Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

George J. Stack traces the sources of ideas and theories that have long been considered the exclusive province of Friedrich Nietzsche to the surprisingly radical writings of the American essayist and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nietzsche and Emerson makes us see Emerson's writings in a new, more intensified light and presents a new perspective on Nietzsche's philosophy. Stack traces how the rich theoretical ideas and literary images of Emerson entered directly into the existential dimension of Nietzsche's thought (...) and hence into the stream of what has been considered a distinctively European intellectual movement. Book jacket. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche has emerged as one of the most important and influential modern philosophers. For several decades, the book series Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) has set the agenda in a rapidly growing and changing field of Nietzsche scholarship. The scope of the series is interdisciplinary and international in orientation reflects the entire spectrum of research on Nietzsche, from philosophy to literary studies and political theory. The series publishes monographs and edited volumes that undergo a strict peer-review process. The (...) book series is led by an international team of editors, whose work represents the full range of current Nietzsche scholarship. (shrink)

Sartre's Philosophy of Social Existence is a critical interpretation of Jean-Paul Sartre's phenomenology of social existence and the dynamics of group-formation. It seeks to trade the foreshadowing of a theory of individual action in the practical field of social existence in Being and Nothingness and sees a continuity between this work and Sartre's Critique of Rational Dialectic (1960). The movement in Sartre's thought from the abstract freedom of consciousness to concrete freedom and individual praxis is illuminated in relation to his (...) description of a complex social dialectic. It is shown that as Sartre develops an account of social group-formation he admits determinations and necessities that undermine his attempt to preserve the idea of free individual praxis. (shrink)

Underlying Husserl’s complex analyses of phenomenology, and specifically his conception of transcendental subjectivity, is a relatively unexamined description of the notion of persons. What I will be concerned with here is a critical analysis of Husserl’s concept of persons as it emerges in his various attempts to characterize the nature of constituting subjectivity and to distinguish the transcendental ego from the natural self. An attempt will be made to indicate that there is a tension in Husserl’s thought between his apparent (...) desire to avoid psychologism and the naturalistic standpoint on the one hand, and, on the other hand, his intention to preserve the notion of personal existence. This tension first presents itself in his endeavor to distinguish transcendental subjectivity from psychologistic subjectivity and, hence, it is at this point that we must begin to explore his phenomenology of persons. (shrink)

Overshadowed by his critiques of traditional morality and Christianity, many of Nietzsche’s insightful philosophical analyses have often been neglected. Although Nietzsche as philosopher has, at long last, been recognized, his epistemological reflections are a fairly recent discovery in Anglo-American philosophy. This is curious because some of the earliest German interpreters of his thought had emphasized the link between his metaphysical views and his analyses of human knowledge. At the beginning of this century, Eisler and Rittelmeyer discussed the importance of Erkenntnistheorie (...) for a full understanding of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Despite their basic grasp of his philosophical intentions, they sometimes misunderstood or underplayed central points in his critical negations. With rare exceptions, the significance of what Nietzsche called an “internal phenomenology” has often been overlooked. Even when it is alluded to, the full meaning of this method of analysis is not brought out. My intention here is to show how the concept of causality is construed by Nietzsche and how his analysis of its origin is related to a phenomenology of human intentionality. The analysis of the derivation of the idea of causality that is presented by Nietzsche has an intrinsic interest and the issues concerning the formation of the concept and its validity are obviously still vital ones. (shrink)