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The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter: A Portrait of Descartes
by Steven NadlerHow a famous painting opens a window into the life, times, and philosophy of René DescartesIn the Louvre museum hangs a portrait that is considered the iconic image of René Descartes, the great seventeenth-century French philosopher. And the painter of the work? The Dutch master Frans Hals—or so it was long believed, until the work was downgraded to a copy of an original. But where is the authentic version, and who painted it? Is the man in the painting—and in its original—really Descartes?A unique combination of philosophy, biography, and art history, The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter investigates the remarkable individuals and circumstances behind a small portrait. Through this image—and the intersecting lives of a brilliant philosopher, a Catholic priest, and a gifted painter—Steven Nadler opens a fascinating portal into Descartes's life and times, skillfully presenting an accessible introduction to Descartes's philosophical and scientific ideas, and an illuminating tour of the volatile political and religious environment of the Dutch Golden Age. As Nadler shows, Descartes's innovative ideas about the world, about human nature and knowledge, and about philosophy itself, stirred great controversy. Philosophical and theological critics vigorously opposed his views, and civil and ecclesiastic authorities condemned his writings. Nevertheless, Descartes's thought came to dominate the philosophical world of the period, and can rightly be called the philosophy of the seventeenth century.Shedding light on a well-known image, The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter offers an engaging exploration of a celebrated philosopher's world and work.
The Philosopher: A History in Six Types
by Justin E. SmithWhat would the global history of philosophy look like if it were told not as a story of ideas but as a series of job descriptions--ones that might have been used to fill the position of philosopher at different times and places over the past 2,500 years? The Philosopher does just that, providing a new way of looking at the history of philosophy by bringing to life six kinds of figures who have occupied the role of philosopher in a wide range of societies around the world over the millennia--the Natural Philosopher, the Sage, the Gadfly, the Ascetic, the Mandarin, and the Courtier. The result is at once an unconventional introduction to the global history of philosophy and an original exploration of what philosophy has been--and perhaps could be again.By uncovering forgotten or neglected philosophical job descriptions, the book reveals that philosophy is a universal activity, much broader--and more gender inclusive--than we normally think today. In doing so, The Philosopher challenges us to reconsider our idea of what philosophers can do and what counts as philosophy.
The Philosophers Beach Book
by Mel ThompsonThe Philosopher's Beach Book invites you to relax and think; to wiggle your toes in the sand (literally or metaphorically) and reflect on the meaning of life. Have you ever stretched out on a holiday beach or taken a relaxed stroll in the evening, musing on your life 'back home' - your family, your work, your values - and wondered if it all makes sense? This book invites you to ask questions; to explore the assumptions of everyday life; to challenge your own values. You may go on holiday to see something new, but it also offers you a new perspective on the familiar. From the distance of your (literal or metaphorical) beach, now is the chance to give life a gentle, intellectual prod.
The Philosophers Beach Book
by Mel ThompsonThe Philosopher's Beach Book invites you to relax and think; to wiggle your toes in the sand (literally or metaphorically) and reflect on the meaning of life. Have you ever stretched out on a holiday beach or taken a relaxed stroll in the evening, musing on your life 'back home' - your family, your work, your values - and wondered if it all makes sense? This book invites you to ask questions; to explore the assumptions of everyday life; to challenge your own values. You may go on holiday to see something new, but it also offers you a new perspective on the familiar. From the distance of your (literal or metaphorical) beach, now is the chance to give life a gentle, intellectual prod.
