"Knowing and History" charts the development of Hegelian philosophy of history in France from the 1930s through the postwar period, and critically assesses its significance for an understanding of our cultural present and of the possibilities for making meaning out of change over time. Michael Roth provides detailed analyses of the works of three of the most important Hegelian thinkers: Jean Hyppolite, Alexandre Kojève, and Eric Weil. These philosophers turned to history as the source of truths and criteria of judgment: (...) they forged connections between history and knowing as a means of confronting key modem philosophical problems, and of engaging their contemporary political concerns. According to Roth, the French Hegelians' work illuminates the power and limitations of the philosophical approach to history. Further, he finds in the development of their philosophies one of the crucial transformations in modem intellectual history: the shift from a concern with questions of significance to a concern with questions of use or function. Relevant to a wide variety of disciplines, "Knowing and History" will appeal to those specializing in intellectual history and political theory, as well as philosophers of history, critical theorists, and students of modem French thought and culture. (shrink)

This collection of essays, originally published in 1970 by Random House, gathers together some of the best initial responses to the problems raised by Edmund Gettier's celebrated critique of the traditional analysis of knowledge. Designed for upper-level courses and seminars in undergraduate philosophy programs and is intended as an introduction to epistemology from the analytic point of view.

In The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of Things, and Discipline and Punish, Foucault writes a "history of the present" by showing the connections between the archaeology of knowledge and criticism. In the first, he is fundamentally concerned with the changes in human perception evident at the end of the eighteenth century and the relation of these changes to the fundamental structures of experience. Underlying the history of medicine is the moral and political attempt to link the development of (...) science with the development of bourgeois freedom. In The Order of Things, he cites archaeology as a method of uncovering the fundamental paradigms of cultures and their systems of thought. Finally, in Discipline and Punish, he considers discourse a domain of power relations and thus establishes a link between knowledge and power. A "history of the present" is a self-conscious field of power relations and political struggle. (shrink)

The publication of History and... appears at a critical moment in our efforts to understand the importance of history as it relates to a wide range of scholarly ...

_On Tyranny_ is Leo Strauss's classic reading of Xenophon's dialogue, _Hiero_ or _Tyrannicus,_ in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. This edition includes a translation of the dialogue, a critique of the commentary by the French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, Strauss's restatement of his position in light of Kojève's comments, and finally, the complete Strauss-Kojève correspondence. "Through [Strauss's] interpretation Xenophon appears to us as no longer the somewhat dull and flat author (...) we know, but as a brilliant and subtle writer, an original and profound thinker. What is more, in interpreting this forgotten dialogue, Strauss lays bare great moral and political problems that are still ours." —Alexandre Kojève, _Critique_ "_On Tyranny_ is a complex and stimulating book with its 'parallel dialogue' made all the more striking since both participants take such unusual, highly provocative positions, and so force readers to face substantial problems in what are often wholly unfamiliar, even shocking ways." —Robert Pippin, _History and Theory_ "Every political scientist who tries to disentangle himself from the contemporary confusion over the problems of tyranny will be much indebted to this study and inevitably use it as a starting point."—Eric Voegelin, _The Review of Politics_ Leo Strauss was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

_On Tyranny_ is Leo Strauss’s classic reading of Xenophon’s dialogue _Hiero_, or _Tyrannicus_, in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. Included are a translation of the dialogue from its original Greek, a critique of Strauss’s commentary by the French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, and the complete correspondence between the two. This revised and expanded edition introduces important corrections throughout and expands Strauss’s restatement of his position in light of Kojève’s commentary to (...) bring it into conformity with the text as it was originally published in France. (shrink)

English summary: The account of the fate of Stephen takes up a large part in the Acts of the Apostles. Being the first martyr, Stephen became a Saint and the patron of many churches. There is, however, a modern exegetical tradition which blames Stephen himself for his violent death. Against this, Haaker emphasises the psychological and historical plausibility of Luke's account. The volume reflects the drama of the biblical narrative of Stephen and provides incisive examples of its reception history until (...) the 20th century. German description: Der Sammelband dokumentiert die Tagungen der Kulturhermeneutischen Sozietat e. V. der Jahre 2009 bis 2011, bei denen der Diskurs uber Emotionen und Verhalten im Zentrum stand. In den Zusammenhangen der philosophischen und theologischen Ethik werden Artikulationsformen der Moral, Entwicklungen der Theoriebildung und Probleme der Normativitat erortert. Mit Beitragen von Stefan Beyerle, Volker Caysa, Ferdinand Fellmann, Stephan Gratzel, Peter Fischer, Bernd Harbeck-Pingel, Susanne Klinger, Michael Roth, Friedrike Schick und Albrecht Scriba. (shrink)

