The year 1999 witnessed the horrific shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenage boys killed twelve of their classmates, a teacher, and then themselves. What lessons are to be learned from this tragedy? Certainly, it tells us that in a nation with approximately one third of a billion people, even an infinitesimal percentage of mentally unstable persons can create mayhem. Are there other lessons?

If you really could have a conversation with God--it might sound like this!

Introducing the practices of Eastern Hinduism, Shintoism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, a lavishly illustrated volume is complemented by full-color reproductions of sacred art, architecture, symbols, landscapes, ceremonies, and festivals.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a potentially fatal infectious disease that, in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), inequitably affects Asian, Pacific, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African (MELAA), and Māori people. Medical research involving genome sequencing of TB samples enables more nuanced understanding of disease strains and their transmission. This could inform highly specific health interventions. However, the collection and management of TB isolate samples for research are currently informed by monocultural biomedical models often lacking key ethical considerations. Drawing on a qualitative kaupapa (...) Māori–consistent study, this paper reports on preliminary discussions with groups of Māori, Pacific, and Afghan people in NZ, whose communities have been harmed by TB and TB stigma. Participants’ discussions highlight key concerns and meanings that ought to inform the development of guidelines and a more robust consultative process for the governance of how TB isolate samples are collected and used both retrospectively and in future research. We argue for ethical processes to be culturally nuanced and community-generated, flexible and meaningful, and situated in relation to the physical and symbolic effects of TB. We discuss the significance of Indigenous data sovereignty, rights, and kāwanatanga (governorship) in shaping a multicultural data sovereignty model. (shrink)

'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.' Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their distinctive (...) accounts cover many of the issues surrounding dispositions such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation. Dispositions illuminates this central topic in analytic philosophy and at the same time highlights deeper concerns of metaphysics. (shrink)

There have two recent challenges to the orthodoxy that ‘X trusts Y to ø’ is the fundamental notion of trust. Domenicucci and Holton maintain that trust, like love and friendship, is fundamentally two-place. Paul Faulkner argues to the more radical conclusion that the one-place ‘X is trusting’ is explanatorily basic. I argue that ‘X trusts Y in domain D’ is the explanatorily basic notion. I make the case that only by thinking of trust as domain-specific can we make sense of (...) the relationships between trust and belief in goodwill, trust and distrust, and trust and trustworthiness. In addition, by modeling trust as essentially domain-specific we can account for the way in which wise trust in others is finely discriminating. (shrink)

Introduction to healthcare ethics committees / D. Micah Hester and Toby Schonfeld -- Brief introduction to ethics and ethical theory / D. Micah Hester and Toby Schonfeld -- Ethics committees and the law / Stephen Latham -- Cultural and ...

One of Thomas Kuhn's profoundest arguments is introduced in the 1970 “Postscript” to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Kuhn is discussing the idea of a “disciplinary matrix” as a more adequate articulation of the “paradigm” notion he'd introduced in the first, 1962, edition of his famous work . He notes that one “element” of disciplinary matrices is likely to be common to most or even all such matrices, unlike the other elements which serve to distinguish specific disciplines and sub-disciplines (...) from one another. This is the element which he calls “values”, which, as he notes , being common to a number of otherwise distinct disciplinary matrices, “do much to provide a sense of community to natural scientists as a whole”. On the other hand, they also do much, and crucially in Kuhn's view, to promote and sustain a healthy diversity among the practitioners who share any specific disciplinary matrix. In particular, Kuhn claims that “individual variability in the application of shared values may serve functions essential to science.”. (shrink)

