When we talk about delusions we may refer to symptoms of mental health problems, such as clinical delusions in schizophrenia, or simply the beliefs that people cling to which are implausible and resistant to counterevidence; these can include anything from beliefs about the benefits of homeopathy to concerns about the threat of alien abduction. Why do people adopt delusional beliefs and why are they so reluctant to part with them? In Why Delusions Matter, Lisa Bortolotti explains what delusions really are and argues that, despite their negative reputation, they can also play a positive role in people's lives, imposing some meaning on adverse experiences and strengthening personal or social identities. In a clear and accessible style, Bortolotti contributes to the growing research on the philosophy of the cognitive sciences, offering a novel and nuanced view of delusions.

The contributors ask the following questions: What are the different rhetorical strategies employed by writers, artists, filmmakers, and activists to react to the degradation of life and climate change? How are urban movements using environmental issues to resist corporate privatization of the commons? What is the shape of Spanish debates on reproductive rights and biotechnology? What is the symbolic significance of the bullfighting debate and other human/animal issues in today's political turmoil in Spain?

This volume collects twelve new essays by leading moral philosophers on a vitally important topic: the ethics of eating meat. Some of the key questions examined include: Are animals harmed or benefited by our practice of raising and killing them for food? Do the realities of the marketplace entail that we have no power as individuals to improve the lives of any animals by becoming vegetarian, and if so, have we any reason to stop eating meat? Suppose it is morally wrong to eat meat-should we be blamed for doing so? If we should be vegetarians, what sort should we be?

In Pride, Manners, and Morals: Bernard Mandeville's Anatomy of Honour Andrea Branchi offers a reading of the Anglo-Dutch physician and thinker's philosophical project from the hitherto neglected perspective of his lifelong interest in the theme of honour. Through an examination of Mandeville's anatomy of early eighteenth-century beliefs, practices and manners in terms of motivating passions, the book traces the development of his thought on human nature and the origin of sociability. By making honour and its roots in the desire for recognition the central thread of Mandeville's theory of society, Andrea Branchi offers a unified reading of his work and highlights his relevance as a thinker far beyond the moral problem of commercial societies, opening up new perspectives in Mandeville's studies.

The articles collected in "Into Life." Franz Rosenzweig on Knowledge, Aesthetics, and Politics focus on the significance of Franz Rosenzweig's work far beyond the realms of theology and philosophy of religion. They engage with a wide range of issues in philosophy and offer new insights, both by presenting an array of unpublished and underestimated sources and by bringing Rosenzweig's thought into dialogue with new approaches and interlocutors, such as Stanley Cavell, William Alston, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger. The result is a refreshing and original perspective on the work of one of the most significant thinkers of the twentieth century.

Differing moral views are dividing the country and polarizing the left and the right more than ever before. This book offers unique solutions to improve communication and understanding between the two factions to fix our fractured political system. Morality is at the heart of political contention in American society. Unfortunately, our polarized belief systems severely inhibit the achievement of bipartisan compromises. A Battlefield of Values: America's Left, Right, and Endangered Center provides a candid but nonjudgmental examination of what people think and believe-and how this informs our divisions over core values. By addressing how individuals believe rather than how they vote, the book illuminates why 21st-century America is so conflicted politically and religiously; exposes what matters most to those on the right and left of the political, religious, and cultural spectrum; explains why the members of the endangered center in American life-the moderates-are struggling to make sense of the great divide between conflicting ideologies; and predicts how a degree of reconciliation and detente might be possible in the future. Authors Stephen Burgard and Benjamin J. Hubbard build a powerful case for how authentic communication between political factions is integral to bettering our society as a whole. Along the way, they illustrate the impact of religion and media on American belief systems and also explore the inability of news media to serve as mediators of this dilemma. This work will fascinate lay readers seeking perspective on our current political stalemate as well as serve college students taking courses in political science, communications, journalism, anthropology, or religious studies. Provides a unique analysis that shows how our seemingly irreconcilable differences can be turned into assets for transforming the United States into a better country Offers informed perspectives of American conflict from authors with more than 50 years of experience combined in their respective fields Explores a future using religion, technology, and science to mend distrust and tune up our political system Presents information and concepts appropriate for an academic lesson plan or for any civics-savvy reader

