Drawing on a wide range of texts - from philosophical ethology to classical texts, and from continental philosophy to literature - Cimatti creates a dialogue with Flaubert, Derrida, Temple Grandin, Heidegger as well as Malaparte and Landolfi explores what human animality looks like, with a particular focus on the work of Gilles Deleuze.

Any society can have its own worthy place in the history of human civilization, if human problem in it becomes a core, a base of politics and world outlook, economy and culture, morality and science and all main goals of social practice are re-comprehended on this base. In public theory human problem has an important place. For a long time function of philosophy was in elucidation of nature and essence of a man and his attitude to the world. In theory (...) of a man methodological problem about specific features of a man as an object and subject of cognition is starting. Peculiarity of a man as an object of cognition is in complex interweaving of various sides: biological, psychological, and social. Peculiarity of a man as a subject of cognition is expressed in regular increase of his potential intellectual resources. (shrink)

Public philosophy is typically conceived as philosophical engagement with contemporary social and political issues in the public sphere. I argue that public philosophy should also aim to engage with existential issues that arise from the human condition. In other words, we should engage in “humane philosophy.” In the first section I fill out and show the attractions of this humane conception of philosophy by contrasting it with a rival scientistic conception. In the second section I demonstrate how the practice of (...) humane philosophy is important for engaging with contemporary social and political issues and how it offers the best path for religious engagement with these issues. Contra John Rawls and other liberal political philosophers, I argue that public engagement with controversial issues such as abortion, assisted suicide, and genetic engineering requires engaging competing existential stances and I show how this can be done. (shrink)

According to some recent critics, philosophy has not progressed over the course of its history because it has not exhibited any substantial increase in the stock of human wisdom. I reject this pessimistic conclusion by arguing that such criticisms employ a conception of progress drawn from the sciences which is inapplicable to a humanistic discipline such as philosophy. Philosophy should not be understood as the accumulation of epistemic goods in a manner analogous to the natural sciences. I argue that the (...) progressiveness of philosophy consists, if anything, in its capacity to provoke and sustain critical reflections upon the ideas and practices which shape and guide human life. (shrink)

Andrew Steane reconfigures the public understanding of science, by drawing on a deep knowledge of physics and by bringing in mainstream philosophy of science. Science is a beautiful, multi-lingual network of ideas; it is not a ladder in which ideas at one level make those at another level redundant. In view of this, we can judge that the natural world is not so much a machine as a meeting-place. In particular, people can only be correctly understood by meeting with them (...) at the level of their entire personhood, in a reciprocal, respectful engagement as one person to another. Steane shows that Darwinian evolution does not overturn this but rather is the process whereby such truths came to be discovered and expressed in the world. From here the argument moves towards other aspects of human life. Our sense of value requires from us a response which is not altogether the same as following logical argument. This points us towards what religion in its good forms can express. A reply to a major argument of David Hume, and a related one of Richard Dawkins, is given. The book finishes with some brief chapters setting religion in the context of all human capacities, and showing, in fresh language, what theistic religious response is, or can be, in the modern world. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the complex relations between aesthetics and phenomenology as they show themselves within the core locus of their interplay—the realm of the visible and the invisible. To do so, the paper examines a specific case study, a Rembrandt painting—A Woman Bathing in a Stream (1654)—through which the discussion illuminates the interconnected and inseparable relationship between aesthetics and phenomenology in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the visible and the invisible. The reading addresses both dimensions of the visible: the (...) essential intersubjective aspect of life and its complex visual representation in art. To achieve this, the paper first explores Merleau-Ponty’s late aesthetic ontology—a phenomenology that perceives the aesthetic realm, particularly the visible domain, as originating from human corporeal existence, thereby redefining the act of seeing and the concepts of the visible and the invisible; I show the manner in which invisible elements permeate our visual experience in the Rembrandt painting and in seeing as such. The paper also reveals the unique ontological role of painting and the painter in unveiling the aesthetic world, and in guiding the philosopher toward a vision that true philosophy—phenomenology—must embrace. The paper concludes by rethinking the significance of aesthetics, and especially, the arts, to phenomenological thought, and the necessity of phenomenology to aesthetic thought. (shrink)

