Philosophy by Other Means?

I attempt to show that Marx was driven by a systematic philosophical goal expressed already in his doctoral dissertation and present throughout his mature political economic theory as well as in his practical political writings. I reconstruct this systematic – and critical – philosophical adventure in order to suggest that it is as philosophy that Marx's work retains its political bite today . In the process, I propose a reinterpretation of Marx's political theory that, once again, is traced through the entirety of Marx's corpus. The young Marx criticized Hegel's separation of the political from society; he then attempted to reduce the political sphere to civil society; the theory of alienated labor was elaborated as a theory of political economy that replaced the political; but in the end, when all three volumes of Capital and the unpublished Grundrisse are considered systematically, Marx sees capitalism as threatened ultimately by its inability to reflect politically on its own presuppositions, and hence its limits.     

Hegal's Internationalism: World History and Exclusion

Philosophies sometimes claim international authority by claiming to be the expression of rationality that is universal in character or validity. This paper attacks Hegel's internationalism of universal spirit and world history for unjustly excluding the philosophical value of non-European cultures and races: Africans, Asians, Arabs, Jews, and Native Americans. Hegel's Eurocentric internationalism also displays a particularly strong nationalist pride in German philosophical superiority. One cannot simply excuse the prejudices of Hegel's historical context for his exclusionary attitudes. For Hegel's contemporary Goethe displayed a more truly international spirit in his inclusionary concept of world literature.     

黑格尔《耶拿逻辑》初探

一、问题的提出研究黑格尔哲学,甚或读懂黑格尔哲学,必须深入到黑格尔哲学体系的内部,而不能绕过其体系。这是因为黑格尔哲学的每个观点都只是其体系中的一环,它和其他观点是相互联系、相互依存、彼此渗透、前后贯通而共同构成黑格尔的哲学体系的,因而是不能从其体系中割裂出来、孤立地加以     

Plato's Criticism of the ``Democratic Man' in the Republic

The article discusses two puzzles about Plato's account of the democratic person: (1) unlike his account of the democratic city, his characterization of a democratic person is markedly incorrect. (2) His criticism of a person so characterized is criticism of a straw man. The article argues that the first puzzle is resolved if we see it as a result of Plato's assumption that a democratic person is a person whose soul is isomorphic to a democratic constitution. Such a person has a desire satisfaction theory of good and adopts liberty and equality of desires as a basis for action. The article then argues that Plato's criticism brings up two problems endemic to desire satisfaction theories of good, the problem of bad desires and the problem of conflicts of desires. The criticism is that the democratic person's way of dealing with these problems, by applying the social principles of liberty and equality to his desires, is irrational.     

Critical individualism: Whitehead's metaphysics and critique of liberalism

Conclusion Whitehead's metaphysics contains an accurate portrayal of concrete human existence - one which can serve as a ground for criticizing the abstractions into which liberalism has fallen. His critical individualism, his insistence both on the individual as the seat of all value and on our essential connectedness to one another in modern society, is a call for liberalism to restore concrete meaning to its fundamental notions of individuality and freedom. However, his suggestions that the core values of liberalism can be actualized if we but reaffirm Plato's ancient equation of knowledge with virtue rests on an optimism that is difficult to sustain apart from a compensatory metaphysical dogma. We can appropriate Whitehead's criticism of liberalism, but if we can no longer convince ourselves of a metaphysical vision that supports faith in Plato's equation, we must look elsewhere for suggestions as to how liberalism can be revitalized.     

正义王国的理想--柏拉图政治哲学评析

柏拉图以思辨哲学为主的思想体系中包含着丰富的实践哲学,以正义为核心的政治哲学便是其集中表现。柏拉图所设计的理想的城邦国家是以“贤人政制”作为标准模式的。这种政制以理念论为指导思想,以正义为根本原则,以智慧、勇敢、节制为伦理基础,以善为最高目的;实施这种政制的社会是以奴隶制为基础的严格的等级制、等级分工的社会,通过特制的教育制度培养一批身心健全、德才兼备、有知识有政治智慧的贤能的统治者、“哲学王”,由他们来执掌政权,在统治者集团内部实行财产公有,妇女和子女共有,男女平等,防止统治者腐败变质,以确保这种政制世代相传。     

Metaphilosophy in the Systems of Metatheories

This article discusses the essence and form of various types of metatheory, paying special attention to metaphilosophy. It suggests the idea of the metatheoretical model—a completely new approach in philosophical discussion—and considers this concept with regard to the Platonic model and the Rhodian model. These models permit two different systems of metatheoretical construction. The paradigms of modern science allow the formation of metatheories that help further the development of logical, mathematical, and similar sciences. The Rhodian model allows the discovery of methods that are helpful in building certain types of theory, as well as suggesting and examining theories that have special metatheoretical features and revealing their common features and differences with regard to other theories. The article discusses the complicated problem of the interrelation between philosophy and metaphilosophy and shows that metaphilosophy is also philosophy, not in the sense that metaphilosophy is a special part of philosophy but rather in the sense that metaphilosophy is a special kind of functioning of philosophy itself.     

