This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections (...) in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. (shrink)

The so‐called “Kierkegaard Renaissance,” which took place in Germany during the interwar period, was not merely the province of figures such as Karl Barth and Martin Heidegger. A number of Catholic thinkers were involved as well. Indeed, after the well‐known Kierkegaard scholar Theodor Haecker converted to Catholicism in 1921, Kierkegaard's thought became a popular topic among the group of Catholic intellectuals known as the Hochland Circle, which included the priest and author Romano Guardini. Such interest, in turn, prompted (...) French theologian Yves Congar to explore the use of Kierkegaard for the renewal of the modern church. Moreover, a trio of notable Jesuit thinkers also entered the discussion: Erich Przywara, Henri de Lubac, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. In short, as this chapter will demonstrate, Kierkegaard inspired and provoked Catholic thinkers in a variety of areas, from theological anthropology and Christology to ecclesiology and the question of modernity. (shrink)

Here, for the first time, Christopher Kul-Want brings together twenty-five texts on art written by twenty philosophers. Covering the Enlightenment to postmodernism, these essays draw on Continental philosophy and aesthetics, the Marxist intellectual tradition, and psychoanalytic theory, and each is accompanied by an overview and interpretation. The volume features Martin Heidegger on Van Gogh's shoes and the meaning of the Greek temple; Georges Bataille on Salvador Dal’'s The Lugubrious Game; Theodor W. Adorno on capitalism and collage; Walter Benjamin and (...) Roland Barthes on the uncanny nature of photography; Sigmund Freud on Leonardo Da Vinci and his interpreters; Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva on the paintings of Holbein; Freud's postmodern critic, Gilles Deleuze on the visceral paintings of Francis Bacon; and Giorgio Agamben on the twin traditions of the Duchampian ready-made and Pop Art. Kul-Want elucidates these texts with essays on aesthetics, from Hegel and Nietzsche to Badiou and Rancire, demonstrating how philosophy adopted a new orientation toward aesthetic experience and subjectivity in the wake of Kant's powerful legacy. (shrink)

A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece.

This book is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture - Adorno's finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights ...

These seventeen lectures given in 1963 focus largely on Kant, 'a thinker in whose work the question of morality is most sharply contrasted with other spheres of existence'. After discussing a number of the Kantian categories of moral philosophy, Adorno considers other, seemingly more immediate general problems, such as the nature of moral norms, the good life, and the relation of relativism and nihilism. In the course of the lectures, Adorno addresses a wide range of topics, including: theory and practice, (...) ethics as bad conscience, the repressive character, the problem of freedom, dialectics in Kant and Hegel, the nature of reason, the moral law as a given, psychoanalysis, the element of the Absurd, freedom and law, the Protestant tradition of morality, Hamlet, self-determination, phenomenology, the concept of the will, the idea of humanity, The Wild Duck, and Nietzsche's critique of morality. (shrink)

For Descartes, consciousness is closely connected to the intellective perception of thought. This paper argues that the prevalent interpretations of Descartes's account of consciousness in terms of higher-order perception and self-representation fail. These interpretations mistakenly assume that Cartesian consciousness possesses the same theoretical structure in all cases. It is shown by a close analysis of relevant passages that for Descartes the consciousness of perceptions and the consciousness of volitions have different theoretical structures. From this analysis a more adequate picture of (...) Cartesian consciousness is developed and, finally, compared with a recent reconstruction provided by Vili Lähteenmäki. (shrink)

The eminent critic and scholar analyzes a wide range of topics, including Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, jazz, the music of Bach, and museums.

Written after his return to Germany in 1949, the articles, essays, and radio talks included in this volume speak to the pressing political, cultural, and ...

"Early in the 1960s Adorno gave four courses of lectures on the road leading to Negative Dialectics, his magnum opus of 1966. The second of these was concerned with the topics of history and freedom. In terms of content, these lectures represented an early version of the chapters in Negative Dialectics devoted to Kant and Hegel. In formal terms, these were improvised lectures that permit us to glimpse a philosophical work in progress." -- Cover, p. [4].

The aim of the paper is to illuminate some core aspects of Leibniz’s conception of judgement and its place in his conception of the mind. In particular, the paper argues for three claims: First, the act of judgement is at the centre of Leibniz’s conception of the mind in that minds strive at actualising innate knowledge concerning derivative truths, where the actualising involves an act of judgement. Second, Leibniz does not hold a judgement account of predication, but a two-component account (...) that distinguishes between predication and alethic evaluation. Third, Leibniz understands the act of affirmative judgement in terms of establishing active dispositions, i.e. strivings, to make reasons available for future reasoning that aims at answering whether-questions. Correspondingly, he understands the act of negative judgement in terms of establishing dispositions to ban propositions from future reasoning that aims at answering whether-questions. In the final analysis, the acts of affirmative as well as of negative judgement turn out to be acts of changing memory dispositions. (shrink)

