Plato's Euthyrphro, Apology, andCrito portray Socrates' words and deeds during his trial for disbelieving in the Gods of Athens and corrupting the Athenian youth, and constitute a defense of the man Socrates and of his way of life, the philosophic life. The twelve essays in the volume, written by leading classical philosophers, investigate various aspects of these works of Plato, including the significance of Plato's characters, Socrates's revolutionary religious ideas, and the relationship between historical events and Plato's texts.

Explores the nature of scientific theory and how we search for answers, drawing from examples such as Thomas Jefferson's surveying techniques and mathematics, map-making, and geology.

This collection contains the following sixteen essays: "Some Pivotal Issues in Spinoza," by Paul Weiss; "The Deductive Character of Spinoza's Metaphysics," by Michael Hooker; "Spinoza's Ontological Proof," by Willis Doney; "Spinozistic Anomalies," by Jose Benardete; "Some Idealistic Themes in the Ethics," by Robert N. Beck; "Spinoza's Dualism," by Alan Donagan; "Objects, Ideas, and 'Minds': Comments on Spinoza's Theory of Mind," by Margaret D. Wilson; "Parallelism and Complementarity: The Psycho-Physical Problem in the Succession of Niels Bohr," by Hans Jonas; "Spinoza's Political (...) Philosophy: The Lessons and Problems of a Conservative Democrat," by Lewis S. Feuer; "Notes on Spinoza's Critique of Religion," by Hilail Gilden [[sic]] ; "Spinoza and History," by James C. Morrison; "Kant's Critique of Spinoza," by Henry E. Allison; "Hegel's Assessment of Spinoza," by Kenneth L. Schmitz; "Spinoza's Logic of Inquiry: Rationalist or Experientialist?" by Isaac Franck; "De Natura," by Stewart Umphrey; "Analytic and Synthetic Methods in Spinoza's Ethics," by Richard Kennington. (shrink)

This book is a revised version of Morrison’s doctoral thesis. Unlike many revised theses, however, this book is very readable and clearly presented. Against the common, predominately negative view of Aristotle’s notion of place, this book takes a positive approach to place and has as its explicit aim to set out clearly Aristotle’s account of place in Physics 4.1–5 in such a way as to revive it as a piece of genuinely important philosophy. The author’s refreshingly positive approach to (...) this much-maligned topic in Aristotle serves to sustain the reader’s interest in the author’s interpretation of the sometimes complex and perplexing texts of Physics 4. (shrink)

Thomas Alexander shows that the primary, guiding concern of Dewey's philosophy is his theory of aesthetic experience.

In der neueren Forschung gehören die Substanzbücher der Metaphysik zu den meistdiskutierten Aristotelischen Texten. In den letzten zweieinhalb Jahrzehnten entwickelte sich eine umfangreiche Diskussion, die zu einem ganz neuen Bild von der Aristotelischen Substanzlehre führte. Eine für die Seminararbeit zugängliche Übersicht über diese Diskussion und den neuesten Stand der Forschung lag aber bisher im deutschen Sprachraum nicht vor. Der Band hilft diesem Mangel ab. Seine Beiträge geben unterschiedliche Standpunkte wieder und reflektieren den jeweiligen Forschungsstand, so dass sowohl für die Seminardiskussion (...) als auch für die eigene Beschäftigung mit diesem Thema eine direkt aus der Forschung gewonnene Grundlage vorliegt. MIT BEITRÄGEN VON: Andreas Anagnostopoulos, Thomas Buchheim, Mary Louise Gill, Donald Morrison, Christof Rapp, Holmer Steinfath, Walter Mesch und Michael V. Wodin. (shrink)

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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. 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)

