Most human action has a technical dimension. This book examines four components of this technical dimension. First, in all actions, various individual, organizational or institutional agents combine actional capabilities with tools, institutions, infrastructure and other elements by means of which they act. Second, the deployment of capabilities and means is permeated by ethical aspirations and hesitancies. Third, all domains of action are affected by these ethical dilemmas. Fourth, the dimensions of the technicity of action are typical of human life in general, and not just a regional or culturally specific phenomenon. In this study, an interdisciplinary approach is adopted to encompass the broad anthropological scope of this study and combine this bigger picture with detailed attention to the socio-historical particularities of action as it plays out in different contexts. Hermeneutics (the philosophical inquiry into the human phenomena of meaning, understanding and interpretation) and social science (as the study of all human affairs) are the two main disciplinary orientations of this book. This study clarifies the technical dimension of the entire spectrum of human action ranging from daily routine to the extreme of violent protest.

Oor Gode En Afgode is ’n herdruk van ’n vyftal essays van die Suid-Afrikaanse filosoof Marthinus Versfeld.

Die bundel het oorspronklik reeds in 1948 verskyn, maar die kwessies wat hierin bespreek word, is vandag steeds aktueel. Versfeld se groot bekommernis hier is dat die Westerse mens se opvatting van redelikheid en sy verhouding met die wêreld om ons, sedert die Verligting baie verskraal het. Met verwysings na die kerkvader Augustinus en groot Middeleeuse filosowe soos Thomas van Aquinas, toon Versfeld aan dat hierdie ouer denkers se sienings van die skepping en die Skepper tot ’n meer geïntegreerde beeld van die mens en sy plek in die werklikheid kan bydra, ’n siening wat ook in ons postmoderne era aanklank by denkende lesers behoort te vind.

Die bundel bevat verder ’n kritiese bespreking van die Franse filosoof Jean-Jacques Rousseau en die oordrewe rol van die Staat in ons tyd (iets wat bekommerde Suid-Afrikaners met instemming kan lees), die verval in moraliteit en die oorheersing van die masjien in die lewe van die gewone mens. Dit is nie Versfeld se toeganklikste werk nie, maar die skrywer slaag steeds daarin om ingewikkelde filosofiese begrippe in eenvoudige taal oor te dra.

Die bundel word ingelei deur prof. Ernst Wolff, ’n kenner van die werk van Versfeld.

"Our Selves" is a collection of some of South African philosopher Martin Versfeld s most interesting essays. This professor of philosophy, who took great pleasure in claiming that he would be disowned by most schools of philosophy, turns a skeptical eye on some of the most revered thinkers in the Western world.He takes up arms against the increased fragmentation experienced by those who imbibed Descartes 'I think therefore I am' with their mother s milk, and finds a promise of wholeness in the teachings of St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and the Buddha.Said Versfeld: 'A viable philosophy for our day must not have Newtonian space and time as a premise, but must realise the primacy of subjective space and time. We place ourselves in the world, but the placing of the world in us is primary. The spirit is the place of the world. When Confucius maintains that man is the measure of reality, he is not proclaiming any cheap relativism, but realising how profoundly anthropomorphic our knowledge must be. If we confine ourselves to measuring man, and measuring the world in terms of Newtonian space and time, we shall lose ourselves. And this quantification of all things has gone very far. By rocketry we have become obsessed by man in space, forgetting that spirit is the place of the world.'"

Emmanuel Levinas est le philosophe de la non-indifference; il n'est en aucune sorte un philosophe indifferent. Son inquietude personnelle et engagement politique ont trouve une expression philosophique dans une quete a deux versants. Dans le versant ontologique, il cherche a montrer que meme si l'homme est l'evenement de comprehension de l'etre, tout l'homme et toute signification ne se reduisent pas a la comprehension de l'etre seul. Dans le versant politique, il s'interroge sur la possibilite de soumettre la tendance totalitaire de toute politique a une recherche de justice qui ne depend pas finalement de la politique meme. Mais ces deux versants n'en font qu'un. La decouverte d'une signification qui excede la comprehension de l'etre - l'ethique - fournit en meme temps la source de renouvellement de la justice. Ainsi, par cette double question, Levinas nous presente les fils conducteurs de notre enquete: une signification au-dela de la comprehension de l'etre et sa portee ethique, que nous appelons "langage" et que nous explorons dans la perspective de son importance politique. Les etudes analytiques dans lesquelles les notions de politique et de langage fonctionnent comme clef d'interpretation mutuelle debouchent sur une critique centree sur deux problemes: l'impossibilite d'interpreter la signifiance de l'autre et le danger inherent a la conception d'une justice depassant l'Etat.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfectionssuch as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed worksworldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ En Dansk Og Engelsk Ord-bog Ernst Wolff Trykt af Frys, Couchman og Collier, paa forfatterens bekostning, 1779 Danish language; English language

The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalized world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement in the issues of postcolonialism and humanism. However, Levinas fails to realize the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between the ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel, and Ricoeur, Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice.

Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1907.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Sense generation is the primary precondition for acting and thinking meaningfully. The essays in this volume contribute to a discourse on this matter with a decentred, globalized world in mind. Civilization, humanism, and modernity--far from being exclusively Western categories--are notions that can facilitate efforts to reflect together about the universality of current human affairs, exactly because it can be done from particular cultural perspectives. Modernity presents us with a second Axial Time in which the quest for a plural, but common, human world is the stake and the challenge.