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"For many thinkers from Antiquity until the Enlightenment, no meaningful distinction between philosophy and religion was possible. Instead, the concept of a philosophical religion was strongly influential on pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim philosophers alike. Carlos Fraenkel provides the first account of this concept and traces its history back to Plato, the Jewish Philo of Alexandria and the Christians Clement of Alexandria and Origen. He then follows it through the medieval period in both Islamic and Jewish forms; he closely analyses its appearance in the work of Spinoza in the early modern period; and he shows how it largely disappeared after the Enlightenment, when religion began to be increasingly regarded as a promoter of ignorance and superstition from which philosophy needed to be liberated. His rich and wide-ranging book will appeal to anyone interested in how philosophy has interacted with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious traditions over the centuries"--

As far as I can tell there is not much at stake in the 2010 elections. Three of the four candidates were Marxists in their youth, and two of Dilma's opponents are themselves veterans of Lula's Workers' Party (PT) who only recently left it: Plinio de Arruda Sampaio in 2005 and Marina Silva, the candidate of the Green Party, in 2009. As for Dilma, as a little known politician who never held elected office, her victory is largely due to Lula's immense popularity (his approval ratings reach 80 percent during the two months I'm in Brazil). Her key campaign promise is unequivocal: to continue Lula's politics. Would a Jose Serra government mean a real alternative? Some suspect Serra to be a closet politician of the Right who only poses as a social democrat. It's true that he has support in conservative circles. At a family reunion with my upper-middle-class relatives in Sao Paulo, just before the run-off between Dilma and Serra, emotions and decibels run high. But I can't figure out why they like Serra and detest the PT so much. After all, Lula hasn't touched any of their privileges. In the 1960s, Serra was a prominent student activist in the left-wing Catholic youth movement that championed a "humanist socialism" and, like its Marxist counterparts, was persecuted by the military regime. Serra himself spent fourteen years in exile. Once a critic of Lula's welfare programs and identified with the neoliberal agenda of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (under whom he served as a minister), he now promises to expand Lula's signature bolsafamilia (family fund) and denies allegations of the PT campaign that he plans to privatize Petrobras, Brazil's powerful oil company. On the whole, then, there seems to be little desire for change. Adapted from the source document.

According to both contemporary intuitions and scholarly opinion, autonomy is something specifically modern. It is certainly taken to be incompatible with religions like Islam and Judaism, if these are invested with political power. Both religions are seen as centered on a divine Law ( sharî 'a, viz., torah) which prescribes what we may and may not do, promising reward for obedience and threatening punishment for disobedience. Not we, but God makes the rules. This picture is in important ways misleading. There is, I argue, a substantive intellectual tradition, going back to Plato's Laws, which takes the purpose of a theocracy—a community governed by God through the intermediary of a divine Law—to be promoting rational autonomy, conceived as (1) the ability to rationally determine what is in one's best interest and (2) having the motivation to live accordingly. Among the most important representatives of this intellectual tradition are medieval Muslim and Jewish philosophers.

Getting from Montreal to Makassar is not a picnic. During the thirty-six hours my partner and I spend in transit, we debate whether it is more important to teach public health or philosophy in Indonesia, because this is the reason for our three-week trip to the capital of the Indonesian province of Sulawesi. We both teach at McGill University: my partner is a medical doctor, specializing in public health; I'm a historian of philosophy, working, among other things, on Muslim and Jewish thought. The classes we give at Alauddin State Islamic University—one of fourteen academic institutions in Indonesia that make up the public system of Islamic higher education under the auspices of the ministry of religious affairs—are part of a McGill-based Indonesia Social Equity Project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Nobody denies the usefulness of teaching medicine and public health, especially in a developing country. But why does CIDA send a philosopher instead of a second doctor or, for that matter, a social worker, an engineer, or an economist? Someone, in other words, whose expertise is of immediate use for improving the living conditions of Indonesians? Most people—in Indonesia and elsewhere—don't even know that the problems philosophers turn over in their minds exist. Much less do they feel the need to understand or resolve them. Are their lives any less happy for that reason? Many would say that the opposite is the case.

Asserts that philosophy has an important role to play in Indonesia & offers insights as a historian of philosophy teaching a class in Alauddin State Islamic U, Makassar. Philosophy is seen as particularly valuable in Indonesia given the current salience of the topic of democracy there. The debate in the classroom, particularly with regard to the Western origins of democracy & its applicability to Muslim Indonesia is touched on. Focus then turns to the troubled relationship between Islam & religious pluralism, highlighting fundamentalism's poor fit with how Muslim Indonesians understand Islam; the distinction between Indonesian Islam & the Islam of other regions; the competition between Scholars in the State Islamic Universities & the ulama; & medieval Muslim philosopher al-Farabi's notion of plurality of valid religions. Adapted from the source document.

Can philosophy save the Middle East? This, I learn from a friend upon arriving in Israel in February of 2006, is the thesis of Sari Nusseibeh, not only a prominent Palestinian intellectual and the Palestinian Liberation Organization's former chief representative in Jerusalem, but by training a philosopher (and, I think, by nature, too). "Only philosophy" the friend quotes him as saying at the Shlomo Pines memorial lecture he gave in West Jerusalem three years before. Six months later, when I return to Montreal, I'm almost convinced that he's right.

Draws on personal experience teaching a seminar at al-Quds U, the Palestinian university in Jerusalem, to consider the truth of Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh's assertion that philosophy can bring peace to the Middle East. A narrative on how Palestinian students received Plato & Socrates, & finally, Averroes & Maimonides, helps illustrate that philosophy has an important contribution to make to the Middle East situation via rational arguments that can be understood & assessed free of religious & national commitments; Socratic examination of the very basic notions informing our lives; & the teaching of sophrosyne, which allos the translation of the insights of reason into practice. D. Edelman

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword / Walzer, Michael -- Preface -- PART I -- 1. Teaching Plato in Palestine -- 2. Teaching Maimonides in Makassar -- 3. Spinoza in Shtreimels: An Underground Seminar -- 4. Citizen Philosophers in Brazil -- 5. Word- Warriors: Philosophy in Mohawk Land -- PART II -- 6. Diversity and Debate -- Afterword to the paperback edition -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Was halten palästinensische Studenten von Platon? Was sagt die griechische Philosophie Bewohnern brasilianischer Slums oder jungen Muslimen in Indonesien. Carlos Fraenkel ist an Brennpunkte politischer, religiöser und sozialer Konflikte gereist, um dort Grundsatzfragen zu diskutieren: Was heißt Gerechtigkeit? Gibt es eine Rechtfertigung für Gewalt? Steht über dem menschlichen ein göttliches Recht? Die Philosophie kann die Gegensätze zwischen Religionen und Kulturen nicht aufheben. Aber sie zeigt uns, wie wir Positionen begründen und Argumente austauschen können – was in einer Welt der Sprachlosigkeit und Gewalt viel bedeutet. Ein ungewöhnliches Buch und ein großartiger Beweis für den praktischen Nutzen der Philosophie.