In this paper I highlight two opposing models of the notion of divine revelation: the propositional and the radical. The propositional understanding of revelation was central to theology and philosophy until the 19th century. Since then, a number of other models of revelation have emerged. I define as radical the understanding of revelation which emphasizes two features of revelation: 1) God's existence is *per se* revelatory; 2) God's revelation is *per se* self-revelation. I propose too an assessment of the notion of propositional revelation as presented by Richard Swinburne. And I offer detailed analyses of two representatives of the early understanding of divine revelation as self-revelation: the views of Bernard Bolzano and Anton Günther. Bolzano, the renowned mathematician, was also a philosopher of religion; and Günther, one of the most ingenious writers in Austrian philosophy, was not only a theologian but also a philosopher comparable to the important figures of 19th century German thought.
The article presents an attempt by one of the most interesting modern thinkers, the Austrian scientist Gerhard Oberhammer, to substantiate the possibility of a transcendental experience of meeting with God and the philosophical-hermeneutic objectification of this experience. Based on the traditions of Kant's transcendental philosophy and its hermeneutical interpretation by Karl-Otto Apel, Oberhammer also draws on the productive intentions of Karl Jaspers' concept of the "ciphers of the transcendent", experience as a person's being captured by Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas' hypostase. The article deals with a heuristic interpretation of these concepts for Oberhammer's explanation of the possibility of a transcendent experience as an experience of an absolute meeting of man with God. According to the Austrian philosopher and Indologist, the place of transcendent experience is the inner world of the subject, which is characterized by two main properties: depth and openness. The latter allows us to hope for the possibility of meeting with the other, but again, not outside the subject, but inside it, realizing the hidden structures of the inner world, as a world correlated with what is outside it. That is, according to Gerhard Oberhammer, the transcendent experience of the subject can be comprehended in its two interdependent moments related to the subject's situation, namely, the moment of its self-explanation and the moment of its correlation. The Austrian philosopher represents the religious subject as being in a constant self-overcoming of its limited isolation and finding its true essence, which implicitly contains both its depth and its correlation with the other, as its ability to accept this other into itself. The article substantiates the idea that the Austrian scientist builds his concept of religious and philosophical hermeneutics with a firm belief in its productivity and the possibility of using it for the analysis of any religion, since he focuses on universal transformations and events that occur in the life of a believer, regardless of the religious tradition to which he belongs.
Austrian philosopher Heinrich Gomperz attempted to reconcile the Vienna Circle's project of a unified science with the autonomy of historical knowledge. This article situates him in the context of the ongoing reassessment of the Vienna Circle in the history of philosophy. It argues that Gomperz's synthesis of positivism with historicity was a response to difficulties raised by Rudolf Carnap and Otto von Neurath. Gomperz achieved his reconciliation via a theory of language and action that had affinities with both neo-Kantian and pragmatist thought, combining Dilthey's hermeneutics with Carnap's requirements for scientific propositions.
This article ponders, for the first time, the question of whether Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano (1838-1917) influenced the development of the school of Ukrainian philosophy. It employs Anna Brożek's methodology to identify philosophers' influence on one another (distinctions between direct and indirect influence, active and passive contact, etc.); concepts of institutional and ideological conditions of this influence are also considered. The article establishes, first, that many Ukrainian academics had institutional bonds with Brentano's students, especially Kazimierz Twardowski at the University of Lviv. Second, it identifies an ideological bond between Brentano and his hypothetical Ukrainian "academic grandsons." Particularly, a comparative analysis of works on the history of philosophy of Brentano and the Ukrainian Ilarion Svientsits'kyi (1876-1956) reveals that the latter took over Brentano'sa posteriori constructive method. These results allow to draw a conclusion about the existence of Ukrainian Brentanism, that not only brings new arguments into the discussion about the tradition of and prospects for the development of analytic (scientific) philosophy on Ukrainian ground, but also opens new aspects of the modernization of Ukrainian society in general (from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day).
