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A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy and War at Oxford, 1900-1960
by Nikhil Krishnan&“Teeming with Oxford characters [and] lively storytelling . . . [recasts] the history of philosophy at Oxford in the mid-twentieth century by conveying not only what made it influential in its time but also what might make it vital in ours.&”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors&’ Choice)&“Ordinary Language can hardly convey how much I loved this book.&”—Tom Stoppard, Times Literary Supplement (&“Books of the Year 2023&”)A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEARWhat are the limits of language? How can philosophy be brought closer to everyday life? What is a good human being? These were among the questions that philosophers wrestled with in mid-twentieth-century Britain, a period shadowed by war and the rise of fascism. In response to these events, thinkers such as Philippa Foot (originator of the famous trolley problem), Isaiah Berlin, Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, Gilbert Ryle, and J. L. Austin aspired to a new level of watchfulness and self-awareness about language as a way of keeping philosophy true to everyday experience.A Terribly Serious Adventure traces the friendships and the rivalries, the shared preoccupations and the passionate disagreements of some of Oxford&’s most innovative thinkers. Far from being stuck in their ivory towers, the Oxford philosophers lived. They were codebreakers, diplomats, and soldiers in both World Wars, and they often drew on their real-world experience in creating their greatest works, masterpieces of British modernism original in both thought and style. Steeped in the dramatic history of the twentieth century, A Terribly Serious Adventure is an eye-opening look inside the rooms that changed how we think about our world. Shedding light on the lives and intellectual achievements of a large and spirited cast of characters, Cambridge academic Nikhil Krishnan shows us how much we can still learn from the Oxford philosophers. In our fractious, post-truth world, their acute sense of responsibility for their words, their passionate desire to get the little things right, stands as an inspiring example.
A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy at Oxford 1900-60
by Nikhil KrishnanWhat are the limits of language? How to bring philosophy closer to everyday life? What is a good human being?These were among the questions that philosophers wrestled with in mid-twentieth century Britain, a period shadowed by war and the rise of fascism. In response to these events, thinkers such as Gilbert Ryle, J. L. Austin, Elizabeth Anscombe and Iris Murdoch aspired to a new level of watchfulness and self-awareness about language. Being vigilant about their words was their way to keep philosophy true to everyday experience.A Terribly Serious Adventure traces the friendships and the rivalries, the shared preoccupations and the passionate disagreements of Oxford's most brilliant thinkers. Far from being stuck in a world of tweed, pipes and public schools, the Oxford philosophers drew on their wartime lives as soldiers and spies, conscientious objectors and prisoners of war in creating their greatest works, works that are original in both thought and style, true masterpieces of British modernism. Nikhil Krishnan brings his knowledge and understanding of philosophy to bear on the lives and intellectual achievements of a large and lively cast of characters. Together,they stood for a compelling moral vision of philosophy that is still with us today.
A Theologico-Political Treatise and A Political Treatise
by Benedict De Spinoza Francesco Cordasco R. H. Elwes2 important works. Spinoza's "A Theologico-Political Treatise" presents an eloquent plea for religious liberty, demonstrating that true religion consists of the practice of simple piety, independent of philosophical speculation. In the unfinished "A Political Treatise," the author develops a theory of government founded on common consent.
A Theology Of Reading: The Hermeneutics Of Love
by Alan JacobsTheology of Reading : the Hermeneutics of Love
A Theology of Failure: Žižek against Christian Innocence (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
by Marika RoseEveryone agrees that theology has failed; but the question of how to understand and respond to this failure is complex and contested. Against both the radical orthodox attempt to return to a time before the theology’s failure and the deconstructive theological attempt to open theology up to the hope of a future beyond failure, Rose proposes an account of Christian identity as constituted by, not despite, failure. Understanding failure as central to theology opens up new possibilities for confronting Christianity’s violent and kyriarchal history and abandoning the attempt to discover a pure Christ outside of the grotesque materiality of the church.The Christian mystical tradition begins with Dionysius the Areopagite’s uncomfortable but productive conjunction of Christian theology and Neoplatonism. The tensions generated by this are central to Dionysius’s legacy, visible not only in subsequent theological thought but also in much twentieth century continental philosophy as it seeks to disentangle itself from its Christian ancestry. A Theology of Failure shows how the work of Slavoj Žižek represents an attempt to repeat the original move of Christian mystical theology, bringing together the themes of language, desire, and transcendence not with Neoplatonism but with a materialist account of the world. Tracing these themes through the work of Dionysius and Derrida and through contemporary debates about the gift, violence, and revolution, this book offers a critical theological engagement with Žižek's account of social and political transformation, showing how Žižek's work makes possible a materialist reading of apophatic theology and Christian identity.
