This original web-based database was developed at the University of Lausanne as part of the international research project “Drawings of gods”, which explores children's representations of supernatural agents. Its primary purpose is to store and organize data and metadata to be easily accessible to all affiliated researchers. However, anyone interested in the matter can view the drawings, as they were made publicly available. At present, our corpus is composed of over 5'100 drawings collected in different parts of the world and (...) yet constantly developing. (shrink)

Der Mensch hat in den verschiedenen Bereichen des Alltagslebens, der Institutionen, der Wissenschaften und der Philosophie hochst verschiedene Verhaltnisse zu Tieren ausgebildet. Fur praktisch alle besteht eine Asymmetrie zwischen Mensch und Tier. Als Gegenstand des Wirtschaftens, der Wissenschaften und der Kunste unterliegen die Tiere menschlicher Verantwortung. Umgekehrt konnen sie weder Wissenschaften hervorbringen noch im wortlichen Sinne Verantwortung fur den Menschen ubernehmen. Hier bleiben unter anderem zeitgenossische Deutungen naturwissenschaftlicher Theorien zu bedenken. Der vorliegende Band reflektiert aus Sichtweise von neun wissenschaftlichen Disziplinen (...) die verschiedenen Mensch-Tier-Verhaltnisse. Er dokumentiert eine Vortragsreihe von Mitgliedern der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Goethe Universitat Frankfurt am Main im Winter 2012-2013. (shrink)

Kempner. You do not have to testify, Professor Schmitt, if you do not want to, and if you think you are incriminating yourself. But if you do testify, then I would be grateful if you would be absolutely truthful, would neither conceal nor add anything. Is that your wish? Schmitt: Yes, of course. Kempner: And if I come to something you might find self-incriminating, you can simply say you prefer to remain silent. Schmitt: I have already been (...) interrogated by the C.I.C. and in the camp. I would be glad to tell you all I know. However, I would like to know what I am being blamed with. (shrink)

MEDIEVAL LOGICS LAMBERT MARIE DE RIJK (ed.), Die mittelalterlichen Traktate De mod0 opponendiet respondendi, Einleitung und Ausgabe der einschlagigen Texte. (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge Band 17.) Miinster: Aschendorff, 1980. 379 pp. No price stated. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MARTA FATTORI, Lessico del Novum Organum di Francesco Bacone. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1980. Two volumes, il + 543, 520 pp. Lire 65.000. VIVIAN SALMON, The study of language in 17th century England. (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory (...) and History of Linguistic Science, Series 111: Studies in theHistory of Linguistics, Volume 17.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 1979.x + 218 pp. Dfl. 65. Theoria cum Praxi. Zum Verhaltnis von Theorie und Praxis im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. (Akten des 111. Internationalen Leibnizkongress, Hannover, 12. bis 17.November 1977, Band 111: Logik, Erkenntnistheorie, Wissenschaftstheorie, Metaphysik, Theologie.) Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980. vii + 269 pp. DM 48. CLASSICAL AND NON-CLASSICAL LOGICS MICHAEL CLARK, The place of syllogistic in logical theory. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Press, 1980. ix + 151 pp. £3.00. A.F. PARKER-RHODES, The theory of indistinguishables. Dordrecht, Boston and London: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981. xvii + 216 pp. Dfl.90.00/$39.50. NICHOLAS RESCHER and ROBERT BRANDOM, The logic of inconsistency. Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1980. x + 174 pp. f 11.50. MISCELLANEOUS J. ZELENY, The logic of Marx. Translated from the German by T. Carver. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. xcii + 247 pp. £12.50. FELIX KAUFMANN, The infinite in mathematics. Edited by Brian McGuinness. Introduction by E. Nagel. Translation from the German by Paul Foulkes. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978. xvii + 235 pp. Dfl 85/$39.50 (cloth); Dfl 45/$19.95 (paper). PAMELA MCCORDUCK, Machines who think. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1979. xiv + 275 pp. $14.95. J. MITTELSTRASS (ed.), Enzyklopadie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie Bd. 1 : A-G. Mannheim, Wien, Ziirich: Bibliographisches Institut, 1980. 835 pp. DM 128. (shrink)

This paper presents use cases for modular development of ontologies using the OWL imports mechanism. Many of the methods are inspired by work in modular development in software engineering. The approach is aimed at developers of large ontologies covering multiple subdomains that make use of OWL reasoners for inference. Such ontologies are common in biomedical sciences, but nothing in the paper is specific to biomedicine. There are four groups of use cases: (i) organisation and factoring of ontologies; (ii) maintaining stable (...) interfaces and bindings between ontologies and between ontologies and software; (iii) localization of ontologies to the requirements of specific sites and (iv) extension of ontologies and encapsulation of modifications. OWL's axiom-oriented import mechanism has many similarities with import mechanisms in object-oriented software but also important differences – in particular, the effects of OWL imports are global, and the order in which modules are imported is irrelevant. The advantages and disadvantages of OWL's axiom-oriented approach are discussed, and suggestions are made for extensions to allow axioms to be filtered out as well as added – a mechanism that we term “adaptation” to distinguish it from the standard import mechanism. Finally we discuss possible alternatives and practical experience with the approaches presented. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 2 Seiten: 361-366.

