Simone Weil's influence has been enormous and in this age of doubt and uncertainty there is something particularly appealing about this French Jewish writer, for Weil lived out her beliefs. From an early age she was attracted to Bolshevism, became an anarchist and helped Trotsky. She joined the International Red Brigade to fight Franco in the Spanish Civil War. An agnostic, she experienced a profound religious conversion, yet never converted to the Christian faith to which she was so deeply attracted. (...) This clear lucid exposition of her life and work shows how Weil is truly a prophet for our age and an indispensable source of encouragement to all those at the frontiers of religion, both within and without. (shrink)

In his 1985 book on philosophy and atheism, the Canadian thinker Kai Nielsen, a prolific writer on the subject, wonders why the philosophy of religion is ‘so boring’, and concludes that it must be ‘because the case for atheism is so strong that it is difficult to work up much enthusiasm for the topic.’ Indeed, Nielsen even regards most of the contemporary arguments for atheism as little more than ‘mopping up operations after the Enlightenment’ which, on the whole, add little (...) to the socio-anthropological and socio-psychological accounts of religion provided by thinkers like Feuerbach, Marx and Freud, as any ‘reasonable person informed by modernity’ will readily acknowledge. On this view, the answer to Kant's question – ‘What may we hope?’ – does not gesture towards a resurrection and personal immortality, but instead to the death of religious discourse itself: I think, and indeed hope, that God-talk, and religious discourse more generally, is, or at least should be, dying out in the West, or more generally in a world that has felt the force of a Weberian disenchantment of the world. This sense that religious convictions are no longer a live option is something which people who think of themselves as either modernists or post-modernists very often tend to have. (shrink)

The papers in this collection present a diversity of views on the epistemology of religious belief. There is a diversity of views about the intelligibility of particular religious beliefs: for example, about the reality of God's existence and of miracles. There is further disagreement concerning the reasonableness of religious belief itself. Some contributors argue that locating grounds for believing in God is still a fruitful undertaking. Both issues raise the problem of the philosopher's position vis-a-vis religious belief. Are philosophers in (...) a privileged position to determine either the reasonableness or the intelligibility of religious belief? Or is philosophy, properly understood, a descriptive task? The papers in this collection present a diversity of views on this issue, too. Drawing on the works of Kierkegaard, a few of the contributors argue that philosophical description cannot be neatly divorced from religious persuasion. Whatever their views on these issues, however, the contributors accept that philosophical discussion cannot proceed very far without attention to what religious believers say about their beliefs and the practices in which they take part. (shrink)

In this collection, distinguished theologians and philosophers of religion explore the relation of key Biblical concepts to our world. They examine a range of concepts, including authority, faith and history, the historical Jesus, the resurrection and miracles.

God is said to be Spirit, but the language of spirit is ignored in contemporary philosophy of religion. As well as exploring the notion of spirit in Hegel, Romanticism and Kierkegaard, participants explore the view that God is a spirit without a body, and the relations between "spirit" and "truth.".

Thomas GRAUMANN (G.) untersucht in seiner im Wintersemester 1999/2000 von der Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultät der Ruhr-Universität Bochum als Habilitationsschrift angenommenen Studie die Entstehung einer „patristischen“, sich auf in Zitaten fassbare „Väter“ rückbeziehende und stützende Theologie von ihren Anfängen in der trinitätstheologischen Kontroverse des 4. Jahrhunderts bis zum ihrem (ersten) Höhepunkt im Verlauf der ökumenischen Synode von Ephesos (431).

The contribution starts with the observation that Kant mentioned Human Dignity in his main works with great variety in emphasis. In the 'Grundlegung' from 1785 we find a significant treatment and again in the 'Tugendlehre' from 1798 but none in the 'Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft' from 1788 and in the 'Rechtslehre' from 1797. This needs an explanation. In the 'Grundlegung' human dignity is not attached to the second formula of the categorical imperative, the formula of self-purposefulness, as it is often (...) assumed, but to the third formula of a kingdom of ends. It is there explained as self-legislation. This placement needs also an explanation, which is attempted by the article. In the 'Tugendlehre' human dignity is then explained as self-purposefulness. So Kant changed his understanding of human dignity from the 'Grundlegung' to the 'Tugendlehre'. But the question is: why? (shrink)

. Gustav Radbruch is one of the most important German-speaking philosophers of law of the twentieth century. This paper raises the question of how to classify Radbruch's theories in the international context of legal philosophy and philosophy in general. Radbruch's work was mainly influenced by the southwest German school of Neo-Kantianism, represented by Windelband, Rickert, and Lask. Their theories of culture and value show an affirmative-holistic understanding of philosophy as a source of wisdom and meaningfulness. Kant, on the other hand, (...) belongs more to a fundamentally different, critical camp of philosophy. Although Radbruch has incorporated Kantian Elements into his theory, he is rather a member of the affirmative-holistic camp. In the end the question will be raised as to what ought to be preserved of his philosophy. (shrink)

