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10Toward a new foundationalism: from Carnap to Kripke, and from Husserl to SallisCambridge Scholars Press. 2021.This book addresses the breach within contemporary philosophy with a newly conceived foundationalism. It shows that dramatic discord has arisen between its two dominant branches. The Anglo-American branch generally takes its departure from logic and from natural science, while the Continental branch generally takes its departure from art and from the great traditional questions. However, they share this common negative feature: each side denies the view that philosophy issues from a central foun…Read more
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7Functions of Imagination in Kant’s Moral PhilosophyIn Michael L. Thompson (ed.), Imagination in Kant's Critical Philosophy, Walter De Gruyter. pp. 105-122. 2013.
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3A dark history of modern philosophyIndiana University Press. 2017.This provocative reassessment of modern philosophy explores its nonrational dimensions and connection to ancient mysteries. Delving beneath the principal discourses of philosophyfrom Descartes through Kant, Bernard Freydberg plumbs the previously concealed dark forces that ignite the inner power of modern thought. He contends that reason itself issues from an implicit and unconscious suppression of the nonrational. Even the modern philosophical concerns of nature and limits are undergirded by a …Read more
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23The Socratic Method, Once and for AllComparative and Continental Philosophy 12 (3): 240-244. 2020.ABSTRACT The “Socratic method” seems to be well understood in general to mean some sort of “question and answer” procedure as distinguished from “lecturing.” Law schools are familiar sites for its so-called practice, and the Platonic dialogues are believed to provide models of it. However, Socrates himself never speaks of having a method except in one place in the Phaedo – where it has nothing to do with “question and answer.” The Greeks had a clear word for method, “methodos,” and Socrates appl…Read more
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25HOMAGE TO PENIA: aristophanes' plutus as philosophical comedyAngelaki 21 (3): 27-33. 2016.The vastly underrated Plutus receives at least some of its due in this paper. At its beginning, I attempt to locate Plutus within both the Hegelian discourse on comedy and within Hume's poetical and philosophical fictions. Employing the same method of close textual analysis that I employed in Philosophy and Comedy: Aristophanes, Logos, and Eros, I focus upon the thoroughgoing materialism of the poor farmer Chremylus who laments the unjust distribution of wealth, and who seeks to restore the god'…Read more
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The Meeting of Modern and Greek Thought in Schelling's Freedom EssayDissertation, Duquesne University. 1977.
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23The unity of reason: Essays on Kant's philosophyHistory of European Ideas 21 (6): 799-800. 1995.
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19Nietzsche in Derrida'sspurs: Deconstruction as deracinationHistory of European Ideas 11 (1-6): 685-692. 1989.
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17The Cambridge Companion to Kant (review)History of European Ideas 21 (1): 75-80. 1995.The fundamental task of philosophy since the seventeenth century has been to determine whether the essential principles of both knowledge and action can be discovered by human beings unaided by an external agency. No one philosopher contributed more to this enterprise than Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason (1781) shook the very foundations of the intellectual world. Kant argued that the basic principles of the natural science are imposed on reality by human sensibility and understanding, and t…Read more
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84The Legacy of Heideggerian Poetics For Continental PhilosophyPhilosophy Today 54 (Supplement): 115-121. 2010.
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103On hölderlin's "andenken": Heidegger, Gadamer and henrich—a decision?Research in Phenomenology 34 (1): 181-197. 2004.Often, respectable scholars attack the soundness of Heidegger's "violent" interpretations of Hölderlin (and others). In this case, Dieter Henrich offers a particularly harsh assessment of Heidegger's interpretation of " Andenken." Hans-Georg Gadamer, student of Heidegger and teacher of Henrich, attempts to bring harmony where none seems possible. A study of the three interpretations indicates that scholarship alone is sufficient to reach a decision on the strength of the interpretations.
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83What becomes of science in "the future of phenomenology"?Research in Phenomenology 32 (1): 219-229. 2002.A recent issue of Research in Phenomenology contains a section on "The Future of Phenomenology," but none of the articles contained therein deals with a future engagement of phenomenology with science, especially mathematical natural science. In this paper, I discuss this engagement that was once so central to phenomenology and suggest lines along which its revival can fruitfully occur. Toward this end, I trace the contours of the Heisenberg-Heidegger exchange and show how recent readings of the…Read more
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27“Ihr Hinweis auf Aristophanes Clouds Wichtige Fragen Einschließt, die Ich Hätte Sehen Sollen”: Gadamer and the Question of ComedyComparative and Continental Philosophy 2 (2): 235-252. 2010.In a letter written to Gadamer after receiving a copy of Truth and Method, Leo Strauss offered many criticisms with which Gadamer took issue. However, he acknowledged the important hint cited in the title. Perhaps strangely, Gadamer never took up this hint and showed very little interest in comedy throughout his Gesammelte Schriften. In this essay, I show that there are ample resources within Gadamerian hermeneutics to answer Strauss positively, also for a rich philosophy of comedy along Gadamer…Read more
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21Force of Imagination: The Sense of the Elemental (review)Journal of Nietzsche Studies 23 (1): 97-99. 2002.
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11The play of the Platonic dialoguesPeter Lang. 1997.Play resides at the heart of the Platonic dialogues, shaping their insights as well as informing their style. "The Play of the Platonic Dialogues" traces the prominent role of play, both as a general philosophical characteristic and as influencing the treatment of key issues. The nature of the forms, of the city, of virtue, of the soul and its immortality - these and others have been shaped by play. This book shows how Platonic playfulness is joined with the deepest seriousness throughout the di…Read more
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29Philosophy and Comedy: Aristophanes, Logos, and ErosIndiana University Press. 2008.Reveals comedy's contributions to the philosophical enterprise
Areas of Interest
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |