This book describes and analyzes the conceptual ambiguity of vulnerability, in an effort to understand its particular applications for legal and political protection when relating to groups. Group vulnerability has become a common concept within legal and political scholarship but remains largely undertheorized as a phenomenon itself. At the same time, in academia and within legal circles, vulnerability is primarily understood as a phenomenon affecting individuals, and the attempts to identify vulnerable groups are discredited as essentialist and stereotypical. In contrast, this book demonstrates that a conception of group vulnerability is not only theoretically possible, but also politically and legally necessary. Two conceptions of group vulnerability are discussed: one focuses on systemic violence or oppression directed toward several individuals, while another requires a common positioning of individuals within a given context that conditions their agency, ability to cope with risks and uncertainties, and manage their consequences. By comparing these two definitions of group vulnerability and their implications, Macioce seeks a more precise delineation of the theoretical boundaries of the concept of group vulnerability.

Kathrin Koslicki offers an analysis of ordinary material objects, those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in ordinary, scientifically informed discourse. She focuses particularly on the question of how the parts of such objects are related to the wholes which they compose.
Many philosophers today find themselves in the grip of an exceedingly deflationary conception of what it means to be an object. According to this conception, any plurality of objects, no matter how disparate or gerrymandered, itself composes an object, even if the objects in question fail to exhibit interesting similarities, internal unity, cohesion, or causal interaction amongst each other.
This commitment to initially counterintuitive objects follows from the belief that no principled set of criteria is available by means of which to distinguish intuitively gerrymandered objects from commonsensical ones; the project of this book is to persuade the reader that systematic principles can be found by means of which composition can be restricted, and hence that we need not embrace this deflationary approach to the question of what it means to be an object.
To this end, a more full-blooded neo-Aristotelian account of parthood and composition is developed according to which objects are structured wholes: it is integral to the existence and identity of an object, on this conception, that its parts exhibit a certain manner of arrangement. This structure-based conception of parthood and composition is explored in detail, along with some of its historical precursors as well as some of its contemporary competitors.

Excursions with Thoreau is a major new exploration of Thoreau's writing and thought that is philosophical yet sensitive to the literary and religious. Edward F. Mooney's excursions through passages from Walden, Cape Cod, and his late essay "Walking" reveal Thoreau as a miraculous writer, artist, and religious adept. Of course Thoreau remains the familiar political activist and environmental philosopher, but in these fifteen excursions we discover new terrain. Among the notable themes that emerge are Thoreau's grappling with underlying affliction; his pursuit of wonder as ameliorating affliction; his use of the enigmatic image of "a child of the mist"; his exalting "sympathy with intelligence" over plain knowledge; and his preferring "befitting reverie"-not argument-as the way to be carried to better, cleaner perceptions of reality. Mooney's aim is bring alive Thoreau's moments of reverie and insight, and to frame his philosophy as poetic and episodic rather than discursive and systematic.

In several of the dialogues of Plato, doubts have arisen among his interpreters as to which of the various subjects discussed in them is the main thesis. The speakers have the freedom of conversation; no severe rules of art restrict them, and sometimes we are inclined to think, with one of the dramatis personae in the Theaetetus, that the digressions have the greater interest. Yet in the most irregular of the dialogues there is also a certain natural growth or unity; the beginning is not forgotten at the end, and numerous allusions and references are interspersed, which form the loose connecting links of the whole. We must not neglect this unity, but neither must we attempt to confine the Platonic dialogue on the Procrustean bed of a single idea. (Compare Introduction to the Phaedrus.) Two tendencies seem to have beset the interpreters of Plato in this matter. First, they have endeavoured to hang the dia-logues upon one another by the slightest threads; and have thus been led to opposite and contradictory assertions respec-ting their order and sequence. The mantle of Schleiermacher has descended upon his successors, who have applied his method with the most various results.

