This book documents recent and historical events in the theoretically-based practice of peace development. Its diverse collection of essays describes different aspects of applied philosophy in peace action, commonly involving the contributors' continual engagement in the field, while offering support and optimal responses to conflict and violence.

This is the first volume in the trilogy "Many Peaces" on transrational peace and elicitive conflict transformation. It proposes an innovative analysis of peace interpretations in global history and contemporary cultures of peace, the so-called five families of energetic, moral, modern, post-modern, and transrational.

Immanuel Kant’s views on politics, peace, and history have lost none of their relevance since their publication more than two centuries ago. This volume contains a comprehensive collection of Kant’s writings on international relations theory and political philosophy, superbly translated and accompanied by stimulating essays. Pauline Kleingeld provides a lucid introduction to the main themes of the volume, and three essays by distinguished contributors follow: Jeremy Waldron on Kant’s theory of the state; Michael W. Doyle on the (...) implications of Kant’s political theory for his theory of international relations; and Allen W. Wood on Kant’s philosophical approach to history and its current relevance. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s views on politics, peace, and history have lost none of their relevance since their publication more than two centuries ago. This volume contains a comprehensive collection of Kant’s writings on international relations theory and political philosophy, superbly translated and accompanied by stimulating essays. Pauline Kleingeld provides a lucid introduction to the main themes of the volume, and three essays by distinguished contributors follow: Jeremy Waldron on Kant’s theory of the state; Michael W. Doyle on the (...) implications of Kant’s political theory for his theory of international relations; and Allen W. Wood on Kant’s philosophical approach to history and its current relevance. (shrink)

Presents a collection of essays detailing Kant's views on politics, history, and ethics.

This collection of essays by eminent scholars on the reconstruction and critique of Kant's transcendental philosophy in the Indian context specifically discusses his ideas on perpetual peace, universal history, and critical philosophy.

Richard Sorabji presents a ground-breaking study of ancient Greek views of the emotions and their influence on subsequent theories and attitudes, Pagan and Christian. While the central focus of the book is the Stoics, Sorabji draws on a vast range of texts to give a rich historical survey of how Western thinking about this central aspect of human nature developed.

This book explores Hobbes's ideas about the internal pacification of states, the prospect of a peaceful international order, and the connections between civil and international peace. It questions the notion of a negative Hobbesian peace, which is based on the mere suppression of violence, and emphasises his positive vision of everlasting peace in a well-governed commonwealth. The book also highlights Hobbes's ideas about international coexistence and cooperation, which he considers integral to good government. In examining Hobbes's conception (...) of peace, it provides a fresh perspective on his international political thought. The findings also have wider implications for the ways in which we think about Hobbes's relationship to the realist and liberal traditions of international thought, and will appeal to students and scholars of political theory and international relations. (shrink)

That European and American philosophy at the opening of the twentieth century should have been sharply controversial was not an accident of politics, any more than it was accidental that persecutions and inquisitions should have attended the history of Christianity. The jealous God of Christianity was by definition an only god whose claims implies the rejection or subordination of every other god. Those who were not exclusively with him were counted against him. “ Christian “ and “ anti-Christian (...) “ constituted a complete disjunction. Similarly, the effect of the philosophy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to define sharp and conflicting antitheses. Its gods were jealous gods. Differences were irreconcilable oppositions, which could be overcome only through the conquest of one by another, or through their joint abdication in favour of a third party. But there are many signs of a changed temper of mind. The most recent philosophy seeks to escape such hostilities by avoiding the initial antitheses, or by bringing to light original communities and identities which have been lost sight of in the excessive sharpening of distinctions. (shrink)

A collection of nine essays by one of the leading scholars in medieval Jewish Philosophy. The volume consists of two parts. Part I, entitled "Philosophy and History," includes essays on the study of medieval Jewish Philosophy, on the notion of Peace, on the political philosophy of Nissim of Gerona and Isaac Abrabanel, and on Maimonides' views on Messianism. In part II, "Philosophy and Faith," the subjects dealt with are: 'The God of the Philosophers (...) and the God of the Kabbalists', the notion of Miracle in medieval Jewish Philosophy, the esoteric character of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, and a lost Arabic recension of Aristotle's Parva Naturalia. Professor Aviezer Ravitzky is Chairman of the Department of Jewish Thought, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (shrink)

