kant, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, and it ranges over the German, British, and American traditions of liberal theology. But today I'm going to make most of my case through the least familiar part of this story, the British .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Matter and Spirit in the Age of Animal MagnetismEric G. WilsonDuring the Romantic period, writers on both sides of the Atlantic explored the sleepwalker as a merger of holiness and horror. Emerging when scientific thinkers for the first time were connecting spirit to electricity and magnetism, the somnambulist became to certain Romantics a disclosure of the difficulty of harmonizing unseen and seen, agency and necessity. This problem (...) prominently arose in Anton Mesmer's late eighteenth-century experiments in animal magnetism, in which the sleepwalker proved a paradox: an opaque revelation of transparent currents and an unconscious vehicle of sophisticated thought. Romantics such as Coleridge embraced the somnambulist as an embodiment of these troubles involved in relating motion and meaning. Coleridge and those who responded to him saw in the hypnotized human this sobering possibility: the invisible requires the visible to make itself manifest while the visible needs the invisible to become significant. 1 This is sublime and sinister: to elevate a material form to spiritual power is transcendence; to sink the boundless into a body is grotesque.Here I explore the philosophical implications of animal magnetism, the place of the sleepwalker in the history of ideas, and the role of the hypnotized human in Romantic writers, especially Coleridge. I also meditate on relationships between matter and spirit, machine and human, word and thing. Along the way, I place the history of ideas and the works of Romantic writers in mutually illuminating dialogues. The literary texts shed fresh light on philosophical problems while the ideas reveal hidden literary elements.The somnambulistic trance had been around long before Mesmer's magnetic sleeps. For centuries, shamans had used auto-hypnosis to sound [End Page 329] their souls and other-hypnosis to cure their tribe-members' ailments. However, somnambulism could not become a scientific phenomenon until Europeans in laboratories began to study electricity and magnetism. In the early modern period, Paracelsus argued that a vital fluid courses through the cosmos. The human being draws this flow like a magnet attracts force. When the body pulls to itself evil effluvia, it falls ill. To return patients to health, Paracelsus placed magnets on painful areas. He hoped to extract the unwanted current and return it to the cosmic swirl. 2 In "magnetizing" spirit, Paracelsus opened a door for empirical inquiry into the invisible world. In 1600, William Gilbert claimed that magnets correspond to the earth: both are animated by universal attraction and repulsion. 3 By the end of the seventeenth-century, Newton proposed that things are impelled by a force that draws and repels. Newton's theory of gravity inspired natural philosophers of the next centuries to search for a principle of which the magnet and the spark are manifestations. 4During the second half of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, natural philosophers explored electricity and magnetism with unprecedented precision. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin revealed the mystery of lightning and perhaps the spark of life. 5 Inspired by Franklin, F. C. Oetinger, J. L. Fricker, and Prokop Divisch developed a theology of electricity, based on the belief that God is the electrical current. 6 Later in the century, Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta debated over whether the galvanic flow might be the origin and principle of life itself. 7 A few years before Franklin harvested lightning, John Michell argued that the magnetic force is not constrained to lodestones but is possibly pervasive. Some years later, Franz Aepinus suggested that magnetism and electricity manifest a deep energy. Soon after, C. A. de Coulomb discovered the mathematical law by which electrical and magnetic forces operate (Whittaker, pp. 50–59).These findings led to the breakthroughs of the nineteenth century. 8 In 1807, Humphry Davy hypothesized that chemical elements interact through electromagnetic affinity or repulsion. 9 In 1820, H. C. Oersted demonstrated the correspondence between electricity and magnetism. The same year, A. M. Ampere formulated the laws by which electrical and magnetic currents interact (Whittaker, pp. 81–86). Michael Faraday in 1831 revealed electromagnetic induction and thus inaugurated a second Copernican revolution: he showed that matter is not solid and discrete but a field of electromagnetic energy. 