Responding to criticism from the emperor Julian, who accused Christianity of having innovated by introducing the Trinitarian doctrine, Cyril of Alexandria argues by invoking the agreements between Platonic philosophy, to which Julian himself refers, and Christian theology. Among the many texts he invokes, Letter II, attributed to Plato, plays a central role through its rereading by Plotinus and Porphyry. Citing and analyzing these Neoplatonic interpretations, Cyril establishes that the philosophers also support the procession of three hypostases, describe their (...) mutual relations, the absence of an intermediary between them, and even use the term „trinity”. This convergence does not prevent him from pointing out certain weaknesses of this doctrine, which sometimes borders on Arianism, such as the hierarchization of hypostases or the distinction between the supreme God and the Creator, errors that Cyril accuses Julian of having inherited. From the point of view of the history of textual transmission, this Christian reappropriation of Neoplatonic philosophy has enabled us to preserve texts by Porphyry that would have otherwise been lost. The posterity of these texts and their Cyrillian interpretation also played a role in later debates between proponents and opponents of the agreement between Platonism and Christianity. (shrink)

This is an expanded edition of the first comprehensive overview of the work of Jean Baudrillard, one of the most fascinating thinkers on the French intellectual scene. To the original selection of his writings from 1968 to 1985, this new edition adds examples of Baudrillard's work since that time. _Reviews of the First Edition_ "This is a good book, and the author of its selected writings, Jean Baudrillard, deserves only a share of the compliment. It is difficult to introduce a (...) difficult author, and Mark Poster has done a brilliant job. He has selected wisely from Baudrillard's writings.... More important, Poster has written what may be, pound for pound, the best introduction to a social theorist I have read.... Poster has somehow said everything the uninitiated needs to know before deciding to read Baudrillard."—_Contemporary Sociology_ "Following the lead of thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Deleuze, Baudrillard engages in a task of pointing _away_ from any traditional sociological themes. His writings demand that one turn away from convenient or customary interpretations of society and, in the process, one is forced to use his or her imagination in new ways."—_Choice_ "Poster's Introduction presents what is probably as clear and intelligent an exposition of Baudrillard's ideas as you'll find anywhere."—_Philosophy and Literature_. (shrink)

This book explores these differences and in particular considers various theoretical perspectives that might be useful for opening new interpretive strategies for critical social theory in relation to these differences.

This article demonstrates how class and racial dynamics generate different styles of activism among women's movement organizations. Based on a comparative study of two feminist organizations—one composed of lower-class women of color and another of upper-class white women—it charts the formation of divergent types of gender politics. First, it explores how differences in the class and racial backgrounds of the memberships create distinct organizational needs; second, how these divergent political interests motivate contrasting organizational ideologies, activities, and structures; and finally how (...) they motivate different approaches to the wider women's movement. At the conclusion, implications are drawn for cross-class/race alliances among grassroots women's organizations. (shrink)

This text expounds and relates the ethical and religious views of a philosopher that are usually discussed in terms of language. (Philosophy).

Résumé Prenant pour exemple la figure littéraire de l’employé de bureau, notre étude se propose de saisir les particularités synchroniques et le cheminement diachronique d’une esthétique de l’impotence qui aurait émergé avec la tentation flaubertienne du « livre sur rien », pour se développer ensuite dans une large part du roman français de la première moitié du xx e siècle et trouver, enfin, son aboutissement dans l’œuvre de Samuel Beckett.

Cette étude tente de répondre à la question de la possibilité ou plutôt du caractère intelligible de l'attribution à Dieu de la prescience de nos actes libres. Il s'agir d'un problème bien connu des historiens de la pensée, d'Aristote à Leibniz. La question "Dieu a-t-il la science des futurs actes futurs libres (plus généralement des futurs contingents)" doit être précédée par la question "la notion de Dieu comme d'un être qui a la science des actes futurs libres est-elle intelligible?" L'auteur (...) commence par étudier les raisons et enjeux d'attribuer ou de refuser à Dieu la prescience. Puis il s'attache à la conception de la liberté qui semble incompatible avec la prescience, avant de préciser l'idée d'incompatibilité de la prescience et de la liberté puis d'étudier les diverses tentatives proposées pour éviter une telle incompatibilité. (shrink)

