This paper describes and analyses the experience of the participants of an undergraduate reading group on ‘The Wartime Quartet’. In the first section, I explain the set-up of the reading group. In the second section, I discuss what the participants shared and the trends we noticed in our experiences as women and marginalised genders studying undergraduate philosophy In the third section, I explain why the philosophy of the Quartet was itself vital to our development and how it (...) enabled us to begin critically engaging with the material presented in our courses. My fourth section introduces a phenomenon I call disassociated disagreement (DD) and uses testimonies from former members of the reading group to illustrate why this phenomenon is central to understanding the confusion that sometimes presents in students of philosophy. I then discuss a strategy for combating DD and illustrate how students’ seeming confusion can provide a pathway to unique and insightful philosophical perspectives. I conclude by situating my discussion within the broader framework of research into women's representation in philosophy and close by arguing that the concept of DD can be a potent tool for encouraging more philosophy undergraduates who belong to marginalised groups to pursue further study. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot all studied at Oxford University during the Second World War. One of their wartime tutors was Donald MacKinnon. This paper gives a broad overview of MacKinnon's philosophical outlook as it was developing at this time. Four talks from between 1938 and 1941—‘And the Son of Man That Thou Visiteth Him’ (1938), ‘What Is a Metaphysical Statement?’ (1940), ‘The Function of Philosophy in Education’ (1941) and ‘Revelation and Social Justice’ (1941)—give a (...) foretaste of the conception of moral philosophy that he later articulated in A Study of Ethical Theory (1957). We identify aspects of his philosophical outlook and unusual treatment of method that likely shaped his teaching. We trace his influence in the work of Midgley, Murdoch and Foot, all of whom studied with him from Trinity Term 1940 until their finals in 1942. In the case of Anscombe, though she was briefly his student—he taught her Plato—she and MacKinnon moved in shared intellectual circles, and there is reason to think that some of the forces that shaped MacKinnon's outlook also shaped hers. The sketch we offer is incomplete—in particular, we are not able to do justice to MacKinnon's explicitly theological writings—but we hope to achieve three things. First, to go some way towards indicating the importance of the teacher MacKinnon to understanding the work of his better-known pupils. Second, to introduce a philosopher for whom the teaching of philosophy, practical ethics and metaphysical theory were deeply entwined. Third, to reflect on the relationship between, on the one hand, a conception of the practice and significance of metaphysics and, on the other, a view on the role and nature of philosophical teaching and learning. (shrink)

At Oxford University, in the context of WW2, when men were largely obliged to abandon the university benches to take part in the war effort, four women philosophers, Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), Mary Midgley (1919-2018), Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) and Philippa Foot (1920-2010), formed a group of philosophical reflections that would become a competitor, after the war, to John L. Austin’s famous ‘Saturday Mornings’. At the heart of the concerns of this ‘wartime quartet’: putting the importance of being human back (...) at the centre of ethics. They opposed “modern moral philosophy” and its many presuppositions, including the claim that ethical questions are independent of the facts of human life or concern a purely rational subject abstracted from everyday issues and from its belonging to the human species. By putting the importance of being human back at the heart of their ethical reflections, these philosophers came to reflect on issues that directly concern human life, far from the philosophical abstractions that interested their men homologues. In this paper, I explore the extent to which this re-inscription of philosophy into everyday life and into ordinary human concerns, opens the way to a feminist philosophy and ethics. (shrink)

Philosophy is one of the least inclusive disciplines in the humanities and this situation is changing only very slowly. In this article I consider how one of the women of the Wartime Quartet, Iris Murdoch, can help to challenge this situation. Taking my cue from feminist and philosophical practices, I focus on Murdoch's experience of being a woman and a philosopher and on the role experience plays in her philosophical writing. I argue that her thinking is best characterised (...) with the notion of common sense orsensus communis. This term recognises her understanding of philosophy as based in experience and as a shared effort ‘to make sense of our life’, as Mary Midgley puts it. (shrink)

A central notion in Benjamin Lipscomb's narrative of the rise of the ‘Wartime Quartet’—Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch—is that of philosophical pictures (e.

