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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 - > Analytical & linguistic philosophy
We live in an age of impotence. Stuck between global war and global
finance, between identity and capital, we seem to be incapable of
producing that radical change that is so desperately needed. Is
there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that
shapes our politics as well as our imagination? In his most
systematic book to date, renowned Italian theorist Franco Berardi
Bifo tackles this question through a solid yet visionary analysis
of the three fundamental concepts of Possibility, Potency, and
Power. Overcoming any temptation of giving in to despair or
nostalgia, Berardi proposes the notion of Futurability as a way to
remind us that even within the darkness of our current crisis,
still lies dormant the horizon of possibility.
Comparing is one of the most essential practices, in our everyday
life as well as in science and humanities. In this in-depth
philosophical analysis of the structure, practice and ethics of
comparative procedures, Hartmut von Sass expands on the
significance of comparison. Elucidating the ramified structure of
comparing, von Sass suggests a typology of comparisons before
introducing the notion of comparative injustice and the limits of
comparisons. He elaborates on comparing as practice by relating
comparing to three relative practices - orienting, describing, and
expressing oneself - to unfold some of the most important chapters
of what might be called comparativism. This approach allows von
Sass to clarify the idea of the incomparable, distinguish between
different versions of incomparability and shed light on important
ethical aspects of comparisons today. Confronting the claim that we
are living in an age of comparisons, his book is an important
contribution to ideas surrounding all-encompassing measurements and
scalability and their critique.
Applying the tools and methods of analytic philosophy, analytic
feminism is an approach adopted in discussions of sexism, classism
and racism. The Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Feminism presents
the first comprehensive reference resource to the nature, history
and significance of this growing tradition and the forms of social
discrimination widely covered in feminist writings. Through
individual sections on metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory,
a team of esteemed philosophers examine the relationship between
analytic feminism and the main areas of philosophical reflection.
Their engaging and original contributions explore how analytic
feminists define their concepts and use logic to support their
claims. Each section provides concise overviews of the main debates
in feminist literature within that particular area of research, as
well as introductions to each of the chapters. Together with a
glossary and an annotated bibliography, this companion features an
overview of the basic tools used in reading analytic philosophy.
The result is an in-depth and authoritative guide to understanding
analytic feminist's characteristic methods.
Eva Picardi has been one of the most influential Italian analytic
philosophers of her generation. She taught for forty years at the
University of Bologna, raising three generations of students. This
collection of selected writings honors her work, confirming
Picardi's status as one of the most important Frege scholars of her
generation and a leading authority on the philosophy of Donald
Davidson. Bringing together Picardi's contributions to the history
of analytic philosophy, it includes her papers on major
20th-century figures such as Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Rorty,
and Brandom. She examines their work in comparison with the
philosopher Michael Dummett's, illuminating contrasts between
American Neo-pragmatism and Continental philosophy. By considering
key contributions made by Gadamer and Adorno and contrasting them
with Davidson and Rorty's proposals, Picardi is able to bridge the
Analytic and Continental divide. Featuring an introduction by
Annalisa Coliva and new translations of previously unpublished
papers, this collection emphasizes the significance of Picardi's
work for a new generation of readers.
This volume is the first English resource to shed light on the
philosophy of Joseph Petzoldt (1862-1929), the main pupil of Ernst
Mach and founder of the Gesellschaft fur wissenschaftliche
Philosophie, later the association of Berlin logical positivists. A
central figure in the early debate on the theory of relativity, his
work was praised by Einstein himself. Tracing the development of
Petzoldt's ideas, starting from his early acceptance of materialism
and Kantian agnosticism, Chiara Russo Krauss presents a
comprehensive reconstruction of his philosophy in the context of
the German milieu. She examines his attempt to develop a new
philosophy following Gustav Fechner and the empiriocriticism of
Richard Avenarius and Ernst Mach. In the final chapter, she sets
out how Petzoldt proposed relativistic positivism as the official
interpretation of Einstein's relativity. By illuminating key
elements of Petzoldt's work, this is a valuable case study for
students and scholars of philosophy of science and late
19th-century and early 20th-century philosophy. It reveals the
complex interplay of two different tendencies of the time:
neo-Kantianism and its struggle to overcome the notion of
thing-in-itself, as well as the need for an epistemological
foundation for the new advances of science.
Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in
recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and
justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered
what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of
perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which
knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential
foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he
explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In
challenging prominent sceptical claims that we have no justified
beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of
rational belief.
