Gordon Graham presents a radically innovative study of Wittgenstein's philosophy, in relation to the age-old impulse to connect ordinary human life with the transcendent reality of God. He offers an account of its relevance to the study of religion that is completely different to the standard version of 'Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion' expounded by both its adherents and critics. Graham goes on to revitalize the philosophy of 'true religion', an alternative, though not a rival, to the lively philosophical theology of Plantinga and Swinburne that currently dominates the subject. This alternative style of philosophy of religion has equally deep historical roots in the philosophical works of Spinoza, Hume, Schleiermacher, and Mill. At the same time, it is more easily connected to the psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies of William James, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Mircea Eliade, and Mary Douglas. Graham uses Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy to argue in favour of the idea that 'true religion' is to be understood as human participation in divine life.

Hegel gave lecture series on aesthetics or the philosophy of art in various university terms, but never published a book of his own on this topic. His student, H. G. Hotho, compiled auditors' transcripts from these separate lecture series and produced from them the three volumes on aesthetics in the standard edition of Hegel's collected works. Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert has now published one of these transcripts, the Hotho transcript of the 1823 lecture series, and accompanied it with a very extensive introductory essay treating many issues pertinent to a proper understanding of Hegel's views on art. She persuasively argues that the evidence shows Hegel never finalized his views on the philosophy of art, but modified them in significant ways from one lecture series to the next. In addition, she makes the case that Hotho's compilation not only concealed this circumstance, by the harmony he created out of diverse source materials, but also imposed some of his own views on aesthetics, views that differ from Hegel's and that the ongoing interpretation of the aesthetics part of Hegel's philosophy has unfortunately taken to be Hegel's own. This translation of the German volume, which contains the first publication of the Hotho transcript and Gethmann-Siefert's essay, makes these important materials accessible to the English reader, materials that should put the English-speaking world's future understanding and interpretation of Hegel's philosophy of art on a sounder footing.

Kant's influence on the history of philosophy is vast and protean. The transcendental turn denotes one of its most important forms, defined by the notion that Kant's deepest insight should not be identified with any specific epistemological or metaphysical doctrine, but rather concerns the fundamental standpoint and terms of reference of philosophical enquiry. To take the transcendental turn is not to endorse any of Kant's specific teachings, but to accept that the Copernican revolution announced in the Preface of the Critique of Pure Reason sets philosophy on a new footing and constitutes the proper starting point of philosophical reflection. The aim of this volume is to map the historical trajectory of transcendental philosophy and the major forms that it has taken. The contributions, from leading contemporary scholars, focus on the question of what the transcendental turn consists in-its motivation, justification, and implications; and the limitations and problems which it arguably confronts-with reference to the relevant major figures in modern philosophy, including Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein. Central themes and topics discussed include the distinction of realism from idealism, the relation of transcendental to absolute idealism, the question of how transcendental conclusions stand in relation to (and whether they can be made compatible with) naturalism, the application of transcendental thought to foundational issues in ethics, and the problematic relation of phenomenology to transcendental enquiry.

Composition is the relation between a whole and its parts-the parts are said to compose the whole; the whole is composed of the parts. But is a whole anything distinct from its parts taken collectively? It is often said that 'a whole is nothing over and above its parts'; but what might we mean by that? Could it be that a whole just is its parts? This collection of essays is the first of its kind to focus on the relationship between composition and identity. Twelve original articles-written by internationally renowned scholars and rising stars in the field-argue for and against the controversial doctrine that composition is identity. An editor's introduction sets out the formal and philosophical groundwork to bring readers to the forefront of the debate.

The Platonic tradition affords extraordinary resources for thinking about the meaning and value of work. In this historical survey of the tradition, Jeffrey Hanson draws on the work of its major thinkers to explain why our contemporary vocabulary for appraising labor and its rewards is too narrow and cramped. By tracing out the Platonic lineage of work Hanson is able to argue why we should be explaining its value for appraising it as an element of a happy and flourishing human life, quite apart from its financial rewards. Beginning with Plato’s extensive thinking about work’s relationship to wisdom, Hanson covers the singularly powerful arguments of Augustine, who wrote the ancient world’s only treatise dedicated to the topic of manual labor. He discusses Bernard of Clairvaux, introduces the priest-craftsman Theophilus Presbyter, and provides a study of work and leisure in the writings of Petrarch. Alongside Martin Luther, Hanson discusses John Ruskin and Simone Weil: two thinkers profoundly disturbed by the conditions of the working class in the rapidly industrializing economies of Europe. This original study of Plato and his inheritors’ ideas provides practical suggestions for how to approach work in a socially responsible manner in the 21st century and reveals the benefits of linking work and morality.

Causation is now commonly supposed to involve a succession that instantiates some law-like regularity. Efficient Causation: A History examines how our modern notion developed from a very different understanding of efficient causation. This volume begins with Aristotle's initial conception of efficient causation, and then considers the transformations and reconsiderations of this conception in late antiquity, medieval and modern philosophy, ending with contemporary accounts of causation. It includes four short "Reflections" that explore the significance of the concept for literature, the history of music, the history of science, and contemporary art theory.

Papers gathered in the two volumes investigate the complex relations between philosophy of language and linguistics, viewed as independent, but mutually influencing one another, disciplines. They concentrate on the 'formal' and 'philosophical' turns in the philosophy of language, initiated by Gottlob Frege, with further developments associated with the work of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, W.O.V. Quine, Richard Montague, Pavel Tichy, Richard Rorty. The volumes bring together contributions by philosophers, logicians and linguists, representing different theoretical orientations but united in outlining the common ground, necessary for further research in philosophy of language and linguistics. The papers were submitted and, in most cases, presented at the first International Conference on Philosophy of Language and Linguistics, PhiLang2009, organized by the Chair of English and General Linguistics at the University of Lodz.

During 2007-2008 Nicholas Rescher continued his longstanding practice of writing occasional studies on philosophical topics, both for formal presentation and for informal discussion with colleagues. While his forays of this kind have usually been issued in journal publications, this has not been so in the present case so that the studies offered here encompass substantially new material. Notwithstanding their thematic variation, these exemplify a problem-oriented method in the treatment of philosophical issues that is characteristic of Reschers philosophical modus operandi and inherent in its endeavors to treat classical issues from novel points of view. For Rescher usually more concerned with what "should" be said about a philosophical question than with what X, Y, and Z "have" said about it, and he inclined to address issues of the latter sort primarily as a means for addressing the former.

This volume presents a double argumentative analysis of the debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston on the existence of God. It includes an introduction justifying the choice of text and describing the historical and philosophical background of the debate. It also provides a transcript of the debate, based in part on the original recording. The argumentative analyses occupy Parts I and II of the book. In Part I the argumentative process is analysed by means of the ideal model of critical discussion, the workhorse of pragma-dialectics. Part I shows how the two parties go through the four stages of a critical discussion. It highlights the questions raised over and beyond the presiding question of whether God exists and examines almost a hundred questions that are raised. Many are left in the air, whereas a few others give rise to sundry sub-discussions or meta-dialogues. In Part II the theoretical framework of argument dialectic is put to work: argument structures are identified by means of punctuation marks, argumentative connectors and operators, allowing to see the argumentative exchange as the collaborative construction of a macro-argument. Such a macro-argument is both a joint product of the arguers and a complex structure representing the dialectical relationships between the individual arguments combined in it. Finally, the complementarity of the two approaches is addressed. Thus the book can be described as an exercise in adversarial collaboration.

Kant's Politics in Context is the first comprehensive contextual study of Kant's legal and political philosophy. It gives an account of the development of his thought before, during, and after the French revolution. Reidar Maliks argues that Kant provided a philosophical defence of the revolution's republican ideals while aiming to avoid the twin dangers of anarchy and despotism. Central to this was a concept of equal freedom, constituted by legal rights and duties within a state. The close connection between freedom and the rule of law accounts for the centrality of the state in Kants thought. That Kant idealized the public sphere is well known, but that he intentionally developed his own philosophy in polemical essays and pamphlets aimed for a wide audience has not been fully appreciated. Maliks shows how our understanding of Kant's political philosophy can be enriched through paying attention to the discussions he sparked during the 1790swhere radical followers including Fichte, Erhard, and Bergk clashed with conservative critics such as Rehberg, Moeser, and Gentz. This book provides fresh knowledge about a foundational moment for modern political thought and offers a new perspective on Kant's central political concepts, including freedom, rights, citizenship, revolution, and war.

This book makes connections between selfhood, reading practice and moral judgment which propose fresh insights into Austen's narrative style and offer new ways of reading her work. It grounds her writing in the Enlightenment philosophy of selfhood, exploring how Austen takes five major components of selfhood theory-memory, imagination, probability, sympathy and reflection-and investigates their relation to self-formation and moral judgement. At the same time, Austen's narrative style breaks new ground in the representation of consciousness and engages directly with contemporary concerns about reading practice. Drawing analogies between reading text and reading character, the book argues that Austen's rendering of reading and rereading as both reflective and constitutive acts demonstrates their capacity to enable self-recognition and self-formation. It shows how Austen raises questions about the potential for different readings and, in so doing, challenges her readers to reflect on and reread their own interactions with her texts.

This handbook presents an expansive exploration of critical theory, critical perspectives, critical praxis, and the impact on the research, theory, and practice of Human Resource Development (HRD). Critical Human Resource Development (CHRD) aims to challenge the normative structures, practices, policies, definitions, and approaches which have historically dominated the field of Human Resource Development (HRD). As an approach to HRD, CHRD raises awareness of social systems, organizational policies and practices, and research paradigms that silence new ways of knowing and understanding, while advancing underrepresented and emerging approaches. Through an analysis of power and privilege, morality and ethics, and ideology and context, CHRD situates diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, and resistance as a path forward in a rapidly-changing global society. In contrast to HRD's traditional focus on organization development, training and development, and career development, this handbook adopts a more critical vantage point which classifies the scope and outcomes of HRD across five domains identified by CHRD scholars as key to understanding the nature and work of the field- organizing, relating, learning, changing, and advocating.

Drawing on published works, correspondence and manuscripts, this book offers the most comprehensive reconstruction of Boscovich's theory within its historical context. It explains the genesis and theoretical as well as epistemological underpinnings in light of the Jesuit tradition to which Boscovich belonged, and contrasts his ideas with those of Newton, Leibniz, and their legacy. Finally, it debates crucial issues in early-modern physical science such as the concept of force, the particle-like structure of matter, the idea of material points and the notion of continuity, and shares novel insights on Boscovich's alleged influence on later developments in physics. With its attempt to reduce all natural forces to one single law, Boscovich's Theory of Natural Philosophy, published in 1758, left a lasting impression on scientists and philosophers of every age regarding the fundamental unity of physical phenomena. The theory argues that every pair of material points is subject to one mutual force - and always the same force - which is their propensity to be mutually attracted or repelled, depending on their distance from one another. Furthermore, the action of this unique force is visualized through a famous diagram that fascinated generations of scientists. But his understanding of key terms of the theory - such as the notion of force involved and the very idea of a material point - is only ostensibly similar to our current conceptual framework. Indeed, it needs to be clarified within the plurality of contexts in which it has emerged rather than being considered in view of later developments. The book is recommended for scholars and students interested in the ideas of the early modern period, especially historians and philosophers of science, mathematicians and physicists with an interest in the history of the discipline, and experts on Jesuit science and philosophy.

Rene Descartes was the founding father of modern Western philosophy and a pivotal thinker in the history of this fascinating subject. Covering all the key concepts of his work, "Starting with Descartes" provides an accessible introduction to the ideas of this enormously significant philosopher. Thematically structured, the book leads the reader through a thorough overview of the development of Descartes' thought, resulting in a more complete understanding of the roots of his philosophical concerns. Offering coverage of the full range of Descartes' ideas, the book explores his major work "The Meditations on First Philosophy" and his basic methodology of philosophical questioning. Crucially, the book introduces the historical context in which Descartes wrote and the major thinkers whose work proved influential in the development of his thought, as well as those he influenced.

Atheistic Platonism is an alternative to both theism and nihilistic atheism. It shows how any jobs allegedly done by God are better done by impersonal Platonic objects. Without Platonic objects, atheism degenerates into an illogical nihilism. Atheistic Platonism instead provides reality with foundations that are eternal, necessary, rational, beautiful, and utterly mindless. It argues for a plenitude of mathematical objects, and an infinite plurality of possible universes. It provides mindless rational grounds for objective values, and for objective moral laws for the persons who evolve in universes. It defines a meaningful way of life, which facilitates self-improvement. Atheistic Platonists argue for computational theories of life after death. Atheistic Platonism includes a rich system of spiritual symbols. It values transformational practices and ecstatic experiences. Where atheisms based on materialism fail, atheisms based on Platonism succeed.

Long before science as we know it today existed, sophisticated studies of the external world were undertaken, notably in Mesopotamia, India, China, and Greece. G. E. R. Lloyd explores three interrelated issues concerning those investigations. This first issue is methods--how was it thought that they should be pursued? The second is subject-matter--what was assumed about what there is to be investigated? The third issue is aims and value--what were such investigations thought to be good for? Thus how did an ideal of demonstration that would yield incontrovertible conclusions come to arise and what did it owe to the political institutions of the society in which it first developed, namely ancient Greece? Debate has been widely practised and not just in literate societies: Lloyd's second chapter draws up a taxonomy of ancient debates and discusses how the ideals of transparency and accountability were made explicit. Then how did ideas about the need to undertake systematic research come to be formulated and such research practised, and what obstacles did it face? Different equally valid assumptions have been made about what there is to be investigated, reflecting what is here called the multidimensionality of the phenomena, and different ancient investigators entertained different aims for their work, mirroring but sometimes going beyond the current values of their society. Taking stock of all this diversity, the final chapter spells out the implications for our understanding of the history of human reasoning in general, exploring its commonalities and where and why it has manifested and continues to manifest specificities across different populations.

Nietzsche was not interested in the nature of art as such, or in providing an aesthetic theory of a traditional sort. For he regarded the significance of art to lie not in l'art pour l'art, but in the role that it might be play in enabling us positively to "revalue" the world and human experience. This volume brings together a number of distinguished figures in contemporary Anglo-American Nietzsche scholarship to examine his views on art and the aesthetic in the context of this wider philosophical project. All of the major themes of Nietzsche's aesthetics are discussed: art and the affirmation of life, the relationship between art and truth, music, tragedy, the nature of aesthetic experience, the role of art in Nietzsche's positive ethics, his critique of romanticism, and his ambivalent attitude towards Richard Wagner.

In this revised and updated edition of The Secret Connexion, Galen Strawson explores one of the most discussed subjects in all philosophy: David Hume's work on causation. Strawson challenges the standard view of Hume, according to which he thinks that there is no such thing as causal influence, and that there is nothing more to causation than things of one kind regularly following things of another kind. He argues that Hume does believe in causal influence, but insists that we cannot know its nature. The regularity theory of causation is indefensible, and Hume never adopted it in any case.

This book explores how Jacques Lacan has influenced Black Studies from the 1950s to the present day, and in turn how a Black Studies framework challenges the topographies of Lacanianism in its understanding of race. David Marriott examines how a contemporary Black Studies perspective might respond to the psychoanalysis of race by taking advantage of the recent revitalization of Lacanianism in its speculative, metaphysical form. While the philosophical side of the debate makes a plea for a new universalism, this book proposes a Lacanian reassessment of the notion of race, a notion distinct from culture, language, religion, and identity. It argues that it is possible to re-establish the theoretical relation between capitalism, anti-blackness, and colonialism, by reassessing the links between Lacanian psychoanalysis and three main domains of black inquiry: mastery, knowledge, and embodiment. The book offers a strikingly original rereading of the place of Lacan in both Fanon Studies and Afro-pessimism. It will appeal to students and scholars of Black Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory and Philosophy.

The spectacular success of Empire has brought Negri's writing to a new, wider audience. This book reveals the variety and complexity of Negri's thought and its unique relevance to modern politics. Outstanding contributors include Pierre Macherey, Daniel Bensaïd, Alex Callinicos and Judith Revel. Negri is one of the most sophisticated analysts of modern political philosophy. His work is both difficult and exhilarating, engaging as it does with Marx, Spinoza, Deleuze, Guattari, Tronti and others. This book is ideal for readers who want to get to grips with Negri's key themes. It makes a great introduction to his work for students of political philosophy, as well as providing a comprehensive critical approach for Negri enthusiasts. This book is the sequel to The Philosophy of Antonio Negri, Volume One: Resistance in Practice (Pluto, 2005) but can be read entirely independently.

"Into the Open" is a philosophical and literary inquiry into the deeper meanings of genius. What precisely do we mean when we describe someone this way? What legacy do we invoke when we apply this term?

To address this question, Benjamin Taylor here explores how three great minds--Walter Pater, Paul Valry, and Sigmund Freud--viewed a figure widely considered the first great modern genius, Leonardo da Vinci. For each of these great thinkers, Da Vinci is of central importance because for each the received idea of genius has ceased to be a romantic certitude or sacred truth and has become a problem.

Invoking Nietzsche's drastic critique of genius, Taylor assesses the less programmatic and more anxious cases of Pater, Valry, and Freud. Whereas Nietzsche sought for and found an escape from romantic humanism, Pater, Valry, and Freud cannot relinquish the idea of genius and serve as troubled witnesses to the dilemma posed by the notion of genius. A myth of genius has been our way of making good the losses romantic modernity entails, Taylor writes, A myth of genius has existed to affirm that, among human lives, some have sacramental shape; that, among human lives, some put into abeyance the equation between life and loss. Such is the post-theological, post-metaphysical role into which we have compelled our geniuses. They make for us one last claim on the sublime.

A shift away from the special pleading that has lately plagued literary studies, Taylor's unfazed humanism reasserts the timeless standards of substantiveness, clarity, and grace.

Pethick investigates a much neglected philosophical connection between two of the most controversial figures in the history of philosophy: Spinoza and Nietzsche. By examining the crucial role that affectivity plays in their philosophies, this book claims that the two philosophers share the common goal of making knowledge the most powerful affect.