En el presente texto, luego de establecer los términos que permiten una aproximación de la ética y la política en el contexto del pensamiento contemporáneo, vamos a analizar fundamentalmente las teorías liberales occidentales. Primero la teoría clásica liberal o también denominada, el liberalismo individualista. En un segundo momento, abordaremos el análisis de la revisión hecha a este liberalismo individualista por el llamado liberalismo solidarista; en un tercer momento estaremos abordando las corrientes llamadas comunitaristas, que también estarían vinculadas con las teorías (...) liberales, en un cuarto momento abordaremos la tendencia del socialismo democrático liberal. Trataremos de identificar las características esenciales que describen al menos esas tendencias de liberalismo, mostrando por una parte cómo coinciden en ciertos puntos fundamentales que las ubican dentro de la misma raíz liberal, pero también por otra parte mostrando los matices que hacen que cada una de ellas tenga su propia identidad. (shrink)

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of C. S. Lewis’s death, a special annotated edition of his Christian classic, The Screwtape Letters, with notes and excerpts from his other works that help illuminate this diabolical masterpiece. Since its publication in 1942, The Screwtape Letters has sold millions of copies worldwide and is recognized as a milestone in the history of popular theology. A masterpiece of satire, it offers a sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the (...) vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, The Screwtape Letters comprises the correspondence of the worldly-wise devil Screwtape and his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. For the first time, The Screwtape Letters will be presented in full-text accompanied by helpful annotations in a striking two-color format. These annotations will give fans a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the popular book, providing background information, explanations of terms, historical significance, and excerpts from Lewis’s other works that more fully explain the ideas in this volume. For both expert Lewis fans and casual readers, The Screwtape Letters: Annotated Edition will be a beautiful and insightful guide to a beloved classic. (shrink)

Volume 1 of the Routledge History of Philosophy covers one of the most remarkable periods in human thought. The essays present the fundamental approaches and thinkers of Greek philosophy in chronological order.

In a well- known barb, CD Broad said: "Mr. Bertrand Russell produces a new system of philosophy each year or so, and Mr. GE Moore none ...

Sir Richard Phillips was a London-born author and publisher of educational textbooks who used a vast array of pseudonyms, including that of Reverend C. C. Clarke. Phillips' marketing techniques - the systematic borrowing of famous authors' names for his textbooks, along with the multiplication of easy to produce related educational products - were key to his success. No doubt meant as an accessible encyclopaedia, this 40th edition of 1834 - attributed to Phillips himself - is a surprisingly vast and heterogeneous (...) survey, which compiles natural and man-made curiosities across the world. The Himalayas and Mont Blanc share a chapter with the Peak of Derbyshire; famous rivers lead to mysterious subterranean forests; and Stonehenge is closely followed by St Paul's cathedral. Halfway between reference book and textbook, this richly illustrated volume is a fascinating catalogue of the world's wonders as perceived in the early nineteenth century. (shrink)

Introduction: conceptual analysis of teaching, by B. P. Komisar and T. W. Nelson.--A concept of teaching, by B. O. Smith.--The concept of teaching, by I. Sheffler.--A topology of the teaching concept, by T. F. Green.--Teaching: act and enterprise, by B. P. Komisar.--Must an education have an aim? By R. S. Peters.--Curriculum as a field of study, by D. Heubner.--Can and should means-ends reasoning be used in teaching? By C. J. B. Macmillan and J. E. McClellan.

The Holocaust marks a decisive moment in modern suffering in which it becomes almost impossible to find meaning or redemption in the experience. In this study, C. Fred Alford offers a new and thoughtful examination of the experience of suffering. Moving from the Book of Job, an account of meaningful suffering in a God-drenched world, to the work of Primo Levi, who attempted to find meaning in the Holocaust through absolute clarity of insight, he concludes that neither strategy works well (...) in today's world. More effective are the day-to-day coping practices of some survivors. Drawing on testimonies of survivors from the Fortunoff Video Archives, Alford also applies the work of Julia Kristeva and the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicot to his examination of a topic that has been and continues to be central to human experience. (shrink)

The fact that we still group all his predecessors together as ‘presocratics’ indicates that Socrates significantly changed the character of philosophy. Yet it is not easy to determine exactly what change Socrates made, much less why. Socrates himself left no record of his thoughts, so we have to refer to the writings of the three authors who knew him. But in the Clouds Aristophanes depicts ‘Socrates’ as a ‘sophist’ who taught cosmology as well as rhetoric, i.e. as a ‘presocratic’. In (...) his Memorabilia Xenophon merely declares that Socrates did not investigate the nature of all things or the cosmos. To find out when and why Socrates turned to study the human things, we have to put together three retrospective statements he gives about his development as a philosopher in Plato’s dialogues. Working on the basis of the supposed chronology of composition, scholars have not done so. (shrink)

The current conception of liberty is both negative and individualistic. It rests upon obsolete assumptions. Philosophers may be conscious of the defects of such assumptions, but even that is doubtful; and clearly the average journalist or politician is by no means aware of them, for the advocates of “ liberty,” in the old sense, have a very weak case, and its opponents attack it on the wrong grounds. The controversy in the lecture-room is not important. The quarrels of commentators are (...) trivial. But there is a mortal conflict between the advocates and opponents of liberty in the sphere of government, industrial organization, and education. In the policies of those who have social power the conflicting conceptions of liberty are operative; and the battle is still uncertain, because it is normally fought upon the basis of unexamined assumptions. (shrink)