What is it to be a hypocrite? Gilbert Ryle's answer is the by now commonly held one: to be hypocritical is to “try to appear activated by a motive other than one's real motive”; again, it is “deliberately to refrain from saying what comes to one's lips, while pretending to say frankly things one does not mean.” Can this be the right answer? My aim is to show that it cannot. In doing this I hope to gesture towards a richer (...) understanding of our notion of hypocrisy. (shrink)

People do, quite naturally and not uncommonly, speak of other people as deceiving themselves, as being their own dupes. A man's child is ill and growing constantly worse. The father keeps talking optimistically about the future, keeps explaining away the evidence, and keeps pointing to what he insists are signs of improvement. We can easily imagine ourselves deciding that he has deceived himself about his son's condition. Nor is it the case that talk of self-deception is appropriate only in connection (...) with other people. We can easily imagine the father admitting, say, after the son's death, that he has deceived himself about the child's condition. Thus the notion of self-deception obviously has application. Furthermore, ordinarily talk of self-deception is not thought to be puzzling. (shrink)

There are three major themes in the dialogue thought to be Plato’s Statesman: the nature of statesmanship, the difference between perfect and less than perfect regimes and the method of division. In this paper I focus on the first two themes. I argue, first, that the dialogue makes a plausible case for what it takes to be a wise statesman. In doing so, I play down the importance of the second theme: the difference between regimes. In fact, I consider this (...) discussion to be deeply flawed and even irrelevant to the argument of the first. My main purpose is to provide a critical analysis of the political theory articulated in the dialogue. My analysis is made plausible by abandoning the traditional view that the Statesman was written Plato in its entirety as a unified whole. In my view, a close reading of the text supports the hypothesis that it is, at best, semi-authentic; namely, that it is most likely a collage of fragments written at different times by Plato and other members of the Academy. (shrink)

Not so long ago it was fashionable to claim that it is not the moral philosopher's business to say what things are good or what actions we should perform. This view is succinctly stated by A. J. Ayer:There is a distinction, which is not always sufficiently marked, between the activity of a moralist, who sets out to elaborate a moral code, or to encourage its observance, and that of a moral philosopher, whose concern is not primarily to make moral judgments (...) but to analyse their nature.On the other hand, in direct opposition to this, recently many philosophers actively moralize, in the sense that they argue for substantive normative ethical positions. In doing this they tend to assume but not to explore seriously two views: that the notion of moral expertise is unproblematic, and that moral philosophers in particular are moral experts. My aim in this paper is to promote the exploration of these questions. is logically prior to. Nevertheless I begin with discussing ; for puzzles about expertise in morals naturally emerge when one examines the credentials of candidates for the job. (shrink)

RésuméCet article examine diverses façons d'exploiter l'éthique aristotélicienne pour rendre compte philosophiquement de l'hypocrisie. Aristote lui-même n'apas dit grand chose d'explicite à ce sujet, mais nous nous employons à identifier et à scruter les passages qui sont les plus pertinents pour un traitement distinctif de l'hypocrisie, élucidant en cours de route un certain nombre de confusions à propos d'Aristote. Nous envisageons divers domaines d'émotion et d'action qui pourraient fournir un lieu propre au vice de l'hypocrisie, ceux en particulier de l'engagement (...) personnel, du souci à l'égard des opinions d'autrui, et de la sincérité. Nous concluons de cet examen que la doctrine du juste milieu ne fournit pas une explication satisfaisante de l'hypocrisie. Nous proposons alors que si un système moral comme celui d' Aristote doit rendre compte de la moralité dans son entièreté, il lui faut trouver place pour des phénomènes qui excèdent les limites de la doctrine du juste milieu. L'hypocrisie, selon nous, appartient précisément à cette famille de phénomènes. Finalement, nous esquissons une approche de l'hypocrisie qui fait usage d'éléments aristotéliciens, mais sans pour autant s'y confiner. (shrink)

Is self-deception always immoral? That it is always immoral to deceive oneself seems to have been the ‘received’ view amongst philosophers. Such a view was vigorously supported by Bishop Butler in the eighteenth century. Recently, Herbert Fingarette has argued for a similar position. In this paper I wish to examine Butler's and Fingarette's arguments and contend that no morally sensitive and reasonable person can possibly accept them without thereby ceasing to be morally sensitive and reasonable.

