This edited volume offers a new approach to understanding social conventions by way of Martin Heidegger. It connects the philosopher's conceptions of the anyone, everydayness, and authenticity with an analysis and critique of social normativity. Heidegger's account of the anyone is ambiguous. Some see it as a good description of human sociality, others think of it as an important critique of modern mass society. This volume seeks to understand this ambiguity as reflecting the tension between the constitutive function of conventions for human action and the critical aspects of conformism. It argues that Heidegger's anyone should neither be reduced to its pejorative nor its constitutive dimension. Rather, the concept could show how power and norms function. This volume would be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy and the social sciences who wish to investigate the social applications of the works of Martin Heidegger.

A collection of essays which explores the significance of Wittgenstein for the Philosophy of Religion. Explorations of central notions in Wittgenstein's later philosophy are brought to bear on the clash between belief and atheism; understanding religious experience; language and ritual; evil and theodicies; miracles; and the possibility of a Christian philosophy.

This book begins with an observation: At the time when empiricism arose and slowly established itself, the word itself had not yet been coined. Hence the central question of this volume: What does it mean to conduct empirical science in early modern Europe? How can we catch the elusive figure of the empiricist? Our answer focuses on the practices established by representative scholars. This approach allows us to demonstrate two things. First, that empiricism is not a monolith but exists in a plurality of forms. Today's understanding of the empirical sciences was gradually shaped by the exchanges among scholars combining different traditions, world views and experimental settings. Second, the long proclaimed antagonism between empiricism and rationalism is not the whole story. Our case studies show that a very fruitful exchange between both systems of thought occurred. It is a story of integration, appropriation and transformation more than one of mere opposition. We asked twelve authors to explore these fascinating new facets of empiricisms. The plurality of their voices mirrors the multiple faces of the concept itself. Every contribution can be understood as a piece of a much larger puzzle. Together, they help us better understand the emergence of empiricism and the inventiveness of the scientific enterprise.

This book offers a clear, analytic, and innovative interpretation of Heidegger's late work. This period of Heidegger's philosophy remains largely unexplored by analytic philosophers, who consider it filled with inconsistencies and paradoxical ideas, particularly concerning the notions of Being and nothingness. This book takes seriously the claim that the late Heidegger endorses dialetheism - namely the position according to which some contradictions are true - and shows that the idea that Being is both an entity and not an entity is neither incoherent nor logically trivial. The author achieves this by presenting and defending the idea that reality has an inconsistent structure. In doing so, he takes one of the most discussed topics in current analytic metaphysics, grounding theory, into a completely unexplored area. Additionally, in order to make sense of Heidegger's concept of nothingness, the author introduces an original axiomatic mereological system that, having a paraconsistent logic as a base logic, can tolerate inconsistencies without falling into logical triviality. This is the first book to set forth a complete and detailed discussion of the late Heidegger in the framework of analytic metaphysics. It will be of interest to Heidegger scholars and analytic philosophers working on theories of grounding, mereology, dialetheism, and paraconsistent logic.

This book defines the relationship between the thought of Adam Smith and that of the ancients---Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics. Vivenza offers a complete survey of all Smith's writings with the aim of illustrating how classical arguments shaped opinions and scholarship in the eighteenth century.

