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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 - > General
This exciting new book is the follow-up to Irigaray's "The Way of
Love", arguably her most important and widely-discussed work to
date.In this important new book, a follow up to "The Way of Love",
Luce Irigaray, one of France's most influential contemporary
theorists, turns once again to the concept of otherness.We are
accustomed to considering the other as an individual without paying
sufficient attention to the particular world or specific culture to
which the other belongs. A phenomenological approach to this
question offers some help, notably through Heidegger's analyses of
'Dasein', 'being-in-the-world' and 'being with'. Nevertheless,
according to Heidegger, it remains almost impossible to identify an
other outside of our own world. 'Otherness' is subjected to the
same values by which we are ourselves defined and thus we remain in
'sameness'. In this age of multiculturalism and in the light of
Nietzsche's criticism of our values and Heidegger's deconstruction
of our interpretation of truth, Irigaray questions the validity of
the 'sameness' that sits at the root of Western culture.
Current research on social capital tends to focus on an economic
reading of social relations. Whereas economists pride themselves on
reaching out to social theory at-large, sociologists criticize the
economization of the social fabric. The concept of social capital
serves as a touchstone for the study of the role of the economy in
modern societies. It serves as a breach for expanding the reach of
economic categories, yet it also yields the opportunity for
questioning and transforming economic premises in the light of
social theory and philosophy. Exploring the concept of social
capital in the context of related terms like embeddedness, trust,
sociability, and cooperation is particularly instructive. This
collection of papers from various disciplines (philosophy,
sociology, economics, religious studies) combines conceptual
studies and empirical findings. It is a plea for re-embedding
economic thought in a broader theoretical framework. By exploring
the varieties of social identities implied in the theories of
social capital, the authors argue for a social (or more sociable)
conception of man.
Donald Davidson was one of the 20th Century's deepest analytic
thinkers. He developed a systematic picture of the human mind and
its relation to the world, an original and sustained vision that
exerted a shaping influence well beyond analytic philosophy of mind
and language. At its center is an idea of minded creatures as
essentially rational animals: Rational animals can be interpreted,
their behavior can be understood, and the contents of their
thoughts are, in principle, open to others. The combination of a
rigorous analytic stance with aspects of humanism so distinctive of
Davidsonian thought finds its maybe most characteristic expression
when this central idea is brought to bear on the relation of the
mental to the physical: Davidson defended the irreducibility of its
rational nature while acknowledging that the mental is ultimately
determined by the physical.
Davidson made contributions of lasting importance to a wide range
of topics -- from general theory of meaning and content over formal
semantics, the theories of truth, explanation, and action, to
metaphysics and epistemology. His writings almost entirely consist
of short, elegant, and often witty papers. These dense and
thematically tightly interwoven essays present a profound challenge
to the reader.
This book provides a concise, systematic introduction to all the
main elements of Davidson's philosophy. It places the theory of
meaning and content at the very center of his thought. By using
interpretation, and the interpreter, as key ideas it clearly brings
out the underlying structure and unified nature of Davidson's work.
Kathrin Gluer carefully outlines his principal claims and
arguments, and discusses them in some detail. The book thus makes
Davidson's thought accessible in its genuine depth, and acquaints
the reader with the main lines of discussion surrounding it."
This new English translation of Solov'ev's principal ethical
treatise, written in his later years, presents Solov'ev's mature
views on a host of topics ranging from a critique of
individualistic ethical systems to the death penalty, the meaning
of war, animal rights, and environmentalism. Written for the
educated public rather than for a narrow circle of specialists,
Solov'ev's work largely avoids technical vocabulary while
illustrating his points with references to classical literature
from the ancient Greeks to Goethe. Although written from a deeply
held Christian viewpoint, Solov'ev emphasizes the turn from his
earlier position, now allegedly developing the independence of
moral philosophy from metaphysics and revealed religion. Solov'ev
sees the formal universality of the idea of the moral good in all
human beings, albeit that this idea is bereft of material content.
This first new English-language translation in a century makes a
unique contribution to the study of Solov'ev's thought. It uses the
text of the second edition published in 1899 as its main text, but
provides the variations and additions from the earlier versions of
each chapter in running notes. Other unique features of this
translation are that the pagination of the widely available 1914
edition is provided in the text, and the sources of Solov'ev's
numerous Biblical quotations and references as well as literary and
historical allusions.
This book offers a fascinating account of Heidegger's middle and
later thought."Heidegger and Philosophical Atheology" offers an
important new reading of Heidegger's middle and later thought.
