What should Christian discourse look like after philosophical modernity? In one manner or another the essays in this volume seek to confront and intellectually exorcise the prevailing elements of philosophical modernity, which are inherently transgressive disfigurations and refigurations of the Christian story of creation, sin, and redemption. To enact these various forms and styles of Christian intellectual exorcism these essays make appeal to, and converse with the magisterial corpus of Cyril O'Regan. The themes of the essays center around the Gnostic (...) return in modenity, apocalyptic theology, and the question of the bounds and borders of Christian orthodoxy. Along the way diverse figures are treated such as: Hegel, Shakespeare, von Balthasar, Przywara, Ricouer, Deleuse, Merleau-Ponty, and Kristeva."--Back cover. (shrink)

The much-welcomed recent acknowledgement that there is a plurality of philosophical traditions has an important consequence: that we must acknowledge too that there are many philosophical modernities. Modernity, I will claim, is a polycentric notion, and I will substantiate my claim by examining in some detail one particular non-western philosophical modernity, a remarkable period in 16th to 17th century India where a diversity of philosophical projects fully deserve the label.

Modern, Stevie The appearance of Ayn Rand's 'lost' novel Ideal, 80 years after it was written, gives us cause to examine the life and works of the humanist author, playwright and philosopher.

In this dissertation, I examine the development of autonomy in the philosophical works of Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. After outlining the centrality of this development to what I call, following Robert Pippin, "philosophical modernity," I show that the figure of genius described in Kant's third Critique becomes the model for the "aesthetic" versions of autonomy articulated by Nietzsche and Heidegger under the names of "sovereignty" and "authenticity" respectively. According to these more recent formulations, autonomy is not understood as rational self-legislation, (...) but as a quasi-artistic "self-creation." Moreover, in each of these versions of aesthetic autonomy, I claim that in spite of a disavowal of mimesis understood in a Platonic sense, an implicit reliance is placed upon the operations of a "higher" sense of mimesis, a mimesis of freedom, that enables autonomy to be exemplified and, paradoxically, "imitated." For Kant, this mimesis of freedom accounts for both the continuity and discontinuity of art-historical traditions. In Nietzsche and Heidegger, however, this covert deployment of mimesis has implications for our understanding of historicity more generally, and the relationship between history and modernity in particular. After showing what these implications are, I comment on the problems and limits of "aesthetic autonomy," especially when it is understood politically or collectively, and utterly decoupled from any moral constraints. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno's multifaceted work has exerted a profound impact on far-ranging discourses and critical practices in late modernity. His analysis of the fate of art following its alleged end, of ethical imperatives "after Auschwitz," of the negative dialectic of myth and freedom from superstition, of the manipulation of consciousness by the unequal siblings of fascism and the culture industry, and of the narrowly-conceived concept of reason that has given rise to an unprecedented exploitation of nature and needless human suffering, (...) all speak to central concerns of our time. The essays collected here analyze the full range of implications emanating from Adorno's demand that the task of critical thinking be to imagine a mode of being in the world that occurs in and through a language that has liberated itself from the spell of an alleged historical and political inevitability, what he once tellingly called a "language without soil." Adorno' s finely chiseled sentences perform a ceaseless gesture of thoughtful vigilance, a vigilance understood not in the sense of moralizing or ethical normativity but of a rigorous attention to the presuppositions of thinking itself. The volume's fresh readings conspire to yield a refractory and unorthodox Adorno, a suggestive and at times infuriating thinker of the first order, whose intellectual gestures sponsor politically conscious modes of theoretical speculation in a late modernity that may still have a future because its language and aspirations are without soil. Also included is an annotated translation of a seminal interview Adorno gave in 1969 concerning the relationship of Critical Theory to political activism. In it, the dialectical interplay between thought and action forcefully emerges. (shrink)

Jonathan Bennett engages with the thought of six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descaretes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. While not neglecting the historical setting of each, his chief focus is on the words they wrote. What problem is being tackled? How exactly is the solution meant to work? Does it succeed? If not, why not? What can be learned from its success or failure? For newcomers to the early modern scene, this clearly written work is (...) an excellent introduction to it. Those already in the know can learn how to argue with the great philosophers of the past, treating them as colleagues, antagonists, students, teachers. (shrink)

