- Table View
- List View
Overcoming Cynicism: William James and the Metaphysics of Engagement
by Megan MustainThis book examines the metaphysical underpinnings of cynical philosophies both past and present in an attempt to diagnose and ameliorate contemporary forms of cynicism.
Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)
by Karen Cordrick HaelyScientific knowledge is widely considered to be the most certain kind of knowledge, free from social or cultural bias. This freedom from bias or values, the objectivity of science, is a key reason why scientific knowledge holds its privileged position in society.Karen Cordrick Haely argues that feminist critics of science present compelling reasons to eschew the idea that science is, or should be, purely objective in the sense commonly understood to mean 'value-free'. This book examines the most prominent feminist ideas regarding how to revise and enrich the concept of objectivity such that we can understand, though not necessarily eliminate, the role of cultural and social interests as they play a role in science. Haely argues that these views of objectivity ought to be treated as a network of ideas, rather than as stand-alone solutions to the complexities of forming a cohesive philosophical view of scientific objectivity. The book also presents a landscape of several issues that are crucial for understanding the intersection of feminism and science.
Speaking: Sex Law Politics
by Anthony GreyIn 1997 it will be thirty years since the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 made sex between two men aged over 21 in private no longer a crime. It also marks the seventieth birthday of Antony Grey, who was one of the leading campaigners for homosexual law reform in the 1960s. The articles and talks reprinted in this book (together with others published here for the first time) cover the whole span of Grey's campaigning life, ranging from his first, anonymous, letter to the press about homosexuality written in 1954 to his thoughts on present-day sexual politics in the 1990s. Topics covered include law reform, religious and social attitudes to homosexuality, sex education, young people and sex, and the gay movement. The book concludes with a newly-written essay reviewing the progress achieved since the middle of this century and assessing what remains to be done as we enter the coming one. Never afraid of controversy, Antony Grey provides a unique summary of a pioneering campaigner's forty years of gay activism. For over 40 years, Antony Grey has been a leading campaigner, not only for gay rights, but also for better laws about, and more sensible attitudes towards, sex generally. As Secretary of the Homosexual Law Reform Society during the 1960s, Director of the Albany Trust in the 1970s, and later as a freelance writer and counsellor, he has worked publicly and consistently for individual sexual emancipation and collective common sense. Discussion includes law and morality, pornogaphy and free speech, the Church and homosexuality, young people and definitions of consent, sex education, gay politics from the homophile movement to queer, and outing.
Spinoza's Radical Cartesian Mind (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)
by Tammy Nyden-BullockSeventeenth-century Holland was a culture divided. Orthodox Calvinists, loyal to both scholastic philosophy and the quasi-monarchical House of Orange, saw their world turned upside down with the sudden death of Prince William II and no heir to take his place. The Republicans seized this opportunity to create a decentralized government favourable to Holland's trading interests and committed to religious and philosophical tolerance. The now ruling regent class, freshly trained in the new philosophy of Descartes, used it as a weapon to fight against monarchical tendencies and theological orthodoxy. And so began a great pamphlet debate about Cartesianism and its political and religious consequences. This important new book begins by examining key Radical Cartesian pamphlets and Spinoza's role in a Radical Cartesian circle in Amsterdam, two topics rarely discussed in the English literature. Next, Nyden-Bullock examines Spinoza's political writings and argues that they should not be seen as political innovations so much as systemizations of the Radical Cartesian ideas already circulating in his time. The author goes on to reconstruct the development of Spinoza's thinking about the human mind, truth, error, and falsity and to explain how this development, particularly the innovation of parallelism - the lynchpin of his system - allowed Spinoza to provide philosophical foundations for Radical Cartesian political theory. She concludes that, contrary to general opinion, Spinoza's rejection of Cartesian epistemology involves much more than the metaphysical problems of dualism - it involves, ironically, Spinoza's attempt to make coherent a political theory bearing Descartes's name.
The Writing of Violence in the Middle East: Inflictions (Suspensions: Contemporary Middle Eastern and Islamicate Thought)
by Jason Bahbak MohagheghWriting has come face-to-face with a most crucial juncture: to negotiate with the inescapable presence of violence. From the domains of contemporary Middle Eastern literature, this book stages a powerful conversation on questions of cruelty, evil, rage, vengeance, madness, and deception. Beyond the narrow judgment of violence as a purely tragic reality, these writers (in states of exile, prison, martyrdom, and war) come to wager with the more elusive, inspiring, and even ecstatic dimensions that rest at the heart of a visceral universe of imagination. Covering complex and controversial thematic discussions, Jason Bahbak Mohaghegh forms an extreme record of voices, movements, and thought-experiments drawn from the inner circles of the Middle Eastern region. By exploring the most abrasive writings of this vast cultural front, the book reveals how such captivating outsider texts could potentially redefine our understanding of violence and its now-unstoppable relationship to a dangerous age.