This article offers a detailed reading Gascoigne and Thornton’s book Tacit Knowledge, which aims to account for the tacitness of tacit knowledge while preserving its status as knowledge proper. I take issue with their characterization and rejection of the existential-phenomenological Background—which they presuppose even as they dismiss—and their claim that TK can be articulated “from within”—which betrays a residual Cartesianism, the result of their elision of conceptuality and propositionality. Knowledgeable acts instantiate capacities which we might know we have and of (...) which we can be aware, but which are not propositionally structured at their “core”. Nevertheless, propositionality is necessary to what Robert Brandom calls, in Making It Explicit and Articulating Reasons, “explicitation”, which notion also presupposes a tacit dimension, which is, simply, the embodied person, without which no conception of knowledge can get any purchase. On my view, there is no knowledgeable act that can be understood as such separately from the notion of skilled corporeal performance. The account I offer cannot make sense of so-called “knowledge-based” education, as opposed to systems and styles which supposedly privilege “contentless” skills over and above “knowledge”, because on the phenomenological and inferentialist lines I endorse, neither the concepts “knowledge” nor “skill” has any purchase or meaning without the other. (shrink)

I argue that Wittgenstein was no lifelong musical formalist. I further contend that the attribution of musical formalism obscures, while the break with it I propose explains, the role that music played in the development of his philosophy of language. What is more, I sketch a perspective on the later Wittgenstein’s remarks on the music and musical understanding that supports my claims. Throughout my discussion, rather than assimilating Hanslick’s and Wittgenstein’s views on music, I point to similarities and differences between (...) them, suggesting that taking snapshots and putting them side by side sheds more light on how they are related to each other. (shrink)

pour l'autre en nous et parmi nousAn apologia seeks to cover up the revolutionary moments in the course of history. The establishment of continuity is dear to its heart. It only gives importance to those elements of a work that have already generated an after-effect. It misses those points at which the transmission breaks down and thus misses those jags and crags that offer a handhold to someone who wishes to move beyond them.I am all the same convinced that these (...) notes [in Culture and Value] can be properly understood and appreciated only against the background of Wittgenstein’ s philosophy and, furthermore, that they make a contribution to our understanding of that philosophy. (shrink)

Emotions are in as a philosophical topic. Yet the recent literature is bent on grand theorizing rather than attempting to explore particular emotions and their roles in our lives. In this paper, I aim to remedy this situation a little by exploring the emotion of embarrassment. First, I critically examine R.C. Solomon’s conceptual sketch and try to distinguish “embarrassment” from “shame”, “humiliation” and “being amused”. Secondly, I argue that “private embarrassment” is a coherent and useful idea and social scientists and (...) philosophers who dismiss it as unintelligible are mistaken. Thirdly, I discuss the question why is embarrassment (unlike other emotions) catching. Fourth, I make the heretical suggestion that doing philosophy is essentially embarrassing for Socratic interlocutors. Throughout the paper there is a discussion of possible links between embarrassment and loss of self-esteem. (shrink)

This book paints a portrait of Ludwig Wittgenstein that is very different from conventional portraits that narrowly depict him as a philosopher's philosopher silent about social, ethical and cultural questions.

Words can mean different things to different people. This can be problematic, mainly for those working together in a bureaucratic institution, such as the secret service. Shared, certified, explicit and codified definitions offer a counter to subjective, solitary and/or culturally dominant definitions. It’s true that codified secrecy terms for secret services can be seen to involve a number of political, cultural, subcultural “languages”, but if words come from unclassified or declassified files, memorandums and/or records, one needs a deep understanding of (...) the secret services. A remarkable feature of this bureaucratic language is the evolving nature of, certain “keywords” as important signifiers of historical transformation. Thus, the changes in the language of the secret services depends at least as much on the internal changes of the secret services as on the transformation in the external political-social environment. In spite of the confusion of Hungarian secret services in the revolutions of 1918–1919 and the disintegration of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, in the early 1920’s became a stable system. Between the two World Wars, the Hungarian State Police directed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Military Intelligence and Counter-Espionage directed by the Ministry of Defence, and the Hungarian Royal Gendarmerie directed by both of the Ministries had their own operational service. This structure existed unchanged until 1945. Simultaneously with the forward advance of the soviet troops, government began to re-establish the former system of the secret services in the eastern part of the country. After WWII, in 1946, the “State-protection Department” as political police became independent from the police. However, from the beginning, they remained under the control of the Communist Party. After 1950, the State Security Authority provided special services for the MIA and the Military Political Directorate of the MoD. After quashing the revolution in 1956, in the spring of 1957, the MIA Political Investigation Department was established which—with slight modifications—kept the structure created during the “state protection era”. The MIA III. The State-Protection General Directorate was established in 1962. The reorganization was finalized in the middle of the 1960’s, which resulted in the new system, which—with the structure of Directorates—became the ultimate structure of the state secret police until the abolishment of the MIA General Directorate III in January 1990. These organizational transformations were largely the result of exogenous historical-political changes. Moreover, each new period had a major impact on the organizational communication, language use and vocabulary of the secret services. This study seeks to interpret these historical transformations. (shrink)

