Disturbed by these acrimonious arguments, the authors - former colleagues and university-press board members - embarked on an ambitious project to reexamine a number of major literary and philosophical works dealing with the liberal arts and education. With their discussions ranging from Plato to Rousseau, from Cicero to Vico, from Erasmus to Matthew Arnold, Sousa and Weinsheimer offer not a history of education philosophy but an examination of the present.

The Association of Philosophy and History of Science in the South Cone is a non-profit academic association, founded on May 5th, 2000, in Quilmes, Argentina, at the closing ceremony of the 2nd Meeting of Philosophy and History of Science in the South Cone. The creation of this Association was the result of the interest to deepen and strengthen the exchange between the researchers in Philosophy and History of Science from the countries of the South Cone, from the two first meetings (...) that took place in Porto Alegre and Quilmes onwards. Since then, there have been biennial meetings organized as its responsibility. The main aim of AFHIC is to contribute to a better understanding of science from a philosophical as well as a historical point of view in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, especially in those which belong to the American South Cone, promoting a space for reflection, exchange, discussion, communication, and dissemination of such an understanding. This volume is - with minor changes - the English version of Fisica: Estudos Filosofi cos e Historicos. It is composed of refereed and, in some cases, opportunely modifi ed contributions made by members of the Association of Philosophy and History of Science in the South Cone, some of them who are unfortunately no longer among us. Pablo Lorenzano Director of AFHIC's Book Series. (shrink)

The history of East Timor has gone through several moments of transformation due to human actions that have the presence of Portuguese, Japanese, Indonesians and different social groups and local kingdoms. With this, one can note the trend of the evolution of thinking, arising from education in philosophy and its contribution to the changes that were seen as necessary, were initial instruments for Timor to become a republic, not explored, but as an autonomous people. Thus, the aim of this (...) article is to present a reflection on the role of philosophy in the history of the Timorese society. Thus, philosophy should not be understood only with a mere sense of individualistic self-construction, or even an incorporation of circumstantial urgencies, but rather with regard to a content that must be taught and learned, given that there are languages and methods and that, with due importance, understanding is built, also developing more doubts and, thus, the philosophical character of national thought. However, it is necessary to recognize the assumption that philosophical themes were established according to universal terms, with Universal approaches and incorporated with the urgencies of each place. Thus, even the themes with a challenging nature, there was still Timorese philosophical expression of clear importance for the development of a national idea, so that philosophy is present and is still discussed in all periods that make up the National History. In that regard, this article will offer in the first part an introduction, second philosophy, third history, fourth nation building, fifth the history of struggle for national liberation and will be end with final consideration. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays of a philosophical nature on the subject of technology, introducing authors from the Portuguese-speaking community, namely from Portugal itself, Africa and Brazil. Their contributions detail a unique perspective on technology, placing this important topic within the historical, ideological and social contexts of their countries, all of which share a common language. The shared history of these countries and the cultural and economic specificities of each one have stimulated singular insights into these thinkers’ (...) reflections. The essays are thematically diverse. Among the topics covered are technogenic knowledge, visions of technology, risks and uncertainties, mediatization, digitalization, and datafication, engineering practice and ethics, alternative technoscientific strategies, ontotechnologies of the body, virtual and archive. The contributions also explore other themes that are more closely related to the semi-peripheral world, such as technological dependence and the incorporation of Western technology into the social structure of ancestral communities. This book appeals to students and researchers and provides a voice to authors whose work are not usually available in English-language publications. It serves as an ideal guide for all those who seek rigorous and geographically widespread knowledge regarding thinking on technology in several Portuguese-speaking countries. (shrink)

