John Arthur philosophically addresses the problems of racism and the legacy of past racial discrimination in the United States. Offering a thorough analysis of the concepts of race and racism, Arthur also discusses racial equality, poverty and race, reparations and affirmative action, and merit in ways that cut across the usual political lines. A philosopher, former civil-rights plaintiff and professor at an historically black college in the South, Arthur draws on both his personal experiences as well (...) as his rigorous philosophical training in this account. His conclusions about the meaning of merit, the defects of affirmative action, the importance of apology, and the need for true equality deal productively with one of America's most vexing problems. His book is also relevant to any society struggling with racial differences and past injustices. (shrink)

This in-depth examination of the major theories of economic justice focuses on the central question: What should the economic distribution of goods and services be based on?

Originally published in 1950. Thinkers such as Ghazali and Ibn `Arabi, poets such as Ibn al-Farid, Rumi, Hafiz and Jami were greatly inspired by the lives and sayings of the early Sufis. This book was the first short history of Sufism to be published in any language, illustrating the development of its doctrines with numerous quotations from literature.

Capitalism is often defended by appeals to natural rights: only in a free market, it is said, are people protected from the illegitimate intrusions of others. Coercion, either to prevent exchanges or to redistribute wealth, violates people's rights. But much of the property people have acquired came not from their own effort or the efforts of those who gave them gifts, but instead was taken from nature. Thus the question I propose to discuss in this paper: How is it that (...) an unowned natural resource can legitimately be acquired for private benefit? Much thought has been given by libertarian defenders of capitalism to justifying the claim that, once owned, property cannot be taken without its owner's consent. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to how the original acquisition can be justified. Indeed, I argue here that if one approaches the problem of resource appropriation from the perspective of the Lockean ‘proviso,’ that enough and as good must be left in common, then the typical method of acquiring property under capitalism is unjust. Libertarians must either give up the individualistic, state of nature approach to economic justice or admit that appropriation of natural resources requires compensation of people who do not get a share of the resource. (shrink)

Brilliant Lives: The Clerk Maxwells and the Scottish Enlightenment.

Morality and Moral Controversies, 10th Edition challenges students to critically assess today's leading moral, social, and political issues. And as a comprehensive anthology, it provides students with the tools they need to understand philosophical ideas that are currently shaping our world. The 10thEditionincludes classic and contemporary readings in moral theory, the most current topics in applied ethics, and updated debates in social and political philosophy. As in the previous nine editions, the materials were selected for balance, timeliness, and accessibility after (...) reviewing a vast range of possible articles from leading scholarly journals, mainstream periodicals, online posts, and book chapters. Hallmarks include carefully edited and philosophically relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions, compelling readings, and contrasting points of view that reflect a broad ethical and political spectrum. Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Understand philosophical ideas that are shaping the world today. Apply various philosophical ideas to politics, religion, ethics, economics, personal relationships, medicine, the environment and climate change, warfare, and other areas. Appreciate how to construct, apply, and evaluate basic philosophical arguments. Key updates to the 10th Edition include: Publishing all material in the actual book (in contrast to placing sections online behind a paywall, as was the case in earlier editions with a different publisher). New readings on: autonomous warfare self-driving cars the right to health care technology and privacy the value of democracy racial equality immigration. ethical and political spectrum. Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Understand philosophical ideas that are shaping the world today. Apply various philosophical ideas to politics, religion, ethics, economics, personal relationships, medicine, the environment and climate change, warfare, and other areas. Appreciate how to construct, apply, and evaluate basic philosophical arguments. Key updates to the 10th Edition include: Publishing all material in the actual book (in contrast to placing sections online behind a paywall, as was the case in earlier editions with a different publisher). New readings on: autonomous warfare self-driving cars the right to health care technology and privacy the value of democracy racial equality immigration. >the right to health care technology and privacy the value of democracy racial equality immigration. (shrink)