Think tanks are institutions that create knowledge which influence public opinion & policy making processes. In fact, neoliberalism can look back on a long tradition in this respect. Beginning with the Mont Pelerin Society, founded by the Austrian economist & philosopher Friedrich v. Hayek in 1947, there arised fust in England, then in other countries numerous institutions whose intention were to oppose the Keynesean afterward consensus. Hayek called Western democracies "unrestricted democracies" that would be inconsistent with a liberal order. In his view they would finally lead to "The Road to Serfdom," that is the title of his famous book published in 1944. The Viennese Hayek Institute wants to support the worldwide renaissance of the Austrian School of Economics & tries to make its ideas useful for public affairs activities. Starting with giving an overview of the basic ideas of Hayek the article first outlines the neoliberal think tank scene on a broad scale, also in a historical perspective, & tries to evaluate the significance of the Austrian School within this network; then it deals with the activities of the Hayek Institute & analyzes the connections with both national economic & political elites & a transnational neoliberal community. References. Adapted from the source document.
Hayek's work can be located halfway between the liberal and conservative thesis. However, many of its exegete emphasize the first of these aspects and come to devalue its conservative imprint, or even go without it. Herein may have influenced the fact that Hayek's himself works to mark the distance with conservatism. The objective of this analysis is to highlight that other side of the famous Austrian-British philosopher, in order to contribute to the overall picture offered by his legacy to be more in line with reality. Adapted from the source document.
Hans Kelsen on the Relation of the Theory of the State and Theology The paper pays attention to the theological‑political themes in the thought of an Austrian lawyer and philosopher Hans Kelsen (1881‑1973). It especially aims to explore one of the lesser known aspects of his legal theory that is the parallelism between theology and the Staatslehre. I attempt to reconstruct the numerous structural analogies between theology and the legal and political theory discussed in various Kelsen's works. By focusing on these analogies, I am trying to understand their place and meaning within Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law. I claim that they constitute a preliminary tough indispensable part of Kelsen's effort to construct a theory that completely identifies the state and the legal order and to do away with the influence of theology and metaphysics.
It is a generally accepted fact that the French Revolution took place in the realm of ideas before it started in the streets. The philosophes demolished the old regime prior to 1789 and prepared the public ideologically for a new political order. They also created new ideas about nationhood and redefined the meaning of the term for the French. Hungary experienced the transition from feudalism to civil equality approximately sixty years after France, and Hungarian men of letters played a role similar to that of their French counterparts in the period before the Revolution of 1848. Since Hungary was under Austrian domination, nationalist ideas became of much greater public concern there than they had been in France.Many aspects of early nineteenth-century Magyar nationalism still need clarification. In this article I shall examine the ideas of Magyar writers and essayists on national identity in the 1820s and 1830s.
The article analyzes various aspects of communication in political discourse. One of its major arguments says that politicians who disrespect major rules of communication violate the basic principles of interaction, namely in that they introduce their own new patterns of language games. Adequate principles of interaction are an indispensable requirement for political discourse as such in that they guarantee efficient communication and help avoid conflicts. Such principles are based on general rules of communication. The article underlines the importance of a structual logical chain of political communiction along the following lines: intention – strategy – tactic – means of realization. In general, human beings acquire languages according to basic linguistic forms and models. Тhe Austrian philosopher L. Wittgenstein introduced the term "language game". In a similar vein, the Swiss linguist F. de Saussure established a link between language and the sphere of games in that he compared the systems of natural languages to the rules of chess. The language games of political discourse are represented by imperative intentions, emotive senses and various means of the manipulative use of linguistic units; they usually focus on factors of impact. The article discusses the intentions of language games as a point of activization of cognitive and communicative activities for the achievement of goals related to strategies and tactics of politicians. The nature of these intentions exerts impact on the realization of the linguo-pragmatic potential of the functions of perlocutionary linguistic acts (requests, orders, etc.). The perlocutionary functions of language are the basis of political manipulation which manifests itself as a systematic combination of traditional political instruments with contemporary communicative approaches to various aspects of the manipulative impact on political consciousness and behavior. Average citizens who react to political discourse automatically take part in broader intellectual and communivative activities; they also demonstrate their own participation in political processes. Therefore political discourse has an impact on the formation and development of civic society and its relations to the state. As a rule, politicians develop their communicative strategies along programs and platforms that are designed for central subjects of the political process (the government, political parties and leaders). This limited circle of addressees causes a certain lack of efficiency that should be corrected inasmuch as the ultimate goal of any communicative strategy should be a certain change of the addressee's worldviews. Political tactic is an important component of political communicative technologies. Political communicative activities include various aspects of tactical measures and methods that start on a local level and go viral according to strategically devised lines. In this setting, specific political texts with their particular pragmatic implications appear to be units of political discourse with their own semiotic structure. Politicians create messages based on their world views and ideologies. The role of the addressee should be understood as a priority in political communicative acts that are usually characterized by polemics, a high degree of axiology and persuasiveness. The article focusses on linguistic tools that politicians use in order to manipulate the electorate. To influence the electorate, politicians use manipulative linguistic items on the lexical, idiomatic and metaphorical level. In political discourse, such linguistic items often turn into stereotypical linguistic tools of particular politicians that leave their mark on the electorate's ideas of their values and beliefs. The article emphasizes the importance of the use of "strong" linguistic items that help create, in the best case, an image of the politician that includes humoristic associations with his or her individual professional language.