This book is a history of modern European philosophy, focusing on the great philosophers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, from Descartes through Nietzsche, all of whom develop comprehensive systems of thought. Such a history can be seen as telling a story (indeed, the very word "story" comes from the Latin word historia). It has been traditionally understood since ancient times that a good story has a beginning, an end, and a middle that reasonably moves us from the (...) beginning to its end. Although it may seem a bit artificial, we can think of the history of modern European philosophy as beginning in the 1620s, when Descartes was writing his Rules for the Direction of the Mind, and ending in 1900, with the death of Nietzsche. In some ways, the development from the former to the latter is a process of intellectual radicalization. Yet a focus that persists through this process is an emphasis on the individual thinker as the subject of experience, belief, knowledge, and action. (shrink)

Featuring essays from leading philosophical scholars, __12 Modern Philosophers__ explores the works, origins, and influences of twelve of the most important late 20th Century philosophers working in the analytic tradition. Draws on essays from well-known scholars, including Thomas Baldwin, Catherine Wilson, Adrian Moore and Lori Gruen Locates the authors and their oeuvre within the context of the discipline as a whole Considers how contemporary philosophy both draws from, and contributes to, the broader intellectual and cultural milieu.

In this groundbreaking collection of essays the history of philosophy appears in a new light, not as reason's progressive discovery of its universal conditions, but as a series of unreconciled disputes over the proper way to conduct oneself as a philosopher. By shifting focus from the philosopher as proxy for the universal subject of reason to the philosopher as a special persona arising from rival forms of self-cultivation, philosophy is approached in terms of the social office and intellectual deportment of (...) the philosopher, as a personage with a definite moral physiognomy and institutional setting. In so doing, this collection of essays by leading figures in the fields of both philosophy and the history of ideas provides access to key early modern disputes over what it meant to be a philosopher, and to the institutional and larger political and religious contexts in which such disputes took place. (shrink)

The ideas of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege lie at the root of the analytic movement in philosophy; Michael Dummett is his leading modern critical interpreter and one of today's most eminent philosophers. This volume collects together fifteen of Dummett's classic essays on Frege and related subjects.

The subject of the article is the philosophical narratives of secularization and their importance for the study of religion in modern society. I am focusing in particular on Charles Taylor’s narrative presented in his monumental A Secular Age. Contrary to some of Taylor’s critics, especially Ian Hunter, I argue that the philosophical approach to secularity presented by the Canadian thinker cannot be equated with ideologically marked “combat concepts” that characterize the emergence of modernity as a result of either the (...) overcoming of religion by autonomous reason or as the “self-alienation of Christianity”. The “conditions of belief” analyzed by Taylor indicate the mutual mediation of religion and secularity and provide a hermeneutical framework thanks to which we can criticize both the Enlightenment narratives about the triumph of religion over reason and religious visions, which perceive modernity as a theological phenomenon in its essence (John Milbank). Referring to David Martin’s considerations, I also draw attention to the heuristic dimension of Taylor’s narrative and its relevance to the research on religion. (shrink)

