No detailed description available for "Language in the Philosophy of Hegel".

The integration of biomedical terminologies is indispensable to the process of information integration. When terminologies are linked merely through the alignment of their leaf terms, however, differences in context and ontological structure are ignored. Making use of the SNAP and SPAN ontologies, we show how three reference domain ontologies can be integrated at a higher level, through what we shall call the OBR framework (for: Ontology of Biomedical Reality). OBR is designed to facilitate inference across the boundaries of domain ontologies (...) in anatomy, physiology and pathology. (shrink)

This round table discussion takes the diversity of discourse and practice shaping modern knowledge about childhood as an opportunity to engage with recent historiographical approaches in the history of science. It draws attention to symmetries and references among scientific, material, literary and artistic cultures and their respective forms of knowledge. The five participating scholars come from various fields in the humanities and social sciences and allude to historiographical and methodological questions through a range of examples. Topics include the emergence of (...) children's rooms in US consumer magazines, research on the unborn in nineteenth-century sciences of development, the framing of autism in nascent child psychiatry, German literary discourses about the child's initiation into writing, and the sociopolitics of racial identity in the photographic depiction of African American infant corpses in the early twentieth century. Throughout the course of the paper, childhood emerges as a topic particularly amenable to interdisciplinary perspectives that take the history of science as part of a broader history of knowledge. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell says of Leibniz that "the best parts of his philosophy are the most abstract and the worst those which most nearly concern human life". Many have agreed with Russell's comments and the treatment of Leibniz by most Anglo-American philosophers in particular during this century is a testimony to his sentiments. Even sympathetic commentators have been dismissive or apologetic of those aspects of Leibniz's thought that "concern human life". My purpose here is not to dear Leibniz of any and (...) all animadversions - personal or philosophical - but to attempt to understand the dissimulation and equivocality that even his admirers ascribe to his non-logical writings. It is my position that such qualities were intrinsic to his thought, and not simply personal quirks or flaws that have to be tolerated or dismissed in any sustained examination of his philosophy. (shrink)

Während viel über Leibniz und China geschrieben wurde, fand seine Beschäftigung mit dem anderen "Orient" — dem Nahen Osten — wenig Beachtung. Mein Beitrag widmet sich daher Leibniz' Haltung gegenüber dem Islam und dessen Anhängern. Abgesehen von der osmanischen Bedrohung für Zentral-Europa, die zur Zeit seiner mittleren Schaffensperiode im Abnehmen begriffen war, wird der Islam von Leibniz in erster Linie als theologisches System behandelt. Leibniz äußerte sich zu den ihm zur Verfügung stehenden islamischen und arabischen Quellen und zeigte ein wachsendes (...) Interesse an ihnen. In dem Leibniz' Haltung gegenüber dem islamischen/arabischen Orient untersucht wird, vertieft sich auch unser Verständnis gegenüber seiner lebenslangen Suche nach einem Dialog zwischen Christentum und anderen Glaubensrichtungen, wie auch die Rolle der islamischen Theologie innerhalb des europäischen religiösen Denkens beleuchtet wird. Schließlich zeigt sich Leibniz' Haltung gegenüber dem Islam als repräsentativ für viele Denker im Europa der frühen Aufklärung. (shrink)

During Leibniz's lifetime, interest in the interpretation of the Bible and biblical prophecy became central to the theological and political concerns of Protestant Europe. Leibniz's treatment of this phenomenon will be examined in the light of his views on the nature of revelation and its role in his defence of Christianity. It will be argued that Leibniz's defence of the miracle of revelation (and its vehicle, biblical prophecy) – unlike his arguments on behalf of the core Christian mysteries of the (...) Trinity and Incarnation – is demonstrable by purely natural and scientific means, especially the verification of history. (shrink)

During Leibniz's lifetime, interest in the interpretation of the Bible and biblical prophecy became central to the theological and political concerns of Protestant Europe. Leibniz's treatment of this phenomenon will be examined in the light of his views on the nature of revelation and its role in his defence of Christianity. It will be argued that Leibniz's defence of the miracle of revelation – unlike his arguments on behalf of the core Christian mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation – is (...) demonstrable by purely natural and scientific means, especially the verification of history. (shrink)

G. W. Leibniz has been praised as an exemplar of tolerance on both theological and political grounds. His irenic efforts within Christendom as well as his positive attitude towards pagans like the Chinese is well documented. He thought that “the great majority of mankind” were already “civilized”. This paper highlights Leibniz’s political treatment of the “uncivilized” peoples, whom he termed “barbarians” and “savages”. Given Leibniz’s worldly outlook and prodigious reading, including writings detailing the horrors inflicted on the natives of the (...) Americas, he blithely ignored a reality that was quite at odds with his own vision for such peoples. The dissonance between his ideas on how to treat “barbarian” peoples (whom he considered to be fully human and deserving of mutual respect) and his awareness of their actual treatment in many nascent European colonies is striking. The only conclusion that can be reached (though Leibniz never says so explicitly) is that their conversion to Christianity and the consequent enlightenment of their posterity trumped their present suffering. (shrink)

