Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some difficulties concerning the reception of Aristotle’s De anima in Arabic language in view of direct sources, i.e., the translations and paraphrases, and indirect sources, i.e., the testimonies on them.

According to Kantian philosophy, it is freedom that should sanction religion and not religion that should sanction freedom. This thesis is the basic condition for religious tolerance, and it is grounded in three principles that regulate the relationship between politics and religion, namely: the principle of non-coercive force of religious belief; the moral requirement of truthfulness in professions of belief; and, the submission of religion to the principle of publicity. The objective of this paper is to present, explain and justify the application of these three principles towards the notion of religion and to indicate how they might help to understand political and moral issues regarding religious intolerance.

The oldest systematic program of German Idealism predicted the emergence of a “large‑scale Physics” that would be given “wings” to rise in the days to come. Similarly, Friedrich Schlegel’s experiments on the paradoxical representation of modern Physics as a “practical science of substance” forced him to radically confront the autonomy of the Philosophy of Nature, one of the dominant issues at the end of the 18th century. Schlegel tried to achieve a “higher Physics” by equating what he called the “Physics of the universe” with a “divine Logic”. This hybrid made him consider “natural Physics” in terms of a “Philosophy of Physics” subsuming within itself a “natural history of nature”. Founded upon an idea of Physics as the quintessence of a science yet to come, unified as a living whole, a Philosophy of Physics necessarily implies a Physics of Philosophy – and urges one to rethink the nature of all philosophy.

The aim of this article is to analyze the philosophy of Richard Rorty through the poetic theories of Harold Bloom. It is shown that redescription, the primary means by which Rorty addresses philosophy, pragmatism and culture, can be interpreted as misreading, a revisionist literary tool that implicates appropriation (revision), distortion (deviation), and correction (redirection). Finally, I propose a crossroad between the paths of Bloom and Rorty, a conversation between the Bloomian literary criticism and the Rortyan philosophy: the philosophy as a literary conversation.

Interpretation is both a specific domain in the theory of knowledge (hermeneutics) and a technique suitable for use in the social sciences, and particularly in sociology. Interpretation can be applied to texts, actions and so forth. The aim of this presentation is to delve into the use of interpretation as a common, ordinary technique to establish a relationship with the world or with ourselves when we are faced with problematic, traumatic events. More specifically, we will focus on narrative as a specific type of common technique of interpretation used by individuals and groups seeking to inscribe shocking events into the story of their lives. However, for such a process to be possible, several conditions of possibility (both social and cultural) need to be met, and we will address these conditions in this presentation.

La prossimità tra Edith Stein e l’Ebraismo religioso appare essere molto probabile per ovvi motivi. E quindi la sua conversione al Cattolicesimo e la sua indagine filosofica condotta nel pieno del pensiero cristiano, non dovrebbero costituire elementi necessariamente in contraddizione con tale ipotesi. Tuttavia, in assenza di documenti che possano provarla, abbiamo tentato in questa investigazione di risalire a posteriori ad alcuni elementi tipici del pensiero steiniano, partendo da altri relativi aspetti della dottrina cabalistica che inducono in maniera molto suggestiva il sospetto di una prossimità. Tali aspetti concernono in particolare alcuni elementi metafisico-filosofici che stanno in forte relazione con la dottrina emanatistica: – la caratterizzazione divino-femminile della Sapienza Divina (Sophia), la dottrina spiritualista dell’anima, la dottrina integralmente religiosa dell’Io cosciente (idealismo religioso).

The discussion between Merleau‑Ponty and Sartre on the engagement of literature is not restricted to the functional specificity provided by the language analysis. The working hypothesis of the following essay is to highlight the question of the artist’s social responsibility based on the function of the originary (Merleau‑Ponty : “perception and logos of the aesthetic world” ; Sartre: “dialectical activity of the productive liberty”). This difference in the characterization of the originary also appears at other moments of the debate between Merleau‑Ponty and Sartre, in the political theme as well as in the ontological one, characterizing a common nucleus in the confrontation between the philosophers. The course of this paper examines the tenor of the critics of Merleau‑Ponty in relation to Sartre.

This paper presents two different, although related, approaches to the problem of the experience of the other person: E. Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity and E. Levinas’ ethics. I begin by (1) addressing the transcendental significance of the experience of intersubjectivity in the broader context of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. I then turn to (2) Husserl’s solution to the paradox of constituting the alter ego, identifying and elucidating the key‑concepts of his inquiry. I hold that throughout his analysis there is a dominant underlying meaning in which the alterity of the other person is progressively suppressed and, ultimately, elided. Finally, I discuss (3) the consequences of Husserl’s analysis of the other in light of Levinas’ ethics. I hold that Husserl’s claim that there is a fundamental difference between the experience of myself and my analogical experience of the other is the basis upon which Levinas’ develops a new concept of experience, not as perception but as encounter. Upon close reading, I claim that Levinas’ revision of the topic of alterity is, ultimately, a consequence of Husserl’s transcendental analysis of intersubjectivity.