Herbert Spencer was the most influential Anglophone sociologist of the nineteenth century, but his contributions are now largely forgotten. It is argued, however, that the clarity of his understanding of the use of biological metaphors in sociology gives his work a power which is worth rediscovering. This proposition is pursued through a discussion of his treatment of the professions and their role in industrial societies. His approach is compared with the "ecological" perspective of sociologists in the Chicago tradition, notably Andrew (...) Abbott. It is suggested that Spencer's work rests on an alternative interpretation of the ecological model; this opens the way to an understanding of the regulative structures of "the system of the profession," which fills a major gap in Abbott's account. (shrink)

Between 1860-1920 a number of distinguished Scottish theologians grappled with the problems of reconciling a biblical faith with current philosophical and theological trends. Alan Sell has selected eight of these: John Kennedy of Dingwall ; Robert Flint ; John Caird ; A. B. Bruce ; James Iverach ; James Orr ; D. W. Forrest ; and James Denney. The book is not only of historical interest; many of the issues confronted by these scholars are also of contemporary interest. (...) Professor James Torrance comments: 'This study is invaluable in keeping alive the authentic tradition that Scotland has produced great theologians,... but perhaps supremely in the period covered by this eminently readable book.'. (shrink)

This fresh and original book argues that the central questions in Hegel's practical philosophy are the central questions in modern accounts of freedom: What is freedom, or what would it be to act freely? Is it possible so to act? And how important is leading a free life? Robert Pippin argues that the core of Hegel's answers is a social theory of agency, the view that agency is not exclusively a matter of the self-relation and self-determination of an individual (...) but requires the right sort of engagement with and recognition by others. Using a detailed analysis of key Hegelian texts, he develops this interpretation to reveal the bearing of Hegel's claims on many contemporary issues, including much-discussed core problems in the liberal democratic tradition. His important study will be valuable for all readers who are interested in Hegel's philosophy and in the modern problems of agency and freedom. (shrink)

Addressing both collegiate and professional sports, the updated edition of Fair Play: The Ethics of Sport explores the ethical presuppositions of competitive athletics and their connection both to ethical theory and to concrete moral dilemmas that arise in actual athletic competition. This fourth edition has been updated with new examples, including a discussion of Spygate by the New England Patriots and recent discoveries on the use of performance enhancing drugs by top athletes. Two additional authors, Cesar R. Torres and Peter (...) F. Hager, bring to this edition a discussion of the moral issues involved in youth sports and the ethics of being a fan, as well as a fresh perspective on the theories of broad internalism and the quest for excellence. Furthermore, major criticisms of broad internalism by philosophers William J. Morgan and Scott Kretchmar add a new dimension to the discussion on the moral foundations of winning. (shrink)

How do pictures represent? In this book Robert Hopkins casts new light on an ancient question by connecting it to issues in the philosophies of mind and perception. He starts by describing several striking features of picturing that demand explanation. These features strongly suggest that our experience of pictures is central to the way they represent, and Hopkins characterizes that experience as one of resemblance in a particular respect. He deals convincingly with the objections traditionally assumed to be fatal (...) to resemblance views, and shows how his own account is uniquely well placed to explain picturing's key features. His discussion engages in detail with issues concerning perception in general, including how to describe phenomena that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists, and the book concludes with an attempt to see what a proper understanding of picturing can tell us about that deeply mysterious phenomenon, the visual imagination. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most elusive thinkers in the philosophical tradition. His highly unusual style and insistence on what remains hidden or unsaid in his writing make pinning him to a particular position tricky. Nonetheless, certain readings of his work have become standard and influential. In this major new interpretation of Nietzsche’s work, Robert B. Pippin challenges various traditional views of Nietzsche, taking him at his word when he says that his writing can best be understood as (...) a kind of psychology. Pippin traces this idea of Nietzsche as a psychologist to his admiration for the French moralists: La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Stendhal, and especially Montaigne. In distinction from philosophers, Pippin shows, these writers avoided grand metaphysical theories in favor of reflections on life as lived and experienced. Aligning himself with this project, Nietzsche sought to make psychology “the queen of the sciences” and the “path to the fundamental problems.” Pippin contends that Nietzsche’s singular prose was an essential part of this goal, and so he organizes the book around four of Nietzsche’s most important images and metaphors: that truth could be a woman, that a science could be gay, that God could have died, and that an agent is as much one with his act as lightning is with its flash. Expanded from a series of lectures Pippin delivered at the Collège de France, _Nietzsche, Psychology, and First Philosophy_ offers a brilliant, novel, and accessible reading of this seminal thinker. (shrink)

