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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy
This book is Karl Widerquist's first statement of the
"indepentarian" theory of justice, or what he calls "Justice as the
Pursuit of Accord" (JPA). It provides five arguments for UBI, one
based on the JPA theory of freedom, another based on the JPA theory
of property, and three that reply to common objections to UBI. Each
of these three turns the argument around using the central concepts
in a justification for UBI. Although the central argument is for
one specific policy proposal, this book's perspective is much
wider, including very basic criticism of social-contract-based and
natural-rights-based theories of justice.
Drawing on art, media, and phenomenological sources, Showing Off!:
A Philosophy of Image challenges much recent thought by proposing a
fundamentally positive relationship between visuality and the
ethical. In philosophy, cultural studies and art, relationships
between visuality and the ethical are usually theorized in negative
terms, according to the dyadic logics of seeing on the one hand,
and being seen, on the other. Here, agency and power are assumed to
operate either on the side of those who see, or on the side of
those who control the means by which people and things enter into
visibility. To be seen, by contrast - when it occurs outside of
those parameters of control- is to be at a disadvantage; hence, for
instance, contemporary theorist Peggy Phelan's rejection of the
idea, central to activist practices of the 1970's and 80's, that
projects of political emancipation must be intertwined with, and
are dependent on, processes of 'making oneself visible'.
Acknowledgment of the vulnerability of visibility also underlies
the realities of life lived within increasingly pervasive systems
of imposed and self-imposed surveillance, and apparently confident
public performances of visual self display. Showing Off!: A
Philosophy of Image is written against the backdrop of these
phenomena, positions and concerns, but asks what happens to our
debates about visibility when a third term, that of 'self-showing',
is brought into play. Indeed, it proposes a fundamentally positive
relationship between visuality and the ethical, one primarily
rooted not in acts of open and non-oppressive seeing or spectating,
as might be expected, but rather in our capacity to inhabit both
the risks and the possibilities of our own visible being. In other
words, this book maintains that the proper site of generosity and
agency within any visual encounter is located not on the side of
sight, but on that of self-showing - or showing off!
This study offers the first comprehensive account of Emerson's
philosophy since his philosophical rehabilitation began in the late
1970s. It builds on the historical reconstruction proposed in the
author's previous book, Emerson's Metaphysics, and like that study
draws on the entire Emerson corpus-the poetry and sermons included.
The aim here is expository. The overall though not exclusive
emphasis is on identity, as the first term of Emerson's metaphysics
of identity and flowing or metamorphosis. This metaphysics, or
general conception of the nature of reality, is what grounds his
epistemology and ethics, as well as his esthetic, religious, and
political thought. Acknowledging its primacy enables a general
account like this to avoid the anti-realist overemphasis on
epistemology and language that has often characterized
rehabilitation readings of his philosophy. After an initial chapter
on Emerson's metaphysics, the subsequent chapters devoted to the
other branches of his thought also begin with their "necessary
foundation" in identity, which is the law of things and the law of
mind alike. Perception of identity in metamorphosis is what
characterizes the philosopher, the poet, the scientist, the
reformer, and the man of faith and virtue. Identity of mind and
world is felt in what Emerson calls the moral sentiment. Identity
is Emerson's answer to the Sphinx-riddle of life experienced as a
puzzling succession of facts and events.
Bringing together the expertise of rhetoricians in English and
communication as well as media studies scholars, Arguments about
Animal Ethics delves into the rhetorical and discursive practices
of participants in controversies over the use of nonhuman animals
for meat, entertainment, fur, and vivisection. Both sides of the
debate are carefully analyzed, as the contributors examine how
stakeholders persuade or fail to persuade audiences about the
ethics of animal rights or the value of using animals. The essays
in this volume cover a wide range of topics, such as the campaigns
waged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (including the
sexy vegetarian and nude campaigns), greyhound activists, the
Corolla Wild Horse Fund, food manufacturers, and the biomedical
research industry, as well as communication across the
human-nonhuman animal boundary and the failure of the animal rights
movement to protest research into genetically modifying living
beings. Arguments about Animal Ethics' insightful analysis of the
animal rights movement will appeal to communication scholars, as
well as those interested in social change.
This book analyses the history of international law to reveal the
significant role utopianism has played in developing the
international legal system. In fact, when pinpointing the legal
system's most accelerated phases of development, it becomes
increasingly apparent how integral utopianism has been in dealing
with the international community's most troubled periods such as
the World Wars. However, States have on numerous occasions
undermined utopianism, leading to situations where individuals and
communities have been vulnerable to modes of oppression such as war
or repressive regimes. Thus, by examining the League of Nations and
United Nations, this book seeks to show why utopianism continues to
be a vital ingredient when the international community is seeking
to ensure its loftiest and most ambitious goals such as maintaining
international peace and security, and why for the sake of such
utopian aspirations, the primary position States enjoy in
international law requires reassessment.