Richard Rorty: From Pragmatist Philosophy to Cultural Politics (Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy)
by Alexander Gröschner Colin Koopman Mike SandbotheRichard Rorty was one of the most important philosophers of the last half of the twentieth century. His work helped effect global transformations in the way philosophy thinks about its work and role midst contemporary culture. He was influential across a diversity of disciplines in perturbing our inherited self-understandings of the place of intellectuals in culture and the roles of art, literature, science, and religion in contemporary liberal democratic society. This collection of essays, by an international and interdisciplinary group of eminent scholars and thinkers in their own right, including Jürgen Habermas, Saskia Sassen, Robert Brandom, and Richard Shusterman, presents the first complete posthumous study of Rorty's work as a whole. The collection reflects on Rorty's myriad accomplishments, with particular attention on the role of pragmatist philosophy in Rorty's increasing identification of his thinking with the work of cultural politics. The book covers the full range of Rortyan themes, including the practice of philosophy and metaphilosophy, the politics of culture, and Rorty's place in the contemporary philosophical and critical-cultural landscapes. These reflections serve to both introduce the arc of Rorty's thinking and advance the critical reception of his work.
Art, Language and Figure in Merleau-Ponty: Excursions in Hyper-Dialectic (Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy)
by Rajiv KaushikArt, Language and Figure in Merleau-Ponty: Excursions in Hyper-Dialectic considers Merleau-Ponty's later ontology of language in the light of his "figured philosophy,†? which places the work of art at the centre of its investigation. Kaushik argues that, since for Merleau-Ponty the work of art actualizes a sensible ontology that would otherwise be invisible to the history of dialectics, it undermines the fundamental difference between being and linguistic structures. Art, Language and Figure in Merleau-Ponty takes up the radical task of the figured philosophy to render sensible and linguistic spaces prior to the thought of their separation. Kaushik situates Merleau-Ponty's criticisms of Saussure's linguistic system, as well as a more general repudiation of the act of inscribing in favour of an abstracted textual meaning, in this context. Following the artists most important to Merleau-Ponty's own writings on art, such as Paul Klee and his fascination with hieroglyphics, and extending these analyses to more recent 21st Century artists such as Cy Twombly, Kaushik takes an excursion into the places where art and language, image and text, drawing and writing, figure and discourse, are interlaced in Merleau-Ponty's last ontology. In view of these intersections, Kaushik ultimately argues, the work of art gives us the spaces where the possibilities of philosophy, both past and future, reside. As the first sustained treatment into the relationship between art and language, this is an important contribution to Meleau-Ponty's philosophy and scholars of aesthetics.
Zizek and Heidegger: The Question Concerning Techno-Capitalism (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)
by Thomas BrockelmanŽižek and Heidegger offers a radical new interpretation of the work of Slavoj Žižek, one of the world's leading contemporary thinkers, through a study of his relationship with the work of Martin Heidegger. Thomas Brockelman argues that Žižek's oeuvre is largely a response to Heidegger's philosophy of finitude, an immanent critique of it which pulls it in the direction of revolutionary praxis. Brockelman also finds limitations in Žižek's relationship with Heidegger, specifically in his ambivalence about Heidegger's techno-phobia. Brockelman's critique of Žižek departs from this ambivalence - a fundamental tension in Žižek's work between a historicist critical theory of techno-capitalism and an anti-historicist theory of revolutionary change. In addition to clarifying what Žižek has to say about our world and about the possibility of radical change in it, Žižek and Heidegger explores the various ways in which this split at the center of his thought appears within it - in Žižek's views on history or on the relationship between the revolutionary leader and the proletariat or between the analyst and the analysand.
