This book identifies and follows a strand in the history of thought ranging from codified statutes to looser social expectations that uses particulars, and more specifically examples, to produce norms. Much intellectual history takes ancient Greece as a point of departure. But the strand of thought followed here finds its home, if not its origin, in Rome. The practice of exemplarity is historically rooted firmly in ancient Roman rhetoric, oratory, literature, and law, genres that also secured its transmission. Their pragmatic approach results in a conceptualization of politics, social organization, philosophy, and the law that is derived from the concrete. And although it is commonly supposed that, with the shift from pre-modern to modern ways of thinking as modern knowledge came to privilege abstraction over exempla, the general over the particular exemplarity lost its way, this book traces the limits of this understanding. Tracing the role of exemplarity from Rome through to its influence on literature, politics, philosophy, psychoanalysis and law, it shows how Roman exemplarity has subsisted, not only as a figure of thought, but also as an alternative way to organize and to transmit knowledge. "

Philosophy in Russia covers its subject broadly and in detail from the eighteenth century to Lenin and beyond into the post-Stalin period. It offers a continuous history of the development of philosophical thought in Russia, and portraits of individual and influential thinkers. The author devotes careful analysis to radicals such as Bakunin, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Lavrov, and to the Marxists such as Plekhanov and Lenin. He also discusses the thought of writers such as Kireevsky, Leontiev and Solovyev, and examines the philosophically relevant ideas of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. He also discusses Russian thinkers in exile, such as Berdyaev, Frank, N. O. Lossky and Shestov.For historical reasons philosophical thought in Russia has tended to become socially or politically committed thought. To what extent genuine philosophical thought has proved to be compatible with the monopoly enjoyed by Marxism-Leninism in the fields of education and publishing is a crucial question discussed in this authoritative study.

This title shows how an understanding of the intentionality underlining the pragmatism of Peirce and James can herald new interpretations of the interplay between philosophy and religion. In this book, John W. Woell shows us how contemporary readings of "American Pragmatism" founded on mistakenly used categories of the Analytic tradition have led to misreadings of Peirce and James. By focusing on terms drawn largely from Descartes and Kant, contemporary debates between metaphysical realists, antirealists, Realists and Nonrealists, have, argues Woell, failed to shed any lights on pragmatism in general and a pragmatic philosophy of religion in particular. Woell contends that paying close attention to the role of intentionality in experience in the respective works of Peirce and James provides a means for fully appreciating pragmatism's richness as a resource for philosophy of religion. By taking account of a pragmatic point of view in philosophy of religion, this book incites a more productive discussion of the metaphysical status of religious objects and of the epistemic status of religious belief. "Continuum Studies in American Philosophy" presents cutting-edge scholarship in both the history of and contemporary movements in American philosophy. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the field.

From bookshelves overflowing with self-help books to scholarly treatises on neurobiology to late-night infomercials that promise to make you happier, healthier, and smarter with the acquisition of just a few simple practices, the discourse of habit is a staple of contemporary culture high and low. Discussion of habit, however, tends to neglect the most fundamental questions: What is habit? Habits, we say, are hard to break. But what does it mean to break a habit? Where and how do habits take root in us? Do only humans acquire habits? What accounts for the strength or weakness of a habit? Are habits something possessed or something that possesses? We spend a lot of time thinking about our habits, but rarely do we think deeply about the nature of habit itself. Aristotle and the ancient Greeks recognized the importance of habit for the constitution of character, while readers of David Hume or American pragmatists like C.S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey know that habit is a central component in the conceptual framework of many key figures in the history of philosophy. Less familiar are the disparate discussions of habit found in the Roman Stoics, Thomas Aquinas, Michel de Montaigne, Rene Descartes, Gilles Deleuze, French phenomenology, and contemporary Anglo-American philosophies of embodiment, race, and gender, among many others. The essays gathered in this book demonstrate that the philosophy of habit is not confined to the work of just a handful of thinkers, but traverses the entire history of Western philosophy and continues to thrive in contemporary theory. A History of Habit: From Aristotle to Bourdieu is the first of its kind to document the richness and diversity of this history. It demonstrates the breadth, flexibility, and explanatory power of the concept of habit as well as its enduring significance. It makes the case for habit's perennial attraction for philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists.

