The Association for Core Texts and Courses asserts its commitment to coming together and speaking about the scientific, the political, and the artistic to live together in an enlightened fashion. ACTC's Tenth Annual Conference re-affirmed and re-examined the value of serious reading and discussion focused through core texts.

For too long, Spinoza's ethics was misread as an ethics of ideals, in which the most virtuous life possible was said to consist of the life of pure reasoning. The "free man," Spinoza's paragon of virtue, was understood to be the individual who is neither helped nor harmed by anything external. The goal, on this view, was to transcend the life of the body, of the material, and of the political, in order to focus solely on becoming like God by (...) increasing one's store of rational ideas.This, of course, is an impoverished understanding of Spinoza's aims. Not only does it cast virtue as something unattainable for actually existing, materially and socially embedded individuals, but it overlooks a vast swath of Spinoza's... (shrink)

A leader in the modern commentary on ethics and philosophy, Mary Warnock casts a critical eye over her life and times.

Fundamental principles : the nature of the dispute -- Types of euthanasia -- Psychiatric assisted suicide -- Neonates -- Incompetent adults -- Human life is sacred -- The slippery slope -- Medical views -- Four methods of easing death and their effect on doctors -- Looking further ahead.

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau. (...) A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

This chapter first distinguishes between originality and creativity. True originality is rare, whether in art, science, or LEGO, because to be truly original means to have done something that no one has ever done before, and that no one could have anticipated. Most LEGO creations will not meet that condition, for with the exception of serious hobbyists who undertake massive builds, most players who make original creations are making creations that are commonplace. Painting or remolding or placing stickers on the (...) bricks counts against the spirit of LEGO creation. The chapter then discusses The LEGO Movie embodies the paradox that presents three conflicting models of creative LEGO play, illustrated by the Master Builders, Finn's father, and Emmet. The movie's creators were deliberately playing around with conflicting popular conceptions of creativity: creativity as madness, creativity as thinking outside the box, and creativity as vision. (shrink)

This selection consists of extracts from writings of women concerned solely with the pursuit of abstract ideas, historically contextualized. The texts, for the most part, reflect issues widely debated in their contemporary societies. Extracts from lesser-known writers are also included, providing a diversity of arguments spanning four centuries and including some notable contemporary philosophers.

Nature and Mortality is a challenging look at some of the major public issues of our time through the eyes of one of our most influential and probing liberal humanists. It is a frank account on where we stand today on such controversial matters as human embryology, genetic engineering, euthanasia and abortion. Warnock's views may seem like a red rag to a bull to some, but her contribution to the debate is always stimulating. Enlivened by autobiographical anecdote and some delicious (...) side-swipes, Nature and Mortality is Mary Warnock at her most perceptive, wise and entertaining. (shrink)

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) ranged from the early _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_ to _The Female Reader_, a selection of texts for girls, and included two novels. But her reputation is founded on _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ of 1792. This treatise is the first great document of feminism—and is now accepted as a core text in western tradition. It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft’s great work came out of an earlier (...) and much shorter vindication—A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition, which follows the model of other Broadview Editions in including a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era out of which it emerged, is arranged chronologically, opening with Wollstonecraft’s “other vindication.” It also includes a wide range of other documents in appendices, as well as a comprehensive and authoritative introduction, chronology, and full index. (shrink)

The unity of aesthetic and teleological judgment, the third and earlier Critiques, is based on Kant′s discovery of a “heuristic method” for applying judgments regarding sense phenomena to abstract thought, a “second attention” which enables an “idea of the whole”. Synthetic judgment, basis for cognition and human action, depends on efficacy of non-empirical insights: the transcendental standpoint, “regulative” ideas, consciousness of “ought” and the reality of freedom, universality of natural mechanism, the principle of “fortuitous” purposiveness. The activity of reflective judgment (...) in the encounter with the beautiful, sublime, living, and two paradigmatic types of explanation, inspired by Spinoza′s distinction of extensio and cogitatio, permit Kant to bridge the gap between freedom and necessity, theoretical knowledge and morality. (shrink)

All religion and much philosophy has been concerned with the contrast between the ephemeral and the eternal. Human beings have always sought ways to overcome time, and to prove that death is not the end. This book consists then in an exploration of certain closely related ideas: personal identity, time, history and our commitment to the future, and the role of imagination in life.

