In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 596-597 [Access article in PDF] Karl Ameriks, editor. The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 306. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $19.95. This recently published volume is a welcome and timely addition to the Cambridge Companion series. The past two decades have witnessed a renewed and now burgeoning interest in post-Kantian German philosophy, notably among (...) philosophers working in the continental and analytic traditions. Contributors to the volume reflect this diversity (actually, most work within the analytic tradition), and all are familiar and veteran scholars of Kant and German Idealism. The essays, as expected, are compact, but are tightly presented and clearly argued. The decision to devote a Cambridge Companion volume to a philosophical movement—a major exception, as most are aware, for the series—seems quite justified given the heretofore unacknowledged importance of the period and the global (at least among Anglo-American philosophers) misunderstanding from which it has suffered until recently. On both scores, this volume is a successful corrective. A short review precludes individual evaluation, however brief, of the essays in this fine collection, so I will limit my comments to a few general points.The essays are organized so as to provide the reader with a thorough introduction to the history of German Idealism construed broadly to include Kant, Hamann, Herder, Jacobi, Maimon, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, the Romantics, and at least the trajectory of post-Hegelianism. The Romantics, particularly Novalis, Schiller, and Hölderlin, receive overdue and careful treatment—Charles Larmore's essay on Hölderlin and Novalis being, in this reviewer's judgment, one of the better contributions to the collection. Some authors retrace themes developed in their earlier scholarly work (especially Pinkard, Wood, Pippin, Beiser, and Bowie); however each essay almost without exception attempts to advance the scholarly discussion of the problems it explores. Paul Guyer's essay, for instance, fits this description: he offers a robust defense of Kantian dualism (e.g., intuition and concept, representation and thing in itself) against Hegelian objections which includes a fine analysis of the genesis of Kant's arguments. On the other hand, Guyer's essay, along with the contributions of Wood, Pippin, Pinkard, Larmore, and Bowie, might be more fruitful for readers more interested in philosophical problems engaged by the Idealists (e.g., moral and political autonomy, rational normativity). The collection begins with Frederick Beiser's skillfully condensed and informative essay on the unresolved tensions within Enlightenment philosophy (and the way in which those tensions, highlighted rather than resolved by the Pantheism controversy, helped set the agenda for what became the tasks of German Idealism) and ends with Karl Ameriks's fine essay on the complex legacy of Idealism in the works of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard.One of the problems which occupied everyone in this period was rational authority, [End Page 596] namely, what would ground our normative theoretical and practical judgments and to what extent reason would provide either the foundation itself or access to this foundation. Most of the essays address this issue either directly or implicitly and accurately capture the diverse responses to this basic question and its implications for political philosophy—another central theme for the Idealist tradition. The problem of rational authority had been inherited from Rousseau, yet the Idealists explored the issue with an unparalleled thoroughness and urgency in the shadow of the French Revolution. Larmore does an exceptional job of articulating Hölderlin's and Novalis's critique of Fichtean self-consciousness, namely, that judgment itself must presuppose and draw upon a more basic unity (Absolute Being for Hölderlin and the Being of the I antecedent to self-awareness for Novalis) than the self-positing I, a unity which, as Larmore notes, underlies every cognitive attitude. Contributing to this general critique was the aesthetic holism of Hamann, Schiller, and Herder ably sketched by Daniel Dahlstromm. Central to the problem of rational authority is the contribution of Hegel, who took to heart Hölderlin's insistence on a more basic primordial unity... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 596-597 [Access article in PDF] Karl Ameriks, editor. The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 306. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $19.95. This recently published volume is a welcome and timely addition to the Cambridge Companion series. The past two decades have witnessed a renewed and now burgeoning interest in post-Kantian German philosophy, notably among (...) philosophers working in the continental and analytic traditions. Contributors to the volume reflect this diversity (actually, most work within the analytic tradition), and all are familiar and veteran scholars of Kant and German Idealism. The essays, as expected, are compact, but are tightly presented and clearly argued. The decision to devote a Cambridge Companion volume to a philosophical movement—a major exception, as most are aware, for the series—seems quite justified given the heretofore unacknowledged importance of the period and the global (at least among Anglo-American philosophers) misunderstanding from which it has suffered until recently. On both scores, this volume is a successful corrective. A short review precludes individual evaluation, however brief, of the essays in this fine collection, so I will limit my comments to a few general points.The essays are organized so as to provide the reader with a thorough introduction to the history of German Idealism construed broadly to include Kant, Hamann, Herder, Jacobi, Maimon, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, the Romantics, and at least the trajectory of post-Hegelianism. The Romantics, particularly Novalis, Schiller, and Hölderlin, receive overdue and careful treatment—Charles Larmore's essay on Hölderlin and Novalis being, in this reviewer's judgment, one of the better contributions to the collection. Some authors retrace themes developed in their earlier scholarly work (especially Pinkard, Wood, Pippin, Beiser, and Bowie); however each essay almost without exception attempts to advance the scholarly discussion of the problems it explores. Paul Guyer's essay, for instance, fits this description: he offers a robust defense of Kantian dualism (e.g., intuition and concept, representation and thing in itself) against Hegelian objections which includes a fine analysis of the genesis of Kant's arguments. On the other hand, Guyer's essay, along with the contributions of Wood, Pippin, Pinkard, Larmore, and Bowie, might be more fruitful for readers more interested in philosophical problems engaged by the Idealists (e.g., moral and political autonomy, rational normativity). The collection begins with Frederick Beiser's skillfully condensed and informative essay on the unresolved tensions within Enlightenment philosophy (and the way in which those tensions, highlighted rather than resolved by the Pantheism controversy, helped set the agenda for what became the tasks of German Idealism) and ends with Karl Ameriks's fine essay on the complex legacy of Idealism in the works of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard.One of the problems which occupied everyone in this period was rational authority, [End Page 596] namely, what would ground our normative theoretical and practical judgments and to what extent reason would provide either the foundation itself or access to this foundation. Most of the essays address this issue either directly or implicitly and accurately capture the diverse responses to this basic question and its implications for political philosophy—another central theme for the Idealist tradition. The problem of rational authority had been inherited from Rousseau, yet the Idealists explored the issue with an unparalleled thoroughness and urgency in the shadow of the French Revolution. Larmore does an exceptional job of articulating Hölderlin's and Novalis's critique of Fichtean self-consciousness, namely, that judgment itself must presuppose and draw upon a more basic unity (Absolute Being for Hölderlin and the Being of the I antecedent to self-awareness for Novalis) than the self-positing I, a unity which, as Larmore notes, underlies every cognitive attitude. Contributing to this general critique was the aesthetic holism of Hamann, Schiller, and Herder ably sketched by Daniel Dahlstromm. Central to the problem of rational authority is the contribution of Hegel, who took to heart Hölderlin's insistence on a more basic primordial unity... (shrink)

