Naturalism and Pragmatism offers reflections on the pragmatic tradition from a fresh perspective: that of a working neuroscientist. Though naturalism and evolution are not the only topics of discussions, they are important themes of the book. Both pragmatism and modern behavioral science grew up in the wake of Darwin's theory of evolution. Indeed it is impossible to imagine either without evolutionary theory and the more general nineteenth-century trend of naturalism from which modern evolutionary theory emerged. And yet, for a variety of reasons, these common origins have not ensured a close affinity between pragmatic philosophy and the behavioral sciences. Among the wide diversity of scientific theories of human cognition and its evolutionary origins, only a few are congenial to pragmatism in its original or classical' form, which embraces the full range of human experience

From Descartes to Hume, philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries developed a dialectic of radically conflicting claims about the nature of the self. In the Paralogisms of The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant comes to terms with this dialectic, and with the character of the experiencing self. Powell seeks to elucidate these difficult texts, in part by applying to the Paralogisms insights drawn from Kant's Transcendental Deduction. His reading shows that the structure of the Paralogisms provides an essential key to understanding both Kant's critique of `rational psychology' and his theory of self-consciousness. As Kant realized, the ways in which we must represent ourselves to ourselves have import not only for epistemology, but for our view of persons and of our own immortality, and for moral philosophy as well. Kant's theory of self-consciousness is also shown to have implications for contemporary discussions of the problem of other minds, functionalism, and the problem of indexical self-reference.

This book explores the imaginative possibilities for philosophy created by Nietzsche's sustained reflection on the phenomenon of ecstasy. From The Birth of Tragedy to his experimental "physiology of art," Nietzsche examines the aesthetic, erotic, and sacred dimensions of rapture, hinting at how an ecstatic philosophy is realized in his elusive doctrine of Eternal Return. Jill Marsden pursues the implications of this legacy for contemporary Continental thought via analyses of such voyages in ecstasy as Kant, Schopenhauer, Schreber, and Bataille.

If we read Ludwig Wittgenstein s works and take his scientific formation in mathematical logic into account, it comes as a surprise that he ever developed a particular interest in anthropological questions. The following questions immediately arise: What role does anthropology play in Wittgenstein s work? How do problems concerning mankind as a whole relate to his philosophy? How does his approach relate to philosophical anthropology? How does he view classical issues about Man s affairs and actions? The aim of this book is to investigate the anthropological questions that Wittgenstein raised in his works. The answers to the questions raised in this introduction may be found on the intersection between forms of life and radical translation from another culture into ours. The book presents an extensive analysis of anthropological issues with emphasis on language and social elements."

Walter Benjamin holds a unique fascination for students and scholars interested in the question of modernity. The most original thinker of Weimar Germany, Benjamin has become something of a cultural icon and his works are often regarded with awe rather than critical scrutiny. This book offers surprising new insights from a number of perspectives -- sociology, history, women's studies, literary and cultural studies -- and investigates unexplored areas of Benjamin scholarship to arrive at a critically balanced perception of his work.
There are four main sections:
- a critical re-evaluation of Benjamin's concepts of history and modernity in light of postmodernist discourses;
- a discussion of aspects of Benjamin's literary scholarship;
- a re-evaluation of Benjamin's writings on media and performance theories; and
- an investigation of Benjamin's peculiar 'utopianism' which includes a critical consideration of sexual/gender politics.

This award-winning book investigates the critique of psychoanalysis formulated by the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) over some five decades, systematically examining Jasper 's arguments against Freud and his followers. The book traces the medico-historical roots of Jasper 's criticism of psychoanalysis and places it within the framework of scientific theory before devoting itself extensively to medico-ethical aspects of the controversy, which are ultimately treated in terms of a history of mentalities.

B. W. Young describes and analyses the intellectual culture of the eighteenth-century Church of England, in particular relation to those developments traditionally described as constituting the Enlightenment. It challenges conventional perceptions of an intellectually moribund institution by contextualising the polemical and scholarly debates in which churchmen engaged. In particular, it delineates the vigorous clerical culture in which much eighteenth-century thought evolved. The book traces the creation of a self-consciously enlightened tradition within Anglicanism, which drew on Erasmianism, seventeenth-century eirenicism and the legacy of Locke. By emphasizing the variety of its intellectual life, the book challenges those notions of Enlightenment which advance predominantly political interpretations of this period. Thus, eighteenth-century critics of the Enlightenment, notably those who contributed to a burgeoning interest in mysticism, are equally integral to this study.

In our daily lives we make lots of evaluations of actions. We think that driving above the speed limit is dangerous, that giving up one's bus seat to the elderly is polite, that stirring eggs with a plastic spoon is neither good nor bad. We understand, too, that we may be praised or blamed for actions performed on the basis of these evaluations. The goal of this study is to illustrate the foundations that allow for these kinds of judgments.

