The volume contains twenty essays devoted to the philosophy of mathematics and the history of logic. They have been divided into four parts: general philosophical problems of mathematics, Hilbert's program vs. the incompleteness phenomenon, philosophy of mathematics in Poland, mathematical logic in Poland. Among considered problems are: epistemology of mathematics, the meaning of the axiomatic method, existence of mathematical objects, distinction between proof and truth, undefinability of truth, Goedel's theorems and computer science, philosophy of mathematics in Polish (...) mathematical and logical schools, beginnings of mathematical logic in Poland, contribution of Polish logicians to recursion theory. (shrink)

Studies of mythology and the philosophy of religions ascribe violence an important role in understanding traditional societies. Whether perceived as sacred and capable of renewing the world, or as oppressive and destructive, violence acquires a twofold valence, whose constituents are interpreted in a complementary relation of interdependence and entail a world outlook with profound implications. Retrieving this ambiguous dimension of religious violence, Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel imagines, against the historical background of post-war Japanese society, a game that enacts the eternal (...) rivalry between two brothers. Lest the history of this seemingly lost present should fall prey to political abuse, the Japanese writer proposes a return to myth, without, however, idealising it; instead, myth is revalorised and tradition is re-conceived from the vantage point of rationalism, with full and alert awareness of the dangers inherent in an ideology that is imposed by force and aggression. Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel is a lucid meditation on Japan’s modern and contemporary history. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections (...) in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Der Logos: Geschichte Seiner Entwickelung Der Griechischen Philosophie Und Der Christlichen Litteratur, Volume 2; Der Logos: Geschichte Seiner Entwickelung Der Griechischen Philosophie Und Der Christlichen Litteratur; Anathon Aall Anathon Aall O.R. Reisland, 1896 Philosophy; History & Surveys; Ancient & Classical; Logos (Philosophy); Philosophy / General; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical; Philosophy, Ancient. (shrink)

This volume of the collected writings of John Sallis presents a two-semester lecture course on Maurice Merleau-Ponty given at Duquesne University from 1970 to 1971. Devoted primarily to a close reading of the French philosopher's magnum opus, Phenomenology of Perception, the course begins with a detailed analysis of The Structure of Behavior. The central topics considered in the lectures include the functions of the phenomenological body; beyond realism and idealism; the structures of the lived world; spatiality, temporality, language, sexuality; and (...) perception and knowledge. Sallis illuminates Merleau-Ponty's first two works and offers a thread to follow through developments in his later essays. Merleau-Ponty's notion of the primacy of perception and his claim that "the end of a philosophy is the account of its beginning" are woven throughout the lectures. For Sallis's part, these lectures are foundational for his extended engagement with Merleau-Ponty's The Visible and the Invisible, which was published in Sallis's Phenomenology and the Return to Beginnings. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of the development of the logos concept in Heidegger’s writings on language and examines the implications of logos for a philosophy of language. In Being and Time/ Heidegger described logos as prelanguage, a preliminary perception of the world which often finds expression in verbal communication. This view is made clear by Heidegger's account of the act of speaking in which formless prior understanding (logos) is shaped into verbal expression. Heidegger's analysis (...) of the communicative act in Being and Time viewed logos as one of the ways in which man can experience his world. In his later writings, however, logos is the path to Being. Language precedes man and is the "house of Being." By this Heidegger means that man lives in language which is the major force in the creation of his world. Heidegger's view of language, then, is a protest against the modern tendency to view language as a mere tool, thereby stripping it of its value and connotative dimensions. (shrink)

Die neuere Phänomenologie ist durch eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit theologischen Fragestellungen gekennzeichnet. Das vorliegende Buch will die bislang noch kaum beachtete rezeptionsgeschichtliche Verbindung zwischen Husserls Egologie und Meister Eckharts Intellektmystik in den Vordergrund rücken.

