In May 2010, philosophers, family and friends gathered at the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the career and retirement of Alvin Plantinga, widely recognized as one of the world's leading figures in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Plantinga has earned particular respect within the community of Christian philosophers for the pivotal role that he played in the recent renewal and development of philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Each of the essays in this volume engages with some particular aspect of Plantinga's views on metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of religion. Contributors include Michael Bergman, Ernest Sosa, Trenton Merricks, Richard Otte, Peter VanInwagen, Thomas P. Flint, Eleonore Stump, Dean Zimmerman and Nicholas Wolterstorff. The volume also includes responses to each essay by Bas van Fraassen, Stephen Wykstra, David VanderLaan, Robin Collins, Raymond VanArragon, E. J. Coffman, Thomas Crisp, and Donald Smith.

Selections from Science and Sanity represents Alfred Korzybski's authorized abridgement of his magnum opus, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. This second edition, published in response to the recent Korzybski revival, adds new introductory material and a revised index, providing an accessible introduction to Korzybski's arguments concerning the need for a non-Aristotelian approach to knowledge, thought, perception, and language, to coincide with our non-Newtonian physics and non-Euclidean geometries, to Korzybski's practical philosophy, applied psychology, pragmatics of human communication, and educational program. Selections from Science and Sanity serves as an excellent introduction to general semantics as a system intended to aid the individual's adjustment to reality, enhance intellectual and creative activities, and alleviate the many social ills that have plagued humanity throughout our history.

Society and contemporary culture unquestionably assign much importance to the search for quality. So can this kind of research include the mind? In his analysis, Luigi Longhin examines the causes of mental illness and psychic-mental suffering, the notions of individuality, social violence, and utopia; and he suggests a collaboration between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis, within a correct epistemological approach. The relationship between epistemology and psychoanalysis is examined. The objectivistic and relativistic shift in contemporary epistemology, and the problem of the responsibility of the techno-scientific system are emphasized. Why such a privileged connection with philosophy? The contribution of philosophy is primarily epistemological. However, both epistemology and psychoanalysis run a risk; whilst epistemology runs the risk of being a knowledge which does not know, psychoanalysts run the risk of pursuing scientific knowledge without knowing its foundations. Hence there is a need for collaboration between the two forms of knowledge: the philosophical-epistemological and the scientific-psychoanalytic. Psychoanalysis works in two directions: on the one hand, it tries to eliminate the negative components of the mind, on the other hand, it tries to develop the trusting and creative parts of the self.

John Cottingham explores central areas of Descartes's rich and wide-ranging philosophical system, including his accounts of thought and language, of freedom and action, of our relationship to the animal domain, and of human morality and the conduct of life. He also examines ways in which his philosophy has been misunderstood. The Cartesian mind-body dualism that is so often attacked is only a part of Descartes's account of what it is to be a thinking, sentient, human creature, and the way he makes the division between the mental and the physical is considerably more subtle, and philosophically more appealing, than is generally assumed. Although Descartes is often considered to be one of the heralds of our modern secular worldview, the 'new' philosophy which he launched retains many links with the ideas of his predecessors, not least in the all-pervasive role it assigns to God (something that is ignored or downplayed by many modern readers); and the character of the Cartesian outlook is multifaceted, sometimes anticipating Enlightenment ideas of human autonomy and independent scientific inquiry, but also sometimes harmonizing with more traditional notions of human nature as created to find fulfilment in harmony with its creator.

This volume presents twelve original papers on constructivism - some sympathetic, others critical - by a distinguished group of moral philosophers. 'Kantian constructivism holds that moral objectivity is to be understood in terms of a suitably constructed social point of view that all can accept. Apart from the procedure of constructing the principles of justice, there are no moral facts.' So wrote John Rawls in his highly influential 1980 Dewey lectures 'Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory'. Since then there has been much discussion of constructivist understandings, Kantian or otherwise, both of morality and of reason more generally. Such understandings typically seek to characterize the truth conditions of propositions in their target domain in maximally metaphysically unassuming ways, frequently in terms of the outcome of certain procedures or the passing of certain tests, procedures or tests that speak to the distinctively practical concerns of deliberating human agents living together in societies. But controversy abounds over the interpretation and the scope as well as the credibility of such constructivist ideas. The essays collected here reach to the heart of this contemporary philosophical debate, and offer a range of new approaches and perspectives.