People act for reasons. That is how we understand ourselves. But what is it to act for a reason? This is what Fred Schueler investigates. He rejects the dominant view that the beliefs and desires that constitute our reasons for acting simply cause us to act as we do, and argues instead for a view centred on practical deliberation, our ability to evaluate the reasons we accept. Schueler's account of 'reasons explanations' emphasizes the relation between reasons and purposes, and the fact that the reasons for an action are not always good reasons.

This book reconstructs key aspects of the early career of Descartes from 1618 to 1633; that is, up through the point of his composing his first system of natural philosophy, "Le Monde, " in 1629-33. It focuses upon the overlapping and intertwined development of Descartes projects in physico-mathematics, analytical mathematics, universal method, and, finally, systematic corpuscular-mechanical natural philosophy. The concern is not simply with the conceptual and technical aspects of these projects; but, with Descartes agendas within them and his construction and presentation of his intellectual identity in relation to them.

Descartes technical projects, agendas and senses of identity shifted over time, entangled and displayed great successes and deep failures, as he morphed from a mathematically competent, Jesuit trained graduate in neo-Scholastic Aristotelianism to aspiring prophet of a systematised corpuscular-mechanism, passing through stages of being a committed "physico-mathematicus," advocate of a putative universal mathematics, and projector of a grand methodological dream. In all three dimensions projects, agendas and identity concerns the young Descartes struggled and contended, with himself and with real or virtual peers and competitors, hence the title "Descartes-Agonistes" .

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In Marxism and America, an accomplished group of scholars reconsiders the relationship of the United States to the theoretical tradition derived from Karl Marx. In brand new essays that cover the period from the nineteenth century, when Marx wrote for American newspapers, to the present, when a millennial socialism has emerged inspired by the presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders, the contributors take up topics ranging from memory of the Civil War to feminist debates over sexuality and pornography. Along the way, they clarify the relationship of race and democracy, the promise and perils of the American political tradition and the prospects for class politics today. Marxism and America sheds new light on old questions, helping to explain why socialism has been so difficult to establish in the United States even as it has exerted a notable influence in American thought. -- .

John Locke's complex masterpiece, "An Essay of Human Understanding," was a sustained attack on the dogmatism of the day and the last great work of philosophical realism before the onset of idealism. One of the most influential books in the history of thought, it is the most renowned work of the great English philosopher. Originally published in two volumes, this one-volume edition of "Locke" examines the historical meaning and philosophical significance of this work through careful explanations of the context of debate to which it was a decisive contribution. The first volume of this comprehensive work focuses on Locke's "Essay" from the epistemological side, and the second turns to the concepts of Locke's ontology--substance, mode, essence, law, and identity.

The ten essays in this collection were written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the lectures which became Wilfrid Sellars's Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, one of the crowning achievements of 20th-century analytic philosophy. Both appreciative and critical of Sellars's accomplishment, they engage with his treatment of crucial issues in metaphysics and epistemology. The topics include the standing of empiricism, Sellars's complex treatment of perception, his dissatisfaction with both foundationalist and coherentist epistemologies, his commitment to realism, and the status of the normative (the "logical space of reasons" and the "manifest image"). The volume shows how vibrant Sellarsian philosophy remains in the 21st century.

Shows how Hegel gradually discovers philosophy and the necessiy of personal commitment as a philosopher.

Adam Smith (1723-90) is well known as the author of The Wealth of Nations and as a champion of free enterprise but he also wrote on moral philosophy and lectured on rhetoric and jurisprudence. This collection reveals a new portrait of the well known economist, not as a simple-minded champion of free trade but as an interdisciplinary social scientist with a moral philosophy for the modern world. His legacy should not be restricted to economics and to the English-speaking world.

Kant's views about mathematics were controversial in his own time, and they have inspired or infuriated thinkers ever since. Though specific Kantian doctrines fell into disrepute earlier in this century, the past twenty-five years have seen a surge of interest in and respect for Kant's philosophy of mathematics among both Kant scholars and philosophers of mathematics. The present volume includes the classic papers from the 1960s and 1970s which spared this renaissance of interest, together with updated postscripts by their authors. It also includes the most important recent work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics. The essays bring to bear a wealth of detailed Kantian scholarship, together with powerful new interpretative tools drawn from modern mathematics, logic and philosophy. The cumulative effect of this collection upon the reader will be a deeper understanding of the centrality of mathematics in all aspects of Kant's thought and a renewed respect for the power of Kant's thinking about mathematics. The essays contained in this volume will set the agenda for further work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics for some time to come.

"A witty, learned, authoritative survey of philosophical thought." -The New York Times Book Review The first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of philosophy to cover both Western and Eastern traditions, from one of the world's most eminent thinkers The story of philosophy is an epic tale, spanning civilizations and continents. It explores some of the most creative minds in history. But not since the long-popular classic by Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, published in 1945, has there been a comprehensive and entertaining single-volume history of this great, intellectual, world-shaping journey. With characteristic clarity and elegance, A. C. Grayling takes the reader from the age of the Buddha, Confucius, and Socrates through Christianity's capture of the European mind, from the Renaissance and Enlightenment on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre and, finally, philosophy today. Surveying in tandem the great philosophical traditions of India, China, and the Persian-Arabic world, and astonishing in its range and accessibility, Grayling's The History of Philosophy is destined to be a landmark work.

