This volume consists of more than twenty articles by Richard H. Popkin on the history of modern philosophy, written between 1980 and 1990, including several not published before this.
The topics covered in these studies range over religious and theological influences in modern philosophy, further material in the history of scepticism dealing with Hobbes, Henry More and Pascal, as well as Moritz Schlick, new findings about Spinoza, pre-Adamism, Ralph Cudworth, Isaac Newton's religious views, 18th century racism, and the liberalism of Condorcet.

Challenging chaos theory and catastrophe theory, the author contends that with the fragmented state of knowledge in contemporary times, these dynamic equilibrium-oriented theories are inadequate for generating new knowledge. Arguing that knowledge is dynamic and disequilibrium-oriented, Rich provides a new theoretical approach--crisis theory--and applies it to the problems of economics, politics, and the natural sciences. Crisis theory is constructed to deal with changes in problem areas, to allow for the development of new theories in both existing and emerging problem areas, and to allow for the exchange of information within opposing theories in economics and politics.

The book is composed of three parts. Part 1 discusses the role of knowledge and its anti-realism in our contemporary era and establishes the need for a new theory. Part 2 develops the schematic of crisis theory. In Part 3, the theory is applied to the problems of long-term business cycle theories, the nine implications of Mancur Olson's logic, the problems of the postindustrial future-oriented countries, and the paradox of industrialization.

In this second edition of Steve Fuller's original work Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies, James Collier joins Fuller in developing an updated and accessible version of Fuller's classic volume. The new edition shifts focus slightly to balance the discussions of theory and practice, and the writing style is oriented to advanced students. It addresses the contemporary problems of knowledge to develop the basis for a more publicly accountable science. The resources of social epistemology are deployed to provide a positive agenda of research, teaching, and political action designed to bring out the best in both the ancient discipline of rhetoric and the emerging field of science and technology studies (STS). The authors reclaim and integrate STS and rhetoric to explore the problems of knowledge as a social process--problems of increasing public interest that extend beyond traditional disciplinary resources. In so doing, the differences among disciplines must be questioned (the exercise of STS) and the disciplinary boundaries must be renegotiated (the exercise of rhetoric). This book innovatively integrates a sophisticated theoretical approach to the social processes of creating knowledge with a developing pedagogical apparatus. The thought questions at the end of each chapter, the postscript, and the appendix allow the reader to actively engage the text in order to discuss and apply its theoretical insights. Creating new standards for interdisciplinary scholarship and communication, the authors bring numerous disciplines into conversation in formulating a new kind of rhetoric geared toward greater democratic participation in the knowledge-making process. This volume is intended for students and scholars in rhetoric of science, science studies, philosophy, and communication, and will be of interest in English, sociology, and knowledge management arenas as well.

This book deals with a previously neglected episode in the history of logic and theories of cognition: the way in which conceptions of inference changed during the 17th century. Gaukroger focuses on the work of Descartes, contrasting his explanation of inference as an instantaneous grasp in accord with the natural light of reason with the Aristotelian view of inference as a discursive process. He offers a new interpretation of Descartes' contribution to the question, revealing it to be a significant advance over humanist and late Scholastic conceptions, and argues that the Cartesian account played a pivotal role in the development of our understanding of the nature of inference.

The Routledge History of Philosophy series provides a chronological survey of the history of Western Philosophy fro its beginnings in the sixth century BC to the present time. It discusses all the major philosophical developments in depth, and covers all those regarded as great philosophers and many lesser figures of philosophypast and present. We are pleased to announce all 10 volumes are now available in paperback for the first time.

