This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in this book, which focuses on how citizenship is addressed in the context of education or, more specifically, learning, which is understood as central to the government of individuals and societies in Europe. Educational research has provided numerous critical responses to the citizenship education introduced in the UK and elsewhere. Governance is a form of governing commensurate with the decentralisation associated with neoliberalism, but articulated in terms of transparency, accountability, and social (...) justice in accordance with Third Way thinking. The concern with voice, narrative, and accounting for oneself in the name of democracy and social justice has become central to the discourses and practices of citizenship in the learning society. The active way in which individuals are asked to relate to their European heritage is measured as a form of participation, and therefore contributes evidence of active citizenship. (shrink)

This paper responds to the contributions by Alexander Bird, Nathan Wildman, David Yates, Jennifer McKitrick, Giacomo Giannini & Matthew Tugby, and Jennifer Wang. I react to their comments on my 2015 book Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, and in doing so expands on some of the arguments and ideas of the book.

The phrase "natural kind term" has come into the linguistic and philosophical literature in connection with well-known work of Kripke (1972) and Putnam (1970, 1975a). I use that phrase here in the sense it has acquired from those and subseqnent works on related topics. This is not the transparent sense of the phrase. That is, if I am right in what follows there are words for kinds of things existing in nature which are not natural kind terms in the current (...) sense - e.g. planet, woman, and weed. I use the term "nondescriptional", following Salmon (1981), to mean "lacking a Fregean sense", where a Fregean sense is taken to be a property or group of properties semantically associated with an expression which determines its denotation. I hope that the term "nondescriptional" will be clarified in subsequent discussion, but perhaps a few words about it and its opposite, "descriptional", would be useful here. These terms (as Salmon notes (p.15, n. 11)) should be taken as technical terms. The idea is that descriptional words, of which bachelor is the overwhelmingly favorite example, express a semantic content, or sense, which is what mediates their denotation. Entities fall in their denotation in virtue of possessing the property or properties expressed as their sense. (It is not necessary, however, that this sense be as easily paraphrasable with descriptive synonyms as it is typically held to be in the case of bachelor, or even that it be paraphrasable at all.) In the case of nondescriptional words there is no Fregean sense to mediate the link between word and object. Hence such terms are described by what Salmon, following Kaplan, calls "the theory of direct reference". What it is that does associate such terms with their denotations is another question which will be touched on briefly at the end. I have several aims in this paper. The first is to defend a conservative position on nondescriptionality. I will argue that relatively few natural language words have this property. My other aims are primarily clarificatory. Among the issues I would like to clarify are those connected with the determination of this property and flae explanation of why it exists, its relationship with other properties such as rigid designation and essentiality, and its significance for lexical semantics. The organization of the paper is as follows. The first section identifies the position taken here on the question of which expressions are nondescriptional and provides a general defense of it. The second section is a critical examination of criteria associated with nondescriptionality. In the third section provide further defense for the conservative position, and in the fourth section we turn to related issues in lexical semantics. (shrink)

Ulrich Beck's best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck's ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely throughout (...) social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck. (shrink)

Social scientists have paid insufficient attention to the role of law in constituting the economic institutions of capitalism. Part of this neglect emanates from inadequate conceptions of the nature of law itself. Spontaneous conceptions of law and property rights that downplay the role of the state are criticized here, because they typically assume relatively small numbers of agents and underplay the complexity and uncertainty in developed capitalist systems. In developed capitalist economies, law is sustained through interaction between private agents, courts (...) and the legislative apparatus. Law is also a key institution for overcoming contracting uncertainties. It is furthermore a part of the power structure of society, and a major means by which power is exercised. This argument is illustrated by considering institutions such as property and the firm. Complex systems of law have played a crucial role in capitalist development and are also vital for developing economies. (shrink)

Szabó follows Heim in viewing familiarity, rather than uniqueness, as the essence of the definite article, but attempts to derive both familiarity and uniqueness implications pragmatically, assigning a single semantic interpretation to both the definite and indefinite articles. I argue that if there is no semantic distinction between the articles, then there is no way to derive these differences between them pragmatically.

