In this paper, I discuss two passages in Plato’s Phaedo : 91e–92e, i. e. the first argument Socrates uses against Simmias’ contention that the soul is a harmony ; 74e–75c, which is a part of the recollection argument. The aim in discussing these two passages is to show that Plato allows his characters, Socrates and Simmias, to pursue different strategies in the argument, based on different levels of understanding. I further argue that reading the passages mentioned as dialectical games involving (...) two personae shows that a certain doctrine attributed to Plato, i. e. the so-called theory of recollection, was not in fact part of Plato’s philosophical creed. (shrink)

本书介绍了中国式的超越和西方文化超越的神学论;理性、关联性与过程语言;中国的性别歧视观;儒家思想与实用主义;儒家民主主义等内容。.

Over the past generation, the rise of East Asia and especially China, has brought about a sea change in the economic and political world order. At the same time, global warming, environmental degradation, food and water shortages, population explosion, and income inequities have created a perfect storm that threatens the very survival of humanity. It is clear now that the Westphalian model of individual sovereign states seeking their own self-interest will not be able to respond effectively to this win-win or (...) lose-lose crisis. In this volume, a cadre of distinguished scholars comes together to reflect on Confucianism and Deweyan pragmatism as possible resources for a new geopolitics that begins from an ontology of interdependence and recognizes the irreducibly ecological nature of the human experience at every level. Both Confucian and Deweyan traditions emphasize the primacy of experience, the importance of vital relationality, and the moral roots of good governance. The potential benefits of conceptually blending the two are many. Indeed, the contemporary Chinese philosopher Tang Junyi provides us with a cosmological understanding of the "idea" of Confucianism that, in parallel to Dewey's "idea" of democracy, can enable us to anticipate the core values, if not the specific contours, of a "Confucian democracy." Just as Dewey's "idea" of democracy is his vision of the flourishing communal life made possible by the contributions of the uniquely distinguished persons that constitute it, Tang Junyi's Confucianism is a pragmatic naturalism directed at achieving the most highly integrated cultural, moral, and spiritual growth for the individual-in-community. In both, we find an affirmation of communal harmony as a process "starting here and going there" through which those involved learn together to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways. Just such a cosmological understanding of democracy is one way of describing what will be needed to address the many predicaments characterizing the environmental, cultural, socioeconomic, and political dynamics of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Over the past generation, the rise of East Asia and especially China, has brought about a sea change in the economic and political world order. At the same time, global warming, environmental degradation, food and water shortages, population explosion, and income inequities have created a perfect storm that threatens the very survival of humanity. It is clear now that the Westphalian model of individual sovereign states seeking their own self-interest will not be able to respond effectively to this win-win or (...) lose-lose crisis. In this volume, a cadre of distinguished scholars comes together to reflect on Confucianism and Deweyan pragmatism as possible resources for a new geopolitics that begins from an ontology of interdependence and recognizes the irreducibly ecological nature of the human experience at every level. Both Confucian and Deweyan traditions emphasize the primacy of experience, the importance of vital relationality, and the moral roots of good governance. The potential benefits of conceptually blending the two are many. Indeed, the contemporary Chinese philosopher Tang Junyi provides us with a cosmological understanding of the "idea" of Confucianism that, in parallel to Dewey's "idea" of democracy, can enable us to anticipate the core values, if not the specific contours, of a "Confucian democracy." Just as Dewey's "idea" of democracy is his vision of the flourishing communal life made possible by the contributions of the uniquely distinguished persons that constitute it, Tang Junyi's Confucianism is a pragmatic naturalism directed at achieving the most highly integrated cultural, moral, and spiritual growth for the individual-in-community. In both, we find an affirmation of communal harmony as a process "starting here and going there" through which those involved learn together to do ordinary things in extraordinary ways. Just such a cosmological understanding of democracy is one way of describing what will be needed to address the many predicaments characterizing the environmental, cultural, socioeconomic, and political dynamics of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

"En fabriquant des outils, en accédant au langage articulé, en s'affranchissant progressivement des contraintes de la sélection naturelle, l'homme a donné toute liberté à son imagination, à ses rêves et à ses émotions. Peu à peu, la conscience du beau s'est imposée à lui, avec l'acquisition de la notion de symétrie, l'émergence du sens de l'harmonie, puis l'apparition de la parure, de l'art mobilier, de l'art pariétal, et même de la musique... Le sens de la beauté est une des aspirations (...) les plus profondes de la nature humaine à la recherche de la transcendance. Mais quand, et comment, ce sentiment de la beauté émerge-t-il? Qu'elle est la signification du beau? Peut-il y avoir une beauté en mathématique? Quelles ont été les grandes étapes de l'évolution de l'art préhistorique? De l'art médiéval? Qu'est-ce que le " Beau idéal "? Peut-on avoir une émotion esthétique? Que signifie le beau dans l'art contemporain? C'est à ces questions essentielles que répondent Henry de Lumley et son équipe, composée d'historiens, de physiciens, de mathématiciens, d'artistes, de philosophes et de théologiens. Ce livre, tiré d'un cycle de conférence tenu au collège des Bernardins, est une grande synthèse qui bouscule les interprétations dominantes sur l'idée de la beauté." [Source : 4e de couv.]. (shrink)

Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists—theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities—are problematic. And I argue that panpsychism—which holds (roughly) that conscious subjects are ubiquitous in nature—provides an attractive response (...) to these explanatory cries. Taken together, these considerations underwrite a kind of ‘psychophysical fine-tuning’ argument in support of panpsychism, one that is reminiscent of cosmological fine-tuning arguments in favor of multiverse hypotheses. (shrink)

In a historical moment when cross-cultural communication proves both necessary and difficult, the work of comparative philosophy is timely. Philosophical resources for building a shared future marked by vitality and collaborative meaning-making are in high demand. Taking note of the present global philosophical situation, this collection of essays critically engages the scholarship of Roger T. Ames, who for decades has had a central role in the evolution of comparative and nonwestern philosophy. With a reflective methodology that has produced creative translations (...) of key Chinese philosophical texts, Ames-in conjunction with notable collaborators such as D.C. Lau, David Hall, and Henry Rosemont Jr.-has brought China's philosophical traditions into constructive cross-cultural dialogue on numerous ethical and social issues that we face today. The volume opens with two parts that share overlapping concerns about interpretation and translation of nonwestern texts and traditions. Parts III and IV-"Process Cosmology" and "Epistemological Considerations"-mark the shift in comparative projects from the metaphilosophical and translational stage to the more traditionally philosophical stage. Parts V and VI-"Confucian Role Ethics" and "Classical Daoism"-might best be read as Chinese contributions to philosophical inquiry into living well or "ethics" broadly construed. Lastly, Part VII takes Amesian comparative philosophy in "Critical Social and Political Directions," explicitly drawing out the broader dimensions of social constitution and the ideal of harmony. The contributors-scholars working in philosophy, religious studies, and Asian studies-pursue lines of inquiry opened up by the work of Roger Ames, and their chapters both clarify his ideas and push them in new directions. They survey the field of Chinese philosophy as it is taking shape in the wake of Ames's contributions and as it carries forward a global conversation on the future of humanity. (shrink)

Plotin discute à plusieurs reprises de la mémoire, de sa fonction et de son rôle dans la connaissance. Dans la longue section qui va de IV 3 [27], 25 à IV 4 [28], 5, il s’interroge sur « ce qui » se remémore, c’est-à-dire sur le sujet de la mémoire. L’examen de ces chapitres permet de recueillir quelques éléments caractéristiques de la théorie plotinienne de la connaissance. Plotin fait une rigoureuse distinction entre la mémoire et la simple conservation d’impressions sensibles (...) et associe la mémoire à une capacité spontanée de l’âme. L’âme, d’autre part, en tant que sujet de la mémoire, est pourtant toujours caractérisée par un type de pensée discursif et lié au temps. De ce type de connaissance, Plotin distingue la pensée la plus élevée, qui appartient à l’âme grâce à la partie d’elle-même qui n’est pas descendue de l’Intellect, lequel est étranger au temps et à la discursivité. L’étude du sujet de la mémoire fournit des éclaircissements sur la structure de l’âme chez Plotin, sur le rôle de l’imagination (phantasia), sur le caractère intrinsèquement dynamique de l’âme, capable de redéfinir sa propre nature en accord avec la faculté qui joue en elle le rôle de centre unificateur. Au sommet se trouve une condition cognitive dans laquelle l’âme saisit, même « ici-bas », avant sa séparation du corps, les Formes intelligibles, au moyen d’une connaissance appropriée et indépendante de toute forme de mémoire et de discursivité (cf. IV 4 [28], 4-5). Par conséquent, le rôle de la réminiscence dans l’épistémologie plotinienne est plutôt limité. (shrink)

