Though seen in several photographs, Alfred von Sybel remained for many years a rather unknown member of the early phenomenological movement. Detailed documentation of his life and work only became available following research on the “Circle of Bergzabern,” a group comprised of former members from the “Philosophical Society Göttingen”: von Sybel, Conrad, Conrad-Martius, Hering, Koyré, Lipps and Stein, were listed as the seven participants. In the Phänomenologenlied, written in 1907, von Sybel outlined the groups’ approach: “to the things themselves” (zu den Sachen selbst), in a programmatic way, and it became an integral part of their meetings. Following his extensive correspondence, this article reveals von Sybel’s desperate search for fellowship and orientation, which resulted in a very puzzling life. Thus, this first ever-published comprehensive biography of von Sybel mirrors the mysteries surroundingthe song: different versions exist and due to a lack of details it remains a puzzle which version is the original one.

Cet article revoit la notion de la volonté chez Foucault en la resituant entre ses réflexions sur la modernité et ses travaux plus tardifs sur l’éthique et la subjectivité dans le monde gréco-romain. Le problème de la critique sert de prétexte pour reconsidérer l’étroitesse des rapports entre les philosophies kantienne et foucaldienne. L’article présente d’abord le concept de la volonté dans la morale ancienne et chez Kant, pour y confronter ensuite le problème de la critique, tel que Foucault en rend compte dans un texte de 1978 (« Qu’est-ce que la critique ? »), et effectuer enfin un dernier retour vers l’éthique. Ce mouvement de va-et-vient entre l’éthique et la critique suit un second cercle de compréhension qui éclaire l’un par l’autre les discours de Kant et de Foucault, en mêmetemps que les problématiques historiques qu’ils partagent. La volonté y est présentée chaque fois comme une activité du sujet qui a à se constituer lui-même en tant qu’être libre. Or, ce dernier a aussi à se positionner dans la modernité en rapport à une a utorité qui fonctionne de plus en plus comme un « gouvernement des âmes ». Le rapport à Foucault saisit d’une part l’historicité de la question kantienne de l’autonomie. Le rapport inverse reconnaît d’autre part un aspect peut-être indépassable de toute subjectivité éthique : l’espace transcendantal que la raison pratique articule chez Kant entre les notions de volonté, d’autonomie et de liberté.

Hegel famously identifies Protestant conscience and its corresponding state as reflecting the unity of ethical and religious principles, thereby bringing into actuality the truth of human spirit. However, he also reminds us that it is vital to free states that the Church remain divided, rather than unifying into one sect. Thus, he affirms a secular state above religious conflict, but explicitly takes sides in one such conflict, out of the interest philosophy has in the development of the Protestant nation-state. In this paper, I resolve this tension by articulating Hegel’s account of philosophy’s interest in historical movements in general, and of the historical relationship between religion and the state in particular. Focusing on his account of the contemporary struggle between Catholicism and Lutheranism,I then develop an account of philosophy’s interest in religious conflict. I close with some schematic remarks on the ‘Hegelianism’ of some recent Catholic movements.

La plupart des recherches entreprises sur la philosophie de Michel Foucault ont visé jusqu’à maintenant à définir et assigner son travail à une étiquette politique définie. Foucault est pour les uns anarchiste, pour les autres nihiliste ou encore simple militant de gauche. Ce qui est étonnant avec cet effort, c’est que malgré la multiplicité des lectures, elles peuvent toutes se justifier et trouver quelques appuis dans son oeuvre. Par contre, en entreprenant la recherchedu politique de cette façon, c’est-à-dire en posant à Foucault la question programmatique du « ce qu’il faut faire », nous tombons dans un piège que lui-même a toujours souhaité éviter, celui d’« unidimensionnaliser » sa pensée. Mais alors, comment lire son oeuvre sans nous-mêmes appliquer cette morale d’État civil demandant à chaque philosophe ses papiers politiques ? En quoi, si nous refusons cette question, la pensée de Foucault peut-elle demeurer une pensée politique ? Notre thèse est la suivante : en examinant la manière avec laquelle Foucault ré􀏔léchit le politique dans son cours au Collège de France Le Gouvernement de soi et des autres, nous p ouvons m ontrer c omment, vers la fin de sa vie, il a changé l’angle de la question. En effet, dans ce cours, l’activité politique n’est plus envisagée à partir de la question du « ce qu’il faut faire », mais à partir de l’expérience du pouvoir elle-même, c’est-àdire comment sommes-nous en mesure d’exercer le pouvoir sur les autres. La tâche du philosophe n’est donc plus celle du « donneur de leçon » pense Foucault dans ce cours, mais celle de faire de sa vie un exemple où parole et acte, discours et vérité sont intimement reliés.

