Online research in philosophy

Bringing Pierre Bourdieu to Science and Technology Studies Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-273 DOI 10.1007/s11024-011-9174-2 Authors Mathieu Albert, Wilson Centre and Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, 200 Elizabeth Street , Eaton-South 1-581, Toronto, ON M5G 2C4, Canada Daniel Lee Kleinman, Department of Community and Environmental Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 348 Agricultural Hall 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA Journal Minerva Online ISSN 1573-1871 Print ISSN 0026-4695 Journal Volume Volume 49 Journal Issue Volume 49, (...) Number 3. (shrink)

Friedrich Albert Lange (b. 1828, d. 1875) was a German philosopher, pedagogue, political activist, and journalist. He was one of the originators of neo-Kantianism and an important figure in the founding of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. He is also played a significant role in the German labour movement and in the development of social democratic thought. His book, THE HISTORY OF MATERIALISM, was a standard introduction to materialism and the history of philosophy well into the twentieth century.

The German–American physiologist Jacques Loeb (1859–1924) and the Polish embryologist Emil Godlewski, jr. (1875–1944) contributed many valuable works to the body of developmental biology. Jacques Loeb was world famous at the beginning of the twentieth century for his development and demonstration of artificial parthenogenesis in 1899 and his experiments on regeneration. He served as a role model for the younger Polish experimenter Emil Godlewski, who began his career as a researcher like Loeb at the Zoological Station in Naples. (...) Following Godlewski’s first visit to Naples in 1901 a close relationship between the two scientists developed. Until Loeb’s death in 1924 the two exchanged ideas via correspondence that was only interrupted during the First World War. The aim of the paper is to examine the transatlantic transfer of knowledge in the field of biological experimentation that was fostered by these two protagonists. Using a modification of Bruno Latour’s model of the ‘Circulatory System of Science’ as a heuristic tool, different mechanisms of scientific exchange are displayed. With the help of Loeb’s and Godlewski’s correspondence the role of scientific communities, methods, allies, the public and institutions in the process of knowledge transfer are analysed. Preconditions for success and failure in transferring science are examined. (shrink)

'No writer has probed the riddle of the Other with more patience and insight than Jacques Derrida.

Fifty years ago when Jacques Hadamard set out to explore how mathematicians invent new ideas, he considered the creative experiences of some of the greatest thinkers of his generation, such as George Polya, Claude Le;vi-Strauss, and Albert Einstein. It appeared that inspiration could strike anytime, particularly after an individual had worked hard on a problem for days and then turned attention to another activity. In exploring this phenomenon, Hadamard produced one of the most famous and cogent cases for (...) the existence of unconscious mental processes in mathematical invention and other forms of creativity. Written before the explosion of research in computers and cognitive science, his book, originally titled The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field , remains an important tool for exploring the increasingly complex problem of mental life. The roots of creativity for Hadamard lie not in consciousness, but in the long unconscious work of incubation, and in the unconscious aesthetic selection of ideas that thereby pass into consciousness. His discussion of this process comprises a wide range of topics, including the use of mental images or symbols, visualized or auditory words, "meaningless" words, logic, and intuition. Among the important documents collected is a letter from Albert Einstein analyzing his own mechanism of thought. (shrink)

Long recognised as a painting ‘about’ painting, Velázquez’s Las Meninas comes to Lacan’s aid as he explicates the object a in Seminar XIII, The Object of Psychoanalysis (1965–1966). The famous seventeenth century painting provides Lacan with a visual mapping of the ‘ghost story’ he discovers in the Cartesian cogito, insofar as it depicts the unravelling of the Cartesian representational project at the moment of its founding gesture. This article traces Lacan’s argument as he turns to art, linear perspective and topology (...) to model how the object a persistently eludes the grasp of scientific knowledge. Following a discussion of distance-point perspective in Renaissance Italy and the role this innovation played in enabling distorted depictions of objects in space, I propose Henry James’s ghost story, “The Jolly Corner,” as the sequel to Lacan’s reading of Las Meninas. In James’s tale, we obtain a narrative account of what the figures in Velasquez’s painting might ‘see’ as they return our gaze towards us. (shrink)

Responding to questions put to him at a Roundtable held at Villanova University in 1994, Jacques Derrida leads the reader through an illuminating discussion of the central themes of deconstruction. Speaking in English and extemporaneously, Derrida takes up with unusual clarity and great eloquence such topics as the task of philosophy, the Greeks, justice, responsibility, the gift, the community, the distinction between the messianic and the concrete messianisms, and his interpretation of James Joyce. Derrida convincingly refutes the charges of (...) relativism and nihilism that are often leveled at deconstruction by its critics and sets forth the profoundly affirmative and ethico-political thrust of his work. The “Roundtable” is marked by the unusual clarity of Derrida’s presentation and by the deep respect for the great works of the philosophical and literary tradition with which he characterizes his philosophical work. The Roundtable is annotated by John D. Caputo, the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, who has supplied cross references to Derrida’s writings where the reader may find further discussion on these topics. Professor Caputo has also supplied a commentary which elaborates the principal issues raised in the Roundtable. In all, this volume represents one of the most lucid, compact and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language. An ideal volume for students approaching Derrida for the first time, Deconstruction in a Nutshell will prove instructive and illuminating as well for those already familiar with Derrida’s work. (shrink)

One of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth-century, Jacques Derrida’s ideas on deconstruction have had a lasting impact on philosophy, literature and cultural studies. Jacques Derrida: Basic Writings is the first anthology to present his most important philosophical writings and is an indispensable resource for all students and readers of his work. Barry Stocker’s clear and helpful introductions set each reading in context, making the volume an ideal companion for those coming to Derrida’s writings for (...) the first time. The selections themselves range from his most infamous works including Speech and Phenomena and Writing and Difference to lesser known discussion on aesthetics, ethics and politics. (shrink)

Leslie, E. A. Albert Cornelius Knudson, the man.--McConnell, F. J. Bowne and personalism.--Brightman, E. S. Personality as a metaphysical principle.--Hildebrand, C. D. Personalism and nature.--Ramsdell, E. T. The cultural integration of science and religion.--Ensley, F. G. The personality of God.--Harkness, G. Divine sovereignity and human freedom.--Pfeiffer, R. H. Personalistic elements in the Old Testament.--Flewelling, R. T. Personalism and the trend of history.--Muelder, W. G. Personality and Christian ethics.--King, W. J. Personalism and race.--Marlatt, E. B. Personalism and religious education.

During the final decade of his life, Jacques Derrida came to use the trope of autoimmunity with greater and greater frequency. Indeed it today appears that autoimmunity was to have been the last iteration of what for more than forty years Derrida called deconstruction. This essay looks at the consequences of this terminological shift for our understanding not only of Derrida's final works (such as Rogues) but of his entire corpus. By taking up a term from the biological sciences (...) that describes the process by which an organism turns in quasi-suicidal fashion against its own self-protection, Derrida was able to rethink the very notion of life otherwise and demonstrate the way in which every sovereign identity, from the self to the nation-state to, most provocatively, God, is open to a process that both threatens to destroy it and gives it its only chance of living on. (shrink)

Abstract Modern reflection on the ideal of personal autonomy has its Western origin in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where autonomy, or self-legislation, involves citizens joining together to make laws for themselves that reflect their collective understanding of the common good. Four features of this conception of autonomy continue to be relevant today. First, autonomy, a type of freedom, is introduced into modern philosophy in order to make up for a perceived deficiency, or incompleteness, in merely ?negative? freedom (the (...) right to do as one pleases, unimpeded by others). Second, autonomy is taken to be not merely a complement of negative freedom but a higher, more valuable species of freedom. Third, at its origin personal autonomy is not conceived individualistically; rather, on Rousseau's account, autonomy is achievable only if citizens surrender part of their status as individuals and think of their social membership as essential, not merely accidental, to who they are. Finally, Rousseau's conception of autonomy is distinct from the contemporary ideal of autonomy defined as judging or deciding for oneself (according to one's own reason). Nevertheless, there is an important sense in which autonomy as Rousseau conceives it also requires the developed capacity for independent, self-determined judgment. (shrink)