To be human is to be autonomous, yet this is a trait that most of us lack. We are subject to forces external to our being. We are workers; we are citizens; we are needful creatures. Humanity-proper in these times of neoliberal omnipotence is defined differently. The key terms are familiar: personal betterment, personal responsibility, productivity, pleasantness. A forked tongue slithers in our conscience, tells us that these are the traits of the human condition. Through Bataille, this paper argues (...) the substrate of these oft repeated familiar mantras are other. Neoliberal subjects, propelled by need, understand themselves along the axis of the useful choice. The paper turns to myth to understand the interdependence of need and choice, and how this interdependence posits being as always in desire but never in pleasure. Revisiting Don Giovanni, a character central to Acéphalic thought, and the commentary of Søren Kierkegaard, we think in terms of non-abstraction, of pleasurably floating in change, rather than toiling in desire. For it is by grace in the form of chance, that at the very time of transgression, that we – in and for an instant – become human, become as the sacred in the flesh. (shrink)

In this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium on Richard Rorty, the author attempts to identify what he calls “the heart of Rortyism.” Beginning with Rorty's query, as an undergraduate, about “what, if anything, philosophy is good for,” Višňovský associates this question, as Rorty did throughout his career, with the question of the meaning of human life. On the basis of this association—the association of a seriously, consistently pursued metaphilosophy with a defense of humanity against all comers, including theology (...) and science—Rorty moved methodically through the arguments of the “Linguistic Turn” analysts, the pragmatists, the antirepresentationalists, and postmodernists until he achieved an anti-absolutist, antiauthoritarian humanism all his own. (shrink)

This article reconstructs the forgotten friendship between Georges Bataille and the Russian émigré poet and philosopher Boris Poplavsky. Comparing their solar metaphysics, I focus on conceptions of friendship, sacrifice and depersonalisation. First, I retrace Bataille’s relationship to early Surrealis and Russian circles in interwar Paris, with a focus on his friendship with Irina Odoevtseva. I then offer a novel reading of Poplavsky’s poetry through the lens of Bataille’s philosophy, analysing a recurring motif that I call ‘dark solarity’. Uncovering a hidden (...) intertextual dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I argue for Poplavsky’s lasting impact on Bataille’s anti-Icarian sun cult. Finally, my paper demonstrates how Poplavsky’s writings on solar sacrifice, excess and friendship left marks on Bataille’s vision of a solar community, embodied in the secret society Acéphale. The dialogue between Poplavsky and Bataille, I finally suggest, is a missing piece in the entangled history of Russian and French philosophy, as well as an original contribution to discourses on friendship in twentieth-century continental thought. (shrink)

Let me begin with what may seem a very minor point, but one which I think reveals something about how many philosophers today conceive of their subject. During the past few decades, there has been an increasing tendency for references in philosophy books and articles to be formatted in the ‘author and date’ style (‘see Fodor (1996)’, ‘see Smith (2001)’.) A neat and economical reference system, you may think; and it certainly saves space, albeit inconveniencing readers by forcing them to (...) flip back to the end of the chapter or book to find the title of the work being referred to. But what has made this system so popular among philosophers? A factor which I suspect exerts a strong subconscious attraction for many people is that it makes a philosophy article look very like a piece of scientific research. For if one asks where the ‘author-date’ system originated, the answer is clear: it comes from the science journals. And in that context, the choice of referencing system has a very definite rationale. In the progress-driven world of science, priority is everything, and it's vitally important for a career that a researcher is able to proclaim his work as breaking new ground. Bloggs (2005) developed a technique for cloning a certain virus; Coggs (2006) showed how certain bits of viral DNA could be spliced; and now Dobbs (2007) draws on both techniques to develop the building blocks of a new vaccine. The idea is that our knowledge-base is enhanced, month by month and year by year, in small incremental steps (perhaps with occasional major breakthroughs); and in the catalogue of advances, the date tagged to each name signals when progress was made, and by whom. (shrink)

