This thesis examines Karl Jaspers' theory of the origin of man in a historical period 2500 years ago.Jaspers believes that it was then that man's current mental and spiritual consciousness was formed and developed. Jaspers was convinced that man should use the abilities of his origin as a counterforce in the struggle in modern reality, a development which in many respects was based on myths, dogmas and irrationality, and which characterized man's living conditions. After suffering the trauma of World War II until 1945, Jaspers decided to identify the good qualities that he believed all people should have in common, thereby creating new existential conditions. Jaspers started from the archaic and classical times in history and then found a period where man had obviously been endowed with specific soul gifts and cognitive qualities. He called the period "the axial age" in the book published in 1949, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, which was then translated into English in 1953 with the title The Origin and Goal of History. The English edition is the primary source in this study. In his book, Jaspers uses a philosophical-historical perspective on the origins and events that he associates with human development during the axial age, in order to draw attention to the normative image we have of our selves and others as human beings in the world. Jaspers pedagogically describes the life man lives in modernity in the same way as when Plato explains the world of ideas. As it is demonstrated in the thesis, Jasper's idea is based on a speculative reflection on the origin and properties of man and regards it as a "tabula rasa" with new existential conditions intended for man in the modern world, facing a charge and a prelude to the future. Furthermore, the thesis explores comments on and critique of this theory expressed by other scholars.

<p>I analyze Deleuze’s concept of temporality in terms of its ontology and axiological (political and aesthetic) aspects. For Deleuze, the concept of temporality is non-monolithic, in the senses that it is modified throughout his works — the monographs, lectures, and those works that were co-authored with Félix Guattari — and that it is developed through reference to a dizzying array of concepts, thinkers, artistic works, and social phenomena. </p><p>I observe that Deleuze’s concept of temporality involves a complex ontology of difference, which I elaborate through reference to Deleuze’s analyses of Ancient Greek and Stoic conceptualizations of time. From Plato through to Chrysippus, temporality gradually comes to be identified as a form that comprehends the variation of particulars. Deleuze modifies the ancients’ concept of time to suggest that time obtains as a form of ceaseless ontological variation. Through reference to Deleuze’s reading of Gilbert Simondon, I further suggest that Deleuze tends to conceive of temporality as an ontogenetic force which participates in the complex process of individuation. </p><p> A standout feature of this dissertation involves an analysis of how Deleuze’s concept of temporality is modified in his works on cinema. In <i>Cinema 1: The Movement-Image </i>and <i>Cinema 2: The Time-Image, </i>temporality comes to be characterized as something other than the measure of the movement of existents. In his detailed analyses of Bergson — in <i>Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, Cinema 2: The Time-Image</i>, and <i>Bergsonism </i>— Deleuze suggests that time involves an actualization of aspects of a virtual past as contemporaneous with the lived present. While not an outright denial of the relation of temporal succession, Deleuze’s claim implies a diminishment of this relation’s significance in an adequate elaboration of the nature of temporality. </p><p>Further, I observe —through reference to Deleuze’s readings of Marx, Kierkegaard, and Spinoza — that (the explicitly temporal) change of societal forms of economic organization is non-reducible to that suggested by linear evolution. The claim is that putatively discrete modes of economic organization do not enjoy temporal displacement with respect to one another. This suggests that linear evolutionary models of societal development are inadequate. This further implies that temporality is non-reducible to the relation of temporal succession. In concrete terms, societal change is characterized as immanent temporal variation.</p><p>Taken together, these analyses yield the conclusion that Deleuze tends to conceive of the nature of temporality as involving the ongoing realization of multiple — non-identical, sometimes contrary — aspects of a stochastic process of creation that is expressed in ontogenetic circumstances, social evolution, literary works, and filmic works. </p>

My thesis is concerned with the analysis of philosopher Marie Štechová. Based to the previous thesis (defended in 2015 at the University of Ostrava, lead by Prof. Zdeňka Kalnická), which summarizes the published works and manuscripts by Štechová, I can spread the previous research and so in this I can concentrate on the inclusion of the thinker into the context and especially the exploration of the specific gender aspects of her philosophy. These will then be compared with the views of other thinkers and thinkers of the period. The main aim of this diploma thesis is to extend not only the philosophical but also the literary canon about female thinkers, and also to bring closer the idea of the femininity of thinkers and thinkers at the end of the 19th century on the Czech territory.