Coleridge, Revision and Romanticism: After the Revolution, 1793-1818 (Continuum Literary Studies)
by Ve-Yin TeeThe Romantic phenomenon of multiple texts has been shaped by the link between revision and authorial intent. However, what has been overlooked are the profound implications of multiple and contradictory versions of the same text for a materialist approach; using the works of Coleridge as a case study and the afterlife of the French Revolution as the main theme, this monograph lays out the methodology for a more detailed multi-layered analysis. Scrutinising four works of Coleridge (two poems, a newspaper article and a play), where every major variant is read as a separate work with its own distinct socio-historical context, Ve-Yin Tee challenges the notion that any one text is representative of its totality. By re-reading Coleridge in the light of alternative textual materials within that time, he opens a wider scope for meaning and the understanding of Coleridge's oeuvre.
Aristotle and Natural Law (Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy)
by Tony BurnsAristotle and Natural Law lays out a new theoretical approach which distinguishes between the notions of 'interpretation,' 'appropriation,' 'negotiation' and 'reconstruction' of the meaning of texts and their component concepts. These categories are then deployed in an examination of the role which the concept of natural law is used by Aristotle in a number of key texts. The book argues that Aristotle appropriated the concept of natural law, first formulated by the defenders of naturalism in the 'nature versus convention debate' in classical Athens. Thereby he contributed to the emergence and historical evolution of the meaning of one of the most important concept in the lexicon of Western political thought. Aristotle and Natural Law argues that Aristotle's ethics is best seen as a certain type of natural law theory which does not allow for the possibility that individuals might appeal to natural law in order to criticize existing laws and institutions. Rather its function is to provide them with a philosophical justification from the standpoint of Aristotle's metaphysics.
Heidegger's Platonism (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)
by Mark A. RalkowskiHeidegger's Platonism challenges Heidegger's 1940 interpretation of Plato as the philosopher who initiated the West's ontological decline into contemporary nihilism. Mark A. Ralkowski argues that, in his earlier lecture course, On the Essence of Truth, in which he appropriates Plato in a positive light, Heidegger discovered the two most important concepts of his later thought, namely the difference between the Being of beings and Being as such, and the 'belonging together' of Being and man in what he eventually calls Ereignis, the 'event of appropriation'. Ralkowski shows that, far from being the grand villain of metaphysics, Plato was in fact the gateway to Heidegger's later period. Because Heidegger discovers the seeds of his later thought in his positive appropriation of Plato, this book argues that Heidegger's later thought is a return to and phenomenological transformation of Platonism, which is ironic not least because Heidegger thought of himself as the West's first truly post-Platonic philosopher.
Nietzsche & the Metaphysics of the Tragic: Nietzsche And The Metaphysics Of The Tragic (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers)
by Nuno Nabais Martin EarlThis book is a concise and historicized analysis of the development of Nietzsche's thought on the subject of tragedy.
Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Before Sunrise (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)
by James LuchteNietzsche famously regarded Thus Spoke Zarathustra as his greatest work. However, despite Nietzsche's pervasive influence upon the philosopher and non-philosopher alike, and his own intense regard for Zarathustra, there has been relatively little serious study of Nietzsche's magnum opus.This book seeks to address this gap in the available literature by taking Thus Spoke Zarathustra seriously, not only with respect to its impact on the interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy, but also in light of the broader questions of the relationships between poetry, philosophy and existence. Fifteen leading Nietzsche scholars examine the structure, method, style and sources of Zarathustra as a philosophical text and its relationship to methodological and metaphilosophical questions amid the broader discussions of philosophy. The book also explores the implications of the philosophical questioning, interventions and teachings of Zarathustra with respect to both its negative engagement with the tradition and its attempt to set forth something new under the sun in its affirmative overcoming of nihilism.
The Historical Present: Medievalism and Modernity
by Walter KudryczMedievalism has become a central concern for those studying and teaching medieval history. It can be distinguished from traditional medieval history because it is not directly concerned with the study of the Middle Ages themselves, but rather it looks at how ideas about the medieval era operate in modern culture. This volume breaks new ground by moving beyond the arena of contemporary popular culture by interpreting modern academic attitudes towards the Middle Ages as themselves forms of medievalism. What is presented as refined historical truth is no more than a construction of truth derived from the larger philosophical and cultural trends of our own day. This volume argues that modernity's sense of the medieval past is the product of the dominant intellectual movements of the nineteenth century, Romanticism and Idealism, and that nineteenth century attitudes have continued to inform current understandings of the Middle Ages. This is a narrative that combines the main themes of modern scholarship on the medieval age with a subtly portrayed picture of the philosophical culture which produced them.