Sartre Today is a tribute to Jean-Paul Sartre on the centenary of his birth (1905-2005). With twenty-two contributions from leading Sartre scholars in North America and the United Kingdom, this volume will greatly enhance Sartre scholarship in the English-speaking world. The diversity of these chapters reflects the depth and breadth of Sartre's wide-ranging engagement with the political and cultural issues of his time. Yet as these contributions demonstrate, it is clear that Sartre's work still offers an important framework through which to address contemporary issues of a similar magnitude. This applies to Sartre's enduring contribution to philosophy and his conception of violence and terror, as well as analyses of the latest political events in the United States. Other contributions address Sartre's relationship to the contemporary understanding of neuroscience and group therapy as well as his conception of literature, biography, the theater and cinema. This rich volume will be of great use not only to all Sartre scholars but also to anyone who has an interest in modern philosophy, politics, psychology, and literature. Contributors: Thomas R. Flynn, Joseph S. Catalano, Reidar Due, Steve Martinot, Ronald E. Santoni, David Detmer, John Duncan, Hazel E. Barnes, Betty Cannon, Constance L. Mui, Peter Caws, Ann Jefferson, Dennis A. Gilbert, Colin Davis John Gillespie Ian Birchall, Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone, Azzedine Haddour, Ronald Aronson, William L. McBride

Sartre Today is a tribute to Jean-Paul Sartre on the centenary of his birth (1905-2005). With twenty-two contributions from leading Sartre scholars in North America and the United Kingdom, this volume will greatly enhance Sartre scholarship in the English-speaking world. The diversity of these chapters reflects the depth and breadth of Sartre's wide-ranging engagement with the political and cultural issues of his time. Yet as these contributions demonstrate, it is clear that Sartre's work still offers an important framework through which to address contemporary issues of a similar magnitude. This applies to Sartre's enduring contribution to philosophy and his conception of violence and terror, as well as analyses of the latest political events in the United States. Other contributions address Sartre's relationship to the contemporary understanding of neuroscience and group therapy as well as his conception of literature, biography, the theater and cinema. This rich volume will be of great use not only to all Sartre scholars but also to anyone who has an interest in modern philosophy, politics, psychology, and literature. Contributors: Thomas R. Flynn, Joseph S. Catalano, Reidar Due, Steve Martinot, Ronald E. Santoni, David Detmer, John Duncan, Hazel E. Barnes, Betty Cannon, Constance L. Mui, Peter Caws, Ann Jefferson, Dennis A. Gilbert, Colin Davis John Gillespie Ian Birchall, Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone, Azzedine Haddour, Ronald Aronson, William L. McBride

This monograph reevaluates a school of thought concerned with truth and inquiry. It examines the critique which asserts that it's not possible to live this Early Greek philosophy in practice. The investigation also details new discoveries on the reception of Skepticism by Empiricist Doctors, Early Greek Fathers, Medieval Arabic Thinkers, and Renaissance Thinkers. The author takes a careful look at the apraxia argument and how critics used it. He shows how anti-skeptical arguments rose in different stages of the development of the Skepticism. Coverage also details how the skeptics replied and gave more pragmatic coherence to their philosophy, starting with the proto-skeptics and continuing with the works of Sextus Empiricus. Readers will learn how skepticism endured despite the criticisms, becoming a coherent response to dogmatic philosophies such as Stoicism. The investigation also analyzes the two common approaches that philosophers have used to interpret Sextan philosophy. It considers their benefits as well as defects. In the process, the author presents an original way of interpreting Sextan thought, which the author calls the "suburban interpretation". He then applies this "middle way" to two works: Against the Grammarians and Against the Rhetoricians. Overall, the book provides readers with an insightful look at how this school of thought survived and spread throughout the ages.

Contents:
Acknowledgements, List of Abbreviations, Introduction 1. Chapter One: Ideologies of Meaning and Value 2. Chapter Two The Fictions of Identity, Power and Desire 3. Chapter Three Simulated 'Difference', Simulated 'Politics' 4. Chapter Four Hyperreal Genders 5. Chapter Five The Inevitable Seduction 6. Chapter Six Feminism and the Power Dissolution, Notes, Bibliography

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In Hume's Social Philosophy, Christopher J Finlay presents a highly original and engaging reading of David Hume's landmark text, A Treatise of Human Nature, and political writings published immediately after it, articulating a unified view of his theory of human nature in society and his political philosophy. The book explores the hitherto neglected social contexts within which Hume's ideas were conceived. While a great deal of attention has previously been given to Hume's intellectual and literary contexts, important connections can also be made between the fundamentals of Hume's philosophy and the social world in which it was developed. Finlay argues that Hume's unified theory of human nature, conceived in terms of passions, reason and sociability, was meant to account for human nature in its most articulate manifestations, in the commercial and 'polite' social contexts of eighteenth-century Europe. Through careful exegetical study of Hume's analysis of reasoning and the passions, Finlay explores the diverse aspects of sociability which the Treatise of Human Nature invokes. In particular, this study finds in the Treatise an important exploration of the tensions between the selfish motivations of individuals and their propensity to bond with others in complex and diverse kinds of social group. Analysis of Book III of the Treatise and of essays published afterwards shows how the various individualist and social propensities explored through the passions are addressed in Hume's theories of justice, morals and politics.

Heidegger's Being and Time: Critical Essays provides a variety of recent studies of Heidegger's most important work. Twelve prominent scholars, representing diverse nationalities, generations, and interpretive approaches deal with general methodological and ontological questions, particular issues in Heidegger's text, and the relation between Being and Time and Heidegger's later thought. All of the essays presented in this volume were never before available in an English-language anthology. Two of the essays have never before been published in any language (Dreyfus and Guignon); three of the essays have never been published in English before (Grondin, Kisiel, and ThomS), and two of the essays provide previews of works in progress by major scholars (Dreyfus and Kisiel).

In Uncommon Sense, Andrew Pessin leads us on an entertaining tour of philosophy, explaining the pivotal moments when the greatest minds solved some of the knottiest conundrums-by asserting some very strange things. But the great philosophers don't merely make unusual claims, they offer powerful arguments for those claims that you can't easily dismiss. And these arguments suggest that the world is much stranger than you could have imagined: *You neither will, nor won't, do certain things in the future, like wear your blue shirt tomorrow. *But your blue shirt isn't really blue, because colors don't exist in physical objects; they're only in your mind. *Time is an illusion. *Your thoughts are not inside your head. *Everything you believe about morality is false. *Animals don't have minds. *There is no physical world at all. In eighteen lively, intelligent chapters, spanning the ancient Greeks and contemporary thinkers, Pessin examines the most unusual ideas, how they have influenced the course of Western thought, and why, despite being so odd, they just might be correct. Here is popular philosophy at its finest, sure to entertain as it enlightens.

Why does the 1974 war in Cyprus remain so dominant in Greek-Cypriot cinema? How has this event shaped the imagination of contemporary filmmakers, and how might one define the new national cinema that has emerged as a result? This book explores such questions by analysing a range of Greek-Cypriot films that have hitherto received little or no critical discussion. The book adopts a predominantly conceptual approach, situating contemporary Greek-Cypriot cinema within a specific cultural and national context. Drawing on the work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and particularly his theories of time and space, the author explores ways in which Greek-Cypriot directors invent new forms of imagery as a way of dealing with the crisis of history, the burden of memory and the dislocation of the island’s abandoned spaces.

This expanded edition of James Ellington's preeminent translation includes Ellington's new translation of Kant's essay Of a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns in which Kant replies to one of the standard objections to his moral theory as presented in the main text: that it requires us to tell the truth even in the face of disastrous consequences.

First published in 2002. Written in 1958, this book offers a re-examination of Hegel's work, and is the volume I of a series of seven volumes on his work. Starting with a biography and the key ideas, the author offers his own explanations of ideas that are central in Hegel: being the notion of spirit, the dialectical method, the phenomenology of spirit, the doctrines of being, essence and notion; the philosophy of nature, absolute knowledge and subjective/objective spirit.

Timothy Sprigge was one of the leading exponents of philosophical idealism in the last fifty years. His scholarly work in the history of modern philosophy focused on Baruch Spinoza, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, F. H. Bradley, Arthur Schopenhauer, Edmund Husserl, and Alfred North Whitehead: this eventually led to the construction of his own original system of metaphysics he called 'panpsychistic absolute idealism'. Idealism, long unfashionable, has been coming back into favour, and Sprigge's work has found a new readership. This selection of his finest essays ranges widely over metaphysics, ethics, and the history of philosophy: all the themes that he discusses are drawn together in his unique philosophical system, based upon his original theory of the nature of consciousness.

