Forms of Truth and the Unity of Knowledge addresses a philosophical subject-the nature of truth and knowledge-but treats it in a way that draws on insights beyond the usual confines of modern philosophy. This ambitious collection includes contributions from established scholars in philosophy, theology, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, literary criticism, history, and architecture. It represents an attempt to integrate the insights of these disciplines and to help them probe their own basic presuppositions and methods. The essays in Forms of Truth and the Unity of Knowledge are collected into five parts, the first dealing with division of knowledge into multiple disciplines in Western intellectual history; the second with the foundational disciplines of epistemology, logic, and mathematics; the third with explanation in the natural sciences; the fourth with truth and understanding in disciplines of the humanities; and the fifth with art and theology. Contributors: Vittorio Hoesle, Keith Lehrer, Robert Hanna, Laurent Lafforgue, Thomas Nowak, Francisco J. Ayala, Zygmunt Pizlo, Osborne Wiggins, Allan Gibbard, Carsten Dutt, Aviezer Tucker, Nicola Di Cosmo, Michael Lykoudis, and Celia Deane-Drummond.

Rohmer is one of the most popular French directors of the second half of the 20th century, one of the members of the famous Nouvelle Vague that reconstituted French cinema based on the theoretical principles articulated in the Cahiers du Cinema - from whose editorship he was fired when the conservative Catholic opposed its turn toward politicization. Like some of his colleagues, Rohmer is extremely interested in both the history and the philosophy of film: Brother of the noted French philosopher Rene Scherer, he begins his career as a film critic In his films, deep moral conflicts as well as the search for one's own identity emerge from the intricacies of seemingly superficial everyday life interactions, particularly between a man and a woman. Hoesle's book puts Rohmer in the context of a long French tradition of reflected eroticism, with Marivaux, Musset, Stendhal, and Jean Renoir as crucial figures, and shows how Rohmer both recognizes the inner logic of eroticism and subjects it to moral demands that he inherits from his Catholic background. For Rohmer, the tension between the two can usually only be solved by some unexpected event that can be interpreted as an equivalent of grace.

A series of letters between a professor of philosophy and an eleven-year-old girl.

Among the classics of the history of philosophy, the Scienza nuova (New Science) by Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was largely neglected and generally misunderstood during the author's lifetime. From the nineteenth century onwards Vico's views found a wider audience, and today his influence is widespread in the humanities and social sciences. The New Science is often taught in courses at colleges and universities, both in philosophy and Italian departments and in general humanities courses. Despite the excellent English translations of this enigmatic book and numerous studies in English of Vico, many sections of the work remain challenging to the modern reader. Vico's New Science of the Intersubjective World offers both an in-depth analysis of all the important ideas of the book and an evaluation of their contribution to our present understanding of the social world. In the first chapter, Vittorio Hoesle examines Vico's life, sources, and writings. The second and third chapters discuss the concerns and problems of the Scienza nuova. The fourth chapter traces the broader history of Vico's reception. Hoesle facilitates the understanding of many passages in the work as well as the overarching structure of its claims, which are often dispersed over many sections. Hoesle reformulates Vico's vision in such a way that it is not only of historical interest but may inspire ongoing debates about the nature of the humanities and social sciences as well as many other issues on which Vico sheds light, from the relation of poetry and poetics to the development of law. This book will prepare students and scholars for a precise study of the Scienza nuova, equipping them with the necessary categories and context and familiarizing them with the most important problems in the critical debate on Vico's philosophy.

