This book tells the story of the life and work of L. Susan Stebbing (1885-1943), the first woman Professor of Philosophy in Britain, and the author of a number of popular books, including Thinking to Some Purpose (1939). It traces her professional and personal associations with many of the leading philosophers of her day, including G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, A. J. Ayer and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Stebbing's early writings were concerned with formal logic, but she came increasingly to believe in the importance of exposing misleading uses of language in, for instance, popular works of science, advertisements, newspaper editorials and political propaganda. This book considers the historical developments and the personal, social and political commitments that contributed to this belief. It also assesses Stebbing's work in the light of subsequent developments both in analytic philosophy and in linguistics, and suggests that it has important contributions to make in both fields.

Offering new critical approaches to Dada as quintessential part of the Avant-Garde, Dada and Existentialism: the Authenticity of Ambiguity reassesses the movement as a form of (proto-) Existentialist philosophy. Dada is often dismissed as an anti-art movement with a merely destructive theoretical impetus. French Existentialism is often condemned for its perceived quietist implications. However, closer analysis reveals a preoccupation with philosophy in the former and with art in the latter. Moreover, neither was nonsensical or meaningless; both reveal a rich individualist ethics aimed at the amelioration of the individual and society. The first major comparative study of Dada and Existentialism, this text contributes new perspectives on Dada as movement, historical legacy, and field of study. Analysing Dada works through Existentialist literature across the themes of choice, alienation, responsibility, freedom and truth, the text posits that Dada and Existentialism both advocate the creation of a self that aims for authenticity through ambiguity.

This book examines epistemic pluralism, a brand new area of research in epistemology with dramatic implications for the discipline. Challenging traditional assumptions about the nature of justification, an expert team of contributors explores pluralism about justification, with compelling first-order results - including analysis of the various requisites one might want to impose on the notion of justification (and therefore of knowledge) and why. It is shown why a long-lasting dispute within epistemology about the nature of justification has reached a stalemate and how embracing a different overarching outlook might lead to progress and aid better appreciation of the relationship between the various epistemic projects scholars have been pursuing. With close connections to the idea of epistemic relativism, and with specific applications to various areas of contemporary epistemology (such as the debate over epistemic norms of action and assertion, epistemic peers' disagreement, self-knowledge and the status of philosophical disputes about ontology) this fascinating new volume is essential reading for scholars, researchers and advanced students in the discipline.

This volume features essays that detail the distinctive ways authors and researchers in Spanish speaking countries express their thoughts on contemporary philosophy of technology. Written in English but fully capturing a Spanish perspective, the essays bring the views and ideas of pioneer authors and many new ones to an international readership. Coverage explores key topics in the philosophy of technology, the ontological and epistemological aspects of technology, development and innovation, and new technological frontiers like nanotechnology and cloud computing. In addition, the book features case studies on philosophical queries. Readers will discover such voices as Miguel Angel Quintanilla and Javier Echeverria, who are main references in the current landscape of philosophy of technology both in Spain and Spanish speaking countries; Jose Luis Lujan, who is a leading Spanish author in research about technological risk; and Emilio Munoz, former head of the Spanish National Research Council and an authority on Spanish science policy. The volume also covers thinkers in American Spanish speaking countries, such as Jorge Linares, an influential researcher in ethical issues; Judith Sutz, who has a very recognized work on social issues concerning innovation; Carlos Osorio, who focuses his work on technological determinism and the social appropriation of technology; and Diego Lawler, an important researcher in the ontological aspects of technology.

The purpose of this work is to critically assess Errol E. Harris's process philosophy in the face of contemporary research in the special sciences. Harris devoted his life to grappling with the big questions concerning the relationships between nature, mind, and knowledge. His 70-plus year career was distinguished, his texts on the history of philosophy, philosophy of science, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and consciousness were widely published, and yet his metaphysics has until now remained excluded from mainstream discussions. This book's contention is that Harris's work reveals as yet unnoticed connections between theories in numerous scientific disciplines ranging from psychology to cosmology and that an examination of certain theories within these disciplines may serve to strengthen his original arguments. This work maintains that the resulting metaphysics frames a transdisciplinary paradigm shift and provides a viable solution to the hard problem of consciousness.