This book offers to the international reader a collection of original articles of some of the most skillful historians and philosophers of biology currently working in Latin American universities. During the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in Latin America to the history and philosophy of biology, but since many local authors prefer to write in Spanish or in Portuguese, their ideas have barely crossed the boundaries of the continent. This volume aims to remedy this state of things, (...) providing a good sample of this production to the English speaking readers, bringing together contributions from researchers working in Brazilian, Argentinean, Chilean, Colombian and Mexican universities. The stress on the regional provenance of the authors is not intended to suggest the existence of something like a Latin American history and philosophy of biology, supposedly endowed with distinctive features. On the contrary, the editors firmly believe that advances in this field can be achieved only by stimulating the integration in the international debate. Based on this assumption, the book focuses on two topics, life and evolution, and presents a selection of contributions addressing issues such as the history of the concept of life, the philosophical reflection on life manipulation and life extension, the structure and development of evolutionary theory as well as human evolution. Life and Evolution – Latin American Essays on the History and Philosophy of Biology will provide the international reader with a rather complete picture of the ongoing research in the history and philosophy of biology in Latin America, offering a snapshot of this dynamic community. It will also contribute to contextualize and develop the debate concerning life and evolution, and the relation between the two phenomena. (shrink)

In the early modern period, botany still remained a relatively new arrival at the top table of knowledge. Much botanical work was not done in universities, colleges, academies, laboratories, or botanic gardens, but behind the walls of different kinds of gardens – of the royalty as well as of common people, of monasteries as well as public gardens. By following the circula­tion of oranges, especially taking into consideration the role of Portugal as a turn­table, this paper sheds light on several (...) of the unexpected ways in which the history of botany and horticulture and the history of gardens encountered in the early modern world. The history of oranges has often made reference to the acclimatization of this citrus fruit in Europe and its transplantation to the New World. However, very few works have addressed the dissemination of oranges from the Iberian Peninsula. In this paper, I argue for a change in perspective by stressing the role played by the Portuguese on acclimatization and dissemination of oranges from Asia to Portugal, and from this country to the Old and New Worlds. I also stress the role Portugal played in building and popularizing horticultural expertise for orange growth and its corresponding botanical knowledge. (shrink)

The History of Political Ideas by the German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin is a monumental work of around 2,600 pages. It remained unpublished during his lifetime, and it came to light through the American edition and the now completed Portuguese edition. Being the author of the first world edition of an abridged version of the History of Political Ideas ; the translator of the first three volumes of the 2012-2018 Portuguese edition; and the author of The civil philosophy of (...) Eric Voegelin I consider that the History of Political Ideas challenges the present climate of opinion: it subverts the dominant corrosive forces of moral relativism, intolerant neo-positivism, end-of-history obsessions, postmodernist deconstructions, agnosticism, nihilism, new age religions, and the all-pervasive ideology of money. Eric Voegelin achieves all this leading his readers from Antiquity to Modern Age. His monumental work begins with the “spiritual disintegration” of the Greek world, after the peak of Plato and Aristotle, a disintegration that ushered a long process of transition in the self-understanding of man in the Mediterranean world. The series goes through Middle Ages, R enaissance and Reformation as Voegelin analyzes the collapse of imperial Christianity, which led to the rise of autonomous reason and sectarian revolts that reached full development in later centuries. A new form of modern human consciousness replaced the Christian understanding of a divinely created closed cosmos. The collection ends - in a suspensive way - with “The Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man” focused on thinkers such as Comte, Bakunine and Marx; although they experienced true epiphanies, they become self-obsessed to the detriment of the world to which they refer. Such “Apocalypse of Man” must now be challenged, albeit with methodologies and hermeneutic principles other than those that Voegelin himself abandoned some decades ago. (shrink)

