An assessment and reevaluation of nihilism’s ascendency over metaphysics. Challenging the idea that nihilism has supplanted metaphysics, Vittorio Possenti finds in this philosophical turn the grounds for a mature renewal of metaphysics. Possenti takes the reader on a “third voyage” that goes beyond the “second voyage” indicated by Plato in the Phaedo. He traces the ascendancy of nihilism in philosophy, offering critical examinations of Nietzsche, Gentile, Heidegger, Habermas, Husserl, Gadamer, Ricoeur, and Vattimo. With penetrating accounts of philosophical movements (...) such as hermeneutics and logical empiricism, rich with both historical and theoretical insights, Possenti provides a compelling defense of the power of human reason to apprehend the most obvious but also the most profound aspect of things: that they exist. By exploring the ubiquity of nihilism and probing its philosophical roots, Possenti clears the way for a fresh reformulation of metaphysics. (shrink)

Tal vez no le resulte inútil al pensamiento postmetafísico verse reflejado en los cánones de la filosofía del ser. Discutir así en forma de tesis y valorar las ideas del ultimo Habermas es el cometido de este trabajo. Queda al descubierto, de esta manera, la interpretación habermasiana reduccionista de la metafísica, su olvido del ser y de la cuestión de la verdad, su retractación ante la cuestión religiosa y las consecuencias que de todo ello se desprenden.

ONE OBSERVATION FORCES ITSELF UPON US AT THE OUTSET. It is just as hard to think about the problem of life today as it was a hundred or a thousand years ago. If we observe the state of the sciences, we are led to the conviction that an important issue still remains open: to develop a philosophy of life and the organism that is adequate to the level of biological discoveries. Our most urgent need in the dialogue among science, philosophy, (...) and theology does not arise, as it has happened for centuries, from physics and cosmology but from the life sciences, notably biology and genetics. This is a necessity on which thinkers of different schools, such as Hans Jonas and John Polkinghorne, are agreed. Physics is no longer the guiding science, or the sole guiding science: its place has been taken by biology, and it is high time that philosophy and theology turned to address the issues it raises, without entrusting the realm of nature and life solely to the sciences. While there is still a rich crop of studies about the Big Bang theory and scientific cosmology in general, little has been written on philosophical biology, where the presence of the theologians has been exiguous. One may wonder why this should be so: perhaps because the Big Bang theory seems allusively to evoke the truth of the creation, though a more careful consideration of this scientific theory, rather controversial and highly speculative, shows that it has nothing to do with the theme of creation, as it deals only with the cosmic becoming: as such it is unable to formulate statements on what transcends becoming and on creation understood as the total position in being of all things. But one may also conjecture that this insufficient interest in biology stems from the difficult problem of teleology and, more generally, from the reductionist attitude frequently displayed by scientists when they pass beyond their own field of research and formulate hypotheses and theories with universal implications, as they are prompted by an unbridled enthusiasm which has proved ill-advised on other occasions in the past. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Na última década venho desenvolvendo a ética argumentativa (de fato a ética tout court) com base no uso, dentre outros instrumentos, do operador lógico que chamo de “condicional” (e que Jean Piaget tinha chamado (...) de “condicional inverso” mas sem interpretá-lo em linguagem natural da mesma forma que eu o faço). No presente trabalho mostramos um problema do operador de “implicaçáo material” que também foi chamado de “condicional” mas é diferente do nosso, e reafirmamos a pertinência do nosso operador (em especial de cara à fundamentaçáo última da ética, que serve, dentre outras coisas, para alicerçar a educaçáo ambiental). Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}. (shrink)

STATE, LAW, RELIGION DIALOGUE BETWEEN JÜRGEN HABERMAS AND JOSEPH RATZINGER S u m m a r y The paper discusses the main arguments and conclusions from the debate “Moral and prepolitical foundations of the liberal state,” which took place on 19 January 2004 in Munich between Jürgen Habermas and Joseph Ratzinger. It situates in a circle of topics present for some time in the public discourse of the West, while today returning with particular force, on the foundations of the liberal (...) state, the question of positive law—whether it is to depend only on the will of the parliamentary majority or should derive from deeper sources—the presence of religion in public space in the era of post-Enlightenment privatization in post-saecular society, the correlation between faith and reason. They also condition the delicate issues that have emerged in recent decades: Europe and its roots, Christianity and political space, the objectives of civil law, the issues of life, family, and human embryo. Translated. (shrink)

The article examines some lesser known contributions of Maritain’s thought to Vatican II and to the post-conciliar debate: namely, a focus on philosophical wisdom, the question of truth, the relation between faith and reason, and the realism of human knowledge. Particularly relevant in these themes are Maritain’s reflections contained in a memorandum written to Paul VI, in The Peasant of the Garonne, and in Paul VI’s “Credo of the People of God”, of which one can discern the development and structure (...) proposed by the French philosopher. (shrink)

Nel cammino della filosofia il realismo ha spesso costituito l’asse fondamentale della ricerca. Esso è in grado di rinnovare il pensiero, oggi, quando la filosofia moderna si è chiusa, sostituita dalla presente povertà postmetafisica e dal disfattismo della ragione. Il volume mette alla prova la forza del realismo, intrecciando riflessione teoretica e riflessione storiografica, e dando voce ad autori come Tommaso d’Aquino, Hegel, Schelling, Gentile, Maritain, Bontadini, Severino, Putnam.