Was ist Intuition? Gibt es intuitive Erkenntnis? Intuition beschäftigt Philosophie, Psychologie und Alltagsdenken. Einschätzungen reichen dabei von "höchste Erkenntnisart" bis "höchst unzuverlässig." Cyrill Mamin zeichnet zentrale Bestimmungen der Intuition in Philosophie und Psychologie nach. Wesentliche Fragen sind dabei: Wie ist es, eine Intuition zu haben? Wie kommt eine Intuition zustande? Auf dieser Grundlage bestimmt Mamin Intuition als massgeblich nicht-propositionale Erkenntnisart, welche unsere intuitiven Überzeugungen rechtfertigen kann. Im Zentrum steht ein neuartiges Modell der intuitiven Rechtfertigung, das psychologische mit erkenntnistheoretischen Elementen verbindet. (...) Dadurch lässt sich Intuition im Verhältnis zu anderen mentalen Akten (u.a. Wahrnehmung, Imagination, Delusion) näher bestimmen sowie ein kritischer Blick auf die philosophische Intuitionsdebatte werfen. (shrink)

This article discusses the role played by interpersonal comparisons in matters of justice and equity. The role of such interpersonal comparisons has initially been made explicit in the context of social choice theory through the concept of extended preferences. Social choice theorists have generally claimed that extended preferences should be taken as being uniform across a population. Three related claims are made within this perspective. First, though it is sometimes opposed to social choice theory, the social contract approach may also (...) consider the possibility of interpersonal comparisons. This is due to the fact that justice principles may be partially justified on a teleological basis. Second, searching for the uniformity of interpersonal comparisons is both hopeless and useless. In particular, moral disagreement does not originate in the absence of such uniformity. Third, interpersonal comparisons should be accounted for both in social choice and social contract theories in terms of sympathetic identification based on reciprocal respect and tolerance, where each person’s conception of the good partially takes care of others’ good. From the moral point of view, any person’s conception of the good should thus be ‘extended’ to others’ personal conceptions. This extension is, however, limited due to the inherent limitations in sympathetic identification and is a long way from guaranteeing the uniformity assumed by social choice theorists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Evidence, Authority, and Interpretation: A Response to Jason HelmsCarol PosterAs someone with a long-standing interest in Heraclitus, I am delighted that Philosophy and Rhetoric is providing a forum for an ongoing discussion of his work.1 Although Jason Helms and I do disagree on specific matters concerning Heraclitean interpretation, we are, I think, in full agreement concerning the importance of Heraclitus for both rhetorical and philosophical studies and intend these (...) essays as contributions to what, it is hoped, will be a fruitful ongoing discussion of Heraclitus within the interdisciplinary tradition of this journal. Rather than address many minor points of disagreement superficially, I will concentrate below on close analysis of a few specific issues that I consider paradigmatic of differences in method rather than merely in conclusions.Panta Rhei (All Things Flow)That Heraclitus was interested in establishing any sense of orthoepia plays down his insistence on the panta rhei (everything flows). To suggest any final rightness of words would suggest that everything flows but the Logos.(Helms, this issue)Actually, I do not use the phrase “final rightness of words” but, rather, describe Heraclitus as “focus[ing] on the problem of correctness of names” and as [End Page 288] “consider[ing] the possibility that one can learn something about the nature of things by examining the non-literal sense of their names” (2006, 15).2 Name is an English equivalent of the Greek onoma (Latin nomen, substantive as opposed to verb or particle), not rhêma (word, verb, phrase) or logos (word, account, speech, saying, story, ratio, reason, etc.). The phrase “correctness of names” alludes to an ongoing discussion among scholars in classics and philosophy about a specific problem in early Greek thought (normally discussed in relation to Heraclitus, Protagoras, Prodicus, Plato’s Cratylus, and Aristotle’s Categories and On Interpretation).More importantly, Helms seems to think it impossible a priori that Heraclitus might have considered some sort of doctrine of flux compatible with a belief in correctness of names. Ancient evidence, however, suggests that Heraclitus did, in fact, consider stability of logos, correctness of names, and sensible flux compatible in some manner.For logos as unchanging, dk22b1 begins, “Of the logos that exists always [eontos aiei] uncomprehending are men.”3 Although the syntax is ambiguous, eontos aiei suggests some stability of logos. Sextus Empiricus states that Heraclitus considered the “divine logos” stable and eternal and human reason grounded in its participation therein (Adv. Math. 7.126–33).4 The “commonality” of logos in dk22b2 also suggests some interpretive stability, in the sense of logos not varying with respect to the perception of the individual.The phrase panta rhei, although solidly entrenched in the reception history of Heraclitus, often as part of a “doctrine of flux,” is not actually a well-attested Heraclitean saying (included in the dk “b” fragments) but, rather, derived from early testimonia. Whether the phrase is a paraphrase, indirect quotation, or Platonic/Aristotelian recasting of Heraclitus is uncertain. The earliest sources are Platonic:Therefore you [Theaetetus] were quite right in saying that knowledge is nothing else than perception, and there is complete identity between the doctrine of Homer and Heraclitus and all their followers— that all things are in motion like streams [hoion rheumata kineisthai ta panta]—the doctrine of the great sophist Protagoras that man is the measure of all things—and the doctrine of Theaetetus that, since these things are true, perception is knowledge.(Theaet. 160d) [End Page 289]Those... would agree well enough with Heraclitus that all things move and nothing remains still [panta menein ouden].(Crat. 401d)Heraclitus says that all things move and nothing remains still [hoti panta chorei kai ouden menei], and he likens the universe to the current of a river, saying that you cannot step twice in the same stream.(Crat. 402a)Nor will he condemn himself and all things and say that there is no health in them, but that all things are flowing like leaky pots [panta hôsper keramia rhei], or believe that all things are just like people afflicted with catarrh, flowing and running all the time [rheumatos te kai katarrou panta ta chrêmata].(Crat. 440c–d... (shrink)

