Bücher der Reihe Series in Philosophy

That we are now entering a post-Western world is no longer merely a thesis in international studies. But what does the dissolution of “Western” hegemony signify for humanity’s rich learning traditions and the civilizing quest for wisdom? How can this human inheritance assist us today?Reintroducing Philosophy seeks a more realistic framework for discourse on these questions than offered by the Western-centric worldview, which continues to be taught in schools almost by rote. It analyzes themes from several world traditions in logic, knowledge and metaphysics connected with the quest for completeness of thinking and practice. Its examination of the relation of knowing and being is based on sources as varied as Leibniz and Frege, Q┼½naw─½ and ß╣óadr─ü, ancient Greek and classical Indian and Chinese thought. Shaker brings into the discussion the paradigm (unm┼½zaj) that ß╣óadr─ü presented as that of man’s being in the world, encapsulating philosophy’s longstanding view of thinking as the gathering of civilization.Reintroducing Philosophy is based on a concentrated reading of all these sources, simply because human civilization had already been global and advanced before the present age. 

The volume provides a critical assessment of the concept of authenticity and gauges its role, significance and shortcomings in a variety of disciplinary contexts. Many of the contributions communicate with each other and thus acknowledge the enormous significance of this politically, morally, philosophically and economically-charged concept that at the same time harbors dangerous implications and has been critically deconstructed. The volume shows that the alleged need or desire for authenticity is alive and kicking but oftentimes comes at a high price, connected to a culture of experts, authority and exclusionary strategies.

The 1948 Declaration of Human Rights demanded a collaboration among exponents from around the world. Embodying many different cultural perspectives, it was driven by a like-minded belief in the importance of finding common principles that would be essential for the very survival of civilization. Although an arduous and extensive process, the result was a much sought-after and collective endeavor that would be referenced for decades to come.Motivated by the seventieth anniversary of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enriched by the contributions of eminent scholars, this volume aims to be a reflection on human rights and their universality. The underlying question is whether or not, after seventy years, this document can be considered universal, or better yet, how to define the concept of "universality." We live in an age in which this notion seems to be guided not so much by the values that the subject intrinsically perceives as good, but rather by the demands of the subject. Universality is thus no longer deduced by something that is objectively given, within the shared praxis. Conversely, what seems to have to be universal is what we want to be valid for everyone. This volume will be of interest to those currently engaged in research or studying in a variety of fields including Philosophy, Politics and Law.

This book is about an African philosophical examination of the death penalty debate. In a 21st century world where the notion of human right is primed, this book considers the question of the death penalty in two sub-Saharan African countries namely, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, notorious for their poor human right records. This edited collection comprises of 11 essays from Zimbabwean and Nigerian philosophers. As opinions continue to divide over the retention or abolition of the death penalty, these African philosophers attempt to localise this debate by raising the following questions: What is the meaning of life in the African place? Is it proper to take the human life under any guise at all? Who has the right to take the human life? Can the death penalty be justified on the bases of African cultures? Why should it be abolished? Why should it be retained? Indeed, this book is the first of its kind to engage the tumultuous issue of capital punishment in the postcolonial Africa and from the African philosophical point of view.

Technology, in all its forms, has had and continues to have an indisputable impact on society and culture. Philosophy of technology seeks to understand this impact and the meaning of technology for society and culture. Although its origins can be traced back to the Greeks, it wasn't until the late 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century that it gained ground as a philosophical discipline. Now more than ever it is considered an essential philosophical enterprise. 'The Budapest Workshop on Philosophy of Technology' was a lively and successful event that sort to discuss, reflect on and apply this branch of philosophical inquiry to both historical and contemporary examples. Importantly, the contributors' methodological approaches were influenced by, although not limited to, Michael Polanyi's term 'post-critical'. Moving beyond the rigidity of past approaches, the selected essays were driven by two lines of inquiry, what has been the historical role of technology in social and scientific change? And, how can a 'post-critical' approach enhance and extend our understanding of philosophy of technology?This edited volume begins by exploring the role of technology in social and scientific developments from a historical perspective, before moving towards a discussion of philosophy of technology from a 'Post-Critical' epistemic stance. Free from the constraints of previous methodologies, the third part of this work engages with the term 'Post-Critical' in its broadest sense. The contributors to this section consider the phenomenology of the body and the influence of technology on our lives. Finally, the four concluding chapters of this book apply this philosophical approach to a wide range of contemporary problems from Decision Support Systems to Crisis Communication.

