Paul Ricœur RIP

At University - mainly whle in Berlin I read a lot by him - I liked his bridging and inbetween chairs state of mind.
here are some review's
NZZ
Dass er von der Sinnstiftung und auch dem universalen Postulat der «Gastfreundschaft» und «Liebe» so tief überzeugt war, ist freilich ein Beleg für seine eigene Einsicht, dass er Philosophie und Theologie «nicht in wasserdichten Abteilen voneinander getrennt» gehalten hat. Seine letzte Hoffnung galt deshalb einer Erfahrung jenseits der Sprache. Angesichts des Todes kommen, so meinte er, «die Quellen für Mut und Zutrauen aus einem Bereich, der tiefer liegt als die Sprache. Vielleicht gibt es im Angesicht des Todes einen Moment - ich hoffe das jedenfalls für mich selbst -, in dem die Schleier der Sprache, ihre Begrenztheit und Geregeltheit, ausgewischt werden, so dass sich etwas Fundamentales ausdrücken kann».

a german position on the french EU vote

Hi, I thought some of you might be interested in a German perspective on the European Constitution and the vote to come.
It is of course by Juergen Habermas who most of you will have heard of.
This link is to the site http://www.signandsight.com/ with his article. btw. this is a very good site to check out it gives you a German intellectual perspective on Europe (slightly right of centre) - its sister site (in German) is http://www.perlentaucher.de

I will post some quotes:

His argument centres around:
_"In my view, a Left which aims to tame and civilise capitalism with a "No" to the European constitution would be deciding for the wrong side at the wrong time."_

He agrees that there is plenty of thing to be considered but, now is not the time and a unique historic opportunity will be missed, if Europe does not come together.

_"Without the dynamic of economic interests, the political union would have probably never gotten off the ground. This dynamic only strengthens the worldwide tendency toward market deregulation. But the xenophobic perception of the Right that the socially undesirable consequences of this lifting of boundaries could be avoided by returning to the protectionist forces of the nation state is not only dubious for normative reasons, it is also outright unrealistic. The Left must not let itself be infected by such regressive reflexes."_

Well he is a philosopher, he is allowed to speak about normative reasons (-:

For him the consitution leads to a strengthening - which is the only way forward, if there is to be social-democrat Europe (in the broadest sense as he says. He continues:
_"We can only meet the challenges and risks of a world in upheaval in an offensive way by strengthening Europe, not by exploiting the understandable fears of the people in a populist manner."_

He finishes on a rather depressed note:
_"I do not relinquish the hope that the French Left will remain true to itself, and that this time too, it will be swayed by arguments, and not by sentiment."_
He is a good friend to France.

and as they always say: go and read the story yourself.

as a by note - reading the sun today (while waiting for my sandwich to be made) there was a comment saying that if Britain were ever to agree to the consitution it would mean the Pound would go at the same time. This is a very clever combination of fear mongering, which I had not come accross before.

cross posted at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/19/74653/2412