1. A filosofia hebraico-portuguesa -- 2. A patrologia lusitana -- 3. A filosofia arábigo-portuguesa.

Este texto situa-se no domínio da História das Ideias e aborda como temática principal o pensamento de Oliveira Martins sobre o Homem negro e a escravatura. As fontes primárias privilegiadas foram os documentos escritos do pensador, escolhidos pela sua representatividade quanto ao ideário em causa, a par de historiografia sobre a temática visada, que é muito vasta em termos biográficos e parcelares. Para o estudo das ideias do autor utilizámos metodologias e técnicas de análise interdisciplinares. A contextualização histórica, como ponto (...) prévio à abordagem do tema central do trabalho, é delineada a partir de uma breve caracterização das diversas conjunturas económicas, políticas e sociais da época, uma vez que as ideias não têm validade absoluta, fora do tempo e do espaço em que são geradas. Procurou-se expor e analisar a coerência entre as ideias de Oliveira Martins acerca da História, da Sociedade, da Nação e do Estado e as suas concepções antropológicas e rácicas; por fim, os seus conceitos sobre a impossibilidade de “civilizar” o Homem negro e sobre a escravatura. (shrink)

Law 49/2018, of August 14, created the Portuguese legal regime of the assisted decision-making (capacity), thus eliminating the legal institutes of interdiction and disqualification, provided for in the Civil Code (CC). The aim of this legal regime was to embed a new vision of disability based on a model of rights, that grants people with disabilities an independent and autonomous life and reflects the acceptance of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) guidelines. This paper (...) intends to discuss the ‘new’ Portuguese legal system regarding the legal capacity of persons with disabilities and its role in valuing the expression of the real will of people with disabilities. (shrink)

This book is an enquiry into memory in the Western world. Specifically, memory is the framework of culture, because it links the present to the past--or tradition--and projects it into the future. For this reason, any work focusing on memory involves a double challenge: (1) to reveal the origin of concepts and (2) to glimpse the course of thoughts. This is the case of the present volume, in which the authors make several tastings of Europe's intellectual heritage, by taking into (...) account both the Greek origin of this legacy and its relevance for understanding the European philosophical heritage. In particular, these papers focus on the Aristotelian tradition, the true keystone of Europe, and on other currents of thought that have also played an essential role in the intellectual evolution of the Old Continent. In the latter field, there are contributions, for instance, on philosophical-religious traditions such as Orphism or on certain fundamental aspects of Neoplatonism both in the Classical World and in Christian authors. The volume concludes with various works on the survival of these intellectual trends from the Renaissance to the present day. Consequently, this work offers the opportunity to delve deeper into some of the aspects that define Western civilisation, observed both from its origin and its evolution over the centuries. The volume contains papers in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and English. (shrink)

O livro oferece o primeiro estudo sobre o espólio de Edmundo Curvelo (1913-1954), professor da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa e um dos introdutores dos laboratórios psicotécnicos e psicológicos em Portugal. São publicados pela primeira vez manuscritos filosóficos de Curvelo, bem como a sua correspondência com grandes nomes da Cultura e da Filosofia do século XX (W. V. Quine, Alonzo Church, Stephen Kiss, Joaquim de Carvalho e Delfim Santos). O livro apresenta igualmente um estudo do enquadramento da obra (...) de Curvelo e da sua importância para a história do pensamento e da ciência portuguesa do século XX. This book presents the first study into the collection of Edmundo Curvelo (1913-1954), professor in the Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon and co-responsible for the introduction of psychotechnic and psychological laboratories into Portugal. Some of his philosophical manuscripts are published here for the first time, along with his correspondence with great names of 20th century Philosophy (W. V. Quine, Alonzo Church, Stephen Kiss, Joaquim de Carvalho and Delfim Santos). The book also contains a study which contextualizes Curvelo’s oeuvre within the history of 20th-century Portuguese science and thought. (shrink)

This article argues that Amílcar Cabral adhered to some of the essential elements of the philosophical discourse of modernity. This commitment led Cabral to endorse an anti-essentialist, historicized conception of culture, and this in turn led him to conceive of cultural liberation in terms of cultural autonomy as opposed to the preservation of indigenous culture(s). Cabral’s attitude towards languages is employed as a case study in order to demonstrate how emphasis on Cabral’s commitment to the philosophical discourse of modernity can (...) help explain why he could denounce ‘colonialist culture’, while also defending the PAIGC’s (Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde / African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) use of Portuguese as an official language. This essay argues that Cabral makes a significant distinction between foreign influences and foreign domination in the realm of culture. Cabral conceived of the anti-colonial struggle in the realm of culture as a struggle against the latter rather than the former. (shrink)