Motive and Rightness is the first book-length attempt to answer the
question: Does the motive of an action ever make a difference to
whether that action is morally right or wrong? Steven Sverdlik
argues that the answer is yes. He examines the major contemporary
moral theories to see if they can provide a plausible account of
the relevance of motives to rightness and wrongness, and argues
that consequentialism gives a better account of these matters than
Kantianism or certain important forms of virtue ethics. In carrying
out the investigation Sverdlik presents an analysis of the nature
of motives, and he considers their relations to normative judgments
and intentions. A chapter is devoted to analyzing the extent to
which motives are 'available' to rational agents, and the
importance of feelings and unconscious motives. Historical figures
such as Kant, Bentham, Mill and Ross are discussed, as well as
contemporary writers like Korsgaard, Herman, Hurka, Slote and
Hursthouse. Motive and Rightness offers an original interweaving of
ethical theory, both historical and contemporary, with moral
psychology, action theory, and psychology.
Truth to Post-Truth in American Detective Fiction examines
questions of truth and relativism, turning to detectives, both real
and imagined, from Poe's C. Auguste Dupin to Robert Mueller, to
establish an oblique history of the path from a world where not
believing in truth was unthinkable to the present, where it is
common to believe that objective truth is a remnant of a simpler,
more naive time. Examining detective stories both literary and
popular including hard-boiled, postmodern, and twenty-first century
novels, the book establishes that examining detective fiction
allows for a unique view of this progression to post-truth since
the detective's ultimate job is to take the reader from doubt to
belief. David Riddle Watson shows that objectivity is
intersubjectivity, arguing that the belief in multiple worlds is
ultimately what sustains the illusion of relativism.
Pragmatists have traditionally been enemies of representationalism
but friends of naturalism, when naturalism is understood to pertain
to human subjects, in the sense of Hume and Nietzsche. In this
volume Huw Price presents his distinctive version of this
traditional combination, as delivered in his Rene Descartes
Lectures at Tilburg University in 2008. Price contrasts his view
with other contemporary forms of philosophical naturalism,
comparing it with other pragmatist and neo-pragmatist views such as
those of Robert Brandom and Simon Blackburn. Linking their
different 'expressivist' programmes, Price argues for a radical
global expressivism that combines key elements from both. With Paul
Horwich and Michael Williams, Brandom and Blackburn respond to
Price in new essays. Price replies in the closing essay,
emphasising links between his views and those of Wilfrid Sellars.
The volume will be of great interest to advanced students of
philosophy of language and metaphysics.
Locke's two groundbreaking treatises regarding sound methods of
governance are united in this complete edition. At the time these
treatises were written, English politics had undergone decades of
upheaval in the wake of the English Civil War. When Dutch monarch
William of Orange ascended to the English throne in the Glorious
Revolution of 1688, burning questions over the best form of
governance for England were prominent in the intelligentsia of the
era. It was a time when England grappled with its incremental
transition from monarchy to early forms of democracy and right to
vote, where dynastic monarchy and religious theory still held
considerable power over the formation of the state. Lauded as a
classic of political philosophy, the treatises by Locke are a
common requirement in various educational courses concerning
political science and philosophy to this day.
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Metaphysics
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Donald Wallenfang
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This volume brings together new papers advancing contemporary
debates in foundational, conceptual, and methodological issues in
cognitive neuroscience. The different perspectives presented in
each chapter have previously been discussed between the authors, as
the volume builds on the experience of Neural Mechanisms (NM)
Online - webinar series on the philosophy of neuroscience organized
by the editors of this volume. The contributed chapters pertain to
five core areas in current philosophy of neuroscience. It surveys
the novel forms of explanation (and prediction) developed in
cognitive neuroscience, and looks at new concepts, methods and
techniques used in the field. The book also highlights the
metaphysical challenges raised by recent neuroscience and
demonstrates the relation between neuroscience and mechanistic
philosophy. Finally, the book dives into the issue of neural
computations and representations. Assembling contributions from
leading philosophers of neuroscience, this work draws upon the
expertise of both established scholars and promising early career
researchers.
This book explores and elaborates three theories of public reason,
drawn from Rawlsian political liberalism, natural law theory, and
Confucianism. Drawing together academics from these separate
approaches, the volume explores how the three theories critique
each other, as well as how each one brings its theoretical arsenal
to bear on the urgent contemporary debate of medical assistance in
dying. The volume is structured in two parts: an exploration of the
three traditions, followed by an in-depth overview of the
conceptual and historical background. In Part I, the three
comprehensive opening chapters are supplemented by six dynamic
chapters in dialogue with each other, each author responding to the
other two traditions, and subsequently reflecting on the possible
deficiencies of their own theories. The chapters in Part II cover a
broad range of subjects, from an overview of the history of
bioethics to the nature of autonomy and its status as a moral and
political value. In its entirety, the volume provides a vibrant and
exemplary collaborative resource to scholars interested in the role
of public reason and its relevance in bioethical debate.