Medieval philosophy is often presented as the outcome of a large scale encounter between the Christian tradition and the Greek philosophical one. This picture, however, inappropriately tends to leave out the active role played by the medieval authors themselves and their institutional contexts. The theme of the mental language provides us with an interesting case study in such matters. The paper first introduces a few technical notions—'theme', 'tradition', 'textual chain' and 'textual borrowing'—, and then focuses on precise passages about mental (...) language from Anselm of Canterbury, Albert the Great and William of Ockham. All three authors in effect identify some relevant Augustinian idea (that of 'mental word', most saliently) with some traditional philosophical one (such as that of 'concept' or that of 'logos endiathetos'). But the gist of the operation widely varies along the line and the tradition encounter is staged in each case with specific goals and interests in view. The use of ancient authoritative texts with respect to mental language is thus shown to be radically transformed from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. (shrink)

I think it would be fair to say that, until about 1900, philosophers were generally reluctant to admit the existence of what are nowadays called polyadic properties (for our purposes we may think of a polyadic property as a property whose instances can belong to two or more subjects at once).1 It is important to recognize, however, that this reluctance on the part of pre-twentieth-century philosophers did not prevent them from theorizing about relations. On the contrary, philosophers from the ancient (...) through the modern period have had much to say about both the nature and the ontological status of relations. In this paper I examine the views of one such philosopher, namely, Albert the Great (d. 1280). (shrink)

The idea for Philosophy in a Time of Terror was born hours after the attacks on 9/11 and was realized just weeks later when Giovanna Borradori sat down with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida in New York City, in separate interviews, to evaluate the significance of the most destructive terrorist act ever perpetrated. This book marks an unprecedented encounter between two of the most influential thinkers of our age as here, for the first time, Habermas and Derrida overcome their (...) mutual antagonism and agree to appear side by side. As the two philosophers disassemble and reassemble what we think we know about terrorism, they break from the familiar social and political rhetoric increasingly polarized between good and evil. In this process, we watch two of the greatest intellects of the century at work. (shrink)

This paper investigates the philosophical method of Jacques Rancière, with special attention to use of the 'presumptive tautology'. It distinguishes between the Enlightenment conception of method as universally applicable technique, and the philosophical conception of method as a certain style that has been invented by a certain person. Ultimately, the paper puts the methodology of Rancière's The Ignorant Schoolmaster under scrutiny.

Rousseau's general will is mostly interpreted as promoting social unity at the expense of plurality. Conversely, this article argues that the general will depends on, and preserves, plurality for its formation and legitimacy. The general and the particular are not fixed opposites, for Rousseau, but are interdependent and contextually defined. The Rousseauian universal anticipates Laclau's notion of universality. The absence of any natural foundations for society deprives the universal of any pre-given identity. Likewise, the Laclauian universal names the lack of (...) ultimate ground for society. To prevent either sectarianism or despotism, the universal has to be constructed politically. Rousseau's contingent general will supplements the lack of universality, as diverse groups and individuals construct common values and political objectives that unify them across divisions without suppressing their difference. Due to its originary lack, the general will remains for ever incomplete. That incompleteness conditions the questioning, ambiguity and openness to change characterizing democracy. Key Words: democracy • equality • freedom • general will • Ernesto Laclau • particular • plurality • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • sovereignty • universal. (shrink)

In this article I re-examine the role that aesthetics play in Paulo Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed. As opposed to the vast majority of scholarship in this area, I suggest that aesthetics play a more centralised role in pedagogy above and beyond arts-based curricula. To help clarify Freire's position, I will argue that underlying the linguistic resolution of the student/teacher dialectic in the problem-posing classroom is an accompanying shift in the very aesthetics of recognition. In order to demonstrate the always (...) already aesthetic nature of all education, I will turn to the aesthetic philosophy of Jacques Rancière. Through Rancière we can begin to understand how the pedagogy of the oppressed is predicated on an aesthetic redistribution of the sensible, of what can be seen and what can be heard. As Rancière will confirm, if we truly want to understand the aesthetics of pedagogy, we cannot simply see aesthetics as external to teaching and learning. Rather, education as an aesthetic event has to be taken seriously, and aesthetics should regain primacy in discussions of critical pedagogy. (shrink)

pseudo-Master's thesis Since Jacques Derrida’s 1989 essay “Force of Law: the Mystical Foundations of Authority,” Carl Schmitt has been a perennial subject of Derrida’s political critique. I will argue that Derrida’s concept of auto-immunity is uniquely applicable to Derrida’s interpretation of Schmitt’s political philosophy. Therefore, my argument will consist of two interrelated but equally divergent parts; the digressive structure will attempt to mimic Derrida’s complex style of weaving opposed concepts into a coherent whole. First, I will demonstrate the many (...) forms of Derrida’s concept of auto-immunity. Second, I will exhibit how this schema uniquely applies to Derrida’s criticisms of Schmitt and the contemporary state of politics. (shrink)

Albert Borgmann's new book Holding onto Reality. The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (1999) continues the interrogation of the epochal significance of new information technology he began in Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992). For Borgmann, the postmodern divide involves, among other things, a shift from involvement with "focal" things and practices (i.e. activities such as eating, gardening, running, and the like), to immersion in media fantasies, or the thrills of cyberspace and virtual reality. Borgmann continues (...) his defense of "reality" against the champions of the hyper or virtual realities of cyberspace and new technologies, focusing on the concept of information and its vicissitudes under the impact of new computer and information technology. (shrink)

In several enigmatic passages, Paulo Freire describes the pedagogy of the oppressed as a 'pedagogy of laughter'. The inclusion of laughter alongside problem-posing dialogue might strike some as ambiguous, considering that the global exploitation of the poor is no laughing matter. And yet, laughter seems to be an important aspect of the pedagogy of the oppressed. In this paper, I examine the role of laughter in Freire's critical pedagogy through a series of questions: Are all forms of laughter equally emancipatory? (...) Certainly a revolutionary pedagogue can laugh, but should he or she, and what are the political (if not revolutionary) implications of this laughter? In order to shed new light on Freire's fleeting yet provocative comments, I turn to Jacques Rancière for his emphasis on the aesthetics of politics, and Paulo Virno who connects joke telling with critical theory. Overall, I argue that we need to take Freire's gesture toward a pedagogy of laughter seriously in order to understand the aesthetics of critical pedagogy and the fundamental need for a redistribution of the sensible that underlies educational relations between masters and pupils. (shrink)

: How much violence can a society expect its members to accept? A comparison between the language theories of Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan is the starting point for answering this question. A look at the early stages of language acquisition exposes the sacrificial logic of patriarchal society. Are those forces that restrict the individual to be conceived in a martial imagery of castration or is it possible that an existing society critically questions those points of socialization that leave (...) their members in a state of homelessness? The following considerations should help to distinguish between unavoidable and avoidable forms of violence. (shrink)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important figure in the history of philosophy, both because of his contributions to political philosophy and moral psychology and because of his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau's own view of philosophy and philosophers was firmly negative, seeing philosophers as the post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as playing a role in the alienation of the modern individual from humanity's natural impulse to compassion. The concern that dominates Rousseau's work is (...) to find a way of preserving human freedom in a world where human beings are increasingly dependent on one another for the satisfaction of their needs. This concern has two dimensions: material and psychological, of which the latter has greater importance. In the modern world, human beings come to derive their very sense of self from the opinion of others, a fact which Rousseau sees as corrosive of freedom and destructive of individual authenticity. In his mature work, he principally explores two routes to achieving and protecting freedom: the first is a political one aimed at constructing political institutions that allow for the co-existence of free and equal citizens in a community where they themselves are sovereign; the second is a project for child development and education that fosters autonomy and avoids the development of the most destructive forms of self-interest. However, though Rousseau believes the co-existence of human beings in relations of equality and freedom is possible, he is consistently and overwhelmingly pessimistic that humanity will escape from a dystopia of alienation, oppression, and unfreedom. In addition to his contributions to philosophy, Rousseau was active as a composer and a music theorist, as the pioneer of modern.. (shrink)

