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

Reissuing works originally published between 1949 and '79, this set presents a rich selection of renowned scholarship across the subject, touching also on ethics, religion, and psychology and other behavioural science. Classic previously out-of-print works are brought back into print here in this set of important discourse and theory.

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

Before "New Age" there was "New Thought," a philosophy that sought God through metaphysics and was wildly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As perhaps the movement's most vocal proponent, William Walker Atkinson-here writing as Theron Q. Dumont-believed above all in the power of the mind, especially as it affected the body's ability to heal. Elaborating on the idea that the corporeal mind, made up of a body's cells and organs, is subject to mental suggestion, Dumont provides detailed lessons on how to use thought to promote the body's natural healing abilities. Unlike many occult- or religion-based approaches, the author gives equal attention to the biological processes and functions of the body, something he believed to be crucial to proper visualization. More than just an entertaining time capsule, Mental Therapeutics is a set of principles and healing techniques that can easily coexist alongside today's medical advances. THERON Q. DUMONT is an alias and pen name of American writer WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON (1862-1932), editor of the popular magazine New Thought from 1901 to 1905, and editor of the journal Advanced Thought from 1916 to 1919. He authored dozens of New Thought books under numerous pseudonyms, including "Yogi," some of which are likely still unknown today.

What do philosophy and computer science have in common? It turns out, quite a lot! In providing an introduction to computer science (using Python), Daniel Lim presents in this book key philosophical issues, ranging from external world skepticism to the existence of God to the problem of induction. These issues, and others, are introduced through the use of critical computational concepts, ranging from image manipulation to recursive programming to elementary machine learning techniques. In illuminating some of the overlapping conceptual spaces of computer science and philosophy, Lim teaches the reader fundamental programming skills and also allows her to develop the critical thinking skills essential for examining some of the enduring questions of philosophy. Key Features Teaches readers actual computer programming, not merely ideas about computers Includes fun programming projects (like digital image manipulation and Game of Life simulation), allowing the reader to develop the ability to write larger computer programs that require decomposition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking Uses computational concepts to introduce, clarify, and develop a variety of philosophical issues Covers various aspects of machine learning and relates them to philosophical issues involving science and induction as well as to ethical issues Provides a framework to critically analyze arguments in classic and contemporary philosophical debates

The Measure of Mind provides a sustained critique of a widely held representationalist view of propositional attitudes and their role in the production of thought and behavior. On this view, having a propositional attitude is a matter of having an explicit representation that plays a particular causal/computational role in the production of thought and behavior. Robert J. Matthews argues that this view does not enjoy the theoretical or the empirical support that proponents claim for it; moreover, the view misconstrues the role of propositional attitude attributions in cognitive scientific theorizing.
The Measure of Mind goes on to develop an alternative measurement-theoretic account of propositional attitudes and the sentences by which we attribute them. On this account, the sentences by which we attribute propositional attitudes function semantically like the sentences by which we attribute a quantity of some physical magnitude (e.g., having a mass of 80 kilos). That is, in much the same way that we specify a quantity of some physical magnitude by means of its numerical representative on a measurement scale, we specify propositional attitude of a given type by means of its representative in a linguistically-defined measurement space. Propositional attitudes turn out to be causally efficacious aptitudes for thought and behavior, not semantically evaluable mental particulars of some sort. Matthews' measurement-theoretic account provides a more plausible view of the explanatorily relevant properties of propositional attitudes, the semantics of propositional attitude attributions, and the role of such attributions in computational cognitive scientific theorizing.

Examining the Psychological Foundations of Science and Morality is a progressive text that explores the relationship between psychology, science and morality, to address fundamental questions about the foundations of psychological research and its relevance for the development of these disciplines. Supported by original empirical evidence, the book analyses the relationship of folk psychology to rational knowledge, outlining an original theory that connects psychology and natural sciences through the mind which creates a psychological foundation for scientific knowledge and morality. It argues that science and religion have a common psychological core of subjective experience, which diversifies into knowledge, beliefs and morality. The book considers how subjective space and time are converted into physical space and time, and how subjective 'sense of causation' is shaped into physical causality and human communication. Further, it explores the mind as a complex system of contrasting realities, with the main function being existence attribution (EXON). The chapters delve into a range of topics including theoretical analysis of consciousness, the internal self, unexplainable phenomena, analysis of empirical research into causality, morality and the mind. The book will be of great interest to postgraduate and upper-level undergraduate students studying foundations of psychology, consciousness, philosophy of science, morality, as well as professionals who deal with influence on mass consciousness or are interested in the link between human psychology, scientific knowledge and morality.

* Provides a new integrated theory of the study of philosophy that highlights the importance of understanding biological, psychological and neuroscientific principles * Highlights interdisciplinary research and theory in evolution, consciousness and DNA research and neurolinguistics * Written by an expert in neuroscience and neurolinguistics

Pierre Janet (1859 - 1947) is considered to be one of the founders of psychology, and pioneered research in the disciplines of psychology, philosophy and psychotherapy. Janet's most crucial research, particularly in the subjects of 'dissociation' and 'subconscious' - terms coined by him - is explored in this book, first published in 1952. As Janet did not publish much in English, these notes provide guidance on such areas of study as hysteria and hypnosis, obsessive thinking and the psychology of adaption. Elton Mayo's comprehensive collection is an important guide for any student with an interest in the history of psychology, psychopathology and social study, and Janet's revolutionary work in the field.

Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was an eminent theorist across the fields of philosophy, physical chemistry and economics. Elected to the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, his contributions to research in the social sciences, and his theories on positivism and knowledge, are of critical academic importance. The three lectures included in this comprehensive volume, first published in 1959, argue for Polanyi's principle of 'tacit knowing' as a fundamental component of knowledge. They were intended to accompany Polanyi's earlier work, Personal Knowledge, and as a tribute to the philosophical and educational work of Lord A. D. Lindsay.

In recent years there has been much psychological and neurological work purporting to show that consciousness and self-awareness play no role in causing actions, and indeed to demonstrate that free will is an illusion. The essays in this volume subject the assumptions that motivate such claims to sustained interdisciplinary scrutiny. The book will be compulsory reading for psychologists and philosophers working on action explanation, and for anyone interested in the relation between the brain sciences and consciousness.

In this highly original and thought-provoking work the late Miller Mair puts forward his ideas for a new psychology. First published in 1989, he deals with issues of fundamental importance to the future of a psychology guided by genuine enquiry and concern rather than mere professional self-interest. Crossing and re-crossing boundaries between psychology, psychotherapy and philosophy, and between 'science' and 'art', he demonstrates the linkages between the personal and the impersonal, subject and object, inside and outside, with a daring not previously risked by anyone working in the area. Dr Mair stresses the importance of a poetic approach in psychology and psychotherapy, and the need to explore and understand the nature of psychology through an imaginative freedom of language. He emphasizes that a poetic awareness and attentiveness is fundamental to any pursuit of understanding of ourselves or others. This is a very personal book, concerned with personal knowledge, but it is meant for anyone who seeks to understand themselves and others, and what is involved in coming to such understanding. Focusing on ordinary human experience, and moving towards literary and artistic modes of expression, the author invites you to enter in, follow what you think and feel, as he proposes a radical revision of much that is accepted in psychology and in psychotherapy.

Since the 1970s Gary Watson has published a series of brilliant and highly influential essays on human action, examining such questions as: in what ways are we free and not free, rational and irrational, responsible or not for what we do? Moral philosophers and philosophers of action will welcome this collection, representing one of the most important bodies of work in the field.

What is reduction? Must all discussions of the mind, value, color, biological organisms, and persons aim to reduce these to objects and properties that can be studied by more basic, physical science? Conversely, does failure to achieve a reduction undermine the legitimacy of higher levels of description or explanation? Though reduction has long been a favorite method of analysis in all areas of philosophy, in recent years philosophers have attempted to avoid these traditional alternatives by developing an account of higher-level phenomena which shows them to be grounded in, but not reducible to, basic physical objects and properties. The contributors to this volume examine the motivations for such anti-reductionist views, and assess their coherence and success, in a number of different fields, including moral and mental philosophy, psychology, organic biology, and the social sciences.

Millions of us suffer from addiction, including psychiatrist and recovering alcoholic Carl Erik Fisher. But where does this centuries-old behaviour come from and how should we treat it? As a young doctor, Carl Erik Fisher came face to face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Now, in The Urge, he investigates the history of this condition; how we have struggled to define, treat, and control it; and how broader understanding and compassion could change people's lives. The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician's urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced view of one of society's most intractable challenges.

This volume presents fourteen original essays which explore the philosophy of Simon Blackburn, one of the UK's most influential contemporary philosophers. Blackburn is best known to the general public for his attempts to make philosophy accessible to those with little or no formal training, but in professional circles his reputation is based on a lifetime pursuit of his distinctive version of a projectivist and anti-realist research program. As he sees things, we must always try first to understand and explain what we are doing when we think and talk as we do. This research program reaches into nearly all of the main areas of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and moral psychology. The books and articles he has written provide us with perhaps the most comprehensive statement and defense of projectivism and anti-realism since Hume. The essays collected here document the range and influence of Blackburn's work. They reveal, among other things, the resourcefulness of his distinctive brand of philosophical pragmatism.

Thought, to be thought at all, must be about a world independent of us. But thinking takes capacities for thought, which inevitably shape thought's objects. What would count as something being green is, somehow, fixed by what we, who have being green in mind, are prepared to recognize. So it can seem that what is true, and what is not, is not independent of us. So our thought cannot really be about an independent world. We are confronted with an apparent paradox. Much philosophy, from Locke to Kant to Frege to Wittgenstein, to Hilary Putnam and John McDowell today, is a reaction to this paradox. Charles Travis presents a set of eleven essays, each working in its own way towards dissolving this air of paradox. The key to his account of thought and world is the idea of the parochial: features of our thought which need not belong to all thought.