The thought of G. W. F. Hegel has had a deep and lasting influence on a wide range of philosophical, political, religious, aesthetic, cultural and scientific movements. But, despite the far-reaching importance of Hegel's thought, there is often a great deal of confusion about what he actually said or believed. This is an invaluable introduction for philosophical beginners and a useful reference source for more advanced scholars and researchers.

In his lectures on ethics and on the state Schleiermacher develops a theory of a limited communitarian state, one that purports to balance individual interests and rights with the more general aims...

IN HIS EARLY, UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS ON ETHICS, Schleiermacher sketched the framework for a theory of human agency in which he defends a soft determinist view of freedom. He developed his theory as an alternative to noumenal causality, which he had come to reject as inconsistent with a comprehensive scientific conception of the world. Even as a young student, Schleiermacher was convinced that some form of naturalism is inescapable—we are firmly rooted within nature and history—and that, accordingly, our conceptions of morality (...) and religion, to some extent, must be carved out within a naturalistic framework. Naturally, Schleiermacher found transcendental freedom to be an indefensible exception to natural causation and to our interconnectedness with the natural world. Equally important, he found it to be unnecessary for and an obstacle to a sound moral theory. In his early notebooks we find the following entry: “Speculative reason’s concept of transcendental freedom is indispensable only for an otherworldly subject.” Yet, on the first page of his treatise on freedom, Schleiermacher highlights the impasse between Kantian and Leibnizian conceptions of freedom and intimates his dissatisfaction with both theories. The dissatisfaction with Leibniz, though never directly stated, stems from Leibniz’s atomistic conception of causality and inspires Schleiermacher to think seriously about issues in moral psychology which had been ignored or left undeveloped in the Leibnizian and, as it turns out, Kantian views. As we shall see, Schleiermacher discerned that human action originates from a complex constellation. (shrink)