This essay explores the legacy of the four philosophers now often referred to as ‘The Wartime Quartet’: G.E.M. Anscombe, Iris Murdoch, Philippa Foot and Mary Midgley. The life and work of the four, who studied together in Oxford during the Second World War, is the subject of two recently published books, The Women Are Up to Something, by Benjamin Lipscomb, and Metaphysical Animals, by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman. The two books show us how Anscombe, Murdoch, Foot (...) and Midgley became friends united in their hostility to the logical-positivist orthodoxy of the day and its deleterious influence on Oxford moral philosophy. And we see how their friendship had a formative influence on their subsequent—highly distinguished—careers, so that it is possible to discern, if not exactly a school of thought, then various common themes, ideas and concerns, which are expressed and developed in contrasting ways. While Lipscomb represents the work of the Quartet as of largely historical significance, my paper defends what I take to be Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman's position that their legacy is very much a living one, containing insights that are not just of enduring relevance, but can transform how we see ourselves and how we do philosophy. For Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman, the key idea shared by the members of the Quartet is to place the concept of life at the centre of philosophical attention. This commitment has at least four dimensions: (i) an interest in the ordinary; (ii) a focus on virtue, goodness and human flourishing; (iii) an affirmation of our animal nature; (iv) recognition of the normative landscape that structures our lives. I try to bring out the philosophical significance of these themes in a way relevant to the philosophical elucidation of education. (shrink)

In recent years, a new scholarly gaze has been cast on four women‒Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch‒who have come to be known as the ‘Wartime Quartet’. During the postwar period, when women were still scarce in the discipline, these four flourished as philosophers. New details about their wartime education give us materials to reflect on what enabled them to develop their unique philosophical voices. Their work dispels widespread philosophical dogmas, especially scientistic interpretations of (...) naturalism that exclude value from the fabric of reality. Through their attention to the details of ordinary life, they avoid flattening the complexities of moral learning, especially where this involves navigating intergenerational differences. The articles in this Suite look to the Wartime Quartet's writings and learning conditions to show that, far from being of purely historical interest, they shed fresh light on the aims and challenges of moral education and offer a critical perspective on current pedagogical practices‒particularly in the teaching of philosophy. (shrink)

Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch, Gertrude Anscombe and Philippa Foot studied together in Oxford during the war, at a time when most of the men had left the university, leaving it to them for themselves. These unique circumstances where decisive for the fact that they all went on to become successful philosophers and were able to develop their own original philosophical theories, opposing the philosophical dogmas of their time, Midgley later wrote. This claim is the point of departure for this article. (...) It has three purposes: First I try to say something about the circumstances that made it possible to develop such alternatives, and second, I try to say something about what they consist in. Finally, I ask what this story can teach us about inclusion of women in philosophy today. (shrink)

This is an article about the history of US sociology with systematic intent. It goes back to World War II to recover a wartime narrative context through which sociologists formulated a ‘trauma’ to the discipline and ‘blamed’ qualitative and values-oriented research for damaging the scientific status of sociology. This narrative documents a discussion of the changes that sociologists said needed to be made in sociology as a science to repair its status and reputation. While debates among sociologists about theory (...) and method had always been contentious, the wartime narrative insisted for the first time that sociology be immediately unified around quantitative approaches. The narrative of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ science that developed during the war not only undermined the efforts of social interactionists to theorize social action and social justice, but also derailed Parsons’ pre-war effort to bridge differences. The moral coding that is the legacy of the narrative stigmatized important approaches to sociology, leading to a ‘crisis’ in the 1960s that still haunts the discipline. Disciplinary history has overlooked the wartime narrative with the result that the role played by World War II in effecting this crisis has gone unrecognized. (shrink)

A human document of historic interest concerning a good-will mission to wartime England filled with trenchant and witty observation of its brave and stoical people.

Written from September 1939 to January 1941, Simone de Beauvoir’s Wartime Diary gives English readers unabridged access to one of the scandalous texts that threaten to overturn traditional views of Beauvoir’s life and work. The account in Beauvoir’s Wartime Diary of her clandestine affair with Jacques Bost and sexual relationships with various young women challenges the conventional picture of Beauvoir as the devoted companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, just as her account of completing her novel She Came to Stay (...) at a time when Sartre’s philosophy in Being and Nothingness was barely begun calls into question the traditional view of Beauvoir’s novel as merely illustrating Sartre’s philosophy. Most important, the Wartime Diary provides an exciting account of Beauvoir’s philosophical transformation from the prewar solipsism of She Came to Stay to the postwar political engagement of The Second Sex. Cast in the crucible of the Nazi Occupation, Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics reflects dramatic collective experiences, such as joining the tide of refugees fleeing the German invasion in June 1940, as well as the courageous reaffirmation of her individuality in constructing a humanist ethics of freedom and solidarity in January 1941. (shrink)

