"That a symbolic object or work of art participates in what it signifies, as a part within a whole, was a controversial claim discussed with particular intensity in the wake of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment. It informed the aesthetic theories of a constellation of writers in Jena and Weimar around 1800, including Moritz, Goethe, Schelling and Hegel. Yet the twin concepts of symbol and intuition were not only tools of literary and mythological criticism: they were integral even to questions of epistemology and methodology in the fields of theology, metaphysics, history and natural philosophy. The international contributors to this volume further explore how both the explanatory potential and peculiar dissatisfactions of the symbol entered the Anglo-American discourse, focusing on Coleridge, Crabb Robinson and Emerson. Contemporary debates about the claims of symbolic as opposed to allegorical art are kept in view throughout."
Theory and Practice is one of Habermas's major works and is widely recognized as a classic in contemporary and social and political theory. Through a series of highly original historical studies, Habermas re-examines the relations between philosophy, science and politics. Beginning with the classical doctrine of politics as developed by Aristotle, he traces the changing constellation of theory and practice through the work of Machiavelli, More, Hobbes, Hegel and Marx. He argues that, with the development of the modern sciences, politics has become increasingly regarded as a technical discipline concerned with problems of prediction and control. Politics has thus lost its link with the practical cultivation of character, that is, with the praxis of enlightened citizens. Theory and Practices includes a major re-assessment of Marx's work and of the status of Marxism as a form of critique. In an important concluding chapter Habermas examines the role of reason and the prospects for critical theory in our modern scientific civilization.
"The enigmatic link between the natural and artistic beauty that is to be contemplated but not eaten, on the one hand, and the eucharistic beauty that is both seen (with the eyes of faith) and eaten, on the other, intrigues me and inspires this book. One cannot ask theo-aesthetic questions about the Eucharist without engaging fundamental questions about the relationship between beauty, art (broadly defined), and eating."—from Eating Beauty In a remarkable book that is at once learned, startlingly original, and highly personal, Ann W. Astell explores the ambiguity of the phrase "eating beauty." The phrase evokes the destruction of beauty, the devouring mouth of the grave, the mouth of hell. To eat beauty is to destroy it. Yet in the case of the Eucharist the person of faith who eats the Host is transformed into beauty itself, literally incorporated into Christ. In this sense, Astell explains, the Eucharist was "productive of an entire 'way' of life, a virtuous life-form, an artwork, with Christ himself as the principal artist." The Eucharist established for the people of the Middle Ages distinctive schools of sanctity—Cistercian, Franciscan, Dominican, and Ignatian—whose members were united by the eucharistic sacrament that they received. Reading the lives of the saints not primarily as historical documents but as iconic expressions of original artworks fashioned by the eucharistic Christ, Astell puts the "faceless" Host in a dynamic relationship with these icons. With the advent of each new spirituality, the Christian idea of beauty expanded to include, first, the marred beauty of the saint and, finally, that of the church torn by division—an anti-aesthetic beauty embracing process, suffering, deformity, and disappearance, as well as the radiant lightness of the resurrected body. This astonishing work of intellectual and religious history is illustrated with telling artistic examples ranging from medieval manuscript illuminations to sculptures by Michelangelo and paintings by Salvador Dalí. Astell puts the lives of medieval saints in conversation with modern philosophers as disparate as Simone Weil and G. W. F. Hegel.
Few philosophers have had a more lasting impact on the philosophy of history than Friedrich Hegel. Reason and Revolution is Herbert Marcuse's brilliant interpretation of Hegel's philosophy and the influence it has had on political thought, from the French Revolution to the twentieth century. In a masterpiece of dialectical thought, Marcuse superbly illuminates the implications of Hegel's philosophy, rescuing it from the taint of reactionary thought that distorted or dismissed it for the early part of the twentieth century. After a masterful survey of the main elements of Hegel's philosophical system, Marcuse argues that it is Hegel the rationalist and progressive who stands in contrast to the irrationalism of Nazism, providing the crucial platform on which Marxist thought would later build and take Hegel's thought in a radical and explosive new direction. A vital book in the development of critical theory and for understanding the great battle between liberal and reactionary thought, Reason and Revolution remains essential reading today. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by J.M. Bernstein.
