Abstract: Starting from the premise, recently shared by authors such as Jacques Derrida and Pierre Macherey (for whom a state of crisis is inherent to the university) that of the humanities constitute the specific terrain in which to propose new experiments, this article attempts to verify what is at stake in an approach to philosophy as a way of life, in the context…
Abstract: This paper forms as it were a draft for an as-yet-unwritten, decisive chapter on the history of philosophy as a way of life (PWL). It closely examines the texts by Schleiermacher, Fichte, Humboldt, and Schelling on the foundation of the modern research university, and the place of philosophy within it, written in the years surrounding the formation…
Abstract: The reception of Hadot’s work on the tradition of spiritual exercises among historians of medieval philosophy has rarely produced the results one might reasonably have expected. In this revisitation of the historiography on the notion of “intellectual felicity,” I thus hope to be able first to provide a corrective to the faulty understanding that some medievalists still seem…
Abstract: The New Atheist movement has been called “fundamentalist” in its allegiance to science. While true that New Atheism is remarkable among the various historical formations of atheism for its championing of the sciences, it is not fundamentalist. Where it does share a resemblance to Christian fundamentalism is in their respective attachments to a salvific epistemology either…
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to show how a monastic environment can be regarded as providing shelter for individuals with autism spectrum condition in the Middle Ages. By drawing on the recent literature in the history of medicine that traces the signs and symptoms of ASC in Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess from the twelfth century, we will…
Abstract: There is a good chance that “each critic becomes a Pygmalion” (as Leo Curran put it) when they bring the work of art to life in their narcissistic (and almost amorous) attention, unfolding its meaning so that they should be able to write their own interpretation. The starting point of the present text is the perfection…
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between common sense and taste in the history of aesthetic thought. “Common sense” guarantees the communication of tastes through different modalities. It can either facilitate agreement among individuals, fostering mutual understanding and envisaging a universal aesthetic community, or provoke disagreement. In the former scenario, common sense is literally…
Abstract: This contribution examines the effects that a philosophical consideration of nothing has on the debate between theism and atheism. In particular, it argues that surprising conclusions that arise from a close analysis of the concept of nothing result in three claims that have relevance for that debate. Firstly, that on the most plausible demarcation criterion…
Abstract: This essay aims to show that the recent development of quantum theory may provide us with an answer to one of the most compelling metaphysical problems, namely the problem of determinism. First, I sketch the conceptual background and draw the distinction between metaphysical and epistemological determinisms. Then, on the ground of the analysis…
Abstract: Joshua Farris usefully applies my distinction between conditioned and de-conditioned philosophy to some limits of science, and the disclosure of the soul. It is argued that further de-conditioning is conducive to answering the profound philosophical questions: What is it to be now?, and What is it to be? but these answers are only adequate when they entail the…