From early in his career Jacques Derrida was intrigued by law. Over time, this fascination with law grew more manifest and he published a number of highly influential analyses of ethics, justice, violence and law. This book brings together leading scholars in a variety of disciplines to assess Derrida's importance for and impact upon legal studies.

Unknown to many, unintelligible to some, Richard McKeon (1900-1985) is considered by those familiar with his work to be among the most important of all twentieth-century philosophers. In a career that spanned seven decades, McKeon published eleven books and more than 150 articles, inspired and intimidated generations of students (among them Richard Rorty, Wayne Booth, and Paul Goodman), and received most of the honors available to an American philosopher. As a teacher and administrator at the University of Chicago, he was instrumental in founding its general education program and initiating the first interdisciplinary program in the humanities. His achievements outside the university included a major part in developing the first cultural and philosophical projects of UNESCO. Fearsome in the classroom, he is renowned for his scholarly brilliance; the problems he thought important, however, did not occupy his colleagues' attention. Ironically, they are now the very issues that present-day philosophers grapple with, namely pluralism, the relationship of philosophy to the history of philosophy, rhetoric and philosophy, the diversity of culture, and the problems of communication and community. Pluralism in Theory and Practice not only brings McKeon to the attention of contemporary philosophers and students; it also puts his theories into practice. Some of the essays explicate aspects of McKeon's thought or situate him in the context of American intellectual and practical engagement. Others take the concerns he raised as starting points for inquiries into urgent contemporary problems, or, in some cases, for reexamining McKeon's work as fertile ground for shaping the direction of new investigation.

Themes from Ontology, Mind and Logic celebrates Peter Simons's admirable career. The book contains seventeen essays with themes ranging from metaphysics to phenomenology. The contributions by Fabrice Correia, Bob Hale and Crispin Wright, Ingvar Johansson, Kathrin Koslicki, Uriah Kriegel, Wolfgang Kunne, Edgar Morscher, Kevin Mulligan, Maria Elisabeth Reicher, Maria van der Schaar, Benjamin Schnieder, Johanna Seibt, Ted Sider, David Woodruff Smith, Mark Textor and Jan Wolenski, tackle the problems that defined Simons's work and insights into some of today's most interesting and significant philosophical questions.

The main purpose of the present volume is to advance our understanding of the notions of knowledge and context, the connections between them and the ways in which they can be modeled, in particular formalized a question of prime importance and utmost relevance to such diverse disciplines as philosophy, linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

Bringing together essays written by world-leading experts and emerging researchers in epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, linguistics and theoretical computer science, the book examines the formal modeling of knowledge and the knowledge-context link at one or more of three intersections - context and epistemology, epistemology and formalism, formalism and context and presents a novel range of approaches to the current discussions that the connections between knowledge, language, action, reasoning and context continually enlivens. It develops powerful ideas that will push the relevant fields forward and give a sense of the new directions in which mainstream and formal research on knowledge and context is heading."

In the past two and a half decades, Walter Benjamin's early essay 'Towards the Critique of Violence' (1921) has taken a central place in politico-philosophic debates. The complexity and perhaps even the occasional obscurity of Benjamin's text have undoubtedly contributed to the diversity, conflict, and richness of contemporary readings. Interest has heightened following the attention that philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben have devoted to it. Agamben's own interest started early in his career with his 1970 essay, 'On the Limits of Violence', and Benjamin's essay continues to be a fundamental reference in Agamben's work. Written by internationally recognized scholars, Towards the Critique of Violence is the first book to explore politico-philosophic implications of Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence' and correlative implications of Benjamin's resonance in Agamben's writings. Topics of this collection include mythic violence, the techniques of non-violent conflict resolution, ambiguity, destiny or fate, decision and nature, and the relation between justice and thinking. The volume explores Agamben's usage of certain Benjaminian themes, such as Judaism and law, bare life, sacrifice, and Kantian experience, culminating with the English translation of Agamben's 'On the Limits of Violence'.

This groundbreaking volume examines our sometimes strained grasp of reality and sheds new light on three subject areas that continue to fascinate researchers, namely, religion, hypnosis, and psychopathology. In The Corruption of Reality, noted psychologist John F. Schumaker argues that, despite their superficial differences, religion, hypnosis, and psychopathology are all expressions of the unique human ability to modify and regulate reality in ways that serve the individual and society. In turn, these same behaviors can be traced to the the brain's remarkable capacity to process information along multiple pathways, thus allowing us to distort reality in strategic ways that enhance coping. This trance-related brain faculty, known as dissociation, is revealed as a crucial determinant of what we come to experience as human reality. Taking a broad multidisciplinary approach, Schumaker demonstrates that reality is usually orchestrated at the level of culture in the form of traditional religion, with religion having been a total way of life in premodern times. In order to function optimally, religions (with the exception of most Western ones) employ dissociative trance-induction techniques that take advantage of drugs, music, dance, and other sources of repetitive monotony. Many of these closely resemble hypnotic induction techniques as they exist in Western culture. They also operate similarly to the cognitive rituals that establish and maintain nonreligious abnormal behavior, better known as psychopathology or mental illness. In this last area, special attention is given to drug abuse, eating disorders, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and responsesto trauma. Many of these disorders, Schumaker argues, are the direct result of the inability of Western culture, with its severely eroded religious systems, to function adequately in its role as regulator of reality. Schumaker proposes ways to revitalize our sick Western culture, including the controversial prospect of constructing a new religion incorporating our current knowledge about our peculiar relationship to ourselves and the world. Along these lines, he offers innovative solutions to such pressing global problems as over-population and ecological destruction. Rigorously argued yet written in a style accessible to all readers, The Corruption of Reality challenges traditional ideas and paves the way for a far-reaching unified theory of conscious and unconscious behavior.

