Based on a lecture given before the Vienna Law Society in 1889, this title had an extraordinary influence in the field of philosophy. It provided the basis for the theory of value as this was developed by Meinong, Husserl and Scheler. In addition, the doctrine of intentionality that is presented here is central to contemporary philosophy of mind.

This book explores the relevance of David Bowie's life and music for contemporary legal and cultural theory. Focusing on the artist and artworks of David Bowie, this book brings to life, in essay form, particular theoretical ideas, creative methodologies and ethical debates that have contemporary relevance within the fields of law, social theory, ethics and art. What unites the essays presented here is that they all point to a beyond law: to the fact that law is not enough, or to be more precise, too much, too much to bear. For those who, like Bowie, see art, creativity and love as what ought to be the central organising principles of life, law will not do. In the face of its certainties, its rigidities, and its conceits, these essays, through Bowie, call forth the monster who laughs at the law, celebrate inauthenticity as a deeper truth, explore the ethical limits of art, cut up the laws of writing and embrace that which is most antithetical to law, love. This original engagement with the limits of law will appeal to those working in legal theory, ethics and law and popular culture, as well as in art and cultural studies.

Janko Lavrin's influential biography of Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1948, analyses the bond between Nietzsche's personal fate on the one hand and the trend of his thought on the other, set against the background of contemporary crisis typical of mankind in general.

In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. Through sharp observation and patient contemplation, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience.

"A love of Cioran creates an urge to press his writing into someone's hand, and is followed by an equal urge to pull it away as poison."--"The New Yorker"
"In the company of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard."--"Publishers Weekly"
"No modern writer twists the knife with Cioran's dexterity. . . . His writing . . . is informed with the bitterness of genuine compassion."--"Boston Phoenix
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In this concise text, Roy Bhaskar sets out to diagnose, explain and resolve the "problems of philosophy." Plato Etc. reviews all the main areas of the subject: the theory of knowledge and philosophy of science; the philosophy of logic and language; the philosophies of space, time and causality; the philosophy of the social and life sciences and of dialectic; ethics, politics and aesthetics; and the history and sociology of philosophy.

Among the issues discussed are the problems of induction and universals, the question of relativism, Heidegger's "scandal of philosophy" (the search for a proof of the reality of the external world), the nature of moral truth and the conundrum of free will and determinism. The last two chapters consist of a synoptic account of the development of Western philosophy from the pre-Socratics to poststructuralism.

Plato Etc. seeks to revindicate the philosophical project, and to demonstrate that the author's "dialectical critical realism" has the categorical power to remedy the problem fields of philosophy. The book serves both as a critical introduction to philosophy and as an invaluable resource for the scholar.

First published in English in 1953, this volume represents a collection of three essays written by seminal sociologist and philsopher Emile Durkheim in which he puts forward the thesis that society is both a dynamic system and the seat of moral life. Each essay stands alone, but their connecting thread is the dialectic demonstration that a phenomenon, be a sociological or psychological one, is relatively independent of its matrix.

The essays provide a valuable insight into Durkeheimian thought on sociological and philsophical matters and offer an excellent guide to Durkheim for students of both disciplines.

What do 'meaning' and 'truth' mean? And how are they situated in the concrete practices of linguistic communication? What is the relationship between words and the world? How-with words-can people do such varied things as marry, inaugurate a president, and declare a country's independence? How is language able to express knowledge, belief, and other mental states? What are metaphors and how do they work? Is a mathematically rigorous account of language possible? Does language make women invisible and encode a male worldview? These are the kind of questions that have been addressed by philosophers of language since ancient times. Interest in the subject stretches back to the beginnings of western philosophy (for instance, in his Academy, Plato considered the question whether the names of things were deemed by convention or by nature). Interest in the philosophy of language has also been enduring-and has blossomed anew in the past century. This new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Philosophy, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject's vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Edited by A. P. Martinich, one of the subdiscipline's leading scholars, this collection brings together in four volumes the canonical and the very best cutting-edge scholarship in the field to provide a synoptic view of all the key issues, figures, concepts, and current debates. With comprehensive introductions to each volume, newly written by the editor, which place the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Philosophy of Language is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by philosophers and linguists-as well as psychologists and cognitive scientists working on language-as a vital research resource.