Western civilization since the Renaissance, argues Gray Cox, conceives of material things as objectively knowable and hence manipulable by the detached subject. We knowers are masters of nature. The presuppositions about how things are known and used also color our attitudes concerning human problems. Our culture is conflict centered. When we try to give substance to the concept of peace, we draw a blank: peace is the static absence of war. We do not bring peace to fruition (...) because we have no inkling of the kind of thought it requires. Cox shakes up our habitual ways of thinking in order to give peace a chance. The ways of peace are activities in which subjects mutually engage with openness to understanding. We grow in intersubjective community by working together. (shrink)

Western civilization since the Renaissance, argues Gray Cox, conceives of material things as objectively knowable and hence manipulable by the detached subject. We knowers are masters of nature. The presuppositions about how things are known and used also color our attitudes concerning human problems. Our culture is conflict centered. When we try to give substance to the concept of peace we draw a blank: peace is the static absence of war. We do not bring peace to fruition (...) because we have no inkling of the kind of thought it requires. Cox shakes up our habitual ways of thinking in order to give peace a chance. The ways of peace are activities in which subjects mutually engage with openness to understanding. We grow in intersubjective community by working together. (shrink)

This essay discusses Immanuel Kant’s project of perpetual peace. Kant runs into several difficulties in this undertaking, a series of “political antinomies” such as the opposing goals of nature or providence and of individuals, and the competing models of a federation of states or a world state to enforce perpetual peace. I argue that cosmopolitan right is Kant’s answer to the inconsistencies of his political philosophy and of his philosophy of history. Cosmopolitanism brings the individual (...) back into historical development by merging the political rights each person enjoys within a state with the relentless progress of the human race as a whole. Further, it provides a transition from a federation of states to a global political system of rights. I contend that cosmopolitanism can be regarded as the political supplement to the categorical imperative that applies universally to all rational beings. (shrink)

The paper consists of two parts. In the first one the author analyses the situation of mankind in the last decades of the 20th century, regarding it as tragic; in his reflections he refers mainly to the conceptions of Georg W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx and some Christian thinkers. The second part is a critique of Karl Popper’s conception of history, especially his main claim that history has no meaning.

How is peace to be understood? Does it make any sense to believe in its utopian realisation? Or is its failure necessary, its attempt always transforming into dystopia? Is there something to be saved in the ideal of utopian peace? Can one affirm that peace is in fact a pantopia an omnipresent reality? The collection of essays, Concerning Peace: New Perspectives on Utopia, investigates these questions. Its method resides in both a philosophical understanding of peace, (...) and its exemplification into concrete reality. Through the analysis of concrete examples of peace belonging to the diverse fields of metaphysics, politics, history and culture, the essays bring the idea of peace within our reach. Going from the particular to the general, from life to philosophy, the authors of the collected essays offer us more than an understanding of peace; they produce it before our eyes. If this book may interest peace and philosophy scholars, it was first intended for any citizen caring about the way the world must be, refusing to simply accept it as it is for anyone willing to believe in the reality of utopia. (shrink)

Modern coverage of world events suggest that war and violence are key to contemporary society. History can convince us that it has ever been so, and many theorist of international relations argue that nothing is likely to change. Roy Weatherford argues that a profound change in social relations is imminent as national sovereignty yields to a democratic world culture, speaking a world language and living as a world wide family - the human family. For too long world peace (...) has seemed a noble but unattainable ideal. Weatherford shows that it is now both economically and politically possible and is therefore our moral duty. (shrink)