This book contains a selection of papers presented at the V South Cone Meeting of Philosophy and History of Science. The language of the chapters is Portuguese, Spanish or English. Published by the South Cone Association for Philosophy and History of Science, www.afhic.org.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Margaret Dauler Wilson. Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xx + 524. Cloth, $70.00. Ideas and Mechanism is a record of remarkable scholarship. It collects thirty-one essays by one of the most influential scholars in early modern philosophy. (Wilson herself did most of the editing, though Anne Jaap (...) Jacobson brought the book to completion after Wilson's death.) All but one of essays have been published previously. (The one new essay is "The Issue of 'Common Sensibles' in Berkeley's New Theory of Vision." There is also an essay on "True and Immutable Natures" previously published only in Portuguese.) Many are classics, united here with essays less well known. The collection begins with "Skepticism without Indubitability," an application of Wilson's scholarly might to Rorty's criticisms of the early modern legacy of foundationalism. Chapters 2-8 focus on Descartes. Several of these emphasize Descartes's accounts of sensation and representation. Chapters 9-12 discuss Spinoza. Then follows Wilson's influential essay on "Superadded Properties" and her related response to M. R. Ayers. Chapter 15-21 comprise an extended defense of Berkeley. The book ends with a long essay on the role of history of philosophy and a brief essay on animal ideas.In her essays, Wilson does not limit herself to one side of the classic divide between empiricists and rationalists. She succeeds in this ambitious endeavor by focusing on a problem common to both: the relation between mechanistic science and early modern views of ideas. Wilson is concerned with how philosophers' scientific views bear on their metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. This involves, in many cases, showing how philosophical positions take on new meaning as one considers the science underlying them. For example, Descartes's repeated claims that primary qualities "resemble" qualities in bodies are not taken to imply that any particular extension one sees is in a body. Extension in general, on which mechanistic explanations are based, is in bodies; color (and even perceived extension) is reducible by scientific explanation. The emphasis on the role of science also furnishes a platform for attention to neglected works. Wilson is exemplary in drawing from a wide range of texts to elucidate familiar points. In essays on Descartes and Berkeley, Wilson shows how their works on vision in particular enrich discussions of their epistemology. (One unfortunate limitation to Wilson's emphasis on mechanistic science is a neglect of political and theological works. Thus, she neglects to investigate the implications of, say, Spinoza's work in politics on his metaphysical views about man.)Of particular note is Wilson's defense of Berkeley. Wilson does not draw lines in terms of empiricists (Locke and Berkeley) and rationalists (Leibniz). Instead, she argues that Berkeley's defense of the common sense view that "physical things are as they are perceived" provides an alternative to the scientific realisms of Locke, Leibniz, and Kant. Defenders of Locke, for example, have claimed that Berkeley was insufficiently attentive to the role of mechanistic science in Locke's justifications of the primary-secondary distinction. Wilson shows how Berkeley took these Lockean arguments into account and why he objects to them. Rather than being a cure-all that saves Locke from Berkeley, the role of mechanistic science in his philosophy implicates Locke in the scientific realism against which Berkeley consistently defends common sense. [End Page 125]Not all of the essays directly relate to ideas and mechanism. Several deal with the closely related issue of mind-body interaction. One essay explains the epistemological argument for mind-body dualism in Descartes and another attacks Spinoza's account of mind and body. Wilson also writes on more general themes in Leibniz, such as necessity and contingency, causality, and confused and distinct ideas. She spends two chapters on the relationship between animals and humans. In one, she challenges appropriations of Spinoza that find in him the appealing view that there is no "radical ontological chasm" between humans and... (shrink)

A selection of papers presented at the III South Cone Meeting of Philosophy and History of Science. Papers are in Portuguese and Spanish.

