19th Century Philosophy

In Out of This World, Peter Hallward argues that Deleuze's philosophy is, in spite of its proclaimed Nietzscheanism, intrinsically nihilistic. This article defends Deleuze against this accusation by reassessing his relationship to Nietzsche. I argue that both thinkers pose a similar problem, that of agency, and that the modus operandi of both for solving it relies on viewing agency as experimentation. The paper highlights the strong pragmatic dimension at play in Deleuze's philosophy: Deleuze aims to penetrate increasingly deeply into this (...) very world and to provide us with tools for intensifying our sensitivity to and engagement with it. To bring this into view, I offer a parallel reading of Nietzsche's and Deleuze's account of the production of our empirical experience, their critical stance towards such experience, and their means of overcoming it by engaging fully with problematic aspects of reality. (shrink)

A filosofia do direito internacional de Hegel tem recebido certa atenção nos últimos anos. As pesquisas mais recentes têm buscado apresentar uma visão diferente daquela, apresentada no século XIX e primeira metade do século XX, que retratava Hegel como um entusiasta do estado de guerra. Com efeito, também se passou a reavaliar a relação de Hegel com Kant no que diz respeito às questões do direito internacional, sobretudo, a possibilidade da paz. Meu objetivo nesse artigo é, primeiramente, apresentar os aspectos (...) gerais da filosofia do direito internacional de Hegel, enfatizando seu diálogo com Kant. Tento mostrar como Hegel está, em sua discussão, em referência a importantes aspectos do texto kantiano sobre a paz perpétua. Em segunda instância, partindo desse diálogo, argumento que, embora Hegel seja certamente muito mais um crítico do projeto kantiano do que um simpatizante, as implicações últimas de seu pensamento mostram-se, em alguma medida, alinhadas com as da filosofia de Kant. (shrink)

For Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), logic as a discipline belongs to the human faculty of reason, more precisely to the faculty of language. This discipline of logic breaks down into two areas. Logic or analytics is one side of the coin; dialectic or the art of persuasion is the other. The former investigates rule-oriented and monological language. The latter investigates result-oriented language and persuasive language...

In this précis of The Practical Origins of Ideas: Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering (OUP 2021), I summarize the keys claims of the book. The book describes, develops, and defends an underappreciated methodological tradition: the tradition of pragmatic genealogy, which aims to identify what our loftiest and most inscrutable conceptual practices do for us by telling strongly idealized, but still historically informed stories about what might have driven people to adopt and elaborate them as they did. What marks out this methodological (...) tradition, I argue, is that it synthesizes two genres of philosophical genealogy that are standardly set against each other: state-of-nature fictions on the one hand and patiently documentary historiography on the other. These two genres of genealogy are usually taken to be mutually exclusive and to answer to radically different philosophical interests and temperaments. But I offer a systematic account of a tradition that combines both genres into a single genealogical method, augmenting genealogy’s power and range by harnessing the strengths and possibilities of both genres. (shrink)

"If the previous chapters by Cabrera, Reid and Craig, and Cerbone all accentuate the paradox of existence, that our being-in-the-world is simultaneously beautiful and ugly, good and evil, joyous and painful, Jussi Backman's "Not One Power, But Two: Dark Grounds and Twilit Paradises in Malick" investigates this fundamental ambivalence in terms of Schelling's doctrine of evil, a view that assigns evil (and hence melancholy) a fundamental place as a basic principle of reality. Backman's suggestion at once deepens and complexifies the (...) way in which Malick's films can be seen as exercises in "aesthetic theodicy," as Sinnerbrink has said." (Steven DeLay, Introduction). (shrink)

"La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche", dopo più di mezzo secolo dalla sua pubblicazione, è ancora in grado di offrire un contributo alla pratica filosofica? In questo articolo, attraverso i concetti peirceani di Abito, Abduzione e Verità, si propone una lettura pragmaticista del testo di Kuhn che intende rilanciare un fecondo confronto, ancora poco considerato, tra i due filosofi.

