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In this paper, I claim that the distinction between "philosophy" and "spirituality" can be a key for understanding Foucault's work, assuming that his philosophy and historical thought do possess a "spiritual dimension." For this purpose, I analyze the figures of transgression and pensée du dehors of the archaeological period, the figures of resistance and criticism as reflexive indocility of the genealogical period, and the fold of the ethical period. I determine whether they can be considered a spiritual dimension that promotes être autrement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My aim in this paper is to examine some of the distinctive facets of human action in Spinoza's philosophy and show their intrinsic connection with each other. By analyzing in detail how Spinoza addresses different aspects of human action in his main work, the Ethics, it is possible to notice that for him free human agency implies two interrelated features: on the one hand, the adequate knowledge of the causes that determine it, and, on the other hand, a growing capacity to impact with greater power the scenarios in which it takes place. Thus, in contrast with quietist and passive readings, I show in the following that the two aforementioned characteristics are part of the Spinozian philosophical conception of agency as such. By pursuing this line of thought, it is also possible to establish a link--not always noticed in the secondary literature--with some of the central lines of thought contained in the Theological-Political Treatise. In discussing these theses, I advance the idea that the Spinozian conception of human agency involves a serious readjustment of the metaphysical vision of the agent, a change in her conduct and ethical practices, and an altogether different conception of politics and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The writings of Jean-Marie Schaeffer stand out among those of other French philosophers because they not only emphasize the relevance of the evolutionary approach within philosophical reflection, generally completely discredited in intellectual circles linked to continental philosophy, but because they introduce it into aesthetic research, which is even less frequent among philosophers in general. In Schaeffer's research, this approach makes explicit the existence of a meeting point between, on the one hand, the philosophical critique of anthropocentrism and animal ethics, and, on the other hand, aesthetic analysis. As I argue in this paper, in light of Shaeffer's reflections some important implications of the theory of biological evolution in the problematization of the assumption of a human moral superiority within philosophical aesthetics become evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to propose a scheme of conscious life that allows us to recognize three constitutive moments of the Levinasian subjectivation process: il y a, jouissance and éthique. Presenting such moments will provide an understanding of subjectivity as a development which is done based on its relationship with transcendence. It will be seen that this term (transcendence) means, firstly, a relationship with sensitive outward experience and, subsequently, a relationship with the Other or an ethics. When describing the different stages indicated, not only the elements of nonobjective processes will be presented--a general reading of Levinasian phenomenology will also be provided by describing different moments that occur within the conscious life and constitute it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant's moral philosophy intends to be an articulated project between metaphysics of morals and practical anthropology. In the works in which he undertakes the task of grounding his metaphysics of morals, namely, The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant insists that he borrows nothing from anthropology to support this grounding, whereas in his two other most important practical writings, the Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant applies his metaphysics of morals to anthropology. By discussing Kant's idea that empirical happiness is an essential end for every human being, and that his metaphysics of morals is just incoherent without denying rationality and freedom to every sensible incentive, this paper problematizes the possibility of the articulated project of Kant's moral philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forward a threefold proposal relating to the ethics exposed by Henry Thoreau in Walden: (1) the definition of his concept of luxury, in light of how the subject has been approached from various historical and philosophically relevant positions; (2) the recognition of poverty as a fundamental concept for Thoreau's ethical proposal in Walden and the aims of thoreauvian economy, and (3) a reading of Walden as a structured text that goes from the individual requirements of human life to social and cultural necessities. These three points will be connected through the critical practice of voluntary poverty that Thoreau argues for, in the sense of a pragmatic doubt about the habits and search for the necessary elements of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary functional theories about morality assume that morality has been evolutionarily selected because it produces a cooperative and pro-social effect (selected effect functional theory, SE). This assumption wrongly implies that the trait which produces the selected effect is fully known. Furthermore, a SE theory does not seem to explain the peculiarities of moral thought, which are mostly synthesized in the features of moral judgment: its authoritative and inescapable character (practical clout). This paper provides an alternative SE explanation and argues that a causal role functional explanation (CR) is also necessary because this kind of explanation establishes the way the selected effect interacts with basic human evaluative propensities, which not only makes it possible to give an account of the practical clout of moral judgment, but of the phenomenon of moral ambivalence as well. However, the connection between reason and emotion and their influence on morality remains unexplained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]