This reader makes the key essays of 19th century French philosopher Félix Ravaisson available in English for the first time. In recent years, Ravaisson has emerged as an extremely important and influential figure in the history of modern European philosophy. The volume contains the classic 1838 dissertation Of Habit, studies of Pascal, Stoicism and the wider history of philosophy together with the Philosophical Testament that he left unfinished when he died in 1900. The volume also features Ravaisson's work in archaeology, (...) the history of religions and art-theory, and his essay on the Venus de Milo, which occupied him over a period of twenty years after he noticed, when hiding the statue behind a false wall in a dingy Parisian basement during the Franco-Prussian war, that it had previously been presented in a way that deformed its original bearing and meaning. Félix Ravaisson: Selected Essays contains an introductory intellectual biography of Ravaisson, which contextualises each of the essays in the volume. It also features an annotated bibliography of suggested further reading. This book will grant scholars and students alike wider access to his distinctive contribution to the history of philosophy. (shrink)

A critique of capitalism and a manifesto for a new way of thinking, this book is also an introduction to the work of one of Europe's most radical thinkers. This edition includes a chronology of Guattari's life and work, introductions to both his general philosophy and to the work itself and extended notes to the original text.

This is a new release of the original 1962 edition.

In the Preface to the second edition of the Science of Logic, Hegel speaks of an instinctive and unconscious logic whose forms and determinations 'always remain imperceptible and incapable of becoming objective even as they emerge in language.' In spite of Hegel's ambitions to provide a philosophical system that might transcend messy human nature, Félix Duque argues that human nature remains stubbornly present in precisely this way. In this book he responds to the 'remnants' of Hegel's work not to explicate (...) his philosophy, but instead to explore the limits of his thought. He begins with the tension between singularity and universality, both as a metaphysical issue in terms of substance and subject, and as a theological issue in terms of ideas about the human and divine nature of Jesus. Duque argues that the questions these issues bring out require a search for some antecedent authority, for which he turns to Hegel's theory of "second nature" and the idea of nature as reflected in the nation state. He considers Hegel's evaluation of the French Revolution in the context of political and civil life, and in a religious context, how Hegel saw considerations of authority and guilt sublimated and purified in the development of Christianity. (shrink)

Este volumen es el resultado del deseo común de un grupo de amigos de ofrecer un texto, el texto que cada uno ha juzgado oportuno, a un eminente profesor de la Universidad española; un profesor al que, ciertamente, la edad ha jubilado, pero que en absoluto ha dejado, y no solo por su actual condición de Emérito, de mantenerse en activo; un maestro del pensamiento cuyo recorrido intelectual ha suscitado en esos amigos suficiente atención y simpatía como para avenirse a (...) participar en esta tarea de reconocimiento. El profesor en cuestión es Félix Duque; un nombre que cualquiera que haya mínimamente seguido las aventuras filosóficas europeas de los últimos decenios, incluidas las españolas, sin duda habrá de reconocer de inmediato. Pues se trata de alguien que ha practicado con éxito todas las artes que se supone ha de frecuentar un universitario de primer rango, un transmisor crítico del saber, un investigador de vanguardia: el profesor Félix Duque, en efecto, no solo ha ocupado multitud de estrados, universitarios o no, multitud de aulas y de salas, universitarias o no; también ha dedicado no pocas horas a ofrecer al investigador traducciones y ediciones, tan rigurosas como útiles, de textos clásicos de la filosofía; y ha encontrado tiempo, además, para ofrecer una panorámica monumental de esa aventura crucial del intelecto que fue el idealismo alemán brotado de la crítica kantiana. Pero tampoco se ha detenido ahí una actividad como la suya, infatigable y paciente —aunque también a las veces, cómo no, relampagueante—. Y así, Félix (que es como le conocemos sus amigos), no ha vacilado en poner su ordenador al servicio de cuestiones estéticas, y políticas, y ciudadanas, como tampoco ha dudado en embarcarse, cuando la ocasión lo requería, en alguna polémica de fuste; intervenciones hechas siempre en el contexto de un análisis poderoso, y en absoluto complaciente, de las muchas tradiciones difíciles que heredamos los europeos. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta de modo ensaístico e embrionário, algumas reflexões acerca dos valores da previsão e do medo na filosofia jonasiana como valores necessários, ou ao menos desejáveis, para as ações governamentais diante de uma ameaça ao futuro da humanidade. Para isso, propomos um paralelo entre a realidade pandêmica atual e a filosofia de Hans Jonas, desenvolvendo em seguida sua concepção sobre tais valores. Nossas conclusões apontam de modo provocativo para aquilo que as futuras vítimas fatais da Covid-19 esperam hoje (...) do seu atual governo. Portanto, para que as pessoas comuns possam ter esperança sobre a manutenção das suas vidas e a volta de uma vida que antes era reconhecida como “normal”, é necessário que o nosso governo se oriente pelo temor diante das previsões potencialmente catastróficas. (shrink)

