The transition of various countries to socialism is giving birth to a constantly increasing diversity of concrete forms of implementation of the functions of the socialist revolution. At the same time, historical experience shows that the socialist revolution is characterized by certain universal regularities, so that it is a matter of principle, of vital importance, that a revolutionary Marxist party allow for them. Among these, above all, is the need for power to be in the hands of the working class (...) in alliance with all others who labor, the need for abolishing the socio-economic dominance of the capitalist class, and for the new authority to have the capacity to overcome any form of resistance by the class opponents of socialism while uniting the masses of the workers at large in the struggle for the building of the new society. Without the organization and cohesion of the laboring masses headed by the working class, and without converting them into the determining political force, a transition to socialism is impossible: this is the most important conclusion of Marxism-Leninism. This conclusion has found precise expression, with room for all possibilities, in the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the political essence of the transition from capitalism to socialism. (shrink)

In the period of the general crisis of capitalism and the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism, the trends and prospects for the historical development of society have become the central question in the ideological struggle.

Virtually the chief complaint thrown at Marxism by contemporary bourgeois philosophers is the accusation of undervaluation of "existential subject matter".

Looking back I count, not without some sadness, that I have been a reader of Voprosy filosofii for forty-five years, an author for almost forty, and a staff member for exactly ten. I hope that this entitles me to discuss briefly the most tempting of anniversarial problems; namely, the problem of periodization.

The author analyzes Mamardashvili's philosophical views by putting them in the context of contemporary Western philosophy, especially existentialism. He identifies unique features of Mamardashvili's philosophizing that he equates with existentially interpreted soteriology.

Marxism has relinquished the position of the ruling ideology in Russia without having been subjected to a fundamental critique. There was hardly time to boo it as it expired. The shelves in our libraries are still occupied by hundreds of books in which the Marxist-Leninist doctrine is introduced as the total fulfillment of the preceding social and philosophical thought. The tendentious construct of the history of philosophy that upholds this illusion has not been demolished to this day. People who teach, (...) study, or simply love philosophy fall, as before, into this trap. It has had a particularly strong influence on the reception of the German philosophical classics, which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lenin had already raised to the ideological rank of one of the immediate sources of Marxism. (shrink)

Contrary to the widespread opinion that in the Soviet period the Institute of Philosophy had been a mere citadel of ideological dogmatism, the author shows that even in the most oppressive periods of stagnation not only did the institute resist the imposition of this atmosphere, but it openly refused to take part in any campaign of condemnation or ideological reprisal against nonconformists, whether in philosophy, literature, economics, or politics. The reigning atmosphere in the institute at that time was one of (...) glasnost, open argument, and constructive discussion. And the mediator of such an environment was the institute's Communist Party chapter, which among other positive influences, provided the institute and its associates with real protection from Stalinism, hostility, and societal pressure. While in the country as a whole there had never been a civil society, the institute always possessed and actively displayed the key features of such an institution. The famous wall newspaper published at the institute was one sign of such its civic-social maturity. (shrink)

The comparative analysis of the approaches to philosophy and philosophizing by the two prominent Russian thinkers of the Soviet era: Evald V. Ilyenkov and Merab K. Mamardashvili. The author discusses specific methodological and conceptual features of Ilyenkov's dialectic and Mamardashvili's phenomenology, showing their theoretical and topical affinity.

From the Editors:Such was the topic considered by members of a new discussion club, "The Free Word" [Svobodnoe slovo] , along with specialists from the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences.

It is customary to associate the birth of European science with the name of Thales. For example: "In the history of mankind there come moments when new forms of action or thought arise so suddenly that they produce the impression of an explosion. Such is precisely the case with the rise of science—rationalistic scientific knowledge—in Asiatic Greece, in Ionia, at the end of the seventh century B.C.E., with Thales of Miletus and his school".

