Dr Baumgarten analyses three possible justifications for doctors to decide that a patient is 'incompetent' to make or participate in medical decisions affecting him, and points out the difficulties of each. He argues that the degree to which a patient relinquishes control over decision-making which affects him will vary in different circumstances and should be explicitly agreed in the initial doctor-patient contract, rather as it often is when a client employs a professional to invest money on his behalf.

I argue that curiosity about the world deserves attention as a moral virtue, even apart from the role it may play in (the more generally praised) love of wisdom. First, close relationships and caring are reasonably considered part of a well-lived life, and curiosity is important for caring both about people and about things in the world. Second, curiosity helps us to define an appropriate way for persons to be affected by certain situations. Perhaps most important, curiosity can help one (...) to live well because it addresses the most fundamental existential task humans face, the need to see their lives as meaningful. I argue that curiosity is a distinctive virtue but suggest that related virtues (e.g., receptivity, reverence) may contribute to different kinds of worthy engagement with the world. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo compreender as contribuições da perspectiva teórico-metodológica da pesquisa-ação colaborativo-crítica na formação acadêmica e profissional dos autores de dissertações de um grupo de pesquisa. Assim, toma a perspectiva teórica de Jürgen Habermas, baseada nos conceitos de discurso e atos de fala. Assim, o discurso assume a forma de argumentação, de acordo com que os participantes argumentam sobre uma pretensão de validade criticável colocada em diálogo. Fundamenta-se na pesquisa qualitativa do tipo estudo de caso, que busca (...) nos espaços discursivos individuais e coletivos articular com seus participantes, um lugar onde todos têm o direito de falar e colocar seus entendimentos de forma racional, apresentando suas ideias e construindo pela via do diálogo argumentos fortes para chegar a um entendimento mútuo. Procura-se captar por meio dos espaços discursivos, as perspectivas teórico-metodológicas da pesquisa-ação colaborativo-crítica presente nas dissertações, os “silenciamentos” presentes e intencionalidades que permeiam os objetivos das propostas de pesquisa. A partir dos espaços constituídos, foi possível perceber que os autores construíram suas pesquisas coletivamente, sendo os conceitos de colaboração, participação e escuta primordiais para dar continuidade aos movimentos desencadeados. Neste sentido, a utilização da pesquisa-ação como perspectiva teórico-metodológica contribuiu para fundamentar as relações ao longo dos processos de pesquisa. Sobretudo os sujeitos puderam vivenciar a pesquisa como um todo, não apenas metodologicamente, mas teoricamente pela via comunicativa. Sendo assim, por meio da comunicação há uma mudança social, sendo possível estabelecer reflexões profundas do mundo da vida intersubjetivamente partilhado pelos sujeitos. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to analyze Baumgarten’s position about the dietetic care of the body in its relation to nascent aesthetics, with special regard to the problem of physical exercise. On the one hand, I will show that physical exercise can acquire aesthetic value with the example of the somatic fine arts. On the other hand, I will demonstrate that dietetics is also seminal for the emergence of every act of beautiful thinking. Eventually, I will bring to the (...) fore the dietetic potential of beauty itself. In this way, it will be possible to better appraise the constitutive link between health and beauty in the founding of aesthetics as an independent branch of philosophy. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe um estudo sobre algumas reflexões filosóficas feitas por Alexander Baumgarten no contexto dos desdobramentos do racionalismo escolástico de Leibniz. Investigarei as teses metafísicas, sobretudo as que explicam a estrutura do conhecimento sensível, a psicologia empírica e as faculdades da gnosiologia inferior. Além disso, veremos de que maneira Baumgarten retoma as teorias clássicas da retórica e da poética para criar seu sistema das artes, examinando o papel das percepções da alma na produção e contemplação da beleza. (...) Por fim, analisaremos de que maneira a estética baumgartiana sintetiza as verdades metafísicas e os estudos clássicos em uma única disciplina filosófica, ao fomentar uma educação cultural de elevação espiritual. (shrink)

Se plantea que la estética posmoderna, alejada de la posibilidad de concebirse como estética filosófica o filosofía del arte (al menos como la presentó Alexander G. Baumgarten al inicio de la Modernidad), adquiriría en la era actual la fisonomía de una pop estética, cuya expresión fundante pareciese ser la propia experiencia estética y no otras condiciones atribuibles a un determinado canon estético. En relación a esta conjetura, que por lo visto implica una cierta superación de la idea de obra, (...) se discute, por un lado, la conexión entre arte e inteligencia artificial y, por otro, las implicancias de la Everyday Aesthetics sobre el concepto de experiencia. Una y otra práctica, testimoniarían en la actualidad un renovado sentido común estético. (shrink)

Las filosofías de Wolff y Baumgarten han sido tradicionalmente evaluadas como una mera sistematización de las doctrinas de Leibniz, carente de toda originalidad. Se revisa esta opinión, concentrándose en el problema específico de la interacción de las sustancias naturales. Se muestra que ellos no siguen a Leibniz con el mismo grado de cercanía en algunos de los principios centrales de la teoría de la armonía preestablecida. Se problematiza así el uso de la etiqueta "leibnizianismo" como referida a un cuerpo (...) homogéneo e indiferenciado de doctrinas. The philosophies of Wolff and Baumgarten have been traditionally evaluated as mere systematizations of the doctrines of Leibniz, and, therefore, as lacking all originality. The paper revises that opinion, focusing on the specific problem of the interaction of natural substances, in order to show that they do not follow Leibniz as closely with respect to some of the central principles of pre-established harmony. It also questions the use of "Leibnizianism" as a label to refer to a homogeneous and undifferentiated body of doctrines. As filosofias de Wolff e Baumgarten têm sido tradicionalmente avaliadas como uma mera sistematização das doutrinas de Leibniz, carente de toda originalidade. Neste artigo, revisa-se essa opinião concentrando-se no problema específico da interação das substâncias naturais. Mostra-se que eles não seguem Leibniz com o mesmo grau de aproximação em alguns dos princípios centrais da teoria da harmonia preestabelecida. Problematiza-se, assim, o uso da etiqueta "leibnizianismo" como referência a um corpo homogêneo e indiferenciado de doutrinas. (shrink)

El presente artículo estudia cómo se diferencia el rol del concepto de perfección en la elucidación del concepto de belleza artística entre la doctrina estética de Baumgarten y la de Kant. Para ambos esta belleza está vinculada al fin del objeto artístico y el grado en que su configuración se arregla a dicho fin determina su perfección. Empero, de esto los filósofos extraen conclusiones conflictivas: en Baumgarten la aprehensión de esta perfección en el discurso sensible es belleza artística, (...) mientras que en Kant el juicio de belleza artística es influido por la consideración de la perfección del objeto, pero la perfección no determina la belleza artística. (shrink)

