The original accounts of twenty-four experiments that created modern physics, retaining the original illustrations where possible.

George Fletcher, a foremost scholar in the fields of comparative and international criminal law, was a friend and colleague of Herbert Morris, a renowned scholar and teacher of law and philosophy at the UCLA School of Law. To commemorate and honor the late Herbert Morris, who died in 2022, Fletcher has assembled and edited the selection of essays in this book. Many of the contributors knew Morris on a personal and an academic level. Others only (...) knew of Morris by reputation. The essays fall into four categories: Criminal Law and Theory, Personal Reflections, Art and Literary Criticism, and Law and Religion. This commemorative volume reflects Fletcher's respect and admiration for his friend's accomplishments and lifetime achievements. "In two essays, the late Professor Herbert Morris addresses the fundamental issue in criminal law, whether thoughts alone could constitute a basis of criminal liability. The first essay was "Punishment for Thoughts" and the second, "Persons and Punishment". I consider these two of the most important articles ever published on the theory of criminal law." George Fletche. (shrink)

Alfredo Traps in Durrenmatt’s tale discovers that he has brought off, all by himself, a murder involving considerable ingenuity. The mock prosecutor in the tale demands the death penalty “as reward for a crime that merits admiration, astonishment, and respect.” Traps is deeply moved; indeed, he is exhilarated, and the whole of his life becomes more heroic, and, ironically, more precious. His defense attorney proceeds to argue that Traps was not only innocent but incapable of guilt, “a victim of the (...) age.” This defense Traps disavows with indignation and anger. He makes claim to the murder as his and demands the prescribed punishment—death. (shrink)

Discussion of the soul in this essay departs from the concept of the soul that for thousands of years has occupied the attention of philosophers and theologians and pervaded religious discourse. The author is concerned with what William James referred to as ‘the popular soul,’ the soul as it is invoked by expressions such as ‘an expansive soul,’ ‘a soulless person,’ ‘soul-mate,’ and ‘that melody touched my soul.’ Skepticism with regard to the existence of this soul is without warrant. How (...) this soul comes into being and develops; what its essential features are; how the world, when the soul is engaged, is transformed; what its relationship is to one's conscience; its importance in a human life; its connections to purity and perfection, to silence; its survival upon death; and the perils posed today to its development and existence are the principal topics considered. (shrink)

CHAPTER I RESPONSIBILITY "Mother, little heart of mine," he said (he had begun using such strange caressing words at that time), "little heart of mine, ...

“This book deals with the main ideas of four American philosophers: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. It is based directly upon a study of their writings, from which extensive quotations are made. Its emphasis is upon the ideas themselves and their interrelationships. For this reason the book is not primarily a history of American pragmatic philosophy nor an interpretation of its relation to American culture nor a compendium of scholarly research about this philosophy. (...) All of these matters do enter into the argument, but in a secondary way.”- Publisher. (shrink)

The mind-brain identity theory, the thesis that sensations are identical with properties or processes of the brain, was introduced into contemporary discussion by U.T. Place, Herbert Feigl, and J.J.C Smart in the 1950s. Despite its widespread rejection in the following decades, the identity theory has received several carefully articulated defenses in recent years. Aside from developing novel responses to well-known arguments against the identity theory, contemporary identity theorists have argued that the epistemological resources available to support the adoption of (...) identities are more plentiful than has often been supposed; further, they have argued that mind-brain identities allow for the resolution of otherwise intractable explanatory puzzles about the phenomenal properties of experience. From an epistemological perspective, identity theorists have thus argued that a central reason for believing theoretical identities—both mind-brain identities as well as more mundane identities such as water = H2O—stems from the explanatory power that they confer. Yet from an explanatory perspective, identity theorists have maintained that identities cannot themselves be explained; indeed, they have maintained that it is hardly intelligible to request an explanation for an identity. This paper considers these ideas draws out an important tension between them. The central claim is that insofar as identity theorists insist on the explanatorily efficacy of identities, they should concede that there is a good sense in which theoretical identities can be explained. However, it is moreover argued that this concession is not especially problematic and, indeed, ought to be welcomed by identity theorists. (shrink)

