In this book, the author argues that the standard Marxist conceptions of the relations of nature to value, of humans to nature, and of history to time, are no longer tenable. He contends that the centrality of cultural categories, as raised by the feminist, art, and ecology movements, amongst others, is one crucial difference for the late industrial world, demanding a break from the dominant tendencies within Marxism to reduce causality to its economic factor. The book offers an approach towards a new way of thinking about these problems, and this edition has been revised to incorporate new material.

Concentrating mainly on the process philosophy developed by Alfred North Whitehead, this series of essays brings together some of the newest developments in the application of process thinking to the physical and social sciences. These essays, by established scholars in the field, demonstrate how a wider and deeper understanding of the world can be obtained using process philosophical concepts, how the distortions and blockages inevitably inherent in substantivist talk can be set aside, and how new and fertile lines of research in the sciences can be opened as a result.

The volume takes on the much-needed task of describing and explaining the nature of the relations and interactions between mind, language and action in defining mentality. Papers by renowned philosophers unravel what is increasingly acknowledged to be the enacted nature of the mind, memory and language-acquisition, whilst also calling attention to Wittgenstein's contribution. The volume offers unprecedented insight, clarity, scope, and currency.

This book is an exercise in political theology, exploring the problem of gender- based violence by focusing on violent male subjects and the issue of entitlement. It addresses gender-based violence in familial and military settings before engaging with a wider political context. The chapters draw on sources ranging from Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Etienne Balibar to Rowan Williams and Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza. Entitlement is theorized and interpreted as a gender pattern, predisposing subjects towards controlling behaviour and/or violent actions. Steven Ogden develops a theology of transformation, stressing immanence. He examines entitled subjects, predisposed to violence, where transformation requires a limit-experience that wrenches the subject from itself. The book then reflects on today's pervasive strongman politics, where political rationalities foster proprietorial thinking and entitlement gender patterns, and how theology is called to develop counter-discourses and counter-practices.

Ludwig Wittgenstein's brief Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) is one of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth century, yet it offers little orientation for the reader. The first-time reader is left wondering what it could be about, and the scholar is left with little guidance for interpretation. In Tractatus in Context, James C. Klagge presents the vital background necessary for appreciating Wittgenstein's gnomic masterpiece. Tractatus in Context contains the early reactions to the Tractatus, including the initial reviews written in 1922-1924. And while we can't talk with Wittgenstein, we can do the next best thing-hear what he had to say about the Tractatus. Klagge thus presents what Wittgenstein thought about germane issues leading up to his writing the book, in discussions and correspondence with others about his ideas, and what he had to say about the Tractatus after it was written-in letters, lectures and conversations. It offers, you might say, Wittgenstein's own commentary on the book. Key Features: Illuminates what is at stake in the Tractatus, by providing the views of others that engaged Wittgenstein as he was writing it. Includes Wittgenstein's earlier thoughts on ideas in the book as recorded in his notebooks, letters, and conversations as well as his later, retrospective comments on those ideas. Draws on new or little-known sources, such as Wittgenstein's coded notebooks, Hermine's notes, Frege's letters, Hansel's diary, Ramsey's notes, and Skinner's dictations. Draws connections between the background context and specific passages in the Tractatus, using a proposition-by-proposition commentary.

This volume is the first collection of articles dedicated to Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts on colour, focusing in particular on his so-called Remarks on Colour, a piece of writing that has received comparably little attention from Wittgenstein scholars. The book provides the reader with the state of the art in research on Wittgenstein's thoughts on colour and brings out some of the intricate relations between the Remarks on Colour and other works by Wittgenstein. The articles in the book discuss why Wittgenstein wrote so intensively about colour during the last years of his life, what significance these remarks have for understanding his philosophical work in general, as well as the upshot of his thoughts on colour. Contributors to the volume are Andrew Lugg, Joachim Schulte, Gabriele Mras, Richard Heinrich, Herbert Hrachovec, Barry Stroud, Martin Kusch, Frederik Gierlinger and Gary Kemp.