Ethik ist "in". Ohne Frage. Aber trotz aller Bemühungen scheint die Frage nach dem, was Ethik ist, immer noch eine der brennensten und spannensten der aktuellen Forschung zu sein? Was macht Ethik eigentlich? Und wie hängen Ethik und Moral zusammen? Neben diesen allgemeinen Fragen zur Funktion von Ethik, stellt sich zunehmend auch die Frage nach deren Gestalt. Denn was macht die Theologische Ethik zu einer theologischen Ethik? Wie viel Theologie verträgt die Ethik in ihrem Anspruch, ihrem Grund und Gegenstand? Das (...) Studienbuch präsentiert einen Überblick über den gegenwärtigen Stand und Trends der Theologischen Ethik, sowie Perspektiven der anderen theologischen Fächer auf das Gesamt einer Theologischen Ethik. Autoren aus verschiedenen theologischen Richtungen und Perspektiven formulieren Antworten, werfen Fragen auf und zeigen Horizonte auf, die in der Arbeit an und in der Theologischen Ethik eine aktuelle Relevanz haben. Es gibt einen Überblick über die aktuellen Diskussionen und Diskurse der Theologischen Ethik und möchte eine Grundlage für Diskussionen über das Projekt der Theologischen Ethik in Forschung und Lehre, in Kirche und Gesellschaft vermitteln. (shrink)

Cantus firmus der analytischen Sprachphilosophie als der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts ist die Theorie des Sprachverstehens, die für die Human- und die Sozialwissenschaft immer mehr in den Mittelpunkt tritt. Das Buch führt in die Problemsituation der sprachanalytischen Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie ein, die dann eintritt, wenn die metaphysische Bestimmung der Sprache (Scheitern des logischen Atomismus) und die Zurückführung der Rekonstruktion von Verstehen mit semantischen Begriffen, die sich auf den Ausdrucksgebrauch und die Satzwahrheit als Analysans beziehen, strittig wird. Die Problemsituation wird konstruktiv (...) an den beiden Traditionen der analytischen Philosophie, der klassischen Debatten logische versus begriffliche Analyse, semantische versus pragmatische Präsuppositionen und der nach-empiristischen Bedeutungstheorie dargestellt. Eine Orientierung über die sprachanalytische Handlungstheorie ergänzt die Untersuchung. Die Perspektive geht dahin, dass in der Frankfurter Schule der Sprechakttheorie eine Sprachpragmatik Weichen für eine Protosoziologie stellt. (shrink)

Donald Davidson's unified theory of language and action can be understood as a continuation of the traditional analytic approach within philosophy of language and action. In the following we give an outline of some of the main themes of his philosophy centered around his core theory of radical interpretation (RI). His theory of rationality, his thesis of the anomalousness of the mental, and the externalist approach in his model of triangulation all follow in a systematic way from RI. Yet, Davidson's (...) philosophy can also be seen as giving a new systematic elaboration of central perspectives of W,v.O Quine's theory of language. In order to follow Davidson's main theses one therefore has to clarify the main differences and correspondences between both approaches. (shrink)

Given the evolution of his thought, Alexandre Kojève can be read as either the source of "engagement" and "existential Marxism" or as an early exponent of the postmodern rejection of the attempt to make meaning out of historical directionality in favor of an analysis of how history or discourse is constructed. Through the mid-1940s, Kojève was willing to accept that historical time is in the process of stopping, making it possible to grasp retrospectively, even anachronistically, the meaning and direction of (...) history. By the late 1940s, Kojève had come to believe that history is definitively over, and there is no substance left to fight about. Whereas the end of history had been a goal worth struggling for, it is now simply a description of reality in which there is nothing else to do, except perhaps to remind others that there is nothing left to do. (shrink)

Title: Tradition Publisher: University Of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226753263 Author: Edward Shils Title: Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory Publisher: University of Washington Press ISBN: 0295975199 Author: Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi.

