Originally published in 1985. This book is about a single famous line of argument, pioneered by Descartes and deployed to full effect by Kant. That argument was meant to refute scepticism once and for all, and make the world safe for science. 'I think, so I exist' is valid reasoning, but circular as proof. In similar vein, Kant argues from our having a science of geometry to Space being our contribution to experience: a different conclusion, arrived at by a similar fallacy. Yet these arguments do show something: that certain sets of opinions, if professed, show an inbuilt inconsistency. It is this second-strike capacity that has kept transcendental arguments going for so long. Attempts to re-build metaphysics by means of such transcendental reasoning have been debated. This book offers an introduction to the field, and ventures its own assessment, in non-technical language, without assuming previous training in logic or philosophy.

This book describes how, in the era of megamedia culture, aggression in communication constitutes a threat to the communication community. Based on the theoretical incorporation of transcendental pragmatics, the book explores how conceptualizing the phenomena of megamedia aggression from this perspective and diagnosing their destructive force are essential for: postulating the need for constructing a theory of media communication closely related to the model of discursive rationality, giving this theory a critical and normative character, and embedding it in the perspective of the project of social co-responsibility and in the plan for an ethics of co-responsibility. Combining key elements of media theory, the philosophy of communication, the concept of normative ethics and the fields of social psychology and social anthropology, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students in the areas of communication studies, philosophy, anthropology, psychology and psychoanalysis.

First published in 2000, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychopathy was highly topical in tackling the interface of applied philosophy and psychiatry at a time when government and clinicians were giving careful consideration to new forms of treatment for people with psychopathic disorder. The book brings together contributions from lawyers, philosophers, psychiatrists and clinical managers to explore the inter-related conceptual and political implications of Psychopathy. Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychopathy will appeal to those with an interest in the history and development of theories and research relating to philosophy and psychiatry.

This collection examines the instrumental role of intersubjectivity in Husserl's philosophy and explores the potential for developing novel ways of addressing and resolving contemporary philosophical issues on that basis. This is the first time Iso Kern offers an extensive overview of this rich field of inquiry for an English-speaking audience. Guided by his overview, the remaining articles present new approaches to a range of topics and problems that go to the heart of its core theme of intersubjectivity and methodology. Specific topics covered include intersubjectivity and empathy, intersubjectivity in meaning and communication, intersubjectivity pertaining to collective forms of intentionality and extended forms of embodiment, intersubjectivity as constitutive of normality, and, finally, the central role of intersubjectivity in the sciences. The authors' perspectives are strongly influenced by Husserl's own methodological concerns and problem awareness and are formed with a view to applicability in current debates - be it within general epistemology, analytic philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, meta-ethics or philosophy of science. With contributions written by leading Husserl scholars from across the Analytic and Continental traditions, Husserl's Phenomenology of Intersubjectivity is a clear and accessible resource for scholars and advanced students interested in Husserl's phenomenology and the relevance of intersubjectivity to philosophy, sociology, and psychology.

The general aim of this volume is to investigate the nature of the relation between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation. In particular, it is concerned with the character and intimacy of this relationship: is there a mere causal connection between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation, or are the two relata constitutively associated with one another? The essays in the book's first section investigate important conceptual issues related to the pictorial experience of paintings. In Section II, the essays discuss the notion of styles, techniques, agency, and facture, and also take into account the experience of photographic and cinematic pictures. The Pleasure of Pictures goes substantially beyond current debates in the philosophy of depiction to launch a new area of reflection in philosophical aesthetics.

