This article examines James of Viterbo’s theory of seminal reasons as inchoate forms. James intends this theory to explain how the eduction of substantial forms from the potency of matter does not entail that such forms are created ex nihilo. Substantial forms that come to be in generation preexist in matter as forms in potency. The form in potency is an inchoation of, or aptitude or propensity for, the form that comes to be in act. Generation is thus (...) understood by James to be a modal change, for the form in potency and the form in act are one and the same thing ; they differ only with regard to their mode of being. James’s theory of inchoate forms is a development of Bonaventure’s theory of seminal reasons, but reformulated with the help of Simplicius and Averroes. (shrink)

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.

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.

This book explores the Bayesian approach to the logic and epistemology of scientific reasoning. Section 1 introduces the probability calculus as an appealing generalization of classical logic for uncertain reasoning. Section 2 explores some of the vast terrain of Bayesian epistemology. Three epistemological postulates suggested by Thomas Bayes in his seminal work guide the exploration. This section discusses modern developments and defenses of these postulates as well as some important criticisms and complications that lie in wait for the Bayesian (...) epistemologist. Section 3 applies the formal tools and principles of the first two sections to a handful of topics in the epistemology of scientific reasoning: confirmation, explanatory reasoning, evidential diversity and robustness analysis, hypothesis competition, and Ockham's Razor. (shrink)

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This (...) accurate translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

Presenting the first book-length study in English of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, this work takes a fresh look at this seminal text on false reasoning.

This book aims to lay bare the logical foundations of tractable reasoning. It draws on Marvin Minsky's seminal work on frames, which has been highly influential in computer science and, to a lesser extent, in cognitive science. Only very few people have explored ideas about frames in logic, which is why the investigation in this book breaks new ground. The apparent intractability of dynamic, inferential reasoning is an unsolved problem in both cognitive science and logic-oriented artificial intelligence. By means (...) of a logical investigation of frames and frame concepts, Andreas devises a novel logic of tractable reasoning, called frame logic. Moreover, he devises a novel belief revision scheme, which is tractable for frame logic. These tractability results shed new light on our logical and cognitive means to carry out dynamic, inferential reasoning. Modularity remains central for tractability, and so the author sets forth a logical variant of the massive modularity hypothesis in cognitive science. (shrink)

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This (...) accurate translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

Anthony Barron explores the relationship between the philosophy of Schopenhauer and the forms and themes of Beckett's critical and creative writings. He shows that Beckett's aesthetic preoccupations are consonant with some of Schopenhauer's seminal arguments regarding the arational basis of artistic composition and appreciation and the impotence of reason in human affairs. While Beckett's critical writings are, in places, formidably opaque, this work examines the ways in which such texts can be elucidated when their intertextual affinities with Schopenhauer's arguments (...) are revealed. Using Schopenhauer's thought as a presiding interpretative framework, Barron demonstrates how the widespread presence of philosophical and theological ideas in Beckett's creative texts signifies less about his personal convictions than it does about his authorial aims. He thereby highlights the ways in which discursive ideas were appropriated and manipulated by Beckett for purely literary ends -- Back cover. (shrink)

Tyler Burge presents a collection of his seminal essays on Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), who has a strong claim to be seen as the founder of modern analytic philosophy, and whose work remains at the centre of philosophical debate today. Truth, Thought, Reason gathers some of Burge's most influential work from the last twenty-five years, and also features important new material, including a substantial introduction and postscripts to four of the ten papers. It will be an essential resource for any (...) historian of modern philosophy, and for anyone working on philosophy of language, epistemology, or philosophical logic. (shrink)

Some of the most challenging questions in philosophical ethics concern the justification of action. Can you have reasons to do something that you are not, and perhaps cannot be, motivated to do? If reasons rest on desires, why respect the rights and interests of others when doing so prevents us from getting what we want? In other words, why be moral? In his 1979 essay, "Internal and External Reasons," Bernard Williams framed the dispute about reason and motivation (...) in a way that captured the philosophical imagination. An explosion of work on reasons and action followed, with influential responses by Christine Korsgaard, John McDowell, and Michael Smith. This volume collects the most important work on the topic, including Williams's seminal essay, the responses by Korsgaard, McDowell, and Smith, and more recent contributions by central figures. Taken together, the selections offer a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art work on internal reasons and a distinctive, focused approach to foundational questions of ethical objectivity. A substantive introduction by Kieran Setiya skillfully guides the reader through the theoretical and conceptual terrain, explaining what is at stake in the larger debate. The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

