While the story of Stanislav Petrov – the Soviet Lieutenant Colonel who likely saved the world from nuclear holocaust in 1983 – is often trotted out to advocate for the view that human beings ought to be kept “in the loop” of automated weapons’ responses, I argue that the episode in fact belies this reading. By attending more closely to the features of this event – to Petrov’s professional background, to his familiarity with the warning system, and to his decisions (...) to defy his protocol – it becomes clear that Petrov was not seamlessly working “in his loop,” but reassessing it entirely. I claim that this exhibits a paradox intrinsic to all automated loops: namely, that their optimum function in fact rests on unforeseen human interventions that cannot be reliably codified ex ante, that is, that good judgment cannot simply be “programmed into” their protocols. This dependence, moreover, reveals automation’s ineluctable need for virtue ethics – not in the usual sense (whereby ethics deliberates about, say, possible damages and loss of life), but in the sense that ethical judgment, rightly understood, entails the reassessment of all of the conditions surrounding a decision, including whether a protocol should be followed at all. (shrink)

Stephen Mulhall has distinguished himself as one of the most rigorous and constructive contemporary thinkers on European philosophy and its complicated relationship to Christian theology. A prominent locus of that relationship in his work is the Christian doctrine of original sin, and its criticism but also structural recapitulation in the work of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and others. This article begins with an overview of relevant themes and their development in Mulhall's writings. I then offer an account of the (...) internal tensions Mulhall identifies in Heidegger et al's ambivalent contestation of original sin, and of his own response. The centre of this response is a reconfiguration of the character of the divine, and of human participation in that divine, as radical self-abnegation. I conclude with an appreciative critique of Mulhall's proposal as insufficiently responsive to the eschatological framework within which original sin has its doctrinal and ontological place in Thomist thought. (shrink)

This article reviews Hamid Dabashi’s “Can Non-Europeans Think?”. It attempts to show that while Dabashi offers a powerful analysis of Iranian and Middle Eastern politics, his arguments turn to be unpersuasive when he aims to radically criticize European philosophy and enlightenment thought.

An Introduction to Modern European Philosophy , contains scholarly but accessible essays by nine British academics on Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maritain, Hannah Arendt, Habermas, Foucault, and the 'Events' of 1968. Written for English-speaking readers, it describes the varied traditions within 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy, reflecting the dynamism and plurality within the European tradition and presenting opposing points of view. It deals with both French and German philosophers, (...) plus Kierkegaard, and is not confined to any one school of thought. It has been purged of jargon but contains a glossary of important technical terms. There is a bibliography of further reading and website information at the end of each chapter. (shrink)

The main question of this article is given by its title: how inclusive is European philosophy of science? Phrased in this way, the question presupposes that, as a mature discipline, philosophy of science should provide an inclusive account of its subject area. I first provide an explanation of the notion of an inclusive philosophy of science. This notion of an inclusive philosophy of science is specified by discussing three general topics that seem to be missing (...) from, or are quite marginal in, restricted philosophy of science. These topics are the philosophy of historical inquiry, the role of technology in science, and the socio-political and moral dimensions of science. On this basis, I address the question whether European philosophy of science qualifies as more inclusive as compared with Anglo-American philosophy of science. (shrink)

This work provides a general guide to the domain of contemporary philosophy for the nonspecialist.

Jan WoleĔski Kazimierz Twardowski and the Development of Philosophy of Science in Poland Kazimierz Twardowski studied with Brentano and followed his style of doing philosophy, in particular, the thesis that the method of philosophy is  ...

BOOK REVIEWS 149 cannot be denied: volumes 2o-2 3 are, in their present form, less than perfect. There- fore, it would be very good if they could be revised. Stark makes a convincing case for this. Yet, it would be a mistake if one were to see the significance of his Nachforschungen just in this negative result. It may ultimately be important for the positive contributions it makes to a better understanding of Kant's extant manuscript materials. It does indeed go (...) some way towards supplying some of the materials that Adickes meant to supply, and it thus represents indeed a first step towards a better edition of Kant's works. I do not see any reasons that would speak against a revised edition of the Academy edition as a whole. MANFRED KUEHN Purdue University Andrew Bowie. ScheUing and Modern European Philosophy: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge Press, 1993. Pp x + 21 i. Cloth, $65.oo. Paper, $16.95. Andrew Bowie devotes much of his instructive and well-researched text, as the title promises, to locating Schelling on the map of contemporary theory and simultaneously questioning the relevance of that map. Bowie situates Schelling historically within the context of the pantheism debate and his relationship with Fichte . He explores, in detail, questions of Schelling's natural philosophy, makes a brief excursion into Schelling's philosophy of art, looks closely at his identity philosophy and finally at his response to.. (shrink)