Robert Elsie ist derzeit einer der profiliertesten und vielseitigsten Albanienkenner. Dem an griechischer Kultur interessierten Leser wird seine Übersetzung der Gedichte von Konstantin Kavafis bekannt sein; seine albanologischen Monographien, die dem Byzantinisten wohl weniger vertraut sind (besonders Dictionary of Albanian Literature. Westport-New York-London 1986; History of Albanian Literature. 2 Bde. Boulder-New York 1995; Handbuch zur albanischen Volkskultur. Wiesbaden 2002), zählen zu den Standardwerken der Balkankunde. Elsie interessiert sich epochenübergreifend für albanische Kultur. Neben seiner fachwissenschaftlichen Tätigkeit hat er zahlreiche Übersetzungen (...) albanischer Literatur vorgelegt; und in den Rahmen seiner Übersetzungen von Albanica ist auch der zu besprechende Band zu stellen. Der Titel „Frühes Albanien“ ist für den mit der Epocheneinteilung in der balkanischen Volksgeschichte weniger Vertrauten auf den ersten Blick irreführend, umspannen die von Elsie vorgelegten Quellen doch den Zeitraum vom 11. bis an das Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts. Die Diskussion, wann in der Geschichte des albanischen Volkes das Mittelalter endet, wird offen und kontrovers geführt. Elsie setzt es an die Wende zum 18. Jahrhundert; andere Gelehrte sehen erst in den Anfängen einer Nationalbewegung im zweiten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts das Anbrechen einer neuen Epoche. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

Philosophers, psychiatrists, and social scientists would welcome clarification of the distinction between rational and irrational desires. It may be proper to say that rational desires are those which manifest rationality. But since this seems a rather unilluminating characterization, philosophers sometimes offer definitions of what constitute such manifestations of rationality. I shall consider definitions provided by John Rawls and Richard Brandt. Their definitions are unsatisfactory mainly because they include subjunctive conditionals. An alternative approach, which avoids conditionals, is attractive. But it (...) encounters so many additional problems that I shall conclude that we are not now in a position to define rationality in this area and must treat it as a state or disposition which to date has only been partially characterized. Thus, if we want a definition of the difference between rational and irrational desires, we must at present settle for the rather unexciting one mentioned above. (shrink)

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy.