This is an ambitious and frustrating book. Among the many virtues which Moser claims for it are all of the following: it answers the need to counteract certain “epistemologically harmful muddles with careful distinctions and arguments” ; it provides the reader with a “forceful” reply to both justification scepticism and knowledge scepticism and argues that both can be “effectively challenged, if not refuted” ; it “solves” the Gettier problem ; and it not only removes the “normative mystery” from epistemic concepts (...) such as knowledge and justification, but provides a meta-justification which will allow us, the readers, to see why the theoretical account offered in its pages is preferable to its competitors. It is worth mentioning that the competitors over whom Moser claims his theory has a “dialectical edge” include accounts authored by Chisholm, Lehrer, Goldman, Alston, Bonjour, Rorty, Foley and Stroud. As I said, this is an ambitious book. (shrink)

Remembering forgetting : Maladies de la Mémoire in nineteenth-century France -- Dying of the past : medical studies of nostalgia in nineteenth-century France -- Hysterical remembering -- Trauma, representation, and historical consciousness -- Trauma : a dystopia of the spirit -- Falling into history : Freud's case of 'Frau Emmy von N.' -- Why Freud haunts us -- Why Warburg now? -- Classic postmodernism : Keith Jenkins -- Ebb tide : Frank Ankersmit -- The art of losing oneself : Anne (...) Carson and decreation -- Inquiry as hope : Richard Rorty -- Photographic ambivalence -- Why photography matters to the theory of history -- Ordinary film : Péter Forgács's The Maelstrom -- Graves of the insane, decorated -- On a certain blindness in teaching -- Beyond critical thinking -- Good and risky : on the promise of a liberal education. (shrink)

Ist die Moral Überbleibsel einer vergangenen Welt und als solches nichts weiter als ein Mittel, der eigenen Meinung Autorität zu verleihen? Die Fragen "Warum überhaupt moralisch sein?" und "Gibt es moralisches Wissen?" helfen uns, der Realität der Moral auf die Spur zu kommen.

This essay focuses on three topics that arose at the Photography and Historical Interpretation conference: photography’s incapacity to conceive duration; photography and the “rim of ontological uncertainty;” photography’s “anthropological revolution.” In the late nineteenth century, blindness to duration was conceptualized as the cost of photographic precision. Since the late twentieth century, blindness to our own desires, or inauthenticity, has been underlined as the price of photographic ubiquity. These forms of blindness, however, are not so much disabilities to be overcome as (...) they are aspects of modern consciousness to be acknowledged. The engagement with photography’s impact on historical consciousness gives rise to reconsiderations of temporal extension and to the difficulties of acknowledging one’s desires in an increasingly open and fractured social field. Photography’s indexicality combined with its reproducibility gives rise to photographic ambivalence. As with other forms of ambivalence, we should be less concerned with diluting its constitutive tensions than with learning to live with its conflicted possibilities. (shrink)

_From the president of Wesleyan University, a compassionate and provocative manifesto on the crises confronting higher education_ In this bracing book, Michael S. Roth stakes out a pragmatist path through the thicket of issues facing colleges today to carry out the mission of higher education. With great empathy, candor, subtlety, and insight, Roth offers a sane approach to the noisy debates surrounding affirmative action, political correctness, and free speech, urging us to envision college as a space in which students are (...) empowered to engage with criticism and with a variety of ideas. Countering the increasing cynical dismissal—from both liberals and conservatives—of the traditional core values of higher education, this book champions the merits of different diversities, including intellectual diversity, with a timely call for universities to embrace boldness, rigor, and practical idealism. (shrink)

One of the common grounds of neo-conservatism and an increasingly important current in leftist thought has been their shared doubts about the ideologies of progress and modernization These doubts have recently taken the form of a defense of tradition against the total insemination of the spirit of capitalism. In the face of the insatiable lust of modernization, one turns not to the self-conscious, playful impotence of modernists and post-modernists, but rather to the powerful “grip of the past” on communities and (...) families. The forms in which the past is preserved over time should show us the sacred limits that bourgeois capitalism and state socialism are out to mystify with the opiate of development. (shrink)

The Poetics of Resistance: Heidegger's Line is a well-informed, carefully written, and detailed treatment of the political implications of Heidegger's philosophy in its Derridean acceptation. It argues that what Heidegger calls poetic dwelling--an element of Heidegger's later thinking often ignored by his more vehement critics--is at once disruptive (of the smooth functioning of technology) and community-founding. To engage in such thoughtful, poetic dwelling is to "cross the line."Roth argues, with Derrida against Heidegger, that crossing this line is not a move (...) into irrationalism (to say nothing of National Socialism); and he argues, with Heidegger against Derrida, that crossing the line, successful resistance, is possible. Grounded in the classics of German scholarship but reaching out to its creative appropriation in postmodernism, The Poetics of Resistance makes an important and timely contribution to the recuperation of a political philosophy from postmodernity. (shrink)