Heidegger's history of hermeneutics discovered nothing more than a “diluted” understanding of hermeneutics in Schleiermacher and Dilthey. In contrast, Gadamer's and Ricoeur's histories of hermeneutics placed little or no emphasis on the premodern period, focusing instead on the rise of the “hermeneutic problem” in Schleiermacher's work and the development of that problematic in works by Dilthey and Heidegger. Ricoeur added Gadamer to that list, recognizing that Gadamer was instrumental in the way he had received and perceived the problem in question. (...) Charles R. Bambach argues that it was, in fact, Karl Barth's “crisis theology” that had inspired Heidegger's “destructive” alternative to the conventional view of historical research. He revealed that he had followed Hegel when writing his history of hermeneutics, noting that his decision to do so had consequences for the way he depicted the rise of hermeneutics; and the way his history of hermeneutics ended. (shrink)

On the Horizon of World Literature compares literary texts from asynchronous periods of incipient literary modernity in different parts of the world: Romantic England and Republican China. These moments were oriented alike by "world literature" as a discursive framework of classifications that connected and re-organized local articulations of literary histories and literary modernities. World literature thus provided-and continues to provide-a condition of possibility for conversation between cultures as well as for their mutual provincialization. The book offers readings of a selection (...) of literary forms that serve also as textual sites for the enactment of new socio-political forms of life. The literary manifesto, the tale collection, the familiar essay, and the domestic novel function as testing grounds for questions of both literary-aesthetic and socio-political importance: What does it mean to attain a voice? What is a common reader? How does one dwell in the ordinary? What is a woman? In different languages and activating heterogeneous literary and philosophical traditions, works by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lu Xun, Charles and Mary Lamb, Lin Shu, Zhou Zuoren, Jane Austen, and Eileen Chang explore the far-from-settled problem of what it means to be modern in different lifeworlds. Sun's book brings to light the disciplinary-historical impact world literature has had in shaping literary traditions and practices around the world. The book renews the practice of close reading by offering the model of a deprovincialized close reading loosened from confinement within monocultural hermeneutic circles. By means of its own focus on England and China, the book provides methods useful for comparatists working between other Western and non-Western languages. It establishes the critical significance of Romanticism for the discipline of literary studies and opens up new paths of research in global Romanticism and global nineteenth-century studies. And it offers a new approach to analyzing the cosmopolitan character of the literary and cultural transformations of early twentieth-century China. (shrink)

Charles Crittenden here offers an original solution to one of the traditional dilemmas of philosophy—whether there can be any thing not existing, since to say that some thing does not exist seems to presuppose its existence. Drawing on the tools of Wittgensteinian philosophy and speech act theory, Crittenden argues that we can and often do make reference to unreal objects such as fictional characters, though they do not exist in any sense at all.

Charles Parsons; X*—Mathematical Intuition, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 80, Issue 1, 1 June 1980, Pages 145–168, https://doi.org/10.1093/ari.

