The Very Idea of Organization presents a philosophical account of the phenomenon of organization. It takes as its starting point a debate in organization studies about the foundations of organizational research. This debate, however, is running into difficulties regarding the basic concept of the reality that organization studies deal with, that is regarding the ontology of organization. A convincing organizational ontology is not in sight. Therefore, Krijnen introduces a new meta-perspective, offering a more comprehensive and more fundamental social ontology in general as well as an...

In Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - A Propaedeutic, Thomas Soren Hoffmann offers a comprehensive intellectual biography of the "master philosopher of German idealism," the last great system builder of European philosophy. All the major themes of Hegel's thought are worked through - logic and metaphysics; history and spirit; art and language; thought and nature; right, religion and science - and presented as open invitations to conversing with, to working with, indeed to thinking with the great philosopher himself. Hegel's dialectical concept of life is one key deployed by Hoffmann to...

In "I that is We, We that is I", an international group of philosophers explore the many facets of Hegel's formula which expresses the recognitive and social structures of human life. The book offers a guiding thread for the reconstruction of crucial motifs of contemporary thought such as the socio-ontological paradigm; the action-theoretical model in moral and social philosophy; the question of naturalism; and the reassessment of the relevance of work and power for our understanding of human life. This collection addresses the shortcomings of Kantian and constructivist normative...

The 11 contributions in Der "innere Gerichtshof" der Vernunft: Normativitat, Rationalitat und Gewissen in der Philosophie Immanuel Kants und im Deutschen Idealismus explore Immanuel Kant's description of the human conscience as an "internal court of justice." Kant's theory of conscience is discussed in the context of practical philosophy, philosophy of religion and its historical development after Kant, especially in Hegel's philosophy. Approaching general concepts such as "normativity" and "rationality" from the perspective of Kantian philosophy and German Idealism, the book goes...

In The Paradigm of Recognition. Freedom as Overcoming the Fear of Death Paul Cobben defends the position that Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit contains all the building blocks to elaborate a paradigm of recognition which fundamentally criticizes the contemporary versions of Habermas, Rawls and Honneth. In his concept of recognition, the fear of death is the central category to understand the mediation between freedom and nature. Cobben not only systematically reconstructs how this view results from Hegel's criticism of Hume and Kant, but also shows how Hegel's three-part division of...