In this sweeping volume of comparative philosophy and intellectual history, Barry Allen reassesses the values of experience and experiment in European and world traditions. His work traces the history of empirical philosophy from its birth in Greek medicine to its emergence as a philosophy of modern science. He surveys medical empiricism, Aristotlean and Epicurean empiricism, the empiricism of Gassendi and Locke, logical empiricism, radical empiricism, transcendental empiricism, and varieties of anti-empiricism from Parmenides to Wilfrid Sellars. Throughout this extensive intellectual history, Allen builds an argument in three parts. A richly detailed account of history's empiricisms in Part One establishes a context in Part Two for reconsidering the work of the radical empiricists-William James, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, and Gilles Deleuze, each treated in a dedicated chapter. What is "radical" about them is their effort to return empiricism from epistemology to the ontology and natural philosophy where it began. In Part Three, Allen sets empirical philosophy in conversation with Chinese tradition, considering technological, scientific, medical, and alchemical sources, as well as selected Confucian, Daoist, and Mohist classics. The work shows how philosophical reflection on experience and a profound experimental practice coexist in traditional China with no interaction or even awareness of each other, slipping over each other instead of intertwining as they did in European history, a difference Allen attributes to a different understanding of the value of knowledge. Allen's book recovers empiricism's neglected, multi-textured contexts, and elucidates the enduring value of experience, to arrive at an idea of what is living and dead in philosophical empiricism.

Mill was one of the most important British philosophers of the nineteenth century; his Utilitarianism is a pivotal work in ethical thought. This book, written specifically for students coming to Mill - and perhaps philosophy - for the first time, will be an ideal guide.
Mill on Utilitarianism introduces and assesses:
* Mill's life and the background of Utilitarianism
* the ideas and text of Utilitarianism
* the continuing importance of Mill's work to philosophy
This is the first book dedicated to Utilitarianism itself. Concisely written and engaging, it is perfect reading for those studying Mill or moral philosophy.

Dale Wilkerson's book shows how, like many of his contemporaries, Nietzsche looked to the Greeks in an attempt to alleviate Europe's woes. His work in this area resembles that of the cultural anthropologist who uncovers formal differences in social manners that might explain the development of humankind's most important instincts-those for carving out personal identity and for forging social unity. Nietzsche and the Greeks is a much needed guide to this fascinating subject matter.

Spinoza is a key figure in modern philosophy. Ethics is his most studied and well known work. Being both up-to-date and clear, this Guidebook is designed to lead the reader through this complex seminal text.
Spinoza's Ethics introduces and assess:
* Spinoza'a life, and its connection with his thought
* The text of the Ethics
* Spinoza's continuing relevence to contemporary philosophy

The present collection of papers derives from a philosophy conference organised in the Sicilian town of M ussomeli in September 1991. The con ference aimed at providing an analysis of certain aspects of the thought of Michael Dummett, whose contributions have been very influential in several aspects of the philosophical debate continuing within the analyt ical tradition. Logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the interpretation of Frege's philosophy, and metaphysics are only some of the areas within which Dummett's ideas have been fruitful over the years. The papers contained in this book, and Dummett's replies, will, it is hoped, not merely offer a partial reconstruction of a philosopher's life work, but provide an exciting and challenging vantage point from which to look at some of the main problems of contemporary philosophy. The First International Philosophy Conference of M ussomeli - this is what the conference was called - was an extraordinary event in many ways. The quality of the papers presented, the international reputa tion of many of the participants, the venue itself, together with the unavoidable, and sometimes quite funny, organisational hiccups, made that meeting memorable. Perhaps principally memorable was the warmth and sympathy of the people of Mussomeli who strongly supported and encouraged this initia tive. A special mention is also due to the City Council Administrators, who spared no effort to make the Conference a success."

Ernst Bloch is perhaps best known for his subtle and imaginative investigation of utopias and utopianism, but his work also provides a comprehensive and insightful analysis of western culture, politics and society. Yet, because he has not been one of easiest of writers to read his full contribution has not been widely acknowledged. Block developed a complex conceptual framework, and presented this in a prose style which many have found to verge on the impenetrable.
In this critical and accessible introduction to one of the most fascinating thinkers of the twentieth century, Vincent Geoghegan unravels much of the mystery of the man and his ideas.