Spheres of Reason comprises nine original essays on the philosophy of normativity, written by a combination of internationally renowned and up-and-coming philosophers working at the forefront of the topic. On one broad construal the normative sphere concerns norms, requirements, oughts, reasons, reasoning, rationality, justification, value. These notions play a central role in both everyday thought and philosophical enquiry; but there remains considerable disagreement about how to understand normativity -- its nature, metaphysical and epistemological bases -- and how different aspects of normative thought connect to one another. As well as exploring traditional and ongoing issues central to our understanding of normativity -- especially those concerning reasons, reasoning and rationality -- the volume's essays develop new approaches to and perspectives in the field. Notably, they make a timely and distinctive contribution to normativity as it features across each of the practical, epistemic and affective regions of thought, including the important issue of how normativity as it applies to action, belief and feeling may (or may not) be connected. In doing so, the essays engage topics within the philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, normative ethics and metaethics. With an editor's introduction providing a comprehensive and accessible background to the subject, Spheres of Reason is essential reading to anyone interested in the nature of normativity and the bearing it has on human thought.

Bernard Lonergan (1904-84) is acknowledged as one of the most significant philosopher-theologians of the 20th century. Lonergan, Meaning and Method in many ways complements Andrew Beards' previous book on Lonergan, Insight and Analysis (Bloomsbury, 2010). Andrew Beards applies Lonergan's thought and brings it into critical dialogue and discussion with other contemporary philosophical interlocutors, principally from the analytical tradition. He also introduces themes and arguments from the continental tradition, as well as offering interpretative analysis of some central notions in Lonergan's thought that are of interest to all who wish to understand the importance of Lonergan's work for philosophy and Christian theology. Three of the chapters focus upon areas of fruitful exchange and debate between Lonergan's thought and the work of three major figures in current analytical philosophy: Nancy Cartwright, Timothy Williamson and Scott Soames. The discussion also ranges across such topics as meaning theory, metaphilosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science and aesthetics.

Wisdom and Philosophy: Contemporary and Comparative Approaches questions the nature of the relationship between wisdom and philosophy from an intercultural perspective. Bringing together an international mix of respected philosophers, this volume discusses similarities and differences of Western and Asian pursuits of wisdom and reflects on attempts to combine them. Contributors cover topics such as Confucian ethics, the acquisition of wisdom in pre-Qin literature and anecdotes of stupidity in the classical Chinese tradition, while also addressing contemporary topics such as global Buddhism and analytic metaphysics. Providing original examples of comparative philosophy, contributors look at ideas and arguments of thinkers such as Confucius, Zhuangzi and Zhu Xi alongside the work of Aristotle, Plato and Heidegger. Presenting Asian perspectives on philosophy as practical wisdom, Wisdom and Philosophy is a rare intercultural inquiry into the relation between wisdom and philosophy. It provides new ways of understanding how wisdom connects to philosophy and underlines the need to reintroduce it into philosophy today.

In Navigating History: Economy, Society, Knowledge, and Nature the contributors present new research that touches on the core themes developed in Karel Davids's work. Major themes include resources of knowledge, cultures of learning, and humans and their natural environment. Together, these fourteen essays provide a fascinating panorama of social, economic, and environmental history of the past millennium.

Combining conceptual analysis with well established empirical evidence, this is an important new book in analytical epistemology.Contemporary epistemology debates have largely been occupied with formulating a definition of knowledge that is immune to any counterexample. To date, no definition has been able to escape unscathed.Moving away from debates about definitions, "Virtue Epistemology" shows what conditions are essential for knowledge and applies this account to different domains. It proposes that agents must be motivated correctly to acquire knowledge, even in the case of perception.Stephen Napier examines closely the empirical research in cognitive science and moral psychology to build an account of knowledge wherein an agent must perform acts of virtue in order to get knowledge. In so doing, Napier provides answers to two key questions: 'what is knowledge?' and 'how do we get it?'