Autonomy is a vital principle in medical law and ethics. It occupies a prominent place in all medico-legal and ethical debate. But there is a dangerous presumption that it should have the only vote, or at least the casting vote. This book is an assault on that presumption, and an audit of autonomy's extraordinary status. This book surveys the main issues in medical law, noting in relation to each issue the power wielded by autonomy, asking whether that power can be (...) justified, and suggesting how other principles can and should contribute to the law. It concludes that autonomy's status cannot be intellectually or ethically justified, and that positive discrimination in favour of the other balancing principles is urgently needed in order to avoid some sinister results. 'This book is a sustained attack on the hegemony of the idea of autonomy in medical ethics and law. Charles Foster is no respecter of authority, whether of university professors or of law Lords. He grabs his readers by their lapels and shakes sense into them through a combination of no-nonsense rhetoric and subtle argument that is difficult to resist.' Tony Hope, Professor of Medical Ethics, Oxford University 'This book is unlikely to be in pristine state by the time you have finished reading it. Whether that is because you have thrown it in the air in celebration or thrown it across the room in frustration will depend on your perspective. But this book cannot leave you cold. It is a powerful polemic on the dominance of autonomy in medical law, which demands a reaction. Charles Foster sets out a powerful case that academic medical lawyers have elevated autonomy to a status it does not deserve in either ethical or legal terms. In a highly engaging, accessible account, he challenges many of the views which have become orthodox within the academic community. This will be a book which demands and will attract considerable debate.' Jonathan Herring, Exeter College, Oxford University 'This is a learned, lively and thought-provoking discussion of problems central to the courts' approach to ethical issues in medical law. What principles are involved? More significantly, which really underlie and inform the process of seeking justice in difficult cases? Charles Foster persuasively argues, and demonstrates, that respect for autonomy is but one of a number of ethical principles which interact and may conflict. He also addresses the sensitive issue of the extent to which thoughts and factors which go to influence legal decisions may not appear in the judgments.' Adrian Whitfield QC. 'Introducing the Jake La Motta of medical ethics. Foster is an academic street-fighter who has bloodied his hands in the court room. He provides a stinging, relentless, ground attack on the Goliath of medical ethics: the central place of autonomy in liberal medical ethics. This is now the first port of call for those who feel that medical ethics has become autonomized.' Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. "This important book offers a robust challenge to anyone, whether lawyer or 'ethicist', who sees respect for autonomy as the only game in town. It argues eloquently and effectively that, on the one hand, despite the reverence paid to it by judges, in practice the law, even in the context of consent, weaves together a number of moral threads of which autonomy is merely one, in the pursuit of a good decision. It argues on the other hand, that were the day-to-day practice of law to be guided primarily by respect for autonomy, this would be wrong. Foster concludes that whilst, 'any society that does not have laws robustly protecting autonomy is an unsafe and unhappy one', so too would be a society in which too much emphasis was placed on respect for autonomy at the expense of other important moral principles. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the role of autonomy and indeed of medical ethics, in the law." Michael Parker, Professor of Bioethics, University of Oxford. (shrink)

Introduction Comparative psychology can generally be defined as the branch of psychology that studies the similarities and differences in the behavior of organisms. Formal definitions found in textbooks and encyclopedias disagree whether comparative psychologists restrict their work to the study of animals or include the study of human behavior. This paper offers an opinion on the major problem facing comparative psychology today – where we will find the next generation of comparative psychology students. Something must be done before we lose (...) access to an entire generation of psychology undergraduates. It is not enough to say that comparative psychology is being “absorbed” in other academic units such as “integrative biology”, “integrative study of animal behavior”, “evolutionary psychology”, “comparative cognition”, or “animal cognition.” Indeed, many of these topics are not primarily studied in psychology departments, wherein comparative psychology students have traditionally received joint training in the principles of behavior and comparative analysis, as applied to both humans and other animals. Consider, for example, the difference between comparative psychology and comparative cognition. Comparative cognition includes features of comparative psychology, but they are not identical. Comparative cognition represents a very specific theoretical position whose validity is based on certain suppositions such as the belief (by definition) that the internal cogni... (shrink)

Are they needed? To be sure. The Darwinian industry, industrious though it is, has failed to provide texts of more than a handful of Darwin's books. If you want to know what Darwin said about barnacles (still an essential reference to cirripedists, apart from any historical importance) you are forced to search shelves, or wait while someone does it for you; some have been in print for a century; various reprints have appeared and since vanished." -Eric Korn,Times Literary Supplement (...) class='Hi'>Charles Robert Darwin (1880-1882) has been widely recognized since his own time as one of the most influential writers in the history of Western thought. His books were widely read by specialists and the general public, and his influence had been extended by almost continuous public debate over the last 130 years. New York University Press' edition makes it possible for the first time to review Darwin's public literary output as a whole, plus his scientific journal articles, his private notebooks, and his correspondence. This is the first complete edition containing all of Darwin's published books, featuring definitive texts recording original paginations with Darwin's indexes retained. All illustrations and plates are presented, inclucing 82 color plates of birds and mammals and several folding maps and plates. The set also features a general introduction and index, and textural introductions in each volume. (shrink)

Charles Taylor; X*—The Validity of Transcendental Arguments, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 151–166, https://do.

