Philosophy Commons^™

What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought, Lewis R. Gordon, Sonia Dayan-Herzbrun, Drucilla Cornell

Philosophy & Theory

Challenging the notion of theory as white and experience as black, Lewis Gordon here offers a philosophical portrait of the thought and life of the Martinican-turned-Algerian revolutionary psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon as an example of “living thought” against the legacies of colonialism and racism, and thereby shows the continued relevance and importance of his ideas.

On The Hallelujah Efect: Priming Consumers, Recording Music, And The Spirit Of Tragedy, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

An overview of The Hallelujah Effect concentrating on priming or sonic branding, media, online porn as well as marketing and media programming, with a special excursus on the space of music --and radio in Adorno's Current of Music, and a detailed discussion on Nietzsche and music in antiquity as he explores this with reference ot Beethoven in The Birth of Tragedy.

Nietzsche's Antichrist: The Birth Of Modern Science Out Of The Spirit Of Religion, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Nietzsche argued that the Greeks were in possessions of every theoretical, mathematical, logical, and technological antecedent for the development of what could be modern science. But if they had all these necessary prerequisites what else could they have needed? Not only had the ancient Greeks no religious world-view antagonistic to scientific inquiry, they also lacked the Judeo-Christian promissory ideal of salvation in a future life (after death). Subsequently, when Greek culture had been irretrievably lost, what Nietzsche regarded as the "decadent" Socratic ideal of reason ultimately and in connection with the preludes of religion and alchemy developed into modern science …

The ‘New’ Heidegger, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

If discussion of “new” approaches to Martin Heidegger contradicts Heidegger’s own indictment of the passion for “novelty” in philosophy, today’s Black Notebooks scandal reminds us of the ontic problem of new news. Indeed the backwards working evidence of the notebooks kept before, during, and after WWII both vindicates and problematizes his notion of temporality temporalizing from the future -- lapsing into the past -- setting up what is now regarded as patent in the present. Simultaneously, we see that if heretofore many philosophers of technology sought to dismiss engagement with Heidegger’s critique of technology, these critical contributions turn out to …

Calling Science Pseudoscience: Fleck’S Archaeologies Of Fact And Latour’S ‘Biography Of An Investigation’ In Aids Denialism And Homeopathy, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally excluded from reception, often regarded as opposed to fact, scientific claims that are increasingly seldom discussed in connection with philosophy of science save as examples of pseudo-science. I am especially concerned with scientists who question the epidemiological link between HIV and AIDS and who are thereby discounted—no matter their credentials, no matter the cogency of their arguments, no matter the sobriety of their statistics—but also with other classic examples of so-called pseudo-science including homeopathy and other sciences, such as cold fusion. The pseudo-science version of the demarcation problem turns …

The Philosophical Differences Between Heisenberg And Bohr, Patrick Heelan

Research Resources

Chapter from: Patrick Aidan Heelan, The Observable: Heisenberg’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. With a foreword by Michel Bitbol. Edited and with a foreword by Babette Babich. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015.

The Uncertainty Relations, Patrick Heelan

Research Resources

Patrick Aidan Heelan, The Observable: Heisenberg’s Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics. With a foreword by Michel Bitbol. Edited and with a foreword by Babette Babich. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2015.

The Ubiquity Of Hermeneutics, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

To understand Nietzsche in the context of hermeneutics is to understand not only Nietzsche’s philosophy of interpretation (Figl 1982a, 1984) but his perspective on perspective (Cox 1997) or “perspectivalism” (Babich 1994: 116f). In turn, given his background familiarity with hermeneutic methodology, this also corresponds to Nietzsche’s own approach as an interpreter of texts and antiquity as of the life, the culture, the history of ancient Greece (see the range of contributions to Jensen and Heit 2014 as well as Ugolini 2003; Figl 1984; and Pöschl 1979). And to do this, just to the extent that Nietzsche specifically reflects on interpretation …

After Fukushima: The Equivalence Of Catastrophes, Jean-Luc Nancy

Philosophy & Theory

In this book, the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy examines the nature of catastrophes in the era of globalization and technology. Can a catastrophe be an isolated occurrence? Is there such a thing as a “natural” catastrophe when all of our technologies—nuclear energy, power supply, water supply—are necessarily implicated, drawing together the biological, social, economic, and political? Nancy examines these questions and more. Exclusive to this English edition are two interviews with Nancy conducted by Danielle Cohen-Levinas and Yuji Nishiyama and Yotetsu Tonaki.

