Contends that Freud's theory of civilization is substantially sociological, and examines the philosophical and sociological implications of key Freudian ...

Visual thinking -- visual imagination or perception of diagrams and symbol arrays, and mental operations on them -- is omnipresent in mathematics. Is this visual thinking merely a psychological aid, facilitating grasp of what is gathered by other means? Or does it also have epistemological functions, as a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof? By examining the many kinds of visual representation in mathematics and the diverse ways in which they are used, Marcus Giaquinto argues that visual thinking (...) in mathematics is rarely just a superfluous aid; it usually has epistemological value, often as a means of discovery. Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis. He shows how we can discern abstract general truths by means of specific images, how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, and how visual means can help us grasp abstract structures. Visual Thinking in Mathematics reopens the investigation of earlier thinkers from Plato to Kant into the nature and epistemology of an individual's basic mathematical beliefs and abilities, in the new light shed by the maturing cognitive sciences. Clear and concise throughout, it will appeal to scholars and students of philosophy, mathematics, and psychology, as well as anyone with an interest in mathematical thinking. (shrink)

Quick, accessible, compact guide to understanding key political concepts. Contents include: Liberty, Justice, Equality, Human rights, Social contract, Democracy, Monarchy, Anarchism, Capitalism, Socialism, Nationalism and Globalisation.

Critique currently leads a life akin to a zombie. It is torn between attempts to surpass it and radical gestures of its dismissal, while moderate forces dwell on the business of inventorying its history. Starting from critique’s historical turn on itself, this essay focuses on destabilization and self-questioning as its essential features. Regarding Adorno’s model, it seeks to locate critique’s focal point before it was split by surpassing and dismissal. This model is still challenging because it is situated at a (...) crossroads in critical thinking where the historical aspect of failure is tied to structural aspects of critique: resistance, disruption, and dissolution. It concerns a movement of critique that leads into delirium—without thereby abandoning its claim to objectivity. In the contemporary situation, where critique is at once generalized and dismissed, it is precisely the specific link of disrupting and claiming objectivity that challenges the universalized regime of opinion. (shrink)

This book treats modal logic as a theory, with several subtheories, such as completeness theory, correspondence theory, duality theory and transfer theory and is intended as a course in modal logic for students who have had prior contact with modal logic and who wish to study it more deeply. It presupposes training in mathematical or logic. Very little specific knowledge is presupposed, most results which are needed are proved in this book.

The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state.--The concept of essence.--The affirmative character of culture.--Philosophy and critical theory.--On hedonism.--Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber.--Love mystified; a critique of Norman O. Brown and a reply to Herbert Marcuse by Norman O. Brown.--Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society.

Can you master the ideas of Plato, Kant, Nietzsche and Sartre? What does 'I think, therefore I am' really mean? Do you know the arguments for and against the existence of god? And what do the great philosophers tell us about knowledge and truth, good and evil? Packed with bite-sized briefings, shortcuts and bluffs, Get Smart: Philosophy demystifies 50 key philosophical concepts and provides you with all you need to speak out about the very biggest ideas.

Philosophy in Minutes distils 200 of the most important philosophical ideas into easily digestible, bite-sized sections. The core information for every topic - including debates such as the role of philosophy in science and religion, key thinkers from Aristotle to Marx, and introductions to morality and ethics - is explained in straightforward language, using illustrations to make the concepts easy to understand and remember. Whether you are perplexed by existentialism or pondering the notion of free will, this accessible small-format book (...) will help any reader to quickly grasp the basics of this highly nuanced subject. Chapters include: Truth and logic, Marxism, Communism and Socialism, Ontology, Philosophy and literature, Existence of God, Feminist theory, Consciousness, The future of philosophy. (shrink)

Marcus Giaquinto tells the compelling story of one of the great intellectual adventures of the modern era: the attempt to find firm foundations for mathematics. From the late nineteenth century to the present day, this project has stimulated some of the most original and influential work in logic and philosophy.