When thinking of Plato’s discussions of virtue, many dialogues come to mind, but, assuredly, the Phaedrus does not. The word ἀρετή is used only six times in the dialogue. Unlike other dialogues, the Phaedrus thematizes neither the general concept of virtue nor any of the particular virtues. Given the centrality of virtue to Plato’s ethics and politics, it is surprising to see little reference to virtue in a dialogue devoted to love and to rhetoric, topics that have deep ethical and (...) political significance. -/- I argue that the Phaedrus makes important contributions to our understanding of virtue in Plato despite the infrequency of references. First, the dialogue juxtaposes competing conceptions of virtue: the “urbane” (cf. 227d) capacity to make things conform to one’s happenstance desires, championed by Lysias, and the “manic” capacity to conform oneself to reality, championed by Socrates. After clarifying that enslavement to pleasure-lust is the underlying condition of soul for Lysianic virtue, Socrates reveals that the non-lover’s “virtue” is, in truth, virtue in name only. Rather, true virtue emerges only when the soul becomes harmoniously ordered under reason’s guidance, a condition which is achieved through the soul’s encounter with beauty. Second, in the process of articulating how true virtue comes to be in the soul, Socrates gives grounds for distinguishing it from “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), a condition of soul whose outward aspect may be indistinguishable from that of virtue. While a soul in which reason does not take the reins may act from self-restraint, it does not yet act from virtue. Third, the dialogue gives us resources for seeing how other people, such as artful rhetoricians, can influence one’s cultivation of virtue. At first glance, Socrates’s claim that artful rhetoricians can “hand over” virtue (270b) seems incompatible with his claim that virtue is unteachable (cf. Meno 86d-99e). However, the dialogue offers some resources for seeing that the unteachability of virtue and the capacity for rhetoricians to “hand over” virtue are not, in fact, incompatible. From these three points, we will see that the Phaedrus offers an intellectualist account of virtue reminiscent of what we see in other dialogues. The intellectualist vision here, however, is one that includes a positive role for the subrational elements of the soul rather than one that excludes them from relevance or actively seeks to suppress them. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 78-91. This article consists of three parts. First, I will review the major themes of Quentin Meillassoux’s After Finitude . Since some of my readers will have read this book and others not, I will try to strike a balance between clear summary and fresh critique. Second, I discuss an unpublished book by Meillassoux unfamiliar to all readers of this article, except those scant few that may have gone digging in the microfilm archives of the École normale (...) supérieure. The book in question is Meillassoux’s revised doctoral dissertation L’Inexistence divine (or The Divine Inexistence ), with its seemingly bizarre vision of a God who does not yet exist but might exist in the future. Without literally accepting this view, I will claim that it is philosophically interesting in ways that even a hardened sceptic might be able to appreciate. Third and finally, I will speculate on the possible future of Meillassoux’s speculative materialism itself. And here I mean its future development not by Meillassoux, but by those readers who might be inspired by his book. Plato could never have predicted the emergence of Aristotle’s philosophy, despite the obvious debt of the latter to the former. Nor could Descartes have predicted Spinoza and Leibniz, nor Kant the German Idealists, and neither could Husserl in 1901 have foreseen the later emergence of Heidegger. How are the works of interesting philosophers transformed by later thinkers of comparable importance? While it may seem that there are countless ways to do this, I think there are only two basic ways in which this happens: you can radicalize your predecessors, or you can reverse them. I will close this article with a few words about these two methods, and try to imagine how Meillassoux might be radicalized or reversed by some future admirer. My view is that the more important thinkers are, the easier they are to radicalize or reverse. This helps explain why the great philosophers of the West have so often appeared in clusters, succeeding one another at relatively brief intervals during periods of especial ferment. 1. After Finitude After Finitude is unusually short for such an influential book of philosophy: running to just 178 pages in the original French, and an even more compact 128 pages in the English version, despite the introduction of roughly eight pages of new material for the English edition. Rather than summarizing Meillassoux’s book in the order he intended, I will focus on six points that strike me as the pillars of his debut book. Along the way, I will offer a few criticisms as well. The first pillar of the book is Meillassoux’s own term “correlationism.”1 Although he introduces this term as the name for an enemy, it is striking that Meillassoux remains impressed by correlationism much more than his fellow speculative realists are. This continued appreciation for his great enemy influences the shape of his own ontology. Is there a world outside our thinking of it, or does the world consist entirely in being thought? Traditionally, this dispute between realism and idealism has been dismissed in continental philosophy as a “pseudo-problem,” in a strategy pioneered by Husserl and extended by Heidegger. We cannot be realists, since following Kant we have no direct access to things-in-themselves. But neither are we idealists, since the human being is always already outside itself, aiming at objects in intentional experience, deeply engaged with practical implements, or stationed in some particular world-disclosing mood. The centuries-old dispute between realism and idealism is dissolved by saying that we cannot think either real or ideal in isolation from the other. There is neither human without world nor world without human, but only a primordial correlation or rapport between the two. This is what “correlationism” means: philosophy trapped in a permanent meditation on the human-world correlate, trying to find the best model of the correlate: is it language, intentionality, embodiment, or some other form of correlation between human and world? Among other problems, this generates some friction between philosophy and the literal meaning of science. When cosmologists say that the universe originated 13.5 billion years ago, they do not mean “13.5 billion years ago for us ,” but literally 13.5 billion years ago, well before conscious life existed, and thus at a time when there was no such thing as a correlate. Meillassoux also coins the term “ancestrality” (10) for the reality that predated the correlate, and later expands this term to “dia-chronicity,” (112) to refer to events occurring after the extinction of human beings no less than to those occurring before we existed. Up to this point, Meillassoux’s focus on ancestral entities existing prior to consciousness might seem like a straightforward realist who wants to unmask correlationism as just another form of idealism. Yet Meillassoux also admires the correlationist maneuver, which can obviously be traced back to Kant. Unlike a thinker such as Whitehead, Meillassoux feels no nostalgia for the pre-critical realism that came before Kant: “we cannot but be heirs of Kantianism,” he says (29). What impresses Meillassoux about correlationism is something both simple and familiar. If we attempt to think a tree outside thought, this is itself a thought . Any form of realism which thinks it can simply and directly address the world the way it is fails to escape the correlational circle, since the attempt to think something outside of thought is itself nothing other than a thought, and thereby collapses back into the very human-world correlate that it pretends to escape. For Meillassoux this step, suggested by Kant but first refined by the ensuing figures of German Idealism, marks decisive forward progress in the history of philosophy that must not be abolished. Any attempt to break free from the correlate must first acknowledge its mighty intellectual power. Realist though he may seem, Meillassoux’s works are filled with praise of such figures as Fichte and Hegel, not of so-called “naïve realists.” It is also the case that for Meillassoux, not all correlationisms are the same. The second pillar of his book is a distinction between various positions that I have termed “Meillassoux’s Spectrum,” though of course he is never so immodest as to name it after himself. He distinguishes between at least six different possible positions, and perhaps we could add even subtler variations if we wished. But in its simplest form, Meillassoux’s Spectrum allows for just four basic outlooks on the question of realism vs. anti-realism. Three of these are easy to understand, since we have already been discussing them. At one extreme is so-called “naïve realism,” which holds that a world exists outside the mind, and that we can know this world. Meillassoux rejects this naïve realism as having been overthrown by Kant’s critical philosophy. At the other extreme is subjective idealism, in which nothing exists outside the mind. For to think a dog outside thought immediately turns it into a thought, and therefore there cannot be anything outside; the very notion is meaningless. In between these two is what we have called correlationism. And here comes a crucial moment for Meillassoux, since he distinguishes between the two forms of “weak” and “strong” correlationism, and chooses the strong form as the launching pad for his own philosophy. Weak correlationism is easy to explain, since we all know it from the philosophy of Kant. The things-in-themselves can be thought but not known. They certainly must exist, since there cannot be appearances without something that appears. And we can think about them, which idealism holds to be impossible. They are simply unknowable due to the finitude of human thought. Strong correlationism is the new position introduced by Meillassoux (though he sees it at work in numerous twentieth century thinkers), midway between weak correlationism and subjective idealism. The major difference between the three positions is as follows. Weak correlationism says: “The things-in-themselves exist, but we cannot know them.” The subjective idealist says: “This is a contradiction in terms, since when we think the things-in-themselves, we already turn them into thoughts.” But the strong correlationist says: “Just because ‘things-in-themselves’ is a meaningless notion does not mean that they cannot exist. No one has ever traveled to the world-in-itself and come back to make a report on it. Thus, the fact that we cannot think things-in-themselves without contradiction does not prove that they do not exist anyway. There may be things-in-themselves, we simply are not capable of thinking them without contradiction form within the correlational circle.” This step is crucial for Meillassoux, since strong correlationism is the position he attempts to radicalize into his own new standpoint: speculative materialism. As I see it, this step of the argument fails. Strong correlationism cannot avoid collapsing into subjective idealism, since the statements of the strong correlationist are rendered meaningless from within. All three of the other positions in the Spectrum make perfectly good sense even for those who disagree with them. The naïve realist says that things-in-themselves exist and we can know them; the meaning of this statement is clear. The weak correlationist can say that things-in-themselves exist but lie forever beyond our grasp; this too makes perfect sense, even though the German Idealists try to show a contradiction at work here. We can also understand the claim of the subjective idealist that to think anything outside thought turns it into a thought, and that for this reason we cannot think the unthought. The strong correlationist, alone among the four, speaks nonsense . This person says “I cannot think the unthought without turning it into a thought, and yet the unthought might exist anyway.” But notice that the final phrase “the unthought might exist anyway” is fruitless for this purpose. For we have already heard that to think any unthought turns it into a thought. But now the strong correlationist wants to do two incompatible things simultaneously with this unthought. On the one hand, he neutralizes the unthought by showing that it instantly changes into just another thought. But on the other hand, he wants to appeal to the unthought as a haunting residue that might exist outside thought, thereby undercutting the absolute status of the human-world correlate found in idealism. But this is impossible. If you accept the argument that thinking the unthought turns it into a thought, you cannot also add “but maybe there is something outside that prevents this conversion from being absolutely true,” because this “something outside” is immediately converted into nothing but a thought for us. In short, Meillassoux here seems to be offering a kind of Zen koan: his “strong correlationism” is reminiscent of the gateless gate, or the sound of one hand clapping, or the command to punch Hegel in the jaw when meeting him on the road. We cannot at the same time both destroy the realist challenge of the things-in-themselves in order to undercut realism and reintroduce that very realist sense in order to undercut idealism. In a world where everything is instantly converted into thought, we cannot claim that there might be something extra-mental anyway, because this “might be something” is itself converted into a thought by the same rules that condemned dogs, trees, and houses to the idealist prison. This brings us to the third pillar of Meillassoux’s argument, which is the key to all the rest: the necessity of contingency. His strategy is to transform our supposed ignorance of things-in-themselves into an absolute knowledge that they exist without reason, and that the laws of nature can change at any time for no reason at all. In this way the cautious agnosticism of Kantian philosophies is avoided, but so is the collapse of reality into thought as found in German Idealism. Meillassoux does try to prove the existence of things-in-themselves existing outside thought; he simply holds that they must be proven after passing through the rigors of the correlationist challenge, not just arbitrarily decreed to exist in the manner of naïve realism. As he puts it, “Everything could actually collapse: from trees to stars, from stars to laws, from physical laws to logical laws; and this not by virtue of some superior law whereby everything is destined to perish, but by virtue of the absence of any superior law capable of preserving anything, no matter what, from perishing” (53). If idealism thinks that the human-world correlate is absolute, for Meillassoux it is the facticity of the correlate that is absolute. He tries to show this with a nice brief dialogue between five separate characters (55-59) which is covered in detail in my forthcoming book,2 but which I will simplify here for reasons of time. In this simplified version, we first imagine a dogmatic realist arguing with a dogmatic idealist. The realist says that we can know the truth about the things-in-themselves; the idealist counters that we can only the truth about thought, since all statements about reality must be turned into statements concerning our thoughts about reality. Here the correlationist enters and proclaims that both of these positions are equally dogmatic. For although we have access to nothing but thoughts, we cannot be sure that these thoughts are all that exist; there could be a reality outside thought, there is simply no way to know for sure. And this latter position is the one that Meillassoux attempts to transform from an agnostic, skeptical point into an ontological claim about the contingency of everything. Consider it this way. How does the correlationist defeat the idealist? The idealist holds that the existence of anything outside thought is impossible. The correlationist, by contrast, holds that something might exist outside the human-world correlate. But this “something might” has to be an absolute possibility. It cannot mean that “something outside thought might exist for thought ,” because that is what the idealist already says. No, the correlationist must mean that something might exist outside thought quite independently of thought. In other words, the correlationist says that idealism might be wrong, and this means it is absolutely true that idealism might be wrong. Thus, correlationism is no longer just a skeptical position. It holds that all the possibilities of the world are absolute possibilities. We have absolute knowledge that any of the possibilities about the existence or non-existence of things-in-themselves might be true, and this means that correlationism flips into Meillassoux’s own position: speculative materialism. As Meillassoux sees it, there are only two options here. Option A is to absolutize the human-world correlate, which is what the idealist does: there absolutely cannot be anything outside thought. Option B, by contrast, is to absolutize the facticity of the correlate: its character of simply being given to us, without any inherent necessity. The correlationist cannot have it both ways by saying: “there absolutely might be something outside thought, yet maybe this is absolutely impossible.” In other words, once we escape dogmatism we can only be idealists or speculative materialists, not correlationists. The human-world correlate is merely a fact, not an absolute necessity. But this facticity itself cannot be merely factical: it must be absolute. Here Meillassoux coins the French neologism factualité , which has been suitably translated into the English neologism “factiality.” (7, 122-3) Factialty means that for everything that exists, it is absolutely possible that it might be otherwise, not just that we cannot know whether or not it might be otherwise. Just as Kant transformed philosophy into a meditation on the categories governing human finitude, Meillassoux wishes to turn philosophy into a meditation on the necessary conditions of factiality, which he calls “figures”—a new technical term for him. (80) One such figure is that the law of non-contradiction must be true, and for an unusual reason. Since everything is proven to be contingent, nothing that exists can be contradictory, for whatever is contradictory has no opposite into which it might be transformed, and thus contingency would be impossible.3 Another such figure is that there must be something rather than nothing: for since contingency exists, something must exist in order to be contingent. It is a daring high-wire act, one that sacrifices realism to the correlational circle in order to rebuild it from out of its own ashes. Some might conclude that the lack of reason in things is a byproduct of the ignorance of finite humans, Meillassoux is making precisely the opposite point. For in fact, the doctrine of finitude usually leads directly to belief in a hidden reason. The fact that it lies beyond human comprehension merely increases our belief in this arbitrarily chosen concealed ground. By defending anew the concept of absolute knowledge Meillassoux evacuates the world of everything hidden. The reason for things having no reason is not that the reason is hidden, but that no reason exists. Thus, even while insisting on the necessity of non-contradiction, he rejects the other Leibnizian principle: sufficient reason. Everything simply is what it is, in purely immanent form, without deeply hidden causes. Or as Meillassoux puts it: “There is nothing beneath or beyond the manifest gratuitousness of the given—nothing but the limitless and lawless power of its destruction, emergence, or persistence” (63).The world is a “hyper-chaos”(64). But this is not the same thing as flux. For the chaos of the world is such that stability might occur just as easily as constant, turbulent change. Let’s now digress a bit, and return to the question of ancestrality, which Meillassoux transforms later in the book into “dia-chronicity.” Correlationism holds that all talk of a world outside the correlate is immediately recuperated by the correlate. The phrase “13.5 billion years ago” becomes “13.5 billion years ago for us ,” and the phrase “the universe following the extinction of humans” becomes “the universe following the extinction of humans for humans .” But notice that whether we talk about the world before or after humans, in both cases it is time that is used to challenge the correlate. Meillassoux has no interest in challenges that might be posed by space. For example, what about a vase in a lonely country house that topples to the floor and smashes when no one is there to watch it? Isn’t this also a challenge to correlationism, no less than the Big Bang or the heat death of the universe long after humans have vanished? In an eight-page supplement to the English translation of After Finitude ,4 possibly in response to my own 2007 review of the French original,5 Meillassoux bluntly denies that space is of any relevance to the question. Spatial distance is a merely harmless challenge to the human-world correlate. After all, even though no one is there in the lonely country house to witness the shattering of the vase, we can say that had there been an observer , that observer would have witnessed the toppling and destruction of the vase. For this event still occurs in a world in which the human-world correlate already exists, whereas the diachronicity of events both before and after the existence of humans makes it impossible to say that had there been an observer they would have witnessed the Big Bang occurring in such and such a fashion. However, it seems to me that Meillassoux merely asserts that the temporal simultaneity of our existence with that of the vase in the lonely country house is enough to render it harmless. It is true that the house does not exist prior to the correlate, but nonetheless it exists outside the correlate, and that is enough to make the same challenge. It is difficult to see why the “had there been an observer” maneuver succeeds in the case of a vase in the countryside in April 2011 but fails in the case of the Big Bang. This is not just a matter of nitpicking Meillassoux’s argumentative style: the fact that he bases his argument on time has at least two important consequences for his position. For in the first place, even though Meillassoux insists that the laws of nature are absolutely contingent, this turns out to be true only in a temporal sense. That is to say, it is a paradoxical feature of Meillassoux’s philosophy that he does allow for the existence of laws of nature, and simply believes that they can change at any moment without reason. Within any given moment, laws of nature do exist. He never suggests that different parts of the universe can have different laws at the same time, nor does he have any interest in the laws of part/whole composition that take place within any given instant. Could it be the case that rather than being made of gold atoms, a small chunk of gold could be made of silver atoms, cotton, horses, or that this same small piece of gold could be made of gigantic vaults filled with even more gold? These are not topics that draw Meillassoux’s attention, since he is focused solely on how the laws of nature might change or endure from one moment to the next . Another implication for Meillassoux’s system is that his concept of things-in-themselves turns out to be to be inadequate. For when he proves that things-in-themselves can exist without humans, this turns out to be true only in a temporal sense as well. Namely, things-in-themselves existed ten billion years ago, and they will continue to exist after all humans have succeeded in exterminating themselves. However, being able to exist before our births and after our deaths is just one small part of what it means to be a thing-in-itself. The more important part is that even if a thing is sitting on a table right now, in front of me, even if I stroke it lovingly or press my face up against it directly, I am still dealing only with a phenomenal version of the thing; the thing-in-itself continues to withdraw from all access. Yet no such thing is acknowledged by Meillassoux. For him finitude is a disaster, and absolute knowledge is in fact possible. Meillassoux’s thing-in-itself exists in independence only of the human lifespan , not of human knowledge. The fifth pillar of Meillassoux’s argument is his use of Cantor’s transfinite mathematics to show that even if the laws of nature are contingent, they need not be unstable, and thus we cannot use the apparent stability of nature to disprove his metaphysics of absolute contingency. What Cantor showed is that there are different sizes of infinity, and that all these infinities cannot be totalized in a single infinite number of infinities. Meillassoux sees this as crucial, since it allows him to discredit any “probabilistic” argument against his theory. The probabilistic argument (as defended quite clearly by Jean-René Vernes)6 would say this: given that the laws of nature seem so stable, it it is extremely improbable that there is no hidden reason for their remaining so stable. As Meillassoux sees it, probability is of value only when we can index an accessible total of cases. These can even be infinite: for example, there are an infinite number of points where a rope can break when stretched tight, but this does not stop us from calculating probabilities for various sections of the rope to break. By contrast, there is no way to sum up the number of possible laws of nature. For here there is no way to totalize; we cannot stand outside of nature and calculate the possible number of laws so as to determine the probabilities that any one of them might change. Therefore, although we can speak of probability when dealing with intraworldly events such as elections, horse races, and coin-flips, we cannot use the words “probable” or “improbable” when describing alterations at the level of nature as a whole. Rather than commenting on the validity of this argument and its use of Cantor, let me simply note that it once again creates a dualistic ontology. We already saw that Meillassoux treats time differently from space. In analogous fashion, he now treats the level of world differently from that of intraworldly events. The emergence of worlds is purely contingent and virtual and governed by no probability at all, while events within the world necessarily follow laws (even if these laws can change at any moment without reason), and thus their probabilities can be calculated. It is a strategy deeply reminiscent of Badiou’s (2005) own dualism between the normal “state of the situation” and the rare and intermittent “event.” The sixth and final pillar of Meillassoux’s book can be dealt with briefly, since we have already touched on it elsewhere. It comes at the very beginning of the book, when Meillassoux says that we must revive the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, and that the primary qualities are the ones that can be mathematized. He admits that he has not yet published a proof of this idea, though in fact it is already known as one of his primary doctrines. And here we encounter the familiar problem with Meillassoux’s inadequate conception of things-in-themselves. “Primary qualities” refers to those qualities that a thing has independently of its relations with us or anything else. But if the primary qualities can be mathematized, this means that they are not entirely independent of us, since our knowledge can get right to the bottom of them. The mathematized qualities of things are independent of us only in Meillassoux’s sense that they will still have those qualities even when all humans are dead. But to repeat, autonomy from the human lifespan is not the same as autonomy from human access. Here once more Meillassoux is concerned only with independence from the human-world correlate across time, not in any given instant. 