Many women wrote philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain, and they wrote across the full range of philosophical topics. Yet these important women thinkers have been left out of the philosophical canon and many of them are barely known today. The aim of this book is to put them back on the map. It introduces twelve women philosophers - Mary Shepherd, Harriet Martineau, Ada Lovelace, George Eliot, Frances Power Cobbe, Helena Blavatsky, Julia Wedgwood, Victoria Welby, Arabella Buckley, Annie Besant, Vernon Lee, and (...) Constance Naden. Alison Stone looks at their views on naturalism, philosophy of mind, evolution, morality and religion, and progress in history. She shows how these women interacted and developed their philosophical views in conversation with one another, not only with their male contemporaries. The rich print and periodical culture of the period enabled these women to publish philosophy in forms accessible to a general readership, despite the restrictions women faced, such as having limited or no access to university education. Stone explains how these women became excluded from the history of philosophy because there was a cultural shift at the end of the nineteenth century towards specialised forms of philosophical writing, which depended on academic credentials that were still largely unavailable to women. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition ed. by Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia NassarAlison StoneKristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar, editors. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 336. Hardback, $99.00."How plausible, [Dalia Nassar and I] kept asking, is it that women published philosophy in the early modern period and then simply ceased to think and (...) publish philosophy in the nineteenth century?" remarked Kristin Gjesdal recently (interview with Richard Marshall, 3:16am [blog], https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/gadamer-herder-and-the-womenphilosophers-of-the-long-nineteen-cent ury?c=end-times-series). Not plausible at all—yet this is what historians of women in philosophy often seem to have assumed, judging by the remarkably small amount of scholarship on nineteenth-century women philosophers compared with those of the early modern period or the twentieth century. Eileen O'Neill, for instance, claims that it was "not a particularly friendly century for women philosophers" (1). In fact, as Gjesdal and Nassar observe, women were "significant contributors" to the "thriving intellectual cultures in German-speaking countries" at this time (1). Gjesdal and Nassar contrast Germanic countries to France and Britain in this regard, yet I would add that nineteenth-century Britain too had a vibrant print and periodical culture that created openings for women philosophers such as Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, and many others. The broader point remains: the nineteenth century has only seemed empty of women philosophers because we have not yet investigated the women thinkers of this period or challenged the canons and narratives from which they have been excluded.Recognizing German women philosophers is particularly important because the vast majority of scholarship on the nineteenth century focuses on the German tradition. Consequently, unless we recover the work of German-speaking women, we will never change the narrative about this period. This makes the present anthology invaluable for both teaching and research. Edited by Gjesdal and Nassar, it contains new translations, nearly all by Anna Ezekiel, of texts by historical German-speaking women philosophers.Regarding teaching, many courses on post-Kantian European philosophy include no women until Beauvoir or Arendt. Such courses typically cover Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. The editors have clearly designed this volume to enable instructors easily to bring women into such courses, by providing extracts—of suitable lengths for teaching—from women affiliated respectively with German idealism and Romanticism (Germaine de Staël, Karoline von Günderrode, and Bettina von Arnim), Marxism (Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg), Nietzscheanism (Hedwig Dohm, Lou Salomé), and phenomenology (Edith Stein, Gerda Walther). Some of these women are already well-known as political activists, as with Luxemburg and Zetkin, or under the elastic heading of "writers," as with Staël and von Arnim. But this collection presents these women's writings in a new light, showcasing their philosophical side. After all, we have learned to read Marx and Nietzsche philosophically: why not extend the same courtesy to Staël or Luxemburg?For researchers, this collection will likewise be invaluable. Post-Kantian European philosophy has been slow to respond to the wider questioning and broadening of the traditional philosophical canon. It remains sadly common for narratives of nineteenth-century German philosophy to discuss men only—a position that this book makes untenable. [End Page 336] Hopefully it will galvanize philosophers to integrate these women into the historiography of the post-Kantian tradition at last.In the introduction, the editors helpfully contextualize the selected writings, arguing that these women's exclusion from academic institutions led them to philosophize in ways that spoke to general audiences, connected with lived experience, and addressed practical and political concerns. In short, these women did a type of philosophy that was not purified but socially engaged, and can be a model for us today. Thereafter the book consists of sections on nine women philosophers, ordered chronologically. Each section begins with an editorial introduction to the philosopher and her interests, ideas, writings, and interlocutors.The writings included from Staël—whose work spans the period from the French Revolution into Romanticism—are "On Women Writers" from... (shrink)

The first philosophers paved the way for the work of Plato and Aristotle - and hence for the whole of Western thought. Aristotle said that philosophy begins with wonder, and the first Western philosophers developed theories of the world which express simultaneously their sense of wonder and their intuition that the world should be comprehensible. But their enterprise was by no means limited to this proto-scientific task. Through, for instance, Heraclitus' enigmatic sayings, the poetry of Parmenides and Empedocles, and Zeno's (...) paradoxes, the Western world was introduced to metaphysics, rationalist theology, ethics, and logic, by thinkers who often seem to be mystics or shamans as much as philosophers or scientists in the modern mould. And out of the Sophists' reflections on human beings and their place in the world arose and interest in language, and in political, moral, and social philosophy. This volume contains a translation of all the most important fragments of the Presocratics and Sophists, and of the most informative testimonia from ancient sources, supplemented by lucid commentary. (shrink)

In this volume leading contemporary philosophical historians of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods examine the works of important figures of the fifteenth through the eighteenth century. While Midwest Studies in Philosophy has produced other volumes devoted to historical periods in philosophy, this is the first to offer such extensive and focused original materials on specific crucial figures as this volume. Original papers by twenty contemporary philosophers writing about the works of the major philosophers of the Fifteenth through the (...) Eighteenth centuries This historically and philosophically broad collection extends from such fifteenth century figures as Ficino, Machiavelli, and Pompanazzi to the work of Montesquieu in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