Merrimack is the biography of a warship, the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack. Her name has long been linked to the first duel of ironclads, an epic Civil War battle fought at Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Merrimack. But over time the myth of the Merrimack-actually the C.S.S. Virginia-displaced the memory of a magnificent antebellum U.S. Navy warship. The steam frigate Merrimack lost her identity. Nearly forgotten is the story of the original Merrimack, the namesake of a class of six powerful war steamers. When built she was the largest vessel in the U.S. Navy, the nation's first screw-propelled frigate and the earliest major warship to be armed entirely with shell-firing guns. Her first commission took her on a tour of the principal naval stations of Europe. During her second commission, she served as flagship of the Navy's Pacific Squadron, cruising the shores of Chile, Peru, Panama, Hawaii, Mexico and Nicaragua. Through the copious use of Merrimack's deck logs, official correspondence, contemporary newspapers and journals, and original construction plans, the author's research illuminates the mechanical issues and human interactions that indelibly shaped Merrimack's brief career. The author provides an unparalleled glimpse into the day-to-day events that defined the life of an active antebellum warship. But Merrimack offers more than just a summary of the ship's operational life. The author, a professional naval architect and marine engineer, dissects the origins of her design and compares the Merrimack class steam frigates to contemporary U.S. and British warships. He also examines the controversy surrounding her troubled engines, documenting their performance using archived drawings and steam log data. In summary, Merrimack embraces the many threads of a bygone era-history, biography, geography and technology-and has woven them together in telling of the story of the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack.

This volume constitutes an attempt at bringing together philosophies of time-or more precisely, philosophies on time and, in a concomitant way, history-emerging from Christianity's and Islam's intellectual histories. Starting from the Neoplatonic heritage and the voice of classical philosophy, the volume enters the Byzantine and Arabic intellectual worlds up to Ibn Al-Arabi's times. A conscious choice in this volume is not to engage with, perhaps, the most prominent figures of Christian and Arabic philosophy, i.e., Augustine on the one hand and Avicenna/Ibn Sina on the other, precisely because these have attracted so much attention due to their prominence in their respective traditions-and beyond. In a certain way, Maximus the Confessor and Ibn Al-Arabi-together with Al-F¿r¿bi-emerge as alternative representatives of their two traditions in this volume, offering two axes for this endeavor. The synthesis of those approaches on time and history, their comparison rather than their mere co-existence, is left to the reader's critical inquiry and philosophical investigation.

Is the creative act like a volcano: an outburst that lights up the universe? This volume connects reason with desire and the arts in ways that enable us to imagine how creativity can bring us closer to the truth. The artistic quest for freedom stands in stark contrast to philosophy's call to subordinate art to reason and tradition. The struggle between them has culminated in artistic attempts to subsume philosophical matters within the domain of art. One central question in this study is what the consequences will be of a final dissolution of the boundary between the two domains: will all that remains of the artwork be an abstract howl of the rock - our rock, the planet - itself?

Almost five decades after his death, there is still ample reason to pay attention to the life and legacy of Bertrand Russell. This is true not only because of his role as one of the founders of analytic philosophy, but also because of his important place in twentieth-century history as an educator, public intellectual, critic of organized religion, humanist, and peace activist. The papers in this anthology explore Russell's life and legacy from a wide variety of perspectives. This is altogether fitting, given the many-sided nature of Russell, his life, and his work.The first section of the book considers Russell the man, and draws lessons from Russell's complicated personal life. The second examines Russell the philosopher, and the philosophical world within which his work was embedded. The third scrutinizes Russell the atheist and critic of organized religion, inquiring which parts of his critical stance are worth emulating today. The final section revisits Russell the political activist; it directs an eye both at Russell's own long career of peace activism, but also at his place in a highly political family tradition of which he was justifiably proud.This book thus constitutes an invitation, if one were needed, to the world of Bertrand Russell. Those new to Russell, but with an interest in biography, philosophy, religion, or politics, will hopefully find something to learn here. This may spark an interest in learning more about Russell. But this book is not just intended for the Russell neophyte. The book sheds fresh light on a number of topics central to Russell studies--his connections to other philosophers, for example. Scholars well-versed in Russell studies will enjoy grappling with the treatment given to these topics here.

