Scepticism has been the driving force in the development of Greco-Roman culture in the past, and the impetus for far-reaching scientific achievements and philosophical investigation. Early Jewish culture, in contrast, avoided creating consistent representations of its philosophical doctrines. Sceptical notions can nevertheless be found in some early Jewish literature such as the Book of Ecclesiastes. One encounters there expressions of doubt with respect to Divine justice or even Divine involvement in earthly affairs. During the first centuries of the common era, (...) however, Jewish thought, as reflected in rabbinic works, was engaged in persistent intellectual activity devoted to the laws, norms, regulations, exegesis and other traditional areas of Jewish religious knowledge. An effort to detect sceptical ideas in ancient Judaism, therefore, requires a closer analysis of this literary heritage and its cultural context. This volume of collected essays seeks to tackle the question of scepticism in an Early Jewish context, including Ecclesiastes and other Jewish Second Temple works, rabbinic midrashic and talmudic literature, and reflections of Jewish thought in early Christian and patristic writings. Contributors are: Tali Artman, Geoffrey Herman, Reuven Kiperwasser, Serge Ruzer, Giuseppe Veltri, Cana Werman, and Casten Wilke. (shrink)

Interpretations of Poetry and Religion is the third volume in a new critical edition of the complete works of George Santayana that restores Santayana's original text and provides important new scholarly information.Published in the spring of 1900, Interpretations of Poetry and Religion was George Santayana's first book of critical prose. It developed his view that "poetry is called religion when it intervenes in life, and religion, when it merely supervenes upon life, is seen to be nothing but poetry." This statement (...) and the point of view it espoused contributed significantly to the debate between science and religion at the turn of the century, and its eloquence and clearsightedness continue to have an impact on current discussions about the nature of religion.Interpretations of Poetry and Religion affronted Santayana's peers with its assault on literary and religious pieties of the cultivated classes. William James called its philosophy of harmonious and integral ideal systems nothing less than "a perfection of rottenness."In his insightful introductory essay, Joel Porte observes that while Santayana's theory of correlative objects, his espousal of the "ideal" - the normal human affinity for abstraction - and exaltation of the imagination may have offended some at Harvard, these ideas had a significant influence on other Harvard scholars T.S. Eliot and Santayana's "truest disciple," Wallace Stevens.Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr., heads the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A & M University. William G. Holzberger is a Professor of English at Bucknell University. Joel Porte is Whiton Professor of American Literature at Cornell University. (shrink)

La conception naturaliste de l'homme comme conatus n'est pas liee chez Spinoza a une conception ethique utilitariste, egoiste ou hedonique. Au contraire, et paradoxalement, elle est susceptible de s'accommoder d'une pensee ethique qui, a son stade le plus developpe, consiste en de tres hautes vertus et des sentiments religieux eleves. Ceci n'est possible que parce que le conatus est interprete comme capable d'une activite libre. Cette liberte est concue, non pas comme une realisation, par la volonte, de valeurs qui seduisent (...) sans necessitation, mais comme une activite emanant de maniere spontanee ou quasi-automatique d'une source autonome, c. a. d. non determinee par l'exterieur. (shrink)

Books and articles are written with titles like The Last Professors and The End of the University. Of course these headings should not be taken literally. What they indicate are deep changes in the nature of the university and in the understanding of what is a professor. They also demonstrate a profound malaise, especially - but not only-among academics in the Humanities. In this brief paper an attempt is made to understand what is happening. Universities have been changing from institutions (...) dedicated to specific "ends in themselves" into organizations geared towards the production of specific forms of outcome or product. Professors have become professionals in the service of such organizations. It is argued that these changes produce effects which pervert the internal aims of university teaching and research. They originate in a wider cultural, quasi-religious belief in mastery and control. (shrink)

This paper comprises four moves at understanding trust. 1. By opposing it to pragmatic calculation and justification and linking it to a kind of „intrinsic” reasonableness present in relationships of trust; 2. By studying the implicit ontology of relationships of trust : trust involves a certain conception of world, self, others, time, etcetera; 3. By studying certain characteristics of trust like a certain unreflexive, spontaneous surrendering of oneself; 4. By studying trust as a specific personal relationship with essentially „embedded” or (...) „incarnated” meaning . In this context one can begin to understand the connection between trust on the one hand and loyalty or faithfulness on the other). (shrink)

"The day would fail me," Pontianus observes in Athenaeus' Deinosophistae, "if I were to proceed enumerating all those men who were abused by the philosopher [scil., Plato]...." For "Plato was in fact hostile towards everyone," and displayed "malice towards all"; he had "the reputation of being jealous and of having by no means a good name so far as his character was concerned"; and "besides of being malicious,... [he] also was eager for fame"--characteristics which, if true, certainly would not endear (...) him to others. Aristoxenus, for instance, maintains that perhaps from sheer envy or malice Plato "wanted to burn all of the writings of Democritus." When he failed in this, Aristoxenus continues, Plato, "who mentions almost all the early philosophers, never once alluded to Democritus, not even where it would be appropriate to take issue with him, obviously because he knew that he would have to compete against the greatest of all philosophers." Plato was also accused of being jealous of Xenophon, refusing to mention him in his Phaedo, and of making it a deliberate issue to contradict Xenophon's statement that from his earliest childhood King Cyrus had been thoroughly educated in all the traditional branches of learning. As a matter of fact, Plato insisted that Cyrus "had never given much thought to education." Plato, according to these reports, also denied in a spirit of resentment the truth of Xenophon's description of Menon's foul treachery, calling the whole account an outright fabrication deliberately invented to discredit Menon--in Plato's opinion an upright and praiseworthy person. It might be contended, therefore, that in the final analysis the reasons for the many ancient "anti-platonica" may be looked for in Plato himself, especially in the many violent and often unrestrained polemics which he hurled, often indiscriminately, against practically every author. "He [scil., Plato] was the first philosopher... to attack the views of almost all of his predecessors.". (shrink)

Introduction -- Sagesse et savoir théorique (Spinoza I) -- Naturalisme et religion révélée (Spinoza II) -- Un naturalisme ironique (Hume I) -- Théorie et pratique, et la pratique de la théorie (Spinoza et Hume) -- Science, sens commun et sagesse -- Science et religion -- Science et éthique -- Ethique et religion -- La fin de l'histoire -- Progrès et tradition.

This article contains a reply to Guido Vanheeswijck’s critical study of my book Vloeibare waarden. Politiek, zorg en onderwijs in de laatmoderne tijd. I respond to his criticisms on the following topics: what is behind the liquidity of values; conservatism and the sacred; autonomy and the transcendence of values. The discussion also contains insights relevant to these topics from the work of Leszek Kolakowki.

This article presents an overall view of Hume's philosophy as it can be found in the Treatise. It shows that Hume's position can be called a nonreductionist naturalism. Hume's philosophy is a philosophical anthropology: it begins with a discussion of what is typically human in human understanding, i.e., knowledge and probability or the belief-systems of science and philosophy. Then, morality and politics are retraced as to their origin in emotions and desires. In the final part of the article it is (...) explained in what sense Hume can be called a nonreductionist naturalist. (shrink)