'Modernity' has come to refer both to a contested historical category and to an even more contested philosophical and civilisational ideal. In this important collection of essays Robert Pippin takes issue with some prominent assessments of what is or is not philosophically at stake in the idea of a modern revolution in Western civilisation, and presents an alternative view. Professor Pippin disputes many traditional characterisations of the distinctiveness of modern philosophy. In their place he defends claims about agency, freedom, (...) ethical life and modernity itself, all of which are central to the German idealist philosophical tradition, and in particular, to the writings of Hegel. Having considered the Hegelian version of these issues the author explores other accounts as found in Habermas, Strauss, Blumenberg, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. (shrink)

The distinguished philosopher Robert M. Adams presents a major work on virtue, which is once again a central topic in ethical thought. A Theory of Virtue is a systematic, comprehensive framework for thinking about the moral evaluation of character, proposing that virtue is chiefly a matter of being for what is good, and that virtues must be intrinsically excellent and not just beneficial or useful.

Human beings, like other organisms, are the products of evolution. Like other organisms, we exhibit traits that are the product of natural selection. Our psychological capacities are evolved traits as much as are our gait and posture. This much few would dispute. Evolutionary psychology goes further than this, claiming that our psychological traits -- including a wide variety of traits, from mate preference and jealousy to language and reason -- can be understood as specific adaptations to ancestral Pleistocene conditions. In (...) Evolutionary Psychology as Maladapted Psychology, Robert Richardson takes a critical look at evolutionary psychology by subjecting its ambitious and controversial claims to the same sorts of methodological and evidential constraints that are broadly accepted within evolutionary biology. The claims of evolutionary psychology may pass muster as psychology; but what are their evolutionary credentials? Richardson considers three ways adaptive hypotheses can be evaluated, using examples from the biological literature to illustrate what sorts of evidence and methodology would be necessary to establish specific evolutionary and adaptive explanations of human psychological traits. He shows that existing explanations within evolutionary psychology fall woefully short of accepted biological standards. The theories offered by evolutionary psychologists may identify traits that are, or were, beneficial to humans. But gauged by biological standards, there is inadequate evidence: evolutionary psychologists are largely silent on the evolutionary evidence relevant to assessing their claims, including such matters as variation in ancestral populations, heritability, and the advantage offered to our ancestors. As evolutionary claims they are unsubstantiated. Evolutionary psychology, Richardson concludes, may offer a program of research, but it lacks the kind of evidence that is generally expected within evolutionary biology. It is speculation rather than sound science -- and we should treat its claims with skepticism. (shrink)

This book provides an overall theory of perception and much of a theory of knowledge. It explains how we can have justified beliefs and knowledge concerning the physical world, the abstract realm, and the normative domain of right and wrong.

According to many commentators, Davidson’s earlier work on philosophy of action and truth-theoretic semantics is the basis for his reputation, and his later forays into broader metaphysical and epistemological issues, and eventually into what became known as the triangulation argument, are much less successful. This book by two of his former students aims to change that perception. In Part One, Verheggen begins by providing an explanation and defense of the triangulation argument, then explores its implications for questions concerning semantic normativity (...) and reductionism, the social character of language and thought, and skepticism about the external world. In Part Two, Myers considers what the argument can tell us about reasons for action, and whether it can overcome skeptical worries based on claims about the nature of motivation, the sources of normativity and the demands of morality. The book reveals Davidson’s later writings to be full of innovative and important ideas that deserve much more attention than they are currently receiving. (shrink)

(Part of a symposium on an OUP collection of Paul Russell's papers on free will and moral responsibility). Paul Russell’s The Limits of Free Will is more than the sum of its parts. Among other things, Limits offers readers a comprehensive look at Russell’s attack on the problematically idealized assumptions of the contemporary free will debate. This idealization, he argues, distorts the reality of our human predicament. Herein I pose a dilemma for Russell’s position, critical compatibilism. The dilemma illuminates the (...) tension between Russell’s critical and compatibilist commitments. The problem is not obviously insurmountable, and as a compatibilist who is sympathetic to the view, my aim is to spark further discussion. (shrink)

Robert R. Williams offers a bold new account of divergences and convergences in the work of Hegel and Nietzsche. He explores four themes - the philosophy of tragedy; recognition and community; critique of Kant; and the death of God - and explicates both thinkers' critiques of traditional theology and metaphysics.