A distinctive form of anticolonial analysis has been emerging from Latin America in recent decades. This decolonial theory argues that important new insights about modernity, its politics, and epistemology become visible if one starts off thinking about them from the experiences of those colonized by the Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas. For the decolonial theorists, European colonialism in the Americas, on the one hand, and modernity and capitalism in Europe, on the other hand, coproduced and coconstituted each other. (...) The effects of that history persist today. Starting thought from these LA histories and current realities enables envisioning new resources for social transformations. These decolonial insights seem to receive only a passing recognition in the Latin American social studies of science and technology projects that have begun cosponsoring events and publications with northern equivalents. My focus will be primarily on the decolonial theory and on just two of its themes. One is the critical resources it offers for creating more accurate and progressive northern philosophies and histories of science as well as social studies of science. The second is insights from Latin American feminists that carry different impacts in the context of the decolonial accounts. (shrink)

The contribution of Jesuits to the different fields of knowledge, including philosophy, is historically well known. In fact, since the foundation of the Society of Jesus, in the 16th century, Jesuits from different generations and cultures have taken part in the philosophical debates of their time and their different contexts. Since the foundation of the Society of Jesus, in 1540, the Jesuits, individually and as a body, have engaged in a fruitful dialogue between the Christian tradition and different dimensions of (...) human culture. During almost five centuries, numerous Jesuits taught philosophy in academic institutions all over the world. Some of them have their names recorded in the history of philosophy. Of course, the majority of them is not anymore remembered, despite their valuable contribution to the development of the Jesuit intellectual tradition up to our times. In fact, as an heir of the Roman College, the first academic institution founded by the Society of Jesus, in 1551, the Pontifical Gregorian University, in Rome, is a witness to this tradition, which has been kept alive thanks to the discrete work of both Jesuits and lay intellectuals. Known as the University of the Nations, this institution corroborates not only the capacity of the Jesuit tradition to put faith in dialogue with reason, but also the option to take the concrete reality of each human culture and its historical context as its point of departure. The Jesuits’ willingness to engage in dialogue with different intellectual perspectives is underpinned by one of the most defining traits of the Jesuit charism, namely, the conviction that God can be found and served in all things. Accordingly, Jesuits have adopted, from the beginning, an amenable stance towards the world with its different cultures and intellectual trends. As such, Jesuits have, since the beginning, inhabited the frontiers of human thought. According to the contemporary philosopher Paul Gilbert, SJ, within the institutions under the leadership of the Society of Jesus, it was always possible to maintain an equilibrium between two principles: “intellectual unity” and “openness to the world.” Without detriment to the Jesuit identity, the companions of Ignatius have been willing to dwell in the various dimensions of human reality, in their multiplicity and plurality. Either in the renewal of Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ metaphysics, or in the dialogue with modern philosophers such as Descartes, Kant, or Hegel, and even in the inculturation in non-European contexts, the Jesuits have been able to preserve the Christian tradition through an original development of human culture in all its richness and diversity. With respect to the last century, it has to be acknowledged that a significant number of Jesuits made significant contributions, with recognized competence, to philosophy. Certainly, the 20th century was particularly complex in many respects. It would be enough to recall that this period, which brought with it unprecedented social, scientific, and technological developments, was also the stage for the two World Wars. With the emergence or consolidation of philosophical currents such as Marxism, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism, and Post-Modernism, the past century was, without any doubt, fascinating from the intellectual point of view. Jesuits such as Karl Rahner, Frederick Copleston, Bernard Lonergan, William Norris Clarke, John F. Kavanaugh, Teilhard de Chardin, Gaston Fessard, Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac, Michel de Certeau, Xavier Tilliette, Paul Valadier, Paweł Siwek, Ignacio Ellacuría, Francisco Taborda, Henrique de Lima Vaz and, in the Portuguese context, Diamantino Martins or Júlio Fragata, among many others, were able to engage different philosophical currents, problems and controversies of their times. Faithful to their long tradition of being present in the frontiers of thought, those Jesuits have engaged in a fruitful dialogue with these intellectual trends, offering relevant contributions to different ongoing debates. Within this context, the present volume recalls and discusses the philosophical contribution of some of the most prominent Jesuit protagonists of the intellectual interchange that took place in the 20th century. This volume also intends to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, which happens just before the inauguration of the Ignatian Year. Decreed by Father Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, this celebratory Year will start on May 20, 2021, precisely 500 years after Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, was wounded at the battle of Pamplona. We are happy that this volume could bring together outstanding specialists in the thought of some of the most prominent Jesuits philosophers of the last century, namely Paul Valadier, Paul Gilbert, Józef Bremer, Jacek Poznański, Alexander Maar, Patrick H. Byrne, M. Ross Romero, Carlos Alvarez, Hélio Pereira Lima, José Gama, Domingos Terra, Gabriel Flynn, Marie-Gabrielle Lemaire, José Sols Lucia, Lorena Zuchel Lovera, Pedro Pablo Achondo Moya, Enzo Solari, Massimo Borghesi, Mendo Castro Henriques, João Barbosa, and Dominique Lambert. In addition, in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Júlio Fragata’s birth, Maria Teresa Fragata presents a memory of his life and thought. We hope that this volume may be useful to all those interested in the Jesuit philosophical tradition. Hopefully, it will stimulate scholars to pursue a fruitful and creative dialogue with contemporary philosophy, in the footsteps of the Jesuit philosophers featured here. We would like to thank all the authors and all those who, in different ways, made this volume possible. (shrink)