First published in 1973 this volume demonstrates the interconnection between Hegel's political and metaphysical writings. This book provides a point of entry into Hegel's system of ideas. Condemned unread, and when read far too often misunderstood, Hegel's thought has once more begun to make its impact on contemporary ideas with many of today's most important social and political thinkers.
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, the philosopher's first and perhaps greatest work, is the most important philosophical treatise of the nineteenth century. In this companion volume to his general introduction to Hegel, Tom Rockmore offers a passage-by-passage guide to the Phenomenology for first-time readers of the book and others who are not Hegel specialists. Rockmore demonstrates that Hegel's concepts of spirit, consciousness, and reason can be treated as elements of a single, coherent theory of knowledge, one that remains strikingly relevant for the contemporary discussion. He shows how the various conceptions of cognition developed in the text culminate in absolute knowing, which Rockmore reads, in opposition to the frequent religious readings of Hegel, in a wholly secular manner. Unlike commentators who isolate Hegel's text from its philosophical origins, Rockmore analyzes the book in the philosophical context from which it emerged, lucidly discussing notoriously difficult passages in relation to the ideas of Aristotle and Descartes, and above all to those of Kant and other German idealists. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, the philosopher's first and perhaps greatest work, is the most important philosophical treatise of the nineteenth century. In this companion volume to his general introduction to Hegel, Tom Rockmore offers a passage-by-passage guide to the Phenomenology for first-time readers of the book and others who are not Hegel specialists. Rockmore demonstrates that Hegel's concepts of spirit, consciousness, and reason can be treated as elements of a single, coherent theory of knowledge, one that remains strikingly relevant for the contemporary discussion. He shows how the various conceptions of cognition developed in the text culminate in absolute knowing, which Rockmore reads, in opposition to the frequent religious readings of Hegel, in a wholly secular manner. Unlike commentators who isolate Hegel's text from its philosophical origins, Rockmore analyzes the book in the philosophical context from which it emerged, lucidly discussing notoriously difficult passages in relation to the ideas of Aristotle and Descartes, and above all to those of Kant and other German idealists.
Bernard Yack seeks to identify and account for the development of a form of discontent held in common by a large number of European philosophers and social critics, including Rousseau, Schiller, the young Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche. Yack contends that these individuals, despite their profound disagreements, shared new perspectives on human freedom and history, and that these perspectives gave their discontent its peculiar breadth and intensity. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.
Katz here presents a major reinterpretation of modern anti-Semitism, revising the prevalent thesis that medieval and modern animosities against Jews were fundamentally different.
This work introduces the English-speaking reader to the theoretical foundations of Kng's popular works; an indispensable prolegomena for every future Christology.
This book is a reconsideration of Paul Tillich's (1886-1965) project of a theology of culture and art. Concentrating on Tillich's widely neglected pre-emigration writings (1910-1933), Re Manning reconstructs and defends Tillich's proposals for theology of culture as a philosophically sophisticated programme of theological engagement with culture and art. 'On the boundary' between the extremes of liberal Christian humanism and neo-orthodox isolationism, Tillich's project is shown to be a powerful continuation of the mediatory intentions of the 'Schleiermacher-Troeltsch line' of modern Protestant theology to overcome the 'intolerable gap' between religion and culture. Drawing heavily on Tillich's incorporation of Schelling's positive philosophy into the deep structure of this theology, Re Manning argues that Tillich's 'Idealistic/Romantic theology of mediation' provides a way through the entrenched oppositions of the 'divided mind' of twentieth century theology to a constructive theology of cultural engagement. Further, this book offers an assessment of the continued relevance of Tillich's project in the situation of contemporary philosophical theology. Beyond the dominant antithetical types of postmodern theology - Mark C. Taylor's a/theology and the 'radical orthodoxy' of John Milbank - Re Manning argues for the possibility of a 'Tillichian postmodern theology of culture' able to engage with the spiritual situation 'at the end of culture.'