In this chapter, we begin by sketching in the broadest possible strokes the ideas behind two formal systems that have been introduced with to goal of explicating the ways in which reasons interact to support the actions and conclusions they do. The first of these is the theory of defeasible reasoning developed in the seminal work of Pollock; the second is a more recent theory due to Horty, which adapts and develops the default logic introduced by Reiter to (...) provide an account of reasons. However, the implementations are complex enough, in both cases, to prevent anything more than this sketch. And we would not want to give the impression that we think that work on the logic of reasons must follow the path mapped out in either of these theories—indeed, we feel that the field is wide open. In the remainder of the chapter, therefore, will concentrate on a number of issues bearing on the logic of reasons that are either not treated in the work of Pollock and Horty, or whose treatment there is, we feel, either inadequate or incomplete. These are: first, the question of whether it is necessary to understand logical interactions among reasons themselves, rather than simply between reasons and the actions or conclusions they support, and if so, what principles might govern these interactions; second, priority relations among reasons and the notion of reason accrual; and third, some problems posed by undercutting defeat. (shrink)

This challenging and provocative book argues against much contemporary orthodoxy in philosophy and the social sciences by showing why objectivity in the domain of ethics is really no different from the objectivity of scientific knowledge. Many philosophers and social scientists have challenged the idea that we act for objectively authoritative reasons. Jean Hampton takes up the challenge by undermining two central assumptions of this contemporary orthodoxy: that one can understand instrumental reasons without appeal to objective authority, and that (...) the adoption of the scientific world view requires no such appeal. In the course of the book Jean Hampton examines moral realism, the general nature of reason and norms, internalism and externalism, instrumental reasoning, and the expected utility model of practical reasoning. The book is sure to prove to be a seminal work in the theory of rationality that will be read by a broad swathe of philosophers and social scientists. (shrink)

In his seminal _Philosophy of David Hume_, Norman Kemp Smith called for a study of Hume "in all his manifold activities: as philosopher, as political theorist, as economist, as historian, and as man of letters," indicating that "Hume's philosophy, as the attitude of mind that found for itself these various forms of expression, will then have been presented, adequately and in due perspective, for the first time." Claudia Schmidt seeks to address this long-standing need in Hume scholarship. Against the (...) charges that Hume holds no consistent philosophical position, offers no constructive account of rationality, and sees no positive relation between philosophy and other areas of inquiry, Schmidt argues for the overall coherence of Hume's thought as a study of "reason in history." She develops this interpretation by tracing Hume's constructive account of human cognition and its historical dimension as a unifying theme across the full range of his writings. Hume, she shows, provides a positive account of the ways in which our concepts, beliefs, emotions, and standards of judgment in different areas of inquiry are shaped by experience, both in the personal history of the individual and in the life of a community. This book is valuable at many levels: for students, as an introduction to Hume's writings and issues in their interpretation; for Hume specialists, as a unified and intriguing interpretation of his thought; for philosophers generally, as a synthesis of recent developments in Hume scholarship; and for scholars in other disciplines, as a guide to Hume's contributions to their own fields. (shrink)

In his seminal _Philosophy of David Hume_, Norman Kemp Smith called for a study of Hume "in all his manifold activities: as philosopher, as political theorist, as economist, as historian, and as man of letters," indicating that "Hume's philosophy, as the attitude of mind that found for itself these various forms of expression, will then have been presented, adequately and in due perspective, for the first time." Claudia Schmidt seeks to address this long-standing need in Hume scholarship. Against the (...) charges that Hume holds no consistent philosophical position, offers no constructive account of rationality, and sees no positive relation between philosophy and other areas of inquiry, Schmidt argues for the overall coherence of Hume's thought as a study of "reason in history." She develops this interpretation by tracing Hume's constructive account of human cognition and its historical dimension as a unifying theme across the full range of his writings. Hume, she shows, provides a positive account of the ways in which our concepts, beliefs, emotions, and standards of judgment in different areas of inquiry are shaped by experience, both in the personal history of the individual and in the life of a community. This book is valuable at many levels: for students, as an introduction to Hume's writings and issues in their interpretation; for Hume specialists, as a unified and intriguing interpretation of his thought; for philosophers generally, as a synthesis of recent developments in Hume scholarship; and for scholars in other disciplines, as a guide to Hume's contributions to their own fields. (shrink)

