First, Hegel places the "Idea of the Good" and moral action at the penultimate stage of his Science of Logic. Far from undervaluing the perspective of ethics, moral agency, and value, Hegel actually invokes ethical terms at the highest
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“The idea that this end of philosophy— at least, of political philosophy and (I claim) moral philosophy— has close relations with history overlaps with a more ambitious view held by a consistently underestimated Oxford philosopher, R. G. Collingwood. The trouble with Collingwood’s kind of commitment is that it requires one to know some history. My two associates in the view I am sketching are Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor. They are both Roman Catholics, though of different sorts. I used to find this a disquieting fact but no longer do so. All three of us, I could say, accept the significant role of Christianity in understanding modern moral consciousness, and adopt respectively the three possible views about how to move in relation to that: backward in it, forward in it, and out of it. In any case, we all assume some historical commitments, they on a more ambitious scale than I, and perhaps there is a rather nervous competition for who writes the most irresponsible history.”
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“Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.”
― Why Marx Was Right
― Why Marx Was Right
“Christian faith, as I understand it, is not primarily a matter of signing on for the proposition that there exists a Supreme Being, but the kind of commitment made manifest by a human being at the end of his tether, foundering in darkness, pain, and bewilderment, who nevertheless remains faithful to the promise of a transformative love.”
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“Imprisoning philosophy within the professionalizations and specializations of an institutionalized curriculum, after the manner of our contemporary European and North American culture, is arguably a good deal more effective in neutralizing its effects than either religious censorship or political terror”
― Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922
― Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922
Caleb’s 2025 Year in Books
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