Modern antiretroviral therapies are capable of suppressing HIV in the bloodstream to undetectable levels. Nonetheless, people living with HIV must maintain lifelong adherence to ART to avoid the re-emergence of the infection. So despite the existence and efficacy of ART, there is still substantial interest in development of a cure. But HIV cure trials can be risky, their success is as of yet unlikely, and the medical gain of being cured is limited against a baseline of ART access. The medical (...) prospect associated with participation in cure research thus look poor. Are the risks and burdens that HIV cure research places on participants so high that it is unethical, at present, to conduct it? In this paper, I answer ‘no’. I start my argument by describing a foundational way of thinking about the ethical justification for regulatory limits on research risk; I then apply this way of thinking to HIV cure trials. In offering this analysis, I confine my attention to studies enrolling competent adults and I also do not consider risks research may pose to third parties or society. Rather, my concern is to engage with the thought that some trials are so risky that performing them is an ethically unacceptable way to treat the participants themselves. I reject this thought and instead argue that there is no level of risk, no matter how high, that inherently mistreats a participant. (shrink)

A number of formal epistemologists have argued that perfect rationality requires probabilistic coherence, a requirement that they often claim applies only to ideal agents. However, in “Rationality as an Absolute Concept,” Roy Sorensen contends that ‘rational’ is an absolute term. Just as Peter Unger argued that being flat requires that a surface be completely free of bumps and blemishes, Sorensen claims that being rational requires being perfectly rational. When we combine these two views, though, they lead to counterintuitive results. If (...) being rational requires being perfectly rational, and only the probabilistically coherent are perfectly rational, then this indicts all ordinary agents as irrational. In this paper, I will attempt to resolve this conflict by arguing that Sorensen is only partly correct. One important sense of ‘rational’, the sanctioning sense of ‘rational’, is an absolute term, but another important sense of ‘rational’, the sense in which someone can have rational capacities, is not. I will, then, show that this distinction has important consequences for theorizing about ideal rationality, developing an account of the relationship between ordinary and ideal rationality. Because the sanctioning sense of ‘rational’ is absolute, it is rationally required to adopt the most rational attitude available, but which attitude is most rational can change depending on whether we are dealing with ideal agents or people more like ourselves. (shrink)

Robert J. Howell offers a new account of the relationship between conscious experience and the physical world, based on a neo-Cartesian notion of the physical and careful consideration of three anti-materialist arguments. His theory of subjective physicalism reconciles the data of consciousness with the advantages of a monistic, physical ontology.

The starting point of this paper is an argument to the conclusion that the definition of metaphysical possibility in terms of correct conceivability, conceivability informed by knowledge of relevant essences, found in Rosen (2006) is equivalent to a version of the essentialist definition of metaphysical necessity. This argument appears to show that correct conceivability is a notion of conceivability by name only and is therefore of no interest to epistemologists of modality. In this paper, I present the equivalence argument, explain (...) the idealizing assumptions involved in it and sketch a version of the conceivability approach which weakens these assumptions in order to show that the notion of correct conceivability can still play a specific limited role in the epistemology of modality. (shrink)