This book is an enquiry into memory in the Western world. Specifically, memory is the framework of culture, because it links the present to the past--or tradition--and projects it into the future. For this reason, any work focusing on memory involves a double challenge: (1) to reveal the origin of concepts and (2) to glimpse the course of thoughts. This is the case of the present volume, in which the authors make several tastings of Europe's intellectual heritage, by taking into (...) account both the Greek origin of this legacy and its relevance for understanding the European philosophical heritage. In particular, these papers focus on the Aristotelian tradition, the true keystone of Europe, and on other currents of thought that have also played an essential role in the intellectual evolution of the Old Continent. In the latter field, there are contributions, for instance, on philosophical-religious traditions such as Orphism or on certain fundamental aspects of Neoplatonism both in the Classical World and in Christian authors. The volume concludes with various works on the survival of these intellectual trends from the Renaissance to the present day. Consequently, this work offers the opportunity to delve deeper into some of the aspects that define Western civilisation, observed both from its origin and its evolution over the centuries. The volume contains papers in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English. (shrink)

This is a collection of new, specially written essays on the flowering of modern philosophy on the continent of Europe. The eight leading contributors focus on the work of Descartes, later Cartesians, Leibniz, and Bayle, reassessing the influence of Augustine on Descartes and of the Reformed tradition on Leibniz, and tracing anticipations of Leibniz's monadology in the cabbalistic notions of van Helmont, the preformationist theories of Malebranche, and the experimental work of Dutch microscopists.

How distinct is European philosophy of science? The first step is to characterize what is or might be considered as ‘European philosophy of science’. The second is to analyse philosophy of the social sciences as a relevant case in the European contribution to philosophy of science. ‘European perspective’ requires some clarification, which can be done from two main angles: the historical approach and the thematic view. Thus, there are several structural and dynamic (...) things to be considered in European philosophy of science and compare with other conceptions: the topics discussed; the contents proposed; and the style of thought used. The case of philosophy of the social sciences is relevant for the historical approach and for the thematic view. Historically, the Erklären–Verstehen methodological controversy arose in this continent, where the main authors and most of the influential approaches are located. Thematically, we can consider the contributions made by these European approaches... (shrink)

This book is a collection of specifically commissioned articles on the key continental European philosophical movements since 1914. It shows how each of these bodies of thought has been shaped by their responses to the horrors set in train by World War I, and considers whether we are yet ‘post-post-war’. The outbreak of World War I in August 1914,set in chain a series of crises and re-configurations, which have continued to shape the world for a century: industrialized slaughter, the (...) end of colonialism and European empires, the rise of the USA, economic crises, fascism, Soviet Marxism, the gulags and the Shoah. Nearly all of the major movements in European thinking were forged in, or shaped by, attempts to come to terms with the global trauma of the World Wars. This is the first book to describe the development of these movements after World War I, and as such promises to be of interest to philosophers and historians of philosophy around the world. (shrink)

Five essays, each on a different contemporary philosopher. Those on Franco Lombardi, Sartre, and Leszek Kolakowski and other present-day revisionist Marxists were presented at an American Philosophical Association symposium in 1961; the studies of Xavier Zubiri and Heidegger were added specially for this volume. In each case the authors endeavor to say something fresh and substantial; yet each piece is written in a clear and non-technical style. The anthology is therefore to be recommended to those new to the various "continental" (...) ways of doing philosophy, as well as to initiates.—C. T. W. (shrink)

