This book makes a stimulating contribution to the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. It begins with a spirited defence of the view that propositions are structured and that propositional structure is 'psychologically real'. The author then develops a subtle view of propositions and attitude ascription. The view is worked out in detail with attention to such topics as the semantics of conversations, iterated attitude ascriptions, and the role of propositions as bearers of truth. Along the way important issues (...) in the philosophy of mind are addressed. Though intended primarily for professional philosophers and graduate students the book will also interest cognitive scientists and linguists. (shrink)

This is one of the most important books on quantum mechanics to have appeared in recent years. It offers a dramatically new interpretation that resolves puzzles and paradoxes associated with the measurement problem and the behavior of coupled systems. A crucial feature of this interpretation is that a quantum mechanical measurement can be certain to have a particular outcome even when the observed system fails to have the property corresponding to that outcome just prior to the measurement interaction.

Is it possible to preserve national security through ethical policies? Richard Ned Lebow seeks to show that ethics are actually essential to the national interest. Recapturing the wisdom of classical realism through a close reading of the texts of Thucydides, Clausewitz and Hans Morgenthau, Lebow argues that, unlike many modern realists, classic realists saw close links between domestic and international politics, and between interests and ethics. Lebow uses this analysis to offer a powerful critique of post-Cold War American foreign (...) policy. He also develops an ontological foundation for ethics and makes the case for an alternate ontology for social science based on Greek tragedy's understanding of life and politics. This is a topical and accessible book, written by a leading scholar in the field. (shrink)

How were the Greeks of the sixth century BC able to invent philosophy and tragedy? In this book Richard Seaford argues that a large part of the answer can be found in another momentous development, the invention and rapid spread of coinage which produced the first ever thoroughly monetised society. By transforming social relations, monetisation contributed to the ideas of the universe as an impersonal system and of the individual alienated from his own kin and from the gods. Seaford (...) argues that an important precondition for this monetisation was the Greek practice of animal sacrifice, as represented in Homeric Epic, which describes a premonetary world on the point of producing money. This book combines social history, economic anthropology, numismatics and the close reading of literary, inscriptional, and philosophical texts. Questioning the origins and shaping force of Greek philosophy, this is a major book with wide appeal. (shrink)

This volume offers a comprehensive survey of the main periods, schools, and individual proponents of scepticism in the ancient Greek and Roman world. The contributors examine the major developments chronologically and historically, ranging from the early antecedents of scepticism to the Pyrrhonist tradition. They address the central philosophical and interpretive problems surrounding the sceptics' ideas on subjects including belief, action, and ethics. Finally, they explore the effects which these forms of scepticism had beyond the ancient period, and the ways in (...) which ancient scepticism differs from scepticism as it has been understood since Descartes. The volume will serve as an accessible and wide-ranging introduction to the subject for non-specialists, while also offering considerable depth and detail for more advanced readers. (shrink)

According to the Asymmetry, we’ve strong moral reason to prevent miserable lives from coming into existence, but no moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. This procreative asymmetry is often thought to be part of commonsense morality, however theoretically puzzling it might prove to be. I argue that this is a mistake. The Asymmetry is merely prima facie intuitive, and loses its appeal on further reflection. Mature commonsense morality recognizes no fundamental procreative asymmetry. It may recognize some superficially similar (...) theses, but we will see that they derive from more familiar principles, and are compatible with there being moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. (shrink)

First published in 1974, this book presents a coherent collection of major articles by Richard Stanley Peters. It displays his work on psychology and philosophy, with special attention given to the areas of ethical development and human understanding. The book is split into four parts. The first combines a critique of psychological theories, especially those of Freud, Piaget and the Behaviourists, with some articles on the nature and development of reason and the emotions. The second looks in historical order (...) at ethical development. The third part combines a novel approach to the problem of understanding other people, whilst the fourth part is biographical in an unusual way. The volume can be viewed as a companion to the author’s _Ethics and Education _and will appeal to students and teachers of education, philosophy and psychology, as well as to the interested non-specialist reader. (shrink)