2. L’Inexistence divine In 1997, the same year in which he turned thirty years old, Meillassoux earned his doctorate at the École normale supériuere with a brazen dissertation entitled L’Inexistence divine ( The Divine Inexistence ). The work was substantially revised in 2003. But even then, with typical fastidiousness, Meillassoux decided that the work was not yet ready for press. It has now been scrapped in favor of some future, multi-volume work bearing the same title. While writing my book on Meillassoux for Edinburgh University Press, I was permitted to translate excerpts from this unpublished work for use as an appendix in my own book; in total, the appendix contains approximately twenty percent of Meillassoux’s 2003 manuscript, the first time any of it will be published in any language. Nonetheless, a portion of the argument was already tested in the article “Spectral Dilemma,” published in English in the journal Collapse (2008: 261-75). There the philosophical motives for the virtual God are already made clear. What troubles us most are early deaths, brutal deaths, deaths of especial injustice– the sorts of deaths in which the brutal twentieth century was so abundant. And here, neither the atheist nor the believer can help us. The atheist can offer nothing but a sad and cynical resignation when reflecting on the victims of these terrible crimes. The believer does little better, being unable to explain how God could have allowed such things to happen, due to the famous intractability of the problem of evil. The solution offered to this dilemma by Meillassoux is bold, and all the more so given that he emerges from such a deeply Leftist, materialist, and unreligious background. His solution is that God does not yet exist, and therefore is not blameworthy for these catastrophes. Given that everything is contingent in Meillassoux’s philosophy, this God and divine justice might never exist, but they can at least exist as an object of hope. Let’s begin by jumping to the end of L’Inexistence divine , where the alternatives are laid out so nicely. There are four basic attitudes that humans can have towards God, Meillassoux says. First, we can believe in God because he exists. This is the classical theist attitude, rejected for the simple reason that it would be amoral and blasphemous to believe in a God who allows children to be eaten by dogs, to use Dostoevsky’s example. Second, we can disbelieve in God because he does not exist: the classical atheist attitude. But this leads to sadness, cynicism, and a sneering contempt for the greatness of human capacity. The third option, rather more complex, is to disbelieve in God because he does exist: in other words, to exist in rebellion against God as the one who must be blamed for the evils of the earth. The examples here might range from Lucifer himself, to the more human figure of Captain Ahab in Melville’s Moby-Dick , to Werner Herzog’s even more recent catchphrase, “Every man for himself, and God against all.” That leaves only the fourth option: believing in God because he does not exist. Meillassoux closes his book by saying that the fourth option has now been tried (namely, in the course of his own book), and that now that all four have been specified, we must choose. The first reaction to this theory of the inexistent God will be laughter. Few readers will ever be literally convinced by it, and probably none will immediately be convinced by it. But if we ask ourselves why we laugh, the answer is because it sounds so improbable that an inexistent God might suddenly emerge and resurrect the dead. It obviously sounds more like a gullible theology than a rigorous piece of philosophical work. Yet two things need to be kept in mind. First, Meillassoux’s theories are hardly more unlikely than those of great philosophers of the past such as Plato, Plotinus, Avicenna, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz, Nietzsche, or Whitehead. We read the great philosophers not because their systems are plausible in commonsense terms that can be measured by the laws of probability. Instead, we read them precisely because they shatter the existing framework of common sense and open up new window on the universe. Second, and even more importantly, Meillassoux has already rejected probability as a valid measuring stick in philosophy. Or rather, he accepts probability in the intra-worldly realm (where it is linked with potentiality), and rejects it at the level of the world itself (where potentiality is replaced with what he calls virtuality). The virtual God can appear at any moment for no reason at all, just as any other new configuration of laws of nature can appear: in a manner that the laws of probability cannot calculate. Responding to those who might ridicule the idea of a sudden emergence of God and a resurrection of the dead, Meillassoux cites Pascal, who asserts that the resurrection of the dead would be far less incredible than the fact that we were born in the first place. This shifts philosophy onto new ground. Rather than concerning ourselves with what is likely to happen in the world as we know it, we focus instead on the most important things that could happen. For this reason, the expected objection that a virtual God is no more likely to appear than a virtual unicorn or a virtual flying spaghetti monster misses the point. Unicorns and spaghetti monsters could also appear, just like any other non-contradictory thing. But these would just be novel bizarre entities among others, not the heralds of completely new worlds. For Meillassoux, the emergence of matter, life, and thought have been the three truly amazing advents of the world so far, each of them dependent on the advent(s) preceding them. As he sees it, there can be no greater intraworldly entity than the human beings who already exist, since nothing in the world is better than the absolute knowledge of which humans alone are capable. This means that the next great advent must be something that perfects human beings rather than superseding them. And this can only be the world of justice, in which the dead are resurrected and their horrible deaths partially cancelled (Meillassoux never considers the possibility of a God who would literally erase the pre-divine past so that it never happened at all). The only immortality worth having is an immortality of this life, not an existence in some ill-defined afterworld. Human existence, he holds, must always be governed by a “symbol” that gives us the “immanent and comprehensible inscription of values in a world.” And just as cosmic history made the three great contingent leaps of matter, life, and thought, with a leap to justice as the only one still to come, a similar structure occurs within human culture and its symbols, which consist so far of the cosmological, naturalistic, and historical symbols, with a “factial” symbol still to come. We can review each of these symbols briefly. The cosmological symbol refers to the ancient dualism between the terrestrial and celestial spheres. Here below everything is conflict, corruption, and decay; but in the heavens nothing is perishable, all movement is circular, and everything is arranged in mutual harmony. This symbol is ended by modern physics when Galileo discovers such blemishes as sunspots and craters on the moon, and when Newton integrates both celestial and terrestrial movement into a single gravitational law. Next comes the naturalistic or romantic symbol, in which perfection comes not from the sky but from nature itself. The world is filled with pretty flowers (Meillassoux claims that the ancients never discussed the beauty of flowers until Plotinus in the third century) and with living creatures naturally moved by pity, at least until society corrupts them. This symbol collapses in the face of reality as we know it, since pity is no more common than war, corruption, and violence. This brings us to the historical symbol, which only now is passing away. Bad things may happen, but history has an inner logic of its own, such that everything works out in the end. The ultimate form of the historical symbol is the economic symbol, whether in a Marxist or neo-liberal form. Just as the Marxist holds that the inner economic logic of the capitalists will inexorably lead them to self-destruction, the neo-liberal assumes that the sum total of individual selfish actions will lead, in the long run, to the greatest possible good. We worship the economy and let it guide history for us, just as the ancients worshipped celestial bodies and held them to be free from blemish. The final remaining symbol is the factial symbol, which Meillassoux hopes will now emerge. Factiality, we recall, is his term for the absolute contingency of everything that exists. Once we have grasped this absolute contingency, we are free to expect the dramatic advent of the coming fourth World: the world of justice, inaugurated by a virtual God and even mediated by a messianic human figure. There is the added feature, however, that this messiah must abandon all claims to special status once the messianic realm of justice is achieved. The messianic figure will then be no more special than any person on the street, since a reign of human equality will have arisen. Although this focus on human being might seem like a return to standard humanism, Meillassoux holds that human pre-eminence has never truly been maintained. Previously, humans have been treated as special only because they contemplate the Good, because they resemble their omnipotent creator, or because they happen to be the temporary victors in a cruel Darwinian death-match between millions of living species. For Meillassoux, by contrast, humans have value because they know the eternal. But it is not the eternal that is important, since this merely represents the blind, anonymous contingency of each thing. What is important is not knowledge of the eternal , but knowledge of the eternal. We should not admire Prometheus for stealing fire from the gods; Prometheus is simply as bad as all the gods, no matter how much he increased our power. Feuerbach and Marx were wrong to say that God is a projection of the human essence, since for Meillassoux the usual concept of God represents the degradation of the human essence. If the traditional God was allowed to inflict plagues and tsunamis on the human race, the Promethean human of the twentieth century simply assumes the right to inflict death camps and atomic fireballs instead. In this respect, we have simply begun to imitate the degradation of humanity that was formerly invested in an omnipotent and arbitrary God. In response to charges that absolute contingency might lead to political quietism, Meillassoux counters that the World of justice would mean nothing unless we had already hoped for it beforehand. A World of justice that came along at random would merely be an improved third World of thought: indeed, a perfect one. But it would have satisfied no craving, and would therefore have no redemptive power. For this reason, we must actively hope for the fourth World of justice for such a fourth World ever to arise. Not only justice, but beauty is dependent on such hope: for Meillassoux, who is here somewhat dependent on Kant, beauty means an accord between our human symbolization and the actual world, which could never be present in a World of the blessed any more than justice could. And just as a messianic figure is needed to incarnate our hope and then abandon power once the World of justice is realized, it is the figure of the child whose fragile contingency shows us a dignity and a demand for justice beyond all power. 3. Meillassoux Radicalized or Reversed Given the promising reception of Meillassoux’s first book, it would not be groundless to engage in early speculation about what it might take to earn him a place in the history of philosophy. Maybe this will never happen—who knows?—but quite possibly it will: his lucid argumentative methods and sheer philosophical imagination at least make him a good candidate to be read well into the future, especially following further elaboration in print of his mature system. Philosophy is often practiced as thought it were nothing more than the amassing of “knockdown arguments.” But this is no more insightful than saying that good architecture is the amassing of steal beams. It is true that poorly constructed building cannot stand for long, but sound construction is merely the first, indispensable step in building. In fact, I am inclined to say that what really makes a philosopher important is not being right, but being wrong . I mean this in a very specific sense. I once heard the interesting remark about twentieth century culture that “you have to remember that the sixties really happened in the seventies.” That is to say, it was in the 1970’s rather than the more honored 1960’s that civil rights, free love, long hair, and the rock and roll drug culture really took root. With respect to the history of philosophy, we might just as easily say: “you have to remember that Plato really happened in Aristotle,” that “Kant really happened in Hegel” or “Hume really happened in Kant,” or that “Husserl’s phenomenology first achieved its truth in Heidegger.” One becomes an important philosopher not by being right, but by attracting rebellious admirers who tell you that you are wrong , even as their own careers silently orbit around your own. To recruit faithful disciples may be comforting and flattering, but the greatest thinkers have generally had to experience refutation at the hands of their most talented heirs. For this reason, I would propose that we size up the magnitude of living thinkers not by deciding how many times they are right and wrong, but by asking instead: who would take the trouble to refute this author? For this reason I do not ask: “Is Meillassoux right?”, since I do not believe in the virtual God myself, nor am I convinced by any important aspect of Meillassoux’s philosophy. Instead, I ask if there are interesting ways to overturn him. Only by being overturned, by no longer remaining a contemporary, does one become a classic. Let’s begin with a simple model of refutation, which can be refined further at a later date once the basic point is established. One kind of refutation simply consists in saying: “This author is a complete idiot.” The refuter now walks away in celebration, and no link between the present and the future is built; all is reduced to rubble. But this sort of mediocre triumphalism is generally practiced by those who achieve little of their own, and is not especially interesting. Much more interesting is the sort of refutation that does not take its target to be a complete idiot. I would like to suggest that there are just two basic ways in which this can be done: radicalization and reversal . It has not escaped my notice that this is a fairly good match for the Deleuzian distinction between irony and humor. Whereas irony critiques and adopts the opposite principle of what it attacks, humor accepts what it confronts but pushes it into highly exaggerated form. The ironist is like the worker who sows chaos by rebeling and contradicting the boss, while the humorist is like the worker who follows orders to an absurdly literal degree, with equally chaotic results. Let’s start with a few examples. In Aristotle’s treatment of Plato, and Heidegger’s of Husserl, we find reversal. Plato’s eidei are transformed by Aristotle into mere secondary substances, and the individual worldly things despised by Plato become what is primary. For Husserl what is primary is whatever is present to consciousness, while for Heidegger this is precisely what is secondary, since the primary stuff of the world withdraws from any form of presence at all. As for radicalization, it is most easily found in the transformation of Kant by German Idealism: “Kant was right to wall off the things-in-themselves from human access, and simply should have realized that the thought of the Ding an sich is also a thought, and thereby the noumena are just special cases of the phenomena,” with much following from this discovery. It would also be easy to read Spinoza as a radicalizer of Descartes, and Berkeley and Hume as radicalized versions of Locke. Perhaps the distinction is now sufficiently clear. Admiring refutations are not those that say “Professor X is an idiot,” which is merely the flip side of the eager disciple’s fruitless “Professor X got everything right.” Instead, it will be some variant of one of the following two options: “Professor X is important, but got it backwards,” or “Professor X is important, but didn’t push things far enough.” In the history of philosophy these two latter cases have often been painful in purely human terms: Aristotle expresses sadness at refuting Plato, Kant is openly annoyed at Fichte, and Husserl feels betrayed and used by Heidegger. Rude handling from later figures almost seems to be the sine qua non of being a great philosopher. Now, it has already been claimed that Meillassoux is an emerging philosopher of the first importance, and by no less a figure than Alain Badiou: “It would be no exaggeration to say that Quentin Meillassoux has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy…” (Preface, vii). But rather than taking Badiou’s word for it, or rejecting his word, we might experiment by asking how Meillassoux could be radicalized or reversed. Are there interesting ways of doing this that might launch whole new schools of philosophy, unexpected or even condemned by Meillassoux himself? While no one can see the future, the present is poor when it is not riddled with virtual futures. The relation between philosophers and their predecessors and successors is always somewhat complicated, of course. But generally there is one central divergence at stake, which might be taken as the key to all the others. On this basis we could say that new thinkers primarily radicalize or primarily reverse the main ideas of their chief philosophical forerunner. There may be specific historical conditions and perhaps even personality traits connected with these two types, but this question can be left aside for now. More important for us is that radicalizers will generally be followed by reversers, and vice versa. Consider the textbook example of a reversal in the history of philosophy: Kant’s Copernican Revolution, which inverts the so-called dogmatic tradition that addresses the world itself, and makes the world revolve instead around the conditions by which it is known. While it is not completely impossible that Kant’s successors might have re-reversed this principle back into a new and stronger dogmatic realism, conditions were premature for such a move. Anyone doing this too early would likely have been an angry anti-Kantian reactionary rather than an original thinker in command of a genuinely new realist principle. The far more likely outcome is the one that actually happened: Kant’s reversal of his predecessors was viewed as incomplete, or as retaining lamentable bits of the traditional view, which despite his admirable breakthrough he was unable to shake off. This was the view of German Idealism, anyway. In similar fashion, Spinoza could also be viewed as a radicalizer of Descartes, who is equally accused of preserving various Scholastic dogmas in an otherwise radical project of philosophical reversal. The point is this: reversals in the history of thought tend to be followed soon thereafter by radicalizations of those reversals. The same may hold true in reverse: radicalizations might generally be followed by reversals, given that it is not always possible to be more radical than the radicals have already been. Consider the case of Husserl, who radicalizes Brentano’s early vagueness about what lies beyond immanent objectivity, and Twardowski’s assertion that there must be an external object lying outside the intentional content, by collapsing everything into the intentional sphere: there is no difference between the Berlin in my consciousness and the actual Berlin that is home to millions of people. It is difficult to see how one could be even more radical than Husserl’s idealist turn here. And thus the road is paved to Heidegger’s reversal of classical phenomenology, in which the key point is what lies deeper than any presence to consciousness: the Sein whose power and obscurity cannot be made exhaustively present, but only sends itself in historical epochs. In similar fashion we might also read Leibniz as a reverser of Spinoza’s radicalization, retrieving a strong sense of individual substance and a certain validity of what the Scholastics had said. Returning to Meillassoux, we might ask which kind of philosopher he is: a radicalizer or a reverser? At present, Meillassoux looks to me like a radicalizer (though for now his future remains shrouded in mist). He takes the correlationist tradition, which allows us to speak only of the relation between human and world, and tries to raise it into an even more extreme claim about the absolute contingency of everything. But whereas German Idealism did this by trying to collapse the distinction between thought and world entirely into the “thought” side, Meillassoux does it by trying to shift the non-absolute contingency of the thought-world correlate from epistemology to ontology. It is no longer a question of the inability of human knowledge to know what lies outside the correlate, but the inability of reality itself to be rooted in any definite laws. Furthermore, if we look at the various features of Meillassoux’s philosophy identified earlier tonight, all but one are already so radical that there is no obvious way to push them further. The one exception would be his claim that the world as a whole can change for no reason at any moment, coupled with the inconsistent claim that within a given world there are laws of nature that everything must follow. If gravitational attraction between all masses is a current law in our world, then for Meillassoux there can be no exceptions to this law for as long as it remains in force. A toppled vase will fall to the floor every time for sure,unless there is a cosmic change by which the laws of nature as a whole have altered. (This is reminiscent of the late medieval distinction between the absolute and ordained power of God, according to which God has the power to set or change the laws of nature, but not to contravene those laws locally once they are set.) On this point, to radicalize Meillassoux would simply be to say: there are no laws of nature even in the local sense. Everything that happens, even in the world here and now, is purely contingent and not governed by even a trace of law. And while this would be a more consistent development of Meillassoux’s thoughts on contingency, it is difficult to see how it could lead to a new philosophy. Instead, the admiring successors of Meillassoux are more likely to reverse one of his already sufficiently radical points. At least four candidates come to mind: *First, we have seen that Meillassoux thinks correlationism is challenged by a time before or after consciousness, but not by a space lying outside it. Perhaps this could be reversed into saying that spatial exteriority is the really crucial point. The arguments on this point are perhaps the least convincing in After Finitude (and do not even occur in the original French edition), and therefore it might be a candidate for the “blind spot” of which no philosopher is ever free. *Second, Meillassoux uses Cantor to claim that the contingency of laws of nature would not entail that they are unstable. A successor of Meillassoux might claim that it does make them unstable, and celebrate this fact. This person would then have to explain why common sense seems to encounter a relatively stable world despite its truly rampant instability. Whereas Meillassoux’s problem is to show how stability might exist despite contingency, this successor’s problem would be slightly different: to show why actual, full-blown instability might have the appearance of stability. *Third, Meillassoux claims that the primary qualities of things are those that can be mathematized. He might be reversed by a successor who says the opposite: the mathematizable qualities are the secondary ones, and the primary ones are those that elude symbolic formulation. While this is a perfectly valid possible objection to Meillassoux, it is one that is made in advance by some of his predecessors and is still made by some of his peers, making it less interesting for futurology than some of his other points. *Fourth and finally, whereas Meillassoux claims that God does not exist but might exist in the future, a successor might argue even more bizarrely that God has always existed but might vanish in the future. Let’s arbitrarily select the first of these possibilities, and imagine briefly where it might lead, if pursued in the future by admiring detractors. Meillassoux comes from the circle of Badiou, and some of Badiou’s most ardent admirers are found in Latin America. So, let’s imagine that towards mid-century some ingenious reversers of Meillassoux emerge in that portion of the Spanish-speaking world. Just for fun, let’s call them Castro and Chávez. And in order to avoid any confusion with the present-day politicians of those names, we will stipulate that Meillassoux’s great successors are both women. The philosopher Castro (we will suppose she comes from Peru) reverses Meillassoux’s argument that the ancestral or diachronic are what most threaten the human-world correlate. Instead, she claims that the diachronic does not threaten the correlate at all, and that we must instead look at space as what ruins the correlate and demands a strange new realism. What would such a philosophy look like? In order to determine this, we might ask what price Meillassoux pays for doing it the opposite way. As I see it, he pays in two separate ways. One is that laws of nature for him are contingent over time . The laws of nature apply to the universe as a whole at any given moment, and would be changed globally if they are ever changed at all. The second price he pays is that Meillassoux has no mereology , or theory of parts and wholes. Everything for him is on the level of the given, or immanent in experience, with the sole proviso that the laws governing this immanence might change without notice at any given moment. In reversing Meillassoux, Castro makes the following claims in the preface to her stunning debut book of 2045, The Cosmos and its Neighborhoods , rapidly translated from Spanish into all the languages of the world: Despite his brilliant analysis of the contingency of laws of nature over time, Meillassoux gets two important assumptions wrong. First, he allows for only one set of contingent laws to govern nature as a whole. Second, he allows laws to govern only the world that is immanent in experience, and thereby fails to explore the contingency among part-whole relations. In this book I will argue, first, that the laws of nature vary in any given instant between one region of the universe and the next; and second, that the world is made up of layers of parts and wholes that are also contingent with respect to one another. Those are the words of Castro. This may sound like a hopeless free-for-all of chaos, yet the book somehow succeeds in drawing some compelling deductions about how laws must vary from one place or level in the world to the next. Trapped in the limited horizon of 2011, and not yet inspired by the heavily balkanized political and technological situation of 2050 that somehow lends additional credence to Castro’s vision, we can only vaguely grasp what such a philosophy might look like. After this reversal of Meillassoux by Castro, the usual pattern leads us to expect a radicalization by Chávez, a young Argentine student of Castro. How could the already strange theories of Castro be radicalized? Perhaps as follows, in a disturbing new book entitled The Implosion of the Neighborhoods , which argues as follows: Castro was right to shift the Meillassouxian framework of contingency from time to space. However, in this respect she retained a surprisingly traditional opposition between the two. In this book I will show that time and space collapse into one another. This may sound too much like the discredited four-dimensional block universe of twentieth century physics and philosophy. However, the four-dimensional universe is a model biased in favor of space, merely adding an extra dimension to the commonsense spatial continuum while stipulating that the serial passage of time is an illusion. In this book I will argue instead for a one-dimensional space-time modeled after our experience of time, in which there is no simultaneous co-existence at all between different parts of the universe, or ‘neighborhoods’ as my esteemed teacher Castro has called them. Instead, the various portions of the universe link to one another by succession rather than by coexistence. Buenos Aires, New York, and Amsterdam do not exist simultaneously in the same landscape, but one after the other in the mind of some observer, and this observer can only be an observer much larger than any human. Against Meillassoux’s notion of a virtual God that does not exist now but might exist in the future, I will argue for an actual God that surveys the universe in sequence, thereby generating the illusion of spatial diversity and even the illusion of individual minds located within that diversity. Once this divine observer dies, the universe as a whole must perish. Again, these ideas are so bizarre that we of 2011 can barely comprehend them, just as Aristotle would have had a difficult time grasping the theories of Descartes. We could then perhaps imagine a further reversal of this theory, emanating from the intellectually resurgent Philippines of the twenty-second century. The Filipino School might argue that the universe is already dead, given the collapse of its spatial richness into the serial observations of a flimsy and mortal God. The virtual universe does not yet exist, but might exist in fully spatial form in the future, and this would require the death of God and the resulting liberation of God’s succession of images as independent, spatially situated realities. With a bit of sharpening, we might be able to make all of these imaginary thinkers more intuitively clear. Along with the history of philosophy, there might arise a new discipline generating imaginary futures for philosophy. The richness of Meillassoux’s system comes not from the fact that he is plausibly right about so many things, but because his philosophy offers such a treasury of bold statements ripe for being radicalized or reversed. He is a rich target for many still-unborn intellectual heirs, and this is what gives him the chance to be an important figure. NOTES 1. Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude . Trans. R Brassier. (London: Continuum, 2008.) Page 5. The word “correlationism” does not appear in his doctoral thesis. As Meillassoux informed me in an email of February 8, 2011, he first coined this term in 2003 or 2004, while editing for publication a lecture he had given at the École normale supérieure on a day devoted to the theme of “Philosophy and Mathematics,” an event including Alain Badiou as one of the participants. 2. Graham Harman, Quentin Meillassoux: Philosophy in the Making . (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming 2011). 3. In an email of December 6, 2010, Meillassoux clarifies that in After Finitude he only deduces the impossibility of a “universal contradiction,” not of a determinate contradiction. In the same email he suggests that he can also prove the latter, though the proof is somewhat lengthier than the one found in After Finitude . 4. After Finitude (18-26), in the passage falling between the two sets of triple asterisks. These pages were sent by Meillassoux to translator Ray Brassier (in French) during the translation process, and do not appear in the original French version of the book. 5. Graham Harman, “Quentin Meillassoux: A New French Philosopher.” Philosophy Today 51.1 (2007): Pages 104-117. The passage where I raise the question of space can be found in the first column of page 107. 6. Vernes is first cited on p. 95 of After Finitude . See Jean-René Vernes, Critique de la raison aléatoire, ou Descartes contra Kant . (Paris: Aubier, 1982).  . (shrink)

