Rhetoric as a persuasive technique, school subject and social practice has determined our literary and social linguistic life since the 5th century BC. Its history is the history of the production of speech under changing social conditions. Rhetoric has managed to re-establish itself as an academic subject at German universities since the 1960s, and today, in our advanced media society, it plays an outstanding role in advertising, sales and the social technology of management. - The Rhetoric Yearbook summarises rhetoric research (...) in Germany and presents new publications in an extended review section. A current bibliography provides information on all German-language publications related to rhetoric.Contributions are published in English, French and German. (shrink)

In a period of over 50 years, Peter Mittelstaedt has made substantial and lasting contributions to several fields in theoretical physics as well as the foundations and philosophy of physics. Here we present an overview of his achievements in physics and its foundations which may serve as a guide to the bibliography (printed in this Festschrift) of his publications. An appraisal of Peter Mittelstaedt’s work in the philosophy of physics is given in a separate contribution by B. Falkenburg.

Tablettes mathématiques de la collection Hilprecht. By Christine Proust with the assistance of Manfred Krebernik and Joachim Oelsner. Texte und Materialien der Hilprecht Collection, vol. 8. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008. Pp. ix + 166, plates, CD-ROM. €74.

Babylonien und seine Nachbarn in neu- und spätbabylonischer Zeit: Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium aus Anlass des 75. Geburtstags von Joachim Oelsner, Jena, 2. und 3. März 2007. Edited by Manfred Krebernik and Hans Neumann. Alter Orient und Altes Testament, vol. 369. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014. Pp. vii + 338, illus. €91.

The Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, the _Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie,_ is distinguished by its particular presentation of philosophical terms, ideas and concepts. Rather than providing mere defintions or descriptive and analytical explanantions the _HWPh_ strictly applies the critical method of history of concepts developed by the eminent German scholar and philosopher Joachim Ritter. By means of precise and detailed references it documents the origin, first occurrence, the historical evolution and the changes of meaning of each concept, from Ancient Greek (...) to contemporary philosophy. For the reader this presentation is of unique value: it makes traceable the importance of terms and concepts at certain periods or for a particular philosopher, as well as its changes and development of meaning. Voulmes 1–12 of the _HWPh_ comprises more than 17.000 text columns on 3.670 philosophical terms. The dictionary does not include articles on persons. Volume 13 includes, besides of a comprehensive introductory essay, three different indexes: - the Subject Index classifies the articles by disciplinary and systematic categories - the Main Index includes all philosophical keywords with more than 30.000 references to their occurrences in other articles and contexts - the Author Index lists all authors and their contributions The included CD-ROM allows full text research of the _HWPh's_ entire content. (shrink)

These essays On Hegel's political philosophy are taken from Ritter's influential Metaphysik and Politik. They discuss the importance of Hegel's evaluation of modernity by focusing upon his unique conceptions of property relations, morality, civil society, and the state.Ritter's work has played a seminal role in rekindling interest in Hegel's social and political philosophy. Ritter's clarity of expression makes Hegel's concepts accessible to a wide audience of philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, historians, and others concerned with the legitimacy of modernity, the relation (...) of society and the state, or in Hegel's relation to Marx and other later thinkers.Joachim Ritter was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Istanbul. This book is in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. (shrink)

At the centre of discussion lies the reception of Plato’s philosophy, particularly his theory of Ideas, in Kant’s moral philosophy, his ethics and his doctrine of right. Kant saw himself as a follower of Platonism insofar as its anti-empiri­cist principles of human conduct are concerned, although his own version of practical rationalism differs considerably from Plato’s. This is also true of Kant’s conception of freedom and of human rights. The greatest impact on Kant’s moral philosophy is due to the doctrine (...) of the two worlds, the mundus sensibilis and the mundus intelligibilis, which did not originate in Plato himself, but in the Jewish Platonist Philo of Alexandria. Kant reinterpreted this doctrine by taking the intelligible world as a moral world consisting of free rational agents who ought to transform the empirical world of human society and history according to the norms and standards of moral laws. This was meant to be a programme for a moral reform of the human world, both with regard to individual moral­ity and to the cosmopolitical task of the establishment of an international order of legal institutions. Kant’s practical Platonism insists on the creation of a moral world order through human actions that take their lead from pure practical reason. (shrink)

Examining the nature of Václav Havel's 'postmodernism,' we suggest that his use of this ambiguous label can be best understood if interpreted outside the conventional binary framework of modern/postmodern philosophy, which does not sufficiently answer to the lingering crisis of foundational certainty in political theory. In our view, the Czech playwright-turned-politician offers not merely a less confining sense of what it means to be 'postmodern,' but his commitment to moral political action also lends itself to overcoming some of the limitations (...) of contemporary postmodern theorizing by reentering the depreciated terrain of ontology. Specifically, we argue that an assessment of Havel's brand of postmodernism yields a rich interpretive harvest when read through ontological lenses. Indeed, Havel's theoretical posture serves as an instructive example of what political theorist Stephen K. White has called a 'felicitous weak ontology.'. (shrink)

Cet essai rappelle l’interprétation qu’ont donnée Carl Schmitt, Dolf Sternberger et Nicole Loraux du caractère essentiel de la politique. Celui-ci a un rapport intrinsèque avec ce que Joachim Ritter et Manfred Riedel ont essayé de penser à travers la catégorie de « métapolitique ». Mais c’est en se référant également aux grandes époques que décrit la philosophie de l’histoire de Hegel que l’auteur conclut que le noyau métapolitique de la politique est constitué par la relation antinomique entre inclusion (...) et exclusion. La machine de la théologie politique, autour de laquelle s’articule depuis longtemps la politique occidentale, fonctionne en attribuant constamment le rôle du tout à une partie par le biais de la soumission et de l’exclusion d’une autre partie. (shrink)

T. 1. Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller.