The process of determining a topic for comparison or a tertium comparationis forms one of the most crucial steps in the disciplines of comparative religion (Religionswissenschaft) and comparative theology. Though the two disciplines have much in common in terms of their methodologies, they differ in terms of their ultimate goals. While comparative religion is oriented toward advancing the understanding of religion and religious phenomena, comparative theology aims at deepening and advancing religious truth. This affects the ways in which (...) each discipline addresses critical questions of idiosyncrasy and hegemony in selecting the tertium comparationis. (shrink)

Comparison is fundamental to the practice and subject-matter of philosophy, but has received scant attention by philosophers. This is even so in “comparative philosophy,” which literally distinguishes itself from other philosophy by being “comparative.” In this article, the need for a philosophy of comparison is suggested. What we compare with what, and in what respect it is done, poses a series of intriguing and intricate questions. In Part One, I offer a problematization of the tertium comparationis (the third (...) of comparison) by examining conceptualizations of similarity, family resemblance, and analogy, which it is sometimes argued can do without a tertium comparationis. In Part Two, I argue that a third of comparison is already required to determine what is to be compared, and insofar as that determination precedes the comparison that tertium may be called “pre-comparative.” This leads me to argue against incomparability and to show how anything can indeed be compared to anything. In Part Three, I relate my arguments to what is today commonly labelled “comparative philosophy.” Finally, I raise some questions of ontology and politics in order to demonstrate the relevance of a philosophy of comparison. (shrink)

Untersuchungsgegenstand ist ein systematischer Vergleich zwischen Marc Richirs Phänomenologie der Affectivität und Andrej Tarkowskijs Konzeption des Films als lebendiges Zeitbild, illustriert am Beispiel des Werks „Stalker“. Als tertium comparationis dient der Gedanke einer „archaischen“ oder „elementaren“ Affectivität. Eine solche philosophisch-ästhetische Reflexion eröffnet die Möglickkeit, den architektonischen Status klassische Ideen der Philosophie zu prüfen und umzugestalten. Beide Theoretiker behandeln den Gegensatz von Immanenz und Tranzendenz auf eine Weise, die metaphysische Grundstellung von Ich, Welt und Gott unterwandert und durch ein (...) Denken der Schwelle, der Transition oder Transposition ersetzen. Mithilfe Richirs lässt sich die Struktur der „Zone“ als hyperbolisches Phanomen lesen. Erst inmitten seiner Simulacren un Instabilitäten kommt die Humanität al Rätsel zur Erscheinung, d.h., als Selbstreflexivität eines sich bildenden Sinns. Diese Reflexivität phänomenalisiert sich, so die weitere These, diesseits der Unterscheidung von Denken und Fühlen. Der Aufsatz versucht einen Beitrag zur phänomenologischen Ästhetik zu liefern. Mittels Konstellationsanalyse werden in einer ersten Annäherung allgemein-architektonische Isomorphien und Kohärenzen beider Ansätze herausgestellt. (shrink)

The author subjected a hundred and fifteen comparisons included in Tadeusz Różewicz’s poems from the years 1945–1950 to an analysis. He was exploring the components of the comparison: tertium comparationis, comparandum, comparans; the grammatical functor and formal variants of the comparisons, thematical ranges. The author was also analyzing the question of the delimitation of that troop. Chosen conclusions: the most numerous are the developed comparisons with a frequent metaphor in their boundary – they are multifunction comparisons, ample semantically. (...) The author also introduced ideas of a closer and farther tertium comparationis. (shrink)

ABSTRACTConfucianism tends to play only a marginal role in current theorizing about justice, which is a global pursuit dominated by Western theory and its strong tendency to assume that justice refers to some substantive conception of distributive, socioeconomic justice. This article examines and compares reconstructions of Confucian justice by Joseph Chan, May Sim, and Fan Ruiping. Each reconstruction makes reference to both classical and modern Western justice theory and thus each involves a comparative approach; indeed, each reconstruction seeks ultimately, in (...) its own distinctive fashion, to present a version of Confucian justice that is comparable with modern Western justice theory. In this article we assess, critically and comparatively, the tertium comparationis and the arguments in each reconstruction. While our analysis does not wholly endorse any of the reconstructions, it shows that there is a richness and vitality to Confucian justice theory that merits proper consideration in justice theory co... (shrink)

Confucianism tends to play only a marginal role in current theorizing about justice, which is a global pursuit dominated by Western theory and its strong tendency to assume that justice refers to some substantive conception of distributive, socioeconomic justice. This article examines and compares reconstructions of Confucian justice by Joseph Chan, May Sim, and Fan Ruiping. Each reconstruction makes reference to both classical and modern Western justice theory and thus each involves a comparative approach; indeed, each reconstruction seeks ultimately, in (...) its own distinctive fashion, to present a version of Confucian justice that is comparable with modern Western justice theory. In this article we assess, critically and comparatively, the tertium comparationis and the arguments in each reconstruction. While our analysis does not wholly endorse any of the reconstructions, it shows that there is a richness and vitality to Confucian justice theory that merits proper consideration in justice theory conceived as a truly global and cosmopolitan discipline. (shrink)

The present paper is focused on the way Vayākaraṇas and Ālaṃkārikas analysed a specific kind of karmadhāraya compounds, taught in Aṣṭādhyāyī 2.1.56 and 72 and later associated with the upamā- and the rūpaka-figures respectively. On the basis of a fresh interpretation of the relevant grammatical sources, the authors try both to understand how the theorists involved them in their analysis and to reconstruct the several steps of the inquiries realized by the modern scholarship on this topic. Nonetheless their research is (...) targeted on the interpretation of these two Pāṇini rules and they conclude that these rules do not actually target similes and metaphorical identifications, but, on the one hand, A 2.1.55-56 deal with a functional pair of figurative compounds involving an upamāna and an upamita, i.e. a reference standard and something which is benchmarked, and, on the other, A 2.1.72 closes a series of karmadhāraya-rules, aimed at illustrating A 2.1.57. Furthermore, they exclude that Pāṇini in A 2.1.55-56 used the term sāmānya as a tertium comparationis, even though Patañjali had already advanced—but eventually rejected—this interpretation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.4 (1999) 3-18 [Access article in PDF] Grounds of Comparison Pheng Cheah Reflection is born of the comparison of ideas, and it is their variety that leads us to compare them. Whoever sees only a single object has no occasion to make comparisons. Whoever sees only a small number and always the same ones from childhood on still does not compare them, because the habit of seeing them (...) deprives him of the attention required to examine them: but as a new object strikes us, we want to know it, we look for relations between it and the objects we do know; this is how we learn to observe what we see before us, and how what is foreign to us leads us to examine what touches us.Apply these ideas to the first men, you will see the reason for their barbarism. Never having seen anything other than what was around them, they did not know even it; they did not know themselves. They had the idea of a Father, a son, a brother, but not of man. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essay on the Origin of LanguagesIn recent years, the comparative study of cultural formations has undergone critical reinvigoration. The quasi-exponential globalization of all aspects of human existence, which has brought territorially divided or geographically bounded units such as states, national economies, and cultures into an unprecedented and jarring proximity to one another, is, no doubt, an important material condition of possibility of this heightened interest in the cultural branch of comparative studies. For comparison is today no longer a matter of intentional choice. The gradual defamiliarization of our daily lives by globalizing processes has made comparison an inevitable and even unconscious perspective.Indeed, the grounds of comparison have changed. Comparative work is generally understood as a mode of analysis that begins from one given national or cultural case of a subject of legitimate interest, X, which is the basis for forming a provisional hypothesis or working idea about this subject that serves as the tertium comparationis. One then proceeds to examine a range of other cases of X. Discovered similarities confirm or amplify the various essential features of X that were initially posited, and recognized differences serve to modify our working idea about X. A ground of comparison is therefore both the empirical or objective basis from which comparison begins as well as the interest or principle of reason that motivates each particular activity of comparison.In the past, the grounds of comparison were undeniably Eurocentric. Not only was the material starting point of comparison always from Europe or the North Atlantic; comparison also had a teleological aim. Whether explicitly or implicitly, the interests of comparison in canonical texts such as Hegel's Aesthetics; his Lectures on the Philosophy of History; and Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion; or Max Weber's sociology of world religions served to affirm a certain idea of Europe as a world historical model. For Hegel and Weber, other cases merely provided the mise-en-scène for the appearance and Bildung of this idealized, universalized figure of Europe. Today, in the humanities [End Page 3] and interpretive social sciences, this old framework for comparison has been challenged by critiques of Eurocentrism and Orientalism, by postcolonial studies, and also from the more parochial perspective of multiculturalism. One can no longer nonchalantly or dogmatically start a comparative endeavor from Europe or the North Atlantic. But the problem goes deeper. Many theorists and some funding bodies, including the Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC) of the USA, have recently suggested that post-Cold War transnationalism has rendered obsolete the traditionally bounded areas of area studies. If this is so, the claim to begin from any area outside the North Atlantic has also become problematic. In other words, if comparison has always presupposed geographical or cultural areas that are a priori distinct and to be compared, how must the grounds of comparison be reenvisioned?The work of Benedict Anderson stands in an oblique relation to such recent trends in humanistic studies. Although Anderson is an area specialist, a Southeast Asianist trained in political studies, his... (shrink)

"An imposing edifice of thought. Every one of its twenty chapters will richly repay careful reading. Those passages dealing with ethics, love, the significance of knowledge, and the meaning of life are hard to surpass." - New York Evening Post The title of this book, Tertium Organum, boldly refers no less to a reorganization of all knowledge, but it is primarily a study of psychology, more specifically the psychology of our higher mind. For Ouspensky what we can call the (...) higher mind represents, within a single person, the development of an entirely new way of understanding. In short, psychology is the art of self-study. With remarkable scope and sophistication, Ouspensky shows us in this book, which has been hailed as "a work of genius," just how vast and strange our universe really is. P. D. [PETYR DEMIANOVICH] OUSPENSKY (1878-1947) was a Russian mathematician and philosopher turned mystic, who combined geometry and psychology in his discussion of higher dimensions of existence. After traveling through Europe and the East, seeking unsuccessfully the world's centers where ancient esoteric knowledge and wisdom are not only preserved, but taught to initiates, he returned to Russia where he met and studied under G.I. Gurdjieff. Ouspensky is today best known for his expositions of the early work of this famous Russian mystic. (shrink)

Tertium datur - on the conception of truth in Dutch 'Ethical Theology'In this article the 'third option' on the Dutch theological scene of a century ago is examined. The 'Ethical Theology', as this option is known, is explained on the basis of its characteristic conception of truth as something that cannot be encapsulated in propositions but which can be encountered. In this context the relationship between the Ethicals and their rivals on both the left and the right is discussed. (...) In conclusion, an evaluation is given of the achievement of the Ethical current and its accommodation of reason and faith in a single theory. (shrink)

Purpose: Tracing the historical roots of Mitterer's non-dualizing philosophy in Austrian philosophers who studied the relationship between object and language around 1900. Method: Discussing the epistemological relevance of the "tertium non datur" principle and disclosing the mutual influence of early language critics Mauthner, Stöhr, and Wahle, who also anticipated many of Wittgenstein's later insights. Findings: Mitterer's philosophy can be considered the endpoint of the Austrian tradition of language criticism. His non-dualizing approach is a methodological constructivism that does not comply (...) with "tertium non datur." Implications: Non-dualizing philosophy can also be applied to media theory. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan's arguments concerning qualia constitute an intermediate position between Dennett's “disqualification” of qualia and the thesis that qualia represent an insurmountable obstacle to constructive naturalism. This middle ground is potentially attractive, but it is shown to have serious problems. This is brought out via consideration of several classic areas of dispute connected with qualia, including the inverted spectrum, Frank Jackson's thought experiment, Hindsight, and epiphenomenalism. An attempt is made to formulate the basis for a less vulnerable variant on the (...) “middle ground”. (shrink)

This paper argues that in both Kant and Heidegger the relation between thought and the world is possible only by means of the transcendental mediation of time. Where is the difference, then, between Kant’s and Heidegger’s temporal ontology? Whereas for Kant the schema is a “product of the imagination”, and thus a product of a transcendental faculty of the subject, for Heidegger the three temporal ecstases of transcendence are simply a neutral, structural articulation of the relation between Dasein and world. (...) They are not a product of subjectivity – least of all can they be brought back to the transcendental constitution of a consciousness. (shrink)

The revised translation of the world famous Russian philosopher's work about attempting to understand man and his place in creation.