Introduction: What is the critical spirit?--Utopianism, ancient and modern, by M.I. Finley.--Primitive society in its many dimensions, by S. Diamond.--Manicheanism in the Enlightenment, by R.H. Popkin.--Schopenhauer today, by M. Horkheimer.--Beginning in Hegel and today, by K.H. Wolff.--The social history of ideas: Ernst Cassirer and after, by P. Gay.--Policies of violence, from Montesquieu to the Terrorist, by E.V. Walter.--Thirty-nine articles: toward a theory of social theory, by J.R. Seeley.--History as private enterprise, by H. Zinn.--From Socrates to Plato, by H. Meyerhoff.--Rational society (...) and irrational art, by H. Read.--The quest for the Grail; Wagner and Morris, by C.E. Schorske.--Valéry; Monsieur Teste, by L. Goldmann.--History and existentialism in Sartre, by L. Krieger.--German popular biographies; culture's bargain counter, by L. Lowenthal.--The Rechtsstaat as magic wall, by O. Kirchheimer. (shrink)

It is said that America came of age in­tellectually with the appearance of the pragmatic movement in philosophy. _Pragmatic Naturalism _presents a selec­tive and interpretative overview of this philosophy as developed in the writings of its intellectual founders and chief exponents—Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey. Mr. Eames groups the leading ideas of these pragmatic natu­ralists around the general fields of “Na­ture and Human Life,” “Knowledge,” “Value,” and “Education,” treating the primary concerns and special (...) emphasis of each philosopher to these issues. Philosophy students, teachers of phi­losophy, and general readers will find this book a comprehensive overview of American philosophy. (shrink)

Historically labor has been central to human interactions with the environment, yet environmentalists pay it scant attention. Indeed, they have been critical of those who foreground labor in their politics, socialists in particular. However, environmentalists have found the nineteenth-century socialist William Morris appealing despite the fact that he wrote extensively on labor. This paper considers the place of labor in the relationship between humanity and the natural world in the work of Morris and two of his contemporaries, the (...) eminent scientist Thomas Henry Huxley, and the Fabian socialist Herbert George Wells. I suggest that Morris's conception of labor has much to recommend it to environmentalists who are also interested in issues of social justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reintroducing George Herbert Mead by Daniel R. HuebnerAndrea ParraviciniDaniel R. Huebner Reintroducing George Herbert Mead Routledge, 2022, 116 pp.Reintroducing George Herbert Mead is the second book of a brand new series recently inaugurated by Routledge and dedicated to major sociology theorists who contributed to the discipline with significant works. The book reflects the intent of the series to offer concise and accessible texts that appeal (...) to scholars and students interested in the most relevant themes in thought of a particular figure, the context in which it emerged, as well as its reception and importance to contemporary studies. George Mead is, however, such a rich and complex figure that the text inevitably overflows the banks of studies dedicated to sociology and the social sciences and offers a wider glimpse into the boundless interdisciplinary territory of philosophy and natural sciences.Daniel R. Huebner, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina (USA), has contributed in the past years with other influential books on Mead, such as Becoming Mead (Huebner, 2014), and co-edited with Hans Joas both the definitive edition of Mind, Self and Society (Mead, 2015) and the multi-authored volume The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead (Joas & Huebner, 2016).Huebner's latest book cleverly condenses into little more than a hundred pages the most important aspects of Mead's life and work, and places them in close connection with the world in which he lived and with the people he influenced. At the same time, it highlights the legacy that this thinker left to research and studies of contemporary thought in social sciences and philosophy.In contrast to his more famous colleague and friend John Dewey, a very prolific writer who had no difficulties to develop his ideas through a number of important books and essays, Mead never managed, due to various reasons, to articulate his groundbreaking ideas in the more systematic form of books or treatises. As Dewey (1931: 310–311) witnessed in his obituary of Mead, although Mead could be judged as "the most original mind in philosophy in the America of the last generation", he "experienced great difficulty in finding adequate verbal expression for his philosophical ideas". It was his students, colleagues, and friends (Charles Morris above all) who, aware of the outstanding force of his philosophic mind, collected papers, manuscripts, notes, and transcripts from his classroom teaching, and published posthumously [End Page 249] his most famous books. Thanks to those publications, and especially to Mind, Self, and Society, Mead is now considered one of the founding fathers of modern sociology, despite the fact that he neither taught in that discipline, nor wrote that book for which he is especially known, as Huebner (p. 3) pointed out. Indeed, Mead's ideas have had a major influence not only on sociology, social psychology, and the behavioral and social sciences more generally, but his transdisciplinary philosophy crossed in many other fields as well, such as physical science, biology, history, and the religious literature of the world (Dewey, 1931: 312). Despite his encyclopedic mind and culture, his ideas were always in search of practical connections with the problems of concrete life. As a pragmatist thinker, Mead used his theories as practical tools for better understanding how to face the urgent issues of his time and society.As regards its structure, the book is divided into four main chapters, further articulated into various subsections. The text is enriched by several useful figures (three per chapter) which serve as information boxes illustrating interesting aspects related to Mead. The first section introduces the life and influence of the North American philosopher, in the wake of recent scholarship, which has partially changed what we know about him. The chapter focuses particularly on his social reform efforts, but it also highlights his engagement with colonization and war by providing a critical reinterpretation of the texts published after his death, and the rediscovery of important aspects of his work that had been lost. The way the author closely connects Mead's philosophy to different aspects of his life is particularly interesting. Noteworthy aspects related to Mead's life concern also the importance of the Hull House Social Settlement... (shrink)