The reception of deconstruction in recent art historiography The aim of the presented master thesis is to outline the reception of deconstruction in the contemporary art historiography and the introduction of its effects on the discipline of art history. The work deals with the term deconstruction in the sense of (1) the original philisophical and critical writing of Jacques Derrida, and (2) the method, which was implemented to literary studies at the end of the 70s and later on to other humanities, including the art history. First, theoretical part of the thesis introduces Derrida's thoughts, epistemology and the strategy of deconstruction. Second part reflects the epistemological changes a implementation of the deconstructive criticism into the art history. After imbedding the "deconstructive" current into the broader development of art history and reading of some methodological handbooks, we turn to concrete works of some art historians and their individual uses of the deconstructive implulses, namely Donald Preziosi, Norman Bryson, Michael Ann Holly, Keith Moxey, and to a lesser extend also W. J. T. Mitchell, Craig Owens, Rosalind Krauss, Stephen Melville, Donald Crimp, David Carrier and Victor Burgin. As opposed to the original derridian deconstruction, in its aplied form (art history,...

<p>  </p> <p>Medicine is often referred to as both a science and an art. The scientific rigor of medicine has allowed for the advanced and effective treatment of disease whereas the humanistic art of medicine has allowed for clinicians to uncover how best to care for their patients in a compassionate manner. This dissertation hopes to discover how medicine can coordinate scientific expertise with compassionately focused care. The goal of this dissertation, then, is to uncover how medicine can begin to develop a more personalized medicine in which patient’s values and life-plans are coordinated with a scientific understanding of the treatment of disease. First, this dissertation establishes how medicine can be split into two perspectival understandings of disease (a first-personal and second-personal understanding), then it argues how these two understands can be coordinated with one another to develop a more holistic understanding of patient care. Next, this dissertation illustrates how concepts from phenomenology hold relevance within clinical practice in order to show how clinicians can develop a more robust understand of their patients as persons. This understanding is then used to recapture an account of the clinical relevance of empathy so that clinicians are better able to imagine what it might be like to be a patient living through illness.</p>

Despite Hannah Arendt's prediction in the wake of World War II that "the problem of evil will be the fundamental question of post-war intellectual life," the majority of postwar philosophers have preferred to stay away from the idea of evil. But at the same time that philosophical reflection on the notion of evil has dissipated, there is no denying the fact that referring to "evil" has remained very common among the public at large, among political leaders, and in popular culture. To better understand what meaning the concept of evil might have for us today, in this paper I will address two main questions. First, recognizing the problems recent philosophers have raised against the idea of "evil," we should ask if we should simply take our leave of the concept of evil, admitting that it has been exhausted by overuse, shifting intellectual paradigms, and a triumphant secular age. In other words, does it make any sense for us today to go beyond calling something wrong or unjust or harmful or unspeakable and to speak in terms of "evil?" Is talk about evil simply a relic of a way of speaking and thinking about the world that we have long left behind? Is "evil" in fact one of those terms that have always drawn people into error and sometimes even into committing horrific acts? Second, if we believe we can begin to address this first set of questions about the notion of evil, it remains to be seen what exactly we might mean by evil. What are we pointing to when we call something "evil?" What makes something evil rather than merely wrong or unjust? What kinds of things do we reserve the judgment of evil for? This set of questions leads us to come up with a substantive account of evil, an account of what evil is and what distinguishes evil from other wrongdoing. To address these questions, our argument will proceed as follows. We will begin with an overview of the recent return to discussing evil after a turn away from evil by the majority working in philosophy. After giving a brief historical overview of these shifts we will then begin to argue for the need for philosophers to think about evil and the concept of evil. In short, as I will argue, because we continue to turn to the notion of evil in response to extreme forms of wrongdoing, philosophical reflection is warranted in trying to clarify what we might reasonably mean when we call an agent or action evil. Moving to a discussion of the idea of radical evil, we will begin with a close reading and interpretation of Kant's account of radical evil, pausing to discuss what he gets right and where he may err. We will then move to recent discussions of evil in contemporary philosophy, much of which can be understood as revolving around Kant's account of radical evil. In these contemporary accounts, evil is no longer used in an inclusive, wide sense, but almost exclusively to refer to the kinds of extreme, unforgivable wrongdoing we might classify under the notion of radical evil. In these recent accounts, there is an attempt to distinguish degrees of evil, between the "normal" or "ordinary" evils of serious wrongdoing that we nevertheless can understand, punish, and cope with, versus the "radical" or extreme evils that we cannot really understand, punish, or fit into our intellectual and moral frameworks. After discussing these recent accounts and appreciating the progress they make, we will nevertheless ask whether they can really help us grasp the kinds of horrendous evil they were developed in response to. In particular, we will argue that these recent accounts still fail to appreciate the notion of radical evil to its full extent, preferring to focus on the harm caused and on notions like the banality of evil and ordinary evildoers, projects which may end up distorting the nature of evil. Looking to some recent reflections on radical evil, we will argue that the Kantian notion of a perversion of the will and an evil heart help us to understand that radical evil is something that is usually anything but banal, but is a fundamental breach of our normal standards of wrongness and that this quality of excess and the inversion of the moral is what lies at the core of the acts and agents we deem evil. We will conclude by looking at the necessary limits of any abstract discussion of evil in general and how particular evils such as those experienced at Auschwitz cannot even begin to be explained by such accounts, arguing that our discomfort and horror in the face of evil nevertheless remains but that such attempts at reflection and understanding evil remain necessary and urgent.