Dispositionalism about modality is the view that metaphysical modality is a matter of the dispositions possessed by actual objects. In a recent paper, David Yates has raised an important worry about the formal adequacy of dispositionalism. This paper responds to Yates’s worry by developing a reply that Yates discusses briefly but dismisses as ad hoc: an appeal to a ’plenitude of powers’ including such powers as the necessarily always manifested power for 2+2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$$2+2$$\end{document} to be 4. I argue that the reply is not ad hoc at all, by defending the metaphysics of dispositions that should underly it. I then argue, first, that a proper understanding of dispositions’ degrees provides us with an argument for such necessarily always manifested dispositions; second, that all the natural attempts to block that argument can be resisted without being ad hoc; and third, that pragmatic considerations explain our intuitive resistance to the ascription of necessarily always manifested dispositions. Dispositionalism can be formally adequate after all. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects for dispositional accounts of abilities. According to so-called new dispositionalists, an agent has the ability to Φ iff they have a disposition to Φ when trying to Φ. We show that the new dispositionalism is beset by some problems that also beset its predecessor, the conditional analysis of abilities, and bring up some further problems. We then turn to a different approach, which links abilities not to motivational states but to the notion of success, and (...) consider ways of implementing that approach. Our results suggest that there are principled disanalogies between abilities and disposition which prevent any dispositional account of abilities from succeeding. (shrink)

Recent European and member state policy shows innovation to be a current guiding logic of government. This article offers an analysis of how innovation, seen partly in terms of learning but more significantly in terms of research, forms part of the discourses and practices of government today. Research is now something that all actors must engage with and so constitutes the individual’s self-understanding. Both the European and UK policies that I discuss speak of a shift away from excessive measurement and (...) control in order to open the way for greater flexibility, mobility, and thus productive innovation. The openness and mobility required by these policies exemplify a shift in governmental rationality that places responsibility on the individual, not only in relation to their own conduct and performance, but also to that of society as a whole. The demand for competitiveness becomes a demand for innovation and specialisation. The notion of the Big Society is discussed as an example of the operation of the logic of innovation. (shrink)

Cette introduction explique la perception, reconnue par Husserl sous le titre de "donation par esquisses". Il s'agit d'opérer une réduction radicale qui va de la critique du néant au monde comme a priori de tout apparaître. A ce monde correspond un sujet dont le sens d'être fait problème puisqu'il est à la fois un moment du monde et en rapport avec la totalité comme telle.

In this imaginative and provocative book, Barbara Goodwin explores the question of how lottery systems can achieve egalitarian social justice in societies with seemingly ineradicable inequalities. She begins with the utopian fable of Aleatoria, a country not unlike our own in the not-too-distant-future, where most goods are distributed by lottery--even the right to have children. She then analyzes the philosophical arguments for and against lottery distribution and a comparison of "justice by lottery" with other contemporary theories of justice. Goodwin (...) also applies her theory to practical problems in the real world which could be--or have been--justly resolved by the use of lotteries, such as military drafts, jury duty, and immigration eligibility. She demonstrates that in many areas, including that of political power, a regular and random reallocation of goods would be a fairer and more democratic method than the distributive systems found in liberal democracies today. (shrink)

This paper introduces a conjecture that laws of nature may be of different kinds, in particular that there may, in addition to laws which constrain outcomes, be laws which empower systems to direct or select outcomes and laws which guide systems in such selections. The paper defends this conjecture by suggesting that it is not excluded by anything we know, is plausible, and is potentially of great explanatory power.

This chapter focuses on the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and their interpretation by Stanley Cavell. Cavell's philosophy has sought to reclaim the work of Emerson and Thoreau for and as philosophy, and particularly as American philosophy. In Cavell's Emersonian moral perfectionism, perfectionism is understood as ateleological, and not in terms of perfectibility. Cavell therefore seeks to distinguish this American expression of perfectionism from what he identifies as a dimension or tradition of the moral life that (...) spans the course of Western thought, found in teleological form in, for example, Plato and Aristotle. Emerson's essay expresses a disappointment in America's passive acceptance of its European inheritance and in the implications of this for citizenship and democracy. America, or American man, must undertake its own labour to produce its own knowledge of itself and the world. (shrink)

This chapter begins by providing some historical background to European integration. It draws attention to the way that history has been used to promote a European identity since the European Union and, with it, European citizenship were created in 1992. The framing of the relationship between globalisation and its socioeconomic challenges has made the need to attend to questions of citizenship, particularly through education, self‐evident. The shift in the mode of governance has not only entailed using education as a means (...) of educating citizens about Europe: in the current context, education, or specifically, learning, has become a central aspect of how citizenship is understood. Examples of recent educational and cultural policy highlight terms that are central to producing a particular mode of governance. These examples illustrate the practices of accountability that have emerged in recent years that require governments, institutions, organisations, and individuals to speak about themselves in particular ways. (shrink)

Educational research tends to conduct its analysis according to fixed identity categories and concepts, and in its concern for voice, empowerment, and inclusion, offers ways in which researchers can articulate an account of themselves and their practice. The researcher herself then can be seen as being constituted as a particular subject in the current context of the entrepreneurial lifelong learning citizen, whose virtues are evidenced through the continual accumulation of skills and competencies. The concern with social justice, representation, and ethics (...) found in methodological discussion effects a shoring up of identity and a process of risk management in the sense of a thorough audit of who the researcher is. Considerations of citizenship and of educational research then begin to become inseparable because the understanding of both citizenship and research is seen to entail a particular relationship to the self. (shrink)

This chapter provides examples of European and local programmes and policies deriving from the education and cultural policies, and focuses on the ecological subject. These examples further illustrate not only the way in which the citizen is addressed, but also the construction of citizenship in a particular relationship to space and time. To begin the analysis of space in the construction of European citizenship, the chapter focuses on Foucault's account of governmentality, which shows the historical shift in the object of (...) government from territory to population, and thus the emergence of liberalism. More recent accounts draw attention to the subsequent shift to environments. In light of the environmental self‐understanding of the active learning citizen, the chapter considers the relationship to history seen in the promotion of heritage in European cultural policy. This entails placing the citizen in a particular spatial and temporal relationship to Europe. (shrink)

In 1933, the year that Hitler took power in Germany, Martin Heidegger accepted the Rectorship of the University of Freiburg. Rectoral Address is selected for its pertinence to this period of European history, which remains so central to the understanding of what constitutes Europe's heritage. This chapter explores the relationship between the sociopolitical events that took place in Germany in 1933 and philosophical texts relating to them. It provides some contextualisation of the post‐war events that ensued from Heidegger's Address and (...) political decisions in terms of the re‐reading of his philosophy and the Heidegger affair. Karl Liowith's account gives a positive interpretation of Heidegger's work, in the sense of situating him within a lineage of European philosophers who responded to the decline of Europe, diagnosing and responding to its nihilism, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is followed by an introduction to Heidegger's Being and Time and subjectivity. (shrink)

Plato's texts have been subject to re‐reading in recent years, reflecting new ways in which philosophy has sought to understand the relationship between the author, the reader, and the text. This chapter begins by restating the allegory of the Stanley Cavell in The Republic, before turning to Cavell's reading of this in relation to the opening of the text. It further illustrates the idea of education as a finding of voice, which Cavell articulates through Emersonian moral perfectionism with reference to (...) his work on philosophy as autobiography. The educative relationship to the self and to the other, and the responsibility one takes for one's voice, is then illustrated further by way of Michel Foucault's account of Socratic parrhesia, a practice evident in The Republic and in other texts of Plato to which Foucault refers. Cavell ventures the term sublimation in relation to his questioning of the allegory of the Cave. (shrink)

This chapter illustrates how the language of research, citizenship, and education operates in two particular ways. First, by highlighting the way in which the discourses identified in policy and practice are taken up in educational research, and then by indicating how the particular mode of subjectivation detailed thus far is evident in certain forms of educational research. Both have implications for the critique educational research might provide. As a first example, the way in which educational research has responded to the (...) introduction of citizenship education in England is illustrated in the chapter by a review of research, policy, and practice covering the period 1995‐2005, commissioned by the British Educational Research Association. The review is taken to exemplify the field of education policy sociology. This is followed by discussion, in a second example, of what might be termed a genre of educational research concerned with voice and social justice. (shrink)

