Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

This book explores how and when biology emerged as a science in Germany. Beginning with the debate about organism between Georg Ernst Stahl and Gottfried Leibniz at the start of the eighteenth century, John Zammito traces the development of a new research program, culminating in 1800, in the formulation of developmental morphology. He shows how over the course of the century, naturalists undertook to transform some domains of natural history into a distinct branch of natural philosophy, which attempted not (...) only to describe but to explain the natural world and became, ultimately, the science of biology. (shrink)

John Kulvicki explores the many ways in which pictures can be meaningful, taking inspiration from the philosophy of language. Pictures are important parts of communicative acts. They express a variety of thoughts, and they are also representations. Kulvicki shows how the meanings of pictures let us put them to a wide range of communicative uses.

Philosophical Perspectives, Volume 35, Issue 1, Page 206-228, December 2021.

John Rawls begins a Theory of Justice with the observation that "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought… Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override"1 (p.3). The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in lock-downs, the restriction of liberties, debate about the right to refuse medical treatment and many other changes to the everyday behaviour of persons. The justice issues it raises (...) are diverse, profound and will demand our attention for some time. How we can respect the Rawlsian commitment to the inviolability of each person, when the welfare of societies as a whole is under threat goes to the heart of some of the difficult ethical issues we face and are discussed in this issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics. The debate about ICU triage and COVID-19 is quite well developed and this journal has published several articles that explore aspects of this issue and how different places approach it.2–5 Newdick et al add to the legal analysis of triage decisions and criticise the calls for respecting a narrow conception of a legal right to treatment and more detailed national guidelines for how triage decisions should be made.6 They consider scoring systems for clinical frailty, organ failure assessment, and raise some doubts about the fairness of their application to COVID-19 triage situations. Their argument seems to highlight instances of what is called the McNamara fallacy. US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara used enemy body counts as a measure …. (shrink)

Elay Shech and John Earman have recently argued that the common topological interpretation of the Aharonov–Bohm (AB) effect is unsatisfactory because it fails to justify idealizations that it presupposes. In particular, they argue that an adequate account of the AB effect must address the role of boundary conditions in certain ideal cases of the effect. In this paper I defend the topological interpretation against their criticisms. I consider three types of idealization that might arise in treatments of the effect. (...) First, Shech takes the AB effect to involve an idealization in the form of a singular limit, analogous to the thermodynamic limit in statistical mechanics. But, I argue, the AB effect itself features no singular limits, so it doesn’t involve idealizations in this sense. Second, I argue that Shech and Earman’s emphasis on the role of boundary conditions in the AB effect is misplaced. The idealizations that are useful in connecting the theoretical description of the AB effect to experiment do interact with facts about boundary conditions, but none of these idealizations are presupposed by the topological interpretation of the effect. Indeed, the boundary conditions for which Shech and demands justification are incompatible with some instances of the AB effect, so the topological interpretation ought not justify them. Finally, I address the role of the non-relativistic approximation usually presumed in discussions of the AB effect. This approximation is essential if—as the topological interpretation supposes—the AB effect constrains and justifies a relativistic theory of the electromagnetic interaction. In this case the ends justify the means. So the topological view presupposes no unjustified idealizations. (shrink)

We offer a reconstruction of Richard Price’s intuition-based epistemology of normative essences, highlighting its key elements and showing how it differs from the approaches taken by other intuitionists such as Thomas Reid and G. E. Moore, as well as sentimentalists such as Francis Hutcheson and David Hume. While our analysis aims to shed light on Price’s moral epistemology, it also seeks to contribute to contemporary debates about the epistemology of essence, advancing a general intuition-based theory. These two goals are related, (...) for the former operates in the service of the latter. In this way, our discussion illustrates the role that historical research might play in contemporary inquiries into intuition. (shrink)

This volume examines the psychological basis of moral judgments and what theories of concepts apply to moral ones. It considers what mental states not only influence but also constitute our moral concepts and judgments by combining philosophical reasoning and empirical insights from the fields of moral psychology, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience. On this basis, Park proposes a novel pluralistic theory of moral concepts which includes three different cognitive structures and emotions. Thus, our moral judgments are a hybrid that (...) express both cognitive and conative states. -/- In part through analysis of new empirical data on moral semantic intuitions, gathered via cross-cultural experimental research, Park draws on this to reveal that the referents of individuals’ moral judgments and concepts vary across time, contexts, and groups. Due to this, he contends for moral relativism, where moral judgments cannot be universally true across time and location but only relative to groups. -/- This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in cognitive science, moral theory, philosophy of psychology, and moral psychology more broadly. Those interested in ethics, applied social psychology, and moral development will also benefit from the volume. (shrink)

