Book:
From Africa to Zen: An Invitation to World PhilosophyAuthor:
Kathleen M. HigginsPages:
312Format:
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0742513505In the second edition of this groundbreaking text in non-Western philosophy, sixteen experts introduce some of the great philosophical traditions in the world. The essays unveil exciting, sophisticated philosophical traditions that are too often neglected in the western world. The contributors include the leading scholars in their fields, but they write for students coming to these concepts for the first time. Building on revisions and updates to the original, this new edition also considers three philosophical traditions for the first time--Jewish, Buddhist, and South Pacific (Maori) philosophy. 
Book:
Theories of Development: Capitalism, Colonialism and DependencyAuthor:
Jorge LarrainPages:
264Format:
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074560711XThis is a new introductory text providing an up-to-date account of leading theories of development. The book includes a discussion of classical accounts of development, particularly that of Marx, but also considers current debates on the issue. Theories of imperialism, neo-imperialism, dependency, world systems theory and other conceptions are all given full and balanced consideration. A feature of the work is the connections drawn between theoretical interpretation and empirical application: in this respect, the author concentrates particularly upon drawing materials from the Latin American experiences.
Book:
Evolution of SocietyAuthor:
T Clutton-Brock, S West, F Ratnieks, R FoleyPages:
182Format:
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0854037802Darwin recognised that the evolution of cooperative societies in animals and man posed an important challenge to his theory of natural selection. If resources are limited and individuals compete to breed, why is cooperative behaviour so widespread? Hamilton's extension of the theory of natural selection to incorporate the effects of cooperation on non-descendant kin provides the framework for our current understanding of animal societies. This issue brings together fifteen leading evolutionary biologists working on micro-organisms, social insects, birds, mammals and man in an attempt to synthesise our current understanding of the evolution of societies.Separate papers cover the theoretical framework used to explain cooperative behaviour, the definition of organisms, social evolution in micro-organisms, the evolution of insect societies and the origin of eusociality, the distribution of cooperative breeding in birds and mammals and the relative importance of nepotistic behaviour and reciprocity in non-human primates, while four final papers review our understanding of hominid and human societies. The issue provides an up-to-date synthesis and review of a modern interpretation of the evolution of cooperative behaviour and cooperative societies in non-human animals. The papers show how selection operating through variation in inclusive fitness can favour cooperative strategies; how cooperation and competition interact; and how the behaviour of individuals modifies the structure of groups and breeding systems. The four final chapters on hominids and humans then explore the extent to which a similar approach can account for human behaviour and the structure of human societies. The papers are accessible to non-specialists and should help to provide the basis for a synthetic theory of the evolution of society.
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Mathematics, Models, and Modality: Selected Philosophical EssaysAuthor:
John P. BurgessPages:
316Format:
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0521880343John Burgess is the author of a rich and creative body of work which seeks to defend classical logic and mathematics through counter-criticism of their nominalist, intuitionist, relevantist, and other critics. This selection of his essays, which spans twenty-five years, addresses key topics including nominalism, neo-logicism, intuitionism, modal logic, analyticity, and translation. An introduction sets the essays in context and offers a retrospective appraisal of their aims. The volume will be of interest to a wide range of readers across philosophy of mathematics, logic, and philosophy of language.
Book:
God, Chance and Purpose: Can God Have It Both Ways?Author:
David J. BartholomewPages:
272Format:
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0521707080Even though I'm not a fan of theology, I can recommend this carefully written and serious book to anyone who is interested in the theological implications of chance as seen by a professional statistician. His thesis is "chance is to be seen as within the providence of God rather than outside it" and I'm not competent to comment on the theological arguments. But less than half the book explicitly involves God; much of the book is a descriptive account of where and how scientists see chance involved in the natural and human world. For instance, the chapters on "Chaos out of order" and "Order out of chaos" are nice reminders of the importance of the levels and scales on which we view the world; what looks random on one level may look ordered on another. And the brief and straightforward accounts of many topics (small world networks, random epidemics, game theory, genetic algorithms and a dozen more) are clear and non-technical. So this book is as good or better at surveying the domain of chance as many popular science books written expressly for that purpose; though to my taste, like most other books it is too uncritical of the claimed real-world
relevance of such mathematical models.Also noteworthy is a central chapter giving a cogent technical critique of the attempts by William Debski, a leading advocate of Intelligent Design, to calculate the chance of a particular biological feature (such as the bacterial flagellum) having ``evolved by chance".
Book:
Hegel's Theory of Imagination (Suny Series in Hegelian Studies)Author:
Jennifer Ann BatesPages:
202Format:
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0791462072The complexity and depth of Hegel's insights make this book essential reading for anyone seriously interested in understanding how central the imagination is to our every thought.
Book:
The Nature of RationalityAuthor:
Robert NozickPages:
252Format:
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0691074240To Harvard philosophy professor Nozick, rationality and belief are each an evolutionary adaptation to a world that changes in nonregular ways. Our acts resonate with symbolic meanings and "stand for" our principles and beliefs. In this boldly original, technical inquiry which will reward serious students of philosophy, Nozick uses decision theory to propose new rules of rational decision-making that take into account the symbolic, practical and evolutionary components of our behavior. He considers bias, the role of imagination, rational social cooperation and how society's decision-making results in incremental or sweeping institutional changes. This challenging treatise champions reason as a faculty that enables us to transcend our mere animal status and to strive toward goals by the light of principles.
