Is helping those whose subsistence needs are not meet a matter of charity or an obligation? What role should ordinary citizens of developed nations play? In a globalized world, the causes, connections, and responsibilities become complicated. Agriculture subsidies that keep food prices low for many in relatively rich countries may, for example, negatively impact poor farmers in developing countries. Students in Ethics/Philosophy 352 report on their project examining whether, and to what extent, a true obligation to aid exists.

This major study of Heidegger is the first to examine in detail the concept of existential truth that he developed in the 1920s. Daniel O. Dahlstrom critically examines the genesis, nature and validity of Heidegger's radical attempt to rethink truth as the disclosure of time, a disclosure allegedly more basic than truths formulated in scientific judgements. The book has several distinctive and innovative features. First, it is the only study that attempts to understand the logical dimension of Heidegger's thought (...) in its historical context. Second, no other book-length treatment explores the breadth and depth of Heidegger's confrontation with Husserl, his erstwhile mentor. Third, the book demonstrates that Heidegger's deconstruction of Western thinking occurs on three interconnected fronts: truth, being and time. Dealing with a crucial aspect of the philosophy of one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, this book will be important to all scholars and students of Heidegger, whether in philosophy, theology or literary studies. (shrink)

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross had a brief intersection with the nascent and emerging field and practice of Clinical Ethics in the 1970s. She fertilized and influenced the field in distinctive ways, some mo...

The process of constructing a social reality where “difference” becomes a social asset rather than a monster that threatens peace and progress must commence with a phenomenological understanding of social interactions within and among human societies. In my opinion, Hegel, more than any other thinker, has constructed a phenomenological framework that adequately captures and represents the nature of group interactions within human societies. This paper explores the Hegelian phenomenon of social identity, and, especially, characterizes the interactions between and among various (...) social identities. It is a modest effort to contribute theoretically to the available discourse on the management of “difference” in multi-ethnic societies. (shrink)

Another possible source of this neglect in the United States is the work of Mark Okrent. In Heidegger's Pragmatism Okrent does, indeed, take seriously the importance of the account of temporality for the project of Sein und Zeit, as originally conceived by Heidegger. However, like Dreyfus, Okrent is so taken by the pragmatic character of the analyses in Division I that he ignores Heidegger's analysis of authentic existence and thereby any bearing that this analysis might have on the account of (...) temporality; in addition, he eschews Heidegger's extensive talk of "'ecstases' of temporality and their 'horizonal schemata'" as inappropriate, picture-thinking holdovers from Husserl. Perhaps even more significant for contemporary assessments of Heidegger's account of temporality as the meaning of 'to be' is Okrent's contention that the account is basically aporetic. Okrent fails to find in Sein und Zeit "the conceptual resources" for distinguishing between "'presence' in the sense of presentability and presence as the ground of presentability." As a result, he concludes, Heidegger's argument is transcendental and thus verificationist, implying a kind of metaphysical pragmatism, ultimately distasteful to Heidegger and a prime source of the Kehre. (shrink)

In North America, across the political spectrum, we have a strong tendency to reduce religion to nothing more than a tool to promote our own socio-political views. This is a natural consequence of our hyper-polarized culture and our impoverished view of “religion.” It is also, however, a problem—particularly for those inspired by the call to renewal through an integration of the quest for social justice and the pursuit of the spiritual life. By focusing on the value of participating in religious (...) liturgy, I show how a renewed respect for religion can help the proponents of social justice fulfil some of the foundational desires of the original movement and, thereby, to bring to fruition some of its dormant promise. This includes, in particular, the desire for social harmony and the desire to pay greater attention to our concrete reality. (shrink)

En Hugo de San Víctor, el amor es la raíz y el motivo fundamental del autoconocimiento. Con el conocimiento de sí no sólo procura el alma conocer lo que es, sino también y principalmente amar más. La confluencia del conocimiento y el amor expresan la estructura de la interioridad. Esta urdimbre interior es la que permite que las almas se eleven a las alturas de la mística. Sin autoconocimiento no sería posible recibir los dones del Espíritu Santo ni la contemplación (...) mística. (shrink)

