Volume 63, Issue 3

In this article, Charles Larmore lays out the idea of an “ethics of reading”. Its concern does not lie with the consequences of reading, but rather with our very relation as readers to what we read, with our responsibility as readers to a text in interpreting what it says. Larmore discusses at length the nature of textual interpretation in order to show that this relation of responsibility is indeed ethical in nature since it consists in a relation to another person: what a text says or means is what the author effectively intended it to say or mean. Yet the ethical nature of the reading relation is special in kind since it relates us directly, not to the author, who is absent, but to the text, which unlike a person is unable to object to how it may be mistreated - that is, deliberately or negligently misread. In this fact there appears the ultimate import of the ethics of reading: it exemplifies the very essence of ethical thinking. The moral point of view consists in seeing in another’s good a reason for action on our part, apart from all consideration of our own good. As a result, our moral character shows itself most clearly in the way we treat the vulnerable, those with little power, few resources, or no social standing, who cannot make it in our interest to treat them well. In this regard, the ethics of reading does not have to do merely with one ethical relation among others. It points to the very heart of the moral point of view.

Human dignity is a contested and maybe essentially contested concept. One prominent interpretation links dignity with self-respect, claiming that a violation of dignity is a form of disrespect that erodes the grounds of self-respect. However, this linkage of dignity and self-respect does not immediately solve the difficulty of understanding dignity. Self-respect might turn out to be a similarly contested concept, but it might also be more open to analytical scrutiny than dignity is. Following this possibility, I discuss three different contemporary theories that link dignity with self-respect in different ways, which were developed by Peter Schaber, Arnd Pollmann and Ralf Stoecker respectively. I will then argue that those theories present illuminating interpretations of respect, but somewhat neglect a thorough discussion of the self that is to be respected. However, such a discussion of the self or - to express it in a rather less metaphysical way - identity is necessary, or so I will argue, for a full understating of the relation of dignity and self-respect.

Relying on the assumption that Spinoza makes a double use of the principle of sufficient reason, Michael Della Rocca has defended a reconstruction of Spinoza’s approach as a metaphysical outlook according to which all particulars vanish in the only and one divine substance. This implies nothing less than a radical attempt to suggest a new and completely revisionary form of metaphysics. After a short discussion of Strawson’s distinction between revisionary and descriptive metaphysics and an exposition of the basic principles of Della Rocca’s interpretation, I critically assess his attack of the use of intuitions in analytic philosophy. After discussing the extent to which the first book of Spinoza’s Ethics is appropriately described as a revisionary project, I conclude with an argument for the necessity of both descriptive and revisionary elements in metaphysics.

Does Spinoza accept finite individuals as really existing things? Or does he endorse the thesis that the substance is the only thing with real existence? This paper argues that his monism does not rule out the existence of individuals that have dependent, yet real existence. Spinoza defends a form of priority monism, taking the substance to be the foundation of all finite individuals, and thereby rejects existence monism. On his view, finite individuals are “power parts”: being founded in the substance, they have their active power from it. The paper argues for this thesis by analyzing Spinoza’s definition of parts. Moreover, it pays close attention to his functional individuation of parts that makes it possible to individuate different types of “power parts” at different levels.

The current enthusiasm for the original and radical democratic nature of Spinoza’s political philosophy is not easy to justify, given the elusive character of his few systematic remarks on democracy. But the Ethics as well as the political writings contain a substantial political theory centered on the figure of the multitudo (or people) that proves useful for current theorizing. It can help to conceive of democracy not only as form-of-state but as form-of-life; it might serve as the starting point for a conception of non-identitarian, “heterogeneous democracy”; and it can provide a model for understanding political philosophy as political ontology.

This letter from Brazil gives a brief introduction to the history of philosophy in Brazil and an overview of the present situation of philosophy at Brazilian universities. It puts the development of Brazilian academic philosophy into the context of the political changes Brazil has undergone since the foundation of its first universities. Finally, the letter points out some difficulties which Brazilian academic philosophers face today.

Vor dem Hintergrund eines hohen Mases an Zustimmung fuge ich Michael Hampes Lehren der Philosophie lediglich zwei Anmerkungen hinzu. Unter dem Stichwort „Mikropolitik“ mochte ich erstens Hampes Pladoyer fur ein nicht-doktrinares Philosophieren in methodologischer Hinsicht radikalisieren. Neben der generellen Ermutigung zu kritischer Distanz (und Devianz) rege ich an, die Formenvielfalt und die positiven Gelingensbedingungen philosophisch wirksamer Gesten auch historisch-positiv zu analysieren und dabei - diskursscharf - deren Spezifik zu betrachten. „Kritik“ ist in der Philosophie nicht nur spontaner Unruheherd, sondern besitzt einen ihrerseits kanonisch verburgten Wissenschaftsund Wahrheitsbezug. Um diesen nicht zu trivialisieren, bedarf es einer Genealogie philosophisch zu nennender Kritik. Unter dem Stichwort „Leben“ leuchte ich zweitens einen Kollektivsingular an, dem Hampe zu viel Vertrauen entgegen bringt. Empfohlen werden eine Uberprufung von Implikationen der Wortwahl und Differenzierungen in der Sache.

Michael Hampes Buch ist, als mit Verve vorgebrachter Einspruch gegen das Selbstverstandnis der zeitgenossischen Philosophie, eine hochst willkommene Intervention. Das Buch etabliert aber in der Fulle seiner Themen und Einfalle seinerseits nicht nur eine Kritik an der Philosophie, sondern auch positiv ein bestimmtes Verstandnis von Philosophie, namlich das einer Philosophie als Kritik, einer Kritik, die die gesellschaftlichen Ordnungen im Namen der Erringung semantischer Autonomie uberschreitbar machen soll. Diesem Gegenbild mochte ich im Folgenden nachgehen. Dabei teile ich so viele seiner Positionen und Intuitionen, dass meine Einwande eher als Versuch einer kritischen Aufnahme und Weiterfuhrung der von Hampe ausgehenden Anregungen zu verstehen sind denn als fundamentaler Einspruch.