Since the beginning of history of philosophy, the specificity of philosophical knowledge, which results from its fundamentality, has manifested itself in the quest for the most general notions which would adequately describe the structure and dynamics of reality. Such notions as oneness and multiplicity, sameness and difference, finitude and infinity, changeability and unchangeability, motion and rest, among others, have become a permanent challenge for philosophizing intellect, and also an irremovable element of the dictionary of European philosophy, to which (...) new terminological entries are being added, and the meanings of the old ones are being specified. (shrink)

Mary Anne Perkins re-examines Coleridge's claim to have developed a "logosophic" system which attempted "to reduce all knowledges into harmony." She pays particular attention to his later writings, some of which are still unpublished. She suggests that the accusations of plagiarism and of muddled, abstruse metaphysics which have been levelled at him may be challenged by a thorough reading of his work in which its unifying principle is revealed. She explores the various meanings of the term "logos," a recurrent (...) theme in every area of Coleridge's thought--philosophy, religion, natural science, history, political and social criticism, literary theory, and psychology. Coleridge was responding to the concerns of his own time, a revolutionary age in which increasing intellectual and moral fragmentation and confusion seemed to him to threaten both individuals and society. Drawing on the whole of Western intellectual history, he offered a ground for philosophy which was relational rather than mechanistic. He is one of those few thinkers whose work appears to become more interesting and his perceptions more acute as the historical gulf widens. This book is a contribution to the reassessment that he deserves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Logos and Alogon: Thinkable and Unthinkable in Mathematics, from the Pythagoreans to the Moderns by Arkady PlotnitskyNoam CohenPLOTNITSKY, Arkady. Logos and Alogon: Thinkable and Unthinkable in Mathematics, from the Pythagoreans to the Moderns. Cham: Springer, 2023. xvi + 294 pp. Cloth, $109.99The limits of thought in its relations to reality have defined Western philosophical inquiry from its very beginnings. The shocking discovery of the incommensurables in (...) Greek mathematics not only reintroduced these limits with greater force but also instigated two different forms of coping with the unthinkable in Western philosophy, mathematics, and science. As Arkady Plotnitsky sets forth, in response to the incommensurability crisis in the ancient Greek intellectual world, there appeared two different attitudes toward the alogon, that is, the unthinkable or irrational. Plato and his followers sought to overcome the unthinkable, of which the incommensurables in mathematics are only an example, through philosophy. In contrast, the Pythagoreans continued to hold on to mathematics as the primary means of knowing the world, but put a larger emphasis on geometry. Plotnitsky [End Page 359] claims that by not putting aside the primacy of mathematics, the Pythagorean shift from arithmetic to geometry established in Western thought a certain tolerance toward the unthinkable within the realm of the thinkable, “a possibility of the alogon in the logos.” Until modern times this remained no more than a possibility. However, in modern mathematics and mathematical physics Plotnitsky identifies a certain fulfillment of this potential, a “radical Pythagorean mathematics.” In his comprehensive and thought-provoking study, Plotnitsky recounts the development of such radical modern Pythagoreanism, not only to tell its history but also to suggest that the unthinkable is a condition of possibility for thought, and that a proper recognition of this role it plays is crucial for the advancement of mathematical thinking and thinking in general.Plotnitsky begins by portraying in broad strokes the two defining characteristics of radical Pythagorean mathematics: the presence of the unthinkable within mathematical thought itself, and the interplay of algebra and geometry. Relying on an extensive knowledge of the history of modern mathematics and physics, in the first two chapters of the book Plotnitsky gradually demonstrates the key role that the alogon plays in some theories of modern mathematical thought, such as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and quantum mechanics. He also presents and clarifies his own conception of the history of Western thought as a creative process of concept-forming. By creating rather than discovering concepts, great mathematicians break new ground for thinking. The book as a whole argues in length for these two main theses.In chapter 3, the author addresses the thought of Bernhard Riemann to make the case that Riemann’s mathematical thought puts an emphasis on creative conceptual thinking and is not defined merely by calculations or logic. Such thinking is problem-posing rather than axiomatic. Riemann’s central innovation in this respect is the concept of manifold (Mannigfaltigkeit), which enabled him to think anew space and geometry in a radical non-Euclidean fashion, implying an infinite number of possible geometries. Plotnitsky argues—borrowing Deleuze and Guattari’s terminology—that this opened up a “plane of immanence,” which is to say that Riemann created a concept-generating movement of thought. However, we cannot grasp the generation of concepts in modern mathematics without giving proper attention to the interplay of algebra and geometry that defines it. Chapter 4 demonstrates this interweaving of the two fields by recounting the history of the idea of the curve in modernity, from the analytic geometry and calculus of Fermat and Descartes to its modification in the concept of a Riemann surface, up to its more recent developments in the algebraic geometry of Weil and Grothendieck. It gives a historical account of the algebraization of the curve that at the same time brings into relief the irreducible geometrical aspect, continuity, of all modern mathematical conceptualizations of the curve.The next two chapters provide further case studies. Chapter 5 expands and solidifies the argument of chapter 2. It discusses three examples of mathematical practice, each displayed by a pair of important [End Page 360] mathematicians: Abel and Galois, Lobachevsky and Riemann, Weil and Grothendieck. Each case... (shrink)