Cet article aborde le concept du réel de la philosophie dans la lecture foucaldienne de Platon par le biais du problème de la méthode. Dans un premier temps, on y trouve une exposition du sens de la critique chez Foucault, faisant intervenir le rapport circulaire entre la méthode et le matériel sur lequel il s’exerce. Cette discussion dégage de ses ouvrages une variété ontologique de la critique, à la fois analogue et irréductiblement distincte de la critique épistémologiqueissue de la philosophie transcendantale dans la tradition de la première Critique de Kant. Dans un deuxième temps, la lecture de Platon élaborée par Foucault dans Le Gouvernement de soi et des autres est examinée autour du thème de la réalité propre à la pratique philosophique. Celui-ci relève une conception platonicienne de la philosophie comme ascèse, selon laquelle le philosophe doit renoncer à s’adresser à la vérité en tant que logos, afin dechercher à se transformer en se mettant à l’épreuve de la réalité de sa pratique. Cette tâche requiert l’acquisition d’un trio de capacités qui ensemble constituent la structure de la pratique philosophique : le pouvoir d’être écouté (le cercle de la réceptivité de l’autre), le pouvoir d’être soi-même (le cercle de la spontanéité), et le pouvoir de ne pas être lu (le cercle de la connaissance). Ce texte débouche ainsi sur un modèle de la philosophie d’inspiration platoniciennequi complète et enrichit la méthode de la critique ontologique que Foucault élabore à partir de Kant et de Nietzsche.

Cet article considère les concepts de la confession et de la parrêsia dans l’oeuvre de Michel Foucault et les applique à l’analyse de la construction du sujet femme. Il montre comment dans une perspective confessionnelle, la femme entretiendrait un rapport à ellemême et aux autres qui tend à un auto-assujettissement selon des catégories normatives essentialistes. À ce dire-vrai confessionnel, j’oppose le dire-vrai parrèsiastique, en m’interrogeant sur la possibilité d’attribuer un rôle émancipateur à l’identité « femme ». La parrêsia devient alors le modèle d’un discours critique, qui se rapproche de la critique sociale caractérisant le féminisme. Je retrouve ainsi dans l’histoire du féminisme des témoignages de ce que Foucault redécouvre chez le Grecs comme parrêsia politique, éthique et cynique.

This essay explains Mariátegui’s critical relationship with Breton in terms of his views on Surrealism. In order to understand this relationship, this essay engages in an analysis of (i) Mariátegui’s notion of the avant-garde as a synthesis of aesthetics and politics and of (ii) the positioning of Mariátegui’s avant-garde in relation to post First World War European bourgeoisie and fascism. This interpretation of Mariátegui’s reveals a determination of Surrealism as discipline that preserves this movement’s revolutionary task in different geo-historical sites. With attention to the difficult, non-systematic character of Mariátegui’s writings, this essay also provides a series of concepts that could assist further interpretations of Mariátegui’s aesthetics and politics.

The testimonies of men raped by men in Uganda indicate that the meaning of rape as an aggression that enforces the gendering of women as vulnerable and therefore dependent on men's protection needs to be reformulated to account for the fact that being raped transforms a man into a woman. In describing their humiliation, these men reveal that gendered masculinity is grounded in a flight from vulnerability that depends on the presence of vulnerable/rapeable victim bodies. Their words teach us that as long as men's illicit identity as autonomous and invulnerable is illegitimately secured by stigmatizing vulnerability, heterosexual and male-male rape will be used to denigrate women and men alike. They indicate that the antidote to the scourge of rape lies in delegitimizing gender systems that victimize vulnerability and in creating cultural norms that recognize vulnerability as inherent in the interdependence and dignity of the human condition.

