COMPARATIVE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY: CATEGORIZING POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES USING TWELVE ARCHETYPES

Abstract: Comparative political philosophy can be stimulated by imposing a categorization scheme on possible varieties of political philosophies. This article develops a categorization scheme using four essential features of political philosophies, resulting in twelve archetypal political philosophies. The four essential features selected are a political philosophy's views concerning human nature, the proper function of morality, the best form of society, and the highest responsibility of citizenship. The twelve archetypal political philosophies range from the communal (Rousseau), the democratic (J. S. Mill), the representative (Aristotle), the aristocratic (Plato), and the autocratic (Calvin), along with seven more archetypes: the aloof anarchy, social anarchy, contractarian, progressive, natural law, sage ruler, and tyrannical political forms. A wide variety of Western political philosophers are assigned their places within this categorization scheme to illustrate its utility and comprehensiveness.     

政治哲学的连续性:世俗化政治哲学中的战争与和平

我在本文开初考察托马斯·霍布斯的思想中关于国内战争和国家间战争的不对称的论述,就是说,在离开自然状态———那是一种个人间普遍通行的状况———和自然状态中的持久性(它形成一种存在于国家间的状况)之间的不对称。其次,我要论述康德通过双重引入进步和“世界政治的”和平的观念,超越这种不对称而取得思想进展。近些年来哈贝马斯对康德的永久和平思想的关注(哈贝马斯,1996 ) ,新近在科索沃与车臣发生的事件及其对形成一个国际刑事法庭去审判反人类罪的涵义,都激发了关于国内和平和超国界的权利问题的研讨。在霍布斯著述中关于战争的不…     

CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY: THINKING THE CORPOREAL WITH THE POLITICAL

This paper provides a genealogy of the emergence of one thread of continental philosophy—“thinking the corporeal with the political”—from its roots in the “French readings” of key philosophers during the 1960s and 1970s to its development outside of Europe. This involves characterizing continental philosophy as a style of thinking that is historical, creative, and ontological. As the genealogy takes in the French readings of Nietzsche and a range of developments such as corporeal feminisms, biopolitical analysis, and conceptions of political community, the analysis demonstrates that continental philosophy, even when confined to one line of inquiry, is a collaborative effort energized by Anglophone philosophy and that it is multifaceted, dynamic, and fecund.     

A PRAGMATIC CASE AGAINST PRAGMATIC THEOLOGICAL REALISM

Pragmatic theological realism (PTR) urges us to take up the realist aim of theology or the goal of truth although we have good reason to think that the goal can neither be attained nor approximated. Rescher contends that pursuing an unreachable goal can be rational on pragmatic grounds so long as pursuing the unreachable goal yields indirect benefits. I have blocked this attempt at providing a pragmatic justification for the realist aim of PTR on precisely the same pragmatic grounds: since there is a competing alternative to PTR and the alternative can provide whatever indirect benefits PTR can offer while being less risky than it is, prudential reasoning favours the alternative to PTR. This undermines the pragmatic case for the realist aim of theology since the instrumentalist alternative does not aim at the truth.     

A PRAGMATIC CRITIQUE OF PLURALISM IN TEXT INTERPRETATION

Abstract: I take a pragmatic approach to what interpreters do when they interpret and argue that critical pluralists have focused almost exclusively on one aspect of interpretation: the fact that it is an event taking place in a historical and cultural milieu that influences the many ways interpreters approach a given text. However, there is also in interpretation a pragmatic aspect: the fact that it is an act performed by individuals who, through the utterance of their statements, implicitly make claims, for example, regarding the truth of their interpretation. In the first part I explain what critical pluralists overlook and the consequences of such oversight. In the second part I indicate how the validity of interpretation can be assessed.     

历史哲学

受邀做一场讲座专门来纪念一位历史学家同仁,我感到极大的荣幸,因为她是那样地献身于工作,那样地富有人情味,她就是被残忍地从我们身边夺走的帕皮亚·高希博士。我深感遗憾的是,由于年龄和健康的原因,我不能亲自来讲,为此恳请大家谅解。