Every genuine history of philosophy is a guide-book which directs intellectual travel without substituting for it, even when it maps the shifting sands and storms of contemporary thinking which often seem too close to exhibit any permanent pattern of behaviour to the casual visitor. Useful current introductions are rare and invaluable to the beginner. Father Bochenski offers his work both as a general survey—and this will demand a high degree of intelligent concentration from his general reader—and as a bridgehead (...) for further systematic study, providing it with a fifty-five page bibliography. One feels at once that it is the specialist and the student already familiar to some extent with these philosophers and philosophies who will benefit most from this guide. It is a remarkable achievement to accurately summarise and summarily judge in some 264 pages the varied cross-currents of about forty years of intensely lived experience and reflection, particularly when there is no single dominant school of thought. Indeed the author notes: “To-day, as always, a violent struggle is raging between antagonistic views of the world, and it is possibly more violent in our own time than it was during the past century. Rarely has it been of such intensity, with such a wealth of opposing viewpoints or expressed in such elaborate and refined conceptual frameworks”. (shrink)

Dr. Heimo Hofmeister is the Chair of Philosophy in the Protestant Theology Faculty at the University of Heidgelberg, and has twice served as the Dean of that faculty. One of the most significant figures in contemporary German philosophy and ethics, he has recently published landmark works in medical ethics and the nature of warfare. A Russian translation of this book has already been published in 2000 and a second edition in German came out at the same time, and (...) is almost sold out. This is the much awaited, first English translation of Dr. Heimo Hofmeister's groundbreaking work. (shrink)

This work answers questions such as: What elements of the Pauline view of time did the supposed atheist Heidegger bring from his study of the epistles to his work, Being and Time? And why did Heidegger remain so silent about the Holocaust and his dalliance with National Socialism?

GRAF PAUL YORCK VON WARTENBURG I Origin of Contemporary Philosophy i . The Nineteenth Century a. the nature and growth of modern philosophy Modern ...

Andrew Bowie's book is the first introduction in English to present F W J Schelling as a major European philospher in his own right. _Schelling and Modern European Philosophy_, surveys the whole of Schelling's philosophical career, lucidly reconstructing his key arguments, particularly those against Hegel, and relating them to contemporary philosophical discussion. Dr Bowie traces how central ideas and conceptual strategies in the work of philosophers as diverse as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Davidson relate closely to Schelling's often (...) misunderstood philosophy and focuses on Schelling's work as an alternative to, and critique of aspects of Hegel's thinking. (shrink)

This chapter reviews three of the most consequential works in modern European philosophy published in 2017: Étienne Balibar’s Citizen Subject, Nick Nesbitt’s edited volume The Concept in Crisis, and William Clare Roberts’s Marx’s Inferno. These works reflect the fact that 2017 witnessed an upsurge of philosophical publications on Marx and Marxism. On one level, this is because 2017 was simultaneously the 150-year anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Marx’s Capital and the 100-year anniversary of the (...) Russian Revolution. Yet on another, more substantial, level, these works point to the enduring question of the meaning of ‘Marxist philosophy’ in its dual, and disputed, relationship to transformative political practice, on the one hand, and to the history of philosophy on the other. There are different threads that tie these works together, but two concepts, coming out of Louis Althusser’s work, stand out: those of ‘conjuncture’ and ‘symptomatic reading’. In short, this chapter suggests that the importance of modern European philosophy is in large part attributable to the theoretical and political problems that Marxism constitutes for it, problems which, at the same time, Marxism cannot articulate without this philosophy. The chapter is divided into five sections: 1. Introduction; 2. Writing and Conjuncture: Citizen Subject; 3. A Symptomatic Reading: The Concept in Crisis; 4. A Symptomatic Reading? Marx’s Inferno; 5. Conclusion. (shrink)

This critical survey of issues in European philosophy offers detailed accounts of crucial texts by important thinkers. Sedgwick draws key ideas from these sources, analyzing the various relationships between them and linking them to central themes in philosophical enquiry, such as the nature of subjectivity, reason and experience, anti-humanism, and the nature of language.Areas explored include epistemology, metaphysics and ontology, ethics and politics. Aspects of the work of a broad range of thinkers is considered in detail, including Descartes, (...) Locke, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Adorno and Horkheimer, Heidegger, Deleuze and Guatarri, Levinas, Derrida, Althusser, Foucault and Lyotard. This intriguing new work presents the complex ideas of European philosophy in a straightforward manner, and will be of interest to both introductory and advanced-level readers. (shrink)

In brief compass, this book gives most helpful summaries of the leading philosophical influences of our day, both by individuals and by schools. "Contemporary" is taken to mean "since the First World War," and "European" means "mostly French and German," though there are separate chapters on Russell, Croce, and Whitehead, and mention is made of James and Dewey. An unusually comprehensive bibliography is included.--D. R.