This volume makes available in English for the first time Adorno’s lectures on metaphysics. It provides a unique introduction not only to metaphysics but also to Adorno’s own intellectual standpoint, as developed in his major work Negative Dialectics. Metaphysics for Adorno is defined by a central tension between concepts and immediate facts. Adorno traces this dualism back to Aristotle, whom he sees as the founder of metaphysics. In Aristotle it appears as an unresolved tension between form and matter. This basic (...) split, in Adorno’s interpretation, runs right through the history of metaphysics. Perhaps not surprisingly, Adorno finds this tension resolved in the Hegelian dialectic. Underlying this dualism is a further dichotomy, which Adorno sees as essential to metaphysics: while it dissolves belief in transcendental worlds by thought, at the same time it seeks to rescue belief in a reality beyond the empirical, again by thought. It is to this profound ambiguity, for Adorno, that the metaphysical tradition owes its greatness. The major part of these lectures, given by Adorno late in his life, is devoted to a critical exposition of Aristotle’s thought, focusing on its central ambiguities. In the last lectures, Adorno’s attention switches to the question of the relevance of metaphysics today, particularly after the Holocaust. He finds in metaphysical experiences, which transcend rational discourse without lapsing into irrationalism, a last precarious refuge of the humane truth to which his own thought always aspired. This volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in Adorno’s work and will be a valuable text for students and scholars of philosophy and social theory. (shrink)

Introduction to Sociology distills decades of distinguished work in sociology by one of this century’s most influential thinkers in the areas of social theory ...

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 3 Seiten: 515-525.

This is one of Barth's most important works - far more important than may appear at first sight.... Here we have not merely one great theologian taking the measure of another. That in itself would be interesting enough. But in addition to that we are here shown one great theologian clarifying and crystallizing, in conversation with another, his own ideas as to the nature of theology and of the theologian's task. Scottish Journal of Theology.

The main objectives of the bibliography are to incorporate women's publications into the main body of philosophical thought, to increase the visibility and use of publications created by women, and to indicate the variety of approaches, concepts, and theories embodied in these works. Women Philosophers brings together women's works, ideas, and theories from all branches of philosophy and compiles them into a comprehensive bibliography. More than 2,800 monographs, series, and volumes written or edited by women are listed. An author index (...) with more than 1,900 names is also included. (shrink)

This short article aims to strengthen Hume's case against the rationality of believing in religious miracles by incorporating certain lessons borrowed from the growing literature on the history and psychology of magic tricks.

Aristotelian metaphysics is a change in the form of metaphysics, which seems to be extraneous to it but in reality co‐determines it in the most intimate way. Descartes’ Meditations are intellectual exercises that extend over six days. On almost every new day, a reference is made to the results or intermediary results of the previous day, or the spiritual experiences of the last days. This division into days, as well as the physical back‐references, mentioned in the First Meditation and repeated (...) in the Third, the repetitions, the monologue form, and other elements, point to the fact that Descartes’ Meditations must be understood within the tradition of philosophy in the sense of spiritual exercises. The knowledge of God must be considered as the highest stage of freedom. Descartes himself described the true path to the truth as the path a facilioribus ad difficiliora [from easier to more difficult things]. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to show that we can extract an elaborate account of phe- nomenal consciousness from Leibniz’s (1646-1716) writings. Against a prevalent view, which attributes a higher-order reflection account of phenomenal consciousness to Leibniz, it is argued that we should understand Leibniz as holding a first-order concep- tion of it. In this conception, the consciousness aspect of phenomenal consciousness is explained in terms of a specific type of attention. This type of attention, in turn, is (...) accounted for in terms of cognitive appetites aiming at knowledge about a repre- sented object by means of initiating cognitive operations on representational content. Furthermore, against the view that Leibniz holds a reifying account, it is argued that Leibniz accepts an epistemic account of phenomenal character. According to this view, the phenomenal character of phenomenally conscious states rests on the con- fusing effect of imperfect acts of attention directed towards representational contents. Holding this view, Leibniz finds fruitful middle ground between contemporary stan- dard positions like higher-order theories, representationalist conceptions, and qualia accounts of phenomenal consciousness. His position possesses resources to meet sev- eral objections these standard accounts are confronted with. (shrink)

Estruturalmente, este volume está composto por três textos de diferentes tamanhos - a tese de habilitação ao ensino superior na Universidade de Frankfurt am Main, elaborada nos anos 29 e 30, depois retrabalhada e publicada no início de 1933, com sete capítulos, com os parágrafos longos que caracterizam o estilo predominante de Adorno, numa análise globalizante da obra do pensador de Copenhague, e em seguida dois anexos; um de 1940, composto como conferência para teólogos e filósofos do círculo americano de (...) Paul Tillich, e outro já da última década de vida de Adorno, a partir de um discurso comemorativo ao sesquicentenário do nascimento de Kierkegaard. (shrink)