This introduction to philosophy offers a selection of readings based on an interdisciplinary, applied approach and illustrating the challenges religion, science, and morality pose to one another. It demonstrates to readers how philosophy is practiced today, rather than in years past, and engages them in a relevant and immediately comprehensible manner. The book maintains the critical, rational edge of traditional philosophical writing, while at the same time incorporating material and approaches not usually found in introductory volumes. Reason sections provide traditional (...) philosophical truth claims made in each subject; Culture sections investigate the social issues that arise from these claims. What Is Morality? Morality and the Good Life. Morality in Higher Education. Morality in Film. Morality in Law. Morality in Markets. Morality and Rational Self-Interest. Classical Theories of Morality. Critical Perspectives on Morality. Feelings and Reason in Morality. What Is Science? Science and a Meaningful Life. The Scientific World View and Its Critics. Science, Technology and the Transformation of Culture. Biology and Ethics. Scientific Determinism and Human Responsibility. Objectivity and Values in Science. Truth and Progress in Science. How Much Can Science Explain? What Is Religion? Religion and the Meaning of Life. Pluralism and Religious Diversity. Religion and Politics. Religion and Education. Evidence for the Existence of God? Evidence Against the Existence of God? Faith and Reason? Religious Practice without God? For anyone interested in philosophy. (shrink)

The adversary system and the practice of law -- The rule of law -- The moral force of law -- Statutes -- Precedents -- Constitutional interpretation -- Natural law and legal positivism: classical perspectives -- Formalism and legal realism -- Morality and the law -- International law -- Law and economics -- The justification of punishment -- The rights of defendants -- Sentencing -- Criminal responsibility -- Compensating for private harms: the law of torts -- Private ownership: the law of (...) property -- Private agreements: the law of contract -- Church and state -- Personal liberty and privacy -- Freedom of speech -- Equality. (shrink)

At first, despairing of justifying the Court's new-found rights as the products of interpreting the Constitution, many of the Court's supporters bit the bullet and proclaimed the legitimacy of "noninterpretivism." As an approach to justifying purportedly constitutional decisions, however, noninterpretivism's oxymoronic quality made it an easy target for the Court's detractors, who asserted that noninterpretivism was nothing more than rule by a federal judiciary unrestrained by any positive law.

John Passmore was a renowned Australian empirical philosopher and historian of ideas. In this book, which was originally published in 1952, Passmore's intention was to disentangle certain main themes in Hume's philosophy and to show how they relate to Hume's main philosophic purpose. Rather than offering a detailed commentary, the text provides an account based on specificity and critical scholarship, seeking to complement the other more comprehensive works on Hume's philosophy that had become available around the same time. This (...) book will be of value to anyone with an interest in perspectives on Hume and Passmore's philosophical approach. (shrink)

This supplement to Prudentia 2003 contains a series of papers written by previous students and colleagues of professor Chris Dearden, former professor of classics at Victoria university of Wellington.

This is a classic volume in the "library of Living Philosophers" and includes a collection of essays on Dewey's work by his contemporaries at the time of the volume's publication. It also includes a biographical essay on Dewey and his replies to the assembled essays.

Passmore argues that there is urgent need to change our attitude to the environment, and that humans cannot continue unconstrained exploitation of the biosphere.

John Passmore was a renowned Australian empirical philosopher and historian of ideas. In this book, which was originally published in 1952, Passmore's intention was to disentangle certain main themes in Hume's philosophy and to show how they relate to Hume's main philosophic purpose. Rather than offering a detailed commentary, the text provides an account based on specificity and critical scholarship, seeking to complement the other more comprehensive works on Hume's philosophy that had become available around the same time. This (...) book will be of value to anyone with an interest in perspectives on Hume and Passmore's philosophical approach. (shrink)

A reviewer of the original edition in 1970 of "The Perfectibility of Man" well summarizes the scope and significance of this renowned work by one of the leading philosophers of the twentieth century: "Beginning with an analytic discussion of the various ways in which perfectibility has been interpreted, Professor Passmore traces its long history from the Greeks to the present day, by way of Christianity, orthodox and heterodox, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, anarchism, utopias, communism, psychoanalysis, and evolutionary theories of man (...) and society. Both in its broad sweep and in countless supporting reflections, it is a journey through spiritual scenery of the most majestic and exhilarating kind." Thoroughly and elegantly, Passmore explores the history of the idea of perfectibility--manifest in the ideology of perfectibilism--and its consequences, which have invariably been catastrophic for individual liberty and responsibility in private, social, economic, and political life.John Passmore served for many years as a Professor of Philosophy at Australian National University. (shrink)