Few themes resonate as powerfully in Heidegger as those connected to homecoming, homeland, and Heimat. This emphasis plays out most powerfully in Heidegger's reading of Hölderlin and his turn towards language, art, and poetizing as a way of thinking through the poet's relevance in the epoch of homelessness and the abandonment of the gods. As the first book-length study in English of the Heidegger-Hölderlin relation, Of an Alien Homecoming addresses the tension within Heidegger's work between his disastrous political commitments during (...) the era of National Socialism and his attempts to open a path to a German future nurtured on Hölderlin's ideal of poetic dwelling. Charles Bambach reads this work on Hölderlin from 1934–1948 in conversation with the Black Notebooks and Heidegger's metapolitics, even as he uncovers an ethical dimension within Heidegger that pervades his reading of poetry. Throughout all of these various stages on Heidegger's thought path, Hölderlin remains the poet who poetizes the possibility of finding our lost home amidst the homelessness brought about in the epoch of technological thinking. (shrink)

A timely addition to Henry Giroux's Critical Interventions series, Ecology and Revolution is grounded in the Frankfurt School critical theory of Herbert Marcuse. Its task is to understand the economic architecture of wealth extraction that undergirds today's intensifying inequalities of class, race, and gender, within a revolutionary ecological frame. Relying on newly discovered texts from the Frankfurt Marcuse Archive, this book builds theory and practice for an alternate world system. Ecology and radical political economy, as critical forms of systems analysis, (...) show that an alternative world system is essential - both possible and feasible - despite political forces against it. Our rights to a commonwealth economy, politics, and culture reside in our commonworks as we express ourselves as artisans of the common good. It is in this context, that Charles Reitz develops a GreenCommonWealth Counter-Offensive, a strategy for revolutionary ecological liberation with core features of racial equality, women's equality, liberation of labor, restoration of nature, leisure, abundance, and peace. (shrink)

Originally published in 1960, The Edge of Objectivity helped to establish the history of science as a full-fledged academic discipline. In the mid-1950s, a young professor at Princeton named Charles Gillispie began teaching Humanities 304, one of the first undergraduate courses offered anywhere in the world on the history of science. From Galileo's analysis of motion to theories of evolution and relativity, Gillispie introduces key concepts, individuals, and themes. The Edge of Objectivity arose out of this course. It must (...) have been a lively class. The Edge of Objectivity is pointed, opinionated, and selective. Even at six hundred pages, the book is, as the title suggests, an essay. Gillispie is unafraid to rate Mendel higher than Darwin, Maxwell above Faraday. Full of wry turns of phrase, the book effectively captures people and places. And throughout the book, Gillispie pushes an argument. He views science as the progressive development of more objective, detached, mathematical ways of viewing the world, and he orchestrates his characters and ideas around this theme. This edition of Charles Coulston Gillispie's landmark book introduces a new generation of readers to his provocative and enlightening account of the advancement of scientific thought over the course of four centuries. Since the original publication of The Edge of Objectivity, historians of science have focused increasingly on the social context of science rather than its internal dynamics, and they have frequently viewed science more as a threatening instance of power than as an accumulation of knowledge. Nevertheless, Gillispie's book remains a sophisticated, fast-moving, idiosyncratic account of the development of scientific ideas over four hundred years, by one of the founding intellects in the history of science. Featuring a new foreword by Theodore Porter, who places the work in its intellectual context and the development of the field, this edition of The Edge of Objectivity is a monumental work by one of the founding intellects of the history of science. (shrink)