Gerald Gaus was one of the leading liberal theorists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He developed a pioneering defence of the liberal order based on its unique capacity to handle diversity and disagreement, and he presses the liberal tradition towards a principled openness to pluralism and diversity. This book brings together Gaus's most seminal and creative essays in a single volume for the first time. It also covers a broad span of his career, including essays published (...) shortly before his death, and topics including reasonable pluralism, moral rights, public reason, and the redistributive state. The volume makes accessible the work of one of the most important recent liberal theorists. Many readers will find it of value, especially those in political philosophy, political science, and economics. (shrink)

Gerald Gaus was one of the leading liberal theorists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He developed a pioneering defence of the liberal order based on its unique capacity to handle diversity and disagreement, and he presses the liberal tradition towards a principled openness to pluralism and diversity. This book brings together Gaus's most seminal and creative essays in a single volume for the first time. It also covers a broad span of his career, including essays published (...) shortly before his death, and topics including reasonable pluralism, moral rights, public reason, and the redistributive state. The volume makes accessible the work of one of the most important recent liberal theorists. Many readers will find it of value, especially those in political philosophy, political science, and economics. (shrink)

Susan Wolf’s compatibilism is unique for being ‘asymmetrical.' While holding that blameworthiness entails being able to avoid acting wrongly, she maintains that our freedom consists in single-mindedly pursuing Truth and Goodness. Comparing and contrasting her position to Saint Anselm’s seminal, libertarian approach to the same subject elicits serious questions, highlighting its drawbacks. How could freedom entail the inability to do certain things? In what sense are reasons causes? What sense can be made of a double standard for assignments (...) of responsibility? Is not self-control inconsistent with being caused to act by things independent of oneself? Does not virtue require struggling against falsehoods and evils by which one could be overcome? Wolf’s compatibilism must be rejected, I shall argue, in light of Anselm’s intuitively satisfying response to these concerns: we should prefer a philosophy that entails more of what we want from freedom without begging unanswerable questions of its own. (shrink)

Despite the enormous influence of Michel Foucault in gender studies, social theory, and cultural studies, his work has been relatively neglected in the study of politics. Although he never published a book on the state, in the late 1970s Foucault examined the technologies of power used to regulate society and the ingenious recasting of power and agency that he saw as both consequence and condition of their operation. These twelve essays provide a critical introduction to Foucault's work on politics, exploring (...) its relevance to past and current thinking about liberal and neo-liberal forms of government. Moving away from the great texts of liberal political philosophy, this book looks closely at the technical means with which the ideals of liberal political rationalities have been put into practice in such areas as schools, welfare, and the insurance industry. This fresh approach to one of the seminal thinkers of the twentieth century is essential reading for anyone interested in social and cultural theory, sociology, and politics. (shrink)

This book collects major original essays developed from lectures given at the award of the Lauener Prize 2016 to T. M. Scanlon for his outstanding oeuvre in Analytical philosophy. In "Contractualism and Justification," Scanlon identifies some difficulties in his theory and explores possible ways to deal with them. In "Improving Scanlon’s Contractualism," D. Parfit recommends revisions and extensions of Scanlon’s theory, while R. Forst suggests in "Justification Fundamentalism" that Scanlon may want to replace reason with justification as his foundational concept. (...) T. Nagel raises fundamental questions concerning "Moral Reality and Moral Progress," and S. Mantel offers in "On How to Explain Rational Motivation" a critical discussion of Scanlon’s cognitivist theory of motivation. Z. Stemplowska does the same for Scanlon’s conception of responsibility in "Substantive Responsibility and the Causal Thesis," and S. Olsaretti suggests in "Equality of Opportunity and Justified Inequalities" an alternative to Scanlon’s arguments against economic inequalities. All contributors receive extensive replies by Scanlon. For anyone interested in Scanlon’s seminal work in moral and political philosophy, the present volume is utterly indispensable. (shrink)

