Search

Discusses factors to be considered when selecting between student and professional papers as the model for writing in undergraduate philosophy courses. Challenges provided by professional papers to students; Implication for writing assignments in philosophy courses; Influential ideas in writing theory.

This article aims to bring forward a critical reflection on a renewed relation between nature and technology in the Anthropocene, by contextualizing the question around the recent debates on the "ontological turn" in Anthropology, which attempts to go beyond the nature and culture dualism analysed as the crisis of modernity. The "politics of ontologies" associated with this movement in anthropology opens up the question of participation of non-humans. This article contrasts this anthropological attempt with the work of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon, who wants to overcome the antagonism between culture and technics. According to Simondon, this antagonism results from the technological rupture of modernity at the end of the eighteenth century. This paper analyses the differences of the oppositions presenting their work: culture vs. nature, culture vs. technics, to show that a dialogue between anthropology of nature (illustrated through the work of Philippe Descola) and philosophy of technology (illustrated through the work of Simondon) will be fruitful to conceptualize a renewed relation between nature and technology. One way to initiate such a conversation as well as to think about the reconciliation between nature and technology, this article tries to show, is to develop the concept of cosmotechnics as the denominator of these two trends of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question posed in this paper is: Is there an end to some type of activity which is the end of any rational agent? It approaches an answer by a critical examination of one view of human beings that excludes this possibility, that advanced by Harry Frankfurt. It is argued that once we have distinguished, as Frankfurt does not, that which we have good reason to care about from that which we do not have good reason to care about, we are able to identify a conception of a final end for human activity, one that we put to work when we consider the ways in which a life may have gone wrong and one that we find indispensable for our understanding of narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has four parts. The first part gives an overview of Alasdair MacIntyre's theory of rationality; the remaining three parts examine the theory's implications through the consideration of three examples. Two examples, the reception of MacIntyre's mature work and the study of Thomas Aquinas's Five Ways, illustrate the implications of MacIntyre's theory for reading and interpreting contemporary literature and historical texts. A third example, the investigation of late medieval nominalism, shows how the more straightforward problems of reading and interpreting can be exacerbated during periods of transition within traditions. Traditions, it turns out, can be fragile, yet once broken they are capable of concealing their incoherence and inconsistency from their current and fixture scholars. If MacIntyre's theory that rationality is both tradition-constituted and tradition-constitutive is truthful, it follows that the work of contemporary reading, traditional interpretation, and historical scholarship always requires careful attention to differences in rationalities, lest readers misinterpret by filling gaps in their readings with their own presuppositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aurel Kolnai, born in Hungary and mainly influenced by realist phenomenology, completed his dissertation in Vienna in 1926. After fleeing throughout Europe and living in the United States and Canada for some years, he eventually left for the United Kingdom. While Kolnai's early philosophical work (and his dissertation) mainly concentrated on ethics, he dedicated most of his time and work during the 30s and 40s to political-philosophical writings. But once in England, Kolnai became interested in the British moralists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, in general, in ethics again. His exile-existence meant that Kolnai would remain relatively unknown, although he developed a somewhat eclectic moral philosophy and held political-philosophical views that certainly made him into a distinguished philosopher. This paper offers a short introduction to Kolnai's main ethical views and shows the relevance of Kolnai's views to certain contemporary controversies in ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A course in symbolic logic belongs as a requirement in the undergraduate philosophy major. In this paper, which started life as a letter to my departmental colleagues, I consider and respond to several reasons one might have for excluding Logic from the core requirements. I then give several arguments in favor of keeping Logic. The central--and most important--argument is that the lack of a proper background in logic makes it very difficult to approach many relatively straightforward philosophical arguments, let alone the more technical subliteratures of philosophy. In developing this