The Addresses to the German Nation (1808) is one of Fichte's best-known works. It is also his most controversial work because of its nationalist elements. In this book, David James places this text and its nationalism within the context provided by Fichte's philosophical, educational and moral project of creating a community governed by pure practical reason, in which his own foundational philosophical science or Wissenschaftslehre could achieve general recognition. Rather than marking a break in Fichte's philosophy, the Addresses to the German Nation and some lesser-known texts from the same period are shown to develop themes already present in his earlier writings. The themes discussed include the opposition between idealism and dogmatism, the role of Fichte's 'popular' lectures and writings in leading individuals to the standpoint of idealism, the view of history demanded by idealism and the role of the state in history.

During the eighteenth century, elite women participated in the philosophical, scientific, and political controversies that resulted in the overthrow of monarchy, the reconceptualisation of marriage, and the emergence of modern, democratic institutions. In this comprehensive study, Karen Green outlines and discusses the ideas and arguments of these women, exploring the development of their distinctive and contrasting political positions, and their engagement with the works of political thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke, Mandeville and Rousseau. Her exploration ranges across Europe from England through France, Italy, Germany and Russia, and discusses thinkers including Mary Astell, Emilie Du Chatelet, Luise Kulmus-Gottsched and Elisabetta Caminer Turra. This study demonstrates the depth of women's contributions to eighteenth-century political debates, recovering their historical significance and deepening our understanding of this period in intellectual history. It will provide an essential resource for readers in political philosophy, political theory, intellectual history, and women's studies.

A crucial aspect of Hegel's practical philosophy is his theory of responsibility. This theory is both original and radical in its emphasis on the role and importance of social and historical conditions as a context for our actions. But even those who agree that there is something valuable in Hegel's emphasis on sociality are not in agreement about what that something is or about how Hegel argues for it. Mark Alznauer offers the first book-length account of the structure of the theory and its place within Hegel's thought as a whole. The reader is carefully walked through the psychological, social and historical aspects of responsibility in Hegel's texts. The book demonstrates that attention to the concept of responsibility reveals the true nature of Hegel's controversial claims about the inherent sociality of human action.

Written by an international team of contributors, this book offers a fresh set of interpretations of Fear and Trembling, which remains Kierkegaard's most influential and popular book. The chapters provide incisive accounts of the psychological and epistemological presuppositions of Fear and Trembling; of religious experience and the existential dimension of faith; of Kierkegaard's understanding of the relationship between faith and knowledge; of the purported and real conflicts between ethics and religion; of Kierkegaard's interpretation of the value of hope, trust, love and other virtues; of Kierkegaard's debts to German idealism and Protestant theology; and of his seminal contributions to the fields of psychology, existential phenomenology and literary theory. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of Kierkegaard studies, the history of philosophy, theology and religious studies.

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is a key element of the system of philosophy which Kant introduced with his Critique of Pure Reason, and a work of major importance in the history of Western religious thought. It represents a great philosopher's attempt to spell out the form and content of a type of religion that would be grounded in moral reason and would meet the needs of ethical life. It includes sharply critical and boldly constructive discussions on topics not often treated by philosophers, including such traditional theological concepts as original sin and the salvation or 'justification' of a sinner, and the idea of the proper role of a church. This new edition includes slightly revised translations, a revised introduction with expanded discussion of certain key themes in the work, and up-to-date guidance on further reading.

The aim of this collection is to illustrate the pervasive influence of humanist rhetoric on early-modern literature and philosophy. The first half of the book focuses on the classical rules of judicial rhetoric. One chapter considers the place of these rules in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, while two others concentrate on the technique of rhetorical redescription, pointing to its use in Machiavelli's The Prince as well as in several of Shakespeare's plays, notably Coriolanus. The second half of the book examines the humanist background to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. A major new essay discusses his typically humanist preoccupation with the visual presentation of his political ideas, while other chapters explore the rhetorical sources of his theory of persons and personation, thereby offering new insights into his views about citizenship, political representation, rights and obligations and the concept of the state.