An Inquiry into the first principles of morals and justice: This book restores to us an understanding that was once settled in the 'moral sciences': that there are propositions, in morals and law, which are not only true but which cannot be ...

Review of Julian H. Franklin, Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy (Columbia, 2005).

Hadley Arkes argues that it is necessary to move "beyond the Constitution", to the principles that stood antecedent to the text, if we are to understand the text and apply the Constitution to the cases that arise every day in our law.

Halley and colleagues highlight important aspects of advocacy and justice in rare disease and provide recommendations for stakeholders to encourage progress toward equity and justice. In the rare d...

"Dialogue" is one of American religion's shopworn terms. Although we hear much talk about dialogue, very little of it actually takes place. Religious discourse - especially about politics and public affairs - is increasingly polarized, involving much contestation but little conversation. If truth are to be tested, however, there is no substitute for dialogue.

For James Schall, revelation becomes open to us, on the most important questions that revelation can address, when it is opened by people who “study politics,” as Samuel Johnson had it. For Plato, the best city, the best political order, was spun out in the world of speech. It is not a place we expect to inhabit. But Plato had Socrates say at the end of the Republic that, whether this City exists anywhere or not, it is the only city (...) in which the thoughtful man would wish to take part. But even so, as Schall says, revelation alerts us to the possibility that our true home will really be elsewhere. (shrink)

The city of Cincinnati, we know, can be an engaging place, but federal judge Arthur Spiegel also found, in the mid-'90s, that it could be quite a vexing place. The city council of Cincinnati had passed what was called the Human Rights Ordinance of 1992, which barred virtually all species of discriminationAppalachian origin.sexual orientation.minority status” in the law. The framers of the amendment objected to the tendency to treat gays and lesbians on the same plane as groups that have suffered (...) discrimination based on race, religion, or gender. The proposal, known as Issue 3, drew wide support and passed in a referendum in 1993. It was, of course, challenged in the courts, which is why it found its way into the hands of Judge Spiegel. (shrink)

After reestablishing the connection between morality and the law, the author develops a coherent position on many of the most controversial issues of urban life: the political uses of the streets; verbal assaults and the defamation of racial groups; the legitimate restriction of public speech; segregation, busing, and the use of racial quotas; education, housing, and the problem of the ghetto"; prostitution, gambling, and the "regulation of vices." Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology (...) to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Bringing together new theory and critical perspectives on a broad range of topics in animal ethics, this book examines the implications of recent developments in the various fields that bear upon animal ethics. Showcasing a new generation of thinkers, it exposes some important shortcomings in existing animal rights theory.

This chapter contains sections titled: God and the primordial causes God and the world: theophany “Man: how great a thing and great a name, the image of divine nature” (V, 821C) Last things Eriugena in his time and beyond.

Bathos - remarque -- Pt. 1. Le champ de bataille -- Pt. 2. Kant et ses juges -- Pt. 3. Traité de bathologie.

Mary Anne Warren investigates a theoretical question that is at the centre of practical and professional ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? That is: what does it take to be an entity towards which people have moral considerations? Warren argues that no single property will do as a sole criterion, and puts forward seven basic principles which establish moral status. She then applies these principles to three controversial moral issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion, and the status of non-human (...) animals. (shrink)

Much of traditional AI exemplifies the explicit representation paradigm, and during the late 1980''s a heated debate arose between the classical and connectionist camps as to whether beliefs and rules receive an explicit or implicit representation in human cognition. In a recent paper, Kirsh (1990) questions the coherence of the fundamental distinction underlying this debate. He argues that our basic intuitions concerning explicit and implicit representations are not only confused but inconsistent. Ultimately, Kirsh proposes a new formulation of the distinction, (...) based upon the criterion ofconstant time processing.The present paper examines Kirsh''s claims. It is argued that Kirsh fails to demonstrate that our usage of explicit and implicit is seriously confused or inconsistent. Furthermore, it is argued that Kirsh''s new formulation of the explicit-implicit distinction is excessively stringent, in that it banishes virtually all sentences of natural language from the realm of explicit representation. By contrast, the present paper proposes definitions for explicit and implicit which preserve most of our strong intuitions concerning straightforward uses of these terms. It is also argued that the distinction delineated here sustains the meaningfulness of the abovementioned debate between classicists and connectionists. (shrink)