The tradition of Western philosophy has been tracing out the significations of logos and centered around logos. This in fact has given birth to many significant results. Through its logical structuring of empirical reality it has made possible critical understanding transcending the past and progressive creation of the future. But this Logology or Logocentrism has eventually also led to its self-destruction and to the brink of absolute nihilism.Along the history, logos has been interpreted in various ways. (...) The history implies that at least in the cosmic, theological and ideological frameworks logos used to be seen as extralinguistic substance; whereas starting from the scientific mode of thinking logos has been seen more as intralinguistic substance . This ends up in the political perspective in which logos is without substance: mere effects of the play of texts and discourse.While the latter appears like a predicament, the fact is that it can also be taken as a moment of liberation, a liberation from the keen yet stifling Western paradigm of logos apophanticos which has animated all kinds of “positivistic” mode of thinking; a liberation from the so-called Metaphysics of Presence, hence an openness towards the Absence, the ambiguity, the indefinability or the elusiveness of reality ; an openness towards the richness and complexity of human experience; hence an openness for mutual interogative and transformative dialogues among different semiotic systems, traditions and language games, which would also empower and incorporate non-Western as well as non-scientific mode of thinking into global discourse.Perhaps wisdom lies in the courage to recognize the fact that ultimately reality or the so-called Being is not a substance, but rather, fleeting relations, ever-changing networks, or elusive flux. Wisdom ultimately might mean an ability to come to terms with insecurity, an ability to see through the “absence”. (shrink)

This article discusses Heidegger’s lecture course Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, which focuses on Aristotle’s conception of the relationbetween the essence of man, logos, and the being of the world, kinesis. It is argued that the overall aim of Heidegger’s interpretation is to show that, on the one hand, it is Aristotle’s insight into the nature of logos that has made possible the great achievement of the Physics: the explication of being in terms of kinesis or movement; but that, (...) on the other hand, the concept of kinesis in its turn leads Aristotle to a notion of being as perfect presence, entelecheia, which proves to have problematic consequences for his concept of logos. Heidegger’s own project is then presented as a critical retrieval of Aristotle’s understanding of the relation between logos and kinesis. (shrink)

This article discusses Heidegger’s lecture course Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, which focuses on Aristotle’s conception of the relationbetween the essence of man, logos, and the being of the world, kinesis. It is argued that the overall aim of Heidegger’s interpretation is to show that, on the one hand, it is Aristotle’s insight into the nature of logos that has made possible the great achievement of the Physics: the explication of being in terms of kinesis or movement; but that, (...) on the other hand, the concept of kinesis in its turn leads Aristotle to a notion of being as perfect presence, entelecheia, which proves to have problematic consequences for his concept of logos. Heidegger’s own project is then presented as a critical retrieval of Aristotle’s understanding of the relation between logos and kinesis. (shrink)

