Category Archives: philosophy

Atonement and Remorse

Posted on Wednesday, 13 May 2009 by Marc de Graauw

So how does forgiveness come about? Paul van Tongeren mentions the conditions of ‘confession, remorse, atonement’. Which he then dismisses, since forgiveness is not conditional, but unconditional: we do not forgive on the condition of some act or atonement by … Continue reading →

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Margalit on Forgiving

Posted on Monday, 11 May 2009 by Marc de Graauw

Recently I’ve been exploring the notion of ‘forgiveness’. Avishai Margalit has devoted a chapter to it in his book ‘The Ethics of Memory‘. The chapter is titled ‘Forgiving and Forgetting’. In it, Margalit makes a distinction between forgiving as ‘deleting’ … Continue reading →

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Is being evil an essential property?

Posted on Sunday, 10 May 2009 by Marc de Graauw

In the previous post on Paul van Tongeren‘s lecture at the ‘Nacht van de Filosofie‘ (Night of Philosophy) in Amsterdam I noted that it is prefectly sensible to say that a smart person has done a dumb thing. Likewise, doing … Continue reading →

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Is forgiveness possible?

Posted on Saturday, 9 May 2009 by Marc de Graauw

The theme of this year’s ‘Nacht van de Filosofie‘ (Night of Philosophy) in Amsterdam was ‘Reconciliation’ (the Dutch word, ‘Verzoening’, doesn’t translate well to English – from it is derived ‘zoen’ which is Dutch for ‘kiss’ for which we also … Continue reading →

Posted in ethics, philosophy, van_tongeren | 3 Comments

Doesn’t the rejection of a compromise presuppose a reasonable alternative?

Posted on Saturday, 18 April 2009 by Marc de Graauw

Friday (April 17, 2009) I attended Avishai Margalit‘s lecture ‘Comprise and Rotten Compromise’ at the Amsterdam ‘Nacht van de Filosofie‘ (Night of Philosphy). Margalit, as far as I’m concerned, is one of the most interesting living philosophers, so this lecture … Continue reading →

Posted in ethics, margalit, philosophy | 6 Comments