A straightforward ontological account would be one which acknowledges relations as real beings, and that means, according to the scholastic tradition, as universals. The realist move in this sense which has been re-established within contemporary analytical ontology at least since Russell's early theory, is, however, not the only possible way to take relations seriously. In my paper I shall argue that there is much room for the ontological reconstruction of relations, even if one does not accept universals. The background for this argument is a particularist and realist theory, based on tropes ("trope" being the short name for "property instance" or "individual quality"). One way of reconstruction is that relations themselves are particulars. They are supposed to be relational or polyadic tropes (J. Bacon, D. Mertz). The other way is to hold that relations are internal or formal, and therefore do not require a category sai generis (K. Mulligan, P. Simons). I shall discuss these alternatives and finally opt for the second, i.e., the reconstruction of relations as internal to their relata. Moreover, I offer an argument for why basic relations such as existential dependence should be granted a transcategorial status within trope ontology. Hence, the gist of my paper is to take relations seriously without falling prey either to stubborn nominalism or to strict realism. What I intend to explore is a middle avenue thereby choosing the best of both sides in order to explicate a moderate view on the realism of relations.

Many scholars have argued that history embodies a different form of explanation than natural science. This paper provides an analysis of narrative conceived as the form of explanation appropriate to history. In narratives, actions, beliefs, and pro-attitudes are joined to one another by means of conditional and volitional connections. Conditional connections exist when beliefs and pro-attitudes pick up themes contained in one another, where the nature of such themes can be analysed by reference to the non-necessary and non-arbitrary nature of conditionality. Volitional connections exist when agents command themselves to do something, having decided to do it because of a pro-attitude they hold. The paper uses examples to indicate how conditional and volitional connections can explain large-scale change as well as individual actions.

In order for the philosophy of history to be a really necessary methodological science in relation to theoretical and epistemological problems of history, it is quite necessary to get away from the practice of general discourse and from attempts to find universal solutions suitable for all times. On the contrary, it is desirable to focus on a search for principles and for methods of applying them to the problems of different levels, which, by no means predetermining the results of concrete research, would play the role of (a) a convenient and capacious form of concentration of materials; (b) an effective tool of cognition; and (c) a "compass" preserving a scientists efforts in search of a true solution. For this it is necessary while building up theories, first, to try to combine distinct partially true approaches; secondly, to define clearly the boundaries of applicability of arguments; and thirdly, to formulate laws not in the form of absolute conclusions but according to the rules admitted in other sciences. The possibility of realizing these goals is illustrated by the example of the present theme, "on the role of personality in history," wherein the author introduces the notion of a "factor of a situation," which makes it possible to unify various points correlating personality roles and diverse states of society, and gives the typology of "roles," personalities, etc.

This paper offers an analysis of central features of modern world history which suggest a confirmation, and extension, of something resembling Fukuyama's Kojeve-Hegel *end of history' thesis. As is well known, Kojeve interpreted Hegel as having argued that in a meaningful sense history, as struggle and endeavour to achieve workable stasis in the mutual relations of selves and state-society collectivities, literally came to an end with Napoleon's 1806 victory at the battle of Jena. That victory led to the establishment or consolidation of a European system which significantly embodied the conceptually ideal roles and mutual relations of individual, state, law, and culture (including religious culture), in the aggregated states ruled or presided over by Napoleon. For Hegel the universal structures which constitute the progression of the Absolute are importantly independent of the actual concrete historical individuals and doings which embody and implement them. Once realized upon the earth, the idea of a civil society living, under law, with a sustainable religious and national normative ideology is inexpungible. Even if it has for a time dimmed, it will resurface and re-present itself, and, for Kojeve, has done so, in the gradual articulation of European union and the formations of the League of Nations and its successor the United Nations, in the world that is still our present world. It is much of this model that Fukuyama adopted, and conceived, more explicitly than perhaps either Hegel or Kojeve had done, as a realized triangulation of democracy, liberal individual rights ideology, and capitalism. The realization came to the fore, in Fukuyama's view, in the matrix of the events set in motion by the fall of communism in the European world in 1989. Contrary to Fukayama, of course, there has been rather a lot of 'history' very dramatically in the years in and since 1989, and of course especially explosively in 2001. This recent history notwithstanding, the end of history thesis seems plausible and defensible. Four large geopolitical struggles may be identified, as constituting sequential clusters of argument aimed at determining the human telos, or end-state. They constitute also a sequence of reductios of blueprints that are rivals to the liberalism-democracy-capitalism complex. The four are World War I and the geopolitical struggles between Liberal modernism and fascism, communism, and Islamism. Analyses of these four struggles are offered and defended.

