Making use of our prescientific understanding of things, as well as relevant scientific theories, this book presents original arguments for monism with respect to the concept of a natural kind, for essentialism with respect to the members of a natural kind, and for natural-kinds realism with respect to a few chemical, physical, and biological kinds.

Wherever we look, we notice complexity. Philosophically, the concept constitutes a tangled web of problems, in theory as well as daily life. Complexity and Analysis is a meticulous rendering of these problems, tackling the seldom considered nature of complexity that confronts ontological analysts and holists alike. Stewart Umphrey expertly describes the limits of analysis as they have come to light within mathematics, the natural sciences, and analytic philosophy, explaining how Aristotle came upon, and sought to move beyond, the limits of (...) ontological analysis. In trying to understand any complex entity, Umphrey argues, one succeeds in meeting the criterion of metaphysical adequacy only if one fails to meet the crietrion of epistemological adequacy. Ranging across an array of subjects including Kantian and Hegelian idealism, this book provides a superb account of how our own complexity presents not only theoretical problems, but ethical and political dilemmas of great practical significance. (shrink)

Goldberg regards the Protagoras as "an artistic whole" intended to invite and direct an inquiry associated with, but deeper than, that dramatized in the dialogue itself. Accordingly he investigates not only the theme of virtue's teachability but also, for example, the difference between the sophist Protagoras and the philosopher Socrates, and the relation of each to Athens in particular, and to political society in general. Goldberg does not try to reconstruct the position of the historical Protagoras. Nor does he try (...) to elicit from the Protagoras Plato's moral theory at the time. Nor is his principal intention to present another in the series of essays on Prt 329-33 or 349-60. Debates with other commentators are confined to end-notes. There is a select bibliography, but no index. (shrink)

In her study of the Republic Annas has progressed, she says, from initial shock and disgust to fascination with the parts, then to an understanding of the whole. The understanding she presents is on the whole traditional: Bk. I of the Republic is a Socratic introduction to a Platonic teaching; Bks. II-IV and VIII-IX contain the main argument, a moral argument about justice; Bk. X is a lame and messy appendix. This Introduction is uncommonly good in three respects. First, though (...) she tells us that the Republic is not a self-contained whole, Annas shows us that one can gain much by treating the dialogue apart from earlier and later members of the Platonic Corpus, and by refusing to treat the dialogue's parts apart from the dialogue as a whole. Secondly, though it belies a residual waspishness, her writing is a model of lucidity. Thirdly, though she argues that Plato was mistaken or confused about many things, her work is primarily an introduction to the Republic for English-speaking readers today, only secondarily an exposition of her own thoughts about justice, and only incidentally a synopsis of recent literature about the dialogue. (shrink)

Wright's book has four parts: an introduction, in which she presents and discusses evidence regarding Empedocles' life, attempts to reconstruct the teachings offered in his Physics and Katharmoi, introduces rules for allocating fragments to one or the other of these two poems, discusses their traditional titles, and provides concordances; a presentation of the extant fragments, together with their immediate contexts and a full critical apparatus; a translation of each fragment together with a commentary; indices of sources, of words occurring in (...) the fragments, of ancient texts cited in the introduction and commentary, and of "names and things.". (shrink)

While others were investigating the philosophical origins of modern political thought in the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke, Richard Kennington focused more on the philosophical origins of modern natural science in the works of Bacon and Descartes. This book collects the widely scattered fruits of his investigations. There are fourteen essays in all—four on Bacon and seven on Descartes, followed by one each on Spinoza, Leibniz, and Locke. He wrote them over a period of almost four decades. Six are (...) published here for the first time. By reading them straight through in their present order, one realizes that Kennington returned again and again to the same fundamental themes. Yet there is no sense that he repeated himself: reiterations occur in different contexts, sometimes with different audiences in mind, and in each case he seems to be thinking something through from the beginning, as if for the first time. (shrink)