10 The dreams of [End... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:124 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY transcendental horizon from which it may be methodologically separated for restricted purposes but never severed without vital damage to both phenomenology and phenomenologist. MAURICE NATANSON University of North Carolina The Spirit of American Philosophy. By John E. Smith. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963.) We have never had a distinctive American philosophy.... If a genuine American philosophy arises, it must reflect the genius (...) of the people. Now, Yankees are distinguished from most others by their practical observation and invention. They have a pretty clear notion of what a thing is, and, if it is of value, they take steps to secure it.1 Professor John E. Smith has written an excellent book, The Spirit of American Philosophy, in which he offers "an interpretation of American philosophical thinking over the past seventy-five years" (p. x). He has chosen to discuss the work of Charles S. Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, and Alfred North Whitehead. The inclusion of Whitehead and the exclusion of Santayana will cause comment in several quarters. Smith justifies the inclusion of the former by stating that "his coming to America provided the opportunity for his most original thinking.... During his life in the United States he was able to give expression to his most comprehensive reflections on science, education, society, civilization, and the place of religion in the cosmic scheme" (p. 163). The exclusion of Santayana results from the seriousness with which Smith takes his title: Santayana is not in the spirit. "The American mind.., has been everything but what Santayana was and stood for" (p. x). The chapter on Peirce contains a very detailed account of his theories of meaning and belief, and concludes with a short discussion of his speculative metaphysic--primarily the doctrine of evolutionary love. The section on James contains a meticulous account of his theory of experience, followed by analyses of three facets of his brand of pragmatism: purpose, effort, and the will to believe. The section on Royce emphasizes what he and Smith like to call his "absolute pragmatism." Once again there are three doctrines singled out for discussion: the Eternal, the practical, and the beloved community. The discussion of Dewey centers on the doctrines of experience, experiment, and the method of intelligence. Much space in this longest of chapters is devoted to Dewey's doctrine of means and ends. The chapter on xJames McCosh, Realistic Philosophy (New York, 1890), I, 3-4. BOOK REVIEWS 125 Whitehead is the shortest, and concerns itself with Whitehead's ideas on speculative thinking (rather than his speculative thought), science, and education. The third topic in each case is not, of course, a dialectical synthesis, but is a more general topic in which the two more technical concepts are applied and exemplified. Smith does not attempt the task (so well accomplished by Herbert W. Schneider in his,4 History of American Philosophy) of charting the philosophical influences within and outside the American intellectual scene. He sticks closely to the philosophers themselves in order to give as lucid an account of their philosophical views as possible. His work is, therefore, in no sense a history, and should not be used as such. Indeed, temporal and developmental themes are manifestly in the background. Five voices of the same era are expressing in different ways "the spirit of American philosophy." This is a very useful book on the "golden age" of American philosophy. Wherein does its usefulness lie, and for whom will it be useful? In answer to the first question, it must be pointed out that the discussions of the philosophers selected are logically organized and clearly presented. Great care has been exercised to elucidate the leading ideas and to relate them to other aspects of the philosophers' thought. The style is uniformly graceful, and is almost a model for philosophical exposition. For the general student of the history of thought, then, The Spirit of American Philosophy will be useful. It will also be useful for the specialist in philosophy who has not read extensively in American philosophy. Looked at from another point of view, some of the strengths of the book turn out to be weaknesses. For in Smith's... (shrink)

