The present attempt to introduce the general philosophical reader to the Phenomenological Movement by way of its history has itself a history which is pertinent to its objective. It may suitably be opened by the following excerpts from a review which Herbert W. Schneider of Columbia University, the Head of the Division for Internc.. tional Cultural Cooperation, Department of Cultural Activities of Unesco from 1953 to 56, wrote in 1950 from France: The influence of Husser! has revolutionized continental philosophies, (...) not because his philosophy has become dominant, but because any philosophy now seeks to accommodate itself to, and express itself in, phenomenological method. It is the sine qua non of critical respectability. In America, on the contrary, phenomenology is in its infancy. The aver age American student of philosophy, when he picks up a recent volume of philosophy published on the continent of Europe, must first learn the "tricks" of the phenomenological trade and then translate as best he can the real import of what is said into the kind of analysis with which he is familiar....... No doubt, American education will gradually take account of the spread of phenomenological method and terminology, but until it does, American readers of European philosophy have a severe handicap; and this applies not only to existentialism but to almost all current philosophicalliterature. (shrink)

Contends that Freud's theory of civilization is substantially sociological, and examines the philosophical and sociological implications of key Freudian ...

An Essay on Liberation outlines the new possibilities for contemporary human liberation.

This classic book is Marcuse's masterful interpretation of Hegel's philosophy and the influence it has had on European political thought from the French Revolution to the present day. Marcuse brilliantly illuminates the implications of Hegel's ideas with later developments in European thought, particularily with Marxist theory.

This classic book is Marcuse's masterful interpretation of Hegel's philosophy and the influence it has had on European political thought from the French Revolution to the present day. Marcuse brilliantly illuminates the implications of Hegel's ideas with later developments in European thought, particularily with Marxist theory.

Developing a concept briefly introduced in Counterrevolution and Revolt, Marcuse here addresses the shortcomings of a Marxist aesthetic theory and explores a dialectical aesthetic in which art functions as the conscience of society. Marcuse argues that art is the only form of expression that can take up where religion and philosophy fail and contends that aesthetic offers the last refuge for two-dimensional criticism in a one-dimensional society.

Clark highlights a neglected issue in research on language use: the process by which speakers and addressees anchor utterances with respect to individual entities in their common ground. In his review, he identifies the challenges linked to investigations of anchoring, but also displays the pitfalls of evading it.

This article shows that social norms are better explained as correlating devices for a correlated equilibrium of the underlying stage game, rather than Nash equilibria. Whereas the epistemological requirements for rational agents playing Nash equilibria are very stringent and usually implausible, the requirements for a correlated equilibrium amount to the existence of common priors, which we interpret as induced by the cultural system of the society in question. When the correlating device has perfect information, we need in addition only to (...) posit that individuals obey the social norm when it is costless to do so. When the correlating device has incomplete information, the operation of the social norm requires that individuals have a predisposition to follow the norm even when this is costly. The latter case explains why social norms are associated with other-regarding preferences and provides a basis for analyzing honesty and corruption. (shrink)

The foundation of historical materialism.--A study on authority.--Sartre's existentialism.--Karl Popper and the problem of historical laws.--Freedom and the historical imperative.

Social robots serve people as tutors, caretakers, receptionists, companions, and other social agents. People know that the robots are mechanical artifacts, yet they interact with them as if they were actual agents. How is this possible? The proposal here is that people construe social robots not as social agents per se, but as depictions of social agents. They interpret them much as they interpret ventriloquist dummies, hand puppets, virtual assistants, and other interactive depictions of people and animals. Depictions as a (...) class consist of three physical scenes with part-by-part mappings between them: (a) a base scene (the raw physical artifact), (b) the depiction proper (the artifact construed as a depiction), and (c) the scene depicted (the scene people are to imagine). With social robots, evidence shows people form the same three scenes plus mappings: They perceive the raw machinery of a robot, construe it as a depiction of a character, and, using the depiction as a guide, engage in the pretense that they are interacting with the character depicted. With social robots, people also recognize three classes of agents – the characters depicted, the intended recipients of the depictions (those who view or interact with the robots), and the authorities responsible for the robots (the designers, makers, and owners). Construing social robots as depictions, we argue, accounts for many phenomena not covered by alternative models. (shrink)

First Published in 1990. Information about individual operas and other types of musical theater is scattered throughout the enormous literature of music. This book is an effort to bring that data together by comprehensively indexing plots and descriptions of individual operatic background, criticism and analysis, musical themes and bibliographical references. The principal audience for this general reference guide will be for the non-specialist, but its hoped that persons specialising in opera would also find it useful.

In everyday joint activities, people coordinate with each other by means not only of linguistic signals, but also of material signals – signals in which they indicate things by deploying material objects, locations, or actions around them. Material signals fall into two main classes: directing-to and placing-for. In directing-to, people request addressees to direct their attention to objects, events, or themselves. In placing-for, people place objects, actions, or themselves in special sites for addressees to interpret. Both classes have many subtypes. (...) Features of material signals were examined in pairs of people who were videotaped as they assembled TV stands, built Lego models, planned furnishings for a house, played piano duets, or bought coffee at Starbucks. In these activities, the pointing and placements were often sustained, creating three phases of signals – initiation, maintenance, and termination – each with its own interpretation. (shrink)

Si podemos hacer todo con la naturaleza y la sociedad, si podemos hacer todo con el hombre y las cosas, ¿por qué no podemos convertirlos en el sujeto-objeto en un mundo pacificado, en un entorno estético no agresivo? Sí, y también sabemos cómo. Los instrumentos y los materiales están ahí para la construcción de un entorno tal, social y natural, en el que las pulsiones de vida no sublimadas redireccionarían el desarrollo de las necesidades y las facultades humanas, redirigirían el (...) progreso técnico. Estas condiciones previas están ahí para la creación de lo bello no como adornos, no como superficie de lo feo, no como pieza de museo, sino como expresión y objetivo de un nuevo tipo de hombre: como necesidad biológica en un nuevo sistema de vida. (shrink)

Science progresses if we succeed in rendering the objects of scientific inquiry more comprehensively or more precisely. Popper tries to formalize this venerable idea. According to him the most comprehensive and most precise description of the world is given by the set T of all true statements. A hypothesis comes the closer to T, or has the more verisimilitude, the more true consequences and the fewer false consequences it implies. Popper proposes to order hypotheses by the inclusion relations between the (...) sets of their true and of their false consequences ("truth contents" and "falsity contents"). A partial ordering would permit one to decide whether the substitution of theory t 1 by t 2 represents scientific progress. But because of the logical relations between the elements of the sets of logical consequences, or contents, false hypotheses cannot be compared. As our theories usually turn out to be false sooner or later, they can seldom be compared as to their verisimilitude and when they can, the result depends only on which theory implies the other and on their truth-values. Popper even tries to define a measure of verisimilitude on the partial ordering. It has to fail for the same reason. In addition he tries to relativize the concept of a content and fails. What is more, any attempt at defining a measure of better or worse correspondence to the whole truth must fail, as there is no justification for saying that any true primitive sentence asserts as much about reality as some other primitive sentence, or more. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

First published in 1889. This re-issues the second, revised edition of 1926. Chuang Tzu was to Lao Tzu, the author of Tao Tê Ching, as Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, was to Bodhidharma, and in some respects St.Paul to Jesus; he expanded the original teaching into a system and was thus the founder of Tao-ism. Whereas Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius in the sixth century B.C, Chuang Tzu lived over two hundred years later. He was one (...) of the greatest minds produced by China; philosopher, metaphysician, moralist and poet. It is impossible to understand the spiritual depth of the Tao Tê Ching without the aid of Chuang Tzu. (shrink)