This paper seeks to disclose the underlying tension in Kant’s Critique of Judgment. It is the tension between Logos and Eros which is apparent in much of Western philosophy but surfaces perhaps most dramatically in Kant’s third Critique. Despite its manifest commitment to rationality, significant philosophical expression is unthinkable without inspiration. As Plato put it, philosophy is a “divine madness,” a madness which cannot comprehend its own origin, and yet has as its goal the establishment of a (...) rational Logos as the ground of both thinking and action. Kant’s Critique of Judgment is in part a reflection upon the “Dionysian” not only in art, but in thinking as well. (shrink)

This paper seeks to disclose the underlying tension in Kant’s Critique of Judgment. It is the tension between Logos and Eros which is apparent in much of Western philosophy but surfaces perhaps most dramatically in Kant’s third Critique. Despite its manifest commitment to rationality, significant philosophical expression is unthinkable without inspiration. As Plato put it, philosophy is a “divine madness,” a madness which cannot comprehend its own origin, and yet has as its goal the establishment of a (...) rational Logos as the ground of both thinking and action. Kant’s Critique of Judgment is in part a reflection upon the “Dionysian” not only in art, but in thinking as well. (shrink)

This paper seeks to disclose the underlying tension in Kant’s Critique of Judgment. It is the tension between Logos and Eros which is apparent in much of Western philosophy but surfaces perhaps most dramatically in Kant’s third Critique. Despite its manifest commitment to rationality, significant philosophical expression is unthinkable without inspiration. As Plato put it, philosophy is a “divine madness,” a madness which cannot comprehend its own origin, and yet has as its goal the establishment of a (...) rational Logos as the ground of both thinking and action. Kant’s Critique of Judgment is in part a reflection upon the “Dionysian” not only in art, but in thinking as well. (shrink)

The following examines Hannah Arendt’s interpretations of Greek thought, specifically her phenomenological reading of Homer and Socrates as proto-phenomenological thinkers of objectivity, plurality, and logos. Drawing inspiration from these thinkers, Arendt finds the means of preserving and actualizing plurality as the existential truthfulness that emerges from the conflict in speaking and acting with others. She does this by contrasting how, after the trial and death of Socrates, thinking became professional philosophy and shifted its focus from the reciprocal interdependence (...) of thinking, speaking, and acting well in the polis and towards a reflection on truth, unity, and necessity that takes its start from an ontological order that is either prior to or beyond the world of appearances. Engaging with the literature, this article examines and assesses Arendt’s claims and focuses on the themes of plurality, conflict, and speaking, as set out in her interpretations of Homer and Socrates. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 305-326 [Access article in PDF] Logos and Kratos: Gramsci and the Ancients on Hegemony Benedetto Fontana * The purpose of this paper is to locate Gramsci's concept of hegemony, and its related ideas of civil society, the national-popular and the people-nation, within the political thought of classical antiquity. 1 In so doing, the paper seeks to identify strands or elements (...) within aspects of ancient political thought which may usefully be seen as conceptual prefigurations or as political anticipations of Gramsci's hegemony. It will show that Gramsci shares with the ancients specific theoretical, linguistic, and intellectual topoi. Hegemony has hitherto been located within the context, both theoretical and historical, of debates and controversies arising out of the Marxist and later Leninist revolutionary tradition. It is rightly seen as a notion developed by Gramsci to explain revolutionary failure in Italy and in the West generally, and consequently its antecedents are traced to the problems attendant upon the collapse of the Second International and the rise of Bolshevism in Russia. 2 While such an approach has been useful in revealing the immediate (both political and tactical) constraints acting upon Gramsci's thinking, it has overlooked passages in his writings which reveal an interest in, and [End Page 305] familiarity with, philosophical and theoretical themes originally formulated and elaborated by classical political thought.I. In a note entitled "Passage from Knowing to Understanding and to Feeling and vice versa from Feeling to Understanding and to Knowing" Gramsci establishes a distinction between intellectuals who "know" and the "people-nation" that "feels." The former may know but do not always understand or feel, while the latter may feel but does not always know. The intellectual, in order to know something politically and socially, not merely abstractly or philosophically, must understand it with feeling and passion. As Gramsci writes: The intellectual's error consists in believing that one can know without understanding and even more without feeling and being impassioned (not only for knowledge in itself but also for the object of knowledge); in other words that the intellectual can be an intellectual (and not a pure pedant) if distinct and separate from the people-nation, that is, without feeling the elementary passions of the people, understanding them and therefore explaining and justifying them in the particular historical situation and connecting them dialectically to the laws of history and to a superior conception of the world, scientifically and coherently elaborated--i.e. knowledge. One cannot make politics-history without this passion, without this sentimental connection between intellectuals and people-nation. 3The merely abstract knowledge of the intellectual becomes life and politics when linked to the experiential and passionate feelings of the people. At the same time, the feeling-passion of the people acquires the character of knowledge. Of course such a formulation is reminiscent of Marx's comments in the Theses on Feuerbach. 4 The dyadic relation between intellectual and people-nation, and between knowledge and feeling-passion, both parallels and informs the relation between common sense and good sense. Common sense is opinion which is incoherent and ambiguous 5 but which may nevertheless contain elements of truth to the extent that they are proliferated throughout a people. Good sense, on the other hand, is the common sense of the people as their passion and experience are imbued with knowledge and reason--that is, as the people begin to "think" coherently by producing their own intellectuals, the organic intellectual, or the democratic philosopher. 6 [End Page 306]Gramsci recalls the problem originally posed by Plato and Aristotle and running through the entire history of Western political thought up to thinkers as diverse as Hegel, Nietzsche, Weber, and Croce: namely, the relation between knowledge and politics, philosophy and rhetoric, ruler and people, reason and desire/appetite. 7 This relation poses the question regarding the role and status of reason. It is the way reason (the logos as transcendent reason or as speech and language) is perceived that moves the theory in either an ossified (absolutist... (shrink)