To define and explore contemporary philosophical critiques of Christian belief is the purpose of this book, which arises out of a conference held at Princeton Theological Seminary. In a frank and extensive confrontation, outstanding philosophers and theologians met to search for greater clarity on some important issues in the philosophy of religion. The book contains the papers written for the conference, the prepared criticism, and excerpts from the debates. The discussions revolved around the experiential grounds of religious belief; the question (...) as to what conclusions may legitimately be drawn from religious experience; the "emptiness" or otherwise of Christian belief and ethic in the modern world; the Freudian explanation of faith; and the Barthian defense of Christianity. (shrink)

This book presents the views of 22 women philosophers from outside the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian worlds. These eminent thinkers are from Mesopotamia, India, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, Australia, America, the Philippines and Nigeria. Six philosophers, the earliest of whom predates the Greek pre-Socratics by two thousand years, lived at “the dawn of philosophy”; another six from late Antiquity through the Classical period; five more taught and wrote during the Middle Ages up to the Age of Exploration, and yet five others (...) were active during the modern period to the mid-twentieth century. Most belonged to major philosophical traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zen, or Sufism. The chapters of the book describe the life and views of the philosophers, outline the fundamental features of their respective schools, and contain translations of their writings. The book is intended for scholars of philosophy and women’s studies who wish to expand their knowledge of non-Western philosophical traditions and is ideally suited for undergraduate education. Comprehensive multilingual bibliographies of carefully documented sources offer scholars many promising resources for further research. (shrink)

_One Hundred Twentieth-Century Philosophers_ offers biographical information and critical analysis of the life, work and impact of some of the most significant figures in philosophy this century. Taken from the acclaimed _Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers_, the 100 entries are alphabetically organised, from Adorno to Zhang Binglin, and cover individuals from both continental and analytic philosophy. The entries have an identical four-part structure making it easy to compare and contrast information, comprising: * biographical details * a bibliography of major works (...) * a listing of relevant secondary and critical literature * an appraisal of the philosopher's thoughts and achievements. A separate glossary provides an introduction to the origins, development and main features of major philosophical schools and movements and offers select bibliographies to guide the reader to further research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 223-224 [Access article in PDF] Jacqueline Broad. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 191. Cloth, $55.00. In this impressive study of early Modern Philosophy, Jacqueline Broad analyzes the influence that Cartesianism has had in the development of feminist thought. Her work covers the early modern philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia, (...) Margaret Cavendish, Ann Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. She points out the paradoxical relationship between current feminist philosophy and the writings of early Modern women. Broad concentrates on the metaphysical issues of mind-body dualism, thinking matter, and the role of reason in knowledge.Recent feminists have argued that even though Cartesianism appears to emphasize an egalitarian concept of reason, it entails a male bias which excludes women from philosophy. Broad covers the work of Genevieve Lloyd, Hilda Smith, Margaret Atherton and other feminists. Her goal is to show that the common Cartesian interpretation of early women's writings obscures the anti-Cartesian and anti-dualist aspects of their thought. Like Lloyd, she argues that historically women were associated with a lesser form of reason following the rise of Cartesianism.The conflict between reason and femininity is noted in the complexity of early Modern thought. Broad argues that even though Elisabeth is remembered as a critic of Descartes, many of her suggestions are not as anti-dualist as some scholars believe. Broad highlights the critical content of Elisabeth's letters to Descartes and discusses her criticisms of dualism and her Cartesian method of discovering truth and certainty. On the basis of her letters she contends that Elisabeth can be regarded as a precursor to feminist philosophers who give an equal role to the body and emotions in their metaphysical and ethical writings.Like Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish rejects Cartesian dualism. The common thread that runs through early Modern feminist philosophy is the argument that interaction between two unlike substances is inconceivable. Broad argues that like Cavendish, Anne Conway ascribes spiritual characteristics to the body and material properties to the soul. According to Broad, their ontological views amount to a rejection of the stereotypes of femininity.Broad argues that Mary Astell's metaphysical views diverge from the modern Cartesians of her time. Although she is indebted to Descartes, Broad contends that she supports a metaphysical system which avoids some of the gender biases identifiable in Cartesianism. Astell, for example, does not find a life based on reason as a rival to a life concerned with the body; her emphasis on rationality is simply a reaction to the stereotype of women as irrational material beings.Damaris Masham is generally considered a philosophical rival of Astell, but Broad argues that Masham's arguments are focused on the same presuppositions as Astell's. She argues that both philosophers champion women's education, criticize the occasionalism of Norris and believe in interaction between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. Broad emphasizes the common theological outlook inspired by Cambridge Platonism. Contrary to the interpretation of Ruth Perry, she finds that there is sufficient evidence that Masham was positively inspired by the second part of Astell's Serious Proposal.Broad concludes with an analysis of Catherine Cockburns' metaphysics and moral philosophy. According to Cockburn, women's ignorance is simply the result of being discouraged from rational pursuits. Cockburn's defense of Locke's notion of thinking matter and her rejection of Cartesian notions of substance mark the end of the Cartesian influence on women philosophers in England. [End Page 223]Broad has shown that a reverence for reason and dualistic theories do not necessarily go hand in hand. She points out that early Modern feminist thinkers are not simply handmaidens to the great philosophical masters. As other scholars have argued, one can find unique approaches to substance as well as original moral positions.This text is a significant contribution to the literature on early Modern philosophy. Broad's in depth analysis will not fail to interest scholars in metaphysics, the history of philosophy and moral theory. Kathy... (shrink)

