Reference is a central topic in philosophy of language, and has been the main focus of discussion about how language relates to the world. R. M. Sainsbury sets out a new approach to the concept, which promises to bring to an end some long-standing debates in semantic theory. There is a single category of referring expressions, all of which deserve essentially the same kind of semantic treatment. Included in this category are both singular and plural referring expressions ('Aristotle', 'The Pleiades'), complex and non-complex referring expressions ('The President of the USA in 1970', 'Nixon'), and empty and non-empty referring expressions ('Vulcan', 'Neptune'). Referring expressions are to be described semantically by a reference condition, rather than by being associated with a referent. In arguing for these theses, Sainsbury's book promises to end the fruitless oscillation between Millian and descriptivist views. Millian views insist that every name has a referent, and find it hard to give a good account of names which appear not to have referents, or at least are not known to do so, like ones introduced through error ('Vulcan'), ones where it is disputed whether they have a bearer ('Patanjali') and ones used in fiction. Descriptivist theories require that each name be associated with some body of information. These theories fly in the face of the fact names are useful precisely because there is often no overlap of information among speakers and hearers. The alternative position for which the book argues is firmly non-descriptivist, though it also does not require a referent. A much broader view can be taken of which expressions are referring expressions: not just names and pronouns used demonstratively, but also some complex expressions and some anaphoric uses of pronouns. Sainsbury's approach brings reference into line with truth: no one would think that a semantic theory should associate a sentence with a truth value, but it is commonly held that a semantic theory should associate a sentence with a truth condition, a condition which an arbitrary state of the world would have to satisfy in order to make the sentence true. The right analogy is that a semantic theory should associate a referring expression with a reference condition, a condition which an arbitrary object would have to satisfy in order to be the expression's referent. Lucid and accessible, and written with a minimum of technicality, Sainsbury's book also includes a useful historical survey. It will be of interest to those working in logic, mind, and metaphysics as well as essential reading for philosophers of language.

No philosopher's writing is more charming that James's. Few philosophers have been subjected to such intense psychological speculation as James. Fewer still have had so many non-philosophical stages to their careers. For all of these reasons, professional philosophers are wary of his philosophy, which is typically dismissed as fragmented or merely popular. Wesley Cooper opposes this traditional view, arguing instead that there is a systematic philosophy to be found in James's writings. His doctrine of pure experience is the binding thread that links his earlier psychological theorizing to his later epistemological, religious, and pragmatic concerns. To make this case as compelling as possible, Cooper provides a two-level approach to James's philosophical system: the metaphysical level of pure experience and the empirical level of science and everyday life. Making sense of James is partly a matter of seeing that, on a given occasion, he is writing at one level or the other.

Continuums Guides for the Perplexed are clear, concise, and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers, and subjects that students and readers can find especially challengingGCoor, indeed, downright bewildering. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to fathom, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader towards a thorough understanding of demanding material. Emmanuel Levinas is one of the most influential ethicists of recent times. The importance and relevance of his work has been recognized and celebrated within philosophy, religion, sociology, political theory, and other disciplines. His writing, however, undoubtedly presents the reader with a significant challenge. Often labyrinthine, paradoxical, and opaque, Levinas work seeks to articulate a complex ideology and some hard-to-grasp concepts. Levinas: A Guide for the Perplexed is the ideal text for the student, teacher, or lay reader who wants to develop a full and effective understanding of this major modern philosopher. Focused upon precisely why Levinas is a difficult subject for study, the text guides the reader through the core themes and concepts in his writing, providing a thorough overview of his work. Valuably, the book also emphasizes Levinass importance for contemporary ethical problems and thinking.

Beckett and Badiou offers a provocative new reading of Samuel Beckett's work on the basis of a full, critical account of the thought of Alain Badiou. Badiou is the most eminent of contemporary French philosophers. His devotion to Beckett's work has been lifelong. Yet for Badiou philosophy must be integrally affirmative, whilst Beckett apparently commits his art to a work of negation. Beckett and Badiou explores the coherences, contradictions, and extreme complexities of the intellectual relationship between the two oeuvres. It examines Badiou's philosophy of being, the event, truth, and the subject and the importance of mathematics within his system. It considers the major features of his politics, ethics, and aesthetics and provides an explanation, interpretation, critique, and radical revision of his work on Beckett. It argues that, once revised, Badiou's version of Beckett offers an extraordinarily powerful tool for understanding his work.
Badiou and Beckett are instances of a vestigial or melancholic modernism; that is, in the teeth of a contemporary culture that dreams ever more ambitiously of plenitude, they commit themselves to a rigorous concept of limit and intermittency. Truth and value are occasional and rare. It is seldom that the chance event arrives to disturb the inertia of the world. For Badiou, however, it is the event and its consequences alone that matter. Beckett rather insists on the common experience of intermittency as destitution. His art is a series of limit-figures, exquisitely subtle and nuanced forms for a world whose state of seemingly rigid paralysis is also always volatile, delicately balanced.

