Creating education systems that promote democratic sustainability has been the concern of political thinkers as diverse as J. S. Mill, Dewey, Benjamin Barber and Derek Bok. The classic dichotomisation of democratic theory between deliberative democrats and Schumpeterian democrats suggests that education in the service of democracy can be constructive—that is, provide a student with the skills necessary to elect her leaders without changing her nature—or reconstructive—that is, fundamentally and radically reshape the student to produce a citizen whose goals are transformed (...) to be congruent with society. Michael Oakeshott, who has written extensively both on political regimes and on the purpose of liberal education, offers a third way to assess the connection between government and education. Despite his own dismissal of civic or political education as fundamentally vocational and thus beyond the boundaries of the liberal arts, this paper provides a potentially surprising Oakeshottian defence of political education within the liberal arts with reference to the importance he places on experience as a pedagogic tool. Thus, Oakeshott's educational philosophy has a certain resonance with the recent calls to locate the relevance of liberal arts within the burgeoning development of experiential civic engagement programmes in American universities. (shrink)

The Unfinished Revolution compares the post-Second World War histories of the American and British gay and lesbian movements with an eye toward understanding how distinct political institutional environments affect the development, strategies, goals, and outcomes of a social movement. Stephen M. Engel utilizes an electic mix of source materials ranging from the theories of Mancur Olson and Michel Foucault to Supreme Court rulings and film and television dialogue. The two case study chapters function as brief historical sketches to (...) elucidate further the conclusions on theory and whilst being politically-oriented, they also examine gay influence and expansion into mainstream popular culture. The book also includes an appendix that surveys and assesses the analytical potential of five critical understandings of social movements: the classical approach, rational choice, resource mobilization, new social movement theories, and political opportunity structures. It will be of value to academics and students of sociology, political science, and history. (shrink)

IN HIS PROVOCATIVE AND HIGHLY READABLE BOOK, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy, Andrew Bowie argues that “Schelling... helps define key structures in modern philosophy by revealing the flaws in Hegel in ways which help set the agenda for philosophy even today.” The claim that Schelling’s critique of Hegel has exercised considerable influence on subsequent generations of philosophers is undeniably true. Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, and Engels all heard Schelling lecture in the years after Hegel’s death in 1831 and were receptive to his (...) critique of the Hegelian system. Furthermore, many leading twentieth-century continental philosophers, including especially Heidegger and Habermas, studied Schelling closely and have taken up positions vis-à-vis Hegel which are recognizably Schellingian in origin and which have influenced other philosophers in turn. Schelling’s critique of Hegel is thus by no means merely of local interest to students of German idealism, but is of interest to all students of the continental tradition in post-Kantian philosophy for the simple reason that his critique is one of the most important sources of that very tradition. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between the classical Marxist tradition and the conceptual roots of totalitarianism. Here totalitarianism is understood to entail the attempt to frame the developmental impulses of modernity within the logic of a premodern political imaginary—defined as internally homogenous and transparent to itself. In the first part, we take issue with those who try to distinguish between the thought of Marx and Engels, and who insist that it is only in Engels's thought that the traces of a (...) totalitarian politics might be found. In the second section, we outline briefly the context within which Marx's thought was developed, after which we argue that Marx's vision of communism is dependent on the three-phase vision of historical process which he inherited from Hegel. Without denying the historical peculiarities of the imposition of communism in Russia, we conclude that it is out of this latter vision of history that the conceptual roots of totalitarianism must be located. (shrink)