Der Jenenser Philosoph Heinrich Köhler versucht in seinen Exercitationes Juris Naturalis, eiusque cumprimis cogentis, methodo systematica propositi eine rationalistische Begründung des Naturrechts auf der Basis der Metaphysik von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Die Rekonstruktion dieser metaphysischen Begründung, die mit dem Aufweiß der Erkennbarkeit des obersten Prinzips des Naturrechts rein aus der Vernunft zusammenfällt, ist Gegenstand der vorliegenden Studie. Ausgehend von der Identifikation jenes Erkenntnisgrundes mit der Natur des Menschen zeigt sich vermittels einer Analyse der von Köhler in Anschlag gebrachten Methode, daß (...) diese Begründung unter Ausschluß bloßer empirischer Erkenntnis auf einen metaphysisch fundierten teleologischen Begriff der menschlichen Natur führt. Der verpflichtende Charakter des Naturrechtsprinzips erwächst demnach daraus, daß seine Achtung dem Menschen eine artgemäße Existenz aller erst ermöglicht. Vor diesem Hintergrund erweist sich auch die Schwäche einer solchen Theorie bei der Beurteilung einzelner Handlungen als moralisch, auf die Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in seinem Ius Naturae indirekt und kritisch aufmerksam macht. In his Exercitationes Juris Naturalis, eiusque cumprimis cogentis, methodo systematica propositi , the Jena philosopher Heinrich Köhler attempts to provide a rational foundation for natural law based on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's metaphysics. This paper examines a reconstruction of this metaphysical foundation, which coincides with demonstrating that pure reason can recognize the supreme principle of natural law. Assuming that this recognition can be identified with human nature, an analysis of Köhler's methodology shows that if mere empirical recognition is excluded his foundation leads to a metaphysically based teleological concept of human nature. The principle of natural law imposes obligations because only through respecting it can a human being live in a manner adequate for his species. Against this background, the weakness of this type of theory for determining whether an act is moral becomes apparent, which Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten indirectly and critically notes in his Ius Naturae. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 565-566 [Access article in PDF] Kai Hammermeister. The German Aesthetic Tradition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 259. Cloth, $60.00. Paper, $22.00. This history of German (or more accurately, Germanic) aesthetics surveys the tradition stretching from Alexander Baumgarten to Theodor Adorno. The author has divided his survey into three thematic parts. In the first, "The Age of (...) Paradigms," Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Kant, Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel establish the principal approaches to aesthetics and the philosophy of art that will structure the tradition. In the second part, "Challenging the Paradigms," Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche raise critical problems with the positions of their forebears. In the final part, "Renewing the Paradigms," Cassirer, Lukács, Heidegger, Gadamer, Marcuse, and Adorno revive elements of the classical tradition for twentieth-century purposes. As one might expect, covering fifteen complex figures in a relatively short book makes for a survey primarily of the surfaces of their thought. Even so, the exercise may be useful for those with no knowledge of German aesthetics who would like a quick introduction.From the outset the author establishes a plan to consider each philosopher's work in terms of his ontological treatment of art, the epistemic role he attributes to art and beauty, and the practical functions he assigns art. In the early chapters the author dutifully addresses these matters at the end of each chapter, but from Hegel on, the author's commitment to this structure seems to wane. It becomes more difficult to discern these assessments of each philosopher as the book progresses. It is an odd feature of the book that its [End Page 565] author announces these "principles of comparison" so explicitly in the introduction, but does not consistently apply them.There is also inconsistency in the author's choices regarding whose theories to directly criticize. In some cases (with Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Cassirer, for example), Hammermeister offers quite global criticisms of the philosophers' views, while in other cases (with Kant, Schiller, Schelling, Heidegger, and Gadamer) he provides very little criticism. The book does not advance a philosophical position from which to understand why some figures in this tradition, but not others, warrant sharp criticisms that on occasion (with Kierkegaard, for example) amount to blanket dismissals.The second part of the book, "Challenging the Paradigms," stands in an uncertain relationship to the first part, "The Age of Paradigms." Hammermeister advertises Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche as thinkers intent on dismantling the aesthetic-theoretical systems of their predecessors, and there is no doubt much truth in this assertion. Yet these chapters offer little in the way of explicit elaboration of precisely which views of which prior thinkers each of these rebels seeks to undermine. Schopenhauer, for example, is presented as a champion of Kantian aesthetic disinterestedness, while his delirious antipathy for Hegel is hardly discussed. Kierkegaard's famous disagreements with Hegel receive little attention, either.The third part, "Renewing the Paradigms," advances one of the author's principal claims in the book: that twentieth-century German(ic) philosophers recapitulate the sequence of positions in the classical Kant-Schiller-Schelling-Hegel development. Cassirer revives Kant; Lukács and other neo-Marxist thinkers revive Schiller; Heidegger is far more indebted to Schelling than he acknowledges. To some extent the author's proposal is a useful heuristic, especially regarding Cassirer and Lukács. With Heidegger problems begin to arise. Hammermeister argues that Heidegger shares with Schelling a view of art as a "truth-event," but this, of course, would be a view that Heidegger also shares with Hegel. When Hammermeister notes (189) that for Heidegger truth can happen in practices other than art, this strengthens a comparison to Hegel (despite the profound differences between Heidegger and Hegel), rather than to Schelling (for whom art alone is the organon of truth, at least in the System of Transcendental Idealism that Hammermeister treats as the most Schellingian of Schelling's texts).As with the author's other overarching structures for the book, the paradigm-renewal claim also loses momentum halfway through. Hammermeister appropriately presents... (shrink)

The ethics of Kant and the ethics of Crusius are strikingly similar. This is manifested in a whole range of principles and concepts. Crusius’ moral teaching hinges on the rigorous moral law which has to be obeyed absolutely, and which makes it different from other prescriptions that are binding only to a relative degree. This is very close to the Kantian distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. Another salient feature of Crusius’ moral teaching is the stress laid on the sphere (...) of internal motives. It is the inner motive that determines the morality of an act, rather than the external form of the act. These and some other features of Crusius’ ethics suggest a possible influence of Crusius on Kant. The possibility of such influence has repeatedly come under close scrutiny. The first works devoted to this problem date to the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Pointers to the possibility of such influence are semantic and structural similarities of the two thinkers’ systems. Besides, it is an unchallengeable fact that Kant was fairly familiar with the main theses of Crusian philosophy. Some scholars proceed from the study of Kantian vocabulary. Some of the terms Kant uses, especially in his early works which later formed the basis of his ethical teaching in the critical period, can be traced to the terms of Crusian philosophy. However, an alternative view is that Kant was primarily influenced by Wolffian philosophy (mainly through Baumgarten), while the direct influence of Crusius remains unproven. I examine both points of view and propose my own solution to the problem. (shrink)