In this note I argue that although Rorty's programme (Inquiry, Vol. 15, No. 4) to bring into focus the role that belief plays in self?deception is a salutary one, her actual claims obscure that role. It is also contended that Rorty fails to de?mythologize self?deception, since her account is either paradox?ridden or else describes a concept recognizably distinct from the concept of self?deception.

ABSTRACTThis article retrieves, situates, and interprets Ludwig Wittgenstein's overlooked remarks about the composer Gustav Mahler, and connects them with Wittgenstein's philosophical perspective and practice, as well as with his musical aesthetics.

Business ethics represents an important aspect that influences each country’s socio-economic system, and is important to society, environment, and economy. The present article aims to define significant attributes of business ethics in the sector of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and compares their attitudes within the three most significant business sectors in the Visegrad Group countries (V4 countries: Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Poland, and Hungary). An empirical study, focusing on the attitudes of small and medium-sized firms, was conducted in June (...) 2022 in Visegrad Group countries through the reputable hired company MNFORCE, using the Computer Assisted Web Interviewing research method. The total number of respondents in the Visegrad Group countries was 1,398. Statistical hypotheses were tested using descriptive statistics, chi-square, and Z-score at a significance level of α = 5%. The most important conclusion of this research is that there are no significant differences in the approach of SMEs to business ethics based on the sector in which the companies operate. Some notable differences in attitudes among SMEs in Slovakia and the Czech Republic were identified, but these were marginal. Therefore, differences in the transformation process within selected economic sectors do not impact the formation of attitudes of small and medium-sized companies in business ethics. It is evident that business ethics is significantly determined primarily by the personal characteristics of the owner/manager of the company, and the specificities of individual sectors do not influence this field. (shrink)

Introduction One of popular science’s primary functions is to make what would otherwise be inaccessible, specialist knowledge accessible to the lay reader. But popular science puts its imagined reader in something of a dilemma, for one does not have to look very far to find bitter argument among science writers; argument that takes place beyond the limits of the scientific community: witness the ill-tempered exchanges between Mary Midgley and Richard Dawkins in the journal Philosophy in the l...

The aim of my paper is to show links and parallels between Locke’s concept of the state of nature and the Unitarian (Socinian) denial of original sin. At first I will give an overview of the Unitarian history and thought, then I will logically and philologically demon- strate a parallelism of Locke’s hidden anthropology and the Unitarian doctrine on human being, with data of Locke’s Unitarian readings, especially writings of a Transylvanian theologian in the late 16th century, György Enyedi.

This paper has two aims: to show the affinities between Schopenhauer’s and Spinoza’s ethics and ontology, and to show that Spinoza’s position, where it is in conflict with it, is superior to Schopenhauer’s. The main focus is on Schopenhauer’s attacks on the affirmation of the will-to-live. It is argued that these attacks are not even convincing in terms of what he says about “better knowledge”, namely, that they are valid only against vulgar forms of affirmations of the Will. Also, it (...) is argued that Schopenhauer’s attacks on Spinoza do not carry much weight. For, they are either the result of misunderstandings or, when they are not, they are based on assumptions rejected by Spinoza himself. In conclusion, it is claimed that Schopenhauer’s synthesis of Plato’s, Kant’s and Hindu philosophy into a “single thought” is neither as original nor as convincing as he took it to be. (shrink)

