En este trabajo me propongo reflexionar sobre algunos puntos de filosofía de la religión. Cada vez más se da cabida a este tipo de meditaciones filosóficas, que tocan problemas esenciales del ser humano, como lo relativo al sentido de la muerte y, por lo tanto, al de la vida. Es la potencia simbólica de la religión la que realiza eso, ya que el símbolo es lo que más nos hace vivir, lo que más está cargado de sentido, más allá de (...) la referencia. Y la religión ha sido uno de sus depositarios, junto con el arte. Y el símbolo tiene una significación casi inagotable, de ahí su importancia para la filosofía de la religión hoy. (shrink)

Este artículo intenta presentar un panorama de la hermenéutica reciente, haciendo énfasis en Gadamer, Ricoeur y Vattimo. Se trata de hacer ver que la hermenéutica actual se ha debatido entre dos fuerzas que la tensionan: una hacia el univocismo y otra, que es la más fuerte en nuestro tiempo, hacia el equivocismo o relativismo. Por eso al final se propone una búsqueda de equilibrio.

The aim of this article is to show that the scholastic commentaries on the Predicables or Categorems constituted a style of treatises on the philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. In such studies, called afterwards “Material Logic”, is considered, for instance, the theme of the domain of logic and the possibility of its construction; furthermore, logic is relates to ontology through the problem of universals. Here is explored to logical being which is the objectum of this discipline, and is (...) analized the structure of proposition and the nature of the main constitutives of inference. In the side of Philosophy of Language are located the study of the meaning of subjects and predicates, that of the proposition formed by them, also a hierarchy of logical types, and the principles of the ordained disposition of natural kinds and other classifications. They are things that now attract the interest of philosophers of logic and philosophers of languagewithin the analytic tradition. (shrink)

Winner of the 1974 National Book Award The product of many years of reflection on phenomenology, this book is a comprehensive and creative introduction to the philosophy of Edmund Husserl. Natanson uses Husserl's later work as a clue to the meaning of his entire intellectual career, showing how his earlier methodological work evolved into the search for transcendental roots and developed into a philosophy of the life-world. Phenomenology, for Natanson, emerges as a philosophy of origin, a transcendental discipline concerned with (...) consciousness, history, and world rather than with introspection and traditional metaphysical warfare. (shrink)

The article revisits the old controversy concerning the relation of the mother's brother and sister's son in patrilineal societies in the light both of anthropological criticisms of the very notion of kinship and of evolutionary and epidemiological approaches to culture. It argues that the ritualized patterns of behavior that had been discussed by Radcliffe-Brown, Goody and others are to be explained in terms of the interaction of a variety of factors, some local and historical, others pertaining to general human dispositions. (...) In particular, an evolved disposition to favor relatives can contribute to the development and stabilization of these behaviors, not by directly generating them, but by making them particularly "catchy" and resilient. In this way, it is possible to recognize both that cultural representations and practices are specific to a community at a time in its history (rather than mere tokens of a general type), and that they are, in essential respects, grounded in the common evolved psychology of human beings. (shrink)

Although the fallacy of composition is little studied and trivially illustrated, some view it as ubiquitous and paramount. Furthermore, although definitions regard the concept as unproblematic, it contains three distinct elements, often confused. And although some scholars apparently claim that fallacies are figments of a critic’s imagination, they are really proposing to study fallacies in the context of meta-argumentation. Guided by these ideas, I discuss the important historical example of Michels’s iron law of oligarchy.

In the first volume of his trilogy, noted political philosopher Maurice Cranston draws from original manuscript sources to trace Rousseau's life from his birth in provincial obscurity in Geneva, through his youthful wanderings, to his ...

This classic study by a distinguished scholar surveys the major philosophical trends and thinkers of a vital period in Western civilization. Based on Maurice DeWulf's celebrated Princeton University lectures, it offers an accessible view of medieval history, covering scholastic, ecclesiastic, classicist, and secular thought of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. From Anselm and Abelard to Thomas Aquinas and William of Occam, it chronicles the influence of the era's great philosophers on their contemporaries as well as on subsequent generations.

Maurice Friedman's masterly anthology still stands apart decades after its original publication. It has become established as a classic - the most comprehensive collection of existentialist writing ever assembled. This edition includes a special preface by Professor Friedman surveying the developments in the field since this monumental work was first published and commenting on its relevance for present intellectual trends. The short selections from important existentialist writers and their forerunners elucidate the critical issues that exist among existentialists. The topics (...) include phenomenology and ontology, the existential subject, intersubjectivity, religion, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

-t. 1. La critique de l'homme moderne et la philosophie théorique. -t. 2. De l'éthique à la dernière philosophie.

This book presents three of Blondel's important turn of the century articles. These are The Idealist Illusion, The Elementary Principle of a Logic of the Moral Life and in two parts, The Starting Point of Philosophy. These essays uncover a certain pragmatism in Blondel's thought while Fiachra Long's introduction argues that Blondel veered away from idealism and towards a logic of the concrete life which allied him closely if unwittingly with the Scottish common sense school of Thomas Reid.