Unlike most anthologies in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, the present selection does not try to collect representative extracts from the writings of most, or even many, important aestheticians throughout the ages. It aims for depth rather than width and tries to do as much justice as possible to those aestheticians which it does include, without bothering much about those left out. The result is really impressive. No less than 138 pages are devoted to Plato and Aristotle alone, where (...) the reader may find not only the usual passages from the Poetics and the Rhetoric but also relevant material from De Partibus Animalium and Politica. Such an anthology, so it seems, must be an opinionated one. Thus, while it contains some 70 pages of Dewey's Art as Experience, there is not a single line of Santayana in it. Although I disagree with the choice made in this case, I cannot but admire the courage it took to make it. Another surprise is the inclusion of the relatively obscure mediaeval thinker, Marsilio Ficino, in an anthology which excludes Baumgarten, Lessing, Burke, Schiller, Coleridge, Bosanquet and Alexander, to mention but few, and whose sole contemporary representative is Heidegger. The extracts from Ficino's commentary on Plato prove, however, to be highly interesting and relatively original, too. Thus, even if Ficino is not as great as some of the aestheticians not included in this volume, I, for one, would not regret this mark of personal, off-beat, taste. The last selection, Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art," appearing for the first time in English translation, comes as special bonus to the reader. The editors' introductions to each selection are generally concise, precise, and very helpful. Sometimes, however, one may find an exception: in their introduction to the Heidegger translation, the editors characterize the Kehre as a "reversal... from the stress on anxiety, nothingness... to a stress on more affirmative moods." This is, to say the least, a grossly misleading remark, which is likely to confuse the student of the later Heidegger rather than help him.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

Kant’s views on enlightenment are best known through his essay, “What is Enlightenment?” This is, however, merely the first of a series of reflections on the subject contained in the Kantian corpus. In what follows, I shall attempt to provide an overview of the Kantian conception of enlightenment. My major concern is to show that Kant had a complex and nuanced conception of enlightenment, one which is closely connected to some of his deepest philosophical commitments, and is as distinct from (...) the views of his contemporaries, including Mendelssohn’s, as his critical philosophy is from the rationalism of Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten. (shrink)

Resumo: É comum a literatura secundária reduzir o ensaio kantiano Do Primeiro Princípio da Diferença das Regiões no Espaço a um ataque à concepção leibniziana de espaço relativo em defesa da concepção newtoniana de espaço absoluto. Até que ponto, porém, essa imagem não é obstáculo para compreender o Ensaio como um todo e o alcance de sua reflexão? A pergunta se impõe, porque não é claro o que o Ensaio pretende provar, uma vez que propõe quatro diferentes formulações de uma (...) prova que denomina evidente. Tampouco é claro, por isso mesmo, como pretende conduzir a demonstração segundo o método que denomina a posteriori. Para compreender o Ensaio, é necessário entender qual é o objetivo último da prova e o método de demonstração. Dessa investigação decorrem alguns pontos, de outro modo, insuspeitos: (1) Kant critica não apenas a concepção de espaço leibniziana, mas também princípios adotados pelos leibnizianos, em particular, o princípio de determinação completa como princípio de individuação para as coisas em geral; (2) o Ensaio propõe uma concepção inaudita de espaço absoluto como: conceito, radicado no corpo humano e primeiro fundamento das relações espaciais e de sua cognição; (3) assim entendido, o Ensaio kantiano mostra-se, do ponto de vista genético, estratégico para tornar compreensível a concepção, introduzida pela Estética Transcendental da Crítica da Razão Pura, de aparecimento (Erscheinung) como objeto indeterminado da intuição empírica. Palavras-chave: Kant; Leibniz; Baumgarten; Espaço; Princípio de determinação completa. Transcendental Aesthetic and the 1768 Essay: Space and Complete Determination Abstract: It is common for secondary literature to reduce Kant's 1768 essay On the First Ground of the Difference of Regions in Space to an attack on the Leibnizian conception of relative space in defense of the Newtonian conception of absolute space. To what extent, however, is this picture an obstacle to understanding the essay as a whole and the scope of its reflection? The question arises because it is not clear what the essay intends to prove, since it proposes four different formulations of a proof that it calls evident. Nor is it clear, therefore, how Kant’s essay intends to conduct the demonstration according to its a posteriori method. To understand Kant's argument, it is necessary to determine the ultimate objective of his proof and his method of demonstration. Some otherwise unsuspected points arise from this investigation: (1) Kant criticizes not only the conception of relative space but also the Leibnizian principle of thoroughgoing determination as a principle of individuation for things in general; (2) Kant proposes an unprecedented conception of absolute space as a fundamental concept, rooted in the human body, as the first ground of spatial relations and its cognition; (3) the Kant’s essay appears, from a genetic point of view, strategic to make comprehensible the conception introduced by the Transcendental Aesthetics of the Critique of Pure Reason, of appearance as an indeterminate object of empirical intuition. Keywords: Kant; Leibniz; Baumgarten; Space; Principle of thoroughgoing determination. Estética transcendental y el Ensayo de 1768: espacio y determinación completa Resumen: Es común en la literatura secundaria reducir el ensayo kantiano Del Primer Fundamento de la Diferencia de las Regiones del Espacio a un ataque a la concepción leibniziana de espacio relativo en defensa de la concepción newtoniana de espacio absoluto ¿Hasta qué punto, pero, esa imagen no es obstáculo para la comprensión del Ensayo en general y el alcance de su reflexión? La pregunta se impone, porque no es claro lo que el Ensayo pretende comprobar, una vez que propone cuatro diferentes formulaciones de una prueba que denomina evidente. Tampoco es nítido, por eso incluso, cómo pretende conducir la demostración, según el método que denomina a posteriori. Para comprender el Ensayo, es necesario entender cuál es el objetivo último de la prueba y el método de demostración. De esa investigación decurren algunos puntos, de otro modo, insospechados: (1) Kant critica no solamente la concepción de espacio leibniziana, sino también los principios adoptados por los leibnizianos, en particular el principio de determinación completa como: principio de individuación para las cosas en general; (2) el Ensayo propone una concepción inaudita de espacio absoluto como: concepto, radicado en el cuerpo humano y el primer fundamento de las relaciones espaciales y de su cognición; (3) de ese modo, el Ensayo kantiano se muestra, del punto de vista genético, estratégico para que se vuelva comprensible la concepción, introducida por la Estética Transcendental de la Crítica de la Razón Pura, de aparecimiento (Erscheinung) como objeto indeterminado de la intuición empírica. Palabras-clave: Kant; Leibniz; Baumgarten; Espacio; Principio de determinación completa. Data de registro: 30/07/2024 Data de aceite: 30/10/2024. (shrink)

