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Books > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present
Combining postmodernism with technoscience, this work considers the viability of public works such as the superconducting supercollider in a postmodern age. Contending that technoscientific projects are contingent upon economic and political support, and not simply upon their scientific feasibility, Sassower illuminates the cultural context of postmodernism vis-a-vis an examination of postmodernism and the philosophy of late 20th-century technoscience. Drawing upon conflicts between Popperians, postmodernists and feminists, Sassower claims that "translation" between competing discourses about technoscience is necessary to avoid cultural collisions and foster fruitful exchange between divergent discourses; also that a discussion of reality, both natural and social, is the common ground for this debate. He emphasizes also the material, political and economic conditions which underlie technoscientific projects, and stresses the indespensible role imagination and art play in teaching the responsible development of technology in the next century.
Heidegger and ethics is a contentious conjunction of terms. Martin
Heidegger himself rejected the notion of ethics, while his
endorsement of Nazism is widely seen as unethical. This major study
examines the complex and controversial issues involved in bringing
Heidegger and ethics together.
Time, Tradition and Society in Greek Archaeology is an innovative volume which examines the relevance of archaeological theory to classical archaeology. It offers a wideranging overview of classical archaeology, from the Bronze Age to the Classical period and from mainland Greece to Cyprus. Within this framework Spencer examines many of the issues which have become important in the study of archaeology in recent years - time, the `past', gender, ideology, social structure and group identity. The papers in this collection cover such diverse topics as the rural landscape, classical art and scientific methodologies. Over the last century the study of classical archaeology has been orthodox and static. The essays in this collection examine it in the light of current theoretical archaeology and anthropology, making it more relevant and valuable to the study of archaeology in the 1990s. This is a diverse and topical collection, of great value to classicists, ancient historians, anthropologists and everyone interested in new approaches to archaeology.
Veblen is probably one of the most important social philosophers that the United States has yet produced. A fierce and compelling critic of mainstream economic theory and its fundamental assumptions, he constructed an evolutionary history of mankind from primitive times to the machine age. Darwinian notions of evolution pervade Veblen's thought, originating in his view that economic thinking lags hopelessly behind the ever-changing realities of social life. Within this grand design, Veblen also produced many insights into human behaviour including the idea that conspicuous consumption - colloquially known as "keeping up with the Jones'" was a driving force in economic life. Besides this, he wrote on imperialism, explained why the modern German and Japanese states were more warlike than others and predicted a massive crisis for capitalism which came about in the 1930s. Veblen has been neglected in Britain. This selection of work brings together Veblen's unique attempts at understanding the evolution of economic patterns in a wider social context.
The publication in 1957 of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures ushered in the era of what can properly be termed modern linguistics - the science of language. This critical assessment brings together over 100 papers on every area of Chomsky's work, revealing how pervasive his influence has been on all aspects of modern thought, from linguistics to philosophy, psychology, computer science, social theory, political analysis and literary theory. Carlos Otero is one of the world's leading interpreters of Chomsky's ideas and brings together in these volumes papers which provide a comprehensive assessment of his contribution to modern thought.
The publication in 1957 of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures ushered in the era of what can properly be termed modern linguistics - the science of language. This critical assessment brings together over 100 papers on every area of Chomsky's work, revealing how pervasive his influence has been on all aspects of modern thought, from linguistics to philosophy, psychology, computer science, social theory, political analysis and literary theory. Carlos Otero is one of the world's leading interpreters of Chomsky's ideas and brings together in these volumes papers which provide a comprehensive assessment of his contribution to modern thought.
Gilles Deleuze, a major figure in the intellectual history of the late-20th century, inaugurated the radical non-Hegelianism that has marked French intellectual life during the past three decades. Many poststructuralist and postmodernist practices can be traced to Deleuze's 1962 resurrection of Nietzsche against Hegel. Hardt shows how Deleuze's early analysis of Bergson's critique of ontology and determination led him to a conception of a positive movement of differentiation and becoming, which in turn led him to the field of forces, sense, value, and the thematic of power and affirmation in Nietzsche. The theory of power in Nietzsche provided the link for Deleuze to an ethics of active expression in Spinoza: Deleuze's discovery and analysis of Spinoza's cultivation of joy and practice at the center of ontology finally resulted in a complete break from the Hegelian paradigm that had reigned over continental philosophy and history. Michael Hardt is the translator of Antonio Negri's "The Savage Anomaly: the Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics" (Minnesota, 1990), Giorgio Agamben's "The Coming Community" (Minnesota, 1993), and co-author (with Antonio Negri) of "Labor of Dionysu
Martin Heidegger (1899-1976), born in Baden, Germany, is one of the
most important philosophers of the twentieth century. The one-time
assistant of Edmund Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological
movement, Heidegger established himself as an independent and
original thinker with the publication of his major work "Being and
Time" in 1927.
Now available in paperback, The Quarrel Between Philosophyand Poetry focuses on the theoretical and practical suppositions of the long-standing conflict between philosophy and poetry. Stanley Rosen--one of the leading Plato scholars of our day--examines philosophical activity, questioning whether technical philosophy is a species of poetry, a political program, an interpretation of human existence according to the ideas of 19th and 20th-century thinkers, or a contemplation of beings and Being.