Mental health facilities and practitioners commonly permit researchers to have direct access to patients' records for the purposes of archival research without the informed consent of patient-participants. Typically these researchers have access to all information in such records as long as they agree to maintain confidentiality and remove any identifying data from subsequent research reports. Changes in the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles (American Psychological Association, 1992) raise ethical and legal issues that require consideration by practitioners, researchers, and facility Institutional (...) Review Boards. This article addresses these issues and provides recommendations for changes in ethical standards as well as alternative avenues for conducting research using archival mental health records. (shrink)

Based on the Fifty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, held at the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, April 3-5, 1981. Includes bibliographical references.

This volume of essays by internationally prominent scholars interprets the full range of Heidegger's thought and major critical interpretations of it. It explores such central themes as hermeneutics, facticity and Ereignis, conscience in Being and Time, freedom in the writings of his period of transition from fundamental ontology, and his mature criticisms of metaphysics and ontotheology. The volume also examines Heidegger's interpretations of other authors, the philosophers Aristotle, Kant and Nietzsche and the poets Rilke, Trakl and George. A final group (...) of essays interprets the critical reception of Heidegger's thought, both in the analytic tradition and in France. This rich and wide-ranging collection will appeal to all who are interested in the themes, the development and the context of Heidegger's philosophical thought. (shrink)

Over a hundred scholars from as far away as Tokyo, New York, and Buenos Aires, participated in the twentieth congress of the Internationale Hegel-Gesellschaft held in Debrecen and Budapest, Hungary, from August 24 to August 28, 1994, on the theme: Vernunft in der Geschichte? Among those addressing the Debrecen portion of the congress were Agnes Heller, Manfred Riedel, Shlomo Avineri, Walter Jaeschke, and Ludwig Siep. Howard Kainz of Marquette University also gave a well received paper in Debrecen on “Hegel’s Philosophy (...) of History and Providence.”. (shrink)

BOOK REVIEWS 473 Chapter 4 concerns Peirce's "pragmatic metaphysics" and is the culmination of the development of Rosenthal's pluralism thesis. Together with the observation that the categories are categories of process, and through a close examination of the category of Firstness, she emphasizes the importance of sense-qualities that are inseparable from negative and positive possibilities Cmay-bes" and "would-bes") and their relevance to the controversies over whether Peirce is a realist, an idealist, or a phenomenalist. She says that Peirce did not (...) see that the language he had available from the tradition was not adequate; thus, he proposed that objective idealism is the best answer to the question of whether the universe is mind or matter, even though he in fact repudiated objective idealism. In considering Peirce's cosmology, Rosenthal draws on Peirce's discussions of the law of mind, considering the ineradicable place of spontaneity in the emergence of new intelligibility or the evolution of laws. She concludes with a reiteration of the point that although knowledge involves convergence, convergences are always within a common world that inquirers partially but continually remake. Rosenthal's book is far too rich to do it justice in this short space. It challenges the reader to see why Peirce's thought is particularly relevant to contemporary debates, not only over how to interpret Peirce but, more importantly, about how his philosophy may help.. (shrink)

Mendelssohn's Philosophical Writings, published in 1761, bring the metaphysical tradition to bear on the topic of 'sentiments'. Mendelssohn offers a nuanced defence of Leibniz's theodicy and conception of freedom, an examination of the ethics of suicide, an account of the 'mixed sentiments' so central to the tragic genre, a hypothesis about weakness of will, an elaboration of the main principles and types of art, a definition of sublimity and analysis of its basic forms, and, lastly, a brief tract on probability (...) theory, aimed at rebutting Hume's scepticism. This volume also includes the essay 'On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences', selected in 1763 by the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences over all other submitted essays, including one by Kant, as the best answer to the question of whether metaphysical sciences are capable of the same sort and degree of evidence as mathematics. (shrink)

The essays trace carefully the histories of the influences of earlier thinkers and their legacies upon later thinkers.

