In an enlightening dialogue with Descartes, Kant, Husserl and Gadamer, Professor Seifert argues that the original inspiration of phenomenology was nothing other than the primordial insight of philosophy itself, the foundation of philosophia perennis. His radical rethinking of the phenomenological method results in a universal, objectivist philosophy in direct continuity with Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. In order to validate the classical claim to know autonomous being, the author defends Husserl's methodological principle "Back to things themselves" from empiricist and idealist critics, including the later Husserl, and replies to the arguments of Kant which attempt to discredit the knowability of things in themselves. Originally published in 1982, this book culminates in a phenomenological and critical unfolding of the Augustinian cogito, as giving access to immutable truth about necessary essences and the real existence of personal being.

Sinceits founding by Jacques Waardenburg in 1971, Religion and Reason has been a leading forum for contributions on theories, theoretical issues and agendas related to the phenomenon and the study of religion. Topics include (among others) category formation, comparison, ethnophilosophy, hermeneutics, methodology, myth, phenomenology, philosophy of science, scientific atheism, structuralism, and theories of religion. From time to time the series publishes volumes that map the state of the art and the history of the discipline.

In an enlightening dialogue with Descartes, Kant, Husserl and Gadamer, Professor Seifert argues that the original inspiration of phenomenology was nothing other than the primordial insight of philosophy itself, the foundation of philosophia perennis. His radical rethinking of the phenomenological method results in a universal, objectivist philosophy in direct continuity with Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. In order to validate the classical claim to know autonomous being, the author defends Husserl's methodological principle "Back to things themselves" from empiricist and idealist critics, including the later Husserl, and replies to the arguments of Kant which attempt to discredit the knowability of things in themselves. Originally published in 1982, this book culminates in a phenomenological and critical unfolding of the Augustinian cogito, as giving access to immutable truth about necessary essences and the real existence of personal being.

The world, according to Kant, is made up of two levels of reality: the transcendental and the empirical. The transcendental level is a mind-independent level at which things in themselves exist. The empirical level is a fully mind-dependent level at which appearances exist, which are intentional objects of experience. The distinction between appearances and things in themselves lies at the heart of Kant's critical philosophy and has been the focus of fierce debate among scholars for over two hundred years. Anja Jauernig offers this interpretation of Kant's critical idealism as an ontological position, which comprises transcendental idealism, empirical realism, and a number of other basic ontological theses, as developed in the Critique of Pure Reason and associated texts. In this interpretation Kant is a genuine idealist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and space and time. Yet in contrast to other intentional objects, appearances genuinely exist, which is due to both the special character of experience compared to other kinds of representations such as illusions or dreams, and to the grounding of appearances in things themselves. This is why Kant can also be considered a genuine realist about empirical objects, empirical minds, and space and time. This book spells out Kant's case for critical idealism thus understood, pinpoints the differences between critical idealism and ordinary idealism, and clarifies the relation between Kant's conception of things in themselves and the conception of things in themselves by other philosophers, in particular Kant's Leibniz-Wolffian predecessors.

Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defence of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves. Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, and in so doing he makes a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Kant says that phenomena—things as we know them—consist 'entirely of relations', by which he means forces. His claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This humility has its roots in some plausible philosophical beliefs: an empiricist belief in the receptivity of human knowledge and a metaphysical belief in the irreducibility of relational properties. Langton's interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism, and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to be superior even to modern-day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable.

This book, by architectural writer Irénée Scalbert, bears witness to some of the more significant developments in architecture during the last 25 years. The essays alternate between detailed studies of major buildings, written while these were being designed or as they were being rediscovered after a period of oblivion, and broader historical surveys that seek out the origin of contemporary architectural ideas. More than their extent, however, what distinguishes these essays is that they draw from direct experience--from interviews with architects, clients, engineers and users, and from the pleasurable, at times rapturous, contemplation of architecture.