"Dawn" is the most recent volume to appear in the first complete, critical, and annotated English edition of all of Nietzsche's work. The edition, organized originally by Ernst Behler and Bernd Magnus, is a translation of the celebrated "Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Banden" (1980) edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. The book is the first to appear under the editorial direction of Alan D. Schrift, Keith Ansell-Pearson, and Duncan Large, and to incorporate subsequent corrections to the 1980 edition.
Continuing the positivistic turn of "Human, All Too Human," "Dawn" is the second installment in the free spirit trilogy that culminated in "The Joyful Science." One of Nietzsche's "yes-saying" books, it marks his first significant confrontation with morality and offers glimpses of many of the signature themes in his mature works. "Dawn" has come to be admired in recent years for its ethical naturalism, psychological observations, and therapeutic insights. Presented in Nietzsche's aphoristic style, it is a text with hidden riches, one that must be read between the lines and one that the discerning reader will admire and cherish.

In this wise and accessible collection of new interconnected philosophical essays, John Lachs, a highly respected senior philosopher in the american tradition, discusses a range of important personal and social issues relevant to all thinkers including professional philosophers, academics of all disciplines and general introspective readers. Topics include the role of education, questions about death and afterlife. bioethics, and discussions of major American thinkers.

Continuum's Reader's Guides are clear, concise and accessible introductions to classic works of philosophy. Each book explores the major themes, historical and philosophical context and key passages of a major philosophical text, guiding the reader toward a thorough understanding of often demanding material. Ideal for undergraduate students, the guides provide an essential resource for anyone who needs to get to grips with a philosophical text. Wittgenstein's Tractatus - the only book he actually published within his lifetime - was an immensely important work, which changed the direction of philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. Highlighting the importance of the nature of language in philosophy and the problematic nature of metaphysics, it strongly influenced the work of Russell, the Vienna Circle and A. J. Ayer. An understanding of the ideas in the Tractatus is essential to fully grasp Wittgenstein's remarkable thought. In Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus': A Reader's Guide, Roger White provides a thorough account of the philosophical and historical context of Wittgenstein's work. guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of this remarkable text. White goes on to explore the reception and influence of the work and offers a detailed guide to further reading. This is the ideal companion to study of this hugely important philosophical work.

What is the nature of causation? How is causation linked with explanation? And can there be an adequate theory of explanation? These questions and many others are addressed in this unified and rigorous examination of the philosophical problems surrounding causation, laws and explanation. Part 1 of this book explores Hume's views on causation, theories of singular causation, and counterfactual and mechanistic approaches. Part 2 considers the regularity view of laws and laws as relations among universals, as well as recent alternative approaches to laws. Part 3 examines the issues arising from deductive-nomological explanation, statistical explanation, the explanation of laws and the metaphysics of explanation. Accessible to readers of all levels, this book provides an excellent introduction to one of the most enduring problems of philosophy.

At first sight, Karl Marx and Ludwig Wittgenstein may well seem to be as different from each other as it is possible for the ideas of two major intellectuals to be.
Despite this standard conception, however, a small number of scholars have long suggested that there are deeper philosophical commonalities between Marx and Wittgenstein. They have argued that, once grasped, these commonalities can radically change and enrich understanding both of Marxism and of Wittgensteinian philosophy. This book develops and extends this unorthodox view, emphasising the mutual enrichment that comes from bringing Marx's and Wittgenstein's ideas into dialogue with one another.
Essential reading for all scholars and philosophers interested in the Marxist philosophy and the philosophy of Wittgenstein, this book will also be of vital interest to those studying and researching in the fields of social philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of social science and political economy.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203453409

The Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks painlessly introduce students to the classic works of philosophy. Each GuideBook considers a major philosopher and a key area of their philosophy by focusing upon an important text - situating the philosopher and the work in a historical context, considering the text in question and assessing the philosopher's contribution to contemporary thought. Hegel and the Philosophy of Right introduces and assesses:
* Hegel's life and the background of the Philosophy of Right
* The ideas and text of the Philosophy of Right
* The continuing importance of Hegel's work to philosophy and political thought.