David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1748, is a concise statement of Hume's central philosophical positions. It develops an account of human mental functioning which emphasizes the limits of human knowledge and the extent of our reliance on (non-rational) mental habits. It then applies that account to questions of free will and religious knowledge before closing with a defence of moderate scepticism. This volume, which presents a modified version of the definitive 1772 edition of the work, offers helpful annotation for the student reader, together with an introduction that sets this profoundly influential work in its philosophical and historical contexts. The volume also includes a selection of other works by Hume that throw light on both the circumstances of the work's genesis and its key themes and arguments.

This book examines the various ways in which the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling was read and responded to by British readers and writers during the nineteenth century. Challenging the idea that Schelling's reception was limited to the Romantics, this book shows the ways in which his thought continued to be engaged with across the whole period. It follows Schelling's reception both chronologically and conceptually as it developed in a number of different disciplines in British aesthetics, literature, philosophy, science and theology. What emerges is a vibrant new history of the period, showing the important role played by reading and responding to Schelling, either directly or more diffusely, and taking in a vast array of major thinkers during the period. This book, which will be of interest not only to historians of philosophy and the history of ideas, but to all those dealing with Anglo-German reception during the nineteenth century, reveals Schelling to be a kind of uncanny presence underwriting British thought.

Reading Hume on Human Understanding is a companion to the study of one of the great works of Western philosophy. The aims of the volume are: to provide a general overview of Hume's Enquiry on Human Understanding, in the context of Hume's philosophical work as a whole; to elucidate, analyse, and assess the philosophy of the Enquiry; and to discuss recent developments in Hume scholarship. The eminent contributors cover a broad range of topics which remain at the centre of philosophical debate today: meaning, induction, scepticism, belief, personal identity, causation, freedom, miracles, probability, and religious belief.

Here is a universal biology that draws upon the contributions of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel to unravel the mystery of life and conceive what is essential to living things anywhere they may arise. The book develops a philosopher's guide to life in the universe, conceiving how nature becomes a biosphere in which life can emerge, what are the basic life processes common to any organism, how evolution can give rise to the different possible forms of life, and what distinguishes the essential life forms from one another.

This book is both a concise and lucid introduction to Nietzsche and an original contribution to critical debates concerning Nietzsche interpretation and reception. This overview takes issue with the prevailing tendency to focus on Nietzsche's later work, which reaches its extreme with Heidegger's almost exclusive focus on the group of late notes posthumously collected as "The Will to Power." Vattimo aims to mediate between two prominent hermeneutic readings of Nietzsche: Wilhelm Dilthey's view that Nietzsche's work fits into the nineteenth-century tradition of the philosophy of life and Heidegger's belief that Nietzsche is best understood as the author of a pair of ontological doctrines, the will to power and the eternal return of the same.
Vattimo aims to show that Nietzsche's early interest in cultural and historical criticism can be found throughout his corpus and that it informs, and helps to explain, Nietzsche's later doctrines and writings. This allows us to understand these later doctrines in a deeper way, to see their connections with his wider concerns, and thus to make greater sense of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole.
This working hypothesis guides Vattimo through his elegant exposition of the basic views of the early and late Nietzsche, from the philological beginnings and the musings on Dionysus through the so-called positivist phase of the middle period up to the philosophy of Zarathustra and the fragmented insights that bespeak the will to power. Throughout, Vattimo's intellectual agenda is to present the philosophical relevance of a cultural criticism that does not let itself be reduced to a merely literary presentation of the psychology of decadence and nihilism, or to the grand ontological-metaphysical finale that Heidegger had in mind in his monumental Nietzsche studies.
As an appendix, Vattimo provides a history of Nietzsche reception in Europe that counters the narrow Anglo-American bias of much English-language Nietzsche scholarship.