In Of Liberty and Necessity James A. Harris presents the first comprehensive account of the free will problem in eighteenth-century British philosophy. Harris proposes new interpretations of the positions of familiar figures such as Locke, Hume, Edwards, and Reid. He also gives careful attention to writers such as William King, Samuel Clarke, Anthony Collins, Lord Kames, James Beattie, David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, and Dugald Stewart, who, while well-known in the eighteenth century, have since been largely ignored by historians of philosophy. Through detailed textual analysis, and by making precise use of a variety of different contexts, Harris elucidates the contribution that each of these writers makes to the eighteenth-century discussion of the will and its freedom. In this period, the question of the nature of human freedom is posed principally in terms of the influence of motives upon the will. On one side of the debate are those who believe that we are free in our choices. A motive, these philosophers believe, constitutes a reason to act in a particular way, but it is up to us which motive we act upon. On the other side of the debate are those who believe that, on the contrary, there is no such thing as freedom of choice. According to these philosophers, one motive is always intrinsically stronger than the rest and so is the one that must determine choice. Several important issues are raised as this disagreement is explored and developed, including the nature of motives, the value of 'indifference' to the will's freedom, the distinction between 'moral' and 'physical' necessity, the relation between the will and the understanding, and the internal coherence of the concept of freedom of will. One of Harris's primary objectives is to place this debate in the context of the eighteenth-century concern with replicating in the mental sphere what Newton had achieved in the philosophy of nature. All of the philosophers discussed in Of Liberty and Necessity conceive of themselves as 'experimental' reasoners, and, when examining the will, focus primarily upon what experience reveals about the influence of motives upon choice. The nature and significance of introspection is therefore at the very centre of the free will problem in this period, as is the question of what can legitimately be inferred from observable regularities in human behaviour.

This volume presents political phenomenology as a new specialty in western philosophical and political thought that is post-classical, post-Machiavellian, and post-behavioral. It draws on history and sets the agenda for future explorations of political issues. It discloses crossroads between ethics and politics and explores border-crossing issues. All the essays in this volume challenge existing ideas of politics significantly. As such they open new ways for further explorations BY future generations of phenomenologists and non-phenomenologists alike. Moreover, the comprehensive chronological bibliography is unprecedented and provides not only an excellent picture of what phenomenologists have already done but also a guide for the future.

This is the first volume dedicated to a direct exploration of Wittgenstein and Plato. It is a compilation of essays by thirteen authors of diverse geographical provenance, orientation and philosophical interest.
The volume offers the most complete and detailed view to date on Wittgenstein and Plato, without being tied to any unilateral guidelines from either a critical or philosophical perspective. The authors are scholars of Wittgenstein, but also of Plato and Greek philosophy. The book is a sort of game of mirrors: Plato in the mirror of Wittgenstein, and Wittgenstein in the mirror of Plato. All essays always seek to combine philosophical interest and philological attention, although, in some essays one interest prevails over the other.
Despite the preponderance of scholars of Wittgenstein, the volume seeks to be not only a book on Wittgenstein and Plato, but also, simultaneously, on Plato and Wittgenstein.

Kevin Hermberg's book fills an important gap in previous Husserl scholarship by focusing on intersubjectivity and empathy (i.e., the experience of others as other subjects) and by addressing the related issues of validity, the degrees of evidence with which something can be experienced, and the different senses of 'objective' in Husserl's texts. Despite accusations by commentators that Husserl's is a solipsistic philosophy and that the epistemologies in Husserl's late and early works are contradictory, Hermberg shows that empathy, and thus other subjects, are related to one's knowledge on the view offered in each of Husserl's Introductions to Phenomenology. Empathy is significantly related to knowledge in at least two ways, and Husserl's epistemology might, consequently, be called a social epistemology: (a) empathy helps to give evidence for validity and thus to solidify one's knowledge, and (b) it helps to broaden one's knowledge by giving access to what others have known. These roles of empathy are not at odds with one another; rather, both are at play in each of the Introductions (if even only implicitly) and, given his position in the earlier work, Husserl needed to expand the role of empathy as he did. Such a reliance on empathy, however, calls into question whether Husserl's is a transcendental philosophy in the sense Husserl claimed.

In this brief and accessible introduction, Russell guides the reader through his famous 1910 distinction between "knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description" and introduces important theories of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Locke, Kant, Hegel and others. He lays the foundation for philosophical inquiry for general readers and scholars.There are sixteen chapters: Appearance and Reality, The Existence of Matter, The Nature of Matter, Idealism, Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description, On Induction, On Our Knowledge Of General Principles, How A Priori Knowledge Is Possible, The World of Universals, On Our Knowledge of Universals, On Intuitive Knowledge, Truth and Falsehood, Knowledge, Error, and Probable Opinion, The Limits of Philosophical Knowledge, The Value of Philosophy. Russell also provides a short supplementary reading list.

