The Meditative Way - Readings in the theory and practice of Buddhist meditation. Ed. by Rod Bucknell and Chris Kang. Curzon Press, Richmond 1997. x, 274 pp. Cloth £40, pbk £14.99. ISBN 0-7007-0677-1/0678-X.

The Unexpected Way. On Converting from Buddhism to Catholicism. Paul Williams. Continuum, London/New York 2002. Pb. xx, 240 pp. £12.99. ISBN 0 567 08830 8.

Buddhist Character Analysis. Robert Mann and Rose Youd. Aukana, Bradford-on-Avon 1992. 130 pp. £6.95.

Christianity for Buddhists. Frederick Farrar. The Saint Austin Press, London 2002. 105pp. £7.95. ISBN 1-901157-23-7.

Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth Century Thailand. Kamala Tiyavanich. University of Hawai'i Press, Honolulu 1997, xxi, 410 pp. Cloth, $49.00; pbk, $29.95, £24.95. ISBN 0-8248-1768-0/1781-8.

King Asoka and Buddhism. Historical and Literary Studies. Edited by Anuradha Seneviratna. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy 1994. xi, 161 pp., with two maps. SL Rs 300, US$12.00.

The Discourses of Gotama Buddha. Middle Collection. Tr. David W. Evans. Janus Publ. Co., London 1992. xxvi + 449 pp. £18.99.

The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya. Translated by Bhikkhu Ñanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi. Wisdom Publication, Boston, Mass., 1995. 1412 pp.. US$75.00. ISBN 0-86171-072-X.

The Tale of Prince Samuttakote. A Buddhist Epic from Thailand. Trans. Thomas John Hudak. Ohio University 1993. xxix, 276 pp. + 6 b/w plates. Pbk $20.00, £14.95.

Women, Men and Angels: An Enquiry concerning the relative spiritual attitudes of men and women. Subhuti. Windhorse Publications, Birmingham 1995. 101 pp. £4.99. ISBN 0-9-4766-75-6.

An Introduction to Buddhism. Teaching, history and practices. Peter Harvey. Cambridge University Press, 1990. xxii, 374 pp. Hbk £35, pbk £10.95. An Introduction to Buddhism. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. Tharpa Publications, London 1992. x, 150 pp. Hbk £8.95. pbk £5.95.

Buddhist Monastic Life, according to the texts of the Theravada tradition. Mohan Wijayaratna, trans. Claude Grangier and Steve Collins, introd. Steve Collins. Cambridge University Press, 1990. xxiv + 190 pp. H/back £27.50, US$37.50, Aus$45.00; p/back £8.95, US$10.95, Aus$22.50.

The French philosopher Auguste Comte is known to most of us as a somewhat obscure figure of modest historical significance. We are likely to know that he was the founder of positivism, that he propounded the influential doctrine of the hierarchy of the sciences, and that he held some peculiar views about humanity passing through stages of theological, metaphysical, and scientific thought. The more historically informed among us might also be aware that he founded a secular alternative to the Catholic (...) Church , and that he clashed with his younger and better-known contemporary John Stuart Mill over the feasibility of a science of psychology. An interesting life, one thinks, but surely Comte is not a philosopher to warrant renewed interest during a postmodern era when the positivist tradition has finally been laid to rest a failed venture. (shrink)

1 Knowledge and Justification This book is an investigation of one central problem which arises in the attempt to give a philosophical account of empirical ...

In this incisive new book one of Britain's most eminent philosophers explores the often overlooked tension between voluntariness and involuntariness in human cognition. He seeks to counter the widespread tendency for analytic epistemology to be dominated by the concept of belief. Is scientific knowledge properly conceived as being embodied, at its best, in a passive feeling of belief or in an active policy of acceptance? Should a jury's verdict declare what its members involuntarily believe or what they voluntarily accept? And (...) should statements and assertions be presumed to express what their authors believe or what they accept? Does such a distinction between belief and acceptance help to resolve the paradoxes of self-deception and akrasia? Must people be taken to believe everything entailed by what they believe, or merely to accept everything entailed by what they accept? Through a systematic examination of these problems, the author sheds new light on issues of crucial importance in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. (shrink)

A comprehensive defence of the rationalist view that insight independent of experience is a genuine basis for knowledge.