Hermann Lotze was a key figure in the philosophy of the second half of the 19th century, influencing practically all leading philosophical schools of the late 19th and the early 20th century: (i) the neo-Kantians; (ii) Brentano and his school of descriptive psychology; (iii) the British idealists; (iv) Husserl’s phenomenology; (v) Dilthey’s philosophy of life; (vi) Frege’s new logic; (vii) the early Cambridge analytic philosophy; (viii) William James’s pragmatism. The book first presents the main ideas of Hermann Lotze’s philosophy (Part (...) I), and then traces his influence on the descriptive psychology of Franz Brentano and Carl Stumpf (Part 2) and Cambridge analytic philosophy (Part 3). In addition, the book includes Bertrand Russell’s conspectus of J. E. McTaggart’s 1898 lectures on Lotze. (shrink)

Schopenhauer is widely held to accommodate no positive aesthetic pleasure. While this may be the case in his mature oeuvre overall, where he insists on the negative character of all gratification, I reconstruct two early accounts of such pleasure in his manuscripts, both of which are a direct result of Schopenhauer’s engagement with Kant’s first and third Critiques. To do so, I analyze his so-called metaphysics of the ‘better consciousness’ and his transition from it to the metaphysics of will (roughly (...) 1811–14). The first account turns out to be an almost literal adoption of Kant’s theory of aesthetic experience as revealing the supersensible character of nature and the cognizing subject. Likewise, Schopenhauer’s second account is a version of the CJ theory of the free interplay of cognitive faculties. These accounts have been underappreciated in Schopenhauer scholarship, but recognizing their importance for the development of his philosophy is essential for gaining a fuller picture of his aesthetics. (shrink)

Although it is a common trope that Hegel’s philosophy marks a seminal shift in the historical orientation of philosophical thought in general, some of the historical problems confronting the reader of the Science of Logic remain relatively neglected. This is not to say that there is any lack of historical work on various dimensions of the Logic. Rather, what remains neglected are the hidden difficulties involved in construing how historical materials contribute to the logical project developed in Hegel’s Science of (...) Logic. These difficulties play an important role in determining the heterogeneous significance of these historical materials, because the role they play in the logical developments is markedly different in different portions of the text being examined. This essay (1) demonstrates that a reader must keep in mind this lack of uniformity when developing a critical interpretation of the Logic, and (2) develops guidelines to facilitate this approach. (shrink)

Many women wrote philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain, and they wrote across the full range of philosophical topics. Yet these important women thinkers have been left out of the philosophical canon and many of them are barely known today. The aim of this book is to put them back on the map. It introduces twelve women philosophers - Mary Shepherd, Harriet Martineau, Ada Lovelace, George Eliot, Frances Power Cobbe, Helena Blavatsky, Julia Wedgwood, Victoria Welby, Arabella Buckley, Annie Besant, Vernon Lee, and (...) Constance Naden. Alison Stone looks at their views on naturalism, philosophy of mind, evolution, morality and religion, and progress in history. She shows how these women interacted and developed their philosophical views in conversation with one another, not only with their male contemporaries. The rich print and periodical culture of the period enabled these women to publish philosophy in forms accessible to a general readership, despite the restrictions women faced, such as having limited or no access to university education. Stone explains how these women became excluded from the history of philosophy because there was a cultural shift at the end of the nineteenth century towards specialised forms of philosophical writing, which depended on academic credentials that were still largely unavailable to women. (shrink)

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche presents passion as constituting human agency. He encountered this Humean view in Schopenhauer, and recognized its explanatory advantages over Platonic and Kantian rationalism. Zarathustra's poetic speeches anticipate and address contemporary objections to the view that passion constitutes agency. "On the Despisers of the Body" explains why understanding the self as constituted by passion provides better explanations of reasoning, value judgment, and the unity of the self than Christine Korsgaard's neo-Kantian view. "On Enjoying and Suffering the (...) Passions" explains why understanding virtues as constituted by passions provides a better explanation of moral phenomenology than John McDowell's rationalism. (shrink)

According to scholars as influential as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Eric Voegelin and Cyril O'Regan, what was once rejected as an esoteric second century Christian heresy, has, and indeed continues to, exert a significant amount of influence over modern philosophy and theology in the form of ancient Gnosticism. While a variety of major studies have applied this hermeneutical lens to evaluate and better grasp Hegel's philosophical system, very few have sought to interpret Schelling's philosophy in this manner, when there seems (...) to be ample evidence to suggest that Schelling consciously adopted Gnostic philosophy, particularly Valentinian speculation, alongside other theosophic proposals, when constructing his own ideas. And, given the rise of theological systems, notably from the East, although not exclusively, in the guise of Sergius Bulgakov, that are heavily indebted to Schelling and are currently exerting a notable influence on contemporary Anglophone systematic theology (theologians such as John Milbank), it would seem beneficial for such a study to be conducted to better grasp certain trends in current, mainstream, theological proposals. (shrink)

“Postularse como un ser radicalmente autogenerado, ser el autor de la propia voluntad y conocimiento, es negar que uno está constituido en y por lo que es infinitamente más grande que el individuo humano. Kierkegaard llamará a esta fuente más grande que todo lo humano 'Dios' o 'el infinito'. Negar que uno está constituido en lo que es más grande que uno mismo es, para Kierkegaard, estar en una especie de desesperación”.