One of the primary propositions in Marxist philosophy is that thought is historical in nature. "The theoretical thought of each epoch," observed Engels, "is a historical product which takes on very different forms at different times, and also very different content" . Accordingly, any analysis of the nature of thought in general that does not consider its historical character is either incomplete or may result in false conclusions. Naturally, what we are talking about is substantive thought, i.e., thought that proceeds (...) on a basis of elaboration and development of definite principles relating to the structure and evolution of material existence, and that is expressed in terms of knowledge concerning nature, society, and man. (shrink)

In a fluent, clear, and lively style this translation by two of Maslov's junior colleagues brings the work of the late Soviet scientist S. Yu. Maslov to a wider audience. Maslov was considered by his peers to be a man of genius who was making fundamental contributions in the fields of automatic theorem proving and computational logic. He published little, and those few papers were regarded as notoriously difficult. This book, however, was written for a broad audience of readers and (...) describes elegant examples of applications in such fields as computer science, artificial intelligence, operations research, economic modeling, and biological modeling, among others. The book also brings to light the work by the American mathematician E. L. Post, which inspired Maslov's own work in the development of a general theory and which has been long neglected by mathematicial logicians and systems theorists in the United States. The book's first chapter introduces the Rules of the Game. Part I, Mathematics of Calculi, covers E. L. Post's canonical systems, deductive systems and algorithms, and probabilistic calculi and deductive information. Part II, Horizonal Modeling, takes up a "toy" economy, the calculi of technological possibilities, and the development of rules. Part III, Vertical Modeling, deals with the topics of "to fight and to search" and the consequences of the asymmetry of cognitive mechanisms. Vladimir Lifschitz is affiliated with the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, and Michael Gelfond with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas, El Paso. Theory of Deductive Systems and Its Applicationsis included in the Foundation of Computing Series, edited by Michael Garey. (shrink)

Among the many names violently consigned to oblivion, one cannot omit mentioning the name of Gustav Gustavovich Shpet, a scholar who made a substantial contribution to our country's philosophy, psychology, aesthetics, and linguistics. His rehabilitation in 1956 was not enough to restore his memory in public consciousness, paralyzed by the inertia and fears of the Stalinist years, and the freeze that began soon after, of the sprouts that had just been summoned to life, had its impact in an abrogation of (...) agreements, cessation of publications, and in a number of cases removal of references to the philosopher. And the further thirty years of oblivion that followed were one more period of unjust punishment and a new ordeal in the terrible fate of the scholar and his ideas. His writings, which should have been a new word in science, should have given direction to further investigations, became effectively inaccessible to subsequent generations. References to Shpet in the works of Viach. Vs. Ivanov, Iu. M. Lotman, D. S. Likhachev, A. P. Chudakov, and others, and the article in Philosophical Encyclopedia [Filosofskaia entsiklopediia] written by V. S. Asmus aroused interest in Shpet's writings in Hungary and Germany. In the summer of 1986, an international conference on Shpet was held in Bochum, and his books are being translated. Unfortunately, in his own country the level of research on the philosopher's writings and thoughts is still almost at point zero, but we may hope that interest in Shpet's ideas will grow considerably in connection with the publication of the series From the History of Russian Philosophical Thought [Iz istorii otechestvennoi filosofskoi mysli] and a number of other publications. (shrink)

日常においてはいつも素通りされている豊かな経験の世界がある―。“自明”であるがゆえに眼を向けられることのないこの経験の世界を現象学は精査し、われわれにとっての「現実」が成立する構造を明るみに出す。創始 者フッサール以来続く哲学的営為の核心にあるものは何か。そしていまだ汲みつくせないその可能性とは。本書は粘り強い思索の手触りとともに、読者を生と世界を見つけなおす新たな思考へと誘う。.

Shōwashi e no renketsu -- Higashi Ajia kara no me -- Tennō to iu jiba -- Watashi no kaikōki -- Jikokuhyō katate ni ekisoba o.