This passage from Irenaeus’ Letter to Florinus offers sufficient material for reflection on the patristic function within dogmatic theology, provided that we understand both Polycarp in the role of a Church Father standing in direct contact with the apostolic kerygma, and, at times, Irenaeus as a theologian reflecting on faith. We begin with the apostolic kerygma which Policarp first hears, learns and sets down clearly, then later recalls and transmits in harmony with faith and scripture. Irenaeus, for his part, carries (...) out the role of theologian to the extent to which he listens to what was handed on attentively, commits it to memory, reflects upon it and then witnesses to it, moved by the grace of God. The language utilized by Irenaeus reveals reminiscences of the Platonic tradition, apropos of the function of memory and scripture and of the Philonian tradition, apropos of the theological content of the biblical term to ruminate. The analysis undertaken offers a ground upon which to think about new relationships between dogmatic and patristic theologies, a question that can be developed in a later article. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nihilistic Cosmology and Catonian Ethics in Lucan’s Bellum CivileR. Sklenár*For many years, a powerful communis opinio dominated the scholarly literature on Lucan: that the poet is not merely influenced by Stoicism but is himself a committed Stoic, who expounds his doctrines both in his own voice and in the speeches of Cato. 1 The obvious difficulty with this argument is that Cato’s Stoic ideal defies reconciliation with some of (...) the most powerful and characteristic utterances of Lucan’s authorial voice. A more recent line of interpretation, typified by W. R. Johnson (1987), John Henderson (1988), and Jamie Masters (1992), 2 has rejected the putatively Stoic Lucan in favor of a dark, sinister, at times grimly parodic poet who both describes and exemplifies a view of the cosmos as chaotic, fragmentary, and ultimately meaningless. Under this reading, which has gained currency mostly since the mid-1980s, 3 Lucan’s Cato becomes a nasty caricature both of the Stoic sage and of the traditional Roman vir bonus. 4 While this satirical interpretation of Lucan’s Cato represents a significant improvement over the orthodoxy which it has displaced, it still does not adequately account for the systematic opposition between Cato’s Stoic ideal and the universe in which he attempts to practice it, or for the painful futility of his attempt to make sense of a world where senselessness is sovereign.The Stoic morality according to which Cato regulates his life presupposes a Stoic cosmos, both governed by and part of a divine logos. This cosmos is reason and order, all its processes part of a divine plan. 5 Since the task of human beings is to understand this plan and [End Page 281] consciously to conform their actions to it, the highest ethical plane is reached when human reason, brought to perfection, governs all aspects of a person’s behavior, for it brings that person into harmony with the rationally ordered cosmos. In other words, the height of wisdom and the height of goodness are one and the same (Long and Sedley 1987, I 374). But Lucan deposits Cato into a universe devoid of reason, “one wholly without purpose or meaning” (Johnson 1987, 10), marked by “the blatant absence of any design” (8)—in short, a nihilistic universe, 6 where the cosmological prerequisites for Catonian ethics necessarily fail. Cato’s pursuit of the Stoic ideal is in a literal sense doomed from the start, as Lucan assigns a prominent section of the Bellum Civile’s long proem to an exposition of his anti-rational cosmology:Fert animus causas tantarum expromere rerum, immensumque aperitur opus, quid in arma furentem impulerit populum, quid pacem excusserit orbi. invida fatorum series summisque negatum stare diu nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus nec se Roma ferens. sic, cum compage soluta saecula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora antiquum repetens iterum chaos, [omnia mixtis sidera sideribus concurrent,] 7 ignea pontum astra petent, tellus extendere litora nolet excutietque fretum, fratri contraria Phoebe ibit et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem indignata diem poscet sibi, totaque discors machina divulsi turbabit foedera mundi.(1.67–80)As many commentators have noted, the imagery of this passage is strongly reminiscent of the Stoic theory of ekpyrosis, 8 in which the celestial fire draws the other elements up toward itself and thereby consumes [End Page 282] the entire universe; hence Lucan’s image of the stars falling into the sea (ignea pontum astra petent): in fact the sea would be rising up toward the stars, but Lucan adopts the perspective of a terrestrial observer, from which the stars would appear to be falling. The world-conflagration, moreover, is a metaphor for the civil war and its causes. 9 These causes, though multiple, are not discrete; instead, they comprise a chain of causation, as indicated by series in the first cause (invida fatorum series) and further suggested by the paratactic arrangement in which all four causes are listed. The semantic force of series does not confine itself to the first cause, but rather governs a sequence in which each cause results directly from its predecessor. Summisque negatum / stare diu and nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus, then, are both consequences of fate’s... (shrink)