Niccolò Machiavelli's seminal work, The Prince, argued that a ruler could not govern morally and be successful. Giovanni Botero disputed this argument and proposed a system for the maintenance and expansion of a state that remained moral in character. Founding an anti-Machiavellian tradition that aimed to refute Machiavelli in practice, Botero is an important figure in early modern political thought, though he remains relatively unknown. His most notable work, Della ragion di Stato, first popularised the term 'reason of state' (...) and made a significant contribution to a major political debate of the time - the perennial issue of the relationship between politics and morality - and the book became a political 'bestseller' in the late sixteenth and the seventeenth century. This translation of the 1589 volume introduces Botero to a wider Anglophone readership and extends this influential text to a modern audience of students and scholars of political thought. (shrink)

Considered one of the most important works of modern philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason offers a profound exploration of the nature of knowledge and perception. In this English-language translation by JMD Meiklejohn, Immanuel Kant's seminal work is made accessible to a wider audience. Illuminating and challenging, this book is an essential resource for anyone interested in the history of philosophy and the nature of human thought. 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 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. 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)

Theoretical approaches to public opinion are hard to find in the sociological literature, with the exception of the seminal work of Jürgen Habermas. One important alternative, although almost unknown in the English-speaking world, is offered in a few contributions by the systems theoretician Niklas Luhmann. Both critical theory and systems theory start from a historical analysis of the conditions that led to the rise of a public sphere and understand its function as the limitation and control of the arbitrariness (...) of power. Critical theory considers the public sphere as a social space where citizens can participate and discuss freely and without constraints. Thus, it legitimizes political power. Systems theory presents a completely different concept of the public sphere and conceives of it in terms of second-order observation. Through public opinion the modern political system observes itself and stimulates as well as limits its decision-making processes. This paper argues that both approaches share the idea that the political system, like every other social subsystem, must generate a system-specific uncertainty in order to limit its own arbitrariness and to be able to develop its decision-making potential. Both approaches locate this uncertainty in the sphere of public opinion. But they radically differ in the way they conceptualize public opinion’s effects on modern politics. Such differences between critical theory and systems theory are illustrated by an analysis of recent political events. (shrink)

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major theoretical and practical contributions. Jonathan St B T Evans is amongst the foremost cognitive psychologists of his generation, having been influential in spearheading developments in the psychological study of reasoning from its very beginnings in the 1970s up to the present day. This volume of self-selected papers (...) recognises Professor Evan's major contribution to the psychological study of thinking and reasoning by bringing together his most influential and important works. Early selections in the book focus upon experimental studies of reasoning - matching bias in the Wason selection task, belief bias in syllogistic reasoning, and also seminal work on the understanding of conditional statements. The later selections include Evans' work on more general forms of dual process and dual system theory, and his recent account of two minds in one brain. The volume also contains chapters which highlight Evans' contribution to the topic of human rationality, and also his influence on the development of the "new paradigm" in the psychology of reasoning. The key developments in the psychology of reasoning are paralleled by those in Evans's own intellectual history, and the book will therefore make essential reading for all researchers in the psychology of reasoning, and a wider audience of graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with an interest in reasoning and/or dual process theory. (shrink)

The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Kant's three Critiques, one of his three major treatises on moral theory, and a seminal text in the history of moral philosophy. Originally published three years after his Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique provides further elaboration of the basic themes of Kant's moral theory, gives the most complete statement of his highly original theory of freedom of the will, and develops his practical metaphysics. This new edition of (...) Kant's Critique of Practical Reason – prepared by an acclaimed translator and scholar of Kant's practical philosophy – presents the first new translation of this work to appear for some years. A substantial and lucid introduction by Andrews Reath places the main themes of the Critique in the context of Kant's moral theory and his critical system. (shrink)

The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Kant's three Critiques, one of his three major treatises on moral theory, and a seminal text in the history of moral philosophy. Originally published three years after his Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique provides further elaboration of the basic themes of Kant's moral theory, gives the most complete statement of his highly original theory of freedom of the will, and develops his practical metaphysics. This new edition of (...) Kant's Critique of Practical Reason – prepared by an acclaimed translator and scholar of Kant's practical philosophy – presents the first new translation of this work to appear for some years. A substantial and lucid introduction by Andrews Reath places the main themes of the Critique in the context of Kant's moral theory and his critical system. (shrink)