1. Tan'gun sinhwa ŭi wŏnhyŏngjŏk segyegwan kwa p'ungnyu chŏngsin -- 2. Wŏnhyo ŭi hwajaeng sasang kwa muaehaeng ŭi silch'ŏn -- 3. Ŭisang ŭi 'Hwaŏm ilsŭng pŏpkyedo' e nat'anan Hwaŏm sasang -- 4. Chinul ŭi Tono chŏmsu wa Chŏnghye ssangsu sasang -- 5. Sambong Chŏng To-jŏn ŭi Pulgyo paech'ŏk ŭi naeyong kwa sŏngkyŏk -- 6. T'oegye Yi Hwang ŭi ch'ŏrhakchŏk ipchang kwa 'Kyŏng' sasang -- 7. Kobong Ki Tae-sŭng ŭi hangmun chŏngsin kwa ch'ŏrhak sasang -- 8. Ugye Sŏng Hon ŭi Tohakchŏk (...) sam kwa hangmun yŏnwŏn -- 9. Yulgok Yi I ŭi Taedong sahoeron kwa ch'ŏrhakchŏk chihyang -- 10. Sŏgye Pak Se-dang ŭi Sirhakchŏk sayu ŭi kich'o -- 11. Namdang Han Wŏn-jin ŭi yŏksa insik kwa Chosŏn chunghwajuŭi -- 12. Sŏngdam Song Hwan-gi ŭi 'T'aegŭk tosŏl' haesŏk ŭi kibon ipchang -- 13. Kanjŏng Yi Nŭng-hwa 'Chosŏn Togyosa' ŭi haksulsachŏk ŭiŭi wa han'gye -- 14. Manhae Han Yong-un i pon chuch'e ŭi munje wa minjok chagyŏl ŭi wŏnch'ik. (shrink)

The monograph under review, written as a doctorate in 1999 and later revised and supplemented, offers a searching analysis of the form and function of rhetoric in the Pascal-Pentecost cycle of the 12th century homilist Cyril of Turov, together with an examination of the Byzantine sources. Lunde scrutinizes eight festal homilies for the period from Palm Sunday to the Sunday before Pentecost, using the edition by Igor' Erëmin [TODL 11–13,15 (1955–1958), reprinted as Literaturnoe nasledie Kirilla Turovskogo: Archeologičeskij obzor I izdanie (...) tekstov in 1989]. All Slavonic fragments are accompanied by English translations, predominantly drawn from Simon Franklin's Sermon and Rhetoric of Kievan Rus' [1991, reviewed by Francis Thomson in Slavica Gandensia 19], with minor alterations (e.g. p. 266, note 11) and critical remarks (e.g. p. 180, note 37). The study is positioned along the line that marks a shift in focus from philological and historical commentary towards the literary analysis of Cyril's sermons. Lunde's approach is clearly indebted to various developments in modern literary criticism, from structural linguistics to discourse analysis and communication theory. Questions of dating, attribution, and textual criticism are consciously left aside. (shrink)

