During the latter half of his life, David Hume (1711-1776) achieved international celebrity status as a great philosopher and historian. The sceptical and anti-religious bent of his works generated hundreds of critical responses, many of which were scholarly commentaries. Other writers, though, focused less on Hume's specific publications and more on his reputation as a famous public figure. Wittingly or unwittingly, Hume was involved in many controversies: the attempts to excommunicate him from the Church of Scotland; his paradoxically close association with several Scottish clergymen; his quarrel with Jean Jacques Rousseau; his approach to his own death. Hume's enemies attacked his public character while his allies defended it. Friends and foes alike recorded anecdotes about him which appeared after his death in scattered periodicals and books. Hume's biographers have drawn liberally on this material, but in most cases the original sources are only summarized or briefly quoted. This set presents dozens of these biographically-related discussions of Hume in their most complete form, reset, annotated and introduced by James Fieser. The editor also provides the most detailed bibliographies yet compiled of Hume's writings and the early responses to them. These two volumes form the final part of the major "Early Responses to Hume" series, and they conclude with an index to the complete ten-volume collection. Like earlier sets in the series, these books should be welcomed by historians and Hume scholars all over the world, and research libraries should see them as important additions to holdings on the Scottish Enlightenment.

"La vieja y tradicional Logica de Aristoteles y Bacon ya no satisface a este mundo nuevo de la Cultura. En esta encontramos, ya no el mundo del "ser" sino fundamentalmente el mundo del "devenir"; ya no la ley "necesaria," sino la finalidad "contingente," ya no la simplicidad cuantitativa o cualitativa, sino el complejo biologico y espiritual" -Dr. Adalberto Garcia de Mendoza

"Free will: mental energy that poofs into existence from scratch?"In pairing key ideas from the history of philosophy with examples from everyday life and culture, David Cunning produces a clear, incisive and engaging introduction to philosophy. "Everyday Examples" explores historical philosophy and the contemporary theory scene and includes ideas from both the analytic and continental traditions. This broad sweep of topics provides a synoptic overview of philosophy as a discipline and philosophizing as an activity.With examples drawn from everything from "The Matrix "and "Sesame Street "to sleepwalking, driving, dancing, playing a sport and observing animals, students are pointed to ways in which they can be a philosopher outside the classroom in the everyday world.As well as providing entertaining and relatable examples from everyday life, this book will be especially useful in the classroom, it is accessible and discussion-oriented, so that students can get first-hand practice at actually 'doing' philosophy. This accessibility does not come at the expense of rigour but, rather, provides a 'way in' to thinking about the major issues, figures and moments in the history of philosophy. The chapters are divided into brief sustainable nuggets so that students can get a definite handle on each issue and also be the expert for the day on a given section.There are suggested study questions at the end of each chapter that bring out the force of each side of the many different issues.An indispensable tool for those approaching philosophy for the first time.

David Carr outlines a distinctively phenomenological approach to history. Rather than asking what history is or how we know history, a phenomenology of history inquires into history as a phenomenon and into the experience of the historical. How does history present itself to us, how does it enter our lives, and what are the forms of experience in which it does so? History is usually associated with social existence and its past, and so Carr probes the experience of the social world and of its temporality. Experience in this context connotes not just observation but also involvement and interaction: We experience history not just in the social world around us but also in our own engagement with it. For several decades, philosophers' reflections on history have been dominated by two themes: representation and memory. Each is conceived as a relation to the past: representation can be of the past, and memory is by its nature of the past. On both of these accounts, history is separated by a gap from what it seeks to find or wants to know, and its activity is seen by philosophers as that of bridging this gap. This constitutes the problem to which the philosophy of history addresses itself: how does history bridge the gap which separates it from its object, the past? It is against this background that a phenomenological approach, based on the concept of experience, can be proposed as a means of solving this problem-or at least addressing it in a way that takes us beyond the notion of a gap between present and past.

What is real? What is the relationship between ideas and objects in the world? Is God a concept or a being? Is reality a creation of the mind or a power beyond it? How does mental experience coordinate with natural laws and material phenomena? The Bloomsbury Anthology of Transcendental Thought is the definitive anthology of responses to these and other questions on the nature and limits of human knowledge by philosophers, theologians, and writers from Plato to Zizek. The word "transcendental" is as prevalent and also as ambiguously defined as the name "philosophy" itself. There are as many uses, invocations, and allusions to the term as there are definitions on offer. Every generation of writers, beginning in earnest in ancient Greece and continuing through to our own time, has attempted to clarify, apply, and lay claim to the meaning of transcendental thought. Arranged chronologically, this anthology reflects the diverse uses the term has been put to over the course of two and a half millennia. It lends historical perspective to the abiding importance of the transcendental for philosophical thinking and also some sense of the complexity, richness, and continued relevance of the contested term. The Bloomsbury Anthology of Transcendental Thought, the first anthology of its kind, offers teachers and students a new viewpoint on the history and present of transcendental thought. Its selection of essential, engaging excerpts, carefully selected, edited, and introduced, brings course materials up-to-date with the state of the discipline.

