. . . The book is enhanced by the polished and lucid style of Mr. Waley's translations.

Few philosophers have left a legacy like that of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He has been credited not only with inventing the differential calculus, but also with anticipating the basic ideas of modern logic, information science, and fractal geometry. He made important contributions to such diverse fields as jurisprudence, geology and etymology, while sketching designs for calculating machines, wind pumps, and submarines. But the common presentation of his philosophy as a kind of unworldly idealism is at odds with all this bustling (...) practical activity. In this book Richard. T. W. Arthur offers a fresh reading of Leibniz’s philosophy, clearly situating it in its scientific, political and theological contexts. He argues that Leibniz aimed to provide an improved foundation for the mechanical philosophy based on a new kind of universal language. His contributions to natural philosophy are an integral part of this programme, which his metaphysics, dynamics and organic philosophy were designed to support. Rather than denying that substances really exist in space and time, as the idealist reading proposes, Leibniz sought to provide a deeper understanding of substance and body, and a correct understanding of space as an order of situations and time as an order of successive things. This lively and approachable book will appeal to students of philosophy, as well as anyone seeking a stimulating introduction to Leibniz's thought and its continuing relevance. (shrink)

How do we appreciate a work of art? Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to explore connections between art, mind, and brain, Arthur Shimamura takes findings from psychological and brain sciences to address ways of understanding our aesthetic responses.

Husserl has enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years and the Cartesian Meditations is perhaps his most widely read text. The book is an introduction to Husserl's phenomenology and is based on Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy . Husserl attempts to show how Descartes discovered the "transcendental" perspective which is essential to any genuine philosophy. Until now there has never been a secondary text on this important and influential work on philosophy. This book, in conjunction with the text itself, (...) will serve as a proper introduction to Husserlian phenomenology. A.D. Smith introduces and assesses the key concepts that arise in the book in clear and engaging ways. His style is highly accessible and suitable for anyone coming to the Cartesian Meditations for the first time. (shrink)

Paper mosaics, silk screen prints, fold-outs, silhouettes, and other types of cards to make yourself.

Reading is not only “cold” information processing, but involves affective and aesthetic processes that go far beyond what current models of word recognition, sentence processing, or text comprehension can explain. To investigate such “hot” reading processes, standardized instruments that quantify both psycholinguistic and emotional variables at the sublexical, lexical, inter-, and supralexical levels (e.g., phonological iconicity, word valence, arousal-span, or passage suspense) are necessary. One such instrument, the Berlin Affective Word List (BAWL) has been used in over 50 published studies (...) demonstrating effects of lexical emotional variables on all relevant processing levels (experiential, behavioral, neuronal). In this paper, we first present new data from several BAWL studies. Together, these studies examine various views on affective effects in reading arising from dimensional (e.g., valence ) and discrete emotion features (e.g., happiness ), or embodied cognition features like smelling. Second, we extend our investigation of the complex issue of affective word processing to words characterized by a mixture of affects. These words entail positive and negative valence, and/or features making them beautiful or ugly. Finally, we discuss tentative neurocognitive models of affective word processing in the light of the present results, raising new issues for future studies. (shrink)

Based on papers presented at a conference held by a subcommittee on Chinese thought attached to the Committee on Far Eastern Studies jointly sponsored by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Far Eastern Association. Includes bibliographies.

Philosophical discussions of akrasia over the last fifteen years have focused on certain skeptical arguments which purport to question the possibility of a kind of akratic action which, following Pears, I call 'last ditch akrasia' (Pears [38]). An agent, succumbing to last ditch akrasia, freely, knowingly, and intentionally performs an action A against his better judgment that an incompatible action B is the better thing to do. (See Audi [1] for a detailed analysis.) Last ditch akrasia is not the only (...) kind that has been discussed. Some philosophers (Mele [32], Scaltas [48]) have been concerned with a more extreme form of akratic action, viz. one in which the agent not only judges that action B is best, but in addition intends (chooses, decides) to B. Some have even questioned whether freely acting against one's better judgment is sufficient for akratic action (Schiffer [49]: 201-3).1 Weaker types of akratic action have been discussed, though to a much lesser extent, since they are thought less problematic. Pears distinguishes last ditch akrasia from what he calls, "motivated irrational action" ([38]: 160). In cases of the latter, the akrates' rebellious desire infects his prior reasoning and thinking in such a way that his contemplated action seems to him warranted, and he acts accordingly. (For a taxonomy of cases of akratic action, see Rorty ([44])). Nor has the discussion of akrasia been restricted to akratic action. Philosophers have discussed whether akrasia can be exhibited in the formation of intentions, wants (See Audi [1]: 181-185), and beliefs (Mele [32]: ch. 8; Heil [19]). The primary focus in this paper is on last ditch akratic action. (shrink)