The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of education is. (...) His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to 're-practice', what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue. (shrink)

In the nineteenth century, the separation of naturalist or psychological accounts of validity from normative validity came into question. In his 1877 Logical Studies (Logische Studien), Friedrich Albert Lange argues that the basis for necessary inference is demonstration, which takes place by spatially delimiting the extension of concepts using imagined or physical diagrams. These diagrams are signs or indications of concepts' extension, but do not represent their content. Only the inference as a whole captures the objective content of the (...) proof. Thus, Lange argues, the necessity of an inference is independent of psychological accounts of how we grasp the content of a proposition. (shrink)

This paper compares Pierre Hadot’s work on the history of philosophy as a way of life to the work of Albert Camus. I will argue that in the early work of Camus, up to and including the publication of The Myth of Sisyphus , there is evidence to support the notions that, firstly, Camus also identified these historical moments as obstacles to the practice of ascesis, and secondly, that he proceeded by orienting his own work toward overcoming these obstacles, (...) and thus toward a modern rehabilitation of ascesis. Moreover, in contrast to Hadot’s Platonism, Camus located the source of this practice in the pre-philosophical stage of Athenian tragedy. This points to a further contrast between these two figures, which has historical and cultural precedents, in the distinction between this pre-Platonic form of ascesis - favoured by Camus - and the latter Christian form of asceticism - favoured by Hadot, with the status of Platonic ascesis rendered in terms of prefiguring this Christian form of asceticism. (shrink)

The integration of personalism into business ethics has been recently studied. Research has also been conducted on humanistic management approaches. The conceptual relationship between personalism and humanism , however, has not been fully addressed. This article furthers that research by arguing that a true humanistic management is personalistic. Moreover, it claims that personalism is promising as a sound philosophical foundation for business ethics. Insights from Jacques Maritain’s work are discussed in support of these conclusions. Of particular interest is his (...) distinction between human person and individual based on a realistic metaphysics that, in turn, grounds human dignity and the natural law as the philosophical basis for human rights, personal virtues, and a common good defined in terms of properly human ends. Although Maritain is widely regarded as one of the foremost twentieth century personalist philosophers, his contribution has not been sufficiently considered in the business ethics and humanistic management literature. Important implications of Maritainian personalism for business ethics as philosophical study and as practical professional pursuit are discussed. (shrink)

The following is a reflection on the possibility of teaching by example, and especially as the idea of teaching by example is developed in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. My thesis is that Rousseau created a literary version of himself in his writings as an embodiment of his philosophy, rather in the same way and with the same purpose that Plato created a version of Socrates. This figure of Rousseau—a sort of philosophical portrait of the man of nature—is represented (...) as an example for us to follow. This would appear to have been dangerous and destabilizing work, given the mental distress that it caused Rousseau in striving to live up to his fictional self. Rousseau's own ideas on the nature of teaching by example are presented in a discussion of the section in ‘Emile’ which Rousseau takes from an incident in his own life—the story of his meeting with a young Savoyard priest who befriended him and influenced him through the power of his example. (shrink)

Predictive genetic testing may confront those affected with difficult life situations that they have not experienced before. These life situations may be interpreted as ‘absurd’. In this paper we present a case study of a predictive test situation, showing the perspective of a woman going through the process of deciding for or against taking the test, and struggling with feelings of alienation. To interpret her experiences, we refer to the concept of absurdity, developed by the French Philosopher Albert Camus. (...) Camus' writings on absurdity appear to resonate with patients' stories when they talk about their body and experiences of illness. In this paper we draw on Camus' philosophical essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ (1942), and compare the absurd experiences of Sisyphus with the interviewee's story. This comparison opens up a field of ethical reflection. We demonstrate that Camus' concept of absurdity offers a new and promising approach to understanding the fragility of patients' situations, especially in the field of predictive testing. We show that people affected might find new meaning through narratives that help them to reconstruct the absurd without totally overcoming it. In conclusion, we will draw out some normative consequences of our narrative approach. (shrink)

However widely--and differently--Jacques Derrida may be viewed as a "foundational" French thinker, the most basic questions concerning his work still remain unanswered: Is Derrida a friend of reason, or philosophy, or rather the most radical of skeptics? Are language-related themes--writing, semiosis--his central concern, or does he really write about something else? And does his thought form a system of its own, or does it primarily consist of commentaries on individual texts? This book seeks to address these questions by returning (...) to what it claims is essential history: the development of Derrida's core thought through his engagement with Husserlian phenomenology. Joshua Kates recasts what has come to be known as the Derrida/Husserl debate, by approaching Derrida's thought historically, through its development. Based on this developmental work, Essential History culminates by offering discrete interpretations of Derrida's two book-length 1967 texts, interpretations that elucidate the until now largely opaque relation of Derrida's interest in language to his focus on philosophical concerns. A fundamental reinterpretation of Derrida's project and the works for which he is best known, Kates's study fashions a new manner of working with the French thinker that respects the radical singularity of his thought as well as the often different aims of those he reads. Such a view is in fact "essential" if Derrida studies are to remain a vital field of scholarly inquiry, and if the humanities, more generally, are to have access to a replenishing source of living theoretical concerns. (shrink)

What are we to make of the "Parecon" phenomenon? Michael Albert's book made it to number thirteen on Amazon.com a few days after some on-line promotion.1 Eight of the twelve Amazon.com reviewers (when I last checked) had given the book five stars. It has been, or is being, translated into Arabic, Bengali, Telagu, Croatian, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.2 The book has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, who says it "merits close (...) attention, debate and action," by Arundhati Roy, who calls it "a brave argument for a much needed alternative economic vision," by Ben Bagdikian, who finds it "a compelling book for our times," and by Howard Zinn, who sees it as "a thoughtful, profound meditation on what a good society can be like."3 Yet it is a terrible book. (shrink)

Written as a last, long posthumous letter to Jacques Derrida, the essay turns to the philosopher's last and, for the living, most important lesson – on ‘learning to live.’ In particular, it addresses – as constitutive of his unique ‘heterodidactics’ – two discrete communications on the subject. The first, in Spectres de Marx (1993), declares the lesson to be at once impossible and necessary, that is, ‘ethics itself’; in the second, the last interview ‘Je suis en guerre contre moi-même’ (...) published just before his death in 2004, Derrida confesses to ‘have remained uneducable’ on the subject. The essay reflects on the performative significance of this contradiction in the context of Derrida's intimacy with death, his taste for mourning, and his practice of writing as an experience of dying and resurrection. (shrink)

The article presents an introduction to the Special Issue on the French philosopher Jacques Rancière who raises a provocative voice in the current public debate on democracy, equality and education. Instead of merely criticizing current practices and discourses, the attractiveness of Rancière's work is that he does try to formulate in a positive way what democracy is about, how equality can be a pedagogic or educational (instead of policy) concern, and what the public and democratic role of education is. (...) His work opens up a space to rethink and to study, as well as to ‘re-practice’, what democracy and equality in education are about. He questions the current neutralisation of politics that is motivated by a hatred of democracy. This questioning is for Rancière also a struggle over words. Against the old philosophical dream of defining the meaning of words, Rancière underlines the need for the struggle over their meaning. The aim of the article is to clarify how and why education, equality, and democracy are a major concern throughout his work and to offer an introduction to the articles collected in the Special Issue. (shrink)

