The belief is widely held that the physical world is causally-driven. The world is one because a tangled web of causally-driven processes keeps it together. However, both the psychological and the social worlds cannot be articulated in causal terms only. Hereby, "motivation" is used as the most general term referring to whatever keeps (synchronically) together and provides (diachronic) reasons explaining the behavior of psychological and social systems. In order to systematically address these problems, a categorical framework is needed for understanding the various types of realities populating the world and their multifarious interrelations. The papers collected in this volume dig into some of the intricacies presented by these problems. The papers here presented have been selected from those presented at the workshops bearing the very same name, "Causality and Motivation" organized in Bolzano and Rome.

For about a decade Nicholas Rescher directed the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Philosophy of Science and he has published instructive studies in this field since the 1950's. Some dozen of the contributions to the field are published in the present volume, and they combine to illustrate his characteristic approach of blending empirical data with philosophical theorizing.

This book charts and challenges the bruising impact of post-Saussurean thought on the categories of experience and self-presence. It attempts a reappropriation of the category of lived experience in dialogue with poststructuralist thinking. Following the insight that mediated subjectivity need not mean alienated selfhood, Meredith forwards a postmetaphysical model of the experiential based on the interpenetration of poststructuralist thinking and hermeneutic phenomenology. Since poststructuralist approaches in feminist theory have often placed women's lived experiences "under erasure," Meredith uses this hermeneutic/deconstructive model to attempt a rehabilitation of the singular "flesh and blood" female existent.

Joseph LaPorte offers a new account of the connections between the reference of words for properties and kinds, and theoretical identity statements. Some terms for concrete objects, such as 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus', are rigid, and the rigidity of these terms is important because it helps to determine whether certain statements containing them, including identity statements like 'Hesperus = Phosphorus', are necessary or contingent. These observations command broad agreement. But there has been much less agreement about whether and how designators for properties are rigid: terms like 'white', 'brontosaur', 'beautiful', 'heat', 'H2O', 'pain', and so on. In Rigid Designation and Theoretical Identities, LaPorte articulates and defends the position that terms for properties are rigid designators. Furthermore, he argues that property designators' rigidity is put to good use in important philosophical arguments supporting and impugning certain theoretical identity statements. The book as a whole constitutes a broad defense of a tradition originating largely in seminal work from Saul Kripke, which affirms the truth and necessity of theoretical identities such as 'water = H2O', 'heat = the motion of molecules' and the like, and which looks skeptically upon psychophysical identities like 'pain = c-fiber firing'. LaPorte responds to detractors of the Kripkean tradition whose objections and challenges indicate where development and clarification is needed, as well as to sympathizers who have put forward important contributions toward such ends. Specific topics discussed by way of defending the Kripkean tradition include conventionalism and empiricism, nominalism about properties, multiple realizability, supervenience, analytic functionalism, conceptual dualism and 'new wave' or a posteriori materialism, the explanatory gap, scientific essentialism (more broadly: scientific necessitarianism), and vitalism.

In Living Mirrors, Ohad Nachtomy examines Leibniz's attempt to "re-enchant" the natural world-that is, to infuse life, purpose, and value into the very foundations of nature, a nature that Leibniz saw as disenchanted by Descartes' and Spinoza's more naturalistic and mechanistic theories. Nachtomy sees Leibniz's nuanced view of infinity- how it differs in the divine as well as human spheres, and its relationship to numerical and metaphysical unity-as key in this effort. Leibniz defined living beings by means of an infinite nested structure particular to what he called "natural machines"-and for him, an intermediate kind of infinity is the defining feature of living beings. Using a metaphor of a "living mirror," Leibniz put forth infinity as crucial to explaining the unity of a living being as well as the harmony between the infinitely small and the infinitely large; in this way, employing infinity and unity, we can better understand life itself, both as a metaphysical principle and as an empirical fact. Nachtomy's sophisticated and novel treatment of the essential themes in Leibniz's work will not only interest Leibniz scholars, but scholars of early modern philosophy and students of the history of philosophy and science as well.

Charles Sanders Peirce is quickly becoming the dominant figure in the history of American philosophy. The breadth and depth of his work has begun to obscure even the brightest of his contemporaries. Concerning the interpretation of his work, however, there are two distinct schools. The first holds that Peirce's work is an aggregate of important but disconnected insights. The second school argues that his work is a systematic philosophy with many pieces of the overall picture still obscure or missing. It is this second view which seems to me the most reasonable, in part because it has been convincingly defended by other scholars, but most importantly because Peirce himself described his philosophy as systematic: What I would recommend is that every person who wishes to form an opinion concerning fundamental problems should first of all make a complete survey of human knowledge, should take note of all the valuable ideas in each branch of science, should observe in just what respect each has been successful and where it has failed, in order that, in the light of the thorough acquaintance so attained of the available materials for a philosophical theory and of the nature and strength of each, he may proceed to the study of what the problem of philosophy consists in, and of the proper way of solving it (6. 9) [1].

