The reception of the rational sciences, scientific practice, discourse and methodology into Arabic Islamic society proceeded in several stages of exchange with the transmitters of Iranian, Christian-Aramaic and Byzantine-Greek learning. Translation and the acquisition of knowledge from the Hellenistic heritage went hand in hand with a continuous refinement of the methods of linguistic transposition and the creation of a standardized technical language in Arabic: terminology, rhetoric, and the genres of instruction. Demonstration more geometrico, first introduced by the paradigmatic sciences-mathematics, astronomy, (...) mechanics-and adopted by philosophers embracing the cosmology of Neoplatonism, was complemented and superseded by the methods of syllogistic demonstration. Faced with the establishment of philosophy as a demonstrative science, which claimed absolute and universal knowledge, even the hermeneuti. (shrink)

This article concentrates on two main interpreta- tions of Friedrich Nietzshe's philosophy: hermeneuti- cal , originated in Martin Heidegger's book "Nietzsche" and deconstnlctive -, elaborated in Jacques Derrida's book "Esperon: Le Styles de Nietzsche. Spurs. Nietzshe's Styles".and his article "Interpreting Signatures : Two Questions". The author of the article considers that the idea of in- verted platonism as a main paradigm of Nietzsche's thought is original Heidegger's idea, underlying his interpretation of Nietzsche as a last methaphysisian in Western thought. (...) Derrida, interpreting the same one page fragment "History of an Error" from Nietzche's work "Twilight o f the Idols" opposed Heidegger's intention to unite the diversity o f Nietzsche's thought into one paradigmatic schema. Author of the article considers, that his deconstructive efforts clearly exposed, that Heidegger's interpetation neglecting the pliuralistic diversity of Nietzsche's philosophys is influenced more by his longing for axi- omatic unity common to methaphysical thought than by original Nietzsche's thinking. Raktiniai iodiiai: Platonizmas, ~pvertiina.~, pa- skutinis nzetapzikas, Nietzsclze b stilius. (shrink)

This book provides a perceptive analysis of the "narrative turn" that led Paul Ricoeur to his magisterial work Time and Narrative. Ricoeur has for many years explored the intersections of diverse strands of European philosophy, but it is his recent work that has attracted the most discussion and engendered the most debate in Europe and America. The Narrative Path explores the roots and meaning of that work. Two of the book's five essays reach back to Ricoeur's earlier work to clarify (...) his themes: Richard Kearney concentrates on the role of imagination in hermeneuties, and Maria Villela Petit explores the development of Ricoeur's concept of history from History and Truth to Time and Narrative. Two essays analyze the significance of Ricoeur's reflections on metaphoric and narrative language: Serge Mellinger looks at the relationship between time and poetry from the point of view of Ricoeur's discussions of the connection between time and narrative, and T. Peter Kemp extends Ricoeur's analysis to argue that narration is indispensable to ethics. The book concludes with a reflection by Ricoeur himself on the linguistic, practical, and ethical dimensions of human beings, and with a bibliography of Ricoeur's work in English. T. Peter Kemp teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen. The Narrative Pathis based on a special issue of the journal Philosophy and Social Criticism, edited by David Rasmussen, who is Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. (shrink)

This essay interprets and responds to Richard Kearney's metaphysics of possibility and hermeneutics of religion against the background of Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God and the theodicy problem. Kearney's work is thus read as an interesting but ultimately problematic attempt to preserve or perhaps reinstate religious thought after the modern critique of idols. In addition, his positions are compared and contrasted with some of authors with whom he seems to be in limited agreement (for example, Plotinus, Hillesum) as (...) well as some with whom he clearly breaks (for example, Girard, Sölle). (shrink)