Pets are truly great companions. Some individuals feel that owning a pet can help them prepare for a growing family by giving them a taste of what it would be like to have children. This study also looks into the psychological well-being and life experiences of LGBT fur parents. Employing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the findings of this study were: (1) With the presence of fur babies, participants had the ease to overcome stressful events, especially the ones that affect their (...) mental health. With these, they have the desire to take care of their fur babies under all circumstances because they see their fur babies as family members. Fur babies are excellent sources of motivation, confidence, and happiness for fur parents. They are treated as family members because they contribute to the mental and emotional aspects of fur parents. Moreover, the majority of respondents valued their pets far more than their actual family members, however, some didn't spend as much time with their relatives and friends. This study comes to the conclusion that a stronger bond with one's dog was also linked to higher anxiety about being unloved and rejected by family members and people surrounding us, which was linked to a heavier impact on one's psychological well-being. In reality, fur parents, especially LGBT parents, offer their fur babies a lot of love and attention compared to other things. (shrink)

Time has multiple aspects and is difficult to define as one unique entity, which therefore led to multiple interpretations in physics and philosophy. However, if the perception of time is considered as a composite time concept, it can be decomposed into basic invariable components for the perception of progressive and support-fixed time and into secondary components with possible association to unit-defined time or tense. Progressive time corresponds to Bergson’s definition of duration without boundaries, which cannot be divided for measurements. Time (...) periods are already lying in the past and fixed on different kinds of support. The human memory is the first automatic support, but any other support suitable for time registration can also be considered. The true reproduction of original time from any support requires conditions identical to the initial conditions, if not time reproduction becomes artificially modified as can be seen with a film. Time reproduction can be artificially accelerated, slowed down, extended or diminished, and also inverted from the present to the past, which only depends on the manipulation of the support, to which time is firmly linked. Tense associated to progressive and support fixed time is a psychological property directly dependent on an observer, who judges his present as immediate, his past as finished and his future as uncertain. Events can be secondarily associated to the tenses of an observer. Unit-defined time is essential for physics and normal live and is obtained by comparison of support-fixed time to systems with regular motions, like clocks. The association of time perception to time units can also be broken. Einstein’s time units became relative, in quantum mechanics, some physicist eliminated time units, others maintained them. Nevertheless, even the complete elimination of time units is not identical to timelessness, since the psychological perception of progressive and support-fixed time still remains and cannot be ignored. It is not seizable by physical methods, but experienced by everybody in everyday life. Contemporary physics can only abandon the association of time units or tenses to the basic components in perceived time. (shrink)

Chalmers introduced the hard problem of consciousness as a profound gap between experience and physical concepts. Philosophical theories were based on different interpretations concerning the qualia/concept gap, such as interactive dualism (Descartes), as well as mono aspect or dual aspect monism. From a bio-psychological perspective, the gap can be explained by the different activity of two mental functions realizing a mental representation of extra-mental reality. The function of elementary sensation requires active sense organs, which create an uninterrupted physical chain from (...) extra-mental reality to the brain and reflect the present. The function of categorizing reflection no longer needs sense organs, so that the physical chain to extra-mental reality is interrupted and now reflects the past. Whereas elementary sensation is an open system, categorizing reflection remains a closed system, separated from extra-mental reality. This creates the potentiality/reality gap, since prediction from the closed to the open system remains always uncertain. Elementary sensation is associated to specific qualia for each sense organ. Chalmers also attributed qualia to thoughts, with more neutral thought qualia. Thus at the qualia level, there is also an important gap, but now between specific sense qualia and neutral thought qualia. Since all physical concepts are simultaneously linked to neutral thought qualia, the hard problem might be explained by a qualia/qualia gap instead of a qualia/concept gap. The mental function of categorizing reflection induces the change from sense qualia to thought qualia by a categorization process. The specific sense qualia mosaic of an apple is reduced to physical concepts with neutral qualia by progressive categorization first to fruit, then to food, to chemicals and finally to calories. This might explain the gap felt in the hard problem, since specific sense qualia are completely different from neutral thought qualia, so that the hard problem could already be encountered at the qualia level. Since the gap of the hard problem is due to the interaction of different mental functions, it is compatible with a philosophical monism. (shrink)