The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Kant's three Critiques, one of his three major treatises on moral theory, and a seminal text in the history of moral philosophy. Originally published three years after his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique provides further elaboration of the basic themes of Kant's moral theory, gives the most complete statement of his highly original theory of freedom of the will, and develops his practical metaphysics. This revised edition of (...) Kant's Critique of Practical Reason - which contains Mary Gregor's acclaimed translation - is now the authoritative translation of this work. A substantial and lucid introduction by Andrews Reath places the mains themes of the Critique in the context of Kant's moral theory and his critical system. For this edition, the introduction has been revised and the guide to the secondary reading completely updated. (shrink)

This seminal text in the history of moral philosophy elaborates the basic themes of Kant ’s moral theory, gives the most complete statement of his highly original theory of freedom of the will, and develops his practical metaphysics. This new edition, prepared by an acclaimed translator and scholar of Kant ’s practical philosophy, presents the first new translation of the work to appear for many years, together with a substantial and lucid introduction.

In recent years there has been an increasing awareness that a comprehensive understanding of language, cognitive and affective processes, and social and interpersonal phenomena cannot be achieved without understanding the ways these processes are grounded in bodily states. The term ‘embodiment’ captures the common denominator of these developments, which come from several disciplinary perspectives ranging from neuroscience, cognitive science, social psychology, and affective sciences. For the first time, this volume brings together these varied developments under one umbrella and furnishes a (...) comprehensive overview of this intellectual movement in the cognitive-behavioral sciences. (shrink)

In 1958, Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca published Traité de l'argumentation: La nouvelle rhétorique, the culmination of many years study. A seminal work in philosophy and rhetoric, it aimed to bring classical Aristotelian rhetoric into the modern era and present a model of argumentation that promoted action and reasonableness. One distinctive feature of the dense account found in this work is the claim that the success of argumentation can in part be measured by the responses of the audience for (...) which it is intended. By that standard, the project of the new rhetoric appears unsuccessful, because the audience for whom Perelman (and Olbrechts-Tyteca) expressly wrote was the audience least captivated by .. (shrink)

As it is well known, the characterization of knowledge in termsof “Justified True Belief” (JTB) has been deemed unsuccessful since the popularization of Gettier-type counterexamples. This paper revisits Gettier’s seminal work and examines his arguments carefully. It holds that Gettier counterexamples are based on unwarranted substitution moves; that one of his arguments seems persuasive because it conflates syntactic validity with semantic truth; that for such reasons his case is weaker than it appears; and that there is, in fact, (...) an avenue for escape open to the supporter of JTB. In short,I shall contend that Gettier’s cases are not genuine counterexamples to thestandard characterization of knowledge in terms of JTB and that, consequently,such characterization is not seriously affected. (shrink)

The History of Reason in the Age of Madness revolves around three axes: the Foucauldian critical-historical method, its relationship with enlightenment critique, and the way this critique is implemented in Foucault's seminal work, History of Madness. Foucault's exploration of the origins of psychiatry applies his own theories of power, truth and reason and draws on Kant's philosophy, shedding new light on the way we perceive the birth and development of psychiatric practice. Following Foucault's adoption of 'limit attitude', which investigates (...) the limits of our thinking as points of disruption and renewal of established frames of reference, this book dispels the widely accepted belief that psychiatry represents the triumph of rationalism by somehow conquering madness and turning it into an object of neutral, scientific perception. It examines the birth of psychiatry in its full complexity: in the late eighteenth century, doctors were not simply rationalists but also alienists, philosophers of finitude who recognized madness as an experience at the limits of reason, introducing a discourse which conditioned the formation of psychiatry as a type of medical activity. Since that event, the same type of recognition, the same anthropological confrontation with madness has persisted beneath the calm development of psychiatric rationality, undermining the supposed linearity, absolute authority and steady progress of psychiatric positivism. Iliopoulos argues that Foucault's critique foregrounds this anthropological problematic as indispensable for psychiatry, encouraging psychiatrists to become aware of the epistemological limitations of their practice, and also to review the ethical and political issues which madness introduces into the apparent neutrality of current psychiatric discourse. (shrink)