This is the first volume devoted to the aesthetics of the Graz school. V. Raspa s introduction gives an outline of the aesthetic themes and exponents of the school. D. Jacquette argues for a Meinongian subjectivistic aesthetic value theory. B. Langlet deals with aesthetic properties and emotions. Ch.G. Allesch presents Witasek's aesthetics in its historical context. I. Vendrell Ferran investigates the aesthetic experience and quasi-feelings in Meinong, Witasek, Saxinger and Schwarz. R. Martinelli illustrates the musical aesthetics of Ehrenfels, Hofler and Witasek. P. Mahr asks if object-theoretical aesthetics is possible at all. M. Potrc and V. Strahovnik concentrate on Veber's aesthetic judgment. N. Dolcini deals with the migration of ficta, and F. Orilia with words and pictures in fictional stories."

"With Nature" provides new ways to think about our relationship with nature in today's technologically mediated culture. Warwick Mules makes original connections with German critical philosophy and French poststructuralism in order to examine the effects of technology on our interactions with the natural world. In so doing, the author proposes a new way of thinking about the eco-self in terms of a careful sharing of the world with both human and non human beings. "With Nature" ultimately argues for a poetics of everyday life that affirms the place of the human-nature relation as a creative and productive site for ecological self-renewal and redirection.

This controversial work discusses a theory of plurallism, claiming that there is not merely a plurality of correct theories and world views, but a corresponding plurality of actual worlds. Plurality penetrates deeper than the linguistic surface or than conceptual or theoretical structure.

The notion of truth has become much discussed in philosophy over the last few decade, with many senior figures grappling with the relativist and constructivist notions of truth popular in other parts of the academy. It continues to be a subject enjoying vibrant debate. Despite the varieties of views on truth, most of the discussion has agreed that truth has a uniform, stable nature, ranging across the boundaries of human knowledge. The editors and contributors to this volume challenge this very basic assumption, putting forth the idea of what is called alethic pluralism - that there is more than one way of being true. While it is uncontroversial that there are different kinds of truth (moral truth, scientific truth etc), these pluralist views propose that truth itself can vary and that bearers of truth can literally be true in different ways. This volume presents new essays by some of the world's leading philosophers to explore this new view and its implications for the philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and logic.

Our self-understanding as human agents includes a commitment to three crucial claims about human agency: that agents must be active, that actions are part of the natural order of the universe, and that intentional actions can be explained by the agent's reasons for acting. While all of these claims are indispensable elements of our view of ourselves as human agents, they are in continuous conflict and tension with one another, especially once one adopts the currently predominant view of what the natural order must be like. One of the central tasks of philosophy of action consists in showing how, despite appearances, these conflicts can be resolved and our self-understanding as agents be vindicated. The mainstream of contemporary philosophy of action holds that this task can only be fulfilled by an event-causal reductive view of human agency, paradigmatically embodied in the so-called 'standard model' developed by Donald Davidson. Erasmus Mayr, in contrast, develops a new agent-causal solution to these conflicts and shows why this solution is superior both to event-causalist accounts and to Von Wright's intentionalism about agency. He offers a comprehensive theory of substance-causation on the basis of a realist conception of powers, which allows one to see how the widespread rejection of agent-causation rests on an unfounded 'Humean' view of nature and of causal processes. At the same time, Mayr addresses the question of the nature of reasons for acting and complements its substance-causal account of activity with a non-causal account of acting for reasons in terms of following a standard of success.

This unique introduction fully engages and clearly explains pragmatism, an approach to knowledge and philosophy that rejects outmoded conceptions of objectivity while avoiding relativism and subjectivism. It follows pragmatism's focus on the process of inquiry rather than on abstract justifications meant to appease the skeptic. According to pragmatists, getting to know the world is a creative human enterprise, wherein we fashion our concepts in terms of how they affect us practically, including in future inquiry. This book fully illuminates that enterprise and the resulting radical rethinking of basic philosophical conceptions like truth, reality, and reason. Author Cornelis de Waal helps the reader recognize, understand, and assess classical and current pragmatist contributions-from Charles S. Peirce to Cornel West-evaluate existing views from a pragmatist angle, formulate pragmatist critiques, and develop a pragmatist viewpoint on a specific issue. The book discusses: Classical pragmatists, including Peirce, James, Dewey, and Addams; Contemporary figures, including Rorty, Putnam, Haack, and West; Connections with other twentieth-century approaches, including phenomenology, critical theory, and logical positivism; Peirce's pragmatic maxim and its relation to James's Will to Believe; Applications to philosophy of law, feminism, and issues of race and racism.

Forms and Concepts is the first comprehensive study of the central role of concepts and concept acquisition in the Platonic tradition. It sets up a stimulating dialogue between Plato s innatist approach and Aristotle s much more empirical response. The primary aim is to analyze and assess the strategies with which Platonists responded to Aristotle s (and Alexander of Aphrodisias ) rival theory. The monograph culminates in a careful reconstruction of the elaborate attempt undertaken by the Neoplatonist Proclus (6th century AD) to devise a systematic Platonic theory of concept acquisition."