This article examines the debate among natural philosophers during the early modern period which concerned whether living beings could be understood as biological machines that did not require a distinct principle of life or soul to explain their complex functioning. It suggests that these innovations can be seen collectively as a gradual substitution of the categorial framework of Aristotle by one derived from the experimental and mathematical sciences. The traditional epistemic relationship between natural philosophy and metaphysics thereby began a long-term (...) reversal. This article also discusses the sources of the early modern machine concept, animal spirits, and the problem of intermediate principles. (shrink)

In the early 20th century anthropologists collected sounds, images and artifacts to represent traditional cultures. Under the direction of Franz Boas, anthropologists working for the American Museum of Natural History's JesupNorth Pacific Expedition documented a variety of northeastern Siberian shamanisms. Demonstrations staged for the phonograph and the camera served as models for museum representations. These ethnographic inscriptions, together with the collection of texts and sacred objects, documented shamanistic traditions; yet ceremonial traditions remained partially obscured, resisting full intelligibility. The complexity of (...) variations suggests that mystification and opacity are central to shamanic efficacy and the continued vitality of performative ritual, and that Siberian shamanic practices are inherently resistant to anthropological modes of interpretation. (shrink)

Purpose. The aim of the article is to clarify the content of the concept of culture as an explication of vitality within the philosophy of life and its further modifications in current problems of contemporary. The analysis performed standing from the point, that contrasting of nature and culture is irrelevant, since culture does not contradict natural determinants and patterns, but rather qualitatively alters them. So, are justified the idea of culture as a phenomenon that exist accordingly and in proportion to (...) nature, need to form its potential and content and not contradict the axioms and values of life. Theoretical basis. In the theoretical field of philosophy of life, the local development of the problem of culture as an explication of vitality produces grounds for analytical and prognostic activity concerning meaningful transformations in a separate historical and social horizon. The fundamental categories of culture: spirit, value, symbol, freedom, justice and harmony receive the requested content and meaning. The idea of the constancy and super-naturality of cultural universals is illusory and dangerous. The consequences of such a "non-cosmological" justification of freedom and will, and the assertion of values, that contradict the logic of life, are the global environmental, economic and social crisis of our time. Originality. The originality of the authors’ thought lies in the interpretation of the essence of culture as an explication of vitality, as a logical and natural extension of life. In this formulation of the problem of culture, the possibility of reconciling the natural, social and value determinants of human life is formed. Theorists of the philosophy of life substantiated the primacy and supremacy of the values of life over the values and meanings of culture. The position of authors position consists in the need to understand culture as an environmentally appropriate and dimensional phenomenon, the content and strategies of which are determined by a single ontology. Conclusions. The analysis let authors understand the voluntarily chaotic element of life. Culture in its philosophical analysis took on a clearer anthropomorphic dimension: the immanent logic of being in substantiating the essence and purpose of man and the value of his being localized the universe of transcendence in the concept of "living world", "inhabited space", "human, too human". Accordingly, the range of cultural evaluations has been polarized: from the approving statement of its vital essence, to the disparaging calls for its reform. The chaotic state of voluntarily acts is transformed into cultural codes and stereotypes by rationalization. The modern global nature of crisis phenomena, both in the worldview, in the social, and in the ecological dimension, requires reformatting the understanding of culture as a continuation of nature, and not its antipode. (shrink)

Rousseau’s political project consists in ensuring that the citizens of the social contract, in uniting with each other, preserve their ability to self-legislate, or be autonomous. For this to work, however, members of the social contract would need to feel intrinsically linked to the political whole. This essay investigates what that feeling might be and how it can be grown. I argue that Rousseau develops a model of the energy or character of the being capable of autonomy, capable of experiencing (...) themselves as part of the whole. That energy is a pathos of vigour, a strong sentiment and way of being that I develop from Rousseau’s educational precepts in Émile, which makes the citizen feel free and robust in dependence and boundedness. Autonomy, then, comes from the active exercise of oneself, physically and mentally, in an environment bounded by things, and this results in a sentiment of vigour, a vitality that produces confidence and poise, which then entices further activity. (shrink)

This paper walks through four different approaches to Hegel's notion of Consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Through taking four different approaches our aim is to explore the multifaceted nature of the phenomenological movement of consciousness. The first part provides an overview of the three chapters of the section on Consciousness, namely Sense-Certainty, Perception and Force and the Understanding, attempting to unearth the implicit logic that undergirds Consciousness’ experience. The second part focuses specifically on the shape of Sense-Certainty, providing (...) an analysis of the movement from Sense-Certainty to Perception from a neuroscientific view. Thirdly, we consider an inferentialist reading of the chapters on Consciousness which has been made popular by Robert Brandom. We think that while this view elucidates the connection that Hegel draws between meaning and use, it fails to account for the vital place of immediacy in each of the shapes. Finally, the fourth part suggests that Hegel’s notion of Consciousness improves the reading of tragedy he develops in chapters 5 and 7 of the Phenomenology. While many critics have noted that Hegel fails to do justice to tragic experience, Consciousness contains an epistemology that develops analogously to the heroes of ancient tragedy. Each approach in this paper comes at Hegel’s description of the journey of Consciousness from a different angle, and together they paint a multi-layered picture of a highly important part of Hegel’s corpus. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, for Nietzsche, the will to power is a kind of élan vital, i.e., vital impulse, force or drive. In living creatures, it is a drive to express their natures. In human beings, it is complex and must be developed in stages. The initial stages include becoming independent and striving for freedom of spirit and expression. Of the few that achieve the last stage, some will become the Übermensch or superior persons who (...) will achieve great creative acts and in so doing enhance the capabilities of all humans. Nietzsche spoke as if he were one of the free spirits, but implicit in his writings is the idea that he is an exemplar of the Übermensch. (shrink)