One hundred years ago, Russell and Whitehead published their epoch-making Principia Mathematica (PM), which was initially conceived as the second volume of Russell's Principles of Mathematics (PoM) that had appeared ten years before. No other works can be credited to have had such an impact on the development of logic and on philosophy in the twentieth century. However, until now, scholars only focused on the first parts of the books - that is, on Russell's and Whitehead's theory of logic, set-theory and arithmetic.
Sebastien Gandon aims at reversing the perspective. His goal is to give a picture of Russell's logicism based on a detailed reading of the developments dealing with advanced mathematics - namely projective geometry and the theory of quantity. This book is not only the first study ever made of the 'later' portions of PoM and PM, it also shows how this shift of perspective compels us to change our view of the logicist program taken as a whole.

The history of interwar Polish logic, including philosophical logic, is still a relatively little known area, especially if compared with the movement's well-documented contemporaries - the Vienna Circle or the Berlin Circle, for instance. The book aims to address this lacuna, by presenting the state of the art of research into this part of the history of analytic philosophy. It comprises thirteen essays, written by outstanding philosophers and exemplifying different approaches to the history of philosophy. One approach focuses on some little known aspects of Polish philosophy (e.g., Lesniewski's arithmetic, Tarski's geometry, philosophy of mathematics in interwar Krakow), analyzing it in great detail, sometimes by using current formal techniques. Another group of papers looks at the inspiration the Poles got from the founding fathers of analytic philosophy (Frege, Husserl, Wittgenstein), and locates Polish philosophy in the larger landscape of European analytic philosophy. Finally, some contributors pick a topic from the Polish school (sometimes only mentioned, but not developed by the Poles), and construct an alternative account which is then compared with the earlier account. Most of the papers were presented at a symposium celebrating the 70th birthday of Jan Wolenski, whose book "Logic and Philosophy of the Lvov-Warsaw School" has played a substantial role in sparking contemporary interest in Polish analytic philosophy.

A comprehensive and accessible overview of, and introduction to, the work of one of the twentieth century's most influential philosophers, Martin Heidegger, by one of the world's foremost Heidegger scholars. Martin Heidegger's work is pivotal in the history of modern European philosophy. The New Heidegger presents a comprehensive and stimulating overview of, and introduction to, the work of one of the most influential and controversial philosophers of our time. Heidegger has had an extraordinary impact on contemporary philosophical and extra-philosophical life: on deconstruction, hermeneutics, ontology, technology and techno-science, art and architecture, politics, psychotherapy, and ecology. The New Heidegger takes a thematic approach to Heidegger's work, covering not only the seminal Being and Time, but also Heidegger's lesser-known works. Lively, clear and succinct, the book requires no prior knowledge of Heidegger and is an essential resource for anyone studying or teaching the work of this major modern philosopher.

Richard Campagna and his team of optimistic, pragmatic spiritual, existentialist merrymakers have done it again. The author(s) set forth a low-key, workable philosophy of life (replete with DOs and DON'Ts) drawing from the 60's and 70's and novel practical approaches as well as personal, professional and political counsel, developed for the new millennium.

Ranging from the experience of sound through language, music, religion, and silence, clear examples and illustrations, this text takes the reader into the important and often overlooked role of the auditory in human life.

This collection is an attempt by a diverse range of authors to reignite interest in C.I. Lewis's work within the pragmatist and analytic traditions. Although pragmatism has enjoyed a renewed popularity in the past thirty years, some influential pragmatists have been overlooked. C. I. Lewis is arguably the most important of overlooked pragmatists and was highly influential within his own time period. The volume assembles a wide range of perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of Lewis's contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, philosophy of science, and ethics.

Irony, humour and the comic play vital yet under-appreciated roles in Kierkegaard's thought. Focusing upon the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, this book investigates these roles, relating irony and humour as forms of the comic to central Kierkegaardian themes. How does the comic function as a form of 'indirect communication'? What roles can irony and humour play in the infamous Kierkegaardian 'leap'? Do certain forms of wisdom depend upon possessing a sense of humour? And is such a sense of humour thus a genuine virtue?