Charles Darwin transformed our understanding of the universe and our place in it with his development of the theory of evolution. 150 years later, we are still puzzling over the implications. John Dupr presents a lucid, witty introduction to evolution and what it means for our view of humanity, the natural world, and religion. He explains the right and the wrong ways to understand evolution: in the latter category fall most of the claims of evolutionary psychology, of which Dupr (...) gives a withering critique. He shows why the theory of evolution is one of the most important scientific ideas of all time, but makes clear that it can't explain everything - contrary to widespread popular belief, it has very little to tell us about the details of human nature and human behaviour, such as language, culture, and sexuality. Anyone who is interested in understanding what the theory of evolution can and can't do will find Darwin's Legacy a compelling and enjoyable introduction. (shrink)

[Editor's introduction: The following are excerpts from three talks given at the conference "Policies and Publics for Science and Technology, " London, April 1990. They introduce a British research initiative in public understanding of science and point to early results. The program was developed and coordinated by the Science Policy Support Group. At the meeting, a new journal for specialists in this area was launched: Public Understanding of Science, to be edited by John Durant, Science Museum, London SW7 2DD, (...) UK. The first issue of the journal is expected to appear in April 1991. Science, Technology, & Human Values reaffirms its long commitment to publishing research on public attitudes toward science and particularly welcomes articles on this topic of general interest to the field of science and technology studies.]. (shrink)

John Wilson; Does Equality (of Opportunity) Make Sense in Education?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 25, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 27–32, https://.

In this paper I seek to explore how the idea of modus vivendi might help us to understand political legitimacy. A suitable conception of modus vivendi, I suggest, can represent a way of underpinning a viable and attractive account of political legitimacy. On my account a modus vivendi is basically a set of arrangements that are accepted as basis for conducting affairs by those who are party to them. Political legitimacy, I argue, is ultimately rooted in the judgements of those (...) subject to it, but is mediated through a language in which claims to it are argued and assessed. The thought is that the web of operative beliefs and values in any given society, which constitute the grounds of judgements about political legitimacy, are what sustains a modus vivendi around the basic political institutions and practices. On this view, legitimate political institutions and practices incline towards a modus vivendi in that they are the outcome of an historical and ongoing conglomeration of settlements reflecting shifting and conflicting values and interests, as well relative balances of power, both currently and in the past. The marriage of modus vivendi and political legitimacy, therefore, seeks to reflect the contingent and ‘negotiated’ character of basic political institutions and practices and an understanding of political legitimacy that sees it as mediated through an ongoing and emergent discourse of argument and judgement, which remains nonetheless always vulnerable to challenge and change. (shrink)

This paper is the third of a multi-part examination of the Babylonian mathematical lunar theories known as Systems A and B. Part I (Britton, AHES 61:83–145, 2007) addressed the development of the empirical elements needed to separate the effects of lunar and solar anomaly on the intervals between syzygies, accomplished in the construction of the System A lunar theory early in the fourth century B.C. Part II (Britton, AHES 63:357–431, 2009) examines the accomplishment of this separation by the construction of (...) a successful theory depicting the variations due to lunar anomaly in System A and its subsequent adaptation in System B. The present paper examines the introduction of the uniform zodiac, necessary for any theory depicting variations depending on the position of syzygy. It addresses three questions: (1) In light of all available evidence, what is the magnitude of the constant term in the expression Δλ* = C − 1.3828°Y, describing the difference between the Babylonian sidereal longitudes and modern tropical longitudes? (2) What considerations governed the placement of the Babylonian sidereal zodiac relative to the fixed stars? (3) When was the uniform zodiac introduced? To the first question it finds C = 3.20° ± 0.1°, scarcely different from Huber’s (Centaurus 5:192–208, 1958) estimate of 3.08°, essentially confirming Huber’s result obtained from much less data. For the second it shows that accommodating the three asterisms comprising Taurus limited the placement of the zodiac to within 3°, while the prominence of half sign multiples among the measured intervals between prominent Normal Stars led irresistibly to the choice adopted. Finally, it finds that the zodiac was introduced between −408 and −397 and probably within a very few years of −400. (shrink)