Paul Kurtz is one of America's foremost expositors of humanist philosophy. In "Living without Religion", he has introduced a new word to describe humanism - eupraxsophy. Derived from the Greek roots eu (good), praxis (practice), and sophia (philosophical and scientific wisdom), eupraxophy means literally "good conduct and wisdom in living". Eupraxophy draws upon the disciplines of the sciences, philosophy, and ethics - yet it is more than these. Not simply an intellectual position, eupraxophy expresses convictions about the nature of the universe and how to live one's life with commitment and dedication. It, thus, combines both a cosmic outlook and a life stance. Kurtz maintains that the eupraxsopher can lead a meaningful life and help create a just society, and he offers concrete recommendations for the development of the humanism of the future. An entire section of the book is devoted to the careful definition of religion, which clearly demonstrates than an authentic moral life is possible without religious belief.

Cassirer's thought-provoking essay Form and Technology (1930) considers the theoretical work performed by material instruments and, in so doing, it ascribes to technology a new dignity as a genuine tool of the mind in equal company with language and art. Germinating in this essay, we find an ambitious program for a new kind of philosophy of technology that resonates with contemporary approaches focusing on material apparatuses, relational and performative processes, and the embodied, embedded, and enacted nature of perception and cognition. Cassirer's approach, however, is unique in the way that it integrates logical concerns, championed by scientifically oriented philosophers, with the concerns of the historical and cultural sciences. The current revival of interest in Cassirer's thinking has precisely to do with its potential for bridging unproductive intellectual gaps. Form and Technology, especially, provides a rich resource for current attempts, across disciplines, to develop new conceptual and ontological frameworks. Cassirer's classic essay, translated here into English for the first time, is accompanied by ten critical essays that explore its current relevance.

This is an original examination of the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, focusing on his specific concept of interpretation. "Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and Globalization" explores the philosophical resources provided by Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics in dealing with the challenges of a world framed by globalization. Bengt Kristensson Uggla's reflections start from an understanding of globalization as an 'age of hermeneutics', linking the seldom related problematic of globalization with hermeneutics through Ricoeur's concept of interpretation. The book proceeds to embrace lifelong, learning as the emerging new life script of the globalized knowledge economy, the post-national 'memory wars' generated by the celebration of national anniversaries, and the need for orientation in a post-modern world order. The author argues that Ricoeur's hermeneutics provide intellectual resources of extraordinary importance in coping with some of the most important challenges in the contemporary world. "Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy" presents cutting-edge scholarship in the field of modern European thought. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the discipline.

Friedrich Waismann (1896-1959) was one of the most gifted students and collaborators of Moritz Schlick. Accepted as a discussion partner by Wittgenstein from 1927 on, he functioned as spokesman for the latter's ideas in the Schlick Circle, until Wittgenstein's contact with this most faithful interpreter was broken off in 1935 and not renewed when exile took Waismann to Cambridge. Nonetheless, at Oxford, where he went in 1939, and eventually became Reader in Philosophy of Mathematics (changing later to Philosophy of Science), Waismann made important and independent contributions to analytic philosophy and philosophy of science (for example in relation to probability, causality and linguistic analysis). The full extent of these only became evident later when the larger (unpublished) part of his writings could be studied. His first posthumous work The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy (1965, 2nd edn.1997; German 1976) and his earlier Einfuhrung in das mathematische Denken (1936) have recently proved of fresh interest to the scientific community. This late flowering and new understanding of Waismann's position is connected with the fact that he somewhat unfairly fell under the shadow of Wittgenstein, his mentor and predecessor. Central to this book about a life and work familiar to few is unpublished and unknown works on causality and probability. These are commented on in this volume, which will also include a publication of new or previously scattered material and an overview of Waismann's life.

In "Heidegger, Metaphysics and the Univocity of Being", Philip Tonner presents an interpretation of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger in terms of the doctrine of the 'univocity of being'. According to the doctrine of univocity there is a fundamental concept of being that is truly predicable of everything that exists. This book explores Heidegger's engagement with the work of John Duns Scotus, who raised philosophical univocity to its historical apotheosis. Early in his career, Heidegger wrote a book-length study of what he took to be a philosophical text of Duns Scotus'. Yet, the word 'univocity' rarely features in translations of Heidegger's works. Tonner shows, by way of a comprehensive discussion of Heidegger's philosophy, that a univocal notion of being in fact plays a distinctive and crucial role in his thought. This book thus presents a novel interpretation of Heidegger's work as a whole that builds on a suggested interpretation by Gilles Deleuze in "Difference and Repetition" and casts a new light on Heidegger's philosophy, clearly illuminating his debt to Duns Scotus. "Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy" presents cutting-edge scholarship in the field of modern European thought. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the discipline.