Wartime (1941‑1945) reveals an incomprehensible Russian usefulness three-quarters of a century later. The quality and properties of Russia are determined by its trajectory of two millennia, not one. Therefore, its meaning and mystery of the great Patriotic war can only be understood thanks to the Holy Scripture. N.V. Gogol insisted on this who saw the events of national history "clearer than day" through crimes "before God". In Gogol's words, "the last judgment of God" took place over the aggression of (...) Germany. As a result, the great Victory will "wake up the present" [4]. The author's philosophical view is presented as a concept: the time of the great war is first studied in the light of the two-thousand-year trajectory of the Fatherland. It was started by St. Andrew the First-called. National usefulness treated after V.I. Dahl. The qualitative properties of "usefulness" generalizations can be traced in the concepts of "Russianness", "all-Russianness" and "Sovietness". Eternity sanctified wartime, which became the pinnacle of the sacred Spirit. The sanctity of war is considered comprehensively, based on history, science, religion, philosophy, and art. (shrink)

Ask any Civil War historian about the cost of the Civil War and they will recite a host of well-known assessments, from military casualties and government expenditures to various measures of direct and indirect costs. But those numbers are not likely to include an appraisal of the humanitarian crisis and suffering caused by the wartime destruction of slavery. Peace-time emancipation in other regions and in other societies certainly presented dangers and difficulties for the formerly enslaved, but wartime emancipation (...) chained the new opportunities and possibilities for freedom to war’s violence, civil chaos, destruction and deprivation. The resulting health crisis, including illness, injury, and trauma, had immediate and lasting consequences for black civilians and soldiers. Although historians are more accustomed to thinking of enslaved people as the beneficiaries of this war, rather than its victims, we cannot assess the cost of this war until we answer two important questions: first, what price did enslaved people have to pay because their freedom was achieved through warfare rather than a peacetime process; and secondly, in this war in which so many Americans paid such a high cost, to what extent did racism inflate the cost paid by people of African descent? In answering these questions, we reconsider this specific war, but we must also tie the U.S. Civil War to a larger scholarship on how wars impact civilians, create refugee populations, and accelerate harsh treatment of people regarded as racial, religious, or ethnic outsiders. We are reminded that war is not an equal-opportunity killer. (shrink)

