This book analyses the epistemological problems that Shakespeare explores in Othello. In particular, it uses the methods of analytic philosophy, especially the work of the later Wittgenstein, to characterize these problems and the play.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book discusses the ethical dimension of the interpretation of texts and events. Its purpose is not to address the neutrality or ideological biases of interpreters, but rather to discuss the underlying issue of the intervention of interpreters into the process of interpretation. The author calls this intervention the "ethical" aspect of interpretation and argues that interpreters are neither neutral nor necessarily activists. He examines three models of interpretation, all of which recognize the role that interpreters play in the process of interpretation. In these models, the question of the truth or validity of interpretation is dependent upon the attitude of interpreters. These three models are: (1) the principle of charity in interpretation in the two different versions defended by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Donald Davidson; (2) the production of truth, as developed by Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault; and (3) the regulative principle in interpretation as formal validity claims-as presented by Karl-Otto Apel and Jurgen Habermas-and as benevolence or love as an epistemic virtue-as defended by Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The critical discussion of these three models, which brings to the fore the different manners in which interpreters intervene in the process of interpretation as persons, lays the foundations for an ethics of interpretation. The Ethics of Interpretation will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in hermeneutics, 19th- and 20th-century philosophy, literary theory, and cultural theory.

Chapter 1: The epistemological problem of scientific objectivity.- Chapter 2: Axiomatic thought and philosophy from neo-scholasticism to neo-realism.- Chapter 3: For a historical-critical epistemology. From the critique of epistemology to critical epistemology.- Chapter 4: Language and ontology between science and hermeneutics.- Chapter 5: The axiological dimensions of scientific research.- Chapter 6: The ideal models and the problem of the scientific method.- Chapter 7: Epistemology as hermeneutics of knowledge.- Chapter 8: Pragmatism and Objectivity.

The Afterlife of Texts in Translation: Understanding the Messianic in Literature reads Walter Benjamin's and Jacques Derrida's writings on translation as suggesting that texts exist within a process of continual translation. Understanding Benjamin's and Derrida's concept of 'afterlife' as 'overliving', this book proposes that reading Benjamin's and Derrida's writings on translation in terms of their wider thought on language and history suggests that textuality itself possesses a 'messianic' quality. Developing this idea in relation to the many rewritings and translations of Don Quijote, particularly the multiple rewritings by Jorge Luis Borges, Edmund Chapman asserts that texts consist of a structure of potential for endless translation that continually promises the overcoming of language, history and textuality itself.

Seeing Wittgenstein Anew is the first collection to examine Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on the concept of aspect-seeing. These essays show that aspect-seeing was not simply one more topic of investigation in Wittgenstein's later writings, but, rather, that it was a pervasive and guiding concept in his efforts to turn philosophy's attention to the actual conditions of our common life in language. Arranged in sections that highlight the pertinence of the aspect-seeing remarks to aesthetic and moral perception, self-knowledge, mind and consciousness, linguistic agreement, philosophical therapy, and "seeing connections," the sixteen essays, which were specially commissioned for this volume, demonstrate the unity of not only Philosophical Investigations but also Wittgenstein's later thought as a whole. They open up novel paths across familiar fields of thought: the objectivity of interpretation, the fixity of the past, the acquisition of language, and the nature of human consciousness. Significantly, they exemplify how continuing consideration of the interrelated phenomena and concepts surrounding aspect-seeing might produce a fruitful way of doing philosophy. The volume includes a concordance for the unnumbered remarks in the various editions of Philosophical Investigations, including the latest (4th) edition.

The book explores the impact of manuscript remarks during the year 1929 on the development of Wittgenstein's thought. Although its intention is to put the focus specifically on the manuscripts, the book is not purely exegetical. The contributors generate important new insights for understanding Wittgenstein's philosophy and his place in the history of analytic philosophy. Wittgenstein's writings from the years 1929-1930 are valuable, not simply because they marked Wittgenstein's return to academic philosophy after a seven-year absence, but because these works indicate several changes in his philosophical thinking. The chapters in this volume clarify the significance of Wittgenstein's return to philosophy in 1929. In Part 1, the contributors address different issues in the philosophy of mathematics, e.g. Wittgenstein's understanding of certain aspects of intuitionism and his commitment to verificationism, as well as his idea of "a new system". Part 2 examines Wittgenstein's philosophical development and his understanding of philosophical method. Here the contributors examine particular problems Wittgenstein dealt with in 1929, e.g. the colour-exclusion problem, and the use of thought experiments as well as his relationship to Frank Ramsey and philosophical pragmatism. Part 3 features essays on phenomenological language. These chapters address the role of spatial analogies and the structure of visual space. Finally, Part 4 includes one chapter on Wittgenstein's few manuscript remarks about ethics and religion and relates it to his Lecture on Ethics. Wittgenstein's Philosophy in 1929 will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wittgenstein and the history of analytic philosophy.