argument, I consider a few core texts and arguments (e.g., Gettier's classic paper on the analysis of knowledge) and bring out how a student with some background in formal logic would be able to approach the texts and arguments with much greater ease than a student who lacks such a background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues of academic authorship pose few problems for philosophers or those in the humanities, yet raise a host of issues for medical researchers, engineers and scientists, where multiple authors is the norm and journal articles sometimes list hundreds of authors. At issue here are abstract questions about desert, as well as practical problems regarding the distribution of goods attached to authorship-tenure, prestige, research grants, etc. This paper defends a version of the author/contributor model, where the specific contributions of authors are described in a footnote, against other models of authorial attribution. Such a model offers the best guarantee that authors will get their due, as well as providing the most reliable protection against misconduct and fraud. The paper also argues that it is important for this model to be institutionalized across disciplinary boundaries as the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research will inevitably bring discipline-specific authorial norms into conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers two related reflections on the questions of metaphysics after critique. The first is an analysis of the project of critique since Kant and its influence on the disputed status of metaphysics. It explores the theoretical and practical aspects of this by claiming that an understanding of thinking as negativity, whether in Hegelian form as determinate negation or in more radical deconstructive forms, lies at the heart of this disputed status. Not least, the relation of philosophy to religion and to previous practices of metaphysics is at stake. The paper argues that there is more at work in critique than critique can account for through itself. In a second reflection, the arguments bearing on this "more" are explored in a more constructive spirit. On the basis of an account of the sources of metaphysical thinking beyond the resources of critique alone, the lineaments of what is needed for a metaxological metaphysics after critique are sketched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes forward reflections begun in my book After the Terror and then continued in a paper, "After the Terror: A Book and Further Thoughts." Maybe this third offering on the terrible subjects in question will be the last from me for a while--despite my not having got as close as may be possible to proofs or the like of some principal propositions. It must be easier to deal with the terrible subjects if strong moral convictions about Palestine or whatever come together with great confidence about the very nature of moral philosophy and the possibility of proofs. Still, silence or hesitancy is not an option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper begins by raising once again the question of the possible unity of Schelling's work, despite the undeniable transformations the work undergoes. It is proposed that such unity is best considered by taking seriously the primacy of the philosophical task that Schelling confronts, rather than by emphasizing whatever doctrinal or doxographical positions he espouses. Such a view of Schelling's work is confirmed if one considers his continual critique of predicative discourse. Philosophical thought remains irreducible to propositional content because the matter of philosophy must already be presupposed if such propositions are to arise. This matter or "unprethinkable" source, given to thinking, can only be addressed in an explicit affirmation of freedom and life. Thus, Schelling's work as it raises the question of freedom has to be encountered as itself a manifestation of freedom, and such an interpretation of Schelling for its part also must presuppose the freedom of the interpreter. The paper argues that this approach to Schelling makes it necessary to be attentive to the "performative dimension" of his work, to the way in which what is at issue in it becomes manifest indirectly. Schelling's demand for a positive philosophy thus also calls for and makes possible a different relation to language and the word. The word can no longer be taken as the sensible marker for an intelligible content, but becomes the living bond of what is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plato's allegory of the cave tells of the soul's advance from ignorance to knowledge, leaving open the question of what this knowledge is and what its objects are. Heidegger's 1947 analysis of the allegory is of course just one of many. However, as I argue in this paper, if we read that analysis in the context of Husserlian phenomenology, we find a remarkable congruence between the latter's process of "eidetic reduction" and the ascent out of the cave. In §1, I lay out the phenomenological concepts relevant to my interpretation of Heidegger's text. In §2, I apply these to the allegory itself. In §3, I examine Heidegger's critique of eidetic "truth" in the allegory, arguing that it equally applies