Važna zadaća srednjoeuropskog povjesničara ili povjesničarke filozofije posljednjih desetljeća bila je interpretacija iznenada ponovno pojavljujućih elemenata njene ili njegove nacionalne kulture, uključujući i zajedničku ključnu riječ ovih tradicija – nacionalnu filozofiju. Moj rad nudi povijesnu rekonstrukciju pojma nacionalne filozofije na temelju mađarskih primjera. U prvome dijelu opisat ću nekoliko suvremenih dilema o upotrebi toga pojma. Glavni dio rada povezuje ovaj pojam s transformacijom javne sfere znanstvenika u kantijanskom razdoblju, uključujući Kantova osobna razmišljanja, kao i narativ mađarske »Rasprave o Kantu«. Analizom (...) ove rasprave nastojat ću pokazati da se taj pojam ne može u plauzibilnom obliku interpretirati niti u europskom niti u nacionalnom okviru, nego samo kao dio jedne moguće srednjoeuropske komparativne povijesti filozofije.An important task of a Central-European historian of philosophy was in the last decades to interpret the suddenly reappeared elements of her or his own national culture, including the common key word of these traditions – national philosophy. My paper offers a historical reconstruction of the concept of national philosophy, based on Hungarian examples. In the first part I will outline several contemporary dilemmas about the use of this term. The main part of my paper links this concept with the transformation of the public sphere of the scholars in the age of Kantianism, including Kant’s personal reflections, and the narrative of the Hungarian “Debate on Kant”. I will try to demonstrate, by the analysis of this debate, that it cannot be interpreted in a plausible form in a European, nor in a national framework, but just as a part of a would-be Central-European comparative history of philosophy.Une tâche importante pour un historien ou une historienne de la philosophie d’Europe centrale a été, ces dernières décennies, d’interpréter les éléments de sa propre culture nationale soudainement réapparus, y compris le mot-clé commun de ces traditions : la philosophie nationale. Mon article propose une reconstruction historique du concept de philosophie nationale, fondée sur des exemples hongrois. Dans la première partie, je ferai un aperçu de plusieurs dilemmes contemporains quant à l’emploi de ce terme. La partie principale de mon article relie ce concept à la transformation de la sphère publique des chercheurs à l’époque kantienne, y compris les réflexions personnelles de Kant, ainsi que le récit hongrois du « Débat sur Kant ». En analysant ce débat, j’essaierai de démontrer que ce concept ne peut être interprété sous une forme plausible dans un cadre européen ni dans un cadre national, mais seulement comme partie d’une éventuelle histoire comparative de la philosophie d’Europe centrale.Die bedeutungsvolle Mission des zentraleuropäischen Philosophiehistorikers oder der – historikerin in den vergangenen Dezennien hieß, die jählings wiederkehrenden Elemente seiner bzw. ihrer eigenen Nationalkultur zu explizieren, unter Einschluss des gemeinsamen Schlüsselwortes dieser Traditionen – der nationalen Philosophie. Meine Arbeit bietet eine historische Rekonstruktion der Notion der nationalen Philosophie auf der Grundlage der ungarischen Beispiele. Im Anfangsteil umreiße ich etliche gegenwärtige Dilemmas über den Gebrauch des angeschnittenen Begriffs. Der Hauptteil meines Papers verknüpft diesen Begriff mit der Umwandlung der öffentlichen Sphäre der Gelehrten zu Zeiten des Kantianismus, samt Kants persönlichen Überlegungen, wie auch dem Narrativ der ungarischen „Debatte über Kant“. Anhand der Analyse dieser Debatte versuche ich auszumalen, der Begriff lasse sich weder im europäischen noch im nationalen Milieu plausibel interpretieren, sondern ausschließlich als Baustein einer denkbaren zentraleuropäischen vergleichenden Philosophiegeschichte. (shrink)

Wittgenstein at the Movies is centered on in-depth explorations of two intriguing experimental films on Wittgenstein: Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein and Péter Forgács' Wittgenstein Tractatus. The featured essays look at cinematic interpretations of Wittgenstein's life and philosophy in a manner bound to provoke the lively interest of Wittgenstein scholars, film theorists, students of film aesthetics and artistic modernism, and those concerned with the world of Cambridge in the first half of the twentieth century.