This collection of essays aims to investigate the unique place of Jacques Ranciere in the contemporary intellectual scene. This book forms the first critical study of Jacques Ranciere's impact and contribution to contemporary theoretical and interdisciplinary studies. It showcases the work of leading scholars in fields such as political theory, history, cinema studies and literary theory; each of whom are uniquely situated to engage with the novelty of Ranciere's thinking within their respective fields. Each of the thirteen essays provides an investigation into the critical stance Ranciere takes towards his contemporaries, concentrating on the versatile application of his thought to diverse fields of study (including, cinema studies, literary studies and the 'history as fiction' and 'history from below' movements). The aim of this collection is to use the critical interventions Ranciere's writing makes on current topics and themes as a way of offering new critical perspectives on his thought. Wielding their individual expertise, each contributor assesses his perspectives and positions on thinkers and topics of contemporary importance.

Science is knowledge gained and justified methodically. It is achieved by research and theory formation. But what is a methodical procedure and what are methodically established justifications? What kind of principles must be observed in order to obtain the degree of objectivity that is generally claimed by science? What is the relation between science in the research mode and science in presentation mode, i.e., in its theoretical form? Do the same principles hold here? And how are they justified? Is it even possible to speak of justification in a theoretical sense? Or do we have to be content with less - with corroboration and confirmation? Is the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification the last word in methodical and theoretical matters? And how does this distinction relate to that between research and presentation - the constitution of (scientific) objects on the one hand and (theoretical) propositions about them on the other? The analyses and constructions in this book take up these questions. They are explicitly intended as philosophical contributions, not only in the sense implied by the disciplinary use of the term philosophy of science, but also in the sense of a reflection on science that, alongside more technical aspects of methodologies and elements of theories, also has an eye for anthropological and cultural aspects.

While commentators have sometimes taken up the question of Wittgenstein's view of ethics, none has offered a sustained treatment of what positive contributions Wittgenstein has yet to offer contemporary ethics. In this important new book, Jeremy Wisnewski argues that Wittgenstein, though himself often silent on particular ethical matters, gives us immense resources for understanding the aims appropriate to any philosophical ethics. Using Wittgenstein as a point of departure, Wisnewski re-examines some of the landmarks in the history of moral philosophy in order to cast contemporary ethical philosophy in a new light. Of particular interest is the unique approach to Kant's moral philosophy afforded by seeing him through Wittgensteinian eyes: Wisnewski gives distinct and intriguing analyses of the categorical imperative, arguing that our obsession with a certain brand of ethical theory has led us to misread this most famous contribution to moral philosophy. By seeing the doctrines of historical ethical philosophers anew (particularly those of Kant and Mill), Wisnewski shows a new way of engaging in ethical theory - one that is Wittgensteinian through and through. Rather than assuming that ethical inquiry yields knowledge about what we must do, and what rules we must follow, we should regard ethics (including our historical ethical theories) as clarifying what is involved in the complicated 'form of life' that is ours.

Jean Baudrillard's work on how contemporary society is dominated by the mass media has become extraordinarily influential. He is notorious for arguing that there is no real world, only simulations which have altered what events mean, and that only violent symbolic exchange can prevent the world becoming a total simulation. An ideal introduction to this most singular cultural critic and philosopher, Jean Baudrillard: live theory offers a comprehensive, critical account of Baudrillard's unsettling, visionary and often prescient work. Baudrillard's relation to a range of theorists as diverse as Nietzsche, Marx, McLuhan, Foucault and Lyotard is explained, and the impact of his thought on contemporary politics, popular culture and art is analyzed. Finally, in the new interview included here, Baudrillard outlines his own position and responds to his critics.

These thirteen original essays, whose authors include some of the world's leading philosophers, examine themes from the work of the Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore (1873-1958), and demonstrate his considerable continuing influence on philosophical debate. Part I bears on epistemological topics, such as skepticism about the external world, the significance of common sense, and theories of perception. Part II is devoted to themes in ethics, such as Moore's open question argument, his non-naturalism, utilitarianism, and his notion of organic unities.

