The Gift of Logos: Essays in Continental Philosophy

David Jones · Michael Schwartz · Jason M. Wirth

Dec 2009 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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205

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About this ebook

The Continental tradition has always placed great emphasis on the Logos. The Gift of Logos: Essays in Continental Philosophy celebrates and situates this emphasis in the genre of the gift and its giving. The process of receiving, or giving, of the gift overcomes the existential alienation and separation that is so present in the human condition. To ritualize giving and its gifting is to provide a syntax of solidarity that bespeaks our desire for cohesion and need for identities beyond our own. To give a gift is to befriend. The gift of logos is more than a gift from the gods and goddesses; it is an act of giving for those friends of wisdom—for those philosophers who give to each other and to their worlds and receive the blessings of logos from each other. The increasing objectification of human being has mobilized a regressive narcissism that shows the ego’s reassertion in the light of the meaningless quantifying forces from without. By not reflecting deeply enough upon its conditions of existence in the modern world and on its orginary moments, philosophy itself has not been immune from this besotted sense of self. Although not an invective against thinking nor against modern and contemporary philosophy’s genuine advances, The Gift of Logos portends to shed the delusion that theoretical re-description is somehow the same as transforming who we are. This transformation is our greatest gift to each other. To give it voice is the gift of Logos and what this collection of essays commemorates.

About the author

David Jones is Professor of Philosophy, editor of Comparative and Continental Philosophy (Equinox) and East-West Connections, Director of the Atlanta Center for Asian Studies, and has been Visiting Professor of Confucian Classics at Emory. His current books include The Fractal Self and the Evolution of God with John L. Culliney and Zhu Xi Now: Contemporary Encounters with the Great Ultimate (State University of New York Press), edited with He Jinli. He is co-editor of Asian Texts—Asian Contexts: Encountering the Philosophies and Religions of Asia (State University of New York Press, 2009) and editor of Confucius Now: Contemporary Encounters with the Analects (Open Court, 2008) and Buddha Nature and Animality (Jain, 2007).

Jason M. Wirth is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University. His books include a translation of Schelling's The Ages of the World (State University of New York Press, 2000), The Conspiracy of Life: Meditations on Schelling and his Time (State University of New York Press, 2003), and the edited volume, Schelling Now (Indiana, 2004). He is currently finishing a book on Milan Kundera and an edited volume with Bret Davis and Brian Schroeder on the interface between Continental Philosophy and the Kyoto School. He is associate editor of the journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy, and he publishes in the areas of Continental philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, aesthetics, and Africana philosophy.

Michael Schwartz is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Art at Augusta State University and associate editor of the journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy. He has published and lectured widely, in both the United States and Europe, in the fields of continental philosophy, art history and historiography, aesthetics and art philosophy, contemplative studies, and systems theory. In addition, he is on the Board of Directors of The Forge Institute, serving as that institution's Director of Public Outreach Programs as well as a leader in (and co-founder of) a variety of academic and service organizations.

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