Economic theories of team reasoning build on the assumption that agents can sometimes behave according to beliefs or preferences attributed to a group or a team. In this paper, I propose a different framework to introduce collective intentionality into game theory. I build on John Searle’s account, which makes collective intentionality constitutive of institutional facts. I show that as soon as one accepts that institutions are required to solve indetermination problems in a game, it is necessary to assume a form (...) of collective intentionality that comes from what I call a common understanding of the situation among the players. This common understanding embodies the epistemic requirements for an institution to be a correlated equilibrium in a game. As a consequence, I question recent claims made by some economists according to which game-theoretic accounts of institutions do not need to assume collective intentionality. (shrink)

Rawls’s political turn is the result of his struggle with the problem of stability in his theory of justice. Rawls’s late solution uses the concept of public reason. It requires that the members of the well-ordered society should abide by a political conception of justice for shared public reasons, thus fostering an overlapping consensus. This solution has been criticized by post-Rawlsian scholars endorsing a Diversity-Convergence account of the stability problem. I complement Rawls’s model of public reason by arguing that the (...) stability problem can be solved if members of the well-ordered society are community-based reasoners. This leads to a Wittgensteinian reinterpretation of the concept of public reason. This solution is only partial, however. At the bottom, stability without a minimal form of consensus is unlikely. (shrink)