The books by Annie Ernaux and Didier Eribon can be interpreted as testimonies of the struggle for belonging. With their rich descriptions of growing up in poverty, of shame and degradation, they make an important contribution to the analysis of orders of belonging. Educational institutions play a significant role in this. In this way, Ernaux and Eribon shed light on the mechanisms through which belonging is created or denied.

Einleitung -- Quaestiones in tertium De anima : Text und Übersetzung -- Appendices. Testimonien zu Siger von Brabants Über den Intellekt und Über das Glück ; Antwort eines anonymen Averroisten an Thomas von Aquin.

Der Beitrag präsentiert wesentliche Bestandteile von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre mit einigen kritischen Bemerkungen. Als repräsentatives Beispiel seiner philosophischen Position, die zugleich die Grundlage seines wissenschaftlichen Systems bildet, stellt Fichte den Streit zwischen zwei möglichen philosophischen Systeme dar: dem Idealismus und dem Dogmatismus. In Auseinandersetzung mit dem Dogmatismus findet er die Begründung für die idealistische Position durch die Analyse von Begriffen und Phänomenen wie Erfahrung, Bewusstsein, Erkenntnis und schließlich Freiheit. Die Freiheit, verstanden als eine bewusste Entscheidung, nötigt den Philosophen zur Wahl einer (...) konkreten Form von Philosophie, weil sie davon abhängt, was für ein Mensch man ist. (shrink)

Der Beitrag präsentiert wesentliche Bestandteile von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre mit einigen kritischen Bemerkungen. Als repräsentatives Beispiel seiner philosophischen Position, die zugleich die Grundlage seines wissenschaftlichen Systems bildet, stellt Fichte den Streit zwischen zwei möglichen philosophischen Systeme dar: dem Idealismus und dem Dogmatismus. In Auseinandersetzung mit dem Dogmatismus findet er die Begründung für die idealistische Position durch die Analyse von Begriffen und Phänomenen wie Erfahrung, Bewusstsein, Erkenntnis und schließlich Freiheit. Die Freiheit, verstanden als eine bewusste Entscheidung, nötigt den Philosophen zur Wahl einer (...) konkreten Form von Philosophie, weil sie davon abhängt, was für ein Mensch man ist. (shrink)

Der Beitrag präsentiert wesentliche Bestandteile von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre mit einigen kritischen Bemerkungen. Als repräsentatives Beispiel seiner philosophischen Position, die zugleich die Grundlage seines wissenschaftlichen Systems bildet, stellt Fichte den Streit zwischen zwei möglichen philosophischen Systeme dar: dem Idealismus und dem Dogmatismus. In Auseinandersetzung mit dem Dogmatismus findet er die Begründung für die idealistische Position durch die Analyse von Begriffen und Phänomenen wie Erfahrung, Bewusstsein, Erkenntnis und schließlich Freiheit. Die Freiheit, verstanden als eine bewusste Entscheidung, nötigt den Philosophen zur Wahl einer (...) konkreten Form von Philosophie, weil sie davon abhängt, was für ein Mensch man ist. (shrink)