Chez les commentateurs platoniciens de l’époque impériale, l’un des problèmes majeurs liés à la théorie des Idées concernait le domaine d’application de cette doctrine. L’exégèse de la première partie du Parménide de Platon donnait occasion à diverses discussions sur ce sujet. Le Commentaire de Proclus sur le Parménide est sans doute la plus précieuse source qui soit parvenue de l’Antiquité jusqu’à nous pour la reconstitution de ces débats. Alors que la grande majorité des commentateurs anciens étaient convaincus que les Idées (...) ont un domaine assez restreint, le Commentaire de Proclus nous révèle l’existence d’une lecture alternative, selon laquelle il y a des Idées de « toutes choses ». Proclus relie cette interprétation alternative en particulier à l’existence des Idées de choses mauvaises et d’individus, probablement parce que ces deux classes d’objets étaient vraiment les dernières choses dont un platonicien orthodoxe voudrait admettre des Idées. Amélius est le seul néoplatonicien connu pour avoir soutenu l’existence des Idées de choses mauvaises. Dans cet article j’essaie de montrer que, selon toute vraisemblance, Amélius est également la cible de la réfutation des Idées d’individus par Proclus dans son Commentaire. La conclusion qui s’ensuit naturellement est qu’Amélius était très probablement l’un de ces philosophes qui, d’après Proclus, admettaient des Idées « de toutes choses ». (shrink)

The popular trend of manifesting involves supposedly making something happen by imagining it and consciously thinking it will happen in order to will it into existence. In this paper Laura D'Olimpio explains why manifesting is a form of wishful thinking and argues that it is an epistemic vice. She describes how such wishful thinking generally, and manifesting in particular, are epistemically problematic in the ways they obstruct the attainment of knowledge. She further adds that manifesting leaves the epistemic agent vulnerable (...) to unrealistic expectations, being set up for failure, and being prone to self-blame, and it also encourages a blurring of the distinction between thought and truth. D'Olimpio offers an example that demonstrates how manifesting as a particular instantiation of wishful thinking invites and encourages obsessive and compulsive habits and rituals that corrupt the epistemic agent's rational conclusions. Wishful thinking and manifesting negate the role for luck and privilege in achievement and downplay the role of effort and action. D'Olimpio concludes that as educators we may play a role in dispelling the myth that manifesting is a virtuous or beneficial practice and instead teach our students that, as a form of wishful thinking, it is an epistemic vice best avoided. (shrink)

Contemporary Continental Philosophy steps back from current debates comparing Continental and analytic philosophy and carefully, yet critically outlines the tradition’s main philosophical views on epistemology and ontology. Forgoing obscure paraphrases, D’Amico provides a detailed, clear account and assessment of the tradition from its founding by Husserl and Heidegger to its challenge by Derrida and Foucault. Though intended as a survey of this tradition throughout the twentieth century, this study’s focus is on the philosophical problems which gave it birth and even (...) now continue to shape it.The book reexamines Husserl as an early critic of epistemological naturalism whose grasp of the philosophical importance of the theory of meaning was largely ignored. Heidegger’s contrasting effort to revive ontology is examined in terms of his distinction between ontic and ontological questions. In contrast with many earlier studies, the author outlines confusions engendered by the misappropriation of the distinct philosophical agendas of Husserl and Heidegger by such famous figures as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. The book is also original in its emphasis on how social externalism in epistemology, inspired by Karl Mannheim, influenced this tradition’s structuralist and Marxist phases. The philosophical defenses of a theory of interpretation by Gadamer and Habermas are closely examined and assessed and the study concludes with a a probing yet balanced account of Foucault and Derrida as critics of philosophical autonomy. The book concludes by reassessing this century-long divide between the analytic and Continental traditions and its implication for the future of philosophy. (shrink)

In Reconstruction in Philosophy, John Dewey issued an eloquent call for contemporary philosophy to become more relevant to the pressing problems facing society. Historically, the philosophy of a period had been appropriate to social conditions, but despite the vast changes in the contemporary world and the complex challenges confronting it philosophy had remained ossified. Karl Popper also was dissatisfied with contemporary philosophy, which he regarded as too often focusing upon “minute” problems. Both Dewey and Popper, however, were optimistic that the (...) situation could be turned around. In this essay D.C. Phillips argues that the resources they mustered give no basis for this optimism; in particular, Phillips emphasizes that philosophy cannot have traction with closed‐minded or fanatical individuals. Dewey passed over cases where his ideas about democratic processes and free intellectual exchange faced intractable difficulties, according to Phillips, and he further suggests that Popper “waffled” over the so‐called “myth of the framework.”. (shrink)

