Based on Michel Foucault's 1978 and 1979 lectures at the Collège de France on governmental rationalities and his 1977 interview regarding his work on imprisonment, this volume is the long-awaited sequel to Power/Knowledge.

_The Internet: A Philosophical Inquiry_ develops many of the themes Gordon Graham presented in his highly successful radio series, _The Silicon Society_. Exploring the tensions between the warnings of the Neo-Luddites and the bright optimism of the Technophiles, Graham offers the first concise and accessible exploration of the issues which arise as we enter further into the world of Cyberspace. This original and fascinating study takes us to the heart of questions that none of us can afford (...) to ignore: how does the Internet affect our concepts of identity, moral anarchy, censorship, community, democracy, virtual reality and imagination? Free of jargon and full of stimulating ideas, this is essential reading for anyone wishing to think clearly and informatively about the complexities of our technological future. (shrink)

Gordon Graham presents a bold new account of Wittgenstein's philosophy, which argues for its relevance to the study of religion and aims to revitalize the philosophy of 'true religion'. He uses Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy to argue in favour of the idea that 'true religion' is to be understood as human participation in divine life.

'It's all in the genes'. Is this true, and if so, _what_ is all in the genes? _Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry_ is a crystal clear and highly informative guide to a debate none of us can afford to ignore. Beginning with a much-needed overview of the relationship between science and technology, Gordon Graham lucidly explains and assesses the most important and controversial aspects of the genes debate: Darwinian theory and its critics, the idea of the 'selfish' gene, evolutionary (...) psychology, memes, genetic screening and modification, including the risks of cloning and 'designer' babies. He considers areas often left out of the genes debate, such as the environmental risks of genetic engineering and how we should think about genes in the wider context of debates on science, knowledge and religion. Gordon Graham asks whether genetic engineering might be introducing God back into the debate and whether the risks of a brave new genetic world outweigh the potential benefits. Essential reading for anyone interested in science, technology, and philosophy, _Genes: A Philosophical Inquiry_ is ideal for those wanting to find out more about the ethical implications of genetics and the future of biotechnology. (shrink)

Beginning with Sir William Hamilton's revitalisation of philosophy in Scotland in the 1830s, Gordon Graham takes up the theme of George Davie's The Democratic Intellect and explores a century of debates surrounding the identity and continuity of the Scottish philosophical tradition. Gordon Graham identifies a host of once-prominent but now neglected thinkers - such as Alexander Bain, J. F. Ferrier, Thomas Carlyle, Alexander Campbell Fraser, John Tulloch, Henry Jones, Henry Calderwood, David Ritchie and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (...) - whose reactions to Hume and Reid stimulated new currents of ideas. Graham concludes by considering the relation between the Scottish philosophical tradition and the 20th-century philosopher John Macmurray. (shrink)

Adam Smith and J-J Rousseau share some common ground when it comes to religion, namely that they were born into and educated in cultural contexts deeply shaped by Reformed Christianity. However, close consideration of their writings on religion reveal marked difference. This paper explores those differences and finds that Rousseau and Smith are radically at odds on this score. Smith has almost nothing to say about personal spirituality, and locates the significance of religion in its social role. Rousseau, on the (...) other hand, accords religion no social role whatever, and finds its value to be purely of a personal and spiritual nature. This difference is not without some contemporary relevance, since it highlights some of the issues surrounding the distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in modern secularized societies. (shrink)

This text sets the questions facing British universities today in their historical and educational context.

This chapter investigates the question of how a “philosophy” of emerging technologies should be conceived. Part 1 distinguishes between prediction and explanation as the end goal of such a philosophy, and explores empirical social science and idealist philosophy as alternative approaches to explanation. It uses the basic ideas of actor network theory to uncover weaknesses in both. Part 2 sets out a third possibility, namely the empirical-cum-normative philosophical method that underlies the writings of two foundational figures in the history of (...) the social sciences—the Scottish Enlightenment philosophers Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. Part 3 applies this method to the philosophy of technology, and introduces the concept of “transformative technologies.” Part 4 considers briefly the extent to which the “emergent media” of the present time could be regarded as transformative. (shrink)

This paper draws on some lines of thought in Kant’s Critique of Judgment to construct an aesthetic counterpart to the moral argument for the existence of God that Kant formulates in the Critique of Practical Reason. The paper offers this aesthetic version as a theistic way of explaining how the natural world can be thought valuable independently of human desires and purposes. It further argues that such an argument must commend itself to anyone who is as deeply committed to the (...) preservation of nature as to the promotion of justice. (shrink)