The Philosophers and Mathematics: Festschrift for Roshdi Rashed (Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science #43)
by Hassan TahiriThis book explores the unique relationship between two different approaches to understand the nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. It collects essays that examine the distinctive historical relationship between mathematics and philosophy. Readers learn what key philosophers throughout the ages thought about mathematics. This includes both thinkers who recognized the relevance of mathematics to their own work as well as those who chose to completely ignore its many achievements.The essays offer insight into the role that mathematics played in the formation of each included philosopher’s doctrine as well as the impact its remarkable expansion had on the philosophical systems each erected. Conversely, the authors also highlight the ways that philosophy contributed to the growth and transformation of mathematics. Throughout, significant historical examples help to illustrate these points in a vivid way. Mathematics has often been a favored interlocutor of philosophers and a major source of inspiration. This book is the outcome of an international conference held in honor of Roshdi Rashed, a renowned historian of mathematics. It provides researchers, students, and interested readers with remarkable insights into the history of an important relationship throughout the ages.
The Philosophers' Gift: Reexamining Reciprocity
by Marcel HénaffWinner, French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation.When it comes to giving, philosophers love to be the most generous. For them, every form of reciprocity is tainted by commercial exchange. In recent decades, such thinkers as Derrida, Levinas, Henry, Marion, Ricoeur, Lefort, and Descombes, have made the gift central to their work, haunted by the requirement of disinterestedness.As an anthropologist as well as a philosopher, Hénaff worries that philosophy has failed to distinguish among various types of giving. The Philosophers’ Gift returns to Mauss to reexamine these thinkers through the anthropological tradition. Reciprocity, rather than disinterestedness, he shows, is central to ceremonial giving and alliance, whereby the social bond specific to humans is proclaimed as a political bond. From the social fact of gift practices, Hénaff develops an original and profound theory of symbolism, the social, and the relationship between self and other, whether that other is an individual human being, the collective other of community and institution, or the impersonal other of the world.
The Philosopher’s Touch: Sartre, Nietzsche, and Barthes at the Piano (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)
by François NoudelmannRenowned philosopher and prominent French critic François Noudelmann engages the musicality of Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Roland Barthes, all of whom were amateur piano players and acute lovers of the medium. Though piano playing was a crucial art for these thinkers, their musings on the subject are largely scant, implicit, or discordant with each philosopher's oeuvre. Noudelmann both recovers and integrates these perspectives, showing that the manner in which these philosophers played, the composers they adored, and the music they chose reveals uncommon insight into their thinking styles and patterns.Noudelmann positions the physical and theoretical practice of music as a dimension underpinning and resonating with Sartre's, Nietzsche's, and Barthes's unique philosophical outlook. By reading their thought against their music, he introduces new critical formulations and reorients their trajectories, adding invaluable richness to these philosophers' lived and embodied experiences. The result heightens the multiple registers of being and the relationship between philosophy and the senses that informed so much of their work. A careful reader of music, Noudelmann maintains an elegant command of the texts under his gaze and appreciates the discursive points of musical and philosophical scholarship they involve, especially with regard to recent research and cutting-edge critique.
The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, And The Meaning Of Life
by Alison GopnikIn the last decade there has been a revolution in our understanding of the minds of infants and young children. We used to believe that babies were irrational, and that their thinking and experience were limited. Now Alison Gopnik ― a leading psychologist and philosopher, as well as a mother ― explains the cutting-edge scientific and psychological research that has revealed that babies learn more, create more, care more, and experience more than we could ever have imagined. And there is good reason to believe that babies are actually smarter, more thoughtful, and more conscious than adults. In a lively and accessible tour of the groundbreaking new psychological, neuroscientific, and philosophical developments, Gopnik offers new insight into how babies see the world, and in turn promotes a deeper appreciation for the role of parents in shaping the lives of their children.