A Theory About Control
by Jack P. GibbsMoving beyond his 1989 book, Control: Sociology's Central Notion, Jack Gibbs develops in this new book a comprehensive theory of control in all its biological, technological, and human dimensions. His treatment goes beyond conventional ideas about social control to show why self-control and proximate control are essential to understanding human interaction. He also argues that thinking of control in terms of the counteraction of deviance is insufficient. Tests of Gibbs's control theory, based on data from sixty-six countries, add credence to his claim that control could be the central notion for sociology and perhaps for other social sciences.
A Theory of Bioethics
by David DeGrazia Joseph MillumThis volume offers a carefully argued, compelling theory of bioethics while eliciting practical implications for a wide array of issues including medical assistance-in-dying, the right to health care, abortion, animal research, and the definition of death. The authors' dual-value theory features mid-level principles, a distinctive model of moral status, a subjective account of well-being, and a cosmopolitan view of global justice. In addition to ethical theory, the book investigates the nature of harm and autonomous action, personal identity theory, and the 'non-identity problem' associated with many procreative decisions. Readers new to particular topics will benefit from helpful introductions, specialists will appreciate in-depth theoretical explorations and a novel take on various practical issues, and all readers will benefit from the book's original synoptic vision of bioethics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
A Theory of Causation in the Social and Biological Sciences
by Alexander ReutlingerThis first full length treatment of interventionist theories of causation in the social sciences, the biological sciences and other higher-level sciences the presents original counter arguments to recent trends in the debate and serves as useful introduction to the subject.
A Theory of Direct Realism: And the Relation of Realism to Idealism (Routledge Revivals)
by J. E. TurnerFirst published in 1925, A Theory of Direct Realism is divided in two parts: the first part is an attempt to formulate a realistic theory of Perception and of the physical world, and the second part is an exposition of Hegelian idealism and its compatibility with realism. This book on direct realism will be of interest to students of philosophy, history and literature.
A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality
by Ken WilberHere is a concise, comprehensive overview of Wilber's revolutionary thought and its application in today's world. In A Theory of Everything, Wilber uses clear, nontechnical language to present complex, cutting-edge theories that integrate the realms of body, mind, soul, and spirit. He then demonstrates how these theories and models can be applied to real-world problems in areas such as politics, medicine, business, education, and the environment. Wilber also discusses daily practices that readers take up in order to apply this integrative vision to their own everyday lives.
A Theory of Fairness and Social Welfare
by Marc Fleurbaey François ManiquetThe definition and measurement of social welfare have been a vexed issue for the past century. This book makes a constructive, easily applicable proposal and suggests how to evaluate the economic situation of a society in a way that gives priority to the worse-off and that respects each individual's preferences over his or her own consumption, work, leisure, and so on. This approach resonates with the current concern to go "beyond the GDP" in the measurement of social progress. Compared to technical studies in welfare economics, this book emphasizes constructive results rather than paradoxes and impossibilities, and shows how one can start from basic principles of efficiency and fairness and end up with concrete evaluations of policies. Compared to more philosophical treatments of social justice, this book is more precise about the definition of social welfare and reaches conclusions about concrete policies and institutions only after a rigorous derivation from clearly stated principles.
A Theory of Housing Provision under Capitalism (Marx, Engels, and Marxisms)
by Mike BerryThis book provides the first coherent Marxist analysis of the central importance of housing in the social reproduction of capitalism as a whole. Rather than consigning housing to the sidelines, Berry argues that the circulation of capital and revenues though housing and the built environment helps explain how the capital-labour relation constrains housing outcomes while also being reproduced on an extended scale. He shows how housing is provided by the intervention of building, property and interest-bearing capital fractions; how the land question can be explained by a theory of urban land rent, drawing on Marx's categories of differential and monopoly rent; how housing is vital to the extended reproduction of labour power, while also creating a semi-separate sphere of 'home' in which gender and demographic factors overlay and accentuate social class position. The modes, impact and drivers of state intervention in housing provision are seen to modify the patterns and pace of capital circulation through housing and the urban built environment with implications for shifts in class fragmentation and power relations.
A Theory of Imagining, Knowing, and Understanding (SpringerBriefs in Psychology)
by Luca TateoThis is a book about imaginative work and its relationship with the construction of knowledge. It is fully acknowledged by epistemologists that imagination is not something opposed to rationality; it is not mere fantasy opposed to intellect. In philosophy and cognitive sciences, imagination is generally “delimiting not much more than the mental ability to interact cognitively with things that are not now present via the senses.” (Stuart, 2017, p. 11) For centuries, scholars and poets have wondered where this capability could come from, whether it is inspired by divinity or it is a peculiar feature of human mind (Tateo, 2017b). The omnipresence of imaginative work in both every day and highly specialized human activities requires a profoundly radical understanding of this phenomenon. We need to work imaginatively in order to achieve knowledge, thus imagination must be something more than a mere flight of fantasy. Considering different stories in the field of scientific endeavor, I will try to propose the idea that the imaginative process is fundamental higher mental function that concurs in our experiencing, knowing and understanding the world we are part of. This book is thus about a theoretical idea of imagining as constant part of the complex whole we call the human psyche. It is a story of human beings striving not only for knowledge and exploration but also striving for imagining possibilities.
