Author: David Owen File Type: pdf A landmark work of western philosophy, On the Genealogy of Morality is a dazzling and brilliantly incisive attack on European morality. Combining philosophical acuity with psychological insight in prose of remarkable rhetorical power, Nietzsche takes up the task of offering us reasons to engage in a re-evaluation of our values. In this book, David Owen offers a reflective and insightful analysis of Nietzsches text. He provides an account of how Nietzsche comes to the project of the re-evaluation of values he shows how the development of Nietzsches understanding of the requirements of this project lead him to acknowledge the need for the kind of investigation of morality that he terms genealogy he elucidates the general structure and substantive arguments of Nietzsches text, accounting for the rhetorical form of these arguments, and he debates the character of genealogy (as exemplified by Nietzsches Genealogy) as a form of critical enquiry. Owen argues that there is a specific development of Nietzsches work from his earlier Daybreak (1881) and that in Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche is developing a critique of modes of agency and that this constitutes the most fundamental aspect of his demand for a revaluation of values. The book is a distinctive and significant contribution to our understanding of Nietzsches great text.ReviewWritten with admirable clarity and precision, and a great deal of philosophical acumen, David Owens introduction is indispensable for students seeking an understanding of some core aspects of Nietzsches text and its figuration in recent philosophical debates. - Keith Ansell Pearson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick About the AuthorDavid Owen is professor of social and political theory at the University of Southampton.

Author: Fereydoun Hoveyda File Type: pdf Twenty-two years after Ayatollah Khomeinis ascent to power in Iran many aspects of his 1979 Islamic revolution remain obscure if not baffling. For instance, in November 1978 an offer was made to him in his Paris exile to return to Iran with international guarantees of freedom of speech and action. He refused and demanded the departure of the Shah. Americans put pressure on the monarch to leave the country. Khomeini arrived in Tehran in early February 1979, and he immediately demanded the return of the Shah and his trial before an Islamic tribunal! No one could give a valid explanation of this contradiction in Khomeinis conduct and demands. Many other mysteries in the unfolding of the revolution and the policies of the Islamic republic which replaced the monarchy have gone unexplained up to now. Scholars and experts in the West have offered the usual explanations for the Islamic revolution-corruption, deepening gaps between the rich and the poor, rapid industrialization, sky-rocketing inflation, westernizing policies that offended traditions, lack of democratic institutions, authoritarian rule, and on and on. But such characteristics which exist in other Muslim countries, especially in the Arab world, fail to clairify the particularities of the Iranian revolution. Indeed, as Ambassador Hoveyda points out, Iran is not an Arab country. It has kept alive its ancient mythological heritage which is not Islamic. It is an Indo-European nation with a recorded history of three thousand years! To understand the real causes of the 1979 revolution one must refer to the deep-rooted beliefs of Iranians and to their very rich mythology. One must also take into account the kind of Islam-shiism-Iranians have created and nurtured. In fact, Iran is a powerful example of how mythologies remain alive and can account for the conduct of a whole nation. Hoveyda shows the influence of myths in history-in-the-making. Indeed, he has found in the Iranian revolution many points that can be clarified only by the impact of old mythology and mindsets. He provides a very original explanation of the events that led to the fall of the Shah and the ascent of Khomeini, changing the political and diplomatic situation in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea region. As such it will be of great interest to scholars, students, researchers, and foreign policy makers involved with the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalism. **Review Although Hoveyda does not offer new historical information, his rather unique approach to the long history of Iran makes the book fascinating and provides a new way to look at Iranian history. Highly recommended. All levelslibraries.-Choice [i]ntriguing and thought provoking, ....a humbling warning that trying to move ancient societies is pretty risky business.-Middle East Journal Yintriguing and thought provoking, ....a humbling warning that trying to move ancient societies is pretty risky business.-Middle East Journal ?[i]ntriguing and thought provoking, ....a humbling warning that trying to move ancient societies is pretty risky business.?-Middle East Journal ?Although Hoveyda does not offer new historical information, his rather unique approach to the long history of Iran makes the book fascinating and provides a new way to look at Iranian history. Highly recommended. All levelslibraries.?-Choice About the Author FEREYDOUN HOVEYDA is a Senior Fellow with the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He also is a former Iranian Ambassador to the UN (1971-1978). In 1972 and 1973, he chaired the UN Committee on International Terrorism created after the assassination of Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Germany. A widely published author of fiction and nonfiction, is Les neiges du Sinai won the Leopold Senghor Award in 1973.

Author: William F. Bristow File Type: pdf William Bristow has written a superb book that makes a significant contribution both to the study of Hegel and Kant, and to current discussions of Hegelian and Kantian themes in epistemology.--Paul Franks, Notre Dame Philosophical ReviewsWilliam F. Bristow presents an original and illuminating study of Hegels hugely influential but notoriously difficult Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel describes the method of this work as a way of despair, meaning thereby that the reader who undertakes its inquiry must be open to the experience of self-loss through it. Whereas the existential dimension of Hegels work has often been either ignored or regarded as romantic ornamentation, Bristow argues that it belongs centrally to Hegels attempt to fulfil a demanding epistemological ambition. With his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant expressed a new epistemological demand with respect to rational knowledge and presented a new method for meeting this demand. Bristow reconstructs Hegels objection to Kants Critical Philosophy, according to which Kants way of meeting the epistemological demand of philosophical critique presupposes subjectivism, that is, presupposes the restriction of our knowledge to things as they are merely for us. Whereas Hegel in his early Jena writings rejects Kants critical project altogether on this basis, he comes to see that the epistemological demand expressed in Kants project must be met. Bristow argues that Hegels method in the Phenomenology of Spirit takes shape as his attempt to meet the epistemological demand of Kantian critique without presupposing subjectivism. The key to Hegels transformation of Kants critical procedure, by virtue of which subjectivism is to be avoided, is precisely the existential or self-transformational dimension of Hegels criticism, the openness of the criticizing subject to being transformed through the epistemological procedure.

Author: Guido Ruivenkamp File Type: pdf In the wake of socialisms demise and liberalisms loss of direction, new ideas are needed for the next major realignment of the social and political domain. Making a unique contribution to the idea of the commons, this book offers a radical new model for direct democracy. In contrast to current scholarship that has looked at the commons from the perspective of governance, this book instead focuses on the idea of commoning as social practice. Perspectives on Commoning argues that the commons are not just resources external to us, but are a function of what we do. Covering everything from biopolitics to communication technologies, urban spaces to agricultural sovereignty, the contributors to this volume address the commons as both theory and history, providing a useful review of current conceptions as well as practical proposals for the future. A unique consolidation of political philosophy, sociology and economics, the book shows how a new understanding of the commons as practice will help to achieve its full emancipatory potential. **