Philosophical Perspectives on Modern Qur'anic Exegesis: Key Paradigms and Concepts, by Massimo Campanini, is a very interesting book and actually quite important in signaling the arrival of philosophy in modern times as part of Qur'anic studies. In the past the discipline has tended to be on the outskirts of the study of the religion of Islam and its Book, but in recent years philosophy has crept closer and closer to the mainstream discussion of the Qur'an. Campanini has made (...) a real contribution not only to our understanding of the Book but also to how to go about studying it.Like many good reads it has heroes and villains, and in the former camp are Nasr Abu Zayd and the school of Fazlur Rahman, however they are... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 223-224 [Access article in PDF] Jacqueline Broad. Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 191. Cloth, $55.00. In this impressive study of early Modern Philosophy, Jacqueline Broad analyzes the influence that Cartesianism has had in the development of feminist thought. Her work covers the early modern philosophy of Elisabeth of Bohemia, (...) Margaret Cavendish, Ann Conway, Mary Astell, Damaris Cudworth Masham and Catherine Trotter Cockburn. She points out the paradoxical relationship between current feminist philosophy and the writings of early Modern women. Broad concentrates on the metaphysical issues of mind-body dualism, thinking matter, and the role of reason in knowledge.Recent feminists have argued that even though Cartesianism appears to emphasize an egalitarian concept of reason, it entails a male bias which excludes women from philosophy. Broad covers the work of Genevieve Lloyd, Hilda Smith, Margaret Atherton and other feminists. Her goal is to show that the common Cartesian interpretation of early women's writings obscures the anti-Cartesian and anti-dualist aspects of their thought. Like Lloyd, she argues that historically women were associated with a lesser form of reason following the rise of Cartesianism.The conflict between reason and femininity is noted in the complexity of early Modern thought. Broad argues that even though Elisabeth is remembered as a critic of Descartes, many of her suggestions are not as anti-dualist as some scholars believe. Broad highlights the critical content of Elisabeth's letters to Descartes and discusses her criticisms of dualism and her Cartesian method of discovering truth and certainty. On the basis of her letters she contends that Elisabeth can be regarded as a precursor to feminist philosophers who give an equal role to the body and emotions in their metaphysical and ethical writings.Like Elisabeth, Margaret Cavendish rejects Cartesian dualism. The common thread that runs through early Modern feminist philosophy is the argument that interaction between two unlike substances is inconceivable. Broad argues that like Cavendish, Anne Conway ascribes spiritual characteristics to the body and material properties to the soul. According to Broad, their ontological views amount to a rejection of the stereotypes of femininity.Broad argues that Mary Astell's metaphysical views diverge from the modern Cartesians of her time. Although she is indebted to Descartes, Broad contends that she supports a metaphysical system which avoids some of the gender biases identifiable in Cartesianism. Astell, for example, does not find a life based on reason as a rival to a life concerned with the body; her emphasis on rationality is simply a reaction to the stereotype of women as irrational material beings.Damaris Masham is generally considered a philosophical rival of Astell, but Broad argues that Masham's arguments are focused on the same presuppositions as Astell's. She argues that both philosophers champion women's education, criticize the occasionalism of Norris and believe in interaction between the corporeal and incorporeal worlds. Broad emphasizes the common theological outlook inspired by Cambridge Platonism. Contrary to the interpretation of Ruth Perry, she finds that there is sufficient evidence that Masham was positively inspired by the second part of Astell's Serious Proposal.Broad concludes with an analysis of Catherine Cockburns' metaphysics and moral philosophy. According to Cockburn, women's ignorance is simply the result of being discouraged from rational pursuits. Cockburn's defense of Locke's notion of thinking matter and her rejection of Cartesian notions of substance mark the end of the Cartesian influence on women philosophers in England. [End Page 223]Broad has shown that a reverence for reason and dualistic theories do not necessarily go hand in hand. She points out that early Modern feminist thinkers are not simply handmaidens to the great philosophical masters. As other scholars have argued, one can find unique approaches to substance as well as original moral positions.This text is a significant contribution to the literature on early Modern philosophy. Broad's in depth analysis will not fail to interest scholars in metaphysics, the history of philosophy and moral theory. Kathy... (shrink)