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

This revised and updated edition of a standard work provides a clear and authoritative survey of the Western tradition in metaphysics and epistemology from the Presocratics to the present day. Aimed at the beginning student, it presents the ideas of the major philosophers and their schools of thought in a readable and engaging way, highlighting the central points in each contributor's doctrines and offering a lucid discussion of the next-level details that both fills out the general themes and encourages the reader to pursue the arguments still further through a detailed guide to further reading. Whether John Shand is discussing the slow separation of philosophy and theology in Augustine, Aquinas and Ockham, the rise of rationalism, British empiricism, German idealism or the new approaches opened up by Russell, Sartre and Wittgenstein, he combines succinct but insightful exposition with crisp critical comment. This new edition will continue to provide students with a valuable work of initial reference.

Having studied philosophy at a time when its traditions were being seriously uprooted by the atrocities of World War II, Theodor Adorno had an enormous impact on thinking about aesthetics at a transitional historical moment when the philosophy of science and leftist politics were looking for new ground. Moreover, with his focus on the rise of commercial culture and its effects on identity-construction, Adorno can be said to have reinvigorated modernist concerns by introducing the prevailing terms in our contemporary versions of cultural politics and cultural studies. Understanding Adorno, Understanding Modernism traces Adorno’s social and aesthetic ideas as they appear and reappear in his corpus. As per other volumes in the series, this book is divided into three parts. The first, “Adorno’s Keywords,” is organized by the aesthetic terms around which Adorno’s philosophy circulates. The second section is devoted to “Adorno and Aesthetics.” While Adorno’s philosophical viewpoints influenced modernism’s evolution into the 21st century, the history of modernist aesthetics also shaped his philosophical approaches. The third and final part, “Adorno’s Constellations,” discusses how aesthetic form in Adorno’s thinking underlies the terms of his social analysis.

This volume addresses the history and epistemology of early modern cosmology. The authors reconstruct the development of cosmological ideas in the age of 'scientific revolution' from Copernicus to Leibniz, taking into account the growth of a unified celestial-and-terrestrial mechanics. The volume investigates how, in the rise of the new science, cosmology displayed deep and multifaceted interrelations between scientific notions (stemming from mechanics, mathematics, geometry, astronomy) and philosophical concepts. These were employed to frame a general picture of the universe, as well as to criticize and interpret scientific notions and observational data. This interdisciplinary work reconstructs a conceptual web pervaded by various intellectual attitudes and drives. It presents an historical-epistemological unified itinerary which includes Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Huygens, Newton and Leibniz. For each of the scientists and philosophers, a presentation and commentary is made of their cosmological views, and where relevant, outlines of their most relevant physical concepts are given. Furthermore, the authors highlight the philosophical and epistemological implications of their scientific works. This work is helpful both as a synthetic overview of early modern cosmology, and an analytical exposition of the elements that were intertwined in early-modern cosmology. This book addresses historians, philosophers, and scientists and can also be used as a research source book by post-graduate students in epistemology, history of science and history of philosophy.

This chronological survey explores Pascal's (162362) achievement as mathematician, physicist and religious thinker; it also has a chapter on his life. His work on conic sections, the probability calculus, number theory, cycloid curves and hydrostatics is considered in detail. Analyses of the Provincial Letters and the Thoughts bring out the many distinctive features, thematicnn and technical, of each text. Pascal's lesser known works are also studied. There is a chapter on the Wager argument. A wide-ranging bibliography completes the book.

This book on Alain Badiou's philosophy begins with a central theme: the attempt to trace how Badiou has replaced the tradition of critical theory and negation with an affirmative support of his four generic procedures (art, science, love, and art) as inseparable from his revitalization of both the subject and the concept of truth. By defining four procedures as conditions of philosophy, Badiou makes the attempt to establish each as inter-related and systematically necessary to make a new proposal for thought. The fidelity to Badiou's project for the 21st century, however, requires a fundamental examination: are his four truths complicated by an inescapable dilemma? And if so, can the four truths be retained, as a whole, or does the individual reader have to make a decision that will alter Badiou's project and conclusions? By presenting the dilemmas of his thought, the scholarly reader will be in a position to then pursue the necessary study to come to their own conclusions and, by doing so, become sufficiently free to resist the many coercions of social and political life in liberal democracies today.

