Did Luther get Christian freedom right? The answer to this question contains two elements: - What is Luther's understanding of Christian freedom? - How did his understanding stand up under the pressure of reformation? Muhlhan examines both of these elements and contends that the sublime beauty of Luther's early understanding of Christian freedom--an understanding that empowered the German reformation--is consistently the same understanding he used to undermine papal heteronomy and refute radical legalism. The relational character, cruciform substance, and complex structure of Luther's concept of freedom enabled him to speak both polemically and catechetically with a clear and authoritative communicative clarity that reinvoked the magnificence of Christ and him crucified for sinners. The impact, both positive and negative, of Luther's appraisal of Christian freedom finds its focus of impact in the small world of Wittenberg in the sixteenth century yet resonated throughout the church of his day as a powerful, theologically laden response to legalism and antinomianism. Therefore, in light of this impact and its correlation to biblical freedom, Muhlhan contents that we can confidently affirm that Luther did indeed get Christian freedom right and that he did not fail to live by the implications of this radical theology.

Peter C. Hodgson explores Hegel's bold vision of history as the progress of the consciousness of freedom. Following an introductory chapter on the textual sources, the key categories, and the modes of writing history that Hegel distinguishes, Hodgson presents a new interpretation of Hegel's conception of freedom. Freedom is not simply a human production, but takes shape through the interweaving of the divine idea and human passions, and such freedom defines the purpose of historical events in the midst of apparent chaos. Freedom is also a process that unfolds through stages of historical/cultural development and is oriented to an end that occurs within history (the 'kingdom of freedom'). The purpose and the process of history are tragic, however, because history is also a 'slaughterhouse' that shatters even the finest human creations and requires a constant rebuilding. Hegel's God is not a supreme being or 'large entity' but the 'true infinite' that encompasses the finite. History manifests the rule of God ('providence'), and it functions as the justification of God ('theodicy'). But the God who rules in and is justified by history is a crucified God who takes the suffering, anguish, and evil of the world into and upon godself, accomplishing reconciliation in the midst of ongoing estrangement and inescapable death. Shapes of Freedom addresses these themes in the context of present-day questions about what they mean and whether they still have validity.

John William Miller's radical revision of the idealistic tradition anticipated some of the most important developments in contemporary thought, developments often associated with thinkers like Heidegger, Benjamin, Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty. In this study, Vincent Colapietro situates Miller's powerful but neglected corpus not only in reference to Continental European philosophy but also to paradigmatic figures in American culture like Lincoln, Emerson, Thoreau, and James. The book is not simply a study of a particular philosopher or a single philosophical movement (American idealism). It is rather a philosophical confrontation with a cluster of issues in contemporary life. These issues revolve around such topics as the grounds and nature of authority, the scope and forms of agency, and the fateful significance of historical place. These issues become especially acute given Colapietro's insistence that the only warrant for our practices is to be found in these historically evolved and evolving practices themselves.

G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche are often considered the philosophical antipodes of the nineteenth century. In Infinite Autonomy, Jeffrey Church draws on the thinking of both Hegel and Nietzsche to assess the modern Western defense of individuality&—to consider whether we were right to reject the ancient model of community above the individual. The theoretical and practical implications of this project are important, because the proper defense of the individual allows for the survival of modern liberal institutions in the face of non-Western critics who value communal goals at the expense of individual rights. By drawing from Hegelian and Nietzschean ideas of autonomy, Church finds a third way for the individual&—what he calls the &“historical individual,&” which goes beyond the disagreements of the ancients and the moderns while nonetheless incorporating their distinctive contributions.

An introduction To The problems of reading Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-200), known as ‘the first great Catholic theologian’.

An Ethical Modernity? offers a new view of Hegel’s doctrine of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) in relation to modernity. In this collection of essays, the authors investigate various aspects of this relation and its importance for today’s world.

This volume provides the reader with an integrated overview of state-of-the-art research in philosophy and ethics of design in engineering and architecture. It contains twenty-five essays that focus on engineering designing in its traditional sense, on designing in novel engineering domains, and on architectural and environmental designing. This volume enables the reader to overcome the traditional separation between engineering designing and architectural designing.

This book is a seminal contribution to applied and clinical logotherapy and existential analysis from a philosopher who is also a practitioner. It covers twelve essential topics and themes, drawing on Dr Viktor Frankl’s Viennese School of philosophical psychology, from therapeutic techniques, such as dereflection, paradoxical intention, and Socratic dialogue, to the mass neurotic triad of aggression, addiction, and depression. It also discusses the cultural malaise of anger, anxiety, and boredom, and the theory and therapy of mental disorders such as neuroses and psychoses, criminality, and suicidality. This unique publication, which is both theoretical and practical, is intended primarily for psychotherapists, philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists, but will also appeal to parents, teachers, students, and indeed anyone who wishes to live a life of meaning and mental health.