In Crime, Punishment and Disease, Antony Flew makes clear both the meaning and the implications carried by the application of the expression "mental disease." He aims to discourage its use in conditions that provide the victims of such diseases with an excuse for failing to perform what would have been their imperative duties had they enjoyed good mental health. Flew attacks the gross over-extensions of the notion of mental disease on both sides of the Atlantic. He defends human dignity and responsibility against the suggestion that we are all, or most of us, "sick, sick, sick." In particular, he challenges the paternalist pretensions of people who claim a right to control and manipulate others because they are allegedly sick, and consequently not responsible for what they do.In a typical ordinary disease, Flew notes, it is the patient who complains of the disease rather than someone else who complains about the patient. But those who claim that some crime or all crime is symptomatic of mental disease and those who identify disorders such as attention/deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as conditions requiring psychiatric attention are taking the disfavored behavior rather than the distress of their patients as the warrant for supposedly medical interventions. They should instead first consider how what they propose to call mental disease does, and does not, resemble syphilis, measles, and other communicable diseases.Flew sees his work as complementary to Thomas Szasz's. He applies a philosophical perspective to problems Szasz discusses as a psychiatrist. This work will be of particular interest to students of philosophy and politics, in that it relates modern discussion of mental illness to the Plato of The Republic. Flew also takes note in this context of Samuel Butler's Erewhon. This work will be of direct relevance to criminologists, as well as those interested in social welfare, philosophy of education, and new developments in psychiatry.

A superb classroom edition with a detailed introduction and extensive notes by Anthony Flew, author of Hume's Philosophy of Belief. This also includes Hume's autobiography, My Own Life; Hume's An abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature; the key passage Why a Cause is Always Necessary from Hume's Treatise; three letters by Hume, and the famous letter on Hume's death by Adam Smith.

This is the only complete and up-to-date collection of Hume's writings on religion, in an accessible classroom edition. Includes The Natural History of Religion, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Of the Immortality of the Soul, Of Suicide, Of Superstition and Enthusiasm, A Note on the Profession of Priest, and two revealing letters. "Overall, this book performs two special services. First, it makes readily available the full range of Hume's writings on religion. Second, its thorough notes explain references students are likely to find obscure and points they are likely to find puzzling." Ethics

In "Crime, Punishment and Disease," Antony Flew makes clear both the meaning and the implications carried by the application of the expression "mental disease." He aims to discourage its use in conditions that provide the victims of such diseases with an excuse for failing to perform what would have been their imperative duties had they enjoyed good mental health. Flew attacks the gross over-extensions of the notion of mental disease on both sides of the Atlantic. He defends human dignity and responsibility against the suggestion that we are all, or most of us, "sick, sick, sick." In particular, he challenges the paternalist pretensions of people who claim a right to control and manipulate others because they are allegedly sick, and consequently not responsible for what they do.

In a typical ordinary disease, Flew notes, it is the patient who complains of the disease rather than someone else who complains about the patient. But those who claim that some crime or all crime is symptomatic of mental disease and those who identify disorders such as attention/deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as conditions requiring psychiatric attention are taking the disfavored behavior rather than the distress of their patients as the warrant for supposedly medical interventions. They should instead first consider how what they propose to call mental disease does, and does not, resemble syphilis, measles, and other communicable diseases.

Flew sees his work as complementary to Thomas Szasz's. He applies a philosophical perspective to problems Szasz discusses as a psychiatrist. This work will be of particular interest to students of philosophy and politics, in that it relates modern discussion of mental illness to the Plato of "The Republic." Flew also takes note in this context of Samuel Butler's "Erewhon." This work will be of direct relevance to criminologists, as well as those interested in social welfare, philosophy of education, and new developments in psychiatry.

Practical reasoning and clear thinking are essential for everyone if we are to make sense of the information we receive each day. Being able to quickly know the difference between valid and invalid arguments, the contradictory versus the contrary, vagueness and ambiguity, contradiction and self-contradiction, the truthful and the fallacious, separates clear thinkers from the crowd.
How to Think Straight lays the foundation for critical reasoning by showing many ways in which our thinking goes awry. Celebrated philosopher Antony Flew entertainingly instructs on the many and varied faults that occur in argument, the power of reason, how to challenge assertions and find evidence, and how not to be persuaded by half-truths. Flew also examines poor reasoning, and why we should be concerned with finding the truth.
Lucid, terse, and sensible, with study questions and exercises to help along the way, this enlightening second edition will help you develop the skills necessary to argue and reason effectively by following a few simple, easy-to-remember directions.

