- Table View
- List View
What is Pluralism? (Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought)
by Volker Kaul Ingrid SalvatoreIs pluralism inherent to the human condition? Does it have its origins in the diversity of cultures? Are disagreements among individuals the same as disagreements among societies? Focusing on these critical questions essential to the understanding of modern societies, this book traces the origins of pluralism in contemporary political thought and presents new, original interpretations of the idea by contemporary philosophers. The chapters in the volume bring clarity into an ongoing fractious debate and reveal the underlying roots and fissures in our understanding of a dynamic and contested idea. Drawing on the works of John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and other major political philosophers, they delve into the different strands of the concept, their possible real-world political outcomes, and popular misconceptions. A key text, this volume will be essential reading for scholars and researchers of politics, political theory and philosophy, and social theory.
What Is Political Philosophy?
by Charles LarmoreA new understanding of political philosophy from one of its leading thinkersWhat is political philosophy? What are its fundamental problems? And how should it be distinguished from moral philosophy? In this book, Charles Larmore redefines the distinctive aims of political philosophy, reformulating in this light the basis of a liberal understanding of politics.Because political life is characterized by deep and enduring conflict between rival interests and differing moral ideals, the core problems of political philosophy are the regulation of conflict and the conditions under which the members of society may thus be made subject to political authority. We cannot assume that reason will lead to unanimity about these matters because individuals hold different moral convictions. Larmore therefore analyzes the concept of reasonable disagreement and investigates the ways we can adjudicate conflicts among people who reasonably disagree about the nature of the human good and the proper basis of political society. Challenging both the classical liberalism of Locke, Kant, and Mill, and more recent theories of political realism proposed by Bernard Williams and others, Larmore argues for a version of political liberalism that is centered on political legitimacy rather than on social justice, and that aims to be well suited to our times rather than universally valid.Forceful and thorough yet concise, What Is Political Philosophy? proposes a new definition of political philosophy and demonstrates the profound implications of that definition. The result is a compelling and distinctive intervention from a major political philosopher.
What is Possible Now: 33 Political Situations
by Navid KermaniNavid Kermani is one of the outstanding public intellectuals of his generation. Not one for drawing hard and fast conclusions, his style of thought is probing, observant, often straying from well-trodden paths and always peering beyond the present moment to trace connections and grasp the bigger picture. Well known for his prize-winning novels and major works of non-fiction, Kermani has also gained widespread acclaim as a journalist, displaying a rare political sensitivity which manages to illuminate what politicians fail to see and to seek out solutions where all appears hopeless. This volume brings together his brilliantly perceptive writing from the last thirty years, on topics ranging from terror in the Middle East to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a record of Kermani’s uniquely compassionate curiosity, this absorbing book is a welcome antidote to the confusion and despair that stalks global politics today.
What Is Posthumanism?
by Cary WolfeWhat does it mean to think beyond humanism? Is it possible to craft a mode of philosophy, ethics, and interpretation that rejects the classic humanist divisions of self and other, mind and body, society and nature, human and animal, organic and technological? Can a new kind of humanities--posthumanities--respond to the redefinition of humanity's place in the world by both the technological and the biological or "green" continuum in which the "human" is but one life form among many?Exploring how both critical thought along with cultural practice have reacted to this radical repositioning, Cary Wolfe--one of the founding figures in the field of animal studies and posthumanist theory--ranges across bioethics, cognitive science, animal ethics, gender, and disability to develop a theoretical and philosophical approach responsive to our changing understanding of ourselves and our world. Then, in performing posthumanist readings of such diverse works as Temple Grandin's writings, Wallace Stevens's poetry, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, the architecture of Diller+Scofidio, and David Byrne and Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, he shows how this philosophical sensibility can transform art and culture. For Wolfe, a vibrant, rigorous posthumanism is vital for addressing questions of ethics and justice, language and trans-species communication, social systems and their inclusions and exclusions, and the intellectual aspirations of interdisciplinarity. In What Is Posthumanism? he carefully distinguishes posthumanism from transhumanism (the biotechnological enhancement of human beings) and narrow definitions of the posthuman as the hoped-for transcendence of materiality. In doing so, Wolfe reveals that it is humanism, not the human in all its embodied and prosthetic complexity, that is left behind in posthumanist thought.