Many recent evolutionary psychology and human behavioral ecology studies have tested hypotheses by examining correlations between variables measured at a group level (e.g., state, country, continent). In such analyses, variables collected for each aggregation are often taken to be representative of the individuals present within them, and relationships between such variables are presumed to reflect individual-level processes. There are multiple reasons to exercise caution when doing so, including: (1) the ecological fallacy, whereby relationships observed at the aggregate level do not (...) accurately represent individual-level processes; (2) non-independence of data points, which violates assumptions of the inferential techniques used in null hypothesis testing; and (3) cross-cultural non-equivalence of measurement (differences in construct validity between groups). We provide examples of how each of these gives rise to problems in the context of testing evolutionary hypotheses about human behavior, and we offer some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Perhaps only Tar Baby is as enigmatic and compelling a figure from Afro-American mythic discourse as is that oxymoron, the Signifying Monkey.3 The ironic reversal of a received racist image of the black as simianlike, the Signifying Monkey—he who dwells at the margins of discourse, ever punning, ever troping, ever embodying the ambiguities of language—is our trope for repetition and revision, indeed, is our trope of chiasmus itself, repeating and simultaneously reversing in one deft, discursive act. If Vico and Burke, (...) or Nietzsche, Paul de Man, and Harold Bloom, are correct in identifying “master tropes,” then we might think of these as the “master’s tropes,” and of signifying as the slave’s trope, the trope of tropes, as Bloom characterizes metalepsis, “a trope-reversing trope, a figure of a figure.” Signifying is a trope that subsumes other rhetorical tropes, including metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, and also hyberbole, litotes, and metalepsis. To this list, we could easily add aporia, chiasmus, and catachresis, all of which are used in the ritual of signifying.The black tradition has its own subdivisions of signifying, which we could readily identify with the typology of figures received from classical and medieval rhetoric, as Bloom has done with his “maps of misprision.” In black discourse “signifying” means modes of figuration itself. When one signifies, as Kimberly W. Benston puns, one “tropes-a-dope.” The black rhetorical tropes subsumed under signifying would include “marking,” “loud-talking,” “specifying,” “testifying,” “calling out”, “sounding,” “rapping,” and “playing the dozens.”4 3. On Tar Baby, see Ralph Ellison, “Hidden Man and Complex Fate: A Writer’s Experience in the United States,” Shadow and Act, p. 147, and Toni Morrison, Tar Baby. On the black as quasi-simian, see Jean Bodin, Method for the Easy Comprehension of History, trans. Beatrice Reynolds, p. 105; Aristotle Historia Animalium 606b; Thomas Herbert, Some Years Travels, pp. 16-17; and John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 8th ed., 2 vols., 2:53.4. Geneva Smitherman defines these and other black tropes and then traces their use in several black texts. Smitherman’s work, like that of Claudia Mitchell-Kernan and Abrahams, is especially significant for literary theory. See Smitherman, Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America, pp. 101-66. See also nn. 13 and 14 below. (shrink)

Karl Marx is the most important modern philosopher. His work has radically changed the course of world history, continental philosophy, political theory, literary criticism, and cultural studies. The sheer range of his achievements, and the depth of his critical insights, continue to speak to our present moment. This book places Marx's writings in their historical context, providing a clear guide to his key ideas and intellectual legacy. Written for both students and scholars, it illustrates Marx's ideas with examples drawn from (...) William Shakespeare, Herman Melville, Leo Tolstoy, Bertolt Brecht, Theodor Dreiser, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, Sally Rooney, Claude McKay, Tennessee Williams, Mad Men, and Margin Call. Key ideas discussed in this guide include: Tracing historical contexts and developments in Marx's work over his lifetime; Focusing on Marxism as an interpretative strategy, paying special attention to its impact on literary criticism and cultural studies; Examining recent developments in Marxist theory, such as a stronger focus on the environment, climate crisis, and world ecology; Exploring the continued relevance of Marx and Marxism today. This Routledge Critical Thinkers guide will enable readers to critically assess and interpret Marx's major works, while also introducing his methods of critical analysis. Preparing readers to approach his original texts, this guide ensures that readers of all levels will find Marx accessible, challenging and of continued relevance. Andrew Rowcroft offers a comprehensive introduction to Marx's revolutionary ideas, examining the influence Marx had on literary studies, cultural studies, modernism, and philosophy. (shrink)

The Fiction of Postmodernityis a significant and accessible new study of the relation of postmodern fiction to theories of the postmodern. Contemporary works of fiction by novelists such as Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Thomas Pynchon and Martin Amis are viewed in relation to critiques of the 'culture industry', analyses of the 'postmodern condition' and theories of simulacra. The work of influential theorists of the postmodern - such as Theodor Adorno, Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson and Jean Baudrillard (...) - is explained and compared. The book offers descriptions of the postmodern from both the Marxist critical tradition and from the perspective of postmarxism. Key features in both these definitions are explained in relation to modernist and postmodern works of fiction. Issues relating to the postmodern representation of history and the development of a postmodern politics are also addressed in relation to works of contemporary fiction. Key Features Substantial readings of fiction by major contemporary authors (e.g. Thomas Pynchon, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo) Introduces influential theories of the postmodern (Fredric Jameson, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard) Analysis of the relationships of modernism and the avant-garde to postmodernism Focuses on the critical potential of postmodernism and postmodern fiction. (shrink)

Thomas V. Morris introduces philosophical theology, examining God's goodness, power and knowledge; God's relationship to creation and time; and God's Incarnation and Trinity. A Contours of Christian Philosophy book. 180 pages, paper.

