In this volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, notable British philosophers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are represented, including thinkers from the traditions of empiricism, idealism, logical positivism, and analytical philosophy.

In this volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, notable philosophers of the Anglo-American tradition, analytical philosophy, are represented as well as other philosophers who made significant contributions to American philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century.

In this volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, early philosophers of the classical period, the "golden age," are represented as well as a number of other figures whose contributions gave shape and direction to philosophy in America in the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Essays on British philosophers engaged with philosophical topics and used methods that were both different from and continuous with those that were taken up by British philosophers of the next two centuries. Major focus on the influence of Francis Bacon, who launched the era's most influential British attack on the traditional theories and practices of philosophy itself offering an alternative vision of a profoundly different and more powerful form of philosophy.

The 2006 outbreak of E. coli O157:H7, traced to bagged spinach from California, illustrates a number of contradictions. The solutions sought by many politicians and popular food analysts have been to create a centralized federal agency and a uniform set of production standards modeled after those of the animal industry. Such an approach would disproportionately harm smaller-scale producers, whose operations were not responsible for the epidemic, as well as reduce the agroecological diversity that is essential for maintaining healthy human beings (...) and ecosystems. Why should responses that only reinforce the problem be proffered? We use the framework of accumulation and legitimation to suggest corporate and government motives for concealing underlying problems and reinforcing powerful ideologies of individualism, scientism, and centralizing authority. Food safety (or the illusion of safety) is being positioned to secure capital rather than public welfare. We propose implementing the principle of subsidiarity as a more democratic and decentralized alternative. Because full implementation of this principle will be resisted by powerful interests, some promising intermediate steps include peer production or mass collaboration as currently applied to disease prevention and surveillance, as well as studying nascent movements resisting current food safety regulations. (shrink)

This paper consists of three main sections. In the first section, we consider how early attempts at understanding the relationship between mathematics and philosophy in Leibniz’s thought were often made within the framework of grand reconstructions guided by intellectual trends such as the search for “the ideal of system”. In the second section, we proceed to recount Leibniz’s first encounter with contemporary mathematics during his four years of study in Paris presenting some of the earliest mathematical successes which he made (...) there. In particular, we argue that recently published letters and papers reveal how his youthful mathematical reflexions were deeply intertwined with important philosophical insights that, in turn, acted as guiding ideas for his mathematical research. Finally, in the third section, we situate the central themes of the essays of the present volume within the new understanding of the interrelations between philosophy and mathematics in Leibniz’s thought briefly indicated in the opening section. (shrink)

The _Platform Sutra_ records the teachings of Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, who is revered as one of the two great figures in the founding of Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism. This translation is the definitive English version of the eighth-century Ch'an classic. Phillip B. Yampolsky has based his translation on the Tun-huang manuscript, the earliest extant version of the work. A critical edition of the Chinese text is given at the end of the volume. Dr. Yampolsky also furnishes a lengthy and detailed (...) historical introduction which contains much information hitherto unavailable even to scholars, and provides the context essential to an understanding of Hui-neng's work. He gives an account of the history and legends of Ch'an Buddhism, with particular attention to the traditions associated with Hui-neng, quoting or summarizing the most important narratives. He then discusses the various texts of the _Platform Sutra_, and analyzes its contents. (shrink)

This concise biography tells the story of John Dewey, a pioneer of pragmatism and the first original school of philosophy created in America. The school was born out of a specific historical context, in the wake of a country at war with itself, and in response to the rapid changes of industrialization. Dewey's pragmatism celebrated human intelligence and agency and the promise that tomorrow could be better than today. For Dewey, pragmatism was the philosophy of democracy. Dewey lived from just (...) before the Civil War to just before school integration. As such, the book touches on many key moments in American history, from social reform in turn of the century Chicago, to censorship during world war one, and to the government's responsibilities in the Great Depression. It covers all this in the context of the life of a man whose ideas helped shape American culture and intellectual life. John Dewey: Prophet of an Educated Democracy will appeal to students, scholars, and all those interested in American philosophy and history of the 19th and 20th centuries. It will also compliment humanities courses on American philosophy, history, and intellectual traditions. (shrink)

The effort here is to use the plainest of plain language. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the tenets of Pragmatism, Operationalism or Functionalism. If not, he may refer to innumerable philosophical works, or, if he must glance and run, he must perforce accept the fact that those terms are here used interchangeably to remind the reader of our basic idea that ideas are hypotheses.

The present account, based on introspective comments, deals with motivation and hedonic tone as subjective factors which affect continuous work at high speeds. Actual introspective reports are given. The earlier papers in the series described the experimental procedure and presented objective data.