오늘날 통상적으로 철학은 인문학으로 분류되고 있다. 그리고 철학은 소위 말하는 인문학 위기의 중심에 있다고들 한다. 그러나 과연 철학을 인문학으로만 볼 수 있는지 우리는 되물어 볼 필요가 있다. 왜냐하면 철학이 발전해 온 과정을 살펴보면 철학은 사실 자연과학의 뿌리였다는 점을 쉽게 확인할 있기 때문이다. 따라서 철학을 인문학으로만 분류하는 것은 철학에 대한 오해의 소치다. 요즘 학계에서 중요한 화두로 떠오르고 있는 ‘융복합’은 인문학과 자연과학을 아우르는 통합적 지식과 학문을 추구하는 개념이다. 그런데 철학이 전성기를 누렸던 시기는 언제나 학문들 간의 활발한 교류와 상호발전이 이루어졌었다는 점을 상기할 필요가 (...) 있다. 그럼에도 ‘융복합’을 외치면서도 철학의 중요성을 소홀히 여기거나, ‘융복합’이라는 개념이 마치 새로운 학문연구방법인 것처럼 주장하는 것은 자신의 뿌리를 망각한 채 정체성을 찾으려는 노력과 같다. 철학은 ‘인간과 세계에 대한 참된 인식을 추구하는 인간 정신의 지적 활동’이다. 이와 같은 맥락에서 철학 속에는 이미 인문학적 요소와 자연과학적 요소가 담겨 있으며, 성공적인 철학교육이야말로 진정한 의미에서 융복합 교육이라는 점을 이 글에서 밝히고자 한다. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility for a means of bringing about novelty which does not rely on kairological philosophies based on an event. In contrast to both common sense and contemporary philosophical understandings of the term where for novelty to arise there must be some break in the repetition of the structure, this paper argues that it is possible for novelty to come about through small-scale experimentation. This is done by relying on the philosophical notion of ‘economy’ in order to (...) understand how we think about the world. In this regard, our thinking about the world depends upon acknowledging certain possibilities at the expense of others. History can then be seen as the distribution of emphasis which allows for these past possibilities and the future potentiality they may hold. Novelty, defined here as a rereading of history, is precisely the disruption of these possibilities and a challenge to the memory of the system. The conclusion to this paper argues that experimentation is an important means by which we can bring novelty into the world. (shrink)

Roberto Marchesini presents a timely proposal within post-human philosophy in order to overcome the centuries-long separation between human beings, non-human animals and technology. This book highlights the inspiring nature of the relationship with non-human beings - what Marchesini calls "Epiphany" - and how its enhancement can open new existential dimensions. Technology is also reinterpreted, no longer as a performative tool, but as a virus that infiltrates the human dimension and changes its predicates. Technopoietic events are not just the product of (...) human intelligence, but they arise from an epiphany (a becoming alterity), thus positioning technology well within the ontological and somatic dimension of human beings. This book lays the foundations for a new and non-anthropocentric Humanism, which is able to recognize the essential role that non-human alterities have had throughout our history. (shrink)

Religious belief is not just about abstract intellectual argument; it also impinges on all aspects of human life. John Cottingham's Philosophy of Religion opens up fresh perspectives on the philosophy of religion, arguing that the detached neutrality of much of contemporary philosophizing may be counterproductive - hardening us against the receptivity required for certain kinds of important evidence to become salient. This book covers all the traditional areas of the subject, including the meaning of religious claims, the existence of God (...) and the relation between religion and morality, as well as the role of spiritual praxis and how religious belief affects questions about the meaning of life, human suffering and mortality. While preserving the clarity and rigor that are rightly prized in the analytic tradition, the book also draws on insights from literary and other sources, and aims to engage a wide readership. (shrink)