Marcus Verhaegh - Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant's Critical Philosophy - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.2 336-337 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Marcus Verhaegh Grand Valley State University Rebecca Kukla, editor. Aesthetics and Cognition in Kant's Critical Philosophy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 309. Cloth, $75.00. This collection of essays focuses on the Critique of Judgment, a work that offers material in aesthetics, (...) but that also has much to teach us concerning the nature of non-aesthetic judgment, concept formation, teleology, and the task of investigating both the natural and moral realms. The pieces in the collection reflect.. (shrink)

According to most accounts of just war theory, jus ad bellum is concerned with the morality of initiating war. This gives jus ad bellum a temporal dimension, making it a set of principles that are applied to judge belligerents’ actions at the outset of a war, but that cannot be revisited after a war begins. I challenge this synchronic conception of jus ad bellum by arguing that the considerations the principles of jus ad bellum are meant to judge can, and (...) often do, change substantially over the course of wars. It is inappropriate to determine the ad bellum justice of a war solely based on how the principles of jus ad bellum are satisfied at a war’s outset. Because of the mercurial nature of war, jus ad bellum principles should be applied diachronically, as moral norms that can be used to guide or to judge belligerents even after a war has been initiated. (shrink)

This paper develops a non-relativist version of contextualism about knowledge. It is argued that a plausible contextualism must take into account three features of our practice of attributing knowledge: (1) knowledge-attributions follow a default-and-challenge pattern; (2) there are preconditions for a belief's enjoying the status of being justified by default (e.g. being orthodox); and (3) for an error-possibility to be a serious challenge, there has to be positive evidence that the possibility might be realized in the given situation. It is (...) argued that standard "semantic" versions of contextualism (e.g. those of Lewis, Cohen, DeRose) fail to take these features into account, which makes them overly hospitable to the sceptic, and that Williams' version of contextualism, although incorporating (1), fails to do justice to (2) and (3). According to the contextualism developed here, although epistemic standards vary with the context, the truth-value of particular knowledge-attributions does not. Contexts here are understood as being constituted by two elements: an epistemic practice (a rule-governed social practice such as a scientific discipline, the law, a craft etc., in which knowledge-claims are evaluated according to specific standards) and the "facts of the matter" (i.e. those facts which, together with the epistemic standards in question, determine which error-possibilities are relevant and thus have to be eliminated for a knowledge-claim to be true). If there are several epistemic practices, and thus several contexts, in which a knowledge-claim can be evaluated, it is the "strictest" practice that counts. In this way, the counterintuitive consequence of other versions of contextualism that the same knowledge-claim can be true in one context, but false in another, can be avoided. At the same time, scepticism can be resisted since even in the "strictest" epistemic practices, error-possibilities become relevant only when backed by positive evidence that they might in fact obtain. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

In its first part, this paper deals with some passages of the Eneads in which the notions of consciousness and unconsciousness may be found. In spite of not having terms that correspond exactly to these in Greek, it is clear that Plotinus had very refined notions related to them, going up to indicate that consciousness might not be the epistemological function that defines humans. The multiple aspects of the phyché hyposthesis in Plotinus enables this separation between consciousness and the essence (...) of men. In its second part, this paper describes cosmological elements of the notions of consciousness and unconsciousness in Plotinus, since the celestial bodies are admitted as living beings. This paper indicates, finally, some problems related to astrology in Plotinus concerned with the notion of consciousness of the stars. (shrink)

Framing Meinzer's work in elegant historic context, preeminent Panhandle historian Frederick W. Rathjen gives us a rare appreciation of the topographic majesty of the Periman Red Beds that 230 to 280 million years ago lay below a shallow sea and through subsequent millennia and riverine deposit, erosion, and redeposit would gain 'variegated walls and formations of gray, yellow, maroon, lavender and orange shown most conspicuously in the lovely Spanish Skirts.".

Through his stunning photography, Wyman Meinzer chronicles the life of the coyote from a flea-covered, one-pound fuzzball whelp into a glistening, furry jewel that moves with fluid grace across the Texas plains. The coyote has become the symbol of western freedom in popular culture, and historically its range was limited to west of the Mississippi River. Yet now—in spite of a hundred-year effort to exterminate this wild canine—coyote howls can be heard from Los Angeles to the Bronx and from (...) Alaska to Costa Rica. Apart from the mythology, until recently little has been known about this intelligent, adaptable creature.As he did with The Roadrunner, Meinzer gives us a personal account of the years he spent observing and photographing this often maligned animal. Seasoned with humor and poignancy, his observations give us a glimpse into the heart and soul of this intelligent and adaptable native North American. (shrink)