Taking on the Tradition focuses on how the work of Jacques Derrida has helped us rethink and rework the themes of tradition, legacy, and inheritance in the Western philosophical tradition. It concentrates not only on such themes in the work of Derrida but also on his own gestures with regard to these themes—that is, on the performativity of Derrida’s texts. The book thus uses Derrida’s understanding of speech act theory to reread his own work. The book consists in a (...) series of close readings of Derrida’s texts to demonstrate that the claims he makes in his work cannot be fully understood without considering the way he makes those claims. The book considers Derrida’s relation to the Greek philosophical tradition and to his immediate predecessors in the French philosophical tradition, as well as his own legacy within the contemporary scene. Part I examines Derrida’s analyses of Plato and Aristotle on the themes of writing and metaphor. Part II looks at themes of donation, inheritance, pedagogy, and influence in relation to Derrida’s readings of the works of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, and Jean-Pierre Vernant. Part III considers the promises and legacies of Derrida’s work on autobiography, friendship, and hospitality, themes Derrida has recently taken up in his readings of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, and Emmanuel Levinas. In the Conclusion, the author analyzes what Derrida has recently called a “messianicity without messianism” and shows how Derrida develops two different notions of the future and of legacy: one that always determines a horizon for the donation and reception of any legacy or tradition, and one that leaves open a radically unknown and unknowable future for that legacy and tradition. (shrink)

This paper examines the relation or, more precisely, tension between postmodern deconstruction and ethics by elaborating upon the ethico-political dimensions of deconstructionism. It embarks on a critical assessment of postmodern discourse on ethics in view of its political implications by analyzing Jacques Derrida''s and Richard Rorty''s arguments with an assumption that their positions represent a certain logic in the postmodern discourse on ethics. Postmodern ethics is based on incredulity with regard to traditional metanarratives, and it defines ethics in terms (...) of sensitivity or responsibility to otherness and difference. Its proponents believe that the negation of modern metanarratives opens a way to the Other which has been marginalized and suppressed both in thought and in social practice. Derrida and Rorty represent this position with their emphasis on the ethical nature of deconstruction and the need to elaborate new languages for ethics. Despite postmodern appeal to ethics of this sort, however, postmodern thinking shows its limits in dealing with most ethical-political matters in the contemporary world. The postmodern approach to ethics, being restricted within the perspective of the individual, does not provide any determinate framework for deciding how to adjudicate conflicting ethical claims or how to link the unconditional affirmation of emancipatory ideals, enlightened social criticism, and democratic accountability in determinate political terms. In the main, this paper contends that philosophical deconstruction and responsibility to otherness undermine each other in the public sphere. (shrink)

In his essay 'The Pit and the Pyramid: Introduction to Hegel's Semiology', Jacques Derrida claims that there is a privilege of speech over writing inherent in Hegel's theory of signs. In this paper, I examine Derrida's criticism. While it is to Derrida's credit that he focusses on an area of Hegel's philosophy that has hardly been analysed, his reading is problematic in several regards. After presenting Derrida's main arguments, I pose three questions, the first of which belongs to the (...) realm of subjective spirit, the second to objective spirit, and the third to absolute spirit. I shall then show that Hegel makes several statements in favour of a privilege of writing over speech - statements that are not merely parenthetic or marginal. Moreover, those claims that Hegel makes toward any privilege of speech are in the wrong place, namely, subjective spirit, for them to represent his final point of view. (shrink)

One of the 20th century's most popular non-realistic genre is absurd. The root "absurd," connotes something that does not follow the roots of logic. Existence is fragmented, pointless. There is no truth so the search for truth is abandoned in Absurdist works. Language is reduced to a bantering game where words obfuscate rather elucidate the truth. Action moves outside of the realm of causality to chaos. Absurdists minimalize the sense of place. Characters are forced to move in an incomprehensible, void-like (...) realm. Danish philosopher Sїren Kierkegaard was the first to use the term "absurd" in its modern context. His application of the term related it to, what he considered, the incomprehensibility and unjustifiability of Christianity. Existentialist philosophers such as the Frenchman, Jean-Paul Sartre and the German, Martin Heidegger propagated use of the terms in their work. In the philosophical world of the novel, Albert Camus employed absurdism to portray the difference between man's intent and the resultant chaos he encounters. In modern civilization man is posited as the subject of knowledge in science and technology, animating the utopian projects of industrial civilization, and culminating in great urban conglomerates, as in the sealed universe of commodities which constitutes the omnipresent mall. Technique, defined as the ensemble of means, is the driving force of social development, moreimportant than the ends it is supposed to serve. Unfortunately, technique became an end in itself and the society is organized around it. Of course, we are all aware that we need a certain changes to subdue technique, but I think it is now too late to change the course of technique. However, technique is frequently pictured as the only hope for a better future and the only means of making the world more humane. And that is the sort of statement that French philosopher Jacques Ellul calls the technological bluff. Technology is a discourse on techniques: therefore, the bluff lies not in the failure of techniques as such but in presenting them in a falsely optimistic light. The author formulated in 1954 two laws of technical progress: first, it is irreversible: second, it advances by a geometric progression. Thus, a computer revolution changes nothing in the nature of technical progress, although products are new. This progress is hamperednot by internal mechanisms, but by maladaptation of the social body to it, since society is rooted in the past and constantly refers to it. On the other hand, technique is future oriented and discards as valueless everything that cannot be incorporated into the web of techniques. (shrink)

In this essay Megan J. Laverty argues that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's conception of humane communication and his proposal for teaching it have implications for our understanding of the role of listening in education. She develops this argument through a close reading of Rousseau's most substantial work on education, Emile: Or, On Education. Laverty elucidates Rousseau's philosophy of communication, beginning with his taxonomy of the three voices—articulate, melodic, and accentuated—illustrating the ways in which they both enhance and obfuscate understanding. Next, Laverty (...) provides an account of Rousseau's philosophical psychology, with specific reference to amour-propre and amour de soi. Listening plays a central role in Rousseau's philosophy of communication, Laverty maintains, because it is in the act of listening that humans fulfill, or fail to fulfill, the imperative that we seek to understand others. (shrink)

Western and Indian thought -- The historical Jesus -- The kingdom of God -- Religion in modern civilization -- The decay of civilization -- Civilization and ethics -- The optimistic world-view in Kant -- Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's quest for elementary ethics -- Reverence for life -- The ethics of reverence for life -- The problem of ethics in the evolution of human thought -- Bach and aesthetics -- Goethe the philosopher -- Gandhi and the force of nonviolence -- The problem (...) of peace in the world today -- My life is my argument. (shrink)