Le Système de l'Harmonie préétablie est un système de communication. L'harmonie est une métaphore, que Leibniz reconnaît avoir empruntée à l'art ; la communication est un concept, qui, réglant les rapports perçus entre les éléments, produit et fait fonctionner le système comme tel. La notion de communication s'analyse en termes de correspondance, connexion, liaison, commerce, concomitance, accord, entr'expression (ou, figure négative, entr'empêchement). Lancée dans la controverse avec les cartésiens, elle s'applique à la relation de l'âme au corps ; mais encore (...) des corps aux corps, des substances aux substances, des âmes aux âmes, des esprits aux esprits ; mais aussi à ce qui réunit ou sépare les religions, les églises, les savoirs, les cultures. La communication traverse le système du monde comme celui des textes : elle est de physique, de métaphysique, de morale, de théologie, d'épistémologie. (shrink)

Edited by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn, this work is a collection of expository and critical essays on the work of Henry Rosemont, Jr., a prominent and influential contemporary philosopher, activist, translator, and educator in the field of Asian and Comparative Philosophy. The essays in this collection take up three major themes in Rosemont's work: his work in Chinese linguistics, his contribution to the theory of human rights, and his interest in East Asian religion. Contributions include works by the leading (...) scholars in Chinese philosophy in the Western world and Rosemont's close associates: Roger T. Ames, Bao Zhiming, Mary Bockover, Marthe Chandler, Ewing Y. Chinn, Erin M. Cline, Fred Dallmayr, Jeffrey Dippmann, Herbert Fingarette, Harrison Huang, Eric Hutton, Philip J. Ivanhoe, David Jones, William La Fleur, Ronnie Littlejohn, Ni Peimin, Michael Nylan, Harold Roth, Sumner Twiss, Tu Weiming, David Wong, with responses from Henry Rosemont, Jr. and a brief Reminiscence by Noam Chomsky. (shrink)

Les Parva Naturalia designent traditionnellement chez Aristote neuf brefs traites ou le philosophe expose des questions relatives soit a la psychologie, soit a la biologie, humaine et animale, en tous les cas aux fonctions communes a l'ame et au corps. Parmi eux, Sur la Sante et la maladie a ete malheureusement perdu. Quant a Sur la respiration, son authenticite a ete mise en doute. Restent cependant les sept autres textes ou Aristote examine des questions aussi diverses que l'influence de la (...) divinite sur les reves, la memoire ou les rapports entre les quatre elements et les cinq organes des sens. Notre edition rassemble en un volume, De la sensation et des sensibles, De la memoire et de la reminiscence, Du sommeil et de la veille, Des reves, De la divination dans le sommeil, De la brievete de la vie et De la jeunesse et de la vieillesse. L'introduction presente ces textes en montrant les implications philosophiques de ces traites techniques notamment pour la memoire. Les liens ou les rappels avec d'autres oeuvres d'Aristote, comme Des Partis des animaux ou De La generation des animaux sont mis en evidence. L'histoire des manuscrits est brievement relatee, tandis que les principes d'editions sont justifies. Des notes accompagnent la lecture. (shrink)

Dans le Phédon, Platon déclare que la philosophie est la musique suprême. C’est donc qu’à ses yeux l’art des sons possède des affinités avec la dialectique. De même, dans le Phèdre, le musicien est rapproché du philosophe, compte tenu de la ressemblance de leurs âmes, ce qui renforce l’hypothèse a priori que Platon conçoit des liens entre ces deux disciplines. Enfin, dans le neuvième livre de la République, il est questions des efforts continus de l’homme raisonnable pour maintenir en lui (...) une sorte d’harmonie. Il faut donc définir les rapports de la musique et de la philosophie selon Platon. La musique et l’harmonique comme disciplines préparant à la dialectique ne sont-elles considérées comme telles qu’en théorie? Ou bien cette conception est-elle fondée sur des faits réels? (shrink)

