20th Century Philosophy, Miscellaneous

The crimes committed by Germans under National Socialism would not have been possible without the existence of a web of shared ethical convictions. "Thick" terms such as "work", "people" or "community" are the nodal points of this intellectual construct. The contributions in this volume are not only concerned with the historical presentation of National Socialist normativity. Rather, they also make suggestions for the analysis of these concepts. An essential part of this effort is the examination of ethics of National Socialist-oriented (...) philosophers. (shrink)

A comprehensive bibliography of truth from 1873 to 1939. (I do not intend to publish this manuscript; rather, I post it as a resource for others with an interest in theories of truth during the early analytic period.).

Este libro, constituido con el aporte de académicos tanto de la PUCE como de otras universidades del Ecuador, presenta distintos análisis, reflexiones, enfoques cuyo espectro gnoseológico común es la pregunta ¿Cuál es el lugar de la filosofía hoy?. Se encontrará en él temas y problemas, autores y cuestionamientos en el horizonte de la filosofía, el filosofar y los filósofos de cara a retos intelectuales de cuño diverso y plural lectura. En esta obra puede rastrearse la riqueza de un "encuentro para (...) el análisis, la reflexión y la crítica" en el cual sus protagonistas intercambian en su discusión filosófica tesis, ideas, énfasis y preocupaciones de actualidad con incuestionable valor para la ubicación y comprensión de los problemas en humanidades, ciencias, política, cultura y educación. (shrink)

This is a review of the most comprehensive scholarly account of the contribution to sociology of Talcott Parsons (1902-1979).

The New Age philosopher, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), was the most prolific and arguably the most influential philosopher of his era. He assembled a substantial library, of approximately 9,000 items, which has been preserved intact since his death. Most of Rudolf Steiner’s books are in German, his native language however there are books in other languages, including English, French, Italian, Swedish, Sanskrit and Latin. There are more books in English than in any other foreign language. Steiner esteemed English as “a universal (...) world language”. The present paper identifies 327 books in English in Rudolf Steiner’s personal library. Fifty percent of the English-language books identified are on Theosophy (n=164). Rudolf Steiner was the General Secretary of the German branch of the Theosophy Society from 1902, and he hived off his own Anthroposophy Society in 1912. The present study reveals that Steiner maintained his interest in Theosophy throughout his life as he stayed up to date with the proliferating portfolio of Theosophy publications. The publication dates of Steiner’s Theosophy collection range from 1877 to 1923. The leading exponents of Theosophy in his day are well represented in Steiner’s collection, including Annie Besant (n=61), Charles Leadbeater (n=13), William Westcott (n=13) and Helena Blavatsky (n=10). Of the other 50% of the Anglo-books identified, 20% are in the category of Religion (n=67), 10% are Social Science (n=33), 6% are Philosophy (n=21), 4% are Science (n=13), and 3% each are Anthroposophy (n=11), History (n=9) and Arts (n=9). The publication dates of Steiner’s Anglo-books span the period 1659 to 1925. This demonstrates that Steiner was acquiring Anglo-books right to the end of his life. The Steiner library throws light on the development of the thoughts of this remarkable individual and the present paper reveals Steiner’s engagement throughout his life with the world of Anglo-publishing and thought. (shrink)

Throughout his scientific life, Einstein thinks about the philosophical implications of his own work on time. From 1918, he makes a connection between the theory of relativity and the block-universe conception, according to which all moments of time coexist. Later, he clarifies this connection, explaining that the block-universe conception is the most convenient and objective interpretation of the theory. Einstein also develops the idea that, due to its deterministic commitment, physics as a whole allows to support the block-universe. With various (...) people, he discusses some objections against this conception. (shrink)