It is characteristic of A. to use words that occur only once in Homer, and such a word is ρρητος. In Od. 14. 466 it describes the remark that is better left unspoken, πέρ τ' ρρητον μεινον. But it has the distinction of occurring once also in Hesiod, and this time it is used of men without fame, ητοί τ' ρρητοί τε Διòς μεγάλοιο κατι . It is clearly this line in Hesiod's proem that A. is echoing in his own, (...) and in the same kind of sense, though, as Martin points out, A. ‘renverse en quelque sorte une expression d'Hésiode’. In the Phaenomena it is Zeus who is always being celebrated by men. The idiom with ν and negative is used by Plato, Lg. 793 b, οτε νόμους δε προσαγορεύειν ατ οτε ρρητα ν, and it may have been a familiar expression. But here in A., with the emphatic οδέποτε, it does seem rather contrived, and this may account for the fanciful explanation in the scholia that Zeus here represents the air we use every time we speak. The phrasing is certainly designed to give the maximum emphasis to ρρητον, which comes in enjambement at the beginning of the second line and is then followed by a strong sense pause. It is tempting, therefore, to suggest that the poet is indulging in a kind of pun on the sound of his own name, which usually has a long α in its first syllable and sometines η in its second: e.g. Call. Epigr. 27. 4 ρήτου σύντονος γρυπνίη, and Leonidas, A.P. 9. 25. 1 γράμμα τόδ' ρήτοιο δαήμονος. Other Hellenistic poets have contrived puns on the derivation oftheir names: Philodemusin A.P. 5. 115, Meleager in A.P. 12. 165, and Crates in A.P. 11. 218. 4. Closer to A. is the story recorded in the ancient biographical tradition of Antigonus complimenting the poet with the pun εδοξóτερον ποιες τòν Eδοξον. (shrink)

How do we acquire knowledge through a sensory input from our environment? In The Enigma of Perception, D.L.C. Maclachlan revives the traditional causal representative theory of perception which dominated philosophical thinking for hundreds of years by revealing the important element of truth the theory contained. The traditional theory was not a complete explanation of perception, because it presupposed a causal system including both the physical objects and the subjective experiences. The pattern of inference from sensations to external objects, which lies (...) at its heart, is nevertheless legitimate, because the assumptions on which it depends are generally recognized as true. The emerging enigma is how to explain this original knowledge of the world on which the traditional theory depends. The key idea is that sense experience is constructed as a response to sensory input - an act whose purpose is to represent a reality beyond the cognitive subject. The Enigma of Perception develops original ideas to explain this process in detail, with help from numerous philosophers from John Locke to David Chalmers. (shrink)

The substance of the authors' disagreement with the views of D. Gutkowski and M. V. Valdes Franco is presented.

