Published by Axia Academic Publishers
Figurative art in Bulgaria from the 1920s and 1930s: The School of Kyustendil, Kiril Tsonev and Boris Elisayeff
Galina Dekova
The aim of this paper is to present those realistic tendencies in Bulgarian painting from the 1920s and 1930s, that echoe contemporary West European ones, like the New Objectivity in Germany. Among others, it will be shown how Bulgarian artist's paintings are inspired by the folklore primitive from the past and reflect the assiduity of cultural administration to renew the idea of a modern artistic school of art with a defined national character.
Le film de genre est-il comparable à une "expérience de pensée" ? Révisions des concepts de déterminisme et d'agentivité dans trois films noirs (1947-1949)
Toufic El-Khoury
Is genre film comparable to a thought experiment? Revising concepts of determinism and agency in three film noirs (1947-1949) The philosophical approach of film genres, first popularized by authors like Stanley Cavell, allows to consider genre films as narrative variations as pertinent to philosophical discourse as can be a traditional thought experiment, since every question on the essence of a genre (for example, what is a film noir?) and every discussion related to its inner functions, its mechanisms and its themes, generate naturally a philosophical discourse on the way a director uses filmic and narrative tools to transform his intentions into a specific system of meaning. This study adopts formalist and philosophical approaches to connect the narratives of the movies to the discourses it is prone to generate. The corpus draws on the 'primitive scene' in three films noirs, Out of the Past (Tourneur, 1947), The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1947) et Criss Cross (Siodmak, 1949): the tragic meeting of an anti-hero with the woman who will be responsible of his fall. Indeed, the sequence showing this first meeting becomes an exercise in style where forerunning signs of the two protagonists' fall organize the writing and the mise-en-scene, and explicitly shows how questions of agency and determinism are intimately articulated to the narrative and formal frame of the movies.
21 Reads
Jan Patočka: Die Funktion der Literatur in der Gesellschaft (1968)
Jan Patočka
An Text from Jan Patočka's Archive in Vienna on "The function of the literature in society" (1968), translated from Czech into German by Ludger Hagedorn.
Textual Keys to Understand Socrates' Profession of Ignorance in the Apology (21a-23c)
Trinidad Silva
In the present paper I analyze some relevant textual keys of Plato's Apology (21a-23c) to show the many strands underlying Socrates' claims of ignorance. I advocate a position that seeks to reevaluate the use of epistemic lexica by considering other evidence, such as cultural and dramatic context, the use of hypothetical clauses, the comparative and the rhetoric of the pair real/apparent. From this approach, I hope to show that there are good reasons to interpret Socrates' claims of ignorance in the light of amiable irony, whereby the use of language and other literary devices create layers of meaning to express the full sense of Socratic wisdom for the audience without resorting to the charge of contradiction or insincerity. Against a position that reduces Socrates' message to the use of epistemic lexica to interpret it either by synonymy, equivocity or low/high cognitive grading, I propose to read Socrates' claims of ignorance, always in comparison to others' claim of wisdom, as a sort of cultural appropriation and revaluation of the traditional title σοφία/σοφός.
On the Matters of The Plastic People of the Universe and DG 307
An essay of Jan Patočka on Dostoevsky's short story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man".
Feminism and Gender Studies dismantled? Critical Reflections on the Occasion of the 650th Jubilee of Vienna University
Yvanka B Raynova
A Discussion about the Problems of Institutionalization of Feminist Theory and the Gender Studies at the University of Vienna.
Jan Patočka's Reversal of Dostoevsky and Charter 77
Jozef Majernik
Jan Patočka became politically active for the first time as a spokesperson of the dissident movement Charter 77. In this capacity he wrote several essays, the first of which, entitled "On the Matters of The Plastic People of the Universe and DG 307", I interpret as the explanation and justification of his turn toward political engagement. The following article is a reading of Patočka's essay that pays particular attention to a peculiar formal feature of the essay – namely that it's presented as a reversal of Dostoevsky's short story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man". In reversing this story, Patočka shows us the two basic ways of human life and explains his political engagement as an action taken on behalf of the properly human way of life, which he calls "life in truth" or "the responsible life". The purpose of his political engagement thus wasn't defending human rights, but defending life in truth, to which human rights provide suitable conditions. "On the Matters…" also presents Patočka's assessment of the Communist regime with clarity and severity not seen elsewhere in his writings, and shows a shift in his views of youth and youthful rebellion.