Genome editing enables very accurate alterations to DNA. It promises profound and potentially disruptive changes in healthcare, agriculture, industry, and the environment. This paper presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the contemporary development of genome editing and the tension between continuity and change. It draws on the idea that actors involved in innovation are guided by “sociotechnical regimes” composed of practices, institutions, norms, and cultural beliefs. The analysis focuses on how genome editing is emerging in different domains and whether this marks (...) continuity or disruption of the established biotechnology regime. In conclusion, it will be argued that genome editing is best understood as a technology platform that is being powerfully shaped by this existing regime but is starting to disrupt the governance of biotechnology. In the longer term is it set to converge with other powerful technology platforms, which together will fundamentally transform the capacity to engineer life. (shrink)

Despite the close connection between the central limit theorem and renormalization group (RG) methods, the latter should be considered fundamentally distinct from the kind of probabilistic framework associated with statistical mechanics, especially the notion of averaging. The mathematics of RG is grounded in dynamical systems theory rather than probability, which raises important issues with respect to the way RG generates explanations of physical phenomena. I explore these differences and show why RG methods should be considered not just calculational tools but (...) the basis for a physical understanding of complex systems in terms of structural properties and relations. (shrink)

This book of fifteen essays is presented in honor of one of the premier historians of medieval philosophy, Armand Maurer of the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies and the University of Toronto. The authors, internationally recognized scholars in the field of medieval philosophy and theology, are friends, colleagues, and students of Fr. Maurer. They are united in a common love of medieval thought and a common appreciation of philosophizing through the study of the history of philosophy. Their interests and methodologies, (...) however, are diverse, and cover a range from Justin Marytr, who died during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, to Bartholomew Mastrius, a contemporary of Descartes. “This is a volume that honors the memory of Armand Maurer not only by reviewing his own scholarly achievements but by advancing the state of scholarship on the subject that he loved, the philosophy of the middle ages. The range of topics covered here richly reflect the pluralism of medieval thought. Some of the essays gathered for this collection give a fresh look at important perennial themes like the nature of Christian philosophy and the real distinction between essence and existence. Others turn—as Maurer loved to do—to figures who are studied less often that help fill out our knowledge of this period and add to our sense of the contributions that study of medieval authors can make for contemporary philosophizing.” —Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., Fordham University “This lovely Festschrift for Armand Maurer contains fourteen essays by distinguished scholars on the tradition of medieval philosophy, from its ancient origins to seventeenth-century inheritors. Since many essays treat large-scale movements or fundamental issues, the volume will be useful to serious undergraduates and graduate students, as well as to scholars._ Laudemus_ indeed: from the editor’s moving tribute to Armand Maurer, through discussions of Avicenna and Thomas and Ockham, to Maurer’s closing recollections of his teachers, this volume is full of well-earned praise.” —Donald Morrison, Rice University. (shrink)

This article reviews recent developments in experimental facial attractiveness research. It outlines the important social consequences of facial attractiveness in social life and briefly reviews the structural factors associated with attractiveness in both sexes taking a theoretical perspective largely influenced by evolutionary biology. The study discusses individual differences in preferences from this theoretical perspective. Attractiveness is also affected by aspects of the face that are manifestly not static. Facial motion and expression involve changing configurations of the face and the execution (...) of specific, discrete gestures that are likely to contribute to attractiveness and yet are largely neglected in the current literature. It shows how an evolutionary viewpoint is also useful when considering attractiveness judgments when expressive or dynamic cues are present in stimuli. (shrink)

This book represents emerging alternative perspectives to the "constructivist" orthodoxy that currently dominates the field of science and technology studies. Various contributions from distinguished Americans and Europeans in the field, provide arguments and evidence that it is not enough simply to say that science is "socially situated." Controversial Science focuses on important political, ethical, and broadly normative considerations that have yet to be given their due, but which point to a more realistic and critical perspective on science policy.

Understanding the development and practice of power based on an in-depth observation of human psychology has been a part of traditional Chinese thought for thousands of years and is considered a prerequisite for mastering the arts of strategy and leadership. "Thunder in the Sky" presents two secret classics of this ancient Chinese tradition. The commentary by Thomas Cleary the renowned translator of dozens of Asian classics highlights the contemporary application of these teachings.