to Husserl's phenomenology. My paper shows both the utility and limits of a "phenomenological" approach to reading Plato's theory of forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Spinoza's critique of religion as a visible moment of a radically occluded materialist Judeo-Arabic Aristotelian philosophical tradition. While the prevailing (Christo-Platonic) tradition begins with the familiar gesture to metaphysics as first philosophy, Spinoza's thought (and thus, this Other Tradition) takes politics as its point of departure with its concrete emphasis on a critique of dogma. This paper will show--by way of differing readings of Spinoza--how this materialist tradition becomes occluded by the prevailing tradition, even in the work of such careful materialist Spinoza commentators as Etienne Balibar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses various reasons for the claim that a Catholic should avoid being a proponent of a one and true philosophy. Rather, within limits, a Catholic philosopher ought to be a conceptual pluralist. These reasons include Pope John Paul II's remarks in Fides et Ratio like the following: "The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others." (para. 49) Also, Gerald A. McCool in his From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism argues that ironically the twentieth century Thomistic revival refuted the perceived call of Aeterni Patris to return to the conceptual formulations of Aquinas. In that respect, this paper considers three "Thomistic" arguments for philosophical pluralism as put forth by J. M. Le Blond during a famous debate between French Dominicans and Jesuits following the Second World War. Le Blond's "Thomistic" arguments include: the abstractive character of concepts, the equivalency of being and the true; and the epistemology of intellectual dynamism. My conclusion is that neither the Pope nor Aquinas is a proponent of philosophical pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Hegel has much to say to modern mathematical philosophy, although the Hegelian perspective needs to be substantially developed to incorporate within it the extensive advances in post-Hegelian mathematics and its logic. Key to that perspective is the self-referential character of the fundamental concepts of philosophy. The Hegelian approach provides a framework for answering the philosophical problems, discussed by Kurt Gödel in his paper on Bertrand Russell, which arise out of the existence in mathematics of self-referential, non-constructive concepts (such as class). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the function of Hume's use of a peculiar example from "A Treatise of Human Nature." The example in question is that of a burning piece of coal that is whirled around at a sufficient speed to present to a viewer an image of a circle of fire. The example is a common one; and Hume himself points to Locke as his source in this case. Hume's reference appears accurate since both Locke and Hume seem to marshal the example in order to bolster a case for an upper and lower temporal threshold for perception. But several philosophical problems inherent in Hume's appeal to the example make the case for Locke as Hume's sole or even primary source difficult to sustain. The paper sketches a history of uses of the example from the seventeenth century through the twentieth century. An argument is presented that Pierre Bayle's use of the example is most in accord with Hume's, and that for this and other reasons, Bayle is his likeliest source. Further, making sense in this way of Hume's use of the burning coal example illuminates Hume's interesting contributions to the notions of time, identity, and individuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the following questions: (a) what did Locke mean when he said that "words signify ideas"? and (b) what is Locke's argument for this thesis, and how successful is it? The paper argues that the two most prominent interpretations, those of Norman Kretzmann and E. J. Ashworth, attribute to Locke an argument for his semantic thesis that is fallacious, and that neither can make good sense of two key passages in book 3 of the Essay concerning Human Understanding. An alternative understanding of signification, drawn from the works of Hobbes and the Port-Royal logicians, is explored and shown to provide both a satisfactory interpretation of these two passages and an understanding of Locke's argument for the thesis that absolves him of fallacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relation of Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education to Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, particularly by examining the connection between the concepts of 'play' and 'appearance' in Schiller's thought. The paper points out parallels between the two thinkers which remain unacknowledged in Gadamer's critique of Schiller. The first main section of the paper examines the notion of play in Schiller, pointing out that Schiller conceives of play in a medial voice, much as Gadamer does. The second section directly takes on Gadamer's claim that Schiller's notion of aesthetic appearance sunders art from truth, by arguing that Schiller conceives of appearance as a mode of truth.

