Gregory Sadler

In Maurice Blondel’s work, the problem of immortality is dealt with in terms of one’s resolution of the problem of human destiny articulated in the form of a self-determinative option. Although this option can take many determinate forms, it is ultimately one between egoism and selfishness or mortification and charity. In the course of this paper, I outline this opposition and indicate in particular how it bears on intellectual life and culture. For Blondel, the theoretical and the practical could not be neatly separated; thinking and expression are forms of action, and action requires structuring for its intelligibility and fruition. One commits oneself and forms the elements of one’s ultimate judgment, not only by what one does, but also by what one says or thinks, what doctrines and institutions one commits oneself to.

This volume of translations of early Kant reception, both of critics and of a few defenders, makes available important texts, both for study of modern philosophy and for contemporary discussion of the relevance of Kant’s immense historical influence. The volume’s five sections address several of the main problems posed by the theoretical part of Kant’s Critical Philosophy to his contemporaries, in particular the three central discussions centered on the Transcendental Aesthetic, Idealism, and the Categories. The volume is heavily endnoted, providing many useful supplementary discussions and a wealth of references to other relevant works; two appendices give short sketches of the authors and other important figures in early Kant reception, and there is a glossary of German terms.

Early in the 1930s, a number of French Catholic and secular philosophers debated the question of the meaning, even the very possibility, of Christian philosophy. Positions articulated during these debates provided intellectual background to debates about nature and grace, and the interaction of philosophy and theology that informed theological debate before and during the Second Vatican Council. These questions continue to be raised in theological debate today. This selection of previously untranslated documents from the French debates about Christian philosophy provides a long-needed complement to available English-language literature on the subject. These documents show that the debates were highly complex, involved multiple sides, and prompted development of certain participants' positions. Four of Maurice Blondel's contributions are included, as are selections by Gabriel Marcel, Etienne Gilson, Fernand Van Steenberghen, among others. A detailed historical introduction provides much-needed background to these intertwined debates. The editor's thematic outline of seventeen different participants' positions and engagements includes but also goes beyond the selections translated in the volume. It provides a full and balanced treatment of the numerous participants, and sets the complex intellectual context for understanding the positions, issues, and main personalities of the debate. A chronological bibliography of literature comprising and commenting on the debates and their issues is also included and will serve as an invaluable aid to further scholarship.

Stoicism, a philosophy and set of practices developed in ancient times, commands ever-growing interest. Its present day, students, practitioners, teachers, and scholars adapt it to the challenges of modern life. This third volume brings together fifty pieces previously published in the Stoicism Today blog, ranging from personal essays to conference presentations, from bits of practical advice to history and interpretation, from polemics to symposia grappling with controversies, key issues, and central concepts. There is something for everyone in this volume. The selections in this volume range over a vast array of topics. You will encounter authors applying Stoicism to parenting, medicine, psychotherapy, culinary arts, time-management, exercise and fitness, the emotions, relationships, the workplace, and the environment. Some selections examine useful practices, the nature and scope of the virtues, how to develop equanimity, resilience, and happiness. Comparative studies bring Stoicism into connection with Buddhism, mindfulness, self-help and productivity authors, and modalities of psychotherapy. This book bridges the gaps between philosophical reflection and practical wisdom, between study and interpretation of Stoicism, and its application to present-day issues and problems. The essays in this volume speak to anyone intending to start or to deepen a thoughtful Stoic life in the modern world.

Ogren advances a hermeneutic interpretation of Aristotle that brings to light several important and overlooked points about Aristotle, emotion, and cognition. In my article, I argue that his interpretation is on certain points correct, particularly in stressing that the distinctively human, irrational, emotional and desiring part of the soul is rational to a certain extent, and through its own forms of cognition, revelatory of being. His interpretation errs, however, by construing the fully rational part of the soul in a fundamentally un-Aristotelian way, as merely a faculty informed by the rules of formal logic. After indicating Ogren’s interpretation’s strong points, then its central errors, I present an alternate exegetically grounded Aristotelian interpretation of these matters. Specifically, I show that Aristotle’s division of the parts of the soul is more complicated and ambiguous than Ogren’s interpretation. Then, I show that, for Aristotle, the fully rational part of the soul is, contra Ogren, concerned with practical matters and life, and possesses substantive modes of cognition of the world. I finish by exploring one of these, specifically perception of moral qualities, and discuss some recent Aristotle scholarship engaging this issue.

A prominent theme of Jacques Derrida's recent work has been that of responsibility. He has attempted to approach moral issues and philosophy without abandoning his philosophical project of deconstruction, a project that in the past has seemed critical if not outright hostile to moral philosophy. Moral and philosophical reflection is situated, and by the time one can even start posing questions, one is already embroiled for better or for worse, in a moral situation for which one bears some responsibility, and which also involve a responsibility of reflection as well as action. Adopting a confessedly conservative reading of Derrida, I argue that his recent philosophy does allow for the possibility of morality to be realized through philosophical and moral projects, and that the ever-present possibility of these lapsing into irresponsibility does not undermine the positive, though contingent and gratuitous, achievement of responsibility when it does take place.

Maurice Blondel's later works address the problem of the relationship between the Catholic Church and tradition and modernity. This dissertation situates Blondel's developed position between the analyses of modern philosophy and culture developed in the encyclicals Pascendi Dominicus Gregis and Fides et Ratio. Modernism in Catholic circles bears implications for philosophy in general, since modernism has its source in modern philosophy and the culture it gives rise to and reinforces. Three key concepts operating in Blondel's later works are the concrete logic, the philosophy of insufficiency, and the option between egoism and charity. The concrete logic is a logic of the moral life, a logic in which opposition is fundamentally on the basis of hexis and steresis instead of the apophasis and kataphasis , equivalent to the inclusion and exclusion of abstract logic. Use of a logic in philosophy is unavoidable, and inadequate philosophical positions are the result of reliance on abstract logic where a concrete logic is both required and secretly relied upon. The philosophy of insufficiency works within the concrete logic. It has a critical function of assessing and uncovering the insufficiency of the claims made by other philosophical systems, and it has a reconstructive function of leading the human subject towards what could allow it to be rendered sufficient, a supernatural order. This supernatural order imposes a requirement for the human subject to make an option either for egoism of for charity. Modernism represents one modality of the option for egoism, and the option for charity can lead not only to the supernatural order but also to recognition of the continued importance of the Catholic tradition in supporting and keeping intelligible the option for charity