By way of conclusion we may add the following three items to A. Maier's and G. Federici-Vescovini's investigations: 1. The Questiones super libris Physicorum in the ms. Cesena, B. Malatestiana S.VIII.5 have been incorrectly attributed to John Buridan. Their real author is Albert of Saxony. 2. The ms. Cesena, B. Malatestiana S.VIII.5 ff. 4ra-4vb contains the Prologue and the tabula questionum of the Questions on De gen. et corr., whereas the ms. Vat. lat. 3097 ff. 103ra-146rb has the complete (...) text. This Prologue and the questions 1 and 3 can also be found in Vat. lat. 2185 ff. 50ra-50vb. This text certainly cannot be considered as another copy of Buridan's well known Questions on De gen. et corr. Neither is it certain that Nicole Oresme is their author, as A. Maier seems to believe. There are indications pointing in the direction of a redaction other than the one known, of Buridan's Questions. In any case this possibility cannot be ruled out by the material that has been presented here. 3. The ms. Cesena, B. Malatestiana S.VIII.5 has at one time had the same owner as the codices Vat. lat. 2159, 2160, 2185 and 3066, and the codices Cesena, B. Malatestiana S.VII.5 and S.VIII.2. This owner was in all probability Bernardus a Campanea of Verona, a physician. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida's face appeared prominently on the covers of his books as well as inside them, on posters for his public lectures, on drawings and lithographs. Derrida was also a film star whose face appeared on screen, demonstrated by the fact that at least three films depict him in some depth and reveal his talents and charisma as a performer. In the first of these, in chronological order, Ghost Dance, directed by Ken McMullen in 1983, Derrida, playing himself, is (...) asked whether he believes in ghosts and replies with a smile: ?that's a hard question because you see I am a ghost.? ?The cinema is the art of invoking ghosts,? he declares and then proceeds to explain that film is always a mise-en-scène of ghosts who send us to an invisible beyond. ?A ghost is a trace that signals in advance the presence of its absence.? This is a structure the film borrows from Sioux attempts to establish a relation with ancestors, to let their history haunt them, to make the past a living future. For Derrida, the figure of the ghost was to resurface ? perhaps we should say return ? with Specters of Marx (1993). This essay will be a ghost dance that attempts to argue that Jacques Derrida is not only a revenant (a returner) but also an arrivant, one who arrives. (shrink)

Albert and the career of virtue theory -- Modern virtue theory as foreground to Albert's moral philosophy -- Albert's ethical treatises -- The significance of Albert's moral treatises in early-thirteenth-century moral philosophy -- Approaching the moral order -- Meta-ethical reflections on "moral science" and its procedures -- The metaphysics of the good -- The architecture of moral goodness -- The genesis of virtue : intrinsic causes -- The genesis of virtue : extrinsic causes -- The concept (...) of virtue -- The organization of the virtues -- The passions -- Morality, obligation, and law -- Natural law -- Virtue's rewards -- Friendship -- Last ends and happiness -- Conclusion: Albertus redux. (shrink)

Few thinkers of the latter half of the twentieth century have so profoundly and radically transformed our understanding of writing and literature as Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Derridian deconstruction remains one of the most powerful intellectual movements of the present century, and Derrida's own innovative writings on literature and philosophy are crucially relevant for any understanding of the future of literature and literary criticism today. Derrida's own manner of writing is complex and challenging and has often been misrepresented or misunderstood. (...) In this book, Leslie Hill provides an accessible introduction to Derrida's writings on literature which presupposes no prior knowledge of Derrida's work. He explores in detail Derrida's relationship to literary theory and criticism, and offers close readings of some of Derrida's best known essays. This introduction will help those coming to Derrida's work for the first time, and suggests further directions to take in studying this hugely influential thinker. (shrink)

My thesis is that Albert Camus offers key elements of a viable nonmetaphysical, post-secular ethical and political anthropology and explanation of evil. Idefend my thesis in two parts. First, I explicate and analyze Camus’s remarks on human nature and injustice primarily in his political essay The Rebel (1951). Camus offers a nonmetaphysical picture of human nature, inspired by the Greeks, as that out of which rebellion to oppression springs but also as that which frustrates any final resolution to the (...) problems of history. Secondly, I offer a reading of The Fall (1956). I argue that Camus’s depiction of human nature in this work, contrary to typical readings, highlights his appreciation of the insight and pragmatically desirable consequences of the Christian concept of sin. I show thatCamus depicts the possibility of a “healthy” guilt, a guilt linked to the pursuit of freedom and a responsibility to self and to others. (shrink)

Jacques Rancière is one of France's leading intellectuals and a recent addition to the who's who of Continental philosophy. Since his time as a student at the Ecole normale supérieure, Rancière has generated a body of work that is at once wide-ranging, interdisciplinary, and consistent. His arguments for a postfoundational and postliberal democratic understanding of politics have influenced, echoed, or demanded critical response from such other Continental luminaries as Slavoj Žižek (1999, 2004) and Alain Badiou (2005). Much of this (...) cachet is no doubt due to Rancière's central thesis regarding the sources, uses, and ends of politics. According to this argument, politics does not derive from putative a priori .. (shrink)

Although Aristotle's zoological works were known in antiquity and during the early medieval period, the scientific research program discussed and exemplified therein disappeared after Theophrastus. After some fifteen hundred years, it reappears in the work of Albert the Great who extensively explains Aristotle's conception of a scientific research program and extends Aristotle's zoological researches. Evidence of Albert's Aristotelian commentaries shows that he clearly understood animals to represent a self-contained subject-genus, that the study of this subject-genus constitutes theoretical knowledge (...) in an Aristotelian sense, that natural finality and suppositional necessity provide principles of zoological science, and that research into animals must be conducted according to a two-staged methodology of division and demonstration. (shrink)

The essay develops two major arguments. First, if John Buridan's 'first argument' for the reintroduction of natural supposition is only that the "eternal truth" of a scientific proposition is preserved because subject terms in scientific propositions supposit for all the term's past, present, and future significata indifferently; then Albert of Saxony thinks it is simply ineffective. Only the 'second argument', i.e. the argument for the existence of an 'atemporal copula', adequately performs this task; but is rejected by Albert. (...) Second, later fourteenth-century criticisms of Buridan's natural supposition, given in certain Notabilia from the anonymous author in, Paris, BnF, lat. 14.716, ff. 40va-41rb, are nothing but an interpolated hodge-podge of criticisms given earlier in the century against various views of Buridan's by Albert of Saxony. It is this fact that makes Albert the real source of late fourteenth-century criticisms of Buridan's view of natural supposition. (shrink)

In the essay I first argue that Albert ofSaxony's defense of perceptual ``directrealism'' is in fact a forerunner of contemporaryforms of ``process reliabilist''epistemologies. Second, I argue that Albert's defenseof perceptual direct realism has aninteresting consequence for his philosophy oflanguage. His semantic notion of `naturalsignification' does not require any semanticintermediary entity called a `concept' or`description', to function as the directsignificatum of written or spoken termsfor them to designate perceptual objects. AlthoughAlbert is inspired by Ockham's mentalact theory, I conclude that (...) Albert seemsto be striking out in a very new direction. (shrink)

This book explores the language and arguments Jacques Derrida uses in his writings, and how this is at the core of his work. Marian Hobson explores the French language in which Derrida's philosophy is written in, and the ways his ideas are organized, to suggest that this has an overriding affect on how his translated work affects our understanding of his thought.

In Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jonathan Marks offers a new interpretation of the philosopher's thought and its place in the contemporary debate between liberals and communitarians. Against prevailing views, he argues that Rousseau's thought revolves around the natural perfection of a naturally disharmonious being. At the foundation of Rousseau's thought he finds a natural teleology that takes account of and seeks to harmonize conflicting ends. The Rousseau who emerges from this interpretation is a radical (...) critic of liberalism who is nonetheless more cautious about protecting individual freedom than his milder communitarian successors. Marks elaborates on the challenge that Rousseau poses to liberals and communitarians alike by setting up a dialogue between him and Charles Taylor, one of the most distinguished ethical and political theorists at work today. (shrink)

Miracle and Machine is a sort of "reader's guide" to Jacques Derrida's 1994 essay "faith and knowledge," his most important work on the nature of religion in general and on the unprecedented forms it is taking today through science and the ...