What Is Progress
by Aldo Schiavone“Historian Schiavone mixes philosophy, politics, and anthropology in this stimulating inquiry into the ‘paradigm of progress.’” —Publishers WeeklyToday, many believe that progress is a word to be avoided, a relic from a past, the dangerous product of an era of intellectual naivety that would be best forgotten. Yet, the idea of progress is rooted in a human impulse that is both profound and essential, a way of interpreting history without which our ability to plan the future—and our very identity—would be at stake.Written just before the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic—which is now putting its argument to the hardest of tests—this lucid essay explores how science and technology have been, and can still be, a powerful engine for human advancement.
What is Property?
by Pierre-Joseph ProudhonProudhon's most famous declaration that "property is theft" comes from this, his most famous work, published in French in 1840; the English translation dates from 1890. According to Proudhon, only that which is being used is real property. Land must be lived on or farmed to be property, and goods must have been made by one's own labor to be owned. These new definitions challenge the very basis of capitalist systems, and Proudhon used them as the foundation for his writings in support of anarchy. Activists, historians, and philosophers will find themselves pondering his arguments long after they have finished reading.
What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government
by P. J. ProudhonIf I were asked to answer the following question: WHAT IS SLAVERY? and I should answer in one word, IT IS MURDER, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him. Why, then, to this other question: WHAT IS PROPERTY! may I not likewise answer, IT IS ROBBERY, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
What Is Real? (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
by Giorgio Agamben Lorenzo ChiesaEighty years ago, Ettore Majorana, a brilliant student of Enrico Fermi, disappeared under mysterious circumstances while going by ship from Palermo to Naples. How is it possible that the most talented physicist of his generation vanished without leaving a trace? It has long been speculated that Majorana decided to abandon physics, disappearing because he had precociously realized that nuclear fission would inevitably lead to the atomic bomb. This book advances a different hypothesis. Through a careful analysis of Majorana's article "The Value of Statistical Laws in Physics and Social Sciences," which shows how in quantum physics reality is dissolved into probability, and in dialogue with Simone Weil's considerations on the topic, Giorgio Agamben suggests that, by disappearing into thin air, Majorana turned his very person into an exemplary cipher of the status of the real in our probabilistic universe. In so doing, the physicist posed a question to science that is still awaiting an answer: What is Real?
What is Reality?: The New Map of Cosmos, Consciousness, and Existence
by Ervin Laszlo Deepak Chopra Stanislav GrofErvin Laszlo's tour de force, What is Reality?, is the product of a half-century of deep contemplation and cutting-edge scholarship. Addressing many of the paradoxes that have confounded modern science over the years, it offers nothing less than a new paradigm of reality, one in which the cosmos is a seamless whole, informed by a single, coherent consciousness manifest in us all. Bringing together science, philosophy, and metaphysics, Laszlo takes aim at accepted wisdom, such as the dichotomies of mind and body, spirit and matter, being and nonbeing, to show how we are all part of an infinite cycle of existence unfolding in spacetime and beyond.Augmented by insightful commentary from a dozen scholars and thinkers, along with a foreword by Deepak Chopra and an introduction by Stanislav Grof, What is Reality? offers a fresh and liberating understanding of the meaning and purpose of existence.
What Is Religion?
by Richard CurtisIn this book Richard Curtis argues that religion is a universal human phenomenon regardless of content. In popular culture religion is understood to be belief in supernatural things but specialists in the field usually use a generic definition. Dr. Curtis, here, offers his theory of the nature of religion, which is open as to content (that is compatible with theistic and atheistic positions), based on the latest insights from Philosophy of Mind, the Social Sciences and the Cognitive Sciences.