These essays reveal a dynamic range of interactions, reactions, tensions, and ambiguities, showing how Greek literary creations impacted and provided the ...

As Anthony Tol explains in his general introduction to (his translation of) Vollenhoven's 1926 inaugural address, the Reformed epistemology that Vollenhoven espouses here is essentially three-layered. Most basic is the intuition - the starting point of all knowing. It starts with discerning. Then there is knowledge. At this point language, communication, and judgments are relevant. The third layer is thought. Thought may disclose and renew or criticize and correct against the background of what we know. Thought is also central to (...) concept formation. The factor that runs through these three layers is truth, taken realistically. It has its seat in the intuition of discerning. It is central to knowledge, for the essence of knowledge is said to be "possessing truth." And in connection with thought, or more particularly in concept formation, the latter is described as "truth grasped in a form." Apart from advocating his own understanding of epistemology in this inaugural address, Vollenhoven takes issue with how epistemology is generally understood. The critique is cast in a historical overview. (shrink)

With the publication of Being and Time and Truth and Method philosophical hermeneutics seems to have become the official philosophy of history, with exclusive rights on the questions arising from the fact-of-having-a-past. From now on the epistemological approach of the German historical school, reaching a peak in Dilthey’s thought, is unanimously recognized as definitively overcome, aufheben, by the ontological interrogation of hermeneutics. But, with the same unanimity, it is also recognized that the reasons behind this overcoming and their validity (...) are not readily apparent. For, as it has been shown in the literature, Heidegger’s critique of Dilthey proves to be partial and lacunar, whereas Gadamer’s is straightforwardly ambiguous. Our paper assumes as its first task a re-evaluation of these critiques and of the hypotheses proposed in the literature with regard to what could be the problem with Dilthey’s epistemology. In this sense the paper argues that the problem resides in that the fundamental concepts on which it is based are bound to miss the peculiarity of history by idealizing it and masking the power relations inhabiting it. As a second task, our paper proposes an investigation of whether philosophical hermeneutics itself manages torise to the expectations through which Dilthey’s thought is evaluated. As it will become manifest, the answer to this question is in the negative. That is why, in the end, we will defend the necessity of a post-historicist and post-hermeneutic philosophy of history. (shrink)

