All these extracts are linked by his general epistemology, especially his distinction between two types of knowledge: ‘paradisiac’ or Type 1, which is that of everyday awareness and the current methods, concepts and presuppositions of the sciences of nature and humanity, plus mathematics and philosophy, and accumulates in ‘plus knowledge’ and resolves problems in standard ways; and ‘Luciferican’ or Type 2, which opens up the ‘mysteries’ of new realms of reality which do not fit the current methods, concepts and presuppositions, (...) and so results in ‘minus’ knowledge, the awareness that there are things which at the moment we cannot understand. For these ‘mysteries’ new methods, concepts and presuppositions are required, which ‘abyssal’ categories can supply, ones below those we normally employ and may be aware of. It is part of man’s role in the cosmos to reveal such mysteries.. (shrink)

'you'll find another man to harvest, Glycerion: let this one go' The Greek satirist Lucian was a brilliantly entertaining writer who invented the comic dialogue as a vehicle for satiric comment. His influence was immense, not only in the Greek world, but on later European writers such as Rabelais and Swift. His dialogues puncture the pretensions of pompous philosophers and describe the daily lives of Greek courtesans; they are peopled by politicians, historians and ordinary citizens, as well as by (...) gods and mythic figures. This selection provides a cross-section of Lucian's styles and satirical targets, from serious polemic to lighter squibs and character portrayals. It includes How to Write History and his most famous piece, A True History, a fabulous tale of space travel and a monstrous whale which prefigures the fantasies of Jules Verne. This lively new translation is both accurate and idiomatic, and the introduction highlights Lucian's importance in his own and later times. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

As Roger Ariew shows, one of the most fascinating challenges for the authors trying to create a Cartesian complete course on philosophy was coming up with a Cartesian Logic based on the existing texts of the master. Were the few simple rules from the Discourse on Method the "logic" of Descartes? Were the Rules for the Direction of the Mind "logic"? How can we even have a logic without syllogism? When looking at the authors studied by Ariew one finds that (...) the best that they could come up was adding some Cartesian elements on what remains basically a traditional Aristotelian Logic. It seems that there was no Cartesian Logic after all.I want to show here that Cartesian Logic is something else, not exactly... (shrink)

Although David Mitrany’s international thought is not usually associated with the concept of the international anarchy, I argue that his analysis actually compares two forms of anarchical order. The first form is the order associated with the relations between states, while the second is his functional alternative to this order. The functional approach is anarchical in the sense that it remains an order without an orderer. In first analysing the dynamics and failings of the inter-state order, and then suggesting pragmatic (...) process-orientated solutions to those failings, I argue that Mitrany follows a similar approach to his classical realist contemporaries. (shrink)

Objectivity is one of the oldest of problems in philosophy. Plato, Aristotle and others strived to provide a definitive solution. One of Husserl’s strategies was to introduce a distinction between “sciences of matters of fact” and “eidetic sciences” where the transition from the first science to the second science is possible via intentional sifting which is not to say that something becomes objective because one intends it. For Husserl intentional sifting is cognitive, hence phenomenology should begin by describing “the essence (...) of thinking” in order to later become a genuine science of consciousness. But inside the phenomenological movement there are profound disagreements with respect to the ontology of cognition and intentionality. Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty opted for emotional descriptions of thinking. With few exceptions, contemporary phenomenology has become the praise of emotional experience. In this paper I take the opposite path and make the case for cognitive-intentional character of consciousness I consider one of the most important problems of contemporary philosophy and psychology. I follow the assumption that the only way to generate objective propositions is to assume, against current views, that Husserl was not an idealist and that we can speak about cognition without reducing to emotion and yet without committing to dualism. (shrink)

The divisions that mark my subject are three. The first is that point where the world begins--where it appears from out of the mystery of non-being. The second lies somewhere between its progeny and its future--the times between beginnings and ends where we, the beneficiaries of our being-here, come together to sing a celebration of the wonder that it happened at all, and then intone the fear of its ending. The third division is a speculation on ends--our own and the (...) ending of the world. I use these divisions to locate a something that comes from nothing onto a historical tradition that imposes a value on the progression of that something, and so requires a judgment on all that has passed. I first discuss these through religious attempts to invest life and history with purpose--for they form the major explanatory traditions of Western culture and are a thematic source of much of its greatest art. I continue with an art-critical approach where themes of process and purpose are located in artworks through their stylistic histories and ambitions. I indicate how present art, when open to reconstitute such themes, could change the nature of today's efforts to give art polemical purposes, and so provide new reasons for its making. I conclude with some stories, unevenly biographical, partly fictional, which I offer as parables for the developed themes and their transformations. This last aim is to elucidate a view of art as providing specific symbols for a cosmology of beginning, living, and ending. (shrink)