En Kierkegaard, la desesperación es analizada desde dos perspectivas. Por una parte, el individuo no sabe que posee un yo y, por otra parte, se sabe que posee un yo. Y esta última a su vez, puede ser en dos sentidos. El individuo desespera de la debilidad cuando no quiere ser sí mismo y desespera de la obstinación cuando quiere ser sí mismo. Este querer ser sí mismo lleva al hombre a sufrir y a enfrentarse a la idea de Dios, (...) a no querer ser fundamental por una fuerza externa, algo que no crea que provenga desde su interioridad. Este texto es un prólogo al libro de Judith Butler, La desesperación especulativa de Søren Kierkegaard, sin embargo, se presenta un enfoque en el cual el se menciona que el hombre que desespera de la obstinación de querer ser sí mismo. Por lo que se hace una exposición de lo que implica este momento de la desesperación, donde el hombre se llega a enfrentar al Poder que lo fundamenta. (shrink)

This work is a short compilation of notes from my own notebooks. It was shown at the Museum of Futures' annual visual literature exhibition for 2020 on the subject of notational literature and the (un)finished draft. The notes selected discuss note taking itself, art, and themes from my essays.

CONFERENCE PAPER: In the early 20th century, John Dewey helped revolutionize the way education was thought of in the United States. Nearly fifty years after his death, however, much of his vision is still yet to be realized. Perhaps one explanation for this would be that educators have not yet embraced the most important feature of Dewey’s thinking on education, viz. that education as a cumulative process is a interwoven with the continuous developments in social and ethical life, indeed culture (...) itself. As he put it, “Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself.” When such a view is taken seriously, education becomes coextensive to the values and traditions that we call culture. This is the way that the ancients in Greece through the concept of paideia (perfectly reflected in the gnomic expression, “As I grow old I continue being educated.”) and in China (through the idea of xué) viewed education. This essay will explore how Dewey’s ideas reflected these earlier philosophies of education and the ways in which thinking about education as growth, a là Dewey, can supplement them. (shrink)

The utterance of morals or morality within a communist space is one that may, in the best of cases, raise a few eyebrows or, in the worst of cases, summon calls for condemnation or accusations of being unscientific. The subject of communist morality is one that is often ignored within the broader revolutionary left, while at the same time—especially within our current insurrectionary moment—beckons to be engaged with. As the hydra of neoliberalism begins its inevitable collapse, throwing capitalism once more (...) into a global crisis—and thusly its imperialist head begins to twist fascistically from the periphery back inward toward the United States and Europe—these categories that before seemed abstract and idealistic suddenly become vivid and tangible. Evil is how these injustices are described—in a non-hyperbolic fashion—by those engaged in the frontlines of revolutionary activity. So why is morality eschewed and denounced in left academic discourse? Are morals solely the provenance of the reactionary right or the dreamy idealist? (shrink)

Al interesado en el pensamiento de Nietzsche no le surgiría extraña ni sorpresiva la afirmación de que el aforismo forma parte y caracteriza su filosofía. Sin embargo, resulta bastante complejo saber con exactitud el alcance de lo que significa dicho concepto y cómo se mueve entre una frontera interpretativa y metodológica. Incluso Nietzsche parece manifestarse distante al respecto: “¡Son aforismos! ¿Son aforismos? –” (NL 1880, 7[192], KSA 9, 356).