This book examines the moral philosophy of Paul Ramsey--one of the 20th century's most influential ethicists--from a theological perspective illustrating that religion can still play a substantial role in our ongoing moral inquiries. Ramsey wrote prodigiously on ethical issues including politics, medical research, the Vietnam war, and nuclear proliferation. His ethical theory, which concentrates on divine love, or agape, ' as well as justice and order, provides a middle ground between fundamentalism and secularism. Therefore, Ramsey's ethics will appeal to the 21st-century social conscience.

McKenzie grounds his theological exploration in a comprehensive history of the theological and philosophical influences on Ramsey's thought, including Jonathan Edwards' theory of natural morality. He also explores a multidisciplinary selection of Ramsey's writings. In conclusion, McKenzie argues that Ramsey's natural law theory will continue to have significant and increasing relevance for morality in the postmodern world. This is the most thorough study of Paul Ramsey's work as well as a significant contribution to philosophy and theology.

The arrow of time and the meaning of quantum mechanics are two of the great mysteries of modern physics. This important new book throws fascinating new light on both issues, and connects them in a wholly original way.

Price shows that for over a century physicists have fallen repeatedly into the same trap when trying to understand the arrow of time: treating the past and future in different ways. To overcome this natural tendency, we need to imagine a point outside time - an Archimedean viewpoint as Price calls it - from which to think about the arrow of time in an unbiased way.

Taking this Archimedean viewpoint Price asks why we assume that the past affects the future but not vice-versa, and argues that causation is much more symmetric in microphysics: to a limited extent - the future does affect the past. Thus Price avoids the usual paradoxes of quantum mechanics, without succumbing to the rival paradoxes of causal loops and time travel.

Deleuze and the Diagram charts Deleuze's corpus according to aesthetic concepts such as the map, the sketch and the drawing to bring out a comprehensive concept of the diagram. In his interrogation of Deleuze's visualaesthetic theory, Jakub Zdebik focuses on artists that hold an important place in Deleuze's system. The art of Paul Klee and Francis Bacon is presented as the visual manifestation of Deleuze's philosophy and yields novel ways of assessing visual culture. Zdebik goes on to compare Deleuze's philosophy with the visual theories of Foucault, Lyotard and Simondon, as well as the aesthetic philosophy of Heidegger and Kant. He shows how the visual and aesthetic elements of the diagram shed new light on Deleuze's writings.Deleuze conceptualized his theory as a form of painting, saying that, like art, it needed to shift from figuration to abstraction. This book focuses on the visual devices in Deleuze's work and uses the concept of the diagram to describe the relationship between philosophy and art and to formulate a way to think about philosophy through art.

Art and Institution examines how for Merleau-Ponty the work of art opens up, without conceptualizing, the event of being. Rajiv Kaushik treats Merleau-Ponty's renderings of the artwork - specifically in his later writings during the period ranging from 1952-1961 - as a path into the being that precedes phenomenology. Replete with references to Merleau-Ponty's reflections on Matisse, Cezanne, Proust and others, and featuring Kaushik's own original reflections on various artworks, this book is guided by the notion that art does not iterate the findings of phenomenology so much as it allows phenomenology to finally discover what, as a matter of principle, it seeks: the very foundation of experience that is not itself available to thought. Kaushik is thus concerned with the ways in which the work of art restores the principle of institution, prior to the intentional structures of consciousness, so that phenomenology may settle questions concerning ontological difference, the origination of significance, and the relationship between interiority and exteriority. >

The essays in this book demonstrate the breadth and vitality of American intellectual history. Their core theme is the diversity of both American intellectual life and of the frameworks that we must use to make sense of that diversity. The Worlds of American Intellectual History has at its heart studies of American thinkers. Yet it follows these thinkers and their ideas as they have crossed national, institutional, and intellectual boundaries. The volume explores ways in which American ideas have circulated in different cultures. It also examines the multiple sites-from social movements, museums, and courtrooms to popular and scholarly books and periodicals-in which people have articulated and deployed ideas within and beyond the borders of the United States. At these cultural frontiers, the authors demonstrate, multiple interactions have occurred - some friendly and mutually enriching, others laden with tension, misunderstandings, and conflict. The same holds for other kinds of borders, such as those within and between scholarly disciplines, or between American history and the histories of other cultures. The richness of contemporary American intellectual history springs from the variety of worlds with which it must engage. Intellectual historians have always relished being able to move back and forth between close readings of particular texts and efforts to make sense of broader cultural dispositions. That range is on display in this volume, which includes essays by scholars as fully at home in the disciplines of philosophy, literature, economics, sociology, political science, education, science, religion, and law as they are in history. It includes essays by prominent historians of European thought, attuned to the transatlantic conversations in which Europeans and Americans have been engaged since the seventeenth century, and American historians whose work has carried them not only to different regions in North America but across the North Atlantic to Europe, across the South Atlantic to Africa, and across the Pacific to South Asia.