Donald Davidson was one of the 20th Century's deepest analytic thinkers. He developed a systematic picture of the human mind and its relation to the world, an original and sustained vision that exerted a shaping influence well beyond analytic philosophy of mind and language. At its center is an idea of minded creatures as essentially rational animals: Rational animals can be interpreted, their behavior can be understood, and the contents of their thoughts are, in principle, open to others. The combination of a rigorous analytic stance with aspects of humanism so distinctive of Davidsonian thought finds its maybe most characteristic expression when this central idea is brought to bear on the relation of the mental to the physical: Davidson defended the irreducibility of its rational nature while acknowledging that the mental is ultimately determined by the physical.
Davidson made contributions of lasting importance to a wide range of topics -- from general theory of meaning and content over formal semantics, the theories of truth, explanation, and action, to metaphysics and epistemology. His writings almost entirely consist of short, elegant, and often witty papers. These dense and thematically tightly interwoven essays present a profound challenge to the reader.
This book provides a concise, systematic introduction to all the main elements of Davidson's philosophy. It places the theory of meaning and content at the very center of his thought. By using interpretation, and the interpreter, as key ideas it clearly brings out the underlying structure and unified nature of Davidson's work. Kathrin Gluer carefully outlines his principal claims and arguments, and discusses them in some detail. The book thus makes Davidson's thought accessible in its genuine depth, and acquaints the reader with the main lines of discussion surrounding it."

Current tendencies in religious studies and theology show a growing interest for the interchange between religions and the cultures of rationalization surrounding them. The studies published in this volume, based on the international conferences of both the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, aim to contribute to this field of interest by dealing with concepts and influences of rationalization in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and religion in general. In addition to taking a closer look at the immediate links in the history of tradition between those rationalizing movements and evolutions in religion, emphasis is put on intellectual-historical convergences: Therefore, the articles are led by central comparative questions, such as what factors foster/hinder rationalization?; where are criteria for rationalization drawn from?; in which institutions is rationalization taking place?; who propagates, supports and utilizes rationalization?

Through an engagement with the philosophies of Proust's contemporaries, Felix Ravaisson, Henri Bergson, and Georg Simmel, Suzanne Guerlac presents an original reading of Remembrance of Things Past (A la recherche du temps perdu). Challenging traditional interpretations, she argues that Proust's magnum opus is not a melancholic text, but one that records the dynamic time of change and the complex vitality of the real. Situating Proust's novel within a modernism of money, and broadening the exploration through references to cultural events and visual technologies (commercial photography, photojournalism, pornography, the regulation of prostitution, the Panama Scandal, and the Dreyfus Affair), this study reveals that Proust's subject is not the esthetic recuperation of loss but rather the adventure of living in time, on both the individual and the social level, at a concrete historical moment.

In The Ends of Philosophy of Religion, Timothy D. Knepper advances a new, historically grounded and religiously diverse program for the philosophy of religion. Knepper first critiques existing efforts in analytic and continental philosophy of religion for neglect of diversity among its objects and subjects of inquiry, as well as for failing to thickly describe, formally compare, and critically evaluate historical acts of reason-giving in the religions of the world. Knepper then constructs an alternative vision for the philosophy of religion, one in which religious reason-giving is described with empathetic yet suspicious sensitivity, compared with methodological and categorical awareness, and explained and evaluated with a plurality of resources and criteria."The Ends of Philosophy of Religion casts a critical eye over both analytic and continental philosophy of religion and finds an ailment that besets them both. Knepper provides an analysis that is not only clear and eloquent but also sometimes frustrated and angry one. This gives his book the feeling of a manifesto, something I judge that the discipline needs." - Kevin Schilbrack, Professor, Philosophy and Religion Department, Western Carolina University, USA"Philosophy of religion is entering a new dawn, beyond the Western confines of bare theism and pale postmodernism, and towards the religions of the world, Eastern and Western, in all their rich diversity and complexity. Knepper's timely and insightful book outlines these broad and deep changes that have yet to be acknowledged by practitioners from both the analytic and Continental schools." - Nick Trakakis, Assistant Director of the Centre for the Philosophy and Phenomenology of Religion, Australian Catholic University, Australia"Those of us who believe philosophy of religion should be about religion in all its complexity and diversity will welcome this book with relief. Knepper attacks the pretense of using the phrase 'philosophy of religion' to describe parochial philosophy of western theism or the disorganized religious insights of postmodern philosophers. He argues for historically grounded philosophy of religions, up-to-date on religious studies, and fearless about analyzing reasons for religious beliefs and practices. This is the kind of philosophy of religion that belongs in university religious studies departments. Here's hoping it catches on quickly." - Wesley J. Wildman, Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics, Boston University School of Theology, US