In Aims: A Brief Metaphysics for Today, James W. Felt turns his attention to combining elements of Thomas Aquinas's metaphysics, especially its deep ontology, with Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy to arrive at a new possibility for metaphysics. In his distinctive style, Felt concisely pulls together the strands of epistemology, ontology, and teleology, synthesizing these elements into his own "process-enriched Thomism." Aims does not simply discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each philosopher's position, but blends the two into a cohesive argument based on principles derived from immediate experience. Felt arrives at what he calls a "Whiteheadian-type solution,"appealing to his original concept of the "essential aim"as necessary for understanding our existence in a coherent yet unique world. This concise, finely crafted discussion provides a thoroughly teleological, value-centered approach to metaphysics. Aims, an experiment in constructive metaphysics, is a thorough and insightful project in modern philosophy. It will appeal to philosophers and students of philosophy interested in enriching their knowledge of contemporary conceptions of metaphysics.

This book provides an original and provocative combination of ethnomethodological analysis and the concepts of linguistic philosophy with a breadth and clarity unusual in this field of writing. It is designed to be read by sociologists, psychologists and philosophers and concerns itself with the contributions of Wittgenstein, defending the claim for his relevance to the human sciences. However, this book goes some way beyond the usual limitations of such interdisciplinary works by outlining some empirical applications of ideas derived from the Wittgenstein tradition.

I suppose Joseph Agassi's best and dearest self-description, his cher ished wish, is to practice what his 1988 book promises: The Gentle Art of Philosophical Polemics. But for me, and for so many who know him, our Agassi is tough-minded, not tender, not so gentle. True to his beloved critical thinking, he is ever the falsificationist, testing himself of course as much as everyone else. How, he asks himself, can he engage others in their own self-critical exploration? Irritate? Question their logic, their facts, their presuppositions, their rationales? Subvert their reasoning, uncover their motives? Help them to lose their balance, but always help them, make them do it to, and for, themselves. Out of their own mouths, and minds, and imagination. A unique teacher, in classroom and out; not for everyone. Agassi is not quite a tight textual Talmudist disputant, not quite the competitor in the marketplace of ideas offered for persuasive sale, not quite the clever cross-examining lawyer advocate, not quite a philosopher-scientist, not a sceptic more than necessary, not quite embat tled in the bloody world but not ever above the battle either . . . but a good deal of all of these, and steeped in intelligence and good will."

The problem of universals is one of the main philosophical issues. In this book the author reconstructs the history of the problem considering a selection of medieval representative texts and authors. The source of medieval and postmedieval debate is identified in the Socratic-Platonic survey on the definition of concepts. In the Categories, Aristotle discusses important topics concerning the relations that exist between logical terms. In particular he establishes a kind of predication principle: categorial terms have a certain predication relation if (and only if) some facts expressed by ordinary sentences hold. The Categories also because of their particular disciplinary status, halfway between logic and metaphysics, leave a number of questions open. Among these questions, a particularly intriguing one is Porphyry's riddle: are there genera and species? And, if there are such things, what are they like?

L. T. Hobhouse (1864-1929) was fundamental to the New Liberal movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He authored many important works in the fields of philosophy, economics and social liberalism. First published in 1896, The Theory of Knowledge considers the content and validity of knowledge, and the conditions on which our understanding of knowledge is based. It is a rich and important classic, which remains of value to students and academics with an interest in sociology, anthropology and the philosophy of logic.

Issues surrounding the status and nature of `nonexistent objects' constitute one of philosophy's oldest and densest thickets. In this book Perszyk takes his readers surefootedly through this thicket, informed both historically and at the level of contemporary discussion of relevant themes. His main aim is to develop a `bundle' or `set of properties' interpretation of Meinong's theory of nonexistent objects (as opposed to a set of properties neo-Meinongian metaphysics), and to defend this nonstandard interpretation against competing views in both the philosophical and scholarly literature on Meinong. The Meinong who emerges is neither the hero nor the villain his friends and foes have commonly led us to believe. This clearly written book is a valuable addition both to the literature on Meinong and to contemporary metaphysics of modality. It is written for students and professionals interested in these, and related, areas.

John Sallis has been at the cutting edge of the Continental philosophical tradition for almost half a century, and it is largely due to his contributions that we have come to understand "Continental" as designating an original philosophical, not a geographical, tradition. His work, with its uncommon scholarly rigor, has come to define the best of that tradition and to expand its horizons in creative ways through a genuine philosophical imagination. The essays gathered here are dedicated to assessing Sallis' contribution and to indicating some of the ways in which his works might shape the future of philosophy.

Jewish German philosopher Ernst Cassirer was a leading proponent of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. The essays in this volume provide a window into Cassirer's discovery of the symbolic nature of human existence-that our entire emotional and intellectual life is configured and formed through the originary expressive power of word and image, that it is in and through the symbolic cultural systems of language, art, myth, religion, science, and technology that human life realizes itself and attains not only its form, its visibility, but also its reality. Thought and being are set in opposition and united in genuine correspondence by the symbolic strife between them that Cassirer calls Auseinandersetzung, which determines the ethical relationship of the self to the other.