The formerly established medically-based idea of disability, with its charity-based approach to treatment and services, is being replaced by a human rights-based approach in which people with impairments are no longer considered medical problems, totally dependent on the beneficence of non-impaired people in society, but have fundamental rights to support, inclusion, and participation. This interdisciplinary book examines the diverse concerns that people with impairments face in the context of human rights, provides insights into new developments on important issues relating human (...) rights to disability, and features new approaches and solutions to vital problems in the current debate. (shrink)

Who or what comes after God? In the wake of God, as the last fifty years of philosophy has shown, God comes back again, otherwise: Heidegger's last God, Levinas's God of Infinity, Derrida's and Caputo's tout autre, Marion's God without Being, Kearney's God who may be.

To advance our understanding of both the Book of Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 (c. fourth to third century BCE) and Qián Mù 錢穆 (1895–1990)’s Zhuāngzǐ studies 莊學, I aim to squarely face one of the more obscure passages in the former with recourse to an explanation from the latter. The passage in question is that from the second chapter beginning with the claim ‘there is a beginning’ (有始也者) and culminating with the claim that ‘there has not yet begun to be a “there (...) has not yet begun to be nothing”’ (有未始有夫未始有無也者). I hope to show that Qián offers a compelling and novel interpretation of this difficult passage worthy of our consideration. (shrink)

Among various kinds of disclosures typically required in research as well as in clinical scenarios, risk information figures prominently. A key question is, what kinds of risk information would the reasonable person want to know? I will argue, however, that the reasonable person construct is and always has been incapable of settling this very question. After parsing the nebulous if not “contentless” character of the reasonable person, I will explain how Western courts have actually adjudicated cases of “negligent nondisclosure,” that (...) is, cases in which patient‐plaintiffs allege that their informed consent rights were violated by the failure of their health providers to inform them of reasonably foreseeable risks that subsequently materialized. To support my argument, I will scrutinize the landmark decision by the United Kingdom's Supreme Court in Montgomery v. Lanarkshire Health Board and, in particular, Justice Brenda Hale's concurrence. (shrink)

In _The Political Economy of the Spectacle and Postmodern Caste_, John Asimakopoulos analyzes the political economy of the spectacle conceptualized by philosophers like Guy Debord through a broad interdisciplinary-nonsectarian approach concluding every society is a caste system legitimized by ideology.

The Intelligent Nation proposes a systemic and radical transformation of the organisation, management, ownership and performance of the services of the state by capitalising on the potential offered by contemporary information capability and fulfilling the rights and obligations both to and of citizens. In this book, John Beckford shows how, by adopting the principles of an intelligent organisation, the state can thrive and meet the needs of its citizens. He proposes a complete rethink of the state as the enabler (...) or provider of public services. In particular, he points to the failure of the public sector to significantly emulate the massive gains in productivity and customer focus experienced in both manufacturing and services (e.g. finance, retailing, insurance). Governance and all public services must be redesigned to align to the contemporary needs of the citizen and exploit the power of information to enable a transformation of their effectiveness, redefine efficiency, and support human-based services in crucial areas. Each chapter provides the key learning points, a discussion of the problem in theory and practice, integrated case studies, and discussion points. Written in an accessible style, the book provides thought-provoking supplemental reading for masters and undergraduate students reading organization theory, organization development, political science, public administration, healthcare, information systems, and business and management science. (shrink)

John Skorupski; I *—The Presidential Address: The Legacy of Modernism**, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 91, Issue 1, 1 June 1991, Pages 1–20, h.

John Maynard Smith, one of the world's leading evolutionary biologists, recently summarized in the NYRB the sharply conflicting assessments of Stephen Jay Gould: "Because of the excellence of his essays, he has come to be seen by non-biologists as the preeminent evolutionary theorist. In contrast, the evolutionary biologists with whom I have discussed his work tend to see him as a man whose ideas are so confused as to be hardly worth bothering with, but as one who should not (...) be publicly criticized because he is at least on our side against the creationists.". No one can take any pleasure in the evident pain Gould is experiencing now that his actual standing within the community of professional evolutionary biologists is finally becoming more widely known. If what was a stake was solely one man's self-regard, common decency would preclude comment. (shrink)

John Ashton, the editor who brought us In Six Days and On the Seventh Day, has done it again with this compelling new book that is a must-read for all ...