Straipsnyje apžvelgiama mokslinė konferencija „(Post)tiesa ir žinojimas filosofiniu, sociologiniu ir komunikaciniu požiūriu“, įvykusi Lietuvos mokslų akademijoje. Kon­ ferencijoje nagrinėtos temos: tiesa ir posttiesa Rusijoje, žmogaus tapatumas medijo­ se, tiesos problema Martino Heideggerio filosofijoje, techninės posttiesos galimybės sąlygos, pedagogika (post)tiesos sąlygomis, nesutarimo etika ir diplomatija bei racio­ nalumų įvairovė, politinis veikimas posttiesos sąlygomis, politinis ethos, posttiesos apraiškos medijose ir propagandoje, sąmokslo teorijos ir posttiesos santykis, taip pat analizuota posttiesos būklė per žaidimo fenomenologijos prizmę ir kt. Straipsnyje ap­ tariamos pagrindinės konferencijos pranešėjų (...) mintys, su kai kuriomis jų polemizuoja­ ma, apžvelgiami svarbesni diskusijų momentai. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE UNITY OF THE VICES JONATHAN JACOBS Oolgate University, Hamilton, New York JOHN ZEIS Oanisius Ooilege, Buffalo, New York W:E SOMETIMES describe someone 1rus "just plain,, ' ' • • 0 " ' ' • • mean, or Just plam d1shonesit, orr JUSt pJam unw." Or we say" thaJt wrus ·a just plain ·stupid thing rto do.," G~a:liizing from tlhese and lik!e descriiptions, we can ask, are there any (...) "just plain" vices? By this I mean, are :amy vices pure, 1e.g., can rthere he Cl'lllelty hut nort injustice or in!t:Jempertance, intemperance hut no!t a £ailill'e orf pmctical wisdom, cowardice but not intemperance or injustice, and so on? Is therie perhaps a unity of the vices? Is each ;a col'l'IU!ption thrat involves the coITUpiting ctontriburtion of the othe'l'IS? If there is,a, run:iity of the vicies, then 1be:inig ra vicious individual is Il!Ort siinply 1a ma!bter o:f failing :across the dimensioill of one or rrunothe.r 1 Cihaa:iae1becisltic. ]t ms tan extensi,ve diaiilure, 1a unified (:if l[JIOrt toit.al) failure, even if it is most evident 1and preVialent in one or another •specific respecit. 'f1his iis not to isay thrut.theiie is just one vice,.any moil'!e 1than '!Jo.endorse the unity of it.he virtues is to reduce tth:em to Ollle. There.are many woes OOlld many virrbues, eaiCh respeotively h!ruving to do with dillemnt 1and variously!l'le1aibed crupacirties, motives, emotions, and tiiaiits. Yet, rut least with respect to the virtues a good caise can be mrude :that they.are unified, aind thrut ·AnisbotLe was oorrreot in concluding that practical wisdom :and viWtues of cha;riacter mum occur st quite 1 s1tably, even if '1llolt happily. In any case, we ail"e in 1 to:tal ag.rteemelllt with Geach when he 1sayis 1that ithaJt "If 1a man's ha1bit of sound moml judgme1J11t is virtiiafod anyiwhere, then :it is at risk eVierywhere; but not all dangel"s issue in disa1sit1e'f!s." 3 But 1thes1e dis1as!ters arie aV1eTted r.not because of,any moml str1ength of characil:er 1 th:ait the agent 1truly ihas bUJt heca:us1 e of a me11e inc1ilJJaition tues. 'Ilhe former may he very :firm ox srtable. Mo11eover the n:aituil'ally vi11tuous rindividual may giener1a1ly no1t he oornfused or.impeded maction by "b.ar:d easies" or nnvelty. Alt times he rmay, 1and lthien me may find his re1sourroes iinoompe1be!I1t O'I.' unoel 'l:Ja1in in 1bhreir direetives. Hut the main rpo:inlt of co111iCT'last is thait mo11al virtues 11eflieot 1a 1evel of 1agency wh1oh involves undersitanding 1and self-determin1ation engiaged 1 to t:hat undersltanding, 1a 1leviel tihJait tis 1ruhsen1t foom iinc1ination-grounded action. Na,tu11a1l vri:r1tues 1a1rie ll101t to he despised, 1 and 1aclts :thait fLorw 1f110m 1tJhem 1are not w:iithout moml Wiortlh. But, using the fangiuiage of Fr1a:nk£u:rt, mom1l virtues are oha1racter]s,tios thait refiecrt second order volitions.5 The aiotis: thait flow fil1om them •are not H11e reis:ult of ways one just hrupens to be. And the undeil'-,starnding involvred in moml vrntues makes mo'ral misdireotion 1 1es;s li1"ely. Again, mnswder suoh t.lrings rus mis1applied oomprussfon, or paiti:errce, whioh can involve u1mairness 1and imprudence. P1 errharpis it.is heoausie rbhe mo:rial V1mtueis rare unified that it is 1so hard to rbe 1good. They invo1vie a complex reperrto:We of judgmenits, d1sposi!tiorrs, and moti¥es. No one of them can he oomp1ete on its own, and wie c1an't oome to have 1 tJhem simply 1hy decis1on. One oan til.'y rbo he move coumgeous bU1t caill't ibring it rubout meriely hy init1emal eommanid. Self-imposrutiion in5 In " Freedom of the Will and 'The Concept of a Person," H. Frankfurt writes, "Someone has a desire of the second order when he wants simply to have a certain desire or when he wants a certain desire to be his will. In situations of the latter kind, I shall call his second-order desires "secondorder volitions" or " volitions of the second order." Now it is having... (shrink)