The modern world is richer, safer and more connected than ever before but it is - arguably - also a far less loving world than we need or want: impatience, self-righteousness, moralism and viciousness are rife, while forgiveness, tolerance and sympathetic good humour can be in short supply. This is a book that rallies us to remember how much we all long for, and depend on love: how much we need people to forgive us for our errors, how much everyone deserves to be treated with consideration and imagination and how being truly civilised means extending patience and kindness to all those we have to deal with, even, and especially, those who don't naturally appeal to us. With the right encouragement, all of us are capable of immense kindness. But without it, we can also quickly descend into something far darker. This book reminds us of our better natures and mobilises us to fight for the kinder, more loving world we essentially long for at heart. Throughout, it frames love not as a romantic, idealistic fantasy, but as a hugely serious and dignified force that can save us from meanness and strife, defend us against chaos - and usher in hope and courage.

"What should I do?," "How should I deal with this?," "How should I behave?," "How should I act?" we ask ourselves daily. But, this is only the first part of the sentence, while the full sentence is "What should I do ... to achieve such and such?," for example to complete an assigned task, to do well before my boss or a client, to be pleased with myself, to carry out my plans, to make money in the stock market, to pass an exam, to complete an application, etc. These and similar questions that people ask, consciously or not, openly or not, are decisions.

What skills must we master, especially when there is a need to make not only elementary decisions, but also decisions that affect the existence, health, and even lives of people? First, Laszlo Zsolnai writes that we should acquire the skill of gaining knowledge. Only then will we stand a chance of reacting to things that are improbable today, but could become a fact tomorrow. Also essential is the skill of designing, i.e., preparing actions conceptually in order to make decisions before irreversible changes occur. Finally, it is essential to master the skill of multidimensional judgment within the space defined by effectiveness, efficiency, and ethics.

This is Zsolnai's attempt to build a model of making ethical decisions both effectively and efficiently. Therefore, the model is much broader than purely an analytical framework would be. It must tell us how to act rather than limit us to reflection on actions already performed; it must combine decision and praxiological analysis of human conduct. The proposed model enlarges the scope of the debate and suggests new avenues of both rational and responsible decision making. This is an original statement of the crossover of policy and morality.

Originally published in 1974.

Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory centres on the problem of explaining the manifest variety and contrast in the beliefs about nature held in different groups and societies. It maintains that the sociologist should treat all beliefs symmetrically and must investigate and account for allegedly correct or scientific beliefs just as he would incorrect or unscientific ones. From this basic position a study of scientific beliefs is constructed. The sociological interest of such beliefs is illustrated and a sociological perspective upon scientific change is developed.

Originally published in 1986. All students of social science must confront a number of important philosophical issues. This introduction to the philosophy of the social sciences provides coherent answers to questions about empiricism, explanation and rationality. It evaluates contemporary writings on the subject which can be as difficult as they are important to understand. Each chapter has an annotated bibliography to enable students to pursue the issues raised and to assess for themselves the arguments of the authors.

Originally published in 1967. This is an examination of warrant statements - statements which indicated something about the grounds on behalf of some further judgement, choice or action. The first part of the study is concerned with the role of warrant statements in theoretical discourse; while the second part concerns their role in practical discourse. Also examined are necessity, probability, knowing, seeing and the complex of terms which allow us to introduce an argumentative structure into discourse.

The boundaries of space exploration are being pushed back constantly, but the realm of the partially understood and the totally unknown is as great as ever. Among other things this book deals with astronomical instruments and their application, recent discoveries in the solar system, stellar evolution, the exploding starts, the galaxies, quasars, pulsars, the possibilities of extraterrestrial life and relativity.

Originally published in 1966. This volume analyzes the general structure of scientific theories, their relation to experience and to non-scientific thought. Part One is concerned with the logic underlying empirical discourse before its subjection to the various constraints, imposed by the logico-mathematical framework of scientific theories upon their content. Part Two is devoted to an examination of this framework and, in particular, to showing that the deductive organization of a field of experience is by that very act a modification of empirical discourse and an idealization of its subject matter. Part Three analyzes the concordance between theories and experience and the relevance of science to moral and religious beliefs.

Originally published in 1983. This book concentrates on the impact of philosophy of science on sociology and other disciplines. It argues that the impact of the philosophy of science on sociology from the rise of the Vienna Circle until the mid-1980s resulted in a deep-reaching and, in the author's view, undesirable methodological reorientation in sociology.

Originally published in 1952. This book is a critical survey of the views of scientific inference that have been developed since the end of World War I. It contains some detailed exposition of ideas - notably of Keynes - that were cryptically put forward, often quoted, but nowhere explained. Part I discusses and illustrates the method of hypothesis. Part II concerns induction. Part III considers aspects of the theory of probability that seem to bear on the problem of induction and Part IV outlines the shape of this problem and its solution take if transformed by the present approach.