Iris Murdoch was a notable philosopher before she was a notable novelist and her work was brave, brilliant, and independent. She made her name first for her challenges to Gilbert Ryle and behaviourism, and later for her book on Sartre (1953), but she had the greatest impact with her work in moral philosophy--and especially her book The Sovereignty of Good (1970). She turned expectantly from British linguistic philosophy to continental existentialism, but was dissatisfied there too; she devised a philosophy and a style of philosophy that were distinctively her own. Murdoch aimed to draw out the implications, for metaphysics and the conception of the world, of rejecting the standard dichotomy of language into the 'descriptive' and the 'emotive'. She aimed, in Wittgensteinian spirit, to describe the phenomena of moral thinking more accurately than the 'linguistic behaviourists' like R. M. Hare. This 'empiricist' task could be acheived, Murdoch thought, only with help from the idealist tradition of Kant, Hegel, and Bradley. And she combined with this a moral psychology, or theory of motivation, that went back to Plato, but was influenced by Freud and Simone Weil. Murdoch's impact can be seen in the moral philosophy of John McDowell and, in different ways, in Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor, as well as in the recent movements under the headings of moral realism, particularism, moral perception, and virtue theory.
This volume brings together essays by critics and admirers of Murdoch's work, and includes a longer Introduction on Murdoch's career, reception, and achievement. It also contains a previously unpublished chapter from the book on Heidegger that Murdoch had been working on shortly before her death, and a Memoir by her husband John Bayley. It gives not only an introduction to Murdoch's important philosophical life and work, but also a picture of British philosophy in one of its heydays and at an important moment of transition.

This book theorizes a philosophical framework for educational policy and practice in the southern Philippines where decades of religious and political conflict between a minority Muslim community and the Philippine state has plagued the educational and economic development of the region. It offers a critical historical and ethnographic analysis of a century of failed attempts under successive U.S. colonial and independent Philippine governments to deploy education as a tool to mitigate the conflict and assimilate the Muslim minority into the mainstream of Philippine society and examines recent efforts to integrate state and Islamic education before proposing a philosophy of prophetic pragmatism as a more promising framework for educational policy and practice that respects the religious identity and fosters the educational development of Muslim Filipinos. It represents a timely contribution to the search for educational policies and practices more responsive to the needs and religious identities of Muslim communities emerging from conflict, not only in the southern Philippines, but in other international contexts as well.

Revealing, in an original and provocative study, the mystical contents of the works of famous atheists Virginia Woolf and Iris Murdoch, Donna Lazenby shows how these thinkers' refusal to construe worldviews on available reductive models brought them to offer radically alternative pictures of life which maintain its mysteriousness, and promote a mystical way of knowing. A Mystical Philosophy contributes to the contemporary resurgence of interest in Spirituality, but from an entirely new direction. This book provides a warning against reductive scientific and philosophical models that impoverish our understanding of ourselves and the world, and a powerful endorsement of ways of knowing that give art, and a restored concept of contemplation, their consummative place.

Scientia is the term that early modern philosophers applied to a certain kind of demonstrative knowledge, the kind whose starting points were appropriate first principles. In pre-modern philosophy, too, scientia was the name for demonstrative knowledge from first principles. But pre-modern and early modern conceptions differ systematically from one another. This book offers a variety of glimpses of this difference by exploring the works of individual philosophers as well as philosophical movements and groupings of the period. Some of the figures are transitional, falling neatly on neither side of the allegiances usually marked by the scholastic/modern distinction. Among the philosophers whose views on scientia are surveyed are Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Gassendi, Locke, and Jungius. The contributors are among the best-known and most influential historians of early modern philosophy.