A Theory of Indexical Shift: Meaning, Grammar, and Crosslinguistic Variation (Linguistic Inquiry Monographs #82)
by Amy Rose DealA comprehensive overview of the semantics and syntax of indexical shift that develops a constrained typology of the phenomenon across languages.The phenomenon of indexical shift--whereby indexicals embedded in speech or attitude reports draw their meaning from an attitude event rather than the utterance context--has been reported in languages spanning five continents and at least ten language families. In this book, Amy Rose Deal offers a comprehensive overview of the semantics and syntax of indexical shift and develops a constrained typology of the phenomenon across languages--a picture of variation that is both rich enough to capture the known facts and restrictive enough to make predictions about currently unknown data points.
A Theory of Jerks and Other Philosophical Misadventures (The\mit Press Ser.)
by Eric SchwitzgebelA collection of quirky, entertaining, and reader-friendly short pieces on philosophical topics that range from a theory of jerks to the ethics of ethicists.Have you ever wondered about why some people are jerks? Asked whether your driverless car should kill you so that others may live? Found a robot adorable? Considered the ethics of professional ethicists? Reflected on the philosophy of hair? In this engaging, entertaining, and enlightening book, Eric Schwitzgebel turns a philosopher's eye on these and other burning questions. In a series of quirky and accessible short pieces that cover a mind-boggling variety of philosophical topics, Schwitzgebel offers incisive takes on matters both small (the consciousness of garden snails) and large (time, space, and causation). A common theme might be the ragged edge of the human intellect, where moral or philosophical reflection begins to turn against itself, lost among doubts and improbable conclusions. The history of philosophy is humbling when we see how badly wrong previous thinkers have been, despite their intellectual skills and confidence. (See, for example, “Kant on Killing Bastards, Masturbation, Organ Donation, Homosexuality, Tyrants, Wives, and Servants.”) Some of the texts resist thematic categorization—thoughts on the philosophical implications of dreidels, the diminishing offensiveness of the most profane profanity, and fatherly optimism—but are no less interesting. Schwitzgebel has selected these pieces from the more than one thousand that have appeared since 2006 in various publications and on his popular blog, The Splintered Mind, revising and updating them for this book. Philosophy has never been this much fun.
A Theory of Justice
by John RawlsRawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition- justice as fairness- and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century.
A Theory of Justice
by John RawlsSince it appeared in 1971, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book.
A Theory of Justice (Original Edition)
by John RawlsThough the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.
A Theory of Justice: Original Edition
by John RawlsJohn Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition—justice as fairness—and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. “Each person,” writes Rawls, “possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls’s theory is as powerful today as it was when first published. Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls’s view, much of the extensive literature on his theory refers to the original. This first edition is available for scholars and serious students of Rawls’s work.
A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition
by John RawlsSince it appeared in 1971, John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has become a classic. The author has now revised the original edition to clear up a number of difficulties he and others have found in the original book. Rawls aims to express an essential part of the common core of the democratic tradition—justice as fairness—and to provide an alternative to utilitarianism, which had dominated the Anglo-Saxon tradition of political thought since the nineteenth century. Rawls substitutes the ideal of the social contract as a more satisfactory account of the basic rights and liberties of citizens as free and equal persons. “Each person,” writes Rawls, “possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override.” Advancing the ideas of Rousseau, Kant, Emerson, and Lincoln, Rawls’s theory is as powerful today as it was when first published.
A Theory of Language and Mind
by Ermanno BencivengaIn his most recent book, Ermanno Bencivenga offers a stylistically and conceptually exciting investigation of the nature of language, mind, and personhood and the many ways the three connect. Bencivenga, one of the most iconoclastic voices to emerge in contemporary American philosophy, contests the basic assumptions of analytic (and also, to an extent, postmodern) approaches to these topics. His exploration leads through fascinating discussions of education, courage, pain, time and history, selfhood, subjectivity and objectivity, reality, facts, the empirical, power and transgression, silence, privacy and publicity, and play—all themes that are shown to be integral to our thinking about language. Relentessly bending the rules, Bencivenga frustrates our expectations of a "proper" theory of language. He invokes the transgressions of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein even as he appropriates the aphoristic style of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Written in a philosophically playful and experimental mode, A Theory of Language and Mind draws the reader into a sense of continual surprise, therapeutic discomfort, and discovery. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997.
