This study focuses on the metaphysics of the great Arabic philosopher Avicenna (or Ibn Sina, d. 1037 C.E.). More specifically, it delves into Avicenna's theory of quiddity or essence, a topic which seized the attention of thinkers both during the medieval and modern periods. Building on recent contributions in Avicennian studies, this book proposes a new and comprehensive interpretation of Avicenna's theory of 'the pure quiddity' (also known as 'the quiddity in itself') and of its ontology. The study provides a careful philological analysis of key passages gleaned from the primary sources in Arabic and a close philosophical contextualization of Avicenna's doctrines in light of the legacy of ancient Greek philosophy in Islam and the early development of Arabic philosophy (falsafah) and theology (kalam). The study pays particular attention to how Avicenna's theory of quiddity relates to the ancient Greek philosophical discussion about the universals or common things and Mu'tazilite ontology. Its main thesis is that Avicenna articulated a sophisticated doctrine of the ontology of essence in light of Greek and Bahshamite sources, which decisively shaped subsequent intellectual history in Islam and the Latin West.

Kant's account of emotions has only recently begun to receive the attention that this topic deserves, as it casts new light over the manifold features of transcendental philosophy. The authors expand the contemporary overview of the Kantian treatment from both a neuroscientific and a continental philosophical perspective. The volume opens paths to reevaluate neglected aspects of the Kantian model of human rationality.

In the Politics, Aristotle sets out to discover what is the best form that the state can take. Similar to his mentor Plato, Aristotle considers the form that will produce justice and cultivate the highest human potential; however Aristotle takes a more empirical approach, examining the constitution of existing states and drawing on specific case-studies. In doing so he lays the foundations of modern political science. This Readers Guide is the ideal companion to this most influential of texts offering guidance on: Philosophical and historical context Key themes Reading the text Reception and influence Further reading

Has postmodern American culture so altered the terrain of medical care that moral confusion and deflated morale multiply faster than both technological advancements and ethical resolutions? The Ethos of Medicine in Postmodern America is an attempt to examine this question with reference to the cultural touchstones of our postmodern era: consumerism, computerization, destruction of meta-narratives, and stakeholder late capitalism . The cultural insights of the postmodern thinkers help elucidate the changes in healthcare delivery that are occurring early in the 21st century. Although only Foucault among postmodern thinkers actually focused his critique on medical care itself, their combined analysis provides a valuable perspective for gaining understanding of contemporary changes in healthcare deliver. It is often difficult to envision what is happening in the psychosocial, cultural dynamic of an epoch as you experience it. Therefore it is useful to have a technique for refracting those observations through the lens of another system of thought. The prism of postmodern thought offers such a device with which to view the eclipse of changing medical practice. Any professional practice is always thoroughly embedded in the social and cultural matrix of its society, and the medical profession in America is no exception. Corporatization, consumerism, and computerization of medical practice and the clinical encounter constitute the three C s of Postmodern American healthcare. In drawing upon of the insights of key Continental thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Bauman, and Levinas as well as American scholars, I do not necessarily endorse the views of postmodernism but believe much can be learned from their insight. Furthermore my comments are also informed by empirical information from health services research and the sociology of medicine. I attempt to develop a new understanding of healthcare delivery in the 21st century and suggest positive developments that might be nurtured to avoid the barren Silicon Cage of corporate, bureaucratized medical practice. Bringing to this analysis are current healthcare issues such as the patient centered medical home, clinical practice guidelines, and electronic health records, the insights of an interdisciplinary examination that include postmodern thought, medical sociology, bioethics, and health services research.

George Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge is a crucial text in the history of empiricism and in the history of philosophy more generally. Its central and seemingly astonishing claim is that the physical world cannot exist independently of the perceiving mind. The meaning of this claim, the powerful arguments in its favour, and the system in which it is embedded, are explained in a highly lucid and readable fashion and placed in their historical context. Berkeley's philosophy is, in part, a response to the deep tensions and problems in the new philosophy of the early modern period and the reader is offered an account of this intellectual milieu. The book then follows the order and substance of the Principles whilst drawing on materials from Berkeley's other writings. This volume is the ideal introduction to Berkeley's Principles and will be of great interest to historians of philosophy in general.

