In his “Spinoza’s TTP , Maimonides, and Kant” (1968), Pines compared Spinoza’s dogmas of universal faith ( TTP , 14) with Kant’s postulates of practical reason ( Critique of Practical Reason , part 1). According to him, Spinoza’s dogmas, like Maimonides’ “necessary beliefs” ( Guide 3:28), are postulates necessary for political welfare, and do not fall under the jurisdiction of theoretical reason. They define the faith of the common person, not that of the philosopher. Kant, in his remarks about Spinoza (...) as an “upright skeptic,” mistakenly thought his dogmas were true beliefs, not necessary ones; and his notion of postulates of practical reason seems to have been in part influenced by his mistaken view of Spinoza’s dogmas. The transformation of Maimonides’ “necessary beliefs” into Kant’s “postulates of practical reason,” as narrated by Pines, recalls the similar transformation of “Averroism” into “Christian Averroism” in the thirteenth century. In essays written from the late 1970s until his death in 1990, Pines returned to the theme of Maimonides and Kant, and argued convincingly that Maimonides’ epistemology was “critical” in the Kantian sense. However, his related argument that Maimonides’ religious sensibility was similar to Kant’s is less convincing. Unlike Kant, Maimonides did not think that critical epistemology made room for faith, but held that it caused one to tremble in awe. Like Spinoza, he identified true faith with intellectual knowledge, not something beyond it. His distinctiveness as a philosopher is that he was a God-intoxicated Knower like Spinoza, but a critical epistemologist like Kant. (shrink)

In the course of his studies on Kabbalah, Moshe Idel has written on the influence of Kabbalists on philosophy. He suggests that Spinoza was influenced by the Kabbalah regarding his expressions “Deus sive Natura“ and “amor Dei intellectualis.” The 13th-century ecstatic Kabbalist Rabbi Abraham Abulafia and many authors after him cited the numerical equivalence of the Hebrew words for God and Nature: elohim = ha-teba` = 86. This striking numerical equivalence may be one of the sources of Spinoza’s expression “Deus (...) sive Natura.” The same Kabbalist used the Hebrew expression “ahabah elohit sikhlit“ (“divine intellectual love”), which may underlie Spinoza’s expression “amor Dei intellectualis.” Abulafia’s expression “ahabah elohit sikhlit“ is repeated by the popular 15th-century Maimonidean philosopher, Rabbi Abraham Shalom. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the ethical views of medieval Jewish philosophers, showing that the varieties of Jewish philosophy in the medieval period defy easy categorization, let alone condensation into a single notion of Jewish ethics. Scholars surveyed include Saadia Gaon, Solomon ibn Gabirol, Bahya ibn Paquda, Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Daud, Moses Maimonides, Levi Gersonides, Jedaiah Bedersi, Hesdai Crescas, Joseph Albo, and Joseph ibn Shemtob.

Maimonides requires the multitude to observe many ceremonial commandments, while Spinoza makes no such demand. This chapter focuses on some of the main points of agreement between Maimonides and Spinoza on true religion, the religion of reason, or philosophic religion. True religion includes also piety, that is, moral conduct, which follows from the rational life. The piety of the philosopher and the non‐philosopher both consist in doing good to others. Maimonides’ approach to true religion adumbrates Spinoza's. Spinoza's concept of amor (...) Dei intellectualis echoes Maimonides’ concept of the passionate intellectual love of God. Spinoza's concept of piety is adumbrated in Maimonides. The Maimonidean thrust of Spinoza's concept of true religion is evident in his discussion of “the divine Law” or, more precisely, “the natural divine Law” and the summum bonum in TTP4. In Maimonides’ language, true religion is based on the intelligibilia and popular religion on generally accepted opinions. (shrink)

In the current paper I rely on two outstanding studies. The one, by Warren Zev Harvey, draws a portrait of Spinoza as Maimonidean, stressing the continuity between Maimonides and Spinoza on the issue of morality and the highest good. The other is the magisterial study by Steven Shmuel Harvey of the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics in medieval Jewish philosophy, from its being subject to almost complete indifference in the period before Maimonides until it became “the best known (...) and most cited work of Aristotle” in sixteenth-century Jewish philosophy. In the first part of this paper I will discuss some main junctions in the medieval Jewish reception of the notion of the highest good. This discussion will be cursory and will mostly focus on matters that will help us approach Spinoza’s views on the issue, views which will be examined closely in the second part of the paper. (shrink)