Eine Analyse der Politischen Philosophie der Neuzeit kann – soll sie nicht lediglich einzelne Autoren oder Werke reihen – zwei methodische Wege einschlagen. Sie kann zum einen mit einer detaillierten Werkinterpretation wichtiger Denker wie Hobbes, Locke oder Kant beginnen und quasiinduktiv den historischen Fortgang der Hauptdiskussionen zu rekonstruieren suchen. Sie kann aber auch wesentliche abstrakte Verlaufskategorien vorschlagen, mit deren Hilfe dann umgekehrt in einem quasideduktiven Konkretionsschritt die Beiträge eminenter Denker möglichst gut verstanden, eingeordnet und gewürdigt werden.Der vorliegende Text wird zum (...) Zweck der Beurteilung dieser beiden großen Alternativen zunächst einige Anforderungen vorschlagen, die derartige abstrakte begriffliche Kategorien erfüllen sollten, um zum Verständnis der Ideengeschichte der neuzeitlichen Politischen Philosophie beitragen zu können . In einem zweiten Schritt werden die beiden soeben genannten Gegensatzpaare an Hand dieser Anforderungen beurteilt . Diese Beurteilung wird zu dem Ergebnis führen, daß beide Gegensatzpaare zwar unabdingbar notwendig sind, um wesentliche Autoren der Politischen Philosophie der Neuzeit würdigen zu können. Für die Erfassung des Verlaufs der grundlegenden Auseinandersetzung in der neuzeitlichen Politischen Philosophie reichen sie aber nicht aus. Deshalb wird drittens das schon im Titel dieses Beitrags genannte Kategorienpaar „Normativer Individualismus versus normativer Kollektivismus" vorgeschlagen . Mit Hilfe dieses Gegensatzpaares und einiger Ergänzungen wird dann viertens die Grundlinie der Auseinandersetzung in der neuzeitlichen Politischen Philosophie skizziert werden . Diese Skizze soll schließlich zu einem besseren Verständnis der gegenwärtigen Diskussionslage führen. (shrink)

The impending missions to exploit natural resources of celestial bodies may at some point start interfering with the scientific interests, including those of astrobiology, in these bodies. While the legal status of celestial bodies at the highest level is clear, uncertainty has arisen as to the extent private property rights over such objects or over their resources are legally acceptable, legally impossible, or potentially legal. This also provides for a considerable amount of uncertainty regarding how the legal framework could or (...) may need to be changed to accommodate private interests. The article analyzes the two main international treaties relevant from this perspective, as well as their backgrounds, in order to outline the current legal status of celestial bodies and the resulting legal rights and obligations pertinent to both private exploitation and exploration. Based on such an analysis, it concludes by highlighting an approach that could actually incentivize the private sector and the science community to work together in a manner conducive to their interests in exploitation and exploration respectively. (shrink)

Kenley Dove’s article [OWL, IX-4] seems to overlook that certain thinker who could probably be the key to the proper elucidation of Hegel’s thought on creativity, i.e. Plotinus. Dove’s threefold breakdown of classical Greek and medieval Christian ideas of creation is cogent, though he fails to include the Neo-Platonic bridge which could not only harmonize for him the “deterministic” metaphysics of the Greeks with the ex nihilo “free-act-of-God” metaphysics of Aquinas, but also provide him with a way to understand that (...) Hegel represents a reconciliation of all of these positions. (shrink)

The first meeting of the Schleiermacher Studies and Translations Group was held August 8–11, 1986, at Drew University. The purposes of this “Schleiermacher Summer Camp” were to plan the translations into English of Schleiermacher’s complete corpus, including sermons and letters, as well as some prominent German secondary sources, and to provide an opportunity for the initial participants in this ambitious project to meet each other and learn each other’s methods. presuppositions, interests, and goals. The sessions were extremely valuable toward these (...) ends, and we all felt the satisfaction of a unified spirit of collaboration. (shrink)

In recent years, the public sector in many countries has had difficulty keeping abreast of social problems due to restricted financial resources and limited organizational capacities. As a consequence, entrepreneurs have started to address social welfare issues that the public sector has been unable to tackle with an innovative approach called social enterprise. The authors present research on the future prospects of social enterprise as a sustainable business model for industrialized countries. As there is a lack of historical and current (...) data, the authors aim to contribute to and structure the debate about the potential of the concept. Therefore, the authors provide initial data from a Delphi survey on the future development of social enterprise in a multistakeholder environment. Experts from academia, business, nongovernmental and governmental organizations, social enterprise investors, and social entrepreneurs evaluated 16 projections for the year 2030. Based on these results, the authors present comprehensive scenarios of four different possible developments of the future of social enterprise in Germany. (shrink)

Non-verbal enrichment in the form of pictures or gesture can support word learning in first and foreign languages. The present study seeks to compare the effects of viewing pictures vs. imitating iconic gestures on learning second language (L2) vocabulary. In our study participants learned L2 words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) together with a virtual, pedagogical agent. The to-be-learned items were either (i) enriched with pictures, or (ii) with gestures that had to be imitated, or (iii) without any non-verbal enrichment as (...) control. Results showed that gesture imitation was particularly supportive for learning nouns, whereas pictures showed to be most beneficial for memorizing verbs. These findings, suggesting that the type of vocabulary learning strategy has to match with the type of linguistic material to be learned, have important educational implications for L2 classrooms and technology-enhanced tutoring systems. (shrink)

Are Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes works of art? This article investigates the concept of art in regard to this question in six steps. (1) First, the radical challenge of art in modernity is explained. (2) Second, the concept of art in the history of philosophy is explored. (3) What follows is a discussion of three suggestions on how to understand the concept of art. (4) In the fourth step the question of the concept of art is framed more abstractly and (...) a discussion regarding its relationship between the contingent and necessary elements is offered. (5) As a result of this investigation some elements of the concept of art are suggested. (6) The final step is an answer to the initial question regarding whether or not Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes are works of art. (shrink)