Jonathan Bennett engages with the thought of six great thinkers of the early modern period: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. While not neglecting the historical setting of each, his chief focus is on the words they wrote. What problem is being tackled? How exactly is the solution meant to work? Does it succeed? If not, why not? What can be learned from its success or failure? For newcomers to the early modern scene, this clearly written work is (...) an excellent introduction to it. Those already in the know can learn how to argue with the great philosophers of the past, treating them as colleagues, antagonists, students, teachers. In this first volume, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz receive particular attention. (shrink)

This paper is a very early and very preliminary report of some of the findings from the research project, "Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy." The project eventually lead to two books: "Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy" and "the Prehistory of Private Property" (both coauthored by Grant S. McCall). The basic argument of the project is that influential, modern political theories often rely on dubious claims about prehistory. It examines the political philosophy literature to show how (...) these claims are used as essential premises in influential arguments. It then examines evidence from anthropology, archaeology, and history to show that these claims are dubious. This paper previews some of the early findings of the project that became those books. Please cite the books rather than this preliminary report. For info or access to the books, contact Karl at widerquist dot com. (shrink)

In this book Katrin Flikschuh examines the relevance of Kant's political thought to major issues and problems in contemporary political philosophy. She advances and defends two principal claims: that Kant's philosophy of Right endorses the role of metaphysics in political thinking, in contrast to its generally hostile reception in the field today, and that his account of political obligation is cosmopolitan in its inception, assigning priority to the global rather than the domestic context. She shows how Kant's metaphysics of freedom (...) as a shared idea of practical reason underlies the cosmopolitan scope of his theory of justice, and she concludes that despite the revival of 'Kantianism' in contemporary thinking, his account of justice is in many respects very different from dominant approaches in contemporary liberal theory. Her study will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, and historians of ideas. (shrink)

This paper argues that there were women involved with philosophy on a fairly constant basis throughout Greek antiquity. It does so by tracing the lives and where extant the writings of these women. However, since the sources, both ancient and modern, from which we derive our knowledge about these women are so sexist and easily distort our view of these women and their accomplishments, the paper also discusses the manner in which their histories come down to us as well (...) as the histories themselves. It discusses in detail the following women: the Pythagorean women philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries B.C., Aspasia and Diotima of the 5th century B.C., Arete, Hipparchia, Pamphile and the women Epicureans-all from the 4th century B.C. the five logician daughters of a famous Stoic philosopher of the 3rd century B.C., and finally Hypatia who lived in the 4th century A.D. (shrink)

