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Si la Renaissance n'explore pas a fond ni souvent la theorie de l'intelligence animale, l'essai L'apologie de Raymond Sebond de Michel de Montaigne est une exception qui surprend le lecteur de jadis et d'aujourd'hui par l'analyse originale de ce sujet capital. En demantelant la croyance--deja bien etablie au XVIe siecle--que l'etre humain detient la raison et la verite absolue, l'auteur demontre que l'humain n'est pas aussi sage que sa presomption le mene a croire et que l'animal n'est pas aussi sot et insense que nous aimons croire. Ainsi reussit-il a relativiser la hierarchie etablie entre les deux categories de creatures qui se trouveraient plutot dans une continuite que dans une division ou une separation intransigeante. Although Renaissance thought did not explore the question of animal intelligence either thoroughly or often, Michel de Montaigne's essay, The Apology of Raymond Sebond, with its original analysis of this topic, represents an exception as surprising today as it was for readers of the time. In dismantling the belief--already well established in the sixteenth century--that human beings possess reason and absolute truth, Montaigne demonstrates that they are not as wise as they presume to be and that animals are not as dumb and senseless as we like to think. He thus succeeds in relativizing the established hierarchy between the two categories of creatures, which appear situated on a continuum rather than divided by a strict separation.

Anthony Barron explores the relationship between the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the forms and themes of Beckett’s critical and creative writings. He shows that Beckett’s aesthetic preoccupations are consonant with some of Schopenhauer’s seminal arguments regarding the arational basis of artistic composition and appreciation and the impotence of reason in human affairs. While Beckett’s critical writings are, in places, formidably opaque, this work examines the ways in which such texts can be elucidated when their intertextual affinities with Schopenhauer’s arguments are revealed. Using Schopenhauer’s thought as a presiding interpretative framework, Barron demonstrates how the widespread presence of philosophical and theological ideas in Beckett’s creative texts signifies less about his personal convictions than it does about his authorial aims. He thereby highlights the ways in which discursive ideas were appropriated and manipulated by Beckett for purely literary ends. A central contention of this book is that to judge the place of ideas within Beckett’s art, we should ignore questions of their theoretical persuasiveness and consider their role as purely aesthetic devices, the value of which is revealed in terms of the existential impact they have upon his characters. In each of the chapters that deal with Beckett’s fiction, Barron underscores the artistically energizing tensions that exist between the concepts that Beckett’s characters invoke in their attempts to comprehend the import of their experiences and their conative and affective tribulations which invariably prove resistant to such analysis. Here the means by which such conceptual aporias engender semantic potentialities underpin an exploration of Beckett’s creative assimilation of rational discourse. While the focus of this publication is upon Beckett’s early and middle fiction, which was composed at a time when the relationship between the chaos of quotidian ordeals and the value of rational thought became most acutely relevant for him, numerous cross-references to his dramatic and poetical works are provided in order to highlight the overall significance of these issues within his oeuvre.

Vsevolod Michajlovic Garsin (1855-1888) zahlt zu den vielleicht am meisten unterschatzten russischen Schriftstellern, was auch mit damit zu tun hat, dass seine Schaffenszeit in jene Zwischenperiode am Ubergang vom Realismus zur Moderne fallt, die oft als Phase kunstlerischen Ruckschritts charakterisiert wurde. Dabei ist jedoch unbestritten, dass Garsin mit seiner psychologischen Kurzprosa, in der er neue narrative Verfahren erprobte, zu den wichtigsten Mitbegrundern einer modernen russischen Erzahlkunst gezahlt werden muss. Dieser kunstlerisch-literarische Aspekt ist es auch, der in der bisherigen Forschungsliteratur zu Garsin vornehmlich untersucht wurde, wohingegen andere Perspektiven bislang eher unterbelichtet blieben. Alexander Lell stt mit seiner innovativen Studie in eben diese LuI cke, indem er sich GarsI in von einer neuen Seite naI hert, die vor allem die geistig-moralische Dimension seines Schaffens beruI hrt. Lell erkennt in den Werken GarsI ins deutliche AnklaI nge an die Philosophie Arthur Schopenhauers, was er schwerpunktmaI ig an der - auch bei Schopenhauer zentralen - Kategorie des Unrechts demonstriert.

This article aims to discuss the relationship between word and image in literary works devoted to the so-called ekphrasis. The present research is organised as follows: I first discuss the concept of contemplative aesthetic experience as elucidated in Schopenhauer's philosophy, and then provide some theoretical reflections on its current interpretations; in the second part, I try to examine the poem Danae Tycjana from iii Seria Poezji (1898), by the Polish modernist poet Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, through the lens of the concept of contemplative aesthetic experience. The analysis here carried out within the theoretical framework presented contends that the rhetorical device of ekphrasis should be understood as verbalisation of aesthetic aspects and experience. The last part of this paper investigates Titian's painting Danae (1545-1546, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples), one of several examples of the genre of erotic mythologies in Western art popularized by Titian, as the foundation for Tetmajer's aesthetic experience and source of ekphrasis. Keywords Ekphrasis; Aesthetic Experience; Myth; Arthur Schopenhauer; Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer; Titian; Danae.

