Evil in Modern Thought

Evil in Modern Thought PDF Author: Susan Neiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168504
Category : Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.

Evil in Modern Thought

Evil in Modern Thought PDF Author: Susan Neiman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691168504
Category : Ethics & Moral Philosophy; Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.

Lines of Thought

Lines of Thought PDF Author: Claudia Brodsky
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
It is considerably easier to say that modern philosophy began with Descartes than it is to define the modernity and philosophy to which Descartes gave rise. In Lines of Thought, Claudia Brodsky Lacour describes the double origin of modern philosophy in Descartes's Discours de la méthode and Géométrie, works whose interrelation, she argues, reveals the specific nature of the modern in his thought. Her study examines the roles of discourse and writing in Cartesian method and intuition, and the significance of graphic architectonic form in the genealogy of modern philosophy. While Cartesianism has long served as a synonym for rationalism, the contents of Descartes's method and cogito have remained infamously resistant to rational analysis. Similarly, although modern phenomenological analyses descend from Descartes's notion of intuition, the "things" Cartesian intuitions represent bear no resemblance to phenomena. By returning to what Descartes calls the construction of his "foundation" in the Discours, Brodsky Lacour identifies the conceptual problems at the root of Descartes's literary and aesthetic theory as well as epistemology. If, for Descartes, linear extension and "I" are the only "things" we can know exist, the Cartesian subject of thought, she shows, derives first from the intersection of discourse and drawing, representation and matter. The crux of that intersection, Brodsky Lacour concludes, is and must be the cogito, Descartes's theoretical extension of thinking into material being. Describable in accordance with the Géométrie as a freely constructed line of thought, the cogito, she argues, extends historically to link philosophy with theories of discursive representation and graphic delineation after Descartes. In conclusion, Brodsky Lacour analyzes such a link in the writings of Claude Perrault, the architectural theorist whose reflections on beauty helped shape the seventeenth-century dispute between "the ancients and the moderns." Part of a growing body of literary and interdisciplinary considerations of philosophical texts, Lines of Thought will appeal to theorists and historians of literature, architecture, art, and philosophy, and those concerned with the origin and identity of the modern.

George Santayana's Political Hermeneutics

George Santayana's Political Hermeneutics PDF Author: Katarzyna Kremplewska
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004506349
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
The first comprehensive study of Santayana’s political thought as connected to his cultural criticism. It ranges over topics such as Santayana’s political ontology, his criticism of democracy, liberalism, and communism, his views on freedom and forms of human servitude.

Booklist Books, a Selection

Booklist Books, a Selection PDF Author: American Library Association
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1002

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Book Description


Classical Philosophy

Classical Philosophy PDF Author: Peter Adamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199674531
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Readership: Anyone interested in philosophy, the history of ideas, or the ancient Greek world

The Intellectual Consequences of Religious Heterodoxy, 1600-1750

The Intellectual Consequences of Religious Heterodoxy, 1600-1750 PDF Author: Sarah Mortimer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004221468
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Challenging the common assumption that religious heterodoxy was a prelude to the secularisation of thought, this volume explores the variety of relations between heterodox theology, political thought, moral and natural philosophy and historical writing in both Protestant and Catholic Europe from 1600 to the Enlightenment.

Under Any Sky

Under Any Sky PDF Author: Matthew Caleb Flamm
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443806463
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Under Any Sky: Contemporary Readings of George Santayana is a testament to the cross-cultural relevance of the work of one of the leading intellectuals of the twentieth century, George Santayana (1863-1952, birth name Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana). A list of geographic origins of the twenty-two contributions contained in this volume indicates the transatlantic cultural diversity of scholarly representation: scholars variously hailing from Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland, and from the United States, representing three of its major regions. The authors explore the major plots of Santayana's thinking, including materialistic Platonism in ontology, skepticism in epistemology, rationality in social philosophy, naturalism in aesthetics, piety in materialism, and literary and poetic expression as a means to cosmic understanding. After a preface by Professor John Lachs (also a contributor), and an editorial introduction, the book is divided into three respective thematic parts: I. Ontology and Naturalism; II. Culture, Society, America; and III. Aesthetics, Poetry, and Spirit. Before each thematic section brief introductions of the section papers is provided to accommodate specific scholarly interests. The authors entrust the present volume to readers appreciative of the philosophic catholicity of the subject's work, invoking the book title which is taken from the preface of Santayana's mature system of philosophy, Scepticism and Animal Faith: "In the past or in the future, my language and my borrowed knowledge would have been different, but under whatever sky I had been born, since it is the same sky, I should have had the same philosophy"