Philosophers of the modern period are often presented as having made an elementary error: that of confounding the attitude one adopts toward a proposition with its content. By examining the works of Locke and the Port-Royalians, I show that this accusation is ill-founded and that Locke, in particular, has the resources to construct a theory of propositional attitudes.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy by John DeweyCharles A. HobbsJohn Dewey. Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012, 351 pp., index.John Dewey’s latest publication marks a watershed moment for scholarship in American philosophy, and, in addition to Dewey himself, we have editor Phillip Deen to thank for discovering it (among the Dewey papers in Special Collections at Morris Library of (...) Southern Illinois University) and editing it. We see Dewey late in life (early 1940s) engaged mainly in a critique of the modern, ancient, and (fragmentarily) medieval philosophical periods, which Dewey argues, are eras not nearly as distinct as traditional understanding admits. In the Introduction, Deen helpfully explains how we are now bequeathed incomplete but in most [End Page 122] cases quite robust chapter drafts that amount to another substantial work by Dewey. While published by Southern Illinois University Press, this volume is not itself part of The Collected Works of John Dewey. Still, the careful editing (of what are actually a number of manuscripts) is comparable in its excellence. There is also a well-done Index.The scope is twofold: retrospective and prospective. Chapters one through seven trace the development of so-called modern philosophy along with its central epistemological problem, with the aim being to demonstrate how thoroughly “unmodern” such philosophy has been. Then, chapters eight through fourteen constitute a genuinely modern approach that naturalistically and functionally undercuts the epistemic problem of subject/object and points to a revolution in the process of knowing.We turn to the retrospective, beginning in the first chapter with the acknowledgement that Dewey comes to philosophy itself as a kind of anthropologist, something we note as consistent with the influence of Franz Boas on Dewey (with whom Dewey was a colleague and intellectual ally at Columbia for about thirty-five years). This is further underscored by a lengthy quotation of anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski on the meaning of culture (p. 290). The ongoing history of philosophy is itself a cultural activity. Indeed, citing James, Dewey declares that “The sickliest way in which a student of philosophy can approach his subject-matter is that of a search for ultimate impersonal revelation of truth.” (p. 16) Rather, let the philosopher have the pragmatic attitude of openness “... to truth from whatever source it comes” (ibid).With that, Dewey once again turns to the Greeks, who initiated “The Discovery of Rational Discourse” (Ch. III) as underscored by the Socratic means of cooperative discourse, with the dialogues—not lectures—being evidence of the Athenian philosophical revolution in turning “from discussing nature and giving an account of it to the examination of the nature and procedure of discussion and report” (p. 38). Yet this project, despite its initial promise, failed for lack of a genuine logic of experimentation or inquiry. Then philosophy focused on going beyond the natural, beginning with the medieval “Search for Salvation” (Ch. IV, a significantly less developed and unified chapter draft). “Modern” philosophers then rightly replaced grand cosmic schemes with a focus on human nature (Ch. V), but they went too far with their introspective methods, gradually resulting in the same consequence supernaturalism had produced: a dualism of mind and nature, as if human nature is somehow not a part of nature. As we recall from Human Nature and Conduct (1922), human nature is not independent of but rather interdependent (or, using Dewey’s later term, transactional) with the rest of nature. The key is to avoid hypostatizing mind and better to talk of culture as nature. [End Page 123]With the Renaissance onward, humans have been “Wandering between Two Worlds” (Ch. VI), and endless arguments between “rationalists” and “empiricists” overlook what these camps share, namely a psychology assuming a fundamental split between subjective/objective and assumptions about certainty as founded upon various first principles or substances. The result is the stagnation of philosophy while science flourishes. Dewey cites Bertrand Russell as an example of continued insistence on such a priori principles (p. 106).We find ourselves in an epoch split between scientism and moral and religious fundamentalism, the result of a lingering tenacious investment in bad elements from ancient and medieval... (shrink)

The Modern Philosophical Revolution breaks new ground by demonstrating the continuity of European philosophy from Kant to Derrida. Much of the literature on European philosophy has emphasised the breaks that have occurred in the course of two centuries of thinking. But as David Walsh argues, such a reading overlooks the extent to which Kant, Hegel, and Schelling were already engaged in the turn toward existence as the only viable mode of philosophising. Where many similar studies summarise individual thinkers, this (...) book provides a framework for understanding the relationships between them. Walsh thus dispels much of the confusion that assails readers when they are only exposed to the bewildering range of positions taken by the philosophers he examines. His book serves as an indispensable guide to a philosophical tradition that continues to have resonance in the post-modern world. (shrink)

Here a distinguished American historian challenges the belief that the eighteenth century was essentially modern in its temper. In crystalline prose Carl Becker demonstrates that the period commonly described as the Age of Reason was, in fact, very far from that; that Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, and Locke were living in a medieval world, and that these philosophers “demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials.” In a new foreword, Johnson Kent Wright looks (...) at the book’s continuing relevance within the context of current discussion about the Enlightenment. “Will remain a classic—a beautifully finished literary product.”—Charles A. Beard, _American Historical Review_ “_The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers _remains_ _one of the most distinctive American contributions to the historical literature on the Enlightenment.... [It] is likely to beguile and provoke readers for a long time to come.”—Johnson Kent Wright, from the foreword. (shrink)

