Introduction: Morality in Modern and Postmodern Perspective Shattered beings are best represented by bits and pieces. Rainer Maria Rilke As signalled in its ...

The problem of violence for social theory is not only a normative question which can be answered in political-ethical terms, but it is also a cognitive question relating to the definition of violence. This cognitive question is one of the main problems with the contemporary discourse of violence and it is this that makes the idea of a cosmopolitan public sphere particularly relevant since it is in public discourse that cognitive models are articulated. The real power of cosmopolitanism lies in (...) communicative power, the problematizing, the reflexive transformation of cultural models and the raising of `voice'. Unless global civil society is based on a cosmopolitan political sphere there is the danger that it will be disembodied and helpless in the face of new forms of violence. (shrink)

This essay examines different viewpoints taken by historians and theorists in three important debates about the Holocaust and the Nazi past in Germany. Analysis shows that the content and form of historical judgment, the limits of historical narratives, and the referential connections between "facts," "representation," and "truth" are more problematic than historians and social theorists taking part in these debates would like to believe. Examples show that attempts to represent past "reality" are closely related to the politically and socially significant (...) interplay between individual and communal search for legitimation, and the legitimation of the past by the authority of the present. A hidden similarity--the fundamental belief in the ability of representation to capture past "reality" and thus its universal validity--appears amid the seemingly antithetical opinions and theoretical assumptions in these debates. Even in cases of historical phenomena as morally, politically, and intellectually challenging as the Holocaust, understanding historical representation in the framework of the self-referentiality of historical texts, and accepting the propositional nature of historical writing, is crucial. (shrink)

A Monumental Figure of Western Thought Wrestles with the Question of God Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western philosophy. His contributions have had a profound impact on almost every philosophical movement that followed him. Kant's teachings on religion were unorthodox in that they were based on rationality rather than revelation. Though logically proving God's existence might be impossible, it is morally reasonable to "act as if there be a God." His strictly (...) rational approach was considered so scandalous that the King of Prussia forbid him to teach or write further on religious subjects, which Kant obeyed until the king's death. A work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion grounded in moral reason and meeting the needs of an ethical life. (shrink)

An intellectual adventure, this book engages with some of the most important academic debates of our time.