Feminist philosophy identifies tensions within mainstream theories of knowledge. To create a more egalitarian epistemology, solutions to these problems have been as diverse as the traditions of philosophy out of which feminists continue to emerge. This book considers two equally formidable approaches theorized by Louise Antony and Lynn Hankinson Nelson. The American philosopher W.V.O. Quine locates knowledge as a branch of empirical science. Shuford shows how both Antony and Nelson use Quine's 'naturalized epistemology' to create empirically robust feminist epistemologies. However, Shuford argues that neither can include physical embodiment as an important epistemic variable. The book argues that John Dewey's theory of inquiry extends beyond Quine's insight that knowledge must be interrogated as an empirical matter. Because Dewey insists that all aspects of experience must be subject to the experimental openness that is the hallmark of scientific reasoning, Shuford concludes that physical embodiment must play an important part in knowledge claims.

Heidegger's critique of Western philosophy centers around his interpretation of Aristotle. Yet, hitherto, there has been no attempt to reconstruct the relation betwen these two thinkers, a major interpretative task for which Heidegger and Aristotle provides an initial orientation. Dr. Sadler focuses upon the 'question of being' and shows how their respective responses to this question ramify over the whole field of their philosophical thought.

Most commentators judge Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus as either a Medusa into whose face psychoanalysis cannot but stare and suffer the most abominable of deaths or a well-intentioned but thoroughly misguided flash in the pan. Fadi Abou-Rihan shows that, as much as it is an insightful critique of the assimilationist vein in psychoanalysis, Anti-Oedipus remains fully committed to Freud's most singular discovery of an unconscious that is procedural and dynamic. Moreover, Abou-Rihan argues, the anti-oedipal project is a practice where the science of the unconscious is made to obey the laws it attributes to its object. The outcome is nothing short of the "becoming-unconscious" of psychoanalysis, a becoming that signals neither the repression nor the death of the practice but the transformation of its principles and procedures into those of its object. Abou-Rihan tracks this becoming alongside Nietzsche, Winnicott, Feynman, Bardi, and Cixous in order to reconfigure desire beyond the categories of subject, lack, and tragedy. Firmly grounded in continental philosophy and psychoanalytic practice, this book extends the anti-oedipal view on the unconscious in a wholly new direction.

The volume develops the concepts of the self and its reflexive nature as they are linked to modern thought from Hegel to Luhmann. The moderns are reflexive in a double sense: they create themselves by self-reflexivity and make their world - society - in their own image. That the social world is reflexive means that it is made up of non-subjective (or supra-subjective) communication. The volume's contributors analyze this double reflexivity, of the self and society, from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing both on individual and social narratives. This broad, interdisciplinary approach is a distinctive mark of the entire project. The volume will be structured around the following axes: Self-making and reflexivity - theoretical topics; Social self and the modern world; Literature - self and narrativity; Creative Self - text and fine art. Among the contributors are some of the most renowned specialists in their respective fields, including J. F. Kervegan, B. Zabel, P. Stekeler-Weithofer, I. James, L. Kvasz, H. Ikaheimo and others.

Helene Cixous: live theory provides a clear and informative introduction to one of the most important and influential European writers working today. The book opens with an overview of the key features of Cixous' theory of "ecriture feminine" (feminine writing). The various manifestations of "ecriture feminine" are then explored in chapters on Cixous' fictional and theatrical writing, her philosophical essays, and her intensely personal approach to literary criticism. The book concludes with a new, lively and wide-ranging interview with Helene Cixous in which she discusses her influences and inspirations, and her thoughts on the nature of writing and the need for an ethical relationship with the world. Also offering a survey of the many English translations of Cixous' work, this book is an indispensable introduction to Cixous' work for students of literature, philosophy, cultural and gender studies.