With the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls not only rejuvenated contemporary political philosophy but also defended a Kantian form of Enlightenment liberalism called “justice as fairness.” Enlightenment liberalism stresses the development and exercise of our capacity for autonomy, while Reformation liberalism emphasizes diversity and the toleration that encourages it. These two strands of liberalism are often mutually supporting, but they conflict in a surprising number of cases, whether over the accommodation of group difference, the design (...) of civic education, or the promotion of liberal values internationally. During the 1980’s, however, Rawls began to jettison key Kantian characteristics of his theory, a process culminating in the 1993 release of Political Liberalism and completing the transformation of justice as fairness into a Reformation liberalism. -/- Reconstructing Rawls argues that this transformation was a tragic mistake because it jeopardized the most important features of his theory, viz. the lexical priorities of right, liberty, and fair equality of opportunity as well as the difference principle. Controversially, this book contends that Rawls’s so-called “political turn,” motivated by a newfound interest in diversity and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has pushed liberalism more broadly towards cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. The book then demonstrates that the central elements of justice as fairness can only be defended within the context of a Kantian Enlightenment liberalism and that Rawls’s hope for a more pluralistic grounding for his theory, endorsed by a wide variety of belief systems present in modern democratic societies, is illusory. -/- Reconstructing Rawls is the first book to systematically compare Rawls’s and Kant’s theories and the first to offer an internal critique and reconstruction of justice as fairness, reconceiving it as a comprehensive, universalistic Kantian liberalism. By doing so, it gives us both the vision of a liberal world order—“a republicanism of all states, together and separately,” as Kant put it—and a mode of justification addressed to all men and women, not as members of particular nations, races, and faiths, but as human beings, as citizens of the world. In short, it reclaims Rawls for the Enlightenment. (shrink)

In recent work Mary Kate McGowan presents an account of oppressive speech inspired by David Lewis's analysis of conversational kinematics. Speech can effect identity-based oppression, she argues, by altering 'the conversational score', which is to say, roughly, that it can introduce presuppositions and expectations into a conversation, and thus determine what sort of subsequent conversational 'moves' are apt, correct, felicitous, etc., in a manner that oppresses members of a certain group (e.g. because the suppositions and expectations derogate or demean members (...) of that group). In keeping with the Lewisian picture, McGowan stresses the asymmetric pliability of conversational scores. She argues that it is easier to introduce (for example) sexist presuppositions and expectations into a conversation than it is to remove them. Responding to a sexist remark, she thus suggests, is like trying to "unring a bell". I begin by situating McGowan's work in the wider literature on speech and social hierarchy, and explaining how her account of oppressive speech improves upon the work of others in its explication of the relationship between individuals' verbal conduct and structurally oppressive social arrangements. I then propose an explanation and supportive elaboration of McGowan's claims about the asymmetric pliability of conversations involving identity-oppressive speech. Rather than regarding such asymmetry as a sui generis phenomenon, I show how we can understand it as a consequence of a more general asymmetry between making things salient and un-salient in speech, and I show how this asymmetry also operates in various cases that interested Lewis. (shrink)

We examine the following consequentialist view of virtue: a trait is a virtue if and only if it has good consequences in some relevant way. We highlight some motivations for this basic account, and offer twelve choice points for filling it out. Next, we explicate Julia Driver’s consequentialist view of virtue in reference to these choice points, and we canvass its merits and demerits. Subsequently, we consider three suggestions that aim to increase the plausibility of her position, and critically analyze (...) them. We conclude that one of those proposed revisions would improve her account. NOTE: I will self-archive the paper after the 24 month embargo period ends. If you want a copy, just email me. (shrink)

The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively earl- though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major Departments (...) at the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia and in New Zealand. "Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with special expertise in that particular area. Papers address general issues, however, rather than local ones; parochial topics are avoided. Further more, though in each volume a majority of the contributors is from Australia or New Zealand, contributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out. Quite the reverse, in fact - they are actively encour aged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question. (shrink)

The Persistence of Subjectivity examines several approaches to, and critiques of, the core notion in the self-understanding and legitimation of the modern, 'bourgeois' form of life: the free, reflective, self-determining subject. Since it is a relatively recent historical development that human beings think of themselves as individual centers of agency, and that one's entitlement to such a self-determining life is absolutely valuable, the issue at stake also involves the question of the historical location of philosophy. What might it mean to (...) take seriously Hegel's claim that philosophical reflection is always reflection on the historical 'actuality' of its own age? Discussing Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, Leo Strauss, Manfred Frank, and John McDowell, Robert Pippin attempts to understand how subjectivity arises in contemporary institutional practices such as medicine, as well as in other contexts such as modernism in the visual arts and in the novels of Marcel Proust. (shrink)