In this essay, I propose a mutually constructive reading of the work of Jacques Rancière and Jean-Paul Sartre. On the one hand, I argue that Rancière's egalitarian political thought owes several important conceptual debts to Sartre's Being and Nothingness , especially in his use of the concepts of freedom, contingency and facticity. These concepts play a dual role in Rancière's thought. First, he appropriates them to show how the formation of subjectivity through freedom is a dynamic that introduces new (...) ways of speaking, being and doing, instead of being a mode of assuming an established identity. Second, Rancière uses these concepts to demonstrate the contingency of any situation or social order, a contingency that is the possibility of egalitarian praxis. On the other hand, I also argue that reading Sartre with Rancière makes possible the reconstruction of Sartre's project within the horizon of freedom and equality rather than that of authenticity. (shrink)

In this essay Sarah Galloway considers emancipation as a purpose for education through examining the theories of Paulo Freire and Jacques Rancière. Both theorists are concerned with the prospect of distinguishing between education that might socialize people into what is taken to be an inherently oppressive society and education with emancipation as its purpose. Galloway reconstructs the theories in parallel, examining the assumptions made, the processes of oppression described, and the movements to emancipation depicted. In so doing, she argues (...) that that the two theorists hold a common model for theorizing oppression and emancipation as educational processes, distinguished by the differing assumptions they each make about humanity, but that their theories ultimately have opposing implications for educational practices. Galloway further maintains that Freire and Rancière raise similar educational problems and concerns, both theorizing that the character of the relations among teachers, students, and educational materials is crucial to an emancipatory education. Galloway's approach allows discussion of some of the criticisms that have been raised historically about Freire's theory and how these might be addressed to some degree by Rancière's work. Taking the two theories together, she argues that the possibility for an emancipatory education cannot be ignored if education is to be considered as more than merely a process of passing down the skills and knowledge necessary in order to socialize people into current society. (shrink)

This paper examines the practical utility of Albert Camus’ existentialist philosophy, especially in the context of the contemporary effort to improve the condition of human life and existence in Africa. The paper is a departure from prevailing mindset among some scholars and people of Africa that nothing good can be derived from Camus’ philosophy. In particular, the paper argues that the task of socio-political and economic transformation in today’s Africa has a lot to benefit from a critical and pragmatic (...) engagement with the existentialist philosophy of Camus. The paper maintains that the practical benefit of Camus’ existentialist philosophy appears most clearly in the value it assigns to revolt/resistance, and ideals of friendship, commitment, solidarity and brotherhood to solve the cumulative problems of life. The obvious lack of all this has exasperated the human condition in modern African states. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida wrote twice, in 1984 in "Shibboleth" and in 2002 for his Paris seminar lectures, about "The Meridian," Paul Celan's Georg Büchner prize speech that forms the most elaborate exposition of the poet's poetics. In both readings Derrida, in one way or the other, deals with the question of time. In "Shibboleth," at stake is the notion of date; in the seminar lectures, the "other's time." Through the Greek, Christian, and Jewish experiences involved, the present article takes the (...) notion of Augenblick as a fil conducteur. (shrink)

In Jacques Derrida's formalisation of the problem of the gift in Donner le temps (1991), where Derrida offers a joint reading of Marcel Mauss’’ The Gift and Baudelaire's La Fausse monnaie, there is an apparent rejection of rational calculation (and of economism) in a narrow sense. This exclusion is only one of the steps in the deconstruction of the metaphysics of the gift, and of other motifs such as, for example, invention, forgiveness, and hospitality. In another step, calculation and (...) economy are the terms of logico-formal paradoxes, and engages us to think of the incompatible demands of calculability and incalculability between which reason is torn, and which Derrida has discussed, for example, in ‘‘The ““World”” of the Enlightenment to Come (Exception, Calculation and Sovereignty)’’ (2003). In this paper, I argue that in his evaluation of Mauss’’ moderate view of economy and exchange, Derrida has limited Mauss’’ notions of economy and rationality to reason as calculation. This evaluation jars with Derrida's deconstruction of calculation in his reading of Hegel and Rousseau among others, as I begin to show, Hegel, for whom ‘‘counting was a bad procedure’’. (shrink)

Le premier tractatus du commentaire d'Albert le Grand à l'Isagoge de Porphyre consiste en une manière de proème ou d'introduction à l'ensemble de la logique. Comme la plupart des textes d'Albert le Grand, ce traité est d'une très grande richesse, qu'atténuent toutefois son manque d'ordre et son obscurité d'expression. Étant donné que les aspects fondamentaux de la logique y sont touchés?son statut scientifique et philosophique, son utilité, son sujet, sa division, sa relation aux sciences du langage, etc.?, ce (...) petit ouvrage est du plus haut intérêt pour quiconque cherche à mieux comprendre la logique et la philosophie de la logique du XIIIe siècle. L'auteur présente ici une traduction annotée et expliquée de ce texte difficile, faite d'après la version provisoire de la nouvelle édition de Cologne. Le relevé des sources principales de l'ouvrage révèle, sur un fond aristotélicien permanent, une forte influence des traités logiques arabes nouvellement arrivés en Occident. Pour des exemples de ces auteurs contemporains, voir Lafleur ( 1988 , p. 182, l.37?44, p. 321, l.284?294). The first tractatus of Albert the Great's commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge consists of a kind of proem or introduction to the whole of logic. As most of Albert the Great's texts, this tract is of great richness, though it lacks order and is sometimes obscure. Since the fundamental themes of logic are addressed therein?its scientific and philosophical status, its utility, its subject, its division, its relation to the linguistic arts, etc.?, this small work is of high interest for anyone trying to better understand thirteenth-century logic and philosophy of logic. The author presents a translation of this difficult text, made after a preliminary version of the new critical edition and enriched with an introduction and explanatory notes. The survey of the main sources of the tract reveals, apart from a permanent artistotelian background, the strong influence of the Arabic logical treatises which were then coming in the Western world. (shrink)

The work of Jacques Derrida has transformed our understanding of a range of disciplines in the humanities through its questioning of some of the basic tenets of western metaphysics. This volume is a trans-disciplinary collection dedicated to his work; the assembled contributions - on law, literature, ethics, history, gender, politics and psychoanalysis, among others - constitute an investigation of the role of Derrida's work within the field of humanities, present and future. The volume is distinguished by work on some (...) of his most recent writings, and contains Derrida's own address on 'the future of the humanities'. In addition to its pedagogic interest, this collection of essays attempts to respond to the question: what might be the relation of Derrida, or 'deconstruction' to the future of the humanities? The volume presents the most sustained examples yet of what deconstruction is in its current phase - as well as what its possible future may be. (shrink)

The contributions to this collection, written in honor of Jacques Mehler, a founder of the field of psycholinguistics, assess the progress of cognitive science.

In his 1987 book "Controlling Life: Jacques Loeb and the Engineering Ideal in Biology", Philip Pauly presented his readers with the biologist Jacques Loeb and his role in developing an emphasis on control of life processes. Loeb's work on artificial parthenogenesis, for example, provided an example of bioengineering at work. This paper revisits Pauly's study of Loeb and explores the way current research in regenerative medicine reflects the same tradition. A history of regeneration research reveals patterns of thinking (...) and research methods that both echo Loeb's ideology and point the way to modern studies. Pauly's work revealed far more than we readers realized at the time of its publication. (shrink)

This article attempts to introduce some of the central dimensions of Jacques Derrida's thought, with attention given to both early and late texts in his oeuvre.