L'oeuvre de Merleau-Ponty est tout entiere commandee par le souci de mettre rigoureusement en oeuvre le mot d'ordre husserlien de retour aux choses memes, ce qui exige, conformement au geste amorce par Husserl dans la Krisis, de reconnaitre l'oeuvre de l'idealisation -c'est-a-dire de l'objectivation- la meme ou elle se fait oublier, afin de la neutraliser. A l'instar de Bergson, pour qui la tache de la philosophie etait d'aller chercher l'experience au-dessus du tournant ou, s'inflechissant dans le sens de l'utilite, elle (...) devient proprement l'experience humaine, pour Merleau-Ponty, la tache de la pensee est de se situer a ce tournant ou l'experience s'accomplit et se voile a la fois dans des productions ou elle se fait proprement humaine, de definir un sens de l'Etre anterieur a la bifurcation du preobjectif et de l'oeuvre idealisante. Le but des recherches est de tenter de clarifier la nature exacte du tournant de l'experience ainsi que le projet phenomenologique merleau-pontien. (shrink)

Peter C. Hodgson engages the speculative reconstruction of Christian theology that is accomplished by Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, and provides a close reading of the critical edition of the lectures. He analyses Hegel's concept of the object and purpose of the philosophy of religion, his critique of the theology of his time, his approach to Christianity within the framework of the concept of religion, his concept of God, his reconstruction of central Christian themes, and his placing (...) of Christianity among the religions of the world. Hodgson makes a case for the contemporary theological significance of Hegel by identifying currently contested sites of interpretation and their Hegelian resolution. (shrink)

Contemporary issues involving knowledge and science examined from a constructivist-pragmatist perspective often labeled "relativism." Individual chapters include a review of the difference between constructivist-pragmatist epistemology and "social constructivism;" an examination of recent writings by Bruno Latour; a critique of computational methods in literary studies; a skeptical look at current efforts to "integrate" the humanities and the natural sciences; and reflections on the social dynamics of belief in relation to denials of climate change and to hopes expressed by environmentalists.

An extended analysis and account of the psychological/social/cognitive dynamics of intellectual controversy. The immediate focus is the recurrent failure of intellectual engagement, in encounters having to do with with truth, knowledge, language, science, and/or objectivity, between, on the one hand, rationalist-realist-objectivist philosophers and/or those they have instructed and, on the other hand, constructivist-pragmatist ("postmodern") theorists and/or those persuaded by their critiques and/or alternative views. Individual chapters examine critiques and defenses of objectivist-rationalist views in law, politics, literary studies, ethics, communication theory, (...) and philosophy of science. Theorists whose views are discussed critically at some length include legal scholar Robin West and philosophers Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel, and Philip Kitcher. (shrink)

This book presents the most important problems of reference and considers their solution. It presupposes no technical knowledge, presents analyses from first principles, illustrates every stage with examples, and is written with verve and clarity. This is the ideal introduction to reference for students of linguistics and philosophy of language.