This essay argues that a radical, non-standard, philosophical concept of the human is one that is consistently used both towards itself and others: it is an amplified concept that applies itself non-philosophically, that is, generically. Our purpose here, consequently, is to outline how Laruelle's work can be seen as performing something other than an inflation or deflation of either side of one fixed philosophical dyad ; rather, it can be seen as unilateralising the couple, that is, expanding the meaning of (...) the two alongside the One Real that resists any lone philosophical version's attempt to commandeer that meaning. It is the performative mutation that counts, not the terms of the dyad. As such, this essay also contends that what Laruelle explicitly does with philosophy – namely its de-authorisation and democratisation – is also what must be done, by implication, in a non-standard philosophical radicalisation of the human. Nonstandard philosophy does not know what the human is, but this negative capability is precisely what allows it to expand, performatively, the meaning of the human in its ongoing search to discover what the human may be. (shrink)

A century ago historian of science George Sarton argued that “science is our greatest treasure, but it needs to be humanized or it will do more harm than good”. The systematic cultivation of an “historical spirit,” a philosophical appreciation of the dynamic nature of scientific inquiry, and a recognition that science is irreducibly a “collective enterprise” was, on Sarton’s account, crucial to the humanizing mission he advocated. These elements of Sarton’s program are more relevant than ever as philosophers of science (...) articulate research programs that take seriously the contextual factors, situated interests, and historical contingencies that shape the sciences we study. I trace the trajectory of a long-term philosophical engagement with archaeology that illustrates a succession of ways in which social, cultural, and political values configure inquiry, culminating in a program of collaborative research that raises the question of what role philosophers can usefully play when the challenges of humanizing scientific practice have centrally to do with navigating entrenched asymmetries of power. (shrink)

The Human A Priori is a collection of essays by A. W. Moore, one of them previously unpublished and the rest all revised. These essays are all concerned, more or less directly, with something ineliminably anthropocentric in our systematic pursuit of a priori sense-making. Part I deals with the nature, scope, and limits of a priori sense-making in general. Parts II, III, and IV deal with what are often thought to be the three great exemplars of the systematic pursuit of (...) such sense-making: philosophy in the case of Part II, ethics in the case of Part III, and mathematics in the case of Part IV. Much of the attention throughout is devoted to the work of other philosophers: Kant and Wittgenstein feature prominently, and five of the essays take the form of reviews or critical notices of recent work in philosophy. But the interest in never purely exegetical. One of the lessons that emerges from the essays, either in opposition to the views of these other philosophers or by invocation of their views, is that we humans achieve nothing of real significance in philosophy, ethics, or mathematics except from a human point of view, and hence that all three of these pursuits can be said to betoken what may reasonably be called 'the human a priori'. (shrink)

Human rights, as traditionally understood in the West, are grounded in an anthropocentric theory of personhood. However, as this chapter argues, such a stance is certainly not culturally universal; historically, it is derivable from a cultural orientation that is Greek in origin. Such an orientation conflates thought with language (logos), and identifies humans as uniquely deserving of moral consideration or standing to the exclusion of non-human knowers. The linguistic theory of thought impedes insight and understanding of both Indian and Western (...) contributions to political and moral thought. It is argued that the idea that we have rights by virtue of being human is problematic. In contrast, the chapter argues for an account of personal rights derivable from Patañjali’s philosophy. On a Patañjalian account, the rights necessary for the good of persons transcend species, sex, caste, race, class, age, ability, and sexual orientation. (shrink)