La critique sartrienne de l'universel abstrait : éléments pour une pensée du multiculturel
Alfredo Gomez Muller
Sartre's Critique of the Abstract Universal: Elements for a Multicultural Thinking The question of cultural justice, which refers in different contexts to the exigency of universality, constitutes a central aspect of Sartre's writings after World War II as f.ex. Réflexions sur la question juive (1946), Orphée noir (1948), Cahiers pour une morale (1947-1948), the famous Preface to Les damnés de la terre of Franz Fanon (1961) and his article on the "question basque" (1971). In this texts Sartre poses some questions, which are crucial for the contemporary multiculturalism debates, specially the questions of cultural justice, of the concepts of universality and the practical subject, of the articulation between cultural justice and distributive justice, as well as of the relation between person, economics and culture. The aims of this article is to discuss the main points of Sartre's critique of the abstract universality on the basis of his Réflexions sur la question juive and to articulate the fields where Sartre's thought offers the theoretical resources for a contemporary debate on cultural justice.
Iris Murdoch's Criticism of Traditional Views of the Moral Self: An Alternative Account of "seeing" the Others
Ana Lita
The main objective of this article is to reconstruct Iris Murdoch's criticism of the moral self as it was developed by liberalism, romanticism, existentialism and linguistic empiricism that interpreted the moral person as entangled either in a world of essences (Kant's view) or in a world of mere existence in which the interplay of both necessity and freedom is at stake. Thus what is missing from all these theories is a sufficient development of what it is to have a regard for others through aesthetic perception, which is the most important aspect of the moral self. At the difference of these conceptions Murdoch offers an alternative view, both to liberal ethics in the Kantian tradition and to contemporary ethics, as she argues that to have regard for others demands responsiveness which can also be explained in terms of aesthetic sensibility. Murdoch's ethics rests on an analogy between aesthetic sensibility and moral sensibility based upon the model of the artist's unconditional love for his characters, which she interprets as being a matter of seeing and loving others. The author's thesis is that love is the crucial point of Murdoch's conception of the moral self where the moral and aesthetical sensibility, as well cognition, intersect each other, because seeing others incorporates emotions of respect and compassion that characterize love and such seeing is cognitive love.
The Actuality of Sartre's Free Will Conception
Peter Kampits
The main Sartrean concepts and theses of freedom of will and unlimited responsibility, which seemed for many already outdated, are gaining actually interest in respect to the recent results in brain research. The main objective of the paper is to reevaluate Sartre's free will conception trying to answer the question: How would Sartre who, in the time of his existentialist phase during which his radical theory of freedom received its most pointed articulation, was familiar with psychological theories of determinism, have responded to statements of actually leading brain researchers such as "we are determined," "brain research liberates from illusions" or "I am my brain"?
2,130 Reads
Adorno und Habermas im Vergleich: Vom Säkularismus zum Postsäkularismus?
Karel Hlaváček
Adorno and Habermas: From Secularism to Post-Secularim? The article analyses the 'post-secular turn' in critical theory by comparing Jürgen Habermas' late philosophy with the philosophy of his predecessor Theodor W. Adorno. It poses the question to what extent can Habermas be seen as a post-secular theorist when setting his work against that of Adorno? Following Birgitte Schepelern Johansen, the author develop a concept of post-secularism as a move beyond the strict division between religion and non-religion, and apply the concept to the work of the two critical theorists in question. Finally, Adorno's work is identified as a 'religious secularism' and Habermas' work as a 'post-secular secularism'. Thus, the author points out the ambivalence, which the alleged 'post-secular turn' breeds, and suggest a reconsideration of the religious motives discovered in Adorno's work.
The Critical-Linguistic Critique of the Aesthetic Ideology in the Late Writing of Paul de Man
The focus of this essay is Paul de Man's provocative antipathy towards the category of the aesthetic in his late writings on philosophical aesthetics. I introduce de Man's critique of what he terms aesthetic ideology – a form of ideological communication – which he considers manifest in the aesthetics of Schiller in particular but also in more scrupulously critical philosophers. I begin the essay with Benjamin's well known observation that twentieth century fascisms aestheticized political practice as part of a defence of existing property relations. I introduce de Man's critique of aesthetic ideology as a way of developing or elaborating on what are relatively sketchy comments on the relationship aesthetics and politics in Benjamin's earlier essay.
Sculpting Character: Aristotle's Voluntary as Affectability
Audrey Anton
I argue that the two criteria traditionally identified as jointly sufficient for voluntary behavior according to Aristotle require qualification. Without such qualification, they admit troubling exceptions (i.e., they are not sufficient). Through minding these difficult examples, I conclude that a third condition mentioned by Aristotle – the eph' hēmin – is key to qualifying the original two criteria. What is eph' hēmin is that which is efficiently caused by appetite and teleologically caused by reason such that the agent could have, in theory, acted differently. I propose that praise and blame are justified only when 1: the behavior is voluntary and 2: the agent is susceptible (at least in principle) to the positive influences of appropriate praise and blame to help form, improve, or strengthen a good character. Through concentrating on the agent's affectability in morally salient situations, we may better understand the qualified criteria's role in voluntary human behavior in general.
