History of Jewish philosophy from Biblical times to the present presented for the general reader, with digests of selected literary works.

This collection of essays is a critical document in Continental philosophy, reflecting its recent history, its present state, and its debt to Calvin O. Schrag. It begins with an overview of philosophy's role and responsibility or "task" and of Schrag's contributions to it, written from the perspective of a resolute defender of the phenomenological tradition that Schrag's work has extended and reconfigured. The essays are organized around the four conceptual figures widely considered Schrag's most significant and original philosophical achievements: transversal (...) rationality, the self after post-modernity, the fourth cultural value sphere, and communication praxis. The authors focus on topics ranging from Cartesian rationality to Foucauldian rational relativism; from transcendence in relation to the self to the Schragean self's connections with discourse, action, and community; from religion's disruptive presence in contemporary philosophy to recent developments in the philosophy of language. (shrink)

This paper begins with a discussion of the scientia sexualis/ars erotica distinction, which Foucault first advances in History of Sexuality Vol. 1, and which has been employed by many scholars to do a variety of analytical work. Though Foucault has expressed his doubts regarding his conceptualization of the differences between Western and Eastern discourses of desire, he never entirely disowns the distinction. In fact, Foucault remains convinced that China must have an ars erotica. I will explore Foucault’s sources of authority. (...) To this end, I introduce the work of famous Dutch sinologist Robert Hans van Gulik, who published the tremendously influential Sexual Life in Ancient China in 1961, and also explore Joseph Needham’s view on Chinese sex. I argue that, Foucault, in his fierce polemic against the “Repressive Hypothesis”, himself imagined a utopian Other where pleasure and desire were organised differently. I end on a discuss on Orientalism and the project of “Sinography” of comparative literature scholars Haun Saussy, Eric Hayot and others. (shrink)

Additional Contributor Is Joseph D. Quillian, Jr.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:nooK itEVIEWS 141 La Doctrine de la Revelation Divine de Saint Thomas D'Aquin: Actes du Symposium sur la Pensee de Saint Thomas d'Aquin, recueil puhlie sous la direction de LfoN ELDERS, S.V.D. in Studi Tomistici 37. Pontificia Academia di S. Tommaso, Lihreria Editrice Vaticana, 1990. Pp. 278. 30,000.00 lire. This collection of essays by distinguished scholars presents the acts of a conference on the doctrine of Revelation according to (...) Saint Thomas Aquinas. The volume contains twelve papers, four in French, four in English and four in German. The contributors are, in alphabetical order: A. Blanco, G. Cottier, O.P., Ph. Delhaye, L. Elders, S.V.D., L. Hodl, B. McGregor, O.P., J. H. Nicolas, O.P., L. Scheffczyk, R. Schenk, O.P., J. Schumacher, P. Stohr, and J. P. Torrell, O.P. The ground covered by their articles is as broad as the horizon of their authors. Aquinas's doctrine is confronted with problems ranging from the modernist crisis to those currently discussed in missiology. In theology, when one associates Revelation with Thomism, one is forced to think of Father Garrigou-Lagrange's De Revelatione, truly a landmark in the history of modern theology. Reading it, one cannot help hut to he impressed by the mastery and the clarity with which this eminent Dominican theologian of the antimodernist period disputes and refutes the arguments which threatened the Church at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, Garrigou-Lagrange's hook has never been translated into modern languages. And yet, in a certain way, volume 37 of Studi Tomistici can substitute for it, since it deals with issues closely related to those which Garrigou-Lagrange addressed in his study of Revelation. It also recasts the discussion in the terms in which it is expressed in the theological field today. For this reason, this volume provides a valuable resource for the contemporary student of theology for whom the details of the modernist crisis in the early part of this century have not only faded with time, hut also have become less pressing due to the complexity of the problematic which retains the attention of theologians in the post-Vatican II period. The focus of this collection of papers is the epistemology of divine Revelation, to the point that this could he its subtitle. Ten of the twelve articles deal with this question. Only Delhaye's paper ventures outside of the field of epistemology to cover the topic of morals, while Horl takes up the ecumenical question. Scheffczyk's article provides a broad perspective on the evolution and the perenniality of the modernist/antimodernist problematic in theology. He shows that the root of the problem lies in the epistemology of the 142 BOOK REVIEWS Enlightenment, i.e. in idealism, which imposed itself as the philosophy of the anticlerical nineteenth century. In the last part of his paper he demonstrates how Saint Thomas's theology provides the insights neces· sary to articulate the doctrinal unity which exists between the teaching on Revelation found in Vatican I and that of Vatican II. He draws the reader's attention to the notion of degrees of Revelation whose culminating point is indeed the beatific vision and which is prepared for by a historical unfolding. Schumacher and Stohr also deal with the modernist's characterization of the traditional scholastic doctrine of Revelation as an imparting of propositions. Schumacher reviews the theory of Revelation of several of the modernist theologians. A com· mon characteristic of these theories is an idealist epistemology that re· duces the life of the intellect to its immanent part and thus renders impossible God's communication of intelligible truths without violating the laws of Nature. Stohr, on the other hand, investigates current theological theories and shows how Rahner and Schillebeeckx encounter the same difficulty with the intelligible content of Revelation because of their attempts to reconcile the Gospel's claim of effectiveness in chang· ing lives with idealist philosophy. With respect to the main line of inquiry, Nicolas's paper deals explicitly with epistemology of Revelation. This study of the " epistemo· logical aspects of Revelation " has two parts. In the first, Nicolas provides a commentary on S.Th... (shrink)

Over the course of the last four decades, William Leon McBride has distinguished himself as one of the most esteemed and accomplished philosophers of his generation. This volume—which celebrates the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday—includes contributions from colleagues, friends, and formers students and pays tribute to McBride’s considerable achievements as a teacher, mentor, and scholar.