L’objectif de cet article est de présenter deux axes généraux d’analyse des jeux vidéo. Le premier axe précise les différents degrés de différenciation entre le play et le game . Le second axe, la « composition actantielle », permet d’évaluer la relation nouée par le joueur avec la collectivité. La combinaison de ces deux critères révèle une forte polarisation entre deux expositions contemporaines : celle du Grand Palais à Paris , et le festival GamerZ d’Aix-En-Provence. Partant de cette observation, nous (...) ferons l’hypothèse que le jeu vidéo ne suit pas le même rythme d’évolution dans les champs médiatiques et esthétiques.This article describes two overall research directions in analyses of video games. The first specifies degrees of differentiation between play and game . The second, derived from the “actantial model”, is used to assess the relationships forged by a player with the community. Combining the two reveals a high degree of polarisation between two contemporary exhibitions: Game Story at the Grand Palais in Paris and GamerZ in Aix-En-Provence. Based on this observation, we put forward the hypothesis that video games are changing at a different pace in the media and in aesthetics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ad UnguemArmand J. D'Angour vos, oPompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod nonmulta dies et multa litura coercuit atquepraesectum deciens non castigavit ad unguem.(Horace Ars Poetica 291–94) You, OSons of Pompilius, condemn that poem whichmany a day and many an erasure has not pruned andwhittled down and chastened tenfold to the nail."Censure a poem," Brink paraphrases, "which has not been reduced to right proportions and (when it has been reduced) has (...) not been tested to a nicety."1 Tested, that is, by its author, whose action Horace has been thought here to be likening to the way a sculptor examines a completed work for flaws. Translations of the final line commonly expand the phrase ad unguem to specify such a connotation, often taking praesectum to qualify unguem as in "to meet the test of the well–pared nail."2 But Brink has advanced convincing arguments against the supposition that praesectum qualifies unguem.3 Moreover, praesectum is positioned for emphasis and followed directly by deciens: the words must elaborate the process described by the foregoing coercuit.4Praesectum [End Page 411] thus picks up carmen, and no reference to the artisan's manicure should be supposed.5Ad unguem remains as a self–contained expression, to be understood in its own right.The image introduced in the following lines has been thought to present a deliberate point of contrast in the matter of the sculptor's fingernails:ingenium misera quia fortunatius artecredit et excludit sanos Helicone poetasDemocritus, bona pars non ungues ponere curat,non barbam, secreta petit loca, balnea vitat.(AP 295–98)Because Democritus believes that it's luckier to possess talentthan mere skill, and denies a place on Helicon to sane poets,a good number of artists make a point of not cutting their nailsor trimming their beards, but head for secret haunts and avoid baths.Despite the verbal echo, the change of tone and context at this point rules out any straightforward association of the unguem in line 294 with the ungues in line 297.6 Horace's humorous sketch of those "artistic types" who model their insalubrious habits on a superficial view of Democritean inspiration initiates a new section of the poem.7 It looks forward to a fuller consideration of the relative value of ars and ingenium, about which in due course Horace gives his opinion as follows:natura fieret laudabile carmen an artequaesitum est. ego nec studium sine divite venanec rude quid possit video ingenium; alterius sicaltera poscit opem res et coniurat amice.(AP 408–11) [End Page 412]The question is: Is good poetry due to nature or art?I myself fail to see what artistry can achieve without a rich vein of natural ability,or raw talent without application, to such a degree does the one attributedraw upon the other and make common cause with it.The only other instance of ad unguem in Horace is in Satires 1.5, where the phrase similarly appears tout court, conjoined to a past participle in a construction which parallels praesectum... ad unguem as construed above: interea Maecenas advenit atqueCocceius Capitoque simul Fonteius, ad unguemfactus homo, Antoni non ut magis alter amicus.(Sat. 1.5.31–33) Meanwhile Maecenas arrives andCocceius, and with them Fonteius Capito, a manof such consummate charm that Antony holds none dearer.Whether ad unguem here refers to physical or intellectual refinement (or both), the connotation "to perfection" is evident. Commentators ancient and modern have generally supposed that the metaphor is best explained by the image which Persius, writing around a century later, developed in his First Satire:quis populi sermo est? quis enim, nisi carmina mollinunc demum numero fluere, ut per leve severoseffundat iunctura ungues?(Sat. 1.63–65)"What's the word from the general public? "What else, but thatnow at last there are verses so fluent that no join jars criticalfingernails as they glide across the smooth surface.In commenting on AP 294, Ps.–Acro adduced this precisely evocative idea of "critical fingernails" for Horace's use of ad unguem:"ad unguem": tractum a... (shrink)

Préambule : science et herméneutique du mal Je voudrais mettre en exergue de cette intervention sur science et barbarie, sur le caractère d’oxymore du rapprochement de ces termes, et, à l’opposé, sur leur contiguïté historique, sur la contaminatio, qui s’est produite historiquement entre science et barbarie, les paroles de Hans Blumenberg : Toute méconnaissance des insurpassables services que la science moderne a rendus à la vie… me paraît indigne. L’affectation...

De unione Verbi incarnati est sans doute celle des Questions disputees qui a suscite parmi les disciples de saint Thomas d'Aquin les plus apres controverses. Seule en effet, elle mentionne, a cote de l'unique esse personnel du Christ, un autre etre de ce suppot, correspondant a la nature humaine. Comment concilier cette affirmation avec la doctrine thomasienne de l'unite d'etre substantiel? Et ne risque-t-elle pas de remettre en cause l'unite ontologique du Christ, et par la de detruire Jesus? Mais au-dela (...) de ces controverses, notre QuAestio revele l'emerveillement d'un contemplatif fascine par la nouveaute ineffable de l'Incarnation. 2000 ans apres la naissance du Christ, cette oeuvre puissante, publiee pour la premiere fois en edition latin-francais, ne pourra manquer de susciter un ardent interet. (shrink)

Introductory, by B. H. Streeter.--Love and omnipotence, by C. F. D'Arcy.--The survival of the fittest, by Lily Dougall.--Power, by Lily Dougall.--The defeat of pain, by B. H. Streeter.