Collects a series of photos and film stills of kisses and intimate moments from the World War II era, explaining the culture significance of these moments and what they say about society at the time.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Milanese Quartet FRED LICHT Milan, so often thought of as the heartless capital of grinding industry and heedless hedonism, is nevertheless home to at least four of the highest achievements of western art. Considered as a quartet, they represent both the greatness and the equivocal nature of human endeavor. Two of them, Raphael’s Sposalizio and Bramante’s Church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro, deal with the (...) harmonious congruence of human aspirations and human achievement attained by the grace of Providence. The limitations of human experience are accepted not as a curse but as a blessing because they are imposed by Divine Will. For Raphael as for Bramante, the artist’s obligation is to penetrate to the uttermost limits that circumscribe human existence. Having reached those limits he transmits to us the assurance that supreme fulfillment and serenity lie within and not beyond our grasp. The other two works, Leonardo’s Last Supper and Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini, conceive of the limits so gratefully acknowledged by Raphael and Bramante as nothing but the tragic starting point for their art. We can assume that all four artists had read Eccclesiastes and knew that “All is Vanity!” and consequently knew of the inevitable ruination that befalls everything terrestrial. Bramante and Raphael never mentioned the knowledge they had acquired from Ecclesiastes. Leonardo and Michelangelo made their recognition of Vanitas the very essence of their art. i. of this quartet, Raphael’s Marriage of the Virgin is by far the least popular today (fig. 1). The most obvious factor that arion 27.2 fall 2019 tends to make us wary of Raphael’s early work is its criminal overuse by religious as well as profane publicity. It has been massively reproduced in edulcorated colors, fragmented to yield sentimental details, visually bowdlerized. We cannot help but be heartily sick of Raphael Madonne on those hideous little catechism-class handouts and on expensive as well as cheap bonbonnières. We have become wary of seductive paintings and Raphael’s Sposalizio is eminently seductive. We may have sloughed off nearly all the Victorian hypocrisies and strictures, but in art we continue to be stoutly puritanical. We are more than a little convinced that seduction must necessarily be the result of a false or calculating appeal for our sympathies which we should resist. And there can be no doubt about it, Raphael, especially during his youth and early maturity, seduces and intends to seduce. Since we have little reason for self-esteem, we dismiss out of hand the possibility that Raphael might genuinely love us sight unseen. Indeed, who are we that he should want to seduce us? The love he bears us is a nuisance because it is hard to deserve or live up to such affection. So it is natural to suspect him of ulterior motives that might demean or disappoint us were we to fall victim to his seduction. Yet love is one of Raphael’s great gifts. If we feel unworthy of what he offers us, if we have been conditioned to distrust anyone who courts us without an obvious motive, then that’s our loss, not his. Perhaps if we look a little more closely at this particular seducer’s methods, we will find that they are practiced in good faith. He loves us because he sees the world sub specie amoris. The particular task he sets himself is not an easy one. The narrative, the wedding of the Virgin, is both intimate in spirit and minuscule in action. It hardly seems suitable for an altar that has to have an immediate effect on the faithful who approach it. It is a story that has been illustrated by many artists before Raphael—Perugino’s painting of the same subject is rightly and frequently cited—but it was Raphael who gave it its ideal and definitive representation. Just as paint20 a milanese quartet ings of the Last Supper painted after Leonardo’s version always strike us as a bit of a failure even when attempted by such giants as Tintoretto, Rubens or Tiepolo, so is it impossible to think of any Sposalizio after Raphael’s without an edge of disappointment. In fact... (shrink)

Debra Bergoffen’s Contesting the Politics of Genocidal Rape shows us beautifully what is gained by considering rape as a consequence of genocide. What gets lost here, in relation to considering cases of rape that are not the result of such, such as gang rape, “mass rape,” or other instances of rape? Is rape qua rape a human rights violation of a sort that is articulated within the context of the “right to sexual integrity”? Can a case be made, even in (...) “non-wartime” societies where rape occurs systematically as an instance of patriarchy and misogyny, that rape is a human rights violation of the right to sexual self-determination? Or is it the case that the conditions of wartime rape merit a different set of considerations in order to locate it as a human rights violation? My comments attempt to think through some of these questions with Bergoffen. (shrink)

On probability and possibility -- The Tucson Zoo -- Death in the open -- On matters of doubt.

The transcripts of the three Kyoto School roundtable discussions of the theme of 'The standpoint of world history and Japan' may now be judged to form the key source text of responsible Pacific War revisionism. Published in the pages of Chuo Koron, the influential magazine of enlightened elite Japanese opinion during the twelve months after Pearl Harbor, these subversive discussions involved four of the finest minds of the second generation of the Kyoto School of philosophy. Tainted by controversy and shrouded (...) in conspiratorial mystery, these transcripts were never republished in Japan after the war, and they have never been translated into English except in selective and often highly biased form. David Williams has now produced the first objective, balanced and close interpretative reading of these three discussions in their entirety since 1943. This version of the wartime Kyoto School transcripts is neither a translation nor a paraphrase but a fuller rendering in reader-friendly English that is convincingly faithful to the spirit of the original texts. The result is a masterpiece of interpretation and inter-cultural understanding between the Confucian East and the liberal West. Seventy years after Tojo came to power, these documents of the Japanese resistance to his wartime government and policies exercise a unique claim on students of Japanese history and thought today because of their unrivalled revelatory potential within the vast literature on the Pacific War. The Philosophy of Japanese Wartime Resistance may therefore stand as the most trenchant analysis of the political, philosophic and legal foundations of the place of the Pacific War in modern Japanese history yet to appear in any language. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Gugliemo's Non‐Participation in the Canon Respecting and Transforming Conventional Operatic Structure Musical and Dramatic Structure in Così Fan Tutti.