What Is Self?: A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness
by Bernadette RobertsThe renowned contemporary mystic and author of The Experience of No-Self presents her philosophical treatise on the nature of Self and God. As a Carmelite nun, Bernadette Roberts pursued a life in union with God. She wrote compellingly about her contemplative spiritual journey in her memoirs The Experience of No-Self and The Path of No-Self. Now she builds on the wisdom she gained, exploring the ultimate consciousness that transcends self and experience. In What Is Self?, Ms. Roberts explains her conceptions of the ego, the self, and the revelations of the contemplative life. Deeply personal and profoundly spiritual, this latest effort puts all of Bernadette&’s insights into clearer and sharper perspective—as though her own journey has grown clearer with distance.
What IS Sex? (Short Circuits)
by Alenka ZupancicWhy sexuality is at the point of a “short circuit” between ontology and epistemology.Consider sublimation—conventionally understood as a substitute satisfaction for missing sexual satisfaction. But what if, as Lacan claims, we can get exactly the same satisfaction that we get from sex from talking (or writing, painting, praying, or other activities)? The point is not to explain the satisfaction from talking by pointing to its sexual origin, but that the satisfaction from talking is itself sexual. The satisfaction from talking contains a key to sexual satisfaction (and not the other way around)—even a key to sexuality itself and its inherent contradictions. The Lacanian perspective would make the answer to the simple-seeming question, “What is sex?” rather more complex. In this volume in the Short Circuits series, Alenka Zupančič approaches the question from just this perspective, considering sexuality a properly philosophical problem for psychoanalysis; and by psychoanalysis, she means that of Freud and Lacan, not that of the kind of clinician practitioners called by Lacan “orthopedists of the unconscious.” Zupančič argues that sexuality is at the point of a “short circuit” between ontology and epistemology. Sexuality and knowledge are structured around a fundamental negativity, which unites them at the point of the unconscious. The unconscious (as linked to sexuality) is the concept of an inherent link between being and knowledge in their very negativity.
What Is Sexual Difference?: Thinking with Irigaray
by Mary C. Rawlinson and James SaresLuce Irigaray has written that “sexual difference is one of the major philosophical issues, if not the issue, of our age.” Spanning metaphysics, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, her work examines how sexual difference structures being and subjectivity, organizes our experience of the world, and affects the images and discourses involved in knowledge production and practical action. No other philosopher has paid such careful attention to the consequences of the elision of sexual difference in philosophical thought. However, at a time when notions of sexual and gender difference are hotly contested, Irigaray’s thought has often been dismissed as essentialist or reductively binary.This book brings together leading scholars to consider the philosophical implications of Irigaray’s writing on sexual difference, particularly for issues of gender and race. Their essays directly confront the charge of essentialism, exploring how Irigaray’s thought opens new possibilities for understanding the complexity of gender identities, including nonbinary and trans experiences as well as alternative configurations of masculinity and femininity. Though Irigaray is sometimes accused of a failure to appreciate racial difference, contributors show the productive role of her work in thinking race. This book also illuminates how Irigaray’s work provides creative practices that help realign human experience and our relations with nature and each other.
What Is Stoicism?: A Brief and Accessible Overview
by Tanner Campbell Kai WhitingAn easy, jargon-free introduction to stoicism that covers the full range of stoic thought in a single compact volume Divided into short chapters that can be read in brief sittings, What Is Stoicism? compiles two millennia of Stoic thought into simple conversational prose. This whistle-stop tour of Stoicism covers a surprising number of core topics: • the three pillars of Stoic philosophy: logic, physics, and ethics • the ultimate goal of Stoicism: virtue • the Stoic concept of circles of concern: our individual obligations to our family, community, and world • the Stoic ideal of living in accordance with nature Readers will come to appreciate the vitality of Stoicism and realize how the wisdom of the past can meet the challenges of the present and the future.