Cet ouvrage, qui contient les actes d’une conférence internationale tenue en mars 2008 à l’Université Catholique du Sacré Cœur de Milan, permet de mesurer les progrès réalisés dans la connaissance de Stobée depuis les Doxographi Graeci de Diels, sur les plans tant philologique que doxographique et thématique. L’épaisseur du volume, muni d’un index locorum et d’une bibliographie étoffée, interdit de faire autre chose, dans le cadre d’un compte-rendu, qu’indiquer brièvement les points saillants...

Can the totality of consciousness be found within the waking state? Can human consciousness be understood in its entirety by only considering the contents presented to us in the waking state? Why is the waking state so privileged? -/- This treatise from Indian author D.B. Gangolli presents the tri-basic method or the method of the three states of consciousness as the principle device or strategy employed in the science of Advaita Vedanta for arriving at knowledge and understanding of Ultimate Reality (...) as expounded in the Upanishadic tradition. This tri-basic method of wisdom inquiry into Pure Consciousness is contrasted with the pervasive mono-basic or waking-state-only method of inquiry common to science, western, and most other philosophical systems wherein explication of the Ultimate Reality is sought solely within waking consciousness. -/- The tri-basic method of the Advaita system takes waking consciousness as only one of three great states of conscious awareness within Intuition or Intuitive experience, the other two being dreaming and sleeping (deep sleep) states. Instead of privileging the waking state, the tri-basic method views all three states from the viewpoint of Intuition and sets about to inquire into the whole of conscious experience giving equal importance to all three states. It helps us to recognize how we are taught to see waking consciousness as predominant, as the sole perspective from within which we discover knowledge of truth and reality, and to see the limitations of the truncated view of consciousness that it is. -/- Advaita Vedanta is the only philosophical system that consciously inquires within all three great states of consciousness in order for the discrimination of Ultimate Reality. “To observe these states and discriminate about them means whatever is witnessed in the states – all that is to be taken en masse (rolled up into one mass) and is to be made an object to one’s Intuition, i.e., the essence of Being as the Witness or the Self, and then discriminate.” . (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness” by Michael D. Kirchhoff & Daniel D. Hutto. Upshot: I show that the gap problem is of no threat to the enactivist approach; moreover, if the enactivism model is thoroughly thought over through extending ontology, it may turn out that the gap should be naturally built in the wholeness of the world at the level of its self-cognition.

RÉSUMÉ: De manière générale, les désirs sont aux intérêts ce que les croyances sont aux vérités. Étant admis que ce qui est conforme à vos intérêts est ce que vous désireriez, tout compte fait, si vous étiez en possession d'une information telle au sujet de ses effets potentiels qu'aucune information additionnelle sur ces effets ne modifierait vos désirs, la conclusion selon laquelle vous désirez déjà, tout compte fait, favoriser vos intérêts peut être tirée moyennant certaines suppositions plausibles en philosophie de (...) l'esprit. (shrink)

Le déplacement opéré par Vatican II dans la théologie des ministères oblige à repenser l’unité du sacrement de l’ordre et la diversité des trois ministères ordonnés. Des questions nouvelles se posent au sujet du diaconat et spécialement de la sacramentalité de ce ministère. Deux pistes sont à explorer: le diaconat comme participation à la plénitude sacramentelle de l’épiscopat et sa confirmation sacramentelle au Christ-Serviteur. L’article explore ces pistes à la lumière de la théologie de S. Thomas d’Aquin sur le caractère (...) sacramentel et sa finalité. En partant des tria munera qui ont conduit Vatican II à affirmer la sacramentalité de l’épiscopat, on peut mettre en valeur la spécificité du ministère diaconal : alors que la collégialité de l’épiscopat est immédiatement destinée à l’exercice conjoint des tria munera, la structure propre de l’ordo diaconal destine celui-ci à exercer l’un ou l’autre des tria munera au sein de l’Église locale. De là apparaît la plénitude « ministérielle » qui caractérise le diaconat au sein du sacrement de l’ordre. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Never Mind the Gap: Neurophenomenology, Radical Enactivism, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness” by Michael D. Kirchhoff & Daniel D. Hutto. Upshot: Enactivism is a welcome development in cognitive science, but its “radical” rejection of representation poses problems for capturing phenomenality. The totality of our interactions exceeds our awareness, so circumscribing the activity that constitutes consciousness seems to require representational guidance.