_Purpose._ The authors aim to disclose the anthropological dimension of ecocide during and after Russia’s war against Ukraine, relying on the multidisciplinary practices and intellectual production of ecofeminist women thinkers, including philosophers, sociologists, historians, psychologists, and others. _The theoretical basis_ methodological approaches in philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, analytical philosophy, communicative philosophy, existentialism, ethics of justice, and ethics of care determine the study’s theoretical basis._ Originality._ For the first time, a systematic analysis of the anthropological dimension of ecocide has been carried out (...) based on ecofeminist methodology. The specifics of the Ukrainian resistance to ecocide were revealed as part of a single struggle – an anti-imperial and ecological struggle for independence and prosperity. It is emphasized that during the war, the opposition to ecocide is a component of the fight for national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, and therefore, the ideas of pacifism in this period are subordinated to this primary goal. After the war, preventing threats of ecocide should become an integral part of the struggle for stable peace and prosperity. Ecofeminist pacifist perspectives should be a priority among the most essential goals for that period. _Conclusions._ Ecofeminist methodological assessments offer valuable insights into the anthropological dimension of ecocide in wartime and post-war contexts, highlighting the complex interplay between gender, violence, and environmental destruction. By focusing on the experiences and perspectives of women and marginalized communities, ecofeminist analyses contribute to a more holistic understanding of ecocide and its impacts on both human populations and ecosystems. (shrink)

The article’s reasoning is based on the definition of the nature of the war in Ukraine, which, following the Russian aggression on February 24, 2022, escalated into a full-scale conflict: this war has gradually acquired features of the total wars of the 20th century and transformed into a war of attrition, which could last for a considerable period of time. If such a war does not end with the capitulation of one of the parties, the most likely outcome would be (...) a peace agreement involving third parties, which would take the form of a compromise and involve a renunciation by the participating parties of complete victory in the war. Given the just nature of Ukraine's war against Russian aggression, the author raises the question of whether a peace can be considered just without a complete victory over the aggressor and without the full restoration of justice disrupted by the aggression. Drawing on the classical work of M. Walzer, the author concludes that renouncing complete victory and halting hostilities at a point when the conflict can be resolved through political means fully aligns with the concept of a just war as a limited war. To establish the moral principles and possible limits of compromises in wartime, the author turns to A. Margalit’s concept, which, in his view, continues Walzer’s reasoning by outlining the possibility of compromises for the sake of peace. Drawing on contemporary research on political compromises, the author analyzes possible configurations of compromises in wartimes, their differences from political compromises in peacetime, and other potential outcomes of a war of attrition, including scenarios such as the capitulation of one of the parties or a modus vivendi. The article develops on the ideas of M. Walzer and A. Margalit, emphasizing that limiting the war and reaching a compromise for peace make necessary to clarify the requirements of justice. This, in turn, necessitates that the party engaged in a just war be guided by the ethics of responsibility when determining war aims, while also adhering to the fundamental distinction between good and evil in order to avoid "rotten" compromises. (shrink)

Jonathan Edwards is known as one of the most respected thinkers in American history and presided over the Great Awakening, one of the formative colonial events. What many don't realize is Edwards lived during a time of widespread conflict, which eventually touched the people of Northampton personally. Through these collected sermons, many of which are unpublished, Edwards sought to instruct, train, and comfort his congregation during a precarious season in provincial life. These sermons demonstrate the scope of Edwards's greatness: a (...) global thinker intimately connected to the British Empire as well as shepherd of the Northampton flock. The first part of this collection presents the sermons Edwards preached while the theater of war centered on the continent and the Caribbean. During this phase, Edwards's sermons leveraged martial language to promote the burgeoning revivals. In 1744, war was transplanted to the colonies in which the Northampton congregation personally participated. After a short hiatus of international conflict, warfare spread throughout the colonies. While he served a frontier mission, Edwards prepared his Indian congregation for yet another season of war. These sermons present Edwards as theologian, historian, philosopher, but most importantly, as pastor. (shrink)

Abstract:Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet – an almost continuous rave of interconnected love and desire, anger and violence – is also a story of the protagonist’s struggle to make sense of her life by writing it. She turns a traditional genre of a young person’s coming of age into a neurologically realistic portrait of the growth of an artist by multiplying narrative voices and by ignoring conventional bounds of narrative probability. Her story of the growth of a creative mind adumbrates (...) well the picture of brains and their processes currently being described and developed as a “predictive processing” model. Work in neurobiology and neurophysiology has been producing empirical demonstrations of the centrality of failure to successful human cognition. (shrink)