Mit Immanuel Kant beginnt das Problem der Geschichte der Philosophie als philosophisches Problem; zu Kant kehren daher die aktuellen Problematisierungsversuche gerne zurück, so auch Axel Beelmann. Eingangs schildert Beelmann in dramatischer Weise den Skandal, den eine systematische Vernunft im Faktum einer Philosophiegeschichte anerkennen muss, welche verschiedene Kulturen kennt, unterschiedliche Probleme benennt und divergierende Begrifflichkeiten einräumen muss. Es wird ein 'Graben' zwischen systematischem und geschichtlichem Philosophieren aufgeworfen, welcher seit Kant - der sein eigenes Projekt einer 'philosophischen Archäologie' nicht ausbaute - hauptsächlich auf zwei Wegen überwunden wird: im Entwicklungsdenken und als Narration. Beelmann unterscheidet eine 'spekulative Philosophiegeschichte' von einer 'philosophischen Philosophiehistorie' und einer 'historischen Philosophiehistorie', womit eine Typologie für seine Untersuchung gegeben ist, alle prinzipiellen Möglichkeiten aufzuzeigen, 'die Philosophie in ein Verhältnis zu ihrer Geschichte zu bringen'.

Was kann man unter Kulturphilosophie verstehen? Umfaßt sie den Bereich alter Artikulationsbedingungen des philosophischen Denkens? Oder fällt darunter der Bereich eines sozusagen randständigen historischen Wissens, welches das Philosophieren nur nebenbei berührt? Was wollen wir wissen, wenn wir nach der Kulturgeschichte der Philosophie fragen? Wollen wir überhaupt etwas wissen? Oder interessiert uns an dieser Frage ihr irrationales Potential, ihre Abseitigkeit, die sie jedenfalls für Philosophen hat? Wollen wir vielleicht unsere Vorstellung von Philosophie ändern, erweitern, indem wir nach ihr auch kulturhistorisch fragen? Oder wollen wir uns willentlich in Abseits der varia et curiosa begeben und unsere Vorstellung von Philosophie lediglich ergänzen, sozusagen garnieren, indem wir die Rubrik \'interessante Einzelheiten\' eröffnen und darunter sammeln, was wir für bemerkenswert halten. weil es \'auch\' zur Philosophie gehört?

As the twentieth century dawned in the western world, there were voices both inside and out of the Christian Church that began to question religion's central place in man's daily life. Had humanity finally progressed to the point where religion was no longer necessary? Had we at long last developed the characteristics and perspectives that religion had attempted to engrain within us? Or were the rules and regulations of religion still needed to ensure the continued advancement of civilization? This is a study of two opposing voices in that debate: theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and ethicist Paul Ramsey. What follows is my attempt to examine, explain, and expound upon the philosophies of both men in an endeavor to more fully understand their perspectives and the implications each has for civilization and religion as we move now firmly into the twenty-first century and beyond.

In the recent literature, there is some debate over Reid’s theory of perception. Commentators are divided on whether or not Reid’s theory is consistent with an acquaintance model of perception. I will show that Reid’s views are not consistent with an acquaintance model, but that he nevertheless had good reasons to subscribe to this model. There is, therefore, an interesting tension in Reid’s theory of perception. I then develop a modified Reidian acquaintance model of perception as a way of resolving these tensions in light of an argument contained in Reid’s Philosophical Orations, and defuse recent objections to the acquaintance interpretation in the process. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this dissertation I examine an ongoing debate in the contemporary literature on Thomas Reid over the nature of his account of perception. I argue that one interpretation of Reid’s theory of perception that has been entertained fails, and that this does not, for various reasons, bode well for the viability of his account. I argue that Reid had available a straightforward way to revise his theory in order to avoid this difficulty, and I explicate this simple revision.