Tracing the historical and theoretical distinctions between labor and work from the early Greeks to the present, Hannah Arendt presents a compelling analysis of the nature of our technological crisis. Western culture has been formed through a dominant understanding of human existence and instrumental thinking that have inevitably led to a crisis in the way we understand ourselves and relate to the world. Owing much to her contemporary, Martin Heidegger, Arendt sees the roots of the environmental crisis to be embedded in our inheritance of thinking and building.

The philosophy of technology seems to be in a stagnant condition today, partly due to the lack of communication between several traditions in the field. Whereas science and technology are considered products of society in the STS programs, the approach in Latin American countries is just the opposite: a better society is sought after through the application of science and technology in development plans. A dialogue between these two opposite traditions might prove useful in overcoming stagnation in the field.

Depuis le milieu des annees 1960, les etudes spinozistes ont pris un nouvel essor sous l'impulsion du courant marxiste qui a vu dans le programme de liberation des collectivites pense par Spinoza le projet politique le plus apte ä assurer une reponse ä la crise de legitimite du marxisme. Dans la foulee de certaines intuitions de Althusser, et ä la lumiere de la conceptualite spinoziste, plusieurs penseurs (notamment Deleuze, Negri, Macherey, Matheron et Virno) ont ainsi propose un nouveau modele d'organisation de la vie en commun. Ces acteurs de la renaissance spinoziste redigent, en quelque sorte, le chapitre conclusif de la derniere ceuvre de Spinoza (i.e. le Tratte politique reste inacheve) en definissant les nouvelles conditions de la democratic ä l'heure de la deterritorialisation generalisee marquee par l'abolition des frontieres nationales (economie mondiale, reseaux informatiques, etc.). Ce contexte offre l'occasion de repenser la politique en radicalisant les propos de Spinoza et en faisant jouer les notions de "puissance" et de "multitude" non seulement contre les concepts de "pouvoir" et de "peuple" qui en sont venus ä dominer le champ de la reflexion en philosophic politique, mais egalement contre les philosophies de l'histoire fondees sur la dialectique et la teleologie. Apres avoir decrit brievement quelques-uns des principaux enjeux de la politique spinoziste et avoir presente les nouveaux ennemis du spinozisme (neo-liberalisme et marxisme ideologique), nous ferons une genealogie de la refondation neo-spinozienne de Marx (Althusser, Deleuze, Negri) avant de repondre ä la question "Que faire?". II s'agira alors de determiner le role de l'Etat et de situer cette pensee politique par rapport ä l'utopie revolutionnaire. Ce parcours contribuera ä mieux definir les fondements et les implications de la democratic non-representative qui est au cceur des revendications de la renaissance spinoziste.

In this paper I present Pluralistic Kantianism as a viable alternative to other prominent accounts of the determination of the truth conditions of our ordinary empirical statements. I further claim that this sort of Kantianism is capable of handling certain theoretical difficulties faced by any scheme-based semantics. Moreover, Pluralistic Kantianism can shed some light on such crucial issues as cross-cultural communication and understanding. As a result, if the account offered here is on the right track, we may get a palatable alternative to both restrictive monism and apathetic relativism, both of which ultimately fail to explicate or enlighten the successful and unsuccessful instances of cross-cultural understanding.