Background: Treating medication-refractory freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease remains challenging despite several trials reporting improvements in motor symptoms using subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus internus deep brain stimulation. Pedunculopontine nucleus region DBS has been used for medication-refractory FoG, with mixed findings. FoG, as a paroxysmal phenomenon, provides an ideal framework for the possibility of closed-loop DBS.Methods: In this clinical trial, five subjects with medication-refractory FoG underwent bilateral GPi DBS implantation to address levodopa-responsive PD symptoms with open-loop stimulation. Additionally, PPN (...) DBS leads were implanted for CL-DBS to treat FoG. The primary outcome of the study was a 40% improvement in medication-refractory FoG in 60% of subjects at 6 months when “on” PPN CL-DBS. Secondary outcomes included device feasibility to gauge the recruitment potential of this four-lead DBS approach for a potentially larger clinical trial. Safety was judged based on adverse events and explantation rate.Findings: The feasibility of this approach was demonstrated as we recruited five subjects with both “on” and “off” medication freezing. The safety for this population of patients receiving four DBS leads was suboptimal and associated with a high explantation rate of 40%. The primary clinical outcome in three of the five subjects was achieved at 6 months. However, the group analysis of the primary clinical outcome did not reveal any benefit.Interpretation: This study of a human PPN CL-DBS trial in medication-refractory FoG showed feasibility in recruitment, suboptimal safety, and a heterogeneous clinical effect in FoG outcomes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 in pre-Socratic scholarship. But he does not do justice to the religious mood which pervades the whole poem (a mood which is set by the prologue which casts the whole work into the form of some kind of religious revelation). The prologue is considerably more than a mere literary device, and the poem is more than logic. Generally, Jaeger9 and Guthrie are surely correct in (...) their judgment that any adequate interpretation of Parmenides' work (as well as that of the other early Greek thinkers) must be willing to take into account its essentially theological character and religious inspirationl~ not always grasped through strict analysis and exegesis. g Theolooy of the Early C-reekPhilosophers, trans. Edward S. Robinson (Oxford, 1947), p. lff, 90ft. agCf. Guthrie's excellent statement: "...Parmenides was at one with Heraclitus in claiming a prophetic or apocalyptic authority for his teaching." And again, the Greeks believed in "an inspiration whereby-the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men" (p. 6). ED. L. MILLER University of Colorado AN UNKNOWN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SEXTUS EMPIRICUS* I. Introduction Included in a collection of manuscripts and early printed books recently acquired by the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from the Paris bookdealer Paul Jammes ~ are three manuscripts attributed to a certain Nicolas de la Toison, Baron de Bussy. Two of the three volumes contain extensive Latin commentaries on the major writings of Aristotle.2 The third is a miscellaneous volume written in three different hands, which contains, among other things, a complete French translation of the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 160-210).3 I * I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Richard O'Brien, Western European Bibliographer of the UCLA Library, for his help in numerous ways, who made it possible for me to consult this material during my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before it had been officially catalogued by the Library. I would also like to thank Professors Donald Kalish and Robert Yost of the UCLA Department of Philosophy for their support in making it possible for the collection to be purchased. 1For a brief description of the collection as a whole see Charles B. Schmitt, "Acquisition of Early French Books and Manuscripts", UCLA Librarian, XIX (1966)~25. 2These two manuscripts are bound m red leather with gold tooling. Thear present shelf mark is Collection 968, Box 2. On the spines is written: (1) PHILOSOPHIA.TO.I, and (2) METAPHYSIC ET PHYSICA TO.2. They measure approximately 10 X 14 cm. and each contains about 600fois. At the beginning of Vol. I, in a later hand (19th century?), we read: "Nicolas de la Thoison, baron de Bussy, qui 6crivit ces m6moires, 6tait conseiller laic au Parlement de Bourgogne. Il fur pourru par la r6signation de Pierre Catherine le IV Ddcembre M.DC.XLV et regu le XXIX janvier M.DC.XLVI. I1portait: de queueles dune bands d'or charges en coeur d'une quints feuiUe d'azur--ainsi qu'on le volt dans le Parlement de Bourgogne [Dijon, 1649]de Pierre PaiUot, p. 326." There is also a drawing of the coat-of-arms which has been described. That the de la Toison coat-of-arms is a quintefeuille is verified by Theodore de Renesse, Dictionnaire des figures h$raldiques (Brussels, 1894-1903) III, 461. The passage cited above from the manuscript is directly quoted from Pierre Paillot, Le Parlement de Bouroongne [I], son origins, son $tablissemerit, et son progr~s (Dijon, 1649), p. 326. s A description of this manuscript will be found in the Appendix. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY shall here only give a preliminary survey of this third manuscript, pointing out some of the more interesting features and mentioning some problems connected with it which should be investigated further in more detail. As is now well-known the writings of Sextus Empiricus, which form the major extant compendium of ancient skeptical philosophy, had quite a significant impact on sixteenth and seventeenth-eentury thought, after their reintroduction in the sixteenth century. ~ Sextus' works were available in printed Latin editions after 15695 and the Greek text was printed in... (shrink)

Mythen dienen der Bewaltigung praktischer gesellschaftlicher Probleme, sie bieten Anleitungen zum poietischen und praktisch-politischen Handeln - dies bildet das einigende Band der im vorliegenden Buch versammelten Beitrage. Aus dem Inhalt: Jan Assmann: Tod, Staat, Kosmos: Dimensionen des Mythos im Alten Agypten Stefan Breuer: Das Dritte Reich Michael Friedrich: Chinesische Mythen Bodo Guthmuller: Europa - Kontinent und antiker Mythos Joachim Heinzle: Unsterblicher Heldengesang. Die Nibelungen als nationaler Mythos der Deutschen Klaus Koch: Vom Mythos zum Monotheismus im alten Israel Jurgen Leonhardt/Katharina Krause: (...) Poesie und Bild: Die Actaeon-Geschichte in Ovids Metamorphosen. Stefan M. Maul: Altorientalische Schopfungsmythen Herfried Munkler: Der Antifaschismus als Grundungsmythos der DDR Reimar Schefold: Die mehrstimmige Botschaft: Manner- und Frauenperspektiven in indonesischen Mythen Renate Schlesier: Freuds Dionysos Arbogast Schmitt: Mythos bei Platon". (shrink)

ExcerptAfter emigrating to the United States, Leo Strauss taught political philosophy for thirty years, first at the New School for Social Research in New York and then at the University of Chicago, before retiring at St. John's College. Richard Wolin observes that he “seems to have deeply mistrusted day-to-day politics—a very strange stance, to be sure, for someone who made his living teaching political philosophy.”1 But is it really so strange? What in his German Gymnasium education, or his participation in (...) the Zionist movement, would have prepared him for the peculiarities of day-to-day American politics? Strauss did not underestimate the…. (shrink)