In “On the Abolition of All Political Parties,” Simone Weil poses the hypothetical predicament of a person who is intent on solving highly complex mathematical problems but is flogged every time the answer he arrives at is an even number. The person will oscillate between his genuine desire for the truth and the painful cries of his body. “[I]nevitably,” Weil writes, “he will make many mistakes—even if he happens to be very intelligent, very brave and deeply attached to the truth.” (...) She then asks: “What should he do?” Weil’s answer may surprise many readers, even though she claims it is “simple.” If possible, “he must run away” from those who wield the whip. It would have been best, she avers, had he avoided these associations in the first place. Elsewhere in her writings, Weil openly endorses the argument for the lesser evil, justifying active, potentially violent, resistance instead of a pacifist ethic of refusal. This essay analyses the tension between Weil’s ethic of “running away” and her acceptance of the lesser evil. (shrink)

This article briefly compares and contrasts Kantian and Marxist thinking, trying to show how the second derived from the first.

This collection uses economic analysis to study some of the most pressing issues in corporate law. The last decade has brought certain corporate transactions and arrangements to the forefront of public attention and public debate. At the same time, a new mode of corporate law analysis has been developed - one that uses the tools of economics to identify the consequences and desirable features of corporate law rules. By bringing together work at the frontier of this method of analysis, the (...) volume provides a good picture of the power, current state, and future direction of the economic analysis of corporate law. Written by some of the most prominent contributors to the field, many of the chapters focus directly on the corporate control transactions that have recently attracted the most interest and controversy - corporate takeovers, buy-outs, recapitalizations, and reorganizations. (shrink)

Concerns regarding the possibility of a phenomenological science of consciousness emerged almost from its inception. Naturalism was quick to attack phenomenology. Philosophers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others have too argued that a phenomenological science of consciousness can succeed if repositioning classical phenomenology from an existentialist perspective. One way to close this debate is to revisit several key classical phenomenological concepts. In this paper I depart from the premise that it is possible to have a phenomenological science of consciousness (...) but in order to do that we must distinguish between the problem of objectivity and the problem of consciousness keeping in mind that the two are intimately related. I will be discussing some of the differences between universally valid and experimental statements and make some remarks with respect to the phenomenological origins of consciousness without getting in too many details. The present purpose is to tackle some of these epistemological and ontological aspects pertaining to science and consciousness without making strong claims. (shrink)

Sandu Frunza, Filosofie şi Iudaism (Philosophy and Judaism) Ed. Limes, Cluj-Napoca, 2006.

Hegel und Heidegger teilen die Ansicht, dass das, was den Bedeutungsgehalt von Begriffen konstituiert, in ihrer unmittelbaren Verständlichkeit verborgen liegt. Dieser Gedanke bildet den Kern einer Konzeption der Negativität im Sinne einer Auffassung der Art und Weise, in der Sinn von Latenz geprägt ist. Hegel und Heidegger verstehen aber die Natur jener Latenz und das Verhältnis von Sinn und Begriff verschieden. Denn mit einer solchen Konzeption der Negativität ist die Frage verbunden, ob die Konstitution von Sinn begrifflich artikulierbar ist und (...) ob Sinn überhaupt begrifflich verfasst ist. Dieser Frage geht das Buch nach, indem es Hegel und Heidegger in ein Gespräch bringt, um den Stellenwert des begrifflichen Vermögens in der Konstitution und Artikulation von Sinn zu klären. Dabei wird eine Kritik an der Auffassung formuliert, dass die Quelle von Sinn nichtbegrifflich und unbegreiflich ist, und argumentiert, dass nur die begriffliche Artikulation von Bedeutungen die semantische Fülle der Welt verbürgt. (shrink)

"Previously unpublished images from glass-plate negatives taken by Walter Schneider capture the years of transition from agrarian to industrial society in America and beyond.

It characterizes studies in Brazilian Information Science that connect gender and/or women and the Knowledge Organization (KO). The study is characterized as exploratory, descriptive, presenting bibliographical research as a data collection procedure. The bibliographic research was carried out in the Information Science Database (BRAPCI) and in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD). 42 scientific works were analyzed, including articles, dissertations, and theses. The first publication on the subject in the literature analyzed is from 2010, highlighting its incipience, (...) considering that 58% of publications are from 2017 to the present. Considering their objectives, the research was categorized into the three dimensions of ISKO-Brazil: epistemological, applied, political, and social. 22% of the research was categorized into the epistemological dimension, 39% into the applied dimension, and 39% into the political and social dimension. The epistemological dimension of KO concerning gender presents significant challenges, but also opportunities for theoretical and methodological advances that can contribute to a fairer and more inclusive representation of knowledge. Critical analysis of the work shows that, although there is progress, it is still incipient to ensure that KO is truly inclusive and representative of diverse gender identities. (shrink)