Já em 1921, Freud inaugurou uma abordagem que considera a psicologia das massas como extensão das experiências individuais, célebre pela afirmação de que toda psicologia é, em última análise, social. Tal perspectiva seria reapropriada por Adorno, que desdobrou a posição freudiana ao situar as massas como um agente decisivo a partir do estágio industrial do capitalismo. Diante do valor deste diálogo, o presente trabalho adotou como objetivo uma análise da reapropriação feita por Adorno da psicologia das massas tal como preconizada (...) por Freud. Mediante uma obrigatória referência a Psicologia das Massas e Análise do Eu, de Freud, delineou a trajetória do conceito de massa ao longo da obra de Adorno até a culminância de uma psicologia social analiticamente orientada. Em termos conclusivos, aposta que as condições que levam o indivíduo a “ser” massa são relativas à objetividade social que promove a irracionalidade mediante a mercantilização e reificação das relações sociais. (shrink)

Com os conceitos de vida como “organismo em interação com o meio”, de John Dewey, e de vida, como “vontade de potência”, de Friedrich Nietzsche, elaborados em resposta à problemática envolvendo questões de experiência estética, buscamos, no presente artigo, analisar possíveis similaridades entre eles e, assim, destacar a relevância atual dessas abordagens para se pensar uma estética menos canônica, mais atenta aos afetos e, portanto, mais próxima da vida.

Esta pesquisa tem o interesse em destacar alguns aspectos específicos da filosofia de Arthur Schopenhauer, em particular a recepção e o uso das ciências naturais em conjunto com sua Metafísica da Vontade. O trabalho enfoca inicialmente os aspectos da formação científica do filósofo, adquirida em Göttingen, onde ele tem contato com vários naturalistas de sua época, que se dedicam ao estudo e a pesquisa de diversos campos das ciências empíricas. A questão que se coloca no texto é: compreender como o (...) autor utiliza as pesquisas e descobertas no campo das ciências naturais, trazendo à sua argumentação filosófica campos de estudo como anatomia e fisiologia. Portanto, a tarefa deste trabalho é investigar: como essa estrutura oferece fundamento para uma metafísica que se propõe imanente? Considerando a argumentação do autor pertinente ao debate entre filosofia e ciência (como é perceptível na obra Sobre a vontade na natureza, 1836), encontramos conjuntamente estímulo em um dos aspectos mais originais de sua filosofia; a inversão conceitual que o autor faz, reconhecendo a racionalidade como “instrumento” de uma vontade irracional; ganhando assim uma nova perspectiva de interpretação da natureza humana para a discussão de seu tempo, que busca harmonizar o discurso filosófico com os achados empíricos da ciência. (shrink)

Apresenta a vida e fragmentos dos escritos de S. Francisco de Assis, em sentido positivo, a partir de chaves de leitura dos conceitos de dionisíaco e amor fati no filósofo germânico F. Nietzsche, bem como da integração do naturalismo em seus escritos.

O objetivo proposto pelo presente trabalho é o de expor a crítica elaborada por Schopenhauer à moral kantiana, em especial, na medida em que ela se volta para os conceitos de vontade-livre e imperativo categórico. Com efeito, Schopenhauer (1788-1860) reconhece os méritos de Kant (1724-1804) não só no âmbito da epistemologia, como também na ética, por tê-la desvinculado de todo eudaimonismo. Porém, ele ainda assim direciona-lhe algumas críticas com enfoque em questões como o formalismo da ética kantiana e o seu (...) caráter dietético, i. e., prescritivo, que aqueles conceitos lhe adicionam. (shrink)

O presente trabalho busca desenvolver uma compreensão a respeito do conceito de trágico presente na obra de Friedrich Nietzsche, a partir de uma análise de O Nascimento da Tragédia. Discutimos as características da estética nietzschiana pensando o trágico utilizando as imagens poéticas de Apolo e Dioniso. Dessa forma o pensamento trágico aparece para Nietzsche como alternativa à metafísica tradicional e ao pessimismo de Schopenhauer. Nietzsche propõe uma reabilitação da arte e da vida pela retomada do movimento originário do devir.

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo descrever e investigar a crítica nietzschiana a Teoria do Conhecimento e em que consiste o conhecimento para o filósofo. Com isso, evidenciamos que o método genealógico desenvolvido por Nietzsche viabiliza não somente solapar as posturas dogmáticas em relação ao conhecimento, mas também lançar bases para uma outra concepção de conhecimento onde o caráter perspectivístico da efetividade seja posto em destaque, possibilitando um permanente trabalho de investigação das condições de possibilidade de constituição das instâncias avaliativas (...) através das quais o ser humano se orienta. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar as relações entre o niilismo e as potências do falso, a partir dos conceitos de vida, arte e a crítica à vontade de verdade na filosofia de Nietzsche e no cinema de Orson Welles, através do filme A marca da maldade. O niilismo caracterizado como o movimento de deslocamento do centro de gravidade da vida e a invenção de outro mundo, o mundo verdadeiro, empreendida como forma de vingança articula-se com a vontade de verdade. (...) Nietzsche realiza por meio do método genealógico uma crítica ao valor da verdade. O homem verídico é, assim, a manifestação de uma vontade de nada que nega e deprecia a vida. A arte valoriza a aparência e faz emergir as potências do falso reestabelecendo a vida como vontade de aparência. (shrink)

