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Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present
Occasional Paper No. 44 of the Royal Anthropological Institute Published in association with the Anglo-Finnish Society Westermarck was a remarkable man, but one who has received little credit for the significant part he played in the creation of modern anthropology. He spanned two worlds: the comparative anthropological endeavours of the nineteenth century, and the establishment of social anthropology at the LSE, in which he played a major role. One of Malinowski's principal teachers, he was himself an outstanding fieldworker. His work on Morocco has, even today, hardly been surpassed. Yet, his theories on the nature of human marriage and the origins of the incest taboo place him firmly in the earlier, generalist camp, and the controversies to which they have given rise have hardly settled down to this day. In this volume, Westermarck's place in anthropology is discussed, along with detailed descriptions of his very active academic life in Finland and in Britain, whilst other chapters consider his equally pioneering writings in morals and ethics. Westermarck's own writings are featured by way of illustration of his ideas, including his LSE inaugural lecture, his Huxley lecture, and a hitherto unpublished paper on ritual and survivals. This volume shows, indeed, that Westermarck is a 'missing link' in today's history of anthropology, and our understanding of that history will be profoundly changed by a better appreciation of his role within it.
This fascinating and nuanced volume engages with the innovative and at the same time contentious debate on religious pluralism mooted by John Hick, one of the most prominent British philosophers of religion. In celebrating Hick's voluminous work, a team of eminent and emerging scholars, representing a broad range of philosophical and theological perspectives, offer a succinct and incisive analysis of Hick's ideas and their enduring relevance for a world which is becoming increasingly polarized. These essays not only deal with theoretical and doctrinal aspects of interreligious discourse, but also focus on developing a discourse that challenges any form of religious absolutism.They address important questions such as how to articulate a philosophy or theology of religious pluralism that is not triumphalistic, how to affirm a spirituality that is not restrictive, how to speak about liberation that does not smack of theological finality. Besides issues related to religious pluralism, this volume also contains illuminating essays on themes such as suffering and theodicy. This insightful volume should be of immense interest and value to scholars and students of religion and lay readers.
This book investigates the conflicts concerning pragmatism in Wittgenstein's work On Certainty, through a comparison with the pragmatist tradition as expressed by its founding fathers Charles S. Peirce and William James. It also describes Wittgenstein's first encounters with pragmatism in the 1930s and shows the relevance of Frank Ramsey in the development of his thought. Offering a balanced, critical and theoretical examination the author discusses issues such as doubt, certainty, common sense, forms of life, action and the pragmatic maxim. While highlighting the objective convergences and divergences between the two approaches, the volume makes links to ongoing debates on relativism, foundationalism, scepticism and objectivity. It will be of interest to anyone searching for new perspectives on Wittgenstein's philosophy.
How should we deal with mental disorder - as an "illness" like diabetes or bronchitis, as a "problem in living", or what? This book seeks to answer such questions by going to their roots, in philosophical questions about the nature of the human mind, the ways in which it can be understood, and about the nature and aims of scientific medicine. The controversy over the nature of mental disorder and the appropriateness of the "medical model" is not just an abstract theoretical debate: it has a bearing on very practical issues of appropriate treatment, as well as on psychiatric ethics and law. A major contention of this book is that these questions are ultimately philosophical in character: they can be resolved only if we abandon some widespread philosophical assumptions about the "mind" and the "body", and about what it means for medicine to be "scientific". The "phenomenological" approach of the twentieth-century French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty is used to question these assumptions. His conception of human beings as "body-subjects" is argued to provide a more illuminating way of thinking about mental disorder and the ways in which it can be understood and treated. The conditions we conventionally call "mental disorders" are, it is argued, not a homogeneous group: the standard interpretation of the medical model fits some more readily than others. The core mental disorders, however, are best regarded as disturbed ways of being in the world, which cause unhappiness because of deviation from "human" rather than straightforwardly "biological" norms. That is, they are problems in how we experience the world and especially other people, rather than in physiological functioning - even though the nature of our experience cannot ultimately be separated from the ways in which our bodies function. This analysis is applied within the book both to issues in clinical treatment and to the special ethical and legal questions of psychiatry. Written by a well known philosopher in an accessible and clear style, this book should be of interest to a wide range of readers, from psychiatrists to social workers, lawyers, ethicists, philosophers and anyone with an interest in mental health.