Im Folgenden werden die unterschiedlichen Nietzsche-Bilder der deutschen Philosophie skizziert und insbesondere wird nach ihrer Bedeutung im nationalsozialistischen Kontext gefragt. Dabei geht es nicht darum, festzustellen, ob Nietzsche ein "Wegbereiter" des Nationalsozialismus war oder nicht. In der Hauptsache sollen die wichtigsten Nietzsche- Interpretationen - aus den Jahren zwischen 1930 und 1945 - in konkreten politischen und gesellschaftlichen Lagen und Verhältnissen sichtbar gemacht werden. Daher werden die konkreten historischen Bedingungen, unter denen Nietzsches Denken gedeutet wurde, zum Ausgangspunkt gemacht. In diesem Vortrag wird auf die wichtigsten Schnittstellen für die Faschisierung von Nietzsches Philosophie hingewiesen. Unter Faschisierung ist eine bestimmte Reorganisation der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft zu verstehen, bei der die Parteien und Organisationen der Arbeiterbewegung ausgeschaltet und die Instanzen der Zivilgesellschaft als Apparate des Führer-Staates refunktionalisiert werden. Als ideelle Vergesellschaftungsmacht leistete die Philosophie hier ihren Beitrag zur Stabilisierung der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft, indem sie eine zustimmende Wahrnehmung der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse organisierte. Gerade in dieser Richtung leistete die Nietzsche- Interpretation zwischen 1933 und 1945 einen wesentlichen Beitrag nicht nur zur Konstitution eines nationalsozialistischen Subjekts, sondern zugleich zur Reproduktion der Herrschaft.

Comment l'humanite peut-elle resoudre les problemes d'une cite close ou d'un monde clos? Un des problemes essentiels pose est celui de l'agrandissement, qui rend les societes difficilement gouvernables et dangereuses, et qui renvoie done ä la question de la guerre. En 1932, Bergson est un des premiers philosophes ä pressentir la possibility de l'extermination, du genocide. Quelle est la place de la democratic d'une part et d'une societe des nations d'autre part dans la resolution des problemes mondiaux? Pour Bergson, la democratic est la conception politique la plus eloignee de la nature, la seule qui transcende, dans ses intentions au moins, les conditions de la societe close. Est-ce que les organisations de cooperation efficaces sont mondiales? Les problemes mondiaux se resolvent, mais seulement si, explique Bergson, une portion süffisante de l'humanite est decidee ä les surmonter. L'humanite, qui n'a cesse de contredire la nature, est capable, pourtant, explique Bergson, de fournir l'efTort necessaire pour depasser ce qui reste clos en 1'homme, de l'ordre de l'immobilite de l'espece. Or cet effort vise la mobilite meme, une conscience synonyme d'invention et de liberte. Penser l'humanite et ses problemes n'a pas pour ambition de decouper des essences, mais d'intervenir dans un processus humain en mouvement. Les problemes mondiaux ne sont ni speciflquement anthropologiques ni speciflquement politiques, mais ä l'articulation des deux, dans une jointure entre theorie et pratique, la ou l'humanite est consciente et, partant, agissante. La conscience des problemes de l'humanite, reels et possibles, est chez Bergson plus metaphysique qu'anthropologique, dans le sens ou il ne s'agit pas d'envisager l'humanite dans l'ensemble de ses determinations, mais d'appliquer ä certains de ses evenements la double perspective du voir et du vouloir propre ä l'intuition metaphysique.

The studying of Marx, said Gyorgy Lukäcs at the beginning of the 1920s, does not mean the uncriticised recognition of the results of his researches, nor the <faith> set in well-defined theses, the interpretation of a <sacred> book. One has to become absorbed in the ceuvre of Marx, so that then, as a second step, one can commence the systematic elaboration of the problems of our age. It is unjust that in western philosophies, especially in the Anglo-Saxon concerning literature the name of the old-age Lukäcs does not appear, or is present as that of some Stalinist inquisitor, the indisputable pillar of Marxism and the Bolshevik movement. Yet his late piece of labour, his vast ontology experiment convincingly shows how one can penetrate the original texts of Marx and at the same time preserve one's conceptual souvereignity, sense of reality, and one's capacity, at least in a latent way, to judge or surpass the thoughts of one's master. This study aims to interpret the problem of Lukäcs's relation to Marx through the analysis of the labour concept of Lukäcs, and would like to prove that the rereading of Lukäcs (and Marx) can serve with surprises, new meanings and morals even today.

According to our opinion, Lukäcs's way does not lead to Marx but to himself and his independent philosophy and in spite of its inconsistency and mistakes it is still one of the most significant achievements of the XXt h century.

