Although irrationality always presupposes rationality, I think there are good arguments to claim that sometimes rationality presupposes irrationality.This paper tries to show how irrational action can support rationality in two ways: it can develop and preserve rationality. I also argue that sometimes the development and the conservation of rationality can only be realized by irrational action.

Modern society as well as modern ethical theory is characterised by excessiveness. To produce and to consume as much as possible is the current world ethos. The utility principle of consequentialism is considered to be too demanding and Kant’s categorical imperative too strict. In this article it is my proposal to reintroduce the virtue of detachment as a basic component of the moral attitude. Detachment used to be a virtue in classical virtue ethics such as Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism. I (...) take detachment to be the alternative for an attitude of excess. A detached person accepts his vulnerability and his being to a certain extent left to coincidences. Detachment is not opposed to attachment. It requires attachment. The virtue of detachment involves the ability to break away from the activities, persons, things, places and perhaps even principles one is attached to. It is irreducible to maximally promoting well-being and honouring unconditionally each person. (shrink)

The End of Boredom Boredom has been admired for its audacity to see human life as it is: ultimately without meaning. Moreover, boredom has been attributed the power to overcome itself. The contention is that it is sufficient not to resist boredom. In this article I oppose these views. First, I describe and analyze boredom as a bipolar mood: on the one hand the person who is bored experiences a generalized loss of meaning in ordinary life, on the other hand (...) he is oriented towards something extraordinary, but indefinite (or at least underdetermined) that will reinstate meaning in life. The person who is deeply bored is deadlocked between these two poles. The deadlock of this bipolar state has gotten a peculiarly keen edge in modern society. I argue next that neither of the poles of boredom has the capacity to end the mood. The expectation that in a state of generalized meaninglessness something meaningful will reveal itself, is an illusion and part of the deadlock of boredom. It deepens boredom. Finally, I outline an alternative way of ending boredom that implies that one should resist the mood. We should object to the person who is bored that the generalization of his deprecation of what has meaning in ordinary life to basic human interests and activities, makes no sense. These things cannot be meaningfully doubted without one’s becoming an outsider to human life. I grant that an argument alone cannot end a mood. It is at least as important to seduce the person who is bored to reengage with these basic interests and activities. As an outsider who postpones life indefinitely, he cannot fully understand their meaning. (shrink)

Analyse van het begrip moraliteit als grondslag voor de ethiek, voorbij een beklemmend stelstel van dwingende regels.

A remarkable feature of the philosophical work on conspiracy theory theory has been that most philosophers agree there is nothing inherently problematic about conspiracy theories (AKA the thesis of particularism). Recent work, however, has challenged this consensus view, arguing that there really is something epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorising (AKA generalism). Are particularism and generalism incompatible? By looking at just how much particularists and generalists might have to give away to make their theoretical viewpoints compatible, I will argue that particularists (...) can accept many of the concerns that motivate generalism because generalism can never be about ‘all’ conspiracy theories without being either ahistorical or apolitical. In the end generalist critiques are best seen as useful guidelines or considerations for the appraising of particular conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Analyse du personnage d'Empédocle que Hölderlin a élevé au rang de héros tragique, mêlant à la figure mythique du sage et conducteur du peuple l'idiosyncrasie de son moi poétologique. Examinant la définition du genre tragique comme métaphore de l'intuition intellectuelle et de l'unité extatique avec tout ce qui vit , l'A. montre que Hölderlin rapproche la Grèce de l'Hespérie, le tragique grec de la souffrance du Christ, le drame païen du christianisme, en faisant de «La Mort d'Empédocle» une offrande sacrificielle (...) et un retour à l'élémentaire, et en faisant du suicide un acte de liberté et d'utopie politique. (shrink)

L'A. présente et commente un ouvrage de Michel Henry, un philosophe de Montpellier : C'est Moi la Vérité : pour une philosophie du christianisme . Il s'agit d'un très bel exposé de christologie philosophique. On y trouve une compréhension spéculative du Christ de la foi et de la théologie, tels que les siècles de réflexion l'ont transformé.

La dernière philosophie de Pareyson, pour l'essentiel condensée dans le volume posthume Ontologie de la liberté, composée de fragments articulés entre eux, est une philsophie et même une métaphysique de la liberté, mais officiellement elle se présente comme une herméneutique de l'expérience chrétienne et accessoirement comme une pensée tragique.