Although pain is one of the most fundamental and unique experiences we undergo in everyday life, it also constitutes one of the most enigmatic and frustrating subjects for many scientists. This book provides a detailed analysis of why this issue is grounded in the nature of pain itself. It also offers a philosophically driven solution of how we may still approach pain in a theoretically compelling and practically useful manner. Two main theses are defended: (i) Pain seems inscrutable because there exists no property that is commonly shared by all types of pain and that is at the same time particular to pain, setting it apart from other bodily sensations. This applies irrespective of whether we consider the psychological dimensions, neural networks, causal relations or biological functions of pain. Consequently, it is impossible to refer to ideal far-reaching and ideal distinct generalizations on the matter of pain. (ii) Despite this challenge, by focusing on the resemblance relations that hold across pains, we can generate scientific progress in explaining, predicting and treating pain. In doing so, the book aims to provide a clear conceptual basis for interdisciplinary communication and a useful heuristic for future research.

This is an exciting new collection of essays exploring the relevance of Deleuze and Guattari's work in contemporary aesthetics and political theory.Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari have arguably gone further than anyone in contemporary philosophy in affirming a philosophy of creation, one that both establishes and encourages a clear ethical imperative: to create the new.In this remarkable undertaking, these two thinkers have created a fresh engagement of thought with the world. This important collection of essays attempts to explore and extend the creative rupture that Deleuze and Guattari produce in the "Capitalism and Schizophrenia" project.The essays in this volume, all by leading thinkers and theorists, extend Deleuze and Guattari's project by offering creative experiments in constructing new communities - of ideas and objects, experiences and collectives - that cohere around the interaction of philosophy, the arts and the political realm. "Deleuze, Guattari and the Production of the New" produces new perspectives on Deleuze and Guattari's work by emphasising its relevance to the contemporary intersection of aesthetics and political theory, thereby exploring a pressing contemporary problem: the production of the new.

What is power? Where does it come from and who is in possession of it? How should we think about power and authority in a post-secular society in which traditional boundaries between individual and collective faith and secular governments and institutions are becoming increasingly blurred? The way which we conceive of power in the twenty-first century will effectively determine how we approach issues such as market reform and environmental disaster. Placing the twentieth-century French philosopher Michel Foucault into critical conjunction with the apostle Paul, Foucault/Paul re-evaluates the way in which power operates within society and underpins our ethical and political actions.

Williamson explains, defends, and applies Kant's theory of emotion. Looking primarily to the Anthropology and the Metaphysics of Morals, she situates Kant's theory of affect within his theory of feeling and focuses on the importance of moral feelings and the moral evaluation of our emotions.

This book offers a concise and accessible introduction to his work and thought, ideal for students coming to his philosophy for the first time. John Searle is one of the most important and influential analytic philosophers working today. He has made significant contributions to the fields of the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. This concise and accessible book provides a critical review of Searle's philosophical themes. While Searle began his career as a philosopher of language, this book proceeds thematically, starting with a review of Searle's general ontological commitments. His conception of the mental is then located within that general framework. A theory of intentionality sets the stage for Searle's accounts of action, rationality, freedom, language, and social reality. Searle weaves together this broad array of topics by means of a set of theoretical and methodological assumptions. Part of the task of this book is to articulate some of those unifying tendencies, while locating Searle within the history of analytic philosophy. In addition to comparing Searle's views to those of his interlocutors, the book also attempts to identify changes in those views, as articulated over the course of Searle's career. "The Continuum Contemporary American Thinkers" series offers concise and accessible introductions to the most important and influential thinkers at work in philosophy today. Designed specifically to meet the needs of students and readers encountering these thinkers for the first time, these informative books provide a coherent overview and analysis of each thinker's vital contribution to the field of philosophy. The series is the ideal companion to the study of these most inspiring and challenging of thinkers.