In a world that peers over the brink of disaster more often than not it is difficult to find specific assignments for the scholarly community. One speaks of peace and brotherhood only to realize that for many the only real hope of making a contribution may seem to be in a field of scientific specialization seemingly irrelevant to social causes and problems. Yet the history of man since the beginnings of science in the days of the Greeks does (...) not support this gloomy thesis. Time and again we have seen science precipitate social trends or changes in the humanistic beliefs that have a significant effect on the scientific community. Not infrequently the theoretical scientist, triggered by society's changing goals and understandings, finds ultimate satisfaction in the work of his colleagues in engineering and the other applied fields. Thus the major debate in mid-nineteenth century in which the evidence of natural history and geology at variance with the Biblical feats provided not only courage to a timid Darwin but the kind of audience that was needed to fit his theories into the broad public dialogue on these topics. The impact of "Darwinism" was felt far beyond the scientific community. It affected social thought, upset religious certainties and greatly affected the teaching of science. (shrink)

This Element addresses three questions about Kant's guarantee thesis by examining the 'first addendum' of his Philosophical Sketch: how the guarantor powers interrelate, how there can be a guarantee without undermining freedom and why there is a guarantee in the first place. Kant's conception of an interplay of human and divine rational agency encompassing nature is crucial: on moral grounds, we are warranted to believe the 'world author' knew that if he were to bring about the world, the 'supreme' good (...) would come about too. Perpetual peace is the condition that enables the supreme good to be realized in history. (shrink)

One of the most intriguing and underappreciated aspects of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy is his treatment of peace as a civilizational aim of culture. The problem of peace is the subject in the final chapter of Whitehead’s Adventures of Ideas. It is considered along with the other four qualities of civilized societies, “Adventure, Art, Beauty, and Truth.” Although his analysis is driven by examples from Western and Christian history, respectively, the treatment of peace developed is (...) not limited to this or any specific experiential epoch. Peace is a transcultural value, the “harmony of harmonies,” which lies at the heart or in the “nature of things.” Whitehead designates the permanence-flux contrast of peace in human life as a tension between the “dream of youth” and “harvest of tragedy.” Our lives give way to the dance of the possible and actual that both unites and divides us. This article explains how Whitehead attempts to argue for peace by way of “balanced intensity” in response to the triumphs and tribulations of life. Section one deals with the ways in which youth and eros symbolize possibility and orient us toward the possible. Tragedy, or the determination of the individual in its own subjective realization and the consequent nature it produces through the “unity of adventure,” is the focus of the second section. In section three, the erotic-tragic contrast is presented in relation to peace as an “intuition of permanence.” In conclusion, Whitehead’s humanism will be offered as a viable alternative against the modern belief of progress or the quest for worldly success, in which prosperity becomes antithetical to the achievement of peace given its propensity to evade or outrun tragedy. (shrink)

Introduction -- The Bible -- Rabbinic Judaism -- Medieval Jewish philosophy -- Kabbalah -- Modern Zionism -- Conclusions.

The legacy of classical antiquity -- War and peace in the medieval world -- Holy wars, crusades, and religious wars -- Humanism and Neo-Stoicism -- The search for a science of peace.

The strong Scottish Enlightenment interest in science created a market in Edinburgh for information about this subject, and Smith responded by providing a course that included the history of astronomy. A key part was a theory of theorizing or system building, with a system identified as an ‘imaginary machine’ invented to provide a coherent pattern of cause and effect in phenomena. His major works presented systems on this model in ethics and economics. WN's free‐enterprise system was foreshadowed in a (...) third course given at Edinburgh on jurisprudence, in which Smith traced the development of law, and argued that humanity could evolve from barbarism to opulence, through enjoying peace, moderate taxes, also minimal justice, and reliance on the natural course of things. (shrink)

This paper argues that Jan Patočka and Paul Ricoeur endured their own cognitive-spiritual crisis, particularly during the development and outbreak of war in the 1930s. Their philosophies of history are thus, on the one hand, born of a rethinking of modern philosophy from the time of Galileo and Descartes, and on the other, a suffering of crisis that Europe itself was suffering. Stemming from the historical and philosophical context of Husserl’s epistemology in the Krisis, both Ricoeur and Patočka (...) had to confront history and the decadence of European sciences, as it concerns the difficulty of remembering the past and describing events in history. These responses to the problem of modern philosophy and science in Europe point to the symptom of spiritual crisis due to ‘modern man’ having no unified worldview. By means of care of the soul and the challenging of the state in action, a hermeneutics of peace emerges from their spiritual crises. (shrink)