In this paper I argue that narratives concerning Periclean Athens have mistakenly imposed modern conceptions of enlightenment onto the Greek world, and have therefore been blinded to crucial aspects of Socrates's practice of moral reason giving. In contrast to the Kantian conception of enlightenment, which puts forth an image of the ideally enlightened person as an autonomous reasoner, one who refuses to be guided by another and who has the courage to throw off the chains of tradition and 'think for oneself,' I argue that Socrates provides us with a much different picture of the enlightened individual. Socrates's practice of moral reasoning does not take the form of autonomous rationality that is antithetical to tradition, but rather his practice recognizes the rightful authority of tradition and custom in moral reason giving. Thus, rather than characterizing Socrates through a Kantian enlightenment reading, this paper argues that we should study Socrates through the lens of the sensus communis, a humanist concept articulated well by Giambattista Vico and Hans Georg-Gadamer.

This paper addresses Klima's charge of inconsistancy against John Buridan in a book recently published on the subject. Klima argues that Buridan's theory of abstraction commits him to the aspectuality of substantial concepts. However, his semantics of absolute terms and concepts prevents him from accepting any aspectuality of substantial concepts. In light of this problem, the paper gives a detailed reconstruction of Buridan's account of abstraction, beginning with sensory perception and singular cognition and ending with the formation of substantial concepts that have a universal signification. Then, from this reconstruction, some Buridanian responses are given to Klima's critique, which explain at least why Buridan did not see the problem himself. Finally, the conclusion comes down in favor of Klima and, in light of the discussion, highlights some fundamental problems with the nominalist project.

My paper raises the question whether there are any tenable hylomorphic theories of post-mortem survival and resurrection compatible with Catholic Church doctrine. After considering what it would mean for such a theory to be compatible with Church doctrine, I raise three objections to which a hylomorphic theory would need to successfully respond in order to be considered tenable. In the final section of the paper, I argue affirmatively, that there are tenable hylomorphic theories. I then consider two contemporary theories and offer reasons to prefer an alternative, non-reassemblist theory to others that are currently equally or more popular.

After reviewing basic features of language, this paper reviews a central debate among twentieth-century philosophers over the proper analysis of linguistic meaning. While some center the analysis of meaning in language's capacity to be true, others locate meaning in the communicative intentions of the users of the language. As a means of addressing this impasse and suggesting its unfounded character, the paper draws on recent studies of language acquisition and relates them to existential dimensions of language.

The paper aims to put forward a critique of the common view of the birth of philosophy as the exit from myth. To this end, it proposes a genealogy of myth which starts from the observation that the two terms were originally used as synonymous. By analyzing the ways in which the two terms relate to each other in the thinking of Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle, the paper argues that up to the fourth century Bc no opposition between mythos and logos was stated and that not even in Aristotle is there an identification of myth with false discourse. This, in the end, is the result of the fact that their views of truth and reality enabled a plurality of programmes of truth to coexist next to one another.

This paper is a response to Theodore Kepes's 'Toward a Unified Vision: The Integration of Christian Theology and Evolution in Karl Rahner's Understanding of Matter and Spirit.' Kepes employs a Rahnerian strategy of attempting to integrate supposedly competing narratives--in this case, Michael Dennett's reductive materialism-into the Christian narrative of creation and the evolution of both matter and spirit. The response given here argues that this Rahnerian strategy overlooks the programmatic nature of contemporary secular materialism, which is self-conscious in its opposition to any account of the world that invokes the transcendent or the divine. The paper presents an overview of Balthasar's theological anthropology and argues that Balthasar's emphasis on Gift, rather than Rahner's emphasis on Mystery, makes it more personological and therefore more adequate to the task of understanding and responding to the current materialist, liberal, secular mythos.

In this paper I argue that despite the philosophical, theological and cultural challenges, it is still possible to maintain, in a legitimate and critical way, a worldview that is coherent, unified, comprehensive and meaningful. I believe that the philosophical theology of Karl Rahner offers just such a perspective. Hence, this paper explored the extent to which Karl Rahner's understanding of the unity of matter and spirit, expressed in his integration of theology and evolution, can serve as the foundation for a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of reality. I endeavored to provide a preliminary assessment of the adequacy of this integration by evaluating its ability to respond to some of the important challenges to Christian theism raised by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett. By showing that Rahner's integration of theology and evolution can respond adequately to these challenges, the paper provides a promising first step toward a more comprehensive investigation.