In recent years a number of books have been published that offer short autobiographical essays of academics, focusing on their research and how their life history affected their scholarly development. These could be labeled as "intellectual journey narratives." Some volumes focus on philosophers and their religious faith or lack thereof (e.g., Clark, 1997, Antony, 2007). Psychology has its own version of the intellectual journey narrative, in T. S. Krawiec's (1972, 1974, 1978) multivolume set of autobiographical essays by contemporary psychologists. In (...) 1987, Rosemary Pilkington edited her first volume of essays entitled Men and Women of Parapsychology: Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 1. It contains autobiographical essays by Jule Eisenbud, Montague Ullman, Jan Ehrenwald, Eileen Coly, Joseph H. Rush, Gertrude R. Schmeidler, Emilio Servadio, Renée Haynes, Hans Bender, Karlis Osis, George Zorab and Bernard Grad. The second (2013) volume contains autobiographical essays by Mary Rose Barrington, Eberhard Bauer, William Braud (now deceased), Stephen Braude, Richard S. Broughton, Larry Dossey, Sally Rhine Feather, Erlendur Haraldsson, Arthur Hastings, Stanley Krippner, Lawrence LeShan, Roger Nelson, John Palmer, Guy Leon Playfair, William G. Roll (now deceased), Serena Roney-Dougal, Stephan A. Schwartz, Rex G. Stanford, Russell Targ, Charles T. Tart, and Walter von Lucadou. Between the two volumes almost every significant contemporary parapsychologist is represented, with the major exceptions being the late John Beloff and the late Ian Stevenson. (shrink)

In this book, Charles Larmore develops an account of morality, freedom, and reason that rejects the naturalistic metaphysics shaping much of modern thought. Reason, Larmore argues, is responsiveness to reasons, and reasons themselves are essentially normative in character, consisting in the way that physical and psychological facts - facts about the world of nature - count in favor of possibilities of thought and action that we can take up. Moral judgments are true or false in virtue of the moral (...) reasons there are. We need therefore a more comprehensive metaphysics that recognizes a normative dimension to reality as well. Though taking its point of departure in the analysis of moral judgment, this book branches widely into related topics such as freedom and the causal order of the world, textual interpretation, the nature of the self, self-knowledge, and the concept of duties to ourselves. (shrink)

Information theory provides a quantitative conceptual framework for understanding the flow of information from the world into and through brains. It focuses our attention on the sets of possible messages a brain's anatomy and physiology enable it to receive. The meanings of the messages arise from the inferences licensed by the brain's processing of them. Different meanings arise at different levels because different representations of the input license different inferences.

In these selected essays, Charles Parsons surveys the contributions of philosophers and mathematicians who shaped the philosophy of mathematics over the past century: Brouwer, Hilbert, Bernays, Weyl, Gödel, Russell, Quine, Putnam, Wang, and Tait.

Numbers are symbols manipulated in accord with the axioms of arithmetic. They sometimes represent discrete and continuous quantities, but they are often simply names. Brains, including insect brains, represent the rational numbers with a fixed-point data type, consisting of a significand and an exponent, thereby conveying both magnitude and precision.

This collection of Charles Hartshorne's writings -- many never before published -- is an indispensible introduction to his rich,and indelible contribution to ...