This book explores two disparate sets of debates in the history and philosophy of the life sciences: the history of subjectivity in shaping objective science and the history of dominance of reductionism in molecular biology. It questions the dominant conception of the scientist-subject as a neo-Kantian ideal self - that is, the scientist as a unified and wilful, self-determined, self-regulated, active and autonomous, rational subject wilfully driven by social and scientific ethos - in favour of a narrative that shows how the microcosm of reductionism is sustained, adopted, questioned, or challenged in the creative struggles of the scientist-subject. The author covers a century-long history of the concept of the gene as a series of "pioneering moments" through an engagement with life-writings of eminent scientists to show how their ways of being and belonging relate with the making of the science. The scientist-self is theorized as fundamentally a feeling, experiencing, and suffering subject split between the conscious and unconscious and constitutive of personality aspects that are emotional/psychological, "situated" (cultural and ideological), metaphysical, intersubjective, and existential at the same time. An engaging interdisciplinary interpretation of the dominance of reductionism in genetic science, this book will be of major interest to scholars and researchers of science, history, and philosophy alike.

Originally published in 1978. These essays are written by distinguished philosophers from many countries and were published as a homage to Spinoza in the year which marked the three-hundredth anniversary of his death. A special feature of the book is that it includes a recently discovered letter by Spinoza, reproduced for the first time in English and in facsimile, with a commentary. The controversial influence of Spinoza on Freud is discussed, and illustrated by facsimile reproductions of original letters, hitherto unknown to Freudians and Spinozists alike. These letters direct revealing light on some of Freud's attitudes. Important parallels between East and West will also attract the student of Spinoza.

In 1500, speculative philosophy lay at the heart of European intellectual life; by 1700, its role was drastically diminished. The Kingdom of Darkness tells the story of this momentous transformation. Dmitri Levitin explores the structural factors behind this change: the emancipation of natural philosophy from metaphysics; theologians' growing preference for philology over philosophy; and a new conception of the limits of the human mind derived from historical and oriental scholarship, not least concerning China and Japan. In turn, he shows that the ideas of two of Europe's most famous thinkers, Pierre Bayle and Isaac Newton, were both the products of this transformation and catalysts for its success. Drawing on hundreds of sources in many languages, Levitin traces in unprecedented detail Bayle and Newton's conceptions of what Thomas Hobbes called The Kingdom of Darkness: a genealogical vision of how philosophy had corrupted the human mind. Both men sought to remedy this corruption, and their ideas helped lay the foundation for the system of knowledge that emerged in the eighteenth century.

This book explores the responsibility of psychological and neuropsychological perspectives in relation to the digitalisation of inter-subjectivity. It examines how integral their theories and models have been to the development of digital technologies, and by combining theoretical and critical work of leading thinkers, it is a new and highly original perspective on (inter)subjectivity in the digital era. The book engages with artificial intelligence and cybernetics and the work of Alan Turing, Norbert Wiener, Marvin Minsky, Gregory Bateson, and Warren McCulloch to demonstrate how their use of neuropsy-theories persists in contemporary digital culture. The author aims to trace a trajectory from psychologisation to neurologisation, and finally, to digitalisation, to make us question the digital future of humankind in relation to the idea of subjectivity, and the threat of the 'death-drive' inherent to digitality itself. This volume is fascinating reading for students and researchers in the fields of critical psychology, neuroscience, education studies, philosophy, media studies, and other related areas.

This book combines insights from the humanities and modern neuroscience to explore the contribution of affect and embodiment on meaning-making in case studies from animation, video games, and virtual worlds. As we interact more and more with animated characters and avatars in everyday media consumption, it has become vital to investigate the ways that animated environments influence our perception of the liberal humanist subject. This book is the first to apply recent research on the application of the embodied mind thesis to our understanding of embodied engagement with nonhumans and cyborgs in animated media, analyzing works by Emile Cohl, Hayao Miyazaki, Tim Burton, Norman McLaren, the Quay Brothers, Pixar, and many others. Drawing on the breakthroughs of modern brain science to argue that animated media broadens the viewer's perceptual reach, this title offers a welcome contribution to the growing literature at the intersection of cognitive studies and film studies, with a perspective on animation that is new and original. 'Affect and Embodied Meaning in Animation' will be essential reading for researchers of Animation Studies, Film and Media Theory, Posthumanism, Video Games, and Digital Culture, and will provide a key insight into animation for both undergraduate and graduate students. Because of the increasing importance of visual effect cinema and video games, the book will also be of keen interest within Film Studies and Media Studies, as well as to general readers interested in scholarship in animated media.