RESUMO:O objetivo deste artigo é discutir sobre os conceitos de obrigação e lei natural, tendo como referência o polêmico debate moderno envolvendo intelectualismo e voluntarismo. Em um primeiro momento, destacaremos a rejeição de Wolff ao voluntarismo de Pufendorf e sua orientação em direção ao intelectualismo de Leibniz. Conforme essa nova orientação, uma teoria da lei natural não deve basear seu conceito de obrigação na autoridade das leis e em seu poder coercitivo, mas, por outro lado, unicamente na ideia de necessidade (...) moral, interpretada como expressão da ligação natural universal dos seres racionais com o dever. Em um segundo momento, apresentaremos os efeitos dessa discussão no pensamento inicial de Kant, que, se posicionando diante mesmo de Wolff e Baumgarten, vai empreender a superação de seus predecessores, através de uma revisão conceitual do problema, a qual culminará nos pressupostos de sua doutrina ética madura. -/- ABSTRACT:This paper highlights the debate around the concepts of obligationand natural law, with reference to the controversial modern discussion involving intellectualism and voluntarism. Firstly, we highlight Wolff’s rejection of the voluntarism of Pufendorf and Wolff’s orientation toward the intellectualism of Leibniz. For intellectualism, a theory of natural law should not ground the concept of obligation in the authority of laws and in their coercive power, but in the idea of moral necessity, understood as an expression of the universal natural connection of rational beings with duty. We then present the effects of this discussion on Kant’s early thought. Kant undertook to go beyond Wolff and Baumgarten through a conceptual review of the problem, which culminated in the assumptions of his mature ethics -/- This paper highlights the debate around the concepts of obligation and natural law , with reference to the controversial modern discussion involving intellectualism and voluntarism. Firstly, we highlight Wolff’s rejection of the voluntarism of Pufendorf and Wolff’s orientation toward the intellectualism of Leibniz. For intellectualism, a theory of natural law should not ground the concept of obligation in the authority of laws (established as an arbitrary decree of God) and in their coercive power (interpreted as fear of punishment), but in the idea of moral necessity, understood as an expression of the universal natural connection of rational beings with duty. We then present the effects of this discussion on Kant’s early thought. Kant undertook to go beyond Wolff and Baumgarten through a conceptual review of the problem, which culminated in the assumptions of his mature ethics. (shrink)

A analogia entre pintura e poesia, tal qual sugerida na Carta aos Pisões de Horácio, não foi interpretada de modo homogêneo pela estética alemã do começo do século XVIII. Como tentaremos mostrar, em alguns autores essa analogia está muito mais atrelada ao caráter sensível como um todo da arte do que propriamente a uma referência imagética. Por um lado, isso pode ser constatado na obra crítica de Gottsched, que procura atenuar a importância do aspecto descritivo na poesia. Encontramos, por outro (...) lado, na investigação teórica de Baumgarten uma abordagem segundo a qual o que une as diversas artes não é o seu compromisso com o sentido da visão ou mesmo a primazia da imagem pictórica sobre o discurso poético, mas sim o de estarem situadas naquele plano que definiu como abaixo do limiar da razão. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem como objetivo explorar a relação entre psicologia empírica,antropologia e metafísica moral em Kant. Há lugar para a psicologia empírica e para aantropologia na filosofia moral kantiana? Se esta é fundamentada em princípios a priori, qual avalidade, para além da mera curiosidade do erudito, do conhecimento das peculiaridadesempíricas do ser humano? A segunda questão refere-se à relação que Kant estabelece entrepsicologia empírica e antropologia e como ambas se relacionam com a filosofia moral. Voutentar mostrar que esta relação passa (...) por três momentos na obra kantiana: um primeiromomento, no qual Kant ensina psicologia empírica como parte da metafísica, seguindo o textode Baumgarten, um segundo momento, cuja referência é aFundamentação, corroborada pelasanotações de Mrongovius, onde a psicologia empírica e a antropologia são alheias àinvestigação do filósofo, e um terceiro, exemplificado pelaAntropologia do Ponto de VistaPragmáticoe pelaMetafísica dos Costumes, onde uma concepção de natureza humana faz partede uma metafísica da moral. (shrink)

O presente artigo defende a hipótese de que Blanchot e Foucault, ao se alinharem à ideia que Mallarmé e Proust haviam semeado no final do século XIX e início do século XX (“a indiferença por quem fala ou escreve”), trazem um movimento de resistência, em dois níveis: no primeiro, às reduções da obra por uma psicologia do autor e, consequentemente, às teorias do gênio romântico; no outro, ao se distanciarem das análises psicopatológicas, encontraram na arte uma aliada para seus próprios (...) pensamentos. Foucault e Blanchot não fazem mais tratados estéticos, como tradicionalmente encontramos em Baumgarten, Kant ou Hegel, mas encontram na arte e na literatura saberes irredutíveis a todo saber, possibilidades de pensamento que permitem escapar das categorias tradicionais. Vendo a arte e a literatura como aliadas, eles retiram delas toda a carga psicológica que, desde a institucionalização da autoria, oportunizou sua apreensão pela psiquiatria. (shrink)

Embora a reflexão de Kant sobre a especificidade do juízo estético seja tomada pelos intérpretes de sua obra como não tendo o propósito de constituir uma nova possibilidade de pensar a arte e o fazer artístico, não se pode, todavia, negar sua contribuição, particularmente para o reconhecimento da estética como disciplina filosófica. Filósofos aparentemente tão diversos como Hegel, Schelling e Schopenhauer, bem como críticos de literatura e de arte, como os irmãos românticos August e Friedrich Schlegel são unânimes quando se (...) trata de identificar em Kant o primeiro ponto de partida para uma consideração verdadeiramente filosófica da arte. Neste artigo pretendo justamente lançar alguns apontamentos sobre esse lugar atribuído a Kant no horizonte da reflexão estética “sistemática”, que teve início com Baumgarten em 1750 e culminou com o sistema estético de Hegel na terceira década do século XIX. The place of Kant in the fundation of aesthetic as a philosophical disciplinePhilosophers so much different as Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer, as well as critics of literature and art, as the romantics brothers August and Friedrich Schlegel, are unanimous in identifying in Kant the starting point for a true philosophical appreciation of art. This paper analyzes the place attributed to Kant on the horizon of the "systematical" aesthetic reflexion, that begun with Baumgarten in 1750 and culminated in the aesthetic system of Hegel in the third decade of the 19 th century. (shrink)

This paper presents a brief contribution to the study of the historical sources of Kant’s practical philosophy, discussing the Kantian project of a metaphysics of morals as a doctrine of duties in the context of German natural law of the 17th and 18th centuries. At first, Christian Thomasius’ distinction between internal and external obligation is exposed as the basis for the differentiation between legal duties and ethical duties. Then the Kantian opposition between a doctrine of right and a doctrine of (...) virtue is discussed against the background of Alexander Baumgarten’s and Gottfried Achenwall’s reception of Thomasius. (shrink)

This e-book written in Hungarian seeks to reconstruct “the aesthetic” in the modern sense of the word, from the mid-17th century to the 1730s, through the texts of mainly British authors such as John Dennis, Lord Shaftesbury, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Francis Hutcheson, George Berkeley, sometimes using their Spanish and French predecessors for contextualization. It assumes that “the aesthetic” is an unprecedented type of experience that had to be discovered, or rather invented; it is therefore more than a discussion of (...) some old, always existing quality or sensibility in a new theoretical guise. If the words “(school) philosophy”, “art” and “criticism” can be associated with the mostly systematic theories of aesthetics that emerged in the wake of Alexander G. Baumgarten as a loose characterisation, then the words “(popular) theology”, “nature” and “exercise” are even more so with the earlier texts that are on the table here, which played a role in the formation of “the aesthetic”. It seems that in this period, “the aesthetic” is understood above all as a new and intimate link between the sensual and the supernatural or spiritual, in which the former is not just an apropos or disposable means to the latter, but an indispensable and ever-present component that provides a constitutive framework for experience. Its unprecedented modernity lies in its nisus to capture the divine in the sensual and to make it present as sensual. In this new experiential form, both the “nature” of the transcendence and the spiritual economics of the beholder are reconfigured. The new “aesthetic” is connected to and associated with the full experience of life, the joy of existence, the openness to the transcendent through the sensuality of the natural or everyday world, the interplay of external determination and internal spontaneity, the enchanted state of mind experienced in a waking dream, the reinterpretation of the relationship between reality and fiction, the intense existential experience of spiritual and emotional movement provided by walking, wandering, boating or cheerful imagination. (shrink)

Alexander Baumgarten's Ethica Philosophica (1740) served as a chief textbook of philosophical instruction in German universities for several decades, and was used by Immanuel Kant for his lectures on moral philosophy between 1759 and 1794. Now translated into English for the first time, John Hymers explores the extent of Baumgarten's influence on the development of German philosophy.