O presente texto traz uma breve abordagem sobre a morte e a questão da indestrutibilidade do Ser a partir de uma análise da obra O mundo como Vontade e Representação, do filósofo Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) e outros textos de apoio. Schopenhauer aborda a morte como natural, intrinsicamente ligada a vida, e que a mesma não é um mal para o homem e nem representa perigo para a espécie humana, por isso, não deveríamos temê-la, mas encará-la com serenidade, visto que a (...) morte não é o fim absoluto, mas apenas o retorno do indivíduo para a natureza. O filósofo pontua que o Ser é indestrutível e que, após a morte, permanecerá presente por meio da vontade nos seres que continuam vivos. O que se perde com a morte é apenas a individualidade; a matéria, jamais a essência do Ser. Cada Ser que morre, nasce um novo em uma matéria diferente, porém com a mesma essência do que se fora, por isso o Ser em si, e por essência, não morre por ser indestrutível. Desta forma, o homem não pode viver sem pensar na morte, sendo necessário refletir sobre a finitude para viver o presente, sendo que é apenas no presente que a vontade se manifesta. Resumo: O presente texto traz uma breve abordagem sobre a morte e a questão da indestrutibilidade do Ser a partir de uma análise da obra O mundo como Vontade e Representação, do filósofo Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) e outros textos de apoio. Schopenhauer aborda a morte como natural, intrinsicamente ligada a vida, e que a mesma não é um mal para o homem e nem representa perigo para a espécie humana, por isso, não deveríamos temê-la, mas encará-la com serenidade, visto que a morte não é o fim absoluto, mas apenas o retorno do indivíduo para a natureza. O filósofo pontua que o Ser é indestrutível e que, após a morte, permanecerá presente por meio da vontade nos seres que continuam vivos. O que se perde com a morte é apenas a individualidade; a matéria, jamais a essência do Ser. Cada Ser que morre, nasce um novo em uma matéria diferente, porém com a mesma essência do que se fora, por isso o Ser em si, e por essência, não morre por ser indestrutível. Desta forma, o homem não pode viver sem pensar na morte, sendo necessário refletir sobre a finitude para viver o presente, sendo que é apenas no presente que a vontade se manifesta. (shrink)

O maior terror do ser humano é a morte. É a parte mais sombria que em todas as épocas é marcada por uma negação constante de sua chegada. Sempre houve uma busca incessante de meios e métodos para retardar ou até superar a morte e o seu temor. Segundo Schopenhauer, o ser humano é constituído por Vontade e o mundo é a sua representação, isso significa que o indivíduo é essencialmente egoísta. A compaixão é o oposto do egoísmo e traz (...) consigo, como compreenderemos no texto, uma certa “passagem” para o enfrentamento do maior temor humano: o medo da morte. Através de obras como As Dores do Mundo e o Mundo como Vontade e Representação, utilizaremos da Filosofia de Schopenhauer para explicar como a compaixão ajuda no enfrentamento dos medos existenciais. (shrink)

I argue against a prevailing interpretation of Schopenhauer’s account of inner awareness and world- understanding. Because scholars have typically taken on board the assumption that inner awareness is non- representational, they have concerned themselves in the main with how to transfer this immediate cognition of will in ourselves and apply it to our understanding of the world–as–representation. Some scholars propose that the relation of the world-as-will to the world-as-representation is to be understood in figurative or metaphorical terms. I disagree because, (...) for Schopenhauer, inner awareness reveals a genuine philosophical truth. Some scholars also suggest that it is only via analogical transference that one can interpret the world as having the same inner nature as oneself. I disagree and point out the downside of this suggestion. I use both textual evidence and general philosophical considerations to demonstrate that inner awareness, for Schopenhauer, has a representational dimension. Overlooking this point has led scholars to misconstrue how inner awareness relates to world-understanding. I provide an alternative interpretation against figurative and analogical readings. I propose that, for Schopenhauer, we cognize partially a priori that all things are merely different expressions of the same activity that we are acquainted with in inner awareness, namely ‘will’. (shrink)