Prandtl's work on the boundary layer theory is an interesting example for illustrating several important issues in philosophy of science such as the relation between theories and models and whether it is possible to distinguish, in a principled way, between pure and applied science. In what follows I discuss several proposals by the symposium participants regarding the interpretation of Prandtl's work and whether it should be characterized as an instance of applied science. My own interpretation of this example (1999) emphasised (...) the degree of autonomy embedded in Prandtl's boundary layer model and the way it became integrated in the larger theoretical context of hydrodynamics. In addition to extending that discussion here I also claim that the characterization of applied science which formed the basis for the symposium does not enable us to successfully distinguish applied science from the general practice of 'applying' basic scientific knowledge in a variety of contexts. (shrink)

I will develop a new problem for almost all realist theories of colour. The problem involves fluctuations in our colour experiences that are due to visual noise rather than changes in the objects we are looking at.

Thomas Nagel's criterion for an acceptable theory of conscious awareness, that it address the question of “what it is like” to be a conscious subject has been misunderstood in the light of an implicit act/object model of conscious awareness. Kant's account of conscious experience is an adverbial theory precisely in the sense that it avoids such an act/object interpretation. An “objectualist” and an “actualist” construal of views of conscious awareness are contrasted. The idea of an adverbial theory of conscious (...) experience is further developed by examining recent re-interpretations of Brentano as an adverbial theorist (Thomasson) or as an identity theorist (Hossack). Identity theory is independently criticized as a free standing account of consciousness. Kant's adverbial view is further developed and extended to an account of self-ascription and self-knowledge. (shrink)

At long last a comprehensive tool in English for a better understanding of the most basic terms in Aristotle's philosophy. A careful comparison of the original Greek, medieval and renaissance Latin translations and a reappraisal of English usage make the work a definitive source for the precise grasp of what has been the historical Aristotle as far as the documents permit one to judge. -- provided by the publisher.

(1) Absicht und Gliederung dieses Buches werden durch die Frage nach der Regier­ barkeit oder Regierungsfiihigkeit moderner Industriegesellschaften bestimmt. Eine solche Frage stellt sich zuniichst in der praktischen Politik. In ihr erlebt man einer­ seits die zunehmende Verftechtung einzelstaatlicher Politik, andererseits die Unfii­ higkeit zu problemiiberwindender Kooperation. Viele Bemiihungen der EG oder der Konferenzen von Regierungschefs tiiuschen iiber jene Unfiihigkeit kaum hinweg. In­ nerstaatlich wird die zunehmende Verflechtung der bisher isoliert gehandhabten Teilpolitiken zum Problem. Gleichzeitig wachsen die Erwartungen an die (...) Politik stiindig und man sieht deutlicher die Grem;en der Belastbarkeit gesellschaftlicher Institutionen. Insgesamt geht es urn einen Strukturwandel der Industriegesellschaf­ ten und seine Riickwirkungen auf deren politisches System, wobei sich in jiingster Zeit das Nebeneinander von Wachstumsabhiingigkeit und von Wachstumskrisen in den Vordergrund driingt und die Frage nach dem Verhiiltnis von Politik und (jkono­ 1 mie dringlich macht. Vereinfacht zielt die Frage darauf, ob das politische System mit seinen Moglichkeiten, seiner Steuerungskapazitiit und seinen Leistungen (noch) den Bediirfnissen und Erwartungen entsprechen kann, welche sich aus ande­ ren gesellschaftlichen Bereichen ergeben oder welche es auch selbst - z. B. in Wahl­ versprechungen - hervorbringt. Wendet sich Wissenschaft dieser Frage zu, muB sie als ihren Beitrag zur Antwort eine komplexe Wirklichkeit aufarbeiten, das Erarbeitete systematisieren und es nachvoll­ ziehbar machen, urn eine kritische Reflexion zu ermoglichen. (shrink)

Short biographies of twenty world famous philosophers.

THEISTIC IDEALISM ; OR, BEEKELET.* Visa quaedam mitti a Deo velut ea quae in somnis videantur. Cic. ACAD. ii.. IRELAND may claim the distinction of having..

The anti-doping policies of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) aim to promote a level playing field and protect the health of the athlete. Anti-doping policy discourages research using performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) or methods and prohibits athlete support personnel, including healthcare providers, from providing advice, assistance, or aid to an athlete or others seeking to use, or using PEDs until harm has occurred. Athletes are individually responsible for the presence of a prohibited substance in their bodies and face sanction regardless (...) of knowledge or intent. I will argue (i) that WADA policies fail to meet the epistemic and control conditions needed to adequately assign individual responsibility and (ii) that transferring responsibility for use of PEDs solely to the athlete results in harm. WADA is drifting perilously close to the morally impermissible ‘doing of harm’ to athletes by initiating or sustaining a causal sequence of events that can result in harm. (shrink)