Elias Baumgarten taught philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1972 to 2018. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up in California, and went to schools in Boston and Chicago. He was one of the first recipients of the campus’s “Distinguished Teaching Award.” He taught a wide variety of courses including Medical Ethics, Ethics of War and Peace, Ethics of Nationalism, and Darwinism and Philosophy. Most of his publications are in ethics, including “Zionism, Nationalism, and Morality” and “Curiosity as (...) a Moral Virtue.” Dr. Baumgarten also served for over 30 years on hospital ethics committees at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. A child of immigrants, Prof. Baumgarten was passionate, both as teacher and citizen, in celebrating multicultural diversity both on our campus and in our country. He sees travel as a form of education and traveled to over 70 countries. (shrink)

No centro da filosofia moral de Kant está sem dúvida sua doutrina do imperativo categórico. Por esse motivo não é de se surpreender que a Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes (1785), na qual Kant explica, em detalhes, essa doutrina pela primeira vez, tenha sido o foco da atenção por décadas. Mas há alguns anos é observável uma significativa mudança na literatura que é univocamente bem vinda: ao lado da pesquisa das Doutrinas da Virtude e do Direito publicadas por Kant nos (...) anos noventa do século 18, agora também são intensamente estudadas suas perspectivas filosófico-morais desenvolvidas antes de 1781. Nesse sentido assume uma posição de destaque o manuscrito estudantil de uma lição de ética ministrada no meio dos anos 70, que é publicada aqui, em língua portuguesa, pela primeira vez em uma tradução comentada. Ainda hoje, esta lição serve como uma introdução à ética de Kant, muito embora pareça divergir, em alguns aspectos, da doutrina crítica do imperativo categórico. As Lições de Ética são um „trabalho em andamento“. Por um lado, somos capazes de assistir Kant "pensando" e compreender como ele se reporta ao livro de Alexander Baumgarten sobre os Príncípios da Metafísica Prática (Initia philosophiae practicae primae, 1760). E, por outro lado, somos capazes de vivenciar como ele desenvolve suas próprias perspectivas filosófico-morais em contraste a Baumgarten. Para todos que se interessam pela filosofia moral de Kant e pela história da ética na época da Aufklärung, o estudo desse manuscrito é indispensável. -/- Heiner F. Klemme (Martin Luther Universität - Halle-Wittenberg) . (shrink)

Apresentamos aqui a tradução de uma pequena seleção das notas kantianas sobre ética. A maioria dos fragmento traduzidos é parte das chamadas Reflexões de Filosofia Moral publicadas no tomo XIX de Kants gesammelte Schriften, que se constituem, em sua maior parte, como as anotações de Kant (algumas em folhas soltas) na margem de um dos exemplares de referência para seus cursos de ética17, a Initia philosophiae practicae primae de Alexander Baumgarten, em sua edição de 1760. Acrescentamos à mesma seleção, (...) no entanto, algumas Reflexões presentes em outros volumes do Legado Manuscrito que, de alguma maneira, abordam os mesmos temas. As Reflexões foram dispostas em ordem numérica e separadas de acordo com seus respectivos assuntos. Considerando a diversidade dos temas comentados por Kant, de acordo com o manual, tais como obrigação, coerção, imputação, lei, justiça, punição etc, tentamos selecionar alguns tópicos que assumem uma função basilar dentro da teoria moral kantiana. Dessa forma, o primeiro grupo de Reflexões contém algumas notas que tratam com o problema da liberdade e da lei moral. O segundo é um compilado contendo comentários sobre o sentimento moral. O terceiro apresenta algumas reflexões esparsas sobre imputabilidade e o mal moral e o quarto grupo traz algumas notas comentadas sobre o problema do sumo bem, sendo, em alguns casos, apenas trechos de anotações maiores. As traduções foram realizadas diretamente a partir dos fragmentos originais, embora, em alguns casos, tenha sido feito o cotejamento com outras versões, dentre as quais cito a tradução para o espanhol, Reflexiones sobre Filosofia Moral, publicada por J. Herceg, a seleção de notas da Cambridge Edition intitulada Notes and Fragments e a tradução francesa de Luc Langlois, Réflexions Sur La Philosophie Morale. Com o objetivo de dar mais clareza aos apontamentos, facilitando a interpretação, optei por completar, em alguns casos, as sentenças de Kant nas quais certas palavras ficam subentendidas. Este complemento está apresentado entre colchetes. Para fins comparativos, todas as Reflexões traduzidas são acompanhadas por sua correspondente original nas notas de rodapé. Ciente de todas as dificuldades desse tipo de trabalho, desde já, deixo aberto à comunidade acadêmica o espaço para críticas, sugestões e correções. (shrink)

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é evidenciar que a ideia de antropologia pragmática desenvolvida nas versões dos cursos de antropologia, que são Collegentwürfe, Menschenkunde e Anthropologie Dohna-Wundlackende, se ocupa de uma definição moral, porque ela está subordinada à doutrina da prudência. Essa é compreendida como a capacidade de os seres humanos influenciarem uns aos outros, segundo certos fins, os quais deverão ser úteis na vida em sociedade. Além disso, delimita-se que o sentido do adjetivo “pragmático”, presente nessas versões dos cursos (...) de antropologia, foi retirado da obra Initia Philosophiae practicae prima, de Baumgarten, pois, nas anotações de Kant acerca dessa obra, os motivos pragmáticos sempre determinarão leis privadas do arbítrio, as quais poderão, a priori, representar um interesse moral e, a posteriori, a realização de um fim almejado pelo ser racional finito. Por essa razão, defende-se haver nas obras kantianas citadas uma sinonímia entre a noção de antropologia pragmática e de doutrina da prudência.This article aims to evidence that the idea of pragmatic anthropology developed in the versions of the courses of anthropology that are Collegentwürfe, Menschenkunde and Anthropologie Dohna-Wundlackende, occupies of a moral definition, because it is subordinated to the doctrine of prudence. This doctrine is understood as the capacity from the human beings to influence each other according to certain goals, the ones that should be useful in social life. Besides that, we will delimit that the meaning of the pragmatic adjective present in these versions of the courses of anthropology was withdrawn from the work Initia Philosophiae practicae prima from Baumgarten, because in the notes of Kant about this work the pragmatic motives will always determine private laws of the will, the ones who may, a priori, represent a moral interest and, a posteriori, the accomplishment of a desired end by its finite rational being. By this reason, we defend to have in the quoted Kantian works a synonymy between the notion of pragmatic anthropology and the doctrine of prudence. (shrink)