I argue that Hegel and Wittgenstein, each in their own specific way, used the idea of God at the beginning of creation as a complex analogy for other kinds of beginning, most notably the beginning of philosophical thought. Hegel’s Logic describes God’s mind before the creation of the world, i.e. God’s pure thinking. For a philosopher, beginning afresh means resolving to consider this kind of abstraction from the existence of the world. Wittgenstein, by contrast, says that the idea of a (...) creator of the world does not explain anything. It marks the terminus ad quem of asking for explanations; we must not ask further who created the creator of the world. Wittgenstein generalizes this for any kind of reasoning: “Explanations come to an end somewhere.” (Philosophical Investigations: §1) Any sort of explanation must eventually arrive at its terminus ad quem, which means only that any kind of reasoning must have its logical beginning. (shrink)

Are fanatical beliefs rational? This paper examines this question. After outlining two arguments for the rationality of fanatical beliefs, based respectively on what I call the "crippled epistemology" explanation and the "echo chambers" explanation, the paper rejects these arguments by appeal to considerations related to higher-order evidence. Then it explains what defending the rationality of fanatical beliefs actually requires. From this, it derives the practical conclusion that radicalization can be prevented and the growth of fanaticism stalled by preventing the encroachment (...) of "fragile values.". (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that the loss of loved ones requires a revised vision of our relationship to past persons. In particular, I argue that relating to deceased loved ones as points on an ordered, forward-moving timeline—on which they grow more distant from us by the moment—has a distorting and damaging effect on our own identity. If we detach ourselves completely from those who sustain important aspects of our identity, this will cause a jagged break in our narrative where (...) a new self must be constructed (whether by us or our circumstances) ex nihilo. On the other hand, if we allow ourselves to drift into the past with the dead—resigning ourselves to existence as an historical object—we will find that we begin to fade away ourselves. Either way, both the self and the beloved are ultimately lost, since both depend on the lost union. To reject both options is a tremendously difficult task that will require rethinking time and our relationship to the past. I argue that we can look to Kierkegaard’s work on maintaining contemporaneity with the historical past, particularly his warnings about how we must not respond to the loss of a beloved. In the last section of the paper, I offer some suggestions for how we might, in a Kierkegaardian spirit, strive to maintain real union with deceased loved ones, thereby rising above the destructive current of time. (shrink)

Esta nueva edición de "Nietzsche. Profeta de una edad trágica", texto aparecido por primera vez en 1945, es mucho más que una reimpresión que busque rescatar del olvido una pieza central de la filosofía argentina. No sólo cuenta con un valioso estudio preliminar que sirve al mismo tiempo de guía de lectura del texto, así como de breve introducción al pensamiento de Carlos Astrada, sino que trashuma entre los palimpsestos que hacen a su historia y sentidos, los cuales se mueven (...) con mayor o menor sutileza entre pasado y futuro, metafísica y política, poesía y filosofía. -/- This new edition of "Nietzsche. Profeta de una edad trágica", a text that first appeared in 1945, is much more than a reprint that seeks to rescue from oblivion a central piece of Argentine philosophy. Not only does it have a valuable preliminary study that serves both as a reading guide to the text and as a brief introduction to Carlos Astrada's thought, but it also wanders among the palimpsests that make up its history and meanings, which move with greater or lesser subtlety between past and future, metaphysics and politics, poetry and philosophy. (shrink)

Here, I consider three issues in Jon Stewart’s Hegel’s Interpretation of the Religions of the World chapter on Hegel’s treatment of Chinese religions in the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. First, I show how Stewart’s compilation of multiple courses into one unified entity hides the substantial promotion of its status in the 1831 lectures. Second, I contend that rather than identifying Hegel’s Chinese religion with the ancient Zhou practices as Stewart does, Hegel sees it as referring to state Ruism (...) up to and including Hegel’s time. Finally, I posit that the main challenge is distinguishing Hegel’s method of philosophical history from other forms of history and the consequences this has for evaluating the determinate religions. In the process, I argue for a broad dialectical interpretation over one committed to each step in Hegel’s treatment of these religions. (shrink)