_Purpose._ This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of a human being within the Confucian tradition as well as its interpretations from intercultural perspective. _Theoretical basis._ One of the ways to understand the deepest level of the intercultural dialogue is to reveal the interpretations of a human being in philosophical traditions, since they refer to the formation of personality and identity within a given culture including interpersonal, intergroup, and intercultural relations. Humanism based on the unity of Human and Heaven runs (...) like a red thread through the philosophical teachings of Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming defining the ideas of human nature, his/her duties, his/her place and roles in society that shaped the Chinese mentality. _Originality._ Quite often, Chinese concepts (for example, human dignity beyond the ideas of democracy and mass political participation, guanxi, mianzi) are incomprehensible to the representatives of the Western civilization, which leads to the challenges in intercultural communication. The interpretation of these ideas in the context of Confucianism allows to understand them from the perspective of Others and expand the set of patterns of cultural perception. This ultimately leads to the awareness that there are many social, political, cultural realities, which we perceive through the lens of our own concepts and attitudes. The participants of an intercultural dialogue realize that each of them has a unique experience, own way of posing a problem and resolving it, and no one is better or worse. _Conclusions._ Confucian philosophy shaped the worldview of Chinese people, defined values, goals, meanings, attitudes, communication models, which affected all spheres of Chinese life and culture. The study of the philosophical heritage of the great Chinese civilization enhances the cultural competence of the intercultural communicators and expands the field of dialogue to the level of global communication. (shrink)

Human beings are not only self-conscious minds but embodied and social beings, whose subjectivity is conditioned by their social surroundings. From this point of view, it is natural to suppose that the development and existence of a subject that is distinctively human requires contact with other people. The present contribution discusses medieval ideas concerning the intersubjective constitution of human being by looking at the medieval reception of two ideas, which Aristotle presents at the beginning of his Politics: (1) human beings (...) are political animals by nature, which means that those who live outside of political communities due to their nature are either deficient or above humanity – they are beasts or gods; and (2) human beings are parts of political communities, and as such, comparable to hands in a body. When medieval philosophers consider these ideas from metaphysical and normative perspectives, they distinguish different senses in which human beings are naturally political. In effect, they draw a nuanced picture of the relation between an individual human being and the political community, and in so doing they distance themselves from a literal reading of Aristotle. An analysis of the medieval discussions reveals how the social aspect of human subjectivity emerges in medieval political philosophy and how medieval philosophers conceptualise the Aristotelian distinction into three kinds of beings – the beast, the human, and the god. (shrink)

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, new anatomical investigations of the brain and the nervous system, together with a renewed interest in comparative anatomy, allowed doctors and philosophers to ground their theories on sense perception, the emergence of human intelligence, and the soul/body relationship in modern science. They investigated the anatomical structures and the physiological processes underlying the rise, differentiation, and articulation of human cognitive activities, and looked for the “anatomical roots” of the specificity of human intelligence when compared (...) to other forms of animal sensibility. This edited volume focuses on medical and philosophical debates on human intelligence and animal perception in the early modern age, providing fresh insights into the influence of medical discourse on the rise of modern philosophical anthropology. Contributions from distinguished historians of philosophy and medicine focus on sixteenth-century zoological, psychological, and embryological discourses on man; the impact of mechanism and comparative anatomy on philosophical conceptions of body and soul; and the key status of sensibility in the medical and philosophical enlightenment. (shrink)

A rational process for assessment of environmental policy options should be based on an appreciation of how humans value nature. Increased understanding of values will also contribute to the development of appropriate ways for us to relate to and manage natural areas. Over the past two decades, environmental philosophers have examined the notion that there is an intrinsic value in nature. Economists have attempted to define and measure the market and nonmarket economic values associated with decisions concerning natural areas. Psychologists (...) have tried to assess the extent to which people believe in an intrinsic value in nature, and have also begun to work with economists to improve nonmarket valuation techniques. I briefly review the contributions made to our understanding of natural area value by environmental philosophy, psychology and economics, and develop a model that integrates insights from these disciplines. Components in the model include cognitions, held values, assigned values and various modes of value expression. I make recommendations for future validation, development and use of the model. (shrink)

