One of very few monographs devoted to Plato's Meno, this study emphasizes the interplay between its protagonists, Socrates and Meno. It interprets the Meno as Socrates' attempt to persuade his interlocutor, by every device at his disposal, of the value of moral inquiry—even though it fails to yield full-blown knowledge—and to encourage him to engage in such inquiry, insofar as it alone makes human life worth living.

He finds the key in the concept of responsibility, which implies not only the freedom and flexibility of responsiveness to others but also a guiding ideal of ...

An internationally renowned philoso­pher propounds a way to advance be­yond appearance to ultimate realities and a final ideal. “One of philosophy’s main functions is to arouse thought, to awaken and redirect. It asks others to think through, to assess, and at the same time to be flexible and steady. Author and reader must, despite the printed page, despite differences in age and experience, training and knowl­edge, philosophize together,” writes Paul Weiss in his brilliant new book. And this is exactly (...) what the reader will find himself doing as the eminent speculative philosopher directs his attention to that which is beyond appearance—beyond daily living and, ultimately, beyond life itself. In this perhaps richest and finest of Mr. Weiss’s books, the average reader who daily confronts the various aspects of our complicated lives will find an enlivening answer to persisting fundamental questions. Mr. Weiss’s searching analysis of matter and his thought-provoking answers to questions raised provide a thoroughly enlightened examination of the realities of man’s inalienable rights, his identity over the course of a changing career, and his possible immortality. (shrink)

_Privacy _advances and refines Professor Weiss’s philosophic quest to isolate unmistakable evidences of that which is ultimately real and to trace those evidences to their original sources. The quest began with the publication of _Beyond All Appearances _, was expanded and refined into a more defensible formula­tion by _First Considerations _, and developed to provide a corre­sponding, precise, and systematic treatment of man, as apart from and to oppose and interplay with those final realities, in _You, I, and the (...) Others _. This new work continues his venture as he seeks to isolate evidences of human privacy in the body and the world, to understand what then becomes knowable, and to explore the result. Weiss demonstrates the inutility of a reductionist methodology when searching for the ultimately real in human beings, stressing that a soundly based nonreductionist method for learning about humanity is built upon the supposition that each person has sure self-knowledge acquired through observation or introspection. By attending to what all people—including oneself—publicly show themselves to be, it becomes possible to extricate evidence of pow­ers present in anyone and thus to learn about the true nature of human privacy. He writes: “To be acquainted with the one is al­ready to be in contact with the other, and in a position to make an intensive, convergent, insistent further move into the sources as not yet expressed.” Weiss begins his study with an examination of evidences of the human person, and particularly of its most primitive, persistent epitomization, sensitivity. He goes on to examine more and more advanced epitomizations, arriving at and passing beyond the stage where a self comes to be, with its epitomizing assumed accountabil­ity, responsibility, and I. (shrink)

The question is whether the message of early Christianity was revolutionary and aimed at a revolutionary change in history? Had this change already begun in the life of primitive Christianity in a way that is exemplary to all later life based on the message?

After a brief review of the history of the psychology of religion and its nature, we introduce this special section by presenting various themes of ongoing research and pointing out differentially the desirability of continued efforts in these areas. We then assess the field, its growth, increased interdisciplinary opportunities, lesser marginalization, and improved research methodology but also the challenge of arriving at theoretical coherence, studying all types of religious and spiritual understanding and experience, and researching the richness and complexity of (...) the religious variable itself. The six articles that follow detail possible new developments, as covered in our concluding overview. (shrink)

Enth. u. a.: S. 57-68: Berliner "Exil" und Schweizer "Heimat": Johann Georg Zimmermanns Reflexionen über die Rolle des Schweizer Gelehrten / Simone Zurbuchen. - S. 137-150: Medizinische Aufklärung bei Johann Georg Zimmermann : zum Verhältnis von Macht und Wissen bei einem Arzt der Aufklärung / Martin Dinges.

In this book Raymond L. Weiss examines how a seminal Jewish thinker negotiates the philosophical conflict between Athens and Jerusalem in the crucial area of ethics. Maimonides, a master of both the classical and the biblical-rabbinic traditions, reconciled their differing views of morality primarily in the context of Jewish jurisprudence. Taking into consideration the entire corpus of Maimonides' writings, Weiss focuses on the ethical sections of the Commentary on the Mishnah and the Mishneh Torah , but also discusses (...) the Guide of the Perplexed , the letters of Maimonides, and his medical works. The gulf between classical philosophy and the Torah made the task of Maimonides extraordinarily difficult. Weiss shows that Maimonides subtly preserves the tension between those traditions while producing a practical accommodation between them. To explain how Maimonides was able to accomplish this twofold goal, Weiss takes seriously the multilevel character of Maimonides' works. Weiss interrupts Maimonides as a heterodox thinker who, with utter integrity, faces the Law's encounter with philosophy and gives both the Torah and philosophy their due. (shrink)

Like _Beyond All Appearances_,_ _which it supplements, Paul Weiss’s new book is a fundamental work which faces all the hard issues which are not only at the heart of philosophy but at the core of our entire culture. Readers of Mr. Weiss’s phenomenology of religion will need no introduction to this new work which expands and clari­fies many of the issues raised in _Beyond All Appearances. _However, no knowl­edge of Paul Weiss’s previous books is required to understand (...) and appreciate this brilliant new exposition. Weiss’s plain style makes his ideas accessible to all intelligent readers, whether or not they have been trained as professional philosophers. Here in _First Considerations _Mr. Weiss addresses himself to such topics as actuality, internalization, evidence, names, substance, being, natures and possibilities, existence, unity and the cosmos—issues which have engrossed him as a moral philosopher and meta­physician throughout his distinguished career. In his progress through the ideas and issues expounded in this new book Mr. Weiss is concerned with the human condition distinctive of this species of ours. Rigorously applied, his moral philosophy is as complete and thorough as that of any of the major thinkers, and provides as complete a guide as, for example, that of Buddhism. A highly original work, no doubt well in advance of current trends in philosophy, _First Considerations _will provoke further thought and discussion and will be regarded as a seminal work in modern philosophical approaches. (shrink)

This book explores the question of how international law is applied by domestic courts. Through case studies and analysis the contributors consider how traditions and diversity affect the interpretation of international law, from a mixture of doctrinal, practical, and theoretical approaches.

This book approaches Hegel from the standpoint of what we might call the question of knowledge. Hegel, of course, had no "theory of knowledge" in the narrow and abstract sense in which it has come to be understood since Locke and Kant. "The examination of knowledge," he holds, "can only be carried out by an act of knowledge," and "to seek to know before we know is as absurd as the wise resolution of Scholasticus, not to venture into the water (...) until he had learned to swim. " * While Hegel wrote no treatise exclusively devoted to epistemology, his entire philosophy is nonetheless a many-faceted theory of truth, and thus our title - Beyond Epistemology - is meant to suggest a return to the classical meaning and relation of the terms episteme and logos. I had originally planned to include a lengthy introduction for these essays, setting out Hegel's general view of philosophic truth. But as the papers came in, it became clear that I had chosen my contributors too well; indeed, they have all but put me out of business. In any case, it gives me great pleasure to have been able to gather this symposium of outstanding Hegel scholars, to provide for them a forum on a common theme of great importance, and especially, thanks to Arnold Miller, to have Hegel himself among them. Frederick G. Weiss Charlottesville, Va. • The Logic of Hegel, trans. from the Etu;yclopaedta by William Wallace. 2nd ed. (shrink)

Book jacket/back: 'Being and Other Realities, ' by our greatest living metaphysician, pushes Paul Weiss's philosophy to new subtlety. It moves on two fronts. On one, it further refines the categorial scheme Weiss has been developing over 50 years. On the other, it is a shining example of radical questioning and exploration. This is an important book, especially for philosophers like myself, who believe being is not another reality. --Robert C. Neville, Boston University, Author of Normative Cultures and (...) The Truth of Broken Symbols. (shrink)

Victorian poets Elizabeth Barrett (1806-1861) and Robert Browning (1812-1889) first fell in love through letters, which they began to write to each other in 1845 (Figures 1 and 2). Their growing relationship, slowly progressing from letter to first encounter and eventual secret marriage in 1846, is documented in two volumes of letters, with a plot that unfolds as warmly and compellingly as the best page-turner invented by a novelist. Both were master wordsmiths, so the beauty of their letters is no (...) surprise. But one reason Barrett Browning was such a prolific correspondent is that she spent much of her life housebound, due to an illness whose nature was never truly explained when she was alive and that has been .. (shrink)

1. Mr. Grünbaum says, "it is clearly meaningless to say that one object is larger than another unless there is a...common metrical framework to which...these bodies can be referred." But he also says, as one ought, that "sodium atoms separated by...light years...share the characteristics of sodium." Apparently he and I agree that sodium atoms, x and y, can share the characteristics of sodium without the need of an intermediary third term. Substitute "sodium similarity" for "share the characteristics of sodium" and (...) we get "x and y have sodium similarity." Substitute "magnitude" for "sodium" and it then becomes evident that equal magnitudes can be members of two-termed relations. And since a larger body is a body, part of which has the same magnitude as the whole of another, unequal magnitudes can also, despite his denial, be related by two-termed relations. It would be foolish, of course, to deny that a metric introduces a third term. But must there not be something for the metric to measure? It was with this something my paper was concerned. I take it to be presupposed by the theory of relativity, and the theories which will follow it in the course of the history of science. Mr. Grünbaum, if I understand him, gets to his conclusion because he arbitrarily identifies "being" with "being known," "magnitude" with "measured size.". (shrink)

Keinen Menschen der Antike kennen wir so gut wie Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 v.Chr.). Wir verdanken dies dem Umstand, dass ein großer Teil seiner Korrespondenz überliefert ist, im ganzen etwa 780 Briefe, davon gut die Hälfte an seinen Freund Titus Pomponius Atticus (110-32 v.Chr.) gerichtet. Die Atticus-Briefe sind insofern eine historische Quelle außerordentlichen Ranges, als Cicero sich in ihnen unbefangen und vorbehaltlos äußert. So folgen wir in zahlreichen Krisen seines Lebens zuweilen Tag für Tag den wechselnden Stimmungen, erleben den Kampf (...) um gesellschaftliche und politische Anerkennung, erkennen aber auch Ciceros heiße Vaterlandsliebe, erhalten Einblick in die privaten Verhältnisse, kurzum, alle Züge seines Wesens erscheinen in klarer Kontur wie in einem Spiegel. Die Atticus-Briefe vermitteln uns das Bild eines antiken Menschen, der zwar nicht der Weltgeschichte ihren Lauf gewiesen hat, der aber doch zu den bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten einer Zeit gehörte, in der Weltgeschichte gemacht wurde, und der darüber zu berichten weiß. Darin liegt der nicht zu schätzende Wert der Sammlung. Mit Einführung, Erläuterungen, Registern und Zeittafel. (shrink)