In God as Reason: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Vittorio Hoesle presents a systematic exploration of the relation between theology and philosophy. In examining the problems and historical precursors of rational theology, he calls on philosophy, theology, history of science, and the history of ideas to find an interpretation of Christianity that is compatible with a genuine commitment to reason. The essays in the first part of God as Reason deal with issues of philosophical theology. Hoesle sketches the challenges that a rationalist theology must face and discusses some of the central ones, such as the possibility of a teleological interpretation of nature after Darwin, the theodicy issue, freedom versus determinism, the mindbody problem, and the relation in general between religion, theology, and philosophy. In the essays of the second part, Hoesle studies the historical development of philosophical approaches to the Bible, the continuity between the New Testament concept of pneuma and the concept of Geist (spirit) in German idealism, and the rationalist theologies of Anselm, Abelard, Llull, and Nicholas of Cusa, whose innovative philosophy of mathematics is the topic of one of the chapters. The book concludes with a thorough evaluation of Charles Taylor's theory of secularization. This ambitious work will interest students and scholars of philosophical theology and philosophy of religion as well as historians of ideas and science.

The volume The Many Faces of Beauty joins the rich debate on beauty and aesthetic theory by presenting an ambitious, interdisciplinary examination of various facets of beauty in nature and human society. The contributors ask such questions as, Is there beauty in mathematical theories? What is the function of arts in the economy of cultures? What are the main steps in the historical evolution of aesthetic theories from ancient civilizations to the present? What is the function of the ugly in enhancing the expressivity of art? and What constitutes beauty in film? The sixteen essays, by eminent scientists, critics, scholars, and artists, are divided into five parts. In the first, a mathematician, physicist, and two philosophers address beauty in mathematics and nature. In the second, an anthropologist, psychologist, historian of law, and economist address the place of beauty in the human mind and in society. Explicit philosophical reflections on notoriously vexing issues, such as the historicity of aesthetics itself, interculturality, and the place of the ugly, are themes of the third part. In the fourth, practicing artists discuss beauty in painting, music, poetry, and film. The final essay, by a theologian, reflects on the relation between beauty and God. Contributors: Vittorio Hoesle, Robert P. Langlands, Mario Livio, Dieter Wandschneider, Christian Illies, Francesco Pellizzi, Bjarne Sode Funch, Peter Landau, Holger Bonus, Pradeep A. Dhillon, Mark W. Roche, Maxim Kantor, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Mary Kinzie, Dudley Andrew, and Cyril O'Regan.

The story of German philosophy from the Middle Ages to today In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, Vittorio Hoesle traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science, from the Middle Ages to today. A Short History of German Philosophy addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther's Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of German philosophy from Leibniz to Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities; and the German Idealists. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy; the foundation of the historical sciences; Husserl's phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers after 1945. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the recent past. A philosophical history remarkable for its scope, brevity, and lucidity, this is an invaluable book for students of philosophy and anyone interested in German intellectual and cultural history.

Gott als Vernunft bietet einen UEberblick uber zentrale religionsphilosophische Fragestellungen auf der Grundlage des objektiven Idealismus. Gott erscheint in dieser Perspektive nicht als externe Autoritat, die sich durch Willkurakte und Wunder offenbart, sondern als der Kern aller Vernunftanspruche, die weder naturalistisch noch konstruktivistisch reduziert werden koennen. In facettenreichen Texten werden einerseits direkt religionsphilosophische Themen wie der Gnadenbegriff, die Trinitatslehre, das Theodizeeproblem, das Problem der richtigen Bibeldeutung oder die Natur interreligioesen Dialoge von der Warte einer Vernunftreligion aus abgehandelt, andererseits die Konsequenzen einer religioesen Deutung der Wirklichkeit fur das Teleologie-, das Freiheits-, das Leib-Seele-Problem, den Geistbegriff und das historische Auftreten des Atheismus untersucht.