Robert C. Neville, Dean of Theology and Professor of Philosophy, Boston University, in his comments on Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation for the State University of New York press: ‘The present outstanding volume by Robert Allinson ... initiates a new direction ... His new direction for understanding Chuang-Tzu is his comprehensive and detailed argument that Chuang Tzu was advocating an ideal of sageliness. Whereas many interpreters have claimed that Chuang Tzu used his metaphorical language to defend a relativism, Allinson (...) shows with convincing mastery that Chuang Tzu had a position, namely, the importance of achieving the ideal of sageliness ... he brings the discussion of Chuang Tzu into the heart of contemporary Western philosophy. Professor Allinson’s book, like his many articles, contributes to the growing body of literature that is creating an effective dialogue between Chinese and Western philosophy. The sophistication of this book demonstrates that the dialogue has worked and that we are in a new era of substantive comparative philosophy ... he also makes a substantial contribution to the philosophy of religion. Currently in its 8th impression, "Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation: An Analysis of the Inner Chapters" has been translated into Chinese and Korean. This book offers a fundamentally new interpretation of the philosophy of the Chuang-Tzu. It is the first full-length work of its kind which argues that a deep level cognitive structure exists beneath an otherwise random collection of literary anecdotes, cryptic sayings, and dark allusions. The author carefully analyzes myths, legends, monstrous characters, paradoxes, parables and linguistic puzzles as strategically placed techniques for systematically tapping and channeling the spiritual dimensions of the mind. Allinson takes issue with commentators who have treated the Chuang-Tzu as a minor foray into relativism. Chapter titles are re-translated, textual fragments are relocated, and inauthentic, outer miscellaneous chapters are carefully separated from the transformatory message of the authentic, inner chapters. Each of the inner chapters is shown to be a building block to the next so that they can only be understood as forming a developmental sequence. In the end, the reader is presented with a clear, consistent and coherent view of the Chuang-Tzu that is more in accord with its stature as a major philosophical work. (shrink)

In general, existential threats are those that may potentially result in the extinction of the entire human species, if not significantly endanger its living population. Among the said threats include, but not limited to, pandemics and the impacts of a technological singularity. As regards pandemics, significant work has already been done on how to mitigate, if not prevent, the aftereffects of this type of disaster. For one, certain problem areas on how to properly manage pandemic responses have already been identified, (...) like the following: (a) not being able to learn from previous experiences, (b) the inability to act on warning signals, and (c) the failure to reach a global consensus on a problem (i.e., in a timely manner). In terms of a singularity, however, it may be said that further research is still needed, specifically on how to aptly respond to its projected negative outcomes. In this paper, by treating the three problem areas noted above as preliminary assessment measures of a country’s capacity to coordinate a national response to large-scale disasters, we examine the readiness of the Philippines in preparing for an intelligence explosion. By citing certain instances of how the said country, specifically its national government, faced the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, it puts forward the idea that the likely Philippine disaster response towards a singularity needs to be worked on, appealing for a more comprehensive assessment of such for a more informed response plan. (shrink)

Thomas Henry Huxley recalled that after he had read Darwin’s Origin of Species, he had exclaimed to himself: “How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!” (Huxley,1900, 1: 183). It is a famous but puzzling remark. In his contribution to Francis Darwin’s Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Huxley rehearsed the history of his engagement with the idea of transmutation of species. He mentioned the views of Robert Grant, an advocate of Lamarck, and Robert Chambers, who anonymously (...) published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), which advanced a crude idea of transmutation. He also recounted his rejection of Agassiz’s belief that species were progressively replaced by the divine hand. He neglected altogether his friend Herbert Spencer’s early Lamarckian ideas about species development, which were also part of the long history of his encounters with the theory of descent. None of these sources moved him to adopt any version of the transmutation hypothesis. (shrink)