In _Knowledge, Art, and Power_ John Ryder develops a pragmatic naturalist theory of experience that posits the cognitive (knowledge), the aesthetic (art), and the political (power) as the most general and pervasive dimensions of all human experience.

How our beliefs about the soul have developed through the ages, and why an understanding of it still matters today The concept of the soul has been a recurring area of exploration since ancient times. What do we mean when we talk about finding our soul, how do we know we have one, and does it hold any relevance in today’s scientifically and technologically dominated society? From Socrates and Augustine to Darwin and Freud, In Search of the Soul takes readers (...) on a concise, accessible journey into the origins of the soul in Western philosophy and culture, and examines how the idea has developed throughout history to the present. Touching on literature, music, art, and theology, John Cottingham illustrates how, far from being redundant in contemporary times, the soul attunes us to the importance of meaning and value, and experience and growth. A better understanding of the soul might help all of us better understand what it is to be human. Cottingham delves into the evolution of our thoughts about the soul through landmark works—including those of Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes. He considers the nature of consciousness and subjective experience, and discusses the psychoanalytic view that large parts of the human psyche are hidden from direct conscious awareness. He also reflects on the mysterious and universal longing for transcendence that is an indelible part of our human makeup. Looking at the soul’s many dimensions—historical, moral, psychological, and spiritual—Cottingham makes a case for how it exerts a powerful pull on all of us. In Search of the Soul is a testimony to how the soul remains a profoundly significant aspect of human flourishing. (shrink)

The notion of racial blood in Gobineau's Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines is not deployed in a strictly physiological manner. Gobineau refers to blood in a number of passages designating a spiritual and historical substance accounting for the unity of a people. This use of the term cannot be discredited by a chemical or genetic analysis of the material blood because Gobineau is not engaged in a classification of physical body types but rather a historical explanation of civilizations’ progress (...) and degeneration. The blood refers to more than a mere biological trait. And the term is deployed in an attempt to comprehend one's physical, psychical, social, political, and, above all, historical ways of being. (shrink)

Moral responsibility and autonomy are closely related structurally and contentwise: they are both members of the “freedom family”. Here I argue that because of these similarities, they are often conflated or at least not carefully separated, and that this has resulted in confusions in important contemporary debates. Autonomy and moral responsibility involve the agent’s identification with the sources of her actions; but autonomy-identification is more robust than responsibility-identification.

According to one prominent form of moral individualism, how an individual is to be treated is determined, not by considering her group membership, but by considering her own particular characteristics. On this view, so this paper argues, it is not possible to provide an account of why people with profound cognitive disabilities are owed respect. This conclusion is not new, but it has been challenged by writers who are sympathetic to the recommended emphasis. The paper aims to show that the (...) conclusion cannot be avoided, and to look at what is to be learned from an approach that leads us to this point. It suggests that any account of why profoundly disabled people are owed respect will have to supplement discussion of their particular capacities with a normative account of their humanity. (shrink)

Western Buddhist travel narratives are autobiographical accounts of a journey to a Buddhist culture. Dozens of such narratives have since the 1970s describe treks in Tibet, periods of residence in a Zen monastery, pilgrimages to Buddhist sites and teachers, and other Asian odysseys. The best known of these works is Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard; further reflections emerge from thirty writers including John Blofeld, Jan Van de Wetering, Thomas Merton, Oliver Statler, Robert Thurman, Gretel Ehrlich, and Bill Porter. The (...) Buddhist concept of 'no-self' helps these authors interpret certain pivotal experiences of 'unselfing' and is also a catalyst that provokes and enables such events. The writers' spiritual memoirs describe how their journeys brought about a new understanding of Buddhist enlightenment and so transformed their lives. Showing how travel can elicit self-transformation, this book is a compelling exploration of the journeys and religious changes of both individuals and Buddhism itself. (shrink)