What Is Subjectivity?
by Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre, at the height of his powers, debates with Italy's leading intellectualsIn 1961, the prolific French intellectual Jean-Paul Sartre was invited to give a talk at the Gramsci Institute in Rome. In attendance were some of Italy's leading Marxist thinkers, such as Enzo Paci, Cesare Luporini, and Galvano Della Volpe, whose contributions to the long and remarkable discussion that followed are collected in this volume, along with the lecture itself. Sartre posed the question "What is subjectivity?"--a question of renewed importance today to contemporary debates concerning "the subject" in critical theory. This work includes a preface by Michel Kail and Raoul Kirchmayr and an afterword by Fredric Jameson, who makes a rousing case for the continued importance of Sartre's philosophy.From the Trade Paperback edition.
What is Sustainable Technology?: Perceptions, Paradoxes and Possibilities
by Karel Mulder Didac Ferrer Harro van LenteDesigners of technology have a major responsibility in the current age. Their designs can have tremendous effects on society, in both the short and the long term. In fact, sustainable development itself has all the characteristics of a design project, albeit a vast one. But a failed product design here will be not just be unsuccessful in the market – it will have far-reaching consequences. It is our common responsibility to make the project successful. Technology has played an important role in creating the problems that we now face; but it will also play an important role in solving them. But this does not mean the technological fix will be easy. How do we allocate resources and attention when there are myriad issues under the umbrella of "sustainable development" currently in competition with one another? How do we arrive at precise specifications for the sustainable technologies that are to be developed and, furthermore, reach consensus on these specifications? What if our sustainable technological solutions aggravate other problems or create new ones? And, because sustainable development is all about the long-term consequences of our actions, how do we assess the effects of modifying existing landscapes, infrastructures and patterns of life?How could we be sure in advance that the changes that new technologies bring will make our society more sustainable? These dilemmas and paradoxes are the subject of this provocative book. Sometimes the claim that a technology is sustainable is made in order to make the technology acceptable in the political process, as in the case of nuclear energy production, where the claims of "sustainability" refer to the absence of CO2 emissions. In the case of biofuels, claims of sustainability have led to a "fuel or food" debate, showing that sustainability has counteracting articulations. And the well-known rebound effect is observed when increased resource efficiency can create a stimulus for consumption. What is Sustainable Technology? illustrates that the sustainability impact of a technology is often much more complicated and ambivalent than one might expect. Making improvements to existing designs is not the technological challenge that will lead to real solutions. We mustn't look to change a part of a machine, but rather the machine as a whole – or even the whole system in which it functions. It is these system innovations that have the potential to make a genuine contribution to sustainable development. What is Sustainable Technology? will help all those involved in designing more sustainable technologies in determining their strategies. It does so by presenting case studies of different technologies in contrasting contexts. Each case asks: 1. What articulations of sustainability played a role in the design process? 2. What sustainability effects did this technology lead to? 3. Who was affected, where, and when? 4. Could the designer have foreseen these consequences? 5. How did the designer anticipate them? 6. How was societal interaction dealt with during the design process? Finally, the authors reflect on future options for the sustainable technology designer. They argue that an important first step is an awareness of the multitude of sustainable development challenges that play a role in production, use, recycling and end-of-life disposal. What is Sustainable Technology? will be essential reading for product designers, engineers, material scientists and others involved in the development of sustainable technologies, as well as a wide academic audience interested in the complexities of the sustainable design process.
What is Systematic Theology?
by Robert Doran, S.J.In his classic work Method in Theology, Bernard Lonergan left many questions unanswered in regard to his treatment of systematics. In What Is Systematic Theology? Robert M. Doran attempts to articulate and respond to these questions. Doran begins by accepting four emphases presented by Lonergan concerning systematics: first, that its principal function is the hypothetical and analogical understanding of the mysteries of faith; second, that it should begin with those mysteries of faith that have received dogmatic status; third, that it must proceed in the 'order of teaching' rather than the 'order of discovery'; and last, that it must be explanatory rather than merely descriptive. He then addresses questions that are raised by each of these emphases. What Is Systematic Theology? is the most thorough attempt undertaken to date to advance Lonergan's program for systematics, fully in the spirit of his work but addressing issues that he left to others. Doran's idea of a core set of meanings for systematics – or a 'unified field structure' – is highly original, as is the integration of the systematic ideal and contemporary historical consciousness.
