Philosophy of History and Action

This volume contains the proceedings of the First Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter - started by the Hebrew University Institute of Philosophy (now the S. H. Bergman Centre for Philosophical Studies), which took place on December 28-31, 1974. In recent years the culture-gap that separates philosophers seems slowly - indeed much too slowly - to be narrowing. Although short­ circuits in communication still do happen and mutual disrespect has not vanished, it is becoming unfashionable to demonstrate ignorance of another philosophical tradition or to shrug it off with a supercilious smile. Perhaps dialectically, the insufficiency of any self-centred view that tries to immunize itself to challenges from without starts to disturb it from within. Moreover, as the culture- (and language-) bound nature of many philosophical divergencies is sinking more deeply into consciousness, the irony of an attitude of intolerance to them becomes more apparent. Our aim was to make a modest contribution to this development. We did not, however, mean to confuse genuine differences and problems in communication. Consequently, the more realistic term "encounter" was preferred to the idealizing "dialogue. " The Israeli hosts, themselves trained in a variety of philosophical traditions, felt that there is something in­ between real dialogue on the one hand and mutual estrangement on the other, and wished to provide a meeting place for it.

Contenu

One: History, Interpretation and Action.- History and Hermeneutics.- Comments.- Historical Interpretation.- Comments.- Intending.- Comments.- Historical Actions or Historical Events.- Events.- Descriptions of Actions and their Place in History.- Two: The Philosophy of History from Kant to Sartre.- Kant and the History of Reason.- Hegel's Sittlichkeit and the Crisis of Representative Institutions.- Comments.- Marx et les leçons de l'histoire.- Demokratie und die dialektische Theorie der Geschichte.- Transhistoricity and the Impossibility of Aufhebung: Remarks on J.-P. Sartre's Philosophy of History.- Three: Fare Well to the Philosophy of History?.- Farewell to the Philosophy of History.- Is a Philosophy of History Possible?.