Both in research on Auditory Verbal Hallucinations (AVHs) and in their clinical assessment, it is common to distinguish between voices that are experienced as ‘inner’ (or ‘internal’, ‘inside the head’, ‘inside the mind’,...) and voices that are experienced as ‘outer’ (‘external’, ‘outside the head’, ‘outside the mind’,...). This inner/outer-contrast is treated not only as an important phenomenological variable of AVHs, it is also often seen as having diagnostic value. In this article, we argue that the distinction between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ (...) voices is ambiguous between different readings, and that lack of disambiguation in this regard has led to flaws in assessment tools, diagnostic debates and empirical studies. Such flaws, we argue furthermore, are often linked to misreadings of inner/outer-terminology in relevant 19th and early twentieth century work on AVHs, in particular, in connection with Kandinsky’s and Jaspers’s distinction between hallucinations and pseudo-hallucinations. (shrink)

Corona showed us how important the medical and statistical data are. They inform, but are difficult to understand. We need more. We know too little about how people cope with problems, too little about what our life together depends on. We need a deeper understanding, in order to perceive the dangers to our personal and social life. This book tries to do that with thoughtfulness: it raises questions and calls apparent self-evident facts in question, it connects intellectual sources of thought (...) by linking experiences from history, literature with the current problems of the corona crisis. And where do we go from here? Are there ways out of a battered social life to a new solidarity? (shrink)

Although scholars have thoroughly assessed American Evangelical Protestants’ beliefs about government intervention in addressing socioeconomic stratification and racial discrimination, they have paid considerably less attention to interpretations of health care reform. Especially important is that American Evangelicalism in recent years has incorporated personal accountability in such a way that makes this group distinctive when considering social responsibility toward others. Whereas earlier Evangelicals were instrumental in furthering the social gospel, American Evangelicals today prioritize matters of personal accountability ahead of social action. (...) The cultural toolkit available to Evangelicals includes a rationale for caring for others, but an emphasis on personal accountability shapes how they evaluate government health care interventions. This paper employs qualitative methods to understand how Evangelicals link such individualism with strategies for caring for others in the context of health care. The findings suggest that Evangelicals emphasize personal accountability, especially when evaluating government programs. However, personal accountability is accompanied by a conflicting ethical responsibility to provide care to others. The priority given to personal accountability or an ethic of care, however, varies according to the situational context or social location of white Evangelicals. These findings may be helpful in framing future health policies to draw Evangelical support. (shrink)

This book studies various perspectives in the history of European philosophy on the relationship between time and movement. Ever since the pre-Socratic thinker Zeno of Elea linked time and space to understand bodily movement, his so-called paradoxes of motion have remained unsolved. One of his most important critics, the French philosopher Henri Bergson, criticized the usual connection between time and space and established a new way of understanding time as duration (durée). Whereas Zeno presented an objectivist understanding of time, Bergson (...) emphasized its subjectivist meaning. Both contradictory positions seem incompatible, referring to pure intellect (Zeno) on the one hand or pure sensation (Bergson) on the other. Looking at Hegel's Phenomenology, this book shows that the outer and inner consciousness of time became crucial to his principle of movement and change. In his view, time is an integral part of dialectical processes that are historically substantiated. Hegel sought to subordinate pure concepts and ideas so that they would become indispensable moments of the self knowing spirit. Cassirer appreciated the idealism of coming into being but rejected Hegel's concept of the absolute. Instead, he established his philosophy of symbolic forms, in which the development of different perceptions and conceptions of time - from situational affective experience to the mathematical system of relations - determines the direction of the symbolic formation process. In the end, the sensitive concept of time is replaced by the relational concept of natural numbers, in which all here-and-now experiences are embedded. Finally, Bourdieu attempts to reintegrate symbolic forms into social processes. The book reflects on the concepts mentioned here by discussing their pros and cons in order to shed more light on the relationship between time and movement in European thought. (shrink)