Joseph Needham occupies a central position in the historical narrative underpinning the most influential practitioner-derived definition of ‘science diplomacy’. The brief biographical sketch produced by the Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science sets Needham's activities in the Second World War as an exemplar of a science diplomacy. This article critically reconsiders Needham's wartime activities, shedding light on the roles played by photographs in those diplomatic activities and his onward dissemination of them as part of (...) his self-fashioning. Images were important to the British biochemist, and he was an avid amateur photographer himself, amassing a unique collection of hundreds of images relating to science, technology and medicine in wartime China during his time working as director of the Sino-British Science Co-operation Office. These included ones produced by China's Nationalist Party-led government, and by the Chinese Communist Party. Focusing on these photographs, this article examines the way Joseph Needham used his experiences to underpin claims to authority which, together with the breadth of his networks, enabled him to establish himself as an international interlocutor. All three aspects formed essential parts of his science diplomacy. (shrink)

In his topical article, Andrew Cling claims that the best extant formulation of the so-called epistemic regress problem rests on five assumptions that are too strong. Cling offers an improved version that rests on a different set of three core epistemic assumptions, each of which he argues for. Despite of owing a great deal to Cling’s ideas, I argue that the epistemic regress problem surfaces from more fundamental assumptions than those offered by Cling. There are ultimately two core assumptions—in fact (...) two contradictory strands within the concept of epistemic support—which jointly create a powerful challenge for our pursuit of paramount epistemic values. (shrink)

The aim of the research was to analyse the experience of medical volunteers during World War II in the context of nursing history. Oral history data used in the study consisted of 30 interviews with Finnish wartime medical volunteers, known locally as Lottas. Interview data were analysed both thematically and by using the oral history method. Based on the analysis, the Lottas' experiences during wartime nursing became the leitmotif of this study. The main themes consisted of the following: (...) ‘taking care of wounded and ill patients', ‘taking care of dying and deceased patients’, ‘taking care of mentally ill and psychoactive substance‐addicted patients’ and ‘confronting ethical and role dilemmas in nursing’. The interview results showed that the Lottas' duties were sometimes more demanding than basic nursing tasks and that their education was not adequate for the challenges that they faced. In this paper, the terms Lotta, medical Lotta or medical volunteer are used interchangeably and refer to people who were assigned to medical volunteer tasks, regardless of whether or not they were trained. It also includes junior members of the organisation who served as medical volunteers as minors, with special permission. (shrink)

This paper sings a song — a song created by bringing together the work of four great names in the history of logic: Hans Reichenbach, Arthur Prior, Richard Montague, and Leon Henkin. Although the work of the first three of these authors have previously been combined, adding the ideas of Leon Henkin is the addition required to make the combination work at the logical level. But the present paper does not focus on the underlying technicalities rather it focusses on the (...) underlying instruments, and the way they work together. We hope the reader will be tempted to sing a long. (shrink)

The article examines the sensorium and how it is has been divided to argue that touch underlies what we refer to as hearing. It explores Stockhausen's "Helicopter Quartet" as an extended meditation on the mediation of the senses and the foregrounding of touch in the piece through teletechnologies that serve as prosthetic devices for sound, sight and touch.

This essay proposes a new reading of Cohen’s polemical text, Germanism and Judaism. It argues that the development of Cohen’s late philosophy reveals him not as a helpless philosopher overwhelmed by the maelstrom of a world war, but as an “engaged” thinker who carries forward what he takes to be philosophy’s duty to struggle against war by going to “war” in the space of theory and culture. Cohen’s text needs to be placed in the context of his other wartime (...) writings which, on the one hand, assigned a new and more radical function to messianic Judaism within his ethics, and simultaneously transplanted his neo-Kantianism into the more “realistic” political philosophies of Plato and of Spinoza, respectively. This essay argues that the thought of the later Cohen does not break with his previous commitments to cosmopolitanism and social democracy, as much as it tries to confront the harsh realities of European nationalist and anti-Semitic politics by articulating the roles of philosophy and of Judaism in modernity no longer through a strictly idealistic and cosmopolitan optic. (shrink)