The powers of seeing, hearing, re membering, distinguishing, judging, reason ing, are speculative powers; the power of ex ecuting any work of art or labour is active power. Thomas Reid I Some causal efficacy is due to persons. And, some of the causal efficacy due to persons is imparted by, not merely to, them. Further, some of the causal efficacy due to persons and imparted by them is imparted by and not merely to their physical, active bodies. Otherwise there is no agency. I will assume, with everyone at the outset, that the world contains agency of the kind found in some of a person's comings and goings, movings and changing of things. Agency is exhibited in more and in less sophisticated forms, that is, in any sophisticated, artful activity and in less complex, non-articulate physical activities. In both there appears to be more than mere causal efficacy imparted to the environment by a person. In sophisticated agen cy activities are organized, guided, purposive and purposeful comings and goings, movings and changes. And purpose is not absent in less soph isticated purposive activities of active creatures. So I shall argue in what follows. Now is the time for introducing the themes, topics, and issues to be considered, and the plan and purpose in them."

Scientific realism is at the core of the contemporary philosophical debate on science. This book analyzes new versions of scientific realism. It makes explicit the advantages of scientific realism over alternatives and antagonists, contributes to deciding which of the new approaches better meets the descriptive and the prescriptive criteria, and expands the philosophico-methodological field to take in new topics and disciplines.

This book traces the trajectory of militant jihadism to show how violence is more intentionally embraced as the centre of worship, social order and ideology. Undertaking an in-depth analysis of militant jihadist groups and utilising the work of Rene Girard, Joel Hodge argues that the extreme violence of militant jihadists is a response to modernity in two ways that have not been sufficiently explored by the existing literature. Firstly, it is a manifestation of the unrestrained and escalating state of desire and rivalry in modernity, which militant jihadists seek to counter with extreme violence. Secondly, it is a response to the unveiling and discrediting of sacred violence, which militant jihadists seek to reverse by more purposefully valorising sacred violence in what they believe to be jihad. Relevant to anyone interested in Islam, philosophy of religion, theology, and terrorism, Violence in the Name of God imagines new ways of thinking about militancy in the name of Islam in the twenty-first century.

Postmodernism has had its day. Are we now in the era of epimodernism? Reinterpreting the six "memos" that Italo Calvino suggested more than thirty years ago for "the new Millennium", in this acclaimed book Emmanuel Bouju identifies six new values for literature in the twenty-first century: Superficiality, Secrecy, Energy, Acceleration, Credit, and Follow Through. Based on the principal meanings of the Ancient Greek prefix epi - surface, contact, origin, extension, duration, authority, and finality - these values represent six different ways of relating to the legacy of modernist utopias, reorienting postmodern critique and rebooting, with all due irony, its various forms of engagement and empowerment. Equal parts cultural criticism and literary creation, this highly original essay both enacts and explores the epimodern turn in contemporary European literature. Rigorous and humorous, provocative and playful, Epimodernism helps us to understand what literature can describe, imagine, and invent in our challenging times.

Hannah Arendt's work offers a powerful critical engagement with the cultural and philosophical crises of mid-twentieth-century Europe. Her idea of the banality of evil, made famous after her report on the trial of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, remains controversial to this day.

In the face of 9/11 and the 'war on terror', Arendt's work on the politics of freedom and the rights of man in a democratic state are especially relevant. Her impassioned plea for the creation of a public sphere through free, critical thinking and dialogue provides a significant resource for contemporary thought.

Covering her key ideas from The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition as well as some of her less well-known texts, and focussing in detail on Arendt's idea of storytelling, this guide brings Arendt's work into the twenty-first century while helping students to understand its urgent relevance for the contemporary world.