In his work on metaphysics, Spinoza associates reasons with causes or explanations. He contends that there is a reason for whatever exists and whatever does not exist. In his account of the human mind, Spinoza makes reason a peculiarly powerful kind of idea and the only source of our knowledge of objects in experience. In his moral theory, Spinoza introduces dictates of reason, which are action-guiding prescriptions. In politics, Spinoza suggests that reason, with religion, motivates cooperation in society. Reason shapes Spinoza's philosophy, and central debates about Spinoza-including his place in the history of philosophy and in the European Enlightenment-turn upon our understanding of these claims. Spinoza on Reason starts with striking claims in each of these areas, which Michael LeBuffe draws from Spinoza's two great works, the Ethics and the Theological Political Treatise. The book takes each characterization of reason on its own terms, explaining the claims and their historical context. While acknowledging the striking variety of reason's roles, LeBuffe emphasizes the extent to which these different doctrines build upon one another. The result is a rich understanding of the meaning and function of each claim and, in the book's conclusion, an overview of the contribution of reason to the systematic coherence of Spinoza's philosophy.

Hegel's Philosophy of Right has long been recognized as the only systematic alternative to the dominant social contract tradition in modern political philosophy. Dean Moyar here takes on the difficult task of reading and representing Hegel's view of justice with the same kind of intuitive appeal that has made social contract theory, with its voluntary consent and assignment of rights and privileges, such an attractive model. Moyar argues that Hegelian justice depends on a proper understanding of Hegel's theory of value and on the model of life through which the overall conception of value, the Good, is operationalized. Closely examining key episodes in Phenomenology of Spirit and the entire Philosophy of Right, Moyar shows how Hegel develops his account of justice through an inferentialist method whereby the content of right unfolds into increasingly thick normative structures. He asserts that the theory of value that Hegel develops in tandem with the account of right relies on a productive unity of self-consciousness and life, of pure thinking and the natural drives. Moyar argues that Hegel's expressive account of the free will enables him to theorize rights not simply as abstract claims, but rather as realizations of value in social contexts of mutual recognition. Moyar shows that Hegel's account of justice is a living system of institutions centered on a close relation of the economic and political spheres and on an understanding of the law as developing through practices of public reason. Moyar defends Hegel's metaphysics of the State as an account of the sovereignty of the Good, and he shows why Hegel thought that philosophy needs to offer an account of world history and reformed religion to buttress the modern social order.

This very important work offers penetrating dialogues between the great spiritual leader and the renowned physicist that shed light on the fundamental nature of existence. Krishnamurti and David Bohm probe such questions as 'why has humanity made thought so important in every aspect of life? How does one cleanse the mind of the 'accumulation of time' and break the 'pattern of ego -centered activity'?The Ending of Time concludes by referring to the wrong turn humanity has taken, but does not see this as something from which there is no escape. There is an insistence that mankind can change fundamentally; but this requires going from one's narrow and particular interests toward the general, and ultimately moving still deeper into that purity of compassion, love and intelligence that originates beyond thought, time, or even emptiness.

The analysis of meat and its place in Western culture has been central to Human-Animal Studies as a field. It is even more urgent now as global meat and dairy production are projected to rise dramatically by 2050. While the term 'carnism' denotes the invisible belief system (or ideology) that naturalizes and normalizes meat consumption, in this volume we focus on 'meat culture', which refers to all the tangible and practical forms through which carnist ideology is expressed and lived. Featuring new work from leading Australasian, European and North American scholars, Meat Culture, edited by Annie Potts, interrogates the representations and discourses, practices and behaviours, diets and tastes that generate shared beliefs about, perspectives on and experiences of meat in the 21st century.