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Prospects of Legal SemioticsAuthor:
Anne WagnerPages:
245Format:
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9048193427This book examines the progress to date in the many facets – conceptual, epistemological and methodological - of the field of legal semiotics. It reflects the fulfilment of the promise of legal semiotics when used to explore the law, its processes and interpretation.This study in Legal Semiotics brings together the theory, structure and practise of legal semiotics in an accessible style. The book introduces the concepts of legal semiotics and offers an insight in contemporary and future directions which the semiotics of law is going to take.A theoretical and practical oriented synthesis of the historical, contemporary and most recent ideas pertaining to legal semiotics, the book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in law and social sciences , as well as those who are interested in the interdisciplinary dynamics of law and semiotics.
Book:
The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and ScienceAuthor:
Mark A. Bedau, Carol E. ClelandPages:
440Format:
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0521517753Bringing together the latest scientific advances and some of the most enduring subtle philosophical puzzles and problems, this book collects original historical and contemporary sources to explore the wide range of issues surrounding the nature of life. Selections ranging from Aristotle and Descartes to Sagan and Dawkins are organised around four broad themes covering classical discussions of life, the origins and extent of natural life, contemporary artificial life creations and the definition and meaning of 'life' in its most general form.Each section is preceded by an extensive introduction connecting the various ideas discussed in individual chapters and providing helpful background material for understanding them. With its interdisciplinary perspective, this fascinating collection is essential reading for scientists and philosophers interested in astrobiology, synthetic biology and the philosophy of life.
Book:
Thucydides and the Philosophical Origins of HistoryAuthor:
Darien ShanskePages:
284Format:
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0521120764This book addresses the question of how and why history begins with the work of Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War is distinctive in that it is a prose narrative, meant to be read rather than performed. It focuses on the unfolding of contemporary great power politics to the exclusion of almost all other elements of human life, including the divine. Western history has been largely an extension of Thucydides' narrative in that it repeats the unique methodological assumptions and concerns that first appear in his text. The power of Thucydides' text has never been attributed either to the charm of its language or to the entertainment value of its narrative, or to some personal attribute of the author. In this study, Darien Shanske analyzes the difficult language and structure of Thucydides' History and argues that the text has drawn in so many readers into its distinctive world view precisely because of its kinship to the contemporary language and structure of Classical Tragedy. This kinship is not merely a matter of shared vocabulary or even aesthetic sensibility. Rather, it is grounded in a shared philosophical position, in particular on the polemical metaphysics of Heraclitus.
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Visions Of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 (Theory and History of Literature)Author:
Georges BataillePages:
304Format:
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08166128380816612803 Bataille remains for me a thinker who is almost always interesting but rarely coherent. His fiction is brilliantly conceived and revolutionary, but this collection of essays ranges from the inspired to the merely fragmentary. Although by his own admission, Bataille was not interested in forging a positive philosophy to replace the systems of materialism or idealism, still there remains something strangely absent in Bataille's varied speculations on sacrifice, auto-mutilation, or the unforgettable 'pineal eye.' It is difficult to discern how literally he is to be taken. On the one hand, his excoriations of the Nazi's appropriation seems totally sincere and convincing, but his work on 'the solar [...]' is both juvenile and uninteresting. Granted, his essay on Sade is a brilliant and provocative analysis of the 'use value' of excrement, but this still remains a minor and confused work of thinking.
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Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations (Suny Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy)Author:
Scott G. SchreiberPages:
264Format:
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0791456595"Presenting the first book-length study in English of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, this work takes a fresh look at this seminal text on false reasoning. Through a careful and critical analysis of Aristotle's examples of sophistical reasoning, Scott G. Schreiber explores Aristotle's rationale for his taxonomy of twelve fallacy types. Contrary to certain modern attempts to reduce all fallacious reasoning to either errors of logical form or linguistic imprecision, Aristotle insists that, as important as form and language are, certain types of false reasoning derive their persuasiveness from mistaken beliefs about the nature of language and the nature of the world."
Book:
Reason's Grief: An Essay on Tragedy and ValueAuthor:
George W. HarrisPages:
310Format:
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0521863287In Reason's Grief, George Harris takes W. B. Yeats's comment that we begin to live only when we have conceived life as tragedy as a call for a tragic ethics, something the modern West has yet to produce. He argues that we must turn away from religious understandings of tragedy and the human condition and realize that our species will occupy a very brief period of history, at some point to disappear without a trace. We must accept an ethical perspective that avoids pernicious fantasies about ultimate redemption but that sees tragic loss as a permanent and pervasive aspect of our daily lives, yet finds a way to think, feel, and act with both passion and hope. Reason's Grief takes us back through the history of our thinking about value to find our way. The call is for nothing less than a paradigm shift for understanding both tragedy and ethics.