This book presents a theoretical treatment of externalities, public goods, and club goods. The new edition updates and expands the discussion of externalities and their implications, coverage of asymmetric information, underlying game-theoretic formulations, and intuitive and graphical presentations. Aimed at well-prepared undergraduates and graduate students making a serious foray into this branch of economics, the analysis should also interest professional economists wishing to survey recent advances in the field. No other single source for the range of materials explored is currently (...) available. Topics investigated include Nash equilibrium, Lindahl equilibria, club theory, preference-revelation mechanism, Pigouvian taxes, the commons, Coase Theorem, and static and repeated games. The authors use mathematical techniques only as much as necessary to pursue the economic argument. They develop key principles of public economics that are useful for subfields such as public choice, labor economics, economic growth, international economics, environmental and natural resource economics, and industrial organization. (shrink)

It has been about fifty years since the topic of divine impassibility was the subject of book-length philosophical treatments in English. In recent years process and analytic philosophers have returned this issue to the forefront of professional attention. Divine Impassibility traces the issue of classical sources, relates the positions of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century books, and surveys the writings of contemporary British analytic philosophers such as Peter Geach, Anthony Kenny, Richard Swinburne, John Hick, and H. P. Owen, American analytic (...) philosophers such as Norman Kretzmann, Eleonore Stump, Nelson Pike, Robert Adams, and Bruce Reichenbach, and process philosophers such as Charles Hartshorne and Lewis Ford. The author shows that clear, adequate analysis of the issue must distinguish four respects in which God might be passible or impassible: nature, will, knowledge, and feeling. He shows also how decisions on this topic bear on numerous others in philosophical theology such as creation, eternality, evil, and human freedom. His creative proposals on these and other topics attempt to go beyond the difficulties of both classical and process conceptions of God. (shrink)

Isaac Newton was indisputably one of the greatest scientists in history. His achievements in mathematics and physics marked the culmination of the movement that brought modern science into being. Richard Westfall's biography captures in engaging detail both his private life and scientific career, presenting a complex picture of Newton the man, and as scientist, philosopher, theologian, alchemist, public figure, President of the Royal Society, and Warden of the Royal Mint. An abridged version of his magisterial study Never at Rest, (...) this concise biography makes Westfall's highly acclaimed portrait of Newton newly accessible to general readers. (shrink)

This introduction to the special issue on well-being and health explores the ways that philosophical inquiry into well-being can play a productive role in understanding health and medicine. We offer an explanation of the concept of well-being, central theories of well-being, and how these key topics, along with other cutting-edge issues such as disability and cross-cultural reflections, can contribute to the discourse on the nature of health and medicine. We also provide brief overviews of the essays in this special issue (...) and highlight the significant philosophical implications they have for understanding both well-being and health. (shrink)

Language and tradition have long been relegated to the sidelines as scholars have considered the role of politics, science, technology and economics in the making of the modern world. This reading of over two centuries of philosophy, political theory, anthropology, folklore and history argues that new ways of imagining language and representing supposedly premodern people - the poor, labourers, country folk, non-europeans and women - made political and scientific revolutions possible. The connections between language ideologies, privileged linguistic codes, and political (...) concepts and practices shape the diverse ways we perceive ourselves and others. This 2003 book demonstrates that contemporary efforts to make schemes of social inequality based on race, gender, class and nationality seem compelling and legitimate, rely on deeply-rooted ideas about language and tradition. Showing how critics of modernity unwittingly reproduce these foundational fictions, it suggests strategies for challenging the undemocratic influence of these voices of modernity. (shrink)

The way language as a human faculty has evolved is a question that preoccupies researchers from a wide spread of disciplines. In this book, a team of writers has been brought together to examine the evolution of language from a variety of such standpoints, including language's genetic basis, the anthropological context of its appearance, its formal structure, its relation to systems of cognition and thought, as well as its possible evolutionary antecedents. The book includes Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch's seminal and (...) provocative essay on the subject, 'The Faculty of Language,' and charts the progress of research in this active and highly controversial field since its publication in 2002. This timely volume will be welcomed by researchers and students in a number of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology, psychology, and cognitive science. (shrink)