According to Fichte, neither antithesis nor synthesis is possible without an absolute thesis, or what he called a thetic judgment. The only examples Fichte offers are ‘I am I’ and ‘self is free’. These judgments are absolute judgments, whereby the subject is neither equated with nor opposed to anything, but simply posited absolutely or as identical to itself. Thetic judgments presuppose no ground of conjunction or distinction, yet formally they seem to assert the identity of the subject and the predicate. (...) If this is so, there must be a third thing by reference to which the two are related. Or, in Fichte’s words, thetic judgements presuppose the requirement for a ground. In the proposition ‘I am I’ the ground of the relation is not present but must be sought as a task. The whole activity of the self is to find this basis. For example, in the proposition ‘self is free’ there is no ground of conjunction or distinction for relating these two concepts, but there is the requirement that the concepts be related. What the Wissenschaftslehre discloses is that these concepts can only be combined in the Idea of a self whose consciousness is determined by nothing outside itself. (shrink)

This is not yet another book on Heideg-ger's politics, nor does its author attempt, as have others, to discover within the development of Heidegger's thought the basis for his infamous political convictions. Rather, Schalow argues that there are unacknowledged—particularly by Heidegger himself—trajectories in Heidegger's thought, present as early as Sein und Zeit, that provide the basis and inspiration for a postmodern politics and its standard values of pluralism and tolerance. The basis for these trajectories lies in a subargument within Heidegger's (...) deconstruction of Western metaphysics, namely, a critique of traditional moral philosophy that seeks to uncover a more primordial ethos underlying all moral values that sustains rather than dismisses or radically reinterprets those values. Schalow contends that Heidegger's reflections on language and his critique of instrumental reason point toward the possibility of a new ethos and sense of “the good” that can inspire and sustain a radical challenge to the political status quo and a new argument for positive freedom within a postmodern world. (shrink)

This volume contains new and original papers on Martin Heidegger’s complex relation to Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. The authors not only critically discuss the many aspects of Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche, they also interpret Heidegger’s thought from a Nietzschean perspective. Here is presented for the first time an overview of not only Heidegger’s and Nietzsche’s philosophy but also an overview of what is alive – and dead – in their thinking. Many authors through a reading of Heidegger and Nietzsche deal with (...) current issues such as technology, ecology, and politics. This volume is of interest for everyone interested in Heidegger’s and Nietzsche’s thought. Contributors include: Babette Babich, Charles Bambach, Robert Bernasconi, Virgilio Cesarone, Stuart Elden, Michael Eldred, Markus Enders, Charles Feitosa, Véronique Fóti, Luanne T. Frank, Jeffery Kinlaw, Theodore Kisiel, William D. Melaney, Eric Sean Nelson, Abraham Olivier, Friederike Rese, Karlheinz Ruhstorfer, Harald Seubert, Robert Sinnerbrink, Robert Switzer, Jorge Uscatescu Barrón, Nancy A. Weston, Dale Wilkerson, Angel Xolocotzi, Jens Zimmermann. (shrink)