In the beginning, darkness caused itself to explode, causing the event science calls the big bang and Christianity refers to as creation. Many have associated darkness with nothing, but author Hyginus Mathurin describes darkness as the actual primitive state of the Creator. "Evolution of Darkness" presents a revolutionary perspective on the physical development of Darkness as it creates its physical kingdom in the universe.

Mathurin is concerned with the nature of Darkness, not as the dwelling place of the Creator, but as the actual Creator. He takes a bold step to declare that the universe is the actual Evolution of Darkness.

"Evolution of Darkness" is a declaration that the universe is perfect and could not have existed any other way. Every act and every thought is necessary for its effective operation.

The philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is very important at every stage of the history of modern American thought. It informs William James's evolutionary metaphysics, John Dewey's theory of logic, W.V.O. Quine's naturalism, and Richard Rorty's notion of the Linguistic Turn. Similarly, many Continental philosophers, like Jurgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel, Jacques Derrida, and Umberto Eco, have developed Peirce's semiotic logic as central to their own philosophical views. Yet until now there has been a yawning gap in the literature on what is arguably the most essential idea in the entire Peircean corpus, namely his "fallibilism." The basic idea of fallibilism is that all knowledge claims, including those metaphysical, methodological, introspective, and even mathematical claims - all of these remain uncertain, provisional, merely fallible conjectures.

As Elizabeth Cooke explains in "Peirce's Pragmatic Theory of Inquiry," one long-standing concern with the idea of fallibilism is that it might all too easily slide into "skepticism." And this would certainly undermine the overall project of making Peirce's fallibilism the linchpin for any realistic pragmatism. So, it is essential to show Peirce's philosophy does not require any claims to certitude, in order to keep his fallibilism from falling into skepticism or contextualism. Cooke's solution to this problem is to interpret Peirce as having reconceived knowledge - traditionally defined as "foundational" and even "static" - as a dynamic process of inquiry, one which evolves within a larger ontological process of evolution. Her book will be of great interest not only to Peirce and Pragmatism specialists but also to contemporary epistemologists more generally.

New Essays on Singular Thought presents ten new, specially written essays on an issue central to philosophy of mind, language, and perception: the nature of our thought about the external world.
Is our thought about objects in the world always descriptive, mediated by our conceptions of those objects? Or is some of our thought somehow more direct, singular, associated more intimately with our perceptual, linguistic, and socially mediated relations to them? Leading experts in the field contributing to this volume make the case for the singularity of thought and debate a broad spectrum of issues it raises, including the structure of singular thought, the role of acquaintance in perception- and communication-based reference, the semantics of fictional and mythical terms, and the merits of epistemic, cognitive, and linguistic conditions on singular thought. Their essays explore new directions for future research and will be an important resource for anyone working at the interface of semantics and mental representation.

This volume of newly written chapters on the history and interpretation of Wittgenstein's Tractatus represents a significant step beyond the polemical debate between broad interpretive approaches that has recently characterized the field. Some of the contributors might count their approach as 'new' or 'resolute', while others are more 'traditional', but all are here concerned primarily with understanding in detail the structure of argument that Wittgenstein presents within the Tractatus, rather than with its final self-renunciation, or with the character of the understanding that renunciation might leave behind. The volume makes a strong case that close investigation, both biographical and textual, into the composition of the Tractatus, and into the various influences on it, still has much to yield in revealing the complexity and fertility of Wittgenstein's early thought. Amongst these influences Kant and Kierkegaard are considered alongside Wittgenstein's immediate predecessors in the analytic tradition. The themes explored range across the breadth of Wittgenstein's book, and include his accounts of ethics and aesthetics, as well as issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and aspects of the logical framework of his account of representation. The contrast of saying and showing, and Wittgenstein's attitude to the inexpressible, is of central importance to many of the contributions. By approaching this concern through the various first-level issues that give rise to it, rather than from entrenched schematic positions, the contributors demonstrate the possibility of a more inclusive, constructive and fruitful mode of engagement with Wittgenstein's text and with each other.