Group polarization-the tendency of groups to incline toward more extreme positions than initially held by their individual members-has been rigorously studied by social psychologists, though in a way that has overlooked important philosophical questions. This is the first book-length treatment of group polarization from a philosophical perspective. The phenomenon of group polarization raises several important metaphysical and epistemological questions. From a metaphysical point of view, can group polarization, understood as an epistemic feature of a group, be reduced to epistemic features of its individual members? Relatedly, from an epistemological point of view, is group polarization best understood as a kind of cognitive bias or rather in terms of intellectual vice? This book compares four models that combine potential answers to the metaphysical and epistemological questions. The models considered are: group polarization as (i) a collective bias; (ii) a summation of individual epistemic vices; (iii) a summation of individual biases; and (iv) a collective epistemic vice. Ultimately, the authors defend a collective vice model of group polarization over the competing alternatives. The Philosophy of Group Polarization will be of interest to students and researchers working in epistemology, particularly those working on social epistemology, collective epistemology, social ontology, virtue epistemology, and distributed cognition. It will also be of interest to those working on issues in political epistemology, applied epistemology, and on topics at the intersection of epistemology and ethics.

This book offers readers a collection of 50 short chapter entries on topics in the philosophy of language. Each entry addresses a paradox, a longstanding puzzle, or a major theme that has emerged in the field from the last 150 years, tracing overlap with issues in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, ethics, political philosophy, and literature. Each of the 50 entries is written as a piece that can stand on its own, though useful connections to other entries are mentioned throughout the text. Readers can open the book and start with almost any of the entries, following themes of greatest interest to them. Each entry includes recommendations for further reading on the topic. Philosophy of Language: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is useful as a standalone textbook, or can be supplemented by additional readings that instructors choose. The accessible style makes it suitable for introductory level through intermediate undergraduate courses, as well as for independent learners, or even as a reference for more advanced students and researchers. Key Features: Uses a problem-centered approach to philosophy of language (rather than author- or theory-centered) making the text more inviting to first-time students of the subject. Offers stand-alone chapters, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course. Provides up-to-date recommended readings at the end of each chapter, or about 500 sources in total, amounting to an extensive review of the literature on each topic.

This book investigates how we should form ourselves in a world saturated with technologies that are profoundly intruding in the very fabric of our selfhood. New and emerging technologies, such as smart technological environments, imaging technologies and smart drugs, are increasingly shaping who and what we are and influencing who we ought to be. How should we adequately understand, evaluate and appreciate this development? Tackling this question requires going beyond the persistent and stubborn inside-outside dualism and recognizing that what we consider our "inside" self is to a great extent shaped by our "outside" world. Inspired by various philosophers - especially Nietzsche, Peirce and Lacan -this book shows how the values, goals and ideals that humans encounter in their environments not only shape their identities but also enable them to critically relate to their present state. The author argues against understanding technological self-formation in terms of making ourselves better, stronger and smarter. Rather, we should conceive it in terms of technological sublimation, which redefines the very notion of human enhancement. In this respect the author introduces an alternative, more suitable theory, namely Technological Sublimation Theory (TST). Extimate Technology will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of technology, philosophy of the self, phenomenology, pragmatism, and history of philosophy. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781003139409, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book offers an accessible and inclusive overview of the major debates in the philosophy of action. It covers the distinct approaches taken by Donald Davidson, G.E.M. Anscombe, and numerous others to answering questions like "what are intentional actions?" and "how do reasons explain actions?" Further topics include intention, practical knowledge, weakness and strength of will, self-governance, and collective agency. With introductions, conclusions, and annotated suggested reading lists for each of the ten chapters, it is an ideal introduction for advanced undergraduates as well as any philosopher seeking a primer on these issues.

