By reading mainly Heidegger’s “What Is Metaphysics?,” the aim of this paper is to illuminate the ontological revelatory function of the nothing that occurs in anxiety. The two parts of this paper describe the same night of anxiety. While the first part shows this night from the point of view of the movement or sweep of anxiety, the second studies this same night from the point of view of the ontological revelatory role of the nothing and its negative logic of (...) disclosure. It is crucial for my analysis to keep apart two different meanings of the nothing. There is the nothing as being’s totally other (nihil negativum), on the one hand, and the nothing as Being, on the other. While with this second meaning one dwells in the realm of the ontological, it is the first meaning-which is the focus of this paper-that secures our access to it. Resumen Mediante la lectura principalmente del texto “¿Qué es metafísica?” de Heidegger, el objetivo de este artículo es iluminar la función reveladora ontológica de la nada que ocurre en la angustia. Las dos secciones de este artículo describen la misma noche de la angustia. Mientras que la primera sección muestra esta noche desde el punto de vista del movimiento o vaivén de la angustia, la segunda estudia esta misma noche desde el punto de vista del papel revelador ontológico de la nada y su lógica negativa de desvelamiento. Para nuestro análisis es crucial mantener separados dos sentidos distintos del concepto de nada: por un lado, está la nada como lo totalmente otro con respecto al ente (nihil negativum); y por el otro lado, la nada como Ser. Si bien con este segundo significado uno habita en el ámbito de lo ontológico, es el primer significado, el cual es el tema central de este artículo, el que asegura nuestro acceso a él. (shrink)

La investigación actual ha puesto de relieve la centralidad del lenguaje de la religión para un estudio científico de la disciplina en Latinoamérica, esta afirmación contrasta con el hecho que el lenguaje de la religión ni siquiera es indicada en los manuales como una subdisciplina, o apenas mencionada como un área en construcción, esto muestra la falta de una fundamentación teórica sobre el estatus epistémico de esta disciplina. El lenguaje de la religión no se refiere al carácter instrumental del lenguaje (...) sino a una política del signo que constituye un sistema semiótico que está en el origen de cada cultura. Así las cosas, el artículo propone un modelo semiótico y entrega algunas pistas semióticas para un estatuto epistémico del lenguaje de la religión en Latinoamérica. A partir de categorías semióticas como las de lugar, producción de textos y textos límites, a partir de lo cual exponemos que el lenguaje de la religión produce textos extraños, límites, los cuales están vinculados a lugares de producción, prácticas, creencias, valores que configuran el espacio social y construyen el espacio de la religión. (shrink)

This paper considers Cicero's political and legal philosophy, focussing on the ciceronian concepts of republic, law and virtue, on which Cicero's systematic construction of the State and the Right rests.

Volver nuestra atención hacia la lectura pausada y el estudio detenido de los clásicos resulta siempre enriquecedor, reconfortante, pero a la vez necesario, porque nos ayuda a tomar verdaderamente conciencia de que numerosos conceptos filosóficos y estructuras argumentativas, que son tenidas por modernas, encuentran sin embargo su fuente original en el caudal inagotable del pensamiento griego. Ello pone de mani esto el impetuoso afán humano por desentrañar el origen primero de las cosas, ya existente de forma notable, en los albores (...) del conocimiento, en donde se puede percibir ―como la doctrina ha señalado con acierto― el tránsito del mito al logos, acaecido de manera paralela a la construcción paulatina de la filosofía como saber supremo, que toma su asiento en una racionalización de los mitos, y que tiene su causa postrera en el deslumbramiento del hombre en presencia de las cosas, y en la búsqueda incansable del por qué de los fenómenos. (shrink)

Volver nuestra atención hacia la lectura pausada y el estudio detenido de los clásicos resulta siempre enriquecedor, reconfortante, pero a la vez necesario, porque nos ayuda a tomar verdaderamente conciencia de que numerosos conceptos filosóficos y estructuras argumentativas, que son tenidas por modernas, encuentran sin embargo su fuente original en el caudal inagotable del pensamiento griego. Ello pone de mani esto el impetuoso afán humano por desentrañar el origen primero de las cosas, ya existente de forma notable, en los albores (...) del conocimiento, en donde se puede percibir ―como la doctrina ha señalado con acierto― el tránsito del mito al logos, acaecido de manera paralela a la construcción paulatina de la filosofía como saber supremo, que toma su asiento en una racionalización de los mitos, y que tiene su causa postrera en el deslumbramiento del hombre en presencia de las cosas, y en la búsqueda incansable del por qué de los fenómenos. (shrink)

1. Reasoning about action and change, or more generally reasoning about dynamic systems, is not only central to knowledge representation and reasoning but at the heart of computer science (Fisher e...