Anne Conway’s philosophy has been categorized as “vitalism,” “vital monism,” “spiritualism,” “monistic spiritualism,” “immaterial vitalism,” and “antimaterialism.” While there is no doubt that she is a monist and a vitalist, problems arise with the categories of “spiritualism,” “immaterial vitalism,” and “antimaterialism.” Conway conceives of created substances as gross and fixed spirit, or rarefied and volatile matter. While interpreters agree that Conway’s “spirit” shares characteristics traditionally attributed to matter (e.g., extension, divisibility, impenetrability), and that she is critical of (...) Henry More’s immaterial spirit, Conway’s spirit is still conceived as an immaterial soul-like or mind-like entity. I argue that Conway’s vitalism is material, and is best understood in the tradition of Renaissance vital naturalism. First, Conway does not criticize materialism per se, only mechanical materialism, which characterizes matter as lifeless. Her vitalism has to be materialistic in some sense, since only God is an immaterial substance. Second, Conway’s conceptions of matter and spirit, the language she uses, and the fact that she attributes thinking to extended, divisible, and impenetrable substances all place her within the tradition of Renaissance vital naturalism, wherein Bernardino Telesio, Tommaso Campanella, and Francis Bacon used “spirit” to account for all natural processes. (shrink)

This book discusses issues like the characteristics of Chinese cultural spirit, life wisdom of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, the management wisdom of traditional Chinese culture, features of Chinese philosophy, as well as the definition of guoxue, or Chinese studies. Referring to previous research, the author defines the characteristics of the traditional Chinese cultural spirit as creating harmony amid diversity and viewing the outside world with a broad mind; being vigorous and self-motivated with tenacious vitality; taking benevolence and righteousness (...) as supreme and being independent; considering people as the basis of the nation; thinking systematically and dialectically; and being pragmatic and thrifty. This book is beneficial to studies on cultural awareness, civilization comparison, as well as civilization exchange. (shrink)

With a new preface by the authorThis final book in Irving Singer's Meaning in Life trilogy studies the interaction between nature and the values that define human spirituality. It examines the ways in which we overcome the suffering in life by resolving our sense of being divided between them. Singer suggests that the accord between nature and spirit arises from an art of life that affords meaning, happiness, and love by employing the same principles as those that exist in (...) all artistic achievements. It is through the meaningfulness created by imagination and idealization, Singer says, that we make life worth living.This human art form, Singer writes, enables us to unite our selfish interests with our compassionate and loving inclinations. We thereby effect a vital harmonization within which the naturalistic values of ethics, aesthetics, and religion can find their legitimate place. The good life, as envisioned by Singer, includes the love of persons, things, and ideals so intricately intermeshed that the meaning in one contributes to the meaningfulness of the other two. The result is a kind of happiness that we all desire.Irving Singer Library. (shrink)

This article traces the semantics of ?life? and ?vitality? in Carl Schmitt up to the 1930s. It shows that Schmitt deploys these vitalist elements against the modern ?spirit of technicity? in his attempt to combat the lack of substantial ideas in modern politics. However, Schmitt himself cannot escape a fundamental political relativism. There remains an unstable tension at the heart of his thought between the quest for substance and the quest for order. The latter is relativist because it is (...) a quest for order as such, any order. Although Schmitt's semantics of life and vitality is not drawn from a biological register, it adopted a völkisch meaning in 1933. Anti-Semitism becomes a form of life and racial homogeneity fills in for substance. The article concludes that, while there are good reasons for criticizing the modern ?spirit of technicity,? Schmitt's critical model is fundamentally flawed. (shrink)