Aside from his remarkable studies in psychology and the social sciences, Donald Thomas Campbell (1916–1996) made significant contributions to philosophy, particularly philosophy of science,epistemology, and ethics. His name and his work are inseparably linked with the evolutionary approach to explaining human knowledge (evolutionary epistemology). He was an indefatigable supporter of the naturalistic turn in philosophy and has strongly influenced the discussion of moral issues (evolutionary ethics). The aim of this paper is to briefly characterize Campbells work and to discuss its (...) philosophical implications. In particular, I show its relevance to some current debates in the intersection of biology and philosophy. In fact, philosophy of biology would look poorer without Campbells influence. The present paper is not a hagiography but an attempt to evaluate and critically discuss the meaning of Campbells work for philosophy of biology and to encourage scholars working in this field to read and re-read this work which is both challenging and inspiring. (shrink)

The present volume aims at giving a discussion ot the problems ot reductionism in contemporary life sciences. It contains six papers which deals with reduction/reductionism in different fields ot biological research. Also, the holistic perspective, 1. e. the systems view, is discussed in some ot the papers. The message ot this discussion Is that - whereas reductionism is indeed an important strategy - the systems approach is needed. It is argued by some ot the authors that organisms are complex systems (...) and not just heaps of molecules, 50 that the analytical method does not suffice. Recent developments in systems theory offer the possibility to install a more comprehensive view ot living systems what can be seen particularly in the field ot evolutionary biology. It is true that any organismic activity is molecular, this is to say that it is based on molecular mechanisms. But it is also true that the whole organism displays certain patterns ot behavior which are not just molecular. Any organism can be described as a system ot different levels ot organization different levels ot order and complexity - and it is important, theretore, to study all ot the organizational levels and to see their peculiarities. It should be obvious, however, that there is not one problem ot reduction/reductionism, but that there are many problems linked together and that these problems appear at different levels ot biological research and bio philosophical reflections. (shrink)

Various theories try to give accounts of how measures of this confidence do or ought to behave, both as far as the internal mental consistency of the agent as ...

This book contains the definitive statement of Franz Brentano's views on meta physics. It is made up of essays which were dictated by Brentano during the last ten years of his life, between 1907 and 1917. These dictations were assembled and edited by Alfred Kastil and first published by the Felix Meiner Verlag in 1933 under the title Kategorienlehre. Kastil added copious notes to Brentano's text. These notes have been included, with some slight omissions, in the present edition; the (...) bibliographical references have been brought up to date. Brentano's approach to philosophy is unfamiliar to many contemporay readers. I shall discuss below certain fundamental points which such readers are likely to find the most difficult. I believe that once these points are properly understood, then what Brentano has to say will be seen to be of first importance to philosophy. THE PRIMACY OF THE INTENTIONAL To understand Brentano's theory of being, one must realize that he appeals to what he calls inner perception for his paradigmatic uses of the word "is". For inner perception, according to Brentano, is the source of our knowledge of the nature of being, just as it is the source of our knowledge of the nature of truth and of the nature of good and evil. And what can be said about the being of things that are not apprehended in inner perception can be understood only by analogy with what we are able to say about ourselves as thinking subjects. (shrink)

Introduction and translation of “The Four Phases of Philosophy” by Franz Brentano.

