Continental Philosophy Commons^™

What About The Children? Benjamin And Arendt: On Education, Work, And The Political, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

This article is a rough draft of an article that I contributed to an edited volume of articles dealing with progressive education theory. I reflect on articles that Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin wrote that deal with educational reform and innovation, both political in nature.

Towards An Ontology Of Bob Dylan, William J. Richardson

Research Resources

No abstract provided.

Antigone's Nature, William Robert

Religion - All Scholarship

Antigone fascinates G.W.F. Hegel and Luce Irigaray, both of whom turn to her in their explorations and articulations of ethics. Hegel and Irigaray make these re-turns to Antigone through the double and related lenses of nature and sexual difference. This essay investigates these figures of Antigone and the accompanying ethical accounts of nature and sexual difference as a way of examining Irigaray's complex relation to and creative uses of Hegel's thought.

Le Sort Du Nachlass : Le Problème De L’Œuvre Posthume, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Discussion of Heidegger's Nachlass as composed in the wake of his editorial experience working on the edition of Nietzsche's works. Issues explored include the role of the editor (or editors) in the work of an author (reception, legitimation, etc.) Features a discussion of the distinctive aspects of the different language versions of Nietzsche's Will to Power first in German, then in French, then in English. Text is in French.

Please use this citation:

Babette Babich, «Le sort du Nachlass : le problème de l’œuvre posthume», in : Pascale Catherine Hummel, ed., Mélivres / Misbooks. Études sur l’envers et les travers …

The Art Of Aidagara: Ethics, Aesthetics, And The Quest For An Ontology Of Social Existence In Watsuji Tetsurō’S Rinrigaku, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This paper provides an analysis of the key term aidagara (“betweenness”) in the philosophical ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), in response to and in light of the recent movement in Japanese Buddhist studies known as “Critical Buddhism.” The Critical Buddhist call for a turn away from “topical” or intuitionist thinking and towards (properly Buddhist) “critical” thinking, while problematic in its bipolarity, raises the important issue of the place of “reason” versus “intuition” in Japanese Buddhist ethics. In this paper, a comparison of Watsuji’s “ontological quest” with that of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Watsuji’s primary Western source and foil, is followed by …

A Response To Smith's "Continental Philosophy Of Religion: Prescriptions For A Healthy Subdiscipline", Bruce Ellis Benson

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

All of us working in continental philosophy of religion can be grateful to James K. A. Smith for his call to consider which practices will best further the “health” of the burgeoning subdiscipline of continental philosophy of religion. Given that he offers his suggestions “in the spirit of ‘conversation starters,’” my response is designed to continue what I hope will be an ongoing conversation. With that goal in mind, I respond to Smith by considering not only the practicality of each suggestion but also whether adopting practices he suggests would actually improve the health of the subdiscipline.

Continental Philosophy Of Religion: Prescriptions For A Healthy Subdiscipline, James K.A. Smith

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Over the past decade there has been a burgeoning of work in philosophy of religion that has drawn upon and been oriented by “continental” sources in philosophy—associated with figures such as Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, Gilles Deleuze, and others. This is a significant development and one that should be welcomed by the community of Christian philosophers. However, in this dialogue piece I take stock of the field of “continental philosophy of religion” and suggest that the field is developing some un-healthy patterns and habits. The burden of the paper is to suggest a prescription for the …

The End Of Enclaves: A Reply To Benson, James K.A. Smith

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

In reply to Benson’s response, I agree that we should be seeking the dissolution of all enclaves in philosophy of religion—whether continental or analytic. But I continue to suggest that continental philosophy of religion bears special burdens in this respect.

Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward A Postmodern Christian Faith, Merold Westphal

Philosophy & Theory

Overcoming Onto-theology is a stunning collection of essays by Merold Westphal, one of America’s leading continental philosophers of religion, in which Westphal carefully explores the nature and the structure of a postmodern Christian philosophy. Written with characteristic clarity and charm, Westphal offers masterful studies of Heidegger’s early lectures on Paul and Augustine, the idea of hermeneutics, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Derrida, and Nietzsche, all in the service of building his argument that postmodern thinking offers an indispensable tool for rethinking Christian faith. A must read for every student and professor of continental philosophy and the philosophy of religion, Overcoming Onto-theology is an …

Meaning In History? The Young Hegelian's Battle For Historical Meaning And The Resurgence Of Nihilism, Angelo J. Letizia

History Theses & Dissertations

After the Reign of Terror, the German thinker J.H. Jacobi saw only two options for Europe: faith in God or nihilism, the belief in nothing. His ultimatum between faith and nihilism for the modern era called into question for some thinkers the entire revolutionary project and its ideals of reason and self government. Two answers to Jacobi's ultimatum were put forth by the German philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who rejected both faith and nihilism, and instead crafted a vision of progress, and Arthur Schopenhauer who opted for nihilism. Jacobi's ultimatum, and Hegel and Schopenhauer's answers to it, opened up …