From its first publication, what is now known as the Immortality Ode has been praised for the magnificence of its verse and disparaged for its paucity of meaning - the 'immortality' of the subtitle unsubstantiated, and the 'recollections' insubstantial. Yet Wordsworth's idea of immortality has clear precedents in the seventeenth century, and recollections of childhood are Traherne's starting point for the recovery of a lost vision comparable to Wordsworth's. Via the power of the imagination, or reason, they believed they could experience a renewed vision that both termed variously Paradise, or infinity, or immortality. Graham Davidson traces the origins of Wordsworth's poetic impetus to his resistance to the Cartesian division between mind and nature, first adumbrated by the Cambridge Platonists. If reunited, Paradise was regained, but this personal trajectory was tempered by a deep sympathy for the woes of mortal life. Davidson explores the consequent dialogue through some of Wordsworth's best-known poems, at the heart of which is the Ode. In the last section, he demonstrates how Wordsworth's publishing history led the Victorians and modernists to misinterpret his work; if one considers Eliot's Four Quartets as odes, facing several of the same problems as did Wordsworth, there is some irony in Eliot's dismissal of the Immortality Ode as 'verbiage'.

In the four volumes of The Development Trajectory of Eastern Societies and the Theories and Practices of Socialism, the author re-examines Marx and Engels' theories on the development trajectory of Eastern societies by integrating theoretical analysis of Marxist theories and a historical investigation of socialist revolution and socialist construction around the world. Pointing out the guiding significance of five aspects of the basic principles of Marxism for studying how Eastern societies develop, this volume interrogates various assumptions that have prevailed in academia, addresses unexplained topics, and offers insight into the understanding of these basic principles. The result is a penetrating and specific understanding of Marxist basic principles and the development trajectory of Eastern societies. Critical engagement with predominant understandings and a refreshing reformulation of Marxist theoretical bases make the book a key new reference for readers who are studying or are interested in Marxism, Marxist philosophy, and the history of philosophy.

The Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) presents outstanding monographic interpretations by scholars, active in various academic fields, of Nietzsche's work as a whole or of specific themes and aspects. These works are written mostly from a philosophical, literary, communication science, sociological or historical perspective. The publications reflect the current state of research on Nietzsche's philosophy, on his sources, on his relationship with his predecessors and contemporaries and on the influence of his writings. The volumes are peer-reviewed.

The Plotinus Reader provides a generous selection of translations from the fifty-four treatises that together make up the Enneads of Plotinus, a central work in the history of philosophy. They were prepared by a team of specialists in ancient philosophy and edited by Lloyd P. Gerson. Based on the definitive critical edition of the Greek along with decades of additional textual criticism by many scholars, these translations aim to provide a readable, accurate rendering of Plotinus's often very difficult language. Included are extensive references to Plotinus's sources, scores of cross-references, and an extensive glossary of technical terms.

In The Artist-Philosopher and New Philosophy, Smith argues that Western Metaphysics has indeed come to what Heidegger describes as "an end." That is hardly to say philosophy as such is over or soon to disappear; rather, its purpose as a medium of cultural change and as a generator of history has run its course. He thus calls for a New Philosophy, conceptualized by the artist-philosopher who "makes" or "poeticizes" New Philosophy, spanning literary and theoretical discourses and operating across art in all its forms and across culture in all its locations. To this end, Smith proposes the establishment of schools and social networks that advance the training and development of artist-philosophers, as well as global digital networks that are themselves designed toward this "ever-becoming community."

This is a comprehensive chronological survey of the political thought of post-reformation Britain, integrated around the theme of confrontation between political thought and political action. G. Burgess looks at a wide range of thinkers, including individual discussion of Hobbes and Locke.

This book introduces readers to the concept of the Axial Age and its relevance for a world in crisis. Scholars have become increasingly interested in philosopher Karl Jaspers' thesis that a spiritual revolution in consciousness during the first millennium BCE decisively shaped world history. Axial ideas of transcendence develop into ideologies for world religions and civilizations, in turn coalescing into a Eurasian world-system that spreads globally to become the foundation of our contemporary world. Alongside ideas and ideologies, the Axial Age also taught spiritual practices critically resisting the new scale of civilizational power: in small counter-cultural communities on the margins of society, they turn our conscious focus inward to transform ourselves and overcome the destructive potentials within human nature. Axial spiritualities offer humanity a practical wisdom, a profound psychology, and deep hope: to transform despair into resilience, helping us face with courage the ecological and political challenges confronting us today.