Relatively recent literature on supposition theory seems to use different modern logical tools of interpretation that can be generally described as formalizations. Since the act of formalizing may be understood as a process of changing its object in the sense of making it more formal, an assessment of this kind of approaches is necessary. Accordingly, our main goal in this paper is to analyze the formality of Peter of Spain’s theory of supposition and to evaluate its interpretation as a quantification (...) theory. Our main thesis is that although Peter’s theory presents certain weak notions of formality, the formality presupposed by the quantificational interpretation is nowhere to be found in his considerations. (shrink)

Neste artigo, busco elementos conceituais presentes em O Segundo Sexo para a formulação de uma teoria da consciência propriamente beauvoiriana. A sua própria teoria da consciência foi, pode-se dizer, ofuscada teoricamente pelas teses de grandes autores como Sartre, Merleau-Ponty e mesmo Bergson. É claro que não é possível dissociá-los por completo do pensamento de Beauvoir. Apesar disso, pretendo rastrear os elementos conceituais próprios da fenomenologia de Beauvoir. Se há uma teoria da consciência especificamente beauvoiriana ela só pode ser caracterizada a (...) partir de conceitos que compõem a sua análise da condição existencial da mulher, isto é, conceitos como os de socialização e de eterno feminino. Com esses termos técnicos, Beauvoir fundamenta a sua crítica à pretensa impessoalidade fenomenológica que pode ser reconstituída até a fenomenologia clássica de Husserl. Não há, portanto, como pensar uma teoria da consciência satisfatória, sem considerar a desproporcionalidade entre mulheres e homens, no que se refere à constituição da consciência de si. (shrink)

The article discusses the beginning and the end of the »age of secularisation«: Differening from other definitions it argues for a late beginning after the Second World War and an early end by the mid-1980s. The age of secularisation is characterised by an open relationship of the churches to secular society - the exact character of which, however, was much disputed among reformers and conservatives within the churches. By the mid-1980s this openness began to be replaced by a more self (...) concerned attitude of the churches, which today causes some problems for the interreligious dialogue. (shrink)

De nos jours, la cote de l'imaginaire est en hausse. Sensibles au mouvement des idees, les historiens se sont mis a la tache. Leurs contributions dans ce domaine ne se denombrent plus. Mais chaque historien affine sa problematique particuliere. Les ponts sont rares entre les epoques et les cultures, et encore plus rares entre les axes differents de recherche. Il existe des imaginaires historiques plutot qu'une veritable histoire de l'imaginaire.Une telle histoire - batie essentiellement sur les structures de l'imaginaire - (...) serait-elle possible? Lucian Boia le croit et essaie de le prouver. Son but est d'identifier certains principes susceptibles d'offrir un minimum de coherence a un domaine pour le moment eclate. Tout en tenant compte d'un large eventail de contributions, ce travail repose en grande partie sur les propres recherches de l'auteur. Il y est question de l'imaginaire scientifique, de l'espace, des humanites autres, des visions apocalyptiques, des millenarismes, des mythes fondateurs, ces mythologies totalitaires. C'est la premiere fois qu'un historien tente de rassembler dans un panorama cette diversite deroutante de manifestations en vue de definir les structures et la dynamique propres a l'imaginaire et de saisir ainsi sa logique particuliere.L'histoire de l'imaginaire: une des histoires de demain? (shrink)

A look at what Kierkegaard learned from his study of Socrates, and why this connection between Socrates and Kierkegaard is still relevant in the world today.

Self-reference and the Limits of Thought. This paper explores the connection between the natural language and a formal language from a particular point of view: self-referential constructions. Such constructions lead to some kind of limits of thought, either in the form of paradoxical constructions (Liar-type or Grelling-type), or in the form of the so called limitative theorems in mathematical logic (e.g. Gödel’s theorem). By deriving Gödel’s significant results from paradoxical constructions the limitative character of such self-referential constructions is preserved, but (...) they open the ways for a new representation of a great variety of arguments in the field of logic, mathematics and philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I will try to analyze St. Augustine’s and Dante’s views towards history by showing how their visions can be articulated into particular models of history, i.e. a particular schema that describes the unfolding of history with its specific focal points, and to what extent this model differs from one author to another. If in Augustine’s case, by exploring his division of sacred history in component parts, that can be found throughout his work, I will argue for a (...) Christocentric model, in Dante’s case, by analyzing his work on political philosophy, De monarchia, I will argue for a teleological model of history. (shrink)