Becoming And Purification: Empedocles, Zarathustra’S Übermensch, And Lucian’S Tyrant, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Nietzsche’s Übermensch is derived from Lucian of Samosata’s term hyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman or Übermensch should be read in correspondence with the context of its (terminological) origination in Lucian’s satirical dialogue Kataplous, referring to the journey of the soul from its life on earth into the afterlife, as escorted by Hermes and ferried by Charon along with myriads of others facing the same fate, traditionally the journey is downward journey and the human soul does not tend to be translated to regions above its former station (the literal meaning of the Übermensch). The Kataplous …

Schrödinger And Nietzsche And Life: Eternal Recurrence And The Conscious Now, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

The phenomenological question of consciousness usually associated with Husserl (although there are echoes of this in Augustine as in Marcus Aurelius, Kant and Schopenhauer), is the consciousness of the now, the present moment. I explore this consciousness for Erwin Schrödinger, which for him included reference to the Upaniṣads together with Nietzsche’s central teaching or “thinking” of the eternal recurrence of the same.

Antonio T. De Nicolás: Poet Of Eternal Return, Christopher Key Chapple

Research Resources

This book includes essays in honor of Professor Antonio de Nicolas.

“Who Do You Think You Are?” On Nietzsche’S Schopenhauer, Illich’S Hugh Of St. Victor, And Kleist’S Kant, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Journal For The Philosophical Study Of Education Vol 2 (2014), Allan Johnston, Guillemette Johnston, Samuel Rocha

Research Resources

Welcome to the second volume of the Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education (JPSE), a peer-reviewed journal put out by the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education (SPSE). JSPE aims to publish papers that approach the field of education from a philosophical perspective, in the broadest sense of the term. Some of the papers considered for publication may be selected from works presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education by members of that organization, after these papers undergo peer review and revision. However, this journal does not limit its content to …

The Universality Of Hermeneutics In Joseph Kockelmans’S Version Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Dimitri Ginev

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It …

Consciousness, Quantum Physics, And Hermeneutical Phenomenology, Patrick A. Heelan Sj

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Two hundred years ago Friedrich Schleiermacher modified Kant’s notion of anthropology—‘hermeneutically,’ as he said — so as to make it inclusive of the tribes that Captain Cook found in the South Sea Islands. This paper honors the late Joseph J. Kockelmans for making a similar hermeneutic move to update Kant’s notion of natural science so as to make it inclusive of the phenomenological lifeworld (For ‘lifeworld,’ see Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy, 1954, 121–148, and the ‘lifeworld’ theme throughout the Crisis. ) syntheses of classical, relativity, and quantum physics. The new synthesis is in fact …

The Multidimensionality Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology: From Philology Through Science And Technology To Theology, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Constellating Technology: Heidegger’S Die Gefahr/The Danger, Babette Babich

Research Resources

Heidegger’s question concerning technology was originally posed in lectures to the Club of Bremen. This essay considers the totalizing role of technology in Heidegger’s day and our own, including a discussion of radio and calling for a greater integration of Heidegger’s thinking and critical theory. Today’s media context and the increasing ecological pressures of our time may provide a way to think, once again, the related notions of event [ Ereignis] and ownedness [ Eigentlichkeit ].

The Multidimensionality Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology: From Philology Through Science And Technology To Theology, Babette Babich

Research Resources

Studies of hermeneutics have historically invoked and even enumerated dimensions and hermeneutic phenomenology is inherently multidimensional. In part this is due to the essential connection between hermeneutics and philology, which one cannot overlook. But it is also the legacy of Wilhelm Dilthey in particular. Hence Joseph J. Kockelman’s 2003 *Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences* invokes “The Importance of Methodical Hermeneutics.” With this description, echoing the contributions of his friend and long-time colleague, Thomas Seebohm, Kockelmans relates Dilthey to Boeckh and thus to the classic tradition of hermeneutics including but also well in advance of Gadamer. Hence …

The Universality Of Hermeneutics In Joseph Kockelmans’S Version Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Dimitri Ginev

Research Resources

In an autobiographical sketch, Joseph Kockelmans (2008) reflects on his Denkweg in a manner that allows him to delineate the profile of his version of hermeneutic phenomenology. Based essentially on this sketch, I should like in what follows to bring into focus three principal moments of his “journey into phenomenological philosophy” that allude to his idea of the universality of interpretation in all culturally specified modes of being-in-the-world. I will call these moments respectively (a) the phenomenological reformulation of the Greek episteme; (b) the integration of the ontological difference in the theory of scientific truth; and (c) the historicity of …

Heidegger And Our Twenty-First Century Experience Of Ge-Stell, Theoore Kisiel

Research Resources

The author proposes an etymological translation of Ge-Stell , Heidegger’s word for the essence of modern technology, from its Greek and Latin roots as “syn-thetic com-posit[ion]ing,” which presciently portends our twenty-first century experience of the internetted WorldWideWeb with its virtual infinity of websites in cyberspace, Global Positioning Systems, interlocking air traffic control grids, world-embracing weather maps, the 24-7 world news coverage of cable TV-networks like CNN, etc., etc.—all of which are structured by the complex programming based on the computerized and ultimately simple Leibnizian binary-digital logic generating an infinite number of combinations of the posit (1) and non-posit (0). The …

Consciousness, Quantum Physics, And Hermeneutical Phenomenology, Patrick Aidan Heelan S.J.