Between Probability and Certainty: What Justifies Belief, by Martin Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xi + 213.

Martin Heidegger is still subject to controversial discussions about his political views. The question in the centre of the discussions is not if he was politically on the far right, but how far right he was, and also how far right his philosophy is. However, the details of Heidegger’s political approaches in his work are largely disguised and hidden behind Heidegger’s typical writing style, which has remained undefined for so long. There is a short essay in Heidegger’s work that (...) may shed light on the roots and details of his ethnic-identity thinking: “Memorial Address”. (shrink)

The article examines the explicit and implicit role that Kierkegaard played in the cultural criticism developed in the literary circle of the Danish journal Heretica (1948 – 1954). The cultural criticism of Kierkegaard and eminent Danish post-war authors (Martin A. Hansen, Vilhem Grønbech, Bjørn Poulsen, Tage Skou-Hansen and Ole Wivel) is contextualized in the tradition of Western cultural criticism. An analysis of central concepts such as crisis, rationality, spirit and reflection as well as alienation, individuality and community, demonstrates the (...) original contributions these authors make to the modern understanding of culture. Furthermore, the article addresses the reservations that some of the Heretica- authors had towards Kierkegaard. The accusation of solipsism, however, turns out to be unwarranted. Rather, it becomes clear that Kierkegaard’s emphasis on the individual, like the post-war authors’ critique of fascism, is directed against the power of the masses and the increasing bureaucratization of life. Finally, Kierkegaard as well as the 20th century authors depict neighbor love as decisive for a post-restitutive, forward-oriented way out of a severe cultural crisis. (shrink)

This unique anthology from a seminal period of Germany history contains major writings by nine authors, many never before translated into English. Included in this collection of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century works are Erasmus, Martin Luther, Thomas Muntzer, Johann von Tepl, Sebastian Brant, and Rubianus.

This unpublished paper from 2004 argues that the agenda for positive psychology laid out by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in their massive work Character Strengths and Virtues: a Handbook and Classification (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) might be improved by making several conceptual changes: 1) by developing general concepts of virtue (singular), and of positive health to clarify the relationships between specific virtues and competing conceptions of positive health; 2) by aligning the project more firmly with eudaimonistic (...) accounts of virtue that fit comfortably with scientific psychology; and 3) by aligning the project more firmly with the health sciences than with ethics and philosophy generally. The paper was developed from a talk prepared for the Working Conference on The Philosophical History of Character Strengths and Virtues, The University of Pennsylvania, September 2-4, 2004. (shrink)

Scholars have long been captivated by the parallels between birdsong and human speech and language. In this book, leading scholars draw on the latest research to explore what birdsong can tell us about the biology of human speech and language and the consequences for evolutionary biology. They examine the cognitive and neural similarities between birdsong learning and speech and language acquisition, considering vocal imitation, auditory learning, an early vocalization phase, the structural properties of birdsong and human language, and the striking (...) similarities between the neural organization of learning and vocal production in birdsong and human speech. After outlining the basic issues involved in the study of both language and evolution, the contributors compare birdsong and language in terms of acquisition, recursion, and core structural properties, and then examine the neurobiology of song and speech, genomic factors, and the emergence and evolution of language. Contributors: Hermann Ackermann, Gabriël J.L. Beckers, Robert C. Berwick, Johan J. Bolhuis, Noam Chomsky, Frank Eisner, Martin Everaert, Michale S. Fee, Olga Fehér, Simon E. Fisher, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Jonathan B. Fritz, Sharon M.H. Gobes, Riny Huijbregts, Eric Jarvis, Robert Lachlan, Ann Law, Michael A. Long, Gary F. Marcus, Carolyn McGettigan, Daniel Mietchen, Richard Mooney, Sanne Moorman, Kazuo Okanoya, Christophe Pallier, Irene M. Pepperberg, Jonathan F. Prather, Franck Ramus, Eric Reuland, Constance Scharff, Sophie K. Scott, Neil Smith, Ofer Tchernichovski, Carel ten Cate, Christopher K. Thompson, Frank Wijnen, Moira Yip, Wolfram Ziegler, Willem Zuidema. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the question of What kind of engineering ethics (EE) is needed to develop holistic engineers who can practice and promote the principles of sustainable development? -/- It is argued that, given the existence of other models, an approach to EE, as argued for at EESD 2016, centred on “training engineers for handling ethical dilemmas in sustainability contexts” (Lundqvist and Svanstrom 2016) is inadequate to address the sustainability challenge facing engineers.. We contend that while EE is now (...) a diverse and fragmented field sociological tools can be used to understand this diversity. A framework is offered for understanding different approaches. This is used as the basis for arguing for a more extended and broad approach which allows us to focus on the relationship between social structure and human action and the need for “adequate social institutions and structures” (Becker 2012: 28) to enable ethical action. Thus engineers not should only understand the constraints and enablers emanating from the environments in which they work but can also strive for change in these environments. (shrink)