Kant denies that Reason is intuitive, but demands that we must - in some way - 'make' Reason intuitive, and follow its guidance, particularly in matters of morality. In this book, a group of scholars attempt to analyze and explore this central paradox within Kantian thought. Each essay explores the question from a different perspective - from political philosophy, ethics and religion to science and aesthetics. The essays thus also reformulate the core question in different forms, for example, how are we to realize the moral good in personal character, political arrangements, or religious institutions?
The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is an enigmatic thinker whose works call out for interpretation. One of the most fascinating strands of this interpretation is in terms of Japanese thought. Kierkegaard himself knew nothing of Japanese philosophy, yet the links between his own ideas and Japanese philosophers are remarkable.. This book examines Kierkegaard in terms of Shinto, Pure Land Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, the Samurai, the famous Kyoto school of Japanese philosophers, and in terms of pivotal Japanese thinkers who were influenced by Kierkegaard.
"Hegel and Plato are towering figures in the history of philosophy, but often readers puzzle over what they are saying. There are very few books that deal with them clearly and intelligently. Hardly any that do so jointly. This book is exceptional in offering a clear, scholarly and intelligent guide to their work. It focuses upon how Plato and Hegel deal with nature. While recognising the subtlety of Plato and Hegel on nature, Vicky Roupa establishes a nuanced yet clear exposition of their thought. The bonus is that the books is written in a highly readable style. This is a great book!" - Gary Browning, Professor of Political Thought, Oxford Brookes University This book examines nature as a foundational concept for political and constitutional theory, drawing on readings from Plato and Hegel to counter the view that optimal political arrangements are determined by nature. Focussing on the dialectical implications of the word 'nature', i.e. how it encompasses a range of meanings stretching up to the opposites of sensuousness and ideality, the book explores the various junctures at which nature and politics interlock in the philosophies of Plato and Hegel. Appearance and essence, inner life and public realm, the psychical and the political are all shown to be parts of a conflictual structure that requires both infinite proximity and irreducible distance. The book offers innovative interpretations of a number of key texts by Plato and Hegel to highlight the metaphysical and political implications of nature's dialectical structure, and re-appraises their thinking of nature in a way that both respects and goes beyond their intentions.
This monograph analyzes Nicholas Rescher's system of pragmatic idealism. It also looks at his approach to prediction in science. Coverage highlights a prominent contribution to a central topic in the philosophy and methodology of science. The author offers a full characterization of Rescher's system of philosophy. She presents readers with a comprehensive philosophico-methodological analysis of this important work. Her research takes into account different thematic realms: semantic, logical, epistemological, methodological, ontological, axiological, and ethical. The book features three, thematic-parts: I) General Coordinates, Semantic Features and Logical Components of Scientific Prediction; II) Predictive Knowledge and Predictive Processes in Rescher's Methodological Pragmatism; and III) From Reality to Values: Ontological Features, Axiological Elements, and Ethical Aspects of Scientific Prediction. This insightful analysis offers a critical reconstruction of Rescher's philosophy. The system he created is often characterized as pragmatic idealism that is open to some realist elements. He is a prominent representative of contemporary pragmatism who has made a great deal of contributions to the study of this topic. This area is crucial for science and it has been little considered in the philosophy of science.
This study reconstructs F.W.J. Schelling's philosophy of language based on a detailed reading of 73 of Schelling's lectures on the Philosophy of Art. Daniel Whistler argues that the concept of the symbol present in this lecture course, and elsewhere in Schelling's writings of the period, provides the key for a non-referential conception of language, where what matters is the intensity at which identity is produced. Such a reconstruction leads Whistler to a detailed analysis of Schelling's system of identity, his grand project of the years 1801 to 1805, which has been continually neglected by contemporary scholarship. In particular, Whistler recovers the concepts of quantitative differentiation and construction as central to Schelling's project of the period. This reconstruction also leads to an original reading of the origins of the concept of the symbol in German thought: there is not one 'romantic symbol', but a whole plethora of experiments in theorising symbolism taking place at the turn of the nineteenth century. At stake, then, is Schelling as a philosopher of language, Schelling as a systematiser of identity, and Schelling as a theorist of the symbol.