Preface 9 PART I: RELIGIOUS, SCIENTIFIC, AND PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND Introduction to Part I 19 1. The Bible 27 2. Natural Theology 33 William Paley 3. On the Origin of Species 38 Charles Darwin 4. Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species 65 Adam Sedgwick 5. The Origin of Species 73 Thomas H. Huxley 6. What Is Darwinism? 82 Charles Hodge 7. Darwinism as a Metaphysical Research Program 105 Karl Popper 8. Karl Popper’s Philosophy of Biology 116 Michael (...) Ruse 9. Human Nature: One Evolutionist’s View 136 Francisco Ayala 10. Universal Darwinism 158 Richard Dawkins PART II: CREATION SCIENCE AND THE McLEAN CASE Introduction to Part II 187 11. The Creationists 192 Ronald L. Numbers 12. Creation, Evolution, and the Historical Evidence 231 Duane T. Gish 13. Witness Testimony Sheet: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 253 Michael Ruse 14. United States District Court Opinion: McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education 279 Judge William R. Overton 15. The Demise of the Demarcation Problem 312 Larry Laudan 16. Science at the BarùCauses for Concern 331 Larry Laudan 17. Pro Judice 337 Michael Ruse 18. More on Creationism 345 Larry Laudan 19. Commentary: Philosophers at the BarùSome Reasons for Restraint 350 Barry R. Gross PART III: INTELLIGENT DESIGN CREATIONISM AND THE KITZMILLER CASE Introduction to Part III 369 20. But Isn’t It Creationism? The Beginnings of "Intelligent Design" in the Midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana Litigation 377 Nick Matzke 21. What Is Darwinism? 414 Phillip E. Johnson 22. Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design, Creationism, and the Constitution 426 Matthew Brauer, Barbara Forrest, and Steven G. Gey 23. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Witness Testimony 434 Michael Behe 24. Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Expert Report 456 Robert T. Pennock 25. A Step toward the Legalization of Science Studies 485 Steve Fuller 26. What Is Wrong with Intelligent Design? 495 Elliott Sober 27. United States District Court Memorandum Opinion: Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al. 506 Judge John E. Jones II 28. Can’t Philosophers Tell the Difference between Science and Religion? Demarcation Revisited 536 Robert T. Pennock. (shrink)

Philosophy and painting: Hegel and Manet -- Politics and ontology: Clark and Fried -- Art and truth: Heidegger and Hegel.

Sidgwick saw egoism as important and undefeated. Not long afterward, egoism is largely ignored. Immediately after Sidgwick, many arguments were given against egoism – most poor – but one argument deserves attention as both influential and plausible. Call it the “grounds objection.” It has two strands. It objects that there are justifying reasons for action other than that an action will maximize my self-interest. It also objects that sometimes, what makes an action right is a fact other than its maximizing (...) my self-interest. I briefly explain and criticize many of the arguments given against egoism in the period, then explain and defend the grounds objection. (shrink)

The Joy of Philosophy is a return to some of the perennial questions of philosophy--questions about the meaning of life; about death and tragedy; about the respective roles of rationality and passion in the good life; about love, compassion, and revenge; about honesty, deception, and betrayal; and about who we are and how we think about who we are. Recapturing the heart-felt confusion and excitement that originally brings us all to philosophy, internationally renowned teacher and lecturer Robert C. Solomon (...) offers both a critique of contemporary philosophy and an invitation to engage in philosophy in a different way. He attempts to save philosophy from itself and its self-imposed diet of thin arguments and logical analysis to recover the richness and complexity of life in thought. Solomon defends the passionate life in contrast to the life of thoughtful contemplation idealized by so many philosophers, attempting to recapture the kind of philosophy that Nietzsche celebrated as a "joyful wisdom.". (shrink)

In this book Robert Piercey asks how it is possible to do philosophy by studying the thinkers of the past. He develops his answer through readings of Martin Heidegger, Richard Rorty, Paul Ricoeur, Alasdair MacIntyre and other historically-minded philosophers. Piercey shows that what is distinctive about these figures is a concern with philosophical pictures - extremely general conceptions of what the world is like - rather than specific theories. He offers a comprehensive and illuminating exploration of the way in (...) which these thinkers use narrative to evaluate and criticise these pictures. The result is a powerful and original account of how philosophers use the past. (shrink)

Hearing Voices and Other Unusual Experiences examines the long-recognized and striking similarities between features of mental disorders and features of religions. Robert McCauley and George Graham emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of humans' natural cognitive systems, which address matters that are essential to human survival: hazard precautions, agency detection, language (...) processing, and theory of mind. Those systems produce responses to cultural stimuli that may mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders, but are sometimes coded as "religious" depending on the context. Their approach promises to shed light on both mental abnormalities and religiosity. (shrink)

How are truths about physical and mental states related? Robert Kirk articulates and defends 'redescriptive physicalism'--a fresh approach to the connection between the physical and the mental, which answers the problems that mental causation has traditionally raised for other non-reductive views.