William James (1842-1910) argued for a philosophy of democracy and pluralism that advocates individual and collective responsibility for our social arrangements, our morality, and our religion. In James' view, democracy resides first and foremost not in governmental institutions or in procedures such as voting, but rather in the characteristics of individuals, and in qualities of mind and conduct. It is a philosophy for social change, counselling action and hope despite the manifold challenges facing democratic politics, and these issues still resonate strongly today. In this book, Stephen S. Bush explores how these themes connect to James' philosophy of religion, his moral thought, his epistemology, his psychology, and his metaphysics. His fresh and original study highlights the relevance of James' thought to modern debates, and will appeal to scholars and students of moral and political philosophy.

Jeremy Bentham, the founder of classical utilitarianism, was a seminal figure in the history of modern political thought. This lively monograph presents the numerous French connections of an emblematic British thinker. Perhaps more than any other intellectual of his time, Bentham engaged with contemporary events and people in France, even writing in French in the 1780s. Placing Bentham's thought in the context of the French-language Enlightenment through to the post-Revolutionary era, Emmanuelle de Champs makes the case for a historical study of 'Global Bentham'. Examining previously unpublished sources, she traces the circulation of Bentham's letters, friends, manuscripts, and books in the French-speaking world. This study in transnational intellectual history reveals how utilitarianism, as a doctrine, was both the product of, and a contribution to, French-language political thought at a key time in European history. The debates surrounding utilitarianism in France cast new light on the making of modern Liberalism.

With the publication of Parerga and Paralipomena in 1851, there finally came some measure of the fame that Schopenhauer thought was his due. Described by Schopenhauer himself as 'incomparably more popular than everything up till now', Parerga is a miscellany of essays addressing themes that complement his work The World as Will and Representation, along with more divergent, speculative pieces. It includes essays on method, logic, the intellect, Kant, pantheism, natural science, religion, education, and language. The present volume offers a new translation, a substantial introduction explaining the context of the essays, and extensive editorial notes on the different published versions of the work. This readable and scholarly edition will be an essential reference for those studying Schopenhauer, the history of philosophy, and nineteenth-century German philosophy.

This updated edition offers a comprehensive, penetrating, and informative guide to what is regarded as the classical period of German philosophy. Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling are all discussed in detail, along with contemporaries such as Hoelderlin, Novalis, and Schopenhauer, whose influence was considerable but whose work is less well known in the English-speaking world. Leading scholars trace and explore the unifying themes of German Idealism and discuss its relationship to Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. This second edition offers an updated bibliography and includes three entirely new chapters, which address aesthetic reflection and human nature, the chemical revolution after Kant, and organism and system in German Idealism. The result is an illuminating overview of a rich and complex philosophical movement, and will appeal to a wide range of interested readers in philosophy, literature, theology, German studies, and the history of ideas.

'Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration. . . the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.' Immanuel Kant (1724- 1804) remains a major influence in philosophy, especially in the areas of epistemology, ethics, theology, political theory and aesthetics. This brief history helpfully explains the development of Kant's thought, and highlights its contemporary relevance, by considering each of his major works in their order of appearance. The book has a brief chronology at the front plus a glossary of key terms and a list of further reading at the back.

This book aims to restore Marx's original emancipatory idea of socialism, conceived as an association of free individuals centered on working people's self- emancipation after the demise of capitalism. Marxist scholar Paresh Chattopadhyay argues that, Marx's (and Engels's) ideas have been deliberately warped with misinterpretation not only by those who resent these ideas but more consequentially by those who have come to power under the banner of Marx, calling themselves communists. This book challenges those who have inaccurately revised Marx's ideas justify their own pursuit of political power.

This updated edition offers a comprehensive, penetrating, and informative guide to what is regarded as the classical period of German philosophy. Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling are all discussed in detail, along with contemporaries such as Hoelderlin, Novalis, and Schopenhauer, whose influence was considerable but whose work is less well known in the English-speaking world. Leading scholars trace and explore the unifying themes of German Idealism and discuss its relationship to Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. This second edition offers an updated bibliography and includes three entirely new chapters, which address aesthetic reflection and human nature, the chemical revolution after Kant, and organism and system in German Idealism. The result is an illuminating overview of a rich and complex philosophical movement, and will appeal to a wide range of interested readers in philosophy, literature, theology, German studies, and the history of ideas.