This edited volume focuses on the use of ?necessary condition counterfactuals? in explaining two key events in twentieth century history, the origins of the ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:War, Peace, and Reconciliation: A Theological Inquiry by Theodore R. WeberDavid H. MessnerWar, Peace, and Reconciliation: A Theological Inquiry Theodore R. Weber EUGENE, OR: WIPF & STOCK, 2015. 182 pp. $23.00Weber's book makes a helpful contribution to enlivening more theologically grounded strategies for peacemaking through reconciliation. It is a careful, systematic work that takes as its foundation a distinctively Christian view of [End Page 214] God's (...) nature and relation to the world. As a scholar and a pastor for over fifty years, Weber brings a much-needed, wise, and re-centered view to the questions entangled in war, peace, and reconciliation. He advises us not to look first into the realities of war for God, but to look to understand God as the context for all human conflict. He forcefully calls the reader to be a reconciler despite the intractability of conflict. The book is structured in three main parts, beginning with the theological context, then the political context, and, last, to peace, justice, and the church.The "war" that Weber addresses is interstate conflict, representing the negation of the web of relationships constituting a healthy international system. War disrupts God's plan and ruptures the right relationship between humanity and God (43–44). Throughout, Weber embraces a kind of Christian Realism, one that takes seriously the loving nature of God, the sinfulness of humanity, and the limits and possibilities for peacemaking in a human world. Downplaying the pacifistic message of Jesus, Weber highlights the necessities within a fallen world. We cannot eliminate war as a category of existence under the conditions of sin (until the eschaton), but with right orientation and action we can eliminate some war.Noting inadequacies of the just war tradition (though not dispensing with it), Weber identifies the need to ground it more firmly in theology, including enhanced attention to "just intention" as a primary criterion in evaluating the prosecution of war, displacing cause as the first question with which we must interrogate ourselves. Discernment about war and peace must be an ongoing conversation that should include people of faith as well as policymakers. Weber's theological and pastoral sensibilities, alongside his political savvy throughout, make the book a pleasurable and provocative read.The definition of reconciliation deployed is broad and complex, and Weber marshals it for powerful work. Reconciliation "is God's work—the movement of Divine grace through history, engaging all aspects of brokenness and promise and reaching its climax of fulfillment and disclosure in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ" (3). Grace continually calls humanity to enter into the work of reconciliation. Here Weber introduces the idea of relational power; more nuanced than mere substantive power, it connects to the core idea of institution building and the critical emphasis on strengthening the social fabric in the interest of peace. It is the hallmark of the reconciling transformation from systems of dominance to relationships of consent.The book raises questions regarding how to put reconciliation as described into concrete practice, responding to real cases and controversies. Also, there could be added discussion, against this theological backdrop, of what opportunities exist amid current US and global regime change to enter this reconciling activity more fully.Ultimately, the Christian context is central to understanding the ethics that Weber advances. Weber recommends a biblical foundation, one in which [End Page 215] we take the benefit of reading scripture backward from the Christ event. Such an exegetical strategy reveals that God has a plan for all of humanity, a vision of inclusiveness and reconciliation. It is from this vantage point of God's culminating vision, Weber illuminates, that we can understand and embrace human action throughout history and the meaningful, if incomplete, work of reconciliation to which we must commit ourselves, both politically and spiritually. [End Page 216]David H. MessnerEmory UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Levinas's big idea is that our lived sense of moral obligation occurs in an immediate experience of the otherness of the Other, and that moral meaning is grounded in alterity rather than identity. Yet he also held what seemed an inconsiderate, or 'eurocentric,' view of other cultural traditions. In Saying Peace, Jack Marsh explores this problem, testing the coherence and adequacy of Levinas's central philosophical claims. Using a twofold method of reconstruction and critique, Marsh conducts a holistic immanent evaluation (...) of Levinas's major works, showing how the problem of eurocentrism, and abiding ambiguities in Levinas's political and religious thought, can be traced back to specific problems in his general philosophical methodology. Marsh offers an original analysis of Levinas's method that verifies and extends existing critical work by Jacques Derrida, Robert Bernasconi, Judith Butler, and others. This is the first book to foreground the normative question of chauvinism in Levinas's work, and the first to perform a holistic critical diagnosis of his general philosophical method. (shrink)