The book is a comprehensive introduction to the work of the Estonian-German biologist Jakob von Uexkull. After a first introductory chapter by Morten Tonnessen and a second chapter on Uexkull's life and philosophical background, it contains four chapters devoted to the analysis of his main works. They are followed by a vast eighth chapter which deals with the influence Uexkull had on other philosophers and scientists. Finally, the author discloses his conclusions, focused on the possibility of updating Uexkull's work. As far as the key issue is concerned, the Uexkullian Umwelt is the perceptive and operative world which surrounds animal species; it is a subjective species-specific construction which provides living organisms with great security and behaviour stability. The relationship that the animal carries out with its environment is a complex system of semiotic interactions: its behaviour is not a set of mechanical reactions, but a spontaneous attribution of meaning to the outside world.

Grete Hermann (1901-1984) was a pupil of mathematical physicist Emmy Noether, follower and co-worker of neo-Kantian philosopher Leonard Nelson, and an important intellectual figure in post-war German social democracy. She is best known for her work on the philosophy of modern physics in the 1930s, some of which emerged from intense discussions with Heisenberg and Weizsacker in Leipzig. Hermann's aim was to counter the threat to the Kantian notion of causality coming from quantum mechanics. She also discussed in depth the question of 'hidden variables' (including the first critique of von Neumann's alleged impossibility proof) and provided an extensive analysis of Bohr's notion of complementarity. This volume includes translations of Hermann's two most important essays on this topic: one hitherto unpublished and one translated here into English for the first time. It also brings together recent scholarly contributions by historians and philosophers of science, physicists, and philosophers and educators following in Hermann's steps. Hermann's work places her in the first rank among philosophers who wrote about modern physics in the first half of the last century. Those interested in the many fields to which she contributed will find here a comprehensive discussion of her philosophy of physics that places it in the context of her wider work.

Rethinking Joseph Conrad's Concepts of Community uses Conrad's phrase 'strange fraternity' from The Rover as a starting point for an exploration of the concept of community in his writing, including his neglected vignettes and later stories. Drawing on the work of continental thinkers including Jacques Derrida, Jean Luc-Nancy and Hannah Arendt, Yamamoto offers original readings of Heart of Darkness, The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', The Rover and Suspense and the short stories "The Secret Sharer", "The Warrior's Soul" and "The Duel". Working at the intersection between literature and philosophy, this is a unique and interdisciplinary engagement with Conrad's work.

The map, as it appears in Gilles Deleuze's writings, is a concept guiding the exploration of new territories, no matter how abstract. With the advent of new media and digital technologies, contemporary artists have imagined a panoply of new spaces that put Deleuze's concept to the test. Deleuze's concept of the map bridges the gap between the analog and the digital, information and representation, virtual and actual, canvas and screen and is therefore best suited for the contemporary artistic landscape. Deleuze and the Map-Image explores cartography from philosophical and aesthetic perspectives and argues that the concept of the map is a critical touchstone for contemporary multidisciplinary art. This book is an overview of Deleuze's cartographic thought read through the theories of Sloterdijk, Heidegger, and Virilio and the art criticism of Laura U. Marks, Carolyn L. Kane, and Alexander Galloway, shaping it into a critical tool through which to view the works of cutting edge artists such as Janice Kerbel and Hajra Waheed, who work with digital and analog art. After all, Deleuze did write that a map can be conceived as a work of art, and so herein art is critiqued through cartographic strategies.

"The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is one of the landmarks of twentieth century philosophy. Drawing from the influential work of Wilhelm Dilthey, it transformed neo-Kantianism into a new robust philosophy of culture. The second volume, on Mythical Thinking, analyzes the fundamental layers of perception and expression as well as the articulations with religion and the dialectic with other forms, essentially language and art. The intellectual breadth of the volume is remarkable. It initiated the debate with Martin Heidegger and prompted a long-lasting meditation by Hans Blumenberg. We are only beginning to recognize its importance for our understanding of the power of images in the construction of aesthetics, the self, and the socio-political world. It initiated a discussion within French sociology (Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss) that ultimately resurfaced in Pierre Bourdieu, while today it is considered as a resourceful path for cultural and critical theory (Drucilla Cornell and Kenneth M. Panfilio). Finally, this volume also offers solid grounds for a political critique of Nazism - specifically: Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the 20th Century and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf - as well as the new emerging totalitarian ideologies." Fabien Capeilleres, Professor of Philosophy, editor of the French edition of Cassirer's Works. This new translation makes Cassirer's seminal work available to a new generation of scholars. Each volume includes a translator's introduction by Steve G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter E. Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and an index.

