Why is there a material world? Why is it fundamentally mathematical? Matter Matters explores a seventeenth-century answer to these questions as it emerged from the works of Descartes and Leibniz. The "mathematization" of the physics is shown to have been conceptually underwritten by two methods of philosophizing, namely, analysis and synthesis. The connection between these things--mathematics, matter, and the methods of analysis and synthesis--has thus far gone unexplored by scholars. The book is in four Parts: Part I works out the context in which the theory of modern matter arose. Part II develops the method of analysis, showing how it aligns with Descartes's famous doctrine of clear and distinct ideas. Part III develops the method of synthesis, focusing primarily on Leibniz, showing how it establishes the very conditions necessary and sufficient for mathematics. Analysis and synthesis turn out to establish isomorphic conceptual systems, which turn out to be isomorphic to what mathematicians today call a group. The group concept expresses the conditions underwriting all of mathematics. Part IV examines several relatively new interpretations of Descartes--the realist and idealist readings--which appear to be at odds with one another. The examination shows the sense in which these readings are actually compatible, and together reveal a richer picture of Descartes's position on the reality of matter. Ultimately, Matter Matters establishes the claim that mathematics is intelligible if, and only if, matter exists.

The Limits of Reason in Hobbes's Commonwealth explores Hobbes's attempt to construct a political philosophy of enduring peace on the foundation of the rational individual. Hobbes's rational individual, motivated by self-preservation, obeys the laws of the commonwealth and thus is conceived as the model citizen. Yet Hobbes intimates that there are limits to what such an actor will do for peace, and that the glory-seeker - "too rarely found to be presumed on" - is capable of a generosity that is necessary for political longevity. Michael P. Krom identifies this as a fundamental contradiction in Hobbes's system: he builds the commonwealth on the rational actor, yet acknowledges the need for the irrational glory-seeker. Krom argues that Hobbes's attempt to establish a "king of the proud" fails to overcome the limits of reason and the precariousness of politics. This book synthesizes recent work on Hobbes's understanding of glory and political stability, challenging the view that Hobbes succeeds in incorporating glory-seekers into his political theory and explores the implications of this for contemporary political philosophy after Rawls.

Contrary to the long-cherished opinion of John Locke's infatuation with natural law, there is abundant proof that the amount of intellectual energy Locke devoted to his philosophical views was nowhere as narrow as the attempt to justify a natural law outlook. John Locke's Moral Revolution critiques two traditional approaches to John Locke's philosophy. The first approach interprets John Locke as committed to justifying his early his early Christian / Aristotelian views of the law of nature. The second approach sees Locke attempting to manage a cluster of inconsistent moral views. In this new work, author Samuel Zinaich, Jr. argues that Locke attempts to establish a solid underpinning for religious, moral, and political ideas upon the philosophy of corpuscularism.

This book introduces architects to a philosopher, Immanuel Kant, whose work was constantly informed by a concern for the world as an evolving whole. According to Kant, in this interconnected and dynamic world, humans should act as mutually dependent and responsible subjects. Given his future-oriented and ethico-politically concerned thinking, Kant is a thinker who clearly speaks to architects. This introduction demonstrates how his ideas bear pertinently and creatively upon the world in which we live now and for which we should care thoughtfully. Kant grounded his enlightened vision of philosophy's mission using an architectural metaphor: of the modest 'dwelling-house'. Far from constructing speculative 'castles in the sky' or vertiginous 'towers which reach to the heavens', he tells us that his humble aim is rather to build a 'secure home for ourselves', one which appropriately corresponds at once to the limited material resources available on our planet, and to our need for firm and solid principles to live by. This book also explores Kant's notions of cosmopolitics, which attempts to think politics from a global perspective by taking into account the geographical fact that the earth is a sphere with limited land mass and natural resources. Given the urgent topicality of sustainable development, these Kantian texts are of particular interest for architects of today. Students of architecture, who are necessarily trained in negotiating between theory and practice, gain much from considering Kant, whose critical project also consisted of testing and exploring the viability of ideas, so as to ascertain to what extent, and crucially, how ideas can have a constructive effect on the whole world, and on us as active agents therein.