Hegel and Derrida on the problem of reason and repression

In this paper I attempt to question central assumptions of Derrida's strategy of deconstruction by analyzing his critique of Hegel's notion of Aufhebung. Hegel's dialectics claims to sublate conflicting difference between not individuals in reconciled communal relations. Deconstruction exposes, however, how Hegel's dialectics leads not to reconciliation but the violent internment of différance; traces of repression reveal the limits of Hegelian reason. Yet by grasping Hegelian dialectics as a restricting economy involving repression, Derrida has difficulties accounting for the difference Hegel introduces between repressive and productive power. In his early philosophy of ethical life (1801-1803), Hegel differentiates between moral and legal coercion (Zwang) and ethical subjugation (Bezwingen). In Glas, as I seek to show, Derrida reduces the difference between these two economies of power without proper justification. Derrida's deconstructive interpretation of Hegelian dialectics thus takes part in the repressive relève it criticizes by limiting a difference in Hegel's discourse on power. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On the misadventures of the sophists: Hegel's tropological appropriation of rhetoric

The author examines Hegel's incorporation of the Sophists into the history of philosophy. The basic argument is that Hegel's history of the Sophists operates along tropological lines, the exact same lines that the truth claims of his philosophy oppose. Using the tropes of metaphor, metonymy and prolepsis, the author shows that when Hegel places the Sophists in the process of the teleological unfolding of reason he employs the very rhetorical mechanisms he denounces.     

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ: Karl Barth and the Historicization of God's Being

Abstract:  In the excurses of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics IV/1, Barth invests the resurrection with greater ontological significance than is typically acknowledged in contemporary accounts of his mature theology. In this article, I systematically develop the numerous statements in CD IV/1 in which Barth conceptualizes the resurrection as the historical fulfillment of God's eternal being. Subsequently, I identify the similitude between Barth's theology of the resurrection and Hegel's as presented in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. The article closes by suggesting that the similitude between Barth's view and Hegel's may include points of material correspondence.     

Venturing Beyond Analytic Philosophy's “Best” Arguments to the Implied Inadequacies of Its Metaphilosophical Intuitions

Gary Gutting argues, in his recent book What Philosophers Know, that analytic philosophy provides a sizable collection of exemplary arguments that effectively yield a “disciplinary body of philosophical knowledge”—“metaphilosophy,” he names it—that is, specimens that define in a notably perspicuous way what we should understand as philosophical knowledge itself. He concedes weaknesses in the best‐known specimens, and he admits that, generally, even the best specimens do not provide answers to the usual grand questions. I admire his treatment of the matter but argue that the metaphilosophical issues are, normally, of a much grander gauge than that of his sort of specimen; that they require a much more open, informal sort of inquiry and exchange than that of the distinctive rigor of the classic specimens themselves; that analytic philosophy, not uncharacteristically, tends to ignore the metaphilosophical issue or takes the validity of its method of argument for granted; and that the issue itself invites an appraisal of competing second‐order conceptions of how philosophical argument proves fruitful. I proceed by way of the examination of cases drawn from Quine and Kripke.     

Socrates questions Gorgias: The rhetorical vector of Plato's “Gorgias”

This essay argues that Plato's Gorgias, a dialogue lauding dialectic over rhetoric, uses a question-and-answer format as a heuristic of argument. Specific observations are advanced to explain the implications of Plato's techniques and to provide a more sensitive understanding of the process by which sought to gain the adherence of his readers.     

'Tarrying with the Negative': Bataille and Derrida's Reading of Negation in Hegel's Phenomenology

Central to Bataille's critique of Hegel is his reading in 'Hegel, Death, and Sacrifice' of 'negation' and of 'lordship and bondage' in the Phenomenology of Spirit . Whereas Hegel invokes negation as inclusive of death, Bataille points out (following his teacher Kojeve) that negation in the dynamic of lordship and bondage must of necessity be representational rather than actual. Derrida, in 'From Restricted to General Economy' sees in Bataille's perspective an undercutting of the overall Hegelian project consonant with his own ongoing deconstruction of Hegelian sublation. I argue that not only does Hegel fail to adequately pursue his own best advice to 'tarry with the negative,' but Bataille and Derrida's critique misconstrues the relation between sublation and dialectic in Hegel's work. I explicate Adorno's 'negative dialectic' by way of alternative both to Hegelian speculative dialectic and to its Bataillean–Derridean deconstruction.     