Rivalität, Affekt, Interesse. Ansatzpunkte einer materialistischen Kriegstheorie
Christopher Pollmann
In debate with Bernhard H. F. Taureck, Burkhard Liebsch and other authors, we try to develop a materialistic theory of war. Central to this are the rivalries between sovereign states, which have extended and become more complex in the course of globalization. Both political-economic and symbolic-emotional interests are bundled in them. The competition between states, only partially curbed by supranational authorities, also reflects in so-called international law. In contrast to the domestic legal system, this has indeed only limited legal character, as Thucydides' famous Melian dialogue shows.
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Das Erhabene im phänomenologischen Sinne: Die affektiv leibliche Erfahrung des Raumes
Irene Breuer
The Sublime in a phenomenological sense: The Affective Bodily Experience of Space The aim of the following paper is to redefine the sublime in phenomenological terms, a task long overdue. Departing from Kant, it claims that the phenomenological sublime is an emotion aroused neither by the power of our reason transcending the inadequacy of imagination as it concerns nature, nor by the overwhelming powers of imagination as it concerns an artwork, but by the excess of sensuousness over conceptuality, which is bodily felt. This shift into bodily apprehensions, though advanced by empirical psychologists, took place in the twentieth century resulting from Husserl's and Merleau-Ponty's reformulation of the affective sphere of the body and of its concomitant experience of space. Their criticism of compossibility and harmony lead to a disruption of the bodily metaphoric order inherent to artistic representation. This becomes evident in the conception of present architecture, as the works of Tschumi and Eisenman show. The phenomenological emotion of sublimity expresses thus the affective bodily experience of space.
Modelling Speech and Speakers: Gadamer and Davidson on dialogue, agreement, and intelligible difference
Vladimir Lazurca
This paper examines Gadamer's and Davidson's dialogical models of interpretation. It shows them to be comparable, but importantly dissimilar with respect to the kind of agreement they require for communication to be possible. It is argued that this difference entails different concepts of alterity: they model not only how we talk, but implicitly who we can intelligibly talk to. Another important contribution of this paper is to uncover a distinction in Gadamer between two kinds of agreement missed so far by all commentators. The final section of this paper defends a second thesis, namely that the degree of agreement required by the models is proportional to the conceptual difference it can make intelligible. Hence, the extent of graspable cultural difference is not only an empirical matter, but is entailed by our choice of model.
Aletheia : la vérité des traductions philosophiques en tant que traduction de la vérité. À la rencontre de Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricœur et Antoine Berman
Mădălina Guzun
Aletheia: The Truth of Philosophical Translation as a Translation of Thruth. An Encounter of Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricœur and Antoine Berman The article analyzes the specificity of philosophical translations insofar as they generate a new meaning and present themselves as originals that must be retranslated. This goes against Ricœur's conception of translation as a creation of comparable terms. We will show that philosophical translation consists in the creation of an incomparable term, which cannot be measured in terms of equivalence, adequacy or fidelity. All these terms correspond to a notion of truth understood as adequacy, therefore we operate a deconstruction of aletheia, the Greek concept for "truth", in order to show that what we hold today to be the truth of translation has been the result of a translation. Through Heidegger's reading of aletheia and through Berman's account of the terms that name translation in Europe, we reinterpret the Roman philosophical translations as examples of traductio and we show, in the end, that by retranslating aletheia, the rules for the practice of translation change, allowing the latter to be guided by an ethical approach towards the otherness rather than by righteous fidelity and adequacy.
Sartres und Beauvoirs Antinaturalismus als Kritik am Geschlechterverhätnis in der Moderne
Sartre's and Beauvoir's Antinaturalism as Critique of the Concepts of Gender Relations in Modernity Sartre's and Beauvoir's antinaturalism can be seen as the rejection of the attribution of some particu-lar "nature" to specific social groups in order to deny essential aspects of their human being or even of their humanity as such. Since the existential approach starts from the lived experience and includes praxis as a crucial factor of becoming oneself, it makes possible to show some phenomena of human being and human relations that remains invisible on the abstract philosophical level. One of these central phenomena is gender, respectively gender relations, and the interconnected mecha-nisms of oppression and social exclusion. The aim of the article is to reconstruct Sartre's and Beauvoir's antinaturalist conceptions and to compare it in order to articulate their consequences for the gender problematic.