Simon Evnine examines various epistemic aspects of what it is to be a person. Persons are defined as finite beings that have beliefs, including second-order beliefs about their own and others' beliefs, and are agents, capable of making long-term plans. It is argued that for any being meeting these conditions, a number of epistemic consequences obtain. First, all such beings must have certain logical concepts and be able to use them in certain ways. Secondly, there are at least two principles governing belief that it is rational for persons to satisfy and are such that nothing can be a person at all unless it satisfies them to a large extent. These principles are that one believe the conjunction of one's beliefs and that one treat one's future beliefs as, by and large, better than one's current beliefs. Thirdly, persons both occupy epistemic points of view on the world and show up within those views. This makes it impossible for them to be completely objective about their own beliefs. Ideals of rationality that require such objectivity, while not necessarily wrong, are intrinsically problematic for persons. This "aspectual dualism" is characteristic of treatments of persons in the Kantian tradition. In sum, these epistemic consequences support a traditional view of the nature of persons, one in opposition to much recent theorizing.

In this title, some of the world's leading scholars in metaethics, epistemology and moral psychology explore the latest insights into and challenges to Robert Audi's intuitionism. Since his 2004 publication of the book "The Good in the Right", Robert Audi has been at the forefront of the current resurgence of interest in intuitionism - the idea that human beings have an intuitive sense of right and wrong - in ethics. "The New Intuitionism" brings together some of the world's most important contemporary writers from such diverse fields as metaethics, epistemology and moral psychology to explore the latest implications of and challenges to Audi's work. The book also includes an opening chapter that surveys the development of contemporary intuitionism and a conclusion that lays the ground for future developments and debates both written by Audi himself, making this an essential survey of this important school of ethical thought for anyone working in the field.

Modal realism says that non-actual possible worlds and individuals are as real as the actual world and individuals. Takashi Yagisawa defends modal realism of a variety different from David Lewis's theory. The notion of reality is left primitive and sharply distinguished from that of existence, which is proposed as a relation between a thing and a domain. Worlds are postulated as modal indices for truth on a par with times, which are temporal indices for truth. Ordinary individual objects are conceived as being extended in spatial, temporal, and modal dimensions, and their transworld identity is explicated by the closest-continuer theory. Impossible worlds and individuals are postulated and used to provide accounts of propositions, belief sentences, and fictional discourse.

Genealogies of Speculation looks to break the impasse between the innovations of speculative thought and the dominant strands of 20th century anti-foundationalist philosophy. Challenging emerging paradigms of philosophical history, this text re-evaluates different theoretical and political traditions such as feminism, literary theory, social geography and political theory after the speculative turn in philosophy. With contributions from leading writers in contemporary thought this book is a crucial resource for studying cultural and art-theory and continental philosophy.

Historical research in previous decades has done a great deal to explore the social and political context of early modern natural and moral inquiries. Particularly since the publication of Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer's Leviathan and the Air-Pump (1985) several studies have attributed epistemological stances and debates to clashes of political and theological ideologies. The present volume suggests that with an awareness of this context, it is now worth turning back to questions of the epistemic content itself. The contributors to the present collection were invited to explore how certain non-epistemic values had been turned into epistemic ones, how they had an effect on epistemic content, and eventually how they became ideologies of knowledge playing various roles in inquiry and application throughout early modern Europe.

Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) was one of the most prolific and influential French philosophers of the Twentieth Century. In his enormous corpus of work he engaged with literature, history, historiography, politics, theology and ethics, while debating 'truth' and ethical solutions to life in the face of widespread and growing suspicion about whether such a search is either possible or worthwhile.In Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, Alison Scott-Baumann takes a thematic approach that explores Ricoeur's lifelong struggle to be both iconoclastic and yet hopeful, and avoid the slippery slope to relativism. Through an examination of the 'hermeneutics of suspicion', the book reveals strong continuities throughout his work, as well as significant discontinuities, such as the marked way in which he later distanced himself from the 'hermeneutics of suspicion' and his development of new devices in its place, while seeking a hermeneutics of recovery. Scott-Baumann offers a highly original analysis of the hermeneutics of suspicion that will be useful to the fields of philosophy, literature, theology and postmodern social theory.