Kant once famously declared in the Prolegomena that "it was the objection of David Hume that first, many years ago, interrupted my dogmatic slumber." Abraham Anderson here offers an interpretation of this utterance, arguing that Hume roused Kant not (as has often been thought) by challenging the principle that "every event has a cause" which governs experience, but rather by attacking the principle of sufficient reason, the basis of both rationalist metaphysics and the cosmological proof of the existence of God. This suggestion, Anderson proposes, allows us to reconcile Kant's declaration with his later assertion that it was the Antinomy of pure reason - the clash of opposing theses - that first woke him from dogmatic slumber. For the Antinomy suspends the dogmatic principle of sufficient reason; in doing so, Anderson proposes, it is extending Hume's attack on that principle. This reading of Kant also explains why Kant speaks of "the objection of David Hume" after mentioning Hume's attack on metaphysics. The "objection" that Kant has in mind, Anderson argues, is a challenge to metaphysics, rather than to the foundations of empirical knowledge. Consequently, Anderson's analysis issues a new view of Hume himself-as primarily interested, not in the foundations of experience, but in the problem of metaphysics and theology. It thereby positions Kant and Hume as champions of the Enlightenment in its struggle with superstition. Shedding new light on the connection between two of the most influential figures in the history of philosophy, this volume will appeal not only to scholars of Kant, Hume, and early modern philosophy, but to philosophers and students interested in the history of philosophy and metaphysics generally.

GWF Hegel has long been considered one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the nineteenth century, and his work continues to provoke debate in contemporary philosophy. This new book provides readers with an accessible introduction to Hegel's thought, offering a lucid and highly readable account of his "Phenomenology of Spirit," "Science of Logic," "Philosophy of Nature," "Philosophy of History," and "Philosophy of Right." It provides a cogent and careful analysis of Hegel's main arguments, considers critical responses, evaluates competing interpretations, and assesses the legacy of Hegel's work for philosophy in the present day.In a comprehensive discussion of the major works, J.M Fritzman considers crucial questions of authorial intent raised by the "Phenomenology of Spirit," and discusses Hegel's conceptions of necessity and of philosophical method. In his presentation of Hegel's "Logic," Fritzman evaluates the claim that logic has no presuppositions and examines whether this endorses a foundationalist or coherentist epistemology. Fritzman goes on to scrutinize Hegel's claims that history represents the progressive realization of human freedom, and details how Hegel believes that this is also expressed in art and religion. This book serves as both an excellent introduction to Hegel's wide-ranging philosophy for students, as well as an innovative critique which will contribute to ongoing debates in the field.

This book connects Schopenhauer's philosophy with transcendental idealism by exploring the distinctly Kantian roots of his pessimism. By clearly discerning four types of coming to knowledge, it demonstrates how Schopenhauer's epistemology can enlighten this connection with other areas of his philosophy. The individual chapters in this book discuss how these knowledge types-immediate or mediate, representational or non-representational-relate to Schopenhauer's metaphysics, ethics and action, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and asceticism. In each of these areas, a specific sense of pessimism serves to disarm a number of paradoxes and inconsistencies typically associated with Schopenhauer's philosophy. The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessismism shows how Schopenhauer's claim that he is a true successor to Kant can be justified.

Peter Bornedal provides an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole in the context of 19th century philosophy of mind and cognition. The study explains Nietzsche's notion of truth; his epistemology; his notions of the split and fragmented subject, of master, slave, and priest; furthermore, it offers a new interpretation of the enigmatic "eternal recurrence". It also suggests how important aspects of Nietzsche's thinking can be read as a sophisticated critique of ideology. From studies in Nietzsche's work as a whole, not least in his so-called Nachgelassene Fragmente, the book reconstructs aspects of Nietzsche's thinking that have largely been under-described in especially the Anglo-Saxon Nietzsche-reception. The study makes the case that Nietzsche in his epistemology, his psychology, and his cognitive theory is responding to several scientific discoveries occuring during the 19th century. Read within the context of contemporary cognitive-psychological-evolutionary debates, Nietzsche's philosophy is seen as far more scientistic, and far less poetical-metaphysical, than it has in recent reception-history been received.

In this historically informed work in moral psychology, Rick Anthony Furtak develops a conceptual account of the emotions that addresses the conventional idea that reason and emotion stand in sharp opposition. Furtak begins with a critical examination of the ancient Stoic position that emotions should be avoided by rational human beings. He argues that, on the contrary, emotions ought to be understood as embodying a kind of authentic insight, which enables us to attain a meaningful and truthful way of seeing the world. Furtak's positive alternative to Stoicism draws heavily on the writings of Soren Kierkegaard, particularly "Either/Or" and "Works of Love," while also engaging a wide range of other relevant philosophical, literary, and religious sources. He argues that a morality of virtue and narrative awareness is necessary for accurate emotional perception, and then attempts to define a qualified value realism based upon a reverential trust in love as the ground of life as we know it. The outcome of this inquiry into the possibility of reliable emotion is an account of the ideal state in which a person could trust himself or herself to be rational in being passionate. Wisdom in Love makes an original contribution to the philosophy of the emotions and provides a new and compelling interpretation of Kierkegaard's work as a whole.