Peter Sloterdijk's 'In the Shadow of Mt. Sinai' and Alain Badiou's 'Our Wounds Are Not So Recent' represent distinctly different attempts to come to grips with the conflict between the West (the US, the UK, France) and the Muslim world after the September 11th attacks. Although Sloterdijk finds the source of conflict in the religious zealotry of the Abrahamic religions, while Badiou blames the multinational capitalist system for drating a disaffected underclass, the two complementary perspectives work together to make this (...) ongoing conflict intelligible, if not, finally, to stop the war on terrorism. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether there is a proper analogy of being according to both meaning and being. I disagree with Ralph McInerny’s understanding of how things are named through concepts and argue that McInerny’s account does not allow for the thing represented by the name to be known in itself. In his understanding of analogy, only ideas of things may be known. This results in a wholesale inability to name things at all and thereby forces McInerny to (...) relegate naming to a purely logical concern. As a consequence, for McInerny, since naming becomes only a logical concern, being itself cannot be known as analogous according to being and meaning since naming only involves the naming of ideas, not of things. (shrink)

Estudio sobre el contexto filosófico de la Escuela de Madrid, y sus inicios, a colación de la figura de Juan Rof Carballo.

Modern critics often regard Goya's etchings and black paintings as satirical observations on the social and political conditions of his times. In a study of Goya first published in 1950, which seldom receives the attention it merits, the French author and art theorist André Malraux contends that these works have a much deeper significance. The etchings and black paintings, Malraux argues, represent a fundamental challenge to the humanist artistic tradition that began with the Renaissance - a tradition founded on the (...) pursuit of a transcendent world of nobility, harmony and beauty. Following an illness that left him deaf for life, Goya developed an art of a fundamentally different kind - an art, Malraux writes, ruled by ‘the unity of the prison house’ which replaced transcendence with a pervasive feeling of dependence and from which all trace of humanism has been erased. Foreshadowing modern art's abandonment of the Renaissance ideal, the etchings and black paintings are the first announcement of the death of beauty in Western art. (shrink)

Qu’advient-il quand, à la pointe extrême du continent eurasien, la méditation de l’un des plus grands penseurs français franchit les océans pour être accueillie, critiquée sans concession aussi bien que reprise ? Faut-il s’attendre au récit d’un malentendu quand Henri Bergson se trouve relu par son contemporain Nishida Kitarô, né deux années après que son pays se soit ouvert à l’Occident ? Ce dernier va-t-il, depuis le Japon, risquer avec la pensée française ce que firent jadis les européens Leibniz et (...) Malebranche avec la chinoise, ou Schopenhauer avec l’indienne ? Y a-t-il là pure appropriation, et selon quelles spécificités notionnelles et méthodologiques ? Cette rencontre ne laisse-t-elle pas présager, au contraire, un échange véritable quoique encore fragile qui, s’il emprunte presque tout son vocabulaire et ses concepts à l’Europe, en tire un esprit subtil et nouveau ? Les trois études rassemblées dans cet ouvrage se proposent d’envisager ce débat, né il y a près d’un siècle de nous, et la contribution qu’il pourrait apporter à une réflexion sur l’idée de philosophie comparée. (shrink)

The paper tackles the question of the relevance of emotions in ethics. It argues that emotions are discerning and thus inherent components of morality and they deserve a place in adequate ethical projects. The paper engages into a conversation with Martha C. Nussbaum and Thomas Aquinas. Specifically, it presents accounts of compassion and anger to illustrate the discerning nature of these emotions and the moral value they might signal.

The purpose of the present article is to explicate and criticize the most detailed philosophical appreciation of the 'noble' and other lies in Plato on a Straussian basis: Carl Page's instructive 1991 article titled 'The Truth about Lies in Plato's Republic'. I carefully summarize and criticize Page's sober, scholarly approach to the subject matter in question. Ultimately I reject his attempt to justify the 'noble' and other lies told by both Plato and contemporary government leaders.

Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines.

The contribution examines Italo Mancini'suggestion to reread Kant's radical evil in the light of a reconsideration of the scope of reason in Kant's philosophy of religion.