This new Cambridge Critical Guide to Spinoza’s Ethics offers an extensive, thought-provoking, and up-to-date state of the scholarly conversation that surrounds one of Spinoza’s most studied masterpieces. The first six chapters address topics mostly related to parts one and two of the Ethics. Don Garrett discusses the identity of the attributes. Warren Zev Harvey suggests that Maimonides’s critique of final causes can be considered as an important source for Spinoza’s treatment of the same topic in the appendix to part (...) one. John Morrison argues that Spinoza’s treatment of the nature of the human mind entails a rejection of the indiscernibility of the identicals. Martin Lin contributes a new interpretation of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 417-418 [Access article in PDF] Heidi M. Ravven and Lenn E. Goodman, editors. Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 290. Cloth, $78.50. Paper, $26.95.The current anthology presents an important contribution to the study of Spinoza's relation to Jewish philosophy as well as to contemporary scholarship of Spinoza's metaphysics and political (...) theory.In the opening essay, Lenn Goodman takes upon himself the ambitious task of evaluating Spinoza's positions as to several central disputes throughout the history of philosophy. In this rich and extensive essay Goodman argues that Spinoza's radical rationalism makes him pursue syntheses between traditionally opposed poles. Lee Rice's article, "Love of God in Spinoza," carefully analyzes Spinoza's concept of love and suggests the existence of three kinds of love parallel to the three kinds of knowledge. Warren Montag addresses the unresolved issue of Spinoza's relation to the Kabbalah. Montag sides with Deleuze against the association of Spinozism with the Neo-Platonic theory of emanation, arguing that unlike the Neo-Platonists and Kabbalists, Spinoza's view of God rules out any hierarchy, and does not assume a descent from primal simplicity into complexity. Edwin Curley contributes a beautiful reading of the story of Job and of Maimonides' interpretation of the story. Curley follows Maimonides' discussion of the various positions regarding the question of divine providence and his attempt to identify the speeches of the characters of the book of Job with each of these positions. Following a sensitive consideration of various attempts to [End Page 417] recover Maimonides' own rather concealed view about providence, Curley concludes that "[W]hatever you think Maimonides' final word on Job is, our examination of him certainly supports [Spinoza's] claim that [Maimonides] reads Scripture in terms of Platonic or Aristotelian speculations" (170).Warren Zev Harvey's essay addresses Spinoza's most neglected work, the Compendium of the Grammar of the Hebrew Language. Apart from providing an outline of Spinoza's work as a Hebrew grammarian ("a noun-intoxicated grammarian") and pointing out some of Spinoza's more eccentric views about the nature of the Hebrew language, Harvey makes a compelling case for the importance of the book for the study of Spinoza's metaphysics. He points out a fascinating analogy which Spinoza draws between the parts of speech: (proper) noun, adjectives, and participles, and Spinoza's key metaphysical terms: substance, attributes, and modes. (Think about the weighty implications of this analogy for Curley's interpretation of the substance-mode relation.) According to Harvey, Spinoza's claim that all Hebrew words are derived from nouns is a linguistic parallel to Spinoza's pivotal metaphysical doctrine which makes all things be in the substance (or God). Kenneth Seeskin's article discusses the views of Maimonides and Spinoza on the question of creation and God's relation to the world. Seeskin reconstructs an interesting critical dialogue between these two philosophers. According to Seeskin, both philosophers held that an effect must be similar to its cause. Maimonides' commitment to Negative Theology and to the denial of any common measure between God and finite things forced him to deny causal or explanatory relation between God and the world. What Maimonides can suggest instead is rather to prove that the emergence of the world ex nihilo and according to the divine will, is possible, and even likely given certain astronomical facts of medieval science. Thus, Maimonides would hold that "although we have grounds for believing that creation occurred, we will never be in a position to say how" (120). For Spinoza, such a view constitutes nothing but a "sanctuary of ignorance." Thus, according to Seeskin, Spinoza affirms a clear causal relation between God and the world of finite things insofar as God is said to explain the world. While I tend to agree with most aspects of this analysis, it is important to note that Spinoza also claims that "between the finite and infinite there is no relation" (Letter 54). This... (shrink)