Quid est veritas? Skeptical Implications of Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne. This paper aims to examine the reach of the question “Was ist also Wahrheit?” – which introduces the definition of truth given by Nietzsche in Ueber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne (1873). The question has undoubtedly an analogy in the question with which Pilate responds to Jesus in the Gospel of John. Starting with an analysis of the direct and recognized sources of Nietzsche’s text, this contribution (...) shows how the Gospel background is, for Nietzsche, indirectly no less than directly, a crucial comparison that makes a decisive contribution to his conception of language. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill, whose relevance for Nietzsche’s late work has been documented by recent research, is not directly mentioned in On the Genealogy or Morality (1887). This article argues that Mill’s On Liberty (1859) nevertheless played a crucial role in the development of the Genealogy. Following a source-based methodology, three major references demonstrate how Nietzsche used On Liberty as a resource as he initiated and developed his own exploration into the origin of morality. After tracing Nietzsche’s reading of Mill through (...) pencil marks in his copy of On Liberty, I discuss the reappearance of Mill’s motives and terminology as well as the explanatory power of Mill as a source for the respective sections in the Genealogy. It becomes clear to what extent Nietzsche adapts Mill and how he turns Mill’s own weapons against him through skillful transformations. The article concludes that instead of delivering the “better” Mill, Nietzsche builds up a fruitful tension between a then-common take on morality and its transgression. (shrink)

This paper explores the connections between and synthesis of Anarchist political philosophy with the ethical systems of the late Roman Stoics. Utilizing a dialectic virtue model, reminisce of Hegelian development, the analysis centers around the ways in which stoic virtue theory can be applied within anarchist social structure and the consequences of such a combination. Anarchism provides a particularly flexible framework for implementation; such a system’s loose structure, with the primary thesis of anti-statism, varies greatly between individuals and groups. Stoic (...) ethics share in anarchism’s need to reconcile the individual moral agent with their role in the moral community, and this connection is one in which the individual sovereignty and the wider community may be brought into a greater degree of flourishing. Stoicism is oft perceived as mostly conservative, yet not out of necessity, while Anarchism’s progressive libertarian nature allows for wide interpretation. A Dialectic Virtue Theory can be utilized as a vehicle to connect these two traditions—Stoicism being it’s exemplar, and Anarchism's natural freedom of interpretation and practice. Virtue will then be explored as something which, when pursued in earnest, increases the flourishing of the individualist as well as the communitarian. Individual Liberty will take center stage, and as we will see this is echoed in the stoic conceptions of self-discipline; to discipline one’s own individual attainment of virtue will have ripple effects when given the space to do so, and since this discipline does not come from a higher authority (ie. the state), this maps particularly well to anarchist political thought. Hereby the individual is given the utmost freedom to develop their own ethics of virtue while contributing positively to the generalized virtue of the larger community, and both grow evermore sophisticated via this dialectical exploration. This thesis asserts that the system which can be constructed from these traditions is not only preferable, but logically sound, just, and attainable. This then ushers in the newest in a long line of anarchist variance which we shall now call Anarcho-Stoicism. (shrink)

At first blush, values such as diversity appear to be worth striving for. The question is whether or not such values—which have become increasingly prevalent in university mission statements—are values as such, which is to ask whether they are things of moral worth (Value, n.d.), or are something else altogether. My unpopular suspicion leans toward the latter. Personal opinions, of course, are hardly a justification for an impassioned critique, however, my opinions mirror those held by moderate and conservative witnesses to (...) the sociopolitical climate of academia (Pew Research Center, 2017) as well as individuals who would typically be considered classically liberal such as Peter Boghossian (2021). Because of this concordance and in order to understand the constitutive relations of academic production, it becomes necessary to critically examine the nature of institutional values, separate from polemical rhetoric that either seeks to construct a "straw man" of them in order to lay them low or insulate them from outside reproach altogether Since "diversity" seems to be the chief concern among interested groups both in the academic setting and the world at large, this article's point of access to the relations of production in academia will be anchored by a Marxian assessment of diversity as a product of social labour in the academic environment. (shrink)

In the “Whirl of Being.” The Birth of The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Friedrich Hebbel. As a result of dubious editorial policy, Nietzsche research has always dealt only with the text of the later editions of The Birth of Tragedy from 1874/78 and 1886, in the erroneous assumption that these largely resemble the first printing. Surprisingly, the 1872 edition is therefore virtually unknown. It does, however, show significant differences from the later editions, especially since it exhibits a (...) strong influence of Hebbel’s tragic worldview that is later obscured in favor of Wagner. The first edition is more nihilistic, poetic, and powerful; Nietzsche’s later revisions have rather diluted the Birth of Tragedy’s argument and given it a different direction. (shrink)