What Is Talmud?: The Art of Disagreement
by Sergey DolgopolskiTrue disagreements are hard to achieve, and even harder to maintain, for the ghost of final agreement constantly haunts them. The Babylonian Talmud, however, escapes from that ghost of agreement, and provokes unsettling questions: Are there any conditions under which disagreement might constitute a genuine relationship between minds? Are disagreements always only temporary steps toward final agreement? Must a community of disagreement always imply agreement, as in an agreement to disagree? What is Talmud? rethinks the task of philological, literary, historical, and cultural analysis of the Talmud. It introduces an aspect of this task that has best been approximated by the philosophical, anthropological, and ontological interrogation of human being in relationship to the Other-whether animal, divine, or human. In both engagement and disengagement with post-Heideggerian traditions of thought, Sergey Dogopolski complements philological-historical and cultural approaches to the Talmud with a rigorous anthropological, ontological, and Talmudic inquiry. He redefines the place of the Talmud and its study, both traditional and academic, in the intellectual map of the West, arguing that Talmud is a scholarly art of its own and represents a fundamental intellectual discipline, not a mere application of logical, grammatical, or even rhetorical arts for the purpose of textual hermeneutics. In Talmudic intellectual art, disagreement is a fundamental category. What Is Talmud? rediscovers disagreement as the ultimate condition of finite human existence or co-existence.
What is the Genus?
by Patrick Popescu-PampuExploring several of the evolutionary branches of the mathematical notion of genus, this book traces the idea from its prehistory in problems of integration, through algebraic curves and their associated Riemann surfaces, into algebraic surfaces, and finally into higher dimensions. Its importance in analysis, algebraic geometry, number theory and topology is emphasized through many theorems. Almost every chapter is organized around excerpts from a research paper in which a new perspective was brought on the genus or on one of the objects to which this notion applies. The author was motivated by the belief that a subject may best be understood and communicated by studying its broad lines of development, feeling the way one arrives at the definitions of its fundamental notions, and appreciating the amount of effort spent in order to explore its phenomena.
What is the Human Being? (Kant's Questions)
by Patrick R. FriersonPhilosophers, anthropologists and biologists have long puzzled over the question of human nature. It is also a question that Kant thought about deeply and returned to in many of his writings. In this lucid and wide-ranging introduction to Kant’s philosophy of human nature - which is essential for understanding his thought as a whole - Patrick R. Frierson assesses Kant’s theories and examines his critics. He begins by explaining how Kant articulates three ways of addressing the question ‘what is the human being?’: the transcendental, the empirical, and the pragmatic. He then considers some of the great theorists of human nature who wrestle with Kant’s views, such as Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud; contemporary thinkers such as E.O.Wilson and Daniel Dennett, who have sought biological explanations of human nature; Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, and Clifford Geertz, who emphasize the diversity of human beings in different times and places; and existentialist philosophers such as Sartre and Heidegger. He argues that whilst these approaches challenge and enrich Kant’s views in significant ways, all suffer from serious weaknesses that Kant’s anthropology can address. Taking a core insight of Kant’s - that human beings are fundamentally free but finite - he argues that it is the existentialists, particularly Sartre, who are the most direct heirs of his transcendental anthropology. The final part of the book is an extremely helpful overview of the work of contemporary philosophers, particularly Christine Korsgaard and Jürgen Habermas. Patrick R. Frierson explains how these philosophers engage with questions of naturalism, historicism, and existentialism while developing Kantian conceptions of the human being. Including chapter summaries and annotated further reading, What is the Human Being? is an outstanding introduction to some fundamental aspects of Kant’s thought and a judicious assessment of leading theories of human nature. It is essential reading for all students of Kant and the philosophy of human nature, as well as those in related disciplines such as anthropology, politics and sociology.