In Reason, Tradition, and the Good, Jeffery L. Nicholas addresses the failure of reason in modernity to bring about a just society, a society in which people can attain fulfillment. Developing the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Nicholas argues that we rely too heavily on a conception of rationality that is divorced from tradition and, therefore, incapable of judging ends. Without the ability to judge ends, we cannot engage in debate about the good life or the proper goods (...) that we as individuals and as a society should pursue. Nicholas claims that the project of enlightenment—defined as the promotion of autonomous reason—failed because it was based on a deformed notion of reason as mere rationality, and that a critical theory of society aimed at human emancipation must turn to substantive reason, a reason constituted by and constitutive of tradition. To find a reason capable of judging ends, Nicholas suggests, we must turn to Alasdair MacIntyre’s Thomistic-Aristotelianism. Substantive reason comprises thinking and acting on the set of standards and beliefs within a particular tradition. It is the impossibility of enlightenment rationality to evaluate ends and the possibility of substantive reason to evaluate ends that makes the one unsuitable and the other suitable for a critical theory of society. Nicholas’s compelling argument, written in accessible language, remains committed to the promise of reason to help individuals achieve a good and just society and a good life. This requires, however, a complete revolution in the way we approach social life. “Jeffery Nicholas has written an important and valuable book that invites its readers to discover the difficulties of late modern Western thought from the perspective of twentieth-century critical theory, and to consider a response to those difficulties drawn from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor.” —Christopher Stephen Lutz, Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. (shrink)

The argument between Jacques Maritain and Charles de Koninck over the primacy of the common good is well known. Yet, even though Mary Keys has carefully arbitrated this debate, it still remains problematic for Alasdair MacIntyre, particularly because of the role rights play in both Maritain and Catholic Social Thought. I examine Keys’ argument and, in addition, Deborah Wallace’s account of MacIntyre’s criticism of rights in Catholic social thought. I argue, in the end, that what Maritain, and in consequence (...) Keys and Wallace, miss about the common good is its relationship to practical reasoning, and that MacIntyre highlights both that relationship and the role of the common good in human dignity. (shrink)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte hielt im Sommer 1805 in Erlangen öffentliche Vorlesungen zum Thema 'Über das Wesen des Gelehrten und seine Erscheinungen im Gebiete der Freiheit'. In diesen Vorlesungen erläuterte Fichte sein Verständnis des Wesens und der Aufgabe des Gelehrten und führte in seine Philosophie ein. Dieser Text ist ein wichtiges Zeugnis nicht nur für die Entwicklung von Fichtes Philosophie, sondern auch für die Geschichte des Deutschen Idealismus und das Verständnis von Bildung und Wissenschaft im frühen 19. Jahrhundert. Dieser Band enthält (...) den Text von J. G. Fichtes 'Über das Wesen des Gelehrten' (1805) zusammen mit Interpretationen, die Fichtes Vorlesungen im Rahmen seines eigenen Werkes und im Kontext der Philosophie- und Geistesgeschichte verorten. Mit Beiträgen von Paul Cobben, Alfred Denker, Elisabeth Kessler, C. Jeffery Kinlaw, Wilhelm Metz, Angelica Nuzzo, Ernst-Otto Onnasch, Tom Rockmore, Annette Sell, Michael Vater, Richard Velkley, Franziskus von Heereman, Holger Zaborowski u.a. (shrink)

Über das Wesen des Gelehrten, und seine Erscheinungen im Gebiete der Freiheit (1805) von Johann Gottlieb Fichte -- Vorrede -- Erste Vorlesgun: Plan des Ganzen -- Zweite Vorlesung: Nähere Bestimmung des Begriffs der göttlichen Idee -- Dritte Vorlesung: Vom angehenden Gelehrten überhaupt; insbesondere vom Talente und Fleisse -- Vierte Vorlesung: Von der Rechtschaffenheit im Studiren -- Fünfte Vorlesung: Wie die Rechtschaffenheit des Studirenden sich äussere -- Sechste Vorlesung: Ueber die akademische Freiheit -- Siebente Vorlesung: Vom vollendeten Gelehrten im Allgemeinen -- (...) Achte Vorlesung: Vom Regenten -- Neunte Vorlesung: Vom mündlichen Gelehrte=Lehrer -- Zehnte Vorlesung: Vom Schriftsteller -- Menschliche Bildung und göttliche Idee. Über Struktur und Gedankengang von Fichtes Erlanger Vorlesungen Über das Wesen des Gelehrten / Annette Sell -- Über das Wesen des Gelehrten im Kontext der Wissenschaftslehre / C. Jeffery Kinlaw -- Fichte on Bestimmung and Wesen des Gelehrten / Angelica Nuzzo -- Fichte's Über das Wesen des Gelehrten, or the educated man as the salt of the Earth / Tom Rockmore -- Werkzeuge? Zur Herrschaft der Gelehrten im Kontext des Fichteschen Spätwerks / Franziskus von Heereman -- J.G. Fichtes Über das Wesen des Gelehrten und die Bestimmung des magister bei Thomas von Aquin / Wilhelm Metz -- Wie sich der Philosoph bei Descartes und Fichte zu sich selbst verhält / Elisabeth Kessler -- The ghosts of Kantian philosophy in Fichte's Über das Wesen des Gelehrten / Richard Velkley -- Reinhold über die Bildung eines neuen Menschen / Ernst-Otto Onnasch -- Die innerliche Verknüpfung von "objektiver Wissenschaft" und "subjektiver Bildung". Wilhelm von Humboldts Universitätsidee - mit einem Ausblick auf sein Kritik an Fichtes Überlegungen zum Gelehrten und zur Universität / Holger Zaborowski -- Die Todesangst als die Vermittlung zur absoluten Idee / Paul Cobben -- Fichte and Schelling / Michael Vater -- Fichtes Über das Wesen des Gelehrten und Heidegger / Alfred Denker. (shrink)