Friedrich Albert Lange (1828?1875) author of a famous History of Materialism and Critique of Its Present Significance(1866, English transi.I?III 1877?79, repr.1925 with introduction by Bertrand Russell), was also interested in the epistemological foundations of formal logic.Part I of his intended two?volume Logische Studienwas published posthumously in 1877 by Hermann Cohen?head?of the Marburg school of neo?Kantianism.Lange, departing from Kant, claims that spatial intuition is the source of the apodeictic character not only of the truths of mathematics, but also of the (...) truths of logic.He aims at showing this by basing validity and invalidity of syllogistic inferences on an interpretation of the standard forms (of proposition in assertoric syllogistic) with the help of the five kinds of possible relations (in fact what is known today as the Gergonne?Euler relations) between extensions of concepts given to us as areas in a plane, i.e.in space.Generality is achieved by considering all possible variations within each type of spatial relation, exhibiting a connection between concept and intuition reminding Lange of the Kantian ?schema?. Lange is well aware of the contemporary English ?algebraic? logic, but he considers its approach as the appropriate one for a logic of content (Inhaltslogik)and not for a logic of extension (Umfangslogik)Lange did not live to enjoy the recognition by some leading logicians (amongst them John Venn, to whose reference in 1881 to Lange?s ?admirable Logische Studien?the present paper owes it title), nor could he respond to the many critics of his proposed foundation of logic.Its radicality as well as its broad reception (and discussion up to at least 1959) seem to entitle Lange?s Logische Studiento an, if modest, place in the history of logic in the 19th century. (shrink)

Educationalists are currently engaging with Jacques Rancière’s thought on emancipation and equality. The focus of this paper is on what initiates the process that starts emancipation. With reference to teachers the question is: how do teachers become emancipated? This paper discusses how the teacher’s life is made ‘sensible’ and how sense is distributed in her life. Two stories are taken from Rancière’s own work, that of Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Jacotot, that give us an indication of the initiation process (...) of emancipation. Then I will see this in relation to the teacher, Mr Briggs, who is one of the main characters of the play Our Day Out (1987) by Willy Russell. (shrink)

Albert Ellis is widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists in the history of psychology. However, his importance as a pioneer of applied philosophy is not as widely acknowledged. This paper, in memoriam, pays tribute to Ellis’s contributions to applied philosophy. In particular it discusses his revolutionarily important applications of philosophy to the field of psychology and briefly discusses his influence on the emerging field of philosophical counseling.

In this essay I argue that Albert would reject the need for a separate fourth mode of common personal supposition, and that his view of merely confused supposition has not been fully explicated by modern scholars. I first examine the various examples of conjunct descent given by modern scholars from his Perutilis logica , and show that Albert clearly adopts it in resolving the sophistic examples involved. Second, I explicate the view of merely confused supposition that Albert (...) defends in his Sophismata , and then attempt to answer the question: which view of merely confused supposition was his final view, the view articulated in the Perutilis logica or the view in the Sophismata ? I conclude that based upon his Sophismata view of merely confused supposition, Albert came to realize the logical strength his revised theory of personal supposition afforded, and consequently, that he is one of the earliest 14th-century logicians to adopt conjunct terminal descent to resolve various sophisms, a move which gave his theory of personal supposition a logical symmetry having two sorts of propositional descents to singulars, and two sorts of terminal descents to singulars. (shrink)

Max Albert (2003) has recently argued that the theory of power indices “should not ... be considered as part of political science” and that “[v]iewed as a scientific theory, it is a branch of probability theory and can safely be ignored by political scientists”. Albert’s argument rests on a particular claim concerning the theoretical status of power indices, namely that the theory of power indices is not a positive theory, i.e. not one that has falsifiable implications. (...) I re-examine the theoretical status of power indices and argue that it would be unwise for political scientists to ignore such indices. Although I agree with Albert that the theory of power indices is not a positive theory, I suggest that it is a theory of measurement that can usefully supplement other positive and normative socialscientific theories. (shrink)

This paper explores the way that Elizabeth Presa's artworks respond to Jacques Derrida's thought. By examining how the particularity (the beside) and its supplements (the besides) operate in Presa's works, it is shown how this movement between beside and besides is also central to Derrida's thought.

Albert Ellis is widely recognized as one of the most influential psychologists in the history of psychology. However, his importance as a pioneer of applied philosophy is not as widely acknowledged. This paper, in memoriam, pays tribute to Ellis’s contributions to applied philosophy. In particular it discusses his revolutionarily important applications of philosophy to the field of psychology and briefly discusses his influence on the emerging field of philosophical counseling.

It is tempting, in remembering Jacques Derrida=s death on October 8, 2004, in Paris, to focus on the controversy surrounding the obituaries already written. Derrida was, after all, the theorist of text, and responding to the proliferation of texts at this moment seems almost too enticing to pass up. I can almost hear a playful reversal in the making, a deflection and deferral of both the critical and the fawning accounts of his life. And yet, I can also hear (...) disappointment. He was the one, after all, who spoke against speaking too soon after a death, particularly the death of a friend, in case the academic impulse turned mourning into analysis: What I thought impossible, indecent, and unjustifiable, what long ago and more or less secretly and resolutely I had promised myself never to do (out of a concern for rigor or fidelity, if you will, and because it is in this case too serious) was to write following the death, not after, not long after the death by returning to it, but just following the death, upon or on the occasion of the death, at the commemorative gatherings and tributes, in the writings Ain memory@ of those who while living would have been my friends, still present enough to me that some Adeclaration,@ indeed some analysis or Astudy,@ would seem at that moment completely unbearable.i That many of those friends, and enemies, have spoken, is inevitable and understandable.ii More texts about Derrida=s life, influence, and death are inevitable, especially for a philosopher who was so preoccupied with death in his later years. But even though I never knew him, it seems a bit odd writing about him at this time, in this place. It is as if his death can be used to make points, even if those points are only to establish his relevance within Africana philosophy. (shrink)

This collection of essays builds on the contributions of Albert Schweitzer's philosophy of "Reverence for Life" as it pertains to our world today.Albert ...

While ‘political theology’ has attracted widespread attention for decades, it is often taken to be too fideist for orthodox Christianity and too illiberal for secular politics. But in the work of Jacques Maritain one finds a defence of a certain political theology, one whose character is key to grasping Maritain’s justification of another controversial concept: ‘Christian philosophy’. In this study I draw out Maritain’s distinction between Christian philosophy and theology, paying particular attention to the relevance of their differences in (...) the realm of practical thought. To illustrate what Maritain has in mind by these claims, I further consider his intriguing classification of the political works of Thomas Aquinas. I argue that distinguishing between rival notions of political theology clarifies the opportunities for dialogue between believing and secular citizens. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida has had a huge influence on contemporary political theory and political philosophy. Derrida's thinking has inspired Slavoj Zizek, Richard Rorty, Ernesto Laclau, Judith Butler and many more contemporary theorists. This book brings together a first class line up of Derrida scholars to develop a deconstructive approach to politics. Deconstruction examines the internal logic of any given text or discourse. It helps us analyze the contradictions inherent in all schools of thought,and as such it has proved revolutionaty in (...) political analysis,particularly ideology critique. This book is ideal for all students of political theory,and anyone looking for an accessible guide to Derrida's thinking and how it can be used as a radical tool for political analysis. (shrink)

This exciting new text presents the first overview of Jean Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau--the great theorist of the French Revolution--really a conservative? This original study argues that the he was a constitutionalist much closer to Madison, Montesquieu, and Locke than to revolutionaries. Outlining his profound opposition to Godless materialism and revolutionary change, this book finds parallels between Rousseau and Burke, as well as showing how Rousseau developed the first modern theory of nationalism. The (...) book presents an integrated political analysis of Rousseau's educational, ethical, religious and political writings, and will be essential reading for students of politics, philosophy and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This paper discusses Jacques Derrida's Death Penalty Seminars (two consecutive seminars he gave at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in 1999–2000 and 2000–2001), as well as his 2000 Paris address to the States General of Psychoanalysis entitled “Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul.” The paper is magnetized by two questions: what does it mean to say, as Derrida says in his provocative statement at the end of his 1999 seminar, “even when the death penalty will (...) have been abolished . . . it will survive, there will still be some death penalty [même quand la peine de mort sera abolie . . . elle survivra, il y en aura encore]”? And why is psychoanalysis in a privileged position to address “this irreducible thing in the life of the animate being” that is the possibility of cruelty? (shrink)