This book addresses an epidemic that has developed on a global scale, and, which under the heading of "addiction," presents a new narrative about the travails of the human predicament. The book introduces phenomenological motifs, such as desire, embodiment, and temporality, to uncover the existential roots of addiction, and develops Martin Heidegger's insights into technology to uncover the challenge of becoming a self within the impulsiveness and depersonalization of our digital age. By charting a new path of philosophical inquiry, the book allows a pervasive, cultural phenomenon, ordinarily reserved to psychology, to speak as a referendum about the danger which technology poses to us on a daily basis. In this regard, addiction ceases to be merely a clinical malady, and instead becomes a "signpost" to exposing a hidden danger posed by the assimilation of our culture within a technological framework.
This volume presents different conceptions of logic and mathematics and discuss their philosophical foundations and consequences. This concerns first of all topics of Wittgenstein's ideas on logic and mathematics; questions about the structural complexity of propositions; the more recent debate about Neo-Logicism and Neo-Fregeanism; the comparison and translatability of different logics; the foundations of mathematics: intuitionism, mathematical realism, and formalism. The contributing authors are Matthias Baaz, Francesco Berto, Jean-Yves Beziau, Elena Dragalina-Chernya, Gunther Eder, Susan Edwards-McKie, Oliver Feldmann, Juliet Floyd, Norbert Gratzl, Richard Heinrich, Janusz Kaczmarek, Wolfgang Kienzler, Timm Lampert, Itala Maria Loffredo D'Ottaviano, Paolo Mancosu, Matthieu Marion, Felix Muhlhoelzer, Charles Parsons, Edi Pavlovic, Christoph Pfisterer, Michael Potter, Richard Raatzsch, Esther Ramharter, Stefan Riegelnik, Gabriel Sandu, Georg Schiemer, Gerhard Schurz, Dana Scott, Stewart Shapiro, Karl Sigmund, William W. Tait, Mark van Atten, Maria van der Schaar, Vladimir Vasyukov, Jan von Plato, Jan Wolenski and Richard Zach.
Hegelian philosophy is now enjoying an enormous renaissance in the
English-speaking world. At the very centre of his work is the
monumental "Science of Logic." Hegel's theory of subjectivity,
which comprises the final third of the "Science of Logic," has been
comparatively neglected. This volume collects 15 essays on various
aspects of Hegel's theory of subjectivity. For Hegel, "substance is
subject." Anyone aspiring to understand Hegel's philosophy cannot
afford to neglect this central topic.
This book examines the life and works of Jane Addams who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (1931). Addams led an international women's peace movement and is noted for spearheading a first-of-its-kind international conference of women at The Hague during World War I. She helped to found the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom. She was also a prophetic peace theorist whose ideas were dismissed by her contemporaries. Her critics conflated her activism and ideas with attempts to undermine the war effort. Perhaps more important, her credibility was challenged by sexist views characterizing her as a "silly" old woman. Her omission as a pioneering, feminist, peace theorist is a contemporary problem. This book recovers and reintegrates Addams and her concept of "positive peace," which has relevancy for UN peacekeeping operations and community policing. Addams began her public life as a leader of the U.S. progressive era (1890 - 1920) social reform movement. She combined theory and action through her settlement work in the, often contentious, immigrant communities of Chicago. These experiences were the springboard for her innovative theories of democracy and peace, which she advanced through extensive public speaking engagements, 11 books and hundreds of articles. While this book focuses on Addams as peace theorist and activist it also shows how her eclectic interests and feminine standpoint led to pioneering efforts in American pragmatism, sociology, public administration and social work. Each field, which traces its origin to this period, is actively recovering Addams' contributions.
