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Reason in Society: The Life of Reason, Volume 2
by George SantayanaDiscussion of all aspects of society: love, the family, industry, government, war, democracy, patriotism, free societies, and the ideal society.
Reason in the Balance: An Inquiry Approach to Critical Thinking
by Sharon Bailin Mark BattersbyReason in the Balance focuses broadly on the practice of critical inquiry, the process of carefully examining an issue in order to come to a reasoned judgment. This text emphasizes the various aspects that go into the practice of inquiry, including identifying issues and relevant contexts, understanding competing cases, and making a comparative judgment. Distinctive Features of the Text are: Emphasis on applying critical thinking to complex issues with competing arguments; Inclusion of chapters on inquiry in specific contexts; Attention to the dialogical aspects of inquiry, including sample dialogues; Emphasis on the spirit of inquiry. The Second Edition Features: (i) updated examples and items of current interest (ii) new dialogues on vaccination, prostitution, and climate change (iii) new material on biases in reasoning, including emotional and psychological, social, and cognitive biases (iv) material on deduction and formal logic supplemented with Appendix on Logic on the Web site, including links for further learning and practice.
Reason to Be Happy: Why logical thinking is the key to a better life
by Kaushik Basu'Reason to Be Happy is a wise and witty book that shows how thinking clearly can help us find happiness in our daily lives, get more of what we want, and even make the world a better place' Hannah FryWhy do our friends have more friends than we do? How do you book the best available seats on a plane? And if jogging for ten minutes adds eight minutes to our life expectancy, should we still go jogging?The ability to reason is one of our most undervalued skills. In everyday life, the key is to put yourself in the shoes of a clever competitor and think about how they might respond. Whether you are dealing with events on the scale of the Cuban missile crisis or letting go of anger, leading economist Professor Kaushik Basu shows how game theory - the logic of social situations - can help us achieve better outcomes and lasting happiness.Full of fascinating thought experiments and puzzles, Reason to Be Happy is a paean to the power of rationality. If you want to have a good life and even make the world a better place, you can start by thinking clearly.
Reason's Traces
by Matthew KapsteinReason's Traces addresses some of the key questions in the study of Indian and Buddhist thought: the analysis of personal identity and of ultimate reality, the interpretation of Tantric texts and traditions, and Tibetan approaches to the interpretation of Indian sources. Drawing on a wide range of scholarship, Reason's Traces reflects current work in philosophical analysis and hermeneutics, inviting readers to explore in a Buddhist context the relationship between philosophy and traditions of spiritual exercise.
Reason, Action and Morality
by John KempOriginally published in 1964, this book critically examines some philosophical theories of the relation between reason and morality, with particular reference to the writings of Cudworth, Locke, Clarke, Hume and Kant. It also discusses the ways in which conduct may be assessed or criticised, and of the extent to which these ways of assessment may amount to, or be connected with, moral assessment. The conclusion shows how far and in what ways rational moral judgment is possible and what are its inevitable limitations.
Reason, Faith and Otherness in Neoplatonic and Early Christian Thought (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Kevin CorriganThis book brings together a selection of Kevin Corrigan’s works published over the course of some 27 years. Its predominant theme is the encounter with otherness in ancient, medieval and modern thought and it ranges in scope from the Presocratics-through Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and the late ancient period, on the one hand, and early Christian thought, especially Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine and, much later, Aquinas, on the other. Among the key questions examined are the relation between faith and reason; the nature of creation and insight, being and existence; literature, philosophy and the invention of the novel; personal, human and divine identity; the problem of evil (particularly here in Dostoevsky’s adaptation of a Platonic perspective); the character of ideas themselves; women saints in the early Church; love of God and love of neighbor; the development of Christian Trinitarian thinking; the strange notion of philosophy as prayer; and the mind/soul-body relation.
Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization
by Samuel Gregg"Gregg's book is the closet thing I've encountered in a long time to a one-volume user's manual for operarting Western Civilization." —The Stream The genius of Western civilization is its unique synthesis of reason and faith. But today that synthesis is under attack—from the East by radical Islam (faith without reason) and from within the West itself by aggressive secularism (reason without faith). The stakes are incalculably high. The naïve and increasingly common assumption that reason and faith are incompatible is simply at odds with the facts of history. The revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures of a reasonable Creator imbued Judaism and Christianity with a conviction that the world is intelligible, leading to the flowering of reason and the invention of science in the West. It was no accident that the Enlightenment took place in the culture formed by the Jewish and Christian faiths. We can all see that faith without reason is benighted at best, fanatical and violent at worst. But too many forget that reason, stripped of faith, is subject to its own pathologies. A supposedly autonomous reason easily sinks into fanaticism, stifling dissent as bigoted and irrational and devouring the humane civilization fostered by the integration of reason and faith. The blood-soaked history of the twentieth century attests to the totalitarian forces unleashed by corrupted reason. But Samuel Gregg does more than lament the intellectual and spiritual ruin caused by the divorce of reason and faith. He shows that each of these foundational principles corrects the other’s excesses and enhances our comprehension of the truth in a continuous renewal of civilization. By recovering this balance, we can avoid a suicidal winner-take-all conflict between reason and faith and a future that will respect neither.
Reason, Religion and Modernity: Gadamer-Habermas Debate (SpringerBriefs in Philosophy)
by Anil Kumar VaddirajuThis book deals with the question of understanding religion and its relationship with politics in the context of developing countries. It reviews specific theories, such as modernisation theory, marxism, liberalism, hermeneutics and critical approach to explain questions related to religion and religious traditions. The book focuses on the recent attempts to theorise religion by Jurgen Habermas. It argues modernisation and orthodox Marxian theory are inadequate in understanding the recent spurt of religious phenomenon in politics. It discusses Hans-Georg Gadamer’s view to show a way forward regarding dialectical hermeneutics in facilitating a dialogue between different traditions and religions. The book is of interest to students, scholars, practitioners of development, and all those who concern themselves with the questions of religion, tradition, modernity and secular well-being in developing countries such as India and beyond.
Reason, Revelation and Law in Islamic and Western Theory and History (Islam and Global Studies)
by R. Charles Weller Anver M. EmonThis book engages the diverse meanings and interpretations of Islamic and Western law which have affected people and societies across the globe, past and present, in correlation to the epistemological groundings of those meanings and interpretations. The volume takes a distinctively comparative approach, advancing dialogue on crucial transnational and global debates over the history of Western and Islamic approaches to law, politics and society and their relevance for today. It discusses how fundamental concepts are understood and even translated from one historical or political context or one semantic domain to another. The book provides focused studies of key figures and theories in a manageable, accessible format useful for specialized academic courses and research as well as general audiences.
Reason, Revelation, and the Civic Order: Political Philosophy and the Claims of Faith
by Carson HollowayWhile the dominant approaches to the current study of political philosophy are various, with some friendlier to religious belief than others, almost all place constraints on the philosophic and political role of revelation. Mainstream secular political theorists do not entirely disregard religion. But to the extent that they pay attention, their treatment of religious belief is seen more as a political or philosophic problem to be addressed rather than as a positive body of thought from which we might derive important insights about the nature of politics and the truth of the human condition. In a one-of-a-kind collection, DeHart and Holloway bring together leading scholars from various fields, including political science, philosophy, and theology, to challenge the prevailing orthodoxy and to demonstrate the role that religion can and does play in political life. Contributing authors include such important thinkers as Peter Augustine Lawler, Robert C. Koons, J. Budziszewski, Francis J. Beckwith, and James Stoner.
Reason, Spirit and the Sacral in the New Enlightenment
by Anna-Teresa TymienieckaRationality in its various expressions and innumerable applications sustains understanding and our sense of reality. It is traditionally differentiated according to its sources in the soul: in consciousness, in reason, in experience, and in elevation. Such a functional approach, however, leaves us searching for the common foundation harmonizing these rationalities. The perennial quest to resolve the aporias of rationality is finding in contemporary science's focus on origins, on the generative roots of reality, tantalizing hints as to how this may be accomplished. This project is enhanced by the wave of recent phenomenology/ontopoiesis of life, which reveals the workings of the logos at the root of beingness and all rationality, whereby we gaze upon the prospect of a New Enlightenment. In the rays of this vision the revival of the intuitions of classical Islamic metaphysics, particularly intuition of the continuity of beingness in the gradations of life, receive fresh confirmation.
