The ongoing revival of interest in the work of American philosopher and pragmatist John Dewey has given rise to a burgeoning flow of commentaries, critical editions, and reevaluations of Dewey's writings. While previous studies of Dewey's work have taken either a historical or a topical focus, Shook offers an innovative, organic approach to understanding Dewey and eloquently shows that Dewey's instrumentalism grew seamlessly out of his idealism. He argues that most current scholarship operates under a mistaken impression of Dewey's early philosophical positions and convincingly demonstrates a number of key points:

that Dewey's metaphysical empiricism remained more indebted to Kant and Hegel than is commonly supposed;
that Dewey owed more to the influence of Wundt than is commonly believed;
that the influence of Peirce and James was not as significant for the development of Dewey's theories of mind and truth as has been argued in the past;
and that Dewey's pragmatic theory of knowledge never really abandoned idealism.

Shook's exposition of the unity of Dewey's thought challenges a large scholarly industry devoted to suppressing or explaining away the consistency between Dewey's early thought and his later work. In every respect, "Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality" is a provocative and engaging study that will occupy a unique niche in this field. It is certain to stimulate discussion and controversy, forcing Dewey traditionalists out of habitual modes of thought and transforming our conventional understanding of the development of classical American philosophy.

A comprehensive interpretation of the Scienza Nuova and of the ways in which Vico managed to present his essentially naturalistic philosophy in a form acceptable within the ecclesiastical climate of 18th century Italy.

Among the commentaries on Aristotle's Physics produced by medieval masters in the 14th Century Oresme's is one of the most interesting. The main problems of natural philosophy (motion, time, intension and remission of forms) as well as cognitive and ontological issues are widely discussed. Oresme proposes original solutions to most of these topics, based on an original view concerning the relationship between substance and its properties (condicio/condiciones, modi rerum); Oresme's solutions are always associated with sharp criticism of the two main philosophical schools: the realists (Walter Burley) and the nominalist (William Ockham). This commentary is a very valuable record of the philosophical discussions at Paris in the midst of the 14th Century.

This final volume of the letters of John locke contains letters 3287-3648, and covers the period from May 15, 1703 to August 23, 1704. It also contains the full index to all eight volumes of the Locke Correspondence.

This book is a study of the much debated problem of Soren Kierkegaard's "indirect communication." It approaches the problem, however, in quite a new way by applying some of the insights of recent literary theory. This study is both a contribution to literary theory, in the sense that it seeks to apply it, and a suggestion for renewal within phenomenological philosophy. A deconstructive approach to the written work is followed by a phenomenological description of the development of the lived sign. The book is an attempt to investigate a theme concerning individual rights and embodiment that descends from Kant through Edmund Husserl to Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Robert Morrison offers an illuminating comparative study of two linked and interactive traditions that have had great influence in twentieth-century thought:Buddhism and the philosophy of Nietzsche. Nietzsche saw a direct historical parallel between the cultural situation of his own time and of the India of the Buddha's age: the emergence of nihilism as a consequence of loss of traditional belief. Nietzche's fear, still resonant today, was that Europe was about to enter a nihilistic era, in which people, no longer able to believe in the old religious and moral values, would feel themselves adrift in a meaningless cosmos where life seems to have no particular purpose or end. Though he admired Buddhism as a noble and humane response to this situation, Nietzsche came to think that it was wrong in not seeking to overcome nihilism, and constituted a threat to the future of Europe. It was in reaction against nihilism that he forged his own affirmative philosophy, aiming at the transvaluation of all values. Nietzsche's view of Buddhism has been very influential in the West; Dr Morrison gives a careful critical examination of this view, argues that in fact Buddhism is far from being a nihilistic religion, and offers a counterbalancing Buddhist view of the Nietzschean enterprise. He draws out the affinities and conceptual similarities between the two, and concludes that, ironically, Nietzsche's aim of self-overcoming is akin to the Buddhist notion of citta-bhavana (mind-cultivation). Had Nietzsche lived in an age where Buddhism was better understood, Morrison suggests, he might even have found in the Buddha a model of his hypothetical Ubermensch.