The paper aims to put forward a critique of the common view of the birth of philosophy as the exit from myth. To this end, it proposes a genealogy of myth whichstarts from the observation that the two terms were originally used as synonymous. By analyzing the ways in which the two terms relate to each other in the thinking of Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle, the paper argues that up to the fourth century BC no opposition between mythos and (...) logos was stated and that not even in Aristotle is there an identification of myth with false discourse. This, in the end, is the result of the fact that their views of truth and reality enabled a plurality of programmes of truth to coexist next to one another. (shrink)

The paper aims to put forward a critique of the common view of the birth of philosophy as the exit from myth. To this end, it proposes a genealogy of myth whichstarts from the observation that the two terms were originally used as synonymous. By analyzing the ways in which the two terms relate to each other in the thinking of Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle, the paper argues that up to the fourth century BC no opposition between mythos and (...) logos was stated and that not even in Aristotle is there an identification of myth with false discourse. This, in the end, is the result of the fact that their views of truth and reality enabled a plurality of programmes of truth to coexist next to one another. (shrink)

Employing her original concept of the ontopoiesis of life, the author uncovers the intrinsic law of the primogenital logos - that which operates in the working of the indivisible dyad of impetus and equipoise. This is the crucial, intrinsically motivated device of logoic constructivism. This key instrument is engaged - is at play - at every stage of the advance of life. In a feat unprecedented in the history of western philosophy, the emergence and unfolding of the entire (...) orbit of the human universe is shown to bear out this insight. Furthermore, the intrinsic rhythms of impetus and equipoise are taken as a guide in uncovering the workings of the logos all at once, in contrast to the piecemeal exposition of a single line of argument. In a schema covering the entire career of beingness-in-becoming between the infinities of origin and destiny, an historically unprecedented harmonizing all sectors of rationality is accomplished in a span of reflection comparable to Spinoza's Ethics. The work draws on interdisciplinary investigations in both science and the arts. All of the history of Occidental philosophy finds summary in it, even as feelers, guidelines, leitmotifs are thrown out for its future development. A landmark of Occidental philosophy at the turn of the millennium. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the way in which Plato’s Sophist rethinks his lifelong dialogue with Heraclitus. Plato uses a concept of logos in this dialogue that is much more Heraclitean than his earlier concept of the logos. I argue that he employs this concept in order to resolve those problems with his earlier theory of ideas that he had brought to light in the Parmenides. I argue that the concept of the dialectic that the Stranger develops rejects, (...) rather than continues, the idea reached at the end of the Theatetus that knowledge has to be grounded in a nous aneu logou (a non-logical, divine intellect) even while the Stranger appropriates the concerns that lead to his conclusion. Ultimately, I suggest that my differentiation of the later Plato’s appropriation of the tradition from Aristotle’s appropriation of that tradition is closely related to the re-thinking of the full sense of logos in the later Heidegger on Heraclitus and on Parmenides. I end by suggesting that the question that Plato and Heraclitus pose to us is to ask what such a divine logos tells about human ways of knowing. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the way in which Plato’s Sophist rethinks his lifelong dialogue with Heraclitus. Plato uses a concept of logos in this dialogue that is much more Heraclitean than his earlier concept of the logos. I argue that he employs this concept in order to resolve those problems with his earlier theory of ideas that he had brought to light in the Parmenides. I argue that the concept of the dialectic that the Stranger develops rejects, (...) rather than continues, the idea reached at the end of the Theatetus that knowledge has to be grounded in a nous aneu logou (a non-logical, divine intellect) even while the Stranger appropriates the concerns that lead to his conclusion. Ultimately, I suggest that my differentiation of the later Plato’s appropriation of the tradition from Aristotle’s appropriation of that tradition is closely related to the re-thinking of the full sense of logos in the later Heidegger on Heraclitus and on Parmenides. I end by suggesting that the question that Plato and Heraclitus pose to us is to ask what such a divine logos tells about human ways of knowing. (shrink)

