Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy

The aim of this article is to characterise the concept of difference in Aristotle, both as a predicate of the genus (differentia divisiva) and as a predicate of the species (differentia constitutiva). We then try to classify these two dimensions of difference within the framework of the predicables. The general conclusion is that the differentia constitutiva is an essential predicate, logically analogous to the genus in this respect, while the differentia divisiva cannot be located within that framework because the predicables are implicitly thought by Aristotle as forms of predication in which the predicate has an extension greater than, or equal to, the subject.

Dans cet article nous nous sommes proposé de montrer l’ampleur de la transformation operée par Husserl sur la notion d’analytico-formel, par rapport au sens que ces deux termes possédait chez Kant. Nous avons montré que c’était lá le but des investigations, que Husserl lui-même appelait d’ordre psychologique, sur les fondements de l’arithmétique, aussi bien que de sa critique du psichologisme, ammorcée dès le 1.er tome des Recherches Logiques. Nous avons aussi montré que le but de Husserl n’était pas d’établir un ensemble de propriétés formelles des objects (en soi-mêmes vides de tout contenu), mais déterminer la portée de la forme (à l’instar des géométries non-euclidiènnes) en tant que productrice d ’objectivité.

Up to the middle of the 20th Century, studies of metaethics were the main object of study of the analitical current which covered that area, leaving aside fundamental problems, considered meaningless at that time. Even though Rawls is heir of this philosophical current, he supports a new approach which goes back to the substancial nature of ethics, though set in a framework whose political basis supposedly is liberal democracy, his methodology of contractualism and content, and a constructivism lacking metaphysical presuppositions, strongly influenced by Kantian thought. Taking these elements, Rawls designs a theory of justice whose main aspiration is faimess, a theory by which he tries to disprove the two main ethical currents of his time: Utilitarism and Intuitionism. To all this he adds a clear intention of considering an ordered society the one where Right is above Good. According to him, only then a pluralist society will be possible, a society where the ends of liberal democracy can be accomplished.

In Lectures on Art John Ruskin presented us a wide educational programme and a social reform plan. Ruskin believes that artistic education can save industrial societies from degradation and misery, and help bringing England back to the way of glory - the same glory that once marked its history. This artistic education is meant to improve character and taste, enrich the perception of nature and perfect the comprehension of reality. If the plan succeeds, England is hoped to go back in time, recovering the values that its ancestors so hard fought to preserve - honour, pride and honesty - and open firm doors for the future. Behind this plan for social transformation are some philosophical conceptions about art itself, its function and value, as well as some assumptions about the efficiency of art education. Also in these lectures we get to know Ruskin’s ideas about morality, religion and human evolution. Lectures on Art is the work of an informed and accurate mind, and shows an extraordinary ability to recognise the problems of modem societies and suggest solutions.

Paul Ricoeur sustains in Soi-même comme un autre that the tragical conflict in Sophocle’s Antigone is only ethical. Antigone and Creon confront each other because they both have limited and partial views of good life. The aim of this brief paper is to show that Antigone's tragedy must be situated in the religions domain. Only Greek theology - the belief in a ‘cruel’ and ‘satanic’ God - gives us the ‘tools’ to understand Sophocles' complex imaginary.

Dans cet article, on part de l’interprétation d’un épisode particulier de la biographie nietzschéenne, ayant le but de réfléchir sur la possibilité de construire une justification esthétique de l’existence dans la civilisation technologique. No us essayons de montrer que l’histoire du vingtième siècle représente la fin de la vision métaphysique du monde et le retour nécessaire de la configuration du même comme phénomène esthétique. Dans le domaine de l’action humaine, cette conception est traduite par le sentiment paradoxal de la joie comme affirmation inconditionnelle de la totalité du réel.

La religion, comme manifestation de la rationalité, participe, dans la Modernité, des vicissitudes de la rationalité elle-même qui se définit souvent en rapport, pas toujours pacifique, avec la religion, surtout avec le christianisme dans la culture occidentale. Il est légitime de parler tant d’une immanentisation naturaliste de la religion que d’une christianisation de la raison. La découverte du Nouveau Monde a stimulé ce double mouvement.

The paper deals with the representation of otherness in 18th Century Germany. Departing from an episode narrated in Georg Forster’s account of James Cook’s second voyage around the world, attention is paid to the way in which an uncanny experience for Europeans - eating dog food - is narrated, and translated according to European discursive premises. The analysis of Forster’s considerations on the relativity of customs, on what is to be attributed to nature or culture, on what is to be considered innate or acquired provide the departing point for the reconstruction (and questioning) of strategies of representing of otherness. In the following parts, diverse ways of representing otherness are briefly analyzed (anatomical studies, collections of bodies and artifacts in natural history cabinets) and emphasis is put on the way in which non-European peoples are always ultimately the object of a process of reification. The scientific implications of Contemporary debates on race are also taken into account, namely the controversy between Georg Forster and Kant. The tension between ethnographie empiricism (Forster) and anthropological rationalism (Kant) is stressed and brought onto relation with the Enlightenment discourse on the “Other”. The conclusion focuses on the limits and utopian possibilities of the Enlightenment discourse, by juxtaposing it to the critique of Western rationalism as proposed by postcolonial studies.

On étudie ici la diversité des conceptions théoriques qui ont guidé les rencontres des Portugais, au XVIème et XVIIème siècles, avec les peuples de l’Afrique et du Brésil, soit de la part de ceux qui reconnaissaient la légitimité de l’esclavage, soit de la part de ceux qui ont essayé une limitation juridique de celle-ci. Le sujet principal de cette étude est, donc, la réflexion portugaise sur la diversité humaine.