This book surveys the vast body of medieval Jewish philosophy, devoting ample discussion to major figures such as Saadiah Gaon, Maimonides, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Abraham Ibn Daoud, and Gersonides, as well as presenting the ancillary texts of lesser known authors. Sirat quotes little-known texts, providing commentary and situating them within their historical and philosophical contexts. A comprehensive bibliography directs the reader to the texts themselves and to recent studies.

Mit dem erstmals in einer zweisprachigen, umfangreich kommentierten Edition vorliegenden Liber de platano (1537) erschließt sich ein außergewöhnliches Zeugnis des portugiesischen Humanismus. Das aus einer Abhandlung sowie einem Briefwechsel zwischen dem Dichter João Rodrigues de Sá de Meneses und dem Rhetorikprofessor Juan Fernández bestehende Werk greift mit dem Platanenbaum ein Motiv auf, das durch Platons Phaidros und Ciceros De oratore popularisiert wurde: In beiden Texten finden philosophische Gespräche unter einer Platane statt. Allerdings wird der Baum im Liber de platano zu (...) einem mehrdeutigen Sinnbild. Zwar geht es durchaus um die botanische Frage nach dem Vorkommen der Platane im zeitgenössischen Portugal, doch erweist sich der Buam darüber hinaus auch als Inbild antiker Gesprächskultur und eines an der Antike orientierten genussvollen Lebensstils. In der einleitenden Studie stellt Roger Friedlein neben einer Einführung in den Text die Autoren sowie weitere Humanisten - Miguel da Silva, Jorge Coelho und Luís Teixeira - vor, die einerseits durch ihre Präsenz im Liber de platano von Bedeutung sind. Doch vor dem Hitergund ihrer Aufenthalte in Italien und ihrer Kontakte zu herausragenden Vertretern der italienischen Renaissance wie Pietro Bembo erscheint der Liber de platano zudem als zentrales Zeugnis für den portugiesisch-italienischen Kulturkontakt. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to advance responsible rehabilitation of the speculative philosophy of history. It challenges the idea popularized by thinkers such as and Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jean-François Lyotard that historical meta-mythology and meta-narrative are philosophically obsolete. As long as humanity, viewed anthropologically, lives by over-arching narrative, the quest for a version that survives rational criticism remains vital. Here human rights serve as the key to unlock such a version. Despite the fact that the Hegelian philosophy of history (...) has often been derided, something very similar currently functions as the official ideology of the world community: the idea of history as the story of freedom. This book does not retell the world-historical story of freedom. Rather, it uncovers it, beginning with the current age of human rights and working backward through the great role-model civilizations of history. Its conclusion is that a forward retelling of the story of freedom as the story of human rights can be justified by dewesternizing the story. The book contains critical responses from specialized scholars and re-presentative of selected world cultures. The volume includes illustrations, and a guest Afterword by Donald Phillip Verene. It is a companion-volume to the author's Hegel's Logic: Between History and Dialectic (North-western University Press, 1996). (shrink)

