This book presents a new interpretation of Kanta (TM)s theory of knowledge that emphasizes the coherence and plausibility of his doctrine of transcendental idealism. Many interpreters believe that Kanta (TM)s transcendental idealism is an incoherent theory. Some have attempted to respond to this charge. Yet, as the author demonstrates, the interpretations that seek to vindicate Kanta (TM)s theory continue to be committed to some claims that evoke the charge of incoherence. One type of claim which does so is connected to the contradictory notion of subjective necessity. The other type of claim is related to the supposition that knowledge of the reality of appearances entails knowledge of the reality of things in themselves. The interpretation presented in this book does not involve any of these claims. Part One of this book presents an analysis of Kanta (TM)s concept of a priori knowledge and of his response to skepticism about synthetic a priori knowledge that specifies the content of such knowledge without invoking the notion of subjective necessity. Part Two presents an account of the non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves that does not entail knowledge of the reality of things in themselves. Part Three presents a new interpretation of transcendental synthesis, the transcendental "I" and of the role of transcendental self-consciousness in synthetic a priori knowledge which emphasizes the originality of Kanta (TM)s account of self-knowledge and subjectivity. The arguments presented in this book relate Kanta (TM)s ideas to current debates in epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of mind in a way that underscores their invaluable relevance to present-day philosophicaldiscourse.

Washington provides the first systematic critical look at the life and work of Alain Locke, an important American philosopher, in the context of a thoroughgoing analysis of the values, ideals, aspirations, and problems of the Black community. Alain Locke contributed significantly to the twentieth-century dialogue on ethics and society. Drawing particularly on the work of William James and Josiah Royce, Locke was perhaps the first to bring philosophy to bear on the problems of race relations and social justice in a multiracial society. He argued that racial problems in the United States stem from the fact that white Americans hold up their values as the only controlling and only acceptable model, to which other groups are forced to conform. First discussing what is meant by Black philosophy and what its concerns include, the author examines Locke's philosophic interpretation of Black America's historical experience, contributions to culture, and struggles for social justice. He provides a critique of Locke's model of the political community, with special reference to the work of Hannah Arendt. Looking at the impact of Locke, DuBois, and others on the Black community, he discusses their relation to the Black Elite, their encouragement of Black artists and their positions on educational issues such as teaching Black history, parity for Blacks, and school desegregation. Other subjects considered are the New Negro, the Harlem Renaissance, African art and culture, and Locke's views in light of changes that have occurred since his death in 1954. An important work on a philosopher whose insights are of continuing significance today, this book will be of interest for Afro-American studies, as well as for courses on American philosophy and American social and intellectual history.

Following the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, ideas of the 'Natural Rights of Man' (later distinguished into particular issues like rights of association, rights of women, slaves, children and animals) were publicly debated in England. Literary figures like Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Thelwall, Blake and Wordsworth reflected these struggles in their poetry and fiction. With the seminal influences of John Locke and Rousseau, these and many other writers laid for high Romantic Literature foundations that were not so much aesthetic as moral and political. This new study by R.S. White provides a reinterpretation of the Enlightenment as it is currently understood.

Hermann Cohen's philosophy has now, finally, received the recognition it deserves. His thought undoubtedly has all the characteristics of a classic. It faced the great problems of philosophical tradition, with full critical awareness and at the same time, with the capacity to open up new, original routes. It represents one of the last expressions of great systematic thought.

The papers collected in this volume deal with different aspects of Cohen's thought, ethical, political, aesthetic and religious aspectsin particular. However they all represent attempts to follow the ubiquitous presence of certain important themes in Cohen and their capacity for containing meanings that cannot be limited to a single philosophical sphere: themes that are keys to reading unity of inspiration in his thought, which is more deeply imbedded than the exterior architectural unity of his work. The search for the fundamental themes behind Cohen is an important task, if we wish to see this philosopher as a present-day vital point of reference.