Antony Flew is one of the most well-known and respected philosophers alive today. In Philosophical Essays, twelve of Flew's most significant works are gathered together for the first time, creating a unique and valuable collection. The book begins with a new autobiographical sketch of Flew's life and career. In addition to some of the distinguished scholar's most influential and famous articles, Philosophical Essays includes a number of rare works that have not been available to a wide audience until now. This important book will be an essential addition to the library of any philosopher.

In little more than a hundred years the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin has conquered the thinking world. No other body of ideas has enjoyed such unrivaled success. But precisely because of its scientific status, Darwinism has sometimes been invoked to sustain other ideas and beliefs with a much less solid foundation. Darwinian Evolution is a study of the historical background of Darwin's ideas, of their logical structure, and of their alleged and actual implications. Flew explores the Scottish Enlightenment, an important and often neglected aspect of Darwin's intellectual background. He compares Darwin with such figures as Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and Karl Marx, emphasizing not the similarities, but the differences between the natural and social sciences. Flew argues that social science must do what natural science does not: take account of individual choice. He examines the creationist controversy in Britain and the United States and discusses the possibility of a human sociobiology. In his new introduction, Flew updates his book by discussing relevant works that have appeared since it was published thirteen years ago. He discusses two different tendencies among both social scientists and those who develop or promote social policies according to various findings in the social sciences: (1) to assume there is no such thing as human nature; and (2) to take no account of the possibility that differences between sets of individuals may be genetically determined. Flew maintains that both these tendencies violate Darwin's theory. Darwinian Evolution is an intriguing study that should be read by sociologists, biologists, philosophers, and all those interested in the impact of Darwin and his work.

Equality in Liberty and Justice is an integrated collection of essays in political philosophy, divided into two parts. The first examines (classically) liberal ideas-the ideas of the Founding Fathers of the American republic-and some of the applications and the rejections of such ideas in our contemporary world. Among other questions about liberty and responsibility it considers, in the context of the imprisonment and psychiatric treatment of dissidents in the psychiatric hospitals of the former Soviet Union, Plato's suggestion that all delinquency is an expression of mental disease.The second part examines the relations and the lack of relations between old fashioned, without prefix or suffix, justice and what is called by its promoters social justice. It therefore presses such questions as "Equal outcomes or equal justice?" and "Enemies of poverty or of inequality?"Equality in Liberty and Justice was originally published before the winning of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Empire. This second edition updates the arguments of the previous editor and draws present day moral conclusions. This book will appeal to those for whom the classical liberal and conservative debates still have great meaning. Flew might well be the most significant sunthesizer of Tocqueville and Mill.

In Social Life and Moral Judgment, author and philosopher Antony Flew examines the social problems induced by the mature welfare state. Welfare states make ever-increasing financial demands on their citizenry, yet the evidence clearly supports that such demands are not sustainable. In this superlative collection of thematic essays, Flew investigates and explains why this is so, and calls for a return to individual responsibility. The first essay establishes the philosophical basis for his argument. "Is Human Sociobiology Possible?" answers its titular question in the negative, asserting that we are all members of a peculiar type of creature that can, and therefore must, be responsible for whatever choices between various courses of action or inaction that are open to us as individuals. In other essays, Flew shows how state welfare systems inevitably corrupt and demoralize their citizens by encouraging ever-more people to apply for welfare entitlements and reducing the incentives to avoid or escape the conditions warranting those entitlements. He investigates the origins of this new kind of welfare entitlement, and shows how very different what politicians and public sector employees produce is from what these people claim to be producing. Flew shows that the drive for "social" justice appears to require that the justly acquired income and wealth of all citizens should be progressively taxed away or supplemented by the state so that the eventual result is more, though never perfect, equality. This objective, he asserts, must be radically distinguished from old-fashioned, without prefix or suffix, justice. It was this type of justice Adam Smith referred to when he famously said that it is a virtue "of which the observance is not left to the freedom of our wills" but "which may be extorted by force." Flew question the aims of those who would discredit wealth creators and wealth-creating investment, showing that these are the same people who promote the rising "progressive" taxation needed to finance expenditure in the growing welfare state. Social Life and Moral Judgment is a timely critique, one that will be appreciated at a point in history when governments on both sides of the Atlantic have begun to describe spending on state health, social, education, and welfare services as investments, instead of mechanisms to achieve social justice.