Beginning with Heidegger's early dissertation on the doctrine of
categories in Duns Scotus, Peter S. Dillard shows how Heidegger's
middle and later works develop a philosophical anti-theology or
'atheology' that poses a serious threat to traditional metaphysics,
natural theology and philosophy of religion.Drawing on the insights
of Scholastic thinkers such as St Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus,
the book reveals the problematic assumptions of Heideggerian
'atheology' and shows why they should be rejected. Dillard's
critique paves the way for a rejuvenation of Scholastic metaphysics
and reveals its relevance to some contemporary philosophical
disputes. In addition to clarifying the question of being and
explaining the role of phenomenology in metaphysics, Dillard sheds
light on the nature of nothingness, necessity and contingency.
Ultimately the book offers a revolutionary reorientation of our
understanding, both of the later Heidegger and of the legacy of
Scholasticism.
What do thoughts, hopes, paintings, words, desires, photographs,
traffic signs, and perceptions have in common? They are all about
something, are directed, are contentful - in a way chairs and
trees, for example, are not. This book inquires into the source of
this power of directedness that some items exhibit while others do
not. An approach to this issue prevalent in the philosophy of the
past half-century seeks to explain the power of directedness in
terms of certain items' ability to reliably track things in their
environment. A very different approach, with a venerable history
and enjoying a recent resurgence, seeks to explain the power of
directedness rather in terms of an intrinsic ability of conscious
experience to direct itself. This book attempts a synthesis of both
approaches, developing an account of the sources of such
directedness that grounds it both in reliable tracking and in
conscious experience.
This volume documents the 17th Munster Lectures in Philosophy with
Susan Haack, the prominent contemporary philosopher. It contains an
original, programmatic article by Haack on her overall
philosophical approach, entitled 'The Fragmentation of Philosophy,
the Road to Reintegration'. In addition, the volume includes seven
papers on various aspects of Haack's philosophical work as well as
her replies to the papers. Susan Haack has deeply influenced many
of the debates in contemporary philosophy. In her vivid and
accessible way, she has made ground-breaking contributions covering
a wide range of topics, from logic, metaphysics and epistemology,
to pragmatism and the philosophy of science and law. In her work,
Haack has always been very sensitive in detecting subtle
differences. The distinctions she has introduced reveal what lies
at the core of philosophical controversies, and show the problems
that exist with established views. In order to resolve these
problems, Haack has developed some 'middle-course approaches'. One
example of this is her famous 'Foundherentism', a theory of
justification that includes elements from both the rival theories
of Foundationalism and Coherentism. Haack herself has offered the
best description of her work calling herself a 'passionate
moderate'.
"Contemporary Caribbean Writing and Deleuze" maps a new
intellectual and literary history of postcolonial Caribbean writing
and thought spanning from the 1930s surrealist movement to the
present, crossing the region's language blocs, and focused on the
interconnected principles of creativity and commemoration.
Exploring the work of Rene Menil, Edouard Glissant, Wilson Harris,
Derek
Walcott, Antonio Benitez-Rojo, Pauline Melville, Robert Antoni and
Nalo Hopkinson, this study reveals the explicit and implicit
engagement with Deleuzian thought at work in contemporary Caribbean
writing.Uniting for the first time two major schools of
contemporary thought - postcolonialism and post-continental
philosophy - this study establishes a new and innovative critical
discourse for Caribbean studies and postcolonial theory beyond the
oppositional dialectic of colonizer and colonized. Drawing
from Deleuze's writings on Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza, this
study interrogates the postcolonial tropes of newness, becoming,
relationality and a philosophical concept of immanence that lie at
the heart of a little-observed dialogue between contemporary
Caribbean writers and Deleuze.
This collection of original essays brings together a world-class
lineup of philosophers to provide the most comprehensive critical
treatment of Ted Honderich's philosophy, focusing on three major
areas of his work: (1) his theory of consciousness; (2) his
extensive and ground-breaking work on determinism and freedom; and
(3) his views on right and wrong, including his Principle of
Humanity and his judgments on terrorism. Grote Professor Emeritus
of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London,
Honderich is a leading contemporary philosopher of mind,
determinism and freedom, and morals. The collection begins with a
comprehensive introduction written by Honderich followed by
fourteen original chapters separated into three sections. Each
section concludes with a set of remarks by Honderich. Contributors
include Noam Chomsky, Paul Snowdon, Alastair Hannay, Barbara Gail
Montero, Barry Smith, Derk Pereboom, Paul Russell, Kevin Timpe,
Gregg D. Caruso, Mary Warnock, Paul Gilbert, Richard J. Norman,
Michael Neumann, and Saul Smilansky.