This book is a survey of the most important developments in Austrian philosophy in its classical period from the 1870s to the Anschluss in 1938. Thus it is intended as a contribution to the history of philosophy. But I hope that it will be seen also as a contribution to philosophy in its own right as an attempt to philosophize in the spirit of those, above all Roderick Chisholm, Rudolf Haller, Kevin Mulligan and Peter Simons, who have done so much (...) to demonstrate the continued fertility of the ideas and methods of the Austrian philosophers in our own day. For some time now, historians of philosophy have been gradually coming to terms with the idea that post-Kantian philosophy in the German-speaking world ought properly to be divided into two distinct traditions which we might refer to as the German and Austrian traditions, respectively. The main line of the first consists in a list of personages beginning with Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling and ending with Heidegger, Adorno and Bloch. The main line of the second may be picked out similarly by means of a list beginning with Bolzano, Mach and Meinong, and ending with Wittgenstein, Neurath and Popper. As should be clear, it is the Austrian tradition that has contributed most to the contemporary mainstream of philosophical thinking in the Anglo-Saxon world. For while there are of course German thinkers who have made crucial contributions to the development of exact or analytic philosophy, such thinkers were outsiders when seen from the perspective of native German philosophical culture, and in fact a number of them found their philosophical home precisely in Vienna. When, in contrast, we examine the influence of the Austrian line, we encounter a whole series of familiar and unfamiliar links to the characteristic concerns of more recent philosophy of the analytic sort. As Michael Dummett points out in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, the newly fashionable habit of referring to analytic philosophy as "Anglo-American" is in this light a "grave historical distortion". If, he says, we take into account the historical context in which analytic philosophy developed, then such philosophy "could at least as well be called "Anglo-Austrian" (1988, p. 7). Much valuable scholarly work has been done on the thinking of Husserl and Wittgenstein, Mach and the Vienna Circle. The central axis of Austrian philosophy, however, which as I hope to show in what follows is constituted by the work of Brentano and his school, is still rather poorly understood. Work on Meinong or Twardowski by contemporary philosophers still standardly rests upon simplified and often confused renderings of a few favoured theses taken out of context. Little attention is paid to original sources, and little effort is devoted to establishing what the problems were by which the Austrian philosophers in general were exercised -- in spite of the fact that many of these same problems have once more become important as a result of the contemporary burgeoning of interest on the part of philosophers in problems in the field of cognitive science. (shrink)

In dem Sammelband, der als Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Franz Hundsnurscher erscheint, sind 47 Beiträge zu zwei thematischen Schwerpunkten versammelt, die im Werk Hundsnurschers von zentraler Bedeutung sind: Semantik und Dialoganalyse. Im ersten Teil werden neben grundlegenden Fragen der Semantik Aspekte der semantischen Beschreibung von Phraseologismen, des Fremdwortgebrauchs und des Grundwortschatzes diskutiert; neben synchronen (meist gebrauchstheoretischen) Untersuchungen zu Einzelwörtern und Quasisynonymengruppen im Deutschen stehen sprachhistorische und kontrastive Arbeiten. Vor allem mit theoretischen und methodologischen Fragen der Dialoganalyse, mit Fragen (...) der Analyse institutioneller Kommunikation (Politik, Recht, Wirtschaft) und literarischer Dialoge setzen sich die Beiträge des zweiten Teils auseinander. (shrink)

Der Autor legt hier die erste Gesamtdarstellung der antiken Ansätze zu einer vergleichenden Zeichentheorie der Künste (Poesie, Plastik, Malerei, Musik, aber auch darstellendes Verhalten in der Lebenspraxis) vor, die für die Herausbildung und Entwicklung der griechischen Ästhetik, Literatur- und Kunsttheorie konstitutiv waren. Von Simonides über Empedokles, Gorgias, Platon und Aristoteles bis zur Stoa (von Chrysipp bis Poseidonios) und zu den Epikureern (von Epikur bis zu Philodem) werden alle wichtigen Positionen und Debattenlinien zwischen Spätarchaik und Späthellenismus behandelt, eingebettet in eine breit (...) angelegte Analyse des semiotischen Feldes (Zeichen in Medizin, Rhetorik, Geschichtsschreibung, Logik, Epistemologie, Physik und anderen Wissenschaften). Die poetologisch, kunsttheoretisch und musikologisch relevanten Probleme einer vergleichenden Zeichentheorie werden in konkreten Literatur- und Kunstanalysen am Material entwickelt (Euripides, hellenistische Plastik, Philodems Epigramme, Lukrez' De Rerum Natura). (shrink)

"Today, more than three-quarters of a century after it was written, the critique of philosophy in this book is what makes it of such great interest.