What was it like to be a practitioner of Pyrrhonist skepticism? This important volume brings together for the first time a selection of Richard Bett's essays on ancient Pyrrhonism, allowing readers a better understanding of the key aspects of this school of thought. The volume examines Pyrrhonism's manner of self-presentation, including its methods of writing, its desire to show how special it is, and its use of humor; it considers Pyrrhonism's argumentative procedures regarding specific topics, such as signs, space, (...) or the Modes; and it explores what it meant in practice to live as a Pyrrhonist, including the kind of ethical outlook which Pyrrhonism might allow and, in general, the character of a skeptical life - and how far these might strike us as feasible or desirable. It also shows how Pyrrhonism often raises questions that matter to us today, both in our everyday lives and in our philosophical reflection. (shrink)

In his new introduction, "Note on a Missing Text," Richard Wolin uses the absence from this edition of an interview with Jacques Derrida as a springboard for ...

Above all other titles, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) prized that of logician. He thought of logic broadly, such that it includes not merely formal logic but an examination of the entire process of inquiry. His works are replete with detailed investigations into logical questions. Peirce is especially concerned to show that valid inferential processes, diligently followed, will eventually root out error and alight on the truth. Peirce on Inference draws together diverse strands from Peirce's lifelong reflections on logic in order (...) to develop a comprehensive perspective on Peirce's theory of inference. -/- Peirce argues that each genus of inference--deduction, induction, and abduction--has a different truth-producing virtue. An inference is valid just in case the procedure used in fact has the truth-producing virtue claimed for it and the person making the inference adheres to the procedure. In successive chapters, this book shows how Peirce supports the thesis that these genera of inference have the truth-producing virtues claimed for them and how Peirce responds to objections. Among the objections given consideration are the liar paradox, Hume's problem of induction, Goodman's new riddle of induction, that this may be a chance world, and that we are incapable of conceiving the true hypothesis. The book defends several controversial theses, including that Peirce does not so strongly object to Bayesianism as is sometimes claimed and that prior to 1900 Peirce had no explicit theory of abduction. It also proposes a novel account of abduction. (shrink)

Orientalism and Religion offers us a timely discussion of the implications of contemporary post-colonial theory for the study of religion. Drawing on a variety of post-structuralist and post-colonial thinkers, including Foucault, Gadamer, Said, and Spivak, Richard King examines the way in which notions such as mysticism, religion, Hinduism and Buddhism are taken for granted, and shows us how religion needs to be redescribed along the lines of cultural studies.

Richard Brandt is one of the most influential moral philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He is especially important in the field of ethics for his lucid and systematic exposition of utilitarianism. This new book represents in some ways a summation of his views and includes many useful applications of his theory. The focus of the book is how value judgments and moral belief can be justified. More generally, the book assesses different moral systems and theories (...) of justice, and considers specific problems such as the optimal level of charity and the moral tenability of the criminal law. This book will be essential reading for all professional philosophers concerned with ethics, and will prove helpful to students as well. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to an examination of the discovery, characterization, and analysis of the functions of microRNAs, which also serves as a vehicle for demonstrating the importance of exploratory experimentation in current (post-genomic) molecular biology. The material on microRNAs is important in its own right: it provides important insight into the extreme complexity of regulatory networks involving components made of DNA, RNA, and protein. These networks play a central role in regulating development of multicellular organisms and illustrate the importance (...) of epigenetic as well as genetic systems in evolution and development. The examination of these matters yields principled arguments for the historicity of the functions of key biological molecules and for the indispensability of exploratory experimentation in contemporary molecular biology as well as some insight into the complex interplay between exploratory experimentation and hypothesis-driven science. This latter result is not only important for philosophy of science, but also of practical importance for the evaluation of grant proposals, although the elaboration of this latter claim must be left for another occasion. (shrink)