Historical studies suggest that all ideas, including the philosophical, scientific, and religious, are relative to the culture in which they are formulated. After clarifying the concept of relativism, and exploring the epistemological reasons why knowledge is relative, Kaufman argues that these admissions are not fatal to the achievement of valid knowledge in philosophy and theology.--D. D. O.

This is the classic study of the history and continuing philosophical values of the law of nature. D'Entrèves discerned three distinct sources that have contributed to the development of natural law: Roman law teachings, Christian beliefs regarding law, and egalitarian and revolutionary theories of the Enlightenment. Now regarded as a classic work, Natural Law has exercised considerable influence over the course of Anglo-American legal theory in the past forty years. The statements of Clarence Thomas during his 1991 Senate confirmation hearings (...) show that the law of nature still holds powerful appeal in defining judicial rules. In the new introduction, Cary J. Nederman points out both the contemporary value and the historical significance of Natural Law. He also provides the biographical as well as intellectual context for d'Entrèves immense accomplishments. This volume is essential reading for students of legal history, political theory, and philosophy. It will also be of interest to historians. "Few texts provide as concise or as cogent an introduction to natural theory as Alexander Passerin d'Entrèves' Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy.... Transaction Publishers has performed a genuine service by bringing out a new edition of Natural Law. D'Entrèves' analysis is clear and penetrating, and will guide the student of natural law to further, fruitful study."--Mitchell Muncy, The University Bookman. (shrink)

Une étude sur la virtualité toujours présente du mal politique. Pour comprendre le présent de ce mal, il faut rouvrir le passé, remonter notamment au mal radical selon Kant, ou aux liens entre le tragique et la capacité d'institution politique chez Aristote. Se dégage alors une longue tradition : celle d'une humanité dénuée de toute prétention à l'innocence, rendue au mal de sa liberté.

What mental and physical distress do actors, camerapersons, and reporters experience when working on reenactments of traumatic moments in history? In Political Camerawork, D. Andy Rice theorizes that the intense feelings produced while creating these performed scenarios, called "simulation documentaries," connect difficult pasts to the present. Building on his background as a nonfiction film director, producer, editor, and cinematographer, Rice analyzes performance techniques to gain insight into the emotional toll of simulation documentaries, including those reliving the Vietnam War, the US (...) military's embodied training in California during the Iraq War, and an annual quadruple lynching reenactment organized by Black civil rights activists in Georgia. Investigating the lasting impact of these productions, Political Camerawork reveals that, by performing a simulation of a traumatic event they didn't directly experience, those involved become carriers of the trauma. (shrink)

Dans cet article nous nous efforçons de confronter la métaphysique de l'Ecole avec la pensée heideggerienne. Pour y arriver, nous avons pris, comme point de départ la doctrine de l'illumination de S. Augustin et de S. Bonaventura D'après cette doctrine, le „lumen naturale” est l'espace infini dans lequel l'esprit humain a son séjour, c'est l'horizon sans limites de l'être. Or, Heidegger prétend dépasser cet horizon. Il déclare explicitement: „Le lumen naturale, la lumière de la raison, ne fait que jouer dans (...) l'Ouvert. Elle rencontre certes l'Ouvert de la clairière, elle la constitue si peu qu'elle en a bien plutôt besoin pour pouvoir se répandre sur ce qui est présent dans l'Ouvert.” (La fin de la philosophie et la tâche de la pensée dans Kierkegaard Vivant, p. 193). Ce dépassement paraît absurde tant qu'on s'en tient à des images spatiales. Mais ce n'est pas ainsi qu'on pourrait comprendre l'intention de Heidegger. Il s'agit bien plutôt, pour lui, de découvrir si la tradition n'a pas inconsciemment conçu cet espace illimité d'une façon déterminée. Cela paraît bien être le cas. L'espace infini est conçu comme un champ de présence intemporelle et immobile. Or Heidegger rejette l'idée d'un regard éternel sur un monde immobile. Pour lui, la lumière de la raison est plutôt l'é-vénement originel qui constitue l'histoire. Il nous paraît impossible de ne pas admettre - dans une certaine mesure au moins -ces idées de Heidegger. Inversément, on pourrait se demander si le philosophe allemand à bien fait de ne jamais thématiser le caractère absolu de la lumière intellectuelle qui nous paraît aussi indéniable que son caractère historique. Un autre problème important, lié au précédent, est celui de la transcendance à laquelle menait la doctrine de l'illumination et sur laquelle Heidegger garde le silence. Nous nous demandons si l'idée heideggerienne du lien originel et réciproque entre l'être et l'homme n'exige pas le dépassement vers une transcendance de cette appartenance mutuelle. Il nous paraît difficile de le nier. (shrink)