Par leur forme, les Dialogues de Platon sont déroutants. Quand on a reconnu l'impossibilité d'y découvrir un Système tout fait, articulé selon une démarche définitivement sûre de ses tenants et aboutissants, reste, croit-on souvent, à supposer de confiance que la Philosophie même, à ses origines, s'y est réalisée dans une sorte de neutralité supérieure. On admire alors Platon trop inconditionnellement pour pouvoir l'entendre. Le plus irremplaçable, le plus actuel des maîtres à penser, il faut, pour bénéficier de son exemple, lui (...) faire avouer son choix fondamental, qui n'est pas le seul philosophiquement possible. Son idéalisme, son finalisme ontologique, s'est ouvert progressivement à des schèmes de pensée élaborés sur l'autre bord, mais cela précisément pour réagir plus efficacement contre les matérialismes antérieurs. La dialectique concrète d'une réflexion travaillant à se reprendre et à s'élargir sans cesse, au service d'une option constamment maintenue, voilà ce que nous offre le déroulement historique du « Grand Dialogue » que Platon a entretenu avec lui-même et avec tous les courants d'une tradition déjà merveilleusement riche. Si l'on met assez d'exigeante docilité à suivre ce progrès sinueux et vivant, on s'aperçoit que le Platonisme est bien un système, mais un système en train de se faire et de se rectifier. Certains passages négligés par les interprètes comme hors-d'œuvre négatifs sont en réalité de hauts moments dialectiques et des moteurs de renouvellement. Tel est principalement le cas de la théorie matérialiste de l'âme-harmonie. Transposition critique de l'idéalisme pythagoricien chez des héritiers inconnus de l'« harmonie discordante » qu'avait vaticinée le prestigieux Héraclite, cette doctrine prépare à son tour, d'abord la substance même des conclusions du Phédon, puis, à la faveur des difficultés dont elle grève ce dialogue, tout l'approfondissement ultérieur de l'idéalisme platonicien. En ce jeu complexe d'irréductibles antagonismes et d'interactions fécondes, il n'est pas illégitime de voir une « harmonie discordante » dont l'exercice de la philosophie, comme jadis et naguère, reste inséparable aujourd'hui. (shrink)

Consacrée à l’analyse de quelques passages du Phèdre, du Banquet et de l’Alcibiade, cette étude rappelle la définition platonicienne du rôle pédagogique de l’amour dans la théorie de la connaissance et dans la pratique du langage. Sa thèse est que le modèle anthropologique et le modèle épistémologique ne peuvent pas être séparés dans la philosophie platonicienne. « Parler » constitue à la fois une communication et une ostension, donc la transitivité du langage n’est pas exempte d’une nécessaire vérité de l’acte, (...) même si cette vérité est celle du phénomène, non celle de l’essence, de la forme ou du principe. Les conséquences de cette unité (présentée comme une rencontre entre la rhétorique et la dialectique) sont d’ordre éthique autant que d’ordre métaphysique. D’une part, l’autonomisation du langage pose comme préalable un rapport de vérité à l’égard de l’autre dans toute détermination d’identité du sujet. Ce rapport de vérité s’exprime ici sous la forme initiatique d’une « mise en présence » : l’accès à soi est conditionné par la transcendance du tout-autre. Acquise par la présence amoureuse à l’égard de l’autre, l’identité n’est donc pas close sur elle-même mais se définit comme relation. D’autre part, la maîtrise d’un langage adéquat au phénomène érotique suppose le dépassement de l’interprétation (« péché contre la mythologie ») et une sortie de l’opposition des contraires (corps‑âme) par la limite assumée (ici la « faiblesse des mots »), sans appeler nécessairement à l’harmonie universelle qui, traditionnellement, cache la domination, voire la suppression du sujet. (shrink)

Le débat engagé dans le Phèdre à la suite des trois discours, constitue une enquête dialectique qui ne se limite pas, comme dans le Gorgias, aux seuls genres étudiés par les rhéteurs et sophistes, à savoir l'éloquence du barreau et de la tribune politique. Il examine toute la rhétorique en tant qu'art de conduire ou de provoquer l'âme. Tout discours, à quelque genre qu'il appartienne, est sujet à contradiction : en rhétorique comme en dialectique celui-là est le meilleur qui voit (...) la vérité, parce que, connaissant le pour et le contre, le vrai et le semblant de vérité, il saura défendre l'une et l'autre thèse. C'est là une doctrine reçue dans l'Académie. Pour la mettre en évidence Platon a recours à l'exemple des trois discours. Celui de Lysias, faute d'avoir établi une définition qui en soit le principe ou commencement, manque de suite et „nage à rebours". Les deux discours de Socrate posent un principe. Dans le premier une définition conventionnelle de l'amour le conduit à blâmer celui-ci, à juste titre. Vrai en lui-même, ce discours devient faux du moment qu'on lève la convention : or, dans le cas présent, il faut la lever, parce qu'elle méconnaît le divin. Sur l'intervention du „ signe" avertisseur, Socrate le corrige et le complète par le second discours, dont le principe n'est plus conventionnel et hypothétique, mais absolu : l'âme, principe moteur de tout. Nous avons ici l'antilogie parfaite qui repose sur l'unité de formes opposées, „l'un qui s'épand en multiplicité". Platon a choisi comme sujet l'amour parce que c'est lui qui, en tant qu'intermédiaire, unissant l'humain et le divin, réalise éminemment cette unité-multiplicité. L'exposé de la méthode diérétique contient bien des éléments que nous retrouverons dans les dialogues métaphysiques, mais nous aurions tort de la confondre avec celle du Sophiste, qui opère sur des notions „humaines" et a comme but de définir la forme indivisible en la cernant par une chaîne de divisions dichotomiques. Ici, grâce au mythe, il opère la jonction avec le trancendant, et il prouve que, par son caractère antilogique, le discours complet correspond à la structure de l'être un et multiple en affirmant l'unité et la contrariété des formes non-homonymes qui la constituent. Ce ne sont donc pas des exercices de dialectique formelle opérant sur de purs concepts. L'unité en question est réalisée dans l'ordre transcendant des Idées et c'est la réminiscence qui nous permet de la saisir et de reconnaître ainsi les rapports logiques et ontologiques à la fois entre les choses perçues. Cette méthode, nous devons la suivre „ pour être à même de parler et de penser". En fondant la rhétorique sur la dialectique, Platon entend reléguer au second plan les facteurs émotionnels que, sous l'influence du théâtre, la rhétorique attique d'inspiration Gorgienne avait mis en évidence comme constituant l'essence de la rhétorique. Après avoir, ici, revendiqué pour la dialectique la place qui lui revient, Socrate nous dira dans la suite ce que valent ces moyens et quel parti on peut en tirer. Il importe de bien distinguer ces deux thèses, comme Platon a eu soin de le faire. La première nous renvoie à la dialectique, la seconde à la philosophie de la nature. (shrink)

Let us look first at poetry. It is well known that by the fifteenth century, lyric poetry had undergone a radical transformation; the early lyric fluidity and formal variability had hardened into the nonlyric and even, some maintain, antilyric forms fixes which characterize the poetic formalism of late medieval France. Dispensing with the details of how and why this occurred, the essential point is that by the end of the Middle Ages, the poet in France and Burgundy saw himself as (...) an artisan of words, not as a singer.6 He refers to himself as a craftsman , and it is plain, sometimes painfully so, to anyone who reads the works that the rhétoriqueur is, indeed, an artisan of forms—or, if you will, an architecte de la parole, a specialist in verbal matter. He works words, sounds, metric and strophic forms into intricate patterns and arranges his elaborate designs in blocks of exact and harmonious symmetry. He is, in fact, from Machaut on, a virtuoso of the verbal equivalent of the architectural art of carrelage which adorned the princely château in which he worked and lived. No one familiar with the period will avoid noticing the strikingly similar types of patters in the poet’s works and in his surroundings.I have gathered elsewhere the visual documentation which bears out Zumthor’s suggestions quoted above with respect to the meticulously constructivist mentality of the Franco-Burgundian artisan. But the analogies I found are much more than perceptual. It is true that the elaborate designs on the walls, floors, ceilings, windows, woodwork, and so forth of the early Renaissance château are, indeed, composed of intricate blocks of material; but their function is not merely decorative , it is also narrative, with emblematic motifs and allegorical figures arrayed in linear patterns of “visual” discourse—the invariable “discours de la gloire” which silently proclaims the magnificence of the patron prince and proprietor of the château .7 6. A summary of internal and external factors in the transformation of lyric to Rhetoric is provided in my review of Die musikalische Erscheinungsform der Trouvèrepoesie by Hans-Herbert S. Räkel , in Romance Philology 34 : 250-58.7. This following collage of fragments from ML was constructed ôto serve as commentary on photographs of tile designs compared with verbal texts, in an earlier version of this paper , from which the examples in figs. 1-4 are taken.Culte de l’objet subtilement travaillé, au-delà de toute fonctionnalité primaire *** primat du labeur ardu, patient, du difficile, de l’inattendu *** les mots mêmes semblent travaillés d’un besoin de scientificité fictive, d’anoblissement par le savoir *** les … mots ne sont plus que les particules d’une parole dont la seule signification est globale *** matériau émancipé des contraintes de la phrase, transposé sur un plan où le signe devient le nom vide de ce signe *** goût du bricolage plutôt que de l’industrie; … du bariolage plus que du fondu et de la nuance; de l’équilibre numéral des parties plus que de la synthèse; du multiple plus que de l’un. Outil forgé martelé d’ “aornures” sans fonction utilitaire; enchâssements cubiques, coniques, pyramidaux, cruciformes du bâtiment … meubles marquetés, forrés de tiroirs minuscules et secrets [and so forth].For the iconography of these examples , see Emile Amé, Less Carrelages émaillés du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance , pp. 61-108. Jonathan Beck is associate professor of French at the University of Arizona. He is the author of Théâtre et propaganda aux débuts de la Réforme , a sequel to his edition and study, Le Concil de Basle: Le Origines du theater réformiste et partisan en France. (shrink)

À travers des actes comme défiler, prêter serment, communier, et leurs mises en scène ritualisées, orchestrées par les détenteurs du pouvoir politique, l'objectif est de rassembler les assujettis sociaux et de leur administrer une double preuve, celle du bien fondé de leur obéissance au pouvoir et corollairement de leur harmonieuse association. Les cérémonies ritualisées visent à susciter une exaltation collective, à faire monter l'intensité émotionnelle tout en donnant à voir un idéal d'unité harmonieuse de la société, dans les mises en (...) scène jouées. Le but de cet article est de montrer comment les gouvernants ont toujours su, à travers les époques, créer des cérémonies rituelles pour mobiliser les individus, pour les conditionner, de façon à les faire adhérer en actes aux desseins du pouvoir politique, par une participation pleine et entière de l'âme et du corps.Through actions like scrolling, oath, communion, and their ritualized stagings, orchestrated by the holders of political power, the objective is to bring together social and subject to administer a double proof of the soundness of their obedience to authority and a corollary of their harmonious association. Ritualized ceremonies designed to elicit a collective exaltation, to raise the emotional intensity while providing an ideal view of harmonious unity of society, in the staging played. The purpose of this article is to show how governments have always known, through the ages, creating rituals to mobilize individuals to condition, so join them in the action plans of the political power through participation full of soul and body. (shrink)

Nos perspectives, au seuil du vingt et unième siècle, apparaissent plus critiques et déconstructives que constructives. En exil dans le monde qu'ils se sont fabriqué, les hommes se méfient désormais des propositions positives relatives à un devenir futur, les qualifiant a priori d'utopiques. Mais qui sait si le chemin parcouru jusqu'à présent n'était pas de quelque façon erroné? Si nous n'avons pas négligé des enseignements utiles pour penser notre identité en plus grande harmonie avec l'univers, et de manière moins scindée (...) entre corps et esprit ou âme. La connaissance des traditions orientales - par la lecture des textes et une pratique appropriée - nous introduit à une façon nouvelle d'être avec soi et avec les autres, une façon nouvelle de vivre l'amour et la sexualité. Sera-t-il concevable alors de créer des ponts entre les traditions aborigènes féminines du monde asiatique et nos sociétés patriarcales? Y découvrirons-nous des solutions non régressives pour refonder la famille et réarticuler ses rapports avec l'Etat? Et n'est-ce pas la communauté tout entière qui pourrait ainsi se restructurer à partir de liens entre les citoyens, en une approche respectueuse des différences? (shrink)