Kriege und fatale Illusionen der Besiegbarkeit als Bedrohung. Metatheoretische Beobachtungen und Desiderate gegenwärtiger Philosophie kriegerischer Gewalt
Wars and Fatal Illusions of Defeatability as a Threat. Metatheoretical Observations and Desiderata of a Contemporary Philosophy of Martial Violence This essay deals with the question how war threatens us even when peace seems to reign. Refering to Heraklit, Kant, and recent theories of war, the author takes answers to this question into account especially with respect to the problem if it is possible to keep in check illusions which make us believe that one can get rid of enmity by way of 'final solutions'.
Phänomenologie als Antwort und Verantwortung. Von Husserl bis Derrida
Responsibility was always a key theme of Husserl and post-husserlian Phenomenology. This theme is related to Husserl's effort to give an answer, i.e. to offer a solution to the crisis of philosophy and the sciences. The article reconstructs the genesis and the successive development of the concept of responsibility in Husserl's work and its reinterpretation in the post-husserlian phenomenologies, especially those of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hannah Arendt, Jan Patočka, Hans Jonas, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida.
Tugend als Wert: Christoph Halbig und Max Scheler im Vergleich
Virtue as Value: A Comparison between Christoph Halbig and Max Scheler The aim of the following contribution is to compare the virtue conceptions of Christoph Halbig and Max Scheler in order to scrutinize their common positions and differences and thus to answer two questions: Firstly, is it true that Scheler's approach is based on the basic assumptions of the recursive theory of virtues, as Halbig asserts this? Secondly, can the virtues be defined as attitudes (Thomas Hurka, Christopher Halbig), or should they be conceived as qualities of the person (Max Scheler)? In addition, the author examines the connection of virtues and emotions more closely and shows that virtues can be regarded as a kind of transformers from the negative to the positive, because they fix the right way of dealing with negative emotions and because they switch over the negative basic mood into a positive and joyful one. The reflection of these questions is embedded in a constant reference to Aristotle's understanding of virtues.
Über-Setzung als diskursive Dominanz: Paul Ricœurs Übersetzungsparadigma neu gelesen
Über-Setzung as a discursive Dominance: A new Interpretation of Paul Ricoeur's Paradigm of Translation Putting into question the idealized interpretations of translation as an ethical paradigm and model for Europe (Paul Ricoeur, Domenico Jervolino), the author aims to reveal some negative aspects related to the politics of translation, specially the use of translation as a transfer of a dominant discourse. This negative phenomenon is analyzed by mean of the neologism of Über-Setzung (superimposition) designating an overlap of a discourse or an idiom over another through the abuse of the linguistic hospitality of translation. On the base of diverse examples and narratives the author offers a descrip-tion of the eidetic structure of Über-Setzung, and argues that the dominating language and its dis-course intervene in the mother language and its culture by putting itself "on" and "over" them as something primary, absolute and universal. The dominant discourse, that is established by means of translation, requires mindfulness, comprehension and acceptance; however, because it is a kind of anti-giving, the dominator who use it refuses to recognize the dominated as a partner; he treats him as non-equal and even as "retarded". In conclusion the author displays the intercultural potentialities of hermeneutic phenomenology in regard of a new European ethos of translation.
Die Kritik am transzendentalen Ich: Zu Sartres und Ricœurs Heidegger-Lektüren
The Critique of the Transcendental Ego: On Sartre's and Ricoeur's Heidegger Interpretations According Otto Pöggeler Heidegger's main brake with Husserl consists in his rejection of the tran-scendental constitution conceived as the life of an "absolute Cogito," replaced by Heidegger by the "factual life" from which phenomenology should always begin. The author of this paper argues that the problem about the starting point of phenomenology also appears later in the debates between Heidegger and Sartre, as well as in Ricoeur's Heidegger interpretation. Thus, the aim of the article is to analyze to what extent the positions of Heidegger, Sartre, and Ricoeur contradicts or even exclude each other, and to what extent they cross or eventually complement each other. The inquiry shows that Heidegger's accusation of Sartre's forgetting of the question about the sense of being of Dasein is unjustified. Equally untenable is Sartre's critique of Heidegger, that he had bypassed the Cogito as a starting point of the existential analysis, because Sartre's transcendence of the Cogito, which pretends to involve the transphenomenal Being, cannot be derived from it and risks to fall again in the trap of "phenomenalism," which Sartre reproached to Husserl. Ricoeur's Heidegger interpretation brings clarity to this discussion by pulling together the decentration of the subject and the limits of apodicticity of the Cogito. But his elaboration of the hermeneutics of the Self contains the risk of a hyperbolization of the role of language.