In this book, Valerie Cordonier and Tommaso De Robertis provide the first study, along with edition and translation, of Chrysostomus Javelli's epitome of the Liber de bona fortuna (1531), the famous thirteenth-century Latin compilation of the chapters on fortune taken from Aristotle's Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics. An Italian university professor and a prominent figure in the intellectual landscape of sixteenth-century Europe, Javelli (ca. 1470-ca. 1542) commented on nearly the entirety of Aristotle's corpus. His epitome of the Liber de bona fortuna, the only known Renaissance reading produced on this work, offers an unparalleled insight into the early modern understanding of fortune, standing out as one of the most comprehensive witnesses to discussions on fate, fortune, and free will in the Western world.

Offering a new translation of the third and most sustained version of Schelling's magnum opus, Schelling forges a great heroic poem, a genealogy of time. Anticipating Heidegger, as well as contemporary debates about postmodernity and the limits of dialectical thinking, this book struggles with the question of time as the relationship between poetry and philosophy. Thinking in the wake of Hegel, although trying to think beyond his grasp, this extraordinary work is a poetic and philosophical address of difference, of thinking's relationship to its inscrutable ground.

Well written and richly illustrated with vivid examples from Wittgenstein's woodcutters to witchcraft in Mexico and elsewhere, this book argues that the underlying methodological principle governing interpretive change is explanatory coherence.

A major contribution to Descartes studies, this book provides a panorama of cutting-edge scholarship ranging widely over Descartes's own primary concerns: metaphysics, physics, and its applications. It is at once a tool for scholars and--steering clear of technical Cartesian science--an accessible resource that will delight nonspecialists. The contributors include Edwin Curley, Willis Doney, Alan Gabbey, Daniel Garber, Marjorie Grene, Gary Hatfield, Marleen Rozemond, John Schuster, Dennis Sepper, Stephen Voss, Stephen Wagner, Margaret Welson, Jean Marie Beyssade, Michelle Beyssade, Michel Henry, Evert van Leeuwen, Jean-Luc Marion, Genevieve Rodis-Lewis, and Jean-Pierre Seris. Combining new textual sensitivity with attentiveness to history, they represent the best established scholars and most exciting new voices, including both English speaking and newly-translated writers. Part I examines the foundations of Descartes's philosophy: Cartesian certainty; the phenomenology of the cogito and its modulations in the passions; and the defensibility and comprehensibility of the Cartesian God. The second part examines Descartes's groundbreaking metaphysics: mind's distinctness from and interaction with body; imagination; perception; and language. Part III examines Cartesian science: the revolutionary rhetoric of the Rules and the Discourse; the metaphysical foundations of physics; the interplay of rationalism and empiricism; the mechanics and human biology that flow from Descartes's physics.

This book offers a comprehensive and unitary study of the philosophy of Francis Bacon, with special emphasis on the medical, ethical and political aspects of his thought. It presents an original interpretation focused on the material conditions of nature and human life. In particular, coverage in the book is organized around the unifying theme of Bacon's notion of appetite, which is considered in its natural, ethical, medical and political meanings. The book redefines the notions of experience and experiment in Bacon's philosophy of nature, shows the important presence of Stoic themes in his work as well as provides an original discussion of the relationships between natural magic, prudence and political realism in his philosophy. Bringing together scholarly expertise from the history of philosophy, the history of science and the history of literature, this book presents readers with a rich and diverse contextualization of Bacon's philosophy.

The act of thought-thought as an act-would precede the thought thinking or becoming conscious of an act. The notion of act involves a violence essentially: the violence of transitivity, lacking in the transcendence of thought. . . Totality and Infinity The work of Emmanuel Levinas revolves around two preoccupations. First, his philosophical project can be described as the construction of a formal ethics, grounded upon the transcendence of the other human being and a subject's spontaneous responsibility toward that other. Second, Levinas has written extensively on, and as a member of, the cultural and textual life of Judaism. These two concerns are intertwined. Their relation, however, is one of considerable complexity. Levinas' philosophical project stems directly from his situation as a Jewish thinker in the twentieth century and takes its particular form from his study of the Torah and the Talmud. It is, indeed, a hermeneutics of biblical experience. If inspired by Judaism, Levinas' ethics are not eo ipso confessional. What his ethics takes from Judaism, rather, is a particular way of conceiving transcendence and the other human being. It owes to the philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber a logos of the world and of the holy, which acknowledges their incom mensurability without positing one as fallen and the other as supernal."