"In the gorgeous and rugged terrain of Jewish thought, there is no higher mountain to climb than Maimonides, and no more slippery or exhilarating ascent. Halbertal has made it all the way to the top, and his survey of the whole of the Maimonidean landscape is trustworthy and masterful. This is the richest and most intellectually sophisticated book on Maimonides I have ever read."--Leon Wieseltier "In this learned and penetrating work, Halbertal offers us a Maimonides who draws on the dominant (...) Greco-Islamic thought of his time while creating a system of thought that is fully Jewish. He shows us how the early "Commentary on the Mishnah" links up with the "Mishneh Torah" and with the "Guide of the Perplexed," written at the end of his life, to form an unexpected and radical intellectual unity. Beautifully written, "Maimonides" brings out both Maimonides's intellectual success and the paradoxical critical approaches to him after his death."--David J. Wasserstein, Vanderbilt University "Insightful and learned. Halbertal is perhaps the leading philosopher of Jewish law today. His book on Maimonides, like his other writings, reflects wide erudition and is written clearly and sharply."--Warren Zev Harvey, professor emeritus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem "Displaying the marvelous depth and clarity that mark all his work, Halbertal explains in abundant detail the transformations that Maimonides sought to effect in the Jewish world. He provides incisive interpretations of both legal and philosophical writings, yet he is also a biographer, binding together Maimonides's life, self-perception, and intellectual agenda. This is an exceptionally rich book, one that offers fresh perspectives for experts and a highly accessible introduction for general readers."--David Shatz, Yeshiva University "An outstanding and thrilling portrait of Maimonides. Halbertal's analytic lucidity and psychological depth are singular, and his talents are abundantly apparent on every page. This is an extraordinary book."--Menachem Lorberbaum, Tel Aviv University. (shrink)

We introduce a reducibility preordering between classes of countable structures, each class containing only structures of a given similarity type (which is allowed to vary from class to class). Though we sometimes work in a slightly larger context, we are principally concerned with the case where each class is an invariant Borel class (i.e. the class of all models, with underlying set $= \omega$, of an $L_{\omega_1\omega}$ sentence; from this point of view, the reducibility can be thought of as a (...) (rather weak) sort of $L_{\omega_1\omega}$-interpretability notion). We prove a number of general results about this notion, but our main thrust is to situate various mathematically natural classes with respect to the preordering, most notably classes of algebraic structures such as groups and fields. (shrink)

The use of x[y,z,w] rather than the more usual y Πx has many advantages for this work. One of them is that we have found a convenient way to eliminate any need for axiom schemes. All axioms considered are single sentences with clear meaning. (In one case only, the axiom is a conjunction of a manageable finite number of sentences).

S. Adams, W. Ambrose, A. Andretta, H. Becker, R. Camerlo, C. Champetier, J.P.R. Christensen, D.E. Cohen, A. Connes. C. Dellacherie, R. Dougherty, R.H. Farrell, F. Feldman, A. Furman, D. Gaboriau, S. Gao, V. Ya. Golodets, P. Hahn, P. de la Harpe, G. Hjorth, S. Jackson, S. Kahane, A.S. Kechris, A. Louveau,, R. Lyons, P.-A. Meyer, C.C. Moore, M.G. Nadkarni, C. Nebbia, A.L.T. Patterson, U. Krengel, A.J. Kuntz, J.-P. Serre, S.D. Sinel'shchikov, T. Slaman, Solecki, R. Spatzier, J. Steel, D. Sullivan, S. (...) Thomas, A. Valette, V.S. Varadarajan, B. Velickovic, B. Weiss, J.D.M. Wright, R.J. Zimmer. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, Kosso ([2000]) discussed the observational status of continuous symmetries of physics. While we are in broad agreement with his approach, we disagree with his analysis. In the discussion of the status of gauge symmetry, a set of examples offered by 't Hooft ([1980]) has influenced several philosophers, including Kosso; in all cases the interpretation of the examples is mistaken. In this paper, we present our preferred approach to the empirical significance of symmetries, re-analysing (...) the cases of gauge symmetry and general covariance. Direct and indirect empirical significance Global and local continuous symmetries Gauge symmetry 3.1 Local gauge symmetry 3.1.1 Discussion of the first claim 3.1.2 Discussion of the second claim 3.2 Global gauge symmetry Space-time symmetries Direct and indirect empirical significance again Conclusion. (shrink)