Bernard Lonergan (1904-84) is acknowledged as one of the most significant philosopher-theologians of the 20th century. Lonergan, Meaning and Method in many ways complements Andrew Beards' previous book on Lonergan, Insight and Analysis (Bloomsbury, 2010). Andrew Beards applies Lonergan's thought and brings it into critical dialogue and discussion with other contemporary philosophical interlocutors, principally from the analytical tradition. He also introduces themes and arguments from the continental tradition, as well as offering interpretative analysis of some central notions in Lonergan's thought that are of interest to all who wish to understand the importance of Lonergan's work for philosophy and Christian theology. Three of the chapters focus upon areas of fruitful exchange and debate between Lonergan's thought and the work of three major figures in current analytical philosophy: Nancy Cartwright, Timothy Williamson and Scott Soames. The discussion also ranges across such topics as meaning theory, metaphilosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science and aesthetics.

Drawing on published works, correspondence and manuscripts, this book offers the most comprehensive reconstruction of Boscovich's theory within its historical context. It explains the genesis and theoretical as well as epistemological underpinnings in light of the Jesuit tradition to which Boscovich belonged, and contrasts his ideas with those of Newton, Leibniz, and their legacy. Finally, it debates crucial issues in early-modern physical science such as the concept of force, the particle-like structure of matter, the idea of material points and the notion of continuity, and shares novel insights on Boscovich's alleged influence on later developments in physics. With its attempt to reduce all natural forces to one single law, Boscovich's Theory of Natural Philosophy, published in 1758, left a lasting impression on scientists and philosophers of every age regarding the fundamental unity of physical phenomena. The theory argues that every pair of material points is subject to one mutual force - and always the same force - which is their propensity to be mutually attracted or repelled, depending on their distance from one another. Furthermore, the action of this unique force is visualized through a famous diagram that fascinated generations of scientists. But his understanding of key terms of the theory - such as the notion of force involved and the very idea of a material point - is only ostensibly similar to our current conceptual framework. Indeed, it needs to be clarified within the plurality of contexts in which it has emerged rather than being considered in view of later developments. The book is recommended for scholars and students interested in the ideas of the early modern period, especially historians and philosophers of science, mathematicians and physicists with an interest in the history of the discipline, and experts on Jesuit science and philosophy.

'Why do I know a few more things? Why am I so clever altogether?' Self-celebrating and self-mocking autobiographical writings from Ecce Homo, the last work iconoclastic German philosopher Nietzsche wrote before his descent into madness. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

Wisdom and Philosophy: Contemporary and Comparative Approaches questions the nature of the relationship between wisdom and philosophy from an intercultural perspective. Bringing together an international mix of respected philosophers, this volume discusses similarities and differences of Western and Asian pursuits of wisdom and reflects on attempts to combine them. Contributors cover topics such as Confucian ethics, the acquisition of wisdom in pre-Qin literature and anecdotes of stupidity in the classical Chinese tradition, while also addressing contemporary topics such as global Buddhism and analytic metaphysics. Providing original examples of comparative philosophy, contributors look at ideas and arguments of thinkers such as Confucius, Zhuangzi and Zhu Xi alongside the work of Aristotle, Plato and Heidegger. Presenting Asian perspectives on philosophy as practical wisdom, Wisdom and Philosophy is a rare intercultural inquiry into the relation between wisdom and philosophy. It provides new ways of understanding how wisdom connects to philosophy and underlines the need to reintroduce it into philosophy today.

Philoponus' commentary on the last part of Aristotle's Physics Book 4 does not offer major alternatives to Aristotle's science, as did his commentary on the earlier parts, concerning place, vacuum and motion in a vacuum. Aristotle's subject here is time, and his treatment of it had led to controversy in earlier writers. Philoponus does offer novelties when he treats motion round a bend as in one sense faster than motion on the straight over the same distance in the same time, because of the need to consider the greater effort involved. And he points out that in an earlier commentary on Book 8 he had argued against Aristotle for the possibility of a last instant of time.This book is in the prestigious series, The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which translates the works of the ancient commentators into English for the first time.

This is the classic book by Nietzsche in hardcover format.

The keywords of the Enlightenment-freedom, tolerance, rights, equality-are today heard everywhere, and they are used to endorse a wide range of positions, some of which are in perfect contradiction. While Orwell's 1984 claims that there is one phrase in the English language that resists translation into Newspeak, namely the opening lines of that key Enlightenment text, the Declaration of Independence: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...', we also find the Wall Street Journal saying of the Iraq War that the US was 'fighting for the very notion of the Enlightenment'. It seems we are no longer sure whether these truths are self-evident nor quite what they might mean today. Based on the critically acclaimed Oxford Amnesty Lectures series, this book brings together a number of major international figures to debate the history of freedom, tolerance, equality, and to explore the complex legacy of the Enlightenment for human rights. The lectures are published here with responses from other leading figures in the field.