Philosophical work on the mind flowed in two streams through the 20th century: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. The phenomenological tradition began with Brentano and was developed by such great European philosophers as Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. As the century advanced, Anglophone philosophers increasingly developed their own distinct styles and methods of studying the mind, and a gulf seemed to open up between the two traditions. This volume aims to bring them together again, by demonstrating how work in phenomenology may lead to significant progress on problems central to current analytic research, and how analytical philosophy of mind may shed light on phenomenological concerns. Leading figures from both traditions contribute specially written essays on such central topics as consciousness, intentionality, perception, action, self-knowledge, temporal awareness, and mental content. Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind demonstrates that these different approaches to the mind should not stand in opposition to each other, but can be mutually illuminating.
Ex nihilo nihil fit. Philosophy, especially great philosophy, does not appear out of the blue. In the current volume, a team of top scholars-both up-and-coming and established-attempts to trace the philosophical development of one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Featuring twenty new essays and an introduction, it is the first attempt of its kind in English and its appearance coincides with the recent surge of interest in Spinoza in Anglo-American philosophy. Spinoza's fame-or notoriety-is due primarily to his posthumously published magnum opus, the Ethics, and, to a lesser extent, to the 1670 Theological-Political Treatise. Few readers take the time to study his early works carefully. If they do, they are likely to encounter some surprising claims, which often diverge from, or even utterly contradict, the doctrines of the Ethics. Consider just a few of these assertions: that God acts from absolute freedom of will, that God is a whole, that there are no modes in God, that extension is divisible and hence cannot be an attribute of God, and that the intellectual and corporeal substances are modes in relation to God. Yet, though these claims reveal some tension between the early works and the Ethics, there is also a clear continuity between them. Spinoza wrote the Ethics over a long period of time, which spanned most of his philosophical career. The dates of the early drafts of the Ethics seem to overlap with the assumed dates of the composition of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well Being and precede the publication of Spinoza's 1663 book on Descartes' Principles of Philosophy. For this reason, a study of Spinoza's early works (and correspondence) can illuminate the nature of the problems Spinoza addresses in the Ethics, insofar as the views expressed in the early works help us reconstruct the development and genealogy of the Ethics. Indeed, if we keep in mind the common dictum "nothing comes from nothing "-which Spinoza frequently cites and appeals to-it is clear that great works like the Ethics do not appear ex nihilo. In light of the preeminence and majesty of the Ethics, it is difficult to study the early works without having the Ethics in sight. Still, we would venture to say that the value of Spinoza's early works is not at all limited to their being stations on the road leading to the Ethics. A teleological attitude of such a sort would celebrate the works of the "mature Spinoza " at the expense of the early works. However, we have no reason to assume that on all issues the views of the Ethics are better argued, developed, and motivated than those of the early works. In other words, we should keep our minds open to the possibility that on some issues the early works might contain better analysis and argumentation than the Ethics.
This work is devoted to developing as well as expounding the theory of the cultural sciences of the philosopher Alfred Schutz (1899-1959). Drawing on all of Schutz's seven volumes in English, the book shows how his philosophical theory consists of the reflective clarifications of the disciplinary definitions, basic concepts, and distinctive methods of particular cultural sciences as well as their species and genus. The book first expounds Schutz's own theories of economics, jurisprudence, political science, sociology, and psychology. It then extends his approach to other disciplines, offering new theories of archaeology, ethnology, and psychotherapy in his spirit in order to stimulate the development of Schutzian theories in these and other disciplines. The second part of the book contains complementary philosophical chapters devoted to culture, groups, ideal types, interdisciplinarity, meaning, relevance, social tension, and verification.
" Adorno: A Critical Reader" presents a collection of new essays
by many of the world's top critics, who examine Adorno's lasting
impact on the arts, politics, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis,
and sociology.
Few intellectuals captured as much critical attention in the
late twentieth century as Theodor W. Adorno. A growing number of
his writings, lectures, and addresses have recently become
available in English, a development that has inspired a
reassessment of his oeuvre and placed Adorno at the center of
debates about the role and responsibilities of the
intellectual.
