Jorge Luis Borges is acknowledged as one of the great Spanish writers of the twentieth century. On the broader literary scene, he is recognized as a modern master. His fascination with philosophy - especially metaphysics - sets him apart from his contemporaries. Borges appreciated and formulated rigorous philosophical arguments, but also possessed the unique ability to present the most abstract ideas imaginatively in metaphors and symbols. Borges wandered among the great masters seeking a firm purchase that he could not find, (...) and therefore expressed a nostalgia for metaphysics as he lost himself in his labyrinths. Borges and Philosophy traces Borges' philosophical concerns in his tales, essays, and poems and argues that despite his apparent skepticism in philosophical matters, a careful reading of Borges' texts reveals a coherent philosophical path that underlies his work. (shrink)

Bossart (philosophy, U. of CA-Davis) discusses the alleged losses of faith and self in postmodernist thought in the light of the "triumph" and subsequent decline of the transcendental turn in philosophy initiated by Kant. He attacks the transcendental grounding of human experience at its source, showing why it is impossible to derive any categories a priori, and exposes the weaknesses of attempts by Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger to close the gap between transcendental subjectivity and the world. Annotation copyright by Book (...) News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

The question to which I should like to address my remarks asks, as I understand it, whether philosophical knowledge can attain a truth which is not merely independent of individual men but of human nature and the human situation in general. To attempt to say anything decisive about the nature of philosophical knowledge in a few pages would be to court disaster. The most one might hope to do is to make some suggestions, and it is as suggestions that I (...) would like to offer the reflections which follow. Yet even the most tentative exploration of a philosophical problem cannot avoid prejudicing somewhat the issues it proposes to investigate, for every question determines to some extent what will count as an acceptable answer. I should, therefore, like to indicate at the outset the context of meaning in which my remarks are intended to be read. To me the question, “Is philosophy transcendental?” has a definite Kantian ring, and it is within the universe of discourse constituted by the critical philosophy that I should like to begin my discussion. (shrink)

1. I should like us first to engage in what Kierkegaard was wont to call a "project of thought"--to make the movements of having a metaphysical experience without giving any thought to the actual reality of that experience, just as the novice boxer makes the movements of attack and defense before he enters actual combat. Let us assume, then, that we do experience being. What would we expect being to be like and how would we experience it?