Elaborates and defends an account of the experience of self-identity that underwrites the possibility of authenticity (being true to oneself), only accessible with humility.

This meeting of the Hegel-Gesellschaft featured forty-six papers, including those presented during the two plenary sessions, covering a wide range of topics within the theme of the congress. The congress was ably administered and hosted by Dr. Wolfgang Sünkel at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Nürnberg. As usual, the congress was heavily represented by scholars from Eastern Europe and by scholars working at the Hegel-Archiv in Bochum. The contingent from the United States included Howard Kainz, Thomas Rockmore, Lawrence Stepelevich and (...) myself. (shrink)

In 1929, after rejecting the suggestion that contemporary Christians may be expected to feel "threatened" by Kierkegaard's criticisms, the Protestant theologian Gerhardt Kuhlmann remarks.

For much of contemporary ethical theory, the universalizability of the motive of a contemplated action forms a necessary part of the basis of the action’s moral character, legitimacy, or worth. Considering the possibility of resentment springing from the performance of an action also serves as a means of determining the morality of an action. However, considerations of universalizability and resentment are plainly inconsistent with the performance of some unselfish moral actions. I argue that the sphere of the moral adequacy of (...) considerations of universalizability and resentment is limited. I profile key elements of “conformist” or “consensus-driven” ethical thinking modelled on Nagel’s ethical theory. Then, I elaborate the measure of validity of the profiled ethical thinking as well as its limitation, suggesting that its proper domain is located in an ethics of honor, delimited by an ethics of love and friendship. (shrink)

This paper addresses puzzling issues concerning the ontological status of dispositions. Following review of debates about a traditional conditional analysis as well as Lewis’s “reformed conditional analysis” of dispositions, the paper analyzes attempts to solve the problem of what makes the relevant conditional true. Reasons are presented for rejecting attempts to locate the relevant truth-maker in a causal basis that allegedly dispenses with dispositions or in properties that are universally dispositional. In this way the paper argues that neither “eliminativism” nor (...) “pandispositionalism” provides a successful account of dispositions’ ontological status, and that ontology must find a way to countenance the reality of both dispositional and non-dispositional properties. (shrink)

In lectures and writings during the 1920s, Heidegger appropriates what he takes to be the basic insights expressed in Parmenides’ Poem, even as he criticizes other decisive and fateful aspects of it. He gives his most ample, early account of major parts of Parmenides’ Poem in 1922 lectures on Aristotle. The aim of this study is to review Heidegger’s account in those lectures, with a view to showing how Heidegger’s reading of Parmenides contributes to thinking that culminates in the project (...) of fundamental ontology. To this end, following the detailed review of that account, the article addresses the significance of Heidegger’s references to Parmenides in Sein und Zeit. (shrink)

This paper elaborates four asymmetrical, developmental stages of the phenomenon of human freedom, starting with a rudimentary sort of freedom, thebasic experience of a relatively unencumbered power to act in alternative ways. The paper argues that structural elements of this rudimentary form of freedomare demonstrable in three distinct, supervening forms of freedom: instrumental freedom, the experience of the self-reflective ability to pursue certain aims, perfectionist freedom, the experience of the capacity to master oneself according to some ideal, and, finally, interpersonal (...) freedom, the experience of empowerment and alternatives only available through commitments to others. (shrink)

Proceedings of the Fifty-sixth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, held in Houston, Tex., Apr. 16-18, 1982. Includes bibliographical references.

There is a class of fictionalist strategies (the reflexive fictionalisms) which appear to suffer from a common problem: the problem that the entities which are supposedly fictional turn out, by the lights of the fictionalist theory itself, to exist. The appropriate solution is to reject so-called strong fictionalism in each case: that is, to reject the variety of fictionalism which takes appeal to the domain of fictional entities to provide an explanation or analysis of the operators or predicates with which (...) the objects are systematically correlated. (shrink)

A concise and accessible dictionary of the key terms used in Heidegger's philosophy, his major works and philosophical influences.