The paper explores a connection between Schelling's celebrated Freedom Essay and Plato's Timaeus by considering the importance of Schelling's translation of a phrase found in the Platonic dialogue in which Timaeus expresses the limits of human discourse, speaking of it as a kind of 'bastard reasoning.' These limits are said to arise necessarily through the progression of the inquiry carried out by Timaeus. Schdling's own resistance to viewing his inquiry determined by such limits and such necessity is highlighted by the fact that he curiously translates the phrase as 'false imagination' or sin. The paper questions the reasons for such resistance given the striking structural similarity between the Timaeus and Schelling's own essay. The paper concludes that Schelling's thinking of the 'unground' is comparable to the chorological interruption enacted in the Timaeus, but that Schelling does not consider how such an interruption bears upon God's word. The paper thus points to a self-estranging necessity at the heart of all discourse and thought.

The thesis of this paper is that the new natural law has reason to try to integrate Kant's ethics, not reject it. My argument breaks into two parts. First I provide a critical account of the new natural law, taking as my exemplar of this theory Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis's 1987 article 'Practical Principles, Moral Truth, and Ultimate Ends.' My criticism in the end is that the new natural law is vulnerable to much the same criticism that Boyle has made of Alan Donagan's Kantian ethics. For the new natural law, the trouble will be specifying the basic goods. Here 'compromise, intuition, or decision' appears inescapable. The second part of the paper briefly outlines what 'Kant reconstructed' has to bring. The Kant that I advocate is not exactly Donagan's; but my Kant shares with Donagan's a patience for more than one reasonable position on disputed moral questions.

The article discusses the radical tradition of African Americans as an inspiration for radical philosophy. Topics discussed include the works produced by several African American thinkers that challenged the white world's view that African Americans are merely bodies without political ideology and rational demands including those from Lewis R. Gordon and Sylvia Wynter. Also mentioned are articles about the contribution of radicalism on philosophy that were published within this issue.

This paper traces the origins of the phrase 'God is dead!' back to Hegel and Luther. It proceeds in the following four steps: Section I investigates the appearance of the theme of God's death in Lutheran theology. Section II elaborates on Hegel's adaptation of this theme in the context of his early work Faith & Knowledge. In section III, the paper continues on how the theme of the death of God developed from Luther to Nietzsche via Hegel, before concluding, in section IV, by indicating the link between Protestantism and modern atheism.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that Pascal understood God and Reason to be part of a continuum, comprehensible to the understanding, and not radically opposed to one another. The paper situates Pascal in the context of seventeenth-century intellectual history and examines the concept of Dieu Cache from the perspective of seventeenth-century linguistics.

The paper shares the principal emphases to date in an attempt to begin a contemporary systematic theology and invites the collaboration of others in the development of that theology. Lonergan's understanding of systematics as the imperfect and analogical understanding of the mysteries of faith is adopted from the outset, but so is his insistence (1) that a contemporary systematic theology must be grounded in interiorly and religiously differentiated consciousness and (2) that such a theology will be a theology of history. The dogmatic-theological context of such a development is found in a hypothesis that links the four relations in the Trinity to four distinct created supernatural participations and imitations. A brief outline of the author's work on the theology of history is presented, and then central elements in the 'four-point hypothesis' are discussed, especially the relation between sanctifying grace and charity. The paper concludes with a suggestion regarding the theological importance of the mimetic theory of Rend Girard.