In Social Life and Moral Judgment, author and philosopher Antony Flew examines the social problems induced by the mature welfare state. Welfare states make ever-increasing financial demands on their citizenry, yet the evidence clearly supports that such demands are not sustainable. In this superlative collection of thematic essays, Flew investigates and explains why this is so, and calls for a return to individual responsibility.

The first essay establishes the philosophical basis for his argument. "Is Human Sociobiology Possible?" answers its titular question in the negative, asserting that we are all members of a peculiar type of creature that can, and therefore must, be responsible for whatever choices between various courses of action or inaction that are open to us as individuals. In other essays, Flew shows how state welfare systems inevitably corrupt and demoralize their citizens by encouraging ever-more people to apply for welfare entitlements and reducing the incentives to avoid or escape the conditions warranting those entitlements. He investigates the origins of this new kind of welfare entitlement, and shows how very different what politicians and public sector employees produce is from what these people claim to be producing.

Flew shows that the drive for "social" justice appears to require that the justly acquired income and wealth of all citizens should be progressively axed away or supplemented by the state so that the eventual result is more, though never perfect, equality. This objective, he asserts, must be radically distinguished from old-fashioned, without prefix or suffix, justice. It was this type of justice Adam Smith referred to when he famously said that itis a virtue "of which the observance is not left to the freedom of our wills" but "which may be extorted by force." Flew question the aims of those who would discredit wealth creators and wealth-creating investment, showing that these are the same people who promote the rising "progressive" taxation needed to finance expenditure in the growing welfare state.

Social Life and Moral Judgment is a timely critique, one that will be appreciated at a point in history when governments on both sides of the Atlantic have begun to describe spending on state health, social, education, and welfare services as investments, instead of mechanisms to achieve social justice.

A wave of modern atheists have taken center stage and brought the long-standing debate about the existence of God back into the headlines. Spearheaded by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, this 'new atheism' has found a powerful place in today's culture wars.

Although this movement has been billed as 'new,' the foundation of its argument is indebted to philosopher Antony Flew and his groundbreaking paper "Theology and Falsification," the most widely reprinted philosophical publication of the last five decades. Flew built his highly acclaimed academic career publicly debunking the existence of God. But, now the renowned philosopher has arrived at the opposite conclusion and officially joined the other side.

With refreshing openness to argument and an absence of the anger and hostility that have been hallmarks of the 'new atheism,' Flew shows how his commitment to following the argument wherever it leads resulted, to his own astonishment, in his conversion to belief in a creator God.

Certain to be read and discussed for years to come, There Is A God will forever change the debate about the existence of God.

In 2004 philosopher Antony Flew, one of the world's most prominent atheists, publicly acknowledged that he had become persuaded of the existence of God. Not long before that, in 2003, Flew and Christian philosopher Gary Habermas debated at a Veritas Forum at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Habermas, perhaps the world's leading expert on the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, made the case for rational belief on the basis of the reliability of the evidence. Flew argued for alternative understandings of the evidence presented. For two-and-a-half decades Flew and Habermas have been in friendly dialogue about the plausibility of the resurrection and the existence of God. This book presents the full content of their third and final debate, as well as transcripts of the Q & A session with the audience afterward. Also included are a 2004 conversation between Habermas and Flew shortly after Flew's much-publicized change of position, as well as editor David Baggett's assessment and analysis of the full history of Habermas and Flew's interactions. Here is your opportunity to listen in on a conversation with two of the greatest thinkers of our era about one of the most pivotal events in human history. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. And decide for yourself whether it's believable that a man could rise from the dead.