Kant's monumental book the Critique of Pure Reason was arguably the most conceptually revolutionary work in the history of philosophy and its impact continues to be felt throughout philosophical debates today. However, it is a notoriously difficult work whose basic meaning and lasting philosophical significance are both subject to ongoing controversy. In this Critical Guide, an international team of leading Kant scholars addresses the challenges, clarifying Kant's basic terms and arguments, and engaging with the debates that surround this central text. Providing compact explanations along with cutting-edge interpretations of nearly all of the main themes and arguments in Kant's Critique, this volume provides well-balanced arguments on such controversial topics as the interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, conceptualism and non-conceptual content in perception, and the soundness of his transcendental arguments. This volume will engage readers of Kant at all levels.

This book provides a clear and nuanced appraisal of Hegel's treatment of Africa, India, and Islam, and of the implications of this treatment for postcolonial and global studies. Analyzing Hegel's master-slave dialectic and his views on Africa, India, and Islam, it situates these views not only within Hegel's historical scheme but also within a broader European philosophical context and the debates they have provoked within Hegel scholarship. Each chapter explores various in depth readings of Hegel by postcolonial critics, investigating both the Eurocentric and potentially global nature of his dialectic. Ultimately, the book shows both where of this profoundly influential thinker archetypally embodies certain Eurocentric traits that have characterized modernity and how, ironically, he himself gives us the tools for working towards a more global vision. Offering a concise introduction not only to an important dimension of Hegel's thought - his orientation towards "empire" - but also to the various issues raised by postcolonial theory and global studies, this book will be of use to philosophers as well as advanced students of literary and cultural theory alike.

Spinoza's Ethics, published in 1677, is considered his greatest work and one of history's most influential philosophical treatises. This volume brings established scholars together with new voices to engage with the complex system of philosophy proposed by Spinoza in his masterpiece. Topics including identity, thought, free will, metaphysics, and reason are all addressed, as individual chapters investigate the key themes of the Ethics and combine to offer readers a fresh and thought-provoking view of the work as a whole. Written in a clear and accessible style, the volume sets out cutting-edge research that reflects, challenges, and promotes the most recent scholarly advances in the field of Spinoza studies, tackling old issues and bringing to light new subjects for debate.

In this book, Dennis Schulting presents a staunch defence of Kant's radical subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge. This defence is mounted by means of a comprehensive analysis of what is arguably the centrepiece of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, namely, the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. Radical subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge is to be understood as the thesis that the possibility of knowledge of objects essentially and wholly depends on subjective functions of thought, or the capacity to judge by virtue of transcendental apperception, given sensory input. Subjectivism thus defined is not about merely the necessary conditions of knowledge, but nor is it claimed that it grounds the very existence of things. Novel interpretations are provided of such central themes as the objective unity of apperception, the threefold synthesis, judgement, truth and objective validity, spontaneity in judgement, figurative synthesis and spatial unity, nonconceptual content, idealism and the thing in itself, and material synthesis. One chapter is dedicated to the interpretation of the Deduction by Kant's most prominent successor, G.W.F. Hegel, and throughout Schulting critically engages with the work of contemporary readers of Kant such as Lucy Allais, Robert Hanna, John McDowell, Robert Pippin, and James Van Cleve.

This volume explains how Star Trek allows viewers to comprehend significant aspects of Georg Hegel's concept the absolute, the driving force behind history. Gonzalez, with wit and wisdom, explains how Star Trek exhibits central elements of the absolute. He describes how themes and ethos central to the show display the concept beautifully. For instance, the show posits that people must possess the correct attitudes in order to bring about an ideal society: a commitment to social justice; an unyielding commitment to the truth; and a similar commitment to scientific, intellectual discovery. These characteristics serve as perfect embodiments of Hegel's conceptualization, and Gonzalez's analysis is sharp and exacting.