While Wittgenstein commentators dismiss his remarks on women and femininity as trivial and unworthy of attention, I focus exactly on what they consider parenthetical and of no philosophical value. First, I document Wittgenstein’s attitudes toward women and femininity, and subject his remarks to critical analysis. Secondly, I retrieve and explore some aspects of Otto Weininger’s influence on Wittgenstein. Thirdly, by introducing considerations of chronology and circumstance, I argue that while the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus endorsed Weininger’s views on women (...) and sex, the mature Wittgenstein of the Investigations repudiated them without ceasing to adrnire his work or its spirit. Finally, I sketch crucial, unnoticed differences between Weininger and the mature Wittgenstein concerning femininity and philosophical method. The author’s intention is to contribute to the project of challenging the supposed divide between the understanding of philosophical thought, on the one hand, and socio-cultural contexts and biography on the other. (shrink)

This paper argues, first, that one can render Protagoras’s view on the teach ability of political virtue coherent by distinguishing between the affect required for achieving it and the capacity for developing these affect into fully fledged virtues. Second, the paper argues that by focusing on Books II - III of the Republic one might see an affinity between between Protagoras’s suggestion that virtuous citizens might give advice, without ruling it, in the affairs of the city and Plato’s conservative practical (...) political theory. (shrink)

Vattel's Mélanges de littérature, de morale et de politique (Thoughts on literature, morals and politics) was published at Neuchâtel by the Editeurs du Journal Helvétique in 1760 and this is the first English translation. It was republished under the title, Amusemens de littérature, de morale et de politique in 1765. Vattel's text provides evidence of his response to the issues facing Europe's states in the 1750s, and in doing so provides another perspective on his best known work, Le droit des (...) gens (Law of Nations) of 1757. Vattel emerges as a reformer steeped in debates about the future of the European state system, and particularly Europe's small states and republics like Switzerland. ☆ The text of the ‘Mélanges’ was translated by Kenneth Goodwin and Edwin Carpenter. Vattel's ‘Dialogue between the Prince of *** & his Confidant, about certain essential elements of Public Administration’ has been published in Vattel, The Law of Nations. Ed. B. Kapossy and R. Whatmore. (Liberty Fund: Indianapolis, IN, 2008) and is reproduced here by kind consent of The Liberty Fund. (shrink)

The submitted paper offers a philosophical analysis of contemporary society based on the ideas of Immanuel Kant’s practical philosophy. Kant focused on the issue of society in terms of the a priori principles of freedom, equality, and independence and his ideas on social issues are analysed in the first part of the paper. The analysis then serves as a prerequisite for philosophical-critical assessment of contemporary society, especially in the region of Central Europe, presented by philosophers and authors of various fields (...) of study. In the second part of the paper the authors aim to analyse basic social problems of contemporary society and its situation from the point of view of philosophical criticism and referring to the topicality of Kant’s ideas in today’s philosophical thought. (shrink)

Rousseau is often seen as the quintessential representative of Swiss republicanism. But to most of his Swiss contemporaries Rousseau's brand of republicanism and his self-professed Protestantism remained deeply suspect. They found his thinking, and especially his discussion of the natural origins of morality, far too sceptical and thus ultimately unsuited for their own attempt to forge a theory of republican reform. The article focuses on the reply by Rousseau's most sympathetic yet also most persistent critics, the Basle secretary of state (...) and author of the famous ‘History of Mankind’. (shrink)