Unlike the vast majority of existing literature on Plato, this book seeks to argue that liberty constitutes the central notion and preoccupation of Platonic thought and that his theory of ideas is indeed a theory of liberty. Moreover, this book contends that Plato's thought can be understood to be both one of liberty and a theory of liberation. Bound up in its efforts to reveal both the ideal liberty and the conditions and possibility of its existence in the so-called 'real world,' the thought of liberty tends to be all-encompassing. Consequently, this book seeks to expose how liberty can be understood to influence Plato's ontological form of analysis in relation to politics, philosophy, and anthropology, as well as its influence on the structural unity of all three. Understood from such a perspective, this book frames Platonic philosophy as primarily an investigation, an articulation and as a way of establishing the relationship between the individual and the collective. Importantly, this relationship is acknowledged to be the natural and original framework for any conception and exercise of human liberty, especially within democratic theory and politics. By treating Plato's philosophy as a continuous effort to find modes and dimensions of liberation in and through different forms of this relationship, this book hopes to not only engage in the discussion about the meaning of Platonic ontological-political insights on different grounds, but also to provide a different perspective for the evaluation of its relevance to the main contemporary issues and problems regarding liberty, liberation, democracy and politics. This book will be of interest to both undergraduate students, experienced scholars and researchers, as well as to the general public who have an interest in philosophy, classics, and political theory.

The nature of human reason is one of the thorniest of mysteries in philosophy. The reason appears in many specific forms within general areas such as cognition, thinking, experiencing beauty, and moral judgment. These forms are "perfectly" known in philosophy, yet an unknown pattern has been noticed which shows us that they are all a variation of the same theme: truth is an identity relation between the "thought" and "reality"; justice is an identity relation between the given and the deserved; beauty is an identity relation as rhyme is an identity relation between the final sounds of words; rhythm is an identity relation between time intervals; symmetry is an identity relation between two halves; proportion is an identity relation between two ratios; anaphora is an identity relation between the initial words. Particular things are identities in themselves and universals are identities between particulars. One idea associates another idea identical to it; an analogy is an identity between relations; induction is an identification between the known and unknown instances; and all the logic rests on the law of identity. What is common for all of them is the nature of reason itself.

This collection is about composing thought at the level of modernism and decomposing it at the postmodern level where many cocks might crow with African philosophy as a focal point. It has two parts: part one is titled 'The Journey of Reason in African Philosophy', and part two is titled 'African Philosophy and Postmodern Thinking'. There are seven chapters in both parts. Five of the essays are reprinted here as important selections while nine are completely new essays commissioned for this book. As their titles suggest, in part one, African philosophy is unfolded in the manifestation of reason as embedded in modern thought while in part two, it draws the effect of reason as implicated in the postmodern orientation. While part one strikes at what V. Y. Mudimbe calls the "colonising structure" or the Greco-European logo-phallo-euro-centricism in thought, part two bashes the excesses of modernism and partly valorises postmodernism. In some chapters, modernism is presented as an intellectual version of communalism characterised by the cliché: 'our people say'. Our thinking is that the voice of reason is not the voice of the people but the voice of an individual. The idea of this book is to open new vistas for the discipline of African philosophy. African philosophy is thus presented as a disagreement discourse. Without rivalry of thoughts, Africa will settle for far less. This gives postmodernism an important place, perhaps deservedly more important than history of philosophy allocates to it. It is that philosophical moment that says 'philosophers must cease speaking like gods in their hegemonic cultural shrines and begin to converse across borders with one another'. In this conversation, the goal for African philosophers must not be to find final answers but to sustain the conversation which alone can extend human reason to its furthermost reaches.