CHARLES DUPRAS | : L’épigénétique est un champ d’études qui s’intéresse aux modifications biochimiques et aux changements dans la structure tridimensionnelle de l’ADN ayant pour effet de contraindre ou de faciliter la lecture et l’expression des gènes. Au cours des dix dernières années, l’épigénétique a attiré l’attention d’un nombre croissant de chercheurs en sciences sociales, puisqu’elle semble venir confirmer, cette fois sur le plan moléculaire, le rôle déterminant de l’environnement développemental des personnes dans la configuration de leur individualité biologique (...) et dans la programmation de leur santé future. Cet article se penche sur les implications épistémologiques potentielles de l’épigénétique. Nous distinguons et décrivons trois perspectives socio-anthropologiques complémentaires, adoptées par différents auteurs, sur le rapprochement des concepts de « nature » et de « culture » par l’épigénétique : la socialisation du biologique, la biologisation du social et la superposition nature-culture. | : Epigenetics is a field of study that focuses on biochemical modifications and changes in the tridimensional structure of DNA that have the effect of constraining or facilitating the reading and expression of genes. Over the last ten years, epigenetics has captured the attention of several social scientists since it appears to confirm, this time at the molecular level, the determining role of the developing environment of people in configurating their biological individuality and programming their future health. This article discusses the potential epistemological implications of epigenetics. It distinguishes and describes three complementary socio-anthropological perspectives, taken by different authors, on the rapprochement of the concepts “nature” and “nurture” by epigenetics: the socialization of the biological, the biologization of the social, and the superimposition nature-nurture. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Enlightenment was the age in which the world became modern, challenging tradition in favor of reason, freedom, and critical inquiry. While many aspects of the Enlightenment have been rigorously scrutinized—its origins and motivations, its principal characters and defining features, its legacy and modern relevance—the geographical dimensions of the era have until now largely been ignored. Placing the Enlightenment contends that the Age of Reason was not only a period of pioneering geographical investigation but also an age with spatial dimensions (...) to its content and concerns. Investigating the role space and location played in the creation and reception of Enlightenment ideas, Charles W. J. Withers draws from the fields of art, science, history, geography, politics, and religion to explore the legacies of Enlightenment national identity, navigation, discovery, and knowledge. Ultimately, geography is revealed to be the source of much of the raw material from which philosophers fashioned theories of the human condition. Lavishly illustrated and engagingly written, Placing the Enlightenment will interest Enlightenment specialists from across the disciplines as well as any scholar curious about the role geography has played in the making of the modern world. (shrink)

Features the full text of "Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard: Religion, Individuality and Philosophical Method," by Charles L. Creegan. Discusses the works and theories of Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951).

BackgroundSevere brain injury is a leading cause of death and disability. Diagnosis and prognostication are difficult, and errors occur often. Novel neuroimaging methods can improve diagnostic and prognostic accuracy, especially in patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness (PDoC). Yet it is currently unknown how family caregivers understand this information, raising ethical concerns that disclosure of neuroimaging results could result in therapeutic misconception or false hope.MethodsTo examine these ethical concerns, we conducted semi-structured interviews with caregivers of patients with PDoC who were (...) enrolled in a concurrent neuroimaging research program designed to detect covert consciousness following severe brain injury. Caregivers held surrogate decision-making status for a patient. Interviews were conducted at two time points for each caregiver. The first interview occurred before the disclosure of neuroimaging results. The second occurred after disclosure. Descriptive analysis was applied to the data of four interview topics: (1) expectations for neuroimaging; (2) reactions to evidence of preserved cognition; (3) reactions to null results; and (4) understanding of the results and study.ResultsTwelve caregivers participated in the study; two caregivers shared surrogate decision-making status for one patient with PDoC. Twenty-one interviews were completed; one caregiver declined to participate in the post-disclosure interview. Three patients with PDoC associated with the study displayed evidence of covert consciousness. Overall, caregivers understood the neuroimaging research and results. Caregivers who received results of covert consciousness were generally pleased. However, there was some variation in expectations and reactions to these data and null results.ConclusionThis study, for the first time, reveals caregiver expectations for and reactions to neuroimaging evidence of covert consciousness in patients with PDoC. Caregivers understood the neuroimaging research and results, casting doubt on speculative ethical concerns regarding therapeutic misconception and false hope. However, disclosure of neuroimaging result could be improved. Pre-disclosure consultations might assist professionals in shaping caregiver expectations. Standardization of disclosure might also improve comprehension of the results. (shrink)

Charles Clark; Education and Behaviour Modification, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 73–81, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

This article revisits Jeffrey Tulis’s The Rhetorical Presidency in the age of Trump, discussing the debates to which it originally responded, its core thesis and empirical evidence, as well as its impact on political science in the last three decades. The article’s second half turns to a recent critique of Tulis’s thesis by Ann C. Pluta, which manifests many of the misunderstandings that have persisted since The Rhetorical Presidency’s original publication. Habits of thought revealed in Pluta’s misunderstandings, I argue, are (...) emblematic of the political culture that is amenable to the simplistic yet politically effective appeals characteristic of rhetorical presidents like Donald Trump. Elements of the broader political-science world that are on display in Pluta’s article are symptomatic of political pathologies sustained and aggravated by the culture of the polity that political scientists inhabit and purport to study—the culture of the rhetorical presidency. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.3 (1999) 40-62 [Access article in PDF] Syncretism and Its Synonyms: Reflections on Cultural Mixture Charles Stewart * The subject matter of anthropology has gradually changed over the last twenty years. Nowadays ethnographers rarely search for a stable or original form of cultures; they are usually more concerned with revealing how local communities respond to historical change and global influences. The burgeoning literature on transnational flows of (...) ideas, global institutions, and cultural mixture reflects this shift of attention. This increased awareness of cultural interpenetration has, furthermore, been instrumental in the critique of earlier conceptions of "culture" that cast it as too stable, bounded, and homogeneous to be useful in a world characterized by migrations (voluntary or forced), cheap travel, international marketing, and telecommunications. 1 Contemporary social theory has accordingly turned to focus on phenomena such as globalization, transnational nationalism, and the situation of diaspora communities. In this body of literature the word syncretism has begun to reappear alongside such related concepts as hybridization and creolization as a means of portraying the dynamics of global social developments.In what follows I consider some current attempts to theorize mixture before turning to examine the suitability, or not, of the terms listed above. Anthropologists and other social scientists have expressed ambivalence about all three terms--syncretism, hybridity, and creolization. I discuss these reservations before presenting a genealogical consideration of the single term syncretism. My purpose in considering the history of syncretism up to the present is not to enforce a standard usage confined to the domain of religion; nor is it my goal to promote syncretism to a position of primus inter pares in the company of all other terms for mixture. I see my approach instead as an attempt to illustrate historically that syncretism has an objectionable but nevertheless instructive past. If this past can be understood, then we are in a position to consciously reappropriate syncretism [Shaw and Stewart 2] and set the ethnographic study of cultural mixture on new tracks.This might seem too minimalist to readers who currently have no reservations about the term, but many anthropologists, on both sides of the Atlantic, have personally expressed to me strong reservations about ever employing the word syncretism. If asked why they hold this view, they are often unable to articulate a specific reason. Some, however, did express one or both of the following objections: (1) syncretism is a pejorative term, one that derides mixture, and/or (2) syncretism presupposes "purity" in the [End Page 40] traditions that combine. Both of these reservations will be considered below, but it is the broad disagreement within the anthropological community on the appropriateness of the very term syncretism that has stimulated this inquiry. Such ambivalence reflects basic uncertainties about how to conceptualize cultural mixture. Current Discussions of Mixture Cultures, if we still wish to retain this term (and I do), are porous; they are open to intermixture with other, different cultures and they are subject to historical change precisely on account of these influences. 2 This has no doubt always been the case. Certainly decolonization and the entry into a postmodernity where master narratives of purity and homogeneity are vulnerable to doubt have contributed to valorizing recognitions of mixture where formerly they had been stigmatized as inauthentic and hence uninteresting for anthropological study. Research in the Caribbean, in Sidney Mintz's view, started relatively late precisely because this region "was considered theoretically unfruitful... its peoples supposedly lacked culture, or were culturally bastardized" [303].Cultural borrowing and interpenetration are today seen as part of the very nature of cultures [Glissant 140-41; Rosaldo, Foreword xv]. To phrase it more accurately, syncretism describes the process by which cultures constitute themselves at any given point in time. Today's hybridization will simply give way to tomorrow's hybridization, the form of which will be dictated by historico-political events and contingencies. In examining cultural hybridity, writers such as Edward Said and James Clifford [Predicament 14-15] have lifted syncretism out of the framework of acculturation. Syncretism is no longer a transient "stage" which will disappear when, with time, assimilation occurs. As Said... (shrink)