This book offers a fascinating account of Heidegger's middle and later thought."Heidegger and Philosophical Atheology" offers an important new reading of Heidegger's middle and later thought. Beginning with Heidegger's early dissertation on the doctrine of categories in Duns Scotus, Peter S. Dillard shows how Heidegger's middle and later works develop a philosophical anti-theology or 'atheology' that poses a serious threat to traditional metaphysics, natural theology and philosophy of religion.Drawing on the insights of Scholastic thinkers such as St Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, the book reveals the problematic assumptions of Heideggerian 'atheology' and shows why they should be rejected. Dillard's critique paves the way for a rejuvenation of Scholastic metaphysics and reveals its relevance to some contemporary philosophical disputes. In addition to clarifying the question of being and explaining the role of phenomenology in metaphysics, Dillard sheds light on the nature of nothingness, necessity and contingency. Ultimately the book offers a revolutionary reorientation of our understanding, both of the later Heidegger and of the legacy of Scholasticism.

Current research on social capital tends to focus on an economic reading of social relations. Whereas economists pride themselves on reaching out to social theory at-large, sociologists criticize the economization of the social fabric. The concept of social capital serves as a touchstone for the study of the role of the economy in modern societies. It serves as a breach for expanding the reach of economic categories, yet it also yields the opportunity for questioning and transforming economic premises in the light of social theory and philosophy. Exploring the concept of social capital in the context of related terms like embeddedness, trust, sociability, and cooperation is particularly instructive. This collection of papers from various disciplines (philosophy, sociology, economics, religious studies) combines conceptual studies and empirical findings. It is a plea for re-embedding economic thought in a broader theoretical framework. By exploring the varieties of social identities implied in the theories of social capital, the authors argue for a social (or more sociable) conception of man.

Bringing together a team of leading international scholars, this is an accessibly one volume reference guide to the latest research and future directions in Existentialism. "The Continuum Companion to Existentialism" offers the definitive guide to a key area of modern European philosophy. The book covers all the fundamental questions asked by existentialism - areas that have continued to attract interest historically as well as topics that have emerged more recently as active areas of research. Eighteen specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the area and, most valuably, the exciting new directions the field is taking. The Companion explores issues pertaining to the intersection between existentialism and ontology / metaphysics, politics, psychoanalysis, ethics, religion, aesthetics, sexuality, emotion, cognitive science and post structuralism, as well as including full coverage of the key existential thinkers. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including an A to Z of key terms and concepts, a chronology, a detailed list of resources and a fully annotated bibliography, this is the essential reference tool for anyone working in existentialism or modern European philosophy more generally. "The Continuum Companions" series is a major series of single volume companions to key research fields in the humanities aimed at postgraduate students, scholars and libraries. Each companion offers a comprehensive reference resource giving an overview of key topics, research areas, new directions and a manageable guide to beginning or developing research in the field. A distinctive feature of the series is that each companion provides practical guidance on advanced study and research in the field, including research methods and subject-specific resources.