Resumo: Martin Heidegger desenvolveu uma análise da metafísica e da tecnologia que questionava radicalmente seus pressupostos ontológicos. Contudo, para Peter Sloterdijk, autor de uma revisão do motivo da clareira heideggeriana intitulada Domesticação do ser: clarificando a clareira, Heidegger padece daquilo mesmo que ele critica: uma pendência para a ontologia clássica que, desde pelo menos Platão e Aristóteles, separa o ser e o nada, basila o princípio de bivalência na lógica, excluindo qualquer terceira possibilidade, e permite os dualismos constitutivos da metafísica. (...) Seguindo o antropólogo Bruno Latour, o qual evidenciara que “modernidade” não é senão uma crença na cisão entre os polos de forma e matéria, sujeito e objeto, natureza e cultura, também Sloterdijk vai atribuir a Heidegger a pendência à ontologia clássica, elevada ao nível da cisão entre o ôntico e o ontológico. Diante disso, o que sugere Sloterdijk? Uma alternativa à ontologia clássica na cibernética de Wiener e Günther, reatando os laços, desfeitos por Heidegger, entre ontologia e antropologia. Este trabalho tem por intenção articular a crítica de Sloterdijk, a investigação de Latour e a revisão ontológicológica de Günther, a fim de assentar bases para compreensão do projeto sloterdijkiano de se pensar a antropologia a partir de pressupostos cibernéticos.: Martin Heidegger developed an analysis of metaphysics and technology that questioned its ontological presupositions. However, Peter Sloterdijk, author of a revision of the Heideggerian clearing, under the title of Domestication of being: clarifying the clearing, argues that Heidegger suffers from the same illness he criticizes: an abeyance relative to classical ontology, which, after Plato and Aristotle, separated Being and Nothingness, grounded the logical bivalence, excluding any third possibility, and allowing for the metaphysical dualisms. Following the anthropologist Bruno Latour, who has showed that “Modernity” is a belief in the split between the poles of form and matter, of subject and object, of nature and culture, Sloterdijk also assigns to Heidegger the dependence on classical ontology on the level of the split between ontological and ontic. In this respect, what does Sloterdijk suggest? An alternative to classical ontology in the cybernetics of Wiener and Günther, in order to reattach the links broken by Heidegger between ontology and anthropology. This work aims to articulate Sloterdijk’s critique, Latour’s enquiry and Günther’s ontological-logical revision, in order to open field for an understanding on the Sloterdijkian project of thinking anthropology from cybernetical hypotheses. (shrink)

This volume is the fifth and final volume in the Blessed John Duns Scotus Opera philosophica series. It offers readers Scotus' questions on Aristotle's De anima wherein he focuses his attention upon the faculties of sensation, the nature of the intellect, the role of the intelligible species in cognition, and the formal object of the intellect.

There is a consensus on war: violent conflicts are out. But they continue to happen. One likes to exclude violent conflicts and to avoid them. But they could happen. Avoidance of wars appears not be sufficient. International relations presuppose an international anarchy. Anarchy does not exclude wars, but reduces them to exceptions. The present essay attempts to argue in favour of a categorical exclusion of violent conflicts which easily could destroy vital conditions of human survival.

This paper investigates the question of, and the degree to which, Newton’s theory of space constitutes a third-way between the traditional substantivalist and relationist ontologies, i.e., that Newton judged that space is neither a type of substance/entity nor purely a relation among such substances. A non-substantivalist reading of Newton has been famously defended by Howard Stein, among others; but, as will be demonstrated, these claims are problematic on various grounds, especially as regards Newton’s alleged rejection of the traditional substance/accident dichotomy (...) concerning space. Nevertheless, our analysis of the metaphysical foundations of Newton’s spatial theory will strive to uncover its unique and innovative characteristics, most notably, the distinctive role that Newton’s “immaterialist” spatial ontology plays in his dynamics. (shrink)

Focusing on examples related to the concept of scripture, I highlight certain moments of indecisiveness in the context of larger processes of possible conceptual change. In these moments, agents involved in the process frequently employ language that in one way or another expresses a conceptual _tertium datur._ This article sets out to distinguish some of those ways, such as analogy, assertions of resemblance, quasi-status or partial scripturality, oxymoronic adjectival qualification, and exclusivity by selection. The examples draw on four cases, the (...) publication of the Sacred Books of the East series, Petrus Venerabilis's discussion of the Koran, a taxonomy by al-Shahrastānī with regard to the “People of the Book”, and the canonization of the Five Classics in ancient China. Finally, I issue a rallying cry for an entangled and transnational conceptual history. Such an approach is likely to foreground interlingual situations where conceptual indecisiveness is the rule rather than the exception. (shrink)