Human rights are thought to guarantee pluralism by protecting individual liberty from imposed religious conceptions of virtue. Yet critics often argue that this secular focus on merely avoiding violations can also enable unfettered individualism and undermine appeals to the common good. This book uncovers in secular rights pioneer Hugo Grotius a rights theory that points toward the enlargement of individual responsibility. It grounds this connection in Grotius' unexplored theological corpus, which reveals a dual metaethics and jurisprudence. Here a deontological natural law undergirds a secular theory of rights that is self-aware of its own limitations. A teleological practical reason then guides the exercise of these rights, so as not to compromise the political order that defends them. The book then illustrates this symbiosis of rights and responsibilities in five areas: consent theories of government, rights of rebellion, criminal punishment, war and international responsibility, and Atonement theology. This reassesses Grotius' legacy as a secularist opponent of classical political thought, and suggests that modern liberalism and universal human rights are compatible with a world of resurgent religion.

This volume collects 12 essays by various contributors on the subject of the importance and influence of Schopenhauer's doctoral dissertation (On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason) for both Schopenhauer's more well-known philosophy and the ongoing discussion of the subject of the principle of sufficient reason. The contributions deal with the historical context of Schopenhauer's reflections, their relationship to (transcendental) idealism, the insights they hold for Schopenhauer's views of consciousness and sensation, and how they illuminate Schopenhauer's theory of action. This is the first full-length, English volume on Schopenhauer's Fourfold Root and its relevance for Schopenhauer's philosophy. The thought-provoking essays collected in this volume will undoubtedly enrich the burgeoning field of Schopenhauer-studies.

Nietzsche is undoubtedly one of the most original and influential thinkers in the history of philosophy. With ideas such as the overman, will to power, the eternal recurrence, and perspectivism, Nietzsche challenges us to reconceive how it is that we know and understand the world, and what it means to be a human being. Further, in his works, he not only grapples with previous great philosophers and their ideas, but he also calls into question and redefines what it means to do philosophy. Nietzsche and the Philosophers for the first time sets out to examine explicitly Nietzsche's relationship to his most important predecessors. This anthology includes essays by many of the leading Nietzsche scholars, including Keith Ansell-Pearson, Daniel Conway, Tracy B. Strong, Gary Shapiro, Babette Babich, Mark Anderson, and Paul S. Loeb. These excellent writers discuss Nietzsche's engagement with such figures as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Socrates, Hume, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Rousseau, and the Buddha. Anyone interested in Nietzsche or the history of philosophy generally will find much of great interest in this volume.

Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy has proven to be not only one of the canonical texts of Western philosophy, but also the site of a great deal of interpretive activity in scholarship on the history of early modern philosophy over the last two decades. David Cunning's monograph proposes a new interpretation, which is that from beginning to end the reasoning of the Meditations is the first-person reasoning of a thinker who starts from a confused non-Cartesian paradigm and moves slowly and awkwardly toward a grasp of just a few of the central theses of Descartes' system. The meditator of the Meditations is not a full-blown Cartesian at the start or middle or even the end of inquiry, and accordingly the Meditations is riddled with confusions throughout. Cunning argues that Descartes is trying to capture the kind of reasoning that a non-Cartesian would have to engage in to make the relevant epistemic progress, and that the Meditations rhetorically models that reasoning. He proposes that Descartes is reflecting on what happens in philosophical inquiry: we are unclear about something, we roam about using our existing concepts and intuitions, we abandon or revise some of these, and then eventually we come to see a result as clear that we did not see as clear before. Thus Cunning's fundamental insight is that Descartes is a teacher, and the reader a student. With that reading in mind, a significant number of the interpretive problems that arise in the Descartes literature dissolve when we make a distinction between the Cartesian and non-Cartesian elements of the Meditations, and a better understanding of surrounding texts is achieved as well. This important volume will be of great interest to scholars of early modern philosophy.