In "Knowledge Triumphant," Franz Rosenthal observes that the Islamic civilization is one that is essentially characterized by knowledge ("'ilm"), for "ilm is ...

A philosophic critique of the development of postmodern systemic values, including an interpretation of freedom through Locke, Marx and Nietzsche; the impact of globalization on human rights and the contemporary enthronement of profit over human needs.

ZU "HEGEL UND DER STAAT" Der erste, der das Leben Hegels schrieb, war der Konigsberger Professor Karl Rosenkranz. Sein Buch erschien 1844. Der Verfasser hatte Hegel noch seIber gekannt. Unter den person lichen treuge­ bliebenen Schiilern ist er einer der freieren; ohne daB er seinen Anschauungen nach gerade der Hegelschen Linken zuzurechnen ware, ist ihm doch manches mit ihr gemein; nicht bloB eine gewisse Selbstandigkeit gegeniiber der Systematik des Meisters, sondern mehr noch eine eigentiimliche Zersplitterung und Beweglichkeit des Empfindens, ein (...) unruhig stoffsiichtiges Hineingreifen in die Schatze der Zeit und Vergangenheit, ein starker Hang endlich zum geist­ reichen Widersinn stell en den Verfasser der "Asthetik des HaBlichen" fast eher in die Reihe der StrauB, Bauer, Feuerbach als zu den Marheineke, Gabler und Henning. Sein Hegelbuch zeigt von diesen Eigenschaften verhaltnismaBig wenig; sie sind da zuriickge­ drangt durch die fromme Achtung des Schiilers gegen den toten Meister und wohl auch durch den Ernst des BewuBtseins, sozusagen im amtlichen Auf trag der Schule zu schreiben: die Lebensgeschichte trat an die Offentlichkeit als Erganzungsband zu den Werken. Auch die Menge handschriftlichen Stoffes, die das Buch im Abdruck oder Auszug brachte, tat das ihre, dem Verfasser den Ratim fiir seine eigenen Fliige einzuengen. Immerhin wird der Leser des noch heute unentbehrlichen und urn seiner ausgepragten und zeitcharakteristi­ schen Eigenart willen wohl nie ganz iiberftiissig zu machenden Buchs noch genug wunderbare Einfalle darin finden. (shrink)

Group decisions must often obey exogenous constraints. While in a preference aggregation problem constraints are modelled by restricting the set of feasible alternatives, this paper discusses the modelling of constraints when aggregating individual yes/no judgments on interconnected propositions. For example, court judgments in breach-of-contract cases should respect the constraint that action and obligation are necessary and sufficient for liability, and judgments on budget items should respect budgetary constraints. In this paper, we make constraints in judgment aggregation explicit by relativizing the (...) rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure to a constraint set, whose variation yields more or less strong notions of rationality. This approach of modelling constraints explicitly contrasts with that of building constraints as axioms into the logic, which turns compliance with constraints into a matter of logical consistency and thereby conflates requirements of ordinary logical consistency and requirements dictated by the environment . We present some general impossibility results on constrained judgment aggregation; they are immediate corollaries of known results on judgment aggregation. (shrink)