What is a technical object? At the beginning of Western philosophy, Aristotle contrasted beings formed by nature, which had within themselves a beginning of movement and rest, and man-made objects, which did not have the source of their own production within themselves. This book, the first of three volumes, revises the Aristotelian argument and develops an innovative assessment whereby the technical object can be seen as having an essential, distinct temporality and dynamics of its own. The Aristotelian concept persisted, in (...) one form or another, until Marx, who conceived of the possibility of an evolution of technics. Lodged between mechanics and biology, a technical entity became a complex of heterogeneous forces. In a parallel development, while industrialization was in the process of overthrowing the contemporary order of knowledge as well as contemporary social organization, technology was acquiring a new place in philosophical questioning. Philosophy was for the first time faced with a world in which technical expansion was so widespread that science was becoming more and more subject to the field of instrumentality, with its ends determined by the imperatives of economic struggle or war, and with its epistemic status changing accordingly. The power that emerged from this new relation was unleashed in the course of the two world wars. Working his way through the history of the Aristotelian assessment of technics, the author engages the ideas of a wide range of thinkers—Rousseau, Husserl, and Heidegger, the paleo-ontologist Leroi-Gourhan, the anthropologists Vernant and Detienne, the sociologists Weber and Habermas, and the systems analysts Maturana and Varela. (shrink)

Beliefs come in different strengths. What are the norms that govern these strengths of belief? Let an agent's belief function at a particular time be the function that assigns, to each of the propositions about which she has an opinion, the strength of her belief in that proposition at that time. Traditionally, philosophers have claimed that an agent's belief function at any time ought to be a probability function (Probabilism), and that she ought to update her belief function upon obtaining (...) new evidence by conditionalizing on that evidence (Conditionalization). Until recently, the central arguments for these claims have been pragmatic. But these putative justifications fail to identify what is epistemically irrational about violating Probabilism or Conditionalization. A new approach, which I will call epistemic utility theory, attempts to remedy this. It treats beliefs as epistemic acts; and it appeals to the notion of an epistemic utility function, which measures of how epistemically valuable a particular belief function is for a particular way the world might be. It then formulates fundamental epistemic norms that are analogous to the fundamental practical norms that underlie decision theory. I survey the results obtained so far in this young research project, and present a sustained critique of certain assumptions that have been made by a number of philosophers working in this area. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, or Basic Laws of Arithmetic, was intended to be his magnum opus, the book in which he would finally establish his logicist philosophy of arithmetic. But because of the disaster of Russell's Paradox, which undermined Frege's proofs, the more mathematical parts of the book have rarely been read. Richard G.

Cause is a problematic concept in social science, as in all fields of knowledge. We organise information in terms of cause and effect to impose order on the world, but this can impede a more sophisticated understanding. In his latest book, Richard Ned Lebow reviews understandings of cause in physics and philosophy and concludes that no formulation is logically defensible and universal in its coverage. This is because cause is not a feature of the world but a cognitive shorthand (...) we use to make sense of it. In practice, causal inference is always rhetorical and must accordingly be judged on grounds of practicality. Lebow offers a new approach - 'inefficient causation' - that is constructivist in its emphasis on the reasons people have for acting as they do, but turns to other approaches to understand the aggregation of their behaviour. This novel approach builds on general understandings and idiosyncratic features of context. (shrink)

Aristotle's Modal Logic, first published in 1995, presents an interpretation of Aristotle's logic by arguing that a proper understanding of the system depends on an appreciation of its connection to the metaphysics. Richard Patterson develops three striking theses in the book. First, there is a fundamental connection between Aristotle's logic of possibility and necessity, and his metaphysics, and that this connection extends far beyond the widely recognised tie to scientific demonstration and relates to the more basic distinction between the (...) essential and accidental properties of a subject. Second, Aristotle's views on modal logic depend in very significant ways on his metaphysics without entailing any sacrifice in rigour. Third, once one has grasped the nature of the relationship, one can understand better certain genuine difficulties in the system of logic and appreciate its strengths in terms of the purposes for which it was created. (shrink)

The more the number of people who live on Earth grows, the more significant are the cuts individuals must accept in realization of their own freedom, so as not to limit the freedom of others. With the growing population on the finite planet the real space for freedom of each individual decreases. Moreover, the growth of complexity of the global industrial civilization increases the degree of interdependence on one hand, on the other the degree of mutual trust decreases as a (...) result of the imperative of growth and profit, and without it no human society can function in the long term. Access to sources necessary for the realization of fundamental freedoms is unequal, and, in fact, it thus limits its accessibility for the majority of human population. Philosophical reflection then should cope with question, whether the range of guaranteed freedoms can be broadened or at least sustained when the space for its realization with the growing human population struggling for increasingly limited resources narrows. (shrink)