This article questions the belief expressed in various histories of pharmacy that the tenth-century Arab physician Avicenna introduced the tradition of coating pills with gold and silver. Although an examination of his Canon documents Avicenna's interest in the medicinal application of gold and silver, no mention is made of coating pills. Nor do other Islamic physicians seem to have been familiar with this practice, any more than such medieval European authors as Arnaldus of Villanova, Raymund Lull or Johannes de Rupescissa. (...) The same is true of medicinal compendia representative of later periods, such as the Ortus sanitatis, Valerius Cordus' Dispensatorium or the Secrets of Alessio Piemontese. The earliest known mention of coating pills with precious metals occurs in a non-medical book, The Golden Fleece , and the earliest mention in the professional literature seems to appear only in the second half of the seventeenth century. The practice of coating pills with gold and silver was to be practiced in Europe into the first half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Can one mistrust one's own belief? Wittgenstein says ‘No.’ He remarks: ‘One can mistrust one's own senses, but not one's own belief.’It is natural to think that this is not meant merely as a remark about our psychological abilities or inabilities; viz., that one can not, as a matter of psychological fact, help but trust one's own belief. Rather, one is inclined to take it as a ‘grammatical remark’ to the effect that it makes no sense to speak of trusting (...) or mistrusting one's own belief. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto WeiningerBéla SzabadosJews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger, edited by Nancy A. Harrowitz and Barbara Hyams; 341 pp. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995, $54.95 cloth, $24.95 paper.“Every artist has been influenced by others and shows traces of that influence yet his significance for us is nothing but his personality. What he inherits from others can be nothing but eggshells,” said Wittgenstein, listing (...) Weininger as a seminal influence on his work, “a seed out of which his plant grew.” Weininger’s influence fell on other leading cultural figures early this century such as Kraus, Kafka, Freud, Joyce, Lawrence, Canetti, Stein and others. This book aims to retrieve that influence and provide a broad interdisciplinary representation of new critical readings of Weininger’s legacy.The fact and extent of Weininger’s influence seems puzzling: his fame stems from his misogyny and anti-Semitism. In Sex and Character Weininger claims that: humans are bisexual, a mixture of male and female; woman is nothing but sexuality; individuals must choose between the masculine and feminine elements within themselves; sexual abstinence is a precondition of spirit and genius; there can be no justification for sex even for procreation within marriage; furthermore, “the Jew is saturated with femininity and has little sense of good and evil.” How could an author with such odd and odious views exert any influence at all?Yet Weininger was pivotal: his writing erases boundaries between discipline, genre, and nationality, revealing tensions and contradictions in Viennese and Western culture. So many ‘isms’ mark him as a patriarch of the tradition: [End Page 548] essentialism, transcendentalism, dualism, theism, and his belief in a rational self. Yet this is juxtaposed with postmodernist themes: deconstruction of sexual and gender dichotomies, rejection of essentialism concerning individuals, an emphasis on difference and the personal, the ethical primacy of practice over theory. His influence is felt in literature, philosophy, science, history, and because of Jehoshua Sobol’s play, The Soul of a Jew, in theatre.Jews and Gender divides into three parts. The first introduces readers to Weininger research and provides new bibliographic information. To begin with, the editors offer us the necessary background with a concise critical essay on the history of Weininger reception. This is followed by Jacques Le Rider revisiting Weininger scholarship subsequent to the publication of his own book, The Otto Weininger Case. The section ends with Hannelore Rodlauer’s efforts to piece together fragments from Weininger’s education. The second section, “In Context,” focuses on Weininger in the context of his contemporaries. Allan Janik starts off with his examination of the riddle of Weininger’s influence on Wittgenstein. Next, Nancy Harrowitz sketches and discusses affinities between Weininger and his nineteenth-century forerunner Lomboroso. Then Steven Beller explores the surprising question of whether Weininger was a liberal in an ethos when European liberalism exerted immense pressure on Jews to assimilate the whole set of social, religious, national, cultural values of a community. Sander Gilman in turn traces connections between Freud and Weininger on questions of race and gender. In her essay on “Characterology,” Katherine Arens situates Weininger in relation to Austrian “scientific” racism. In his contribution, John Hoberman reflects on Weininger’s critique of Jewish masculinity, locating its source in the stereotypes prevalent in those times.The third section of the volume looks at Weininger and his impact on modern literature. In “A Scientific Image of Woman,” Gisela Brude-Firnau discusses the way in which Weininger’s work can be seen as a contentious response to the women’s movement. Jeffrey Mehlman discerns Weininger in one of Apolinnaire’s major poems, “La Chanson du Malaimé,” where the anger against woman is quirkily actualized as a fury against the Jews. Gerald Stieg goes on to draw affinities between Kafka and Weininger. Then Marilyn Reizbaum, Natania Rosenfeld, and Elfriede Pöder explore in separate essays Weininger’s influence on James Joyce’s Ulysses by probing Bloom’s Jewish self-hatred, the figure of the womanly wandering Jew, and Molly as pure sexuality, respectively. Alberto Cavaglion proceeds to trace the appearance of Weininger’s thought in Italo Svevo’s novel The Confessions of Zeno... (shrink)