The Philosophical Background and Scientific Legacy of E. B. Titchener's Psychology
by Christian BeenfeldtThis volume offers a new understanding of Titchener's influential system of psychology popularly known as introspectionism, structuralism and as classical introspective psychology. Adopting a new perspective on introspectionism and seeking to assess the reasons behind its famous implosion, this book reopens and rewrites the chapter in the history of early scientific psychology pertaining to the nature of E. B. Titchener's psychological system. Arguing against the view that Titchener's system was undone by an overreliance on introspection, the author explains how this idea was first introduced by the early behaviorists in order to advance their own theoretical agenda. Instead, the author argues that the major philosophical flaw of introspectionism was its utter reliance on key theoretical assumptions inherited from the intellectual tradition of British associationism--assumptions that were upheld in defiance of introspection, not because of introspection. The book is divided into three parts. In Part I, British associationism is examined thoroughly. The author here discusses the psychology of influential empiricist philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, David Hartley, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill. In Part II of the book, Titchener's introspectionist system of psychology is examined and analyzed. In Part III, the author argues that Titchener's psychology should be understood as a form of associationism and explains how analysis, not introspection, was central to introspectionism.
The Philosophical Bases of Theism (Routledge Library Editions: Philosophy of Religion)
by George Dawes HicksExcellently organised and written, this is a thorough examination of how philosophy interacts with religion. The chapters were originally presented as the Hibbert Lectures in 1931 at University College London and the University of Manchester. The texts are expanded and elaborated to present a cohesive text, first published in 1937. Exploring free rational thinking, the book encourages reflection on the principals on which religion rests and addresses themes such as knowledge and experience, evolution, positivism, mystical experience, divine immanence, beauty and morality.
The Philosophical Challenge from China
by Brian BruyaThis volume, an investigation of current topics in philosophy that is informed by the Chinese philosophical tradition, brings together leading scholars from East and West who are working at the intersection of traditional Chinese philosophy and mainstream analytic philosophy. The essays show that serious engagement with Chinese philosophy can not only enrich modern philosophical discussion but also shift the debate in a meaningful way.
The Philosophical Defence of Psychiatry (Philosophical Issues in Science)
by Lawrie ReznekBy first analysing the arguments of psychiatry's critics and the philosophical ideas of such thinkers as Freud, Eysenck, Laing, Szasz, Sedgwick and Foucault and by then providing answers to the many contentious and diverse questions raised, Dr. Reznek aims to establish a philosophical defence of the theory and practice of psychiatry. As both a qualified philosopher and psychiatrist, the author is exceptionally p[laced to undertake the examination of a subject which has hitherto remained untackled. It will be easily accessible to a wide variety of non-specialists as well. It will be of specific interest to those involved in the practice of philosophy, psychiatry, clinical psychology, social work and psychiatric nursing.
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures
by Jürgen HabermasThe Philosophical Discourse of Modernity is a tour de force that has the immediacy and accessibility of the lecture form and the excitement of an encounter across, national cultural boundaries. Habermas takes up the challenge posed by the radical critique of reason in contemporary French poststructuralism. Tracing the odyssey of the philosophical discourse of modernity, Habermas's strategy is to return to those historical "crossroads" at which Hegel and the Young Hegelians, Nietzsche and Heidegger made the fateful decisions that led to this outcome. His aim is to identify and clearly mark out a road indicated but not taken: the determinate negation of subject-centered reason through the concept of communicative rationality. As The Theory of Communicative Action served to place this concept within the history of social theory, these lectures locate it within the history of philosophy. Habermas examines the odyssey of the philosophical discourse of modernity from Hegel through the present and tests his own ideas about the appropriate form of a postmodern discourse through dialogs with a broad range of past and present critics and theorists. The lectures on Georges Bataille, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Cornelius Castoriadis are of particular note since they are the first fruits of the recent cross-fertilization between French and German thought. Habermas's dialogue with Foucault -- begun in person as the first of these lectures were delivered in Paris in 1983 culminates here in two appreciative yet intensely argumentative lectures. His discussion of the literary-theoretical reception of Derrida in America -- launched at Cornell in 1984 -- issues here in a long excursus on the genre distinction between philosophy and literature. The lectures were reworked for the final time in seminars at Boston College and first published in Germany in the fall of 1985.