La question de la compréhension philosophique et celle de la justice sont intrinsèquement liées depuis les débuts de la philosophie grecque. La compréhension platonicienne de la justice tire son origine pré-philosophique de la déesse Diké, tout comme l’herméneutique tire la sienne du dieu grec Hermès. L’ambivalence d’Hermès implique la possibilité de comprendre mais aussi la possibilité de séduire ou d’abuser de cette compréhension, ce qui, dans l’horizon de la philosophie socratique et platonicienne, signifie en fait un défaut de compréhension. Dans (...) la philosophie platonicienne, la connaissance et la position éthique sont intimement liées. Si cette position éthique s’entend comme la justice, celle-ci ne doit pas être entendue dans le sens, quelque peu réducteur, d’une harmonie entre les actions de l’homme et les lois de l’Etat. Nous devrions plutôt nous occuper de l’harmonie intérieure de l’homme et de son âme, ce qui signifie en même temps l’harmonie entre l’homme et le monde dans lequel il vit. De ce point de vue, « l’an-archisme » herméneutique potentiel peut s’orienter, d’une nouvelle façon cette fois-ci, vers la question de l’archè et se transposer d’une simple théorie en existence même de la vie humaine, traitée dans la philosophie platonicienne à travers la question de l’âme. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Ue11tlation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise. By RONALD F. THIEMANN. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1985. Pp. x + 272. $23.95. The author, recently named dean of Harvard Divinity School, wrote this book as chairman of the Religion Department at Haverford College. A Lutheran, he pays tribute to Hans Frei of Yale University as his principal mentor. Influenced by I<'rei's narrative theology, he (...) argues for a doctrine of revelation understood as God's narrated promise. Narration, Thiemann contends, is essential for revelation, which is the doctrine of God's identifiability. We identify persons by ascribing character traits to them on the basis of their pattrrns of behavior. God\; patterns of hrhavior are made known through the biblical narrative. Promise, for Thiemann, is an essential category hecause it is the mode by which the biblical text encounters its readers, inviting them to put their trust in the God who was the principal agent of the history of Israel and of Jesus Christ. Faith, discerning God's identity ns thr suhject of the biblical text, goes out to him as a living reality. Thiemann's thesis of course implies that Christian revelation is given in the Bible, that the Bible is predominantly narrative, and that the main theme of the biblical narrative is the prevenient God who enacts his intentions and addresses the reader through the text. Faithful discipleship is the appropriate response to God's self-giving love as disc'.oscd in Jesus Christ. Thiemann illustrates these principles <"oncrrtrly hy a ch:ipterlength analysis of the Gospel of 11/fatthew. Thiemann defends his theolog·ical options on the ground that the alternatives do not sufficiently protect the divine prevenience. This doctrine, he holds, must be safeguarded not only because it was formally taught by the Council of Orange but also-and, one would gather, more fundnmentally -because it is implied " by a cluster of Christian convictions concerning God's promises, identity, and reality " (80-81). According to Thiemann it is a " common conviction shared by all those who confess the name of Christ... that all human life, including our theological thinking, is ultimately dependent on the creating, sustaining, and redeeming grace of God" (70). Apart from the rather broad use of the term "grace" this statement would be aceeptahle to very man~' Christians, including myself. In the course of establishing his own position 'l'hiemann develops au 169 170 BOOK REVIEWS incisive critique of a number of rival approaches. He rejects the "foundationalism " of classical apologetics which, as he understands it, would seek to justify Christian faith by reference to some kind of self-evident, noninferential experience from which it could be deduced. On the basis of a critical analysis of Thomas Torrance and several earlier theologians, he concludes that no such unassailable starting point exists. Thiemann also rejects the transcendental turn to the subject, which he ascribes to David Tracy and David Burrell, on the ground that this reduces biblical revelation to a generic human experience and ends by undermining the truth-status of all particular religious claims (187). Finally, Thiemann maintains that new theologies which dispense with the category of revelation (Gerald Downing, Gordon Kaufman) or give it no necessary function (David Kelsey) surrender the Christian conviction of God's prevenience and make faith dependent on purely human initiative. A nonfoundational defense of God's prevenience, according to Thiemann, has three distinct emphases. First, its justification of Christianity is conducted from within a conceptual framework supported by Christian faith, community, and tradition. Second, such a reflection evaluates and criticizes Christian doctrine and practice according to criteria internal to Christian faith. Third, this reflection seeks to justify its tenets holistically, by reference to the structures imbedded in the entire system of Christian beliefs and practices. Thiemann considers it proper to justify individual beliefs retrospectively by showing their importance for defining Christian identity. Thus he tries to show that a rejection of God's prevenience as a "background belief" would require " a radical and unwelcome revision in our understanding of Christian identity" (78). He makes use of " reflective equilibrium" and retrospective justification in ways strongly reminiscent of Francis Schussler Fiorenza's Foundational Theology (1984)-a book possibly published too late for Thiemann to refer to. Both he and Fiorenza, however, rely on authors such as John Rawls. In opposition to the foundationalists Thiemann, wisely in my opinion, eschews any sharp dichotomy between the "first-order" language of faith and the " second-order" language of theology. Christian theology, he maintains, must be carried on within Christian faith and must adopt patterns of speech that are consonant with Christian sources and premises. Theology, he asserts, "has no rationale independent of the first-order language of faith" (75). In particular, he denies that any successful account of Christian belief can be furnished by pointing to the religious experience supposedly available to all human beings. I find myself in agreement with practically all Thiemann's major positions. I applaud his skillful defense of revelation theology without recourse to rationalistic foundationalism or subjectivistic transcendentalism. BOOK REVIEWS 171 In my own Models of Revelation I made little explicit use of the categories of narrative and promise, but they are harmonious with my general approach. I rely more on the category of symbolic or saeramental communication. Thiemann might agree that Israel and Jesus Christ, as God's agents in human history, are in fact " real symbols" of the divine. By their very being they make present the hidden reality of the God who calls created persons through them into union with himself. They are thus pledges and anticipations of the age to come. The category of promise, when applied to such historical figures, could seem to tie revelation too narrowly to certain verbal expressions in the Bible, but Thiemann, while attending primarily to the linguistic component, seems open to the idea of promise "enacted" in the persons and events of the biblical narrative. In this wider understanding promise may be classified as " sacramental." A few shortcomings of the book, or personal difficulties of the present reviewer, should probably be detailed. In writings influenced by Hans Frei, including Thieman's, the biblical narratives seem to be exempted from historical criticism. Thiemann himself discusses them as pure narrative without raising the question of their objective validity. He seems to assume that these stories give true accounts of the way things are, for if they were products of fantasy or illusion they could scarcely bear the theological weight that Thiemann places on them. Granted that " Scripture depicts a God who continually keeps his promises" (154), the reflective inquirer would be justified in asking for some grounds for holding that this depiction is veridical and is not simply wishful thinking. If Thiemann had given more attention to this problem, his book might better succeed in providing, as it claims to do, " a reasoned theological account of Christian faith and hope" (7). Without such assurances the decision of faith could appear arbitrary and irresponsible. I fully agree with Thiemann's insistence on the divine prevenience, but I find some obscurity in his treatment of the connection between God's prevenience and any human response. Does God effectively influence the decision of faith 7 At one point Thiemann asserts that God is " the creator of the universe, the redeemer of a sinful humanity, and the reconciler of a broken world" (108). These terms seem to me to imply causality. Yet Thiemann repeatedly rails against understanding God's prevenience in causal terms (98, 109, et passim). Possibly Thiemann is assuming that causality must necessarily be deterministic, but in many philosophical traditions causality is not so narrowly understood. God's prevenience would be more intelligible if it were presented in causal, though not deterministic, terms. I was not surprised to find in this book certain characteristically Lutheran motifs such as the " unconditionality " of justification and its antecedence to all human merits. Properly understood, this is not simply 172 nooK m~vrnws good Lutheranism but is basic Christian doctrine as understood by Catholics also. Thiemann, however, goes further. At one point, relying on Robert Jenson, he asserts that, on peril of works-righteousness, justification or salvation must not be conceived as any kind of causal process involving interaction between the divine and human agencies. While asserting this, he also denies that human beings are purely passive in their own justification (96-97). The idea that sanctification is a process involving the activity of both God and creatures is well rooted in the Lutheran as well as the Catholic tradition. Perhaps because he treats the whole question so briefly, Thiemann does not seem to me to provide an intelligible alternative. As should be obvious by this point, Thiemann's book deals with a multitude of crucially important questions. It enters into the very heart of the contemporary debate about revelation and theological methodology, and makes many insightful contributions. For the most part, I am enthusiastic about his approach, which seems to offer a highly promising alternative to the theological options he rejects. What I regard as shortcomings in this book are partly due to its relative brevity, granted the vast range of topics on which it touches. But the very breadth of the horizons makes this book especially stimulating and arouses the reader's eagerness to hear more from its talented author. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. AVERY DULLES, S.J. The Triune God: Persons, Process, an(l Community. By JOSE.PH A. BRACKEN, S.J. College Theology Society: Studies in Religion, 1. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1985. Pp. viii + 208, incl. Glossary, Bibliography and Index. $22.50 (cloth), $11.75 (pb.). Among the questions that urge themselves upon contemporary practitioners of theology few are more masic than that of the reconstruction of theology itself. How radical a reconstruction (and thus a corresponding deconstruction) is called for~ This volume represents Joseph Bracken's option on the issue. He is willing to wager all on an integral attempt to begin everything anew with the resources for a systematic theology provided by the thought of Alfred North Whitehead. This includes drawing upon other authors who have expanded upon, and in some ways altered, the seminal thought of Whitehead. Earlier attempts at something like this that come readily to mind are: Daniel Day Wil-... (shrink)

Cet article aborde trois piliers essentiels de la culture maya : l’idée du monde comme un tout harmonieux au sein duquel tous les êtres vivants possèdent une âme ; l’idée de l’homme comme créature responsable de la planète et l’idée du temps envisagé de manière cyclique plutôt que linéaire, comme un devenir infini qui régit le monde et les hommes. L’idée de l’homme chez les Mayas de l’époque préhispanique a été recueillie principalement dans le Popol Vuh, un livre sacré de (...) l’ethnie quiché, écrit par les Mayas eux-mêmes une décennie après la conquête espagnole et dont les conceptions demeurent en partie valides pour les Mayas d’aujourd’hui, notamment la fraternité humain-animal et le devoir qu’ont les hommes de protéger le monde et de veiller à sa préservation. Ces diverses idées sont fondamentales pour ces peuples qui ont réussi à transcender le monde matériel afin d’y déceler des significations plus profondes dans la recherche d’une véritable harmonie cosmique. (shrink)

Résumé Dans cet article, nous examinons la Démonstration de l’existence de Dieu de Fénelon ; la question posée est celle de la démarche apologétique, où le spectacle de la nature donne à voir l’activité du Créateur. Dans un regard qui suppose la foi, Fénelon met en relation le caractère admirable de l’ordre du monde et ce Dieu que nul ne conteste encore sérieusement. Réenchantant l’univers mécaniste, Fénelon en appelle à un Dieu seul capable de mettre en harmonie le mécanisme et (...) la vie ainsi que le corps et l’âme. À la lumière de la science du temps, les espèces animales s’inscrivent dans un ordre équilibré et vivant, le corps organisé est le siège d’opérations d’assimilation et de génération, inaccessibles à la machine, il semble aussi fournir le support des pensées à l’âme. Faute de l’existence d’une cause assumant simultanément les dimensions matérielles, vitales et spirituelles, le lecteur se trouve renvoyé à l’action divine. S’agit-il ici d’occasionalisme fénelonien? Peut-on parler de postérité de Fénelon dans le discours sur la nature au xviii e siècle? (shrink)

La pensée esthétique de Rousseau fait de la musique son modèle privilégié et, pour la comprendre, retourne à sa matrice : les langues. Les trois textes proposés ici délimitent leur cible : l'esthétique classique et son représentant illustre, Rameau. Mais au-delà du débat polémique, ils engagent une philosophie tout entière. Parler, chanter y sont analysés en fonction d'enjeux moraux et politiques. Homme du besoin ou homme du désir, harmonie ou mélodie, alphabets ou hiéroglyphes? Questions de priorité, questions d'origine auxquelles Rousseau (...) s'attelle et dont les réponses dessinent une grande philosophie qui voit dans la musique le prototype d'un langage en deçà des langues et dans la représentation des états d'âme, dans l'accès à l'intimité psychique, la fin que devrait se proposer tout artiste. --. (shrink)

