Why not try here: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm Very crudely: dialectic describes a process whereby some social formation (e.g. a set of economic relations, a political institution, a set of religious beliefs, or even cultural forms (like the conventions of the novel)) does not quite 'work', and thus tensions arise (some kind of opposing beliefs or formations, or even a social formation that temporarily combines within itself two opposing ideas), until a resolution is reached. So, it is a way of understanding how and why change happens.

Book XIII is tricky; it is often skipped when people teach Augustine. He is trying to read the opening verses of Genesis in several ways simultaneously. First, to stress the utter dependence of all of creation upon God; second, to integrate into Christianity the basic metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus; third, as a metaphorically compressed history of the church and its organisation. So, creation occurs in two steams -- the spiritual and the corporeal (XIII.2) -- and in each stream in three phases -- original creation, conversion, and formation. The original creation is of that which is formless (shapeless as you translate it); conversion is when the first creation 'hears' the Word of God (that is, it returns to the call of its creator; this is passive for the corporeal, but active for the spiritual); formation is the result. The primary concern of Book XIII is spiritual creation; whereas corporeal creation is dealt with more fully in Book XII. The first phase of corporeal creation is unformed matter, the...

Thank you for your question. Without a doubt, if you told David Hume that 'I am going to be tortured' he would respond 'For goodness sake, run!' The question is, then: is this response incompatible with his philosophical analysis of the concept of substance? I think we need to distinguish two ways of thinking about 'substance'. The first is substance as metaphysical, as something that exists permanently, without even the possibility of change, as the 'bearer' of properties (Hume has Descartes and Leibniz particularly in mind). The second is a pragmatic sense of substance, as our sense of the identity of things (including ourselves) across time. By pragmatic, I mean that for certain purposes we think of things as basically unchanging, while for other purposes we think of things as not unchanging. For example, if I buy a new car, I consider it unchanging for the purposes of driving every day, staying the same size, staying the same shape and colour. If, however, after a year I tried to return it to the...

You are looking for aphorism 243 from Daybreak .Roughly, the mirror is the intellect, the 'things' the world. Nietzsche is making a double point. First, the neo-Kantian idea that all knowledge is mediated, including knowledge of the mediating activity itself. Second, a historical point about broad moves from certain necessary failures within natural science (investigation of things) leading inevitably to a focus on psychological science (investigation of the mirror) and because of necessary failures, back again.

Thank you for your question. I'm guessing you are referring to aphorism 6 in the first volume. You are certainly right to call Nietzsche up here -- the reference to the concept of optimism is not at all clear. In fact, it goes back to an earlier book of Nietzsche's, The Birth of Tragedy . (If you want to look, the clearest -- which isn't saying much in this case -- treatment of this idea is found in chapter 18.) There Nietzsche argues that an important change took place around the time of Socrates, and that what we now think of as science, broadly speaking, was 'invented'. What characterises this Socratic science? Well, logic, first of all, broadly understood in its Greek sense as a rational enquiry into the nature of things. But also, Nietzsche says, a certain optimism. Science only makes sense if the world CAN be understood and that, once it is understood, it can be CHANGED for the better. Science, he says, is intrinsically optimistic about its own utility. Now, here in Human, All Too...

Well, I'm sure you can do BETTER than my book (with Edinburgh, 2000), but that's not going to stop me recommending it. More recent is a fine introductory commentary by Fiona Hughes (Continuum 2009).

It seems to me that your interpretation of Kant is spot on. By 'blind' he means that we would have eyes (or ears or noses) but cannot see (or hear or smell), unless concepts were operative. However, this 'would have' is quite hypothetical. Kant certainly does not mean to imply that there is ever mere sensory input without a concept. (There certainly may be pure concepts without any associated sensory input, or even any possible sensory input -- Kant analyses the problems that this raises in the Dialectic.) If I see a colour, I see the colour red, or lemon, or ochre. And if I don't recognise the particular colour, I still know it is a colour, so a concept is still operative. Likewise, if I hear a sound, I hear the sound of traffic, or of a violin, or of a creaking floorboard. If I don't recognise the sound, then I still know it is a sound. Nevertheless, you are right that he is asserting some kind of difference between intuition and concept. But this difference is not one that I experience. Rather,...

You have alighted on an idea that also fascinates me. The quotation is from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part IV, section 8. This section is part of a series of fictionalised portraits of exceptional human types (or in some cases, individual persons). Nietzsche is interested in the philosophical significance of certain types of human being. Section 8 is in part a portrait of Jesus. The basic idea is that the the one who has something to give (wealth, assistance, knowledge, whatever) is in a position of power over the one who receives; and the gift itself can serve to reinforce and draw attention to that difference of power. In other words, gifts demean the receiver, perhaps even setting in motion a cycle of revenge. So, how is it possible to be a giver who does not exacerbate the situation of the receiver? How, for example, does the master give to the disciple without forcing the disciple to remain always only a disciple? Please see also Part I, section 22.

Well, you raise a whole series of fascinating issues in your question. I'll just focus on the claim Heidegger makes, and not direct myself to either Fichte or Kant. What does Heidegger mean in claiming that the question of the meaning of Being has rarely if every been asked? I wouldn't say that he means that the question has been 'supressed' -- in the way free speech is supressed in a totalitarian regime. Rather, he means that the question has always been raised only with respect to some limited frame of reference, where that frame is determined by other philosophical commitments. A theological frame of reference understands Being only as either creator or created; the frame of reference of mathematics yields a conception of Being as substance; a technological frame of reference understands Being (including the human) only as the availability or otherwise of resources; and so forth. The other point worth making is that although the above discussion makes Heidegger sound as though he is...

Indeed: the ordinary use of the term 'critique' ('criticism') means to evaluate something. So, a film critic doesn't just tell us how bad a film is, but also how good -- and thus whether certain types of viewers might wish to see it. The philosophical use of the term to analyse something so as to determine its grounds, implications or merit. Thus, a classic type of essay or examination question at University philosophy departments is to 'critically analyse' some idea or argument. Kant's use is slightly different. A critique of pure reason, of practical reason, or of judgement is not a discussion of an idea or argument, so much as of a whole 'faculty' or 'ability' of the human mind. The three faculties I just listed come from the titles of Kant's three chief critical works, but arguably at least Kant should be understood as also offering critiques of many other 'faculties' such as imagination, understanding, sensibility, or will. In effect, by a 'critique of pure reason', Kant is asking 'what is...