This authoritative book, written by the leading experts in the field of the philosophy of biology, brings together the defining literature in the debate concerning proper analysis of teleological concepts in biology. The introduction provides a clear and coherent overview to the philosophical progress regarding the nature of function in biology, and the book's chronological structure offers historical insight and perspective.

This anthology is well-planned, representative, and current in its orientation. All of the major positions and figures are represented and the volume is framed by Buller's essays, an organization that serves to consolidate many themes introduced by the diverse slate of authors.

Simone Weil created a memorable ceuvre remarkable for its lucid, striking, and seemingly transparent prose. Aphoristic and impersonal in tone, it is the instrument of a master stylist. The first to recognize Weil's achievement as a writer, this book situates her work within the French literary tradition, showing its affinities with Pascal and Budelaire, and acknowledges its kinship to the works of poets and writers of her generation, notably the poets Rene Char and Marina Tsvetaeva. The parallel between Weil's concept of decreation and the impersonality of the speaker in-her prose is shown ultimately to be to her will to surpass the boundaries of the written page in her drive to self-immolation. Close reading of passages from her notebooks, several short texts, and a proposal for front-line nurses addressed to the Free French illustrates the forces and influences at work in her writing.

This is the first book that provides access to twelve Continental philosophers and the consequences of their thinking for the philosophy of religion. Basically, in the second half of the twentieth century, it has been treated from within the Anglo- American school of philosophy, which deals mainly with proofs and truths, and questions of faith. This approach is more concerned with human experience, and pays more attention to historical context and cultural influences. As such, it provides challenging questions about the way forward for philosophy of religion in the twenty-first century.

This book is an abridged version of Feng Qi’s two major works on the history of philosophy, The Logical Development of Ancient Chinese Philosophy and The Revolutionary Course of Modern Chinese Philosophy. It is a comprehensive history of Chinese philosophy taking the reader from ancient times to the year 1949.  It illuminates the characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy from the broader vantage point of epistemology. The book revolves around important debates including those on “Heaven and humankind� (tian ren天人), “names and actualities� (mingshi�實), “principle and vital force� (liqi�氣), “the Way and visible things� (daoqi�器), “mind and matter/things� (xinwu心物), and “knowledge and action� (zhixing知行). Through discussion of these debates, the course of Chinese philosophy unfolds.  Modern Chinese philosophy has made landmark achievements in the development of historical and epistemological theory, namely the “dynamic and revolutionary theory of reflection�. However, modern Chinese philosophy is yet to construct a systematic overview of logic and methodology, as well as questions of human freedom and ideals. Amid this discussion, the question of how contemporary China is to “take the baton� from the thinkers of the modern philosophical revolution is addressed.

"Bruce L. Kinzer offers a rich examination of personal and political themes in the life of John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century. By investigating young Mill's formative period and his relations with his father, Harriet Taylor, and Thomas Carlyle, Kinzer casts light on the challenges Mill faced in understanding himself and what he wished to become. Kinzer's political explorations probe issues central to the appreciation of Mill as an engaged political thinker and actor and offers an insightful portrait of a complex and towering figure."--BOOK JACKET.

