Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics
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Sculpting Character: Aristotle\u27s Voluntary as Affectability
No full textI argue that the two criteria traditionally identified as jointly sufficient for voluntary behavior according to Aristotle require qualification. Without such qualification, they admit troubling exceptions (i.e., they are not sufficient). Through minding these difficult examples, I conclude that a third condition mentioned by Aristotle – the eph\u27 hēmin – is key to qualifying the original two criteria. What is eph\u27 hēmin is that which is efficiently caused by appetite and teleologically caused by reason such that the agent could have, in theory, acted differently. I propose that praise and blame are justified only when 1: the behavior is voluntary and 2: the agent is susceptible (at least in principle) to the positive influences of appropriate praise and blame to help form, improve, or strengthen a good character. Through concentrating on the agent\u27s affectability in morally salient situations, we may better understand the qualified criteria\u27s role in voluntary human behavior in general
The Genesis of Secular Politics in Medieval Philosophy: The King of Averroes and the Emperor of Dante
Get PDFIn contemporary political discourse, the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric often undergirds philosophical analyses of "democracy" both at home and abroad. This is nowhere better articulated than in Jacques Derrida\u27s Rogues, in which he describes Islam as the only religious or theocratic culture that would "inspire and declare any resistance to democracy" (Derrida 2005, 29). Curiously, Derrida attributes the failings of democracy in Islam to the lack of reference to Aristotle\u27s Politics in the writings of the medieval Muslim philosophers. This paper aims to analyze this gross misconception of Islamic philosophy and illuminate the thoroughgoing influence the Muslim philosophers had on their Christian successors, those who are so often credited as foundations of Western political philosophy. In so doing, I compare the ideal states presented by Averroes and Dante – in which Aristotelian influence is intimately interlaced – and offer an analysis thereof as heralds of what we might call the secularization of the political, inspiring those democratic values that Derrida believes to be absent in the rich philosophy of the Middle Ages.
The Conference "Phenomenologies: the legacies of Edmund Husserl" as a founding event of the Bulgarian Phenomenological Association
Get PDFIn cooperation with the Philosophical Faculty of Sofia University, the Bulgarian Philosophical Society (BFO) organized the conference "Phenomenologies: the legacies of Edmund Husserl," which took place on 6 and 7 November 2015, and became the founding event of BFO-Fenomenologia – the Phenomenological Association as a community of the Bulgarian Philosophical Society. The Association offers a new home for Bulgarian scholars and groups from different phenomenological currents
Das Selbst und die Gegenwart der Verantwortung. Über das Verantwortungskonzept in der hermeneutischen Phänomenologie von Paul Ricœur
Get PDFA peculiarity of Paul Ricoeur\u27s philosophy is his effort to elaborate a hermeneutic phenomenology of the Self on the roots of reflexive philosophy. Thus, the problem of responsibility, which Ricoeur debated on different occasions, appears in the context of the Self as an acting, suffering and capable subject, which is not only responsible for its own acts but has also duties in respect to others. Ricoeur\u27s hermeneutics of "l\u27homme capable" (the capable human being) analyzes responsibility on different levels – historical, ethical, political, juridical etc. The main thesis of the author is, that this levels of responsibility constitute the different dimensions of the will of the Self "to engage itself with" which should be recomposed hermeneutically in order to capture responsibility as an integral phenomenon. At the difference of some authors who offer only a partial interpretation of the problem of responsibility in Ricoeur\u27s work, the following article aims to give a holistic one by reconstructing it through the complex evolution of Ricoeur\u27s philosophical writings
Aristotle on Prohairesis
Get PDFProhairesis plays a central role in Aristotle\u27s moral psychology. It is prohairesis that determines an action to be rational, that provides the proximate efficient or moving cause of rational action, and that better reveals one\u27s character than the action itself. This paper will discuss (1) Aristotle\u27s shifted emphases when speaking of prohairesis in different ethical treatises; (2) Aristotle\u27s pursuit of the nature of prohairesis and his special argumentative strategy in dealing with prohairesis; (3) the structure, i.e., the desiderative and deliberative components of prohairesis; and will conclude with some remarks about the significance of prohairesis.Â
Verantwortung im Spannungsfeld zwischen Machtentfaltung und Verletzlichkeit: Die Umkehr des Verantwortungsverständnisses bei Hans Jonas
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to show how Has Jonas arrived to develop a completely new concept of responsibility by operating a sort of reversion of the classic theories of responsibility. If in the past the holder of power (God, the Sovereign, the Law) obligated the subjected to justify himself, in Jonas\u27 conception it is the fragile and the vulnerable being that becomes the instance of justification for the powerful in face to which he has to respond. Thus, in The Principle of Responsibility the power relations are reversed in a way that the more power one holds, the more responsibility he has in regard to the fragile and the weak.