As it happened, I became acquainted with E.V. Il'enkov quite late, in the mid- or even the late 1960s. It was only a bit more than ten years before his death that I began to feel at home in his house, was able to visit without calling ahead, and was able to call him by his first name and the familiar "you"—that is, like many, many of not only his true friends but also like-minded thinkers, who became his close acquaintances, (...) most of whom justly considered themselves his pupils … The door would open wide, and Olia, Professor K.I. Salimova, Eval'd's wife and most devoted friend, not at all surprised by the unexpected guest and seemingly even quite happy at his arrival , would try first to draw him into the kitchen and feed him … which she more often than not succeeded in doing. I am not talking about myself: there were always many guests, and this is precisely how they arrived at the Il'enkovs' apartment. Recently, a critic in Literaturnaia gazeta recalled those whom he met in Eval'd's apartment in the 1960s: "This was a tight circle of like-minded thinkers," wrote the critic. "But some of them are no longer with us, while most are far away, beyond our borders." Obviously, he had not been in the house often or had forgotten things over the distance of years. There was no "circle," nor could there have been one—not with this host, not with his lifestyle and way of relating to people. I met a good hundred fine and various people in Eval'd's home: I.N. Korzhavin, V. Davydov, A. Meshcheriakov, S. Vinogradova, N. Dubinin, V. Zinchenko, A. Zinov'ev, Iu. Kamiakin, and … indeed, five pages would not be enough to list the quite famous and the not-quite-so-famous, simply ordinary people with no claim to fame. Nazym Khikmet, A.N. Leont'ev, and B.M. Kedrov were friends of the house … Ever new faces, figures, and words come to mind. I cannot forgive myself: once Eval'd Vasil'evich wanted to take me along to Iurii Liubimov's to read his play Neither God nor Tsar nor Hero … [Ni bog, ni tsar' i ni geroi], but I had some other business, something so important that I do not even remember now what it was, and it is probably not worth remembering. But most likely I was too timid to appear uninvited at the house of a person burning with creativity. The same thing happened with Galich … Eval'd liked especially his song about Zoshchenko. He did not sing it; he narrated it, but in such a way that tears always came to one's eyes. (shrink)

Upshot: In view of Kenny’s clinical insights, Hug’s notes on the intricacies of rational vs. a-rational “knowing” in the design sciences, and Chronaki & Kynigos’s notice of mathematics teachers’ meta-communication on experiences of change, this response reframes the heuristic power of bisociation and suspension of disbelief in the light of Kelly’s notion of “as-if-ism” (constructive alternativism. Doing as-if and playing what-if, I reiterate, are critical to mitigating intra-and inter-personal relations, or meta-communicating. Their epistemic status within the radical constructivist framework is (...) cast in the context of mutually enriching conversational techniques, or language-games, inspired by Maturana’s concepts of “objectivity in parenthesis” and the multiverse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 42.3 (2006) 459-461 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Minutes of the Business Meeting Charles Sanders Peirce Society 28 December 2006Following the annual scholarly meeting, with papers by President Vincent Colapietro, "Reflective Acknowledgment and Practical Identity: Kant and Peirce on the Reflexive Stance" and Essay Contest winner Shannon Dea, "'Merely a Veil over the Living Thought': Math and Logic in Peirce's Forgotten Spinoza Review," (...) President Colapietro called the meeting to order shortly after 7 o'clock in Concourse B of the New York Hilton.The minutes of the 2003 and 2004 meetings, published in the Fall, 2004, and Summer 2005 Transactions respectively, were approved.Vincent Colapietro delivered the following report from the President and Executive Committee:André De Tienne's proposal to adopt the address of the Institute for American Thought at IUPUI as the official address of the Peirce Society was accepted.It was agreed that announcements for the Peirce Essay Contest should be placed in the Transactions and in other appropriate publications (e.g. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy and the S.A.A.P. newsletter) by mid-year if possible. It was also agreed that some length limits should be set for submitted essays and that there should be a requirement that essays meet the general standard of a submission for publication in a journal.There was discussion of the desirability of separating the collection of membership dues from subscription to the Transactions. The chief reasons for thinking that this separation might be called for are 1) the increasing availability of the Transactions through university library electronic subscriptions and 2) the higher cost of foreign subscriptions (making membership in the Society far most costly for foreign members). It was decided to revisit this issue in a year or two (after the new arrangement with IU Press has become more settled).Vincent Colapietro, Mark Migotti, and Nathan Houser were appointed to serve as a "meta" committee to form, with the approval of the Executive Committee, a "regular" committee to organize the 2014 Peirce World Congress. They will also recommend a chair for the committee and a location for the congress. Indianapolis was favored by members present.It was agreed that a list of rules and procedures for conducting Society business should be drawn up for the guidance of new Society office holders. These lists will include the rules and procedures for fulfilling the functions of the various offices, for running meetings, time-tables for making decisions, and so on. N. Houser will work on this with André Tienne and Mark Migotti to draft these lists. [End Page 459]It was agreed that the outgoing Chair of the Nominating Committee should communicate with the incoming Chair a list of the candidates who were considered but not nominated, along with the basis for consideration.Peter Hare delivered the following report on the Transactions:Starting with the fall issue, the Transactions is being published by Indiana University Press. Editorial arrangements are unchanged. Although the transition has been time-consuming in the short run, the new publishing arrangements promise in the long run to increase greatly the journal's impact on the world of scholarship. This year has also been difficult because a key staff member in our previous publishing arrangements failed us. In 2005 we had 499 member/subscribers (406 domestic and 93 foreign). The bank balance is $4008.Vincent Colapietro delivered for Mark Migotti a preliminary version of the following financial report :2005 income was $1,713.05 ($1,497 in membership dues and $216.05 in interest). 2005 expenditures were c. $1,987.40: ($500 for the essay contest prize, $550 for travel subvention and dinner for the contest winner; 674.40 for mailings; $128.40 for web-site fees; $75 dues to the Logic and Methodology section of the International Society for the Philosophy of Science, and $60.00 for a subsidized membership for CISPEC).As of December 31, 2005, the Society's assets were: $10,625.92, a decrease of $.274... (shrink)