Le manuscrit GKS 1606, 4° de la Bibliothèque Royale de Copenhague n’est pas un inconnu, il s’en faut même de beaucoup, puisqu’il a depuis longtemps été pris en compte par les spécialistes des manuscrits français du début du xiiie siècle (tel au premier rang Robert Branner) et comparé pour son iconographie aux psautiers royaux les plus prestigieux (le psautier d’Ingeburge de Danemark du Musée Condé à Chantilly ou le psautier de Blanche de Castille de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal). L’auteur (...) con... (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 45, Issue 2, pp 214 - 236 In the winter semester 1934–35 Heidegger used the occasion of an introductory seminar on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right as the context for a sustained confrontation with the legal theorist Carl Schmitt. In this paper, I establish the context for Heidegger’s confrontation with Schmitt from 1933 to early 1935; I explain why Heidegger chose Hegel as the context for his discussion; and above all, I demonstrate how their various attempts (...) to make sense of the seizure of power by the Nazis was combined with a systematic neglect of the pervasive violence of the times. (shrink)

The institution of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg in 1945 was an event which marked the birth of cosmopolitan law as a social reality. Cosmopolitan law has existed as an abstract idea at least since the writings of Kant in the late eighteenth century, but Nuremberg turned the notion of humanity from a merely regulative idea into a substantial entity. Crimes against humanity differ significantly from the traditional categories of international law: war crimes and crimes against peace. While the latter (...) generally treats states as subjects of right and upholds the principle of national sovereignty, the former treats individuals as subjects of right and encroaches on national sovereignty. I focus here on the writings of Hannah Arendt on the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial and the actuality of crimes against humanity perpetrated in totalitarian regimes. I explore her relation to the optimistic and naive cosmopolitanism of Karl Jaspers, as well as to the two prevailing forms of critical thought: the cynical realism towards the law adopted by many of the defendants, including Carl Schmitt, and the deconstructive attitude to humanism and technology adopted by Martin Heidegger. I maintain that Arendt's rugged cosmopolitanism, tested against its critics, remains exceptionally revealing on the issue of crimes against humanity now that this issue has re-emerged, after many years of silence, as arguably the most important question of our own day. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that Kant remained committed to the necessity and fundamental importance of education throughout his career. Like Johann Bernhard Basedow (1724–90), Kant holds that a ‘total transformation’ of schools is necessary, and he holds this view not only in the 1770s but in his later years as well. In building my case I try to refute two recent opposing interpretations – Reinhard Brandt’s position that Kant’s early ‘education enthusiasm’ was later replaced by a politics enthusiasm, (...) and Manfred Kuehn’s view that the increasing importance of autonomy in Kant’s mature ethics leads him to de-emphasize education. (shrink)

The twenty-first century so far has seen the global rise of authoritarian populism, systematic racism, and dogmatic metaphysics. Even though these events demonstrate the growth of an age of 'unreason', in this original and compelling book John Roberts resists the assumption that such thinking displays an unthinking irrationality or loss of reason; instead he asserts that an important feature of modern reactionary politics is that it offers a supposedly convincing integration of the particular and the universal. This move is defined (...) by what Roberts calls the 'reasoning of unreason' and has deep roots in the history of Western thought and politics. Tracing the dark history of enlightenment-disenlightenment, John Roberts explores 'the reasoning of unreason' across centuries from Aquinas, William of Ockham, the most important treatise on witchcraft Malleus Maleficarum, Locke, Kant, and Count Arthur de Gobineau, to Social Darwinism, Nazism, Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, and Friedrich von Hayek. Roberts provides a new set of philosophical-political tools to understand the formation and denigration of the rational subject and the current reinvestment in various forms of political unreason globally. The Reasoning of Unreason is the first book to draw on the philosophy of reason, political philosophy, political theory and political history, in order to produce a dialectical account of the 'making of reason' internal to the forces of unreason and the limits of reason. (shrink)

Reaktionäres Denken ist wieder in Mode. Aber was ist das eigentlich? Wodurch unterscheidet es sich von anderen Formen des Denkens? Und welche philosophischen Instrumente können gegen dessen erneutes Erstarken wirken? Robert Hugo Ziegler analysiert beispielhaft Autoren wie Jünger, Heidegger, Schmitt und Rand und schlägt einen systematischen Begriff des reaktionären Denkens vor. Damit entmystifiziert er eine Diskursform, die letztlich nur in der eigenen Mystifizierung besteht, und bezieht auch politisch Stellung gegen das Wiederaufleben der Reaktion.

Ernst Fraenkels Neopluralismus zählt zu den 'Klassikern'. Worin zeigt sich seine Anschlussfähigkeit? Antipluralistische Traditionsbestände sind wirkmächtig geblieben. 'Lobbyismus' hat immer noch einen schlechten 'Beigeschmack'. Das Problem von Grundkonsens und Streit stellt sich insbesondere bei politischen Gegnern, die mit 'Freund-Feind-Ideologien' agieren.