Published more than twenty years ago, Stephen Eric Bronner's bold defense of socialism remains a seminal text for our time. Treating socialism as an ethic, reinterpreting its core categories, and critically confronting its early foundations, Bronner's work offers a reinvigorated "class ideal" and a new perspective for progressive politics in the twentieth century. _Socialism Unbound_ is an extraordinary work of political history that revisits the pivotal figures of the labor movement: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Vladimir Lenin, and (...) Rosa Luxemburg. Examining their contributions as well as their flaws, Bronner shows how critical innovation gave way to dogma. New practical problems have arisen, and this volume engages with the relationship between class and social movements, institutional accountability and democratic participation, economic justice and market imperatives, and internationalism and identity. With a foreword by Dick Howard and a new introduction by the author, Bronner's classic study remains indispensable for scholars and activists alike. (shrink)

STEPHEN TOULMIN George Santayana used to insist that those who are ignorant of the history of thought are doomed to re-enact it. To this we can add a corollary: that those who are ignorant of the context of ideas are doom ed to misunderstand them. In a few self-contained fields such as pure mathematics, concepts and conceptual systems can perhaps be de tached from their historico-cultural situations; so that (for instance) a self-taught Ramanujan, living alone in India, mastered number (...) theory to a point at which he could make major contributions to European mathematics. But elsewhere the situation is different - and, in philosophy, inevitably so. For philosophical ideas and problems confront us like geological specimens in situ; and, in the act of prising them free from their historical and cultural locations, we can too easily forget about the matrix in which they took shape, and end by impossing on them a sculptural form of our own making. Something of this kind has happened in the case of Ludwig Wittgen stein. For his philosophical work has commonly been seen as an episode in the development, either of mathematicallogic, or oftwentieth-century British philosophy. His associations with Frege and Russell, Moore and Waismann, have over-shadowed everything else in his cultural origins and intellectual concerns. (shrink)

Plato. The republic.--Aristotle. Politics.--Cicero, M. T. On the commonwealth.--John of Salisbury. The prince versus the tyrant.--Machiavelli, N. The prince and the people.--Hobbes, T. The state of nature and the Leviathan.--Locke, J. The right of revolution.--Marx, K. and Engels, F. Bourgeois and proletarians.--Bakunin, M. A. The Paris Commune and the idea of the state.--Mill, J. S. On liberty.--Lenin, V. I. Marxism and the withering away of the state.--Hitler, A. Race and the folkish state.--Mao Tse-tung. From the masses, to the masses.--Che Guevara, (...) E. Create two, three, many Vietnams. (shrink)

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness-features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. But it has played no real role in philosophical semantics. This is surprising; sentences have aboutness-properties if anything does. Aboutness is the first book to examine through (...) a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth-conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection--about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. Stephen Yablo maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results--directed content--is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. Written by one of today's leading philosophers, Aboutness represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language. (shrink)

[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces (...) of nonliterality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology. /// [Andre Gallois] I discuss Steve Yablo's defence of Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions. In the first section I set out what I take that distinction, as Carnap draws it, to be, and spell out a central motivation Carnap has for invoking it. In the second section I endorse, and augment, Yablo's response to Quine's arguments against Carnap. In the third section I say why Carnap's application of the distinction between internal and external questions runs into trouble. In the fourth section I spell out what I take to be Yablo's version of Carnap. In the last I say why that version is especially vulnerable to the objection raised in the second. (shrink)

'I think, therefore I am' - Descartes..'Such tricks hath strong imagination..That, if it would but apprehend some joy,..It comprehends some bringer of that joy;..Or in the night, imagining some fear,..How easy is a bush supposed a bear?' - Shakespeare..A unique compendium of key texts of psychology, from Aristotle to cutting-edge neuroscience.