It is commonly observed that behind many of the political and cultural issues that we face today there are impoverished conceptions of freedom, which, according to D. C. Schindler, we have inherited from the classical liberal tradition without a sufficient awareness of its implications. Freedom from Reality presents a critique of the deceptive and ultimately self-subverting character of the modern notion of freedom, retrieving an alternative view through a new interpretation of the ancient tradition. While many have critiqued the inadequacy (...) of identifying freedom with arbitrary choice, this book seeks to penetrate to the metaphysical roots of the modern conception by going back, through an etymological study, to the original sense of freedom. Schindler begins by uncovering a contradiction in John Locke's seminal account of human freedom. Rather than dismissing it as a mere "academic" problem, Schindler takes this contradiction as a key to understanding the strange paradoxes that abound in the contemporary values and institutions founded on the modern notion of liberty: the very mechanisms that intend to protect modern freedom render it empty and ineffectual. In this respect, modern liberty is "diabolical"--a word that means, at its roots, that which "drives apart" and so subverts. This is contrasted with the "symbolical" (a "joining-together"), which, he suggests, most basically characterizes the premodern sense of reality. This book will appeal to students and scholars of political philosophy (especially political theorists), philosophers in the continental or historical traditions, and cultural critics with a philosophical bent. (shrink)

L'intention fondamentale de la métaphysique de l'Ecole peut-elle encore être reprise dans le contexte de la philosophie actuelle ? Cette intention est double. D'abord elle vise à parler de la réalité elle-même ou du réel tel qu'il est en soi. Ensuite elle prétend découvrir quelque chose concernant le fondement ultime de cette réalité. La phénoménologie semble condamner cette entreprise à un échec inévitable en prétendant que le réel ne se manifeste que dans la rencontre de l'homme avec lui. Ce que (...) nous connaissons portera donc toujours l'empreinte de notre présence et ne sera donc jamais le réel en lui-même. Heidegger ne semble pas moins nous éloigner de l'ancien problème de la métaphysique. Dans son intention de l'approfondir, il semble plutôt en écarter le problème pour le remplacer par un autre. Sa méditation porte en effet sur la lumière originelle -toujours oubliée -dans laquelle le monde se révèle à nous, mais il ne semble pas en arriver à réfléchir sur ce qui devient visible grâce à cette lumière. Il semble pourtant que, tant l'idée de rencontre que celle de lumière originelle élimine si peu l'affirmation du réel lui-même, qu'elles le supposent plutôt, aussi longtemps qu'on veut éviter l'idéalisme le plus radical. Or, c'est sur le sens de cette affirmation implicite et sur le réel visé par elle que la métaphysique de l'Ecole veut réfléchir. Mais un second obstacle risque de faire échouer cette tentative. Le réel n'est-il pas individuel, temporel, irréductible ? N'est-ce pas dès lors impossible d'en parler, puisque notre langue n'est faite que de concepts généraux et intemporels ? A cette question, on peut d'abord répondre que tout notre appareil de concepts généraux est soutenu par un moment de contact avec le réel lui-même. Seulement ceci ne semble pas encore nous avancer beaucoup. En effet, cette saisie intuitive n'est-elle pas condamnée à rester implicite et muette ? Une issue à ce problème nous semble possible en poursuivant la ligne de réflexion de l'ancienne théorie de l'illumination. C'est en réfléchissant sur les caractéristiques de la vérité telle qu'elle nous est accessible, que nous pourrions arriver à dire quelque chose du concret lui-même. En effet, il se manifeste à nous comme étant inséré dans la totalité du réel qui nous est ouverte dans une sorte d'ouverture antécédente et constitutive de notre existence. Or ces deux aspects, qu'on ne saurait nier sans totalement exclure l'homme du royaume de la vérité, semblent postuler la Présence Totale de l'Origine dans la moindre parcelle du réel. Cette présence devient consciente et éclairante dans l'existence humaine. (shrink)