The Paradox of Philosophical Education: Nietzsche's New Nobility and the Eternal Recurrence in Beyond Good and Evil is the first coherent interpretation of Nietzsche's mature thought. Author Harvey Lomax pays particular attention to the problematic concept of nobility which concerned the philosopher during his later years. This sensitive reading of Nietzsche examines nobility as the philosopher himself must have seen it: as a true and powerful longing of the human soul, interwoven with poetry, philosophy, religion, and aristocratic politics. Both a close textual analysis and a thoughtful reconceptualization of Beyond Good and Evil, The Paradox of Philosophical Education penetrates beyond the philosopher's mask of caustic irony to the face of the real Nietzsche: a lover of wisdom whose work sought to resurrect it in all its Socratic splendor

Against jurisprudential reductions of Spinoza's thinking to a kind of eccentric version of Hobbes, this book argues that Spinoza's theory of natural right contains an important idea of absolute freedom, which would be inconceivable within Hobbes' own schema. Spinoza famously thought that the universe and all of the beings and events within it are fully determined by their causes. This has led jurisprudential commentators to believe that Spinoza has no room for natural right - in the sense that whatever happens by definition has a 'right' to happen. But, although this book demonstrates how Spinoza constructs a system in which right is understood as the work of machines, by fixing right as determinate and invariable, Stephen Connolly argues that Spinoza is not limiting his theory. The universe as a whole is capable of acting only in determinate ways but, he argues, for Spinoza these exist within a field of infinite possibilities. In an analysis that offers much to ongoing attempts to conceive of justice post-foundationally, the argument of this book is that Spinoza opens up right to a future of determinate interventions -as when an engineer, working with already-existing materials, improves a machine. As such, an idea of freedom emerges in Spinoza: as the artful rearrangement of the given into new possibilities. An exciting and original contribution, this book is an invaluable addition, both to the new wave of interest in Spinoza's philosophy, and to contemporary legal and political theory.

Typically, the first decade of Friedrich Nietzsche's career is considered a sort of precis to his mature thinking. Yet his philological articles, lectures, and notebooks on Ancient Greek culture and thought - much of which has received insufficient scholarly attention - were never intended to serve as a preparatory ground to future thought. Nietzsche's early scholarship was intended to express his insights into the character of antiquity. Many of those insights are not only important for better understanding Nietzsche; they remain vital for understanding antiquity today. Interdisciplinary in scope and international in perspective, this volume investigates Nietzsche as a scholar of antiquity, offering the first thorough examination of his articles, lectures, notebooks on Ancient Greek culture and thought in English. With eleven original chapters by some of the leading Nietzsche scholars and classicists from around the world and with reproductions of two definitive essays, this book analyzes Nietzsche's scholarly methods and aims, his understanding of antiquity, and his influence on the history of classical studies.

Berkeley's Principles: Expanded and Explained includes the entire classical text of the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in bold font, a running commentary blended seamlessly into the text in regular font and analytic summaries of each section. The commentary is like a professor on hand to guide the reader through every line of the daunting prose and every move in the intricate argumentation. The unique design helps today's students learn how to read and engage with one of modern philosophy's most important and exciting classics.

Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories: Unity, Representation, and Apperception is a distinctively new reading of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in the Critique of Pure Reason. Lawrence J. Kaye has discovered a number of previously overlooked arguments and explanations, one of the most significant being an argument that demonstrates that the use of concepts requires the necessary unity of consciousness. He also provides a detailed investigation of Kant's account of representation in the first edition of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories and shows how it can be understood as a unique type of functional role view. This view of representation leads to a new understanding of Kant's blend of realism and idealism. Kant's notion of transcendental apperception (a priori self-awareness) is also carefully explained. Kaye shows that there is an extremely tight inter-relation between the unity of consciousness, representation, and apperception that constitutes a well-supported framework, one that offers a surprisingly strong set of replies to Hume's skeptical challenges. He applies this framework to produce a coherent and detailed explanation of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, offering a thorough, paragraph-by-paragraph examination of the text in both editions. This work should not only be of interest to Kant scholars, but also to any philosophers and cognitive scientists who are invested in any of the following topics: the unity and structure of consciousness, concepts, mental representation, self-awareness, and realism and idealism.

Useful to researchers as well as practitioners looking for guidance on designing automated instruction systems, this book provides a snapshot of the state-of-the-art in this research area. In so doing, it focuses on the two critical problems: first, diagnosis of the student's current level of understanding or performance; and second, selection of the appropriate intervention that will transition the student toward expert performance. Containing a comprehensive set of principled approaches to automated instruction, diagnosis, and remediation, it is the first volume on the topic to provide specific, detailed guidance on how to develop these systems. Leading researchers and practitioners represented in this book address the following questions in each chapter: * What is your approach to cognitive diagnosis for automated instruction? * What is the theoretical basis of your approach? * What data support the utility of the approach? * What is the range of applicability of your approach? * What knowledge engineering or task analysis methods are required to support your approach? Referring to automated instruction as instruction that is delivered on any microprocessor-based system, the contributors to -- and editors of -- this book believe that is it possible for automated instructional systems to be more effective than they currently are. Specifically, they argue that by using artificial intelligence programming techniques, it is possible for automated instructional systems to emulate the desirable properties of human tutors in one-on-one instruction.