The seminal book on graph theory by Dénes Kőnig, published in the year 1936, collected notions and results from precursory works from the mid to late nineteenth century by Hamilton, Cayley, Sylvester and others. More importantly, Kőnig himself contributed many of his own results that he had obtained in the more than twenty years that he had been working on this subject matter. What is noteworthy is the fact that the fundamentals of what he calls directed graphs are taken (...) almost exhaustively from Paul Hertz' 1922 article on structural reasoning about sentences of the form a→b. This is not a fact that is well known in logical circles, even though Kőnig fully acknowledges this in his book. In view of the numerous trends in the recent decades to describe and explicate logical matters by means of graphs, the fact that it was Hertz' foundation of structural reasoning that informed basic notions of graph theory in the first place is highly significant. The main goal of this paper is to summarize Hertz' article and demonstrate how Kőnig integrates the notions and results presented therein in his book. This is followed by an exposition of how and when Hertz' results were reinvented in terms of graph theory. A critical discussion of the opinion expressed by both Hertz and Kőnig that the more general sentences of the form (a1,…,an)→b, introduced by Hertz in a companion article in 1923, cannot be interpreted by graphs concludes this paper. (shrink)

This seminal contribution to Kant studies, originally published in 1982, was the first to present a thorough survey and evaluation of Kant's theory of mind. Ameriks focuses on Kant's discussion of the Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason, and examines how the themes raised there are treated in the rest of Kant's writings. Ameriks demonstrates that Kant developed a theory of mind that is much more rationalistic and defensible than most interpreters have allowed.

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) remains a landmark work of philosophy and one that most students will encounter at some point in their studies. At nearly seven hundred pages of detailed and complex argument it is a demanding and intimidating read. James O’Shea’s introduction to the Critique seeks to make it less so. Aimed primarily at students coming to the book for the first time, it provides step-by-step analysis in clear, unambiguous prose. The conceptual problems Kant sought to (...) resolve are outlined and his conclusions concerning the nature of human knowledge and the possibility of metaphysics, and the arguments for those conclusions, are explored. Key concepts are explained throughout and the reader is provided with an unrivalled route map through the many and varied parts of the text. In addition, O’Shea’s careful and insightful analysis offers much for more seasoned readers of Kant and his interpretation provides a significant contribution to recent work. -/- “Exhibiting both care and liveliness, the text provides what it set out to offer, namely a readable and philosophically stimulating discussion of a difficult but seminal work. The discussion is genuinely approachable and clear without diminishing the difficulty of the problems it addresses. It provides students with a very helpful basis for understanding Kant’s book.” Graham Bird, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Manchester. (shrink)

There would seem to be a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in the public mind about the life stance of modern humanism and its philosophical underpinnings. As a committed humanist Pat Duffy Hutcheon has made many invaluable contributions to the clarification of the nature and origin of evolutionary naturalism as a necessary component of modern humanism. This collection of topical essays is the most recent addition to her ongoing pursuit, following her analysis of cultural development in Building Character and (...) Culture (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999) and her earlier seminal work tracing the evolution of the naturalistic basis of social-scientific thought in Leaving the Cave (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996). This, her newest book presents the ideas in the context of their time, of some of the most prominent thinkers who have, in one way or another, shaped the evolving philosophy of humanism over the centuries. It is a much needed and most welcome resource for any thoughtful person who wants to better appreciate the naturalistic view of human existence rather than the supernatural or mystical approaches that so regrettably dominate the current scene. (shrink)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks seminal contribution to contemporary thought defies disciplinary boundaries. From her early translations of Derrida to her subsequent engagement with Marxism, feminism and postcolonial studies and her recent work on human rights, the war on terror and globalization, she has proved to be one of the most vital of present-day thinkers. In this book Stephen Morton offers a wide-ranging introduction to and critique of Spivaks work. He examines her engagements with philosophers and other thinkers from Kant to (...) Paul de Man, feminists from Cixous to Helie-Lucas and literary texts by Charlotte Bronte, J. M. Coetzee, Mahasweta Devi and Jean Rhys. Spivaks thought is also situated in relation to subaltern studies. Throughout the book, Morton interrogates the materialist basis of Spivaks thought and demonstrates the ethical and political commitment which lies at the heart of her work. Stephen Morton provides an ideal introduction to the work of this complex and increasingly important thinker. (shrink)

It is argued that the multilayered model offered by the shared circuits model (SCM) falls short of capturing an essential aspect of social cognition, namely, its distributed nature. The SCM therefore falls short of modeling emergent social cognition and behavior.