In this paper, I examine how and why Heidegger's early conception of freedom as the ground of the self-appropriation of Dasein had been gradually transformed after 1930. The approach of Heidegger to the issue of human freedom displays how his thinking proceeds from Kant's formulation of the problem in "The Third Antinomy" of the first Critique to Sophocles' tragedy of Antigone. I argue that the reason behind this transformation resides in the attempt of thinking the relation between freedom and natural necessity over and beyond the constraints of critical philosophy. What seems pivotal in this transformation is Heidegger's growing concern with the "tragic" in which he envisages the possibility of a genuine exposure to the "truth" of the conflict between freedom and necessity and, more primordially, to the "abode" wherein the encounter between man and Being {Sein) occurs. Here, the "tragic" is pointing to the limits of representation and what is presented. In other words, it exhibits the limits of human freedom in its relation to the truth of Being. In the passion for disclosure of Being {aletheia), man is driven into the freedom of instituting its truth. In Heidegger's late thinking, human freedom is determined not any more by the obligation of choosing oneself but by the necessity of clearing the truth of Being. Human freedom is tragic in the face of this necessity that it has to answer. Therefore, man is envisaged as having no right or mastery over his freedom for there is no total clearing of its origin. Finally, I argue that it seems impossible to understand the transformation in Heidegger's concept of freedom without an appeal to his emphasis on the "tragic" as being an attempt to deepen and to transfigure the problem as treated in Kantian critical philosophy. In its tragic sense, Heidegger's concept of human freedom displays what lies beneath the Kantian antinomy: the incomprehensible origin of human freedom conceived as the event of the historical appropriation of Being {Er-eignis).

The present text shows the hidden root of the question of being in Heidegger's Early Writings. His first logic and epistemological investigations in a neokantian atmosphere moves to ontological interests: he gives up the notion of transcendental subject, and asks for the historical and temporal background of live. In this sense, the young Heidegger gives his work a new direction by searching for the hermeneutical pressupositions that allows philosophy to formulate again the question of being from a radical point of view.

In his Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (GA 65), Heidegger claims: "Making itself intelligible is the suicide of philosophy" (435). He defines intelligibility in terms of the modern metaphysical forms of thinking and speaking about beings as objects of representation. Moreover, intelligibility involves a uniform accessibility for the inauthentic. anybody of an age marked by thoughtlessness. Thus, Heidegger upholds and tries to adhere to a principle of unintelligibility for the thinkers in the crossing from the first beginning to the other beginning of philosophy. Thinkers in the crossing are essentially ambiguous and indefinite in their attempt to move through and away metaphysical thinking toward a be-ing-historical thinking. Their only option is to say the metaphysical language of beings as language of be-ing, and this involves a transformation of language and thinking through a "turning around" of the meaning of metaphysical words. Unintelligibility is an essential feature of this transformed and transformative effort to carry out the ultimate task of "the bringing back of beings from the truth of be-ing" (11). If philosophy makes itself intelligible, then it fails to accomplish its mission in the age of the abandonment of be-ing by beings. Unintelligibility in Heidegger, as he defines it and as it occurs in his own writing, suggests the concomitant demand on us, the philosophers of today, to make the effort to interpret the language of beings as language of be-ing.

Ce que nous voulons faire dans ce travail, est de presenter des concepts differents de terme de l'existence chez Martin Heidegger et Jean-Paul Sartre. Parce que cette analyse nous donnera la possibility de bien comprendre les principales idees de ces penseurs dans la Philosophie contemporaine.D'abord, nous devons remarquer que le terme d'existence retient une place centrale chez eux. Comme nous l'avons expose dans notre travail, la filiation entre ces penseurs est construite particulierement sur cette idee. Dans ce travail, nous avons pose differentes questions, et nous livrons leurs reponses. D'ailleurs, on voit que chez Heidegger, l'essence du dasein reside dans son existence, et chez Sartre l'existence precede l'essence. En plus, quand Sartre parle d'existence, c'est de maniere abstraite, autrement dit l'existence est un concept analytique. L'existence sartrienne etant la facticite, elle exprime la condition humaine d'un etre pour lequel dans son etre il y va de son etre. D'un autre cote, l'existence pour Heidegger n'est pas un cadre abstrait, un autre mot pour dire la condition humaine mais un lieu etrange et inquietant.Brievement, l'une des plus grandes caracteristiques de l'existence chez Heidegger est qu'elle n'est pas connaissable objectivement, et n'est pas definissable tout court. Mais chez Sartre, l'existence, c'est avant tout d'etre dans ses actes et par ses actes.