¿Qué es el arte? es una pregunta común. Su respuesta, sin embargo, a menudo no lo es por diversas razones. Pues no es claro si la tarea de responderla corresponde propiamente al artista, al teórico del arte, al historiador, al filósofo, o más bien a la opinión ordinaria o no técnica. Pero esto no es todo. Puesto que hay diferentes edades del arte, escuelas asimétricas, siglos impares, distintas corrientes filosóficas, e innumerables Weltanschauungen, casi nunca lo considerado por una generación es (...) conmensurable con lo considerado por otra. Así, por ejemplo, el planteamiento ontológico de la estética de Platón y el arte griego es rechazado por la epistemologización de Baumgarten, Kant y el arte moderno, y tanto la primera como la segunda postura constituyen el ángulo de ataque de gran parte de la estética y el arte contemporáneos. Este escrito tiene tres partes. La primera es sistemática; la segunda, más bien histórica; la tercera, sólo crítica. En la primera, explico con algún detalle el punto de vista de Pessoa sobre el arte; en la segunda, a la luz de las posiciones de algunos de sus contemporáneos, su alcance; en la última, doy mi propio punto de vista sobre la cuestión. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kategorische und andere Imperative: Zur Entwicklung von Kants praktischer Philosophie his 1785Heiner F. KlemmeClemens Schwaiger. Kategorische und andere Imperative: Zur Entwicklung von Kants praktischer Philosophie his 1785. Forschungen und Materialien zur deutschen Aufklärung. Hrsg. von Norbert Hinske und Clemens Schwaiger. Abt. 2, Monographien, vol. 14. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1999. Pp. 252. Cloth, DM 88.00.Diese Studie zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der praktischen Philosophie Kants, die den Zeitraum von 1762 bis zur (...) Publikation der Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten untersucht, orientiert sich an der in Abschnitt II der Schrift von 1785 vorgenommenen Einteilung aller Imperative in problematische, assertorische und apodiktische. Da diese Einteilung in besonderem Maße geeignet ist, "die Architektonik von Kants praktischer Philosophie insgesamt zu erhellen" (S. 19), wird man durch den behutsamen Nachvollzug ihrer Ausdifferenzierung erwarten dürfen, neue Einsichten in die Entwicklung von Kants Denken zu gewinnen. Damit ist für den Interpreten keine leichte Aufgabe gestellt. Ohne philologische Umsicht, breite Kenntnis der zeitgenössischen Literatur, des Kantischen Oeuvres und der internationalen Sekundärliteratur sowie ein Gespür für Fragen der Datierung und Gewichtung von Kants Reflexionen und den studentischen Nachschriften seiner Vorlesungen, ist ein derartiges Unterfangen von vornherein zum Scheitern verurteilt. Schwaiger verfügt über diese Fähigkeiten und Kenntnisse.Nach einer informativen Einleitung, in der Stellung bezogen wird zum Stand der Forschung, der Kantischen Dreigliederung der Praxis als dem Leitfaden der Untersuchung, zur Methodik und den erzielten Ergebnissen, wendet sich Schwaiger in Teil I zunächst Kants moralphilosophischen Texten bis einschließlich 1770 zu. Mit Blick auf die 1762 verfasste und 1764 publizierte Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral weist Schwaiger den entscheidenden Einfluss von Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (vgl. S. 43) auf Kant nach, wohingegen seiner Einschätzung nach die Bedeutung von Crusius in der Literatur bei weitem überschätzt worden ist. Der moralphilosophische Ansatz von Baumgarten ist vor allem auch deshalb für Kant so wichtig, weil dieser Ansatz am Begriff der Verbindlichkeit ausgerichtet ist (vgl. S. 50). Kant übernimmt von Baumgarten den von diesem bereits verbindlichkeitstheoretisch gedeuteten Terminus des Imperativs, nicht ohne jedoch darauf hinzuweisen, dass Baumgartens moralische Grundregeln tautologisch sind (vgl. S. 166 f.). Als weitere mögliche Quelle für Kants strengen Begriff der moralischen Verbindlichkeit verweist Schwaiger auch auf eine Abhandlung von Elie de Joucourts, die in David Fordyce´ Anfangsgründe der moralischen Weltweisheit (Zürich, 1757) erschien (vgl. S. 59 f.).Die Ausdifferenzierung des Baumgartenschen Praxisbegriffs in Kants ´Bemerkungen´ in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen ist nach Schwaiger als eine genuin Kantische Leistung anzusehen, auf die Rousseau, wie einige Autoren meinten, keinen Einfluss gehabt hat. Die Inauguraldissertation von 1770 gibt schließlich Kants Gedanken einer Metaphysik der Sitten einen neuen Gehalt. Schwaiger vertritt gegenüber Josef Schmucker und Dieter Henrich die wohlbegründete These, dass Kants Ethik nicht schon um 1765 in ihren wesentlichen Grundzügen vorliegt. Erst nach der [End Page 443] "´platonischen Revolution´" (S. 25) von 1770 sind die Voraussetzungen für den Weg zur Grundlegung geschaffen, erst nach 1770 verwendet Kant beispielsweise den Terminus ´Imperativ´. Hätte Kant bereits in der Mitte der sechziger Jahre eine Metaphysik der Sitten publiziert, wäre der Anteil der empirischen Moral sicherlich sehr umfangreich gewesen (vgl. S. 80).Auch die in Teil II vorgelegten Resultate sprechen für eine allmähliche Ausbildung der kritischen Ethik, die nicht geradlinig verlaufen ist. Die 1770er Jahre sind nach Schwaiger durch Kants Bemühen gekennzeichnet, die im Bereich der Logik gewonnene Unterscheidung zwischen problematischen, assertorischen und apodiktischen Urteilen auch auf praktische Sätze anzuwenden. Des weiteren findet sich erst in den siebziger Jahren, nach Kants Wende zur reinen Moralphilosophie, die Unterscheidung zwischen einem Dijudikations- und einem Exekutionsprinzip (vgl. S. 91 ff.).Schwaigers Studie zeigt eindrucksvoll, dass quellengestützte begriffsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen für die Erforschung der Entwicklungsgeschichte der Kantischen praktischen Philosophie unverzichtbar sind. Aber sie scheint in dieser methodischen Einseitigkeit auch mit einigen Mängeln behaftet zu sein. Ich möchte drei Gründe für dieses Urteil nennen. Erstens wird nicht recht deutlich, dass die Kenntnisnahme der entwicklungsgeschichtlichen Aspekte für das philosophische Verständnis von Kants Einteilung der Imperative, so wie sie... (shrink)