As the idea of culture is conceived in modern times, it has its roots in the ancient teaching on the relation between the Necessary and the Beautiful, and between labor and rest. The stabilizing of modern society, however, ushered in a significant change in the interpretation of this relationship. Cultural values became universally valid and obligatory : each individual, regardless of his place in society, is supposed to share them in equal measure. Culture is cut off from the material processes (...) of social reproduction, as well as from those of civilization, and comes to be regarded as belonging to a higher, purer, better world. The realm of culture comes to be looked upon as the sovereignty of a free moral and intellectual community.The article attempts to indicate the significance of modern culture for the place of the individual in society. For this purpose the author selects some characteristic and fundamental concepts of modern culture : the idea of the soul (the values of the soul receive unconditional preference to the sensual as well as the intellectual values : external conditions and intellectual achievements are less relevant than the inner essence of man), — the idea of beauty (art attains the function of giving to humanity, through the presentation of the beautiful, the enjoyment of a better world),— and the idea of personality (the individual achieves his own happiness only through subordination to the existing order of things). These ideas are analyzed in order to show that culture has absorbed all the forces that were directed towards the achievement of a better existence : humanity, kindliness, solidarity, happiness. Modern culture was the historic framework within which the pursuit of happiness was accomplished in a social order that was without happiness for the majority of mankind.But, by proclaiming all progressive ideas as spiritual or internal ideals, this same culture has distilled from them all their critical, dynamic force. They are taken seriously only as inner spiritual values or as objects of art. In this internalized and transfigured form the human desire for happiness has been diverted from reality and appears to have been set at rest. The individual is trained for renunciation and he has to rationalize in order to believe himself satisfied. In this way, culture serves to take the responsibility for the happiness of the individual from the existing order and to justify the given order of things.In the last period of this development, idealism gives way to a heroic realism of power. In the battle of the authoritarian state against the idealism of the liberal bourgeois culture, the old methods of cultural discipline are to be replaced by more timely ones. The principal function of culture, however, remains unchanged. The hostility of the authoritarian state toward culture in general also serves as a justification for the existing order of things. But in comparison the culture that is being attacked appears as an enlightened, more humane stage of the past ; its progressive tendencies stand forth more clearly in our minds.In conclusion, the idea of bridging the gulf between culture and civilization is outlined : a definite re-incorporation of culture into the general social process, whereby it would lose its justificatory character.L’idée de la culture caractéristique de l’Occident moderne, remonte à la doctrine antique qui a formulé les rapports du nécessaire et du beau, du travail et du plaisir. Avec la stabilisation de la société moderne, intervint un changement décisif dans l’interprétation de ces rapports : les valeurs culturelles deviennent universellement valables et universellement impératives ; chaque individu, quelle que soit sa position sociale, doit également participer à ces valeurs. La culture, monde meilleur, supérieur, plus pur, se détache et du procès matériel de reproduction et de la „civilisation“. Elle est revendiquée comme le règne d’une libre communauté morale et spirituelle.L’étude essaye d’indiquer la répercussion de la culture nouvelle sur la situation de l’individu dans la société. Elle relève quelques-uns des concepts fondamentaux de cette culture : L’idée de l’âme (spiritualisation de la sensibilité), l’idée de la beauté (satisfaction par l’art), et l’idée de la personnalité (accomplissement par le renoncement). La culture a résorbé toutes les forces qui tendaient vers une existence meilleure : humanité, bonté, solidarité, joie. La culture représentait la forme historique sous laquelle le besoin de bonheur trouvait satisfaction dans un ordre social qui privait de bonheur la majorité des hommes. Mais la culture, en hypostasiant toutes les idées progressives en idéals, a dépouillé celles-ci de toute force explosive, qui les eût rendues dangereuses. Elle ne les a prises au sérieux qu’en tant que valeurs intérieures, spirituelles, ou en tant que thèmes de l’art. L’exigence de bonheur trouve sous cette forme intériorisée et transfigurée une satisfaction apparente. Toutes les exigences, l’individu apprend à se les poser à lui-même et à se contenter d’une jouissance rationalisée. Il est élevé en vue du renoncement. Ainsi la culture contribue à décharger et à justifier l’ordre existant.Dans la dernière phase de cette évolution, l'idéalisme de l'intériorité, par un renversement dialectique, devient „réalisme de la force“. Dans le combat de l'État autoritaire contre la culture idéaliste de la bourgeoisie libérale, les vieilles méthodes de discipline culturelle cèdent la place à des méthodes plus adaptées. L'hostilité de l'État autoritaire à la culture est elle- même une justification. Par comparaison, la culture attaquée apparaît comme un passé moins sombre et plus humain : ses tendances progressives s'élèvent plus clairement à la conscience. En conclusion, l'auteur indique l'idée d'un dépassement de l'opposition entre civilisation et culture : la culture, une fois ramenée de façon positive au processus social, perdrait son caractère affirmatif. (shrink)

The problem of evil throws up many awkward questions for theologians. McCabe handles the many contradictory twists and turns with dexterity and skill.>.