Prohibited Pictures: Political Education and Platonic Elitism

This paper attempts to bring out the contemporary significance for the philosophy of education of Plato's strictures in the Republic against mimetic art forms. The argument follows a route which leads through an examination of Wittgenstein's picture theory of the proposition to the conclusion that this theory is itself a kind of picture which exercises over the intellect the selfsame erotic magnetism which Plato feared would corrupt the rulers of his ideal state.     

'Between the Brutely Given, and the Brutally, Banally Free': Von Balthasar's Theology of Drama in Dialogue with Hegel

Von Balthasar's theological dramatic theory is deeply indebted to Hegel, especially to Hegel's distinction between epic, lyric and dramatic genres. He criticizes the Hegelian identification of divine with human freedom and argues that analogy alone can express the fact that God's freedom is 'ever greater'. But his Hegelian tendencies corrupt his use of analogy and incline him to generalize and impose resolution on patterns of divine-human relation (especially in his Marian theology of the Church). His readings of Shakespeare and Scripture reflect the same tendencies. Thus von Balthasar fails adequately to respect what is existential and open-ended. This is confirmed in his treatment of the Eucharist. It indicates a deficiency in his theodramatics, and the need to develop his project using a different and less Hegelian dramatic theory.     

黄兴政治伦理思想述评

黄兴政治伦理思想是其伦理思想的一个重要方面,其政治伦理思想的主要内容包括四个方面：强调伦理道德在政权和政党建设中的重大作用,倡导政治伦理化;诚挚的爱国之心是黄兴政治伦理思想的主体;团结友善、敬业奉献是黄兴政治伦理思想的外在表现;“为大多数人谋幸福”是黄兴政治伦理思想实践的理想境界。黄兴政治伦理思想的主要特点：一是糅合了中西伦理文化的优点;二是将改造国民社会心理与建设国家统一起来;三是鲜明的政治性和实践性。     

葛兰西对克罗齐哲学的批判改造

批判改造克罗齐哲学,是葛兰西实践哲学建构的一个重要理论基础。克罗齐虽然想消除黑格尔哲学形而上学的残余,他关于历史与精神同一性的思考、关于伦理政治史的分析,关于历史是自由的故事的论断,虽然有助于批判马克思哲学解释中的机械决定论倾向,但由于他只是从精神同一性的角度出发,就只能在不触动现实基础的情况下,提倡一种“消极革命”,强调对现实进行改良。因此,必须实现对克罗齐哲学的再颠倒,使克罗齐哲学中的有益部分真正成为实践哲学的重要内容。     

柏拉图之人格心理思想研究及启示

通过对柏拉图思想的分析和诠释,从三个方面对其人格心理思想进行了阐述。首先从心理学角度论述了其人格心理思想的基础—理念论;其次,对柏拉图的人格结构论、理想人格、现实人格和人格类型论思想进行了阐释;再次,对柏拉图的人格心理思想进行了跨时间的比较、评论;最后,在前面分析的基础上,提出了对于创建中国本土人格心理学的三点启示。     

The Face of Truth

I attempt to explain Plato's choice of dialogue through an analysis of what he regarded as the conditions of knowledge acquisition. I see the main contribution of the paper in exposing the way in which time and pain are, for Plato, conditions of knowledge acquisition. Plato endorsed the "learning through suffering," or pathei mathos , convention, central to Greek drama, and did so not through theory but through the praxis some of the dialogues employ. This addition of experiential components to the more cognitively oriented definitions of knowledge that Socrates uses complicates what these works may say about human knowledge. I analyze these tensions and the bearing they may have on the question of Plato's choice of dialogue, that is, on his rhetoric in practice. The requirements for actual persuasion, as Plato specifies them in the Seventh Letter, , are only partially met by the fictional scenes of argumentation and knowledge conveying that Plato presents. However, such scenes permit transcending some of the limitations of written, systematic, nonpersonal discourse. The presentation of such interactions to a real reader through dialogue turns into a mode of writing that is closer to meeting the demands of actual communication of knowledge – at least knowledge regarding what Plato envisaged as being the highest sort of epistemic communication