Hans-Georg Gadamers Sprachlichkeit der hermeneutischen Erfahrung im Wechselspiel von Vernunft und Erfahrung, Wissenschaft und/oder soziale Vorstellungen, Tradition(en) und/oder Gemeinschaft am Beispiel von Thomas Morus' Utopia
Ulrich Arnswald
Hermeneutics can be understood on the one hand as the art of interpretation, and on the other hand as a medium for dealing with the past, for conveying events, contexts or even writings in new ways of speaking for new recipients. The interpretation of writings, however, places special demands on hermeneutics: it does not take place in a sterile vacuum, but is rather embedded in a social and cultural context that shapes the interpretation or mediation and is an expression of a time, a fashion or a specific requirement of modernity. The question therefore arises as to what role reason and experience, science and/or social ideas, tradition(s) and/or community play in interpretation. Using Thomas More's masterpiece Utopia as an example, various resulting interpretative approaches to a concrete writing will be presented. Through the hermeneutic design of a historical horizon in relation to Thomas More's time as well as through the development of a historical awareness of the work, the possibility of an understanding of this world-famous, still controversial writing as well as the efficiency of Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics will become recognisable.
«Traduire par amour authentique du beau» : Novalis et le concept philosophique de la traduction
Christina Bezari
"Translating by the authentic love of the beautiful": Novalis and the philosophical concept of translation This article probes the concept of translation as perceived by the German poet Novalis in his Fragments. Special focus will be set on his philosophical considerations as well as on the passages that he devoted to translation and its three dimensions: grammatical, interpretative and mythical. In the context of this essay, I will proceed with an analysis of each of these dimensions placing particular emphasis on the notion of the imaginary. This novel approach provides an insight into the creativity of the translator and the fidelity to the text, the relationship between theory and praxis, and the symbolic or mystical aspects of translation.
In Memoriam Ana-Teresa Tymieniecka
An hommage of Yvanka B. Raynova to Ana-Teresa Tymieniecka, including personal mementoes, and an overview of her philosophical work, editorial activities, and conferences within the World Institute of Phenomenology.
Die Wertschätzung der Tradition und der Respekt vor dem Anderen: Herta Nagl-Docekal zum siebzigsten Geburtstag
The Valuation of the Tradition and the Respect of the Other: In Honor of Herta Nagl-Docekal (Editorial)
Dante's Self-Angelizing: A Prophecy of Egalitarian Transhumanism
Joshua M. Hall
In this article, I argue that Dante's philosophical goal is what I term "self-angelizing," an ennobling philosophical education granting one the knowledge and power of an angel, which the medieval scholastics conceived as celestial intelligences. Dante's own path to self-angelizing begins in his early New Life, which approaches a living Beatrice as exemplar of terrestrial angels. Next, Dante's middle-period Banquet discusses following Beatrice into self-angelizing through an education in philosophical virtue. Finally, in his climactic Paradise, Dante performs his own self-angelizing. The upshot of this journey is Dante's prophecy of an egalitarian transhumanism.
Understanding Aristotle's Notion of the Mean: A Case Study in Anger
Heather Stewart
In this paper, I argue that purely quantitative understandings of Aristotle's concept of "the mean" (as presented in Nicomachean Ethics) are oversimplified, and I make this argument by analyzing the particular emotion of anger. Anger, I contend, helps to complicate the purely quantitative understanding of the mean, insofar as, I argue, the amount of anger experienced is not the morally salient feature in determining whether or not the anger is virtuous. Rather, anger is one example of an emotion or trait for which other, non-quantitative parameters of the mean are more salient, giving us a more nuanced understanding of what the mean is. Anger is virtuous not when it is in the right measurable degree, but rather when it is directed at the proper target. In this way, the virtue-making property of anger is distinctly qualitative. Examining anger provides insight into the concept of the mean and its role in Aristotle's ethics, and also helps to shed light on contemporary debates about political anger.
Verantwortung angesichts humanbiologischer Herausforderungen
Antje Kapust
With the advancement of the new biotechnologies the problem of responsibility is becoming particularly acute. Instead of giving an own definition of responsibility, the author proposes to take it as a heuristic concept based on some Husserlian ideas developed in the Krisis. This ideas, which have some similarity with Jonas' principle of responsibility, are: first, responsibility as care for the vulnerable, second, responsibility in the context of a horizon of possibilities, and, third, responsibility for the own prerequisites as human being. By applying the hermeneutics of suspicion to some current issues, the author argues that the biotechnological revolution comes along with a shift of the cultures of recognition onto cultures of consumption. On the base of different arguments used in the biotechnological debates (arguments of status, of action relevance, of moral and right), three types of responsibility are revealed: the aporetic, the consecutive, and the quasi-hermeneutical responsibility, which enables a final controversy about their deficiency.
Wer hat Angst vor Jean-Paul Sartre?