Robert Pippin reviews Slavoj Žižek’s Less than Nothing, a serious attempt to re-actualize Hegel in the light of Lacanian metapsychology. But does Žižek’s attempt to think Hegel with Lacan produce, as Žižek hopes, a political figuration adequate to the present? Or does it land us rather in the Hegelian zoo, along with such well-known specimens as the Beautiful Soul, the Unhappy Consciousness, and The Knight of Virtue?

Audi defends his views in epistemology against the challenges raised by Laurence BonJour, Timothy Williamson, and William Alston in Part II, “Knowledge, Justification, and Acceptance.” Specifically, Audi addresses his concerns about the sorts of beliefs that can be noninferentially justified, the sense in which the grounds of justification may be internal, and the range of attitudes that admit of justification and rationality.

Any interpretation of Hegel which stresses both his deep dependence on and radical revision of Kant must account for the nature of the difference between what Hegel calls a merely finite idealism and a so-called ’Absolute Idealism’. Such a clarification in turn depends on understanding Hegel’s claim to have preserved the distinguishability of intuition and concept, but to have insisted on their inseparability, or, to have defended their ’organic’ rather than ’mechanical’ relation. This is the main issue in this chapter, (...) which invokes John McDowell’s notion of ’the unboundedness of the conceptual’ to clarify the issue, as well as noting a number of similar claims in Wittgenstein. The implications of Hegel’s view for the issues of metaphysics generally is explored. (shrink)

Although the influence of Homer on Western literature has long commanded critical attention, little has been written on how various generations of readers have found menaing in his texts. These seven essays explore the ways in which the Illiad and the Odyssey have been read from the time of Homer through the Renaissance. By asking what questions early readers expected the texts to answer and looking at how these expectations changed over time, the authors clarify the position of the Illiad (...) and the Odyssey in the intellectual world of antiqueity while offering historical insight into the nature of reading. The collection surveys the entire field of preserved ancient interpretations of Homer, beginning with the fictional audiences portrayed within the poems themselves, proceedings to readings by Aristotle, the Stoics, and Aristarchus and Crates, and culminating in the spritiualized allegorical reading current among Platonists of the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. The influence of these ancient interpretations is then examined in Byzantium and in the Latin West during the Renaissance. Contributors to this volume are Robert Browning, Anthony Grafton, Robert Lamberton, A.A. Long, James Porter, Nicholas Richardson, and Charles Segal. Robert Lamberton is Assistant Professor of Classics and John J. Keaney is Professor of Classics, both at Princeton University. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

On the face of it Marx and Engels have a radically different account of religion to that offered by Wittgenstein in the 1930s and 1940s. Marx and Engels accepted Enlightenment criticisms of religion and thought of religion as being in direct conflict with science whereas Wittgenstein thought that religion and science involved very different kinds of activities and different kinds of belief, such that they could not come into direct conflict. It seems likely that Marx and Engels’s account would be (...) viewed as scientistic by Wittgenstein. However, there are many commonalities between the understanding of religion found in the work of Marx and Engels and the understanding of religion found in Wittgenstein’s later work. Neither the Marxist account nor the Wittgensteinian one is wholly rationalistic. Both stress the role of practice in religion. Both stress commonalities between religious believers and those who are not religious. By combining insights from Marx, Engels, and Wittgenstein we can give an account of religion that overcomes problems found in the work of recent thinkers, such as the New Atheists. If we combine their insights we will be more likely to attend to things like power and oppression and to do justice to the oppressed and we will also be more sensitive to differences between the practices of scientists and those of religious believers. (shrink)

Economist Robert Pollin argues that the United States needs to try to implement full employment and how it can help the economy.

In a world riven with conflict, violence and war, this book proposes a philosophical defense of pacifism. It argues that there is a moral presumption against war and unless that presumption is defeated, war is unjustified. Leading philosopher of non-violence Robert Holmes contends that neither just war theory nor the rationales for recent wars defeat that presumption, hence that war in the modern world is morally unjustified. A detailed, comprehensive and elegantly argued text which guides both students and scholars (...) through the main debates clearly but without oversimplifying the complexities of the issues or historical examples. (shrink)