|
|
Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy
The analysis of meat and its place in Western culture has been
central to Human-Animal Studies as a field. It is even more urgent
now as global meat and dairy production are projected to rise
dramatically by 2050. While the term 'carnism' denotes the
invisible belief system (or ideology) that naturalizes and
normalizes meat consumption, in this volume we focus on 'meat
culture', which refers to all the tangible and practical forms
through which carnist ideology is expressed and lived. Featuring
new work from leading Australasian, European and North American
scholars, Meat Culture, edited by Annie Potts, interrogates the
representations and discourses, practices and behaviours, diets and
tastes that generate shared beliefs about, perspectives on and
experiences of meat in the 21st century.
This book collects important researches on social sciences and
humanities conducted by the academics at East China Normal
University (ECNU) in recent years. The book covers topics including
emotions of homeland, special events in Chinese literary and art
history, Chinese population studies, media research, democracy at
grass-root level, elderly people situation, etc.This book is the
sixth volume of the WSPC-ECNU Series on China. This Series
showcases the significant contributions to scholarship in social
sciences and humanities studies about China. It is jointly launched
by World Scientific Publishing, the most reputable English academic
publisher in Asia, and ECNU, a top University in China with a long
history of exchanges with the international academic community.
Caspar Hare presents a novel approach to questions of what we ought
to do, and why we ought to do it. The traditional way to approach
this subject is to begin by supposing a foundational principle, and
then work out its implications. Consequentialists say that we ought
to make the world impersonally better, for instance, while Kantian
deontologists say that we ought to act on universalizable maxims.
And contractualists say that we ought to act in accordance with the
terms of certain hypothetical contracts. These principles are all
grand and controversial. The motivating idea behind The Limits of
Kindness is that we can tackle some of the most difficult problems
in normative ethics by starting with a principle that is humble and
uncontroversial. Being moral involves wanting particular other
people to be better off. From these innocuous beginnings, Hare
leads us to surprising conclusions about how we ought to resolve
conflicts of interest, whether we ought to create some people
rather than others, what we ought to want in an infinite world,
when we ought to make sacrifices for the sake of needy strangers,
and why we cannot, on pain of irrationality, attribute great
importance to the boundaries between people.
This book is also available in paperback. What is it like to
rehabilitate sun bears in the rainforests of Malaysia? Why are
sloth bears trained to dance? How is traditional Chinese medicine
implicated in the deaths of black bears in North America? Bear
Necessities answers all of these questions, and many more. Through
the voices of activists, scientists, and educators, readers walk
alongside those who pull sun bears from Vietnamese bile farms,
track Andean bears in the rugged hills of Ecuador, work to protect
Montana's grizzlies in the courtroom, and gently heal the many
wounded bears who live in sanctuaries around the world. Though
almost every bear species is endangered or severely threatened,
Bear Necessities offers hope through knowledge and understanding,
which reside at the heart of change.
Returning to the Greek understanding of art to rethink its
capacities, Creation and the Function of Art focuses on the
relationship between techne and phusis (nature). Moving away from
the theoretical Platonism which dominates contemporary
understandings of art, this book instead reinvigorates Aristotelian
causation. Beginning with the Greek topos and turning to insights
from philosophy, pure mathematics, psychoanalysis and biology,
Jason Tuckwell re-problematises techne in functional terms. This
book examines the deviations at play within logical forms, the
subject, and upon phusis to better situate the role of the function
in poiesis (art). In so doing, Tuckwell argues that art concerns a
genuinely creative labour that cannot be resolved via an
ontological or epistemological problem, but which instead
constitutes an encounter with the problematic. As such, techne is
shown to be a property of the living, of intelligence coupled to
action, that not only enacts poiesis or art, but indicates a
broader role for creative deviation in nature.