Leibniz was interested in Jews and Judaism not only within the framework of his philosophy, but also within his studies as a lawyer, librarian, ecumenical theologian, and on a personal basis as resident of Hannover. However, research has so far neglected his attitude towards Judaism and its expression in Jewish religion, the Kabbala, the Hebrew Bible, the Rabbinic tradition, and even his Jewish contemporaries, their works and their legal status. This volume closes the gap by presenting the results of an (...) international conference in Potsdam, where notable Leibniz scholars discussed his attitudes towards Jews and Judaism and studied them from a variety of perspectives. German info text: Leibniz beschaftigte sich nicht nur in seiner Philosophie, sondern auch in seinen Arbeiten als Jurist, als Bibliothekar, als theologischer Okumeniker und nicht zuletzt in seinem Alltagsleben in der Residenz Hannover immer wieder mit Juden und mit Judentum. Dennoch wurde bisher in der Forschung seine Einstellung zum Judentum kaum durchleuchtet etwa zur juedischen Religion, zur Kabbala, zur hebraischen Bibel und rabbinischen Tradition oder zu seinen juedischen Zeitgenossen selbst, ihren Werken und ihrer Rechtsstellung. Hier blieb die Analyse von Leibniz personlicher Haltung und theoretischer Reflexion ein Desiderat. Diese Forschungsluecke schlieat der vorliegende Band. Er prasentiert die Ergebnisse einer internationalen Konferenz in Potsdam, auf der ausgewiesene Leibniz-Forscher dessen Verhaltnis zu Judentum und Juden diskutierten und aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven in den Blick nahmen. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas’s writings militate against an ontological way of thinking that he claims dominates the history of European philosophy. In their drive towards truth and knowledge, Levinas argues that thinkers like Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger efface the alterity of the Other, the Other’s “otherness,” by appropriating alterity as a moment of self-consciousness or Being. This ontological thinking, Levinas argues, attempts to violently reduce the unthematizable excess of the Other by systematically assimilating the Other in the concepts of totalizing thought. Levinas (...) articulates his opposition to this tradition at length in Totality & Infinity by insisting upon an irreducible heteronomy: an Other who remains radically outside of any relationship that I might have with them. (shrink)

Recently, several commentators have highlighted certain affinities between Wittgenstein and the Hegelian tradition. In this brief essay, I wish to argue that whatever compatibilities or similarities one claims to find between the Hegelian tradition and Wittgenstein’s own thought, it is virtually certain that he was not positively influenced by Hegel as some have claimed.

This book is one of a growing number on the Anglo-American scene devoted to attacking the empiricist or foundational model of knowledge. Those sympathetic to the Hegelian tradition should welcome such a change in the prevailing Zeitgeist. In this spirit, several writers have compared or connected Hegel and Marx to the language philosophy of the “later” Wittgenstein. Inspired in part by an article of Charles Taylor, David Lamb undertakes to elaborate upon “the considerable convergence of the later Wittgenstein, as commonly (...) understood, and the Hegelian understanding of language.” “It is striking,” he continues, “that the two philosophers argued very similarly against what might be called the empirical account of the relation between language and reality.” The core of this five-chapter book is devoted to highlighting this convergence, primarily between the sections on Sense-Certainty and Perception in the Phenomenology of Spirit and Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. The final two chapters deal with similarities between Hegel and Wittgenstein on a much broader scale. (shrink)

It is McRae’s “position that the link between absolute knowing, and the system proper [in Hegel], cannot be understood aside from the act of presentation itself”. In a word, “absolute knowing is nothing but the presentation of the system itself”. This ongoing activity of presentation occurs in the theater of language, there being different speculative levels as well as particular “regional” languages, each in its own way capturing, in its “thick immediacy,” some stage of this process. Expressed another way, “the (...) absolute speaks… and consequently can be known and known most perfectly in language”. (shrink)

It is McRae’s “position that the link between absolute knowing, and the system proper [in Hegel], cannot be understood aside from the act of presentation itself”. In a word, “absolute knowing is nothing but the presentation of the system itself”. This ongoing activity of presentation occurs in the theater of language, there being different speculative levels as well as particular “regional” languages, each in its own way capturing, in its “thick immediacy,” some stage of this process. Expressed another way, “the (...) absolute speaks… and consequently can be known and known most perfectly in language”. (shrink)