Nietzsche's Therapeutic Teaching: For Individuals and Culture (Bloomsbury Studies in Continental Philosophy)
by Horst Hutter Eli FriedlandThe theme of the philosopher as therapist dominates Nietzsche's entire opus, from his earliest writings to the Zarathustra period and beyond. Nietzsche wishes to hasten the coming and future sanctification of a new type of synthetic human being, and his entire teaching is shaped by his own struggles against illness.Yet few Nietzsche scholars have paid this crucial therapeutic element of his thought sufficient attention.This collection of essays by leading scholars in the field is composed around the Nietzschean insight, which has its roots in the Hippocratic tradition of ancient medicine, that beliefs, behaviours, ideals and patterns of striving are not things for which individuals or even cultures are responsible. Rather, they are symptoms of what an individual or culture is, which symptoms require diagnostic interpretation and evaluation. The book identifies three principal approaches in Nietzsche's philosophy: diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic. Each essay takes up this essential insight into Nietzsche's therapeutic philosophy from a different perspective and collectively they reveal an array of insightful approaches to self-induced enhancement, for both individuals and cultures.
The If Odyssey: A Philosophical Journey Through Greek Myth and Storytelling for 8 - 16-Year-Olds
by Peter Worley Tamar LeviThe If Odyssey draws out the philosophy that lies behind each story in Homer'sepic tale to introduce children not only to the exciting fables of Odysseus,but also to that other great Ancient Greek tradition, philosophy. Explore withOdysseus the value of happiness, non-existent entities, moral dilemmas, thephilosophy of prophecy, and the nature of love among many other philosophicalissues. From the author of The If Machine, this book offers stories andsession plans suitable for use across the curriculum with children aged 8-16.Online you'll find maps of Odysseus' journey, The Words of Tiresias thatprovides clues for the children as to Odysseus' progress and an Ancient Greek languageworkshop with accompanying worksheets. You can use the 'Storykit' section, whichprovides hints and tips on storytelling skills, to bring the tales of TheOdyssey to life and stimulate independent, critical thinking with yourclass.
The Bloomsbury Companion to Socrates (Bloomsbury Companions)
by John Bussanich and Nicholas D. SmithSocrates, the largely enigmatic Greek thinker, is universally considered to have laid the foundations of western philosophy. His philosophy, available to us through the early dialogues of Plato and the writings of his contemporaries, has had a remarkably enduring influence on virtually every area of philosophical enterprise.This comprehensive and accessible guide to Socrates life and death, character and philosophical concerns, features thirteen specially commissioned sections, written by a team of leading experts in the field of ancient philosophy, covering every aspect of Socratic thought. The Companion presents a comprehensive overview of the various features, themes and topics apparent in Socrates' thought, including Socratic irony, metaphysics, epistemology, happiness, virtue, moral psychology, philosophy of love, political philosophy, and religious belief. It concludes with a thoroughly comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources. This is an essential reference tool for anyone working in the field of ancient philosophy.
Hume's 'Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding': A Reader's Guide (Reader's Guides)
by Alan Bailey Dan O'BrienDavid Hume is widely considered to be the greatest British philosopher and his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the most frequently studied of all his works - a key text in the study of empiricist thought. This is a hugely important and exciting, yet challenging, piece of philosophical writing.In Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: A Reader's Guide, Allen Bailey and Dan O'Brien explain the philosophical background against which the book was written and the key themes inherent in the text. The book then guides the reader to a clear understanding of the text as a whole, before exploring the reception and influence of this classic philosophical work. This is the ideal companion to study of this most influential and challenging of texts.
Of Habit: From Aristotle To Bourdieu
by Felix RavaissonFélix Ravaisson's seminal philosophical essay, Of Habit, was first published in French in 1838. It traces the origins and development of habit and proposes the principle of habit as the foundation of human nature. This metaphysics of habit steers a path between materialism and idealism in one of the best and most sophisticated treatments of the topic. Ravaisson's work was pivotal in the development of European thought and has had a significant influence on such key thinkers such as Proust, Bergson, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, and Deleuze. This edition makes this important work available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Clare Carlisle and Mark Sinclair provide a comprehensive introduction to Ravaisson's life, works, and enduring influence that clearly situates Ravaisson's text within the European philosophical tradition. The translation also includes a thorough commentary on the text that illuminates its arguments and its context.
Philosophical Imaginary (Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers)
by Michele Le Doeuff"The Philosophical Imaginary teaches us how to read philosophy afresh. Focusing on central, but often undiscussed, images, Le Doeuff's patient, perspicacious, and always brilliant readings show us how to uncover the political unconscious at work in great philosophy. Le Doeuff's contribution to philosophy and feminism is unequalled. This book is a classic."