Wittgenstein, Frazer and Religion expounds and analyses the argument of Wittgenstein's Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough . It details the reasons for Wittgenstein's rejection of the intellectualist theory of religion, and suggests a new interpretation of his rival view of ritual. Denying that Wittgenstein's account is straightforwardly expressivist, the author builds his own interpretation on Wittgenstein's claim that magic is akin to metaphysics. In the course of the book, the author considers such matters as expressivism, 'perspicuous representation', the nature of human sacrifice, and Wittgenstein's cultural pessimism.

In this exciting new study, Don Dombowsky proposes that the foundation of Nietzsche's political thought is the aristocratic liberal critique of democratic society. But he claims that Nietzsche radicalizes this critique through a Machiavellian conversion, based on a reading of "The Prince," adapting Machiavellian "virtbliog-- "(the shaping capacity of the legislator), and immoralism (the techniques applied in political rule), and that, consequently, Nietzsche is better understood in relation to the political ideology of the neo-Machiavellian elite theorists of his own generation.

"Schizoanalytic Cartographies" represents Felix Guattari's most important later work and the most systematic and detailed account of his theoretical position and his therapeutic ideas. Guattari sets out to provide a complete account of the conditions of 'enunciation' - autonomous speech and self-expression - for subjects in the contemporary world. Over the course of eight closely argued chapters, he presents a breathtakingly new reformulation of the structures of individual and collective subjectivity. Based on research into information theory and new technologies, Guattari articulates a vision of a humanity finally reconciled with its relationship to machines. "Schizoanalytic Cartographies" is a visionary yet highly concrete work, providing a powerful vantage point on the upheavals of our present epoch, powerfully imagining a future 'post-media' era of technological development. This long overdue translation of this substantial work offers English-speaking readers the opportunity finally to fully assess Guattari's contribution to European thought.

This book explores the modern physicist Niels Bohr's philosophical thought, specifically his pivotal idea of complementarity, with a focus on the relation between the roles of what he metaphorically calls "spectators" and "actors." It seeks to spell out the structural and historical complexity of the idea of complementarity in terms of different modes of the 'spectator-actor' relation, showing, in particular, that the reorganization of Bohr's thought starting from his 1935 debate with Einstein and his collaborators is characterized by an extension of the dynamic conception of complementarity from non-physical contexts to the very field of quantum theory. Further, linked with this analysis, the book situates Bohr's complementarity in contemporary philosophical context by examining its intersections with post-Heideggerian hermeneutics as well as Derridean deconstruction. Specifically, it points to both the close affinities and the differences between Bohr's idea of the 'actor-spectator' relation and the hermeneutic notion of the relation between "belonging" and "distanciation."

This edited collection showcases some of the best recent research in the philosophy of science. It comprises of thematically arranged papers presented at the 5th conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA15), covering a broad variety of topics within general philosophy of science, and philosophical issues pertaining to specific sciences. The collection will appeal to researchers with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their own discipline, and to philosophers who wish to study the latest work on the themes discussed.

The general view of Russell's work amongst philosophers has been that repeat edly, during his long and distinguished career, crucial changes of mind on fun damental points were significant enough to cause him to successively adopt a diversity of radically new philosophical positions. Thus Russell is seen to have embraced and then abandoned, amongst others, neo-Hegelianism, Platonic re alism, phenomenalism and logical atomism, before settling finally on a form of neutral monism that philosophers have generally found to be incredible. This view of Russell is captured in C. D. Broad's famous remark that "Mr. Russell pro duces a different system of philosophy every few years . . . " (Muirhead, 1924: 79). Reflecting this picture of Russell continually changing his position, books and papers on Russell's philosophy have typically belonged to one of two kinds. Either they have concentrated on particular periods of his thought that are taken to be especially significant, or, accepting the view of his successive conversion to dis tinctly different philosophical positions, they have provided some account of each of these supposedly disconnected periods of his thought. While much good work has been done on Russell's philosophy, this framework has had its limitations, the main one being that it conceals the basic continuity behind his thought."

This book offers a unique and timely reading of the early Frankfurt School in response to the recent 'affective turn' within the arts and humanities. Resisting the overly rationalist tendencies of political philosophy, it argues that critical theory actively cultivates a powerful connection between thinking and feeling, and rediscovers a range of often neglected concepts that were of vital importance to the first generation of critical theorists, including melancholia, hope, (un)happiness, objects and mimesis. In doing so, it brings the dynamic work of Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Siegfried Kracauer into conversation with more recent debates around politics and affect. An important intervention in the fields of affect studies and social and political thought, Critical theory and feeling shows that sensuous experience is at the heart of the Frankfurt School's affective politics. -- .