In this book, Chris W. Surprenant puts forward an original position concerning Kant's practical philosophy and the intersection between his moral and political philosophy. Although Kant provides a detailed account of the nature of morality, the nature of human virtue, and how right manifests itself in civil society, he does not explain fully how individuals are able to become virtuous. This book aims to resolve this problem by showing how an individual is able to cultivate virtue, the aim of Kant's practical philosophy. Through an examination of Kant's accounts of autonomy, the state, and religion, and their effects on the cultivation of virtue, Surprenant develops a Kantian framework for moral education, and ultimately raises the question of whether or not Kantian virtue is possible in practice.

An important figure in the natural law tradition and in the Scottish Enlightenment, Gershom Carmichael defended a strong theory of rights and drew attention to Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke.
Gershom Carmichael was a teacher and writer who played an important role in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His philosophy focused on the natural rights of individuals--the natural right to defend oneself, to own the property on which one
has labored, and to services contracted for with others. Carmichael argued that slavery is incompatible with the rights of men and citizens, and he believed that subjects have the right to resist rulers who exceed the limits of their powers.
Although he appealed to the authority of Grotius and Locke, the grounds on which he defended natural rights were distinctively his own. He drew upon the Reformed or Presbyterian theology to propose that, in respecting the natural rights of individuals, one shows one's reverence for God's creation. Inasmuch as all of mankind longs for lasting happiness, which can be found only in worship of or reverence for God, such reverence is the natural law which obliges all to respect the rights of all.
"Natural Rights" includes "Supplements and Observations on Pufendorf" (1724), "Natural Theology" (1729), "Logic" (1722), two theses, and a manuscript on teaching, all in English for the first time.
Gershom Carmichael (1672-1729) was the first professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, preceding Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid.
James Moore is Professor of Political Science at Concordia University in Montreal.
Michael Silverthorne is Honorary University Fellow in the School of Classics at the University of Exeter.
Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.

German Idealism was one of the most fertile and important movements in the history of Western philosophy. This volume includes eleven chapters on all aspects and the period's most influential philosophers, including Kant and Hegel.

In recent years interest in the thought of Kierkegaard has grown dramatically, and with it the body of secondary literature has expanded so quickly that it has become impossible for even the most conscientious scholar to keep pace. The problem of the explosion of secondary literature is made more acute by the fact that much of what is written about Kierkegaard appears in languages that most Kierkegaard scholars do not know. Kierkegaard has become a global phenomenon, and new research traditions have emerged in different languages, countries and regions. The present volume is dedicated to trying to help to resolve these two problems in Kierkegaard studies. Its purpose is, first, to provide book reviews of some of the leading monographic studies in the Kierkegaard secondary literature so as to assist the community of scholars to become familiar with the works that they have not read for themselves. The aim is thus to offer students and scholars of Kierkegaard a comprehensive survey of works that have played a more or less significant role in the research. Second, the present volume also tries to make accessible many works in the Kierkegaard secondary literature that are written in different languages and thus to give a glimpse into various and lesser-known research traditions. The six tomes of the present volume present reviews of works written in Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and Swedish.

With his An Interpretation of Nietzsche's "On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life", Anthony K. Jensen shows how 'timely' Nietzsche's second "Untimely Meditation" really is. This comprehensive and insightful study contextualizes and analyzes a wide range of Nietzsche's earlier thoughts about history: teleology, typology, psychology, memory, classical philology, Hegelianism, and the role historiography plays in modern culture. On the Uses and Disadvantage of History for Life is shown to be a 'timely' work, too, insofar as it weaves together a number of Nietzsche's most important influences and thematic directions at that time: ancient culture, science, epistemology, and the thought of Schopenhauer and Burckhardt. Rather than dismiss it as a mere 'early' work, Jensen shows how the text resonates in Nietzsche's later perspectivism, his theory of subjectivity, and Eternal Recurrence. And by using careful philological analysis of the text's composition history, Jensen is in position to fully elucidate and evaluate Nietzsche's arguments in their proper contexts. As such Jensen's Interpretation should restore Nietzsche's second "Untimely Meditation" to a prominent place among 19th Century philosophies of history.