A Estética deriva de uma crença que pode conter um erro grave, nos fundamentos, e toda sua edificação pode afundar. Oriunda da metafísica psicológica, ela pressupõe que o homem se divida em corpo e alma, como instâncias separáveis, tendo a alma prioridade por ser imutável, eterna e independente do corpo. Assim como a Lógica cuidaria das ilações da alma em termos analíticos, a Estética cuidaria das percepções corporais, das imagens corpóreas. Essa concepção cristã está presente em Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, (...) class='Hi'>Baumgarten, Kant, Fichte, Solger, Hegel e vários outros. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:François H. Lapointe PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC SURVEY ThL· survey is limited to articles written in English that have appeared in journals published between 1 January 1974 and 31 December 1976. Abbott, Don. "Marxist Influences on the Rhetorical Theory of Kenneth Burke." Philosophy and Rhetoric 7 (1974): 217-33. Abel, Lionel. "Jacques Derrida: His 'Difference' With Metaphysics." Salmagundi no. 25 (1974): 3-21. Adamowski, T. H. "Character and Consciousness: D. (...) H. Lawrence, Wilhelm Reich, and Jean-Paul Sartre." University of Toronto Quarterly 43 (1974): 31 1-34. Adams, D. J. "Style and Social Ideas in Jacques le fataliste." Studies in Voltaire & the Eighteenth Century 124 (1974): 231-48. Adams, Hazard. "Contemporary Ideas of Literature: Terrible Beauty or Rough Beast?" Contemporary Literature 17 (1976): 349-77. Adorno, Theodor W. "Lyric Poetry and Society." Telos no. 20 (1974): 56-71. Ages, Arnold. "Bonald and the Jews." Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa 44 (1974): 32-43. Allen, Diogenes. "The Experience of Existence: Jean-Paul Sartre and Iris Murdoch." International Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1974): 181-87. Allen, Marcus. "Character Development in the Oreste of Voltaire and Les Mouches of Jean-Paul Sartre." CLA Journal 18 (1974): 1-21. Alter, Jean. "A (Terrorist) System of the Novel." Diacritics 6 (1976): 10-15. Altieri, Charles. "Wittgenstein on Consciousness and Language: A Challenge to Derridean Literary Theory." MLN 91 (1976): 1397-1423. Altieri,Charles. "Wordsworth's 'Preface' as Literary Theory." Criticism 18 (1976): 122-146. [On Wordworth and Wittgenstein.] Ames, Van Meter. "Art for Art's Sake Again?" Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (1975): 303-307. Appleman, Philip. "The Dread Factor: Eliot, Tennyson, and the Shaping of Science." Columbia Forum, N. S. 3 (1974): 32-38. Armstrong, Paul B. " E. M. Forster's Howard's End: The Existential Crisis of the Liberal Imagination." Mosaic 8 (1974): 183-99. Arnold, A. James. "La Condition humaine as Nietzschean Tragedy." Mélanges Malraux Miscellany 6 (1974): 15-24. 366 François H. Lapointe367 Aronson, Ronald. "L'Idiot de la famille: The Ultimate Sartre?" Telos no. 20 (1974): 90-107. Arthos, John. "Du Bartas, Petrarch and the Poetry of Deism." Rice University Studies 60 (1974): 1-17. Artz, Johannes. "Newman as Philosopher." International Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1976): 263-88. Ausmus, Harry J. "Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Language." The Midwest Quarterly 18 (1977): 169-86. Ayala, Francisco. "Ortega y Gasset, Literary Critic." Critical Inquiry 1 (1974): 395-414. Bakalar, H. Nicholas. "The Cartesian Legacy to the Eighteenth-century Grammarians." MLN 91 (1976): 698-721. Barnes, Hazel. "Apotheosis and Deification in Plato, Nietzsche and Huxley." Philosophy and Literature 1 (1976): 3-24. Baron, Dennis E. "Role Structure and the Language of Literature." Journal of Literary Semantics 4 (1975): 43-52. Barooskian, Vahan D. "The Aesthetics of the Russian Revolutionary Theatre 1917-1921." British Journal of Aesthetics 15 (1975): 99-117. Bart, B. F. "Hypercreativity in Stendhal and Balzac." Nineteenth Century French Studies 3 (1974-75): 18-39. Barthes, Roland. "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative." New Literary History 6 (1975): 237-72. Bashford, Bruce. "The Rhetorical Method in Literary Criticism." Philosophy and Rhetoric 9 (1976): 133-46. Bass, Alan. "Time and the Witch: Femininity, Metapsychology and the Temporality of the Unconscious." MLN 91 (1976): 871-912. Bassett, Sharon. "Towards a Critique of Romanticism: Wordsworth, Pater and the 'Anima Mundi'." Criticism 17 (1975): 262-75. Batchelor, R. "Literature, Society and the Concept of Revolt." European Studies Review 5 (1975): 395-427. Battin, M. Pabst. "Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy in the Poetics, Part 1." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (1974): 155-70, and Part II in Ibid. 33 (1975): 293-302. Bauer, George. "Sartre and the 'Sugars' of History." L'Esprit Créateur 15 (1975): 377-86. Baumgarten, Murray. "The Historical Novel: Some Postulates." Clio 4 (1975): 173-82. Beauchamp, Gorman. "Gulliver's Return to the Cave: Plato's Republic and Book IV of Gulliver's Travels." The Michigan Academician 7 (1974): 201-10. Bennett, Jonathan. "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn." Philosophy 48 (1974): 123-34. Benzon, William. "Cognitive Networks and Literary Semantics." MLN 91 (1976): 952-82. Bergonzi, Bernard. "A Grid of Codes: Views of Structuralism." Encounter 45 (1975): 52-58. Berry, Wanda Warren. "The... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 478-480 [Access article in PDF] The German Aesthetic Tradition,by Kai Hammermeister; xv & 259 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; $60.00 cloth; $22.00 paper. In some ways, aesthetic theory has become a thing of the past. With the exception of a kind of fascination with works such as T. W. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, as a project, as a tradition, aesthetics has surrendered its once (...) monolithic and grandiose position as the philosophical contemplation of art and the notion of artistic beauty to more diminutive fields such as literary theory, poetics and cultural studies. In some ways, this is due to the very function of aesthetics: the philosophical investigation not simply of what is beautiful, but the formulation of prescriptive ideas about works of art and the judgement them according to these prescriptive ideas. This, in turn, has been looked upon with a certain degree of scorn with the rise of a more pluralistic art world and the bold denial that art needs the guidance of philosophy let alone have any prescriptive function or be able to be classified as "good" or "bad."But Kai Hammermeister's The German Aesthetic Tradition takes a very different view. A bold and difficult project, Hammermeister traces the complex and oftentimes abstruse contours of German aesthetic philosophy from its inception with Baumgarten in the eighteenth century through Adorno in the twentieth. In the process, he not only provides us with an excellent historical-philosophical account of the development of German aesthetic philosophy, he also implicitly argues for the relevance of aesthetics as a way not only of comprehending art, but of understanding the cohesive links between art, society, culture and philosophy.The German aesthetic tradition, as Hammermeister refers to it, was a prolonged intellectual argumentation with classical conceptions of art and beauty inherited from classical Greek thought during the eighteenth century. Classical aesthetics was dominated by two opposing conceptions of art and its function. For Plato, art mirrored the outside world (mimesis) and the judgement of good works of art was based on how well this mirroring of the objective world was carried out. Aristotle's idea was that art served a purgatory function (katharsis), cleansing the emotions of the individual through the identification of the observer with the work of art. All of the thinkers in the German tradition wrestle with this dual conception of art in some form privileging one over the other or, more often than not, combining them and extending their explanatory reach. But as in any tradition, they also struggle with the ideas and philosophies of previous thinkers within the tradition itself making Hammermeister's task more complex, one that he handles with adroitness and precision.The book's overarching argument and structure is triadic. Hammermeister sees the eighteenth century through German Idealism and Romanticism as [End Page 478] articulating a set of different paradigms for interpreting art. These are subsequently attacked in post-Hegelian philosophy and are then revived in different ways in the twentieth century as a reaction to Nietzsche's aestheticization of philosophy. Two paradigms emerge as central for the subsequent unfolding of the tradition. First, there is Immanuel Kant's conception of art as wholly separate from epistemology and from morality. For Kant, the work of art is centered in the experience of the subject and, in terms of form, exists outside its social context. This Hammermeister calls the "first strong paradigm of aesthetics" (p. 40). Next, there is the position of Friedrich Schiller who sees a connection between the work of art with culture, thought and morality. "[T]he culture of beauty demonstrates the freedom of man to turn himself into whatever being he envisions while remaining under the law of morality" (p. 57). For Schiller, there exists a kind of spillover effect of art into other domains of human thought and action—specifically in morality and politics—and this represents a crucial deviation from Kant's paradigm and another tendency within the tradition of German aesthetics, i.e., the aestheticization of other domains of human existence.Schelling and Hegel represent two other... (shrink)