Leo Strauss is known to many people as a thinker of the right, who inspired hawkish views on national security and perhaps even advocated war without limits. Moving beyond gossip and innuendo about Strauss's followers and the Bush administration, this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of Strauss's writings on political violence, considering also what he taught in the classroom on this subject. In stark contrast to popular perception, Strauss emerges as a man of peace, favorably disposed to international law (...) and skeptical of imperialism - a critic of radical ideologies (right and left) who warns of the dangers to free thought and civil society when philosophers and intellectuals ally themselves with movements that advocate violence. Robert Howse provides new readings of Strauss's confrontation with fascist/Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, his debate with Alexandre Kojève about philosophy and tyranny, and his works on Machiavelli and Thucydides and examines Strauss's lectures on Kant's Perpetual Peace and Grotius's Rights of War and Peace. (shrink)

This essay attempts to outline a genealogical approach to the question of why political reasoning and moral reasoning have parted company, highlighting the contributions of Aristotle, Aquinas, Geulincx, Kant, Garve, Hegel, and Schmitt. In the author’s conclusion he looks in particular at the work of Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas, the former largely associated with political philosophy and the latter almost exclusively associated with ethics, to show that these readings are both one-sided understandings of their work and that, writing (...) in the aftermath of the Holocaust, neither accept the standard account of the relation of ethics and politics. (shrink)

Heinrich Meier’s work on Carl Schmitt has dramatically reoriented the international debate about Schmitt and his significance for twentieth-century political thought. In _The Lesson of Carl Schmitt_, Meier identifies the core of Schmitt’s thought as political theology—that is, political theorizing that claims to have its ultimate ground in the revelation of a mysterious or suprarational God. This radical, but half-hidden, theological foundation underlies the whole of Schmitt’s often difficult and complex oeuvre, rich in historical turns and (...) political convolutions, intentional deceptions and unintentional obfuscations. In four chapters on morality, politics, revelation, and history, Meier clarifies the difference between political philosophy and Schmitt’s political theology and relates the religious dimension of his thought to his support for National Socialism and his continuing anti-Semitism. New to this edition are two essays that address the recently published correspondences of Schmitt—particularly with Hans Blumberg—and the light it sheds on his conception of political theology. (shrink)

A reprint of the popular 1972 Harper and Row collection of essays in phenomenology and existential phenomenology. Contributions from a wide range of scholars are included, among them Husserl, Frege, Chisholm, Merleau-Ponty, Schmitt, Tillman, Gendlin, Sellers, Linsky, Dreyfus, Ryle, Solomon, Schlick, Ricoeur, Marcel, Heidegger, Sartre, Brentano, Olafson, Camus, and de Beauvoir.

The central question which I address is whether appeal to a hypothetical contract between moral persons is acceptable as a method for justifying basic ethical principles. ;My first two substantive chapters concern general issues in metaethics, particularly the shortcomings of both standard naturalist and noncognitivist theories of evaluative language; some conditions of acceptability for methods of moral justification are proposed and supported as well. Firth's and Hare's methods fail to satisfy these criteria, while Brandt's present approach and Rawls' method (...) of reflective equilibrium largely succeed. Rawls, quite correctly, intends his contract argument to apply only within the framework of this more basic method. ;Major aspects of Rawls' contract theory are examined at length in Chapter IV. My central concern is with the reasons Rawls gives for regarding his interpretation of the initial contract situation as the "rationally preferred" one. The concepts of impartiality, neutrality, and fairness are discussed at the outset. I then proceed to explain and criticize Rawls' reasons for imposing a "thick veil of ignorance" on the contractors. The argument that natural assets and social contingencies are "morally arbitrary" and hence should not influence the choice of principles of justice is found to be open to serious objection and to rest upon a specific type of egalitarian moral commitment. Rawls' "Kantian" argument is shown to lack sufficient support and to involve an unwarranted exclusion of certain deontological, perfectionist, and other teleological theories from serious consideration. ;Grice's contract theory, which omits the "veil," is examined in Chapter V, together with his account of prudential reasoning and his argument for a necessary connection between moral obligation and rationality. His type of contract approach is demonstrated to be unworkable due to vague description of the initial situation. Moreover, it has unacceptable implications and cannot serve as an appropriate basis for moral justification in any case. ;I conclude that the ideal contract method is at best a very conditional procedure of moral justification, far more suitable for some types of moral conceptions than for others. It seems unlikely, furthermore, that achievement of wide reflective equilibrium or "full rationality" in Brandt's sense would result in a consensus favoring any one description of the initial contract situation. (shrink)