My essay consists of three parts. In the first section, I review the historical context of Baroque aesthetics as it is developed during the late 16th and 17th centuries in Europe and then I track its development in Latin America into the third quarter of the 18th century. The principled excess of the Baroque, to adapt Cyrano de Bergerac’s formulation cited below, was designed for theological and imperial purposes. Secondly, I address more recent literature and literary theory. Why, in the early 20th century, did Latin American poets, novelists, essayists and critics begin to rediscover, recover and reconstitute Baroque modes of expression? What was it about this Catholic, monarchical, colonizing aesthetic that now seemed suited to postcolonial purposes? I refer to several theorists and writers who pioneered and/or inspired the 20th-century idea of the New World Baroque as a rebellious retort to Europe rather than a passive reflection. My third section considers how to teach the politics of Baroque aesthetics, and why Baroque aesthetics remains relevant today.

Philosophers from traditions that are not only entirely different but apparently uninfluenced by each other sometimes show remarkable similarities. In the case of Spinoza and Shankara such similarities include the dual-aspect model according to which the apparent pluralism of the world rests on an inadequate perception of its oneness, and the way the overcoming of that inadequacy is conceived as a liberation from the passions and an achievement of immortality. A significant difference between the two, however, is that Spinoza's explanations are epistemologically conceived while Shankara's are conceived ontologically. Not that Spinoza lacked an ontology or Shankara an epistemology, but rather their explanatory approaches emphasize the differences of the worlds within which they wrote.

Merleau-Ponty identifies an intertwined affective state of anxiety and courage, claiming that these are one and the same thing, as a fundamental characteristic of human existence. I argue that trust, understood as phenomenologically basic, is the unity, or the something beyond, the singularly conceived states of anxiety and courage, and that trust itself cannot be conceived apart from these states. Merleau-Ponty says little, directly, about trust in his work, yet his focus on the fundamental precariousness of existence demands such an exploration. I explore how our ordinary day-to-day experience of existence is related to an intertwined affective state of anxiety and courage and how trust is operative in affective depth, in order to understand how it is we come to speak of trust not only in terms of proximity and distance, emotional depth and extension across time, but most markedly, in terms of how we see someone and what it is like to be in relation to them.

This paper seeks to circumscribe the concepts, sources, and limits of Nietzsche’s early ethical thought through a reconstruction of his ethical "symptomatology." In the 1870s, Nietzsche stressed that the Greeks understood the true nature of the political phenomenon, and that this could correct fundamental errors that were responsible for the illness of German culture. His definition of the Greek ethos radically challenges modern democratic politics through a reassertion of aristocratic, heroic, and agonistic values. But because Nietzsche did not systematically describe his early ethics, a reconstruction is necessary. His metaphor of the philosopher as a “physician of culture” is a guide for this reconstruction. Using concepts of wellness and illness, Nietzsche identified different symptoms and possible remedies, and hoped to cure German culture through a therapeutic transvaluation of modernity. To reconstruct this symptomatology I turn to The Greek State, Homer’s Contest, and The Birth of Tragedy. First, I define the notions of “agon” and “eris” that are central to his reading of Greek ethics. I then describe four ethical symptoms and their remedies. I conclude with interpretative hypotheses that address issues that were left unanswered by Nietzsche. This symptomatology shows that his reading of Greek ethics functions as a radical—albeit fragmentary—normative critique of his time, and of our democratic age.

In the classic essays Ariel (1900) and Filosofía de la vida artística (1950), the Uruguayan José Enrique Rodó (1872–1917) and the Mexican Samuel Ramos (1897–1959) present distinctive and divergent claims about aesthetics. While Rodó asserts the existence of an innate and abundant aesthetic sensibility among Latin Americans, Ramos believes that aesthetic experience is relatively rare and that aesthetic sensibility needs to be cultivated. While historical grounding in the Latin American context is missing in the works of both Rodó and Ramos, Ariel contains an argument for an innate Latin American aesthetic sensibility linked to high moral development along with the hope that Latin America's youth will use their aesthetic and moral gifts to advance Latin America's place in the 20th century. In Filosofía de la vida artística, Ramos argues that the aesthetic experience in Mexico is far from innate or even widespread: on the contrary, it is rare and much in need of further development. Kant, referenced by both Rodó and Ramos, in his Critique of Judgment, argues against a relationship between aesthetic sensibility and moral capacity. Rodó, then, is at odds with Kant while Ramos's view is closer to Kant's.