Reason, Truth And History
by Hilary PutnamHilary Putnam deals in this book with some of the most fundamental persistent problems in philosophy: the nature of truth, knowledge and rationality. His aim is to break down the fixed categories of thought which have always appeared to define and constrain the permissible solutions to these problems.
Reason, Truth and Reality
by Daniel GoldstickDan Goldstick's Reason, Truth, and Reality addresses two questions: what sort of world do we inhabit? and what moral obligations do we have? To answer the questions Goldstick mounts a bold contemporary defense of pre-Kantian rationalism. Basing consideration upon a characterization of reason in its deductive, inductive, and ethical functioning, he asks what must hold good for reason so characterized to be a dependable guide to truth. The conclusions Goldstick draws are threefold. First of all, the argument points to continuous deterministic causality throughout space and time. In the second place, a case is made for universal impermanence. And thirdly, Goldstick claims to establish a basis for the right within a version of utilitarianism supporting the maximum long-term promotion of people's interests. The discussion takes in such traditional rationalist themes as aprioricity, conceivability, and antiscepticism, and such analytic topics as belief-and-desire, truthvaluelessness, and epistemic reliability.
Reason, Truth and Self: The Postmodern Reconditioned
by Michael LuntleyMichael Luntley provides a lively introduction to the debate over postmodernism. Sympathisers of the postmodernist critique of absolute knowledge have jetisoned concepts of reason,t ruth and self; this abandonment has fuelled their opponents' case against postmodernism. This has led them to ignore the very real problems raised by the postmodernists. Luntley offers a clear and careful exposition of how rational debate survives despite the Enlightenment's failings. Reason, Truth and Self covers many of the key questions of our age: * How rational is science? * Can we really know the truth about ourselves and the world? * What is the nature of the mind? * Can we know the difference between right and wrong? Reason, Truth and Self is ideal for courses in philosophy and the social sciences.
Reason, Will and Emotion
by Paul CrittendenThis powerful exploration of an important topic in philosophy of mind from ancient to contemporary philosophy presents an original argument against the current direction of debate and examines a wide range of philosophers from both continental and analytic traditions.
Reasonable Disagreement: A Theory of Political Morality
by Christopher McmahonThis book examines the ways in which reasonable people can disagree about the requirements of political morality. Christopher McMahon argues that there will be a 'zone of reasonable disagreement' surrounding most questions of political morality. Moral notions of right and wrong evolve over time as new zones of reasonable disagreement emerge out of old ones; thus political morality is both different in different societies with varying histories, and different now from what it was in the past. McMahon explores this feature of his theory in detail and traces its implications for the possibility of making moral judgments about other polities, past or present. His study sheds light on an important and often overlooked aspect of political life, and will be of interest to a wide range of readers in moral and political philosophy and in political theory.
Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative Discourse
by Frans H. van EemerenThis volume presents 50 contributions on the themes of reasonableness and effectiveness and their connections, which are central issues in argumentation theory. It discusses van Eemeren's views on the study of argumentation; the approach to argumentation adopted in pragma-dialectics; pragma-dialectical perspectives on the dialectical and pragmatic dimensions of argumentative discourse; the notion of strategic maneuvering; the pragma-dialectical method of analyzing argumentative discourse; the treatment of fallacies as violations of rules for critical discussion; pragma-dialectical views on context, the role of logic, verbal indicators of argumentative moves and argument schemes; and the process of writing and rewriting argumentative texts. The pragma-dialectical quantitative approach to empirical research on argumentative discourse is illustrated by reporting on selected, illustrative experimental studies, as well as qualitative studies of historical cases.
Reasonableness and Fairness
by Christopher McmahonWe all know, or think we know, what it means to say that something is 'reasonable' or 'fair', but what exactly are these concepts and how have they evolved and changed over the course of history? In this book, Christopher McMahon explores reasonableness, fairness, and justice as central concepts of the morality of reciprocal concern. He argues that the basis of this morality evolves as history unfolds, so that forms of interaction that might have been morally acceptable in the past are judged unacceptable today. The first part of his study examines the notions of reasonableness and fairness as they are employed in ordinary practical thought, and the second part develops a constructivist theory to explain why and how this part of morality can undergo historical development without arriving at any final form. His book will interest scholars of ethics, political theory, and the history of ideas.