What is the future of Continental philosophy of religion? These forward-looking essays address the new thinkers and movements that have gained prominence since the generation of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Levinas and how they will reshape Continental philosophy of religion in the years to come. They look at the ways concepts such as liberation, sovereignty, and post-colonialism have engaged this new generation with political theology and the new pathways of thought that have opened in the wake of speculative realism and recent findings in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Readers will discover new directions in this challenging and important area of philosophical inquiry.

What is the future of Continental philosophy of religion? These forward-looking essays address the new thinkers and movements that have gained prominence since the generation of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Levinas and how they will reshape Continental philosophy of religion in the years to come. They look at the ways concepts such as liberation, sovereignty, and post-colonialism have engaged this new generation with political theology and the new pathways of thought that have opened in the wake of speculative realism and recent findings in neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Readers will discover new directions in this challenging and important area of philosophical inquiry.

How does thinking illuminate the spiritual view of life? How does a close examination of key spiritual thinkers help us to live in the modern world? And in what way does philosophy enhance spirituality? In this book, Richard White answers these questions by analysing a range of important philosophers, from Schopenhauer in the first half of the 19th century to Irigaray in the present day. Each chapter examines the work of a single writer and one closely associated theme, such as Nietzsche on generosity, Benjamin on wisdom, and Derrida on mourning. The author looks at philosophy and spirituality in the tradition of continental philosophy, and he views spirituality as something that can be separated from religion. With the rise of reductive scientific materialism becoming ever more prevalent in modern society, White seeks to recover the idea of a spiritual tradition which is not otherworldly but philosophical in nature. The thinkers discussed in this book articulate some of the deepest possibilities of human existence. Spiritual Philosophers offers an approach to philosophy as a spiritual practice, which the author sees as an integral part of our life. As a pioneering work in an emerging field - the philosophy of spirituality -- this book contributes to several key debates surrounding spirituality, theology and the role of philosophy in the contemporary world.

Kant, Fichte, and the Legacy of Transcendental Idealism contains ten new essays by leading and rising scholars from the United States, Europe, and Asia who explore the historical development and conceptual contours of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy. The collection begins with a set of comparative essays centered on Kant's transcendental idealism, placing special stress on the essentials of Kant's moral theory, the metaphysical outlook bound up with it, and the conception of the legitimate role of religion supported by it. The spotlight then shifts to the post-Kantian period, in a series of essays exploring a variety of angles on Fichte's pivotal role: his uncompromising constructivism, his overarching conception of the philosophical project, and his radical accounts of the nature of reason and the constitution of meaning. In the remaining essays, the focus falls on German idealism after Fichte, with particular attention to Jacobi's critique of idealism as "nihilism," Schelling's development of an idealistic philosophy of nature, and Hegel's development of an all-encompassing idealistic "science of logic." The collection, edited by Halla Kim and Steven Hoeltzel, will be of great value to scholars interested in Kant, Fichte, German idealism, post-Kantian philosophy, European philosophy, or the history of ideas.

In A Realist Metaphysics of Race: A Context-Sensitive, Short-Term Retentionist, Long-Term Revisionist Approach, Jeremy Pierce defends a social kind view of racial categories. On this view, the biological features we use to classify people racially do not make races natural kinds. Rather, races exist because of contingent social practices, single out certain groups of people as races, give them social importance, and allow us to name them as races. Pierce also identifies several kinds of context-sensitivity as central to how racial categorization works and argues that we need racial categories to identify problems in how our racial constructions are formed, including the harmful effects of racial constructions. Hence, rather than seeking to eliminate such categories, Pierce argues that we should also make efforts to change the conditions that generate their problematic elements, with an eye toward retaining only the unproblematic aspects. A Realist Metaphysics of Race contains insights relevant not just to professional philosophers in metaphysics, philosophy of race, social philosophy, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science, but also to students and scholars working in sociology, biology, anthropology, ethnic studies, and political science.