Shaking up the content and method by which generations of students had studied Western philosophy, Martin Heidegger sought to ennoble man’s existence in relation to death. Yet in a time of crisis, he sought personal advancement, becoming the most prominent German intellectual to join the Nazis. Hannah Arendt, his brilliant, beautiful student and young lover, sought to enable a decent society of human beings in relation to one other. She was courageous in the time of crisis. Years later, she was even able to meet Heidegger once again on common ground and to find in his past behavior an insight into Nazism that would influence her reflections on “the banality of evil�—a concept that remains bitterly controversial and profoundly influential to this day. But how could Arendt have renewed her friendship with Heidegger? And how has this relationship affected her reputation as a cultural critic? In Stranger from Abroad, Daniel Maier-Katkin offers a compassionate portrait that provides much-needed insight into this relationship. Maier-Katkin creates a detailed and riveting portrait of Arendt’s rich intellectual and emotional life, shedding light on the unique bond she shared with her second husband, Heinrich Blücher, and on her friendships with Mary McCarthy, W. H. Auden, Karl Jaspers, and Randall Jarrell—all fascinating figures in their own right. An elegant, accessible introduction to Arendt’s life and work, Stranger from Abroad makes a powerful and hopeful case for the lasting relevance of Arendt’s thought.

This book challenges the popular recent view of Nietzsche as an anti-systematic, anti-traditional thinker, and argues that his work is in fact highly systematic, and therefore congruent with the main traditions of western philosophy.

Justice Blindfolded gives an overview of the history of "justice" and its iconography through the centuries. Justice has been portrayed as a woman with scales, or holding a sword, or, since the fifteenth century, with her eyes bandaged. This last symbol contains the idea that justice is both impartial and blind, reminding indirectly of the bandaged Christ on the cross, a central figure in the Christian idea of fairness and forgiveness. In this rich and imaginative journey through history and philosophy, Prosperi manages to convey a full account of the ways justice has been described, portrayed and imagined. Translation of Giustizia bendata. Percorsi storici di un'immagine (Einaudi, 2008).

Can God's nonexistence be established by good, clear, objective evidence? It all depends on what is meant by "God." This book expands the frontiers of philosophy by exploring this nest of issues in more detail than ever before, while presenting a strong case for atheism.
The two major arguments in support of nonexistence, the more established Argument from Evil and the recent Argument from Nonbelief, are explored individually and in parallel development while defending both against the strongest objections.
Included are examinations of the free-will problem, the possibility of an afterlife, arguments by theists, and positive atheism. Drange also discusses specific concepts of the duty e.g. of evangelical and liberal Christianity, and orthodox Judaism to demonstrate how theological and atheological arguments depend upon the conception of God one accepts.

What would any rational person believe to be worth wanting or working for? Viewed from the standpoint of ethics and empirical psychology, how would such a person define and explain the morally right and the just? And what system of morals would rational people select as the best for the society? Essential to what is important in traditional philosophical inquiries, these questions and others are pursued in A Theory of the Good and the Right, Richard B. Brandt's now classic work, based on his Oxford lectures. Using a contemporary psychological theory of action and of motivation, Brandt argues that rational people would choose a utilitarian moral code that the purpose of living should be to strive for the greatest good for the largest number of people. He discusses the concept of welfare, the prospects for the interpersonal comparison and measurement of utility, the implications of the relevant form of rule utilitarianism for the theory of distributive justice, and the possibilities of conflict between utilitarian moral codes and the dictates of self-interest. Readers interested in moral philosophy, psychology, economics, and political theory will find much to ponder here.

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been the subject of many intellectual biographies, yet none thus far is as liberating as "Nietzsche & the Jews", an in-depth examination of his relationships with Jews and Judaism. For the first time in any study of Nietzsche, Siegfried Mandel persuasively argues that this controversial 19th-century philosopher was truly ambivalent toward Jews, many of whom were quite influential in his intellectual and social pursuits. Incorporating writings and conversations by philosophers and others with whom Nietzsche interacted (e.g., Wagner, Schopenhauer, Gibbon, Freud, and others), the author liberates his subject from 'venerators and detractors alike' by demonstrating that Nietzsche was both 'philosemitic' and anti-Semitic.This dual attitude of praise and criticism adds to the complexity of Mandel's subject, an intellectual enigma who remains one of the most controversial and misunderstood thinkers in history. Forceful, lively, and original, this book incorporates a wealth of evidence that opens Nietzsche's life and works to more careful study and reflection. The late Siegfried Mandel was professor emeritus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. He authored many books and articles dealing with European literature, culture, and art.