Postmodernism has evoked great controversy and it continues to do so today, as it disseminates into general discourse. Some see its principles, such as its fundamental resistance to metanarratives, as frighteningly disruptive, while a growing number are reaping the benefits of its innovative perspective. In Political Theory and Postmodernism, Stephen K. White outlines a path through the postmodern problematic by distinguishing two distinct ways of thinking about the meaning of responsibility, one prevalent in modern and the other in postmodern (...) perspectives. Using this as a guide, White explores the work of Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, and Habermas, as well as 'difference' feminists, with the goal of showing how postmodernism can inform contemporary ethical-political reflection. In his concluding chapter, White examines how this revisioned postmodern perspective might bear on our thinking about justice. (shrink)

Historical introduction -- Human being -- Identity and human incompletion in Sartre -- Identity and human incompletion in Aquinas -- Human understanding -- The subjective nature of objective understanding in Sartre -- The subjective nature of objective understanding in Aquinas -- Human freedom -- Freedom, choice, and the indetermination of reason in Sartre -- Freedom, choice, and the indetermination of reason in Aquinas -- Human fulfillment -- The possibility of human happiness in Sartre -- The possibility of human happiness in (...) Aquinas. (shrink)

This chapter defends the property dualism argument. The term “semantic premise” mentioned is used to refers to an assumption identified by Brian Loar that antiphysicalist arguments, such as the property dualism argument, tacitly assume that a statement of property identity that links conceptually independent concepts is true only if at least one concept picks out the property it refers to by connoting a contingent property of that property. It is argued that, the property that does the work in explaining the (...) possibility of a posteriori identities need not be a first-order property of the referent in question. On his view, the property dualism argument requires only a weaker semantic premise, which allows that the property in question be a higher order property. A refined version of the property dualism argument is formulated, which uses the weaker premise, and defends the argument against various objections. (shrink)

Mental causes are threatened from two directions: from below, since they would appear to be screened off by lower-order, e.g., neural states; and from within, since they would also appear to be screened off by intrinsic, e.g., syntactical states. A principle needed to parry the first threat -causes should be proportional to their effects- appears to leave us open to the second; for why should unneeded extrinsic detail be any less offensive to proportionality than excess microstructure? I say that the (...) second threat relies on a perversion of proportionality that would lay waste to all causal relations. (shrink)

This chapter will be devoted to the itinerary of classical German thought, and especially Hegel, in Merleau-Ponty’s thought. I begin by examining Merleau-Ponty’s initial use of Hegel’s systematic and metaphysicalmetaphysics ideas in phenomenological analyses of behavior and perception. Next, I examine Merleau-Ponty’s role in controversies regarding the existentialists’ interpretation and objections to Hegel’s system. I trace his attempts to surmount antinomiesantinomy between subjectivitysubjectivity and system that emerged in the existentialist’s anthropological reading of Hegel. Here Merleau-Ponty focused on linguistics and more (...) general analyses of institution and expression. Finally, I will view the renewed role that classical German philosophy, including Schelling and Hegel, played in his final works. Still reflecting these interests, his writings and lectures engaged in a wide-ranging dialogue with contemporary aesthetics, sciencescience, and philosophy, culminating in an attempt to formulate a new ontologyontology. (shrink)

Global Media Ethics is the first comprehensive cross-cultural exploration of the conceptual and practical issues facing media ethics in a global world. A team of leading journalism experts investigate the impact of major global trends on responsible journalism. The first full-length, truly global textbook on media ethics; Explores how current global changes in media promote and inhibit responsible journalism; Includes relevant and timely ethical discussions based on major trends in journalism and global media; Questions existing frameworks in media ethics in (...) light of the impact of global media; Contributors are leading experts in global journalism and communication. (shrink)