The work of the later Schelling (in and after 1809) seems antithetical to that of Nietzsche: one a Romantic, idealist and Christian, the other Dionysian, anti-idealist and anti-Christian. Still, there is a very meaningful and educative dialogue to be found between Schelling and Nietzsche on the topics of reason, freedom and religion. Both of them start their philosophy with a similar critique of the Western tradition, which to them is overly dualist, rationalist and anti-organic (metaphysically, ethically, religiously, politically). In response, they hope to inculcate a more lively view of reality in which a new understanding of freedom takes center stage. This freedom can be revealed and strengthened through a proper approach to religion, one that neither disconnects from nor subordinates religion to reason. Religion is the dialogical other to reason, one that refreshes and animates our attempts to navigate the world autonomously. In doing so, Schelling and Nietzsche open up new avenues of thinking about (the relationship between) freedom, reason and religion.

Emotions (pathe) such as anger, fear, shame, and envy, but also pity, wonder, love and friendship have long been underestimated in Plato's philosophy. The aim of Emotions in Plato is to provide a consistent account of the role of emotions in Plato's psychology, epistemology, ethics and political theory. The volume focuses on three main issues: taxonomy of emotions, their epistemic status, and their relevance for the ethical and political theory and practice. This volume, which is the first edited volume entirely dedicated to emotions in Plato's philosophy, shows how Plato, in many aspects, was positively interested in these affective states in order to support the rule of reason. "Emotions in Plato is a rich and illuminating book, which will probably make not a few readers change their view of Plato's attitude to emotions." -Margalit Finkelberg, Tel Aviv University, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2021.10.16

This bold, insightful book argues that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace for truth and debate.
With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano--Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy--takes on the widely held belief that the United States is an anti-intellectual country. Instead he provides a richly reported overview of American thought, arguing that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers ditch artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy's most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor. "America the Philosophical" is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country's unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural cliches.

Lucretius' account of the origin of life, the origin of species, and human prehistory (first century BC) is the longest and most detailed account extant from the ancient world. It is a mechanistic theory that does away with the need for any divine design, and has been seen as a forerunner of Darwin's theory of evolution. This commentary seeks to locate Lucretius in both the ancient and modern contexts. The recent revival of creationism makes this study particularly relevant to contemporary debate, and indeed, many of the central questions posed by creationists are those Lucretius attempts to answer.

In this lively and original book, Russell Winslow pursues a new interpretation of logos in Aristotle. Rather than a reading of rationality that cleaves human beings from nature, this new interpretation suggests that, for Aristotle, consistent and dependable rational arguments reveal a deep dependency upon nature. To this end, the author shows that a rational account of a being is in fact subject to the very same principle that governs the physical motion and generation of a being under inquiry. Among the many consequences of this argument is a rejection of both of the prevailing oppositional claims that Aristotle's methodological procedure of discovery is one resting on either empirical or conceptual grounds: discovery reveals a more complex structure than can be grasped by either of these modern modes. Further, Winslow argues that this interpretation of rational discovery also contributes to the ethical debates surrounding Aristotle's work, insofar as an ethical claim is achieved through reason, but is not thereby conceived as objective. Again, the demand for agreement in ethical/political decision will be disclosed as superseding in its complexity both those accounts of ethical decision as subjective (for example, "emotivist" accounts) and those as objective ("realist" accounts).

Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, or Basic Laws of Arithmetic, was intended to be his magnum opus, the book in which he would finally establish his logicist philosophy of arithmetic. But because of the disaster of Russell's Paradox, which undermined Frege's proofs, the more mathematical parts of the book have rarely been read. Richard G. Heck, Jr., aims to change that, and establish it as a neglected masterpiece that must be placed at the center of Frege's philosophy. Part I of Reading Frege's Grundgesetze develops an interpretation of the philosophy of logic that informs Grundgesetze, paying especially close attention to the difficult sections of Frege's book in which he discusses his notorious 'Basic Law V' and attempts to secure its status as a law of logic. Part II examines the mathematical basis of Frege's logicism, explaining and exploring Frege's formal arguments. Heck argues that Frege himself knew that his proofs could be reconstructed so as to avoid Russell's Paradox, and presents Frege's arguments in a way that makes them available to a wide audience. He shows, by example, that careful attention to the structure of Frege's arguments, to what he proved, to how he proved it, and even to what he tried to prove but could not, has much to teach us about Frege's philosophy.