Originally published in 1988. This text gives a lucid account of the most distinctive and influential responses by twentieth century philosophers to the problem of the unity of the proposition. The problem first became central to twentieth-century philosophy as a result of the depsychoiogising of logic brought about by Bradley and Frege who, responding to the 'Psychologism' of Mill and Hume, drew a sharp distinction between the province of psychology and the province of logic. This author argues that while Russell, Ryle and Davidson, each in different ways, attempted a theoretical solution, Frege and Wittgenstein (both in the Tractatus and the Investigations) rightly maintained that no theoretical solution is possible. It is this which explains the importance Wittgenstein attached in his later work to the idea of agreement in judgments. The two final chapters illustrate the way in which a response to the problem affects the way in which we think about the nature of the mind. They contain a discussion of Strawson's concept of a person and provide a striking critique of the philosophical claims made by devotees of artificial intelligence, in particular those made by Daniel Dennett.

Originally published in 1967. Locke's views in the field of education had great influence in the UK and abroad; and the aim of this book is to present them in the context of his general philosophical thinking, since it was mainly as a philosopher that Locke won his place in history. Because Locke was at the same time very much a man of affairs, and an interesting character on his own merits, the book gives a fairly full account of his life and times. Some attention is paid to his relations with the brilliant political adventurer, Lord Shaftesbury, without whom Locke's own career would have been very different, and might not have offered the opportunities which led to his writings on education. The book seeks to emphasize the importance of Locke's empirical approach to truth - the method of modern science, without which the modern study of education, and the science of psychology in particular, would never have developed.

Virtue, Narrative, and Self connects two philosophical areas of study that have long been treated as distinct: virtue theory and narrative accounts of personal identity. Chapters address several important issues and neglected themes at the intersection of these research areas. Specific examples include the role of narrative in the identification, differentiation, and cultivation of virtue, the nature of practical reasoning and moral competence, and the influence of life's narrative structure on our conceptions of what it means to live and act well. This volume demonstrates how recent work from the philosophy of mind and action concerning narrativity and our understanding of the self can shed new light on questions about the nature of virtue, practical wisdom, and human flourishing. This book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in virtue theory, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind and action, and moral education.

In recent years, the idea of a concept has become increasingly central to different areas of philosophy. This collection of original essays presents philosophical perspectives on the link between concepts and language, concepts and experience, concepts and know-how, and concepts and emotion. The essays span a variety of interrelated philosophical domains ranging from epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, and the philosophy of emotions. Among the central questions addressed by the contributors are: What are concepts? What is nonconceptual content? Does perceptual experience have conceptual content? Is conceptual thought language dependent? How do we form new concepts? Does practical knowledge have propositional content? Is practical understanding conceptual (without being propositional)? Do emotions have a representational content and if so, is the representational content conceptual? Concepts in Thought, Action, and Emotion advances current debates about concepts and will interest scholars across a broad range of philosophical disciplines.

This book celebrates the research career of Lynne Rudder Baker by presenting sixteen new and critical essays from admiring students, colleagues, interlocutors, and friends. Baker was a trenchant critic of physicalist conceptions of the universe. She was a staunch defender of a kind of practical realism, what she sometimes called a metaphysics of everyday life. It was this general "common sense" philosophical outlook that underwrote her famous constitution view of reality. Whereas most of her contemporaries were in general given to metaphysical reductionism and eliminativism, Baker was unapologetic and philosophically deft in her defense of ontological pluralism. The essays in this book engage with all aspects of her unique and influential work: practical realism about the mind; the constitution view of human persons; the first-person perspective; and God, Christianity, and naturalism. Common Sense Metaphysics will be of interest to scholars of Baker's work, as well as scholars and advanced students engaged in research on various topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion.

