names of 4000 years of philosophy
Charles-le-Magne
So, sitting actually immediately at the side of his - life-sized - statue I had to ask myself What made this man, who was virtual the "first European" so great? Why as he called Charles the Great?
Even if - seen with Max Weber and from its ethical side (see link below) Martin Luther is probably - together with Calvin - the key figure in the first attempt to break open the structures of the traditional societies with the incontestable position of the church.
Laying down the principle of the division of power as it shapes the contemporary democratic systems. It is the fact that the executive power, the power of judicature and the legislative power are seperated from each other that leads to the claim of being democratic systems, based on the mutually and balanced control.
To think society as a contractual system at
such an early stage may seem a little bit strange - finally it had been
only Maine who mentioned explicitly the development from status to contract as pattern. However, basically we
can say that implicitly this
notion characterises thinking of sociey since its very early stages -
going back even to Aristotle.
Discours sur
l'origine et les fondements de l'ingalite parmi les hommes
Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to a principle. Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated - in a century of enlightenment and wisdom - into the crassest ignorance, he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it.
These words from the reproduced text, couldn't they be from today?
The complete text of Maine's book on the Ancient law of which usually chapter 5 is seen as particularly important.
Seemingly a very descriptive, rather than analytical text Engels provides the reader with an insight into the living conditions of the English working class in the middle of the 18hunderts.However, he develops as well a sound understanding of the foundation of a Marxist class theory. What is important is his approach of making clear that class is a matter of the structure of society, but that structure can only be understood as a relationship between different social groups.
Though written in the middle of the 1840s, this fundamental piece of work outlines the basic lines of Marxism, and has a huge meaning in terms of methodological questions still today. Original source and full text: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/index.htm
The file is taken from the following source
with date from Decembre 28ième, 2002. Compliments à Mme Marcelle Bergeron, Professeure à la retraite de l’École Dominique-Racine de Chicoutimi, Québec et collaboratrice bénévole
This classic of sociology highlights the tension between the two sides of the "stranger", properly read giving much insight into current tensions in the emerging multicultaral societies.
Frameanalysis. An Essay on the Organization of Experience; With a foreword by Bennett M. Berger; Boston: Northeastern University Press; 1974 - 1986
This text is of special meaning as it discusses the old and fundamental question of the relationship between the individual and the social, the social and the societal from a new perspective. Later, it had been largely the fundament of the work of Habermas in developing the theory of life world, system world and colonilalisation of the first by the latter.
In his speech on the occassion of the 2001 Peace Price awarded by the German Book Trade, the philosopher Jürgen Habermas focussed on the role of religions in the modern society.
The European University Institute. Badia Fiesolana. Via dei Roccettini, 9. I-50016 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy. http://www.iue.it/. e-mail: publish@iue.it EUI Review now also at. http://www.iue.it/General/EUI-review
Spring edition - 2001