Liberty and freedom are frequently invoked to justify political action. Presidents as diverse as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush have built their policies on some version of these noble values. Yet in practice, idealist agendas often turn sour as they confront specific circumstances on the ground. Demonstrated by incidents at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, the pursuit of liberty and freedom can lead to violence and repression, undermining our trust in universal (...) theories of liberalism, neoliberalism, and cosmopolitanism. Combining his passions for politics and geography, David Harvey charts a cosmopolitan order more appropriate to an emancipatory form of global governance. Political agendas tend to fail, he argues, because they ignore the complexities of geography. Incorporating geographical knowledge into the formation of social and political policy is therefore a necessary condition for genuine democracy. Harvey begins with an insightful critique of the political uses of freedom and liberty, especially during the George W. Bush administration. Then, through an ontological investigation into geography's foundational concepts—space, place, and environment—he radically reframes geographical knowledge as a basis for social theory and political action. As Harvey makes clear, the cosmopolitanism that emerges is rooted in human experience rather than illusory ideals and brings us closer to achieving the liberation we seek. (shrink)

The subtle, almost ineffable, and ineffable cardinals were introduced in an unpublished 1971 manuscript of R. Jensen and K. Kunen. The concepts were extended to that of k-subtle, k-almost ineffable, and k-ineffable cardinals in 1975 by J. Baumgartner. In this paper we give a self contained treatment of the basic facts about this level of the large cardinal hierarchy, which were established by J. Baumgartner. In particular, we give a proof that the k-subtle, k-almost ineffable, and k-ineffable cardinals define three (...) properly intertwined hierarchies with the same limit, lying strictly above “total indescribability” and strictly below “arrowing ω”. The innovation here is presented in Section 2, where we take a distinctly minimalist approach. Here the subtle cardinal hierarchy is characterized by very elementary properties that do not mention closed unbounded or stationary sets. This development culminates in a characterization of the hierarchy by means of a striking universal second-order property of linear orderings. (shrink)

We now fix A ⊆ Q. We study a fundamental class of digraphs associated with A, which we call the A-digraphs. An A,kdigraph is a digraph (Ak,E), where E is an order invariant subset of A2k in the following sense. For all x,y ∈ A2k, if x,y have the same order type then x ∈ E ↔ y ∈ E.

In a modal system of arithmetic, a theory S has the modal disjunction property if whenever $S \vdash \square\varphi \vee \square\psi$ , either $S \vdash \square\varphi$ or $S \vdash \square\psi. S$ has the modal numerical existence property if whenever $S \vdash \exists x\square\varphi(x)$ , there is some natural number n such that $S \vdash \square\varphi(\mathbf{n})$ . Under certain broadly applicable assumptions, these two properties are equivalent.

This paper presents a case study carried out at Sofia University in Bulgaria, describing the relationship between two developments, firstly an expanding involvement with online learning and e-assessment, and secondly the development of institutional approaches to academic integrity. The two developments interact, the widening use of e-learning and e-assessment raising new issues for academic integrity, and the technology providing new tools to support academic integrity, with the involvement in technological developments acting as a catalyst for changes in approaches to academic (...) integrity. The aim of this study is to describe in what ways the integration of technologies for student authentication and authorship checking in this university has begun to influence teachers’ approach to academic integrity, and has also helped to identify specific issues that need to be resolved for the future of academic integrity in the university. Data collected during the implementation of pilots for the project TeSLA - An adaptive trust-based e-assessment system - enabled an examination of the perspectives of administrators, teachers and students on approaches to cheating and plagiarism, and on possible future directions. The data suggests that the piloting of the TeSLA system has triggered a deepening consideration of approaches to academic integrity, and has also helped to identify important issues for future developments. (shrink)

An extreme kind of logic skeptic claims that "the present formal systems used for the foundations of mathematics are artificially strong, thereby causing unnecessary headaches such as the Gödel incompleteness phenomena". The skeptic continues by claiming that "logician's systems always contain overly general assertions, and/or assertions about overly general notions, that are not used in any significant way in normal mathematics. For example, induction for all statements, or even all statements of certain restricted forms, is far too general - mathematicians (...) only use induction for natural statements that actually arise. If logicians would tailor their formal systems to conform to the naturalness of normal mathematics, then various logical difficulties would disappear, and the story of the foundations of mathematics would look radically different than it does today. In particular, it should be possible to give a convincing model of actual mathematical practice that can be proved to be free of contradiction using methods that lie within what Hilbert had in mind in connection with his program”. Here we present some specific results in the direction of refuting this point of view, and introduce the Strict Reverse Mathematics (SRM) program. (shrink)

We discuss several axiomatizations of set theory in first order predicate calculus with epsilon and a constant symbol W, starting with the simple system K(W) which has a strong equivalence with ZF without Foundation. The other systems correspond to various extensions of ZF by certain large cardinal hypotheses. These axiomatizations are unusually simple and uncluttered, and are highly suggestive of underlying philosophical principles that generate higher set theory.

