Il saggio intende mostrare l’irriducibile articolazione tra etica ed estetica quale condizione dell’esperienza architettonica, tanto della sua produzione quanto della sua fruizione. Per questo è necessario decostruire la tradizione classica nella quale la dimensione estetica dell’architettura è abitualmente ridotta alla ricerca di ordine, misura e proporzione. Da un punto di vista fenomenologico, la dimensione estetica di un’opera architettonica ha a che fare con un’esperienza dello spazio emotiva, sensibile, che presuppone lo spazio quale elemento del nostro abitare sulla terra, e cioè, (...) seguendo Heidegger, quale condizione irriducibile del nostro ethos. L’autore ricorre all’esempio del Mémorial des Déportés di Parigi per mostrare le radici etiche dell’esperienza esistenziale dell’architettura. In questa prospettiva, l’autore richiama l’eredità di Henry Maldinay, con particolare attenzione ai contributi di quest’ultimo alle attività della rete francese PhilAU (Philosophie, Architecture, Urbain). (shrink)

In his new book the eminent Kant scholar Henry Allison provides an innovative and comprehensive interpretation of Kant's concept of freedom. The author analyzes the concept and discusses the role it plays in Kant's moral philosophy and psychology. He also considers in full detail the critical literature on the subject from Kant's own time to the present day. In the first part Professor Allison argues that at the centre of the Critique of Pure Reason there is the foundation for (...) a coherent general theory of rational agency. The second part employs this account of rational agency as a key to understanding Kant's concept of moral agency and associated moral psychology. The third part focuses on Kant's attempt to ground both moral law and freedom in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason. This is a major contribution to the interpretation of Kant which will be of special interest to scholars and graduate students of Kant's moral theory. (shrink)

CHAPTER I GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SUBJECT THERE is some difficulty in defining the subject of Ethics in a manner which can fairly claim general acceptance ...

Henry Allison is one of the foremost interpreters of the philosophy of Kant. This new volume collects all his recent essays on Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. All the essays postdate Allison's two major books on Kant, and together they constitute an attempt to respond to critics and to clarify, develop and apply some of the central theses of those books. Two are published here for the first time. Special features of the collection are: a detailed defence of the (...) author's interpretation of transcendental idealism; a consideration of the Transcendental Deduction and some other recent interpretations thereof; further elaborations of the tensions between various aspects of Kant's conception of freedom and of the complex role of this conception within Kant's moral philosophy. (shrink)

THE Concluding Unscientific Postscript is generally regarded as the most philosophically significant of Kierkegaard's works. In terms of a subjectivistic orientation it seems to present both an elaborate critique of the pretensions of the Hegelian philosophy and an existential analysis which points to the Christian faith as the only solution to the "human predicament." Furthermore, on the basis of such a straightforward reading of the text, Kierkegaard has been both vilified as an irrationalist and praised as a profound existential thinker (...) who has uncovered the only legitimate starting point for a philosophical analysis of the religious life and a Christian apologetic. (shrink)

It is argued that the principles of classical physics are inimical to the development of a satisfactory science of consciousness The problem is that insofar as the classical principles are valid consciousness can have no e ect on the behavior and hence on the survival prospects of the organisms in which it inheres Thus within the classical framework it is not possible to explain in natural terms the development of consciousness to the high level form found in human beings In (...) quantum theory on the other hand consciousness can be dynamically e cacious quantum the ory does allows consciousness to in uence behavior and thence to evolve in accordance with the principles of natural selection However this evo lutionary requirement places important constraints upon the details of the formulation of the quantum dynamical principles.. (shrink)

Reformed ecclesiology suffers from a lack of a concrete sense of catholicity, a lack that easily shatters unity in the church. This article broadly sketches a way in which Reformed confessions and the practice of confessing can help fill that lack, drawing from Robert Schreiter's The New Catholicity. By understanding confessing in terms of remembering dangerous memories, Reformed catholicity has the potential for enabling the church to be a unifying witness in an age where globalizing forces have fragmented societies and (...) inflamed troubling sentiments. (shrink)

Traces the decentered formulation of self at the heart of Paul Ricoeur's philosophy from his earliest works to his most recent.

Schooling and cultural politics - Cultural workers and cultural pedagogy_.

It is with these words that Alan Gewirth opened his 1972 Lindley Lecture at the University of Kansas. And he immediately followed up his opening words with a more or less blanket indictment of almost the entire group of contemporary writers on meta-ethics, who, he would aver, while claiming to be "rationalists" in the matter of the rational justification of moral principles, and while making much of how far they have distanced themselves from the old-line emotivists in this very regard, (...) have nevertheless just not brought it off, so far as their own provision for any such rational justification is concerned. Thus while the emotivists had tended to hold that such reasons as a person might give in support of moral principles could not really function as reasons, but only as causes that might impel or compel acceptance of such principles, the latter-day "rationalists," as Gewirth calls them, insist that good reasons are always in order and logically relevant, so far as any moral or even evaluative judgment is concerned. Indeed, merely to call a thing good, or to judge an action right or wrong, already implies that such a judgment is put forward as one that is universalizable and for which good reasons can be given. Unfortunately, however,—Gewirth goes on to insist—reasons and justifications of this sort turn out, even on the admission of the rationalists themselves, to be valid only on the prior assumption of what might be called "the moral point of view.". (shrink)

Quantum theory can be regarded as a rationally coherent theory of the interaction of mind and matter and it allows our conscious thoughts to play a causally e cacious and necessary role in brain dynamics It therefore provides a natural basis created by scientists for the science of consciousness As an illustration it is explained how the interaction of brain and consciousness can speed up brain processing and thereby enhance the survival prospects of conscious organisms as compared to similar organisms (...) that lack consciousness As a second illustration it is explained how within the quantum framework the consciously experi enced I directs the actions of a human being It is concluded that contemporary science already has an adequate framework for incorporat ing causally e cacious experiential events into the physical universe in a manner that puts the neural correlates of consciousness into the theory in a well de ned way explains in principle how the e ects of consciousness per se can enhance the survival prospects of organisms that possess it allows this survival e ect to feed into phylogenetic de velopment and explains how the consciously experienced I can direct human behaviour.. (shrink)

It is fashionable now-a-days to regard Aristotle’s logic as being the skeleton in the closet of Aristotelian philosophy. As Miss Anscombe has acidly remarked, “Aristotle himself … misconceived the importance of the categorical syllogism, supposing that the theory of it gave him the key to the nature of scientific knowledge. He expresses this view in what I find his worst book: Book I of the Posterior Analytics.”.

Chaldaea and Egypt.--China: duty and detachment.--The Indian annihilation of individuality.--Zarathushtra.--The prophets of Israel.--The heroic adjustment in Greek poetry.--Greek philosophers.--Intermediaries.--Jesus.--Paul.--Augustine.--The arrows are beyond thee.