Arguing that the importance of painting and other visual art for Benjamin's epistemology has yet to be appreciated, Weigel undertakes the first systematic analysis of their significance to his thought. She does so by exploring Benjamin's dialectics of secularization, an approach that allows Benjamin to explore the simultaneous distance from and orientation towards revelation and to deal with the difference and tensions between religious and profane ideas. In the process, Weigel identifies the double reference of 'life' to both nature and (...) to a 'supernatural' sphere as a guiding concept of Benjamin's writings. Sensitive to the notorious difficulty of translating his language, she underscores just how much is lost in translation, particularly with regard to religious connotations. The book thus positions Benjamin with respect to the other European thinkers at the heart of current discussions of sovereignty and martyrdom, of holy and creaturely life. It corrects misreadings, including Agamben's staging of an affinity between Benjamin and Schmitt, and argues for the closeness of Benjamin's work to that of Aby Warburg, with whom Benjamin unsuccessfully attempted an intellectual exchange. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Truth Shall Make You FreireRobert CanterTeaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates, edited by Dianne F. Sadoff and William E. Cain; 271 pp. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994; $19.75, paper.IThe newest title in the MLA’s Options for Teaching series, this publication is well-timed. Concerns about “classroom advocacy” and “politicized teaching” have recycled into near-critical mass, even in the mass media. The book is well-arranged, too, with a (...) solid sample of deconstructionist, New Historicist, Marxist, feminist, and cultural studies, and more mix-and-match theorists describing their classroom aims and means in twenty-one essays grouped into four sections. Sadoff and Cain offer elegantly evasive introductions—not only to these essays per se, but to the issues these essays purport to address. In “Surveying Theory,” David B. Downing, John Kucich, Susan S. Lanser, Lynette Felber, Donald G. Marshall, and Gary Waller lay broadly “anti-foundational” groundwork. In “Focusing,” Diana Fuss, Sandra A. Grayson, Beverly Lyon Clark, Evan Carton, Laurie A. Finke, Jonathan Arac, and Cary Nelson deconstruct things in more detail. In “Theory and Culture,” Huston Diehl, Cannon Schmitt and Donald Ulin, Lindon Barrett, Simon Gikandi, D. N. Rodowick, and Jan Gorak again widen the scope of “theorized teaching,” aiming regulation anticanonical shrapnel at every bastion of coded convention. And while readers may pause over [End Page 336] its backcover promise of “lively and accessible prose,” on the whole, the book is unusually readable for an MLA publication about theory.Since Teaching Contemporary Theory to Undergraduates is a how-to directed at true-believers, it might seem like critical blindsiding to address its fundamental assumptions rather than its tactical suggestions, to focus on its “theory” rather than on its pedagogy. Yet such a focus is not only fair but necessary. The pedagogy is in this book a pawn of the theory. And the theory is, at best, a lesson in how not to teach students how to learn. For despite all its noisy celebrations of methodological, cultural, ontological, and occasionally even human “difference,” the anthology is really a chorus of self-defeating dogma. 1 Like the virtue of variety, even the relative absence of jargon here works as much against as for the book, revealing self-contradictions so perfectly unwitting that they are twice as funny. It is a good thing, then, that the authors eventually contradict these claims, too—even if they know not that they do.The canon? In accordance with postmodern tradition, “the canon” can be calibrated to be whatever best attacks whatever other tradition a particular theorist is aiming at. It is a very modular “monolith.” And theorists never try to “overdetermine” definitions, anyway. The classroom? As an “overdetermined” site of class-struggle, “the classroom (and the academy at large) is... a social institution designed to reproduce the interests, values, and politics of the dominant social classes” (p. 104). Convention? Anything “mainstream” is so polluted with “the notion of mastery, of total and complete knowledge” that even assigning “mainstream” theorists in a theory class “reproduces that hegemony, no matter how critically we read them” (pp. 105, 61). The runoff of mainstream theorists quoted here—conventional MLA Style—makes the same point. Culture? As always already—and only—“a struggle between power and its disenfranchised shadow,” culture “systematically excludes and marginalizes disenfranchised social members” (pp. 263–64, 20–21).Education? As Paulo Freire has revealed, 2 on the one, bad, goatish, wrong Right-wing hand of God, there is the repressive “banking” model of education; on the other, good-shepherdish, right Left-wing side, there is the liberating “problem-posing” model. You are either a droning clerk bent on subduing students into serfdom, or you are a resistance fighter lighting fuses of freedom. “Instrumental activity” does “pedagogical violence,” making the teacher a tyrant and the student a victim, a “submissive imitator” in a “system” that’s “abidingly committed [End Page 337] to the vision of a white-supremacist oligarchy.” Even asking students what level of “guidance” they feel they need is imposing “rhetorical control” (pp. 32, 23, 222, 135).Facts? The fact is, they are “the discursive gestures of the dominant groups” (p. 222). Unless they are... (shrink)