This is a sustained critique of present-day academic philosophy
combined with a practical agenda for change. Christopher Norris
raises some basic questions about the way that analytic philosophy
has been conducted over the past 25 years. In doing so, he offers
an alternative to what he sees as an over-specialisation of a lot
of recent academic work. Arguing that analytic philosophy has led
to a narrowing of sights to the point where other approaches that
might be more productive are blocked from view, he goes against the
grain to claim that Continental philosophy holds the resources for
a creative renewal of analytic thought. It draws on a wide range of
examples to shine light on one topic: philosophy's current
condition and how we can move beyond it. It addresses issues of
interest to students and teachers of philosophy in both the
analytic and the Continental traditions: speculative realism, the
'extended mind' hypothesis, experimental philosophy, the ontology
of political song, linguistic philosophy, anti-realism and
epistemological scepticism. It interrogates the analytical
zeitgeist through a vigorous critique of the prevailing modes of
thought.
Spanning the period between Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in
1929 and the first version of Philosophical Investigations in 1936,
Piotr Dehnel explores the middle stage in Ludwig Wittgenstein's
philosophical development and identifies the major issues which
engrossed him, including phenomenology, philosophy of mathematics
and philosophy of language. Contrary to the dominant perspective,
Dehnel argues that this period was intrinsically different from the
early and late stages and should not be viewed as a mere
transitional phase. The distinctiveness of Wittgenstein's middle
work can be seen in his philosophical thinking as it unfolds in a
non-linear trajectory: thoughts do not follow upon each other,
ideas do not appear sequentially one by one, and insights do not
form a straight chain. Dehnel portrays the diffused and
multifarious quality of Wittgenstein's middle thinking, enabling
readers to form a more comprehensive view of his entire philosophy
and acquire a better grasp of his conceptual trajectory, complete
with the intricacies and challenges that it poses.
The growing interest in fragmentalism is one of the most exciting
trends in philosophy of time and is gradually reshaping the
contemporary debate. Providing an extensive interpretation of this
view, Samuele Iaquinto and Giuliano Torrengo articulate a novel
theory of the passage of time and argue that it is the most
effective in vindicating the inherent dynamism of reality. Iaquinto
and Torrengo offer the first full-range application of
fragmentalism to a number of metaphysical topics, including the
open future, causation, the A-theoretic interpretation of special
relativity and time travel. The resulting picture, they argue,
conveys the potential of a radically new understanding of time.
This book investigates the emergence and development of early
analytic philosophy and explicates the topics and concepts that
were of interest to German and British philosophers. Taking into
consideration a range of authors including Leibniz, Kant, Hegel,
Fries, Lotze, Husserl, Moore, Russell and Wittgenstein, Nikolay
Milkov shows that the same puzzles and problems were of interest
within both traditions. Showing that the particular problems and
concepts that exercised the early analytic philosophers logically
connect with, and in many cases hinge upon, the thinking of German
philosophers, Early Analytic Philosophy and the German
Philosophical Tradition introduces the Anglophone world to key
concepts and thinkers within German philosophical tradition and
provides a much-needed revisionist historiography of early analytic
philosophy. In doing so, this book shows that the issues that
preoccupied the early analytic philosophy were familiar to the most
renowned figures in the German philosophical tradition, and
addressed by them in profoundly original and enduringly significant
ways.
"Written in an outstandingly clear and lively style, it provokes its readers to rethink issues they may have regarded as long since settled." TLS
Throughout his career, Keith Hossack has made outstanding
contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics and the
philosophy of mathematics. This collection of previously
unpublished papers begins with a focus on Hossack's conception of
the nature of knowledge, his metaphysics of facts and his account
of the relations between knowledge, agents and facts. Attention
moves to Hossack's philosophy of mind and the nature of
consciousness, before turning to the notion of necessity and its
interaction with a priori knowledge. Hossack's views on the nature
of proof, logical truth, conditionals and generality are discussed
in depth. In the final chapters, questions about the identity of
mathematical objects and our knowledge of them take centre stage,
together with questions about the necessity and generality of
mathematical and logical truths. Knowledge, Number and Reality
represents some of the most vibrant discussions taking place in
analytic philosophy today.