Albert Schweitzer maintained that the idea of "Reverence for Life" came upon him on the Ogowe River as an "unexpected discovery, like a revelation in the midst of intense thought." While Schweitzer made numerous significant contributions to an incredible diversity of fields - medicine, music, biblical studies, philosophy and theology - he regarded Reverence for Life as his greatest contribution and the one by which he most wanted to be remembered. Yet this concept has been the subject of a (...) range of distortions and misunderstandings, both academic and popular. In this book, Ara Barsam provides a new interpretation of Schweitzer's reverence and shows how it emerged from his studies of German philosophy, Indian religions, and his biblical scholarship on Jesus and Paul. By throwing light on the origin and development of Schweitzer's thought, Barsam leads his readers to a closer appreciation of the contribution that reverence makes to current ethical issues. Whereas previous commentators have focused on "reverence for life" as a philosophical ethic located in that tradition, this book demonstrates that it is in fact Schweitzer's theology that provides the hitherto undiscerned foundation for his ethic. Even among those who herald Schweitzer as the one who brought "reverence" to Christianity, there exists a tendency to underemphasize how his thinking also developed from his pivotal encounter with Indian religions. As Barsam shows, it is impossible to grasp the nature and the significance of Barsam's contribution without addressing that link. Life-centered ethics - in the broadest sense - have continued to flourish, yet Schweitzer's pioneering contribution is often overlooked. Not only did he help establish the issue on the moral agenda, but, most significant, he also provided much sought after philosophical and theological foundations. Schweitzer emerges from this critical study of his life and thought as a remarkable individual who should rightfully be regarded as a moral giant of the twentieth-century. (shrink)

En el presente escrito se intentará explicar de manera estructurada la compleja propuesta del filósofo francés Jacques Rancière acerca del vínculo entre el arte y la política, para luego llevar a cabo una consideración crítica de dicha postura.

Jean-François Lyotard. First acquaintance with Lyotard -- Kant's notion of the sublime and its appropriation by Lyotard -- Transposing Kant to the key of the postmodern -- The role of feelings in Lyotard's political judgment -- Universality revisited -- Jacques Derrida. The Nietzschean influence -- Derrida and phenomenology -- Derrida's exploration of exteriority and anteriority -- Derrida's political ethics : foundations -- Derrida's political ethics : further elaborations : the international scene.

'Your Jacques is a tasteless mishmash of things that happen, some of them true, others made up, written without style and served up like a dog's breakfast.' -/- Jacques the Fatalist is Diderot's answer to the problem of existence. If human beings are determined by their genes and their environment, how can they claim to be free to want or do anything? Where are Jacques and his Master going? Are they simply occupying space, living mechanically until they (...) die, believing erroneously that they are in charge of their Destiny? Diderot intervenes to cheat our expectations of what fiction should be and do, and behaves like a provocative, ironic and unfailingly entertaining master of revels who finally show why Fate is not to be equated with doom. -/- In the introduction to this brilliant new translation, David Coward explains the philosophical basis of Diderot's fascination with Fate and shows why Jacques the Fatalist pioneers techniques of fiction which, two centuries on, novelists still regard as experimental. (shrink)

Pythagoras -- Confucius -- Heracleitus -- Parmenides -- Zeno of Elea -- Socrates -- Democritus -- Plato -- Aristotle -- Mencius -- Zhuangzi -- Pyrrhon of Elis -- Epicurus -- Zeno of Citium -- Philo Judaeus -- Marcus Aurelius -- Nagarjuna -- Plotinus -- Sextus Empiricus -- Saint Augustine -- Hypatia -- Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius -- Śaṅkara -- Yaqūb ibn Ishāq aṣ-Ṣabāḥ al-Kindī -- Al-Fārābī -- Avicenna -- Rāmānuja -- Ibn Gabirol -- Saint Anselm of Canterbury -- al-Ghazālī -- (...) Peter Abelard -- Averroës -- Zhu Xi -- Moses Maimonides -- Ibn al-'Arabī -- Shinran -- Saint Thomas Aquinas -- John Duns Scotus -- William of Ockham -- Niccolò Machiavelli -- Wang Yangming -- Francis Bacon, Viscount Saint Alban (or Albans), Baron of Verulam -- Thomas Hobbes -- René Descartes -- John Locke -- Benedict de Spinoza -- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz -- Giambattista Vico -- George Berkeley -- Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu -- David Hume -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- Immanuel Kant -- Moses Mendelssohn -- Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet -- Jeremy Bentham -- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel -- Arthur Schopenhauer -- Auguste Comte -- John Stuart Mill -- Søren Kierkegaard -- Karl Marx -- Herbert Spencer -- Wilhelm Dilthey -- William James -- Friedrich Nietzsche -- Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege -- Edmund Husserl -- Henri Bergson -- John Dewey -- Alfred North Whitehead -- Benedetto Croce -- Nishida Kitarō -- Bertrand Russell -- G.E. Moore -- Martin Buber -- Ludwig Wittgenstein -- Martin Heidegger -- Rudolf Carnap -- Sir Karl Popper -- Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno -- Jean-Paul Sartre -- Hannah Arendt -- Simone de Beauvoir -- Willard Van Orman Quine -- Sir A.J. Ayer -- Wilfrid Sellars -- John Rawls -- Thomas S. Kuhn -- Michel Foucault -- Noam Chomsky -- Jürgeb Gabernas -- Sir Bernard Williams -- Jacques Derrida -- Richard Rorty -- Robert Nozick -- Saul Kripke -- David Kellogg Lewis -- Peter (Albert David) Singer. (shrink)

Surveys and introduces selected scholarship on the thought of Jacques Derrida.

Certain traits of the magnanimous man of the Nicomachean Ethics seem incompatible with gratitude and humility. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas are the first commentators of the Latin West who had access to the integral portrayal of magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. Surprisingly, they welcomed the Aristotelian ideal of magnanimity without reservations. The paper summarizes Aristotle’s account of magnanimity, discusses briefly the transformation of this notion in Stoicism and early scholasticism, and analyzes Albert’s and Thomas’s interpretation of (...) Aristotle. Thomas is found to be a more faithful and ingenious interpreter than Albert. He addresses and solves a number of philosophical problems of Aristotle’s account that still puzzle contemporary interpreters. (shrink)

Counterpath is a collaborative work by Catherine Malabou and Jacques Derrida that answers to the gamble inherent in the idea of “travelling with” the philosopher of deconstruction. Malabou's readerly text of quotations and commentary demonstrates how Derrida's work, while appearing to be anything but a travelogue, is nevertheless replete with references to geographical and topographical locations, and functions as a kind of counter-Odyssey through meaning, theorizing, and thematizing notions of arrival, drifting, derivation, and catastrophe. In fact, by going straight (...) to the heart of the Derridean idea of “spacing,” she finally makes it seem as though Derrida has never written about anything but travel. Malabou's text is punctuated by a series of postcards received by Derrida from destinations such as Istanbul and Porto, Laguna Beach and Athens, which are inspired by his reading of her evolving discussion. Writing in a familiar and unguarded manner, as if he were “on vacation” from his own writing, Derrida still remains totally faithful to that work and invites the reader to reflect on much of what haunts his texts as well as his daily life, questions of distance and death, the relation to the other, and exile. (shrink)

t. 1. Les années françaises, 1927-1940 -- t. 2. Les années américaines, 1941-1961.