Zu Nietzsches Stil, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Das Thema von Nietzsches Stil ist hier sowohl von Bedeutung als Frage nach dem Wesen jenes Stils wie auch als Frage danach, was er in philosophischer, nicht einfach in asthetischer oder literarischer Hinsicht erreicht hat. Hier wird nachgelegt, dass die Kunst des Lesens, die technische Kunst des hörens als eine Art des Hörens in einer philosophischen Seinsweise zu verstehen sei. Damit setzt sie nicht allein eine diskursive Kunst musikalischen Gespürs seitens des schreibenden, sondern eigentlich auch seitens des Lesenden voraus. Untersucht wird vor allem, Nietzsches Aphorismos im Rahmen des Antisemitismus. Diese außerordentlich komplexe innere Ausrichtung von Nietzsches Stil ist die …

Motivation In Spinoza And Rosenzweig Or Transgressing The Boundaries Of A Rationally Constructed Self, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Politik Und Die Analytisch-Kontinentale Streit Der Fakultaeten In Die Philosophie, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

Bekanntnermaßen machen die unterschiedlichen Antworten, die auf die Frage ‚Was ist Philosophie?’ gegeben werden können, die Differenz und damit die Trennung zwischen analytischen und kontinentalen Denkstilen aus. Wenn man bedenkt, was hier auf dem Spiele steht, so geht es dabei nicht um einen terminologischen Streit um Begriffe, sondern um die Definition einer Disziplin als solcher und dies schließt nicht nur das Problem ein, wie Philosophie betrieben – und bewertet – wird, sondern wer überhaupt in die Lage kommt, sie auszuüben (und zu evaluieren), gerade wo solches Tun – und solche Evaluation – sich als eine bedeutsame Voraussetzung für Einladungen erweist. …

Imagination, Religious Practice, And World Transformations: Sophia, Heidegger, And Jacob Bohme's The Way To Christ, Mark Allen Peckler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is offered as a work of original scholarship in the field of Religion and Psychological Studies (RPS). Through its hermeneutic preservation of Jacob Böhme's The Way to Christ in "conversation" with selected works of Martin Heidegger, I retrieve the question of imagination's relation to religious practice, attending to potentials for world transformations disclosed through this relationship, in order to develop a new hermeneutic option for the RPS field concerning this important question. This new hermeneutic option is developed in such a way as to ensure a subversive compatibility with psychoanalytic hermeneutics—our field's koiné—while opening to certain radical …

Becoming Good Europeans? Globality, The Eu And The Potential To Realize Nietzsche's Idea Of Europe, Michael J. Mcneal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation takes up Friedrich Nietzsche’s notion of ‘good Europeanism’ and his related idea of Europe to show how the former disposition may be cultivated to achieve the latter—a reinvigorated culture on the continent. It does so by applying his vitalist politics and power ontology (will to power hypothesis and theory of decadence) to critique European integration in the broader context of globalization. The analysis enables me to theorize how “healthy” individuals might exploit opportunities in the present to become 'good Europeans', with the aim of realizing Nietzsche’s quasi-cosmopolitan idea of Europe. It is my primary contention that Nietzsche’s diagnosis …

Making Ethical Sense Of Useless Suffering With Levinas, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

The Ethical Phenomenon Of Gm-Corn: Anger, Anxiety, And Arrogance In Crossing American Borders, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

In terms of phenomenology, I often wonder about the relevance of what I do as a philosopher for the life of those with whom I come into contact. This ‘coming into contact’ happens for me on several levels: as one human among many, as a husband and father and son and brother, as a teacher, as a neighbor, and as country or city dweller. I remember with fondness those times in the late sultry summer months when, as a youth, I would drive with my father to this or that local farm-stand on some remote back road in the hills …

Kierkegaard's Case For The Irrelevance Of Philosophy, Antony Aumann

Faculty Works

This paper provides an account of Kierkegaard’s central criticism of the Danish Hegelians. Contrary to recent scholarship, it is argued that this criticism has a substantive theoretical basis and is not merely personal or ad hominem in nature. In particular, Kierkegaard is seen as criticizing the Hegelians for endorsing an unacceptable form of intellectual elitism, one that gives them pride of place in the realm of religion by dint of their philosophical knowledge. A problem arises, however, because this criticism threatens to apply to Kierkegaard himself. It is shown that Kierkegaard manages to escape this problem by virtue of the …

The Ethical Phenomenon Of Gm-Corn: Anger, Anxiety, And Arrogance In Crossing American Borders, Jules Simon

Departmental Papers (Philosophy)