"Yin-Yang" est le nom donné en chinois au fonctionnement de tout le vivant. Cette unité changeante, ce mouvement incessant, cette danse de tout l'univers se dit en un seul mot. Or, en français comme dans toutes les langues occidentales, "Yin" et "Yang" sont deux mots. Voilà où commence le quiproquo. Avec le talent narratif et pédagogique qui a fait le succès de ses nombreux livres, Cyrille Javary nous introduit dans l'esprit chinois à travers cette clé essentielle : "Yin" n'est pas (...) plus une entité que "Yang", ils n'ont pas d'existence propre. Car l'hiver n'est pas "l'hiver", mais ce qui deviendra l'été, avant de redevenir hiver... Chacun est le futur et le passé de l'autre, sans qu'on puisse leur attribuer une substance, une quelconque fixité. S'il heurte toutes nos habitudes de pensée, ce genre d'énoncés peut nous conduire à une compréhension plus subtile du monde, et nous aider à mieux aborder les problèmes que nous rencontrons. Ainsi que l'écrit Danielle Elisseeff dans sa postface, " cet ouvrage opère une petite révolution. Tout se passe comme s'il parvenait à déplacer le curseur de nos perceptions et de nos émotions. ".. A travers mille exemples concrets, l'auteur nous entraîne dans un passionnant voyage dans le temps, jusqu'à l'aube du néolithique... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.2 (2000) 116-136 [Access article in PDF] Being, Time, and Definition: Toward a Semiotics of Figural Rhetoric Carol Poster For if History in the transferred sense of particular books called "histories," is rather apt to be false: nothing but History in the wider and higher sense will ever lead us to the truth. The Future is unknown and unknowable. The Present is turning to Past (...) even as we are trying to know it. Only the Past itself abides our knowledge. --George Saintsbury, A Letter BookDefining and classifying figures of speech and thought have been among the more important tasks of rhetoricians and grammarians for more than two millennia. The inventional focus, however, of much modern rhetorical theory has tended to relegate figuration either, on the one hand, to the domains of literary criticism or linguistics (the heirs of ancient grammar) or, on the other hand, to an ancillary position. The concomitant marginalization of the study of figures has had a significant effect upon contemporary scholarship in historical rhetoric. Many of the seminal scholarly works on the history of rhetoric have denigrated or minimized the importance of figural rhetoric. As Brian Vickers (1990, 294-95) has mentioned, George Kennedy and numerous other historians of rhetoric (e.g., Clarke 1996, 34) tend to condemn the teaching of figural rhetoric as dreary, tedious, and otiose. Often, the very periods themselves in which the study of the figures was pursued most vigorously and extensively are omitted from or condemned by modern scholarly discussion. As Marjorie Curry Woods has pointed out (1995, 73-78), biases against the medieval period, especially as found in Charles Sears Baldwin (1928) and Kennedy (1963, 1980) have in many ways defined the contours of our discipline, especially our attitudes toward the study of figures and tropes. Late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the periods of "decline" so deplored by Baldwin, Vickers, Kennedy, and others, were those in which figural rhetoric flourished, and both the sheer [End Page 116] volume of extant figural treatises and the continuity of figural rhetoric from the Hellenistic period through such contemporary semipopular books as Arthur Quinn's Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase (1982) and William Espy's The Garden of Eloquence: A Rhetorical Bestiary (1983) demand attention from the historical scholar. Along with the trivialization of figures in contemporary rhetoric has come a drastic oversimplification of the semiotics of figural terminology, which, in turn, contributes to the trivialization of many recent accounts of figures. To recover a more complex understanding of the semiotics of figural terms, we must start with a historical understanding of figuration, because rhetorical terms are encased in numerous historical strata that determine our understandings of them. 1 As Richard Rorty (1984, 49-75) argues concerning the historiography of philosophy, rational and historical reconstruction are mutually interdependent. A brief history of figural rhetoric From antiquity through the present, lists of figures have either occupied substantial sections of general treatises on rhetoric or grammar or have been the subject of specifically figural handbooks. Use of what we might term highly figured speech appears to predate the development of theoretical models for analysis of figures by many centuries. The Homeric epics, which were to provide the standard examples of rhetorical figures for many subsequent centuries, use patterns of speech later to be named and classified as rhetorical figures, but neither figural terminology nor self-conscious reflection upon figures qua figures appears in the epics. Similarly, although Gorgias was renowned for his use of the "Gorgianic" figures that later took his name, there is no evidence that he attempted systematic catologuing or development of specialized terminology for the figures. The testimonia describing his use of poetic words and figures (DK82a1, DK82a2, DK82a4, DK82a32--translated in Sprague 1972) do not attribute to him any invention of technical terminology.The question of invention of specific terminology for rhetorical figures is part of a more general historical question of the development of rhetoric as a self-conscious field. As Thomas Cole (1991) and Edward Schiappa (1991) have pointed out, the first... (shrink)