Philosophy, History, and Myth is a collection of essays that were originally delivered as academic lectures. The essays are relatively informal explorations of topics in the history of philosophy, logic and its philosophical relevance, materialism in the philosophy of mind, the Hegelian end of history, the role of humanism in the contemporary world, and relations between philosophy and myth, broadly and also more specifically with reference to themes in early Greek literature.

In his disputatio, Johann Peter von Ludewig provides a history of rational philosophy among the Arabs and sets out to contextualize the Turks’ attitude to it. Like many Lutheran scholars of the time, Ludewig believed that Islam, as a religion, impeded the development of rational philosophy in the Arab world. However, unlike those philosophers, he examines external influences that may have fed the interest of Arab Muslims in rational philosophy, especially dialectic. Unlike Orthodox Lutherans, such as Pfeiffer and Kromayer, in (...) his conclusion, Ludewig prays that Muslim philosophers cultivate reason to overcome the "deceit of Muhammadanists" toward rational worship. The use of the contentious and seemingly oxymoronic phrase “rational worship” (logikē latreia: λογική λατρεία, from Rom. 12:1), combining “rationality” and “worship” together refects, to a certain extent, the Enlightenment belief that reason could be used to understand the nature of God against any type of irrational religiosity. The idea of worshipping God rationally and equating God with reason shows the intellectual engagement of Protestant scholars with Enlightenment rationalism. (shrink)

In philosophy, the problem is philosophy itself; moreover, in every instance this problem is stated according to the historical and personal situation in which the philosopher finds himself, and this situation is in turn determined in large measure ...

Theories and Narratives will interest all readers for whom the role of history in the understanding of contemporary civilizations is an essential issue.

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What are the relationships between philosophy and the history of philosophy, the history of science and the philosophy of science? This selection of essays by Lorenz Krüger (1932-1994) presents exemplary studies on the philosophy of John Locke and Immanuel Kant, on the history of physics and on the scope and limitations of scientific explanation, and a realistic understanding of science and truth. In his treatment of leading currents in 20th century philosophy, Krüger presents new and original arguments for a deeper (...) understanding of the continuity and dynamics of the development of scientific theory. These result in significant consequences for the claim of the sciences that they understand reality in a rational manner. The case studies are complemented by fundamental thoughts on the relationship between philosophy, science, and their common history. (shrink)

With the aim of guiding readers along, in Hegel’s words, “the long process of education towards genuine philosophy,” this introduction emphasizes the importance of striking up a conversation with the past. Only by looking to past masters and their works, it holds, can old memories and prior thought be brought fully to bear on the present. This living past invigorates contemporary practice, enriching today’s study and discoveries. In this book, groundbreaking philosopher and author Donald Verene addresses two themes: why should (...) one study the historically “great” texts and, if such a study is necessary, how can one undertake it? Acting out against the rejection of the idea that there is a philosophical canon, he centers his argument on the “tetralogy” of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel. From his opening look at the rhetorical tradition, he brings those core ideals forward to classical Roman and medieval philosophers and then on into Renaissance and modern philosophy, including contemporary thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault. This vital chronological outline is supplemented by Verene’s contextualizing commentary. In ensuing sections, he offers guidance on reading philosophical works with “intellectual empathy,” suggests 100 essential works to establish a canon, illustrates the role of philosophers in history and society, and examines the nature of history itself. Ultimately, Verene concludes that history may be essential to philosophy, but philosophy is more than just its history. (shrink)