"In his Phenomenology of Cognition, Cassirer provides a comprehensive and systematic account of the dynamic process involved in the whole of human culture as it progresses from the world of myth and its feeling of social belonging to the highest abstractions of mathematics, logic and theoretical physics. Cassirer engages with the most sophisticated and cutting-edge work in fields ranging from ethnology to classics, egyptology and assyriology to ethology, brain science and psychology to logic, mathematics and theoretical physics. His command of philosophy, literature, and the arts is superb. Echoing his work on Kant, Cassirer begins The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms with the problem posed by the meaning of being for philosophy since Plato. But Cassirer also shows that this problem gains new significance with Kant and with the development of modern culture. Cassirer weaves his conception of the development of knowledge into a broadly Kantian and German idealist dynamic-historical conception of significance and of experience that refuses to accept a fundamental opposition between literary, philosophical and scientific culture. In consequence of his great vision grounded in careful reflection and argument, Cassirer's systematic conception of the Copernican cosmopolitan-cosmological revolution is still philosophically and scientifically unmatched in contemporary philosophy on both sides of the Atlantic and of the Pacific." Pierre Keller, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside, USA. This new translation makes Cassirer's seminal work available to a new generation of scholars. Each volume includes a translator's introduction by Steve G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter E. Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and an index.

Heidegger and Nietzsche: Overcoming Metaphysics charts Heidegger course of the 1930s that culminates in his notorious confrontation with Nietzsche. During this period, Heidegger revisits some of philosophy fundamental questions regarding metaphysics, truth and ground and suggests that Western metaphysics is itself an obstacle that impedes the pathway to the meaning of being. For that reason, an overcoming of metaphysics becomes essential in order to initiate a new relation between truth and being. The majority of twentieth-century Continental philosophy judges the Heidegger-Nietzsche dispute in Nietzsche's favour and finds Heidegger's interpretation somewhat contemptible. This book argues that most attempts at placing Heidegger's thought fail to grasp Heidegger's philosophy and accuse him of an inadequate appreciation of reason, ethics and politics. While acknowledging some of the more profound critiques of Heidegger's thought, Louis Blond demonstrates that Heidegger's search for a new foundation for meaning aims at replacing rationality and ethics with a preparatory thinking which hopes to describe a new relationship that rectifies many of the errors of the Western tradition.

Claude Levi-Strauss is one of the major thinkers of the modern age. Regarded as a crucial figure in the development of structuralism, his writings are studied across a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy and literary studies. The Cambridge Companion to Levi-Strauss presents a major reassessment of his work and influence. The fifteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume engage with the controversies that have surrounded his ideas, and they probe the concealed influences and cliches that have obscured a true understanding of his work. The contributors are experts drawn from a number of fields, demonstrating the durability and importance of Levi-Strauss's work in the academy. Written for students and researchers alike, these incisive, jargon-free essays will be essential reading for anybody who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of this important thinker.

This collection of original essays discusses the relationship between Hegel and the Frankfurt School Critical Theory tradition. The book's aim is to take stock of this fascinating, complex, and complicated relationship. The volume is divided into five parts: Part I focuses on dialectics and antagonisms. Part II is concerned with ethical life and intersubjectivity. Part III is devoted to the logico-metaphysical discourse surrounding emancipation. Part IV analyses social freedom in relation to emancipation. Part V discusses classical and contemporary political philosophy in relation to Hegel and the Frankfurt School, as well as radical-democratic models and the outline and functions of economic institutions.

Providing a concise but comprehensive overview of Joseph B. Soloveitchik's larger philosophical program, this book studies one of the most important modern Orthodox Jewish thinkers. It incorporates much relevant biographical, philosophical, religious, legal, and historical background so that the content and difficult philosophical concepts are easily accessible. The volume describes his view of Jewish law (Halakhah) and how he answers the fundamental question of Jewish philosophy, namely, the "reasons" for the commandments. It shows how many of his disparate books, essays, and lectures on law, specific commandments, and Jewish religious phenomenology can be woven together to form an elegant philosophical program. It also provides an analysis and summary of Soloveitchik's views on Zionism and on interreligious dialogue and the contexts for Soloveitchik's respective stances on issues that were pressing in his role as a leader of a major branch of post-war Orthodox Judaism. The book provides a synoptic overview of the philosophical works of Joseph B. Soloveitchik. It will be of interest to historians and scholars studying neo-Kantian philosophy, Jewish thought, and philosophy of religion.