The importance of the Unruh effect lies in the fact that, together with the related Hawking effect, it serves to link the three main branches of modern physics: thermal/statistical physics, relativity theory/gravitation, and quantum physics. However, different researchers can have in mind different phenomena when they speak of “the Unruh effect” in flat spacetime and its generalization to curved spacetimes. Three different approaches are reviewed here. They are shown to yield results that are sometimes concordant and sometimes discordant. The (...) discordance is disconcerting only if one insists on taking literally the definite article in “the Unruh effect.” It is argued that the role of linking different branches of physics is better served by taking “the Unruh effect” to designate a family of related phenomena. The relation between the Hawking effect and the generalized Unruh effect for curved spacetimes is briefly discussed. (shrink)

"Under Magee's sensitive guidance a remarkably coherent interpretation of this period emerges."--Marshall Cohen, Listener. "The whole book has a marvellous air of casualness and clarity that makes it a delight to read."--Colin Wilson. Contemporary British philosophy is experiencing unprecedented openness to influences from abroad. New growth is evident in many areas of traditional philosophy which had been neglected by the logical positivists and the linguistic analysts. This sense of freedom permeates Magee's volume of conversations with leading British philosophers. Under Magee's (...) direction, the philosophers discuss other influential thinkers, such as Wittgenstein, Russell, Moore, and Austin, as well as ideas of universal interest, such as morality, art, religion, and social theory. As an introduction to contemporary British philosophy, a unique collection of candid commentaries by important thinkers, and study of fresh ideas, Modern British Philosophy is consistently lively and authoritative. (shrink)

Two of the most influential evaluations of Charles Lyell's geological ideas were those of the philosophers of science, John F. W. Herschel and William Whewell. In this paper I shall argue that the great difference between these evaluations—whereas Herschel was fundamentally sympathetic to Lyell's geologizing, Whewell was fundamentally opposed—is a function of the fact that Herschel was an empiricist and Whewell a rationalist. For convenience, I shall structure the discussion around the three key elements in Lyell's approach to geology. First, (...) he was anactualist: he wanted to explain past geological phenomena in terms of causes of the kind that are operating at present. Second, he was auniformitarian: he wanted to explain only in terms of causes of the degree operating at present; that is, he wanted to avoid ‘catastrophes’. Third, as a geologist he saw the earth as being in asteady-state, in which all periods are essentially similar to one another. Because they will prove important, I draw attention also to two major features of Lyell's programme. First, there is his theory of climate, which suggests, ‘without help from a comet’, that earthly temperature fluctuations are primarily a function of the constantly changing distribution of land and sea. Clearly this theory is actualistic, for it is based on such present phenomena as the Gulf Stream; it is also uniformitarian and supports a steady-state world picture. Second, there is Lyell's denial that the fossil record is progressive, his criticism of Lamarckian evolutionism, ostensibly on the grounds that modern evidence is against it (i.e. it fails actualistically), and his rather veiled claim that the origins of species will nevertheless prove in some way natural, that is, subject to causes falling beneath lawlike regularities in principle discernible by us. (shrink)

Few words in both everyday parlance and theoretical discourse have been as rhapsodically defended or as fervently resisted as "experience." Yet, to date, there have been no comprehensive studies of how the concept of experience has evolved over time and why so many thinkers in so many different traditions have been compelled to understand it. _Songs of Experience _is a remarkable history of Western ideas about the nature of human experience written by one of our best-known intellectual historians. With its (...) sweeping historical reach and lucid comparative analysis—qualities that have made Martin Jay's previous books so distinctive and so successful—_Songs of Experience _explores Western discourse from the sixteenth century to the present, asking why the concept of experience has been such a magnet for controversy. Resisting any single overarching narrative, Jay discovers themes and patterns that transcend individuals and particular schools of thought and illuminate the entire spectrum of intellectual history. As he explores the manifold contexts for understanding experience—epistemological, religious, aesthetic, political, and historical—Jay engages an exceptionally broad range of European and American traditions and thinkers from the American pragmatists and British Marxist humanists to the Frankfurt School and the French poststructuralists, and he delves into the thought of individual philosophers as well, including Montaigne, Bacon, Locke, Hume and Kant, Oakeshott, Collingwood, and Ankersmit. Provocative, engaging, erudite, this key work will be an essential source for anyone who joins the ongoing debate about the material, linguistic, cultural, and theoretical meaning of "experience" in modern cultures. (shrink)

On 25th October 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting was a disaster, their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of legend. This book tells what really went on in that room.