In mathematics, we back up our discoveries with rigorous deductive proofs. Mathematicians develop a keen instinctive sense of what makes a proof rigorous. In logic, we strive for a *theory* of rigorous proofs.

We present a range of mathematical theorems whose proofs require unexpectedly strong logical methods, which in some cases go well beyond the usual axioms for mathematics.

The factor structure of the Multidimensional Ethics Scale (MES; Reidenbach and Robin: 1988, Journal of Business Ethics 7, 871–879; 1990, Journal of Business Ethics 9, 639–653) was examined for the 8-item short form (N = 328) and the original 30-item pool (N = 260). The objectives of the study were: to verify the dimensionality of the MES; to increase the amount of true cross-scenario variance through the use of 18 scenarios varying in moral intensity (Jones: 1991, Academy of Management Review (...) 16, 366–395); and, to examine the items for measurement precision using item-response theory (IRT) methods. Results of confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis failed to conclusively support the hypothesized 3- (short form) or 5-factor (long form) structure; both instruments were instead dominated by a general factor. Item response theory analyses using Samejima’s (1969, Psychometrika Monograph Supplement 34, (4, Pt. 2)) graded response model revealed that many items in the 30-item pool performed very well, and suggested that a different collection of items be used to form a short-form version of the MES. Our proposed 10-item instrument includes more discriminating items than the 8-item version, and has the added advantage of including two items from each of the five ethical philosophies represented in the original 30-item pool. (shrink)

This is widely accepted, inside and outside philosophy, but one can spend an entire career clarifying, justifying, and amplifying on this statement. Certainly a graduate student career.

For digraphs G, we write V(G) for the set of all vertices of G, and E(G) for the set of all edges of G. A digraph on a set E is a digraph G where V(G) = E.

NOTE: This is an expanded version of my lecture at the special session on reverse mathematics, delivered at the Special Session on Reverse Mathematics held at the Atlanta AMS meeting, on January 6, 2005.

We say that R is strictly dominating if and only if for all x,yŒ[1,n], if R(x,y) then max(x) 3k ¥ [1,n], there exists A Õ [1,n] such that R = A. Furthermore, A Õ [1,n] is unique.

We characterize the o-minimal expansions of the ring of real numbers, in mathematically transparent terms. This should help bridge the gap between investigators in o-minimality and mathematicians unfamiliar with model theory, who are concerned with such notions as non oscillatory behavior, tame topology, and analyzable functions. We adapt the characterization to the case of o-minimal expansions of an arbitrary ordered ring.

ENTIRE BOOK, SINGLE FILE. BOOLEAN RELATION THEORY AND THE INCOMPLETENESS PHENOMENA. 10/30/07 version. Same as 10/01/07 version with Preface added. 568 pages without Appendix B. See above for Appendix B by Francoise Point.

Let k be a positive integer. There is a longest finite sequence x1,...,xn in k letters in which no consecutive block xi,...,x2i is a subsequence of any other consecutive block xj,...,x2j. Let n(k) be this longest length. We prove that n(1) = 3, n(2) = 11, and n(3) is incomprehensibly large. We give a lower bound for n(3) in terms of the familiar Ackerman hierarchy. We also give asymptotic upper and lower bounds for n(k). We view n(3) as a particularly (...) elemental description of an incomprehensibly large integer. Related problems involving binary sequences (two letters) are also addressed. We also report on some recent computer explorations of R. Dougherty which we use to raise the lower bound for n(3). (shrink)

We present some new decision and comparison problems of unusually high computational complexity. Most of the problems are strictly combinatorial in nature; others involve basic logical notions. Their complexities range from iterated exponential time completeness to (0 time completeness to ((((,0) time completeness to ((((,,0) time completeness. These three ordinals are well known ordinals from proof theory, and their associated com- plexity classes represent new levels of computational complexity for natural decision problems. Proofs will appear in an extended version of (...) this manuscript to be published elsewhere. (shrink)