The Philosophical Ethology of Dominique Lestel (Angelaki: New Work in the Theoretical Humanities)
by Matthew Chrulew, Jeffrey Bussolini and Brett BuchananDominique Lestel is a French philosopher whose work is significant for the rethinking of animality and human-animal relations. Throughout such important books as L’Animalité (1996), Les Origines animales de la culture (2001) and L’Animal singulier (2004), he offers a fierce critique of reductive, mechanistic models of animal behaviour, as well as a positive contribution to etho-ethnographic and phenomenological methods for understanding animal life. Centred around hybrid human–animal communities of shared interests, affects and meaning, his critical and speculative approach to the animal sciences offers a vision of animals as acting subjects and bearers of culture, who form their own worlds and transform them in concert with human and other partners. In tracing the ways in which we share our lives with animals in the texture of animality, Lestel’s cutting-edge philosophical ethology also contributes to an overarching philosophical anthropology of the human as the most animal of animals. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization: A manifesto for the future (Routledge Environmental Humanities)
by Arran GareThe global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The arts and the humanities have been devalued, genuine science has been crippled, and the quest for autonomy and democracy undermined. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization is a wide-ranging and scholarly analysis of this failure. This book reframes the dynamics of the debate beyond the discourses of economics, politics and techno-science. Reviving natural philosophy to align science with the humanities, it offers the categories required to reform our modes of existence and our institutions so that we augment, rather than undermine, the life of the ecosystems of which we are part. From this philosophical foundation, the author puts forth a manifesto for transforming our culture into one which could provide an effective global environmental movement and provide the foundations for a global ecological civilization.
The Philosophical Foundations of Social Work
by Frederic G. ReamerSocial work rests on complex philosophical assumptions that should be central to practice, education, and training. In this book, Frederic G. Reamer explores how these issues bear on the purpose, methods, and perspectives of social work and their far-reaching implications for practice and scholarship.Reamer examines major themes across the domains of moral and political philosophy, logic, epistemology, and aesthetics. He raises questions such as: How can ethical theories inform social workers’ moral judgments? In what ways are canons of inductive and deductive logic relevant to social workers’ thinking about their work? To what extent can scientific inquiry help social workers understand the nature and effect of their interventions? How can concepts related to aesthetics shed light on the nature of social work? Reamer’s nuanced inquiry never loses sight of the concrete applications of philosophy to social work practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities, or to broader goals of social change.This second edition of The Philosophical Foundations of Social Work is revised and updated throughout to address contemporary challenges. It focuses especially on newer thinking about the role of non-Western philosophical perspectives and the relevance of philosophy to social workers’ commitments to multiculturalism, feminism, and antiracism.
The Philosophical Hitchcock: “Vertigo” and the Anxieties of Unknowingness
by Robert B. PippinOn the surface, The Philosophical Hitchcock: Vertigo and the Anxieties of Unknowingness, is a close reading of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 masterpiece Vertigo. This, however, is a book by Robert B. Pippin, one of our most penetrating and creative philosophers, and so it is also much more. Even as he provides detailed readings of each scene in the film, and its story of obsession and fantasy, Pippin reflects more broadly on the modern world depicted in Hitchcock’s films. Hitchcock’s characters, Pippin shows us, repeatedly face problems and dangers rooted in our general failure to understand others—or even ourselves—very well, or to make effective use of what little we do understand. Vertigo, with its impersonations, deceptions, and fantasies, embodies a general, common struggle for mutual understanding in the late modern social world of ever more complex dependencies. By treating this problem through a filmed fictional narrative, rather than discursively, Pippin argues, Hitchcock is able to help us see the systematic and deep mutual misunderstanding and self-deceit that we are subject to when we try to establish the knowledge necessary for love, trust, and commitment, and what it might be to live in such a state of unknowingness. A bold, brilliant exploration of one of the most admired works of cinema, The Philosophical Hitchcock will lead philosophers and cinephiles alike to a new appreciation of Vertigo and its meanings.