Caputo’s book is enigmatic. It is, on the one hand, a remorseless screed directed against those who proclaim to the world “the totalizing truth or logos that engulfs the other.” As such, it contains predictable characterizations of a variety of logocentric villains as historically disparate as Plato and the “Polish Pope, John Paul II,” in which their contributions to philosophical discourse are alternatively parodied and vilified as being hostile to that spirit of openness to the “toute autre,” spirit that which, (...) we are told, animates the deconstructive enterprise. On the other hand, it is possible to discern within the book a certain structure that, however much it may belie Caputo’s expressed revulsion of closure, makes the book interesting and instructive. In this regard, three closely related themes present themselves. The first of these is particular and exegetical, comprising an attempt to explore in some detail the rather surprising claim that the point of view of Derrida’s work as an author is religious and that his recent writings especially contain elements of a religion “about which no one, not even his mother, understands anything.” The second, no less surprising, is the wider, more philosophically interesting thesis that Derridian deconstruction, and perhaps deconstruction itself, is to be situated within the framework of faith, the same passionate religious faith that animated the writings of St. Augustine, Meister Eckhart, and Kierkegaard. The third is the attempt to capitalize on the political mission of Derridian deconstruction which is characterized as the “delimitation of totalization in all its forms,” an objective that retains a faithful, though somewhat unclear, connection to Marx. (shrink)

Chapter in Wittgenstein at the Movies, an in-depth explorations of two experimental films on Wittgenstein: Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein and Péter Forgács' Wittgenstein Tractatus.

New readings and perspectives on Nietzsche's work are brought together in this collection of essays by prominent scholars from North America and Europe. They question whether Nietzsche's work and the conventional interpretation of it is rhetorical and nih.

Sugar relationships can be considered contemporary forms of transactional sex, that is, offering sexual services for material resources or other benefits. Considering the common age differences in these relationships, sugar relationships might be of relevance for older adults as well on the mating market. As a sequel to Birkás et al., in the present study, an attitude scale was developed to assess older women’s and men’s acceptance of sugar relationships. We also explored whether the acceptance of sugar relationships was associated (...) with love styles, sociosexual orientation, sexual motivation, and certain socially aversive personality traits. In two online studies with a total number of 836 participants, the results showed that the Acceptance of Sugar Relationships in Older Men and Women Scale proved to be a reliable and conceptually valid measure of older individuals’ attitude toward sugar relationships. A more accepting attitude toward sugar relationships was found to be associated with more unrestricted sociosexuality, preference to engage in playful love relationships and more self-focused sexual motivation, and with more pronounced Dark Triad and borderline traits. Our findings are discussed in an evolutionary framework. (shrink)

Kai Nielsen and Felicity McCutcheon have each in their own way taken issue with the received view that Wittgenstein’s remarks on religious language are to be construed as a form of “fideism”. They each provide sharply divergent views on Wittgenstein’s remarks on the meaning of religious language and, indeed, the importance of religion itself. These differences, however, serve to bring into relief both Wittgenstein’s recognition of the genuinely descriptive nature of ordinary religious discourse and his underlying political sensitivity. The paper (...) reflects on these differences in the the recent works of Nielsen and McCutcheon on Wittgenstein’s alleged fedeism.“…speak the old language… but speak it in a way that is appropriate to the modern world, without on that account necessarily being in accordance with its taste.” (Wittgenstein, 1980, 60e). (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 229 - 233 This note announces a recent find in a private Swiss archive: Christian Wolff’s complete lecture course on Grotius’s _De iure belli ac pacis_ that he gave at the University of Marburg between June 1739 and May 1740.

This study aims to determine, analyze, and explain the influence of Intellectual and Creativity on Organizational Performance, the influence of Intellectual on Creativity, as well as the mediating role of Creativity in the influence of Intellectual on Organizational Performance. The research adopts a quantitative approach. The population of this study consists of 60 owners with a sample size of 60 owners of MSMEs Manik-Manik Plumbon Gambang. Data collection is done through questionnaire distribution using Likert scale. Data analysis technique involves SEM-PLS (...) (Structural Equation ModelingPartial Least Square) with the assistance of SmartPLS application. The results of this study indicate that Intellectual Capital can enhance Organizational Performance, Intellectual Capital can enhance Creativity, Creativity can enhance Organizational Performance, and Creativity can partially mediate the relationship between Intellectual Capital and Organizational Performance. (shrink)

Between 1910 und 1915 the Hungarian philosopher Béla Zalai (1882-1915) developed his “comparative metaphysics of systems”, which had a significant influence on both the young Georg Lukács and also on Karl Mannheim. Through an analysis of Zalai’s approach to metaphysics, we show how he served to mediate between the realist Austrian philosophy of Meinong and of the early Husserl on the one side, and the German (idealistic, Kantian) philosophy then dominant in Hungary.