A Theory of Legal Punishment: Deterrence, Retribution, and the Aims of the State (Routledge Research in Legal Philosophy)
by Matthew C. AltmanThis book argues for a mixed theory of legal punishment that treats both crime reduction and retribution as important aims of the state. A central question in the philosophy of law is why the state’s punishment of its own citizens is justified. Traditionally, two theories of punishment have dominated the field: consequentialism and retributivism. According to consequentialism, punishment is justified when it maximizes positive outcomes. According to retributivism, criminals should be punished because they deserve it. This book recognizes the strength of both positions. According to the two-tiered model, the institution of punishment and statutory penalties, as set by the legislature, are justified based on their costs and benefits, in terms of deterrence and rehabilitation. The law exists to preserve the public order. Criminal courts, by contrast, determine who is punished and how much based on what offenders deserve. The courts express the community’s collective sense of resentment at being wronged. This book supports the two-tiered model by showing that it accords with our moral intuitions, commonly held (compatibilist) theories of freedom, and assumptions about how the extent of our knowledge affects our obligations. It engages classic and contemporary work in the philosophy of law and explains the theory’s advantages over competing approaches from retributivists and other mixed theorists. The book also defends consequentialism against a longstanding objection that the social sciences give us little guidance regarding which policies to adopt. Drawing on recent criminological research, the two-tiered model can help us to address some of our most pressing social issues, including the death penalty, drug policy, and mass incarceration. This book will be of interest to philosophers, legal scholars, policymakers, and social scientists, especially criminologists, economists, and political scientists.
A Theory of Master Role Transition: Small Powers Shaping Regional Hegemons (Role Theory and International Relations)
by Feliciano de Sá GuimarãesIn this book, Feliciano de Sá Guimarães offers an original application of Role Theory. He proposes a theory of master role transitions to explain how small powers can change regional powers’ master roles without changing the regional material power distribution.Master role transition is the replacement of an active dominant master role by a dormant or inactive role located within one’s role repertoire. Guimarães argues that only a combination of four necessary conditions can produce a full master role transition: asymmetrical material interdependence, altercasting, domestic contestation and regional contestation. In each one of these conditions, a small power uses material and ideational tools to promote a master role transition within the regional power role repertoire. To test his model, Guimarães turns to five case studies in Latin America, Southern Africa and South Asia: the 2006–2007 Bolivia–Brazil gas crisis, the 2008–2009 Paraguay–Brazil Itaipú Dam crisis, the 2008–2009 Ecuador–Brazil Odebrecht crisis, the 1998 South Africa–Lesotho military intervention crisis and the 1996India–Bangladesh Ganges water crisis.A Theory of Master Role Transition is an excellent resource for those studying both theory and method in International Relations and foreign policy analysis.
A Theory of Moral Education
by Michael HandChildren must be taught morality. They must be taught to recognise the authority of moral standards and to understand what makes them authoritative. But there’s a problem: the content and justification of morality are matters of reasonable disagreement among reasonable people. This makes it hard to see how educators can secure children’s commitment to moral standards without indoctrinating them. In A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand tackles this problem head on. He sets out to show that moral education can and should be fully rational. It is true that many moral standards and justificatory theories are controversial, and educators have an obligation to teach these nondirectively, with the aim of enabling children to form their own considered views. But reasonable moral disagreement does not go all the way down: some basic moral standards are robustly justified, and these should be taught directively, with the aim of bringing children to recognise and understand their authority. This is an original and important contribution to the philosophy of moral education, which lays a new theoretical foundation for the urgent practical task of teaching right from wrong.
A Theory of Philosophical Fallacies (Argumentation Library #26)
by Leonard NelsonPresented as a Vorlesung in the German philosophical tradition, this book presents the most detailed account of Nelson's method of argument analysis, celebrated by many luminaries such as Karl Popper. It was written in 1921 in opposition to the relativistic, subjectivistic and nihilistic tendencies of Nelson's time. The book contains an exposition of a method that is a further development of Kant's transcendental dialectics, followed by an application to the critical analysis of arguments by many famous thinkers, including Bentham, Mill, Poincaré, Leibniz, Hegel, Einstein, Bergson, Rickert, Simmel, Brentano, Stammler, Jellinek, Dingler, and Meinong. The book presents a general theory of philosophical argumentation as seen from the viewpoint of the typical fallacies committed by anybody arguing philosophically, whether professional philosophers or philosophical laypeople. Although the nature of philosophy and philosophical argumentation is one of the most recurrent objects of reflection for philosophers, this book represents the first attempt at a general theory of philosophical fallacy. According to Nelson, it is in the shape of false dilemmas that errors in reasoning always emerge, and false dilemmas are always the result of the same mechanism--the unwitting replacement of one concept for another.