Reasonableness and Responsibility: A Theory of Contract Law
by Martín HeviaIf, as John Rawls famously suggests, justice is the first virtue of social institutions, how are we to understand the institution of contract law? This book proposes a Rawlsian theory of contract law. It argues that justice requires that we understand contract rules in terms of the idea of reasonable, terms of interaction - that is, terms that would be accepted by reasonable persons moved by a desire for a social world in which they, as free and equal, can cooperate with others on terms they accept. On that basis, the book explains the main doctrines of contract law, including those governing third parties, in both the Common Law and the Civil Law.
Reasonableness in Liberal Political Philosophy
by Shaun P. YoungPreviously published as a special issue of the Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, this collection offers a thought-provoking critique of the role of the concept of reasonableness in liberal political theory, focusing on the proposed relationship between reasonableness and the establishment and preservation of a just and stable liberal polity.The essays explore the explicit and implicit use of the idea of reasonableness, presenting an analysis that incorporates normative and empirical observations and employs a number of different analytical approaches, including liberalism, feminism, environmentalism, Marxism, and communitarianism. This unique book provides in a single volume a critique that engages not only a vast array of issues but also a diversity of critical perspectives. It not only rectifies a deficiency in the existing scholarship, but also addresses the issues of socio-political justice and stability, offering new, insightful critiques that respond to the increasingly complex circumstances and conflicts that confront life in contemporary pluralistic societies. Reasonableness in Liberal Political Philosophy will be a valuable resource for those interested in liberal political theory and its potential usefulness in helping to secure a just and stable polity.
Reasoning After Revelation: Dialogues In Postmodern Jewish Philosophy (Radical Traditions Ser.)
by Steven KepnesIn Reasoning After Revelation: Dialogues in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy, three preeminent Jewish scholars debate the form and meaning of Postmodern Jewish Philosophy after the failures of the great secular ideologies of modern western civilization. Emulating the methods as well as the premises of Talmudic argumentation, the authors present their responses as dialogues joined by a common love of the rabbinic tradition of commentary and interpretation of the Bible. The composers, Peter Ochs, Robert Gibbs, and Steven Kepnes, contemplate where Judaism has beenand where it is headed: on what basis will modern Jews now reason about the meaning of Jewish existence and the relevance of age-old Biblical traditions to the moral and social crises of the twenty-first century? The dialogues are further enriched by a set of responses from leading Jewish philosophers: Elliot R. Wolfson, Edith Wyschogrod, Almut Sh. Bruckstein, Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, and Susan E. Shapiro. }Postmodern Jewish thinkers understand their Jewishness differently, but they all share a fidelity to what they call the Torah and to communal practices of reading and social action that have their bases in rabbinic interpretations of biblical narrative, law, and belief. Thus, postmodern Jewish thinking is thinking about God, Jews, and the worldwith the texts of the Torahin the company of fellow seekers and believers. It utilizes the tools of philosophy, but without their modern premises. Moreover, this form of Jewish thinking provides resources for philosophically disciplined readings of scripture by Jews, Christians, and Moslems seeking alternatives to the reductive discourses of secular academia, on the one hand, and to antimodern religious fundamentalisms, on the other. Postmodern Jewish Philosophy aims to utilize rabbinic modes of thinking to provide a model for ethical and religious thought in the twenty-first century, one which moves beyond the dichotomy of relativism and imperialism and is simultaneously definite and pluralistic. In Reasoning After Revelation: Dialogues in Postmodern Jewish Philosophy, three preeminent Jewish scholars debate the form and meaning of Postmodern Jewish Philosophy after the failures of the great secular ideologies of modern western civilization. Emulating the methods as well as the premises of Talmudic argumentation, the authors present their responses as dialogues joined by a common love of the rabbinic tradition of commentary and interpretation of the Bible. The composers, Peter Ochs, Robert Gibbs, and Steven Kepnes, contemplate where Judaism has beenand where it is headed: on what basis will modern Jews now reason about the meaning of Jewish existence and the relevance of age-old Biblical traditions to the moral and social crises of the twenty-first century? The dialogues are further enriched by a set of responses from leading Jewish philosophers: Elliot R. Wolfson, Edith Wyschogrod, Almut Sh. Bruckstein, Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, and Susan E. Shapiro.