Little attention has been given to the integral relationship between character strengths and spirituality (the search for or communing with the sacred to derive meaning and purpose). The science of character strengths has surged in recent years with hundreds of studies, yet with minimal attention to spirituality or the literature therein. At the same time, the science of spirituality has steadily unfolded over the last few decades and has offered only occasional attention to select strengths of character (e.g., humility, love, (...) forgiveness) or the universal typology of the VIA Classification of character strengths and virtues. In this exploration, we argue that there is a robust synergy of these sciences and practices revealing that spirituality is vitally concerned with promoting character strengths. At the same time, character strengths can enhance and deepen spiritual practices, rituals, and experiences. We elaborate on how character strengths and spirituality come together in the context of the psycho-spiritual journey toward wholeness. By wholeness, we are referring to a way of being in the world, which involves a life-affirming view of oneself and the world, a capacity to see and approach life with breadth and depth and the ability to organize the life journey into a cohesive whole. We further discuss six levels by which spirituality can be integrated within the VIA Classification, including a meta-perspective in which wholeness represents a meta-strength or superordinate virtue. We frame two pathways of integration: the grounding path, in which character strengths offer tangibility and thereby deepen and enhance spirituality, and the sanctification path, in which spirituality elevates character strengths. Finally, we turn to research-based practices and examine how character strengths might facilitate and contribute to spiritual practices and, conversely, how spirituality might enhance character strength practices. Such multifaceted integration offers insight and wisdom to both areas of study and opens up new directions for psychospiritual research and practices to deepen and broaden our understanding of what it means to be human. (shrink)

Coleridge's relation to his German contemporaries constitutes the toughest problem in assessing his standing as a thinker. For the last half-century this relationship has been described, ultimately, as parasitic. As a result, Coleridge's contribution to religious thought has been seen primarily in terms of his poetic genius. This book revives and deepens the evaluation of Coleridge as a philosophical theologian in his own right. Coleridge had a critical and creative relation to, and kinship with, German Idealism. Moreover, the principal impulse (...) behind his engagement with that philosophy is traced to the more immediate context of English Unitarian-Trinitarian controversy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book re-establishes Coleridge as a philosopher of religion and as a vital source for contemporary theological reflection. (shrink)

What is 'fairness' in the context of educational assessment? I apply this question to a number of contemporary educational assessment practices and policies. My approach to philosophy of education owes much to Wittgenstein. A commentary set apart from the main body of the paper focuses on my style of philosophising. Wittgenstein teaches us to examine in depth the fine-grained complexities of social phenomena and to refrain from imposing abstract theory on a recalcitrant reality. I write philosophy of education for policy (...) makers and teachers. Scrutiny of examples plays a vital role in communicating with such an audience. Starting points include 'accommodations' for disabled students, allegedly gender-biased tests, and the recruitment procedures of 'elitist' music conservatoires. A key intuition that fairness is associated with test validity turns out to be seriously flawed. Problems centre on the idea of a 'construct', and the supposed divide between an underlying construct and its behavioural manifestations. Equality of opportunity notions underlie some accusations of unfairness but there are alternative approaches to a just society. Both the judgments about fairness, and the proposed remedies are open to serious philosophical criticisms. There are widespread conceptual difficulties, together with inconsistent and contestable value judgments. (shrink)

This book develops Non-Identity Theodicy as an original response to the problem of evil. It constructs an ethical framework for theodicy by sketching four cases of human action where horrendous evils are either caused, permitted, or risked, either for pure benefit or for harm avoidance.