This book analyses the epistemological problems that Shakespeare explores in Othello. In particular, it uses the methods of analytic philosophy, especially the work of the later Wittgenstein, to characterize these problems and the play.
A classic of how to think clearly and critically and ahead of its time in anticipating the threats to democracy by poor argument and shoddy reasoning Engaging, clear and witty, it is a brilliant example of how philosophy can connect with the concerns with everyone and requires no knowledge of the subject Susan Stebbing was the first woman in the UK to be appointed a professor of philosophy, in 1933 A new foreword by Nigel Warburton and introduction by Peter West help to set Stebbing book in helpful context
This volume brings together an international array of scholars to reconsider the meaning and place of poststructuralism historically and demonstrate some of the ways in which it continues to be relevant, especially for debates in aesthetics, ethics, and politics. The book's chapters focus on the works of Butler, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, Kristeva, Lacan, and Lyotard-in combination with those of Agamben, Luhman, Nancy, and Nietzsche-and examine issues including biopolitics, culture, embodiment, epistemology, history, music, temporality, political resistance, psychoanalysis, revolt, and the visual arts. The contributors use poststructuralism as a hermeneutical strategy that rejects the traditional affirmation of unity, totality, transparency, and representation to instead focus on the foundational importance of open-ended becoming, difference, the unknowable, and expression. This approach allows for a more expansive definition of poststructuralism and helps demonstrate how it has contributed to debates across philosophy and other disciplines. Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism will be of particular interest to researchers in philosophy, politics, political theory, critical theory, aesthetics, feminist theory, cultural studies, intellectual history, psychoanalysis, and sociology.
This book explores the question of what it means to be a human being through sustained and original analyses of three important philosophical topics: relativism, skepticism, and naturalism in the social sciences. Kevin M. Cahill's approach involves an original employment of historical and ethnographic material that is both conceptual and empirical in order to address relevant philosophical issues. Specifically, while Cahill avoids interpretative debates, he develops an approach to philosophical critique based on Cora Diamond's and James Conant's work on the early Wittgenstein. This makes possible the use of a concept of culture that avoids the dogmatism that not only typifies traditional metaphysics but also frequently mars arguments from ordinary language or phenomenology. This is especially crucial for the third part of the book, which involves a cultural-historical critique of the ontology of the self in Stanley Cavell's work on skepticism. In pursuing this strategy, the book also mounts a novel and timely defense of the interpretivist tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences. Towards a Philosophical Anthropology of Culture will be of interest to researchers working on the philosophy of the social sciences, Wittgenstein, and philosophical anthropology. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780367638238, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
This book discusses the ethical dimension of the interpretation of texts and events. Its purpose is not to address the neutrality or ideological biases of interpreters, but rather to discuss the underlying issue of the intervention of interpreters into the process of interpretation. The author calls this intervention the "ethical" aspect of interpretation and argues that interpreters are neither neutral nor necessarily activists. He examines three models of interpretation, all of which recognize the role that interpreters play in the process of interpretation. In these models, the question of the truth or validity of interpretation is dependent upon the attitude of interpreters. These three models are: (1) the principle of charity in interpretation in the two different versions defended by Hans-Georg Gadamer and Donald Davidson; (2) the production of truth, as developed by Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault; and (3) the regulative principle in interpretation as formal validity claims-as presented by Karl-Otto Apel and Jurgen Habermas-and as benevolence or love as an epistemic virtue-as defended by Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The critical discussion of these three models, which brings to the fore the different manners in which interpreters intervene in the process of interpretation as persons, lays the foundations for an ethics of interpretation. The Ethics of Interpretation will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in hermeneutics, 19th- and 20th-century philosophy, literary theory, and cultural theory.
This book studies the phenomenological ontology of breathing. It investigates breathing and air as a question of phenomenological philosophy and looks at phenomenological questions concerning respiratory methodology, ontological experience of respiration, respiratory spirituality and respiratory embodiment. Drawing on the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gaston Bachelard, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Luce Irigaray and David Kleinberg-Levin, the book argues for the ontological primacy of breathing and develops a new principle of philosophy that the author calls "Silence of Breath, Abyss/Yawn of Air". It asserts that breathing is not a thing- or person-oriented relation, but perpetual communication with the immense elemental atmosphere of open and free air. This new phenomenological method of breathing offers readers a chance to begin to wonder, rethink, re-experience and reimagine all questions of life in an innovative and creative way as aerial and respiratory questions of life. Part of the Routledge Critical Perspectives on Breath and Breathing series, the book breaks new ground in phenomenology and phenomenological ontology by offering a decisive and insightful treatment of breath. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of philosophy, phenomenology, and ontology. It will also be of special interest to Merleau-Ponty scholars as it investigates uncharted dimensions of Merleau-Ponty's philosophy.
