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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy
Achieving climate justice is increasingly recognized as one of the
key problems associated with climate change, helping us to
determine how good or bad the effects of climate change are, and
whether any harms are fairly distributed. The numerous and complex
issues which climate change involves underline the need for a
normative framework that allows us both to assess the dangers that
we face and to create a just distribution of the costs of action.
This collection of original essays by leading scholars sheds new
light on the key problems of climate justice, offering innovative
treatments of a range of issues including international
environmental institutions, geoengineering, carbon budgets, and the
impact on future generations. It will be a valuable resource for
researchers and upper-level students of ethics, environmental
studies, and political philosophy.
What makes individuals what they are? How should they judge their
social and political interaction with the world? What makes them
authentic or inauthentic? This original and provocative study
explores the concept of "authenticity" and its relevance for
radical politics. Weaving together close readings of three 20th
century thinkers: Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and Jean-Paul
Sartre with the concept of authenticity, Stephen Eric Bronner
illuminates the phenomenological foundations for self-awareness
that underpin our sense of identity and solidarity. He claims that
different expressions of the existential tradition compete with one
another in determining how authenticity might be experienced, but
all of them ultimately rest on self-referential judgments. The
author's own new framework for a political ethic at once serves as
a corrective and an alternative. Wonderfully rich, insightful, and
nuanced, Stephen Eric Bronner has produced another bookshelf staple
that speaks to crucial issues in politics, philosophy, psychology,
and sociology. Existentialism, Authenticity, Solidarity will appeal
to scholars, students and readers from the general public alike.
The Proposed Roads to Freedom is a treatise by the philosopher
Bertrand Russell, which contemplates a society in which
anarcho-communism is coupled with worker syndicalism. Russell
discusses various aspects of socialist-communist and syndicalist
thought, and applies them to the various portions of civil society.
Beginning with an examination of the history of the political
theories and their potential for success, Russell proposes a sort
of 'guild socialism' whereby workers are organized into different
groupings and specialisms, as opposed to the centralized,
bureaucratic system advocated by state socialism. Although Russell
believes that the socialist system would be the closest to
perfection, he does not believe that it would be entirely lacking
of flaws. Furthermore, Russell attributes many problems of the
theory as solvable over time; a fine-tuning of the technical
implementation of socialist economics would, so the author
proposes, iron out the problems and inefficiencies in the system.
In this compelling volume in the What Everyone Needs to Know(r)
series, Paul Waldau expertly navigates the many heated debates
surrounding the complex and controversial animal rights movement.
Organized around a series of probing questions, this timely
resource offers the most complete, even-handed survey of the animal
rights movement available. The book covers the full spectrum of
issues, beginning with a clear, highly instructive definition of
animal rights. Waldau looks at the different concerns surrounding
companion animals, wild animals, research animals, work animals,
and animals used for food, provides a no-nonsense assessment of the
treatment of animals, and addresses the philosophical and legal
arguments that form the basis of animal rights. Along the way,
readers will gain insight into the history of animal protection-as
well as the political and social realities facing animals today-and
become familiar with a range of hot-button topics, from animal
cognition and autonomy, to attempts to balance animal cruelty
versus utility. Chronicled here are many key figures and
organizations responsible for moving the animal rights movement
forward, as well as legislation and public policy that have been
carried out around the world in the name of animal rights and
animal protection. The final chapter of this indispensable volume
looks ahead to the future of animal rights, and delivers an animal
protection mandate for citizens, scientists, governments, and other
stakeholders.
With its multidisciplinary, non-ideological focus and all-inclusive
coverage, Animal Rights represents the definitive survey of the
animal rights movement-one that will engage every reader and
student of animal rights, animal law, and environmental ethics.
What Everyone Needs to Know(r) is a registered trademark of Oxford
University Press
Debunking Scholarly Nonsense is a diatribe against the foolish
claptrap that serious and respected scholars sometimes foist upon
their peers and the public. The material discussed here does not
usually derive from extreme political notions, conspiracy theories,
or the ruminations of those who accept astrological control, I
Ching divination, crystal healing, or chariots of the gods. Rather,
the progenitors are physicists, astronomers, psychologists,
psychiatrists, medical doctors, and philosophers. The topics under
discussion include Holocaust denial, string theory, multiple
universes, alien abductions, extraterrestrials, a simulated or
non-existent world, non-sentience or poly-sentience, harmful
therapies, denials of climate change and Covid vaccination
efficacy, among other possibilities. The authors of these articles,
essays, papers, and books are not merely ruminating in a void.
Their words and ideas influence others and may have detrimental
effects in a world already charged with extreme misery.
