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Philosophy and Its Place in the Space of Western Spirituality: An Apology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

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Abstract

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Philosophy has never been and never will be a science. Nevertheless it is a body of knowledge, a field of autonomous being and the subject’s ontic foundation as knowledge of itself. This paper provides an analysis of the nature of philosophy as an autonomous form of Western spirit during its historical development. The dialectic between reason, knowledge and freedom is studied through multiple historical examples from the Antiquity to modern times.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © UNESCO 2007

References

Notes

1. This character allows us to avoid the more familiar symbol of the irrational number ‘√2', square root of 2, designating an infinite algorithm rather than a given unique arithmetical object — a number.

2. Dedekind himself was inspired by the infinite dyad in the abbreviated form he found in Eudoxus, Plato's friend.

3. Cf. the German expression den Teufel an die Wand malen, based on the ancient belief in the power of the image: to paint the devil on the wall is to give him existence (note from Françoise Willmann).