"Nothing is more curiously enquired after . . . than the causes of every phenomenon. . . . We] push on our enquiries, till we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. . . . This is our aim in all our studies and reflections."
These words sum up David Hume's plan: To discover the fundamental principles at work in the nature and extent of human knowledge, and in so doing to gain a clearer understanding of our perception, ideas (e.g. of cause and effect), impressions, beliefs, passions, virtues, and vices. Hume's piercing critique and relentless analysis make this truly one of the most influential works of the Early Modern period.

Kant claimed that the principal topics of philosophy all converge on one question: "Was ist der Mensch?" Starting with the main claim that conceptions of the human play a significant structuring role in theory construction, the contributors in this volume investigate the roles that conceptions of the human play both in philosophy and in other human and social sciences. Renowned scholars from various disciplines - philosophy, anthropology, psychology, literary studies - discuss not only the relations between philosophicy and empirical knowledge of the human being. In a rare dialogue between Anglo-Saxon and German humananities, the contributors refer to each other and take up questions of their co-contributors. Thus, controversial, cross-disciplinary debates develop, arise providing new arguments and insights to a question which is methodologically prior to that posed by Kant: How can conceptions of the human be justified?

This book is a collection of essays each of which discusses the work of one of eight individuals - Rush Rhees, Peter Winch, R. F. Holland, J. R. Jones, H. O. Mounce, D. Z. Phillips, Ilham Dilman and R.W. Beardsmore - who taught philosophy at the University of Wales, Swansea, for some time from the 1950s through to the 1990s and so contributed to what in some circles came to be known as 'the Swansea School'. These eight essays are in turn followed by a ninth that, drawing on the previous eight, offers something of a critical overview of philosophy at Swansea during that same period. The essays are not primarily historical in character. Instead they aim at both the critical assessment and the continuation of the sort of philosophical work that during those years came to be especially associated with philosophy at Swansea, work that is deeply indebted to the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein but also distinctively sensitive to the relevance of literary works to philosophical reflection.

In his notes, Nietzsche refers to "the struggle between science and wisdom exhibited in the ancient Greek philosophers". Nietzsche's own view about "science" (learning) was to the effect that, at its best, it should be greatly respected yet always tested by the demands of personal wisdom, an "egotistical" quality which nevertheless transcends self-indulgence.;This volume considers the meaning and implications of Nietzsche's belief in relation to philosophy up to the time of Aristotle, and then its bearing on modern (essentially nihilistic) attitudes, to which it supplies something of an antidote. By the author of "Aldous Huxley", "Out of the Maestrom: Psychology and the Novel in the Twentieth Century", "Characters of Women in Narrative Literature", "Ibsen and Shaw", "Nietzsche and Modern Literature: Themes in Yeats, Rilke, Mann and Lawrence", and "Nietzsche and the Spirit of Tragedy".

This book is about Enlightenment culture in Spanish America before Independence-in short, there where, according to Hegel, one would least expect to find it. It explores the Enlightenment in texts from five cultural fields: science, history, the periodical press, law, and literature. Texts include the journals of the geodesic expedition to Quito, philosophical histories of the Americas, a year's work from the Mercurio Peruano, the writings of Mariano Moreno, and Lizardi's El periquillo sarniento. Each chapter takes one field, one body of writing, and one key question: Is modern science universal? Can one disavow the discourse of progress? What is a "Catholic" Enlightenment? Are Enlightenment reason and sovereignty monological? Must the individual be the normative subject of modernity? The book's premise is that the above texts not only speak to the contradictions of a doubtless marginalised colonial American Ilustracion but illuminate the constitutive aporias of the so-called modern project itself. Drawing on the work of Derrida, but also on both historical and philosophical accounts of the various Enlightenments, this incisive book will be of interest to students of Spanish America and scholars in the fields of postcolonialism and the Enlightenment.

This wide-ranging collection of essays contains eighteen original articles by authors representing some of the most important recent work on Wittgenstein. It deals with questions pertaining to both the interpretation and application of Wittgenstein's thought and the editing of his works. Regarding the latter, it also addresses issues concerning scholarly electronic publishing. The collection is accompanied by a comprehensive introduction which lays out the content and arguments of each contribution. Contributors: Knut Erik Tranoy, Lars Hertzberg, Georg Henrik von Wright, Marie McGinn, Cora Diamond, James Conant, David G. Stern, Eike von Savigny, P.M.S. Hacker, Hans-Johann Glock, Allan Janik, Kristof Nyiri, Antonia Soulez, Brian McGuinness, Anthony Kenny, Joachim Schulte, Herbert Hrachovec, Cameron McEwen.