In this new work, Richard T. W. Arthur offers a fresh interpretation of Leibniz's theory of substance. He goes against a long trend of idealistic interpretations of Leibniz's thought by instead taking seriously Leibniz's claim of introducing monads to solve the problem of the composition of matter and motion.

The narrative ethicist imagines life as multiple points of view, each reflecting a distinct imagination and each more or less capable of comprehending other points of view and how they imagine. Each point of view is constantly being acted out and then modified in response to how others respond. People generally have good intentions, but they get stuck realizing those intentions. Stories stall when dialogue breaks down. People stop hearing others' stories, maybe because those others have quit telling their stories. (...) The narrative ethicist's job is to help people generate new imaginations that can restart dialogues. (shrink)

One of the foremost contributions to the study of the history of ideas. Examines ancient sources pertaining to the original condition of mankind.

Arthur Peacocke, eminent priest-scientist, has collected thirteen of his essays for this volume, Previously published in various academic journals and edited ...

This paper has a threefold purpose: first, to criticize the customary application of Hohfeld’s theory of rights to Hobbes’s juridical/political theory that reduces all Hobbesian rights to Hohfeldian privileges; second, to defend the appropriateness of a proper application of a Hohfeldian analysis of rights to Hobbes’s theory by responding to criticisms offered by Eleanor Curran; and, lastly, to reveal the value a Hohfeldian analysis offers in clarifying a Hobbesian right that has been generally misunderstood in the literature. I argue that (...) a Hohfeldian analysis helps make sense of the complex juridical relationships between the sovereign, the perpetrator of crime, and the victim of crime involved in Hobbes’s treatment of the sovereign’s right to punish. (shrink)

Le traite sur les vertus, a moins d'etre simplement un traite sur des valeurs differentes, n'a sa place que dans une ethique finaliste, c'est-a-dire dans une ethique quie considere l'action morale comme un phenomene interieur, destine a perfectionner l'homme. C'est a partir de la qu'on peut se demander comment l'homme prepare son action, en acquerant des forces "doublant" la nature. Quant a savoir quelles sont les capacites naturelles exigeant une vertu, cela depend principalement de la question de savoir dans quelles (...) puissances la spontaneite naturelle ne forme pas suffisamment la fermete de caractere, necessaire a la recherche du bien. Pour Thomas d'Aquin, comme pour Aristote, la raison pratique, la volonte et les appetits sensibles sont le siege des vertus. Pour ce qui est de la raison pratique et de la volonte. l'experience commune suffirait a verifier cette opinion. en ce qui concerne les appetits sensibles, il faut d'abord resoudre la question de savoir s'ils ont vraiment un caractere moral, ou s'ils sont simplement des phenomenes psychiques. Dans ce dernier cas ils ne font que suivre les directives de la volonte morale comme les forces motrices physiques. Nous avons essaye de montrer que les appetits sensibles (Passions) ont un caracter moral. (shrink)

1. T. Die Prinzipien der Gesellschaftslehre.--2. T. Rechtsphilosophie.--3. T. Die soziale Ordnung.--4. T. Wirtschaftsethik Galen -- 5. T. Politische Ethik.

The literary criticism of the Greeks and Romans furnishes some of the most baffling documents which have come down to us from antiquity. Nor could it be otherwise. Few elements of language can be at once so ephemeral and so elusive as the overtones of words used in aesthetic contexts; even in our own language it is only with a conscious effort that the appropriate overtones of words used by quite recent critics can be recalled. Such recall must be much (...) more difficult where the reader is concerned with a dead language; in the case of some terms it may well be virtually impossible; but where the ancient critic is discussing ethical criteria for literature, as Aristotle does in Poetics 13, the modern interpreter is in a somewhat better position, for ethical terms are used in wider contexts, contexts which involve action, and there is more opportunity for studying their usage and endeavouring to recapture their elusive overtones. (shrink)