Among moralists and social critics of several stripes, it is not enough that the right thing be done: they also insist that it be done, and be seen to be done, for the right reasons. They are anxious to know whether we are sending food to starving Africans out of genuinely altruistic concern, or merely to clear domestic commodity markets, for one particularly topical example. Or, for another example, critics of the Brandt Commission’s plea for increased foreign aid more (...) generally say, in stinging rebuke: ‘Many of those who support the proposal... do so out of genuine humanitarian concern about... poverty. But it is doubtful whether this is the main concern of its authors, and it certainly is not their only concern.... They are, instead, primarily concerned with the preservation of the existing world economic order.’What is common to all such cases is an attempt at motive differentiation. Any particular piece of behavior might have sprung from any of a number of different underlying motives; commentators want to know which was the real motive. Here I shall show that this characteristic quest for motive differentiation is misguided. In most of the standard social situations, it makes no material difference to agents’ actions whether they act from one sort of motive or another. And in such circumstances, pressing the motivational issue will usually lead only to mischief, of both a pragmatic and a moral sort. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern PhilosophyJean-Robert ArmogatheRiccardo Pozzo, editor. The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 336. Cloth, $69.95.The status of a "great" philosopher is to stand out for centuries, asking questions in such a way that the answers can never be definitive. Not so many of them are able to stand such a (...) severe proof. Aristotle phrased some questions we are still groping to answer. It was a very good idea to ask thirteen scholars to deliver a lecture series at the Catholic University of America during the Fall 1999 about the reception of Aristotle's theory of intellectual virtues (Nich. Ethics VI). The speakers did not stick to this issue, and enlarged their purpose to a general approach of Aristotle's receptions in various moments of Western modern philosophy.Edward Mahoney complements Charles Schmitt's basic introduction to Aristotle and the Renaissance, with some very valuable pages about Cardinal Bessarion's contribution to the Byzantine debate aroused in 1439 by Plethon's comparison between Plato and Aristotle (in favor of the former). Along with Charles Schmitt, Antonino Poppi is the best specialist of the Paduan tradition, and wrote a very qualified paper about Zabarella (1533-89), who shaped Aristotelianism into the rigorous science of the schoolbooks: for centuries, Aristotle is read through Zabarella's glasses. Apart from a bird's view on recent Galilean studies (where Alistair Crombie is not mentioned), William A. Wallace makes his point about Aristotle's influence on Galilean logics, linking Galileo's 1640 letter to Liceti (where he states that, in matters of logic, he has been an Aristotelian all his life) to the scientist's deep knowledge as revealed by the logical questions in one of the juvenile treatises (ms 27 in Florence, more thoroughly studied in Wallace's book, Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof [Dordrecht, 1992]). John Doyle, a specialist of Late Scholastic Philosophy, figures out a [End Page 209] strange character, the French Jesuit André Semery (1630-1717), who taught for thirty years at the Collegium romanum. In a very anti-Aristotelian way, he holds a definite belief in metaphysical beings of reason. The boundary between what we can think and say is quietly stepped over, when Semery and other Jesuits begin to think about thinking, opening a very modern path which leads to Brentano and Quine. Christia Mercer states that Leibniz's combination of a Platonist epistemology with an Aristotelian conception of nature brings a very innovative view in ethics. A very forceful paper by Richard L. Velkley compares Rousseau's politics to Aristotle's view of man (the paper became a chapter of his 2002 impressive book Being after Rousseau), while Riccardo Pozzo gives a short presentation of Aristotle's reception in modern Germany, and an elaborate analysis of Kant's debt to Aristotle for the intellectual virtues. Hegel's appropriation of Aristotelian intellect is presented by Alfredo Ferrarin, while Michael Davis reconstructs Nietzsche's path from Aristotle to the tragedy and back, in a very convincing way. Husserl (Richard Cobb-Stevens), Heidegger (Stanley Rosen), Wittgenstein (Daniel Dahlstrom) and Gadamer (Enrico Berti) conclude brilliantly the series, showing how the thought of the Stagirite fertilized contemporary philosophers, in a permanent dialogue of disagreement or borrowing, never at rest, and never leaving anyone indifferent. The old Greek man remains a vivid debater for our age of anxiety.Jean-Robert ArmogatheThe University of Paris-SorbonneCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern PhilosophyJean-Robert ArmogatheRiccardo Pozzo, editor. The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 336. Cloth, $69.95.The status of a "great" philosopher is to stand out for centuries, asking questions in such a way that the answers can never be definitive. Not so many of them are able to stand such a (...) severe proof. Aristotle phrased some questions we are still groping to answer. It was a very good idea to ask thirteen scholars to deliver a lecture series at the Catholic University of America during the Fall 1999 about the reception of Aristotle's theory of intellectual virtues (Nich. Ethics VI). The speakers did not stick to this issue, and enlarged their purpose to a general approach of Aristotle's receptions in various moments of Western modern philosophy.Edward Mahoney complements Charles Schmitt's basic introduction to Aristotle and the Renaissance, with some very valuable pages about Cardinal Bessarion's contribution to the Byzantine debate aroused in 1439 by Plethon's comparison between Plato and Aristotle (in favor of the former). Along with Charles Schmitt, Antonino Poppi is the best specialist of the Paduan tradition, and wrote a very qualified paper about Zabarella (1533-89), who shaped Aristotelianism into the rigorous science of the schoolbooks: for centuries, Aristotle is read through Zabarella's glasses. Apart from a bird's view on recent Galilean studies (where Alistair Crombie is not mentioned), William A. Wallace makes his point about Aristotle's influence on Galilean logics, linking Galileo's 1640 letter to Liceti (where he states that, in matters of logic, he has been an Aristotelian all his life) to the scientist's deep knowledge as revealed by the logical questions in one of the juvenile treatises (ms 27 in Florence, more thoroughly studied in Wallace's book, Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof [Dordrecht, 1992]). John Doyle, a specialist of Late Scholastic Philosophy, figures out a [End Page 209] strange character, the French Jesuit André Semery (1630-1717), who taught for thirty years at the Collegium romanum. In a very anti-Aristotelian way, he holds a definite belief in metaphysical beings of reason. The boundary between what we can think and say is quietly stepped over, when Semery and other Jesuits begin to think about thinking, opening a very modern path which leads to Brentano and Quine. Christia Mercer states that Leibniz's combination of a Platonist epistemology with an Aristotelian conception of nature brings a very innovative view in ethics. A very forceful paper by Richard L. Velkley compares Rousseau's politics to Aristotle's view of man (the paper became a chapter of his 2002 impressive book Being after Rousseau), while Riccardo Pozzo gives a short presentation of Aristotle's reception in modern Germany, and an elaborate analysis of Kant's debt to Aristotle for the intellectual virtues. Hegel's appropriation of Aristotelian intellect is presented by Alfredo Ferrarin, while Michael Davis reconstructs Nietzsche's path from Aristotle to the tragedy and back, in a very convincing way. Husserl (Richard Cobb-Stevens), Heidegger (Stanley Rosen), Wittgenstein (Daniel Dahlstrom) and Gadamer (Enrico Berti) conclude brilliantly the series, showing how the thought of the Stagirite fertilized contemporary philosophers, in a permanent dialogue of disagreement or borrowing, never at rest, and never leaving anyone indifferent. The old Greek man remains a vivid debater for our age of anxiety.Jean-Robert ArmogatheThe University of Paris-SorbonneCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