Explore, as few have intimately done, the Big Bend Ranch State Park and the Chinati Mountains State Natural Area. Trust Wyman Meinzer to see as no one ever has the desert sanctuaries of the vast Big Bend and to pay tribute to their best-kept secret, the twin canyons of the Chinati Mountains, San Antonio and Los Pelos. Trust, too, that the images he delivers are as true as his eye, that the light bathing cholla at sunrise, on the eastern (...) rim of San Antonio Canyon, is unfiltered. Meinzer is one photographer who still waits for and catches the light, even if he has only a thirty-second window.?Placing a border around the vastness of the Big Bend is typically an invitation to disappointment. Reducing its depth to a medium of two dimensions tends to flatten a landscape known to be anything but flat. Catching the ever-changing moods of light and color in fractions of a second normally embalms the scene. So how does Wyman give us photos full of expansive depth and color? His skill is his passion for the beauty of Texas and his unwavering will to get to the toughest spots. He is an adventurer first and a photographer second. Wyman feels the land and sky. He becomes a part of the terrain, and his photos make you part of the scenery.” From the Introduction. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that Platonic Forms are angels. I make this identification by claiming that Platonic Forms have the characteristics of angels, in particular, that Platonic Forms are alive. I offer four arguments for this claim. First, it seems that engaging in self-directed action is a sufficient condition for being alive. The Forms are, as teleological activities, self-directed actions. Second, bodies receive their being from their Forms, and some bodies are essentially alive. Third, in the Good, all (...) the types of goodness, including life, are identical. The Forms are appearances of the Good. Fourth, since the Good imparts as much goodness as it can, the Forms are alive unless there is some bar to their being alive. There are good reasons to think that there is no such bar. I then show that ethical vices do not give body to human form, but give body to other forms—those that are evil angels. Lastly, I provide a survey of the relationships that various religious traditions posit between ethical vice and the demonic. (shrink)

Looks at the habitat and eating habits of the roadrunner, a carnivorous bird of the Southern United States.

The common assumption is that if a group comprising moral agents can act intentionally, as a group, then the group itself can also be properly regarded as a moral agent with respect to that action. I argue, however, that this common assumption is the result of a problematic line of reasoning I refer to as “the collective fallacy.” Recognizing the collective fallacy as a fallacy allows us to see that if there are, in fact, irreducibly joint actors, then some of (...) them will lack the full-fledged moral agency of their members. The descriptivist question of whether a group can perform irreducibly joint intentional action need not rise and fall with the normative question of whether a group can be a moral agent. (shrink)

The common assumption is that if a group comprising moral agents can act intentionally, as a group, then the group itself can also be properly regarded as a moral agent with respect to that action. I argue, however, that this common assumption is the result of a problematic line of reasoning I refer to as “the collective fallacy.” Recognizing the collective fallacy as a fallacy allows us to see that if there are, in fact, irreducibly joint actors, then some of (...) them will lack the full-fledged moral agency of their members. The descriptivist question of whether a group can perform irreducibly joint intentional action need not rise and fall with the normative question of whether a group can be a moral agent. (shrink)

Based on her earlier ground-breaking axiomatization of quantified modal logic, the papers collected here by the distinguished philosopher Ruth Barcan Marcus cover much ground in the development of her thought, spanning from 1961 to 1990. The first essay here introduces themes initially viewed as iconoclastic, such as the necessity of identity, the directly referential role of proper names as "tags", the Barcan Formula about the interplay of possibility and existence, and alternative interpretations of quantification. Marcus also addresses the (...) putative puzzles about substitutivity and about essentialism. The collection also includes influential essays on moral conflict, on belief and rationality, and on some historical figures. Many of her views have been incorporated into current theories, while others remain part of a continuing debate. (shrink)

Examining the history of playas and the roles they play in life on the Llano Estacado, the author explains how and why these drainage basins exist and the controversy they generate. With Meinzer's stunning photographs, "Playas" is a tribute to a unique environmental phenomenon of the Plains.

We are in the midst of an unprecedented, human-caused, environmental crisis.