Free Will and Continental Philosophy explores the concepts of
free-will and self-determination in the Continental philosophical
tradition. David Rose examines the ways in which Continental
philosophy offers a viable alternative to the hegemonic scientistic
approach taken by analytic philosophy. Rose claims that the problem
of free-will is only a problem if one makes an unnecessary
assumption consistent with scientific rationalism. In the sphere of
human action we assume that, since action is a physical event, it
must be reducible to the laws and concepts of science. Hence, the
problematic nature of free will raises its head, since the concept
of free will is intrinsically contradictory to such a reductionist
outlook. This book suggests that the Continental thinkers offer a
compelling alternative by concentrating on the phenomena of human
action and self-determination in order to offer the truth of
freedom in different terms. Thus Rose offers a revealing
investigation into the appropriate concepts and categories of human
freedom and action.>
This timely volume brings together a diverse group of expert
authors in order to investigate the question of phenomenology's
relation to the political. These authors take up a variety of
themes and movements in contemporary political philosophy. Some of
them put phenomenology in dialogue with feminism or philosophies of
race, others with Marxism and psychoanalysis, while others look at
phenomenology's historical relation to politics. The book shows the
ways in which phenomenology is either itself a form of political
philosophy, or a useful method for thinking the political. It also
explores the ways in which phenomenology falls short in the realm
of the political. Ultimately, this collection serves as a starting
point for a groundbreaking dialogue in the field about the nature
of the relationship between phenomenology and the political. It is
a must-read for anyone who is interested in phenomenology or
contemporary social and political philosophy.
"I'd been an activist for years. I'd marched, protested, blocked
the road, been arrested. I'd exposed how banks and tax havens fuel
corruption, poverty and environmental destruction. I'd launched a
campaign that rewrote the laws on secret company ownership in
dozens of countries. My research had contributed to the cluster
munitions ban and a treaty to control the arms trade. But despite
these efforts, my discomfort about activism was growing. Was I part
of the problem too?" The Entangled Activist is the story of how
activism is entangled in the problems it seeks to solve, told by a
hard-hitting campaigner who through personal experience -- as well
as extensively researched psycho-social enquiry -- comes to look at
activism very differently. After years of thinking that her task
was to 'get the bastards,' campaigner, writer and reporter Anthea
Lawson came to see that activism often emerges from the same
troubles it is trying to fix, and that its demons, including
hypocrisy, saviourism, burnout and treating other people badly, can
be a gateway to understanding the depth of what really needs to
change. Drawing on her own experience, critical analysis and
interviews with leading activists, Lawson looks under the surface
of our attempts to change the world to offer a timely and
eye-opening vision for transformative work. By considering how
unexamined shadows and assumptions get in the way of
well-intentioned activist goals, and how those at the forefront of
sociopolitical change are often caught up in the very systems and
ideologies they seek to change, Lawson dismantles hierarchies that
have shaped the field for too long. The Entangled Activist is a
profound call to acknowledge our entanglement with the world. To
those who are worried about the state of things but are skeptical
of 'activism', it offers possibilities for action that go beyond
righteousness and reactivity. And to activists who so want to help,
it mindfully unearths a different starting place, one where
transforming ourselves is unwaveringly part of transforming the
world.
Building a foundational understanding of the digital, Logic of the
Digital reveals a unique digital ontology. Beginning from formal
and technical characteristics, especially the binary code at the
core of all digital technologies, Aden Evens traces the pathways
along which the digital domain of abstract logic encounters the
material, human world. How does a code using only 0s and 1s give
rise to the vast range of applications and information that
constitutes a great and growing portion of our world? Evens'
analysis shows how any encounter between the actual and the digital
must cross an ontological divide, a gap between the productive
materiality of the human world and the reductive abstraction of the
binary code. Logic of the Digital examines the distortions of this
ontological crossing, considering the formal abstraction that
persists in exemplary digital technologies and techniques such as
the mouse, the Web, the graphical user interface, and the
development of software. One crucial motive for this research lies
in the paradoxical issue of creativity in relation to digital
technologies: the ontology of abstraction leaves little room for
the unpredictable or accidental that is essential to creativity,
but digital technologies are nevertheless patently creative. Evens
inquires into the mechanisms by which the ostensibly sterile binary
code can lend itself to such fecund cultural production. Through
clarification of the digital's ontological foundation, Evens points
to a significant threat to creativity lurking in the nature of the
digital and so generates a basis for an ethics of digital practice.
Examining the bits that give the digital its ontology, exploring
the potentials and limitations of programming, and using gaming as
an ideal test of digital possibility, Logic of the Digital guides
future practices and shapes academic research in the digital.