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Ethics and Criminal Justice: An IntroductionAuthor:
John KleinigPages:
294Format:
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0521864208This textbook looks at the main ethical questions that confront the criminal justice system - legislature, law enforcement, courts, and corrections - and those who work within that system, especially police officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges, juries, and prison officers. John Kleinig sets the issues in the context of a liberal democratic society and its ethical and legislative underpinnings, and illustrates them with a wide and international range of real-life case studies. Topics covered include discretion, capital punishment, terrorism, restorative justice, and re-entry. Kleinig's discussion is both philosophically acute and grounded in institutional realities, and will enable students to engage productively with the ethical questions which they encounter both now and in the future - whether as criminal justice professionals or as reflective citizens.
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Epistemology (Suny Series in Philosophy)Author:
Nicholas RescherPages:
424Format:
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0791458113Guided by the founding ideas of American pragmatism, Epistemology provides a clear example of the basic concepts involved in knowledge acquisition and explains the principles at work in the development of rational inquiry. It examines how these principles analyze the course of scientific progress and how the development of scientific inquiry inevitably encounters certain natural disasters. At the center of the book's deliberations there lies not only the potential for scientific progress but also the limit of science as well. This comprehensive introduction to the theory of knowledge addresses a myriad of topics, including the critique of skepticism, the nature of rationality, the possibility of science for extraterrestrial intelligences, and the prospect of insoluble issues in science.
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The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of RepresentationAuthor:
Eric Lawrence GansPages:
353Format:
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0520042026The origin of language, favored topic of the siicie des iumieres, has in the past decade begun to reemerge from a century and a half of neglect and even of interdiction. To examine the reasons for this fluctuation would be to go beyond the scope of the present work, although not beyond that of the historical reevaluation it suggests. Let it suffice to say that the anthropological naivete of the pbilosophes' constructions instilled in the minds of linguists and others a skepticism that still casts its shadow over recent discussions of the subject. This would be all for the best, of course, if the rigor of these discussions effected a genuine "sublation" of this not unjustified skepticism.
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The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical RealismAuthor:
Lynne Rudder BakerPages:
272Format:
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0521880491Lynne Rudder Baker presents and defends a unique account of the material world: the Constitution View. In contrast to leading metaphysical views that take everyday things to be either non-existent or reducible to micro-objects, the Constitution View construes familiar things as irreducible parts of reality. Although they are ultimately constituted by microphysical particles, everyday objects are neither identical to, nor reducible to, the aggregates of microphysical particles that constitute them. The result is genuine ontological diversity: people, bacteria, donkeys, mountains and microscopes are fundamentally different kinds of things - all constituted by, but not identical to, aggregates of particles. Baker supports her account with discussions of non-reductive causation, vagueness, mereology, artefacts, three-dimensionalism, ontological novelty, ontological levels and emergence. The upshot is a unified ontological theory of the entire material world that irreducibly contains people, as well as non-human living things and inanimate objects.
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Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations': A Critical GuideAuthor:
Dr Arif AhmedPages:
280Format:
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0521886139This collection of essays deepens but also challenges our understanding of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, revisiting major themes such as the connection between meaning and use, the nature of concepts, thought and intentionality, and language games. Its genuinely critical approach develops new perspectives and demonstrates Wittgenstein's relevance for contemporary philosophy.
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Immanence and the Vertigo of Philosophy: From Kant to DeleuzeAuthor:
Christian KerslakePages:
320Format:
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0748635904One of the terminological constants in the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze is the work "immanence." His philosophy of immanence is fundamentally characterized by its opposition to all philosophies of "transcendence," and on that basis, Deleuze's project has been premised as a return to a materialist metaphysics. Christian Kerslake argues against this misconception, reassessing Deleuze's relationship to Kantian epistemology and post-Kantian philosophy. He not only translates Deleuze's philosophy to students working within the tradition, but he also reconstructs our idea of the post-Kantian tradition, isolating the influences of Schelling and Wronski and the subsequent advances made by Bergson, Warrain, and Deleuze.
Book:
The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human ExtinctionAuthor:
John LesliePages:
336Format:
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0415184479Being tremendously interested in the end of the world (from a sociology standpoint) I immediately devour any books on catastrophism, eschatology or millenialism.What John Leslie offers here is something quite different than the run-of-the-mill babbling on possible scenarios. He looks at the likely(and not so likely) events which may trigger "the end"; somewhat similar to Asimov's approach in his 70's non-fic A CHOICE OF CATASTROPHES. Leslie takes us a little deeper into the complexities of these situations by examining the true risks and consequences involved, all the while maintaining a solid scientific objectivity.All this would make for a great book alone, but Leslie goes further. He has the courage to explore the idea that perhaps we are arrogant in assuming we can control our fate as a species (hence the ETHICS portion of the book title) and maybe we have lost (or never had) the necessary objectivity we need to endure.A truly fascinating book about something the average human being doesn't (but should) think about. Kudos to John Leslie for putting humans where they belong in the scheme of the universe: the tiny little box marked "naked & vulnerable"!