This study examines the history of a fundamental problem in Aristotelian cognitive psychology, i.e. the nature and function of the mechanisms that provide the human mind with data concerning physical reality.
Chapter I traces the Classical and Arabic prehistory of the Medieval doctrine of intelligible species. Scholastic discussions on formal mediation in intellective cognition were constrained in essential ways by Thomas. Chapter II analyzes his views on mental representation in the context of the reception of Peripatetic psychology in the West. The following chapters (III-V) examine the controversies about the necessity of intelligible species, from Aquinas' death to the 15th century. Another volume is planned, devoted to Renaissance discussions, developments of later Scholasticism, and the elimination of the intelligible species in modern non-Aristotelian philosophy.

In our daily lives, we are surrounded by all sorts of things - such as trees, cars, persons, or madeleines - and perception allows us access to them. But what does 'to perceive' actually mean? What is it that we perceive? How do we perceive? Do we perceive the same way animals do? Does reason play a role in perception? Such questions occur naturally today. But was it the same in the past, centuries ago? The collected volume tackles this issue by turning to the Latin philosophy of the 13th and 14th centuries. Did medieval thinkers raise the same, or similar, questions as we do with respect to perception? What answers did they provide? What arguments did they make for raising the questions they did, and for the answers they gave to them? The philosophers taken into consideration are, among others, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, William of Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John Pecham, Richard Rufus, Peter Olivi, Robert Kilwardby, John Buridan, and Jean of Jandun. Contributors are Elena Baltuta, Daniel De Haan, Martin Klein, Andrew LaZella, Lukas Licka, Mattia Mantovani, Andre Martin, Dominik Perler, Paolo Rubini, Jose Filipe Silva, Juhana Toivanen, and Rega Wood.

Charles E. Snyder considers the New Academy's attacks on Stoic epistemology through a critical re-assessment of the 3rd century philosopher, Arcesilaus of Pitane. Arguing that the standard epistemological framework used to study the ancient Academy ignores the metaphysical dimensions at stake in Arcesilaus's critique, Snyder explores new territory for the historiography of Stoic-Academic debates in the early Hellenistic period. Focusing on the dispute between the Old and New Academy, Snyder reveals the metaphysical dimensions of Arcesilaus' arguments as essential to grasping what is innovative about the so-called New Academy. Resisting the partiality for epistemology in the historical reconstructions of ancient philosophy, this book defends a new philosophical framework that re-positions Arcesilaus' attack on the early Stoa as key to his deviation from the metaphysical foundations of both Stoic and Academic virtue ethics. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship on Hellenistic philosophy in French, Italian, and German, Beyond Hellenistic Epistemology builds bridges between analytical and continental approaches to the historiography of ancient philosophy, and makes an important and disruptive contribution to the literature.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) is one of the most diversely gifted people of the Middle Ages. His letter writing, poetry, theology, logic, and ethics deal with almost every aspect of the trivium. This volume surveys his career to show how his extraordinary versatility enchanted and distressed his public. A selection of international specialists addresses the various aspects of Abelard's literary persona. The topics range from Abelard's personal history to his monastic thinking. There are essays on the letter collection, his views on love, ethical problems such as intention and suicide, his poetry and treatises written for Heloise and her nuns of the Paraclete. With its strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research, Rethinking Abelard opens up new avenues for future scholarship. Contributors are: Michael T. Clanchy, Peter Cramer, Lesley-Anne Dyer, Juanita Feros Ruys, William Flynn, Babette Hellemans, Taina M. Holopainen, Eileen F. Kearney, Constant J. Mews, Eileen C. Sweeney, Ineke Van 't Spijker, Wim Verbaal, and Julian Yolles.