The Federalist Papers: A Reader's Guide (Reader's Guides)
by Kyle ScottThe Federalist Papers constitute a key document in the understanding of the American government. Written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, these 85 texts were published between 1787 and 1788 to convince the state of New York to ratify the Constitution.Today, the Papers are studied in courses on American government, American political thought, and constitutional law. However, the size and organization of the full text, notwithstanding its complex political concepts and context, make it difficult for students to apprehend. The Reader's Guide will be a key tool to help them understand the issues at hand and the significance of the Papers then and now. Organized around key issues, such as the branches of the government, the utility of the Union, or skepticism of a national regime, the work will walk the reader through the 85 Papers, providing them with the needed intellectual and historical contexts.Designed to supplement the reading of The Federalist Papers, the guide will help elucidate not only their contents, but also their importance and contemporary relevance.
Pragmatist Metaphysics: An Essay on the Ethical Grounds of Ontology (Continuum Studies in American Philosophy)
by Sami PihlströmPragmatist Metaphysics proposes a pragmatist re-articulation of the nature, aims and methods of metaphysics. Rather than regarding metaphysics as a 'first philosophy', an inquiry into the world independent of human perspectives, the pragmatist views metaphysics as an inquiry into categorizations of reality laden with human practices. Insofar as our categorizations of reality are practice-laden, they are also, inevitably, value-laden. Sami Pihlström argues that metaphysics does not, then, study the world's 'own' categorial structure, but a structure we, through our conceptual and practical activities, impose on the reality we experience and interact with. Engaging with the classical American pragmatists, in particular William James, and neopragmatists, including Hilary Putnam, the author seeks to correct long-held misconceptions regarding the nature of the relationship between metaphysics and pragmatism. He argues that a coherent metaphysical alternative to the currently fashionable realist metaphysics emerges from pragmatism and that pragmatism itself should be reinterpreted in a metaphysically serious manner. Moreover, the book argues that, from a pragmatist perspective, metaphysics must be inextricably linked with ethics.
Gadamer and the Question of the Divine (Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy)
by Walter LammiGadamer and the Question of the Divine uncovers a neglected side of Gadamer's thought, namely his life-long concern with the question of the divine. Not only is this an issue of fundamental importance to philosophical hermeneutics, but it also contributes to what Gadamer considered to be the most urgent task of our time - a conceptual dialogue among religions. New grounds for toleration among communities must be found and Gadamer's study of the divine provides both a model and a starting-place for doing so. In setting forth a conceptual narrative for global dialogue about religious transcendence, Gadamer is the pre-eminent twentieth-century philosopher of the divine. Gadamer's study of the divine is an application of philosophical hermeneutics and phenomenological in its descriptions of temporality and the experience of art. Walter Lammi shows how Gadamer provides us with a richly textured study of the divine that finds its bearings in Heidegger and the Greeks and suggests a path to questions of cosmology, temporality and religious experience.
Transcendental Ontology: Essays in German Idealism (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)
by Markus GabrielTranscendental Ontology in German Idealism: Schelling and Hegel sheds remarkable light on a question central to post-Kantian philosophy: after the Copernican Revolution in philosophy, what can philosophy say about the world or reality as such? What remains of ontology's task after Kant? This is a question often overlooked in contemporary scholarship on German Idealism. Markus Gabriel offers a refreshing reinvigoration of a range of questions concerning scepticism, corporeality, freedom, the question of being, the absolute and the modal status of our determinations and judgments, all crucial to our understanding of the truly radical nature of post-Kantian philosophy. Gabriel's assessment of the experiments undertaken in post-Kantian ontology reaffirms Schelling's and Hegel's place at the heart of contemporary metaphysics. The book shows how far we still have to go in mining the thought of Hegel and Schelling and how exciting, as a result, we can expect twenty-first century philosophy to be.
Arendt: A Guide For The Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed)
by Karin A. FryHannah Arendt is considered to be one of the most influential political thinkers of the twentieth century. The enormous breadth of her work places particular demands on the student coming to her thought for the first time. In Arendt: A Guide for the Perplexed, Karin Fry explores the systematic nature of Arendt's political thought that arose in response to the political controversies of her time and describes how she sought to envision a coherent framework for thinking about politics in a new way. Thematically structured and covering all of Arendt's key writings and ideas, this book is designed specifically to meet the needs of students coming to her work for the first time.