As the essays in this book attest, in a time of specialization John McCormick chose diversification, a choice determined by a life spent in many occupations and many countries. After his five years in the U. S. Navy in the Second World War, the academy beckoned by way of the G. I. Bill, graduate training, and a career in teaching. Prosperity in the American university at the time meant setting up as a "Wordsworth man," a "Keats man," or a (...) "Dr. Johnson man": all chilling to the author. He chose self-exile in which he disguised himself as an "Americanist" saleable in Europe, and lectured happily in comparative studies: literature, history, and philosophy. Thus the broad range of this volume, both in subject matter and in the span of time it covers. The essays are divided into three sections. First are general and personal essays on a variety of topics, followed by work on individual writers, and third, writings on criticism and theory. A section on Santayana reflects his eight years of research for Santayana's biography. The writings on Spain and toreo result from another long-held interest, together with the author's attempt to alter some of the romantic nonsense about the running of the bulls in Pamplona, too often the entire substance of what the general public knows about Spain. McCormick has long been convinced that without knowledge of bullfighting, the foreigner cannot comprehend arcane and wonderful aspects of the Spanish character. The coda, "Another Music," is an old man's attempt to solve the mysterious algebra of how the world turns now, and how the young appear to the aged. While the volume is diverse in its range of writers--from Whitman in America to Santayana in Europe, taken as a collectivity, these essays provide a sense of the grandeur as well as the decadent in twentieth century politics and aesthetics alike. Written with the literary taste and political non-conformity that still characterizes McCormick, the volume is a treat for the specialist and for the generalist. John McCormick was professor of American Studies in the Free University, Berlin, and is at present professor emeritus of comparative literature at Rutgers University. He is the author of Bullfighting, American and European Literary Imagination, Catastrophe and Imagination, Fiction as Knowledge, George Santayana and Seagoing. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has inquired into the socio-historical, discursive genesis of trauma. Trauma and the Ontology of the Modern Subject, however, seeks what has not been actualized in trauma studies - that is, how the necessity and unassailable intensity of trauma is fastened to its historical emergence. We must ask not only what trauma means for the individual person's biography, but also what it means to be the historical subject of trauma. In other words, how does being human in this current (...) period of history implicate one's lived possibilities that are threatened, and perhaps framed, through trauma? Foucauldian sensibilities inform a critical and structural analysis that is hermeneutically grounded. Drawing on the history of ideas and on Lacan's work in particular, John L. Roberts argues that what we mean by trauma has developed over time, and that it is intimately tied with an ontology of the subject; that is to say, what it is to be, and means to be human. He argues that modern subjectivity - as articulated by Heidegger, Levinas, and Lacan - is structurally traumatic, founded in its finitude as self-withdrawal in time, its temporal self-absence becoming the very conditions for agency, truth and knowledge. The book also argues that this fractured temporal horizon - as an effect of an interrupting Otherness or alterity - is obscured through the discourses and technologies of the psy-disciplines (psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy). Consideration is given to social, political, and economic consequences of this concealment. Trauma and the Ontology of the Modern Subject will be of enduring interest to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well as scholars of philosophy and cultural studies. (shrink)

This book is both a sequel to author John Taylor's earlier volume Into the Heart of European Poetry and something different. It is a sequel because this volume expands upon the base of the previous book to include many more European poets. It is different in that it is framed by stories in which the author juxtaposes his personal experiences involving European poetry or European poets as he travels through different countries where the poets have lived or worked. Taylor (...) explores poetry from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania, Albania, Romania, Turkey, and Portugal, all of which were missing in the previous gathering, analyzes heady verse written in Galician, and presents an important poet born in the Chuvash Republic. His tour through European poetry also adds discoveries from countries whose languages he reads fluently--Italy, Germany, Greece, and France. Taylor's model is Valery Larbaud, to whom his criticism, with its liveliness and analytical clarity, is often compared. Readers will enjoy a renewed dialogue with European poetry, especially in an age when translations are rarely reviewed, present in literary journals, or studied in schools. This book, along with Into the Heart of European Poetry, motivates a dialogue by bringing foreign poetry out of the specialized confines of foreign language departments. (shrink)

This article by John Dewey is an early appreciation of William James, written at the time of James' death. Dewey would write much more on James in later years.

This volume brings together J.S. Mills _On Liberty_ and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon _On Liberty_, the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book will (...) be of interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