This book examines the political and economic philosophy of Chief
Jeremiah Oyeniyi Obafemi Awolowo and his concepts of democratic
socialism (Liberal Democratic Socialism). It studies how Chief
Awolowo and his political parties, first the Action Group (AG)
1951-1966 and later the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) 1978-1983,
acted in various Nigerian political settings. Chief Awolowo was a
principled man, who by a Spartan self-discipline and understanding
of himself, his accomplishments, failures and successes, was a
fearless leader. He has set an example of leadership for a new
generation of Nigerian politicians. He was not only a brilliant
politician, but a highly cerebral thinker, statesman, dedicated
manager, brilliant political economist, a Social Democrat, and a
committed federalist. From all accounts, Chief Awolowo knew the
worst and the best, laughter and sorrow, vilification and
veneration, tribulations and triumphs, poverty and prosperity,
failures and successes in life.
Locating poetry in a philosophy of the everyday, Brett Bourbon
continues a tradition of attention to logic in everyday utterances
through Wittgenstein, Austin, Quine, and Cavell, arguing that poems
are events of form, not just collections of words, which shape
everyone's lives. Poems taught in class are formalizations of the
everyday poems we live amidst, albeit unknowingly. Bourbon
resurrects these poems to construct an anthropology of form that
centers everyday poems as events or interruptions within our lives.
Expanding our understanding of what a poem is, this book argues
that poems be understood as events of form that may depend on words
but are not fundamentally constituted by them. This line of thought
delves into a poem's linguistic particularity, to ask what a poem
is and how we know. By reclaiming arenas previously ceded to
essayists and literary writers, Bourbon reveals the care and
attention necessary to uncovering the intimate relationship between
poems, life, reading and living. A philosophical meditation on the
nature of poetry, but also on the meaning of love and the claim of
words upon us, Everyday Poetics situates the importance of everyday
poems as events in our lives.
The volume The Many Faces of Beauty joins the rich debate on beauty
and aesthetic theory by presenting an ambitious, interdisciplinary
examination of various facets of beauty in nature and human
society. The contributors ask such questions as, Is there beauty in
mathematical theories? What is the function of arts in the economy
of cultures? What are the main steps in the historical evolution of
aesthetic theories from ancient civilizations to the present? What
is the function of the ugly in enhancing the expressivity of art?
and What constitutes beauty in film? The sixteen essays, by eminent
scientists, critics, scholars, and artists, are divided into five
parts. In the first, a mathematician, physicist, and two
philosophers address beauty in mathematics and nature. In the
second, an anthropologist, psychologist, historian of law, and
economist address the place of beauty in the human mind and in
society. Explicit philosophical reflections on notoriously vexing
issues, such as the historicity of aesthetics itself,
interculturality, and the place of the ugly, are themes of the
third part. In the fourth, practicing artists discuss beauty in
painting, music, poetry, and film. The final essay, by a
theologian, reflects on the relation between beauty and God.
Contributors: Vittorio Hoesle, Robert P. Langlands, Mario Livio,
Dieter Wandschneider, Christian Illies, Francesco Pellizzi, Bjarne
Sode Funch, Peter Landau, Holger Bonus, Pradeep A. Dhillon, Mark W.
Roche, Maxim Kantor, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Mary Kinzie, Dudley
Andrew, and Cyril O'Regan.
Oaths play an essential part in the political and religious history
of the West as a 'sacrament of power'. Yet despite numerous studies
by linguists, anthropologists and historians of law and of
religion, there exists no complete analysis of the oath which seeks
to explain the strategic function that this phenomenon has
performed at the intersection of law, religion and politics. The
oath seems to define man himself as a political animal, but what is
an oath and from where does it originate? Taking this question as
its point of departure, Giorgio Agamben's book develops a
pathbreaking 'archaeology' of the oath. Via a firsthand survey of
Greek and Roman sources which shed light on the nexus of the oath
with archaic legislation, acts of condemnation and the names of
gods and blasphemy, Agamben recasts the birth of the oath as a
decisive event of anthropogenesis, the process by which mankind
became humanity. If the oath has historically constituted itself as
a 'sacrament of power', it has functioned at one and the same time
as a 'sacrament of language' - a sacrament in which man,
discovering that he can speak, chooses to bind himself to his
language and to use it to put life and destiny at stake.