The Philosophical Impact of Contemporary Physics
by Milic CapekThe present book has grown out of the conviction that no true understanding of contemporary physics and its philosophical implications is possible without first fully realizing in what sense and to what extent modern physical concepts differ from the concepts of classical physics. The classical concepts of space, time, matter, motion, energy, and causality have been radically transformed recently; although the words used by contemporary physicists are the same, their connotations are altogether different from those of their classical counterparts. There is hardly any similarity between the "matter" of modern physics and the traditional material substance of the classical period, and this is true in varying degrees of other concepts as well. The revolutionary character of modern concepts cannot be fully grasped as long as the contrasting background of classical physics is not kept constantly in sight. To bring into full focus an awareness of the contrast between the classical and the modern conceptual frameworks is one of the purposes of this book.
The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach (Sixth Edition)
by William LawheadThe Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach is a text with readings that enhances comprehension of philosophical study by encouraging students to ponder, explore, and actively participate in the learning process. Philosophy becomes a personal journey for students through Lawhead's unique pedagogy that introduces philosophical concepts through practical application in the form of primary sources, interwoven exercises, and sections that encourage critical thinking and further exploration of core concepts.
The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Emotions
by Martin Heidegger Simone De Beauvoir Jean-Paul SartreUnderstand the concepts that shaped twentieth-century philosophy, theology, psychology, and art, with works by Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialism was born in the nineteenth century and came of age in mid-twentieth-century France. Here, three major texts offer an introduction to the philosophy, which emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and personal responsibility while acknowledging the suffering and dread that can accompany our striving for such values.Essays in Metaphysics: Identity and Difference by Martin Heidegger In the two lectures translated here, Heidegger provides illuminating insights and touches upon many a vital issue, including our technological age, religion, language, history, and more. His receptiveness, sensitivity, and ability to be at the heart of the problem are represented here, offering a deeper appreciation of the teacher and man who gave the world works such as Being and Time.The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir The second major essay by the groundbreaking author of The Second Sex and a classic introduction to Existentialist thought, The Ethics of Ambiguity simultaneously pays homage to and grapples with de Beauvoir’s French contemporaries, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by arguing that the freedoms of existentialism carry certain ethical responsibilities. While contemplating nihilism, surrealism, existentialism, objectivity, and human values, de Beauvoir outlines a series of “ways of being” (the adventurer, the passionate person, the lover, the artist, and the intellectual) that allows us to live up to the responsibilities of freedom.The Emotions: Outline of a Theory by Jean-Paul Sartre French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre attempts to understand the role emotions play in the human psyche. Sartre analyzes fear, lust, anguish, and melancholy while asserting that human beings begin to develop emotional capabilities from a very early age, which helps them identify and understand the emotions’ names and qualities later in life. Helping to complete the circle of Sartre’s many theories on existentialism, this vital piece of literature is a must-have for the philosopher-in-training’s collection.
The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Essays in Metaphysics, The Ethics of Ambiguity, and The Philosophy of Existentialism
by Martin Heidegger Simone De Beauvoir Jean-Paul SartreUnderstand the concepts that shaped twentieth-century philosophy, theology, psychology, and art, with works by Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialism was born in the nineteenth century and came of age in mid-twentieth-century France. Here, three major texts offer an introduction to the philosophy, which emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and personal responsibility while acknowledging the suffering and dread that can accompany our striving for such values.Essays in Metaphysics: Identity and Difference by Martin Heidegger In the two lectures translated here, Heidegger provides illuminating insights and touches upon many a vital issue, including our technological age, religion, language, history, and more. His receptiveness, sensitivity, and ability to be at the heart of the problem are represented here, offering a deeper appreciation of the teacher and man who gave the world works such as Being and Time.The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir The second major essay by the groundbreaking author of The Second Sex and a classic introduction to Existentialist thought, The Ethics of Ambiguity simultaneously pays homage to and grapples with de Beauvoir's French contemporaries, philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, by arguing that the freedoms of existentialism carry certain ethical responsibilities. While contemplating nihilism, surrealism, existentialism, objectivity, and human values, de Beauvoir outlines a series of "ways of being" (the adventurer, the passionate person, the lover, the artist, and the intellectual) that allows us to live up to the responsibilities of freedom.The Philosophy of Existentialism: Selected Essays by Jean-Paul SartreThe Philosophy of Existentialism collects representative essays on Jean-Paul Sartre's pioneering subject. Beginning with a thoughtful introduction by fellow French philosopher Jean Wahl, this work looks at existentialism through several lenses, exploring topics such as the emotions, imagination, nothingness, freedom, responsibility, and the desire to be God. By providing exposition on a variety of subjects--including aesthetics, emotions, writing, phenomenology, and perception--The Philosophy of Existentialism is a valuable introduction to Sartre's ideas.