Political theory offers a great variety of interpretive traditions and models. Today, pluralism is the paradigm. But are all approaches equally useful? What are their limits and possibilities? Can we practice them in isolation, or can we combine them? Modeling Interpretation and the Practice of Political Theory addresses these questions in a refreshing and hands- on manner. It not only models in the abstract, but also tests in practice eight basic schemes of interpretation with which any ambitious reader of political texts should already be familiar. Comprehensive and engaging, the book includes: A straightforward typology of interpretation in political theory. Chapters on the analytical Oxford model, biographical and oeuvre- based interpretation, Skinner's Cambridge School, the esoteric model, reflexive hermeneutics, reception analysis and conceptual history. Original readings of Federalist Paper No. 10 , Plato's Statesman, de Gouges's The Three Urns, Rivera's wall painting The History of Mexico and Strauss's Persecution and the Art of Writing; with further chapters on Machiavelli, Huang Zongxi and a Hittite loyalty oath. An Epilogue proposing pragmatist eclecticism as the way forward in interpretation. An inspiring, hands- on textbook suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as experienced scholars of political theory, intellectual history and philosophy interested in learning more about types and models of interpretation, and the challenge of combining them in interpretive practice.

Political theory offers a great variety of interpretive traditions and models. Today, pluralism is the paradigm. But are all approaches equally useful? What are their limits and possibilities? Can we practice them in isolation, or can we combine them? Modeling Interpretation and the Practice of Political Theory addresses these questions in a refreshing and hands- on manner. It not only models in the abstract, but also tests in practice eight basic schemes of interpretation with which any ambitious reader of political texts should already be familiar. Comprehensive and engaging, the book includes: A straightforward typology of interpretation in political theory. Chapters on the analytical Oxford model, biographical and oeuvre- based interpretation, Skinner's Cambridge School, the esoteric model, reflexive hermeneutics, reception analysis and conceptual history. Original readings of Federalist Paper No. 10 , Plato's Statesman, de Gouges's The Three Urns, Rivera's wall painting The History of Mexico and Strauss's Persecution and the Art of Writing; with further chapters on Machiavelli, Huang Zongxi and a Hittite loyalty oath. An Epilogue proposing pragmatist eclecticism as the way forward in interpretation. An inspiring, hands- on textbook suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as experienced scholars of political theory, intellectual history and philosophy interested in learning more about types and models of interpretation, and the challenge of combining them in interpretive practice.

In this volume the philosophy of perception and observation is discussed by leading philosophers with implications in the philosophy of mind, in epistemology, and in philosophy of science. In the last years the philosophy of perception underwent substantial changes and new views appeared: the intentionality of perception has been contested by relational theories of perception (direct realism), a richer view of perceptual content has emerged, new theories of intentionality have been defended against naturalistic theories of representation (e. g. phenomenal intentionality). These theoretical changes reflect also new insights coming from psychological theories of perception. These changes have substantial consequences for the epistemic role of perception and for its role in scientific observation. In the present volume, leading philosophers of perception discuss these new views and show their implications in the philosophy of mind, in epistemology and in philosophy of science. A special focus is laid on Franz Brentano and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A reference volume for all scholars and students of the history, psychology and philosophy of perception, and cognitive science.

In Defense of Dialogue: Reading Habermas and Postwar American Literature offers a timely investigation of the value of dialogue in contemporary American culture. Using Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action to read the work of Frank O'Hara, James Baldwin, Grace Paley, and Andy Warhol, In Defense of Dialogue assembles postwar writers who have never been studied alongside one another, showing how they overcame the pervading skepticism of their contemporaries to imagine sincere and rational speakers who seek to cultivate intersubjective discourse.

The Emergence of Literature is an extension and reworking of a series of significant propositions in philosophy and literary theory: Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe's examination of the concept of the literary absolute; Martin Heidegger's destruction and Giorgio Agamben's archaeology of the metaphysics of will; Maurice Blanchot's delimitation of the space of literature; and Michel Foucault's archaeology of literature. Its core contribution to the history of theory is to understand the literary absolute not simply as philosophical concept, but as a paradigm that delimits the horizon for currents of literary theory through the course of the 20th century where the literary criteria change from the theme of sincerity to the theme of the death of the author. Stretching from Kant to Hegel, from Hoelderlin to the Early German Romantics, from John Stuart Mill to New Criticism, from Benjamin to Barthes, The Emergence of Literature examines the relation between continental philosophy and literature in the post-Kantian era.

Does the Internet Have an Unconscious? is both an introduction to the work of Slavoj Zizek and an investigation into how his work can be used to think about the digital present. Clint Burnham uniquely combines the German idealism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Marxist materialism found in Zizek's thought to understand how the Internet, social and new media, and digital cultural forms work in our lives and how their failure to work structures our pathologies and fantasies. He suggests that our failure to properly understand the digital is due to our lack of recognition of its political, aesthetic, and psycho-sexual elements. Mixing autobiographical passages with critical analysis, Burnham situates a Zizekian theory of digital culture in the lived human body.

