This work explores the philosophical positions of five postmodern thinkers--Lyotard, Rorty, Schrag, Foucault, and Derrida--to show how their critiques imply that scholars are unduly limited by the belief that inquiry is fundamentally about gaining knowledge of phenomena that are assumed to exist prior to and independent of inquiry, and to persist essentially unchanged by inquiry. The author argues that there are good reasons why this constraint is both unnecessary and undesirable, and he resituates the disciplines within a more flexible foundation that would expand what counts as legitimate inquiry. This foundation would emphasize the inquirer as a cause of reality, not just an observer who aims to accurately describe and explain phenomena. Mourad proposes an intellectual and organizational form which he calls post-disciplinary research programs. These dynamic programs would be composed of scholars from diverse disciplines who collaborate to juxtapose disparate disciplinary concepts in order to create contexts for post-disciplinary inquries.

Technology is increasingly subject of attention from philosophers. Philosophical reflection on technology exhibits a wide and at times bewildering array of approaches and modes of thought. This volume brings to light the development of three schools in the philosophy of technology. Based on thorough introductions to Karl Marx', Martin Heidegger's and John Dewey's thought about technology, the volume offers an in-depth account of the way thinkers in the critical, the phenomenological and the pragmatic schools have respond to issues and challenges raised by the works of the founders of these schools. Technologies in almost any aspect of human life is potentially subject of philosophical treatment. To offer a focused demonstration of key arguments and insights, the presentation of each school is concluded with a contribution to discussions of educational technologies. In addition to philosophers seeking a valuable and clear structuring of a still burgeoning field, the volume is of interest to those working with educational philosophy and value sensitive design. "Stig Borsen Hansen's book is a must for all interested in understanding the development of the philosophy of technology and the relation of thoughts of thinkers that have shaped the area. The author presents a new and refreshing take on the ideas from Marx to Marcuse, from Dewey to Latour, and Heidegger to Borgmann. It will engage and hopefully provoke." Dr. Jan Kyrre Berg Friis, University of Copenhagen

The Gadamer Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Gadamers thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key terms used in Gadamers writings and detailed synopses of his key works, including his magnum opus, Truth and Method. The Dictionary also includes entries on Gadamers major philosophical influences, from Plato to Heidegger, and his contemporaries, including Derrida and Habermas. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Gadamers 'philosophical hermeneutics, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. The Gadamer Dictionary is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Gadamer or Modern European Philosophy more generally.

Postmodern philosophy is shown to be a valuable tool for exposing the bankruptcy of laissez-faire economics and culture and in developing a democratic policy. Despite the claims made by conservatives, Choi, Callaghan, and Murphy argue that an unencumbered market does not encourage pluralism. Sources of power are left intact that work in various ways to truncate democracy. Postmodernism offers an alternative to the conservative ideology and provides a new approach to promoting social equity. The protests in Los Angeles during the spring of 1992 signaled that the United States is a troubled society. Specifically, many people are not close to experiencing democracy. This is the case even though American society is becoming increasingly diverse. Certain powerful interests constrict the American policy in very important ways. Postmodern philosophy is used by Choi, Callaghan, and Murphy to illustrate how this control is maintained through the manipulation of symbolism and other cultural factors. Accordingly, they contend, new symbolism is needed before a democratic, pluralistic polity can be said to exist. Postmodernism is also employed to show how a democratic mode of order can be conceptualized. Contrary to what some critics claim, Postmodernism is a worldly philosophy that has much to say about contemporary issues. This volume of cultural criticism will be of interest to political philosophers, sociologists, and others concerned with current social and political problems.

This is an intriguing and highly readable new book examining the fascinating personal and intellectual relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were two of the most brilliant, influential, and scandalous intellectuals of the 20th century. They are remembered as much for the lives they led as for their influence on the way we think. Their committed but notoriously open union created huge controversy in their lifetime. And even before their deaths they had become one of history's legendary couples, renowned for the passion, daring, humour and intellectual intensity of their relationship.This fascinating book presents a biography of Sartre and de Beauvoir's relationship and offers some highly original theories relating to the extent of de Beauvoir's contribution to their shared ideas. Edward and Kate Fullbrook contend that it was de Beauvoir's demand for sexual freedom that dictated the open terms of their relationship and that it was in fact de Beauvoir who was the more powerful thinker of the two. Through a thorough examination of Sartre and de Beauvoir's major works, the authors present a compelling story of their romantic and intellectual relationships.