Johnathan Cohen's book provides a lucid and penetrating treatment of the fundamental issues of contemporary analytical philosophy. This field now spans a greater variety of topics and divergence of opinion than fifty years ago, and Cohen's book addresses the presuppositions implicit to it and the patterns of reasoning on which it relies.

The book was planned and written as a single, sustained argument. But earlier versions of a few parts of it have appeared separately. The object of this book is both to establish the existence of the paradoxes, and also to describe a non-Pascalian concept of probability in terms of which one can analyse the structure of forensic proof without giving rise to such typical signs of theoretical misfit. Neither the complementational principle for negation nor the multiplicative principle for conjunction applies (...) to the central core of any forensic proof in the Anglo-American legal system. There are four parts included in this book. Accordingly, these parts have been written in such a way that they may be read in different orders by different kinds of reader. (shrink)

One of the many problems that would have t o be solved by a satisfactory theory of empirical knowledge, perhaps the most central is a general structural problem which I shall call the epistemic regress problem: the problem of how to avoid an in- finite and presumably vicious regress of justification in ones account of the justifica- tion of empirical beliefs. Foundationalist theories of empirical knowledge, as we shall see further below, attempt t o avoid the regress by locating a (...) class of empirical beliefs whose justification does not depend on that of other empirical beliefs. Extemalist theories, the topic of the present paper, represent one species of foundationalism. (shrink)

Two new philosophical problems surrounding the gradation of certainty began to emerge in the 17th century and are still very much alive today. One is concerned with the evaluation of inductive reasoning, whether in science, jurisprudence, or elsewhere; the other with the interpretation of the mathematical calculus of change. This book, aimed at non-specialists, investigates both problems and the extent to which they are connected. Cohen demonstrates the diversity of logical structures that are available for judgements of probability, and explores (...) the rationale for their appropriateness in different contexts of application. Thus his study deals with the complexity of the underlying philosophical issues without simply cataloging alternative conceptions or espousing a particular "favorite" theory. (shrink)

This book offers a unique synthesis of past and current work on the structure, meaning, and use of negation and negative expressions, a topic that has engaged thinkers from Aristotle and the Buddha to Freud and Chomsky. Horn's masterful study melds a review of scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics with original research, providing a full picture of negation in natural language and thought; this new edition adds a comprehensive preface and bibliography, surveying research since the book's original publication.

Technology used in online marketing has advanced to a state where collection, enhancement and aggregation of information are instantaneous. This proliferation of customer information focused technology brings with it a host of issues surrounding customer privacy. This article makes two key contributions to the debate concerning digital privacy. First, we use theories of justice to help understand the way consumers conceive of, and react to, privacy concerns. Specifically, it is argued that an important component of consumers' privacy concerns relates to (...) fairness judgments, which in turn comprise of the two primary components of distributive and procedural justice. Second, we make a number of prescriptions, aimed at both firms and regulators, based on the notion that consumers respond to perceived privacy violations in much the same way they would respond to an unfair exchange. (shrink)

This volume of The Subjection of Women provides a reliable text in an inexpensive edition, with explanatory notes but no additional editorial apparatus. -/- .

Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge. Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate. Introduces students to fundamental questions within epistemology (...) while engaging in contemporary debates. Written by two of today’s foremost epistemologists. Includes an extensive bibliography. (shrink)

Introduction -- Part I: The classical problems of epistemology -- Descartes's epistemology -- The concept of knowledge -- The problem of induction -- A priori justification and knowledge -- Immediate experience -- Knowledge of the external world -- Some further epistemological issues : other minds, testimony, and memory -- Part II: Contemporary responses to the cartesian epistemological program -- Introduction to part II -- Foundationalism and coherentism -- Internalism and externalism -- Quine and naturalized epistemology -- Knowledge and skepticism.