Paul Franco’s book, "Nietzsche’s Enlightenment: The Free-Spirit Trilogy of the Middle Period," offers a close study of Nietzsche's middle period works, revealing a Nietzsche attentive to the concerns that motivated the European Enlightenment that Franco references in his title. Franco aims to show that a concern with science, reason, and truth remains important to Nietzsche in his post-Gay Science works. That is, although Nietzsche is most at home in the Enlightenment tradition during his middle period, he never abandoned this (...) aspect of his thought for a wholesale rejection of science, human reason, and the possibility of truth, as some readers of Nietzsche suggest. Franco suggests that the free spirit ideal that animates the middle period remains a vital element of Nietzsche’s thought throughout his mature work, marking the ideals expounded there. (shrink)

This paper intends to verify the extent and effectiveness of the transforming appropriation of the Derridean concept of ‘differance’ by Stiegler with respect to the problems that, according to Stiegler, make this creative critical operation necessary; in particular with respect to the most recent question concerning the possibility of thinking about and putting into practice a ‘neganthropological différance’ capable of facing the ecological crisis that today seems to threaten the very existence of life on earth. The paper goes back to (...) Technics and Time 1. to analyze the distinction between ‘vital difference’ and ‘noetic difference’ that constitutes the condition of possibility of the ‘neganthropological différance.’ In this perspective, the distinction proposed by Stiegler seems to re-propose the hierarchically oriented oppositional structure that characterizes metaphysical thought and in particular the opposition between man and animal, attributing to the human being the ability to free himself from the constraints of his biological-natural condition. Finally, the paper attempts to account for the repercussions of this approach on the very possibility of an effective response to the ecological crisis, concluding with a provocation regarding the role that theory can and must play with regard to such an urgent and far-reaching problem. (shrink)

Towards biodeconstruction -- Between life and death: différance -- The absolute programme -- The text and the living -- Between life and death: the bond -- Beyond life death: autoimmunity -- Living on: the arche-performative.

Depois de estabelecer as características do corpo político ou soberano e destacar a função excepcional do legislador no Livro segundo do Contrato social, e no livro seguinte analisada a incumbência do governo na ordem política, Rousseau, no livro quarto da obra referida, se mobiliza para demonstrar a importância fundamental de algumas instituições para a manutenção dos valores republicanos. Entre as diversas instituições apresentadas pelo filósofo genebrino que visam cumprir esses objetivos, o presente artigo se concentra no exame de três delas: (...) o tribunato, a ditadura e a censura - instituições claramente inspiradas nas instituições romanas no período da Roma republicana. Em vista disso, indagamos: em que consiste o tribunato, a ditadura e a censura no arcabouço teórico de Rousseau? Quais são suas características? Como elas podem contribuir para a conservação da República? Partindo dessas indagações, pretende-se investigar as definições das três instituições elencadas bem como suas particularidades e a maneira como elas operam e podem contribuir para a preservação da República em longo prazo. (shrink)

In her book Specifications Grading, Linda B. Nilson advocates for a grading regimen she claims will save faculty time, increase student motivation, and improve the quality and rigor of student work. If she is right, there is a strong case for many faculty to adopt some version of the system she recommends. In this paper, we argue that she is mostly right and recommend that faculty move away from traditional grading. We begin by rehearsing the central features of specifications grading (...) and providing two examples of how to implement it in philosophy classes. In light of the examples, we argue that specifications grading fulfills two of Nilson’s central desiderata but not the third. Since specifications grading generates two benefits that when combined increase student learning, without adding or increasing burdens, we conclude that student learning increases when courses are revised to include aspects of specifications grading. (shrink)