In recent years, the starting-dates of both the Historiae and the Annales of Tacitus have been criticized. In the case of the Historiae, Hainsworth has claimed that Tacitus chose to start his narrative with the events of A.D. 69, because for various reasons the events of A.D. 68 were an embarrassment to him. Syme has suggested, in the case of the Annales, that by starting with the accession of Tiberius, Tacitus has barred himself from a proper understanding of that principate.

A prosaic and unimaginative introductory textbook. The author claims that his aim is "not to introduce the student to the various philosophies but to introduce him to the kind of thinking from which philosophy comes." The very patness of his presentation, however, discourages original philosophical thinking.--D. P. B.

This is Volume IV in the Evangelical Commentary on the Bible. As one might expect, the authors avoid novelty—which does not detract from the value of their work. A lengthy introduction provides a lucid summary of contemporary scholarship on the influence, distinctive features, background, problems, and text of the Fourth Gospel. The authors incline to the view that the Gospel is at least the "witness" of the Apostle John though the actual writing may have been done by a later "John (...) the Presbyter or an unnamed disciple." Each page of the commentary has four divisions: 1) text, 2) exegesis, 3) exposition, 4) footnotes. The exposition is intended to relate John's message to contemporary life and is, therefore, a useful preaching aid.—D. J. B. (shrink)

The selections in this anthology range from Plato to Tolstoy, concentrating mainly on the Greeks, Kant, and representative figures from eighteenth-century Britain. All of the standard authors are included and speak for themselves. Sesonske has contributed a short but insightful introduction suggesting that a myriad of questions really underlie the seemingly simple question "What is art?" and showing that in each historical period of aesthetic theory there is a shift of terminology and interest. Professor Sesonske has also drawn up an (...) extremely useful bibliography.—D. J. B. (shrink)

First published in 1943, this book has long been classed "rare and in demand" by Paris booksellers. Now, fortunately, it is available to all; but the thinking in it is not all available to anyone, as even the ablest interpreters have admitted. Nabert's "reflective" method springs and breaks from the tradition of Maine de Biran, Lachelier, and Lagneau. Book I, "The Givens of Reflection," discusses error, failure, and solitude; Book II, "The Originating Affirmation," builds the notions of pure conscience and (...) the "promotion" of values; and Book III, "Existence," reflects upon duty, inclination, "the spiritual forms or virtues," and "the sources of veneration." Too profound and difficult to be revolutionary, Eléments stands as a potential trauma to most prevailing styles of moral philosophy. Ricœur's preface is brilliant and self-contained. Since a propaedeutic to Nabert seems called-for, interested readers are referred to Les Etudes philosophiques, No. 3, 1962, which is devoted entirely to him.--C. D. (shrink)

A faithful but undoctrinaire Thomist, Piemontese claims to uncover the basic "existential" structures holding in all properly philosophical activity. Attention to the three basic structures of interiority, critical restlessness, and contemplation allows him to put off the "objective" question of the "essence" of philosophy. The author exposes strongly the great need for genuine mutual questioning among the varieties of systematic thought.--C. D.

Inspired mostly by Nietzsche, Flam traces common themes and common failures through major European philosophers and novelists. The final chapter breaks away from the oversimplifying style of the preceding ones, and argues provocatively for a philosophy whose militancy should burst the old dreams of systematization. Though frequently lacking bibliographical details, the footnotes provide an extraordinary catalogue of existentialist and related literature.--C. D.

Seventy brief essays, all but one of them on some aspect of the subject of truth. Though the journey from cover to cover is dull, there are a few excellent papers. The variety of philosophical schools and styles shows clearly that it is a mistake to identify contemporary French-language philosophy with any one trend or school.—C. D.