This paper takes the work of Hans Urs Von Balthasar as a starting point and context for a philosophical recovery of beauty. Balthasar labored to recover a theological aesthetics within contemporary theology. However, his suspicion of modern philosophywith its turn to the subject left him unable to articulate the proper philosophical foundations for a modern recovery of beauty. He acclaimed the achievement of Aquinas but did not move beyond him. Therefore, the paper presents an argument for a transposed philosophy of Aquinas through the thought of Bernard Lonergan. One that can properly ground a theological aesthetics because it reckons with the philosophers of doubt, and allows for the incorporation of other cultural notions of beauty that Balthasar admits are lacking in his own aesthetics.

This paper is an investigation of the role of comedy in philosophical thinking, particularly of how comedy reveals the erotic dimension of philosophical thinking. In the first half of the paper, I show that the relation between comedy and Eros is a powerful means to understand in what way philosophy is not techne. Philosophy in its erotic and comedic character is, rather, engaged with an appearing of things as 'birthed' or 'living.' In the second part of the paper, I focus on the role of comedy in the Laches. There I study the complex relationship between philosophy as erotic thinking and andreia or 'manliness.' I show that philosophy as erotic must distinguish itself from manliness and that the enactment of this differentiation is the core of the Laches. At the same time, manliness is not simply something that philosophy should not concern itself with. Philosophy must ask the question 'what is manliness?' as a way of enacting manliness and overcoming it, in an overcoming through which philosophy comes to its own erotic core.

Over the past three decades, I have been developing a distinctive view of free will motivated by a desire to reconcile a non-determinist (incompatibilist or libertarian) view of free will with modern science as well as with recent developments in philosophy. A view of free will of the kind I defend (called a 'causal indeterminist' or 'event-causal' view in the current literature) did not exist in a developed form before the 1980s, but is now discussed in the philosophical literature as one of three chief options an incompatibilist or libertarian view of free will might take. As such, this view has been the subject of much recent discussion. In this paper, I explain and defend my view of free will, and answer recent criticisms of it. Some of these criticisms are made by Robert Mien in his paper 'Self-forming Actions,' a contribution to the seminar of which the present paper is a part. I also respond to Katherin Rogers' contribution to this seminar 'Libertarianism in Kane and Anselm.' Her book, Anselm on Freedom (forthcoming from Oxford), argues that Anselm defended a unique libertarian view of free will, avoiding both Pelagianism and Augustine's later compatibilism, a view that she argues has affinities to my view of free will. I also discuss these affinities to Anselm in my paper and their theological and well as philosophical implications.

Many cosmological arguments for the existence of a first cause or a necessary being rely on a premise which denies the possibility of an infinite regress of some particular sort. Adequate and satisfying support for this premise, however, is not always provided. In this paper I attempt to address this gap in the literature. After discussing the notion of a causal explanation (section I), I formulate three principles which govern any successful causal explanation (section II). I then introduce the notions of a caused being, a causal network, and a causal chain, and argue that (roughly) an infinite causal chain cannot be explained merely by reference to the causal activities of the members of that chain (section III). In a sequel to the present paper, I employ this result to construct two closely related arguments for the existence of a necessary being.

This paper elaborates four asymmetrical, developmental stages of the phenomenon of human freedom, starting with a rudimentary sort of freedom, the basic experience of a relatively unencumbered power to act in alternative ways. The paper argues that structural elements of this rudimentary form of freedom are demonstrable in three distinct, supervening forms of freedom: instrumental freedom, the experience of the self-reflective ability to pursue certain aims, perfectionist freedom, the experience of the capacity to master oneself according to some ideal, and, finally, interpersonal freedom, the experience of empowerment and alternatives only available through commitments to others.