Building a Social Democracy offers an alternative intellectual history of American pragmatism, one that tries to reclaim the middle of the twentieth century in order to push neo-pragmatism beyond its philosophical limitations. Danisch argues that the major entailment of the invention of American pragmatism at the beginning of the twentieth century is that rhetorical practices are the rightful object of study and means of improving democratic life. Pragmatism entails a commitment to rhetoric. Rhetorical pragmatism is intended to be more faithful to the project of first generation pragmatism, to offer insight into the ways in which rhetoric operates in contemporary democratic cultures, to recommend practices, methods, and modes of action for improving contemporary democratic cultures, and to subordinate philosophy to rhetoric by reimagining appropriate ways for pragmatist scholarship and social research to advance.

The remarkable lectures that Hegel gave in Berlin in the 1820s generated an exciting intellectual atmosphere which lasted for decades. From the 1830s, many students flocked to Berlin to study with people who had studied with Hegel, and both his original students, such as Feuerbach and Bauer, and later arrivals including Kierkegaard, Engels, Bakunin, and Marx, evolved into leading nineteenth-century thinkers. Jon Stewart's panoramic study of Hegel's deep influence upon the nineteenth century in turn reveals what that century contributed to the wider history of philosophy. It shows how Hegel's notions of 'alienation' and 'recognition' became the central motifs for the era's thinking; how these concepts spilled over into other fields - like religion, politics, literature, and drama; and how they created a cultural phenomenon so rich and pervasive that it can truly be called 'Hegel's century.' This book is required reading for historians of ideas as well as of philosophy.

In Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman, Toril Moi shows how Simone de Beauvoir became the leading feminist thinker and emblematic intellectual woman of the twentieth century. Blending biography with literary criticism, feminist theory, and historical and social analysis, this book provides a completely original analysis of Beauvoir's education and formation as an intellectual.
In The Second Sex, Beauvoir shows that we constantly make something of what the world tries to make of us. By reconstructing the social and political world in which Beauvoir became the author of The Second Sex, and by showing how Beauvoir reacted to the pressures of that world, Moi applies Beauvoir's ideas to Beauvoir's own life.
Ranging from an investigation of French educational institutions to reflections on the relationship between freedom and flirtation, this book uncovers the conflicts and difficulties of an intellectual woman in the middle of the twentieth century. Through her analysis of Beauvoir's life and work Moi shows how difficult it was - and still is - for women to be taken seriously as intellectuals. Two major chapters on The Second Sex provide a theoretical and a political analysis of that epochal text. The last chapter turns to Beauvoir's love life, her depressions and her fear of ageing.
In a major new introduction, Moi discusses Beauvoir's letters to her lovers Jacques-Laurent Bost and Nelson Algren, as well as her recently published student diaries from 1926/27.

Arguing that our attachment to Aristotelian modes of discourse makes a revision of their conceptual foundations long overdue, the author proposes the consideration of unacknowledged factors that play a central role in argument itself. These are in particular the subjective imprint and the dynamics of argumentation. Their inclusion in a four-dimensional framework (subjective-objective, structural-procedural) and the focus on thesis validity allow for a more realistic view of our discourse practice. Exhaustive analyses of fascinating historical and contemporary arguments are provided. These range from Columbus s advocacy of the Western Passage to India, over the trial of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution, to today s highly charged controversies surrounding euthanasia and embryo research.

Excavating foundational issues such as the purpose of argument itself (assent of an audience or critical examination of validity claims) and the contested role of argument as a generator of knowledge, the book culminates in a discussion of the relationship between rationality and reasonableness and criticizes the restrictions of rational argument relying on fixed logical, economic or cultural criteria that in reality are mutable. Here, a true, open argument requires the infusion of Paul Lorenzen s principle of transsubjectivity, which recognizes but transcends the partiality of the individual and which can be seen in the pragmatic and expanding consensus that humanity can control itself to safeguard the future of a fragile, damaged world."

The first introduction to the notoriously difficult Principia Ethica The text not only provides the reader with the historical background but comprehensively examines the arguments surrounding Moore's theories. Situates Moore and Principia Ethica in an historical context, especially important given that without a guidebook such as this students would have to learn about Moore through the writings of other philosophers Assesses the contribution of Moore to contemporary thought which is relevant because of the current revivial of nonnaturalism which has bought Moorean doctrines back to the centre of metaethical debates.