Inhalt: Michael Albrecht: Zum Wortgebrauch von 'Aufklarung' bei Johann Joachim Spalding. Mit einer Bibliographie der Schriften und zwei ungedruckten Voten Spaldings - Bruno Bianco: Schulbegriff und Weltbegriff der Philosophie in der Wiener Logik. Ein Beitrag zum Verstandnis von Kants Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsbegriff - Luigi Cataldi Madonna: Theorie und Kritik der Vernunft bei Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Claudio Cesa: Reformation statt Aufklarung. Hegel uber Friedrich den Grossen - George di Giovanni: Rehberg, Reinhold und C. C. E. Schmid uber Kant und die (...) moralische Freiheit - Jean Ecole: Christian Wolffs Metaphysik und die Scholastik - Gunter Gawlick: Theodizee fur den Alltag. Bemerkungen zur Rezeption von A. A. Sarasas Ars semper gaudendi in der deutschen Aufklarung - Volker Gerhardt: Prolegomena zum Begriff der Individualitat - Hansmichael Hohenegger: Der Weg der Wissenschaft und die Arbeitsteilung in der Philosophie. Zur Rolle der Teleologie in Kants Philosophieauffassung - Gerd Irrlitz: Antinomik bei Kant und was er von deren Aufklarung erwartete - Fumiyasu Ishikawa: Die 'ungesellige Geselligkeit' der Vernunftkritik. Kant als Polemiker - Soo Bae Kim: Ethik als Kasuistik. Kants Antwort auf die Garvesche Kritik - Lothar Kreimendahl: Hat Hume William Kings 'De origine mali' gelesen? Die Notizen zur Theodizee in den 'Early Memoranda' und ihre Quelle - Silvestro Marcucci: Kant, Gustav von Starck und die 'pythagorischen Ternen' - Pietro Pimpinella: 'Cognitio intuitiva' bei Wolff und Baumgarten - Horst Schropfer: Ludwig Martin Trager - ein fruher Anhanger der philosophischen Ideen und Bestrebungen Immanuel Kants - Clemens Schwaiger: Vollkommenheit als Moralprinzip bei Wolff, Baumgarten und Kant - Rainer Specht: John Lockes Lehre vom Allgemeinen - Katrin Tenenbaum: 'Was ist der Mensch?' Mannliche Universalitat und weibliche Partikularitat in der Anthropologie Kants - Robert Theis: Gottes Spur in der Welt? Kant uber den Optimismus um die Mitte der 1750er Jahre - Maria Jesus Vazquez Lobeiras: Kants Logik zwischen Tradition und Innovation - Verzeichnis der Schriften Norbert Hinskes. (shrink)

In this paper I shall debate the thesis according to which in the Aristotelian treatise On Soul the sense of touch works as a kind of knot for the knowledge faculties and, implicitly, as a unity for the entire treatise: it has a primitive function in the feeding process, it also represents a starting point for both the faculty of motion and knowledge, then relates itself symmetrical to the sense of vision through the typology of the intermediaries and to the (...) intellect through the criterion of nonbeing, and finally reveals to the receiver a kind of truth that has no more the false as an alternative. On the other hand, the intellect recovers in its own faculty the sense of touch by recreating its functions in the connection between intellect and the indivisible intelligibles. Given these relations, the sense of touch represents the main connection of the treatise's large themes from the question of motion to that of knowledge and it is also literally (certain aristotelian remarksover the theme of earth being taken into consideration here) related to the living body. (shrink)

Available for the first time in English, this critical translation draws from the original seven Latin editions and Georg Friedrich Meier's 18th-century German translation. Together with a historical and philosophical introduction, extensive glossaries and notes, the text is supported by translations of Kant's elucidations and notes, Eberhard's insertions in the 1783 German edition and texts from the writings of Meier and Wolff. For scholars of Kant, the German Enlightenment and the history of metaphysics, Alexander Baumgarten's Metaphysics is an essential, (...) authoritative resource to a significant philosophical text. (shrink)

This paper explores the commitment to corporate citizenship on the part of the largest U.S.-based multinationals in the emerging market region of Latin America. The websites of the largest U.S.-based firms - according to the 2007 Fortune 500 list - are reviewed and their CSR efforts in Latin America are noted. The firms' positions on corporate citizenship in Latin America are mapped onto a three-by-three matrix in which firms' commitment to corporate citizenship ranges from profitmaking motivations to a more holistic (...) approach where support for non-profit causes is embraced by the entire firm and implemented at all levels, 9-26, 2000). The largest U.S.-based multinationals were selected for this study because of their leadership role and the fact that other firms within their respective industries may seek to emulate the firms' level of commitment to corporate citizenship. While the matrix can be used to evaluate corporate citizenship efforts in any market - or globally - the emphasis in this study is on Latin America, a region of interest for two reasons: because of the paucity of research on this particular emerging market region as it relates to CSR, and because there is some evidence to suggest that philanthropic initiatives by the region's wealthy individuals lag behind individual philanthropic efforts in other world regions. If this is the case, this study aims to identify whether companies are picking up the slack. (shrink)