Apocalypse. To most, the word signifies destruction, death, the end of the world, but the literal definition is "revelation" or "unveiling," the basis from which renowned theologian René Girard builds his own view of Biblical apocalypse. Properly understood, Girard explains, Biblical apocalypse has nothing to do with a wrathful or vengeful God punishing his unworthy children, and everything to do with a foretelling of what future humans are making for themselves now that they have devised the instruments of global self-destruction. (...) In this volume, some of the major thinkers about the interpretation of politics and religion— including Eric Voegelin, Leo Strauss, and Carl Schmitt— are scrutinized by some of today's most qualified scholars, all of whom are thoroughly versed in Girard’s groundbreaking work. Including an important new essay by Girard, this volume enters into a philosophical debate that challenges the bona fides of philosophy itself by examining three supremely important philosopher of the twentieth century. It asks how we might think about politics now that the attacks of 9/11 have shifted our intellectual foundations and what the outbreak of rabid religion might signify for international politics. (shrink)

In Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer project, he gives an archaeology of Western political power from ancient Rome up through Carl Schmitt's model of "exceptional sovereignty," where the sovereign is "he who decides on the exception."1 Agamben takes Schmitt's thesis further, arguing that, in modern biopolitics, the "sovereign is he who decides on the value or the nonvalue of life as such," and therefore, on life and death in the state.2 Although this model also appears in Foucault's work, Penelope (...) Deutscher argues that Agamben's use of it includes "the particularly lethal variant seen in the capacity to cancel the status of what is put to death."3 "Homo sacer" is the name that Agamben gives to the form of political... (shrink)

Philosopher, rabbi, religious historian, Gnostic: who was Jacob Taubes and what is at stake in his works? To begin answering this question, it is useful to consider his writings in conjunction with those of Carl Schmitt, with whom he shared an interest in the theological background of modern politics. Although Taubes made the acquaintance of such thinkers as Gershom Scholem, T. W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Jacques Derrida, this complex history with Schmitt has been the best known and (...) most notorious of his relationships. Though never blind to the legal theorist's political past, Taubes acknowledged his intellectual debt to Schmitt…. (shrink)