This paper explores Aristotle's account of the human intellect, with special emphasis on how this account relates to Aristotle's treatment of nature. In his complex account of the intellect, Aristotle distinguishes very broadly between two types of intellection. One type (nous) involves the reception of what things are and is non-discursive in character, while the other type (dianoia) is the result of intellectual activity and is discursive in character. While Aristotle affirms that both types of thinking are distinctive and essential functions of the intellect, it is also clear that dianoia presupposes nous, insofar as dianoia assumes as given what nous has received. This paper also investigates Aristotle's account of truth, arguing that the very principles of the intellect's functioning are naturally given to the intellect. Given Aristotle's account of the intellect as well as his account of truth and the principle of non-contradiction, one can see that, for Aristotle, nature has a primacy relative to the intellect.

This paper explores the issue of when human life begins, giving special attention to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas's position is contrasted with the position defended by many Catholics today. After considering the evidence and a variety of arguments, the paper suggests that the individuated human being begins to exist at roughly fourteen days after the moment of conception.

This paper examines Bataille's role in the formation of the question of community, as developed by Nancy and Blanchot. The paper aims to situate the problematic status of Bataille's influence--as both formative but ultimately insufficient--in his relation to Nietzsche and what Bataille understands as the experience of an irrecoverable loss. What it would mean to share such loss, what is at stake in bringing that experience to articulation, and what happens to those who endeavor to do so constitute the recalcitrant elements in Bataille's thought, which solicit but cannot sustain a renewal of the question of community.

This paper highlights certain features of the metamorphosis that the concept 'the end of the world' has undergone from its origin in early Christian thought to the present day. This concept has, in recent decades, become increasingly prominent within Western European Lutheran and Roman Catholic theology. This paper demonstrates that the notion of the end of the world popularized by Jurgen Moltmann and Karl Rahner, despite the traditional, biblical language in which it is couched, has more affinity with the philosophical concept 'the end of history' developed by Hegel than it has with the ideas common in early Christianity.

This paper attempts to read Bonhoeffer's work as a whole. I maintain that Bonhoeffer's attempt to develop a distinctly Christian version of the Hegelian concept of objective spirit is the central concern of his Sanctorum Communio. I note the ways he continues to refine and clarify that concept in later works, even as it remains unnamed. I then argue that by the time of the Letters and Papers from Prison, developing this concept has become Bonhoeffer's overriding project. I conclude by suggesting ways that the earlier works already provide resources for answering the probing questions of the Letters and Papers.

This paper is concerned with the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric. It argues that philosophical claims are bound to language, and yet philosophy's claim to objective clarity is meaningless if language is radically perspectival. The paper attempts to show the limitations and possibilities that Platonic dialectics and Derridean deconstruction share in their respective approaches to the analysis of language and the relationship between speech and writing. The paper concludes that language is ambiguous, neither reducible to the relativism of sophistry nor to the essentialism of metaphysics. Against Derrida, the paper argues that without structure, voice is not language; it renders only inarticulate sounds. Yet in speaking, this structural aspect gets taken for granted and passed over. Only when language is established in writing is the possibility of voice first recognized.

In this paper, I examine Plato's Euthyphro phenomenologically, reading the dialogue as manifesting the posture and activity of gratitude as an essential moment of piety. This phenomenon of gratitude appears directly through Euthyphro's own remarks and indirectly through Socrates's interaction with Euthyphro. Other recent commentators, notably Mark McPherran, David Parry, James Brouwer, and William Mann, have noted the importance of the Euthyphro as a dialogue that offers a great deal to the discussion of piety through the shape of the relationship between Socrates and Euthyphro. In building my argument, I follow Parry's examination of the notion of therapeia of care in order to mark out my own emphasis on charis or gratitude. And I note that, when gratitude is taken as an important phenomenon in the dialogue, what also appears to the reader is the pious possibility of authentic gift-giving and mutual recognition, something Brouwer, Mann, and McPherran have also noted indirectly. Finally, in addition to its synthesis of previous scholarship around a new theme, this paper applies to the dialogue the arguments of Melanie Klein's 'Envy and Gratitude,' Martin Heidegger's lectures entitled What Is Called Thinking, and Jacques Derrida's Given Time.