The ideas of Jewish Messianism and libertarian utopia hold a decisive place in the work of Franz Kafka and while it is possible to recognise the selective tendency which links them, their orientation derives from radical negativity. The sympathy for libertarian utopianism which led Kafka to become involved in the activities of Prague anarchist circles in 1919-1922 did not take on the same form in his novels and short stories. In them it is purely negative, a critique of a (...) world devoid of freedom, of the meticulous absurd and arbitrary logic of some all-powerful "apparatus". The structural homology with "negative theology" is striking: in both cases the positive reverse of the established world - a libertarian utopia or messianic redemption - is totally lacking and it is this absence that defines the life of people as fallen, lost or devoid of meaning. The subconscious selective tendency between the two "negative" configurations leads to a convergence which can be seen in the structure of the novels (The Trial, The Castle) and short stories: this is what the crushing of the individual and the total refutation of freedom indicates - the redemption of the world. (shrink)

Public reason as a political ideal aims to reconcile reasonable disagreement; however, is public reason itself the object of reasonable disagreement? Jonathan Quong, David Estlund, Andrew Lister, and some other philosophers maintain that public reason is beyond reasonable disagreement. I argue this view is untenable. In addition, I consider briefly whether or not two main versions of the public reason principle, namely, the consensus version and the convergence version, need to satisfy their own requirements. My discussion has several important implications (...) for the debate on public reason. (shrink)

Avec Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig (1886-1929) est sans conteste l'une des figures les plus originales de la pensée allemande du début du XXe siècle. Les effets de ses œuvres ont été immédiatement sensibles dans toutes les orientations du judaïsme allemand, au cours même de l'identité allemande lorsqu'avec Martin Buber il donna une nouvelle traduction de la Bible, et, plus généralement, dans la philosophie qui voulait, comme la pensée de Heidegger, rompre avec l'idéalisme, la tradition métaphysique ou avec les illusions (...) du positivisme d'avant-guerre ; mais c'est surtout dans la controverse avec le christianisme que se précise peu à peu une nouvelle conception de l'existence juive, une nouvelle perspective messianique. La genèse de son livre majeur, L'Étoile de la Rédemption, est, elle aussi, peu commune puisque Rosenzweig l'a d'abord ébauché, dans les tranchées où il était mobilisé, à travers des conversations, des correspondances - en situation de dialogue donc -, puis l'a poursuivi en en rédigeant une partie sur des cartes postales adressées à sa mère. Le présent recueil rassemble ces textes préparatoires de même qu'une sorte de longue postface explicative, des cours qu'il donna dans le nouvel institut d'enseignement qu'il avait fondé à Francfort, ainsi que des extraits du journal de l'auteur. Autant d'éclairages qui permettent de mieux comprendre L Étoile de la Rédemption, ses présupposés comme ses points de fuite, et qui esquissent les perspectives politiques, esthétiques et philosophiques dont un second volume se fera plus précisément l'écho. (shrink)

Group decisions must often obey exogenous constraints. While in a preference aggregation problem constraints are modelled by restricting the set of feasible alternatives, this paper discusses the modelling of constraints when aggregating individual yes/no judgments on interconnected propositions. For example, court judgments in breach-of-contract cases should respect the constraint that action and obligation are necessary and sufficient for liability, and judgments on budget items should respect budgetary constraints. In this paper, we make constraints in judgment aggregation explicit by relativizing the (...) rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure to a constraint set, whose variation yields more or less strong notions of rationality. This approach of modelling constraints explicitly contrasts with that of building constraints as axioms into the logic, which turns compliance with constraints into a matter of logical consistency and thereby conflates requirements of ordinary logical consistency (such as not to affirm both a proposition and its negation) and requirements dictated by the environment (such as budgetary constraints). We present some general impossibility results on constrained judgment aggregation; they are immediate corollaries of known results on (unconstrained) judgment aggregation. (shrink)

Das Buch behandelt die Ästhetik der tonalen Musik. Analysiert werden Klangformen wie Konsonanz, Dissonanz, Tonalität, Takt, Kontrapunkt oder Motiv. Dabei zeigt sich: Alle harmonischen, rhythmischen und melodischen Klanggestalten sind ihrem Wesen nach Verhältnisse des klanglichen Zusammenpassens. Als solche sind sie systematisch aufeinander aufgebaut und bilden ein Ensemble aus acht ästhetischen Prinzipien, denen jeweils ein Kapitel dieses Buches gewidmet ist. In der logischen Abfolge dieser Kapitel wird der innere Zusammenhang von Harmonie, Rhythmus und Melodie offen gelegt. Die Suche nach einer "Bedeutung" (...) der musikalischen Formen ist nicht die Sache dieses Buches. Dann schon eher die schonungslose Kritik der theoretischen Absurditäten, die sich aus jener musikwissenschaftlichen Unsitte ergeben. (shrink)