Esse artigo traz uma discussão sobre a educação emancipatória a partir dos textos tardios de Adorno e Horkheimer . Eles revelam um significativo olhar sobre realidade e uma valiosa contribuição para o tema da emancipação vinculado à teoria crítica da sociedade, além de uma importante reflexão sobre a educação crítica e emancipatória. Nessa perspectiva, são enfocados textos da última fase de Adorno e Horkheimer que mantêm uma vinculação com o projeto emancipatório da teoria crítica, sobressaindo os temas da formação cultural, (...) da educação crítica, do progresso, da teologia como categorias crítico-emancipatórias. Percebe-se, dessa forma, um insistente interesse pela emancipação, como se vislumbra pela noção de teologia defendida por Horkheimer em seu trabalho A Nostalgia do Totalmente Outro , em que ele a compreende como sendo a recusa de que o mal prevaleça na história humana. Ou ainda, pela concepção de educação em Adorno, cuja tese é que a educação tem como primeira tarefa fazer com que Auschwitz não se repita; ou também pelo chamamento a uma educação para a sensibilidade. Em função disso, a discussão aqui proposta tem como pano de fundo a compreensão de progresso e de teologia. Em relação à primeira, é feita uma crítica à concepção de progresso como pura evolução técnica, na linha da razão instrumental, em detrimento da humanidade, segundo compreende Adorno. A categoria de progresso, nesses termos, encontra ressonância também no pensamento de Horkheimer desenvolvido em Eclipse da Razão e em A Nostalgia do Totalmente Outro como justificativa teológica que pretende rechaçar a prevalência do mal na história humana. A proposta educacional emancipatória se radica no enfrentamento dos impasses postos pelo mundo administrado, fechado a mudanças, cujos fins já estão previamente configurados, enquanto projeto político que se sobrepõe aos valores da humanidade. A insustentável situação de alienação e opressão que marca a história de considerável parcela da humanidade reivindica soluções e indaga as razões dessa humanidade que viu surgir o projeto de emancipação da razão ter se fixado nesses impasses. Isso implica uma ética da indignação redentora que comporta tanto a crítica do mundo administrado quanto a afirmação da humanidade e da razão emancipatória. Visando a uma educação emancipatória como desfecho da discussão em torno de uma relação entre a teoria crítica e o projeto de emancipação, desenvolvo diversos aspectos que compõem o conjunto da reflexão da teoria crítica. Assim, a partir das categorias de progresso, teologia, formação cultural e educação crítica, busco os elementos que sustentam o projeto de emancipação no todo da teoria crítica, emblematicamente reunidos no tema da educação emancipatória. (shrink)

Examines the relationship of Derrida’s writings on architecture to his methodology of deconstruction and to deconstrutivism in architecture. Between 1984 and 1994 Jacques Derrida wrote and spoke a great deal about architecture both in his academic work and in connection with a number of particular building projects around the world. He engaged significantly with the work of architects such as Bernard Tschumi, Peter Eisenman, and Daniel Libeskind. Derrida conceived of architecture as an example of the kind of multidimensional writing that (...) he had theorized in Of Grammatology, identifying a rich common ground between architecture and philosophy in relation to ideas about political community and the concept of dwelling. In this book, Francesco Vitale analyzes Derrida’s writings and demonstrates how Derrida’s work on this topic provides a richer understanding of his approach to deconstruction, highlighting the connections and differences between philosophical deconstruction and architectural deconstrutivism. “Although there has been some discussion of the intersection of deconstruction and architecture in the past, mostly among architects and architectural critics, Vitale’s work is distinguished by the fact that it is written by a true philosopher who has a much more acute sense than has usually been the case of the philosophical underpinnings of Derrida’s exchanges with Tschumi, Eisenman, and others. Vitale is throughout concise, precise, insightful, and often brilliant.” — Geoffrey Bennington, author of Interrupting Derrida. (shrink)

I develop a theodicy (Non-Identity Theodicy) that begins with the recognition that we owe our existence to great and varied evils. I develop two versions of this theodicy, with the result that some version is available to the theist regardless of her assumptions about the existence and nature of free will. My defense of Non-Identity Theodicy is aided by an analogy between divine creation and human procreation. I argue that if one af rms the morality of vol- untary human procreation, (...) one should af rm the morality of divine creation; conversely, deny- ing the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy has assumed a central role in the debate about deepening democratic practices in complex contemporary societies. By acknowledging the citizens as the main actors in the political process, political deliberation entails a strong ideal of participation that has not, however, been properly clarified. The main purpose of this article is to discuss, through Jürgen Habermas’ analysis of modernity, reason and democracy, whether and to what extent deliberative democracy and participatory democracy are compatible and how they can, either separately (...) or together, enhance democratic practices. Further exploration of this relationship will permit a better understanding of the possibilities and limits of institutionalizing both discourses, as well as of developing democracy in a more substantive dimension. (shrink)