This book examines postmodern theology and how it relates to the
cinematic style of Robert Bresson, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar
Bergman, and Luis Bunuel. Ponder demonstrates how these filmmakers
forefront religious issues in their use of mise en scene. He
investigates both the technical qualities of film "flesh" and its
theological features. The chapters show how art cinema uses sound,
editing, lighting, and close-ups in ways that critique doctrine's
authoritarianism, as well as philosophy's individualism, to suggest
postmodern theologies that emphasize community. Through this book
we learn how the cinematic style of modernist auteurs relates to
postmodern theology and how the industry of art cinema constructs
certain kinds of film-watching subjectivity.
The thoroughly contemporary question of the relationship between
emotion and reason was debated with such complexity by the
philosophers of the 17th century that their concepts remain a
source of inspiration for today's research about the emotionality
of the mind. The analyses of the works of Descartes, Spinoza,
Leibniz, and many other thinkers collected in this volume offer new
insights into the diversity and significance of philosophical
reflections about emotions during the early modern era. A focus is
placed on affective components in learning processes and the
boundaries between emotions and reason.
Shedding new light on the theme of "crisis" in Husserl's
phenomenology, this book reflects on the experience of awakening to
one's own naivete. Beginning from everyday examples, Knies examines
how this awakening makes us culpable for not having noticed what
was noticeable. He goes on to apply this examination to fundamental
issues in phenomenology, arguing that the appropriation of naive
life has a different structure from the reflection on
pre-reflective life. Husserl's work on the "crisis" is presented as
an attempt to integrate this appropriation into a systematic
transcendental philosophy. Crisis and Husserlian Phenomenology
brings Husserl into dialogue with other key thinkers in Continental
philosophy such as Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and
Derrida. It is suitable for students and scholars alike, especially
those interested in subjectivity, responsibility and the philosophy
of history.
Nietzsche's metaphor of the spider that spins its cobweb expresses
his critique of the metaphysical use of language - but it also
suggests that we, spiders , are able to spin different,
life-affirming, healthier, non-metaphysical cobwebs. This book is a
collection of 12 essays that focus not only on Nietzsche's critique
of the metaphysical assumptions of language, but also on his effort
to use language in a different way, i.e., to create a new language
. It is from this viewpoint that the book considers such themes as
consciousness, the self, metaphor, instinct, affectivity, style,
morality, truth, and knowledge. The authors invited to contribute
to this volume are Nietzsche scholars who belong to some of the
most important research centers of the European Nietzsche-Research:
Centro Colli-Montinari (Italy), GIRN (Europhilosphie), SEDEN
(Spain), Greifswald Research Group (Germany), NIL (Portugal). In
2011 Joao Constancio and Maria Joao Mayer Branco edited Nietzsche
on Instinct and Language, also published by Walter de Gruyter. The
two books complement each other.
This book presents a posthumous collection of previously
uncollected works of political theory written by Whittle Johnston.
Johnston believed that both the liberal tradition of political
thought and the realist tradition of international thought had
contributed much to humanity's store of political wisdom, but that
each had limitations that could most easily be recognized by its
encounter with the other. His method of accomplishing this task was
to examine the liberal conception of political life in general and
international political life in particular and then to explore the
realist critique of the liberal view, particularly as it was
expressed by three great twentieth-century realist thinkers, all of
whom were, in their various ways, skeptical of liberal assumptions:
Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, and E. H. Carr. In doing so,
Johnston reveals the power of the realist outlook, but also the
areas in which it remains insufficient, and insufficient
particularly where it underestimates the complexity and prudence
that liberalism is capable of displaying. There have been studies
of both liberalism and realism, but no other work has put them into
conversation with each other in the way that this book does.
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.
American Philosophy Past and Present offers the first historically
framed introduction to the tradition of American philosophy and it
contemporary engagement with the world.Born out of the social and
political turmoil of the Civil War, American philosophy was a means
of dealing with conflict and change. In the turbulence of the 21st
century, this remains as relevant as ever. Placing the work of
present-day American philosophers in the context of a history of
resistance through a philosophical tradition marked by a commitment
to pluralism, fallibilism and liberation, this book tells the story
of a philosophy shaped by major events that call for philosophical
reflection and illustrates the ways in which philosophy is relevant
to lived experience. The book presents a survey of the historical
development of American philosophy, as well as coverage of key
contemporary issues in America including race theory, feminism,
indigenous peoples, and environmentalism. It is the ideal
introduction to the work of the major American thinkers, past and
present, and the sheer breadth of their ideas and influence.