La théorie de la relativité d'échelle développe les conséquences de l'abandon de l'hypothèse de différentiabilité des coordonnées spatio-temporelles. La première est le caractère fractal, c'est-à-dire explicitement dépendant des résolutions, qu'acquiert l'espace-temps. On redéfinit alors les résolutions comme caractérisant l'état d'échelle du référentiel, puis on postule un principe de relativité d'échelle, suivant lequel les lois de la nature doivent être valides quel que soit cet état. Il s'agit ainsi de construire une extension des théories existantes de la relativité, qui s'appliquaient jusqu'à (...) maintenant aux changements d'état de position, d'orientation et de mouvement. Par conséquent, la structure de la théorie suit un cheminement parallèle aux différents niveaux de la théorie relativiste (galiléenne, einsteinienne restreinte puis générale), auxquels s'ajoutent les effets du couplage entre échelle et mouvement. (shrink)

An Evaluation of Western Philosophy Charles Hartshorne. of influential views and arguments but of possible ones. In astronomy, the idea of the earth as the center of the cosmos was very influential for ages, but it is the contrary view that is  ...

Charles A. Baylis; VII—Foundations For a Presentative Theory of Perception and Sensation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 66, Issue 1, 1 June 19.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the 18th century, the pre-modern Judeo-Greco-Christian problem of freedom and determinism is transformed by Kant into the modern problem of the freedom of human agency in the natural and cultural worlds of deterministic structures; it is this version of the freedom and determinism issue which centres the Science and Humanism debates, and thus marks the history of the social sciences. Anthony Giddens is credited with providing the new vocabulary of ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ in order to formulate the problem of (...) freedom and determinism in those terms, thus making this formulation fruitful. In this book, Charles R. Varela proposes that Kant originally formulated this problem, and makes a series of wide-ranging and groundbreaking observations based on Kant's metaphysics of realism which enables Varela to propose a solution to the structure/agency problem. Subjects revisited in this book include: · "Giddens’ Call" · The stalemate of the social and psychological sciences · The determinist tradition of modern science · Postmodernism This breadth of themes, drawn together by Varela with his work on Kant, fully realizes Giddens’ principle that human agency is a real causal force. It is Kant's conception of causal power that is the causal force Giddens' has called for. _Science For Humanism: The Recovery of Human Agency_ will be of particular interest to students of humanism and therefore realism, Kant and Giddens. (shrink)

PREFACE Charles Cunneen One of the most common cliches used by anti-socialists is that "socialism is great in theory, but no one has any freedom. ...

After severe brain injury, one of the key challenges for medical doctors is to determine the patient’s prognosis. Who will do well? Who will not do well? Physicians need to know this, and families need to do this too, to address choices regarding the continuation of life supporting therapies. However, current prognostication methods are insufficient to provide a reliable prognosis. -/- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) holds considerable promise for improving the accuracy of prognosis in acute brain injury patients. Nonetheless, (...) research on functional MRI in the intensive care unit context is ethically challenging. These studies raise several ethical issues that have not been addressed so far. In this article, Prof. Charles Weijer and his co-workers provide a framework for researchers and ethics committees to design and review these studies in an ethically sound way. (shrink)