This Handbook offers students and more advanced readers a valuable resource for understanding linguistic reference; the relation between an expression (word, phrase, sentence) and what that expression is about. The volume's forty-one original chapters, written by many of today's leading philosophers of language, are organized into ten parts: I Early Descriptive Theories II Causal Theories of Reference III Causal Theories and Cognitive Significance IV Alternate Theories V Two-Dimensional Semantics VI Natural Kind Terms and Rigidity VII The Empty Case VIII Singular (De Re) Thoughts IX Indexicals X Epistemology of Reference Contributions consider what kinds of expressions actually refer (names, general terms, indexicals, empty terms, sentences), what referring expressions refer to, what makes an expression refer to whatever it does, connections between meaning and reference, and how we know facts about reference. Many contributions also develop connections between linguistic reference and issues in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.

This book collects original essays by top scholars that address questions about the nature, origins, and effects of ambivalence. While the nature of agency has received an enormous amount of attention, relatively little has been written about ambivalence or how it relates to topics such as agency, rationality, justification, knowledge, autonomy, self-governance, well-being, social cognition, and various other topics. Ambivalence presents unique questions related to many major philosophical debates. For example, it relates to debates about virtues, rationality, and decision-making, agency or authenticity, emotions, and social or political metacognition. It is also relevant to a variety of larger debates in philosophy and psychology, including nature vs. nature, objectivity vs. subjectivity, or nomothetic vs. idiographic. The essays in this book offer novel and wide-ranging perspectives on this emerging philosophical topic. They will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and social cognition.

1. The use of memoir as a structure for disciplinary criticism is innovative and creative. 2. The field of humanistic psychology is growing, and this book will be an important contribution by one of the field's respected scholars. 3. Provides examples and illustrations of the ways in which professional associations, academic publishers, university administrators, and granting agencies fit into and help constitute the lives and development of academic psychologists

The Cartesian Split examines the phenomenon of Cartesian influence as a psychological complex in the Jungian tradition. It explores the full legacy of Cartesian rationality in its emphasis on abstract thinking and masculinisation of thought, often perceived in a negative light, despite the developments of modernity. The book argues that the Cartesian creation of the Modern Age, as accompanied by a radical dualism, is better understood as a myth while acknowledging the psychological reality of the myth. The Cartesian myth is a collective dream, and the urgency of its rhetoric suggests that an important message is being left unheeded. This message may lead us to answers in the most unexpected place of all. The book brings forth the Cartesian myth in a new context and shows it to have potential meaning for us today. The book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of analytical psychology, mental health, comparative mythology, and Jungian studies.

Healing the Reason-Emotion Split draws on research from experimental psychology and neuroscience to dispel the myth that reason should be heralded above emotion. Arguing that reason and emotion mutually benefit our decision-making abilities, the book explores the idea that understanding this relationship could have long-term advantages for our management of society's biggest problems. Levine reviews how reason and emotion operated in historical movements such as the Enlightenment, Romanticism and 1960s' counterculture, to conclude that a successful society would restore human connection and foster compassion in economics and politics by equally utilizing reason and emotion. Integrating discussion on classic and contemporary neurological studies and using allegory, the book lays out the potential for societal change through compassion, and would be of interest to psychologists concerned with social implications of their fields, philosophy students, social activists, and religious leaders.

Luck permeates our lives, and this raises a number of pressing questions: What is luck? When we attribute luck to people, circumstances, or events, what are we attributing? Do we have any obligations to mitigate the harms done to people who are less fortunate? And to what extent is deserving praise or blame affected by good or bad luck? Although acquiring a true belief by an uneducated guess involves a kind of luck that precludes knowledge, does all luck undermine knowledge? The academic literature has seen growing, interdisciplinary interest in luck, and this volume brings together and explains the most important areas of this research. It consists of 39 newly commissioned chapters, written by an internationally acclaimed team of philosophers and psychologists, for a readership of students and researchers. Its coverage is divided into six sections: I: The History of Luck II: The Nature of Luck III: Moral Luck IV: Epistemic Luck V: The Psychology of Luck VI: Future Research. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from the problem of moral luck, to anti-luck epistemology, to the relationship between luck attributions and cognitive biases, to meta-questions regarding the nature of luck itself, to a range of other theoretical and empirical questions. By bringing this research together, the Handbook serves as both a touchstone for understanding the relevant issues and a first port of call for future research on luck.