Robert Fogelin here collects fifteen of his essays, organized around the theme of interpreting philosophical texts. The book begins with an essay that lays down a set of principles governing the interpretation of difficult texts. Fogelin places particular emphasis on understanding the argumentative or dialectical role that passages play in the specific context in which they occur. The somewhat surprising result of taking this principle seriously is that certain traditional, well-worked texts are given a radical re-interpretation. Certain seemingly implausible positions are found to have more merit than has usually been attributed to them. Throughout the essays reprinted here, Fogelin argues that, when carefully read, the philosophical position under consideration has more merit than commonly believed. Included are essays dealing with texts from the works of Plato, Aquinas, Hume, Berkeley, Kant, Price, Hamilton, and Wittgenstein. With three exceptions, the selections were first published in major journals. Two appeared as part of collections, and one is new to this volume.

In this work, Henry Vyverberg traces the evolution and consequences of a crucial idea in French Enlightenment thought--the idea of human nature. Human nature was commonly seen as a broadly universal, unchanging entity, though perhaps modifiable by geographical, social, and historical factors. Enlightenment empiricism suggested a degree of cultural diversity that has often been underestimated in studies of the age. Evidence here is drawn from Diderot's celebrated Encyclopedia and from a vast range of writing by such Enlightenment notables as Voltaire, Rousseau, and d'Holbach. Vyverberg explains not only the age's undoubted fascination with uniformity in human nature, but also its acknowledgment of significant limitations on that uniformity. He shows that although the Enlightenment's historical sense was often blinkered by its notions of a uniform human nature, there were also cracks in this concept that developed during the Enlightenment itself.

While claiming that liberalism is the dominant political theory and practice of modernity, this book provides two alternative post modern theoretical approaches to the political. Concentrating on Nietzsche's and Foucault's work, it offers a novel interpretation of their genealogical projects. It argues that genealogy can be applied to analyze different forms of cultural kitsch vis-a-vis the dominant political institutions of consumer capitalism. The problem with consumer capitalism is not so much that it exploits individuals, but that it fosters cheap human existence saturated with the artefacts of kitsch. Contrasting genealogy with hermeneutic philosophy, it calls for a renewal of hermeneutics within the Thomistic tradition.

In 'Aristotle's Politics Today', political philosophers representing a diversity of approaches examine the meaning, relevance, and implications of Aristotle's political thought for contemporary social and political theory.

This book uncovers in the works of Plato and Nietzsche, not some royal road to truth, but rather the intensity of their love and commitment to the life of thought, whatever it discovers and wherever it might lead. Plato explored this in his ubiquitous absence from the adventures of thought depicted in his Dialogues. Nietzsche followed suit with his unrelenting presence as the grim and forceful conscience behind all the masks through which he spoke in his chaotic oeuvre. It is not a matter of biography or of shared doctrine, some favourite thoughts by which their lesser exegetes can keep them in their respective stables and move on to others with other favourite thoughts. To discover Plato and Nietzsche's kinship required something more, an intensive, lifelong philosophical engagement that Monique Dixsaut's students witnessed in her teaching at the Sorbonne, now available in English via this translation, which is suitable for academics, intellectuals and general readers alike. The `other way' to philosophise proves to be the practice of philosophy itself.

Vinod Acharya presents a new existential interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy. He contends that Nietzsche's peculiar form of existentialism can be understood only by undertaking a thorough analysis of his characterization and critique of metaphysics. This reading remedies the shortcomings of previous existential interpretations of Nietzsche, which typically view existentialism as concerned primarily with the meaning of individual existence, and therefore necessarily at odds with the abstraction and objectivity of metaphysical thought. Acharya argues that the approach of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially in his mature works, is to make the typical existential position foundational, and then to develop to the fullest the implications of this position. This meta-existential approach necessarily yields an ambiguous and open-ended critique of metaphysics. Taking issue with the Heideggerian, the poststructuralist, and the naturalistic interpretations, this book contends that Nietzsche neither simply overcomes metaphysics nor remains trapped within its confines. Acharya argues that an ever-renewed encounter with and critique of metaphysics is an essential aspect of Nietzsche's meta-existentialism.