Two of Chomsky's most famous and accessible works available in an affordable and attractive edition.
Described by the "New York Times" as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," Noam Chomsky is known throughout the world for his highly influential writings on language and politics. Featuring two of Chomsky's most popular and enduring books in one omnibus volume, "On Language" contains some of the noted linguist and political critic's most informal and accessible work to date, making it an ideal introduction to his thought.
In Part I, "Language and Responsibility" (1979), Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking through a series of interviews with Mitsou Ronat, the noted French linguist. In Part II, "Reflections on Language" (1975), Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language.

Dismissed by some as the last of the anti-Darwinians, his fame as a rigorous biologist even tainted by an alleged link to National Socialist ideology, it is undeniable that Jakob von Uexkull (1864-1944) was eagerly read by many philosophers across the spectrum of philosophical schools, from Scheler to Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze and from Heidegger to Blumenberg and Agamben. What has then allowed his name to survive the misery of history as well as the usually fatal gap between science and humanities? This collection of essays attempts for the first time to do justice to Uexkull's theoretical impact on Western culture. By highlighting his importance for philosophy, the book aims to contribute to the general interpretation of the relationship between biology and philosophy in the last century and explore the often neglected connection between continental philosophy and the sciences of life. Thanks to the exploration of Uexkull's conceptual legacy, the origins of cybernetics, the overcoming of metaphysical dualisms, and a refined understanding of organisms appear variedly interconnected. Uexkull's background and his relevance in current debates are thoroughly examined as to appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers in fields such as history of the life sciences, philosophy of biology, critical animal studies, philosophical anthropology, biosemiotics and biopolitics.

Post-Rationalism takes the experimental journal of psychoanalysis and philosophy, Cahiers pour l'Analyse, as its main source. Established by students of Louis Althusser in 1966, the journal has rarely figured in the literature, although it contained the first published work of authors now famous in contemporary critical thought, including Alain Badiou, Jean-Claude Milner, Luce Irigaray, Andre Green and Jacques-Alain Miller. The Cahiers served as a testing ground for the combination of diverse intellectual sources indicative of the period, including the influential reinvention of Freud and Marx undertaken by Lacan and Althusser, and the earlier post-rationalist philosophy of science pioneered by Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Alexandre Koyre. This book is a wide-ranging analysis of the intellectual foundations of structuralism, re-connecting the work of young post-Lacanian and post-Althusserian theorists with their predecessors in French philosophy of science. Tom Eyers provides an important corrective to standard histories of the period, focussing on the ways in which French epistemological writing of the 1930s and 1940s - especially that of Bachelard and Canguilhem - laid the ground for the emergence of structuralism in the 1950s and 1960s, thus questioning the standard historical narrative that posits structuralism as emerging chiefly in reaction to phenomenology and existentialism.

As one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, Michel Foucault's reputation today rests on his political philosophy in relation to the contemporary subject in a neo-liberal and globalized society. This book offers insight into the role of the arts in Foucault's thought as a means to better understanding his contribution to larger debates concerning contemporary existence. Visual culture, literary, film and performance studies have all engaged with Foucauldian theories, but a full examination of Foucault's significance for aesthetic discourse has been lacking until now. This book argues that Foucault's particular approach to philosophy as a way of thinking the self through the work of art provides significant grounds for rethinking his impact today. The volume moves across as many disciplinary boundaries as Foucault himself did, demonstrating the value of Foucault's approach to aesthetic discourse for our understanding of how the arts and humanities reflect upon contemporary existence in a globalized society.

What is it that troubles and preoccupies us about the anxieties and anguishes of social and private life? Have advances in the disciplines of psychoanalysis, psychology or the social sciences in general ministered to our needs in these areas? Frank Cioffi's elegantly argued essays range over Wittgenstein's treatment of Frazer's anthropological accounts of human sacrifice and other ritual practices, and Freud's dealings with dreams, jokes and mental life in general. This volume will be of wide interest to readers in philosophy, psychology and aesthetics.

The aim of this volume is to investigate three fundamental issues of the new millennium: language, truth and democracy. The authors approach the themes from different philosophical perspectives. One group of authors examines the use of language and the meaning of concepts from an analytic point of view, the ontology of scientific terms and explores the nature of knowledge in general. Another group examines truth and types of relation. A third group of authors focuses on the current factors influencing our concept of democracy and its legal foundations and makes reference to moral aspects and the question of political responsibility. The chapters provide the reader with an overview of current philosophical problems and the answers to these questions will be decisive for future development.