Many people go through life in a rather hit-or-miss fashion,
casting about for ideas to explain why their projects improve or
decline, why they are successful or why they are not. Guessing and
"hunches," however, are not very reliable. And without the
knowledge of how to actually investigate situations, good or bad,
and get the true facts, a person is set adrift in a sea of
unevaluated data. Accurate investigation is, in fact, a rare
commodity. Man's tendency in matters he doesn't understand is to
accept the first proffered explanation, no matter how faulty. Thus
investigatory technology had not actually been practiced or
refined. However, L. Ron Hubbard made a breakthrough in the subject
of logic and reasoning which led to his development of the first
truly effective way to search for and consistently find the actual
causes for things. Knowing how to investigate gives one the power
to navigate through the random facts and opinions and emerge with
the real reasons behind success or failure in any aspect of life.
By really finding out why things are the way they are, one is
therefore able to remedy and improve a situation-any situation.
This is an invaluable technology for people in all walks of life.
Comparing is one of the most essential practices, in our everyday
life as well as in science and humanities. In this in-depth
philosophical analysis of the structure, practice and ethics of
comparative procedures, Hartmut von Sass expands on the
significance of comparison. Elucidating the ramified structure of
comparing, von Sass suggests a typology of comparisons before
introducing the notion of comparative injustice and the limits of
comparisons. He elaborates on comparing as practice by relating
comparing to three relative practices - orienting, describing, and
expressing oneself - to unfold some of the most important chapters
of what might be called comparativism. This approach allows von
Sass to clarify the idea of the incomparable, distinguish between
different versions of incomparability and shed light on important
ethical aspects of comparisons today. Confronting the claim that we
are living in an age of comparisons, his book is an important
contribution to ideas surrounding all-encompassing measurements and
scalability and their critique.
Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit and specialist in the history of
philosophy, first created his history as an introduction for
Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries. However, since its first
publication (the last volume appearing in the mid-1970s) the series
has become the classic account for all philosophy scholars and
students. The 11-volume series gives an accessible account of each
philosopher's work, but also explains their relationship to the
work of other philosophers.
As the foundation of our rationality, logic has traditionally been
considered fixed, stable and constant. This conception of the
discipline has been challenged recently by the plurality of logics
and in this book, Pavel Arazim extends the debate to offer a new
view of logic as dynamic and without a definite, specific shape.
The Problem of Plurality of Logics examines the origins of our
standard view of logic alongside Kant's theories, the holistic
view, the issue of logic's pragmatic significance and Robert
Brandom's logical expressivism. Arazim then draws on
proof-theoretical approaches to present a convincing argument for a
dynamic version of logical inferentialism, which opens space for a
new freedom to modify our own logic. He explores the scope,
possibilities and limits of this freedom in order to highlight the
future paths logic could take, as a motivation for further
research. Marking a departure from logical monism and also from the
recent doctrine of logical pluralism in its various forms, this
book addresses current debates concerning the expressive role of
logic and contributes to a lively area of discussion in analytic
philosophy.
From the 19th century the philosophy of science has been shaped by
a group of influential figures. Who were they? Why do they matter?
This introduction brings to life the most influential thinkers in
the philosophy of science, uncovering how the field has developed
over the last 200 years. Taking up the subject from the time when
some philosophers began to think of themselves not just as
philosophers but as philosophers of science, a team of leading
contemporary philosophers explain, criticize and honour the giants.
Now updated and revised throughout, the second edition includes: *
Easy-to-follow overviews of pivotal thinkers including John Stuart
Mill, Rudolf Carnap, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and many more *
Coverage of central issues such as experience and necessity,
logical empiricism, falsifiability, paradigms, the sociology of
science, realism, and feminist critiques * An afterword looking
ahead to emerging research trends * Study questions and further
reading lists at the end of each chapter Philosophy of Science: The
Key Thinkers demonstrates how the ideas and arguments of these
figures laid the foundations of our understanding of modern
science.
W. V. Quine was one of the most influential figures of
twentieth-century American analytic philosophy. Although he wrote
predominantly in English, in Brazil in 1942 he gave a series of
lectures on logic and its philosophy in Portuguese, subsequently
published as the book O Sentido da Nova Logica. The book has never
before been fully translated into English, and this volume is the
first to make its content accessible to Anglophone philosophers.
Quine would go on to develop revolutionary ideas about semantic
holism and ontology, and this book provides a snapshot of his views
on logic and language at a pivotal stage of his intellectual
development. The volume also includes an essay on logic which Quine
also published in Portuguese, together with an extensive
historical-philosophical essay by Frederique Janssen-Lauret. The
valuable and previously neglected works first translated in this
volume will be essential for scholars of twentieth-century
philosophy.
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