Ortega’s philosophy can be conceived as a permanent dialogue between contemporary European spiritual currents and Spanish reality. The following paper tries to justify this statement in the field of aesthetics. We examine the main intellectual periods of Ortega’s oeuvre from this point of view, beginning with neo-Kantianism, moving to his encounter with phenomenology and life-philosophies, adding a touch of existentialist thinking and, finally, reaching the balance of a hermeneutical life-philosophy in his books on Velázquez and Goya

In The Troubadour of Knowledge, Michel Serres demonstrates, by means of an extended discussion of learning, that our capacity to adopt a position presupposes a kind of disorienting exposure to a dimension of pure possibility that both subtends and destabilizes that position. In this paper I trace out the implications of this insight for our understanding of obligation, especially as it is articulated in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Specifically, I argue that obligation is given along with a dimension of moral possibility, and not, as Kant thought, as an unmediated fact of reason.

This essay deals with two poetics of distinctly different traditions that arrived at the same concept of literary art, one in which the reader of, or listener to, a poem shares in the creative process with the poet. The first tradition I will examine is the that of the pre-Hispanic Mexican poets of the Cantares mexicanos and the 20th- century appropriation of their work by two of Mexico's most distinguished poets, Octavio Paz (1914–1998) and ]ose Emilio Pacheco (1939–2014), both awarded the Premio Cervantes, and Paz, the Nobel Prize. The second part of this essay examines the contemporary Continental tradition of philosophical hermeneutics that began with Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2001) and culminated in the work of Paul Ricoeur (1913– 2005). Although Heidegger is now well known among philosophers throughout the world, it should be noted that ]ose Gaos of the National University of Mexico, an exile from Spain, completed the first translation of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit in 1951, more than a decade before the English and French translations appeared.

This article identifies temporality as a constructed and elemental level of aesthetic experience, and exposes the elemental role of such aesthetic experience in the unfolding of contemporary Latin American liberatory thought. This particularly with regard to the sense of temporality that underlies the unfolding of the development of modernity, a development that occurs throughout the colonization of the Americas in the construction of a rational European ego cogito and its "other." Temporality in the westernizing linear sense figures a projective horizon for the perception and understanding of existence and its coming. The key aim and meaning of all existence under this linear temporality is order and progress. However, ultimately in looking at Latin American thought and experience one finds a distinct sense of history and temporality beyond the possible determination of that sustaining westernizing European thought. In the recognition of distinct temporalities space-times open for rethinking modernity (understood at large now with the inclusion of distinct Latin American experience and thought) and the accompanying senses of humanity, life, freedom, and philosophical thought's issues and ways of articulating beings.

Political philosopher Leo Strauss’s extensive engagements with Aristophanes’s comedies represent a remarkable perspective in debates concerning the political and wider meaning of Aristophanes’s plays. Yet they have attracted nearly no critical response. This paper argues that for Strauss, Aristophanes was a very serious, philosophically-minded author who wrote esoterically, using the comic form to convey his conception of man, and his answer to the Socraticquestion of the best form of life. Part I addresses Strauss’s central reading of the Clouds, which positions this play as Aristophanes’s powerful, exoteric criticism of any purely theoretical philosophy that feels no need to explain or accommodate its pursuit to political life. Part II looks at Strauss’s remarkable reading of the Platonic Aristophanes’s central speech in the Symposium, which suggests that Aristophanes was a secret friend and admirer of philosophy conceived in the Platonic manner, as an erotic search for the truth of nature, beneath Aristophanes’s religiously pious and culturally conservative veneer. Indeed, Part III of the paper shows that Strauss’s readings of the Birds, Peace and Wasps indicate that Strauss believed that Aristophanes was such an esoteric friend to the philosophy he had lampooned in the Clouds.