Deleuze's concepts - such as assemblage, the fold, difference and repetition, cinema and desire - are key to understanding his philosophical approach: they work to unsettle particular bodies of knowledge, to open them up and link them to other concepts within and outside that body of knowledge. The short and accessible chapters in this book each focus on a single concept, offering a definition and showing what the concept does. The contributors also consider how the concepts are engaged, intersect, and (...) link, and how they may deviate from other areas of postmodern thought. Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts is aimed at a readership new to Deleuze both from within philosophy and outside the discipline. Contributors include Christa Albrecht-Crane, Ronald Bogue, Felicity J. Colman, Tom Conley, Gregory Flaxman, Eugene W. Holland, Karen Houle, Gregg Lambert, Melissa McMahon, Judith L. Poxon, Gregory Seigworth, Jennifer Daryl Slack, Daniel W. Smith, Patty Sotirin, Charles J. Stivale, Kenneth Surin, James Williams, and J. Macgregor Wise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hamann and the Philosophy of David Hume CHARLES W. SWAIN There have been many and various interpretations of Hume's philosophy; no one, so far as I know, has ever viewed him as a romantic. On the other hand, Johann Georg Hamann, "the wizard of the North," has gained his modicum of notoriety mainly through his influence on German romanticism, plus the fact that Kierkegaard mentions him approvingly, and (...) even quotes him in the Philosophical Fragments. Hume has been regarded as a sceptic, an empiricist, a naturalist and a positivist; Hamann is usually regarded as an irrationalist and proto-existentialist. 1 These two thinkers were certainly very different; yet Hamann had a profound appreciation for the philsophy of Hume. I want to suggest in this paper that a study of the use to which Hamann put Hume's philosophy may raise some difficulties for the prevailing view of Hamann's thought, and may also open up a somewhat different perspective on Hume's thought. Hamann found himself in rebellion against the spirit of his age. He saw in Hume an ally in his struggle against the over-confident rationalism of the Enlightenment. As an apologist, Hamann set himself the task of "smoking out the stylish spirit of the century by means of doubt." e He set about this task in a series of strange apologetic works, written in a deliberately mystifying, sometimes shocking style. His anti-rationalism made him a hero to the later romantics, and a mystery to his friends and readersmamong them his fellow citizen, Immanuel Kant. Beginning as a university student, Hamann had become a disciple of the Enlightenment, seeking his place in the brave new world of the early eighteenth century. He tried a career as a tutor, along with many a young man seeking an independent and comfortable life. Eventually he accepted a vaguely defined position with the mercantile firm of Berens in Riga, operated by the family of his college friend Johann Cristoph Berens. Hamann undertook a "secret mission" for the Berens firm which brought him to London in 1758 where, lonely and disheartened, he underwent a personal crisis which changed the direction of his life and resulted in his career as a man of letters and an apologist for Christianity against the Enlightenment. Having been a devotee for over a decade, Hamann felt that he knew the spirit of the Enlightenment. His opposition, however, baffling it may have appeared to his contemporaries, was not intended as obscurantism. He had his 1Hamann has been much more in vogue on the continent than in the English-speaking world. According to Martin Sells, Theologische Aspekte zur gegenw~irtigen Hamann-deutung (GSttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1957),p. 105,der Magus has been claimed as a spiritual ancestor by virtually every European intellectual movement of the last 150 yearst Philologische Einf~illeund Zwei]el, Iqadler iii, 41. [343] 344 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY "reasons," and a study of his use of Hume's philosophy will help to clarify this aspect of his thought. Hamann's acquaintance with the philosophy of Hume dates from his university days, where he was probably introduced to the world of English letters by his fondly remembered teacher, Heinrich Rappolt. Rappolt was a Wolffian, but not at all interested in the attempt to reconcile Wolffianism with pietistic Christianity --in contrast to his more renowned colleague, Martin Knutzen, Kant's teacher. Rappolt had traveled and studied in England, and apparently delighted in opening these new intellectual vistas to his students, s Hamann thus became familiar with Hume's political and economic writings, as well as his philosophical works. Already in 1756, during his Holmeister period, he had worked through an edition of Hume's works which contained various economic and political essays as well as the First Enquiry. 4 Hume's works were among the books which he bought (but perhaps never read) during his stay in London. In 1759, when he published his first apologetic work, Socratische Denku~rdigkeiten, he was (in his own words) "full of Hume." 5 He cites Hume throughout his literary career, and acknowledges his intellectual debt to Hume both publicly and privately. One of his last undertakings was a translation... (shrink)