The global COVID‐19 pandemic challenged the world—how it functions, how people move in the social worlds and how government/government services and people interact. Health services, operating under the principles of new public management, have undertaken rapid changes to service delivery and models of care. What has become apparent is the mechanisms within which contemporary health services operate and how services are not prioritising the person at the centre of care. Person‐centred care (PCC) is the philosophical premise upon which models of (...) health care are developed and implemented. Given the strain that COVID‐19 has placed on the health services and the people who deliver the care, it is essential to explore the tensions that exist in this space. This article suggests that before the pandemic, PCC was largely rhetoric, and rendered invisible during the pandemic. The paper presents an investigation into the role of PCC in these challenging times, adopting a Foucauldian lens, specifically governmentality and biopolitics, to examine the policies, priorities and practical implications as health services pivoted and adapted to changing and acute demands. Specifically, this paper draws on the Australian experience, including shifting nursing workforce priorities and additional challenges resulting from public health directives such as lockdowns and limitations. The findings from this exploration open a space for discussion around the rhetoric of PCC, the status of nurses and that which has been lost to the pandemic. (shrink)

We have been particularly interested in the demonstrable unremovability of machinery, which is a theme that can be pursued systematically starting at the most elementary level - the use of binary notation to represent integers; the use of rational numbers to solve linear equations; the use of real and complex numbers to solve polynomial equations; and the use of transcendental functions to solve differential equations.

There is a PCA well-ordering of the real line if and only if there is a real from which every real is constructible.

Extrapolating from the work of Mahlo , one can prove that given any pair of countable closed totally bounded subsets of complete separable metric spaces, one subset can be homeomorphically embedded in the other. This sort of topological comparability is reminiscent of the statements concerning comparability of well orderings which Friedman has shown to be equivalent to ATR0 over the weak base system RCA0. The main result of this paper states that topological comparability is also equivalent to ATR0. In Section (...) 1, the pertinent subsystems of second-order arithmetic and results on well orderings are reviewed. Sections 2 and 3 overview the encoding of metric spaces and homeomorphisms in second-order arithmetic. Section 4 contains a proof of the topological comparability result in ATR0. Section 5 contains the reversal, a derivation of ATR0 from the topological comparability result. In Section 6, additional information about the structure of the embeddings is obtained, culminating in an application to closed subsets of the real numbers. (shrink)

How does match-fixing, or other unfair manipulation of matches, that involves under-performance by players, or refereeing and umpiring that prevents fair competition, be thought of in ethical terms? In this article, I outline the different forms that match-fixing can take and seek to comprehend these disparate scenarios within Kantian, Hegelian and contractualist ethical frameworks. I tentatively suggest that, by developing an ethical opposition to match-fixing in sport, we can give much greater substance to popular phrases such as ‘respect for the (...) game’, encompassing the value of sport itself and respect for other players, fans, sponsors and organisers. Arguing that match-fixing denies recognition to these ‘others’ demonstrates how fundamentally match-fixing ‘hollows out’ sport because a fixed match is of no worth: the whole value of the game has literally been evacuated. (shrink)

This long overdue English translation of Karl Löwith's magisterial study is a major event in Nietzsche scholarship in the Anglo-American intellectual world. Its initial publication was extraordinary in itself—a dissident interpretation, written by a Jew, appearing in National Socialist Germany in 1935. Since then, Löwith's book has continued to gain recognition as one of the key texts in the German Nietzsche reception, as well as a remarkable effort to reclaim the philosopher's work from political misappropriation. For Löwith, the centerpiece of (...) Nietzsche's thought is the doctrine of eternal recurrence, a notion which Löwith, unlike Heidegger, deems incompatible with the will to power. His careful examination of Nietzsche's cosmological theory of the infinite repetition of a finite number of states of the world suggests the paradoxical consequences this theory implies for human freedom. How is it possible to will the eternal recurrence of each moment of one's life, if both this decision and the states of affairs governed by it appear to be predestined? Löwith's book, one of the most important, if seldom acknowledged, sources for recent Anglophone Nietzsche studies, remains a central text for all concerned with understanding the philosopher's work. (shrink)