This is the first dictionary dedicated to the work of Jean Baudrillard. It explains and contextualises more than a hundred key concepts, terms, influences and topics within his thought. An essential reference for students and scholars of Baudrillard, it also serves as an authoritative overview of how his ideas have shaped a broad range of disciplines, from art, architecture, film and photography to sociology, philosophy, human geography, media studies and cultural studies. The entries are written by 35 leading Baudrillard specialists (...) from around the world, including Rex Butler, Mike Gane, Gary Genosko, Victoria Grace, Diane Rubenstein and Andrew Wernick. (shrink)

George Boole collected ideas for the improvement of his Mathematical analysis of logic(1847) on interleaved copies of that work. Some of the notes on the interleaves are merely minor changes in explanation. Others amount to considerable extension of method in his mathematical approach to logic. In particular, he developed his technique in solving simultaneous elective equations and handling hypotheticals and elective functions. These notes and extensions provided a source for his later book Laws of thought(1854).

Strawson's attempt to refute scepticism about the existence of other minds has itself been a popular target of sceptical criticism. But the very persistence of the attacks suggests that no clinching rebuttal has yet been produced. One of the earliest and still one of the most effective responses to Strawson is Ayer's celebrated paper ‘The Concept of a Person’, in which he reasserts the position of classical empiricist scepticism on the existence of other minds. By reinterpreting and partly reconstructing Strawson's (...) arguments I shall try to show that the sceptical position represented by Ayer is indeed incoherent, as Strawson maintains, and I shall suggest why a conclusive rebuttal of Strawson's anti-sceptical arguments has not been and is unlikely to be produced. (shrink)

This volume brings together J.S. Mills On Liberty and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon On Liberty , the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will be (...) of interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

Mill's feminism has been attacked as being logically incoherent. The general verdict has been that Mill can easily be defended from the charge. However, both sides in the debate have ignored the fact that his feminism is part of a broader theory of liberal empiricism. Placing The Subjection of Women in this context re–opens the question of its logical credentials and reveals a basic weakness in Millian feminism.

This volume brings together J.S. Mills _On Liberty_ and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon _On Liberty_, the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will be of (...) interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

This volume brings together J.S. Mills _On Liberty_ and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon _On Liberty_, the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will be of (...) interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

The principles of historical materialism involve Marx in making two crucial claims about freedom. The first is that the revolutionary proletariat is, in an important sense, more free than its class antagonist the bourgeoisie. The second is that the beneficiaries of a successful proletarian revolution—the members of a solidly established communist society—enjoy a greater freedom than even proletarians engaged in revolutionary praxis. It is perhaps natural to take Marx to be operating here with what might be called a logically continuous (...) notion of freedom, established communists enjoying to perfection (or as near as maybe) what revolutionary proletarians merely imperfectly experience and what the bourgeoisie entirely misses. But whatever one's views might be about what Marx in fact says about freedom this cannot be what he ought to say for his theory of freedom to work. The kind of line Marx (and Marxists) need to take finds a significant precedent in his economics where we find a theory implying two quite distinct logical dimensions in that the principles and concepts designed to apply to the transactions of capitalism (commodity, capital, wage-labour, surplus-value, and so on) necessarily lack descriptive purchase on communist economic reality. The existence of these two dimensions, and particularly Marx's comparative silence as to the nature of the second, reflect his conviction that the transition between the two systems must be marked by a profound conceptual as well as material break. Consequently it is not unreasonable, perhaps, to look for an analogous discontinuity in his metaphysics and to expect to find two distinct varieties of freedom, the one reflecting the nature of class society, the other of human community. (shrink)

A market may be defined as a set of competitive relationships in which agents strive, within limits set by ground rules, to better their own economic positions, not necessarily at the expense of other people, but not necessarily not at their expense either. A degree of indifference to the market fates of others is, manifestly, an inevitable feature of the market practice, so defined. But though indifference is clearly logically endemic to markets, it has been denied that selfishness is necessarily (...) involved in the raw competition of market activity. Thus, Hayek maintains that market behaviour is not selfish on the grounds that the market is a competitive non zero-sum ‘wealth-creating game’ in which individuals ‘use their own knowledge for their own ends’ in a system whose operations,viathe ‘Invisible Hand’, also produce unintended benefits for others. But for behaviour to be selfish it clearly need not necessarily disbenefit other people; it is enough that it is pursued, or persisted in, regardless of its effects upon others. And this is precisely what the institutional ‘indifference’ of market activity amounts to. Admittedly individuals who understand the Hayekian logic of the market know that the long-run chances of everyone's benefiting are maximized by acting in a rigorously competitive manner, and so they at least in one sense act with a ‘regard for others’. Butipso factothis category of market agents has an even stronger reason than the ignorantly selfish for disregarding thespecificinterests of all theparticularindividuals with whom they have economically to do. ‘Market selfishness’, the disregard for others' market interests, is thus a logically inevitable feature of market activity. (shrink)

The principles of historical materialism involve Marx in making two crucial claims about freedom. The first is that the revolutionary proletariat is, in an important sense, more free than its class antagonist the bourgeoisie. The second is that the beneficiaries of a successful proletarian revolution—the members of a solidly established communist society—enjoy a greater freedom than even proletarians engaged in revolutionary praxis. It is perhaps natural to take Marx to be operating here with what might be called a logically continuous (...) notion of freedom, established communists enjoying to perfection what revolutionary proletarians merely imperfectly experience and what the bourgeoisie entirely misses. But whatever one's views might be about what Marx in fact says about freedom this cannot be what he ought to say for his theory of freedom to work. The kind of line Marx need to take finds a significant precedent in his economics where we find a theory implying two quite distinct logical dimensions in that the principles and concepts designed to apply to the transactions of capitalism necessarily lack descriptive purchase on communist economic reality. The existence of these two dimensions, and particularly Marx's comparative silence as to the nature of the second, reflect his conviction that the transition between the two systems must be marked by a profound conceptual as well as material break. Consequently it is not unreasonable, perhaps, to look for an analogous discontinuity in his metaphysics and to expect to find two distinct varieties of freedom, the one reflecting the nature of class society, the other of human community. (shrink)

What might a theory of mental imagery look like, and how might one begin formulating such a theory? These are the central questions addressed in the present paper. The first section outlines the general research direction taken here and provides an overview of the empirical foundations of our theory of image representation and processing. Four issues are considered in succession, and the relevant results of experiments are presented and discussed. The second section begins with a discussion of the proper form (...) for a cognitive theory, and the distinction between a theory and a model is developed. Following this, the present theory and computer simulation model are introduced. This theory specifies the nature of the internal representations (data structures) and the processes that operate on them when one generates, inspects, or transforms mental images. In the third, concluding, section we consider three very different kinds of objections to the present research program, one hinging on the possibility of experimental artifacts in the data, and the others turning on metatheoretical commitments about the form of a cognitive theory. Finally, we discuss how one ought best to evaluate theories and models of the sort developed here. (shrink)