'Jousse - il a trouvé un filon, comme on dit', confie Bergson dans un entretien avec Lydie Adolphe. La relation que Marcel Jousse, chercheur, professeur, homme d'Église, entretient tout au long de ses quelque quarante ans d'enseignement avec le philosophe Henri Bergson est pour le moins paradoxale. Entre admiration et rejet, Jousse revendique 'sa' lecture de Bergson. Libre et inspirante, souvent critique, voire frôlant la caricature, cette lecture tonique agit en retour sur le lecteur, qu'il soit connaisseur de l'œuvre de (...) Bergson ou pas. Selon Jousse, le geste corporel-manuel, le geste global, est au cœur de la pensée du philosophe. Bergson joue sa pensée avec ses mains, avec tout son corps avant de la jeter dans ses livres. La connaissance des lois anthropologiques du Style oral formulées par Jousse permet de mieux saisir la particularité du style de Bergson, proche de celui de Péguy, et qui s'apparente au style oral des rythmo-mimeurs. Jousse, Bergson : deux noms qui ont marqué leur époque. Le lien fort qui unit les deux penseurs est au cœur de cette enquête - que l'on pourrait aussi écrire 'en quête' - à la fois philosophique et historique. Ce livre s'inscrit dans la longue liste des 'lecteurs de Bergson' qu'ils soient ou non bergsoniens."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Encore un livre sur saint Thomas, dira-t-on. Que pourrait ajouter celui-ci à tout ce qui existe déjà? Nous voudrions d'abord dans cet ouvrage répondre simplement mais en vérité, et en lisant les textes eux-mêmes de saint Thomas et d'Aristote, à certaines objections ou lieux communs entendus ou lus plus ou moins régulièrement, qui empêchent de commencer à vouloir connaître la pensée de frère Thomas. Il s'agit de mettre en évidence la grande richesse, pour l'intelligence et le coeur humains, de sa (...) pensée philosophique, de ses analyses, de ses manières de poser les questions et d'interroger le réel. Un préambule pour une introduction à la philosophie de Thomas, telle est essentiellement l'intention de ces quatre études et non pas une introduction à la philosophie thomasienne purement et simplement. Elles cherchent ainsi à définir l'esprit d'un apprentissage philosophique qui a aussi en lui tout ce qui convient pour aider à un apprentissage théologique et spirituel, mystique même. (shrink)