Do Quine and Carnap distort the social nature of inquiry by privileging individual epistemic subjects? This objection is at the heart of Donald Davidson’s claim that Quine fails to grasp the significance of the concept of truth. In Carnap’s case, the objection may be detected in Charles Morris’s call to ground scientific philosophy in semiotics, the science of signs, rather than syntax, the formal investigation of languages. Drawing out the challenge from Morris’s proposal requires examining a neglected influence (...) on this neglected philosopher: his advisor George Herbert Mead’s social theory of mind. I argue that Morris and Davidson can both be understood as demanding that scientific philosophers socialize their conception of objectivity. (shrink)

Herbert Morris argues in his influential retributivist paper, "Persons and Punishment," that criminals deserve punishment because their actions represent an unfair distribution of benefits and burdens in society. The proper distribution of benefits and burdens is important, in part, to restore law abiding citizens’ confidence that others will follow the law. In this paper I show that Morris's argument for why criminals deserve punishment morally requires us to set up an institution of rehabilitation in addition to the (...) institution of punishment. Such an institution is morally required because neither pure punishment systems nor punishment systems that incorporate quasi-rehabilitative aspects have ever worked to uphold the necessary confidence that Morris tells us law abiding citizens must have in order to protect the social order. Moreover, we cannot abandon Morris's appeal to the duty to maintain social order without also abandoning a plausibly Morrisian framework. (shrink)

If pragmatists conceive of thought as an internal dialogue, then why not externalize that thought as a dialogue in the form of letters to the major pragmatists concerning their ideas in the contemporary world. This piece consists of letters fired off to William James, Charles Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and John Dewey, concerning key ideas from each and how these ideas relate to contemporary social thought. Queries are posed concerning what modifications of pragmatists’ ideas might be needed today, how, (...) for example, Charles Peirce’s semiotic became known through the systematic misinterpretations of Charles Morris, how Peirce’s view of science as discon-nected from practical life and Dewey’s view of society as requiring a model of inquiry derived from science might be reframed today, in the age of scientism; how William James’s critique of science as unnecessarily excluding “the personality as a condition of events” might be reconciled with Peirce and contemporary outlooks; how Dewey’s aesthetic theory and public philosophy address contemporary issues; how George Herbert Mead’s idea of the generalized other might be critically refined in a time when what I term “the mechanical other” seems predominant, and what the evolutionary origins of the generalized other might be. The form of the letter not only provides a way to illustrate the dialogical nature of thought, but also to highlight how pragmatist ideas continue in dialogue with contemporary life, and to do so with panache: not simply epistles, but e-pistols. (shrink)