Emotion events are undoubtedly socially constructed and emerge in interactions that take place in relationships; they are dynamic and situated in social-cultural contexts as Boiger and Mesquita (2012) argue. However, such constructions evolve within important limiting conditions set to human functioning. Our understanding of how emotional events are constructed can only be complete by assigning a central role to body, brain, and the social-physical conditions in the construction process, since these are critical constraints to human functioning.

Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning refers to the diagrammatic inferential practice that originated in the geometrical proofs of Euclid’s Elements. A seminal philosophical analysis of this practice by Manders (‘The Euclidean diagram’, 2008) has revealed that a systematic method of reasoning underlies the use of diagrams in Euclid’s proofs, leading in turn to a logical analysis aiming to capture this method formally via proof systems. The central premise of this paper is that our understanding of Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning can be fruitfully (...) advanced by confronting these logical and philosophical analyses with the field of cognitive science. Surprisingly, central aspects of the philosophical and logical analyses resonate in very natural ways with research topics in mathematical cognition, spatial cognition and the psychology of reasoning. The paper develops these connections, concentrating on four issues: (1) the cognitive origins of Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning, (2) the cognitive representations of spatial relations in Euclidean diagrams, (3) the nature of the cognitive processes and cognitive representations involved in Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning seen as a form of visuospatial relational reasoning and (4) the complexity of Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning for the human cognitive system. For each of these issues, our analysis generates concrete experiment proposals, opening thereby the way for further empirical investigations. The paper is thus a prolegomenon to a research program on Euclidean diagrammatic reasoning at the crossroads of logic, philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

While Maimonides reread his sources to reconcile biblical and rabbinic texts with the demands of reason, Hermann Cohen, in his construction of a “religion of reason,” rereads Maimonides' rereadings of those very same texts. Maimonides' Judaism often bridges the sources toward Cohen's religion of reason by providing a philological anchor that nudges a term or verse now viewed through a more modern historical and evolutionary lens toward its ultimate reason-infused meaning. This paper will explore a hitherto neglected feature of their (...) oeuvres that unites Maimonides and Cohen as much as it distinguishes them: the “Jewishness” shared by both, as evident in the most Jewish of all exercises that suffuses both their works, biblical and midrashic exegesis. Their exegetical nets are systematically cast widely throughout the breadth of the Hebrew Bible, but more often than not they offer highly discrepant readings of the same passage or prooftext. Cohen's referencing of many of the same sources appeals to their Maimonidean rationalist refurbishment, but at the same time often places them in combative discourse in order to subvert and reorient Maimonides' exegesis. The notions of divine names, the “image” ( tselem ) of God, “nearness” to God, and divine “glory” ( kavod ) are closely examined to demonstrate this intertextual relationship between these two seminal Jewish thinkers. While Cohen may be misreading Maimonides' rereading of scripture, he remains a true hermeneutical disciple in his exegetical restructuring and realignment of scripture. Cohen's programmatic exegetical idealization of Maimonidean prooftexts to reconstruct a new Kantianized God forms a common ground of discourse with Maimonides that traverses seven centuries of a quintessential Jewish enterprise. (shrink)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak asked a question in 1988: ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ That question was the expression of a lifetime of observation of the marginalised and witnessing of attempts to civilise the ‘aborigine’. Eventually, this question led to A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (CPR) in 1999. A seminal work, this book unsettled and reoriented the thoughts of scholars, brought up new questions and insights, and the very construct of civilisation and culture was (...) challenged. In 2000 a group of scholars, of whom many were Gayatri’s students—the first name of the celebrated thinker is being used in this review in keeping with her radical spirit—came together as a panel in the annual meeting of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, to deliberate on CPR. The panel discussions were engaging and elicited extraordinary response. This encouraged the publication of the proceedings as a special symposium in 2002 in the journal Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. The present book is a result of further working on these proceedings for more than a decade. (shrink)