In a world riven with conflict, violence and war, this book
proposes a philosophical defense of pacifism. It argues that there
is a moral presumption against war and unless that presumption is
defeated, war is unjustified. Leading philosopher of nonviolence
Robert Holmes contends that neither just war theory nor the
rationales for recent wars (Vietnam, the Gulf War, the Iraq and
Afghanistan Wars) defeat that presumption, hence that war in the
modern world is morally unjustified. A detailed, comprehensive and
elegantly argued text which guides both students and scholars
through the main debates (Just War Theory and double effect to name
a few) clearly but without oversimplifying the complexities of the
issues or historical examples.
The concept of friendship is more easily valued than it is
described: this volume brings together reflections on its meaning
and practice in a variety of social and cultural settings in
history and in the present time, focusing on Asia and the Western,
Euro-American world. The extension of the group in which friendship
is recognized, and degrees of intimacy (whether or not involving an
erotic dimension) and genuine appreciation may vary widely.
Friendship may simply include kinship bonds-solidarity being one of
its more general characteristics. In various contexts of
travelling, migration, and a dearth of offspring, friendship may
take over roles of kinship, also in terms of care.
Morton Feldman: Friendship and Mourning in the New York Avant-Garde
documents the collaborations and conflicts essential to the history
of the post-war avant-garde. It offers a study of composer Morton
Feldman's associations and friendships with artists like John Cage,
Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Frank O'Hara, Charlotte Moorman,
and others. Arguing that friendship and mourning sustained the
collective aesthetics of the New York School, Dohoney has written
an emotional and intimate revision of New York modernism from the
point of view of Feldman's agonistic community.
This is the first comprehensive volume to offer a state of the art
investigation both of the nature of political ideologies and of
their main manifestations. The diversity of ideology studies is
represented by a mixture of the range of theories that illuminate
the field, combined with an appreciation of the changing complexity
of concrete ideologies and the emergence of new ones. Ideologies,
however, are always with us. The Handbook is divided into three
sections: The first reflects some of the latest thinking about the
development of ideology on an historical dimension, from the
standpoints of conceptual history, Marx studies, social science
theory and history, and leading schools of continental philosophy.
The second includes some of the most recent interpretations and
theories of ideology, all of which are sympathetic in their own
ways to its exploration and close investigation, even when
judiciously critical of its social impact. This section contains
many of the more salient contemporary accounts of ideology. The
third focuses on the leading ideological families and traditions,
as well as on some of their cultural and geographical
manifestations, incorporating both historical and contemporary
perspectives. Each chapter is written by an expert in their field,
bringing the latest approaches and understandings to their task.
The Handbook will position the study of ideologies in the
mainstream of political theory and political analysis and will
attest to its indispensability both to courses on political theory
and to scholars who wish to take their understanding of ideologies
in new directions.
"An Introduction to the History of Philosophical and Formal Logic"
introduces ideas and thinkers central to the development of
philosophical and formal logic. From its Aristotelian origins to
the present-day arguments, logic is broken down into four main time
periods: -Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Aristotle and The Stoics)
-The early modern period (Leibniz, Bolzano, Boole) -High modern
period (Frege, Peano & Russell and Hilbert)-Early 20th century:
(Godel and Tarski) Each new time frame begins with an introductory
overview highlighting themes and points of importance. Chapters
discuss the significance and reception of influential works and
look at historical arguments in the context of contemporary
debates. To support independent study, comprehensive lists of
primary and secondary reading are included at the end of chapters,
along with exercises and discussion questions.By clearly presenting
and explaining the changes to logic across the history of
philosophy, "An Introduction to the History of Philosophical and
Formal Logic" constructs an easy-to-follow narrative. This is an
ideal starting point for students looking to understand the
historical development of logic.
How to Make Our Signs Clear is the result of an international
cooperation between European and Brazilian Peircean scholars (I. A.
Ibri, E. Visnovsky, C. Paolucci and others) and strives to dispel
simplifications of Peirces semiotic as well as to collect various
insights into it and into its consequences for philosophy,
especially philosophy of language, pragmatism and epistemology. The
central theme of this book is the notion of the sign as a specific
triadic relational unit, treated from various perspectives and
applied to various fields of philosophy: semeiotic knowledge grows
up from the discussions, common interests and possible conflicts
between the readers of Peirces works. This book does not offer a
general overview of Peirces theory of signs, but rather various
analyses of consequences of some capacities of his semiotic.
|
|