The philosophy of Ayn Rand has had a role equal or greater than
that of Milton Friedman or F.A. Hayek in shaping the contemporary
neo-liberal consensus. Its impact was powerful on architects of
Reaganomics such as Alan Greenspan, former Director of the World
Bank, and the new breed of American industrialists who developed
revolutionary information technologies in Silicon Valley. But what
do we really know of Rand's philosophy? Is her gospel of
selfishness really nothing more than a reiteration of a
quintessentially American "rugged individualism"? This book argues
that Rand's philosophy can in fact be traced back to a moment,
before World War I, when the work of a now-forgotten German
philosopher called Max Stirner possessed an extraordinary appeal
for writers and artists across Europe. The influence of Stirnerian
Egoism upon that phase of intense creative innovation we now call
Modernism was seminal. The implications for our understanding of
Modernism are profound - so too for our grasp of the "cultural
logic of late capitalism". This book presents the reader with a
fresh perspective on the Modernist classics, as well as introducing
less familiar art and writing that is only now beginning to attract
interest in the West. It arrives at a fresh and compelling
re-evaluation of Modernism: revealing its selfish streak.
This book outlines the evolution of our political nature over two
million years and explores many of the rituals, plays, films, and
other performances that gave voice and legitimacy to various
political regimes in our species' history. Our genetic and cultural
evolution during the Pleistocene Epoch bestowed a wide range of
predispositions on our species that continue to shape the politics
we support and the performances we enjoy. The book's case studies
range from an initiation ritual in the Mbendjela tribe in the Congo
to a 1947 drama by Bertolt Brecht and include a popular puppet play
in Tokugawa Japan. A final section examines the gradual
disintegration of social cohesion underlying the rise of polarized
politics in the USA after 1965, as such films as The Godfather,
Independence Day, The Dark Knight Rises, and Joker accelerated the
nation's slide toward authoritarian Trumpism.
Hegel's critique of Early German Romanticism and its theory of
irony resonates to the core of his own philosophy in the same way
that Plato's polemics with the Sophists have repercussions that go
to the centre of his thought. The Anti-Romantic examines Hegel's
critique of Fr. Schlegel, Novalis and Schleiermacher. Hegel rarely
mentions these thinkers by name and the texts dealing with them
often exist on the periphery of his oeuvre. Nonetheless,
individually, they represent embodiments of specific forms of
irony: Schlegel, a form of critical individuality; Novalis, a form
of sentimental nihilism; Schleiermacher, a monstrous hybrid of the
other two. The strength of Hegel's polemical approach to these
authors shows how irony itself represents for him a persistent
threat to his own idea of systematic Science. This is so, we
discover, because Romantic irony is more than a rival ideology; it
is an actual form of discourse, one whose performative objectivity
interferes with the objectivity of Hegel's own logos. Thus, Hegel's
critique of irony allows us to reciprocally uncover a Hegelian
theory of scientific discourse. Far from seeing irony as a form of
consciousness overcome by Spirit, Hegel sees it as having become a
pressing feature of his own contemporary world, as witnessed in the
popularity of his Berlin rival, Schleiermacher. Finally, to the
extent that ironic discourse seems, for Hegel, to imply a certain
world beyond his own notion of modernity, we are left with the
hypothesis that Hegel's critique of irony may be viewed as a
critique of post-modernity.
The concept of resistance has always been central to the reception
of Hegel's philosophy. The prevalent image of Hegel's system, which
continues to influence the scholarship to this day, is that of an
absolutist, monist metaphysics which overcomes all resistance,
sublating or assimilating all differences into a single organic
'Whole'. For that reason, the reception of Hegel has always been
marked by the question of how to resist Hegel: how to think that
which remains outside of or other to the totalizing system of
dialectics. In recent years the work of scholars such as Catherine
Malabou, Slavoj Zizek, Rebecca Comay and Frank Ruda has brought
considerable nuance to this debate. A new reading of Hegel has
emerged which challenges the idea that there is no place for
difference, otherness or resistance in Hegel, both by refusing to
reduce Hegel's complex philosophy to a straightforward systematic
narrative and by highlighting particular moments within Hegel's
philosophy which seem to counteract the traditional understanding
of dialectics. This book brings together established and new voices
in this field in order to show that the notion of resistance is
central to this revaluation of Hegel.
French philosopher and Talmudic commentator Emmanuel Levinas
(1906-1995) has received considerable attention for his influence
on philosophical and religious thought. In this book, Victoria
Tahmasebi-Birgani provides the first examination of the
applicability of Emmanuel Levinas' work to social and political
movements. Investigating his ethics of responsibility and his
critique of the Western liberal imagination, Tahmasebi-Birgani
advances the moral, political, and philosophical debates on the
radical implications of Levinas' work.