The Philosophical Library Existentialism Collection: Hasidism, Essays in Metaphysics, and The Emotions
by Martin Heidegger Martin Buber Jean-Paul SartreExplore the work of three great existential philosophers together in this collection. Hasidism: Zionist philosopher Martin Buber shares the results of forty years of study and introduces the philosophies of Hasidism to a Western audience. In this modern masterpiece, Buber interprets the ideas and motives that underlie the great Jewish religious movement of Hasidism and its creator, Baal Shem. Essays in Metaphysics: German philosopher Martin Heidegger presents two lectures in which he explores the nature of identity in the history of metaphysics. He offers illuminating insights on vital issues like technology, religion, language, history, and more. The Emotions: French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre attempts to understand the role emotions play in the human psyche. Sartre analyzes fear, lust, anguish, and melancholy while asserting that human beings begin to develop emotional capabilities from a very early age, which helps them identify and understand the emotions&’ names and qualities later in life.
The Philosophical Life: Twelve Great Thinkers and the Search for Wisdom, from Socrates to Nietzsche
by James MillerBefore the good life was reduced to a bottle of Prozac, it was philosophers who offered answers to the most fundamental questions about who we are and how to live well. In The Philosophical Life, James Miller returns to this vibrant tradition with short and spirited biographies of twelve famous thinkers, examining the interplay of their life and thought. From Plato, who risked his reputation to tutor a tyrant, to Kant, who wrestled with hypochondria while advocating arch-rationality in his writings, each thinker took their own unique approach to 'the good life', but often struggled to put their theories into practice. With a flair for rich anecdote, Miller provides a captivating insight into some of history's greatest thinkers - and confirms the continuing relevance of philosophy today.
The Philosophical Limitations of Educational Assessment: Implications for Academic Selection
by Ian CantleyThis book uses philosophical analysis to argue that there are tensions associated with using results of high stakes tests to predict students’ future potential. The implications of these issues for the interpretation of test scores in general are then elucidated before their connotations for academic selection are considered. After a brief overview of the history of academic selection in the United Kingdom, and a review of evidence pertaining to its consequences, it is argued that the practice of using the results of contemporary high stakes tests to make important decisions about students incurs logical and moral problems that a conscientious educator cannot ignore. The gravity of the moral transgression depends on the purpose and significance of the test and, in the case of high stakes tests used for academic selection purposes, it is argued that, not only can the moral wrong be highly significant, but better solutions are within reach.
The Philosophical Novel as a Literary Genre
by Michael H. MitiasThis book examines the conceptual, existential, and logical conditions under which the philosophical novel can be treated as a literary genre on a par with generally recognized literary genres, such as mystery, romantic, adventure, religious, or historical novel. Michael H. Mitias argues that the philosophical novel meets these conditions. He advances a detailed analysis of the concept of literary genre, and discusses the reasons which justify the claim that philosophical novel is a distinct literary genre. This is based on the assumption that philosophical ideas can be communicated metaphorically. An analysis of this assumption necessarily leads to a detailed discussion of the concept of metaphor and the extent to which it can be the vehicle of communicating philosophical truth.