This book is the first collection of essays to discuss Oscar
Wilde's love and vast knowledge of philosophy. Over the past few
decades, Oscar Wilde scholars have become increasingly aware of
Wilde's love and intimate knowledge of philosophy. Wilde's "Oxford
Notebooks" and his soon-to-be-published "Notebook on Philosophy"
all point to Wilde not just as an aesthete, but also as a serious
philosophical thinker. The aim of this collection is not to make
the statement that Wilde was a philosopher, or that his works were
philosophical tracts. Rather, it provides a space to explore any
and all linkages between Wilde's works and philosophical thought.
Addressing a broad spectrum of philosophical matter, from classical
philology to Daoism, ethics to aestheticism, this collection
enriches the literature on Wilde and philosophy alike.
For centuries debates about reason and its Other have animated and
informed philosophy, art, science and politics throughout Western
civilization - but nowhere, arguably as deeply and turbulently as
in Germany. Reason, the legacy of the Enlightenment, has been
claimed, rejected and redefined by influential German thinkers from
Kant to Nietzsche to Habermas. In our own time - more than 200
years after Kant's Critique of Pure Reason - the status of reason
and the irrational, what is and what should be excluded from
reason, what qualifies as a critique of reason, are all still
central philosophical issues in Germany as well as throughout the
West.
Derrida and Textual Animality: For a Zoogrammatology of Literature
analyses what has come to be known, in the Humanities, as 'the
question of the animal', in relation to literary texts. Rodolfo
Piskorski intervenes in the current debate regarding the non-human
and its representation in literature, resisting popular materialist
methodological approaches in the field by revisiting and
revitalising the post-structuralist thought of Derrida and the
'linguistic turn'. The book focuses on Derrida's early work in
order to frame deconstructive approaches to literature as necessary
for a theory and practice of literary criticism that addresses the
question of the animal, arguing that texts are like animals, and
animals are like texts. While Derrida's late writings have been
embraced by animal studies scholars due to its overt focus on
animality, ethics, and the non-human, Piskorski demonstrates the
additional value of these early Derridean texts for the field of
literary animal studies by proposing detailed zoogrammatological
readings of texts by Freud, Clarice Lispector, Ted Hughes, and
Darren Aronofsky, while in dialogue with thinkers such as Butler,
Kristeva, Genette, Deleuze and Guattari, and Attridge.
This book provides the first comprehensive account of Hume's
conception of objects in Book I of "A" "Treatise of Human Nature."
What, according to Hume, are objects? Ideas? Impressions?
Mind-independent objects? All three? None of the above? Through a
close textual analysis, Rocknak shows that Hume thought that
objects are imagined ideas. But, she argues, he struggled with two
accounts of how and when we imagine such ideas. On the one hand,
Hume believed that we always and universally imagine that objects
are the causes of our perceptions. On the other hand, he thought
that we only imagine such causes when we reach a "philosophical"
level of thought. This tension manifests itself in Hume's account
of personal identity; a tension that, Rocknak argues, Hume
acknowledges in the Appendix to the "Treatise." As a result of
Rocknak's detailed account of Hume's conception of objects, we are
forced to accommodate new interpretations of, at least, Hume's
notions of belief, personal identity, justification and
causality.
This book is about evolutionary theory. It deals with aspects of
its history to focus upon explanatory structures at work in the
various forms of evolutionary theory - as such this is also a work
of philosophy. Its focus lies on recent debates about the Modern
Synthesis and what might be lacking in that synthesis. These claims
have been most clearly made by those calling for an Extended
Evolutionary Synthesis. The author argues that the difference
between these two positions is the consequence of two things.
First, whether evolution is a considered as solely a population
level phenomenon or also a theory of form. Second, the use of
information concepts. In this book Darwinian evolution is
positioned as a general theory of evolution, a theory that gave
evolution a technical meaning as the statistical outcome of
variation, competition, and inheritance. The Modern Synthesis (MS)
within biology, has a particular focus, a particular architecture
to its explanations that renders it a special theory of evolution.
After providing a history of Darwinian theory and the MS, recent
claims and exhortations for an Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
(EES) are examined that see the need for the inclusion of
non-genetic modes of inheritance and also developmental processes.
Much of this argument is based around claims that the MS adopts a
particular view of information that has privileged the gene as an
instructional unit in the emergence of form. The author analyses
the uses of information and claims that neither side of the debate
explicitly and formally deals with this concept. A more formal view
of information is provided which challenges the EES claims about
the role of genes in MS explanations of form whilst being
consilient with their own interests in developmental biology. It is
concluded that the MS implicitly assumed this formal view of
information whilst using information terms in a colloquial manner.
In the final chapter the idea that the MS is an informational
theory that acts to corral more specific phenomenal accounts, is
mooted. As such the book argues for a constrained pluralism within
biology, where the MS describes those constraints.
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