In the 1980s, leading philosophers at Oxford, Chicago and UCLA undertook a controversial reassessment of Marxism using the techniques of analytical philosophy. The aim of these so-called "Non-Bullshit" Marxists was no less than the complete reconstruction of Marxist theory, recasting it on a logical and rigorous basis, free from all metaphysical jargon and sentimentality. Marcus Roberts's study serves as a lucid survey of the Analytical Marxists' contributions to the understanding of historical materialism, exploitation, class structure, method, politics and ethics—a (...) panoramic tour de force which he brings up to date with considerations on John Roemer's recent work on models of socialism. Roberts charts the sinuous progress of the growth, development and ultimate dilution or disintegration of the bold theses originally put forward by such figures as Gerry Cohen, Jon Elster and John Roemer. For Roberts, the Analytical Marxist project, for all its elegance and richness, failed on its own terms, and in terms of Marxism more generally. However, as this book so persuasively demonstrates, along its winding route, the project raised questions of fundamental importance for social and political theory—questions that anyone interested in emancipation cannot avoid taking seriously. (shrink)

Pitchfork Country: The Photography of Bob Moorhouse showcases the beautiful, almost mystical photos taken by the vice president and general manager of the historic Pitchfork Ranch in Guthrie, Texas. Moorhouse's photographic work reflects his trademark style and traditional western subjects that create the illusion of scenes from a bygone era. As a working cowboy who carries his camera sometimes twenty to thirty miles a day on horseback, Moorhouse has been able to record moments in the field few photographers will ever (...) see. With an appreciation for great light and its selected application to the subject, his photographic images are an accurate portrayal of ranch life. Viewed in future years with the work of Erwin E. Smith, Ray Rector, and others who have photographed ranch life of the past 150 years, Moorhouse's images will be the standard for documenting ranching in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Also 04 Activeable in a limited edition. Distributed for the National Ranching Heritage Center. (shrink)

Demystifies complex philosophical ideas and debates in a comprehensive format that introduces the major theories of such great philosophers as Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Epicurus, and Thomas Aquinas.

Kant’s revolutionary new approach to philosophy was accompanied by the introduction of a largely novel terminology. With the Kant-Lexikon, a lexical reference gives the modern reader access to his work on the basis of present-day editions and takes into account 20th century and contemporary research and advances in lexicology. The Kant-Lexikon includes 2395 entries authored by 221 scholars.

Marcus Giaquinto presents an investigation into the different kinds of visual thinking involved in mathematical thought, drawing on work in cognitive psychology, philosophy, and mathematics. He argues that mental images and physical diagrams are rarely just superfluous aids: they are often a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof.

Following in a psychological and musicological tradition beginning with Leonard Meyer, and continuing through David Huron, we present a functional, cognitive account of the phenomenon of expectation in music, grounded in computational, probabilistic modeling. We summarize a range of evidence for this approach, from psychology, neuroscience, musicology, linguistics, and creativity studies, and argue that simulating expectation is an important part of understanding a broad range of human faculties, in music and beyond.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously criticizes traditional metaphysics and its proofs of immortality, free will and God's existence. What is often overlooked is that Kant also explains why rational beings must ask metaphysical questions about 'unconditioned' objects such as souls, uncaused causes or God, and why answers to these questions will appear rationally compelling to them. In this book, Marcus Willaschek reconstructs and defends Kant's account of the rational sources of metaphysics. After carefully explaining Kant's conceptions (...) of reason and metaphysics, he offers detailed interpretations of the relevant passages from the Critique of Pure Reason in which Kant explains why reason seeks 'the unconditioned'. Willaschek offers a novel interpretation of the Transcendental Dialectic, pointing up its 'positive' side, while at the same time it uncovers a highly original account of metaphysical thinking that will be relevant to contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

We argue that many intuitions do not have conscious propositional contents. In particular, many of the intuitions had in response to philosophical thought experiments, like Gettier cases, do not have such contents. They are more like hunches, urgings, murky feelings, and twinges. Our view thus goes against the received view of intuitions in philosophy, which we call Mainstream Propositionalism. Our positive view is that many thought-experimental intuitions are conscious, spontaneous, non-theoretical, non-propositional psychological states that often motivate belief revision, but they (...) require interpretation, in light of background beliefs, before a subject can form a propositional judgment as a consequence of them. We call our view Interpretationalism. We argue (i) that Interpretationalism avoids the problems that beset Mainstream Propositionalism and (ii) that our view meshes well with empirical results in contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual propositions (...) that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support. (shrink)