A conference celebrating the appearance of Leibniz's New System in 1695 was organized by R. S. Woolhouse and held at the University of York, 5-8 July 1995. The opening lecture was given on behalf of the Leibniz Gesellechaft by Hans Poser: “L'ordre supérieur de l'âme raisonnable: On the Leibnizian Concept of Soul.” Other papers: Stuart Brown, “Leibniz's New System Strategy”; Antonio Lamarra, “Substantial Forms and Monads: the Système nouveau in comparison with the Principles of Nature and Grace”; G. H. R. (...) Parkinson, “Substantial Forms in the Système nouveau and Related Work”; Pauline Phemister, “Pre-established Harmony: Nature and Grace, Bodies and Souls”; Robert M. Adams, “The Pre-established Harmony and Its Place in the History of Modern Philosophy”; Christia Mercer, “How New is the New System?”; Roberto Palaia, “The New System of the Nature of Substances in the Philosophical Journals of the Seventeenth Century”; Donald Rutherford, “Est aliquid prodire tenus: The Système nouveau and the Development of Leibniz's Method”; Philip Beeley, “Points, Extension, and the Mind-body Problem: Remarks on the Development of Leibniz's Thought from the Hypothesis physica nova to the Système nouveau”; and Glenn Hartz, “Exactly How Are Leibnizian Substances Related to Extension?” The papers are being edited for publication by Lessico Intellettuale Europeo. (shrink)

La musique a exercé depuis les temps les plus reculés une telle fascination sur l’esprit humain que l’homme n’a eu de cesse de créer des instruments nouveaux, de les perfectionner, de travailler sa voix pour lui donner la plus parfaite expression, de rechercher de nouvelles harmonies, de se laisser guider par son inspiration afin de concevoir les plus belles oeuvres. Mais d’où vient cette inspiration qui permit à certains êtres de léguer à l’humanité des chefs-d'oeuvre qui, plusieurs siècles après leur (...) naissance, continuent à élever notre âme? Et quel est, ou quel devrait être, le rôle véritable de la musique? C’est ce que nous découvrirons en lisant ces lignes. Les articles de cette oeuvre collégiale, conçue dans le cadre de l’Université Rose-Croix Internationale, apportent un éclairage original et vécu sur le rôle de la musique dans le domaine spécifique de la spiritualité. Ils explorent l’apport de musiciens de génie et se penchent également sur le comportement de l’auditeur, qui ne peut être purement passif s’il veut bénéficier pleinement des influences les plus subtiles de la musique. Par ailleurs, ces articles analysent l’importance de l’interprétation, qui est essentielle, tant pour la transmission que pour la réception de l’oeuvre musicale. (shrink)

Tous les lecteurs des Propos d'Alain ont remarqué des pages d'un mouvement poétique et éloquent à la fois, consacrées notamment, et à plusieurs reprises, aux fêtes de Noël et de Pâques. Ces essais de philosophie religieuse restaient énigmatiques ; on s'étonnait de trouver ensemble l'incrédulité la plus irréligieuse, et en même temps les mouvements de la foi. L'auteur voulait-il dire seulement qu'il y avait dans ces mythes une beauté touchante? Ou bien n'était-on pas amené à soupçonner que ces produits de (...) l'imagination populaire enfermaient des vérités de première importance, et toutes destinées à figurer dans un système strictement positif? L'auteur des Propos a réalisé pour la religion ce qu'il avait déjà essayé pour les Beaux-Arts avec le succès que l'on sait, c'est-à-dire donner tout son sens à l'imagination vraie par un exposé continu et systématique. Du moment que les mythes directeurs de notre civilisation signifiaient des vérités humaines de grand prix, il fallait chercher, en remontant, ce que signifiaient déjà les mythes olympiens de la puissance, et, encore au delà, le sens de ces étranges religions qui ont pour objets les choses de nature, le volcan, le serpent, la vache. Au delà, et comme un fond de tableau, s'offraient les Contes qui sont partout les mêmes et éternellement jeunes. Il s'agissait de discerner en quoi toutes ces religions sont vraies, en quoi les contes eux-mêmes sont vrais. C'est ce que l'auteur a exécuté en commençant par les contes, en passant de là à la religion panthéiste, puis à la religion politique qui est le culte des héros, et enfin à la religion de l'esprit, la plus haute. Et l'idée neuve, appuyée sur ces quatre assises, c'est que ces religions sont et seront toujours vraies, et indiquent plutôt, selon le mot de l'auteur, les étages de l'homme que les étapes de l'homme. L'exécution est faite dans un mouvement lyrique, mesuré sur le sujet même, en sorte que l'harmonie entre les mythes populaires et la structure humaine est toujours rappelée comme étant ici la preuve de choix. Et du reste il est évident, par la sobriété et l'équilibre de la composition, que l'auteur a voulu faire court autant qu'il était possible de façon que l'ensemble ne cessât jamais d'éclairer les parties. Le moins qu'on puisse dire c'est que cet ouvrage doit plonger les esprits profondément religieux, comme les esprits irréligieux, dans un prodigieux étonnement, par un radical changement des perspectives, et, on oserait dire, par l'abolition d'un genre de polémique qui n'a jamais mené à rien. Le salut de l'âme est quelque chose pour tout homme et es discussions théologiques n'arriveront jamais à changer la question. (shrink)

Dans la Lettre 6 de la correspondance d’Augustin, Nebridius pose à son ami deux questions sur l’imagination : la mémoire peut-elle exister sans la phantasia ? La phantasia ne tient-elle pas ses images d’elle-même plutôt que des sens ? Ces questions trouvent leur origine dans des textes de Plotin et de Porphyre, qui se référaient eux-mêmes au début du De memoria d’Aristote et à la célèbre thèse aristotélicienne selon laquelle l’âme ne pense pas sans image. Nebridius adopte l’idée qu’une image (...) sert nécessairement de « véhicule » ou de « miroir » à la pensée, que cette image soit celle d’un corps ou celle d’un mot. Augustin refuse quant à lui le principe d’une telle dépendance, chez l’homme, de l’intellect par rapport à l’imagination. Son originalité, au sein du néoplatonisme, tient à la radicalité avec laquelle il dénie tout rôle positif aux images dans la constitution de la connaissance.In Letter 6 of Augustine’s correspondence, Nebridius asks his friend two questions on imagination : Is memory able to exist without phantasia ? Does phantasia not get its images from itself rather than from the senses ? These questions arise from some texts by Plotinus and Porphyry, who referred to the beginning of Aristotle’s De memoria and to the famous Aristotelian claim that mind does not think without an image. Nebridius argues that thought has to use an image, either of a body or of a word, as a « vehicle » or as a « mirror ». Augustine, for his part, goes against the very principle of such a dependence of intellect on imagination in the case of man. The way he radically denies images any constructive role in the process of knowledge makes him original within Neoplatonism. (shrink)

" Ces sentiments (amour, poésie, religion, etc.) font entendre au fond de notre âme une musique céleste, qui calme la passion, la douleur, et semble annoncer la mort elle-même par des accords purs et doux, des accords qui accompagnent le retour vers la nature et le tranquille appel du père à ses enfants. " Le but de cet ouvrage n'est autre que de déterminer ce qui se cache derrière ces belles lignes de " De l'Allemagne " que l'on pourrait volontiers (...) croire entachées d'une prolixité un peu facile. Et derrière ces métaphores se cachent en fait beaucoup de choses : la rencontre de la tradition spirituelle - augustinienne notamment - et de la philosophie sensualiste du XVIIIe siècle ; le souci d'une cohérence entre conception du monde et discours théorique sur la musique, entre imagination poétique et perception subjective des formes et productions musicales. Histoire des idées, analyse littéraire et recherche musicale se rejoignent ici pour montrer la richesse de la réflexion et de l'intuition poétique de Joubert (1754-1824), de Mme de Staël (1766-1817), de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) ou de Senancour (1770-1846) sur la musique, mais pour montrer aussi la convergence avec le paysage musical de l'époque et ses compositeurs : Lesueur (1760-1837), Cherubini (1760-1842), Méhul (1763-1817). (shrink)

Yoga is the exercise of choice for so many because it makes you feel great in body and mind. But modern images of yoga have long featured the same kinds of bodies--white, slim, young, cis-gendered, able. Harmony Willow Hansen knows that a celebration of every kind of body brings more joy and inclusivity to all of us. She has been drawing joyful people in practice for years, creating a presence on Instagram that reaches hundreds of thousands of yoga lovers. Her (...) figures include older people, trans people, differently-abled people, people in different body types and weights. Harmony's art is all about bodies where anyone can find themselves and feel seen. Here are an array of positions including beginner poses, seated and low poses, lying down poses, standing poses, and partner poses, as well as prenatal and children's poses and flow. Readers will share in the ease and confidence that radiate from these yogis. An ideal gift for any yoga lover."--Amazon. (shrink)

I explore how empathetic visual argument may be the mode best suited for eliciting appropriate force to the reasons given by arguers who face systematic identity prejudices. In the verbal mode, this force is often skewed through epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007), argumentative injustice (Bondy 2010), and discursive injustice (Kukla 2010). Highlighting their reliance on the Aristotelian sense of enthymeme, I show how visual arguments are highly context specific. Using Ian Dove’s Visual Scheming (2016) and the theory of the Retort collective (...) (2004) via case study, I demonstrate how the visual mode can leave the appropriate force in the arguer’s control. (shrink)

ABSTRACTChildren are often perceived to be less credible testifiers than adults. Their inexperience and affinity for play can provide reason to question their credibility and sincerity as truth tellers. The discrediting of children's testimonial claims can, however, result in an injustice when it stems from an uncritical age-related identity prejudice. This injustice can lead to several consequences varying in severity, with the worst cases leading to their deaths. More commonly, and especially when this injustice is considered in combination with other (...) intersectional identities, it has the potential to render these children invisible. In this paper, we discuss common domains within which children can face epistemic injustice when testifying about their experiences. The heart of the paper explores the most severe instances of epistemic injustices by reviewing three cases where children with intersectional identities died after their testimony was not believed. The paper concludes by emphasizing some of the important considerations that a recognition of intersectionality brings to the current discussion. (shrink)

Argues that the only way to understand the Confucian vision of the consummate moral life is to take the tradition on its own terms.

The earliest Analects yet discovered, this work provides us with a new perspective on the central canonical text that has defined Chinese culture--and clearly illuminates the spirit and values of Confucius.

Composed more than 2,000 years ago during a turbulent period of Chinese history, the Dao de jing set forth an alternative vision of reality in a world torn apart by violence and betrayal. Daoism, as this subtle but enduring philosophy came to be known, offers a comprehensive view of experience grounded in a full understanding of the wonders hidden in the ordinary. Now in this luminous new translation, based on the recently discovered ancient bamboo scrolls, China scholars Roger T. Ames (...) and David L. Hall bring the timeless wisdom of the Dao de jing into our contemporary world. Though attributed to Laozi, “the Old Master,” the Dao de jing is, in fact, of unknown authorship and may well have originated in an oral tradition four hundred years before the time of Christ. Eschewing philosophical dogma, the Dao de jing set forth a series of maxims that outlined a new perspective on reality and invited readers to embark on a regimen of self-cultivation. In the Daoist world view, each particular element in our experience sends out an endless series of ripples throughout the cosmos. The unstated goal of the Dao de jing is self-transformation–the attainment of personal excellence that flows from the world and back into it. Responding to the teachings of Confucius, the Dao de jing revitalizes moral behavior by recommending a spontaneity made possible by the cultivated “habits” of the individual. In this elegant volume, Ames and Hall feature the original Chinese texts of the Dao de jing and translate them into crisp, chiseled English that reads like poetry. Each of the eighty-one brief chapters is followed by clear, thought-provoking commentary exploring the layers of meaning in the text. The book’s extensive introduction is a model of accessible scholarship in which Ames and Hall consider the origin of the text, place the emergence of Daoist philosophy in its historical and political context, and outline its central tenets. The Dao de jing is a work of timeless wisdom and beauty, as vital today as it was in ancient China. This new version will stand as both a compelling introduction to the complexities of Daoist thought and as the classic modern English translation. (shrink)

Offers an in-depth exposition of the Confucian conception of persons as the starting point of Confucian ethics.