In this paper I present a novel account of achievement and I argue that, all other things being equal, the presence of this particular type of achievement in a person’s life makes that life more meaningful. In arguing for this conclusion, I explore the connections between m-achievements and a person’s self-conception and especially the idea that m-achievements provide a reason for the revision of one’s self-conception.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Past and Future of Utopian StudiesLaurence Davis (bio)This critical forum on “The Past and Future of Utopian Studies” originated as a roundtable discussion at the conference, “Opening Utopia: New Directions in Utopian Studies,” held at the University of Brighton in July 2022. The title of the conference reflected a determination on the part of the program coordination team—Patricia McManus (University of Brighton), Laurence Davis (University College Cork), (...) Siân Adiseshiah (Loughborough University), Antonis Balasopoulos (University of Cyprus), Tom Moylan (University of Limerick), Michael G. Kelly (University of Limerick), Emrah Atasoy (Cappadocia University), and Ross Sparkes (University of Brighton)—to make the conference an inclusive and potentially radically transformative event, one that would challenge entrenched orthodoxies in the field of utopian studies and help scholars and activists chart new directions in utopian scholarship and practice.This transformative ethos was reflected in the collaboratively produced conference call for papers, which stipulated that the event was dedicated to an exploration of radical utopian thinking and revolutionary praxis. The conference, we emphasized, was intended to create a welcoming and broadly [End Page 478] inclusive space where participants could explore the role of utopian thinking, imagination, and practice in addressing some of the fundamental challenges of our times. Towards this end we appended to the call a section, entitled “USS and Utopia Beyond the University,” in which we noted that our aim was to design a program that would center work intended to blur or break the well-policed and expensive borders between the university and the communities within which universities sit. We proposed, and indeed later fulfilled the promise, to work with local activists in Brighton to establish some in-person and remote-access events that would highlight and explore radical hope as it is present in the politics of migrant solidarity, co-housing initiatives, and anarchist and queer groups and spaces. We also explicitly invited contributions from those working outside the formal limits of academia or who were inside academic spaces pushing out. The enthusiastic response to the call for papers exceeded all expectations, and the resulting conference program was exceptionally varied and promising and indeed suggestive of many possible new directions in utopian studies. What follows in this special section of Utopian Studies is a product of one very lively five-person conference panel that I co-organized with Antonis Balasopoulos (University of Cyprus).The chief impetus for the transformation from conference panel to special journal section was an email invitation from the then-editor of Utopian Studies, who had attended the session and who subsequently invited us to revise and elaborate the talks for publication in the journal. Interestingly, the journal editor suggested that the contributions might provide answers to two questions: first, “where do you see the value of utopian studies in our dark times?” and second, “how can utopia and utopianism inspire activism and political changes?”In response, and speaking in my capacity as the panel chair and prospective editor of the special section, I noted that while it would be fascinating to see the contributors address questions of the value of utopian studies in our dark times, and specifically how utopia and utopianism might inspire activism and political change, such a remit would not get to the heart of what was distinctive about either our panel or the Brighton conference as a whole. The Brighton conference was dedicated specifically to an exploration of radical utopian thinking and revolutionary practice. And its title, “Opening Utopia: New Directions in Utopian Studies” suggested that utopia can be a catalyst for transformative change only if the study of utopia(s) is itself open, or “opened,” to radical influences. In our panel we explored both the past and some possible futures of utopian studies and considered “new [End Page 479] directions” that might facilitate more radical utopian thinking and revolutionary practice. While all of the contributors celebrated utopia’s transformative potential, they also criticized aspects of the field of utopian studies that arguably have limited that transformative potential, including its “blind spots” in relation to the “organizational imaginary” (Balasopoulos), its own privileged “whiteness” and colonial prerogatives (Edwards), its Anglo-American focus and tendency to overlook significant social movements outside... (shrink)

In Epistemology, Laurence Bonjour introduces the serious philosophy student to the history and concepts of epistemology, while simultaneously challenging them to take an active part in its ongoing debates. The text reflects BonJour's conviction that the place to start any discussion of the theories of knowledge is with the classical problems, beginning with and centered around Descartes.

This book is concerned with the alleged capacity of the human mind to arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world on the basis of pure reason without any dependence on sensory experience. Most recent philosophers reject the view and argue that all substantive knowledge must be sensory in origin. Laurence BonJour provocatively reopens the debate by presenting the most comprehensive exposition and defence of the rationalist view that a priori insight is a genuine basis for knowledge. This important (...) book will be at the centre of debate about the theory of knowledge for many years to come. (shrink)