Emmanuel Levinas and the Politics of Non-Violence is the first
book to closely consider the affinity between Levinas' ethical
vision and Mohandas Gandhi's radical yet non-violent political
struggle. Situating Levinas' insights within a transnational,
transcontinental, and global framework, Tahmasebi-Birgani
highlights Levinas' continued relevance in an age in which violence
is so often resorted to in the name of "justice" and "freedom."
Does the toleration of liberal democratic society mean that
religious faiths are left substantively intact, so long as they
respect the rights of others? Or do liberal principles presuppose a
deeper transformation of religion? Does life in democratic society
itself transform religion? In Making Religion Safe for Democracy,
J. Judd Owen explores these questions by tracing a neglected strand
of Enlightenment political thought that presents a surprisingly
unified reinterpretation of Christianity by Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, and Thomas Jefferson. Owen then turns to Alexis de
Tocqueville's analysis of the effects of democracy on religion in
the early United States. Tocqueville finds a religion transformed
by democracy in a way that bears a striking resemblance to what the
Enlightenment thinkers sought, while offering a fundamentally
different interpretation of what is at stake in that
transformation. Making Religion Safe for Democracy offers a novel
framework for understanding the ambiguous status of religion in
modern democratic society.
Every year nine million people are diagnosed with tuberculosis,
every day over 13,400 people are infected with AIDs, and every
thirty seconds malaria kills a child. For most of the world,
critical medications that treat these deadly diseases are scarce,
costly, and growing obsolete, as access to first-line drugs remains
out of reach and resistance rates rise. Rather than focusing
research and development on creating affordable medicines for these
deadly global diseases, pharmaceutical companies instead invest in
commercially lucrative products for more affluent customers. Nicole
Hassoun argues that everyone has a human right to health and to
access to essential medicines, and she proposes the Global Health
Impact (global-health-impact.org/new) system as a means to
guarantee those rights. Her proposal directly addresses the
pharmaceutical industry's role: it rates pharmaceutical companies
based on their medicines' impact on improving global health,
rewarding highly-rated medicines with a Global Health Impact label.
Global Health Impact has three parts. The first makes the case for
a human right to health and specifically access to essential
medicines. Hassoun defends the argument against recent criticism of
these proposed rights. The second section develops the Global
Health Impact proposal in detail. The final section explores the
proposal's potential applications and effects, considering the
empirical evidence that supports it and comparing it to similar
ethical labels. Through a thoughtful and interdisciplinary approach
to creating new labeling, investment, and licensing strategies,
Global Health Impact demands an unwavering commitment to global
justice and corporate responsibility.
This book is mainly concerned with elaborating an account of the
unique theoretical essence and activities of philosophy. What
manner of civilization should modern humans forge? On what
developmental path should a nation embark? What lifestyle should
each individual choose? These are the most fundamental issues of
our time. Profoundly implicit in the choices outlined above is a
deeper question: What are the criteria of choice? An examination of
these criteria is a reflection on the premises constituting
thought, or a critique of the premises underlying thought. Using a
"critique of the premises underlying thought" as the basic idea and
hermeneutic principle in philosophy will open a wider theoretical
space for contemporary philosophy so as to avoid the predicament of
being "pseudo-scientific" or "pseudo-artistic." It will also
present contemporary philosophy with a realistic path of
development for the task of reflecting on the criteria of choice.
This book seeks to formulate concrete philosophical arguments for a
critique of the basic beliefs, logic, modes, concepts, and
philosophical ideas which constitute thought, with the aim of
demonstrating the vigorous self-critique and inexhaustible
theoretical space found in philosophical development. This book
provides a new principle of interpretation for understanding
philosophy and, in turn, uses this principle to develop a critique
of the premises underlying thought, thereby furthering the
contemporary development of philosophy. This book encompasses a
critique of the premises underlying thought, which mainly includes
the basic beliefs, logic, modes, concepts, and philosophical ideas
constituting thought. Such a critique should comprise five aspects:
First, the basic beliefs constituting thought propose a critique of
the identity of thought and being; second, the basic logic
constituting thought refers to a critique of the formal,
intensional, and practical logic of thought; third, the basic modes
constituting thought denote a critique of the basic modes by which
humans comprehend the world, including commonsense, religion, art,
and science; fourth, the basic concepts constituting thought entail
a critique centering on being, the world, history, truth, value,
and other basic concepts; and finally, the philosophical ideas
constituting thought indicate a critique of philosophy itself. A
critique aligned on these five aspects will provide a general
philosophical overview of the premise critique of thought.
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