This study aims to evaluate the ideas on the scope and method of economics of Joseph Schumpeter who is one of the important economists of the 20th century. The study consists of four sections: In the first section we underline the interesting points of his life to understand the roots, background, or 'vision' of his thought system. In the second section, we will examine his methodological views that he asserted in his first (but translated into English only in 2010) (...) book. Third section will be concerned with his 'analysis of economics' which refers to his critics of Leon Walras's general equilibrium analysis (as static) and his own alternative (dynamics analysis of capitalist economies) about the central subject matter of economics. In the fourth section we will treat his approach about the development/evolution process of economic thought in time. The study concludes with a brief assessment: Schumpeter is one of the rare economists who can build his own thought system in the history of economics, and he embraced a pluralist perspective in the field of the methodology of economics. (shrink)

In this paper, a general perspective on criteria of identity of kinds of objects is developed. The question of the admissibility of impredicative or circular identity criteria is investigated in the light of the view that is articulated. It is argued that in and of itself impredicativity does not constitute sufficient grounds for rejecting a putative identity criterion. The view that is presented is applied to Davidson’s criterion of identity for events and to the structuralist criterion of identity of places (...) in a structure. (shrink)

We are walking too quickly down the road to physical and psychological utopia without pausing to assess the potential damage to our humanity from this brave new ...

Volume I provides a detailed analysis of cylindric algebras, starting with a formulation of their axioms and a development of their elementary properties, and proceeding to a deeper study of their interrelationships by means of general algebraic notions such as subalgebras, homomorphisms, direct products, free algebras, reducts and relativized algebras.

In this article, the prospects of deflationism about the concept of truth are investigated. A new version of deflationism, called inferential deflationism, is articulated and defended. It is argued that it avoids the pitfalls of earlier deflationist views such as Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth and Field’s version of deflationism.

Wilson and Kass talked about their book, The ethics of human cloning, which is about the ethical debate over human cloning.

A philosoph and a sociologist inspired by Durkheim with whom he started L’Année sociologique, Célestin Bouglé (1870-1940) has been for a long time known for his Essais sur le régime des castes (1908) and his critique of Lapouge’s anthroposociology. His sociological interests however are intimately linked with his republican and solidarity ideals. This article explores the importance and the form of democracy in Bouglé’s political thought. On this topic, the influence of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) on Bouglé’s thought is important (...) in order to understand the particularity of Bouglé’s solidarism by contrast with Léon Bourgeois’. This particularity is however for Bouglé an attempt to complete Bourgeois’ philosophy of solidarity rather than to confront it. (shrink)

The Hungry Soul is a fascinating exploration of the natural and cultural act of eating. Kass brilliantly reveals how the various aspects of this phenomenon, and the customs, rituals, and taboos surrounding it, relate to universal and profound truths about the human animal and its deepest yearnings. "Kass is a distinguished and graceful writer. . . . It is astonishing to discover how different is our world from that of the animals, even in that which most evidently betrays that we (...) too are animals--our need and desire for food."--Roger Scruton, Times Literary Supplement "Yum."--Miss Manners. (shrink)

For an action to be free, for an agent to be responsible for his action, it is sometimes thought that he must act from a will that is free or for which he is responsible. There is a connection between freedom of action and freedom or autonomy of will, but the connection cannot be the one envisaged here, modelling free will on a free action, for not only does that set off an obvious regress, but as importantly the elements of (...) the will, beliefs and desires, are not states within an agent's voluntary control, not states for which he is directly responsible. Though these states are not within an agent's control, whether he believes or desires autonomously has a crucial bearing on his responsibility for his subsequent actions. And though he is not directly responsible for these states, he can be indirectly responsible for them, and that factor too can have a crucial bearing on his responsibility for his actions, in particular for those actions that are produced by beliefs that are false. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that defenders of Frankfurt-style counterexamples to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities do not need to construct a metaphysically possible scenario in which an agent is morally responsible despite lacking the ability to do otherwise. Rather, there is a weaker (but equally legitimate) sense in which Frankfurt-style counterexamples can succeed. All that's needed is the claim that the ability to do otherwise is no part of what grounds moral responsibility, when the agent is indeed morally responsible.

En este trabajo se examinarán algunos antecedentes a la formación hermenéutica, fenomenológica, y su influencia en Martín Heidegger. Se mostrará cómo en su obra Ser y Tiempo se transforma la fenomenología en una filosofía hermenéutica, se profundizará en los conceptos de comprensión, relación e interpretación fundamentales de la fenomenología y hermenéutica, como se presentan en esta obra magistral.