The orderliness of the universe and the existence of human beings already provides some reason for believing that there is a God - as argued in Richard Swinburne's earlier book Is There a God? Swinburne now claims that it is probable that the main Christian doctrines about the nature of God and his actions in the world are true. In virtue of his omnipotence and perfect goodness, God must be a Trinity, live a human life in order to share (...) our suffering, and found a church which would enable him to tell all humans about this. It is also quite probable that he would provide his human life as an atonement for our wrongdoing, teach us how we should live and tell us his plans for our future after death. Among founders of religions, Jesus satisfies uniquely well the requirement of living the sort of human life which God would need to have lived. But to give us adequate reason to believe that Jesus was God, God would need to put his 'signature' on the life of Jesus by an act which he alone could do, for example raise him from the dead. There is adequate historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. The church which he founded gave plausible interpretations of his basic message. Therefore Christian doctrines are probably true. (shrink)

Useful to both students and scholars of the social sciences and humanities, this book provides a guide to fundamental issues in twentieth-century Marxist thought. Outlining the two distinct and incompatible critiques of vulgar Marxism-- Marxist-Leninism and humanistic Marxism--that gained prominence in the aftermath of World War I, this book presents both an historical overview of these two dominant traditions and a critical analysis of their philosophical roots. Challenging the viewpoints of Marxist thought which have prevailed in this century, Richard (...) Hudelson, argues that the supposed philosophical breakthroughs claimed by both Marxist-Leninism and humanistic Marxism rest upon flawed reasoning. With a careful critique of these prevailing views he presents his own view which while receptive to the social scientific work of current analytical Marxism, de-emphasizes the importance of philosophy in the study of Marxism. Hudelson contends that developments in contemporary philosophy of science will allow for an appreciation of the scientific Marxism of the Second International without recourse to the philosophical theories of humanistic Marxism and Marxist-Leninism. Also, using some of the more recent developments in the philosophy of science, this book makes possible a fruitful exchange between analytical Marxism and Marxist-Leninism. Divided into three parts, the book first presents a historical introduction which identifies positions and arguments of historical significance. This is followed by an analytical look at various arguments to determine where the strongest position lies. Finally, the author offers some concluding remarks on the significance of his analysis for current directions within Marxist philosophy. (shrink)

Abe Kobo was one of Japan's greatest postwar writers, widely recognized for his imaginative science fiction and plays of the absurd. However, he also wrote theoretical criticism for which he is lesser known, merging literary, historical, and philosophical perspectives into keen reflections on the nature of creativity, the evolution of the human species, and an impressive range of other subjects. Abe Kobo tackled contemporary social issues and literary theory with the depth and facility of a visionary thinker. Featuring twelve essays (...) from his prolific career -- including "Poetry and Poets," written in 1944, and "The Frontier Within, Part II," written in 1969 -- this anthology introduces English-speaking readers to Abe Kobo as critic and intellectual for the first time. Demonstrating the importance of his theoretical work to a broader understanding of his fiction -- and a richer portrait of Japan's postwar imagination -- Richard F. Calichman provides an incisive introduction to Abe Kobo's achievements and situates his essays historically and intellectually. (shrink)

This volume contains all of the presidential addresses given before the American Society for Value Inquiry since its first meeting in 1970. Contributions are by Richard Brandt*, Virgil Aldrich*, John W. Davis*, the late Robert S. Hartman*, James B. Wilbur*, the late William H. Werkmeister, Robert E. Carter, the late William T. Blackstone, Gene James, Eva Hauel Cadwallader, Richard T. Hull, Norman Bowie*, Stephen White*, Burton Leiser+, Abraham Edel, Sidney Axinn, Robert Ginsberg, Patricia Werhane, Lisa M. Newton, Thomas (...) Magnell, Sander Lee, John M. Abbarno, Ruth Miller Lucier, and Tom Regan*. Autobiographical sketches* by all of the living contributors and one recently deceased, biographical statements of the remainder, together with photographic portraits of all the contributors*, make this volume a unique record of value inquiry during the past quarter century. __. (shrink)

Originally published in 1909, this book presents a translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric by the renowned British classical scholar and politician Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb. An editorial introduction and supplementary notes by Sir John Edwin Sandys are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the works of Aristotle.