Daniel Dahlstrom

In Heidegger's 1921 lectures, he presents an extensive interpretation of Book Ten of Augustine's Confessions. The present paper elaborates parallels between that interpretation of Augustine's Confessions and Heidegger's interpretation of existence in Being and Time, with special reference to the themes of self-possession and resoluteness as respective anchors of the two interpretations. The study also highlights ways the two interpretations diverge, i.e., the aspects of the interpretation of the Confessions ' themes of the good and desirable, the joyful and endearing, the delectatio that Augustine deems the end of our care that do not find their way into the existential analysis. By way of conclusion, questions are raised about the significance and plausibility of Heidegger's prima facie omissions of these themes from his existential analysis.

For much of contemporary ethical theory, the universalizability of the motive of a contemplated action forms a necessary part of the basis of the action’s moral character, legitimacy, or worth. Considering the possibility of resentment springing from the performance of an action also serves as a means of determining the morality of an action. However, considerations of universalizability and resentment are plainly inconsistent with the performance of some unselfish moral actions. I argue that the sphere of the moral adequacy of considerations of universalizability and resentment is limited. I profile key elements of “conformist” or “consensus-driven” ethical thinking modelled on Nagel’s ethical theory. Then, I elaborate the measure of validity of the profiled ethical thinking as well as its limitation, suggesting that its proper domain is located in an ethics of honor, delimited by an ethics of love and friendship.

Challenging art historians' scientific pretensions as well as their neglect of theoretical questions, the author traces art history's development from the turn of the century by critically reviewing the early and lesser known writings of Erwin Panofsky, "the most influential art historian in the twentieth century." In a brief sketch of art history's nineteenth century roots, the first chapter reviews what is retained and what is discarded in Hegel's, Burckhardt's, and Dilthey's successive conceptions of historiography. The march of the Hegelian absolute through history may have been decried a fiction, but not the effort to construe history culturally and contextually.

According to the author, Heidegger's understanding of the metaphysical roots of modern technology also indicates a way out of its life-threatening grip. Technik und Gelassenheit is an attempt to clear that alternative path according to and after Heidegger. Unaware of the extent of "die ökologische Katastrophe wie das atomäre Inferno," Heidegger was too generous to metaphysics and unable to hope that technology itself would be part of the turn from metaphysics. Schirmacher aims to cultivate that very hope, taking up where Heidegger left off, by developing a notion of the unity of Technik and Gelassenheit.

Mendelssohn's Philosophical Writings, published in 1761, bring the metaphysical tradition to bear on the topic of 'sentiments'. Mendelssohn offers a nuanced defence of Leibniz's theodicy and conception of freedom, an examination of the ethics of suicide, an account of the 'mixed sentiments' so central to the tragic genre, a hypothesis about weakness of will, an elaboration of the main principles and types of art, a definition of sublimity and analysis of its basic forms, and, lastly, a brief tract on probability theory, aimed at rebutting Hume's scepticism. This volume also includes the essay 'On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences', selected in 1763 by the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences over all other submitted essays, including one by Kant, as the best answer to the question of whether metaphysical sciences are capable of the same sort and degree of evidence as mathematics.

In the section of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled "Clue to the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding," Kant criticizes Aristotle for having "thrown together" his list of categories. On the basis of what Kant says in that same section, however, it has seemed to many readers that Kant's presentation of the categories on the basis of the table of the logical forms of judgment is no less "rhapsodic." In this and other related respects the so-called metaphysical deduction of the categories has long been a major stumbling block for students of Kant's theoretical philosophy. What precisely is the "principle" on the basis of which, according to Kant, the basic concepts of transcendental philosophy are to be sought? Why and how are the categories derived from forms of judgment? If something like this derivation can be shown to be legitimate, how is it possible to demonstrate that the logical forms of judgment have been adequately and completely identified?

This paper concerns Hegel’s much-neglected discussion of the rational observation of nature in the first part of the chapter on reason in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The paper focuses, in particular, on the themes of nature’s inexhaustibilit y, animal life’s holistic character, and the earth’s individual distinctiveness insofar as Hegel appeals to them to challenge a certain kind of self-understanding of what it means to observe nature rationally. In addition to examining the significance and trenchancy of this challenge, the paper inquires whether these same themes have implications for Hegel’s own philosophical understanding of reason as spirit.

To criticize a philosopher’s views properly a primary requirement is an accurate understanding of the questions he raises, the problems he acknowledges, and the procedures he follows. In the following study I attempt to identify the specific question of truth which Hegel addresses, the basis of the sort of skepticism posing a serious threat to its resolution, and finally a strategy he adopts. The specific question of truth for Hegel is a question of metaphysical truth or, in the Cartesian terms which Hegel willingly employed, the question of the objectivity of thoughts. The sort of skepticism he has in mind is one which, based on certain purported conditions of human knowing, rejects the possibility of metaphysical truth. While Hegel’s strategy is to analyze those various conditions in an encyclopedic fashion, my concern in this paper is his analysis of the logical conditions of human knowing.

Somewhat rambling and loosely structured in the manner of an essay about a subject matter with no fixed parameters, Modern German Philosophy succeeds in presenting a lively picture of the contemporary German philosophical scene, and not least because of the author's critical participation in it. The book's origin in a native German speaker is fairly evident despite the curiosity that the book was apparently intended, not for German publication, but solely for its English translation. The expositions of Germany's major thinkers in the past few decades are clear, succinct, and fairly accurate, given the author's avowed proclivities and presuppositions. Bubner has the good sense to intersperse his expositions with critical reflections, often open-ended, and even occasionally with a précis of his own systematic thinking. The result is a never dull, very engaging introduction to contemporary German philosophy that may surprise its English-speaking readers with the level of criticism and argumentation animating the latter. An additional boon to the reader is the fairly extensive and up-to-date references in the footnotes, especially to English translations when available.

The work of the author's serious revisions of his earlier analyses of belief-locutions, this crisply argued essay has an impressive range and force, with important ramifications for ontology, epistemology, and theory of reference. Chisholm takes as the primary form of belief and reference the non-propositional belief expressed in the locution "he believes himself to be..." and explicates this basic sort of belief without recourse to such "impure" Platonic entities as indexical properties and singular propositions. In the opening chapter and appendix, Chisholm outlines his own "purified" Platonic ontology. In addition to individual things, their parts, aggregates, and boundaries, he countenances only properties and states of affairs. "Times," "possible worlds," and propositions are reducible to states of affairs.