Because the goal of reducing violence is nearly universally accepted, the uniquely prescriptive character of peace and conflict studies is rarely scrutinized. However, prescriptive pacifism in social psychological peace research (SPPR) masks a diversity of opinion on whether nonintervention is more effective in promoting peace than intervention to punish aggression, restore stability, and/or prevent atrocity. SPPR’s skepticism is sharper in the post–9/11 era when states use public fear of terrorist threat to promote sometimes-unrelated domestic and geostrategic interests. (...) The most frequently proposed remedy for this kind of abuse is some form of international legal positivism that permits the use of force only in self-defense, per strict interpretation of the United Nations Charter, or not at all—a position the author calls ‘prescriptive pacifism." This project critically examines the metaethical premises of prescriptive pacifism, positivism, and realism, how these animate the moral and political skepticism of peace studies, psychology, and international relations, respectively, and meet in SPPR. After comparing the intellectual development of these fields and just war theory, I present influential psychologist Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT) of moral judgment and aggression as a case study. I present evidence of the problematic nature of Bandura and others’ formulation of moral engagement and disengagement, tracing their contradictions to the named premises. In brief, I argue that SCT’s underlying skepticism of individual moral judgment implies elite or consensus-driven models of social and political change whose institutional gradualism contradicts these authors’ and SPPR’s stated progressive aims, and whose utilitarian ethos undermines the egalitarian individualism that underpins both the liberal conception of the rule of law and the international human rights regime. Finally, I present an alternative model of moral reasoning and engagement based on a Kantian constructivist understanding of international ethics, and the theory of the just war. I outline two instruments inspired by these related normative frameworks that in addition to being more internally coherent, operationalize moral engagement and disengagement in a manner more consonant with political liberalism, existing international humanitarian law, and the emergent norm known as Responsibility to Protect. Intended for use in the collection and coding of qualitative responses to survey research of public opinion on morally ambiguous issues in international politics such as intervention and territorial integrity, these instruments avoid the tendency of existing SPPR frameworks toward false positives of militarism and pacifism. Their presentation also makes mutually comprehensible the often-confusing professional idioms of international relations, political theory, moral philosophy, and social psychology, standing to make a contribution to each. (shrink)

What is enlightenment?--Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view.--Reviews of Herder's Ideas for a philosophy of the history and mankind.--Conjectural beginning of human history.--The end of all things.--Perpetual peace.--An old question raised again: Is the human race constantly progressing?

In this short essay, Kant completes his political theory and philosophy of history, considering the prospects for peace among nations and addressing questions that remain central to our thoughts about nationalism, war, and peace. Ted Humphrey provides an eminently readable translation, along with a brief introduction that sketches Kant's argument.

This paper takes up the possibilities for thinking about human solidarity that can be found in Immanuel Kant’s writings on history. One way of approaching Kant’s philosophy of history is to focus on what would seem to be an antinomy in Kant’s account between the role of nature and the demands of freedom. Whereas nature, according to Kant, ruthlessly drives us into a state of perpetual war until finally, exhausted and bankrupt, we are forced into an international (...) treaty for peace, freedom, and the morality that flows from it, requires that each individual obey the supreme moral principle, namely, that we treat all people as ends in themselves and never merely as means; that we never, in other words, wage war. This antinomy is resolved once we see that, for Kant, a community of moral agents can only arise as a result of a perfect political constitution; a constitution that itself can only arise at the end of a history of war. (shrink)

This essay unfolds within the wider theological project of an apophatic relationalism. The moral intention of political theology, in its progressive hope, takes refuge here in the apophatic folds of a Cusan cosmological mysticism that, in turn, lends depth to a polyvocal Whiteheadian theology. In this paper hope finds itself tangled in the question of religio-political peace, vis-à-vis a specific thousand-year loop of Western history. In the knotty present, this cosmopolitics—with an eye to each new wave of Islamophobia—lives (...) with uncertainty as to the realism of its pluralistically complicated peace-talk. Partners in the pilgrimage of this paper include (with Whitehead) certain political theorists who read him, especially William Connolly and Paulina Ochoa, along with William Cavanaugh, Enrique Dussel, and Eduourd Glissant, who do not. The aim will be to convert—at the level of symbolic resonance at least—what I call the crusader peace complex into the complex conviviality of peace. The pulses of this transdisciplinary exercise (an effort in self-education rather than specialization) will proceed through eight theopolitical vignettes. (shrink)