Behaviourism is the view that preferences, beliefs, and other mental states in social-scientific theories are nothing but constructs re-describing people's behaviour. Mentalism is the view that they capture real phenomena, on a par with the unobservables in science, such as electrons and electromagnetic fields. While behaviourism has gone out of fashion in psychology, it remains influential in economics, especially in ‘revealed preference’ theory. We defend mentalism in economics, construed as a positive science, and show that it fits best scientific practice. (...) We distinguish mentalism from, and reject, the radical neuroeconomic view that behaviour should be explained in terms of brain processes, as distinct from mental states. (shrink)

(Winner of The Res Publica Essay Prize) This article defends a moderate version of state perfectionism by using Gerald Gaus’s argument for liberal neutrality as a starting point of discussion. Many liberal neutralists reject perfectionism on the grounds of respect for persons, but Gaus has explained more clearly than most neutralists how respect for persons justifies neutrality. Against neutralists, I first argue that the state may promote the good life by appealing to what can be called “the qualified judgments about (...) the good life,” which have not been considered by liberal perfectionists including Joseph Chan and Steven Wall. Then I clear up several possible misunderstandings of these judgments, and argue that: (a) moderate perfectionism does not rely on controversial rankings of values and is committed to promoting different valuable ways of life by pluralistic promotion; and (b) moderate perfectionism requires only an indirect form of coercion in using tax money to support certain moderate perfectionist measures, which is justifiable on the grounds of citizens’ welfare. Thus, I maintain that moderate perfectionism does not disrespect citizens, and is not necessarily unfair to any particular group of people. It is, in fact, plausible and morally important. The defence of moderate perfectionism has practical implications for the state’s policies regarding art development, drug abuse, public education, and so on. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the influence of Rosenzweig’s thought on Levinas’s work in the light of the captivity notebooks (Carnets de captivité), as well as the lectures given shortly after the war at the Collège philosophique. Levinas’s ongoing dealings with Rosenzweig are discussed in two ways: first, by analyzing the articles he explicitly dedicated to Rosenzweig and, second, by identifying elements of Rosenzweig’s thought in Levinas’s work that are not explicitly mentioned therein. By combining these two approaches, I show that Rosenzweig’s (...) work offered Levinas an ontological narrative that contrasts with Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, and it motivated a concept of a new mode of transcendence linked to Judaism. Language, as spoken words produced face-to-face, plays a crucial role in this context: just as it opens up the mute Self into a loving Soul in The Star of Redemption, it is the face that speaks in Levinas, opening up the relationship to the Other and the “beyond of being.”. (shrink)

This article reconsiders the influence of Rosenzweig’s thought on Levinas’s work in the light of the captivity notebooks (Carnets de captivité), as well as the lectures given shortly after the war at the Collège philosophique. Levinas’s ongoing dealings with Rosenzweig are discussed in two ways: first, by analyzing the articles he explicitly dedicated to Rosenzweig and, second, by identifying elements of Rosenzweig’s thought in Levinas’s work that are not explicitly mentioned therein. By combining these two approaches, I show that Rosenzweig’s (...) work offered Levinas an ontological narrative that contrasts with Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein, and it motivated a concept of a new mode of transcendence linked to Judaism. Language, as spoken words produced face-to-face, plays a crucial role in this context: just as it opens up the mute Self into a loving Soul in The Star of Redemption, it is the face that speaks in Levinas, opening up the relationship to the Other and the “beyond of being.”. (shrink)