In terms of phenomenology, I often wonder about the relevance of what I do as a philosopher for the life of those with whom I come into contact. This ‘coming into contact’ happens for me on several levels: as one human among many, as a husband and father and son and brother, as a teacher, as a neighbor, and as country or city dweller. I remember with fondness those times in the late sultry summer months when, as a youth, I would drive with my father to this or that local farm-stand on some remote back road in the hills …

Faith And The Sublation Of Modernity: Kierkegaard And The Transformation Of Fideism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

This article retraces the “genealogy” of the fideist perspective in philosophy as well as literature, especially within the writings of Søren Kierkegaard and the novel Don Quixote. It contends that a demythologized perspective of the fideist-humanist sort, based upon Erasmian tolerance and intellectual creativity and updated with the insights of post-analytic theory (e.g., the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Richard Rorty, and Jeffrey Stout), without revoking the vocabulary of transcendence, can reinforce the weathered but still valuable post-Enlightenment moral vocabulary, and can reiterate the humaneness of liberal hope without undue encumbrance from the dogmatic baggage of traditional theological jargon and metaphysics.

The Responsibility Of Thinking In Dark Times: Hannah Arendt Versus Hans Jonas, Lawrence A. Vogel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Emmanuel Levinas And The Judaism Of The Good Samaritan, Lawrence A. Vogel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ad Jacob Taubes, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

Assassins And Crusaders: Nietzsche After 9/11, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Nietzsche describes his four Unzeitgemiisse Betrachtungen as Attentate, assassination attempts. The first of these, his self-described "duel" with David Friedrich Strauss, published in 1873, begins with the question of war and time. It is untimely or out of season insofar as it challenges the smugness of the cultural philistines who take Germany's victory in the Franco-Prussian War to be a testament to the superiority of German culture. As those in the United States might have learned after the end of the Cold War and after the first Gulf War, "a great victory is a great danger," and we might …

From Being To Givenness And Back: Some Remarks On The Meaning Of Transcendental Idealism In Kant And Husserl, Sebastian Luft

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

This paper takes a fresh look at a classical theme in philosophical scholarship, the meaning of transcendental idealism, by contrasting Kant’s and Husserl’s versions of it. I present Kant’s transcendental idealism as a theory distinguishing between the world as in-itself and as given to the experiencing human being. This reconstruction provides the backdrop for Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology as a brand of transcendental idealism expanding on Kant: through the phenomenological reduction Husserl universalizes Kant’s transcendental philosophy to an eidetic science of subjectivity. He thereby furnishes a new sense of transcendental philosophy, rephrases the quid iurisquestion, and provides a new conception of …

Reflections On Greek Bronze And 'The Statue Of Humanity'. Heidegger's Aesthetic Phenomenology And Nietzsche's Agonistic Politics, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

No abstract provided.

"Heidegger’S Will To Power," Journal Of The British Society For Phenomenology, Vol. 38, No. 1 (January 2007): 37-60, Babette Babich

Articles and Chapters in Academic Book Collections

I argue that Heidegger deliberately composed the Beiträge zur Philosophie in order to keep it as an unpublished work throughout his life. In 1935, Heidegger was named to the board of directors for the National Socialist edition of Nietzsche’s collected works. This experience brought Heidegger into contact with the editorial forces that control an author’s legacy, even an author of Nietzsche’s formidable stylistic powers. And as is typical enough, the parallel Heidegger drew was a personal one. In response, Heidegger composed what might stand as his own “Nachlaß” material. The Beiträge would then work to limit Heidegger’s vulnerability to editorial …

Benjamin In Paris: Weak Messianism And Memories Of The Oppressed, Jules Simon

Selected Works Temporary Series

No abstract provided.

Vico’S New Science Of Interpretation: Beyond Philosophical Hermeneutics And The Hermeneutics Of Suspicion, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article situates Vico's hermeneutical science of history between a hermeneutics of suspicion (Ricoeur, Habermas, Freud) and a redemptive hermeneutics (Gadamer, Benjamin). It discusses Vico's early writings and his ambivalent trajectory from Cartesian rationalism to counter-enlightenment historicist and critic of natural law reasoning. The complexity of Vico's thinking belies some of the popular treatments of his thought developed by Isaiah Berlin and others.

“The Problem Of Science” In Nietzsche And Heidegger, Babette Babich

Research Resources

Nietzsche and Heidegger pose important philosophical questions to science and its technological projects. The resultant contributes to what may be called a continental philosophy of science and I argue that only such a rigorously critical approach to the question of science permits a genuinely philosophical reflection on science. The resultant contributes to what may be called a continental philosophy of science and I argue that only such a rigorously critical approach to the question of science permits a genuinely philosophical reflection on science. More than a thoughtful reflection on science, however, the heart of philosophy is also at stake in …