Human concern over the urgency of current environmental issues increasingly entails wide-ranging discussions of how we may rethink the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world. In order to provide a context for such discussions this anthology provides a selection of some of the most important, interesting and influential readings on the subject from classical times through to the late nineteenth century. Included are such figures as Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Hildegard of Bingen, St Francis of Assisi, Bacon, (...) Decartes, Kant, Mill, Emerson and Thoreau. As the collection as a whole amply demonstrates, the history of western philosophical accounts of nature can help us to better understand current attitudes and problems. Human Life and the Natural World may also be of interest to a broad range of philosophers and students of philosophy, and more generally to those with a concern for the environment that engages the intellect as well as the heart. (shrink)

Philosophy and the Human Condition brings together essential readings on the crucial philosophical problems related to the human condition and human nature. This collection includes traditional works of Western philosophers from Plato to the present day; relevant extracts from religious texts;and contributions by women, traditions outside of the Western philosophical canon, and other disciplines.

African literature has played a major role in changing and shaping perceptions about African people and their way of life for the longest time. Unlike western cultures that are associated with advanced forms of writing, African literature is oral in nature, meaning it has to be recited and even performed. Although Africa has an old tribal culture, African philosophy is a new and strange idea among us. Although the problem of “universality” of African philosophy actually refers to the question of (...) whether Africa has heckling of philosophy in the Western sense, obviously, the philosophy bred by Africa’s native culture must be acknowledged. Therefore, the human–computer interaction-oriented method is proposed to appreciate African literature and African philosophy. To begin with, a physical object of tablet-aid is designed, and a depth camera is used to track the user’s hand and tablet-aid and then map them to the virtual scene, respectively. Then, a tactile redirection method is proposed to meet the user’s requirement of tactile consistency in head-mounted display virtual reality environment. Finally, electroencephalogram emotion recognition, based on multiscale convolution kernel convolutional neural networks, is proposed to appreciate the reflection of African philosophy in African literature. The experimental results show that the proposed method has a strong immersion and a good interactive experience in navigation, selection, and manipulation. The proposed HCI method is not only easy to use, but also improves the interaction efficiency and accuracy during appreciation. In addition, the simulation of EEG emotion recognition reveals that the accuracy of emotion classification in 33-channel is 90.63%, almost close to the accuracy of the whole channel, and the proposed algorithm outperforms three baselines with respect to classification accuracy. (shrink)

He argues that an adequate idea of human rights must take such a diversity seriously, and unlike the UN Declaration, it must not presuppose Western institutions and values.

_Purpose._ The basis of the presented research is a philosophical and methodological analysis of the human-centrism concept as a new intellectual strategy of comprehending and understanding the prospects of human existence in a situation of information-digital reality, which provides for the consistent solution of the following problems: 1) to make an explication of the conceptual content and semantic loading of human-centrism in the discourses of social philosophy and philosophical anthropology; 2) to analyse the theoretical significance and methodological role of human-centrism (...) in the information-digital reality; 3) to characterize the main parameters of the problematic field of human-centrism in overcoming the crisis of identity and preserving the system of universal human values. _Theoretical basis__._ The objective logic of unfolding of the modern information-digital world transforms philosophical anthropology into a new level of comprehending the human existence. Human-centrism interacts with philosophical anthropology and evaluates it from the point of its metaphilosophical, axiological-existential and methodological content. The assertion of human-centrism is caused by the identity crisis in the context of civilizational transformations, which as a result of the cumulative effect of information technology have a powerful influence on all aspects of human life and thinking. The philosophy of human-centrism as a life-affirming factor determines the development and adaptation of human self-consciousness to the modern socio-cultural environment, determined by information and technological processes. _Originality__._ It is substantiated that human-centrism as a new strategy of modern philosophical and anthropological discourses opens new cognition perspectives of the essence of human in the information-digital reality and contributes to the construction and implementation of new dimensions of identity in interaction with a qualitatively different level of world attitude. _Conclusions__._ The assertion of information-digital reality gives rise to a new type of philosophical and anthropological paradigm, a qualitative manifestation of which is the theory and methodology of human-centrism. It is characterized by a modern level of philosophical reflection, which allows preserving and at the same time renewing the system of universal human values. On this basis, human-centrism is a way of complementarity of all aspects of human life, who reconstructs themselves in a situation of new anthropological dimensions. (shrink)

Erudite and timely, this book is a key contribution to the renewal of radical theory and politics.