For the first time in English the world community of scholars is systematically assembling and presenting the results of recent research in the vast literature of Soren Kierkegaard. Based on the definitive English edition of Kierkegaard's works by Princeton University Press, this series of commentaries addresses all the published texts of the influential Danish philosopher and theologian.

Published in 1998, this is a fundamental re-assessment of the world-view of the alchemists, natural philosophers and intelligencers of the mid 17th century. Based almost entirely upon the extensive and hitherto little-researched manuscript archive of Samuel Hartlib, it charts and contextualises the personal and intellectual history of Johann Moriaen (c.1592-1668), a Dutch-German alchemist and natural philosopher. Moriaen was closely acquainted with many of the leading thinkers and experimenters of his time, including Rene Descartes, J.A. Comenius, J.R. Glauber and J.S. KA1/4ffler. His detailed reports of relations with these figures and his response to their work provide a uniquely informed insight into the world of alchemy and natural philosophy. This study also illuminates the nature and mechanisms of intellectual and technological exchanges between Germany, The Netherlands and England.

The Death of Transcendence presents a clear and compelling close reading and interpretation of the five essays included in Jean Amery's At the Mind's Limits, describing them as one continuous and progressing argument on the possibility of human society in the wake of the Holocaust. Through the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Iris Murdoch, J.M. Bernstein and, Charles Taylor, Ashkenazy uncovers the importance and significance of such concepts as transcendence, lose, self, other, love, and home for establishing and maintaining a human life and world, and recovering it, should it be lost. Written with both clarity and academic rigour, this book offers novel ideas, firmly grounded in existing philosophical literature, and is intended for both professional scholars and general readers of Amery.

This book introduces student to the three major figures of modern philosophy known as the rationalists. It is not for complete beginners, but it is an accessible account of their thought. By concerning itself with metaphysics, and in particular substance, the book relates an important historical debate largely neglected by the contemporary debates in the once again popular area of traditional metaphysics. in philosophy. (Do Not USE)

eBook available with sample pages: 0203002288

First published in English in 1933, this detailled philosophical examination of the contemporary state and nature of mankind is a seminal work by influential German philsopher Karl Jaspers. Elucidating his theories on a variety of topics pertaining to contemporary and future human existence, Man in the Modern Age is a key text by a man whose influence in the field continues to be felt.

In this first ever introduction to philosophy as a way of life in the Western tradition, Matthew Sharpe and Michael Ure take us through the history of the idea from Socrates and Plato, via the medievals, Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Foucault and Hadot. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended to transform their philosophy into manners of living. Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resurgence of thinking about philosophy as a practical, lived reality and why this ancient tradition still has so much relevance and power in the contemporary world.

This book draws upon the phenomenological tradition of Husserl and Heidegger in order to provide an alternative elaboration of John McDowell's thesis that in order to understand how self-conscious subjectivity relates to the world, perception must be understood as a genuine unity of spontaneity ('concept') and receptivity ('intuition'). This alternative elaboration permits clarification of McDowell's critique of Donald Davidson and development of an alternative conception of perceptual experience giving clear sense to McDowell's claim that self-conscious subjectivity is so inherently in touch with its world that scepticism about the latter must be incoherent. It also permits development of a more accurate, historically oriented critique of the metaphysics constraining one to construe perceptual experience in ways which misrepresent how self-conscious subjectivity bears upon the world. It shows that many of McDowell's meta-philosophical views are implicitly Husserlian and that had McDowell developed them further, he would have avoided the paradoxical meta-philosophy he adopts from Wittgenstein. In conclusion, it intimates the central weakness in Husserl's position which takes one from Husserl to Heidegger. The book is written in terms accessible to analytic philosophers and will thus enable them to see the central differences between analytic and phenomenological approaches to intentionality and self-consciousness.