Research Resources

Two hundred years ago Friedrich Schleiermacher modified Kant’s notion of anthropology—‘hermeneutically,’ as he said — so as to make it inclusive of the tribes that Captain Cook found in the South Sea Islands. This paper honors the late Joseph J. Kockelmans for making a similar hermeneutic move to update Kant’s notion of natural science so as to make it inclusive of the phenomenological lifeworld (For ‘lifeworld,’ see Husserl’s The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Philosophy, 1954, 121–148, and the ‘lifeworld’ theme throughout the Crisis. ) syntheses of classical, relativity, and quantum physics. The new synthesis is in …

The Universality Of Hermeneutics In Joseph Kockelmans’ Version Of Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Dimitri Ginev

Research Resources

There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It …

Heidegger And Our Twenty-Fi Rst Century Experience Of Ge-Stell Theodore Kisiel, Theodor Kisiel

Research Resources

I propose an etymological translation of Ge-Stell, Heidegger’s word for the essence of modern technology, from its Greek and Latin roots as “synthetic com-posit[ion]ing,” which presciently portends our twenty-first century experience of the internetted WorldWideWeb with its virtual infinity of websites in cyberspace, Global Positioning Systems, interlocking air traffic control grids, world-embracing weather maps, the 24-7 world news coverage of cable TV-networks like CNN, etc., etc.—all of which are structured by the complex programming based on the computerized and ultimately simple Leibnizian binary-digital logic generating an infinite number of combinations of the posit (1) and non-posit (0). The sharp …

“A Power Beyond The Reach Of Any Magic”: Mythology In Harry Potter, Daniella Rizza Fcrh '11

The Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal

J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have over the last decade become a worldwide phenomenon, but why? It is perhaps because of the mythical elements that underlie Harry’s story, particularly the myths of the child and the hero. Comparing the Potter novels to works by mythological theorists Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, it is clear how Rowling both uses and updates traditional mythological structures and elements in the novels. The Harry Potter novels both incorporate the standard myths of the child and the hero, which accounts for the series’ immense ability to grab the reader, and update these myths, making Harry’s …

Shattering The Political Or The Question Of War In Heidegger’S "Letter On Humanism.”, Babette Babich

Working Papers

Jean Beaufret’s question concerning humanism was “politically” framed on several levels as initially presented to Heidegger.1 Accordingly, Heidegger’s own response was itself political: invoking both technology and the self-same question of science that we remain—and to this day—still “too pious” (in Nietzsche’s words) to be able to frame as a question: the very same question Heidegger develops in his later lectures delivered to the businessmen of Germany, including his Question Concerning Technology. The preoccupation with thinking technology and thinking science remains with Heidegger to the end of his life. Even more significant perhaps (particularly in proximity with Heidegger’s focus …

Nietzsche’S Zarathustra And Parodic Style: On Lucian’S Hyperanthropos And Nietzsche’S Übermensch, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

It is well-known that as a term, Nietzsche’s Übermensch derives from Lucian of Samosata’s hyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman acquires new resonances by reflecting on the context of that origination from Lucian’s Kataplous – literally, “sailing into port” – referring to the soul’s journey (ferried by Charon, guided by Hermes) into the afterlife. The Kataplous he tyrannos, usually translated Downward Journey or The Tyrant, is a Menippean satire of the “overman” who is imagined to be superior to others of “lesser” station in this-worldly life and the same tyrant after his (comically unwilling) …

Future Past: The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra And Eternity Or What Is The Weight Of The Greatest Heavy Weight?, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

A Reflection On Thomas Mann's Joseph Tetralogy -- From Schopenhauer's World Will To Divine Providence, Gerard C. Farley

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nietzsche And Darwin, Babette Babich

Working Papers

Abstract

I argue against the popular view of Nietzsche as Darwinist and I concur with other Nietzsche scholars who have also noted that other authors worked in Nietzsche’s thinking in association with Darwin, not only Spencer and Malthus but also Roux and Haeckel among others which also for Nietzsche included Empedocles and other ancient scientists. Nietzsche offers plain condemnation of Darwin’s views but he is also often associated with Darwin owing to Darwin’s racism and his own vision of rank-order. I conclude with an emphasis on style and Nietzsche’s reading of antiquity to highlight the distinction he sought to make …