A critical study of McPeck's recent book, in which he strengthens and develops his arguments against teaching critical thinking (CT). Accepting McPeck's basic claim that there is no unitary skill of reasoning or thinking, I argue that his strictures on CT courses or programs do not follow. I set out what I consider the proper justification that programs in CT have to meet, and argue both that McPeck demands much more than is required, and also that it is plausible that (...) this deflated justification can be met. Specitically, I argue that it is reasonable to expect transfer of learning for basic logical skills. Additional topics covered include: the relation ofliberal education to critical thinking, argument analysis, testing for CT, and the value of conceptual or linguistic analysis. (shrink)

L'ed. delle Obligationes si basa su quattro mss.: Praha, Knihovni Metropolitni Kapituly, M.CXLV ; Oxford, New College, E 289 ; Praha, Státní Knihóvna CSR, VIII E 11 ; Salamanca, Biblioteca de la Universidad, 2358 . Nell'introduzione l'A. prende in esame la tradizione manoscritta delle opere di Giovanni Tarteys, fornendo anche una breve notizia biografica di questo magister artium attivo ad Oxford tra la fine del Trecento e gli inizi del Quattrocento. Segue un'analisi comparata del De Obligationibus di Giovanni con le (...) trattazioni analoghe di altri maestri, tra i quali Rodolfo Strode, Gualterio Burley, Paolo da Venezia e Giovanni Wyclif. Discussi infine i criteri di edizione. (shrink)

Il «nuovo» pensiero non è più cronologicamente nuovo ad oltre ottant’anni dalla sua nascita e, tuttavia, forse oggi manifesta un carattere di novità e di urgenza maggiore di allora, come si suol dire una «rinascita» che giustifica l’interrogativo sul suo «futuro». La particolare situazione in cui ci troviamo a pensare e soprattutto a vivere, le nuove domande che le mutate condizioni storico-culturali pongono alla filosofia, possono trovare un modello di risposta se ci si volge indietro a quella particolare stagione della (...) filosofia tedesca che abbraccia i primi tre decenni del Novecento e che fu tragicamente strozzata e azzittita dal nazionalsocialismo. Non si tratta di affermare un ysteron-proteron, sarebbe troppo semplicistico, decisamente acritico e storicamente e filosoficamente inaccettabile. Accade però, nella storia, che dei fermenti non riescano a produrre frutti perché la temperie del tempo non lo permette oppure perché «inattuali», non pienamente adeguati al tempo, e rimangono quindi latenti finché non si verificano le condizioni ottimali per il loro sviluppo, divenendo in tal modo «adeguati » al tempo. È appunto quanto si è verificato con tutti gli autori che si ritrovano accomunati da un «dialogisches Prinzip», se vogliamo riprendere l’espressione di Martin Buber e che si è concretizzato nelle varie figure rappresentative e nei vari pensatori a cui lo stesso Rosenzweig farà riferimento nel suo breve excursus storico, come, neues Denken, Begegnungsphilosophie, Beziehungsphilosophie, Sprachdenken. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Augustine's Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to ChristianityTravis E. AblesBrian Dobell. Augustine's Intellectual Conversion: The Journey from Platonism to Christianity. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xvii + 250. Cloth, $82.00.The question of Augustine's Platonism is famously vexed. Since Peter Brown, the standard reading holds that Augustine did not move beyond the Neoplatonism of his early dialogues until he studied the writings of the apostle Paul (...) in the mid-390s CE, after which his distinctive theology begins to emerge. In this book, Brian Dobell's basic claim is that, whatever the validity of the "volitional conversion" of book 8, Augustine is not truly converted to orthodox Christianity until he discards the Photinian (adoptionist) Christology he admits to in Confessions [hereafter conf.] 7.19.25, and discards the Platonic ascent as a means to contemplative union with God, both of which take place with the reading of Paul. But the book is equally motivated by a concern to defend the historicity of conf.; Dobell claims it is perfectly reliable, once we understand the latter half of book 7 not as a few months in 386, but as a compressed narrative spanning Augustine's entire development until his true conversion to Christianity around 395. [End Page 137]Dobell develops this argument by isolating Augustine's twofold way of salvation in the writings of the late 380s. First is the "way of authority," in which Augustine's putative Photinian Christology portrays Christ as a kind of "poor man's Plato, sent to provide a path to salvation for the uneducated masses" (96). The human Jesus is "assumed" by God and is as "a man of outstanding wisdom" (73) but is not the incarnate Son. Dobell analyzes the homo assumptus/susceptus language of the early writings, arguing that Augustine does not truly hold an orthodox Christology until 396, concordant with the development of his theology of operative grace. The second, much longer section of the book concerns the "way of reason," the intellectualist path of salvation expressed in Augustine's early obsession with the liberal disciplines. Dobell dissects the Platonic ascents of conf. 7, adducing verbal and conceptual parallels from texts ca. 387–390 (De immortalitate animae, De ordine, De libero arbitrio, De vera religione) showing how Augustine's métaphysique des degrés d'être, a concept Dobell borrows from Olivier Du Roy, provides both a means of articulating these ascents and an answer to the problem of evil. But by De doctrina christiana, Augustine has decisively rejected the Platonic ascent and the liberal disciplines, and it simply remains for his Christology to come in line for the "intellectual conversion" to be complete.Dobell's book is a significant addition to the current debate. His knowledge of the first decade or so of Augustine's literary output is impressive, and his familiarity with the secondary literature is considerable, though not encyclopedic—he misses the work of J. Patout Burns, which complicates the Pauline thesis through consideration of the anti-Donatist literature. Dobell offers magisterial and invaluable discussions of famously fraught topics such as Augustine's indecisiveness about the preexistence of the soul, or the volitional solution to the problem of evil. There are some problems with Dobell's argument, though. While his main thesis that conf. 7.9.13ff. is a kind of précis of almost a decade of intellectual development deserves serious consideration, and is an elegant solution to debates about the historicity of Augustine's narrative in conf., the supporting arguments Dobell employs are less persuasive. A major portion of his book revolves around the contention that Augustine's early, heretical Photinian Christology extends much longer than modern scholarship has realized, that Augustine rectifies this Christology in conjunction with a Pauline soteriology of grace, and that all of this has to happen before Augustine's conversion is complete. If we suspend the question of normativity inherent in deciding Augustine's "orthodoxy" (particularly prior to Chalcedon), Dobell still does not succeed in showing that the early "pedagogical" homo assumptus Christology is, in fact, adoptionist; indeed, his evidence is often rather weak (for a tacit admission, see 73). On the flip... (shrink)

This work helps highlights how the innovations in Flathman's thought have shaped the field of political theory and will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

A collection of essays written in affectionate tribute to Gombrich.

Existe-t-il une chose de tel qu'une conception herméneutique du langage? C'est à cette question que cet ouvrage se propose de répondre, de façon positive, en opérant une mise en dialogue des herméneutiques de Hans-Georg Gadamer et Paul Ricoeur. Malgré les différences indéniables entre les oeuvres de ces deux philosophes, l'auteur montre qu'elles ont en commun de penser le langage comme étant un principe fondamental de notre expérience du monde et de tout événement de compréhension. Une articulation entre les deux oeuvres, (...) qui mise sur une dialectique entre les notions d'appartenance et de distanciation, est possible à partir de cet accord de fond sur notre appartenance essentielle au langage. De ce point de vue, tout effort pour mettre à distance le langage afin d'en faire un objet d'étude doit tenir compte du caractère premier et irréductible de cette appartenance, s'il veut éviter de n'offrir qu'une vision réductrice du langage. Comme le révèlent les analyses de ce livre, les recherches de Gadamer et Ricoeur se caractérisent par la prise en compte de ce fait dans leurs réflexions sur le dialogue, le texte et la traduction, ainsi que dans leurs travaux sur la puissance créatrice du langage qui se manifeste dans la métaphore, le dire poétique et le récit. Cependant, le plus important pour l'herméneutique est que cette appartenance fondamentale ne soit pas synonyme d'un enfermement dans le langage, mais que le langage offre au contraire une ouverture sur l'être et permette à ce qui est de se dire et de se penser. (shrink)