Medieval logic is usually divided into the branches that derived from Aristotle's organon - the 'logica vetus' and 'logica nova', and those invented in the Middle Ages, the 'logica modernorum'. In this volume, a group of distinguished specialists asks whether the ancient roots of medieval logic were not in fact more varied. Stoic logic was mostly lost, but were some of its themes transmitted, even in distorted form, through Boethius and through the grammatical tradition? And did other schools, such as the sceptics and the Platonists, contribute in their own ways to medieval logic?

The phenomenological method in the study of religions has provided the linchpin supporting the argument that Religious Studies constitutes an academic discipline in its own right and thus that it is irreducible either to theology or to the social sciences. This book examines the figures whom the author regards as having been most influential in creating a phenomenology of religion. Background factors drawn from philosophy, theology and the social sciences are traced before examining the thinking of scholars within the Dutch, British and North American "schools" of religious phenomenology. Many of the severe criticisms, which have been leveled against the phenomenology of religion during the past twenty-five years by advocates of reductionism, are then presented and analyzed. The author concludes by reviewing alternatives to the polarized positions so characteristic of current debates in Religious Studies before making a case for what he deems a "reflexive phenomenology."

The work of Aristotle (384-322 BC) is considered to be one of the great achievements of the ancient world, and is a foundation of both Western and Middle Eastern philosophy and science. Although Aristotle left significant material on almost all branches of learning, what has survived is a somewhat disorganized collection of notes and lectures. Moreover, the centuries of interpretation across various epochs and cultures tend to cloud our understanding of him. Thomas Kiefer breaks through this cloud of interpretation and provides an organized account of one key part of Aristotle's philosophy, namely his theory of knowledge. This theory concerns what is knowledge, what we can know, and how we can do so. Kiefer's book is the first work that takes this theory as its sole focus and reconstructs it systematically. Kiefer's work throughout provides many new interpretations of key parts of Aristotle's philosophy, including an unnoticed -but crucial-distinction between knowledge in general and knowledge for us, the differences between his semantic and psychological requirements for knowledge, and 'nous', which is perhaps the most obscure notion in Aristotle's work. He also concludes with a summary of Aristotle's theory in the terms and style of contemporary epistemology. Kiefer's work should be of interest to anyone involved in the history of philosophy or contemporary epistemology.

Part of the "Blackwell Readings in the History of Philosophy" series, this survey of late modern philosophy focuses on the key texts and philosophers of the period whose beliefs changed the course of western thought.
Gathers together the key texts from the most significant and influential philosophers of the late modern era to provide a thorough introduction to the period.
Features the writings of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, Kant, Rousseau, Bentham and other leading thinkers.
Examines such topics as empiricism, rationalism, and the existence of God.
Readings are accompanied by expert commentary from the editors, who are leading scholars in the field.

The first essay in David Berman's new collection examines the full range of Berkeley's achievement, looking not only at his classic works of 1709-1713, but also Alciphron (1732) and his final book, the enigmatic Siris (1744). The book also examines a key problem in Berkeley's New Theory of Vision (1709): Why does the moon look larger on the horizon than in the meridian? The third item criticises the view, still uncritically accepted by many, that Berkeley's attacks on materialism are levelled against Locke. Part 2 opens with Berman's two essays of 1982 - the first to show that Berkeley came from a rich and coherent Irish philosophical background. Next comes a discussion of the link between Berkeley and Francis Hutcheson, and particularly their answers to the Molyneux problem, which Berman takes to be the root problem of Irish philosophy. The fourth essay looks at the impact of Golden Age Irish philosophy on eighteenth-century American philosophy, where, again, Berkeley had a central position. The last item examines Berkeley's influence on Samuel Beckett. Part 3 shows the multifaceted nature of Berkeley's career, which is missed by those who concentrate exclusively on his work of 1709-1713. Each section here presents new material on Berkeley's life, or on his works and thought; most of these are new letters, not included in the Luce-Jessop edition of the Works of Berkeley. This volume, therefore, can be seen a supplement to volumes 8 and 9 of the Works and also to Luce's Life of Berkeley.