I develop a theodicy that begins with the recognition that we owe our existence to great and varied evils. I develop two versions of this theodicy, with the result that some version is available to the theist regardless of her assumptions about the existence and nature of free will. My defense of Non-Identity Theodicy is aided by an analogy between divine creation and human procreation. I argue that if one affirms the morality of voluntary human procreation, one should affirm the (...) morality of divine creation; conversely, denying the morality of divine creation commits one to denying the morality of human procreation. (shrink)

Há duzentos anos (1823) triunfou a contrarrevolução da _Vila-Francada_, pondo fim à primeira experiência constitucional moderna em Portugal. De imediato, D. João VI determinou a revogação da Constituição de 1822, assim como das reformas adotadas para apagar a memória do regime constitucional anterior. Em simultâneo, a partir de uma iniciativa espontânea da Câmara da vila de Sernancelhe, formou-se um movimento municipal para anulação das próprias eleições às Cortes vintistas e revogação das procurações outorgadas aos deputados. Este artigo versa sobre ambas (...) as iniciativas, régia e municipal, considerando sobretudo que a anulação municipal das eleições vintistas é muito pouco conhecida e está praticamente por estudar na historiografia sobre a contrarrevolução. (shrink)

It is, if not a happy accident, then surely a pleasing peripety that despite Pascal's intention to complete an Apology for the Christian Religion, the fragmentary character of his Pensées should, by its very incompleteness, so well have served his purpose, as the vitality of the torso he left us attests. Yet there is ample evidence in the Pensées themselves that the book's orderless order captures both the rhetorical problem Pascal confronted and the solution he envisaged. More broadly stated, the (...) literary form of the work, such as it is, mirrors its substance, namely, the fragmentary character of the created whole and the human part of that whole. In short, the last thing Pascal wished to do was to make things easy for his reader, and in this respect the Pensées he left us serve his intentions admirably. While Kolakowski's study of "Pascal's religion" ultimately denies that the rigors of Pascal's argument are compatible with human happiness or reason, God Owes Us Nothing does honor Pascal's purpose by refusing to ease our way by making things simple. (shrink)

In “Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” Jacques Derrida returns to the controversy with Jonathan Searle to clarify his position but above all because he “would have wished to make legible the (philosophical, ethical, political) axiomatics hidden beneath the code of academic discussion.” I intend, in turn, to return to this text in order to find in it not only the conditions of an ethics of academic discussion but also of interpretation in a deconstructive perspective. In “Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” (...) in fact, it is possible to point out the necessity of a certain ethical treatment of the texts. In particular, how can we determine the conditions of an ethical use of quotation against the always possible manipulation of the text that quotation makes possible? I attempt to answer this question claiming that the reading protocol of deconstruction meets these conditions showing us at the same time the ethical conditions of scientific discourse in general, beyond any scientific claim of objectivity. (shrink)

Vitale plantea un razonamiento en torno a la existencia y naturaleza de los llamados «derechos colectivos». Tomando al antiguo filósofo Carnéades como pretexto y simple inspiración, el autor explora los argumentos tanto a favor como en contra de la existencia de comunidades homogéneas y de los derechos atribuibles a colectivos. Según Vitale, en ninguno de los dos casos la existencia o inexistencia de derechos colectivos obtie-ne un fundamento sólido. En el fondo, el multiculturalismo no logra evitar la contradic-ción que consiste (...) en el hecho de que los derechos particulares reivindicados por cada una de las comunidades terminan por ser totalmente incompatibles con aquellos igualmente particulares reivindicados por las otras comunidades. (shrink)

While working on the Italian translation of Life Death, I became aware of some inaccuracies on Derrida’s part that might weaken the effectiveness of his deconstruction of the notion of ‘reproduction’. Not only, such inaccuracies seem to lead Derrida’s interpretation of reproduction toward a conception of ‘life’ that might even hint at an undeconstructed metaphysical background. I have already dealt with such inaccuracies in detail in two articles published in French, here I will recall their outcomes in order to try (...) to test the most problematic hypothesis they have led me to formulate: the Derridean conception of ‘life’ implies a metaphysical background. (shrink)