Hegel's first major philosophical work is one of philosophy's true masterpieces. Despite its notorious difficulty, it is one of the most influential philosophical works ever written. The Phenomenology is not only the first presentation of Hegel's system; it also is an account of the historical development of Geist from Greek tragedy to the triumph of philosophy as science in Hegel's own time. This volume of essays offers an interpretation of the spirit of Hegel's Phenomenology as well as a concise reading (...) of the main text. It discusses also the historical and philosophical background of Hegel's main work and takes note of its reception. Since the essays were written by philosophers from different countries—both established Hegel scholars and promising young researchers—this volume presents the reader with an international overview of recent Hegel research. The main goal of the collection is to offer students a hermeneutical tool for the reading of Hegel's masterpiece while opening up new fields of research for those who know Hegel and German philosophy well. The contributors are Christoph Asmuth, Klaus Brinkmann, Paul Cobben, Alfred Denker, Richard Findler, Jeffery Kinlaw, Angelica Nuzzo, Tom Rockmore, Dale Snow, Mike Vater, Ludovicus De Vos, Robert Williams, and Holger Zaborowski. (shrink)

InhaltVorwort SiglenverzeichnisJakub KLOC-KONKOLOWICZ: »Jeder wird Gott« – Zur Erfüllung des Gesetzes und zumStatus des handelnden Ich Claus DIERKSMEIER: Über die Wirtschaftstheorie in Fichtes Rechtslehre von 1812 Bernhard JAKL: Recht und Zwang in Fichtes Rechtslehre von 1812 Bärbel FRISCHMANN: Fichte über den Rechtsstaat als Sozialstaat Christian STADLER: Dimensionen und Wandlungen des Fichteschen Rechtsbegriffes im Vergleich Jena – Berlin C. Jeffery KINLAW: Law, Morality and Bildung in the 1812 Rechtslehre Claude PICHÉ: L’instauration d’un ordre juridique juste d’après Fichte Gaetano RAMETTA: (...) Das Problem der Souveränität in Fichtes Staatslehre Carla De PASCALE: Fichte und die Verfassung des Vernunftreichs Roberta PICARDI: »Sittliche Natur« und Geschichte beim frühen und späten Fichte Takao SUGITA: Das Nationale in Fichtes Spätwerk Makoto TAKADA: Zur Umwandlung der Staatslehre des späten Fichte Nele SCHNEIDEREIT: Der Diskurs der Moderne in J. G. Fichtes Staatslehre Virginia LÓPEZ-DOMÍNGUEZ: Die Staatslehre von 1813 oder der Kampf der Aufklärung gegen den politischen Irrationalismus der Romantiker zur Verteidigung einer christlich-revolutionären SozialutopieGiovanni COGLIANDRO: »Der Begriff sey Grund der Welt« – Die Sittenlehre 1812 und die letzten Darstellungen der Wissenschaftslehre Max MARCUZZI: La ligne moraleBjörn PECINA: Die affektive Vermittlung. Deutungs- und affekttheoretische Dimensionen der späten Religionsphilosophie FichtesWolfdietrich SCHMIED-KOWARZIK: Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Christentums. Zur Religionsphilosophie im Spätwerk Fichtes Wilhelm G. JACOBS: Der Gottesbegriff in den »Thatsachen des Bewußtseyns« von 1810/11 als Übergang zur Wissenschaftslehre in specie. (shrink)