In this powerful and thought-provoking book, Sundeep Waslekar examines the history and politics of war and offers solutions for achieving world peace by ending the arms race. The invention of dangerous weapons, such as hypersonic missiles, killer robots and deadly pathogens, along with the rise of nationalism and intolerance, has made the human civilization more vulnerable today it has ever been before. It might endure terrorist attacks, climate change and pandemics, but humankind cannot survive a global war involving (...) nuclear weapons. Most people live in denial of such an existential risk because they feel it is not imminent. For them, this book serves as a wake-up call. In A world without war, Waslekar moves from examining the roots of war to suggesting a global social contract for lasting peace. Drawing from his comprehensive research in politics, technology, phylosophy and history, he talks about the origins of war and weaponry, the dangers inherent in the introduction of new weapons and the chilling links between nationalism and war. He argues that war is a matter of choice and that peace is essential for human beings to realize their true potential"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This book examines how ideas of war and peace have organized frames of reference within the history of political theory. It argues for a political philosophy that takes both conditions seriously and for a style of political theory committed to questioning rather than closure.

The present epoch is a turning point in world history not only in the sense that a new, communist socio-economic system is coming into being and a new type of societal relationships among men is coming into being on a foundation of profound revolutionary changes, but also in the sense that mankind has come face to face with a global alternative touching upon the fate of all nations: either the progressive development of each people under peaceful conditions must be (...) assured, or an atomic catastrophe occurs that would threaten the achievements of civilization as a whole. Awareness of this circumstance has roused millions of people in all lands to struggle for peace. This same circumstance necessitates a scientific study of the problem of war and peace, with which the problem of the future of all mankind is now directly connected. (shrink)

Teacher, thinker, writer, and speaker, J. Krishnamurti (1985-1986) was an Indian educationist, spiritual leader, and a key figure in world philosophy. He raised significant questions about the state of the world, about our tendency to remain passive, conditioned and in a state of overwhelming confusion about how we relate to the world. Through talks and writings spread over many decades and geographical locations, he articulated an unconditioned, reflective approach which emphasized self-inquiry. This volume provides an understanding of Krishnamurti's views (...) on the human predicament in a disintegrating world, marked by conflict, divisions, wars, and climate change. It also examines his educational thought and its enormous potential for change. Krishnamurti argued that our minds are so conditioned that we are unable to look, listen or learn without our prior knowledge that foregrounds the role of memory and time. He highlighted the need to work with young children, with a special focus on the school as the centrepiece of his perception for psychological development and educational excellence. It is within an educational setting that Krishnamurti hoped that the seeds for individual and social change will be catalysed. An introspective look at the life and legacy of an eminent 20th century thinker, this volume will be of great interest to students and researchers of philosophy, education, religion and spirituality, South Asia studies, modern history, and the social sciences. (shrink)

Francesca Y. Albertini (1974‐2011) compares Maimonides’ idea of peace, as developed in MT Sefer shofetim (Book of Judges), with Kant’s work on the notion of “eternal peace” ( Zum ewigen Frieden ). Both authors develop a historical vision pointed against the use of force and war in light of a framework not limited by historical time (messianic age, eternity). Despite all differences in method and historical context, the authors agree on the notion that universal ethics provides the basis (...) of a determination of right grounded in the will. Maimonides’ universal messianism as well as Kant’s universal history emphasize the pivotal role and decisive responsibility of the human being in realizing, through reason, the reign of peace and prosperity on earth first envisioned by the biblical prophets. These utopias continue to challenge us, especially in this day and age. (shrink)