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

Peter C. Hodgson engages the speculative reconstruction of Christian theology that is accomplished by Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, and provides a close reading of the critical edition of the lectures. He analyses Hegel's concept of the object and purpose of the philosophy of religion, his critique of the theology of his time, his approach to Christianity within the framework of the concept of religion, his concept of God, his reconstruction of central Christian themes, and his placing (...) of Christianity among the religions of the world. Hodgson makes a case for the contemporary theological significance of Hegel by identifying currently contested sites of interpretation and their Hegelian resolution. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures Series Series Editor: Peter C. Hodgson Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts (...) and manuscripts. Lectures from specific years are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion represent the final and in some ways the decisive element of his entire philosophical system. His conception and execution of the lectures differed significantly on each of the occasions he delivered them, in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. The older editions introduced insoluble problems by conflating these materials into an editorially constructed text. The present volumes establish a critical edition by separating the series of lectures and presenting them as independent units on the basis of a complete re-editing of the sources by Walter Jaeschke. The English translation has been prepared by a team consisting of Robert F. Brown, Peter C. Hodgson, and J. Michael Stewart, with the assistance of H. S. Harris. Now widely recognized as the definitive English edition, it is being reissued by Oxford in the Hegel Lectures Series. The three volumes include editorial introductions, critical annotations on the text, textual variants, and tables, bibliography, and glossary. 'The Consummate Religion' is Hegel's name for Christianity, which he also designates 'the Revelatory Religion'. Here he offers a speculative interpretation of major Christian doctrines: the Trinity, creation, humanity, estrangement and evil, Christ, the Spirit, the spiritual community, church and world. These interpretations have had a powerful and controversial impact on modern theology. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures Series Series Editor: Peter C. Hodgson Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts (...) and manuscripts. The original lecture series are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion represent the final and in some ways the decisive element of his entire philosophical system. His conception and execution of the lectures differed significantly on each of the occasions he delivered them, in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. The older editions introduced insoluble problems by conflating these materials into an editorially constructed text. The present volumes establish a critical edition by separating the series of lectures and presenting them as independent units on the basis of a complete re-editing of the sources by Walter Jaeschke. The English translation has been prepared by a team consisting of Robert F. Brown, Peter C. Hodgson, and J. Michael Stewart, with the assistance of H. S. Harris. Now widely recognized as the definitive English edition, it is being reissued by Oxford in the Hegel Lectures Series. The three volumes include editorial introductions, critical annotations on the text, textual variants, and tables, bibliography, and glossary. 'Determinate Religion' comprises Hegel's treatment of world religions, starting with indigeneous or nature religions, moving on to religions of the Far East, the Near East, and the West. What Hegel succeeded in offering is not so much a history as a geography of religions, as demonstrated by the different schematic structures adopted in successive years. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures SeriesSeries Editor: Peter C. Hodgson Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and (...) manuscripts. The original lecture series are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of GodHegel lectured on the proofs of the existence of God as a separate topic in 1829. He also discussed the proofs in the context of his lectures on the philosophy of religion, where the different types of proofs were considered mostly in relation to specific religions. The text that he prepared for his lectures in 1829 was a fully formulated manuscript and appears to have been the first draft of a work that he intended to publish and for which he signed a contract shortly before his death in 1831. The 16 lectures include an introduction to the problem of the proofs and a detailed discussion of the cosmological proof. Philipp Marheineke published these lectures in 1832 as an appendix to the lectures on the philosophy of religion, together with an earlier manuscript fragment on the cosmological proof and the treatment of the teleological and ontological proofs as found in the 1831 philosophy of religion lectures. Hegel's 1829 lectures on the proofs are of particular importance because they represent what he actually wrote as distinct from auditors' transcriptions of oral lectures. Moreover, they come late in his career and offer his final and most seasoned thinking on a topic of obvious significance to him, that of the reality status of God and ways of knowing God. These materials show how Hegel conceived the connection between the cosmological, teleological, and ontological proofs. All of this material has been newly translated by Peter C. Hodgson from the German critical editions by Walter Jaeschke. This edition includes an editorial introduction, annotations on the text, and a glossary and bibliography. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures Series Series Editor: Peter C. Hodgson Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts (...) and manuscripts. The original lecture series are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion represent the final and in some ways the decisive element of his entire philosophical system. His conception and execution of the lectures differed significantly on each of the occasions he delivered them, in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. The older editions introduced insoluble problems by conflating these materials into an editorially constructed text. The present volumes establish a critical edition by separating the series of lectures and presenting them as independent units on the basis of a complete re-editing of the sources by Walter Jaeschke. The English translation has been prepared by a team consisting of Robert F. Brown, Peter C. Hodgson, and J. Michael Stewart, with the assistance of H. S. Harris. Now widely recognized as the definitive English edition, it is being reissued by Oxford in the Hegel Lectures Series. The three volumes include editorial introductions, critical annotations on the text, textual variants, and tables, bibliography, and glossary. 'Determinate Religion' comprises Hegel's treatment of world religions, starting with indigeneous or nature religions, moving on to religions of the Far East, the Near East, and the West. What Hegel succeeded in offering is not so much a history as a geography of religions, as demonstrated by the different schematic structures adopted in successive years. (shrink)

This book considers the context of the colonial policies of Britain, Locke's contribution to them, and the importance of these ideas in his theory of property. It also reconsiders the debate about John Locke's influence in America. The book argues that Locke's theory of property must be understood in connection with the philosopher's political concerns, as part of his endeavour to justify the colonialist policies of Lord Shaftesbury's cabinet, with which he was personally associated. The author maintains that traditional scholarship (...) has failed to do justice to Locke by ignoring the implications of contemporary British imperial policy for the interpretation of his political thought. (shrink)

A critical examination of the charge of self-refutation, particularly as leveled by orthodoxy-defending philosophers against those maintaining epistemologically unorthodox, especially relativistic or skeptical, views. Beginning with an analysis of its classic illustration in Plato’s *Theaetetus* as leveled against Protagoras’s “Man is the measure ...,” I consider various aspects of the charge, including logical, rhetorical, pedagogic, affective, and cognitive.