In three comprehensive volumes, Logic of the Future presents a full panorama of Charles S. Peirce's important late writings. Among the most influential American thinkers, Peirce took his existential graphs to be his greatest contribution to human thought. The manuscripts from 1895-1913, most of which are published here for the first time, testify the richness and open-endedness of his theory of logic and its applications. They also invite us to reconsider our ordinary conceptions of reasoning as well as the conventional stories told about the evolution of modern logic. This second volume collects Peirce's writings on existential graphs related to his Lowell Lectures of 1903, the annus mirabilis of his that became decisive in the development of the mature theory of the graphical method of logic.

In an enlightening dialogue with Descartes, Kant, Husserl and Gadamer, Professor Seifert argues that the original inspiration of phenomenology was nothing other than the primordial insight of philosophy itself, the foundation of philosophia perennis. His radical rethinking of the phenomenological method results in a universal, objectivist philosophy in direct continuity with Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. In order to validate the classical claim to know autonomous being, the author defends Husserl's methodological principle "Back to things themselves" from empiricist and idealist critics, including the later Husserl, and replies to the arguments of Kant which attempt to discredit the knowability of things in themselves. Originally published in 1982, this book culminates in a phenomenological and critical unfolding of the Augustinian cogito, as giving access to immutable truth about necessary essences and the real existence of personal being.

This volume contains a translation of four early manuscripts by Alfred Schutz, unpublished at the time, written between 1924 and 1928. The publication of these four essays adds much to our knowledge and appreciation of the wide range of Schutz's phenomenological and sociological interests. Originally published in 1987. The essays consist of: a challenging presentation of a phenomenology of cognition and a treatment of Bergson's conceptions of images, duration, space time and memory; a discussion of the meanings connected with the grammatical forms of language in general; a consideration of the relation between meaning-contents and literary forms in poetry, literary prose narration and dramatic presentation; and an examination of resemblances and differences in the inner forms and characteristics of the major theatrical art forms.

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.

Originally published in English in 1984, this collection of essays documents a dialogue between phenomenology and Marxism, with the contributors representing a cross-section from the two traditions. The theoretical and historical presuppositions of the phenomenology inaugurated by Husserl are very different from those of the much older Marxist tradition, yet, as these essays show, there are definite points of contact, communication and exchange between the two traditions.

This book presents a collection of authoritative contributions on the concept of time in early twentieth-century philosophy. It is structured in the form of a thematic atlas: each section is accompanied by relevant elementary logic maps that reproduce in a "spatial" form the directionalities (arguments and/or discourses) reported on in the text. The book is divided into three main sections, the first of which covers phenomenology and the perception of time by analyzing the works of Bergson, Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, Guattari and Derrida. The second section focuses on the language and conceptualization of time, examining the works of Cassirer, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Lacan, Ricoeur and Foucault, while the last section addresses the science and logic of time as they appear in the works of Guillaume, Einstein, Reichenbach, Prigogine and Barbour. The purpose of the book is threefold: to provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the concept of time in early twentieth-century philosophy; to show how conceptual reasoning can be supported by accompanying linguistic and spatial representations; and to stimulate novel research in the humanistic field concerning the complex role of graphic representations in the comprehension of concepts.

The International Kierkegaard Commentary-For the first time in English the world community of scholars systematically assembled and presented the results of recent research in the vast literature of Soren Kierkegaard. Based on the definitive English edition of Kierkegaard's works by Princeton University Press, this series of commentaries addresses all the published texts of the influential Danish philosopher and theologian. This is volume 9 & 10 in a series of commentaries based upon the definitive translations of Kierkegaard's writings published by Princeton University Press, 1980ff.