This book offers insight into the nature of meaningful discourse. It presents an argument of great intellectual scope written by an author with more than four decades of experience. Readers will gain a deeper understanding into three theories of the logos: analytic, dialectical, and oceanic. The author first introduces and contrasts these three theories. He then assesses them with respect to their basic parameters: necessity, truth, negation, infinity, as well as their use in mathematics. Analytic Aristotelian logic has traditionally (...) claimed uniqueness, most recently in its Fregean and post-Fregean variants. Dialectical logic was first proposed by Hegel. The account presented here cuts through the dense, often incomprehensible Hegelian text. Oceanic logic was never identified as such, but the author gives numerous examples of its use from the history of philosophy. The final chapter addresses the plurality of the three theories and of how we should deal with it. The author first worked in analytic logic in the 1970s and 1980s, first researched dialectical logic in the 1990s, and discovered oceanic logic in the 2000s. This book represents the culmination of reflections that have lasted an entire scholarly career. (shrink)

The three sorts of soul in Aristotle’s On Soul (nutritive, animal, and cognitive) may be understood as one insofar as each must go out of itself in order to confirm itself as itself. This feature of soul, without which there would be no distinction between inside and outside at all, proves to be the underlying theme of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is at the core of both moral virtue and intellectual virtue and points as well to the principle of their (...) union. Rationality, whether in the form of morality or of thought, is necessarily incomplete rationality, for its perfection could become manifest only in a completed structure in which neither choice nor longing to know would have any place and in which rationality would be indistinguishable from mechanical structure. It is thus not accidental that although the moral argument of the Nicomachean Ethics seems to require that the human soul be double—with a rational part that governs and an animal part that is capable of being governed by this rational part—strictly speaking the rational part, which Aristotle likens to a father, is never really present in the argument. Its absence points to the character of reason as necessarily hidden and only showing itself as a striving for rationality. Further, it is a sign of the impossibility of ever achieving an adequate structural account of the soul. (shrink)

The three sorts of soul in Aristotle’s On Soul (nutritive, animal, and cognitive) may be understood as one insofar as each must go out of itself in order to confirm itself as itself. This feature of soul, without which there would be no distinction between inside and outside at all, proves to be the underlying theme of the Nicomachean Ethics. It is at the core of both moral virtue and intellectual virtue and points as well to the principle of their (...) union. Rationality, whether in the form of morality or of thought, is necessarily incomplete rationality, for its perfection could become manifest only in a completed structure in which neither choice nor longing to know would have any place and in which rationality would be indistinguishable from mechanical structure. It is thus not accidental that although the moral argument of the Nicomachean Ethics seems to require that the human soul be double—with a rational part that governs and an animal part that is capable of being governed by this rational part—strictly speaking the rational part, which Aristotle likens to a father, is never really present in the argument. Its absence points to the character of reason as necessarily hidden and only showing itself as a striving for rationality. Further, it is a sign of the impossibility of ever achieving an adequate structural account of the soul. (shrink)

This essay shows the difficulties inherent in the very term of ›culture‹ itself, spe- cifically in political and philosophical contexts between 1910 and 1933. Despite the eagerness and the striking idealism of its founders, Logos never offered an under- standing of culture that was able to resist the totalitarian tendencies of its own time. The term ›culture‹ thus continues to contaminate every attempt to formulate the legacy of the Logos project. From today’s perspective, that means recognizing the need (...) to come to terms with the connotations and the implications of such a project as Logos rather than rushing into a naive and simplistic affirmation. Al- though not the first, Klaus Christian Köhnke and Rüdiger Kramme were the most insistent researchers who brought up this painful subject of the modern history of philosophy. (shrink)