This collection of essays challenges the prevailing assumption that eighteenth-century German philosophy prior to Kant was largely defined by post-Leibnizian rationalism and, accordingly, a low esteem of the cognitive function of the senses. It does so by highlighting the various ways in which eighteenth-century German philosophers reconceived the notion and role of experience in their efforts to identify, defend, and contest the contribution of sensibility to disciplines such as metaphysics, theology, the natural sciences, psychology, and aesthetics. Engaging in depth with Tschirnhaus, Wolff, the Wolffians, eclecticism, Popularphilosophie, the Berlin Academy, Tetens, and Kant, its thirteen chapters present a more nuanced understanding of the German reception of British and French ideas and dismiss the prevailing view that German philosophy was largely isolated from European debates. Moreover, the book introduces a number of relatively unknown, but highly relevant philosophers and developments to non-specialized scholars and contributes to a better understanding of the richness and complexity of the German Enlightenment.
Pablo Oyarzun is one of the foremost Benjamin scholars in Latin America. His writings have shaped the reception of Benjamin's work in Latin America and have been central to the effort to identify the tasks and responsibilities of the kind of critical theory that would interrupt social violence. In this book Oyarzun examines some of the key concepts in Benjamin's work - including his concepts of translation, experience, history and storytelling - and relates them to his own systematic reflection on the nature and implications of 'doing justice'. What is meant by the words 'justice was done'? The passive voice is important here. On the one hand, justice does nothing: it is not an agent, it can only prevail or fail, and if it fails, it does so without limit. On the other hand, the passive voice alludes to the agents of an action while covering them up; the allusion is the masking of the identity and traces of the person who accomplishes the action. And this cover-up can be dangerous: it can cover-up the executioners, who are subjects that everyone can confirm anonymously, without their being recognized and without their wanting to be recognized. Justice, argues Oyarzun, can only be done in the active effort to do justice - or, as Benjamin would say, in the striving to turn the world into the highest good. This book by one of Chile's most distinguished philosophers will be of value to anyone interested in Benjamin's work and in the development of critical theory in Latin America.
This book is a theoretical and practical guide for mental health professionals who wish to utilize existential principles in their social work and clinical practice. Existential questions concerning life situations, such as anxiety, suffering, choosing, authenticity, are at the heart of the craft of any helping profession. The book aims to confront students and practitioners with the need to be simultaneously philosophical and experiential in their clinical approach. Written in an accessible tone, Eisikovits and Buchbinder bridge existential-philosophical concepts often seen as removed from everyday practice and the practical concerns of therapy. Each chapter presents a concept from existential philosophical tradition, such as anxiety, meaning making, time, and space, and then demonstrates their use by drawing from real-life clinical examples and interventions. The book illustrates their implementation in social work practice with reference to values such as client participation, self-determination, and free will. The book is intended for courses and advanced training in existential social work and therapy. It is essential reading for training social workers, counselors, therapists, and other helping professionals interested in existentialism.
The book explores the impact of manuscript remarks during the year 1929 on the development of Wittgenstein's thought. Although its intention is to put the focus specifically on the manuscripts, the book is not purely exegetical. The contributors generate important new insights for understanding Wittgenstein's philosophy and his place in the history of analytic philosophy. Wittgenstein's writings from the years 1929-1930 are valuable, not simply because they marked Wittgenstein's return to academic philosophy after a seven-year absence, but because these works indicate several changes in his philosophical thinking. The chapters in this volume clarify the significance of Wittgenstein's return to philosophy in 1929. In Part 1, the contributors address different issues in the philosophy of mathematics, e.g. Wittgenstein's understanding of certain aspects of intuitionism and his commitment to verificationism, as well as his idea of "a new system". Part 2 examines Wittgenstein's philosophical development and his understanding of philosophical method. Here the contributors examine particular problems Wittgenstein dealt with in 1929, e.g. the colour-exclusion problem, and the use of thought experiments as well as his relationship to Frank Ramsey and philosophical pragmatism. Part 3 features essays on phenomenological language. These chapters address the role of spatial analogies and the structure of visual space. Finally, Part 4 includes one chapter on Wittgenstein's few manuscript remarks about ethics and religion and relates it to his Lecture on Ethics. Wittgenstein's Philosophy in 1929 will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students working on Wittgenstein and the history of analytic philosophy.
Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.
The Quantum of Explanation advances a bold new theory of how explanation ought to be understood in philosophical and cosmological inquiries. Using a complete interpretation of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophical and mathematical writings and an interpretive structure that is essentially new, Auxier and Herstein argue that Whitehead has never been properly understood, nor has the depth and breadth of his contribution to the human search for knowledge been assimilated by his successors. This important book effectively applies Whitehead's philosophy to problems in the interpretation of science, empirical knowledge, and nature. It develops a new account of philosophical naturalism that will contribute to the current naturalism debate in both Analytic and Continental philosophy. Auxier and Herstein also draw attention to some of the most important differences between the process theology tradition and Whitehead's thought, arguing in favor of a Whiteheadian naturalism that is more or less independent of theological concerns. This book offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to Whitehead's philosophy and is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in American philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics and physics, and issues associated with naturalism, explanation and radical empiricism.
Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise and up-to-date account of Spinoza's thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza's ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza's impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. Accessible and compelling, Spinoza is the go-to text for anyone seeking to understand the thought of one of history's most fascinating thinkers. |
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