Humanity has always aspired beyond the human. The technological development in recent decades has been extraordinary, leading to new attempts to overcome the all-too-human condition. We dream of conquering death, upgrading our bodies into perfect performance machines and enhancing our intelligence through bio-nanotechnology. We are familiar with the side effects: alienation, stress, anxiety, depression. This article contends that Franz Kafka’s enigmatic oeuvre at its core harbors a yearning to transcend the human. Through a close reading of the narrative In the Penal Colony, it is demonstrated that this yearning is far more radical and uncompromising than the modern vision of extending and optimizing human life. Instead of the modern ego-concerned affirmation of life and the body that hides behind much of AI and modern technology, Kafka seeks a radical vision of total transformation and transcending the human into ‘nothingness’. The article shows that this transformation corresponds to core concepts in Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy, primarily his doctrine of the denial of the will to live and asceticism. Instead of the species-narcissistic affirmation of life and the body that lurks behind much of AI and modern technology, Kafka strives for a definitive overcoming of the life we desire.

A discussion of the metaphysics of spiritual experience requires that we are clear about the nature of metaphysics, and I take as my starting point the ‘transcendent metaphysics’ described and supposedly eliminated by A. J. Ayer. Most analytic philosophers agree with Ayer (and Kant) that transcendent metaphysics in the relevant sense is deeply problematic, and they associate it with platonism, theism, and religious thinking more generally. Assuming then that spiritual experience takes us into religious territory, and this territory is forbidden, a metaphysics of spiritual experience is going to involve transcendent metaphysics, and it will be similarly problematic. Ayer's conception of transcendent reality is itself deeply problematic, and I shall argue that his metaphysical framework helps to motivate atheistic spirituality by ruling out the possibility of an empirically grounded and hence defensible religious alternative. I shall challenge this framework, set out an alternative with the help of Arthur Schopenhauer, and spell out the implications for a metaphysics of spiritual experience.

Arthur Schopenhauer made the momentous decision to become a philosopher when he was approximately 22 years old. Prior to that decision, he had been studying medicine at the university in Göttingen. By that age, however, he had concluded that life was a troublesome affair. So he resolved to spend his life reflecting upon it. Schopenhauer was doggedly determined to persevere in what he considered his mission in life, to reflect on the \"ever-disquieting puzzle of existence,\" to ascertain the meaning of living in a world steeped in suffering and death. He was confident that eventually his work would be recognized, a confidence that enabled him to weather laboring in relative philosophical obscurity for some forty years. What initiated the dawn of Schopenhauer's fame was a review of his philosophy that appeared in a British journal in 1853, and ever since that time, Schopenhauer drew a readership, one broader than most Western philosophers. He is read not simply and solely by professional philosophers, but also by the wider learned world. Indeed, some have claimed that he is the most widely read Western philosopher. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Schopenhauer's Philosophy contains a chronology, an introduction, an appendix, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on all of Schopenhauer's books, significant philosophical ideas and concepts, as well as entries covering significant figures in his life and those influenced by this thinking.. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Arthur Schopenhauer.

Throughout the history of parapsychology, complaints about a lack of a theory that would explain psi phenomena have regularly been advanced. Indeed, a theory that can explain psi in a manner comparable to robust theories in mainstream sciences does not currently exist. Moreover, the existing parapsychological theories stand largely separate and represent disconnected approaches. In this contribution, I suggest that the situation regarding theories of psi could be improved by developing a synthetic theory that posits specific core assumptions on which existing theories and models of the origins of psi could be integrated. Formulating such a theory that focuses on the communalities and compatibilities of existing models rather than on their differences would increase the coherence of parapsychological theorizing and would therefore benefit parapsychology. In order to show that such an approach has already worked in the past, I also introduce the \"evolutionary synthesis\" that was developed by biologists about 90 years ago. I furthermore argue that the demand that parapsychologists must develop a theory of psi that complies with contemporary mainstream sciences is principally inappropriate due to the very nature of psi. This is no reason for regret because the exceptional significance of parapsychological research lies in providing direct empirical evidence for a non-physical foundation of existence. In this respect, it holds a leading role in shaping the most accurate science-based model for understanding our world.

While William James has often been taken to be critical of, or even hostile to, Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism, it is important to recognize implicitly Schopenhauerian tendencies in James’s philosophy. This paper argues that the uneasiness associated with our metaphysical wonder at the radical contingency of the world—the fact that there is being instead of nothingness—is, for James, irreducibly ethical: the “problem of being”, discussed by James in, e.g., Some Problems of Philosophy (1911), is ultimately the problem of suffering. It is suggested that James’s rejection of naïve optimism and theodicist justifications of suffering (and thus of the world) are grounded in his taking seriously Schopenhauerian pessimism, even though he defended meliorism as the critical middle ground between optimism and pessimism. Therefore, interpretations and further developments of Jamesian pragmatism should not ignore the Schopenhauerian influences that can be perceived throughout James’s key writings from The Will to Believe essays (especially “The Sentiment of Rationality”) via Pragmatism to Some Problems of Philosophy .

This article explores the concept of non-personal immortality. Non-personal theories of immortality claim that even though there is no personal or individual survival of death, it is still possible to continue to exist in a non-personal state. The most important challenge for non-personal conceptions of immortality is solving the apparent contradiction between on the one hand accepting that individual existence ends with death and on the other hand maintaining that death nevertheless is not equal to total annihilation. I present two theories of non-personal immortality found in Schopenhauer and William James and derive a set of systematic core theses from them. Finally, I discuss whether the notion of non-personal immortality is consistent, and whether a non-personal afterlife could be desirable.