Humans, Animals, and Aristotle. Aristotelian Traces in the Current Critique of Moral Individualism
Martin Huth
The concept of moral individualism is part of the foundational structure of most prominent modern moral philosophies. It rests on the assumption that moral obligations towards a respective individual are constituted solely by her or his capacities. Hence, these obligations are independent of any ἔθος (ethos), of any shared ethical sense and social significations. The moral agent and the individual with moral status (who is the target of a respective action) are construed as subjects outside of any social relation or lifeworld significations. This assumption has been contested in the last decades by diverse authors with very different approaches to moral philosophy. In the last years, an increasing number of philosophers like Cora Diamond and Alice Crary (with a Wittgensteinian background), but also phenomenologists like Paul Ricœur, Klaus Held, and Bernhard Waldenfels question the presupposition that individual capacities are the agent-neutral and context-neutral ground of moral considerations. This critique of moral individualism in different contemporary discourses shows a striking similarity between Wittgensteinian and phenomenological philosophers as their critical inquiry of prominent theories like the ones by Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Peter Singer or Tom Regan is derived from mostly implicitly efficacious Aristotelian theorems. Telling examples are the ἔθος (ethos) as pre-given normative infrastructure, the ἕξις (hexis) as individual internalization of the ethos, the φρόνησις (phronesis) described as a specific practical know-how in contrast to scientific knowledge, and not at least the definition of the human being as ζῷον πολιτικόν (zoon politikon). However, the Aristotelian sources of this movement have not yet been scrutinized systematically. This paper aims, first, to reveal the significance of these sources to make them visible and, second, to contribute to the notion of the topicality of Aristotelian philosophy in current debates on ethics.
Harmonizing voices: François Laruelle and Anthony Paul Smith
Anthony Paul Smith
Mark William Westmoreland
The following interview of Mark William Westmoreland with Anthony Paul Smith – well-known scholar and translator of François Laruelle – considers both implications and extensions of Laruelle's non-philosophy for contemporary thought. Smith has helped bring about a surge of interest in Laruelle due to his many translations of his texts as well as being the author or co-editor of several books on Laruelle. Discussed are in particular the difficulties and joys of translating and the usefulness of Laruelle's thought for Smith's own work, especially in environmental and animal studies. Also considered are some themes of non-philosophy, the adaptability of Laruelle's thought for various disciplines, as well as new paths for Laruelle studies – new, unforeseen landscapes and uses of non-philosophy – that explore social phenomena such as race, racism, sexism, victim a.o.
Verantwortung für die Fraglichkeit des Menschen? Zum Status der Philosophischen Anthropologie
Hans-Peter Krüger
Responsibility means not just to give the right response to a question. It should not necessarily succeed to ask and respond about acts, and to submit them to some discursive rules. In fact, responsibility is related to an indefinite questioning: How could some question-answer-rules, which consequences exceed a situation, be adequately applied to this situation? To give an answer to this questionability, it would be necessary to move in a self-relating language as well as in a distancing intuition. Thus, the author argues that it would be irresponsible if the philosophic-anthropological question about the human being could be answered by the application of some discursive rules.
Das Urchristentum im Rahmen der antiken Religionen
A book review of Rudolf Bultmann's Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Setting - translated from Czech into German by Ludger Hagedorn.
Paul Ricœurs Suche nach einer Neubegründung der Menschenrechte und der Würde durch die Fähigkeiten und die Anwendung der phronèsis
Paul Ricoeur's Search for a New Foundation of Human Rights and Dignity by Means of the Capabilities and his Application of phronesis The aim of the following article is to reconstruct Paul Ricoeur's concepts of human rights and human dignity by exploring some little-known texts, and to exemplify how these concepts are connected to a specific philosophical conception of human being, which is grounded in a Dialectics between transcendence and incarnation, freedom and dependence, identity and difference, capability and fallibility (fragility). In doing so, I will argue that Ricœur interprets human dignity, which he has never explicitly defined, through the prism of human capabilities, especially of the capability of being responsible. This interpretation allows him to take a differentiated position in the current bioethical debates on the rights of "potential persons" (Embrio) and to illustrate how the Aristotelian phronèsis can be used in (bio)ethical cases where decisions are difficult to take.
Oikeiôs as designating 'familiarity' and not 'appropriateness' in Aristotle's creation of words
Maria Chriti
This article deals with the English translations of the adverb oikeiôs in Aristotle's texts. In chapter 7 of the Categories, Aristotle advises speakers to create words if necessary (7a5-7), on the condition that the new word is given oikeiôs. However, the English translations does not render in an accurate way what Aristotle wants to express regarding name-giving, since the adverb oikeiôs, deriving from the adjective oikeios, denotes 'property' and 'familiarity', the second meaning obviously originating from the first. Oikeiôs is crucial for us to comprehend Aristotle's concept of name-giving, since he combines it with forms of the verbs apodidômi ('to define') or legô, more than eight times in this particular chapter, where he is concerned with correct linguistic rendition. In sense of 'familiarity', oikeiôs sheds more light on the philosopher's semantic theory in On Interpretation, helping us to understand exactly how Aristotle conceived of conventionality, i.e., combined with familiarity.