This book examines the Irish philosopher George Berkeley's contributions to debates concerning the role of virtue in society, which formed the foundation of his reputation as "the good bishop." Through a close analysis of key texts and the larger historical contexts within which they were composed, this study explores Berkeley's engagement with the social and economic threats facing Ireland and Britain, highlighting his belief that virtue and religion could help alleviate these problems. In doing so, Breuninger provides a more complete view of Berkeley's work outside the realm of philosophy and thus broadens our understanding of his place in the early Enlightenment.

Fresh translations of key texts, exhaustive coverage from Plato to Kant, and detailed commentary by expert scholars of philosophy add up to make this sourcebook the first and most comprehensive account of the history of the philosophy of mind. Published at a time when the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology are high-profile domains in current research, the volume will inform our understanding of philosophical questions by shedding light on the origins of core conceptual assumptions often arrived at before the instauration of psychology as a recognized subject in its own right. The chapters closely follow historical developments in our understanding of the mind, with sections dedicated to ancient, medieval Latin and Arabic, and early modern periods of development. The volume's structural clarity enables readers to trace the entire progression of philosophical understanding on specific topics related to the mind, such as the nature of perception. Doing so reveals the fascinating contrasts between current and historical approaches. In addition to its all-inclusive source material, the volume provides subtle expert commentary that includes critical introductions to each thematic section as well as detailed engagement with the central texts. A voluminous bibliography includes hundreds of primary and secondary sources. The sheer scale of this new publication sheds light on the progression, and discontinuities, in our study of the philosophy of mind, and represents a major new sourcebook in a field of extreme importance to our understanding of humanity as a whole.

The development of Simone de Beauvoir's notion of self in both her philosophical and autobiographical writings is analyzed in this volume. Two ideas of the self are isolated: the existential notion of the self and the gendered self, which she developed in "The Second Sex," and which represents a major departure from existential philosophy. Beginning with a study of her early essays, the author proceeds to discuss Beauvoir's major philosophical works and her autobiographical writings where three personae emerge--the child, the woman in love, and the writer. This analysis highlights the innovative quality of Beauvoir's thought. It also shows that writing an autobiography can be a philosophically inventive enterprise and one in which Beauvoir created her most profound analysis of the self.

Luce Irigaray is one of the most influential philosophers and theorists in the field of feminist thought, and her work is considered both revolutionary and controversial. This volume offers the first critical assessment of the relation between her early poetic writings to her later political applied philosophy. Contributors examine how the question of sexual difference has unfolded in a wealth of different directions in Irigaray's later work, focusing on the areas of nature and technology, social and political theory and praxis, ethics, psychoanalysis, and phenomenology. They also address whether there has been a radical conceptual "turn" in Irigaray's thought by exploring the idea of a "turn" as a return to themes that have concerned her all along. By considering each of her views in relation to the entirety of her work, readers will come to appreciate the richness of her thought.

This book brings out the profound influence of the tradition of philosophical skepticism on political thought. It shows that many of the root ideas of liberalism in early modern thought were a product of engagement with the skeptical tradition.
The book begins with the first extended discussion in the literature of the political implications of ancient skepticism, asking the question, "Can Skeptics Live a Skeptical Politics?" The following sections explore the influence of skepticism on the political thought of Montaigne, Hume, and Kant. The case is made that some forms of liberalism derived from these thinkers have been historically closely bound up with skepticism.

This volume signals reinvigoration of Russell the public campaigner. The title of the volume is taken from one of his most famous and eloquent short essays and probably the best known of his many broadcasts for the BBC. "Man's Peril, 1954-55 not only captures the essence of Russell's thinking about nuclear weapons and the Cold War in the mid-1950s, its extraordinary impact served to jolt him into political protest once again.

Paul Grice (1913-1988) is best known for his psychological account of meaning, and for his theory of conversational implicature, although these form only part of a large and diverse body of work. This is the first book to consider Grice's work as a whole. Drawing on the range of his published writing, and also on unpublished manuscripts, lectures and notes, Siobhan Chapman discusses the development of Grice's ideas and relates his work to the major events of his intellectual and professional life.