Primitive Man as Philosopher by Paul Radin, Ph. D. Research Fellow of Yale University and sometime Lecturer in Ethnology in Cambridge University editor of Crashing Thunder, the Autobiography of an American Indian with a foreword by John Dewcy Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University New York and London D, Appleton and Company 1927 COPYRIGHT, 1927, D. APPLETON AND COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY WIFE PREFACE When a modern historian desires to study the civilization of any people, he regards it as a necessary preliminary that he divest himself, so far as possible, of all prejudice and bias. He realizes that differences between cultures exist, but he does not feel that it is necessarily a sign of inferiority that a people differs in customs from his own. There seems, how ever, to be a limit to what an historian treats as legitimate difference, a limit not always easy to determine. On the whole it may be said that he very naturally passes the same judgments that the majority of his fellow countrymen do. Hence, if some of the differences between admittedly civil ized peoples often call forth unfavorable judgments or even provoke outbursts of horror, how much more must we expect this to be the case where the differences are of so funda mental a nature as those separating us from people whom we have been accustomed to call uncivilized. The term uncivilized is a very vague one, and it is spread over a vast medley of peoples, some of whom have comparatively simple customs and others extremely com plex ones. Indeed, there can be said to be but two charac teristics possessed in common by all these peoples, the absence of a written language and the fact of originalposses sion of the soil when the various civilized European and Asiatic nations came into contact with them. But among all aboriginal races appeared a number of customs which undoubtedly seemed exceedingly strange to their European and Asiatic conquerors. Some of these customs they had never heard of others they recognized as similar to observ vli viii PREFACE ances and beliefs existing among the more backward mem bers of their own communities. Yet the judgments civilized peoples have passed on the aborigines, we may be sure, were not initially based on any calm evaluation of facts. If the aborigines were regarded as innately inferior, this was due in part to the tremendous gulf in custom and belief separating them from the con querors, in part to the apparent simplicity of their ways, and in no small degree to the fact that they were unable to offer any effective resistance. Romance soon threw its distorting screen over the whole primitive picture. Within one hundred years of the dis covery of America it had already become an ineradicably established tradition that all the aborigines encountered by Europeans were simple, untutored savages from whom little more could be expected than from uncontrolled children, individuals who were at all times the slaves of their passions, of which the dominant one was hatred. Much of this tradi tion, in various forms, disguised and otherwise, has persisted to the present day. The evolutionary theory, during its heyday in the iSyos and Sos, still further complicated and misrepresented the situation, and from the great classic that created modern ethnology Tylors Primitive Culture, published in 1870 future ethnologists were to imbibe the cardinal andfunda mentally misleading doctrine that primitive peoples represent an early stage in the history of the evolution of culture. What was, perhaps, even more dangerous was the strange and uncritical manner in which all primitive peoples were lumped together in ethnological discussion simple Fuegians with the highly advanced Aztecs and Mayans, Bushmen with the peoples of the Nigerian coast, Australians with Poly nesians, and so on. PREFACE ix For a number of years scholars were apparently content with the picture drawn by Tylor and his successors...

Charles E. Snyder considers the New Academy's attacks on Stoic epistemology through a critical re-assessment of the 3rd century philosopher, Arcesilaus of Pitane. Arguing that the standard epistemological framework used to study the ancient Academy ignores the metaphysical dimensions at stake in Arcesilaus's critique, Snyder explores new territory for the historiography of Stoic-Academic debates in the early Hellenistic period. Focusing on the dispute between the Old and New Academy, Snyder reveals the metaphysical dimensions of Arcesilaus' arguments as essential to grasping what is innovative about the so-called New Academy. Resisting the partiality for epistemology in the historical reconstructions of ancient philosophy, this book defends a new philosophical framework that re-positions Arcesilaus' attack on the early Stoa as key to his deviation from the metaphysical foundations of both Stoic and Academic virtue ethics. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship on Hellenistic philosophy in French, Italian, and German, Beyond Hellenistic Epistemology builds bridges between analytical and continental approaches to the historiography of ancient philosophy, and makes an important and disruptive contribution to the literature.