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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 aim of this paper is to provide an approach to the etho-aesthetic dimension in Marcuse's thought. The approach in this paper is built upon the following thesis: the etho-aesthetic dimension consists of the transformation of subjectivity based on artistic sensitivity and critical rationality from which social relations opposed to an advanced industrial society and its one-dimensional man are reconstructed materially and intellectually. The conclusion is the following: a Marcusian critical theory, inherited from Marx and Schiller, would be one capable of analyzing the potential qualitative changes of the subjects and social institutions to generate a higher level of rational development, equitable in the distribution of resources and in the generation of greater spaces of freedom. Its basis would be an etho-aesthetic attitude that does not take pleasure in squandering, but in the reflective experience of the sensible. [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]