Y. Yovel - Böcker

That Kant's ideas remain vitally present in ethical thinking today is as impossible to deny as it is to overlook their less persisting aspects and sometimes outdated idiom. The essays in this volume attempt to reassess some crucial questions in Kant's practical philosophy both by sketching the lines for new systematic interpretations and by examining how Kantian themes apply to contemporary moral concerns. In the previous decade, when Kant was primarily read as an answer to utilitarianism, emphasis was mainly laid on the fundamentals of his moral theory, stressing such concepts as universalization, duty for its own sake, personal autonomy, unconditional imperatives or humanity as end-in-itself, using the Groundwork and its broader (ifless popular) systematic parallel, the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason, as main sources. In recent years, however, emphasis has shifted and become diversified. The present essays reflect this diversification in discussing the extension of Kantian ethics in the domains of law, justice, politics and moral history, and also in considering such meta-philosophical questions as the relation between the various "inter­ ests of reason" (as Kant calls them), above all between knowledge and moral practice. The papers were first presented at the Seventh Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter, held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in December 1986. The Jerusalem Philosophical Encounters are a series of bi-annual international symposia, in which philosophers of different backgrounds meet in Jerusalem to discuss a common issue. Organized by the S. H.

The full century that has elapsed since Nietzsche was at the height of his work did not obliterate his impact. In many ways he is still a contemporary philosopher, even in that sense of 'contemporary' which points to the future. We may have outgrown his style (always, however, admirable and exciting to read), his sense of drama, his creative exaggeration, his sometimes flamboy­ ant posture of a rebel wavering between the heroic and the puerile. Yet Nietzsche's critique of transcendental values and, especially, his attack on the inherited conceptions of rationality remain pertinent and continue to pro­ voke anew cultural critique or dissent. Today Nietzsche is no longer discussed apologetically, nor is his radicalism shunned or suppressed. That his work remains the object of extremely diverse readings is befitting a philosopher who replaced the concept of truth with that of interpretation. It is, indeed, around the concept of interpretation that much of the rem:wed interest in Nietzsche seems to center today. Special emphasis is being laid on his manner of doing philosophy, and his views on interpretation and the genealogical method are often re-read in the context of contemporary hermeneutics and "deconstructionist" positions.

In the year 1985, presumed to mark the 850th anniversary of Maimonides' birth, the Sixth Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter was dedicated to Maim­ onides as philosopher. We did not enter into the other aspects of his work, rabbinical, legal, medical, etc., except in so far as the relation between his philosophy and his work in halakha (Jewish law) is itself a philosophical question. That no one is quite certain about Maimonides' date of birth is symbolic of the state of his philosophy as well. Maimonides' thought poses various enigmas, lends itself to contradictory interpretations and gives rise today, as it did in the Middle Ages, to sustained controversies. Some of the contribu­ tions to the present volume deal with these and cognate topics. Others deal with certain aspects of the philosophical tradition in which Maimonides was rooted, with some traits peculiar to the Islamic society in the midst of which he lived, and with his influence on Christian scholasticism. Maimonides' thought had many facets, and for this and other reasons the question as to his place and stature in the history of philosophy admits of no simple answer. In this volume an attempt has been made to draw atten­ tion to some of these complexities.

That Kant's ideas remain vitally present in ethical thinking today is as impossible to deny as it is to overlook their less persisting aspects and sometimes outdated idiom. The essays in this volume attempt to reassess some crucial questions in Kant's practical philosophy both by sketching the lines for new systematic interpretations and by examining how Kantian themes apply to contemporary moral concerns. In the previous decade, when Kant was primarily read as an answer to utilitarianism, emphasis was mainly laid on the fundamentals of his moral theory, stressing such concepts as universalization, duty for its own sake, personal autonomy, unconditional imperatives or humanity as end-in-itself, using the Groundwork and its broader (ifless popular) systematic parallel, the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason, as main sources. In recent years, however, emphasis has shifted and become diversified. The present essays reflect this diversification in discussing the extension of Kantian ethics in the domains of law, justice, politics and moral history, and also in considering such meta-philosophical questions as the relation between the various "inter­ ests of reason" (as Kant calls them), above all between knowledge and moral practice. The papers were first presented at the Seventh Jerusalem Philosophical Encounter, held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in December 1986. The Jerusalem Philosophical Encounters are a series of bi-annual international symposia, in which philosophers of different backgrounds meet in Jerusalem to discuss a common issue. Organized by the S. H.

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.

The full century that has elapsed since Nietzsche was at the height of his work did not obliterate his impact. In many ways he is still a contemporary philosopher, even in that sense of 'contemporary' which points to the future. We may have outgrown his style (always, however, admirable and exciting to read), his sense of drama, his creative exaggeration, his sometimes flamboy­ ant posture of a rebel wavering between the heroic and the puerile. Yet Nietzsche's critique of transcendental values and, especially, his attack on the inherited conceptions of rationality remain pertinent and continue to pro­ voke anew cultural critique or dissent. Today Nietzsche is no longer discussed apologetically, nor is his radicalism shunned or suppressed. That his work remains the object of extremely diverse readings is befitting a philosopher who replaced the concept of truth with that of interpretation. It is, indeed, around the concept of interpretation that much of the rem:wed interest in Nietzsche seems to center today. Special emphasis is being laid on his manner of doing philosophy, and his views on interpretation and the genealogical method are often re-read in the context of contemporary hermeneutics and "deconstructionist" positions.