This collection of essays by one of the world's most distinguished philosophers - the inaugural volume in the Prometheus Lecture Series - addresses the many and diverse aspects of atheistic humanism. Antony Flew begins his comprehensive study with "Fundamentals of Unbelief", in which he argues that there is no good or sufficient natural reason to believe that the universe is created by a conscious, personal, willing, and doing Being; that such a Being has nevertheless provided his (or her or its) creatures with a Revelation; and that we should either hope or fear some future for ourselves after our deaths. In the second part, "Defending Knowledge and Responsibility", Flew disposes of the perennial charge that a naturalistic world outlook presupposes values for which it cannot itself make room. He also criticizes sociologists of belief who refute themselves by refusing to admit that there is such a thing as objective knowledge. And he examines the subject of mental illness, explaining and defining the notion by reference to the familiar yet often denied realities of choice and consequent responsibility. The third section, "Scientific Socialism?", consists of three critical analyses of Marxism. Flew exposes the faulty philosophical foundations of Communism, compares Marxist theory with Darwin's theory of evolution, questions the status of Marxism as a social "science", and points out some of the significant failures of the socialist project. Finally, in the fourth part, "Applied Philosophy", Flew looks at three social issues, which have been the subject of much recent debate: the right to die, the definition of mental health, and the problem of racism. He concludes by criticizing B.F.Skinner's "science" of behaviorism, arguing that the ability to make choices for which we can be held responsible is an essential and distinctive characteristic of human beings.

Rationalizing human behavior is our most compelling pastime. We are all disposed to offer and accept insufficient evidence and invalid arguments when these seem to support conclusions that we merely wish were true. We need to know how to think clearly about our social thinking, how to resist the allure of self-deception how best to choose.
Everyone skeptical about or confused by the findings of the social sciences will appreciate Antony Flew's crisp analysis of the methodological flaws and systematic misunderstandings corrupting their content and application. Thinking About Social Thinking seeks to establish what can and cannot be learned from such studies, indicating where good work has been ignored, or much-needed work has yet to be done. Flew's clear and incisive arguments are illustrated with abundant examples and references many entertaining, others surprising. Flew issues a refreshing, impassioned warning against the perils of complacent, muddled thinking and false but comfortable conclusions.

Two principal issues interact and overlap in this penetrating analysis: the relationship between Hobbes' natural philosophy and his civil philosophy, and the relationship between Hobbes' thought and the Aristotelian world view that constituted the philosophical orthodoxy he rejected. On the first point Thomas A. Spragens Jr. argues that Hobbes' political ideas were in fact significantly influenced by his cosmological perceptions, although they were not, and could not have been, completely derived from that source. On the second, the author demonstrates that Hobbes undertook a highly systematic transformation of Aristotelian cosmology: he borrowed the form of the Aristotelian cosmology, but radically refashioned its substance to accommodate the discoveries of contemporaries such as Galileo.

Despite the perennial hope of life beyond the grave, Flew shows that there are insuperable difficulties in elucidating post-mortem survival on a rational basis. He analyses the three ways that philosophers of the past have attempted to get around these difficulties: the 'reconstitutionist way' (miraculous reassembly of our deceased bodies at some future time, such as the Last Judgement); the 'way of the astral body' (a sort of duplicate, undetectable 'body', which detaches itself from the material body after death); and, the 'Platonic-Cartesian way' (an incorporeal mind or soul containing a person's identity which lives on after death). The main problem, says Flew, is the impossibility of logically demonstrating how a person surviving death in any imagined altered state could identify him- or herself as the same person who had previously lived a flesh-and-blood life on the Earth. Flew reviews both the classic arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Descartes, as well as the modern findings of parapsychology, elucidating this complex issue with logical rigor and engaging wit.

This lively introduction to the major questions of philosophy is indispensable for instructors seeking a text that explains the basic problems in clear and non-technical language. In addition to addressing the crucial question: "What is philosophy?" this book concentrates on topics most likely to be of immediate interest to the beginning student. Questions of ethics, skepticism and the external world, epistemology, the nature of God, free will and determinism, and political philosophy are discussed in detail. This original book also includes critical analyses of such thinkers as Plato, Descartes, Hume, Pascal, Marx, and Locke, among others. A valuable text, ideal by itself or for augmenting any anthology.

Combines the author's insights and observations with selections from the writings of classical philosophers.

This updated and revised second edition of Antony Flew's highly accessible Dictionary of Philosophy is an invaluable reference for all students and scholars of ancient or modern thought. From the classical thinkers up to Aquinas and Descartes, from Spinoza and Kant up to Russell and Wittgenstein, this comprehensive handbook spans the lives, works, ideas, words, theories, and terminologies of hundreds of philosophers over thousands of years. The book also includes a useful explanatory chart of symbols and abbreviations that appear in logic (both predicate and propositional), in set theory, and in formal languages and systems. A Dictionary of Philosophy is ideally suited for anyone seeking to clarify or enhance his or her grasp on the history and/or key concepts of philosophy.