Reasoning Indian Politics: Philosopher Politicians to Politicians Seeking Philosophy
by Narendar Pani Anshuman BeheraThis volume examines the multiple forms of reasoning in Indian politics and explores a framework to understand them. In the process, it looks at a series of issues involving the relationship between politics and philosophy, including the status of political theory, political practices, identity politics, and political ontology. The book argues that in the years leading up to and soon after independence, the task of conceptualizing politics was largely in the domain of practising politicians who built theories and philosophical methods, and further took those visions into the practice of their politics. It maintains that Indian politicians since then have not been as inclined to articulate their theories or methods of politics. This book traces the transition from philosopher politicians to politicians seeking philosophy in Indian polity in the post-independence era and its implications for current practices. It views Indian political philosophy from the standpoints of political theorists, philosophers, and practitioners. With expert and scholarly contributions, this volume will be of interest to students and researchers of Indian political thought and political philosophy, social sciences, and humanities.
Reasoning Unbound: Thinking about Morality, Delusion and Democracy
by Jean-François BonnefonThis book argues that the science of reasoning will prove most useful if focused on studying what human reasoning does best - understanding people. Bonnefon argues that humanity's unique reasoning abilities developed in order to handle the complexities of cooperative social life. Accordingly, human beings became exquisite students of the minds of other people to predict the kind of decisions they make, and assess their character. In particular, this volume explores the inferences humans make about the moral character of others, how they delude themselves about their own moral character, and the ways in which they can see through the delusions of others. In conclusion, the book considers how to leverage the power of human reasoning in order to sustain democratic life. This work will interest scholars and students working in fields including theory of mind, decision-making, moral cognition, critical thinking, experimental philosophy, and behavioural economics, as well as policy makers interested in how reasoning impacts our political understanding.
Reasoning Web. Declarative Artificial Intelligence: 17th International Summer School 2021, Leuven, Belgium, September 8–15, 2021, Tutorial Lectures (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #13100)
by Mantas Šimkus Ivan VarzinczakThe purpose of the Reasoning Web Summer School is to disseminate recent advances on reasoning techniques and related issues that are of particular interest to Semantic Web and Linked Data applications. It is primarily intended for postgraduate students, postdocs, young researchers, and senior researchers wishing to deepen their knowledge. As in the previous years, lectures in the summer school were given by a distinguished group of expert lecturers.The broad theme of this year's summer school was again “Declarative Artificial Intelligence” and it covered various aspects of ontological reasoning and related issues that are of particular interest to Semantic Web and Linked Data applications. The following eight lectures were presented during the school: Foundations of Graph Path Query Languages; On Combining Ontologies and Rules; Modelling Symbolic Knowledge Using Neural Representations; Mining the Semantic Web with Machine Learning: Main Issues That Need to Be Known; Temporal ASP: From Logical Foundations to Practical Use with telingo; A Review of SHACL: From Data Validation to Schema Reasoning for RDF Graphs; and Score-Based Explanations in Data Management and Machine Learning.
Reasoning Web. Explainable Artificial Intelligence: 15th International Summer School 2019, Bolzano, Italy, September 20–24, 2019, Tutorial Lectures (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #11810)
by Markus Krötzsch Daria StepanovaThis volume contains lecture notes of the 15th Reasoning Web Summer School (RW 2019), held in Bolzano, Italy, in September 2019. The research areas of Semantic Web, Linked Data, and Knowledge Graphs have recently received a lot of attention in academia and industry. Since its inception in 2001, the Semantic Web has aimed at enriching the existing Web with meta-data and processing methods, so as to provide Web-based systems with intelligent capabilities such as context awareness and decision support. The Semantic Web vision has been driving many community efforts which have invested a lot of resources in developing vocabularies and ontologies for annotating their resources semantically. Besides ontologies, rules have long been a central part of the Semantic Web framework and are available as one of its fundamental representation tools, with logic serving as a unifying foundation. Linked Data is a related research area which studies how one can make RDF data available on the Web and interconnect it with other data with the aim of increasing its value for everybody. Knowledge Graphs have been shown useful not only for Web search (as demonstrated by Google, Bing, etc.) but also in many application domains.