Substantial efforts have recently been made to reform the physician-patient relationship, particularly toward replacing the `silent world of doctor and patient' with informed patient participation in medical decision-making. This 'new ethos of patient autonomy' has especially insisted on the routine provision of informed consent for all medical interventions. Stronly supported by most bioethicists and the law, as well as more popular writings and expectations, it still seems clear that informed consent has, at best, been received in a lukewarm fashion by (...) most clinicians, many simply rejecting what they commonly refer to as the `myth of informed consent'. The purpose of this book is to defuse this seemingly intractable controversy by offering an efficient and effective operational model of informed consent. This goal is pursued first by reviewing and evaluating, in detail, the agendas, arguments, and supporting materials of its proponents and detractors. A comprehensive review of empirical studies of informed consent is provided, as well as a detailed reflection on the common clinician experience with attempts at informed consent and the exercise of autonomy by patients. In the end, informed consent is recast as a management tool for pursuing clinically and ethically important goods and values that any clinician should see as meriting pursuit. Concurrently, the model incorporates a flexible, anticipatory approach that recognizes that no static, generic ritual can legitimately pursue the quite variable goods and values that may be at stake with different patients in different situations. Finally, efficiency of provision is addressed by not pursuing the unattainable and ancillary. Throughout, the traditional principle of beneficence is appealed to toward articulating an operational model of informed consent as an intervention that is likely to change outcomes at the bedside for the better. (shrink)

What Is Political Theory? provides students with a comprehensive overview of the current state of the discipline. Ten substantive chapters address the most pressing topics in political theory today, including: - what resources do the classic texts still provide for political theorists? - what areas will political theorists focus on in the future? - can western political theory alone continue to provide a framework for responding to the challenges of modern political life? The authors assess the intellectual challenges to conventional (...) political theory, such as post-structuralism and the scientific study of politics that have revitalized the field in the last 30 years. They also broaden the perspective to take in non-western ideas and to reconceptualize political theory in the light of specifically global challenges. Students and teachers of political theory and political philosophy will find this book invaluable in understanding the factors that have shaped current political theory and which will guide its future development. (shrink)

The present work carries us back to a period which, although chronologically no more than a generation or so behind us, has become as foreign to the present generation in Germany as if it were already a full hundred years old. Yet it was the period of Germany's preparation for the Revolution of 1848; and all that has happened in our country since then has been merely a continuation of 1848, merely the execution of the last will and testament of (...) the revolution. Just as in France in the eighteenth century, so in Germany in the nineteenth, a philosophical revolution ushered in the political collapse. But with what a difference! The French were in open combat with all official science, with the church and often also the state; their writings were printed beyond the frontier, in Holland or England, while they themselves were often on the point of landing in the Bastille. But the Germans were professors, state-appointed instructors of youth; their writings were recognized textbooks, and the system rounding off the whole development---the Hegelian system---was even raised, in some degree, to the rank of a royal Prussian philosophy of state! Was it possible that a revolution could hide behind these professors, behind their pedantically obscure phrases, their ponderous, wearisome sentences? Were not the liberals, the very people who then passed as the representatives of the revolution, the bitterest opponents of this brain-befuddling philosophy? But what neither governments nor liberals saw was seen by at least one man as early as 1833, and indeed by a man called Heinrich Heine. (shrink)

Current sociological theories appear to have lost their general persuasiveness in part because, unlike the theories of the ‘classical era’, they fail to maintain an integrated stance toward society, and the practical role that sociology plays in society. The authors explore various facets of this failure and possibilities for reconstructing sociological theories as integrated wholes capable of conveying a moral and political immediacy. They discuss the evolution of several concepts (for example, the social, structure, and self) and address the significant (...) disputes (for example, structuralism versus humanism, and individual versus society) that have dominated twentieth-century sociological thought. Their ideas and analyses are directed towards an audience of students and theorists who are coming to terms with the project of sociological theory, and its relationship with moral discourses and political practice. The authors of these essays are sociological theorists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. They are all established, but not ‘establishment’ authors. The book contains no orthodoxies, and no answers. However, the essays do contribute to identifying the range of issues that will constitute the agenda for the next generation of sociological theorists. (shrink)

Examines the history and inherent flaws of the tests science has used to measure intelligence.

What is it for marks or sounds to have meaning, and what is it for someone to mean something in producing them? Answering these and related questions, Schiffer explores communication, speech acts, convention, and the meaning of linguistic items in this reissue of a seminal work on the foundations of meaning. A new introduction takes account of recent developments and places his theory in a broader context.