What Is the Present?: A History of the Here and Now
by Michael NorthA provocative new look at concepts of the present, their connection to ideas about time, and their effect on literature, art, and cultureThe problem of the present—what it is and what it means—is one that has vexed generations of thinkers and artists. Because modernity places so much value on the present, many critics argue that people today spend far too much time in the here and now—but how can we tell without first knowing what the here and now actually is? What Is the Present? takes a provocative new look at this moment in time that remains a mystery even though it is always with us.Michael North tackles puzzles that have preoccupied philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, history, and aesthetic theory and examines the complex role of the present in painting, fiction, and film. He engages with a range of thinkers, from Aristotle and Augustine to William James and Henri Bergson. He draws illuminating examples from artists such as Fra Angelico and Richard McGuire, filmmakers like D. W. Griffith and Christopher Nolan, and novelists such as Elizabeth Bowen and Willa Cather. North offers a critical analysis of previous models of the present, from the experiential present to the historical period we call the contemporary. He argues that the present is not a cosmological or experiential fact but a metaphor, a figurative relationship with the whole of time. Presenting an entirely new conception of the temporal mystery Georg Lukács called the "unexplained instant," What Is the Present? explores how the arts have traditionally represented the present—and also how artists have offered radical alternatives to that tradition.
What Is Theology?: Christian Thought and Contemporary Life (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
by Adam KotskoThe secular world may have thought it was done with theology, but theology was not done with it. Recent decades have seen a resurgence of religion on the social and political scene, which have driven thinkers across many disciplines to grapple with the Christian theological inheritance of the modern world. Adam Kotsko provides a unique guide to this fraught terrain. The title essay establishes a fresh and unexpected redefinition of theology and its complex and often polemical relationship with its sister discipline of philosophy. Subsequent essays build on this framework from three different perspectives. In the first part, Kotsko demonstrates the continued vibrancy of Christian theology as a creative and constructive pursuit outside the walls of the church, showing that theological concepts can underwrite a powerful critique of the modern world. The second approaches Christian theology from the perspective of a range of contemporary philosophers, showing how philosophical thought is drawn to theology even despite itself. The concluding section is devoted to the unexpected theological roots of the modern world-system, making a case that the interplay of state and economy and the structure of modern racial oppression both build on theological patterns of thought.Kotsko’s book ultimately shows that theology is not a scholarly game or an edifying spiritual discipline, but a world-shaping force of great power. Lives are at stake when we do theology—and if we don’t do it, someone else will.
What is Thinking?: And Other Philosophical Reflections
by Saitya Brata DasThe philosophical essays of this collection argue, each time from a singular perspective, that the task of thinking is to release the element of the unconditional from various closures, and thus to make it manifest as the true and the essential task of our individual and social existence. Naming this unconditional element as the "messianic", the book displays the profound ethico-political significance of messianic thought for our contemporary world. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
What is this thing called Ethics?
by Christopher BennettWhat is morality? How do we define what is right and wrong? How does moral theory help us deal with ethical issues in the world around us? This second edition provides an engaging and stimulating introduction to philosophical thinking about morality. Christopher Bennett provides the reader with accessible examples of contemporary and relevant ethical problems, before looking at the main theoretical approaches and key philosophers associated with them. Topics covered include: life and death issues such as abortion and global poverty; the meaning of life; whether life is sacred and which lives matter; major moral theories such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics and virtue ethics; critiques of morality from Marx and Nietzsche. What is this Thing Called Ethics? has been thoroughly revised and updated throughout, with a new final chapter on meta-ethics. With boxed case studies, discussion questions and further reading included within each chapter this textbook is the ideal introduction to ethics for philosophy students coming to the subject for the first time.
What is this thing called Global Justice?
by Kok-Chor TanWhat is this thing called Global Justice? explores the core topics covered on the increasingly popular undergraduate modules on global justice including: world poverty economic inequality nationalism human rights humanitarian intervention immigration global democracy and governance climate change international justice. Centered on real world problems, this textbook helps students to understand that global justice is not only a field of philosophical inquiry but also of practical importance. Each chapter concludes with a helpful summary of the main ideas discussed, study questions and a further reading guide.