John Locke (1632-1704), one of the great philosophers, is probably best known for his contributions to political thought. In this outstanding volume, Professor Eric Mack of Tulane University explains Locke's philosophical position, placing it in the tumultuous political and religious context of 17th century England. For Locke, entering into political society did not involve giving up one's natural rights, but rather transferring to governmental authority the job of protecting those rights. In this rigorous critical analysis, Mack argues that Locke provides an impressive - if not decisive - philosophical case for the view that individuals have natural rights to life, liberty and property, despite the existence or actions of any political authority.>

Syllogism is a form of logical argument allowing one to deduce a consistent conclusion based on a pair of premises having a common term. Although Aristotle was the first to conceive and develop this way of reasoning, he left open a lot of conceptual space for further modifications, improvements and systematizations with regards to his original syllogistic theory. From its creation until modern times, syllogism has remained a powerful and compelling device of deduction and argument, used by a variety of figures and assuming a variety of forms throughout history. The Aftermath of Syllogism investigates the key developments in the history of this peculiar pattern of inference, from Avicenna to Hegel. Taking as its focus the longue duree of development between the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century, this book looks at the huge reworking scientific syllogism underwent over the centuries, as some of the finest philosophical minds brought it to an unprecedented height of logical sharpness and sophistication. Bringing together a group of major international experts in the Aristotelian tradition, The Aftermath of Syllogism provides a detailed, up to date and critical evaluation of the history of syllogistic deduction.

This volume of new essays provides a comprehensive and structured examination of Kantian accounts of practical justification. This examination serves as a starting point for a focused investigation of the Kantian approach to justification in practical disciplines (ethics, legal and political philosophy or philosophy of religion). The recent growth of literature on this subject is not surprising given that Kant's approach seems so promising: he claims to be able to justify unconditional normative claims without recourse to assumptions, views or doctrines, which are not in their turn justifiable. Within the context of modern pluralism, this is exactly what the field needs: an approach which can demonstrably show why certain normative claims are valid, and why the grounds of these claims are valid in their turn, and why the freedom to question them should not be stifled. Although this has been a growth area in philosophy, no systematic and sustained study of the topic of practical justification in Kantian philosophy has been undertaken so far.
With fourteen original chapters and an introduction from leading researchers in the field, this volume addresses this neglected topic. The starting point is the still-dominant view that a successful account of justification of normative claims has to be non-metaphysical. The essays engage with this dominant view and pursue further implications in ethics, legal and political philosophy, as well as philosophy of religion. Throughout the essays, the contributors bring into contact with contemporary debates key interpretive questions about Kant's views on practical justification.

Introduction to New Realism provides an overview of the movement of contemporary thought named New Realism, by its creator and most celebrated practitioner, Maurizio Ferraris. Sharing significant concerns and features with Speculative Realism and Object Oriented Ontology, New Realism can be said to be one of the most prescient philosophical positions today. Its desire to overcome the postmodern antirealism of Kantian origin, and to reassert the importance of truth and objectivity in the name of a new Enlightenment, has had an enormous resonance both in Europe and in the US. Introduction to New Realism is the first volume dedicated to exposing this continental movement to an anglophone audience. Featuring a foreword by the eminent contemporary philosopher and leading exponent of Speculative Realism, Iain Hamilton Grant, the book begins by tracing the genesis of New Realism, and outlining its central theoretical tenets, before opening onto three distinct sections. The first, 'Negativity', is a critique of the postmodern idea that the world is constructed by our conceptual schemas, all the more so as we have entered the age of digitality and virtuality. The second thesis, 'positivity', proposes the fundamental ontological assertion of New Realism, namely that not only are there parts of reality that are independent of thought, but these parts are also able to act causally over thought and the human world. The third thesis, 'normativity,' applies New Realism to the sphere of the social world. Finally, an afterword written by two young scholars explains in more detail the relationship between New Realism and other forms of contemporary realism.

This companion provides original, scholarly, and cutting-edge essays that cover the whole range of Hegel s mature thought and his lasting influence. * A comprehensive guide to one of the most important modern philosophers * Essays are written in an accessible manner and draw on the most up-to-date Hegel research * Contributions are drawn from across the world and from a wide variety of philosophical approaches and traditions * Examines Hegel s influence on a range of thinkers, from Kierkegaard and Marx to Heidegger, Adorno and Derrida * Begins with a chronology of Hegel s life and work and is then split into sections covering topics such as Philosophy of Nature, Aesthetics, and Philosophy of Religion

This volume, the twenty-fifth year of published proceedings, contains seven papers and commentaries presented to the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy during academic year 2008-9. The papers treat topics including: mind and body in Heraclitus and Anaxagoras, a reconsideration of Socratic intellectualism, the positive motivational intent of Platonic poetics, politics and dialectic in the Statesman, Aristotle on community life, the nature of virtue according to Chrysippus, and the beauty of scientific knowledge in Proclus.