John Locke is widely regarded as one of the foundational thinkers of modern western society. His contributions to a huge range of philosophical debates are as important and influential now as they were in the seventeenth century. Covering all the key concepts of his work, Starting with Locke provides an accessible introduction to the ideas of this hugely significant thinker. Clearly structured according to Locke's central ideas, the book leads the reader through a thorough overview of the development of his thought. Offering comprehensive coverage of the historical events and philosophical issues at play during this period, the book explores his understanding of faith and his contributions to political philosophy in his theories of natural law, natural rights and the right to rebellion. Crucially the book introduces the major historical and philosophical events that proved influential in the development of Locke's thought, including the violent social conflicts of late seventeenth-century England to which his political theory was primarily responding.

[This book] offers lucid and thorough explications of key Sartrean concepts and even phrases, and it contains revealing accounts of the numerous thinkers and writers who influenced Sartre...This book will open doors.-David Pugmire, Department of Philosophy, University of Southampton, UK The Sartre Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Jean- Paul Sartre. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all of his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Sartres thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. More than 350 A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key terms used in Sartres writings and detailed synopses of his key works, novels and plays. The Dictionary also includes entries on Sartres major philosophical influences, from Descartes to Heidegger, and his contemporaries, including de Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Sartres existentialism, offering clear explanations of often complex terminology.

In our daily lives, we are surrounded by all sorts of things - such as trees, cars, persons, or madeleines - and perception allows us access to them. But what does 'to perceive' actually mean? What is it that we perceive? How do we perceive? Do we perceive the same way animals do? Does reason play a role in perception? Such questions occur naturally today. But was it the same in the past, centuries ago? The collected volume tackles this issue by turning to the Latin philosophy of the 13th and 14th centuries. Did medieval thinkers raise the same, or similar, questions as we do with respect to perception? What answers did they provide? What arguments did they make for raising the questions they did, and for the answers they gave to them? The philosophers taken into consideration are, among others, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, William of Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John Pecham, Richard Rufus, Peter Olivi, Robert Kilwardby, John Buridan, and Jean of Jandun. Contributors are Elena Baltuta, Daniel De Haan, Martin Klein, Andrew LaZella, Lukas Licka, Mattia Mantovani, Andre Martin, Dominik Perler, Paolo Rubini, Jose Filipe Silva, Juhana Toivanen, and Rega Wood.

"Beyond Homo Sapiens Enlightened Faith, " is the last book of the "Beyond Homo Sapiens" trilogy. It concludes the series mystical/political review of the historical events of the last 5,000 years with the struggle of progressive thinkers and activists to help people recognize their universality and achieve enlightenment during the last 140 years. The ongoing fight for human rights and social justice is a battle against the interests of the privileged few who work to stay in power by keeping the masses anchored in their automatic reactions of self-defense and in-fighting, immediate gratification and reproduction.

Advances in human knowledge can lead us to our next phase of evolution, one that must be made consciously. Quantum physics has shown us that the wall of separation we perceive between everything that exists in the universe and therefore, between matter and energy, subject and object, is not really there. Matter is not solid and space is not empty. The same particles that make up a table are interwoven with the air around it and with the table s owner. Once all of humanity accepts this vision of matter as a single but multiform creative energy event, we can begin a new era and the possibility of enlightened faith.

The story of Apollonius King of Tyre has rightly been called the most popular romance of the Middle Ages. From Iceland to Greece, from Spain to Russia, versions of this novel are recorded. It is the variation among the Latin versions and the numerous vernacular adaptations that make this story especially interesting. Shakespeare used and adapted it in his Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Its plot continues to fascinate us. Incest, deception, pirates, famine, sex and shipwreck form its tasty ingredients. Its links with the Greek novel, which today stands in the centre of scholarly interest, are striking. In this commentary the author even attempts to show that the novel originated in Greece, or more precisely Asia Minor, possibly inTarsus. The two recensions (RA and RB) are compared line by line, generally given preference to RA. All these aspects make the present book attractive to scholars of many different disciplines.

This important new book examines Spinoza's moral and political philosophy. Specifically, it considers Spinoza's engagement with the themes of Stoicism and his significant contribution to the origins of the European Enlightenment. Firmin DeBrabander explores the problematic view of the relationship between ethics and politics that Spinoza apparently inherited from the Stoics and in so doing asks some important questions that contribute to a crucial contemporary debate. Does ethics provide any foundation for political theory and if so in what way? Likewise, does politics contribute anything essential to the life of virtue? And what is the political place and public role of the philosopher as a practitioner of ethics? In examining Spinoza's Ethics, his most important and widely-read work, and exploring the ways in which this work echoes Stoic themes regarding the public behaviour of the philosopher, the author seeks to answer these key questions and thus makes a fascinating contribution to the study of moral and political philosophy.