The article examines the use of texts by Church Fathers in esoteric constructions, specifically Tertium Organum, an early work of P. D. Ouspensky created in 1911 before his acquaintance with George I. Gurdjieff. The author analyzes fragments from The Philokalia, the well-known collection of texts by Orthodox ascetic writers of the Middle Ages. Despite the difference between the esoteric system developed by Ouspensky and the Orthodox tradition, the esotericist considers it possible to use the texts of this tradition to (...) illustrate and confirm his own constructions. To do this, Ouspensky uses a special strategy of interpretation, which consists of the following: (1) selecting fragments of the interpreted text closest to his own constructions; and (2) rethinking the selected fragments within the framework of these constructions. As a result, the identity of various religious and philosophical traditions becomes vivid; these traditions turn out to be, to one degree or another, imperfect expressions of the doctrine being represented perfectly only in the esotericist’s own work. This strategy leads to the formation of doubles of interpreted texts and, more broadly, doubles of religious traditions to which the texts being interpreted belong. (shrink)

Review of Kuzminski, A. (2021). Pyrrhonian Buddhism: A Philosophical Reconstruction. London & New York: Routledge.

The debate over the civilian use of nuclear power is highly polarised. We argue that a reasonable response to this deep disagreement is to maintain that advocates of both camps should modify their positions. According to the analysis we propose, nuclear power is neither entirely right nor entirely wrong, but rather right and wrong to some degree. We are aware that this non-binary analysis of nuclear power is controversial from a theoretical point of view. Utilitarians, Kantians, and other moral theorists (...) make sharp, binary distinctions between right and wrong acts. However, an important argument speaking in favour of our non-binary analysis is that it better reflects our considered intuitions about the ethical trade-offs we face in discussions of nuclear power. The aim of this article is to make this argument sharp by explaining how it can be rendered compatible with, and supported by, the Capability Approach, which is quickly becoming one of the most influential frameworks for thinking about human development. (shrink)

This edition contains quaestiones 1-5 of book III of the commentary on the Sentences, by Marsilius of Inghen (†1396), the founding rector and first doctor of theology of the University of Heidelberg. These questions are devoted to the Christology, Mariology, and Trinitology, and deal with the issue of the Incarnation of Christ, with quaestiones 1-3 considering it in relation to the individual Persons of the Trinity, and quaestiones 4-5 in relation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In all questions, Marsilius advocates (...) the _via media_ of sound faith, even above any school traditions. (shrink)

Die vorliegenden Untersuchungen haben sich aus solchen entwickelt, die ich an andrer Stelle früher veröffentlichte. Die Kenntnis dieser früheren Arbeit wird in keiner Weise hier vorausgesetzt und ist für das folgende unwesentlich. Es sei mir jedoch gestattet, für den Kenner der früheren Arbeit einige Bemerkungen voraufzuschicken. In der genannten Arbeit hatte ich, angeregt ursprünglich durch Gedankengänge von Herrn Behmann, ein typenfreies System der Logik aufgebaut, das allein auf dem Gedanken fußte, daß der Definitionsbereich der Prädikate im allgemeinen beschränkt ist, sodaß (...) nur bestimmte Zusammenstellungen von Prädikaten und Dingen sinnvolle, d.h. wahre oder falsche Aussagen ergeben, und das diesen Gesichtspunkt meiner Meinung nach konsequent durchführte. Eine anschließende Arbeit sollte dann die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Systems untersuchen. Diese Untersuchung ist inzwischen geschehen. Es zeigte sich, daß sich die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Systems nur dann beweisen ließ, falls die in ihm enthaltene Vollständigkeit von → die sich durch das Bestehen eines Deduktionstheorems zeigte, fallen gelassen wurde. Die Grundformeln (13) und (14) mußten wegbleiben. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des restlichen Systems ließ sich dann durch eine dem System eigentümliche Methode der Beweistransformation zeigen.Diese anschließienden Untersuchungen, die ihrer Zeit nicht mehr veröffentlicht werden konnten, sind inzwischen durch die vorliegenden überholt. Es war das Unbefriedigende bei dem genannten Aufbau, daß hinterher doch wieder eine Einschränkung gemacht werden mußte, die sich nicht aus den zugrunde gelegten Prinzipien ergab, sondern von ihnen aus unvorhergesehen war. Diese Einschränkung bewirkte übrigens, daß keine volle Zahlentheorie in dem System zu gewinnen war. (shrink)