Originally published in 1963.This volume provides a rigorous interpretation that portrays science and religion in their actualities as personal, communal and cultural phenomena involving different concerns, conceptions and modes of inquiry. The role of key aspects of their life and thought are investigated. They are found to be remarkably alike and their basic differences, far from making them mutually exclusive, reveal them as potentially complimentary and mutually helpful.

History and Philosophy of Science reprints a distinguished selection of important texts published in this field over the last century. This set presents a unique opportunity to gain comprehensive coverage of all aspects of the history and philosophy of science. It covers all major fields of scientific thought throughout history from Physics, Biology, and Cosmology to ESP and Alchemy. It includes texts on all the great historical scientific figures including Darwin, Copernicus, Archimedes and Hooker and covers all main themes in science taking in creation, evolution, the development of scientific methodology and the future of science. For further information on this collection please email [email protected].

Within a short space of time, the film Memento has already been hailed as a modern classic. Memorably narrated in reverse, from the perspective of Leonard Shelby, the film's central character, it follows Leonard's chaotic and visceral quest to discover the identity of his wife's killer and avenge her murder, despite his inability to form new long-term memories.

This is the first book to explore and address the myriad philosophical questions raised by the film, concerning personal identity, free will, memory, knowledge, and action. It also explores problems in aesthetics raised by the film through its narrative structure, ontology, and genre. Beginning with a helpful introduction that places the film in context and maps out its complex structure, specially commissioned chapters examine the following topics:

• memory, emotion, and self-consciousness
• agency, free will, and responsibility
• personal identity
• narrative and popular cinema
• the film genre of neo-noir
• Memento and multimedia

Including annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Memento is essential reading for students interested in philosophy and film studies.

This book presents a pragmatic response to arguments against religion made by the New Atheism movement. The author argues that analytic and empirical philosophies of religion-the mainstream approaches in contemporary philosophy of religion-are methodologically unequipped to address the "Threefold Challenge" made by popular New Atheist thinkers such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett. The book has three primary motivations. First, it provides an interpretation of the New Atheist movement that treats their claims as philosophical arguments and not just rhetorical exercises or demagoguery. Second, it assesses and responds to these claims by elaborating four distinct contemporary philosophical perspectives- analytic philosophy, empirical philosophy, continental philosophy, and pragmatism-as well as contextualizing these perspectives in the history of the philosophy of religion. Finally, the book offers a metaphilosophical critique, returning again and again to the question of method. In the end, the author settles upon a modified version of pragmatism that he concludes is best suited for articulating the terms and stakes of the God Debate. Challenging the New Atheism will be of interest to scholars and students of American philosophy and philosophy of religion.

Recognizing the dominance of neoliberal forces in education, this volume offers a range of critical essays which analyze the language used to underpin these dynamics. Combining essays from over 20 internationally renowned contributors, this text offers a critical examination of key terms which have become increasingly central to educational discourse. Each essay considers the etymological foundation of each term, the context in which they have evolved, and likewise their changed meaning. In doing so, these essays illustrate the transformative potential of language to express or challenge political, social, and economic ideologies. The text's musings on the language of education and its implications for the current and future role of education in society make clear its relevance to today's cultural and political landscape. This exploratory monograph will be of interest to doctoral students, researchers, and scholars with an interest in the philosophy of education, educational policy and politics, as well as the sociology of education and the impacts of neoliberalism.

This book provides answers to both normative and metaethical questions in a way that shows the interconnection of both types of questions, and also shows how a complete theory of reasons can be developed by moving back and forth between the two types of questions. It offers an account of the nature of intimate relationships and of the nature of the reasons that intimacy provides, and then uses that account to defend a traditional intuitionist metaethics. The book thus combines attention to the details of the lived moral life - the context in which many of our most pressing moral questions arise, how we deliberate and make moral decisions, the complexities that plague our attempts to know what we ought to do - with theoretical rigor in offering an account of the nature of reasons, how we come to have moral knowledge, and how we can adjudicate between competing positions.

Originally published in 1982. Taking a radical interpretation of the Kuhnian concept of paradigm incommensurability, the authors begin by discussing the difficulties of gaining access to the ideas of communities with different rational categories, and then define the subject area of parapsychology, offering a review of the relevant literature. After exploring parapsychology's compatibility with science, physics, psychology and quantum theory, the authors move on from this predominantly theoretical framework, and devote the middle section to an empirical study of metal bending. They conclude with an examination of the results, analyse diverse interpretations and investigate the consequences for the idea of scientific revolution.