This book delivers philosophy’s first sustained examination of handedness: being left-handed, right-handed, etc. It engages literature from phenomenology and continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, laterality studies, cognitive science and psychology, gender studies and feminist philosophy, sociology, political science, and more to provide a systematic accounting of the nature of handedness, its basis in lived experience, its effects on bodily performance, its role in varieties of inequality, and its part in oppression and liberation. As a radical asymmetry in the body, handedness plays a key role in human flourishing. It informs both personal bodily movement and social life, from handshakes and high fives to high tech tools made for one hand or the other. Moreover, with left-handers making up just 10% of the population, handedness presents a significant inequality in lived experience. To live and live well, we must understand handedness.

In Rawls, Dewey and Constructivism, Eric Weber examines and critiques John Rawls' epistemology and the unresolved tension - inherited from Kant - between Representationalism and Constructivism in Rawls' work. Weber argues that, despite Rawls' claims to be a constructivist, his unexplored Kantian influences cause several problems. In particular, Weber criticises Rawls' failure to explain the origins of conceptions of justice, his understanding of "persons" and his revival of Social Contract Theory. Drawing on the work of John Dewey to resolve these problems, the book argues for a rigorously constructivist approach to the concept of justice and explores the practical implications of such an approach for Education.

In this book twelve outstanding historians of early modern philosophy undertake a study of the philosophy of Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665). Clauberg was not only among the first followers of Descartes (whose philosophy he taught from 1650 in Herborn and from 1652 until the end of his life in Duisburg) but also assured its survival as an academic philosophy by giving it a more traditional and more didactic expression. A first group of articles deals with Clauberg's early metaphysics as it found its expression in his Ontosophia of 1646 (republished with very considerable changes in 1664), the way it was influenced by Comenius (Leinsle), its relation to Malebranche (Bardout) and Wolff (A0/00cole) and the way in which it illustrates the difficulties of a Cartesian ontology in general (Carraud). A second group of articles deals with problems of knowledge: knowledge of God (Goudriaan), perceptual knowledge (Spruit) and causality (PAtzold). There are also articles on Clauberg's curious attempt to deal philosophically with the etymology of the German language (Weber), Clauberg as a teacher of Descartes' Principia (Verbeek), Clauberg's conception of corporeal substance (Mercer), and Clauberg's relation to later, more radical developments in Cartesian philosophy, especially in Lodewijk Meyer (Albrecht). The volume is completed by a biographical introduction and a short title bibliography of Clauberg's works, which allows an appreciation of Clauberg's lasting international influence. It is the first study on this scale of one of the most influential philosophers of the seventeenth century.

'There is no question of the contemporary importance and relevance of these essays. T. W. Adorno is one of the great critics of the role of irrational authoritarianism in contemporary society.' Douglas Kellner

'This collection demonstrates the continuing relevance of Adorno's work to the analysis and understanding of modern times. A brilliant contribution to the sociology of racism, anti-Semitism and popular culture.' - Bryan S. Turner, co-editor, The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology

'Theodor Adorno returns from the grave to deliver this timely warning about the dangers of superstition.' Review

When the American modern dancers Isadora Duncan (1877-1928) and Martha Graham (1894-1991) read Nietzsche, they were inspired by the way in which he uses images of dance to figure an alternative to Christian values. They each came to describe their visions for dance in Nietzschean terms. This book investigates the role Nietzsche's dance images play in his project of 'revaluing all values' and does so alongside the religious rhetoric and subject matter evident in the dancing, teaching, and writing of Duncan and Graham. It concludes that these modern dancers found justification and guidance in Nietzsche's texts for developing dance as a medium of religious experience and expression.

This book is the first complete commentary on Marx's manuscripts of 1861-63, works that guide our understanding of fundamental concepts such as 'surplus-value' and 'production price'.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203461754