What is awareness? How is dreaming different from ordinary awareness? What does mathematics have to do with awareness? Are different kinds of awareness related? "Awareness" is commonly spoken of as "mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, the unconscious, psyche, imagination, self, and other." The Phenomena of Awareness is a study of awareness as it is directly experienced. From the start, Cecile T. Tougas engages the reader in reflective notice of awareness as it appears from moment to moment in a variety of ways. The book draws us in and asks us to focus on the flow of phenomena in living experience, not as a theoretical construct, nor an image, nor a biochemical product, but instead as phases, moments, or parts that cannot exist without one another. Tougas shows how these parts exist in mutual dependence as a continuum of awareness, as the flow of lived time, and how noticing time deepens psychological self-understanding and understanding of another. The Phenomena of Awareness is divided into four parts: * Seeking and Noticing Awareness * Observing and Understanding the Flow of Phenomena * Distinguishing Intentional Acts * Work in Progress Drawing on the work of E. Husserl, G. Cantor and C.G. Jung, this book is an original synthesis of phenomenology, mathematics and psychology that explores awareness and the concept of 'transfinite number'. This book will be of interest to analytical psychologists, philosophers, mathematicians, feminist scholars, humanities teachers and students. Cecile T. Tougas teaches Latin at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham. She taught philosophy at the University of Southern Maine and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

No matter how long I may look at an image, I shall never find anything in it but what I put there. It is in this fact that we find the distinction between an image and a perception.' - Jean-Paul Sartre"

L Imagination" was published in 1936 when Jean-Paul Sartre was thirty years old. Long out of print, this is the first English translation in many years. "The Imagination" is Sartre s first full philosophical work, presenting some of the basic arguments concerning phenomenology, consciousness and intentionality that were to later appear in his master works and be so influential in the course of twentieth-century philosophy.

Sartre begins by criticising philosophical theories of the imagination, particularly those of Descartes, Leibniz and Hume, before establishing his central thesis. Imagination does not involve the perception of mental images in any literal sense, Sartre argues, yet reveals some of the fundamental capacities of consciousness. He then reviews psychological theories of the imagination, including a fascinating discussion of the work of Henri Bergson. Sartre argues that the classical conception is fundamentally flawed because it begins by conceiving of the imagination as being like perception and then seeks, in vain, to re-establish the difference between the two. Sartre concludes with an important chapter on Husserl s theory of the imagination which, despite sharing the flaws of earlier approaches, signals a new phenomenological way forward in understanding the imagination.

"The Imagination" is essential reading for anyone interested in the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre, phenomenology, and the history of twentieth-century philosophy.

This new translation includes a helpful historical and philosophical introduction by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf. Also included is Maurice Merleau-Ponty s important review of "L Imagination "upon its publication in French in 1936.

Translated by Kenneth Williford and David Rudrauf.

In recent research, dual-process theories of cognition have been the primary model for explaining moral judgment and reasoning. These theories understand moral thinking in terms of two separate domains: one deliberate and analytic, the other quick and instinctive. This book presents a new theory of the philosophy and cognitive science of moral judgment. Hanno Sauer develops and defends an account of "triple-process" moral psychology, arguing that moral thinking and reasoning are only insufficiently understood when described in terms of a quick but intuitive and a slow but rational type of cognition. This approach severely underestimates the importance and impact of dispositions to initiate and engage in critical thinking - the cognitive resource in charge of counteracting my-side bias, closed-mindedness, dogmatism, and breakdowns of self-control. Moral cognition is based, not on emotion and reason, but on an integrated network of intuitive, algorithmic and reflective thinking. Moral Thinking, Fast and Slow will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science.

The first comprehensive philosophical introduction and assessment to the problem of self-control, an increasingly popular topic in philosophy Self-control is one of the most fascinating problems in philosophy, studied in core subjects such as free will and ethics, yet there is no book available explaining in clear language what it is Plenty of examples from psychology and philosophy including self-deception in mental disorder, addiction and everyday examples such as loss of willpower and even mind-wandering Includes helpful additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and glossary Very strong author team led by Neil Levy, well-known for his work on addiction, consciousness and free will.

The Phenomenological Mind, Third Edition introduces fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology. One of the outstanding books in the field, now translated into eight languages, this highly regarded exploration of phenomenology from a topic-driven standpoint examines the following key questions and issues: what is phenomenology? phenomenology and the cognitive sciences consciousness and self-consciousness time and consciousness intentionality and perception the embodied mind action knowledge of other minds situated and extended minds phenomenology and personal identity. This third edition has been revised and updated throughout. The chapter on phenomenological methodologies has been significantly expanded to cover qualitative research, and there are new sections discussing important, recent research on topics such as critical phenomenology, imagination, social cognition, race and gender, collective intentionality, and selfhood. Also included are helpful features, such as chapter summaries, guides to further reading, and boxed explanations of specialized topics, making The Phenomenological Mind, Third Edition an ideal introduction to key concepts in phenomenology, cognitive science, and philosophy of mind.