This book is authored by some of the renowned scholars in Africa
who take on the task to understand how Kenya is governed in this
century from a public policy perspective. The book's public policy
approach addresses three general and pertinent questions: (1) how
are policies made in a political context where change is called
for, but institutional legacies tend to stand in the way? (2) how
are power and authority shared among institutional actors in
government and society? and, (3) how effective is policymaking at a
time when policy problems are becoming increasingly complex and
involving multiple stakeholders in Africa? This book provides an
updated and relevant foundation for teaching policy, politics and
administration in Kenya. It is also a useful guide for politicians,
the civil society, and businesses with an interest in how Kenya is
governed. Furthermore, it addresses issues of comparability: how
does the Kenyan case fit into a wider African context of
policymaking? 'This volume is a major contribution to comparative
policy analysis by focusing on the policy processes in Kenya, a
country undergoing modernization of its economic and political
institutions. Written by experts with a keen eye for the
commonalities and differences the country shares with other
nations, it covers a range of topics like the role of experts and
politicians in policymaking, the nature of public accountability,
the impact of social media on policy actors, and the challenges of
teaching policy studies in the country. As a first comprehensive
study of an African nation, Governing Kenya will remain a key text
for years to come'. -Michael Howlett, Burnaby Mountain Chair of
Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada 'A superb
example of development scholarship which sets aside 'best practice'
nostrums and focuses on governance challenges specific to time and
place while holding on to a comparative perspective. Useful to
scholars and practitioners not only in Kenya but across developing
areas. I strongly recommend it!' -Brian Levy teaches at the School
of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, USA,
and the University of Cape Town, South Africa. 'This book is an
exploration of important deliberations - of interest for those of
us interested in deepening the understanding of public policy
theories and their application within a specific African setting'.
-Wilson Muna, Lecturer of Public Policy, Kenyatta University,
Nairobi, Kenya 'This collection of think pieces on public policy in
Kenya gives the reader theoretical and practical hooks critical to
the analysis of the implementation of the sovereign policy document
in Kenya, the 2010 Constitution'. -Willy Mutunga, Chief Justice
& President of the Supreme Court, Republic of Kenya, 2011-2016
'Governing Kenya provides a comprehensive analysis of public
policymaking in Kenya. The book integrates public policy theory
with extensive empirical examples to provide a valuable portrait of
the political and economic influences on policy choices in this
important African country. The editors have brought together a
group of significant scholars to produce an invaluable contribution
to the literature on public policy in Africa'. -B. Guy Peters,
Maurice Folk Professor of American Government, University of
Pittsburgh, USA
What virtues are necessary for democracy to succeed? This book
turns to John Dewey and Reinhold Niebuhr, two of America's most
influential theorists of democracy, to answer this question. Dewey
and Niebuhr both implied-although for very different reasons-that
humility and mutuality are important virtues for the success of
people rule. Not only do these virtues allow people to participate
well in their own governance, they also equip us to meet challenges
to democracy generated by free-market economic policy and
practices. Ironically, though, Dewey and Niebuhr quarreled with
each other for twenty years and missed the opportunity to achieve
political consensus. In their discourse with each other they failed
to become "one out of many," a task that is distilled in the
democratic rallying cry "e pluribus unum." This failure itself
reflects a deficiency in democratic virtue. Thus, exploring the
Dewey/Niebuhr debate with attention to their discursive failures
reveals the importance of a third virtue: democratic tolerance. If
democracy is to succeed, we must cultivate a deeper hospitality
toward difference than Dewey and Niebuhr were able to extend to
each other.
The Kantian Aesthetic explains the kind of perceptual knowledge
involved in aesthetic judgments. It does so by linking Kant's
aesthetics to a critically upgraded account of his theory of
knowledge. This upgraded theory emphasizes those conceptual and
imaginative structures which Kant terms, respectively, "categories"
and "schemata." By describing examples of aesthetic judgment, it is
shown that these judgments must involve categories and fundamental
schemata (even though Kant himself, and most commentators after
him, have not fully appreciated the fact). It is argued, in turn,
that this shows the aesthetic to be not just one kind of
pleasurable experience amongst others, but one based on factors
necessary to objective knowledge and personal identity, and which,
indeed, itself plays a role in how these capacities develop.
In order to explain how individual aesthetic judgments are
justified, and the aesthetic basis of art, however, the Kantian
position just outlined has to be developed further. This is done by
exploring some of his other ideas concerning how critical
comparisons inform our cultivation of taste, and art's relation to
genius. By linking the points made earlier to a more developed
account of this horizon of critical comparisons, a Kantian approach
can be shown to be both a satisfying and comprehensive explanation
of the cognitive basis of aesthetic experiences. It is shown also
that the approach can even cover some of the kinds of avant-garde
works which were thought previously to limit its relevance.
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