A Speculative Poetics of Tammuz: Myth, Sentiment, and Modernism in Twentieth Century Arabic Poetry
Hamad Al-Rayes
In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabic poetry through the lens of speculative poetics. While speculative-poetic accounts of modern poetry, such as those provided by Allen Grossman, blazed new paths connecting poetry to personhood in modernity, their application to the development of modern poetry outside of Europe remains limited by their self-avowed focus on European history. This paper will outline a critical corrective to speculative poetics which, I argue, can be of value in extending its domain of application to Arabic projects of poetic modernity, particularly the two tendencies of "free verse" and "commitment" poetry that emerged out of the Tammuzi movement.
On Gadamer's Heteronomy Argument: The "Irruption" of Reality vs. its "Strategic Excision"
Josep Maria Bech
The aim of this paper is to find out whether Gadamer is entitled to hold together his finitist commitment to the heteronomy of art and thought, and his advocacy of an "endless conversation with itself" of humankind. We focus on three texts: Gadamer's dismis­sal of Carl Schmitt's outside-in account of the heteronomy implied by the "irrup­tion of reality" in the play Hamlet and, as Archimedean point, Shakespeare's "excision of reality" according to Stephen Greenblatt, and its inside-out heteronomic consequences. The results: Schmitt's approach restricts Gadamer's argument on the "endless dialogue", Gadamer's rejoinder aggravates his own argumentative fragility, and Greenblatt's perspectivation discloses a non-sequitur. The inspection of these texts attests that heteronomy per se does not entail any openness to "creative" interpretations, that a universalized logos endiéthetos is a chimera, and that there cannot be any "infinite conversation" which would sustain the Gadamerian interplay of question and answer.
The Experiential Self Re-Creates Itself in Others via the Enlargement of the Self's Space-Control Ability: Dan Zahavi's Arguments for the Existence of the Self
Trung Kien Do
The diversity and complexity of the arguments and criticisms among philosophers on the question of the actual existence of the self can be condensed into two contrasting issues: The self is an experienced phenomenon that is generalized into a concept to assign to the cognitive subject as a tool for identification, or the self has its own existence as a transcendental entity that is activated and developed through interactions between the cognitive subject and the environment. Dan Zahavi summed up the endless controversy over the formation of the self in phenomenology, existentialism, and new insights in neuroscience to conclude that the existence of the self is only meaningful when it is "the experiential self." My article will focus on two issues: firstly, the self is formed by the interaction between the subject and the object in which the object is actively engaged in the control space of the subject; secondly, the understanding of the subject's self-perception process, through the perspective of neuroscience, is triggered by the subject seeing itself in the other person.
The Influence of Herodotus on the Practical Philosophy of Aristotle
Dimka Gicheva-Gocheva
The approach of this paper is a retrospective one. It is an attempt to show that many important ideas of Herodotus, a great ancestor of Aristotle, have influenced his practical philosophy. The paper focuses specially on several topics from the Histories of Herodotus, which have found a resonance in the Nicomachean ethics and in the Politics of Aristotle. The main ones in respect of the ethical theory are: the different forms of justice and the just as for example the super-human justice, the just in the family relations, the judicial just and the just in the polis or the larger human community. Book Epsilon of the Nicomachean Ethics is indebted to Herodotus in several points. In respect of Aristotles' political theory, there are two topics in the History of Herodotus which deserve a special interest: firstly, the conversation of the three noble Persians, who discuss the six basic types of political order and organization of power-and-submission in a state or city-state (in book ІІІ, 80-82); this becomes a paradigm for the next typologies of Plato (in the Republic and the Statesman) and Aristotle (in the Politics); secondly, the importance of personal freedom, the equity of the speaking (discussing?) men on the agora, and the supremacy of law for the well-being of any community and its peaceful future. The legacy of Herodotus is obvious in many anthropological and ethical concepts of Aristotle, especially in his most read and quoted ethical writing and in his Politics.
Camus and Aristotle on the Art Community and its Errors
Eugene Fendt
The purpose of this paper is to show the agreement of Camus and Aristotle on the cultural function of the art community (the community of artist and audience), in particular their criticism of what should be called barbarian or nihilistic practices of art. Camus' art and criticism have been frequent targets of modern critics, but his point is and would be that such critics have the wrong idea of the purpose of art. His answer to such critics and the parallelism of his ideas with Aristotle's criticism of barbarian culture, show that the real issue between Camus and his critics is cultural.