Critically engaging the work of Immanuel Kant, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida together with her own observations on contemporary politics, environmental degradation, and the pursuit of a just and sustainable world, Kelly Oliver lays the groundwork for a politics and ethics that embraces otherness without exploiting difference. Rooted firmly in human beings' relationship to the planet and to each other, Oliver shows peace is possible only if we maintain our ties to earth and world. Oliver begins with (...) Immanuel Kant and his vision of politics grounded on earth as a finite surface shared by humans. She then incorporates Hannah Arendt's belief in plural worlds constituted through human relationships; Martin Heidegger's warning that alienation from the Earth endangers not only politics but also the very essence of being human; and Jacques Derrida's meditations on the singular worlds individuals, human and otherwise, create and how they inform the reality we inhabit. Each of these theorists, Oliver argues, resists the easy idealism of world citizenship and globalism, yet they all think about the earth against the globe to advance a grounded ethics. They contribute to a philosophy that avoids globalization's totalizing and homogenizing impulses and instead help build a framework for living within and among the world's rich biodiversity. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is known to many people as a thinker of the right, who inspired hawkish views on national security and perhaps even advocated war without limits. Moving beyond gossip and innuendo about Strauss's followers and the Bush administration, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Strauss's writings on political violence, considering also what he taught in the classroom on this subject. In stark contrast to popular perception, Strauss emerges as a man of peace, favorably disposed to international (...) law and skeptical of imperialism - a critic of radical ideologies (right and left) who warns of the dangers to free thought and civil society when philosophers and intellectuals ally themselves with movements that advocate violence. Robert Howse provides new readings of Strauss's confrontation with fascist/Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, his debate with Alexandre Kojève about philosophy and tyranny, and his works on Machiavelli and Thucydides and examines Strauss's lectures on Kant's Perpetual Peace and Grotius's Rights of War and Peace. (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means” argues that the drive for self-esteem, achieved by gaining honor or standing, has been a root cause of violent conflict and war throughout history and that peace-making that does not take account of what the Greeks called thumos is bound to fail. Using an original data set of all wars since 1648 involving great or rising powers, the essay shows how wars associated with honor, standing, and (...) revenge, all expressions of thumos, far outnumber those caused by security or material concerns. At the same time, it is argued, diplomacy and the theory of international relations have turned increasingly toward belief that conflicts are resolved only by negotiation based on the rational consideration of material interests. The author concludes that conflict resolution needs to rethink its presumptions in comparison with those of Greco-Latin literature and philosophy. (shrink)

The history of philosophy is the history of entire knowledge, a definition made by Lenin.1 At the same time Lenin also pointed out that throughout the two thousand years of development of philosophy the struggle between idealism and materialism, between the lines or tendencies, has never come to a stalemate.2 Based on what Lenin had pointed out, Redanov [translation of the name in Chinese—Tr.] of the Soviet Union repudiated Alexandrov's definition of the history of (...) class='Hi'>philosophy. As a matter of fact, in defining it as the history of knowledge, Alexandrov also drew his idea from Lenin's definition. The history of philosophy is the history of knowledge and also the history of the struggle between materialism and idealism. The two definitions should complement rather than exclude each other. However, in applying them a deviation will emerge as if the use of the one would invariably violate the other. In writing The History of Philosophy of West Europe, Alexandrov applied the idea that the history of philosophy is the history of knowledge; however, he did ignore the struggle between materialism and idealism and described the progress of knowledge as a peaceful, quantitatively gradual advance. Therefore Redanov's criticism of him was not without reason. After liberation, we accepted Redanov's definition and applied it to the study of the history of Chinese philosophy. Thus we developed another deviation: We only saw philosophers of the two camps fight with each other in the history of philosophy and devoted all our energy to assigning the previous philosophers into different camps instead of focusing our attention on the complicated course of an upward spiral of the progress of man's knowledge so as to sum up the experience and lessons of such a spiral development and its regular pattern. Some people now suggest that we repudiate Redanov's idea and revive Lenin's definition. There are also people who fear the repudiation of Redanov's definition would mean a repetition of Alexandrov's mistake. We believe Lenin's definition is correct and complete. Either Redanov or Alexandrov saw only one aspect of the matter to the neglect of the other. To overcome the one-sided emphasis in our research work, we must acquire a comprehensive understanding of what Lenin had defined. (shrink)