_Courting the Abyss_ updates the philosophy of free expression for a world that is very different from the one in which it originated. The notion that a free society should allow Klansmen, neo-Nazis, sundry extremists, and pornographers to spread their doctrines as freely as everyone else has come increasingly under fire. At the same time, in the wake of 9/11, the Right and the Left continue to wage war over the utility of an absolute vision of free speech in a (...) time of increased national security. _Courting the Abyss_ revisits the tangled history of free speech, finding resolutions to these debates hidden at the very roots of the liberal tradition. A mesmerizing account of the role of public communication in the Anglo-American world, _Courting the Abyss_ shows that liberty's earliest advocates recognized its fraternal relationship with wickedness and evil. While we understand freedom of expression to mean "anything goes," John Durham Peters asks why its advocates so often celebrate a sojourn in hell and the overcoming of suffering. He directs us to such well-known sources as the prose and poetry of John Milton and the political and philosophical theory of John Locke, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., as well as lesser-known sources such as the theology of Paul of Tarsus. In various ways they all, he shows, envisioned an attitude of self-mastery or self-transcendence as a response to the inevitable dangers of free speech, a troubled legacy that continues to inform ruling norms about knowledge, ethical responsibility, and democracy today. A world of gigabytes, undiminished religious passion, and relentless scientific discovery calls for a fresh account of liberty that recognizes its risk and its splendor. Instead of celebrating noxious doctrine as proof of society's robustness, _Courting the Abyss_ invites us to rethink public communication today by looking more deeply into the unfathomable mystery of liberty and evil. (shrink)

Thornhill, John Shortly after completing my article, 'Reflections on the Gospel: after Reading Christopher Dawson', I read for the first time, C.H. Dodd's Gospel and Law, lectures given at Columbia University in 1950. This challenging work by a leading scholar prompted me to make the comparison between Protestant and Catholic approaches to the Gospel I have attempted in the present article.

In The Securitarian Personality, John R. Hibbing draws a detailed portrait of the psychological makeup of Donald Trump's most ardent supporters. They are motivated not by fear and not by a desire for authority and conformity, but rather by a desire to keep themselves, their families, and their country's core cultural group secure and safe from outsiders-defined broadly as anyone not contributing to the strength of societal insiders. Hibbing concludes by considering the likely role of Trump supporters in American (...) politics when there is no Trump. (shrink)

This article offers an analysis of the role humor plays in the philosophy of Diogenes of Sinope. It argues that the Cynicism authored by Diogenes is a philosophy premised on a number of doctrines, and that among these doctrines humor holds the central place. The Cynical humor of Diogenes is characterized as more than just a feature of his personality or a method through which he communicates his real message, but as the actual state of mind that he intends to (...) impart to his students. (shrink)

Nietzsche's Voices, the latest volume of John Sallis's Collected Writings, presents his two-semester lecture course on Nietzsche offered in the Philosophy Department of Duquesne University during the school year 1971-72. "Nietzsche is easy to read; his is apparently the easiest of all the great philosophies. Yet the easy intelligibility is deceptive. Nietzsche's writings make us believe we have understood when in fact we have not. His philosophy is actually the exact opposite of easy," says Sallis. He first discusses Nietzsche's (...) life and the relevance of the classical Greeks to his thought. Then, in invigorating detail, Sallis discusses Nietzsche's views on truth, morality, and the death of God. The final lecture covers Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche's influential but highly debated work of philosophical fiction. Nietzsche's Voices represents an essential introduction to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, as presented by one of today's most significant philosophers. (shrink)

An Indexed Synopsis of the Grammar of Assent by John J. Toohey. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1906 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

William of Ockham is known to be one of the major figures of the late Middle Ages. The scope and significance of his doctrine of human thought, however, has been a controversial issue among scholars in the last decade, and this book presents a full discussion of recent developments. Claude Panaccio proposes a richly documented and entirely original reinterpretation of Ockham's theory of concepts as a coherent blend of representationalism, conceptual atomism, and non reductionist nominalism, stressing in the process its (...) special interest for current discussions in philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Essays on philosophy and intellectual history, focusing in particular on John Locke.

This Book is an important study of Barth's theology of human action, arguing that Barth's work cannot be properly understood unless his interest in human agency is fully appreciated. Throughout, Professor John Webster demonstrates the contemporary vitality of the style and content of Barth's theology. Many of the studies introduce posthumous texts by Barth which have so far received little attention (such as his lectures on Calvin and his ethics lectures), but which substantially revise the received views of Barth's (...) thinking about ethics and human action. Developing from the author's earlier study of Barth's Ethics of Reconciliation (CUP, 1995), this book argues forcefully for Barth's work as a whole to be understood as moral theology. (shrink)

An overview of contemporary debates and topics in epistemology.

John Robertson; XV*—Hume on Practical Reason, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 90, Issue 1, 1 June 1990, Pages 267–282, https://doi.org/10.1093/a.