Readers interested in the origins of cultural studies and critical theory will find this book an important examination of the broad work of one of the major intellectuals of the twentieth century. Those interested in the arts, politics, history, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and sociology will delight in this important collection of essays that re-evaluate Adorno's work in the context of the many fields that his writings have shaped irreversibly.
How does Nietzsche, as psychologist, envision the future of religion and atheism? While there has been no lack of "psychological" studies that have sought to illuminate Nietzsche's philosophy of religion by interpreting his biography, this monograph is the first comprehensive study to approach the topic through the philosopher's own psychological thinking. The author shows how Nietzsche's critical writings on religion, and especially on religious decline and future possibilities, are informed by his psychological thinking about moods. The author furthermore argues that the clarification of this aspect of the philosopher's work is essential to interpreting some of the most ambiguous words found in his writings; the words that God is dead. Instead of merely denying the existence of God in a way that leaves a melancholic need for religion or a futile search for replacements intact, Nietzsche arguably envisions the possibility of a radical atheism, which is characterized by a mood of joyful doubt. The examination of this vision should be of great interest to scholars of Nietzsche and of the history of philosophy, but also of relevance to all those who take an interest in the interdisciplinary discourse on secularization.
The author demonstrates the significant role that some of the Edwardian philosophers played in the formation of Russell's work on the problem of the external world done at the tail-end of a controversy which raged between about 1900-1915.
This volume is dedicated to Wittgenstein's remarks on Frazer's The Golden Bough and represents a collaboration of scholars within philosophy and the study of religion. For the first time, specialized investigations of the philological and philosophical aspects Wittgenstein's manuscripts are combined with the outlook of philosophical anthropology and ritual studies. In the first section of the book Wittgenstein's remarks are presented and discussed in light of his Nachlass and relevant lecture-notes by G.E. Moore, reproduced in this book as facsimiles. The second section deals with the cultural and philosophical background of the early remarks, while the third section focuses specifically on the general problem of understanding as being a main issue of these remarks. The fourth section concentrates on the philosophical development characteristic of the later remarks. Finally, the fifth section reviews Wittgenstein's opposition to Frazer, and the ramifications of his remarks, in light of ritual studies. The book is intended for scholars in philosophy and religious studies, as well as for the general reader with an academic interest in philosophy and the philosophy of religion.
In this thoroughly revised edition, James Cox provides an easily accessible introduction to the phenomenology of religion, which he contends continues as a foundational method for the academic study of religion in the twenty-first century. After dealing with the problematic issue of defining religion, he describes the historical background to phenomenology by tracing its roots to developments in philosophy and the social sciences in the early twentieth century. The phenomenological method is then outlined as a step-by-step process, which includes a survey of the important classifications of religious behaviour. The author concludes with a discussion of the place of the phenomenology of religion in the current academic climate and argues that it can be aligned with the growing scholarly interest in the cognitive science of religion.>
The core belief underlying this book is that the most useful and effective models to strengthen our intelligence are system ones, developed following the logic of Systems Thinking. Such models can explore complexity, dynamics, and change, and it is the author's view that intelligence depends on the ability to construct models of this nature. The book is designed to allow the reader not only to acquire simple information on Systems Thinking but above all to gradually learn the logic and techniques that make this way of thinking an instrument for the improvement of intelligence. In order to aid the learning and practice of the Systems Thinking discipline, the author has abandoned a rigid formal language for a more discursive style. He writes in the first person, with an ample number of citations and critical analyses, and without ever giving in to the temptation to use formal mathematics.
This book explores the ways deconstruction addresses the issue of futurity (what Jacques Derrida calls the "to-come," [l'a-venir]). In order to achieve this, it focuses on three French expressions, venue, survenue, and voir-venir, each taken from the work of Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Catherine Malabou. The idea behind this focus is to elude the issue of the one and only "to-come," as if this was a uniform and coherent entity or structure of experience, and to put forward instead the possibility of a multiplicity of structures, each with a different intonation or pitch. Overall, this book makes an original contribution to the way deconstruction addresses the issue of futurity in the act of writing and translation. |
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