This book looks at two 'revolutions' in philosophy - phenomenology and conceptual analysis which have been influential in sociology and psychology. It discusses humanistic psychiatry and sociological approaches to the specific area of mental illness, which counter the ultimately reductionist implications of Freudian psycho-analytic theory. The book, originally published in 1973, concludes by stating the broad underlying themes of the two forms of humanistic philosophy and indicating how they relate to the problems of theory and method in sociology.

Depoortere traces the links between French philosopher Alain Badiou and Pauline theology in the face of Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God. The French philosopher Alain Badiou (born 1937), is one of the main representatives of a philosophical homage to Saint Paul. Yet, Badiou is not a believer in the traditional sense, let alone a Christian philosopher. On the contrary, he rejects transcendence and pleads for a radical this-worldliness. The text is segmented into five parts. In Depootere's introduction, Badiou's interpretation of Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God is presented. The life and work of Badiou is then briefly outlined to give some context to later passages. This is followed by two sections on Badiou's relationship to Pauline theology and a conclusion which posits the question of An Atheistic Political Theology. Here, Badiou's atheistic reading of Saint Paul is unpicked and demonstrated as a fruitful addition to theological study. Depootere's focus is on Badiou's "Saint Paul: La fondation de l'universalisme" (1998; translated into English in 2003 as "Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism"). Through a close reading of this important work, the main themes of Badiou's philosophy are introduced and their theological relevance examined. "The Philosophy and Theology" series looks at major philosophers and explores their relevance to theological thought as well as the response of theology.

This book offers a comprehensive critical survey of issues of historical interpretation and evaluation in Bertrand Russell's 1918 logical atomism lectures and logical atomism itself. These lectures record the culmination of Russell's thought in response to discussions with Wittgenstein on the nature of judgement and philosophy of logic and with Moore and other philosophical realists about epistemology and ontological atomism, and to Whitehead and Russell's novel extension of revolutionary nineteenth-century work in mathematics and logic. Russell's logical atomism lectures have had a lasting impact on analytic philosophy and on Russell's contemporaries including Carnap, Ramsey, Stebbing, and Wittgenstein. Comprised of 14 original essays, this book will demonstrate how the direct and indirect influence of these lectures thus runs deep and wide.

The book is exceptional because it applies the notion of foms of life to the context of human action. It provides answers to the following questions: Why do we act in a specific way? Why do we make particular decisions? Does one's form of life and language games determine our actions and decisions? Wittgenstein proposes a holistic method which enables us to give coherent answers to these questions. To answer the question of the contents of actions and decisions we have to explain how we have institutionalized these actions or decisions. To this aim we shall reveal the frame within which language games are introduced and have come to function as practice and custom. The scheme of order underlying the language games is illustrated. Human actions and decisions follow particular rules. By highlighting the underlying scheme of order we may gain a perspicuous view of these rules. The aim of this book is to show that actions and decisions generate rational choice. This choice is explained by demonstrating the particular functions of the language games involved.