This volume articulates and develops new research questions and original insights regarding the philosophical dialogue between Hegel's philosophy, his heritage, and contemporary phenomenology, including, among others, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Ricoeur. The collection discusses methodological questions concerning the relevance of Hegel's philosophy for contemporary phenomenology, addressing core issues revolving around the key concepts of history, being, science, subjectivity, and dialectic. The volume fills a gap in historiography, expanding the knowledge of the impact of Hegel's philosophy on contemporary philosophy and raising new questions on the transformation of transcendental philosophy in post-Kantian philosophy. The contributions gathered in this volume shed new light on issues related to the problem of scientific method in philosophy, on the philosophy of history, as well as on the dimension of subjectivity. By providing critical insights into Hegel's philosophy and contemporary phenomenology, the book opens up new research perspectives recommended to philosophers and scholars of different traditions, especially classical German philosophy, phenomenology, and history of Western philosophy.

This new English translation of Solov'ev's principal ethical treatise, written in his later years, presents Solov'ev's mature views on a host of topics ranging from a critique of individualistic ethical systems to the death penalty, the meaning of war, animal rights, and environmentalism. Written for the educated public rather than for a narrow circle of specialists, Solov'ev's work largely avoids technical vocabulary while illustrating his points with references to classical literature from the ancient Greeks to Goethe. Although written from a deeply held Christian viewpoint, Solov'ev emphasizes the turn from his earlier position, now allegedly developing the independence of moral philosophy from metaphysics and revealed religion. Solov'ev sees the formal universality of the idea of the moral good in all human beings, albeit that this idea is bereft of material content. This first new English-language translation in a century makes a unique contribution to the study of Solov'ev's thought. It uses the text of the second edition published in 1899 as its main text, but provides the variations and additions from the earlier versions of each chapter in running notes. Other unique features of this translation are that the pagination of the widely available 1914 edition is provided in the text, and the sources of Solov'ev's numerous Biblical quotations and references as well as literary and historical allusions.

What do thoughts, hopes, paintings, words, desires, photographs, traffic signs, and perceptions have in common? They are all about something, are directed, are contentful - in a way chairs and trees, for example, are not. This book inquires into the source of this power of directedness that some items exhibit while others do not. An approach to this issue prevalent in the philosophy of the past half-century seeks to explain the power of directedness in terms of certain items' ability to reliably track things in their environment. A very different approach, with a venerable history and enjoying a recent resurgence, seeks to explain the power of directedness rather in terms of an intrinsic ability of conscious experience to direct itself. This book attempts a synthesis of both approaches, developing an account of the sources of such directedness that grounds it both in reliable tracking and in conscious experience.

This book presents an anti-intellectualist view of how the cognitive-mental dimension of human intellect is rooted in and interwoven with our embodied-internal components including emotion, perception, desire, etc., by investigating practical forms of thinking such as deliberation, planning, decision-making, etc. With many thought-provoking statements, the book revises some classical notions of rationality with new interpretation: we are "rational animals", which means we have both rational capabilities, such as calculation, evaluation, justification, etc., and more animal aspects, like desire, emotion, and the senses. According to the traditional position of rationalism, we use well-grounded reason as the fundamental basis of our actions. But this book argues that we simply perform our practical intellect intuitively and spontaneously, just like playing music. By this the author turns the dominant metaphor of "architecture" in understanding of human rationality to that of "music-playing". This book presents a groundbreaking and compelling critique of today's pervasively reflective-intellectual culture, just as Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor and other philosophers diagnose, and makes any detached notion of rationality and formalized understanding of human intellect highly problematic.Methodologically, it not only reconciles the phenomenological-hermeneutic tradition with analytical approaches, but also integrates various theories, such as moral psychology, emotional studies, action theory, decision theory, performativity studies, music philosophy, tacit knowledge, collective epistemology and media theory. Further, its use of everyday cases, metaphors, folk stories and references to movies and literature make the book easy to read and appealing for a broad readership.