This book reads Ernest Becker both as a prophet of modernity and as a sensitive observer of its decline. Situated within the disciplinary approach of 'theology of culture,' the book discerns in dialogue with Becker the contours of modern vision in its depth-dimension. Taking note of Becker's works as a whole, it identifies the two master images of human existence—homo poeta and homo heroica—which articulate this dimension, situating them in scholarly debate and comparing and relating them to (...) the contemporary situation. (shrink)

This book reads Ernest Becker both as a prophet of modernity and as a sensitive observer of its decline. Situated within the disciplinary approach of 'theology of culture,' the book discerns in dialogue with Becker the contours of modern vision in its depth-dimension. Taking note of Becker's works as a whole, it identifies the two master images of human existence—homo poeta and homo heroica—which articulate this dimension, situating them in scholarly debate and comparing and relating them to (...) the contemporary situation. (shrink)

BackgroundNeuroethics describes several interdisciplinary topics exploring the application and implications of engaging neuroscience in societal contexts. To explore this topic, we present Part 3 of a four-part bibliography of neuroethics’ literature focusing on the “ethics of neuroscience.”MethodsTo complete a systematic survey of the neuroethics literature, 19 databases and 4 individual open-access journals were employed. Searches were conducted using the indexing language of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. A Python code was used to eliminate duplications in the final bibliography.ResultsThis bibliography (...) consists of 1137 papers, 56 books, and 134 book chapters published from 2002 through 2014, covering ethical issues in neuroimaging, neurogenetics, neurobiomarkers, neuro-psychopharmacology, brain stimulation, neural stem cells, neural tissue transplants, pediatric-specific issues, dual-use, and general neuroscience research issues. These works contain explanations of recent research regarding neurotechnology, while exploring ethical issues in future discoveries and use. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs Oskar Becker’s idiosyncratic conception of aesthetics and its importance for phenomenology. For Becker, the aesthetic is not simply one type of phenomenon among others; rather, it occupies a privileged position as, first, that phenomenon which is itself “wholly phenomenal,” and, second, that phenomenon which discloses the ontological structure of phenomenality itself (and is thus what he calls “hyperontological”). The paper first reconstructs Becker’s descriptive phenomenology of the aesthetic (which he restricts to the realm of (...) masterpieces of fine art). For Becker, the key characteristic for understanding the givenness of beauty is its sense of fragility, which he uses to reveal a complicated interweaving of temporality and modality at the heart of the aesthetic. This essay then shows how this is rooted in Becker’s larger ontological project of developing a phenomenology of the non-historical in dialogue with Heidegger’s early work, a project which began in 1927 with the publication of his magnum opus Mathematical Existence. (shrink)

Examines men's efforts to escape from the fear of death by performing acts of human wickedness through socially-sanctioned institutions.

Drawing from religion and the human sciences, particularly psychology after Freud, the author attempts to demonstrate that the fear of death is man's central ...

Martin Wrights original ground-breaking and influential analysis of the defects of the adversarial system of justice, plus the arguments in favour of a more ...

In this lively collection ten philosophers tackle the notoriously elusive issues raised by religious discourse in a series of linked debates. The debates focus on reason and faith; the logic of mysticism; the meaning of the word 'God'; language, biblical interpretation and worship; and religion and ethics. Through contemporary philosophical analysis it is possible to shed new light on teh status and language of religion, and in many ways the contributors to Religion and Philosophy break new ground in this perennially (...) controversial field. The collection is addressed to philosophers, theologians and anyone with a general intellectual interest in religion. Certainly it will be a valuable addition to the reading list of all teachers or students of the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Heidegger in America explores the surprising legacy of his life and thought in the United States of America. As a critic of modern life, Heidegger often lamented the growing global influence of all things American. However, it was precisely in America where his thought inspired the work of generations of thinkers – not only philosophers but also theologians, architects, novelists, and even pundits. As a result, the reception and dissemination of Heidegger's philosophical writings transformed the intellectual and cultural history of (...) the United States at a time when American influence was itself transforming the world. A case study in the complex and sometimes contradictory process of transnational exchange, Heidegger in America recasts the scope and methods of contemporary intellectual and cultural history in the age of globalization, challenging what we think we know about Heidegger and American ideas simultaneously. (shrink)