Les sociétés démocratiques sont confrontées à l'émergence d'enjeux environnementaux décisifs qui concernent tant les modes de production, d'échange et de consommation que l'habitat, les transports, l'agriculture, l'industrie et même nos modes de vie. La prise en charge de ces enjeux ne saurait s'opérer simplement par des mesures ponctuelles ou locales. Elle doit aujourd'hui être repensée la temporalité de l'action politique, confrontée à une urgence qui ne cessera de s'accroître dans les prochaines années.

These volumes present the text of Abū Ma’͑šar’s _Great Introduction to Astrology_ in Arabic and Greek and the divergences in the Latin translations. It provides a fully-comprehensive account of traditional astrological doctrine and its philosophical bases.

Comment la pensée médiévale continue-t-elle à agir dans la philosophie juridico-politique moderne, c'est-à-dire dans un horizon intellectuel et historique qui n'est plus le sien? Telle est la question qui anime les contributions au présent ouvrage. Cette action persistante de la pensée médiévale, qui est en même temps transformation de ce qui agit, est étudiée dans le cadre de trois grandes problématiques. 1. Le transfert de la notion de plenitudo potestatis de l'ordre ecclésiastique à l'ordre politique. 2. Le déplacement d'un univers (...) qui trouvait son fondement en Dieu vers un univers qui comporte, non un, mais deux fondements possibles entre lesquels se développe une tension (laquelle deviendra plus tard une concurrence) : Dieu et l'homme. C'est dans le cadre de cette tension entre les deux fondements théologique et éthique que se forment les doctrines du sujet psychologique et affectif, d'une part, et du sujet de droit, d'autre part. 3. Enfin, la constitution d'une théorie du pouvoir politique sur les hommes qui n'est plus pensée dans les catégories de la propriété des choses alors que celles-ci fournissaient, au Moyen Age, le principe d'intelligibilité de celle-là. Ce volume entend ainsi apporter un éclairage nouveau sur la naissance et la constitution de la philosophie juridico-politique moderne. (shrink)

The publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species in 1859 ignited a public storm he neither wanted nor enjoyed. Having offered his book as a contribution to science, Darwin discovered to his dismay that it was received as an affront by many scientists and as a sacrilege by clergy and Christian citizens. To answer the criticism that his theory was a theory only, and a wild one at that, he published two volumes in 1868 to demonstrate that evolution was (...) obvious to anyone who cared to look at a bull in a pasture or a dog on a hearth. In response to those who insisted that species were distinct since creation, Darwin pointed to breeders of pigs and pigeons. In reply to those who protested that human intervention is one thing and natural selection another, he argued, "If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing." To counter those who scorned his descriptions of species in exotic places, he submitted local evidence of cabbages and cauliflower. Based on a wide array of sources, from ancient pictographs to Polish roosters, from skins and from skeletons, from scientific journals and breeding manuals, Darwin assembled a mass of proof--and a hypothesis about species reversion that risked his reputation anew. The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication is a two-volume compilation of his thorough and intensive research and the revolutionary conclusions that resulted. The first portion of his work is dedicated to a meticulous analysis of various aspects of plant and animal life, including an inventory of varieties and their physical and behavioral characteristics, investigation of the impact of a species' surrounding environment and the role that both natural and forced changes in this environment have had. Darwin then turns to a richly detailed discussion of the roles of inheritance and crossing in the development of species. A wealth of illustrations further support and enhance his findings. This fascinating, invaluable, and courageous undertaking eventually formed the foundation for our current understanding of evolution. "In science as in politics the victors tend to write the history books. As a result, the record of the past is edited, intentionally or unintentionally, so that it focuses mainly on the precursors of contemporary orthodoxy. Such a focus may accurately represent the genealogy of modern ideas, but it almost inevitably misrepresents the historical experience of their progenitors... Even the powerful, persuasive, and ultimately triumphant theory of evolution by natural selection required not only defense, but repeated buttressing and revision. Variation showed Darwin hard at work on this rearguard action, using the materials he had at hand... His information was gleaned from the observations of fanciers, breeders, and amateur naturalists, as well as from the treatises of those on the cutting edge of zoology and botany. As hindsight narrows the historical spotlight, it imposes its own sense of hierarchy on the preoccupations of the past. But Darwin was interested in all of these topics, valued all of these sources, and belonged, to a greater or lesser extent, to all of these communities."--from the Introduction. (shrink)