John Passmore was a renowned Australian empirical philosopher and historian of ideas. In this book, which was originally published in 1952, Passmore's intention was to disentangle certain main themes in Hume's philosophy and to show how they relate to Hume's main philosophic purpose. Rather than offering a detailed commentary, the text provides an account based on specificity and critical scholarship, seeking to complement the other more comprehensive works on Hume's philosophy that had become available around the same time. This (...) book will be of value to anyone with an interest in perspectives on Hume and Passmore's philosophical approach. (shrink)

To stress the subjectivity of the analyst is to accept the centrality of countertransference in the analytic relationship. Psychoanalysts have long recognized the importance of transference in the analytic setting—that is, the analysand's way of relating to the analyst in terms of his strong, ambivalent unconscious feelings for earlier figures , a process whose successful resolution constitutes the psychoanalystic "cure." But, since the patient's transference is only experienced by the analyst through his countertransference responses, recent theorists have come to emphasize (...) the importance of countertransference in psychoanalysis. In what Otto Kernberg calls its "totalistic" definition, countertransference refers to "the total emotional reaction of the psychoanalyst to the patient in the treatment situation."1 It is, therefore, a source of both empathic understanding and defensive misunderstanding, of distortion and insight. Hans Loewald remarks: "Since a psychoanalytic investigation can be carried out only by a human mind, we cannot conceive of one in which the analyst's [counter] transference and resistance are not the warp and woof of his activity."2 · 1. Otto Kernberg, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism , p. 49. · 2. Hans Loewald, "Psychoanalytic Theory and the Psychoanalytic Process," The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 25 : 56. Cf. Heinz Kohut, "Introspection, Empathy, and Psychoanalysis," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 7 : 459-83. For a clear discussion of the background of the countertransference concept in Freud, see Humberto Nagera, et. al., Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts on Metapsychology, Conflicts, Anxiety and Other Subjects , pp. 200-206. Two surveys of the literature on the topic are particularly useful: Douglas Orr, "Transference and Countertransference: A Historical Survey," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 2 : 621-70, and Kernberg, pp. 49-66. Arthur F. Marotti, associate professor of English at Wayne State University, has written a number of essays on Ben Jonson, John Donne, Thomas Middleton, and Edmund Spenser. He is completing a book-length social-historical and psychoanalytic study of Donne's poetry and a book on Jonson; some of the theoretical assumptions behind both projects are discussed in this article. See also: "Psychoanalysis and the Marionette Theater: Interpretation is Not Depreciation" in Vol. 5, No. 1. (shrink)

John Passmore was a renowned Australian empirical philosopher and historian of ideas. In this book, which was originally published in 1952, Passmore's intention was to disentangle certain main themes in Hume's philosophy and to show how they relate to Hume's main philosophic purpose. Rather than offering a detailed commentary, the text provides an account based on specificity and critical scholarship, seeking to complement the other more comprehensive works on Hume's philosophy that had become available around the same time. This (...) book will be of value to anyone with an interest in perspectives on Hume and Passmore's philosophical approach. (shrink)

Originally published in 1951, this concise book presents an engaging study of the works and influence of the renowned English philosopher Ralph Cudworth, the leader of the Cambridge Platonists. A bibliography of writings by and about Cudworth is also included, together with an appendix section on his manuscripts. The text was an early work by Australian philosopher and historian of ideas John Passmore. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Cudworth, the Cambridge Platonists and (...) the historical development of philosophy. (shrink)

The eagerly-awaited second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts will allow scholars and students access for the first time in English to major texts in ethics and political thought from one of the most fruitful periods of speculation and analysis in the history of western thought. Beginning with Albert the Great, who introduced the Latin west to the challenging moral philosophy and natural science of Aristotle, and concluding with the first substantial presentation in English of the revolutionary (...) ideas on property and political power of John Wyclif, the seventeen texts in this anthology offer late medieval treatments of fundamental issues in human conduct that are both conceptually subtle and of direct practical import. Special features of this volume include copious editorial introductions, an analytical index, and suggestions for further reading. This is an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, political science, theology and literature. (shrink)