Rohmer is one of the most popular French directors of the second half of the 20th century, one of the members of the famous Nouvelle Vague that reconstituted French cinema based on the theoretical principles articulated in the Cahiers du Cinema - from whose editorship he was fired when the conservative Catholic opposed its turn toward politicization. Like some of his colleagues, Rohmer is extremely interested in both the history and the philosophy of film: Brother of the noted French philosopher Rene Scherer, he begins his career as a film critic In his films, deep moral conflicts as well as the search for one's own identity emerge from the intricacies of seemingly superficial everyday life interactions, particularly between a man and a woman. Hoesle's book puts Rohmer in the context of a long French tradition of reflected eroticism, with Marivaux, Musset, Stendhal, and Jean Renoir as crucial figures, and shows how Rohmer both recognizes the inner logic of eroticism and subjects it to moral demands that he inherits from his Catholic background. For Rohmer, the tension between the two can usually only be solved by some unexpected event that can be interpreted as an equivalent of grace.

Forms of Truth and the Unity of Knowledge addresses a philosophical subject-the nature of truth and knowledge-but treats it in a way that draws on insights beyond the usual confines of modern philosophy. This ambitious collection includes contributions from established scholars in philosophy, theology, mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, literary criticism, history, and architecture. It represents an attempt to integrate the insights of these disciplines and to help them probe their own basic presuppositions and methods. The essays in Forms of Truth and the Unity of Knowledge are collected into five parts, the first dealing with division of knowledge into multiple disciplines in Western intellectual history; the second with the foundational disciplines of epistemology, logic, and mathematics; the third with explanation in the natural sciences; the fourth with truth and understanding in disciplines of the humanities; and the fifth with art and theology. Contributors: Vittorio Hoesle, Keith Lehrer, Robert Hanna, Laurent Lafforgue, Thomas Nowak, Francisco J. Ayala, Zygmunt Pizlo, Osborne Wiggins, Allan Gibbard, Carsten Dutt, Aviezer Tucker, Nicola Di Cosmo, Michael Lykoudis, and Celia Deane-Drummond.

The volume The Many Faces of Beauty joins the rich debate on beauty and aesthetic theory by presenting an ambitious, interdisciplinary examination of various facets of beauty in nature and human society. The contributors ask such questions as, Is there beauty in mathematical theories? What is the function of arts in the economy of cultures? What are the main steps in the historical evolution of aesthetic theories from ancient civilizations to the present? What is the function of the ugly in enhancing the expressivity of art? and What constitutes beauty in film? The sixteen essays, by eminent scientists, critics, scholars, and artists, are divided into five parts. In the first, a mathematician, physicist, and two philosophers address beauty in mathematics and nature. In the second, an anthropologist, psychologist, historian of law, and economist address the place of beauty in the human mind and in society. Explicit philosophical reflections on notoriously vexing issues, such as the historicity of aesthetics itself, interculturality, and the place of the ugly, are themes of the third part. In the fourth, practicing artists discuss beauty in painting, music, poetry, and film. The final essay, by a theologian, reflects on the relation between beauty and God. Contributors: Vittorio Hoesle, Robert P. Langlands, Mario Livio, Dieter Wandschneider, Christian Illies, Francesco Pellizzi, Bjarne Sode Funch, Peter Landau, Holger Bonus, Pradeep A. Dhillon, Mark W. Roche, Maxim Kantor, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Mary Kinzie, Dudley Andrew, and Cyril O'Regan.

Not content with merely telling us how to find a way back to objective idealism, Hosle exhibits his philosophy in a wide-ranging series of essays on topics ranging from the greatness and limits of Kant's practical philosophy to the moral ends and means of world population policy, from moral reflection and the decay of institutions in the enlightenment and counter- enlightenment to a reflection on philosophical foundations of a future humanism in our world of overinformation.