Changing the Subject

Changing the Subject PDF Author: Raymond Geuss
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674545729
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
“A history of philosophy in twelve thinkers...The whole performance combines polyglot philological rigor with supple intellectual sympathy, and it is all presented...in a spirit of fun...This bracing and approachable book [shows] that there is life in philosophy yet.” —Times Literary Supplement “Exceptionally engaging...Geuss has a remarkable knack for putting even familiar thinkers in a new light.” —Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews “Geuss is something like the consummate teacher, his analyses navigable and crystal, his guidance on point.” —Doug Phillips, Key Reporter Raymond Geuss explores the ideas of twelve philosophers who broke dramatically with prevailing wisdom, from Socrates and Plato in the ancient world to Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Adorno. The result is a striking account of some of the most innovative thinkers in Western history and an indirect manifesto for how to pursue philosophy today. Geuss cautions that philosophers’ attempts to break from convention do not necessarily make the world a better place. Montaigne’s ideas may have been benign, but the fate of those of Hobbes, Hegel, and Nietzsche has been more varied. Yet in the act of provoking people to think differently, philosophers remind us that we are not fated to live within the systems of thought we inherit.

Choices in Modern Jewish Thought

Choices in Modern Jewish Thought PDF Author: Eugene B. Borowitz
Publisher: Behrman House, Inc
ISBN: 9780874415810
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Jewish philosophy responds to the challenges of today's world. By studying the ideas of great contemporary thinkers, readers will achieve a rich understanding of our contemporary spiritual needs.

Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences

Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences PDF Author: Dana Jalobeanu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3319310690
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2267

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Book Description
This Encyclopedia offers a fresh, integrated and creative perspective on the formation and foundations of philosophy and science in European modernity. Combining careful contextual reconstruction with arguments from traditional philosophy, the book examines methodological dimensions, breaks down traditional oppositions such as rationalism vs. empiricism, calls attention to gender issues, to ‘insiders and outsiders’, minor figures in philosophy, and underground movements, among many other topics. In addition, and in line with important recent transformations in the fields of history of science and early modern philosophy, the volume recognizes the specificity and significance of early modern science and discusses important developments including issues of historiography (such as historical epistemology), the interplay between the material culture and modes of knowledge, expert knowledge and craft knowledge. This book stands at the crossroads of different disciplines and combines their approaches – particularly the history of science, the history of philosophy, contemporary philosophy of science, and intellectual and cultural history. It brings together over 100 philosophers, historians of science, historians of mathematics, and medicine offering a comprehensive view of early modern philosophy and the sciences. It combines and discusses recent results from two very active fields: early modern philosophy and the history of (early modern) science. Editorial Board EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Dana Jalobeanu University of Bucharest, Romania Charles T. Wolfe Ghent University, Belgium ASSOCIATE EDITORS Delphine Bellis University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Zvi Biener University of Cincinnati, OH, USA Angus Gowland University College London, UK Ruth Hagengruber University of Paderborn, Germany Hiro Hirai Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Martin Lenz University of Groningen, The Netherlands Gideon Manning CalTech, Pasadena, CA, USA Silvia Manzo University of La Plata, Argentina Enrico Pasini University of Turin, Italy Cesare Pastorino TU Berlin, Germany Lucian Petrescu Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Justin E. H. Smith University de Paris Diderot, France Marius Stan Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Koen Vermeir CNRS-SPHERE + Université de Paris, France Kirsten Walsh University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada