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Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy > General
Christopher Janaway presents a full commentary on Nietzsche's most
studied work, On the Genealogy of Morality, and combines close
reading of key passages with an overview of Nietzsche's wider aims.
Arguing that Nietzsche's goal is to pursue psychological and
historical truths concerning the origins of modern moral values,
Beyond Selflessness differs from other books on Nietzsche in that
it emphasizes the significance of his rhetorical methods as an
instrument of persuasion. Nietzsche's outlook is broadly
naturalist, but he is critical of typical scientific and
philosophical methods for their advocacy of impersonality and
suppression of the affects. In contrast to his opponents,
Schopenhauer and Paul Ree, who both account for morality in terms
of selflessness, Nietzsche believes that our allegiance to a
post-Christian morality that centres around selflessness,
compassion, guilt, and denial of the instincts is not primarily
rational but affective: underlying feelings, often ambivalent and
poorly grasped in conscious thought, explain our moral beliefs. The
Genealogy is designed to detach the reader from his or her
allegiance to morality and prepare for the possibility of new
values. In addition to examining how Nietzsche's "perspectivism"
holds that one can best understand a topic such as morality through
allowing as many of one's feelings as possible to speak about it,
Janaway shows that Nietzsche seeks to enable us to "feel
differently": his provocation of the reader's affects helps us
grasp the affective origins of our attitudes and prepare the way
for healthier values such as the affirmation of life (as tested by
the thought of eternal return) and the self-satisfaction to be
attainedby "giving style to one's character."
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Daniel Garber presents an illuminating study of Leibniz's
conception of the physical world. Leibniz's commentators usually
begin with monads, mind-like simple substances, the ultimate
building-blocks of the Monadology. But Leibniz's apparently
idealist metaphysics is very puzzling: how can any sensible person
think that the world is made up of tiny minds? In this book, Garber
tries to make Leibniz's thought intelligible by focusing instead on
his notion of body. Beginning with Leibniz's earliest writings, he
shows how Leibniz starts as a Hobbesian with a robust sense of the
physical world, and how, step by step, he advances to the
monadological metaphysics of his later years. Much of the book's
focus is on Leibniz's middle years, where the fundamental
constituents of the world are corporeal substances, unities of
matter and form understood on the model of animals. For Garber
monads only enter fairly late in Leibniz's career, and when they
enter, he argues, they do not displace bodies but complement them.
In the end, though, Garber argues that Leibniz never works out the
relation between the world of monads and the world of bodies to his
own satisfaction: at the time of his death, his philosophy is still
a work in progress.
This text relates Hegel to preceding and succeeding political
philosophers. The Hegelian notion of the interdependence of
political philosophy and its history is demonstrated by the links
established between Hegel and his predecessors and successors.
Hegel's political theory is illuminated by essays showing its
critical assimilation of Plato and Hobbes, and by studies reviewing
subsequent critiques of its standpoint by Stirner, Marx and
Collingwood. The relevance of Hegel to contemporary political
philosophy is highlighted in essays which compare Hegel to Lyotard
and Rawls.
Poststructuralism--as a name for a mode of thinking, a style of
philosophizing, a kind of writing--has exercised a profound
influence upon contemporary Western thought and the institution of
the university. As a French and predominantly Parisian affair,
poststructuralism is inseparable from the intellectual milieu of
postwar France, a world dominated by Alexandre KojEve's and Jean
Hyppolite's interpretations of Hegel, Jacques Lacan's reading of
Freud, Gaston Bachelard's epistemology, George CanguilheM's studies
of science, and Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. It is also
inseparable from the structuralist tradition of linguistics based
upon the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jacobson, and the
structuralist interpretations of Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland
Barthes, Louis Althusser, and the early Michel Foucault.
Poststructuralism, considered in terms of contemporary cultural
history, can be understood as belonging to the broad movement of
European formalism, with explicit historical links to both
Formalist and Futurist linguistics and poetics, and with aspects of
the European avant-garde, especially Andre Breton's surrealism.
Each essay in this unique collection by and for educators is
devoted to the work and educational significance of one of ten
major poststructuralist philosophers.
The passions have long been condemned as a creator of disturbance
and purveyor of the temporary loss of reason, but as Remo Bodei
argues in Geometry of the Passions, we must abandon the perception
that order and disorder are in a constant state of collision. By
means of a theoretical and historical analysis, Bodei interprets
the relationship between passion and reason as a conflict between
two complementary logics. Geometry of the Passions investigates the
paradoxical conflict-collaboration between passions and reason, and
between individual and political projects. Tracing the roles
passion and reason have played throughout history, including in the
political agendas of Descartes, Hobbes, and the French Jacobins,
Geometry of the Passions reveals how passion and reason may be used
as a vehicle for affirmation rather than self-enslavement.
Reinhold's Elementary Philosophy is the first system of
transcendental philosophy after Kant. The scholarship of the last
years has understood it in different ways: as a model of
Grundsatzphilosophie, as a defense of the concept of freedom, as a
transformation of philosophy into history of philosophy. The
present investigation intends to underline another 'golden thread'
that runs through the writings of Reinhold from 1784 to 1794: that
which sees in the Elementary Philosophy a system of transcendental
psychology.
F. H. Bradley was the greatest of the British Idealists, but for
much of this century his views have been neglected, primarily as a
result of the severe criticism to which they were subjected by
Russell and Moore. In recent years, however, there has been a
resurgence of interest in and a widespread reappraisal of his work.
W. J. Mander offers a general introduction to Bradley's metaphysics
and its logical foundations, and shows that much of his philosophy
has been seriously misunderstood. Dr Mander argues that any
adequate treatment of Bradley's thought must take full account of
his unique dual inheritance from the traditions of British
empiricism and Hegelian rationalism. The scholarship of recent
years is assessed, and new interpretations are offered of Bradley's
views about truth, predication, and relations, and of his arguments
for idealism. This book is a clear and helpful guide for those new
to this difficult but fascinating thinker, and at the same time an
original and stimulating contribution to the re-evaluation of his
work.
Fuery explores the relationship between post-structuralism and
absence. In order to understand the psychoanalytic theory of Lacan
(and Freud), the deconstructionalist methodology of Derrida,
Foucault's studies of systems of thought, and Kristeva's
socio-cultural and psychoanalytic interests, Fuery believes it is
necessary to take into consideration the function and operation of
absence. He shows how post-structuralist theory can be seen as a
system of studies of subjectivity in terms of absence, and how
desire is based almost entirely on the precondition of absence. The
study is divided into sections on subjectivity. desire, and
meaning, with the final section working toward a hermeneutics and
semiotics of absence.
A cogent blueprint for the development of a "public philosophy"
that integrates shared principles and values into our troubled
social structure and articulates a consensus vision of society's
future.
The continuing vitality of American thought stems, to a large
extent, from the application of its historical roots embedded in
contemporary problems and issues. Yet for some time the signal
contributions of Josiah Royce (1855-1916) have been overlooked in
the formulation and shaping of critical areas of public policy. In
this brilliantly articulated new book, ethicist Jacquelyn Kegley
carefully explicates and enlarges the scope of Roycean thought and
shows that Royce's views on public philosophy have direct and
valuable application to current social problems.
Working from the assumption that issues of family, education,
and health care are not merely exigent political tempests but areas
of genuine, long-lasting concern, Kegley opens fresh perspectives
on Royce's philosophy by introducing and applying his ideas to
discussions of how we care for ourselves and our society today. She
analyzes Roycean criteria that can be successfully used to nourish
developmental stages within families, promote intellectual and
social growth in schooling and scholarship, and sustain physical
and mental well-being throughout the life cycle.
"Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities" should be a
springboard for the reassessment of contemporary public policy and
the reapplication of the American philosophical legacy to current
issues and decisions. Kegley's work serves as a solid contribution
both to public philosophy and to the continued vitality of American
thought, and it extends the range of both.
In truth, just about anyone of us can scribble out a book about
personal answers to the many questions of life. Worldview 101, or,
"What is most basic and true to my own reality as a human upon the
earth?" is my own response to a number of different concerns and
issues in life. You might think of this writing as a personal
"Plato's handbook," a general set of responses to the many
questions of life. As it's writer, it is only a part of the
representation of my most current worldview (I say "current"
because how we see the world is always in a state of movement).
Concerning the book, as you read it, do so with the approach that
you are first taking into account my way of seeing things, thinking
about it, and then re-shaping more of how you personally view
things. See if you relate to "we think this," or "we came to know
that." If you do, adopt the idea as your own. If not, move on. In
picking and choosing your position on the issues presented here,
you will probably come to know more of what you are all about -
more of what you know you know. And what will that do? It will give
you a perspective in higher thought - which is a good sort of
perspective to possess. This, you can hopefully use to govern your
own life more personally. .It can be very difficult to acclimate to
this world of ours. Perhaps the thoughts in this book will help
change or reshape your overall acclimation to life for the better.
Knowing more never really stops. If life is meant for anything, for
some reason that we don't really know about, it seems meant for us
to learn more about being. In the end, it is this being part of us
that relays a story. It also tells to others in our world who and
what we are or were. Our lives are personal narratives, and play
out as such for each of us. Life speaks to our innermost parts;
what is it saying to you? We can hear the messages if we listen
carefully.
This is a collection of writings by the late Lord Quinton, one of
the wittiest and most versatile philosophers of his generation. The
first part ranges over the last four hundred years of intellectual
history, discussing such thinkers as Francis Bacon, Spinoza,
Coleridge, Kant, Hegel, T. H. Green, Dewey, Quine, and Ayer. The
subject of the second part of the volume is, broadly speaking,
value in human society: Quinton discusses freedom, morality,
politics, language, culture, and the relation between humans and
animals. Together these writings demonstrate the enormous breadth
of their author's learning, and the clarity, elegance, and urbanity
of his style. Seven of the pieces are previously unpublished.
This selected and annotated bibliography reflects the growing
interest among scholars in anarchist thinkers and thought. This
guide to primarily English sources, over a lengthy period of time,
is fully annotated. It covers works by and about major anarchist
thinkers, philosophers, and others who are important or are on the
margins of anarchist or liberal theory. The bibliography also
describes important sources of information about the anarchist
experience in 18 countries around the world. This reference, by
Australian scholars who made extensive computer searches,
inter-library loans, and research trips on three continents,
provides useful listings of books, journals, theses,
bibliographies, and other sources of information. The volume is
carefully indexed to authors, thinkers, activists, and varied
subjects.
This is the first full study in English of the German historicist
tradition. Frederick C. Beiser surveys the major German thinkers on
history from the middle of the eighteenth century until the early
twentieth century, providing an introduction to each thinker and
the main issues in interpreting and appraising his thought. The
volume offers new interpretations of well-known philosophers such
as Johann Gottfried Herder and Max Weber, and introduces others who
are scarcely known at all, including J. A. Chladenius, Justus
Moser, Heinrich Rickert, and Emil Lask. Beyond an exploration of
the historical and intellectual context of each thinker, Beiser
illuminates the sources and reasons for the movement of German
historicism--one of the great revolutions in modern Western
thought, and the source of our historical understanding of the
human world.
This is a major study of the theological thought of John Calvin,
which examines his central theological ideas through a
philosophical lens, looking at issues in Metaphysics, Epistemology,
and Ethics. The study, the first of its kind, is concerned with how
Calvin actually uses philosophical ideas in his work as a
theologian and biblical commentator. The book also includes a
careful examination of those ideas of Calvin to which the Reformed
Epistemologists appeal, to find grounds and precedent for their
development of Reformed Epistemology', notably the sensus
divinitatis and the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.
These essays examine the contribution of Ortega y Gasset,
reflecting his own diversity of interests with topics on
philosophy, history, literature, esthetics, language and art. The
collection draws together scholars from a variety of disciplines in
an effort to deepen appreciation for one of the leading writers of
modern Spain. Originally delivered at Espectador Universal to mark
the 100th anniversay of Ortega y Gasset's birth, these essays are
sure to open new perspectives on the thought and work of one who
has long been regarded as the prototytpe to the twentieth century
humanist.
At the end of the eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham devised a scheme for a prison that he called the panopticon. It soon became an obsession. For twenty years he tried to build it; in the end he failed, but the story of his attempt offers fascinating insights into both Bentham's complex character and the ideas of the period. Basing her analysis on hitherto unexamined manuscripts, Janet Semple chronicles Bentham's dealings with the politicians as he tried to put his plans into practice. She assesses the panopticon in the context of penal philosophy and eighteenth-century punishment and discusses it as an instrument of the modern technology of subjection as revealed and analysed by Foucault. Her entertainingly written study is full of drama: at times it is hilariously funny, at others it approaches tragedy. It illuminates a subject of immense historical importance and which is particularly relevant to modern controversies about penal policy.
Berkeley's Three Dialogues is a key text in the history of
philosophy - the dialogues are, with the exception of Hume's,
arguably the most important philosophical dialogues written in
English. As such, this is a hugely exciting, yet challenging, piece
of philosophical writing. In Berkeley's 'Three Dialogues': A
Reader's Guide, Aaron Garrett offers a clear and thorough account
of this key philosophical work. The book offers a detailed review
of the key themes and a lucid commentary that will enable readers
to rapidly navigate the text. Geared towards the specific
requirements of students who need to reach a sound understanding of
the dialogues as a whole, the guide explores the complex and
important ideas inherent in the text and provides a cogent survey
of the reception and influence of Berkeley's work.
This book argues for the importance of the theory of the culture
industry in today's world. It begins by considering the neglect of
the culture industry in the second and third generation of the
Frankfurt School, presenting historical background information and
criticisms on the theories of Habermas and Honneth. In our age, the
culture industry is something quite different from what Adorno and
Horkheimer described or could even imagine in the twentieth
century. Today, the masses can not only access the media but can
also respond to the messages they receive. A key question that
arises, then, is why the masses, even after gaining access to their
own media, still adhere to the values of the capitalist system? Why
haven't they achieved a class consciousness? This work seeks to
answer those questions. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard's work, it
reveals the semiotic aspects of the culture industry and describes
the industry in the age of simulation and hyperreality. The book
argues that the culture industry has now entered the micro level of
our everyday life through shopping centers, the image of profusion
and more. Further, it explores new aspects of the culture industry,
such as a passion for participating in the media, the consumed
vertigo of catastrophe, and masking the absence of a profound
reality. As such, the book will particularly appeal to graduates
and researchers in sociology and sociological theory, and all those
with an interest in the Frankfurt School and the works of Jean
Baudrillard.
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