This paper explores developments in the defence of theism within Scottish philosophy following Hume's Dialogues and the advent of Darwinian evolutionary biology. By examining the writings of two nineteenth-century Scottish philosophers, it aims to show that far from Darwinian biology completing Hume's destruction of natural theology, it prompted a new direction for the defence of philosophical theism. Henry Calderwood and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison occupied, respectively, the Chairs of Moral Philosophy and Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in the (...) late nineteenth century. Their books reveal that the challenge of articulating new grounds for philosophical theism was not motivated by a conservative desire to see off a new intellectual threat, but by a desire for a proper understanding of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This chapter is divided into three separate sections devoted in order to Europe, North America, and Australasia. In the first section, attention is given to the reception of Scottish philosophical writings principally in France and Germany, from the late decades of the eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. The second section recounts the place and influence of Scottish philosophy in the liberal arts colleges of colonial America, and the great influence of key figure such as Francis Allison, John Witherspoon, and (...) Samuel Stanhope Smith in post-revolutionary politics and education. The story is traced into the early years of the twentieth century, with some reference to John Clark Murray and the place of Scottish philosophy in Canada also. The third section deals with the role of philosophy in the establishment of universities in Australia. It details the notable number of Scottish educated philosophers who contributed to the study of philosophy in Australia and ends with the best known of them—John Anderson. (shrink)

This paper first elaborates ‘Art’ and the aesthetic as these concepts emerged in the eighteenth century, and uncovers the conflict between the resulting ideal of ‘art for art’s sake’ and the increasing use ‘art therapy’ for personal and social purposes. Taking this conflict to be a reason for the rejection of ‘Art’, it considers two accounts of ‘the end of Art’, one by Arthur Danto and the other by Nicholas Wolterstorff. The paper argues that both accounts fall short of adequately (...) recognizing the presence of the aesthetic in everyday life, and that once we do acknowledge the properly aesthetic character of ‘Design’, a way of thinking is opened up that can make better sense of art therapy. The paper concludes with a brief indication of where the next philosophical question about art therapy lies. (shrink)

The prominence of David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion in contemporary philosophy of religion has led it to overshadow his other short work, The Natural History of Religion, and thus obscure the fact that the social psychology of religion was in many ways of greater interest and more widely debated among the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment than philosophical theology. This paper examines and compares the social psychology of religion advanced by Hume and Adam Smith. It argues that Hume's account (...) of the psychological sources and social significance of religion is less satisfactory than Smith's. (shrink)

A new edition of this bestselling introduction to aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Includes new sections on digital music and environmental aesthetics. All other chapters have been thoroughly revised and updated.

This collection of readings, the first of its kind, has been chosen with a view to displaying the variety, richness and strength of the Scottish philosophical tradition.

This chapter recounts the rise, eminence, and rapid fall in the philosophical standing of Sir William Hamilton. It sets out the philosophical resources that Hamilton called upon to amend and sustain the ‘common sense’ philosophy of Thomas Reid, responding especially to the criticisms of Thomas Brown. It examines in detail the criticisms that were brought against his philosophy from both sympathizers and opponents. Special attention is given to books on Hamilton published in the nineteenth by Henry Calderwood, Hutchison Stirling, and (...) most notably J. S. Mill’s hugely influential ‘Examination’ of Hamilton. The chapter aims to explain both the high regard in which Hamilton was widely held and the reasons for his speedy relegation to the status of a minor philosopher. It also aims at a ‘Re-examination’ by assessing the cogency of Mill’s criticisms. (shrink)

This chapter places succeeding chapters, and the relation between them, in a narrative intellectual history of philosophy in Scotland after the Enlightenment, as well as its influence in intellectual developments abroad. It highlights a recurrent instability that lies within the Scottish Enlightenment project of a ‘science of human nature’, namely the tension between traditional metaphysical questions, and the emerging empirical sciences of economics, politics, sociology, and psychology. It traces the slow fracturing of the Enlightenment project, and its replacement by a (...) division between philosophical Idealism on the one hand and positivistic social science on the other. The chapter concludes by exploring the impact of this division into the twentieth century. (shrink)

The Internet: A Philosophical Inquiry offers the first concise and accessible exploration of the issues which arise as we enter further into the world of Cyberspace.

This chapter discusses four principal themes of Scottish aesthetics over the course of the eighteenth century. The first is the question of ‘taste’ and its relation to the perception and reality of beauty. Does beauty exist independently of its being perceived, or is it in some sense the product of our perception? The second is the matter of aesthetic criticism. Can aesthetic judgements be rational, and if so on what basis? The third main topic is the rhetorical use of language. (...) Is oratory an art? If it is, how does rhetoric relate to literary and poetic language, to the expression of thought and the cogency of argument? Finally, is there something to be learned on these subjects from the study of the origins of language? On each of these topics, the Scottish philosophers had interesting, insightful, and in some cases enduringly important things to say. (shrink)

This concluding chapter addresses the conceptual questions that arise in connection with identifying a philosophical tradition, and giving it a distinctive national label. It argues against the common identification of ‘Scottish philosophy’ with the ‘School of Common Sense’, and argues that Francis Hutcheson initiated an approach to philosophical questions that pre-dates the appeal to common sense developed by Reid. It contends that the ‘School of Common Sense’ was just one attempt to formulate a satisfactory response to David Hume. By examining (...) the work of Andrew Seth and Henry Jones, it explores the idea of a shared philosophical agenda, and argues that a common project rooted in a long-standing institutional framework is what sustained the Scottish philosophical intellectual tradition. The chapter ends by considering the factors that may be said to have brought that tradition to an end. (shrink)