Provides a philosophical analysis of such biological concepts as natural selection, adaptation, speciation, and evolution.

Two distinct attitudes have been adopted by investigators in the field of the sociology of knowledge. One of them may be called speculative; the other, empirical. The central interest of an investigator having the speculative attitude lies in developing a theory of the sociology of knowledge. The central interest of investigators having the empirical attitude lies in finding out or explaining concrete phenomena; the theory is employed, implicitly or explicity, for this purpose. The existence of the two attitudes may be (...) in part explained, as far as the German sociology of knowledge is concerned, by reference to the history of this school, which has grown out of and has been determined by a Marxist and materialistic philosophy, and especially by the use of this philosophy as a political instrument in the struggle of the emerging proletariat against the bourgeoisie. This statement, however, must be supplemented by a short location of the four most important contributors to the theory of the German sociology of knowledge. Max Scheler approaches the problem phenomenologically; he was the first and only one to ask the fundamental question, “What is knowledge?” Karl Mannheim, though markedly influenced by the Marxist viewpoint, particularly by Lukács, seems to me more adequately characterized by stressing his development from a more exclusively speculative to a more decidedly empirical attitude, which latter is especially evident in his most recent book, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction. Alexander von Schelting's main contribution is his thorough logical analysis of Mannheim's theory in the light of Max Weber's methodology. Ernst Grünwald has given the most complete survey of the forerunners, the history, and the various contributions of the sociology of knowledge. These four thinkers are indirectly dependent on the historically determined emphasis of the movement on ideology in that they remain on the level of a theoretical discussion without arriving at factual research. (shrink)

Drawing from literary history, social theory, and political critique, this far-reaching study explores the utopian narrative as a medium for understanding the social space of the modern nation-state. Considering the narrative utopia from its earliest manifestation in Thomas More's sixteenth-century work _Utopia _to some of the most influential utopias of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book is an astute study of a literary genre as well as a nuanced dialectical meditation on the history of utopian thinking as a (...) quintessential history of modernity. As he unravels the dialectics at work in the utopian narrative, Wegner gives an ambitious synthetic discussion of theories of modernity, considering and evaluating the ideas of writers such as Ernst Bloch, Louis Marin, Gilles Deleuze, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Henri Lefebvre, Paul de Man, Karl Mannheim, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jürgen Habermas, Slavoj Zizek, and Homi Bhabha. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In popular usage both ideology and utopia have negative, and somewhat similar, connotations. Utopia is thought to imply something naively idealistic and, as a result, impossible to achieve due to the constraints of the ‘real world’ or because ‘human nature’ will get in the way. Ideology is also thought to imply being out of touch with the ‘real world’ by being blinkered by a set of beliefs that distorts one’s understanding of that ‘real world’. This chapter examines the recent history (...) of the relationship between the two concepts by examining the way they are treated by their best known theorists, Ernst Bloch, Michael Freeden, Fredric Jameson, Ruth Levitas, Karl Mannheim, and Paul Ricoeur. The chapter argues that while they are closely related and one can become the other, they can also be separated because they reflect different ways of understanding the world. (shrink)

1.t. Die Sprache. --2.t. Das mythische Denken. --3.t. Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis.

Posings as such form part of hierarchic thinking and prevailing practices and are thus subsumed in negativity. Idle talk, seemingly dimming one's view, has been replaced by hallucination, dreams, and illusions. It is so very difficult to see through them and to realize that there is nothing there but them.

The Dual State, first published in 1941, remains one of the most erudite books on the legal origins of democracy and dictatorship. It provided the first comprehensive analysis of the rise and nature of National Socialism, and was the only such analysis written from within Hitler's Germany. Fraenkel's concept of the dual state, being the normative state and the the prerogative state. It retains its vital relevance for the theory of democracy in the twenty-first century. The Dual State considerably influenced (...) scholars studying and working on questions of political justice in the period following World War II, particularly in the context of political and legal theory; in the domain of legal history; in the area of constitutional theory; in the context of comparative politics; and in what has become known as the field of comparative constitutional law. This republication of Fraenkel's classic work makes it once again widely available to scholars and students in the field. It includes both Fraenkel's 1974 introduction to the German second edition, never before published in English, and a new introduction by Dr Jens Meierhenrich, examining the world in which The Dual State was originally published, and the lasting legacy of this classic work. (shrink)