Félix Ravaisson's French Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century is one of the most influential and pivotal texts of modern French thought. Commissioned by the Minister of Public Instruction as one of a series of reports to record the progress of the French sciences and humanities for Paris' second world fair, the 1867 Exposition universelle d'arts et d'industrie, it was published with the others the following year. In the report Ravaisson argues, with verve and generosity, and with an unparalleled command of (...) the century's intellectual developments, that the myriad voices in nineteenth-century French thinking were beginning to form a chorus, one that was advancing towards a new, more concrete form of spiritualist philosophy able to resist materialist, mechanist and sensualist doctrines while incorporating recent developments in the life-sciences. As Henri Bergson noted, it effected a "profound change of orientation in university philosophy" and for decades afterwards students learnt its concluding sections by heart in order to pass public examinations. Bergson's own Creative Evolution, which made him the world's most celebrated living philosopher at the end of the long nineteenth century, is, with its psychological interpretation of biological evolution, a direct expression of the new philosophical orientation that Ravaisson had divined in the report. (shrink)

Libertad y demagogia.--Cómo y por quiénes se realizó la revolución social de México.--La pedagogía y la nacionalidad.--Puede haber una federación continental?--Maquiavelo.--En el reino de la tecnocracia.--El idealismo justiciero de Wilson.--El centenario de Castelar.--La ciencia de inmortalizar.--La crisis de la república.--La constitución a los quince años.--La constitución a los veinte años.

Fénelon may be the most neglected of all the major early modern philosophers. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, yet today even specialists rarely engage his work directly. This problem is particularly acute in the Anglophone world, for while Fénelon's works have been published in several excellent modern French editions, only the smallest fraction of his vast and influential corpus has appeared in modern English translation. This volume aims to help remedy this by (...) bringing to English-language audiences the first collection of his moral and political writings in translation. By so doing it hopes to make more widely available the riches of one of the leading voices of resistance to the absolutism of Louis XIV. Fénelon's political thought will thus be of particular interest to students and scholars of French history, as well as to those today engaged in questions of political resistance and reform. But Fénelon's reach also extends to fields well beyond politics and ethics. In the Enlightenment, Fénelon came to be celebrated not only as a humanitarian political reformer but also as a pioneering theorist of education, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in contemporary philosophical debates-not to mention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century's most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. As such, his work will be of interest to students and scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and political science to economics, education, literature, French history, and religion. (shrink)

Quand vous essayez de comprendre quelque chose qui au départ vous est étranger, vous ne pouvez l'aborder, il n'est pas humainement possible de faire autrement, qu'à l'aide des moyens dont vous disposez. Le péril, dans une telle situation, est toutefois de croire que ces moyens de fortune sont fiables et solides, quelle que soit la découverte à faire. Il suffit donc d'apprendre qu'ils ne le sont pas forcément. Ainsi devient-il possible d'avancer jusqu'au point où vous pourrez discerner qu'ils sont en (...) réalité l'obstacle même vous empêchant de reconnaître comme inconnu ce que vous avez pourtant sous les yeux, sans le voir. Le présent livre n'a d'autre ambition que de nous rendre capables de lire ce que Martin Heidegger cherche à dire au sujet de l'humaine condition, dont il reste à s'acquitter. (shrink)