Das Fleisch der Verantwortung
Get PDFIn order to approach the phenomena of responsibility, which is primarily liability and accountability, the author suggests a phenomenological clarification of the question: What is the precondition that makes a responsible life possible? This question should enable to give an answer to another one which is from high anthropological and even political relevance, namely: Is there a spot beyond or "outside" of any responsibility, i.e. can a human being live as "irresponsible" in the radical meaning of the word? The main thesis of the author is that there is a situation in which a human being has no means to act by making any "own" choices and thus everything in his life is imposed to him from the outside. This situation is the nativity and, more concretely, the time-space of the pre-natal human life. The aim of this paper is to analyze this situation by means of Husserl\u27s phenomenological reduction as well as of the "counter reduction" of Michel Henry, and consequently to propose a new understanding of the responsibility problematics
Valeur et responsabilité de l\u27homo oeconomicus
No full textThe main task of the article is to propose a critical analyses of the thesis of François Flahault that homo oeconomicus – an abstract subject of the cleaved Western consciousness – is responsible of economism and its mischiefs. The author shows the positive aspects of Flahault\u27s interpretation, but also his simplifications and errors, by traversing the historical backgrounds of the concept of homo oeconomicus (the mental anthropological revolution, which replaced the renaissance, the raise to power of the economic liberalism, the hope of a third socio-liberal path and a spiritualization of the homo oeconomicus) leading to the sophisms of the new economic doxa and its erroneous values
Basic Evaluation and the Virtuous Realisation of Values: The Integrative Model of Aristotle
Get PDFHuman affectivity is a research topic situated at the intersection of psychology, philosophical anthropology, theory of action and ethics. This article reconstructs the Aristotelian theory of emotions in the context of his theory of aspiration (o)/recij) and in terms of their function as primary evaluators of situations, which forms the basis for virtue ethics. The Aristotelian model integrates desire, motivation and morality for a rational being in community. Affects (pa/Jh) reveal the profile of relevance of the world to a person as an indispensable basis for the work of practical reason. They are analysed in the dimensions of their cognitive core, their social, bodily, and motivational aspects. Affectivity constitutes a primary evaluative response to situations and thereby disposes human beings to realise their call to morally good, virtuous and fulfilling action
Tugend als Wert: Christoph Halbig und Max Scheler im Vergleich
Get PDFVirtue as Value: A Comparison between Christoph Halbig and Max SchelerThe aim of the following contribution is to compare the virtue conceptions of Christoph Halbig and Max Scheler in order to scrutinize their common positions and differences and thus to answer two questions: Firstly, is it true that Scheler\u27s approach is based on the basic assumptions of the recursive theory of virtues, as Halbig asserts this? Secondly, can the virtues be defined as attitudes (Thomas Hurka, Christopher Halbig), or should they be conceived as qualities of the person (Max Scheler)? In addition, the author examines the connection of virtues and emotions more closely and shows that virtues can be regarded as a kind of transformers from the negative to the positive, because they fix the right way of dealing with negative emotions and because they switch over the negative basic mood into a positive and joyful one. The reflection of these questions is embedded in a constant reference to Aristotle\u27s understanding of virtues.