Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. These essays examine both Socrates' and modern political philosophers' attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor.
By all indications, the popularity of the Sense-Datum Theory is definitely on the wane. This once-proud theory, which was perhaps the most characteristic feature of British Philosophy during the first half of this century, has been attacked from so many different sides that even its foremost protagonists have either accepted the very watered-down version according to which it is just an alternative language for speaking about the facts of perception or else they hold their peace and let the youngsters play. (...) There are still some diehards who carry on as if nothing had happened, but they are an insignificant minority. (shrink)
Understanding consciousness is one of the central scientific challenges of our time. This book presents Andy Ross's recent work and discusses a range of perspectives on the core issues. The chapters are based on texts written for a variety of occasions and audiences. Reading them in order, one senses a growing clarity in the articulation of the new ideas, some of which are deep and rather subtle, and glimpses the outlines of a dynamic field. Ross has taken pains (...) to unify the collection and make the main thread clearly visible. His new ideas are of fundamental importance, and readers who grapple with them should gain insight that amply rewards the effort. (shrink)
2. Spinoza, as is well known, held both and explicitly and concluded that God does not act from free will. In Note II to Prop. 33 of the Ethics Spinoza says, "Although it be granted that will appertains to the essence of God, it nevertheless follows from His perfection that things could not have been by Him created other than they are or in a different order.".
Ted Honderich, 74, formerly Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at the University of London, recently published a short book on consciousness (Honderich, 2004). Colin McGinn, 57, his former colleague at University College London and now a professor of philosophy at the University of Miami, Florida, reviewed it (McGinn, 2007a). The review is quite long and detailed, but the first sentences set the tone. McGinn on Honderich: 'This book runs the full gamut from the mediocre to the (...) ludicrous to the merely bad. It is painful to read, poorly thought out, and uninformed. It is also radically inconsistent.'. (shrink)