When "Moral und Politik was first published in Germany it provoked heated debate both in and out of the classroom. It even prompted Vittorio Hosle's critics to publish a collection of essays that responded to his provocative arguments. Available for the first time in an Engish translation, Morals and Politics, a tour-de-force, is certain to once again generate considerable discussion. In this ambitious work Hosle attempts no less than an outline of a political ethics for the twenty-first century. He not only raises the question of the relationship between morals and politics but proposes a relatively complex answer to it. This answer involves a search for a synthesis between the classical, ancient European conviction that political philosophy must be based on ethics and the more modern notion that ethical arguments themselves have a political function. Hole's goal is to create a concrete political ethics for the situation in which humanity finds itself today. This book is divided into three parts. In the first, Hosle defines the problem through a comprehensive survey of political thought. In the second, he addresses the character of human nature, of power, and of the state and its history. Finally, he deals with the philosophy of law as well as with questions concerning the right of resistance and just war theory. Sweeping in its scope and forceful in its conclusions, Morals and Politics will reshape the way many think about politics and political philosophy.

In this extended essay, Vittorio Hoesle develops a theory of the comical and applies it to interpret both the recurrent personae played by Woody Allen the actor and the philosophical issues addressed by Woody Allen the director in his films. Taking Henri Bergson's analysis of laughter as a starting point, Hoesle integrates aspects of other theories of laughter to construct his own more finely-articulated and expanded model. With this theory in hand, Hoesle discusses the incongruity in the characters played by Woody Allen and describes how these personae are realized in his work. Hoesle focuses on the philosophical issues in Allen's major films by exploring the identity problem in Play It Again, Sam and Zelig, the shortcomings of the positivist concept of reality in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy, the relation between reality and art in The Purple Rose of Cairo, the objective validity of morality in Crimes and Misdemeanors, the power of evil in Shadows and Fog, and the relation between art and morality in Bullets over Broadway. He cites Allen's virtuosic reinterpretation of older forms of expression and his integration of the fantastic into the comic universe-elements like the giant breasts, anxious sperm, extraterrestrials, ghosts, and magicians that populate his movies-as formal moves akin to those of Aristophanes. Both an overview of Allen's work and a philosophical analysis of laughter, Hoesle's study demonstrates why Allen's films have more to offer us-morally, philosophically, and artistically-than just a few laughs.

Dimensions of Goodness is based on the second conference of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study, whose aim is to bridge the normative and descriptive dimensions of knowledge by bringing in as many disciplines as possible to address fundamental philosophical issues. While the first conference dealt with the elusive topic of beauty, the second addressed crucial issues of ethics. In the first section of this volume, the German philosophers Franz von Kutschera and Markus Gabriel discuss the nature of values and the reasons why we believe that normativity has a place in the world. In the second section, the British historian Jonathan Israel, the American theologian Jennifer Herdt, and the editor of the volume analyse epochal changes in our moral beliefs, due to Enlightenment, Christianity, and the general evolution of moral ideas, which is presented in a way that markedly differs from Alasdair MacIntyre's famous account. The third section explores both the light that the exact sciences shed on the process of decision making (in the contributions by the Italian neuroscientist Camillo Padoa-Schioppa and the Canadian psychologist Clive Seligman) as well as the ethical challenges that modern science has brought forward in areas such as the responsibility of scientists, bioethics and medical ethics in chapters by the Swiss chemist and Nobel laureate Richard Ernst, the American bioethicist and historian of biology Jane Maienschein, and the American philosopher and legal scholar Anita Allen. The fourth section focuses on specific challenges of our time - the British philosopher Robin Atfield explores the principles of environmental ethics, the Swiss business ethicist Georges Enderle investigates goodness in economy, the Mexican elder statesman (former Secretary of Economy and of Foreign Affairs) Luiz Ernesto Derbez Bautista looks at the challenges of development, and the American legal scholars Steven D. Smith and Mary Ellen O'Connell examine the place of religion in the American constitution and the power of international law in limiting violence respectively. Finally, the last section consists of a chapter by the well-known Chinese intellectual Wang Hui on Lu Xun's struggle to find a middle way between respect of one's own tradition and the demands of globalization.There is probably no other volume in which so many different disciplines come together to try to find a convergence of perspectives on basic moral issues. The book will be invaluable to those who believe that goodness is the focal point of most academic disciplines and that academia can find a stronger point of unity in a common reflection on what goodness in various areas means.