The nature and reality of self is a subject of increasing prominence among Western philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists. It has also been central to Indian and Tibetan philosophical traditions for over two thousand years. It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind. Leading philosophical scholars of the Indian and Tibetan traditions join with leading Western philosophers of mind and phenomenologists to explore issues about consciousness and selfhood from these multiple perspectives. Self, No Self? is not a collection of historical or comparative essays. It takes problem-solving and conceptual and phenomenological analysis as central to philosophy. The essays mobilize the argumentative resources of diverse philosophical traditions to address issues about the self in the context of contemporary philosophy and cognitive science. Self, No Self? will be essential reading for philosophers and cognitive scientists interested in the nature of the self and consciousness, and will offer a valuable way into the subject for students.

In this important and highly original book, place, commonality and judgment provide the framework within which works central to the Greek philosophical and literary tradition are usefully located and reinterpreted. Greek life, it can be argued, was defined by the interconnection of place, commonality and judgment. Similarly within the Continental philosophical tradition topics such as place, judgment, law and commonality have had a pervasive centrality. Works by Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben amongst others attest to the current exigency of these topics. Yet the ways in which they are interrelated has been barely discussed within the context of Ancient Philosophy. The conjecture of this book is that not only are these terms of genuine philosophical importance in their own right, but they are also central to Ancient Philosophy. Andrew Benjamin ultimately therefore aims to underscore the relevance of Ancient Philosophy for contemporary debates in Continental Philosophy.

Reading Aristotle: Argument and Exposition argues that Aristotle's treatises must be approached as progressive unfoldings of a unified position that may extend over a single book, an entire treatise, or across several works. Contributors demonstrate that Aristotle relies on both explanatory and expository principles. Explanatory principles include familiar doctrines such as the four causes, actuality's priority over potentiality and nature's doing nothing in vain. Expository principles are at least as important. They pertain to proper sequence, pedagogical method, the role of reputable views and the opinions of predecessors, the equivocity of key explanatory terms, and the need to scrupulously observe distinctions between the different sciences. A sensitivity to expository principles is crucial to understanding both particular arguments and entire treatises.

After resolving to become a Catholic Christian, Augustine spent a decade trying to clarify his understanding of 'contemplation,' the interior presence of God to the soul. That long struggle yielded his classic account in the Confessions. This study explores Augustine's developing understanding of contemplation, beginning with his earliest accounts written before his baptism and ending with the Confessions. Chapter One examines the pagan monotheism of the Roman Platonists and the role of contemplation in their theology. Augustine's pre-baptismal writings are then considered in Chapter Two, tracking his fundamental break from pagan Platonism. Chapter Three then turns to Augustine's developing understanding of contemplation in these pre-baptismal texts. Chapter Four concentrates on Augustine's thought during the decade after his baptism in 387, a period that encompasses his monastic life in Thagaste, and his years first as a presbyter and then as a bishop in Hippo Regius. This chapter follows the arc of Augustine's thought through these years of transition and leads into the Confessions, giving a vantage point to survey its theology of contemplation. Chapter Five concentrates on the Confessions and sets its most famous account of contemplation, the vision at Ostia from Book IX, into a larger polemical context. Augustine's defence of his transcendental reading of scripture in Confessions XII is analysed and then used to illuminate the Ostian ascent narrative. The book concludes with observations on the importance of Augustine's theology of contemplation to the emergence of Christian monotheism in late antiquity.

Jon D. Mikalson examines how Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers described, interpreted, criticized, and utilized the components and concepts of the religion of the people of their time - practices such as sacrifice, prayer, dedications, and divination. The chief concepts involved are those of piety and impiety, and after a thorough analysis of the philosophical texts Mikalson offers a refined definition of Greek piety, dividing it into its two constituent elements of proper respect' for the gods and religious correctness'. He concludes with a demonstration of the benevolence of the gods in the philosophical tradition, linking it to the expectation of that benevolence evinced by popular religion.