L'objectif est ici de déterminer la mesure dans laquelle nous serions aujourd'hui sortis des catégories conceptuelles sur lesquelles la pensée politique moderne s'est construite.

Our global community desperately needs overt awakening to an age of reason and faith. Reasonable Faith for a Post-Secular Age meets this need by interpreting faith not in terms of belief in propositions but in terms of living surrender to having been seized by agape for every Face, including one's own. Virtually all faith traditions, from Buddhism to Humanism to Wiccan, are rooted in agape and therefore share considerable spiritual and ethical common ground (a truth long veiled). In contrast to (...) ethically feckless secular rationality--over which a devastating, global social Darwinism currently runs roughshod--faith qua living surrender to agape grounds moral realism, awakens us to love for all creatures, and inspires struggles for justice. Inspired by the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and Christian spirituality, Greenway engages, on the one hand, intellectuals like Stanley Hauerwas, Richard Rorty, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jeffery Stout, Charles Taylor, and Bernard Williams, and, on the other, contemporary debates over consciousness, free will, evil, and metaethics. He details the character of secular rationality's devastating scission from moral reality and clarifies the promise of understanding faith and spirituality in terms of agape. (shrink)

This book proposes a new paradigm for the interpretation of Plato's early and middle dialogues. Rejecting the usual assumption of a distinct 'Socratic' period in the development of Plato's thought, this view regards the earlier works as deliberate preparation for the exposition of Plato's mature philosophy. Differences between the dialogues do not represent different stages in Plato's own thinking but rather different aspects and moments in the presentation of a new and unfamiliar view of reality. Once the fictional character of (...) the Socratic genre is recognised, there is no reason to regard Plato's early dialogues as representing the philosophy of the historical Socrates. The result is a unified interpretation of all of the dialogues down to the Republic and the Phaedrus. (shrink)

This scholarly synthesis of biblical studies and Christian social ethics is designed to provide a biblical argument for intentional institutional change on behalf of social justice. Stephen Charles Mott provides a biblical and ethical guide on ways to implement that change. The first part of the book, providing the biblical theology of intentional social change, deals with the central concepts in biblical and theological ethics: grace, evil, love, justice, and the Reign of God. Christian social change must be rooted (...) not only in justice, but in the grace received through the death and resurrection of Christ. The second part evaluates ethical and theological methods for carrying out that intentional social change. It offers a study of evangelism, counter community, civil disobedience, armed revolution, and political reform. It shows the contribution of each as well as the strong limitations of each used in isolation. A recurring theme of the book is the scriptural insistence on the priority of justice as taking upon oneself the cause of the oppressed. Justice is understood on bringing back into the community those who are near to falling out of it. Political authority has a vital role in social change for justice. It is essential that a Christian use all available and legitimate means of meeting basic needs by providing for all what is essential for inclusion in society. In this revised edition, Mott updates the contemporary illustrations and includes his own further reflections in the last thirty years on this topic. (shrink)

"A beautiful piece of work on the theory of altered states of consciousness ." "Stanislav Grof, M.D. author of Realms of the Human Unconsciousness".

This previously-unpublished essay by the late Charles W. Mills (1951–2021) seeks to demonstrate the racially-structured character of the universe created by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Written long before the popular film series, the essay critically examines Tolkien's novels and comments on the nature of fictional creation. Mills argues that Tolkien designs a racial hierarchy in the novels that recapitulates the central racist myth of European thought.