_In Defense of Anarchism_ is a 1970 book by the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, in which the author defends individualist anarchism. He argues that individual autonomy and state authority are mutually exclusive and that, as individual autonomy is inalienable, the moral legitimacy of the state collapses.

Collection of Buddhist philosophical texts written by Mongolian monks and scholars.

Here is an account of the enlightenment experience and its consequences written by a trained philosopher and mathematician who is also a master of English prose.

Originally presented as the author's thesis, University of Birmingham, 1972. Bibliography: p. 139-146. Includes index.

The revised edition of this highly successful text provides a clear and accessible introduction to some of the most important questions of political philosophy. Organized around major issues, Wolff provides the structure that beginners need, while also introducing some distinctive ideas of his own.

This book presents a philosophy that includes the enlightenment experience--a philosophy grounded on the authority of direct realization resulting from transformation in consciousness.

The human right to health has been established in international law since 1976. However, philosophers have often regarded human rights doctrine as a marginal contribution to political philosophy, or have attempted to distinguish ‘human rights proper’ from ‘aspirations’, with the human right to health often considered as falling into the latter category. Here the human right to health is defended as an attractive approach to global health, and responses are offered to a series of criticisms concerning its demandingness.

Qu'est-ce que le temps? Cette question nous plonge forcément dans l'embarras. La physique refuse de la poser: elle mesure le temps et en propose diverses théories au sein desquelles nous ne reconnaissons pas le temps de notre monde. Renonçant elle aussi à le définir, la philosophie s'est généralement réfugiée dans la conscience du temps, mais sans rien nous dire du temps lui-même. Il y a pourtant bien un concept de temps qui ne doit rien à la conscience ni à l'ordre (...) cosmique, c'est celui de ce monde où nous vivons et dont nous parlons; celui par lequel se distinguent l'avant et l'après, celui qui nous fait dire que les êtres changent et que Pierre est en retard. Tout cela dépend, à notre échelle, du mobilier du monde commun. La philosophie peut ainsi reprendre l'analyse du concept de temps soutenue par toute la tradition, d'Aristote à Bergson, de Kant à David Lewis. Elle offre alors de nouvelles réponses à nos interrogations les plus classiques: Le devenir n'est-il qu'une illusion? Le passé existe-t-il ou n'est-il qu'un fantôme de la mémoire? Pourquoi le temps est-il irréversible? Devons-nous l'imaginer comme une flèche dirigée vers l'avenir ou comme un fleuve précipitant notre présent en passé? Ces problèmes n'ont pas épuisé leurs mystères. Au bout de l'enquête, il y a l'espoir d'éclairer ce qu'Einstein lui-même estimait être l'énigme du 'maintenant'"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance, marking the collapse of Marxist politics and economics. Indeed, Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seems, all reason to take the writings of Karl Marx seriously. Jonathan Wolff argues that if we detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of some never-to-be-realized worker's paradise, he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. The author shows how Marx's main (...) ideas still shed light on wider concerns about culture and society and he guides the reader through Marx's notoriously difficult writings. Wolff also argues that the value of a great thinker does not depend on his or her views being true, but on other features such as originality, insight, and systematic vision. From this perspective, Marx still richly deserves to be read. Why Read Marx Today? reinstates Marx as an important critic of current society, and not just a figure of historical interest. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an ethical defence of the modern practice of corrida. First, the study introduces a criticism of contemporary “animal liberation” ethics. Secondly, it draws a new set of principles and guidelines regarding our moral behaviour towards animals. Eventually, the study demonstrates that the ethics of corrida are based on the respect for the bull’s nature which is defined by the concept of “bravura”.

Within the framework of the Kershaw approach and of a hypothesis on spatial stochasticity, the relativistic equations of Lehr and Park, Guerra and Ruggiero, and Vigier for stochastic Nelson mechanics are obtained. In our model there is another set of equations of the hydrodynamical type for the drift velocityv i(x j,t) and stochastic velocityu i(x j,t) of a particle. Taking into account quadratic terms in l, the universal length, we obtain from these equations the Sivashinsky equations forv i(x j,t) in (...) the caseu i →0. In the limit l →0, these equations acquire the Newtonian form. (shrink)

Feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and Marxism, among other critical approaches, have undermined traditional notions of aesthetics in recent decades. But questions of aesthetic judgment and pleasure persist, and many critics now seek a "return to aesthetics" or a "return to beauty." Janet Wolff advances a "postcritical" aesthetics grounded in shared values that are negotiated in the context of community. She relates this approach to contemporary debates about a committed politics similarly founded on the abandonment of certainty. Neither universalist nor relativist, (...) the "aesthetics of uncertainty" provides a discourse on beauty that contemporary critics can engage with and offers a basis for judgment that is committed to assigning value to works of art. Wolff explores her position through a range of topics: the question of beauty in relation to feminist critique; the problematic status of twentieth-century English art, visual representations of the Holocaust, Jewish identity as portrayed by the artist R. B. Kitaj, refugee artists and modernism in 1940s Britain, and the nature and appeal of imagistic thinking in sociology. She addresses the desire for certainty and the timeliness of doubt and concludes with a meditation on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics, arguing that ethical issues are very much implicated in aesthetic discourse. (shrink)

In the article the issue of singling out some systemic criteria of differentiation between the fundamental and applied terminologies is considered. The authors point at the fact that each terminology has its own individual peculiarities, which mark it out against a general background of the terminological fund of a certain language. It is asserted that one of the most important and effective criteria that can be the basis of the approach to the study of sublanguages for special purposes is a (...) fundamental or applied character of the sphere of professional or scientific knowledge verbalized by a certain terminology. Such terms, as ‘fundamental terminology‘, ‘applied terminology‘ and ‘terminology of transition type‘, are introduced for scientific use. The fundamental terminology is understood as a sublanguage for special purposes that verbalizes the notions, forming the totality of fundamental knowledge, serving for the description of phenomena and processes in reality and in science, in the framework of which the fundamental research is carried out. The applied terminology is the name for the sublanguage for special purposes representing the notions, in which the results of human being’s practical scientific-industrial activity for changing the reality, forming the artificial habitat, are conceptualized. The terminology of transition type is the terminology that verbalizes the fragments of the field of scientific knowledge in which the research can have both a fundamental and applied character. The authors come to the conclusion that pure applied or fundamental terminologies are quite rare, that it is rational to speak about the degree of manifestation of the applied or fundamental character within the limits of this or that terminological system. (shrink)

Beyond tolerance, by R. P. Wolff.--Tolerance and the scientific outlook, by B. Moore.--Repressive tolerance, by H. Marcuse.

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Die Überwindung des mathematischen Erkenntnisideals" verfügbar.

This new book integrates material drawn from a variety of sources – feminist theory, cultural and literary analysis, sociology and art history – in an original discussion of women′s relationship to modern and post–modern culture. The essays in the book challenge the continuing separation of sociological from textual analysis in cultural (and feminist) theory and enquiry. They address critically the question of women′s writing, exploring the idea that women may begin to define their own lives and construct their identities in (...) a patriarchal culture through the very process of writing. They also present a cogent defence of a feminist cultural politics, including a politics of the body. (shrink)

Feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and Marxism, among other critical approaches, have undermined traditional notions of aesthetics in recent decades. But questions of aesthetic judgment and pleasure persist, and many critics now seek a "return to aesthetics" or a "return to beauty." Janet Wolff advances a "postcritical" aesthetics grounded in shared values that are negotiated in the context of community. She relates this approach to contemporary debates about a committed politics similarly founded on the abandonment of certainty. Neither universalist nor relativist, (...) the "aesthetics of uncertainty" provides a discourse on beauty that contemporary critics can engage with and offers a basis for judgment that is committed to assigning value to works of art. Wolff explores her position through a range of topics: the question of beauty in relation to feminist critique; the problematic status of twentieth-century English art, visual representations of the Holocaust, Jewish identity as portrayed by the artist R. B. Kitaj, refugee artists and modernism in 1940s Britain, and the nature and appeal of imagistic thinking in sociology. She addresses the desire for certainty and the timeliness of doubt and concludes with a meditation on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics, arguing that ethical issues are very much implicated in aesthetic discourse. (shrink)

Serena Olsaretti brings together new essays by leading moral and political philosophers on the nature of desert and justice, their relations with each other and with other values.

The Representational Theory of Measurement (RTM), especially the canonical three volume Foundations of Measurement by Krantz et al., is a landmark accomplishment in our understanding of measurement. Despite this, it has been far from easy to pinpoint what exactly we can learn about measurement from RTM, and who the target audience for RTM’s formal results should be. In what sense does RTM provide foundations of measurement, and what is the philosophical significance of such foundations? I argue that RTM provides semantic (...) foundations of measurement, and that their philosophical significance lies in a shift towards structural representation. (shrink)

Mémoire de Mons. Lange contre cette philosophie -- Réponse préliminaire d'un auteur anonimeà ce mémoire -- Sommaire de la réponse de Mr. Wolf mȩme avec un avis au lecteur de l'histoire de ce nouveau différend.