With the equality and liberty of the Declaration of Independence as his fighting words, Thomas Jefferson created American democracy. For the two hundred years since then, he has been studied and debated worldwide, but never more intensely than in recent years. His extensive and influential understanding of democracy's foundation in reason and nature continue to make him one of the most examined American founders. Thomas Jefferson and the Politics of Nature is a collection of the very best current scholarship devoted to Thomas Jefferson as politician, writer, philosopher, Christian, and economist. Lead essayist Michael Zuckert presents his comprehensive interpretation of Jefferson's political thought, which Zuckert considers the best theoretical approach to democracy. While Zuckert moderates Jefferson's natural rights philosophy with a Kantian perspective, Jean Yarbrough responds with the argument that Jefferson incorporates the authors of the Scottish Enlightenment and principles from the Republican tradition to achieve the same moderating effect. Garrett Ward Sheldon looks at the broader cultural influences shaping Jefferson's thought and traces his republicanism to his support of Christian ethics and Aristotle. R. Booth Fowler examines why Jefferson, the leading liberal theorist of the nineteenth century, became the hero of the very different liberalism of the twentieth. Robert Dawidoff considers Jefferson as writer and literary figure instead of political thinker and actor, while Joyce Appleby renews an appreciation of Jefferson's statecraft by a famous reexamination of his commercial agrarian policy. Finally, James Ceaser traces Jefferson's belief in racial inferiority to a speculative new natural science prominent among contemporary European thinkers and argues that Jefferson committed a significant error in reducing politics to such conjectural "facts." This compact text is ideal for professors wishing to offer a one-volume collection of current Jeffersonian scholarship to undergraduate students. Professors and students alike will find that the essays contain prompt, focused, substantive discussions on the key issues facing Jeffersonian scholars. This handy collection will be an invaluable classroom tool for those studying not only Jefferson but also history, political philosophy, and science, as well as the history of ideas.

Best known for his groundbreaking and influential work in Buddhist philosophy, Mark Siderits is the pioneer of "fusion" or "confluence philosophy", a boldly systematic approach to doing philosophy premised on the idea that rational reconstruction of positions in one tradition in light of another can sometimes help address perennial problems and often lead to new and valuable insights. Exemplifying the many virtues of the confluence approach, this collection of essays covers all core areas of Buddhist philosophy, as well as topics and disputes in contemporary Western philosophy relevant to its study. They consider in particular the ways in which questions concerning personal identity figure in debates about agency, cognition, causality, ontological foundations, foundational truths, and moral cultivation. Most of these essays engage Siderits' work directly, building on his pathbreaking ideas and interpretations. Many deal with issues that have become a common staple in philosophical engagements with traditions outside the West. Their variety and breadth bear testimony to the legacy of Siderits' impact in shaping the contemporary conversation in Buddhist philosophy and its reverberations in mainstream philosophy, giving readers a clear sense of the remarkable scope of his work.

As the foundation of our rationality, logic has traditionally been considered fixed, stable and constant. This conception of the discipline has been challenged recently by the plurality of logics and in this book, Pavel Arazim extends the debate to offer a new view of logic as dynamic and without a definite, specific shape. The Problem of Plurality of Logics examines the origins of our standard view of logic alongside Kant's theories, the holistic view, the issue of logic's pragmatic significance and Robert Brandom's logical expressivism. Arazim then draws on proof-theoretical approaches to present a convincing argument for a dynamic version of logical inferentialism, which opens space for a new freedom to modify our own logic. He explores the scope, possibilities and limits of this freedom in order to highlight the future paths logic could take, as a motivation for further research. Marking a departure from logical monism and also from the recent doctrine of logical pluralism in its various forms, this book addresses current debates concerning the expressive role of logic and contributes to a lively area of discussion in analytic philosophy.

Gustav Landauer was an unconventional anarchist who aspired to a return to a communal life. His antipolitical rejection of authoritarian assumptions is based on a radical linguistic scepticism that could be considered the theoretical premise of his anarchism. The present volume aims to add to the existing scholarship on Landauer by shedding new light on his work, focussing on the two interrelated notions of skepsis and antipolitics. In a time marked by a deep doubt concerning modern politics, Landauer's alternative can help us to more seriously address the struggle for a different articulation of our communitarian and ecological needs.

Is it ever morally wrong to enjoy fantasizing about immoral things? Many video games allow players to commit numerous violent and immoral acts. But, should players worry about the morality of their virtual actions? A common argument is that games offer merely the virtual representation of violence. No one is actually harmed by committing a violent act in a game. So, it cannot be morally wrong to perform such acts. While this is an intuitive argument, it does not resolve the issue. Focusing on why individual players are motivated to entertain immoral and violent fantasies, Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy advances debates about the ethical criticism of art, not only by shining light on the interesting and under-examined case of virtual fantasies, but also by its novel application of a virtue ethical account. Video games are works of fiction that enable players to entertain a fantasy. So, a full understanding of the ethical criticism of video games must focus attention on why individual players are motivated to entertain immoral and violent fantasies. Video Games, Violence, and the Ethics of Fantasy engages with debates and critical discussions of games in both the popular media and recent work in philosophy, psychology, media studies, and game studies.

The Italian Pragmatists were a group of philosophers in the early 20th century, most notably including Giovanni Vailati, Mario Calderoni, Giovanni Papini and Giuseppe Prezzolini. They gathered around the journal Leonardo, published in Florence. The Italian philosophers were in contact with the American Pragmatists, especially with C.S.V. Peirce and W. James, and developed many original and provocative ideas that made the Italian Pragmatists allies and enemies. Critics have often stressed the differences between their versions of Pragmatism. This volume emphasizes what they shared, and their value for philosophy and culture.

Understanding the human mind and how it relates to the world that we experience has challenged philosophers for centuries. How then do we even begin to think about 'minds' that are not human? Science now has plenty to say about the properties of mind. In recent decades, the mind - both human and otherwise - has been explored by scientists in fields ranging from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where they might be found - including in plants, aliens, and God - Philip Ball pulls these multidisciplinary pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, arguing that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured, and to think about the 'space of possible minds'. By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions. What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? The more we learn about the minds of other creatures, from octopuses to chimpanzees, and to imagine the potential minds of computers and alien intelligences, the greater the perspective we have on if and how our own is different. Ball's thrillingly ambitious The Book of Minds about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

In Workers' Self-Management in Argentina, Marcelo Vieta homes in on the history, consolidation, and socio-political dimensions of Argentina's empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores (worker-recuperated enterprises), a worker-led company occupation movement that has surged since the turn-of-the-millennium and the country's neo-liberal crisis.