The major focus of the article is on Georg Forster’s mode of elaborating a “science of man” in its theoretical and cultural contexts. The study aims at identifying Forster’s distinct interests in the specificity of mankind and his interpretation of both the reasons for its diversity and its different stages of development. Forster, the article argues, used a historicized version of Enlightenment natural history in order to analyse man as a natural as well as a cultural being. At the same (...) time, put anachronistically, Forster constituted the reciprocity of physical and cultural anthropology. However, he differs from Enlightenment historical thinking in that he interprets history as a contingency. Finally, the article maintains that Forster deliberately conceived of the “science of man” as a multidisciplinary empirical science. (shrink)

As the embodiment of a border-crosser between science, literature, and occultism, the writer Stanisław Przybyszewski also represents the ambivalent consciousness of the avant-garde. Behind the facade of imperial Berlin, he opens up a world of wonder, demons and ecstasy. Without using a normative understanding of modernity, this article attempts to portray Przybyszewski as proof of the irreconcilable tensions between rationalism and irrationalism in the period around 1900. Central to this argumentation are his spiritual references, such as satanism and occultism.

Abstract.Reflecting on the future of the field of science-and-religion, I focus on three aspects. First, I describe the history of the religion-and-science dialogue and argue that the emergence of the field was largely contingent on social-cultural factors in Western theology, especially in the United States. Next, I focus on the enormous influence of science on Western society and on what I call cultural scientism, which influences discussions in science-and-religion, especially how theological notions are taken up. I illustrate by sketching the (...) way divine action has been studied in science-and-religion. The divine-action debates may seem irrelevant to theologians because the way divine action is dealt with in science-and-religion is theologically problematic. Finally, I analyze the quest for integration and unity of science and religion that underlies much of the contemporary field of science-and-religion and was stimulated particularly by the efforts of Ian Barbour. I argue that his quest echoes the logical positivist vision of unification and has a strong bias toward science as the sole source of rationality, which does not take theology fully seriously. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to analyse the incrimination of ontology and ontological manifestations in reason, articulated speech and social order and argue that such an incrimination, which is characteristic of traditional philosophy, can be explained as a phenomenon of onto-theology. Then I demonstrate that the ideas of Levinas - and to some degree the Derridean response to them - suffer from residues of onto-theology to the extent that they preserve and promote the assumption that ontology is essentially violent. (...) I claim that the Levinasian priority of ethics over ontology and the Derridean treatment of the opposition ‘ethics vs ontology’ rest on an epochal understanding of being. Such an understanding arrests time and echoes old religious doctrines that traditional philosophy preserved in a secular form and handed down to contemporary philosophical thinking. By charging Levinasian and Derridean ideas with onto-theology, I unveil what I consider to be one of the last dogmas of Occidental thought, i.e. the assumption that self-interest and violence are somehow endemic in the human condition. I suggest that we overcome this assumption, if we truly wish to view the I-Thou relation Other-wise. Key Words: Derrida • ethics • evil • Fall • Hegel • Heidegger • I-Thou • Kant • Kierkegaard • Levinas • ontology • onto-theology. (shrink)

German early Romanticism was an intellectual movement that originated in the era between the great French Revolution of 1789 and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in 1803. Usually, it is defined in contrast to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is presented as the age of reason, criticism and scientific naturalism, while the Romantics are portrayed as its reactionary enemies. According to a still customary prejudice, Romanticism was the age of exaggerated emotions, authoritarian dogmatism and mystical superstition. However, our notion of (...) the Enlightenment has undergone changes in recent decades. Because the traditional antagonism between Aufklärung and Frühromantik has become questionable, the Romantic revival of religion needs reconsideration. In this paper, Nivala proposes an argument why the Romantics did not fall into reactionary irrationalism. His discussion focuses on one person, Friedrich Schlegel. Nivala presents how two vital presuppositions of the Enlightenment, naturalism and criticism, were reinterpreted by Schlegel as pantheism and mysticism. (shrink)

RESUMEN Este artículo se ocupa de la doctrina del reconocimiento que Hobbes dejó claramente insinuada a lo largo de sus escritos políticos. Para ello, aborda la exposición sistemática del canon de "leyes naturales" que elaborara Hobbes en obras como Elementos de Derecho Natural y Político, Tratado sobre el Ciudadano y Leviatán. Nuestra tesis de fondo es que la exposición de estas leyes, llamadas también por Hobbes "leyes morales", lleva al autor a postular la idea de que la "igualdad natural" de (...) los hombres, por la cual entiende la igualdad de derechos, no ya la igualdad de poder, solo se ve asegurada en la medida en que los individuos se reconozcan intersubjetivamente como portadores de los mismos derechos que, en tanto que hombres, les pertenecen. La tesis señalada pretende evidenciar que, contrario a lo que expone la lectura tradicional de Hobbes, que se concentra en la índole absolutista del poder, Hobbes remonta la posibilidad misma de la vida civil y política, no ya a mediación del Estado absoluto y su poder coercitivo, sino al reconocimiento intersubjetivo de los derechos, el cual obtiene su fuerza normativa de la conciencia moral de cada hombre. Este artículo se propone mostrar que con su postulado Hobbes logra esbozar una protomoral del reconocimiento que repercutiría en el discurso filosófico de la modernidad. Este propósito es uno con el de mostrar las dificultades, las tensiones y los límites del planteamiento hobbesiano. ABSTRACT This paper deals with the doctrine of recognition that Hobbes clearly implied throughout his political writings. To this end, it deals with the systematic exposition of the canon of "natural laws" that Hobbes elaborated in works such as Elements of Natural and Political Law, Treatise on the Citizen and the Leviathan. Our underlying thesis is that the exposition of these laws, also called "moral laws" by Hobbes, leads the author to postulate the idea that the "natural equality" of men, by which he understands equality of rights, not equality of power, is only assured to the extent that individuals are intersubjectively recognized as bearers of the same rights that, as men, belong to them. This thesis seeks to show that, contrary to the traditional reading of Hobbes, which concentrates on the absolutist nature of power, Hobbes traces the very possibility ofcivil and political life, not to the mediation of the absolute State and its coercive power, but to the intersubjective recognition of rights, which obtains its normative force from the moral conscience of each man. The present article intends to show that with its postulate, Hobbes manages to outline a protomoral of recognition, which would not remain without repercussion in the philosophical discourse of modernity. This purpose is one with the one to show the difficulties, the tensions and the limits of the Hobbesian approach. (shrink)