The concept of potential plays a prominent role in the thinking of parents, educators and planners the world over. Although this concept accurately reflects central features of human nature, its current use perpetuates traditional myths of fixity, harmony and value, calculated to cause untold mischief in social and educational practice. First published in 1985, Israel Scheffler's book aims to demythologise the concept of potential. He shows its roots in genuine aspects of human nature, but at the same time frees it (...) from outworn philosophical myths by means of analytical reconstruction - thereby improving both its theoretical and its practical applicability. The book concludes with an interpretation of policy-making in education, and reflections on the ideal education of a policy-maker. It emphasises human symbolism, choice, temporal continuity, and self-determination as indispensible elements of any adequate philosophy of education. _Of Human Potential _will be of interest to a broad range of philosophers, educators and social scientists. (shrink)

"A type of book we always long to read for peace and joy in any nation, Father Dr. JoeBarth Abba touched many areas amidst orgies of circles of terrorisms, Islamic insurgents with key solutions for psycho-dialogical ways on cultural ethnic tensions for conflicts resolution." --Gerhard Ludwig Cardinal Mueller, Vatican, Rome ***The book presents an inquiry into the thoughts and scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas, his classical philosophical synthesis, his insights, and the quest for Justice and Human Rights as a panacea or (...) desired urgent solution to racial justice, abuse of human life, and human rights. Dissertation. (Series: Philosophy / Philosophie, Vol. 108) [Subject: African Studies, Human Rights Studies, Philosophy, Christian Studies, Thomas Aquinas]. (shrink)

In this book Hundert proposes a new, unified view of the mind, one that integrates the insights of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. Through a detailed discussion of major theories from these and related disciplines, he gradually reveals links between what were previously unconnected approaches to human thought and experience.

Albert and Aquinas present beatitude in their Commentaries on the Sentences in strikingly different ways. While Albert’s theory of beatitude is an account purely based on theological conceptions and sources, Aquinas makes extensive use of philosophers such as Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, and Averroes. Recent scholarship has shown that Aquinas derived his philosophical argumentation for the beatific vision from Averroes’s conjunction theory. Yet the reasons for Albert’s and Aquinas’s disparate theories of beatitude have not yet been investigated. In this (...) paper, I shall show that Albert’s and Aquinas’s divergent conceptions of the relationship between the two sciences of philosophy and theology explain their disparate theories of beatitude. (shrink)

Throughout its history philosophy has been thought to be a member of a community of intellectual disciplines united by their common pursuit of knowledge. It has sometimes been thought to be the queen of the sciences, at other times merely their under-labourer. But irrespective of its social status, it was held to be a participant in the quest for knowledge – a cognitive discipline.

The essay characterizes an anthropological impasse of political philosophy dividing those in a more liberal tradition from those in a more Hegelian tradition, and then it proceeds to sketch a political philosophy without any human or anthropological content. I rely on Foucault’s notion of parrhesia to activate such a political philosophy, and I rely on the philosophical life of the Cynic to make parrhesia possible. Finally by invoking exercises of ascent and of descent, I suggest that this kind of political (...) philosophy can not only solve the anthropological impasse of political philosophy, but also in practice, it can cool hateful passions and warm cold hearts. (shrink)

:The thought of Chen Jiaying offers a possibility of philosophy in China that is not confined to the mere expression of ancient Chinese tradition nor the simple transplanting of Western philosophy. He places philosophy in an unequivocal connection to the human point of view, takes the investigation of concepts and argumentation as indispensable for its practice, and regards life not as a matter of choice but as living out that to which we are already committed. All these aspects culminate in (...) a realistic revolt against the tendency toward generalizing the truth in one domain as the only truth available. (shrink)