'Reading Walter Benjamin' explores the persistence of absolute in Benjamin's work by sketching-out the relationship between philosphy and theology apparent in his diverse writings, from the early youth-movement essays to the later books, essays and fragments. The book examines Benjamin from two main perspectives: a history-of-ideas approach situating Benjamin in relation to the new German-Jewish thinking at the turn of the twentieth-century, as well as the German youth movements, Surrealism and the 'Georgekreis'; and a conceptual approach examining more critical issues in relation to Benjamin and Kant, modern aesthetics and narrative order. Chapters cover: 'Kulturpessimismus' and the new thinking; metaphysics of youth: Wyneken and 'Rausch'; history: surreal Messianism; Goethe and the 'Georgekreis'; Kant's experience; casting the work of art; disrupting textual order; and exile and the time of crisis. The book uses new translations of Benjamin's essays, fragments and his 'Arcades Project', and makes substantial reference to previously untranslated material. Lane's text allows the non-specialist entry into complex areas of critical theory, simultaneously offering original readings of Benjamin and twentieth-century arts and literature. -- .

The enigmatic thought of Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), considered by many to be one of the great philosophers of all time, involves inquiry not only into virtually all branches and sources of modern semiotics, physics, cognitive sciences, and mathematics, but also logic, which he understood to be the only useful approach to the riddle of reality. This book represents an attempt to outline an analytical method based on Charles Peirce's least explored branch of philosophy, which is his evolutionary cosmology, and his notion that the universe is made of an 'effete mind.' The chief argument conceives of human discourse as a giant metaphor in regard to outside reality. The metaphors arise in our imagination as lightning-fast schemes for acting, speaking, or thinking. To illustrate this, each chapter will present a well-known metaphor and explain how it is unfolded and conceptualized according to the new method for revealing meaning. This original work will interest students and scholars in many fields including semiotics, linguistics and philosophy.

This book engages in a broad reading of Rousseau's writings on educational and political thought in order to explore and address the competing demands of the enculturation and individuation of the young in Western societies. Although Rousseau's Emile has been frequently utilised in educational debate, much of his other work has been largely neglected, as too has the relationship between his educational and political thinking, which this work seeks to redress. Drawing on the thinking of philosophers Foucault and Richard Rorty, the book considers the public and private conflicts of education and politics in modern societies, treating them as the tension between the demands of truth and freedom. This tension exists across a range of educational and political systems, such as teaching in and by the family, school, the government and, separately, for women. Wain suggests that the conflict between truth and freedom began with Rousseau and remains a central challenge in our contemporary world of political and educational thought. This book's examination of the public and private roles in education and politics can enhance our understanding of modern educational systems and current political nihilism. Between Truth and Freedom provides an analysis of Rousseau's position on the politics of education, arguing that his thoughts were much wider and more sophisticated than the ideas presented in Emile imply. This new consideration of the work of a classic figure will appeal to researchers and academics in the fields of the philosophy of education and political education.

The Nietzsche Disappointment examines the workings of time in Nietzsche's philosophy. It asks how he explains the great changes that (according to him) turned the past into the present - catastrophic transformations of morality, language, human nature - or that may yet make a desirable future out of this sorry present age. The question is essential. Nietzsche attacks morality by appeal to the past and future. Where philosophy had fancied itself eternal, imagining all times to be more or less like the present, Nietzsche sets the subject in motion with his attention to abrupt, utterly consequential events. Everything eternal becomes temporal. But after whetting his readers' appetites for past and future cataclysms, Nietzsche makes them seem impossible. Birth of Tragedy raises the question of where Socrates could have come from - and then can't answer. In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche pins his hopes on the birth of future philosophers, even as he shows how many obstacles prevent their being born. On the Genealogy of Morals posits occurrences, like the triumph of slave morality, that violate Nietzsche's own claims about what can happen. What stops Nietzsche from telling the very stories that he wanted philosophy to attend to? Perhaps that question can't be answered without considering how Nietzsche understands his own place in the flow of time - considering, for instance, his wish to be an original philosopher. The Nietzsche Disappointment is both critical and sympathetic. It interrogates Nietzsche in terms that he should understand; it closes by asking whether there is some way of being critical that is also self-critical. For then a good reading may free the reader from Nietzsche's person while continuing to confront the challenge he bequeathed to philosophy.