Over the past forty years, from Americana to Point Omega, Don DeLillo has written some of America's most important novels. Although DeLillo scholarship has dealt extensively with critical theory, through themes such as systems, technology, consumerism, and terrorism, none has addressed the relation between his texts and the concept of the outside. This study argues for a new model of reading landscape in the twentieth- and twenty-first-century American novel. The author takes as exemplary the novels of Don DeLillo-and in particular the main focus of this study, The Body Artist-which have constructed landscapes that exceed the limits of geography, time, and perception. In relation to a series of literary and philosophical texts, the author reads the force driving this exceedance as the Outside, and he seeks to reconceptualize "landscape of estrangement" primarily as a relation to the Outside that animates and confuses the difference between inside and outside. Thus, the project takes as a general guide the following question: What does it mean to read the emergence of a landscape that is of the Outside? The answer to this question will help contextualize this study, bringing into relief a set of texts not through the categories of "modern," "postmodern," or "romantic," but rather their relation to the Outside. Thinking of the book as an "assemblage with the outside" also means--within the particular context of this study--that the author's concept "landscape of estrangement" is not necessarily restricted to the site of literature and can emerge via visual or auditory landscapes. To extend this thought even further, a notion this study suggests, but one that would require a whole other project, is that America itself can be read as a landscape of estrangement. If one were inclined to read novels as representations of America, then one could argue that the landscapes found in those novels would be representations of America's landscapes of estrangement. For example, the landscapes found in DeLillo's novel Cosmopolis may refer simultaneously to New York City and America at large. This, however, is not what the author of this book has in mind. This study argues that to think of America as a landscape of estrangement would mean taking the novels produced within America as elements-not representations-of that landscape, and as such they would be available among other aspects, such as film, music, politics, photography, and architecture. Sites through which DeLillo's novels have been consistently read-the city, garbage, technology, film, terrorism-all contribute to the emergence of a landscape of estrangement within America. Perhaps literature and film-or what the author will call "fabulation"-provide the most profitable sites for reading this emergence given their potential for narrative, which as we shall see is particularly suffused with such landscapes. Taking its general philosophical, strategic, and methodological inspiration from the works of Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Maurice Blanchot, this study is an intervention into the growing field of DeLillo studies which reads landscapes that problematize the limits of geography, time, and perception. After developing the concept of landscape of estrangement in contrast to more traditional understandings of literary landscapes, the volume examines its production via the outsider, hospitality, mourning, and the uncanny-sites whose force comes from the outside. This book will be a welcome addition to collections in American literature, critical theory, and philosophy.

This book offers an original reading of Wittgenstein's views on such topics as radical scepticism, the first- and third-person asymmetry of mental talk, Cartesianism, and rule-following.The celebrated 20th century philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, developed an interest in his later career in natural forms of behaviour and the role they play in our linguistic and other intellectual practices. To many, Wittgenstein appears to be advancing a theory about these practices as originating in natural forms of behaviour. However, theories of this sort seem out of place in philosophy, especially in light of Wittgenstein's own expressed views on the purpose of philosophy.Keith Dromm offers a way of understanding these apparently incongruous aspects of Wittgenstein's writings that is more consistent with his views on the proper purpose of philosophy. The book shows that Wittgenstein does not in fact offer theories about natural human behaviour. Rather, these references belong to a type of philosophical reasoning that is not meant to contribute to our knowledge, as explanations in science do, but instead to help clarify our thinking on certain philosophical topics. In particular, they serve to relieve apparent tensions between the things we do know.

The pathology of wars, violence, anger, and frustration is traced from the first hominids to our time. This book traces the history of our gradual alienation from nature, from our community, and from our own and other species. The author uses a conversational tone to explain a theory of how having relinquished control of our lives to others, be it rulers, priests, or bosses, we have created a general malaise which has led to anger, frustration and violence. The book ends optimistically with possible solutions.

We humans are deeply convinced that there is something distinct about us as a species, but we have never been able to agree on what it is. In the West, the religion of Israel argued that the will is the fundamental vehicle of our relation to God and therefore the determining characteristic of our humanity. Greek philosophy countered with the view that reason is the definitively human characteristic, since humans are the only self-aware animal. Today that unresolved argument is further complicated by the pluralism of contemporary culture and the surprisingly different ways in which different groups understand themselves. These essays approach the question in two different ways. The first is a philosophical attempt at definition. Bhikhu Parekh agrees that there is a universal human nature but that there is also a nature which is culture-specific and a third which is self-reflective. Daniel O. Dahlstrom argues that we know our nature only when it is recognized by our culture and that the liberal democratic idea of the state both celebrates and threatens the notion of fundamental human equality. Stanley H. Rosen gives a contemporary interpretation of the classical Greek view in proposing that philosophy is an expression of our humanity, an openness to the human love of wisdom. Knud Haakonssen is not ready to endorse any given orthodoxy regarding human nature but argues rather for openness to experimental views and promising hypothesis. Lisa Sowle Cahill defends a feminist interpretation of Catholic moral theology; we must be able to say that the battering of women is everywhere and always wrong. And Robert Cummings Neville notes that being human means having the obligation to take responsibility for our history. The second group of essays recognizes that we are what we do as well as what we say we are and asks what it means to be genuinely humane. Glenn C. Loury criticizes Murray and Herrnstein's The Bell Curve