"Contemporary Caribbean Writing and Deleuze" maps a new intellectual and literary history of postcolonial Caribbean writing and thought spanning from the 1930s surrealist movement to the present, crossing the region's language blocs, and focused on the interconnected principles of creativity and commemoration. Exploring the work of Rene Menil, Edouard Glissant, Wilson Harris, Derek
Walcott, Antonio Benitez-Rojo, Pauline Melville, Robert Antoni and Nalo Hopkinson, this study reveals the explicit and implicit engagement with Deleuzian thought at work in contemporary Caribbean writing.Uniting for the first time two major schools of contemporary thought - postcolonialism and post-continental philosophy - this study establishes a new and innovative critical discourse for Caribbean studies and postcolonial theory beyond the oppositional dialectic of colonizer and colonized. Drawing
from Deleuze's writings on Bergson, Nietzsche and Spinoza, this study interrogates the postcolonial tropes of newness, becoming, relationality and a philosophical concept of immanence that lie at the heart of a little-observed dialogue between contemporary Caribbean writers and Deleuze.

The thoroughly contemporary question of the relationship between emotion and reason was debated with such complexity by the philosophers of the 17th century that their concepts remain a source of inspiration for today's research about the emotionality of the mind. The analyses of the works of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and many other thinkers collected in this volume offer new insights into the diversity and significance of philosophical reflections about emotions during the early modern era. A focus is placed on affective components in learning processes and the boundaries between emotions and reason.

Nietzsche's metaphor of the spider that spins its cobweb expresses his critique of the metaphysical use of language - but it also suggests that we, spiders , are able to spin different, life-affirming, healthier, non-metaphysical cobwebs. This book is a collection of 12 essays that focus not only on Nietzsche's critique of the metaphysical assumptions of language, but also on his effort to use language in a different way, i.e., to create a new language . It is from this viewpoint that the book considers such themes as consciousness, the self, metaphor, instinct, affectivity, style, morality, truth, and knowledge. The authors invited to contribute to this volume are Nietzsche scholars who belong to some of the most important research centers of the European Nietzsche-Research: Centro Colli-Montinari (Italy), GIRN (Europhilosphie), SEDEN (Spain), Greifswald Research Group (Germany), NIL (Portugal). In 2011 Joao Constancio and Maria Joao Mayer Branco edited Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, also published by Walter de Gruyter. The two books complement each other.

Physicalism is a metaphysical thesis easily presented in slogan form - there is nothing over and above the physical - but notoriously difficult to formulate precisely. Understanding physicalism combines insights from contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics to present a new account of physical properties and metaphysical dependence and, on this foundation, develop a more rigorous and illuminating formulation of the thesis of physicalism

For centuries debates about reason and its Other have animated and informed philosophy, art, science and politics throughout Western civilization - but nowhere, arguably as deeply and turbulently as in Germany. Reason, the legacy of the Enlightenment, has been claimed, rejected and redefined by influential German thinkers from Kant to Nietzsche to Habermas. In our own time - more than 200 years after Kant's Critique of Pure Reason - the status of reason and the irrational, what is and what should be excluded from reason, what qualifies as a critique of reason, are all still central philosophical issues in Germany as well as throughout the West.

This volume documents the 17th Munster Lectures in Philosophy with Susan Haack, the prominent contemporary philosopher. It contains an original, programmatic article by Haack on her overall philosophical approach, entitled 'The Fragmentation of Philosophy, the Road to Reintegration'. In addition, the volume includes seven papers on various aspects of Haack's philosophical work as well as her replies to the papers. Susan Haack has deeply influenced many of the debates in contemporary philosophy. In her vivid and accessible way, she has made ground-breaking contributions covering a wide range of topics, from logic, metaphysics and epistemology, to pragmatism and the philosophy of science and law. In her work, Haack has always been very sensitive in detecting subtle differences. The distinctions she has introduced reveal what lies at the core of philosophical controversies, and show the problems that exist with established views. In order to resolve these problems, Haack has developed some 'middle-course approaches'. One example of this is her famous 'Foundherentism', a theory of justification that includes elements from both the rival theories of Foundationalism and Coherentism. Haack herself has offered the best description of her work calling herself a 'passionate moderate'.