This is the Russian translation from the German original of Hans Kohn's lecture "The Essence of Nationalism," which was delivered on April 10, 1919, at a makeshift university for Austrian prisoners of war in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. In the lecture Kohn turns to the writings of the German philosopher Fichte to offer his vision of Zionism as an integral nationalism. According to Kohn, Jews in the years of World War I faced questions similar to those faced by the Germans at the time of the Napoleonic empire. Kohn sees parallels between Fichte and Herzl in how both saw volition as a condition for the emergence of nationhood. For Kohn, nation is a community founded on common consciousness and common origin. He sees nationhood as a fact of life and a phenomenon that is not entirely intelligible by science. He objects to the idea of "cultural Zionism," arguing that it does not reflect the fullness of the national ideal. Kohn refers to Hasidism as an example of a holistic lifestyle and worldview that is useful for nationalists. In the spirit of integral nationalism, Kohn appealed to his listeners to become Jews, and to participate in the common search for a national ideal.
In these latter days, there is a clear tendency towards convergence in the complex relationship between the two language practices – fiction and philosophy. On the one hand, philosophy increasingly turns to the interpretation of important literary texts. On the other hand, literature responds to the challenges of modern thought. This paper focuses on the creative heritage and personality of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the main initiator of "linguistic turn", from the point of view not of philosophical, but of literary reception. The art of the word in the 20th century was strongly charged due to the language problems. That is why it could not pass over in silence the philosopher, who showed that language activity is one of the fundamental factors in understanding the world. Different authors, such as Terry Eagleton, Bruce Duffy, Winfried G. Sebald, Umberto Eco, Edgar Lawrence Doctorow, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, brought out in their works – directly or indirectly – a character undoubtedly similar to Wittgenstein. Eventually, the combination of different aspects creates an integral portrait of the Austrian thinker, representing an adequate alternative to philosophical approaches. The fictitious space of literature allows us to show something that philosophy is unable to say – because of its disciplinary limits and its need to stay inside the facts and laws of logic. This confirms the well-known thesis of "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus": "What can be shown, cannot be said" (4.1212).
In 1922, Austrian art historian Josef Stryzgowski lectured in Boston on "The Crisis in the Humanities as Exemplified in the History of Art." In 1964, British historian J.H. Plumb published a volume of essays entitled The Crisis in the Humanities. Between 1980 and 2000 a "crisis in the humanities" was discussed more than a hundred times in the pages of major scholarly journals. Is there anything new to be said about it? Has the hypochondriac finally come down with a life-threatening disease? Certain forms of apprehension do seem built into the very structure of the modern humanities. I found no record of Stryzgowski's lectures, but Plumb's complaints from 1964 sound familiar: overspecialization; triviality; insularity; fragmentation; and opaque, overly technical writing. Just two years later, a certain James Newcomer, professor of English at Texas Christian University, identified a threat to the humanities almost identical to the one classicist and philosopher Martha Nussbaum warns about in her 2010 Not for Profit: "Since the sciences are … exerting a dominant influence on the activities of the universities, the humanities are in danger of being forced into practices … that can end only in diminishing still further their effectiveness in modifying the character and the customs of our society." And in 1975, a writing teacher named Mel Topf discussed much the same list of problems that Harvard professor Louis Menand sees as critical in his 2010 Marketplace of Ideas: "declining public support, declining enrollments as students turn away from the liberal arts to professional studies, and overproduction of Ph.D.'s."