Aristotle on Prohairesis
Wei Liu
Prohairesis plays a central role in Aristotle's moral psychology. It is prohairesis that determines an action to be rational, that provides the proximate efficient or moving cause of rational action, and that better reveals one's character than the action itself. This paper will discuss (1) Aristotle's shifted emphases when speaking of prohairesis in different ethical treatises; (2) Aristotle's pursuit of the nature of prohairesis and his special argumentative strategy in dealing with prohairesis; (3) the structure, i.e., the desiderative and deliberative components of prohairesis; and will conclude with some remarks about the significance of prohairesis.
Basic Evaluation and the Virtuous Realisation of Values: The Integrative Model of Aristotle
Markus Riedenauer
Human affectivity is a research topic situated at the intersection of psychology, philosophical anthropology, theory of action and ethics. This article reconstructs the Aristotelian theory of emotions in the context of his theory of aspiration (o)/recij) and in terms of their function as primary evaluators of situations, which forms the basis for virtue ethics. The Aristotelian model integrates desire, motivation and morality for a rational being in community. Affects (pa/Jh) reveal the profile of relevance of the world to a person as an indispensable basis for the work of practical reason. They are analysed in the dimensions of their cognitive core, their social, bodily, and motivational aspects. Affectivity constitutes a primary evaluative response to situations and thereby disposes human beings to realise their call to morally good, virtuous and fulfilling action.
The Soul, the Virtues, and the Human Good: Comments on Aristotle's Moral Psychology
Kathie Beier
In modern moral philosophy, virtue ethics has developed into one of the major approaches to ethical inquiry. As it seems, however, it is faced with a kind of perplexity similar to the one that Elisabeth Anscombe has described in Modern moral philosophy with regard to ethics in general. For if we assume that Anscombe is right in claiming that virtue ethics ought to be grounded in a sound philosophy of psychology, modern virtue ethics seems to be baseless since it lacks or even avoids reflections on the human soul. To overcome this difficulty, the paper explores the conceptual connections between virtue and soul in Aristotle's ethics. It claims that the human soul is the principle of virtue since reflections on the soul help us to define the nature of virtue, to understand the different kinds of virtues, and to answer the question why human beings need the virtues at all.
Institutionalization and autonomy of art: Can socially engaged art be institutionalized?
Bruno Trentini
This paper deals with the autonomy of art and more specifically with the autonomy of socially engaged art once it is institutionalized. The originality of the article is its use of Goodman's terminology to theorize socially engaged art. By comparing two works of art from the same collective (one without an institutional framework and the other in a festival), the main issue is to defend the hypothesis that artistic consecration prevents an emancipatory action from functioning as art or prevents an action from functioning as socially engaged art. Thus, in the context of engaged art, the question is no longer "when is art?" but "where is art?".
Un art du quotidien ? A partir de Georges Perec et Vilhelm Hammershøi
An art of the everyday? Parting from Georges Perec and Vilhelm Hammershøi (Abstract) Contemporary continental philosophy seems to be deeply connected to art, whether it is poetry and literature (from Heidegger to Derrida), painting (Merleau-Ponty, Maldiney) or music (since Bergson). This connection is built upon the primacy of a trial of the invisible, which is very often a trial of the event. The aim of this article is to establish an art of the everyday freed from this contemporary "eventism". We thus examine how the researches of Georges Perec in literature and of Vilhelm Hammershøi in painting meditate on the strangeness of the everyday – its flatness, its silence – which are irreducible to this aesthetic trial as it can be conceptualized by the philosophy of the life of Deleuze-Guattari and by the humanism of Levinas. This research thus beckons towards an art of the common contesting the contemporary primacy of the vital and the (in)human.
Art and War
Nikolay Raynov
A brief essay of Nikolay Raynov against war
L'Architecture aujourd'hui est-elle encore un art ? Considérations théoriques et implications éthiques
Marie-Claude Létourneau
Is Architecture Today Still an Art? Theoretical Considerations and Ethical Consequences Architecture has been proposing, for many decades now, more and more spectacular buildings. This could lead to believe that architecture has reached the top of its art. But this question requires first to define art in general, and also the authentic art of architecture. For this purpose, we will use a Bergsonian methodology in order to unveil in an unprecedented way the two different natures of art. The first nature, "ephemeral art", will be analyzed as an artistic performance, which is powered by the creative gesture. The second nature, "persistent art", relies on durable productions. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we will create links between the two natures of art and German musicology: "pathogenic" and "logogenic" architectural productions will be presented to validate if architecture respects its own profound nature. We will finally analyze the modern paradigm of occidental "occulocentric" way of creating with its lack of hermeneutic substance and, thus, its important ethical consequences.
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University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna
Anne-Françoise Schmid
MINES ParisTech